But it has, in the form above given, this grave disadvantage, that it looks as if the corner had been rubbed or worn off, blunted by time and weather, and in want of sharpening again. A great deal often depends, and in such a case as this, everything depends, on the _Voluntariness_ of the ornament. The work of time is beautiful on surfaces, but not on edges intended to be sharp. Even if we needed them blunt, we should not like them blunt on compulsion; so, to show that the bluntness is our own ordaining, we will put a slight incised line to mark off the rounding, and show that it goes no farther than we choose. We shall thus have the section _a_, Fig. LIII.; and this mode of turning an angle is one of the very best ever invented. By enlarging and deepening the incision, we get in succession the forms _b_, _c_, _d_; and by describing a small equal arc on each of the sloping lines of these figures, we get _e_, _f_, _g_, _h_. § X. I do not know whether these mouldings are called by architects chamfers or beads; but I think _bead_ a bad word for a continuous moulding, and the proper sense of the word chamfer is fixed by Spenser as descriptive not merely of truncation, but of trench or furrow:-- "Tho gin you, fond flies, the cold to scorn, And, crowing in pipes made of green corn, You thinken to be lords of the year; But eft when ye count you freed from fear, Comes the breme winter with chamfred brows, Full of wrinkles and frosty furrows." So I shall call the above mouldings beaded chamfers, when there is any chance of confusion with the plain chamfer, _a_, or _b_, of Fig. LII.: and when there is no such chance, I shall use the word chamfer only. § XI. Of those above given, _b_ is the constant chamfer of Venice, and _a_ of Verona: _a_ being the grandest and best, and having a peculiar precision and quaintness of effect about it. I found it twice in Venice, used on the sharp angle, as at _a_ and _b_, Fig. LIV., _a_ being from the angle of a house on the Rio San Zulian, and _b_ from the windows of the church of San Stefano. [Illustration: Fig. LIV.]