Page:Val d'Arno (Ruskin, 1890).djvu/142

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VAL D'ARNO.

my neighbourhood, I have taken pleasure these many years; one of the first papers I ever wrote on Architecture was a study of the Westmoreland cottage;—properly, observe, the cottage of West-mere-land, of the land of western lakes. Its principal feature is the projecting porch at its door, formed by two rough slabs of Coniston slate, set in a blunt gable; supported, if far projecting, by two larger masses for uprights. A disciple of Mr. Pugin would delightedly observe that the porch of St. Zeno at Verona was nothing more than the decoration of this construction; but you do not suppose that the first idea of putting two stones together to keep off rain was all on which the sculptor of St. Zeno wished to depend for your entertainment.

144. Perhaps you may most clearly understand the real connection between structure and decoration by considering all architecture as a kind of book, which must be properly bound indeed, and in which the illumination of the pages has distinct reference in all its forms to the breadth of the margins and length of the sentences; but is itself free to follow its own quite separate and higher objects of design.

145. Thus, for instance, in the architecture