■/ 
 
/ 
 
HINTS 
 
 ON HOUSE 
 
 FURNISHING 
 

HIJN^TS 
 
 OlSr HOUSE 
 
 FURNISHIJSrG 
 
 BY 
 
 W. SHAW SPARROW 
 
 acthor of 
 " The English House," and 
 Editor op " The Modern Home,"' 
 The British Home of To-Day," <fec. 
 
 LONDON 
 EVELEIGH NASH 
 
 FAWSIDE HOUSE 
 1909 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 
 THE SUBJECT INTRODUCED 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. House and Home 3 
 
 II. A Few Words on Cheapness 20 
 
 III. Systems or Methods of Furnishing 29 
 
 / IV. Taste, Character and Home Life 40 
 
 V. The English Tradition 55 
 
 VI. On Colour 67 
 
 A. The Durability of Colours 67 
 
 B. Colour and Colours 76 
 
 C. The Juxtaposition of Colours 87 
 
 PART II 
 
 THE HOUSE IN DETAILS 
 
 Introduction. Houseowners and Householders 95 
 
 II. Walls and their Treatment 105 
 
 III, Walls and their Treatment {contiimed) 125 
 
 IV. Floors and their Treatment 
 V. The Ceiling 
 
 VI. Windows, Blinds, and Curtains 189 
 
 VII. Textile Fabrics 207 
 
 VIII. Artificial Heat and Light 215 
 
 V 
 
 4D3(r77 
 
 149 
 
 173 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CUAP. PAGE 
 
 IX. Crockery and Porcelain 229 
 
 X. Household Glass 247 
 
 XI. Furniture by M. H. Baillie Scott 262 
 
 XII. Sanitary Appliances 273 
 
 PART III 
 
 THE HOUSE AND ITS ROOMS 
 
 I. Some Hints on Rooms 283 
 
 II. The Dining-Room 292 
 
 III. Some Hints on Other Rooms 297 
 
 Index 303 
 
 Yl 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 To face 
 page 
 
 Room by Morris and Co. Frontispiece 
 
 The Hall at " The Orchard/' Chorley Wood 6 
 
 The Hallj Bengeo House^ Herts. 7 
 
 Two Examples of Plain Oak Furniture 18 
 
 Table by Story and Co. 19 
 
 Room at Lenham Court, Kent 5Q 
 
 The Dining- Room, Old Place, Sussex 57 
 
 George III.'s Bedstead, Goodwood House, Sussex 64 
 
 The King's Room, Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk 65 
 
 The " Isabella " Brocade (Colour) ^5 
 
 Entrance to Music Room, Littlecourt 98 
 
 Fireplace and Bay, Music Room, Littlecourt 99 
 
 Oak-panelled Dining- Room : Polapit Tamar, Cornwall 106 
 
 Wall Decoration in a Small House 107 
 
 The " Piper" Frieze 108 
 
 The "Fig and Vine" Frieze 109 
 
 Wall-paper, " Springtime " 112 
 
 Morning- Room ; Bletchley Park, Bucks llv3 
 
 The Apple Wall-paper 1 22 
 
 The Sunflower Wall-paper 123 
 
 The Portland Decoration 128 
 
 Japanese Embossed Leather Paper 129 
 
 The " Neo-Grec " Decoration 144 
 
 The " Matador" Staircase Paper 145 
 
 English Reproduction of a Fine Indian Carpet 152 
 
 b vii 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 To fact 
 page 
 
 Turkey Carpet 153 
 
 Carpet : Antique Kelim l60 
 
 Plaster Ceiling by G. P. Bankart 176 
 Oak-panelled Billiard- Room ; designed for a House at Chisle- 
 
 hurst 177 
 
 The " Boss " Ceiling 186 
 
 The " Florentine" Ceiling 186 
 
 Library at Greenlands, Henley-on-Thames 187 
 
 Curtain Blinds, adapted to a Sash Window 192 
 
 Example of Inner Casement Blinds 192 
 
 Example of Bronze Fittings 193 
 
 The Marlowe Tapestry (in colour) 207 
 
 Linen Fabric (the Snake-Head Pattern) 208 
 
 Linen Fabric (the Pomegranate Pattern) 209 
 
 The Angelo Tissue 210 
 
 The Lynton Tapestry 210 
 
 "Elmcote" Hand-woven Tapestry 211 
 
 The " Tulip and Net" Hand- woven Wool Tapestry 211 
 
 Curtain, by C. F. A. Voysey 212 
 
 The Silverton Tapestry 2 1 3 
 Portion of the Dining-Room ; Earl of Carlisle's House, Palace 
 
 Green, Kensington 218 
 
 Fireplace in a Library 219 
 
 Corner of a Smoking- Room in a London House 222 
 
 A Drawing-Room Chimney-Piece 223 
 
 Electric Light Table Lamps 226 
 
 Electric Light Two-light Bracket 226 
 
 Electric Light Dinner-table Pendant 227 
 
 Chinese Blue-and-White Porcelain 234 
 
 The New " Colander " Teapot 235 
 
 Coffee Sets 240 
 
 The "Catkin " Design Table Ware 241 
 
 viii 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 To face 
 page 
 
 Cut and Engraved Decanter in Whitefriars Glass 248 
 
 Whitefriars Glass 249 
 
 Ribbed and Dented Wine Glasses 252 
 
 Cut and Engraved Wine Glasses 252 
 
 Two Examples of Ribbed Wine Glasses 253 
 
 Straw Opal Vases 256 
 
 Two Examples of Whitefriars Cut Glass Services 257 
 
 Ribbed Decanters and Jugs in Whitefriars Glass 258 
 
 Further Examples of Straw Opal Vases 259 
 
 The Kitchen at Elmwood Cottage 264 
 
 The Hall in a Country House 265 
 
 Some Examj)les of Simple Furniture (Twelve Pages) 270 
 
 Some Examples of Richer Furniture (Sixteen Pages) 272 
 
 Bath and Fittings ; the " Newlyn " Design 274 
 
 Sitz Baths ; Bath-Room Fittings ; Bath-Room 274 
 
 Fittings for Lavatories ; Another Bath-Room ; Bedroom 
 
 Lavatories ; Washdown Closet 276 
 
 Some Examples of Garden Furniture (Eight Pages) 278 
 
 Room in a House at Bideford (in colour) 283 
 
 The Hall in a London House 284 
 
 Inner Hall, Littlecourt 285 
 
 Cradle in Carved Wood 288 
 
 Cradle, inlaid with Ebony, Pewter, and Coloured Woods 289 
 
 Dining-Room, Bengeo House, Herts. 292 
 
 Dining-Room in a Scotch House 293 
 
 Dining-Room in a London House 296 
 
 Dais of Music Room, Littlecourt, Farthingstone 297 
 
 Drawing- Room in a London House 298 
 
 Drawing- Room in another London House 299 
 
 IX 
 
PART I 
 THE SUBJECT INTRODUCED 
 
 A 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 HOUSE AND HOME 
 " Ill-spent money is a double loss." — Proverb. 
 
 One art is democratic in the fullest meaning of that 
 word ; all the world follows it as a matter of course, 
 kings and queens leading the way, slum-dwellers keeping 
 at a remote and pathetic distance; and this art turns 
 houses into homes, for that is the result of all furnish- 
 ing, whether bad or good. The difference between good 
 and bad furnishing is quite easy to state ; the one gives 
 comfort to the body and pleasure to the eye, while the 
 other does not, but wastes money on jerry-made work, 
 as if ugliness and discomfort were not hke gambling 
 debts, which give hostages to ill-luck. 
 
 And so the topic of this book is a problem, or a set of 
 problems, not in a vague something called Decoration, 
 but in a direct and tangible benefit to ourselves known 
 as Mother-wit or Common Sense. The greatest con- 
 noisseurs hold very different views on styles of decora- 
 tion, and quarrel over them with a bUnd pugnacity, 
 forgetting that discordant tastes are not reconciled by 
 arguments ; and so our aim must be to look for a court 
 of arbitration where peace may have a chance of 
 reigning, and this court we find in common sense. If I 
 
 3 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 give you practical hints, with guiding principles of 
 design, we can differ amicably on native preferences of 
 taste and on matters of opinion. We cannot all like the 
 same good things, hence the methods of a drill sergeant 
 are the worst in the world for any writer on art. to employ. 
 
 Perhaps these are trite things to say, but trite things 
 are often neglected truths, to the meaning of which we 
 have been blinded by custom. The more reasonable 
 they seem to be at a first glance, the less hkely we are 
 to ponder them until we know the full extent of their 
 reasonableness. We go wrong in the household arts, not 
 because our rash adventures have the charm of novelty, 
 are new and attractive, but because they are too famihar 
 to be understood, and ought therefore to be looked at 
 from a fresh standpoint, one of common reason. Grave 
 writers say, for instance, without the least hesitation, 
 that the arts belong to experts and connoisseurs, and 
 that laymen cannot hope to be on familiar terms with 
 them : an opinion not in the least likely to encourage 
 the public, nor is it borne out by well-known events. 
 Moliere's housekeeper was an excellent critic, Shake- 
 speare made a fortune by pleasing the London people, 
 and laymen to-day are the main patrons of art, let their 
 judgment be false or true. 
 
 The principles of home decoration are held up as 
 great mysteries, yet their appeals to the mind are quite 
 simple and tangible, like the laws of cricket and football. 
 The difficulty is to play the game well after the rules 
 are learnt by heart. 
 4 
 
HOUSE AND HOME 
 
 This being so, my aim here is to put simple matters in 
 a plain way and to define any detail of my subject which 
 has become vaguely misunderstood. "To furnish a 
 home " is a very popular phrase, but have you ever tried 
 to define it in practical terms ? Is it nothing more than 
 a phrase to you, or does it strike your mind as a state- 
 ment in finance, needing care and definite plans ? 
 
 Thousands of families might ask themselves those 
 questions, keeping their eyes fixed on the unlucky 
 " bargains " they bought years ago, just because they 
 had no decided practical views on the most important 
 event in their lives — the making of a home to last their 
 time. Home is home, they thought; and the hard 
 business of furnishing became a pastime for odd half- 
 hours. 
 
 A house or flat has to be taken at a given rent, 
 after many defeats from a league of agents and land- 
 lords ; and then a multitude of things must be chosen 
 from a multitude of samples, chosen, too, with infinite 
 care for a given purpose, and with the knowledge that 
 mistakes accumulate rapidly and must be paid for. 
 So we are concerned here not merely with a choice 
 of furniture, but with a financial act having two powers : 
 it may purchase failure and loss, or find a sure invest- 
 ment for pleasure and labour and capital. 
 
 Of course the investment may be either large or small 
 as far as the money is concerned ; still, whether small or 
 large, it should yield the highest possible interest in the 
 way we expect, if only because a small sum of money 
 
 5 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 to the poor is all-important, as much so, perhaps, as 
 fifty thousand pounds may be to a millionaire. The 
 principle here is not affected by wealth and poverty. 
 A cottage may be furnished with fifty pounds or with 
 five hundred thousand ; the problem is that nothing 
 should be chosen which is not the best of its kind at 
 the price paid for it. If we pay little or much for dis- 
 comfort we still buy discomfort, and our purchase, vide 
 the proverb, is a double loss ; our money is gone and 
 there is nothing to represent it worthily. 
 
 Thus the aim of furnishing is to get the maximum of 
 attractive comfort at a given price, namely, the price 
 that a householder can afford M'ithout harm to his im- 
 mediate prospects. The comfort, too, however little it 
 may cost in money, must w^ear well, for the price of an 
 article need not affect its utility and strength. Excel- 
 lent furniture is made in common woods, like deal, ash, 
 and foreign oaks ; good ironwork lasts as long as gold ; 
 pewter is serviceable like silver; and remember the 
 earthenware pots which have come down to us from 
 prehistoric times. 
 
 But the average man is always on the look-out 
 for the exceptions that prove a rule, while admitting 
 that no exception is at all possible in his own trade or 
 profession. Thus a tailor buys for his own use the best 
 cloth, having no faith in the low-priced materials that 
 look for a time unlike shoddy. Yet he hopes to get 
 " bargains " in cheap boots and in furniture sold at the 
 cost of shoddy. He does not seem to mind when 
 G 
 
~ a 
 
 Q .^ 
 
 2 a 
 
 < 2< 
 

 
HOUSE AND HOME 
 
 inexpensive materials ape the qualities of more costly 
 woods and metals, as though sham were not deception ; 
 and he appears to believe that outside his own trade 
 money is to be saved by purchasing household things 
 which are neither pleasant to look at nor lasting, things 
 without "nature," as cabinetmakers say; they do not 
 wear but wear out. Think of the houses known to you 
 and you will find that I do not exaggerate. It is the 
 rarest thing in everyday life to come upon a well- 
 furnished home. 
 
 When we remember that good workmanship and 
 design may be put into the commonest woods, metals, 
 and textile fabrics, the rarity of well-made homes in 
 England is a bad sign, for the arts test and prove the 
 worth of all civilisation. To encourage inferior work of 
 any kind is to degrade workmen, tradesmen and our- 
 selves ; and to be content with homes which are not 
 creditable is certain to have a bad effect on wives and 
 on children. This opinion is held by those who are best 
 able to judge the causes of drunkenness, the frequency 
 of cruelties to children, the growing discontent among 
 married women, and the results of that wish to pass 
 evenings away from home which leads to extravagance 
 among all classes. 
 
 A very wise man of early times — Theodore, Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury — wishing to benefit the people, 
 issued a code of household laws, practical enough to 
 remain by the fireside among the rich and the poor ; and 
 something of the same kind ought to be done now by the 
 
 7 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 State. Why not teach the people, httle by Httle, how 
 to succeed in their furnishing and housekeeping ? Why 
 not grant degrees to all women and girls who pass a 
 regulation course in Household Economics? Surely 
 that would be a national education ? 
 
 Education should begin at home, in the people's 
 homes, and hence the wisdom shown at the Women's 
 Department of King's College, London, where, on 
 October 2, 1908, a course of study was set on foot in 
 all household subjects, from the care of children to the 
 principles of architecture and decoration. This good 
 work was instituted by Lady Riicker and a committee 
 of educational authorities; it appeals to the leisured 
 classes only ; but the State should make it general and 
 national. 
 
 Time was when the household arts had traditions 
 that grew from age to age, adapting themselves to 
 social needs that changed and improved among all 
 classes. Each class had a traditional form of home 
 decoration. The poor either bought their furniture 
 from village carpenters, or made it themselves during 
 the long winter evenings ; they loved big fires, and 
 bright pots and pans, they patterned brick floors with 
 whiting stone, and coloured the walls in different ways. 
 They did what they could afford to do, not in a shame- 
 faced manner, but with pride and thoroughness. 
 
 Then a revolution took place in social life, and was 
 so complete that it spared only the good old-tashioned 
 cottagers and farmers. Steam and machinery passed 
 8 
 
HOUSE AND HOME 
 
 from one conquest to another : a wonderful industrialism 
 swallowed up large country districts ; and by this means, 
 with amazing rapidity, a new civilisation was made in 
 the rough, for there was no time to build with care. 
 
 It was then that Ruskin began his campaign, helped 
 by many good men and true, as by Mr. Walter Crane 
 and the late William Morris. The aim was to revive 
 the lost arts and handicrafts, but these good things 
 have much in common with children ; the more they 
 are petted and coaxed, the less likely are they to be 
 strong, manly, and useful to their generation. Art 
 schools were opened in many places, only to become 
 hotbeds of affectation ; and this fact passed unnoticed 
 for a long time. Then attempts were made to improve 
 a very defective system, the best efforts being those of 
 the Art Workers' Guild, the Arts and Crafts Society, 
 Mr.C.R. Ashbee's workshops at Campden,in Gloucester- 
 shire, and the Home Arts and Industries, a practical 
 association with many useful branches. One cannot 
 speak too highly of its aims and of its work. 
 
 But these signs of progress, admirable as they are, 
 denote nothing more than a revival in decorative art, 
 and the very fact that there is a revival proves that the 
 arts in question have been sick unto death. " In all 
 such changes," said WiUiam Morris, " the first of the 
 new does not appear till there is little or no life left in 
 the old, and yet the old, even when it is all but dead, 
 goes on living in corruption, and refuses to get itself put 
 quietly out of the way and decently buried." So that 
 
 9 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 while the revival advances and does some good work, we 
 must not make too much fuss about it, but keep in 
 mind the bad furnishing to be met with in most houses, 
 and hope for a better time. The necessary thing is that 
 good taste — namely a delight in good work —should 
 become as national as sport, or, better still, as national 
 as the English language with its many varied and 
 pleasant dialects. The feeling for beauty used to be 
 national, during those days when village masons were 
 excellent architects, and when the costumes worn by 
 artisans and peasants were distinctive and picturesque. 
 
 To-day, on the other hand, we cannot do anything 
 fairly well without becoming as excited over it as a 
 hen over a brood of ducks. A well-built cottage is an 
 event, and a bit of good furniture is advertised as " Art " 
 furniture. "Art" kettles appear to be in vogue, accom- 
 panied by " Art " brooms ; and the other day I came 
 upon some "Art" knives and forks, useless every one, for 
 they were inconvenient, their handles being unpleasant 
 to hold. The absurdities now done under the name of 
 Art may be reckoned up by dozens ; and (what is even 
 worse) that hackneyed word raises the cost price for the 
 average buyer. The whole matter is quite farcical. 
 Things are well made or ill made, useful or the reverse ; 
 and if they are bad of their kind they are dear at any 
 price, like forged half-crowns. Besides, all household 
 things should be made well as a matter of course, just as 
 the coinage of the day is made well, whether of copper, 
 silver, or gold. That is the main point, since household 
 10 
 
HOUSE AND HOME 
 
 necessaries are a national coinage, and their effect on 
 character and Hfe is not less important than that of the 
 other coinage. Neither can be debased without doing 
 much harm of a pubhc kind. That is why economists 
 attach so much value to the household arts. To give 
 two or three concrete examples : a great many cups 
 are cracked by hot tea and coffee ; many teapots have 
 their handles in the wrong place, with the result that a 
 woman cannot use them without tiring her wrist ; and 
 how many chairs are too frail to be in a house with 
 children ? 
 
 Examine these ordinary facts and you will see that 
 each represents a public fraud. It matters not what 
 the cost of the articles may be. A cup sold as a teacup 
 should bear hot tea without cracking ; if it fails to do 
 that the buyer is robbed of a sum of money, which is of 
 more consequence to the poor than to the rich. There 
 are cups at sixpence each that crack in a few days, and 
 this imposition means a steady and a daily loss to limited 
 incomes. But there are frauds of two kinds : some are 
 punishable by law, like the forging of silver pieces; 
 while others are punished by a loss of trade, and this 
 punishment is rare under the competition that rules to- 
 day, because things sold at a given price are usually of 
 the same " nature," however varied their shape and 
 design may be. It is this that gives so much importance 
 to the examples of public fraud which I have chosen at 
 random, and from which we get a principle both in 
 economics and in household art : ''All articles in daily 
 
 11 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 use must he fitted for their purpose, no matter what their 
 cost happens to be." 
 
 Sometimes, but not always, a purchaser's judgment 
 can decide this point, as in the case of a teapot with the 
 handle wrongly placed. A practised housewife would 
 detect that fault in the shop by lifting the teapot and 
 trying to " pour it out," but a young wife might be 
 deceived. Again, if chairs which are made to look like 
 rosewood or mahogany are offered at first hand for the 
 price of deal chairs, any one should feel suspicious, and 
 know that they cannot be either rosewood or mahogany ; 
 but another point is far more difficult to ascertain, 
 namely, their wearing strength. Are they fitted for 
 their purpose ? If not, they are frauds. 
 
 This principle appUes to everything in a house — and 
 to every person also. A woman is a fraud if she marries 
 before she has taught herself to be a housekeeper : she 
 is the queen of a little kingdom and should know her 
 duties from the first hour of her reign ; and this re- 
 sponsibility is all the more honourable because a home 
 is a nation in miniature. Our principle, then, is now 
 enlarged and runs thus : '* All things and all persons in 
 a home should be fitted for the special work which they 
 have to do." 
 
 We have seen thus far that it is easy to illustrate the 
 fact mentioned on page 3, that to equip a home for a 
 given cost and income is a set of problems, not in a 
 vague thing known as Decoration, over which experts 
 differ vehemently, but in common sense, in quite 
 12 
 
HOUSE AND HOME 
 
 ordinary reasonableness. There is no excuse whatever 
 if we furnish a house at random and in haste, either 
 making it unsuited to our needs and social position, or 
 giving it an air of discomfort that throws a chill over 
 the happiness of married Ufe. For another principle to 
 be remembered is this: that discomfort tells very 
 strongly against women, and as women pass the greater 
 part of their lives indoors, ministering to the wants of 
 men and of children, homes belong to them and should 
 be theirs in refinement. What men do not mind at 
 all, because their day's work is done away from home, 
 may be demoralising to their wives, who are face to face 
 with it all day long. Women are by nature sensitive 
 to their surroundings, and quick to adapt themselves 
 to the external circumstances of life, whether favour- 
 able or not. For this reason, then, it is a moral duty 
 to give each wife the best home that can be made for a 
 given sum of money, which ought not to be more than 
 a married couple can afford. 
 
 You may be sure that no abominable fashion of 
 sheer discomfort was ever introduced into homes by 
 educated women, though they have been compelled to 
 accept many, and among these fashions was the wicked 
 horsehair cloth that some upholsterers now wish to 
 revive as " a Novelty," and that came first into vogue in 
 or about the year 1789. Hepplewhite then laid it down 
 as an axiom of good taste that " mahogany chairs should 
 have seats of horsehair, plain, striped, chequered, &c., 
 at pleasure." The men of the period welcomed this 
 
 13 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 innovation, partly because horsehair lasted an indefinite 
 long time, and partly because they did not feel how 
 unpleasant it was, for they liked to be as tipsy as 
 Squire Western when they remained at home. So the 
 evolution of horsehair cloth was left entirely in the 
 hands of men, till at last it became a prickly thing of 
 horror, black, shiny, and slippery, its worst characteristic 
 being that time and use failed to wear out its old dis- 
 comfort. One widow lady accepted it as an act of 
 mourning, and in all the rooms of a beautiful old house. 
 " You see," said she with pathos, " my husband believed 
 in horsehair, perhaps because he was very fond of 
 hunting : it reminds me of him now, and I must not 
 get rid of it." 
 
 Still, the unreasonableness of men has limits. It is 
 not a man's voice that we hear in the familiar regret, 
 " What a lovely home we could have if only we had 
 money enough ! " It is a cry of envy (as a rule), pro- 
 voked by a visit to what house-agents call " a splendid 
 abode." Visits of that kind unsettle many female 
 minds. To see a house richer than her own is a tragedy 
 to many a woman not by nature very ambitious. Yet 
 the common belief that wealth is the basis of household 
 comfort is not, of course, borne out by experience. The 
 art of furnishing is, indeed, the judgment with which 
 we accept our lot in life and do with success what we 
 can afford to attempt. Some persons would begin to 
 pine after Windsor Castle if they inherited the finest 
 mansion in Park Lane ; it is their particular kind of 
 14 
 
HOUSE AND HOME 
 
 pleasurable self-pity — to despise what they have by 
 yearning for things which they are not likely to get. 
 Put them in Windsor Castle, and their thoughts would 
 live enviously at Sandringham and Buckingham Palace. 
 This absurd habit of mind is envy, a colonist that never 
 colonises, and it is found to-day, in modified forms, 
 among all classes. Only a person here and there makes 
 a home in keeping with his social position. Most of us 
 attempt too much, and failure is the inevitable result. 
 Meantime, to confirm the public in this want of common 
 sense, a thousand newspapers and journals, read by 
 persons with very limited incomes, speak about costly 
 fashions as though they were essential to everybody. 
 
 With this passion for luxury in the air, a book on 
 furnishing cannot be easy to write. Journalists may 
 talk about " the ideal home," but the chief furniture in 
 a house are human beings, and if these have ideas 
 beyond their means a home is a financial disaster. It is 
 only women and men with the right temperaments who 
 can make ideal homes, and if they have such tempera- 
 ments they will admit that it is easier to do well with a 
 small sum of money than to spend a large sum with 
 judgment and success. This, too, is a guiding principle 
 in the equipment of a house, and a great architect put it 
 in the form of an axiom : " Good taste furnishes a house 
 for peasants to live in." 
 
 He knew from experience that to invest many 
 thousands of pounds in works of art requires more time 
 and greater knowledge than the rich have (as a rule) at 
 
 15 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 their command, unless they employ a " spender," a 
 connoisseur to buy for them, to rule over their furnish- 
 ing as a conductor governs a large orchestra. 
 
 Once upon a time a millionaire formed a collection of 
 pictures and furniture, not only without help but in 
 opposition to friendly good advice. He knew what he 
 liked, and had no feeling for the right things in the 
 right places, which is the secret of all good furnishing 
 however humble or however costly. He bought many 
 fine objects, but put them at variance with each other, 
 so that they looked absurd ; just as scraps from ancient 
 tapestries would be absurd if they were patched into a 
 beautiful Persian carpet. Among the jumbles of style 
 which this milhonaire hit upon, goodness knows how or 
 why, was a combination of French impressionist pictures, 
 a " nouveau art " carpet, Pergolese furniture, an Early 
 Victorian wall-paper, Tudor panelling about five feet 
 high, a Uincrusta frieze, a fireplace designed by the 
 brothers Adam, and some modern Chinese pottery. 
 
 Was it worth while ? That too adventurous wealthy 
 man, and many others, have but one thing to learn, and 
 it is well put in Dr. Abernethy's dictum, " Seek the 
 best advice — and pay for it." 
 
 But to us — the poor majority — the matter is different ; 
 we cannot afford to turn the arts of the world into our 
 obedient servants ; but we ought certainly to remember 
 that the more we attempt to do the more likely we are 
 to fail. Let every ambition sit comfortably in its own 
 saddle, voila tout! 
 16 
 
HOUSE AND^HOME 
 
 I have in mind some rooms furnished at two different 
 periods, sixty years ago and the day before yesterday. 
 The furniture is Early Victorian, ugly, but so strong and 
 so heavy that it seems to have been made for all the 
 giants that ever lived in fables. The carpet and the 
 wall-paper are modern, and also very athletic ; the paper 
 darts out from the wall, while the carpet practises a high 
 jump all day long. When visitors look down upon its 
 pattern they are reminded of the Irishman who said of 
 his ancestors that they did not spring from any one but 
 sprang at everybody. The Victorian furniture has the 
 merit of being sound in workmanship, while the rest of 
 the room has no more education than a certain huntsman 
 who went " 'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer, down the 'ard 'igh 
 road, 'eedless of 'ounds and 'orses." On the walls there 
 are some tawdry prints in frames which must have cost 
 twenty shillings each, the price at which framed photo- 
 graphs of celebrated pictures may be bought at many 
 shops. 
 
 But if " Good taste furnishes a house for peasants to 
 live in," there must be another side to this question, and 
 a good example may be taken from the country. A 
 young couple set up as farmers, in a Tudor homestead 
 having muUioned windows and oak panels. The ground 
 floor was divided into a kitchen and a hall, and a few 
 steps from each room led down into a long dairy. An 
 oak staircase near the hall went up to the bedroom 
 floor ; and another staircase hidden from sight gave 
 access to some chambers under the roof beams. There 
 
 B 17 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 was more than space enough to be furnished, but the 
 young couple went to work in a traditional way and set 
 a good example to those of us who live in towns, making 
 up their minds to be pleased with the little they could 
 do well, and not to buy anything because " it would fill 
 a place." 
 
 Some women are ashamed if they have empty rooms 
 in their houses, while this good farmer's wife said simply, 
 '* We've plenty of empty rooms ; there was no need 
 to furnish them all at once ; we're young and can 
 wait. My mother did that and her mother too. The 
 chairs and chests downstairs belonged to them, and 
 look neat against the wall-panels ; and my man is 
 cleaning the whitewash off the beams in the ceiling. 
 The brick floors were rather cold at first, but we're 
 used to them now. They seem quite nice, don't you 
 think ? " 
 
 For they were beautifully clean, and the worn bricks 
 were good in colour, like the sturdy oak chests, benches, 
 and chairs. The rest of the furniture was simplicity 
 itself : a few metal pots and pans, two oak tables, some 
 bright milk pails, a draught-screen by the front door 
 and a cradle near a big open fireplace. It was just a 
 farmer's home, modest, quiet, clean, and useful. It 
 gave the character of those who lived there. If the 
 farmer or his wife had been ashamed of their position, 
 there would have been something to annoy the eye ; 
 perhaps the panelling would have been grained, or the 
 brick floors hidden under shoddy carpets, or a jerry-made 
 18 
 
A GOOD EXAMPLE OF PLAIN OAK FfliXITUEE 
 
 FOR COTTAGES AND NUKSEPJES 
 Made by Heal & Son, London 
 
^ :r .^ 
 
 0) 
 
 
 
 
 
 " 5 T 
 
 cs 
 
 
 
 
 
 i- = o 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■1-3 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 '^ ~ — 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 o = _ 
 
 <4-l 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 cs ;r-c; 
 
 
 
 ;-. -tS D 
 
 o 
 
 a 
 
 = 2 c 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 o 
 
 :r 
 
 = — o 
 
 ri 
 
 s 
 
 
 
 
 = 3 rt 
 si's >> 
 
 > 
 
 a 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 -3-5-r 
 
 
 o 
 
 P ;r = 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 - s 
 
 is o X 
 
 O a; c 35 
 
 ^ ^ ? > 
 
 If ■ i 5 H 
 
HOUSE AND HOME 
 
 sofa with startling pillows would have been preferred to 
 the old oak settle. 
 
 Yet there is another point of view. Our time is one of 
 industrialism, and industrialism is a form of war, a vast 
 competition between many nations ; it needs courage, 
 enterprise, invention, forethought, strategy, tactics, and 
 a multitude of skirmishers known as travellers, and 
 advertisements. But no kind of war can be pleasant, 
 and this one has many tricks and customs which are 
 more likely to benefit sellers than buyers. I have 
 mentioned the misuse of the word Art which raises the 
 purchasing price of necessary things even where no 
 attention is given to the first principles of good design ; 
 and we have seen that commodities sold for a given 
 purpose are frauds if they do not serve that purpose 
 efficiently. But to see that is not to see all. If the 
 people want Art which is not Art, and cry out for a 
 cheapness which is dear at any price, what are trades- 
 men to do ? When the public dictates the manufac- 
 turers must obey. 
 
 19 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 A FEW WORDS ON CHEAPNESS 
 
 Some critics go so far as to condemn the whole system 
 of modern trade. They never speak about a manu- 
 facturer without sneering at him, for they forget that he 
 represents his time and the popular fashions of the hour. 
 The ideal critics say : " We have a scorn for trading 
 firms, because they deceive the people with advertise- 
 ments and lower the value of work in all articles of 
 furniture. We hate the so-called industrial progress 
 which makes shoddy wares, the cheapness of which is 
 paid for by the lives of craftsmen and by the degrada- 
 tion of public taste. Why should men be turned into 
 machines, and why should the immediate market value, 
 the daily hunt after profits, be the chief test of artistic 
 merit ? " 
 
 Ideal critics are troublesome neighbours, because they 
 allow their thoughts to get stereotyped and one-sided. 
 They do not see that no manufacturer can pay his 
 workmen unless he satisfies the wants of his customers, 
 and hence those customers are in part responsible for the 
 merits or demerits of the wares they buy. The degree 
 of this responsibility depends upon many circumstances. 
 For instance, 1 go on buying sixpenny coffee cups that 
 20 
 
A FEW WORDS ON CHEAPNESS 
 
 crack in a few days, experience having taught me that 
 more expensive cups that do not crack are soon broken 
 by servants. In other words, if I did not encourage a 
 fraudulent trade I should lose by other means perhaps 
 an equal number of better cups. These are circum- 
 stances that help bad trades to flourish, and I know of 
 but three ways in which the public could be safe- 
 guarded : 
 
 1. That the law should make it an indictable offence 
 for any person to sell a thing for a given purpose when 
 it is not fitted for that object. 
 
 2. That there should be a yearly National Congress of 
 the British Home at which all real grievances of house- 
 holders should be formulated and discussed. 
 
 3. That householders should form a league, establish 
 a great central office in London, and defend their 
 interest under legal advice and in a businesslike way, 
 issuing month by month a printed record of the work 
 done. 
 
 Meantime, let everybody make use of his common 
 sense. If he gets cheap furniture in the belief that it is 
 better than its price guarantees, he is certain to dupe 
 himself, and some manufacturers will cater for him and 
 his kind. Why should he buy eight bad chairs when 
 he might easily get four good ones at the same price ? 
 " I can tell you," said a friend to Thackeray, " where 
 excellent wine may be bought cheap.'" " Indeed," said 
 Thackeray; "perhaps you know where a sovereign 
 may be had for seventeen-and-sixpence ? " 
 
 21 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 Things are not sold first-hand for less than their trade 
 value. A cheap suite of furniture is nothing more than 
 a suite of furniture that costs less than a better one. 
 All the advertising in the world should not deceive a 
 reasonable man, because trade is not a philanthropist 
 but a hunter after profits, and cannot therefore afford to 
 sell good work at the price of cheap work. The word 
 " cheap " is a warning, like a hooked fly to a fish. If 
 we swallow the bait we must expect to be " landed." 
 
 For everybody ought to have a general idea of the 
 market prices of different woods and metals ; everybody 
 is aware, or should be, that common timber is stained 
 to look like walnut, rosewood, and mahogany ; the 
 wages paid to skilled workmen are at least vaguely 
 known to every one of us ; rents, rates and taxes are 
 other items in the cost of production ; and if cheap 
 furniture can be made under these conditions and put 
 before the public in very expensive advertisements, it is 
 because there is a market for the best-looking useless 
 work that certain tradesmen can make and sell at a 
 given price. Most of us in our time have experimented 
 in cheap boots and shoes, only to find that they are 
 dearer in the long run — or after a few walks in the rain 
 — than a good pair at a just price. And this applies to 
 all articles of daily use. There is, for example, a soft 
 wood known as bass wood, which is easy to stain to any 
 requisite shade ; hence it is used to imitate other woods 
 in modern furniture of the cheaper kinds. But it has no 
 wear in it. and is therefore worthless in furniture. Why, 
 22 
 
A FEW WORDS ON CHEAPNESS 
 
 then, is it employed ? Just because people with little 
 incomes prefer shams to serviceable woods like ash, deal, 
 and foreign oaks. That is the reason. It is popularly- 
 believed that dark-tinted woods are more luxurious and 
 refined than those which are pale in colour. Even oak 
 is darkened with the fumes of liquid ammonia, which 
 sink into it to almost any depth ; and common oak is 
 made into brown oak with a solution of chromate of 
 potash, by which various light woods are " converted " 
 into mahogany. Sycamore becomes ebony if you doctor 
 it enough with logwood chips and then complete 
 your treatment with an application of vinegar and steel 
 filings. Pear-tree may be cured of its original character 
 by the same means. 
 
 These trade secrets, and a good many others, give 
 some pleasure to the devotees of cheapness, who will 
 learn one day that shams have less value than real pear- 
 wood, real sycamore, good common oak and friendly 
 deal. Indeed, it is a principle in decorative art that the 
 treatment of materials should bring out their special 
 characteristics. There are few better things than the 
 well-made deal tables in cottages and farm-houses, 
 places where simple work is not vulgarised by foolish 
 affectations. 
 
 And there is yet another technical point that laymen 
 should bear in mind when cheap wooden furniture is 
 offered to them at first-hand. There is a belief current 
 that when large supplies of the same commodity are 
 made by the same manufacturer the cost of production 
 
 23 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 is lessened on each article, hence the advertised cheap- 
 ness of the wares. Now this applies to many market- 
 able things ; but wooden furniture is an exception, 
 because woods are intractable, and behave in disagreeable 
 ways that waste time and delay work. You may buy 
 a piece of oak three hundred years old and believe that 
 it is seasoned, but no sooner do you cut into it and 
 expose a new surface to the air than the wood begins 
 to twist a little. Other woods have the same pecu- 
 liarity, and as it delays craftsmen in the making of good 
 furniture it is a thing to be reckoned with in the cost of 
 production. You will now understand why cheap fur- 
 niture, cut and moulded by machinery and rapidly fitted 
 together, is always covered with a thick and shiny 
 varnish, to keep the air away from woods not thoroughly 
 seasoned. 
 
 To give emphasis to this very important matter, I 
 will quote here the opinion of an excellent craftsman 
 and expert, Mr. Stephen Webb : 
 
 " Good furniture cannot be made rapidly. All wood, 
 no matter how long it is kept, nor how dry it may be 
 superficially, will always shrink again when cut into. It 
 follows that the longer the interval between the cutting 
 up of the wood and its fitting together, the better for the 
 work. In the old times the parts of a cabinet lay about 
 in the workman's benchway for weeks, and even months, 
 and were continually turned over and handled by him 
 while he was engaged on the mouldings and other 
 details. The wood thus became really dry, and no 
 24 
 
A FEW WORDS ON CHEAPNESS 
 
 further shrinkage could take place after it was put 
 together." . . . But " the introduction of machinery for 
 mouldings, which left only the fitting and polishing to 
 be done by craftsmen, and which enabled manufacturers 
 to produce two or three cabinets in the time formerly 
 occupied in the making of one, was all against the 
 quality and stability of the work." 
 
 These technical matters are helpful to us. When we 
 know why good furniture cannot be made rapidly, we 
 know also why it cannot be sold " cheap." Moreover, 
 the leading manufacturers wish to do the best work but 
 find themselves thwarted by two things : (1) the public 
 wish to have sham woods rather than plain oak or ash, 
 and (2) the prevailing ignorance of the technique of 
 furniture-making. Householders, too, forgetting that 
 the cost of production must be the same to reputable 
 firms in the same town, are not content to ask for a 
 catalogue from one good house, but write to all the 
 manufacturers, and then put the catalogues in competi- 
 tion, with the result that inferior work is chosen from a 
 second-rate firm. Even the rich frequently do that, and 
 I often wonder that the best manufacturers keep their 
 standard of workmanship as high as it is. 
 
 Last of all, there is but one way in which furniture 
 may be bought " cheap," namely at a price below its real 
 market value ; and that way is to hunt for it at public 
 auctions and in little shops hidden away in by-streets. 
 Collecting is a pleasant hobby, but it costs a good deal 
 in patience and time, and requires at least some know- 
 
 25 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 ledge and a trained eye ; for many second-hand things 
 are like some horses at a fair, unsound, yet attractive, 
 nor is it easy to find out their defects. On the other 
 hand, furniture may be trusted when it has borne 
 \vithout harm some years of wear and tear ; it comes to 
 you as a tried servant with a good character from the 
 last place. 
 
 But there are writers in the Press who fear the 
 second-hand markets, and give the most vivid and 
 vivacious accounts of the trickeries practised by forgers. 
 You have only to copy a Queen Anne suite of furniture, 
 darken it by artificial means, and then pepper it with 
 dust shot, and behold ! you have a genuine antique ! 
 But as the holes made by dust shot are neat and clean 
 and sharp, unUke worm-holes, the forged result is to 
 deceive journalists in need of copy. No other person 
 should be tricked by it — and mention the fact, parti- 
 cularly to his wife. 
 
 There have ever been periodical scares about forged 
 works of art, and they have ever done more harm than 
 good. To say over much about a public danger is to 
 excite unnecessary suspicions. Pictures have been con - 
 demned as false which were bought from the artists 
 whose names they bore ; and when this fear of forgery 
 becomes endemic, infectious, even connoisseurs are afraid, 
 because their opinions are questioned by persons of no 
 judgment and no training, whose one aim is to make 
 mischief or to attract attention. A fool may set 
 himself up as an expert and do great harm to genuine 
 26 
 
A FEW WORDS ON CHEAPNESS 
 
 work, if suspicions of forgery are rife in any public 
 market. 
 
 At the present time dishonest criticisms are as com- 
 mon as forged pictures and furniture, and collectors fear 
 them much more. But the ordinary householder has no 
 reason to give attention to either of these public evils. 
 Do not be afraid to buy good things at second-hand if 
 their prices are unreasonably low. Look for merit, do 
 not trouble your mind about forgeries, because the false 
 antique furniture is almost certain to be dearer than the 
 honest reproductions made by good manufacturers. 
 Forgers do not exchange their five pound notes for half 
 a sovereign, as certain writers in the Press seem to 
 believe. 
 
 Again, what is meant by the expression " genuine old 
 furniture " ? Chippendale and his contemporaries issued 
 books of designs for their trade, and these designs were 
 copied not in England only but in France and Holland ; 
 it is thus the style, far more often than the work itself, 
 which should be called by the names of Chippendale, 
 Sheraton, Main waring, and Hepple white. 
 
 Now and again a suite of furniture has a quite 
 authentic history, going back to St. Martin's Lane, 
 London, which in the eighteenth century was the head- 
 quarters of English art. Chippendale and other cabinet 
 makers lived there, and the Royal Academy was born 
 in St. Martin's Lane. But the main point is that the 
 style should be true and the workmanship thorough. If 
 the style is Sheraton's and the art good, the time and 
 
 27 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 place of the actual making concern us little. Indeed, 
 furniture in old English styles by Mr. Christie is all that 
 any householder needs, for it is excellent. 
 
 If, then, you decide to hunt for your chairs and 
 cabinets, look particularly for the Victorian replicas of 
 the old English styles ; they are often as good as the 
 copies made from books of designs at an earlier period, 
 and I have seen a good many at small prices. They 
 really were cheap — and good. 
 
 To sum up. The word cheap, when applied to any- 
 thing sold at first hand, is wrong, since nothing can 
 be cheap which is sold at its trade value. 
 
 i 
 
 28 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 SYSTEMS OR METHODS OF FURNISHING 
 
 There are a good many ways in which furniture may be 
 got for a home, and it will be well to review them one 
 by one, so that a fair choice may be given carefully. 
 
 A. — The Hire-Purchasing System 
 Let us have faith in the old maxim : " Buy always 
 what you can afford to need and pay for it at once." 
 
 What you can afford to need, not what you can 
 afford to dedre or want. For there is a very real differ- 
 ence between wants, desires, and needs. Desires and 
 wants stimulate enterprise ; they are needs undeveloped. 
 If we desire this or want that, we must strive for it, and 
 have character enough to win it fairly without help from 
 mean shifts and compromises. But when we need 
 something we stand at once as choosers between right 
 and wrong ; if we call the tune we must pay the piper ; 
 needs demand both acts, payment with purchase, because 
 purchase without payment dulls self-respect. Needs are 
 fatal to honour if men trifle with them. The hungry 
 steal, the impulsive run into debt, the ambitious risk 
 their families rather than moderate their schemes. 
 
 These reflections belong to the old Puritan spirit, 
 
 29 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 which reigned in England from EHzabethan times to the 
 long days and years of Queen Victoria. Then a new 
 industriahsm took for its aim the turning of public wants 
 and desires into urgent public needs. Temptations to 
 spend money hurriedly, without feehng at once the 
 full result of that transaction, were held up persuasively 
 in many forms of advertisement. Thrift was looked 
 upon as a foe to business ; and we are now beginning to 
 see that an over-stimulated demand in trade weakens 
 the national character and begets an unrest of mind 
 without will-power. Artificial needs are manufactured 
 by advertisements, and then glutted with cheap com- 
 modities and pleasures, from patent medicines to seaside 
 trips. It is time to remember that Debt, Penury, 
 Thriftlessness are three detectives that never fail to 
 strike home. 
 
 For these reasons, if you need a hundred pounds- 
 worth of furniture, buy it outright ; do not pay for it in 
 monthly instalments of £2 56'. Business of that kind is 
 without character ; and character is strength and wealth. 
 
 Have you read with care the advertisements that 
 boom the hire-purchasing system ? It is worth while, 
 for they talk like popular philanthropists. 
 
 Buy always what you can afford to need, and pay for 
 it at once. 
 
 But in saying this I do not condemn all the furniture 
 issued by the hire-purchasing system. One firm has 
 equipped nearly 150,000 houses during the last forty years, 
 a long record of business not to be supported by bad 
 30 
 
SYSTEMS OR METHODS OF FURNISHING 
 
 workmanship ; for people are always exceedingly critical 
 when they pay for things little by little. All systems 
 of "easy payments," so called, breed long after-thoughts ; 
 and hence they need help from free life insurances, free 
 fire policies, and other things not usually connected 
 with buying and selling. 
 
 I have dwelt upon this matter for two reasons. A 
 book on furnishing should try to be a guide, and the 
 public should resent the bad methods of advertising 
 which are now so common. Advertisements belong to 
 the cost of production, and the public pays for them ; 
 hence the paymaster should be critical and the advertiser 
 discreet. 
 
 B. The Stock Fuimishing System. 
 
 That is to say, you go to a reputable firm and choose 
 what you need from the stock, paying for it immediately. 
 Discount should be asked for and allowed, at least in 
 most cases. This system can be recommended. There 
 are firms in Great Britain that cater for all incomes 
 with judgment and fairness. 
 
 One warning may be given here : that persons with 
 moderate incomes should not go to a large furnishing 
 shop until they have definite ideas as to what they 
 need. If they go there with vague ideas, they are 
 certain to buy too much. Draw up a list of things for 
 each room, reduce them to the lowest possible mini- 
 mum, and do not be tempted to add even one item to 
 the list. Discuss the matter thoroughly, come to 
 
 31 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 decisions and be loyal to them. If you decide that four 
 ordinary chairs are enough for your dining-room, do 
 not buy six or eight, a clever salesman charming you 
 with the word "suite," a word which some men and 
 many ladies find irresistible, not understanding that it 
 means a set of no definite number. A suite of chairs 
 may consist of two armchairs and four ordinary ones, if 
 that be the number you want. Indefinite aims account 
 for most bad shopping ; there is scarcely a house which 
 has not too much furniture. Small tables are bought in 
 pairs not because they are needed, but because " they 
 match," another phrase that tricks the unwary into 
 spendthrift habits. " It will be useful " is another pit- 
 fall. " Will " implies futurity ; and if you have no 
 books and prefer golf to reading, why purchase a book- 
 case on the chance that it will be useful one day ? In 
 other words, buy nothing more than you will need daily 
 in your rooms. If this rule were kept in mind and 
 followed, poor families could afford to have furniture 
 such as they would be proud to hand on to their chil- 
 dren ; for it is the waste of money on too many things 
 that prepares a market for jerry-made inutilities. 
 Cheap pianos are bought by those who cannot play 
 them ; and occasional letter-writers give more thought 
 to their bureaus than do journalists and novelists. 
 " How do you hke my writing-table ? " asks Mr. A., 
 whose hobby is golf, or cricket, or billiards at the club. 
 When persons of this kind furnish a house, the bills are 
 at least one third higher than they need be or should be. 
 32 
 
SYSTEMS OR METHODS OF FURNISHING 
 
 C. The Collector's System. 
 
 I have already spoken about this way of furnishing a 
 home. It is amusing, it has many advantages, but even 
 in the hands of experts it is Hkely to produce a museum 
 rather than a dwelHng. I have never known a collector 
 who kept his rooms uncrowded. One buys so many 
 pictures that a great many have to be put in piles 
 against the attic walls ; while another has so much 
 costly furniture that you think of the reserves of gold in 
 the Bank of England and feel uncomfortable. There is 
 a real danger in collecting, for (as a rule) it becomes an 
 obsession, a mania. But if you care to run the risks, 
 many a good thing may be purchased at second hand. 
 
 D. The Craftsman's System. 
 
 At the present time there are many artist- craftsman 
 who design special furniture for their clients. Some are 
 well-known architects like Mr. Mervyn Macartney, Mr. 
 Walter Cave, Mr. Charles Spooner, Mr. Baillie Scott, 
 Mr. C. F. A. Voysey, and Mr. R. S. Lorimer ; others 
 have their own workshops, like Mr. C. R. Ashbee, Mr. 
 Sidney H. Barnsley, Mr. Ernest W. Gimson, and Mr. 
 A. J. Penty ; while one at least — Mr. Frank Brangwyn, 
 A.R.A. — is better known as a great painter. I need 
 not say that it is a delightful honour to have furniture 
 either designed or made by these and other artists ; and 
 you will understand that they do not compete against 
 the manufacturers, nor pretend to do work at popular 
 
 c 33 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 prices. We may say of them what WilHam Morris 
 said of the leading members in the Arts and Crafts 
 Exhibition Society; namely, that their cultivation of 
 art is an attempt to interest persons of taste by calling 
 special attention to that really most important side of 
 art, the decoration of utilities by furnishing them with 
 genuine artistic finish in place of trade finish. Now all 
 the higher aims of art cost time — indefinite time ; no 
 excellent work was ever done in a hurry ; and it is only 
 the final result that counts when a creditable piece of 
 work is to be a thing of beauty. As a consequence, if 
 you go to an artist-craftsman for a special suite of 
 furniture, you must give your commission in good time, 
 refrain from hurrying him, and pay the price he is 
 accustomed to receive. It will not be higher than the 
 skill and the labour merit, you may be well assured. 
 The mouldings will be cut by hand, not by machinery, 
 every scrap of wood will be thoroughly seasoned, the 
 polish will not be overdone, and you wall have a suite 
 of furniture by a man of name, a Gimson, for instance, 
 whose art is not inferior to Sheraton's or Chippendale's. 
 Three things in furniture determine both its value 
 and its beauty : fine wood, quiet and good design, and 
 thorough craftsmanship. This last quality may be 
 harmed, and is so frequently, in one of several ways. 
 Sometimes the poHshing is bad, and this defect is always 
 serious. In old times a cabinetmaker polished his own 
 work, partly by exposing it to the light till the surfaces 
 darkened and partly by rubbing it with oil and beeswax. 
 34 
 
SYSTEMS OR METHODS OF FURNISHING 
 
 This method is the earUest and by far the best, but it 
 gave place to a mixture of shellac and naphtha, which, 
 though inferior to the beeswax, formed a lasting polish 
 with a hard surface. The next downward step was the 
 introduction of a French polish, a shiny and detestable 
 thing ; and goodness knows what other abominations 
 are used to-day, bringing trouble into a million house- 
 holds. Who does not know the anxiety of housewives 
 lest hot plates and dishes " mark " the tables ? 
 
 This example of technique is given here to illustrate 
 the ways in which all artist- craftsmen are called upon to 
 be honest. If they shirk difficulties they save time and 
 lessen the cost of production ; but if they decUne to do 
 that, they must needs ask a higher price for their com- 
 modities ; and in this we find the real difference between 
 the craftsman's art and the manufacturer s trade. An 
 artist makes his own conditions and obtains his own 
 price, while a tradesman cannot do more than his average 
 customer will deem reasonable in price, though his 
 workmen can do better if you commission a special job 
 and state in plain words what you need and must have. 
 
 I have now offered for consideration four different 
 methods of furnishing, but there is yet another, namely : 
 
 E. The Reproductio7i Method. 
 
 That is to say, you commission a reputable firm to make 
 your furniture in accordance with certain old styles and 
 models. Perhaps you may choose Sheraton for your 
 bedrooms, Chippendale for the dining-room, &c., and 
 
 35 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 select definite designs by those masters. Much excellent 
 work has been done in this way. Messrs. Druce & Co. 
 of Baker Street, London, made for me a suite of chairs 
 from a Chippendale model, at a price of 37*. for each 
 chair. The workmanship is excellent ; but the wood, of 
 course, has not yet the patina given by time, use, and 
 rubbing, and its colour is not yet transparent and rich 
 like that of old furniture. Further, when ordering such 
 replicas, definite instructions should be given and summed 
 up as an agreement, the main points being the following : 
 
 1. The wood. The woods mainly used for furniture 
 work are oak, walnut, rosewood, satin-wood, cedar, syca- 
 more, plane, deal, and mahogany. Walnut, with its even 
 texture and its pleasing grain, is very popular. Its 
 colour is improved by age and careful treatment. The 
 Italian variety is grayer than English walnut, it is less 
 subject to the attacks of worms, and it looks charming, 
 but carvers speak of it as brittle. As to mahogany, the 
 Cuba variety is the very best wood in the world for 
 furniture, but its price has become so high that Cuba 
 mahogany is rarely used now except as a veneer and to 
 decorate the surface of cabinets. The mahogany em- 
 ployed to-day comes from Honduras, and is known as 
 Bay Wood. It is more useful than rosewood, its colour 
 being less purple. Finally, remember always that beech, 
 holly, and sycamore, are often stained to resemble both 
 rosewood and walnut. 
 
 2. Whether the moulding is to be machine-cut or 
 hand-cut. 
 
 36 
 
SYSTEMS OR METHODS OF FURNISHING 
 
 3. The polishing in its relation to different articles. 
 Let the polishes be named and their constituents given. 
 Try to dislike brilliant surfaces because they mirror so 
 many things that the beauty of the wood is obscured. 
 
 4. The choice of styles. 
 
 There are beautiful styles in furniture which are too 
 elaborate to be in keeping with our simple dailj^ needs. 
 To see them is to know how their design was influenced 
 by rich velvets, beautiful laces, glorious silks, and 
 elaborately pleated ruffs. The best way to study this 
 matter, I believe, is to pass some pleasant hours with 
 " The Mansions of the Olden Times " by Joseph Nash ; 
 but after the Stuart reigns we find plenty of furniture 
 from which to choose a style. There is, perhaps, only 
 one exception, and that is the gold and white furniture 
 by Pergolese, a form of art too rococo for England. 
 Sheraton in his decline did some absurd things, but so 
 bad that no sane man would copy them now. He 
 designed with pride a chair composed of a griffin's head, 
 the neck and wings united by a transverse tie of wood, 
 over which a piece of drapery was thrown and tacked 
 behind. The good man made other chairs in which he 
 introduced dogs, lions, camels, dromedaries, and other 
 animals, nor did he seem to know what a poor figure he 
 cut, A.D. 1807. 
 
 For the rest, whatever system of furnishing a young 
 couple may decide upon, they must give ample time for 
 their hard and anxious work, which ought really to be 
 finished before they are married. 
 
 37 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 What happens, as a rule, is an adventure in hurried 
 last days, hours, and minutes. Engaged couples put 
 aside practical duties, live in islands of dreams, and then 
 try to make up for lost time by wasting it on a flurried 
 gallop in house-keeping. They start with enthusiasm, 
 rushing from one house agent to another, only to be told, 
 with the same chilling politeness, that really they have 
 come to a wrong part of the town. 
 
 '* Rents are rising here month by month," the agents 
 say blandly ; " this neighbourhood is very select, few 
 lodgings and no cheap flats. If you want such low 
 rents as you name, our advice cannot help you much, 
 because the whole town improves and rents go up as a 
 matter of course. Still, some neighbourhoods are not in 
 fashion, and we'll look at our books and send you some 
 addresses." 
 
 It is thus that agents form a league with landlords 
 and squeeze the last possible shilling from a tenant's 
 income. Even the rich are now invited to pay three 
 thousand guineas a year for a pied-a-terre in London, 
 just because they may live in splendid flats on a great 
 thoroughfare, and be charmed by the music of motor- 
 cars and 'buses. 
 
 But as the pleasures of imagined things are worth 
 cultivating, let us suppose that our engaged couples 
 have found their houses and signed their leases. In 
 three weeks' time they will be married. Trousseaus 
 have to be finished meanwhile (for these are not left 
 till the last moment, though the long last details may be 
 88 
 
SYSTEMS OR METHODS OF FURNISHING 
 
 as bad as a demurrage scare in shipbuilding). Yet 
 custom says that a few magical half-hours of thought 
 may yet be found for other important duties, so the 
 actual furnishing is not entirely neglected. 
 
