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WHAT NATURE HOLDS FOR THE ARTIST
which compels thought. And so in this house wherever you are most
impressed with beauty, investigation   brings out the fact that it
has been the outgrowth of thought and care rather than expense.
This is equally true of the vine-covered pergola which projects over
the porch steps, of the pleasant seclusion of the shady kitchen porch,
of the beautiful curve where the foundation of the house melts into
the slope of the hill and of the repeated flowering terraces that dip
fragrantly from house to meadow below, and carry the eye in pleasant
stages to the vegetable plots down by the cedar lane.
    1 do not recall ever having seen vines and plants gathered together
 in greater or more luxuriant beauty of space and color. The ap-
 proach to the house is at the south side, and from shingled roof to
 hedge of bloom at the fodndation the wall is enfolded with vines.
 There are no shutters to mar the wall surface, but over every window
 a shallow lattice projects like a lifted eyelid with lashes of trailing
 vines. This lattice arrangement is a practical scheme of Mrs. Lamb's.
 It prevents any glare of southern light and brings the sun into the
 room in subdued splashes that move across beam and wall as the
 leaves quiver in the wind outside. The vines are of the kind that
 you find trailing over the stone walls or twining up the stately heights
 of the black cedar or enveloping hedges of sumac along the path
 through the woods. And the flowers over the terraces (which are
 all planted and cared for by Mrs. Lamb herself) recall pleasant
 names from old-fashioned gardens-larkspur, foxglove, marigold,
 iris, nasturtium, salvia, zinnia, golden glow, phlox, lilies from white
 to crimson, peonies and sweet-scented pinks, each in its season.
 The fields that surround the terraces are no longer shorn and tidy;
 they have forgotten that cowbells once tinkled across their solitude
 and that grain ripened in the sunlight. They are far gone into prim-
 itive wildness and beauty, becoming again but the fringe of the woods.
    Indoors, there is beauty and peace and comfort. A pleasant
toned wood, fumed chestnut, is used in the heavily beamed ceiling
and is combined with brick and cement in the huge old fireplace.
The walls are painted a neutral tone, and the furniture is mainly
Dutch and Colonial-rare old pieces of picturesque and warlike
histories, which contribute a simple beauty to a friendly interior.
    Like the dwellers in the house of Mr. Charles Lamb, the creators
of this charming home are artists. Of Mr. F. S. Lamb in this con-
nection we have already spoken. Mrs. Lamb's artistic sense is ex-
pressed in her very subtle understanding of real beauty in relation to
all of life; you realize this in her home, in her garden, in her hospitality.
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