reason why the rod should not be shown and acknowledged. I may say just here, that I may say just here, that "cornices" are almost always very troublesome to take down and to put up,-the services of an upholsterer's man or men being necessary, and are a constant source of expense, for no end whatever, except to give the upholsterer pleasure.

Here the housekeeper cuts in with," But then, sir, the room looks so bare without 'cornices.' And, how are we to support our lambrequins without their aid?" Well, I will be down upon lambrequins presently, and give them a gentle piece of my mind; but first let us see whether it is inevitable that the room should "look bare" without the cornices. That it does look bare, as a rule, I will admit, but that is the fault of the room. Our rooms are so universally without harmony in their fitting-up, and the walls are so rarely (almost never) a good background for the furniture or the people, that we come to depend upon the furniture to give us some color and sense of solidity. If the carpet, walls, and ceiling of a room were once treated as a whole, and brought into proper harmonious relation, we should

find that the room would not only look well with fewer and smaller pieces of furniture, but that taking out one or two things would not make such a difference as it does now.

The only sensible way to support curtains is by rings running on a brass rod. The mechanism of this is shown in cut No. 3. The rings remain upon the rod, and the curtains have long hooks of wire sewed to their upper edge, which hook into eyes soldered to the edge of the rings. With a step-ladder, a child can unship the curtain in a jiffy, and put them up in less than no time, and the upholsterer's yearly bill be easily shorn of two items at least. The rod rests upon two brass stays that are screwed, once for all, to the wall, and that need never come down. Nor need the rod and rings come down, for that matter; and, as they are made of burnished brass, they only need the dusting they can get with the long-handled feather whisk. The rods are sold, or ought to be sold, by the foot. They come of different diameters, and a button screws on at either end to cover the openings, and prevent dust and animated nature from seeking shelter in the hollow tube. Perhaps

woman's eye will tell her whether a rod is too large or too small for the work it has to do, and she has only to choose what suits her case. The rod should look as if it could support the curtain, not merely be able to support it. Here, as in many cases, the eye has to be considered.

Hanging curtains by rod and rings is the good old way, and its elegance, as well as utility, has always commended it to artists and people whose tastes in great things prove they may be trusted in small matters. It is not to follow Mr. Ruskin in his fetich worship of the old Hebrews, to say that, as the curtains of the Jewish Tabernacle were hung by rods and rings, we may think well

hung, not upon a rod, but upon a wire; and neither the means by which it is suspended, nor the way it hangs, is to be commended, for so heavy a curtain should have been hung from a strong rod, and it should have been drawn aside, not looped up. But there is a hint in the hanging of this curtain we may make use of in our own practice, and that will sometimes be found to add just the touch that was wanted to reconcile us to curtains in a room where curtains may have threatened to be in the way. The wire on which the Raphael curtain hangs sags a little near the middle, as is natural, seeing what a weight depends from it. This lets in the light from the top, and, without puz

zling ourselves over what Raphael did it for, we may try the experiment for ourselves of stretching our curtain-rod, not above the lintel of the window, or even across it, but a few inches below it, enough to let the light stream in and play about the ceiling. Miss Maria Oakey has drawn for us a curtain that is hung in this way (cut No. 4), and the effect of it is very pleasant in practice, though, at first sight, it seems a little strange. In a parlor or livingroom there is never any need of shutting the light out altogether, and even if there are no outside blinds or shutters, no cold will come in at the top of the window, so that nothing is lost or given up by this arrangement, while we gain two things-a pleasant effect of light, and the additional solidity imparted by the molded lintel of the window.

ings, and then not left staring good white, but brought into tune with the rest of the wall and curtains themselves, it will do all in effect that the "cornice" could have done, and without interfering with the play of the curtains as we move them on their rods.

