Art Out-of-Doors 



To-day the most general custom is to set the 

 house well back from the street, leaving room 

 in front for a lawn with trees and shrubs, and 

 in the rear for a fruit or vegetable garden, 

 and often a stable. 



This arrangement, consistently followed, 

 is certainly the best as regards the aspect of 

 the street itself, giving it breadth and dig- 

 nity and a pleasing combination of natural 

 and architectural features. And it is proba- 

 bly the best, too, as regards the comfort and 

 pleasure of the average modern owner, for, 

 while it removes his windows from immedi- 

 ate contact with the street, it permits him 

 still to take a contemplative part in the life 

 of the town, over a foreground green and 

 pleasant to the eye; and this privilege is 

 more valued by the average American than 

 by the average Englishman, while he has 

 not the Englishman's feeling that, to enjoy 

 his own private share of Nature's beauty, 

 he must carefully seclude it from the eyes of 

 others. Colonial builders were English by 

 near descent if not by birth, and their archi- 

 tectural arrangements express the fact, being 

 fitted to English modes of feeling and of hv- 



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