The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1875-05-20
The Choice Of Site.


squalid, or deuacting, by reason Of ssso-
citation or neighborhOod. from our ieal-
ously- guarded eminence or injurious to
our aspiration for eminence.
The man of the house is apt to think
that the woman's place Is st the hearth
and not at the window, and lie himself
is but little at home till after dark; and
so to him il would be in the nature of a
folly TO be paying in the shape OF inter
est on his investment so much more
money yearly for the sake of what shall
or shall not be seen from his windows
The mistress Of the house thinks she viii
have enough TO do without looking out
of windows, she would rather have pretty
things inside her house than outside Of
| it; and if she hungers after natu-
raj beauty she can now and then go
where natural beauty is. And so, if the
| house itself be all that is wanted within
or without, they are very we'll cODtented
to take it maugre a thought of what the
view NAV be in the scenery around it.
If the street happens to be fashionable
/ it coin cides more with his pride Of purse,
his pride Of putting his wife and family
with the best. with her pride in her tus-
bands power OF acquisition and care Of
herself, to have their house there than to
have it fronting on any lovely river bank
[ that the gentry of the town have long
ago deserted for narrow rows of elegant
[ buildings shutting out each others light;
than to have 1t ON some slightly hill over
+ looking land and sea, once the abode of
wealth, but which the capricious tide,
setting the other way, has left to poorer
population; than to have it on some
/ green and lonely square never dimmed
with the dust of whirling wheels, and
among humble neighbors.
Doubtless il is a pleasant sensation by
! itself to know that ones abode is with
/ the best, that one has as good as the best,
and-as our affiliations are is some meas
ure with those of our vicinity-that one
/ is, in fact, a portion Of nous autres
| pleasant if ones position is assured,
| pleasant if ones ambitions are yet to be
gratifed. And yet We suspect that there
are pleasanter sensations to be had, and
worthier ones, arising from the selection
of very different spot. To be sure, the
lovely river-bank may be unhealthy, the
slightly hill may have become too remote
from business or from friends, and in the
crowded city these things must arrange
themselves without criticism. But in
the large provincial town or in the open
country the selection Of site for a
house is free for the exercise of the
widest individuality and most eXacting
taste. Decent and civil neighbors are,
Of course, wherever you are, things
of the first importance, both for your
own comfort and for your children's
welfare. But, neighbors excepted, there
is usually no reason in large town for
preferring one street over another, ex-
cept the liking to have handsome houses
about one, or the whim of some rich
else desiring to follow suit. 1t may give
certain qualification every day to see
the handsome houses, selfish gratifica-
I ton far from suggestion of poverty and
want; but it is not often a sight so pict-
uresque as the poorer houses-thOse neat
ones with their lattices and vines and
/ bits of gardens full of hollyhocks and
the sweet, old-fashioned flowers that the
poor seem to have adopted-those shah
bier ones, with the light and shade of
their differing degrees of ruin, and their
messy roofs in all the color Of varying
green and rust against the sky; and
health being only considered, the pict
uresque sight seems to US preferable to
the selfish qualification, for the one feeds
the ennobling love of beauty, the other
the ignObie love of case.
Which does it seem, indeed, would
make the finer and richer growth Of soul,
nourish an outreaching and soaring ma
ture the more, to see, every morning
when the shade is pulled up, the neat
row of well-piied bricks and the windows
ranged in order opposite, the clean,
well-painted clapboards and trim shut
tiers, never calling one from dead level
Of observation, or the picture that rouses
/ thought, whether it be of curiously
/ grouped, Iickety dwellings set at odd
angles of sky and land or great stretch
of open heaven and earth, field and dis
tant wood, all full of uncounted sugges-
lions to the active mind?
1t is, indeed, our own opinion that, in
| placing a house, too much attention can
not be paid TO the circumstances of the
natural scenery about it, or the view it
shall command, when there is a view
possible to be had at all. In any city the
windows that can command the spirc and
| pinnacles Of church, the arcades of
| synagogue, the pillared lines of some in
/ stitution of learning, are beyond com
| parison in value with those windows that
/ look upon meaningless fronts of dwell
ings and the blank stare of windows
| like themselves; and that not because in
the vicinity Of this church and this insti-
tute lands and buildings are of higher
price intrinsically and arbitrarily, and
people Weather and quieter, and SO
more agreeable, but because the thought
follows the lines of the spire aloft into
freedom takes ON the Symmetry of the
archways and rosewindows, finds room
for its march along the line of the reced-
ing pillars, and so itself makes land and
building of higher price. Here art sup
plements nature, and does for the daily
hphnldpr yuhat Ciahf nf ntai
sea can do for those who live in daily
contact with them, with all the addition
al force, moreover, of the artists in
tuition and ability to interpret. And in
the open country the window that COM
mands the distance and its purple, that
has sunset or sunrise, at which you
can sit and see the shadows sail across
land and wood, by night can see the
Milky Way and lose yourself among the
stars-such window is as good as
poem every time one glances through it,
and its possession gives nobility to the
poorest and meanest structure.
The windows of the house are ire
quently the only outlooks for the souls
Of the weary workers within. If the
mistress of the house be of feeble body
it is impossible for her in any other way
to go SO far from home as she can 90 by
looking through her window, if that
window has some beauty in the view it
gives. If she be too busy in necessary
duties to spare time for running here and