Section 182. SIR JOSEPH PAXTON[1].
Reading edition
Section 182. SIR JOSEPH PAXTON[1].
Sir Joseph Paxton was acting as gardener to[2] the Duke of Devonshire when the Committee of the Exhibition of 1851 advertised for plans of a building. The architects and engineers seem to have been very much at fault[3] when Paxton submitted his design, and its novelty and remarkable suitability for the purposes intended, at once secured its adoption[4]. The first sketch was made upon a piece of blotting-paper in the rooms of the Midland Railway Company[5] at Derby; and the first rough[6] sketch indicated[7] the principal features of the building as accurately as the most finished drawings which were afterwards prepared. The great[8] idea of the Crystal Palace was as palpable[9] on the blotting-paper as if it had been set forth in all the glory of water-colour and gold-framing[10].
Was it a sudden idea,—an inspiration of genius[11],—flashing upon the mind of one[12] who, though no architect, must at least[13] have been something like a poet?—Not at all[14]. The architect of the Crystal Palace was simply a man who cultivated opportunities[15],—a laborious, painstaking[16] man, whose life had been a life of labour, of diligent self-improvement, of assiduous cultivation of knowledge[17]. As[18] Sir Joseph Paxton himself has shown, in a lecture before the Society of Arts, the idea was slowly and patiently elaborated by experiments extending over many years[19]. The Exhibition of 1851 merely afforded him the opportunity of putting forward his idea[20]—the right thing at the right time—and the result was what we have seen.—S. Smiles, “Self-help.”