I am asked why the capital of France was called Paris. It derives its name from the Parish, a tribe of aborigines whom Cæsar met and defeated in his conquest of Gaul. This tribe occupied the island in the Seine on which the famous Cathedral of Notre Dame stands.
DEAR POSTMISTRESS,--Can I do anything toward beautifying our ugly, old-fashioned parlor? It is covered with a horrid red and green Brussels carpet, an abomination to artistic eyes. The family photographs, in lozenge-shaped frames, adorn the walls, and the furniture is hopelessly hideous. Can you suggest anything? Don't mention Japanese fans or banners; mother wouldn't tolerate them. Don't speak of unbleached muslin curtains; they wouldn't be given house room. But do tell me how I can make the room look _livable_, for that is just what it does not look at present. An old school-mate is coming to visit me next month, and I blush to own it, but I am ashamed to have her see our dreadful parlor.
The carpet and pictures, as you describe them, are discouraging. But people must do the best they can under the circumstances which are theirs. One of the pleasantest parlors I ever saw had a rag-carpet on the floor, and a map of the United States, bordered by the heads of the successive Presidents, on the wall. In the first place, keep your parlor resplendently clean; don't permit the suspicion of dust or the trail of stray shreds and thread on the too brilliant carpet. Admit the sunshine and air every day. Fill the windows with plants--blooming plants, if possible, but green, growing ones at all events. Fill a glass globe with sprays of tradiscanthia, which grows rapidly in water, and set that on the middle of the table. Bring your choicest books, and put them where visitors can read them. "Bread of flour is good; but there is bread, sweet as honey, if we would eat it, in a good book, and the family must be poor indeed which, once in their lives, can not for such multipliable barley loaves pay their baker's bill." I do not know why I think so, but I am very sure that you have some books in your house; and believe me, nothing furnishes a room more beautifully than a few books. I do not admire fans and screens very much myself, and I am no friend to curtains and tidies and such things, unless one has plenty of time to care for them. But you have doubtless a large, old-fashioned sofa. Make a generous-looking pillow to invite the weary head, and put it at one end of the sofa, and at the other lay a gay patchwork quilt. Study harmony, and even in an ugly room harmony will evolve a certain degree of beauty. Every parlor should aim at some high effect. The key-note of your aim should be comfort, and comfort carried to its ultimate superlative is luxury.