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DECORATIVE MATERIAL 



The decorative material available for a yard 

 Is not large. At least, It should not be large In 

 bulk, and It is not In variety. Passing a shop In 

 the metropolis, the other day, I found along the 

 walk before it huge capitals of columns, well- 

 curbs from Italy, stone benches, marble lions and 

 heraldic monsters, and observed that they were 

 offered for sale as fitments for gardens. They 

 will go to New Jersey and will help some rich 

 man to pretend that a fine crop of Roman tem- 

 ples and Renaissance palaces has just gone to 

 seed on his premises. We may advocate formal- 

 ity with a grace, for It Is only humanness; but 

 there are situations In which It is bombast, or 

 hypocrisy, to strew our ground with what ob- 

 viously belongs out of It. If we will have them 

 in small spaces, then fonts, benches, termini, cap- 

 itals, well-curbs, short columns, bases and their 

 like are better than large figures. Inasmuch as 

 ^2>S 



