48 
94. And so it is throughout the endless forms in 
which the organs of plants vary. Irregularity is al¬ 
ways reducible to regularity, and want of symmetry 
to symmetry, by some plan of compensation, into the 
exact nature of which it is for the student of art to 
inquire with all diligence. Such are the fundamental 
principles by which the artist must be guided, who ■ 
would pourtray the Vegetable Kingdom as it is pre¬ 
sented to us in nature, and who would learn to avoid 
the manifold errors into which so large a number of 
flower painters are continually falling. 
95. One word more, and I have done. If the prin¬ 
ciples which these remarks have been intended to ex¬ 
plain are important to those 
who would represent vegetable 
forms as they are, they have, if 
possible, a still greater bearing 
upon those compositions in 
which plants and their parts 
are to be employed conven¬ 
tionally. It is to be hoped that 
the time is approaching when 
good taste will shrink from huge bouquets hung 
upon curtains, or carpets loaded with mountains 
of fruit, or muslin dresses made uncomfortable with 
eternal garlands of leaves and flowers, put in with 
a due regard to impossible perspective, and in¬ 
comprehensible light and shade, llcfined taste is 
shocked at such offences against common sense, and 
seeks eagerly for that which is beautiful without 
being ridiculous. Is it not possible that devices of 
botanists, not intended for decoration, but for the 
representation of ideal truth, may lend some assist¬ 
ance to the manufacturer? Botanists are accustomed. 
