The Decoration of Houses.

Lifted from February’s Architectural Digest:

Hundreds of interior design books are published every year, from nitty-gritty how-to guides to lavish volumes that are the publishing world’s answer to lifetime achievement awards. But they all owe their existence to a pioneering guide that was all the rage in 1897: The Decoration of Houses, written by Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman Jr.

Wharton, at the time, was a 30-something Manhattan society matron with a keen interest in architecture and interior design, rather than the Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist she would become. Codman was a blue-blooded architect, one year her junior, with whom Wharton and her husband were remodeling a summer place in Newport, Rhode Island. Poor taste and vulgarity of all kinds reigned in that New England resort town, thanks to an influx of Vanderbilts and other newly moneyed clans anxious to put their lucre to conspicuous use, so much so that Wharton and Codman decided to write a book about how to build and decorate houses with nobility, grace, and timelessness. It would, they hoped, lead its readers out of what Wharton called (pace the Vanderbilts) a “Thermopylae of bad taste” and into an aesthetic Promised Land.

Today, however, not many people read the 198–page book. But last week I was delighted to participate in a panel discussion about it at the New York School of Interior Design. The talk was sponsored by The Mount, a historic house museum in Lenox, Massachusetts, that was once Wharton’s country residence and, like the book, was another Wharton-Codman collaboration, at least at first. (The persnickety pair’s relationship eventually proved combustible, so the architect ended up losing the job to a less-volatile competitor.) Architectural historian, University of Virginia professor, and Wharton expert Richard Guy Wilson was the moderator, and my co-panelists were the interior designer Charlotte Moss and writer/decorator Pauline C. Metcalf.

The subject of the talk was whether The Decoration of Houses, now nearly 120 years old, still had any relevancy in the Age of IKEA. The general conclusion was a qualified “yes.” Wharton and Codman’s book does have drawbacks, we all agreed. Its tone can be superior and schoolmarmish. Its photographs are black-and-white, which many people today cannot abide in a book about interior design. Its examples of good taste are invariably the ballrooms, antechambers, staircases, and other grandiose spaces in European palaces and villas—not exactly what today’s average homeowner finds particularly inspirational. Perhaps most damning, The Decoration of Houses is devoid of how-to projects and idiotproof color schemes. So why do Moss, Metcalf, Wilson, and I revere this relic of late-Victorian days? (Which, it was quickly pointed out, is still in print.) Well, because practicality and common sense are never out of fashion.

The Decoration of Houses is like the King James Version of the Bible. Thousands of interior design books have come and gone since, but most, I would argue, merely repackage Wharton and Codman’s lessons in brighter colors and snappier prose. Today we all know, to a degree, that pleasingly proportioned rooms inspire, almost magically, a sense of calm. That it is best, when on a budget, to invest in comfortable chairs and sofas rather than flashy knickknacks. That we should build and decorate houses based on our individual needs rather than popular trends. (Not for nothing was Wharton born a Jones, a New York society family whose indulgences, architectural and otherwise, reportedly led to the coining of the phrase “keeping up with the Joneses.”)

Such advice, and so much more in Wharton and Codman’s pages, seems so basic, so obvious. But it wasn’t in 1897, when many wealthy individuals, the target of the barbed arrow that is The Decoration of Houses, were doing all they could to build opulent houses glittering enough to do justice to the Gilded Age. Wharton and Codman wanted to educate the rich, to challenge them to build beautiful, practical, and pleasing residences whose details, from meaningful moldings to efficient floor plans to well-made, well-mannered furniture, would trickle down into every neighborhood in America in one form or another.

They were, of course, being irrationally optimistic—our time is as plagued with domestic horrors as was the 1890s. That said, sound advice has timeless value, which is why the book’s commandments, suggestions, and observations remain insightful and inspiring, whether your taste is ancien régime or ultramodern. After all, as Wharton and Codman wrote in their introduction, “Architecture and decoration, having wandered since 1800 in a labyrinth of dubious eclecticism, can be set right only by a close study of the best models.” Who would disagree with that?

