"If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces."
"If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces."
Merchant of Venice, Act i., Scene ii.
Of all the recognized styles of domestic architecture the position of modern Queen Anne, or so-called Free Classic, is perhaps the most difficult to determine. The nomenclature will assist us but little in investigating its art-history and constructive laws,—the term Queen Anne being as much too narrow as Free Classic is too broad. If we ask the professors of architecture and the more learned practitioners of the art for information on the subject, we shall get vague and unsatisfactory replies. Many of the younger and more enthusiastic architects, and the devotees of spinning-wheels, blue India teapots, and green crown glass will, on the contrary, unhesitatingly tell us that Queen Anne, is "high art;" forgetting that art had reached its lowest ebb in England when William and Mary ascended the throne left vacant by the Stuarts.
With such diversity of sentiment and reasoning, how shall we elucidate the truth? When did Queen Anne architecture originate, who were its great masters, under what influence did it spring up, what causes led to its decline, and to what source may we trace its sudden and aggressive renaissance? To the student who looks beneath the surface of fashionable art-culture the Queen Anne and Georgian periods seem almost like a mirage, where he sees dimly reflected vistas of city streets lined with tall houses built of red brick, with tiled roofs, long and narrow sash-windows painted white, and outside shutters painted green. If he goes to the academies for information, he will be told that early Queen Anne was a feeble application of Palladian rules designed for palatial works in marble to smaller edifices built of brick, and that late Queen Anne is simply a craze that must run its course and then sink into obscurity, as did its prototype.
This lack of historical data is the more remarkable when we consider that the style now known as that of Queen Anne is but of yesterday. We can follow the gradual development of styles and systems of construction and their transitions into other and later styles, from the Egyptian, Syrian, Grecian, Roman, and Byzantine, and the wondrous science of the Middle Ages, to the wealth of Continental Renaissance, but of the style of Queen Anne we can find little more than the name. England gradually remodelled her feudal castles into the noble and picturesque manor-houses of the Tudor kings, and her architects during the reign of Elizabeth carried this somewhat fanciful, but at the same time dignified, system of construction to its utmost development. All this will be clearly and logically explained by the professors of the academies. They will further add that after the accession of the Stuarts the building art gradually declined, with only a few flashes of brilliant light in the works of Inigo Jones and Wren. The Commonwealth was prudish in art as in manners, and the Restoration was a reign of revel and wild license. The social worlds of William and Mary and of Queen Anne, stiff, starched, and formal, left their impress upon the buildings of their day, which were mostly of a domestic character. The Free Classic of the Georgian reigns followed,—more refined in sentiment, delicate but severe in outline, aristocratic, but lacking strength and boldness in composition. With the advent of the Victorian Gothicists the worn-out and debased Free Classic passed into obscurity, there to remain until the passage by Parliament of the Elementary Education Act in 1870 brought it once more into prominence.
So much for the teachings of the academies, hampered by conservatismand constructive traditions. They see little that is good in architecture which cannot be traced through a long line of precedents, gradually developing, as did the Gothic from the slender lancets and bold buttressing of the earlier examples to the delicate tracery and wondrous carving of Lincoln and of York. But, for all this, Queen Anne has a history, architectural as well as political. Her short reign witnessed the erection of a class of manor-houses and city dwellings which, gradually improved under the two succeeding monarchs, have formed the basis for a revival of a remarkable character. The sudden renaissance of Queen Anne or Free Classic architecture is the growth of but fourteen years, and yet all classes of society have been alike filled with aspirations for Queen An-tic houses, and for domestic appliances, and even dresses and garniture, associated with that period. The extremely low art of the last decade of the seventeenth century has become the "high art" of to-day, and bids fair, after outgrowing the eccentricities of plan and detail with which many designers have loaded it down, to develop into an honest, home-like, and thoroughly domestic style, in consonance with the requirements of nineteenth-century culture and refinement. England and America alike have felt the pulse-beat of the reformers, ready and longing for a change that will be radical and honest in its workings. Let us, then, attempt to define the position of Queen Anne architecture, historically, constructively, and æsthetically. Let us endeavor to penetrate beyond the superficial investigations of the "high-art" amateur and see what may be the real value of the Queen Anne revival as a basis for the architecture of to-day, and wherein lies the germ which may be utilized as a stepping-stone to greater excellence.
Perhaps the best way to illustrate the different phases of Free Classic will be to group the reigns of William and Anne in one period of a quarter of a century, half in the seventeenth and half in the eighteenth, following the Stuart, or Jacobean, and preceding the Georgian. At first sight there appears to be little promise of finding any genuine art in English works of this period. The Mediæval Ecclesiastical style had died out nearly two hundred years before, and during the interval the revival of classic architecture had steadily advanced from small and rude beginnings to a respectable position, with an academic system, so to speak, which, although it never attained in England the appreciation which led to its luxurious development on the Continent, found expression in many works of dignity and excellence. During the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. a domestic style for manor-houses had sprung up, based upon Gothic traditions of the Tudor type, with an admixture of the Renaissance of that day. This transitional manner struggled through the Commonwealth comparatively undisturbed, losing by degrees all traces of its mediæval origin. It maintained, however, partly perhaps by the intention of its designers, but chiefly through accident, a character of picturesqueness and homeliness.
The great fire of 1666 desolated two-thirds of London, destroying thirteen thousand two hundred houses and eighty-nine churches, including St. Paul's Cathedral. Down to this time the architecture of London had been mostly of the timber, brick, and plaster type of the Tudors. The houses were crowded closely together, covering every available piece of ground, and overhanging story above story until in many cases the daylight was almost excluded from the narrow courts and crooked alleys. Many of these houses were built of slight materials, covered on the exterior with painted planks and on the interior with plaster. During the reign of James I. it was enacted that the fronts of city houses should be of brick or stone. In many cases, however, a compromise was made in favor of heavy timber fronts, which were often richly carved and moulded, the panels filled with bricks and plastered, the sides away from the street being still built of wood. Inthese houses we find numerous instances of the picturesque oriels and windows adopted by the designers of the modern Queen Anne school.
The fire wrought a complete change in building-construction and in the health of the city. The plague, until then a constant visitor, disappeared. The streets and courts were widened and much improved, and an entirely new class of buildings arose above the ruins of ancient London. Immediately after the fire a proclamation was issued by the king, giving instructions for certain reforms in building-construction. This may be called the birth of the movement which later on developed into the Queen Anne or Free Classic style of the early eighteenth century. In this proclamation the king commands as follows: "In the first place, the woful experience in this late heavy visitation hath sufficiently convinced all men of the pernicious consequences which have attended the building with timber, and even with stone itself, and the notable benefit of brick, which in so many places hath resisted and even extinguished the fire; and we do hereby declare that no man whatsoever shall presume to erect any house or building, great or small, but of brick or stone; and if any man shall do the contrary, the next magistrate shall forthwith cause it to be pulled down and such further course taken for his punishment as he deserves; and we suppose that the notable benefit many men have received from those cellars which have been well and strongly arched will persuade most men who build good houses to practise that good husbandry by arching all convenient places." By an act of the Common Council, passed on the 29th of April, 1667, in furtherance of the king's proclamation, it is ordered, among other details, that the purveyors "do encourage and give directions to all builders, for ornament sake, that the ornaments and projections of the front of buildings be of rubbed bricks, and that all the naked parts of the walls be done of rough bricks neatly wrought, or all rubbed, at the discretion of the builder." Permission was at the same time given to enrich buildings by variety in the forms of roofs, balconies, etc.
