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THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.
mild agony of an intentional discord,'but would be exasperated and gesticulant
over the clanging and horrors of half a dozen brass bands playing that number
of tunes at the same time, under the windows.  In reasoning, when there is
danger of missing conviction by traveling towards the positive, the reasoner
obtains the result he wants by going towards the negative pole, and by the
process of reductio ad absurdam, proves conclusively what a thing is not-the
first step towards proving what a thing is.  Let us take this step in order
to
arrive at some definite conclusions regarding ornamental art, the fruition
of
industrial design.
The point stated is, that design of ornament for objects of use should be
adapted, not imitated, from nature, or from accepted types of good historic
ornament; that to fine art belongs the imitative and natural, to industrial
art
the adaptive and conventional. When this is reversed, let us see what happens.
A man made wealthy beyond all counting of money, by oil-wells discovered
on
the wilderness in Which he kept cattle, was determined to have an up-town
mansion in the metropolis most elegantly furnished-not in the style approved
of by the quiet gentlemen who work for nothing in the great universities,
and
dispense Greek thoughts and create the love of Greek art at a slight advance
on starvation, for the love of art, but in the grand smashing way of a bank-
president who only means to enjoy it for a year, and then seek permanent
seclusion in some country which has no extradition teaty with the United
States. Feeling the burden of untold millions accidentally his own, the instruc-
tions to the upholsterer are always in the same key-"Spare no expense;
make it lively and cheerful; don't have nothing in the house but the most
splendid stuff you can get."
House-furnishers are human, but they measure men and women as well as
rooms and windows.   They are also sometimes skilled in judgment, and will
measure a man for his furniture with as much precision 'as the boot-maker
measures his foot for a pair of boots, and will fit him as well. So when
Mr.
Kerosene Crcesus gives an order for the furnishing of Shoddoleth Mansion,
the
upholsterer takes the gentleman's measure of taste, and in order to fit him
furnishes somewhat as follows:-
The carpet in the reception-room is ornamented by enormous groups of
the largest kinds of flowers, spread widely apart, so that the inquiring
visitor,
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