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THE LIBRARY
OPF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

GIFT OF

Frederick Law Olmsted,
the younger

 

ARCHITECTURE LIB.

 

 

FROM THE COLLECTION OF
P. L. OLMSTED JK.

Pa

LOWTHORPE SCHOOL

 

 

Wall-Decoration, designed by Mr. Samuel Colman.

 

- WHAT SHALL WE DO

_ WITH OUR WALLS?"

 

CLARENCE COOK ,. .

= NEW YORK

WARREN, FULLER & CO.
9 BAST +32!» ST.
1851; .. :

ARCHITECTURE LIB.

Copyright, 1880, by WarrREN, FurrErR & Co.

 

. PRESS OF
WILLIAM S. GOTTSBERGER

NEW YORK

7. HS 408

C7
ARCH.
LIBRARY

SHALL WCE Do WITH OUR WALLS ?"

Most of us, whether we have plenty of money, or only a moder-
ate portion to lay out in making our rooms handsome with furniture
and ornaments, find ourselves nonplussed when, in the process of
fitting up and furnishing our houses, we come to the question,
"What shall we do with our walls?" R

The covering of the floors is easily settled, for, there, the choice
is between a hard floor with rugs, or a carpet covering the whole
planking, and allowing not a square inch of it to be seen. The
ceiling too, we are so in the habit of leaving untouched, in all the
empty whiteness of the original plaster, that it hardly enters as an
element into the problem. - But the walls cannot be so easily dis-
posed of We must be looking at them, whether we will or no,
and their common refusal to play a harmonious part in our scheme
for making our rooms agreeable to the eye frets us to find out a
remedy.

I think there never will be a better way found for treating the
walls of rooms than . the old way-of which Pompeii shows us so
many examples-of coloring the plaster when it is fresh, with har-
monious ground tints, relieved with a painted decoration of lines,

geometric or flowing patterns, garlands of flowers, dancing nymphs

m843507

2 "What shall we do with our walls?"

and fluttering cupids, with, not seldom, complete pictures even-
their subjects drawn from the mythology of the people. This dec-
oration was extended in many cases to the ceilings, and even where
they were not covered with plaster, but the beams that supported
the floor and the room above were left in sight, these were also
painted in a style harmonious with the walls The floors were laid
in a mosaic formed by small bits of marble arranged in patterns
and pressed into a bed of mortar, and in the houses of the rich
these floors were spread with rugs or skins.

But when we come to propose this simple and agreeable dec-
oration for our own houses, we are met with a formidable obstacle.
Whom shall we call upon to color our walls for us? Who did the
work for the people of Pompeii, and not only for them, but for the
inhabitants of every other third-rate town in Southern Italy? Who

did this work, we may as well ask, for the Italian people in gen-

eral, since this decoration was not confined to Southern Italy, but
was the rule all over the peninsula. - There can be no other answer
than that it was done by the same class of workmen who do our
better house-painting. - Artists, in our sense of the term, were cer-
tainly not employed in producing this rude but effective decoration.

Effective it certainly is, if we look at it as it still remains on many

walls in the ruined city, or even in the specimens preserved in the

Museum at Naples. _ But, if we see it divested of color, in the pho-
tographic reproductions, where we are obliged to consider the draw-
ing by itself, we see only too painfully that very clumsy hands have
been at work. This, however, is not of great importance, since
we do not observe the drawing of these figures when we are en-

joying the color. | It is noticed in a higher domain of art, that, as

"What shall we do with our walls?" 3

a rule, the colorist and the draughtsman are seldom found in the
same person, and in this humble field of Pompeian wall decoration,
the colorist controls the work, and we neither miss, nor regret, the
draughtsman.

Yet the color, too, is conventional, and one house so like an-
other that, at last, after running the city over day after day, we
detect the Pompeién scheme, of which red, yellow, blue, green, and
brown, with red and white, are the constant elements, but combined
in. infinite variety. - The patterns, too, and even the subject of the
pictures, are repeated again and again.

At last we come to believe that the Pompeian house-painters
had each his pattern book, whether of colors or designs, as our own
workmen have, from which the client selected what pleased his eye,
or was suitable to his needs or his means. - The poorer man must
be content with a" plain wash for wall or ceiling, with a few lines
dividing the field into agreeable spaces, and perhaps a bird or a
small cupid in the centre. of each panel; but the man who could
pay, might have a frieze with acanthus and honeysuckle, a dado
with water-weeds and aquatic birds, and in the middle space some
simulated architecture with slender colonnettes, or a stately painting
of the Deserted Ariadne, or Paris and the Goddesses on Ida.
Whatever was wanted could be supplied, but it was tradesmen, not
\ artists who supplied it.

Here, then, is the practical difficulty that meets us when we
propose to adopt the simple, yet rich and effective, Pompeian dec-
oration in our own houses. Our workmen, no matter of what na-
tionality, have not the natural taste, nor the training, that fits them

to do the work of the -Pompeian house-painter. There may be

4 " What shall we do with our walls?"

practical reasons for this, growing out of the difference between our
way of building and theirs; a difference which made it necessary
for them to paint their walls while we need not do so unless we
will. - Their houses were very rudely built; the walls laid up in a
coarse sort of rubble brought to a roughly even surface on the out-
side, while the inside was faced with a smooth plaster, laid directly
on the wall, and not, as with us, on an inner lining of laths. The
consequence was that the inner surface partook of the irregularity
of the main wall, and was liable to be cracked or disturbed when
that was jarred. Coloring, and the rest of the decorative system,
made these imperfections less visible, and it would soon become a
universal practice to paint the walls as soon as the plaster was laid
on. - It would thus follow, even supposing natural genius or apti
tude for the work to have been as wanting to these people as it is
to us, that such constant practice would have created it or devel-
oped it. But I fancy there can be no doubt there was more native
aptitude for art among those descendants of the Greek Colonists
than there is among us. - People who have learned the practice of
Art, who have had art forced into them in training-schools and
schools-of-design, do not so overflow with art-productiveness as did
these Southern Italians, who lavished design upon everything that
they made, from pots and pans, weighing-scales and lamps, to their
houses and temples. Their art had all the abundance and famili-
arity of nature herself - In Pompeii there is an absolute harmony
between the work of nature and the work of man.. In Venus
temple we see the Summer matching the intricate patterns of the
ruined mosaic pavement with her rosettes and stars of blood-red

poppy and blue corn-flower, and tracing the scrolls of her crumb-

" What shall we do with our walls?" 5

ling capitals with sprays of ivy, like musing lines drawn by a re-
gretful finger.

