Neutral BacJiground 195 



upholstered furniture, parlor tea-tables filled 

 with delicate (and generally dusty) china, and 

 many other things which have been copied from 

 the unwholesome and perhaps necessary customs 

 of city life. 



Taste is a matter of cultivation, as much as 

 efficiency or honesty; the habitual application of 

 its fundamental principles in one's own house- 

 hold, and the seeing of beautiful things else- 

 where, are the chief means of its development. 

 Man obtained his first conception of beauty from 

 the form and color which he saw in the world 

 about him, and we have only to apply the jDrin- 

 ciples which are there apparent, in order to de- 

 velop good taste. Nature provides an immense 

 and comparatively neutral background ; Nature 

 always makes curves, never angles ; Nature 

 blends the most sharply contrasting colors to- 

 gether in the butterfly's wing, in the poppies in 

 a meadow, and in the feathers of the robin's 

 breast. The greater part of the world is in soft 

 colors, browns and grays, dull greens and dull 

 blues; the brilliant yellows, reds, pinks, purples 

 and blues are always in very small quantities 

 against this very large, neutral background. 

 Since the furnishings of a house are the setting 

 of the people, none of them should be more 

 conspicuous than the people. Whatever brilliant 

 color there is must be in relatively small quan- 



