The furniture that is required in a
dining-room declares itself: a table and chairs. You can bring side
tables and china closets into it, or you can build in cupboards and
consoles to take their place, but there is little chance for other
variation, and so the beginning is a declaration of order and
simplicity.

[Illustration: A GEORGIAN DINING-ROOM IN THE WILLIAM ISELIN HOUSE]

The easiest way to destroy this simplicity is to litter the room with
displays of silver and glass, to dot the walls with indifferent
pictures. If you are courageous enough to let your walls take care of
themselves and to put away your silver and china and glass, the room
will be as dignified as you could wish. Remember that simplicity depends
on balance and space. If the walls balance one another in light and
shadow, if the furniture is placed formally, if walls and furniture
are free from mistaken ornament, the room will be serene and
beautiful. In most other rooms we avoid the "pairing" of things, but
here pairs and sets of things are most desirable. Two console tables are
more impressive than one. There is great decorative value in a pair of
mirrors, a pair of candlesticks, a pair of porcelain jars, two cupboards
flanking a chimney-piece. You would not be guilty of a pair of wall
fountains, or of two wall clocks, just as you would not have two copies
of the same portrait in a room. But when things "pair" logically, pair
them! They will furnish a backbone of precision to the room.

The dining-room in the Iselin house is a fine example of stately
simplicity. It is extremely formal, and yet there is about it none of
the gloominess one associates with New York dining-rooms. The severely
paneled walls, the fine chimney-piece with an old master inset and
framed by a Grinling Gibbons carving, the absence of the usual mantel
shelf, the plain dining-table and the fine old lion chairs all go to
make up a Georgian room of great distinction.

The woman who cannot afford such expensive simplicity might model a
dining-room on this same plan and accomplish a beautiful room at
reasonable expense. Paneled walls are always possible; if you can't
afford wood paneling, paint the plastered wall white or cream and break
it into panels by using a narrow molding of wood. You can get an effect
of great dignity by the use of molding at a few cents a foot. A large
panel would take the place of the Grinling Gibbons carving, and a
mirror might be inset above the fir