g to the
crowded thoroughfare but undressed walls of brick! Yes, a Christian
church, _in flagrante delictu_.

It will be objected to this that there is no use in finishing the sides
of city buildings, as they may afterward be hidden by others. This would
do well enough if they were all of the same height; but they are not,
and never can be. Indeed, a house is by many considered 'handsomer' than
its neighbors, just so far forth as it overtops them. The builder would
hardly think it a fair beat if the cornices corresponded. The successive
erections on a row of vacant lots, usually illustrate this popular
ambition. Some one secures the corner and builds his house. So far, so
good. Presently number two comes along, and, to secure himself from
invidious comparison, piles his house half a story higher than number
one. But his triumph is short, for the third aspirant soon arrives, who,
true to principle, takes another step in the ascending series. So it
goes till the block is finished, the whole thing looking as if
architecture was a sort of auction, in which the prize of success was
awarded to the highest builder.

It being one of our social necessities that our houses differ in size,
we must pay some attention to their sides. Not giving them as decided a
treatment as the front, but something compatible with a plain surface.
And, above all, the principal cornice and roof lines should be carried
round on the sides, at least as far as they can be seen. In some rare
instances, where this has been done, it is astonishing to note the
improved appearance and _finish_, that it gives.

Did you ever consider the superior elegance of a corner house? Yet it is
not so much the position as the fact that the position is taken
advantage of. Being finished on both sides, it gives to the mind the
idea of thickness as well as length and breadth. It is, in short, a
_solid_, while the affair next door, overtopping it perhaps a story or
two, is merely a _superficies_.

But this is only a side thrust. Our 'commercial palaces' challenge the
same criticism face to face. For the front, considered by itself even,
is generally incomplete. A supposititious formula determines that the
house must be in the Italian palace style, but the narrow lot forbidding
an entire design, the builder, as he cannot put in all, puts in all he
can, so that, instead of the house being a house, it is only a specimen
slice of a palace. It has no particular beginning or m