result of laws of colour accidentally applied.

To avail ourselves of this influence upon the moods and experiences of
life is to use a power positive in its effects as any spiritual or
intellectual influence. It gives the kind of joy we find in nature, in
the golden-green of light under tree-branches, or the mingled green and
gray of tree and rock shadows, or the pearl and rose of sunrise and
sunset. We call the deep content which results from such surroundings
the influence of nature, and forget to name the less spiritual, the more
human condition of well-being which comes to us in our homes from being
surrounded with something which in a degree atones for lack of nature's
beauty.

It is a different well-being, and lacks the full tide of electric
enjoyment which comes from living for the hour under the sky and in the
breadths of space, but it atones by substituting something of our own
invention, which surprises us by its compensations, and confounds us by
its power.




CHAPTER V

THE LAW OF APPROPRIATENESS


I have laid much stress upon the value of colour in interior decoration,
but to complete the beauty of the home something more than happy choice
of tints is required. It needs careful and educated selection of