In so far as the principles of decoration are derived from other arts, they can be acquired by every one, but an exquisite feeling in their application is the distinguishing quality of the true decorator.

There is quite a general impression that house-decoration is not an art which requires a long course of study and training, but some kind of natural knack of arrangement—­a faculty of making things “look pretty,” and that any one who has this faculty is amply qualified for “taking up house-decoration.”  Indeed, natural facility succeeds in satisfying many personal cravings for beauty, although it is not competent for general practice.

Of course there are people, and many of them, who are gifted with an inherent sense of balance and arrangement, and a true eye for colour, and—­given the same materials—­such people will make a room pleasant and cozy, where one without these gifts would make it positively ugly.  In so far, then, individual gifts are a great advantage, yet one possessing them in even an unusual degree may make great mistakes in decoration.  What not to do, in this day of almost universal experiment, is perhaps the most valuable lesson to the untrained decorator.  Many of the rocks upon which he splits are down in no chart, and lie in the track of what seems to him perfectly plain sailing.

There are houses of fine and noble exterior which are vulgarized by uneducated experiments in colour and ornament, and belittled by being filled with heterogeneous collections of unimportant art.  Yet these very instances serve to emphasize the demand for beautiful surroundings, and in spite of mistakes and incongruities, must be reckoned as efforts toward a desirable end.

In spite of a prevalent want of training, it is astonishing how much we have of good interior decoration, not only in houses of great importance, but in those of people of average fortunes—­indeed, it is in the latter that we get the general value of the art.

This comparative excellence is to be referred to the very general acquirement of what we call “art cultivation” among American women, and this, in conjunction with a knowledge that her social world will be apt to judge of her capacity by her success or want of success in making her own surroundings beautiful, determines the efforts of the individual woman.  She feels that she is expected to prove her superiority by living in a home distinguished for beauty as well as for the usual orderliness and refinement.  Of course this sense of obligation is a powerful spur to the exercise of natural gifts, and if in addition to these she has the habit of reasoning upon the principles of things, and is sufficiently cultivated in the literature of art to avoid unwarrantable experiment, there is no reason why she should not be successful in her own surroundings.

The typical American, whether man, or woman, has great natural facility, and when the fact is once recognized that beauty—­like education—­can dignify any circumstances, from the narrowest to the most opulent, it becomes one of the objects of life to secure it. How this is done depends upon the talent and cultivation of the family, and this is often adequate for excellent results.