The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 60, October, 1862

It is not that our builders are degenerate, but that their art is a trade, occupies only their hands, not their minds, and this by no fault in them or in anybody, but by the natural progress of the world. In each age by turn some one mental organ is in a state of hypertrophy; immediately that becomes the medium of expression,—not that it is the only possible or even the best, but that its time has come,—then it gives place to another. Architecture is dead and gone to dust long ago. We are not called upon to sing threnodies over it, still less to attempt to galvanize a semblance of life into it. If we must blame somebody, let it not be the builder, but his employers, who, caring less even than he for the reality of good architecture, (for the material itself teaches him something,) force him into these puerilities in order to gratify their dissolute fancies.

If these views seem to any one low and prosaic, let me remind him that poetry does not differ from prose in being false. We must respect the facts. If there were in this country any considerable number of persons to whom the buildings they daily enter had any positive permanent value besides convenience,—who looked upon the church, the bank, or the house, as upon a poem or a statue,—the birth of a national architecture would be assured. But as the fact stands, while utility, and that of a temporary and makeshift sort, is really the first consideration, we are not yet ready to acknowledge this to others or to ourselves, and so fail to get from it what negative advantage we might, but blunder on under some fancied necessity, spending what we can ill spare, to the defrauding of legitimate demands, as a sort of sin-offering for our aesthetic deficiency, or as a blind to conceal it. The falsehood, like all falsehood, defeats itself; the pains we take only serve to make the failure more complete.

This is displayed most fully in the doings of "Building Committees." Here we see what each member (perhaps it would be more just to say the least judicious among them) would do in his own case, were he free from the rude admonitions of necessity. He has at least to live in his own house, and so cannot escape some attention to the substantial requirements of it; though some houses, too, seem emancipated from such considerations, and to have been built for any end rather than to live in. But in catering for the public, it is the outsiders alone that seem to be consulted, the careless passer-by, who for once will pause a moment to commend or to sneer at the façade,—not the persons whose lives for years, perhaps, are to be affected by the internal arrangement. It is doubtless from a suspicion, more or less obscure, of the incoherency of their purpose, that such committees usually fall into the hands of a "practical man,"—that is, a man impassive to principles, of hardihood or bluntness of perception enough to carry into effect their vague fancies, and spare them from coming face to face with their inconsistencies. Thus fairly adrift and kept adrift from the main purpose, there is no vagary impossible to them,—churches in which there is no hearing, hospitals contrived to develop disease, museums of tinder, libraries impossible to light or warm. And what gain comes to beauty from these sacrifices, let our streets answer. Good architecture requires before all things a definite aim, long persisted in. It never was an invention, anywhere, but always a gradual growth. What chance of that here?

The only chance clearly is to cut away till we come to the solid ground of real, not fancied, requirement. As long as it is our whims, and not our necessities, that build, it matters little how much pains we take, how learned and assiduous we are. I have no hope of any considerable advantage from the abundant exhortation to frankness and genuineness in the use of materials, unless it lead first of all to a more frank and genuine consideration of the occasion for using the materials at all. If it lead only to open timber roofs and stone walls in place of the Renaissance stucco, I think the gain very questionable. The stucco is more comfortable, and at least we had got used to it. These are matters of detail: suppose your details are more genuine, if the whole design is a sham, if the aim be only to excite the admiration of bystanders, the thing is not altered, whether the bystanders are learned in such matters or ignorant. The more excellent the work is in its kind, the more insidious and virulent the falsity, if the whole occasion of it be a pretence. If it must be false, let it by all means be gross and glaring,—we shall be the sooner rid of it.

