that more care is not taken in
building chimneys. They should be intrusted to none but workmen who
are conscientious as well as skilful, otherwise every brick must be
watched and every trowel full of mortar; for one defect ruins the
whole, and five minutes after the fault is committed it can never be
detected till revealed by the catastrophe.

If the spaces between the bricks were always filled with good mortar,
it would be better not to plaster the inside of the flues, as the
mortar is liable to cleave from the brick, and, hanging by one edge,
form lodging-places for soot. As commonly built it is safer to plaster
them within and without, especially without, for that can be
inspected. The style of the visible part must depend upon the
building. One thing lay up in the recesses of your lofty mind: A
chimney is most useful and honorable, and you are on no account to be
ashamed of it. Don't try to crowd it into some out-of-the-way corner,
or lean it off to one side to clear a cupola,--better burn up the
cupola,--or perch it daintily on a slender ridge like a brick
marten-box; let it go up strong, straight, and solid, asserting its
right to be, wherever it is needed, comely and dignified, and
finished with an honest stone cap. Ruins are charming in the right
place, but a tattered chimney-top on an otherwise well-preserved house
is vastly more shabby than picturesque.

A common objection to brick houses is their redness; but there is no
law against painting them, if their natural color is really
inharmonious. Paint will improve the walls, will last longer on good
brickwork than on wood, and there is no deception about it, unless you
try to imitate stone. Still, it is not necessary, oil being just as
good; and there is a sort of solid comfort in knowing that your house
will look just as well fifty years hence as it does now, that it will
mellow and ripen with age, and not need constant petting and nursing
to preserve its tidiness.

The model house to which I alluded in beginning this subject will be,
in brief, somewhat as follows: The outer walls will be vaulted,
thoroughly non-conducting both of heat and of moisture. All the
partitions will be of brick, precisely adapted in size to their
use,--I am not sure but they will be hollow. The body of the floors
will be of brick, supported, if need be, by iron ties or girders, all
exactly fitted to the dimensions of the rooms, so that not a pound of
material or an hour of labor