74 
House & Garden 
HIGH STANW? 
LIQUID-PAlIl 
From an original oil painting 
lilade especially for 
The Lou-e Brothers Company 
by B. Latham Kidder, 
0/Flew York, 
HIGH STANDARD 
PAINTS 
■ hese paints of proven 
performance show 
their quality by their 
looks, life and wear. 
Results have proved 
their certain econorny? 
Our beautiful book “The House, Outside 
and Inside,’—enlarged color plate edition- 
mailed promptly on request. State whether 
interested in outside or inside decoration. 
The Lowe Brothers Companu 
I*1 
PAINT 
BLINDS WILSON AWNINGS 
Solve the problem of light and Shade in the Home. Beautiful — Efficient. Keep out the Sun and let in the Air 
Write for illustrated book 
J. G. WILSON CORPORATION 8 West 40th St., NEW YORK 
If You Love Your Garden 
W RITE for our catalog of 
plants, trees and flowering 
shrubs. It tells you what to 
plant and where and when and how. 
Shows how to get uninterrupted joy 
from your garden from spring till 
winter. Brings Wagner Landscape 
Service to your assistance in solving 
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We have tried to make it the most 
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WAGNER PARK NURSERY CO. 
Box 922 Sidney, Ohio 
The Flower in the Crannied Walk 
{Continued from page 72) 
but a few stems each, and crowned 
with fragile looking blossoms of 
coral and yellow. 
Suitable also for the more used 
parts of the walk, because of their 
lower habit, are rock speedwell {Ve¬ 
ronica rupestris) and snow-in-summer 
{Cerastium toinentosum). Moss pink 
{Phlox stibulata) makes a splendid 
third, perhaps the best of all. 
All of these do best in abundant 
sunshine, though most will succeed 
except where really shady conditions 
prevail. On the woodland walk 
where full sunlight is at a premium, 
such shade-loving species as blood- 
root {Sanguinaria Canadensis), blue¬ 
bell {Campanula rotundifolia) and 
wild crane’s bill {Geranium macula- 
turn) are valuable additions. If ferns 
are desired in addition, let them be 
of such comparatively low growing 
sorts as Cystoptcris bulbifcra, C. 
fragilis, Pheg opteris Dryopteris, and 
Ph. polypodioides. 
There are others, of course—there 
always are in any sort of gardening. 
You may vary my list at will so long 
as you remember the peculiar re¬ 
quirements of the case and hold al¬ 
ways in mind that paraphrase which 
the successful flower experimenter is 
wont to apply to untried things : 
“It’s pretty, but will it grow?” 
The Plunder of the Past 
{Continued from page 31) 
different. One feels that the bidding 
has at last left the sphere of the ab¬ 
surd, and the danger of any abrasion 
of his personal susceptibilities is 
past. But his tone is slightly petu¬ 
lant, evinces something of the atti¬ 
tude of mind of the fashionable 
woman who has just been saved 
from falling off a high cliff by a 
violent jerk which throws her hat 
most ungracefully over her eyes. 
One realizes that although he has 
been saved from the worst he is not 
quite happy over it. He prefers a 
conquest to a rescue. 
A gentleman of seeming Oriental 
extraction, who has been examining 
the figure on the table, ceases to 
twirl his heavy moustache and lifts 
his index finger an inch in the di¬ 
rection of the auctioneer. 
“Two twenty-five, two twenty-five, 
. two hundred and twenty-five dollars 
I am bid for 53 A in the catalogue.” 
He will have no mistake about it. 
The bid is $225 for Lot 53 A, the lit¬ 
tle bronze girl who has been laugh¬ 
ing for nearly three centuries in de¬ 
fiance of all rational records of 
risibility, and who was very nearly 
sold for ten dollars to the first bid¬ 
der. The dealer propped against 
the cabinet will make no further 
sign, his eyebrows are motionless; 
the two other bidders steadily re¬ 
frain from batting a lash or twitch¬ 
ing a catalogue. 
Around the big chamber the auc¬ 
tioneer’s gaze travels steadily, search¬ 
ing optimistically, nay, confidently. 
“Two hundred twenty-five, two 
hundred twenty-five.” 
There is the merest trace of final¬ 
ity in his tone, contradicting the 
confidence of his gaze; after all, he 
is human, and two twenty-five is 
really the end. 
“Two twenty-five, two twenty-five, 
fair warning and last call, two twen¬ 
ty-five-SOLD.” 
Down comes his pencil—not a 
hammer—and the bronze virgin is 
the property of the man from the 
East. Let us hope he will be good 
to her. 
^ H: 
A dagger was sold in New York 
I the other day, an antique damascened 
dagger of bloody history: made in 
amorous Venice before Shakespeare 
was born, to the order of some high, 
impetuous spirit. 
The man who bought it was of 
Tennessee. He wanted something to 
show the folks at home, and this 
dagger he bid for and bought at one 
of the notable auction rooms; got it 
very reasonably, too. 
Newspaper reports give one the 
impression that the only people who 
buy antiques and objects of art are 
the millionaires, and the dealers. 
The impression is misleading. Mil¬ 
lionaires and dealers have neither 
the cash nor the accommodation to 
purchase and house a quarter of the 
relics sold in New York every year; 
dozens of important collections come 
under the hammer annually. 
Who buys these old, beautiful things ? 
George does, Dick does, Harry 
does, the plain men of business from 
Tennessee, from Yonkers, from Wy¬ 
oming, from Flatbush. For years 
they have been meaning to pick up a 
real antique or two, and if you at¬ 
tend the big sales you can always 
find a few of them crystallizing their 
intention into action. 
Nor does the average man buy less 
wisely than the millionaire. The 
latter is no more a connoisseur by 
divine letters patent than the former 
is a Philistine by reason of his lesser 
fortune. The millionaire simply 
buys what strikes him, like everyone 
else, and he is imposed upon much 
less often than you would think. 
His purchases may be more impres¬ 
sive than the man from Tennessee’s, 
but they are not more genuine. 
Jt? ^ 
Taking it by and large there is no 
need or cause for sharp practice in 
the antique market, the supply being 
so considerable. The yield of five or 
six slow centuries in Europe is 
steadily coming under the hammer. 
Inevitably the sardonic truth comes 
upon one that it is an ill war that 
blows no one any good. 
Not much noise is made about the 
average man’s purchases of antiques, 
3 'et the total sum he spends in a year 
is immense. Figures are not avail¬ 
able, but here is a fact that conveys 
some idea of the popular interest. 
Recently eight hundred people passed 
through one auction gallery in six 
hours; the large majority of these 
were not professionally interested in 
antiques, but at the sales of this col¬ 
lection they spent between them 
scores of thousands of dollars, in¬ 
dividual purchases frequently coming 
well under the fifty dollar mark. 
What is the inwardness of this 
strange fascination of ancient things 
for human beings? It is not alone 
the appeal of beauty; man\' antiques 
are ugly to qur eyes, or at'least gro¬ 
tesque. It is rather that they are 
sharp potion to the imaginations of 
men, that they afford sweet relief 
from the perpetual hard logic of 
business, and give deeper thrills than 
those of the modern novel. 
The glamour of medieval times is 
in that rich plunder of the past upon 
the walls and counters of the met¬ 
ropolitan auction galleries. Here 
one may catch tales of days and lives 
as strange as dreams, tales more 
{Continued on page 76) 
