HOUSES AND GARDENS 



and weigh the qualities and defects of the old houses, and, having inwardly 

 digested the lesson they have to teach, to use the knowledge gained in a 

 rational way. 



But if it is undesirable that the dweller in the small house should aim at a 

 cheapened version of his richer neighbour's abode and manner of living, it is 

 still less the part of the man who is able to build and maintain a large house 

 to imitate the cottage qualities, and achieve the cottage " with the double 

 coach-house." 



The curious affectation which has led to the reproduction of the farmhouse 

 kitchen, with dishes and domestic utensils displayed instead of vases and 

 knicknacks in a household where such a room is a sort of artistic toy, is but 

 an extreme example of many such conceits. The importation of milking-stools 

 and spinning-wheels into our drawing-rooms are but other examples of the 

 same tendency to bring the cottage into the mansion. One feels at once a 

 sense of the incongruous in such affectations, just as one would in an assumed 

 artlessness of manner in the mistress of such an establishment. And examples 

 might be multiplied of a like inconsistency of varying degrees of affectation. 

 One of the least to be condemned is possibly the building of a large house as 

 a magnified cottage, a method for which precedents are not wanting in many 

 modern examples of domestic architecture. In the old days, a large house was 

 usually a dignified structure. It expressed a certain quiet stateliness of 

 planning and furnishing, and in the old English manor house one found the 

 straight vista of the carriage-drive leading to the square forecourt, with the 

 front entrance of dignified aspect. Without vulgar ostentation the whole 

 effect was one of quiet, homely dignity, not rejoicing in expense for the sake 

 of expense, but for the sake of beauty and fitness. 



The large house will be chiefly marked by the number of its specialised 

 rooms, which, however, should still combine to form an ensemble focussed in 

 its central hall. It will further be distinguished by the use of materials which 

 are beyond the means of the occupant of the cottage, and by the introduction 

 of ornament of real beauty in design and workmanship. It will admit of the 

 realisation of decorative schemes, which still retain their quality as a back- 

 ground and setting to life. 



Too often, the large house with its collections of furniture and ornaments 

 degenerates into a private museum, of which its owner is merely the custodian, 

 and which in many cases drive him to seek escape to more congenial surround- 

 ings, leaving his house unoccupied for the greater portion of the year. In such 

 excursions he indulges further that vice of indiscriminating acquisitiveness 

 which has already crowded his house with objects of Art. It becomes a 

 show place exhibited on the appointed day to the hushed and admiring 

 groups of tourists, who absorb with interest the parrot-like utterances of 

 its custodian. 



Such a development of the house may have points in its favour when its 



treasures are of real worth and arranged and chosen with discretion. But at 



its best it is not a home in the true sense at all. Like the public museum, it 



represents a kind of workhouse of the Arts, where furniture and china made 



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