22 
House & Garden 
ARCHITECTS AND MIRACLES 
T he great trouble with miracles is that they 
are so very clear but few of us can under¬ 
stand them. We have to call them magic. 
If I were to say that an architect can perform 
miracles, you would not believe me. But when I 
ask you to consider the architect as magician, all 
is plain. 
You may not believe that Moses smote the rock 
and water gushed forth, but you can believe that 
engineers smite rocks and oil gushes forth. You 
may question the reality of the serpent that 
twisted up Aaron's rod, but I dare you to ques¬ 
tion the reality of the green concrete vines that twine up the 
brown concrete chimneys of magical hostelries at Atlantic City. 
Now I claim that an architect is a magician of no small merit. 
Consider some of the things his T-square wand brings forth. 
Today granite lies in the shoulder of a great hill. Tomorrow it 
stands on a street corner higher than a hill, and men go there to 
labor and to play. Today the oak towers proudly in the forest 
and snatches at the hem of clouds. Tomorrow it lies humbly 
supine, a rough-hewn roof beam beneath which men dwell in 
peace and safety. Today a heap of stones and a pile of dust 
lie by the pavement. Tomorrow a green concrete vine grows 
up a brown concrete chimney. 
♦ 
M ost magicians are content with producing rabbits out of 
top hats. The architect never ceases until he can make 
commercial cathedrals out of rock-ribbed hills, homes out of stal¬ 
wart forests—and green vines out of dusty concrete. 
Ask the conjurer to do a trick, and he will pull sixteen red 
handkerchiefs out of your pocket and lay them on a table before 
you. Ask the architect to work his magic, and he will take your 
personality and crystallize it into brick and stone and wood, and 
set that image in a pleasant place. And men who pass by will 
marvel and say, “That’s just the sort of house I knew Jones 
would build. It looks like him. It has his personality. I wonder 
how he did it!’’ 
You may call this magic, mes frh'es, but I would call it a 
miracle. I would call any act a miracle whereby a man takes the 
crude things of this earth and fashions them into lasting visions 
of loveliness and strength. 
In the Gospels, the mud of the roadway was placed on a 
man’s eyes that he might see. From the same mud of common 
things are our modern visions 
granted us. 
Look on the skyline of your 
city and visualize whence 
came these towering heights 
—from the very earth you 
scuffle beneath your feet. The 
cunning of man has fashioned 
it into El Dorados, into 
earthly Sions. The architect 
has not only dreamed cities 
on a hill, he has made them 
out of a hill! 
What are rabbits hopping 
out of a top hat to compare 
with unbelievable cities grow¬ 
ing out of a rock! 
tions to come when they look upon their new 
cities and new homes. 
Again, what the magician can produce is amus¬ 
ing, but what the miracle worker produces is 
arnazing. The miracles of this world are the 
things which come to pass at a time when life 
stands in most desperate need of them, and they 
are brought forth for the sole purpose of serv¬ 
ing man. 
The steel frame building, which the demands 
of modern commercial life created, is an amaz¬ 
ing thing; the goldfish bowl that, comes out of a 
conjurer’s sleeve is only amusing—and no one really needs it. 
Sixteen red handkerchiefs coming out of your pocket will make 
you laugh, but the home that comes out of your personality will 
make you proud to be alive. Jackrabbits wriggling out of a silk 
hat will make you smack your knee . . . But where’s the 
man. I’m wondering, who can watch the growth of a city, can 
see those high towers rearing up like arms reaching to Heaven, and 
not bend his knee, thankful that miracles are still vouchsafed us? 
T 
T hat is the ditlerence 
between magic and mira¬ 
cles. The magician takes the 
extraordinary and makes it 
ordinary—we are all accus¬ 
tomed to seeing the old tricks. 
The worker of miracles takes 
the ordinary and makes it 
extraordinary. Even the 
wisest of us has no concep¬ 
tion of the wonders which will 
greet the eyes of the genera¬ 
LINES IN A GUEST BOOK 
When does man endure the Utmost? Does it come beside the 
Pole? 
As the white floe breaks asunder and the Arctic waters roll? 
And the icy hand of horror grips the marrow of your soul? 
Does it come on field of battle, tune of “Soldier Come to Me” 
When a panic strikes the column, and the rookies turn to flee? 
And the drummers die in glory for a careless world to see? 
When does the man endure the Utmost? In the tempest’s roar¬ 
ing path? 
On some shipwreck flotsam floating, while the waters work their 
wrath ? 
Giving each reluctant seaman an involuntary bath? 
Does it come in darkened sick-room, when you’re flat upon your 
back? 
When the Doctor calls the Rector and the Nurse begins to 
pack? 
And your wife has daily fittings for a dress of widow’s black? 
No—it comes in country houses as the hour draws to ten. 
And they bring their ghastly Guest-Book and a rusty, dusty pen. 
And command you to be funny. * Man endures the Utmost then. 
H. P. Riano. 
ODAY—I write as we face hostilities—the world is watch¬ 
ing a gigantic miracle performed. It is seeing an old vision 
born anew in the travail of the universe. It is listening to the 
blunt and positive language of war. On a stage vaster than the 
world has known, and with actors innumerable, an ordinary, every¬ 
day thing is being transformed into an extraordinary power. 
Five years ago, were you to speak of the sacredness of the 
home, men would smile at your simplicity. Today these same 
men have been going forth to die for the very ideals that make 
home possible. A Divine Magician has taken the whitened bones 
of these men and is building with them a new ideal. And the 
ideal is this—that the power of a people comes not from a palace 
but from tbe ordinary home, that a nation is great not because 
its king is noble but because its home life is noble. 
The home is the essence and unit of democracy. To make it 
livable and pleasant is the great democratic ideal. To make it 
safe for this generation and the generations to come is the miracle 
that is being wrought in the trenches today. 
When the war began we had arrived at a pass where—unknown 
to most of us—it was necessary that the seemingly insignificant, 
utilitarian things of life be made great and noble. The stone that 
the builders refused was sorely needed for the headstone in the 
corner. We needed to make 
the role of women more free, 
we needed to simplify the rites 
of eating and drinking, we 
needed to make the fabric of 
the home a lasting boon to 
generations. And we who 
looked for mere magic are 
seeing a miracle performed— 
the ideal of tomorrow will be 
the ideal of the home. Only 
on the foundation of this home 
can the lasting superstructure 
of goodly custom be erected. 
T his sort of magic may 
seem a far cry from that 
whereby an architect grows 
concrete vines up a concrete 
chimney. But not so far as 
you may think. For the mira¬ 
cles of tomorrow will be mira¬ 
cles that serve to make life 
more livable, the home more 
pleasant to be in and more 
pleasant to behold. 
It will transform the cottage 
of the average man into the 
palace of a new race of 
kings. 
