I
cannot impress the point too frequently that beautiful and rational
designs are necessary in all work. I did not imagine, until I went
into some of your simpler cities, that there was so much bad work
done. I found, where I went, bad wall-papers horribly designed,
and coloured carpets, and that old offender the horse-hair sofa,
whose stolid look of indifference is always so depressing. I found
meaningless chandeliers and machine-made furniture, generally of
rosewood, which creaked dismally under the weight of the ubiquitous
interviewer. I came across the small iron stove which they always
persist in decorating with machine-made ornaments, and which is as
great a bore as a wet day or any other particularly dreadful
institution. When unusual extravagance was indulged in, it was
garnished with two funeral urns.
It must always be remembered that what is well and carefully made
by an honest workman, after a rational design, increases in beauty
and value as the years go on. The old furniture brought over by
the Pilgrims, two hundred years ago, which I saw in New England, is
just as good and as beautiful to-day as it was when it first came
here.
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