PRINCIPLES 0F#. 
 HOME DECORATION 
 
 CANDACE WHEELER 
 

 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 FROM THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 Henrg W, Sage 
 
 1891 
 
 .L\.^3-SU S.3J.in.l.o^.. 
 
Cornall University Library 
 NK211S.W65 
 
 Principles of home decoration, with prac 
 
 3 1924 019 526 742 
 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 
 rm^afm 
 
 i5?5^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 m'"^ 
 
 .^ikO-^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^UcttP 
 
 - - A..^,^ 
 
 
 
 !J.*'TR?f 
 
 
 
 ir.«4ill#i«ii1^MiiUil^l^H 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Ir 
 
 terlibrary 
 
 
 
 
 Loan 
 
 
 
 Ap—* 
 
 •V" ■_'','. '^'"" 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 m 
 
 #»iiiiiii .fijt^ 
 
 L 
 
 
 
 
 ■w 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 GAYLORD 
 
 
 
 PRINTED IN U.SA 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924019526742 
 
Principles of Home Decoration 
 
Principles of Home Decoration 
 
By the same author 
 
 " Decorators and Decoratir.g V 
 
 " Content in a Garden " 
 
 " How to Make Rugs " 
 
Principles of 
 Home Decoration 
 
 With Practical Examples 
 
 By 
 Candace Wheeler 
 
 New York 
 
 Doubleday, Page & Company 
 
 1903 
 
Copyright, igo3, by 
 
 DOOEIEDAY, PaGB & COMPANY 
 
 Published February 1903 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER 1 3 
 
 Decoration as an Art. 
 Decoration in American Homes. 
 Woman's Influence in Decoiation. 
 
 CHAPTER II 17 
 
 Character in Homes. 
 
 CHAPTER III 22 
 
 Builders' Houses. 
 Expedients. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 34 
 
 Colour in Houses. 
 Colour as a Science. 
 Colour as an Influence. 
 
 CHAPTER V 42 
 
 The Law of Appropriateness. 
 Cleanliness and Harmony Tastefully Combined. 
 Bedroom Furnished in Accordance with Individual 
 Tastes. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 63 
 
 Kitchens. 
 
 Treatment of Walls from a Hygienic Point of View. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 72 
 
 Colour with Reference to Light. 
 
 Examples of the Effects of Light on Colour. 
 
 Gradation of Colour. 
 
CONTENTS CContinuedJ 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 89 
 
 Walls, Ceilings and Floors. 
 Treatment and Decoration of Walls. 
 Use of Tapestry, Leather and Wall-Papers. 
 Panels of Wood, Painted Walls, Textiles. 
 
 CHAPTER IX IIS 
 
 Location of the House. 
 Decoration Influenced by Situation. 
 
 CHAPTER X. ": 122 
 
 Ceilings. 
 
 Decorations in Harmony with Walls. 
 
 Treatment in Accordance with Size of Room. 
 
 CHAPTER XI 128 
 
 Floors and Floor Coverings. 
 
 Treatment of Floors — Polished Wood, Mosaics. 
 
 Judicious Selection of Rugs and Carpets. 
 
 CHAPTER XII 1+2 
 
 Draperies. 
 
 Importance of Appropriate Colours. 
 
 Importance of Appropriate Textures. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 160 
 
 Furniture. 
 
 Character in Rooms. 
 
 Harmony in Furniture. 
 
 Comparison Between Antique and Modern Furniture. 
 
 Treatment of the Different Rooms. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Dining-room in " Penny-royal " (Mrs. Boudinot Keith's 
 
 cottage, Onteora) Frcmiitteee 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 Hall in city house, showing efiEect of staircase divided and 
 
 turned to rear 30 
 
 Stenciled borders for hall and bathroom decorations . . 50 
 
 Sitting-room in "Wild Wood," Onteora (belonging to 
 
 Miss Luisita Leland) 80 
 
 Large sitting-room in "Star Rock" (country house of 
 
 W. E. Connor, Esq., Onteora) . . . , gz 
 
 Painted canvas frieze and buckram frieze for dining-room 106 
 
 Square hall in city house 130 
 
 Colonial chairs and sofa (belonging to Mrs. Ruth McEnery 
 
 Stuart) 160 
 
 Colonial mantel and English hob-grate (sitting-room in 
 
 Mrs. Candace Wheeler's house) .... 168 
 
 Sofa designed by Mrs. Candace Wheeler, for N. Y. Library 
 
 in "Woman's Building," Columbian Exposition . 176 
 
 Rustic sofa and tables in "Penny-royal" (Mrs. Boudinot 
 
 Keith's cottage, Onteora) 188 
 
 Dining-room in "Star Rock" (country house of W. E. 
 
 Connor, Esq., Onteora) 198 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS {Continued) 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 Dining-room in New York house showing leaded-glass 
 
 windows 212 
 
 Dining-room in New York home showing carved wains- 
 coting and painted frieze 216 
 
 Screen and glass windows in house at Lakewood 
 
 (belonging to Clarence Root, Esq.) . . . 222 
 
 / 
 
Principles of Home Decoration 
 
Principles of Home Decoration 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 DECORATION AS AN ART 
 
 "Who creates a Home, creates a potent spirit •which in turn 
 doth fashion him that fashioned." 
 
 pROBABLY no art has so few 
 ■*• masters as that of decoration. In 
 England, Morris was for many years the 
 great leader, but among his followers 
 in England no one has attained the 
 dignity of unquestioned authority; and 
 in America, in spite of far more general 
 practice of the art, we still are without a 
 leader whose very name establishes law. 
 It is true we are free to draw inspi- 
 ration from the same sources which 
 supplied Morris and the men associated 
 with him in his enthusiasms, and in fact 
 we do lean, as they did, upon English 
 eighteenth -century domestic art — and 
 derive from the men who made that 
 period famous many of our articles of 
 
4. PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 faith ; but there are almost no authorita- 
 tive books upon the subject of appro- 
 priate modern decoration. Our text 
 books are still to be written ; and one 
 must glean knowledge from many 
 sources, shape it into rules, and test 
 the rules, before adopting them as safe 
 guides. 
 
 Yet in spite of the absence of authori- 
 tative teaching, we have learned that an 
 art dependent upon other arts, as deco- 
 ration is upon building and architecture, 
 is bound to follow the principles which 
 govern them. We must base our work 
 upon what has already been done, select 
 our decorative forms from appropriate 
 periods, conform our use of colour to 
 the principles of colour, and be able 
 to choose and apply all manufactures in 
 accordance with the great law of appro- 
 priateness. If we do this, we stand upon 
 something capable of evolution and the 
 creation of a system. 
 
 In so far as the principles of decoration 
 are derived from other arts, they can be 
 
DECORATION AS AN ART s 
 
 acquired by every one, but an exquisite 
 feeling in their application is the distin- 
 guishing quality of the true decorator. 
 
 There is quite a general impression 
 that house-decoration is not an art which 
 requires a long course of study and 
 training, but some kind of natural knack 
 of arrangement — a faculty of making 
 things " look pretty," and that any one 
 who has this faculty is amply qualified 
 for "taking up house -decoration." 
 Indeed, natural facility succeeds in satis- 
 fying many personal cravings for beauty, 
 although it is not competent for general 
 practice. 
 
 Of course there are people, and many 
 of them, who are gifted with an inherent 
 sense of balance and arrangement, and 
 a true eye for colour, and — given the 
 same materials — such people will make 
 a room pleasant and cozy, where one 
 without these gifts would make it posi- 
 tively ugly. In so far, then, individual 
 gifts are a great advantage, yet one pos- 
 sessing them in even an unusual degree 
 
6 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 may make great mistakes in decoration. 
 What not to do, in this day of almost 
 universal experiment, is perhaps the most 
 valuable lesson to the untrained deco- 
 rator. Many of the rocks upon which 
 he splits are dovi^n in no chart, and lie in 
 the track of what seems to him perfectly 
 plain sailing. 
 
 There are houses of fine and noble 
 exterior which are vulgarized by unedu- 
 cated experiments in colour and orna- 
 ment, and belittled by being filled with 
 heterogeneous collections of unimpor- 
 tant art. Yet these very instances serve 
 to emphasize the demand for beautiful 
 surroundings, and in spite of mistakes 
 and incongruities, must be reckoned as 
 efforts toward a desirable end. 
 
 In spite of a prevalent want of train- 
 ing, it is astonishing how much we have 
 of good interior decoration, not only in 
 houses of great importance, but in those 
 of people of average fortunes — indeed, 
 it is in the latter that we get the general 
 value of the art. 
 
DECORATION IN AMERICAN HOMES 7 
 
 This comparative excellence is to be 
 referred to the very general acquirement 
 of what w^e call "art cultivation " among 
 American women, and this, in conjunc- 
 tion with a knowledge that her social 
 world will be apt to judge of her 
 capacity by her success or want of suc- 
 cess in making her own surroundings 
 beautiful, determines the efforts of the 
 individual woman. She feels that she is 
 expected to prove her superiority by 
 living in a home distinguished for beauty 
 as well as for the usual orderliness and 
 refinement. Of course this sense of ob- 
 ligation is a powerful spur to the exercise 
 of natural gifts, and if in addition to 
 these she has the habit of reasoning 
 upon the principles of things, and is 
 sufficiently cultivated in the literature of 
 art to avoid unwarrantable experiment, 
 there is no reason why she should not 
 be successful in her own surroundings. 
 
 The typical American, whether man 
 or woman, has great natural facility, and 
 when the fact is once recognized that 
 
8 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 beauty — like education — can dignify any 
 circumstances, from the narrowest to the 
 most opulent, it becomes one of the 
 objects of life to secure it. How this 
 is done depends upon the talent and 
 cultivation of the family, and this is 
 often adequate for excellent results. 
 
 It is quite possible that so much 
 general ability may discourage the study 
 of decoration as a precise form of art, 
 since it encourages the idea that The 
 House Beautiful can be secured by any 
 one who has money to pay for pro- 
 cesses, and possesses what is simply 
 designated as " good taste." 
 
 We do not find this impulse toward 
 the creation of beautiful interiors as 
 noticeable in other countries as in 
 America. The instinct of self-expres- 
 sion is much stronger in us than in 
 other races, and for that reason we can- 
 not be contented with the utterances of 
 any generation, race or country save our 
 own. We gather to ourselves what we 
 personally enjoy or wish to enjoy, and 
 
DECORATION IN AMERICAN HOMES 9 
 
 will not take our domestic environment 
 at second hand. It follows that there is 
 a certain difference and originality in 
 our methods, which bids fair to acquire 
 distinct character, and may in the 
 future distinguish this art-loving period 
 as a maker of style. 
 
 A successful foreign painter who has 
 visited this country at intervals during 
 the last ten years said, " There is no such 
 uniformity of beautiful interiors any- 
 where else in the world. There are 
 palaces in France and Italy, and great 
 country houses in England, to the em- 
 bellishment of which generations of 
 owners have devoted the best art of their 
 own time ; but in America there is some- 
 thing of it everywhere. Many unpre- 
 tentious houses have drawing-rooms 
 possessing colour - decoration which 
 would distinguish them as examples in 
 England or France." 
 
 To Americans this does not seem a 
 remarkable fact. We have come into a 
 period which desires beauty, and each 
 
10 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 one secures it as best he can. We are a 
 teachable and a studious people, with a 
 faculty of turning ** general information " 
 to account ; and general information 
 upon art matters has had much to do 
 with our good interiors. 
 
 We have, perhaps half unconsciously, 
 applied fundamental principles to our 
 decoration, and this may be as much 
 owing to natural good sense as to culti- 
 vation. We have a habit of reasoning 
 about things, and acting upon our con- 
 clusions, instead of allowing the rest of 
 the world to do the reasoning while we 
 adopt the result. It is owing to this 
 conjunction of love for and cultivation 
 of art, and the habit of materializing 
 what we wish, that we have so many 
 thoroughly successful interiors, which 
 have been accomplished almost without 
 aid from professional artists. It is these, 
 instead of the smaller number of costly 
 interiors, which give the reputation of 
 artistic merit to our homes. 
 
 Undoubtedly the largest proportion 
 
WOMAN'S INFLUENCE IN DECORATION ii 
 
 of successful as well as unsuccessful 
 domestic art in our country is due to the 
 efforts of women. In the great race for 
 wealth which characterizes our time, it is 
 demanded that women shall make it 
 effective by so using it as to distinguish 
 the family ; and nothing distinguishes it 
 so much as the superiority of the home. 
 This effort adheres to small as well as 
 large fortunes, and in fact the necessity 
 is more pronounced in the case of medi- 
 ocre than of great ones. In the former 
 there is something to be made up — some 
 protest of worth and ability and intelli- 
 gence that helps many a home to become 
 beautiful. 
 
 As I have said, a woman feels that 
 the test of her capacity is that her house 
 shall not only be comfortable and at- 
 tractive, but that it shall be arranged 
 according to the laws of harmony and 
 beauty. It is as much the demand of 
 the hour as that she shall be able to train 
 her children according to the latest and 
 most enlightened theories, or that she 
 
12 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 shall take part in public and philan- 
 thropic movements, or understand and 
 have an opinion on political methods. 
 These are things which are expected 
 of every woman who* makes a part of 
 society; and no less is it expected that 
 her house shall be an appropriate and 
 beautiful setting for her personality, a 
 credit to her husband, and an uncon- 
 scious education for her children. 
 
 But it happens that means of educa- 
 tion in all of these directions, except 
 that of decoration, are easily available. 
 A woman can become a member of a 
 kindergarten association, and get from 
 books and study the result of scientific 
 knowledge of child-life and training. 
 She can find means to study the ethics of 
 her relations to her kind and become an 
 effective philanthropist, or join the league 
 for political education and acquire a 
 more or less enlightened understanding of 
 politics; but who is to formulate for her 
 the science of beauty, to teach her how 
 to make the interior aspect of her home 
 
WOMAN'S INFLUENCE IN DECORATION 13 
 
 perfect in its adaptation to her circum- 
 stances, and as harmonious in colour and 
 arrangement as a song without words? 
 She feels that these conditions create a 
 mental atmosphere serene and yet in- 
 spiring, and that such surroundings are 
 as much her birthright and that of her 
 children as food and clothing of a grade 
 belonging to their circumstances, but 
 how is it to be compassed ? 
 
 Most women ask themselves this 
 question, and fail to understand that it 
 is as much of a marvel when a woman 
 without training or experience creates 
 a good interior as a whole, as if an 
 amateur in music should compose an 
 opera. It is not at all impossible for a 
 woman of good taste — and it must be 
 remembered that this word means an 
 educated or cultivated power of selec- 
 tion — to secure harmonious or happily 
 contrasted colour in a room, and to select 
 beautiful things in the way of furniture 
 and belongings ; but what is to save her 
 from the thousand and one mistakes 
 
H PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 possible to inexperience in this com- 
 bination of things which make lasting 
 enjoyment and appropriate perfection 
 in a house ? How can she know which 
 rooms will be benefited by sombre or 
 sunny tints, and which exposure will 
 give full sway to her favourite colour 
 or colours ? How can she have learned 
 the reliability or want of reliability in 
 certain materials or processes used in 
 decoration, or the rules of treatment 
 which will modify a low and dark room 
 and make it seem light and airy, or 
 " bring down " too high a ceiling and 
 widen narrow walls so as to apparently 
 correct disproportion ? These things are 
 the results of laws which she has never 
 studied — laws of compensation and re- 
 lation, which belong exclusively to the 
 world of colour, and unfortunately they 
 are not so well formulated that they can be 
 committed to memory like rules of gram- 
 mar; yet all good colour-practice rests 
 upon them as unquestionably as language 
 rests upon grammatical construction. 
 
WOMAN'S INFLUENCE IN DECORATION 15 
 
 Of course one may use colour as 
 one can speak, a language, purely by 
 imitation and memory, but it is not 
 absolutely reliable practice; and just 
 here comes in the necessity for pro- 
 fessional advice. 
 
 There are many difficulties in the 
 accomplishment of a perfect house- 
 interior which few householders have 
 had the time or experience to cope with, 
 and yet the fact remains that each mis- 
 tress of a house believes that unless she 
 vanquishes all difficulties and comes out 
 triumphantly with colours flying at the 
 housetop and enjoyment and admiration 
 following her efforts, she has failed in 
 something which she should have been 
 perfectly able to accomplish. But the 
 obligation is certainly a forced one. It 
 is the result of the modern awakening 
 to the effect of many heretofore un- 
 recognized influences in our lives and 
 the lives and characters of our children. 
 A beautiful home is undoubtedly a great 
 means of education, and of that best 
 
i6 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 of all education which is unconscious. 
 To grow up in such a one means a 
 much more complete and perfect man 
 or woman than would be possible with- 
 out that particular influence. 
 
 But a perfect home is never created 
 all at once and by one person, and let 
 the anxious house-mistress take comfort 
 in the thought. She should also remem- 
 ber that it is in the nature of beauty 
 to grow, and that a well-rounded and 
 beautiful family life adds its quota day 
 by day. Every book, every sketch 
 or .picture — every carefully selected or 
 characteristic object brought into the 
 home adds to and makes a part of 
 a beautiful whole, and no house can 
 be absolutely perfect without all these 
 evidences of family life. 
 
 It can be made ready for them, com- 
 pletely and perfectly ready, by professional 
 skill and knowledge ; but if it remained 
 just where the interior artist or decorator 
 left it, it would have no more of the 
 sentiment of domesticity than a statue. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 CHARACTER IN HOUSES 
 
 " For the created still doth shadoiu forth the mind and •will <which 
 made it." 
 
 " Thou art the "very mould of thy creator." 
 
 TT NEEDS the combined personality 
 -'■ of the family to make the character 
 of the house. No one could say of a 
 house which has family character, " It 
 
 is one of 's houses" (naming one 
 
 or another successful decorator), because 
 the decorator would have done only 
 what it was his business to do — used 
 technical and artistic knowledge in 
 preparing a proper and correct back- 
 ground for family life. Even in doing 
 that, he must consult family tastes 
 and idiosyncracies if he has the rever- 
 ence for individuality which belongs 
 to the true artist. 
 
 A domestic interior is a thing to 
 which he should give knowledge and 
 not personality, and the puzzled home- 
 
 17 
 
i8 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 maker, who understands that her world 
 expects correct use of means of beauty, 
 as well as character and originality in 
 her home, need not feel that to secure 
 the one she must sacrifice the other. 
 
 An inexperienced person might think 
 it an easy thing to make a beautiful 
 home, because the world is full of 
 beautiful art and manufactures, and if 
 there is money to pay for them it 
 would seem as easy to furnish a house 
 with everything beautiful as to go out 
 in the garden and gather beautiful 
 flowers; but we must remember that 
 the world is also full of ugly things — 
 things false in art, in truth and in 
 beauty — things made to sell — made with 
 only this idea behind them, manu- 
 factured on the principle that an arti- 
 ficial fly is made to look something 
 like a true one in order to catch the 
 inexpert and the unwary. It is a curious 
 fact that these false things — manufac- 
 tures without honesty, without knowl- 
 edge, without art — have a property of 
 
CHARACTER IN HOUSES ig 
 
 demoralizing the spirit of the home, 
 and that to make it truly beautiful 
 everything in it must be genuine as 
 well as appropriate, and must also fit 
 into some previously considered scheme 
 of use and beauty. 
 
 The esthetic or beautiful aspect of 
 the home, in short, must be created 
 through the mind of the family or 
 owner, and is only maintained by its 
 or his susceptibility to true beauty and 
 appreciation of it. It must, in fact, 
 be a visible mould of invisible matter, 
 like the leaf-mould one finds in mineral 
 springs, which show the wonderful 
 veining, branching, construction and 
 delicacy of outline in a way which one 
 could hardly be conscious of in the 
 actual leaf. 
 
 If the grade or dignity of the home 
 requires professional and scholarly art 
 direction, the problem is how to use 
 this professional or artistic advice with- 
 out delivering over the entire creation 
 into stranger or alien hands ; without 
 
20 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 abdicating the right and privilege of 
 personal expression. If the decorator 
 appreciates this right, his function will 
 be somewhat akin to that of the 
 portrait painter; both are bound to 
 represent the individual or family in 
 their performances, each artist using 
 the truest and best methods of art 
 with the added gift of grace or charm 
 of colour which he possesses, the one 
 giving the physical aspect of his client 
 and the other the mental characteristics, 
 circumstances, position and life of the 
 house-owner and his family. This is 
 the true mission of the decorator, 
 although it is not always so under- 
 stood. What is called business talent 
 may lead him to invent schemes of 
 costliness which relate far more to 
 his own profit than to the wishes or 
 character of the house-owner. 
 
 But it is not always that the assist- 
 ance of the specialist in decoration 
 . and furnishing is necessary. There are 
 many homes where both are quite 
 
CHARACTER IN HOUSES 21 
 
 within the scope of the ordinary man 
 or woman of taste. In fact, the great 
 majority of homes come within these 
 Hnes, and it is to such home-builders 
 that rules, not involving styles, are 
 especially of use. 
 
 The principles of truth and har- 
 mony, which underlie all beauty, 
 may be secured in the most inex- 
 pensive cottage as well as in the 
 broadest and most imposing residence. 
 Indeed, the cottage has the advantage 
 of that most potent ally of beauty — 
 simplicity — a quality which is apt to 
 be conspicuously absent from the 
 schemes of decoration for the palace. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 BUILDERS' HOUSES 
 "Mint own hired house." 
 
 A LARGE proportion of homes are 
 -^ ^ made in houses which are not 
 owned, but leased, and this prevents 
 each man or family from indicating 
 personal taste in external aspect. A 
 rich man and house-owner may approxi- 
 mate to a true expression of himself 
 even in the outside of his house if 
 he strongly desires it, but a man of 
 moderate means must adapt himself 
 and his family to the house-builder's 
 idea of houses — that is to say, to the 
 idea of the man who has made house- 
 building a trade, and whose experiences 
 have created a form into which houses 
 of moderate cost and fairly universal 
 application may be cast. 
 
 Although it is as natural to a man 
 to build or acquire a home as to a 
 
BUILDERS' HOUSES 23 
 
 bird to build a nest, he has not the 
 same unfettered freedom in construc- 
 tion. He cannot always adapt his 
 house either to the physical or mental 
 size of his family, but must accept 
 what is possible with much the same 
 feeling with which a family of robins 
 might accommodate themselves to a 
 wren's nest, or an oriole to that of 
 a barn-swallow. But the fact remains, 
 that all these accidental homes must, 
 in some way, be brought into har- 
 mony with the lives to be lived in 
 them, and the habits and wants of 
 the family; and not only this, they 
 must be made attractive according to 
 the requirements of cultivated society. 
 The effort toward this is instructive, 
 and the pleasure in and enjoyment of 
 the home depends upon the success 
 of the effort. The inmates, as a rule, 
 are quite clear as to what they want 
 to accomplish, but have seldom had 
 sufficient experience to enable them 
 to remedy defects of construction. 
 
a+ PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 There are expedients by which 
 many of the malformations and ugH- 
 nesses of the ordinary " builder's 
 house" may be greatly ameliorated, 
 various small surgical operations which 
 will remedy badly planned rooms, 
 and dispositions of furniture which will 
 restore proportion. We can even, by 
 judicious distribution of planes of 
 colour, apparently lower or raise a 
 ceiling, and widen or lengthen a room, 
 and these expedients, which belong 
 partly to the experience of the deco- 
 rator, are based upon laws which can 
 easily be formulated. Every one can 
 learn something of them by the study 
 of faulty rooms and the enjoyment of 
 satisfactory ones. Indeed, I know no 
 surer or more agreeable way of getting 
 wisdom in the art of decoration than 
 by tracing back sensation to its source, 
 and finding out why certain things 
 are utterly satisfactory, and certain 
 others a- positive source of discomfort. 
 
 In what are called the " best 
 
EXPEDIENTS 25 
 
 houses " we can make our deductions 
 quite as well as in the most faulty, 
 and sometimes get a lesson of avoid- 
 ance and a warning against law- 
 breaking which will be quite as 
 useful as if it were learned in less 
 than the best. 
 