The Semantics of Semi-automatics.

In the wake of a spate of mass shootings, national interest has been understandably reawakened in an assault weapon ban, or at least regulation. Putting momentarily aside the fact that people who ignore statutory prohibitions of murder are unlikely to follow any ban, or the fact that some of the “assault” weapons proposed for banning are semi-automatic rifles which fire at roughly the same rate as Wyatt Earp’s 1872 Colt Peacemaker (and, in many cases, with considerably less velocity), the fact remains there exists no precise definition of an assault weapon. This situation is well-suited to emotional reaction which defies logic in its clamor for a ban of what would amount to almost every gun there is. It is equally suited to the popular predilection toward leaping without looking.

The heart of the trouble is that the voices raised loudest in support of assault weapon bans belong to folks who don’t know the first thing about guns, people who would ban anything made of black plastic. Like most well-intentioned but ill-informed pundits, those favoring the enactment of a ban prior to a definition of banned items give thought to form first, function later, and would see the creation of dangerously over-broad laws – and, as a matter of history, over-broad laws are ripe for abuse. America’s 1994 Assault Weapons Ban (part of that year’s Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act, 18 U.S.C. 921) specified only semi-automatic weapons, which category includes most shotguns used in duck hunting (and would also outlaw Earp’s Colt, which fired a bullet per trigger pull).

Josh Sugarmann, author of 1988′s Assault Weapons and Accessories in America, described the trouble accurately: “The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons – anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun – can only increase the chance for public support for restrictions on these weapons.” Mr. Sugarmann was, notably, an early gun control activist, a role to which he did credit in citing as a source of support for assault weapon bans “the public’s confusion.”

That confusion is dangerous. It smooths the way for a ban on guns meant for anything but assault, born of ignorance and fear. Are there dangerous weapons manufactured with which the public at large has no business? Certainly. Fully automatic weapons have no place in the home; nor do magazines which accommodate in excess of ten rounds, silencers or sawed-off barrels. But to ban weapons because of their appearance, rather than their function, is like a fear of mean-looking dogs… simultaneously understandable and illogical. Banning an entire category of personal property with no thought to definitive distinctions within that category is less understandable.

Note: Your editorial staff’s opposition to over-broad assault weapon bans is less the result of any affection for guns – though we own a few – and more the product of distaste for (and fear of) government by reckless emotion.

Mrs. Astor Collects.

Brooke Astor on collections and collecting, as published in Architectural Digest, 1982:

Taste is a very elusive thing. The person who dresses with style and taste may have a banal or even hideous house. The one who collects magnificent pictures may have no idea how to hang them. Some people have good taste in everything but food; in the most delightful surroundings, they may serve you a half-cooked meal. And worst of all, some of the nicest people have dreadful friends.

I have found that my taste changes with the years. I used to love 18th-century English furniture—mahogany sideboards and large breakfront bookcases; paneled rooms with sporting prints on the walls. Then, by way of a divorce, I moved away from the English furniture and the house, into an apartment, where I had French furniture—small, pretty chairs, which were easy to draw up for conversation, and small round tables. Now I like a mixture. I want pure comfort, with some good wood pieces and low Chinese tables—and mirrors in every room. My mother used to say, “Mirrors in a room, water in a landscape, eyes in a face—those are what give character.” My mirrors are a mixture of French and English, all in old gilt, and they are there to reflect the room and to give it spirit.

There are two volumes on taste—The Economics of Taste, by Gerald Reitlinger—that I advise new collectors to read. Of particular importance is Reitlinger’s warning that you should not be so foolish as to throw away your grandfather’s stuffed bear, or your great-aunt’s ivory glove stretcher, because they may become the rage overnight and the bids will soar at Sotheby’s and Christie’s.

