nted in long avenues, diminishing in height and
colour, as each tree does in itself, our pleasure is redoubled,
because progression here becomes infinite. It is owing to this
feeling of infinity that we take pleasure in looking at anything that
presents progression, such as nurseries in different stages of
growth, the slopes of hills retreating to the horizon at different
levels--interminable perspectives."

All floral compositions which give the effect or impression of growth
may be included in the progressive principle. A composition which,
beginning as it were with a stem, spreads and floreates equally on
each side; thrusting outwards and upwards, and ending in a topmost
twig or bud, is governed by this principle.

Confusion. Boileau is quoted by M. Blanc as saying, "A fine disorder
is often the effect of art;" and he adds, "But before he said it,
nature had shown it." Here we must observe that the confusions or
disorders of nature are all subject to certain laws; and it is in
adopting this idea, that an artistic confusion may give us the sense
of its being ordered by, and subject to definite rules. These rules
act as the frame affects the picture, circumscribing its
irregularities, and restricting them to a certain area. "The
artist-painter is, in a small space, permitted to employ confusion,
because the art of the cabinet-maker will keep the geometrical effect
in view." When the Japanese throw their ornaments, apparently without
rule, here and there on the japanned box, they reckon on the square
shape being sufficiently marked to the eye by its shining surface and
sharp corners.

The confusion in a Japanese landscape is so beautiful that one
appreciates the innate sense of balance, which modifies the
confusion--rules and orders it.

"In the hands of the designer, confusion is only a method of rendering
order visible in a happy disorder. Here contraries meet and touch....
Admit these as the principles of all decoration, and you will find
that, by following and combining them, you may produce varieties as
numberless as the sands of the sea, and that a latent equilibrium will
reduce nearly every complication and confusion to perfect harmony."

Each of the five principles we have discussed has its corollary, which
adds to the resources of the decorative artist. These are as
follows:--To Repetition belongs harmony, or consonance; to
Alternation, contrast; to Symmetry, radiation; to Progression,
gradation; to bala