 There is one fault very common 
 in houses which date from a period 
 of some forty or fifty years back, a 
 fault of disproportionate height of 
 ceilings. In a modern house, if one 
 room is large enough to require a 
 lofty ceiling, the architect will manage 
 to make his second floor upon differ- 
 ent levels, so as not to inflict the 
 necessary height of large rooms upon 
 narrow halls and small rooms, which 
 should have only a height propor- 
 tioned to their size. A ten-foot room 
 with a thirteen - foot ceiling makes 
 the narrowness of the room doubly 
 apparent; one feels shut up between 
 two walls which threaten to come 
 together and squeeze one between 
 
26 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 them, while, on the other hand, a 
 ten-foot room with a nine-foot ceiling 
 may have a really comfortable and 
 cozy effect. 
 
 In this case, what is needed is to 
 get rid of the superfluous four feet, 
 and this can be done by cheating the 
 eye into an utter forgetfulness of them. 
 There must be horizontal divisions of 
 colour which attract the attention and 
 make one oblivious of what is above 
 them. 
 
 Every one knows the effect of a 
 paper with perpendicular stripes in 
 apparently heightening a ceiling which 
 is too low, but not every one is 
 equally aware of the contrary effect 
 of horizontal lines of varied surface. 
 But in the use of perpendicular lines 
 it is well to remember that, if the 
 room is small, it will appear still 
 smaller if the wall is divided into 
 narrow spaces by vertical lines. If it 
 is large and the ceiling simply low 
 for the size of the room, a good 
 
EXPEDIENTS ^^ 
 
 deal can be done by long, simple lines 
 of drapery in curtains and portieres, 
 or in choosing a paper where the 
 composition of design is perpendicular 
 rather than diagonal. 
 
 To apparently lower a high ceiling 
 in a small room, the wall should 
 be treated horizontally in different 
 materials. Three feet of the base can 
 be covered with coarse canvas or 
 buckram and finished with a small 
 wood moulding. Six feet of plain wall 
 above this, painted the same shade as 
 the canvas, makes the space of which 
 the eye is most aware. This space 
 should be finished with a picture 
 moulding, and the four superfluous feet 
 of wall above it must be treated as 
 a part of the ceiling. The cream- 
 white of the actual ceiling should be 
 brought down on the side walls for 
 a space of two feet, and this has the 
 effect of apparently enlarging the room, 
 since the added mass of light tint 
 seems to broaden it. There still re- 
 
28 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 main two feet of space between the 
 picture moulding and ceiling-line which 
 may be treated as a ceiling-border in 
 inconspicuous design upon the same 
 cream ground, the design to be in 
 darker, but of the same tint as the 
 ceiling. 
 
 The floor in such a room as this 
 should either be entirely covered with 
 plain carpeting, or, if it has rugs at 
 all, there should be several, as one 
 single rug, not entirely covering the 
 floor, would have the effect of con- 
 fining the apparent size of the room 
 to the actual size of the rug. 
 
 If the doors and windows in such 
 a room are high and narrow, they 
 can be made to come into the scheme 
 by placing the curtain and portiere 
 rods below the actual height and 
 covering the upper space with thin 
 material, either full or plain, of the 
 same colour as the upper wall. A 
 brocaded muslin, stained or dyed to 
 match the wall, answers this purpose 
 
EXPEDIENTS 29 
 
 admirably, and is really better in its 
 place than the usual expedient of 
 stained glass or open-work wood tran- 
 som. A good expedient is to have the 
 design already carried around the wall 
 painted in the same colour upon a 
 piece of stretched muslin. This is 
 simple but effective treatment, and is 
 an instance of the kind of thought 
 or knowledge that must be used in 
 remedying faults of construction. 
 
 Colour has much to do with the 
 apparent size of rooms, a room in 
 light tints always appearing to be 
 larger than a deeply coloured one. 
 
 Perhaps the most difficult problem 
 in adaptation is the high, narrow city 
 house, built and decorated by the 
 block by the builder, who is also a 
 speculator in real estate, and whose 
 activity was chiefly exercised before 
 the ingenious devices of the modern 
 architect were known. These houses 
 exist in quantities in our larger and 
 older cities, and mere slices of space 
 
30 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 as they are, are the theatres where the 
 home-life of many refined and beauty- 
 loving intelligences must be played. 
 
 In such houses as these, the task 
 of fitting them to the cultivated eyes 
 and somewhat critical tests of modern 
 society generally falls to the women 
 who represent the family, and calls 
 for an amount of ability which would 
 serve to build any number of credita- 
 ble houses ; yet this is constantly be- 
 ing done and well done for not one, 
 but many families. I know one such, 
 which is quite a model of a charming 
 city home and yet was evolved from 
 one of the worst of its kind and period. 
 In this case the family had fallen heir 
 to the house and were therefore jus- 
 tified in the one radical change which 
 metamorphosed the entrance - hall, 
 from a long, narrow passage, with an 
 apparently interminable stairway oc- 
 cupying half its width, to a small re- 
 ception-hall seemingly enlarged by a 
 
HALL IN CITY HOUSE SHOWING EFFECT OF STAIRCASE DIVIDED AND TURNED TO REAR 
 
EXPEDIENTS 31 
 
 judicious placing of the mirrors which 
 had formerly been a part of the " fixt- 
 ures " of the parlour and dining-room. 
 
 The reception-room was accom- 
 plished by cutting off the lower half 
 of the staircase, which had extended 
 itself to within three feet of the front 
 door, and turning it directly around, 
 so that it ends at the back instead 
 of the front of the hall. The two 
 cut ends are connected by a platform, 
 thrown across from wall to wall, and 
 furnished with a low railing of carved 
 panels, and turned spindles, which 
 gives a charming balcony effect. The 
 passage to the back hall and stairs 
 passes under the balcony and upper 
 end of the staircase, while the space 
 under the lower stair-end, screened by 
 a portiere, adds a coat-closet to the 
 conveniences of the reception-hall. 
 
 This change was not a difficult 
 thing to accomplish, it was simply an 
 expedient^ but it has the value of care- 
 
32 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 fully planned construction, and re- 
 minds one of the clever utterance of 
 the immortal painter who said, " I 
 never lose an accident." 
 
 Indeed the ingenious home-maker 
 often finds that the worse a thing is, 
 the better it can be made by com- 
 petent and careful study. To com- 
 plete and adapt incompetent things 
 to orderliness and beauty, to har- 
 monise incongruous things into a 
 perfect whole requires and exercises 
 ability of a high order, and the con- 
 sciousness of its possession is no small 
 satisfaction. That it is constantly 
 being done shows how much real 
 cleverness is necessary to ordinary 
 life — and reminds one of the patri- 
 otic New York state senator who de^ 
 clared that it required more ability 
 to cross Broadway safely at high tide, 
 than to be a great statesman. And 
 truly, to make a good house out of 
 a poor one, or a beautiful interior 
 
EXPEDIENTS 33 
 
 from an ugly one, requires far more 
 thought, and far more original talent, 
 than to decorate an important new 
 one. The one follows a travelled 
 path — the other makes it. 
 
 Of course competent knowledge 
 saves one from many difficulties ; and 
 faults of construction must be met by 
 knowledge, yet this is often greatly 
 aided by natural cleverness, and in the 
 course of long practice in the deco- 
 rative arts, I have seen such refreshing 
 and charming results from thoughtful 
 untrained intelligence, — I might al- 
 most say inspiration, — that I have 
 great respect for its manifestations j 
 especially when exercised in un-au- 
 thoritative fashion. 
 
 / 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 COLOUR IN HOUSES 
 
 " Heavtn gives us of its colour, for our joy. 
 Hues which have words and speak to ye of heaven." 
 
 A LTHOUGH the very existence of 
 a house is a matter of construc- 
 tion, its general interior effect is al- 
 most entirely the result of colour 
 treatment and careful and cultivated 
 selection of accessories. 
 
 Colour in the house includes much 
 that means furniture, in the way of 
 carpets, draperies, and all the modern 
 conveniences of civilization, but as it 
 precedes and dictates the variety of 
 all these things from the authoritative 
 standpoint of wall treatment, it is 
 well to study its laws and try to reap 
 the full benefit of its influence. 
 
 As far as effect is concerned, the 
 colour of a room creates its atmos- 
 phere. It may be cheerful or sad, 
 
 34 
 
COLOUR IN HOUSES 35 
 
 cosy or repellent according to its 
 quality or force. Without colour it 
 is only a bare canvas, which might, 
 but does not picture our lives. 
 
 We understand many of the prop- 
 erties of colour, and have unconscious- 
 ly learned some of its laws ; — but 
 what may be called the science of col- 
 our has never been formulated. So 
 far as we understand it, its principles 
 correspond curiously to those of mel- 
 odious sound. It is as impossible 
 to produce the best effect from one 
 tone or colour, as to make a melody 
 upon one note of the harmonic scale; 
 it is skilful variation of tone, the gra- 
 dation or even judicious opposition 
 of tint which gives exquisite satisfac- 
 tion to the eye. In music, sequence 
 produces this effect upon the ear, and 
 in colour, juxtaposition and gradation 
 upon the eye. Notes follow notes 
 in melody as shade follows shade in 
 colour. We find no need of even dif- 
 
36 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 ferent names for the qualities peculiar 
 to the two ; scale — notes — tones — 
 harmonies — the words express effects 
 common to colour as well as to music, 
 but colour has this advantage, that its 
 harmonies can be fixed, they do not 
 die with the passing moment ; once 
 expressed they remain as a constant 
 and ever-present delight. 
 
 Notes of the sound-octave have 
 been gathered by the musicians from 
 widely different substances, and care- 
 fully linked in order and sequence to 
 make a harmonious scale which may 
 be learned ; but the painter, con- 
 scious of colour-harmonies, has as yet 
 no written law by which he can pro- 
 duce them. 
 
 The " born colourist " is one who 
 without special training, or perhaps in 
 spite of it, can unerringly combine or 
 oppose tints into compositions which 
 charm the eye and satisfy the sense. 
 Even among painters it is by no means 
 
COLOURJIN HOUSES 37 
 
 a common gift. It is almost more 
 rare to find a picture distinguished for 
 its harmony and beauty of colour, than 
 to see a room in which nothing jars 
 and everything works together for 
 beauty. It seems strange that this 
 should be a rarer personal gift than the 
 musical sense, since nature apparently 
 is far more lavish of her lessons for 
 the eye than for the ear ; and it is 
 curious that colour, which at first sight 
 seems a more apparent and simple 
 fact than music, has not yet been 
 written. Undoubtedly there is a col- 
 our scale, which has its sharps and 
 flats, its high notes and low notes, its 
 chords and discords, and it is not im- 
 possible that in the future science may 
 make it a means of regulated and 
 written harmonies : — that some mas- 
 ter colourist who has mechanical and 
 inventive genius as well, may so ar- 
 range them that they can be played 
 by rule ; that colour may have its 
 
38 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 Mozart or Beethoven — ^its classic mel- 
 odies, its familiar tunes. The mu- 
 sician, as I have said — has gathered 
 his tones from every audible thing in 
 nature — and fitted and assorted and 
 built them into a science ; and why- 
 should not some painter who is also a 
 scientist take the many variations of 
 colour which lie open to his sight, 
 and range and fit and combine, and 
 write the formula, so that a child may 
 read it ? 
 
 We already know enough to be 
 very sure that the art is founded upon 
 laws, although they are not thorough- 
 ly understood. Principles of masses, 
 spaces, and gradations underlie all ac- 
 cidental harmonies of colour; — -just as 
 in music, the simple, strong, under- 
 chords of the bass must be the ground 
 for all the changes and trippings of 
 the upper melodies. 
 
 It is easy, if one studies the subject, 
 to see how the very likeness of these 
 
COLOUR IN HOUSES 39 
 
 two esthetic forces illustrate the laws 
 of each, — in the principles of relation, 
 gradation, and scale. 
 
 Until very recently the relation of 
 colour to the beauty of a house in- 
 terior was quite unrecognised. If it 
 existed in any degree of perfection 
 it was an accident, a result of the 
 softening and beautifying effect of 
 time, or of harmonious human living. 
 Where it existed, it was felt as a mys- 
 terious charm belonging to the home ; 
 something which pervaded it, but had 
 no separate being ; an attractive ghost 
 which attached itself to certain houses, 
 followed certain people, came by 
 chance, and was a mystery which no 
 one understood, but every one ac- 
 knowledged- Now we know that 
 this something which distinguished 
 particular rooms, and made beautiful 
 particular houses, was a definite result 
 of laws of colour accidentally ap- 
 plied. 
 
40 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 To avail ourselves of this influence 
 upon the moods and experiences of 
 life is to use a power positive in its 
 effects as any spiritual or intellectual 
 influence. It gives the kind of joy 
 we find in nature, in the golden-green 
 of light under tree-branches, or the 
 mingled green and gray of tree and 
 rock shadows, or the pearl and rose 
 of sunrise and sunset. We call the 
 deep content which results from such 
 surroundings the influence of nature, 
 and forget to name the less spiritual, 
 the more human condition of well- 
 being which comes to us in our homes 
 from being surrounded with some- 
 thing which in a degree atones for 
 lack of nature's beauty. 
 
 It is a different well-being, and 
 lacks the full tide of electric enjoy- 
 ment which comes from living for 
 the hour under the sky and in the 
 breadths of space, but it atones by 
 substituting something of our own 
 
COLOUR IN HOUSES 41 
 
 invention, which surprises us by its 
 
 compensations, and confounds us by 
 its power. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 THE LAW OF APPROPRIATENESS 
 
 T HAVE laid much stress upon the 
 value of colour in interior deco- 
 ration, but to complete the beauty of 
 the home something more than happy 
 choice of tints is required. It needs 
 careful and educated selection of fur- 
 niture and fittings, and money enough 
 to indulge in the purchase of an 
 intrinsically good thing instead of a 
 medium one. It means even some- 
 thing more than the love of beauty 
 and cultivation of it, and that is a per- 
 fect adherence to the law of appro- 
 priateness. 
 
 This is, after all, the most important 
 quality of every kind of decoration, 
 the one binding and general condition 
 of its accomplishment. It requires 
 
 such a careful fitting together of all 
 
 42 
 
THE LAW OF APPROPRIATENESS 43 
 
 the means of beauty as to leave no 
 part of the house, whatever may be 
 its use, without the same care for 
 appropriate completeness which goes 
 to the more apparent features. The 
 cellar, the kitchen, the closets, the 
 servants' bedrooms must all share in 
 the thought which makes the gen- 
 uinely beautiful home and the gen- 
 uinely perfect life. It must be pos- 
 sible to go from the top to the bottom 
 of the house, finding everywhere 
 agreeable, suitable, and thoughtful 
 furnishings. The beautiful house 
 must consider the family as a whole, 
 and not make a museum of rare and 
 costly things in the drawing-room, the 
 library, the dining-room and family 
 bedrooms, leaving that important part 
 of the whole machinery, the service, 
 untouched by the spirit of beauty. 
 The same care in choice of colour 
 will be as well bestowed on the ser- 
 vants' floor as on those devoted to the 
 
4+ PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 family, and curtains, carpets and fur- 
 niture may possess as much beauty and 
 yet be perfectly appropriate to ser- 
 vants' use. 
 
 On this upper floor, it goes almost 
 without saying, that the walls must be 
 painted in oil-colour instead of cov- 
 ered with paper. That the floors 
 should be uncarpeted except for bed- 
 side rugs which are easily removable. 
 That bedsteads should be of iron, the 
 mattress with changeable covers, the 
 furniture of painted and enameled in- 
 stead of polished wood, and in short 
 the conditions of healthful cleanliness 
 as carefully provided as if the rooms 
 were in a hospital instead of a pri- 
 vate house — but the added comfort 
 of carefully chosen wall colour, and 
 bright, harmonizing, washable chintz 
 in curtains and bed-covers. 
 
 These things have an influence up- 
 on the spirit of the home ; they are 
 a part of its spiritual beauty, giving a 
 
THE LAW OF APPROPRIATENESS 45 
 
 satisfied and approving consciousness 
 to the home-makers, and a sense of 
 happiness in the service of the family. 
 
 In the average, or small house, 
 there is room for much improvement 
 in the treatment and furnishing of 
 servants' bedrooms ; and this is not 
 always from indifference, but because 
 they are out of daily sight, and also 
 from a belief that it would add seri- 
 ously to the burden of housekeeping 
 to see that they are kept up to the 
 standard of family sleeping-rooms. 
 
 In point of fact, however, good 
 surroundings are potent civilizers, and 
 a house-servant whose room is well 
 and carefully furnished feels an added 
 value in herself, which makes her treat 
 herself respectfully in the care of her 
 room. 
 
 If it pleases her, the training she 
 receives in the care of family rooms 
 will be reflected in her own, and 
 painstaking arrangements made for 
 
46 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 her pleasure will perhaps be recog- 
 nised as an obligation. 
 
 Of course the fact must be recog- 
 nised, that the occupant is not always 
 a permanent one ; that it may at 
 times be a fresh importation directly 
 from a city tenement ; therefore, 
 everything in the room should be 
 able to sustain very radical treatment 
 in the way of scrubbing and cleaning. 
 Wall papers, unwashable rugs and cur- 
 tains are out of the question ; yet 
 even with these limitations it is possi- 
 ble to make a charming and reason- 
 ably inexpensive room, which would 
 be attractive to cultivated as well as 
 uncultivated taste. It is in truth 
 mostly a matter of colour; of col- 
 oured walls, and harmonising furni- 
 ture and draperies, which are in them- 
 selves well adapted to their place. 
 
 As I have said elsewhere, the walls 
 in a servant's bedroom — and prefer- 
 ably in any sleeping-room — should 
 
THE LAW OF APPROPRIATENESS 47 
 
 for sanitary reasons be painted in oil 
 colours, but the possibilities of deco- 
 rative treatment in this medium are 
 by no means limited. All of the 
 lighter shades of green, blue, yellow, 
 and rose are as permanent, and as 
 easily cleaned, as the dull grays and 
 drabs and mud-colours which are of- 
 ten used upon bedroom walls — es- 
 pecially those upper ones which are 
 above the zone of ornament, appar- 
 ently under the impression that there 
 is virtue in their very ugliness. 
 
 " A good clean gray " some worthy 
 housewife will instruct the painter to 
 use, and the result will be a dead 
 mixture of various lively and pleas- 
 ant tints, any one of which might be 
 charming if used separately, or mod- 
 ified with white. A small room with 
 walls of a very light spring green, or 
 a pale turquoise blue, or white with 
 the dash of vermilion and touch of 
 yellow ochre which produces salmon- 
 
48 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 pink, is quite as durably and service- 
 ably coloured as if it were chocolate- 
 brown, or heavy lead-colour ; indeed 
 its effect upon the mind is like a spring 
 day full of sunshine instead of one 
 dark with clouds or lowering storms. 
 The rule given elsewhere for colour 
 in light or dark exposure will hold 
 good for service bedrooms as well as 
 for the important rooms of the house. 
 That is; if a bedroom for servants' use 
 is on the north or shadowed side of 
 the house, let the colour be salmon 
 or rose pink, cream white, or spring 
 green ; but if it is on the sunny side, 
 the tint should be turquoise, or pale 
 blue, or a grayish-green, like the green 
 of a field of rye. With such walls, a 
 white iron bedstead, enameled furni- 
 ture, curtains of white, or a flowered 
 chintz which repeats or contrasts with 
 the colour of the walls, bedside and 
 bureau rugs of the tufted cotton which 
 is washable, or of the new rag-rugs of 
 
THE LAW OF APPROPRIATENESS 49 
 
 which the colotirs are " water fast," 
 the room is absolutely good, and can 
 be used as an influence upon a lower 
 or higher intelligence. 
 
 As a matter of utility the toilet 
 service should be always of white ; so 
 that there will be no chance for the 
 slovenly mismatching which results 
 from breakage of any one of the dif- 
 ferent pieces, when of difi"erent col- 
 ours. A handleless or mis-matched 
 pitcher will change the entire charac- 
 ter of a room and should never be 
 tolerated. 
 
 If the size of the room will war- 
 rant it, a rocking-chair or easy-chair 
 should always be part of its equip- 
 ment, and the mattress and bed-springs 
 should be of a quality to give ease to 
 tired bones, for these things have to 
 do with the spirit of the house. 
 
 It may be said that the colour- 
 ing and furnishing of the servants' 
 bedroom is hardly a part of house 
 
50 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 decoration, but in truth house deco- 
 ration at its best is a means of happi- 
 ness, and no householder can achieve 
 permanent happiness without making 
 the service of the family sharers in it. 
 
 What I have said with regard to 
 painted walls in plain tints applies to 
 bedrooms of every grade, but where 
 something more than merely agree- 
 able colour effect is desired a sten- 
 cilled decoration from the simplest 
 to the most elaborate can be added. 
 There are many ways of using this 
 method, some of which partake very 
 largely of artistic effect ; indeed a 
 thoroughly good stencil pattern may 
 reproduce the best instances of design, 
 and in the hands of a skilful work- 
 man who knows how to graduate and 
 vary contrasting or harmonising tints 
 it becomes a very artistic method and 
 deserves a place of high honour in the 
 art of decoration. 
 
 Its simplest form is that of a sten- 
 
m 
 
 <^m 
 
 Iri 
 
 PI 
 
 
 I, AND 2, STENCILED BORDERS FOR BATH-ROOM DECORATION ; 3, 4 AND 5, STENCILED 
 BORDERS FOR HALLS (BY DUNHAM WHEELER) 
 
THE LAW OF APPROPRIATENESS 51 
 
 cilled border in flat tints used either 
 in place of a cornice or as the bor- 
 der of a wall-paper is used. This, of 
 course, is a purely mechanical per- 
 formance, and one with which every 
 house-painter is familiar. After this 
 we come to borders of repeating de- 
 sign used as friezes. This can be done 
 with the most delicate and delightful 
 effect, although the finished wall will 
 still be capable of withstanding 
 the most energetic annual scrubbing. 
 Frieze borders of this kind starting 
 with strongly contrasting colour at 
 the top and carried downward through 
 gradually fading tints until they are 
 lost in the general colour of the wall 
 have an openwork grille effect which 
 is very light and graceful. There are 
 infinite possibilities in the use of sten- 
 cil design without counting the intro- 
 duction of gold and silver, and bronzes 
 of various iridescent hues which are 
 more suitable for rooms of general 
 
52 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 use than for bedrooms. Indeed in 
 sleeping-rooms the use of metallic 
 colour is objectionable because it will 
 not stand washing and cleaning with- 
 out defacement. The ideal bedroom 
 is one that if the furniture were re- 
 moved a stream of water from a hose 
 might be played upon its walls and 
 ceiling without injury. I always re- 
 member with pleasure a pink and 
 silver room belonging to a young girl, 
 where the salmon-pink walls were 
 deepened in colour at the top into 
 almost a tint of vermilion which had 
 in it a trace of green. It was, in fact, 
 an addition of spring green dropped 
 into the vermilion and carelessly 
 stirred, so that it should be mixed but 
 not incorporated. Over this shaded 
 and mixed colour for the space of 
 three feet was stencilled a fountain- 
 like pattern in cream-white, the arches 
 of the pattern filled in with almost a 
 lace-work of design. The whole up- 
 
THE LAW OF APPROPRIATENESS 53 
 
 per part had an effect like carved ala- 
 baster and was indescribably light and 
 graceful. 
 
 The bed and curtain-rods of silver- 
 lacquer, and the abundant silver of the 
 dressing-table gave a frosty contrast 
 which was necessary in a room of so 
 warm a general tone. This is an ex- 
 ample of very delicate and truly ar- 
 tistic treatment of stencil-work, and 
 one can easily see how it can be used 
 either in simple or elaborate fashion 
 with great effect. 
 
 Irregularly placed floating forms 
 of Persian or Arabic design are often 
 admirably stencilled in colour upon 
 a painted wall ; but in this case the 
 colours should be varied and not too 
 strong. A group of forms floating 
 away from a window-frame or cor- 
 nice can be done in two shades of the 
 wall colour, one of which is positive- 
 ly darker and one lighter than the 
 ground. If to these two shades some 
 
54 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 delicately contrasting colour is occa- 
 sionally added the effect is not only 
 pleasing, but belongs to a thoroughly 
 good style. 
 
