I am delighted myself with Liberty’s damasque papers, which have only been brought out since I wrote my first book, and which, therefore, have not had the honourable mention there that they so very richly deserve to have had, the blue and silver ‘tulip damasque,’ at 2_s._, being a perfect paper, and one that would be quite satisfactory in a boudoir-bedroom, unless it happened to be a very small one; in that case the blue and silver marigold, at 1_s._ 6_d._, would do equally well. With these papers a dado is imperative, as I do not consider they have sufficient substance in them to withstand the wear and tear inseparable from their position at the base of the wall. A dado of Treloar’s thin matting or of a good red-and-gold Japanese paper would look well. With the matting the paint should be ivory, with the leather paper a good red paint should be selected which will harmonise with the blue. In any case a red carpet, such as Pither’s dull red ‘cottage’ carpet, or Wallace’s dull red ‘anemone,’ should be selected, and the curtains should be the same red in serge, or else in a dull blue cretonne, the ‘algæ’ made on purpose to harmonise with this paper by Oetzmann.
The planning and talking over the arrangement of this room will be a great amusement both to mother and daughter, and I strongly recommend the mother to attempt nothing in the way of a surprise, but to frankly take her daughter into her confidence and consult her tastes on the subject if she wishes the room to be a real success. I am compelled to recommend this course from an experience of my own, because I have never forgotten my unconcealable dismay at returning home after a long visit to find my own mother had planned such a surprise for me, but had in all innocence, and with such kindness, done such dreadful things to my pet belongings that I often recall the remembrance of my start of horror and exclamation of dismay with the profoundest contrition, for I did not know then what I have only realised in after years, that I must have pained her dreadfully, for, dear soul, she had done all the renovations out of her own savings, and had taken much trouble and pains about it, and I could not help saying, ‘Oh, why did you let them do this?’ before I realised that this was a surprise, and I ought to have been enchanted instead of dismayed at her renovations--renovations that were in absolute good taste, for her taste was perfect, and her house charming long before anyone else cared for their house, but which somehow were not my ideas, and which annoyed me dreadfully because the arrangements were not mine at all, and which I never dared alter afterwards, because I had already received the changes so ungraciously, instead of realising that I should have been enchanted with the forethought and goodness which had prepared all this for me.