But, with us, all is, thus far, perfunctory and mechanical, and
if we trust to our workmen for artistic or agreeable results, we must
necessarily be disappointed.- We have as good mechanics as are
to be found in the world, -carpenters, painters, masons, not to be
beat. - They 'are ambitious too, and would stare to be told that
grace and elegance are not in their domain.: Yet, leave to the best
house-painter in New York City the duty of painting. the walls,
ceiling, woodwork of a room in one of our houses in rich har:
monious tones that shall satisfy the artistic or the cultivated eye,
and, ten to. one, if his life depended on it, he could not do it.

There are two points in which our house-painters fail when
such a task is given them.. The chief is, the enjoyment. of color,
This comes partly from inherited deficiency, and partly from a long
' education received at their clients' hands, the public enjoying color
just as little as the painters themselves. We have insisted so long
on covering our great stretches of wall with pale tints-fawns,
pearl-grays, ashes-of-roses, apple-greens, with the woodwork to
match, that the painters' pattern-books contain nothing else, or did
pot, until lately. . And, again, we.have so insisted on neatness and
precision, that all freedom and spontaneity have been. educated. out
of these workmen. - Now, nothing is more characteristic of the best
decorative art everywhere-I mean on what may be called its me-
chanic side-than the freedom with which obedience to the laws of
design is paid. We .have had our notions of the necessity of for-
mality and symmetry effectually disturbed by the study of Japanese

art, but the best art of, any people, Greek,. Roman,. Italian, would

6 " What shall we do with our walls?"

have taught us the same lesson. If we had studied the laws of de-
sign as revealed by the best examples, we should not be so put
about when we see a line left by the painter, which, though all
right as far as horizontal or perpendicular are concerned, is a hair's
breadth thicker than it was a few inches before, or a wee Bit more
loaded with paint at one point than at another; nor would it worry
us that these stencilled patterns with which the painter has diapered
our walls, though true in the main, are still not absolutely obedient
to the square of the drill sergeant. - One of the open secrets of
nature's design is this variety in uniformity, this symmetry produced
by balance and not by repetition.. The spots upon a lceopard's
skin, the stripes upon the tiger, seem, to the careless View, regu-
larly disposed, corresponding in number and direction, but it needs
only a slight amount of observation to discover that the stars in the
sky or the daisies in the meadow are not more freely sown than
are these painted spots and streaks on the leopard and the tiger.

But, this freedom, and apparent, if not real, spontaneity of de-
sign are not possible to such house-painters as we have, even
though their skill in other directions, in the smooth laying-on of
color and the matching of tints, be nearly perfect, as it certainly is
with the best of them.. Even if they were capable of coloring the
walls of our houses as harmoniously as the old Pompeians knew
how to do, there is another reason, a housekeeper's reason, this
time, and not an artistic one, that I think would prevent the uni-
versal use of fresco-painting as a means of decorating our walls.
This may be simply stated. . Our modern mode of living, the ne-
cessities of heating and lighting our rooms, since we live almost

constantly indoors during the coldest and darkest months of the year,

 

Ceiling-Decoration, designed by Mr. Louis C. Tiffany.

 

eri
A

tls

 

"What shall we do with our walls?" 7

together with other causes, make it necessary for us to clean the
walls, ceilings and floors of our houses at least once a year; and
while this is done by almost everybody in the Spring, careful house- .
keepers repeat the cleaning in the Autumn. _ Now, walls colored in _
distemper (for real fresco-the color applied, when the plaster is
fresh and absorbent-is never practiced among us) cannot be effect-
ually cleaned, but have to be handled with a good deal of care.
And as the first cost of painting in distemper that should be done
with any approach to artistic skill, would be considerable, its renewal
would only be risked by those to whom expense is of little moment.
Practically, therefore, we have been driven in our search for a mode
of decoration that should meet all our modern conditions, to the use
of wall-paper. For, oil-painting is, now-a-days, only to be thought
of when bed-rooms, or small, seldom-used, rooms are under con-
sideration. - The expense of carrying out any sustained system of
wall-decoration in oil-colors would be too great in the first place,
and nothing would be gained by it, for, no matter how well done,
the artistic effect could never be so pleasing as that produced either
by distemper or by wall-paper.

The first practical advantages of wall-paper are, the ease with
which it is applied, and the ease with which it is renewed. With
our American migratory habits, and love of getting out of one house
into another, it is a great recommendation that our new dwelling
can be made to change its coat as a snake does his skin, and with
new papers on the walls, and fresh paint on the wood-work, be
made all sweet and clean from garret to basement. - Beside, tastes
change from year to year; and, moreover, what pleases one, does

not please another. We take possession of a new house, and

8 "What shall we do with our walls?"

wonder how our predecessor could have had the bad taste to select
such papers for his walls, or how he came to submit to them, if
the bad taste displayed in them proves to have been his predeces-
sor's, and not his. (In either case we make haste to strip them off
the walls that are to be ours, and to put on others of our own
selection, which perhaps will be wondered at in their turn by those
who shall take the house when we have done with it.

It would once have been necessary to advise the removal of all
the paper already upon the wall before hanging a fresh paper.
The reason for this is one that chiefly concerns health, and in these
days of Health-boards and Sanitary Rules, the evils of the old
practice of laying one paper over another have been sufficiently
pointed out. What concerns us here is the fact that a paper will
not look its best, unless it be laid on the smooth surface of the
plaster itself.

We are told that wall-paper was first used in Europe as a sub-
stitute for the tapestry so commonly employed in the middle ages,
partly as a protection against the cold and damp of the stone walls
of the houses, partly, no doubt, as an ornament. As to its origin,
it may have been one of the many inventions borrowed from the
East, and I dare say might be traced, like the introduction of por-
celain, to the Dutch trade with China and Japan. The Japanese
make great use of paper-with paper and the bamboo they contrive
to fill out one-half the catalogue of the necessities of life, clay and
wood serving for the other half - But the use they make of paper
in the construction of their houses is singular. - The walls are lined
with this material, and the divisions between the rooms are made

largely, if not entirely, by means of screens, covered with paper as

«What shall we do with our walls?" o

a rule, though, in some cases, silk is employed. Judging from the
few hundreds of specimens I have seen, and from what I have been
told, the Japanese wall-paper does not come in rolls like ours, but in
pieces a little longer than they are broad, and of different sizes:
the largest of those that 1 have examined are three feet long, by
fifteen inches wide, but the greater part are only fifteen inches long
by twelve wide-the longer line being the horizontal. _ Now, what
makes :it seem probable that our first European notion of wall-
papers came from fapan, is the fact that the first papers made in
Holland and thence introduced into England and France were
printed in these small sizes, nor was it until some time in the last
century, that the present mode of making long rolls was adopted.
I have séen, in old houses on Long Island; walls covered with
these small squares of paper. - These early wall-papers were hand-
printed from blocks, and were only one of the many modifications
and adaptations of the block-printing which gave us our first books
and our first wood-cuts. The next application of the invention was
to stuffs, which were printed by hand from blocks, in the same
way.

