GROWING THE HOUSE 



have five or ten acres, the chances are that some- 

 where about your property there will be a natural 

 center. You will see this when you come to study 

 the slopes, the swales, and the outlooks. From this 

 heart-spot your life and work can pulsate most easily 

 to all the parts. It is wonderful how the country is 

 gotten up for this sort of individualism. You will 

 surely find a knoll or a ridge upon which you can 

 stand with a friend, and looking over the valleys and 

 hills, say, " Is not this beautiful ? " It is on that 

 spot you should begin to take root ; and your house 

 should grow over you and around you — not to 

 shut out those visions, but to take them in. 



The next and most positive consideration is that 

 a country house must not be a city house transferred 

 to rural surroundings, and in this way misplaced. 

 A city house is what it is from necessity, and as a 

 rule city houses must be very much alike. Each 

 one and all together express neighborhood — pieces 

 of something else. But a house in the country 

 should mean a home ; a place to live in and to grow 

 in and to be yourself in. Yet all over the land we 

 find stiff and formal imitations of those habitations 

 which city restrictions compel to be built. On one 

 side of these buildings we find no windows, or very 



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