ntelpiece is true to artistic standards and realises the
responsibility of its position as keynote to the room. Placed upon it
are a beautiful old clock and two vases, correct as to line and
colour.

Always be careful not to spoil a beautiful mantel or beautiful
ornaments by having them out of proportion one with the other. Plate
XXIV shows a mantel which fails as a composition because the bust, an
original by Behnes, beautiful in itself, is too heavy for the mantel
it stands on and too large for the mirror which reflects it and
serves as its background.

Keep everything in correct proportion to the whole. We have in mind
the instance of some rarely beautiful walls taken from an ancient
monastery in Parma, Italy. They were ideal in their original setting,
but since they have been transported to America, no setting seems
right. They belonged in a building where there were a succession of
small rooms with low ceilings, each room perfect like so many pearls
on a string. Here in America their only suitable place would be a
museum, or to frame the tiny "devotional" of some precieuse Flower of
Modernity.

CHAPTER XXVIII

A MODERN HOUSE IN WHICH GENUINE JACOBEAN FURNITURE IS APPROPRIATELY
SET

An original scheme for a dining-room was recently carried out in a
country house in England by a woman whose hobby is illuminating. It
will appeal to experts in the advance guard of interior decoration.
The woman in question was stimulated for her task by coming into
possession of some interesting Jacobean pieces of furniture, of oak,
squarely and solidly made, with flat carvings, characteristic of the
period.

PLATE XXIV

A beautiful mantel, a beautiful mirror, beautiful ornaments, and
a rare and beautiful marble bust by Behnes, but because the bust
is too large for both mantel and reflecting mirror, the
composition is poor.

[Illustration: _Example of Lack of Balance in Mantel Arrangement_]

The large Jacobean chest happened to be lined, as many of those old
chests were, with quaint figured paper, showing a coat-of-arms
alternating with another design in large squares of black and grey.
This paper, the owner had reproduced to cover the walls of her
dining-room, and then she stained her woodwork black (giving the
effect of old black oak), also, the four corner cupboards, but
the _inside_ of these cupboards--doors and all--she made a rich
Pompeian red and lackered it. The doors are left open