George Edmund Street: Unpublished Notes and Reprinted PapersStreet, George Edmund
History
George Edmund Street: Unpublished Notes and Reprinted Papers
Street, George Edmund
Architecture, Gothic; Church architecture -- Europe; Europe -- Description and travel; Street, George Edmund, 1824-1881
As the mediaeval builders reared and poised their great churches by
a calculated balance of thrust and strain, and hung aloft in stone a
proposition in proportion, so, you feel, with Street, it must have been
some extraordinarily just measure, some perfect balance of temper, some
secret of self-control, only comparable to the engineer’s control of
his crane or hammer or locomotive, that gave him life so abounding and
yet so temperate, so huge in accomplishment and yet so undistressed.
If we know that at times the pulse and the invention flagged, yet it
is only because we know by testimony that tasks designed in hours of
gloom were not, indeed, fulfilled in hours of insight, but instead they
were destroyed, to be replaced later by designs better because of more
vitality and more _élan_.
Doubtless in this a fine natural constitution played a large part, but
even a larger part, one is tempted to think, belongs to faith. _Nisi
Dominum_, says the Psalmist, but here the Lord did keep the house
and their labour was not lost that built it. One thinks of Huxley
coming home exhausted from his lectures to lie on a sofa at one side
of the hearth, that on the other side being permanently occupied by
his wife. There can be little question which of the two men did more
for his generation, but also there can be no question which found
more substantial and untroubled happiness. “It is _not_ lost labour
that ye rise up so early, and so late take rest, and eat the bread of
carefulness, for so He giveth His beloved sleep.” By every reasonable
standard of happiness we must admit that Street’s work, untiring,
joyous, faithful, done in direct loyalty to God Almighty, bore the
fruit of a constant blessing.
The domestic affections and the service of religion filled up a life
singularly pleasant to contemplate. Boating, cricket matches and
riding, plain-song meetings and the Philharmonic Society, opera,
exhibitions and sales of pictures, all found place without crowding. If
he did not ride he wrote letters for an hour and a half or two hours
before breakfast. He had his office in the house and kept long hours
in it without interruption except from clients, but his little son was
admitted as something less than a trouble, and watched him designing.
An assistant said, later: “We worked hard, or thought we did. We had
to be at the office at nine o’clock and our hour of leaving was six
o’clock, long hours--but he never encroached on our time and as a
matter of fact I am sure I never stayed a minute past six o’clock.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account