The Towers

“ The round towers that flank the entrance are clothed with the greenest and darkest ivy, that mingles with and seems to form part of the ruined mass to which it clings so lovingly, making it more picturesque than it could ever have been in the days of its proud and pristine splendour. ”

“ In place of one or two such towers, standing solitary and sublime, its buttresses along the sides shoot up into as many separate pinnacles, surmounted by statues, which, as they gleam in the last rays of sunset, or under the full moon, seem like angelic sentinels ranged along the heavenly battlements. These details of the exterior draw away the eye from the vastness of the structure as a whole, which only bursts upon us as we enter within. ”

“ What a fairy-like aspect, from the summit of these towers, must the mountain itself, in the old time, have presented, with its lions, and its turrets, and its staircases of stone descending even to the plain and to the city of Ongcor-Thôm, with its ramparts and its innumerable gilded towers, which the forest now covers with its vast monotonous shroud of verdure! ”

“ It is a forest of campaniles, chimneys, sky-lights, domes, and towers, in lace-work and open-work, twisted according to a caprice which excludes neither harmony nor unity, and which ornaments with the Gothic F the salamanders and also the mosaics of slate imitating marble,—a singular poverty in the midst of so much wealth. The beautiful open-worked tower of the large staircase dominates the entire mass of pinnacles and steeples, and bathes in the blue sky its colossal fleur-de-lis, the last point of the highest pinnacle among pinnacles, the highest crown among all crowns.... ”

“ The hearthstones of the great old fireplaces, all about the castle, seem to be favorite spots for weeds to grow. There are eight large round towers, and out of four of them, I think, rise smaller towers, ascending to a much greater height, and once containing winding staircases, all of which are now broken, and inaccessible from below, though, in at least one of the towers, the stairs seemed perfect, high aloft. It must have been the rudest violence that broke down these stairs; for each step was a thick and heavy slab of stone, built into the wall of the tower. ”

“ In the disturbed times of the city, every large edifice was a fortress, and every powerful family had its tower. By and by the possession of such a building became a mark of splendour and distinction; and as, at last, a perpendicular tower was a common and every-day thing, an oblique one was built. Both architect and owner have obtained their object: the multitude of slender, upright towers are just looked at, and all hurry to see the leaning one. ”

“ In the middle of the precinct there was a tower of solid masonry, a furlong in length and breadth, upon which was raised a second tower, and on that a third, and so up to eight. The ascent to the top is on the outside, by a path which winds round all the towers. ”

“ Now you can see it better as we come in front of the archway to the Castle-yard, the western tower. Well, they used to say it was haunted by the ghost of one of the wives of the family which owned it before the Midharsts came into the property. There's a tower on the Manor also, and no doubt you have heard or read of places in the East—China, I think, or maybe Rangoon—where they put their dead on the top of towers, called the Towers of Silence. The carrion birds eat off the flesh, and the bones fall through a grating. Well, Wat Grey calls these two towers the Towers of Silence. ”

“ For that is the note of this west front and of this great tower, rising in stage upon stage of masonry until the great blocks of stone, dwarfed by distance, look like so many courses of grey brick. So does a child build up towers and castles of wooden blocks. ”

“ On all sides Corinthian columns, plain or fluted, little towers with crenelated tops, and a mass of kiosks meet the eye. Lions rampant are mounted on the battlements, whilst curious gargoyles protrude from every corner. From story to story we have the rise of the central tower, each platform being marked by the octagonal towers at the corners, and the winding flight of stairs. The dome which crowns the top is formed by the "intersection of two semicircular arches built up with steps and balustrades, which look not unlike arcs boutant or flying buttresses." ”

“ The rooks were sailing about the cathedral towers; and the towers themselves, overlooking many a long unaltered mile of the rich country and its pleasant streams, were cutting the bright morning air, as if there were no such thing as change on earth. Yet the bells, when they sounded, told me sorrowfully of change in everything; told me of their own age, and my pretty Dora’s youth; ”

“ There is no such thing as a roof in any part; towers, hall, kitchen, all are open to the sky. One round tower, directly overhanging the railway, is so shattered by the falling away of the lower part, that you can look quite up into it and through it, while sitting in the cars; and yet it has stood thus, without falling into complete ruin, for more than two hundred years. I think that it was in this tower that we found the castle oven, an immense cavern, big enough to bake bread for an army. ”

“ THE towers of Zenith aspired above the morning mist; austere towers of steel and cement and limestone, sturdy as cliffs and delicate as silver rods. ”

“ Here and there was an open window, where they lingered and leaned, looking out into the warm dead air, over the towers of the city, at the soft-hued historic hills, at the stately, shabby gardens of the palace, or at some sunny empty grass-grown court lost in the heart of the labyrinthine pile. ”

“ They place, for symmetry, towers only at the angles of the walls, instead of all along the curtain, and gather up and press into the same field all the venerable and interesting features of the country, those behind the artist's back, and at his sides, as well as what appears in front. ”

“ THE FULFILLED DREAM More towers must yet be built—more towers destroyed— Great rocks hoisted in air; And he must seek his bread in high pale sunlight With gulls about him, and clouds just over his eyes . . . And so he did not mention his dream of falling But drank his coffee in silence, and heard in his ears That horrible whistle of wind, and felt his breath Sucked out of him, and saw the tower flash by And the small tree swell beneath him . . . He patted his boy on the head, and kissed his wife, Looked quickly around the room, to remember it,— And so went out . ”

“ And The Towers is vividly described for me by the single fact that I could not "nest" there.
I took several days to discover this, but the first impression of impermanence was truer than I knew. The feathers of the mind refused here to lie one way. They ruffled, pointed, and grew wild.
Luxurious furniture does not mean comfort; I might as well have tried to settle down in the sofa and armchair department of a big shop. My bedroom was easily managed ”

