Studio: international art (19.1900)

A Country House

ready strength against in-
jury, fit for its use; not a
pretentious hypocrisy but a
modest, serviceable fact.
Whoever pleases to look
upon it will find the image
of a humble manfulness in
it, and will pass on with
some infinitesimal impulse
to thank the gods."

" A modest, serviceable
fact "—that is indeed what
one would wish a house
and its furnishing to be—
and more than that ? One
should be cautious in trying
for more than that.

" More than this," says-
Ruskin, after describing a
simple. English home,
" more than this, Few should
seek."

The very spirit which
impels a man to achieve a

PLAN of A country house m. ii. baillie scott, architect , , .. , .

notable excellence in his
habitation and surround-

practical solution of a practical problem, ings suggests that this can be most readily
and then transport yourself in imagination to the gained by costliness of material and work-
cockney horrors of some dingy dining-room in manship, or, failing that, an imitation of such
Upper Tooting, full of all that expensive costliness. We dream a dream of marble halls,
and cumbrous furniture with which the average and we realise as a practical result of such a
householder surrounds
himself. Such a contrast
seems to suggest the futility
of any attempt to wean the
mind of the dweller in the
suburbs from its innate love
for everything which is
meretricious and ugly.

"The Real,"saysCarlyle,
"if you will stand by it is
respectable — the coarsest
hobnailed pair of shoes if
honestly made according
to the laws of fact and
leather are not ugly ; they
are honest, and fit for their
object; the highest eye
may look on them without
displeasure, nay with a kind
of satisfaction. This rude
packing case, it is faithfully
made; square to the rule,

and formed with rough and plan of a country house m. ii. baili.ie scott, architect

32