Collecting is a personal matter, which is why museums with the most complete and unusual collections can be overpowering at times. The point of view of a museum is to show as much as possible, in a gallery, of whatever that gallery is meant for. A museum must look for the best, but, at the same time, offer a range of lesser art, in order to illustrate the evolution of the perfect example and to satisfy both casual visitor and scholar. To accomplish all this, the museum must be totally objective. A museum must judge with an eye from which a great deal of passion has gone. There is no place for frivolity or for slipping in an unworthy object just because it is amusing or has an odd charm of its own.

Unlike the museum, the private collector can run totally amok. He can put the most outré painting on his wall and place below it a fourth-century Greek sculpture and an Axminster rug. His is not necessarily a happy mixture, because to be a collector does not always mean to be endowed with good taste; it can be purely a case of a desire to possess.

I caution that there are three catches to collecting: The first is the changing of your own taste, which entails a good deal of weeding out—a rather difficult process if you are at all sentimental. I recall asking a friend of mine, a delightful lady in her middle 90s, who was incredibly full of life and charm, what the secret was that kept her so young and on her toes. She answered thoughtfully, “I think it is because I try to make one new young friend a year. It challenges my outlook.” I did not dare to ask what she did with her old friends. Did she slough one off each year? Second, must you send one of your treasures to a thrift shop or auction room every time you replace it with another, so that your collection will not outgrow your house, but will show the fruits of your choice to advantage—not squeezed together, making a hodgepodge? And, last of all, possessions are a responsibility. They need care, as does everything. They must not be allowed to collect dust. China and glass must be washed. Pictures must be cleaned and restretched periodically. Books must be taken off the shelves, their bindings oiled and then rubbed down with lamb’s wool. Bronze must be guarded against the bronze disease. Nothing can be beautiful forever, if uncared for.

I started collecting paintings of dogs about 15 years ago. Dogs have always been a part of my life; I don’t believe I could survive without them. Inspired by their ever-loyal friendship, I started to adorn my walls with pictures of them. I chose works from the 19th century, mostly English, with a few Spanish and French, and have stuck to that. Queen Victoria, who was as sentimentally addicted to dogs as I am, had every one of her pets painted and her courtiers quickly followed her example. Thanks to that prolific period of dog lovers, I now have 74 dog pictures in the front hall and on the staircase wall of my house in the country. I have never bought a costly dog painting—say, by Stubbs—but I have Landseers, Herrings, Ackermanns, and so on. I have pictures of dogs tearing up a newspaper with a picture of Gladstone on it; dogs obviously adoring their masters, and carrying notes or slippers or gray top hats in their mouths; dogs mourning their masters; dogs sleeping or playing; and others simply posing. The dogs are my only really large collection, and the staircase was the right place for them, although they now also fill the upstairs hall.

In my smaller collections, the important thing is arrangement. I like to arrange objects as I would arrange a bowl of flowers, making a mixture that is pleasing and that brings about the best in each flower or object. In my New York apartment, the rooms are not large; so the objects all had to be fairly small.

In my blue “morning room” (named for the morning sun) there are several arrangements, including one of my favorites: Against a blue-fabric-covered wall I have hung five large Meissen plates—the heart of a dinner service painted for Frederick the Great of Prussia, to be used in his hunting lodge. I hung them over a Hepplewhite satinwood cabinet, on whose top I placed objects to enhance the animals painted on the plates.

I have a collection of teapots, also. One group is on a Regency black-and-red stand, and the other is on what is meant to be a hanging shelf, but I have placed it on the floor. The teapots are mostly European, late 18th and early 19th century, with some Oriental ones thrown in.

In the hall leading to my bedroom, a Brazilian marble dog prances between English candlesticks atop a console, and in my bedroom two Chinese Chippendale-style étagères hold a collection of English porcelain dogs.

