The beauty of a room is largely dependent on its comfort, for remember a room is in reality a picture as much as any painted group, and it should be criticised as such - e.g. a beautiful woman reclining on a sofa becomes for the time a part of the sofa, and the sofa part of her. Is it not best that the sofa should therefore be beautiful, so as at least not to add an ugliness to her during the transient association, though it may be unable to contribute a charm? It will, however, generally contribute a charm in the eyes of a cultivated spectator.

No artist would place an ill-formed piece of furniture in this juxtaposition, for coarse colour in a sofa cushion takes the position of an unbecoming bonnet against her cheek - of a destructive gown against her arm or waist.

Some women instinctively avoid the chair which clashes with their garments - instinctively select the teacup that offers dainty contrast; not through self-consciousness, but from some inchoate habitual wish to be pleasant. The gown can do without the chair, it is to be hoped, the hand can dispense with the tea-cup; but the association, however brief, has given its little pleasant mark to the sociable ensemble, as a sweet phrase or chord contributes to the whole song, and it is not necessary that the chord should be perpetual - an contrairc.

Ergo, tea-cups and chairs are worth making pretty.

I pray those readers whose opinions on the propriety of art-dressing have been at all moulded by French sentiment, to observe that the calculation of a coquette is not to be confounded with the instinct of the artistic temperament. They may exist together, but they are not one and the same, happily, and do exist apart. That there is no vice in trying to please, whilst there is a kind of cruelty in indifference to the feelings and likings of others, whether the liking of the eye, or any other bent to which they have grown sensitive. And observe also that a vulgar language of tints and trimmings such as that suggested in a certain well-known French book is as far from being desirable - perhaps even possible - in clean English society as it is destructive of the healthy balance on which real beauty hangs.

Nothing will so soon discourage (by making superfluous) any morbid pricking vanity in choice, as having all details fairly beautiful and well-planned in the 'background.'