House and Garden 
quent resting-place to ornate and most expensive 
sun-dials. It is proper that dial-faces finding a home 
in gardens replete with carved urns and vases, dec¬ 
orative statues and fountains; and encircled with 
elaborate walls rich with carvings and mouldings, 
should he set upon pedestals of much nicety ot 
carving and elegance of shape. But I have never 
felt that a dial-pedestal decorated with figures of the 
Seasons, or Months, or Graces, in rare-colored mar¬ 
ble; or Kneeling Slaves in lead; or Crouching 
Indians in bronze; or any of the little “ goddi- 
kinesses” in any stuff or material whatever, are as 
suited to the dial itself as a plainer pedestal, shaped 
with classic mouldings and possibly with a broad 
plinth of carefully-studied simplicity. Such a 
mounting possesses strength and character and al¬ 
most grandeur. I would rather err on the side of 
baldness of decoration and monotony ot outline 
than to yield to a confusion or over-abundance of 
decoration. There is nothing in the simple ped¬ 
estal to detract from the lesson of the sun-dial; noth¬ 
ing to take your eye and therefore your thought 
from its message. With the plainer mounting you 
are not wondering whether the woman’s figure may 
be one of the four Seasons, or possibly a goddess; 
whether this goddess be Pomona or Flora, or per¬ 
haps she may be one of the Hours—or very likely 
the Dawn; or—“Not at all” (you are told); “she 
is Memory; you should know that without telling. 
Can’t you see that she has her finger on her lip; 
that she points to the dial-face, and says, c Remem- 
A DIAL DESIGNED AND CAST IN TERRA 
COTTA BY MRS. G. F. WATTS 
A DIAL AT WYE, MD. 
ber that Time is fleeting ’? ” All this 
is very poetic and pleasing, but it is 
not precisely the message of the dial. It 
fails in significance and force, for, while 
you are wondering and guessing, Time 
has indeed been flying tar too rapidly. 
Nor is it the dial’s lesson to have you note the exquisite 
carving of the swags and festoons of flowers which wreath 
and twine and sway and swing from and over and under 
every point of the dial. “ There are ten kinds ot fruit and 
fourteen different flowers carved on this sun-dial pedestal,” 
my happy dial-owning friend states to me as we walk down 
the path to the sun-dial to learn the time-o’-the-day. Do 
we scan carefully the speaking shadow, or read the beautiful 
motto with its simple thoughtful lesson ? Not at all ! We 
promptly set ourselves to searching and counting and won¬ 
dering whether this round knob can be a peach or a pome¬ 
granate or an orange; or this simply-petaled flower is a 
wild rose or an anemone, or an apple-blossom or a single 
dahlia, since of foliage there is little and that unrelated and 
detached. And as you peer and count and guess, “ Time 
flies ” in very truth, and again the poor dial motto is for¬ 
gotten, and the shadow creeps unheeded. 
The message of the dial is one of absolute simplicity, 
and, like that of many primitive objects, its charm lies in 
its plainness of outline, and directness of utility, in the 
dignity of its silent accuracy and perfection. It has also 
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