The urgent demand for new edifices to replace those destroyed by fire, and the necessity for observing strict economy in their erection, precluded picturesque grouping and well-studied designs. The quaint but dangerous architecture of 1666 was rapidly replaced by rows of plain, monotonous brick buildings, devoid of artistic merit. In Cheapside and some of the more important thoroughfares the houses erected during this period were of a somewhat better character, taller, and more elegant in design.
While improvement in the character of domestic architecture was thus hampered by economic considerations and an intricate system of land-tenures, public and ecclesiastical architecture was greatly improved. The rebuilding of St. Paul's Cathedral and fifty city churches by Sir Christopher Wren marks an epoch in the history of the English Church which should not be overlooked. For the first time since the Reformation the planning and general features of church edifices were made to conform to the exigencies of the Protestant faith and a simplified ritual. Rarely has such an opportunity for distinction been vouchsafed to any architect as that which fell to the lot of Wren; and he proved himself equal to the task. Fergusson is my authority for the statement that during the last forty years of the seventeenth century no building of importance was erected of which he was not the architect. Had his design for a complete rebuilding of the burnt district been carried out, London would have risen from its ashes one of the most convenient and beautiful cities in the world. The edifices erected by Wren are models of their kind. A thorough constructor, he was not less an artist in his feelings, and boldly adapted the systems of the Renaissance to the requirements of the times, modifying his details to meet the exigencies which arose. The "Free Classic" of Wren was certainly very different in conception and execution from the stiff and formal expression which we note in the worksof his immediate successors, several of whom were, however, men of marked ability. It was, moreover, immeasurably superior to the classic attempts of the architects of the middle Georgian period, who, carried away by the enthusiasm awakened by the perusal of the newly-published "Antiquities" of Stuart and Revett, attempted to adapt Doric porticos, hexastyle, octostyle, etc., to modern domestic architecture.
With the accession of William and Mary, England and the Continent became more closely united. French, Spanish, and Florentine styles of dress became the fashion, and furniture designed in the Flemish and Dutch workshops succeeded to the heavier examples of the preceding reigns. The opening of the China trade and the importation of Delft porcelain exerted a marked influence upon the tastes of society. An affected admiration for Dutch topiary also became a fashion. It flourished for a time, and reached its utmost limit of quaint absurdity in the reign of Queen Anne.
Architecture also felt the influence of the Dutch school: brick was by law and custom the vernacular building-material of London, as it was of the Netherlands, and high-stepped gables with wavy lines became frequent. Broken pediments with volute terminals were placed over doors and windows; while a slight admixture of wrought and moulded bricks was often added to give some degree of elegance and richness to the façades. This use of moulded brick had played a prominent part in the old Tudor works; but Parliament had placed heavy and almost prohibitory taxes upon its manufacture and that of glass, thus vitiating the taste of the designer by the necessity for studying strict economy in construction. The manor-houses erected during the reigns of William and Anne are of a different type: they are bold and massive, picturesque in outline, and semi-classic in detail.
Through the Georgian reigns and that of William IV. the taste for Free Classic continued, gradually becoming more debased, with a few feeble attempts at a revival of mediæval work, as shown by Walpole at Strawberry Hill; while in the cities the schools of Nash and Wyatt were stuccoing the honest brick-work of their street-fronts into bad imitations of Roman palaces. This called forth such epigrams as,—
Augustus of old was for building renowned,—For of marble he left what of brick he had found;But is not our Nash a still greater master?He found London brick, and will leave it plaster.
The earlier years of Victoria's reign were marked by aspirations for a better state of things, and discussions between the rival schools of Classicists and Mediævalists. The latter carried the day, and, after an heroic struggle and many failures, England awoke from her long lethargy, to find herself the possessor of a noble architecture, a true exponent of ecclesiastical art and tradition, although confessedly far from perfect when applied to domestic buildings. For these latter edifices the old manor-houses, with their many mullioned windows and Tudor arcuation, formed the basis for design, and machicoli, turrets, and open timber roofs became the fashion for country-houses; but the city dwellings were erected in a style that was a compromise between the Georgian and the semi-Gothic, the most difficult problem being to reconcile the double hung sash with the pointed arches of mediæval precedent.
English architecture was in this uncertain and transitory state when, in 1870, Parliament passed the Elementary Education Act. This was an opportunity long waited for, and the architects seized upon it with avidity. The natural desire was to give to the school-buildings a character distinctively their own, simple in plan and construction, with but little architectural display, and built of the vernacular constructive material of English cities,—red brick. Moulded brick could now be procured in abundance, the tax having been removed by Parliament in 1850. Such was the beginning of modern Queen Anne architecture. From small beginningsit has developed into an harmonious and well-defined system of domestic building, very different in its better phases from the stiff and starched appearance of its prototypes, being marked by breadth and freedom of treatment, and in many cases by great richness of detail.
The architects of the United States soon caught the enthusiasm of their English brethren, and the Centennial Exhibition of 1876 served to intensify the feeling of patriotism. If Queen Anne architecture is dear to Englishmen, it should be doubly so to us. In England the history of building may be traced back for centuries, style following style in regular sequence, one growing out of and interwoven with another. With us the case is different. The early colonists landed in America when Jacobean architecture was at its best, but they could give little thought to style or detail. Protection from the elements and savage foes was their first requirement. Later, when they could give more attention to architecture as an art, Queen Anne ruled the popular taste, and our colonial mansions were built and decorated under the influence which surrounded the thought and literature of the time. Queen Anne or early Georgian is, therefore, our starting-point in architectural history. It is well to revive a taste for its quaint and home-like character, not merely for its own sake, but as a stepping-stone to something better and more enduring in the future.
Let us now briefly glance at the various constructive systems embraced in what is to-day known as Queen Anne architecture.
