weather-tight, and with a decent neatness, but without much care
that the house should be solid and enduring,--for it cannot well be
so flimsy as not to outlast the owner's needs. He does not look to
it as the habitation of his children,--hardly as his own for his
lifetime,--but as a present shelter, easily and quickly got ready,
and as easily plucked up and carried off again. The common-law of
England looks upon a house as real estate, as part of the soil; but
with us it is hardly a fixture.

Surely nothing can be more simple and common-sense than an ordinary
New England house, but at the same time nothing can be uglier. The
outline, the material, the color and texture of the surface are at
all points opposed to breadth of effect or harmony with the
surroundings. There is neither mass nor elegance; there are no lines
of union with the ground; the meagre monotony of the lines of
shingles and clapboards making subdivisions too small to be
impressive, and too large to be overlooked,--and finally, the paint,
of which the outside really consists, thrusting forward its chalky
blankness, as it were a standing defiance of all possibility of
assimilation,--all combine to form something that shall forever
remain a blot in the landscape.

Evidently it is not merely a more common-sense treatment that we want;
for here is sufficient simplicity, but a simplicity barren of all
satisfaction. And singularly enough, it seems, with all its
meagreness, to pass easily into an ostentatious display. In these
houses there is no thought of "architecture"; that is considered as
something quite apart, and not essential to the well-building of the
house. But for this very reason matters are not much changed when
the owner determines to spend something for looks. The house remains