COCKNEYISM IN THE COUNTRY. 



107 



peace of mind, and more especially to the 

 right feeling of persons of good sense and 

 propriety in the country, are those which 

 have perhaps a real meaning and value in 

 town; which are associated with excellent 

 houses and people there ; and which are 

 only absurd and foolish when transplanted, 

 without the least reflection or adaptation, 

 into the wholly different and distinct con- 

 dition of things in country life. 



It would be too long and troublesome a 

 task to give a catalogue of these sins against 

 good sense and good taste, which we every 

 day see perpetrated by people who come 

 from town, and who, we are bound to say, 

 are far from always being cockneys ; but 

 who, nevertheless, unthinkingly perpetrate 

 these ever to be condemned cockneyisms. 

 Among them, we may enumerate, as illus- 

 trations, — building large houses, only to 

 shut up the best rooms and live in the 

 basement ; placing the first story co high 

 as to demand a long flight of steps to get into 

 the front door; placing the dining-room 

 below stairs, when there is abundant space 

 on the first floor ; using the iron railings of 

 street doors in town to porches and piazzas 

 in the country; arranging suits of parlors 

 with folding doors, precisely like a town 

 house, where other and far more conve- 

 nient arrangements could be made; intro- 

 ducing plate glass windows, and ornate 

 stucco cornices in cottages of moderate size 

 and cost ; building large parlors for display, 

 and small bed-rooms for daily use ; placing 

 the house so near the street (with acres of 

 land in the rear) as to destroy all seclusion, 

 and secure all possible dust; and all the 

 hundred like expedients, for producing the 

 utmost effect in a small space in town, 

 which are wholly unnecessary and uncalled 

 for in the country. 



We remember few things more unplea- 

 sant than to enter a cockney house in the 



country. As the highest ideal of beauty in 

 the mind of its owner is to re-produce, as 

 nearly as possible, a fac-simile of a certain 

 kind of town house, one is distressed with 

 the entire want of fitness and appropriate- 

 ness in everything it contains. The furni- 

 ture is all made for display, not for use ; 

 and between a profusion of gilt ornaments, 

 embroidered white satin chairs, and other 

 like finery, one feels that one has no rest 

 for the sole of his foot. 



We do not mean, by these remarks, to 

 have it understood that we do not admire 

 really beautiful, rich and tasteful furniture, 

 or ornaments and decorations belonging to 

 the interior and exterior of houses in the 

 country. But we only admire them when 

 they are introduced in the right manner 

 and the right place. In a country house 

 of large size — a mansion of the first class — 

 where there are rooms in abundance for all 

 purposes, and where a feeling of comfort, 

 luxury, and wealth, reigns throughout, there 

 is no reason why the most beautiful and 

 highly finished decorations should not be 

 seen in its drawing-room or saloon, — al- 

 ways supposing them to be tasteful and 

 appropriate ; though we confess our feel- 

 ing is, that a certain soberness should distin- 

 guish the richness of the finest mansion in 

 the country from that in town. Still, in a 

 villa or mansion, where all the details are 

 carefully elaborated, where there is no neg- 

 lect of essentials in order to give effect to 

 what first meets the eye, where everything is 

 substantial and genuine, and not trick and 

 tinsel, — there one expects to see more or less 

 of the luxury of art in its best apartments. 



But all this pleasure vanishes in the 

 tawdry and tinsel imitation of costly and 

 expensive furniture, to be found in cockney 

 country houses. Instead of a befitting har- 

 mony through the whole house, one sees 

 many minor comforts visibly sacrificed to 



