FARM ARCHITECTURE. 



151 



pale tints that no man can name or classify; and she uses 

 them lavishly on her own work. She manifests her gentle 

 spirit, and at the same time lier unerring sense of fitness, by 

 painting the works of human hands a quiet, unobtrusive 

 gray, treating them kindly, harmoniously as far as possible, 

 but never allowing them to wear such garments of color as 

 she bestows upon her own perfect 

 creations. She paints every fence 

 and wood-pile, every roof and arti- 

 ficial stojie-heap, every bridge, barn, 

 and house, the same quiet gray. 



Still I do not think the good 

 mother will resent our temerity if 

 we sometimes humbly strive to imi- 

 tate certain tints from her pallet; al- 

 ways keeping on the safe side, and not 

 attempting to outshine our teacher. 



She shows us many shades of gray, 

 of brown, of olive, of maroons, and 

 of umbers, as well as the warmer tints of drab and yellow. 

 Even the good old Venetian red, with a broad frame, and 

 background of green, is not to be despised. Above all 

 thino-s, we should studv her combinations ; for a discord in 

 color is as gross a violation of natural law as is a discord in 

 musical sounds. 



One thing is past finding out, how it ever entered the 

 heart of civilized man to paint the outside of his house the 

 color of a piece of bleached cotton (that is, no color at all), 

 a blank, dreary, staring, glaring, ghastly white, — the color 

 of a ghost, of dry bones, of a dead snow-drift. 



There is no excuse for it. It is an impertinent intrusion 

 upon the landscape. It is a bit of white paper stuck upon 

 an oil painting. Green blinds will not save it, nor blue ones, 

 nor a green front-door, nor a picket-fence. Nothing will 

 save it but distance, time, or another coat of paint. 



The barn, unpainted save by Nature's gray, or dingy with 

 " mineral" paint, is a far more interesting object than the 

 white house. 



On our way thither we may be compelled to i)ass through 

 that abomination of desolation about farm-buildings known 

 as the back-vard, where the unburied bodies, the disjointed 



