262 SIGNS AND SEASONS 



cheerful and inviting without plenty of light, and 

 then, if the walls are light too, and the carpets 

 showy, there is a flatness and garishness. The 

 marble mantel-piece, with its senseless vases, and 

 the marble-topped centre-table, add the finishing 

 touch of coldness and stiffness. Marble makes good 

 tombstones, but it is an abomination in a house, 

 either in furniture or in mantels. 



There remains only to be added that, after you 

 have had the experience, after the house is finished 

 and you have had a year or two to cool off in (it 

 takes that long), you will probably feel a slight 

 reaction. Or it may be more than that: the scales 

 may fall from your eyes, and you may see that it is 

 not worth while after all to lay so much emphasis 

 on the house, a place to shelter you from the ele- 

 ments, and that you have had only a different but 

 the same unworthy pride as the rest, as if anything 

 was not good enough, and as if manhood was not 

 sufficient to itself without these props. 



You will have found, too, that with all your 

 pains you have not built a house, nor can you build 

 one, that just fills the eye and gives the same 

 sesthetic pleasure as does the plain unpainted struc- 

 ture that took no thought of appearances, and that 

 has not one stroke about it foreign to the necessities 

 of the case. 



Pride, when it is conscious of itself, is death to 

 the nobly beautiful, whether in dress, manners, 

 equipage, or house-building. The great monumen- 

 tal structures of the Old World show no pride or 



