New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1875-12-21
HOLIDAY BUYINGS.

IrOptt WHO HdNo any ot'i' "O+i"4' =" 'I'''"
| in this last week before the holidays, 1t might
be supposed, would find the spending easy
work, especially if they meant to purchase
| furniture, clothes, or ornament oil any KIND Tor
| the person or house. But 1t is this spending
which troubles seven-eighths oil the buyers
| who read the flaming advertisements OF HE
| TRIBUNE. IL is the fashion now to dress
or furnish your dwelling artistically. Pop
| ular small talk does not run on Shakespeare
and the musical glasses. but on East
lake and NORRIS wallpaper The situation,
however elevated, is trying for good folk who
| are rot artistic by birth or education. Amelia,
| who was married the other week. may be
| capable of tho highest virtues as wife or house
| keeper; but her taste, as everybody knows Is
| abominable. A year or two ago she coulu
| have left dress and furniture TO mantua- maker
and uphosterer: but now her friends, with
souls attuned to art, invelgh against these
| good folk as "work people" and declare that
there must be Meaning, Beauty, Harmony, III
her polonaises and teapots. What is she to do 7
She can pay money down for pOl0nase OF
| pot but Meaning and Harmony are things
quite invisible to her. She hears of certain
artists who will make pictures OF her and
meaning and harmony is treble that of the
actual material. Nobody is of the same mind
in the matter, either. ID. sneers at AS ford
house and is bric-a-brac, and A. shivers at the
classic severity of DIS chill apartments. Yet
everybody is absolutely right and never could
be wrong She takes up the popular articles
in Scyibncr on Beds and Tables; here surely
is the alphabet, something practical! But she
inds hints that this stool is charming or that
stove suggestive, and advice not to follow
anybody's dictum. but to fall back on prln-
ciples, when she has no principles, or to
90 To a famous architect or dealer when she
has no money.
The most practical advice we can give
Amelia. or the thousands like her, who will
set out this week to buy clothes, furniture, or
ornament is not to be bewidered by the ont
cry about aesthetic taste in any of these things.
4 very little study will give her the rules OF
shane and combination of color After that,
let her one rule be to buy precisely what best
serves her own peculiar purpose, and to put
"cffect' totally ont of sight. She buys
n street dress; she wants it warm, comiorta-
BILE. unobtrusive, short enough to clear the
ground. She buys home dress, for the even
ings when Tom or the neighbors gather
about the freplace-she wants it soft cling
ing, certain sweep in tho drapeiy dark
color that will bear a bright knot of ribbon,
or n rose in the hair or breast. Or is it funi-
ture that she goes out to buy, for this same
! living room to which they all gather in the
EVENING" The EFFECT of dozen stylish
chairs all alike she thinks is tempting, but she
| considers actual need and sends home coy
little sewing chair for herself, lounge for
| Tom, a big, easy padded snuggery for grand
father, and one or two odd ones to make out the
| NUMBER she buys u big round table Tor work
and books instead Of nest of Chinese tea
poys And she hangs curtain here or sets
screen there to keep off draughts, and so on,
consulting actual need and service and when
she is done her friends cry out that the room
is artistic and has Harmony, ETC, etc. For
after all the secret of beauty is exact adapta-
ton to use, regardless of conventional forms,
and the woman who has definite aim or
meaning in dress or room, and keeps that
strictly in view. will waken up when the work
is done to find that the work is that of an
artist, although she never handled brush or
pencil, nor ever knew cOrnice from dado,
or faience from Wedgew0od ware.