ADVICE FOR LACKLAND 



lichens, so much the better. The great error 

 in such structures, is in attempting too great 

 nicety, which, by contrast with the homely 

 farmwork around it, offends more than it 

 gratifies. In humble art, as well as in the 

 highest art, there must be keeping. 



But though finical nicety is to be avoided, 

 and such hammering out of faces, as to in- 

 crease largely the expense, and defeat the econ- 

 omy which should declare itself unmistakably 

 in all rural decoration, there should be no sac- 

 rifice of solidity. A column that will not 

 stand for years, had better never be built. 



The country wall-layers, ordinarily, are in- 

 disposed to attempt such work, either doubt- 

 ing their own capacity, or considering it an 

 encroachment upon the province of the mason. 

 The consequence has been, in my own expe- 

 rience, that of some half-dozen or more 

 which stand here and there about the fields 

 at Edgewood, everyone has been laid up with 

 my own hands; and I may aver, with some 

 pride, that after eight or ten winters of frost, 

 they still stand firmly and compact. One 

 only has lost its capping boulder, which cer- 

 tain errant boys could not resist the tempta- 

 tion to tumble off, that they might watch its 

 roll down a pretty declivity of a hundred rods, 



93 