The printing of papers for covering walls is said to have been
introduced into Spain and Holland about the middle of the six-
teenth century: And I have read, somewhere, that this mode of
printing the patterns on small pieces of paper was an imitation of
the Spanish squares of stamped and painted leather with which the
grandees of Spain covered their walls-a fashion that spread all
over Europe. It must be remembered, however, that, in the six-
teenth century, Spain and Holland were most intimately connected,

and there was such a constant give and take between them, so far

10 " What shall we do with our walls?"

as arts and manufactures were concerned, that it would be hard to
decide such a question as this with certainty. It is even possible
the Japanese themselves may have borrowed the first notion of
printing their wall-papers in the manner they did, from a former
custom of using leather; at any rate, - many of their wall-papers
imitate stamped leather in texture and pattern, and even in smell,
and are not easily distinguishable from it. Still, I incline to believe
that the matters are not to be confounded, but that the Spanish,
with whom cattle abounded, so that leather was cheap, and with
whom the manufacture of leather into articles of use and ornament
was carried to a high degree of perfection, used leather for their
walls because, as they treated it-stamping it with rich patterns,
painting it and gilding it-they obtained rich and sumptuous effects
in interior decoration, and also because it was the material which
most naturally suggested itself for the purpose. The sizes of the
pieces employed were such as were most naturally and economically
cut from the skins, and it is possible that these skins, so stamped
and ornamented, may have been introduced into japan by the
Dutch, and imitated by that very imitative people. It seems to me
more natural to conclude the making of wall-papers by the Dutch
an attempt to imitate what their traders had seen in Japan, and,
yet, it may also be that the size and shape of the first Dutch wall-
papers were not copied from the Japanese originals at all, but
adopted solely from convenience of printing.

I presume it would add considerably to the labor of covering
walls with paper, if it were attempted to revive the old fashion of
using sheets, and there might be practical difficulties in the way of

keeping the papers neat, and their edges unfrayed while on the

" What shall we do with our walls?" I 1

dealers shelves, but something would be gained in the look of the
wall when the paper was laid; the surface would be agreeably
varied, not merely by the more frequent joints, but by differences
in the tints of the squares, since it would be almost impossible to
produce an absolute uniformity. - Something at any rate would be
done toward breaking up the monotony which troubles us in the
modern perfection of the wall-paper manufacture, and in disturbing
the impeccable evenness with which the best hands contrive to lay
the long breadths upon the smooth walls.

In the growth of good taste in the community, this monotony
has begun to trouble many of us, and attention has been directed
to the best way of preventing it. I was speaking some little while
ago of the difficulty we encounter in the attempt to get artistic work
done easily and cheaply, and there is no reason that cannot be
overcome, why it should not be common and cheap. - But, an ob-
stacle in the way, not easily surmounted is found in our American
love of neatness and precision, qualities of undeniable excellence,
and desirable in housekeeping and in business, but which have no
place in the decorative arts, other than in a general way. Out
own insistance on this neatness and precision, coupled with the want
of artistic feeling in our mechanics, have tended strongly to throw
us on mechanical methods, the result being a cheap and character-
less decoration, of which we tire almost as soon as it is set before
us. And if we try to escape from this kind of work, and seek the
same neatness and finish at the hands of the few trained workmen
we have, we find the expense out of all proportion to the result.
Even the monotony of wall-paper as it used to be applied, and as

it is still applied in the majority of our houses, outside the cities at

I 2 £4 W/éaz‘. shall we do with our walls?"

least, was an advance, and an important one, on the monotony of
blank whiteness that was once the fashion everywhere. - Certainly,
ten years ago we Americans had a mania for whiteness in our
houses, inside and outside! I remember to have been much amused
when crossing the Atlantic on the return voyage by an enthusiastic
countryman who chanted in unflinching tones the praise of white
walls He said, he had seen every one of the famous buildings in
Europe, and not one of them could compare with the Capitol at
Washington-it was so white and clean. He was also strong in
his expression of disapproval of the universal practice in Europe of
coloring the interior walls of the houses. "Why, sir," said he, "over
there, as soon as the walls are plastered, or as soon as they are
dry, the people either paint them or cover them with wall-paper!
Now you know that we Americans think the white plaster most
beautiful to look at, and we never think of painting it or papering
it until. it has begun to look soiled."

'There was, no doubt, much truth in this gentleman's statement
at the time, ten years ago, when he made it, though even. then.
the change had begun to set in to the practice which is now almost
universal. Bfit, there were different reasons for the love of white-
ness in different parts of the country. In Philadelphia where it
still largely survives, there was the Quaker love of neatness and
simplicity, the distaste for bright colors which, though not a part of
the original inheritance of the Friends, had become identified with
their creed in the popular fancy. - We have to remember that the
introduction of plastered walls had been hailed in England in James
the First's time, as one of the greatest of modern improvements,

and for a long time it superseded every other method of covering

 

Ceiling-Decoration, designed by Mr. Samuel Colman.

 

 

"What shall we do with our walls?" 13

ceilings and walls, and the pleasure taken in it continued for a long
time in England, and was naturally transplanted to her American
colonies. In New England I suspect it was neither fashion nor
any particular liking for bare white walls that kept the "hard-
finish" so long in popularity, but simply poverty, and the disposi-
tion to let ornaments go, and throw all the small overplus of money
there might be after the necessities of life were gained, into the
fund that should supply the solid comforts of life or the education
that was there held to be no less an imperative need than bread-
and-butter.

