Chapter I: MAKE no claim that the house wherein I dwell is a perfect one; it is (1)

my first house—a fledgling. One must build at least thrice, it has been truly observed, to obtain the perfected dwelling, and still there will remain room for improvement. So many things go to make up the ideal house, it is beyond human possibility to combine them all; while even during the process of construction one’s tastes are liable to change or become subject to modification.

To the most of mankind a single venture is sufficient; only architects build more than once for a pastime. For the sole office of the architect is to plan; the province of the builder to delay. The asylums teem with victims to the vexations of house-building. Having money to make and not to disburse, with no further care than to complete the work in hand with the utmost leisure, the architect and builder pass through the ordeal unscathed, and remain to lure new victims. One exception I recall. Picturesquely situated on the eastern coast, within hearing of the surge and rising amid the forest-growth, stands an untenanted villa. The imposing exterior is of massive stone, and all that unlimited wealth and taste could contribute has been lavished upon the interior. The mansion was completed within the specified time, but during its construction architect and builder both died, the owner living only three days after its completion. From the placing of the foundation-stone to the prospective fire in the hearth—from commencement to completion—who may foresee the possibilities? Ever man proposes while Fate disposes.

Plans look so feasible on paper, and building seems so delightfully facile in theory—so much time, so much money, and your long-dreamed-of castle in Spain is a reality. But, like the quest of a German professor I once knew who was searching for a wife who must be rich, beautiful, young, angelic, and not afraid of a mouse, the perfect house is difficult to attain; while plans often resemble the summer excursions one takes with the mind during winter, apparently so easy to carry out and yet so unfrequently realized. We forget the toilsome climb up the mountain where we arrive, perchance, to find the view shrouded in mist; or a cold spell sets in when we reach the seashore; or heavy rains render the long-contemplated angling trip a dismal failure.

If we leave the house to the architect, he builds merely for himself—he builds _his_ house, not yours. You must be the idealist of your own ideal. “Our so-called architects,” says Richard Jefferies, “are mere surveyors, engineers, educated bricklayers, men of hard, straight ruler and square, mathematically accurate, and utterly devoid of feeling. You call in your practical architect, and he builds you a brick box. The princes of Italy knew better; they called in the poet and the painter, the dreamers, to dream for them.” How the penetrating insight of Montaigne pierced the mask of the architect: “The Merchant thrives not but by the licentiousness of youth; the Husbandman but by dearth of corne; the Architect but by the ruine of houses!”

Perhaps the easiest way out of the difficulty is to secure a house already constructed that will meet your requirements as nearly as may be. But the mere building, the foundation, construction, architectural details, and interior arrangement are only a small part of numerous vital factors that should enter into the question of the house and home. There are equally the considerations of situation, neighborhood, accessibility, and a score of like important features to be seriously meditated on. One can not afford to make mistakes in building or in marrying. “In early manhood,” says Cato, “the master of a family must study to plant his ground. As for building, he must think a long time about it.” The external construction is, indeed, the least part of building—there is still the decorating and the furnishing.

Wise is he who weighs and ponders ere he decides upon the location of his house, especially if he would be near the town. For in the ideal home I would unite many things, including pure air, sufficient elevation, pleasant views, the most suitable exposure, good soil, freedom from noise, and the natural protection from wind afforded by trees. “Let our dwelling be lightsome, if possible; in a free air and near a garden,” is the advice of the philosopher, Pierre du Moulin. Very apposite are old Thomas Fuller’s directions for a site—“_Chiefly choose a wholesome air_, for air is a dish one feeds on every minute, and therefore it need be good.” And again: “Light (God’s eldest daughter) is a principal beauty in a building, and a pleasant prospect is to be respected.” In the chapter of the Essays, on Smells and Odors, the author pertinently observes: “The principall care I take, wheresoever I am lodged, is to avoid and be far from all manner of filthy, foggy, ill-savouring, and unwholesome aires. These goodly Cities of strangely seated Venice and huge-built Paris, by reason of the muddy, sharp, and offending savours which they yield; the one by her fennie and marish situation, the other by her durtie uncleannesse and continuall mire, doe greatly alter and diminish the favor which I bear them.”

All these desiderata are well-nigh impossible to unite in the city. There all manner of nuisances necessarily exist—manufactories which discharge noxious smoke and soot, the clangor of bells and whistles, an atmosphere more or less charged with unwholesome exhalations. This more particularly in summer; in winter I grant the city has its charms and advantages. Wealth may sometimes combine the delights of urban and rural life, as when a large residence plot is retained in a pleasant neighborhood of the town. But even unlimited means can rarely procure a place of this description, which comes by inheritance rather than by choosing, and in the end becomes too valuable to retain. Besides, however fine the ancestral trees and endeared the homestead, it must still lack the repose of the country, the free expanse of sky, the unfettered breadth of the fields.