All these things are not particularly rare, but even at the risk of sounding smug, I do think they are attractive together. I, myself, when I happen to look at them at night on my way to bed, feel they have found a good home, and I like them where they are. Anyway, they make me happy, and I hope it will be many years before they find their way into the auction rooms. I hope that then they will be loved as much as I love them, because I believe that nothing exists that is unresponsive.

Seeking WFB.

Originally published in the paper of record, David Welch’s recent essay is below - sans editing, because he hit the nail right on the obvious and common sensical head.

It is a shame that William F. Buckley Jr. passed away in 2008. The conservative movement could use him — or someone like him — right now.

In the 1960s, Buckley, largely through his position at the helm of National Review, displayed political courage and sanity by taking on the John Birch Society, an influential anti-Communist group whose members saw conspiracies everywhere they looked.

Fast forward half a century. The modern-day Birchers are the Tea Party. By loudly espousing extreme rhetoric, yet holding untenable beliefs, they have run virtually unchallenged by the Republican leadership, aided by irresponsible radio talk-show hosts and right-wing pundits. While the Tea Party grew, respected moderate voices in the party were further pushed toward extinction. Republicans need a Buckley to bring us back.

Buckley often took issue with liberal-minded members of his party, like Nelson A. Rockefeller, and he gave some quarter to opponents of civil rights legislation. But he placed great faith in the Republican establishment and its brand of mainstream conservatism, which he called the “politics of reality.”

But his biggest challenge came from the far right, primarily in the form of the John Birch Society. During the 1950s and early ’60s, Birchers demanded that the government rid itself of supposed Communists — including, according its founder, Robert Welch (no relation, thank heaven), Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Buckley’s formula for conservative success rested on “the most right, viable candidate who could win.” He saw the danger the Birchers posed to the party, and in 1962 he wrote a devastating essay in National Review that condemned them for essentially calling on the party to commit political suicide. He dismissed Welch’s outrageous views as “drivel” and “removed from common sense.” The essay relegated the Birch Society to pariah status. Buckley may have saved the nascent conservative movement from the dustbin of history.

The absence of a Buckley-esque gatekeeper today has allowed extreme, untested candidates to take center stage and then commit predictable gaffes and issue moon-bat pronouncements. Democrats have used those statements to tarnish the Republican Party as anti-woman, anti-poor, anti-gay, anti-immigrant extremists. Buckley’s conservative pragmatism has been lost, along with the presidency and seats in Congress.

Republicans must now identify those who can bring adult supervision back to the party. Replacing Buckley — an erudite and prolific force of nature — with one individual is next to impossible. But we don’t need to. We can face the extremists with credible, respected leaders who have offered conservative policies that led to Republican victories.

Dare I say it, or should I just whisper the word? We need “the Establishment.” We need officials like former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, operatives like Karl Rove and Republican Party institutions.

Mr. Christie and Mr. Bush are ideally suited to drive extremists from the party. While some say Mr. Christie’s praise of President Obama after Hurricane Sandy hurt him politically, in fact it cemented his role as party truth-teller. In conjunction with his spirited defense of Sohail Mohammed, a State Superior Court judge who was absurdly attacked for allegedly wanting to impose Shariah law, Mr. Christie should be celebrated by sane people everywhere.

Mr. Bush, who once bravely stated that Ronald Reagan would have a hard time fitting in with today’s Republican Party, likewise has the position and gravitas to weigh in and weed out the Todd Akins and Sharron Angles of the world.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Christie best represent realistic, levelheaded conservatism. Both have crossed the aisle numerous times to the betterment of their states. Yet they enjoy sterling reputations in the party. This occurs when common sense trumps partisanship. This is not to say that the only way forward is by tying the party to bipartisanship. But it does mean a willingness to fight those who claim the name of the party but not its ethos.

In a recent interview, the bête noir of both the left and the Tea Party right, Mr. Rove, suggested that his organization, American Crossroads, might become active in Republican primaries during the next election cycle. If Crossroads and the old-guard Republican committees sided with sensible candidates early on in the primaries and, if need be, ran ads against extreme members of the party, they could do much to bring some sense back to the Republican landscape.

