It is not at all impossible for a woman of good taste--and it must be remembered that this word means an educated or cultivated power of selection--to secure harmonious or happily contrasted colour in a room, and to select beautiful things in the way of furniture and belongings; but what is to save her from the thousand and one mistakes possible to inexperience in this combination of things which make lasting enjoyment and appropriate perfection in a house?
How can she know which rooms will be benefited by sombre or sunny tints, and which exposure will give full sway to her favourite colour or colours?
How can she have learned the reliability or want of reliability in certain materials or processes used in decoration, or the rules of treatment which will modify a low and dark room and make it seem light and airy, or "bring down" too high a ceiling and widen narrow walls so as to apparently correct disproportion?
These things are the results of laws which she has never studied--laws of compensation and relation, which belong exclusively to the world of colour, and unfortunately they are not so well formulated that they can be committed to memory like rules of grammar; yet all good colour-practice rests upon them as unquestionably as language rests upon grammatical construction.
Of course one may use colour as one can speak a language, purely by imitation and memory, but it is not absolutely reliable practice; and just here comes in the necessity for professional advice.
There are many difficulties in the accomplishment of a perfect house-interior which few householders have had the time or experience to cope with, and yet the fact remains that each mistress of a house believes that unless she vanquishes all difficulties and comes out triumphantly with colours flying at the housetop and enjoyment and admiration following her efforts, she has failed in something which she should have been perfectly able to accomplish.

But the obligation is certainly a forced one.

It is the result of the modern awakening to the effect of many heretofore unrecognized influences in our lives and the lives and characters of our children.

A beautiful home is undoubtedly a great means of education, and of that best of all education which is unconscious.

To grow up in such a one means a much more complete and perfect man or woman than would be possible without that particular influence.
But a perfect home is never created all at once and by one person, and let the anxious house-mistress take comfort in the thought.