154 WINTER SUNSHINE 



take off the effect of newness, and give a mellow, 

 sober hue to the building. Another advantage of 

 the climate is that it permits outside plastering. 

 Thus almost any stone may be imitated, and the 

 work endure for ages; while our sudden changes, 

 and extremes of heat and cold, of dampness and dry- 

 ness, will cause the best work of this kind to peel 

 off in a few years. 



Then this people have better taste in building 

 than we have, perhaps because they have the no- 

 blest samples and specimens of architecture con- 

 stantly before them, — those old feudal castles and 

 royal residences, for instance. I was astonished to 

 see how homely and good they looked, how little 

 they challenged admiration, and how much they 

 emulated rocks and trees. They were surely built 

 in a simpler and more poetic age than this. It was 

 like meeting some plain, natural nobleman after 

 contact with one of the bedizened, artificial sort. 

 The Tower of London, for instance, is as pleasing 

 to the eye, has the same fitness and harmony, as a 

 hut in the woods; and I should think an artist 

 might have the same pleasure in copying it into his 

 picture as he would in copying a pioneer's log cabin. 

 So with Windsor Castle, which has the beauty of a 

 ledge of rocks, and crowns the hill like a vast natu- 

 ral formation. The warm, simple interior, too, of 

 these castles and palaces, the honest oak without 

 paint or varnish, the rich wood carvings, the ripe hu- 

 man tone and atmosphere, — how it all contrasts, for 

 instance, with the showy, gilded, cast-iron interior 



