iture is not appropriate to all kinds of houses, and it is
often difficult to adapt it to circumstances over which one has no
control. The leisurely and pleasant custom of our ancestors of building
a house as they wished it, and what is more, living in it for
generations, is more or less a thing of the past. Nowadays a house is
built, and is complete and beautiful in every way, but almost before the
house-warming is over, business is sitting on the doorstep, and so the
family moves on. We, as a nation, have not the comfortable point of view
of the English who consider their home, their home, no matter how the
outside world may be behaving. Their front doors are the protection
which insures their cherished privacy, and the feeling that they are as
settled as the everlasting hills gives a calmness to their attitude
toward life which is often missing from ours. How many times have we
heard people say when talking over plans--"Have it thus and so, for it
would be much better in case we ever care to sell." This attitude, to
which of course there are hundreds of exceptions, is an outgrowth of our
busy life and our tremendous country. The larger part of the home ideal
is the one which Americans so firmly believe in and act upon--that it is
the spirit and atmosphere which makes a home, and not only the bricks
and mortar.

It is this point of view which makes it possible for many of us to live
happily in rented houses whose architecture and arrangement often give
us cold shivers. We are not to blame if all the proportions are wrong;
and there is a certain pleasure in getting the better of difficulties.

If one is building a house, or is living in one planned with a due
regard to some special period, and has a well thought out scheme of
decoration, the work is much simplified; but if one has to live in the
average nondescript house and wishes to use French furniture, the
problem will take time and thought to solve. In this kind of house, if
one cannot change it at all, it is better to keep as simple and
unobtrusive a background as possible, to have the color scheme and
hangings and furniture so beautiful that they are a convincing reason
themselves of the need of their being there, but one should not try to
turn the room itself into a period room, for it would mean failure. The
walls may be covered with a light plain paper, or silk, the woodwork
enameled white or cream or ivory, and then with one's mirrors and
furnishings, the b