eally would like to do if
the window were for yourself. There are no hard and fast rules as to
what may or may not be done, and if you are a craftsman and designer
also--as the whole purpose of this book is to tell you you must be--many
methods will suggest themselves of making your glass look interesting.
The golden rule is to handle every bit of it yourself, and then you will
_be_ interested in the ingenuity of its arrangement; the cutting of it
into little and big bits; the lacework of the leads; thickening and
thinning these also to get bold contrasts of strong and slender, of
plain and intricate; catching your pearly glass like fish, in a net of
larger or smaller mesh; for, bear in mind always that this question
relates almost entirely to the _whiter_ glasses. Colour has its own
reason for being there, and carries its own interest; but the most
valuable piece of advice that I can think of in regard to stained-glass
_treatment_ (apart from the question of subject and meaning) is to _make
your white spaces interesting_.

The old painters felt this when they diapered their quarry-glazing and
did such grisaille work as the "Five Sisters" window at York. Every bit
of this last must have been put together and painted by a real craftsman
delighting in his work. The drawing is free and beautiful; the whole work
is like jewellery, the colour scheme delightfully varied and irregular.
The work was loved: each bit of glass was treated on its merits as it
passed through hand. Working in this way all things are lawful; you may
even put a thin film of "matt" over any piece to lower it in tone and give
it richness, or to bring out with emphasis some quality of its texture.
Some bits will have lovely streaks and swirling lines and bands in
them--"reamy," as glass-cutters call it--or groups of bubbles and spots,
making the glass like agate or pebble; and a gentle hand will rub a little
matt or film over these, and then finger it partly away to bring out its
quality, just as a jeweller foils a stone. This is quite a different thing
from smearing a window all over with dirt to make it a sham-antique; and
where it is desirable to lower the tone of any white for the sake of the
window, and where no special beauties of texture exist, it is better, I
think, to matt it and then take out simple _patterns_ from the matt: not
_outlined_ at all, but spotted and streaked in the matt itself,
chequered and petalled and thumb-marked, just as nature