heir medical attendant.

In the first place, then, a gentleman's country house (we are adverting
here to country residences alone--to those in the metropolitan haunts of
men we shall return hereafter) should be thoroughly warm. Now, of course
a man may make a fire-place as big as Soyer's great range at
Crockford's--poor dear Crocky's, before it was reformed--and he may burn
a sack of coals at a time in it; and he may have one of these in each
apartment and lobby of his house--and a pretty warm berth he will then
have of it; but it would be no thanks to his architect that he should
thus be forced to encourage his purveyor of the best Wallsend. No:
either let him see that the walls are of a good substantial
thickness--none of the thin, hollow, badly set, sham walls of the
general run of builders; but made either of solid blocks of good ashlar
stone, with well-rammed rubble between, and this rubble again laid in an
all-penetrating bed of properly sanded mortar with plenty of lime in it,
and laid on hot, piping, steaming hot, if possible--and the joints of
the stones well closed with cement or putty; or else let the walls be
made of the real red brick, the clay two years old or more, well laid in
English bond, and every brick in its own proper and distinct bed of
mortar, as carefully made as before, and the joints cemented into the
bargain. Nor let any stone wall be less than thirty-six, nor any brick
wall than thirty inches thick; whereas, if the house exceeds two stories
in height, some additional inches may yet be added to the thickness of
the lower walls. These walls shall be proof against all cold, and, if
they be not made of limestone, against wet also.

"But all this is horridly expensive! why, a house built after this
fashion would cost three times the amount of any one now erected upon
the usual specifications!" Of course it would. Materials and labour are
not to be had gratuitously; but then, if the house costs three times as
much, it will be worth three times more than what it would otherwise
fetch, and it will last more than three times as long. "But what is the
use of building for posterity? what does it matter whether the house is
a good one in the time of the next possessor but six? Why not 'run up' a
building that will have a handsome appearance in the present, my own
life-time, and if my descendant wishes for a better one and a warmer
one, why let him build another for himself? Add to which it will grow so