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THE FLORIST. 



COTTAGE DRAPERY.* 



Our readers very well know that, in the country, whenever any 

 thing especially tasteful is to be done, — when a church is to be 

 " dressed for Christmas," a public hall festooned for a fair, or a 

 saloon decorated for a horticultural show, — we have to entreat the 

 assistance of the fairer half of humanity. All that is most graceful 

 and charming in this way owes its existence to female hands. Over 

 the heavy exterior of man's handiwork, they weave a fairy-like web 

 of enchantment, which, like our Indian summer haze upon autumn 

 hills, spiritualises and makes poetical whatever of rude form or rough 

 outlines may lie beneath. 



Knowing all this, as we M'ell do, we write this article especially 

 for the eyes of the ladies. They are naturally mistresses of the art 

 of embellishment. Men are so stupid, in the main, about these mat- 

 ters, that if the majority of them had their own way, there would 

 neither be a ringlet nor a ruffle, a wreath nor a nosegay, left in the 

 world. All would be as stiff and as meaningless as their own meagre 

 black coats, — without an atom of the graceful or romantic about 

 them ; nothing to awaken a spark of interest, or stir a chord of 

 feeling ; nothing, in short, but downright, commonplace matter- 

 of-fact. And they undertake to defend it — the logicians — on the 

 ground of utility, and the spirit of the age ! As if trees did not 

 bear lovely blossoms as well as good fruit ; as if the sun did not 

 give us rainbows as well as light and warmth ; as if there were not 

 still mocking-birds and nightingales as well as ducks and turkeys. 



But enough of that. You do not need any arguments to prove 

 that grace is a quality as positive as electro-magnetism. Would that 

 you could span the world with it as quickly as Mr. Morse with his 

 telegraph ! To come to the point, we want to talk a little with you 

 about what we call the drapery of cottages and gardens ; about those 

 beautiful vines, and climbers, and creepers, which nature made on 

 purpose to cover up every thing ugly, and to heighten the charm 

 of every thing pretty and picturesque. In short, we want your aid 

 and assistance in dressing, embellishing, and decorating, not for a 

 single holiday, fair, or festival, but for years and for ever, the out- 

 sides of our simple cottages and country homes ; wreathing them 

 about with such perennial festoons of verdure, and starring them 

 over with such bouquets of delicious odour, that your husbands and 

 brothers would no more think of giving up such houses, than they 

 would of abandoning you (as that beggarly Greek Theseus did the 

 lovely Ariadne) to the misery of sohtude on a desolate island. 



And what a difference a little of this kind of rural drapery, taste- 

 fully arranged, makes in the aspect of a cottage or farmhouse in the 

 country ! At the end of the village, for instance, is that old-fashioned 

 stone house, which was the homestead of Tim Steady. First and 

 last, that family lived there two generations ; and every thing about 

 them had a look of some comfort. But, with the exception of a 

 * Abridged from the American Horticulturist. 



