I passed by here as a young man when I was hitch hiking to Spain. I've seen the most wonderful castle, I told my mother. Oh that was made on steel girders in the nineteenth century, she told me. But, since it looks wonderful, isn't it? Since then I've come to admire nineteenth century buildings probably more than the medieval ones they were so successfully imitating. The Victorians were brilliant engineers with exciting new materials and the wealth to create extraordinary lay structures. Apparently it was the conical roofs on the turrets, so beloved by later Disneylands, which offended the purists.

"I hate my verses, every line, every word.
Oh pale and brittle pencils ever to try
One grass-blade's curve, or the throat of one bird
That clings to twig, ruffled against white sky.
Oh cracked and twilight mirrors ever to catch
One color, one glintingflash, of the splendor of things.
Unlucky hunter, Oh bullets of wax,
The lion beauty, the wild-swan wings, the storm of the wings."
--This wild swan of a world is no hunter's game.
Better bullets than yours would miss the white breast
Better mirrors than yours would crack in the flame.
Does it matter whether you hate your . . . self?
At least Love your eyes that can see, your mind that can
Hear the music, the thunder of the wings.
Love the wild swan.

Robinson Jeffers

^

Experiment in enlargement

This is in Australia

It is today's wikipedia photograph of the day

When I borrowed it, it was almost 8000 by 2000 pixels

NG, that is, No good. In wikipedia I can enlarge any section and see the details of houses and streets

English oak buildings