The Portland daily press., 1877-05-28

only the sensual and brutal. ask no strong
err proof of this than in this very furniture.
What do we in America, sleep OH, sit on, or
eat off? Tell me, describe to me these things
in common, daily use, end will tell you
what we are and what we are coming to.
Two words suffice to depict all these horrors.
These two words are glue and Varnsh. Ac-
cursed mechanism, with its debasing inhu-
ences, has accomplished this. Instead OF
patient toll, lofty aspirations, and diligent
labor, some machine, with cruel jaws, seizes
on cord of wood, and out comes tables,
chairs, beds, washstands and bureaus made
by the million. But one idea actuates the
manufacturer. How many OF these ungainly
things, he asks himself, can pack up in bulk
so as to transmit them at the lowest cost by
railroad from the point of manufacture to the
place of consumption? 1t is not elegance nor
convenience which dictates these forms but
questions like these, What quantity of chairs
or beds can cut out of so much wood, and
what will the freight be? When the pieces of
wood than, are produced a sordid wretch we
call furniture dealer, seizes on the dsmem-
bered fragments, and has his glue.pot hot.
Alas, the glue.pot in America is ever seeth
ing! He sticks the pieces together and next
slathers the thing over with vaInsh. By
careful statistics have discovered that in
exact proportion as the consumption varnish
increases in country, so does art diminish.
Which is the greater curse of the age, glue Or
varnish, no man can tell. Both of them
mark the art degeneracy of the times we live
in. Did you know that we no longer even
mortice? Between a dove-tail and a nail
there is just that wide distinction which eX-
lists between the aesthetic and the sensual"
held my breath. Was my Lorenzo be-
reft of reason?
81 long for symbolism-and a Pompeiian
revival Can realize anything in a Wind
sor chair more than in a Bath brick? A
Windsor chair is but reproduction of the
brutalizing influences of English art ia its
most abject period. Shall art which has
struggled find no better development in
America than in loafing slipshod arm chair,
or a revolving monitor-turret pepper-castor?
have tried, Marie, have sought repose on
a horse-hair covered sofa. Reclining on its
black, seedy, glossy sarcophagal surface, in
vain have l courted sleep, In the first place
little bits ofjagged hair like wires pricked me,
and in Imagination | saw little hecatomb of
horses with flying names and tail, dashing
over the ground, until in sympathy the very
sofa galloped, reared, shook and threw me
sprawlng on the floor in horrid night
mare"
''Pray do calm yourself Lorenzo" said
now thoroughly alarmed.
''My breakfast is punishment to me. All
food, unless served through an aesthetic me-
dunn, is misery. Give me milk in MezzenG
aud in chiccere serve my coffee. l can't
even salt my egg save from a saliere. I have
given up lager since l cannot quaff it in a
bOcdtellO. Existence to me without majolica
is nothing. If cannot have Master Giorgio,
Castle Durante will suffice. What is life
without fayence? Barbarous block tin coffee
pots and stone-ware cups will kill me. If,
unfortunately, was not born in the time of
Renaissance, l must live back to it in order
to be happy. The consolation of religion in
the best of churches is nothing to me if the
sacred edifce has no dado in it."
Renaissance! Fudgep' 1 said "When
men and women slept in sumptuous beds
they stood good chance of having their
Threats cut or of being poisoned before morn
ing. Contentedness and pleasant dreams
come to the tired even in a shake-down.
quenches the thirst better than chocolate in
a Severes cup"
"Shake-doWn-a tin dipper! Horrible!
But Marie, you cannot feel as 1 do. The
useful is all the better for being graceful. We
are made happier by the presence of objects
which display thought, skill, genius and
beauty. What meaning is there to me in
ponderous stone ware cup9 Its weight only
brings one idea to my mind. I'll had to de-
hSAu q hdhlOu uOuusdlu pass, WduU
but grateful of these wretched things to
hurl down, cur. by cup, on the enemy below,
anc crush him.
Good cups tell another story to me-" l re-
piled. "Whereas, three or four hundred
years ago your numbering, poisoning people
eat and drank off their fine table furniture,
the poorer classes, when they had anything
to appease their hunger, devoured their food
like wild beasts. Now all the world can buy
II s1o1
Here,' said, "are my nice Windsor chairs !;
you are not going to put me out of conceit of
them. shall sit down on one to show you
how really comfortable it isl
may have, for the purposes of illustration,
flounced down rather too heavily in that
chair. regret to say the piece of furniture,
with scarce warning crack, crumbled under
me like an ancient ruin. I think heard my
husband laugh. What I do know is that the
to pick me up. 81 told you sou was all he
said, in rather an exulting tone of voice;
''glue and varnshw
am somewhat happier now. think the
cure has come. The facts which have re-
counted, occurred not more than a year ago.
Seeing that this furniture madness in my
husband was only Of recent date, studied
the case up patiently, laboriousy. Undoubt-
GUY tue uiSuIQcT III Lue Ildu 5 ulnu arose ell
tirely from his reading articles on art applied
to furniture, which have been so constantly
published in popular magazines of late. No
topics of this character now, assure you,
pass through his hands. Exercising a most
rigid censorship, inexorably scissor every
aesthetic furniture piece from the magazine or
papers which he reads. Just let me see Re-
Nuisance, Byzantine or Cirque Cento
printed anywhere and that is enough. burn
the paper, or give it to the cook to SINCE the
fowls with.