TABLE DECORATION. 



269 



exhibition table decorated with mauve or bluish Sweet Peas almost exclusively, yet this 

 by gaslight would present a poor insipid appearance. It should be remembered also 

 that flowers of a yellow shade of colour are not improved in appearance by gaslight, as 

 they change to much paler shades. Lively pink, satiny rose, crimson and red colours, such 

 as we find in roses, always light up well. No flower by candle-light is more effective 

 than the pretty little ever-flowering Begonia Gloire de Lorraine, or the brilliant 

 Impatiens Sultani. Orchids generally are favourite flowers for the dining-table, but 

 none shows better under artificial light than Calanthe 

 Veitchi. A central vase (Fig. 156), lightly filled 

 with orchid spikes or other flowers and fern or 

 pendent sprays, is highly attractive. White flowers, 

 associated with greenery, have a chaste effect. 



Where so many persons err, is in employing a 

 great variety of flowers, and a mixture of colours, 

 which spoil each other by contrast, and jar on the 

 nerves of people with good taste, quite as much as 

 false notes of music do on those who possess a good 

 ear for harmony. The employment of two shades of 

 colour [that harmonise with each other, gives the 

 greatest satisfaction, and, where the table has to be 

 decorated many nights in succession, greater scope is 

 afforded for changes of colour. Occasionally, ladies, 

 when they know the colours of the flowers to be used, 

 either adopt the same in their dresses, or avoid a 

 glaring contrast. Autumn foliage and berries can be 

 effectively employed, though hawthorn, barberry, 

 mahonia, and other kinds, are not nearly so bright by candlelight as might be expected 

 of them. Set designs, traced out with coloured leaves with berries sprinkled about 

 them, are not now admired. This mode of decorating tables is vanishing ; still an 

 example of formal decoration will be shown on a subsequent page. What do find 

 favour are elegant trails of smilax (Myrsiphyllum asparagoides), Asparagus plumosus, 

 Ampelopsis Veitchi, and others of similar character, distributed lightly and gracefully 

 among the dishes on the white cloth. All attempts at imitating pools or rivers of 

 water, with fish, frogs, or creeping things generally, real or unreal, are best let alone. 