It may be asked whether, then, I surrender the whole matter of appearance,—whether the building may as well be ugly as beautiful. By no means; what I have said is in the interest of beauty, as far as it is possible to us. Positive beauty it may be often necessary to forego, but bad taste is never necessary. Ugliness is not mere absence of beauty, but absence of it where it ought to be present. It comes always from a disappointed expectation,—as where the lineaments that do not disgust in the potato meet us in the human face, or even in the hippopotamus, whom accordingly Nature kindly puts out of sight. It is bad taste that we suffer from,—not plainness, not indifference to appearance, but features misplaced, shallow mimicry of "effects" where their causes do not exist, transparent pretences of all kinds, forcing attention to the absence of the reality, otherwise perhaps unnoticed. The first step toward seemly building is to rectify the relation between the appearance and the uses of the building,—to give to each the weight that it really has with us, not what we fancy or are told it ought to have. Mr. Ruskin too often seems to imply that fine architecture is like virtue or the kingdom of Heaven: that, if it be sought first, all other things will be added. A sounder basis for design, beyond what is necessary to use, seems to me that proposed by Mr. Garbett, (to whom we are indebted for the most useful hints upon architecture,) namely, politeness, a decent regard for the eyes of other people (and for one's own, for politeness regards one's self as well). Politeness, however, as Mr. Garbett admits, is chiefly a negative art, and consists in abstaining and not meddling. The main character of the building being settled by the most unhesitating consideration of its uses, we are to see that it disfigures the world as little as possible.

Let me, at the risk of tediousness, proceed to bring these generalities to a point by a few instances,—not intending to exhaust the topic, but only to exemplify the method of approaching it.

The commonest case for counsel, and more common here than anywhere else, is where a man is to build for himself a house, especially in the country,—for town-houses are more governed by extraneous considerations. The first point is the aspect,—that the living-rooms be well open to the sun. Let no fancied advantages of view or of symmetrical position interfere with this. For they operate seldom and strike most at first, but the aspect tells on body and mind every day. It is astonishing how reckless people are of this vital point, suffering it to be determined for them by the direction of a road, or even of a division-fence,—as if they had never looked at their houses with their own eyes, but only with the casual view of a stranger. It does not follow, however, that the entrance must be on the sunny side, though this is generally best, as the loss of space in the rooms is more than made up by the cheeriness of the approach. For the same reason, unless you are sailing very close to the wind, let your entrance-hall be roomy. It is in no sense an unproductive outlay, for it avails above in chambers, and below in the refuge it affords to the children from the severer rules of the parlor.

As to number and distribution of rooms, the field is somewhat wide. Here the differences of income, of pursuits, and the idiosyncrasies of taste come in; and more than all, not only are the circumstances originally different, but constantly varying. I speak not of the fluctuations of fortune, but of normal and expected changes. The young couple, or the old, are easily lodged. But in middle life,—since we are not content, like our forefathers, with bestowing our children out of sight,—it takes a great deal of room to provide for them on both floors, without either neglect or oppression, and to keep up the due oversight without sacrificing ourselves or them. For children are rather exclusive, and spoil for other use more room than they occupy. Here I counsel every man who must have a corner to himself to fix his study in the attic, for the only way to avoid noise without wasteful complication is to be above it.

The smallest house must provide some escape from the dining-room. If dining-room and sitting-room are on the sunny side, and the entrance be also on that side, they will be separated, as indeed they always may be, without loss. The notion that the rooms must immediately connect is one of those whims to which houses are sacrificed. The only advantage is the facility for receiving company. But if the occasions when the guests will be too many for one room are likely to be frequent, rather than permanently spoil the living-room, it is better to set apart rooms for reception. Our position in this matter is in truth rather embarrassing. Formerly (and the view is not yet wholly obsolete) the whole house was a reception-hall, the domestic life of the inmates being a secondary matter, swept into some corner, such as the cells of the mediaeval castles or the mezzanino of the Italian palaces. But the austere aspect of the shut-up "best parlor" of our grandfathers, with its closed blinds and chilly chintz covers, showed that the tables were beginning to turn, and the household to assert its rights and civilly to pay off the guest for his usurpations. Henceforth he is welcome, but he is secondary; it was not for him that the house was built; and if it comes to choosing, he can be dispensed with. It would be very agreeable to unite with all the new advantages all the old,—the easy hospitality, the disengaged suavity of the ancient manners. Now the brow of the host is clouded, he has too much on his mind to play his part perfectly. It is not that good-will is wanting, but that life is more complicated. The burdens are more evenly distributed, and no class is free and at leisure. But to fret over our disadvantages, and to extol the past, is only to ignore the price that was paid for those advantages we covet. There was always somebody to sweat for that leisure. Would a society divided into castes be better? Or again, who would like to have his children sleep three in a bed, and live in the kitchen, in order that the best rooms should always be swept and garnished for company?

