Gable-ends and long casements broke the low piebald front into a
variety of detail--a-combination of effect throwing an air of
picturesque beauty on the whole, which not all the flimsy and frittered
"Gothic" can convey to the mansions of modern antiques. For the timber
employed in its erection a forest must have been laid prostrate. Huge
arched fire-places; chimney-pieces carved with armorial bearings; oak
tables absolutely joisted to sustain their vast bulk; bedsteads that
would not have groaned with the weight of a Titan;--the whole intended
to oppose a ponderous resistance to the ravages of time and fashion. Not
a vestige is left. Those laughing halls echo no more with the loud and
boisterous revel; the music of the "many twinkling" feet is gone;
scarcely a stone is left upon its fellow; a few straggling trees alone
mark the site. The beech and willow are waving o'er its hearth! Who
would build for the destroyer? And yet man, with the end of these
vanities in prospect, daily, hourly still builds on; his schemes and his
projects extending through the long vista of succeeding ages, as though
his dwelling were eternal, and his own fabric should survive the ruin
and the doom of all!
A long train of ancestors bearing the name of Holt occupied this
dwelling as the family mansion.
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