OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES 



of what stray cedars, or other wood, may be 

 about the premises, I shall expect his carpen- 

 ter to make such a bugbear of the exuding 

 pitch, and of the impossibility of bringing his 

 square and his gauge into requisition, and (if 

 he goes on) to keep so resolutely by a deter- 

 mination to counterfeit, as far as possible, all 

 the mouldings of his joiner work, that he will 

 construct a cumbrous affair, at such great cost 

 of labor, as will disgust my friend Lackland, 

 and at such cost of simplicity as will disgust 

 every tasteful observer. 



What then? There can be no doubt 

 of the possibility of working this unruly 

 material into tasteful forms, that shall 

 have practical and economic uses; but in the 

 ordering of this matter, as in the ordering of 

 a great many others, connected with rural life, 

 if the proprietor can put no zeal into his in- 

 tention, and has no eye for the charms of 

 homeliness, let him abandon the pursuit. A 

 good fence of white pickets, with gate to 

 match, will keep the pigs out, and the young 

 Lacklands in. 



98 



