of lath and plaster--glittering with broken
glass, the ceilings so low that we are unable to have chandeliers to
light our rooms, rendered gloomy by artificially-darkened walls and
panelling, what are we to do? If the house is well built, it should be
in better heart and condition one hundred years hence than the colonial
mansions erected prior to 1760 are to-day. These colonial mansions,
planned and built for the wealthy merchants of the seaboard towns, may
well command our admiration and careful study, but, as a rule, they are
entirely unsuited to the domestic life of to-day, and their construction
is faulty and badly conceived when viewed in the light of modern
practice. They should be respected and studied, because they are true
exponents of art-building, in that they show in every line and moulding
good common sense,--the use of materials according to the best ability
and knowledge possessed by the artisans who erected them, and a sturdy
manhood which wrought by main strength artistic works out of crude
materials with slender mechanical appliances. A study of these old
buildings seems to bring before us something of the mental strength of
the men who erected them,--men who were fully up to and even ahead of
their time, who aimed to do their best, and what they did was good. Such
being the case, are we to suppose that had the colonial architects and
builders continued in practice down to our own time they would have gone
on in the old way, or, rather, behind their own best period of
construction to the time when beams were hewn out with an axe and left
as large as possible, to reduce the labor to a minimum? No; they were
too advanced in sentiment for such weakness, and would no doubt ere this
have developed a sensible and correct national style of domestic
building, founded upon colonial precedent, but taking into consideration
all the advances in science and art and, above all, machinery, which,
although decried by the "high-art" amateur, has done much to improve the
art and science of American building.

The advanced Queen Anne designer takes a different view of the case. He
tells us in all seriousness and with much enthusiasm that the domestic
building of the colonists was far in advance of modern work, both in its
picturesque aspects and its home-like comfort. He points to the huge
beams and hanging knees which support the floors, their rudely-chamfered
edges dubbed into shape with an axe, as evidence of the thou