148 
House £y Garden 
W HEN you are buying insect 
screen cloth, look for the red 
and black Jersey tag. It identifies the 
cloth which will give you a maximum 
of service and a minimum of trouble, 
jersey Copper Insect Screen Cloth is 
made of copper 99.8 per cent pure, 
and has all the wonderful durability 
of this metal. It has an unusual 
length of life even when subjected to 
the severe climatic conditions found 
along the seacoast or in the tropics. 
Pure copper ordinarily is soft and 
pliable. This is distinctly not the 
case, however, with that used in 
Jersey Copper Screen Cloth. Due to 
a special Roebling process, the copper 
in this cloth is comparable to steel as 
to stilfness and strength. It will not 
sag or bulge. It can be depended 
upon to keep its shape and look well 
year after year. 
Use Jersey Copper Screen Cloth, 
(16 mesh, dark hnish) for your door, 
window and porch screens. Look for 
the red and black tag when you buy 
custom made screens or screen cloth 
from the roll. 
If you cannot readily locate a hard¬ 
ware dealer who sells Jersey Copper 
Screen Cloth, write us. We will send 
you, on request, a booklet regarding 
screen cloth which you will find 
worth reading. 
The New Jersey Wire Cloth Go. 
622 South Broad Street 
Trenton New Jersey 
THE KALEIDOSCOPE OF COLOR 
T ranslated into words, color 
becomes elusive, almost bej'ond cap¬ 
ture. To numbers of people the thing it¬ 
self means little or nothing, and of those 
who have the color-sense, few see the same 
color in the same thing or will agree to call 
that color by the same name. There is, 
for instance, the color of a telegram enve¬ 
lope, which is alluded to in fiction as 
orange, yellow, buff or brown, indiffer¬ 
ently. To reverse the process, and to try 
fitting the color to the name, a test might 
be made by taking some familiar name— 
rose-pink, for example—and asking half a 
dozen colorists to illustrate their idea of it. 
It is safe to say that no two of the colors 
produced will be quite alike and that the 
extremes of difference will be remarkable. 
For one it will mean the yellowish pink 
that is nearl}^ coral, another will merely 
add a tincture of carmine to white; some 
will see it brownish, and others with the 
blue or violet tinge more or less pro¬ 
nounced. It follows, then, that one and 
the same list of colors blended together in 
one room may result in a harmony or a 
riot according to the interpretation of the 
names. 
Todaj^ we are all for color; the prohibi¬ 
tions and maxims, the “ tables of agreeable 
contrasts” which guided a former genera¬ 
tion, are flouted by us. If this lawlessness 
has had some unhappy consequences, it is 
nevertheless a move in the right direction, 
for it has taught people to experiment and 
find out new combinations for themselves. 
There is, in truth, no combination or 
mingling of colors that can be labeled 
wrong or bad. The blues, the Chinese 
pinks, the emeralds, the purples, the 
canary yellows, and the blacks can all be 
shaken together into beautiful patterns 
in the kaleidoscope. It all depends upon 
the guiding hand and the seeing eye, 
though it must be allowed that the real 
colorist is born, and not made. 
Bright and varied colors are not, so to 
speak, indigenous to Northern Europe. 
Rich dark shades, soft pale pastel tints, 
dull neutral hues; waves of these have 
ebbed and flowed with the changing tastes 
and conditions of the day. That there al¬ 
ways have been instances of gorgeous and 
wonderful decorations does not alter the 
general rule that color, climate, and tem¬ 
perament work together. Strong and posi¬ 
tive colors have always prevailed in East¬ 
ern decoration, and where in the intense 
brilliant sunshine pale hues would be lost, 
bright colors and violent contrasts merely 
look natural and right. 
It would seem, then, that our present 
feeling for the brilliant and the startling 
is something of an exotic and already the 
kaleidoscope is being modified in accord¬ 
ance with the natural laws of tempera¬ 
ment and climate, and that form of decora¬ 
tion which may be described as “kalei¬ 
doscopic” is becoming more intelligent 
and practical. 
