‘But I mean to make money, and have a better and better house, every ten years.’ Yes, I know you do. If you intend to keep that notion, I have no word more to say to you. Fare you—not well, for you cannot; but as you may. But if you have sense, and feeling, determine what sort of a house will be fit for you;—determine to work for it—to get it—and to die in it, if the Lord will. ‘What sort of house will be fit for me?—but of course the biggest and finest I can get will be fittest!’ Again, so says the Devil to you: and if you believe him, he will find you fine lodgings enough,—for rent. But if you don’t believe him, consider, I repeat, what sort of house will be fit for you. ‘Fit!—but what do you mean by fit?’ I mean, one that you can entirely enjoy and manage; but which you will not be proud of, except as you make it charming in its modesty. If you are proud of it, it is unfit for you,—better than a man in your station of life can by simple and sustained exertion obtain; and it should be rather under such quiet level than above. Ashesteil was entirely fit for Walter Scott, and Walter Scott was entirely happy there. Abbotsford was fit also for Sir Walter Scott; and had he been content with it, his had been a model life. But he would fain still add field to field,—and died homeless. Perhaps Gadshill was fit for Dickens; I do not know enough of him to judge; and he knew scarcely anything of himself. But the story of the boy on Rochester Hill is lovely. And assuredly, my aunt’s house at Croydon was fit for her; and my father’s at Herne Hill,—in which I correct the press of this Fors, sitting in what was once my nursery,—was exactly fit for him, and me. He left it for the larger one—Denmark Hill; and never had a quite happy day afterwards. It was not his fault, the house at Herne Hill was built on clay, and the doctors said he was not well there; also, I was his pride, and he wanted to leave me in a better house,—a good father’s cruellest, subtlest temptation. But you are a poor man, you say, and have no hope of a grand home? Well, here is the simplest ideal of operation, then. You dig a hole, like Robinson Crusoe; you gather sticks for fire, and bake the earth you get out of your hole,—partly into bricks, partly into tiles, partly into pots. If there are any stones in the neighbourhood, you drag them together, and build a defensive dyke round your hole or cave. If there are no stones, but only timber, you drive in a palisade. And you are already exercising the arts of the Greeks, Etruscans, Normans, and Lombards, in their purest form, on the wholesome and true threshold of all their art; and on your own wholesome threshold.