274 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



honeysuckle ornament or Anthemium was developed from the acces- 

 sory ornament A, Fig. 15, while the oblique honeysuckle ornament, 

 Fig. 18, appears to have been developed from the little triangles, 

 Fig. 13. 



Fig. 18. 



In the Greek honeysuckle ornament the lines are not only subtile 

 and beautiful, but they flow from one another and the parent-stems 

 tangeutially, according to a recognized and readily-explainable law in 

 decorative art. For, just as gestures that flow tangentially from one 

 another are more agreeable to the muscles of the arm, so lines tan- 

 gential to one another are more pleasant to follow with the eye than 

 those that start abruptly from one another. 



The beautiful bounding line to the figure A, Fig. 19, appears to 

 have been added after attention had been attracted to the elegant out- 

 lines of the Anthemium. When the figures A, A, were drawn close 

 together, but little space was left for the narrow figure J>, which was 



Fig. 19. 

 A B A 



therefore compressed as in Fig. 17. As the ornaments A and B were 

 cultivated, the sigmoids were neglected, and, in course of time, they 

 dropped out entirely from some of the borders, leaving, however, at 

 the base of the ornament, two little volutes, which it is important to 

 note are in the broad figure A turned in a direction opposed to that 

 of the generating volutes. These little basal volutes are most re- 

 markably persistent, and serve to aid us in determining the origin of 

 many decorative forms, that have changed to such an extent, that 

 their relation to the Anthemium would otherwise not have been sus- 

 pected. Time will not allow me to trace out at greater length the 

 line of evolution of this series of ornaments, and I can only allude to 

 the Acanthus border as its l'ichest and most luxuriant outgrowth. 

 This is a matter of history, and I do not need to discuss it here. 1 



1 The " egg and tongue " or " egg and arrow " border had originated from the honey- 

 suckle border, in architecture, in the attempt to produce, by a narrow cornice, the gen- 



