The shadow of a sunheated rock in summer is green, and the success of either of these schemes of decoration would be because of adherence to an actual principle of colour, or a knowledge of the peculiar qualities of certain colours and their proper use.

It would be an intelligent application of the medicinal or healing qualities of colour to the constitution of the house, as skilful physicians use medicines to overcome constitutional defects or difficulties in man.
This may be called _corrective_ treatment of a room, and may, of course, include all the decorative devices of ornament, design and furniture, and although it is not, strictly speaking, decoration, it should certainly and always precede decoration.
It is sad to see an elaborate scheme of ornament based upon bad colour-treatment, and unfortunately this not infrequently happens.
It is difficult to give a formula for the decoration of any room in relation to its colour-treatment, except by a careful description of certain successful examples, each one of which illustrates principles that may be of use to the amateur or student of the art.
One which occurs to me in this immediate connection is a dining-room in an apartment house, where this room alone is absolutely without what may be called exterior light.

Its two windows open upon a well, the brick wall of which is scarcely ten feet away.

Fortunately, it makes a part of the home of a much travelled and exceedingly cultivated pair of beings, the business of one being to create beauty in the way of pictures and the other of statues, so perhaps it is less than a wonder that this square, unattractive well-room should have blossomed under their hands into a dining-room perfect in colour, style, and fittings.

I shall give only the result, the process being capable of infinite small variations.
At present it is a room sixteen feet square, one side of which is occupied by two nearly square windows.