Considering, as I do, that tapestries belong to the life and conditions of the past, where the homeless many toiled for the pampered few, and not to the homes of to-day where the man of moderate means expects beauty in his home as confidently as if he were a world ruler, I find it hardly necessary to include them in the list of means of modern decoration, and indeed it is not necessary, since a well-preserved tapestry of a good period, and of a famous manufacturer or origin, is so costly a purchase that only our bounteous and self-indulgent millionaires would venture to acquire one solely for purposes of wall decoration.

It would be purchased as a specimen of art and not as furnishing.
Yet I know one instance of a library where a genuine old foliage tapestry has been cut and fitted to the walls and between bookcases and doors, where the wood of the room is in mahogany, and a great chimney-piece of Caen stone of Richardson's designing fills nearly one side of the room.

Of course the tapestry is unapproachable in effect in this particular place and with its surroundings.

It has the richness and softness of velvet, and the red of the mahogany doors and furniture finds exactly its foil in the blue greens and soft browns of the web, while the polished floor and velvety antique rugs bring all the richness of the walls down to one's feet and to the hearth with its glow of fire.

But this particular room hardly makes an example for general following.