Practically, the steep roof is better than any other,
because a flat one cannot be as permanently covered with any known
material at so little cost, the multitudes of cheap and durable patent
roofings to the contrary notwithstanding. By steep roofs I mean any
that have sufficient pitch to allow the use of slate or shingle. Such
need not be intricate or difficult of construction to look well, but
must be honest and useful. They can be neither unless visible, and
here we see the holy alliance of use and beauty; for the character and
expression of a building depend almost wholly upon the roof. You will
lose, too, under the flat roof, the roomy garret of the old
high-roofed houses. These have for me a wonderful fascination. Whether
the rain upon the shingles, the mingled fragrance of seeds and drying
herbs, the surprising bigness of the chimney, the mysteries hidden in
the worm-eaten chests, the almost saintly charm of the long-unused
spinning-wheels, crumbling mementos of the patient industry of former
generations, or the shine of the stars through the chinks in the
shrunken boards, the old garret and all its associations are among the
"long, long thoughts." I sometimes doubt whether the modern
conveniences we are so fond of proclaiming are really an equivalent to
the rising generation for this happiest of playrooms, this storehouse
of heirlooms, this silent but potent tie, that binds us to the life,
the labor, and the love of the past.

[Illustration: FORTY-TWO FEET SQUARE.]

Let there be light, too, in this upper story. Spinning spiders and
stinging wasps are not half so terrible to the children who will make
a half-way paradise of the garret as the darkness that is covered by
an unlighted roof.

If you have been living in cottage-chambers,--rooms in which a
full-sized man can hardly stand erect in the centre, and a well-grown
baby scarcely creep at the sides, unventilated, heated beyond
endurance during the hot summer days, and retaining their heat through
the long, wakeful nights,--rooms in which the furniture must stand at
various distances from the walls as if marshalled for the
house-cleaning battle, but in which even the making of beds is a work
of supreme difficulty,--if you've been living in such rooms as these,
I don't wonder, whatever architects or other men may say, that Mrs.
John objects, and insists on good, square chambers. But good, square
chambers no more require flat roofs than good, square common-se