Litchfield enquirer., 1832-05-17
From sh. Msss Eaglaad lssga.ins.
LARGE HOUSES.

LARGE HOUSES.
 Our houses are too large for comfort, convenience, or beauty. The consequence ot erecting them of such dimensions, is, often, that they remain unfinished and in complete: and, instead of the neat rural villa, which almost every farmer might own and enjoy, we see huge houses, tho original cost of erecting which, too often, has entailed upon it's tenant load of debt which he can never remove during his life {; and he lives on toiling to keep down the accomplishing interest of the money thus expended. for what he cannot enjoy 1; with consciousness every year, that his chance of redemption is becoming less, and that his children must, ere long, yield tnelr paternal acres to some stranger, who will enter to enjoy, if he can, the mansion for which the tenant has sacrificed the best years of his life and the best hopes of his family.
 This weakness is, if we mistake not, peculiarity of New England and New Eng land men. We should look in vain for such an idle expenditure of money among the thrifty descendants of the Dutch and Germans, in New-Y Ork sr Pennsylvania. They understand these things better.
 1t has so often been our misfortune to trace the progress of farmer or mechan- lc, who has indiscreetly run into debt to build or purchase a larger house than he has had occasion to put into actual use, that we can almost infallibly tell at the first sight the precise stage of his career of ruin. Here might very easily be formed pretty accurate scale, by which we could determine the condition of stranger by the external marks that meet the eye of traveller while passing by his dwelling house. If we see large house, with here and there tattered garment to supply the places of broken panes of glass, we expect soon to see the shingles and clapboards loose, the doors with broken hinges, tho fences broken down or carried away for fuel; and we soon look for the last step in his downward scale, sherifF's flag hang ing from the premises, to tell the passers- by that the tenants equity of redemption m those premises, is about to be sold to pay a store debt or settle tavern score. We might point out, too, the marks of this progress of poverty. within the doors of such an estate but the dwelling soon be. comes too desolate, aud the wife and chil- dren too strongly marked with the seal whichruin has set upon them, to make such a spectacle any thing but painful and msl- ancholy.
 Let no man imagine that this is fancied picture. 1t may be seen in almost every town in New England. Go with US to Inc registry of deeds of any county in Massa- chusetts. and we doubt not, we can point to instances, in every volume fits records, of mortgages of estates made to secure the payment of money, borrowed to renew Q, enlarge the buildings on those estates, and where the whole has been forfeited by the borrower, who otherwise might have been the independent tenant of the acres he had purchased ar inherited.
 No man is willing to Dc outdone. if he can avoid it, by his neighbor. In the con- sciousness of acknowledged equality. he bear, with patience, to be surpassed in the e&ternaIs of style or independence. Instead of converting this feeling into an incentive to-greater exertions, gradually to attain an actual equality with his more for tunate neighbors in wealth and tho means of display, too many begin with assuming the appearance of this equality, which they cannot sustain, and thereby take load up- on themselves that sinks them to the dust. Fashion in this thing is tyrant to whom they blindly submit, eycn with all their high notions of independence which spurn every appearance of control. They are dazzled by the hugeness of the idol they worship, and lie down to be crushed by the wheels of his car, the willing victims of their own idolatry. We have, again and again, seen families of limited means. forego the very necessaries of life in order to keep up the appearance ofbsing able to enjoy its luxuries, and this, because they were unwilling to be seen inferior to those with whom they have been accustomed to in life.
 RURAL CEMETERY.
 I was sitting at my chamber window. q few days since, when small funeral pro- cession passed by--whose | know uot.- Of one thing feel ceriain--it cane no, from the dwellings ofthe opuIenf. There was hearse with it's black and mournful but no gilded carriages drawn by prancing stceds. About twenty indvidu- ais evidently belonging 10 the humble