Geography, then, plays an important part, and affects even the choice of material out of which a house is to be built. If the house is to appear as a part of the landscape surrounding it, it must be built of something which seems to have some connection with that landscape. In some places white marble is out of place; in others brick and other kinds of stone are equally so. Sometimes a wooden house is remote from the idea of the landscape. Whenever this is the case, it is quite impossible to harmonize the house with the grounds and with the more remote accessories of which it becomes a related part. Harmony between the landscape and the house is fundamentally important from the standpoint of the exterior.

A YOUNG MAN'S BEDROOM WITH BACKGROUNDS OF WALL PAPER AND RUG EXPRESSING RESTFULNESS AND QCIET. GROUPING OF FURNITURE FROM THE STANDPOINTS OF USE AND DECORATIVE EFFECTS. INDIVIDUAL TYPE.

ANOTHER CORNER OF THE SAME BEDROOM, ILLUSTRATING CONVENIENCE AND DECORATIVE PLACINGS AND WINDOW DECORATIVE TREATMENT.

Another important premise is the function of the room. If one has decided to paper several rooms in his house, and he visits a wall-paper shop with this in mind, he will often find a salesman who displays his wares, declaring: "We are using these papers this season more than any others," or, "This colour is all the rage." Sometimes, too, textures figure as yearly fads. Japanese grass cloths, glazed papers, foliage, matted surface, etc., all have had their day. The function of the room is a question that is fundamental and has nothing to do with what is selling best or what is newest.

If a paper is for a bedroom, let it express the bedroom idea of sleep and rest. The value of the paper, light or dark, is a matter of taste, sometimes a matter affected by the age of the occupant. It may also be modified in value by the amount of light in the room and by the fact of being a country house or a town house. But two things are essential in this room - rest and sleep - and it matters not what the style is, these qualities should be present. If the hue is to be decided by the direction and amount of light admitted to the room, by the objects that are already there, and by the personal preference of the occupant of the room, there are three influences any one of which may be entirely antagonistic to the other two. Who shall decide which one to sacrifice? Rest and sleep comes first - then personal choice without doubt.

If the room has very little light, the colour may be a little more intense than it otherwise should be, but the background colour is fixed by the law of background, not personal whim. Neither southern exposures nor the vogue of the day will make a too intense background right for rest or sleep in any house.

Function, then, is fundamental wherever a room is, or whoever occupies it. What is true of one of a type of room is true of the others of the same type.

Another obstacle that often interferes with the selection of material has been somewhat discussed in the previous chapter. This is the fact that objects already in the room must be retained there as associates of the new ones. The study of historic periods shows one so clearly the quality value of every article of furniture that one should be familiar with furnishings as quality expressions. The straight-lined architectural features of an Italian chair or a Mission desk present a firm, unrelenting, yet simple quality effect which should immediately be recognized. The qualities of an object should be detected at sight. Everything in furniture and furnishing means something. This elemental meaning is the expression of an idea, and it is quite simple to find other ideas which in combination express a whole.

Some of us remember a game played with letters of the alphabet cut and pasted on small cardboard squares. One way of using these was to take a certain number of letters and see how many words could be made out of these letters. Another was to take a certain word and see how many other words could be made from the letters of that word. Each letter in each case expressed an idea. The word "simple," for example, contains six letters, each different in its meaning and form from the other five. If any four of these letters were given, and one were asked to make the completed word "simple," he would find no difficulty in supplying the other two letters from the collection.

This is precisely what should be done in interior decoration. Take account of stock before you paper the wall, buy new hangings, or add a chair, a desk or a table. Determine what you want your room to express when it is done, and then there are two different things to remember: first, buy the thing which you know supplies one of the missing letters in your word, and do not buy anything that does not supply it; in the second place, remember that when you have supplied the two letters, there are no more letters needed, and if you find a cheap object, or even a beautiful one, that is not required to complete your word, it is superfluous and never can be a part of your original idea. You decided that when you selected the word "simple" instead of "Constantinople" as your room idea.

If people would see this much, there would be no very bad rooms, so far as putting new objects with those already acquired is concerned.

Remember, then, that a scale quality which is ponderous and heavy must not be supplemented with an object which is light, informal and tiny, except there be some middle grounds in which a scale is found that relates these two different things. Great divergence in colour relationships in textures, size, shapes and line directions must be harmonized in the same way. This is done by remembering the Greek law and the subtle relationships which it makes possible. A reversion to principle is always safe in forming a critical judgment in the field of applied arts.