th silks, brocaded in different
colours, therefore never use chintz where a chair or sofa calls for
tufting. A tufted piece of furniture always looks best done in plain
materials.

In using a chintz in which both colour and design are indefinite, the
kind which gives more or less an impression of faded tapestry, you
will find that the very indefiniteness of the pattern makes it
possible to use the chintz with more freedom, being always sure of a
harmonious background. The one thing to guard against is that on
entering a room you must not be conscious either of several colours,
or of any set design.

CHAPTER IV

THE STORY OF TEXTILES

The story of the evolution of textiles (any woven material) is
fascinating, and like the history of every art, runs parallel with the
history of culture and progress in the art of living,--physical,
mental and spiritual.

To those who feel they would enjoy an exhaustive history of textiles
we recommend a descriptive catalogue relating to the collection of
textiles in the South Kensington Museum, prepared by the Very Rev.
Daniel Rock, D.D. (1870).

In the introduction to that catalogue one gets the story of woven
linens, cottons, silks, paper, gold and silver threads, interspersed
with precious jewels and glass beads--all materials woven by hand or
machine.

The story of textiles includes: 1st, woven materials; 2nd, embroidered
materials; 3rd, a combination of the two, known as "tapestry." If one
reads their wonderful story, starting in Assyria, then progressing to
Egypt, the Orient, Greece, Rome and Western Europe, in any history of
textiles, one may obtain quickly and easily a clear idea of this
department of interior decoration from the very earliest times.

The first European silk is said to have been in the form of
transparent gauze, dyed lovely tones for women of the Greek islands, a
form of costume later condemned by Greek philosophers.

We know that embroidery was an art three thousand years ago, in fact
the figured garments seen on the Assyrian and Egyptian bas-reliefs are
supposed to represent materials with embroidered figures--not woven
patterns--whereas in the Bible, when we read of embroidery, according
to the translators, this sometimes means woven stripes.

PLATE IX

An ideal dining-room of its kind, modern painted furniture,
Empire in design. In this case yellow with decoration in white.
Curtains, thin yellow silk.

Note the Em