the decoration of any room in
relation to its colour-treatment, except by a careful description of
certain successful examples, each one of which illustrates principles
that may be of use to the amateur or student of the art.

One which occurs to me in this immediate connection is a dining-room in
an apartment house, where this room alone is absolutely without what may
be called exterior light. Its two windows open upon a well, the brick
wall of which is scarcely ten feet away. Fortunately, it makes a part of
the home of a much travelled and exceedingly cultivated pair of beings,
the business of one being to create beauty in the way of pictures and
the other of statues, so perhaps it is less than a wonder that this
square, unattractive well-room should have blossomed under their hands
into a dining-room perfect in colour, style, and fittings. I shall give
only the result, the process being capable of infinite small variations.

At present it is a room sixteen feet square, one side of which is
occupied by two nearly square windows. The wood-work, including a
five-foot wainscot of small square panels, is painted a glittering
varnished white which is warm in tone, but not creamy. The upper halves
of the square windows are of semi-opaque yellow glass, veined and
variable, but clear enough everywhere to admit a stained yellow light.
Below these, thin yellow silk curtains cross each other, so that the
whole window-space radiates yellow light. If we reflect that the colour
of sunlight is yellow, we shall be able to see both the philosophy and
the result of this treatment.

The wall above the wainscot is covered with a plain unbleached muslin,
stencilled at the top in a repeating design of faint yellow tile-like
squares which fade gradually into white at a foot below the ceiling. At
intervals along the wall are water-colours of flat Holland meadows, or
blue canals, balanced on either side by a blue delft plate, and in a
corner near the window is a veritable blue porcelain stove, which once
faintly warmed some far-off German interior. The floor is polished oak,
as are the table and chairs. I purposely leave out all the accessories
and devices of brass and silver, the quaint brass-framed mirrors, the
ivy-encircled windows, the one or two great ferns, the choice blue
table-furniture:--because these are personal and should neither be
imitated or reduced to rules.

The lesson is in the use of yellow and white, accented with touc