VIII. 



ON THE COLOR OF COUNTRY HOUSES. 



May, 1847. 



pHARLES DICKENS, in that unlucky visit to America, in 

 \J which he was treated like a spoiled child, and left it in the 

 humor that often follows too lavish a bestowal of sugar plums on 

 spoiled children, made now and then a remark in his characteristic 

 vein of subtle perceptions. Speaking of some of our wooden vil- 

 lages the houses as bright as the greenest blinds and the whitest 

 weather-boarding can make them he said it was quite impossible 

 to believe them real, substantial habitations. They looked " as if 

 they had been put up on Saturday night, and were to be taken down 

 on Monday morning ! " 



There is no wonder that any tourist, accustomed to the quiet 

 and harmonious color of buildings in an English landscape, should 

 be shocked at the glare and rawness of many of our country dwell- 

 ings. Brown, the celebrated English landscape gardener, used to 

 say of a new red brick house, that it would " put a whole valley in a 

 fever ! " Some of our freshly painted villages, seen in a bright sum- 

 mer day, might give a man with weak eyes a fit of the oph- 

 thalmia. 



We have previously ventured a word or two against this na- 

 tional passion for white paint, and it seems to us a fitting moment 

 to look the subject boldly in the face once more. 



In a country where a majority of the houses are built of wood, 

 the use of some paint is an absolute necessity in point of economy. 

 What the colors of this paint are, we consider a matter no less im- 

 portant in point of taste. 



