House furnishings do not exist for themselves, but as a background for the people who live among them. Just as the trees, rocks, fields and animals have for their setting the green earth and the blue sky, and as pictures have a background, a middle distance and a foreground, so human beings have their setting. If the setting be more striking or more elegant than the people for whom it exists, they are made uncomfortable and overshadowed by it; if meaner and uglier than they, the people are belittled by it. How many houses there are whose furnishings are much more attractive than their inhabitants! A woman of superficial education and trivial character has the distinction of having the most beautiful library in her state; rows on rows of the best books, in beautiful bindings, in a room of the most artistic design, and nobody to read them. The contrast between the woman and her environment is pitiful.

The house and its contents should be an outgrowth of the tastes, habits and occupation of its owners. Farm life in its best aspect is a synonym for breadth, generosity, simplicity, cleanliness, abundance of sunlight, fresh air and good food, the beauty of nature, freedom from stiff formality—these are the things which the city dweller envies the farmer. The equipment of the house should express this breadth, beauty, and freedom of life. It follows from this that many pieces of furniture and some kinds of decoration which are offered in the shops are quite out of place in a country house. Imitation is, therefore, a dangerous principle, for it is likely to lead to the choice and purchase of articles which, however suitable for some other family and pretty in themselves, are wholly inappropriate in the case of the purchaser.

There are three main considerations which should always be taken into account in house-furnishing: health, suitability, and beauty. The order of these is often reversed to the permanent injury of the housewife. The first law of hygiene is that nothing can be suitable which is not wholesome for those who are to use it; the first law of decorative art is that nothing is beautiful which is not wholly suitable. If these principles should be applied to the furnishing of country houses, they would taboo dark, thick window draperies, nearly all bric-a-brac, heavy upholstered furniture, parlor tea-tables filled with delicate (and generally dusty) china, and many other things which have been copied from the unwholesome and perhaps necessary customs of city life.

Taste is a matter of cultivation, as much as efficiency or honesty; the habitual application of its fundamental principles in one’s own household, and the seeing of beautiful things elsewhere, are the chief means of its development. Man obtained his first conception of beauty from the form and color which he saw in the world about him, and we have only to apply the principles which are there apparent, in order to develop good taste. Nature provides an immense and comparatively neutral background; Nature always makes curves, never angles; Nature blends the most sharply contrasting colors together in the butterfly’s wing, in the poppies in a meadow, and in the feathers of the robin’s breast. The greater part of the world is in soft colors, browns and grays, dull greens and dull blues; the brilliant yellows, reds, pinks, purples and blues are always in very small quantities against this very large, neutral background. Since the furnishings of a house are the setting of the people, none of them should be more conspicuous than the people. Whatever brilliant color there is must be in relatively small quantities against a soft background. Nothing either in form or color should “stick out.”

If the general principles just laid down be applied to the details of house furnishing, we shall find that many matters must be changed. Since the housewife must usually do her own work with very little or, at most, inadequate help, everything should be planned to save her strength. If we remember, also, that the first effort of good housekeeping is to keep dirt out of the house, and the second to get it out at once, it will appear that carpets are unsanitary. It has already been shown that good floors are now to be had easily and cheaply. If properly painted or finished with oil and wax, they form the best foundation for tasteful and cleanly housekeeping. Carpets not only keep the dirt in the house, but they involve that annual bugbear, house-cleaning. Even when the floors are old and poor, the space around the edge of a rug may be puttied and painted so as to look very well when the rug is put down. By rugs, I do not mean several little rugs, like oases in the slippery surface, or at the doorways to trip the unwary, but a good, generous-sized rug which just escapes the edges of the heavier furniture around the sides of the room; which is substantial enough not to roll up, and which is yet small enough to be carried in and out by one person. If the woodwork and pictures be wiped with a damp cloth, the windows washed, the floor dusted, and the rug beaten out of doors, now and then, no such terrible upheaval as house-cleaning usually implies, is necessary. Rugs may be had ready-made of ingrain, Japanese cotton, and jute, Brussels, and more expensive materials, but should always be heavy enough to lie flat without fastening and large enough to cover the entire portion of the floor which is to be walked upon. The uncovered space should usually not be wider than one and one-half feet.

All furniture that is not actually built into or fastened to the wall and floors should be easily movable and easily cleaned. This at once precludes the purchase of heavy, upholstered chairs and large sofas. Wicker and rattan furniture, though not so artistic and costly as antique wood, is very light, and with good removable hair cushions, may be made quite as comfortable and far more cleanly than upholstered plush and damask. The cushions may be beaten at the same time as the rugs, and the dust thus taken out of the house. White enameled bedsteads and washstands are rapidly superseding the heavy wooden ones. It is a curious fact that although the persons of a family are of various sizes and ages, chairs are still bought by the half dozen, without reference to the people who are to sit upon them. Even in such minor matters as chairs and tea-cups, some account should be taken of individuality.

