A. The Simple Blue Country._

185. Now, the matter-of-fact business-like activity of simple blue
country has been already alluded to. This attribute renders in it a
plain palpable brick dwelling-house allowable; though a thing which, in
every country but the simple blue, compels every spectator of any
feeling to send up aspirations, that builders who, like those of Babel,
have brick for stone, may be put, like those of Babel, to confusion.
Here, however, it is not only allowable, but even agreeable, for the
following reasons:--

186. Its cleanness and freshness of color, admitting of little dampness
or staining, firm in its consistence, not moldering like stone, and
therefore inducing no conviction of antiquity or decay, presents rather
the appearance of such comfort as is contrived for the enjoyment of
temporary wealth, than of such solidity as is raised for the inheritance
of unfluctuating power. It is thus admirably suited for that country
where all is change, and all activity; where the working and
money-making members of the community are perpetually succeeding and
overpowering each other; enjoying, each in his turn, the reward of his
industry; yielding up the field, the pasture, and the mine, to his
successor, and leaving no more memory behind him, no farther evidence of
his individual existence, than is left by a working bee, in the honey
for which we thank his class, forgetting the individual. The simple blue
country may, in fact, be considered the dining-table of the nation; from
which it provides for its immediate necessities, at which it feels only
its present existence, and in which it requires, not a piece of
furniture adapted only to remind it of past refection, but a polished,
clean, and convenient minister to its immediate wishes. No habitation,
therefore, in this country, should look old: it should give an
impression of present prosperity, of swift motion and high energy of
life; too rapid in its successive operation to attain greatness, or
allow of decay, in its works. This is the first cause which, in this
country, renders brick allowable.

187. Again, wherever the soil breaks out in simple blue country, whether
in the river shore, or the broken roadside bank, or the plowed field, in
nine cases out of ten it is excessively warm in its color, being either
gravel or clay, the black vegetable soil never remaining free of
vegetation. The warm tone of these beds of soil is an admirable relief
to the blu