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themselves--or of taste as regards the proprietor:--this for the reason,
first, that wealth is not, in England, the loftiest object of ambition
as constituting a nobility; and secondly, that there, the true nobility
of blood, confining itself within the strict limits of legitimate taste,
rather avoids than affects that mere costliness in which a parvenu
rivalry may at any time be successfully attempted.
The people will imitate the nobles, and the result is a thorough
diffusion of the proper feeling. But in America, the coins current being
the sole arms of the aristocracy, their display may be said, in general,
to be the sole means of the aristocratic distinction; and the populace,
looking always upward for models, are insensibly led to confound the two
entirely separate ideas of magnificence and beauty. In short, the cost
of an article of furniture has at length come to be, with us, nearly
the sole test of its merit in a decorative point of view--and this test,
once established, has led the way to many analogous errors, readily
traceable to the one primitive folly.
There could be nothing more directly offensive to the eye of an artist
than the interior of what is termed in the United States--that is to
say, in Appallachia--a well-furnished apartment. Its most usual defect
is a want of keeping. We speak of the keeping of a room as we would of
the keeping of a picture--for both the picture and the room are amenable
to those undeviating principles which regulate all varieties of art; and
very nearly the same laws by which we decide on the higher merits of a
painting, suffice for decision on the adjustment of a chamber.
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