CHAPTER THREE 

 GROWING THE HOUSE 



JNIowHERE in the world should industry be al- 

 lowed to express itself more freely than when put- 

 ting together material for a human soul to live in. 

 Anyone going by such a home should easily be able 

 to say, "That is Tom Jones's place — I'd know it 

 by the look of it, by the free and easy approaches. 

 It looks like him." Those animals which grow 

 their own houses grow them to fit. You know a fish 

 by the shell he lives in. 



The country house should stand far back from 

 the street. It should be, if not near the center of 

 your property, at least so near the center that no 

 part of the land shall be diflBcult to reach. What 

 you want is not to get close to the public way, one 

 of a long succession of houses, but to have elbow 

 room for your tastes, and to get out of the eye of the 

 critic — the unmerciful critic who refuses to let you 

 be unlike himself, a whit better or worse. If you 