 It needs some courage to equip a house in a rapid 
 scampering fashion ; but there are traditions to help us 
 if we wish to experiment. One tradition — and it seems 
 to swallow up all the others — may be mentioned here : 
 Bewilder your mind, dazzle your eyes, and then do the 
 best you can. Surround yourself with catalogues of all 
 sorts and conditions, perhaps a dozen on furniture, 
 another dozen on kitchen utensils, eight or ten on 
 carpets, and so forth ; but to complete the disorder you 
 need a large supply of pattern-books, giving samples of 
 the latest achievements in wall-papers, in textile fabrics, 
 in table linen, and what not besides. Rival manufac- 
 turers send you these things partly by request, and 
 partly because your house agent has a kind interest in 
 your welfare and wants a commission from certain 
 firms. At first you are surprised when catalogues 
 arrive, like volunteered contributions to an editor's 
 daily work ; but they help to make a confusion which 
 is quite necessary to failure when a house has to be 
 furnished. If the catalogues and pattern-books are few 
 in number, and time enough is given to master their 
 contents, who can be certain that he will fail ? 
 
 89 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 TASTE, CHARACTER, AND HOME LIFE 
 
 A BOOK might be written on men, women, and their 
 tastes in art. It is a fruitful subject, giving the reasons 
 of many things which everybody notices but which few 
 understand. There is, you will admit, in many matters 
 that affect home life, a steady antagonism between 
 women and men, arising from the fact that to each sex 
 belong some peculiarities of taste which the other does 
 not like, nor is able to accept without a conscious effort 
 and a displayed tact which may provoke opposition, 
 perhaps even some resentment. Every one knows the 
 proverbial young wife who is so eager to improve her 
 husband that she tries " to drop " his old friends and his 
 set habits of thought. Some women, too, after many 
 years of marriage, still believe that their criticism ought 
 to transform a man's taste in dress, in books, in pictures, 
 and teach him to be some one else. One lady was 
 ashamed of her husband because he wrote farcical plays, 
 her own taste being in the direction of Othello, King 
 Lear, and other tragedies. An artist's wife had a great 
 antipathy against sculpture, and tried during forty years 
 to turn him from that art to the painting of easel- 
 pictures. The man had pupils, who took a boyish 
 40 
 
TASTE, CHARACTER, AND HOME LIFE 
 
 delight in the comedy of criticism that worried him 
 every day in their presence. At the age of sixty-five 
 he became a very famous sculptor, not without benefit 
 to the art writers in many countries; but his wife 
 remained sceptical, and said with pathos to one of the 
 old-time pupils, " Now, seriously, Jules, is my husband 
 as great as the newspapers say ? " 
 
 Discords of taste are not always lasting in that 
 thorough way ; but they are fikely to be so when there 
 is genius either on one side, as in the case of Charles 
 Dickens and his wife, or on both sides, as with Thomas 
 and Mrs. Carlyle. Even when households value their 
 own opinions in a commonplace manner, wall-papers 
 and carpets may be the cause of bad disputes. George 
 Eliot was keenly alive to this fact and said that 
 preferences of taste broke a great many friendships. 
 
 We see, then, that although the aim of taste in art is 
 to make Harmony and to form Peace, the quality itself 
 is dogmatic, self-assertive, and quarrelsome : a good 
 soldier that will on and win victories if it can. It is 
 aggressive very often, even in disputes between man and 
 man, where there is commonly some bias of thought 
 pecuUar to the male mind ; but when the egotisms of a 
 masculine taste clash against the likes and dislikes held 
 and defended by a woman, very unfortunate troubles 
 may arise, above all in homes. For this reason, clearly, 
 taste should be looked at in its relation to sex, and also 
 as the most important difficulty in the art of home- 
 making. That art, as we have seen, should have two 
 
 41 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 ideals, Harmony and Peace ; but how are these to be 
 made real if women and men have some opposing likes 
 and dislikes which are not acquired, but native to each 
 sex ? 
 
 There is a connoisseur, a man of great kindliness, who 
 is ever busy doing good actions, but whose opinions on the 
 subject of woman's taste are as hard as steel. "A woman's 
 views on art are without value," he says. " Put her 
 into a well-furnished room, give her a free hand, and in 
 a few hours all its character will be gone ; for she has 
 no idea of orchestration, but enjoys separated things and 
 effects quite by themselves even when they are in com- 
 plete opposition to a general scheme. It is for this 
 reason that, although they have often a good taste in 
 music, women cannot write an opera nor compose a fine 
 oratorio. In art, in decoration, we find the same thing 
 — a taste in beautiful fragments needing co-ordination 
 and balanced method." 
 
 These are the opinions of one man, but a host of con- 
 noisseurs could not make them more pugnacious. They 
 might set by the ears all the households in the United 
 Kingdom. The same views have been held by many 
 writers, and De Quincey summed them up in the asser- 
 tion that women had no imagination at all. " Where 
 is the female Shakespeare?" it is asked. "Where do 
 we find the fair counterparts of Homer, Plato, Dante, 
 Michelangelo, and the rest ? " it is continued. The 
 answer to these combative questions is not far to seek. 
 Shakespeare's mother was greater than her son, for she 
 42 
 
TASTE, CHARACTER, AND HOME LIFE 
 
 bore him and nursed him ; " the destiny of a child," 
 said Napoleon, "is ever a mother's work." There is 
 only one artist whose achievements make every type of 
 society fi-om the earliest to the latest ; and that creator is 
 Motherhood. Napoleon understood this, but most men 
 are so blind to it that they put up monuments to glorify 
 their own sex, instead of raising a cathedral church to 
 the Mothers of England. Even Shakespeare must have 
 a monument, it appears, as though he were not trans- 
 lated into all the educated languages of the world. If 
 we wish to be foolish, let his name be added to the next 
 list of Birthday Honours, so that we may speak of him 
 with pride as Sir William Shakespeare. It is Mary 
 Arden who needs a monument, in Westminster Abbey 
 and in the Poet's Corner. 
 
 Better to hold these opinions than to write in that 
 familiar way which starts a sentence with the word 
 Woman, and then goes on to speak of her as though she 
 had just arrived from another sphere, and deserved to be 
 an object of bemuddled curiosity expressed in headlong 
 epigrams and maxims. Women resent it naturally — 
 and pay off old scores. " A man's taste indeed I What 
 is that ? " they ask. " Look into his rooms at college, into 
 his study at home. What he delights in is litter ; yet 
 he talks about method, and balance, and co-ordination, 
 and orchestration, and fiddlesticks. Ask him to make 
 a bouquet or to put flowers in a set of vases, and his eye 
 for colour and arrangement is found to be less educated 
 than that of a girl child at the age of ten or twelve." 
 
 48 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 It is thus that women and men challenge each other 
 in matter of taste. Neither sex, as a rule, is fair to the 
 other, simply because they do not often try to under- 
 stand that taste has male and female characteristics, 
 inherited age after age, and having their origin not in 
 sex only, but in that historic influence upon sex which 
 the circumstances of life have ever had. To give an 
 example: it has been noticed by many writers that 
 women are by nature more positive and often more 
 practical than men, and this may be confirmed by daily 
 and hourly observation. There are exceptions, no doubt, 
 as among women artists and writers, but not many in 
 a thousand households, I believe. The usual tendency 
 of a woman's mind is to be positive and eminently 
 matter of fact, while men as a rule are speculative and 
 adventurous, and need the discipHne of routine and 
 office hours to make them practical. To illustrate this 
 point is easy, and to understand it is not difficult. 
 
 A lady lost her husband, a collector, who had filled 
 his home with rare pottery and silver ware. Friends 
 called to condole with the widow, and to one of them 
 she said : " I should be heartbroken were it not that 1 
 must attend to all these ornaments ; they have been 
 a misery to me for many years, but now they are going 
 to be sold, and I shall cease to be their servant." The 
 friend was startled, for the friend was a man, and would 
 not have spoken such thoughts had they come into his 
 mind at such a time. With the woman it was different. 
 Her house had not been a home to her ; she had been 
 44 
 
TASTE, CHARACTER, AND HOME LIFE 
 
 harassed for many years by duties which she did not 
 hke, because careless housemaids in a few moments 
 might do irreparable damage to costly works of art ; 
 and because her husband had thus compelled her to 
 accept his tastes, her own were not affected by his death, 
 but longed to get rid of an old cause of trouble between 
 him and herself. There could be no happy memories 
 of the past until the collection was dispersed. It stood 
 as a barrier between the husband she loved and the 
 connoisseur who had been much of a tyrant ; and I 
 like the positive and practical mind which had courage 
 enough to express itself freely in a time of bereavement, 
 instead of acting a part which the friend would have 
 thought admirably sorrowful. 
 
 Again, an old farmer and his wife stood by a lake oh 
 a beautiful spring evening, and watched a score of 
 golden ducklings at play in the sunset water. " What 
 funny, happy, delightful small fellows ! " said the farmer, 
 laughing. " Rogues, too ; they ought to be in bed at 
 this hour." " Yes, my dear," replied his wife, " and 
 they'll be early this year for the table." The farmer 
 spoke as a man who had finished the day's work, while 
 his wife did not put aside the cares of her housekeeping, 
 but remained a farmer all day long. 
 
 Indeed, it has ever been woman's lot to learn by 
 heart all the hard prose of life. At a time when men 
 were soldiers, sailors, troubadours, crusaders, politicians, 
 speculators of many kinds, she had to stay at home 
 with the household affairs that duty put before her ; 
 
 45 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 and through good fortune and evil fortune — the latter 
 being more frequent — her office was to manage, to rear 
 children, to control her imagination, to keep her mind 
 alertly positive. A wife's duties day by day, were they 
 written down, would be a long record of practical work 
 in scattered details ; and if bad times come it is upon 
 her that they fall most heavily, not only because she is 
 more sensitively nervous than a man, but also because 
 she has not the ever-changing excitement that attends 
 the struggle for life out of doors. A man acts in public 
 and before an audience ; a woman has her own king- 
 dom, her home, and is often very lonely there. It 
 would be surprising indeed, if she (as a rule) were not 
 positive and matter-of-fact. 
 
 Yet the average EngUshman believes that women 
 are unstable, wayward, with no capacity for business : 
 and he has many foolish arguments to support his case. 
 He points to the changing fashions of feminine dress, 
 and condemns such vagaries of taste as extravagant and 
 full of mischief. Women might say that about several 
 sporting hobbies followed by men. A pursuit of beauty 
 is as natural to the fair as the pleasures of danger are 
 natural to a sportsman ; and it is also a benefit to man- 
 kind, because progress has ever been most rapid in 
 those countries where the grace of women has been 
 such as would have charmed the largest number of men, 
 not in one country only but in all countries. In other 
 words, progress and what may be called a universal 
 type of female beauty have gone hand-in-hand. No 
 40 
 
TASTE, CHARACTER, AND HOME LIFE 
 
 ugly race has yet made a fine type of society. Ugly 
 races, it is true, till they come in contact with their 
 betters, are beautiful to their own eyes ; but the beauty 
 is never at all magical, like that which inspired the 
 Greek sculptors, and M^hich at different times among 
 other nations has called forth the highest popular ideals. 
 There is not, I believe, a worse sign than a decadence 
 of female beauty ; and decline it does if the family life 
 of a nation becomes unfriendly to it. 
 
 We see this in England at the present time among 
 several classes, and the most familiar instance, perhaps, is 
 the history of a pretty servant girl who marries a work- 
 man and sets up her home in a dull, grey neighbourhood 
 of mean streets. The contrasts between this shabby life 
 and the luxuries of her domestic service are too violent. 
 The girl longs for the old food and the old furniture, 
 the lost comfort and freedom from care ; her wages, too, 
 are gone, so she cannot dress in the same attractive 
 manner ; everything is changed, degraded ; and after a 
 while you will find her as unkempt as those unhappy 
 townswomen of the poor who seem to pass all their time 
 idly at their doors, grumbling to one another, and 
 screaming orders to neglected children in the street. 
 
 A heavy toll has thus to be paid day by day to the war 
 of industrialism. To hunt after profits fiercely is a sport 
 we must follow, but suppose it should harm the genius 
 of comfort ? Comfort is essential to the family life of all 
 classes, for women without comfort are degraded. It is 
 for this reason that I have tried here to point out certain 
 
 47 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 habits of mind which, by making women and men 
 unjust to each other, tell strongly in the favour of dis- 
 comfort and discontent. Unruly egotisms of taste are 
 bad anywhere, but in homes they may be disastrous. 
 What is household life but a theatre for character and 
 taste ? Dramas are played there that foretell the future, 
 for in the acts of life, to-day is to-morrow also. 
 
 The making of a home is thus a great event, yet it is 
 not generally looked at in a widely social manner. 
 Whenever a man writes about furnishing, he gives what 
 men have evolved for their own guidance ; and when 
 women have the same art as their topic they speak as 
 women, as though the other sex had no place at all in the 
 equipment of houses. Some ladies, though, fail to write 
 even with care and tact, preferring to run wild in bad 
 recipes of vulgar taste, like those which in recent times 
 have given us a fashion in " poker work," an epidemic 
 in enamel paint, and a craze for decorated drain-pipes, 
 either covered with varnished Christmas cards and 
 engravings, or painted with bulrushes, or rosebuds, 
 or forget-me-nots. These horrible things stood by the 
 fireside, as well as in narrow entrance halls where 
 visitors bungled against them in the dusk. A friend of 
 mine hurt his knee-cap against one, and a gentle voice 
 said to him from the staircase : " Dear me ! is the paint 
 injured ? " The next fashion to be encouraged by 
 lady journalists, in their anxiety for the ideal home, 
 might take the form of biscuit tins upholstered 
 with green baize, to make pedestals for caricature 
 48 
 
TASTE, CHARACTER, AND HOME LIFE 
 
 statuettes of those cabinet ministers who oppose female 
 suffrage. 
 
 Architects complain a great deal about the nonsense 
 published in weekly journals by '* women decorators," 
 who seem more eager to win commissions from trades- 
 men than to learn the first principles of decorative art. 
 The drain-pipe era is not unamusing to look back upon, 
 but it did lasting harm in one way, for it unsettled the 
 confidence which men ought to have in the judgment of 
 their wives. There can be no doubt, and I give the 
 reasons on page 13, that a man in his home should 
 subordinate his likes and dislikes to those of his wife, 
 but he remembers now what his own father suffered 
 from that concession when the smell of enamel paint 
 was in vogue, and when pots of flowers stood on drain- 
 pipes in every room. To-day, we have other aesthetic 
 tribulations. Who does not know the 7Tpousse metal- 
 work in copper that many daughters turn out with 
 enthusiasm, and that parents try to like, though it 
 gleams at them from a dozen places in a room and 
 annoys the eye ? The girl amateur is common every- 
 where, and her work in the arts and handicrafts has only 
 one exhibition open to it, the home, which in many 
 places becomes crowded with useless things. 
 
 The aims of women are thus discredited, and few men 
 even try to understand the difference between their own 
 native tastes and those of the other sex. Roughly 
 speaking, the difference may be put under two cate- 
 gories : 
 
 D 49 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 1. Likes and dislikes of colour. 
 
 2. Likes and dislikes of orderliness. 
 
 Colour is the subject of the sixth chapter, but some 
 points concerning it must be mentioned here. The 
 colour harmonies that women like, as a rule, are not 
 only brighter than those which men prefer, but rather 
 different in kind, being harmonies of affinity, while the 
 others are harmonies of contrast. In other words, 
 women as a rule enjoy " colours that match," sometimes 
 in hues of one colour, but usually in tints of several 
 colours having the same tone value ; while men, if they 
 care for colour at all, prefer bold contrasts that make 
 harmonious effects, as in the following example. It has 
 occurred to artists at various times that walls dis- 
 tempered vnth black would be a good background in 
 certain large rooms, as in ball-rooms, for the black 
 would be without lustre, and ladies' evening dresses 
 would look uncommonly beautiful against it. But the 
 ladies say : " Black ? Could anything be heavier than 
 that ? Do you wish us to waltz in a death chamber ? 
 The look of black walls would make enjoyment im- 
 possible." Still, one architect tried the experiment and 
 got an excellent result. Pretty women never before 
 looked so delightful in their ball-dresses. If some 
 magician had transformed them into stone, into Niobes 
 of happiness, some dancing, and others flirting, England 
 would have had statues more winsome than any which 
 the Greeks achieved. 
 
 You see, black is not black when its tone has no lustre 
 .50 
 
TASTE, CHARACTER, AND HOME LIFE 
 
 and when the Hght and air play upon it. Even the 
 shadows of a black coat are not black, but greyed by 
 atmosphere, and all the lighter parts are full of entertain- 
 ment to a colourist. Now imagine this atmospheric black 
 as a foil to the rich browns of furniture, to the gold of 
 picture frames, the sparkhng wood of a ball-room floor, 
 and the toned cream-white of a moulded dado and frieze ; 
 then add to this mental picture the human life and the 
 varied costumes of an evening party, and you have 
 harmonies of contrasts not of affinities. 
 
 Then, as regards the likes and dislikes of orderliness, 
 
 these have given rise to many tiffs between women and 
 
 men, both sexes being fond of order and disorder. The 
 
 very woman who is made unhappy by an office table 
 
 littered with books and papers, will cover her own tables 
 
 with odds and ends of bric-a-brac, having no value except 
 
 as objects of association, collected during the holidays. 
 
 This form of untidiness has helped to make bad servants, 
 
 and men dislike it, as it is not their own kind of orderly 
 
 disorder. An office in town, to any lady that happens 
 
 to see it, is a den of dusty confusion, yet in keeping with 
 
 male habits of work, for there is method in the confusion. 
 
 Myself, I like to leave my reference books on my table 
 
 and open at convenient places, but in the morning I 
 
 find them closed and stacked in a neat pile ; it seems 
 
 quite a pity to disturb them. Most good women delight 
 
 " to tidy up," unless that pleasure becomes too familiar, 
 
 as when authors and artists work at home. 
 
 One painter was always at war with a favourite sister 
 
 51 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 who wanted to clean his studio. For months at a time 
 he would not give way ; but at long intervals he had a 
 reluctant wish to see friends in the country, and these 
 visits were known as defeats too long postponed. They 
 became more frequent when he got older and peaceful. 
 One day he died, leaving a will, and that sister inherited 
 neither blessings nor bawbees. Her name was not 
 mentioned. 
 
 How is a home to be furnished with these peculiar 
 tastes and characters ? and why is it that writers on 
 decorative art give all their attention to the inanimate 
 things in household life ? Not one of them has a word 
 to say about moderation, concession, and compromise 
 — useful and essential arts, without a knowledge of 
 which husbands and wives put themselves at variance 
 with each other. There is no better cure for egotism 
 than tactful concession, and egotism happens to be the 
 fighting element of taste. It forgets that taste and 
 character are infinitely various, and that quarrels over 
 opinions confirm disputants in their own likes and dis- 
 likes. A M-^ell-known architect gives the following 
 example. He designed a house and submitted his 
 plans and elevations, only to find that his clients had 
 made up their minds to fight over them. The wife 
 wanted sash-windows, while the husband liked case- 
 ments, and neither would give way. What was the 
 architect to do ? He invented a new window, one 
 part of it being a sash and the other part a case- 
 ment ; it was a horrible thing, but it reconciled the 
 52 
 
TASTE, CHARACTER, AND HOME LIFE 
 
 angry couple, and the architect had a good story to 
 
 tell. 
 
 In art matters, surely, laymen must find it far easier 
 to be wrong than right, yet a special training is not as a 
 rule looked upon as necessary. It is a pity. Art is a 
 long pilgrimage. None can hope to learn much about 
 it, in the brief seasons of our perishable days. Many 
 painters in old age have said : " Would that we might 
 live just a little longer, we have now begun to improve." 
 Lord Leighton, too, went so far as to say that all finished 
 pictures were subjects wasted. Such is the inner modesty 
 that true artists feel : and yet it is accompanied by the 
 strongest egotisms of taste and style. Thus Leighton 
 himself chose a classical style and kept loyal to it all his 
 life, though the ruling methods of art in his time were 
 realistic. Yet his inner modesty had one effect: it 
 made him tolerant and reasonable. His egotism 
 defended his own ideals, but without attacking those 
 of other able men. Something very different from that 
 occurs in home Ufe when tastes are only instinctive, and 
 assert themselves in a quarrelsome manner. 
 
 Altogether, then, no house can be furnished with 
 judgment unless the dangers that belong to taste and 
 character are understood by women and men. Three 
 things are essential here : (1) a desire to know the 
 principles of decorative art; (2) a wish to apply them 
 without pedantry ; and (3) a kind spirit of compromise. 
 The best homes are those in which a feeling for art is 
 neither cold and formal, nor obvious at a first glance. 
 
 53 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 They charm by their quiet air of comfort, and by the 
 way in which they represent their owners' hobbies and 
 personaHties. We may say of these homes what many 
 have said about men of genius, for they are partly 
 mascuUne, partly feminine ; and it is the feminine grace 
 and distinction which give a new value to the male 
 quahties, like the half-look of womanhood in the manly 
 face of Rubens. 
 
 54 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE ENGLISH TRADITION 
 
 What is tradition in the arts and handicrafts ? It has 
 much in common with that family Ukeness which, 
 despite the change of blood on the female side, persists 
 from generation to generation, and sums up in face and 
 figure the distinctive traits of a family type. Tradition, 
 then, is a legacy handed on from age to age and having 
 peculiar characteristics. These may show themselves 
 either in craft methods or in certain qualities of design 
 which outhve all changes in the technical ways of work. 
 Among primitive men, as in savage tribes to-day, art 
 traditions form settled methods of craftsmanship, and the 
 designs also vary but little, their character displaying only 
 shght alterations over a long span of years. But when 
 savages begin to pass into a higher form of civilisation, 
 they find it wearisome always to repeat the same 
 pattern, so fresh devices are added to the old ; and as 
 design comes by designing, like talk by talking, the 
 traditional practice of art becomes richer and richer, not 
 in ornament only, but in the structure and form given 
 to useful things. Progress here is an organic and in- 
 evitable growth, like that of a spoken language when 
 new words are added to it by new wants and inventions ; 
 
 55 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 and we find that whenever the handicrafts are thus 
 evolved by a long tradition undisturbed by fashion, they 
 have invariably a distinctive beauty that enables us 
 to see with pleasure how apt and right the struc- 
 tural methods are. This point ought never to be for- 
 gotten, though it often is. All ornament is bad unless 
 it gives value to the practical side of craftsmanship. 
 The purpose to be served by a necessary thing — its 
 use in daily life — is the first consideration, and hence 
 we need ornamented construction, not constructed 
 ornament. 
 
 This rule is broken every day by a great many 
 builders ; and there are plenty of manufacturers who 
 still believe, despite all the recent talk about " ideal " 
 homes, that bad structural work is good if they overload 
 it with poor ornamentation. It is thus that traditions 
 die out when pretension comes in. All pretension is 
 vulgar ; and that a high type of society should be often 
 vulgar in art, while savages never are, is a proof that 
 mankind needs from first to last the discipline of 
 tradition. 
 
 This being so, let me explain the difference between 
 constructed ornament, which is bad, and ornamented 
 construction, which is the most necessary tradition in 
 handicraft and design. When a savage decorates a pot, 
 or a boat, or a weapon, he never forgets that his pot is a 
 thing to hold fluids, that Ms boat must be strong in the 
 water, and his weapon a protection to himself. Civilised 
 man, on the other hand, soon learns to divide his articles 
 56 
 
H 
 
 
 
 £ 
 
 ?^ 
 
 
 
 
 K 
 
 
 
 '^ 
 
 h^ 
 
 
 
 llq 
 
 H" 
 
 
 
 K 
 
 g 
 
 
 
 ?; 
 
 
 
 O 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 I? 
 
 o 
 
 
 rf^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 B 
 
 
 S 
 ^ 
 
 0} 
 
 to 
 
 
 o 
 
 g 
 
 % 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 *■• 
 
 H 
 
 
 '— 
 
 ■tt 
 
 h-: 
 
 
 'A 
 
 
 H 
 
 ^^ 
 
 tC 
 
 •2 
 
 -< 
 S 
 
 s 
 
 
 S g 
 
 O 
 
 
 3 
 
 n, > 
 
 o 
 
 t; 
 
 « 
 
 i "^ 
 
 P5 
 
 
 ci 
 
 •■Soq 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 f-H 
 
 V 
 
 o 
 
 X Z 
 
 te 
 
 5- 
 
 ^ 
 
 :i w 
 
 •Vl 
 
 2^ 
 
 C3 
 
 05&^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 •^ 
 
 
 ^>- 
 
 « 
 t) 
 
 1 
 
 _S 
 
 2 =»> 
 
 [i* 
 
 5 
 
 01 
 
 - s 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 K 
 
 5'' 
 
 "*^ 
 
 ~ ■; 
 
 r/3 
 
 ^ 
 
 .s 
 
 5 ~ 
 
 S 
 
 
 s 
 
 -5 
 
 ii 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 c 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 o 
 
 s 
 
 w 
 
 
 '^ 
 
 ? 
 
 
 
 OJ 
 
 ■^ 
 
 fe 
 
 
 
 s 
 
 o 
 
 
 OJ 
 
 •~ 
 
EXAMPLE OF ENGLISH FURNISHING: THE DINING ROOM. OLD 
 
 PLACE. SUSSEX 
 
 Belonging to tlie Stuart period 
 
 Jlcproilnccd hi/ prniiissidiijnitii ii hoal.' on " (llil fCn;/lisli /■'iiriiitiin " In/ V. Kks.n tuid 
 ]i. W^i.i.M (Messrs. Nkwnks, Ltd.) 
 
THE ENGLISH TRADITION 
 
 of utility into two classes : those which serve dangerous 
 purposes and those which do not. The former he treats 
 with traditional care, while the latter become the prey 
 of fashions, just because they do not expose men's lives 
 to danger. So we find to-day that while ships, engines, 
 steamers, cannon, rifles, and guns are admirably con- 
 structed for their purpose without any deliberate attempt 
 to make them attractive, a great many things in daily 
 household life try to be " artistic " when their first duty 
 is to be useful. One cannot insist too much on this 
 point, because utilitarian methods of work when honest 
 never fail to give results that please the eye, while a 
 conscious effort to be artistic is often vulgar and bad. 
 Ugliness does not appear in any modern article which is 
 well adapted to destroy life or to bear particular risks 
 and perils. All things of this kind are full of traditions, 
 like guns and ships, and their ornament is nothing more 
 than a finish to their structural aptness. Look at a 
 railway engine, a creation as wonderful as any animal in 
 the world. Not only is it a marvel of constructive art, 
 but the history of it shows a gradual evolution from 
 ugly beginnings, for the first locomotives were gaunt, 
 out of proportion, not unlike overgrown boys of fifteen. 
 Motor omnibuses have an uglier ungainliness, because 
 they have grown much too rapidly, and their hurried 
 design is unsuited for our comfort in crowded streets. 
 In comparison with steamers and railway engines, their 
 look is very awkward, ungainly, top-heavy, and im- 
 mature. Make them better fitted for their purpose and 
 
 57 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 those bad qualities will give place to good proportion, 
 which is always attractive. 
 
 I have chosen these quite modern examples because 
 Ruskin believed that machinery and steam would not 
 develop in workmanship a comeliness of their own. 
 He was wrong. A fleet of to-day's battleships has a 
 formidable beauty, perhaps even more impressive than 
 the fleets of Trafalgar and the Nile. Not that it is 
 necessary to draw a comparison. The point to be 
 remembered is this : that the beauty of all useful work 
 must spring from practical methods, not from con- 
 sciously aesthetic aims. It is by doing things well and 
 quietly for given purposes that work develops charm. 
 " Take the large country cart, the body shaped like the 
 waist of a sailing-ship, and every rail and upright un- 
 alterably logical, and then decorated by quaint chani- 
 ferings, the facets of which are made out in brightest 
 paint. Or look at an old table, always with stretching 
 rails at the bottom and framed together with strong 
 tenons and cross-pins into turned posts, but so thought- 
 fully done that every one is original and all are beauti- 
 ful."* 
 
 It would be easy to give many other good examples, 
 like the coster's barrow and the old Windsor chairs, 
 or like the Berwick fishing smacks and the various canal 
 boats, all logical in structure and beautiful. But you 
 have only to ask yourself three questions when you 
 
 • W. R. Lethaby on " Carpenters' Furniture," in "Arts and Crafts 
 Essays," by Members of the Arts and Crafts Society. 
 58 
 
THE ENGLISH TRADITION 
 
 wish to know whether the art in a piece of work is 
 structural and true, or superimposed and false. For 
 what purpose was this thing made ? Is it built efficiently 
 for that use? And does the ornament improve the 
 structural lines and forms ? If you have any hesitation 
 in answering these questions, the thing is badly made. 
 Further, pattern of all kinds has been so misused during 
 the last sixty years that you should put those questions 
 to yourself whenever you see a bit of ornament. Study 
 the structure and the use of things, and let your criticism 
 be technical and rational. For instance, the purpose of 
 a window is to give light, and Gothic architects in the 
 thirteenth century drew attention to that fact by enrich- 
 ing their windows with tracery, which gave emphasis 
 and charm to pointed openings in a wall ; but in later 
 times, towards the close of the next century, the pat- 
 terned stonework often became too prominent, and 
 sometimes it covered a window, leaving but little space 
 through which light could pass. This was bad art, for 
 the tracery was constructed ornament that deprived the 
 window of its use, when it ought to have been orna- 
 mented construction as in thirteenth-century windows. 
 French and German architects erred far more often than 
 our own, particularly during their Flamboyant period, 
 when stone was treated like modeUing wax, to be twisted 
 and contorted into fanciful and absurd shapes. 
 
 Again, what purpose ought to be served by a chest 
 of drawers in a man's bedroom ? That piece of furniture 
 is meant for his clothes ; hence the drawers need two 
 
 59 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 conveniences : they should be long enough for trousers 
 to lie in them at full length, but they should not be deep, 
 because it is troublesome to find what we need when 
 drawers are deep and packed with clothes. These prac- 
 tical matters occur to boys at school, yet our cabinet- 
 makers rarely notice them. Why ? Is bad art not 
 dearer than ordinary common sense ? Every one knows 
 the routine chest of drawers, an abomination always, 
 however beautiful the wood and sound the craftsman- 
 ship. The drawers are in four tiers and range in depth 
 from about 7 J in. to about 13|- in., though five inches 
 each would be quite enough. 
 
 In this example we see how a false tradition may be 
 handed on by a mindless routine of business, which is 
 not sufficiently wideawake to understand the first prin- 
 ciples of decorative art. 1 say decorative art, because 
 in things not associated with that art, as in surgical 
 implements and in sporting materials, English work- 
 manship is admirably thorough to-day, as good as it 
 need be and as useful also. But no sooner does the 
 question of practical use come in touch with the other 
 question of design than mistake after mistake is made 
 with unfailing regularity. Indeed, some manufacturers 
 have won reputations merely by doing well what all 
 should be ashamed to do in a wrong way. 
 
 It was very different in England long ago. For 
 many centuries all household things were serviceable 
 and comely ; workmen loved what they had to make, 
 and not only clung with affection to the craft methods 
 CO 
 
THE ENGLISH TRADITION 
 
 inherited from their fathers, but passed them on improved 
 to their own children. By this means tradition in styles 
 became a language which young craftsmen learnt as 
 apprentices, and in which they afterwards expressed 
 themselves with more or less of individuality. This 
 went on from the Saxon times to the sixteenth century. 
 Then new influences came from the Italian cities, in- 
 fluences of a Roman Classic nature, which spread through- 
 out Europe, harming all native methods of design. 
 Ideals of style in northern countries became thus affected 
 by southern forms of architecture, till at last — during the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries — a great many 
 English workmen lost touch with true English ways of 
 work. 
 
 Those ways of work were mediaeval, and we speak of 
 them as Gothic. All were animated and picturesque ; 
 and, being friends to handicrafts that could be used for 
 practical purposes in a fanciful spirit, they encouraged a 
 national afl'ection for gaiety of design. Indeed, Gothic 
 art represents the buoyancy of youthful hope and 
 courage. See how a Gothic cathedral ascends from its 
 foundation, light, eager and strong ; it seems to grow 
 upwards to the light and sun, just as trees do ; and its 
 beauty is so rhythmic and full of cadence that we think 
 of music petrified into stone, a glorious Te Deum in 
 architecture. Aspiring hope is here, and joy in life and 
 work ; even humour is not forgotten in the details of 
 church building, many gargoyles being as funnily 
 fantastic as Rabelais. 
 
 61 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 In Gothic homes, as many records prove, the romance 
 element in design went hand in hand with a naive fond- 
 ness for bright garden colours. Art was a perennial 
 springtime which every one enjoyed. Henry III. did not 
 think it beneath his dignity to watch over the decoration 
 of a wall, to give detailed instructions for the making of 
 tiles, floors, wainscots, staircases, draught-screens, tapes- 
 tries, and arrangements of colour ; these were joys to be 
 taken seriously, as we take sports and pastimes. 
 
 Such was the mediseval tradition. You will find in 
 the Print Room at the British Museum several thousand 
 pencil drawings by William Twopeny, which give a 
 history of England's home architecture from the twelfth 
 to the seventeenth century. All are good, for they 
 represent work that still existed during the early decades 
 of the nineteenth century ; and there is not one among 
 them but illustrates the happy and thorough character 
 of mediaeval methods, the joy of doing well what has to 
 be done for a given purpose. 
 
 But this tradition of Gothic art does not belong 
 exclusively to England, so we must look for other and 
 more national traits ; and these may be met with in a 
 steadiness of purpose, a wish to be strong, and a dislike 
 for over-elaborated detail. England was a colonist in 
 her arts, invading many foreign styles, but she con- 
 quered what she took and made it her own. Thus in 
 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries she imported 
 much cabinet work from the Netherlands, and then gave 
 it a new character with more refined mouldings, with a 
 62 
 
THE ENGLISH TRADITION 
 
 simplicity at once quieter and richer. Turning, a delight- 
 ful old Saxon art, half for convenience, half for beauty, 
 helped in this good work ; and then there were inlays of 
 walnut, and cherry-wood, and ebony, and ivory; not 
 inlays such as we are given now in most furniture, but 
 unaffected and quietly harmonious. 
 
 We have seen thus far that the Enghsh tradition has 
 six characteristics. 
 
 1. Joy in work for its own sake. 
 
 2. Delight in picturesque styles that denote happiness. 
 
 3. Steadfastness of purpose and thorough workmanship. 
 
 4. Reserve, disciplined self-control, not coldly austere, 
 but refined and sympathetic. 
 
 5. The subordination of ornament to the utility of 
 household things. 
 
 6. Elegance with strength — a characteristic to be 
 found in all good English work, from the finest 
 architecture to the humble barges on the Thames. 
 
 These quahties ought still to be national. But to 
 what extent are we loyal to them ? Suppose this 
 question were put to us at a State examination as 
 general as a national Census; and suppose, too, that 
 we all promised under oath to tell the truth. Well, 
 how many feel joy when they work ? love picturesque 
 styles ? are resolute and firm in purpose ? practise a 
 thorough self-control ? and hate furniture which is not 
 well adapted for daily use, or in which there is either a 
 smug attempt to be "polished" and "artistic," or a 
 
 fussy parade of ornament ? 
 
 63 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 One thing is certainly beyond doubt: the English 
 tradition is no longer what it used to be, nor is it 
 improved by the changes through which it has passed. 
 We have become so unused to thorough work that the 
 word " artistic " is applied to everything at all pleasant 
 to look at. I'here is now an outcry for " artistic " 
 telegraph poles, when we need nothing more than well- 
 shaped poles which any good craftsman would design as 
 a matter of course. As telegraph poles are essential we 
 can afford to make them well. Again, consider the 
 first necessary object that meets your eye in a room — 
 i.e., the fireplace. How often is it even moderately 
 good in small houses and flats ? As a rule, there are 
 coloured tiles, not only bad in colour but covered with 
 ugly patterns ; the tongs and pokers are too commercial 
 to be practical, so there is no charm in their workman- 
 ship ; and around the chimneypiece are panels of bad 
 ornament, as though vacant spaces were not more 
 restful for the eye to look upon. It is false decorative 
 art everywhere, and the more unsightly because it is 
 pretentious. Those patterned tiles are an insult to a 
 tenant, because plain-tinted tiles would be better for 
 his comfort and less expensive for the landlord to buy. 
 
 Insults to common sense are to be found in most 
 small houses and flats. A good door-knocker is not 
 expensive, but how many good ones do you know ? 
 At one time brass door-knockers were in general use, or 
 nearly so in towns ; their shapes were varied and pleas- 
 ing, and their brightness gave a hospitable look to 
 64 
 
-m 
 
 EXAMPLE OF ENGLISH FURNISHING: GEORGE III/S BEDSTEAD 
 
 In the State Bedroom at Goodwood House, Sussex. A typical XVIII. century 
 
 bedstead, with fine carved posts in the Chippendale manner 
 
 Reproduced by permission from a boo I: on " Old English Furniture" published b// 
 Messrs. Xewnes, Ltd., and writtenby F. Fbnn and B. AVyllie 
 
THE ENGLISH TRADITION 
 
 houses. Then the demon of false economy came to 
 speculative builders, and door-knockers of cast-iron were 
 hastily invented, everything about them being cheap 
 and poor. Wrought iron would have been far and 
 away better, but think of the blacksmith's wages. 
 Why should money be put into attractive work when 
 tenants do not mind the many insults thrown at them 
 by uneducated builders ? 
 
 Speaking generally, for exceptions do not spoil an 
 argument, there is a want of sobriety in modern 
 decorative work. *' As a people," says Mr. Reginald 
 Blomfield, an architect of genius, "we rather pride 
 ourselves on the resolute suppression of a florid display 
 of leehng, but art in this country is so completely 
 divorced from everyday existence, that it never seems 
 to occur to an Englishman to import some of this fine 
 insular quaUty into his daily surroundings." Can this 
 fact be explained ? Do we owe it to the constant 
 misuse of noisy headlines in a multitude of newspapers ? 
 Is the pubhc mind vitiated by the popular Press. A 
 fussy pretension certainly rules there. Quite ordinary 
 events are " starthng " ; simple good work is " ideal " 
 work for " ideal " homes ; the nation is being trained to 
 think in the language of advertisements. 
 
 It seems to me that the manner of EngUsh ladies and 
 gentlemen has the best qualities which an English home 
 ought to have, refined tact, kindliness, sympathy, 
 strength, and a well-bred quietness and repose. These 
 qualities may go hand-in-hand with any style of house- 
 
 E 65 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 hold art, from the simplest panelling to the patterned 
 liveliness of William Morris. 
 
 A quiet manner is entirely different from austere 
 coldness. Through a popular misunderstanding on this 
 point, writers on decorative art have been ridiculed, and 
 their good work has gone for nothing. " We are asked 
 to make our rooms cold and formal," householders say, 
 and raise their eyebrows in sneering amusement. On 
 the contrary, you are asked to make them peaceful and 
 well-bred ; and this they can be in many styles. Hints 
 can be borrowed ; there is charm in all the best work 
 which has been done in England from mediaeval times 
 to our own leading craftsmen. Make friends, then, 
 with the English tradition ; be national in your taste 
 and you cannot then be wrong. 
 
 66 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 ON COLOUR 
 
 A. The Durability of Colours 
 Householders ought to have a general idea of the way 
 in which coloured papers and fabrics are affected by the 
 daily action of light. I am writing this chapter away 
 from home, and my room has a wall-paper which at one 
 time was rather a gay red, but an unequal distribution of 
 light has bleached it into several unpleasant tints of 
 terra cotta, the most offensive hue that red can have in 
 decoration. Behind the window-curtains the original 
 colour remains, a thin-toned, brightish red, such as may 
 be met with in a great many "apartments." The 
 manufacturer added a touch of carmine to his bad taste, 
 and carmine, after being exposed to the light for about 
 eighteen months, vanishes completely where the light is 
 strong and steady, and fades deplorably in shaded parts 
 of a room. Direct sunlight hastens this bleaching 
 process, and no housewife is well pleased to watch the 
 results week by week. 
 
 Carmine, too, is not the only ghost-colour among the 
 popular gay reds. Crimson lake is another, purple 
 madder comes next in the ease with which it disappears, 
 but is followed immediately by scarlet lake. Ghosts 
 
 67 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 are said to feel some pity for themselves after daybreak, 
 when their own little brilliance has to go out at the 
 bidding of the sun ; and these reds are like apparitions 
 of the dawn, splendid and evanescent. 
 
 The reds having permanency enough to be useful in 
 household art — these should be remembered, and the 
 following list shows them in their order of merit so far 
 as their stability is concerned : 
 
 Burnt Sienna. 
 Venetian Red. 
 Indian Red. 
 Vermilion. 
 Madder Lake. 
 Rose Madder. 
 Purple Carmine. 
 Violet Carmine. 
 
 Vermilion, you will recollect, is so vividly brilliant 
 that it should not be used except as an occasional 
 point of colour up to which a scheme of decoration 
 must be led with skill. Vermilion dominates wherever 
 it is put, and large patches of it tire the eyes even more 
 than emerald green will do, if you boldly give it a 
 chance. But George Morland, a colourist by nature, 
 used to say that a vivid spot of red should be repeated 
 in a picture, and you will find that he made use of 
 vermilion glazed with rose madder, as a rule, or with 
 madder lake. Pure vermilion gives a point in some of 
 his paintings, as in a shawl around a woman's shoulders, 
 68 
 
ON COLOUR 
 
 but this happens only when the figure is small and the 
 surrounding colours are favourable. Vermilion against 
 snow looks well, and among fields of corn it is delight- 
 ful in spots happily placed. In old times chairs were 
 sometimes painted with vermiUon and white, the red 
 being used as a telling relief on the white. 
 
 The other reds in my list are all good and useful. Burnt 
 sienna and black in equal quantities, with just a little 
 raw sienna to give transparency, make a very fine 
 brown, deep and rich ; it looks admirable in etchings. 
 Householders might use it for kitchen doors and for 
 other purposes too. It would go well with oak furni- 
 ture in a man's room, with a good tint of common 
 brown paper for the walls, preferably one in which 
 a yellow hue is broken up by a darker colour 
 Many good qualities are to be found in ordinary 
 wrapping papers ; qualities of broken tint and uneven 
 texture. 
 
 Venetian red and Indian red mix well with several 
 pigments, but they need a good eye for colour, and in 
 this they are like the Pompeian red which the Romans 
 loved in their villas and town houses. When used in 
 those narrow entrance halls which get a dim light from 
 fan-shaped windows above the doors, all red tints should 
 be "flatted," without lustre; and those which have a 
 faded look, like the reds at Pompeii, are usually best. 
 But the difference between good hues and bad is very 
 subtle. It is affected in many ways, as by the size and 
 shape of rooms, and the quantity of light received by 
 
 69 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 colours in situ ; hence no recipe guidance can be given 
 here. I have seen dark entrance halls in red which were 
 charming, but if the tint used in one were transferred to 
 another the effect might be very unpleasant. This 
 matter is like the use of good adjectives in wrong places. 
 Still, Venetian red and Indian red are colours to be 
 remembered ; the necessary thing is to use them with 
 judgment for given places and purposes. Recipes of 
 colour are made by conditions, and each recipe belongs 
 to the conditions that formed it. 
 
 The most delightful reds in a room are those in 
 which the deep rose tints enter ; colourists speak of 
 them as ruby lakes and reds ; and my list gives the 
 only safe pigments with which they can be invented^ 
 each good tint being an invention, a creation. Rose 
 madder and madder lake are noble servants to a 
 colourist, and much may be done with purple carmine 
 and violet carmine. With these you may work with 
 safety ; and having this knowledge you will not buy 
 wall-papers without a guarantee as to the dye-stuffs used 
 in their manufacture. 
 
 Blues have many qualities. The most stable under 
 the physical effects of light are ultramarine, French blue, 
 cobalt, Prussian blue, Antwerp blue, permanent blue, 
 and indigo, arranged in the order of their stability ; but 
 indigo is a permanent colour in good processes of dyeing. 
 Then, as to the yellows, three are durable : lemon yellow, 
 chrome yellow, and yellow ochre ; two are servants of 
 the second class : cadmium yellow and Indian yellow ; 
 70 
 
ON COLOUR 
 
 gamboge has a doubtful character and a pleasant air of 
 utility ; while Naples yellow keeps the bad character 
 which that city had during the Renaissance. 
 
 Greens are emblems of Nature's steadfastness, but 
 some among them are not quite loyal to their duty, for 
 oUve-green has the seventh place among the fleeting 
 pigments sold by colourmen, and emerald green occupies 
 the twenty-fifth. It is a pity the places are not re- 
 versed, because olive-green is an attractive pigment, 
 while emerald is a hazardous colour in decorative art, 
 requiring as much skill and care as vermiHon. Terra 
 verte is the safest green on a palette, but many per- 
 manent ones may be made with the best blues and 
 
 yellows. 
 
 This information is based on the authoritative verdict 
 passed on colours by a Commission of Experts. Rather 
 more than twenty years ago there was a belief that the 
 pigments used in water-colour painting were not durable, 
 so in April 1886, the question was taken up by the 
 Council on Education, a committee of experts was 
 appointed, and a thorough series of experiments tested 
 the action of light on water-colour drawings. The 
 result was made known in March 1888, and proved, of 
 course, that pigments in water-colour were neither more 
 nor less durable than the materials with which they 
 were made. Painters had known for many years that 
 colours were variously stable and unstable, but the 
 Committee of Investigation went beyond that know- 
 ledge, showing the order of instability of the single 
 
 71 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 colours employed by artists. And this ought to be 
 useful to householders, because textile fabrics and wall- 
 papers are subject to the same conditions as pictures 
 are influenced by, in rooms and in galleries. As a rule 
 direct sunlight does not touch them; it is reflected 
 sunlight from the clouds that we get in most rooms. 
 Every kind of light was considered by the Committee, 
 and tested thoroughly by photometric experiments, and 
 the pigments received a total illumination equivalent 
 to 10,800 hours of average blue sky. 
 
 The most valuable set of experiments from a house- 
 hold point of view lasted from August 14, 1886, to 
 March 1888, during which time colours were exposed 
 to the light. Each pigment was put in superimposed 
 washes on Whatman paper, eight washes in all, giving 
 a scale of tints from one to eight. The paper was then 
 cut into a couple of slips measuring 8 in. long and 
 2 in. wide ; these were placed in a glass tube open at 
 both ends, and the lower slip was protected from the 
 light by a piece of American cloth fastened around the 
 tube. Consequently one slip gave the effect of light on 
 a colour, while the other kept the original tint as a 
 standard by which to judge the colour's durability. 
 Thirty-nine pigments were tested in this thorough way ; 
 thirteen showed no change, thirteen were good, though 
 they faded in varied degrees, while thirteen gave very 
 poor results, some vanishing entirely. These are the 
 colours that householders should be on their guard 
 against ; and neitlier time nor space will be lost if I 
 72 
 
ON COLOUR 
 
 mention them again. Here they are in the order of 
 their instabiUty : 
 
 1. Carmine. 
 
 2. Crimson Lake. 
 
 3. Purple Madder. 
 
 4. Scarlet Lake. 
 
 5. Payne's Grey. 
 
 6. Naples Yellow. 
 
 7. Olive Green. 
 
 8. Indigo. 
 
 9. Brown Madder. 
 
 10. Gamboge. 
 
 11. Vandyke Brown. 
 
 12. Brown Pink. 
 
 13. Indian Yellow. 
 
 As the experiments were very searching, unlike the 
 tests to which colours are subject in the usual light of 
 rooms, it is not necessary to condemn all those pigments ; 
 but the first six ought not to be used. The others are 
 serviceable at times, particularly indigo, which, like 
 woad, is an essential dye-stufF. 
 
 It will be remembered that the art of dyeing textile 
 fabrics was an ancient art when Pliny wrote about it in the 
 first century a.d., yet it is young and fresh to-day when 
 treated as an art. Charles Lamb once complained that 
 owing to the progress of science the stars had become 
 merely astronomical. Science, too, by deducing the 
 aniline dyes from the plants of the coal-measures, has 
 interfered with our enjoyment of colour, for aniline dyes 
 are (for the most part) merely commercial. They have 
 been improved in recent years, no doubt, particularly 
 the yellows and the lakes ; they last much longer than 
 they did, but their general tone is not pleasant in the 
 bulk of the work done with them. It is never a fine 
 
 73 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 tone, though sometimes it may be good of its kind. 
 The anihne dyes are industrial servants, while the old 
 dye-stuffs are friends to the art of exquisite colour ; and 
 this distinction is one that householders should test for 
 themselves by comparing the old dyes with the new. 
 Some manufacturers are to this day loyal to the ancient 
 methods and materials, for it is not possible that every 
 one should be duped by inferior wares. There are 
 persons who still believe that silk weighted with chemi- 
 cals has no value, and that textile fabrics for home use 
 are more economical when they are not dyed with 
 aniline mixtures. Bulk may be essential in trade, but 
 you cannot get art if you do not appreciate the finer 
 traits of beauty. 
 
 It is a question of choice. Weighted silk is manu- 
 factured by the ton, more than half of it being chemicals ; 
 fabrics stained with aniline dyes are spoiling the native 
 Indian handicrafts and winning for themselves a trade 
 in all parts of the world ; but if we want something 
 better, something true and good, we must encourage 
 the few tradesmen who sell pure silk, and textiles dyed 
 with beautiful sweet colours. 
 
 Dye-stuffs did not change at all for an incalculable 
 number of years. They formed an art so conservative 
 that it linked the eighteenth century with the earliest 
 times of the ancient civihsations. Then American dye- 
 woods began to arrive, logwood and Brazil-wood adding 
 useful reds to those which were obtained from other 
 trees, such as the Red Saunders, imported from Asia 
 74 
 
ON COLOUR 
 
 and from Africa also. Cochineal, the American insect 
 dye, was less useful, because it ousted the king of red 
 dyes, kermes, a European insect found on several species 
 of oak near the Mediterranean. The American quer- 
 citron bark came next, giving a serviceable yellow dye, 
 not so pretty as weld, wild mignonette, but pleasing, 
 hke old fustic, another American dye-wood. Weld is 
 the prettiest yellow in the world for silk, and its colour 
 is tender and good in other materials. Yellows may be 
 got from heather, birch, saw-wort, osier twigs, dyers' 
 broom, and poplar twigs, but yellow dyes are the least 
 permanent of all, speaking generally. As a proof of this 
 for instance, Wilham Morris drew attention to the old 
 tapestries, in which the greens have always faded more 
 than the reds and blues, even the best yellow dyes losing 
 their brighter shade, the lemon colour, and leaving only 
 a residuum of brownish-yellow, which makes a pleasant 
 kind of half-green over the blue. Hence it is well to 
 remember that yellows in textile fabrics are not strictly 
 permanent, however carefully the dyeing is carried out. 
 Blue is obtained from woad and indigo, which have 
 the same chemical properties and give the same colour. 
 To get green is a double process : first a piece of material 
 is put in the indigo-vat, where it is dyed to the requisite 
 tint of blue ; then with a good yellow dye, like weld, the 
 ground tint is greened, and some madder may be added 
 to modify the colour. Still, it is not necessary to enter 
 further into these technical matters, because they do not 
 form the real point of my argument. The real point is 
 
 75 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 that the best dyes are got from woods, plants, and insects ; 
 some need a mordant, others do not ; and all, in the 
 hands of a good craftsman, giv^e bright colours which 
 are beautiful. They do fade out of being, but gradually, 
 and for the most part charmingly, keeping to the last 
 a pure tone, very different from the livid hues through 
 which the aniline dyes often pass in their popular life. 
 
 B. Colour and Colours. 
 
 Artists speak of *' a good eye for colour." What do 
 they mean by that phrase ? The percentage of persons 
 who are colour-blind is small, yet artists lay particular 
 stress on the quality of good colour even in the work 
 of eminent painters. This proves that altliough an 
 appreciation for colour is a natural gift to mankind, yet 
 the perfection of that gift is rare even among those who 
 cultivate it ; and this fact should be remembered by 
 householders, who pride themselves overmuch on their 
 many-hued decorations. 
 
 The truth is that they do not understand the artistic 
 difference between colour and colours. Perhaps ninety- 
 nine persons in a hundred are fond of colours ; and this 
 enjoyment is so refreshing to the mind and spirit that 
 gardens and flowers have become necessary to our daily 
 life ; even the poorest dwellers in a city tend plants 
 with care, and buy in the spring little penny bunches of 
 daffodils, primroses, and violets. Artificial flowers are 
 prized by many, and what wall-paper is not welcomed 
 if it reminds the poor of birds and gardens ? 
 76 
 
ON COLOUK 
 
 Joy in the witchery of colours being so natural and 
 so general, we need not be surprised that it is often 
 mistaken for something more important, namely, a good 
 eye for colour — a thing as remarkable in art as com- 
 position is in music. Colours are like musical notes 
 and chords, while colour is a pleasing result of their 
 artistic use in a combined way. So colours are means 
 to an end, while colour is the end itself. The first are 
 tools, while the other is a distinctive harmony in art 
 composed of many hues and shades. 
 
 Such harmonies are of two sorts — the good and the 
 Hue. A great many painters are known for their good 
 colour, and each of them has a distinction of his own, 
 for colour is varied in a personal manner like the timbre 
 of the human voice. No two persons have ever seen in 
 colours precisely the same hues ; and so we find that 
 when painters not only use the same pigments, but 
 work from the same model, their colour effects differ 
 invariably, just as voices differ from each other when 
 they repeat from the same book or poem the same 
 words. It is for this reason that colour has been called 
 the voice of art, and experts say with truth that it is the 
 one characteristic which forgers cannot imitate with 
 success, because they, too, have a colour of their own 
 which a trained eye can detect at once. 
 
 Again, when we pass from the many artists who have 
 the gift of " good paint," we meet with a few rare spirits 
 in art whose colour is so fine that its varied brilliance 
 and purity are as exceptional as great tenor voices. 
 
 77 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 More than that may be said with figurative truth. 
 Some pictures are hke song and orchestra combined, 
 and among them I will place a great Titian in our 
 National Gallery, the Bacchus and Ariadne. It has 
 been described many times, but Charles Lamb's reading 
 is the most imaginative, while Reynolds and Burnet 
 write as painters on the technical mastery shown by 
 Titian in his artistic colour. The first point to be 
 noted is the mystery of grey and tinted light. A great 
 colourist is a magician in his use of greys, some cold as 
 stone, others warm as the tints in summer clouds, and 
 others iridescent like pearls. When the greys are pure 
 and fine, the half-tones in a picture, whether cold or 
 warm, fall into place one by one, and splendid plots of 
 light and shade come into the general atmosphere and 
 complete the harmony. Greys, then, in all that apper- 
 tains to colour, whether in pictures or in rooms, are 
 essential peacemakers. 
 
 Here is one very helpful thing to know thoroughly, 
 and several others, as useful to householders, may be 
 learnt from the Bacchus and Ariadne. You will 
 find, for example, that colours warm and cold are 
 balanced with astonishing success, and that every pas- 
 sage of colour is by itself beautiful and filled with 
 atmosphere. Pure pigment does not appear at all ; the 
 splendour throughout is greyed and toned by air, and 
 hght, and the juxtaposition of hues. The colour seems 
 to be nature's, but in truth it is artistic colour and 
 Titian's own. As to the bearing of this point on room 
 78 
 
ON COLOUR 
 
 decoration, you will note that warm and cold colours 
 must form harmonious contrasts, and that the colours 
 must not be positive, because the aim of art is to 
 employ atmospheric hues of colour in a personal and 
 distinctive way. 
 
