Mistakes of Citizens in Country Life 199 



model of beauty and convenience that floats dimly in his 

 head. We mean this to apply chiefly to the production 

 as a work of art. 



As a matter of economy, it is still worse. If the improver 

 selects an experienced architect and contracts with a respon- 

 sible and trustworthy builder he knows within twenty per 

 cent at the farthest of what his edifice will cost. If he un- 

 dertakes to play the amateur, and corrects and revises his 

 work, as most amateurs do, while the house is in progress, 

 he will have the mortification of paying twice as much as 

 he should have done, without any just satisfaction at last. 



What is the result of this course of proceeding of the new 

 resident in the country? That he has obtained a large and 

 showy house, of which, if he is alive to improvement, he 

 will live to regret the bad taste, and that he has laid the 

 foundation of expenditures far beyond his income. 



He finds himself now in a dilemma, of which there are 

 two horns. One of them is the necessity of laying out and 

 keeping up large pleasure grounds, gardens, etc., to corre- 

 spond to the style and character of his house. The other 

 is to allow the house to remain in the midst of beggarly 

 surroundings of meadow and stubble; or, at the most, with 

 half executed and miserably kept grounds on every side 

 of it. 



Nothing can be more unsatisfactory than either of these 

 positions. If he is seduced into expenditures en grand sei- 

 gneur to keep up the style in which the mansion or villa has 

 been erected, he finds that instead of the peace of mind 

 and enjoyment which he expected to find in the country 

 he is perpetually nervous about the tight place in his in- 

 come, - - constantly obliged to make an effort to maintain 

 that which, when maintained, gives no more real pleasure 

 than a residence on a small scale. 



If, on the other hand, he stops short, like a prudent man, 

 at the mighty show of figures at the bottom of the builder's 

 accounts, and leaves all about in a crude and unfinished 

 condition, then he has the mortification, if possessed of the 

 least taste, of knowing that all the grace with which he 



