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CHARACTER IN FURNITURE

Mrs. Peattie Tells How Human Nature Crops Out in House Arrangements.

A Woman Can Be Told by Her Carpet or Her Curtains - A Dissertation for Faminine Readers.

You can tell a woman by her carpet.
That is to say, when you enter a house and see yourself in the drawing room-the room in which a person is apt to place whatever she has most carefully selected, you will be able to determine with comparative accuracy whether she is a person of culture, artistic tastes, loves of luxury, simple in taste, fond of color or a lover of form, gay or melancholy. inclined to letters or to society, and when you develop your sense of discrimination, you can even tell whether she is vivacious or reticent.
There are skillful canvassers of books who can so well prepare themselves by a hasty investigation of the furniture of a room, as to greet with absolute propriety of speech the lady of the house as she protestingly enters her invaded drawing room. And without doubt most of us women in making our "first calls" base our estimation of our new acquaintance to no little degree upon what we see about us and which we recognize as the selection of the lady, and as an expression of her taste.
The rule must not be made too general. For there are circumstances which interfere with the perfect application of it. And some unhappy women are forced to live in rooms which are in no way an expression of themselves and against which they consistently revoil But all things being equal, you know a woman by her carpet, as I said to begin with. Therefore, the interior of rooms furnish a study only second in interest to that of humanity itself, and I permit muself the luxury this week of describing certain Omaha drawing rooms, knowing that many will recognize them, and those who do not may find some amusement in reading of them.
This, then, is the drawing room of an elderly gentlewoman.
No matter from what province of the orient the rug comes which lies upon the polished floor It has a border as indicate, as splendid as the cashmere shawl. The center is a royal blue, like a neither heaven. The furniture is of mahogany old fashioned, with that air of repose that comes of age. Above the mantle hangs a circular mirror framed in gold. The prints on the wall are of the romantic type, before the truth seekers invented impressionism, or learned to obtrude the egoism of the artist above that of the subject. In the cabinet are some curious old trifles-a vase of wedgewood, a jar from Egypt some Bohemian glass, trifles in Dresden, Indian curios and a statnette or two. Above the cabinet are some bronzes. The curtains at the window are of point d'esprit and of silk with warm colors in them. On the table are a few books, a fan in red with which the mistress shades her face, a vase with the flower of the season, whatever it may be - violet, rose, chrysanthemum or holly. A little dish of bonbons, perhaps. The gentlewoman herself likes bonbins. She likes the flowers, the color of the rug, the chins, the soft cushions of the sofa. She likes the red fan which she holds up when the fire burns too brightly in the grate. Her hair is white, but her dimples still play. She talks about what is most amusing She had had trouble but she does not speak of it. She laughs like a girl. And she would rather make a joke than a sigh any day. She is vivacious and she always has something to show you. Or she has discovered a new genius, in music, or literature, or act, and makes you think you are in Paris instead of Omaha by the way she talks of them and of the accession they will be to artistic circles You always cave this drawing room with a feeling of gayety. There has been an informal elegance about it. You have been anxious to make yourself agreeable. And you have been entertained. This room is, perhaps, quainter in its way than almost any other room in Omaha. The lares seem to have been placed there so long ago. They are at once venerable and beautiful They did not drift into their places, they were put there. It is not an accidental arrangement. It is deliberate, yet gradualo; selected, yet unforced.
There is one room, however, which haunts me It is the drawing room of a genius, which sees so many viciasiudus of fortune, of emotion, and of famel. The floor is bare. There is a rented piano in one corner-sometimes there has not been bread, but there has always been a piano. The odd bay window has ragged. Nottingham curtains at it, not necessarily clean. The shades hang rather dejectedly. Some of them have lost the sticks out. There is an exquisite portrait of Angelica Kaufman, done by herself hanging over the drawing table one leg of which is gone, and he propped , up another article of furniture There is an old fashioned book case full of books as worn as a beggars coat. The books are the classics purchased in other days. The walls are dotted with sketches in pen and ink, water color, or in charcoal, done by the genius. Among these original sketches is the face of a woman old in sin-hideous-and wreatbed with roses. The genius is a Greek for contrasts such as these. There are cartoons showing her to be of the new faith the follower of the People in the industrial struggle. A populist, she calls herself. In reality she is anything which most appeals to the emotions A rosary hangs there. ico-symbol of a faith still passionately loved because it brings with it hours of spiritual ectasy. this room is never prim-no more than if the genius herself. As in her mind fragments of great emotions-ambition,love, eloquence, hate, hope, mystery, fear, devotion, lust of life, arrogance, vanity and vast white dreams of beautiful power lie scattered in hopeless confusion so about the room she inhabits is a confusion of papers, books, pictures, gloves, scarfs, flowers, music-whatever has for a moment appealed to her passionate and capricious fancy Now for prayer and now for coquetry now for poem and now for song, now for picture and now for conversation more full of art than all her other accomplishments, this young woman magnetic and peculiar, weaves the fabric of her life in warp and woof of startling contrast. Many sitting in that strange poor room leave found hours of rucher intellectual piquancy than ever they found in furnished and elegant parlor They have left the room wrapped in an atmosphere of mental intoxication, which filled the spirit with mysterious dreams. Poor genius! Your room is throaged with angry fates And they men ace you.