 Before we go further, and take a more detailed survey 
 of Titian's picture, it will be well to define some tech- 
 nical terms. What is the meaning of " warm " in its 
 relation to colours ? and what is the meaning of " cold " ? 
 
 Of the three primaries, yellow, red, and blue, two are 
 warm colours, red and yellow, while the other is cold ; 
 and these terms are in sympathy with the colours, 
 giving their peculiar effects on the eye and the mind. 
 Yellow and red are more or less ardent ; even children 
 know them as symbols of fire and heat. To us, under 
 certain conditions, they are emblems also of other 
 things, the yellow of nearness and the red of triumph. 
 A poppy in a field of corn triumphs, and the greyish- 
 yellow corn looks near on a far horizon. Blue, on the 
 other hand, is a cold tint that denotes atmosphere and 
 space, being associated with distant views and the sky. 
 Laymen are apt to forget this, particularly when they 
 put sky-blue paper on a wall, a wrong use of a pleasant, 
 aerial tint because the first duty of a wall is to look firm 
 and solid, and therefore unlike pale blue. 
 
 The primary colours form three secondaries : 
 Blue and yellow = green. 
 Red and yellow = orange. 
 Red and blue = purple. 
 
 79 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 Green is a cold colour if the blue and yellow are in equal 
 proportions or if the blue is in excess of the yellow. 
 But as every approach towards yellow and red is a step 
 towards warmth and brightness, many hues of russet 
 green and yellow green give mild sensations of light and 
 heat. This appHes above all to yellow greens, because 
 yellow gives a greater idea of warmth than red, with a 
 touch of which russet greens are made. The coldest 
 greens are those which are flattened and saddened by 
 white pigment ; these are dangerous in room decoration, 
 particularly in the lighter tints. Yet it is no uncommon 
 thing to see doors and furniture painted in light hues of 
 green that try to imitate the pale greens of springtime. 
 Could anything be more absurd ? It shows that a good 
 many persons do not yet understand why light and vivid 
 greens are not unpleasant out of doors in April and 
 May. The reason is that they are made infinitely varied 
 by sunlight, shadow, mist, distance, and greys innumer- 
 able. Even so they are feared by landscape painters ; 
 and hence it is sheer folly to choose any tint of pale 
 green for our furniture and woodwork. It is nothing 
 but paint, flat, cold, staring, and altogether in bad taste. 
 No person with an eye for colour would employ green 
 in that way. But green may be used in homes when it 
 is dark and rich-toned; and so we get two principles 
 which ought to be learnt by heart : 
 
 (1) Pale and vivid greens are out of place in room 
 decoration, above all in furniture and woodwork. 
 Years ago Minton put an emerald green border to 
 80 
 
ON COLOUR 
 
 plates, but the effect even here was bad. Emerald, 
 indeed, is like a discord in music, which composer.^ drop 
 in with good effect as an occasional surprise. 
 
 (2) Dark rich greens, warm in tone, yet cold im com- 
 parison with lake and deep transparent brown, are very 
 useful indoors, particularly for table-cloths, window 
 curtains, and a ground upon which fine Eastern rugs 
 may be laid. Such greens go admirably with most good 
 arrangements of colour, as in the following example : 
 
 (a) A flock wall-paper, the local tint of which was 
 ruby red, but varied by a Venetian pattern in relief and 
 in a lake tint of the same beautiful red. The pattern, 
 of course, was a formal design that kept its place on the 
 wall, making a good background with a broken surface. 
 
 {b) Fine English pictures in gold frames, but the 
 gold was not new and staring. 
 
 (c) Rich brown furniture by Chippendale. 
 
 (d) A white marble fireplace by Flaxman, with dark 
 green tiles in the recess. 
 
 (e) A cornice and ceiling of Flaxman's period, not 
 dead white in colour, but cream-tinted and warm. 
 
 if) Dark-green window curtains against the light, 
 the room having windows on one wall only. 
 
 ig) A dark-green cover over the dining-room table, 
 not only restful to the eye, but necessary, for it pre- 
 vented the light from being reflected over a large flat 
 surface of polished wood. A blue cloth would have 
 been too cold, and brown would have destroyed the 
 value of that colour in the furnitm*e. 
 
 F 81 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 (h) The chairs were upholstered in a peeuHar ruby- 
 tinted leather which did not attract too much attention. 
 
 (i) The carpet, quiet and formal in design, had warm 
 and cool tints that repeated the principal colours in the 
 room and yet kept its place unobtrusively. 
 
 {j) The door was dark-green, and the rest of the 
 woodwork also. 
 
 The general effect delighted every one, and many 
 artists spoke of it as " fine colour." But remark how the 
 harmony was obtained. The cold tints were not too 
 cold, and the warm were rich in tone and unassertive. 
 Those which dominated the scheme, the ruby reds, the 
 brovnis, the deep oli\ e greens, were repeated in different 
 parts of the room ; and no contrastive harmony, as 
 between the red and gold, and the green and red, 
 was spoilt by a wrong hue in either colour. The coldest 
 and the brightest tints were in the pictures, and here, of 
 course, they had their atmosphere of art. This the 
 owner of the house remembered when the room was 
 furnished ; and he did not forget that his scheme would 
 be completed by vases of flowers, by the table ware, by 
 ladies in their evening dresses, and by the black worn by 
 men. In other words, the room had to be charming at 
 all hours of the day. 
 
 And now let us hear what Sir Joshua Reynolds has 
 to say on this very subject. He lays it down as a 
 general principle " that the masses of light in a picture 
 be always of a warm mellow colour, yellow, red, or 
 yello^vish- white ; and that the blue, the gray, or the 
 82 
 
ON COLOUR 
 
 green colours be kept always entirely out of these 
 masses, and be used only to support and set off these 
 warm colours ; and for this purpose a small proportion 
 of cold colours will be sufficient. Let this conduct be 
 reversed; let the hght be cold, and the surrounding 
 colour warm, as we often see in the works of the Roman 
 and Florentine painters, and it will be out of the power 
 of art, even in the hands of Rubens and Titian, to make 
 a picture splendid and harmonious." 
 
 You will, I hope, read this quotation several times 
 till you know the two general principles contained in it. 
 These may be summed up in another passage from 
 Reynolds. 
 
 " The predominant colours of a picture ought to be of 
 a warm mellow kind, red or yellow ; and no more cold 
 colour should be introduced than will be just enough to 
 serve as a ground or foil to set off and give value to the 
 mellow colours ; and never should itself be a principal. 
 For this purpose a quarter of the picture will be suffi- 
 cient ; those cold colours, whether blue, gray, or green, 
 are to be dispersed about the ground or surrounding 
 parts of the picture, wherever it has the appearance of 
 wanting such a foil, but sparingly employed in the 
 masses of light." 
 
 Now a room is a picture : it has a background, the 
 walls with the windows, the door, and the frieze and 
 cornice ; a middle distance, where the furniture stands ; 
 and a foreground — i.e., the family hfe, to which all 
 should be subordinated. It lacks only one thing which 
 
 83 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 a picture has frequently, and that is the charm of distant 
 perspectives. We have thus to remember the Hmits 
 within which a room is confined. The walls are flat and 
 upright, and no decoration must make them look 
 unsubstantial and unsteady. The floor is meant to be 
 walked upon, therefore its covering must not resemble 
 a flower garden nor be filled with birds and animals, 
 since no one would walk upon such things in real life. 
 Thus the picture which a room should present, or must 
 present, is conventional both in its backgi-ound and in its 
 middle distance ; the only realism permitted is in a few 
 well-placed vases of flowers and in the human life that 
 peoples the foreground. You will say, perhaps, that 
 the paintings hung on the walls are realistic, but only in 
 a way subordinate to art, and art has conventions of its 
 own. 
 
 If, now, you think of an empty room as a bare canvas 
 on which you have to make a picture in accord ^vith the 
 limits of your conventional art, how would you apply 
 the principles which Reynolds has given? Reynolds 
 helps you to answer this question by his criticisms on 
 Titian's picture of Bacchus and Ariadne. 
 
 " The conduct of Titian in this picture," says Rey- 
 nolds, " has been much celebrated, and justly, for the 
 harmony of colouring. To Ariadne is given (say the 
 critics) a red scarf, to reUeve the figure from the sea, 
 which is behind her. It is not for that reason alone, 
 but for another of much greater consequence ; for the 
 sake of the general harmony and effect of the picture. 
 84 
 
ON COLOUR 
 
 The figure of Ariadne is separated from the great 
 group, and is dressed in blue, which, added to the 
 colour of the sea, makes that quantity of cold colour 
 which Titian thought necessary for the support and 
 brilliancy of the great group ; which group is composed, 
 with very Httle exception, entirely of mellow colours. 
 But as the picture in this case would be divided into 
 two distinct parts, one half cold, and the other warm, it 
 was necessary to carry some of the mellow colours of 
 the great group into the cold part of the picture, and a 
 part of the cold into the great group ; accordingly 
 Titian gave Ariadne a red scarf, and to one of the 
 Bacchante a little blue drapery." 
 
 This, no doubt, is excellent criticism, and it will help 
 you to understand the dining-room which I have 
 described. The principle involved is precisely the same. 
 If warm colours ruled everywhere they would be weari- 
 some ; and yet they ought to predominate. The 
 problem, therefore, is to find precisely those tints of 
 cold colour which do not clash with the warm and 
 mellow, but support them and set them off by contrast. 
 Titian used blue for this purpose, and repeated it with 
 masterly judgment, for the blue of the sky is carried 
 into the foreground, where some blue flowers grow, as 
 well as into the female figure mentioned by Reynolds. 
 Yet this repetition of blue needed for its support a 
 peacemaker with certain qualities, neither cold nor 
 warm, but temperate : hence the greens that Titian 
 created for the distance and the trees, for grass at the 
 
 85 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 bottom of his picture, and for wreaths of vine tendrils 
 around the loins of a dancing male figure behind 
 Bacchus. Then, between Ariadne and the great group, 
 in the foreground, is a black dog with white feet, so 
 strong in tone that the eye rests upon it as a matter of 
 course, and feels with enjoyment the way in which the 
 black sets off the dark flesh tones of the sunburnt 
 Bacchus, the browns of the tree trunks, and the inimi- 
 table leopards. All the flesh tints are exquisite, and in 
 keeping with the many artistic colours that surround 
 them with joyous contrasts. 
 
 In that dining-room (pp. 81-2) the ruling colours were 
 ruby reds and rich browns and gold frames ; these rich 
 hues were repeated, only in a quiet and formal way, by 
 tints in a good carpet ; the repetition of dark greens 
 gave necessary cool passages of colour, while the marble 
 fireplace and the plaster ceiling were sufficiently warm 
 in their white tints to act as the greens do in Titian's 
 picture. 
 
 Reynolds, so critics say, overstated his useful prin- 
 ciple when he said that cold light and colour, even in 
 the hands of a Rubens or a Titian, could not make fine 
 harmonies. He knew that there were exceptions to 
 this rule, not in nature only, but in several pictures 
 also : but he was writing for students, who waste much 
 time in perilous experiments, so he put the exceptions 
 aside, not without reason. 
 
 86 
 
ON COLOUR 
 
 C. The Juxtaposition of Colours. 
 
 When hints on room decoration are offered to house- 
 holders, and to ladies in particular, experts find that 
 their practical knowledge is rebuffed. " We should 
 not like that," the amateurs say point-blank and with- 
 out a moment's thought. " That colour would be 
 horrid," is another stock expression. " We don't wish 
 our rooms to look small," they continue, not caring 
 what their remarks may seem to the unlucky expert 
 who has to encounter the same opposition daily. There 
 is no confidence in the world equal to that of a person 
 who does not know, unless we look for its counterpart 
 in another such person ; and the essential thing which 
 householders do not know, and never try to learn, is 
 the effect which one colour has upon another. Suggest 
 a tint for a wall-paper, and it is criticised by itself, and 
 not in relation to all the other colours to be used in the 
 room. This being so, what principles govern the juxta- 
 position of tints ? 
 
 The first point to be noted is the particular form of 
 juxtaposition in furnished houses. One colour stands 
 out from another, but between them, as a rule, there is 
 some space, and spaces mean varied degrees of grey 
 atmosphere. For example, several yards separate your 
 dining-room table from the window curtains ; the table 
 cover and the curtains may be of the same uniform 
 tint, but if you stand away from the table and look at 
 the cover as relieved against the curtains, you will find 
 
 87 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 that the latter seem of a different colour. This result 
 is one of atmosphere. It follows, then, that the same 
 hue of colour may be used with different variations of 
 effect. Now% as the principal tints ought to be repeated 
 in a composition, and with something of that art w^hich 
 Titian displayed in his blues, greens, and reds, we 
 should try at all points to lessen our risk of failure ; and 
 it is certainly better to repeat the same colour, leaving 
 distance and atmosphere to vary the tint, than to modify 
 the colour itself in order to give variety to the repeti- 
 tions. This rule is one of safety. A painter has to 
 supply his own atmosphere, and his work hes on a flat 
 surface ; while we have a w^hole room in which to per- 
 fect a scheme, aided by the enchantment that distances 
 lend to form and colour. 
 
 And here is another hint. Take some pieces of blue 
 linen or cloth, some in good tints and others in bad ; 
 spread them out flat on a mahogany table, and you will 
 find that even coarse metallic blues look quite well. 
 This juxtaposition of blue and brown is a peacemaker, 
 a useful thing to know in these days of aniline dyes, 
 which have a tendency to be hard and sharp and un- 
 pleasant. 
 
 Mahogany has the power of toning unpleasant greens 
 as well as metallic, hard blues, so that we may choose 
 without difficulty a colour for the afternoon teacloth, the 
 tea service itself, a strip of felt to protect the sideboard, 
 and other details, such as a mat upon wliich a flower- 
 pot may stand on any brown article of furniture. 
 88 
 
ON COLOUR 
 
 It is easy to make experiments on your dining-room 
 table, which gives you the colour of your furniture. 
 Try on it, one by one, samples of wall papers, patterns 
 for curtains, and the Hke ; choose those which make the 
 best harmonies, and then put your whole selection side 
 by side on the table, and see whether the different 
 materials look well together when you stand at different 
 distances from them. The result being satisfactory, the 
 materials should then be got in lengths to be tested in 
 situ. That is, a length of paper should be pinned to the 
 wall, place near to it the curtain material, and bring in 
 contact with them a strip of carpet and a piece of 
 furniture ; then study the effect from the other end of 
 the room, taking care to look through a hole made by 
 arching your hands, so that no sensation of colour may 
 reach you from other parts of the room. It is necessary 
 that you should see nothing more than the principal 
 colours which you have tentatively chosen. 
 
 Once more, as a training for the eye, many experi- 
 ments may be made both wdth fruits and flowers and 
 with pieces of paper. You need a background for the 
 flowers and fruits, preferably good papers in plain tints. 
 Choose one you like, pin it to a board, and then try how 
 various arrangements of flowers with fruits tell against 
 it. Many backgrounds can be tried with each experi- 
 ment, and the knowledge gained will surprise and 
 delight you. All the beauty of colour depends on the 
 opposition of tints ; and all the ugliness too. Thus, for 
 example, orange is not an unpleasant colour, neither is 
 
 89 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 blue ; but orange wlieu opposed to blue offends the eye, 
 for it makes the blue look more intense, and the contrast 
 becomes too searching, too startling. In like manner, 
 orange opposed by blue — that is, orange against a blue 
 background — appears of a richer tint, and the contrast 
 between the two is inartistic. Red and yellow, con- 
 trasted with their respective complemental colours, green 
 and purple, are made to appear more intense, though 
 there is, of course, no actual change in them, the 
 increased brilliancy of hue arising from the effect which 
 their juxtaposition has on the optic nerve. 
 
 Take three scraps of paper coloured with brown 
 madder, all of the same tint, and place them on different 
 backgrounds, one orange, the other emerald green, and 
 the third purple. Orange is the complemental colour of 
 blue, and you will find that the brown madder appears 
 of a bluer tint than when seen by itself. Why ? Be- 
 cause the yellow and red in the orange background, by 
 their superior brightness and power, absorb the more 
 feeble rays of those colours in the brown madder, causing 
 the blue rays to be more apparent. To give brown 
 madder a yellower or a redder hue, we change the back- 
 ground to purple or to green, purple being the comple- 
 mental colour of yellow, and green the complemental of 
 red. Innumerable tests can be made in this way, and 
 very lucky " finds " of colour are the result. Apart 
 from this, each " find " is a discovery of your own 
 colour-sense, and will give a personal note to your rooms. 
 From time to time, also, your experiments may help 
 you in the art of " cutting "an unwelcome acquaintance, 
 UO 
 
ON COLOUR 
 
 as by sending a Christmas card in vermilion with the 
 seasonable good words printed in big grey letters. The 
 shock of that discord is made more unfriendly by a 
 margin of white paper wdth orange stars at the corners. 
 
 Trifling thus with boomerangs of colour has yet 
 another useful purpose ; it trains the eye to hate them, 
 a lesson that many persons avoid by the use of milder 
 discords that deaden the colour-sense. As an exercise 
 to correct the mischief done, let me recommend grey 
 and vermilion, and for a reason similar to that which a 
 carpenter had in mind when he said to his apprentice : 
 " Mind, lad, you must hit your fingers and nails, or 
 you'll never learn to use your tools." 
 
 Indeed, we must annoy ourselves with failure and 
 pain if we wish to learn the rudiments of art. You may 
 read about colour as an amusement to be forgotten ; 
 you must experiment with discords and harmonies if 
 you wish to furnish your home. 
 
 D. The Associations of Colour 
 Colours, like perfumes, affect the mind in very pecu- 
 liar ways, setting thought astir on many past events. 
 By this means happiness and unhappiness may be called 
 back to memory, giving us a fondness for certain colours 
 which are ugly, and a hatred for others which are beau- 
 tiful and kind. Though this has ever been a common 
 experience in the lives of a great many persons, 1 cannot 
 remember to have read anything concerning it in books 
 on colour or on decorative art. Yet, clearly, it is not a 
 matter to be forgotten. 
 
 91 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 A lady at the age of eighty, years ago, wept whenever 
 she saw a blue flower, and would never give the reason 
 till her last illness came. She then said : " You know 
 how I like flowers, but I want them to be blue now, 
 violets or cornflowers, because Ned loved them, and I'm 
 nearer to him now than I've been these sixty years." Ned 
 was her only boy and had died as a child of three when 
 she was not yet twenty-one. Another old lady was 
 affected in a similar way by white flowers, and particu- 
 larly snowdrops, which she associated always with bad 
 luck. There are secret gardens in a great many minds 
 and the colours there are not all pleasant and fortunate. 
 
 It is more than probable that to these associations of 
 colour, with their attendant hkes and dislikes, we owe 
 the perplexing difference of opinion that exists among 
 connoisseurs on great works of art. IVIen whose eye for 
 colour is known to be good — fine painters, for example — 
 have often a strong hostility towards certain paintings 
 which rank among the masterpieces of colour. No 
 explanation is given of these antipathies, but Dr. Fell 
 judgments of this kind spring as a rule from the emotions 
 of association. 
 
 If a beautiful colour is connected in any mind -with 
 an unpleasant event, all the connoisseurs in the world 
 must accept that colour as unbeautiful to that one 
 mind ; and hence it is impossible to form arbitrary 
 laws to guide householders in their use of colour. 
 The utmost one can do is to give hints from the 
 acknowledged masters, leaving each reader to apply 
 them in his own way and for his own joy. 
 92 
 
PART II 
 THE HOUSE IN DETAILS 
 

 M 
 
 ,.^ r^m^mn 
 
 
 
 JtJ^A 
 
 rilK •■ ISAI;KLI,A'" lUtOCADE 
 AU^.srs. Stoio .V Co., Kciisiii;:t<>ii, l.tiiuldii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 HOUSE-OWNERS AND HOUSEHOLDERS 
 
 A GOOD many persons now build houses for themselves 
 and many others buy them under a system of mortgage 
 and through building societies, so there is plenty of 
 time for repentance by instalment when a man 
 "changes his mind." Some years ago a horse was 
 purchased by monthly payments, and no animal ever 
 before was the object of so many daily criticisms. 
 Horses of a very special kind ought to be bred for 
 that method of " easy " business, so called. And this 
 applies to houses also ; an unusual type should be built 
 when buyers are given a long time in which to com- 
 plete their wish to have property. If we get a thing 
 and pay for it at once, we try as a rule to make the 
 best of our bargain, though the elation which accom- 
 panies buying is generally followed by a cold fit of 
 reflection and self-criticism ; during which, you will 
 notice, the young and impulsive may give away their 
 new purchases to friends, and in the joy of making 
 presents get rid of the feeling that they have been 
 extravagant. The chill of after-reflection is very much 
 prolonged by any system of " easy payment " ; and I 
 have never known a man who became owner of a house 
 
 95 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 little by little, but regretted the fact with a self-pity 
 which bored his friends like an old man's repetitions of 
 a favourite story. Build castles in the air, but do not 
 buy a house for yourself, is the best advice that any 
 writer can give in a book on homes and their furnishing ; 
 for a book should be addressed to the many, and not to 
 those fortunate persons who have money enough not 
 only to purchase a good site in a neighbourhood remote 
 from industrial speculation, but to do every detail of 
 the work thoroughly with the help which only an 
 excellent architect can give. 
 
 It is necessary to speak of these matters here because 
 the desire to possess a house has become far more 
 common than it used to be, and many cunning agencies 
 want to exploit it for their own ends. Cheap building 
 has been the order of the day for a long time. Blocks 
 of flats here and there are now in the hands of banks ; 
 much villa property is waiting to be bought by house- 
 holders ; and the building trades have still to be kept 
 busy despite the over-production in speculative jobs and 
 jobbing. The paymaster is to be the public, while the 
 profits are not very Hkely to enrich that national 
 exchequer which is represented by the country's home 
 life and character. 
 
 To speak plainly, it is anti-social to speculate in a 
 nation's homes, and during the last fifty years that 
 speculation has been rife everywhere in England, doing 
 so much harm that the term " jerry-building " is now a 
 household word for scamped and dishonest workman- 
 90 
 
HOUSE-OWNERS AND HOUSEHOLDERS 
 
 ship. Yet, somehow, there is a revival of the very 
 belief which launched with success that first enterprise 
 in " jerried " house property ; and the belief is that 
 many persons are still ready to look upon cheap work 
 in architecture as quite possible under modern con- 
 ditions. We read about excellent cottages for £120, 
 and " ideal " small houses for £300. But it is well to 
 be cautious. To be hasty in thought is better than 
 to be hurried in action, and for the same reason which 
 caused the bishop to say to his flock : " If you find sin 
 pleasant, then sin to yourselves in things imagined, and 
 repent ; don't be so unwise as to sin outside yourselves 
 in deeds, which have a life of their own at variance 
 with yours." 
 
 Any one can think a house into being and enjoy this 
 mental exercise, just as any one may take a tenancy of 
 thought in splendid town houses and country seats. 
 With a few photographs to help us, it is easy to imagine 
 that we own a dozen noble mansions without being 
 worried with servants and polite bills. After a while 
 another set of photographs may be bought, for even the 
 imagination is apt to get tired of its lordship over the 
 same places. A longing for change becomes urgent 
 now and then, particularly under repairing leases, or 
 when a house belongs to the occupier. Toujours 
 perdrix should be the motto of the half-fortunate 
 house-owners : namely, those who have good homes 
 in the country but cannot afford to have flats in town 
 for winter use. 
 
 G 97 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 A motto for those' house-owners who are quite un- 
 hicky, having saddled themselves with ill-built villas 
 and cottages, would not be easy to find. They cannot 
 hope to sublet their places with much success ; and if 
 they find tenants who are willing to turn them into 
 happy landlords, the coming of quarter day has draw- 
 backs, for ill-built houses need not a little repair, but a 
 great deal, sometimes a third of the rent per annum. 
 Such was the estimate of the late J. J. Stevenson, 
 whose book on " House Architecture " ought to be in 
 all Public Libraries. 
 
 It is not my wish to overstate any part of my subject, 
 but few speculations are more risky than house owner- 
 ship, and the risk is increased, not lessened, by a small 
 outlay of capital. In this connection, surely, it is worth 
 while to consider the current price of building material 
 and the wages paid to workmen ; add to this the 
 builder's profit and the cost of an architect's designs, 
 and then form in your mind a picture of the house you 
 can reasonably expect to build for £500. An architect 
 will give you the best result which can be achieved for 
 that sum ; but where is the house to be, and is the 
 neighbourhood likely to go " up " or " down " ? Might 
 it not be reasonable that you should see a house newly 
 finished at the estimated cost of £500 ? Examine the 
 rooms carefully, test them in a practical way and gain 
 technical knowledge of their worth. Are the walls 
 sound-resisting, or do they interfere with the privacy of 
 home life, particularly in bedrooms that adjoin each 
 98 
 
ENTRANCE TO MUSIC ROOM, LITTLECOURT 
 Walter Cave, Architect, London 
 
TllK Fll!Eri-ACE AND I'.AV. MTSIC UOO.M. 1,111 I.KlOUJiT 
 WALitii Can i:. Inhiletl. Loiuldu 
 
HOUSE-OWNERS AND HOUSEHOLDERS 
 
 other ? Are the floors sohd and good ? Defective 
 walls and floors are bad enough under a three years' 
 lease, but imagine what they become when they are 
 yours for life. The exterior brickwork may have a 
 thorough look ; still, how much water do the bricks 
 absorb ? There are bricks of many kinds, and some 
 varieties " drink " their own weight of water ; hence a 
 cautious man should not buy a house without testing 
 the exterior walls. Get three or four surplus bricks, 
 weigh them, put them for a time to stand in water, and 
 then see by what percentage their weight has been 
 increased. 
 
 It is surprising how careless most persons are in the 
 matter of walls and floors. " Are the drains in order ? " 
 they ask. " Does the roof leak ? " " Are there plenty of 
 cupboards ? " These questions are stereotyped, while 
 other essential points are forgotten. It is not too much 
 to say that the comfort of a home depends on the way 
 in which the floors and walls are built. Parents ought 
 not to be overheard by their children, and little ones at 
 their play need some freedom. How can they be happy 
 and natural if their games are heard all over a house ? 
 And what, again, is the value of a wall when every 
 movement in one bedroom can be heard in another ? 
 Is that civilised home life ? Recently I stayed for a 
 while in a small London house built more than sixty years 
 ago, and therefore better than recent speculative work. 
 Yet I could hear sounds from the bedroom under mine 
 and in two bedrooms on my floor. It is most un- 
 
 99 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 pleasant to find that bad floors and walls turn us into 
 unwilling eavesdroppers, spies on a neighbour's actions 
 and words ; and remember what noises mean to the sick 
 during a time of dangerous illness. Note, too, that the 
 building of bad floors and walls became more general 
 precisely at a time when the hubbub from traffic in the 
 streets began to grow worse, and when pianos found 
 their way into what may be called average houses, 
 neither poor nor yet well-to-do. The arts may be 
 divided into two classes, the silent and the noisy ; 
 the former cannot disturb many households at a time, 
 while the annoyances of music pay many calls at once, 
 and remain as unwelcome visitors for hours, not only 
 irritating the nerves, but enabling those who are nearly 
 deaf to appreciate the skill with which walls and floors 
 may be built to transmit noises. In rows of suburban 
 houses the timber joists of the floors in one house often 
 touch those of the next, with the result that several 
 houses become one in noise, for wood is an excellent 
 conductor of sound. Buyers of villa property should 
 test the joists, or, better still, should give up buying bad 
 stock. 
 
 And there are other troubles in the jerry-builder's 
 contributions to the miseries of town life. Draughts 
 merit some attention, as they are not at all friendly to 
 good health when doors and windows happen to be in 
 wrong positions. Put a large window at one end of a 
 small room, and a door to face it ; you have then a 
 familiar scheme for a cutting ventilation by draughts. 
 lUU 
 
HOUSE-OWNERS AND HOUSEHOLDERS 
 
 Householders ought to think of this before they sign 
 their leases ; and a builder's plans for a house should 
 never be accepted without an architect's opinion on the 
 placing of the doors and windows. The difference 
 between a modern builder and a good architect is often 
 as great as that between a butcher and a good surgeon, 
 yet the jerry-builder has been encouraged by a host of 
 men who would never think of calling in a butcher to 
 operate on their families. 
 
 All these matters have a direct bearing on the art of 
 furnishing a home, for why should any one give thought 
 to that art, and spend money on it, when average villas 
 and flats have structural defects that tell against comfort 
 and happiness ? This question is put to me by my 
 friends, and it is hard to answer. However much care 
 may be given to the furnishing, the discomforts of bad 
 floors and walls, of ill-placed windows and doors, are 
 serious ; and very often the servants' rooms are bad. 
 A small kitchen is a furnace in summer, so the cook or 
 the " general " gives notice ; and there are flats in which 
 the kitchen is flanked by a bedroom at one side and a 
 water-closet at the other, with doors that open into the 
 kitchen. We have, indeed, inherited so many un- 
 pleasant things from the last fifty years of speculative 
 building, and these things will take such a long time to 
 clear away, that care in furnishing is no doubt dis- 
 couraged by the conditions under which we live. It is 
 quite a common thing to hear people say, " Happily, 
 we did not pay much for our furniture. The lease will 
 
 101 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 soon be out, and we'll then try to do better for 
 ourselves." 
 
 Yet, for all that, the old proverb is right. " Ill- 
 spent money is a double loss " ; and to spend less than 
 is necessary on furniture is a short-lived economy, 
 while to invest the right sum in the right way is to 
 get utilities that endure for a lifetime. Several artists 
 bought some Eastern rugs thirty years ago, and they 
 are still in use and beautiful. They cost £5 each. 
 How many rugs at one pound apiece would have 
 worn out in thirty years, and what beauty would they 
 have had from the first ? 
 
 It is only by looking at practical matters in a rational 
 way that the act of furnishing bad houses well can be 
 understood as a reasonable act. If a house or a flat 
 is ill-built, we do not get rid of that inconvenience 
 by using ill-made furniture, and discordant schemes of 
 colour; we are like the man who would not buy 
 readable books because he already owned certain 
 volumes which he could not like. Apart from that, 
 most furniture is made to a scale long fixed by use 
 and tradition, so that a suite for one ordinary house 
 may be employed in any ordinary house almost. There 
 is a settled standard for the height of chairs and tables, 
 and the size of other household necessaries does not 
 vary much; certainly not enough to be troublesome 
 to any class of purchaser. AVe may guess in what 
 way our lives are most likely to be shaped by events ; 
 that is, the houses in which we first make a home 
 102 
 
HOUSE-OWNERS AND HOUSEHOLDERS 
 
 have rooms of average dimensions, quite in keeping 
 with the average measure of success which we are 
 Ukely to meet with, most of us ; and hence the furniture 
 chosen for our first rooms will be useful in the last also, 
 as a rule, if we buy it with care. There is no need 
 to have anything unusual in size and shape, nor do 
 manufacturers give thought to exceptional needs. 
 
 These are points worth consideration, particularly 
 by those who say: "Well, we have a short tenure 
 in the houses we occupy, and the necessary provisions 
 of life are now so hard to win, that really we cannot 
 encourage the manufacture of well-made furniture. 
 We mean to outgrow our houses, so we buy articles 
 having only sufficient hfe in them to last the brief 
 period of our leases, and are content to put up with 
 some discomfort meantime. Besides which, what is 
 well-made furniture ? Each decade sees a new style, 
 and the furniture of one decade is hated by the next. 
 May not something be said for a tepid appreciation of 
 bad work that wears out ? " 
 
 Much harm is certainly done by fashions in style. 
 Crops of new designs appear annually, textiles, wall- 
 papers, and the like, when no more change is needed 
 than that which accompanies the working of the national 
 mind in literature. Novelties may be a boon to trade, 
 but they kill tradition, the surest guide ui all arts and 
 crafts. Even when they are good, which as a rule they 
 are not, they bewilder the mind with their ever-changing 
 variety. If only householders would ask for samples 
 
 103 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 and patterns not of this year, but of several years ago, 
 the manufacturers would be obliged to form and issue 
 traditional designs, which would be a great help to all 
 who are concerned in furnishing. It is absurd to sup- 
 pose that " the last thing out " is necessarily the best 
 thing for householders to purchase. Yet this fallacy 
 has had a long reign, like many other falsehoods. Last 
 autumn I was privileged to see some of the designs 
 which were then being made into catalogues for 1909. 
 Novelty was the aim, of course, and novelty is the rock 
 upon which the home arts are shattered into absurd 
 ruins. What struck me more than anything else was a 
 pretty-pretty realism, the negation of all good decorative 
 art. The designs appeared to say : " The public is a 
 childish fool, and must be humoured with ingenious 
 toys." 
 
 But still, as the unexpected often happens, the pubhc 
 may become reasonable one day, having learnt that the 
 home arts, like plants, must grow from the same roots 
 year by year, and bear flowers with a family likeness to 
 their predecessors. 
 
 104 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 WALLS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 Walls are a background to a picture, and this picture 
 is a room, with furniture to occupy the middle distance, 
 and the foreground peopled by hving men, women, and 
 children. 
 
 What are the quaUties of a good background ? The 
 first one is repose, for a background must keep behind 
 the rest of the picture ; and yet, while never asserting 
 itself in a troublesome way, it must support and enrich 
 a definite scheme. There is nothing more difficult in 
 art than the treatment of backgrounds. It is so easy to 
 make them dull, and so easy to make them restless. 
 But when the right background is discovered, a good 
 general effect is within easy reach. You will under- 
 stand, no doubt, that the part which backgrounds have 
 to play in rooms varies much under different conditions, 
 for no one would treat small rooms as though they were 
 large, nor beheve that walls ought to be ornamented in 
 one uniform way no matter what the style of archi- 
 tecture may be. 
 
 So our own first general principle is this : " Walls are 
 a background to a picture of household fife in a furnished 
 room, but their qualities as a background depend on 
 
 105 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 many circumstances, such as the room's hght, shape and 
 size, its type of architecture, and the needs of its furni- 
 ture also ; because a treatment, too ornate to put behind 
 pictures, may be a charming background by itself, that 
 is, without pictures." 
 
 This principle leaves abundant opportunity for the 
 exercise of choice, taste, and indi\'idual feeling, without 
 which a home has no special interest. And this being 
 so, another principle must be stated here : " The trade 
 of a manufacturer is to supply you with materials, not 
 to dominate your home ; you go to him as you do to a 
 chemist, not as you go to your family doctor." 
 
 Many persons fail to understand the importance of this 
 simple matter. If they become discontented with their 
 rooms, they do not learn' a few principles of decorative 
 art, nor seek help from a good architect, but call in their 
 local tradesman to set their homes in order. AVould 
 they ask a bookseller to choose the books they need ? or 
 leave their opinions on other subjects to be guided by 
 tailors, bootmakers, and the like ? Surely a home should 
 be made by those who live in it, should represent quietly 
 what they feel and think, what they like and what they 
 do. As a glove has no individuality until it has been 
 worn, so a principle of art has no life until it has been 
 applied with personal judgment, and that judgment 
 your own, not mine, nor that of any one else. You 
 may seek guidance for your judgment, of course, but 
 if you allow yourself to be dominated, how can your 
 home belong to you in its colour and arrangement? 
 lOG 
 
u 
 
 Ml' 
 
 
 h4 
 
 Pi 
 o 
 
 Q 
 
 <! 
 
 Q H 
 •"1 H o 
 
 KH M:* o 
 
 
 ^^ 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 

 
 "^^m 
 
 WALL Dl'X'OLATIOX IN A s.MALI. llolSK 
 .Ii:iii(i;y .V Co., Ldiidiiii 
 
WALLS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 The useful and necessary thing is that you should rather 
 go astray and fail, than live m a house which another 
 person's taste furnished for you without help from your 
 personal wants and desires. 
 
 This being said, a few other points can be mentioned 
 concerning walls, not to govern your mind, but to 
 guide it with suggestive facts. A wall is flat, solid, and 
 upright, three characteristics which ought to be kept 
 in mural decoration. But in what ways are they to 
 be kept? Walls may be treated in accordance with 
 many different methods, and in each method those 
 three essential qualities— solidity, flatness, and upright- 
 ness—are subject to special risks. For example, sup- 
 pose a metal rail be put around the cornice, and suppose 
 we hang from it a suitable drapery, to be fastened to 
 another rail above the skirting, so that the textile fabric 
 may not be blown about when the windows are open. 
 In this treatment of walls much care must be taken 
 with the folds into which the drapery falls, because they 
 must look natural and yet decoratively flat and upright. 
 The solidity of the walls behind we take for granted 
 because the curtains do not hide the cornice nor trail 
 on the floor ; they merely cover the wall-surface in an 
 attractive way. But suppose we put pictures upon the 
 drapery? What then? By so doing we spoil the 
 background, because curtains arranged in folds are not 
 a proper material to put behind pictures. They take 
 the place of tapestries, and who would hang paintings 
 
 over real tapestries ? 
 
 107 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 Every form of mural decoration may he spoilt by 
 trifles, but tradition has framed two principles to guide 
 amateurs as well as artists. The first one is that 
 decorative work on a flat surface must not be reahstic 
 and pictorial ; and the second, that decorative patterns 
 must be conventionalised. These principles need ex- 
 planation. 
 
 1. That decorative work on aflat surface must not be 
 realistic and pictojiaL 
 
 Why ? How is this question to be answered in its 
 relation to walls ? Note, first of all, that in pictorial 
 representation the aim is to give distance and to make 
 a spectator forget that he is looking at a subject drawn 
 or painted on a flat surface. The more variety there is 
 in the perspective, the more interested we are in the 
 illusion which the artist's skill has called up into pic- 
 torial presence. If our eyes seem to look a hundred 
 miles beyond the foreground, a painting is more attrac- 
 tive than what is technically known as a " close " scene, 
 a picture without distance. There are thus many 
 planes in this form of art ; that is, the objects repre- 
 sented appear to be at different distances from the 
 spectator's eye. 
 
 Is that what you wish to find on the flat surface of a 
 wall ? No : because the realism of perspective a\ ould 
 make holes in the walls and so destroy their flatness. 
 To look through a wall at a distant landscape is an 
 illusion to amuse a child, like one of those large mirrors 
 which cause rooms to appear twice their length. Such 
 108 
 
Q 
 m 
 
 g 3 
 
' ' ' .' 1 I ' • 1 ! ! i ) , ■ ' ■ , ■ ■ I 
 
 1 ) n ) 1 >TJ 1 n I J 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 iTn 1 i ii 1 j7) ) 1 1 ) 1 ) ) J M ) 1 ) 
 
 
 '4 
 
 Ji miTn itiTTriiinjufiii .^j ; . n i u |^ /} 
 
 ( r • 
 
 niiriMrinrimiiiiiMUiiiiiiiiiiiuiiinitr] 
 
 
 y. ■? '^ 
 
 
 
 1 > 1 1 1 1 ' 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 > 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 '. 
 
 iLiL-i 
 
WALLS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 make-believes are not admitted into any art where 
 decoration is the main purpose. Study a good frieze 
 of figures in sculpture, and note with what care the 
 figures are kept as nearly as possible on one plane ; that 
 is, at the same distance from a spectator's eye. Study, 
 too, the masters of mural painting, and you will find 
 that unless their work is framed pictorially in niches or 
 recesses, they treat their perspective in a formal way, 
 so as to suggest what they do not wish to realise — 
 namely, distance. Only enough distance is suggested 
 to give variety to the composition, and the figures are 
 grouped and painted in a decorative way, so that they 
 and the wall may preserve the solid appearance of a 
 solid building. Decoration enriches a flat surface, while 
 pictorial art gives to a fiat surface the realism of space 
 and distance. 
 
 Nor is there anything um-easonable in this difference 
 of treatment. Common sense rules here as elsewhere 
 in the arts. If you put down a carpet you do not wish 
 that it should represent a landscape showing a distant 
 city with a range of hills behind it ; what you need is a 
 design that Hes flat on the floor, unobtrusive, without 
 realism, and therefore in keeping with the purpose which 
 a carpet has to serve under your feet. In like manner, 
 if you employ tiles for your fireplace you want them as 
 notes of flat colour, and not because the work of tiles in 
 decoration is to form pictures. The Dutch, it is true, 
 painted a Httle landscape on each tile, but they knew 
 that the picture would not be seen at a Httle distance, 
 
 109 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 while its colour would look broken and mysterious. 
 To-day, on the other hand, a dozen tiles and more are 
 made to form a large landscape, to be repeated on each 
 side of a fireplace. The effect is comically absurd, like 
 the manufacturer's misunderstanding of what tiles 
 should do. Persian work would teach him many useful 
 lessons. 
 
 Still, there is ever a temptation to be undecorative in 
 decoration ; even well-known artists go wrong at times, 
 falling into realism despite themselves ; and hence the 
 importance of our second principle : 
 
 2. That ornamental patterns must be conventionalised. 
 
 There are three main forms of conventional treatment ; 
 in one the patterns are borrowed from old work ; 
 another invents them freely in a formal manner, while 
 in the third they are based on natural objects. The in- 
 vented patterns may be geometrical, or scrolled, or 
 diapered, or made into arabesques, or combined into 
 new arrangements of graceful lines. Those w^hich are 
 ])ased on natural objects may range from a hunting 
 scene on a tapestry to a spray of roses repeated over a 
 wall in a paper-hanging. In those days when manufac- 
 turers were very excellent craftsmen, designs were 
 made conventional as a matter of course ; but in Queen 
 Victoria's reign, soon after 1840, traders who were not 
 craftsmen began to issue patterned work in accordance 
 with their own taste, and the public became unused to 
 the traditional methods of good design. Every kind of 
 flower was drawn in a naturalistic way and printed in 
 110 
 
WALLS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 trailing bouquets over textile fabrics and wall-papers. 
 An attempt is now being (a.d. 1909) to revive this tire- 
 some, foolish work, by which things of minor import- 
 ance in a room are turned into eye-startling absurdities. 
 Why a sofa should be upholstered with a garden of 
 hollyhocks, and a window- curtain glare with clustered 
 red roses, are matters which little children may be able 
 to explain. " Oh, please, do let us pluck them ! " is the 
 criticism that children may well make. If hollyhocks 
 are proper things to sit upon, why not cabbages, and 
 carrots, and full-blown sunflowers, and prize-bred 
 melons and vegetable marrows ? 
 
 Yet the Victorian absurdities are not worse than 
 many scores of patterned stuffs and papers which have 
 been sold to the public in recent years. The other day 
 I saw a wall-paper covered with macaws, and three old 
 chairs upholstered with bad pieces of tapestry represent- 
 ing a windmill, a lake, and a landscape with cows and 
 sheep. We may yet sit on a Madonna by Raphael. 
 Pattern-books of wall-papers have a dreadful fascination. 
 Who buys such horrible trash, glaringly coloured and 
 with large patterns that fill a room with restlessness ? 
 This work must be sold, for it is found year after year 
 in displayed samples, and tradesmen would not produce 
 it if they did not earn profits by so doing. Let us hope 
 that these pattern-books will not be handed on to the 
 historians of the next centuries, whose verdict on 
 English taste since the year 1830 will amuse and 
 astonish their contemporaries, 
 
 111 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 The truth is, though much progress has been made 
 since Pugin and WiUiam Morris began their campaigns, 
 our homes are still in their " ideal " period, as newspaper 
 advertisements warn us ; and between the " ideal " and 
 the real there is a limbo full of perished aims and efforts. 
 Try to get for your rooms any detail you may need, 
 from a wall-paper to a covering for your sofa, and you 
 will find that good things at moderate prices are still 
 very hard to find, because trade " novelties " have little 
 connection with the common sense of good design. 
 They have much in sympathy with exhibition pictures, 
 which, being painted to attract attention under com- 
 petitive difficulties, do not sort with the necessary quiet- 
 ness of a room. Pictures in such a high key of colour 
 as may look tame in a crowded gallery will seem crude 
 in a room ; and patterns which do not offend the eye 
 when arranged wdth care in a busy shop, may attract 
 vastly too much notice in a home — a point which manu- 
 facturers would do w^ell to remember. We need co- 
 ordination here ; that is, we need a recognition of the 
 fact that a home is made up of many decorative things, 
 and that some uniformity of style and aim should be 
 common to those trades which supply the essentials of 
 house furnishing. 
 
 There is no style in modern work, but a superabund- 
 ance of styles, nearly all at variance with each other. 
 The wall-papers are often too this or too that ; the 
 textile fabrics are not in key with the wall-papers, but 
 make their bid as though they occupy the main posi- 
 112 
 
WALL- PAPER : SPRINGTIME 
 
 (To be used without pictures) 
 
 Dexi'/ned hi/ Hey wood Sumner 
 
 ■ Ir.FFUEY iV Co., I^ouiloii 
 
^ C 
 
 
 ^^^^4^J^^ ' 
 
WALLS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 tions in a room ; modern carpets are often too green or 
 too cold in blue tints ; and, briefly, our trades show 
 enterprise without uniting their aims to suit the ordinary- 
 needs of home life. 
 
 This fact is so well known to experts that only the 
 inexperienced seek adventures among the scores and 
 scores of modern patterns. The experienced choose 
 Oriental rugs, put self-coloured papers on their walls, 
 and look out for textile fabrics copied or adapted from 
 old designs, English, Sicilian, Italian, or Spanish. The 
 designs here are formal, unassertive, right ; the colours 
 keep their place on the material, do not start out from 
 it and tire the eye ; and these qualities could be general 
 in modern work if the competitions of trade were sub- 
 ordinated to some ruling style or tradition. Even our 
 best-known designers, men of genius sometimes, have 
 turned out a good deal of work which they never put 
 into their own houses, so that we cannot look to them 
 for safe guidance. Care and judgment must be exer- 
 cised by any one who desires to have their patterns. 
 We cannot say: "Wall-papers by Mr. So-and-So are 
 always good, and set off most schemes of decoration as 
 are likely to be common among householders." It 
 would be easy to mention bad wall-papers by excellent 
 designers ; bad, not through want of care, but because 
 they do too much in aggressively clever ways. And 
 the fault always, or nearly always, arises from an attempt 
 to be realistic and yet conventional. Leaves are 
 lengthened to a great size, or flowers are drawn as 
 
 H 113 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 though they belonged to Swift's Kingdom of Brobding- 
 nag ; and sometimes ordinary forget-me-nots are put 
 among this giant growth of supposed decorative phuit- 
 designs. Of course, we do not arrive at convention by 
 means of an exaggerated reahsm. The purpose of a 
 conventional design is to suggest some natural object 
 which, if imitated pictorially, would not be a fitting 
 ornament for a flat surface, as on a wall, or for a surface 
 broken by folds, as in a curtain. Suppose a wall-paper 
 represented a tree and its branches, with squirrels crack- 
 ing nuts amid the foliage. Imagine this design repeated 
 over the w^alls. Do you not feel that this naturalism 
 has no relation at all to the purpose which a w^all-paper 
 ought to serve ? 
 
 Further, if realism in applied art is justified, no 
 limits must be set to its use. Why not have a portrait 
 on the seat of each chair ? It would not be less inappro- 
 priate than a realistic pattern of leaves and fruits and 
 flowers. Why not represent a horse-race on a carpet 
 for a bilhard-room, or a scene of family life on the 
 drawung-room curtains ? Believe me, the less realism 
 you have in applied ornament, that is, in ornament 
 placed on useful things, the happier you wdll be in your 
 rooms. Realism is full of life and restlessness, while 
 con\'entional patterns are silent, reposeful, unobtrusive. 
 
 Good Oriental carpets and rugs are beautiful lessons 
 in the art of common sense as employed by tradition for 
 patterns to enrich a flat surface. Study, too, the ways 
 in which the old Persian potters formalised leaves and 
 114 
 
WALLS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 flowers for their glazed ware ; and note that Eastern 
 pottery and textile fabrics never fail to go well together, 
 not only because the colour is charmingly harmonious, 
 but because the same principles of design are common 
 to all. The work is decorative, not pictorial ; it is 
 beautiful because it looks inevitably right as a surface 
 ornament. 
 
 Still, laymen have every right to say in this connec- 
 tion : " Granted that many forms of realistic pattern are 
 absurd on walls and on textile fabrics ; but what about 
 the realism in old tapestries ? Were not historical 
 scenes represented by tapestry makers before the Re- 
 formation, and secular and religious scenes during the 
 Renaissance ? " 
 
 These questions cannot be escaped, and they are com- 
 plicated by three other facts : 
 
 1. It is admitted by all good judges that old tapestries 
 are the finest decoration for walls. 
 
 2. It is also beyond doubt that even portraits were 
 worked on mediaeval tapestries. 
 
 3. It seems likely that deliberate attempts were made 
 at first to imitate natural objects as realistically as was 
 possible. 
 
 Why, then, are the results approved by modern ex- 
 perts ? There must be some appreciable degree of 
 realism in the old tapestries, since they represent many 
 subjects both from history and from real life ; but we 
 must remember the conditions which governed the pro- 
 gress of this ancient art, from the tenth century to the 
 
 115 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 sixteenth, when the use of tapestries began to give place 
 to stamped leather and to ornamental wainscots. The 
 early " tapisters " were not artists with a knowledge of 
 perspective, nor were they admirable draughtsmen, like 
 the painters of later times ; and this want of skill gave 
 a quaint conventional look to their imitations. Their 
 perspective was not real perspective, and their figures 
 suggested life Avithout realising the actual shapes and 
 movements seen in nature. Thus a convention was 
 formed, and not only that, but formalised, partly because 
 the chosen designs had to be weaved into a textile 
 fabric, a mosaic of pieces of colour made up of dyed 
 threads, and partly because tapisters soon learnt that 
 this process of weaving required certain definite traits 
 in the patterns and figures. Nothing vague or unde- 
 fined could be represented with success. Every object 
 needed a bold silhouette, a well-defined presence, and 
 this produced a uniform method of technique, quite 
 opposed to a painters realism, which owes much to 
 indefinite shapes and vague distances. Also — and this 
 point is not less important — the colours had to be those 
 which dyers could make, not those which were Nature's 
 own. Indeed, Gothic tapestry-weavers were not so 
 foolish as to copy Nature's colours, their aim always 
 was to get depth of tone, richness of hue, exquisite 
 gradation of tint, crisp details, firm outlines, and beau- 
 tiful harmonies. They were not troubled if their trees 
 were unlike Nature's, or if their horses were such as no 
 sportsman had ever seen ; it was the mosaic of general 
 116 
 
WALLS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 colour that delighted them, and if their subjects were 
 animated they were satisfied. Their patrons, too, asked 
 for nothing more. Kings and nobles gave fortunes for 
 Gothic tapestries, Edward IV. paying £984 8,?. 6d. for 
 twenty pieces of Arras, some strips of velvet, and 
 valances for a bed : a sum which must be multipUed by 
 twelve at least if we wish to get its purchasing value in 
 modern money. 
 
 We have seen, then, that Gothic tapestries were con- 
 ventional in colour, in perpective, and in technical 
 method, all outlines being crisp and definite. They 
 were well within the limits of decorative work. But 
 this cannot be said of later tapestries, where attempts 
 are made to vie with the painter's art. Wilham Morris 
 said : 
 
 " The style of even the best period of the Renaissance 
 is wholly unfit for tapestry: accordingly we find that 
 tapestry retained its Gothic character longer than any 
 other of the pictorial arts. A comparison of the wall- 
 hangings in the Great Hall at Hampton Court with 
 those in the Solar or Drawing-room, will make this 
 superiority of the earher design for its purpose clear to 
 any one not lacking in artistic perception; and the 
 comparison is all the fairer, as both the Gothic tapestries 
 of the Solar and the post-Gothic hangings of the Hall 
 are pre-eminently good of their kinds." 
 
 So the art of tapestry-weaving declined when a de- 
 light in reahsm began to meddle with its traditional 
 conventions ; and I offer this fact to the modern trades- 
 
 117 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 men who wish to make inexpensive tapestries for rooms, 
 but without studying their subject. Recently I saw 
 some tapestries at ten guineas each, 17 ft. long and Gft. 
 broad ; they were good in idea, their price was reason- 
 able, but the workmanship was too realistic. Tapestry 
 must be tapestry, for it cannot compete ^dth success 
 against the art of figure-painting ; and to do badly what 
 a painter does well degrades the noblest of the weaving 
 arts. 
 
 In relation to this matter — i.e., decorative art and 
 realism — we must remember always that a craftsman's 
 methods are governed by the materials with which he 
 works, and his duty is to assert those materials. That 
 is, he must bring out their special qualities, he must not 
 be ashamed of them and their limitations. Woods and 
 metals, accordingly, must be treated as such ; wall- 
 papers should be nothing more than decorative designs 
 printed on paper, not pictures which no painter of any 
 reputation would put his name to ; and weaved fabrics 
 should represent the special characteristics that belong 
 (1) to tapestry work, (2) carpet- weaving, (3) mechanical 
 weaving, (4) painting and block-printing, and (5) needle- 
 work and embroidery. All these different processes 
 give a different charm to good design either in or on 
 textile fabrics, and no textile craft can borrow another's 
 process or methods without losing its own particular 
 merits. 
 
 This fact is one which any layman can apply with 
 ease to tlie necessaries of home life. For example, it is 
 118 
 
WALLS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 impossible that a wood-carver should be able to represent 
 the realism of fruits and flowers ; this art belongs to a 
 few exceptional painters ; and yet a good many wood- 
 carvers have wasted years of their lives in a vain attempt 
 to rival those painters. The textures of their woods 
 could not give the bloom on grapes and peaches, the 
 delicacy and the colour of flowers, and the mellow ripe- 
 ness of fruits. The very qualities which delight the eye 
 most of all are unattainable, so why waste time and 
 skill in carving wood into the shapes of fruits and 
 flowers ? Even those shapes in wood, however realistic, 
 have not the tender fragile look of flowers nor the soft 
 modelling that fruits, have. So the wood-carver gains 
 nothing at all in art by his attempt to vie with painters ; 
 he invites ridicule — and should get it from all house- 
 holders. For similar reasons, all based on common 
 sense, wood-carving ought not to rival either bronze or 
 marble, materials which have in sculpture their own 
 great qualities, and these no wood can imitate. When 
 wood is treated properly, as in old wall-panels or in the 
 choir stalls of a cathedral, or in decorative sculptured 
 figures which show tool marks and the " nature " of 
 wood ; when carving is done with a craftsman's love for 
 his material, wood is beautiful as wood, which is all we 
 can expect to get from it in art. 
 
 And again, many decorative things may be done 
 within limits by machinery, but there are forms of 
 handicraft which owe their value to the fact that they 
 are done by hand, and these ought not to be imitated 
 
 119 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 by machines, as in the case of embroideries and laces. 
 A machine repeats a thing in precisely the same way, 
 while a skilled hand gives variety to repetitions, produc- 
 ing a quality known as " accident," which makes a handi- 
 craft more attractively human than a machine-craft : yes, 
 and better for your enjoyment also, if you have a liking 
 for subtle merits. If not, you enjoy gladly what you 
 are able to enjoy, just as persons with no ear for music 
 accept their lot without any affectation of shame. 
 
 Even the use of machines for wall-papers has dis- 
 advantages — from a householder's standpoint. A 
 machine prints all the colours at once from rollers, so 
 the pattern is often imperfect and blurred, while a 
 handicraftsman uses a block for each tint, the outlines 
 of the pattern being reproduced by means of flat brass 
 ^\are driven edgeways into the wood block. The paper 
 measures 21 inches wide by 12 yards long; the tints, mixed 
 with size, are put in shallow wells or trays, and each 
 block in turn, hanging from above by a cord, is dipped 
 in a well of colour and then guided to the paper flat on 
 the table. By this method excellent results are obtained, 
 while in machine-made papers we must be cautious, 
 choosing those in which the pattern is printed on a 
 toned ground in one tint only. 
 