In the sudden renaissance of Palladian detail and Dutch planning, known under the generic title of Queen Anne, we can distinctly trace the influence of three systems of construction. First in dignity, as in age, stands the cottage or old English style, claiming descent from the heavy Tudor mansions of rude stone, rough hewn timber, and white concrete filling, usually termed "magpie work," from the startling contrast between their white panels and tarred timbers. Of these old mansions numerous examples still remain: they were, for the most part, erected during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but in a few instances a much earlier date may be assigned. Their construction is of the most substantial character, and consists in great part of oak frame-work of large scantling, tenoned and pinned together, the spaces between the timbers being filled in on both sides with a composition of well-beaten clay, straw, and chalk, which has become almost as hard as stone. Embedded in this composition are stout oak laths, held in position by cross-sticks, to which they are bound by hazel withes, no nail being used in any part of the work. Second, Queen Anne proper, founded on the domestic architecture of the Netherlands,—a thoroughly appropriate system of construction for a country where brick is the vernacular building-material, and one which perhaps of all others is the most easily adapted to the requirements of city streets, narrow fronts, and lofty façades with but little projection to interrupt light and the various needs of traffic. Third, the style without a name, which during the last decade has gathered to itself a heterogeneous mass of details, both English and Continental, combined with picturesque groupings of parts to form a well-defined and pleasing whole. This system may certainly be called "free," but, as it appears to be simply a stepping-stone to something better and more in consonance with the rapid development of art and the sciences applied to domestic life, it might perhaps be well termed the Victorian Transition.
The originators of modern Queen Anne were men trained in the Gothic school, and their watchword was "true construction." This term seems to be the most elastic and enduring of all the "short and easily-applied rules" of the profession of architecture. It is, however, applied more exclusively to the works of revivalists, and is frequently used in advocacy of new methods andin condemnation of the old. The architects of the Victorian School had had it impressed upon their minds by Pugin, Eastlake, and others, that true construction did not exist after the Middle Ages,—the period of massive timber framing, heavy tables, mantel-trees, and settles, put together with wooden pins and disdaining all curves and wavy lines. For a time these professors of artistic truth were implicitly believed, and architects came to look upon stucco, plastering, glue, veneers, broken pediments, and applied ornamentation as monstrous emanations from diseased brains, bewildered and carried off their balance by the great upheaval of the Renaissance.
The rapidity with which a change of sentiment was achieved is one of the most remarkable phenomena in architectural history. The worshippers of "truth" and the rest of the "Seven Lamps," the plaster-ornament-breakers of 1860, became ten years later the loyal subjects of Queen Anne, accepting without question the tenets of Stuart and Revett, the Adams, and even of Nash and Wyatt, who carried the use of stucco and applied ornamentation to the extremity of extravagance.
In studying the constructive features of the Queen Anne renaissance, we find many examples of richly-ornamented façades, combined with affected picturesqueness and quaintness unthought of two hundred years ago. How are we to account for this change in favor of greater richness and profusion of detail in a professed revival of the pure and simple forms of the past, and for the well-established fact, easily recognized by the student of architecture, that the Queen Anne brick-work of to-day owes much of its effectiveness, constructively and æsthetically, to the teaching of an earlier school,—that of the Tudors?
Decorative brick-work, as we find it used in English architecture, is not simply the outgrowth of the Dutch school, introduced at the accession of William of Orange. For centuries it had been employed with success, particularly in Norfolk and other brick-districts. Under the Tudor sovereigns, moulded and carved brick-work attained a high standard of excellence. The buildings erected during this period were frequently enriched with delicately wrought string-moulds, gable-ends, and cornices, sharp in outline, crisp and spirited in detail. Even under the Stuarts, Inigo Jones and his great successor Wren executed some noble works in this material. Unfortunately for art, Parliament in 1625 established the rectangular dimensions of bricks, which thenceforward were moulded on one dreary model,—a block of clay nine by four by two and one-half inches. In 1784 Parliament again interfered, and levied heavy taxes upon all bricks modelled, whether such bricks were spoiled in the baking or not. This tax was in its action almost prohibitory of any attempt at establishing a higher grade of workmanship. In the long interval between 1625 and the repeal of the tax in 1850, workmen in clay forgot their cunning, and all desire for improvement in design had come to a stand-still.
The Victorian architects made strenuous efforts to reform so discreditable a state of things, and, after struggling against the ignorance of labor and the conservatism of brick-masters, attained their end, and when, in 1870, the School Board Act went into operation it found them ready, with well-trained mechanics at their command. In 1850 the revival and expansion of semi-classic architecture wrought in brick would have been impossible; in 1870 the building world was ripe for the change. The architects themselves, after receiving their early education under the leaders of the stucco and plaster school of the later Georgian reigns, had had their ideas purified and refined by the art-teachings of the Victorian Gothicists. The result was a spontaneous movement to develop a new system of construction, with lintelled openings and square fenestration,—Queen Anne modified and elevated by mediæval teachings and traditions. A traditional manner, but a sensible one; a sudden fashion, if you will; a craze, but a craze uponwhich the architects of the future will probably look back with satisfaction, as a bold and successful step toward the solution of the vexed problem of domestic architecture,—how to make every man's house his proper dwelling, how to combine Sir Henry Wotton's three conditions of the art of well building,—"Commodity, Firmness, and Delight."
Leaving England, with its highly-developed and well-understood systems of construction as they existed in the seventeenth century, let us turn to the colonial work of the early settlers of America, keeping in mind the difficulties which surrounded them, and which not only influenced, but determined by absolute necessities, many of the constructive peculiarities which we note in their domestic buildings.
In the English colonies of North America we find, between the first settlement and the opening of the Revolution, three distinct periods or types of domestic building following each other in regular and clearly-defined sequence, from rude and massive structures of stone and timber to carefully-constructed and artistically-designed mansions.
The first period of colonial architecture embraces the greater part of the seventeenth century. Numerous edifices of this period may still be seen in Providence and Newport, Rhode Island, as well as in the western portions of the State. In Newport County I may instance the Governor Henry Bull house, built in 1639, the Sueton Grant house, built about 1650, the Governor Coddington house, erected in 1647, and the "Captain Kid" house, so called, on Conanicut Island. These houses show all the peculiarities of the constructive science of their day, which aimed simply to attain solidity and protection from the elements. The chimneys and end-walls were generally built of stone, laid up as random rubble, with mortar composed of shell lime, sand, and gravel, and flakes of broken slate pounded fine. The sides of these buildings, and the ends above the line of roof-plate, were of frame construction, made of heavy oak timber, rudely squared, put together with treenails and boarded with oak, usually at an angle of forty-five degrees, thus making of every board a separate brace. This boarding was sometimes covered with coarse stucco, as on the Bull house, or with split shingles, as on the Governor Coddington house, put on with wrought nails.
"Whitehall," the home of Bishop Berkeley, and a group of old houses on Thames Street at Newport, may be said to represent the second period of our colonial architecture,—i.e., the first quarter of the eighteenth century. They are entirely of frame construction, covered over the boarding with thick clap-boards, with beaded edges, put on with wrought nails, and the roofs covered with split shingles of a better class than those previously used. In houses of this period brick began to take the place of stone for chimneys, and the gambrel roof—a form of construction whose history so far has eluded the researches of the student—seems to have originated in the colonies: it continued in favor for a hundred years or more, and gradually developed into a well-proportioned architectural structure, with richly-moulded cornice and well-designed dormers. It had many advantages: the framing was simple and strong, and the attic rooms possessed all the height and floor-space obtainable in the modern French roof, so called, while avoiding the disagreeable box-like appearance of the latter. The window-frames of these early eighteenth-century houses were made of plank, mortised and pinned together, the sills and caps being often moulded and a bead run around the inner edge of the frames. The sashes were heavy and glazed, with small squares of very inferior glass set in wide muntins.