Our modern-day Buckley’s denouncement of once fringe Tea Party candidates should be forthright. Whether it’s Bush, Christie or a party institution, there must be one clear message: no unserious candidate need apply. Party leaders should seize this moment as Buckley did decades ago. It wasn’t easy. He lost subscribers and donors. But inveighing Buckley went, weathering the storm to keep his party poised for future victories.

The Winter Woven / Boss Tweed

For whatever reason, winter is late in coming (a condition lamentably opposite a common source of romantic strife, says Cosmo). What lingers instead is a damp fall epilogue: sodden trees, grey clouds, drafty mornings. The lighter sport coats are on leave, the really heavy stuff not yet called up. The time is good for tweed.

A rough, unfinished woolen, tweed hails from the Scots borderlands and Ireland, mainly County Donegal, from which it was first shipped to England for use in sport: early cyclists, hunters, outdoorsmen and motorists took to it for its rain-resistance and warmth. A legend is that the Scots merchants called the cloth tweel, for twill, but an English store clerk misread a packing bill and thought he had a shipment of something called tweed, which name he assumed was taken from the Tweed River in Scottish weaving country. He advertised his wares with that name and it stuck. Noteworthy enthusiasts of the period include Kenneth Grahame’s Mr. Toad of Toad Hollow, known for his Norfolk.

Tweed slid from prominence in postwar fashion till the 60s, when houndstooth saw an uptick in professorial circles. In addition to that weave, patterns include herringbone, windowpane, gamekeepers’ tweed and the Prince of Wales check, commissioned first by Edward VII.

F. Scott Yourself.

Recently having embarked on a re-reading of The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald, your editorial staff presents here, for your own authorial ease, a do-it-yourself Fitzgerald story maker. Simply make your selections from the options available, mix an old-fashioned, and watch while your very own gossamer beauty, her hair and skin and eyes aflame with the fire of youth and debutante society, takes shape in Fitzgerald-ian (-ish?) verse.

Thomas McClane Blackrock III was a young man from A) Minnesota, B) Manhattan or C) Andover, looking forward to A) summer in the Hamptons, B) an ocean voyage abroad or C) drinks with A) prep school classmates, B) a horsey uncle or C) a youthful fling at the Knickerbocker Club, when he set off down 42^nd Street in the marvelous, blustery winter of 19 A) 21, B) 21 or C) 21.

At A) 15, B) 19 or C) 28 years of age, he had just recently been A) admitted to, B) rejected from or C) asked to leave Princeton, on account of A) a series of events in which a man of modest means but intellectual ability and morality is thrust into the world of the wealthy and shocked to find it cruel and hollow, B) a series of events in which a man of modest means but intellectual ability and morality is thrust into the world of the wealthy and shocked to find it cruel and hollow or C) a series of events in which a man of modest means but intellectual ability and morality is thrust into the world of the wealthy and shocked to find it cruel and hollow.

As young Blackrock turned a corner, he was struck by the sight of a girl, no – an angel! stepping from the door of a limousine onto the curb. Swirls of virginal snow played about her ankles, and she was followed out of the vehicle’s cabin by A) a strapping young banker, B) an elderly and proper matron or C) an air of invincible youth, made merry by the glittering delicacies of life and champagne, in front of which the banality of bookish notions of love wither for want of truth. He cocked his hat and lit his pipe.

After colloquial dialogue, Blackrock and the girl A) elope, only to return at her father’s threat to cut off her allowance, at which time she leaves Blackrock heartbroken, cynical and mystified by the very different world of the rich, B) strike up a casual affair that becomes steadily more serious, till it comes to the attention of her father, at which time she leaves Blackrock heartbroken, cynical and mystified by the very different world of the rich or C) ride horses along the beach together, bathed lazily in the starlit incandescence of the moon and waves and love and all things young and fruitful both.

