It would be worth the while to build still more deliberately
than I did, considering, for instance, what foundation a door, a
window, a cellar, a garret, have in the nature of man, and perchance
never raising any superstructure until we found a better reason for
it than our temporal necessities even. There is some of the same
fitness in a man's building his own house that there is in a bird's
building its own nest. Who knows but if men constructed their
dwellings with their own hands, and provided food for themselves and
families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would be
universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are so
engaged? But alas! we do like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their
eggs in nests which other birds have built, and cheer no traveller
with their chattering and unmusical notes. Shall we forever resign
the pleasure of construction to the carpenter? What does
architecture amount to in the experience of the mass of men? I
never in all my walks came across a man engaged in so simple and
natural an occupation as building his house.
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