Very much in the same way, we may be sure, Wren was actuated. His pay was no inducement. He received only £200 a year throughout the whole time of building, and then at one time a certain portion of this miserable pittance was withheld by order of Parliament, because his detractors accused him of delaying the final completion of the work from corrupt motives. Wren's clerk of the works, by name Nicholas Hawksmoor, who afterwards became famous as the builder of several London churches, was paid only twenty pence a day. Tijou, his ironworker, and Grinling Gibbons, the famous carver in wood, were all actuated by the same ideal when they helped to give expression to their master's genius. However, in one or two particulars, which will be mentioned later on, Wren's superior judgment was overruled by his committee. Much to his intense and lasting mortification they carried the day and stamped themselves as incompetent judges. This process of realisation, this seeking after an ideal, sometimes led Wren into strange architectural difficulties, only to be overcome in a masterly way. By discovering these little inconsistencies, the architect's skilfulness in taking advantage of accidents, in turning what appeared an irremediable blunder into a great success, shows what a complete understanding he had in that great branch of art--architecture--and endorses more than ever the great position he will always be accorded.
An example will serve to illustrate his ingenuity.
How many people, when climbing up the stairs that lead to the whispering gallery and elsewhere, have ever noticed any peculiarity about them? Yet there is one. When first they were being built each step was meant to be of the same height, but as they mounted higher, Wren suddenly discovered that the top one would be an ugly tall one to ascend. To avoid this meant one of two things, either to demolish what had already been completed and start afresh, or to turn this accident to good account. The latter alternative was chosen. By gradually reducing the height of the remaining steps, he contrived to overcome the difficulty so successfully that he has tricked the eye and foot, so slight is the difference of each tread. They appear to be equidistant as the ones lower down, and the illusion can only be dispelled by measurement.