MEMOIR. xliii 



brilliant society ; still as it always had been, and was, until 

 the end the seat of beautiful hospitality. He was often 

 enough perplexed in his affairs hurried by the monthly 

 recurring necessity of " the leader," and not quite satisfied 

 at any time until that literary task was accomplished. 

 His business confined and interested him ; his large cor- 

 respondence was promptly managed ; but he was still san- 

 guine, under that Spanish reserve, and still spent profusely. 

 He had a thousand interests ; a State agricultural school, 

 a national agricultural bureau at Washington, designing pri- 

 vate and public buildings, laying out large estates, pursuing 

 his own scientific and literary studies, and preparing a work 

 upon Rural Architecture. From his elegant home he was 

 scattering, in the Horticulturist, pearl-seed of precious 

 suggestion, which fell in all kinds of secluded and remote 

 regions, and bore, and are bearing, costly fruit. 



In 1849, Mr. John Wiley published " Hints to Young (/ 

 Architects, by George Wightwick, Architect ; with Ad- 

 ditional Notes and Hints to Persons about Building in 

 this Country, by A. J. Downing/' It was a work prepar- 

 atory to the original one he designed to publish, and full 

 of most valuable suggestions. For in every thing he was 

 American. His sharp sense of propriety as the primal 

 element of beauty, led him constantly to insist that the 

 place, and circumstances, and time, should always be care- 

 fully considered before any step was taken. The satin 

 shoe was a grace in the parlor, but a deformity in the gar- 

 den. The Parthenon was perfect in a certain climate, 

 under certain conditions, and for certain purposes. But 

 the Parthenon as a country mansion in the midst of 

 American woods and fields was unhandsome and offensive. 

 His aim in building a house was to adapt it to the site, v 

 and to the means and character of the owner. 



