their houses and grounds for their own satisfaction, 

 and it may seem paradoxical to assert that they do 

 no such thing. This is. however, apparently the fact. 

 Sometimes a man lays out his grounds without think- 

 ing at all of where he shall put his house. Usually, 

 however, he goes so far right as to fix upon a build- 

 ing place. Now this place he selects mainly with 

 reference to the public road; and he then proceeds 

 to lay out his grounds also with reference to the said 

 road. In short, the whole place is made not to be 

 looked from, but to be looked at. It is astonishing 

 what inconveniences men, not otherwise remarkable 

 for their self-denial, will submit to, in order to present 

 what they consider a good appearance from the 

 street. Often the best aspect is occupied by the 

 kitchen-yard, the stable and out-houses, while the 

 family, from a forlorn, sunless drawing-room, perched 

 in the air, in order that the house may look imposing 

 to passers by, peer through their scattered trees over 

 the dusty road at their neighbors' houses, built like 

 their own, in strict observance of this hideous archi- 

 tectural etiquette. Now if such a man would only 

 stop and think of how very, very little importance it 

 is to the rest of the world where or how he builds 

 his house and arranges his grounds, and, on the 

 other hand, how all important it is to himself, he 

 might avoid that fruitful source of irretrievable mis- 

 chief — the false point of view. 



We may next consider the erroneous idea of com- 

 bating nature. A writer in the Ailaniic Monthly 



l>;^ 