In one of these old houses we find an attempt to modify the gambrel into the hipped roof, a type which became highly developed in the latter half of the eighteenth century. In the earlier examples this roof, instead of being truncated and hipped in all around, with a railing above the crown moulding, was simply hipped in on the lower part, being turned up at the ends, formingsmall gables. The dwellings of this class form a connecting-link between the second and third periods, which may be said to have commenced about 1730, when the growing commercial importance of the seaport towns and the rapid accumulation of wealth induced a more lavish and elegant style of living.
Prominent among the buildings of this period may be noted in Newport the Hazard house on Queen Street, now Washington Square, the Vernon house (Rochambeau's headquarters), the Ayrault house on Thames Street, the old Hazard house on Broad Street, and the Gibbs house on Mill Street. But these are only a few representative buildings taken from the many of the same class to be found scattered through the seaboard States. The interior arrangements were extremely simple, but the architectural details and ornamentation are often rich and marked by great delicacy and refinement in treatment, themotifbeing based upon the Free Classic of the Queen Anne and Georgian reigns. The framing of these buildings is more systematically put together than in the earlier examples. The great beams crossing the ceilings, and the supporting-posts and hanging knees, are surfaced and beaded, instead of being rough-hewn with an axe. The fireplaces are often surrounded with Dutch tiles held in place by brass bands. The locks and door-trimmings are of brass. The window-glass is larger and clearer, and is set in well-made sashes with light muntins carefully wrought by hand. The truncated roof is fully developed, with moulded cornices of good section, the modillions being frequently carved with acanthus-leaves. The entrance door-ways became the central architectural features, and are often richly carved and moulded, with pilasters surmounted with Corinthian capitals, and pediments wrought with a wealth of Palladian detail, cut with much feeling, the muntins in the headlights being often carved into quaint and fantastic interfacings. In a number of instances I have found that when glass panels were required in doors the glass was set as a panel and the doors framed and built around it, the moulding being wrought on the stiles and rails. Fortunately, the old crown glass of the period was of the toughest description, and much of it still remains. The crystal sheets of the present day would not be equal to such rough usage and the cross-strains of warping wood-work, even if they did not break in the putting together. The old Hazard house shows one of the best examples of a moulded and panelled chimney with which I am familiar. The roof is of a most peculiar section when viewed from the gable-end, and the cornice is heavily coved with stucco still in good preservation.
The public buildings of the colonial period were mostly erected during the era of commercial prosperity between 1730 and the passage of the Stamp Act and the Boston Port Bill. Well-known examples are the Newport City Hall, the Redwood Library, and the Jewish Synagogue, all designed by Harrison; the State-House, by Munday; Trinity Church, the oldest of all, built in 1724-25, and the Seventh-Day Baptist Church, built in 1729. These buildings bear the stamp of the best English work of the time, and evince the cultivated taste of their projectors and the skill and professional knowledge of their architects. With the exception of the Seventh-Day Baptist Church, they are still in good condition. The lines in some places have become curved where they were originally straight, roofs have become hollowed, and floors have settled; but the white-oak frames bid fair to outlive several generations of the more ambitious but more slightly constructed edifices of to-day.
The colonial buildings of Providence, like those of Newport, Salem, and other New-England towns, are mostly of frame construction and of one general character. A few edifices of brick, showing the details of Free-Classicism, may occasionally be met with, but the latter material seems never to have become popular or to have been generally used in ordinary street-architecture. Amongthe more characteristic buildings of Providence and its vicinity may be enumerated, as belonging to the first period, the Cæsar house and Green's stone castle,—the latter, at East Greenwich, having been erected in 1660. In the Cæsar house the peculiar section of the roof recalls the Hazard house at Newport, although the latter clearly belongs to the intermediate stage between the second and third periods. The Witch house at Salem, 1690, recalls the Sueton Grant house at Newport, notably in the overhanging of the front at the line of the second floor. The Baptist Church at Providence, erected in 1774, and the Congregational Church, erected in 1816, are of the third period. The latter edifice is post-colonial in date, but, like many other buildings of its class, shows the conservative methods of the early builders and their immediate followers trained under their instruction and example.
With the early domestic edifices of Providence I am not familiar enough to allude to them by name. Many of these houses are extremely rich in semi-classic detail both exterior and interior. The old John Brown house, built of brick in 1786, and now owned by Professor Gammell, is a fine specimen of the dignified and aristocratic type of the Georgian school. The panelling, mantel-pieces, carvings, etc., are of the richest colonial character, and are wrought with much feeling, and the doors are crowned with pediments, a feature not generally adopted in the colonies, although frequently met with in contemporary English work.
We should naturally look to New York for representative works of the Dutch William and Queen Anne schools, but the march of improvement and demolition has been so universal in that city that few examples remain of the domestic architecture of New Amsterdam. Philadelphia will, however, supply us with much valuable material to reward our investigations. In the latter city the Dutch-English school became firmly established. Many of the old buildings of the colonial period still remain, and our attention is frequently drawn to some interesting example while strolling through that portion of the city lying to the east of Tenth Street. These edifices, both public and domestic, are generally of brick construction, showing all the marked peculiarities of English work of the period. The bricks are in nearly every instance laid up with the Flemish bond. The gable-ends are stepped, as in the Netherlands; string-moulds and base-courses made of moulded bricks of good section are often met with; while the whole character and aspect of their façades are in unison with the conservatism and early training of the mechanics who erected them. This conservatism and respect for the ways of their predecessors still exert a powerful influence upon the building-industries of Philadelphia. The masons of that city still cling with reverence to the Flemish system of bonding,—the strongest known to the bricklayer. The planning of the dwelling-houses is different, so far as I am conversant with them, from the system in vogue in any other American city. The varied levels of floors in the "front" and "back" buildings has been tenaciously adhered to by the designers of each generation. This variety in levels gives a rambling, homely effect which is very pleasing, and which is capable of being developed into the highest expression of domestic convenience and artistic elegance of which our modern Queen Anne is capable.
Of the public buildings, Christ Church, St. Peter's Church, Independence Hall, Carpenters' Hall, and some others, represent, I think, the best type of Queen Anne or Georgian architecture to be met with in colonial work. Their designers seem to have been thoroughly in earnest, and the details are marked by conscientious adherence to the established precedents of the time. It was this thorough knowledge of precedent as applied to mass and detail which enabled their designers to grasp boldly the problems before them, and, while not departing from the academic system in which they had been trained, to infuse into each separate building which they erected a dignity and an individuality of its own.
Having thus followed Queen Anne architecture through the various phases of its development, it remains only to refer to its claim to artistic excellence, and answer, if possible, the question frequently asked: Is Queen Anne "high art"?