In New York a taste for white, relieved if possible with gold,
came in from France, for France has always been the mistress of
taste for New Yorkers If not white, then panels or whole walls
of the most delicate tints, the practical reason for the choice being,
that rooms so decorated "light up well at night." And so they do,
and if that were all that is to be considered, the verdict would be
unquestionably in favor of this mode of decoration. - Only we shall
still insist that the whole room should be in harmony, and that
violent contrasts between the curtains, carpets, and the coverings
of the chairs and sofas, and the walls and ceilings, should not be
permitted. The main objection to this whiteness is its want of
adaptation to the requirements of our climate. We Americans are
great travellers, we dislike stagnation, and as soon as the weather
permits, we are off from the city, to the country, to the sea-side,
to watering places; and the town-house is deserted. If we lived
in our rooms steadily all the year, it might be as important to have
them cool-looking in summer as warm-looking in winter, but cer-

tainly it is of more importance for us to think of the cold season

14 " What shall we do with our walls?"

from November, or even from October, to May or June, ' (for May
is a sulky month, in spite of the poets) rather than of the rest of
the year.

But, times change, and what was possible to a former genera-
tion, is impossible for us of a later time. - Even if the old-fashioned
simplicity-bareness, as we call it-were agreeable to us, it would
be difficult to maintain it, so greatly has the condition of the market
for beautiful things and things combining use and ornament, changed
within a very few years. The things that go to the furnishing of
a house are so vastly improved with us, and things once rare are
now become so common-either the things themselves, or their
faithful copies-that it is a comparatively easy matter, not even
calling for much money, for people in ordinarily good circumstances
to have their rooms looking, not merely comfortable, but handsome.
Carpets have always been the rule in American houses, but then
Eastern rugs were long scarce, or wholly unknown; now, however,
they are to be had in abundance, even good ones are within easy
reach, and those the connoisseur calls poor are, many of them, not
to be despised. Within two or three years there has been a great
improvement in the general- character of, our furniture-of course,
no matter what the fashion is, there will always be dealers who
will give it a vulgar tone, either loud or insipid-but, whereas, two
or three years ago, pretty, well-designed, elegant furniture was only
to be had in shops whose dearness forbade them to all but the
rich, it is now to be had without difficulty, so rapidly does im-
provement shoot ahead in our country when once it has got a start.
Within a few weeks, only, we read of a step having been taken by

one firm which, if it shall be followed by others, cannot fail to

" What shall we do with our walls?" 15

have an important influence on the character of our house-furnish-
ing. We mean, the announcement that furniture designed by Mr.
Charles McKim, for cottages and small houses, is manufactured now
bya firm who have taken it up as a practical matter, and who
desire to make it popular. Mr. McKim is one of our very best
architects, a young man who has already built more pretty houses
than any one else among us, though we are by no means without
clever architects, and if his example shall be followed by others, we
may surely look forward to a pleasant time when it shall be easy,
without too much expenditure of time or too much straining of the
purse, to get furniture for our houses that shall be well made, and
as sensibly, as prettily or handsomely, designed.

In the general course of improvement, the answering of supply
to demand, wall-papers have not lagged behind. We have, now,
in America as wide a field to choose from as can be found any-
where. - English papers, from the most conservative and respectable
patterns to the latest artistic growth, are found in all our best
shops, and Paris itself cannot show more pretty, coquettish, elegant,
stately, rich designs at home, than she sends New York every year
from her overflowing store.

It may be said, in passing, that France makes no account of
one of the prime articles in the creed of the modern English and
American schools of Decorative Art, that natural representation
of flowers and fruits, and for that matter, imitations of all sorts,
should be sedulously avoided. The French permit themselves full
liberty in this matter, imitate any thing and every thing they can
'force into the service of decoration, and when they feel like it, paint

flowers and fruits on wall-papers, or weave them into silks, or print.

16 " What shall we do with our walls?"

them upon chintzes, with such grace and truth to fature, as to de-
ceive the very elect. - We Americans, being I suppose at the root
more akin to the English than to the French, have blindly accepted
the English dictum in this matter, and look upon wall-papers with
any but set conventional patterns and sombre colors, as vulgar, or
as they say, "low form -for we prefer even English cockney slang
to our own.. 'It was from the English we learned to make our
dining-rooms dark, and to load them with heavy furniture; there
being in reality, no good reason to be given-none at least that I
could ever hear of-why dining-rooms should be any darker or
drearier than drawing-rooms. So with bed-rooms. 'Tis as much
as a man's reputation for good taste is worth, to confess that he
likes to see a preity flowered paper on a bed-room wall; and one
can hardly estimate the courage it would take to own that one
liked an old-fashioned landscape-paper in a hall-way or in a dining-
room.

It was not always so in England however, and one of the
pleasant features of the so-called "Queen Anne" style that we hear
so much about now-a-days, is its freedom from pedantry, its willing-
ness to admit into its scheme of ornamentation almost anything that
is intrinsically pretty or graceful. Thus, in furniture, we are free
to employ miniature architectural forms- colonnettes, pilasters, pedi-
ments, (even broken ones); and we can, if we choose, paint the
papers and stuffs with which we cover our walls and furniture, with

wreaths of flowers and festoons of fruits; with groups of figures

from poetry or history; with grotesques and arabesques from Rome

and Pompeii, passed through the brains of Louis XIV's Frenchmen

or of Anne's Englishmen; with landscapes even, pretty pastorals,

"What shall we do with our walls?" 17

set in frameworks of wreaths or ribbons, or more simply arranged
like irregular spots in rows of alternate subjects.

To-day we have the choice between this careless freedom from
esthetic restraint, and a docile obedience to certain formal rules,
rules sensible enough, no doubt, and when carried out, producing
good and reasonable effects, pleasing to the greater number of
people, and quite as much "the fashion" as the other.. But it seems
to me pretty well settled now-thanks to the revived freedom and
naturalness of the so-called "Queen Anne" style, and to the far
more artistic art of the Japanese with freedom and naturalness
equally its characteristics-that the classic laws of symmetry and
unity are no longer to be considered the absolute rulers of the field of
decorative art. - They have their place, and they deserve our respect
as much ever they did, but we are at liberty to choose where we
will employ them, and where we will not.

