THE FLOWER GARDEN IN THE HOUSE. 317 



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, and now 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. 



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 



Rose in a Japanese bronze tasin. 



manufactured things within the past generation, i.e. t they suffer from 

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

 at the South Kensington schools is supposed to have some con- 

 nection 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 coalscuttle, 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 in vases with hard colours and 

 designs, is impossible to the artistic mind. 



