CHAPTER X 



O.V THE DRAPERY OF COTTAGES AND 



GARDENS * 



OUR readers very well know that, in the country, when- 

 ever 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 salon 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 sum- 

 mer haze upon autumn hills, spiritualizes and makes poetical 

 whatever of rude form or rough outlines may lie beneath. 



Knowing all this, as we well do, we write this essay 

 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 matters, 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, com- 

 monplace 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 



* Original date of February, 1849 

 167 



