The people of San Francisco sinned against
themselves.
An honest house tells the truth about itself. There is a house here
in Glen Ellen. It stands on a corner. It is built of beautiful red
stone. Yet it is not beautiful. On three sides the stone is joined
and pointed. The fourth side is the rear. It faces the back yard.
The stone is not pointed. It is all a smudge of dirty mortar, with
here and there bricks worked in when the stone gave out. The house
is not what it seems. It is a lie. All three of the walls spend
their time lying about the fourth wall. They keep shouting out that
the fourth wall is as beautiful as they. If I lived long in that
house I should not be responsible for my morals. The house is like a
man in purple and fine linen, who hasn't had a bath for a month. If
I lived long in that house I should become a dandy and cut out
bathing--for the same reason, I suppose, that an African is black and
that an Eskimo eats whale-blubber. I shall not build a house like
that house.
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