The skillful use of red brings out - particularly in town houses - a quality of warmth and inviting hospitality not to be despised. On the other hand, a use of it in any considerable quantity in the country house suggests the temperature that is likely to prevail, instead of giving the impression of an antidote for the weather one is trying to escape.

Blue, the third element of colour, is known as the cold or non-aggressive element. It is this which holds red in check or destroys the too pronounced effect of yellow and red in a combination where the three elements appear. The association of blue with the cold aspect of the sky on a winter's night, with ice, when seen in thick cakes, with the blue waters of the ocean, etc., has given blue a place in human consciousness that must excite the qualities with which it is associated. Blue, then, on the stage and in the house, must be looked to for sensations of coolness, repose, restraint, and formality, as well as for an antidote in case of too warm a temperature or a too excited mental state.

A MODERN LIBRARY WHOSE WALLS AND CEILING ARE CLASSICS OF THEIR TYPE. RESTRAINT IN THE SELECTION OF RUGS AND FURNISHINGS EMPHASIZE THIS DECORATIVE BEAUTY.

Green is not only yellow and blue, but light and coolness, cheer and restraint. The grass and trees in summer, combined with the blue sky, help, if the climate is exhausting, to render people comfortable and to make life agreeable. Green is a colour heralded by oculists as beneficial to the eyes, and is regarded as soothing to tired nerves and injured dispositions. It is quite right that it should be so considered, since these qualities - light and coolness, cheerfulness with moderation, rest and vitality - are intermingled equally in the sensations which green is asked to arouse when presented to the sense of sight. This makes green an admirable colour under certain circumstances to use in hot climates, in country houses, and for nervous people. When prop-erly harmonized it may become a symphonic part of any combination under any circumstances.

The qualities of orange will also be found in yellow and red - that is, light and heat, cheerful vigour and irritation, vitality and aggression. Orange, then, unless controlled, arouses all those qualities opposed to green. It inevitably destroys the effect of repose, restraint, etc., excepting when used in counteracting combinations, where the control is with the other colour tones. Orange, with its accessory hues, includes such colours as browns of all kinds, red buffs, and many wood colours, as well as combinations with orange as dominant while other colours hold it in restraint so that its full power is not exercised. Small quantities of brilliant orange are possible, however, since only a small area is essential to give all the impression of that quality that is healthful for the ordinary individual.

Purple, the last of the binary colours, seems to have expressed itself even more clearly in the past, and is the most easily grasped of the three. All the qualities of red and all the qualities of blue fused together result practically in ashes. Ice and coals of fire would destroy each other; heat and arctic temperature neutralize each other; aggression and restraint balance or complement each other, and shade, quiet, or a mystic twilight result.

Purple has always been used with a mystic significance by the church and is known as royal purple because of its association with the mystic ceremonials of court life. Instinctively people have chosen purple to express the stage of mourning which exists between the period when vogue has declared pure black an expression of one's sorrow and the time when he may again wear any colour which to him seems suitable. Purple is shadow, and shadows in nature are always some purple tone. Shade, sorrow, mysticism, and dignity are the fundamental quality characteristics of this third binary colour when it is seen in its normal tone. There are many tones of this colour known in trade parlance as violet, lilac, lavender, elephant's breath, London smoke, mauve, etc., all of them being some manifestation of the combination of the two elements red and blue, with the addition of the other element yellow in some proportion, or of black, with purple still in control.

For a proper understanding of these colours and their real meaning it is essential to ignore the idea of vogue as it is formulated either by commercial enterprise or human fancy, and manifested from year to year in the fashions of the time. This statement must not be taken to mean that an entire room in any one of these colours is desirable under any circumstances. It is merely given to show what the introduction of any colour could mean and does mean, consciously or unconsciously, more or less, to anybody who lives in it. The word tone is the most general name in colour use. Any note of colour, including black, white, or gray, is a colour tone. The term "normal colour" is given to colour tones when they are at their fullest strength in the spectrum circuit or rainbow colour scheme. Any colour which is lighter than the normal colour is called a tint, and any colour which is darker than the normal colour, a shade. A neutral tone is a tone in which there is no apparent colour. Neutral gray, black, and white are the only true neutrals. Gold, in period study, is sometimes classed as a neutral tone, although of course it is always some modified form of yellow.

Every tone of colour has its three distinct qualities. We are apt to think of a colour as one simple thing, and to say it is either too strong or too weak without considering this fact. The first quality of a colour tone is its hue. In speaking of yellow we mean the normal primary yellow in which there is no other element present. One should be able to detect immediately if yellow has blue in it or if red is present in the slightest degree. As soon as any blue appears in yellow it begins to be a green. This green - any green in which there is more yellow apparent than blue - is called yellow green, and all tones of green between normal green and yellow belong to the class of hues called yellow green.