regard to the style of architecture (or lack of it) in our prospective
neighbors' houses.

There have been two extremes in later American home
architecture--overornamentation and absolute disregard for appearance.
The first arose from a feeling that every dollar spent in the interest
of art (!) should be so gewgawed to the outer world that all who passed
might note the costliness and wonder. The second extreme had its birth
in an elementary practicality that believes anything artistic must be
both extravagant and useless.

None of us can afford to build a house merely for its artistic
qualities. Yet we feel that we owe it to our neighbors and to the
community to make the house sightly. Most of all, we owe it to
ourselves, for the product of our plans will be the concrete expression
of our personality. Fortunately showiness is neither necessary nor
desirable; while artistic qualities are not so much a matter of money
as of thought. A few days ago, in a suburb of a Western city, I passed
two houses recently constructed. One was simply an enlarged drygoods
box with a few windows and doors broken into its sides--altogether a
hideous disfigurement to the charming spot on which it was erected.
Across the way stood the other cottage, with the same number of rooms
as its _vis-à-vis_, but really exquisite in its simple beauty. And the
latter, I was told, though equally spacious, cost less than the
monstrosity across the way! Into the one, there was put thought; into
the other none. Can we resist an opinion as to which home will be
happier?