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1It is the luxurious and dissipated who set the fashions which the herd so diligently follow. The traveller who stops at
2the best houses, so called, soon discovers this, for the publicans presume him to be a Sardanapalus, and if he resigned
3himself to their tender mercies he would soon be completely emasculated. I think that in the railroad car we are
4inclined to spend more on luxury than on safety and convenience, and it threatens without attaining these to become no
5better than a modern drawing room, with its divans, and ottomans, and sun-shades, and a hundred other oriental things,
6which we are taking west with us, invented for the ladies of the harem and the effeminate natives of the Celestial
7Empire, which Jonathan should be ashamed to know the names of. I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself
8than be crowded on a velvet cushion. I would rather ride on earth in an ox cart with a free circulation, than go to
9heaven in the fancy car of an excursion train and breathe a malaria all the way. The very simplicity and nakedness of
10man's life in the primitive ages imply this advantage at least, that they left him still but a sojourner in nature. When
11he was refreshed with food and sleep he contemplated his journey again. He dwelt, as it were, in a tent in this world,
12and was either threading the valleys, or crossing the plains, or climbing the mountain tops. But lo! men have become the
13tools of their tools. The man who independently plucked the fruits when he was hungry is become a farmer; and he who
14stood under a tree for shelter, a housekeeper. We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and
15forgotten heaven. We have adopted Christianity merely as an improved method of agri-culture. We have built for this
16world a family mansion, and for the next a family tomb. The best works of art are the expression of man's struggle to
17free himself from this condition, but the effect of our art is merely to make this low state comfortable and that higher
18state to be forgotten. There is actually no place in this village for a work of fine art, if any had come down to us, to
19stand, for our lives, our houses and streets, furnish no proper pedestal for it. There is not a nail to hang a picture
20on, nor a shelf to receive the bust of a hero or a saint. When I consider how our houses are built and paid for, or not
21paid for, and their internal economy managed and sustained, I wonder that the floor does not give way under the visitor
22while he is admiring the gewgaws upon the mantel-piece, and let him through into the cellar, to some solid and honest
23though earthy foundation. I cannot but perceive that this so called rich and refined life is a thing jumped at, and I do
24not get on in the enjoyment of the fine arts which adorn it, my attention being wholly occupied with the jump; for I
25remember that the greatest genuine leap, due to human muscles alone, on record, is that of certain wandering Arabs, who
26are said to have cleared twenty-five feet on level ground. Without factitious support, man is sure to come to earth
27again beyond that distance. The first question which I am tempted to put to the proprietor of such great impropriety is,
28Who bolsters you? Are you one of the ninety-seven who fail, or of the three who succeed? Answer me these questions, and
29then perhaps I may look at your bawbles and find them ornamental. The cart before the horse is neither beautiful nor
30useful. Before we can adorn our houses with beautiful objects the walls must be stripped, and our lives must be
31stripped, and beautiful housekeeping and beautiful living be laid for a foundation: now, a taste for the beautiful is
32most cultivated out of doors, where there is no house and no housekeeper. Old Johnson, in his "Wonder-Working
33Providence," speaking of the first settlers of this town, with whom he was contemporary, tells us that "they burrow
34themselves in the earth for their first shelter under some hillside, and, casting the soil aloft upon timber, they make
35a smoky fire against the earth, at the highest side." They did not "provide them houses," says he, "till the earth, by
36the Lord's blessing, brought forth bread to feed them," and the first year's crop was so light that "they were forced to
37cut their bread very thin for a long season." The secretary of the Province of New Netherland, writing in Dutch, in
381650, for the information of those who wished to take up land there, states more particularly that "those in New
39Netherland, and especially in New England, who have no means to build farmhouses at first according to their wishes, dig
40a square pit in the ground, cellar fashion, six or seven feet deep, as long and as broad as they think proper, case the
41earth inside with wood all round the wall, and line the wood with the bark of trees or something else to prevent the
42caving in of the earth; floor this cellar with plank, and wainscot it overhead for a ceiling, raise a roof of spars
43clear up, and cover the spars with bark or green sods, so that they can live dry and warm in these houses with their
44entire families for two, three, and four years, it being understood that partitions are run through those cellars which
45are adapted to the size of the family. The wealthy and principal men in New England, in the beginning of the colonies,
46commenced their first dwelling houses in this fashion for two reasons; firstly, in order not to waste time in building,
47and not to want food the next season; secondly, in order not to discourage poor laboring people whom they brought over
48in numbers from Fatherland. In the course of three or four years, when the country became adapted to agriculture, they
49built themselves handsome houses, spending on them several thousands." In this course which our ancestors took there was
50a show of prudence at least, as if their principle were to satisfy the more pressing wants first. But are the more
51pressing wants satisfied now? When I think of acquiring for myself one of our luxurious dwellings, I am deterred, for,
52so to speak, the country is not yet adapted to human culture, and we are still forced to cut our spiritual bread far
53thinner than our forefathers did their wheaten. Not that all architectural ornament is to be neglected even in the
54rudest periods; but let our houses first be lined with beauty, where they come in contact with our lives, like the
55tenement of the shellfish, and not overlaid with it. But, alas! I have been inside one or two of them, and know what
56they are lined with. Though we are not so degenerate but that we might possibly live in a cave or a wigwam or wear skins
57today, it certainly is better to accept the advantages, though so dearly bought, which the invention and industry of
58mankind offer. In such a neighborhood as this, boards and shingles, lime and bricks, are cheaper and more easily
59obtained than suitable caves, or whole logs, or bark in sufficient quantities, or even well-tempered clay or flat
60stones. I speak understandingly on this subject, for I have made myself acquainted with it both theoretically and
61practically. With a little more wit we might use these materials so as to become richer than the richest now are, and
62make our civilization a blessing. The civilized man is a more experienced and wiser savage. But to make haste to my own
63experiment.
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