words, that the woman gifted with the home-making power, and able to take her furniture about with her, will shed her own personality over every house she inhabits; whereas a woman without this lovable power will have a handsome house which yet falls short of a home.

But let us first consider a settledthat is, an inherited-home, which is, no doubt, somewhat hampered with traditions of the past, and is, therefore, an occasion for the exercise of what may be called decorative tact. For the wise woman must verily be "all things to all houses." Suppose she marries from the flippant prettiness of a large villa into the dignified austerity of an old priory, how easily without decorative tact may disaster result! Suppose, for instance, our bride has ideas of her own, without the precious sense of eternal fitness of things which alone makes such ideas useful, she will dress up the low priory drawing-room, with its quaint, prim, Gothic windows, in bright pink wall-paper with rose-garlanded frieze; gaily arrange French furniture on a flowery Aubusson carpet; and, after arranging equally appropriate schemes all through the house, will complacently say to friends, "You really must come and see the Priory! I'm sure you won't know it." An old monastic house thus treated is almost as terrible as an old woman of seventy in a white frock and a picture hat. More ludicrous results have, however, been made by the woman who climbs down (matrimonially) and not up; and whobecause they looked so well in the lovely old hall at home-may insist on buying suits of armor for the hall of a frankly modern villa! In short, one wants, in settling into a fresh home, old or modern, plenty of that somewhat uncommon article misnamed "commonsense."

Having been consulted by (literally) many thousands of women about their

homes during the past twelve yearshomes which ranged from the castle to the cottage-I may reasonably be supposed to know something not only about houses, but about the pitfalls into which my own sex is most prone-decoratively to fall. Unhesitatingly, then, I dub these weakness of judgment, absence of the power to forecast effect, and, above all, a tendency to follow the mode of the moment.

This love-vulgarizing and extravagant of the "latest novelty" is, alas! no new failing of the sex feminine. Did not our grandmothers, under its fell sway, banish to the attics or (irrevocably) to the nearest salerooms the now priceless furniture made by Chippendale, Sheraton, and Hepplewhite; replacing it, too, with the clumsy atrocity of the somewhat disloyally-named "Early Victorian" period? Incredible how any one could welcome the hideous "balloon-back" dining-room chairwith its seat buttoned down into tiny dust-traps, too!-after, perchance, owning a set of shield-back Chippendales, carved with dainty wheatears and standing on graceful "wedge" legs. But Fashion makes more fools than does Folly herself!

One would fain hope that the advance of public taste during the past twenty or thirty years-an advance we decorative scribblers have of late years sought to keep going-will avert the repetition of such short-sighted folly. The danger, if any, will lie in the trade craze for novelty, and of a section of the public being swept off its mental balance by what may be termed "fad" furniture.

Fad furniture, properly speaking, must have been designed by one celebrity, carried out by another, and sold -ever at a prodigious price, for its very plain appearance-by a third. One may see a weirdly uncomfortable chair, a mere glance at which banishes

the thought of rest; indeed, the only part of it which is not green-stained oak is an austere little cushion covered with blue velvet. This chair, with designer's and maker's name attached, may be priced at twelve pounds twelve shillings; and one marvels who will buy it. Then, above all, unless the rest of the furniture were equally freakish and uncanny, how would it look in a room? One thing is certain: fad furniture can only be placed in a house built and decorated on purpose for ita house in which, to be really in keeping, the owner should even have a tendency to the so-called "æsthetic" style of dress.

Fad furniture will, therefore, I fancy, never make much headway with the average man and woman not willing to live in bondage to the "Early" style of their goods and chattels. And, lest I put the cart before the horse, here must come in a few words anent decoration. In the want of decorative tact lies the sole difficulty in choosing the wall-papers for a special house; and here, again, comes in the pitfall of imitativeness. Let us suppose that Mrs. A. owns beautiful old china, also colored prints after Morland and Wheatley's pictures, old fans, black silhouette portraits, old samplers, and other treasures in the shape of genuine Chippendale cabinets, tables, etc. In an evil hour she visits a friend clever in the "tricky" way of disguising an omnium gatherum of valueless furniture by enamelling it ivory. Setting this furniture, with praiseworthy tact, against the indefiniteness of a flowery wall-paper, and striking a good note of color by a shaded blue pile carpet and blue curtains, the room-all honor to its owner!-looks fresh and individual. Yet, alas that, returning to her own county, Mrs. A. seeks to repeat the decoration, only to find, with a sense of injured surprise, that her old china is unnoticed, while the dark furniture shows up hard and

heavy, instead of, as heretofore, waiting coyly to be admired.

