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20 Architecture in the United States. 



have united them all, exquisite finish, simplicity, the best order and the 

 best form : we can easily imagine however a building with all these unit- 

 ed, and which would yet be very far inferior to the edifice which w^e 

 have before us. I ask the reader to look again, and as he cannot dis- 

 cover the secret of this charm by admiring, perhaps he can do it by try- 

 ing to find fault- He answers that no one need attempt to find fault 

 for all is so perfect that it seems as if a taste so well disciplined and ma- 

 tured as to know^ almost by instinct what were tlie best and happiest 

 forms, had tried every promising combination of such forms, and that 

 the same maturity had led it to choose the very best. In this answer is 

 contained all the secret that there is in the whole matter — A taste so 

 well DISCIPLINED as to he able to jtidge ivith instinctive certainty 

 as regards heauty of form j and this taste exercised with unceasing 

 industry in combining such forms and in trying their combinations* 

 This, and nothing but this, will make an architect. The Greeks 

 were like other men, and came to perfection in architecture as men 

 have come to perfection in other matters. We err most egreglously 

 if we suppose them artists by nature^ or that they gained their mighty 

 power by folding their hands and waiting for hints in a happy dream, 

 or even by profuse but idle admiration of the efforts of men from other 

 countries. They took the powers which nature gave them, and by 

 unceasing culture brought them to the very highest perfection : these 

 they applied, and they succeeded : others w^ill succeed when they 

 do all this, and not till then. In this diffusion of a severe and pure 

 taste throughout the Grecian structures lies all their charm. It gives 

 them a mental character, a soul, if I may use the term, which seems 

 to elevate them above a mere union of wood and stone, and makes 

 them almost Uve and breathe and hold communion with ourselves. 

 This was the point to which the artist directed all his attention. The 

 marble, the brass, the gold w^ere to him inferior objects: they are 

 never protruded on our view: he did not mean to liave them seen or 

 felt. He seized on them only as the objects through which the grand 

 and beautiful conceptions of his mind could embody themselves : as 

 the building rose, these conceptions took shape and character and 

 power, and it became a masterpiece of art. We arc indeed sur- 

 prised when we come to examine one of these buildings, to find how 

 much the artist relied on expression for Its effect. He seems to have 

 disdained all other effects ; to this he directed all his efforts, the ef- 

 forts of a taste matured perhaps beyond what we now can even ima- 

 gine; and he could scarcely fail of success. The Gothic style cre- 



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