He and
his wife are both vaguely disappointed when their resplendent
mansion is finished, having already outgrown it, and recognize that
in spite of correct detail, their costly apartments no more
resemble the stately and simple salons seen abroad than the cabin
of a Fall River boat resembles the GALERIE DES GLACES at
Versailles. The humiliating knowledge that they are all wrong
breaks upon them, as it is doing on hundreds of others, at the same
time as the desire to know more and appreciate better the perfect
productions of this art.
A seventh and last step is before them but they know not how to
make it. A surer guide than the upholsterer is, they know,
essential, but their library contains nothing to help them. Others
possess the information they need, yet they are ignorant where to
turn for what they require.
With singular appropriateness a volume treating of this delightful
"art" has this season appeared at Scribner's. "The Decoration of
Houses" is the result of a woman's faultless taste collaborating
with a man's technical knowledge. Its mission is to reveal to the
hundreds who have advanced just far enough to find that they can go
no farther alone, truths lying concealed beneath the surface. It
teaches that consummate taste is satisfied only with a perfected
simplicity; that the facades of a house must be the envelope of the
rooms within and adapted to them, as the rooms are to the habits
and requirements of them "that dwell therein;" that proportion is
the backbone of the decorator's art and that supreme elegance is
fitness and moderation; and, above all, that an attention to
architectural principles can alone lead decoration to a perfect
development.
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