these the wall is of so much the most importance to a decorator, and
will lead us so far a-field that I will mostly clear off the other
parts first, as to the mere arrangement of them, asking you
meanwhile to understand that the greater part of what I shall be
saying as to the design of the patterns for the wall, I consider
more or less applicable to patterns everywhere.

As to the windows then; I fear we must grumble again. In most
decent houses, or what are so called, the windows are much too big,
and let in a flood of light in a haphazard and ill-considered way,
which the indwellers are forced to obscure again by shutters,
blinds, curtains, screens, heavy upholsteries, and such other
nuisances. The windows, also, are almost always brought too low
down, and often so low down as to have their sills on a level with
our ankles, sending thereby a raking light across the room that
destroys all pleasantness of tone. The windows, moreover, are
either big rectangular holes in the wall, or, which is worse, have
ill-proportioned round or segmental heads, while the common custom
in 'good' houses is either to fill these openings with one huge
sheet of plate-glass, or to divide them across the middle with a
thin bar. If we insist on glazing them thus, we may make up our
minds that we have done the worst we can for our windows, nor can a
room look tolerable where it is so treated. You may see how people
feel this by their admiration of the tracery of a Gothic window, or
the lattice-work of a Cairo house. Our makeshift substitute for
those beauties must be the filling of the window with moderate-sized
panes of glass (plate-glass if you will) set in solid sash-bars; we
shall then at all events feel as if we were indoors on a cold day--
as if we had a roof over our heads.