The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-01-08
INSCRIPTIONS ON THE WALLS.
Apt Quotations That Help in Decorating
Rooms of Country Houses.


The artistic value of inscriptions in
house decoration does not seem to occur
to the average house owner. Even an
inscription over the hearth is rarely
seen, but occasionally in country houses
one finds a quantity lettered greeting
across the chimney front, and then one
wonders why the custom is not more
in vogue. Even the despsed Home,
Sweet Home" which is SO dreary when
worked in worsteds or perforated card
board. is glorifed when it wanders in
quaint gothic letters around the frieze
of living room. One needn't resort to
platitudes, for there are hundreds of
charming phrases in praise of home,
and the less hackneyed the quotation
the greater the character it lends to
the room. These frieze Inscriptions
should be artistic in the highest degree,
or they fail utterly to be decorative
and call up memories of Bible class
rooms. The background for the letters
must be carefully chosen. and the let
ters themselves should be unique in
design and color A Boston artist has
painted the frieze for his study, and
has designed the letters in the style of
the old illuminated missals with, a
wealth of ornament and tracery for the
initial letters. Such a frieze would be
beyond the reach of inartistic or i'm
pecunious mortals, and they must con-
tent themselves with modified gothic
letters, artistic as to color and form.
The inscription should be appropriate
to the place it fills and should wander
around the frieZe without punctuation
in the old English or German fashion.
1t is easy to find apt quotations for
libraries, music rooms and dining
rooms, but the contentious sayings of
the early English writers lend them
selves more readily to the gothic let
mira or
quotations are often used. but it is
doubtful wisdom to make the force of
the sentiment a hidden quantity for
many guests. A home in New Jersey
has great brick fireplace in the CEN
trail hall, and across the chimney, in
fantastic French lettering, runs this in
scription: AUX ames fol; aux amis
foyers." Cor souls, faith; for friends,
the hearthside.)
Another fireplace in Westminster
bears the inscription from the old En-
glish:
The fire, logs, poker and tongs,
The bellows, with it's braZen lungs,
The wood, the ashes and the smoke
Do all to righteousness provoke"
In picturesque old mansion in Con-
nectieut the great living room has
wooden ceiling and across each huge
backened rafter runs a gothic text
The letters are dimmed with age, but
can. still be read, and read with profit,
by all the household. Each Individual
or class of individuals, in the house
hold has. a special inscription. The
texts are taken from "Ephesans," and
are very much to the point.
Children, obey your parents COM
mands the first rafter, severely; and
rafter number two retorts:
Fathers, provoke not your children
to. wrath.
Servants, be obedient to them that
are your masters" exhorts the third
rafter, and the fourth adds:
"Ye masters, forbear. threatening"
Husbands, love your wives" has the
fifth place, and on the sixth is:
Wives, reverence We your husbands"
1t would be terrible doom to live up
to in these degenerate days, but per-
maps households We're better ordered in
old colonial times, and a family could
live serenely in the society of such
texts. 1t is to be feared that the ire
mendously decorative character of the
inscriptions is what appeals to the pres
ent owners.
In an old house, in a Philadelphia
suburb, the dining room is decorated
with conViVial invitations that trail, in
zlgzag fashion, around mantel doors
and windows; and above the buffet is
inscribed the immortal Sairev CAMPS
admonition to Betsey Prig:
'Wotever you do, Betsey, drink fair"
The billiard room of the same house
has dull green wall, on which, in
closed in Illuminated scrolls, are in
scriptions relating to play.
The owners of a charming country
house in New Jersey have sprinkled in
scriptiOns liberally through the house.
and carried the fancy even into the
grounds. The sun dial. like all self
respecting sun dials, bears quaint old
comment on the flight of time On the
lawn is picturesque summer house,
overrun by towering vines, and there
the women of the family are to be
found any summer morning, packing
great baskets with flowers TO be sent
to a city flower mission. Around the
wall of the summer house one reads
the appropriate inscription: "All We lit
tie green things of the earth, praise We
the Lord. New York Sun.