Now, if any woman rather shrewder than her fellows, or any man having a pretty wife, ask me, 'How shall I know which combination best suits my especial needs?! I answer, Try it in a bonnet. No colours suit a room that are not pleasing in dress. Place a mass of the proposed tints around a healthy countenance, now this, now that, for comparison's sake. Throw over it, when chosen, a thin film of black Brussels net, which will tone down the colour to somewhat the pitch of the shadows which inevitably fall upon the walls of a room: stand off, give your whole great mind to the subject for a few moments, and behold, you cannot fail to see what is most becoming. Ergo, what suits one fresh face, suits another; what suits one pale, rubicund, sallow, brown or grey face, suits another.

You cannot - it would be inhospitable to - paint your walls with a colour that only becomes yourself; you can and you ought to select a general, warm, comfortable tint that is agreeable to the majority. Exceptions must of course take care of themselves.

A beautiful complexion, like grey hair, is easy enough to cater for. Everything is becoming to it, and it enhances most colours. But the ordinary healthy face, neither beauteous nor plain, without any vivid colours, is the safest guide. As we see when we lay our hands on gay fabrics, every colour suggests its complementary; and the more vivid the colour, the more pronounced the suggestion of its opposite. Blue is apt to turn the skin yellow, and only suits those very fair skins which need a little warmth and luminosity; it often suits the hair when it does not suit the face, and so the cheek is unwisely sacrificed to the (so-called) golden locks. Green, both dark and light, often creates the same yellowness, a sallow pallor, but a very yellow green, like ripe moss, does the reverse. Red of a soft subdued kind is very becoming: a vivid red like that called Turkey, worn with daffodils, a violent mixture much affected by prae-Raphaelites, should never be braved without the safeguard of a lovely complexion - cream and roses - it darkens the skin so much. I may add, colours so strong are really painful, irritating, to some sensitive spectators; and unselfish people should not disregard a fact for which there is always a scientific reason.

I have known the comfort and the eloquence of a distinguished man to be checked by the propinquity of a mass of distasteful red. I can sympathise, since there is a piercing, acrid, aniline blue, in a dress of which I could hardly talk to my dearest friend (only I know no friend would wear it). Yellow is extremely disagreeable to many persons, although the colour really suits most faces, which in London are always apt to be sallow; the brightest yellow pales down immensely by gas or any yellow light, even if over-strong by the electric light of the day. Primrose becomes white, and like real white, that means grey. Of course every colour is less violent on a wall than in a dress which constantly crosses the light, on account of the softening influence of the shadows and distance, and I have seen bright red in a wall (not dark red, which is very difficult to light), broken by ancient picture-frames of deep-cut, variegated gold, form a good and not too obtrusive background to persons who would have been ruined by dresses of such red.