ng _old_ about them--as if they themselves were of
yesterday, and newly dusted out of a modern shop-keeper's stock in
trade. The furniture of a house ought to look as though the family
within it once had a grandfather--and as if old things had some
veneration from those who had long enjoyed their service.

We are not about to dictate, of what fashion household furniture should
be, when selected, any further than that of a plain, substantial, and
commodious fashion, and that it should comport, so far as those
requirements in it will admit, with the approved modes of the day. But
we are free to say, that in these times the extreme of absurdity, and
unfitness for _use_, is more the fashion than anything else. What so
useless as the modern French chairs, standing on legs like pipe-stems,
_garote_-ing your back like a rheumatism, and frail as the legs of a
spider beneath you, as you sit in it; and a tribe of equally worthless
incumbrances, which absorb your money in their cost, and detract from
your comfort, instead of adding to it, when you have got them; or a
bedstead so high that you must have a ladder to climb into it, or so low
as to scarcely keep you above the level of the floor, when lying on it.
No; give us the substantial, the easy, the free, and enjoyable articles,
and the rest may go to tickle the fancy of those who have a taste for
them. Nor do these flashy furnishings add to one's rank in society, or
to the good opinion of those whose consideration is most valuable. Look
into the houses of those people who are the _really_ substantial, and
worthy of the land. There will be found little of such frippery with
them. Old furniture, well-preserved, useful in everything, mark the
well-ordered arrangement of their rooms, and give an air of quietude, of
comfort, and of hospitality to their apartments. Children cling to such
objects in after life, as heir-looms of affection and parental regard.

Although we decline to give specific directions about what varieties of
furniture should constitute the furnishings of a house, or to illustrate
its style or fashion by drawings, and content ourself with the single
remark, that it should, in all cases, be strong, plain, and durable--no
sham, nor ostentation about it--and such as is _made for use_: mere
trinkets stuck about the room, on center tables, in corners, or on the
mantel-piece, are the foolishest things imaginable. They are costly;
they require a world of care, to keep th