The House Beautiful

________________________________________________
_ WE'RE taking up the House Beautiful -- our
Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you
know -- for we've decided that Environment
has more effect on personality than Heredity.

Interior decoration is the greatest of the arts --
don't you think? -- because it furnishes the proper
setting for the spirit.

The loveliest woman gave us a talk on interior
decoration the other night -- she wears these slinky,
Greek things, you know, with straw sandals, when
the weather permits -- and I engaged her to do the
house over.

But right away a problem presented itself --
whether to have the house done to fit my personality
or whether to have the house done to fit the thing
I want my personality to evolve into, and trust the
environment to help in the evolution.

Modern thought complicates LIFE immensely,
doesn't it?

But I always feel that it is my duty to give the
best in myself to these problems.

Someone must help Evolution evolve. Someone
must be unselfish enough to give the cosmos new
marks to come up to.

And who but the serious thinkers are willing to
sacrifice themselves?

Well, we finally decided to do every room in
the house differently -- each one to fit a mood, you
know.

There's one room now I call "Aspiration," where
I go for my little spiritual examinations.

And the next room beyond that is "Resolve."

And then there's a room I call "Brotherly Love,"
where I go to think out how to help the masses.

For of course I haven't lost my interest in
sociological problems.

In fact I'm having some new dresses made --
simple, quiet looking things, you know -- for the
express purpose of visiting the very poor in and
asking them questions about themselves.

Though I must admit that since helping the war
sufferers came into fashion friendly visiting has
rather gone out. _

Read next: Mama Is So Mid-Victorian

Read previous: The Parasite Woman Must Go!

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