Piazzas 



shed -encircled boxes which preceded them. 

 And they are, perhaps, even more distressing 

 to the mind ; for the old house had at least 

 the merit of frank simplicity, while the new 

 one has often the great demerit of seeming a 

 labored effort after as much eccentricity as 

 possible. Yet, taking good and bad to- 

 gether, the general improvement which has 

 marked our architecture in recent years can 

 nowhere be more clearly read than in our 

 country-homes. And it is a most significant 

 proof of the genuine, \utal, and promising 

 character of our progress that these homes 

 should have been so greatly improved, not 

 through imitation of foreign models, but 

 through the development of indigenous 

 fashions, and the incorporation — despite 

 difficulties which might perhaps have been 

 thought insuperable — of the ^ ' vernacular ' ' 

 piazza. 



135 



