Let us consider some of the ways in which rooms have been lighted. The most impossible thing for the ordinary small room is the central chandelier. The chandelier of Louis XIV and XV with its glass prisms sparkling amidst the lights is an idea that is consistent with the background, furnishings and clothing of the people for whom the setting was planned. This same chandelier idea translated into Jacobean terms is quite another matter. To put it into modern apartment house decoration is an even more difficult problem.

It is not necessary to discuss in detail the hideous things that have been chosen as lighting fixtures. They are in many cases grotesque beyond words. This, however, is not their worst fault. They light a room in such a way that, unless everything is concentrated in the centre of the room, it is impossible to produce pleasing effects, as well as irrational to expect to make use of the lights.

Side bracket lighting is a great improvement over the chandelier, if the room is small enough to get sufficient light in this way. A later invention is called the indirect lighting system. It has the great advantage of producing a pleasing light on the floor or near it, but also the much greater disadvantage of unduly lighting the last place in the world that should be lighted. Of what use is a brilliantly lighted ceiling, and how can one expect to keep his attention on the lower part of the room when the upper part is brilliantly lighted? Besides being inartistic, it is an unwarranted waste of light. None of these systems so far seems to be adequate in function or beauty. True, an occasional man says he has never seen a room too light. It might be remarked that every one does not need to be knocked down to know that he is hit, neither is it necessary in every case to fire a cannon to make one recognize that a noise has been made. It is equally needless to use all the light it is possible to get to obtain functional fitness or charming combination. What we see depends wholly on what we are and what we see with.

The most successful way of lighting a room is by side lights, well placed, and by lamps - electric or otherwise - distributed judiciously about the room. The size of the room and its function determine largely the number and placement of these lamps. It is possible in such an arrangement to have light enough for any purpose at any time, little enough for comfort and rest when desired, and exactly the right amount in the right place to bring out any group of things in the room or the entire room as may be desired.

These lamps should be placed for reading, sewing, writing, or to call attention to groups of furniture or decorative objects, as the case may be. This - and this way only - is successful in bringing out the charm which every living-room should possess in the evening. The shading of these lamps, and the side lights as well, is a matter of great moment. In fact, more depends upon this, probably, than upon the placement of the lamps.

No one colour is always good in all places and under all circumstances, but all soft, neutralized tones of yellow, yellow orange, orange, red orange, yellow green, green and blue green are quite possible under certain conditions. The yellows and orange tones, of course, have the widest range of usefulness. These need not be brilliant in intensity, nor can one say they should be light or dark in value. The texture of the material depends upon the textural decorative idea of the room. Sometimes China silk is light and graceful enough in feeling, and sometimes a brocade, taffeta, damask and even paper parchment has been used with astonishing decorative effect when the texture of the room was considered as a quality in the design.

One thing is almost certain. The shades must be covered not only around the sides but on the top with the material and lined with white. Often two thicknesses of the material are used with the white lining to concentrate the light and throw it down upon the objects one desires to light brilliantly. This soft, soothing light properly distributed about the room makes reading and writing in certain parts of the room a delight, while other portions of the room are lighted in such a manner that rest, calm and repose are the feelings induced.

Lighting, then, should be considered, like everything else, a matter of fitness and a method of tying together the apparently unrelated elements of a room in one unit of keyed colour so that not only beauty, but pleasure through it, is the inevitable outcome.

There is an opportunity for fine distinction in the selection and arrangement of bric-a-brac or ornament. The room, when finished, is a unit, or should be. This does not mean that it should contain one idea only. It means that only such qualities of colour, form, line and texture should be associated together as accord in spirit and are harmonious.

The principles of colour and form as discussed in Part I should aid one in deciding when things are comfortable as parts of a general whole. It does not take a very keen sense of appreciation to see that a picture of the period of Henry II and Marie de Medici is quite out of harmony with a Gothic chest panel or a Gothic figure. Nor does it take much imagination to see that the curved-line, symbolic, and imaginative detail of the Gothic period is quite out of concord with the dancing, sprightly gayety of the curves used in the time of Louis XV.

Sevres ware, in its texture, colour and import, is a part of the period of Louis XV. It is as forbidding with some other pottery or ornament opposed to it in spirit as the other articles of furniture which we have named. Old Chinese pottery of the Ming dynasty is useful in Italian, Early English, Early French and modern rooms to as large an extent as any one ornament type. That is because it is of a refined, subdued colour, graceful shape and no obtrusive design. It would scarcely find a place, however, in the late French or late Georgian styles, where daintiness and light and daring treatments are the particular charm of these periods.