lden-green of light under tree-branches, or the mingled green and
gray of tree and rock shadows, or the pearl and rose of sunrise and
sunset. We call the deep content which results from such surroundings
the influence of nature, and forget to name the less spiritual, the more
human condition of well-being which comes to us in our homes from being
surrounded with something which in a degree atones for lack of nature's
beauty.

It is a different well-being, and lacks the full tide of electric
enjoyment which comes from living for the hour under the sky and in the
breadths of space, but it atones by substituting something of our own
invention, which surprises us by its compensations, and confounds us by
its power.

CHAPTER V

THE LAW OF APPROPRIATENESS

I have laid much stress upon the value of colour in interior decoration,
but to complete the beauty of the home something more than happy choice
of tints is required. It needs careful and educated selection of
furniture and fittings, and money enough to indulge in the purchase of
an intrinsically good thing instead of a medium one. It means even
something more than the love of beauty and cultivation of it, and that
is a perfect adherence to the _law of appropriateness_.

This is, after all, the most important quality of every kind of
decoration, the one binding and general condition of its accomplishment.
It requires such a careful fitting together of all the means of beauty
as to leave no part of the house, whatever may be its use, without the
same care for appropriate completeness which goes to the more apparent
features. The cellar, the kitchen, the closets, the servants' bedrooms
must all share in the thought which makes the genuinely beautiful home
and the genuinely perfect life. It must be possible to go from the top
to the bottom of the house, finding everywhere agreeable, suitable, and
thoughtful furnishings. The beautiful house must consider the family as
a whole, and not make a museum of rare and costly things in the
drawing-room, the library, the dining-room and family bedrooms, leaving
that important part of the whole machinery, the service, untouched by
the spirit of beauty. The same care in choice of colour will be as well
bestowed on the servants' floor as on those devoted to the family, and
curtains, carpets and furniture may possess as much beauty and yet be
perfectly appropriate to servants' use.

On this upper floor, it goes almost without