 When we know how things are made, we feel the 
 necessity of going to those manufacturers whose work 
 is known to be good, and who get designs and sound 
 criticisms from distinguished artists. There are excel- 
 lent firms among the makers of wall-papers, and I may 
 120 
 
WALLS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 mention those that I know best, leaving each reader to 
 add names to the Hst : 
 
 Jeffrey & Co., 31 Mortimer St., Regent St., 
 London ; Sanderson and Sons, Chiswick, London ; 
 Essex & Co., 116 Victoria St., London ; and Morris 
 k Co., 449 Oxford St., London, who sell both 
 textile fabrics and wall-papers designed by William 
 Morris. 
 
 Some artists have given great attention to designs for 
 wall-papers, and their names count for much in trade 
 catalogues. These are Mr. Walter Crane and Mr. 
 Heywood Sumner, Mr. Lewis F. Day, Mr. Allan F. 
 Vigers, Mr. C. F. A. Voysey, Mr. G. C. Haite, Mr. 
 H. W. Batley, the late J. D. Sedding, the late WilUam 
 Morris, and many others. 
 
 On the other hand, modern trades have their 
 " seasons," though seasons do not flower in art with the 
 coming of springtime; there is no reason why this year's 
 patterns should be better than those of the last decade. 
 Accordingly, no attention should be given to the old 
 saying : " I^ast season's wall-papers are out of stock, 
 madam ; these are the latest designs, all fresh from the 
 manufacturers." Why should any good design go out 
 of stock ? What benefit is that to the public ? House- 
 holders ought really to put a stop to " seasons " in wall- 
 papers and textile fabrics, since good work does not 
 grow old ; it is temporary fashions that die out, leaving 
 our room decoration as out of date as a hat three years 
 
 121 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 old. Moreover, the art of furnishing, however carefully 
 we practise it, means to each of us a large investment of 
 capital, so why should we speculate in mere fashions ? 
 \V\vdt we need are definite styles, carried on from year 
 to year, developing little by little, so as to accord, in a 
 better way, with ordinary home wants. 
 
 It is so much easier to choose the right thing when a 
 uniformity of style and aim runs through the household 
 arts. We have but to ask for given wall-papers that 
 we know by name, and familiar designs for textile 
 fabrics. We get our materials with no more difficulty 
 than a painter meets with in buying canvases and 
 colours ; then we proceed to use them in our own way 
 and for our own comfort. For instance, we have to 
 choose between two methods in the making of a back- 
 ground with wall-papers : 
 
 1. Without pictures ; 
 
 2. With pictures. 
 
 The first method is more difficult, because the paper 
 must be a sufficing decoration, and patterns are always 
 a risk ; they are hard to manage with complete success, 
 just as adjectives are in writing ; only, if you happen to 
 be displeased with the effect they make, you cannot delete 
 the patterns ! The paper is there on the walls, and if 
 you displace it you must spend money. Yet there are 
 wall-papers which ought to be employed without pic- 
 tures. There is, for example, the " Oak-and-Ash " 
 design by Mr. Heywood Sumner; and Mr. Walter 
 Crane lias given us the '* Orange Tree ' design, the 
 122 
 
f ? ^!k^ 
 
 THE APPLE WALL-PAPER 
 
 Designed by William Morris 
 
 Morris & Co., London 
 
SUNFLOWKK WALL-l'A I'KK, SIIOWINC A COOO C'ON- 
 
 VKN riUNAL TllEATMENT OF NATUIJAI. FOKM 
 
 Diaiiiniil hi/ 'Wii.i.iAM Mouiiis 
 
 MiiUi' III) MoKUis ,V Co., l.oiuloM 
 
WALLS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 " Oak Decoration," and the " Meadow Pattern with the 
 May Tree Frieze." These names are all realistic, but the 
 work is duly conventional, spirited and good, forming 
 a background by itself. This applies also to several 
 designs by Mr. Allan F. Vigers, as in the case of his 
 « Mallow Wall-Paper." 
 
 But I do not recommend any pattern whatever, 
 because a room has to be treated in relation to its 
 shape, size, and light, and to the special needs of a 
 tenant. Still, I can warn you against a theory which 
 has been in vogue for some time. There are wi'iters 
 who say that big patterns look well on the walls of 
 Httle rooms, and this theory, a few years ago, flooded 
 the market with startling papers, covered with gigantic 
 poppies and other dropsical designs. Some large pat- 
 terns, when printed in very quiet tints, do look well in 
 small rooms ; but as a rule, no doubt, they dwarf small 
 apartments. They may prove a designer's cleverness, 
 but do they add to the comfort of villas and flats ? 
 
 No writer can get away from his own art training ; 
 there are schools of taste as well as of thought ; but I 
 do believe that ordinary rooms would gain very much 
 if a fear for patterns were as common as a fear for 
 poisons. 
 
 Devotees of pattern might try to learn that there is 
 safety and pleasure in uniform tints of good colour, 
 above all when they value pictures. This does not 
 mean that no pattern is right behind a good picture, 
 but it must be very sile?it to be right, giving to the 
 
 123 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 wall surface only an enriched tone, not a repetition of a 
 definite design. G. F. Watts liked a red background, 
 and many other artists employ the same colour in 
 various rich tints, while some experts find all they need 
 in warm grays or in common brown paper. Then, as to 
 a good background for water-colour drawings, the best 
 one in pattern known to me is in the house of a great 
 collector — a house with very large rooms ; the ground 
 is a warm grey, and upon it a formal Venetian design 
 is printed lightly and delicately in primrose yellow 
 heightened with gold. The effect is enough to give 
 variety to the large walls, but not enough to draw 
 attention from exquisitely delicate pictures by Turner, 
 and fine drawings by other masters, like Girtin, Cox, 
 De Wint, and Barret. These pictures, again, are hung 
 in panels; that is, they are formed into groups or 
 clusters, with vacant plots of wall surface between 
 them. All the pictures in one cluster harmonise, so 
 the vigorous painters are found in one group, the 
 delicate masters in another, and their styles and 
 methods are thus open to a criticism of comparisons. 
 
 124 
 
CHAPTER HI 
 
 WALLS AND THEIR TREATMENT (continued) 
 
 Before we pass on to another kind of work in mural 
 decoration, it will be well to sum up the conclusions at 
 which we have arrived thus far, because the most im- 
 portant question in household art centres about the 
 words '' realism " and "convention." Realism in art is 
 an attempt to get near to Nature, while convention as 
 appHed to design is a recognition of the fact that the 
 purpose of ornament is to adorn useful things in a way 
 that accords artistically with their use and technically 
 with the special qualities of their materials. Wood 
 must be treated as wood, and metal as metal, and the 
 treatment must bring out the qualities of each wood 
 and of each metal, while fitting every useful thing for 
 its object or purpose. Paintings, again, must not look 
 like tapestries, nor tapestries like paintings. All crafts 
 have their own methods and their own limited means 
 of being loyal to certain forms of beauty which tiiey 
 alone can represent ; hence one craft cannot imitate 
 another without harming its own merits and faihng to 
 attain those which belong to the other craft. With 
 these facts in mind the following points may be sum- 
 marised : 
 
 125 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 1. There are two forms of painting ; one is distin- 
 guished from the other by its title, Decorative Painting ; 
 and this shows that when pictorial art is used for orna- 
 mental purposes, as in mural work, it differs from that 
 art as shown to us in framed pictures, or in pictures 
 hung ^^^thin niches or recesses. These may be as 
 realistic as the imitations of art can make them, because 
 they are separate and detached works to be employed 
 for indefinite purposes ; that is to say, a painter of easel 
 pictures camiot foresee how his pictures will be hung by 
 their owners. Such pictures may be bought and sold 
 scores of times in a hundred years, so their artists may 
 be as independently original as they please, since they 
 do not work in accordance with any given scheme of 
 room decoration. That is the rule, as any painter will 
 tell you. But in mural painting — namely, in pictures 
 either painted on walls or upon canvas to be fixed on 
 walls — the matter is very different, artists knowing what 
 they have to do in known buildings and for definite 
 purposes. Their duty is to ornament a wall surface 
 with certain subjects approved by their patrons, and 
 common sense tells them that their ornament must 
 assert the wall ; that is, preserve the solid look essential 
 to a wall, and must therefore keep clear of a realism 
 which, by imitating great distances, would make the 
 wall seem transparent. We look through a picture ; 
 we look on a wall painting. In the one the eye takes 
 journeys ; in the other it rests on a decoration that 
 seems to be organically a part of a wall's solid and flat 
 126 
 
WALLS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 surface. This, you will see, is convention, and it needs 
 from a painter great knowledge and self-discipline. 
 
 2. Fine tapestries have some qualities of design 
 wliich are akin to those in good mural paintings, their 
 perspective and their subjects being conventionalised, 
 and therefore within the proper limits of duly considered 
 decorative work. If a tapestry maker tries to vie with 
 the historical painter, as many did after the Reforma- 
 tion, he succeeds only in doing badly what historical 
 painters do well, for nothing vague or indeterminate can 
 be reproduced with success by the technique of real 
 tapestry. On the other hand, a many-tinted patterning 
 of well-defined shapes can be weaved with infinitely 
 varied results ; and as the warp in real tapestry is hidden, 
 in contradistinction to mechanical weaving, the colours 
 are as solid as they are in painting. The best tapestries 
 are all mediaeval, those of the Renaissance being too 
 realistic. The realism here is bad, not because it is 
 realism, but because it is applied to a form of art which 
 neither needs it nor is able to represent its finer 
 qualities. 
 
 3. One searching test of all decorative work is the 
 question : " Could this be done better in some other 
 form of art ? " If so, then the work is not logically 
 right for the purpose which it is intended to serve. 
 
 4. Apply this to everything in your own home, from 
 the patterned carpet to the wall-paper, and from any 
 wooden box enriched with carving, to the window- 
 curtains. 
 
 127 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 5. Here is another test question : " Is that ornament 
 really essential, or does it increase the cost of production 
 without adding beauty to a useful thnig ? " A correct 
 reply to this query would condemn many patterns on 
 wall-papers, many designs on carpets and curtains, and 
 much inlaid work on modern furniture. 
 
 6. AVhat is a wall-paper ? It is a popular makeshift, 
 a democratic substitute for such costly work as tapes- 
 tries, mural paintings, stamped leather, and carved 
 panellmg. The earliest records of wall-paper belong, I 
 believe, to the sixteenth century ; but peasants at a 
 much earlier date got similar effects with stencilled 
 patterns and whitewash, with archil and limewash to 
 make a deep blue tint, or with simple drab colours ; and 
 where the walls joined the slanting roof or the ceiling a 
 frieze pattern in waved lines was put, with spots of 
 colour in the valleys formed by the lines. The Anglo- 
 Saxons liked yellow and blue for their walls, and these 
 tints contiimed in use to a comparatively late time. 
 Yellow-ochre was a favourite colour in Yorkshire ; and 
 the ancient Romans also were fond of it as a Avail 
 decoration. Umber is mentioned, too, mixed with a 
 clay wash ; and sometimes light green won a preferential 
 vogue, as in Derbyshire, where copperas was dissolved 
 in limewash. Also, " before the introduction of wall- 
 papers it was usual to decorate the walls with patterns, 
 such as green leaves with rather indistinct stems. This 
 was done by means of a contrivance resembling a large 
 stencil plate. The practice is ancient, whether the 
 128 
 
wimmmmmisrmmsm 
 
 ensrarfa 
 
 m^^ 
 
 
 ^^WiV:=-'^''' 
 
 '^^^^^'j-S^^'^^'^"' 
 
 ^v/^ 
 
 
 
 -^My 
 
 
 .**f?L^ 
 
 
 
 >^*< 
 
 
 
 V 
 
 
 />'-i:-v\ 
 
 rl-k 
 
 
 1 * 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ,^. 
 
 ^M" 
 
 .*'. 
 
 4te 
 
 
 
 # 
 
 
 -?■ 
 
 
 
 -9- 
 
 1". 4'' /f 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 w 
 
 # 
 
 ((^ 
 
 # 
 
 
 / 
 
 f 
 
 S^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 %:**■ 
 
 
 
 ^k' 
 
 
 ^»t 
 
 
 ;^?H 
 
 ,/*t 
 
 
 ^% 
 
 
 
 # " 
 
 
 f 
 
 
 ■0' 
 
 l\ --^s ,'i 
 
 
 
 \\/.//. 
 
 
 \S. y/ 
 
 THE PORTLAND DECORATION 
 
 For XVIII. Century styles of furniture 
 
 Jeffrey & Co., Mortimer St., London 
 
JAPANESE EMBOSSKI) I.KATIl KK TAPEK 
 Ma<Ii' in Japan from Messrs. Moni.-'s own dcsii^Mi 
 
WALLS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 stencil plate was used anciently or not. The regula- 
 tions of the Feste di Put in London, provided that the 
 room for the feast was not to be hung with cloth of 
 gold, or silk, or tapestry, but decorated with leaves and 
 (the floor) strewed with rushes."* 
 
 7. Note that these ancestors of wall-papers were 
 nothing more than surface decorations, the patterns 
 stencilled in flat tints through a large plate. Thus the 
 leaves and stems were not realistic, but decorative, con- 
 ventional ; and this ancient tradition is found to-day in 
 the best patterned wall-papers. 
 
 8. Have faith in flat tints of uniform colour, and 
 remember that a wall-paper is very bad if it interferes 
 with the essential characteristics of a wall : flatness, 
 solidity, and uprightness. 
 
 9. Be always on your guard against patterns, because 
 they are more likely to be wrong than right, either 
 wrong in themselves, or wrong for a quiet scheme of 
 room decoration. Even artists get into difficulties when 
 patterns enter largely into their house furnishing. 
 
 10. Realistic patterns should be avoided : they are like 
 the headlines in popular newspapers, blatant and assertive. 
 
 11. If the design on a wall-paper is quite distinctly 
 seen when you enter the door of a room, it is out of 
 keeping with that room, attracting so much attention 
 that it cannot keep its place on the wall surface, and be 
 a good background. 
 
 * « Evolution of the English House. ' By S. O. Addy. Pp, 
 122-124. 
 
 I 129 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 12. Large patterns printed in gay colours, however 
 attractive in a shop window, are (as a rule) too vivid 
 for home use, unless you think that wall-papers and 
 window curtains are more important than a whole room 
 with its family life. Such patterns are like advertisements, 
 which say so much that cautious folk do not beheve in 
 their manifold brilliance of style and self-assertion. 
 
 13. Some large patterns, when formal in design, and 
 very quiet in uniform flat tints of good colour, look well 
 on the walls of small rooms. 
 
 14. Small designs may be too assertive, as much so 
 as many which are too big, just as in books the eye 
 may be attracted as much by small itahcs as by large 
 print: a fact which advertisers are slow to recognise. 
 Put a neat square of tiny itahcs in the middle of a 
 newspaper page, and it will attract far more attention 
 than a great deal of information printed in large 
 capitals: and some wall-papers have the same effect 
 in mural decorations. Their pattern is so diminutive 
 that the eye is teased by it. 
 
 15. Patterns of a medium size are the best for average 
 rooms and households ; and to test their decorative value 
 you have but to stand at the door of your room and 
 look at several sample lengths pinned to the wall at the 
 far end. If the patterns are too large or too small they 
 will attract too much attention ; if they are right in size, 
 and their colour is quiet and good, they will ornament 
 the wall surface in a pleasant manner, and you will have 
 no wish to examine them minutely at a yard's distance. 
 130 
 
WALLS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 When you feel tempted to take particular notice of a 
 wall-paper, it is likely to be out of keeping with the 
 rest of your room, because the duty of a background is 
 to be a sleeping partner in your decorative scheme, 
 not an active and energetic helper. 
 
 16. Patterns are common in decorative art because 
 designers cannot earn money out of self-coloured wall- 
 papers and textile fabrics ; and so they have much to 
 say about the pleasure that patterns give to those who 
 are jaded by the struggle for life. It is their duty to 
 fight thus for their own livelihood. Nevertheless, wall- 
 papers in uniform tints are pleasant and restful when 
 their colours are good. They remind me of that friendly 
 talk in expressive silences which took place one evening 
 between Carlyle and Emerson, causing both of them 
 to say that their enjoyment had been complete. No 
 arguments, no disputed opinions ; but a bickering fire, 
 and plenty of good tobacco, and sympathy, and long 
 spells of comforting silence. What could be more 
 eloquent than that ? And it is even so with room deco- 
 ration, where silence — that is, an absence of pattern — is 
 charmingly expressive. Try it on your walls, try it in 
 your curtains ; and make the first experiments in your 
 bedrooms, because patterns are apt to be very annoying 
 during a time of illness. I can still remember what I 
 suffered as a child during a long sickness in bed, when 
 a paper covered with realistic flowers and trailing plants 
 forced me to count and recount all the items in the 
 horrible designs. 
 
 131 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 17. A paperhanging should not repeat the colour of 
 the carpet, but oppose it, and form pleasant contrasts 
 with the furniture and curtains. If all the dominant 
 colours in a room, both warm and cold, are repeated in 
 the carpet, as will often happen when Oriental work 
 covers the floor, the scheme is good ; but some persons 
 think that the most important condition of good taste is 
 fulfilled when every piece of furniture is made from the 
 same wood, when all the textile fabrics in a room are 
 cut from the same piece, and when the walls and the 
 floor " match." Some ladies employ tints of the same 
 colour throughout a room, because they do not see and 
 feel that the secret of success in polychrome decoration 
 depends on effective contrast as much as on similarity 
 of tint. It is essential to a real artistic result that 
 colours warm and cold should be in harmonious opposi- 
 tion to each other. (See the chapter " On Colour.") 
 
 18. Some good designers shade the tints that form 
 patterns on their wall-papers, but the effects thus 
 obtained should be criticised with great care. Why? 
 Because shaded ornament and pattern, when distributed 
 over the flat surface of a wall, may give the appearance 
 of perspective or of relief ; hence they are apt to be too 
 realistic for mural decoration. Where natural forms 
 are introduced — fruits, leaves, flowers, birds, and so 
 forth — the treatment must be conventional — namely, 
 drawn in outline and filled in with uniform flat colour, 
 which may be hatched over with lines here and there 
 to express emphasis of form, but without the shghtest 
 132 
 
WALLS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 attempt to gradate the colour in a pictorial way. This 
 may he taken as a safe rule for householders to follow. 
 Sometimes it is broken with success by men of genius, 
 but a handbook cannot speak of exceptions. 
 
 19. Notice those paperhangings in which there are 
 only two tints of one good colour, the pattern behig 
 only a Uttle darker than the ground. These are good 
 backgrounds for pictures, particularly in those house- 
 holds where plain wall-papers are not hked. 
 
 20. Notice the flock paperhangings, because in them 
 realistic designs cannot be imitated. 
 
 21. The simplest patterns are usually the best for all 
 purposes ; but when the eye has to look at the wall 
 alone, when the paper is to be a decorative background 
 by itself, without pictures, a greater play of line is 
 warranted in the patterns, and it is evident that delicate 
 tints admit of a linear complexity which would be too 
 assertive and troublesome if printed in vivid, rich colours. 
 All intricate forms need quiet, silent colour ; and when 
 designers appeal to us with a variety of bright hues, their 
 outhnes and patterns cannot be too modest.* 
 
 22. Much attention was given at one time to diapered 
 patterns for wall-papers and carpets ; and although they 
 
 * There is no need to mention here the cleanliness of whitewash, 
 and the utility of plain distemper washes, but I should like to draw 
 attention to the Silicate Water Paint, " Duresco," made by J. B. Orr & 
 Co., Charlton, London, S E. Some of the tints are not useful for 
 walls, but others are, and the prices are reasonable, ranging from 
 30*. to 40«. the hundredweight. Hall's Washable Distemper is 
 another good and useful thing. 
 
 133 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 were " done to death," as the phrase runs, a good many 
 of them were attractive and useful. A diaper is a 
 simple ornament enclosed by bounding lines, or divided 
 into shapes of a uniform size throughout ; sometimes 
 geometrical shapes, quatrefoils, rounds, squares, octa- 
 gons, &c. The best are those which measure nearly the 
 same in breadth, as in length ; and for ordinary-sized 
 rooms they should not exceed five or six inches across, 
 in any direction, while for bedrooms and bathrooms 
 much less will suffice. Bedrooms, indeed, are better 
 without patterned walls. 
 
 23. Never choose a wall-paper having a scroll pattern : 
 it soon fatigues the eye. 
 
 24. Remember that no paper should reach from the 
 cornice to the skirting. However good a thing may be, 
 Toujour s perdrix is a maxim to be remembered — if we 
 wish to get away from monotony. 
 
 25. A quiet frieze, separated from the wall-paper by 
 a moulding or a picture rail, is necessary, but the frieze 
 patterns often sold with wall-papers are detestable — not 
 always, but often. Not many of us can afford to have 
 a plaster frieze by Mr. Bankart, but certainly we can 
 afford, in our small rooms, to keep the frieze panel 
 silent, unobtrusive. 
 
 2G. Some paper friezes are good, and good friezes 
 stamped or moulded in relief may be bought from the 
 manufacturers, but no definite rule can be given for 
 their choice. The only guidance which can be given is 
 this : that unrest in a frieze design is bad, and this 
 134 
 
WALLS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 point cannot be decided, even in work by the best men, 
 unless you try a length of the frieze in situ on your 
 
 walls. 
 
 27. At the beginning of the last century a good effect 
 was produced in rooms by a dado of white panelhng 
 about three feet high, which had a pretty look through 
 the perforated backs of chairs. The dado was crowned 
 with a little wooden moulding quite simple in contour ; 
 and above it a wall-paper stretched to the frieze or to 
 the cornice. This happy use of a wainscot was a modi- 
 fication of a very old practice, for the tradition of 
 Enghsh panelhng goes back to the times of Henry II L, 
 who was particularly fond of painted wainscots, with a 
 frieze above them, his favourite scheme of colour being 
 green spangled with gold stars. Fir- wood usually was 
 chosen for this purpose, possibly because it was cheaper 
 than oak and easier to work ; a good deal of fir was 
 imported from Norway, so that tree was not a common 
 one in the great English forests of the thirteenth century. 
 Henry III. made some attempts at ornamental patterns, 
 as in the twenty-first year of his reign, when he ordered 
 the clerk of the works at Windsor to toil day and night 
 on the wainscot of one chamber, using " boards radiated 
 and coloured." From this event the use of panelhng 
 may be followed to the linen pattern wainscots of Tudor 
 times, thence to the oak walls in Ehzabethan mansions 
 onward to the white-panelled walls in the Queen Anne 
 houses (so-caUed) ; and thence we pass to the pleasant 
 narrow dados which Englishmen liked early in the 
 
 135 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 nineteenth century. These might be revived to-day, at 
 no great expense, even in small houses, since common 
 woods might be used successfully. 
 
 28. Modern dados are often made v^^ith an embossed 
 composition that resembles plaster to some extent , and 
 when the pattern work is good and quiet, not tiny and 
 fussy, no objection can be raised to this method. Only, 
 and let me underline this fact, the designs which you 
 may see are often of no more service to the walls than 
 a cook's ornamentation is of service to a bridal cake. 
 For this reason, ask for work by good designers : and 
 remember always that a catalogue should be like a 
 publisher's list of books, where the authors' names are 
 never forgotten. 
 
 29. Some tradesmen are very mysterious over the 
 authors of their publications, as if they added to their 
 own worth by suppressing the names of artists and 
 craftsmen. " Trade secrets " are not to be permitted in 
 such matters : the public has a right to know by whom 
 the designs are made, since the public pays for the work ; 
 and it is clearly unjust that artists of ability should be 
 lost in a commercial enterprise to which their talents 
 are essential. As well suppress the names of play- 
 wrights and actors, or assign pictures to those who buy 
 them. This question lies at the foundation of success 
 in the household arts. We have in England only one 
 school for a public taste in those arts, namely, our 
 manufacturing system ; it starts every popular fashion, 
 and it carries on every movement of steady progress, 
 136 
 
WALLS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 most householders pretending that they have not the 
 time to learn those first principles of decorative work 
 which would enable them to lead " the trade," instead 
 of following it. Those who follow can never hope to 
 lead : they start behind and remain in the rear inevit- 
 ably. Is that a good position for the public to hold in 
 its relation to the household arts ? Surely the real pay- 
 masters, the British people, should rule actively, and 
 not be passive servants to the artistic trades ? If so, 
 then every householder should expect to find in all 
 catalogues the names of the modern artists who are 
 responsible for the designs and colours ; and, further, 
 when old styles are revived, trade catalogues should 
 give the opinion of a first-rate connossieur, like Mr. 
 Lethaby, Mr. Heywood Sumner, Mr. Walter Crane, or 
 Mr. Reginald Blomfield. Revivals should carry pass- 
 ports. Bad floral patterns from early Victorian textiles 
 may cheer gardeners who are out of work, but their 
 present revival is a glaring folly. 
 
 How necessary these matters are from a public stand- 
 point will become plain if you bear in mind that the 
 furniture of an ordinary house frequently costs as much 
 as the house itself, and again, that the artistic manufac- 
 tures are not subject to the newspaper criticism that 
 attends the public sale of books, the exhibition of 
 pictures in public, and the acting of plays in public 
 theatres. In all these matters the people are guided by 
 a criticism so varied and so thorough that authors and 
 actors are under constant discipline and supervision. 
 
 137 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 Why ? Is the harm which they can do as costly to the 
 pubhc as bad work in the home arts ? Surely not. 
 Has not Mr. Birrell said that a single bad plumber may 
 do in a year more public mischief than all the bad 
 authors of a century ? Botched work in all household 
 essentials has a harmful effect that lasts for a long time ; 
 and one marvels that while authors and publishers of 
 books and plays are criticised in hundreds of newspapers, 
 the publishers and authors engaged in other trades are 
 subject to no discipline, but advertise their work — 
 carpets, textiles, furniture, wall-papers — with complete 
 freedom, as though in these important matters the 
 public needed no help at all. 
 
 The position is, of course, absurd. We need a police 
 of furniture as well as a police of books and plays. 
 Meantime we must assert ourselves in all dealings with 
 the artistic trades, declining to accept any design unac- 
 companied by its author's name. It is a public duty to 
 save clever artists and craftsmen from being chilled to 
 death by unjust " trade secrets." 
 
 It is extremely difficult to give hints on household 
 taste, not because the authorities are few, but because 
 a writer is stopped at every point by annoying questions. 
 " But how can that be applied by any reader to the 
 present condition of trade ? What fashion is now 
 paraded in the shop windows, and how long is it likely 
 to be in commercial vogue ? " 
 
 Questions of this kind are troublesome when walls 
 and their treatment are under consideration. There is 
 138 
 
WALLS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 real progress in some popular arts, as in wooden 
 furniture, but not (as a rule) in wall-papers and textiles. 
 Here the tides of fashion ebb and flow, bringing with 
 them much wreckage from the past. For all that, 
 good things may be discovered by any person who 
 keeps in mind the guiding principles of applied art 
 which this book tries to renew and explain. 
 
 Textile fabrics are excellent as a covering for walls. 
 They look well between a simple dado and a good 
 frieze,* particularly when their texture is strong and 
 their colour uniform. Texture is invaluable because it 
 gives variety to a flat surface. Light plays upon it 
 attractively, and colour looks uneven, broken, diversi- 
 fied ; and when textiles fade a little their tints are often 
 more pleasing than fresher hues. Canvas, too, is a good 
 wall-hanging, and common ticking also. Gild them 
 carefully, and then varnish the gold with a thin glazing 
 of ivory black. The varnish should not be a rapid 
 dryer, and black should be used in unequal quantities, 
 so that the glaze may be unevenly tinted. With a 
 handful of linen formed into a pad, remove the glaze 
 here and there, leaving the black tint settled in the 
 interstices. Black is a good toning glaze over any 
 gilded surface that looks in the least pretentious ; 
 and, of course, the aim in gilded canvas or ticking is to 
 get a varied and a dull-toned brilliance. This forms a 
 
 * Experts often ridicule the dado and frieze, speaking of them as 
 " formulas " and " superficial conceits " ; but they are essential in 
 the houses we rent, and with care they are made useful and effective. 
 
 139 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FUKNISHING 
 
 good background for pictures, but the frames should be 
 brown or black. 
 
 Another good effect may be obtained with inexpen- 
 sive canvas sized to the walls, the ivrong side being kept 
 as a ground for paint On this surface a good house 
 painter can work either in flat tints or in transparent 
 colours. The pigment should be rubbed briskly into 
 the surface, just as pictures were " laid in " with mono- 
 chrome in Hogarth's time and later. Years ago I saw 
 the walls of a room coloured in this way by a Belgian 
 artist, and with great success. The canvas was prepared 
 with a rubbing of yellow ochre and raw sienna ; this 
 being dry, blue and transparent browns were dragged 
 over it so as to get broken tints ; and when this prepara- 
 tion was firmly set and hard, a thin glaze of black was 
 put on with a little burnt sienna as a fillip. The aim 
 throughout was to show the yellow ground through the 
 super-imposed broken tints, just as paper shows through 
 water-colours giving them a translucent brilliancy. 
 That wall made an excellent background for pictures, 
 which were hung between a good panelled dado and a 
 painted frieze ; still, the work was done by an artist for 
 his own pleasure, and not by an artisan in constant 
 anxiety about the coming of his meal times. 
 
 A great many young painters at the present time 
 might give thought to mural decoration, with advantage 
 both to themselves and to those of us who have built 
 houses for our own use. Modern pictures do not sell, 
 and hundreds of young men and women find it no easy 
 140 
 
WALLS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 task to pay for their frames, colours, canvases, and 
 studios. In addition to these unfortunates, there are 
 scores of clever amateurs who have passed through the 
 art schools, and who with practice might do excellent 
 decorative work. But there is one drawback to this 
 practical suggestion. Young artists are apt to believe 
 that it is better to run into debt as makers of easel 
 pictures than to earn a modest regular income by 
 decorating walls. The same belief was in vogue when 
 I was an art student, first at the Slade School under 
 Professor Legros, and then at the Brussels Academy 
 under Professor Portaels ; and perhaps it may be 
 attributed to the same English feeling that finds a 
 class distinction between poor wages as a clerk and 
 good wages as a carpenter. One day, we may be sure, 
 the logic of hunger will kill those distinctions. It is 
 better and nobler to put a fine tint of colour on the 
 walls of a room than to turn out little easel pictures 
 which no one will buy. 
 
 A new profession is indeed waiting to be recognised. 
 Young painters, fresh from the schools, should form 
 themselves into practical firms, into working partner- 
 ships ; each little set would need a studio, and the local 
 press would enable them to advertise. It would be 
 necessary to keep away from high ambitions and to 
 think carefully of the needs of householders. The 
 work would include frieze painting, stencilled decora- 
 tion, plain decoration in schemes of flatted colour, the 
 choice of wall-papers for halls and rooms, the making of 
 
 141 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 designs, the selection of furniture, and many other 
 things which, if done well with a keen enthusiasm 
 necessary to all art workers, would be useful at a 
 moderate price to a great many families. Each little 
 group of artists would require an architect to govern 
 it, and a thorough knowledge of decorativ^e design 
 would be essential. 
 
 Yet there is one real difficulty. Artists do not unite 
 together like men of business. They are individualists : 
 each stands apart from his fellow, and has no wish to be 
 a unit in a fighting regiment. He would rather fail as 
 a lonely scout. On several occasions I have listened to 
 a few artists discussing a projected society of work, and 
 in each case they saw the practical scheme from so many 
 points of view that it became hopelessly unworkable ; 
 indeed, they soon lost their wish to carry it out, all 
 their enthusiasm having escaped in talk, like steam 
 through a kettle's spout. 
 
 Something, though, must be done ; young artists 
 cannot live on unsold pictures and statues ; and this 
 fact may in time develop a practical habit of mind, like 
 that which is being encouraged by the Art Workers' 
 Guild and the Home Arts and Industries Association. 
 There is certainly scope for decorative household work ; 
 and the public money spent on the art schools ought to 
 be useful in a public manner. At present it brings a 
 poor return, just because there is no organisation that 
 even attempts to put a backbone of business common 
 sense into the aims of students. 
 142 
 
WALLS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 Meantime the home arts are carried on mainly by 
 men of affairs. Even architects fail to make it known 
 that they are prepared to give advice on all questions 
 relating to the equipment of houses ; so that people 
 have come to look upon them as the authors of new 
 buildings, too busy or too proud to give advice on 
 furnishing. It is a great pity. Most architects would 
 find it worth their while to have " consulting hours," 
 like doctors, so as to give their experience in return for 
 known fees. You are in doubt what colours go best 
 with oak furniture, let us say. Points of this kind are 
 debated for hours and days by many households, when 
 a good architect could answer them in a few minutes. 
 Would it not be worth your while to pay a guinea for 
 such advice, or five guineas if the architect came to see 
 your rooms ? An attack of influenza would cost you 
 more and leave nothing at all pleasant as a memorial. 
 It is a point to be considered. As no reasonable man 
 would ask a builder to design a house for him, so no one 
 should allow an upholsterer to furnish and decorate a 
 house except under the advice of an expert, an architect. 
 Not that the expert should govern his client ; on the 
 contrary, his duty is to guide, so that his client may 
 have a home that represents his own needs, hobbies, and 
 tastes. 
 
 I have just consulted an architect myself, wishing to 
 give here some practical information on panelled walls, 
 a matter of great interest to those who own the houses 
 in which they live and who find that the walls are 
 
 143 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 not sound-proof, but communicative as telephones. This 
 familiar result of bad building would be improved by 
 panels, which, though a good conductor of sound, can 
 be fitted in ways to "deafen" walls and ceilings, as 
 by laying a strip of good thick felt along the top 
 and bottom of each panel so as to prevent contact 
 between the wood and the surface behind it. To stop 
 the transmission of sounds from one part of a build- 
 ing to another is difficult, but perhaps the best way 
 is to employ materials which are not homogeneous ; and 
 hence a panelled covering to defective walls may be 
 recommended to house-owners.* 
 
 Oak panelling is attractive to all Englishmen, though 
 little British oak is used for that work to-day. Nearly 
 fifty species of oak are known, but the common 
 British kind is the toughest and the most enduring, 
 only it is so cross-grained that cabinetmakers fear it and 
 choose instead an imported oak, like the wainscot from 
 Holland, straight-grained and softer to work, taking a 
 more delicate finish, and having altogether a less intract- 
 able " nature," for it is less likely to crack and warp. 
 Turkey oak has much in common with the Dutch 
 wainscot, while the American variety, known as white 
 
 * It has been found that walls composed of hard and soft bricks 
 are more sound proof than those which are built of hard bricks 
 alone. Bedroom walls ought to be double, and have between them 
 a little space filled with sand and gravel. In the thin party-walls of a 
 builder's house, it is often useful to put a lining of felt : it does some 
 good. 
 144 
 
> )j^vMVMVMWMV>m ^ r^v/^v>fl^»/^<?/^» wg nvvMv>m.vMVMv>m y fAv/PM/Kv/Mo/MifM 
 
 THE "NEO-GREC" DECORATION 
 
 DesigiH'd by Lewis F. Day 
 
 Jeffrey & Co., Mortimer Street, Regent Street, Londou 
 
THE ••MATADOl!'" STAJKCASK TArEl: 
 Jki'I'kkv .\: Co., .Moitiiiicr Street, Kejiout Street, l.oiidon 
 
WALLS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 oak, now largely used in cabinet-making and for interior 
 fittings, has different qualities. " It is not equal to the 
 British oak in strength or durability," says Mr. Stephen 
 Webb, " and it is inferior to the wainscot in the beauty 
 of its markings. The better the quality of this oak, the 
 more it shrinks in drying." 
 
 It is well known that timber architecture is a special 
 study requiring a long experience. Some architects are 
 experts in wainscoting, like Mr. Walter Cave, Mr. E. L. 
 Lutyens, and Mr. John Cash ; it is the last-named 
 artist who sends me the following information : 
 
 " Oak panelling varies much in price. The least 
 expensive is American oak, but it does not take the 
 fuming process, and liquid stain not only tends to spoil 
 the grain, but darken the soft parts of the wood much 
 more than the hard parts, and this makes unpleasant 
 contrasts. When it is made very dark the contrasts are 
 less noticeable ; that is why all the cheap oak- work 
 is made very deep-toned. The figure of American 
 oak is generally coarse when the wood is not simply 
 straight-grained and without figure. But, despite these 
 well-known defects, American oak looks comfortable 
 in a room, and there is no after expense worth men- 
 tioning. 
 
 "Austrian oak has better markings, it takes the fuming 
 process well, but costs more. The least expensive 
 panelling in American oak is 1^. Qd. per foot fixed in 
 London, but something will always have to be added 
 for fitting in odd corners. 
 
 K 145 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 " Take a room 18 ft. by IG ft. and 10 ft. high, the 
 panelHng to be 8 ft. high, with a plaster frieze and 
 ceiHng above ; oak door and architraves, a mantelpiece 
 of American oak, and of simple design. The window- 
 frames and sashes would be deal, not to be counted in 
 our estimate ; but we should put an oak architrave 
 
 and window board : 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 Panelling 41 
 
 Chimney-piece . . . . . . 2 
 
 Door and Architrave . . . . . 4 
 
 Window board and Architrave . . . 110 
 
 Fixing 5 
 
 Total £5S 10 
 
 " The chimney-piece would be just a simple moulding 
 and shelf fixed on the panelling. 
 
 " A dado of soft wood, properly painted, would cost 
 as much as the cheap American oak. 
 
 " The least costly ceiling is one of plaster in ribs, 
 made to pattern and perhaps enriched. Timber ceilings 
 are attractive, but in flats they are troublesome to put 
 up, for flats are built as a rule with concrete floors, 
 so a timber ceiling has to be planted on, and this, of 
 course, is unstructural as well as costly." * 
 
 For the rest, 1 am giving some illustrations to show 
 the treatment of walls, but patterned designs convey 
 a false impression in a book, because their tone and 
 scale cannot be shown on a small page, not even when 
 
 • Notes supplied by John Cash, F. R.I.B.A. 
 146 
 
WALLS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 colour-plates are given. That is why art magazines 
 often deceive the public. Their illustrations must be 
 patterns represented in little blocks, and the public 
 fancies that nothing without pattern counts in decora- 
 tive art. Let me then say that no patterned scheme 
 should be undertaken by householders without pro- 
 fessional advice ; and let me add to this the expediency 
 of going to one shop where good designs may be seen 
 in various articles of furniture, carpets, curtains, pottery, 
 friezes, and wall-papers. If all this work shows the 
 taste and knowledge of one acknowledged expert, as 
 in the case of the late William Morris, the difficulties 
 of choice are lessened, because a definite style is common 
 to all of it. 
 
 Two architects of to-day, Mr. Voysey and Mr. 
 Baillie Scott, have formed styles of their own in room 
 decoration, designing everything necessary, from chairs 
 and tables to carpets, wall-papers, and window-curtains. 
 Also — and this has importance — they have built many 
 small houses and know from long experience the needs 
 of limited incomes. Hence they are artists to be con- 
 sulted, and I have no doubt that they would give pro- 
 fessional advice and suggestions by letter, if you sent 
 them your requirements, giving the size and shape of 
 your rooms, the position of the windows, the quantity 
 of the light in each room, and the kind of furniture you 
 have bought. 
 
 Many architects are specialists in distinctive ways, like 
 Mr. Lorimer, Mr. E. L. Lutyens, Mr. Walter Cave, 
 
 147 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 Mr. Arnold Mitchell, Mr. Ernest George, Mr. E. Guy 
 Dawber, Mr. Ernest Newton, Mr. Gerald C. Horsley, 
 Mr. Horace Field, Mr. E. J. May, Mr. Charles Spooner, 
 Mr. W. H. Brierley (of York), Mr. Halsey Kicardo, 
 Mr. W. H. Bidlake (Birmingham), Mr. R. W. Schultz, 
 Mr. F. W. Troup, Mr. Cash, and many others. Indeed, 
 good guides are easy to find — if householders wish to 
 consult them, and their work may be studied in several 
 books, concerning which information will be given by 
 Mr. B. T. Batsford, High Holborn, London. 
 
 148 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 FLOORS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 Caryets. 
 It was in the thirteenth century that carpets were 
 brought to England, the importers being Eleanor of 
 Castile and the Spanish ambassadors who arranged her 
 marriage to Edward, the eldest son of Hemy HI. 
 When Eleanor arrived at Westminster she found that 
 her apartments were draped with rich hangings, like a 
 church, and carpeted also, after the fashion of her own 
 country. All this appears quite natural to us, but the 
 great historian of those times, Matthew Paris, relates 
 how London citizens were annoyed by the introduction 
 of Spanish customs and mamiers, which had not the 
 rough manliness that Enghshmen valued. The ambas- 
 sadors were ridiculed. It was noticed that while their 
 lodgings at the Temple were hung with silk and 
 beautiful tapestry, and the very floors carpeted in a 
 splendid manner, their retinue was vulgar and dis- 
 orderly, and had few horses and many mules. 
 
 Time passed, but the English dislike for carpets and 
 wall-hangings remahied, though Henry III. was de- 
 lighted to receive all good hints on household art and 
 
 149 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 taste. Some kind of tapestry was in occasional use 
 even among the Saxons and the Normans, over door- 
 ways, usually, or to divide one part of a chamber from 
 another ; but real tapestries, the figured " aiTas," were 
 not made until the fourteenth century, although the 
 looms of Arras were famous two hundred years earlier 
 for the making of cloths fitted for church vestments 
 aud for wearing apparel. Very fine embroidered 
 draperies were made in England for Henry III., par- 
 ticularly by JNIabel of Bury St. Edmund's, a true artist 
 in needlework ; but these embroideries were used not 
 for domestic purposes, but for sacerdotal vestments, 
 the decoration of tombs and altars, and the embellish- 
 ment of church walls. Coloured wainscoting, with a 
 painted frieze above it, was the thirteenth-century 
 method of English mural ornament ; and the national 
 carpets then, and for many generations afterwards, were 
 rushes and straw during the autumn and winter, and 
 green fodder in the spring and summer. This explains 
 the fact mentioned by Matthew Paris, that tlie Spanish 
 customs brought to England by Eleanor of Castile were 
 thought at variance with English habits and manners ; 
 and there was, no doubt, a wide difference between 
 panelled rooms covered with rushes and Eleanor's 
 weaved carpets and splendid tapestries. 
 
 In the fourteenth century some carpets were made 
 at Ramsey in Huntingdonshire, but these were used 
 mainly for church decoration, it is believed. Parlours, 
 it is true, were sometimes carpeted, but verses of tlie 
 150 
 
FLOORS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 period sneer at them as " Tapets of Spayne " laid down 
 for "pompe and pryde." A bedroom mentioned in the 
 " Story of Thebes " has a floor covered with cloth of 
 gold, a rare departure indeed from the conservatism of 
 English household customs. It was between the reigns 
 of Henry V. (1413-1422) and Henry VII. (1485-1509) 
 that carpets came timidly into fashion among the well- 
 to-do, ousting rushes and straw and grass from the 
 floors of private chambers, but not in the Great Com- 
 mon Halls, where such litter was often trampled under 
 foot as late as the times of Henry VIII. 
 
 Rushes were not used because of their cheapness. In 
 1464 Sir John Howard put sixteen pence-worth of 
 rushes on his parlour floor, a sum equal to at least six- 
 teen shillings in our money ; and this high price for a 
 convenience so easily dirtied was the cause of much 
 uncleanliness. Even the rich allowed the rushes to get 
 sodden and filthy, so the main floor of a hall — the part 
 below the raised dais — was mentioned in some docu- 
 ments as the marsh, an expressive word. Grass and 
 straw must have been more perishable even than rushes, 
 particularly when carts with provisions drove down the 
 central aisle of a hall, as at Winchester. For rooms on 
 the ground-floor were rarely boarded even as late as the 
 thirteenth century, though wood flooring was common 
 then in the upper rooms of good houses. 
 
 It is worth while to consider these old national 
 customs and traditions, because they suggest ideas. 
 It is clear that our ancestors of the Middle Ages would 
 
 151 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 not be hurried in the improvement of their home hfe, 
 but preferred inherited discomforts to new and necessary 
 luxuries ; and this hard conservatism was very bad for 
 women and children. Are we wiser, do you think ? 
 During the last century there was a persistent decline 
 of good workmanship in all homes except those that 
 the well-to-do put up for themselves. Jerry-builders 
 could not have won their disgraceful reputation had 
 they been opposed by the English people. Nor is it 
 uninteresting to note that the advance in sanitation has 
 been dictated by law, not by popular common sense or 
 mother-wit. Had the people been left to themselves, 
 as in Brittany, their methods of sanitation would still 
 be primitive, almost mediaeval. 
 
 What we need more than anything at the present 
 time is a popular feeling similar to that surprise and 
 contempt which many writers express for mediaeval ways 
 of life. A jerry-built villa with its ill-made furniture is 
 more an object of contempt than a rush- strewn hall of 
 the thirteenth century with an open drain flowing down 
 the middle ; for the hall was so well-consti*ucted that it 
 was used for generations after the rushes gave place to 
 coloured tiles and the open drain to a sewer under- 
 ground. Our jerry-built suburbs have but one redeem- 
 ing feature : they will soon wear out. It is an education 
 to be ashamed of them. 
 
 But a toleration for discomfort is not the only charac- 
 teristic that we share with our mediaeval forefathers. 
 We have a liking for colours that they admired. The 
 152 
 
ENGLISH UEl'KODUCTION OF A FINE INDIAN CARPET 
 Messrs. Story & Co., Kensington, London 
 
TL-llKEV lAiirKr 
 
 Mfssis. Stokv a- Co., Keiisin;;tou, l.ond< n 
 
FLOORS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 tints of their grass- carpets are to be seen to-day in 
 weaved hearthrugs and in other floor- coverings ; and 
 sometimes the grassy greens are flecked with a white 
 patterning as though to imitate daisies. Irish carpets, 
 too, have the same verdure tints, and an effort is being 
 made to introduce other hght-green textiles. It is a 
 mistake, for reasons ah-eady given on page 80. 
 
 Recently I saw a very wonderful grass-green carpet 
 in which all the elementary principles of decorative art 
 were vulgarised out of being. The border was festooned 
 with roses, every one of them in shaded colours so that 
 they might seem not unlike real roses patterned over 
 the sides ; and in the centre was a large wreath of the 
 same flowers, also in shaded tints, and big enough to 
 form garlands for the manufacturer and his "expert" 
 designer. Now the effect of shaded colouring is to give 
 roundness to natural objects, one quality which is alto- 
 gether out of place on a floor ; and it is clear also that 
 nothing reaUstic should be under our feet. To walk 
 over roses on a carpet is not only foolish but contempti- 
 ble ; as well might we tread upon a patterning of 
 babies' faces. In early Victorian days, when wafl-papers 
 represented bits of ornamental gardens, groups of foreign 
 birds, large creeping plants and huge flowers, there were 
 carpets to set children screaming, and noble hearthrugs 
 too, with spaniels worked upon them. Is it not astonish- 
 ing how decadent modern progress can be ? If carpets 
 may represent flowers, why should they not depict 
 something more educational, like the battle of Trafalgar 
 
 153 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 or the latest types of naval architecture ? The sea and 
 its great ships would be as convenient to walk upon as 
 a garden of roses.* 
 
 Happily some English carpets are good in design, 
 like the Kidderminsters, the Wiltons, the " Arbadils," 
 sold by Waring and Gillow, and the Turkey carpets 
 made by Maple and Co. at Smyrna. Then there are 
 the hand-made " Hammersmith " carpets which the late 
 WilHam Morris introduced, and which are still 
 made. 
 
 Even in carpets at a very popular price, modest 
 diapers may be discovered, as well as other simple and 
 decorative patterns. The plainest diapered grounds are 
 the best, and the prevailing tint should contrast that of 
 your wall-paper, and not repeat it. This point has been 
 mentioned before (p. 132), but it cannot be stated too 
 many times, because many men and a great many 
 women do not understand the value of contrast in a 
 colour-scheme. 
 
 A young journalist was once advised never to send in 
 " copy " to a second-rate newspaper or magazine, but to 
 aim always at the top rank. The same advice may be 
 given here to those who need carpets : go to the leading 
 shops and manufacturers. It is better in the long run, 
 though it may seem expensive now. A good carpet 
 not only wears for many years without beuig worn, 
 
 * A London shop has a rare example of misplaced realism on a 
 complete service of bedroom ware, upon the surface of which pears of 
 a natural size are painted. 
 154 
 
FLOORS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 but keeps in fashion with all changes of good household 
 taste. It never becomes out of date and unsightly. 
 
 Oriental carpets and rugs are the finest, not in colour 
 only but in design and finish. Their colour, indeed, 
 has some disadvantages ; we should be on our guard 
 against their black dyes and their brilliant crimsons, 
 for they have a bad action on textile fabrics, causing 
 them to wear out. This applies particularly, I believe, 
 to Indian textiles, but a rule of safety may include both 
 Turkish and Persian work. Choose carpets and rugs 
 without much black in them, and with pleasant reds in 
 a low key. 
 
 But the great charm of Oriental weaving is the 
 inimitable aptness of the designs. There is nothing 
 to vex the eye. The ornament seems to be uniform, 
 and yet it has no trace of that mechanical neatness 
 and correctness which in European carpets have a rule- 
 and-compass symmetry, quite different from the vigour 
 and the freedom which belong to a genuine handicraft. 
 Manual arts are filled with inequalities, " accidents," as 
 painters call them, and if you examine a Persian rug or 
 carpet you will find that the balancing patterns vary, 
 and that the border strips have nothing more than a 
 family likeness. The exterior edges are seldom, if ever, 
 straight. To be even is not to be artistic. This truth 
 has been known to Oriental craftsmen for a great many 
 generations ; and although Western trading customs 
 have started to debauch their work, they are still our 
 betters in ornamental design and colour. So many 
 
 155 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 inspirations have come to us from the East that EngHsh 
 householders should have faith in this one also. To 
 improve their homes they have only to accustom their 
 eyes to Eastern pottery and textile fjibrics. 
 
 Carpet- weaving arose among tribesmen who lived in 
 tents, and who would not have understood the degraded 
 use of their art as a maker of floor-cloths to be trodden 
 under foot by unclean boots and shoes. Orientals do 
 not enter a room or a tent without taking off' their 
 shoes, while we, though living under the latest guidance 
 of the sanitary sciences, come from the muddy street 
 into houses, carrying with us some part of the wet and 
 slush, and leaving it on the carpets. It is a dirty 
 custom. Boots and shoes ought to be made in a more 
 sensible manner, with slippers of soft kid inside, and 
 with fastenings easy to undo, unlike laces. Meantime 
 our choice of carpets should be guided by our knowledge 
 that few persons wipe their boots thoroughly on the 
 door-mat before they enter a house. It is therefore well 
 to avoid colours which are easily soiled, as in plain felts, 
 which show clearly the faintest stains. As a ground for 
 rugs there is nothing more beautiful than a floor-cloth 
 of felt in dark peacock green ; but when a few friends 
 call on a wet Sunday for tea, a housewife is in fear and 
 trembling, because felt feels, and keeps the impressions 
 of damp footmarks. 
 
 As a rule, Eastern carpets bear this ill-usage better 
 than those which are made in Europe by machinery, 
 tlieir colour-schemes having a deeper tone, free from the 
 156 
 
FLOORS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 light greens and blues which to many English eyes are 
 quite pleasant even in self-tinted weaved fabrics. Good 
 Oriental carpets have a local colour not unlike that of a 
 mountain overgrown with heather ; and it is a happy 
 juxtaposition of colours that produces the quiet rich- 
 ness in the general effect. Every tint lies perfectly 
 flat on the ground and the patterns are admirably 
 right. 
 
 All this applies to hand-made carpets, in which a 
 strong canvas is formed as the weaver progresses with his 
 work. Worsted, hair, or silk is tied into the canvas, and 
 the weaver has a freedom in his choice of colour which 
 is quite impossible in machine-made carpets, those 
 necessary peace-offerings at the shrine of modern 
 economy. The late WiUiam INIorris made a thorough 
 study of this subject, and the following passage from his 
 article on carpets should be read several times with the 
 greatest attention : 
 
 " The velvet pile and Brussels are simply coarse 
 worsted velvets woven over wires like other velvet, 
 and cut, in the case of the velvet pile; and Kidder- 
 minster carpets are stout cloths, in which abundance 
 of warp (a warp to each weft) is used for the sake 
 of wear and tear. The velvet carpets need the same 
 kind of design as to colour and quality as the real 
 carpets; only, as the colours are necessarily limited 
 in number, and the pattern must repeat at certain 
 distances, the design should be simpler and smaller than 
 in a real carpet, A Kidderminster carpet calls for a 
 
 157 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 small design in which the different planes^ o?' plies, as 
 they are called, a7'e well inte?' locked." 
 
 Again : 
 
 " Mechanical weaving has to repeat the pattern on the 
 cloth within comparatively narrow limits ; the number 
 of colours also is limited in most cases to four or five. 
 In most cloths so woven, therefore, the best plan seems 
 to be to choose a pleasant ground colour and to super- 
 impose a pattern mainly composed of either a lighter 
 shade of that colour, or a colour in no very strong con- 
 trast to the ground ; and then, if you are using several 
 colours, to light up this general arrangement either with 
 a more forcible outline, or by spots of stronger colour 
 carefully disposed. Often the lighter shade on the 
 darker suffices, and hardly calls for anything else : some 
 very beautiful cloths are merely damasks in which the 
 warp and weft are of the same colour, but a different 
 tone is obtained by the figure and the ground being 
 woven with a longer or shorter t\\nll : the tabby being 
 tied by the warp very often, the satin much more rarely. 
 In any case, the patterned webs produced by mechanical 
 weaving, if the ornament is to be effective and worth the 
 doing, require . . . crispness and clearness of detail : the 
 geometrical structure of the pattern, which is a iiecessity 
 in all recurring patterns, should be boldlif insisted upon, 
 so as to draw the eye from accidental figures, which the 
 recurrence of the pattern is apt to produce." 
 
 Once more : " The meaningless stripes and spots and 
 other tormentings of the simple twill of the web, which 
 158 
 
FLOORS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 are so common in the woven ornament of the eighteenth 
 century and in our times, should be carefully avoided : 
 all these things are the last resource of a jaded inven- 
 tion and a contempt of the simple and fresh beauty that 
 comes of a sympathetic suggestion of natural forms : if 
 the pattern be vigorously and firmly drawn with a true 
 feeUng for the beauty of line and silhouette, the play of 
 light and shade on the material of the simple twill will 
 give all the necessary variety." 
 
 It is good to reinforce our own convictions with those 
 of a great expert like William Morris, whose criticisms 
 should enable any one to tell the essential difference 
 between good carpets and bad ; " between the handi- 
 work of the free craftsman doing as he pleased with his 
 work, and the drudgery of the ' operative ' set to his 
 task by a tradesman competing for the custom of a 
 frivolous public." 
 
