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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
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