APRIL. 173 



own company and to be as exclusive as he pleases ; but 

 whether he be right or wrong in the estimate he sets upon 

 himself, it is a false taste that leads a man who is puffed up 

 with arrogance to insult the public with a parade of the evi- 

 dences of this trait in his character. Any greater height to 

 a fence than what seems necessary for the security of one's 

 grounds and enclosures, must always suggest the idea of ex- 

 clusiveness. If the same things excite no such feelings in 

 the city, it is because we know that in the city they are 

 necessary for protection. We see no cause for them in the 

 country, and regard them as the evidences of singular selfish- 

 ness. One of the barbarous exhibitions of selfish pride is the 

 spiking of a high fence, as if one had erected his dwelling- 

 house in a neighborhood of thieves, or grudged an apple to 

 some climbing truant. 



How could all these circumstances be avoided in the style 

 of a country house, some one might ask, without running 

 into the opposite extreme of meanness ? I answer that the 

 opposite extreme of ostentation is simplicity, not meanness, 

 and that this simplicity, which I recommend, is perfectly 

 compatible with beauty and grandeur. One should adopt 

 such a style for his dwelling-house as that the idea of its cost 

 should be driven out of the mind of the spectator, by the 

 crowd of agreeable emotions excited by the contemplation of 

 the whole scene. The admiration produced should be that 

 of the combined simplicity and beauty of the edifice, and of 

 the style of the grounds, making the whole scene appear to 

 be not the work of art but of nature. 



IV. The next point to be considered is harmonic expres- 

 sion, or that quality which causes a building to seem to be a 

 beautiful and necessary part of the scene or the landscape 

 that surrounds it — something that could not be removed with- 

 out creating a disagreeable void which could not so well be 

 filled by any different object. Time is one of the most 

 beautiful harmonizers of all kinds of structures ; but we can- 

 not wait for the slow operations of time, and we must govern 

 ourselves by certain principles, from which rules may be 

 drawn for producing these effects, and by which we may 