 But even when a good carpet is chosen, there are 
 difficult points to be considered, and among them is one 
 which a great many persons neglect altogether. How 
 is the carpet to be laid down ? The common and 
 wrong method is to fit it carefully to the skirting around 
 the room, and very often it is cut here and there to the 
 shape of recessed nooks and spaces, like those formed 
 by the cliimney-breast and the windows. By this means 
 a carpet is made unsuitable for any room save one ; and, 
 besides that, two principles of household taste are 
 broken. One is a principle of symmetry, and the other 
 a principle of design. It is not right to hide entirely 
 
 159 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 from view the purpose which any structural feature in a 
 house has to serve. A floor, for instance, must bear 
 weight, hence the material with which it is finished 
 must be of a kind that will support heavy burdens. A 
 concrete floor covered with paper would not look secure, 
 because we should see only the paper; the concrete 
 would have no existence to any one who did not know 
 of its being under the paper. On the other hand, wood 
 has such a general reputation as a weight-bearer that a 
 boarded floor looks right, and m'c rarely inquire what is 
 under the boards. Now a carpet, though a thing to be 
 walked upon, is not by itself a platform, a bearer of 
 weight ; it needs under it a quite adequate support ; 
 and for this reason some portion of the wood flooring 
 should be shown as a frame around a carpet. 
 
 And now comes in the principle of symmetry. All 
 good things in art arise from practical considerations, 
 and here is an excellent example. A carpet looks better 
 when it is framed by a border of stained wood or of 
 parquetry, while the floor asserts itself as a floor, and 
 prevents the carpet from being monotonous. Also — 
 and this point is to be remembered— the room seems to 
 be larger. To produce an effect of greater size in a 
 room is commonly looked upon as a question of colour ; 
 but this notion is not entirely right. Colour, no doubt, 
 aids in the illusion, but a factor of greater importance is 
 the breaking up of colour by straight lines that attract 
 and please the eye. Thus, for example, a room with a 
 good frieze and dado looks larger than one of the same 
 160 
 

 *>*;:»:* 
 
 f -.'^- I 
 
 
 t -- 
 
 
 » u 
 
 *<f ♦4^^> 
 
 
 ^^ '"3^w-adMBHHPBWWita«!^SH«»5!^*w«'^ 
 
 '"'■lo* 
 
 i%HWi»yi|i«iTM l"*'' "IMS' 
 
 
 
 CARPET : ANTIQUE KELIM 
 Messrs. Story & Co., Kensington, London 
 
FLOORS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 size and shape in which the wall-paper reaches from the 
 cornice to the skirting ; and in just the same way, when 
 floors are carpeted all over, rooms appear to be dwarfed ; 
 for the eye takes in all the surface area at a glance and 
 finds it monotonous. A bordering of wood not only 
 isolates the carpet in a symmetrical way, but forms 
 another resting-place for the eye ; and its value in the 
 general look of a room depends on the contrast between 
 its colour and that of the carpet. A rich transparent brown 
 is usually excellent, when good parquetry cannot be used. 
 Parquetry needs geometrical patterns, simple and 
 clean-cut ; the variously-coloured woods should be 
 chosen and fitted with the greatest care, because the 
 patterning must be harmonious and perfectly flat. No 
 suggestion of perspective is allowed ; that is, no piece of 
 wood must look either lower or higher than the rest. 
 For this reason strong contrasts of tint are apt to be 
 dangerous ; it is safer and better to aim at a rich general 
 effect with but slight variations of colour. And this 
 applies also to inlaid furniture. There is nothing more 
 objectionable than those aggressive inlays of light- tinted 
 woods which start out from the surface of a wardrobe 
 in mahogany. In some crafts second-rate work is 
 tolerable ; but in parquetry and decorated furniture the 
 result is either bad or good ; there is no middle excel- 
 lence. Nor is the reason of this far to seek. Woods 
 are beautiful with a simple polished surface, and nothing 
 but the finest workmanship can improve their natural 
 quahties and merits. 
 
 L 161 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 We pass on now to another kind of floor-covering, 
 
 namely : 
 
 Matting. 
 
 This material came into vogue in the reign of Henry 
 VIII. It may then have differed from our own 
 mattinsr, but it is mentioned in records of that time, 
 and to think about traditions in house furnishing is 
 always pleasant and useful. Matting may be looked 
 upon as a descendant of the rush-carpets which pre- 
 ceded it by many a generation, carpets of strewn rushes, 
 you will remember. Straw-coloured matting is a good 
 ground for rugs ; only it accumulates dust and soon 
 shows wear and tear, lasting for six or seven years, not 
 more. Still, the short life is a pleasant one, and the 
 dust which matting collects, though troublesome like 
 all dust, is not greater than that for which carpets are 
 disliked by men of science ; indeed, it is less, I think, 
 because a great deal of the dust sinks through the 
 matting to the undercover of thick brown paper. A 
 padding of brown paper is a good thing for a mat- 
 carpet to lie upon ; it lessens the wear and tear, deadens 
 sound from the room below, and gives a softer foot- 
 hold. 
 
 Perhaps the one real drawback to matting is the 
 injury which may be done to it when heavy furniture is 
 moved ; and as it looks particularly well in studies and 
 in bedrooms, where heavy furniture is the rule, a 
 housewife does not forget to condemn matting on that 
 score. Beds must be moved every morning, and unless 
 162 
 
FLOORS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 they run on little " tramway lines," like those which 
 are made by Messrs. Heal and Son, they do so much 
 harm to a strong matting that even a modern servant 
 feels quite unhappy, and begins (when encouraged in a 
 persuasive manner) to lift the beds instead of dragging 
 them. While the Servant Question remains acute, I 
 fear that matting is for those persons only who are not 
 worried by the loss of perishable things. 
 
 Tiles. 
 It was Henry III., the first real patron of our 
 EngUsh home, who tried to revive the tiled and tesse- 
 lated floors used in England by the Romans. For this 
 purpose, as may be learnt from contemporary records, 
 he encouraged foreign craftsmen to settle down near his 
 Court, but EngUshmen were not greatly interested. 
 Henry III. was in advance of his time. His aim was 
 to bring into homes the refined arts so freely lavished 
 on church decoration, while his people clung to ancient 
 and outworn customs, as barnacles do on wrecked ships. 
 But tile-making met with some encouragement, and at 
 last made its way into the main stronghold of English 
 conservatism, the Common Hall ; this happened in the 
 fifteenth century. Halls of that period were usually 
 paved with tiles variously coloured, and so laid down as 
 to form ingenious patterns. One combination of 
 colours during the eighth Henry's reign was green and 
 yellow, and therefore akin to the gold and green that 
 Henry III. greatly admired in a panelled decoration for 
 
 163 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 walls. Of course, the effect would depend on the tints 
 chosen for the green and yellow, but many entrance- 
 halls to-day would be improved if they were tiled with 
 a rich peacock green and a deep amber-yellow. In con- 
 nection with yellow and its value in the home arts, one 
 thing should be kept in mind : it is very difficult to 
 harmonise unless it has either a straw tint or a mixture 
 of gamboge ; and as in writing no real description can be 
 given of colours and their tints and harmonies, I must 
 try to think of some well-known material from which 
 you may learn what a gamboge tint is like. Old 
 satin-wood has the colour which we need in un- 
 sparkling yellows ; that is, in yellows unlike gold. If, 
 then, you have eye-knowledge of the yellow hues 
 of gold, of amber, and of satinwood, you cannot go 
 wrong in this matter. Study also the yellow tints in 
 flowers. 
 
 It is always a good thing to choose tiles in plain tints 
 and to use them in simple geometrical patterns ; all 
 conceits should be avoided, and all pronounced effects 
 of colour. The main harmonies are connected with 
 tints of yellow, either in juxtaposition with a greenish- 
 blue, or in mild contrast with dull reds ; but these 
 effects may be varied by the introduction of black into 
 the borders, or of black and cream-white. But, to 
 judge from some hearth-tiles which I saw recently, 
 simplicity of effect is not to be aimed at now in " ideal " 
 homes. Entrance-halls may yet be covered with tiles 
 to represent a landscape, or a birthday party, or a 
 164 
 
FLOORS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 village girl and her broken heart. These things may- 
 happen ; but if you want tiles of a patterned kind, 
 either for flooring or for wall- decoration, do not forget 
 to acquaint yourself with the best work which may be 
 seen at South Kensington and in other English 
 museums. After studying the old Persian tiles and 
 their descendants, the Hispano-Moresque wares, you 
 will have in mind a standard by which to judge all 
 modern work, and this will enable you to tread with 
 safety in the midst of pitfalls. 
 
 Many things have been done of late in the manufac- 
 ture of tiles, some fearfully done ; the reign of quantity 
 over quality, the casting in moulds by the gross and 
 printing by the thousands, may be scientific as well as 
 commercial, but the Fictile Arts decline. No fine 
 work can be the servant and the slave of mechanical 
 methods. There is also, in modern fictiles, a fatal 
 tendency to over-elaborate details of decoration, and to 
 rely less and less on the beauty of good plain colours 
 shining under a glazed surface. Absurd little flowers 
 are stuck in the middle of tiles as though people in this 
 twentieth century were uneducated children ready to be 
 delighted with the poorest ornaments and toys. The 
 wisest course to pursue at the present time is to choose 
 those tiles which are perfectly simple and unpretending. 
 Look for pleasant colour: more you do not need. 
 Ruskin, after describing an Enghsh home very modestly 
 furnished, once said : " More than this, few should seek " 
 — one of the best criticisms ever offered to a public which 
 
 165 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 has tried to imitate oak by graining and to make marble 
 halls with marbled wall-paper. 
 
 Another useful criticism may be taken from Carlyle, 
 who found a lesson in good workmanship where few had 
 eyes to see it. " The coarsest hobnailed pair of shoes, 
 if honestly made according to the laws of fact and 
 leather, are not ugly ; they are honest, and fit for their 
 object ; the highest eye may look on them without dis- 
 pleasure, nay with a kind of satisfaction. This rude 
 pa. king-case, it is faithfully made ; square to the rule, 
 and formed with rough and ready strength against 
 injury, fit for its use ; not a pretentious hypocrisy but a 
 modest, serviceable fact. Whoever pleases to look 
 upon it will find the image of a humble manfulness in 
 it, and will pass on with some infinitesimal impulse to 
 thank the gods." 
 
 " Not a pretentious hypocrisy but a modest, service- 
 able fact " : that is what a good tile should be ; what all 
 things in a well-ordered home should be. Every walk 
 of decorative art leads to this conclusion ; hence I have 
 to repeat it in every chapter after studying a different 
 set of shop- window utilities. If only we could free all 
 manufacturers from pretension, and force them to keep 
 to modest, serviceable facts, things fit for their use, 
 machines would be a benefit to all the popular artistic 
 crafts, because of the rapidity with which they would 
 multiply unaffected work.* 
 
 * For inquiries concerning tiles, write to Messrs. Morris and Co., 
 449 Oxford Street, and to Messrs. Doulton, Lambeth, London, who 
 166 
 
FLOORS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 The bad tiles so common to-day are not bad because 
 their craftsmanship is scamped, but because there is far 
 too much of it in wrong places ; and this applies also to 
 the designs and colours on another kind of floor-covering, 
 namely 
 
 Linoleum. 
 
 There is no reason at all why this material should 
 be " a pretentious hypocrisy," instead of " a modest, 
 serviceable fact." Those who make it have only to 
 commission a few appropriate designs and schemes of 
 colour, going to artists of acknowledged reputation, 
 like Mr. Selwyn Image and Mr. Heywood Sumner. 
 These experts would see at once what linoleum is 
 unfitted for, and also what it must do if persons with 
 educated tastes are to be pleased. It is clear, for 
 instance, that linoleum is not a weaved carpet, nor a 
 textile fabric of any kind ; yet a large quantity of 
 linoleum is printed with coloured designs in blatant 
 imitation of carpets and rugs. Years ago the patterns 
 copied marble pavements and parquetry floors, conceits 
 laughably false in principle, but not more so than carpet, 
 like linoleum. I have by my side a fragment in which 
 all the simplest laws of decorative art are infringed- 
 The pattern is taken from a textile curtain made long 
 ago in Italy : to put such a pattern on a floor-cloth is 
 
 are giving serious attention both to tile pavements and to glazed and 
 enamelled tiles for walls. Tile pavements are not easy to choose. 
 Be on your guard (1) against many colours, (2) against strong contrasts 
 of two or three tints^ and (3) against intricacy of design. 
 
 167 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 one mistake ; but there is another, for the hnoleum is 
 printed to look Uke a tesselated pavement ! These 
 absurdities are hard to account for. Quite useful 
 materials are invented and manufactured ; then comes 
 the curse of pretension, bringing with it ridiculous 
 shams. 
 
 Yet linoleum ought to be very useful : it is inexpen- 
 sive, it is durable, and it holds colour firmly. When 
 the colour is plain and quiet, and the border simple, 
 linoleum is pleasant in the corridors of flats, with a 
 margin of stained wood on each side of it. \Mien 
 patterns are used the guiding principle is this : linoleum, 
 like every other material to which designs can be applied, 
 must be what it really is, and not affect the qualities of 
 a richer thing. More than thirty years ago Mr. C. L. 
 Eastlake criticised the floor-cloth then in use, but his 
 remarks, unfortunately, were not followed. They are 
 still worth reading and worth remembering. " Endless 
 varieties of geometrical diaper could be used for floor- 
 cloth, without resorting to the foolish expedient of 
 copying the knots and veins of wood and marble," or 
 the patterns on carpets or the workmanship of tesselated 
 pavements. " Some very fair examples of this geome- 
 trical pattern may be met with occasionally, but, as a 
 rule, too many colours are introduced in them. How- 
 ever attractive it may appear in the shop, this kind of 
 polychromy ought to be avoided on the floor of a 
 private house. Two tints — or, better still, two shades 
 of the same tint (which should not be a positive colour) 
 168 
 
FLOORS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 — will be found most suitable for the purpose, and in 
 any ease there should be no attempt to indicate relief 
 or raised ornament in the pattern." 
 
 This criticism is sound and good. Do not choose 
 any floor-cloth in which there is a marked difference 
 of tone between the pattern and the ground ; and be 
 on your guard against bright reds and greens. Low 
 keys of colour are essential in linoleum, if only because 
 modest effects cannot be unpleasant. Besides that, 
 inexpensive materials look " cheap " when they assert 
 themselves : it is quietness of colour and design that 
 gives them a higher rank. 
 
 One merit of hnoleum I forgot to mention — namely, 
 its cleanliness ; it is easy to wash and keep free from 
 dust, a very important thing in these days of sanitary 
 science. Dust is something more and worse than a 
 nuisance, it is a positive danger to health, being full of 
 bacteria. Men of science, in their campaign against 
 dust, wish to banish from our homes all draperies, all 
 carpets, and all unnecessary nooks and corners. There 
 must be few ledges and mouldings for dust to rest 
 upon, and in future times, rooms will be oval and 
 round, as many were in the eighteenth century. The 
 men of science are right unquestionably, but we cannot 
 follow their advice under present-day conditions. How 
 many small houses are sufficiently well built to warrant 
 a disuse of carpets ? Soft coverings for ill-made floors 
 are obligatory, as any person will admit who has lived 
 m a flat. 
 
 169 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 Modern floors have a drum-like sound if you walk 
 upon them before they are carpeted ; and sometimes 
 we may hear through them the sound of conversation 
 in rooms downstairs. It is thus a duty to cover floors 
 with some material soft to walk upon, and pleasant to 
 see ; good carpets are the best for these purposes, and 
 the old method of sweeping them is no longer at all 
 necessary. To brush up dust into the air is an act of 
 inconvenience which we may leave now to the most 
 recent public benefactor, the motor-car. Several good 
 carpet-sweepers are sold to-day, and special reference 
 may be made here to the pneumatic sweeper, a thing so 
 light and simple that a child of ten can use it. The 
 weight is only 4 J lbs., and the cost 39s. 6d. OiUng is 
 not required, an important matter, and no dust is raised. 
 This wonderful little instrument is made at 87 V^ictoria 
 Street, Westminster, London, S.W. A larger sweeper 
 of the same kind would dust walls, saving a great deal 
 of labour in those memorable days known as spring 
 cleaning, perhaps because the household nerves are 
 active and "jumpy." 
 
 The "Little Giant" Dust Extractor (Sir Hiram 
 Maxim's patent) is recommended by many house- 
 holders. This cleaner is made on the vacuum prin- 
 ciple ; many kinds of " collectors " can be attached to 
 its flexible tube, and with them dust can be removed 
 from cornices and from under furniture. 
 
 A few hints may be given now on shops where good 
 floor-coverings are to be found : 
 170 
 
FLOORS AND THEIR TREATMENT 
 
 Messrs. Treloar and Sons, Ludgate Hill, London. 
 Eastern carpets, Brussels carpets, British Lahore rugs 
 and mats, English Turkish carpets, Cheviot carpets, 
 Coco-nut fibre matting, Cork carpets, Donegal carpets, 
 felts, Unoleum, &c. &c. This firm has won eleven Prize 
 Medals. The catalogue is practical and thorough — 
 free from that self-praise so objectionable in modern 
 advertising. 
 
 Messrs. Maple and Co., Tottenham Court Road, 
 London, W.C, were among the earhest importers of 
 Eastern rugs and carpets ; they retain to this day an excel- 
 lent standard of good taste in those textile fabrics. Their 
 English carpets are chosen with care, and their " Caledon 
 Art Squares " are useful in ladies' boudoirs and bed- 
 rooms. Some formal border patterns might be tried. 
 
 Messrs. Morris and Co., 449 Oxford Street, London, 
 well known for their wall-papers and excellent textile 
 fabrics. Their experience is of value to all householders. 
 
 Messrs. Heal and Son, Tottenham Court Road, 
 London, specialists on bedroom furniture; careful, 
 thorough, and ready always to follow useful suggestions. 
 
 Messrs. Hampton and Co., Pall Mall, London, all 
 varieties of carpets. 
 
 Messrs. Story and Co., Kensington High St., London, 
 W. Their efforts in the favour of good workmanship 
 are known and encouraged. 
 
 Messrs. Cardinal and Harford, 108-110 High Hol- 
 born, London, import a large variety of good Eastern 
 work. 
 
 171 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 But readers can choose their own shops, keeping well in 
 mind the qualities which a good carpet ought to have. 
 In this chapter all essential points are stated and ex- 
 plained, but I should like to repeat with emphasis one 
 thing that concerns our English and Irish carpets, 
 namely, let us beware of light blues and of grassy greens. 
 We can find in British work the heathen tints so 
 common in fine Eastern carpets, and these have a varied 
 charm in rich schemes of quiet decoration. 
 
 Finally, do not allow yourself to be " talked over " by 
 any salesman. His duty is to sell what his employer 
 has either purchased or manufactured, and to do that he 
 has often to contradict many principles of decorative art. 
 
 172 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE CEILING 
 
 A SCHOOLBOY, in a recent examination, was startled by 
 the question, What is a ceiUng ? He had seen a few 
 in his short hfe, but had noticed nothing more than a 
 flat space of cold white plaster, cracked here and there 
 in ragged streaks, and having as a central ornament a 
 very ugly flower with crinkled leaves. The lad was 
 puzzled. He had no idea what the flower meant nor 
 why it should grow in the middle of a ceiling. It had 
 not been mentioned in any conversations to which he 
 had listened. 
 
 Other parts of a room caused a great deal of trouble 
 every week, but only three things about the ceihng had 
 ever been pointed out to him. The first was the colour 
 of the central flower, which years of impure gas had 
 stained. The other things brought the lad inside that 
 little realm of discipline where the birch rod holds sway. 
 " If you spill water on your bedroom floor," said his 
 father, " it will come through the ceiling into my study, 
 and you'll be whipped. Don't do your dumb-bell exer- 
 cises there ; you shake the ceiling, disturb my work, 
 and annoy me seriously. When you talk I can hear 
 you through the ceiling. Be careful." 
 
 173 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 This was not much good for an examination paper, 
 the boy thought, but as he knew nothing more, and 
 desired to win a prize-book full of sea yarns, he wrote 
 as follows : 
 
 " The ceiling is the other side of a floor. If you take 
 a bath on the floor and make a lot of splashing, the 
 ceiling becomes wet, and bits of plaster may fall down. 
 If you want to talk to a friend about some real fun for 
 Guy Fawkes day, don't stand on the floor, because your 
 voices go through the ceiling and give the show away. 
 A ceiling is never cleaned unless water gets on it, and 
 then there's no end to pay. Walls and carpets make a 
 lot of fuss near Easter, but ceilings are left alone. 
 They have big flowers and leaves in the centre, very 
 ugly, and so they must mean something or they wouldn't 
 be kept there. But nobody says what they mean, so 
 they are lucky things, I suppose, for they never seem to 
 bring bad luck if you don't splash too much when 
 bathing." 
 
 The boy won his first prize. An architect would 
 have given him a gold medal. No criticisms could be 
 better. In most houses and flats — at least, in houses 
 and flats for small incomes — the ceiling is a fraud, bald, 
 impudent, and troublesome. Its one ornament, so- 
 called, is an ofi'ence which tenants should pull down at 
 their own cost. There the ceiling is above our heads, 
 the largest unbroken area in a room, yet the only in- 
 terest which it attracts, as a rule, is connected with the 
 jerry-builder and his abominable speculations. 
 174 
 
THE CEILING 
 
 We do not see how it is united to the floor above. 
 All the joists are hidden, no part of the structural work 
 can be tested by hand-touch and eyesight. The joists 
 may be too weak to support the furniture in the room 
 above, or the ceiling plaster may be " keyed " insecurely 
 to the thin laths of wood nailed on the underside of the 
 joists. These matters have to be taken on credit, 
 though we know very well that bad plaster may fall 
 down in pieces large enough to kill a child, and that 
 joists in ill-constructed houses have been subject to dry 
 rot. Ceilings of this kind are as unstructural as shop- 
 windows, which appear to carry all the weight of 
 masonry forming the upper storeys. That is a great 
 deal for sheets of plate glass to do ! 
 
 It is a relief to the mind when the strength of a 
 weight-bearer is visible to the eye; not when it is 
 merely seen, but when it looks fit for its purpose. 
 Everybody feels this under certain conditions. Is that 
 scaffolding strong enough ? Will that bridge bear the 
 weight of a railway train ? Is that column too thin 
 and light ? Such questions occur to all of us. And 
 yet, somehow, in our attitude to the hidden supports of 
 ceilings, and floors, and shop windows, we are quite 
 uncritical, and allow reason to fall asleep. It is a ques- 
 tion of custom, and custom makes fools of us all. To 
 sit quietly in a room with a ton of furniture on the floor 
 upstairs, and not to know how the floor is constructed, 
 is to put too much faith in speculative building methods ; 
 and why should our street architecture be ruined by 
 
 175 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 huge glass windows that appeal to the eye as the only 
 visible supports under several storeys of brick or of 
 stone ? Bad customs of this kind should be ridiculed 
 by the public and laughed at in the newspapers. 
 Traders are not compelled to open shops, and there 
 should be a law to prevent them from making their 
 customs a settled pubUc hindrance to good street archi- 
 tecture. 
 
 It is only by teaching the public to look at familiar 
 things from a standpoint of common sense that bad 
 workmanship can be discredited. Even Ruskin, when 
 swayed by some famihar customs, was at times amusingly 
 inartistic, relating with pride how he put down on his 
 library floor a carpet covered with roses, over which he 
 walked with the greatest pleasure in the world, because 
 he considered that flowers in a carpet pattern were 
 better than the beautiful designs on an Eastern textile 
 fabric. In this matter he remained a boy with Early 
 Victorian ideals. 
 
 But although he was happy when he had roses under 
 his feet, few men had a keener dishke for other popular 
 follies in the household arts. His " Lectures on Archi- 
 tecture " still form one of his most helpful books, 
 because the main lesson taught by them is the need of 
 structural craft at once visible and satisfying. We 
 ought to feel quite certain that things are what they 
 appear to be. If a ceiUng fell it would kill everybody 
 in the room ; hence, no doubt, its capacity to bear the 
 weight of the floor above it should be made as apparent 
 170 
 
THE CEILING 
 
 to the eye as is possible. Under modern building 
 methods not much is possible, but a few facts stand out 
 clearly : 
 
 1. When a ceiling is entirely bald, barren, and naked, 
 stretching from cornice to cornice like a white sheet, it 
 looks unsafe. Even a central flower, though ugly and 
 absurd, makes a halting-place for the eye to rest upon 
 and lessens that menacing monotony which belongs to 
 a large area of flat plaster fastened to invisible supports 
 above our heads. 
 
 2. Accordingly, a ceiling looks more secure when it 
 is ribbed or when it is decorated. This, of course, is an 
 optical illusion, but the effect on the mind is not the 
 less important. Elizabethan and Jacobean ceilings, 
 with their rich and heavy plaster mouldings, look safer 
 than plain modern work, not because we remember that 
 they are admirably built, but because the ornament has 
 a structural character that gives pleasure. It divides a 
 flat surface into compartments, so we look at the ceiUng 
 bit by bit, and note how the raised mouldings are 
 formed into designs that repeat well in an ordered 
 sequence. We are so keenly interested that the ceiling 
 is forgotten, lost in its ornamentation. From a stand- 
 point of structural architecture, this not only may be 
 wrong but is wrong ; a ceiling ought to show in what 
 manner the floor above it is built ; but when English 
 architects in their search after beauty and comfort began 
 to hide from sight the great wooden beams stretching 
 from wall to wall, they did everythhig in their power to 
 
 M 177 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 give a look of security to their ceiling decoration. 
 Their aim was to charm the eye ; and it seemed to 
 them that white plaster, however carefully it was 
 modelled, would loom too heavily overhead and be 
 distressing. So they made their ceilings resplendent 
 with colour and with gold, a practice that never failed 
 to win praise from foreign critics. Spenser tells us 
 that 
 
 Gold was the parges^ and the cieling bright 
 Did shine all scaly with great plates of gold. 
 
 The stucco art of ceiling decoration — that is, 
 the art of ceiling a room entirely with ornamented 
 plaster — came to England in the reign of Henry VIIL, 
 brought here by the Italian stucco-workers who em- 
 .bellished the Palace of Nonesuch, now vanished. In 
 earlier times the wooden beams in the floor above formed 
 part of a ceiling, sometimes patterned with green and 
 gold, as in the third Henry's reign, and sometimes 
 covered with wood panels, as in the fifteenth century, 
 when ceilings of wood were divided into square com- 
 partments by ribs of bold projection, often well moulded. 
 At the intersection of the ribs were square bosses, 
 carved with foliage, or with shields of arms, or other 
 ornaments. In the time of the eighth Henry the ceiUngs 
 were more commonly of plaster emiched with a great 
 variety of patterns ; sometimes pendants took the place 
 of bosses, in other cases panelling. Pendants were much 
 in vogue during Elizabeth's reign as well as in Jacobean 
 plaster-work ; and it is worth noting that ceilings of 
 178 
 
THE CEILING 
 
 pendentive character form a type peculiar to England, 
 for they are but rarely found in any other country. 
 They seem to have been suggested by the stone fan- 
 groining which gave so much character to late Gothic 
 vaulting, in the reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. 
 But that is not the real point. The real point is that 
 ceilings may be divided into four classes : 
 
 1. Those in which the wooden floor beams project 
 through a surface of plaster, as in many old cottages 
 and country houses. For a cottage or small house it is 
 a good, sensible treatment to put in joists of more than 
 usual thickness and to use plaster between them, show- 
 ing the joists as beams either carved or stained. 
 
 2. Those in which the wooden floor beams are strongly 
 panelled with good planks, then divided into squares by 
 moulded ribs, with carved bosses at the intersections. 
 These ceilings came into vogue rather late in the fifteenth 
 century : they were enriched with gold and with paint, 
 and, being convenient and handsome, they continued in 
 use for a long time, till late in the sixteenth century. 
 
 3. But a rival appeared during the eighth Henry's 
 reign, when rich plaster ceilings, unrelieved by wooden 
 ribs or beams, were introduced from Italy. From that 
 time onward to the discovery of coal gas, about 1814, 
 a great deal of care was given to this art in plaster ; 
 ceilings, indeed, met with an artistic consideration equal 
 to that which was given to floors and walls. Redundant 
 ornament was common at the beginning of this long 
 period, and feeble decoration marked its end, as in 
 
 179 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 the work done by Italian craftsmen for the brothers 
 Adam. 
 
 4. With tlie introduction of coal gas and ill-trimmed 
 lamps, a period of denuded ceilings began, for house- 
 holders would not spend their money on elaborate work 
 that was soon impaired by the dirt generated by smoking 
 lamps and bad gas. Another cause also helped to bring 
 about this decline of ceiling decoration — namely, an 
 unsettled state of tenancy. This drawback to the com- 
 fort of homes has come down to us intensified by fifty 
 years of jerry-building, and also by the little miseries 
 inseparable from a life in flats. It is impossible to rear 
 children in a flat, and most women are bored to death 
 by having all the household work concentrated on one 
 floor with no means of escaping from it. A staircase 
 has a real moral effect on those who pass the greater 
 part of the day indoors. It soothes the nerves, it gives 
 exercise and change of scene and air ; it isolates rooms 
 when they are being cleaned, so that a house is not 
 entirely disturbed by the daily sweeping and dusting. 
 In flats, on the other hand, the passages every morning 
 are filled with furniture from one room or other. 
 
 Add the inconveniences of flats to the jerry-made 
 troubles in suburban villas, and it is easy to understand 
 why a lease of three years has become a risky experi- 
 ment. We hesitate to bind ourselves to discomforts 
 that appear inevitable ; and we decline to spend much 
 money on a landlord's ceilings. 
 
 Yet something must be done, and people ask, " W'liat 
 180 
 
THE CEILING 
 
 shall we do with our ceilings ? How shall we decorate 
 them ? " I have given the main principles, but how are 
 these to be carried out under a three years' lease ? It is 
 easy to pull down the hideous centre-flowers, but in 
 what way can the naked surface be enriched at a small 
 cost ? That is not an easy nut to crack. Our business 
 in life is not to improve ceilings for landlords. What- 
 ever improvements we do make, never without some 
 reluctance, must be for our own good under the leases 
 which we have signed. A friend of mine, under a long 
 repairing lease, spent more than £2000 to put his house 
 in thorough order and comfort, thereby adding to his 
 rent a given number of pounds per annum distributed 
 over his tenancy. That sum did not include the 
 furniture. The landlord was fortunate indeed, but the 
 money was spent after a business calculation and for 
 definite practical ends. In the same way the problem of 
 ceihng decoration should be looked upon by all of us. 
 
 How much can you afford to spend on that work 
 under the terms of your lease ? A short term of three 
 years justifies nothing more than a change in the colour 
 of the plaster or than a paper in harmony with your 
 walls. Good ceiling papers are designed to-day, and 
 look well when they are chosen with judgment ; only, 
 it is useful and even necessary to seek advice from a 
 competent architect, because the ceiling has a decora- 
 tive function to perform which demands the most care- 
 ful consideration from experts. Many things call for a 
 knowledge which only experience can give. The first is 
 
 181 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 the structural condition in which you find the ceihng, 
 and the next, its relative proportion to the walls. After 
 this another point arises. How will the ceiling receive 
 light by day, and what is the quantity of the light ? 
 Does it come from several windows at the side, or from 
 one window facing the street, or from a window at each 
 end ? A long, low room lit from one end naturally 
 demands a different ceiling treatment from a ^vide, high 
 room lighted from the side ; and again, the mode of 
 artificial lighting by night is a matter to be thought 
 over, and you have also to consider the room itself, its 
 special use, the style of its decoration, and the deter- 
 mining factor of all — cost, expense. 
 
 With so many technical matters to govern even the 
 simplest ornament for ceilings, it is essential, I believe, 
 to have expert guidance, as from INIr. G. P. Bankart, 
 because amateurs invariably choose a wrong thing when 
 they have too many worries in their minds at the same 
 time. " Let us take this," they say in desperation, " and 
 have done with it." Now an expert — a good architect, 
 for instance — is not worried at all, knowing from experi- 
 ence what is necessary under given conditions of light 
 and space. Low ceilings are difficult to treat, because 
 patterns may be seen too distinctly, and then the ceiling 
 looks lower. Hence it is perhaps better to accept low 
 ceilings as you find them — if the plaster is a mellow 
 cream-white in colour. Cold-looking plaster, wliich in 
 the twilight turns to a bluish-grey, is unpleasantly dis- 
 cordant. There are two mysteries in the routine work 
 182 
 
THE CEILING 
 
 of house-painters, bad colour after long practice, and a 
 belief that long practice justifies bad colour. To find 
 amonsf them a man who knows the difference between 
 good and false tints of white is a rare experience. 
 Many householders, too, are slow to understand that 
 certain colours may be varied indefinitely. "A beau- 
 tiful white ? " they ask. " Surely white is always 
 white ? " A printer once said to me : "A fine black, 
 did you say ? I've seen only one black in my time, and 
 I've been a printer these twenty years." Similarly, 
 many house-painters fail to match the tints chosen for 
 ceilings and woodwork, nor do they ever fail to assert 
 that their defective colour-sense has been much admired. 
 
 The only way in which tints of white can be studied 
 with success and pleasure is to watch Nature at work 
 in her flowers, in her shells, in her clouds, and in chalk 
 and marble. Milk and cream are other examples, so 
 are eggs ; and note, too, the lighter colours in the best 
 cigar ash, the lightest of all being very beautiful in 
 conjunction with gold. I have seen it used for ceilings 
 and for drawing-room doors and woodwork. In the 
 former case the plaster ornament was partly gilded ; 
 while in the latter, gold was applied to the raised mould- 
 ings of the wooden panels. Perhaps the finest white of 
 all for a plain ceiling is cream-white or the white of lilies. 
 
 Another matter now suggests itself Is the cornice 
 a part of the ceiling or a part of the walls ? The 
 French answer this question in a way different from 
 our own. In England the usual treatment is to make 
 
 183 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 the cornice the same colour as the ceihng, while in 
 France the skirting and the cornice are usually painted 
 the same tint ; then the cornice becomes the summit of 
 the walls, a sort of capital upon which the ceiling rests. 
 This appears to be more logical and structural than our 
 English method ; certainly it is worth consideration 
 when we have above our heads a large area of flat 
 plaster unsupported by visible means. Let the cornice 
 be to a wall what a capital is to a column, and let the 
 ceiling lie upon it in a conspicuous manner : a thing not 
 difficult to do if we keep them apart by a good contrast 
 of colour. 
 
 It is unnecessary to speak here of those richer arts in 
 ceiling decoration which house-owners may practice, 
 having a freedom which houiieholde?\s cannot enjoy 
 under present conditions. A house-owner builds him- 
 self a home in accordance with his own needs and 
 taste, and only one matter now interferes with his use 
 of decorated ceilings. He cannot shut his eyes to the 
 perils that dust brings into a home. When sanitation 
 was neglected as a matter of course, despite the lessons 
 taught by plagues, fevers, and small-pox, ceilings of 
 heavily moulded plaster — and often of ponderous cast 
 plaster — were put up without the least hesitation ; but 
 no man of common sense would now build such extra- 
 vagant lodgings for dust and germs. To-day, beyond a 
 doubt, the mouldings should be simple and firm, their 
 projection slight, and all sharp angles ought to be 
 rounded off in order that the necessary work of cleaning 
 184 
 
THE CEILING 
 
 may be easy. Pneumatic cleaners would be excellent 
 for ceilings, which ought to be well dusted at least twice 
 a month. Even once a year is not yet a general house- 
 hold custom, probably because a housewife cannot drag 
 her finger across a ceiling. She would be astonished if 
 she could and did. 
 
 Perhaps a panelled ceiling is the most hygienic : it is 
 certainly not hard to clean, it looks warm and structural, 
 its heaviness may be relieved by colour, and the cost is 
 not great in a new house. But wood is a fine conductor 
 of sound, and this adds to the difficulty of building a 
 comfortable room. The success of a panelled ceiling 
 depends on the choice of a good architect familiar with 
 timbered work, Hke Mr. John Cash, London, Mr. Walter 
 Cave, London, and Mr. E. A. Ould. 
 
 I have spoken before (p. 144) about the transmission 
 of sound between the different parts of a building — a 
 subject well worth the attention of scientists. Why 
 should not a Royal Commission help us in this matter ? 
 Everybody feels the need of sound-resisting walls, floors, 
 and ceilings. And a Royal Commission, after hearing 
 evidence from architects and forming definite opinions, 
 could offer suggestions to the Board of Trade, the aim 
 being to strengthen the Building Acts for the benefit of 
 householders. 
 
 Only a few words need be said here about painted 
 ceilings ; they are not for ordinary households, and it 
 would take a good -sized book, with coloured illustra- 
 tions, to describe them. A painted ceiling requires a 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 painted wall ; both are permanent decorations that 
 tone together, and not many successes have been 
 achieved in our time. 
 
 Well done, under the right direction, painted ceihngs 
 ■\vill last for generations, " and if proper materials are 
 used, can be cleaned without injury, so that in the long 
 run it is not such an expensive process as it seems. 
 And it is not repeated everywhere ; it is an individual 
 work, and not a ready-made, mechanical affair, pur- 
 chasable at per yard by any one else. Yet there are 
 ready-made, mechanically-produced expedients which 
 are useful where circumstances prevent the use of the 
 higher forms of decoration, where ephemeral decoration 
 only is needed, and for the less important rooms in a 
 house. Some of JNIr. Scott Morton's embossed canvas 
 patterns are very suitable for this purpose, and by the 
 judicious use of a few moulded wood-ribs effective ceil- 
 ings can be produced with them. Embossed papers, 
 anaglypta, lignamur, and many other low- relief products 
 are obtainable.* Japanese paper, which combines both 
 colour and relief, can be very advantageously used with 
 bamboo or other mouldings, and the gold ground is very 
 effective in a somewhat dark room, and flock paper 
 painted in one tone and rolled with another, so as to 
 pick out the ornamental pattern in a lighter or a darker 
 tint, produces a good effect. But in all these cases you 
 
 =<= The fault of these machine-made products is that they are often 
 too ornate. Even when they are not, they may look so in small 
 illustrations. 
 186 
 

 — X 
 
 
 - o 
 
 
 
 c - 
 
 O V, 
 
 /5 
 
 
THE CEILING 
 
 should do something to reheve the monotony of a large 
 expanse of the same reticulated ornament, either by- 
 breaking up the surface by broad divisions into panels 
 or constructing a broad border of another pattern. The 
 designs of these papers are often very admirable, and 
 have engaged the attention of our most skilful designers, 
 such as Mr. Walter Crane, Mr. Lewis Day, and many 
 others." * 
 
 The same authority gives other useful advice : 
 " The invention of ' canvas plaster ' — that is, thin 
 canvas pressed into plaster whilst fluid — enables large 
 surfaces of plaster to be cast very thinly and lightly. 
 Moreover, the relief work is cast at the same time and 
 in the same piece with the groundwork, so that the relief 
 may be as low and the detail as small as desired. This 
 enables the designer to model his work in clay in pre- 
 cisely the same manner as the old stucco-worker did his 
 ceiling, save that it is not done in situ, as the artist must 
 exercise his reason instead of his eye. Unfortunately, 
 the modeller's reason is rarely so cultivated as is his eye. 
 From this model a mould is taken in gelatine, which 
 being pliant enables the undercut portions of the mould, 
 and consequently the cast, to relieve itself, and an effect 
 of lightness to be attained with ease, which under the 
 old process of rigid moulding could be but imperfectly 
 obtained with much trouble and difficulty." 
 
 Canvas plaster in its general effect has much in 
 
 * The late G. T. Robinson, F.S.A., in The Magazine of Art, August 
 1892, p. 357. 
 
 187 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 common with those ceiUng decorations which ItaHan 
 workmen made in England for the brothers Adam, 
 using a secret composition, a putty-Hke mixture, pressed 
 into box-wood moulds. Mr. Stephen Webb has de- 
 signed some charmingly simple work for canvas plaster, 
 and modelled it also for Messrs. George .lackson and 
 Sons, whose ancestors worked under the brothers Adam 
 and divined the secret of that famous composition to 
 which I have just referred. 
 
 Mr. Bankart has recently published an excellent book 
 on the art of plaster (B. T. Batsford, publisher), which 
 ought to be studied by every one who intends to build 
 a house. 
 
 188 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 WINDOWS, BLINDS, AND CURTAINS 
 
 One old English name for window was eye-hole, and 
 there is still a resemblance between eyes and windows, 
 for they receive light and betray character. As the 
 best things in conversation are spoken by the eyes, not 
 by the tongue, so a great many useful matters in the 
 home arts are made known by windows, matters which 
 sometimes represent the spirit of a long historic period. 
 Contrast the tiny windows in feudal castles with the 
 vast ones built by Elizabethan gentlemen, and you will 
 realise to the full the difference between the great dawn 
 of modern history and the earlier types of society, when 
 sunlight was kept from rooms lest stones and arrows 
 should enter by the same openings. Men were terribly 
 afraid of death during feudal times, as may be learnt 
 also from the ponderous armour worn by knights. 
 Dangers were sought then because they were feared, just 
 as children are tempted to climb trees by their ashamed 
 dread of falling. The birth of courage is a revolt 
 against fear, and its Hfe is a tradition handed on from 
 generation to generation. The epochs of tiny windows 
 saw the birth of national courage and the making of the 
 first traditions in national heroisms ; while large windows 
 
 189 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 were contemporary with enlarged hopes and with new 
 forms of daring enterprise, discovered by the great sea- 
 adventurers, Cabot, CoUimbus, Vasco da Gama, and 
 many others. The sixteenth century, hke Goethe's 
 last words, cried out for *' More Light." Houses were 
 sometimes built with more glass than wall. The sun 
 was courted indoor like a king at his coronation. 
 
 Note, too, that all our own windows are historic in a 
 far-off way. Some are leaf-shaped ; they point heaven- 
 ward and recall to mind the aspiring religious hopes 
 expressed by architects during the thirteenth and four- 
 teenth centuries. Then there are square-headed 
 windows with bold mullions and transoms, and framed 
 at the top with good straight dripstones which turn 
 down a Httle at the sides. These come to us from the 
 fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but many were built 
 at a later time ; and even our Minister of Home Life, 
 the Jerry-Builder, has tried his hand at Tudor and 
 Elizabethan windows, compUmenthig the past in his 
 own slipshod and dishonest way. Mullions and tran- 
 soms are mediaeval traditions, like oriels and bay- 
 windows : they belong to the Gothic arts. JNIany other 
 wdndows are Classic ; that is, they form part of those 
 Italian ideals of style which came to England at the 
 Renaissance, and renewed the old power of the Roman 
 genius. There are different shapes in Classic windows, 
 some being tall and narrow, others wider and shorter ; 
 but all on the same level are of the same size and equi- 
 distant from each other. Classic wnidows are usually 
 190 
 
WINDOWS, BLINDS, AND CURTAINS 
 
 deep-set in the masonry, and many are crowned with a 
 triangular headstone known as a pediment. 
 
 Perhaps the most famihar Classic window in English 
 homes is the slender type, tall and narrow, as in Bedford 
 Square, London. It has a distinction of its own in 
 well-built houses, particularly when the sashes and 
 frames are painted white. Windows with pleasant 
 white fi-ames are a characteristic of the Queen Anne 
 architecture, so called, and here the white woodwork 
 lies flush with the brick walls. There is something 
 wholesome and friendly in white window-frames, as 
 there is in clean cuffs and collars. Some experts put 
 window-frames in deep brown or in dark green, while 
 persons of no taste like pale greens, or give their hearts 
 to ochre tints often grained to resemble oak. That 
 part of the human mind where taste lives an uneasy life 
 of fashion, or a dull existence of stereotyped convention, 
 is hard to influence seriously ; but if I may venture a 
 dogmatism in a diffident manner, let me say that 
 although a hard landlord may object to the outside 
 use of white for windows, he cannot stop you from 
 using that colour indoors. 
 
 At one time all woodwork in rooms was painted 
 white, and this treatment, with its cleanliness and com- 
 fort, has been revived by some modern architects, as by 
 ^Ir. Walter Cave. 
 
 But I do not recommend the use of white for all 
 whidows. Most suburban windows are pretentiously 
 bad in workmanship, and white frames and sash-bars 
 
 191 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 would make them more conspicuous, like impudent- 
 looking eyes with painted lashes and eyebrows. Jerry- 
 built houses look best from outside when the window- 
 frames and sash-bars are dark-coloured. 
 
 It seems worth while to mention a few other facts 
 which should be kept in mmd when flats and houses 
 have to be chosen. JNIany persons have a passion for 
 very big windows, forgetting that a large surface of cold 
 glass produces a draught during the winter months ; 
 for the warmed air is chilled by it all day long, and the 
 chilled air is driven into the room by the heated air 
 which displaces it. These back-draughts from icy 
 window-panes usually pass unnoticed, but they do much 
 harm in the course of a year. Much impure air, coming 
 in contact with the glass, cannot rise above the breathing 
 zone of our dwelling-rooms ; hence it is always difficult 
 in winter to get a good ventilation accompanied by 
 sufficient warmth. AVindows of a moderate size are 
 best for household comfort and health ; moderate size, 
 namely, in con'cct proportion with the area of wall 
 surface. A good housewife should consider all these 
 points, and notice also how windows are placed in their 
 relation to doors and fireplaces. Jeriy-builders have 
 invented many draughts, their bad grates needing a 
 breeze to make them " draw." 
 
 There is also another matter, and that is the absurd 
 way in which sash-bars are whittled down till they are 
 too thin to be noticed at a little distance. The aim is 
 to give a glazed window the appearance of a clear 
 192 
 
CUKTAIN BLINDS ADAPTED TO 
 A SASH WINDOW 
 
 The upper curtains are drawn by a 
 light pulley and line 
 
 INNER CASEMENT BLINDS MADE OF HEAL & SON'S CASEMENT FLAX 
 Which may be bought in many tints, both plain and figured 
 
175 
 
 161 172 
 
 i 
 
 121 
 
 )^ 
 
 157 
 
 108 DRAWBACK 
 IOB'* «IM LOCK 
 
 I 
 
 175 
 
 141 
 
 •Jo—- 
 
 159 
 
 «©•• 
 
 129 7 
 
 ^ 
 
 142 ,3a '^^ 
 
 I'.uoxzK Fii riN(;s 
 
 /)esi;/,i,tl l>!l i . V. A. ^■uvsl,^, Jrcliihct, a„<l mod. I'll IlK.MAs Klm.iv. I.I.I. I-ondou 
 
WINDOWS, BLINDS, AND CURTAINS 
 
 opening, a foolish deception, since windows without 
 glass would be unserviceable in modern England. Good 
 architects never fail to let us know that their windows 
 are glazed, and you have only to look at a Queen Anne 
 house, so called, to see the value of thick sash-bars and 
 of broad window-frames, which seem to continue the 
 wall surface over the windows. Looking at a window 
 from outside, we ought to see clearly that it is not a 
 void, an open hole ; and in a room we should be 
 conscious that there is some adequate protection 
 between us and the cold air out of doors. A plain 
 sheet of glass, being transparent, is like an open space 
 unguarded ; there is nothing definite to tell us that the 
 window is glazed. 
 
 In a great many houses children might walk through 
 big window-panes and hurt themselves dangerously, 
 not seeing the glass by which the rooms are separated 
 from the balconies. Such accidents have occurred 
 during the last thirty years. They enforce the old 
 lesson, to which I am constantly returning, that every- 
 thing in household art must be fit for its purpose, and 
 assure us by its look that it is so. 
 
 In any photograph of houses you will see that those 
 wdndows look well in which the sash-bars are strongly 
 marked, while those with large sheets of glass make 
 vacant spaces in the solid walls and are ugly. Our fore- 
 fathers had better taste. They knew the value of 
 strong mullions and transoms, they hked small window- 
 panes leaded into picturesque and simple patterns ; and 
 
 N 193 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 when sash windows came into vogue they put in plenty 
 of strong wood. Enghshmen from the sixteenth to the 
 eighteenth century loved daylight quite as much as 
 we do, only they were accustomed to structural work 
 n architecture, while we are not. 
 
 Indeed, for some reason hard to explain, we are 
 amazingly irrational in our professed love for light and 
 air. After building windows too big for our rooms, and 
 after covering them with large panes of glass set in 
 very thin sash-bars, we talk loudly about the comfort 
 of light, and then get rid of that comfort with thick 
 blinds and superabundant curtains. This done, we are 
 content. Men of science complain, and architects point 
 out that glazed openings in a wall are dangerous when 
 the eye does not see at once that they are glazed. To 
 these protests we hsten unmoved, reason having little 
 chance when conventions become stereotyped. 
 
 Yet we do not waste time if we try to think for a few 
 moments about the use of blinds and curtains What is 
 your opinion concerning Venetian blinds, for example ? 
 Are they attractive and convenient ? Is it a pleasure 
 to move them up and down ? Do they get out of 
 order ? Are children tempted to let them fall with a 
 rattle, as if a gatling gun had been fired in honour of 
 Papa and Mamma ? Is there enough sunhght in our 
 drab towns to justify the ostentatious fear of the sun's 
 heat that Venetian blinds compel us to show off ? 
 
 These are questions which you must answer in your 
 own way. To me it seems clear that Venetian blinds 
 194 
 
WINDOWS, BLINDS, AND CURTAINS 
 
 are out of place in the British Isles. If I had to choose 
 between them and the folly of wearing kilts and tartans 
 in Venice, I should hesitate which to select. Shutters, 
 too, are out of date : they vanished with the public 
 dangers which kept them in vogue for many centuries. 
 As late as sixty years ago London houses were built 
 with shutters on the second floor, as if thieves were 
 acrobats and policemen blind. To-day, happily, shutters 
 are rehcs of history, like body armour and hoop petti- 
 coats. 
 
 Our windows need nothing more than blinds, and a 
 blind is a simple thing with us, having but two pur- 
 poses to serve : 
 
 1. To protect rooms during the day from any direct 
 sunlight which might harm pictures and bleach wall- 
 papers and textile fabrics. 
 
 2. To act as a screen after dark so that the family 
 life in rooms may not be spied upon from outside when 
 the artificial lights are on. 
 
 A textile fabric is all that we require for these pur- 
 poses, sufficiently opaque for evening use, but not so 
 thick as to keep all sunlight from refreshing our rooms 
 by day. This point is, of course, very important. Sun- 
 light is health in our northern homes. If a sun blind 
 is too thin for evening use, a second blind should be 
 put up, inside the window. Those blinds outside win- 
 dows, which on rare occasions do duty as awnings, pay 
 too much honour to the few hot days which come to 
 us now and then in July and August. Hotels with 
 
 195 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 awnings may be right, having the charm of indiscreet 
 advertisements ; they seem to say publicly that no 
 visitor shall get a sunburnt complexion within their 
 walls. " Here everybody is swaddled in comfort," they 
 appear to say ; " for the mild uncertainties of a British 
 summer need Indian protections against heat." Can it 
 be the national sense of humour that sets up so many 
 barricades against the sun's kind attacks ? 
 
 However that may be, we bask contentedly in much 
 imagined heat. Many bhnds are thick enough to hide 
 the glare from a burning house across the street ; and 
 even their colour is often thought of in connection with 
 a vivid light which is not to be found in the British 
 Isles. Some households Hke thick blue blinds, others 
 red, and a great many feel at ease with a drab-yellow 
 material. 
 
 It is forgotten that a blind should be a passive 
 agent in the art of furnishing, and this it cannot be if its 
 colour gives a strong tint to the light which passes 
 through it. For this reason, then, a blind should be 
 neutral in colour, not red and positive, nor blue and 
 coldly assertive. The colour, too, in addition to being 
 neutral, must have a tint which direct sunlight does not 
 bleach. 
 
 But there are neutral tints of many sorts. Which 
 are the best for blinds ? 
 
 In this matter a useful hint may be borrowed from 
 print-sellers, who have a firm belief in the beautifying 
 light that comes through a white substance. Note how 
 196 
 
WINDOWS, BLINDS, AND CURTAINS 
 
 they sell an etching. The print or the proof lies between 
 a folded sheet of thin white paper, and when a clever 
 salesman displays it to a customer he lifts the paper near 
 a window, so that light may pass through the raised 
 leaf on to the etching. This trick, even when tested 
 on water-colour drawings and oil-pictures, has a trans- 
 figuring result ; and hence we may conclude that white 
 blinds are the most favourable for our principal rooms, 
 the least likely to disturb our schemes of colour. Not a 
 cold, staring white, of course, but ivory-white, warm and 
 beautiful. 
 
 Some friends of mine hke straw tints, but these, I 
 beheve, though excellent for window-curtains of Nun's 
 Cloth, are too yellowy for bhnds, in which the warmest 
 white ought not to be more than cream-coloured. Those 
 shades, known as coffee tints, and those to be found in 
 Tussore silks, are not pleasant against the light, nor do 
 they look well from outside, a point to be remembered 
 always in window-decoration. White bhnds, to be sure, 
 are quickly soiled in towns, but less so than shirts, collars, 
 and other necessaries. Let us do what is best— and pay 
 the cost in washing bills. We don't wear blue wrist- 
 bands or scarlet collars. Why use blue and scarlet 
 blinds when white is much better ? Eastlake says that 
 for summer bhnds there is scarcely a better material 
 than that which is known as " Swiss Lace." It is 
 made of stout thread-cotton, and worked in two or 
 three small patterns which are well-defined. It is apt 
 to shrink a little in washing, but otherwise it is really 
 
 197 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 useful — more so, indeed, than a good many more 
 expensive materials. 
 
 Next, as regards bedroom blinds. Do they not inter- 
 fere with that circulation of air through the windows 
 concerning which all the world talks ? Many persons 
 open their bedroom windows at top and bottom, then 
 pull down some thick blue blinds, draw heavy curtains, 
 and yet retain their belief in the urgent necessity of 
 sleep accompanied by fresh air. The imagination may 
 be stimulated, but the fresh air is out of doors. Other 
 persons, having no sense of humour, sleep with their 
 heads outside the windows, and don't know what 
 comical figures they look. Excess always has been the 
 enemy of progress. It kills many good movements in 
 England. Open-air sleep is a splendid tonic in a good 
 climate, but human nature rebels against it in the dust 
 and fogs of northern cities. Fresh air without draughts — 
 that is the ventilation we need in bedrooms ; and surely 
 we may get it without giving way to fads which make us 
 irritably self-conscious. To give incessant thought to 
 health is a form of mental weakness. 
 
 If blinds and curtains were done away with in bed- 
 rooms, the two necessary things— privacy and fresh air 
 — could be got in several ways. The window-panes 
 could be of stained or painted glass ; this, of course, 
 would hide the views outside, but the purpose of a bed- 
 room window has no connection with views. It is 
 there to catch the morning sun, to light the room and 
 to keep it pure with fresh air. These are the points 
 198 
 
WINDOWS, BLINDS, AND CURTAINS 
 
 to be considered ; it is a matter of no consequence if 
 the panes of glass are opaque. Yet, as one of the 
 pleasures of life is to be irrational, we rebel against the 
 suggestion of stained glass for windows and then cover 
 up transparent glass with curtains. The lower sash is 
 nearly always curtained, so that part, at least, might be 
 in opaque glass. 
 
 Again, a new kind of window-curtain might be in- 
 vented — a sort of awning inside bedrooms, moved up 
 and down along curved metal bars running from the 
 cornice of the window recess to the skirting. The 
 awning itself would be perforated well at top and also 
 at the bottom, to allow free ventilation between the 
 room and the open window ; and the curved bars would 
 form a good air-space behind the curtain. At the sides 
 the awning would be open. With this arrangement, if 
 the lower window-sash were glazed with painted glass, 
 the usual curtains would be unnecessary, and the room 
 at night could be kept fresh and invigorating. 
 
 The trouble is that the dressing-table, even in these 
 days of electric light, is usually put within a foot of the 
 window, with the result that a wet night does harm if 
 the window is opened and the blind up. But if the 
 necessity of fresh air is to be a real thing to us, not mere 
 talk, the dressing-table must have a window of its own 
 or be moved elsewhere, and the rain allowed to splash 
 in at the main window. 
 