When I look about me I find the combination I would attain a difficult one to secure in almost any city. If I build in the suburbs, upon the most fashionable avenue, its approaches may be disagreeable and the surrounding landscape flat and uninviting. The opposite quarter of the suburbs, the main northern residence avenue, will be windy during winter. If I locate westward there may be factories and car-shops to constantly offend the ear; if I move eastward unsavory odors may assail, and if I select a site in yet another neighborhood that commends itself for its elevation and pleasant society, there may be the smoke and soot of neighboring chimneys to defile the air and intrude themselves unceasingly into my dwelling. The country-seat sufficiently removed from town, and yet comparatively accessible, alone may yield, during the greater portion of the year, all the desired qualifications of the ideal home. Does not Béranger truly sing—

Cherchons loin du bruit de la ville
Pour le bonheur un sûr asile.

Seek we far from the city’s noise
A refuge safe for peaceful joys.

And have not all the poets before him apostrophized the delights of a country life?

Why not the town-house, and also the country-seat—a hibernaculum for the winter, and a _villeggiatura_ for the summer? Unfortunately, this would involve constructing two houses, meeting a double building liability, harboring two sets of worries; and, moreover, one’s library, however modest, can not well be disarranged or periodically shifted from one place to another.

The old Latins were distinguished as we well know for their love of the country. Virgil, Ovid, Tibullus, and Terence all had their country-seats. Horace, in addition to the Sabine farm, possessed his cottage at Tivoli, and longed for a third resort at Sorrento. Pliny the Younger, and Cicero rode seventeen miles from Rome to Tusculum daily to gain repose. Pliny’s letters attest his intense fondness for rural surroundings. The holder of numerous country-houses, he has described two of them very minutely, his descriptions giving to posterity the most reliable and truthful account of the old Roman villas. Of all his villas, including those at Tusculum, Præneste, Tibur, several on Lake Como, and his Laurentine and Tuscan resorts, the two latter were his especial favorites, whose fascinations he never tires of recounting. Especially attractive is his account of Laurentium: the apartments so planned as to command the most pleasing views; the dining-room built out into the sea, ever washed by the advancing wave; the terrace before the gallery redolent with the scent of violets; the gallery itself so placed that the shadow of the building was thrown on the terrace in the forenoon; and at the end of the gallery “the little garden apartment” looking on one side to the terrace, on the other to the sea; his elaborate bath-rooms and dressing-rooms, his tennis-court and tower, and his own sleeping-room carefully constructed for the exclusion of noise. “My house is for use, and not for show,” he exclaims; “I retire to it for a little quiet reading and writing, and for the bodily rest which freshens the mind.” One side of the spacious sitting-room invited the morning, the other the afternoon sun. One room focused the sunlight the entire day. In the walls of this his study was “a book-case for such works as can never be read too often.”

The Tuscan villa was on a still more extensive scale, the house facing the south, and adorned with a broad, long colonnade, in front of which reposed a terrace embellished with numerous figures and bounded with a hedge of box from whence one descended to the lawn inclosed with evergreens shaped into a variety of forms. This, in turn, he states, was fenced in by a box-covered wall rising by step-like ranges to the top, beyond which extended the green meads, fields, and thickets of the Tuscan plain, tempered on the calmest days by the breeze from the neighboring Apennines. The dining-room on one extremity of the terrace commanded the magnificent prospect, and almost cooled the Falernian. There, too, are luxurious summer and winter rooms, a tennis-court, a hippodrome for horse exercise, shaded marble alcoves in the gardens, and the play of fountain and ripple of running water. The long epistle to Domitius Apollinaris, descriptive of the Tuscan retreat, he concludes by saying: “You will hardly think it a trouble to read the description of a place which I am persuaded would charm you were you to see it.”

It was the delightful situation and the well cared for gardens of Pliny’s country-seats, it will be seen, no less than the refined elegance and the conveniences of the splendid houses themselves, of which Pliny was mainly his own architect, that rendered them so attractive. Assuredly he must have been a most accomplished house-builder and artist-architect; for, in addition to the many practical and artistic features he has enumerated with such precision, he specifies a room so contrived that when he was in it he seemed to be at a distance from his own house. But even Pliny’s wealth and inventive resources, much as they contributed to his comfort, could not combine everything. He could not bring Laurentium to him; he must needs go to her. The daily ride of seventeen miles and back to the city must have been irksome during bad weather; and even amid all his luxury and beauty of scenery he bewails the lack of running water at Laurentium. Luxurious and convenient as were the old Roman villas, they were built with only one story, in which respect at least the modern house is an improvement upon the house of the ancients; and there yet remain other beautiful sites than those along the Tyrrhenian sea or in the vale of Ustica.

Whether the house be situated in the country or in the town, whether it be large or small, it is apparent that the site and the exposure are of primary importance. So far as situation is concerned, a rise of ground and an easterly exposure, with the living-rooms on the south side, is undoubtedly the pleasantest. During the summer the prevailing west wind blows the dust of the street in the opposite direction; during winter the living-rooms are open to the light and sun. The comfort of the house during summer, and the outer prospect from within during winter, will depend in no small degree upon the proper planting of the grounds.

Deciduous trees, and here the variety is great, will shade and cool it in summer, evergreens will furnish and warm its surroundings in winter; while for a great portion of the year the hardy flower-garden, including the shrubberies that screen the grounds from the highway, and the climbers which disburse their bloom and fragrance over its verandas and porches, will contribute largely to its beauty and attractiveness.

