394 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



December, 190^ 



matters, why, Fig. 1 shows us the kind of 

 thing for his withdrawing-room, living- 

 room, reception-room or parlor he is apt to 

 affect. The furniture is all of it bad in de- 

 sign, but the chair in the center of the pic- 

 ture is the limit. There are two good fea- 

 tures in this reception-room or parlor — the 

 ceiling and door panels — and they should be 

 noted as having fallen in with very detri- 

 mental company. Yet chairs, tables and 

 divans no better than these are daily adver- 

 tised for sale by our leading furniture manu- 

 facturers, and even exposed in shop windows 

 along our best business thoroughfares. 



It is a curious fact that the American, so 

 progressive in matters scientific, hygienic, 

 and of inventive achievement, should be so 

 " dead slow " wherever art is concerned, 

 and more especially in the art of the home. 

 I have had otherwise cultivated people come 

 to me as clients, through somebody's advice, 

 I imagine — an architect rarely obtains a 

 commission from his shingle — who have 

 simply no conception of good architec- 

 ture, either exterior or interior, and who, 

 apparently, have no desire to learn, for after I fancied I had 

 them fairly enlightened and coached upon some rudimentary 

 principles by dint of long and patient conversational tutelage, 

 like as not they would ask me to inspect some very inferior 

 cottage a carpenter and builder had constructed for a friend, 



3 — Here One May See Effort in the Righ Direction Thwarted by that Strange 

 Fatuity of the Average Householder in the Realm of Art 



or to see just such chairs, five o'clock tea tables, divans and 

 anomalous windows with transoms, as we have in Fig. 1. 



Now just compare, if you will, this American parlor 

 proposition with an Old World drawing-room (see Fig. 2, 

 borrowed from English Country Life). Of course, not 



4 -The King's Hal 



