Knoxville journal. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1874-1986, 1875-03-11

home made one as we have described.
and which is true bit Of household art.
Great use is made at present of autumn
leaves and, as one of the means to sim
pie elegance, they seem to us next In
value to growing plants. In Europe the
simple window of the poor, curtained
with netted lace, the handiwork of the
inmates, is nearly always crowded with
gay, blossoming plants. The, dark,
dreary houses of the lower classes in the
neighborhood of London have this orna-
ment, and in the high passes of Swltzer-
land the little wooden chalets also bios
som cheerfully. Hampton Court, with
Its exquisite gardens, presents another
phase Of the same life, and the banks of
tlower-pots in the vesti5nles of the hotels
and houses of Paris and in Italy show
the same feeling and the same taste
everywhere.
This cultivation of flowers is obviously
becoming more common in this country;
but there are sunless rooms where plants
cannot thrive, or apartments so occupied
that the doubt of the bealthfulness of
plants renders their cultivation undesira-
Bile; and in such rooms, without pictures
to cheer the walls, autumn leaves may be
made valuable accessory.
The joyousness of American woods in
autumn is well known throughout the
civilized world, and we remember moth
ing more delightful as specimen of
full, intense color than the woods we
saw during walk in one of the forest
paths of Bartlett Mountain in North
Conway, N. H., on a clear day in. Octo-
Der. The trees were almost solely ma
Piles, and were deeply yellow, with
scarcely flaw to mar the perfection of
the leaves. Looking up into the fringe
which they made against an intense blue
sky above our path, it seemed to us then,
and it appears to us now, that for color
no stained glass or splendid fabric, not
even brilliant gems or sunset skies, could
be more beautiful than this vast and
golden solitude of the deep woods.
Shakespeare, in one of his sonnets,
speaks of the essences of flowers as
"liquid prisoners pent in walls of glass;"
which -
Lose but their show,
Their substance still lives sweet.
Fortunately for US our autumn leaves
retain their colors with little abatement
for long period, and in stormy, foggy,
dark, cold days of winter little taste
and less trouble can cover disagreeable
windows overlooking back yards with
screens of most exquisite shape and
color; maple-leaves, dark maroon twigs
of oak, mountain-a ash, with their delicate
finger-shaped clusters of foliage, and
green pine tips, forms having the abso-
lutte charm of Nature and colors as vivid
as flame. These leaves, tackled upon
thin gauze or opaque muslin, or placed
in punches of twigs grouped in vase of
sand, form a really legitimate decora-
ton and are certainly source of inn
mense pleasure to those TO whom mere
palette of bright color Is q stimulant to
the spirits, independent of the associa-
ton of thought of the more than inn
perial mansions whence they came.
There Is certain charm in objects OF
permanent beauty, in glass and carving,
that have endured through centuries, and
will still retain their loneliness 50 long as
their substance endures. OF another
kind Is the attraction of natural objects,
that have been transformed by artistic
management into formal but suggestive
combinations of shape, such as symmet-
rical ornament OF stone-carving on build
ings when ii is good, or The formal beauty
of stained glass. But, unfortunately, the
taste OF the present time ia too corrupt
for us often to trust this artistic trans
formation, while certain common sub
stances and growths as directly satisfy
our instincts for color or form rs sugar
gratifies the palate or fire warns the
veins.
This matter of simple decoration may
seem trifiing to some, but assuredly It
has its value in the civilization of the
nation, besides the undoubted pleasure
that caredfor and tasteful surroundings
naturally afiord.-Apptetons Journal.