In every case, unless a man is rich enough to have two houses in one, it comes to choice between domestic comfort and these occasional facilities. Direct connection of rooms usually involves the sacrifice of the chimney-corner, on one or both sides; for it is not pleasant to sit in a passage-way, even if it be rarely used. For use in cold weather the available portion of a room may be reckoned as limited by the door nearest the fireplace.

It will be noticed that this supposes the use of open fireplaces. The open fireplace is not a necessary of life, but it is one of the first luxuries, and one that no man who can afford to eat meat every day can afford to dispense with. No furnace can supply the place of it; for, though the furnace is an indispensable auxiliary in severe cold, and though, well managed, it need not vitiate the air, yet, like all contrivances for supplying heated air instead of heat, it has the insurmountable defect of not warming the body directly, nor until all the surrounding air be warmed first, and thus stops the natural reaction and the brace and stimulus derived from it. Used exclusively, it amounts to voluntarily incurring the disadvantage of a tropical climate.

Let the walls of the second story be upright. The recent fashion of a mansard or "French roof" is only making part of the wall of the house look like roof, at equal expense, at the sacrifice of space inside, and above all, of tightness. For, though shingles and even slates will generally keep out the rain, the innumerable cracks between the sides of them can never be made air-tight, and therefore admit heat and cold much more freely than any proper wall-covering. A covering of metal would be too good a conductor of external temperature,—while clapboarding would endanger the resemblance to a roof, which is the only gain proposed.

As to the size of the house, it is important to observe that its cost does not depend so much upon the size of the rooms (within reasonable limits) as upon the number of them, the complication of plan, and the number of doors and windows. For every door or window you can omit you may add three or four feet to your house. The height of the stories will be governed by the area of the largest rooms;—what will please each person depends very much upon what he is used to. In the old New-England houses the stories were very low, often less than eight feet in the best rooms. In favor of low rooms it is to be remembered that they are more easily lighted and warmed, and involve less climbing of stairs. Rooms are often made lofty under the impression that better ventilation is thereby secured; but there is a confusion here. A high room is less intolerable without ventilation, the vitiated air being more diluted; but a low room is usually more easily ventilated, because the windows are nearer the ceiling.

Mr. Garbett advises that the windows be many and small. This costs more; and if it be understood to involve placing the windows on different sides, the effect, I think, will be generally less agreeable than where the room is lighted wholly from one side. A capital exception, however, is the dining-room, which should always, if possible, abound in cross-lights; else one half the table will be oppressed by a glare of light, and the other visible only in silhouette.

As to material, stone is the handsomest, and the only one that constantly grows handsomer, and does not require that your creepers should be periodically disturbed for painting or repairs. But this is perhaps all that can be said in its favor. To make a stone house as good as a wooden one we must build a wooden one inside of it. Wood is our common material, and there is none better, if we take the pains to make it tight. There is a prevalent notion that it is the thinness of our cheap wooden houses that makes them pervious to heat and cold. But no wooden house, unless built of solid and well-fitted logs, could resist the external temperature by virtue of thickness. It is tightness that tells here. Wherever air passes, heat and cold pass with it. What is important, therefore, is, by good contrivance and careful execution, to stop all cracks as far as possible. For this, an outside covering of sheathing-felt, or some equivalent material, may be recommended, and especially a double plastering inside,—not the common "back-plastering," but two separate compact surfaces of lime and sand, inside the frame.

