On Thursday, At Five P. M., We Drove To Stafford House, To Go With Her
Grace To The House Of Parliament.
What a magnificent building!
I say
so, in contempt of all criticism. I hear that all sorts of things are
said against it. For my part, I consider that no place is so utterly
hopeless as that of a modern architect intrusted with a great public
building. It is not his fault that he is modern, but his misfortune.
Things which in old buildings are sanctioned by time he may not
attempt; and if he strikes out _new_ things, that is still worse.
He is fair game for every body's criticism. He builds too high for
one, too low for another; is too ornate for this, too plain for that;
he sacrifices utility to aesthetics, or aesthetics to utility, and
somebody is displeased either way. The duchess has been a sympathizing
friend of the architect through this arduous ordeal. She took pleasure
and pride in his work, and showed it to me as something in which she
felt an almost personal interest.
For my part, I freely confess that, viewed as a national monument, it
seems to me a grand one. What a splendid historic corridor is old
Westminster Hall, with its ancient oaken roof! I seemed to see all
that brilliant scene when Burke spoke there amid the nobility, wealth,
and fashion of all England, in the Warren Hastings trial. That speech
always makes me shudder. I think there never was any thing more
powerful than its conclusion.
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