 One seldom tires of a good sten- 
 cilled wall ; probably because it is in- 
 trinsic, and not applied in the sense 
 of paper or textiles. It carries an 
 air of permanency which discourages 
 change or experiment, but it requires 
 considerable experience in decoration 
 to execute it worthily; and not only 
 this, there should be a strong feeling 
 for colour and taste and education in 
 the selection of design, for though the 
 form of the stencilled pattern may be 
 graceful, and gracefully combined, it 
 must always — to be permanently sat- 
 isfactory — have a geometrical basis. 
 It is somewhat difficult to account 
 for the fact that what we call natural 
 forms, of plants and flowers, which 
 are certainly beautiful and graceful in 
 themselves, and grow into shapes which 
 
THE LAW OF APPROPRIATENESS 55 
 
 delight us with their freedom and 
 beauty, do not give the best satisfac- 
 tion as motives for interior decoration. 
 Construction in the architectural sense 
 — the strength and squareness of 
 walls, ceilings, and floors — seem to re- 
 ject the yielding character of design 
 founded upon natural forms, and de- 
 mand something which answers more 
 sympathetically to their own qualities. 
 Perhaps it is for this reason that we 
 find the grouping and arrangement 
 of horizontal and perpendicular lines 
 and blocks in the old Greek borders 
 so everlastingly satisfactory. 
 
 It is the principle or requirement, 
 of geometric base in interior design 
 which, coupled with our natural de- 
 light in yielding or growing forms, 
 has maintained through all the long 
 history of decoration what is called 
 conventionalised flower design. We 
 find this in every form or method of 
 decorative art, from embroidery to 
 
56 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 sculpture, from the Lotus of Egypt 
 to the Rose of England, and although 
 it results in a sort of crucifixion of the 
 natural beauty of the flower, in the 
 hands of great designers it has become 
 an authoritative style of art. 
 
 Of course, there are flower-forms 
 which are naturally geometric, which 
 have conventionalised themselves. 
 Many of the intricate Moorish frets 
 and Indian carvings are literal transla- 
 tions of flower-forms geometrically re- 
 peated, and here they lend themselves 
 so perfectly to the decoration of even 
 exterior walls that the fretted arches 
 of some Eastern buildings seem al- 
 most to have grown of themselves, 
 with all their elaboration, into the 
 world of nature and art. 
 
 The separate flowers of the grace- 
 fully tossing lilac plumes, and the 
 five- and six-leaved flowers of the pink, 
 have become in this way a very part 
 of the everlasting walls, as the acan- 
 
THE LAW OF APPROPRIATENESS 57 
 
 thus leaf has become the marble blos- 
 som ot thousands of indestructible 
 columns. 
 
 These are the classics of design 
 and hold the same relation to orna- 
 ment printed on paper and silk that 
 we find in the music of the Psalms, 
 as compared with the tinkle of the 
 ballad. 
 
 There are other methods of deco- 
 ration in oils which will meet the 
 wants of the many who like to exer- 
 cise their own artistic feelings and abil- 
 ity in their houses or rooms. The 
 painting of flower-friezes upon can- 
 vas which can afterward be mounted 
 upon the wall is a never-ending source 
 of pleasure ; and many of these friezes 
 have a charm and intimacy which no 
 merely professional painter can rival. 
 These are especially suitable for bed- 
 rooms, since there they may be as per- 
 sonal as the inmate pleases without 
 undue unveiling of thoughts, fancies, 
 
58 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 or personal experiences to the public. 
 A favourite flower or a favourite motto 
 or selection may be the motive of a 
 charming decoration, if the artist has 
 sufficient art-knowledge to subordi- 
 nate it to its architectural juxtaposi- 
 tion. A narrow border of fixed re- 
 peating forms like a rug-border will 
 often fulfil the necessity for architect- 
 ural lines, and confine the flower- 
 border into limits which justify its 
 freedom of composition. 
 
 If one wishes to mount a favourite 
 motto or quotation on the walls, 
 where it may give constant suggestion 
 or pleasure — or even be a help to 
 thoughtful and conscientious living — 
 there can be no better fashion than 
 the style of the old illuminated mis- 
 sals. Dining - rooms and chimney- 
 pieces are often very appropriately 
 decorated in this way ; the words 
 running on scrolls which are half un- 
 rolled and half hidden, and showing 
 
THE LAW OF APPROPRIATENESS 59 
 
 a conventionalised background of 
 fruit and flowers. 
 
 In all these things the knowingness, 
 which is the result of study, tells very 
 strongly — and it is quite worth while 
 to give a good deal of study to the 
 subject of this kind of decoration be- 
 fore expending the requisite amount 
 of work upon a painted frieze. 
 
 Canvas friezes have the excellent 
 merit of being not only durable and 
 cleanable, but they belong to the 
 category of pictures ; to what Ruskin 
 calls " portable art," and one need 
 not grudge the devotion of consider- 
 able time, study, and effort to their 
 doing, since they are really detachable 
 property, and can be removed from 
 one house or room and carried to 
 another at the owner'o or artist's will. 
 
 There is room for the exercise of 
 much artistic ability in this direction, 
 as the fact of being able to paint the 
 decoration in parts and afterward 
 
6o PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 place it, makes it possible for an 
 amateur to do much for the enhance- 
 ment of her own house. 
 
 More than any other room in the 
 house, the bedroom will show per- 
 sonal character. Even when it is not 
 planned for particular occupation, the 
 characteristics of the inmate will write 
 themselves unmistakably in the room. 
 If the college boy is put in the white 
 and gold bedroom for even a vacation 
 period, there will shortly come into 
 its atmosphere an element of sporting 
 and out-of-door life. Banners and 
 balls and bats, and emblems of the 
 " wild thyme " order will colour its 
 whiteness ; and life of the growing 
 kind make itself felt in the midst 
 of sanctity. In the same way, girls 
 would change the bare asceticism of a 
 monk's cell into a bower of lilies and 
 roses ; a fit place for youth and un- 
 praying innocence. 
 
 The bedrooms of a house are a 
 
THE LAW OF APPROPRIATENESS 6i 
 
 pretty sure test of the liberality o£ 
 mind and understanding of character 
 of the mother or house-ruler. As each 
 room is in a certain sense the home 
 of the individual occupant, almost the 
 shell of his or her mind, there will be 
 something narrow and despotic in the 
 house-rules if this is not allowed. Yet, 
 even individuality of taste and expres- 
 sion must scrupulously follow sanitary 
 laws in the furnishing of the bedroom. 
 " Stuffy things " of any sort should be 
 avoided. The study should be to 
 make it beautiful without such things, 
 and a liberal use of washable textiles 
 in curtains, portieres, bed and table 
 covers, will give quite as much sense 
 of luxury as heavily papered walls and 
 costly upholstery. In fact, one may 
 run through all the variations from 
 the daintiest and most befrilled and 
 elegant of guests' bedrooms, to the 
 " boys' room," which includes all or 
 any of the various implements of sport 
 
62 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 or the hobbies of the boy collector, 
 and yet keep inviolate the principles 
 of harmony, colour, and appropriate- 
 ness to use, and so accomplish beauty. 
 
 The absolute ruling of light, air,'and 
 cleanliness are quite compatible with 
 individual expression. 
 
 It is this characteristic aspect of the 
 different rooms which makes up the 
 beauty of the house as a whole. If 
 the purpose of each is left to develop 
 itself through good conditions, the 
 whole will make that most delightful 
 of earthly things, a beautiful home. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 KITCHENS 
 
 'T^HE kitchen is an important part 
 of the perfect house and should 
 be a recognised sharer in its quality 
 of beauty; not alone the beauty which 
 consists of a successful adaptation of 
 means to ends, but the kind which is 
 independently and positively attrac- 
 tive to the eye. 
 
 In costly houses it is not hard to 
 attain this quality or the rarer one of 
 a union of beauty, with perfect adap- 
 tation to use ; but where it must be 
 reached by comparatively inexpensive 
 methods, the difficulty is greater. 
 
 Tiled walls, impervious to moist- 
 ure, and repellent of fumes, are ideal 
 boundaries of a kitchen, and may be 
 beautiful in colour, as well as virtu- 
 ous in conduct. They may even be 
 
 63 
 
64 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 laid with gradations of alluring min- 
 eral tints, but, of course, this is out of 
 the question in cheap buildings ; and 
 in demonstrating the possibility of 
 beauty and intrinsic merit in small and 
 comparatively inexpensive houses, tiles 
 and marbles must be ruled out of the 
 scheme of kitchen perfection. Plas- 
 ter, painted in agreeable tints of oil 
 colour is commendable, but one can 
 do better by covering the walls with 
 the highly enamelled oil-cloth com- 
 monly used for kitchen tables and 
 shelves. This material is quite mar- 
 vellous in its combination of use and 
 effect. Its possibilities were discovered 
 by a young housewife whose small 
 kitchen formed part of a city apart- 
 ment, and whose practical sense was 
 joined to a discursive imagination. 
 After this achievement — which she 
 herself did not recognise as a stroke of 
 genius — she added a narrow shelf run- 
 ning entirely around the room, which 
 
KITCHENS 65 
 
 carried a decorative row of blue 
 willow-pattern plates. A dresser, 
 hung with a graduated assortment of 
 blue enamelled sauce-pans, and other 
 kitchen implements of the same en- 
 ticing ware, a floor covered with the 
 heaviest of oil-cloth, laid in small dia- 
 mond-shapes of blue, between blocks 
 of white, like a mosaic pavement, were 
 the features of a kitchen which was, 
 and is, after several years of strenuous 
 wear, a joy to behold. It was from the 
 first, not only a delight to the clever 
 young housewife and her friends, but 
 it performed the miracle of changing 
 the average servant into a careful and 
 excellent one, zealous for the clean- 
 liness and perfection of her small 
 domain, and performing her kitchen 
 functions with unexampled neatness. 
 The mistress — who had standards 
 of perfection in all things, whether 
 great or small, and was moreover of 
 Southern blood — confessed that her 
 
66 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 ideal of service in her glittering kitch- 
 en was not a clever red-haired Hiber- 
 nian, but a slim mulatto, wearing a 
 snow-white turban ; and this long- 
 ing seemed so reasonable, and so im- 
 pressed my fancy, that whenever I 
 think of the shining blue-and-silver 
 kitchen, I seem to see within it the 
 graceful sway of figure and coiFee- 
 coloured face which belongs to the 
 half-breed African race, certain rare 
 specimens of which are the most beau- 
 tiful of domestic adjuncts. 
 
 I have used this expedient of oil- 
 cloth-covered walls — for which I am 
 anxious to give the inventor due credit 
 — in many kitchens, and certain bath- 
 rooms, and always with success. 
 
 It must be applied as if it were 
 wall-paper, except that, as it is a heavy 
 material, the paste must be thicker. 
 It is also well to have in it a small 
 proportion of carbolic acid, both as a 
 disinfectant and a deterrent to paste- 
 
KITCHENS 67 
 
 loving mice, or any other household 
 pest. The cloth must be carefully 
 fitted into corners, and whatever shelv- 
 ing or wood fittings are used in the 
 room, must be placed against it, after 
 it is applied, instead of having the 
 cloth cut and fitted around them. 
 
 When well mounted, it makes a 
 solid, porcelain-like wall, to which 
 dust and dirt will not easily adhere, 
 and which can be as easily and eiFect- 
 ually cleaned as if it were really por- 
 celain or marble. 
 
 Such wall treatment will go far 
 toward making a beautiful kitchen. 
 Add to this a well-arranged dresser 
 for blue or white kitchen china, with 
 a closed cabinet for the heavy iron 
 utensils which can hardly be included 
 in any scheme of kitchen beauty ; 
 curtained cupboards and short win- 
 dow-hangings of blue, or " Turkey 
 red" — which are invaluable for colour, 
 and always washable j a painted floor 
 
68 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 — ^which is far better than oil-cloth, 
 and. one has the elements of a satis- 
 factory scheme of beauty. 
 
 A French kitchen, with its white- 
 washed walls, its shining range and 
 rows upon rows of gleaming copper- 
 ware, is an attractive subject for a 
 painter; and there is no reason why 
 an American kitchen, in a house dis- 
 tinguished for beauty in all its family 
 and semi-public rooms, should not 
 also be beautiful in the rooms devot- 
 ed to service. We can if we will 
 make much even in a decorative way 
 of our enamelled and aluminum kitch- 
 en-ware ; we may hang it in graduated 
 rows over the chimney-space — as the 
 French cook parades her coppers — 
 and arrange these necessary things 
 with an eye to eifect, while we secure 
 perfect convenience of use. They 
 are all pleasant of aspect if care and 
 thought are devoted to their arrange- 
 ment, and it is really of quite as 
 
KITCHENS 69 
 
 much value to the family to have a 
 charming and perfectly appointed 
 kitchen, as to possess a beautiful and 
 comfortable parlour or sitting-room. 
 
 Every detail should be considered 
 from the double point of view of use 
 and effect. If the curtains answer 
 the two purposes of shading sunlight, 
 or securing privacy at night, and of 
 giving pleasing colour and contrast to 
 the general tone of the interior, they 
 perform a double function, each of 
 of which is valuable. 
 
 If the chairs are chosen for strength 
 and use, and are painted or stained to 
 match the colour of the floor, they add 
 to the satisfaction of the eye, as well 
 as minister to the house service. A 
 pursuance of this thought adds to the 
 harmony of the house both in aspect 
 and actual beauty of living. Of 
 course in selecting such furnishings of 
 the kitchen as chairs, one must bear 
 in mind that even their legitimate 
 
70 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 use may include standing, as well as 
 sitting upon them; that they may be 
 made temporary resting-places for 
 scrubbing pails, brushes, and other 
 cleaning necessities, and therefore they 
 must be made of painted wood ; but 
 this should not discourage the pro- 
 vision of a cane-seated rocking-chair 
 for each servant, as a comfort for 
 weary bones when the day's work is 
 over. 
 
 In establishments which include a 
 servants' dining- or sitting-room, these 
 moderate luxuries are a thing of 
 course, but in houses where at most 
 but two maids are employed they are 
 not always considered, although they 
 certainly should be. 
 
 If a corner can be appropriated to 
 evening leisure — where there is room 
 for a small, brightly covered table, 
 a lamp, a couple of rocking-chairs, 
 work-baskets and a book or maga- 
 zine, it answers in a small way to the 
 
KITCHENS 71 
 
 family evening-room, where all gath- 
 er for rest and comfort. 
 
 There is no reason why the wall 
 space above it should not have its cabi- 
 net for photographs and the usually 
 cherished prayer-book which maids 
 love both to possess and display. Such 
 possessions answer exactly to the bric- 
 a-brac of the drawing-room; minister- 
 ing to the same human instinct in its 
 primitive form, and to the inherent 
 enjoyment of the beautiful which is 
 the line of demarcation between the 
 tribes of animals and those of men. 
 
 If one can use this distinctly hu- 
 man trait as a lever to raise crude 
 humanity into the higher region of 
 the virtues, it is certainly worth while 
 to consider pots and pans from the 
 point of view of their decorative 
 ability. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 COLOUR WITH REFERENCE TO LIGHT 
 
 TN choosing colour for walls and 
 ceilings, it is most necessary to 
 consider the special laws which govern 
 its application to house interiors. 
 
 The tint of any particular room 
 should be chosen not only with ref- 
 erence to personal liking, but first of 
 all, to the quantity and quality of 
 light which pervades it. A north 
 room will require warm and bright 
 treatment, warm reds and golden 
 browns, or pure gold colours. Gold- 
 colour used in sash curtains will give 
 an effect of perfect sunshine in a dark 
 and shadowy room, but the same 
 treatment in a room fronting the 
 south would produce an almost in- 
 supportable brightness. 
 
 I will illustrate the modifications 
 
 73 
 
COLOUR WITH REFERENCE TO LIGHT 73 
 
 made necessary in tint by different 
 exposure to light, by supposing that 
 some one member of the family pre- 
 fers yellow to all other colours, one 
 who has enough of the chameleon 
 in her nature to feel an instinct to 
 bask in sunshine. I will also suppose 
 that the room most conveniently de- 
 voted to the occupation of this mem- 
 ber has a southern exposure. If yel- 
 low must be used in her room, the 
 quality of it should be very different 
 from that which could be properly 
 and profitably used in a room with a 
 northern exposure, and it should dif- 
 fer not only in intensity, but actually 
 in tint. If it is necessary, on account 
 of personal preference, to use yellow 
 in a sunny room, it should be lemon, 
 instead of ochre or gold-coloured 
 yellow, because the latter would re- 
 peat sunlight. There are certain 
 shades of yellow, where white has 
 been largely used in the mixture, 
 
74 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 which are capable of greenish reflec- 
 tions. This is where the white is of 
 so pure a quality as to suggest blue, 
 and consequently under the influence 
 of yellow to suggest green. We often 
 find yellow dyes in silks the shadows 
 of which are positive fawn colour or 
 even green, instead of orange as we 
 might expect ; still, even with modi- 
 fications, yellow should properly be 
 reserved for sunless rooms, where it 
 acts the part almost of the blessed sun 
 itself in giving cheerfulness and light. 
 Going from a sun-lighted atmosphere, 
 or out of actual sunlight into a yel- 
 low room, one would miss the sense 
 of shelter which is so grateful to 
 eyes and senses a little dazzled by 
 the brilliance of out-of-door lights ; 
 whereas a room darkened or shaded 
 by a piazza, or somewhat chilled by 
 a northern exposure and want of sun, 
 would be warmed and comforted by 
 tints of gold-coloured yellow. 
 
COLOUR WITH REFERENCE TO LIGHT 75 
 
 Interiors with a southern exposure 
 should be treated with cool, light 
 colours, blues in various shades, water- 
 greens, and silvery tones which will 
 contrast with the positive yellow of 
 sunlight. 
 
 It is by no means a merely arbi- 
 trary rule. Colours are actually warm 
 or cold in temperature, as well as in 
 effect upon the eye or the imagina- 
 tion, in fact the words cover a long- 
 tested fact. I remember being told 
 by a painter of his placing a red sun- 
 set landscape upon the flat roof of a 
 studio building to dry, and on going 
 to it a few hours afterward he found 
 the surface of it so warm to the touch 
 — so sensibly warmer than the gray 
 and blue and green pictures around 
 it — that he brought a thermometer to 
 test it, and found it had acquired and 
 retained heat. It was actually warm- 
 er by degrees than the gray and blue 
 pictures in the same sun exposure. 
 
76 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 We instinctively wear warm colours 
 in winter and dispense with them in 
 summer, and this simple fact may ex- 
 plain the art which allots what we 
 call warm colour to rooms without 
 sun. When we say warm colours, we 
 mean yellows, reds with all their 
 gradations, gold or sun browns, and 
 dark browns and black. When we 
 say cool colours — whites, blues, grays, 
 and cold greens — for greens may be 
 warm or cold, according to their 
 composition or intensity. A water- 
 green is a cold colour, so is a pure 
 emerald green, so also a blue-green ; 
 while an olive, or a gold-green comes 
 into the category of warm colours. 
 This is because it is a composite col- 
 our made of a union of warm and 
 cold colours; the brown and yellow 
 in its composition being in excess of 
 the blue; as pink also, which is a 
 mixture of red and white; and lav- 
 ender, which is a mixture of red, white, 
 
COLOUR WITH REFERENCE TO LIGHT 77 
 
 and blue, stand as intermediate be- 
 tween two extremes. 
 
 Having duly considered the effect 
 of light upon colour, we may fear- 
 lessly choose tints for every room ac- 
 cording to personal preferences or 
 tastes. If we like one warm colour 
 better than another, there is no rea- 
 son why that one should not predom- 
 inate in every room in the house 
 which has a shadow exposure. If we 
 like a cold colour it should be used 
 in many of the sunny rooms. 
 
 I believe we do not give enough 
 importance to this matter of personal 
 liking in tints. We select our friends 
 from sympathy. As a rule, we do 
 not philosophise much about it, al- 
 though we may recognise certain 
 principles in our liking ; it is those to 
 whom our hearts naturally open that 
 we invite in and have joy in their 
 companionship, and we might surely 
 follow our likings in the matter of 
 
78 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 colour, as well as in friendship, and 
 thereby add much to our happiness. 
 Curiously enough we often speak of 
 the colour of a mind — and I once 
 knew a child who persisted in calling 
 people by the names of colours ; not 
 the colour of their clothes, but some 
 mind-tint which he felt. "The blue 
 lady" was his especial favourite, and I 
 have no doubt the presence or ab- 
 sence of that particular colour made 
 a difference in his content all the 
 days of his life. 
 
 The colour one likes is better for 
 tranquillity and enjoyment — more 
 conducive to health ; and exercises 
 an actual living influence upon 
 moods. For this reason, if no other, 
 the colour of a room should never be 
 arbitrarily prescribed or settled for the 
 one who is to be its occupant. It should 
 be as much a matter oi nature as the 
 lining of a shell is to the mussel, or as 
 the colour of the wings of a butterfly. 
 
COLOUR WITH REFERENCE TO LIGHT 79 
 
 In fact the mind which we cannot see 
 may have a colour of its own, and it 
 is natural that it should choose to- 
 dwell within its own influence. 
 
 We do not know why we like cer- 
 tain colours, but we do, and let that 
 sufilce, and let us live with them, as 
 gratefully as we should for more ex- 
 plainable ministry. 
 
 If colours which we like have a 
 soothing effect upon us, those which 
 we do not like are, on the other 
 hand, an unwelcome influence. If a 
 woman says in her heart, I hate green, 
 or red, or I dislike any one colour, 
 and then is obliged to live in its 
 neighbourhood, she will find herself 
 dwelling with an enemy. We all 
 know that there are colours of which 
 a little is enjoyable when a mass 
 would be unendurable. Predominant 
 scarlet would be like close compan- 
 ionship with a brass band, but a note 
 of scarlet is one of the most valuable 
 
8o PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 of sensations. The gray compounded 
 of black and white would be a wet 
 blanket to all bubble of wit or spring 
 of fancy, but the shadows of rose 
 colour are gray, pink-tinted it is 
 true ; indeed the shadow of pink 
 used to be known by the name of 
 ashes of roses. I remember seeing once 
 in Paris — that home of bad general 
 decoration — a room in royal purples; 
 purple velvet on walls, furniture, and 
 hangings. One golden Rembrandt 
 in the middle of a long wall, and a 
 great expanse of ochre-coloured par- 
 quetted floor were all that saved it 
 from the suggestion of a royal toinb. 
 As it was, I left the apartment with a 
 feeling of treading softly as when we 
 pass through a door hung with crape. 
 Vagaries of this kind are remediable 
 when they occur in cravats, or bon- 
 nets, or gloves — but a room in the 
 wrong colour! Saints and the angels 
 preserve us! 
 
COLOUR WITH REFERENCE TO LIGHT 8i 
 
 The number, size, and placing of 
 the windows will greatly affect the 
 intensity of colour to be used. It 
 must always be remembered that any 
 interior is dark as compared with out- 
 of-doors, and that in the lightest 
 room there will be dark corners or 
 spaces where the colour chosen as 
 chief tint will seem much darker than 
 it really is. A paper or textile chos- 
 en in a good light will look several 
 shades darker when placed in large 
 unbroken masses or spaces upon the 
 wall, and a fully furnished room will 
 generally be much darker when com- 
 pleted than might be expected in 
 planning it. For this reason, in 
 choosing a favourite tint, it is better 
 on many accounts to choose it in as 
 light a shade as one finds agreeable. 
 It can be repeated in stronger tones 
 in furniture or in small and unim- 
 portant furnishings of the room, but 
 the wall tone should never be deeper 
 
82 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 than medium in strength, at the risk 
 of having all the light absorbed by 
 the colour, and of losing a sense of 
 atmosphere in the room. There is 
 another reason for this, which is that 
 many colours are agreeable, even to 
 their lovers, only in light tones. The 
 moment they get below medium they 
 become insistent, and make them- 
 selves of too much importance. In 
 truth colour has qualities which are 
 almost personal, and is well worth 
 studying in all its peculiarities, be- 
 cause of its power to affect our hap- 
 piness. 
 
