But the “mansion” of bastard architecture and crude paint, with its brass indifferently clean, with coarse lace behind the plate glass of its golden-oak door, and the bell answered at eleven in the morning by a butler in an ill fitting dress suit and wearing a mustache, might as well be placarded:  “Here lives a vulgarian who has never had an opportunity to acquire cultivation.”  As a matter of fact, the knowledge of how to make a house distinguished both in appearance and in service, is a much higher test than presenting a distinguished appearance in oneself and acquiring presentable manners.  There are any number of people who dress well, and in every way appear well, but a lack of breeding is apparent as soon as you go into their houses.  Their servants have not good manners, they are not properly turned out, the service is not well done, and the decorations and furnishings show lack of taste and inviting arrangement.

The personality of a house is indefinable, but there never lived a lady of great cultivation and charm whose home, whether a palace, a farm-cottage or a tiny apartment, did not reflect the charm of its owner.  Every visitor feels impelled to linger, and is loath to go.  Houses without personality are a series of rooms with furniture in them.  Sometimes their lack of charm is baffling; every article is “correct” and beautiful, but one has the feeling that the decorator made chalk-marks indicating the exact spot on which each piece of furniture is to stand.  Other houses are filled with things of little intrinsic value, often with much that is shabby, or they are perhaps empty to the point of bareness, and yet they have that “inviting” atmosphere, and air of unmistakable quality which is an unfailing indication of high-bred people.

="BECOMING” FURNITURE=

Suitability is the test of good taste always.  The manner to the moment, the dress to the occasion, the article to the place, the furniture to the background.  And yet to combine many periods in one and commit no anachronism, to put something French, something Spanish, something Italian, and something English into an American house and have the result the perfection of American taste—­is a feat of legerdemain that has been accomplished time and again.

[Illustration:  “THE PERSONALITY OF A HOUSE IS INDEFINABLE, BUT THERE NEVER LIVED A LADY OF GREAT CULTIVATION AND CHARM WHOSE HOME, WHETHER A PALACE, A FARM-COTTAGE OR A TINY APARTMENT, DID NOT REFLECT THE CHARM OF ITS OWNER.” [Page 132.]]

A woman of great taste follows fashion in house furnishing, just as she follows fashion in dress, in general principles only.  She wears what is becoming to her own type, and she puts in her house only such articles as are becoming to it.