ious, relationship of furnishings.

We acknowledge as legitimate all schemes of interior decoration and
insist that what makes any scheme good or bad, successful, or
unsuccessful presuming a knowledge of the fundamentals of the art, is
the fact that it is planned in reference to the type of man or woman
who is to live in it.

A new note has been struck of late in the arranging of bizarre,
delightful rooms which on entering we pronounce "very amusing."

Original they certainly are, in colour combinations, tropical in the
impression they make,--or should we say Oriental?

They have come to us via Russia, Bakst, Munich and Martine of Paris.
Like Rheinhardt's staging of "Sumurun," because these blazing interiors
strike us at an unaccustomed angle, some are merely astonished, others
charmed as well. There are temperaments ideally set in these interiors,
and there are houses where they are in place. We cannot regard them as
epoch-making, but granted that there is no attempt to conform to two of
the rules for furnishing,--_appropriateness_ and _practicality_,
the results are refreshingly new and entertaining. This is one of the
instances where exaggeration has served as a healthy antidote to the
tendency toward extreme dinginess rampant about ten years ago, resulting
from an obsession to antique everything. The reaction from this, a flaming
rainbow of colours, struck a blow to the artistic sense, drew
attention back to the value of colour and started the creative impulse
along the line of a happy medium.

Whether it be a furnished porch, personal suite (as bedroom, boudoir
and bath), a family living-room, dining-room, formal reception-room,
or period ballroom, never allow members of your household or servants
to destroy the effect you have achieved with careful thought and
outlay of money, by ruthlessly moving chairs and tables from one room
to another. Keep your wicker furniture on the porch, for which it was
intended. If it strays into the adjacent living-room, done in quite
another scheme, it will absolutely thwart your efforts at harmony,
while your porch-room done in wicker and gay chintzes, striped awnings
and geranium rail-boxes, cries out against the intrusion of a chair
dragged out from the house. Remember that should you intend using your
period ballroom from time to time as an audience room for concerts and
lectures, you must provide a complete equipment of small, very light
(so as to be quickly moved) chairs,