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We walked straight into the forecourt of the Museum, where, except that the railings were gone, and the whispering boughs of the trees were all about, nothing seemed changed; the very pigeons were wheeling about the building and clinging to the ornaments of the pediment as I had seen them of old.
The institution of Parliament is indeed one of the greatest illustrations of human delusion. . . . On the pediment of this edifice is inscribed, "All for the public good." This is no more than a lying formula: Parliamentarism is the triumph of egoism its highest expression. . . .
For if they touch one another, and so do not leave airholes and admit draughts of air to blow between them, they get heated and soon begin to rot. Above the beams and walls let the mutules project to a distance equal to one quarter of the height of a column; along the front of them nail casings; above, build the tympanum of the pediment either in masonry or in wood.
But whenever I have a vision of prisoners bound on tumbrels that jolt slowly to the scaffold, of heads car- ried on pikes, of groups of heated citoyennes shaking their fists at closed coach-windows, I see in the back- ground the well-ordered features of the architecture of the period, the clear gray stone, the high pilasters, the arching lines of the entresol, the classic pediment, the slate-covered attic.
It is of four stories: of these the lowest has rusticated masonry; the second, on its western face, a square-headed window opening beneath a small curly and broken pediment on to a balcony with very fine balusters all upheld by three large corbels. The third story has only a clock, and the fourth two plain round-headed belfry windows on each face.
There were certain signs, certain facades, certain audacities of the prevailing hideousness that always amused him in that uproar to the eye which the strident forms and colors made. He was interested in the insolence with which the railway had drawn its erasing line across the Corinthian front of an old theatre, almost grazing its fluted pillars, and flouting its dishonored pediment.
The frame is of wood entirely coated with silver, in the form of a Renaissance doorway with a fluted column on each side and a broken pediment over the top. It is almost concealed by the jewellery hung about it, earrings, chains, necklaces, rings, watches etc. These are offerings from the faithful, but what is shown is nothing like all.
From the pediment projects the cornice, while, at the apex and at the base of it, are sculptured ornaments, generally, the figures of men or animals. The whole outline of columns supporting the entablature is graceful, while the variety of light and shade arising from the arrangement of mouldings and capitals produce a grand effect.
The main block approximated to a square on the ground plan, having a projection in the centre of each side, surmounted by a pediment. From each angle of the inferior side ran a line of buildings lower than the rest, turning inwards again at their further end, and forming within them a spacious open court, within which resounded an echo of astonishing clearness.
It is a well-executed equestrian statue, but to my mind the four figures clustered round the pediment, on whose hands still hang the broken chains of slavery, are better works of art, as well as admirable emblems of the energetic materials—the oppressed but spirited inhabitants of a few small states—of which the now powerful kingdom of Prussia was originally formed.
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