December, 1911 
An excellent example of good taste in decorating a stairhall 
into a room, but quite as much with what should be left out. 
IMPLICITY and elegance go hand in hand when we 
understand by simplicity crudity is never meant. If 
one has in mind the decoration of a small house, an attempt 
should never be made to crowd it in the certain expectation 
of getting elaborate effects out of a strictly limited area. 
Too often we find a house overcrowded not only with use- 
less, but with unbeautiful things. As though any sentiment 
in the world could excuse the putting in a conspicuous place 
of an object that does not belong there. The most sacred 
things of the temple are the hidden ones. If one possesses 
one or many objects dear to the heart, but homely to the 
vision, they had best be tucked away in some sanctum sanc- 
torum especially devised to hold such articles of sentimental 
value. Restraint in interior decoration, like restraint in 
anything else, is one of its chief virtues and one of the strong- 
est stones in the foundation of good taste. The rule that 
everything should be useful as well as beautiful, and beau- 
tiful as well as useful when possible, contains fully half of 
the philosophy of just what constitutes good taste. ‘The 
day has arrived when it is possible with a little thought to 
have every unit in the furnishings of the house fulfill the 
esthetic rules one might lay down for selection. Turn to 
the over-crowded mantels which one unfortunately sees 
everywhere every day, holding, as these do, odds and ends 
of no artistic merit and which do not even possess the sav- 
ing grace of being useful. A mantelshelf decorated with a 
clock of good design, vases of worth that will really hold 
flowers when required, and perhaps decorated in addition 
with a pair of well-chosen candlesticks, will have a charac- 
ter and distinction utterly lacking in a chenille-fringed draped 
shelf looking for all the world like the grabbag department 
of a village fair. 
VEN taking a single piece of furniture such as a desk, 
how often, leaving the element of untidiness quite out 
of the question, one sees a jumble of articles upon it that 
suggests confusion, and instead of making the object a part 
in the harmonious decorative scheme renders it completely 
at variance with any sense of proportion. ‘The splendid 
mother-of-pearl pen holders, the small silver ink wells that 
do not hold ink, and like objects best truthfully described 
“trifles,” only serve to make a plaything of what should 
carry out the dignity of its selection; therefore the articles 
on such a desk when dictated by good taste will be those 
not overlooking utility in the first place, and beauty in the 
second. 
HERE has often appeared to be a misconception in the 
matter of the useful and of the beautiful. In connec- 
tion with which it is enough to say that an attempt to dis- 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
LPT C LI eee 
Cae at ak 
449 
guise the useful by what is supposed to be the beautiful can 
never be more successful than the painting of a wooden 
snow-shovel with a mica be-powdered winter landscape. 
The Japanese understand the principle of simplicity as ap- 
plied to the interior decoration of their home, which despite 
our familiarity with it seems somewhat difficult for the Occi- 
dental mind to grasp. A family in Nippon may have a 
hundred cherished possessions in the way of vases and other 
bric-a-brac, but instead of bringing them proudly forth all 
at a time they display a single object now and then and give 
thought and care to its arrangement so it truly becomes a 
distinguished object reverently to be regarded for the plea- 
sure its contemplation can give to the family and their 
friends. Western nations have grown to feel that space 
and emptiness are synonymous and to wish to cover every 
square inch of wall-surface with a picture, a mirror, or some 
other object. The result is that our houses are more apt to 
be museums of mediocre objects than exhibitions of our 
good taste. ‘There is no more reason, if we happen to 
possess a great many objets dart, that we should display 
them all at one time if the decorative scheme does not re- 
quire them, than that a person possessing numerous gems 
should wear them all at once upon the person. Even the 
Indian rajah, who comes to a Durbar a veritable blaze of 
jeweled ornaments, still leaves some at home hidden within 
the recesses of his palace treasure vault. 
N this matter of walls it too often happens, especially in 
decorating small rooms, that one is led into the error of 
employing elaborate gaudy papers quite out of keeping to 
tasteful decoration upon a small scale. It seems strange 
that we cannot all of us realize the value of plain neutral 
colored papers, or ones of simple and elegant patterns in 
proportion to the size of the room and completing the har- 
mony of the decorative scheme. Wall coverings should 
never intrude themselves, but should take the place of the 
atmosphere around one out of doors, forming a pleasing 
background for such furniture, pictures, etc., as may be 
placed against it. In nine cases out of ten one will wish a 
room to appear larger than it is in reality, in which case it 
is well to choose the simple papers, as the large figured ones 
have the opposite effect of making a large room appear 
smaller. In the matter of furniture, we are more apt to 
err than in any other one. We go into a shop and decide 
that this chair or that is comfortable and buy it regardless 
of its appearance, or of its relation to the decorative treat- 
ment of the room into which it is to be put, or we may, on 
the other hand, take an especial fancy to a chair for esthetic 
reasons only to find after we have brought it home that it is 
(Continued on page x) 
The living-room need not be filled with things to make it more homelike 
