Cypress, which in this part of the country has come to be our main reliance in the absence of good white pine, answers admirably for American adaptations of these Colonial houses--let us call them--of Switzerland. Most any size timbers may be specified without bankrupting the client or inconveniencing the contractor, while some durable stain will form an excellent ground for a venerable patina by infinitesimal particles to attach itself. I confess my only disappointment in Kingdor was that I was not permitted to carve the scriptural legends in archaic missal text that should always adorn the long horizontal timbers of a “truly” châlet. For in the most part of the adaptation it became my privilege, much to my unspeakable delight, to say to the black beast that besets the path of all architects--namely, the everlasting spirit of commercialism--expressively what Beau Brummel tells the importunate bailiffs in the play: “Oh, go and walk in Fleet Street!” PLATE LXXX. [Illustration: A COTTAGE AT EAST ORANGE, N. J. JOY WHEELER DOW, Architect.] PLATE LXXXI. [Illustration: DOORWAY, BRISTOL, R. I.] CHAPTER XI CONCERNING STYLE The result of the best adaptation is the gradual formation of a national style of architecture. The closest adaptation that has been exploited in America both in recent and what we call our ancient work, compared with its separable prototypes, who shall say is not unmistakably modern and American? Style is never evolved by the empirical architecture of irrepressible inventors. Invention belongs to science. Happily, in the field of art, everything was planted, arranged and cultivated for us ages ago, so that we have only to wander as children, in an enchanted garden that our days are not half long enough to encompass. We observe, but wait for the planchette to move--to guide. Style in architecture and literature alike is something which shapes itself unconsciously to the mind--something which will neither be coerced nor cajoled, but obeyed. Style selects its craftsman rather than craftsmen their style. Style is the master, and we are the students ever observing, listening, trying to understand, waiting for our cue, and finally speaking our lines according to the histrionic ability there is in each of us, for style is eminently dramatic. But the moment we set up for ourselves and say, “Go to, let us make a style!” that moment we miss our usefulness in the economy of art. I knew of a young student of literature who, convalescing from an attack of grippe, was found by his physician one day, sitting upright in bed surrounded by a lot of new-looking books. As the visitor failed to conceal some surprise, the enthusiast hastened with an explanation for which the reader is scarcely better prepared. “Doctor,” he said. “I am reading Kipling for style!”