The position, the internal arrangement, and the material being determined upon, the next point is that the structure shall be as little of an eyesore as we can make it. Do what we will, every house, as long as it is new, is a standing defiance to the landscape. In color, texture, and form, it disconnects itself and resists assimilation to its surroundings. The "gentle incorporation into the scenery of Nature," that Wordsworth demands, is the most difficult point to effect, as well as the most needful. This makes the importance of a background of trees, of shrubs, and creepers, and the uniting lines of sheds, piazzas, etc., mediating and easing off the shock which the upstart mass inflicts upon the eye. Hence Sir Joshua Reynolds's rule for the color of a house, to imitate the tint of the soil where it is to stand. Hence the advantage of a well-assured base and generally of a pyramidal outline, because this is the figure of braced and balanced equilibrium, assured to all natural objects by the slow operation of natural laws, which we must take care not to violate in our haste, unless for due cause shown.

We hear much of the importance of proportions, but the main point generally is that the house be not too high. This is the most universal difficulty, particularly in small houses, the area being diminished, but not the height of stories. In this respect the old farm-houses had a great advantage, and this is a main element in their good effect,—aided as it is by the height of the roof; for a high roof will often make a building seem lower than it would with a low roof or none at all. The dreary effect of the flat-roofed houses in the neighborhood of New York is due partly to the unrelieved height, and partly to the unfinished or truncated appearance of a thing without a top. The New York fashion gives, no doubt, the most for the money; but the effect is so offensive that I think it justifies us for once in violating Mr. Garbett's canon and sacrificing efficiency to taste.

The most pleasing shape of roof, other things being equal, is the pyramidal or hipped, inclining from all sides towards the centre. The drawback is, that, if it must be pierced by windows, their lines will stick off from the roof, so that, as seen from below, they will be violently detached from the general mass. The good taste of the old builders made them avoid putting dormer-windows (at least in front) in roofs of one pitch; the windows were in the gables, carried out for this purpose; or if dormers were necessary, they made a mansard or double-pitched roof, in which the windows are less detached. Another excellent feature in the old New-England farm-houses is the long slope of the roof behind, and, in general, the habit of roofing porches, dormers, sheds, and other projections by continuing the main roof over them, with great gain to breadth and solidity of effect.

In fact, were it possible, we could not do better for the outside than to take these old houses for our model. But here, as everywhere, we find the outside depends on the inside, and that what we most admire in them will conflict with the new requirements. For instance, the massive central chimney and the expanse on the ground point to the kitchen as the common living-room of the family; they are irreconcilable with our need of more chambers and of the possibility of more separation above and below. The later and more ambitious houses, such as were built in the neighborhood of Boston at the beginning of the century, come nearer to our wants; but they sacrifice too much to a cut-and-dried symmetry to be of much use to us. After that the way is downward through one set of absurdities after another, until of late some signs of more common-sense treatment begin to be visible.

The way out of this quagmire is first of all to avoid confusion of aim. What is this that we are building? If it is a monument, let us seek only to make it beautiful. But if it is a house, let us always keep in mind that the appearance of it, being really secondary, must be seen to have been held so throughout. Else we shall not, in the long run, escape bad taste. Bad taste is not mere failure, but failure to do something which ought not to have been attempted. For instance, among the most frequent occasions for deformity in modern houses are the dormers, the windows that rise above the roof. In the Gothic buildings these are among the most attractive features. The reason is that the tendency of the outline to detach itself from the mass of the building furnishes to the Gothic a culminating point for the distinct legitimate aim at beauty of expression that pervades the whole; but to the modern builder, whose aim, as regards expression, should be wholly negative, it is at best an embarrassment, and often a snare.

