HOUSES AND GARDENS 



definite form, and only on closer inspection should they be decipherable. 

 The blatant use of mottoes will only remind one of the advertisement at the 

 railway stations ; and however much we admire or believe in some ancient 

 proverb or modern epigram, it will soon be transformed into an insipid 

 platitude if it forces itself upon our attention day after day. 



In giving a few examples of mottoes here I do not suggest that they 

 would be appropriate to a special individual. The choice of mottoes is 

 such a personal -matter that every one who wishes to include them in a 

 decorative scheme should choose their own. 



In the studio, for instance, a helpful idea may be expressed in the 

 phrase " II n'y a rien plus." Few would recognise the force and application 

 of such a phrase, for it would be necessary to remember the anecdote of the 

 famous French painter whose reply it was to the friend who asked why he 

 was still at work. However much beside there may be in the outside world 

 it will be well to remember, in the studio at any rate, that there is nothing 

 else but the work in hand. 



Or, again, the spirit of the artist may find expression in Kipling's 

 verse : 



The depth and dream of my desire, 



The bitter paths wherein I stray, 



Thou knowest who has made the fire, 



Thou knowest who has made the clay. 



Or perhaps the student may turn to the Proverbs of Solomon and find a 

 stimulus in the following : 



In all labour there is profit, 



But the folding of the hands leadeth only to penury, 



with perhaps a cynical afterthought to the modern application of this 

 saying to cases where the profit of the labour is indeed forthcoming but is 

 not enjoyed by the labourer. Or, perhaps, in view of those menacing 

 difficulties which vanish when the task is once begun, another proverb might 

 be pictorially represented : 



The slothful man has said, 



There is a lion in the path. 



In the dining-room the mottoes may be in a less heroic strain, such as : 



Stay me with flagons, 

 Comfort me with apples, 



from the Song of Songs ; or from Omar Khayyam : 



Ah ! fill the cup, what boots it to repeat 

 How Time is slipping underneath our feet ? 

 Unborn to-morrow and dead yesterday, 

 Why fret about them if to-day be sweet ? 



which might perhaps be inscribed in the original decorative Arabic. 

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