PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION I. Tit 
abandoned the Gothic style, quite logically and consistently. We 
have returned to it, through the influence, I believe, of the High 
Church movement, which gave some cause for the revival by 
restoring the altar. But, whatever may be said of churches, - 
nothing can be more incongruous than the false classical or 
pseudo-Gothic forms used for banks, law-courts, or town-halls, the 
internal arrangements of which have little or no relation to 
their external aspect. We see ringhieras from which no one 
ever addresses the populace, balconies on which no one can sit 
or walk, turrets from whose narrow loop-holes no watchman spies 
the approaching enemy. 
Coming now to private houses, we shall very commonly find 
that the smaller are best in design, however infamous in con- 
struction. Here cost and convenience are prime considerations ; 
hence their style is more consistent with common sense, and 
therefore with true art. But when something superior is con- 
templated people too often go astray. Half-imitations of an 
Ttalian villa, a French chateau, or an Elizabethan house, though 
possibly handsome enough in themselves, are sure to be uncom- 
fortable or to look pretentious and out of place, being more or 
less unsuited to our climate and habits. And, since the style 
must be modified so as to make the house habitable by modern 
people, the result will be a mere counterfeit that cannot be 
pleasing to good taste. Weshall see such bad solecisms as flights 
of stairs crossing casements, and, still worse, that shocking device 
of sham windows or blank window-spaces in the walls. Now, 
the weather-board cottage is good in so far as it is a naturally 
evolved style. And as the temple grew from the hollowed-out 
trunk of a tree through the intermediate stage of the wooden 
hut, so might a grand, appropriate, and harmonious order of 
colonial domestic architecture proceed from the germ of the 
weather-board shanty, by a series of simple, rational improve- 
ments and extensions. In forming such a style, the bath-room 
and the verandah, which are of especial importance in this 
climate, ought, perhaps, to be first considered. 
Let us now look at the interior of the ordinary modern house. 
The diningroom, being constructed and furnished with one well- 
defined, easily comprehended object, will generally be the best 
apartment in the house. Men are in earnest about their meals ; 
therefore we may expect to find a good solid table, chairs to 
correspond, a convenient sideboard—and not much else, because 
nothing else is wanted. Therein lies the secret why the dining- 
room is usually a pleasant room. It has one distinct function, 
and it is actually designed and furnished in strict accordance with 
that function, because it is too important to be slighted. But in 
the drawingroom we see what is achieved when something more 
ethereal is aimed at, when considerations of adornment prevail 
over considerations of utility. In a room the eye goes to the 