 Then, as to curtains in general, I hesitate to speak 
 about them, partly because householders like them, 
 
 199 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 despite the criticisms offered by men of science, and partly 
 because many trades depend for their success on curtain 
 materials. The science of health has not a word to say 
 in the favour of curtains, not even when they are 
 nothing more than washable textiles hanging by the 
 " Neta " clips * from thin metal bars along the wood- 
 work of windows, t Carpets may be cleaned daily with 
 pneumatic sweepers, while curtains (as a rule) are fixed 
 to a big rod or pole and hold the dust which they 
 collect ; hold it till incoming air dislodges some part of 
 of it. We cannot move a curtain without circulating 
 dust and germs. 
 
 On the other hand, most window openings are 
 designed for curtains and would look naked without 
 them ; hence a compromise must be hit upon. Perhaps 
 the most familiar curtains are those which in pairs weigh 
 about a quarter of a ton, suggesting either a degree 
 of cold, arctic enough to rejoice the Polar bear at the 
 Zoo., or a searching daylight quite unknown to us. 
 These curtains hang for months at a time without 
 being freed from dust by a thorough shaking out of 
 doors. It is odd how uncleanly we are when custom 
 gives permission. 
 
 * Neta curtain clips are much better than the old-fashioned curtain 
 pins and rings. A sample dozen costs 1*. 6d., 34 Strand, London, 
 W.C. 
 
 t In some catalogues, as in those published by Story and Co., 
 Kensington, London, illustrations are given of historic fashions in the 
 use of window curtains. 
 
 200 
 
WINDOWS, BLINDS, AND CURTAINS 
 
 Years ago, when living among landladies, I persuaded 
 one good dame to take down a wonderful display of 
 curtains. Some were in coffee -coloured "lace," so- 
 called, lace ornamented with big scrolls, sprawling 
 leaves, and queer designs Hke vases turned upside down. 
 Elves might do such work to delight a mad fairy queen. 
 Yet my landlady loved those curtains, and declined to 
 put them up by themselves, without a solid drapery to 
 protect their beauty. A foot of lace might be exhibited : 
 then came yards of vermilion cloth looped up into folds. 
 How long these outer curtains had been there I do not 
 know, but the folds were full of dust ; and imagine the 
 contrast between the coffee-tinted lace and the ver- 
 milion draperies ! With great tact I suggested to my 
 landlady that such curtains were too good to be used 
 daily, that lavender and a cupboard belonged to them 
 by right, and that I would welcome their presence on 
 Bank HoHdays. Despite this persuasion, my " uncivil 
 haction " was resented, and the curtains were put back 
 whenever I left town for a few days. 
 
 To understand the conservatism of many women is a 
 problem not to be solved by men. Window curtains 
 are guarded by it in a multitude of households ; and so 
 I offer with diffidence the following hints : 
 
 1. Curtains are made for rooms, not rooms for cur- 
 tains ; so why should the lesser things appear to contain 
 the greater ? 
 
 2. Curtain materials should be light in weight. 
 Heavy curtains imply that modem servants are idola- 
 
 201 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 trously fond of work, which is untrue. Besides, when 
 the removal of a curtain is an athletic exercise followed 
 by pains in the back, neither mistress nor maid is 
 happier. 
 
 3. Curtains are not improved when looped up into 
 dustbins. 
 
 4. As windows should give light and air, not a settled 
 twilight, curtains ought not to block up the window 
 recesses, but hang at the sides decoratively. Blindman's 
 BufF is not a game to be played with windows and 
 curtains. 
 
 5. Curtains with horizontal bands or stripes, though 
 effective in well-chosen materials, make low rooms seem 
 lower, while upright lines give height to low rooms. 
 
 6. Nun's Cloth is a good curtain material ; it goes 
 well with many schemes of decoration, having the tints 
 of ripe English corn. Write to Burnett's, Long Acre, 
 London. 
 
 7. Dark green — deep peacock green — is another 
 colour that sorts well with many decorative effects. 
 
 8. The point to be decided is the relation between 
 your curtains and the floors and walls. Walls and 
 floors should oppose each other, that is, should have 
 colours that contrast harmoniously ; and remember 
 always, in this connection, that if you repeat the same 
 local colour in your carpet and your wall decoration, 
 you produce timid harmonies that become tiresome, 
 monotonous. It is contrast that gives life to a colour- 
 scheme. Curtains, therefore, while according with the 
 202 
 
WINDOWS, BLINDS, AND CURTAINS 
 
 floor and the walls, ought to enter into your contrastive 
 effects. This may be done in several ways. The cur- 
 tains may repeat the carpet and oppose the walls, or be 
 in harmonious opposition to both, forming a separate 
 and distinct contrast to be repeated, let us say, in the 
 table-cover and in plain hearth-tiles. 
 
 9. If you wish to use patterned curtains in gay tints, 
 remember that springtime effects of colour are as easy 
 to mismanage in decorative art as love poems are easy 
 to miswrite. 
 
 10. Messrs. Morris and Co., 449 Oxford Street, London, 
 Uke Messrs. Story and Co., of Kensington, have many 
 excellent figured curtain stuffs which are easy to use well, 
 their patterns being unassertive. One material, known 
 as the Swivel Damask, is in tints of beautiful blue, not 
 in the least steely and cold, and so they fall into harmony 
 with many combinations of colour. The Little Anemone 
 Damask is good, and the Mohair Damask also ; but, of 
 course, all textile fabrics are points in one general scheme 
 of decoration, and cannot be considered merely by them- 
 selves. 
 
 11. For a good many years now — indeed, ever since 
 the fiesthetic craze of the " seventies " and " eighties " — 
 much time has been given to the production of pale 
 tints for textile fabrics. They look beautiful in shop 
 windows, and artists borrow hints from them. A famous 
 Belgian painter used to rave about these "English 
 colours," standing for long half-hours before certain 
 shop- windows, " to fill his eye," as he said with enthu- 
 
 203 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 siasm. Yet these colours have as a rule no real sub- 
 stance : they look artificial, overbred, not unlike those 
 variegated poppies which have ousted from our gardens 
 the alert, old-fashioned variety. In a lady's boudoir 
 they may be effective, but they remind me always of 
 Titania and her fairies. They would be delightful in 
 the Midsummer Nighfs Tyream. If a strong man 
 tried to live with these diaphanous colours, would he 
 not feel rather ashamed of his good health ? It is a 
 question of taste. Yet I venture to think that we have 
 more to learn about colour from English roses and field 
 flowers than from exotic plants in the hot-houses at 
 Kew Gardens, where the colours in question seem to 
 have had their origin. 
 
 12. Another point. All good colour is " bright," not 
 vivid. Many persons misunderstand the meaning of 
 the word " bright," and connect it at once with pale 
 tints of a brilliant hue. " Bright " means that a good 
 colour has life, like a true note struck from a musical 
 instrument. Bright is the antithesis of " drab," nonde- 
 script colour without life ; and this fact is a guide in the 
 choice of textile fabrics for home use. 
 
 13. Shopkeepers offer for sale many materials which, 
 though beautiful by themselves, have not the mixed 
 tints composed by artists and most likely to go well 
 with other good colours. All artistic colour is a mix- 
 ture, and the most useful tints are those in which the 
 three primaries — yellow, red, and blue — are to some 
 extent present. Cobalt, for instance, has a pinky tinge 
 204 
 
WINDOWS, BLINDS, AND CURTAINS 
 
 denoting the presence of red, while indigo has a green 
 tinge showing the presence of yellow ; and from these 
 blues a great variety of tints can be made, all with 
 broken qualities. Study the blues in nature and in art, 
 and note in them the presence of the other primaries. 
 You will soon learn that blue is blue in a very subtle 
 way, and that you hesitate to put a name on it. 
 
 14. Yellow, again, to be useful in art, must not be 
 positive, but varied like amber, or deliciously grey and 
 sweet like a primrose. 
 
 15. The finest reds are many-hued, ranging from 
 transparent ruby to deep purple. 
 
 16. The safe greens in decoration have in them a 
 touch of red. Hence a good dyer, after treating his 
 material in the indigo vat, not only greens it with a 
 good yellow, but adds what else may be necessary (as, 
 e.g., madder) to modify the colour. 
 
 17. Remember, then, that a good colour is never too 
 much itself: never too green, too yellow, too red, or 
 too anything else ; and hence the brightness of a good 
 colour never comes forward, does not seem near to your 
 eyes, but keeps with distinction a certain aloofness. It 
 has all the qualities of good breeding. For this reason, 
 when in a shop, turn from those colours which attract 
 immediate attention. They are too loquacious to be 
 pleasant companions. 
 
 18. In curtains as in other materials some colours 
 should be put aside at once as impossible. I have men- 
 tioned them before, but here they are again : vermilion, 
 
 205 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 emerald-green, terra-cotta, puce, light vivid greens, and 
 what painters call "sad "tints, z>., tints without life, 
 dull and drab, or washy and insipid. 
 
 Colour being the sunshine of art, you cannot give 
 too much thought and observation to its harmonies. 
 
 200 
 
THE MAULOWK •J'A1'P:SJKV 
 
 A canvas groiiiid witli K.li/.abftlian ilt'sign 
 
 Messrs. Stohy A- Co.. London 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 TEXTILE FABRICS 
 
 We have already considered several kinds of textile 
 fabrics in their relation to structural parts of the house, 
 floors, and walls, and windows ; and the decorative 
 principles that govern their design have been stated 
 and illustrated. Nothing more need be said about 
 tapestries, carpets, and curtains, except this : that their 
 selection requires infinite patience and care. Two diffi- 
 culties have to be faced and both are exceedingly trying. 
 The one, of course, is a plethora of pattern, often too 
 realistic and obtrusive ; while the second is a choice of 
 such old designs as happen to be too " fussy." The 
 notion that all ancient designs are good is wrong, yet 
 this fact is not remembered by many manufacturers, 
 who go to great expense in reproducing for household 
 use a hurried selection of old textiles. 
 
 In many ways, and particularly in the daily costumes 
 worn by women and men, life is much simpler now than 
 it used to be ; and the ancient fabrics which have come 
 down to us — tapestries, brocades, and so forth — were 
 made for home surroundings more splendid than our 
 own, for they appealed to the rich at a time when dress 
 was very costly and luxurious. This ought never to be 
 
 207 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 forgotten, though it often is, especially by manufac- 
 turers, who try to adapt for our ordinary houses much 
 work that belongs in style and character to a vanished 
 type of society, so different from ours that it seems 
 unreal when good acting sets it before us in costumed 
 plays. Unless we study art in its relation to social 
 manners and customs, we cannot understand its spirit, 
 nor learn how to divide its characteristics into those 
 which are useful to us because they are permanent, and 
 those which have no value now because they represent 
 dead customs or spent fashions. 
 
 Hence, if we wish to use old designs on modern textile 
 fabrics, we must think of them from two points of view : 
 
 1. Are they permanently good, or do they belong to 
 a . outworn fashion ? 
 
 2. Are they in harmony with our modest home life 
 and with our cUmate ? 
 
 Patterns on beautiful rich draperies which looked 
 splendid in Italian palaces of the time of Raphael, are 
 absurd to-day on linen curtains in a London \dlla. 
 Borrowed patterns have much in common with borrowed 
 money : they lead to trouble unless we give security for 
 their proper use. The necessary thing is to show a 
 certain quality which is not often exhibited in shop 
 windows — namely, judgment hi matters of taste. 
 
 AVhat do we gain if we borrow from the eighteenth 
 century, a period when textile fabrics were ornamented 
 by a declining art ? Why return to the early Victorian 
 times, when their decorative styles have been laughed 
 208 
 
LIXEN FADRK' 
 
 The Siiiike-Heinl Pattt-ni 
 
 Di'siiined hij William Mouius, and made hij Mouuis .t Co. 
 

 
 TKXTILK FABKIC 
 
 'I'lic I'oIIU'iil'illliltl' I'attLTU 
 Jjini;/!!!!/ 1,(1 Wll.l.l AM MultUl.-, ail'l linnlr hit MolilUS .V Co. 
 
TEXTILE FABRICS 
 
 at by all connoisseurs during the last fifty years ? To 
 learn lessons from the past we must go to the best 
 periods of design, and note with care those patterns 
 which are too quiet to be at all " fussy " in our small 
 rooms. Perhaps the manufacturers will make a note ? 
 
 Then there is another trouble. A book on Furnish- 
 ing must give illustrations, yet the author knows very 
 well that small blocks give a false idea of patterned 
 textiles, carpets, and paperhangings. Even if they give 
 the colours approximately, they cannot show the size or 
 scale of any design ; and the most useful patterns for 
 home use are often the least effective in a book. Thus 
 the illustrations, though chosen with care from the best 
 shops, are not published without fear and scruple. 
 They cannot be guides to the choice of textile fabrics, 
 since the question of choice differs with the many cir- 
 cumstances by which our rooms and our needs are made 
 what they are, infinitely various. It is only by testing 
 the effect which a fabric makes in situ, and in relation to 
 other things, that its value to us can be ascertained. 
 
 William Morris used to say that householders should 
 go to the South Kensington Museum and study invalu- 
 able fragments of stuffs weaved in Syria and Sicily 
 during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, or the 
 almost equally beautiful webs of Persian design, which 
 are later in date, but instinct with the purest and best 
 Eastern feeling. " They may also note the splendid 
 stuffs produced mostly in Italy in the later Middle Ages, 
 which are unsurpassed for richness and effect of design, 
 
 o 209 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 and when they have impressed their minds with the pro- 
 ductions of this great historic school, let them contrast 
 with them the work of the vile Pompadour period, 
 passing by the early seventeenth century as a period of 
 transition into corruption. They will then (if they 
 have real artistic perception) see at once the difference 
 between the results of irrepressible imagination and 
 love of beauty, on the one hand, and, on the other, of 
 restless and weary vacuity of mind, forced by the 
 exigencies of fashion to do something or other to the 
 innocent surface of the cloth in order to distinguish it 
 in the market from other cloths." 
 
 There can be no doubt that William Morris gave 
 excellent advice, and followed it himself, usually, in his 
 own textile fabrics. But then, will housewives be 
 willing to go to South Kensington and there fill their 
 eyes with the best colours and patterns ? If so, they 
 will need no other help. All the principles dealt with 
 in this book are taken from the masters of design, 
 though my own dislike for even slight realism in applied 
 ornament is to a certain extent a personal preference. 
 The masters are never realistic in a pictorial way, but 
 some are nearer to the truth of natural forms than 
 others. WilUam Morris summed up this matter by 
 referring to " the simple and fresh beauty that comes 
 of a sympathetic suggestion of natural forms " : 
 adding — 
 
 " If the pattern be vigorously and firmly drawn with a 
 true feeling for the beauty of line and silhouette, the 
 210 
 
>^ 2 ii 
 
 ^ 
 
 5 '^ 
 
 >-l 
 
 "S ?^ 
 
 1_] 
 
 '^. "* 
 
 
 -■'C 
 
 w 
 
 cS S 
 
 X 
 
 3 — 
 
 -2 ^ 
 "3 -J 
 
 "^ > ^-1 
 
- K1..MCOTK" llAM>-\Vn\ KN TAl'KSTKV 
 
 TIIK 'III, II' AND NKl 1 1 A N I i-W < »\ KN WOOL TArKSlliV 
 
 /iKsit/Wil //// Will I \M Monuis. .(/«/ //"«/< I'!/ Mouiiis .V Co. 
 
TEXTILE FABRICS 
 
 play of light and shade on the material of the simple 
 twill will give all the necessary variety." 
 
 And here are three other principles by the same 
 master : 
 
 1. The aim should be to combine clearness of form 
 and firmness of structure with the mystery which comes 
 of abundance and richness of detail. This guiding rule 
 is taken from the great epochs of textile art, when 
 fabrics of Syrian and Sicilian manufacture were at their 
 best ; but it is a dangerous rule to carry into practice 
 under our industrial system, and, more than once, it got 
 Morris himself into trouble, A good many of his 
 designs just touch that unhappy point where abundance 
 and richness of detail cease to make mystery and begin 
 to fatigue the eye. Morris, too, was aware that his rule 
 was difficult to apply, particularly in flat painted decora- 
 tion and in wall-papers, because in these the repeating 
 pattern is spread out flat against the wall, while textiles 
 usually hang in folds that break up the pattern more 
 or less. 
 
 2. Do not introduce any lines or objects which cannot 
 be explained by the structure of the pattern. Why ? 
 Morris replies : " It is just this logical sequence of form, 
 this growth which looks as if, under the circumstances, 
 it could not have been otherwise, which prevents the 
 eye wearying of the repetition of the pattern." Only, 
 
 3. Never introduce any shading for the puiyose of 
 making an object look round ; whatever shading you use 
 should be used for explanation only, to show what you 
 
 211 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 mean by such and such a piece of drawing ; and even 
 that you had better be sparing of.'* 
 
 4. " Never forget the material you are working with, 
 and try always to use it for doing what it can do best. 
 It is the pleasure in understanding the capabilities of a 
 special material, and using them for suggesting (not 
 imitating) natural beauty and incident, that gives the 
 raison detre of decorative art." 
 
 These principles and others will be found in every 
 chapter of this book, and they show how very careful 
 you must be in your home decorations. All questions 
 of choice rest with you, and a modern shop fatigues the 
 eye and the mind quite as much as the selection of 
 pictures for an exhibition. Shopkeepers have begun 
 to understand this fact, and some of them issue cata- 
 logues in colour of furnishing fabrics, so that house- 
 wives may make a first choice from colour-prints before 
 seeing the textiles. It is a good idea and should be 
 carried further. 
 
 If this good beginning be followed by much larger 
 catalogues of the same kind, housewives will be spared 
 many headaches and a great waste of time, because they 
 will be able to tell from three or four books where they 
 are most likely to find what they need for a given 
 purpose. 
 
 Under each reproduction in colour the manufacturers 
 should say in what manner the textile is printed, 
 whether by machine with aniline dyes, or by blocks and 
 the old dye-stuffs and methods. Hand-printing by 
 212 
 
CUllTAIN 
 JJtsiffiird by C. F. A. Voysey, Jrcliifevf, Loudon 
 
THK SILVKltTON TA I'KSTi; V 
 Mkssus. Stohv .V Cii.. Kc'iisiu'Moii, l.oinldii, A\'. 
 
TEXTILE FABRICS 
 
 blocks, as William Morris pointed out, is subject 
 pretty much to the same laws of design as govern 
 carpets : " only, in the first place, more play of delicate 
 and pretty colour is possible, and more variety of colour 
 also ; and, in the second, much more use can be made of 
 hatching and dotting, which are obviously suitable to the 
 method of block-printing. In the many-coloured printed 
 cloths, frank red and blue are again the mainstays of the 
 colour arrangement ; these colours, softened by the paler 
 shades of red, outlined with black and made more tender 
 by the addition of yellow in small quantities, mostly 
 forming part of brightish greens, make up the colouring 
 of the old Persian prints, which carry the art as far as it 
 can be carried." 
 
 Another point of great interest gave much concern to 
 William Morris, namely, the harmful effect which 
 Japanese art has had on English household taste. The 
 Japanese are splendid draughtsmen, admirable natural- 
 ists, and wonderful in their mastery of hand-craft ; but 
 they have not a true feeling either for architecture or 
 for applied ornament. The Chinese have been their 
 superiors in decorative intuition or instinct. The 
 Japanese are masters of a style which has no value at 
 all unless it is managed with Japanese sleight of hand, 
 a gift encouraged from early youth by the custom of 
 writing with a brush. " Their works of art (said 
 Morris) are isolated and blankly individualistic, and in 
 consequence, unless where they rise, as they sometimes 
 do, to the dignity of a suggestion for a picture (always 
 
 213 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 devoid of human interest), they remain mere wonderful 
 toys, things quite outside the pale of the evolution of 
 art, which cannot be carried on without the architec- 
 tectural sense that connects it with the history of 
 mankind." 
 
 That is true, no doubt, but the fascination of Japanese 
 art is another truth, and it has misled many English 
 people in their embroideries and in their home surround- 
 ings. Not only does it take us away from our own 
 good traditions of decorative design, but it reconciles us 
 to naturalist methods of work which we neither want 
 nor are able to imitate with success. Art, indeed, has 
 become so wildly cosmopolitan that many of us forget 
 to pay attention to the best traditional methods and 
 ideals ; and hence we are rather startled when a writer 
 brings us back to useful first principles, such as may be 
 found in the Gothic arts and in some kinds of Eastern 
 manufacture. 
 
 Remember alw^ays that the nearer you get to the 
 great epochs of art, which he between the thirteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries, the closer you come to the main 
 principles of decorati\ e design and colour, the only sure 
 guides through the pitfalls that lie about the feet of any 
 one who furnishes a house. The study of good old 
 work, then, is of the highest importance, is essential, 
 not because you wish to copy it slavishly, but because 
 you learn from it why it is good, and what you must 
 shun in our modern fashions if your home is to be a 
 lasting joy to you. 
 214 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 ARTIFICIAL HEAT AND LIGHT 
 
 One of the most serious problems in household life is 
 the cost of heating rooms in winter. We keep tena- 
 ciously to open fireplaces, and we burn coal, though its 
 winter price in towns has given it a new name— black 
 gold. Whatever coal-masters may receive for it at the 
 pit-mouth, where the price per ton often shows only a 
 small profit, householders benefit not at all, for coal 
 becomes shockingly dear after a middleman has bought 
 it for distribution in thronged cities and urban districts. 
 With a spell of nipping black frost, when chilblains are 
 more numerous than children, and far m.ore troublesome 
 than parents (so the children say), it is then that coal 
 rises by shillings above a normal high price ; while in 
 summer we get plaintive intimations from middlemen 
 that coal has " gone down " owing to the dog-days, and 
 that a winter stock should be taken in at once; the 
 dealers knowing that not one family in fifty has a store- 
 place big enough to hold even two tons. A bird caught 
 with its leg in a trap is perhaps as ineffectual as we are 
 when we flutter into rebellion against our coal bills, and 
 remember that the more urgently we need fuel the 
 higher we raise the cost of it to our own hurt. 
 
 215 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 If we got in our rooms all the heat generated by 
 burning coal, our troubles would be less annoying ; but, 
 with our system of open fireplaces, and the keen 
 draughts that pass under doors to the hearth, a great 
 deal of heat goes up the chimney, bearing with it our 
 pence and shillings. A French household would be 
 thrown into a panic by that want of thrift, while we 
 accept it as we do the Income Tax, grumbling a little, 
 no doubt, but with a patience inured to futile discontent. 
 Those who grumble much do not act with energy ; very 
 seldom do they go beyond feeble compromises. 
 
 There is but one way in which coal can be burnt 
 without loss to the finance of housekeeping : open fire- 
 places must give place to well-made stoves, or to a 
 heating system worked from a furnace in the cellar or 
 in the back garden. Some London flats are warmed by 
 this means. But the average Briton pines for the open 
 hearth. *' 1 like to see my fire," he says ; " it attracts 
 the eye, it looks bright and cheery, it is hospitable." 
 He forgets that he is happy with an empty grate during 
 the summer, and that he would be so in winter also, if 
 his rooms were warm and pleasant. 
 
 Open fireplaces being a national tradition, we must 
 make the best of them, and happily we are helped 
 by many useful inventions : so many, indeed, that we 
 should seek advice from experts. Four good grates are 
 known to me, and to these I may draw attention, leaving 
 each reader to look for others : 
 
 1. The "Devon" Fire, made by Messrs. Candy and Co., 
 216 
 
ARTIFICIAL HEAT AND LIGHT 
 
 Heathfield Station, Newton Abbot, Devon. This grate 
 was put first in recent official tests carried out in the 
 New Government Offices by H.M. Office of Works and 
 the Smoke Abatement Society. Thirty-six different 
 grates competed, and the Devon Fire consumed the 
 least fuel and produced the least smoke. 
 
 2. Castle Baynard Hearth Fires, made by Alexander 
 Ritchie and Co., 12 Upper Thames Street, London, E.C. 
 These grates can be made to suit any existing chimney- 
 piece openings. They are moderate in price, simple, 
 clean, and economical. The catalogue is well illus- 
 trated. 
 
 3. The Burkone Patent Barless Fire, made by the 
 Standard Range and Foundry Co. Ltd., Watford, Herts. 
 Gained the highest award at the Cardiff Health Exhibi- 
 tion 1908. Several well-known architects have designed 
 work for these fireplaces, and notably Mr. Arnold 
 Mitchell, and Mr. C. F. A. Voysey. 
 
 4. '' The Heaped Fire," Messrs. Bratt, Colbran and 
 Co., 10 Mortimer Street, London, W. 
 
 Then, as regards the use of gas for cooking, most 
 famihes have tried it in towns, but not with encouraging 
 results. Still, failure leads to success, and I may re- 
 commend the Appleton Portable Quick Ovens, made by 
 the Quick Cooker Ltd., 118 to 122 Holborn, London, 
 E.C. 
 
 Bread, meat, fish, puddings, &c., all are well done by 
 these neat and simple ovens. The manufacturers say 
 that their apparatus gets hot in one minute, while a coal 
 
 217 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 oven takes about an hour, and ordinary gas ovens from 
 ten to fifteen minutes. 
 
 For information concerning the Air-Gas System, 
 write to Messrs. W. A. S. Benson and Co., 82 New 
 Bond Street, I^ondon, W. ; to Cox's Air-Gas Co., 
 Kentish Town Road, London, N.W. ; to JMr. Ernest 
 G. Mitchell, 192 Audrey House, Ely Place, London, 
 E.C. ; and to the National Air-Gas Co., Ltd., Bassishaw 
 House, 70a Basinghall Street, London, E.C. Mr. W. 
 A. S. Benson has issued a useful catalogue on the 
 "Eos" Gas Apparatus, a very excellent thing for 
 independent lighting. 
 
 From these practical matters we turn to their decora- 
 tive side, which cannot receive too much attention, 
 seeing that we all pride ourselves on our hearth-worship. 
 We are devotees of the fireplace. Yet the ugliness we 
 tolerate around that shrine is wonderful. Jerry-builders 
 have done their very worst with the fireplace and hearth. 
 In one large block of flats the grates bear the name of 
 a coal merchant, and their activity makes a tenant 
 poorer than he need be. When wasteful grates are 
 accompanied by hideous tiles and by chimneypieces in 
 accord with a jerry-builder's make-believe, homes are 
 strictly modern and civilised, fulfilling all the conditions 
 of supply and demand, or demand and supply. Jerry- 
 builders represent the people's gullibility. 
 
 Nor is it easy to give advice, because the great 
 majority of householders cannot afford to change their 
 fireplaces and chimneypieces. These things, however 
 218 
 
POKI.ON OF THE DIN^S'gSE&.TcL'ltlGV^V'-^"'''''"' ™"''' 
 
 — - :- p™.!-"s;r." ,^v^,\\,Vii»ir ."eIs;„^s'i.?a-'„-=. ™ '■ ^"™ 
 
F1KK1'L.\<'K IN A I.I lUIA K V 
 /;// It. S. LouiMilt, A. U.S.A., Archil, it. IvIiMbiiv-li 
 
ARTIFICIAL HEAT AND LIGHT 
 
 bad they may be, are fixtures, and the eye loses all 
 power of criticism when ugly bad work has to be 
 accepted as inevitable year after year. Under our short 
 leases we learn how to be reconciled to bad craftsman- 
 ship for our lifetime. 
 
 More than a quarter of a century has passed since 
 Charles L. Eastlake wrote about the fireplaces which 
 England enjoyed while France and Germany were at 
 war ; enjoyed, though meretricious design was in vogue, 
 and played the funniest pranks with grates, fenders, 
 fire-irons, coal-scuttles, and chimneypieces. Eastlake 
 found just fault with the popular fender, and his 
 remarks should be read in a great many households to- 
 day ; they run thus : 
 
 "The fenders, as usual, are elaborately vulgar. 
 Manufacturers will persist in decorating them with a 
 species of cast-iron ornament, which looks like a bad 
 imitation of rococo carved work. Almost all cast-iron 
 ornament (excepting the delicate patterns in very low 
 rehef, such as one sometimes sees on an old Sussex 
 stove) is hopelessly ugly. The crisp, leafy decoration, 
 and vigorous scrolls of ancient ironwork, were produced 
 by the hammer and pliers. Bolts, straps, nails, and 
 rivets, the proper and legitimate means of connecting 
 the several parts, were never concealed, but were intro- 
 duced and enriched in such a manner as not only to 
 serve a practical purpose, but to become decorative 
 features in themselves." 
 
 But criticism should be followed by practical sugges- 
 
 219 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 tions. Cast-iron fenders are popular because they are 
 inexpensive ; and most of them are bad because the 
 public does not know what ornament is good in cast 
 iron. Ruskin went so far as to say that cast iron was 
 an artistic solecism, impossible for the dual ser\dce of 
 beauty and utility. But he spoke without reflection, as 
 when he asked whether anything good ever came to us 
 from China. Cast iron was a material for true artistic 
 work during the fifteenth century, and the patterns 
 made then were used at a much later date in Kent and 
 Sussex ; they remained in stock and were cast from a 
 great many times. Gothic diapers were a common 
 ornament, and vine leaves and tendrils, with heraldic 
 badges, all in low relief, and the modelling soft and dull. 
 On this subject Mr. W. R. Lethaby has written with 
 his usual fine judgment ; * it is to his research, and to 
 that of Mr. Starkie Gardner, that we must look for 
 guidance. 
 
 The best fire-grates of cast iron belong to about the 
 middle of the eighteenth century, when they were made 
 both with hobs and with close fronts, decorated all over 
 the field with tiny flutings, and beads, and leaf mould- 
 ings, sometimes even with little figure medallions. The 
 better examples, says Mr. Lethaby, are quite successful, 
 both in form and in ornament, " which, adapted to this 
 new purpose, does no more than gracefully acknowledge 
 its debt to the past, just as the best ornament at all 
 
 * " Arts and Crafts Essays." By Members of the Arts and Crafts 
 Society. Published by B. T. Batsford, London. 
 220 
 
ARTIFICIAL HEAT AND LIGHT 
 
 times is neither original nor copied : it must recognise 
 tradition, and add something which shall be the tradi- 
 tion of the future. The method followed is to keep the 
 general form quite simple and the areas flat, while the 
 decoration, just an embroidery of the surface, is of one 
 substance and in the slightest possible relief." Mr. 
 Lethaby sums up in these words : 
 
 " The pattern must have the ornament modelled, not 
 carved, as is almost universally the case now, carving in 
 wood being entirely unfit to give the soft suggestive 
 relief required both by the nature of the sand-mould 
 into which it is impressed, and by the crystalline struc- 
 ture of the metal when cast. Flat surfaces like grate- 
 fronts may be decorated with some intricacy if the 
 rehef is delicate. But the relief must he less than the 
 basis of' attachment, so that the moulding may be easily 
 practicable, and no portions invite 07ie to test how easily 
 they might be detached." 
 
 We learn, then, that good ornament for cast iron has 
 the following characteristics : 
 
 1. Soft modelling in delicate relief. 
 
 2. Modest and suggestive patterns based on those 
 which the founder's art invented from the fifteenth 
 century to the eighteenth. Good Italian ironwork is 
 often pierced and incised, and this, too, is legitimate in 
 casting. 
 
 And it is worth while to dwell upon these matters, 
 because fenders and grates of cast iron, when thoroughly 
 black-leaded, bring into the arrangement of our rooms 
 
 221 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 a useful colour, a black that sparkles and looks 
 homely. 
 
 In connection with fenders there is one problem very 
 difficult to solve conveniently. The word fender means 
 defender, its purpose being to protect rooms from the 
 sparks and the lighted fragments of coal which often fly 
 out from a grate. Recently, when visiting a bedridden 
 friend of mine, a red-hot cinder shot out from the fire- 
 place and fell beyond the hearthrug ; and although I 
 picked it up at once, the carpet was singed to a brown 
 tint. Had this accident occurred in the night, there 
 would have been real danger. Fire-guards do not 
 deserve all the confidence we put in their protection ; 
 and yet if we turn the fender into a good barricade, we 
 keep from the room a great deal of heat. For this 
 reason all efforts to introduce tall fenders have been 
 unpopular. Mr. A. W. Blomfield made some excellent 
 designs thirty-five years ago ; other craftsmen followed 
 his example ; but the fenders that householders bought, 
 then as now, cannot be looked upon as protections 
 against fire, but as ornaments for the hearth. In other 
 words, fenders are unfit for their use, and have to be 
 re-inforced by movable fire-guards, which in their turn 
 are not always effective, since burning embers may be 
 shot over them by an explosion of gas in a lump of 
 coal. 
 
 Open fires are troublesome indeed. What are we to 
 do ? Since tall fenders interpose between us and the 
 very things we like in open fires, namely, their mild 
 222 
 
_- J 
 
 
 
 < H 
 
A |)|;.\win»m;o()\i ( lllM^•l■:^■ imkcf, 
 
 i;. S. LoKiMin, A. U.S.A.. Ariliihct, Eiliiilmi-li 
 
ARTIFICIAL HEAT AND LIGHT 
 
 warmth and their visible and homely cheeriness, that 
 question is a hard nut to crack. Some persons answer 
 it by using high fenders crowned with broad padded 
 seats, which invite a whole family to sit down sideways 
 and be angularly at ease : not a fortunate compromise. 
 A fender with seats may be finely upholstered in bright 
 leather, but it does not cheer you when you look at it 
 from a few yards' distance ; somehow it reminds you of 
 those old-fashioned pews in out-of-the-way churches 
 that rise up between your devotion and the preacher's 
 ardour. In many houses the fenders are of a different 
 kind, neither low nor high, and with a distinction that 
 speaks about a good apprenticeship among metal- 
 workers. They are old, and some are of bright steel 
 pierced in a delicate fashion, while others are of gleam- 
 ing brass or copper. They look well, but their brilliant 
 qualities give emphasis to the fact that they are orna- 
 ments only, not protective guards ; also — and this, too, 
 is not unimportant — brass and burnished steel have not 
 a workaday look, a practical and serviceable beauty, but 
 suggest unwilling housemaids and abundant cleaning. 
 It may be doubted whether suggestions of that kind are 
 at all homely to-day. Severe experts might add, prob- 
 ably with perfect justice, that open hearths are not 
 places were bright metals ought to be paraded. Still, 
 there are many young persons whose greatest enjoyment 
 is to hold to customs that their parents followed ; and 
 then, above all, there are the dear old ladies — more con- 
 servative by far than men — who sit near the chimney- 
 
 223 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 comer with their own long ago, and permit no 
 change. 
 
 On the other hand, there are homes where the hearth 
 is treated practically, a curb of stone or of terra-cotta 
 taking the place of a metal fender. It bounds a stone 
 hearth or a hearth of unglazed tiles, and pretends not at all 
 to be a safeguard against fire. That protection is given 
 by a sheet of plate glass framed in wrought-iron 
 standards, or by trellised ironwork that stands up firmly. 
 Stained glass might be used for the same purpose and 
 be as effective as enamel ; though the plain glass, no 
 doubt, is preferable, because it does not hide the fire 
 and its beautiful colours. Hearths treated in this way 
 are pleasant, serviceable facts, without pretension. It 
 does not matter if hot cinders fall on the hearthstones 
 or on unglazed tiles, and the simple curb is a boundary 
 neat and clean. There may be some risk from flying 
 sparks and cinders, but danger cannot be separated 
 entirely from the pleasures of an open fire. 
 
 In art, as in life, one bad compromise leads to another 
 as bad ; and so we find on thousands of fenders which 
 do not defend an array of fire-irons which cannot be 
 used. They are ornaments to be looked at and treated 
 with the utmost delicacy. To tarnish their brightness 
 with work — that, indeed, would be resented by women 
 as a quite unpardonable folly. " Don't you know," said 
 an aunt of mine years ago, " that beautiful polished 
 steel is not meant to be put in a fire ? Can't you see 
 the little iron poker, and is there not a shovel in the 
 224 
 
ARTIFICIAL HEAT AND LIGHT 
 
 coal-box ? " Housewives still put the same questions to 
 practical boys and girls, who have to be taught that 
 fire-irons are unfit for use. What could be more absurd 
 than a fender with unserviceable pokers and tongs ? If 
 fire-irons are necessary, if they are not obsolete like fire- 
 dogs, they ought to be fiTe-irons, not useless things in 
 burnished steel and brass ; their size, too, should be in 
 keeping with their service. Here is a perforated shovel 
 with a handle a yard in length ; and here is a pair of 
 tongs, so long that it seems intended to nip poisonous 
 snakes by the neck. Why should a shovel be per- 
 forated ? and is such a long handle convenient ? 
 
 To be brief, the fireplace and its furniture are at odds 
 with common sense. As moths fly into lighted candles, 
 so the affected shams of our household life gather 
 about the open hearth. There we find useless fenders, 
 make-bcHeve fire-irons, pretentious overmantels, cheap 
 mirrors, pottery without value, and tiles so ornate that 
 they make a bright fire look dull. In many homes 
 plush curtains hang at the sides from the mantelshelf, 
 while in others the mantelshelf is hidden by a bordering 
 of amateur needlework. It appears that simplicity and 
 truth must not keep company with expensive coal 
 burning to waste in jerry-made fireplaces. Yet Carlyle's 
 criticism holds good : it is the " modest serviceable fact, 
 not the pretentious hypocrisy," that we need in every 
 detail of home decoration. 
 
 Even the coal-box has not often that plain utility 
 which we find in cricket bats and in other sporting 
 
 p 225 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 things designed for a particular use. Most coal-boxes 
 make it an easy thing to sprinkle the carpets with bits 
 of fuel ; then we turn to the perforated shovel, seize it 
 by the long handle, and scrape up the coal-dust with 
 difficulty, for it declines to balance itself on the edges 
 of the perforations. Other coal-boxes are handsome 
 works in dull copper, but a good many of them are 
 made for some implement which is neither a shovel nor 
 a pair of tongs. The best are bucket-shaped, open at 
 the top, with a good handle, and holding not more coal 
 than a housemaid can carry without fatigue upstairs. I 
 have seen bucket-shaped coal-scuttles in various metals, 
 the most effective being of copper, or of brass, or of 
 dark-coloured wood hooped with bright metal. Their 
 shape is convenient for several reasons : 
 
 1. It is not too high, so that coal is easy to get at 
 with a small pair of tongs. 
 
 2. It is open at the mouth, showing the coal (which 
 ought to be seen for the sake of its black colour), and 
 warning servants that they will be found out if they 
 break large coal into fragments. 
 
 3. We never know what a lidded coal-box may hold. 
 Servants hate the duty of breaking fuel, and many large 
 blocks are hammered carelessly into little bits, so we 
 pay for lump coal and burn broken slack. But, when 
 a scuttle is bucket-shaped, an open mouth tells good 
 and bad tales about the servant's work down stairs. 
 
 Then, as to the best way of buying furniture for light 
 and heat, I have already given some good addresses, 
 226 
 
TABLE LAMPS, ELECTRIC LIGHT 
 
 111 ariiKuir-linished iron, with shades of straw opal glass rouirh inside 
 
 .1. Powell & Sons, ATliitt-frinrs, Loudon, K.C. 
 
 TWO-LIGHT BRACKET— OPALESCENT GLASS 
 W. A. S. Benson & Co., Neiv Bond Steeet, London 
 
ELKcnnC LIOHT 
 
 'I linx'-liglil (limii'i'-lnlili' i tMidant, tlie lif;hls coiici'aleii 
 ill a copper liowl 
 
 AV. A. ?. 1!i;ns().\ .V Co., New IJuml Sire, t, Loudon 
 
ARTIFICIAL HEAT AND LIGHT 
 
 and Mr. W. A. S. Benson's catalogues will help you 
 on all points. His lamps and his fittings for artificial 
 lights, his electric-light stoves, and many other forms 
 of metal-work, from simple fire-guards to the well- 
 known jacketed jugs which keep hot water hot for hours, 
 are good in design and excellent in workmanship. 
 
 For work in wrought iron, such as fenders and fire- 
 irons, write to Mr. Starkie Gardner, Wilcox Road, 
 South Lambeth, London, whose work gained the Gold 
 Medal at Paris in 1900. 
 
 As to the private artist-craftsmen (who ha^'e gathered 
 about them a circle of patrons like that which surrounds 
 the essayist in literature) special reference may be 
 made here to Mr. Nelson Dawson, Swan House, Chis- 
 wick Mall, Chelsea, London, and to Mr. Alexander 
 Fisher, Warwick Gardens, Kensington, London, W. 
 Both are distinguished metal-workers, and their art 
 ranges from household utihties to the finest enamels 
 and jewellery. 
 
 Good work is done by the Home Arts and Industries 
 Association, which has many provincial branches ; and 
 much may be learnt by applying to the Head Masters 
 of Art Schools, whose best pupils need a practical start 
 in life. The Central School of Arts and Crafts, Regent 
 Street, London, turns out many clever pupils, to whom 
 commissions from householders would be very helpful. 
 
 Of course. The Studio magazine is invaluable, for it 
 is the only art paper which keeps in touch with the 
 young artists and craftsmen to whom the future of our 
 
 227 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 home arts belongs. The Builder, too, is an excellent 
 journal, and its advertisements are of real help on all 
 points connected with house architecture and furnish- 
 ing. 
 
 Mr. J. S. Henry, 287 Old Street, London, E.G., and 
 1 New Burlington Street, W., has many useful Light 
 Fittings of wood : and here are two other addresses : 
 
 Messrs. Longdenand Co., Phoenix Foundry, Sheffield, 
 grates, fenders, fire-irons, wrought-iron work, orna- 
 mental brasswork and bronzes. 
 
 Faraday and Son, 2 Berners Street, London, W., 
 electric light fittings. 
 
 228 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 CROCKERY AND PORCELAIN 
 
 "These, sir, are our failures," said Beau Brummell's 
 valet to a visitor, looking at a pile of neckties. " These, 
 sir, are my own failures," the genius of English trade 
 might say, pointing to the masses of crockery which are 
 cast in moulds by the gross and printed by the thousands. 
 Look at the poor, ornate commerciaUsm, the far-sought 
 and dear-bought and worthless patterns ; seek for some 
 connection between all this botched craft and the house- 
 hold life of to-day ; and then remember that the Fictile 
 Art, so ill-treated now, appeals to the imagination as the 
 very first among those inventions of man wherein an 
 effort was made to unite beauty with use, and poetry 
 with thirst and hunger. It is the Book of Genesis in 
 the dim history of primitive arts and crafts. Man's 
 earhest needs in domestic life, his first utensils, " came 
 from the mother earth, whose child he believed himself 
 to be, and his ashes or his bones returned to earth 
 enshrined in the fictile vases he created from their com- 
 mon clay." Time passed into innumerable years, and 
 legends full of vague dreams gathered about the funeral 
 mounds where vanished races lay entombed ; but those 
 fictile records were kept unharmed by the soil around 
 
 229 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 them, till at last they were discovered and made known, 
 and now they tell more of man's history than is told by 
 any other art. Almost all we know of many a people 
 and many a tongue is related by the potter's art in 
 domestic wares. 
 
 If only we remembered from time to time that the 
 household arts represent a great religion, one of loyalty 
 to home duties and to daily toil, we should understand 
 that we owe reverence to the great traditions which 
 those arts have handed on to us through so many ages 
 and sages that history can but hint at them in a groping 
 fashion. It is not a small matter when a fine art 
 degenerates and use and beauty are no longer found in 
 a nation's common wares. There is no worse thing than 
 that, for all races have progressed with their arts and 
 fallen with them. It is only ardent minds and hands 
 that create beautiful work ; and to admire what others 
 do admirably is to prove that we ourselves feel admirably: 
 we are true artists in appreciation. We prove what we 
 are by what we like and by what we do, and hence we 
 are responsible for all the bad taste that either leers or 
 screams at us from shop-windows. People who would 
 rather die than drop the letter " h " in conversation buy 
 for their homes the most vulgar trash, nor are they 
 willing to take advice from architects and other experts. 
 Doctors they consult, and solicitors and stockbrokers, 
 but in art they have the self-confidence that belongs to 
 little knowledge of famihar things. 
 
 It seems so very easy to pick out furniture for a home. 
 230 
 
CROCKERY AND PORCELAIN 
 
 Have you not seen from your earliest youth all the 
 many things required, from chairs and tables to the 
 humblest pots and pans ? Why, then, should you seek 
 professional advice ? That is the argument to which 
 our leading architects have to listen when their clients 
 destroy good work with penurious furniture. There is 
 but one reply : Study the shop-windows, learn what 
 tradesmen know concerning the public taste, concerning 
 the public wish to be gulled. What, for example, do 
 you think of that dessert service, painted all over with 
 realistic fruits of a large size ? And look at the other 
 dessert plates over there — those which are partly hidden 
 by a soup tureen dappled with rosebuds. Over those 
 plates huge red poppies sprawl. Who is responsible for 
 such absurdities ? Dinner plates may yet be "' decorated " 
 with painted mutton chops and cooked potatoes. 
 
 There is only one excuse for this comical bad taste. 
 English traditions in the fictile arts and crafts are not of 
 the highest kind. Patriotism, no doubt, is glad to be 
 proud of the old Chelsea, Derby, Worcester, and Ply- 
 mouth china ; but these wares, whether good or bad, are 
 always inferior to many Eastern varieties, and among 
 them you will find some very queer solecisms, as when 
 teacups are painted inside^ as if tea had eyes and was 
 unhappy in a cup without gay colours to admire. Yet 
 those old English potteries have an evident charm : they 
 represent an age when thoroughness was valued, when 
 money was earned with time and merit, not with haste 
 and advertisement. They have not the pure form and 
 
 231 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 grace that Wedgwood gave to his revival of Grecian 
 symmetry, nor have they those native EngHsh quahties 
 which potters of EUzabethan times loved to put into 
 their slip wares in Staffordshire, posset-bowls and big 
 round plates, coarse, no doubt, but with a genuine feel- 
 ing for decorative art, as true in its own way as the 
 daintiest ornament to be found on humble preserve jars 
 made by Indian peasants. Old Chelsea, Worcester, and 
 Derby, like Sevres and other French pottery, are nothing 
 more tfian refined arts in affectation, gracious and fanci- 
 ful, and sincerely insincere, like ladies of the first fashion 
 who live in the artifice of Court life. You have but to 
 study the English potteries at the British Museum, and at 
 other public institutions, if you wish to note their merits 
 and demerits. There is no large feeling for decorative 
 colour and design such as the Persians loved, or the 
 Chinese put into their ginger jars. There is also very 
 httle trace of that naive enthusiasm which imparts value 
 to the most popular forms of decorative art in Moorish 
 plates and dishes. What can be more surprising than 
 the timidity with which our English potters have treated 
 their painted ornaments ? Who would believe that 
 they belonged to a race of sportsmen, colonisers, and 
 sea-adventurers ? Here, for instance, on my table is a 
 vase about twelve inches high ; it is decorated with 
 coloured objects in high relief, and these objects are all 
 realistic in a feeble manner. Among them is a bird's 
 nest with eggs in it I Now what in the world has a 
 bird's nest to do with the ornamentation of a pot ? and 
 282 
 
CROCKERY AND PORCELAIN 
 
 why, above all, should it be done in high relief, like a 
 swallow's nursery plastered on a wall ? That a nation 
 of athletes should not only do such feeble work, but 
 keep it with pride generation after generation, is a 
 comedy of errors. 
 
 You may note, also, as a national characteristic in 
 pottery, a misuse of gold. Gold might be as common 
 as potters' clay, so freely is it squandered on rubbish. 
 We are reminded of book-covers with their invariable 
 gilt lettering. It is forgotten that this general abuse of 
 gold has not even a trade value, since everybody is used 
 to it in cheap work as in dear. Why should gold be 
 vulgarised ? and ought it to be a decorative agent in 
 pottery ? There can be no doubt that valuable things 
 should be exhibited in a sparing manner. If all men 
 spoke as Shakespeare and Tennyson wrote, poetry 
 would not be recognised as such. And there are con- 
 noisseurs who believe that gold ought not to appear at 
 all in the fictile arts ; and their arguments are summed 
 up by Eastlake : 
 
 " The practice of gilding china, as it is at present 
 carried out, is a most objectionable one. It may be 
 fairly questioned whether the application of gilding at 
 all is satisfactory, looking to the nature of the material 
 and the conditions of its manufacture. But the fashion 
 of gilding the edges of cups and plates, and touching up 
 (as it were) with streaks of gold the relieved ornament 
 on lids and handles, is a monstrous piece of vulgarity." 
 
 It can't be anything else, for precious things are not 
 
 233 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 thro\Mi away by any one who values them inteUigently. 
 Gold was introduced into pottery for three reasons : as 
 a note of colour, as a rare substance, and also because 
 discordant colours harmonise when separated by gold 
 lines. The gilding on old pottery has retained its 
 metallic sparkle, and is far better than the modern 
 equivalent, which commonly gets dull. Yet, however 
 " cheap " the gilding may be, it is troublesome to apply, 
 and if manufacturers got rid of it they could give more 
 time and care to matters of greater importance. Even 
 the snobbery of gilt may be "done to death." Shop- 
 windows will prove to you that simple china without 
 gilding is almost as rare as newspapers without head- 
 lines. 
 
 Four qualities are necessary in modern fictiles : 
 
 1. Forms having grace. 
 
 2. Simple and attractive colour. 
 
 3. Wearing strength. 
 
 4. The recognition of a definite purpose for each 
 thing. 
 
 Not unfrequently all these qualities are absent, and 
 we get pretension, an unfailing bad luck in the use of 
 coloured patterns, and a neglect of real service. Too 
 much is attempted, and simplicity is flouted as unmar- 
 ketable. Here is a water-jug not at all bad in shape, 
 but dappled with little leaves and flowers ; and there is 
 a large basin with a gold rim and the sides floriated. 
 It is wasted labour. Plain tints and a good glaze would 
 be more effective. Hence I note with pleasure that 
 234 
 
^^gmi^ 
 
 CHINESE 
 
 BLUE-AND- WHITE 
 
 PORCELAIN 
 
 Messrs. Liberty & Co., 
 Kegeut St., Loudon 
 
 ^VTTT^^- 
 
THE XEW "COLANDER" TEA-POT 
 
 (KEGISTERED DESIGNS) 
 
 Out\v:uilly tliis tt-a-pot looks to be similar to others excejit that just 
 in front of the handle is the little thumb-piece which supports the 
 saucepan-shaped colander in which the tea is placed. When the tea 
 has been infused ionir cnouirh. a sinirle movement of the thumb 
 raises tin- cDlandiM- with the leaves in it above the water level, where 
 it is held by a button. There is n(» hin<re or other mechanism to jret 
 out of order — tlie whole is simplicity itself, and is more easily 
 cleaned than an ordinary pot. It is made in copper or electro- 
 platf. and all the copper vessels are silvered inside 
 
 W. A. S. JJknsox & Co., New Bond St., London 
 
CROCKERY AND PORCELAIN 
 
 Messrs. Heal and Son, Tottenham Court Road, London, 
 have revived with success the old Wedgwood toilet 
 ware, excellent in shape and with plain colours, some- 
 times enriched with simple ornament around the mouth 
 of the jug and the basin's rim. 
 
 The same firm has given thought to other kinds of 
 toilet ware, some in the manner of the brothers Adam, 
 others from Oriental designs, such as the old blue-and- 
 white willow pattern, and " The Aster." In these the 
 patterns ramble inside the basins, and it would be a 
 charity to save them from being drowned day after day. 
 Still, Messrs. Heal and Son's reproductions are carried 
 out with thoroughness, and their modern toilet wares 
 are good, particularly the plain ones in dark blue, in 
 Wedgwood buff, in deep green, and in teapot-brown. 
 
 To any one who desires pattern galore^ treated with 
 care and some distinction, Heal's good replicas of 
 eighteenth-century work may be recommended. These 
 reproductions are in facsimile, and carried out by 
 arrangement with Copeland and Sons, the successors 
 of Josiah Spode at Stoke-on-Trent. The designs 
 range in date from 1770 to 1800, and include the 
 " Moss Sprig " pattern (probably the best), the 
 "Tower" and the "George III." In this ware the 
 handles may be knobbed like bent branches, and the 
 mouths of jugs are sometimes in curious waved lines 
 that serve no purpose of either use or beauty. If they 
 are meant to represent the movement of tidal water, 
 the symbolism is out of place on a bedroom jug. As a 
 
 235 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 real encouragement to the making of simple things in a 
 simple way, the Board of Trade ought to offer annual 
 prizes. Meantime, it is true that Heal's reproductions 
 of Spode's bedroom wares are equal to those which were 
 made between 1805 and 1830, and include well-known 
 patterns hke the " China Rose," the " Butterfly," the 
 *' Peacock," the " Bangup," and the " Gate." 
 
 Mason's stoneware is another ornate style in bedroom 
 toilet services, and I have made notes of a few typical 
 examples. There is the " Watteau " pattern in blue 
 and white, far more complicated than Watteau would 
 have been under any influence of wine. " Blue Wat- 
 teau," this multiform design is called, and among the 
 incidents depicted is a girl on a swing with a young 
 man behind her, so that even water-jugs set up in 
 rivalry with picture galleries. 
 
 Messrs. Heal and Son have started a re\T[val of the 
 old English sUver lustre ware, with its untarnishable 
 brilliance. Even the commonest forms of lustre — those 
 in which the reducing agent is sulphur, as in the old 
 Swansea examples — have beauty, though their iridescent 
 shimmer is feeble in comparison with the playful sparkle 
 and the dancing-hued magic of ancient lustres, whether 
 Persian or Hispano- Moresque. In Roman glass, dug 
 up from buried villas, there are glorious rainbow tints, 
 but the prismatic play of colours, interflashing rather 
 than interblending, has not the assured art that fine 
 lustred ware ought to have, as in good examples by Mr. 
 William de Morgan. 
 236 
 
CROCKERY AND PORCELAIN 
 
 But, however favourable the methods may be, the 
 genius of lustred ware is a freakish lady with whims 
 acquired at the Court of Dame Fortune. Trifles put 
 her out of friends with the most obsequious potter ; and 
 there appear to be chemicals in the air of English towns 
 that make her ill when damp coal-smoke thickens into 
 mist and fog. It is never possible to know what her 
 mood will be in each of several pots fired in the same 
 kiln. She enslaves her courtiers by humbling them with 
 disappointments, adding a real success from time to time, 
 partly to show that she does exist and partly to cheer 
 them on into new failures. For this reason lustre ware 
 cannot be inexpensive to any one. I note, for instance, 
 that toilet wares of silver lustre cost twenty-five shillings 
 the set, while a basin and jug in plain cream Wedgwood 
 are only seven-and-sixpence. 
 
 In the De Morgan process the work was carried on as 
 follows. The metaUic oxides — silver and copper — were 
 mixed with lampblack and gum, so as to make a paint- 
 ing mixture which could be seen on the pots and tiles 
 when the designs were brushed-in over a glaze friendly 
 to lustres. Some glazes are more susceptible than 
 others ; and there are Eastern glazes which do not 
 respond to the lustre process. A tin glaze gives happy 
 results when her ladyship, the Genius of Lustre, happens 
 to be in a good temper. Over that firm surface the 
 metal oxides are painted ; then the wares are placed in 
 a gas-heated kiln, and the potter looks from time to 
 time through a hole covered by a sliding plate. At a 
 
 237 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 given moment in the firing — which his practised eye 
 knows — he lights some shps of wood, opens a small 
 door, and puts the burning wood inside the kiln, closing 
 the door at once, so that the carbon in the smoke may 
 find its way all over the pots, combining with the oxides 
 and reducing them to a metal deposit fixed on the glaze. 
 That deposit is lustre. 
 
