Part 10 (1/2)

243. Our lines are to be horizontal; then the roof must be as flat as possible. We need not think of snow, because, however much we may slope the roof, it will not slip off from the material, which, here, is the only proper one; and the roof of the cottage is always very flat, which it would not be if there were any inconvenience attending such a form.

But, for the sake of the second contrast, we are to have gracefulness and ease, as well as horizontality. Then we must break the line of the roof into different elevations, yet not making the difference great, or we shall have visible verticals. And this must not be done at random.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 14. Leading lines of Villa-composition.]

244. Take a flat line of beauty, _a d_, fig. 14, for the length of the edifice. Strike _a b_ horizontally from _a_, _c d_ from _d_; let fall the verticals, make _c f_ equal _m n_, the maximum; and draw _h f_. The curve should be so far continued as that _h f_ shall be to _c d_ as _c d_ to _a b_. Then we are sure of a beautifully proportioned form. Much variety may be introduced by using different curves; joining parabolas with cycloids, etc.; but the use of curves is always the best mode of obtaining good forms.[55]

[Footnote 55: [Compare _Modern Painters_, vol. IV. chap. xvii. -- 49, and _Elements of Drawing_, Letter III.]]

Further ease may be obtained by added combinations. For instance, strike another curve (_a q b_) through the flat line _a b_; bisect the maximum _v p_, draw the horizontal _r s_, (observing to make the largest maximum of this curve towards the smallest maximum of the great curve, to restore the balance), join _r q_, _s b_, and we have another modification of the same beautiful form. This may be done in either side of the building, but not in both.

245. Then, if the flat roof be still found monotonous, it may be interrupted by garret windows, which must not be gabled, but turned with the curve _a b_, whatever that may be. This will give instant humility to the building, and take away any vestiges of Italian character which might hang about it, and which would be wholly out of place.

The windows may have tolerably broad architraves, but no cornices; an ornament both haughty and cla.s.sical in its effect, and, on both accounts, improper here. They should be in level lines, but grouped at unequal distances, or they will have a formal and artificial air, unsuited to the irregularity and freedom around them. Some few of them may be arched, however, with the curve _a b_, the mingling of the curve and the square being very graceful. There should not be more than two tiers and the garrets, or the building will be too high.

So much for the general outline of the villa, in which we are to work by contrast. Let us pa.s.s over to that in which we are to work by a.s.similation, before speaking of the material and color which should be common to both.

246. The grand outline must be designed on exactly the same principles; for the curvilinear proportions, which were opposition before, will now be a.s.similation. Of course, we do not mean to say that every villa in a hill country should have the form _a b c d_; we should be tired to death if they had: but we bring forward that form as an example of the agreeable result of the principles on which we should always work, but whose result should be the same in no two cases. A modification of that form, however, will frequently be found useful; for, under the depression _h f_, we may have a hall of entrance and of exercise, which is a requisite of extreme importance in hill districts, where it rains three hours out of four all the year round; and under _c d_ we may have the kitchen, servants' rooms, and coachhouse, leaving the large division quiet and comfortable.

247. Then, as in the curved country there is no such distortion as that before noticed, no such evidence of violent agency, we need not be so careful about the appearance of perfect peace; we may be a little more dignified and a little more cla.s.sical. The windows may be symmetrically arranged; and, if there be a blue and undulating distance, the upper tier may even have cornices; narrower architraves are to be used; the garrets may be taken from the roof, and their inmates may be accommodated in the other side of the house; but we must take care, in doing this, not to become Greek. The material, as we shall see presently, will a.s.sist us in keeping uncla.s.sical; and not a vestige of column or capital must appear in any part of the edifice. All should be pure, but all should be English; and there should be here, as elsewhere, much of the utilitarian about the whole, suited to the cultivated country in which it is placed.

248. It will never do to be speculative or imaginative in our details, on the supposition that the tendency of fine scenery is to make everybody imaginative and enthusiastic. Enthusiasm has no business with Turkey carpets or easy-chairs; and the very preparation of comfort for the body, which the existence of the villa supposes, is inconsistent with the supposition of any excitement of mind: and this is another reason for keeping the domestic building in richly productive country.

Nature has set aside her sublime bits for us to feel and think in; she has pointed out her productive bits for us to sleep and eat in; and, if we sleep and eat amongst the sublimity, we are brutal; if we poetize amongst the cultivation, we are absurd. There are the time and place for each state of existence, and we should not jumble that which Nature has separated. She has addressed herself, in one part, wholly to the mind; there is nothing for us to eat but bilberries, nothing to rest upon but rock, and we have no business to concoct picnics, and bring cheese, and ale, and sandwiches, in baskets, to gratify our beastly natures, where Nature never intended us to eat (if she had, we needn't have brought the baskets). In the other part, she has provided for our necessities; and we are very absurd, if we make ourselves fantastic, instead of comfortable. Therefore, all that we ought to do in the hill villa is, to adapt it for the habitation of a man of the highest faculties of perception and feeling; but only for the habitation of his hours of common sense, not of enthusiasm; it must be his dwelling as a man, not as a spirit; as a thing liable to decay, not as an eternal energy; as a perishable, not as an immortal.