In rooms where we need care to please only ourselves, we can follow our own tastes more entirely and freely. In them, shall we not have a Madonna whose 'eyes are homes of silent prayer?'--a copy of De la Roche's 'Christ,' so touching in its sad and noble serenity? or some bust or engraving of poet or hero, which shall be to us as a biography, never failing to stimulate us in the best direction? Or shall we have a copy of that fine Mercury, who stands resting lightly on the earth with one foot, and raised, outstretched arms, in the act of ascending from it--the embodiment of aspiration? All these things are symbols of noble thought, and they may belong to us as easily now as a copy of Bacon or Shakspeare. Here is great cause for rejoicing. Fantastic furniture, old china, and such-like things, will one day be superseded in drawing-rooms, just as the old, barbarously-coloured 'Noahs' and 'Abrahams' of the cottage may now easily be by pictures in better perspective and purer taste. Then there will be danger of crowding rooms with good things--a great mistake also: an ornament should have a simple background, should 'shew like metal on a sullen ground.' Rooms, from temptations of wealth or taste, should never become mere pretty curiosity-shops. Forbearance and self-control are necessary in this as in all things. 'To gild refined gold' is worse than useless. Let us not question the need of such thought and care for mere dwelling-places. Are not rooms the nurseries of the young spirits among us, the resting-places of all others on their pilgrimage? And because everything is important that influences and educates the soul, love and thought shall work together in our homes, and create in all details something akin to the universal harmony they should typify. INVESTMENTS!