Now, the tact which alone makes a born decorator would have told her that the setting her possessions cried aloud for was a softly-shaded, red-striped wall-paper and deep frieze of a chintzlike paper, with gay old-world flowers and peacocks. A soft willow-green and cream ceiling-paper and ivory paint would complete the scheme. How bravely would the old china and pictures show up! How cosily gleam the dark furniture! Shimmery-green velvet curtains and a green pile carpet would complete the picture. It would, of course, be arbitrary to say that Chippendale furniture (old or reproduced) must necessarily be set against red walls. The "lighting," size, and, above all, the aspect of the room must always govern the color. For a south or southwest room, for instance, dark furniture looks exceptionally well against a vivid green wall. Thiswith ivory paint and old-world chintz curtains and furniture covers, showing pæonies, birds of paradise, etc., in gay colors-forms another charming scheme of decoration. The carpet should be green or a red-centre Aubusson. cold, sour, yellow wall-paper is too often the suggestion of an "upholsterer decorator" for Chippendale furniture; he usually combines it with a frieze of gaudy chrysanthemums or nodding poppies, whence the eye vainly seeks relief; and he is apt to suggest "pale ivory paint, just picked out with shades of pink." The fact is a little yellow is a dangerous thing; and a yellow paper, unless bolder than the average woman dare choose, is apt to go white by lamplight, making curtains and carpet seem oppressively dark patches. Blue walls will be found quite the most becoming background to Sheraton furniture (old or reproduced); it shows up the rich, yellowy tones of the satinwood bands and the dainty "stringing." Nor, by

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the way, can one possibly choose a better setting than turquoise-blue for Dutch marqueterie. Those attempting to put the latter furniture against a flowery wall are indeed foredoomed to decorative despair; and these words open the door to a few remarks about the balance of design.

A too common mistake made by upholsterers and owners of rooms is that of trying to match everything. Monotony is not harmony. Say you choose a flowery wall-paper, and proceed to find a brocade "as near as possible" for the curtains, and a carpet "which really might have been made for the brocade," and then light on a furniturecovering which "might also be a bit of the wall-paper;" and, lo! when all is done, you will vaguely wonder why the room disappoints you, and why no one ever admires it.

The remedy may be alternative, but must be drastic. Let us suppose the dominating shades in the wall-paper are pink and green. We can either leave the flowery curtains and carpet, and repaper all but two feet at the top of the room (which then, with the addition of a wooden frieze-rail, becomes a floral frieze) with a softly-striped, selfcolored green paper; or we can-leaving the flowery walls as they are have the garish carpet dyed moss-green, and substitute plain green curtains for those of flowered brocade, which will, by the way, suit a self-colored paper in another room admirably. So shall the balance of design-that is, plain versus flowered-be once again held level. Alas, that the balance of color is too big a subject to enter into here! Real colorists are, however, born, not made; and the God-sent gift of an eye for color gives its owner endless joys.

A broad and undeniable decorative fact is, that on the style and color of the background-that is, on the paper or other material chosen for the walldepends the success of a room. A mag

nificent and (being at a show-place) very well-known room here comes to mind. It is a huge state drawing-room, and used to be decorated in large panels framed in carton-pierre, painted ivory, and filled in with rose-red Genoese brocade-a shabby but stately background to the various old pietra-dura cabinets and pedestals, the old ebony coffers inlaid with ivory, the Brobdingnagian gold couches, and other delights. Standing in that room of late, I noted with horror that the wall had been stripped of all the raised scrolls and garlands, and papered with a chilly, gray paper of the Morris school, and therefore excellent in design, but fatally inappropriate-an absolute anachron

ism.

Had it not been wished to renew the costly silk (at possibly the cost of a guinea the yard), there are nowadays splendid quality "silk effect" rose-red papers at eight shillings and sixpence or so the dozen yards; and as to the carton-pierre, it should be made penal to remove such lovely decoration!

We do not, however, all possess state drawing-rooms, so let us again turn to rooms of more moderate pretensions. The age of the house and style of architecture must, of course, be one's guide. For instance, I can imagine no more absurd contrast than one of my own "soldiering homes"--a hut at Aldershot -and the actual family home I now inhabit. In one case, the window curtains measured fifty inches in length; in the other, four and a half yards. How different must be the treatment of such rooms! If, then, your house is of the Georgian period-long, straight rooms, and high, somewhat narrow windows-it is no case for frivolous decoration, still less for the ultra-æsthetic. A wall-paper about which one may rave at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition will be fatally out of place in a Georgian country house.

If your house is an essentially modern one, with queer-shaped rooms and surprise windows peeping here and there, or is even an old Henry VII priory, there is scope for the cautious use of the æsthetic school of wall-papers. But they are essentially fettering, once hung; and nothing which has not emanated from the same school of thought will look well in the room. Even the loveliest rose-strewn brocade cushion will upset the harmony of a room papered with an ultra Morris or Voysey paper. In fact, I was once shown over a beautiful house, decorated by the former, some years ago, when the owner, on my asking for her daughter's new photograph, said woefully, "Oh, I am not supposed ever to have photographs in the drawing room. They don't suit the wall-paper or something!" which seemed to me to savor more of the house that bullies you, than of the "home"-friendly, lovable, and welcoming. The wall-paper, therefore, should always serve the room rather than govern it; and it is an undoubted fact that one's furniture and one's friends look best against a wall of rich color and paper of "flat" design, say in two shades of that color, with, perhaps, a deft touch of a third. Unless in a yellow room, where green-stained doors and skirting gives the chance for a deliciously quaint room, it may be laid down that ivory woodwork everywhere shows a house at its best.

