How fine they are, how imposing,
how honest, and how well they compose!
Of course, if your house has been built with open archways, you will
need heavy curtains for them, but there are curtains _and_ curtains. If
you need portieres at all, you need them to cut off one room from
another, and so they should hang in straight folds. They should be just
what they pretend to be--honest curtains with a duty to fulfil. For the
simple house they may be made of velvet or velveteen in some neutral
tone that is in harmony with the rugs and furnishings of the rooms that
are to be divided. They should be double, usually, and a faded gilt gimp
may be used as an outline or as a binding. There are also excellent
fabrics reproducing old brocades and even old tapestries, but it is well
to be careful about using these fabrics. There are machine-made
"tapestries" of foliage designs in soft greens and tans and browns on a
dark blue ground that are very pleasing. Many of these stuffs copy in
color and design the verdure tapestries, and some of them have fine
blues and greens suggestive of Gobelin. These stuffs are very wide and
comparatively inexpensive. I thoroughly advise a stuff of this kind, but
I heartily condemn the imitations of the old tapestries that are covered
with large figures and intricate designs.
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