WAY-SIDE HINTS. 103 



Notwithstanding all this, I venture to plead for a 

 wholesome severity of taste ; if simple material is to 

 be dealt with, it should be dealt with simply. If we 

 have a homely old-style house to modify and render 

 attractive, do not let us make its modification a 

 mockery by the blazon of Chinese scroll-work. There 

 is a way of dealing with what is old, in keeping with 

 what is old, and of dealing with what is homely, in 

 keeping with what is homely. A sensible middle- 

 aged lady of the old school, if she have occasion to 

 present herself afresh in society, and assert her pre- 

 rogatives once more, will not surely do so by tying 

 tow-bags at the back of her head and widening her 

 skirts indecorously. But she will bring her old man- 

 ner with her, and so equip the old manner by the 

 devices of a judicious art that we shall wonder and 

 admire in spite of ourselves. 



In illustration of my views about homely porches, 

 I venture to give upon the next page a rough drawing 

 of one of the plainest conceivable. It is a sort of cross 

 between the Dutch stoop and the lumbering rooflet 

 which in old times overhung many a doorway of a 

 New England farm-house. It offers shelter and rest ; 

 it is in no way pretentious ; it declares its character 

 at a glance ; you cannot laugh at it for any air of 

 assumption that it carries; you can find no such 

 shapen thing in any of the architectural books. 



