and the interior arrangement
adapted to modern convenience. Such changes have in some instances been
made; and when so, how often does the old mansion, with outward features
in good preservation, outspeak, in all the expression of home-bred
comforts, the flashy, gimcrack neighbor, which in its plenitude of
modern pretension looks so flauntingly down upon it!

We cannot, in the United States, consistently adopt the domestic
architecture of any other country, throughout, to our use. We are
different in our institutions, our habits, our agriculture, our
climates. Utility is our chief object, and coupled with that, the
indulgence of an agreeable taste may be permitted to every one who
creates a home for himself, or founds one for his family. The frequent
changes of estates incident to our laws, and the many inducements held
out to our people to change their locality or residence, in the hope of
bettering their condition, is a strong hindrance to the adoption of a
universally correct system in the construction of our buildings;
deadening, as the effect of such changes, that home feeling which should
be a prominent trait of agricultural character. An attachment to
locality is not a conspicuous trait of American character; and if there
be a people on earth boasting a high civilization and intelligence, who
are at the same time a roving race, the Americans are that people; and
we acknowledge it a blemish in our domestic and social constitution.

Such remark is not dropped invidiously, but as a reason why we have thus
far made so little progress in the arts of home embellishment, and in
clustering about our habitations those innumerable attractions which win
us to them sufficiently to repel the temptation so often presented to
our enterprise, our ambition, or love of gain--and these not always
successful--in seeking other and distant places of abode. If, then, this
tendency to change--a want of attachment to any one spot--is a reason
why we have been so indifferent to domestic architecture; and if the
study and practice of a better system of building tends to cultivate a
home feeling, why should it not be encouraged? Home attachment is a
virtue. Therefore let that virtue be cherished. And if any one study
tend to exalt our taste, and promote our enjoyment, let us cultivate
that study to the highest extent within our reach.

STYLE OF BUILDING.--MISCELLANEOUS.

Diversified as are the features of our country in climate,