Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers/The House Beautiful
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.