44 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



February, 1908 



Monthly Comment 



HE happy life is the newest mode in human 

 existence. Strange, is it not, that no one 

 ever thought of that before? And yet it 

 has taken a charming and accomplished 

 lady from worn-out Europe to tell Amer- 

 icans of something many of them thought 

 they already had. It is stranger still that 

 this most interesting of modern prophets should hail from 

 England, the land of fog and damp and rain, where 

 to be happy would seem ofttimes to be an exertion, but where, 

 because of their very climate, they may need such preach- 

 ments the most. And a good thing it is, this new gospel of 

 the happy life; for why live and not be happy? The simple 

 life has now been with us for some time, and, singularly 

 enough, seems not to have won the support such a delightful 

 idea suggested. It is, of course, most interesting to live the 

 simple life when one can live no other; but in this complicated 

 modern age it is sometimes as difficult to be simple — save 

 the mark ! — as to be complex. Even the greatest of all 

 apostles of the simple life was continually intruding into the 

 domain of the luxurious and the wealthy, while most vigor- 

 ously preaching his favorite doctrine. How, then, could less 

 strong-minded folk resist the seductions of the very life he 

 was preaching about? But to be happy is surely more general 

 and more delightful in every way. Does it make one happy 

 to dine with a chimpanzee? Nothing is easier, nowadays, 

 than to secure a thoroughly well-behaved one as a guest of 

 honor. Does one crave for a thousand horsepower auto- 

 mobile, or a dirigible balloon of one's every own? Surely 

 nothing but the shallowness of one's pocketbook prevents the 

 acquisition of such additions to one's happiness. Of course, 

 one need not go to such expense to be happy ; but it is obvious 

 that the moment one takes happiness as the chief end of life, 

 little matters like expense need not be considered. 



And why should not the happy life be the life of all of us? 

 If it is a life that needs cultivation, then by all that's happy, 

 let us cultivate it. Surely we need not try to be unhappy or 

 sad, or sordid, or uncomfortable; all of these things come 

 to most of us so quickly and so readily that if we could avoid 

 them they would be cast out of the range of human intelli- 

 gence. But to try for happiness — not elaborated, costly, 

 overdone happiness — but just such happiness as comes or 

 can come in an ordinary everyday way, and into an ordinary 

 everyday life, is a fine and wonderful thing which, 

 could it be obtained by an effort, would easily be worth any 

 effort it demanded. Happiness is not within the reach of 

 every one; there is much sorrow and sadness and trial and 

 privation in the world; but one may at least try to be happy, 

 and if the effort be not too great one may be comforted and 

 helped. Surely, it is better to look forward to a true ideal of 

 happiness in life — a right ideal — than to set before one as a 

 daily text that the world is a wilderness of sorrow and a 

 vale of tears. 



Is the modern architect the legitimate successor of the 

 ancient architect? So far as being the master mind that 

 designs and dominates the building he unquestionably is; 

 but as a matter of fact the duties required of the modern ar- 

 chitect are so exclusively modern and so tremendously varied 

 that no one now knows what an ancient architect could have 

 been like, what his duties were and how he performed them. 

 The great buildings of previous times constitute some of the 

 most precious and most remarkable monuments of human 

 intellect, for all great buildings have an intellectual value 

 apart from their constructional or physical value. The 



modern knowledge of architects is, on the whole, limited to 

 a comparatively recent period; we do not know, for a fact, 

 what the old architects did and what relationship they bore 

 to their buildings. But we can at least go back as far as the 

 Renaissance, and every one who knows anything of architec- 

 ture at all knows that the architects of that epoch left some 

 marvelous monuments behind them. Many of these Renais- 

 sance architects were men of manifold genius, workers in 

 sculpture and in gold and silver; some of them were painters; 

 scarce a one but was master of several arts, and who applied 

 his knowledge and skill in these arts to the more permanent 

 one of architecture. 



The modern architect is in a wholly different class. Of 

 art he knows only one, and that is his chosen art of archi- 

 tecture. And this, often enough, is not practiced as an art, 

 but as a business, or possibly as a profession. Many people, 

 indeed, will tell you that architects do not even understand 

 architecture, and support this monstrous statement with actual 

 examples of strange and weird things that their own archi- 

 tects have done for them or of which they have heard in the 

 case of other victims. This, however, is quite beside the 

 more general point that while the modern architect is the 

 historical successor of the ancient architect, he stands on a 

 very different platform, he is required to know many things 

 the older man never so much as dreamed of, his duties are 

 apt to be more practical than artistic, and he belongs in a 

 wholly different class. No longer does the universal genius 

 exist in architecture. The modern architect is concerned 

 with too many things, he must know too much, he must be 

 familiar with matters that he can not himself know of, in 

 that he must know enough to engage the best specialist 

 for the many specialists matters that enter into the com- 

 plicated art of modern building, which by courtesy is called 

 architecture. 



But the modern architect is slow to learn his limitations. 

 He yearns for supremacy and pants for control. He must, 

 he lays down as his first and last principle, be the Boss. Being 

 boss he takes everything into his own hands; yet he hardly 

 puts pencil to paper before he finds he must call in others — 

 men engaged in other occupations and trained in other knowl- 

 edge. So he yields his structural work to an engineer; the 

 sculpture he turns over to a sculptor; the heating and ventila- 

 tion has its own experts; even the furnishing and woodwork 

 are often designed by specialists, who bring a fine quality of 

 commercialism to their performances. Some of these things 

 are old arts, but most of them are new, and the old ones he 

 yields only by compulsion and because his own hands can not 

 do the work he must give a portion to others. But when it 

 comes to color the architect feels quite at home. He may 

 know nothing about this, and probably does not, but he never 

 lets a hint of his ignorance escape him. Color of all sorts, 

 painted decorations, frescoes and what not are applied by 

 the architect under his immediate personal supervision, and 

 often in such a way that his own name is emblazoned as the 

 author more conspicuously than the man who actually per- 

 formed the work. The result is very obvious. Color as 

 color, color as an aid to building, color as a sister art of archi- 

 tecture, color as a rational and beautiful embellishment, has 

 long since disappeared from architecture. Dull skies and 

 damp climates are somewhat brought forward as explaining 

 this situation; but the distinguished conceit of the architect, 

 in taking upon himself functions he does not understand and 

 work he can not perform, is, in many cases, the real determin- 

 ing factor in this debasement of a noble art. 