Were I building, however, all doors should be of dark, polished mahogany, as in olden days. The exception to this would be doors of bedrooms, which (inside the room) should be ivory. An excellent result (in houses of the date where all passage skirtings and doors were grained brown) can be obtained by having grained doors treated with coat after coat of dark varnish stain until the graining scarcely shows, and then having the door frames and skirting ivory.

An effective yet very inexpensive way of producing an ivory dado in long passages is to have a wooden dado rail (twopence or threepence the foot) fixed on the wall, say, three feet six inches above the skirting, and the space thus enclosed treated with two or three coats of "wapicti." This is applied like distemper, but does not rub off, and can be cleaned with a damp flannel. Having lately treated some two hundred and eighty feet of hitherto gloomy passages thus, with the addition of an effective blue-and-white wall-paper above the dado, I can gratefully record the result.

As regards the very large subject of furnishing, it is hard here to be very helpful. So much depends on the house to be furnished, the money which is available, and the tastes and avocations of the inmates. But the policy should always be the same-that is, "What will suit me and suit my style of rooms?" not "What do other people buy?"

The very strong wave of feeling in favor of faithful reproductions of the best period of English furniture-a wave, I am proud to feel, women-writers have now for some years urged forward-has done much to swamp the trivial attempts of the maker of latest novelties. At their best these generally consist, as to ingredients, of ebonized wood, printed velveteen, and brass nails; at their worst, of bamboo and lacquer flap-tables, or-sorrow's crown of sorrow!-of plaited rush and wicker plant-stands and other rubbish. Better the barest room than one crowded with things which must deteriorate, not improve, with age; whereas, with a really well-made and faithful reproduction of a carved oak chair or sideboard, every year of elbow-grease tones down and softens edges, mellows color. and makes one's possession more and more desirable.

The same may be said of modern

Chippendale and Sheraton-when well made, and not "blown together" for effect and rapid sale. It is now possible to buy a well-made little Chippendale or Sheraton bureau for four pounds fifteen shillings; while the rickety little screen desks, with their misapplied autotype and lack of room to write, or the bamboo and leather-paper horrors, cost almost as much, yet would inevitably be thrown away long before the bureau had even reached its prime.

Alas that the inexorable law of space leaves me scant room for views on bedroom furniture, surely never so pretty or so convenient as to-day! One has but to look back thirty years or so and recall the ugly, clumsy, and costly ash and birch suites of one's early married days, or back farther still to home-days, and spare bedrooms all furnished alike with the ponderously-plain red mahogany suites, costing seventy and eighty pounds, yet unlovable and ugly, to realize the difference betwixt then and now. Let us therefore rejoice that we can nowadays get most elaborate and beautiful suites, of varied style, and at less than half the afore-named cost; while, for plainer styles, good, roomy suites can be bought for from nineteen pounds to twenty-eight pounds. Had I to fulfil the enviable task of furnishing, say, twelve nice spare bedrooms in the same house, I would vary them as follows: Two Chippendale rooms, primly austere; three Sheraton rooms, rich and cosy in coloring; three, again, with ivory furniture and "Frenchy" decorations (delicious for the summer guest); one room with a quaintly-carved Queen Bess dark oak suite, yellow wall, chintz hangings, and bright yellow, self-colored ware; one peacock room, with a

Chambers's Journal.

most uncommon little suite I have seen, with peacocks inlaid on the wardrobe doors, etc.; and two with green-stained furniture, having leaded-glass panels and copper handles-one to be a greenand-blue room, and one a green-andyellow one. Such rooms, daintily carried out in their accessories, blottingbooks, paper-cases, etc., would be a constant source of innocent pride to their

owner.

But the liberty of choice falls seldom to the lot of those who live in an inherited home, and are, therefore, compelled to make the best of such bedroom furniture as the house contains. Giving each suite its most flattering setting of wall-paper and paint will, however, often work wonders, and there is, after all, a sense of triumph in overcoming difficulties. Even a sickly buff ash suite, which against a timid little drab-and-white paper looks hopelessly insipid, will, against a brilliant turquoise wall, with yellow rose garland frieze on an ivory ground, seem almost covetable.

In fact, so beautiful in design and color are even the cheap wall-papers and fabrics of to-day that-short of actual trash-no furniture need dismay a woman with a knowledge of decoration and an eye for color. It is, therefore, difficult to look round an "ill-treated" room without marvelling at the perverted ingenuity which conceived and carried out so much ugliness nowadays!

Would that space and opportunity were mine to descant on curtains, coverings, and carpets in their varied relations to the "house beautiful;" but the subject of the home is a vast one, and the more one writes the more remains unwritten.

Mrs. Talbot Coke.