selves by their own creations."

"Who is it," said Mildred, "that in his oracular criticism pronounced
this colonnade, beautiful as it is, to be disproportioned to the
building, and out of place. Whoever it was, he must have excogitated the
idea at a distance, and in some splenetic humour; it never could have
entered through his eyesight standing here. Had there been a portico to
the church, such as we are told Michael Angelo intended, resembling that
of the Pantheon, then this colonnade might have been unnecessary--it
would always have been a beautiful addition--but with so flat a facade,
(the only part of the building, I think, which disappoints expectation,)
I pronounce the colonnade to be absolutely essential. Without it the
temple would never seem to invite, as it does and ought to do, the whole
Christian world to enter it. Oh, if it were only to girdle in those two
beautiful fountains, it were invaluable."

"Beautiful indeed! Such should fountains be," said Winston. "The water,
in its graceful and noble play, should constitute the sole ornament. If
you introduce statuary, the water should be an accessary to the statue,
and no longer the principal ornament."

"How I abominate," said Mildred, "all those devices for spirting water
out of the mouths of animals! It is a constant surprise to me that a
taste so evidently revolting to all our natural associations, should be
still persevered in. To leave unmentioned more odious devices, I can
never pass without a sense of the disagreeable and the offensive, even
those lions or leopards, whichever they may be, in the _Piazza del
Popolo_, who are abundantly supplying the inhabitants with water through
their mouths. And where the fountain is made to play over the statue,
what a discoloured and lamentable appearance it necessarily gives to the
marble! Let the river god, if you will, lean safe and tranquil over his
reversed and symbolic pitcher: or at the feet of some statue, half
surrounded by foliage, let the little fountain be seen playing from the
ground; but keep the statue out of the water, and oh, keep the water out
of the statue!"[17]

[17] "The good Abderites," writes Wieland in his _Abderiten_, "once
got the notion that such a town as Abdera ought no longer to be
without its fountain. They would have one in their market place.
Accordingly, they procured a celebrated sculptor from Athens to
design and execute for them a group of figures represent