spirit, while their best customers buy the original rugs. If some rich
man were to make a museum of modern decorative art, from which he
would carefully exclude all that which was not in some way fresh and
intelligent, and if not good, at least promising, a room like this one
would hold all his trophies, even though he should use his millions to
ransack Europe and America. It is nobody's fault, least of all is it
the architect's fault. For see what you expect of an architect. He
must know about digging deep holes; and about sheath-piling, that he
may retain the loose soil and keep it from smothering the workmen at
the bottom of his excavation; and he must know the best machines to
use for drilling rock and the best method for removing it; he must
know about all the stones in the country and the best way of making
concrete; he must be familiar with the thousand new inventions, and
discriminate carefully and rightly between this range and that, and
between this form of trap and the other, between a dozen different
steam-heaters and twenty systems of ventilation; he must be prepared
to give his owners exactly what they want in the way of windows and
chimney-corners, of cupboards, shelves in available corners, and
recesses to put away step-ladders and brooms. But observe that if he
fails in any one of these things, he will fail in that which his owner
really cares about; still more, if he fails in the economical
administration of the funds allowed for the building, will he fail in
that which the owner most cares about. Less beauty, less success in
producing a novel, an original, a thoughtful, a purposeful design will
hurt him but little, but insufficient care as to the circulation of
hot-water will ruin him.

Now, no man can do all that, and still produce delicate and thoughtful
designs. No man can be busy laying out work, superintending work,
explaining to contractors and reasoning with employers, and still be
producing delicate and thoughtful designs. An extraordinary fellow
here and there may surprise us by what he does under such
circumstances, but it will be but little and feeble in comparison with
what he might do. The community must see its way to paying some to
eschew plumbing and stick to design, if they mean to have any design.
This has been done, indeed, in the matter of monumental-glass, and to
a certain extent in wall-decoration by means of painting; but it must
be done in what is more vital yet--in architectur