74 
House & Garden 
Book-Binding 
T 'HE handicraft of the book-binders of 
the Mediaeval ages was developed to such 
a degree of skill, that now in many instances, 
after hundreds of years their work is in exceb 
lent condition. But for them many of the 
greatest books would have been lost to pos~ 
terity. 
Theirs is a splendid example 
of the worth of handcraft. It 
meant the putting of all the skill 
and spirit of the artisan into his 
craft. Ireland Brothers hand- 
woven Fleunde^Lis Irish linen, so wondrously 
lustrous and durable, is eminently qualified 
to reflect the skill and spirit of the hand 
weaver. 
Fleinxde-Lis Hand-woven Irish Linen 
Damask Table Cloths with napkins to match 
in varied designs are on sale at the best stores. 
An illustrated catalogue on request. 
IRELAND BROS. 
INCORPORATED 
IRISH LINEN 
Heur-de-I-is Brand 
Fleur-de-lis Brand 
102 Franklin Street New York City 
Mimosa Hall, at Roswell, Ga., is of brick coated 
with sand and colored plaster worked into stone 
courses. It was built in 1830 
The Classic Homes of Old Georgia 
(Continued from page 72) 
cypresses whose bony root fingers are 
clutched in the black water they haunt. 
And in spring there is the living 
ecstacy of peach blow flung violently 
in the face of phlegmatic man—a 
breath-taking pink cloud from one set¬ 
tlement to another—even grimy pink 
petals in the smoke of the city. There is 
nothing bleak about the scene in Georgia. 
These red hills, the dark pines, the 
huge olive-colored live-oaks seemed 
predestined to hold the white col¬ 
umned houses that belonged to that 
period. The Greek porticos framed in 
dusky evergreen, the stately colonnades 
of the porches made to temper the 
white hot sunshine and to cut into ro¬ 
mantic sections the cold white moon¬ 
light, the whole set round with pat¬ 
terned gardens of boxwood parterres 
and swept white paths made poetic evi¬ 
dence of a happy alliance of man, na¬ 
ture and art. 
There were no architects in those 
days, with rare exceptions in Savannah 
or Charleston, and the conceptions of 
the Georgia builders were taken from 
books in their libraries—the classical 
education of a gentleman being a mat¬ 
ter of course. Though education then 
comprised a certain knowledge of build¬ 
ing and a familiarity with architec¬ 
tural forms, the results accomplished 
lend truth to the quaint statement of 
J. Norman, who prefaced his hand¬ 
book by saying architecture should be 
universally practised, as it is “so easy 
as to be acquired in leisure times when 
the Business of the Day is over, by 
way of Diversion.” Their libraries 
doubtless contained his handbook, 
strayed from New England, or Asher 
Benjamin’s “Country Builders’ As¬ 
sistant,” fully explaining the Best 
Methods for striking regular or quirked 
mouldings, but more important to their 
influence were Palladio, the brothers 
Adam and that most popular of all, “An 
Inquiry into the Principles of Greek 
Architecture,” published by the Earl of 
Aberdeen in 1822. Actually these Geor¬ 
gia builders with much less than Thomas 
Jefferson’s lore followed on his enter¬ 
prise in building them houses which 
filled their needs, met their desires, out¬ 
lined their personalities in creating a 
distinct and colorful type. 
Fortunately the towns of those days, 
built in relation to stage-coach roads 
or side-wheel steamer landings, are left 
somewhat as they were and bear little 
kinship to the railroad-created cities 
which came later. These little places 
have not been razed of individuality 
by the modern monster of commerce, 
enterprise, bustle. What they have 
lost in not growing into Atlantas or 
Chicagos is counterbalanced by what 
they have kept for us of the glamor of 
a bygone age when man had leisure 
and a love of fine simplicity. 
The houses of the planters, now 
often inaccessible, are even clearer 
documents of achievement under diffi¬ 
culty. The builders were necessarily 
limited in materials to those at hand; 
brick made by the slaves, timber cut 
from their own forests, woodwork 
hand-carved on the spot. In rare 
cases, when mantels or finer woodwork 
were shipped from England or Italy, 
the great cases were hauled by oxen 
over rough country roads from the 
nearest shipping point on the coast. 
The usual home-made products, through 
a prevalent feeling for proportion and 
felicity of design, achieved a beauty 
and simplicity which put to shame our 
modern dependence on stock patterns 
and machine-made details. 
How these amateur architects avoid¬ 
ed monotony in spite of using fre¬ 
quently the same general plan, can be 
explained only by the something in¬ 
genuous and personal they injected 
into their work. Even in towns like 
Milledgeville and La Grange, where 
great numbers of these entrancing old 
houses line the wide shady streets, one 
could swear no single hand was con¬ 
cerned in building any two of them, 
such is their individuality. 
It seems so suited, this neo-Grecque 
type, to the dignified, leisurely life of 
the times, there is about it so much of 
gracious simplicity and nobility that 
one forgets to marvel at the restraint 
the Georgia builders showed in their 
use of it. 
Georgia had the true feeling and 
knowledge of the form which perfect 
and sympathetic application give. They 
had such flair for effect that even when 
the forms were assembled ignorantly 
the whole was apt to be superb. The 
type was used for the best and for all 
it was worth, there where it seemed 
so at home. The values they got from 
the black and white of it!—the ap¬ 
parently naive way they used their 
shadows when there was practically no 
ornament. The entablature, straight 
from some Greek temple (out of one 
of their calf-bound classics), carefully 
hand-carved by the plantation carpen¬ 
ter; turned posts, railings, “capitals 
with a conscience,” these things seemed 
so simple for those days when the la¬ 
borer was worthy of his hire (for there 
was not any hire) and the workman 
loved his work and put the best of 
himself into it. The masters seem to 
have transmitted their enthusiasm to 
their laborers (often slaves). The work 
was done with such loving decency. 
Henry Adams says in his cheerful 
New England negations “History is 
only a catalog of the forgotten.” In 
these days of searching for a means of 
expressing the best of America, shall 
we catalog and forget instead of use 
and adapt this heritage—one of our 
finest, distinct native developments of 
the builder’s art? 
