XIV. 



ON THE DRAPERY OF COTTAGES AND GARDENS. 



February, 1849. 



OUR readers very well know that, in the country, whenever any 

 thing especially tasteful is to be done, when a church is to be 

 " dressed for Christmas," a public hall festooned for a fair, or a sa- 

 loon decorated for a horticultural show, we have to entreat the assist- 

 ance of the fairer half of humanity. All that is most graceful and 

 charming in this way, owes its existence to female hands. Over the 

 heavy exterior of man's handiwork, they weave a fairy-like web of en- 

 chantment, which, like our Indian summer haze upon autumn hills, 

 spiritualizes and makes poetical, whatever of rude form or rough 

 outlines may lie beneath. 



Knowing all this, as we well do, we write this leader especially 

 for the eyes of the ladies. They are naturally mistresses of the art 

 of embellishment. Men are so stupid, in the main, about these mat- 

 ters, that, if the majority of them had their own way, there would 

 neither be a ringlet, nor a ruffle, a wreath, nor a nosegay left in the 

 world. All would be as stiff and as meaningless as their own 

 meagre black coats, without an atom of the graceful or romantic 

 about them ; nothing to awaken a spark of interest or stir a chord 

 of feeling ; nothing, in short, but downright, commonplace matter- 

 of-fact. And they undertake to defend it the logicians on the 

 ground of utility and the spirit of the age ! As if trees did not 

 bear lovely blossoms as well as good fruit ; as if the sun did not 

 give us rainbows as well as light and warmth ; as if there were not 

 itill mocking-birds and nightingales as well as ducks and turkeys. 



