This change was not a difficult thing to accomplish, it was simply an expedient, but it has the value of carefully planned construction, and reminds one of the clever utterance of the immortal painter who said, “I never lose an accident.”

Indeed the ingenious home-maker often finds that the worse a thing is, the better it can be made by competent and careful study.  To complete and adapt incompetent things to orderliness and beauty, to harmonise incongruous things into a perfect whole requires and exercises ability of a high order, and the consciousness of its possession is no small satisfaction.  That it is constantly being done shows how much real cleverness is necessary to ordinary life—­and reminds one of the patriotic New York state senator who declared that it required more ability to cross Broadway safely at high tide, than to be a great statesman.  And truly, to make a good house out of a poor one, or a beautiful interior from an ugly one, requires far more thought, and far more original talent, than to decorate an important new one.  The one follows a travelled path—­the other makes it.

Of course competent knowledge saves one from many difficulties; and faults of construction must be met by knowledge, yet this is often greatly aided by natural cleverness, and in the course of long practice in the decorative arts, I have seen such refreshing and charming results from thoughtful untrained intelligence,—­I might almost say inspiration,—­that I have great respect for its manifestations; especially when exercised in un-authoritative fashion.

CHAPTER IV

COLOUR IN HOUSES

  "Heaven gives us of its colour, for our joy,
  Hues which have words and speak to ye of heaven."

Although the very existence of a house is a matter of construction, its general interior effect is almost entirely the result of colour treatment and careful and cultivated selection of accessories.

Colour in the house includes much that means furniture, in the way of carpets, draperies, and all the modern conveniences of civilization, but as it precedes and dictates the variety of all these things from the authoritative standpoint of wall treatment, it is well to study its laws and try to reap the full benefit of its influence.

As far as effect is concerned, the colour of a room creates its atmosphere.  It may be cheerful or sad, cosy or repellent according to its quality or force.  Without colour it is only a bare canvas, which might, but does not picture our lives.