Cut No. 5 shows curtains hung across an arched doorway, taking the place of the

Just one word more about curtains, as to their length, and the stuffs they are best made of. Their length depends on whether they are to be caught back sometimes with a band or cord, or whether they are at all times to be allowed to hang straight. In case they are to be subject to tying back sometimes, they must be made longer than when they are to hang straight. In the latter case they should well touch the floor, but not sensibly lie upon it. At least, this is my notion of the fitness of things; but others think differently. If the stuff the curtains are made of is heavy, they will hang in good lines even when the ends lie on the floor; but I cannot see what is gained by letting them do so. Nor should the stuff be very

are still there, to be shut when necessary, which is but seldom. Here there can be no doubt as to the desirableness of hanging the curtains, not across the architrave of the door-way (the arch being a mere supposed ornamental cutting off the corners of the square, and not a real arch), but in a line with the spring of the arch itself, leaving the whole arch open

for light and air. This again in practice is found to work well, avoiding the heavy and obtrusive effect of such a mass of stuff as would be required if the curtain had been hung from a rod stretched above the top of the door along the architrave.

room be accented anywhere, it should be by something small,-a vase, a cushion, a bit of tapestry, not by any large piece of furniture, nor by any large space of wall or drapery. The decoration of the curtain by bands across the stuff, not by vertical stripes, has everything to recommend it-oriental usage (almost always a sure guide in decoration), and the fact that it is always to be reckoned on to produce its pictorial effect, since the bands cannot be hid, no matter how many folds the curtain makes. But stripes are continually being concealed in the folds, or else cut in two, and so their value lost or impaired.

With all the varieties of stuffs that are in the shops to-day, a woman with ingenuity and an eye ought to have little difficulty in getting handsome curtains without too much money, and at not too high a price. Give up the cornices and the lambrequins,-awkward additions to any window, nine times out of ten; give up fringes and borders, and straps by which to hold the curtains back, and you can then throw the whole weight of your purse upon the main stuff of your curtains and the bands they are to be crossed with. Any lady who can trim her own hat can trust herself to lay bands of harmonious color across the ground-work of her curtains. These should be separated one from the other by narrow bands or laces, to prevent one color affecting another. The Cottiers, and Morris, Marshall & Company of London, have been very successful with these banded curtains, and the laces and fringes they make are most beautiful in execution and in texture, and telling in design by virtue of their quaint simplicity. It must be admitted that curtains made up of these bands and laces on a ground of soft woolen stuff, though most delightful to the eye and to the touch, are far from cheap; but it is not necessary, even for the enjoyment of the eye, to have the costliest; and there are simple combinations enough to be made. But the most beautiful ought to be seen once to get the eye in tune.

How to hang our pictures is the next worry after curtains, and yet the way out of this wood is as clear or clearer than the other. Our plaster walls are not made for driving nails into, and they are easily defaced if we try to drive nails into them without the aid of a practised hand. We have to get a carpenter to come with his hammer and we set him at tapping the wall like a woodpecker to find the solid places by the sound, and then put in his nails at a vent

ure.

And then we are the slaves of the studding timbers, and our pictures must hang where they will, not where we will. The first device for getting more liberty was that of fixing a permanent brass or iron rod along the upper part of the wall just under the cornice, and hanging the pictures from that, moving them back and forth till we had them where we wanted them. But this has a clumsy look and a mechanical, and suggests the notion that we are taking advantage of an accidental gas-pipe to suspend our pictures from. We want something simpler and less obtrusive than this, which is only suited to a public hall; and what seems to just hit the mark, is a strip of wood shaped as described in cut No. 6, and nailed along the wall at any height desired. Ordinarily, it will be best to fasten it directly under the cornice; but this depends upon the height of the room. If the room is a very lofty one, by fixing the strip some distance below the cornice, we avoid the monotony of a number of cords or wires spreading over the wall, and we can utilize the space thus left between the strip and the cornice by hanging there some casts, or pieces of armor, or objects of any kind that will bear being hung above the level of the eye. Very few things do bear this-I mean, of things that are of a size to bring into our houses at all; but there may be such, and while we should like to have them on the wall of our living-room, we do not want them to drive things away that need nearer looking at. No picture ought to be hung higher than the height of the average human eye when the owner of the eye is standing. It is the almost universal rule in our houses to hang pictures much above this level, and they cannot be enjoyed there. If the picture is a portrait, or if it have human faces in it, its eyes should look as nearly into ours as possible; and if there be no such simple guide, perhaps a good rule will be to have the line that divides the picture horizontally into equal parts level with the eye. If one starts in hanging pictures with the determination to place them so that they can be easily seen and enjoyed without stretching the neck the least, or stooping the body, he will be pretty sure to do well. In remote farm-houses and country taverns we often see pictures, particularly portraits, skyed as high as if their owners had been Academy Hangers, and the painters young rivals of a new school. I suppose the reason is that the simple-hearted owners think a picture such a precious thing, it can't be hung too

