Page [121]

THE NEW PATH.
AUGUST, 1865.
HOW SHALL WE FURNISH OUR HOUSES?
CURTAINS AND CARPETS.
"THE Dutch have, perhaps, an inde-
terminate idea that a curtain is not a
cabbage.  In Spain, they are all cur-
tains-a nation of hangmen." This is
Poe's dictum, in the essay quoted in our
former paper on furniture. His sum-
ming up: " The Hottentots and Kicka-
poos are very well in their way; the
Yankees alone are preposterous;" while
near enough for his purpose to the
truth, does not declare what estimate
he had made of the capacity of the
Yankees to use drapery.
This capacity, it must be seen, is of
the lowest order. There is no part of
our house decoration that baffles more
completely all efforts to make it seemly
than the curtains. It is not strange
that it should be so, for Americans have
very little use for curtains. One rem-
nant of the old traditions respecting
them still lingers, but it is a remnant of
tradition only. The last general useful-
ness of them ceased when French bed-
steads came into fashion, and bed-cur-
tains were taken down as things no
longer needed.
Bed-curtains seem to have been the
first draperies used in private residences;
beginning our reckoning with the be-
ginning of modern civilization-they
and their like of like use. This use
was to protect from the cold and from
drafts of air. Castle chambers, in the
tenth century, were huge and walled
I,,ith stone, without glass or other means
of closing the window-openings. Later,
they were lined with plaster or with
wainscoting of wood, and wooden shut-
ters werehung; and even glass set in
sashes was very generally supplied by
the beginning of the twelfth century.
However they might be finished and
fitted qp, there were currents of air,
and the wind blew in through crevices
and down the wide-throated chimneys;
and the heavy tapestries and stuffs of
woolen and linen, made in the middle
ages, were found useful to shut out the
weather. There still remain a few speci-
mens of an utensil, once very common,
often illustrated and mentioned in man-
uscripts-a sort of spur or pr'ojecting
arm of wood close at the side of a win-
dow or door. This was to carry a
curtain. Sometimes these spurs were
hinged; the curtain w1as to be shut
against the wall so as to cover the win-
dow, or opened, at pleasure. Sometimes
it was stationary; it was desired only
to keep the wind from a certain bed or
fixed chair. The bedsteads in wealthy
houses, huge, richly ornamented, im-
movable structures, were hung around
with curtains of heavy material. And
smaller squares and parallelograms of
tapestry were at once the " afghans,"
the carpets, and the screens of the time;
for a square bit of stuff could be hung
over the high back-rail settle, or spread
over the knees, or laid under the feet at
pleasure.
VOL. II.]
[No. 8.