HOUSES AND GARDENS 



intense stillness seems eloquent with messages and blessings. What magic is 

 there in the mere putting together of wood and stone to so impress the soul, 

 and is it a small thing that we have lost that seeming miraculous gift ? Let 

 us never fall into the blindness of thinking of the modern house as a mere 

 matter of hot-water taps and patent kitchen ranges, or think we do wisely to 

 utterly disregard the possibilities of greatness that lies in mere building. 



For houses and cottages once created are not merely arrangements of 

 materials to secure certain practical ends. They each and all develop, we know 

 not how, a personality which is either base or noble, and those who realise the 

 possibilities of expression in the building of a house will never approach the 

 matter lightly or irreverently. To him who creates a house is given a god- 

 like function which it should be his endeavour not to abuse. And how great 

 his triumph if as the reward of all his anxious labour it should be vouchsafed 

 him to achieve a dwelling which should prove to possess a soul worthy to be 

 ranked with the noble houses of the past ! 



A house too may possess that strange inscrutable quality of the True 

 Romance. Not shallow, showy, and pretentious as most modern mansions are, 

 but full of a still, quiet earnestness which seems to lull and soothe the spirit 

 with promises of peace. Such a house is the greatest achievement possible to 

 the art of man : better than the greatest picture, because it is not a dream alone, 

 but the dream come true a constant daily influence and delight. 



To illustrate this magical quality of spirit which buildings have the power 

 of retaining, one has only to consider the houses of the past. To understand 

 the true inwardness of the history of any period no written word can convey 

 such an intimate and convincing message as may be read from ancient build- 

 ings by those who know their language. I do not refer here to archaeological 

 lore, the mere cataloguing of mouldings and assignments of dates, though this 

 has its uses in so far as it brings the mind into constant and continuous contact 

 with the object of its attention, and so induces an attitude favourable to a 

 deeper kind of knowledge than can be expressed in words. For the ancient 

 building guards the heart of its mystery jealously, and reveals itself only to 

 those who approach it with due sympathy. And so the unbeliever is apt to 

 scoff" at an experience he does not share, and may consider impressions of the 

 past gained in this way misleading illusions. 



And this view is apparently justified by the fact that such impressions lead 

 one in many cases to see the past through rose-coloured glasses to idealise it 

 in comparison with modern vulgar life. Just as when death has severed a 

 friendship petty faults are forgotten, and we see in a true perspective the 

 essential spirit unobscured by baffling clouds, so it is with buildings which retain 

 no record of the superficial doings of their time, but only congeal in their 

 structure the deep music of the soul. 



And so we may well conclude that in building a people is writing its 

 deepest history on the earth. Do you wish to estimate the sublimity and depth 

 of the Gothic devotional spirit ? You may find it writ large in our cathedrals, 

 or set forth in lesser but no less truthful characters in our village churches. I 

 say you may read it it would perhaps be safer to affirm that you might, for 



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