The chief obstacle to a rational view of the present position of architecture comes from the number of clever men who devote their lives to putting a good face on our absurdities, and by all sorts of tricks and sophistries in wood and stone prevent us from seeing our conduct in its proper deformity. They dazzle and bewilder us with beauties plucked at haphazard from all times and ages,—as much forgeries as any that men are hanged for,—and then, when the cheat begins to peep through, they fool us again with pretences of thoroughness, consistency of style, genuineness in the use of materials, etc., as if the danger were in the execution, and not in the main intention. So they fool us for a while longer, and we praise their fine doings, and even persuade ourselves there is something liberal and ennobling in their influence. But we tire at last of these exotics. A million of them is not worth one of those sober flowers of homely growth where use has by chance, as it were, blossomed into beauty. This is the only success in that kind that can be hoped for in our day. But it must come of itself; it cannot be had for the seeking, nor if sought for its own sake. The active competition that goes on in our streets is not the way to it, unless negatively, by way of disgust and exhaustion. For some help, meantime, I commend the opinion of an architect of my acquaintance, who said the highest compliment he ever received was from a drover, who could not account for it that "he had passed that way so often and never seen that old house." Nobody expects his house will be beautiful, do what he will; why pay for the certainty of failure? Not to be conspicuous, and, to that end, to respect the plain fundamental rules of statics, of good construction, of harmonious color, and to resist sacrificing any solid advantage to show, these are our safest rules at present.

MR. AXTELL

PART III

The twilight was almost gone on the Saturday night when I went back to the grave, solemn house. There was no one dead in it now. It was the first time that I had approached it without the abyss of shadow under its roof. A little elasticity came back to me. Kino came out to give his welcome: we had become friendly. Katie let me in.

"Perhaps you'd choose to wait down-stairs a bit," she said; "Mr. Abraham's getting his tea up in Miss Lettie's room."

She lighted the lamp, and left me. After my two explorations in unknown realms,—the one voluntary, looking at the painting on the wall, the other involuntary, looking at a human soul in sorrow,—I resolved to shut my eyes to all that they ought not to see; and therefore I stationed myself in the green glade of a chair, and very properly decided that the only thing I would look at should be the fire. What I might see there surely could offend no one, unless it were the deity of Coal,—and Redleaf was not near any carboniferous group.

Peculiar were the forms the fire took an elfish pleasure in assuming. Little blue flames came up into atmospheric life, through the rending fissures where so many years of ages they had been pent into the very blackness of darkness; and as they gained their freedom, they gave tiny, crackling shouts of liberty. "We're free! we're free!" they smally cried; and I wondered if a race, buried as deeply in the strata of races as these bits of burning coal had been in the geologic periods of earth, could utter such cries.

The fire grew, the liberty paeans ceased. Deep opaline content burned lambescent amid the coals. Ashy cinders fell from the grate slowly, slumberously, as the one dead, that very afternoon buried, had gone to rest, in the night-time, when the household was asleep, without any one to hold her hand whilst she took the first step in the surging sea of river. Yes, she died alone,—"in the heart of the night," Dr. Eaton said it must have been "that the bridegroom came." Had she oil in her lamp? What was she like? Like her son Abraham, or her daughter Lettie? I tried to paint her face as it must have been. It is darker still in that grave where she lies than was the night wherein she died. Miss Lettie was right: they have a fathom of earth over her,—there's not one glimmer of light down there. When I am buried, won't some one shut in one little sun-ray with me, that I may see to feel the gloom?

I looked down upon the gravelly earth lying above her, as I had looked across at it when I left the parsonage at night fall, and passed by the church-yard. All the while, my eyes were in the depths of the fire. I went down through stone and soil to the coffin there. All was unutterable blackness. I put out my hand to feel. It was a cold, marbleized face that my warm, living fingers wandered over. I touched the forehead: it was very stony, granite-like,—not a woman's forehead. The eyes were large,—I felt them under the half-closed lids. The mouth—Yes, Miss Lettie was right. Love for Abraham had covered up this mother-love for her. And confession unto her dead was, it must have been, better than unto her living. The answer would have been much the same.