The Value and Use of Simple Materials in House Building 
work in them just to the point where utility 
ends, we might realize an architectural sig¬ 
nificance impossible in our abortive attempts 
to import style and taste. Then if there 
were money left to pay for it and artists to 
do it, we might add that touch of elegance 
produced in symmetrical and forceful build¬ 
ing, by ornament. It is not that this end 
is never achieved, for it is, sporadically and 
often accidentally, through the necessity 
of economy. What I am asking you to con¬ 
sider is the desirability of the use of simple 
material through choice, not accident. 
Very little of our more important work 
is at all sketchable, and I think that much 
of the good old work was not particularly 
picturesque or beautiful until Time had 
chipped away its over nicety and mellowed 
its ornament into color and texture. But 
why should we have to wait for this mellow¬ 
ing of age when Nature has been at work 
for untold ages rounding and staining ma¬ 
terials ready to our hand ? When she would 
turn our oak and chestnut to the most inim¬ 
itable violet greys if we would hold off' our 
varnish and our paint ? The charming color 
of stone and softly blended pointing on an 
old barn wall is infinitely more attractive 
than the smug newness of our carefully 
picked quarry stone with all color and inter¬ 
est specified out of it, with which latter we 
HOW OLD AND NEW MAY TIE TOGETHER 
OLD AND NEW 
can only live in the hope that the native iron 
in it will some time rescue it from its barren¬ 
ness. But why wait, when field and hedge¬ 
row and quarry top are brimming over with 
flint and boulder, or the mellowest of iron- 
stained stone ? 
Get a stone-mason also indigenous to 
the soil, and with some interest 
in his work, and you can piece 
out your old barn walls or 
build new walls, that will drop 
into place alike with the old 
work and the landscape. 
There is a better day dawning. 
We are going back to garden¬ 
ing, which goes to show that 
Nature is being considered in 
its relation to architecture, 
and while our effort at present 
seems mainly to lie in the 
direction of torturing Nature 
into a shape to match our 
houses, still we will grow, 
and eventually architecture 
will be tamed to meet Nature 
at least half way. We are 
building cut stone English 
gardens which stand for gen¬ 
erations of landlordism and 
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