 The principles of proper use of 
 colour in house interiors are not diffi- 
 cult to master. It is unthinking, un- 
 reflective action which makes so many 
 unrestful interiors of homes. The 
 creator of a home should consider, in 
 the first place, that it is a matter as 
 important as climate, and as difficult 
 to get away from, and that the first 
 
COLOUR WITH REFERENCE TO LIGHT 83 
 
 shades of colour used in a room upon 
 walls or ceiling, must govern every- 
 thing else that enters in the w^ay of 
 furnishing; that the colour of walls 
 prescribes that which must be used in 
 floors, curtains, and furniture. Not 
 that these must necessarily be of the 
 same tint as walls, but that wall-tints 
 must govern the choice. 
 
 All this makes it necessary to take 
 first steps carefully, to select for each 
 room the colour which will best suit 
 the taste, feeling, or bias of the occu- 
 pant, always considering the exposure 
 of the room and the use of it. 
 
 After the relation of colour to 
 light is established — with personal 
 preferences duly taken into account 
 — the next law is that of gradation. 
 The strongest, and generally the pur- 
 est, tones of colour belong naturally 
 at the base, and the floor of a room 
 means the base upon which the 
 scheme of decoration is to be built. 
 
84 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 The carpet, or floor covering, should 
 carry the strongest tones. If a single 
 tint is to be used, the walls must take 
 the next gradation, and the ceiling 
 the last. These gradations must be 
 far enough removed from each other 
 in depth of tone to be quite apparent, 
 but not to lose their relation. The 
 connecting grades may appear in fur- 
 niture covering and draperies, thus giv- 
 ing different values in the same tone, 
 the relation between them being per- 
 fectly apparent. These three masses 
 of related colour are the groundwork 
 upon which one can play infinite va- 
 riations, and is really the same law 
 upon which a picture is composed. 
 There are foreground, middle-dis- 
 tance, and sky — and in a properly 
 coloured room, the floors, walls, and 
 ceiling bear the same relation to each 
 other as the grades of colour in a 
 picture, or in a landscape. 
 
 Fortunately we keep to this law 
 
COLOUR WITH REFERENCE TO LIGHT 85 
 
 almost by instinct, and yet I have 
 seen a white-carpeted floor in a room 
 with a painted ceiling of considerable 
 depth of colour. Imagine the effect 
 where this rule of gradation or as- 
 cending scale is reversed. A tinted 
 floor of cream colour, or even white, 
 and a ceiling as deep in colour as a 
 landscape. One feels as if they them- 
 selves were reversed, and standing 
 upon their heads. Certainly if we 
 ignore this law we lose our sense of 
 base or foundation, and although 
 we may not know exactly why, we 
 shall miss the restfulness of a prop- 
 erly constructed scheme of decora- 
 tion. 
 
 The rule of gradation includes 
 also that of massing of colour. In all 
 simple treatment of interiors, what- 
 ever colour is chosen should be al^ 
 lowed space enough to establish its 
 influence, broadly and freely, and 
 here again we get a lesson from nat- 
 
86 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 ure in the massing of colour. It 
 should not be broken into patches 
 and neutralised by divisions, but used 
 in large enough spaces to dominate, 
 or bring into itself or its own influ- 
 ence all that is placed in the room. 
 If this rule is disregarded every piece 
 of furniture unrelated to the whole 
 becomes a spot, it has no real con- 
 nection with the room, and the room 
 itself, instead of a harmonious and 
 delightful influence, akin to that of 
 a sun-flushed dawn or a sunset sky, 
 is like a picture where there is no 
 composition, or a book where inci- 
 dent is jumbled together without re- 
 lation to the story. In short, plac- 
 ing of colour in large uniform masses 
 used in gradation is the groundwork 
 of all artistic efi'ect in interiors. As I 
 have said, it is the same rule that gov- 
 erns pictures, the general tone may be 
 green or blue, or a division of each, 
 but to be a perfect and harmonious 
 
COLOUR WITH REFERENCE TO LIGHT 87 
 
 view, every detail must relate to one 
 or both of these tints. 
 
 In formulating thus far the rules 
 for use of colour in rooms, we have 
 touched upon three principles which 
 are equally binding in interiors, 
 whether of a cottage or a palace ; the 
 first is that of colour in relation to 
 light, the second of colour in gra- 
 dation, and the third of colour in 
 masses. 
 
 A house in which walls and ceil- 
 ings are simply well coloured or cov- 
 ered, has advanced very far toward 
 the home which is the rightful en- 
 dowment of every human being. 
 The variations of treatment, which 
 pertain to more costly houses, the 
 application of design in borders and 
 frieze spaces, walls, wainscots, and 
 ceilings, are details which will proba- 
 bly call for artistic advice and pro- 
 fessional knowledge, since in these 
 things it is easy to err in misapplied 
 
88 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 decoration. The advance from per- 
 fect simplicity to selected and beauti- 
 ful ornament marks not only the de- 
 gree of cost but of knowledge which 
 it is in the power of the house-owner 
 to command. The elaboration which 
 is the privilege of more liberal means 
 and the use of artistic experience in 
 decoration on a larger scale. 
 
 The smaller house shares in the 
 advantage of beautiful colour, correct 
 principles, and appropriate treatment 
 equally with the more costly. The 
 variations do not falsify principles. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 WALLS, CEILINGS, AND FLOORS 
 
 'TpHE true principle of wall treat- 
 ment is to make the boundary 
 stand for colour and beauty, and not 
 alone for division of space. 
 
 As a rule, the colour treatment of 
 a. house interior must begin with the 
 walls, and it is fortunate if these are 
 blank and plain as in most new houses 
 with uncoloured ceilings, flat or brok- 
 en with mouldings to suit the style 
 of the house. 
 
 The range of possible treatment is 
 very wide, from simple tones of wall 
 colour against which quiet cottage 
 or domestic city life goes on, to the 
 elaboration of walls of houses of a 
 different grade, where stately pag- 
 eants are a part of the drama of daily 
 
 life. But having shown that certain 
 
 89 
 
90 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 rules are applicable to both, and in- 
 deed necessary to success in both, we 
 may choose within these rules any 
 tint or colour which is personally 
 pleasing. 
 
 Rooms with an east or west light 
 may carry successfully tones of any 
 shade, without violating fundamental 
 laws. 
 
 The first impression of a room 
 depends upon the walls. In fact, 
 rooms are good or bad, agreeable or 
 ugly in exact accordance with the 
 wall-quality and treatment. No rich- 
 ness of floor-covering, draperies, or 
 furniture can minimise their influence. 
 
 Perhaps it is for this reason that 
 the world is full of papers and other 
 devices for making walls agreeable ; 
 and we cannot wonder at this, when 
 we reflect that something of the kind 
 is necessary to the aspect of the room, 
 and that each room efi^ects for the 
 individual exactly what the outer 
 
WALLS, CEILINGS, AND FLOORS 91 
 
 walls of the house effect for the fam- 
 ily, they give space for personal pri- 
 vacy and for that reserve of the indi- 
 vidual which is the earliest effect of 
 luxury and comfort. 
 
 It is certain that if walls are not 
 made agreeable there is in them 
 something of restraint to the eye and 
 the sense which is altogether disagree- 
 able. Apparent confinement within 
 given limits, is, on the whole, repug- 
 nant to either the natural or civilised 
 man, and for this reason we are con- 
 stantly tempted to disguise the limit 
 and to cover the wall in such a way 
 as shall interest and make us forget 
 our bounds. In this case, the idea of 
 decoration is, to make the walls a 
 barrier of colour only, instead of hard, 
 unyielding masonry; to take away 
 the sense of being shut in a box, and 
 give instead freedom to thought and 
 pleasure to the sense. 
 
 It is the effect of shut-in-ness which 
 
92 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 the square and rigid walls of a room 
 give that makes drapery so effective 
 and welcome, and which also gives 
 value to the practice of covering walls 
 with silks or other textiles. The 
 softened surface takes away the sense 
 of restraint. We hang our walls with 
 pictures, or cover them with textiles, 
 or with paper which carries design, or 
 even colour them with pigments — 
 something — anything, which will dis- 
 guise a restraining bound, or make it 
 masquerade as a luxury. 
 
 This effort or instinct has set in 
 motion the machinery of the world. 
 It has created tapestries and brocades 
 for castle and palace, and invented 
 cheap substitutes for these costly prod- 
 ucts, so that the smallest and poor- 
 est house as well as the richest can 
 cover its walls with something pleas- 
 ant to the eye and suggestive to the 
 mind. 
 
 It is one of the privileges and 
 
WALLS, CEILINGS, AND FLOORS 93 
 
 opportunities of art to invent these 
 disguises ; and to do it so thoroughly 
 and successfully as to content us with 
 facts which would otherwise be disa- 
 greeable. And we do, by these vari- 
 ous devices, make our walls so hospi- 
 table to our thoughts that we take 
 positive and continual pleasure in 
 them. 
 
 We do this chiefly, perhaps, by 
 ministering to our instinctive love of 
 colour; which to many temperaments 
 is like food to the hungry, and satis- 
 fies as insistent a demand of the mind 
 as food to the body. 
 
 At this late period of the world 
 we are the inheritors of many meth- 
 ods of wall disguise, from the primi- 
 tive weavings or blanket coverings 
 with which nomadic peoples lined the 
 walls of their tents, or the arras which 
 in later days covered the roughness 
 and rudeness of the stone walls of 
 kings and barons, to the pictured 
 
94 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 tapestries of later centuries. This lat- 
 ter achievement of art manufacture 
 has outlived and far outv^eighed the 
 Others in value, because it more per- 
 fectly performs the object of its crea- 
 tion. 
 
 Tapestries, for the most part, offer 
 us a semblance of nature, and cheat 
 us with a sense of unlimited horizon. 
 The older tapestries give us, with 
 this, suggestions of human life and 
 action in out-of-door scenes suffi- 
 ciently unrealistic to offer a vague 
 dream of existence in fields and for- 
 ests. This effectually diverts our 
 minds from the confinements of space, 
 and allows us the freedom of nature. 
 
 Probably the true secret of the 
 never-failing appreciation of tapestries 
 — from the very beginning of their 
 history until this day — is this fact of 
 their suggestiveness; since we find 
 that damasks of silk or velvet or other 
 costly weavings, although far surpass- 
 
WALLS, CEILINGS, AND FLOORS 95 
 
 ing tapestries in texture and concen- 
 tration of colour, yet lacking . their 
 suggestiveness to the mind, can never 
 rival them in the estimation of the 
 world. Unhappily, we cannot count 
 veritable tapestries as a modern re- 
 course in wall-treatment, since we are 
 precluded from the use of genuine 
 ones by their scarcity and cost. 
 
 There is undoubtedly a peculiar 
 richness and charm in a tapestry-hung 
 wall which no other wall covering 
 can give; yet they are not entirely 
 appropriate to our time. They be- 
 long to the period of windy palaces 
 and enormous enclosures, and are 
 fitted for pageants and ceremonies, 
 and not to our carefully plastered, 
 wind-tight and narrow rooms. Their 
 mission to-day is to reproduce for us 
 in museums and collections the life 
 of yesterday, so full of pomp and al- 
 most barbaric lack of domestic com- 
 fort. In studios they are certainly 
 
96 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 appropriate and suggestive, but in pri- 
 vate houses except of the princely 
 sort, it is far better to make har- 
 monies with the things of to-day. 
 
 Nevertheless if the soul craves tap- 
 estries let them be chosen for in- 
 trinsic beauty and perfect preservation, 
 instead of accepting the rags of the 
 past and trying to create with them a 
 magnificence which must be incom- 
 plete and shabby. Considering, as I 
 do, that tapestries belong to the life 
 and conditions of the past, where the 
 homeless many toiled for the pam- 
 pered few, and not to the homes of 
 to-day where the man of moderate 
 means expects beauty in his home as 
 confidently as if he were a world 
 ruler, I find it hardly necessary to in- 
 clude them in the list of means of 
 modern decoration, and indeed it is 
 not necessary, since a well-preserved 
 tapestry of a good period, and of a 
 famous manufacturer or origin, is so 
 
WALLS, CEILINGS, AND FLOORS 97 
 
 costly a purchase that only our boun- 
 teous and self-indulgent millionaires 
 would venture to acquire one solely 
 for purposes of wall decoration. It 
 would be purchased as a specimen of 
 art and not as furnishing. 
 
 Yet I know one instance of a library 
 where a genuine old foliage tapestry 
 has been cut and fitted to the walls 
 and between bookcases and doors, 
 where the wood of the room is in 
 mahogany, and a great chimney-piece 
 of Caen stone of Richardson's design- 
 ing fills nearly one side of the room. 
 Of course the tapestry is unapproach- 
 able in elFect in this particular place 
 and with its surroundings. It has the 
 richness and softness of velvet, and 
 the red of the mahogany doors and 
 furniture finds exactly its foil in the 
 blue greens and soft browns of the 
 web, while the polished floor and 
 velvety antique rugs bring all the 
 richness of the walls down to one's 
 
98 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 feet and to the hearth with its glow of 
 fire. But this particular room hardly 
 makes an example for general follow- 
 ing. It is really a house of state, a 
 house without children, one in which 
 public life predominates. 
 
 There is a very flagrant far-away 
 imitation of tapestry which is so far 
 from being good that it is a wonder 
 it has had even a moderate success, 
 imitation which does not even at- 
 tempt the decorative efi*ect of the 
 genuine, but substitutes upon an ad- 
 mirably woven cotton or woollen can- 
 vas, figure panels, copied from mod- 
 ern French masters, and suggestive of 
 nothing but bad art. Yet these panels 
 are sometimes used (and in fact are 
 produced for the purpose of being 
 used) precisely as a genuine tapestry 
 would be, although the very fact of 
 pretence in them, brings a feeling 
 of untruth, quite at variance with the 
 principles of all good art. The ob- 
 
WALLS, CEILINGS, AND FLOORS 99 
 
 jection to pictures transferred to tap- 
 estries holds good, even when the 
 tapestries are genuine. 
 
 The great cartoons of Raphael, 
 still to be seen in the Kensington 
 Museum, which were drawn and col- 
 oured for Flemish weavers to copy, 
 show a perfect adaptation to the me- 
 dium of weaving, while the paintings 
 in the Vatican by the same great 
 master are entirely inappropriate to 
 textile reproduction. 
 
 A picture cannot be transposed to 
 different substance and purpose with- 
 out losing the qualities which make 
 it valuable. The double effort to be 
 both a tapestry and a picture is futile, 
 and brings into disrepute a simple art 
 of imitation which might become re- 
 spectable if its capabilities were right- 
 ly used. 
 
 No one familiar with collections of 
 tapestries can fail to recognise the 
 largeness and simplicity of treatment 
 
loo PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 peculiar to tapestry subjects as con- 
 trasted with the elaboration of pict- 
 ures. 
 
 If we grant that in this modern 
 world of hurry, imitation of tapestries 
 is legitimate, the important question 
 is, what are the best subjects, and 
 what is the best use for such imita- 
 tions ? 
 
 The best use is undoubtedly that 
 of wall-covering; and that was, in- 
 deed, the earliest object for which 
 they were created. They were woven 
 to cover great empty spaces of un- 
 sightly masonry; and they are still in- 
 finitely useful and beautiful in grand 
 apartments whose barren spaces are 
 too large for modern pictures, and 
 which need the disguise of a sugges- 
 tion of scenery or pictorial subject. 
 
 If tapestries must be painted, let 
 them by all means follow the style of 
 the ancient verdure or foliage tapes- 
 tries, and be used for the same pur- 
 
WALLS, CEILINGS, AND FLOORS loi 
 
 pose — to cover an otherwise blank 
 wall. This is legitimate, and even 
 beautiful, but it is painting, and should 
 be frankly acknowledged to be such, 
 and no attempt made to have them 
 masquerade as genuine and costly 
 weavings. It is simply and always 
 painting, although in the style and 
 spirit of early tapestrieso Productions 
 of this sort, where real skill in textile 
 painting is used, are quite worthy of 
 admiration and respect. 
 
 I remember seeing, in the Swedish 
 exhibit of women's work in the 
 Woman's Building at the Columbian 
 Exposition, a screen which had evi- 
 dently been copied from an old bit 
 of verdure tapestry. At the base 
 were broad-leaved water-plants, each 
 leaf carefully copied in blocks and 
 patches of colour, with even the ef- 
 fect of the little empty space — where 
 one thread passes to the back in 
 weaving, to make room for one of 
 
I02 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 another colour brought forward — 
 imitated by a dot of black to simu- 
 late the tiny shadow-filled pen-point 
 of a hole. 
 
 Now whether this was art or not I 
 leave to French critics to decide, but 
 it was at least admirable imitation ; 
 and any one able to cover the wall 
 spaces between bookcases in a library 
 with such imitation would find them 
 as richly set as if it were veritable 
 tapestry. 
 
 This is a very different thing from 
 a painted tapestry, perhaps enlarged 
 from a photograph or engraving of 
 a painting the original of which the 
 tapestry-painter had never even seen 
 — the destiny of which unfortunate 
 copy, changed in size, colour, and all 
 the qualities which gave value to the 
 original, is probably to be hung as a 
 picture in the centre of a space of 
 wall-paper totally antagonistic in 
 colour. 
 
WALLS, CEILINGS, AND FLOORS 103 
 
 When I see these things I long to 
 curb the ambition of the unfortunate 
 tapestry-painter until a course of 
 study has taught him or her the proper 
 use of a really useful process ; for 
 whether the object is to produce a 
 decoration or a simulated tapestry, it 
 is not attained by these methods. 
 
 The ordinary process of painting 
 in dyes upon a wool or linen fabric 
 woven in tapestry method, and fix- 
 ing the colour with heat, enables the 
 painter — if a true tapestry subject is 
 chosen and tapestry effects carefully 
 studied — to produce really effective 
 and good things, and this opens a 
 much larger field to the woman dec- 
 orator than the ordinary unstudied 
 shams which have thrown what might 
 become in time a large and useful art- 
 industry into neglect and disrepute. 
 
 I have seen the walls of a library 
 hung with Siberian linen, stained in 
 landscape design in the old blues and 
 
104 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 greens which give tapestry its decora- 
 tive value, and found it a delightful 
 wall-covering. Indeed we may lay 
 it down as a principle in decoration 
 that while we may use and adapt any 
 decorative effect we must not attempt 
 to make it pass for the thing which 
 suggested the effect. 
 
 Coarse and carefully woven linens, 
 used as I have indicated, are really far 
 better than old tapestries for mod- 
 ern houses, because the design can be 
 adapted to the specific purpose and 
 the texture itself can be easily cleaned 
 and is more appropriate to the close 
 walls and less airy rooms of this cen- 
 tury. 
 
 For costly wall-decoration, leather 
 is another of the substances which 
 have had a past of pomp and mag- 
 nificence, and carries with it, in addi- 
 tion to beauty, a suggestion of the art 
 of a race. Spanish leather, with its 
 stamping and gilding, is quite as costly 
 
WALLS, CEILINGS, AND FLOORS loj 
 
 a wall covering as antique or modern 
 tapestry, and far more indestructible. 
 Perhaps it is needlessly durable as a 
 mere vehicle for decoration. At all 
 events Japanese artists and artisans 
 seem to be of this opinion, and have 
 transferred the same kind of decora- 
 tion to heavy paper, where for some 
 occult reason. — although strongly sim- 
 ulating leather — it seems not only not 
 objectionable, but even meritorious. 
 This is because it simply transfers an 
 artistic method from a costly sub- 
 stance, to another which is less so, 
 and the fact may even have some 
 weight that paper is a product of 
 human manufacture, instead of hu- 
 man appropriation of animal life, for 
 surely sentiment has its influence in 
 decoration as in other arts. 
 
 Wood panelling is also a form of 
 interior treatment which has come to 
 us by inheritance from the past as 
 well as by right of natural possession. 
 
io6 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 It has a richness and sober dignity of 
 effect which commends it in large or 
 small interiors, in halls, libraries, and 
 dining-rooms, whether they are pub- 
 lic or private ; devoted to grand 
 functions, or to the constantly re- 
 curring uses of domesticity. Wood 
 is so beautiful a substance in itself, 
 and lends itself to so many processes 
 of ornamentation, that hardly too 
 much can be said of its appropriate- 
 ness for interior decoration. From 
 the two extremes of plain pine panel- 
 lings cut into squares or parallelo- 
 grams by machinery, and covered 
 with paint in tints to match door 
 and window casings, to the most 
 elaborate carvings which back the 
 Cathedral stalls or seats of ecclesi- 
 astical dignity, it is always beautiful 
 and generally appropriate in use and 
 effect, and that can hardly be said 
 of any other substance. There are 
 wainscotted rooms in old houses in 
 
PAINTED CANVAS FRIEZE 
 
 BUCKRAM FRIEZE FOR DINING-ROOM 
 
WALLS, CEILINGS, AND FLOORS lo; 
 
 Newport, where, under the accumu- 
 lated paint of one or two centuries, 
 great panels of old Spanish mahogany 
 can still be found, not much the 
 worse for their long eclipse. Such 
 rooms, in the original brilliancy of 
 colour and polish, with their parallel 
 shadings of mahogany-red reflecting 
 back the firelight from tiled chimney- 
 places and scattering the play of 
 dancing flame, must have had a 
 beauty of colour hard to match in 
 this day of sober oak and painted 
 wainscottings. 
 
 One of the lessons gained by ex- 
 perience in treatment of house in- 
 teriors, is that plain, flat tints give 
 apparent size to small rooms, and 
 that a satisfying efi'ect in large ones 
 can be gained by variation of tint or 
 surface ; also, that in a bedroom or 
 other small room apparent size will 
 be gained by using a wall covering 
 which is light rather than dark. Some 
 
io8 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 difFerence of tone there must be in 
 large plain surfaces which lie within 
 the level of the eye ; or the monot- 
 ony of a room becomes fatiguing. 
 A plain, painted wall may, it is true, 
 be broken by pictures, or cabinets, or 
 bits of china ; anything in short 
 which will throw parts of it into 
 shadow, and illumine other parts 
 with gilded reflections ; but even 
 then there will be long, plain spaces 
 above the picture or cabinet line, 
 where blank monotony of tone will 
 be fatal to the general effect of the 
 room. 
 
 It is in this upper space, upon a 
 plain painted wall, that a broad line 
 of flat decoration should occur, but 
 on a wall hung with paper or cloth, 
 it is by no means necessary. 
 
 Damasked cloths, where the design 
 is shown by the direction of woven 
 threads, are particularly effective and 
 satisfactory as wall-coverings. The 
 
WALLS, CEILINGS, AND FLOORS 109 
 
 soft surface is luxurious to the im- 
 agination, and the play of light and 
 shadow upon the warp and woof in- 
 terests the eye, although there is no 
 actual change of colour. 
 
 Too much stress can hardly be laid 
 upon the variation of tone in wall- 
 surfaces, since the four walls stand for 
 the atmosphere of a room. Tone 
 means quality of colour. It may be 
 light or dark, or of any tint, or varia- 
 tions of tint, but the quality of it 
 must be soft and charitable, instead 
 of harsh and uncompromising. 
 
 Almost the best of modern inven- 
 tions for inexpensive wall-coverings 
 are found in what are called the in- 
 grain papers. These have a variable 
 surface, without reflections, and make 
 not only a soft and impalpable colour 
 efiect, but, on account of their want 
 of reflection, are good backgrounds 
 for pictures. 
 
 In these papers the colour is pro- 
 
no PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 duced by a mixture in the mass of 
 paper pulp of atoms of varying tint, 
 which are combined in the substance 
 and make one general tint resulting 
 from the mixture of several. In can- 
 vases and textiles, which are a more 
 expensive method of producing al- 
 most the same mixed effect, the mi- 
 nute points of brilliance of threads 
 in light and darkness of threads in 
 shadow, combine to produce softness 
 of tone, impossible to pigment be- 
 cause it has but one plain surface, 
 unrelieved by breaking up into light 
 and shadow. 
 
 Variation, produced by minute 
 differences, which affect each other 
 and which the eye blends into a 
 general tone, produce quality. It is 
 at the same time soft and brilliant, 
 and is really a popular adaptation of 
 the philosophy of impressionist paint- 
 ers, whose small dabs of pure colour 
 placed in close juxtaposition and 
 
WALLS, CEILINGS, AND FLOORS in 
 
 fused into one tone by the eye, give 
 the purity and vibration of colour 
 which distinguishes work of that 
 school. 
 