Somehow I can not look upon my house by itself, without including as accessories, nay, as essential parts of it, its outward surroundings and external Nature—the woods whence its joists and rafters were hewed, the earth that supplied its mortar, brick, and stone, the coal whence it derives its light and heat, the trees that ward off the wind in winter and shield it from the sun in summer, the garden which contributes its flowers, the orchards and vineyards that supply its fruits, the teeming fields and pastures that continuously yield the largess of their corn, and flocks, and herds. From each of these my house and I receive a tithe.

My purpose, however, even were I able to do the subject justice, is not to treat of the adornment of gardens, of architectural styles, expression of purpose in building, or the proper exterior form for the American town-house and country villa. There remain, nevertheless, some features of the interior of the home to which I would fain call attention, though even here, more than in the matter of the exterior, opinions necessarily differ. Every house, methinks, should possess its distinctive character, its individual sentiment or expression; and this depends less upon the architect and the professional decorator than upon the taste reflected by the occupants. And yet there is nothing so bizarre or atrocious that it will not please some; there exists nothing so perfect as to please all.

Shall the ideal house be large or small? Excellent results may follow in either case in intelligent, thoughtful hands. Where money is merely a secondary object, then the great luxuriously furnished rooms, the lofty ceilings, the grand halls and staircases, the picture gallery, the music, billiard, and ball rooms, the house of magnificent distances and perspectives. Still man is not content; for such a house, to be beautiful, calls for constant care, a retinue of servants, a blaze of light, a round of visitors and entertainments to populate its vast apartments and render it companionable. The house to entertain in and the house to live in are generally two separate things; but, of the two, you want to live in your house more than to entertain in it.

Doubtless, even to those possessed of abundant means, the medium-sized house, sufficiently roomy for all ordinary purposes and yet cosy enough for family comfort, is the most satisfactory. In daily domestic life you do not become lost and absorbed in its magnitude; and for the matter of entertainments, on a large scale, you always have the resource of a “hall,” with no further trouble beyond that of issuing the invitations and liquidating the bills. In the ideal dwelling-house of medium size even this will be dispensed with, while still preserving the charm of privacy—one has simply to add a supplementary supper-room and an ample ball-room, to be thrown open only on special occasions for the accommodation of the overflow. Thus it would be possible to avoid a barn to live in, and a cote to entertain in.

The great thing in house planning is to think ahead, and still think ahead. The hall which looks so spacious on paper is sure to contract, and ordinary-sized rooms will shrink perceptibly when they come to be furnished. It is important that the spaces between the doors and windows, the proportionate height of the doors and windows, the many little conveniences, and innumerable minor yet major details, like the placing of mantels, registers, chandeliers and side-lights, be planned by the occupant, and not left to the mercy of the architect. The latter will place the mantel on the side of a long, narrow room, thereby diminishing the width several feet, when it should go at the end. He will hang the doors so they will bump together, or open on the side you do not want them to open on. If he concede you a spacious hall and library, he will clip on the vestibule, or be a miser when he doles out the space for the stairway landing or the butler’s pantry. And what architect will stop to think of that most important of household institutions—a roomy, convenient, concealed catch-all, or rather a series of catch-alls!

Even so simple a contrivance as an invisible small wardrobe in the wall adjoining the entrance—a receptacle for hats, wraps, and waterproofs—he has never yet devised. Every hall must of necessity be littered up with that hideous contrivance, a hat-rack, in a more or less offensive form, when at a touch a panel in the wainscot might fly open to joyfully engulf the outer vesture of visitors. You must see your house planned and furnished with the inward eye ere the foundation is laid, and exercise the clairvoyant’s art if you would not be disappointed when it is finally ready for habitation. The question of closet-room is best left to the mistress of the house, otherwise it is certain to be stinted; and it were economy in the end to secure the services of a competent _chef_ to plan the kitchen and its accessories—that tributary of the home through whose savory or unsavory channels so great a wave of human enjoyment or dolor flows.

It is with houses very much as it is with gardens—no two are ever precisely alike; so far at least as the interior of the former is concerned. Both reflect, or should reflect, through a hundred different ways and niceties of adjustment and arrangement, the individual tastes of those who are instrumental in their creation. The ideal house must first be conceived by those who are to dwell in it, modeled according to their requirements, mirroring their ideas, their refinement, and their conceptions of the useful and the beautiful. By different persons these ends are approached by different ways. So long as we attain the desired end, the route thereto is of little consequence. But in the ideal house, it may be observed, a little money and a good deal of taste go a very great way.

All the eyes of Argus and all the clubs of Hercules must need be yours, would you see your house perfectly planned and perfectly constructed. The terrible gauntlet one has to run! He who builds should have nothing to divert his mind from the task. It is the work of a lifetime crowded into a year.

And when all is done, and the lights are turned on and the house is peopled with its guests, who is there that is fully content with the result of his labor? who that finds in the fruition the full promise of the bloom? The perfect house in itself exists no more than the perfect man or woman. We can at best set up an exalted standard of excellence to approximate as nearly as we may. It is very much in building as it is in life, where content with what we have is, after all, the true source of happiness. “I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle-dove, and am still on their trail,” is the burden of Walden. How many of us are not likewise in quest of the something that ever eludes? When we think we have come up with the fox, it is but his shadow we seize; he himself has already vanished round the ravine. We follow, but may not overtake, at will, the siren that the poet beckoned for in vain:

Ah, sweet Content! where doth thine harbor hold?
Is it in churches with religious men
Which please the gods with prayers manifold,
And in their studies meditate it then?
Whether thou dost in heaven or earth appear,
Be where thou wilt, thou wilt not harbor here.[1]

Footnote 1:

Barnabe Barnes.

