The following table, while it must not be taken as fully conclusive, gives at least a basis of consideration: 

Hot air.       Steam.          Hot water. 
First cost..................   Small.         Higher.         Highest. 
Comparative coal
consumption ............  18 1/2 tons.  13 1/2 tons.   10 tons. 
Average durability..........  12 years.     35 years.     Indestructible
Heat distribution...........   Uneven.        Regular.        Even. 
Temperature.................   Variable.      Fair.           Regular. 
Ventilation.................   Good, if      Good, with     Good, with
properly      indirect       indirect
managed.      system.        system. 
Quality of heated air.......   Ditto.         Ditto.          Ditto. 
Dust and dirt...............   Much.          Little.         None. 
Danger of fire..............   Moderate.      None.           None. 
Danger of explosion.........   Slight.        None.           None. 
Noise.......................   None.          Occasional.     Almost none. 
Management.................. Delightful.  Pleasure.     Joy. 
Relative cost of apparatus..  9             13             15
Ditto, plus repairs and
fuel for five years.....  29 1/2        29 2/3         27
Ditto, plus repairs and
fuel for five years.....  81            63             52 1/2

 * Makers’ statement.

These comparisons are probably, on the whole, somewhat unfair to the high-grade furnace.

CHAPTER IV

FURNITURE

Much of good sense and more that is nonsensical has been written about furniture.  Observation tends to justify belief that in general effect the nonsense has proved more potent than its antithesis.

THE QUEST OF THE BEAUTIFUL

Originality has been preached, and we have seen the result in abnormalities that conform to no conception of artistic or practical quality ever recognized.  Antique models have been glorified, with a sequence of puny, spiritless imitations.  Simplicity has been extolled, and we find the word interpreted in clumsiness and crudity.  Delicacy of outline has been urged, and we triumph in the further accomplishments of flimsiness and hopeless triviality.

And yet through all that has been preached, through all that has been executed, there runs a vein of truth.  Each age should express itself, not merely the thought of centuries past; still, it can expect to do little more than take from antecedent cycles those features that will best serve the present, adding an original touch here and there.  So far, then, as we find in the furniture of the Georgian period, or of Louis Quinze, or even of the ancient Greeks, such suggestions as will help us to live this twentieth-century life more comfortably and agreeably, we may with good conscience borrow or imitate.