December, 1905 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



395 



5 — A Very Expensive and Very Vicious Table with Chairs to Match 



every drawing-room in England is as good as this one; but 

 there is no doubt about it, the English people look more at 

 home in their drawing-rooms than do we in our parlors. Be 

 they elaborate or plain, there is usually the good single idea 

 pervading the whole scheme of appointments, and which we 

 habitually lose sight of, and consequently lack (see Fig. 3). 

 Here we have an example of the point in question — some 

 really good pieces of furniture and some really good home 

 ideas hobnobbing again with vicious and degenerate com- 

 pany. Here we may see effort in the right direction thwarted 

 by that strange fatuity of the average American in the realm 

 of household art. 



Compare, if you will, again this ter- 

 rible mixture with the delicious peace and 

 quiet which reign supreme in the King's 

 Hall at Hoghton Tower, in Lancashire, 

 England (Fig. 4). For the life of me 

 I can not understand why Americans, with 

 all their educational advantages, still pre- 

 fer the chairs and tables of Fig. 1 to those 

 we see in use in Fig. 4. Note the gate 

 table, the exquisite turning of its legs and 

 its delightful lines generally. Probablv 

 there is not a gate table — which is a dif- 

 ficult piece of furniture to find in Amer- 

 ica, anyway — to be had in New York city 

 with half as beautiful detail. But the 

 salesman you meet at the door of the 

 furniture warehouse uptown will hardlv 

 know what a " gate table " is; but he will 

 show you " a very fashionable table," he 

 will tell you, instead. Its counterpart you 

 may see in the center of picture No. 5, 

 with chairs to match. The wonder is, 

 who buys it? 



Before me, as T write, there is a gate 

 table I have just purchased for twenty- 

 five dollars. Tt is a small table, and plain 

 beside the raving, tearing beauty in the 



King's Hall at Hoghton Tower. And it is very old and 

 dilapidated — needs a thorough overhauling — and yet I would 

 not exchange my table for the splendid Empire example 

 shown in Fig. 6, with the gas logs thrown in to boot. For 

 the love of goodness, and in hopes of a blessed resurrection, 

 " don't never buy gas logs! " (acknowledgments to old Com- 

 modore Vanderbilt), even if you do have the money to pay 

 for them. But Fig. 6 is a very creditable Empire interior, 

 barring the terrible contrivance for holding exotics, to the 

 left of the picture, and the flounced lamp shade. These are 

 the insane notes that characterize this interior, varnished as a 

 piano case is varnished, as howlingly modern and American, 

 so that by no stretch of the imagination could one fancy him- 

 self a visitor to Fontainebleau as a guest of the first Napoleon. 

 To decorate, then, the withdrawing-room — or, if one's 

 house be just a very humble affair, the living-room — which 

 should always have some kind of doors to make it distinct 

 and separate from the hall, eschew piano-top effects, except 

 for the piano itself, for all highly varnished surfaces tend 

 to defeat the purposes of every-day usage; at least they make 

 us feel uncomfortable, even if we have the means to re- 

 varnish again, for scratches are always unsightly and dis- 

 orderly. Choose the dull waxed finishes for your living- 

 room; as with the dining-room, don't affect a severely pro- 

 nounced style. That is the underdone way of decorating. 

 And don't go in for the latest cult, such as we have in Mission 

 furniture, so-called. Mission furniture, while good in many 

 respects, has been vulgarized by fashion. Don't try to have 

 the furniture all match. Really good, historical pieces of 

 furniture rarely clash with one another. Note the different 

 chairs in Fig. 2. I trust this perhaps dangerous advice will 

 not lead you to select as many inharmonious things as we 

 have in Fig. 3. Better err upon the other side, and have 

 too few things, even to a sense of emptiness; for nothing is 

 more fatal to a successful living-room than crowding and 

 confusion. I have one good example of an American living- 

 room (see Fig. 7), and I have kept it till the last, for the 

 lasting impression. I have no idea whose living-room it is. 

 nor who designed it and furnished it, but it is " all right," 

 and as an object lesson may help the cause of the principles 

 of home decoration more than anything further I can think 

 of to say for the moment. 



6 — Highly Varnished Surfaces Tend to Defeat the Purposes of Every-Day Usage 



