§39,40. INCONSISTENT COPIES. 237 



inconvenient things which encumber our rooms are the result 

 of this want of judgment. 



Here a pair of tongs, tortured to adapt itself to a supposed 

 mediaeval form, is found to be incapable of taking up a coal, 

 or a log of wood. There a table, a seat, or some other piece 

 of furniture trips you up by the unexpected projection of an 

 awkward protuberance at the foot of its distorted leg ; and 

 many a carved wooden bedstead is so porcupined with spikes 

 and sharp knobs, that you almost fear to approach it, and 

 and connect with it an idea of pain rather than of repose. 



Admiration for the old should not blind us to the bad it 

 may have; but still we may make a house unite the advantages 

 of modern improvements with the picturesqueness of an older 

 style. Is there any reason why we should exclude large panes 

 of white glass from mullioned windows, denying ourselves 

 much light and a clear view, merely because our ancestors 

 could only obtain diminutive pieces of it ? Would they have 

 used these had they possessed our larger panes ? and even if 

 so, is this a reason for our imitating an inconvenience, which 

 has neither beauty nor architectural necessity to recommend 

 it ? On the other hand to paint, or whitewash, old paneling, 

 or other carved wood-work (as if the plague had been in the 

 house) is as gross a barbarism as substituting sash for mul- 

 lioned windows in a castle. That too which may be tolerated 

 under certain conditions may be objectionable under others ; 

 and the flat-relief, which is so effective in the conventional 

 style of Egyptian sculpture, would in a modern work of art 

 be bald and poor, and give to the figures the appearance of 

 being cut out in card, and pasted on the surface of the stone. 

 By flat-relief I do not of course mean ordinary bas-relief (such 

 as the Panathenaic procession, to which it has been some- 

 times erroneously applied) but with a flat surface parallel to 

 that of the background. 



40. [There is often a tendency in persons, incapable of dis- 



