288 ROOF-TREE. 



ness. The marble mantel - piece, with its senseless 

 vases, and the marble-topped centre-table add the 

 finishing touch of coldness and stiffness. Marble 

 makes good tombstones, but it is an abomination in a 

 house, either in furniture or in mantels. 



There remains only to be added that after you have 

 had the experience, after the house is finished and 

 you have had a year or two to cool off in (it takes 

 that long), you will probably feel a slight reaction. 

 Or, it may be more than that ; the scales may fall 

 from your eyes, and you may see that it is not worth 

 while after all to lay so much emphasis on the house, 

 a place to shelter you from the elements, and that 

 you have had only a different, but the same unworthy 

 pride as the rest, as if anything was not good enough, 

 and as if manhood was not sufficient to itself without 

 these props. 



You will have found, too, that with all your pains 

 you have not built a house, nor can you build one, 

 that just fills the eye and gives the same aesthetic 

 pleasure as does the plain unpainted structure that 

 took no thought of appearances, and that has not one 

 stroke about it foreign to the necessities of the case. 



Pride, when it is conscious of itself, is death to the 

 nobly beautiful, whether in dress, manners, equipage, 

 or house-building. The great monumental structures 

 of the Old World show no pride or vanity, but on the 

 contrary great humility and singleness of purpose. 

 The Gothic cathedral does not try to look beautiful ; 

 it is beautiful from the start, and entirely serious. 