 Some skilful painters can stipple 
 one tone upon another so as to pro- 
 duce the same brilliant softness of 
 effect, and when this can be done, 
 oil-colour upon plaster is the best of 
 all treatment for bedrooms since it 
 fulfils all the sanitary and other con- 
 ditions so necessary in sleeping-rooms. 
 The same effect may be produced if 
 the walls are of rough instead of 
 smooth plaster, so that the small in- 
 equalities of surface give light and 
 shadow as in textiles ; upon such sur- 
 faces a pleasant tint in flat colour is 
 always good. Painted burlaps and 
 certain Japanese papers prepared with 
 what may be called a textile or can- 
 vas surface give the same effect, and 
 indeed quality of tint and tone is far 
 more easily obtained in wall-cover- 
 
112 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 ings or applied materials than in paint, 
 because in most wall-coverings there 
 are variations of tint produced in the 
 very substance of the material. 
 
 This matter of variation without 
 contrast in wall-surface, is one of the 
 most important in house decoration, 
 and has led to the increased use of 
 textiles in houses where artistic effects 
 have been carefully studied and are 
 considered of importance. 
 
 Of course wall-paper must continue 
 to be the chief means of wall-cover- 
 ing, on account of its cheapness, and 
 because it is the readiest means of 
 sheathing a plaster surface ; and a 
 continuous demand for papers of 
 good and nearly uniform colour, and 
 the sort of inconspicuous design 
 which fits them for modest interiors 
 will have the effect of increasing 
 the manufacture of desirable and ar- 
 tistic things. 
 
 In the meantime one should care- 
 
WALLS, CEILINGS, AND FLOORS iij 
 
 fully avoid the violently coloured 
 papers which are made only to sell; 
 materials which catch the eye of the 
 inexperienced and tempt them into 
 the buying of things which are pro- 
 ductive of lasting unrest. It is in the 
 nature of positive masses and strongly 
 contrasting colours to produce this 
 effect. 
 
 If one is unfortunate enough to 
 occupy a room of which the walls are 
 covered with one of these glaring de- 
 signs, and circumstances prevent a 
 radical change, the simplest expedient 
 is to cover the whole surface with a 
 kalsomine or chalk-wash, of some 
 agreeable tint. This will dry in an 
 hour or two and present a nearly 
 uniform surface, in which the printed 
 design of the paper, if it appears at 
 all, will be a mere suggestion. Papers 
 where the design is carried in colour 
 only a few shades darker than the 
 background, are also safe, and — if 
 
114 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 the design is a good one — often very 
 desirable for halls and dining-rooms. 
 In skilfully printed papers of the sort 
 the design often has the effect of a 
 mere shadow-play of form. 
 
 Of course in the infinite varieties 
 of use and the numberless variations 
 of personal taste, there are, and should 
 be, innumerable differences in appli- 
 cation of both colour and materials 
 to interiors. There are differences in 
 the use of rooms which may make a 
 sense of perfect seclusion desirable, as, 
 for instance, in libraries, or rooms 
 used exclusively for evening gather- 
 ings of the family. In such semi- 
 private rooms the treatment should 
 give a sense of close family life rather 
 than space, while in drawing-rooms 
 it should be exactly the reverse, and 
 this effect is easily secured by com- 
 petent use of colour. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 LOCATION OF THE HOUSE 
 
 "DESIDES the difFerence in treat- 
 ment demanded by different use 
 of rooms — the character of the deco- 
 ration of the whole house will be in- 
 fluenced by its situation. A house 
 in the country or a house in town ; 
 a house by the sea-shore or a house 
 situated in woods and fields require 
 stronger or less strong colour, and 
 even different tints, according to situ- 
 ation. The decoration itself may be 
 much less conventional in one place 
 than in another, and in country 
 houses much and lasting charm is 
 derived from design and colour in 
 perfect harmony with nature's sur- 
 roundings. Whatever decorative de- 
 sign is used in wall-coverings or in 
 curtains or hangings will be far more 
 
n6 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 efFective if it bears some relation to 
 the surroundings and position of the 
 house. 
 
 If the nouse is by the sea the walls 
 should repeat with many variations 
 the tones of sea and sand and sky; 
 the gray-greens of sand-grasses ; the 
 blues which change from blue to green 
 with every cloud-shadow ; the pearl 
 tints which become rose in the morn- 
 ing or evening light, and the browns 
 and olives of sea mosses and lichens. 
 This treatment of colour will make 
 the interior of the house a part of 
 the great out-of-doors and create a 
 harmony between the artificial shel- 
 ter and nature. 
 
 There is philosophy in following, 
 as far as the limitations of simple 
 colour will allow, the changeableness 
 and fluidity of natural eff'ects along 
 the shore, and allowing the mood of 
 the brief summer life to fall into 
 entire harmony with the dominant 
 
LOCATION OF THE HOUSE 117 
 
 expression of the sea. Blues and 
 greens and pinks and browns should 
 all be kept on a level with out-of- 
 door colour, that is, they should not 
 be too deep and strong for harmony 
 with the sea and sky, and if, when 
 harmonious colour is once secured, 
 most of the materials used in the 
 furnishing of the house are chosen 
 because their design is based upon, or 
 suggested by, sea-forms, an impression 
 is produced of having entered into 
 complete and perfect harmony with 
 the elements and aspects of nature. 
 The artificialities of life fall more and 
 more into the background, and one 
 is refreshed with a sense of having 
 established entirely harmonious and 
 satisfactory relations with the sur- 
 roundings of nature. I remember a 
 doorway of a cottage by the sea, 
 where the moulding which made a 
 part of the frame was an orderly line 
 of carved cockle-shells, used as a bor- 
 
ii8 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 der, and this little touch of recog- 
 nition of its sea-neighbours was not 
 only decorative in itself, but gave 
 even the chance visitor a sort of in- 
 terpretation of the spirit of the in- 
 terior life. 
 
 Suppose, on the other hand, that 
 the summer house is placed in the 
 neighbourhood of fields and trees and 
 mountains; it will be found that 
 strong and positive treatment of the 
 interior is more in harmony with the 
 outside landscape. Even heavier fur- 
 niture looks fitting where the house is 
 surrounded with massive tree-growths ; 
 and deeper and purer colours can be 
 used in hangings and draperies. This 
 is due to the more positive colouring 
 of a landscape than of a sea-view. 
 The masses of strong and slightly 
 varying green in foliage, the red, 
 brown, or vivid greens of fields and 
 crops, the dark, lines of tree-trunks 
 and branches, as well as the unchang- 
 
LOCATION OF THE HOUSE 119 
 
 ing forms of rock and hillside, call 
 for a corresponding strength of in- 
 terior eiFect. 
 
 It is a curious fact, also, that where 
 a house is surrounded by myriads of 
 small natural forms of leaves and 
 flowers and grasses, plain spaces of 
 colour in interiors, or spaces where 
 form is greatly subordinated to col- 
 our, are more grateful to the eye 
 than prominently decorated surface. 
 A repetition of small natural forms 
 like the shells and sea-mosses, which 
 are for the most part hidden under 
 lengths of liquid blue, is pleasing and 
 suggestive by the sea ; but in the 
 country, where form is prominent 
 and positive and prints itself con- 
 stantly upon both mental and bodily 
 vision, unbroken colour surfaces are 
 found to be far more agreeable. 
 
 It will be seen that the principles 
 of appropriate furnishing and adorn- 
 ment in house interiors depend upon 
 
izo PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 circumstances and natural surround- 
 ings as well as upon the character 
 and pursuits of the family who are to 
 be lodged, and that the final charm 
 of the home is attained by a perfect 
 adaptation of principles to existing 
 conditions both of nature and hu- 
 manity. 
 
 In cottages of the character we are 
 considering, furniture should be sim- 
 pler and lighter than in houses in- 
 tended for constant family living. 
 Chairs and sofas should be without 
 elaborate upholstery and hangings, and 
 cushions can be appropriately made of 
 some well-coloured cotton or linen 
 material which wind, and sun, and 
 dampness cannot spoil, and of which 
 the freshness can always be restored by 
 laundering. These are general rules, 
 appropriate to all summer cottages, 
 and to these it may be added, that a 
 house which is to be closed for six or 
 eight months in the year should really. 
 
LOCATION OF THE HOUSE 121 
 
 to be consistent, be inexpensively fur- 
 nished. These general rules are in- 
 tended only to emphasise the fact 
 that in houses which are to become 
 in the truest sense homes — that is, 
 places of habitation which represent 
 the inhabitants, directions or rules for 
 beautiful colour and arrangement of 
 interiors, must always follow the guid- 
 ing incidents of class and locality. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 CEILINGS 
 
 A S ceilings are in reality a part of 
 the wall, they must always be 
 considered in connection with room 
 interiors, but their influence upon the 
 beauty of the average house is so 
 small, that their treatment is a com- 
 paratively easy problem. 
 
 In simple houses with plaster ceil- 
 ings the tints to be used are easily 
 decided. The rule of gradation of 
 colour from floor to ceiling prescribes 
 for the latter the lightest tone of the 
 gradation, and as the ceiling stands 
 for light, and should actually reflect 
 light into the room, the philosophy 
 of this arrangement of colours is ob- 
 vious. It is not, however, an invari- 
 able rule that the ceiling should carry 
 the same tint as the wall, even in a 
 
CEILINGS 123 
 
 much lighter tone, although greater 
 harmony and restfulness of effect is 
 produced in this way. A ceiling of 
 cream white will harmonise well with 
 almost any tint upon the wails, and 
 at the same time give an effect of air 
 and light in the room. It is also a 
 good ground for ornament in elabo- 
 rately decorated ones. 
 
 If the walls are covered with a 
 light wall-paper which carries a floral 
 design, it is a safe rule to make the 
 ceiling of the same colour but a 
 lighter shade of the background of 
 the paper, but it is not by any 
 means good art to carry a flower de- 
 sign over the ceiling. One sometimes 
 sees instances of this in the bedrooms 
 of fairly good houses, and the effect 
 is naturally that of bringing the ceil- 
 ing apparently almost to one's head, 
 or at all events, of producing a very 
 unrestful effect. 
 
 A wood ceiling in natural colour 
 
124 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 is always a good feature in a room of 
 defined or serious purpose, like a hall, 
 dining-room, or library, because in 
 such rooms the colour of the side 
 walls is apt to be strong enough to 
 balance it. Indeed a wooden ceiling 
 has always the merit of being secure 
 in its place, and even where the walls 
 are light can be painted so as to be 
 in harmony with them. Plaster as a 
 ceiling for bedrooms is open to the 
 objection of a possibility of its de- 
 taching itself from the lath, especially 
 in old houses, and in these it is well 
 to have them strengthened with flat 
 mouldings of wood put on in regular 
 squares, or even in some geometrical 
 design, and painted with the ceiling. 
 This gives security as well as a cer- 
 tain elaborateness of effect not with- 
 out its value. 
 
 For the ordinary, or comparatively 
 inexpensive home, we need not con- 
 sider the ceiling an object for serious 
 
CEILINGS izs 
 
 Study, because it is so constantly out 
 of the line of sight, and because its 
 natural colourless condition is no bar 
 to the general colour-effect. 
 
 In large rooms this condition is 
 changed, for in a long perspective 
 the ceiling comes into sight and con- 
 sciousness. There would be a sense 
 of barrenness and poverty in a long 
 stretch of plain surface or unbroken 
 colour over a vista of decorated wall, 
 and accordingly the ceilings of large 
 and important rooms are generally 
 broken by plaster mouldings or archi- 
 tectural ornament. 
 
 In rooms of this kind, whether in 
 public or private buildings, decorative 
 painting has its proper and appro- 
 priate place. A painted ceiling, no 
 matter how beautiful, is quite super- 
 fluous and indeed absolutely lost in a 
 room where size prevents its being 
 brought into the field of the eye by 
 the lowering of long perspective lines, 
 
126 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 but when the size of the room gives 
 unusual length of ceiling, no effect of 
 decoration is so valuable and pre- 
 cious. Colour and gilding upon a 
 ceiling, when well sustained by fine 
 composition or treatment, is undoubt- 
 edly the highest and best achievement 
 of the decorative painter's art. 
 
 Such a ceiling in a large and stately 
 drawing-room, where the walls are 
 hung with silk which gives broken 
 indications of graceful design in play 
 of light upon the texture, is one of 
 the most successful of both modern 
 as well as antique methods of deco- 
 ration. It has come down in direct 
 succession of practice to the school of 
 French decoration of to-day, and has 
 been adopted into American fashion 
 in its full and complete practice with- 
 out sufficient adaptation to American 
 circumstances. If it were modified 
 by these, it is capable of absorbing 
 other and better qualities than those 
 
CEILINGS 127 
 
 of mere fashion and brilliance, as we 
 see in occasional instances in some 
 beautiful American houses, where the 
 ceilings have been painted, and the 
 textiles woven with an almost im- 
 aginative appropriateness . of subject. 
 Such ceilings as this belong, of course, 
 to the efforts of the mural or decora- 
 tive painter, who, in conjunction with 
 the decorator, or architect, has studied 
 the subject as connected with its sur- 
 roundings. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 FLOORS AND FLOOR-COVERINGS 
 
 A LTHOUGH in ordinary sequence 
 the colouring of floors comes 
 after that of walls, the fact that — in 
 important houses — costly and elabo- 
 rate floors of mosaic or of inlaid 
 wood form part of the architect's plan, 
 makes it necessary to consider the 
 effect of inherent or natural colours 
 of such floors, in connection with 
 applied colour-schemes in rooms. 
 
 Mosaic floors, being as a rule con- 
 fined to halls in private houses, need 
 hardly be considered in this relation, 
 and costly wood floors are almost 
 necessarily confined to the yellows 
 of the natural woods. These yellows 
 range from pale buff to olive, and are 
 not as a rule inharmonious with any 
 
 other tint, although they often lack 
 
 12S 
 
FLOORS AND FLOOR-COVERINGS 129 
 
 sufficient strength or intensity to hold 
 their own with stronger tints of walls 
 and furniture. 
 
 As it is one of the principles of 
 colour in a house that the floor is the 
 foundation of the room, this weak- 
 ness of colour in hard-wood floors 
 must be acknowledged as a disadvan- 
 tage. The floors should certainly be 
 able to support the room in colour 
 as well as in construction. It must 
 be the strongest tint in the room, and 
 yet it must have the unobtrusiveness 
 of strength. This makes floor treat- 
 merit a more difficult problem, or 
 one requiring more thought than is 
 generally supposed, and explains why 
 light rooms are more successful with 
 hard-wood floors than medium or 
 very dark ones. 
 
 There are many reasons, sanitary 
 as well as economic, why hard-wood 
 floors should not be covered in or- 
 dinary dwelling-houses ; and when 
 
I30 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 the pores of the wood are properly 
 filled, and the surface kept well pol- 
 ished, it is not only good as a fact, 
 but as an effect, as it reflects sur- 
 rounding tints, and does much to 
 make up for lack of sympathetic or 
 related colour. Yet it will be found 
 that in almost every case of success- 
 ful colour-treatment in a room, some- 
 thing must be added in the way of 
 floori-covering to give it the sense of 
 completeness and satisfaction which 
 is the result of a successful scheme 
 of decoration. 
 
 The simplest way of doing this is 
 to cover enough of the space with 
 rugs to attract the eye, and restore 
 the balance lost by want of strength 
 of colour in the wood. Sometimes 
 one or two small rugs will do this, 
 and these may be of almost any tint 
 which includes the general one of the 
 room, even if the general tint is not 
 prominent in the rug. If the use or 
 
FLOORS AND FLOOR-COVERINGS 131 
 
 luxury of the room requires more 
 covered space, it is better to use one 
 rug of a larger size than several small 
 and perhaps conflicting ones. Of 
 course in this the general tone of the 
 rug must be chosen for its afiinity 
 to the tone of the room, but that 
 ^fiinity secured, any variations of 
 colour occurring in the design are 
 apt to add to the general efi'ect. 
 
 A certain amount of contrast to 
 prevailing colour is an advantage, and 
 the general value of rugs in a scheme 
 of decoration is that they furnish this 
 contrast in small masses or divisions, 
 so well worked in with other tints 
 and tones that it makes its effect 
 without opposition to the general 
 plan. 
 
 Thus, in a room where the walls 
 are of a pale shade of copper, the 
 rugs should bring in a variety of reds 
 which would be natural parts of the 
 same scale, like lower notes in the 
 
132 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 octave; and yet should add patches 
 of relative blues and harmonising 
 greens ; possibly also, deep gold, and 
 black and white; — the latter in mi- 
 nute forms and lines which only ac- 
 cent or enrich the general eifect. 
 
 It is really an interesting problem, 
 why the strong colours generally used 
 in Oriental rugs should harmonise so 
 much better with weaker tints in 
 walls and furniture than even the 
 most judiciously selected carpets can 
 possibly do. It is true there are bad 
 Oriental rugs, very bad ones, just as 
 there may be a villain in any con- 
 gregation of the righteous, but cer- 
 tainly the long centuries of Eastern 
 manufacture, reaching back to the 
 infancy of the world, have given 
 Eastern nations secrets not to be 
 easily mastered by the people of later 
 days. 
 
 But if we cannot tell with cer- 
 tainty why good rugs fit all places 
 
FLOORS AND FLOOR-COVERINGS 133 
 
 and circumstances, while any other 
 thing of mortal manufacture must 
 have its place carefully prepared for 
 it, we may perhaps assume to know 
 why the most beautiful of modern 
 carpets are not as easily managed and 
 as successful. 
 
 In the first place having explained 
 that some contrast, some fillip of 
 opposing colour, something which 
 the artist calls snapy is absolutely re- 
 quired in every successful colour 
 scheme, we shall see that if we are 
 to get this by simple means of a car- 
 pet, we must choose one which 
 carries more than one colour in its 
 composition, and colour introduced 
 as design must come under the laws 
 of mechanical manufacture ; that is, 
 it must come in as repeating design, 
 and here comes in the real difficulty. 
 The same forms and the same col- 
 ours must come in in the same way 
 in every yard, or every half or three- 
 
134 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 quarter yard of the carpet. It fol- 
 lows, then, that it must be evenly 
 sprinkled or it must regularly mean- 
 der over every yard or half yard of 
 the surface ; and this regularity re- 
 solves itself into spots, and spots are 
 unendurable in a scheme of colour. 
 So broad a space as the floor of a 
 room cannot be covered by sections 
 of constantly repeated design without 
 producing a spotty effect, although it 
 can be somewhat modified by the 
 efforts of the good designer. Never- 
 theless, in spite of his best knowledge 
 and intention, the difiiculty remains. 
 There is no one patch of colour 
 larger than another, or more irregu- 
 lar in form. There is nothing which 
 has not its exact counterpart at an 
 exact distance — north, south, east 
 and west, or northeast, southeast, 
 northwest and southwest — and this 
 is why a carpet with good design and 
 excellent colour becomes unbearable 
 
FLOORS AND FLOOR-COVERINGS 135 
 
 in a room of large size. In a small 
 room where there are not so many 
 repeats, the efFect is not as bad, but 
 in a large room the monotonous 
 repetition is almost without remedy. 
 
 Of course there are certain laws of 
 optics and ingenuities of composition 
 which may palliate this efFect, but 
 the fact remains that the floor should 
 be covered in a way which will leave 
 the mind tranquil and the eye satis- 
 fied, and this is hard to accomplish 
 with what is commonly known as a 
 figured carpet. 
 
 If carpet is to be used, it seems, 
 then, that the simplest way is to 
 select a good monochrome in the 
 prevailing tint of the room, but sev- 
 eral shades darker. Not an abso- 
 lutely plain surface, but one broken 
 with some unobtrusive design or pat- 
 tern in still darker darks and lighter 
 lights than the general tone. In this 
 case we shall have the room har- 
 
136 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 monious, it is true, but lacking the 
 element which provokes admiration 
 — the enlivening eiFect of contrast. 
 This may be secured by making the 
 centre or main part of the carpet 
 comparatively small, and using a very 
 wide and important border of con- 
 trasting colour — a border so wide as 
 to make itself an important part of 
 the carpet. In large rooms this plan 
 does not entirely obviate the diffi- 
 culty, as it leaves the central space 
 still too large and impressive to re- 
 main unbroken ; but the remedy 
 may be found in the use of hearth- 
 rugs or skin-rugs, so placed as to 
 seem necessities of use. 
 
 As I have said before, contrast on 
 a broad scale can be secured by 
 choosing carpets of an entirely differ- 
 ent tone from the wall, and this is 
 sometimes expedient. For instance, 
 as contrast to a copper-coloured wall, 
 a softly toned green carpet is nearly 
 
FLOORS AND FLOOR-COVERINGS 137 
 
 always successful. This one colour, 
 green, is always safe and satisfactory 
 in a floor-covering, provided the 
 walls are not too strong in tone, and 
 provided that the green in the carpet 
 is not too green. Certain brownish 
 greens possess the quality of being in 
 harmony with every other colour. 
 They are the most peaceable shades 
 in the colour-world — the only ones 
 without positive antipathies. Green 
 in all the paler tones can claim the 
 title of peace-maker among colours, 
 since all the other tints will fight 
 with something else, but never with 
 green of a corresponding or even of 
 a much greater strength. Of course 
 this valuable quality, combined with 
 a natural restfulness of effect, makes 
 it the safest of ordinary floor-cover- 
 ings. 
 
 In bedrooms with polished floors 
 and light walls good colour-effects 
 can be secured without carpets, but 
 
138 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 if the floors are of pine and need 
 covering, no better general eifect can 
 be secured than that of plain or 
 mixed ingrain filling, using with it 
 Oriental hearth and bedside rugs. 
 
 The entire second floor of a house 
 can in that case be covered with 
 carpet in the accommodating tint of 
 green mentioned, leaving the various 
 colour-connections to be made with 
 differently tinted rugs. Good pine 
 floors well fitted and finished can 
 be stained to harmonise with almost 
 any tint used in furniture or upon 
 the wall. 
 
 I remember a sea-side chamber in 
 a house where the mistress had great 
 natural decorative ability, and so much 
 cultivation as to prevent its running 
 away with her, where the floor was 
 stained a transparent olive, like depths 
 of sea-water, and here and there a 
 floating sea-weed, or a form of sea- 
 life faintly outlined within the col- 
 
FLOORS AND FLOOR-COVERINGS 139 
 
 our. In this room, which seemed 
 wide open to the sea and air, even 
 when the windows were closed, the 
 walls were of a faint greenish blue, 
 like what is called dead turquoise, 
 and the relation between floor and 
 walls was so perfect that it remained 
 with me to this day as a crowning in- 
 stance of satisfaction in colour. 
 
 It is perhaps more difficult to con- 
 vey an idea of happy choice or selec- 
 tion of floor-colour than of walls, 
 because it is relative to walls. It 
 must relate to what has already been 
 done. But in recapitulation it is 
 safe to say, first, that in choosing 
 colour for a room, soft and medium 
 tints are better than positively dark 
 or bright ones, and that walls should 
 be unobtrusive in design as well as 
 colour ; secondly, that floors, if of the 
 same tint as walls, should be much 
 darker ; and that they should be made 
 apparent by means of this strength of 
 
I40 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 colour, or by the addition of rugs or 
 borders, although the relation be- 
 tween walls and floor must be care- 
 fully preserved and perfectly unmis- 
 takable, for it is the perfection of this 
 relation of one colour to another 
 which makes home decoration an art. 
 There is still a word to be said as 
 to floor-coverings, which relates to 
 healthful housekeeping instead of 
 art, and that is, that in all cases 
 where carpets or mattings are used, 
 they should be in rug form, not fitted 
 in to irregular floor-spaces ; so as to 
 be frequently and easily lifted and 
 cleaned. The great, and indeed the 
 only, objection to the use of mattings 
 in country or summer houses, is the 
 difiiculty of frequent lifting, and re- 
 moval of accumulated dust, which 
 has sifted through to the floor — but 
 if fine hemp-warp mattings are used, 
 and sewn into squares which cover 
 the floor sufficiently, it is an ideal 
 
FLOORS AND FLOOR-COVERINGS 141 
 
 summer floor-covering, as it can be 
 rolled and removed even more easily 
 than a carpet, and there is a dust- 
 shedding quality in it which com- 
 mends itself to the housekeeper. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 DRAPERIES 
 
 "TJRAPERIES are not always con- 
 sidered as a part of furnishings, 
 yet in truth — as far as decorative ne- 
 cessities are concerned — they should 
 come immediately after wall and floor 
 coverings. The householder who is 
 in haste to complete the arrange- 
 ment of the home naturally thinks first 
 of chairs, sofas, and tables, because 
 they come into immediate personal 
 use, but if draperies are recognised 
 as a necessary part of the beauty of 
 the house it is worth while to study 
 their appropriate character from the 
 first. They have in truth much more 
 to do with the effect of the room 
 than chairs or sofas, since these are 
 speedily sat upon and pass out of 
 
 142 
 
DRAPERIES 143 
 
 notice, while draperies or portiferes 
 are in the nature of pictures — hang- 
 ing in everybody's sight. As far as 
 the element of beauty is concerned, a 
 room having good colour, attractive 
 and interesting pictures, and beautiful 
 draperies, is already furnished. What- 
 ever else goes to the making of it 
 may be also beautiful, but it must be 
 convenient and useful, while in the 
 selection of draperies, beauty, both 
 relative and positive, is quite untram- 
 melled. 
 