In covering our walls with paper, we have to take one of two
courses. - We must consider, whether the paper is to serve as a
background for pictures and ornamental objects, or, whether it is
to be treated as an ornament in itself If it is to serve as a back-
ground for pictures, then we are to consider what will suit them
best. what will at once keep them in their place, and bring them
out; but it is an error, I think, to suppose, as some people do, that
a "'quiect paper is what is wanted for this purpose, A "quiet"
paper must be suited like any other to the whole room, and no
paper is "good" in itself alone, its goodness, like that of human
beings, is entirely relative and depends upon what it is wanted for.
If the pictures are dark and rich-looking, in gold frames, they will

be suitably backed by a sober background in a brocade or ara-

18 "What shall we do with our walls?"

besque pattern, one that will suggest the silks or leathers employed
for such purposes in older times. Such a paper would indeed be
"quiet," but it would not be dull or undecided, which is what people
''in general usually mean when they use the expression, "a quict
paper." - Now, dull or undecided, a wall-paper should never be. On
the contrary it ought always to be decided in its tint-a very dif-
ferent thing from being "staring" or "pronounced"-and it ought
to harmonize with the pictures or ornaments; it should diffuse, so
to speak, the tone of the objects that hang upon it over the whole
wall, but it should be subordinate to them, neither over-crowing
them nor making them look like isolated spots.

But, the pictures may be of quite another sort from those I
have described. They may be photographs or prints or delicate
water-colors,~- and in this case the same rule will hold-that the
wall-paper should be one that will accord with the general tone of
the drawings and photographs. - Papers with loose flowing patterns,
damasks, or arabesques in the lighter greens, grays, blues, reds and
yellows will harmonize with such pictures and show them at their
best.

Here I may say that in this matter of photographs and prints
a good deal depends upon the way in which they are framed and
mounted. If this is done in the old fashion with wide white mar-
gins and dark frames-black or brown, with or without lines and
ornaments in gold-the effect of the whole will be light and char-
acterless; at any rate one requiring a light background to accord
with it. If, on the other hand, the photographs and drawings show
no white mounts at all, but are surrounded with flat and not too

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" What shall we do with our walls?" 19

gilded in the grain and unburnished, the effect may be as rich as
that of oil paintings, and the background required will be sober or
rich, to correspond.

_ It may be modestly said that few people know how much
decorative effect may be got out of photographs, etchings and en-
gfavings. Only, these last must be of a certain sort. As usually
treated, they are not effective at all, and many people object to
them absolutely and will not frame them. - As I have said however,
and every artist will, I am sure, uphold me in it, they can be made
of great importance in the decorative scheme of the room, and this
simply by taking their own general tone as the key-note and work-
ing up from that to higher tones in the scale. Of course I am
now speaking of photographs, etchings and prints that are artistic
in themselves, photographs that are not "vignetted," but photo-
graphs of pictures that are themselves pictorial and come vigorously
up to their boundaries on all sides. Photographs such as these
from the pictures of the best Italian painters, as well as from Hol-
bein, Velasquez and Reynolds (though the old mezzotints from
Reynolds, Gainsborough and Raeburn are better than any photo-
graphs) may now be procured with ease and at prices within reach
of, very humble purses, and when framed as they should be, and
backed by a wall-paper that is suited to them, they may hold their
own against more pretentious pictures less harmoniously presented.

We have next to think of the division of the wall. - This is a
matter of the first importance in decoration, and the modern wall-
papers give us a great help in producing good effects with a very
inconsiderable expenditure of money.

If the room be a high one, such as we ordinarily find in city

Pa

20 'What shall we do with our walls?"

houses, the wall will look better divided into three parts, a dado or
wainscot, the wall proper, and a frieze, so called, just below the
ceiling. The dado-a word whose etymology I cannot trace, per-
haps a corruption of "dais"-plays a part equally decorative and
useful. The older name is wainsceot, and means wall-protector, a
covering of wood laid against the stone or brick wall for warmth
and comfort. . Originally, and this before plastering was employed,
the object of wainscot was purely useful, though according to the
means of the house-builder it was carried up to a greater or a lesser
height. Plaster was introduced as a substitute for wainscot, cheaper
and more easily applied to the wall, and as wood grew scarcer,
people ceased to employ it at all for sheathing the inside walls, the
only vestige of it being the so-called mop-board (to keep the scrub-
bing woman's mop from the plaster, or wall-paper,) base-board,
skirting-board as it is variously called. It is a thousand pities the
old panelled wainscot was ever given up. - Those who have seen
rooms in old houses about Boston and Philadelphia with the lower
half of the parlor walls covered with a wainscot divided agreeably
to architectural taste into its own base, styles, panels and moulded
cornice; the mantle-piece of wood, with cupboards and arches at
either side; with a wooden cornice running round the whole room
and with low seats in the windows-the window-seat, a feature en-
tirely lost to us in these days of thin outer walls-and then the
wall-space that was left by this mode of treatment, covered with a
landscape-paper, or a paper with large decorative flowers,
hollyhocks, poppies, tulips, softly bright, toned down to chime with
the light colors of the paint-whoever has seen such a room as

this, must think we have gained nothing, in the look of comfort, at

"What shall we do with our walls?" 21

least, by discarding the old fashion. And indeed, we show our
good taste by coming back to the old style once more, if not in
actual wood-work, at least in the devices that produce a similar
effect.

og d suppose it is easier to come back to the original wood-work
in some places than it is in others. But, in New York, it is almost
out of the- question to hope for a return to the old style, for a
simple reason-the reason that controls so many schemes for deco-
ration and improvement here-the narrowness of the lots. - Slight
as is the projection of a wainscot, even so little diminution of the
width of one of our city rooms, tells, not only on its looks but on
the actual comfort of the occupant. And beside, it is not really
needed in city houses, at least, the need of it is not so pressing
as to enable us to forget the discomfort of a few inches less of
space to move in. . Accordingly, we Rave agreed to compromise
the matter by a simulated wainscot formed of the customary base-
board of the room, and the so-called chair-rail-a strip of wood,
either flat or else moulded, but not projecting more than half an
inch at the most from the wall-and between these, wall-paper laid °
as usual upon the plaster.

