208 



HOME AND FLOWERS 



should receive special consideration, but 

 that the nse of the room should be con- 

 sidered along with its lighting. For ex- 

 ample, a sitting-room on the south side 

 of the house should not be furnished just 

 like Mrs. B's most successful one on the 

 north side, nor if Mrs. X's dining-room 

 looks so well in green-brown tones with 

 heavy furniture, should you fit up an in- 

 valid's sitting-room in the same way — an 

 extreme case you may say. Yes, but, in 



FOR SERVICE MORE THAN LOOKS 



a milder degree, such cases may be seen 

 in many, many homes. 



Consideration of the shadows is so often 

 lost sight of that I am inclined to urge it. 

 The beauty of a Rembrandt lies in his 

 masterly treatment of shadows. You so 

 often hear the plaint, "I want something 

 to lighten a dark corner in such and such 

 a room," quite failing to recognize what 

 a treasure such a shadow is if taken ad- 

 vantage of as a background, for once it 

 becomes this, it is a portion of the picture. 

 It is a shade, not a shadow. 



The hasty purchase of numberless 

 things for the new home leads to more 

 incongruities than any other method, not 

 barring the ignorant suggestions of every 

 mechanic at work on the house. As a 

 concrete illustration, I remember a sitting- 

 room in a soft, rich, olive green hue. The 



floor — at the suggestion of a painter who 

 had been sent to do some touching up — 

 had been grained in alternate strips of 

 what he termed a "lovely cherry color." 

 The lady of the house liked blue, so she 

 purchased a deep blue rug picked out in 

 peculiar Oriental greens and reds, and 

 the husband's selection of furniture was 

 mahogany with another shade of old rose 

 coverings. Outside of the painter's misfit 

 everything was "good," but the effect 

 was that of a crazy-patchwork quilt. I 

 admit someone lacked artistic taste, but 

 if more time had been taken, possibly 

 much of this result might have been 

 avoided, for, with no taste at all, it could 

 not have been worse. 



This thoughtlessness in buying, a sort 

 of mental laziness, is evident in so many 

 of our homes. We see a pretty piece of 

 paper or hanging and want it, never once 

 stopping to think of its effect among its 

 neighbors in our home. If we really see 

 the need of consideration we soon tire 

 and take the "easiest things." I was re- 

 cently told, "I am so tired of looking at 

 stained glass." Probably the entire time 

 spent during several days had not 

 amounted to three hours, and yet the 

 family will look at that glass every day 

 in the year for man;y, many years. 



A thoroughly satisfactory scheme of 

 decoration and furnishing, one in which 

 all the treasured Lares and Penates seem 

 not to be salvage from the wreck of some 

 preceding habitation, but a component 

 part of one harmonious whole, produces 

 a restfulness in the home that undoubt- 

 edly reacts on its inmates. You know 

 before you see him that the son is a 

 straightforward, manly boy with manv 

 interests, in which the family share. You 

 expect the daughter to be gentle in man- 

 ner and neat in dress, no matter what 

 its simplicity. Above and beyond all, the 

 home shows that it is lived in, and the 

 evidence of this fact also indicates some- 

 thing of the thoughts, feelings and as- 

 pirations of the people whose characters 

 are being formed in its sacred precincts. 



