RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 



time; when, if he will, after a quiet, good tempered talk with his better half, agree with 

 her upon the list of necessary articles to make them really comfortable ; and then a cata- 

 logue of what shall comprise the luxurious part of their furnishings, which, when provi- 

 ded, they will fixedly make up their mind to keep, and be content with, they will remain 

 entirely free from one great source of " the ills which flesh is heir to." 



" It is nleasant to see a youngcouple setting out in their housekeeping life, well provided 

 with convenient and properly selected furniture, appropriate to all the uses of the family; 

 and then to keep, and use it, and enjoy it, like contented, sensible people; adding to it, 

 now and then, as its wear, or the increasing wants of their family may require. Old fa- 

 miliar things, to which we have long been accustomed, and habituated, make up a round 

 share of our actual enjoyment. A family addicted to constant change in their household 

 furniture, attached to nothing, content with nothing, and looking with anxiety to the 

 next change of fashion which shall introduce something new into the house, can take no 

 sort of comfort, let their circumstances be ever so affluent. It is a kind of dissipation in 

 which some otherwise worthy people are prone to indulge, but altogether pernicious in the 

 indulgence. It detracts, also, from the apparent respectability of a family to find nothing 

 old about them — as if they themselves were of yesterday, and newly dusted out of a 

 modern shop-keeper's stock in trade. The furniture of a house ought to look as though 

 the family within it once had a grandfathei' — and as if old things had some veneration 

 from those who had long enjoyed their service. 



" We are not about to dictate, of what fashion household furniture should be, when se- 

 lected, any further than that of a plain, substantial, and commodious fashion, and that it 

 should comport, so far as those requirements in it will admit, with the approved modes 

 of the day. But we are free to say, that in these times the extreme of absurdity, and 

 unfitness for use is more the fashion than anything else. What so useless as the modern 

 French chairs, standing on legs like pipe-stems, garote-ing j'our back like a rheumatism, 

 and frail as the legs of a spider beneath you, as you sit in it; and atribeof equally worth- 

 less incumbrances, which absorb your money in their cost, and detract from your comfort, 

 instead of adding to it, when you have got them; or a bedstead so high that you must 

 have a ladder to climb into it, or so low as to scarcely keep you above the level of the 

 floor, when lying on it. No; give us the substantial, the easy, the free, and enjoyable 

 articles, and the rest may go to tickle the fancy of those who have a taste for them. Nor 

 do these flashy furnishings add to one's rank in society, or to the good opinion of those 

 whose consideration is most valuable. Look into the houses of those people who are the 

 really substantial and worthy of the land. There will be found little of such frippery 

 with them. Old furniture, well preserved, useful in everything, mark the well-ordered 

 arrangement of their rooms, and give an air of quietude, of comfort, and of hospitality 

 to their apartments. Children cling to such objects in after life, as heir-looms of aflection 

 and parental regard. 



"Although we decline to give specific directions about what varieties of furniture should 

 constitute the furnishings of a house, or to illustrate its style or fashion by drawings, and 

 content ourselves with the single remark, that it should, in all cases, be strong, plain, and 

 durable — no sham, nor ostentation about it — and such as is made for use ; mere trinkets 

 stuck about the room, on center tables, in corners, or on the mantel-piece, are the foolish- 

 est things imaginable. They are costly; they require a world of care, to keep them in 

 condition; and then, with all this care, they are good for nothing, in any sensible use 

 have frequently been into a country house, where we anticipated better things 

 being introduced into the "parlor," actually found everything in the furniture 



