and had probably been evolved by some early American cabinet-maker, for while it had all and even more than the grace of the high-backed Chippendale patterns, it was better fitted to the rounded surfaces of the human body.  It was a spindle chair with a slightly hollowed seat, the rim of the back rounded to a loop which was continued into arm-rests, which spread into thickened blades for hand-rests.  Being very much in love with the grace and ease of it, I took it to a manufacturer to be reproduced in mahogany, who, with a far-sighted sagacity, flooded the market with that particular pattern.

We are used—­and with good reason—­to consider mahogany as a durable wood, but of the half-dozen of mahogany copies of the old oak chair, each one has suffered some break of legs or arms or spindles, while the original remains as firm in its withered old age as it was the day I rescued it from the “out-kitchen” of the Long Island farm-house.

For the next fifty years after the close of our colonial history, the colonial cabinet-makers in New England and the northern Middle States continued to flourish, evolving an occasional good variation from what may be called colonial forms.  Rush-and flag-bottomed chairs and chairs with seats of twisted rawhide—­the frames often gilded and painted—­ sometimes took the place of wrought mahogany, except in the best rooms of great houses.  Many of these are of excellent shape and construction, and specially interesting as an adaptation of natural products of the country.  Undoubtedly, with our ingenious modern appliances, we could make as good furniture as was made in Chippendale and Sheraton’s day, with far less expenditure of effort; but the demon of competition in trade will not allow it.  We must use all material, perfect or imperfect; we cannot afford to select.  We must cover knots and imperfections with composition and pass them on.  We must use the cheapest glue, and save an infinitesimal sum in the length of our dowels; we must varnish instead of polishing, or “the other man” will get the better of us.  If we did not do these things our furniture would be better, but “the other man” would sell more, because he could sell more cheaply.

Since the revived interest in the making of furniture, we find an occasional and marked recurrence to primitive form—­on each occasion the apparently new style taking on the name of the man who produced it.

In our own day we have seen the “Eastlake furniture” appear and disappear, succeeded by the “Morris furniture,” which is undoubtedly better adapted to our varied wants.  At present, mortising and dowelling have come to the front as proper processes, especially for table-building; and this time the style appears under the name of “Mission furniture.”  Much of this is extremely well suited for cottage furnishing, but the occasional exaggeration of the style takes one back not only to early, but the earliest, English art, when chairs were immovable seats or blocks, and tables absolute fixtures on account of the weighty legs upon which they were built.  In short, the careful and cultivated decorator finds it as imperative to guard against exaggerated simplicity as unsupported prettiness.