172. The violation of general feelings would thus be unjust, even were
their consultation productive of continued vexation to the individual:
but it is not. To no one is the architecture of the exterior of a
dwelling-house of so little consequence as to its inhabitant. Its
material may affect his comfort, and its condition may touch his pride;
but, for its architecture, his eye gets accustomed to it in a week, and,
after that, Hellenic, Barbaric, or Yankee, are all the same to the
domestic feelings, are all lost in the one name of Home. Even the
conceit of living in a chalet, or a wigwam, or a pagoda, cannot retain
its influence for six months over the weak minds which alone can feel
it; and the monotony of existence becomes to them exactly what it would
have been had they never inflicted a pang upon the unfortunate
spectators, whose unaccustomed eyes shrink daily from the impression to
which they have not been rendered callous by custom, or lenient by false
taste.
173. If these considerations are just when they allude only to buildings
in the abstract, how much more when referring to them as materials of
composition, materials of infinite power, to adorn or destroy the
loveliness of the earth. The nobler scenery of that earth is the
inheritance of all her inhabitants: it is not merely for the few to whom
it temporarily belongs, to feed from like swine, or to stable upon like
horses, but it has been appointed to be the school of the minds which
are kingly among their fellows, to excite the highest energies of
humanity, to furnish strength to the lordliest intellect, and food for
the holiest emotions of the human soul.
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