 I'or the rest, Mr. de Morgan is among the English 
 potters to whom we owe lasting debts of gratitude. 
 Like Wedgwood and like INIinton, he tried to make 
 the public understand that merely trade ideals cannot 
 reign supreme in any of the household arts without 
 doing great harm to the worth of useful things. This 
 fact is one which English people are very slow to 
 grasp ; they prefer to be spendthrifts. It is for this 
 reason that good forms of English pottery become 
 things to be collected. They represent thoroughness 
 at a time when trash is popular. 
 
 In so far as pottery is concerned, the only hopeful 
 sign is the reproduction of old wares from original 
 designs still in the keeping of famous houses, like the 
 makers of Wedgwood, Spode, Copeland, and Mason's 
 ironstone wares. I should like to draw special attention 
 to Maple and Go's replicas of old Crown Derby, and to 
 Heal's tea services in Wedgwood buff and in cream 
 white. A service of Wedgwood Buff, forty pieces, 
 costs twenty-one sliillings ; in white Wedgwood, fifteen 
 shillings ; and in Wedgwood's Queen's Ware, four 
 guineas. Let us welcome these popular and thorough 
 238 
 
CROCKERY AND PORCELAIN 
 
 things. Useful catalogues may be got from Messrs. 
 Liberty, Regent Street, and from Mortlock's, 466 
 Oxford Street, and 31 Orchard Street, London. 
 
 Is it permissible for a man to offer hints to house- 
 wives ? If so, here is a Uttle handful : 
 
 1. When buying tea services, coffee services, and jugs 
 to hold hot liquids, be sure to ask whether they are well 
 annealed ; that is, whether they have passed in the right 
 manner through that process which renders them less 
 fragile, less brittle, a process performed by allowing them 
 to cool very gradually from a high heat. When this quite 
 necessary process has been carried out in a rapid, careless 
 manner, the annealing is bad, and the cups or the glasses 
 soon crack under the influence of hot liquids. The 
 trouble is that many shopkeepers know nothing about 
 the wares they sell, being merely distributors. If you 
 spoke to them about annealing they might imagine that 
 you talked Japanese in honour of our alliance with that 
 people. You can never tell what a shopkeeper thinks 
 if you speak to him in technical terms. For this reason, 
 among others, housewives should make a rule never to 
 buy crockery unless the distributor can show a printed 
 guarantee from the manufacturers. The guarantee 
 should say that the wares are fit for their purpose, being 
 carefully annealed. Some manufacturers will object to 
 this and refer to the carelessness of servants. " Why 
 should we be responsible?" they will ask. "House- 
 maids jumble together the dirty glasses and teacups, 
 place them in the sink, turn on the hot-water tap, and 
 
 239 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 then do their ' washing-up ' — always in a frantic hurry. 
 The water may be boihng, and it falls heavily in a great 
 stream." This custom of the pantry is a thing behind 
 which even the most careless manufacturer may hide 
 himself from responsibility ; and hence we should defend 
 our own interests by asking all manufacturers to give a 
 guarantee that the annealing has been done with care. 
 To that extent they must be responsible to the 
 purchasing public ; and housewives can test the guarantee 
 either by washing the teacups daily for a fortnight or 
 by watching the housemaid do that work. It is always 
 worth while to take pains. For example, if you buy a 
 revolver you know that it has been tested, that it is as 
 safe for use as the element of human fallibility will 
 allow it to be. A tea service may cost as much as a 
 revolver, sometimes more, yet you buy it without a 
 guarantee, just because the anneahng process affects 
 your pocket only, while a badly-made revolver is dan- 
 gerous to your life. Gunpowder encourages common 
 sense, while housekeeping does not (as a rule) : it looks 
 at thrift from a distance. 
 
 2. Those who are fond of patterned work on all 
 things, from cups and saucers to the silver blades of 
 fruit knives, should remember that patterns, whether 
 ill-placed or well-placed, represent work, and that work 
 must be paid for. Sailors learn that lesson when they 
 have themselves tattooed. Here are two good toilet 
 sets, both in Wedgwood's style. One is enriched with a 
 design by Flaxman and costs eighteen shillings and six- 
 240 
 
^:^' 
 
 .-^V 
 
 ^^rrr^T^C^" 
 
 COFFEE SETS 
 By LiHEHTY & Co., I oiidon 
 
CROCKERY AND PORCELAIN 
 
 pence ; the other, cream-white and plain, costs seven-and- 
 sixpence. I choose good examples to illustrate a simple 
 fact — i.e., that pattern in decorative art should raise the 
 cost price of useful things. To that extent it is a 
 luxury, not a necessity ; and hence, when an article is 
 inexpensive, it is better for us to go without pattern, 
 and to look for qualities which do not raise the cost of 
 production. Beautiful shapes in pottery are not more 
 expensive to make than ugly forms, particularly when 
 moulds are used. 
 
 3. Do not buy from small distributors in country 
 places, but write to well-known firms that issue good 
 catalogues. 
 
 4. Remember that a porcelain painter, like any other 
 decorative artist, has no business to vie with painters of 
 easel pictures. His flowers ought not to be naturalistic, 
 with shaded leaves and such like, but just sufficiently 
 suggestive of nature to be graceful, as in Persian and 
 Rhodian wares. Realistic landscapes, portraits of pretty 
 women, cottage scenes, and Cupid at play in trellised 
 gardens, these subjects, and many others, are all out of 
 place on china and porcelain. Figure-subjects were, no 
 doubt, painted on different kinds of old Italian pottery ; 
 but if you study the work you will find that is a con- 
 ventional decoration which does not imitate the methods 
 and the perspective necessary in pictures. There is 
 much to be learnt on these matters from the humblest 
 Eastern wares, like those produced by peasant craftsmen 
 of Bengal and Algeria. 
 
 Q 241 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 5. For example, they are never too neat in the execu- 
 tion of their patterns, nor are they pretty-pretty in their 
 choice of tints. Their brushwork is free and decorative, 
 with all the charm of variety given by a sensitive touch 
 which has not become mechanical. There is too often 
 in our English work an ignoble finish, a precision of line 
 which is mathematical, and therefore without nerve and 
 emotion. 
 
 6. Remember, too, that good colour has quality, is 
 difficult — is even impossible — to describe by name, so 
 gradated is it even in flat tints, so broken up as to be 
 many-hued within a beautiful local colour. The same 
 tint may be called blue when opposed to green, and green 
 when opposed to blue, and so forth with other colours. 
 
 7. Do not forget that pinks, mauves, magentas, and 
 other hues of the same kind, though found in Enghsh 
 potteries, are bad ; no real artist would accept them. 
 They are in painting what sentimentalities are known 
 to be in literature — weak, ignoble, and unwholesome. 
 
 8. Study the glaze on potteries, and get eye-know- 
 ledge of the good and of the bad. Some glazes are like 
 moist barley-sugar ; they never look dry ; they seem to 
 be a trap for flies, and we wonder that flies move over 
 them without being caught. 
 
 9. Don't forget to look with care at the handles of 
 vegetable dishes, soup tureens, cups, water-jugs, &c. &c. 
 They are excellent tests of good workmanship and bad. 
 Of course, their forms should be in every respect grace- 
 ful ones, and this they cannot be if they suggest incon- 
 242 
 
CROCKERY AND PORCELAIN 
 
 gruous ideas. British manufacturers, during the last 
 half-century, in their child-like hunt after novelty, have 
 hit upon many queer handles, ranging from gilt acorns 
 to sea-shells, and from twisted stalks to mulberries. 
 Would it break our hearts if they used simple rings or 
 knobs carefully modelled ? 
 
 10. Admire at a long, long distance any flower- vase 
 representing a human hand or a cow's horn, or a naked 
 baby with a hole in its poor Uttle head. On my table I 
 have another kind of flower-vase, six inches high, with 
 a tortuous glass bulb growing uneasily from the centre of 
 a glass artichoke. It must be an artichoke, I think, for 
 there are in all three rows of oval scales, and each of the 
 twenty scales has a fleshy-looking base. Rut it would 
 need an encyclopaedia to record the horrible things 
 which the British pubUc has bought in its hurried 
 retreats from good taste. 
 
 11. Eastlake, thirty-six years ago, wrote in praise of 
 the cheap and useful red " delf " ware, made originally 
 by Wedgwood, I believe, but adopted by other leading 
 firms. " It is to be had in all shades of colour, from a 
 pale ochreous hue to a deep Indian red. Almost all 
 these tints are very beautiful in themselves, but their 
 efl*ect is sometimes marred by the use of enamelled 
 colour applied in too violent a contrast. The unglazed 
 ware is used for water-bottles, butter-coolers, &c., its 
 porous nature being admirably adopted to such purposes 
 . . . The most ordinary form of delf water-bottle is 
 bulbous at its lower end, with a narrow neck, the upper 
 
 243 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 part of which, being most exposed to the touch, is very 
 properly glazed. Both the neck and the body of the 
 jug are frequently decorated with enamelled colour 
 arranged in geometrical patterns of a Greek or mediaeval 
 character. Some of the water-bottles take the form of 
 small antique vases, and these are, for the most part, 
 made of clay. A^ery beautiful examples of this class, in 
 orange porous delf, may now (a.d. 1872) be bought for 
 a few shillings apiece. The same material is frequently 
 used for teapots, hot-water jugs, (Sec, the ware, either 
 red or stone colour, being in these cases covered intern- 
 ally with a glaze. " 
 
 The crockery, thus described by Eastlake, and often 
 associated with the name of Copeland, is to be bought 
 to-day ; it is homely and delightful. 
 
 12. When you look at patterns on such things as a 
 toilet service, do not forget the absurdities which have 
 had a vogue in England, as when bulrushes, swans, sea- 
 weed, ivy, and other natural objects, like mauve and 
 pink ribbons twisted into loops, were thought admirable 
 on bedroom jugs and basins. It is anything but easy 
 now to find good patterns, that is, reasonable patterns, 
 having a decorative connection with the article upon 
 which they are put. No designs are better for toilet 
 wares than simple borders in monochrome, such as the 
 Greek iret pattern — the Greek key, as it is usually 
 called — and other classic formulas, like the guilloche or 
 wave pattern. When a great artist like Flaxman turns 
 vine leaves and grapes into an ornament for jugs and 
 244 
 
CROCKERY AND PORCELAIN 
 
 basins, we have to pardon him, for he is incongruous in 
 a skilful way ; still, it is well to remember that vines are 
 not more in place on a bedroom jug, than they would 
 be on the note-paper of a temperance society. 
 
 13. If you wish to know how human figures may be 
 painted — with decorative success and charm — on pottery, 
 study the Greek ceramic arts, where you will find 
 exquisite drawing unaccompanied by realism. There is 
 no shading, no pictorial effect. Drapery folds, and the 
 action of limbs, are expressed by lines ; and the human 
 figure is formalised in flat colour, red on a black ground, 
 or vice versa, and sometimes white on a black ground. 
 Copeland did some excellent work on these lines years 
 ago, just as Minton, with the help of W. S. Coleman, 
 realised much of the true spirit of old Italian majolica. 
 
 14. British housewives would learn many pleasant 
 lessons at South Kensington and at the British Museum. 
 It is only by looking at the best work that the principles 
 of decorative art can be understood in a practical 
 manner. 
 
 15. Messrs. Doulton and Co. will long be remembered 
 for their grey and buff stoneware, good in colour and 
 excellent in quality of material. 
 
 16. It is difficult to give advice on the question of 
 vases for ornamentation only. Last autumn, at 
 Olympia, a great many examples of British ceramic art 
 where exhibited, and did you not remark their bad 
 colour and their ornate triviality ? Was there anything 
 so good as the old Gres-de-Flandres ? Do you think 
 
 245 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 that any prehistoric man would have Hked to be buried 
 with vases so troubled with uneasy dreams ? Yet there 
 is hope. Messrs. Morris and Co. have usually in stock 
 some really fine modern replicas of the old Rhodian 
 ware, charmingly shaped, beautiful in colour, and re- 
 calling a time when potters were great artists. The 
 same firm has also some good examples of Pilkington 
 lustre ware, a very highly finished product with a quiet 
 distinction of its own, though rather weak in decorative 
 tone and accent. Its accuracy of workmanship is too 
 marked. But yet, after all, its qualities are good of 
 their kind and useful. 
 
 Messrs. Liberty and Co. issue an interesting catalogue 
 on bric-a-brac, and particular reference may be made to 
 the blue and white porcelain, the dinner services, tea- 
 sets, and breakfast-sets. 
 
 Then there is a really good English product, the 
 Martin Ware, to be bought from the potters at Brown- 
 low Street, Holborn, London. The grotesque figures 
 in this ware do not appeal to everybody ; but there are 
 some beautiful and unique vases, and these we should 
 be proud to collect. Perhaps their average price may 
 be put at 25^. 
 
 Again, it is always worth while to remember the 
 Whitefriars Glass Works, Tudor Street, London, E.C., 
 where many beautiful kinds of decorative work are 
 carried on, and where traditions in excellent craftsman- 
 ship go on improving after an unbroken history of rather 
 more than two hundred years. 
 24G 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 HOUSEHOLD GLASS 
 
 Household glass may be studied from two points of 
 view, the one artistic, the other poUtically social and 
 historical. Sometimes the art blends quite amicably 
 with the pontics, but a party spirit in public affairs, 
 whether engraved on glass or printed on paper, would 
 betray itself if it were often a friendly craftsman. It 
 lives to fight, and, adding the letter " s " to decoration, 
 it makes for honours and titles. Party aims may seem 
 to be well placed on a fragile substance like glass or like 
 modern paper, but they may do a great deal of harm in 
 their short life, being ever at fisticuffs with peace. 
 
 Politics on glass were very much in vogue during the 
 eighteenth century, when tumblers and other drinking 
 glasses made known the opinions of the day concerning 
 WiUiam III., and the outcast Stuarts, and the dreary 
 House of Hanover. At first sight it may seem that 
 Jacobite glasses and the Stuart character were equally 
 unstable, and likely to endure about the same period of 
 time ; but the Pretenders vanished m a bad reputation, 
 while scores of the old Jacobite glasses are still extant. 
 
 Each glass has engraved upon it an emblem of that 
 long-lost movement, which gave origin to Jacobite 
 
 •247 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 clubs and societies in all parts of the country. The 
 emblems are various, ranging from portraits of the 
 Pretenders to national badges, a rose, a thistle, and an 
 oak-loaf, associated with other familiar tokens, such as 
 the round sun and the mottoes " Redeat " and " Fiat." 
 One notes, too, that these Jacobite glasses were common 
 till the end of the eighteenth century, as if George III. 
 had little hold on popular sympathies. The feeling 
 towards the Stuarts may have been either active and 
 political or passive and sentimental, but its records on 
 late Georgian glass are singular, because an official 
 patriotism showed itself on wooden furniture between 
 the years 1700 and 1730. With the Georges, so far as 
 wooden furniture is concerned, there came a revulsion 
 from all things foreign save the royal whims from 
 Hanover. To copy a foreign mode or to show a delight 
 in foreign styles was to parade a liking for other things 
 over the water than mere questions of household taste, 
 and to be thought a Jacobite. So, for almost the first 
 time in our history, a national style in furniture began 
 to be preferred beyond all others, at least in outward 
 show. But chairs and tables are compromising evidence 
 hard to make away with, while drinking glasses occupy 
 little space, are easy to hide and easy to break ; hence, 
 perhaps, their late popularity as mementoes of Jacobite 
 sympathies. 
 
 It is odd to connect glasses with illustrated journalism, 
 profusely engraved with political mottoes, badges, 
 portraits, and libels. One famous tumbler, engraved 
 248 
 
CUT AND ENGRAVED DECANTER IN 
 WHITEFRIARS GLASS 
 
 Copied from the Roman original in the Cohigne Museum 
 with Hand-worked, Silver-mounted Cork 
 
 James TowELr. & Sons, Loiuiou, E.C. 
 

HOUSEHOLD GLASS 
 
 with a kit-kat portrait, is labelled Admiral Keppel, and 
 a more hideous caricature could not well be imagined. 
 It is like a Hindoo idol transfigured by the pains of 
 chronic sea-sickness. Other national heroes were 
 honoured on ale-glasses, Howe, Duncan, St. Vincent, 
 Nelson, Wellington ; and now and again a glass enables 
 us to drink success to a privateer, long dead and gone, 
 who sailed for his last voyage into unknown seas, 
 without letters of marque, and unequipped by Bristol 
 merchants. 
 
 However valuable these glasses may be historically, 
 they have nothing to do with household art, because 
 glass needs no applied ornament, no decoration, whether 
 cut or engraved. Its beauty is its own translucent 
 charm. To destroy that is to ruin the glass. With a 
 needle you might prick a beautiful design on each petal 
 of a rose, but you would not improve the rose, nor 
 would your skill of hand do the least credit to your 
 taste. It is even so with glass. Exquisite designs may 
 be engraved upon it, but, like thick veils over the faces 
 of lovely women, they tease the eye ; and the beauty 
 which they hide from view is worth admiring. 
 
 The limpid qualities of glass are diamond-like in 
 brilliance, yet we never connect them with the vulgarity 
 that diamonds often suggest to educated onlookers ; 
 and hence, no doubt, they ought to be kept pure, un- 
 blemished. Cut a diamond into as many facets as you 
 like, but let your glass be uncut, unengraved, and have 
 such graceful forms as a craftsman may shape with his 
 
 249 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 breath, and with his skill in making use of centrifugal 
 force. 
 
 The first essential of good table glass enables us to 
 see at once that it was made from a fluid material 
 cooled in a careful manner. This limpidity was valued 
 till the end of the seventeenth century, when the wheel 
 came into play, and with it a custom of engraving 
 glasses. The early efforts were not bad, but when 
 after a little practice the engraver's hand became deli- 
 cate in touch, many intricate designs were attempted, 
 till at last the waterlike transparency of table glass was 
 veiled by patterns. 
 
 Skill of hand has often been accompanied by a 
 decline of taste ; and with glass the decline was rapid 
 and complete. The material was turned out in blocks, 
 deeply cut and heavy ; decanters were like huge clubs 
 notched and indented, so that a tipsy man was quite 
 proud if he could lift them without spilling the wine. 
 Shopmen delighted in their bulk. " Feel this decanter, 
 madam ! feel its weight ; all solid good glass ; allow 
 me to lift it, madam, it is much too heavy for you 
 to move without effort." Burglars were afraid of such 
 decanters, and even butlers hated them, although they 
 strengthened the wrist like dumb-bells and prize 
 fighting. 
 
 The belief that glass was to be valued by weight, 
 like gold, lived on to the reign of Queen Victoria, when 
 a gradual improvement began to bring into fashion 
 some beautiful forms in delicate films of glass. The 
 250 
 
HOUSEHOLD GLASS 
 
 bad custom of engraving the surface with patterns was 
 retained, and has been handed on to our time in all 
 popular work. Sprays of maiden-hair fern are among 
 the stereotyped decorations, probably because they have 
 no connection at all with walnuts and wine. 
 
 On my table are two examples of modern glass-work, 
 both inimitably bad, so that I cannot hope to do them 
 justice in a description. One is a lamp globe. The 
 general shape is that of a thistle flower, but a trades- 
 man has varied it in a remarkable manner, for the lower 
 part is ridged and valleyed like a melon, while the upper 
 part is crinkled and pleated like stiff calico. This 
 appears to be enough for one wild hunt after novelty. 
 But the tradesman was a daring fellow, and ordered 
 the melon to be engraved all over with leaves and 
 flowers : even this left some nooks and corners of pure 
 glass, to be filled in with dots. 
 
 The next specimen is a flower vase. It stands erect 
 on six petals ; then comes a bulb like the root of a 
 crocus, and then a trumpet-shaped funnel with a waved 
 brim of much heavier glass. What the brim means I 
 do not know, but it resembles sea-foam. It is in pure 
 glass, while the other parts are tinted red. 
 
 The use of colour in household glass has provoked 
 many arguments. There are times when it is justifiedj 
 for the craft of the glass-blower charms now and then 
 with effects like those of enamel. In addition to 
 employing a material of one colour, " pot metal " of 
 different tints can be laid one over the other ; and 
 
 251 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 when the outer films are cut through by the wheel, we 
 have a pattern in one hue on a different- tinted ground. 
 Only, as plain glass, pure and transparent, has a rare 
 beauty, there is danger in polychrome experiments. 
 
 One may be sure, indeed, that table glass never needs 
 any added colour save those which are given to it by 
 wines and by beer and cider. You must have noticed 
 many times the large, gleaming bottles in the window 
 of a chemist's shop. They are filled with coloured 
 water, blue, green, orange, ruby red ; and when the sun 
 plays on and through their surface, or artificial light 
 burns behind them, there is a magic of colour, many- 
 hued and flashing, that stained glass cannot produce. 
 Why, then, should we buy tinted wine-glasses and 
 tumblers, as if wines and other drinks were not in 
 themselves beautiful colouring agents ? 
 
 It is a question worth a frank reply. About forty 
 years ago, when Dr. Salviati began to improve modern 
 table glass, with the help of advice from Mr. A. H. 
 Layard, the British market was a real hindrance to 
 progress. The large depot in St. James's Street had a 
 variety of the best work, but a demand for the worst 
 soon got troublesome, the public believing that many 
 colours were as admirable in table-glass as in bouquets 
 of greenhouse flowers. Goblets were eagerly bought if 
 their bowls, stems and feet were all of different hues. 
 It was a great mistake. In good examples the body of 
 the glass was plain, and relieved by a single colour in 
 the ornamental portions. 
 252 
 
RIBBED AND DENTED WINE GLASSES 
 
 CUT AND ENGllAVED WINE GLASSES 
 James Powell & Sons. Wbitefriars, London, E.G. 
 
l!H!l'.l-;ii WINK (;i, ASSES 
 .Iami;s I'iiwi;i,i, .V Sons, Wliitclriars, I.niKldll, K.C. 
 
HOUSEHOLD GLASS 
 
 To understand how vicious our modern taste has 
 become in its Hking for glass-work, we have only to note 
 the difference between contemporary specimens of 
 Venetian craft and those which belong to the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries. The Venetian glass made 
 to-day is commonly a toy, ornate, fragile, and mere- 
 tricious. It implores you to like its far-sought effects 
 of colour, its complicated mechanism, its brittle-looking 
 shapes, which are not in accord with refined taste. 
 Cook's tourists appear to be fascinated by these Venetian 
 gewgaws, perhaps because they travel much in a hurry 
 and think little and in set phrases. 
 
 Many persons have the convictions of a phonograph. 
 Having heard that Venetian glass should be admired, 
 they give their minds freely to the business of admira- 
 tion, without worrying themselves about the distinction 
 between ancient and modern craftsmanship. " Ancient 
 table glass was generally blown, the natural ductility of 
 the material being such that while in a state of partial 
 fusion it could be stamped, twisted, and fashioned into 
 shapes which varied with the individual taste and skill 
 of the workman. The consequence was that in Venice, 
 during the fifteenth and two following centuries, this 
 branch of art-industry rose to a pitch of excellence 
 which obtained for it a world-wide reputation. It would 
 be impossible to enumerate here all the peculiar varieties 
 of design included in this ingenious and beautiful art. 
 Under the general head of ' filigree glass,' the combina- 
 tions of form and colour (including that of the well- 
 
 253 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 known lattidnio) were countless. Then there were the 
 iniUeJiori, in which slices of rod-glass appeared imbedded 
 in a colourless or differently-coloured ground of the 
 same material ; the sc/imclzc, or mock agate ; the avven- 
 turhio, with its rich golden lustre, which has been basely- 
 imitated in modern toilet-trinkets, the ' crackle ' and 
 * opal ' glass in which light is refracted with exquisite 
 effect, and many other kinds which were further en- 
 riched by the distinct processes of enamelling and 
 engraving. Up to this time the early traditions of the 
 art had been preserved, or perhaps revived from the 
 time of the Romans, when glass was blown in moulds, 
 stamped, turned on a wheel and engraved rudely 
 enough sometimes, but often with great artistic care. 
 The celebrated Portland vase, for instance, was probably 
 made of two layers of glass, of which the upper surface 
 was cut away in cameo-fashion, to form a background 
 for the bas-relief with which it is decorated. But work 
 of so laborious and costly a character as this must, of 
 course, be regarded as exceptional. The ordinary table 
 glass made in Venice and exported to every country in 
 Europe during the early part of the Renaissance was for 
 the most part blown only, and depended for its form on 
 the taste and manipulation of artisans, whose fancy was 
 as fertile as their fingers were apt, and who required no 
 school of design to teach them the shape of a flask or 
 beaker."* 
 
 * " Household Taste." By Charles L. Eastlake, F.R.I.B.A., 
 Architect. 1872. Pages 245, 246. 
 
 254 
 
HOUSEHOLD GLASS 
 
 It is clear from this that the glassworker s methods, 
 both good and bad, are at least as old as the Romans. 
 Cutting, engraving, the use of colour, and glass blown 
 into moulds, these are ancient traditions which represent 
 for us the popular taste of a great many ages and 
 nations. Criticism may make them less popular here 
 and there, and perhaps limit their excessive abuse ; 
 more than that we cannot expect. Manufacturers can 
 tempt buyers to choose better things, but (as the late 
 Gleeson White used to say) they have no power to 
 coerce the public, nor do they advance the cause of 
 good taste by refusing to make objects which are just 
 outside the margin of good taste, without being quite in 
 the larger domain of one hopelessly bad. Popular arts 
 must compromise, following an example set by members 
 of Parliament ; and we are in luck if we manage to get 
 a good second-best. 
 
 This point granted, several questions present them- 
 selves in a new light and must be answered at least 
 tentatively. To what extent may colour be used in 
 table glass ? And to what extent are cutting and 
 engraving justified ? 
 
 The latter is the easier to answer, because applied 
 decoration is never a true ornament on glass ; and hence 
 a compromise ought to limit the use of it in the best 
 way possible. That this may be done, we must keep in 
 mind the following points : 
 
 1. As table glass should depend for its colour on the 
 liquids which are put into decanters, tumblers, and 
 
 255 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 wine glasses, the cutting and engraving must be of a 
 kind which does not render glass opaque, nor attract 
 more attention than the material which they are meant 
 to adorn. 
 
 2. As this surface treatment is a concession to the 
 popular taste, not an essential of art, decanters must 
 not be cut all over, nor glasses notched into a thousand 
 facets and more. A faceted decoration, if used very 
 sparingly, is the best, and for two reasons. It is non- 
 realistic, and there is no reason to make it deep and 
 coarse, as in crystal glass of the eighteenth century, 
 where it dulls or hides the gleaming colour of wines and 
 of ales and ciders. In wine glasses the facets look best 
 when they are put in a narrow pattern above the stem ; 
 while in decanters they may form central bands or 
 central medallions, with perhaps a narrow string or two 
 around the necks. On this point, though, I speak with 
 reluctance, believing that all decanters of cut glass are 
 mistakes, lluskin was thinking of them, we may be 
 sure, when he asked us to be ashamed of popular table 
 
 glass. 
 
 3. Then, as regards engraved designs, like the maiden- 
 hair fern, and cornflowers, and lotus lilies, harebells, and 
 such like, they come within those realistic patterns 
 which we have discussed in earlier chapters of this book, 
 so tliey may be put aside as undecorative and wrong. 
 
 4. Fluted glass may be very beautiful : and note how 
 the flutes are made. A craftsman blows a lump of pot 
 metal into a corrugated cyhnder, and the fluting thus 
 256 
 
•/. 
 
 — 
 
 w 
 
 oo 
 
 a; 
 
 si 
 
 < 
 
 ^ 
 
 > 
 
 
 
 
 ^J 
 
 IS 
 
 ■< 
 
 > 
 
 
 r^ 
 
 Ph 
 
 
 o 
 
 ■/? 
 
 
 T, 
 
 p^ 
 
 O 
 CO 
 
 < 
 
 ,:^ 
 
 P5 
 
 
 
 3 
 
\VlllTKIi;i.\i;S CUT (il.ASS SKIIVICE.- 
 .Iasii;s I'owi.i.i. .v- Sons. I.uniiuii. K.C. 
 
HOUSEHOLD GLASS 
 
 obtained lasts for ever, no matter how the glass is 
 treated. Blow it into a globe, twist it into a stem, 
 make it into a dish, and the flutes remain, however 
 delicate and wavelike they may be. 
 
 Among the illustrations to this chapter, I am giving 
 some examples of cut and engraving glasses and de- 
 canters by the best craftsmen in Europe, Harry Powell 
 and his assistants, of the Whitefriars Glass Works, 
 Tudor Street, London, E.G. Each specimen is a com- 
 promise that denotes care and thought and skill : it is 
 better by far than the work of other manufacturers. 
 The material is beautiful, the shapes are good, and the 
 ornament has variety. 
 
 Colour comes next. To what extent may colour be 
 used in domestic glass ? It is justified in well-made 
 flower vases ; but not in the bowls of wine-glasses, for 
 reasons already given. On the other hand, the Venetians 
 have used colour, not unattractively, in the stems of 
 drinking-glasses, the principal tints being olive, amber, 
 ruby, bottle-green, and sea-blue, all employed as avven- 
 turino decoration. Some of the best Venetian tumblers 
 are quite plain, while others have a delicate edging of 
 colour around the brim. Some beakers are laced about 
 with very slender threads of coloured glass, and, to give 
 the hand a firmer hold, their lower ends have bosses 
 tinted with the same colour. You will remember also, 
 another Venetian style, the famous opal glass, through 
 which light is transmitted in iridescent hues, rich and 
 lovely. Messrs. Powell have opal glasses of their own 
 
 R 257 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 not inferior to the Venetian in quality of material, and 
 often better in design. 
 
 The Whitefriars glass may be divided into lead-glass 
 and soda-Hme glass, the first a compound of sand, oxide of 
 lead, and potash, while the second is made of sand, oxide 
 of Hme, and soda. Lead-glass, again, is a heavy material, 
 and exceedingly dear, while the other kind is less expen- 
 sive and lighter. The one is cold and colourless, not 
 unlike the crystal glass of the eighteenth century, which 
 owed its weight and its peculiar brightness to large 
 quantities of minium {i.e., red lead). Soda-hme glass, on 
 the other hand, has a soft warm surface of its own and a 
 colour of its own, a limpid clarity, a singular translucent 
 texture, through which light seems to pass reluctantly, 
 melting rather than flashing. This beautiful material 
 wants no added ornament of any kind whatever. It is 
 lead-glass, with its cold, steely briUiance, that devotees of 
 compromise should think about in relation to cutting 
 and engraving. 
 
 One other point. The Whitefriars table glasses and 
 decanters are not " pressed " or " moulded," but made 
 entirely by hand, and with tools wellnigh as primitive 
 as those which were used by Egyptian glass-blowers 
 under the Pharaohs. Every bit of work is an example 
 of blown glass, of pure craftsmanship ; and Mr. Powell 
 is willing at all times to exhibit to his customers the 
 many processes and the factory life. You will see the 
 rough " metal " stored in great bins and resembling a 
 red-tinted dust ; the big crucibles of Stourbridge clay, 
 •258 
 
^ ^ 
 
 < 5 
 
HOUSEHOLD GLASS 
 
 weighing about half a ton ; the great furnaces that bum 
 night and day for years, and that look infernal ; the 
 glass-blowers at work, the annealing kilns, the cutting 
 shops and the large show-rooms. Everything is ftill of 
 interest — picturesque and fascinating. 
 
 " In the glass house," wrote the late Gleeson White, 
 " is a huge central furnace, circular in shape, rising to 
 the roof, with open doors all round. Peeping in there 
 you see a white-hot crucible with its open mouth facing 
 the door. A worker dips his rod into the molten metal, 
 withdraws it, blows the lump at the end to a globe. 
 Then he takes the rod in his left hand and rotates it 
 rapidly on its axis as he rolls it backwards and forwards 
 on a metal rail at his side, while with his right hand he 
 deftly mserts a piece of wire into the centre of the globe, 
 and opens it to a bowl shape. By this time the loss of 
 heat requires the glass to be put back into the mouth of 
 the furnace. The rod with an open bowl on its end, 
 still rotated by hand, is plunged boldly in, and with- 
 drawn to be further opened out and manipulated — 
 possibly to form a trumpet-shaped vase or one not un- 
 like the flower of a convolvulus. Meanwhile, another 
 maker has, perhaps, been fashioning the leg and foot of 
 the vase in Hke fashion. This he bruigs forward, hold- 
 ing it fixed to a rod like the bowl. The bowl is then 
 snapped off and stuck on the foot. Now the rod, 
 bearing a large and costly goblet or vase at its end, 
 is again plunged into the furnace and coaxed once more 
 to the shape, replunged, stroked, and coerced by various 
 
 259 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 tools until it is finished. Then with a sharp blow it is 
 detached from the rod, and carried with a pair of tongs 
 to the mouth of one of the coohng ovens, ' lears,' as 
 they are called. Here trays containing finished pieces 
 move gradually from intense heat by the doors right to 
 the back of the oven, and out into the cold air of distant 
 passages, whence they are taken off to other workshops 
 to be engraved, or otherwise worked upon. Some 
 pieces require from twenty-four to forty-eight hours for 
 their slow journey through the dozen yards or so of the 
 lear. On this anneaUng process depends the very life 
 of the glass, and despite all care, a few pieces are 
 destroyed in every batch owing to unequal contraction 
 in heating."* 
 
 Even this good description is inadequate ; it 
 is almost impossible to describe any technical pro- 
 cess which is intricate. The words flow on into 
 such scattered sentences that readers cannot piece 
 them together without effort, and are reminded of 
 those word-pictures in which some novelists detail a 
 portrait, giving line after line to every feature, and 
 sometimes a whole page to a smile. Still, however 
 scattered a description may be, the mind retains a 
 general impression, vague, perhaps, but yet of value in 
 technical methods, if only because we learn from it that 
 much time enters into all good work. We should hear 
 less about cheap things, and more about thorough worth, 
 
 * Gleeson White in The Art Journal. See Part ix. of the 
 Jubilee Series published in 1899. 
 260 
 
HOUSEHOLD GLASS 
 
 if the public were taught in our free schools how to 
 understand the main facts in the processes of manu- 
 facture. At the present time, owing to a demand for 
 excessive regularity, accompanied by excessive light- 
 ness and thinness, many simple forms of table glass are 
 blown into moulds. Now this process of moulding 
 requires comparatively little skill, and is therefore 
 inimical to the best methods and craftsmanship. 
 Indeed, if the fashion for so-called " aerial " glass be 
 long continued, the glass-blower's exquisite art will 
 disappear. 
 
 261 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 FURNITURE, BY M. H. BAILLIE SCOTT 
 
 Mr. Baillie Scott is an architect, and his work is 
 famihar to all students of modern art. It is work with 
 a character of its own, a playful individuality, and yet, 
 like the style of the late William Morris, it belongs to 
 our mediaeval traditions, reminding us of those times 
 when the romance element of design was strong in the 
 household arts. This being so, let us try to understand 
 the spirit of those far-off days. 
 
 " From records, and what remains to us," writes Mr. 
 W. R. Lethaby, " we know that the room, the hangings, 
 and the furniture were patterned all over with scattered 
 flowers and inscriptions — violets and the words ' hoiine 
 pensee ' ; or vases of lilies and ' pax,' angels and incense 
 pots, ciphers and initials, badges and devices, or what- 
 ever there be of suggestion and mystery. The panelling 
 and furniture were 'green like a curtain,' as the old 
 accounts have it ; or vermilion and white, like some 
 painted chairs at Knole ; or even decorated with paint- 
 ings and gilt gesso patterns like the Norfolk screens. 
 Fancy a bed with the underside of the canopy having 
 an Annunciation or a spreading trellis of roses, and 
 262 
 
FURNITURE, BY M. H. BAILLIE SCOTT 
 
 the chamber carved Hke one in thirteenth-century 
 romance : 
 
 ' N'a el monde beste n'oisel 
 Qui n'i soit ovre a cisel.' 
 
 If we would know how far we are from the soul of art, 
 we have but to remember that all this, the romance 
 element in design, the joy in life, nature, and colour, 
 which in one past development we call Gothic, and 
 which is ever the well of beauty undefiled, is not now 
 so much impossible of attainment as entirely out of 
 range with our spirit and life, a felt anachronism and 
 affectation." 
 
 That is true no doubt. But William Morris renewed 
 for us some part of the mediaeval genius and turned it 
 into the best textile fabrics which our age has produced ; 
 and Mr. Baillie Scott, working both as architect and as 
 decorative artist, has, in turn, studied the Gothic styles, 
 borrowing hints, adapting ideas, and forming — as all 
 men must form — a new style having an old flavour. It 
 is to him and to William Morris that we should go if we 
 wish to use the most difficult form of household art — 
 namely, the patterned. 
 
 Mr. Scott has written about the work he loves, not in 
 articles only, but in a book — " Houses and Gardens " — 
 which you ought to read; it is pubUshed by Messrs. 
 Newnes, Limited. 
 
 Furniture cannot be considered apart from the house 
 to which it belongs, and Mr. Scott not only remembers 
 this fact but carries it into his designs, furnishing rooms 
 
 263 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 with such fitments as are suggested by his plans, so 
 that only a few meubles are required to complete the 
 scheme. 
 
 It is an excellent method of work, because fitments 
 do not occupy the large amount of air space which has 
 to be given to wardrobes, chests of drawers, bookcases, 
 and such Uke. Modern bedrooms ought to be furnished 
 mainly by fitments, and other conveniences might be 
 made in all dining-rooms, where sideboards could be 
 built structurally hi the walls, as some were during the 
 fifteenth century. 
 
 But architects are not free agents ; their duty is to 
 please their clients, and that is not a simple thing to do 
 with success, because laymen have come to beheve that 
 house furnishing and house building are two arts, 
 whereas they ought to be one. Owing to this 
 erroneous belief, there is one trouble that poisons the 
 life of most architects. Good houses are built, and 
 then their owners "finish" them with a vengeance, 
 putting the queerest assortment of furniture into the 
 rooms. And it is not discreet either to protest or to 
 offer advice. Indeed, advice may be resented hotly: 
 it is seldom followed— unless it happens to agree with 
 a cUent's preconceived ideas, which does not occur very 
 often. 
 
 Happily there are some architects whose names are 
 connected with the other arts of design, and to them we 
 owe the most interesting homes which are built to-day. 
 Their styles are various, and you may take your choice, 
 264 
 
c ■^■" £ 
 
 C ^ '£ 
 
 y-. t 
 
^ H 
 O 
 
 C " 
 
 ^^.^ 
 
 
FURNITURE, BY M. H. BAILLIE SCOTT 
 
 comparing Mr. Scott's with Mr. Lorimer's, Mr. Voysey's 
 with Mr. Walter Cave's, or Mr. Dawber's with that of 
 Mr. E. L. Lutyens, and so forth. 
 
 Mr. BaiUie Scott hves at Bedford, and from this 
 town an illustrated catalogue may be got of furniture 
 designed by him and made by Mr. John P. White at 
 the Pyghtle Works. I am able to give illustrations of 
 some examples of this furniture, and with them two 
 typical rooms by Mr. Scott, these being reproduced by 
 kind permission of Messrs. George Newnes, Limited. 
 
 One picture, you will find, represents the interior of a 
 kitchen at Elmwood Cottage in the Garden Citj , It 
 is an example of a modest arrangement suitable for 
 small houses. The fixed seat in the ingle and the 
 dresser are of Enghsh elm, while the rest of the furni- 
 ture is antique and of the simple cottage kind. The 
 floor is brick, the walls are whitewashed like the ceiling, 
 and the usual dado and frieze give place here to struc- 
 ture and the pleasant restful tones of innocent wood- 
 work and plain whitewash. 
 
 Thence we pass to a hall in a terrace house of the 
 smaller kind such as may be met with in England on 
 the outskirts of any town. In such houses, as a rule, 
 we find a gloomy, narrow hall with an umbrella stand, a 
 wonderfully impracticable chair, and a startling wall- 
 paper ; then there are the usual rectangular compart- 
 ments known by courtesy as the dining-room and the 
 study, small places, of course, and filled to overflowing 
 with oddments of furniture picked up at random. 
 
 265 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 Mr. Scott breaks away from this tradition and forms 
 one large room, cosy and pleasant to look at. He puts 
 the dining-table in a recess, and the recess has at the 
 side a little door for service, so that the table may be 
 laid and cleared without traffic across the room ; and 
 this good idea has another advantage, doing away with 
 the necessity of a second fire for the dining-room. As 
 the outlook behind the house was not pleasant, Mr, 
 Scott made the window small and put in pale amber 
 glass to mellow the light while hiding an ugly view. 
 The woodwork and the new furnishings are in a tone 
 of grey green, while the rest of the colour-scheme con- 
 sists mainly of a good, warm white for the plastered 
 walls and ceiling, reUeved by the brickwork of the fire- 
 place. 
 
 In INIr. Scott's book there is another hall, showing 
 the same principles of design, but in relation to a large 
 country house. Here the aim has been to get away 
 from the usual rectangular apartment, and in an ordered 
 irregularity to give variety of light and shade. Mr. 
 Scott depends for his decorative effect on structure as 
 expressed in beams and posts, attaching little import- 
 ance here to the adornment of surfaces. The very 
 substance of the house is thus expressed in timber, in 
 plaster and in stone, while the brackets to the beams 
 take the form of conventional representations of the 
 various woodland trees in the neighbourhood. 
 
 The central electroher represents in wrought iron a 
 wreath of mountain ash with white enamelled flowers 
 20G 
 
FURNITURE, BY M. H. BAILLIE SCOTT 
 
 and scarlet berries. The furniture — apart from such 
 fitments as were designed with the house itself — is 
 mainly of a simple antique kind ; and note that the 
 grand piano — usually a great encumbrance in a small 
 room — is put away in a shady corner of the staircase. 
 
 267 
 
1 
 
SOME EXAMPLES OF SIMPLE FURNITURE 
 
OAK CHAIRS 
 />csi!/ii(j<l III/ ('. F. A. 'N'ovsEY, Architect 
 
 ASH CHAIRS. STAINED AND WAXED 
 Dcsii/iicd bi/ K. I,. LuTYENS, F.K.r.B.A., Architect 
 
DFvKSSKll SIDEBOAKD 
 
 ■i ft. (j ins. wiilf. Til oak. inlaid with i)e\vlei-, fl>oii\. aiul colnurcd wodiIs 
 
 Or^iilimt hii M. II. r, vii.i.ii; S< iitt. hikI iikkIi hii .Ions 1*. Wliiri:. Midlonl 
 
DINING-liOO.M CHAIKS 
 M(tdi' bi/ 1;oi!i;rt Ciirtstie, (leovgu Street, I'ortmau S(]iii[re. I.oiidnn 
 
OAK ARM CHAIR 
 
 Upholstered 
 
 OAK .\i;m cllAIU 
 
 riilKilstcTcil with hide 
 
 M<i<lv liii LiiiKniv & Co., Hom-iit Sirccl. I.nnilon 
 
TWIN BEDSTEAD, WITH COLOURED GESSO PANELS 
 Desit/ned by M. H. Baillie Scott, made by J. P. White, Beilford 
 
BOW BACK SETTEE 
 Unpolished oak. 5 ft. lonj; 
 
 COUNTKV COTTAGE FUKNlirKE 
 
 Koiind Oak Tabl.-, :i It. .liaiiictcr : WlRTl-l)ack Wiiulsor Chair.- 
 Plain Oak, unpdlishcd 
 
 .\/(t(/i III/ IIkai, .V .<()N, 'roiti'iiliain (oan Unad, I.oudou 
 
ARM CHAIR 
 Stained brown, with rush seat 
 
 HIGH-BACK CHAIR 
 Stained brown, with rush seat 
 
 ARM CHAIR ARM CHAIR 
 
 Stained brown, with rush seat Stained brown, with rush seat 
 
 Made by Liberty A: Co., Regent St., London 
 
WELSH DltKSSKU IN OAK 
 
 () It. Itinir, willi Imiss fittings 
 
 Mittlr III/ Stokv .V ( o.. Ktii>iiii;ii)n, l.oiiili>ii. W, 
 
HCAL 
 . is 
 SON 
 
 PLAIN OAK FURNITrilE 
 Made hi/ Hkal .V- Son, 'J'ottc'iiliain Court Ko:id, l>ondou 
 
OAK WASHSTAND 
 
 With marble top, tiled baciv, two towel rails and cupboard 
 under. 2 ft. 6 in. wide 
 
 
 OAK WASHSTAND 
 
 Witli marbl.' top, tiled back, two towel rails aud cupboards 
 under. 3 ft. 6 in. wide 
 
 Madt by Heal & Son, Loudou 
 
SUSSEX AHM-CHAIB 
 rn Jilack 
 
 ROSSETTI" AU.M-( HAIR 
 In Black 
 
 SUSSEX SINCI.E CIlAli; 
 In I'.l:i, k 
 
 ARM ( llAll; 
 In r.ruw II Siiiiii 
 -MoinnsA ("..Ji;.. (,.xlonlSlmM,L,,iulo» 
 
SOME EXAMPLES OF RICHER FURNITURE 
 
CHARLES II. BED 
 Mail,- hii \\v.\l. k S"N, London 
 
 
 
 
 ^^^H\fmf.fjyii^^H 
 
 mmkvm 
 
 •i ^ MS^yiTTTWl 
 
 
 
 *" < H\/\/\/r/\/iX 
 
 ¥¥flil| 
 
 » 
 
 'i 
 
 
 ^■. • 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 HEPPLEWHITE BED 
 Mdi/c bji Heai, iV' Son, LoikIou 
 
':r:;:9''-j\*^^: 
 
 -^cs^ 
 
 ENtil.lSH (IIAIKS IN STYLKS OF TIIK XVlll. CKNUKV 
 Made by Kobkkt Chuistik. I,t)ii(l<>ii 
 
WARDROBE IN ENGLISH WALNUT 
 By Sidney H. Barnsley, Craftsman 
 
'^ W^ SI S S O SSSSP^^ 
 
 OAK w.\i;iii;(»i5i-: Avirii (iii.r Mori.inxds 
 
 Jhsiiji,,.! Ill/ Mit. <t<;ii.vii;, «i ilu- (.ml I nl ll.iiHliir.i 11. ( .iiiii. l.ii. C.li 
 
" WALNUT WARDROBE 
 
 4 ft. 3iui. wide 
 Dtxigiud hij K. L. Lltyens, F.K.I.IJ.A. 
 

 - ' -S ° 
 
DRESSER 
 Designed by R. S. Lorimer, Architect, P]diiiburgli 
 
y. i 
 
WALXUT WASHING-TABLES 
 Designed by E. L. Lutvens, F.K.I. B.A. 
 
CHARLES II. CHAIR 
 From the Cu'ltdioii of Uxsii, Diciiton, K-i(|., 42 (lovvtir Stroet, Louilou, WA', 
 
WRITING-DESK IN ENGLISH WALNUT 
 By Sidney H. Harnsley 
 
B -s 
 
 C -5 
 
 ■/• ^ 
 
IXLAID SATINWOOD BUllEAU 
 From the CoWrti..n at Basil I)i..nroN, i.ai . 
 
TAINTKl) SATINWODD r.rKKAl' BOOKCASE 
 From the CoUtction (;/1?asii, Dichion. Ksq., I.oinloii 
 
r^ 
 
 
 P5 
 
 
 H 
 
 
 m 
 
 
 H 
 
 
 ^ Ph 
 
 
 05 <: 
 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
 
 al = 
 
 
 O H 
 
 
 
 
 <5 O 
 
 
 1^5 
 
 
 C p3 
 
 
 H r----l 
 
 
 X O 
 
 
 hJ 
 
 
 f^ 
 
 
 - 
 
 a 
 
 g 
 
 o 
 
 ►^ 5= 
 
 w 
 
 o 
 
 P3 
 
 K 
 
 H 
 < 
 
 Q 
 
INLAID CAIUXET OF ITALIAN WALNTT IX J 
 (H'KEN ANNL STYLE 
 
 J)csiijiii(l I't/ Mv.nws MACAifiM.v, Ai-chiteil. I.rimioii 
 Mii(b III) :M<)Uuis ,\. Co.. L'liuloii 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 SANITARY APPLIANCES 
 
 Although jerry-builders have lived on the nation's 
 home life like foxes on poultry yards, a great improve- 
 ment has taken place in domestic sanitation. To build 
 bad drains underground is a crime against public health ; 
 to put up sham work in other parts of a house, though 
 harmful, is not connected with small-pox and typhoid 
 fever, so it has come to be looked upon as an evil of 
 common business, and the word business covers a 
 multitude of frauds. Who can guess what men will do 
 when they pass through their front gates into the daily 
 competitions of trade ? 
 
 Those who earn their living as servants to our 
 domestic wants and whims may be divided into a couple 
 of big armies, one superintended by the medical officers 
 of health, and the other not. There must be something 
 very wholesome in the fear which those medical officers 
 inspire, for all sanitary apphances improve, and with 
 such rapidity that a layman is bewildered by their 
 variety and excellence. Manufacturers seem to jostle 
 one another in their eagerness to be thorough and 
 practical. 
 
 Their catalogues, too, are made up with great care 
 
 s 273 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 and judgment, but I notice, not without surprise, that 
 sanitary experts are not immune from the microbes of 
 agsthetic taste, which breed fashionable epidemics in 
 the home arts. This matter is one which medical 
 officers of health cannot bring under their discipline, 
 and perhaps a sense of humour in those who buy is 
 enough to check the maladies of art on baths, lavatories, 
 cast-iron sinks, and the fittings of closets. Even the 
 valveless syphon tanks known as "water waste- 
 preventers " are sometimes very decorated, and you will 
 find sprays of flowering plants treated in a pretty-pretty 
 fashion. They might be china ornaments on the 
 mantelshelf in a third-rate boarding-house. 
 
 Pattern, pattern everywhere, and nothing to see 
 besides : this popular weakness should not appear on 
 sanitary appliances. 
 
 Perhaps baths may be decorated in a simple fashion, 
 with line ornament under the brims ; it is a question 
 of taste, like another matter connected with washing 
 and cleanUness. Old ladies have often a great dislike 
 for a bath-room common to a whole family. " I want 
 my own bath in my own room," one of them tells me. 
 *' You see, I was not brought up to the modern custom 
 of using a bath which many use daily. Ideas of cleanli- 
 ness change, and I should feel unhappy if I were obliged 
 to use every one's bath. To my mind — of course I'm 
 very old-fashioned — the new custom is not clean.'' 
 
 That is one point of view. But other ladies would 
 rather forgive a bad dressmaker than live in homes 
 274 
 
%^- 
 
 •^m^ 
 
 ^ 
 N. 
 
 BATH AND 1 TITINGS, THE '•^'E\VLYX" DESIGN 
 
 ^/<ll/(' hy DOULTOX A Co.. I.oiuloll 
 
^^. 
 
 1- 
 
 ^ 
 
 il- 
 
 ^\\y. I'.ATIIS 
 />,// l)<n I. ION A ( o.. I.diiiloii 
 
BATH-KOOM FITTINGS 
 
 399, 400, 40L Towel Rails ; 400a. 401a, Glass Rails, brass mounts : 1036. HinirHd 
 Towel Rail, with 3 rails ; 1037, Glass Shelf for Towels, 3 ft. long, with' bracket 
 and towel rail, brass tittings ; 1037A, Bracket and Tray for Towels, with 1 rail ; 
 1038, 1038a, Towel Baskets ; 1039, Hanging Soap Disli ; l"039A, Combined Hanging 
 Soap and Sponge Dish ; 1039b, Soap Dish for Wall ; 1040, Combined Soap and 
 Sponge Dish for bath roll ; 1041, Sponge Dish for Wall : 1041a, Sponge Holder 
 
 for wall 
 
 DouLTOx & Co., Lambeth, London 
 
\ rr 
 
 ■'^ -- 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 \^ 
 
 r.All! KiiflM 
 
 The T-'ittin.tfs consist of ;i canopy l.alli. d" loiitr. " I)>)iilt(>n "" sit/, liiitli. statuary marhlf 
 lavatorv, statnarv iiiarliii' ili>lied liase for lavatory, plated towel rail, spiiiiu-^e holder, and 
 
 soap dish. 
 
 ,!/(/(/< bi/ Doi l.TON .V Co.. I,:inil>etli, Loiiiion 
 
SANITARY APPLIANCES 
 
 without common bath-rooms. They are made uneasy by 
 the knowledge that some of their friends have taken old 
 houses. " No bath-rooms, my dear," they say, and with a 
 shocked astonishment, as if a comfortable bath by a bed- 
 room fire were unfriendly to soap and water, hke campaign- 
 ing life in South Africa. And there is also a kind of Spartan 
 rigour in the hard comforts which " ideal " bath-rooms 
 offer to their devotees. One lady tells me, in a letter 
 profusely underlined, that all bath-rooms should be tiled, 
 not the walls only, but the floors too ; and the doors 
 must be white, painted with washable colours, and the 
 window- curtains in waterproof fabrics. There is one 
 concession to human weakness : it is not necessary to 
 stand with hot wet feet on the cold tiles, and the ritua^ 
 of bathing kindly mentions the neutral warmth of cork 
 slabs, because cork is easy to sponge with disinfectants. 
 
 It is not clear who is to bathe in these cold-looking, 
 waterproof rooms. Provision is made for so much 
 splashing that boys ought to be kept at home, so that 
 fathers might learn from them how to dive in a bath six 
 feet long. Tiles are certainly pretty and clean, but they 
 do add to the usual drawback of bath-rooms, namely, 
 their chilling look, their coldness. 
 
 Most bath-rooms are architectural after-thoughts, like 
 dressing-rooms in theatres. Tiny windows let in the 
 north light, and very often there is not space enough for 
 a fireplace. We take our hot baths shiveringly during 
 the winter, get violent colds, and then persuade our 
 family doctors that we have the influenza and that the 
 
 275 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 medical world ought to be ashamed of itself, allowing a 
 disease to return to us year after year without any 
 diminution in its w^orst symptoms and effects. When 
 I think of these ordinary bath-rooms, with their arctic 
 tribulations, the ritual of bathing does not seem to need 
 the further chilliness of glazed tiles. 
 
 But this, too, may be a question of taste. For all 
 that, I am tempted to dogmatise on two points, for 
 bath-rooms ought to face the morning sun, and have fire- 
 places for use on cold days. Better by far the old hand- 
 bath by a good fire than a cold bath-room which cannot 
 be warmed. 
 
 We are approaching a time when sitz baths will not 
 be disliked by housemaids — a time when every bedroom 
 will have a lavatory with a good basin and hot and cold 
 water, a convenience very much to be desired. We 
 may then use sitz baths if we please, and empty the 
 water into the lavatory basin, winning the goodwill of 
 servants and saving ourselves from that little morning 
 game of hide-and-seek that is so annoying when half a 
 dozen early risers want the bath-room at the same hour 
 daily. 
 
 Bedroom lavatories are made in many styles, all good 
 from a scientific point of view, but improvements have 
 yet to be made on the decorative side. Some lavatories 
 are carried by metal brackets, and it is of course essential 
 that the metal should look strong enough — a point to be 
 remembered by makers of sanitary appliances. Elegance 
 may be put in wrong places. Many lavatories stand 
 270 
 

 'C^'? 
 
 ^ 
 
 y..-«ff--.---v.<e. 
 
