s them, indeed, to its upper
arcade shafts; and had once, it is said, a continuous raised base for
its lower ones: but successive elevations of St. Mark's Place have
covered this base, and parts of the shafts themselves, with an
inundation of paving stones; and yet the building is, I doubt not, as
grand as ever. Finally, the two most noble pillars in Venice, those
brought from Acre, stand on the smooth marble surface of the Piazzetta,
with no independent bases whatever. They are rather broken away beneath,
so that you may look under parts of them, and stand (not quite erect,
but leaning somewhat) safe by their own massy weight. Nor could any
bases possibly be devised that would not spoil them.

Sec. IX. But it is otherwise if the pillar be so slender as to look
doubtfully balanced. It would indeed stand quite as safely without an
independent base as it would with one (at least, unless the base be in
the form of a socket). But it will not appear so safe to the eye. And
here for the first time, I have to express and apply a principle, which
I believe the reader will at once grant,--that features necessary to
express security to the imagination, are often as essential parts of
good architecture as those required for security itself. It was said
that the wall base was the foot or paw of the wall. Exactly in the same
way, and with clearer analogy, the pier base is the foot or paw of the
pier. Let us, then, take a hint from nature. A foot has two offices, to
bear up, and to hold firm. As far as it has to bear up, it is uncloven,
with slight projection,--look at an elephant's (the Doric base of
animality);[36] but as far as it has to hold firm, it is divided and
clawed, with wide projections,--look at an eagle's.

Sec. X. Now observe. In proportion to the massiness of the column, we
require its foot to express merely the power of bearing up; in fact, it
can do without a foot, like the Squire in Chevy Chase, if the ground
only be hard enough. But if the column be slender, and look as if it
might lose its balance, we require it to look as if it had hold of the
ground, or the ground hold of it, it does not matter which,--some
expression of claw, prop, or socket. Now let us go back to Fig. XI., and
take up one of the bases there, in the state in which we left it. We may
leave out the two lower steps (with which we have nothing more to do, as
they have become the united floor or foundation of the whole), and, for
the sake of great