It bears throughout unmistakable marks of age, but none of
decay. It is gray with the weather-wearing of centuries, but it displays
none of the mouldering vestiges of Time's decaying fingers; nor yet has
it that prim air of good keeping which shows, in treasured antiquities,
that careful hands have sedulously restored each feature that age may
have injured. It is clear that the completeness of detail--the clean
outlines, the hard, unworn surfaces--are characteristics of innate
strength, and connect themselves with the causes of a certain northern
sternness and rigidity in the general architectural designs.
"The secret of all these peculiarities is to be found in the nature of
the material, which is granite--the same that has handed down to us,
through thousands of years, the cold, stony eyes of the sphynx,
precisely as the chisel last touched them--and retains, to the wonder
of the Londoners, the glittering lustre of the polished cheeks of
Rameses. The stern nature of the primitive rock--obdurate alike to the
chisel and to time--has entirely governed the character of the
architecture; and, while it has precluded lightness and decoration, has
given opportunities for a certain gloomy dignity. About the porch, one
or two niches and other small details, have been decorated; but as if
the artist had abandoned the task of chiselling his obdurate materials
as a vain one, ornament goes no farther, and all the architectural
effects are the fruit of bold design.
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