A blue
and white ginger jar, a copper loving-cup, or even a homely brown
earthenware bean-pot, will make a good bowl for an oil or electric lamp,
but of the dreadful bowls sold in the shops for the purpose the less
said the better. How can one see beauty in a lurid bowl and shade of red
glass! Better stick to wax candles the rest of your life than indulge in
such a lamp!
I know people plead that they have to buy what is offered; they cannot
find simple lamps and hanging lanterns at small prices and so they
_must_ buy bad ones. The manufacturer makes just the objects that people
demand. So long as you accept these things, just so long will he make
them. If all the women who complain about the hideous lighting-fixtures
that are sold were to refuse absolutely to buy them, a few years would
show a revolution in the designing of these things.
There has been of late a vulgar fashion of having a huge mass of colored
glass and beads suspended from near-brass chains in the dining-rooms of
certain apartments and houses. These monstrous things are called
"domes"--no one knows why. For the price of one of them you could buy a
three pronged candlestick, equipped for electricity, for your
dining-room table. It is the sight of hundreds of these dreadful "domes"
in the lamp shops that gives one a feeling of discouragement.
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