Perhaps the very prettiest library I have ever seen is one in London, which may sound frivolous, but is nothing of the kind, and has some of the most serious work of the nation done between its four walls; it is enamelled white--doors, cupboards, bookshelves, overmantel, indeed everything, and has a most beautiful effect, especially against the dun-coloured, gold-tinted calf volumes, with which the shelves are most amply supplied; the shelves are supported on cupboards with brass locks and hinges, and are wide and deep enough to hold quantities of law papers; all these shelves and cupboards are ‘fitments’ passing completely round the room, and continuing under the windows. The only scraps of wall which show are papered with a very good Japanese leather paper, and the space above the mantel-piece is filled in with an old portrait; sundry pieces of blue china are on the mantel-piece, which are never without their fresh flowers; the carpet is a very fine Oriental one, with a great deal of white in it; the furniture is blue, as are the curtains, which are arranged across the top of each window and down one side only, while the enormous desk which occupies the centre of the room is a most exquisitely inlaid piece of marqueterie, and is the only coloured thing in the room, the frames of the chairs, &c., being enamelled like the room itself. Now this white idea for a library in London--dirty, smoky London--does seem absurd and a trifle frivolous, but the effect thereof is perfect, and as the application of a damp clean duster and a polish from a leather makes the room absolutely spotless, I see no reason why the white library should be scoffed at as an impossibility. A big beaten iron and copper lamp from Strode hangs in the centre of the room, and gives the finishing touch to a very perfect apartment. Here the room is used for important work which requires absolute peace and absolute solitude, where the books refer to the special subject of study, and would be of no interest whatever to the ordinary man. Still, a modified edition of the white room could easily be carried out, and would be far more cheerful to live with, than the orthodox dark green and carved oak, or a base imitation thereof that we find in far too many houses; oak, in my opinion, being utterly unsuited to a modern house, and should only be used in a big old house where one looks for it as a matter of course. Of the modern imitation called Flemish oak I have no words of condemnation sufficiently strong; it is abominable, ugly, heavy, and badly executed, and should never be tolerated in any house where artistic decoration is encouraged and sought after.