have a house of
his own in which he can live and begin to bring up a family in comfort
and safety. He that builds of bricks may rejoice in the durability and
strength of his house, in its security against fire and sudden changes
of temperature, in economy of fuel in cold weather, of ice in warm
weather, and of paint in all weathers; in the possibility of the
highest degree of external beauty, and in the blessed consciousness
that his real estate will not deteriorate on his hands or be a worn-out
and worthless legacy to his children."

"You must wear peculiar spectacles if you can discover beauty in a
square brick house!"

[Illustration: THE TOPMOST PEAK.]

"Rectitude, of which a brick is the accepted type, certainly has a
beauty of its own. But if a brick house is not beautiful--here again
the fault is not, dear Jack, in the bricks; but in ourselves, our
prejudices and our architects--other things being equal, it should be
more beautiful than a wooden house, because the material employed is
more appropriate for its use. (I should like to deliver an oration at
this point, for upon this Golden Rule of utility hang all the law and
the prophets of architectural beauty, but will defer it to a more
fitting occasion.) There is, in truth, no limit to the grace of form,
color and decoration possible with burned clay. As a marble statue is
to a wooden image, so, for the outer walls of a building, is clay that
has been moulded and baked, to the products of the saw-mill, the
planing-mill, lathe and fret-saw."

"Oh, you mean terra cotta?"

"I mean clay that has been wrought into forms of use and beauty, and
prepared by fire to endure almost to the end of time. It is most
commonly found in plain rectangular blocks, but in accordance with the
artistic spirit of the age, brains are now mixed with the sordid earth,
and lasting beauty glows upon the rich, warm face of the strong brick
walls."--

"Yea, verily, amen and amen! Beauty, eloquence and true poetry, bright
gleams of prophetic fire, patriotism, piety and the music of the
spheres. I can see them all in my mind's eye and hear them in my mind's
ear. Jill, my dear, our house shall be bricks--excuse me, I mean
_brains_--and mortar, from turret to foundation stone. Consider that
settled, and if the meeting is unanimous we will now adjourn till
to-morrow morning."

"One moment, if you please. Filling the spaces behind the lathing in a
brick house with some fireproof and non-c