PLATE XVIII.
DETAIL, PRINCESSGATE. 1896.
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not, the Pierian spring;
For shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
But drinking largely sobers us again.
PLATE XIX.
WYCK, GERMANTOWN. EPOCH, A. D. 1700.
"The charm that is not deducible by mathematics."-Miss Polly Fairfax.
CHAPTER IV
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS OF A NATIONAL SCHOOL
Table of Contents It is unfair to place these humble beginnings of American Renaissance beside such highly developed architecture, for example, as English "Country Life" exploits week after week, under its heading of "Country Homes, Gardens, Old and New" as to make one believe that England must have an unlimited store for the magazine to draw upon. And this is all the more remarkable because one's recollection of English landscape as it reveals itself through windows of the railway carriages along the main routes of travel-especially along the Great Eastern road from London to Kings Lynn-distinguishes it little from that uninteresting stretch of country which lies between Trenton and New Brunswick on the Pennsylvania railroad. Evidently, all these magnificent halls were erected long before the advent of railways, and are in no way affiliated with the vulgar wake of commercialism. Accessibility, which governs so largely in America, must be a matter of supreme indifference to possessors of great estates in England, or, it seems to me, the railway lines would meander in such a manner as closely to skirt the confines of a magnificent demesne, occasionally. It is unfair to a country whose visible architectural development is barely two centuries old to bring it in contrast with one where no building is really ancient without a history dating backward three or four hundred years, at least.
We, perhaps, fancy we have in America some modern country estates quite worth while mentioning and which might easily withstand the odious ordeal of comparison; but can the reader name one in the same category with such a country seat as is illustrated in "Country Life" for July 12, 1902, described as "Osmaston Manor, Derbyshire" (Plate XXVI)?-and this is a number of the periodical picked up without especial selection-"Biltmore," in the North Carolina mountains, possibly, with the H. W. Poor house at Tuxedo, New Jersey, as an alternate choice, one French
PLATE XX.
"Extremely humble, yet genteel."
DOORWAY, PHILADELPHIA CLUB.
13th and Walnut Streets.
Renaissance, the other Jacobean. But certainly, Newport, with its miserable crowding and elbowing of American pretentiousness, much of the pretentiousness belonging to the modern invention type of architecture, offers no comparison at all. The Hunnewell gardens and some others we have seen photographed and discussed of late look more like tree nurseries than Renaissance gardens, while nearly all the modern American show places illustrated from time to time in the different magazines deal only with that primitive kind of splendor indigenous to provinces.
No, we may not compare American Renaissance after this manner. We are entirely too young a nation for that kind of architecture which presupposes a renowned antiquity which we lack. But what we may do becomingly is to select the homely and humble cottages of Great Britain, such cottages as the one we are shown where lived the poet Robert Burns, for instance. Place those, if you please, beside the farmhouses of our Colonial régime, and then you may be surprised to find we have something to be proud of, even though it be the fashion to belittle these essentially good antecedents by modern architectural scholars. I am reminded herein of the story that is told of a noted professor of music-Kullak, who, having discovered that the number on the programme which the orchestra had rendered to the great delight of everyone, was a Strauss waltz (it must have been one of the less known as "Autumn Leaves," it could not have been the hackneyed "Blue Danube," which has been so much overrated), turned to his pupils, ever loyal to their master's prejudices, beside him, and furtively whispered, "Well, don't say anything about it, boys; but it's awfully nice!" The sentiment thus expressed is the cultivated sentiment of the average architect toward the early Renaissance of America. He appears to be constrained by some artificial position-some pedantic make-believe that allows him to acknowledge the merit of a Witch-Colonial exemplar (see Plate XXI), with only the poorest kind of grace.
But I have already explained why the old stuff remaining in America is so "awfully nice" as to charm all unprejudiced artists who have studied our history, so that mystery about it, I trust, need be no
PLATE XXI.