What philosopher among all who have moralized and analyzed has discovered the sought-for stone? Amiel failed in the pursuit: “I am always waiting for the woman and the work which shall be capable of taking entire possession of my soul, and of becoming my end and aim.” “A man’s happiness,” says Alphonse Karr, in an apothegm worthy of La Bruyère, “consists in that which he has not got, or that which he no longer has.” The coveted bauble palls when it is finally ours, the “dove” escapes, and we all grow old. Absolute happiness flees when we enter our ’teens. Methinks the French poet Chénier has resolved the experience of most of us with reference to a certain phase of life as felicitously as any of those who have endured and felt:

Tout homme a ses douleurs. Mais aux yeux de ses frères
Chacun d’un front serein déguise ses misères,
Chacun ne plaint que soi. Chacun dans son ennui
Envie un autre humain qui se plaint comme lui.

Nul des autres mortels ne mesure les peines,
Qu’ils savent tous cacher comme il cache les siennes,
Et chacun, l’œil en pleurs, en son cœur douloureux
Se dit: Excepté moi, tout le monde est heureux.

Each man his sorrows hath; but, in his brothers’ eyes,
Each one with brow serene his troubles doth disguise.
Each of himself complains; each one, in weariness,
Envies a fellow-man who mourns in like distress.

None measureth the pains that all as well conceal
As he himself doth hide the griefs that he doth feel;
And each, with tearful eye, says in his sorrowing heart,
Excepting me, the world with happiness hath part.

Yet, I like to think, and cherish the thought, when the cloud reveals no silver lining, that however disappointing some phases of life may be, some experiences of human character, there are bright days and pleasant places ahead in the future, somewhere and sometime. Happiness is coy at the best, fickle in bestowing her favors; and we find her the more delightful, possibly, in that, like the sunshine, she comes and goes. We awaken some morning to find her present, and the next morning she has flown. “It sometimes seemeth that when we least think on her she is pleased to sport with us.” So many she has to minister to that she has necessarily but a brief period to remain. Still I see her ever laughing with the children at play, and find her lingering where industry abides. Beside the humble board of the laborer she is often found, while frequently passing by the homes of the rich. Over gardens and fields she hovers on pleasant days of spring, and on blustering winter nights I hear the rustle of her wings above the poet’s page. The sunshine that sifts through the window, warming and gilding all my surroundings, is mine to-day; to-morrow it may stream elsewhere. It is all the brighter when it comes; but to possess it I must open wide the casement to let in the beams.

Climbing with the sunny Rector of Eversley to the lonely tarn amid the hills—you have read and admired Chalk-Stream Studies; or, if not, you have that enjoyment in store—I recall the moral that adorns this delightful essay. “What matter,” he happily reasons, “if, after two hours of such enjoyment, he (the angler) goes down again into the world of man with empty creel or with a dozen pounders or two-pounders, shorter, gamer, and redder-fleshed than ever came out of Thames or Kennet? What matter? If he has not caught them, he might have caught them; he has been catching them in imagination all the way up; and if he be a minute philosopher, he holds that there is no falser proverb than that devil’s beatitude, ‘Blessèd is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed.’ Say, rather: ‘Blessèd is he who expecteth everything, for he enjoys everything once, at least; and, if it falls out true, twice also.’”

And with this gentle spirit, despite his many trials, Charles Kingsley lived on through life, shedding sunshine and cheer from the vine-embowered rectory at Eversley. His house was large enough for his personal comforts, for the entertainment of his chosen friends, and for the satisfaction of his domestic requirements; and this sufficed. Reflecting the “sweetness and light” of his own nature, it became the perfect house to him for the reason that he was satisfied with his surroundings. The ideal home is largely the handiwork of the contented mind; and if before we build we learn to extract the finer essences of things, we may then pluck the rose where others only find the thorn.

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II.

OLD ORIENTAL MASTERS.

It is certain that colors exercise an influence over us to the
extent of rendering us gay or sad, according to their shades.—VOYAGE
AUTOUR DE MA CHAMBRE.

THE floors of my house, where hard-wood floors exist, are shellacked. This imparts an excellent finish without darkening the wood, and the subsequent care of the floor is slight. Beneath the rugs the finish is sand-papered to prevent them from sliding. Oiling floors is objectionable, the wood turning dark, and necessitating almost daily going over with a damp and a dry cloth to keep them clean. Waxing is a labor, and renders the floors slippery. Varnishing makes a very smooth surface, easily marred, the gloss soon wearing in the least exposed places.

