Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1915-10-15

little individuality to start with, the adventures
and patchings of time have endued it with a
picturesqueness of its own. The builders gave
IL practically no decoration. but such solid works
receiye all they need from the hand of time,
which adds detail with unerring taste. The
palmer an edihce may have been to start with.
tne better time adorns It, provided 1t has been
built with sound materials good workmanship
and IN good proportions. Most of England noblest
castles must have looked gaunt and even Ito
contemporary eyes) ugly. To the Saxon citizens
OF London the White doubtless whitewashed)
tower can hardly have conveyed esthetic pleas
ure But time has even decorated Norman cas-.
ties. so that not the baldest modern skyscraper
need despair Of future admiration II II can hold
itself end up long enough
Amersfoort tower is anything rather than plain
On the contrary, 1t is in the Gothic style tending
towards namboyant. while its general design is
OF the type of the tower at Utrecht which, indeed
oeing only fourteen miles away. doubtless sug
gested It. That was built during the middle half
OF the fourteenth century; Amersfoort at the
very end of the fifteenth Both have the open
octaeonal top story already described. Utrecht is
S3S feet high, Amersfoort 312 feet. The latter ia
considered to be the finest Gothic tower in Hol.
Ind. l suppose 1t to have been surmounted or
oeo TO be surmounted by a plain spire but
resent bulbous top and open-work crown
" ut on in 1855. Where did Holland get its
taste for these bulbs? She did not have a mo-
nopoly OF them. for they are numerous enough In
Germany and eve.. - Switzerland. An oriental
original probably suggested them The Amers.
foort church was built in the fourteenth century.
and the tower may well have been projected from
the first An explosion damaged the building but
the damage was made good and the tower for.
tunately escaped.
Few tourists stop at Amersfoort but plentv NJ
them can see the tower from the train on their
way eastward from Amsterdam. The summit of
1t looks northward far away over the Zuyder Zee
and In every other direction over a country as
nat as water There some fun in building
nlgh towers In Holland. they could be seen from
SO far away. Amersfoort can hail Utrecht on anv
clear day. and both of them Rhenen q imaeineC
which Rembrandt sketched
Anyone who has landed at Flushing, and pro-
ceeded tnence anywhither by train has been
carried for the first few miles over the am.
phibious region of the island of Walcheren. He
mas passed Middelburg and presently II he looked
away on to the left, he will have seen at a die
tance OF two or three miles, the little town of
Veere. Both are old towns and highly pjctur
esque. so indeed Durer recorded them In be
wnen ne visited them in the cold December or
1870 Middelburg." he said, rs a good town .
nne place for sketchng. 1t has a beautiful town
nan with fine tower. There is much art shown
In all things here. All he has to say about Veere
is that It is fine little town where lie shtps
from all lands. The object of Durer's unfo,.
tunate winter journey to the islands of iceland
was not. however. to see towers and town hall.
but to satisfy his Unsuitable curiosity about
natural history. He wanted to make a draving
OF q whale that had been stranded in tbo.e
parts Such curiosity in the case of men Ike
Durer and Leonardo Is the first indication ve
possess OF the approach Of the age of science
Inc whale had been washed away before Durers