As to
architecture, she expected him to draw plans just as she expected
dealers in carpets or wall-papers to show her patterns in easy
succession. "I don't care for that; take it away." "That is rather
pretty, but let me see something else." What she said to Littleton was,
"We haven't quite decided yet what we want, but, if you'll bring some
plans the next time you call, we'll let you know which we like best.
There's a house in Vienna I saw once, which I said at the time to
Lucretia I would copy if I ever built. I've mislaid the photograph of
it, but I may be able to tell you when I see your drawings how it
differed from yours. Lucretia has a fancy for something Moorish or
Oriental. I guess Mr. Parsons would prefer brown-stone, plain and
massive, but he has left it all to us, and both daughter and I think
we'd rather have a house which would speak for itself, and not be mixed
up with everybody else's. You'd better bring us half a dozen to choose
from, and between me and you and Lucretia, we'll arrive at something
elegant and unique."
This was sadly disillusionizing to Littleton, and the second experience
was no less so. The refined outline sketches proffered by him were
unenthusiastically surveyed and languidly discarded like so many
wall-papers.
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