arm: build a
tight room, keep it shut up, set a box stove in the middle of it, and
blaze away. A ton of anthracite or a cord of hickory will keep you
warm all winter, especially if you die before spring, as you probably
will. I know how to have fresh air too: open the windows and let it
blow; but unless a man lives down in a coalmine he can't well afford
to keep warm under such circumstances.

I believe this question is the chief concern of builders here below,
and whoever invents an economical solution of it will not only make a
fortune, but he'll deserve one. Why don't you go for it?

Yours,
JOHN

LETTER XXXVIII.

From the Architect.

WHEN THE DOCTORS DIFFER.

DEAR JOHN: Your economical reasons for using shingles would justify
cheap jewelry and rag carpets. Try to be consistent. I should object
to slate on a log-barn or shingles on a stone-house. I hope you
furnished your honest carpenter with a stout jack-knife, and required
him not only to lay the shingles right side up, but to lay the upper
ends close together, leaving them apart at the butt. Gutters are
troublesome truly, but often indispensable; there is no resource but
to have them thoroughly made. Poor ones are worse than none. Those
that hang independently of the cornice are safest for cheaper
buildings, but should be treated as an essential feature; that is, you
should not complete the cornice without a gutter and afterwards
disfigure it by a sloping spout having no apparent kinship to the rest
of the finish.

The problem of warming and ventilating is easily solved for those who
desire its solution sufficiently to make the necessary appropriations.
One quarter of what is commonly spent for vanity and deceit will be
ample. Most men and women, at least the unthinking, prefer fashionable
show rather than health! A fearful statement, but sadly true. There is
doubtless more danger from impure air than from cold. Our senses warn
us quickly of the latter; the prompting of knowledge is needed to
guard us against the former,--of a practical knowledge unfortunately
rare. Men, women, and children are dying daily through ignorance and
indifference on this subject. There is hardly a school-house to be
found in which the murder of the innocents is not continually
rehearsed, hardly a church in which the spiritual elevation resulting
from attendance therein is not counterbalanced by an equal physical
depression, and rarely a hall or lecture-room wherein an