But it is best to leave an atmosphere so disturbing and enjoy the drawing-room of a beautiful lady. She is very young. and her face is as fair as those sculptured by I'hedeas, and carved to stand for youth. Her gowns are fair too and all she has is dainty and delightful to the eye. The drawing room seems made of fairy fabrics. Nothing old here-nothing with a history. The pictured tapestry, the delicate brocades, the fine grained, polished woods, the laces, slight as frost work on the window panes, the pictures of flowers, of sweet faces, the white and gold of the finishings the ferns and putted flowers, the cabinet, with its Dresden and English pottery, all as new, ad delicate of tint as soothing to the eye as a clear dawn in winter Here the beautiful lady lives like another flower As yet she has no more history than her furniture. She is as fresh as the pink brocade of her fautuell. Her life has been decorated with roses as bright as those which decorate her Royal Worcester vase. No dirt dares come near this lovely room, any more than villeness dare come near the lovely mistress. The rest of the world may be full of wrangling and wrong, and all uncleanness. But here is beauty-young, fresh, spotless, beauty. And it seems as if even time could not make those colors dim.
The next picture will lack placidity. What it lacks in that quality it will make up for room in famillarity. It is the drawing room of a common woman. There are a number of worn chairs in it which are occupied by grown people There are some other chairs very much scratched, where the little folks sit. The wall has pencil marks on it. There is a "wheel" in the front hall. and a rocking horse in the dining room just visible from the parlor and a baby jumber between the two rooms in the door way. A doll lies on top the piano and there are three pairs of small overshoes before the hat rack. A number of the books on the table appear to be devoted to the history of important, but dead persons like 'Robinson Crusoe," 'Jack the Giant Killer," "Little Lord Fauntleroy," Sinbad the Sarlor" and 'Little Women" The curtains are asked. A cat sleeps on the sofa. there are pieces of chalk, strings, leather sling shots, cogs of old clocks, doll dresses, marbles, architectural blocks, and tops, lying about in a careless but not artistic manner. Conversation is apt to be interrupted by cries of "Mamma!" Nobody seems to be particularly given up to the cultivation of elegance, the arts or the letters-expecting the inculcation of the English alphabet, Wagner and Quethe are sob nearly so much spoken of as Santa Claus Potted plants appear to have given place to other flowers-flowers of the human sort, who have soft red lips to be klasped and feet which run all day with infinite pattering. There are spots on the carpet, and sometimes there is even a ring for marbles marked with chalk on the hall floor. The sofa is not so remarkable for its upholstering as for its spring which are highly regarded by certain members of the family, who play they are riding on the ocean and who bounce up and down on them. The pictures have to have men and women in them, or animals in order that stories may be told about them. The grate is not a place to dream by, but one at which to warm cold toes. No-repose about this room, certainly - no elegance-not even the display of good taste The people in it have never traveled. They have not collected anything-except human souls. And these they cannot keep in a cabinet. They are instead in a ray trying in that room to prepare them for a victory in the battle of life. Surely a common room, not one in which the conversation is very fluent, the laughter very joyous, the songs very original, the happiness every-day duet.
The next drawing room I wish to speak of is that of an enthusiast. THis enthusiast never did anything in the usual way. That would be stupid-She always begins at the wrong end of things-and the result appears to be charming. It isn't logical appears to be charming. It isn't logical-but its charming For example, when she began her domestic settlement she was confronted by a number of facts that would have been similiarily to anybody else. For example, she had Bagdad portieres, but no cooking stove; curious from Constantloople, but no dining table, a taboret inlaid with pearl, sugestive of cibouks of perfumed cigarettes, but not a bed on whichto lay her head. There were rugs, reminders of h-rems and hardly a chair to sit in souvenirs of the Rhine the Nile, of Sicily of Rome and not a shade to the windows. It did not dismay the enthusiast in the least She liked it. It gave her something to laugh about. Besides it added to the general entertainment of life-and the enthusiast likes life so well that all she ever worries over is that she cannot get enough of it. Well, little by little, common every day things, like beds, stoves. charis and tables, got in the house. These were simple articles, economically purchased. They were not paid much attention to and are now lost sight of amid books, sketches bits of Egyptian embroidery, brik a brac from ever so many places and mementoes of friends of many lands. As for the mistress, she flies the hosue with beautiful songs. She reads great books and lives them. She welcomes whoever asks admission to that room in the name of frienship Neither color, creed sex or condition can influence her. zthe tongue is almost as apt to be Italian, German or French, as it is to be English that is spoken there. And she who enters that enchanted atmosphere loses whatever reserve or conservatism, or small judgement she may have and becomes as enthusiastic as the hostess. You may enter the room at odds with the world. disappointed, wounded in spirit, fearful of the future, distrustful of humanity and conscious of growing age. You leave it in love with life. sure of the brightness of the future and certain that you are very young. Th is the drawing room of the enthusiast.
There are a few of the drawing room of Omaha all easily located by those who have the key.
Elia W. Peattie.

TURKISH SCENTS.
The Turks are very partial to highly scented pomatums, using a large variety of them CHief among these is a mixture composed of oil and pure wax for hair, a mustache pomatum, consisting of antimony, gum, and perfumed oil, and what are known as rouge cottons. The latter are prepared by steeping cotton in a solution of cinnibar, which is then rolled in flat pledgets and airled . Before using the cheek is dampended the cotton applied and the epidermis is quickly tinged of a soft carnation hue, but is not injured in any way, as the medium employed contains nothing that will exert a deleterious effect upon it. The Armenians and Greek use a similiarily prepared aid for beautifying their complexions.
The total dividends paid by the United States national banks in 1802 were $50,400 713.93