Note 99 — II. SERVANTS AND HOUSES.

"A Tenant, not at will" had written to point out the coincidence that he had, before the publication of Mr. Ruskin's third letter, himself begun a letter to the Daily Telegraph on the subject of houses, in parts of which, strangely enough, he had used expressions very similar to those of Mr. Ruskin (see ante, pp. 147-8). He had described his modern suburban villa as "one of an ugly mass of blossoms lately burst forth from the parent trunk—a brickfield;" and declared that if it were not that people would think him mad, he "would infinitely rather live in a log hut of his own building" than in a builder's villa. He concluded by saying that all the houses were the same, and that therefore, until Mr. Ruskin could point out honest-built dwellings neglected while the "villas" were all let, it was not quite fair of him to assume that "suburban villains" utterly wanted the true instinct of gentlemen which would lead to the preference of log huts to plaster palaces.