I confess I do not like the modern way, the fashionable way,
of treating this lower division of the wall. The cases must be few
in which it will be advisable to treat it in any but the simplest
manner. - Remember, the prime use of the wainscot or dado was
to protect the walls, or if not that, then to protect the persons who
used the rooms from the damp and chilly stone or brick. - When
plaster came to be employed, the wainscot kept the lower part of

the wall from getting knocked or defaced, and after all, that is the

22 " What shall we do with our walls?"

main reason for keeping up the semblance of the old device. To
be sure, the Pompeians, from whom we get our way of treating
the wall, painted the lower part with a design of its own, water-
weeds and flowering plants, with aquatic birds, or, still-life pic-
tures, a group of fish, lobsters, and other things of the sort, with
a mischievous cat running away with a duck from the shelves of
the pantry. - But we differ from the Pompeians in this, that our
rooms are generally so crowded with furniture-which, owing to the
small dimension of the rooms, we are obliged for the most part to
put against the wall-that we cannot see whatever decoration may
be upon the lower portion. Let the reader, as he reads this book,
look about the room in which he is sitting and prove for himself,
how small a portion of the base of the wall three feet up from the
floor, he can see for more than a foot or two laterally. It is hid
by the sofas and étagéres, the piano, and the smaller tables. The
Pompeians, on the other hand, had the least possible furniture, they
lived much in the open air, and we may be sure, if they decorated
their walls down to the floor, it was for the pleasure of seeing what
was there, and not for the mere pride of knowing that it was there
and paid for, even if it were covered up by furniture and never
seen from one year's end to another's.

No, what is suitable to the lower part of a wall, if it is to be
papered, is a rich, dark leather-paper in bronze, green, or leather-
brown, or deep red, with a pattern in renaissance scrolls, arabesques,
acanthus leaf, without gilding, or only heightened with gold. Of
course, this applies only to such rooms as the drawing-room, the
dining-room, or the living-room; and even then only when there is

a certain elegance or richness in the furniture. In a room plainly

_"What shall we do with our walls?" 23

furnished, or in the bedrooms, "plain handsomeness doth bear the
bell.". The color of the paper chosen should of course be in har-
mony with the general tone of the room. - Such a dado as this will
make a good background for the furniture, and will not usurp to
itself any of the attention that ought to be given to more important
portions of the decoration. At the same time, if the room to be
papered is a summer one and lightly furnished, set out for instance
with Chinese sofas of bamboo, light chairs of cane or Vienna bent
wood, then it will be well enough to revert to the Pompeian plan,
and decorate the lower part of the wall with natural forms of bulrush
and arrow-heads with ducks and turtles; only, these things ought to
be more freely and artistically treated than is the wont with us.
And here I may ask-are we not too much wedded in these
days to the notion that, in ornamentation, the natural forms and
look of things should be altogether avoided? Of course, it is
better, as a rule, to have the edge of imitation taken off, but if our
taste enjoy this imitation, enough may be left to satisfy the picture-
loving instinct all human beings have in a greater or less degree.
There was a kind of tapestry made in Europe in the fifteenth cen-
tury, in Flanders probably, in which there were represented gentle-
men and ladies, the chitelaine \and her suite, walking in the park of
the chateau. The figures, the size of life, scem to be following the

course of a slender stream which like Tennyson's "Brook," might sing,

*L come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally, .
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

24 "What shall we do with our walls?"

"With many a curve my banks I fret,
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set,
With willow-weed and mallow."

The park in which these noble folk are stiffly disporting is
represented by a wide expanse of meadow guiltless of perspective,
stretching up to the top of the picce of stuff itself a meadow com-
posed of leaves and flowers-blue-bells, daisies, and flowers without
a name, giving the. effect of a close mosaic of green, mottled with
colored spots. On this meadow are scattered various figures of
animals and birds-the lion, the unicorn, the stag and the rabbit.
Mere. too, are hawks and parrots, and in the upper part is a heron
which has been brought down by a hawk and is struggling with
the victor, some highly ornamental drops of blood on the heron's
breast showing that he is done for. And, to return to the brook
which winds along the bottom of the tapestry, it is curious to note
that this part of the work is more real and directly natural in its
freatment than the rest.. The water is blue, and is varied by
shading and by lines that show the movement of the stream; the
plants and bushes growing along its borders are drawn with at
least a conventional look of life, some violets and fleurs-de-lys being
particularly well done; and in the stream itself are sailing several
ducks, some pushing straight ahead, others nibbing the grass along
the bank, and one, at least, diving to the bottom with tail and feet
in the air.

Now if this realism and anecdote was good art in the fifteenth
century, and if it commends itself now to our unsophisticated nine-

teenth century taste, why is it bad, why do the purists shrug their

Parlor-Decoration, designed by Mr. Samuel Colman.

 

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" What shall we do with our walls?" 25

shoulders when we talk of repeating in spirit the designs approved
by this old example? Partly this comes from a change of taste and
manners-'twas a tapestry-fashion and it passed away with tapestry
itself; and partly 'tis the result of the mechanical art-teaching that
has prevailed for the last fifty years or less, and that has had for
its chief text the doctrine that we must avoid in design all direct
reference to natural forms, or, if we use them, that we must con-
ventionalize them out of all resemblance to their originals.

Good art never did this at any time; Art has always, when
at its best, tried to give us as much nature as possible, and has
only conventionalized so far as was necessary for the material frame-
work that was to enclose the ornament. - Botticelli, when he would
decorate the dress of his Flora in the "Allegory of Spring," sets it
all over with exquisitely-painted tufts of growing flowers which at
a distance indeed look like embroidery, and remind us of Chaucer's

description of the dress of the young squire:

«"Short was his gowne with sleeves long and wide.

Embroidered was he as it were a mede
All full of freshe flowers white and rede."

And even the- Saracens whose art seems purely geometrical, are as
far as possible from being scientifically or pedagogically formal and
dry. Fhey turn geometry to grace and beauty, and in the myriad
involutions of their patterns appear to have discovered a new king-
dom of nature which, while we contemplate it, seems almost more

beautiful than flowers and gems. This is the very province of art,

26 "What shall we do with our walls?"

to make the whole world minister to its love of beauty, and in right
hands art can find material for beauty in everything natural.
Therefore we ought not to lay down a law that this, that, or the
other design in wall-paper, in stuffs, in carpets, cannot be good, if
it is what is called natural, that is if it consists of flowers, fruits or
leaves that distinctly recall the objects of which it is composed. I
think it capable of very easy demonstration that a decoration may
be perfectly suitable and satisfactory in which the resemblance of
the forms to nature is very close, the conventionalizing being carried
only a little way.

bo much for the wainscot. The middle portion of the wall
being in the direct line of vision is, of course, the most important
of the three, - It is on this that our pictures, portraits, mirrors,
sconces, are hung, and the choice of a paper to cover this space
is generally an extremely difficult matter for housekeepers. - How-
ever, the decision may be sooner arrived at, if we are quite settled
in our minds as to what use we intend making of this space. All
depends upon whether we have things, be they few or many, that
must be seen, and seen to advantage, or whether we have merely
the ordinary pretty or handsome things that happen to be in fash-
fon. - In the former case; it is the things that make the wall, and
oblige us to subordinate all its coloring and ornamentation to them.
In the latter case, we can presume that our pretty things, being
themselves in the fashion, will go well enough with any fashionable
paper we take a fancy to. And it may be that we shall wish to
get off cheaply, and yet with good effect, too, and to that end shall
find a rich paper, cither dark with much gold, or gaily flowered,

or with some entanglements of lines or masses of brilliant color,

. " What shall we do with our walls?" $7

and so fill up the space between dado and cornice with a back-
ground on which the varied objects that make up the decoration of
a modern drawing-room shall find a place to their liking.

