NATUEAL ABCHITECTUBE. Il9 



The Iris delights only in the banks of waters. There is a 

 species of it which is one of the great bounties of God, one of 

 the greatest luxuries He has made for the poor. 



I have seen the Colonnade of the Louvre, my good friend ; 

 I have seen the Palace of Versailles, and three or four other 

 palaces in other countries, to which chance and the weariness 

 of the places I quitted, rather than a wish to see those 

 I visited, have led me. I here declare I have seen nothing so 

 beautiful, nothing so rich as yonder little house, inhabited by 

 poor woodmen, which I can perceive at a distance, through 

 the trees and over the wall of my garden. 



In the fi^ont are four magnificent columns, four large beech- 

 trees, whose bark is as smooth as marble ; their living capital 

 is formed of branches and leaves, which yield a shelter from 

 the sun, and delight the eye with colours as rich and more 

 varied than those of the emerald. Birds have established 

 their nests in them, and there sing. Linnets are the ordinary 

 musicians of the poor ; they sing to them upon a beautiful 

 stage, amidst splendid decorations, by the light of a magni- 

 ficent rising sun, a music always fresh, always young, which 

 appears to float down from heaven; and nothing sad is 

 mingled with their song. These charming actors sing because 

 the sun shines, because they are young, because they are 

 beautiful, because they love, because they are happy ; whilst 

 those whom the rich pay so extravagantly, sing because they 

 are envious of each other, because they are avaricious, and 

 because they are paid. 



We must confess that if columns of stone and marble 

 did not cost a great deal of money, they would be far from 

 having the beauty of these columns, which live and which 

 sing, where the capital changes its colour three or four 

 times in every year, and which let fall such melodious 

 sounds. 



Architecture, in its greatest magnificence, invented the 

 Corinthian capital, which is nothing but an imperfect imita- 

 tion of five or six leaves of the acanthus. How is it we pay 

 so dearly for the imitation of that which costs nothing 1 It 

 is only from the principle I have before named : we only 

 love to possess things, to humiliate those who possess them 

 not. It is this that creates the value of diamonds:— it extends 



