these evidences of family life.

It can be made ready for them, completely and perfectly ready, by
professional skill and knowledge; but if it remained just where the
interior artist or decorator left it, it would have no more of the
sentiment of domesticity than a statue.




CHAPTER II

CHARACTER IN HOUSES

"_For the created still doth shadow forth the mind and will which made
it._

"_Thou art the very mould of thy creator_."


It needs the combined personality of the family to make the character of
the house. No one could say of a house which has family character, "It
is one of ----'s houses" (naming one or another successful decorator),
because the decorator would have done only what it was his business to
do--used technical and artistic knowledge in preparing a proper and
correct background for family life. Even in doing that, he must consult
family tastes and idiosyncracies if he has the reverence for
individuality which belongs to the true artist.

A domestic interior is a thing to which he should give knowledge and not