As a basis for the discussion of so intricate a subject, I will first endeavor to establish the underlying principles of good architecture, using the word style in its broadest sense, expressive of elegance, fitness, and artistic truth,—style proper and style as defined by the antiquarian being two distinct things. It has been argued, and with some show of reason, that the origin of all beauty is in utility; but in architecture, which has other objects besides the gratification of the eye, or even of the understanding, it must be conceded that art holds the second place.
Two thousand years ago, Vitruvius laid down the basis of good architecture: First, order, method, and regularity; second, fitness of arrangement, general disposition, and contrivances adapted to locality and other circumstances; third, uniformity; fourth, proportion,—being the relation of parts or quantities by which harmony and grace are obtained; fifth, character,—which dictates the special aspect of the work according to its purpose; sixth, analogy,—consisting in those resemblances and ideal significances which assimilate the works of man to those of nature; seventh, economy,—not merely the vulgar economy of the purse, but that which combines utility with beauty, admitting nothing superfluous and allowing nothing to be overlooked. Sir Henry Wotton tells us, in the quaint old English of his day, that in architecture, as in all operative arts, "the end is to build well." Other writers have alluded to architecture as the "politeness of building," and as "the art of building with expression." The fundamental law which should govern the preparation of an architectural design is thus happily expressed by Roscoe: "Utility and beauty are bound together in an indissoluble chain; and what the great Author of nature has joined together let no man put asunder."
Will the "Free Classic" of the Queen Anne reformers bear the test of a critical comparison with the "seven lamps" of Vitruvius or the dictum of Roscoe? are such designs true exponents of "high art," and do they meet the requirements of the complex and artificial life of to-day? I propose to confine my investigations to the style of domestic buildings, ecclesiastical and municipal edifices being usually and by general consent designed in a broader and more masculine manner, theirmotifsbeing deduced from mediæval sources or from the rich and dignified Renaissance of Continental Europe.
We have seen that America received her colonial methods of building directly from England; but here the connection ceases, except in sentiment; and a careful comparison of a number of English and American designs for country-houses will, I think, sustain the assertion that in reviving a taste for Queen Anne composition the architects of the two centuries have adopted different ideals as to the logical present and future development of their eclectic system. In short, the situation may be summed up in the query, How "Free" may our Classic become and not offend good taste and common sense?
The Englishman, naturally conservative, clings rigidly to the old systems of domestic planning, and, although varied and often enriched in detail, the exterior of his Queen Anne houses is, in the generality of cases, simply a reflection of earlier works designed for the School Board of London. The planning of these houses is irregular in the extreme, symmetry and balance of parts are ignored, and the communication between the various apartments is complicated and often tortuous. Their long and narrow corridors, and the infrequent use of the furnace or steam-coil as a means for procuring an equitable diffusion of heat, necessitate the screening of doors by placing them in out-of-the-way angles and around corners, to prevent draughts.The humid climate of England renders the veranda objectionable, and the windows, rarely fitted for blinds, are grouped together and divided by light and graceful mullions,—a relic of Tudor practice.
The American architect starts upon his revival with less precedent and conservatism either to assist or to hinder him. He can therefore adopt any system he pleases, or, by combining several styles, compose a thoroughly eclectic design; and he is apt to take full advantage of his opportunities, for his "Free Classic" is free indeed.
No style of domestic architecture can be good or partake of "high-art" qualities that cannot be claimed as a true exponent of the family and social life of the period to which it owes its birth and development. A whimsical fashion in dress, in equipages, or in the etiquette of society may be tolerated without injury to the national advancement. Such fashions are transitory, springing suddenly into notice and as rapidly passing into oblivion. With architecture it is different: here follies are wrought into durable form. We see an ultra Queen Anne house of to-day, and its quaintness and odd conceits attract our fancy. We put up with its manifest incongruities and inconveniences, and for a time all goes well. But when we tire of four-by-four-inch fenestration, glazed with rough cathedral-glass, the lines of the tower several inches off the vertical and bulged in the centre to give the effect of age, the rough and massive walls—of lath and plaster—glittering with broken glass, the ceilings so low that we are unable to have chandeliers to light our rooms, rendered gloomy by artificially-darkened walls and panelling, what are we to do? If the house is well built, it should be in better heart and condition one hundred years hence than the colonial mansions erected prior to 1760 are to-day. These colonial mansions, planned and built for the wealthy merchants of the seaboard towns, may well command our admiration and careful study, but, as a rule, they are entirely unsuited to the domestic life of to-day, and their construction is faulty and badly conceived when viewed in the light of modern practice. They should be respected and studied, because they are true exponents of art-building, in that they show in every line and moulding good common sense,—the use of materials according to the best ability and knowledge possessed by the artisans who erected them, and a sturdy manhood which wrought by main strength artistic works out of crude materials with slender mechanical appliances. A study of these old buildings seems to bring before us something of the mental strength of the men who erected them,—men who were fully up to and even ahead of their time, who aimed to do their best, and what they did was good. Such being the case, are we to suppose that had the colonial architects and builders continued in practice down to our own time they would have gone on in the old way, or, rather, behind their own best period of construction to the time when beams were hewn out with an axe and left as large as possible, to reduce the labor to a minimum? No; they were too advanced in sentiment for such weakness, and would no doubt ere this have developed a sensible and correct national style of domestic building, founded upon colonial precedent, but taking into consideration all the advances in science and art and, above all, machinery, which, although decried by the "high-art" amateur, has done much to improve the art and science of American building.
The advanced Queen Anne designer takes a different view of the case. He tells us in all seriousness and with much enthusiasm that the domestic building of the colonists was far in advance of modern work, both in its picturesque aspects and its home-like comfort. He points to the huge beams and hanging knees which support the floors, their rudely-chamfered edges dubbed into shape with an axe, as evidence of the thought and skilful manipulation of the artificer, the sashes with muntins an inch and a half in width, glazed with coarse and greenish glass, and the mouldings, all hand-made, showing the wavy lines and irregular sections inseparablefrom rude hand-work, and then triumphantly asks, "Can your boasted machinery turn out such work as that?" I answer emphatically, No, it cannot; and for this we should be thankful. The colonial mechanics well understood the spirit of Sir Henry Wotton's apt saying, "In architecture, as in all other operative arts, the end is to build well." Would such men have spent their time in hewing out beams of oak ten or twelve inches square by main strength and patience if they had possessed the circular saw driven by steam-power? The weight of these huge beams, of badly-proportioned section, forced to support an overplus of width with comparatively small depth, wrought serious injury to their buildings,—settling floors, irregularly hollowing roofs and ridge-lines, and doing far more than time in rendering these old mansions picturesque and quaint "suggestions" for a revival of "high art." It seems probable that the workmen of the past would have been the first to welcome the advent of machinery and make use of its wide adaptations. At all events, they would never have stooped to the level of the ultra Queen Anne revivalists, who, in striving after the picturesque, have often set well-studied construction at defiance.
In this search after quaintness and picturesque effects roofs and ridge-lines are hollowed out with great labor, walls are made to bulge by nailing on furrings beneath the boarding, clear sheet-glass, easily procured of any dimensions, is voted "so inartistic," and the green crown glass and bull's-eyes are taken from some venerable farm-house, where they fitly belonged, to fill the irregular fenestration of a modern parlor.
What is the logical sequence of so anomalous a state of domestic architecture? Shall we sand our floors, and design chairs with high backs to break off the draughts from our rattling sashes, from which we have removed the cords and weights? abandon the equable temperature throughout our dwellings for individual fires unassisted by the furnace or steam-coil? revert to the moderator or carcel lamp, casting a dim light over a radius of a few feet and entirely below the level of the eye, and place on our outer doors the old brass knockers to awaken the denizens of a whole square with their noisy reverberations?
I think I may safely assert that such designs and architectural fashions are not the exponent of "high art;" and, while they may please for a time a people always alive to novelty, they will ultimately be set aside, on the ground of their unworthiness when measured by the standard of common sense. It has been said of common sense applied to building that "when and wherever architecture has been practised as a living art, as an outgrowth of the wants of the people who practise it, especially in those periods which are generally reckoned by the educated as the purest, this quality is everywhere recognized. From the rock-hewn cave and rude hut to the stateliest edifice, this principle will be found to exist; and, though a common-sense building may have no artistic beauty, a building which sets common sense at defiance will fail to please the intelligent observer."
Something there is more needful than expense,And something previous e'en to taste,—'tis sense,Good sense, which only is the gift of heaven,And, though no science, fairly worth the seven.
Critical writers, in reviewing architectural publications, have frequently remarked that the authors of such works, particularly those which profess to deal with the æsthetical side of the profession, while severely censuring the prevailing taste for what they term "debased art," and denouncing all methods adopted since the birth of the Renaissance, rarely offer us any formulas by following which we may advance the tone and sentiment of architecture. When they do offer any advice, it is too often in vague terms, scarcely to be understood by the general reader. Thus, one tells us that to follow taste alone is a delusion, and that architecture, to be worthy of its name, should be a logical development of the constructive sciences based upon man's necessities and the requirements of social life. Inshort, instead of offering a grammar of architecture suited to the wants of the general and unprofessional reader, these authors offer theoretical reasoning of an advanced order; instead of art-instruction, severe censures upon existing forms. The system by which architectural students are educated and prepared for the duties of professional life has much to do with their lack of readiness in formulating in after-years practical theories for the improvement of their art.
But the establishment of architectural schools at the Boston Institute of Technology, at Columbia College, and at Champagne, Illinois, with well-trained and enthusiastic professors at the head of each, and carefully-selected corps of assistants, is already doing much toward an improvement in students themselves, and in raising the standard of American architecture as a profession in the eyes of society. This student-system must in time create a body of men, well educated, enthusiastic, and bound together by anesprit de corpshitherto almost unknown among the great body of practising architects. The dictum passed by such a body upon the art and science of building will be received with respect by the laymen who employ them, and American architecture, in its better phases, will receive an impetus and a nervous strength in construction and composition which at present we find exemplified only in the scattered works of a few highly-trained practitioners. So far we have had in this country no fixed standard by which the educated architect may be tried and his professional position established. Unlike the practice of law and medicine, the field is free to all, and previous training is not required. In France, where the educational probation is long and severe and the rewards of success certain, the graduates of the schools are few in number compared with the lists of new names constantly appearing in the columns of our city directories with the designation of "architect." In America, young men, ambitious and anxious to succeed, after a few months spent in study and in copying drawings in some prominent office, set up for themselves. They naturally drift into the ranks of the Queen Anne designers, for the reason that their art is "free," and they can jumble together
A patchwork of Japan,And queer bits of Queen Anne,All mixed upon the planOf as you like or as you can.
One of the most zealous of the English Queen Anne revivalists has made the candid confession of the real weakness under the apparent strength of the movement, in stating that "it is a bad style for students to cut their teeth upon." If it is a bad foundation for the education of students, certainly it must be bad for the stability and beauty of their future works.
Nothing that I have seen so cleverly portrays the young and "high art" architectural aspirant as the delineation of a character in a novel published in England under the title of "The Ambassador Extraordinary," and said to have been written by an eminent architect. With unsparing pen the author sketches a character, Georgius Oldhausen by name, F.S.A., professor of architecture of a very advanced order. The work is well executed, and we can almost see before us the architect who, disdaining such insignificant matters as good planning, stability of construction, and convenient disposition of parts, claims to be an artist pure and simple, and, leaving practical matters entirely out of the question, goes in heavily for the picturesque and pure mediæval, Queen Anne, or Jacobean, as the case may be. Let us follow him as he conducts a friend over a church and conventual establishment in course of construction.
"Your rooms," says Monsignore, "seem to me to be made almost as uncomfortable as they possibly can be."
"Why, of course!" exclaims the astonished artist, fixing his glass somewhat indignantly in his eye. "What you call uncomfortable I call quaint."
"Very possibly I should call it the same; but, my dear sir,cui bono?"
"Cui bono!" answers the architectcontemptuously. "That's what all modern people say; that's the horrible mistake of the whole modern world. We shall never recover the tone of the old men till we get rid of such jargon. Now, just for an instant, imagine the fathers of this abbey of ours going in for wash-hand-basins!"
He drops his eye-glass in sheer dismay at such an idea. They next visit the refectory. Master Georgius here excels himself. "I'm going in for doing it inside in red brick, and vaulting it in red brick too, with black diaper-patterns all over, you know."
"How pretty!"
"I hope not," (dropping his glass.) "The diapers will be quite irregular, and full of what you would very likely call mistakes."
"A sort of intentional accidents, George."
"Yes; not a bad term. And then the joints will be all raked out roughly, and the brick-work smeared, you know. I have quite a new idea about that. I mean to go in for letting the workmen have the use of all the rooms, with liberty to smudge them as much as they like; and so at the end we shall have a sort of antique effect, you know."
"They will be dirty."
"You may call it dirt," says Georgius, refixing his eye-glass. "I call it art. And there will be marks here and there where the fellows have lighted fires, you know."
"And caricatures on the walls, I suppose."
"Of course. I shall go in for that very much. I shall offer a prize for the quaintest. I'll have them done with a brush of paint, you know, or scratch them with a screw-driver, and so on. I call that real art."
"So it is, George."
"And smudges of candle-smoke everywhere, and grease, and all that sort of thing. Well, here's the dormitory; that's in yellow brick, with white ones, and red ones, and so on, intermixed at random. Magnificent!"
The tower he proposes to treat in an equally artistic manner. "I shall go in for building it quite rough on purpose, and have it washed over with something—that's a matter of detail, you know—to produce fungus, or moss, or lichens, or whatever you choose to call it; and I shall plant things in the crevices as we go up,—wall-flowers, and houseleek, and ferns, and couch-grass, and all that kind of thing, you know."
"But what is all that for?"
"What is it all for?" says Master Georgius, dropping his glass. "Why, what could it be for? To give authenticity to the tower, of course."
