XVII. The Soul of the House

Malvolio. I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his opinion. / Twelfth ‘Night.

The greater part of the arguments used in support of the reforms in house planning here suggested are designedly of a somewhat utilitarian and practical nature. It is indeed doubtful whether any other basis for an argument would be understood in an age when the average man is radically though perhaps unconsciously essentially utilitarian. But although it is held that the house should be convenient and aptly fitted to its material functions, it is but a mean thing if it does not express something of the aspirations of the spirit of its builders, and indeed possess, as it were, a soul of its own. It is a strange but incontrovertible fact that houses do so acquire a personality. Some are so mean and sordid that while possessing all the conveniences of modern life they seem to cast a blight over all around them. To pass them unharmed it would seem necessary to “cut a pious cross in the air;” to live in them would be to one sensitive in such matters worse than confinement in a prison cell. Others again are like mere husks, shallow and empty, while some, and these chiefly old houses, survivals of the great ages of building, thrill one at the first glance with a sense of their personal charm. And as one enters and passes from room to room their deep and intense stillness seems eloquent with messages and blessings. What magic is there in the mere putting together of wood and stone to so impress the soul, and is it a small thing that we have lost that seeming miraculous gift? Let us never fall into the blindness of thinking of the modern house as a mere matter of hot-water taps and patent kitchen ranges, or think we do wisely to utterly disregard the possibilities of greatness that lies in mere building.

For houses and cottages once created are not merely arrangements of materials to secure certain practical ends. They each and all develop, we know not how, a personality which is either base or noble, and those who realise the possibilities of expression in the building of a house will never approach the matter lightly or irreverently. To him who creates a house is given a god-like function which it should be his endeavour not to abuse. And how great his triumph if as the reward of all his anxious labour it should be vouchsafed him to achieve a dwelling which should prove to possess a soul worthy to be ranked with the noble houses of the past!

A house too may possess that strange inscrutable quality of the True Romance. Not shallow, showy, and pretentious as most modern mansions are, but full of a still, quiet earnestness which seems to lull and soothe the spirit with promises of peace. Such a house is the greatest achievement possible to the art of man: better than the greatest picture, because it is not a dream alone, but the dream come true—a constant daily influence and delight.

To illustrate this magical quality of spirit which buildings have the power of retaining, one has only to consider the houses of the past. To understand the true inwardness of the history of any period no written word can convey such an intimate and convincing message as may be read from ancient buildings by those who know their language. I do not refer here to archaeological lore, the mere cataloguing of mouldings and assignments of dates, though this has its uses in so far as it brings the mind into constant and continuous contact with the object of its attention, and so induces an attitude favourable to a deeper kind of knowledge than can be expressed in words. For the ancient building guards the heart of its mystery jealously, and reveals itself only to those who approach it with due sympathy. And so the unbeliever is apt to scoff at an experience he does not share, and may consider impressions of the past gained in this way misleading illusions.

And this view is apparently justified by the fact that such impressions lead one in many cases to see the past through rose-coloured glasses—to idealise it in comparison with modern vulgar life. Just as when death has severed a friendship petty faults are forgotten, and we see in a true perspective the essential spirit unobscured by baffling clouds, so it is with buildings which retain no record of the superficial doings of their time, but only congeal in their structure the deep music of the soul.

And so we may well conclude that in building a people is writing its deepest history on the earth. Do you wish to estimate the sublimity and depth of the Gothic devotional spirit? You may find it writ large in our cathedrals, or set forth in lesser but no less truthful characters in our village churches. I say you may read it—it would perhaps be safer to affirm that you mighty for the modern Churchman, with no faculty for deciphering the language of the building committed to his care, defaces its ancient glories under the excuse of restoration, with just the same kind of innocent indifference as the child who burns a precious manuscript in the fire and claps its hands at the blaze, the unsuspecting vicar expands with pleasurable delight over these devastating restorations of his.

Or again, it you wish to understand the romantic spirit of ancient chivalry, where will you find it so well inscribed as in the ancient Norman and Edwardian castles And so on to our own times, each subtle change in the time spirit is duly recorded in terms of bricks and mortar. The mellowing and broadening of the somewhat narrow and intense Gothic spirit which took place with that sudden influx of classic lore which gave England her golden age—how well we find it inscribed in many an old manor and farm of the period! And then one may trace the gradual fading of that light till the chill frosts of commerce and the machine made building such as we find it to-day.

Few things are indeed so strange as this thaumaturgic art of the builder. He places stones in certain positions—cuts them in certain ways, and behold they begin to speak with tongues—a language of their own, with meanings too deep for words.