How much, therefore, depends on the selection of our living rooms! They should be light, bright, dry, airy, well-ventilated, equably warmed, appropriately furnished, free from bad odors, far from brutal noises, screened from impertinent curiosity. All these requirements ought to be easily obtained and at no great cost. But so little does modern architecture consider the true comfort and the real happiness of house-dwellers that it is rare that one can find all combined. If he can, therefore, the wise man will prefer to build his own house. Some will question this. Somewhere in his works――they are too voluminous for me to look up the reference――Rousseau argues that a philosopher will not desire a house of his own, but will prefer to live in one that is rented. He will thus consult his independence, be free to come and go, not engage his affections on inanimate objects, find his fatherland wherever he may be, and the like. For myself, I incline rather to the opinion of Abraham Cowley, less of a philosopher than Rousseau but more in sympathy with the general sentiments of mankind. I agree with him that “the pleasantest work of human industry is the improvement of something which we may call our own.” There is something in itself delightful in the mere sense of ownership of a part of the surface of the earth. It was not mere greed in Cosmo de Medici, who, when asked why he preferred his villa in the Apennines to his palace in Florence, replied,――“Because there, every foot of land I see is my own.” No prospect is quite so pleasing as that of our own acres, and those governments are strongest which base their institutions on the personal tenure of land. The old proverb prescribes the chief duties of a man to be to build a house and beget a child. The character of his child he can but slightly control; the plan of his house is in his own hands, and his health and happiness are deeply involved in it. “He that builds a fair house on an ill site,” observes Bacon, “committeth himself to prison;” and I may add, he that builds an ill house on any site, sends himself and family to a hospital. One half of the deaths in England are from preventable causes, and one-half of these are causes connected with defective house building. The most perfect buildings are the gaols. Both in England and America the best care is taken of the worst men. The chances of life for the convict who is in prison is seven times better than when he is at liberty. If health is the highest good, we had better all apply to be sent to gaol.