Its beauty is that it is "at home" in simple
American houses, and yet by virtue of its very usefulness and sturdiness
it is not out of place in a room where beautiful objects of other
periods are used. The long oak table that is so comfortably ample for
books and magazines and flowers in your living-room may be copied from
an old refectory table--but what of it? It fulfils its new mission just
as frankly as the original table served the monks who used it.
The soft brown of oak is a pleasure after the over-polished mahogany of
a thousand rooms. I do not wish to condemn Colonial mahogany furniture,
you understand. I simply wish to remind you that there are other woods
and models available. French furniture of the best type represents the
supreme art of the cabinet-maker, and is incomparable for formal rooms,
but I am afraid the time will never come when French furniture will be
interchangeable with the oak and mahogany of England and America.
In short, the whole thing should be a matter of taste and suitability.
If you have a few fine old things that have come to you from your
ancestors--a grandfather's clock, an old portrait or two--you are quite
justified in bringing good reproductions of similar things into your
home. The effect is the thing you are after, isn't it? Then, too, you
will escape the awful fever that makes any antique seem desirable, and
in buying reproductions you can select really comfortable furniture.
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