ich slavishly repeat, in every piece of furniture and
ornament, only one type, have but a museum interest. If your rooms are
to serve as a home, give them a winning, human quality, keep before
your mind's eye, not royal palaces which have become museums, but
_homes_, built and furnished by men and women whose traditions and
associations gave them standards of beauty, so that they bought the
choicest furniture both at home and abroad. In such a home, whether it
be an intimate palace in Europe, a Colonial mansion in New England, or
a Victorian interior of the best type, an extraneous period is often
represented by some _objet d'art_ as a delightful, because harmonious
note of contrast.

For example, in a Louis XVI salon, where the colour scheme is
harmonious, one gradually realises that one of the dominant ornaments
in the room is a rare old Chinese vase, brought back from the Orient
by one of the family and given a place of honour on account of its
uniqueness.

Every one understands and feels deeply the difference between the
museum palace or the period rooms of the commonplace decorator, and
such a marvellous, living, breathing, palatial home as that "Italian
palace" in Boston, Massachusetts, created, not inherited, by Mrs. John
L. Gardner. Here we have a splendid example to illustrate the point we
are trying to make; namely, regardless of its dimensions, make your
home _home-like_ and like _you_, its owner. Never allow any one,
professional or amateur, to persuade you to put anything in it which
you do not like yourself; but if an expert advises against a thing,
give careful consideration to the advice before rejecting it. Mrs.
Gardner's house is unique among the great houses of America as having
that quality of the intimate palaces abroad,--a subtle mellowness
which in the old world took time and generations of cultivated lovers
of the rare and beautiful, to create. Adequate means, innate art
appreciation, experience and the knowledge which comes from keeping in
touch with experts, account for the intrinsic value of Mrs. Gardner's
collection; but the subtle quality of harmony and vitality is her own
personal touch. The colour scheme is so wisely chosen that it actually
does unite all periods and countries. One is surprised to note how
perfectly at home even the modern paintings appear in this version of
an old Italian palace.

Be sure that you aim at the same combination of beauty, usefulness,
and harmony between