My floors must, first of all, be subservient and subordinate to my rugs. By shifting my rugs I immediately change the color of a room, the expression of my house; I may cool a room in summer or warm it in winter at will. Beautiful as beautiful paintings are some of the antique Persian and Conia prayers, and the marvelously wrought Yourdes and ancient Coulas. I believe there is no comprehensive book on rugs. Some enterprising publisher should send a capable artist to Asia for a year and publish an exhaustive _édition de luxe_ to supply a long-felt want. An artistic work of this nature would be as desirable as an edition of King Solomon’s lost book on gems. For color and color-blending we must go to the Orientals; they have found its soul. Who else could blend greens and blues so felicitously, or place the different reds in riotous juxtaposition, or combine the whole gamut of browns with the entire octave of yellows? They play with colors as a musician plays with the keys of an instrument. They sound no false notes, they strike no discords. I speak of the art as exhibited by the best masters. There are plenty of daubs and crudities, it is true, a single specimen of which will throw a whole house into an entasia. There is poor sculpture and there are poor paintings. The finer examples of the loom deserve to be stamped with the artist’s name just as much as a canvas of Gérôme or a love-song of Hafiz.

There can be nothing more artistic, there is nothing more seductive than these old Asiatic hand-paintings. I am drawn and fascinated by their weird beauty. What charms do they not reveal! what multiplicity yet harmony of hue and design! Though not unfrequently repeating themselves in the same piece, color and design never tire. They have their recurrent beat and rhythm, like the harmonious cadence of the Pantoum. This large Afghan rug, for instance, mellow with use and time, the general tone of which resembles that of a zircon, is composed of innumerable shades of red, so many shades I can scarcely count them, one shade melting into another shade—shades of shades—till the eye renounces the task of pursuit. When examined closely, I find even magenta has been employed by the craftsman, to become in his hands a medium of beauty. A European produces a stiff-set pattern, the Oriental a maze of which one never tires. There is always an unsuspected figure or color to reveal itself, an oddity to suddenly appear, new lights and new shadows.

In coloring, some of the Afghans touch closely upon the Bokharas, though the former are less closely woven, but are generally less set, and more pleasing in design. As a class, I think the Bokharas are overestimated, their usual lack of borders or indistinct bordering giving them an unfinished look, despite their fineness of texture and the gloss of their terra-cotta shades. My large thick blue Bokhara, however, is a striking departure from the type, and I never tire of admiring its artistic frame and its kaleidoscopic tints. The larger red Bokharas, where the pattern is fine, the texture thin and silky, and the rug straight, are very rich and handsome used as full single _portières_. But a rug when hung, or used as a _portière_, must be something entirely out of the ordinary to be in keeping, rugs in all such cases virtually competing with and taking the place of old tapestries. The substitute, therefore, should afford equal delight to the eye. I turn this closely woven, heavy Shiraz, with the nap running toward the light, and its forest of fluctuant palm leaves is blue. I spread it in the reverse direction to see its color change like a tourmaline, and the field become resilient with soft rich greens. Dusty, soiled, and dingy when I first saw it unrolled from the bale, it is now a gem, alive to every change of light and shade. Time has subdued its original strong colors. These delicate gleams of buff that dance upon the border were once a pronounced brown-crimson, while the original yellows of some of the figures have softened to pale primrose. Its blues and greens are alone unfaded, though refined by age. The artist painted better than he knew; or did he designedly leave the finishing touches to the master-hand of Time?

How strange this patch of shadow and yonder gleam of light in this ancient Tiflis, the shadow shifting to light and the light darkening to shadow, as I reverse my position. The cunning designer has suddenly reversed the nap in the center, and hence its puzzling changes. I marvel who has knelt upon these Conia prayers, in whose glowing centers four shades of blue and four shades of red are fused so imperceptibly you may scarcely tell where one shade ends and another begins—

The mossy marbles rest
On the knees that they have pressed
In their bloom.

Tender tones of olive, yellow, and blue lurk in some of the old Coulas, and suave tints of peach-blow and of rose gleam in the patterns of the rarer Kermans. Generally speaking, the Coulas possess little claim to distinction. But the finer old examples are a marked exception, many resembling the Yourdes prayers, while some are as velvety and intricate in design as the old Meccas. My most admired Coula (4 × 5) in its pattern and coloring might have been copied from an ancient cathedral window.

This yellow Daghestan, coined four-score years ago, is a veritable field of the cloth of gold. There are also the precious old Persian Sennas, with a diamond flashing in the center, and a certain weave of Anatolians with a bloom upon them like that of a ripe plum, so velvety one wants to stroke them just for the pleasure of the caress. When viewed against the nap, they look almost black, the colors hidden by the heavy fleece till revealed by another angle of view. What strange conceits, what fine-spun webs of tracery, what fillets, tangles, and tessellations of color do they not disclose!

The command in the Khoran prohibiting its followers from reproducing the image of living things has not been without its pronounced advantage. It has served to develop the infinite beauty of geometrical design. Color-study no edict of Mohammed could banish; it is a sixth sense reflected from the sky and atmosphere—a priceless gift of Allah! There has long been wanting a well-defined scale to describe and place the different shades intelligibly, just as there exists a standard of weights and measures comprehensible by all. Artists have one set of terms, shopmen and milliners another; the average person can not define a shade. Who can place the hues of a sunset sky? There needs to be a color-congress to form a closer chromatic scale, and the task belongs by right to the Orientals.

