"The Stones of Venice"

[fiefoe]

'To decorate: to look round in the world and discover (in a serious manner always however, and under a sense of responsibility ) what we like best in it, and to enjoy the same at our leisure : to gather it, examine it, fasten all we can of it into imperishable forms, and put it where we may see it for ever.'

• I conclude, then, with the reader's leave, that all ornament is base which takes for its subject human work, that it is utterly base, painful to every rightly-toned mind, .. And all noble ornament is the exact reverse of this. It is the expression of man's delight in God's work.
• I think I never yet saw an offensive introduction of the natural colours of marble and precious stones, unless in small mosaics, {I barely thought of that shell fountain in a Munich palace before that 'unless'.}... On the other hand, I have most assuredly never yet seen a painted building, ancient or modern, which seemed to me quite right.
• Why lines are beautiful: that almost all these lines are expressive of action or force of some kind, while the circle is a line of limitation or support... The cylindrical curve round the stem of a plant binds its fibres together; while the ascent of the stem is in lines of various curvature... Hence the peculiar fitness of the circular curve as a sign of rest, and security of support, in arches; while the other curves, belonging especially to action, are to be used in the more active architectural features-the hand and foot (the capital and base)
• To pull animals to pieces, and use their paws for feet of furniture, or their heads for terminations of rods and shafts, is usually the characteristic of feelingless schools; .. These were intended for our gathering, and for our constant delight: wherever men exist in a perfectly civilized and healthy state, they have vegetation around them;
• The especial condition of true ornament is, that it be beautiful in its place, and nowhere else.
• There is a certain distance for which a picture is painted; and that the finish, which is delightful if that distance be small, is actually injurious if the distance be great.
• For with every added order of ornament increases the difficulty of discipline. It is exactly the same as in war; you cannot, as an abstract law, have too many soldiers, but you may easily have more than the country is able to sustain, or than your generalship is competent to command.
  

__ If he likes the ornament on the base of the column of the Place Vendôme, composed of Wellington boots and laced frock-coats, I cannot help it;
__ the many-shafted fantasy of the Alhambra (a building as beautiful in disposition as it is base in ornamentation)

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