This is a subject so thoroughly discussed in the books, of late, that
anything which may here be said, would avail but little, inasmuch as our
opinions might be looked upon as "old-fashioned," "out of date," and "of
no account whatever,"--for wonderfully modern notions in room-furnishing
have crept into the farm house, as well as into town houses. Indeed, we
confess to altogether ancient opinions in regard to household furniture,
and contend, that, with a few exceptions, "modern degeneracy" has
reached the utmost stretch of absurdity, in house-furnishing, to which
the ingenuity of man can arrive. Fashions in furniture change about as
often as the cut of a lady's dress, or the shape of her bonnet, and
pretty much from the same source, too--the fancy shops of Paree, once,
in good old English, Paris, the capital city of France. A farmer, rich
or poor, may spend half his annual income, every year of his life, in
taking down old, and putting up new furniture, and be kept uncomfortable
all the time; when, if he will, after a quiet, good-tempered talk with
his better-half, agree with her upon the list of _necessary_ articles to
make them _really comfortable_; and then a catalogue of what shall
comprise the _luxurious_ part of their furnishings, which, when
provided, they will fixedly make up their mind to keep, and be content
with, they will remain entirely free from one great source of "the ills
which flesh is heir to."
It is pleasant to see a young couple setting out in their housekeeping
life, well provided with convenient and properly-selected furniture,
appropriate to all the uses of the family; and then to keep, and use it,
and enjoy it, like contented, sensible people; adding to it, now and
then, as its wear, or the increasing wants of their family may require.
Old, familiar things, to which we have long been accustomed, and
habituated, make up a round share of our actual enjoyment. A family
addicted to constant change in their household furniture, attached to
nothing, content with nothing, and looking with anxiety to the next
change of fashion which shall introduce something _new_ into the house,
can take no sort of comfort, let their circumstances be ever so
affluent. It is a kind of dissipation in which some otherwise worthy
people are prone to indulge, but altogether pernicious in the
indulgence. It detracts, also, from the apparent respectability of a
family to find nothing _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 them in condition; and then, with
all this care, they are good for nothing, in any sensible use. We have
frequently been into a country house, where we anticipated better
things, and, on being introduced into the "parlor," actually found
everything in the furniture line so dainty and "prinked up," that we
were afraid to sit down on the frail things stuck around by way of
seats, for fear of breaking them; and everything about it looked so
gingerly and inhospitable, that we felt an absolute relief when we could
fairly get out of it, and take a place by the wide old fireplace, in the
common living room, comfortably ensconced in a good old easy,
high-backed, split-bottomed chair--there was positive comfort in that,
when in the "parlor" there was nothing but restraint and _dis_comfort.
No; leave all this vanity to town-folk, who have nothing better--or who,
at least, think they have--to amuse themselves with; it has no fitness
for a country dwelling, whatever. All this kind of frippery smacks of
the boarding school, the pirouette, and the dancing master, and is out
of character for the farm, or the sensible retirement of the country.
In connection with the subject of furniture, a remark may be made on the
_room_ arrangement of the house, which might, perhaps, have been more
fittingly made when discussing that subject, in the designs of our
houses. Some people have a marvellous propensity for introducing into
their houses a _suite_ of rooms, connected by wide folding-doors, which
must always be opened into each other, furnished just alike, and devoted
to extraordinary occasions; thus absolutely sinking the best rooms in
the house, for display half a dozen times in the year, and at the
sacrifice of the every-day comfort of the family. This is nothing but a
bastard taste, of the most worthless kind, introduced from the city--the
propriety of which, for city life, need not here be discussed. The
presence of such arrangement, in a country house, is fatal to everything
like domestic enjoyment, and always followed by great expense and
inconvenience. No room, in any house, should be too good for occupation
by the family themselves--not every-day, and common-place--but
occupation at any and all times, when convenience or pleasure demand it.
If a large room be required, let the single room itself be large; not
sacrifice an extra room to the occasional extension of the choicer one,
as in the use of folding-doors must be done. This "parlor" may be better
furnished--and so it should be--than any other room in the house. Its
carpet should be not too good to tread, or stand upon, or for the
children to roll and tumble upon, provided their shoes and clothes be
clean. Let the happy little fellows roll and tumble on it, to their
heart's content, when their mother or elder sisters are with them--for
it may be, perhaps, the most joyous, and most innocent pleasure of their
lives, poor things! The hearth-rug should be in keeping with the carpet,
also, and no floor-cloth should be necessary to cover it, for fear of
soiling; but everything free and easy, with a comfortable, inviting,
hospitable look about it.
Go into the houses of our great men--such as live in the country--whom
God made great, not money--and see how _they_ live. We speak not of
statesmen and politicians alone, but great merchants, great scholars,
great divines, great mechanics, and all men who, in mind and
attainments, are head and shoulder above their class in any of the walks
of life, and you find no starch, or flummery about them. We once went
out to the country house--he lived there all the time, for that
matter--of a distinguished banker of one of our great cities, to dine,
and spend the day with him. He had a small farm attached to his
dwelling, where he kept his horses and cows, his pigs, and his poultry.
