of the green
and white and blue and white are charming and fresh looking for
bedrooms. Black and white is too eccentric for the average house; one
should beware of all eccentric papers. There are a few kinds of paper
which should be left severely alone, for they will spoil any room. One
of them has a plain general tone but a suggestion of other colors which
give it a blurred and mottled appearance which is singularly
disagreeable. Another is plain in color but has a lumpy effect like a
toad's back, and is really quite awful. Others are metallic papers, and
there is a heavy paper embossed in self color with a conventional design
which is apt to have a shining surface. Papers with dashes and little
flecks of gold should be avoided, for the gold gives the wall an
unstable and cheap appearance. Papers with small single figures repeated
all over the surface are apt to look as if a plague of flies or beetles
had arrived and are quite impossible to live with. Borders and cut out
borders have a commonplace appearance and are not in the best of taste.
And then there are papers with vulgarity of design. This quality is hard
to define clearly, for it may be only a slightly redundant curve or
other lack of true feeling for the beauty of line, or a bit too much, or
too little, color, or a bad combination of color, or a lack of knowledge
of the laws of balance and harmony and ornament, or a wrong surface of
texture to the paper. But whatever the cause, a vulgar paper will
vulgarize any room, no matter what is done in the way of furniture. It
will assert itself like an ill-bred person. Luckily both are easily
recognized.

But the picture is not all dark by any means, for some of the American
made papers, as well as the imported papers, are very beautiful. The
makers are taking great pains to have fine designs and beautiful colors
which will appeal to people of knowledge and taste. The situation is
much better than it was a few years ago. Some of the copies of old
figured and scenic papers are exceptionally fine, and can be used with
great distinction in dining-rooms or halls with ivory or cream-white
woodwork and wainscoting, and Georgian or Colonial furniture. One should
not use pictures with these papers, but mirrors are permissable and will
have the best effect if placed on a wood-paneled over-mantel. These
papers come in tones of gray and white and also sepia. Oriental rugs, if
not of too conspicuous a design, may be used with th