Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1876-07-19
Rural Ornament.


still more beautiful by the art Of man.
Much Of what is rude and unsightly in it
may be modified or changed, and much that
is beautiful may be made still more 81. The
earth owes the elements of all things in II
10 God, but il also owes much TO man.
The beauty Of nature is very largely reflec-
ton Of ourselves. II is our own idea that
smiles upon us in the various forms Of the
world around u.s. We create for ourselves
the wonders which we enjoy To this pecu-
liarty it is chiefly owing that the noblest
spirits always love their country and their
homes. The places where they live are filed
hopes the joys Of their own hearts. The
best men always have the best country.
The meanest, thoughtless, barbaric men
who are not willing to cultivate and i'm
prove the earth but wander over it like saw
age nomads, have no country aud no home,
The earth il beautiful to them only as it
furnishes full larder for their immediate
and pressing wants
1t is the privilege of the cultivated man to
value the world, the material nature around
him, far more than as a arder which provides
him game, fish, acoms aud berries lie
values il for the Improvements he can effect
in il, for the beauty he can make actual with
it, lie delights in it as the substance in aud
through which he can work out his own
ideas of loveliness and enchantment. It
opens field 10 his industry and TASTE aud
invites him TO its mastery that he may mould
and fashion with il the thoughts and fancies
which troop through his mind aud combine
them in visible scenes and pictures. It is
TO this idealizing power and tendency we
owe all the improvements which have been eff.
fected in the face of nature by the progress
of civilization. The ideal faculty leads men
to ornament their homes, to beautify their
estates, and make the very spot they inhabit
more beautiful for their having lived in it,
In the early stages of civilization men in
quire what they shall eat and drink and
wear They prefer a bed of onions TO
bank of roses, and hill of potatoes TO a
cedar of Lebanon. But in time, higher
tastes are developed. Man becomes by de
grees gardener and architect. lie lays out
his grounds with increasing taste. lie orna-
ments his house with more or less complete
ness. lie forsakes the four walls Of barn
and builds handsome church to worship
in. lie quits the old graveyard overrun
with briars and thorns and lays out the Sc
cluded and beautiful cemetery, with its
shaded walks and sacred well-kept grounds
where lie in sleep the dearest friends of his
heart. Smooth lawns and trimmed hedges
take the place of unsightly premises and di-
lapidated fences. The care which man
bestows on his surroundings is gauge of
his culture and civilization.
Beauty costs no more than ugliness. It
is just as economical to dig cellar and
build farmhouse ON a fine site as on poor
one. 1t is as cheap to put the barn and the
goose-pen and the cider-mill where they will
not spoil the dwelling of the farmer and of
fend against good taste, as it is to flank the
house on all sides with offensive buildings.
Rural scenery requires rural architecture.
II is we'll enough TO build palace in a town,
but it would not harmonic with the country.
blunder in building farmhouse, either
in its location or in its structure, is blum.
der for life. 1t is as easy to make it beauti-
full home which will educate the sensibiites
and the taste as il is to make it ugly, sur
round it with buildings still uglier, and rem
der 1t filter for lair of beasts than for the
habitation OF men, women and children.
No man who has not been trained as an
architect ought 10 plan the house he lives
in. lie might as well try TO translate Greek
if he had never studied it, or administer a
bank if he had never learned the laws of in
terest A little care in this matter of build
ing would make the rural and farming dis
tricts of our state in another hundred years
AS beautiful as Paradise. 1t is ugliness that
costs in the long run. To build bad look
ing house; TO arrange the lots of farm I'M
handsomely; TO cut down trees when they
should be left for shade or beauty; these are
the things that cost. But to put fine idea
into beautiful house and symmetrically
arranged farm, beside costing no more, is a
continual source of delight.
Vermont has special claims upon its in
habitants for this kind of culture. The i'll
kept, Imprinted dilapidated, dirty buildings
Of an otherwise handsome village-are u
constant oifense against good taste good
sense and the law of the beautiful. These
costly and shameful nuisances exist in most
of our villages. They are like a wart ON the
nose OF a handsome woman. They are the
fly in the sweet ointment, that gives it a
poisonous perfume. They are like discord
in music, and they always CRATE on the sen
sibilities of the observer, and create sense
of pain and wrong. How many otherwise
beautiful villages, charming as dream,
there are in our state, spoiled by an old
blacksmths shop in its very heart, or by
houses with shattered windows and leaning
walls, occupying the chief sites, If people
would mix a little mind and heart and taste
with their wealth, or even with their poverty
such excrescences would cease TO exist in all
the villages of our state.
And the rural portion of the state are sus.
ceptible Of vast increase of beauty. Ma
ture has laid ont our grounds on the grand
est scale, and has scattered all around us the
materials of as perfect local scenery as the sun
ever shone on, The curves of our streams and
rivers the multitudes of land-locked lakes ;
the shapely aud graceful hills the winding
valleys, make up a groundwork of grandeur
and loyeliness, upon which little taste and
patient art might fashion pictures of love
illness beyond the dream of poets, that
would make Vermont the very garden of
the world, too dear for any man willingly TO
leave il, and too beautiful for any man of
bad taste to profane it, To the lovers of
what is beautiful in nature, 10 the lovers of
our state who would delight in its cultva-
ton, we say--improve, adorn your home F.;
weed out the old shattered nuisances Of your
villages perfect your simple architecture,
plant trees along your roads and over the
barren lodges Of your fields divorce your
houses and barns from their ill-associated
union train vines, plant trees burn up the
old refuse that is piled along the highways /;
act nm a uvafau, la oil ,.nur o,,it;,a,.o.,