CHAPTER XXV

THE BASE

§ 1. WE know now as much as is needful respecting the methods of minor and universal decoration, which were distinguished in Chapter XXII., § 3, from the ornament which has special relation to particular parts. This local ornament, which it will be remembered, we arranged in § 2 of the same Chapter under five heads, we have next, under those heads to consider. And, first, the ornament of the bases, both of walls and shafts.

It was noticed in our account of the divisions of a wall,¹ that there was something in those divisions like the beginning, the several courses, and the close of a human life. And as, in all well-conducted lives, the hard work, and roughing, and gaining of strength comes first, the honour or decoration in certain intervals during their course, but most of all in their close, so, in general, the base of a wall, which is its beginning of labour, will bear least decoration, its body more, especially those epochs of rest called its string courses; but its crown or cornice most of all. Still, in some buildings, all these are decorated richly, though the last most; and in others, when the base is well protected and yet conspicuous, it may properly receive even more decoration than other parts.

§ 2. Now, the main things to be expressed in a base are its levelness and evenness. We cannot do better than construct the several members of the base, as developed in Fig. 2, p. 82, each of a differently coloured marble, so as to produce marked level bars of colour all along the foundation. This is exquisitely done in all the Italian elaborate

¹ [See above, p. 81.]

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[Version 0.04: March 2008]