akes his readers into a survey of a good many
branches of decorative art, exhibiting a familiar acquaintance with them
all, talking alternately of the blunders and successes of collectors,
real and would-be, and all with a natural enthusiasm and freedom from
superciliousness. The Garrett sisters also give a great number of
valuable suggestions and some very taking illustrations of tasteful
decoration. We wish they had given less of their work to criticism of
the conventional London house and more to the description of what is
good. So far as we are acquainted with books of this class, they abound
in two faults, discursiveness and inordinate discussion of bad models.
Artistic house decoration is a technical art, and must be taught like
all other arts--by the exhibition of good precedents. Strictly speaking,
there can be no theories in matters of taste. All the so-called laws or
canons of taste are obtained by observing what has been well done. From
that we may learn what is well doing, and the educated taste produces
good work. There is nothing in art so implicit as the surveyor's
dependence upon the law of magnetic attraction. The notes of a survey
well made to-day can be given to a surveyor a century hence, and he will
bring the lines out to within half an inch, and put his hand upon each
boundary mark that has been made. But it is not so in art. In all the
reconstructions of ancient Grecian buildings not one has been rebuilt.
Neither the Madeleine nor the Valhalla repeat the art of the Parthenon,
however faithfully they repeat its form and measurements. Good taste is
a thing that no French surveyor can secure with any refinement whatever
of the metric system. But still there is a soil in which this plant can
be grown, and that soil is the collective evidences of good taste in the
past. Let us have a book so full of good illustrations that didactic
instruction shall not be needed.

[13] "_A Plea for Art in the House._" By W. J. LOFTIE, F. S. A.
Porter & Coates, Philadelphia. (Art at Home Series.)

"_Suggestions for House Decoration in Painting Woodwork and
Furniture._" By RHODA and AGNES GARRETT. Porter & Coates,
Philadelphia. (Art at Home Series.)

NEBULAE.

--Our discussion of life insurance management, in this part of "The
Galaxy," was but preliminary to the thorough article upon the subject
which we present to our readers in this number. It is a subject of great
importance,