ke columns, and runs with some complacency up the groining
and fret-work, and alights finally and fatally on a red chimney-top. He
might as well have built a Gothic aisle at an entrance to a coal wharf.
We have no scruple in saying that the man who could desecrate the Gothic
trefoil into an ornament for a chimney has not the slightest feeling,
and never will have any, of its beauty or its use; he was never born to
be an architect, and never will be one.

65. Now, if chimneys are not to be decorated (since their existence is
necessary), it becomes an object of some importance to know what is to
be done with them: and we enter into the inquiry before leaving the
cottage, as in its most proper place; because, in the cottage, and only
in the cottage, it is desirable to direct attention to smoke.

Speculation, however, on the _beau ideal_ of a chimney can never be
unshackled; because, though we may imagine what it ought to be, we can
never tell, until the house is built, what it _must_ be; we may require
it to be short, and find that it will smoke, unless it is long; or, we
may desire it to be covered, and find it will not go unless it is open.
We can fix, therefore, on no one model; but by looking over the chimneys
of a few nations, we may deduce some general principles from their
varieties, which may always be brought into play, by whatever
circumstances our own imaginations may be confined.

66. Looking first to the mind of the people, we cannot expect to find
good examples of the chimney, as we go to the south. The Italian or the
Spaniard does not know the use of a chimney, properly speaking; they
_have_ such things, and they light a fire, five days in the year,
chiefly of wood, which does not give smoke enough to teach the chimney
its business; but they have not the slightest idea of the meaning or the
beauty of such things as hobs, and hearths, and Christmas blazes; and we
should, therefore, expect, _a priori_, that there would be no soul in
their chimneys; that they would have no practiced substantial air about
them; that they would, in short, be as awkward and as much in the way,
as individuals of the human race are, when they don't know what to do
with themselves, or what they were created for. But in England, sweet
carbonaceous England, we flatter ourselves we _do_ know something about
fire, and smoke too, or our eyes have strangely deceived us; and, from
the whole comfortable character and fireside disposition of