224 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



eyes, and showing beauties of form in doing so that we never 

 suspected when passing them in the open air. In the changing and 

 varied lights of a house we have many opportunities of showing 

 flowers in a more interesting way, particularly to those who do not 

 see them much out of doors. We have in gardens many new flowers 

 of great beauty of form Californian, Central Asiatic, Japanese, 

 even the mountains of China and India giving precious things, as 

 well as the rich flora of North America as yet not as much seen 

 in our gardens as it deserves to be. So that it will be seen how 

 good is the reason why care should be given to show the flowers 

 in the house when we have them to spare out of doors. 



Rose in a Japanese bronze basin. 



At first sight there may not seem much against our doing justice 

 to flowers in the house, but our flower vases have shared the fate of 

 most manufactured things within the past generation, and suffer from 

 the mania for overdoing with designs called "decorative," which is 

 supposed to have some connection with " art." Every article in many 

 houses being overcharged with these wearisome patterns, it was not 

 to be expected that the opportunity of " adorning" our flower-pots 

 would be lost, and so we may have ugly forms and glaring patterns, 

 where all should be simple in form, and modest and good in colour. 

 The coal-scuttle, with its " decoration," does not stand in our way so 

 much as the flower vase, as in this we have to put living things in 

 their delicate natural colours and shapes, and to look at these, stuck 



