The question of period furnishing has two sides, and by far the more delightful side is the one of having originals.  There is a glamor about old furniture, a certain air of fragility, although in reality it is usually much stronger than most of our modern factory output, which adds to the charm.  With furniture, as with people, breeding will out.  When one has inherited the furniture, the charm is still greater, for it is pleasant to think of one’s own ancestors as having used the chairs and tables, and danced the stately minuet, with soft candle-light falling from the candelabra, and the great logs burning on the old brass andirons.  But if one cannot have one’s own family traditions, the next best thing is to have furniture with some other family’s traditions, and the third choice is to have the best modern reproductions, and build up one’s own traditions oneself.

The feeling which many people have that Georgian furniture was stiff and uncomfortable is not borne out by the facts.  The sofas were large and roomy, the settees delightful, the arm-chairs and wing chairs regular havens of rest, and when one adds the comfort which modern upholstery gives, there is little left to desire.  Even the regulation side-chair of the period, which some think was the only chair in very common use, is absolutely comfortable for its purpose.  Lounging was much less in vogue then than nowadays and the old cabinet-makers realized that one must be comfortable when sitting up as well as when taking one’s ease.  One must not be deterred by this unfounded bugaboo of discomfort if one wishes a room or house done after the great period styles of the eighteenth century.  With care and knowledge, the result is sure to be delightful and beautiful.

This little book, as I have said before, is not intended to be a guide for collectors, for that is a very big subject in itself, but is meant to try to help a little about the modern side of the question.  There are many grades of furniture made, and one should buy with circumspection, and the best grade which is possible for one to afford.  The very best reproductions are made with as much care and knowledge and skill as the originals, and will last as long, and become treasured heirlooms like those handed down to us.  They are works of art like their eighteenth century models.  The wood is chosen with regard to its beauty of grain, and is treated and finished so the beauty and depth of color is brought out, and the surface is rubbed until there is a soft glow to it.  If one could have the ages-old mahogany which Chippendale and his contemporaries used, there would be little to choose between the originals and our best reproductions, so far as soundness of construction and beauty of detail go.  But the fact that they were the originals of a great style, that no one since then has been able to design any furniture of greater beauty than that of England and France in the eighteenth century, and that we are still copying it, gives an added charm