310 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



Once, late in the day, and alone, I was walking from the end 

 of one transept towards the other, when an emotion came over 

 me partaking of awe. Afterwards, in trying to analyze what had 

 occasioned it, I found that my face was turned towards two great, 

 dark windows, a considerable space of unbroken wall about them, 

 and a square, massive buttress, all in the deep shade between the 

 two transepts. From the simple, solitary grandeur and solemnity 

 of the dark recess, there had come a sermon on humility and en- 

 durance, to me more eloquent than all else of the great cathedral. 



The wall over and behind this, in an equal space, was broken 

 up by three of the triple windows, which, look at the cathedral 

 from any direction you will, you see every where repeated, until 

 the form becomes ugly. Not ugly in itself, but ugly and paltry, 

 by so much repetition, in an edifice of such grandeur. If all 

 these windows, with all their forms, proportion, color, and fashion 

 of carving, had been the work of one man, they were evidently 

 that man's one idea ; if of many men, then they were servile imi- 

 tations. One would be, perhaps, a worthy and beautiful design 

 a hundred are paltry, ignominious, mechanical copies; they 

 might be iron-castings, for all the value the chisel has given them. 

 Should there not be, with sufficient regard to symmetrical uni- 

 formity, evidence of independent design in the details of every 

 part of an edifice of such magnitude ? 



From the little study that I was able to give Old-World archi- 

 tecture, my advice to all building-committee gentlemen of no more 

 cultivated taste than my own (that to such these crude thoughts 

 may give hints of value, is my apology for printing them), would 

 be, Stick to simplicity. The grand ' effect of architecture must 

 be from form and proportion. Favor designs, therefore, which, 

 in their grand outlines, are at once satisfactory ; then beware of 

 enfeebling their strong features by childish ornaments and baby- 

 house appendages. Simplicity of outline is especially necessary 



