more evenly. In using different kinds of wood, the raised portions,
being more exposed, may be of hard varieties, the sunken portions of
softer materials, even lath and plaster, which may be frescoed,
covered with some rich colored plain paper, or hung with violet
velvet, according to your taste and means. The old-fashioned
chair-rail seems to me a sensible institution It occupies the
debatable ground between use and beauty, and may therefore be somewhat
enriched. The plastering beneath it may be given a different tint from
that above, and when the walls are high its effect is good. It is
really carrying out the idea of panelling, to which there is hardly a
limit in the way of variety.

Some of your questions have led me a little way from the building
toward the furnishing, but I've tried to dispose of them
categorically, and am now ready for another lot.




LETTER XXX.

From Miss Jane.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND ARCHITECTURE, POTATOES AND POSTSCRIPTS.


MR. ARCHITECT: Dear Sir,--After so long an indirect acquaintance
through our mutual friends, it is quite time we were formally
introduced. Allow me to present myself: Sister Jane, spinster; native
of New England, born to idleness, bred to school-teaching; age not