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 to bring back art by complete reproductions of old-day furnishings has been much the vogue abroad. The Parisians distinguish many styles and affect to carry them out in every detail. The Americans have copied Paris, and we have done a little ourselves. But the weak element in all this is, that the occupier of these mediæval or classic apartments remains still the nineteenth-century embodiment, which we meet in railway carriage and omnibus. We cannot be cultured Epicureans in a drawing-room of the Roman Empire, and by the opening of a door walk as Flemish Burgomasters into our libraries. The heart of the age will mould its productions irrespective of fashion or archæology, and such miserable shams fail to reach it.

If we, who live in this century, can at all ourselves appraise the position, its 269