“But, papa,” said Marianne, anxiously, “there, in those patent parlors of John’s that you wrote of, flowers acted a great part.”

“The charm of those parlors of John’s may be chemically analyzed,” I said.  “In the first place, there is sunshine, a thing that always affects the human nerves of happiness.  Why else is it that people are always so glad to see the sun after a long storm? why are bright days matters of such congratulation?  Sunshine fills a house with a thousand beautiful and fanciful effects of light and shade,—­with soft, luminous, reflected radiances, that give picturesque effects to the pictures, books, statuettes of an interior.  John, happily, had no money to buy brocatelle curtains,—­and besides this, he loved sunshine too much to buy them, if he could.  He had been enough with artists to know that heavy damask curtains darken precisely that part of the window where the light proper for pictures and statuary should come in, namely, the upper part.  The fashionable system of curtains lights only the legs of the chairs and the carpets, and leaves all the upper portion of the room in shadow.  John’s windows have shades which can at pleasure be drawn down from the top or up from the bottom, so that the best light to be had may always be arranged for his little interior.”

“Well, papa,” said Marianne, “in your chemical analysis of John’s rooms, what is the next thing to the sunshine?”

“The next,” said I, “is harmony of color.  The wall-paper, the furniture, the carpets, are of tints that harmonize with one another.  This is a grace in rooms always, and one often neglected.  The French have an expressive phrase with reference to articles which are out of accord,—­they say that they swear at each other.  I have been in rooms where I seemed to hear the wall-paper swearing at the carpet, and the carpet swearing back at the wall-paper, and each article of furniture swearing at the rest.  These appointments may all of them be of the most expensive kind, but with such disharmony no arrangement can ever produce anything but a vulgar and disagreeable effect.  On the other hand, I have been in rooms where all the material was cheap, and the furniture poor, but where, from some instinctive knowledge of the reciprocal effect of Colors, everything was harmonious, and produced a sense of elegance.

“I recollect once travelling on a Western canal through a long stretch of wilderness, and stopping to spend the night at an obscure settlement of a dozen houses.  We were directed to lodgings in a common frame-house at a little distance, where, it seemed, the only hotel was kept.  When we entered the parlor, we were struck with utter amazement at its prettiness, which affected us before we began to ask ourselves how it came to be pretty.  It was, in fact, only one of the miracles of harmonious color working with very simple materials.  Some woman had been busy there, who had both eyes and fingers.  The sofa, the common wooden rocking-chairs, and some