As a class, the Kazaks are not as desirable as many other makes, design and colorings frequently being so obtrusive, and the weave usually being marked by coarseness. Yet some Kazaks there are of remarkable beauty. My best examples of Kazak art are done in cardinal and old gold. The one is an antique, 6 × 7, thin and finely woven, the ground-work in three shades of red, with the “tree pattern” raised in black upon the field, and a storm of white flakes scattered over it. The other is a very old piece of nearly similar size, in perfect preservation, so heavy that to lift it is a task. Its luster is marvelous. The pattern is one of the most admired of all the Kazak patterns when the colors are happily employed, consisting of squares within squares or octagons variously dispersed upon the field, the largest figure in the center. The colors consist simply of four shades of yellow, the exquisite play of light and shade produced by the glossy texture of the wool employed and the frequent shiftings of the nap heightening the effect. It is my Asian Diaz, and my ship contained it among her precious stores.

Always among the most beautiful of Persian and Turkish rugs are those of various makes not often met with, that, exceptionally heavy and glossy, possess a similar tone to that of the Kazak just specified—blendings and interblendings of russet, chestnut, fawn, and fallow. To me their sleek and velvety pile, their striped and spotted surfaces, their turmoil of tawny hues, possess an attraction akin to that of the wild beasts of the remote Eastern jungle. Looking at them, I instinctively recall a carnivorous animal—fascinating in his fulvous beauty, supreme in his splendor and his sheen. These graceful arabesques, are they not like the curving haunches of some huge cat of the desert? These lucent spots and markings, do they not resemble the shimmering pelt of a couchant carnivore? A strange fascination they possess for me; a subdued ferity, even to the animal odor that clings about their lambent folds; and, sometimes, the gleams as of feline eyes that peer from the dots of their borders.

The Yourdes are among the few weaves that do not acquire an additional value from silkiness. Time mellows their naturally soft shades, and use imparts to them a slight luster. But their great value consists in detail of design and contrast of a few colors—black and dark bands on a gray-white ground for the border, the plain prayer-disks usually of gray, blue, green, or maroon. The warp and nap being relatively thin, and color and design not being dependent upon strong or direct light to emphasize them, they are excellently adapted for hangings—indeed, they are too tender and precious to be placed upon the floor. The antique Yourdes prayers usually come in sizes about 4 × 6, and are deservedly among the most prized among Oriental textiles. Some of the finer Persians are equally suitable for hangings. By Persians I refer to what is known as “Persian prayers,” the term being used to designate a certain class of Persian fabrics with centers of self-colors, to which, for some unexplained reason, a more definite name is not given. More strictly speaking, with double disks, the larger one plain and the smaller partially embroidered or figured, the arabesque “a” and typical Shiraz figure generally present in the border. These Persians are recognizable at a glance. Can we wonder the Moslem is so resigned to prayer with such _prie-Dieus_ to kneel upon!

Under the term Daghestan are lumped the makes of this and numerous other districts, the designs of which are somewhat similar. There are very many fine true Daghestans and Kubas, as well as very many poor ones, the old examples being relatively much handsomer than the modern. The ordinary Daghestan border repeats itself far too often, and its commonness mars many an otherwise valuable work of art. Next to the Meccas, the Daghestans are probably among the most crooked of the products of Eastern looms, and numberless specimens of extraordinary sheen and rare design and coloring are virtually spoiled on this account. A long strip frequently has a horse-shoe curve, and even very small pieces are often so much broader at one end as to prove positively distressing to the sense of proportion.

The finer Meccas, distinguished for extreme softness and silkiness, combined with intricacy and pronounced individuality of design, are generally not only very crooked, but gathered and puffed at the corners as well. A straight Mecca one rarely sees except in dreams. This is to be deplored, for their lovely arabesques and gracious fantasies are not to be met with elsewhere. A search for absolute geometrical precision in Oriental rugs, however, would be like Kaphira’s pursuit of the golden ball. They are made and painted by hand, and not cut out by machine. Therein consists their enchantment. Nevertheless, one should only look for and secure comparatively straight specimens; the very crooked, the very crude, and the very glaring are worthless at any price. “A cur’s tail,” says a Turkish adage, “may be warmed and pressed and bound round with ligatures, and after a twelve years’ labor bestowed upon it, still it will retain its natural form.” The dog in the adage was intended, not for a Christian, but for a rug. No wetting, stretching and tacking will remove its aged seams and wrinkles—

What nature hath not taught, no art can frame:
Wild born be wild still, though by force you tame.[2]

Footnote 2:

Thomas Campion, Third Booke of Ayres.

Distinct from all other productions are the Kourdestans, notably the large anchor-pattern. These are difficult to manage, however, the design being so striking. Very large figures or very glaring colors are on this account to be avoided. They tyrannize over their companions, or clash with surrounding objects. The eye is perpetually directed to them and they disturb the sense of repose. Many specimens of the Carabaghs are remarkable for their beautiful combination of colors, especially in the blending of reds, olives, and blues. The nap is generally very heavy, and the wool employed not unfrequently of extreme glossiness, imparting almost an oily look to the surface. The rather large hexagonal figures, moreover, without being glaring are usually artistic and striking. Handsome are many of the Persian camel’s-hair rugs, unique in design and usually of very subdued colors.

