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- 2026-01-30T20:48:26.985Z
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- built into a recess of the north wall, say another member, the former’s
own brother, perhaps, may be holding his feet to the blaze before a
hearth in the south wall--the two thus fairly sitting back to back. Is
this well? Be it put to any man who has a proper fraternal feeling. Has
it not a sort of sulky appearance? But very probably this style of
chimney building originated with some architect afflicted with a
quarrelsome family.
Then again, almost every modern fireplace has its separate
flue--separate throughout, from hearth to chimney-top. At least such an
arrangement is deemed desirable. Does not this look egotistical,
selfish? But still more, all these separate flues, instead of having
independent masonry establishments of their own, or instead of being
grouped together in one federal stock in the middle of the
house--instead of this, I say, each flue is surreptitiously honeycombed
into the walls, so that these last are here and there, or indeed almost
anywhere, treacherously hollow, and, in consequence, more or less weak.
Of course, the main reason of this style of chimney building is to
economise room. In cities, where lots are sold by the inch, small space
is to spare for a chimney constructed on magnanimous principles; and, as
with most thin men, who are generally tall, so with such houses, what is
lacking in breadth must be made up in height. This remark holds true
even with regard to many very stylish abodes, built by the most stylish
of gentlemen. And yet, when that stylish gentleman, Louis le Grand of
France, would build a palace for his lady friend, Madame de Maintenon,
he built it but one story high--in fact in the cottage style. But then,
how uncommonly quadrangular, spacious, and broad--horizontal acres, not
vertical ones. Such is the palace, which, in all its one-storied
magnificence of Languedoc marble, in the garden of Versailles, still
remains to this day. Any man can buy a square foot of land and plant a
liberty-pole on it; but it takes a king to set apart whole acres for a
Grand Trianon.
But nowadays it is different; and furthermore, what originated in a
necessity has been mounted into a vaunt. In towns there is large rivalry
in building tall houses. If one gentleman builds his house four stories
high, and another gentleman comes next door and builds five stories
high, then the former, not to be looked down upon that way, immediately
sends for his architect and claps a fifth and a sixth story on top of
his previous four. And, not till the gentleman has achieved his
aspiration, not till he has stolen over the way by twilight and observed
how his sixth story soars beyond his neighbour’s fifth--not till then
does he retire to his rest with satisfaction.
Such folks, it seems to me, need mountains for neighbours, to take this
emulous conceit of soaring out of them.
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