The Morning Astorian

BALMORAL'S FADED GLORIES

New York Commercial

Rumors are rife (writes our Glasgow correspondent) as to King Edward's arrangements with regard to his Scotch campaign. It is practically certain that he will pay a visit to the duke and duchess of Fife at Mar Lodge, but whether this year he will reside at Balmoral is at present in the lap of the future. King Edward is known to have excellent taste in the matter of furniture and house decorations, and the plain fittings, restricted accommodations and one may almost say, uncouth simplicity of Balmoral are little likely to meet his wants or wishes. Strangers, seeking for the first time the Scotch home of the late queen, are astonished at its primitive arrangement and frugal furniture. The castle is built of gray stone, and in the turreted style of Scotch architecture. Miles of mountain glen and river divide it from modern life and the outside world. There is no semblance of a town nearer than Ballater, eight miles up the valley, and Braemar—that fashionable village—is sixteen miles distant. The house consists largely of a range above a small and inconvenient basement. The guest chambers are fitted and furnished in the simplest fashion—indeed, to many of the bedrooms no dressing room is attached. The cabinet minister in attendance on the late queen usually being a secretary with him and was obliged to transact business in his sleeping room. The Balmoral tartan, a somber and fearsome mixture of crimson and gray, pervades the whole establishment—curtains, carpets, cushions, coverings of furniture, even hangings for the walls—everywhere and on everything appears this most melancholy material. The design is not that of a true tartan of ancient date but owes its being to the decorative genius of the prince consort himself. And the rooms are embellished by a number of engravings from Landseer's pictures, framed in maple-wood frames, in a shape and size of surprising regularity. These works of art not only adorn the castle but appear in a summer house in the grounds. Many improvements will, no doubt, be effected at Balmoral before it becomes the fitting home of the present genial and splendor-loving king.