The Cashmeres or Somaks are lacking in animation compared with many other weaves. Individuality they possess, but neither sheen, softness of texture, nor marked grace of design. For the dining-room, the most serviceable rugs are the large India, and the Turkish Ouchaks, though when obtainable some of the finer large Khorassans and Persians are equally desirable. Both of the latter are finer than the Ouchaks, and old pieces possess a brilliant luster which the Ouchaks lack. The fine large thick India rugs are among the most magnificent in the world, soft as a houri’s cheek, and diapered and jeweled with every shade of color; yet harmonious as the play of an opal. It is impossible to conceive of more superb color-blending.

While age is unquestionably an important factor in the beauty of a rug, one should by no means cast aside a new rug if the example be exceptionally fine, and its design or coloring may not be obtained in an antique. It will require time, I admit, to develop its beauties. But by subjecting it to light and constant use its original crudeness will gradually depart, and each year of service will heighten its bloom. Against the crude new fabric must be placed the far more objectionable form of “antique,” torn and thread-bare from rough usage, or soiled and faded beyond redemption. Neither may it be amiss to caution the novice, and many so-styled amateurs, against the not unfrequent practice of dealers—aye, of merchants in Constantinople, Ispahan, and even Mecca itself—of _painting_ old rugs to mask their sordid condition, and gloze over their hoary antiquity.

Could the history of an old rug be traced, what a tale might it not unfold!—the Adventures of a Guinea were nothing in comparison. Venerable before it was secured by the itinerant collector in some remote province, how many vicissitudes and changes has it not passed through! Lashed to the backs of patient dromedaries goaded by the spears of fierce dragomen; borne under the heat of a tropical sun amid the toilsome march of the caravan; and escaping the rapine of plundering tribes, it arrived at the great marts of the East. Here, unstrapped from the bale, it passed to the bazaars, or the vast warerooms of the merchantmen. There, perchance, its lovely sheen caught the eye of a calculating middleman, who purchased the bale to secure the prize, passing it in turn to a third. Or, while ransacking the treasures of a Stamboul bazaar it was, perhaps, admired by a rich profligate—a bauble for a new-found flame. Or, did it figure in the collection of some noted connoisseur whose effects on his demise passed into unconversant or indifferent hands? Youth and beauty may have reposed upon it, and old age admired its bewitching hues. It may have overheard many a lover’s tale; it may once have graced a pasha’s wall.

In fine Oriental rugs mere size seldom governs their value, this being dependent upon intrinsic beauty and rarity. Of course, a splendid large piece is more valuable than a similar example half its size, although the fine large piece may not be worth the rarer small one of some other make. Oddity and rarity, when combined with beauty, are the strongest factors in the value of a rug. A sage-green or mauve centered Yourdes, 6 × 4, may be without price, as a small Rembrandt may command a hundred times the price of a canvas double its size. It all depends upon the artist. Neither is thickness nor silkiness a necessary factor in the value of a rug. Depth of pile is certainly desirable in very many makes, a heavy piece keeping its place upon the floor far better than a thin one. Silkiness is likewise valuable in most cases; it imparts additional life, and enhances the play of the color facets. But in rugs like the rarer Yourdes and some of the old Persians and Coulas, neither depth of pile nor extraordinary luster govern their value. These are paintings—old masters—that should be hung, to be admired like a picture or a stained-glass window, and the eye revel in their beauty.

But my rugs are more than mere foci of color and revelations of Eastern luxury. They are, above all, examples of a rare handicraft; enduring expressions of artistic skill of various times and various peoples. They thus become sentient instead of simply material, their exuberance of hue and opulence of design representing the most consummate art, and appealing equally to me through the various motives of human industry, human interest, and human thought. In them are incorporated the sense of the beautiful as interpreted by the canons of Oriental art, a distinct artistic motive and theme underlying the technical finish and manual skill of the craftsman. Nor is spiritual quality less reflected in these masterpieces than the fine æstheticism with which they are pervaded; they express equally a religious symbolism of the Oriental mind, and the mystic rites observed in the mosque of Islam. Just as painting and sculpture are representative arts of Christian peoples, so these marvelous blendings of form and color are typical of the individuality of the Mohammedan alien race.

Endless is their variety. Independent of the diversity of the different wools employed, each district has its characteristic patterns, its peculiar weaves, and often its distinguishing colors and color-combinations which are its individual right and inheritance, and which other districts may not reproduce without incurring the opprobrium attached to the plagiarist. Anatolia may not borrow from Bokhara, nor Daghestan from Beloochistan. Nor may one rug of a district be an exact reproduction of another rug of the same district. There may be a resemblance, it is true; but each valuable example will be found to possess a stamp of originality—the genius of the artist—which gives it its value and constitutes the difference between the mere commercial product and the enduring work of art. Thou shalt not purloin the work of another’s brain! is a commandment embossed upon the loom of the Oriental—a law of the Medes and Persians generally observed unto this day.

Valuable as a well-chosen collection of porcelains is a well-chosen collection of rugs. While neither may be dispensed with as art objects, and both afford a constant delight to the eye and the sense of the beautiful, it may be said that textiles have the advantage over porcelains in that they can not break, and that they combine utility with equal charm and more extended color. It is, withal, a satisfaction to know that every footfall upon their luxurious pile and every beam of sunlight that streams upon them only serve to increase their value and heighten their beauty.