Also, we have to think of the situation of the room, and of
the time of day in which it is most used. - For, if the room have
much sun in it during the day, we have to choose, either a color-
ling that will temper the brightness of the sun's light, or, one that
will so chime with it as to be made more effective by it. The de-
cision here depends on whether the husband or the wife is the one
more concerned in the matter, for I believe it is commonly seen
that men like a great deal of sunlight in the house, and are pleased
with a decoration of gold or red, or colors in these keys, be they
strong or pale, while ladies for the more part like sombre tints or
such at-least as absorb rather than reflect the light. And, as the
drawing-room is generally most used by the ladies of the family in
the day-time, they will have the natural right to be consulted as to
the decoration.

If, however, the rooms to be papered are to be used much at
night, colors that light up well, as the phrase is, must be employed.
Many a room looks exceedingly pretty by day, or rich as a retreat
from the too much brightness of the sun, and yet by night, when
perhaps it is chiefly used, it cannot be made to look bright and
gay, no matter how many lamps or candles we light up. This is
owing solely to the colors employed on the walls, with which we
always try to have the hangings correspond, so that all works to-
gether to the uncomfortable result. - Lord Bacon, says, in his essay
on "Masks and Triumphs"-"The colors that show best by candle-

light are white, carnation, and a kind of sea-water green," he might

28 "What shall we do with our walls?"

have added others, and yellow among them, that is, gold or golden
yellow, though it is not easy. to hit upon the right shade,. - It
should be of the most brilliant but soft dandelion-color, and unless
used in small quantities is almost too brilliant for the day-time.
But, at night, with flowers and with candles, which happily are
come into fashion again, a yellow flock-paper in a large flowered
or arabesque renaissance pattern has a very rich and exhilarating
effect in a drawing-room.

It wants to be remembered that much of the effectiveness of
wall-papers comes from their being used in not great masses. And,
apart from all questions of utility, this is one of the main argu-
ments in defence of the division of the wall which is now so much
the fashion. The old style was,. to cover the walls with one vast
expanse of paper, from end to end, and from cornice to mop-board,
and it would be hard to say which had the more disheartening ef-
fect upon the visitor, the sight of this desert when the paper was
of a pale tint just off the white, or when it was of a dark ground
with a sprawling design, or else with a very set pattern profusely
relieved with gold. Nothing was commoner twenty or thirty years
ago than to see such a room, and there are still plenty of them
left where these vast unadorned walls were unrelieved by any or-
nament, except a family-portrait or two, and the traditional vases
on the mantle-shelf, always of Sévres or make-believe Sévres por-
celain, painted with extremely artificial natural flowers, with an
ormolu clock between them, and an ormolu candle-branch at either
end. In addition, the carpet swore at the wall-paper, the stiffly-
arranged curtains swore at the carpet, while a burst of profane jeers

came from the chorus of sofas and chairs with their coverings in

"What shall we do with our walls?" 20

some irreconcilable color. . But let not the modern reader exult too
soon. In these desperate parlors often enough sat and talked
people who were the delight of all who had -the good fortune to
know them-sensible, witty, hospitable, gay,-in whose society it
would have been impossible for any but a coxcomb to have given
a thought to the artistic barrenness of the room. - Nay, has not
the memory of these sterling souls almost made the rooms they
lived in, beautiful in spite of their ugliness?

So far as getting the worth of one's money is concerned, this
old way of papering rooms was far from being economical-that is,
from the esthetic point-of-view. | There is so much of it that we
do not see it; as the man said of the wood-"you could not see
it, for the trees." A fiftle of the paper would have been more
effective. When the dado is dark, and the furniture covered with
sober-hued stuffs-though 'tis a mistake to have all the pieces or
even the greater number of them, covered with the same material
-the central portion only of the wall should have a wall-paper of
pronounced richness, and, as has been several times said, even this
should be suited to the use that is to be made of the space-
whether it is to be seen for itself or made. a background. for the
display of pictures and ornaments.

The frieze is by many at the present day considered an essen-
tial division of the wall, and should always be employed where the
room is of a good height,. Ilike to divide the frieze from the
central portion by a picture-strip made strong enough to hold the
smaller frames-water-colors, etchings, plaques of porcelain, &c., &c.,
a stronger and more solid looking strip being placed directly under

the cornice for the suspension of the larger pictures. If arranged

30 " What shall we do with our walls?"

with judgment the perpendicular lines of the cords supporting these
frames may be made effectively useful in correcting the horizontal
divisions of the wall itself -And the number of the suspending
cords may be diminished by employing for the smaller pictures, and
indeed for all but very large ones-portraits and the like-a single
cord instead of the usual two diverging ones.

The design of the frieze should not be too prominent nor for-
mal: some of the best that I have seen have been of a paper not
expressly intended for such a use, covered well over with flawers
not too large.© 'The object of the frieze is to make a colored band
or, rather, a tinted band under the cornice, and to simply modify
the height of the wall. This latter purpose would be defeated
rather than assisted by a formal pattern with large and brilliant
figures, for such a frieze would pull the ceiling, figuratively speak-
ing, over our ears, and beside would kill the effect of the main
portion of the wall. - But, here as everywhere, we have to consider
things in their relations, and some of the New York parlors, es-
pecially those in the old-fashioned houses, are so large and empty-
looking, even when furnished, that we have to give the walls heroic
doses of ornament in order to keep them down.

