n 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 s