Читать книгу The Englishman's House: A Practical Guide for Selecting and Building a House онлайн

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An essential element of success in every branch of progress is involved in tasteful selection. Without considering those classes who by successful efforts of their ancestry have been placed beyond the pale of want (either artificial or real), a large proportion of our population may be ranked as having advanced morally, socially, and commercially by that intuition which characterizes our national progress. It takes as its basis nature and nature’s products. It eliminates from these not only pecuniary benefits that in a commercial point of view may occur, but associating the useful with the beautiful (the sense of the latter having been gained during intervals of quiet thought as a relief from the incessant requirements of business engagements), a tendency to embody the picturesque, especially in regard to architecture, arises. We have no hesitation in assigning to this cause the production of some of the most picturesque architectural erections which grace our country,—that render English homes an example, and prove that, while the main element of our national prosperity is making money, we are not insensible to the beneficent influences resulting from the cultivation of refined taste.