The Wichita daily eagle., 1893-12-05
The aieta aly Eaale Tuesaau 9lorig 1eeeube, 1893
FURNITURE AND BRic-A-RR
Discomforts and Incongruities Of o
Loading the Living Rooms

Oiscomiorts ana lncOnsruittes OF o
Loading the Living Rooms.
''Too little furniture is bad. but too
much, it seems to me, is a good deal
worse" said a jaded housekeeper. my
life is literally worn out with moving
and putting in order and caring for the
thousand and one articles of doubtful
ornamentation and absolute useless
ness with which the house is numbered.
think that an ornament must have
some excuse for being in order to be
really worth the time and trouble re-
quired to take care of it Instead of
this, we have representations of all
sorts OF quaint and queer things that
appear to me to have no right what
ever in the drawing-room, to say the
least
''Some of these days I hope to see
tiop in the bestowing of our household
decorations The library is a good
place for curiosities unless one has a
special room devoted to such purposes.
and they ought to be kept there instead
of in the drawing-room or pariors A
cabinet with shelves might be placed
in either of these rooms and filled with
articles appropriate to the apartment.
But how often do we find every sort of
curio from the horrible and grotesque
to the realistic and almost indecent,
arranged in reception and family rooms.
OF course, where space is limited. one
must do the best one can; but all the
same. there are many bits of bric-a-
brac that would be much more agree
able if less prominently exhibited
SIN the item of furniture, one often
feels that the rooms of the houses of
the well to do people are much more
like the private show offices of a gen.
eral curiosity shop than the living
apartments of persons of refined and
educated taste. The bric-a-brac and
collection craze has its uses but should
never be permitted to override all the
rules of good sense and to verge on the
ridiculous.
81 have often thought, in looking
about some of the houses where Wis
tied, that the particular object in view
in the furnishing was to see how many
odd and curious articles could be
brought together in one place. med
ley of curiosities and trinkets from all
lands gathered into one or two small
rooms is anything but artistic or de-
sira BILE
''All the same, this sort of fu rnish-
ing is continually going on. To secure
the best effects, one ought to have
either a room or some portion OF it es-
pecially set apart for certain kind Of
bric-a-brac To tumble Indian, Chinese,
japanese and all manner of articles in
to one pl ce in such close proximity
that they continually elbow each other
is like colonizing the different sorts of
people under the same roof and COM
pelling them to live there whether
they will or no. The incongruity,
after a time, become painful, and it
would seem as though, in their own
way, the articles would quarrel with
each other as violently as would the
human specimens of the same species,
were they thus crowded in together.
''And what is true of bric-a-brac is
equally true of furniture. The fancy
for odd pieces sometimes runs abso-
lutely riot, and brings about the COL
lection of a heterogeneous assortment
of furnishings that, however fine they
may be individually, are an offense
and a WEAKNESS when they must be
endured collectively. Fewer articles,
chosen and arranged on well-defned
plan and with the most scrupulous re-
gard for one another, are much more
satisfactory to an artistic taste than
the choicest miscellaneous collection
that the gathering mania ever brough
under one roof."-N. Y. Ledger