Roads and Paths 



ing. They lived in their houses or in their 



gardens : vrhen their descendants introduced 

 the piazza it marked a compromise in liabits, 

 eminently expressive of the less reticent so- 

 cial spirit Avhich had developed in America, 

 and of the peculiarities of the American cli- 

 mate. A house set well back from the road, 

 possessing a piazza where its inhabitants 

 could pass their leisure hours, protected from 

 the sun and screened from too inquisitive 

 passing eyes, became the rule ; a house with 

 its principal rooms on the front, not on the 

 back as in colonial cities, and, naturally, 

 with its garden lying between these rooms 

 and the street. 



"We may accept this arrangement, then, as 

 the typical one for an American villa, and 

 pass to the question, "Where should the main 

 doorway be placed? With a villa, even 

 more than with a true country house, this is 

 a vital question, for the smaller one's grounds, 

 the more need there is that every inch of 

 them shall be made available for beauty. 



From the architect's point of view it may 

 seem almost incontestably best to put the 



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