f approaching it.

The commonest case for counsel, and more common here than anywhere else,
is where a man is to build for himself a house, especially in the
country,--for town-houses are more governed by extraneous
considerations. The first point is the _aspect_,--that the living-rooms
be well open to the sun. Let no fancied advantages of view or of
symmetrical position interfere with this. For they operate seldom and
strike most at first, but the aspect tells on body and mind every day.
It is astonishing how reckless people are of this vital point, suffering
it to be determined for them by the direction of a road, or even of a
division-fence,--as if they had never looked at their houses with their
own eyes, but only with the casual view of a stranger. It does not
follow, however, that the entrance must be on the sunny side, though
this is generally best, as the loss of space in the rooms is more than
made up by the cheeriness of the approach. For the same reason, unless
you are sailing very close to the wind, let your entrance-hall be roomy.
It is in no sense an unproductive outlay, for it avails above in
chambers, and below in the refuge it affords to the children from the
severer rules of the parlor.

As to number and distribution of rooms, the field is somewhat wide. Here
the differences of income, of pursuits, and the idiosyncrasies of taste
come in; and more than all, not only are the circumstances originally
different, but constantly varying. I speak not of the fluctuations of
fortune, but of normal and expected changes. The young couple, or the
old, are easily lodged. But in middle life,--since we are not content,
like our forefathers, with bestowing our children out of sight,--it
takes a great deal of room to provide for them on both floors, without
either neglect or oppression, and to keep up the due oversight without
sacrificing ourselves or them. For children are rather exclusive, and
spoil for other use more room than they occupy. Here I counsel every man
who must have a corner to himself to fix his study in the attic, for the
only way to avoid noise without wasteful complication is to be above it.

The smallest house must provide some escape from the dining-room. If
dining-room and sitting-room are on the sunny side, and the entrance be
also on that side, they will be separated, as indeed they always may be,
without loss. The notion that the rooms must immediately connect is one
of those whims to which