 As in all other furnishings, from 
 the aesthetic point of view colour is 
 the first thing to be considered. As 
 a rule it should follow that of the 
 walls, a continuous effect of colour 
 with variation of form and surface be- 
 ing a valuable and beautiful thing to 
 secure. To give the full value of 
 variation — where the walls are plain 
 one should choose a figured stuff for 
 curtains ; where the wall is papered. 
 
144 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 or covered with figures, a plain ma- 
 terial should be used. 
 
 There is one exception to this 
 rule and this is in the case of walls 
 hung with damask. Here it is best 
 to use the same material for curtains, 
 as the effect is obtained by the differ- 
 ence between the damask hung in 
 folds, with the design indistinguish- 
 able, or stretched flat upon a wall- 
 surface, where it is plainly to be seen 
 and felt. Even where damask is used 
 upon the walls, if exactly the same 
 shade of colour can be found in satin 
 or velvet, the plain material in drap- 
 ery will enhance the value of design 
 on the walls. 
 
 This choice or selection of colour 
 applies to curtains and portieres as 
 simple adjuncts of furnishing, and not 
 to such pieces of drapery as are in 
 themselves works of art. When a 
 textile becomes a work of art it is in 
 a measure a law unto itself, and has 
 
DRAPERIES 14S 
 
 as much right to select its own col- 
 our as if it were a picture instead of 
 a portiere, in fact if it is sufficiently 
 important, the room must follow in- 
 stead of leading. This may happen 
 in the case of some priceless old 
 embroidery, some relic of that peace- 
 ful past, when hours and days flowed 
 contentedly into a scheme of art and 
 beauty, without a thought of com- 
 petitive manufacture. It might be 
 difficult to subdue the spirit of a 
 modern drawing-room into harmony 
 with such a work of art, but if it 
 were done, it would be a very shrine 
 of restfulness to the spirit. 
 
 Fortunately many ancient marvels 
 of needlework were done upon white 
 satin, and this makes them easily 
 adaptable to any light scheme of col- 
 our, where they may appear indeed 
 as guests of honour — invited from 
 the past to be courted by the pres- 
 ent. It is not often that such pieces 
 
146 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 are offered as parts of a scheme of 
 modern decoration, and the fingers 
 of to-day are too busy or too idle for 
 their creation, yet it sometimes hap- 
 pens that a valuable piece of drapery 
 of exceptional colour belongs by in- 
 heritance or purchase to the fortunate 
 householder, and in this case it should 
 be used as a picture would be, for an 
 independent bit of decoration. 
 
 To return to simple things, the rule 
 of contrast as applied to papered walls, 
 covered with design, ordains that the 
 curtains should undoubtedly be plain 
 and of the most pronounced tint 
 used in the paper. If the walls of a 
 room are simply tinted or painted, 
 figured stuffs of the same general 
 tone, or printed silks, velvets, or cot- 
 tons in which the predominant tint 
 corresponds with that of the wall 
 should be used. These relieve the 
 simplicity of the walls, and give the 
 desirable variation. 
 
DRAPERIES 147 
 
 Transparent silk curtains are of 
 great value in colouring the light 
 which enters the room, and these 
 should be used in direct reference to 
 the light. If the room is dark or 
 cold in its exposure, to hang the 
 windows with sun-coloured silk or 
 muslin will cheat the eye and im- 
 agination into the idea that it is a 
 sunny room. If, on the contrary, 
 there is actual sunshine in the room, 
 a pervading tint of rose-colour or 
 delicate green may be given by inner 
 curtains of either of those colours. 
 These are effects, however, for which 
 rules can hardly be given, since the 
 possible variations must be carefully 
 studied, unless, indeed, they are the 
 colour-strokes of some one who has 
 that genius far combination or con- 
 trast of tints which we call " colour 
 
 sense." 
 
 After colour in draperies come 
 texture and quality, and these need 
 
148 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 hardly be discussed in the case of 
 silken fabrics, because silk fibre has 
 inherent qualities of tenacity of tint 
 and flexibility of substance. Pure 
 silk, that is silk unstiffened with 
 gums, no matter how thickly and 
 heavily it is woven, is soft and yield- 
 ing and will fall into folds without 
 sharp angles. This quality of soft- 
 ness is in its very substance. Even 
 a single unwoven thread of silk will 
 drop gracefully into loops, where a 
 cotton or linen or even a woollen 
 thread will show stiffness. 
 
 Woollen fibre seems to acquire 
 softness as it is gathered into yarns 
 and woven, and will hang in folds 
 with almost the same grace as silk; but 
 unfortunately they are favourite past- 
 ure grounds as well as burying-places 
 for moths, and although these co- 
 inhabitants of our houses come to a 
 speedy resurrection, they devour their 
 very graves, and leave our woollen 
 
DRAPERIES 149 
 
 draperies irremediably damaged. It 
 is a pity that woollen fabrics should 
 in this way be made undesirable for 
 household use, for they possess in a 
 great degree the two most valuable 
 qualities of silk : colour-tenacity and 
 flexibility. If one adopts woollen cur- 
 tains and portieres, constant " vigil- 
 ance is the price of safety," and con- 
 sidering that vigilance is required 
 everywhere and at all times in the 
 household, it is best to reduce the 
 quantity whenever it is possible. 
 
 This throws us back upon cottons 
 and linens for inexpensive hangings, 
 and in all the thousand forms in 
 which these tyvo fibres are manufact- 
 ured it would seem easy to choose 
 those which are beautiful, durable, 
 and appropriate. But here we are 
 met at the very threshold of choice 
 with the two undesirable qualities of 
 fugitive colour, and stiffness of text- 
 ure. Something in the nature of 
 
ISO PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 cotton makes it inhospitable to dyes. 
 If it receives them it is with a pro- 
 test, and an evident intention of 
 casting them out at the earliest op- 
 portunity — it makes, it is true, one 
 or two exceptions. It welcomes in- 
 digo dye and will never quite relin- 
 quish its companionship ; once re- 
 ceived, it will carry its colours 
 through all its serviceable life, and 
 when it is finally ready to fall into 
 dust, it is still loyally coloured by its 
 influence. If it is cheated, as we 
 ourselves are apt to be, into accept- 
 ing spurious indigo, made up of 
 chemical preparations, it speedily dis- 
 covers the cheat and refuses its col- 
 ouring. Perhaps this sympathy is 
 due to a vegetable kinship and like- 
 ness of experience, for where cotton 
 will grow, indigo will also flourish. 
 
 In printed cottons or chintzes, 
 there is a reasonable amount of 
 fidelity to colour, and if chintz cur- 
 
DRAPERIES iji 
 
 tains are well chosen, and lined to 
 protect them from the sun, their 
 attractiveness bears a fair proportion 
 to their durability. 
 
 An interlining of some strong and 
 tried colour will give a very soft and 
 subtle daylight effect in a room, but 
 this is, of course, lost in the evening. 
 The expedient of an under colour in 
 curtain linings will sometimes give 
 delightful results in plain or un- 
 printed goods, and sometimes a lining 
 with a strong and bold design will 
 produce a charming shadow effect 
 upon a tinted surface — of course 
 each new experiment must be tried 
 before one can be certain of its effect, 
 and, in fact, there is rather an ex- 
 citing uncertainty as to results. Yet 
 there are infinite possibilities to the 
 householder who has what is called 
 the artistic instinct and the leisure 
 and willingness to experiment, and 
 experiments need not be limited to 
 
1 52 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 prints or to cottons, for wonderful 
 combinations of colour are possible 
 in silks where light is called in as an 
 influence in the composition. One 
 must, however, expect to forego these 
 effects except in daylight, but as arti- 
 ficial light has its own subtleties of 
 effect, the one can be balanced 
 against the other. In my own 
 country-house I have used the two 
 strongest colours — red and blue — in 
 this doubled way, with delightful 
 effect. The blue, which is the face 
 colour, presenting long, pure folds of 
 blue, with warmed reddish shadows 
 between, while at sunset, when the 
 rays of light are level, the variations 
 are like a sunset sky. 
 
 It will be seen by these sugges- 
 tions that careful selection, and some 
 knowledge of the qualities of different 
 dyes, will go far toward modifying 
 the want of permanence of colour 
 and lack of reflection in cottons ; the 
 
DRAPERIES 153 
 
 Other quality of stiffness, or want of 
 flexibility, is occasionally overcome 
 by methods of weaving. Indeed, if 
 the manufacturer or weaver had a 
 clear idea of excellence in this re- 
 spect, undoubtedly the natural in- 
 flexibility of fibre could be greatly 
 overcome. 
 
 There is a place waiting in the 
 world of art and decoration for what 
 in my own mind I call " the missing 
 textile." This is by no means a fabric 
 of cost, for among its other virtues it 
 must possess that of cheapness. To 
 meet an almost universal want it 
 should combine inexpensiveness, dura- 
 bility, softness, and absolute fidelity 
 of colour, and these four qualities are 
 not to be found in any existing tex- 
 tile. Three of them — cheapness, 
 strength, and colour — were possessed 
 by the old-fashioned true indigo-blue 
 denim — the delightful blue which 
 faded into something as near the col- 
 
1 54 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 our of the flower of grass, as dead 
 vegetable material can approach that 
 which is full of living juices — the 
 possession of these three qualities 
 doubled and trebled the amount of its 
 manufacture until it lost one of them 
 by masquerading in aniline indigo. 
 
 Many of our ordinary cotton 
 manufactures are strong and inex- 
 pensive, and a few of them have the 
 flexibility which denim lacks. It was 
 possessed in an almost perfect degree 
 by the Canton, or fleeced, flannels, 
 manufactured so largely a few years 
 ago, and called art-drapery. It 
 lacked colour, however, for the va- 
 rious dyes given to it during its brief 
 period of favouritism were not col- 
 our ; they were merely tint. That 
 strong, good word, colour, could not 
 be applied to the mixed and eva- 
 nescent dyes with which this soft 
 and estimable material clothed itself 
 withal. It was, so to speak, inverte- 
 
DRAPERIES 15; 
 
 brate — it had no backbone. Besides 
 this lack of colour stanchness, it 
 had another fault which helped to 
 overbalance its many virtues. It was 
 fatally attractive to fire. Its soft, 
 fluffy surface seemed to reach out 
 toward flame, and the contact once 
 made, there ensued one flash of in- 
 stantaneous blaze, and the whole 
 surface, no matter if it were a table- 
 cover, a hanging, or the wall covering 
 a room, was totally destroyed. Yet 
 as one must have had or heard of 
 such a disastrous experience to fear 
 and avoid it, this proclivity alone 
 would not have ended its popularity. 
 It was probably the evanescent char- 
 acter of what was called its " art- 
 colour " which ended the career of 
 an estimable material, and if the 
 manufacturers had known how to 
 eliminate its faults and adapt its vir- 
 tues, it might still have been a flour- 
 ishing textile. 
 
156 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 In truth, we do not often stop to 
 analyse the reasons of prolonged 
 popular favour; yet nothing is more 
 certain than that there is reason, and 
 good reason, for fidelity in public 
 taste. Popular liking, if continued, 
 is always founded upon certain in- 
 controvertible virtues. If a manu- 
 facture cannot hold its own for ever 
 in public favour, it is because it fails 
 in some important particular to be 
 what it should be. Products of the 
 loom must have lasting virtues if they 
 would secure lasting esteem. Blue 
 denim had its hold upon public use 
 principally for the reason that it pos- 
 sessed a colour superior to all the 
 chances and accidents of its varied 
 life. It is true it was a colour which 
 commended itself to general liking, 
 yet if as stanch and steadfast a green 
 or red could be imparted to an equally 
 cheap and durable fabric, it would 
 find as lasting a place in public favour. 
 
DRAPERIES 157 
 
 It is quite possible that in the near 
 future domestic weavings may come 
 to the aid of the critical house-fur- 
 nisher, so that the qualities of strength 
 and pliability may be united with 
 colour which is both water-fast and 
 sun-fast, and that we shall be able to 
 order not only the kind of material, 
 but the exact shade of colour necessary 
 to the perfection of our houses. 
 
 To be washable as well as durable 
 is also a great point in favour of cot- 
 ton textiles. The English chintzes 
 with which the high post bedsteads 
 of our foremothers were hung had a 
 yearly baptism of family soap-suds, 
 and came from it with their designs 
 of gaily-crested, almost life-size pheas- 
 ants, sitting upon inadequate branches, 
 very little subdued by the process. 
 Those were not days of colour-study; 
 and harmony, applied to things of 
 sight instead of conduct, was not 
 looked for; but when we copy the 
 
158 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 beautiful old furniture of that day, 
 we may as well demand with it the 
 quality of washableness and clean- 
 ableness which went with all its be- 
 longings. 
 
 It is always a wonder to the mascu- 
 line, that the feminine mind has such 
 an ineradicable love of draperies. 
 The man despises them, but to the 
 woman they are the perfecting touch 
 of the home, hiding or disguising all 
 the sharp angles of windows and 
 doors, and making of them oppor- 
 tunities of beauty. It is the same 
 instinct with which she tries to cover 
 the hard angles and facts of daily life 
 and make of them virtuous incite- 
 ments. As long as the woman rules, 
 house-curtains will be a joy and de- 
 light to her. Something in their soft 
 protection, grace of line, and possible 
 beauty of colour appeals to her as no 
 other household belonging has the 
 power to do. 
 
DRAPERIES 159 
 
 The long folds of the straight 
 hanging curtain are far more beautiful 
 than the looped and festooned crea- 
 tions which were held in vogue by 
 some previous generations, and indeed 
 are still dear to the hearts of profes- 
 sional upholsterers. The simpler the 
 treatment, the better the effect, since 
 natural rather than distorted line is 
 more restful and enjoyable. Qual- 
 ity, colour, and simple graceful lines 
 are quite sufficient elements of value 
 in these important adjuncts of house 
 furnishing and decoration. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 FURNITURE 
 
 A LTHOUGH the forms and vari- 
 eties of furniture are infinite, 
 they can easily be classified first into 
 the two great divisions of good and 
 bad, and after that into kinds and 
 styles; but no matter how good the 
 diff'erent specimens may be, or to 
 what style they may belong, each one 
 is subject again to the ruling of fit- 
 ness. Detached things may be both 
 thoroughly pleasing and thoroughly 
 good in themselves, but unless they 
 are appropriate to the place where, 
 and purpose for which they are used, 
 they will not be beautiful. 
 
 It is well to reiterate that the use 
 to which a room is put must always 
 govern its furnishing and in a meas- 
 ure its colour, and that whatever we 
 
 i6o 
 
FURNITURE i6i 
 
 put in it must be placed there be- 
 cause it is appropriate to that use, 
 and because it is needed for com- 
 pleteness. It is misapplication which 
 makes much of what is called " artis- 
 tic furnishing" ridiculous. An old- 
 fashioned brass preserving-kettle and 
 a linen or wool spinning-wheel are 
 in place and appropriate pieces of 
 furnishing for a studio ; the one for 
 colour, and the other for form, and 
 because also they may serve as models; 
 but they are sadly out of place in a 
 modern city house, or even in the 
 parlour of a country cottage. 
 
 We all recognise the fact that 
 a room carefully furnished in one 
 style makes a oneness of impression ; 
 whereas if things are brought to- 
 gether heterogeneously, even if each 
 separate thing is selected for its own 
 special virtue and beauty, the feeling 
 of enjoyment will be far less com- 
 plete. 
 
1 62 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 There is a certain kinship in pieces 
 of furniture made or originated at 
 the same period and fashioned by a 
 prevailing sentiment of beauty, which 
 makes them harmonious when brought 
 together ; and if our minds are in 
 sympathy with that period and style 
 of expression, it becomes a great pleas- 
 ure to use it as a means of expression 
 for ourselves. Whatever appeals to 
 us as the best or most beautiful 
 thought in manufacture we have a 
 right to adopt, but we should study 
 to understand the circumstances of 
 its production, in order to do justice 
 to it and ourselves, since style i& 
 evolved from surrounding influences. 
 It would seem also that its periods 
 and origin should not be too far re- 
 moved from the interests and ways 
 of our own time, and incongruous 
 with it, because it would be impossi- 
 ble to carry an utterly foreign period 
 or method of thought into all the 
 
FURNITURE 163 
 
 intimacies of domestic life. The fad 
 of furnishing different rooms in differ- 
 ent periods of art, and in the fashion 
 of nations and peoples whose lives 
 are totally dissimilar, may easily be 
 carried too far, and the spirit of 
 home, and even of beauty, be lost. 
 Of course this applies to small, and 
 not to grand houses, which are al- 
 ways exceptions to the purely domes- 
 tic idea. 
 
 There are many reasons why one 
 should be in sympathy with what is 
 called the " colonial craze " ; not 
 only because colonial days are a part 
 of our history, but because colonial 
 furniture and decorations were de- 
 rived directly from the best period of 
 English art. Its original designers 
 were masters who made standards in 
 architectural and pictorial as well 
 as household art. The Adams broth- 
 ers, to whom many of the best 
 forms of the period are referable, 
 
16+ PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 were great architects as well as great 
 designers. Even so distinguished a 
 painter as Hogarth delighted in com- 
 posing symmetrical forms for furniture, 
 and preached persistently the beauty 
 of curved instead of rectangular lines. 
 It was, in fact, a period in which 
 superior minds expressed themselves 
 in material forms, when Flaxman, 
 Wedgwood, Chippendale and many 
 others of their day, true artists in 
 form, wrote their thoughts in wood, 
 stone, and pottery, and bequeathed 
 them to future ages. Certainly the 
 work of such minds in such company 
 must outlast mere mechanical efforts. 
 It is interesting to note, that many of 
 the Chippendale chairs keep in their 
 under construction the square and 
 simple forms of a much earlier period, 
 while the upper part, the back, and 
 seats are carved into curves and flori- 
 ated designs. One cannot help won- 
 dering whether this square solidity 
 
FURNITURE 165 
 
 was simply a reminiscence or persist- 
 ence of earlier forms, or a conscious 
 return to the most direct principles 
 of weight-bearing constructions. 
 
 All furniture made under primitive 
 conditions naturally depends upon 
 perpendicular and horizontal forms, 
 because uninfluenced construction 
 considers first of all the principle of 
 strength ; but under the varied influ- 
 ences of the Georgian period one 
 hardly expects fidelity to first princi- 
 ples. New England carpenters and 
 cabinet-makers who had wrought 
 under the masters of carpentry and 
 cabinet-work in England brought 
 with them not only skill to fashion, 
 but the very patterns and drawings 
 from which Chippendale and Shera- 
 ton furniture had been made in Eng- 
 land. Our English forefathers were 
 very fond of the St. Domingo ma- 
 hogany, brought back in the ship- 
 bottoms of English traders, but the 
 
1 66 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 English workmen who made furni- 
 ture in the new world, while they 
 adopted this foreign wood, were not 
 slow to appreciate the wild cherry, 
 and the different maples and oak 
 and nut woods which they found in 
 America. They were woods easy to 
 work, and apt to take on polish 
 and shining surface. The cabinet- 
 makers liked also the abnormal speci- 
 mens of maple where the fibre grew 
 in close waves, called curled maple, 
 as well as the great roots flecked and 
 spotted with minute knots, known as 
 dotted maple. 
 
 All these things went into colonial 
 furniture, so beautifully cut, so care- 
 fully dowelled and put together, so 
 well made, that many of the things 
 have become heirlooms in the families 
 for which they were constructed. I 
 remember admiring a fine old cherry 
 book-case in Mr. Lowell's library at 
 Cambridge, and being told by the 
 
FURNITURE 167 
 
 poet that it had belonged to his 
 grandfather. When I spoke of the 
 comparative rarity of such possessions 
 he answered : " Oh, anyone can have 
 his grandfather's furniture if he will 
 wait a hundred years ! " 
 
 Nevertheless, with modern meth- 
 ods of manufacture it is by no means 
 certain that a hundred years will 
 secure possession of the furniture we 
 buy to-day to our grandchildren. In 
 those early days it was not uncom- 
 mon, it was indeed the custom, for 
 some one of the men who were called 
 << journeymen cabinet-makers " — that 
 is, men who had served their time 
 and learned their trade, but had not 
 yet settled down to a fixed place and 
 shop of their own — to take up an 
 abode in the house with the family 
 which had built it, for a year, or 
 even two or three years, carrying on 
 the work in some out-house or de- 
 pendence, choosing and seasoning the 
 
i68 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 wood, and measuring the furniture 
 for the spaces where it was to stand. 
 
 There was a fine fitness in such fur- 
 nishing; it was as if the different 
 pieces actually grew where they were 
 placed, and it is small wonder that 
 SO built and fashioned they should 
 possess almost a human interest. 
 Direct and special thought and effort 
 were incorporated with the furniture 
 from the very first, and it easily ex- 
 plains the excellences and finenesses 
 of its fashioning. 
 
 There is an interesting house in 
 Flushing, Long Island, where such 
 furniture still stands in the rooms 
 where it was put together in 1664, 
 and where it is so fitted to spaces it 
 has filled during the passing centuries, 
 that it would be impossible to carry it 
 through the narrow doors and passages, 
 which, unlike our present halls, were 
 made for the passing to and fro of 
 human beings, and not of furniture. 
 
COLONIAL MANTEL AND ENGLISH HOB-GRATE (SITTING-ROOM IN MRS, CANDACE 
 WHEELER'S HOUSE) 
 
FURNITURE 169 
 
 It is this kind of interest which 
 attaches us to colonial furniture and 
 adds to the value of its beauty and 
 careful adaptation to human con- 
 venience. In the roomy "high boys" 
 which we find in old houses there are 
 places for everything. They were made 
 for the orderly packing and keeping 
 of valuable things, in closetless rooms, 
 and they were made without project- 
 ing corners and cornices, because life 
 was lived in smaller spaces than at 
 present. They were the best prod- 
 uct of a thoughtful time — where if 
 manufacture lacked some of the ma- 
 chinery and appliances of to-day, it 
 was at least not rushed by breathless 
 competition, but could progress slowly 
 in careful leisure. Of course we can- 
 not all have colonial furniture, and 
 indeed it would not be according to 
 the spirit of our time, for the arts 
 of our own day are to be encouraged 
 and fostered — but we can buy the 
 
lyo PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 best of the things which are made in 
 our time, the best in style, in inten- 
 tion, in fittingness, and above all in 
 carefulness and honesty of construc- 
 tion. 
 
 For some reason the quality of 
 durability seems to be wanting in 
 modern furniture. Our things are 
 fashioned of the same woods, but 
 something in the curing or prepara- 
 tion of them has weakened the fibre 
 and made it brittle. Probably the 
 gradual evaporation of the tree-juices 
 which old-time cabinet-makers were 
 willing to wait for, left the shrunken 
 sinews of the wood in better condition 
 than is possible with our hurried and 
 violent kiln-dried methods. What is 
 gained in time in the one place is lost 
 in another. Nature refuses to enter 
 into our race for speedy completion, 
 and if we hurry her natural processes 
 we shorten our lease of ownership. 
 
