have brought the baskets).  In the other part, she has provided for our necessities; and we are very absurd, if we make ourselves fantastic, instead of comfortable.  Therefore, all that we ought to do in the hill villa is, to adapt it for the habitation of a man of the highest faculties of perception and feeling; but only for the habitation of his hours of common sense, not of enthusiasm; it must be his dwelling as a man, not as a spirit; as a thing liable to decay, not as an eternal energy; as a perishable, not as an immortal.

249.  Keeping, then, in view these distinctions of form between the two villas, the remaining considerations relate equally to both.  We have several times alluded to the extreme richness and variety of hill foreground, as an internal energy to which there must be no contrast.  Rawness of color is to be especially avoided, but so, also, is poverty of effect.  It will, therefore, add much to the beauty of the building, if in any conspicuous and harsh angle, or shadowy molding, we introduce a wreath of carved leafwork,—­in stone, of course.  This sounds startling and expensive; but we are not thinking of expense:  what ought to be, not what can be afforded, is the question.  Besides, when all expense in shamming castles, building pinnacles, and all other fantasticisms has been shown to be injurious, that which otherwise would have been wasted in plaster battlements, to do harm, may surely be devoted to stone leafage, to do good.  Now, if there be too much, or too conspicuous, ornament, it will destroy simplicity and humility, and everything which we have been endeavoring to get; therefore, the architect must be careful, and had better have immediate recourse to that natural beauty with which he is now endeavoring to assimilate.

250.  When Nature determines on decorating a piece of projecting rock, she begins with the bold projecting surface, to which the eye is naturally drawn by its form, and (observe how closely she works by the principles which were before investigated) she finishes this with lichens and mingled colors, to a degree of delicacy, which makes us feel that we never can look close enough; but she puts in not a single mass of form to attract the eye, more than the grand outline renders necessary.  But, where the rock joins the ground, where the shadow falls, and the eye is not attracted, she puts in bold forms of ornament, large leaves and grass, bunches of moss and heather, strong in their projection, and deep in their color.  Therefore, the architect must act on precisely the same principle:  his outward surfaces he may leave the wind and weather to finish in their own way; but he cannot allow Nature to put grass and weeds into the shadows; ergo, he must do it himself; and, whenever the eye loses itself in shade, wherever there is a dark and sharp corner, there, if he can, he should introduce a wreath of flower-work.  The carving will be preserved from the weather by this very propriety of situation: