Go into the houses of our great men

Go into the houses of our great men

Go into the houses of our great men - such as live in the country - whom God made great, not money - and see how they live. We speak not of statesmen and politicians alone, but great merchants, great scholars, great divines, great mechanics, and all men who, in mind and attainments, are head and shoulder above their class in any of the walks of life, and you find no starch, or flummery about them. We once went out to the country house - he lived there all the time, for that matter - of a distinguished banker of one of our great cities, to dine, and spend the day with him. He had a small farm attached to his dwelling, where he kept his horses and cows, his pigs, and his poultry. He had a large, plain two-story cottage house, with a piazza running on three sides of it, from which a beautiful view of the neighboring city, and water, and land, was seen in nearly all directions. He was an educated man. His father had been a statesman of distinguished ability and station at home, and a diplomatist abroad, and himself educated in the highest circles of business, and of society. His wife, too, was the daughter of a distinguished city merchant, quite his equal in all the accomplishments of life. His own wealth was competent; he was the manager of millions of the wealth of others; and his station in society was of the highest. Yet, with all this claim to pretension, his house did not cost him eight thousand dollars - and he built it by "days-work," too, so as to have it faithfully done; and the furniture in it, aside from library, paintings, and statuary, never cost him three thousand. Every room in it was a plain one, not more highly finished than many a farmer's house can afford. The furniture of every kind was plain, saving, perhaps, the old family plate, and such as he had added to it, which was all substantial, and made for use. The younger children - and of these, younger and older, he had several - we found happy, healthy, cheerful, and frolicking on the carpets; and their worthy mother, in the plainest, yet altogether appropriate garb, was sitting among them, at her family sewing, and kindly welcomed us as we took our seats in front of the open, glowing fireplace. "Why, sir," we exclaimed, rubbing our hands in the comfortable glow of warmth which the fire had given - for it was a cold December day - "you are quite plain, as well as wonderfully comfortable, in your country house - quite different from your former city residence!" "To be sure we are," was the reply; "we stood it as long as we could, amid the starch and the gimcracks of - - street, where we rarely had a day to ourselves, and the children could never go into the streets but they must be tagged and tasselled, in their dress, into all sorts of discomfort, merely for the sake of appearance. So, after standing it as long as we could, my wife and I determined we would try the country, for a while, and see what we could make of it. We kept our town-house, into which we returned for a winter or two; but gave it up for a permanent residence here, with which we are perfectly content. We see here all the friends we want to see; we all enjoy ourselves, and the children are healthy and happy." And this is but a specimen of thousands of families in the enjoyment of country life, including the families of men in the highest station, and possessed of sufficient wealth.

Fonte: Rural Architecture. Farm Houses.