Then, again, the amount of living and brilliant colour is exactly proportioned 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 happened 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 curiously changed; the modern house is fitted to its inmates, while the old-fashioned house, modelled upon the early eighteenth century art of England, obliged the inmates to fit themselves as best they might to a given standard.

The dining-room I speak of belongs to the period when Washington Square, New York, was still surrounded by noble homes, and almost the limit of luxurious city life was 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 indeed above the flat arches of the doorways with their rococo flourishes. This extension of window-frame, and the heavy and elaborate plaster cornice 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 beautiful room. The way in which the ceiling with its heavy centre-piece and plaster cornice is treated is especially 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 design 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, 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-curtains are of indigo coloured silk-canvas which matches the walls.

The portieres separating the dining-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 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 of 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 general knowledge and feeling for art which belongs 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 keeping 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 the many delightful houses in Lakewood, 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-coloured 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-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 instances of beautiful rooms, and each one might be helpful for mere imitation, but those I have given have each one illustrated—more or less distinctly—the principle of colour as affecting or being affected by light.

I have not thought it necessary to give examples of rooms with eastern or western exposures, because in such rooms one is free to consult one's own personal preferences as to colour, being limited only by the general rules which govern all colour decoration.

I have not spoken of pictures or paintings as accessories of interior decoration, because while their influence 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 personal 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 influence.

A house where pictures predominate will need little else that comes under the head of decoration. It is a pity that few houses have this advantage, but fortunately it is quite 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 proportion to its importance. The half accidental draping of a curtain, the bringing together of shapes and colours 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 another will be perhaps without fault, but equally without charm. Instances of this kind come constantly within our notice, although we are 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 picturesque interior. There is no influence so potent upon life as harmonious 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 decoration must include many spiritual lessons. 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.

THE END