=Mr. Pearce’s Paintings.=--Mr. Pearce’s decorations are seven in number. The subject of the large tympanum at the east end is _The Family_.[6] The smaller panels along the north wall, taking them from left to right, are entitled _Religion_, _Labor_, _Study_, and _Recreation_. The single painting on the south side of the corridor, occurring opposite the panel of _Recreation_, represents _Rest_. The broad, arched border at the west end contains two female figures floating in the air and holding between them a large scroll on which is inscribed the sentence, from Confucius: “Give instruction unto those who cannot procure it for themselves.” [Illustration: THE NORTH CORRIDOR.--MAIN ENTRANCE HALL.] The series, as seen by the list of titles just given, illustrates the main phases of a pleasant and well-ordered life. The whole represents the kind of idyllic existence so often imagined by the poets--showing a people living in an Arcadian country in a state of primitive simplicity, but possessing the arts and habits of a refined cultivation. This life is very well summed up in the first of Mr. Pearce’s paintings--that representing _The Family_. The subject is the return of the head of the household to his family, after a day spent in hunting. He stands in the centre, his bow not yet unstrung, receiving a welcome home. His aged mother, with her hands clasped over the head of her staff, looks up from the rock on which she is sitting, and the gray-bearded father lays aside the scroll in which he has been reading. The hunter’s little girl has hold of his garment, and his wife holds out his baby son. An older daughter leans her elbow against a tree. The scene is in the open air, at the mouth of a cave, with a view beyond into a wooded valley bounded by high mountains. The smaller tympanums illustrate the simple occupations and relaxations of such an existence as is here depicted. _Recreation_ shows two girls in a glade of the forest playing upon a pipe and a tambourine. In the panel of _Study_, a girl, sitting with her younger companion on a great rock, is instructing her with the aid of a book and compasses and paper. _Labor_ is represented by two young men working in the fields. One is removing the stump of a tree, and the other is turning over the newly cleared soil to fit it for planting. In _Religion_, a young man and a girl are kneeling before a blazing altar constructed of two stones, one set upon the other. In _Rest_, two young women are sitting quietly beside a pool, where they have come with their earthen jars for water.