In the course of time, no doubt—aye, at no distant day, as fine old specimens become more and more rare and occupy, as they deserve, a still more exalted place in the domain of art—we will have exhibitions of Oriental rugs, as we have exhibits of paintings and statuary to-day. The appreciative and wealthy amateur who, in a single purchase, recently expended nineteen thousand dollars for twelve specimens of the Asiatic weaver’s art—specimens that may not now be duplicated—will then be envied for his foresight and the cheapness of his purchase.

To form a fine, varied, and extensive collection of rugs, however, is the work of years. As Paganini declared, after a lifetime of study, that he had just begun to be acquainted with his violin, so the connoisseur may say with regard to the textiles he loves so well. For every piece should be like a painting, perfect of its kind, artistic in design, harmonious in color; and to combine the desired qualifications without incongruities or repetition of borders and patterns is to tread no primrose path. Not only a concent of color and design is requisite in each single example, but rarity, luster, age, good condition, and individuality—a combination not easily obtainable.

But my ship contained many straight and beautiful rugs among her stores!

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III.

SIGNS IN THE SKY.

Nunquam imprudentibus imber obfuit.

VIRGIL, GEORGICS, I, v. 373.

LOOKING out through the windows of my house upon the sunset sky, I am often enabled to frame a weather report for the morrow; for, in his rising and his setting, the sun has a message to convey, sometimes written in type that is legible to all, sometimes in hieroglyphics that the ordinary observer may not decipher. Yonder blazing fire in the west and warm orange afterglow tell me I may expect fair weather, just as the leaden cloud which screens the sinking sun apprises me of coming storm. But to offset one aspect of the plainly lettered sky, there are a score more difficult to read, while, at best, we are liable to err in our interpretations where the weather is concerned.

Yet, trying as it often is, in this latitude especially, how could we dispense with its vagaries? Sunshine, by all means! but we would scarcely appreciate the sun if it always shone, even could vegetation and humanity exist under unclouded skies.

Were all the year one constant sunshine, wee
Should have no flowres;
All would be drought and leanness; not a tree
Would make us bowres.[3]

Footnote 3:

Henry Vaughn, Silex Scintillans.

It has been observed before now that we are always talking about the weather, always interested in it, always trying to foretell it, always grumbling at it, or delighted with it. Without the changes of the weather the world would go all awry. There would be no more guessing or prognosticating. Conversation must come to a standstill; if not to a full stop, at least to an awkward pause. When there is nothing else to talk about there is always the weather. It is the oil of conversation’s wheel. How many a pleasant acquaintance dates from a weather remark! Simply as a conversational factor I have no doubt it has helped on innumerable marriages. But it is ever too hot or too cold, too damp or too dry, too cloudy or too sunshiny. If one can not openly anathematize his neighbor, he may damn the weather; faint, indeed, is its praise. With a bright sun shining, a purple haze on the hills, the thermometer at 50°, and the atmosphere exhilarating as champagne, still the lament will arise that we are not enveloped with a blanket of snow. Just the day for a walk, when one may start out dry-shod to inhale the stimulating air and bask in voluptuous sunlight! But the fickle weather-vane suddenly veers, and north wind and snow are exchanged for south wind and balm; the croakers have their turn.

There is reason to believe that the weather repeats itself in a general way at regular intervals of seven or ten years, more or less. Statistics are said to confirm this statement, and it gives us reason to hope that when our records shall cover longer periods and shall be more carefully and fully compiled, we may obtain considerable insight into the weather programme for the coming year. That one extreme follows another is perhaps the surest and most valuable weather indicator we have. An inordinate degree of warmth is generally followed by a corresponding degree of cold; a period of extraordinary coolness by a contrasting period of heat. The amount of water and heat in the world is always the same, though to human observation the extremes of temperature are capriciously distributed. If it is passing cold here, it is passing warm somewhere else. If we get an overplus of wet this month we receive an overplus of dry next month, or some month after. Nature will surely balance her ledger sooner or later; the difficulty is to tell when she will do it.

Restless and impatient, man is continually seeking change. What could supply this inherent craving in the breast of mankind so happily as the weather? The old adage, “’Tis an ill wind blows no man good,” is daily verified. This change to piercing cold means one hundred thousand tons more of coal for the furnaces of each of the great cities; this hot wave, one hundred thousand tons more of ice to their refrigerators. The mild winter that brings a scowl upon the dry-goods merchant’s face is a benison to the laborer; the east wind that puts out the inland furnace fires may blow the disabled vessel into port. Blowing where it listeth, to some point of the compass the wind is kind.

If one could find no other occupation, one might busy himself in making observations of the weather. In the shifting vane and the restless clouds there is the attraction of perpetual change, elements we may not control nor yet fully understand—an omnipresent and omnipotent force. Their wayward moods bring plenty or pestilence, as the vane chooses to veer, or the tangles gather in the _cirri’s_ hair. All animal and vegetable life is dependent upon their inexorable decrees. The laws of the weather may not be altered. We may not increase the rainfall one inch or lower the temperature half a degree. The most we can do is to study its warnings, and, by reading the signs of the earth and sky, be prepared for what changes may be in store.