 As a very apt illustration of this 
 
FURNITURE 171 
 
 fact, I remember coming into posses- 
 sion some twenty years ago of an oak 
 chair which had stood, perhaps, for 
 more than two hundred years in a 
 Long Island farm-house. When I 
 found it, it had been long relegated 
 to kitchen use and was covered with 
 a crust of variously coloured paints 
 which had accumulated during the 
 two centuries of its existence. The 
 fashion of it was rare, and had prob- 
 ably been evolved by some early 
 American cabinet-maker, for while it 
 had all and even more than the grace 
 of the high-backed Chippendale pat- 
 terns, it was better fitted to the 
 rounded surfaces of the human body. 
 It was a spindle chair with a slightly 
 hollowed seat, the rim of the back 
 rounded to a loop which was con- 
 tinued into arm-rests, which spread 
 into thickened blades for hand-rests. 
 Being very much in love with the 
 grace and ease of it, I took it to a 
 
172 PRINCIPLES OP HOME DECORATION 
 
 manufacturer to be reproduced in 
 mahogany, and he, with a far-sighted 
 sagacity, flooded the market with that 
 particular pattern. 
 
 We are used — and with good rea- 
 son — to consider mahogany as a dura- 
 ble wood, but of the half-dozen of 
 mahogany copies of the old oak chair, 
 each one has suffered some break of 
 legs or arms or spindles, while the orig- 
 inal remains as firm in its withered 
 old age as it was the day I rescued it 
 from the " out-kitchen " of the Long 
 Island farm-house. 
 
 For the next fifty years after the 
 close of our colonial history, the 
 colonial cabinet-makers in New Eng- 
 land and the northern middle states 
 continued to flourish, evolving an 
 occasional good variation from what 
 may be called colonial forms. Rush- 
 and flag-bottomed chairs and chairs 
 with seats of twisted rawhide — the 
 frames often gilded and painted — 
 
FURNITURE 173 
 
 sometimes took the place of wrought 
 mahogany, except in the best rooms 
 of great houses. Many of these are 
 of excellent shape and construction, 
 and specially interesting as an adap- 
 tation of natural products of the 
 country. Undoubtedly, with our in- 
 genious modern appliances, we could 
 make as good furniture as was made 
 in Chippendale's and Sheraton's day, 
 with far less expenditure of effort; 
 but the demon of competition in 
 trade will not allow it. We must 
 use all material, perfect or imperfect; 
 we cannot afford to select. We must 
 cover knots and imperfections with 
 composition, and pass them on. We 
 must use the cheapest glue, and save 
 an infinitesimal sum in the length of 
 our dowels ; we must varnish instead 
 of polishing, or " the other man " will 
 get the better of us. If we did not 
 do these things our furniture would 
 be better, but " the other man " 
 
174 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 would sell more, because he could 
 sell more cheaply. 
 
 Since the revived interest in the 
 making of furniture, we find an oc- 
 casional and marked recurrence to 
 primitive form — on each occasion the 
 apparently new style taking on the 
 name of the man who produced it. 
 
 In our own day we have seen the 
 " Eastlake furniture " appear and dis- 
 appear, succeeded by the " Morris 
 furniture," which is undoubtedly bet- 
 ter adapted to our varied wants. At 
 present, mortising and dowelling have 
 come to the front as proper processes, 
 especially for table-building ; and this 
 time the style appears under the name 
 of " Mission furniture." Much of 
 this is extremely well suited for cot- 
 tage furnishing, but the occasional 
 exaggeration of the style takes one 
 back not only to early, but the earli- 
 est English art; when chairs were im- 
 movable seats or blocks, and tables 
 
FURNITURE 175 
 
 absolute fixtures on account of the 
 weighty legs upon which they were 
 built. In short, the careful and 
 cultivated decorator finds it as im- 
 perative to guard against exagger- 
 ated simplicity as unsupported pret- 
 tiness. 
 
 Fortunately there has been a great 
 deal of attention paid to good cabinet 
 work within the last few years, and 
 although the method of its making 
 lacks the human motive and the 
 human interest of former days, it is 
 still a good expression of the art of 
 to-day, and, at its best is worthy to 
 be carried down the generations as 
 one of the steps in the evolutions of 
 time. What we have to do, is to 
 learn to discriminate between good 
 and bad, to appreciate the best in 
 design and workmanship, even al- 
 though we cannot afford to buy it. 
 In this case we should learn to do with 
 less. As a rule our houses are crowded. 
 
176 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 If we are able to buy a few good 
 things, we are apt instead to buy 
 many only moderately good, for lav- 
 ish possession seems to be a sort of 
 passion, or birthright, of Americans, 
 It follows that we fill our houses with 
 heterogeneous collections of furniture, 
 new and old, good and bad, appro- 
 priate or inappropriate, as the case 
 may be, with a result of living in 
 seeming luxury, but a luxury without 
 proper selection or true value. To 
 have less would in many cases be to 
 have more — more tranquillity of life, 
 more ease of mind, more knowledge 
 and more real enjoyment. 
 
 There is another principle which 
 can be brought into play in this case, 
 and that is the one of buying — not a 
 costly kind of thing, but the best of 
 its kind. If it is a choice in chairs, 
 for instance, let it be the best cane- 
 seated, or rush-bottomed chair that 
 is made, instead of the second or third 
 
FURNITURE 177 
 
 best upholstered or leather-covered 
 one. If it is a question of tables, buy 
 the simplest form made of flawless 
 wood and with best finish, instead of 
 a bargain in elaborately turned or 
 scantily-' carved material. If it is in 
 bedsteads, a plain brass or good 
 enamelled iron, or a simple form in 
 black walnut, instead of a cheap in- 
 laid wood — and so on through the 
 whole category. A good chintz or 
 cotton is better for draperies, than 
 flimsy silk or brocade; and when all 
 is done the very spirit of truth will 
 sit enthroned in the household, and 
 we shall find that all things have 
 been brought into harmony by her 
 laws. 
 
 Although the furnishing of a house 
 should be one of the most pains- 
 taking and studied of pursuits, there 
 is certainly nothing which is at the 
 same time so fascinating and so flat- 
 tering in its promise of future enjoy- 
 
178 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 ment. It is like the making of a 
 picture as far as possibility of beauty 
 is concerned, but a picture within 
 and against which one's life, and the 
 life of the family, is to be lived. It 
 is a bit of creative art in itself, and 
 one which concerns us so closely as 
 to be a very part of us. We enjoy 
 every separate thing we may find or 
 select or procure — not only for the 
 beauty and goodness which is in it, 
 but for its contribution to the general 
 whole. And in knowledge of ap- 
 plied and manufactured art, the fur- 
 nishing of a house is truly " the be- 
 ginning of wisdom." One learns to 
 appreciate what is excellent in the 
 new from study and appreciation of 
 quality in the old. 
 
 It is the fascination of this study 
 which has made a multiplication of 
 shops and collections of " antiques " 
 in every quarter of the city. Many 
 a woman begins from the shop- 
 
FURNITURE 179 
 
 keeper's point of view of the value 
 of mere age, and learns by experience 
 that age, considered by itself, is a dis- 
 qualification, and that it gives value 
 only when the art which created the 
 antique has been lost or has greatly 
 deteriorated. If one can find as good, 
 or a better thing in art and quality, 
 made to-day — by all means buy the 
 thing of to-day, and let yourself and 
 your children be credited with the 
 hundred or two years of wear which 
 is in it. We can easily see that it is 
 wiser to buy modern iridescent glass, 
 fitted to our use, and yet carrying all 
 the fascinating lustre of ancient glass, 
 than to sigh for the possession of some 
 unbuyable thing belonging to dead 
 and gone Caesars. And the case is 
 as true of other modern art and 
 modern inventions, if the art is good, 
 and the inventions suitable to our 
 wants and needs. 
 
 Yet in spite of the goodness of 
 
i8o PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 much that is new, there is a subtle 
 pleasure in turning over, and even in 
 appropriating, the things that are old. 
 There are certain fenced-in-blocks 
 on the east side of New York City 
 where for many years the choice parts 
 of old houses have been deposited. 
 As fashion and wealth have changed 
 their locality — treading slowly up 
 from the Battery to Central Park — 
 many beautiful bits of construction 
 have been left behind in the aban- 
 doned houses — either disregarded on 
 account of change in popular taste, 
 or unappreciated by reason of want 
 of knowledge. For the few whose 
 knowledge was competent, there 
 were things to be found in the sec- 
 ond-hand yards, precious beyond 
 comparison with anything of con- 
 temporaneous manufacture. 
 
 There were panelled front doors 
 with beautifully fluted columns and 
 
FURNITURE i8i 
 
 carved capitals, surmounted by half- 
 ovals of curiously designed sashes; 
 there w^ere beautifully wrought iron 
 railings, and elaborate newel-posts 
 of mahogany, brass door-knobs and 
 hinges, and English hob-grates, and 
 crystal chandeliers of cost and brill- 
 iance, and panelled wainscots of oak 
 and mahogany ; chimney-pieces in 
 marble and wood of an excellence 
 which we are almost vainly trying 
 to compass, and all of them to be 
 bought at the price of lumber. 
 
 These are the things to make one 
 who remembers them critical about 
 the collections to be found in the 
 antique shops of to-day, and yet 
 such shops are enticing and fash- 
 ionable, and the quest of antiques 
 will go on until we become convinced 
 of the art-value and the equal merit 
 of the new — which period many 
 things seem to indicate is not far oiF. 
 
i82 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 In those days there was but one 
 antique shop in all New York which 
 was devoted to the sale of old things, 
 to furniture, pictures, statuary, and 
 what Ruskin calls "portable art" of 
 all kinds. It was a place where one 
 might go, crying " new lamps for old 
 ones" with a certainty of profit in 
 the transaction. In later years it has 
 been known as Syphers, and although 
 one of many, instead of a single one, 
 is still a place of fascinating possi- 
 bilities. 
 
 To sum up the gospel of furnish- 
 ing, we need only fall back upon the 
 principles of absolute fitness, actual 
 goodness, and real beauty. If the 
 furniture of a well-coloured room 
 possesses these three qualities, the 
 room as a whole can hardly fail to be 
 lastingly satisfactory. It must be re- 
 membered, however, that it is a trin- 
 ity of virtues. No piece of furniture 
 should be chosen because it is intrin- 
 
FURNITURE 183 
 
 sically good or genuinely beautiful, 
 if it has not also its use — and this 
 rule applies to all rooms, with the 
 one exception of the drawing-room. 
 
 The necessity of use, governing the 
 style of furnishing in a room, is very 
 well understood. Thus, while both 
 drawing-room and dining-room must 
 express hospitality, it is of a different 
 kind or degree. That of the draw- 
 ing-room is ceremonious and punc- 
 tilious, and represents the family in 
 its relation to society, while the din- 
 ing-room is far more intimate, and 
 belongs to the family in its relation 
 to friends. In fact, as the dining- 
 room is the heart of the house, its 
 furnishing would naturally be quite 
 diiferent in feeling and character from 
 the drawing-room, although it might 
 be fully as lavish in cost. It would 
 be stronger, less conservative, and al- 
 together more personal in its expres- 
 sion. Family portraits and family 
 
1 84 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 silver give the personal note which 
 we like to recognise in our friends' 
 dining-rooms, because the intimacy 
 of the room makes even family his- 
 tory in place. 
 
 In moderate houses, even the draw- 
 ing-room is too much a family room 
 to allow it to be entirely emancipated 
 from the law of use, but in houses 
 which are not circumscribed in space, 
 and where one or more rooms are 
 set apart for social rather than do- 
 mestic life, it is natural and proper to 
 gather in them things which stand,^ 
 primarily, for art and beauty — which 
 satisfy the needs of the mind as dis- 
 tinct from those of bodily comfort. 
 Things which belong in the category^ 
 of "unrelated beauty" maybe ap- 
 propriately gathered in such a room, 
 because the use of it is to please the 
 eye and excite the interest of our 
 social world 3 therefore a table which 
 is a marvel of art, but not of con- 
 
FURNITURE iSj 
 
 venience, or a casket which is beau- 
 tiful to look at, but of no practical 
 use, are in accordance with the idea 
 of the room. They help compose a 
 picture, not only for the eyes of 
 friends and acquaintances, but for 
 the education of the family. 
 
 It follows that an artistic and lux- 
 urious drawing-room may be a true 
 family expression ; it may speak of 
 travel and interest in the artistic de- 
 velopment of mankind ; but even 
 where the experiences of the family 
 have been wide and liberal, if the 
 house and circumstances are narrow, 
 a luxurious interior is by no means 
 a happiness. 
 
 It may seem quite superfluous to 
 give advice against luxury in furnish- 
 ing except where it is warranted 
 by exceptional means, because each 
 family naturally adjusts its furnishing 
 to its own needs and circumstances; 
 but the influence of mere beauty is 
 
1 86 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 very powerful, and many a costly toy 
 drifts into homes where it does not 
 rightly belong, and where, instead of 
 being an educational or elevating in- 
 fluence, it is a source of mental de- 
 terioration, from its conflict with un- 
 sympathetic circumstances. A long 
 and useful chapter might be written 
 upon " art out of place," but nothing 
 which could be said upon the subject 
 would apply to that incorporation of 
 art and beauty with furniture and in- 
 terior surroundings, which is the efi'ort 
 and object of every true artist and art- 
 lover. 
 
 The fact to be emphasised is, that 
 objets d'art — beautiful in themselves 
 and costly because of the superior 
 knowledge, artistic feeling, and pa- 
 tient labour which have produced 
 them — demand care and reserve for 
 their preservation^ which is not avail- 
 able in a household where the first 
 motive of everything must be minis- 
 
FURNITURE 187 
 
 try to comfort. Art in the shape of 
 pictures is fortunately exempt from 
 this rule, and may dignify and beau- 
 tify every room in the house without 
 being imperilled by contact in the 
 exigencies of use. 
 
 Following out this idea, a house 
 where circumstances demand that 
 there shall be no drawing-room, and 
 where the family sitting-room must 
 also answer for the reception of 
 guests, a perfect beauty and dignity 
 may be achieved by harmony of 
 colour, beauty of form, and appro- 
 priateness to purpose, and this may 
 be carried to almost any degree of 
 perfection by the introduction and 
 accompaniment of pictures. In this 
 case art is a part of the room, as well 
 as an adornment of it. It is kneaded 
 into every article of furniture. It is 
 the daily bread of art to which we 
 are all entitled, and which can make 
 a small country home, or a smaller 
 
1 88 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 city apartment, as enjoyable and ele- 
 vating as if it were filled with the 
 luxuries of art. 
 
 But one may say, " It requires 
 knowledge to do this ; much knowl- 
 edge in the selection of the compara- 
 tively few things which are to make 
 up such an interior," and that is 
 true — and the knowledge is to be 
 proved every time we come to the 
 test of buying. Yet it is a curious 
 fact that the really goocl thing, the 
 thing which is good in art as well as 
 construction, will inevitably be chosen 
 by an intelligent buyer, instead of 
 the thing which is bad in art and in 
 construction. Fortunately, one can 
 see good examples in the shops of 
 to-day, where twenty years ago at 
 best only honest and respectable fur- 
 niture was on exhibition. One must 
 rely somewhat on the character of 
 the places from which one buys, 
 and not expect good styles and relia- 
 
FURNITURE 189 
 
 ble manufacture where commercial 
 success is the dominant note of the 
 business. In truth the careful buyer 
 is not so apt to fail in quality as in 
 harmony, because grade as well as 
 style in different articles and manu- 
 factures is to be considered. What 
 is perfectly good in one grade of 
 manufacture will not be in harmony 
 with a higher or lower grade in 
 another. Just as we choose our 
 grade of floor-covering from ingrain 
 to Aubusson, we must choose the 
 grade of other furnishings. Even an 
 inexperienced buyer would be apt to 
 feel this, and would know that if she 
 found a simple ingrain-filling appro- 
 priate to a bed-chamber, maple or 
 enamelled furniture" would belong to 
 it, instead of more costly inlaid or 
 carved pieces. 
 
 It may be well to reiterate the fact 
 that the predominant use of each room 
 in a house gives the clew to the best 
 
I90 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 rules of treatment in decoration and 
 furniture. For instance, the hall, 
 being an intermediate space between 
 in and out of doors, should be col- 
 oured and furnished in direct refer- 
 ence to this, and to its common use 
 as a thoroughfare by all members of 
 the family. It is not a place of pro- 
 longed occupation, and may therefore 
 properly be without the luxury and 
 ease of lounges and lounging-chairs. 
 But as long as it serves both as en- 
 trance-room to the house and for 
 carrying the stairways to the upper 
 floors, it should be treated in such a 
 way as to lead up to and prepare the 
 mind for whatever of inner luxury 
 there may be in the house. At the 
 same time it should preserve some- 
 thing of the simplicity and freedom 
 from all attempt at effect which be- 
 long to out-of-door life. The dif- 
 ference between its decoration and 
 furniture and that of other divisions 
 
FURNITURE 191 
 
 of the house should be principally in 
 surface, and not in colour. DifFer- 
 ence of surface is secured by the use 
 of materials which are permanent and 
 durable in effect, such as wood, plas- 
 ter, and leather. These may all be 
 coloured without injury to their im- 
 pression of permanency, although it 
 is generally preferable to take advan- 
 tage of indigenous or « inherent col- 
 our " like the natural yellows and 
 russets of wood and leather. When 
 these are used for both walls and 
 ceiling, it will be found that, to give 
 • the necessary variation, and prevent 
 an impression of monotony and dul- 
 ness, some tint must be added in the 
 ornament of the surface, which could 
 be gained by a forcible deepening or 
 variation of the general tone, like a 
 deep golden brown, which is the low- 
 est tone of the scale of yellow, or a 
 red which would be only a variant 
 of the prevailing tint. The intro- 
 
192 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 duction of an opposing or contrasting 
 tint, like pale blue in small masses as 
 compared with the general tint, even 
 if it is in so small a space as that of a 
 water-colour on the wall, adds the 
 necessary contrast, and enlivens and 
 invigorates a harmony. 
 
 No colour carries with it a more 
 appropriate influence at the entrance 
 of a house than red in its diiFerent 
 values. Certain tints of it which are 
 known both as Pompeiian and Da- 
 mascus red have sufficient yellow in 
 their composition to fall in with the 
 yellows of oiled wood, and give the 
 charm of a variant but related colour. 
 In its stronger and deeper tones it is 
 in direct contrast to the green of 
 abundant foliage, and therefore a 
 good colour for the entrance-hall or 
 vestibule of a country-house; while 
 the paler tones, which run into pinks, 
 hold the same opposing relation to 
 the gray and blue of the sea-shore. 
 
FURNITURE 193 
 
 If walls and ceiling are of wood, a 
 rug of which the prevailing colour is 
 red will often give the exact note 
 which is needed to preserve the room 
 from monotony and insipidity. A 
 stair-carpet is a valuable point to 
 make in a hall, and it is well to re- 
 serve all opposing colour for this one 
 place, which, as it rises, meets all 
 sight on a level, and makes its con- 
 trast directly and unmistakably. A 
 stair-carpet has other reasons for use 
 in a country-house than aesthetic 
 ones, as the stairs are conductors of 
 sound to all parts of the house, and 
 should therefore be muffled, and be- 
 cause a carpeted stair furnishes much 
 safer footing for the two family ex- 
 tremes of childhood and age. 
 
 The furniture of the hall should 
 not be fantastic, as some cabinet- 
 makers seem to imagine. Impossible 
 twists in the supports of tables and 
 chairs are perhaps more objectionable 
 
194 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 in this first vestibule or entrance to 
 the house than elsewhere, because 
 the mind is not quite free from out- 
 of-door influences, or ready to take 
 pleasure in the vagaries of the human 
 fancy. Simple chairs, settles, and 
 tables, more solid perhaps than is 
 desirable in other parts of the house, 
 are what the best natural, as well as 
 the best cultivated, taste demands. 
 If there is one place more than an- 
 other where a picture performs its 
 full work of suggestion and decora- 
 tion, it is in a hall which is otherwise 
 bare of ornament. Pictures in din- 
 ing-rooms make very little impression 
 as pictures, because the mind is en- 
 grossed with the first and natural 
 purpose of the room, and conse- 
 quently not in a waiting and easily 
 impressible mood ; but in a hall, if 
 one stops for even a moment, the 
 thoughts are at leisure, and waiting 
 to be interested. Aside from the 
 
FURNITURE 195 
 
 colour effect, which may be so man- 
 aged as to be very valuable, pictures 
 hung in a hall are full of suggestion 
 of wider mental and physical life, and, 
 like books, are indications of the 
 tastes and experiences of the family. 
 Of course there are country-houses 
 where the halls are built with fire- 
 places, and windows commanding 
 favourite views, and are really in- 
 tended for family sitting-rooms and 
 gathering-places ; in this case it is 
 generally entered from a vestibule 
 which carries the character of an en- 
 trance-hall, leaving the large room 
 to be furnished more luxuriously, as 
 is proper to a sitting-room. 
 
 The dining-room shares with the 
 hall a purpose common to the life of 
 the family ; and, while it admits of 
 much more variety and elaboration, 
 that which is true of the hall is equal- 
 ly true of the dining-room, viz. : that 
 it should be treated with materials 
 
196 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 which are durable and have surface 
 quality, although its decoration should 
 be preferably with china rather than 
 with pictures. It is important that 
 the colour of a dining-room should 
 be pervading colour — that is, that 
 walls and ceiling should be kept to- 
 gether by the use of one colour only, 
 in different degrees of strength. 
 
 For many reasons, but principally 
 because it is the best material to use 
 in a dining-room, the rich yellows of 
 oiled wood make the most desirable 
 colour and surface. The rug, the 
 curtains, the portieres and screen, can 
 then be of any good tint which the 
 exposure of the room and the decora- 
 tion of the china seem to indicate. 
 If it has a cold, northern exposure, 
 reds or gold browns are indicated ; 
 but if it is a sunny and warm-looking 
 room, green or strong India blue will 
 be found more satisfactory in simple 
 houses. The materials used in cur- 
 
FURNITURE 197 
 
 tains, portieres, and screens should be 
 of cotton or linen, or some plain 
 woollen goods which are as easily 
 washable. A one-coloured, heavy- 
 threaded cotton canvas, a linen in 
 solid colour, or even indigo-blue do- 
 mestic, all make extremely effective 
 and appropriate furnishings. The 
 variety of blue domestic which is 
 called denim is the best of all fabrics 
 for this kind of furnishing, if the col- 
 our is not too dark. 
 
 The prettiest country house din- 
 ing-room I know is ceiled and wain- 
 scoted with wood, the walls above 
 the wainscoting carrying an ingrain 
 paper of the same tone ; the line of 
 division between the wainscot and 
 wall being broken by a row of old 
 blue India china plates, arranged in 
 groups of different sizes and running 
 entirely around the room. There is 
 one small mirror set in a broad 
 carved frame of yellow wood hung 
 
198 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 in the centre of a rather large wall- 
 space, its angles marked by small 
 Dutch plaques ; but the whole deco- 
 ration of the room outside of these 
 pieces consists of draperies of blue 
 denim in which there is a design, in 
 narrow white outline, of leaping fish, 
 and the widening water-circles and 
 showery drops made by their play. 
 The white lines in the design answer 
 to the white spaces in the decorated 
 china, and the two used together in 
 profusion have an unexpectedly deco- 
 rative effect. The table and chairs 
 are, of course, of the same coloured 
 wood used in the ceiling and wain- 
 scot, and the rug is an India cotton 
 of dark and light blues and white. 
 The sideboard is an arrangement of 
 fixed shelves, but covered with a 
 beautiful collection of blue china, 
 which serves to furnish the table as 
 well. If the dining-room had a 
 northern exposure, and it were desira- 
 
FURNITURE 199 
 
 ble to use red instead of blue for 
 colouring, as good an efFect could be 
 secured by depending for ornament 
 upon the red Kaga porcelain so com- 
 mon at present in Japanese and Chi- 
 nese shops, and using with it the 
 Eastern cotton known as be%. This 
 is dyed with .madder, and exactly 
 repeats the red of the porcelain, while 
 it is extremely durable both in col- 
 our and texture. Borders of yellow 
 stitchery, or straggling fringes of silk 
 and beads, add very much to the 
 effect of the drapery and to the char- 
 acter of the room. 
 
