714 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION I. 
frequently taken up for the sake of cleanliness, and that the 
process of nailing and unnailing it is very laborious, we may 
recognise that it is more consistent with fitness and simplicity 
that the carpet should be merely laid down. And, that being so, 
it is neither necessary nor desirable to cover the floor-space with 
painful exactness. 
Among other manifest faults in furnishing, I may mention the 
application of unsuitable materials and the excessive use of 
patterns. _ Brazen rods for supporting delicate sash-blinds, and 
chains of brass or steel for looping up curtains, are as appropriate 
as a two-inch cable for mooring a cock-boat. In ordinary rooms 
you will find that wall-paper, curtains, carpet, upholstery, mats, 
table-covers, drapery and other accessories, present, perhaps, a 
dozen different patterns, or more. It would be wonderful if half 
of them could be harmonious ; and the effect would be far more 
pleasing and soothing to the eye if self-colours were used wherever 
possible—for table-covers and curtains, at all events. 
This excessive use of patterns arises from the notion that plain 
things are not pleasing. The sense of form, which was paramount 
with the Greeks and other artistic peoples, is now well-nigh lost ; 
and the eye must be tickled with ornament. Thus we see spindle- 
work applied at random to all articles of furniture, showing 
woeful poverty of constructive design. Patterns and other 
ornamental devices are also extensively used in order to conceal 
or disguise inferiority of material. 
The number of false contrivances and elaborate combinations 
goes on increasing daily, in spite of pretended esthetic feeling. 
It would almost appear that shams are loved for their own sweet 
sake, as well as because they are considered more elegant than 
plain reality. Many of them are mere survivals, portions of 
complex constructions retained long after they have lost their use 
or significance, like the heavy leather plastron, representing the 
reverse of the old coat, which the French grenadiers and voltigeurs 
used to button over their chests. Such things are continued in a 
falsified form because people cannot bear to give up anything in 
the nature of ornament ; although, rightly regarded, whatever has 
become redundant is a disfigurement. 
In our time the old national and local styles have almost all 
died out ; so that we have to rely on thought and fancy instead 
of habit, on selection instead of sound and wholesome tradition, 
Therefore, we scour the earth and ransack antiquity to find what 
will serve the turn, perhaps with violent modification ; and the 
inordinate love of novelty prompts the selection of what is new 
and striking, rather than of what is fit and harmonious. We 
shall never do any good in this way, nor, indeed, until we first 
consider our climate and other peculiar conditions, our social 
state and our daily needs. Domestic art will never flourish until 
it is founded on these and thoroughly in accordance with them, 
