BRIC-A-BRAC

The old-fashioned “whatnot” with its hungrily gaping shelves is responsible for many crimes committed in the name of bric-a-brac, and calls to mind sundry specimens with which proud owners were wont to satisfy its greed:  the glass case of wax or feather flowers, flanked and reenforced by plush photograph frames, shells, china vases shining “giltily,” silvered and beribboned toasters, peacock-feather fans, with perhaps a cup and saucer bearing testimony to our virtue with its “For a good girl,” and other fill-upables, gone but not forgotten.  And then followed a time when mantels and bookcase tops bore certain ills in the way of the more modern painted plaques, strings of gilded nuts, embroidered banners, and porcelain and brass clocks so gaudy and bedizened as to explain why time flies.  But the architect has come to the rescue with his dignified, stately mantel which repels the trivial familiarity of meaningless decoration, and the bookcase whose simple, quiet elegance is in itself decorative.  Blessed be the nothingness which allows Miladi to build her own art atmosphere untainted by gifts of well-intentioned but tasteless friends.

THE GROWTH OF GOOD TASTE

The germs of the capacity for good taste are born in most of us, but must be sedulously cultivated before they can rightly be called taste, and bric-a-brac presents the best of possibilities for their development.  Begin by buying one piece which you know to be beautiful—­simple and refined in outline, choice in design, modest in coloring, and fit for the use to which it is to be put—­live with it, study it, master it.  It will take on many unexpected charms as you grow to know it, and when you are ready to select the next piece you will find that the germ of your talent for discrimination has quietly become other ten talents and grown into a reliable ability to separate the chaff from the wheat.  Each acquisition will have its own peculiar individuality which, once conquered, means a liberal education.

USEFULNESS WITH BEAUTY

While all bric-a-brac should be beautiful, some certain kinds, such as lamps, clocks, and jardinieres, are also essentially useful, and these have undergone a wonderful transformation during recent years as a result of the movement toward simplicity, honesty of purpose, and fitness.  It would be hard to imagine anything more incongruous than the porcelain lamp decorated with flowers of heroic endurance which blossomed unwiltingly on, regardless of the heat; or the frivolously decorated clock when the passing of time is so serious a matter; or the gaudy jardiniere, whose coloring killed the green of the plant it held.  But we have grown past this.  Now our light at eventide is shed through a simple, plain-colored shade of porcelain or of Japan paper and bamboo (if one cannot afford