Between the kaleidoscope and the color 
scheme in decoration there is this dif¬ 
ference. A scheme is based on one or two 
predominating colors to which others are 
added as complement or in sharp contrast 
to give point and interest or to accentuate 
the general scheme. In the kaleidoscope a 
number of colors are used, and all are of 
equal importance; no one color in particu¬ 
lar dominates or asserts itself over the 
rest. This form of decoration has already 
become quite common enough to prove 
that an endless variety of colors can be 
both undistinguished and disagreeable, 
and is, indeed, far more exacting to deal 
with than the scheme. 
In the first place, it is necessary to have 
a clear idea of the effect aimed at. If it is 
to be sharp, striking, and vivid, the colors 
should be limited; four or five cleverly 
handled give a high brilliancy and variety 
where a dozen might result in a vague 
muddle or downright ugliness. Thus, if we 
choose emerald green, slate blue, orange, 
rose, and pink, each must be of the same 
tone—equal in strength and depth. Since 
one brilliant color negatives another, the 
result of decoration on these lines is a 
kind of harmon}' which, though vivid, is 
rather strident or coarse. As a general 
rule, decorations in this st3fle are best kept 
for entrance halls, vestibules, passage 
rooms, and so on. Where dwelling rooms 
are concerned it is wise to aim at a jeweled 
effect with a multitude of colors, rich and 
exquisite in hue. This kaleidoscope effect 
can be approached in either of two ways: 
first, bj' using a low toned or neutral back¬ 
ground; second, by making the back¬ 
ground strong and vivid. The first is in¬ 
finitely the easier way; with gray walls, 
for example, and graj' or white woodwork, 
the room may be a perfect mosaic of bril¬ 
liant colors without being garish in the 
least. The more the colors are mingled, 
the less will any single one stand out, and 
yet the whole effect will be lively and 
charming. In such a room the windows 
are important; chintz roller blinds of a 
small gay pattern in canary, green, and 
cerise help out the jeweled effect, with 
thin hanging blinds of transparent net or 
crepe de Chine in bright emerald. Lac¬ 
quer, painted furniture, old Bow and 
Chelsea china, and colored glass are in 
keeping. Chairs and sofas are better up¬ 
holstered in some neutral colored unpat¬ 
terned material—graj' velvet or mouse 
color—to give fullest value to little 
cushions in rainbow-striped silk and 
strange designs; Chinese embroidery, 
passe-partouted, will make vivid patches 
of color on the gray walls. It is hardly 
possible to exaggerate the charm of a 
kaleidoscope room that has been carried 
out on these lines, and many a room that 
is now merel}^ miscellaneous could be thus 
transformed and characterized at a com¬ 
paratively low cost. 
When the background (walls and w'ood- 
work) are of a strong and vivid color the 
making of the kaleidoscope room at once 
becomes a more difficult undertaking. 
Here the curtains, floor, chair covers, and 
so on must all be equally strong and vivid 
in their various colors, otherwise the back¬ 
ground would predominate and the room 
would inevitably fall into a color scheme 
in which the kaleidoscope would be lost. 
According to the room and to individual 
taste, the kaleidoscope decoration may be 
pitched in a low or in a high key. Lemon- 
j^ello\Y walls and woodwork will lead to 
high clear tones; with purple or deep ultra- 
marine the pitch will be low and 
rich. 
Words, however, are a poor medium to 
convey- the corriplexities of color, and rules 
are of little use as a guide to its balance 
and arrangement. A^ou feel it, or you do 
not feel it, and there is an end of the mat¬ 
ter. Nevertheless, there are many people 
who are profoundl}' affected by color, and 
yet lack the color sense or the experience 
that is necessarj' to carr}' out their aspira¬ 
tions. For these it is no bad plan to take 
as a guide a piece of Canton enamel, a 
Spanish shawl, an Oriental tile, a piece of 
“ Futurist ” silk by a modern artist, or anj- 
other classic model that may be handjq 
and copy its colors and their distribu¬ 
tion. 
JERSEY 
Copper Screen Cloth 
B I Made o-f Copper OQ.8 96 Pure 
