to us, are mostly artfully stained to represent a
landscape. And when the Spring comes round, and the hawthorn begins to
flower, and the meadows to smell of young grass, even in the thickest of
our streets, the country hill-tops find out a young man's eyes, and set
his heart beating for travel and pure air.

CHAPTER VII

THE VILLA QUARTERS

Mr. Ruskin's denunciation of the New Town of Edinburgh includes, as I
have heard it repeated, nearly all the stone and lime we have to show.
Many, however, find a grand air and something settled and imposing in
the better parts; and upon many, as I have said, the confusion of styles
induces an agreeable stimulation of the mind. But upon the subject of
our recent villa architecture, I am frankly ready to mingle my tears
with Mr. Ruskin's, and it is a subject which makes one envious of his
large declamatory and controversial eloquence.

Day by day, one new villa, one new object of offence, is added to
another; all around Newington and Morningside, the dismalest structures
keep springing up like mushrooms; the pleasant hills are loaded with
them, each impudently squatted in its garden, each roofed and carrying
chimneys like a house. And yet a glance of an eye discovers their true
character. They are not houses; for they were not designed with a view
to human habitation, and the internal arrangements are, as they tell me,
fantastically unsuited to the needs of man. They are not buildings; for
you can scarcely say a thing is built where every measurement is in
clamant disproportion with its neighbour. They belong to no style to
art, only to a form of business much to be regretted.

Why should it be cheaper to erect a structure where the size of the
windows bears no rational relation to the size of the front? Is there
any profit in a misplaced chimney-stalk? Does a hard-working, greedy
builder gain more on a monstrosity than on a decent cottage of equal
plainness? Frankly, we should say, No. Bricks may be omitted, and green
timber employed, in the construction of even a very elegant design; and
there is no reason why a chimney should be made to vent, because it is
so situated as to look comely from without. On the other hand, there is
a noble way of being ugly: a high-aspiring fiasco like the fall of
Lucifer. There are daring and gaudy buildings that manage to be
offensive, without being contemptible; and we know that "fools rush in
where angels fear to tread." But to aim at m