It is quite possible that so much general ability may discourage the study of decoration as a precise form of art, since it encourages the idea that The House Beautiful can be secured by any one who has money to pay for processes, and possesses what is simply designated as “good taste.”

We do not find this impulse toward the creation of beautiful interiors as noticeable in other countries as in America.  The instinct of self-expression is much stronger in us than in other races, and for that reason we cannot be contented with the utterances of any generation, race or country save our own.  We gather to ourselves what we personally enjoy or wish to enjoy, and will not take our domestic environment at second hand.  It follows that there is a certain difference and originality in our methods, which bids fair to acquire distinct character, and may in the future distinguish this art-loving period as a maker of style.

A successful foreign painter who has visited this country at intervals during the last ten years said, “There is no such uniformity of beautiful interiors anywhere else in the world.  There are palaces in France and Italy, and great country houses in England, to the embellishment of which generations of owners have devoted the best art of their own time; but in America there is something of it everywhere.  Many unpretentious houses have drawing-rooms possessing colour-decoration which would distinguish them as examples in England or France.”

To Americans this does not seem a remarkable fact.  We have come into a period which desires beauty, and each one secures it as best he can.  We are a teachable and a studious people, with a faculty of turning “general information” to account; and general information upon art matters has had much to do with our good interiors.

We have, perhaps half unconsciously, applied fundamental principles to our decoration, and this may be as much owing to natural good sense as to cultivation.  We have a habit of reasoning about things, and acting upon our conclusions, instead of allowing the rest of the world to do the reasoning while we adopt the result.  It is owing to this conjunction of love for and cultivation of art, and the habit of materializing what we wish, that we have so many thoroughly successful interiors, which have been accomplished almost without aid from professional artists.  It is these, instead of the smaller number of costly interiors, which give the reputation of artistic merit to our homes.

Undoubtedly the largest proportion of successful as well as unsuccessful domestic art in our country is due to the efforts of women.  In the great race for wealth which characterizes our time, it is demanded that women shall make it effective by so using it as to distinguish the family; and nothing distinguishes it so much as the superiority of the home.  This effort adheres to small as well as large fortunes, and in fact the necessity is more pronounced in the case of mediocre than of great ones.  In the former there is something to be made up—­some protest of worth and ability and intelligence that helps many a home to become beautiful.