Studio: international art (19.1900)

A Country House

least they should be the
best of their kind. Let us
forego all aspirations after
palatial surroundings, leav-
ing such things to the few
who are justified in seeking
and successful in achieving
a magnificent environment.
Be ours rather to realise the
beauties of the cottage kind,
and to carefully avoid the
cleverness and dodginess
of the over picturesque.
Simple, quiet rooms full of
that repose which belongs
to woods and groves—con-
struction carried out in
simple, unostentatious ways,
beams where there is weight
to be carried, windows
where we would have light
—the whole breathing of a
sweet and simple reason-
ableness. All these things
help to realise the final
result which we would
achieve.

It is not improbable that
the Practical Person will
find in the house that is
here described nothing
more than an affectation of
mediarvalism.

If it were conceded that
it is mediaeval to speak'true
hall and bower m. H. baili.ie scott, architect and modern to speak' false,

then an unfortunate modern
who, by some freak of

dream a hall with a marbled wall-paper - and a atavism, revived that ancient custom of truthful
hatstand! speaking, might well be spoken of as affecting

And the same warning note—" more than this medievalism. And it is so with modern building
few should seek " is re-echoed as an unspoken and design—a simple statement, a straightforward
comment on all the decoration and furniture of a piece of work in its modern environment of shams
modern house. and pretensions, must necessarily stand out glaringly

In seeking " more than this " we achieve those as eccentric and absurd. Its critics have been so
reception rooms where we receive nothing but bad long inured to falseness of every description in their
impressions and the Cottage with the Curly-C arriage surroundings that they have long ago " taken them-
drive. Let us rather set up as an ideal such a selves for true," and the plain man is put in the
humble standard as is implied in the mere omission extremely false position of a fantastic eccentric,
of the vulvar, and then when our homes are purged What are the methods, one is led to inquires by
of all vulgar and painful things, let us add by slow which the Practical Person achieves an appropriate
degrees with careful and exclusive choosing, such environment ?

few and choice ornaments as may be required. It He proceeds to one of the large furniture firms,
does not follow that these need be expensive—at and there he is free to choose, in the flesh as it

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