securely out of the reach of meddling hands. They are often not clear in their minds as to what a picture is meant for, and not finding in it any practical relation to human life and society, they treat it with reverence and

No. 10. NO NONSENSE ABOUT IT.

put it where it will disturb them as little as possible. But, as people come to enjoy pictures and get some intellectual, spiritual nourishment out of them, they want them, as they want their books, where they can see them and use them.

In connection with this part of our subject, we may deprecate the hanging pictures in places where there is not light enough to see them, which people surely never do unless a supposed necessity compels them. They have accumulated a number of pictures and framed engravings; they are attached to them and accustomed to them, and they want to hang them all up on their walls. So, some fare well and others fare ill. But it is so annoying to see a picture hung where it cannot be seen, the very end and aim of its being frustrated, that it is best to reform the practice altogether. Weed out the collection, put the less desirable ones, or the ones we have outgrown, into other rooms; start them gently on their way by slow degrees toward the garret, and do not try to fill their places, but give the remaining ones a chance to be seen and enjoyed. Or take the engravings out of their frames and put them in portfolios, or into the frames of the Print-Stand described in the first of these articles, where they can be seen when we feel like it. In our effort to introduce some serenity and largeness into the furnishing and decorating of our houses,

one of the main things to accomplish will be the hanging fewer pictures and objects on the walls, putting there only what is worth looking at, and that cannot be better seen by being held in the hands. A large room can be made to look small by being overcrowded with furniture, or by having the walls covered with a multitude of small pictures, engravings, and objects, the windows swathed in drapery, and lambrequins cascading over mantel-pieces and shelves. And by reversing this way of treating a room, a small room may be made to look almost large, and at any rate will tranquilize the eye and mind instead of fidgeting it. Have nothing in the room in the way of furniture that is not needed-that has not a real use, whether for work or play; and hang nothing upon the walls that does not need a wall to show it, and that is not worth being shown.

One trick of our time I should like to have a word with, and that is, the habit of over-ornamenting everything. It is not merely that we over-ornament; where ornament is advisable at all this is a natural enough fault to fall into, but we ornament a thousand things that ought not to be ornamented. It is hard to find an object of merchandise to-day that has not ornament (so-called) of some kind stuck or fastened upon it. That terrible word "bare" seems to have frightened us all, and driven us to cover the nakedness of things with whatever comes to hand. We cover our note-paper with clumsy water-marks, we put "monograms" (though "many grams" would express better the multitudinousness and intricacy of these illegible devices) on our clothing, on our bed-linen, on our table-linen, on our books and titlepages, on our carriages and silver-our silver! Oh, was there ever silver like unto ours for knobs and welts, and wrinkles and spikes, and everything that silver shouldn't have? If the reader will look about him as he reads this, he will certainly find in his own surroundings, for we can none of us wholly escape, the justification for this criticism. The architects cannot design a house or a church, but they must carve every stone, cover the walls with cold, discordant tiles, break up every straight line with cuts and chamfers, plow every edge into moldings, crest every roof-ridge and dormer-window with painted and gilded iron, and refuse to give us a square foot of wall on which to rest the tired eye. Within, the furniture follows in the same rampant lawlessness. The beauty of simplicity in form; the pleasure to