et" on the second and third floors. No? What reason,
then, for imitating hotels, lodging-houses, double-barrelled
tenements, and other public and semi-public buildings from which a
short cut to the street is essential? Don't tell me you wish them to
be ornamental as well as useful. I know that; but remember the stairs
are built for the house, not the house for the stairs. You had better
lose them wholly as an ornamental feature, than destroy the charm of
what should be the most prepossessing portion of the interior.
Moreover, they can have no pleasure-giving beauty if manifestly out of
place,--a safe rule for general application. Build them where they
will be most useful, that is, as near the centre of the house as
possible; make them grand and gorgeous as the steps to an Oriental
palace,--so broad and easy of ascent that the upward and onward way
will be as tempting as were the Alps to Mr. Longfellow's aspiring
youth. But keep them away from the front door,--out of the principal
hall, which should be open, airy, and free, suggesting something
besides an everlasting getting up stairs. If the staircase hall cannot
be arranged at right angles to the main hall, an arch or ornamental
screen may be introduced, partially separating the two and giving
character to both.

Have you been living in a city of late? It must be, else why so
complacent with a narrow hall, steep, obtrusive stairs, and, O, why,
tell me why, do you not fix the location of your windows with some
regard to views, not only out of the house but through it. I remember
one country dwelling built by a retired civilian in the inevitable
city style; windows at the end giving a narrow view of the road in
front, while the entire side walls were absolutely blank and bare,
never so much as a knot-hole through which the occupants could get a
glimpse of the field and forest that stretched broadly away at either
side. I've no doubt the owner hung oil-paintings on his parlor walls,
and thought them more lovely than all out-doors,--especially when he
remembered their cost. The old Roman who declared his soldiers made a
bigger racket with their arms than Jupiter with his thunderbolts, was
modest beyond comparison with such a man. Your arrangement is not
quite so bad as that of the aforesaid civilian, but, like hosts of
others, you fail to make the most of your opportunities. Suppose you
were able to secure for a small sum a landscape painted by one of the
masters and este