With all this so-called æstheticism and crude speculation upon the proper development of architecture as a fine art, I believe the reformers of the Queen Anne school have honestly attempted to improve and elevate the standard of our domestic buildings. At all events, they have brought into the ranks of the profession life and nerve, elements absolutely necessary to an honest development of art-methods. The sentiment for art pure and simple will gradually expand into a greater veneration for the scientific elements of their professional career, and the necessity of clearly demonstrating to the uneducated comprehension of mechanics the practicability of their designs will induce those habits of thought and investigation which, if honestly pursued, will elevate the standard of professional attainments. As a natural result, their designs when executed will give us edifices artistic in conception and detail, well planned, and built by the best-known methods of construction.
The Queen Anne revival, viewed apart from the incongruities which have been engrafted upon it, is a movement of great interest to the architectural fraternity. Although a worn-out and debased art was the foundation of this renaissance, the movement has given to us, in the works of its best masters, much that is beautiful and honest in theory and in real domestic comfort. It may be said to be the picturesque art of a hitherto unpicturesque time and people. Let us, then, cultivate the principles of Free-Classicism honestly and logically,striving to secure the best results from our studies and the works of our predecessors; but do not let us be carried away by our love for archæology and attempt to make our Queen Anne houses of to-day simply a reflex of those of the early eighteenth century. If we attempt such purism we must fail signally as constructors and as artists. Architecture, to be a living art, must press forward and keep pace with the advance of civilization, combining and utilizing all the varied resources at its command, and aiming to meet all the public and domestic requirements of a complex and artificial state of civilization. To Americans, Queen Anne or early Georgian is the starting-point of architectural history. Let us, then, take it as our standard, the Alpha of our profession, and aim to emulate the old masters in their endeavors to do their best with the small means at their command. Let us so design our modern buildings as to obtain the best results from diversified industries, almost human machinery, and the refined taste and superior cultivation of our clients, and we shall be carrying out the Queen Anne revival more logically and with more common sense than by aiming simply to attain the quaint and picturesque aspects of earlier work, forgetting the necessities which compelled the builders of the eighteenth century to stop short in their aspirations for a better and truer art. Let us build strongly, honestly, and conveniently,—eclectically if we will,—and our modified and beautified Queen Anne will become the logical expression of American domestic architecture. It contains the germ of greatness and artistic truth: let us endeavor to secure that germ, and our dwellings, enriched and beautified, will realize the idea of Skelton, who tells us of the early masters who, centuries before the advent of Queen Anne or Free Classic architecture, were
Building royallyTheir mansions curiously,With turrets and with toures,With halls and with boures,Stretching to the starres;With glass windows and barres;Hanging about the walls,Clothes of golde and palles,Arras of rich arraye,Freshe as flowers in Maye.
George C. Mason, Jr.
I woke and heard the thrushes sing at dawn,—A strangely blissful burst of melody,A chant of rare, exultant certainty,Fragrant, as springtime breaths, of wood and lawn.Night's eastern curtains still were closely drawn;No roseate flush predicted pomps to be,Or spoke of morning loveliness to me.But for those happy birds the night was gone!Darkling they sang, nor guessed what care consumesMan's questioning spirit; heedless of decay,They sang of joy and dew-embalméd blooms.My doubts grew still, doubts seemed so poor while they,Sweet worshippers of light, from leafy gloomsPoured forth transporting prophecies of Day.Florence Earle Coates.
They have been many and of a widely various character. We tried them in England, in France, in Italy; we tried them likewise in Germany, Sweden, and Spain, but the result of that trying was, in these last-named countries, far more trying to our digestions and tempers than rich in such recollections as would add to the interest of this paper.
Our first Europeanpensionwas, naturally, a London one. It was one of the innumerable host in the pale realms of Bloomsbury. Like others of its kind in that region, it prided itself upon its "connexion,"—or, less euphemistically, itscustom,—and made a specialty of an Australian "connexion," as the next number upon the right made a specialty of Germans, the one upon the left of South Americans and Spaniards, the one opposite of Russians, and uncounted ones all over London of our countrymen. Although our house was largely frequented by Australians, it did by no means confine its privileges to them. Like every other London boarding-house, it was a perfect caravansary of foreigners of almost every nation and every shade of color. At one time, with a Danish landlord and an Irish landlady, we were Norwegians, Swedes, Russians, Spaniards, Germans, Italians, and East Indians. Also we were several Americans, as was proved one notable day. That day we heard the arrival of new-comers in the hall below. We saw not their hue, but we recognized their cry as that of our countrypeople. We are not madly enamoured of our countryman in foreign climes. There his least adorable qualities—his bumptiousness, his provincialism, his strident tones and "costume de Yank"—are always more strikingly conspicuous than the chivalry toward women and the self-respecting manliness we always recognize so emphatically in him when we return to our own land after a prolonged absence. Hence we panted not for the dinner-hour, that should show us the faces whose voices we recognized as to our own manner born. That hour came, however, as all hours come to those who know how to wait. We descended to the showy table, with its floral decorations of paper, muslin, and gay paint, the ladies in the evening dress of flowers, trains, anddécolletéebodices which is the absurd custom of pretentious Londonpensions. We glanced along the table to note the new-comers. They were there, neatly and stylishly dressed in walking-costumes. They were three quiet gentlemanly and lady-like persons, but their faces were Medusa-like to almost every American who gazed upon them. The foreigners looked intensely amused at this collapse of the American contingent,—all save our Danish landlord, who stared with amazement. Next day our new-comers disappeared.
"How in the world did youcongédierthem?" somebody asked.
"I told them my Americans admire enough coppery Turks, South Americans, Japanese, and East Indians, but they turn to stone at sight of niggers," answered Mr. Nodskou.
The line was certainly not drawn at color, for our Parsees were dusky enough, goodness knows, and them our maidens found very captivating. Several of them spoke no English, and it was the fascinating pastime of our English, Australian, and American girls to teach them our common language. But the result was, alas, not a little confusing to our Parsees.
"Don't fancy you are learning English from those Americans," warned Britannia. "Their accent is horrible: they say the weather is 'fair' when they mean 'fine,' they call their luggage 'baggage,' and when they speak of their travelling-boxes talk of their 'trunks,' like elephants!"
"Don't be fooled by English English," advised Columbia: "the accent is like a mouthful of pudding, and when they mean to say the weather is bad they say it is 'nawsty;' they call their rubbers 'galoshes,' their dépôts 'stations,' and when they start on a journey they get their 'boxes' together, like sweet-biscuit-peddlers."
"Don't mind what either of them say," quoth Miss Melbourne. "Both are wrong. It is only we Australians, living between the two branches of the language, as it were, who select the best and gobble it."
"What must it to say when I have such a fear,sucha fear, that I speak not?" asked one of the Parsees.
"Say you're dickey on your pins," laughed Australia.
"Say you feel all of a goneness," spoke up Columbia.
"No; that is Americanese," flouted Britannia: "say you're in a beastly funk!"
