IX 



THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE PERGOLA 



The pergola in America is both sinned against and sinning. 

 It appears in the same case with Longfellow's heroine who had 

 the little curl 



"When she was good, she was very, very good, 

 And when she was bad, she was horrid!" 



With the idea of the pergola that of a shaded, vine-covered 

 arbor through which one may walk no one has any quarrel; 

 it is the expression of the idea that is at times appalling. 



The pergola is, as I have said, more sinned against, and 

 the chiefest of its misfortunes is due to the lack of what in 

 another sphere would be called social tact on the part of its 

 author; wherefore we constantly see pergolas, excellent in 

 themselves, brought into close association with buildings of 

 a type with which they should not have had even a bowing 

 acquaintance. A pergola almost classic in its severity of de- 

 sign must suffer sorely when set down beside a careless, ram- 

 bling house of the bungalow order and a garden which is quite 

 as informal and even more coquettish than the house. Pre- 

 cisely as out of place and uncomfortable is a rustic pergola, 

 obtruded into the decorous shadow of an old Colonial house. 

 The architect in either case may be serenely unconscious of 

 having done anything amiss; yet the primary impulse which 

 deters a man from completing with an evening coat a cos- 

 tume of tennis flannels or golf trousers, should have restrained 



71 



