in your "period," as a necessary
part of your decoration.

The current idea that a distinguished room remains distinguished
because costly tapestries and old masters hang on its walls, even when
the floor is strewn with vulgar, hired chairs, is an absurd mistake.
Each room from kitchen to ballroom is a stage "set,"--a harmonious
background for certain scenes in life's drama. It is the man or woman
who grasps this principle of a distinguished home who can create an
interior which endures, one which will hold its own despite the ebb
and flow of fashion. Imposing dimensions and great outlay of money do
not necessarily imply distinction, a quality depending upon unerring
good taste in the minutest details, one which may be achieved equally
in a stately mansion, in a city flat, or in a cottage by the sea.

The question of background is absorbingly interesting. A vase, with or
without flowers, to add to the composition of your room, that is, to
make "a good picture," must be placed so that its background sets it
off. Let the Venetian glass vase holding one rose stand in such a
position that your green curtain is its background, and not a
photograph or other picture. One flower, carefully placed in a room,
will have more real decorative value than dozens of costly roses
strewn about in the wrong vases, against mottled, line-destroying
backgrounds.

Flowers are always more beautiful in a plain vase, whether of glass,
pottery, porcelain or silver. If a vase chances to have a decoration
in colour, then make a point of having the flowers it holds accord in
colour, if not in shade, with the colour or colours in the vase.

There is a general rule that no ornament should ever be placed in
front of a picture. The exception to this rule occurs when the picture
is one of the large, architectural variety, whose purpose is primarily
mural decoration,--an intentional background, as tapestries often are,
serving its purpose as nature does when a vase or statue is placed in
a park or garden. One sees in portraits by some of the old masters
this idea of landscape used as background. Bear in mind, however, that
if there is a central design--a definite composition in the picture,
or tapestry, no ornament should ever be so placed as to interfere with
it. If you happen to own a tapestry which is not large enough for your
space by one, two or three feet, frame it with a plain border of
velvet or velveteen, to match the dominating colour, and a