The Art of Home Furnishing and Decoration

Man is exactly what he lives in, for environment is the strongest possible factor in man’s development. One may be so long among loud noises, bad odors, inharmonious colors and wrong arrangements of things that one doesn’t mind them, because one has let them become an integral part of one’s self. They are there, and they are as bad as they were at first, but one has become immune to them.

This being admitted, it follows, of course, that concordant sounds, agreeable odors, harmonious colors and pleasing arrangements have their immediate effects, but their tendency is toward refinement, culture and artistic appreciation instead of toward brutality, ignorance and indifference. It is certainly not hard to see what effect is produced by living in any wrong environment. As a person accustoms himself to it, he becomes like it. When he is like it, he will admire only its kind, and whatever he does will be as nearly like his environment as he himself is.