, to appreciate the best in design and workmanship,
even although we cannot afford to buy it. In this case we should learn
to do with less. As a rule our houses are crowded. If we are able to
buy a few good things, we are apt instead to buy many only moderately
good, for lavish possession seems to be a sort of passion, or
birthright, of Americans. It follows that we fill our houses with
heterogeneous collections of furniture, new and old, good and bad,
appropriate or inappropriate, as the case may be, with a result of
living in seeming luxury, but a luxury without proper selection or true
value. To have less would in many cases be to have more--more
tranquillity of life, more ease of mind, more knowledge and more real
enjoyment.

There is another principle which can be brought into play in this case,
and that is the one of buying--not a costly kind of thing, but the best
of its kind. If it is a choice in chairs, for instance, let it be the
best cane-seated, or rush-bottomed chair that is made, instead of the
second or third best upholstered or leather-covered one. If it is a
question of tables, buy the simplest form made of flawless wood and with
best finish, instead of a bargain in elaborately turned or scantily
carved material. If it is in bedsteads, a plain brass, or good enamelled
iron or a simple form in black walnut, instead of a cheap inlaid
wood--and so on through the whole category. A good chintz or cotton is
better for draperies, than flimsy silk or brocade; and when all is done
the very spirit of truth will sit enthroned in the household, and we
shall find that all things have been brought into harmony by her laws.

[Illustration: SOFA DESIGNED BY MRS. CANDACE WHEELER FOR NEW LIBRARY IN
"WOMAN'S BUILDING," COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION]

Although the furnishing of a house should be one of the most painstaking
and studied of pursuits, there is certainly nothing which is at the same
time so fascinating and so flattering in its promise of future
enjoyment. It is like the making of a picture as far as possibility of
beauty is concerned, but a picture within and against which one's life,
and the life of the family, is to be lived. It is a bit of creative art
in itself, and one which concerns us so closely as to be a very part of
us. We enjoy every separate thing we may find or select or procure--not
only for the beauty and goodness which is in it, but for its
contribution to the general whole. And in knowledge of applied