lines and shades."

We are aware that some people are "color-blind," but we do not take the
trouble to ascertain whether the majority of people see colors crudely.
I suppose there are as many color-blind people as there are people who
have a deep feeling for color, and the great masses of people in
between, while they know colors one from another, have no appreciation
of hue. Just as surely, there are some people who cannot tell one tune
from another and some people who have a deep and passionate feeling for
music, while the rest--the great majority of people--can follow a tune
and sing a hymn, but they can go no deeper into music than that.

Surely, each of you must know your own color-sense. You know whether you
get results, don't you? I have never believed that there is a woman so
blind that she cannot tell good from bad effects, even though she may
not be able to tell _why_ one room is good and another bad. It is as
simple as the problem of the well-gowned woman and the dowdy one. The
dowdy woman doesn't realize the degree of her own dowdiness, but she
_knows_ that her neighbor is well-gowned, and she envies her with a
vague and pathetic envy.

If, then, you are not sure that you appreciate color, if you feel that
you, like your children, like the green rug with the red roses because
it is "so cheerful," you may be sure that you should let color-problems
alone, and furnish your house in neutral tones, depending on
book-bindings and flowers and open fires and the necessary small
furnishings for your color. Then, with an excellent background of soft
quiet tones, you can venture a little way at a time, trying a bit of
color here for a few days, and asking yourself if you honestly like it,
and then trying another color--a jar or a bowl or a length of