 FITTIN(iS FOR LAVATORIES 
 
 1210, Quecnsware Tooth Brush Vase, with plated brass holder: 1210a, Ghass Tumbler, 
 with platei brass holder ; 1336, Queeusware Soup Dish, with plated brass frame : 133(5a, 
 Queensware Soap Dish, to fix to wall : 1337, Sponge Holder, brass plated; 1338, Comb 
 and Brush Holder, brass plated: 1339, Carafe, with plated brass holder ; 1310, Tooth 
 Brush and Soii]! Holder in jilatcd l)rass. includinn t^ieensware tooth brush vase and dish ; 
 1340a, Tooth r.nisli. Soap and Tmrililer Holder in ])lalrd liniss, iiicludiiii: i^lass i\inil)li'r 
 and t^ueenswarc tooth brush vase and dish : i:14ob, Toulh Brush and Tuiiilder Holder, in- 
 fludiuii- glass tumbler and (Queensware tooth brush holder ; 13 tl. Bevelled I'lale tilass 
 Mirror, with plated brass frame 
 
 DouLTON & Co.. I.ambeth. London 
 
■ 'l^^ ^ -^ ^ -'■ 
 
 ANoiiiKi; i;.\ riMioDM 
 
 ■|'lii~ I'.nlh-n.i.iii i> ;i t\iir Miitalilc U,[- n \in\i-r ,,i iiiiMlci-;ilr >i/.<' : it i> >imiilf 
 ;iiiil neat, i-ventliinjj: hriiiL;- while with uoM liii''> ami plate I litliuirs 
 
 ■Jill-: I'lTTlNCiS CONSIST dl' 
 
 A i") ft. in. J'.atli. a white vitreous .•naiiHllnl Inot Lath. (,)ueei>\vare lavatory, 
 
 skirting and frieze, [.hited tra.\ U>v t.>\\els, phii-.l inuel rails, an. I towfl basket, 
 
 phited spiMi;:'' iiohlL-r. soap disii. and toolhliriish holder 
 
 Uoi i/roN .V ( 11.. l.dMilim 
 
f 
 
 *V'. 
 
 BE DKOOM LAYATOill ES 
 
 l!ET)i:<)<iM LAVATORIES WITH ENCLOSUUES 
 /;// DOULTON & Co., Loiidou 
 
I;A11C;K AllKA W ASll-l'OWN CLOSKl' 
 ]tii Don. ION .V Co., Lomloii 
 
SANITARY APPLIANCES 
 
 on " decorative legs," as catalogues point out now and 
 then, but there is no reason why a decorative leg should 
 look too thin for the purpose which it has to serve. 
 Sanitary appliances are made so carefully, and do so 
 much credit to English workmanship, that one does not 
 expect to meet with mistakes even on the art side. 
 There is no need at all for flower decorations on closets, 
 nor is it structural to put attenuated legs under a strong 
 lavatory. But even these mistakes are unaccompanied 
 by the slipshod work that is common in many other 
 branches of English manufacture. 
 
 Then, as regards bath-room tiles, experts seem to 
 believe that they should be cream white, with a few 
 coloured ones arranged in a chess-board pattern along 
 the dado and the frieze ; but, as bath-rooms have the 
 reputation of being the coldest rooms in most houses, 
 warmer- looking tiles would not be amiss, at least in 
 ordinary homes. The deep red of old Chinese pottery, 
 known as sang-de-beuf, would be cheery and beautiful, 
 and Persian and Rhodian wares would suggest other 
 colours. Let us hope, meantime, that pretty realistic 
 flowers will not be adapted from Victorian chintzes as in 
 recent wall-papers. 
 
 But these matters of detail are interesting only to 
 those of us who wish to build houses or who gave such 
 hostages to fortune some years ago. Under a three 
 years' lease we cannot do much to improve the chill 
 places which landlords advertise with untiring pride — 
 " Bath-rooms (hot and cold) " — the words in brackets 
 
 277 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 applying to the water when the kitchen fires burn 
 too much coal. The best thing we can do is to 
 paint the walls with Duresco colour, or with Hall's 
 Distemper. 
 
 Perhaps the worst bath-rooms are to be found in flats 
 for moderate incomes. As a rule they have pigeon- 
 hole ^^dndows which let in hght from the well ; they are 
 cold even in summer, while in winter they have the 
 same disadvantage as the little entrance hall and the 
 long passage, which cannot be warmed ; and if you try 
 to ventilate them your flat becomes as draughty as a 
 tunnel. When will common sense come by its own in 
 popular domestic architecture ? 
 
 Cold bath-rooms ought never to be used during the 
 winter months. It is cheaper by far to buy two or 
 three sitz baths or to write for information to the Bab 
 Bath Co., Pendleton, JNIanchester, whose light and 
 portable baths, pressed into shape from a single sheet of 
 the best steel, are strong and convenient. Some are 
 galvanised, others enamelled, and others plated with 
 nickel or with silver. They range in price from 13*. Qd. 
 to 16*. 6d., with an extra charge of 3*. 6d. for a wooden 
 stand, and of 226'. 6d. for a carrying case in basket- 
 work. 
 
 For the rest, there is no room here for a list of the 
 many firms that make good sanitary appliances, but 
 special attention may be drawn to Messrs. Doulton and 
 Co., Lambeth, London, and JNIessrs. Davis, Bennett and 
 Co., Westminster, London. 1 am giving a number of 
 278 
 
SANITARY APPLIANCES 
 
 illustrations of Doulton's work, enough to show its 
 utility and its thoroughness. The improved sitz baths 
 are particularly interesting, and may be recommended 
 for dressing-rooms in new houses. 
 
 All necessary information is given in the catalogues 
 issued by the leading manufacturers. 
 
 279 
 
SOME EXAMPLES OF GARDEN FURNITURE 
 
 \ 
 
 I 
 
Si. "§ 
 
 0) li 
 
 H 
 
 ffi .S.H ^•. 
 
 
£_ -I 
 
 ;^ •= •H 
 
 III 
 
 — ^'' - 
 
GAKDEN SKAT, THE '-BIDDENHAM" DESIGN 
 ^fn(l(; hji J. 1*. 'SyriiTE, Bedfonl 
 
 GARDEN SKAT, HAl!LlN(xTON l»K>i*..\ 
 M<i(/e/ri .1. I'. White, Bedford 
 
GARDEN FUKNITURE 
 
 This seat-tlie "Derby" pattern— has been designed to meet the demand for a 
 semi-cireular seat at a low price, and will be found very light and easy to move. 
 It unscrews in the centre into two pieces 
 
 ,I/«'/e //// -T. r. White, Bedford 
 
THE "HATLEY" DESIGN 
 Seats of this tyjie are made in four sections, and can l)e fitted tofrether 
 in a few mintites with tliuinl)screws. It is not advisable t) have the 
 seat less than 8 feet diameter inside, even if the free for whicii it is 
 required is inticii less than tliat, for there i'^ no need that the whole 
 of tlie sjiaci' inside the circular seat should be tilled by tlie tree 
 ,!/»/- hii .1. 1'. White. Bedford 
 
 (.AKDKN SKAT 
 Mil l< hji .1. r. Wiiin:, Hedl'onl 
 

 
PART III 
 THE HOUSE AND ITS ROOMS 
 
jidT, 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 SOME HINTS ON ROOMS 
 
 There is a widespread delusion to the effect that the 
 art of house furnishing can be taught by means of 
 recipe directions to fit in with aU circumstances. " Tell 
 me how to furnish my dining-room," says one person. 
 " What decoration is right for a study ? " another asks. 
 " What is the best covering for chairs ? " has long been 
 a favourite question, because the materials in many 
 shops have been so deplorably bad as a rule. Recipes 
 are not of the slightest good in art. Every room needs 
 a treatment of its own, determined by its light, size 
 and shape, its purpose, the hobbies and tastes of those 
 who live in it, and— more important still— the amount of 
 money to be spent on its furniture and decoration. Every 
 room in a house, again, should be in harmony with the 
 . others, yet unhke them. Most of us fall into error 
 
 f either by making all the rooms too much the same, or 
 
 by giving too much contrast between their styles or 
 between their colour-schemes. 
 I These factors differ, more or less, in all households ; 
 
 it is thus impossible for a book to deal with them ; the 
 only thing a writer can do is to explam the grammar 
 
 283 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 of the household arts and crafts, leaving each reader to 
 apply the rules or principles. 
 
 One part of the grammar is concerned with archi- 
 tectural matters ; it points out what is most desirable 
 in good rooms, how they should be placed in their 
 relation to the sun and to each other, and what tenants 
 should expect to find in structural details of proportion. 
 But, as a house may range in size from a tiny cottage 
 to the largest country seat, these general questions are 
 not easy to discuss ; and so we must choose a definite 
 type of home most likely to be useful to the Great 
 Public. For example, what may be taken as a fair 
 average house for the Middle Classes? May we not 
 give it the following accommodation ? — 
 
 1. The service part, the household offices ; a bed- 
 room, a kitchen, a scullery, a pantry, a closet, and a 
 bath, this to be put in the scullery and to have a 
 wooden cover, so that the bath may be used during the 
 day as a table for necessary things. 
 
 2. Passages, corridors, and a staircase or two. 
 
 3. A hall — perhaps only an entrance hall, or vestibule. 
 
 4. A nursery. 
 
 5. The bath-room and lavatory. 
 
 6. A closet. (See the illustrations of sanitary ap- 
 pliances.) 
 
 7. Four or five bedrooms. 
 
 8. Three day-rooms, one for meals, another for talk 
 and family life, and a third for hobbies : that is to say, 
 for the favourite recreation, no matter what it may be. 
 284 
 
THE HALL IN A LONDON HOUSE 
 Bi/ permisiiioi) iifFRASK Brangwyn, A.K.A. 
 
INXKl; MALI,, LITTLKCOriM' 
 \\Ai/ri;u ( AVi:, Architect, London 
 
SOME HINTS ON ROOMS 
 
 One family may need a studio for painting, another a 
 work-room for carpentry or metal-craft, a third may 
 collect books, and a fourth play table billiards. The 
 point is that one day- room should be free from the 
 discipUne of tidiness ; should never look as though it 
 were put in order "to receive company." 
 
 The apartments mentioned here may be divided into 
 two classes, the major and the minor, not because of 
 any real difference in their importance, but because the 
 minor are understood by all good housewives. The 
 service quarters, for instance, are considered with 
 anxious care, thanks to the difficulty of keeping good 
 servants — when they are found by rare good fortune. 
 It is impossible for us to enjoy that old snobbishness 
 that put servants underground, and treated them as 
 badly as actors are treated now in theatre dressing- 
 rooms. A bad kitchen soon makes family Hfe im- 
 possible ; and if cooks and housemaids grumble about 
 their bedrooms, we expect to find nerves in the parlour. 
 
 Again, the bath-room has been discussed (pp. 275- 
 278), and nothing more need be said about it. As to 
 the nursery, every mother has her own ideas, but there 
 are just a few points which may be offered here for 
 consideration. In the first place, obtrusive theories of 
 education are out of place in a nursery, which should 
 be a play-room, a place for happy noise and amusement. 
 The more we try to teach httle children, the sooner 
 we give them a dishke for knowledge. Yet I have 
 seen nurseries where reading lessons were given from 
 
 285 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 words printed on a wall-paper, and where all the decora- 
 tion was false just in order that children might be 
 taught by silly pictures. Some paperhangings are like 
 toy books, giving pictorially all the nursery rhymes and 
 their human characters. Of course, they are bad deco- 
 rative art, being much too realistic for a wall-paper ; 
 and to teach children to like them is to prove that parents 
 have yet to be educated. Little ones are not taught 
 to spell dog with two " g's," but we often train them 
 in art to crow with delight over bad spelling and false 
 grammar, though the eye is all-important to any system 
 of education. Accustom it to good colour and to 
 fine ornament, and its judgment may be relied upon. 
 Ought we to forget this fact when we choose decorations 
 for a nursery ? 
 
 And here is another point. A nursery should have 
 an amusing shape, with rounded corners and with a 
 recess for hide-and-seek ; one part might be raised into 
 a small enclosure guarded by strong railings, where a 
 little king could sit in state and hold his court, or where 
 a prisoner could be shut up during another game. Let 
 us remember that a happy, well-made nursery is a day- 
 dream for a life. It is never forgotten. 
 
 Nursery furniture cannot be too strong. JNIany a little 
 heart has suffered from the absurd chairs tiiat break 
 when they are ridden upon as horses, or when they are 
 thrown ov^er because they represent killed soldiers or 
 captured towns. Sturdy oak chairs are the best, and 
 see that they are fitted together with good strong tenons 
 2 SO 
 
SOME HINTS ON ROOMS 
 
 and wooden pegs. Glued furniture is useless for 
 nurseries, though often found there. 
 
 In badly-built houses the nursery has to be quieter than 
 is good for its playmates; the word "Hush" is heard 
 far too often, producing in children a timid self-distrust 
 which may endure for many years ; and for this reason, 
 between given hours of the day, they should be encour- 
 aged to make as much noise as they can. It strengthens 
 them, it brings out personal character. 
 
 Keep nurse in a good temper by showing incessant 
 thought and consideration. She is not well pleased 
 when pails of fresh water have to be carried from one 
 floor to another, or when the " slops " must be taken 
 for some distance. That is why a scullery is essential 
 to a nursery suite ; and let it have a cupboard large 
 enough to hold coal for a week, and a boiler to heat 
 water for the children's baths. If not a boiler, then a 
 pipe of hot water from the kitchen. When hot water 
 is drawn from a tap in the kitchen itself, nurse and cook 
 are soon at word-blows with each other. Thorough 
 nurses are apt to look down upon other servants ; and 
 this proves that their department ought to be kept 
 separate from the service quarters under cook's dis- 
 cipline. 
 
 The truth is, however, that few houses are planned at 
 aU adequately for children. Our most recent adventure 
 in domestic building — the Flat System — tries to teach 
 us that children are justified only in families that pay 
 about £500 a year in rent, rates, and taxes ; and suburban 
 
 287 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 villas also are planned in accordance with Dean Swift's 
 hatred for a high birth-rate. 
 
 Not less remarkable are the bedrooms to be found in 
 the small flats and suburban villas. On this point I have 
 spoken in earher chapters, but further mention must be 
 made here of the principal mistake, the defective plan- 
 ning. What are the main necessaries in a modern bed- 
 room ? There are three : 
 
 1. Thorough ventilation at all hours of the day and 
 night. 
 
 2. Fitments to do away with wardrobes and chests of 
 drawers, so that room-space and air-space may not be 
 wasted. 
 
 3. A good position for the bed, not only away from 
 the draught passing between "svnndow, door, and fire- 
 place, but free from the early morning light. The foot 
 of a bed should not face a window. 
 
 These necessary things are absent in a great many 
 bedrooms. Yet we have Building Acts and Bylaws ! 
 The stupidity shown in bedroom planning would 
 dumfound everybody, were it not so common that 
 we are accustomed to make shift with it, somehow, 
 anyhow. 
 
 In a small room — and most bedrooms are unduly 
 small to-day, both in villas and in flats — there is often 
 a window almost as wide as the outer wall ; the door 
 faces it, and the fireplace has a position very well fitted 
 to make another keen draught. The bed, wherever it 
 is put, stands in a current of air, so the window is 
 288 
 
CRADLE IN CARVED WOOD 
 Designed by K. S. Lorimer, A.K.S.A. 
 
a <; 
 
 H o 
 
 •—I — 
 
SOME HINTS ON ROOMS 
 
 blocked up at night with heavy curtains. What 
 happens then ? It is supposed that warm breath rises 
 to the ceihng, but it contains carbonic acid gas, which 
 is heavier than air at an equal temperature ; and for 
 this reason, when breath is cooled by rising through 
 a cold atmosphere, the carbonic acid gas begins to sink 
 down to the level of the bed, till at last the breathing 
 zone of air is contaminated, and we awake in the 
 morning unrefreshed by sleep. 
 
 Good architects have said that bedroom planning 
 is often harmed by false notions of symmetry. Let 
 us think more of convenience and less of symmetry, 
 they advise. When bedrooms are small and square, 
 why put a very large window in the centre of a small 
 outer wall? If we divide that wall into halves, the 
 half on our right hand could be reserved for a vdndow^ 
 while that on the left could be given to the bed, which 
 might occupy either of two positions: first, with its 
 head to the outer wall, or, second, with its head to the 
 left-hand wall and its foot to a fireplace. As to the 
 best position for a door, architects choose the lower 
 corner of the right-hand wall, because the door when 
 opened acts as a screen both to the fireplace and to the 
 bed, while preventing — as much as possible — a direct 
 draught with the window. 
 
 On the other hand, when the window has a central 
 position, the following plan may be chosen : 
 
 (a) Let the bed stand near the middle of the right- 
 hand wall, with its head to the wall. 
 
 T 289 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 (/;) Put the fireplace opposite, in the centre of the 
 left-hand wall. 
 
 (c) Below the fireplace, at the bottom end of that 
 wall, build the door, taking care to let it open from 
 right to left, so that it may screen the bed. 
 
 Again, it is convenient to make two central windows 
 close together: then the dressing-table may be placed 
 between them, so that the looking-glass may not be 
 seen from outside. 
 
 The late J. J. Stevenson used to say that one of the 
 most frequent mistakes of modern planning was excess 
 of window light. " This not only loses valuable wall- 
 space but it makes the house a worse shelter against 
 the weather ; colder in winter and hotter in summer. 
 If the window lighting be exactly in the right place, 
 rooms may be perfectly lit with a comparatively small 
 amount of glass " — a truth forgotten by most house- 
 holders. " Those windows are too small," they say ; 
 " we like plenty of light. We can't have too much of 
 it," they continue, forgetting the half-tons of curtains 
 which they put up in winter. To this ignorance of 
 householders we owe the large, ill-placed windows in 
 small bedrooms. 
 
 "It is convenient, especially for visitors' rooms, to 
 arrange a suite, consisting of bedroom, dressing-room, 
 bath-room, &c., so that all may enter off a private 
 passage. 
 
 Such an arrangement is especially necessary to give 
 retirement from the noises and traffic of the house, 
 290 
 
SOME HINTS ON ROOMS 
 
 when the rooms enter, as is sometimes the case, off 
 a gallery around a great hall. 
 
 "It is convenient, also, to place less important bed- 
 rooms in sets, so that one group may belong to 
 bachelors, a separate group to young ladies, giving 
 facilities for those long talks at night in each other's 
 rooms, when, with their back hair down — if we take 
 Mr. Thackeray's word for it — they open their hearts 
 to each other in mutual confidences." * 
 
 * " House Architecture." By J. J. Stevenson. Vol. ii. pp. 68, 69. 
 
 291 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE DINING-ROOM 
 
 What is the dining-room to be ? Is it to serve only as 
 a salle a manger, a place for meals, or should it be used 
 also as a family parlour ? This question has to be con- 
 sidered by most households. 
 
 There can be no doubt that food is more enjoyable 
 when it is not served in ordinary day- rooms. If a 
 parlour is used for meals, there are regular interruptions 
 to its life ; books and papers are put away, needlework 
 is laid aside, and so forth ; and we feel all the time that 
 the room is so familiar, so much associated with other 
 duties, that it fails to give zest to family life at table. 
 
 But there are a great many homes that cannot afford 
 to keep a room exclusively for the table hours, and this 
 fact receives no attention at all from the builders of 
 suburban streets and houses, who cram into their plans 
 too many rooms of a diminutive size, forgetting that 
 small houses need two good sitting-rooms, and that one 
 should be a comfortable dining-hall, built expressly for 
 the general day-life of a family. It is absurd to give in a 
 small house a plan which is nothing more than a pocket 
 edition of a large mansion. 
 
 Further, as we cannot have too much air in our little 
 292 
 
D 
 
 A 
 
 o 
 
 „ 
 
 X 
 
 S 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 ^ 
 
 w 
 
 P 
 
 -^ 
 
 ~; 
 
 "A 
 
 « 
 
 ^ 
 
 > 
 
 P5 
 
 < 
 
 
 u 
 
 
 
 ru 
 
 
 O 
 
 ;4 
 
 o 
 
 L^ 
 
 
 < 
 
 o 
 
 ^ 
 
 'A 
 
 
D -^ 5 
 
 2 '■= = 
 
 ^ J ^ 
 
 9 -^ - 
 
 y, /. /- 
 
THE DINING-ROOM 
 
 houses and flats, furniture should occupy no more space 
 than is necessary ; and speculative builders ought to be 
 compelled by law to put certain fitments into their 
 rooms, such as sideboards in the dining-rooms and ward- 
 robes in bedrooms. All furniture which can be made 
 a structural part of a house, and therefore a landlord's 
 fixture, ought to be built as a matter of course, in these 
 days of sanitary advance. 
 
 Who does not know the little dining-room with the 
 following characteristics : 
 
 1. A table for mother, father, and three or four 
 children. It is much too wide, filling a room as a fat 
 man fills a chair. 
 
 2. A sideboard projecting far from the wall ; it 
 almost touches papa's chair during meals, so the waitress 
 cannot pass by without a wriggling effort. 
 
 3. A fireplace at one side which adds another difficulty 
 to the maid's discomfort. 
 
 In rooms of this kind the table should be narrow, 
 not broad and square ; the ends should have extending 
 leaves or hinged flaps ; then the table can be put away 
 between meals. 
 
 What a pity it is that the first principles of house 
 furnishing are not taught to school children ! If they 
 were, we should soon have many improvements in the 
 conveniences granted by landlords ; for the public would 
 then have decided views on many important questions, 
 such as the proportions of a dining-room. We get 
 little only because we do not know what we want. 
 
 29'S 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 When dining - rooms are without fitments, their 
 proportions should be determined by the necessary 
 furniture : a table, with chairs at the ends and at each 
 side, a good fireplace, a long sideboard with drawers and 
 cupboards, and a cabinet for glass and for tea and coffee 
 sets. These breakables ought to be kept in the dining- 
 room, and a mistress should know how many pieces 
 there are in each set ; she can then verify their number 
 once a day and keep the housemaid under discipline. 
 Modern housewives shirk many little duties of this kind, 
 and some have nervous attacks if they are asked "to 
 think about such worrying trifles." " We are upper 
 servants," they say, " and get no regular payment for 
 our work." However that may be, a housewife's duty 
 is to watch over her household things, keeping those 
 which are perishable and valuable under constant super- 
 vision. For this purpose it is useful to have in the 
 dining-room a cabinet with glass doors, so that the table 
 ware may be counted once a day without trouble or 
 difficulty. 
 
 And now, having in mind the necessary furniture, 
 what is the smallest width for a comfortable dining- 
 room ? Fifteen feet. AVith a narrow table we can 
 manage with rather less ; but eighteen feet would be 
 much better, of course. If we take fifteen feet as 
 a minimum, and decline to make it less, no fault can 
 be found with us — not even by suburban landlords ! 
 Eighteen feet long is another minimum, if we wish the 
 dining-room to be convenient. 
 294 
 
THE DINING-ROOM 
 
 Increase the width to eighteen feet, and the length 
 should range from twenty-four to thirty. Eighteen 
 by twenty-five is a good size for a family that entertains, 
 particularly when a fine bay-window at one end allows 
 the table to be lengthened. 
 
 It is not an easy matter to light the dining-room. 
 If you choose a western aspect, the level sun shines in 
 at the usual dinner-hour, and some persons object to 
 that. '* It is a nuisance," they argue, " because the 
 blinds have to be drawn, and a dining-room is then too 
 dim to be at all pleasant." That depends on the thick- 
 ness of the blinds. When sunlight enters a room through 
 a white blind which is not too thick, it fills the air with 
 a gentle and refreshing radiance. On the other hand, 
 architects say : " The best aspect in a small house is 
 from south to south-east. In the evening, at dinner, 
 the landscape is lighted up from behind ; at luncheon, 
 in the middle of the day, the sun is too high to be 
 troublesome ; and in the morning, at breakfast-time, it 
 is welcome if it does shine in upon the table. In large 
 houses a northern light is good for dining-rooms, because 
 breakfast is not taken there. If there is a little west in 
 the aspect it does not matter, for the sun will not be 
 annoying. 
 
 Side windows are bad in a dining-room, and for two 
 reasons. We face them if we sit at one side of the 
 table, and our shadows fall across our plates when we 
 dine with our backs to the light. A window at one 
 end of the room, opposite the carver, is generally 
 
 295 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 accepted as most convenient, unless the room is very 
 long, when a side window may be necessary for the 
 carver's sake. 
 
 Finally, a dining-room should communicate with the 
 kitchen, either by a serving-hatch or by a serving- 
 passage, or, again, by a lift from a basement. A 
 serving-passage needs a hot closet heated by gas or by 
 pipes from the kitchen boiler, so that plates and dishes 
 may be kept warm till they are required. 
 
 296 
 
■n O ;£ 
 
 ^ O 
 
 5?i 
 
 o 
 « 
 
 O 
 
 O 5 
 
 'O ^ ^ 
 
 s =? i 
 
^ t" 
 
 O i 
 
 o r; 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 SOME HINTS ON OTHER ROOMS 
 
 The Drawi7ig-Room 
 People have very different views concerning this apart- 
 ment. Some look upon it as a place to be used just 
 once a week, on Sunday only ; it has then a spick-and- 
 span neatness, not unhke an apron of fine musUn newly 
 starched and ironed. 
 
 No one is at all comfortable in a room of that kind, 
 cold, formal, and stiff. It is meant to be looked at as 
 an occasional penance, not to be lived in as a pleasure. 
 The very furniture seems to revolt against the untidi- 
 ness that accompanies daily use. All the coverings are 
 immaculately neat, unwrinkled ; the chairs, put method- 
 ically in allotted positions, look new and over-polished ; 
 and as to that fender in burnished steel, the maid- servant 
 hates it fiercely, for it gives her two hours' work after a 
 fire has burned during a whole day. 
 
 Then there is another type of drawing-room: it is 
 used regularly, yet men go to it reluctantly after dinner, 
 because their tobacco is said to rival moths in an attack 
 on curtains and coverings. An air of ceremony abides 
 here, and it reminds me always of the white surpUces 
 
 297 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 hanging on pegs in a vestry, wliile the choir men and 
 boys are engaged on their own business or amusement. 
 
 Why should we not give up the formal name, 
 drawing-room ? Why not call it the family-room or 
 the evening-room ? Small houses need nothing more 
 than that ; and the room could be made as pleasant as 
 the new name, a place where the day's work and worry 
 could be forgotten. Let it have a polished floor covered 
 only with rugs ; let the furniture be light and easy to 
 move ; and then, if friends come in after dinner, a little 
 dance can be arranged in a few minutes. For this room, 
 surely, is for dancing, music, and happy talk — the joys 
 of family life. 
 
 It ought never to be less than seventeen feet wide. 
 A square shape is perhaps the best in small houses, 
 while a long one is delightful in big mansions and 
 country seats, particularly when broken into compart- 
 ments by pillars or by wide recesses. 
 
 Bay-windows are to be desired, because they form 
 nooks and corners where Cupid may be happy with the 
 right partners. Also, as friendly talk should divide us 
 into groups, a drawing-room should have two fireplaces. 
 One fire means a cold end to a room, which everybody 
 avoids in the winter months. 
 
 Of course, the windows should have a warm, cheerful 
 aspect ; and let the sunset have a window to itself 
 looking westward. Do not light the room either from 
 one end or from both ends. In the first case a solitary 
 window will attract every one in summer, leavdng the 
 298 
 
D 
 O 
 
 a 
 o 
 
 Q 
 
 ;zi 
 o 
 
 < 
 
 'A 
 
 O 
 
 o 
 "A 
 
cMILJlg*- □ 
 
 X, ju " 
 
 - /'. -Z 
 
 ^ ' > 
 
SOME HINTS ON OTHER ROOMS 
 
 rest of the room empty ; while in the second case — with 
 a window at each end — all persons and all things are 
 seen in shadow against the light, a depressing effect 
 always. 
 
 The best arrangement is to have one end window and 
 several side windows, with good bays or recesses. Put 
 the side windows at some little distance from the 
 corners, leaving space enough for convenient pieces of 
 furniture. But remember always that a drawing-room 
 is inhospitable when there is more glass than wall, when 
 the windows are too large. It is then like a glasshouse, 
 too hot in summer and too cold in winter. 
 
 The Morning-Room. 
 
 Some houses with low rents are large enough for 
 a morning-room, plainly furnished, and with a south or 
 south-east aspect ; but most families would do well if 
 they made this room into a lounge where children could 
 enjoy their hobbies. Parents ought never to forget, 
 though they often do, that a billiard table at home is 
 one of the finest things in the world for young fellows, 
 estranging them from the evening dangers of town life. 
 
 This does not mean that a hobby-room should be 
 given up entirely to the sons' amusements. It may 
 serve other purposes also, and belong to the whole 
 family. Line the walls with bookcases, and put writing- 
 tables in the bay-windows ; you have then a library and 
 a sitting-room. It is not necessary that the billiard 
 table should be full-sized, and no attention need be paid 
 
 299 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 to the way in which the table is lit during the day, 
 because the game is usually played after office hours, 
 in the evening, by artificial light. 
 
 The Billia7'd-Room. 
 
 When a room is for billiards only, the following hints 
 are useful : 
 
 The walls should be very well built, or the noise of 
 the game will disturb the privacy of other rooms. 
 
 A roof-light is best, casting no shadows over the 
 table ; but high windows in the walls will do if they are 
 not put on one side only of the room. There must be 
 enough light from two sides to prevent the balls from 
 casting shadows ; and the light must be above the table ; 
 not on a level with it. 
 
 Twenty-four feet by eighteen is a good size for a 
 billiard-room, giving twelve feet by six for the table, 
 and six feet free space all round — enough to use a cue 
 in. The room may with advantage be larger, for a 
 dais looks well in a billiard-room, and is greatly liked by 
 onlookers. 
 
 Still, as a cue, when striking a ball at the edge of a 
 table, is held at an angle, it occupies rather less than 
 five feet horizontal space, so that a room twenty-two 
 feet by seventeen is big enough if the site will not 
 allow it to be larger. 
 
 In a room of this size a dais cannot be built, but seats 
 can be put in the corners on platforms, so that the game 
 may be watched without hindrance to the players. 
 300 
 
SOME HINTS ON OTHER ROOMS 
 
 Panelled walls are always welcome in billiard-rooms, 
 and family portraits can be framed into the wood, a 
 structural arrangement which is not difficult to manage. 
 Pictures never look well when they are hung on 
 panelled walls. 
 
 Finally, do not turn a front hall into a billiard-room. 
 The game is constantly interrupted by traffic to the 
 front door ; men cannot play in their shirt-sleeves ; and 
 their tobacco smoke rises to the upper rooms and 
 passage-ways. Houses in a damp climate retain for a 
 long while the taint of stale cigar smoke. 
 
 The main points of my subject have now been con- 
 sidered, and every one has brought us back to the same 
 principle : namely, that household art depends on clear 
 thought and honest workmanship. When these neces- 
 sary things are not valued a nation is in a bad way. I 
 do not suppose that English brains have deteriorated in 
 the same proportion as English taste : our craftsmen, 
 probably, have as much intelligence as ever, but it lacks 
 thoroughness and proper employment. Too often it is 
 a bungling amateur, ever in a hurry to get finished. 
 
 What we need, I think, are two laws of State, one 
 to check the misuse of advertising, and another to bring 
 all trade catalogues and all shop-windows into the domain 
 of public criticism. If tradesmen knew that their adver- 
 tisements would be verified by the Board of Trade, and 
 that their shop- windows would be subject to a criticism 
 as careful as that which is given to books, plays, and 
 
 301 
 
HINTS ON HOUSE FURNISHING 
 
 music, there would soon be a general improvement in 
 the home arts and crafts. 
 
 Meantime, parents may do much by teaching their 
 children the first principles of design and decoration. 
 Every piece of furniture has a delightful story, like 
 every detail of architecture ; and a child's first lessons 
 should have for their subject the history of household 
 things. 
 
 302 
 
INDEX 
 
 Advertisements, remarks on, 31, 65 
 
 Air-gas system, 218 
 
 Aniline dyes, 73, 76 
 
 Annealing, importance of, 239, 260 
 
 Antagonism of taste, between women 
 and men, 40, 42-52 
 
 Architects, fmodern, 33, 49, 52, 145, 
 148, 264, 289 
 
 Architecture, street, 175, 176 
 
 Architecture, defective modern, 65, 
 96, 100. 152, 174, 190, 218 
 
 Arm-chairs. See the List of Illustra- 
 tions 
 
 " Art," misuse of this word by trades- 
 men, 10, 64 
 
 Art, vitiated taste in decorative art, 
 9, 10, 21, 60, 103, 136-138, 143, 153, 
 158, 159, 164, 165, 167, 208, 219, 229, 
 239, 243, 251 
 
 Art, in common objects, 6, 7, 55-66, 
 57, 58, 59 et seq. 
 
 Art, English, its traditions, 55-66, 
 104, 112 
 
 Art training, defective, 9, 142 
 
 Artificial light and heat, chapter viii, 
 Part II, p. 215 
 
 Artisans, English, their work con- 
 sidered in its relation to danger and 
 to domestic life, 56, 57 
 
 Artist-craftsmen, their great value, 
 33, 34 ; should be mentioned by 
 name in all trade catalogues, 136, 
 137, 138 ; some metal-workers, 227 
 
 Artistic colour, 78, 204 
 
 Ashbee, C. R. , architect, 33 
 
 Associations of colour, 91 
 
 " Bacchus and Aeiadne," by Titian, 
 
 78,84 
 Backgrounds, 105 ; with wall-papers, 
 
 122, 130-133 
 Bankart, G. P., craftsman, 134, 182, 
 
 188 
 Barnsley, S. H., craftsman, 33 
 
 Baths and bath-rooms, 274, 275, 276, 
 277 
 
 Benson, W. A. S., metal-worker, 218, 
 237 
 
 Beds. See the List of Illustrations 
 
 Bed-room, 99, 101, 134, 198, 284, 288, 
 289 ; toilet ware, 235, 240 ; blinds, 
 198 ; fitments in bed-rooms, 264 ; 
 lavatories, 276 
 
 Bedroom chest of drawers, 59, 60 
 
 Billiard-room, 299, 300 
 
 Black, use of this colour in decora- 
 tion, 50, 221, 222 
 
 Black-lead, 212 
 
 Blinds, 194, 195, 198 
 
 Blomfield, A. W., designs for fenders 
 by, 222 
 
 Blomfield, Reginald, architect, 65 
 
 Blown and cut glass, chapter x. Part 
 II, p. 247 
 
 Brangwyn, Frank, A.R.A., 33 
 
 "Bright " colour, explained, 204 
 
 Building Acts, 185, 288 
 
 Buying " cheap " things, chapter ii, 
 Part I, p. 20 ; also 96, 98 
 
 Cabinets, in dining-rooms, 294 
 Cabinet-work, modern, chapter iii. 
 
 Part I, p. 29 
 Canvas wall-hangings, 139, 140 
 Carbonic acid gas, 289 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 166 
 Cave, Walter, F.R.I.B.A., architect, 
 
 33, 185 
 Carpets, English, 113, 149 et seq. ; 
 
 grass-green carpets, 153 
 Carpets, Oriental, 114, 155 
 Carpets, principles of design in, 109, 
 
 153, 157-159 ; how to put down a 
 
 carpet, 159-160 
 Cash, John, F.R. LB. A., architect, 145, 
 
 148, 185 
 Cast iron, 220, 221 
 Carving, wood, 119 
 
 303 
 
INDEX 
 
 Catalogues, trade, their importance, 
 136, 212, 301 
 
 Ceilings, chapter v, Part II, p. 173 
 
 Chairs. Sec the List of Illustrations 
 
 Chelsea wares, 231 
 
 Cheapness, chapter ii, Part I, p. 20 
 
 Chest of drawers, 59, 60 
 
 Chimney-piece, 218, 225 
 
 China and pottery, Oriental, 232 
 
 China, Minton's, 80, 238, 215 
 
 China, gold applied in decorating, 
 233 ; colours to be avoided, 242 
 
 China, dinner-services, 242, 246 
 
 China, early English, 231, 232. See 
 chapter ix, Part II, p. 229 
 
 Chippendale, 27, 34, 35 
 
 Choice of colours, one method de- 
 scribed, 89 
 
 Choice of wall-papers, 128-132 ; blinds 
 and curtains, 196-206. See also the 
 various chapters 
 
 Choice of designs from old textile 
 fabrics, 207 
 
 Civilisation, tested and proved by 
 house furnishing, 7 
 
 Coal, its extravagance, 215, 216 
 
 Coal-box, 225, 226 
 
 Coleman, W. S., his designs for 
 modern majolica, 245 
 
 Collectors and collecting, 15, 16, 25, 
 33 
 
 Colours, fleeting, 67, 73 
 
 Colours for wall-papers, chapters ii 
 and iii. Part II 
 
 Colours in domestic glass, 251, 252, 
 253, 254, 257 
 
 Colour, on, in relation to men and 
 women, 50 ; chapter on Colour, 67 
 et seq. 
 
 Colour and Colours, essential differ- 
 ence between, 76 et seq. 
 
 Colour, in curtains, 202 et seq. 
 
 Colour, in carpets, 149-160 
 
 Comedv, modern, of house furnish- 
 ing, 38, 39 
 
 Comfort and house furnishing, 3, 6, 
 12, 13,14, 47 
 
 Common objects, taste in, 10, 11, 12, 
 55-58 
 
 Common sense, a guiding principle in 
 house furnishing. See chapter i, 
 Part I. Keferences in other chap- 
 tern 
 
 Convention in decorative art, 84, 108, 
 132, 157, 158 
 
 Copeland's China, 235, 245 
 
 304 
 
 Costume, in relation to house furni- 
 ture, 10, 37, 207 
 
 Craftsman's system of furnishing, 33 
 
 Crane, Walter, 9, 121, 187 
 
 Crockery, 229 et seq. 
 
 Curtains, window, 194, 197, 198, 199, 
 200, 201, 202 
 
 Cut glass. See chapter x, Part II, 
 249, 250, 251, 255, 256, 257 
 
 Dado, in wall decoration, 135, 136, 
 146, 160 
 
 Danger favourable to good crafts- 
 manship, 56, 57 
 
 Dawber, E. Guy, F.R.I.B.A., archi- 
 tect, 148 
 
 Day-rooms, 284, 285, 295 
 
 Deal furniture, 6 
 
 Deceits, in household art, 10, 23 
 
 Decline of female beauty, a national 
 danger, 47 
 
 Decoration, realistic, a mistake, 104, 
 108-114, 117, 127, 129, 153, 159, 
 211, 212, 231,232, 241, 251 
 
 Decoration, inlaid, 63, 128, 161 
 
 Decoration, for walls, chapters ii and 
 iii, Part II 
 
 Decorators, artistic, mnch needed, 
 140-143 
 
 Degrees should be granted to women 
 and girls for their knowledge of 
 household economy and art, 8 
 
 Delf ware, 243 
 
 De Morgan wares, 236, 237 
 
 Demand and supply, in furniture, 19, 21 
 
 Derby wares, 231 
 
 Design, principles of, in household 
 art, stated and illustrated in each 
 chapter 
 
 Design of wall papers. See chapters ii 
 and iii, Part II 
 
 Diaper patterns, 133, 134 
 
 Dining-room, 81. 89, 265, 266, 283, 
 292-296 
 
 Dinner-services in china, 246 
 
 Door-knockers, 64 
 
 Doors, 100, 192 
 
 Doulton ware, 245, 273-279 
 
 Draughts, 100, 198 
 
 Drawing-room, 297-299 
 
 Dress, in relation to house furniture, 
 207 
 
 Dressing-table, 199 
 
 Dust, its dangers, 162, 169, 184, 200 
 
 Dyeing as an art, 73 ct seq. 
 
 Dye-stuiTs, 73 et seq. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Electric light. See chapter viii, 
 
 Part II, p. 215 
 Entrance hall, 69, 70, 164, 301 
 English potters, 231, 232 et seq. 
 English tradition, the, chapter v. 
 
 Part I ; in the fictile arts, 231. 
 
 Eeferences in other chapters 
 
 " Faked " furniture, 23 
 
 Farm-house, in relation to good taste, 
 15, 17, 18 
 
 Fashion, capricious changes in, 103 
 
 Felt carpets, 156 
 
 Female beauty, in its relation to the 
 progress of society, 46, 47 
 
 Fenders, 219. 220, 222, 223, 224, 297 
 
 Fictile arts, 229 et seq. 
 
 Fire-grates, 217, 220 
 
 Fire-guards. 222, 224 
 
 Fire-irons, 64, 219, 224, 225 
 
 Fireplace, 64, 109, 192, 215, 217, 218, 
 219-225, 275, 276 
 
 Fitments, how necessary they are in 
 rooms, 264, 288, 293 
 
 Flats, 180, 287 
 
 Floor and the wall, 84, 98, 99 ; see 
 also Part II, chapters ii. iii, and iv 
 
 Floor-cloths, 156, 167, 168 
 
 Floors, 84 ; badly built, 98-100. JSee 
 chapter iv. Part II ; 170 
 
 Floors, parquetry, 160, 161 
 
 Flower vases, 243 
 
 Frauds, in household things, 11, 12 
 
 French polishing, bad practice of, 35 
 
 Fresh air, 198, 199 
 
 Frieze, decoration of, in rooms, 134, 
 160 
 
 Furniture, 22, et seq. ; can't be made 
 rapidly, 23, 24; the only good, 
 " cheap " furniture, 25, 26 ; its 
 qualities, 34 et seq. ; and woods, 23, 
 36 ; its relation to jerry-built 
 houses, 102 et seq. ; see also chap- 
 ters ii and iii, Part I ; furniture 
 by Baillie Scott, 262-267. See the 
 List of Illustrations 
 
 Gabdnee, J. Starkie, metal-worker, 
 220, 227 
 
 Gas, air, 218 
 
 Gas, coal, 180, 217 
 
 Georgian era, its furniture, 27, 34, 35, 
 37 
 
 Gilding, as applied to china and por- 
 celain, 233 
 
 Gimson, Ernest W., artist-craftsman, 
 33, 34 
 
 Glass, table. 247 et srq. ; historical 
 glasses, 247, 248 ; principles of de- 
 sign, 249 et seq. 
 
 Glass windows. 193, 194, 198, 199 
 
 Glaze for pottery, 237, 242 
 
 Gold, on china and porcelain, 233 ; on 
 table glass, 254 ; on wall-papers, 
 124 ; on ceilings; 178, 186 
 
 Gothic art, 61, 62, 214, 220 
 
 Graining wood, a bad practice, 18 
 
 Grates and fire-irons, 64, 217, 220, 
 224, 225 
 
 Greek pottery, 245 
 
 Greens, their use in art, 68, 71, 75,80, 
 81, 85, 135, 153, 164, 191, 205 
 
 Greys in decorative and pictorial art, 
 78 
 
 Gunpowder as a stimulus to common 
 sense, 240 
 
 Hall, entrance, 69, 70, 164 
 Hall, the, 265, 266, 284, 292 
 Hand-basins and ewers, 235 
 Handles as tests of workmanship, 242 
 Harmony and contrast in decoration, 
 50, 51, 77-80 et seq. ; 89 et seq. See 
 also under Colour 
 Health, medical officers of, 273 
 Hearthrugs. See chapter iv. Part II 
 Hearths. See under Fireplace 
 Henry the Third, 135, 149, 163 
 Hepplewhite, 27 
 
 Hire-purchasing system, 29 et seq. 
 Hobby-room, the, 284, 285, 299 
 Horsehair cloth, 13 
 Household art, a true and great re- 
 ligion, 230 
 Householders should combine to de- 
 fend their interests, 21 ; they help 
 to degrade useful crafts. 19, 20, 25, 
 103-4 
 Household glass, 247 et seq. 
 Household taste, 7, 8, 9, 16, 17, 80 
 Houses, bad modern. See uiider Jerry- 
 Builder 
 
 Ideal home, what it really is, 53, 54, 
 
 65, 106 
 Imitation of natural objects in deco- 
 rative art. See under " Decoration, 
 Realistic, a mistake" 
 Indian preserve-jars, 232 
 Industrial art, 20, et seq. ; 136, 137 
 Industrialism, its bad effects on home 
 life, 19, 47, 60, 64 
 
 u 305 
 
INDEX 
 
 Inlaid decoration, 63, 128, 161 
 Investment, house furnishing as an, 
 
 5, 6 
 Insults to common sense in household 
 
 work, 64, 65 
 Iron-work, 65, 219 
 
 Jacobite glasses, 247, 248 
 
 Japanese ceiling papers, 186 ; Japa- 
 nese art, its bad efifect on English 
 household taste, 213, 214 
 
 Jar, Indian preserve, 232 
 
 Jeffrey and Co., wall-papers by. See 
 the List of Illustrations 
 
 Jerry-builders, 65, 96. 100, 152, 174, 
 190. 218, 273 
 
 Jugs, water, 235 
 
 Juxtaposition of colours, 87 et »eq. 
 
 Kensington Museum, its value to 
 
 householders, 210 
 Kidderminster carpets, 154, 157, 158 
 Kitchen, 284, 285 
 Knockers, metal, for doors, 64 
 Knole, painted chairs at, 262 
 
 Lace, Swiss, for window curtains, 
 197 
 
 Lavatories, 276, 277 
 
 Leases, of houses, 101, 219 
 
 Leather, stamped, for walls, 116 
 
 Leighton, Lord, on art, 53 
 
 Lethaby, W. R., -on carpenter's furni- 
 ture, 58 ; on cast iron, 220 ; on the 
 spirit of mediaeval art, 262 
 
 Liberty and Co., 246 
 
 Library, 299 
 
 Linoleum, 167 
 
 London street architecture. 175, 176 
 
 Looms, superiority of Oriental, 155 
 
 Lorimer, R. S., A.R.S.A., architect, 
 Edinburgh, 33 
 
 Lustre ware. 236, 237 
 
 Lutyens. Edwin L., F.R.I.B.A., 
 Architect, 147 
 
 Macartney, Mervyn, architect, 33 
 
 Machinery, its use in furniture mak- 
 ing, 25,36 
 
 Mahogany, use of in cabinet-work, 
 36 ; its effect on harsh colours, 88 
 
 Mainwaring, 27 
 
 Majolica, 241, 245 
 
 Mantelpiece, 225 
 
 Manual work, its advantage over 
 machinery, 119, 120 
 
 306 
 
 Manufacture, its modern degeneracy, 
 
 7, 11, 21, 60, 103, 136-138, 143, 163, 
 
 158, 159, 164, 165, 167, 208, 219, 
 
 229, 239, 243, 251 
 Manufacture, modern, needs regular 
 
 criticism in the newspapers, 137, 
 
 138. 301 
 Manufacturers and tradesmen should 
 
 not be consulted as experts in 
 
 decorative art, 106, 143 
 Martin ware, 246 
 Mason's stoneware, 236 
 Mediaeval art, its spirit, 262, 263 
 Men, their tastes, in their relation to 
 
 the ideals of women, 40 et seq. ; 49 
 
 et seq. 
 Metal-work, 319-220 
 Methods of furnishing, 29 et seq. 
 Middle Ages. See chapter v, Part I 
 Minton's china. 80. 238, 245 
 Modern houses and flats, badly built. 
 
 See under " Jerry-Builder " 
 Modern furniture, 29 et seq. 
 Morning-room. 299-300 
 Morris. William, the late, 9, 66, 75 ; 
 
 on tapestries. 117 ; on carpets, 154, 
 157 ; on textile fabrics, 209, 210, 
 
 263 
 Morris, William, and Co., 246 
 Moorish pottery. 232 
 Motherhood, thegreatest of all artists, 
 
 43 
 Mural decoration, 139, 140, 141. 
 
 chapters ii and iii. Part II 
 Museum, South Kensington, its value 
 
 to all householders, 210 
 
 National Congress of the British 
 home, 21 
 
 National English art, its traditions, 
 chapter v. Part I 
 
 National dress, in its relation to house 
 furniture, 207 
 
 Naturalistic forms in decorative and 
 applied art, how misused. 111. See 
 also under " Decoration, Realistic," 
 and under " Morris, William " 
 
 Nature's colours. See under " Colour" 
 
 Norfolk screens, 262 
 
 Novelties, demand for, a harmful in- 
 fluence, 13, 103, 112, 121 
 
 Nun's-cloth curtains, 197, 202 
 
 Nursery, 285, 286, 287 
 
 Oak, use of, in cabinet work, 36, 144 ; 
 in wainscots, 144, 145 
 
INDEX 
 
 Oil a substitute for varnish ami polish, 
 
 34 
 Old English potteries, 231 
 Orderliness, likes and dislikes of, 
 
 among women and men, 51, 52 
 Oriental art, 110, 114, 155, 231 
 Ornament in art, when bad, 56, 63 
 Ornament, realistic, wrong in decora- 
 tive and applied art, 107-111. •S'ee 
 under " Decoration, Realistic " 
 
 Painting, its two distinctive kinds, 
 
 126 
 Panelling for walls, 116, 135, 136, 143, 
 
 144, 150 
 Paper-hangings. See chapters ii and 
 
 iii. Part II 
 Patterns, remarks on, 59, 108 et seq. ; 
 
 113, 122, 123, 129, 180, 183, 187, 
 
 147, 207, 234, 240, 244, 274 
 Parquetry, 160, 161 
 Pavements, tile, 163 
 Payments by instalments, 95 ; also 
 
 29-30 
 Peasants in relation to household 
 
 taste, 15, 17, 18 
 Pergolese furniture, 37 
 Persian carpets, 155 
 Pictorial art, contrasted with decora- 
 tive art, 108-110 
 Pictures, hung in groups or panels, 
 
 124 ; contrasted with decorative 
 
 art, 108, and with tapestries, 115- 
 
 117, 126, 127 
 Pilkington lustre ware, 246 
 Plate glass, immoderate use of, 193 
 Plymouth ware, 231 
 Polishing wood-work, 34, 35, 37 
 Porcelain and crockery, 229 et seq. ; 
 
 241 
 Portland Vase, the, 254 
 Pottery, Greek, principles of design 
 
 in, 232 
 Pottery, English, 229 et seq. 
 Pottery, Moorish, 232 
 Practical advantages of good house 
 
 furniture, 4, 5 et seq. 
 Professional designers, not always 
 
 successful, 113, 131 
 Public, the, as arbiters of art, 4 
 
 Realism in decorative art is bad, 
 104, 108-114, 117, 127, 129, 153, 
 159. 211, 212, 231, 232, 241, 251 
 
 Reds, in house decoration, 67, 68, 69, 
 70, 74, 79, 81, 84, 90, 124, 196, 205 
 
 Reproduction method of furnishing, 
 
 35, 36 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, his general 
 
 principle in the use of colour, 82 
 
 et seq. 
 Room Decoration, use of colour in, 
 
 82 et seq. ; rooms considered as 
 
 pictures, 83, 84, 85 
 Ruskin, 9, 58, 165, 176, 220 
 
 Salviati's Venetian table glass, 252 
 Sanitary appliances, 273-279 
 Sash-bars, their importance, 192, 193, 
 
 194 
 Scott, M. H. Baillie, architect, 33, 147, 
 
 262-267 
 " Seasons " in household art, 121 
 Sheraton, 27, 34, 35, 37 
 Shop fronts, bad design of, 175, 176 
 Shopmen, recommendations of, to be 
 
 guarded against, 32, 172 
 Shop-windows, 203, 208, 230, 231, 
 
 234, 301 
 Shutters, 195 
 Sideboards, dining-room, to be built 
 
 as fitments, 264 
 Silk, 74 
 
 Spooner, Charles, architect, 33 
 Staffordshire ware, 232 
 Staining processes for furniture, 23 
 Stencilled decoration for walls, 128, 
 
 141 
 Stock furnishing system, 31 
 Street architecture, 175, 176 
 Structural deceits, 175 
 Stucco, introduction of, 178 
 Study, the, 265,283 
 Styles for furniture, 37 
 Sunlight, 194, 195, 196, 198 
 Sussex ironwork, 219 
 Swiss lace for curtains, 197 
 Symmetry, false notions of, 289 
 
 Tables, 293 
 
 Table glass, 247 et seq. 
 
 Tapestry, ancient use of, 107, 115 et 
 
 seq. ; "127, 150 
 Taste, in art, how quarrelsome it is, 
 
 3, 41 ; in relation to sex, 41 e< seq. 
 Tea-service, 238, 239 
 Terra-cotta, a bad colour in decorative 
 
 art, 67 
 Textile art, in tapestries, 107, 115, 
 
 127 ; in other wall-hangings, 139 ; 
 
 for windows, 195 ; curtains, 202 et 
 
 seq. ; see chapter vii, Part II, p. 207 
 
 307 
 
INDEX 
 
 Thackeray on cheapness, 21 
 
 Tiles, 64, 163, 277 
 
 Titian, a splendid colourist, 78, 84 
 
 Toilet ware, 235, 240 
 
 Tradition, the English, 104, 112 ; also 
 
 chapter v, Part I 
 Twopenv, William, bis invaluable 
 
 drawings, 62 
 
 Ugliness, facts concerning, 3, 56, 57 
 
 Uniform tints of colour, their charm, 
 123, 129, 131 
 
 Unstable colours, 73 
 
 Upholstery, modern, see the remarks 
 on Realism in its relation to Deco- 
 rative Art 
 
 Vacant spaces, their charm, 64 
 Varnishing wood, a mistake, 34, 35, 
 
 37 
 Vases for ornamentation, 245 
 Veneering, 36 
 Venetian blinds, 194 
 Venetian glass, 253, 257 
 Vermilion, its use in art, 68 
 Victorian era, and its work, 16, 17, 
 
 28, 137, 153, 208 
 Voysey, C. F. A., architect, 33, 147 
 
 Wainscotings, 116, 135, 136, 143, 
 
 144,150 
 Wall decoration, see chapters ii and 
 
 iii. Part II 
 Wall-papers, 67,70, 79, 110, 113, 114, 
 
 118, 120, 121, 128, 129, 133, 134 
 
 Walls, are they sound-resisting ?, 98, 
 
 99, 144, 185 
 Walls of entrance halls, 69, 70. Cool 
 grey-greens and warm greys are 
 other good tints for entrance 
 halls 
 Warm and cold colours, explained, 79 
 Water-jngs, 235, 236 
 Wealth, it is difficult to use well in 
 
 house furnishing, 14, 15, 16 
 Wedgwood, 232, 235, 237, 238 
 White, its use in decoration, 182, 183, 
 
 191,196,197 
 White, Gleeson, the late, on glass- 
 blowing, 259, 260 
 White, J. P., of Bedford, 265 
 Whitefriars Glass Works, 246, 258, 
 
 259, 260 
 Windows, 189 et seq. ; 198, 288, 289. 
 
 290, 295, 298 
 Windsor chairs, 58 
 Woods used in furniture, 23, 36, 161 
 Wood veneers in furniture, 36 
 Wood-carving, 119 
 Wood-work, colour of, 82, 191 
 Women in their relation to house 
 furnishing, 8, 40, ct seq. ; their prac- 
 tical bias of mind, 44, et seq.; they 
 start bad crazes in decoration, 48, 
 49 ; their delight in window cur- 
 tains, 201 
 Worcester wares, 231, 232 
 
 Yellows, their use in house furnish- 
 ing, 70, 75, 79, 90, 164,196, 197, 206 
 
 Printed by Ballantvne 6^ Co. Limited 
 Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London 
 
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 RETURN TO the circulation desk of any 
 University of California Library 
 or to the 
 NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 Bldg.40a Richmond Field Station 
 University of California 
 Richmond, CA 94804-4698 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 
 • 2-month loans may be renewed by calling 
 (510)642-6753 
 
 • 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing 
 books to NRLF 
 
 • Renewals and recharges may be made 4 
 days prior to due date. 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 AUG 2 6 iQoq 
 
 12.000(11/95) 
 
GENERAL LIBRARY - U.C. BERKELEY 
 
 BDDD7b7QliS 
 
 493G77 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UBRARY