6 BRITISH FLORAL DECORATION 



it can carry these into an ideal world, unhampered 

 by time, or space, or refractory material. In the 

 realm of Art the mind, realising through experi- 

 ence the beauty of simple objects and the power 

 of rhythm, can convert portions of the world of 

 colour, form, or sound into new and striking 

 combinations, producing intense sensations of 

 pleasure, but it must be guided and limited by the 

 types which have been with us from the begin- 

 ning, and by a strong sense of harmony. This 

 desire for conformity with environment and 

 general congruity always governs true artists, 

 whose trained eyes become so evolved as to re- 

 spond to balance and proportion in colour, time, 

 and movement. Too well do we remember the 

 Early Victorian homes with stiff horse-hair furni- 

 ture and the equally stiff paper roses or birds of 

 paradise of impossible shades and shapes on the 

 walls and the prim dwarfed bunches of flowers 

 which trespassed into the centre of the table ; also 

 the bouquets of flowers with paper frillings round 

 them, and ladies' sprays made to be worn upside 

 down ! 



Recalling these, and having fresh upon my 

 memory the lovely floral works of to-day, I venture 

 to assert that in no section of artistic progress have 



