This page has been validated.
93
DECORATION.
[chap.
greatest ladies, if they were blessed with an
energetic temperament, only gave it free scope
with their medicine chest or in their still-room or
linen closet; while the lazy ones were obliged to
dawdle away a good deal of their time in bed
or at their elaborate toilettes. But still I am
always longing to overlay a little of the modish
primness of the distant days we are now copying,
with something of this busy nineteenth century's
tokens of a love of art or literature. And in a
room with any claim to a distinct individuality of
its own, this would always be the case.