VI 
THING is more characteristic 
of American country-houses, as 
contrasted with those of other 
northern lands, than their large 
covered piazzas. These have been devel- 
oped in answer to as distinct and imperative 
a national need as ever determined the gene- 
sis of an architectural feature. Our colonial 
ancestors did without piazzas, for their hab- 
its of living and their architectural schemes 
were alike imported from England and Hol- 
land ; and amid a strenuous people, occupied 
with sterner problems than how to live most 
agreeably, it was naturally some time before 
that gradual modification of habits which is 
inevitably brought about at last by new cli- 
matic influences could express itself in archi- 
tectural language. No early colonial house 
had anything that resembled a piazza. If 
we find one attached to such a house to-day, 
it is an addition of later date — as is the case 
123 
