Collected Works of Poe | Page 2

too prevalent - too uninterruptedly
continued - or clumsily interrupted at right angles. If curved lines occur,
they are repeated into unpleasant uniformity. By undue precision, the
appearance of many a fine apartment is utterly spoiled.
Curtains are rarely well disposed, or well chosen in respect to other
decorations. With formal furniture, curtains are out of place; and an
extensive volume of drapery of any kind is, under any circumstance,
irreconcilable with good taste - the proper quantum, as well as the
proper adjustment, depending upon the character of the general effect.
Carpets are better understood of late than of ancient days, but we still
very frequently err in their patterns and colours. The soul of the
apartment is the carpet. From it are deduced not only the hues but the
forms of all objects incumbent. A judge at common law may be an
ordinary man; a good judge of a carpet _must be _a genius. Yet we
have heard discoursing of carpets, with the air "_d'un mouton qui reve,"
_fellows who should not and who could not be entrusted with the

management of their own _moustaches. _Every one knows that a large
floor _may _have a covering of large figures, and that a small one must
have a covering of small - yet this is not all the knowledge in the world.
As regards texture, the Saxony is alone admissible. Brussels is the
preterpluperfect tense of fashion, and Turkey is taste in its dying
agonies. Touching pattern - a carpet should _not _be bedizzened out
like a Riccaree Indian - all red chalk, yellow ochre, and cock's feathers.
In brief - distinct grounds, and vivid circular or cycloid figures, _of no
meaning, _are here Median laws. The abomination of flowers, or
representations of well-known objects of any kind, should not be
endured within the limits of Christendom. Indeed, whether on carpets,
or curtains, or tapestry, or ottoman coverings, all upholstery of this
nature should be rigidly Arabesque. As for those antique floor-cloth &
still occasionally seen in the dwellings of the rabble - cloths of huge,
sprawling, and radiating devises,
stripe-interspersed, and glorious
with all hues, among which no ground is intelligible-these are but the
wicked invention of a race of time-servers and money-lovers - children
of Baal and worshippers of Mammon - Benthams, who, to spare
thought and economize fancy, first cruelly invented the Kaleidoscope,
and then established joint-stock companies to twirl it by steam.
_ Glare is _a leading error in the philosophy of American household
decoration - an error easily recognised as deduced from the perversion
of taste just specified., We are violently enamoured of gas and of glass.
The former is totally inadmissible within doors. Its harsh and unsteady
light offends. No one having both brains and eyes will use it. A mild, or
what artists term a cool light, with its consequent warm shadows, will
do wonders for even an ill-furnished apartment. Never was a more
lovely thought than that of the astral lamp. We mean, of course, the
astral lamp proper - the lamp of Argand, with its original plain
ground-glass shade, and its tempered and uniform moonlight rays. The
cut-glass shade is a weak invention of the enemy. The eagerness with
which we have adopted it, partly on account of its _flashiness, _but
principally on account of its _greater rest, is _a good commentary on
the proposition with which we began. It is not too much to say, that the
deliberate employer of a cut-glass shade, is either radically deficient in
taste, or blindly subservient to the caprices of fashion. The light

proceeding from one of these gaudy abominations is unequal broken,
and painful. It alone is sufficient to mar a world of good effect in the
furniture subjected to its influence. Female loveliness, in especial, is
more than one-half disenchanted beneath its evil eye.
In the matter of glass, generally, we proceed upon false principles. Its
leading feature is _glitter - _and in that one word how much of all that
is detestable do we express ! Flickering, unquiet lights, are _sometimes
_pleasing - to children and idiots always so - but in the embellishment
of a room they should be scrupulously avoided. In truth, even strong
_steady _lights are inadmissible. The huge and unmeaning glass
chandeliers, prism-cut, gas-lighted, and without shade, which dangle in
our most fashionable drawing-rooms, may be cited as the quintessence
of all that is false in taste or preposterous in folly.
The rage for _glitter-_because its idea has become as we before
observed, confounded with that of magnificence in the abstract-has led
us, also, to the exaggerated employment of mirrors. We line our
dwellings with great British plates, and then imagine we have done a
fine thing. Now the slightest thought will be sufficient to convince any
one who