DERBY-WARD HOUSE, SALEM, MASS. 17TH CENTURY.
SOUVENIR OF ABIGAIL AND DELIVERANCE HOBBS (TWO ALLEGED WITCHES), OF TOPSFIELD, MASS. 17TH CENTURY.
longer. The paramount business in hand is to get rid of American nonsense, to put it entirely out of the head, if possible, that nothing may stand in the way of returning meekly and in a receptive spirit to those ancient and honorable first principles of ours which were unerring. This surgical-like operation accomplished, let us see what may be done with the Derby-Ward house, erected A.D. 1680 in Salem (Plate XXI), to make it habitable, convenient and desirable to-day.
At this stage of the art of house-building, upon which subject there has been so much written and published, an architect would yet be considered plumb crazy who had the temerity to submit such a picture to a prospective client as the kind of house best suited to his needs. Yet, why not? Has the reader no imagination? Can he not see how, given a generous forecourt, with prim flower beds, a brick walk and box, this frowning prototype of "Scarlet Letter" morals and punishment would take on a very different aspect, its repelling severity mollified by a little gracious environment? And we do not stop here, by any means. We make a feature of the entrance, either by the aid of a true witch entry or a bewitching hood shadowing a roughly-hewn platform resting upon a wide step, say 16 inches, returned on two sides-the inviting kind. We repair the cornice and embellish the overhang with moulded or turned drops at effective intervals. We re-knit the rifts in the single chimney, making a clustered stack of it above the roof. We flank the main edifice with a becoming woodshed which deft handling will transform into a most delightful loggia. And then we visit the nearby shop of an upholsterer. If the tiny panes of glass in the windows have become through age iridescent, more delicate than that of Tiffany favrile manufacture, so much the better for the figured dimity or the bobbinet we intend to hang against them, perpendicularly, not looped, but simply hemmed, and with deep valance. By this time the scheme will have easily dawned upon the mind of the sceptical onlooker. No longer does he adjudge us entirely crazy. Why, no; we commence to be artists now-indeed, magicians! He quotes Kullak, involuntarily.
We have ordered a hot-water heater installed, likewise sanitary plumbing, and a range, these being the
PLATE XXII.
THE PIRSSON COTTAGE, WYOMING, N. J. MODERN HOUSE WITH GERMANTOWN HOOD.
MODERN COTTAGE WITH A DUTCH HOOD.
only contracts we have signed with modern invention. All the rest has been of the most conservative architectonic development.
"But the plans! One has to live in the house after it is built, you know. Can you make it liveable with only the one chimney, and that in the very centre?" we are asked. I think we can. Let me submit one solution of the problem, at any rate, and you are quite at liberty to take it home and improve upon it as much as you please.
These Witch-houses are the pioneers of the procession. Nothing older than they has been able to withstand the vicissitudes of our erratic climate's racket, though contemporary with them are the early houses of Connecticut, which have been admirably described in a book by Norman M. Isham, A.M., and Albert F. Brown. The Sumner house at Middletown, illustrated herewith (Plate XXIV), exhibits a method of construction which I believe is peculiar to the State of Connecticut alone. It consists of a 3-inch offset at the second story, and continuing around the four sides, the gables projecting 3 inches more. A great central
A MODERN DEVELOPMENT OF WITCH-HOUSE-PLAN
PLATE XXIII.
GERMANTOWN MOTIVE APPLIED TO A MODERN COTTAGE.
TYPE OF EARLY CONNECTICUT HOUSE, STRATFORD, CONN.
PLATE XXIV.
TYPE OF EARLY CONNECTICUT HOUSE, MIDDLETOWN, CONN.
chimney again dominates the plan, which, it is true, taxes modern ingenuity to make a graceful feature of the interior. A relic of old Stratford (Plate XXIII) supplies another interesting type for reincarnation. It is more generous in the matter of chimneys, but has less pitch to the roof. The photograph reveals...
