As to the useful, there are no complications about that. A room with a definite purpose has character, and is always more or less picturesque. The kitchen is generally the most picturesque room in the house, yet usually entirely devoid of what may be called decoration. Its objects of art are merely the tools of the workshop, the bright brass and copper vessels, the dish-covers gleaming like polished armour from the white walls. The rows of blue and white plates and dishes upon the dresser, and all the simple but sufficient hand tools of the cook’s office about, easily make up an attractive Dutch picture.

The real aesthetic dangers come in to the rooms which have no visible means of subsistence, so to speak. The dining-room, perhaps for this reason, is more successful generally than the drawing-room, and there exists a sort of tradition that it should be warm and rich in colour. Silver plate often gleams pleasantly from the sideboard, and the furniture is simple and massive in its lines. An old English dining-room, with Chippendale or Sheraton furniture, has a character and distinction of its own. A library, again, is almost sure to look a habitable room, and there are few more agreeable linings to walls than books, and here we must depend upon the taste of the binders, as well as on the furniture provided for the mind. There would, however, be room for the professional decorator upon the ceiling, and I mind me of the lovely plaster ceilings to be met with in sixteenth-century houses, sometimes armorial, sometimes emblematic—such as those at Knole and Blickling. In plaster work we have a beautiful and permanent kind of decoration which we owe to Italy, but which seems to have become quite domesticated here, and to have developed its own forms with us. The plain white, flat ceiling of the ordinary modern dwelling-house is the last relic, and even this used to have a big plaster rose screwed up in the middle, from which sprouted the gaselier; but one need not regret the departure of both excrescences in favour of the clean and pendulous shaded electric light, with light and simple brass or copper fittings. Our plasterers, however, might be able to throw some delicate ribs or pleasant spacing of simple sprays and devices upon the inviting plain of white plaster over our heads, or, if not, why not let the joists show and paint or stencil them with running leaf patterns, or paint them black, leaving white plaster between? Mr. George Walton, one of the most tasteful and original decorators in the newer mode, and under the Glasgow influence, showed a new treatment of a ceiling in glass and metal, together with a completely decorated and fitted interior at the recent Glasgow Exhibition. A plaster ceiling demands a frieze, and both may be effective either plain or coloured. This would depend upon whether a light, dark, or rich effect were required in the room. There is much charm in the coloured treatment of plaster, especially of figure designs in low relief as in the work of Mr. Anning Bell, Mr. Pomeroy, and Mr. Gerald Moira, though these require large rooms, public halls, or churches.

I have designed decorations (ceilings and friezes) in plaster and in stucco, and gesso worked in situ. These, in several instances, were gilded or silvered and lacquered so as to produce a low-toned metallic effect. This ornament harmonizes with richly coloured and rather dark-toned walls hung with silk or Spanish leather; but these were by no means cottage interiors.

For a cottage or small country house, printed cretonne, used as hangings for the lower walls of a room, has an attractive effect if suitable in pattern and colour, having a fresh, clean, and even gay effect with white woodwork and furniture.

The most comfortable, and at the same time the most romantic, also, I fear it must be added, the most expensive, way of decorating walls is by hanging them with arras tapestry such as that produced by William Morris. The dining-room of the English House at the last Paris Universal Exhibition was panelled in oak up to about six or eight feet, and the space above to the cornice was hung with Morris arras tapestry, designed by Burne-Jones and himself, showing the legend of King Arthur’s knights and the Holy Grail. The simplicity, yet richness and dignity of effect has a striking contrast to the more clamorous decorations of some of its neighbours, among which, however, the Spanish Pavilion was an exception.

Complete schemes for wall decorations (including field, frieze, dado, and ceiling), can, however, be had in wall-paper, which, with plain painting for the modest citizen, remains the chief method of interior mural decoration. A frieze usually heightens and lightens the effect of a room, and its junction with the field can be utilized for a picture-rail, the wall space from the picture-rail to the skirting being covered with rich or quiet pattern, as the particular scheme may demand. Sometimes a patterned frieze does well above a plain tinted wall.

I venture here to give some illustrations of some of my recent wall-paper designs, by permission of the makers, Messrs. Jeffery and Co.

The blue and white lily pattern (single prints) would be suitable where a bold effect was desired for a dado or field of lower wall with plain white, or a quiet frieze above. It might be useful in halls and passages.

The rather ornate design called “Dawn,” with the figure medallion, might be used for a drawing-room in quiet tones. The blue and the brown being re-echoed in the hangings and furniture with white wood-work.

The “Rose Bush” would be appropriate to a dining or living-room where a rather dark and rich effect was aimed at. It would harmonize with oak framing and furniture.

The “Olive Spray” might be generally useful, and would answer as a background for pictures.

When wall-paper is used for ceilings the walls should be comparatively quiet.

I have found the “Vine Trellis” pattern has a good effect with a plain tint on the walls, and is especially useful in covering the rather blank and ugly plastered soffit of the staircase which so often meets the eye in a town-house of the older type.

“The Cockatoo” would answer in a large room where an ornate effect was desired, or it could be used as a frieze above panelling, or a plain tint.

The “Oak Tree” is on simpler lines and rectangular in feeling, combining a bordered field with a frieze.

In choosing wall papers to suit particular rooms, regard should be had to the character of the lines of the pattern as well as the colour, bearing in mind that a pattern which runs into marked vertical lines would tend to increase the apparent height of a room, whereas a pattern of marked horizontal feeling would tend to make a room look lower and longer.

In designing complete schemes for wall-paper one’s aim has been to balance the different quantities of pattern in the different parts, and to re-echo the leading lines, masses, and colours by different expedients, so as to keep an essential relationship between each part.

Relationship is, of course, the essential in all decoration, otherwise it becomes a patchwork of conflicting pattern and colour. It matters not what our materials may be, or by what means, costly or simple, we seek to obtain our effect, whether by painting, carving, gilding and rich textiles, metal or plaster work, stamped leather or wall-paper, stencilling, tiles and plain painting or stained wood and whitewash. All must be in keeping, and seem fit and in its right place and proportion, and suitable to its conditions and surroundings; rich and splendid if the aim is to be rich and splendid, simple and quiet if the aim is to be simple and quiet; but without the pretence of richness or obtrusive display on the one hand, or the extreme rudeness, baldness, and ugliness which sometimes accompany what looks like the affectation of simplicity on the other.