If all furniture be selected with these simple principles in mind, i. e., hygienic cleanliness, the minimum of labor for the housewife, and the comfort of those who are to use it, there remains only one other way in which to go astray: it may still be superlatively and positively ugly; or it may be comfortable, sanitary, easily moved, and yet be merely negatively ugly; or it may be made decorative by its graceful form, the color of its covering, or the carving upon it. The first principle of artistic decoration is that it must be wholly subordinated to the use of the object which it adorns. For instance, windows are for two purposes: to light the house and for seeing out. If a window opens on a barnyard or some unpleasant prospect, you may put up a sash curtain of light silk or muslin. Thus you obtain light but no view. But if you wish to see out of the window, sash curtains are absurd. In the ordinary private house, elaborate and heavy window curtains are out of place, both for sanitary and artistic reasons. Whenever cleanliness is a prime object, drapery should be movable and washable. Silk and velvet draperies are only to be tolerated where there is a retinue of maids to keep them clean.

The facility and cheapness of mill-work and lathe-work in wood has vitiated the taste of Americans to a terrible degree. Nearly all ready-made furniture is grooved, machine-carved, and ornamented in a way to violate not only the principles of beauty, but of strength and cleanliness as well. Ornament that does not mean anything is not merely commonplace but ugly. There are four chairs of different patterns, and costing from $1.50 to $15, in the room where I sit; all of them have legs. Now, legs are intended as a support, yet all these are grooved and beaded and hollowed out in spots, so that twice as much material as is necessary has been used to insure support. The ornamentation is not pretty, the hollows are inevitably full of dust, and they mean absolutely nothing to anybody who sees them. On the front crosspiece of one large chair is glued a design of leaves in oak, by way of ornament. If these had been carved out upon a beautiful strip of wood by the hand of a cunning workman, they would at least have meant a man’s thought and skill. As they are, they suggest merely a machine and a glue pot, and thousands of others as hideous as they. Contrast with this gingerbread furniture the plain, substantial colonial chairs and tables and sideboards, made of beautiful wood, almost without ornamentation, with shapely, slender, and strong legs and softly polished by hand. Cheapness and quantity have been secured by machinery at the expense of beauty and strength.

If the principle thus illustrated be true, then it follows that patterns of any sort, whether in carpets, wall paper, china, or drapery, must be very carefully used that they may not be more conspicuous than that which they decorate. The floor and the wall are the basis both of color-scheme and decoration. They are the background of the people who are to live there; they should, therefore, be rather inconspicuous, soft and indefinite in effect, and as becoming as possible to the human figures. If the climate be sunny and the room well lighted, the walls and floor may be dark and rich in effect; if the climate be uncertain and often cloudy, or the room badly lighted, the effect should be light and gay. Color is the chief means of producing this result: the walls and floors of living rooms should be of soft, neutral brown, yellow, red, green, or warm gray tints. Blue, though very lovely when carefully used, is cold in effect, and seldom satisfactory for living rooms, while the blue grays are positively chilling. Yellow in paler or richer shades, depending on the lighting of the room, is uniformly cheerful and satisfying; next to it rank the various terra cotta shades. Neither rug nor wall-covering should have large, striking designs; if having pattern at all, it should rather be of an indefinite, wandering design like the Japanese jute rugs, or of small inconspicuous conventional design, such as may be found in the best Brussels carpet.

If the floors, however, be poor and old they may be covered very inexpensively with thick, strong building paper which comes in beautiful tints and the rug may be laid on top of this; or with denim on top of newspapers, which is only a little more expensive, and which may be had in a variety of beautiful shades; or, best of all, with matting on top of paper. Matting is especially desirable because the dust sifts through below, and does not rise easily when swept. But the money spent to cover up a poor floor would often serve to lay a good new one, and this should be done whenever possible. For kitchen and, in some cases, for a dining room floor as well, nothing is so satisfactory as linoleum. It is impervious, warm, soft to the foot, easily kept in order by an occasional coat of oil, and to be had in agreeable patterns. It may also be used like denim, building paper, and matting, to cover up bad floors, and as a basis for the rug; while more expensive, it is also much more satisfactory than anything except a good hardwood floor. There is often far too great contrast between the furnishings of the living room and the parlor; between the “spare room” and the family bedrooms. The money spent in elegance which is shut up in a room rarely used would serve to add much to the comfort of the whole family. The guest will enjoy the hospitality offered all the more if not treated too ceremoniously.

The furnishing of the living room should always include several easy chairs, a good lounge, a place for books and magazines, and a thoroughly good reading lamp. If it can be afforded, a small room off the sitting room for writing and study is very desirable. It should contain book shelves, a large writing table or desk, and a good lamp. But if the extra room cannot be had, the desk and book shelves may be placed in the parlor. There should certainly be some place where the children may study or any member of the family may read and write uninterrupted. It is as irksome to write without proper appliances as to bathe without proper facilities.

The furniture and decorations of bedrooms can scarcely be too simple; the walls may be lighter and gayer than those of living rooms. Blue and white or pale green and white may be used as color-schemes for very sunny bedrooms, yellow or pink and white for less sunny ones. One or two single, white, enamelled iron bedsteads, a washstand, a bureau or a chest of drawers with glass above, two or three low, light chairs, and a table or desk at which one may write, is an ample furnishing, if there be a good closet or wardrobe. The rug need be only large enough to cover the space in front of the bed, bureau, and stand, if the floor be well matched and painted or oiled. A bedroom should give the impression of spotlessness and comfort; everything should be washable or cleanable; unless used also as a sitting room, it should not have a superfluous article in it. Mats, bric-a-brac, even many pictures, are quite out of place.

Since cost, styles and tastes differ so widely in different localities, no detailed directions can or should be given that will be generally applicable. If the principles illustrated in this chapter be correct, they will serve to guide and to develop the taste of many different kinds of persons.