 A library in ordinary family life 
 has two parts to play. It is not 
 only to hold books, but to make the 
 family at home in a literary atmos- 
 phere. Such a room is apt to be a 
 fascinating one by reason of this 
 very variety of use and purpose, 
 and because it is a centre for all 
 the family treasures. Books, pictures, 
 
200 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 papers, photographs, bits of decora- 
 tive needlework, all centre here, and 
 all are on most orderly behaviour, 
 like children at a company dinner. 
 The colour of such a room may, and 
 should, be much warmer and stronger 
 than that of a parlour pure and sim- 
 ple, the very constancy and hardness 
 of its use indicating tints of strength 
 and resistance ; but, keeping that in 
 mind, the rules for general use of 
 colour and harmony of tints will 
 apply as well to a room used for a 
 double as for a single purpose. Of 
 course the furniture should be more 
 solid and darker, as would be neces- 
 sary for constant use, but the deep- 
 ening of tones in general colour pro- 
 vides for that, and for the use of rugs 
 of a different character. In a room 
 of this kind perhaps the best possible 
 effect is produced by the use of some 
 textile as a wall-covering, as in that 
 case the same material with a con- 
 
FURNITURE 201 
 
 trasted colour in the lining can be 
 used for curtains, and to some extent 
 in the furniture. This use of one 
 material has not only an effect of 
 richness which is due to the library 
 of the house, but it softens and brings 
 together all the heterogeneous things 
 which different members of a large 
 family are apt to require in a sitting- 
 room. 
 
 To those who prefer to work out 
 and adapt their own surroundings, it 
 is well to illustrate the advice given 
 for colour in different exposures by 
 selecting particular rooms, with their 
 various relations to light, use, and 
 circumstances, and seeing how col- 
 our-principles can be applied to them. 
 
 We may choose a reception-hall, 
 in either a city or country house, 
 since the treatment would in both 
 cases be guided by the same rules. 
 If in a city house, it may be on the 
 shady or the sunny side of the street, 
 
20Z PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 and this at once would difFerentiate, 
 perhaps the colour, and certainly the 
 depth of colour to be used. If it 
 is the hall of a country house the 
 difference between north or south 
 light will not be as great, since a 
 room opening on the north in a 
 house standing alone, in unobstructed 
 space, would have an effect of cold- 
 ness, but not necessarily of shadow or 
 darkness. The first condition, then, 
 of coldness of light would have to be 
 considered in both cases, but less 
 positively in the country, than in the 
 city house. If the room is actually 
 dark, a warm or orange tone of yel- 
 low will both modify and lighten it. 
 
 Gold-coloured or yellow canvas 
 with oak mouldings lighten and warm 
 the walls ; and rugs with a prepon- 
 derance of white and yellow trans- 
 form a dark hall into a light and 
 cheerful one. It must be remem- 
 bered that few dark colours can 
 
FURNITURE 203 
 
 assert themselves in the absolute 
 shadow of a north light. Green and 
 blue become black. Gold, orange, 
 and red alone have sufficient power 
 to hold their own, and make us con- 
 scious of them in darkness. 
 
 In a hall which has plenty of 
 light, but no sun, red is an efFective 
 and natural colour; copper-coloured 
 leather paper, cushions and rugs or 
 carpets of varying shades of red, 
 and transparent curtains of the same 
 tint give an effect of warmth and 
 vitality. Red is truly a delightful 
 colour to deal with in shadowed 
 interiors, its sensitiveness to light, 
 changing from colour-tinted dark- 
 ness to palpitating ruby, and even to 
 flame colour, on the slightest invita- 
 tion of day- or lamp-light, makes it 
 like a living presence. It is especi- 
 ally valuable at the entrance of the 
 home, where it seems to meet one 
 with almost a human welcome. 
 
204 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 If we can succeed in making what 
 would be a cold and unattractive en- 
 trance hospitable and cordial by lib- 
 eral use of warm and strong colour, 
 by reversing the efFort we can just 
 as easily modify the effect of glaring, 
 or overpowering, sunlight. 
 
 Suppose the entrance-hall of the 
 house to be upon the sunny side of 
 the street, where in addition to the 
 natural effect of full rays of the sun 
 there are also the reflections from 
 innumerable other house-fronts and 
 house-windows. 
 
 In this case we must simulate 
 shadow and mystery, and this can be 
 done by the colour-tones of blues 
 and greens. I use these in the 
 plural because the shadows of both 
 are innumerable, and because all, 
 except perhaps turquoise and apple- 
 green, are natural shadow-tints. Green 
 and blue can be used together or 
 separately, according to the skill and 
 
FURNITURE 205 
 
 what is called the " colour-sense " 
 with which they are applied. 
 
 To use them together requires not 
 only observation of colour-occurrences 
 in nature but sensitiveness to the more 
 subtle out-of-door effects, resulting 
 from intermingling of shadows and 
 reflection of lights. Well done, it is 
 one of the most beautiful and satisfac- 
 tory of achievements, but it may easily 
 be bad by reason of sharp contrasts, or 
 unmodified juxtaposition. 
 
 But a room where blue in all its 
 shades from dark to light alone pre- 
 dominates, or a room where only 
 green is used, bright and gray tones 
 in contrast and variation is within 
 the reach of most colour-loving mor- 
 tals, and as both of these tints are 
 companionable with oak and gold, 
 and to be found in nearly all deco- 
 rative materials, it is easy to arrange 
 a refined and beautiful effect in either 
 colour. 
 
2o6 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 It will require little reflection to 
 show that a hall skilfully treated with 
 green or blue tints would modify the 
 colour of sunlight, without giving a 
 sense of discord. It would be like 
 passing only from sunlight to grate- 
 ful shadow, and this because in all 
 art the actual representation shadow- 
 colour would be blue or green. The 
 shadow of a tree falling upon snow 
 on a sunny winter day is blue. The 
 shadow of a sunheated rock in sum- 
 mer is green, and the success of either 
 of these schemes of decoration would 
 be because of adherence to an actual 
 principle of colour, or a knowledge 
 of the peculiar qualities of certain 
 colours and their proper use. It 
 would be an intelligent application 
 of the medicinal or healing qualities 
 of colour to the constitution of the 
 house, as skilful physicians use medi- 
 cines to overcome constitutional de- 
 fects or difficulties in man. 
 
FURNITURE zoy 
 
 This may be called corrective treat- 
 ment of a room, and may, of course, 
 include all the decorative devices of 
 ornament, design and furniture, and 
 although it is not, strictly speaking, 
 decoration, it should certainly and 
 always precede decoration. 
 
 It is sad to see an elaborate scheme 
 of ornament based upon bad colour- 
 treatment, and unfortunately this not 
 infrequently happens. 
 
 It is difficult to give a formula for 
 the decoration of any room in rela- 
 tion to its colour-treatment, except 
 by a careful description of certain 
 successful examples, each one of which 
 illustrates principles that may be of 
 use to the amateur or student of the 
 art. 
 
 One which occurs to me in this 
 immediate connection is a dining- 
 room in an apartment house, where 
 this room alone is absolutely without 
 what may be called exterior light. 
 
2o8 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 Its two windows open upon a well, 
 the brick wall of which is scarcely 
 ten feet away. Fortunately, it makes 
 a part of the home of a much trav- 
 elled and exceedingly cultivated pair 
 of beings, the business of one being 
 to create beauty in the way of pict- 
 ures and the other of statues, so per- 
 haps it is less than a wonder that this 
 square, unattractive well-room should 
 have blossomed under their hands 
 into a dining-room perfect in colour, 
 style, and fittings. I shall give only 
 the result, the process being capable 
 of infinite small variations. 
 
 At present it is a room sixteen feet 
 square, one side of which is occupied 
 by two nearly square windows. The 
 wood-work, including a five-foot 
 wainscot of small square panels, is 
 painted a glittering varnished white 
 which is warm in tone, but not 
 creamy. The upper halves of the 
 square windows are of semi-opaque 
 
FURNITURE 209 
 
 yellow glass, veined and variable, but 
 clear enough everywhere to admit a 
 stained yellow light. Below these, 
 thin yellow silk curtains cross each 
 other, so that the whole window-space 
 radiates yellow light. If we reflect 
 that the colour of sunlight is yellow, 
 we shall be able to see both the 
 philosophy and the result of this 
 treatment. 
 
 The wall above the wainscot is 
 covered with a plain unbleached 
 muslin, stencilled at the top in a re- 
 peating design of faint yellow tile- 
 like squares which fade gradually into 
 white at a foot below the ceiling. 
 At intervals along the wall are water- 
 colours of flat Holland meadows, or 
 blue canals, balanced on either side 
 by a blue delft plate, and in a corner 
 near the window is a veritable blue 
 porcelain stove, which once faintly 
 warmed some far-off German in- 
 terior. The floor is polished oak, as 
 
2IO PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 are the table and chairs. I pur- 
 posely leave out all the accessories 
 and devices of brass and silver, the 
 quaint brass-framed mirrors, the ivy- 
 encircled windows, the one or two 
 great ferns, the choice blue table- 
 furniture : — because these are per- 
 sonal and should neither be imitated 
 or reduced to rules. 
 
 The lesson is in the use of yellow 
 and white, accented with touches of 
 blue, which converts a dark and per- 
 fectly cheerless room into a glitter of 
 light and warmth. 
 
 The third example I shall give is 
 of a dining-room which may be called 
 palatial in size and effect, occupying 
 the whole' square wing of a well- 
 known New York house. There are 
 many things in this house in the way 
 of furniture, pictures, historic bits of 
 art in different lines, which would 
 distinguish it among fine houses, but 
 one particular room is, perhaps, as 
 
FURNITURE 211 
 
 perfectly successful in richness of de- 
 tail, picturesqueness of effect, and at 
 the same time perfect appropriateness 
 to time, place, and circumstances as 
 is possible for any achievement of its 
 kind. The dining-room, and its art, 
 taken in detail, belongs to the Vene- 
 tian school, but if its colour-effect 
 were concentrated upon canvas, it 
 w^ould be known as a Rembrandt. 
 There is the same rich shadow, cover- 
 ing a thousand gradations, — the same 
 concentration of light, and the same 
 liberal diffusion of warm and rich 
 tones of colour. It is a grand room 
 in space, as New York interiors go, 
 being perhaps forty to fifty feet in 
 breadth and length, with a height 
 exactly proportioned to the space. 
 It has had the advantage of separate 
 creation — being "thought out" years 
 after the early period of the house, 
 and is, moreover, a concrete re- 
 sult of study, travel, and oppor- 
 
212 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 tunities, such as few families are 
 privileged to experience. Aside from 
 the perfect proportions of the room, 
 it is not difficult to analyse the art 
 which makes it so distinguished an 
 example of decoration of space, and 
 decide wherein lies its especial charm. 
 It is undoubtedly that of colour, al- 
 though this is based upon a detail so 
 perfect, that one hesitates to give it 
 predominant credit. The whole, or 
 nearly the whole west end of the 
 room is thrown into one vast, slightly 
 projecting window of clear leaded 
 glass, the lines of which stand against 
 the light like a weaving of spiders' 
 webs. There is a border of various 
 tints at its edge, which softens it into 
 the brown shadow of the room, and 
 the centre of each large sash is marked 
 by a shield-like ornament glowing 
 with colour like a jewel. The long 
 ceiling and high wainscoting melt 
 away from this leaded window in 
 
FURNITURE 213 
 
 a perspective of wonderfully carved 
 planes of antique oak, catching the 
 light on lines and points of projection 
 and quenching it in hollows of relief. 
 These perpendicular wall panels 
 were scaled from a room in a Vene- 
 tian palace, carved when the art and 
 the fortunes of that sea-city were at 
 their best, and the alternately repeat- 
 ing squares of the ceiling were fash- 
 ioned to carry out and supplement 
 the ancient carvings. If this were 
 a small room, there would be a 
 sense of unrest in ^ so lavish a use of 
 broken surface, but in one large 
 enough to have it felt as a whole, 
 and not in detail, it gives simply a 
 quality of preciousness. The soft 
 browns of the wood spread a mystery 
 of surface from the edge of the pol- 
 ished floor until it meets a frieze of 
 painted canvas filled with large reclin- 
 ing figures clad in draperies of red 
 and blue and yellow — separating the 
 
214- PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 walls from the ceiling by an illumi- 
 nation of colour. This colour-deco- 
 ration belongs to the past, and it is a 
 question if any modern painting could 
 have adapted itself so perfectly to the 
 spirit of the room, although in itself 
 it might be far more beautiful. It 
 is a bit of antique imagination, its 
 cherub-borne plates of fruit, and 
 golden flagons, and brown-green of 
 foliage and turquoise of sky, and 
 crimson and gold of garments, all 
 softened to meet the shadows of the 
 room. The door-spaces in the wain- 
 scot are hung with draperies of crim- 
 son velvet, the surface frayed and 
 flattened by time into variations of 
 red, impossible to newer weavings, 
 while the great floor-space is spread 
 with an enormous rug of the same 
 colour — the gift of a Sultan. A 
 carved table stands in the centre, 
 surrounded with high-backed carved 
 chairs, the seats covered with the 
 
FURNITURE 
 
 same antique velvet w^hich shows in 
 the portieres. A fall of thin crimson 
 silk tints the sides of the window- 
 frame, and on the two ends of the 
 broad step or platform which leads to 
 the window stand two tall pedestals 
 and globe-shaped jars of red and 
 blue-green pottery. The deep, ruby- 
 like red of the one and the mixed 
 indefinite tint of the other seem to 
 have curdled into the exact shade for 
 each particular spot, their fitness is so 
 perfect. 
 
 The very sufficient knowledge 
 which has gone to the making of this 
 superb room has kept the draperies 
 unbroken by design or device, giving 
 colour only and leaving to the carved 
 walls the privilege of ornament. 
 
 It will be seen that there are but 
 two noticeable colour-tones in the 
 room — brown with infinite variations, 
 and red in rugs and draperies. 
 
 There is no real affinity between 
 
21 6 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 these two tints, but they are here so 
 well balanced in mass, that the two 
 form a complete harmony, like the 
 brown waves of a landscape at event 
 ing tipped with the fire of a sunset 
 sky. 
 
 Much is to be learned from a 
 room like this, in the lesson of unity 
 and concentration of eiFect. The 
 strongest, and in fact the only, mass 
 of vital colour is in the carpet, which 
 is allowed to play upwards, as it were, 
 into draperies, and furniture, and 
 frieze, none of which show the same 
 depth and intensity. To the concen- 
 tration of light in the one great win- 
 dow we must give the credit of the 
 Rembrandt-like effect of the whole 
 interior. If the walls were less rich, 
 this single flood of light would be a 
 defect, because it would be difficult to 
 treat a plain surface with colour alone, 
 and thereby attain a result equally 
 good in strong light and deep shadow. 
 
FURNITURE 217 
 
 Then, again, the amount of living 
 and brilliant colour is exactly pro- 
 portioned to that of sombre brown, 
 the red holding its value by strength, 
 as against the greatly preponderating 
 mass of dark. On the whole this 
 may be called a " picture-room," and 
 yet it is distinctly liveable, lending 
 itself not only to hospitality and 
 ceremonious function but also to 
 real domesticity. It is true that 
 there is a certain obligation in its 
 style of beauty which calls for fine 
 manners and fine behaviour, possibly 
 even, behaviour in kind ; for it is in 
 the nature of all fine and exceptional 
 things to demand a corresponding 
 fineness from those who enjoy them. 
 
 I will give still another dining- 
 room as an example of colour, which, 
 unlike the others, is not modern, but 
 a sort of falling in of old gentility 
 and costliness into lines of modern 
 art- — one might almost say it hap^ 
 
21 8 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 pened to be beautiful, and yet the 
 happening is only an adjustment of 
 fine old conditions to modern ideas. 
 Yet I have known many as fine a 
 room torn out and refitted, losing 
 thereby all the inherent dignity of 
 age and superior associations. 
 
 A beautiful city home of seventy 
 years ago is not very like a beautiful 
 city home of to-day ; perhaps less so 
 in this than in any other country. 
 The character of its fineness is curi- 
 ously changed ; the modern house is 
 fitted to its inmates, while the old- 
 fashioned house, modelled upon the 
 early eighteenth century art of Eng- 
 land, obliged the inmates to fit them- 
 selves as best they might to a given 
 standard. 
 
 The dining-room I speak of be- 
 longs to the period when Washington 
 Square, New York, was still sur- 
 rounded by noble homes, and almost 
 the limit of luxurious city life was 
 
FURNITURE 219 
 
 Union Square. The house fronts to 
 the north, consequently the dining- 
 room, which is at the back, is flooded 
 with sunshine. The ceiling is higher 
 than it would be in a modern house, 
 and the windows extend to the floor, 
 and rise nearly to the ceiling, far in- 
 deed above the flat arches of the 
 doorways with their rococo flourishes. 
 This extension of window-frame, and 
 the heavy and elaborate plaster cor- 
 nice so deep as to be almost a frieze, 
 and the equally elaborate centre- 
 piece, are the features which must 
 have made it a room difficult to 
 ameliorate. 
 
 I could fancy it must have been 
 an ugly room in the old days when 
 its walls were probably white, and 
 the great mahogany doors were spots 
 of colour in prevailing spaces of 
 blankness. Now, however, any one 
 at all learned in art, or sensitive to 
 beauty, would pronounce it a beau- 
 
220 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 tiful room. The way in which the 
 ceiling with its heavy centre-piece and 
 plaster cornice is treated is especial- 
 ly interesting. The whole of this 
 is covered with an ochre-coloured 
 bronze, while the walls and door- 
 casings are painted a dark indigo, 
 which includes a faint trace of green. 
 Over this wall-colour, and joining 
 the cornice, is carried a stencil de- 
 sign in two coloured bronzes which 
 seem to repeat the light and shadow 
 of the cornice mouldings, and this 
 apparently extends the cornice into a 
 frieze which ends faintly at a picture- 
 moulding some three feet below. 
 This treatment not only lowers the 
 ceiling, which is in construction too 
 high for the area of the room, but 
 blends it with the wall in a way 
 which imparts a certain richness of 
 effect to all the lower space. 
 
 The upper part of the windows, 
 to the level of the picture-moulding. 
 
FURNITURE 
 
 is covered with green silk, overlaid 
 with an applique of the same in a 
 design somewhat like the frieze, so 
 that it seems to carry the frieze across 
 the space of light in a green tracery 
 of shadow. The same green extends 
 from curtain-rods at the height of 
 the picture-moulding into long under- 
 curtains of silk, while the over-cur- 
 tains are of indigo coloured silk-can- 
 vas which matches the walls. 
 
 The portieres separating the din- 
 ing-room from the drawing-room are 
 of a wonderfully rich green brocade 
 — the colour of which answers to 
 the green of the silk under-curtains 
 across the room, while the design 
 ranges itself indisputably with the 
 period of the plaster work. The 
 blue and green of the curtains and 
 portiere each seem to claim their own 
 in the mixed and softened background 
 of the wall. 
 
 The colour of the room would 
 
224 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 hardly, be complete without the three 
 beautiful portraits which hang upon 
 the walls, and suggest their part of 
 the life and conversation of to-day 
 so that it stands on a proper plane 
 with the dignity pf three generations. 
 The beautiful mahogany doors and 
 elaboration of cornice and central 
 ornament belong to them, but the 
 harmony and beauty of colour are 
 of our own time and tell of the gen- 
 eral knowledge and feeling for art 
 which belong to it. 
 
 I have given the colour-treatment 
 only of this room, leaving out the 
 efFect of carved teak-wood furniture 
 and subtleties of china and glass — 
 not alone as an instance of colour in 
 a sunny exposure, but as an example 
 of fitting new styles to old, of keep- 
 ing what is valuable and beautiful in 
 itself and making it a part of the 
 comparatively new art of decoration. 
 
 There is a dining-room in one of 
 
GLASS EY DUNHAM WHEELER 
 
 SCREEN BY DORA WHEELER KEITH 
 
 SCREEN AND GLASS WINDOW IN HOUSE AT LAKEWOOD 
 (Belonging to Clarence Roof, Esq.) 
 
FURNITURE 223 
 
 the many delightful houses in Lake- 
 wood, N. J., which owes its unique 
 charm to a combination of position, 
 light, colour, and perhaps more than 
 all, to the clever decoration of its 
 upper walls, which is a fine and broad 
 composition of swans and many-pol- 
 oured clusters of grapes and vine- 
 foliage placed above the softly 
 tinted copper-coloured wall. The 
 same design is carried in silvery and 
 gold-coloured leaded-glass across the 
 top of the wide west window, as 
 shown in illustration opposite page 
 222, and reappears with a shield- 
 shaped arrangement of wings in a 
 beautiful four-leaved screen. 
 
 The notable and enjoyable colour 
 of the room is seen from the very 
 entrance of the , house, the broad 
 main hall making a carpeted highway 
 to the wide opening of the room, 
 where a sheaf of tinted sunset light 
 seems to spread itself like a many- 
 
224 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 doubled fan against the shadows of 
 the hall. 
 
 All the ranges and intervals, the 
 lights, reflections, and darks possible 
 to that most beautiful of metals — 
 copper- — seem to be gathered into 
 the frieze and screen, and melt softly 
 into the greens of the foliage, or tint 
 the plumage of the swans. It is an 
 instance of the kind of decoration 
 which is both classic and domestic, 
 and being warmed and vivified by 
 beautiful colour, appeals both to the 
 senses and the imagination. 
 
 It would be easy to multiply in- 
 stances of beautiful rooms, and each 
 one might be helpful for mere imita- 
 tion, but those I have given have 
 each one illustrated — more or less 
 distinctly — the principle of colour as 
 alFecting or being affected by light. 
 
 I have not thought it necessary to 
 give examples of rooms with eastern 
 or western exposures, because in such 
 
FURNITURE X25 
 
 rooms one is free to consult one's 
 own personal preferences as to col- 
 our, being limited only by the gen- 
 eral rules which govern all colour 
 decoration. 
 
 I have not spoken of pictures or 
 paintings as accessories of interior 
 decoration, because while their influ- 
 ence upon the character and degree 
 of beauty in the house is greater than 
 all other things put together, their 
 selection and use are so purely per- 
 sonal as not to call for remark or 
 advice. Any one who loves pictures 
 well enough to buy them, can hardly 
 help placing them where they not 
 only are at their best, but where 
 they will also have the greatest in- 
 fluence. 
 
 A house where pictures predom- 
 inate will need little else that comes 
 under the head of decoration. It is 
 a pity that few houses have this ad- 
 vantage, but fortunately it is quite 
 
2z6 PRINCIPLES OF HOME DECORATION 
 
 possible to give a picture quality to 
 every interior. This can often be 
 done by following the lead of some 
 accidental effect which is in itself 
 picturesque. The placing a jar of 
 pottery or metal near or against a 
 piece of drapery which repeats its 
 colour and heightens the lustre of its 
 substance is a small detail, but one 
 which gives pleasure out of all pro- 
 portion to its importance. The half 
 accidental draping of a curtain, the 
 bringing together of shapes and col- 
 ours in insignificant things, may give 
 a character which is lastingly pleasing 
 both to inmates and casual visitors. 
 
 Of course this is largely a matter 
 of personal gift. One person may 
 make a picturesque use of colour and 
 material, which in the hands of an- 
 other will be perhaps without fault, 
 but equally without charm. In- 
 stances of this kind come constantly 
 within our notice, although we are 
 
FURNITURE 227 
 
 not always able to give the exact 
 reasons for success or failure. We 
 only know that we feel the charm of 
 one instance and are indifferent to, 
 or totally unimpressed by, the other. 
 It is by no means an unimportant 
 thing to create a beautiful and pict- 
 uresque interior. There is no influ- 
 ence so potent upon life as harmoni- 
 ous surroundings, and to create and 
 possess a home which is harmonious 
 in a simple and inexpensive way is the 
 privilege of all but the wretchedly 
 poor. In proportion also as these 
 surroundings become more perfect 
 in their art and meaning, there is a 
 corresponding elevation in the dweller 
 among them — since the best decora- 
 tion must include many spiritual les- 
 sons. It may indeed be used to 
 further vulgar ambitions, or pamper 
 bodily weaknesses, but truth and 
 beauty are its essentials, and these 
 will have their utterance.