October, 1916 13 
A PLEA FOR PERSONALITY IN THE DECORATION OF ROOMS 
Which Also Regards Mere 
Good Taste as Far Too 
Commonplace 
B. RUSSELL HERTS 
C ERTAINLY its possession of good 
taste is not the most interesting thing 
about a modern home. 
We all have good taste to-day; in fact, 
the world is suffering from a surfeit of 
good taste, not only in decoration, but also 
in dress, in literature, and in social conduct. 
Every chorus girl knows that she must not 
wear strawberries embroidered all over a 
gown; every clerk lias been informed that 
he must not ask a spinster her age or an 
ingenue what she “does”; every housewife 
believes in gray or taupe for walls, ivory 
tints for ceilings and dull flat toned rugs. 
No, good taste is altogether too wide¬ 
spread to be important. The atrocities of 
the last generation are already historic and 
we must find a new battle ground on which 
to marshal our forces of artistic progres- 
sivism. Their individuality is unquestioned. 
Personality Plus 
I believe this is to be found in the field 
of personality. I believe we are going to 
discover that personality is one of the most 
interesting things in the world and that it 
is lacking, not only in our male evening 
dress, but in most women’s attire as well, 
and especially in our house decoration. 
Such a condition is an almost inevitable re¬ 
sult of too much good taste. 
Our magazines have been shouting dull 
backgrounds into our ears until few people 
embark on wall decoration; onr Elsie De 
Wolfes, myriad in number, have been ex¬ 
horting us to suitability in furnishing until 
we tremble at the thought of anything 
bizarre, of that saving grace which exists at 
times in things magnificently inappropriate. 
We have become worshippers at the 
shrine of eternal sameness. 
As a matter of fact, I could take you to¬ 
day to twenty apartments, spend half an 
hour in each, and then defy you to tell me 
definitely which was which. 
Is it not time then to call a halt, to find 
out whether we have not something nobler 
to learn than this unexampled glorification 
of the undeniably com'omnplace ? 
Tile Mission of Mission 
Let us consider for a moment Mission 
furniture, which came into being as a bit 
of much needed revolt against Victorianism, 
with its red and green libraries filled with 
gewgaws and its drawing rooms of pink and 
cream, with gold, gold tete-a-tete and curio 
cabinets. It was a sensible style, the Mis¬ 
sion, straight in line, firm, usable, comfort¬ 
able, hygienic. It taught us a good lesson 
which we learned with much avidity. But 
now, it seems to me, we have passed beyond 
this kindergarten stage of culture, or if we 
have not, we must try to pass it by. The 
Mission is not the grand finality of all good 
sense; nor is the recent renaissance of in¬ 
terest in the antique, with its collecting of 
Colonial specimens on the one hand, its re¬ 
producing of revered old English and Ital¬ 
ian workmen on the other. 
The production of rooms in period can 
No effort ivas made to express a particular style in this living-room, comfort and con¬ 
venience being the desiderata. The davenport is in blue velvet and wing chair in blue 
damask. Rug is blue Chinese, walls, tan. The bronzes and floor pillow are regrettable 
never be a worthy end in itself, but merely 
a means for the expression of present day 
personality. Some people, even now, are 
adequately expressed by the style of Chip¬ 
pendale, or Adam, or, for that matter, per¬ 
haps Raineses II. But most people require 
for their true expression (if they would 
bother to find it out instead of imitating 
their neighbors) some combination of his¬ 
toric styles, subtly welded together, or some 
new style, undreamed of by the genius of 
antiquity, but perhaps produceable by the 
genius of to-day. Who knows? 
At all events, we generally find the most 
character in rooms which vary from his¬ 
toric models, in the forming of which the 
occupant has made a study of himself, or 
his decorator has done this for him, with 
the result that he revels in delight over 
everyone of his possessions, from his arm¬ 
chair for reading to his alabaster inkwell. 
These rooms are rarer than a day in June 
or any other month and when found are to 
be treasured. Visitors may not concur in 
the owner’s opinion of them, but what mat¬ 
ter? They are adequate backgrounds for 
the people who spend their time chiefly in 
them. That is the requirement for a room 
Distinct personality is shown in this corner of a paneled living-room. The table is inlaid 
William and Mary bearing gold candlesticks and a polychrome Italian bust. The wing 
chair is covered with a violet linen 
