As we approached the log-house, a dozen rods from the lake, and
considerably elevated above it, the projecting ends of the logs lapping
over each other irregularly several feet at the corners gave it a very
rich and picturesque look, far removed from the meanness of weather-
boards. It was a very spacious, low building, about eighty feet long, with
many large apartments. The walls were well clayed between the logs, which
were large and round, except on the upper and under sides, and as visible
inside as out, successive bulging cheeks gradually lessening upwards and
tuned to each other with the axe, like Pandean pipes. Probably the musical
forest-gods had not yet cast them aside; they never do till they are split
or the bark is gone. It was a style of architecture not described by
Vitruvius, I suspect, though possibly hinted at in the biography of
Orpheus; none of your frilled or fluted columns, which have cut such a
false swell, and support nothing but a gable end and their builder's
pretensions,--that is, with the multitude; and as for "ornamentation," one
of those words with a dead tail which architects very properly use to
describe their flourishes, there were the lichens and mosses and fringes
of bark, which nobody troubled himself about. We certainly leave the
handsomest paint and clapboards behind in the woods, when we strip off the
bark and poison ourselves with white-lead in the towns.
Pages:
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285