are told, ' and add to magnificence, or be
made to lighten or deepen the character of
the chamber; it may appear to temper the
heat of summer, or to give a sense of warmth
and comfort to the winter; it may have the
effect of increasing the size of a saloon, or of
closing in the walls of a library or study; all
which, by a due adaptation of colour, can be
easily accomplished.' Very good; but if you
consider the walls of your room as a background,
you will cause them to throw out
into the best relief everything else without
thrusting themselves upon attention. The
ornament upon your paper, whether full and
rich, or light and elegant, ought to be subdued
in character, presenting no strong
contrasts in colour, and if it be not composed
of several tints of the same colour, but of
several colours absolutely different, the
greatest pains must be taken to assure the
nice adjustment of the proportions, and to
prevent anything from staring out to catch
the eye. I am perpetually grieved by rooms,
papered as this is, in which we now are
sitting. Though the room is small, the
paper has a large pattern, boldly defined in
stripes of lilacs, lilies, and moss roses very
nicely drawn. There is no fitness in the
paper as a background to a parlour, or as a
background to anything; the direct imitation
of flowers is also impertinent. Fancy scrolls
and ideas suggesting flowers, that is to say,
ornaments designed with a present sense of
the beauty of natural forms, balanced with
geometrical correctness, and with an exact
regard to the proportion of the colours, are
the proper things. Flowers were not made
with a direct view to paper-hanging, and if a
wall paper be covered with direct imitations
of these or any other natural objects, the
chances are ten thousand to one that the
whole effect of the colouring will be inharmonious
and bad. The designer is compelled to
use the paints wanted by this rose and that
lily in constant violence to the principles by
which he should be guided, if he remembered
that he was working to produce a harmonious
design of decoration for so many square yards
of flat wall. Then again, we have to remember
that the wall is flat, and that there
are four walls differently placed, and all receiving
light from the same quarter. Does
not a little reflection upon this fact show the
gross absurdity of painting roses, scrolls, or
any other objects in relief, and having light
and shade about them, casting shadows, when
the shadows will practically be turned all
manner of ways—from the light on one wall,
and towards it on another—in the most
ridiculous confusion. From this consideration
follows a fixed law for all wall papers,
that the pattern upon them should be treated
in a flat way, and that no flower, festoon,
scroll, or line of any kind should be represented
as projecting, by the introduction of a
shadow. The flowers on your wall being
imitated from nature are all full of shadows,
and those at which you are now looking contradict
in an absurd way, Mr. Frippy, the
real position of the windows. I don't wish
to be rude, Mr. Frippy, sir. I 've not a paper
that don't agonize me at Clump Lodge, and
I sit down to my tea at home among birds of
paradise and pagodas, which I don't scrape
down because I haven't a deep pocket."

"You seem to have learnt a great deal at
the Museum, Crumpet," Mr. Frippy replied;
"and I don't mind saying, candidly, though
I hadn't thought of these matters before, that
I see sense in a good deal that you have said
though I think it's just a leetle over-done.
But you take the matter, my dear friend, too
much to heart. Home is home, be it ever
so—so—"

"So horrible, sir. Yes, I admit that. But
allow me to remark, that if your carpet were
what it represents itself to be, I couldn't walk
to the door without treading upon half-a-dozen
thorns, and, perhaps, dislocating my
ankle among the architectural scrolls that I
see projecting out of it. What I have said of
the paper-hanging is in a great measure true
of the carpet in a room; it is to be considered
as a background. Imitations of fruit, shells,
and hard substances in relief are improper.
Treat the forms of flowers and leaves flatly,
as ornaments, and not as imitations, if you
please, but in the design painted upon a floor
there must be nothing to contradict to the
eye the necessary element of flatness. Neither
must there be any strongly marked forms or
violent contrasts or displays of colour, to take
from the floor its character of background to
the chairs and tables, and the people who
stand over it. In the Marlborough House
Chamber of Horrors there is a carpet with a
landscape pattern on it, asking you to walk
on sky and water. There is another carpet
drawn to imitate an ornamented ceiling, with
its beams and mouldings. Another is dotted
about with cornucopiæ filled with flowers
resting upon nothing. Another imitates a
wall with gothic panelling in oak."

"And I suppose, Mr. Crumpet," said my
wife, " that you object to this darling tiger
that is worked upon the rug, and would make
as much outcry over it as if it were a real
tiger that we must step upon."

"And you would cry out, I do believe,"
said Mrs. Frippy, " against those delicate
convolvulus blossoms on the curtain poles."

"There is something of that kind, certainly,"
I said, " in the Chamber of Horrors."

"It's of no use," said Polly, " to discuss
furniture now with Papa. ' What boots the
oft-repeated tale of strife, the feast of
vultures—'"

"Dinner is on the table," said a voice from
the door. There was no more to be said. I
was spared a journey through the house.
Frippy shirked that, evidently. I dined
and talked of other matters, but I saw that
I had boiled fish and oyster-sauce put on my
plate over a delicate bouquet of pink and