264 A WHITE-PAPER GARDEN 



be displayed is to be carefully chosen with re- 

 lation to the position, and space it is to occupy, 

 and the blossom is to hold. There can never 

 be an excuse for the use of a vessel of choice 

 porcelain or glass. Such things are works of 

 art, and must never be degraded from their 

 own high mission. Besides, to use would be 

 to endanger such possession, and it is desecra- 

 tion to ruin the work of an artist. Coarse 

 pottery, good in shape and colour, may under 

 certain conditions bear some simple suggestions 

 in line by way of decoration, but plain surfaces 

 are in better taste. Vases of clear, heavy glass 

 are desirable as giving the beholder the added 

 pleasures afforded by stems and water. This 

 glass must be extremely plain in design. 

 Metal holders are to be used for boughs, never 

 for delicate flowers. 



The surface of the water in the receptacle is 

 imagined to be the soil from which the flower 

 is growing, and nothing but the close observa- 

 tion of the living plant will give the student a 

 sympathetic understanding of the direction and 

 height to be given the cut flowers. Nothing 

 may be left to chance, and so many devices 

 have been thought out by which exact position 



