Page:The Poetry of Architecture.djvu/48

weak in the midst of strength, contemptible in the midst of immensity. There is something offensive in its neatness: for the wood is almost always perfectly clean, and looks as if it had been just cut; it is consequently raw in its colour, and destitute of all variety of tone. This is especially disagreeable when the eye has been previously accustomed to, and finds, everywhere around, the exquisite mingling of colour, and confused, though perpetually graceful, forms, by which the details of mountain scenery are peculiarly distinguished. Every fragment of rock is finished in its effect, tinted with thousands of pale lichens and fresh mosses; every pine trunk is warm with the life of various vegetation; every grassy bank glowing with mellowed colour, and waving with delicate leafage. How, then, can the contrast be otherwise than painful, between this perfect loveliness, and the dead, raw, lifeless surface of the deal boards of the cottage. Its weakness is pitiable; for though there is always evidence of considerable strength on close examination, there is no effect of strength: the real thickness of the logs is concealed by the cutting and, carving of their exposed surfaces; and even what is seen is felt to be so utterly contemptible, when opposed to the destructive forces which are in operation around, that the feelings are irritated at the imagined audacity of the inanimate object, with the self-conceit of its impotence; and, finally, the eye is offended at its want of size. It does not, as might be at first supposed, enhance the sublimity of surrounding scenery by its littleness, for it provokes no com-