“ Norman Central Towers are very low and massive, seldom rising more than a square above the roof, sometimes not so much, the ridge of the original roof, as shewn by the weather-table on the face of the tower, being only just below the parapet. ”

“ The base of the great round tower, prominent in all the prints of the castle in the time of its greatest glory, fragments of the lower parts of other towers and some dungeons or magazines are practically the only features of the historic site that the imagination finds to feed upon. ”

“ No man dared rebuild the tower that had fallen; not even Alan, or perhaps he did not want to, being possessed, as we may well believe, by this Idea. What it was you shall hear, although, to be sure, no words have any power to picture to those who have not seen it what this great and original work is like. The fallen tower had been reared, as is the manner of such central towers, upon four great pillars where nave and choir and transepts met. ”

“ What did we build it for? Was it all a dream? . . . Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . . And after a while they will fall to dust and rain; Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands; And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again. ”

“ The White Tower or Keep.—This is the very heart and centre of the Tower buildings, and all the lesser towers and connecting walls, making the Inner and Outer Wards, and the broad moat{110} encircling all, are but the means of protection and inviolable security of this ancient keep. Within its rock-like walls a threatened king could live in security. ”

“ I rode northwards from the ’Ashiḳ for exactly an hour to the ruins of Ḥuweiṣilât where there are traces of a wall set with towers. One tower alone stood to any height; it appeared to mark the north-west corner of a rectangular enclosure, in the centre of which was a mound covered with fragments of tiles, but the east side of the enclosing wall was so completely destroyed that I could not make out the line of it. ”

“ The towers themselves must be either round or polygonal. Square towers are sooner shattered by military engines, for the battering rams pound their angles to pieces; but in the case of round towers they can do no harm, being engaged, as it were, in driving wedges to their centre. ”

“ All are blossoming, and in their branches the nightingales sing out of the blossom, dispersing what ruins remain of the world of yesterday, and building rapidly those tall watch towers that last until dawn, which men may climb and from their summits see what may make them out of love with the earth. ”

“ What seems to be the most ancient part is a high quadrangular tower with lofty pointed pannels in the four walls; and though inferior in antiquity, an observer accustomed only to the English castellated style, is struck by the variety of numerous circular towers with conical roofs, resembling those which flanked the gates of the town. ”

“ Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid, We have built a tower of stone high into the sky, We have built a city of towers. ”

“ The other structures in the enclosure are the famous Towers, nine in number, about twelve feet in height and thirty in diameter. In the side of each tower is a double door of iron, where the bearers enter with the bodies of the dead; through these doors no person, not even a Parsee, with the exception of the attendants, is permitted to look; and if any one passes within twenty yards of a tower he is required to bathe and change his clothing before leaving the grounds. ”

“ No human foot to-night invades its sacred precincts. The dead alone possess it. I see, upon its gray walls, the marble figures, white and spectral, staring through the darkness. I hear the night-wind moaning around its lofty towers and faintly sobbing in the dim, mysterious spaces beneath its fretted roof. Here and there a ray of starlight, streaming through the sumptuous rose window, falls and lingers, in ruby or emerald gleam, on tomb, or pillar, or dusky pavement. ”

“ The three towers are solid inside to a height of 11 feet, and the lower part of the ditch (14 feet deep) that surrounds them on the north, east, and south, is cut in the rock; the west tower is nearly 25 cubits square, the centre 40, the south 20. I adopt, then, Williams' opinion, that the tower Hippicus stood on the foundation of the first, Phasaëlus on the second, and Mariamne on the third. ”

“ I am very sorry to say that I rejoiced when I once more perceived the towers of Windsor behind me. ”

“ Strictly speaking, the foot of the whole curtain and its towers lies within a “dead angle,” as vertical fire from the rampart is impossible; but the wooden galleries attached to the rampart obviated this difficulty. But, if the lines of two adjacent faces of the tower are produced, it will be seen that the space contained by these is out of the defenders’ range, and within it miners can work securely, while the main attack is directed against the faces of the rectangle. ”

“ The only structure like a tower, if we except the turrets on the city walls and watch towers erected within the past few years, when the Tae-Pings have threatened the city, is a tall, white monument, rising to the height of twenty feet, and without inscription or distinguishing mark of any kind. ”

“ To stand at the crossing and gaze upwards into that vast tower which looks so clumsy to the outward view, is to receive an impression of beauty, of combined strength and lightness, which is not to be acquired elsewhere, for it is the finest of lantern towers, and, open to the vaulting of its roof, a hundred and eighty feet above the pavement, its great windows on all sides entrap the p. ”

“ There are towers to climb at Kenilworth, as well as towers to gaze at, and with that passion for ascending steps which marks the young the two made their way to the top of one tower after another. It was as they leaned on the parapet of the third and looked out over the green country that Edward broke off in an unflattering anecdote of my Lord of Leicester. ”

“ An article has appeared in The Jupiter; some fifty lines of a narrow column have destroyed all his grace's equanimity, and banished him for ever from the world. No man knows who wrote the bitter words; the clubs talk confusedly of the matter, whispering to each other this and that name; while Tom Towers walks quietly along Pall Mall, with his coat buttoned close against the east wind, as though he were a mortal man, and not a god dispensing thunderbolts from Mount Olympus. ”

“ Many church towers would have to be placed one on the top of another to reach from the bottom to the surface of the sea. ”

“ The white towers and golden domes of the cathedral gleamed out against the sapphire sky. The gorgeous autumn flowers, in the beds round the house, were slumbering till morning. The silence of earth seemed to melt into the silence of the heavens. ”