Only we must not lay the fault upon the builders, as some people
seem inclined to do: they are our very humble servants, and will
build what we ask for; remember, that rich men are not obliged to
live in ugly houses, and yet you see they do; which the builders may
be well excused for taking as a sign of what is wanted.

Well, the point is, we must do what we can, and make people
understand what we want them to do for us, by letting them see what
we do for ourselves.

Hitherto, judging us by that standard, the builders may well say,
that we want the pretence of a thing rather than the thing itself;
that we want a show of petty luxury if we are unrich, a show of
insulting stupidity if we are rich: and they are quite clear that
as a rule we want to get something that shall look as if it cost
twice as much as it really did.

You cannot have Architecture on those terms: simplicity and
solidity are the very first requisites of it: just think if it is
not so: How we please ourselves with an old building by thinking of
all the generations of men that have passed through it! do we not
remember how it has received their joy, and borne their sorrow, and
not even their folly has left sourness upon it? it still looks as
kind to us as it did to them. And the converse of this we ought to
feel when we look at a newly-built house if it were as it should be:
we should feel a pleasure in thinking how he who had built it had
left a piece of his soul behind him to greet the new-comers one
after another long and long after he was gone:- but what sentiment
can an ordinary modern house move in us, or what thought--save a
hope that we may speedily forget its base ugliness?