. The century illustrated monthly magazine . ticewas a hundred years ago, it would be inex-cusable to-day to build Doric porticoes orto frame Ionic pilasters out of pine boardspainted. In short, we may say of our colonial homeswhat we may say of the contemporary homesof England: our architects should studythem, but cannot copy them. When to a cer-tain degree their features and their generaleffect have been reproduced, the result seemspeculiarly pleasing and most appropriatelyAmerican. (At least this is true of the EasternStates. It would not be so true, I think, ofthe Western — which may be ta
. The century illustrated monthly magazine . ticewas a hundred years ago, it would be inex-cusable to-day to build Doric porticoes orto frame Ionic pilasters out of pine boardspainted. In short, we may say of our colonial homeswhat we may say of the contemporary homesof England: our architects should studythem, but cannot copy them. When to a cer-tain degree their features and their generaleffect have been reproduced, the result seemspeculiarly pleasing and most appropriatelyAmerican. (At least this is true of the EasternStates. It would not be so true, I think, ofthe Western — which may be taken as proofin passing of how desirabilities vary in thisdepartment of our art.) But many extraneousfeatures and many variations of old featuresand old modes of working must be introducedif the result is to be sensible and for some of these the point of departuremust be found in the vernacular. Incapableof self-development into anything good, it yetcannot be cut down root and branch; it must 20 AMERICAN COUNTRY LODGE OF FREDERICK L. AMES, ESQ., NORTH EASTON, MASS. yield us certain buds of excellence for devel-opment along with other grafts. Its piazza,for example, absolutely imposes itself uponthe conscience of every American develop it into a beautiful and constructiveinstead of an ugly, make-shift, superaddedfeature, and to bring it into perfect harmonywith all his other features, many of which willhave come from very different sources — thisis one of the most vital problems with whichhe has to deal; and also one of the most dim-cult, and the one of all others which mostemphatically forbids him to imitate any pre-vious product, most emphatically prescribesthat if he builds good country houses for theAmericans of to-day, they will be essentiallyunlike all others. But I have come to the utmost limits of a long chapter, and must postpone all furthercomment to another. The illustrations here-with given reveal something in the mean whi
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectamerica, bookyear1882
