ina,
and bound down by strict laws and religious formulas, suited exactly
to the people for whom they were evolved out of the national life, and
imprinted on it by their own lawgivers, philosophers, and priests; and
neither imposed by conquerors, nor swept over by the waves of a new
civilization;--only in such cases can we find a continuity of
decorative art which leads us far back on its traces. Then, on this
long track, we learn how little, man, the decorating animal, has
really advanced in his powers of creation. He has gone more than once
to a certain point, and has then either been petrified by law and
custom--turned into a pillar of salt, like Lot's wife, because he has
looked back instead of striving to advance, or else through poverty or
satiety has fallen into the last stage of the Seven Ages, "_sans_
eyes, _sans_ teeth--_sans_ everything." When what is good is neither
perceived nor desired, then the arts, small and great, dwindle and
disappear, and nothing remains to show that they have been, but a
name, and perhaps a pattern.

Chinese design is the most striking example of the first of these
phases; and the extinction of all classical art with the fall of
Paganism in Rome is an instance of the second.

In the chapter on style it is said that a pattern is as ineffaceable
as a word. But one will occasionally disappear for a time, till the
ruin that covers it is cleared away, and the lost design recovered and
employed simply as a decoration, if it is beautiful; or perhaps fitted
with a new meaning, and so it makes a fresh start.

The importance of patterns, when traceable to their origin, as a means
of investigating historical influences cannot be too much insisted on,
and their history is full of suggestion as a guide to the decorator.
Much has been argued and much ascertained from the evidence of these
fragments of national civilizations, showing how an idea or a myth has
been, as it were, engrafted into the essence of another national idea,
partly altering what it finds, and changing to fit itself to its new
surroundings. Eastern patterns have travelled far, and lasted long;
and continue still to hold the fancy, and exercise the ingenuity, of
the artist and decorator. When we find a pattern of which the
nationality is strongly marked, it is worth our while to ascertain its
date and history, which will help us to recognize cognate design
wherever we may meet it. However, this is often not to be done; and
t