A Little Tour In France, By Henry James



























































































 -   I remained there an hour
and got a cornplete impression; the place was per-
fectly soundless, and for the time - Page 184
A Little Tour In France, By Henry James - Page 184 of 276 - First - Home

Enter page number    Previous Next

Number of Words to Display Per Page: 250 500 1000

I Remained There An Hour And Got A Cornplete Impression; The Place Was Per- Fectly Soundless, And For The Time, At Least, Lonely; The Splendid Afternoon Had Begun To Fade, And There Was A Fascination In The Object I Had Come To See.

It came to pass that at the same time I discovered in it a certain stupidity, a vague brutality.

That element is rarely absent from great Roman work, which is wanting in the nice adaptation of the means to the end. The means are always exaggerated; the end is so much more than attained. The Roman rigidity was apt to overshoot the mark, and I suppose a race which could do nothing small is as defective as a race that can do nothing great. Of this Roman rigidity the Pont du Gard is an admirable example. It would be a great injustice, however, not to insist upon its beauty, - a kind of manly beauty, that of an object constructed not to please but to serve, and impressive simply from the scale on which it carries out this intention. The number of arches in each tier is dif- ferent; they are smaller and more numerous as they ascend. The preservation of the thing is extra- ordinary; nothing has crumbled or collapsed; every feature remains; and the huge blocks of stone, of a brownish-yellow, (as if they had been baked by the Provencal sun for eighteen centuries), pile themselves, without mortar or cement, as evenly as the day they were laid together.

Enter page number   Previous Next
Page 184 of 276
Words from 50360 to 50613 of 75796


Previous 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 Next

More links: First 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 180 190 200
 210 220 230 240 250 260 270 Last

Display Words Per Page: 250 500 1000

 
Africa (29)
Asia (27)
Europe (59)
North America (58)
Oceania (24)
South America (8)
 

List of Travel Books RSS Feeds

Africa Travel Books RSS Feed

Asia Travel Books RSS Feed

Europe Travel Books RSS Feed

North America Travel Books RSS Feed

Oceania Travel Books RSS Feed

South America Travel Books RSS Feed

Copyright © 2005 - 2022 Travel Books Online