architecture consists in the acceptance of any particular form
sanctioned by precedent.]

Let us see if we can apply the same kind of process of evolving
expression in regard to a building. We will take again the very simplest
form of building (Fig. 10), a square house with a door in the center and
uniform rows of windows. There cannot be said to be any architectural
expression in this. There is no base or plinth at all, no treatment of
the wall. The slight projection at the eaves is only what is necessary
to keep the rain from running down the walls, and facilitate the
emptying of the gutters, and the even spacing of the windows is
essential for constructive reasons, to keep the masses of wall over each
other, and keep the whole in a state of equally balanced pressure. The
first thing we should do in endeavoring to give some expression to the
building would be to give it a base or plinth (Fig. 11), and to mark
that and the cornice a little more decidedly by mouldings and a line of
paneling at the plinth.

[Illustration: Figs. 10 and 11]

The house being obviously in three stories, we should give it some echo
externally of this division into horizontal stages by horizontal
mouldings, or what are called in architectural phraseology "string
courses," not necessarily exactly at the floor levels, but so as to
convey the idea of horizontal division; observing here, as in the case
of the wall and column, that we should take care not to divide the
height into equal parts, which is very expressionless. In this case we
will keep the lower string close down on the ground floor windows, and
keep these rather low, thus showing that the ground floor apartments are
not the most important; while the fact that the first floor ones are so