bric-a-brac you make it the ugliest thing in your
room. Give it the best place possible, against an inside wall,
preferably. I saw a new house lately where the placing of the piano had
been considered by the architect when the house was planned. There was a
mezzanine floor overhanging the great living-room, and one end of this
had been made into a piano alcove, a sort of modern minstrel gallery.
The musician who used the piano was very happy, for your real musician
loves a certain solitude, and those of us who listened to his music in
the great room below were happy because the maker of the music was far
enough away from us. We could appreciate the music and forget the
mechanics of it. For a concert, or a small dance, this balcony
music-room would be most convenient. Another good place for the piano is
a sort of alcove, or small room opening from the large living or
drawing-room, where the piano and a few chairs may be placed. Of course
if you are to have a real music-room, then there are great
possibilities.

A piano may be a princely thing, properly built and decorated. The old
spinets and harpsichords, with their charming inlaid cases, were
beautiful, but they gave forth only tinkly sounds. Now we have a
magnificent mechanism, but the case which encloses it is too often
hideous.

There is an old double-banked harpsichord of the early Eighteenth
Century in the Morgan collection at the Metropolitan Museum that would
be a fine form for a piano, if it would hold the "works." It is long and
narrow, fitting against the wall so that it really takes up very little
room. The case is painted a soft dark gray and outlined in darker gray,
and the panels and the long top are in soft colors. The legs are carved
and pointed in polychrome. This harpsichord was made when the beauty of
an object was of as real importance as the mechanical perfection.

Occasionally one sees a modern piano that has been decorated by an
artist. Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Sir Alma Tadema, and many of the other
English artists of our generation have made beautiful pianos. Sir Robert
Lorimer recently designed a piano that was decorated, inside and out, by
Mrs. Traquair. From time to time a great artist interests himself in
designing and decorating a piano, but the rank and file, when they
decide to build an extraordinary piano, achieve lumpy masses of wood
covered with impossible nymphs and too-realistic flowers, pianos
suggestive of thin and sentimental tu