§ XVIII. Detached buildings, like our own Monument, are not pillars, but towers built in imitation of Pillars. As towers they are barbarous, being dark, inconvenient, and unsafe, besides lying, and pretending to be what they are not. As shafts they are barbarous, because they were designed at a time when the Renaissance architects had introduced and forced into acceptance, as _de rigueur_, a kind of columnar high-heeled shoe,--a thing which they called a pedestal, and which is to a true base exactly what a Greek actor's cothurnus was to a Greek gentleman's sandal. But the Greek actor knew better, I believe, than to exhibit or to decorate his cork sole; and, with shafts as with heroes, it is rather better to put the sandal off than the cothurnus on. There are, indeed, occasions on which a pedestal may be necessary; it may be better to raise a shaft from a sudden depression of plinth to a level with others, its companions, by means of a pedestal, than to introduce a higher shaft; or it may be better to place a shaft of alabaster, if otherwise too short for our purpose, on a pedestal, than to use a larger shaft of coarser material; but the pedestal is in each case a make-shift, not an additional perfection. It may, in the like manner, be sometimes convenient for men to walk on stilts, but not to keep their stilts on as ornamental parts of dress. The bases of the Nelson Column, the Monument, and the column of the Place Vendôme, are to the shafts, exactly what highly ornamented wooden legs would be to human beings. § XIX. So far of bases of detached shafts. As we do not yet know in what manner shafts are likely to be grouped, we can say nothing of those of grouped shafts until we know more of what they are to support. Lastly; we have throughout our reasoning upon the base supposed the pier to be circular. But circumstances may occur to prevent its being reduced to this form, and it may remain square or rectangular; its base will then be simply the wall base following its contour, and we have no spurs at the angles. Thus much may serve respecting pier bases; we have next to examine the concentration of the Wall Veil, or the Shaft. FOOTNOTES: [35] The experiment is not quite fair in this rude fashion; for the small rolls owe their increase of strength much more to their tubular form than their aggregation of material; but if the paper be cut up into small strips, and tied together firmly in three or four compact bundles, it will exhibit increase of strength enough to show the principle. Vide, however, Appendix 16, "Strength of Shafts." [36] Appendix 17, "Answer to Mr. Garbett." [37] Yet more so than any other figure enclosed by a curved line: for the circle, in its relations to its own centre, is the curve of greatest stability. Compare § XX. of Chap. XX. CHAPTER VIII. THE SHAFT.