A use to which wall-paper is seldom (in my experience) put in
New York, is the covering of ceilings; and yet it is often so em-
ployed in Boston, in the houses built and decorated by the younger
architects. there, and employed too with excellent effect. - White
ceilings are, or ought to be, disagreeable to everybody, and. yet in
the want of decorative talent among our house-painters already
complained of-as for the professional fresco-painters, their work is

always irredeemably bad-wall-paper is the only substitute that is

"What shall we do with our walls?" 31

within the means of most people. - Of course, if artists like Messrs.
Tiffany or C. C. Coleman will undertake the commission, there is
no more to be said. - We are not now thinking of exceptions how-
ever, but of the general rule. - And: certainly for the most of us,
covering the ceiling with well-chosen wall-papers arranged in a large
central field with a good border,.is an expedient to be commended.
The whole should be kept flat, however-at least, in nine cases out
of ten, it should be so-but in the tenth case there is sure to come
along a decorative génius who will do the wrong thing and make
us think it the right thing. - But we are not. to reckon on miracles,.
We have to take the work-a-day world as we find it, and our ceil-
ings must be covered as we can best contrive it with the help of
our own taste and the resources of the paper-dealers' shelves. It
ought to be difficult to go astray in the matter, considering how
plentiful is the supply of papers suitable for all purposes-pretty
and elegant, rich and fanciful, sober and retiring-designs on which
all the skill of the time we live in has been expended. to make
them satisfactory to the most exacting taste. f
The important step has been taken by the house for which this
tract is written, Messrs. Warren, Fuller & Co., of employing Amer-
ican artists to make them designs for wall-papers of their own
manufacture. . Messrs. Louis C. Tiffany and Samuel Colman, two
artists whose work has enjoyed a great deal of popular favor, and
whose experience and surroundings have made them acquainted
with the elegancies and refinements of our modern fife, and famil-
iarized them with all the best designs of the East as well as of
Europe, have accepted the commission, and for some time have

been engaged in studies and experiments, the results of which are

32 "What shall we do with our walls?"

shown, in part, in certain of the illustrations bound up with these
pages. It seems to me that this is beginning in the right way.
Owing to the practical difficulties in the matter, the difficulties that
an artist whose sole business has been to paint pictures on squares
of canvas, must find in taking up design as an art, it was not to
be expected that even artists working with the advantages enjoyed
by Messrs. Tiffany and Colman would find their way altogether
smooth. It was necessary to try a great many experiments before
they could feel satisfied to submit anything to the public, and the
papers they have designed and which Messrs, Warren, Fuller &
Co. have manufactured, are certainly well worth the attention of af]
persons interested in the growth of the arts of design in this coun-
try: We wish those intelligent and public-spirited citizens who,
beside the liking they have for art itself, feel also a generous
concern for the part America is to play in its development, and
who are trying to bring about a time when we shall not go abroad
for arts that can as well be produced at home-we wish these
fellow-citizens of ours would see the truth, for it is a truth-that
the way to encourage the healthy, normal growth of any form of
art, the true and only way to teach it, is to set it at some actual
work-intended to be paid for, and to be worth paying for. I never
did have any faith in art-schools, whether supported by the money
of a nation or by that of individuals, and if the matter is well
looked into, it will be found that progress in any art has. always
come from the experience gained in carrying out regular business-
commissions, or in supplying actual needs of men and women.

It was in this matter-of-fact utilitarian way that the arts of

painting and sculpture came to be born, and it was in doing such

"What shall we do with our walls?" 33

useful, needed work that they grew and developed their magnificent
strength in Italy; and when the time came for the birth of the more
avowedly useful arts, the art of pottery, for example, these grew
up and flourished without any other aid whatever than the universal
law of supply-and-demand gave them. Even the princes patronized
the potteries because they wanted the things the pottér made, and
not from any sentimental feeling of patriotism. - They saw it was
better every way to have the things that had hitherto been imported,
made at home by their own people, so that their own treasuries
could be filled by the profits of trade. There never was talk heard
of the necessity for schools-of-design in any country where art really
flourished. - There was, no doubt, a capacity for what we call art-
production, a capacity that is found much more in some people than
in others, but it was never developed anywhere where it did exist,
nor created anywhere where it did not exist, by means of schools,
but only by actual experience in serious work.

Therefore it is, that the undertaking of the Messrs Warren,
Fuller & Co. is beginning at the right end. They have invited
artists to design them wall-papers that shall have decided artistic
qualities, and yet shall be suited to actual needs, and that shall
command a place in the market. They want to make a breach in
the wall of old ideas and fashions of the past, that hedges us in,
and to create something that shall have an unborrowed, individual
look.

«But, says one, ''What is the use? Why try to compete with
French wall-papers, the best and most beautiful in the world, and
suited to every taste.". Who, then, I ask, set the French going,

and were there not French folks who threw cold water on French

34 *What shall we do with our walls?"

enterprise, at the start? No,. J doubt if there were, for the French
have always had the good common-sense to be true to themselves,
to encourage home genius, home talent, and home manufacture; and
French gothic architecture, French painting and sculpture, French
gardening, French tapestry, porcelain, faience, silks, fashion-each
has led the race in its turn, because there was nobody to disparage
it, and no one to listen to disparagement had it been offered.
There must be a beginning in the improvement of the decorative
arts as in everything, and, for my part, I should be glad to see it
come here as it came in England and France in the days before
art-schools were invented, to the deadening of all art-instinct, and
the extinction of all originality. - In another field, the Messrs. War-
ren, Fuller & Co. are doing the same service for the decorative
arts here in America, that the Wedgewoods did in England, and
if the artists will only second these gentlemen with their best aid,
they can afford to wait for the public, knowing that they must buy
their wall-papers if they are handsome, and that they will buy them
in case they take their fancy, without asking whether they came
from France or not.

It may be interesting to remember that the very wall-papers
of the Queen Anne and early George's time, which are now coming
into fashion again, were designed by nobody in particular, and at
a time when there were no art-schools anywhere; and one can
easily see that the wall-papers, the stuff-patterns, and the furniture
of that time, all of which things are the rage now and are turning
the heads of our fashionable seekers for novelty, go fogethker, show-
ing that they came out of the same creative mould and were the

product of a sort of spirit-of-the-age. Now, why cannot we pursue

"What shall we do with our walls?" 35

the same course pursued by the people of that time, refusing to
copy anybody, and trusting to artistic ideas and feeling to carry the
day? Were we to do so, we should, like enough, in the end,
have France as willing to learn of us as, in thesedays, she is will-

ing to learn of that England whom once she so much despised.

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