When A) war broke out, B) Blackrock was called to Princeton for pre-season football or C) a more suitable society match was organized for the girl, they parted ways and slipped from one another’s hearts like ships loosed from their moorings in the night, slipping soundlessly away in the cold, black water. At least, thought Blackrock, upon the moment of their parting, we each have plenty of cigarettes.

Get A Good Pen.

From the Wall Street Journal, where it was published by Mark Helprin on September 28, 2012:

Should you be insane enough to want to make a living in this cultural climate by writing fiction that is neither politicized, confessional, nihilistic, sexualized, sensationalist, nor crafted with the vocabulary and syntax of Dick and Jane, here are some suggestions.

Never write in a café, especially in Europe. Ever since Hemingway, this has been the literary equivalent of what in mountain climbing is called the “tech weenie” (that is, someone who cannot get a foot off the ground but is weighed down with $10,000′s worth of equipment). Literary skill, much less greatness, cannot be had with a pose, and exhibitionism extorts the price of failure. Also, have pity on the weary Parisians who have wanted only a citron pressé but have been unable to find a café where every single seat is not occupied by an American publicly carrying on a torrid affair with his moleskin.

This brings up Levenger, which sells “tools for writers.” The fewer tools the better, and they need not be costly or complicated. Whether you use a pencil, a pen, an old typewriter or something electrical is largely irrelevant to the result, although there is magic in writing by hand. It’s not just that it has been that way for 5,000 years or more, and has engraved upon our expectations of literature the effects associated with the pen—the pauses; considerations; sometimes the racing; the scratching out; the transportation of words and phrases with arrows, lines and circles; the closeness of the eyes to the page; the very touching of the page—but that the pen, not being a machine (it does not meet the scientific definition of a machine), is a surrender to a different power than those of mere speed and efficiency.

In short, a pen (somehow) helps you think and feel. And although once you find a pen you like you’ll probably stick with it the way an addict sticks with heroin, it can be anything from a Mont Blanc to a Bic. The same for paper. There are beautiful, smooth, heavy papers, but great works have been written on ration cards, legal pads and the kind of cheap paper they sell in developing countries—grayish white, almost furry, with flecks of brown and black that probably came from lizards and bats that jumped into the paper makers’ vats.

Your most important tools will be your honesty, labor, courage, practice, luck and utter concentration. Inspiration can be magnificent. Handel wrote his “Messiah” cooped up in his room for two weeks. No one saw him, and his meals were allegedly slipped under the door. (Either it was a very strange door or he survived on fruit leather and matzah.) Then again, Voltaire—”On Sunday I was seized by inspiration”—wrote “Phèdre” in six days flat, a play that made his audiences weep not from emotion but because they had to sit through it.

More valuable than speed or being struck by what you think is lightning (and others usually do not) is concentration. When asked how he managed to come up with the calculus, surely one of the greatest achievements possible for the mortal mind, Newton replied, “I thought of nothing else.” Your drafts should be many. Some people (unspecified of course) even go, at times, to 12. This is but one of the differences between modern books that are flipped out like burgers and older ones that are roasted like beef. With the exceptions of those passages where it appears that God has commandeered the pen for the sake of perfection, the initial drafts should look like the Rosetta Stone and be so slashed and worked over with lines, directions and corrections that no one but the author can read them.

This gives rise to the fear that if you are run over by a bus before the work is set in type either it will go to the grave with you or require an army of scholars to decode it. Though they may be paid to unravel Donald Trump’s memoirs, they are less likely to be there for you.

Still, don’t hurry. Live dangerously. People love to look at the rough and scarred original manuscripts in the display cases of the New York Public Library or in facsimile editions. It’s not just because it brings them to the kind of authenticity one cannot help but treasure but because they know that if there is, indeed, magic, it is here to be seen, in worn pages that glow with concentration, genius and love.