He had a large, plain two-story cottage house, with a piazza running on
three sides of it, from which a beautiful view of the neighboring city,
and water, and land, was seen in nearly all directions. He was an
educated man. His father had been a statesman of distinguished ability
and station at home, and a diplomatist abroad, and himself educated in
the highest circles of business, and of society. His wife, too, was the
daughter of a distinguished city merchant, quite his equal in all the
accomplishments of life. His own wealth was competent; he was the
manager of millions of the wealth of others; and his station in society
was of the highest. Yet, with all this claim to pretension, his house
did not cost him eight thousand dollars--and he built it by "days-work,"
too, so as to have it faithfully done; and the furniture in it, aside
from library, paintings, and statuary, never cost him three thousand.
Every room in it was a plain one, not more highly finished than many a
farmer's house can afford. The furniture of every kind was plain,
saving, perhaps, the old family plate, and such as he had added to it,
which was all substantial, and made for use. The younger children--and
of these, younger and older, he had several--we found happy, healthy,
cheerful, and frolicking on the carpets; and their worthy mother, in the
plainest, yet altogether appropriate garb, was sitting among them, at
her family sewing, and kindly welcomed us as we took our seats in front
of the open, glowing fireplace. "Why, sir," we exclaimed, rubbing our
hands in the comfortable glow of warmth which the fire had given--for it
was a cold December day--"you are quite plain, as well as wonderfully
comfortable, in your country house--quite different from your former
city residence!" "To be sure we are," was the reply; "we stood it as
long as we could, amid the starch and the gimcracks of ---- street,
where we rarely had a day to ourselves, and the children could never
_go_ into the streets but they must be tagged and tasselled, in their
dress, into all sorts of discomfort, merely for the sake of appearance.
So, after standing it as long as we could, my wife and I determined we
would try the country, for a while, and see what we could make of it.
We kept our town-house, into which we returned for a winter or two; but
gave it up for a permanent residence here, with which we are perfectly
content. We see here all the friends we want to see; we all enjoy
ourselves, and the children are healthy and happy." And this is but a
specimen of thousands of families in the enjoyment of country life,
including the families of men in the highest station, and possessed of
sufficient wealth.
Why, then, should the farmer ape the fashion, and the frivolity of the
butterflies of town life, or permit his family to do it? It is the
sheerest possible folly in him to do so. Yet, it is a folly into which
many are imperceptibly gliding, and which, if not reformed, will
ultimately lead to great discomfort to themselves, and ruin to their
families. Let thoughtless people do as they choose. Pay no attention to
their extravagance; but watch them for a dozen years, and see how they
come out in their fashionable career; and observe the fate of their
families, as they get "established" in the like kind of life. He who
keeps aloof from such temptation, will then have no cause to regret that
he has maintained his own steady course of living, and taught his sons
and daughters that a due attention to their own comfort, with economical
habits in everything relating to housekeeping, will be to their lasting
benefit in future.
But, we have said enough to convey the ideas in house-furnishing we
would wish to impart; and the reader will do as he, or she, no doubt,
would have done, had we not written a word about it--go and select such
as may strike their own fancy.
We received, a day or two since, a letter from a person at the west,
entirely unknown to us, whose ideas so entirely correspond with our own,
that we give it a place, as showing that a proper taste _does_ prevail
among many people in this country, in regard to buildings, and
house-furnishings; and which we trust he will pardon us for publishing,
as according entirely with our own views, in conclusion:
----, ----, Ill., Dec. 18, 1851.
DEAR SIR,--I received, a few days since, a copy of the first number
of a periodical called the "Plough," into which is copied the
elevation of a design for a farm house, purporting to be from a
forthcoming work of yours, entitled "Rural Architecture." Although a
perfect stranger to you, you will perhaps allow me to make one or
two suggestions.
I have seen no work yet, which seems fully to meet the wants of our
country people in the matter of furniture. After having built their
houses, they need showing how to furnish them in the cheapest, most
neat, comfortable, convenient, and substantial manner. The furniture
should be designed for use, not merely for show. I would have it
plain, but not coarse--just enough for the utmost convenience, but
nothing superfluous. The articles of furniture figured, and
partially described in the late works on those subjects, are mostly
of too elaborate and expensive a cast to be generally introduced
into our country houses. There is too much _nabobery_ about them to
meet the wants, or suit the taste of the plain American farmer.
As to out-houses--the barn, stable, carriage and wagon-house,
tool-house, piggery, poultry-house, corn-crib, and granary, (to
say nothing of the "rabbit-warren" and "dovecote,")--are necessary
appendages of the farm house. Now, as cheapness is one great
desideratum with nearly all our new beginners in this western
region, it seems to me, that such plans as will conveniently include
the greatest number of these under the same roof, will be best
suited to their necessities. I do not mean to be understood that,
for the sake of the first cost, we should pay no regard to the
appearance, or that we should slight our work, or suffer it to be
constructed of flimsy or perishable materials: we should not only
have an eye to taste and durability, but put in practice the most
strict economy.
I hope, in the above matters, you may be able to furnish something
better suited to the necessities and means of our plain farmers,
than has been done by any of your predecessors.