d cloths, where the design is shown by the direction of woven
threads, are particularly effective and satisfactory as wall-coverings.
The soft surface is luxurious to the imagination, and the play of light
and shadow upon the warp and woof interests the eye, although there is
no actual change of colour.

Too much stress can hardly be laid upon the variation of tone in
wall-surfaces, since the four walls stand for the atmosphere of a room.
Tone means quality of colour. It may be light or dark, or of any tint,
or variations of tint, but the quality of it must be soft and
charitable, instead of harsh and uncompromising.

Almost the best of modern inventions for inexpensive wall-coverings are
found in what are called the ingrain papers. These have a variable
surface, without reflections, and make not only a soft and impalpable
colour effect, but, on account of their want of reflection, are good
backgrounds for pictures.

In these papers the colour is produced by a mixture in the mass of
paper pulp of atoms of varying tint, which are combined in the substance
and make one general tint resulting from the mixture of several. In
canvases and textiles, which are a more expensive method of producing
almost the same mixed effect, the minute points of brilliance of threads
in light and darkness of threads in shadow, combine to produce softness
of tone, impossible to pigment because it has but one plain surface,
unrelieved by breaking up into light and shadow.

Variation, produced by minute differences, which affect each other and
which the eye blends into a general tone, produce quality. It is at the
same time soft and brilliant, and is really a popular adaptation of the
philosophy of impressionist painters, whose small dabs of pure colour
placed in close juxtaposition and fused into one tone by the eye, give
the purity and vibration of colour which distinguishes work of that
school.

Some skilful painters can stipple one tone upon another so as to produce
the same brilliant softness of effect, and when this can be done,
oil-colour upon plaster is the best of all treatment for bedrooms since
it fulfils all the sanitary and other conditions so necessary in
sleeping-rooms. The same effect may be produced if the walls are of
rough instead of smooth plaster, so that the small inequalities of
surface give light and shadow as in textiles; upon such surfaces a
pleasant tint in flat colour is always good. Painted burlaps and certain