Whoever built the house, he builded better than he knew; or else Orionin the zenith flashed down his Damocles' sword to him some starry night,and said, "Build there." For how, otherwise, could it have entered thebuilder's mind, that, upon the clearing being made, such a purpleprospect would be his?--nothing less than Greylock, with all his hillsabout him, like Charlemagne among his peers.
Now, for a house, so situated in such a country, to have no piazza forthe convenience of those who might desire to feast upon the view, andtake their time and ease about it, seemed as much of an omission as if apicture-gallery should have no bench; for what but picture-galleries arethe marble halls of these same limestone hills?--galleries hung, monthafter month anew, with pictures ever fading into pictures ever fresh.And beauty is like piety--you cannot run and read it; tranquillity andconstancy, with, now-a-days, an easy chair, are needed. For though, ofold, when reverence was in vogue, and indolence was not, the devotees ofNature, doubtless, used to stand and adore--just as, in the cathedralsof those ages, the worshipers of a higher Power did--yet, in these timesof failing faith and feeble knees, we have the piazza and the pew.
During the first year of my residence, the more leisurely to witness thecoronation of Charlemagne (weather permitting, they crown him everysunrise and sunset), I chose me, on the hill-side bank near by, a royallounge of turf--a green velvet lounge, with long, moss-padded back;while at the head, strangely enough, there grew (but, I suppose, forheraldry) three tufts of blue violets in a field-argent of wildstrawberries; and a trellis, with honeysuckle, I set for canopy. Verymajestical lounge, indeed. So much so, that here, as with the recliningmajesty of Denmark in his orchard, a sly ear-ache invaded me. But, ifdamps abound at times in Westminster Abbey, because it is so old, whynot within this monastery of mountains, which is older?
A piazza must be had.
The house was wide--my fortune narrow; so that, to build a panoramicpiazza, one round and round, it could not be--although, indeed,considering the matter by rule and square, the carpenters, in thekindest way, were anxious to gratify my furthest wishes, at I'veforgotten how much a foot.