That our Parsees improved under such tuition was somewhat remarkable. The lingual advance of one of them was quite startling. Our young ladies had striven to teach him "good-by." One day, therefore, as the ladies were departing from the dining-room, leaving the gentlemen to their wine, our Parsee opened the door with grave, Oriental courtesy, and, bowing to the rustling covey, said solemnly, "By god, ladies, by god!"
During a political discussion in which English and Australians took chief parts, a Melbourne girl exclaimed excitedly, "Thank goodness,I'mnot English!"
"Not Engleesh!" exclaimed her neighboring Parsee. "What are you but the small little brat of the mother-country?"
Not until we laughed did our grave Oriental remember that "brat" and "child" are not strictly synonymous.
Said one of our English girls afterward to me, with tact and taste pre-eminently British, "Sheglad she is not English! Really,I'dalmost as soon be American as Australian."
Our Parsees were not our only peculiar people. We Americans found quite as much food for sly laughter in the queerness of our Englishhabituésas they did in ours. Our English contingent was largely feminine, therefore, as goes without saying, very High-Church, verydévote, and excessively Tory, worshipping the English aristocracy vastly more than that of celestial courts. Everybody knows the two diseases that virulently assail young Englishwomen,—"scarlet fever" and "black vomit,"—maladies provoked by association with red-coated officers and black-coated curates.
One of our fair Britons had the darker malady. She fasted regularly on Fridays and Tuesdays. We always recognized herjours maigresby the quantity of cakes and pastry we saw carried to her room just before dinner, to which dinner she came in nun-like gray silk, saintly coiffure, with ascetic pallor on cheeks wont to bloom with roses de Ninon, to dine,à laSainte Catherine or Sainte Something else, on a few lentils or a lettuce-leaf.
One Sunday somebody asked this fair devotee to give us a certain popular but profane piano-arrangement. She was shocked beyond measure. A few moments' temptation, however, brought her to a compromise.
"I think there will be no harm if I play it slowly and make it as solemn as possible."
We smiled at the æsthetic piety of our Saint Catherine. But she did more than smile at our national practicality when, one evening, from the gay drawing-room we heard the clamor of a feminine arrival below:
"I won't see any rooms till I know your price. I won't stir a peg till I know what's to pay. I've come from Chicago, where folks know what's what, and I'm going to do Yoorup on the cheap!"
Saint Catherine worshipped her country's aristocracy. One day Jonathan happened to be putting on his coat in the hall, when somebody knocked at the front door. Forgetting that the act, so natural to an American, is ungentlemanlyand menial in England, he opened the door himself. A couple of young swells inquired for Saint Catherine.
"I just saw her go out," answered Jonathan.
"Tell her that the brothers of Lord Verisopht called," said the spokesman.
"I'll tell her," spoke Jonathan; "but, good heavens, young man, don't lords' brothers have any names of their own in this country?"
Another day came a gorgeous individual with a bouquet to the door.
"What skion of the British nobility is that?" asked Jonathan.
"That is Lord Blank's footman," replied Saint Catherine.
"My! Well, whose footman isthat?" continued her interlocutor, pointing to a less gorgeous person holding the reins.
"That is Lord Blank," answered Saint Catherine loftily.
"Sakes alive! Does that goose of a lord think he will stand any chance with the girls when he takes such a howling swell asthataround with him?" asked simple Jonathan.
To this question Saint Catherine deigned no reply, having, perhaps, remarked the wicked twinkle of Jonathan's eye.
One of ourpensionnairesobjected very much to the American language. "It is principally slang," she said. This lady, no longer young, had been three times upon the eve of marriage, had had three bridal dresses, had countermanded three wedding-feasts. She was heiress at that time to the fifty thousand pounds she has since inherited, and the persistent failure of her matrimonial endeavors surprised us all.
"It is because Monsieur mon Père is perfectly addled on the matter of settlements, and rowed with every one of myfiancés," she explained.
She said one day, "The gov'nor has done me out of a guinea of my allowance this week. He's a first-classDo!"
Another time, "The mater and I prefer to live in our own house, but the gov'nor won't hear to it. He prefers 'diggin's' where he can always have his whist."
Some time after our sojourn in Bloomsbury "diggin's" we found ourselves in a Continentalpension, the very reverse of this in every respect. It was a Parisianpension bourgeoise, but one entirely away from every haunt of foreigners as well as from foreign influences,—apensionas French as French could be, where we were not merely the only foreigners present, but the only ones who had ever penetrated there.
It was a large white house, standing in its own grounds, not far from the Bois de Vincennes, pre-eminently apension bourgeoise, and without pretensions higher than the widows of shopkeepers and the relicts of small government employees that formed its support. Not counting ourselves, there were twenty Relicts and one Maiden, all with handsome incomes and diamonds, but with the habit of running far and wide upon the open boulevard in caps, loose sacques, and list slippers, and of boasting of the cheap bargains they made in stockings and gowns. Their toilets were alwaystout ce qu'il y a de plus bourgeois, their conversation ran upon public scandals, private gossip, and fluctuations of trade (almost all of them had kept shop with their departed consorts), their reading was Paul de Kock's novels and thefeuilletonsof "Le Petit Journal." The youngest widow was fifty, the Maiden ninety-and-nine. The latter was daughter of a man who had beenconciergeof the Tuileries during the reign of Charles X. She was dusky and shrivelled as any daughter of the Pharaohs, but her faculties were marvellously preserved and her memory rich with interesting personal gossip of a former period. We Americans should have delighted to draw upon that memory, but one thing hindered us: that was the insatiable, indomitable, unparalleled coquetry of our ancient Maiden. She would never talk with any woman when any man was in the room. She descended to the stuffy littlesalononly in the evening, when the Relicts were gathered to their gambling for sous and the atmosphere was an imitation of the Black Hole of Calcutta. She descendeden grande tenue,the grandest ever seen there, frizzled, jewelled, and muffled to the throat in fleecy clouds of white wool. She came all quirks and quivers, all flutters and smiles, for there she met our only Monsieur,—Monsieur Boulanger, our landlord. She invariably took her seat beside him, and devoted quirks and quivers exclusively to him, tapping him with her fan, calling him "Méchant! méchant!" "farceur," or "quel diable d'homme!" twittering and carolling in her old broken voice, like a senile canary dreaming of its far-off youth. M. Boulanger was of peasant origin and appearance, gray-bearded and gray-haired, and clumping always insabotsover the stone floors, except in thesalonin the evening. But her eyes were only for him; and the only occasion on which any of her own uninteresting sex had her attention was when Madame Boulanger pouted and pretended to be jealous, or some Relict showed pique that our only Monsieur was monopolized by our only Maiden. Then she smiled archly, cooed sweetly, and arched her ancient neck with visible triumph.
Before we left thepension bourgeoiseour front door was hung with heavy black curtains, and our Maiden passed forth into the broad day for the first time in ten years. She went out unsmiling, uncooing, without flutter or quirk, and no date upon her pine coffin, for with her last breath she had forbidden it.
"Nobody need know that I have lived more than fifty years," she murmured; "and don't let Monsieur Boulanger look at me when I am dead."