The Artist 
content with less than twenty-five per cent. ; 
often though they may exceed their esti- 
mates, it is rarely to the amount of fifty per 
cent., unless the client himself is very seri- 
ously at fault. Vitruvius thought twenty- 
five per cent, strict measure for the architect. 
Modern communities would regard it as hard 
measure for the client. And so may we not 
feel that nineteen centuries have improved 
the architect more than the client, and that 
it especially behooves the latter to look to his 
own heart ? 
If you are not a client but a working 
amateur, then you can plan and begin, re- 
consider and change, pay and pay again, 
with no one but yourself to blame. But you 
should still cultivate your artistic conscience. 
You should try to plan so carefully that you 
will not need to change, and so well that 
you will never grudge the cost. 
The wise Goethe tells you how not to 
work in one passage of that charming ac- 
count of a landscape-gardening enterprise 
which occurs in his “Elective Affinities.” 
As a rule, he says, the amateur cares more 
381 
