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Page 49
No pattern should be without some sort of meaning. True it is that
that meaning may have come down to us traditionally, and not be our
own invention, yet we must at heart understand it, or we can neither
receive it, nor hand it down to our successors. It is no longer
tradition if it is servilely copied, without change, the token of
life. You may be sure that the softest and loveliest of patterns
will weary the steadiest admirers of their school as soon as they
see that there is no hope of growth in them. For you know all art
is compact of effort, of failure and of hope, and we cannot but
think that somewhere perfection lies ahead, as we look anxiously for
the better thing that is to come from the good.
Furthermore, you must not only mean something in your patterns, but
must also be able to make others understand that meaning. They say
that the difference between a genius and a madman is that the genius
can get one or two people to believe in him, whereas the madman,
poor fellow, has himself only for his audience. Now the only way in
our craft of design for compelling people to understand you is to
follow hard on Nature; for what else can you refer people to, or
what else is there which everybody can understand?--everybody that
it is worth addressing yourself to, which includes all people who
can feel and think.
Now let us end the talk about those qualities of invention and
imagination with a word of memory and of thanks to the designers of
time past. Surely he who runs may read them abundantly set forth in
those lesser arts they practised. Surely it had been pity indeed,
if so much of this had been lost as would have been if it had been
crushed out by the pride of intellect, that will not stoop to look
at beauty, unless its own kings and great men have had a hand in it.
Belike the thoughts of the men who wrought this kind of art could
not have been expressed in grander ways or more definitely, or, at
least, would not have been; therefore I believe I am not thinking
only of my own pleasure, but of the pleasure of many people, when I
praise the usefulness of the lives of these men, whose names are
long forgotten, but whose works we still wonder at. In their own
way they meant to tell us how the flowers grew in the gardens of
Damascus, or how the hunt was up on the plains of Kirman, or how the
tulips shone among the grass in the Mid-Persian valley, and how
their souls delighted in it all, and what joy they had in life; nor
did they fail to make their meaning clear to some of us.
But, indeed, they and other matters have led us afar from our
makeshift house, and the room we have to decorate therein. And
there is still left the fireplace to consider.
Now I think there is nothing about a house in which a contrast is
greater between old and new than this piece of architecture. The
old, either delightful in its comfortable simplicity, or decorated
with the noblest and most meaning art in the place; the modern,
mean, miserable, uncomfortable, and showy, plastered about with
wretched sham ornament, trumpery of cast-iron, and brass and
polished steel, and what not--offensive to look at, and a nuisance
to clean--and the whole thing huddled up with rubbish of ash-pan,
and fender, and rug, till surely the hearths which we have been
bidden so often to defend (whether there was a chance of their being
attacked or not) have now become a mere figure of speech the meaning
of which in a short time it will be impossible for learned
philologists to find out.
I do most seriously advise you to get rid of all this, or as much of
it as you can without absolute ruin to your prospects in life; and
even if you do not know how to decorate it, at least have a hole in
the wall of a convenient shape, faced with such bricks or tiles as
will at once bear fire and clean; then some sort of iron basket in
it, and out from that a real hearth of cleanable brick or tile,
which will not make you blush when you look at it, and as little in
the way of guard and fender as you think will be safe; that will do
to begin with. For the rest, if you have wooden work about the
fireplace, which is often good to have, don't mix up the wood and
the tiles together; let the wood-work look like part of the wall-
covering, and the tiles like part of the chimney.
As for movable furniture, even if time did not fail us, 'tis a large
subject--or a very small one--so I will but say, don't have too much
of it; have none for mere finery's sake, or to satisfy the claims of
custom--these are flat truisms, are they not? But really it seems
as if some people had never thought of them, for 'tis almost the
universal custom to stuff up some rooms so that you can scarcely
move in them, and to leave others deadly bare; whereas all rooms
ought to look as if they were lived in, and to have, so to say, a
friendly welcome ready for the incomer.
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