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 positions. The standard vases are the most common, for in them all arrangements of flowers, except aquatics and creepers, are placed. They alone outnumber in beauty and variety all forms of our flower vases combined.

Again, when we come to consider the color of the Japanese vases, we can only admire their never failing taste in the choice of the soft pastel shades. Could anything more clearly show their perfect taste than their preference for bronze? This to them seems most like mother earth in color, and therefore best, as it is, to enhance the beauty of flowers instead of detracting from their exquisite shades. What a contrast to the glitter and show of our silver vases, which represent generally little else but their cost.

The bamboo, in its simplicity of line and neutral color, makes a vase always charming but, alas! not practical in this country, where our steam heat at once causes it to split. But while vases made from solid pieces of bamboo cannot be used in this [204]