them away, for glass curtains are supposed to be a protection from the
gaze of the passers-by. If you haven't passers-by you can pull your
curtains to the side so that you may enjoy the out-of-doors. Do not lose
sight of the fact that your windows are supposed to give you sunshine
and air; if you drape them so that you get neither sunshine nor air you
might as well block them up and do away with them entirely.

To me the most amazing evidence of the advance of good taste is the
revival of chintzes, printed linens, cottons and so forth, of the
Eighteenth Century. Ten years ago it was almost impossible to find a
well-designed cretonne; the beautiful chintzes as we know them were
unknown. Now there are literally thousands of these excellent fabrics of
old and new designs in the shops. The gay designs of the printed cottons
that came to us from East India, a hundred years ago, and the fantastic
chintzes known as Chinese Chippendale, that were in vogue when the Dutch
East India Company supplied the world with its china and fabrics; the
dainty French _toiles de Jouy_ that are reminiscent of Marie Antoinette
and her bewitching apartments, and the printed linens of old England and
later ones of the England of William Morris, all these are at our
service. There are charming cottons to be had at as little as twenty
cents a yard, printed from old patterns. There are linens hand-printed
from old blocks that rival cut velvet in their lustrous color effect and
cost almost as much. There are amazing fabrics that seem to have come
from the land of the Arabian nights--they really come from Austria and
are dubbed "Futurist" and "Cubist" and such. Some of them are inspiring,
some of them are horrifying, but all of them are interesting. Old-time
chintzes were usually very narrow, and light in ground, but the modern
chintz is forty or fifty inches wide, with a ground of neutral tone that
gives it distinction, and defies dust.