nsidered ornamental work, in such
cases, is wholly incongruous with walls and ceilings of lath and
plaster and floors of cheap boards. I know you will paste mouldy paper
to the walls and spread dirty carpets on the floors (beg your pardon,
I mean the paper will be mouldy before you know it, and if you ever
saw a wool carpet that had been used a month without being, like
Phoebe's blackberries, "all mixed with sand and dirt," your
observation has been different from mine); perhaps "run" stucco
cornices around the top of walls, and "criss-cross" the ceilings into
a perfect flower-garden of parallelograms with round corners. But the
inharmony remains all the same. Any great outlay of labor or material
on the casings of doors and windows or the bases, when there is no
other woodwork in the room, is surely out of place.

These are my sentiments, in general, upon the ornamental; of the
merely fashionable you already know my opinion. Not that this most
fitful dame has no rights that deserve respect, but her feeble light
is a black spot in the radiance of real fine art. When you can give no
other reason for liking what you like than that Mistress Fashion
approves, beware! beware!--trust her not. The time will come when you
will wish even the modest handmaiden Economy had blessed it. And if a
thing is really beautiful, what difference whether it was introduced
by Mrs. Shoddy last spring, or by Mrs. Noah, before her husband
launched his fairy boat? Nor is fine art unattainable, even in the
door-casings. It does not imply fine work. The size, shape, and
position of the doors and windows, and the relative proportions of
the work about them, is the first thing to be studied. Then have a
care that such mouldings as may be needed are graceful, and you cannot
go far wrong.

You propose to finish with "hard" wood, and ask my opinion. It
depends: if it's the hardness you want, should recommend lignum-vitae
and ebony; if the wood, economy would suggest that white-pine, and
certain other softer sorts, be not overlooked. To answer according to
the spirit of your inquiry, I should say, by all means (if you do not
mind the cost) use wood instead of putty. With all respect for white
paint and striped paint and all other kinds of paint, there is nothing
more enduringly satisfying than the natural tint and grain of the
different kinds of wood suitable for building, of which we have such
great variety in style and color, from the overestimated b