I know a picturesque old house [writes a charming pen in one of the early volumes of “Scribner’s Monthly”] that has a many-shelved pantry devoted to the exhibition and sale of shells, collected in many a long voyage to the remotest parts of the five oceans. Apart from their scientific interest, their associations with alien races and far-off countries, how beautiful these shells are in themselves! and how readily might the prevailing vulgarities and absurdities in the decoration of glass and porcelain be corrected by studying the ceramics of nature! How, for instance, is our sense of cleanliness served and our appetite wooed by the extreme smoothness, hardness of surface, and pearly white of the oyster-shell! What decoration in the part that receives the viand, what metallizing the surface or changing it into artificial marble, or covering it up with pictures, would take the place of the pure, colorless shell? Every species of these shells has a principle of growth, or law of form, peculiar to itself and yet based upon some more general law of form common to other species.... In the comb of Venus, for instance, the initial impulse of structure tends to produce a series of spines of a peculiar curvature, and arranged after a certain order that involves the use of similar curves. It is interesting to study the development of this simple principle into the complex and singular form of beauty comprised in the shell itself, the idea being carried into the most minute particulars—even the dark markings at the mouth being shaped like spines, and every small projection on the surface evidently being an arrested development of spines. In the _Murex haustellum_, on the contrary, nodules take the place of spines. In the _M. endivia_ an entirely different idea is developed. Notice the cross-striations. Instead of prolonging themselves into cylindrically pointed spines, as in the case of the Venus’ comb, or bunching themselves into knobs, as in the _M. haustellum_, they expand into wonderful foliated projections, the edges of which are beautifully fluted, like the leaves of the lettuce. Another fine effect is afforded by the different texture of the inside and outside surfaces, down to the smallest foliation, the inner parts exhibiting a polished pearly white, and the outside a gray and wrinkled skin. Observe that, however rough or dull of hue the outside of a shell, its lips are always pure and often flushed with lovely color; for, as a rule (and here is another hint to decorators), Nature distinguishes by some adornment the most significant parts of her creatures, where life and use are centered.... The ocean, indeed, beautifies all it touches. Give it any rough shard, and it will so roll it about, and lick it with its waves, and smooth it with their soft attrition, that it will return you a polished and shapely nodule, exhibiting all the beauty