CHAPTER II 



THE OLD FURNITURE OF COTTAGE AND FARMHOUSE 



It seems a strange thing that, in these days of general 

 progress and enlightenment, the household furniture of 

 cottage and farm should have become so much debased and 

 deteriorated. 



In the older days it Avas sufficient, strong, well-made, and 

 beautiful of its kind. It <?ave a comfortable sense of satis- 

 faction, in that it was absolutely suitable for its purpose. 

 Many of the more solid pieces, oak tables, dressers, linen- 

 chests and cupboards, had come down from father to son 

 from Tudor and Jacobean times. They had gained a richly 

 dark colouring and delightful surface by age and by frequent 

 polishing with bses'-wax, and were the just pride of the good 

 housewife. 



Now, alas ! this fine old furniture is rare in these countr} r 

 dwellings. It has been replaced by wretched stuff, shoddy 

 and pretentious. It is even more noticeable in the farm- 

 houses, where, even if a good piece or two remains, it is 

 swamped by a quantity of things that are merely flimsy and 

 meretricious. 



The tendency of the age, regrettably prevalent in England, 

 and shown in a straining after a kind of display unsuited to 

 station, seems in some measure to account for this. Another 

 bad influence is the quantity of cheap rubbish, the outcome 

 of trade competition, offered in shops ; stuff that has no use 



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