l and soft _wood_ color, which also may be of
various shades; or even the warm russet hue of some of our rich
stones--quite appropriate, too, as applied to wood, or bricks--the
_fashion_ must be followed without either rhyme or reason, and hundreds
of our otherwise pretty and imposing country houses have been daubed
over with the dirtiest, gloomiest pigment imaginable, making every
habitation which it touched look more like a funeral appendage than a
cheerful, life-enjoying home. We candidly say that we have no sort of
affection for such sooty daubs. The fashion which dictates them is a
barbarous, false, and arbitrary fashion; void of all natural taste in
its inception; and to one who has a cheerful, life-loving spirit about
him, such colors have no more fitness on his dwelling or out-buildings,
than a tomb would have in his lawn or dooryard.

Locality, amplitude of the buildings, the purpose to which they are
applied--every consideration connected with them, in fact, should be
consulted, as to color. Stone will give its own color; which, by the
way, some prodigiously smart folks _paint_--quite as decorous or
essential, as to "paint the lily." Brick sometimes must be painted, but
it should be of a color in keeping with its character,--of substance and
dignity; not a counterfeit of stone, or to cheat him who looks upon it
into a belief that it may be marble, or other unfounded pretension.
A _warm_ russet is most appropriate for brick-work of any kind of
color--the color of a russet apple, or undressed leather--shades that
comport with Milton's beautiful idea of

"_Russet_ lawns and fallows _gray_."

Red and yellow are both too glaring, and slate, or lead colors too
somber and cold. It is, in fact, a strong argument in favor of bricks in
building, where they can be had as cheap as stone or wood, that any
color can be given to them which the good taste of the builder may
require, in addition to their durability, which, when made of good
material, and properly burned, is quite equal to stone. In a wooden
structure one may play with his fancy in the way of color, minding in
the operation, that he does not play the mountebank, and like the clown
in the circus, make his tattooed tenement the derision of men of correct
taste, as the other does his burlesque visage the ridicule of his
auditors.

A _wooden_ country house, together with its out-buildings, should always
be of a cheerful and softly-toned color--a color giving