114 HOME AND GARDEN 



My master was an artist in his way, and of 

 necessity ; for the drawing of the designs, sometimes 

 special to suit some picture or set of room decorations, 

 and the free modelling of form in the plaster prepara- 

 tion, had need be the work of an artist-craftsman. 

 And he taught me to know which are the parts to be 

 burnished, for there are regular rules and reasons for 

 this, pointing it out on several frames and then 

 bidding me show him on others, to see that the lesson 

 was rightly learnt. And now, when in French or 

 English or other work I see these rules ignored, and 

 the wrong portions burnished, it always gives a false 

 look to the work, for all such well-founded traditions 

 should be carefully preserved. The one in question 

 runs through all the best Italian decorative work, and 

 surely no school of ornament ever attained to a height 

 so satisfying to the beauty-loving eye as did that of 

 those Italian decorators whose work was so closely 

 bound up with that of the noble painters of the school 

 of Venice. 



I would always rather have an Italian as an in- 

 structor in a handicraft. He is so kindly and humanly 

 helpful. Enghsh workmen in general (though I have 

 met with some delightful exceptions) seem to have an 

 idea that the amateur's practice may come into com- 

 petition with their trade. Those who show this spirit 

 can hardly know how hugely the compliment — evident 

 though not intended — flatters the vanity of the ama- 

 teur. But though, for instance, I can use many tools 



