404 OLD HOUSES. 



whenever he attempts to use them. Hence the profusely 

 decorated houses of the present generation do not evince 

 any positive improvement in taste, when compared with 

 those of their predecessors. They are simply a proof 

 that the people of the present time have more ambition. 

 That M'ant of taste, which former generations exhibited 

 by their entire disregard of ornament, is manifested in 

 their successors by their profuse and indiscriminate use 

 of it. The j)resent house is no longer a thing to be loved. 

 We cease to look upon it with affection. It is a glitter- 

 ing thing that merely pleases the eye, but awakens no 

 delightful sentiment. 



The object of these remarks is not to deride wealth, 

 but to condemn the ostentation of wealth that does not 

 exist, and the use of a house as a false advertisement 

 of the personal importance of its owner. An intelligent 

 nian of wealth would reject these meretricious decora- 

 tions as the mere sham substitute for something better 

 which he would adopt because he could afford it. The 

 false taste which is here censured is mere architectural 

 hypocrisy. My purpose is to analyze certain of our 

 emotions and sentiments, and to prove thereby that the 

 man who builds a showy house gains no admiration, and 

 essentially mars his own happiness. AVhy do we con- 

 template with the purest delight a simple cottage in a 

 half-rude, half-cultivated field, except that it gives indi- 

 cations of something adapted to confer happiness upon its 

 inmates ? The rustic well, with a long pole fastened to 

 a lever, by which the bucket is raised ; the neat stone-wall 

 or iron-gray fence that marks the boundary of the yard ; 

 the old standard apple-trees dotted about irregularly all 

 over the grounds ; the never-failing brook following its 

 native circuitous course through the meadow, — all these 

 objects present to the eye a scene that is strongly sugges- 

 tive of domestic comfort and happiness. 



