House and Garden 
A PENCIL SKETCH 
tain shack or pebbly beach in summer breath¬ 
ing time; and this feast of simplicity to which 
I ask you is no unattainable mecca of the 
rich. It does not lie in palace land, but is 
here, holding out its hands to rich and poor 
alike, in every countryside, when we shall 
have sense enough to hear its call. Accept 
Morris’s comprehensive summing up. “Have 
nothing in your house that you do not know 
to be useful, and believe to be beautiful. ’’ 
And remember that beauty is only fitness, 
and that while there is a beauty of gold and 
mahogany, there is also a beauty of iron and 
hemlock, of cypress and of chestnut. There 
is a beauty of marble balusters and carved 
stairways, but when Whistler painted the 
lovely portrait ol his mother, the chosen back¬ 
ground was the solt grey of a plastered wall. 
I am not merely making 
the claim that simplicity is 
cheap and cleanly, but that it 
is more beautiful than elabora¬ 
tion as a background to the 
best of our lives. Did you 
ever stop to think that the 
average stairway has from 
fifty to a hundred balusters, 
each one of which cost money 
to put in, every twist and turn¬ 
ing of which means dirt and 
work in cleaning ? And every 
bead and fillet in every mould¬ 
ing in your house means more 
dirt and more cleaning. And 
what do you buy with this 
care and worry ? Certainly 
not always or even often, 
beauty, or at least not the only 
beauty. 
The Japanese have taught 
us, among some other things, 
the beauty of the grain of even 
the commonest woods. Most 
of their exquisitely toned work 
is in soft spruce-like woods. 
The use of perfectly plain 
casings with a little care in 
selection and treatment, 
would give our houses a 
distinction not otherwise 
obtainable in work of mod¬ 
erate cost. 
The Japanese not only 
know the beauty of simple backgrounds 
for their priceless treasures, but they also 
know that the value of this beauty is 
enormously enhanced by the fact that the 
treasures they show have no competitors. 
These are locked away in cupboards for 
the joy of another day. When they adorn 
with flowers, it is with no mere overpower¬ 
ing mass, but exquisite arrangements of 
line and color of which vase or bowl, leaf, 
branch, blossom and grey or dull gold silk 
or paper background, form one simple and 
harmonious whole. How we “civilized” peo¬ 
ple envy them, and how little we emulate 
their methods! It is not necessary or wise 
that we should copy them. Flower arrange¬ 
ments and delicate bronze or porcelain may 
not be our forte. But the law of contrasts 
