to the others, but always geometrically arranged as no vegetables ever
grew.

Geometrical patterns begin with primitive forms, and come down to the
floor-cloth designs of to-day. They can be extracted in endless
variety from the combinations of the kaleidoscope. This style is well
suited for pavements in mosaic--either secular or ecclesiastical.

The Opus Alexandrinum furnishes us with most beautiful examples and
adaptations for large or small spaces, so as to form the richest or
the simplest floor decorations. How worthily a church may be thus
adorned may be seen on the vast area of the floor of Santa Maria
Maggiore in Rome, or that of the Church of St. Mark in Venice.

The nearest approach to the Opus Alexandrinum in textiles has been in
Patchwork, of which a more artistic use may yet be made. We might
exercise ingenuity in this direction, giving really fine and effective
designs to our workers in patches, whose productions are, in general,
simply alarming.

The fine quilting patterns of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
are almost always geometrical, and make the best background to more
resplendent embroideries overlying them, which is partly owing to
their being only forms, and conveying no idea or inherited meaning.
These expressionless designs are well fitted for spaces and borders in
which the centres are elaborated, and require enclosing or framing;
likewise, they are suited for large areas, which must not be perfectly
plain, and yet not too disturbing to the eye, so as to distract it
from the more important ornaments on the wall or ceiling. They suit
carpets in passages or on staircases much better than any other kind
of design, and form the best figured backgrounds for pictures. Both
eye and mind often need repose, and therefore the simpler the
geometrical pattern is, the better. Complicated and too ingenious
combinations are painfully fatiguing. Simplicity and flatness are the
greatest merits in such forms, as in shadowless patterns for textiles,
and especially for embroideries.

If we turn to nature to assist us with new geometrical patterns, we
shall find the most exquisite forms in the crystals of every
newly-fallen snowflake, and in the nodal-points on a plate of metal or
glass, covered with sand, and struck by sound. We shall hardly ever
find in these a repetition of exactly the same combination, and their
variety is only equalled by their beauty.

FOOTNOTES:

[96] Sir G. Birdwood t