: but every rule has its exceptions; and,
even on these gifted personages, the affectation sits so very awkwardly,
so like a velvet bonnet on a plowman's carroty hair, that it is
evidently a late acquisition. Thus, one proprietor of land on
Windermere, who has built unto himself a castellated mansion with round
towers, and a Swiss cottage for a stable, has yet, with that admiration
of the "neat but not gaudy," which is commonly reported to have
influenced the devil when he painted his tail pea-green, painted the
rocks at the back of his house pink, that they may look clean. This is a
little outcrop of English feeling in the midst of the assumed romance.]

189. The brick house admirably corresponds with this part of English
character; for, unable as it is to be beautiful, or graceful, or
dignified, it is equally unable to be absurd. There is a proud
independence about it, which seems conscious of its entire and perfect
applicability to those uses for which it was built, and full of a
good-natured intention to render every one who seeks shelter within its
walls excessively comfortable; it therefore feels awkward in no company;
and, wherever it intrudes its good-humored red face, stares plaster and
marble out of countenance with an insensible audacity, which we drive
out of such refined company, as we would a clown from a drawing-room,
but which we nevertheless seek in its own place, as we would seek the
conversation of the clown in his own turnip-field, if he were sensible
in the main.

190. Lastly. Brick is admirably adapted for the climate of England, and
for the frequent manufacturing nuisances of English blue country: for
the smoke, which makes marble look like charcoal, and stucco like mud,
only renders brick less glaring in its color; and the inclement climate,
which makes the composition front look as if its architect had been
amusing himself by throwing buckets of green water down from the roof,
and before which the granite base of Stirling Castle is moldering into
sand as impotent as ever was ribbed by ripple, wreaks its rage in vain
upon the bits of baked clay, leaving them strong, and dry, and
stainless, warm and comfortable in their effect, even when neglect has
permitted the moss and wall-flower to creep into their crannies, and
mellow into something like beauty that which is always comfort. Damp,
which fills many stones as it would a sponge, is defied by the brick;
and the warmth of every gleam of sunshine