degree, there is a kind of natural grain, even in the unnatural material, strengthened by oiling, but softer and richer than any painted surface.  There seems to be no evidence that the mortar is injured by proper coloring-material,—­mineral paints, or even lampblack, if you like it; I don’t.  Whether you like it or not, you are not to use white mortar for the outside work.  Unless, indeed, you propose to build of pressed brick, in which case you will need it to show your neighbors how fearfully and wonderfully nice you are.  If you are so devoted to worldly vanity as to build in that fashion in the country, I don’t believe it will be possible for me to help you.

Chimneys deserve a chapter to themselves, they are so essential and so often abused.  Let them start from the cellar-bottom and run straight and smooth to the very outlet.  If you wish to be exceptionally careful and correct, use round pipe, cement or earthen, enclosed by brick.  When it is so well known how often destructive fires are caused by defective flues, it is surprising that more care is not taken in building chimneys.  They should be intrusted to none but workmen who are conscientious as well as skilful, otherwise every brick must be watched and every trowel full of mortar; for one defect ruins the whole, and five minutes after the fault is committed it can never be detected till revealed by the catastrophe.

If the spaces between the bricks were always filled with good mortar, it would be better not to plaster the inside of the flues, as the mortar is liable to cleave from the brick, and, hanging by one edge, form lodging-places for soot.  As commonly built it is safer to plaster them within and without, especially without, for that can be inspected.  The style of the visible part must depend upon the building.  One thing lay up in the recesses of your lofty mind:  A chimney is most useful and honorable, and you are on no account to be ashamed of it.  Don’t try to crowd it into some out-of-the-way corner, or lean it off to one side to clear a cupola,—­better burn up the cupola,—­or perch it daintily on a slender ridge like a brick marten-box; let it go up strong, straight, and solid, asserting its right to be, wherever it is needed, comely and dignified, and finished with an honest stone cap.  Ruins are charming in the right place, but a tattered chimney-top on an otherwise well-preserved house is vastly more shabby than picturesque.

A common objection to brick houses is their redness; but there is no law against painting them, if their natural color is really inharmonious.  Paint will improve the walls, will last longer on good brickwork than on wood, and there is no deception about it, unless you try to imitate stone.  Still, it is not necessary, oil being just as good; and there is a sort of solid comfort in knowing that your house will look just as well fifty years hence as it does now, that it will mellow and ripen with age, and not need constant petting and nursing to preserve its tidiness.