The province of a decorator, commonly forgotten, is not to take your house out of your jurisdiction; he might as well control all your possessions and sell everything he did not personally covet. His province is to help you in that mechanical part which you cannot do yourself. He may guide you; he must not subjugate you. He should be competent to save you from a fiasco if you are utterly incapable of thinking for yourself, but he ought surely to harmonise your individual opinions with the general laws (broad as they are) of art which he is supposed to have studied, not to make your house the replica of another he has done. A man's house, whilst he is in it, is a part of himself. Such stipulations as professional decorators are apt to make - that,having undertaken to decorate your room, they are to do it in their own way, and not to be 'hampered by your prejudices,'1 is, I think, a principle a priori false, though I can well understand the professional views and reasons. However ignorant the customer, and however accomplished the decorator, the customer's opinions and wishes are of the first importance in this as in every other province of trade, and the 'public' will never improve until they are respected.

What should we say if the linen-draper took a leaf out of the decorator's book, and if when we asked for red silk the shopman politely replied, 'Madam, I consider red silk unsuited to you, and I suggest green merino; and if your prejudices are opposed to the laws of art, represented by the present fashion and my stock, I prefer to decline your order'? We should resent this, though a dress does not last so long as a new wall-colour, it can be got rid of sooner. There are certain patterns, as there are certain colours, repugnant, like particular aliments, to certain constitutions; and, although constant interference by customers in the progress of the work would be very vexatious to any workman, yet he has no right to object to any alteration demanded - to any exchange, e.g., of a stiff for a flowing pattern, or a bright colour for a dull one, when, the work finished, it is displeasing to those who have got to endure it for years.

1 Such strenuous conditions are laid down in (e.g.) House Decoration (Art at Home Series).

The customer ought to meet a tyrannical decorator with Shylock's dignified answer, 'It is my humour,' and the detail of colour or device which the decorator wants to put up, whether you like it or no, may be regarded as the 'harmless necessary cat' which every freeborn Briton has a right to hate if he will, as Shylock hints.

What A Room Should Be

To obtain a harmonious whole, you must not omit the main element - yourself; and the premiss that your 'prejudices' are not to count only fosters the ape-like propensity, already common, which we ought to try to get rid of. We do not want any new recipe for creating apes, we have too many. One is the decorator's 'prejudice' when his stock-in-trade is limited. Beautiful in itself, and satisfying the cultured eye in all its parts, the dwelling-room ought to offer relief and sympathy in colour and shape to all moods, all types. The domestic surroundings, like dress, have a definite effect on the spirits, almost on the character; they may be sympathetic or irritating. Note their importance in a sick room, for example, which any observant nurse will confirm. A well-coloured room is cheerful, yet not obtrusively gay, calm without depressing the spirits, soft or rich in tone without partaking too much of either cold or hot tints; and offering no broad blank spaces to fatigue the mind or exercise it to devise possible additions, nor patterns which teaze the eye to count and follow their impertinent gyrations.

It should, in fact, be like a calm, pleasant expectant smile on a kindly face, - not a sour stare, nor an obstreperous loud laugh.