upon "art," or upon mere luxury and entertainment, without a sense of
sin.

Against so homespun a background the magnificence of the Ambersons was
as conspicuous as a brass band at a funeral. Major Amberson bought
two hundred acres of land at the end of National Avenue; and through
this tract he built broad streets and cross-streets; paved them with
cedar block, and curbed them with stone. He set up fountains, here
and there, where the streets intersected, and at symmetrical intervals
placed cast-iron statues, painted white, with their titles clear upon
the pedestals: Minerva, Mercury, Hercules, Venus, Gladiator, Emperor
Augustus, Fisher Boy, Stag-hound, Mastiff, Greyhound, Fawn, Antelope,
Wounded Doe, and Wounded Lion. Most of the forest trees had been left
to flourish still, and, at some distance, or by moonlight, the place
was in truth beautiful; but the ardent citizen, loving to see his city
grow, wanted neither distance nor moonlight. He had not seen
Versailles, but, standing before the Fountain of Neptune in Amberson
Addition, at bright noon, and quoting the favourite comparison of the
local newspapers, he declared Versailles outdone. All this Art showed
a profit from the start, for the lots sold well and there was
something like a rush to build in the new Addition. Its main
thoroughfare, an oblique continuation of National Avenue, was called
Amberson Boulevard, and here, at the juncture of the new Boulevard and
the Avenue, Major Amberson reserved four acres for himself, and built
his new house--the Amberson Mansion, of course.

This house was the pride of the town. Faced with stone as far back as
the dining-room windows, it was a house of arches and turrets and
girdling stone porches: it had the first porte-cochere seen in that
town. There was a central "front hall" with a great black walnut