PROGRESS OF DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE 391 



towards a suitable placing of the houses on the site ; avoiding 

 dreariness and monotony on the one hand, and on the other 

 avoiding attempts at the grandiose, and the imposing on 

 posterity a scheme too complete in itself, to allow of those 

 variations which time will inevitably require. It points 

 equally to treating the houses themselves with a simplicity 

 corresponding to the simplicity of the requirements. It points 

 further to the value of good, sound building. The smaller 

 Georgian houses, which we find so charming, furnish admirable 

 suggestions. No attempt at actual reproduction need be made ; 

 but the means which produce the effect in the old houses 

 can be applied to the new. These means are simple enough. 

 The general proportion, the size and shape of the windows, 

 and the shadow of the eaves will be found on examination 

 to be the chief causes of the pleasure which many of the old 

 houses arouse. 



The past has not only its suggestions, but also its warnings, 

 and of these the most obvious is against the impairing of 

 comfort and convenience for the sake of appearance. The 

 first canon of utilitarian art is that an object should answer 

 its purpose well. It is in availing himself of these suggestions, 

 and in profiting by these warnings, that the architect is enabled 

 to help his own generation and give pleasure to those that 

 come after. 



The vast increase in population during the last two hundred 

 years has accentuated the division of the course of design into 

 two streams ; one directed by the highly trained architect, the 

 other by the workman trained only in the use of his tools and 

 the knowledge of his materials. Could the two streams be 

 brought into one channel they might flow on into ideal con- 

 ditions. But the very complexity of modern life has a tendency 

 to resolve itself into the simplicity of specialisation. 



Since the beginning of the eighteenth century the course of 

 domestic architecture has been conditioned partly by the nation 

 becoming too large and complex to admit of a single expression 

 in national architecture ; partly by the tendency, common to all 

 the arts, for ideas to pass into excess in one direction and into 

 tenuity in the other. A wider outlook over the civilised world, 

 a greater knowledge of the achievements of foreign countries, 

 led inevitably to the disappearance of a truly national style, 

 such as that which we call Gothic. On the one hand the homes 



