If we leave the house to the architect, he builds merely for himself—he builds his house, not yours. You must be the idealist of your own ideal. “Our so-called architects,” says Richard Jefferies, “are mere surveyors, engineers, educated bricklayers, men of hard, straight ruler and square, mathematically accurate, and utterly devoid of feeling. You call in your practical architect, and he builds you a brick box. The princes of Italy knew better; they called in the poet and the painter, the dreamers, to dream for them.” How the penetrating insight of Montaigne pierced the mask of the architect: “The Merchant thrives not but by the licentiousness of youth; the Husbandman but by dearth of corne; the Architect but by the ruine of houses!”
Perhaps the easiest way out of the difficulty is to secure a house already constructed that will meet your requirements as nearly as may be. But the mere building, the foundation, construction, architectural details, and interior arrangement are only a small part of numerous vital factors that should enter into the question of the house and home. There are equally the considerations of situation, neighborhood, accessibility, and a score of like important features to be seriously meditated on. One can not afford to make mistakes in building or in marrying. “In early manhood,” says Cato, “the master of a family must study to plant his ground. As for building, he must think a long time about it.” The external construction is, indeed, the least part of building—there is still the decorating and the furnishing.
Wise is he who weighs and ponders ere he decides upon the location of his house, especially if he would be near the town. For in the ideal home I would unite many things, including pure air, sufficient elevation, pleasant views, the most suitable exposure, good soil, freedom from noise, and the natural protection from wind afforded by trees. “Let our dwelling be lightsome, if possible; in a free air and near a garden,” is the advice of the philosopher, Pierre du Moulin. Very apposite are old Thomas Fuller’s directions for a site—“Chiefly choose a wholesome air, for air is a dish one feeds on every minute, and therefore it need be good.” And again: “Light (God’s eldest daughter) is a principal beauty in a building, and a pleasant prospect is to be respected.” In the chapter of the Essays, on Smells and Odors, the author pertinently observes: “The principall care I take, wheresoever I am lodged, is to avoid and be far from all manner of filthy, foggy, ill-savouring, and unwholesome aires. These goodly Cities of strangely seated Venice and huge-built Paris, by reason of the muddy, sharp, and offending savours which they yield; the one by her fennie and marish situation, the other by her durtie uncleannesse and continuall mire, doe greatly alter and diminish the favor which I bear them.”
All these desiderata are well-nigh impossible to unite in the city. There all manner of nuisances necessarily exist—manufactories which discharge noxious smoke and soot, the clangor of bells and whistles, an atmosphere more or less charged with unwholesome exhalations. This more particularly in summer; in winter I grant the city has its charms and advantages. Wealth may sometimes combine the delights of urban and rural life, as when a large residence plot is retained in a pleasant neighborhood of the town. But even unlimited means can rarely procure a place of this description, which comes by inheritance rather than by choosing, and in the end becomes too valuable to retain. Besides, however fine the ancestral trees and endeared the homestead, it must still lack the repose of the country, the free expanse of sky, the unfettered breadth of the fields.
When I look about me I find the combination I would attain a difficult one to secure in almost any city. If I build in the suburbs, upon the most fashionable avenue, its approaches may be disagreeable and the surrounding landscape flat and uninviting. The opposite quarter of the suburbs, the main northern residence avenue, will be windy during winter. If I locate westward there may be factories and car-shops to constantly offend the ear; if I move eastward unsavory odors may assail, and if I select a site in yet another neighborhood that commends itself for its elevation and pleasant society, there may be the smoke and soot of neighboring chimneys to defile the air and intrude themselves unceasingly into my dwelling. The country-seat sufficiently removed from town, and yet comparatively accessible, alone may yield, during the greater portion of the year, all the desired qualifications of the ideal home. Does not Béranger truly sing—
Cherchons loin du bruit de la ville
Pour le bonheur un sûr asile.
Seek we far from the city’s noise
A refuge safe for peaceful joys.
And have not all the poets before him apostrophized the delights of a country life?