HOUSES AND GARDENS 



for the features of the house and its furniture, but these are necessarily changed 

 and modified to meet modern conditions and limitations. The Art of the 

 people which flourished in the past is now extinct, and so we can no longer 

 enrich our houses and furniture with carving and painting. The wit and fancy 

 of the old workman which found such a field for its display in the woodwork 

 of old houses is no longer available ; and only those who can afford to employ 

 the few surviving artist craftsmen, or those incapable of discerning the gulf 

 fixed between the old work and the new, may dare to decorate their houses in 

 this way. In the meantime, and until Art again revives, whitewash represents 

 a temporary expedient which has much to recommend it, and " when in doubt, 

 whitewash " might well be taken as a maxim to be followed in the decoration 

 of the modern house. 



Before proceeding to consider the possibilities of the house as it might be, 

 it may be well to glance for a moment at the house as it is. Every one who 

 has experienced the disappointments of a search for a dwelling will probably 

 willingly concede that the average modern house is not remarkable for con- 

 venience or beauty, and under the conditions which govern its production it is 

 not strange that this should be so. 



The majority of small houses especially are designed and built by men who 

 have no knowledge or skill in planning, and whose notions and habits ot 

 thought are entirely commercial. The higher skill has been mainly employed 

 on the larger houses, and the small ones have been consigned to the jerry- 

 builder, who has built them as we see them, so that one is led almost to forget 

 that a small house can be made both comfortable and comely, and that in its 

 expression of modest homeliness and simplicity it may often put to shame the 

 pretensions of its larger neighbours. 



Not alone, however, it must be confessed, is the builder to blame for the 

 demerits of the small house. It may be said that he is the wise man who 

 builds houses for fools to live in, and too often the occupier of a small 

 house is in love with its very defects. He admires the front elevation with its 

 bay window and the leaded glazing in the front door, and hangs his pictures 

 and arranges his furniture with a touching assurance that all this is as it 

 should be, while his wife receives her friends in her little drawing-room with 

 a rooted conviction as to its undoubted elegance. Or again, it would appear 

 that the modern householder, like the hermit crab, is the outcome of a series 

 of concessions, and has finally become adapted to a dwelling designed less 

 with a view to his comfort than to the profit of its possessor. But still there 

 is a section of householders who have no illusions as to the beauty of their 

 dwellings, and who cannot reconcile themselves to their defects, and this class, 

 it may be hoped, is a growing one. 



There is yet, however, a further stumbling-block to be found in the blind, 

 irrational following of tradition in house-planning. The modern cottage 

 almost invariably strives to include within its restricted space the features of 

 the mansion. So it misses the excellence within its easy reach in its futile 

 attempt to ape its larger neighbours, and, like the dog in the fable, is left 

 bereft of the substance while it grasps at the shadow. This method of house- 

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