Piazzas 



more beauty and more fitness too ; and, in 

 fact, widely as we have departed from the 

 plain, box - like house in recent years, our 

 best new country houses are, in many re- 

 spects, developed from them, and most 

 notably so as regards the constant presence 

 of the piazza. Considerations of sentiment 

 and art excuse and make good its absence 

 to the owner of an old colonial house ; but 

 when a new house is desired it is a clearly 

 recognized necessity, even though some 

 colonial scheme may be closely followed in 

 other respects. Only in very rare cases do 

 w^e see piazzas dispensed with by owners 

 who care more for the odd pleasure of 

 copying with exactness an inappropriate 

 foreign model than for building themselves 

 really comfortable homes. 



Certainly no really comfortable country 

 home can exist in our land without a piazza. 

 Even on our most northerly borders the heat 

 of our summer atmosphere and the strengtlT 

 of our sunshine make exercise in the open 

 air, to the extent to which it is practiced in 

 England, for example, a sheer impossibility. 

 Nor, for similar reasons, could we sit with 



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