268 OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES. 



spreading buildings, typical of a quiet life, and of a 

 country abundance that came by peaceful labor. 



There are robber classes in our day, and they live 

 (many of them) in tall houses ; so do a great many 

 honest people, for that matter. In fact a great fault 

 of our country architecture lies in its being too am- 

 bitious : it has indeed come out from that old hid- 

 eous conventionalism of two stories, white clap-boards 

 and green blinds ; but it still seeks to startle with 

 something grand something that shall tell a noisy 

 brazen story at the first glance. Yet a fit house 

 and home fit for its belongings fit in size, in color, 

 in outline (like a man of wholly fit character) should 

 win upon you by degrees, charming you at each suc- 

 ceeding look by some" rare and modest beauties, 

 which are the more attractive because found only 

 after intelligent search. A great, gaunt, cumbrous 

 exterior tells all its story at a glance : you may study 

 it curiously in search of details, but there is no hearty 

 interest in the study. But a humbler line of roof, so 

 humble that we catch sight bit by bit of its peeping 

 gables, its jutting porches, its low flanking line of 

 offices half hid by shrubbery and half warmed by a 

 blaze of sunlight this, somehow, by a certain relishy 

 smack of domesticity belonging to its vague indis- 

 tinguishable outline and scattered chimney-stacks, 

 piques all the home-feeling in a man. 



