If you look into the history of any objet d’art you will find that it was first used for a purpose.  All the superb masterly things that have come to us had logical beginnings.  It has remained for the thoughtless designer of our times to produce things of no use and no meaning.  The old designers decorated the small objects of daily use as faithfully as they decorated the greater things, the wall spaces and ceilings and great pieces of furniture, and so this little wall basin which began in such a homely way soon became a beautiful thing.

Europe has countless small fountains built for interior walls and for small alcoves and indoor conservatories, but we are just beginning to use them in America.  American sculptors are doing such notable work, however, that we shall soon plan our indoor fountains as carefully as we plan our fireplaces.  The fact that our houses are heated mechanically has not lessened our appreciation of an open fire, and running water brought indoors has the same animate charm.

[Illustration:  FOUNTAIN IN THE TRELLIS ROOM OF MRS. ORMOND G. SMITH]

[Illustration:  MR. JAMES DEERING’S WALL FOUNTAIN]

I am showing a picture of the wall fountain in the entrance hall of my own New York house in East Fifty-fifth Street.  I have had this wall fountain built as part of the architectural detail of the room, with a background of paneled mirrors.  It spills over into a marble curbed pool where fat orange-colored goldfish live.  I keep the fountain banked with flowers.  You can imagine the pleasure of leaving the dusty city streets and entering this cool, pleasant entrance hall.

Our modern use of indoor fountains is perfectly legitimate:  we use them to bring the atmosphere of outdoors in.  In country houses we use fountains in our gardens, but in the city we have no gardens, and so we are very wise to bring in the outdoor things that make our lives a little more gay and informal.  The more suggestive of out-of-doors the happier is the effect of the sun room.  Occasionally one sees a rare house where a glass enclosed garden opens from one of the living-rooms.  There is a house in Nineteenth Street that has such an enclosed garden, built around a wall fountain.  The garden opens out of the great two-storied music-room.  Lofty windows flank a great door, and fill the end of the room with a luminous composition of leaded glass.  Through the door you enter the garden, with its tiled floor, its glass ceiling, and its low brick retaining walls.  The wall fountain is placed exactly in front of the great door, and beneath it there is a little semi-circular pool bordered with plants and glittering with goldfish.  Evergreens are banked against the brick walls, and flat reliefs are hung just under the glass ceiling.  The garden is quite small, but takes its place as an important part of the room.  It rivals in interest the massive Gothic fireplace, with its huge logs and feudal fire irons.