The Grange advance. [volume] (Red Wing, Minn.) 1873-1877, 1876-05-31


avoid bright colors in carpet. In rugs,
to lay down on plain gray, or on a
dark-browu floor, the brighter the
colors the better. The rugs are only
50 many distinct pictures thrown up
into relief here and there 10y the under
tint of gray or brown. But pattern,
Gather set or otherwise, of bright
colors journeying up and down, back
and forth, breadth after breadth, on a
floor, is always and forever ugly. If
one is so unfortunate as to enter on
the possession of a room with such a
carpet as this, or with a wallpaper Of
a similar nature, the first thing to be
done, if possible, is to get rid of them
or cover them up. Better have ten
cent paper of neutral tints, and have
distinguislable figures OH the wall, and
have floors painted brown or gray.
Third on my list OF essentials for
making rooms cosey, cheerful, and
beautiful, come books and pictures.
Here some persons will cry out: ''But
books and pictures cost great deal OF
money! Yes, books do cost money.
and so do pictures; but books accumu-
late rapidly in most houses where
books are read at all :; and if people
really want books, it is astonishing
how many they contrive to get togeth'
er in q few years without pinching
themselves very seriously in other I'll"
rectiOns.
AS for pictures costing money, how
much or how little they cost depends
on what sort of pictures you buy. AS
I said before, you can buy for six shill.
ings a good heliotype (which is to all
intents and purposes as good as all en-
graving), of one of Rapllaels or Cor
reggio's Madonnas. But you can buy
pictures much cheaper than that. A
Japanese fan is a picture some Of
them are exquisite pictures, and blaZ-
ing with color too. They cost any
| where from two to six cents. There
are also Japanese pictures, printed on
coarse paper, some two feet long and
one broad, to be bought for twenty
five cents each; with a dozen of these
a dozen or two of fans, and say four
good heliotypes, you can make the
walls of small room so gay, that a
strangers first impression on entering
it will be that it is adorned for u fes-
tival. The fans can be pinned on the
walls in endless picturesque combina-
tions. One of the most effective is to
pin them across the corners of the
room, in overlapping rows, like All old
fashioned card-rack.
Fourth on my list of essentials for a
cosy, cheerful room, put order. This
is a dangerous thing to say, perhaps !;
but it is my honest conviction that
sunlight, color, books and pictures
come before order. Observe, how
ever, that while it only comes fourth
on the list, it is only fourth it is by
no means last, / am not making al
exhaustive list. do not know where
[ should stop it | undertook that.
am mentioning only a few OF the first
principles,-the essentials. And in
regard to this very question OF order,
am partly at loss to know how far it
is safe to permit it to lay down it's law
in IL room. l think almost as many
rooms are spoiled by being kept in too
exact order ,as by being too disorderly.
there is all apparent disorder which is
not disOrderly and there is an aDpar-
ent order, which is only witness to
the fact that the things are never used.
I do not know how much better to
state the golden mean on this point
than to tell the story of an old temple
which was once discovered, bearing
on three of it's sides this inscription !:
''Be Bold.'' On the fourth side the in
scription: BE not too bold.''
S1,11 no
three sides of Il room: ''Be orderly"
On the fourth side: ''But don't be too
orderly"