bjection is, that such whiteness destroys a great deal of venerable
character, and harmonizes ill with the melancholy tones of surrounding
landscape: and this requires detailed consideration.

118. Paleness of color destroys the majesty of a building; first, by
hinting at a disguised and humble material; and, secondly, by taking
away all appearance of age. We shall speak of the effect of the material
presently; but the deprivation of apparent antiquity is dependent in a
great degree on the color; and in Italy, where, as we saw before,
everything ought to point to the past, is serious injury, though, for
several reasons, not so fatal as might be imagined; for we do not
require, in a building raised as a light summer-house, wherein to while
away a few pleasure hours, the evidence of ancestral dignity, without
which the chateau or palace can possess hardly any beauty. We know that
it is originally built more as a plaything than as a monument; as the
delight of an individual, not the possession of a race; and that the
very lightness and carelessness of feeling with which such a domicile is
entered and inhabited by its first builder would demand, to sympathize
and keep in unison with them, not the kind of building adapted to excite
the veneration of ages, but that which can most gayly minister to the
amusement of hours. For all men desire to have memorials of their
actions, but none of their recreations; inasmuch as we only wish that to
be remembered which others will not, or cannot perform or experience;
and we know that all men can enjoy recreation as much as ourselves. We
wish succeeding generations to admire our energy, but not even to be
aware of our lassitude; to know when we moved, but not when we rested;
how we ruled, not how we condescended; and, therefore, in the case of
the triumphal arch, or the hereditary palace, if we are the builders, we
desire stability; if the beholders, we are offended with novelty: but in
the case of the villa, the builder desires only a correspondence with
his humor; the beholder, evidence of such correspondence; for he feels
that the villa is most beautiful when it ministers most to pleasure;
that it cannot minister to pleasure without perpetual change, so as to
suit the varying ideas, and humors, and imaginations of its inhabitant,
and that it cannot possess this light and variable habit with any
appearance of antiquity.

119. And, for a yet more important reason, such appearance is not