in order for me to express to Sister Jane my
approval of any young man who is willing to begin life on a small
scale, undertaking no more than he can do honestly and well, yet with
ambitious forethought providing for future increase? You seem to be
slightly in error upon this point. I have not said you must build your
house without any regard to the exterior, or intimated that it would
even be right to do so. I only protest against building for the sake
of the exterior,--against sacrificing thoroughness and interior
comfort to outside display,--against using labor and material in such
fashion that they are worse than thrown away, their whole result being
false and tasteless,--against every kind of ostentation and humbug.
The truth is, we have all gone astray, literally, like sheep. We
follow, for no earthly reason than because some one, not a whit wiser
than we, happens to have rushed blindly in a certain direction.

"Of domestic architecture what need is there to speak! How small, how
cramped, how poor, how miserable in its petty meanness, is our best!
How beneath the mark of attack and the level of contempt, that which
is common with us!"

Thus Mr. Ruskin on the domestic architecture of England. What would
that merciless critic say, or rather what profundity of silence would
he employ to express his opinion, of ours? It will be well for him and
for us if he holds to his resolve never to visit America. This servile
spirit of imitation, blind following of blind guides, is by no means
confined to the outsides of our houses; it not only penetrates the
interiors, but more or less influences all our affairs. Charge me with
a professional interest if you will, I assure you no man can, in
justice to himself or the community, build a house for his own use
just like any other. He must attempt something better adapted to his
needs and tastes than that can be which precisely suits some one else.
If he can give no better reason for building as he builds, for
furnishing as he furnishes, for living and thinking as he lives and
thinks, than that another has done so before him, he may serve for the
shadow of a man, but will never make the substance. Eastlake, another
English authority, refers to continental cities and villages "the
first glimpse of which is associated with a sense of eye-pleasure
which is utterly absent in our provincial towns." And then, to drain
the dregs of our humiliation, we are asked by his American editor to