From the Architect.

THE STRENGTH AND DURABILITY OF BRICK.


My dear John: It is encouraging to know that my suggestions find some
favor in your sight. Pray don't go too fast. It isn't well to make up
our minds fully until we have heard all sides, lest we have them to
unmake, which is always more or less painful.

Notwithstanding the peculiar merits of the stone walls, the coming
house,--the house that is to embody all the comforts and amenities of
civilized life,--the house of safe and economic construction, well
warmed, well ventilated, defiant alike of flood, frosty and
fire,--the millennial house, if you please, will doubtless be a brick
one. Don't be alarmed. I know just what vision rises before your
mind's eye as you read this. A huge square edifice; windows very high
from the ground, not very large, square tops, frame and sash painted
white; expressionless roof; flat, helpless chimneys perched upon the
outer walls, the course of their flues showing in a crooked stain; at
the back side a most humiliated-looking wooden attachment, somewhat
unhinged as to its doors and out at the elbows as to its windows,
evidently hiding behind the pile of brick and mortar that tries to
look dignified and grand, but only succeeds in making a great red blot
on the landscape; all the while you know the only homelike portion of
the establishment is in the wooden rear part. The front rooms are dark
and gloomy, the paper hangings are mouldy, the closets musty and
damp; there is a combined smell of creosote and whitewash pervading
the chambers, and the ceilings hang low. I don't wonder you object to