EBONY.
Every one has his prejudice, and I have no doubt but that many will consider me lacking in taste if I condemn this wood. It has one sole redeeming feature—blackness—which renders it indispensable in many cases. Yet I have seen rock maple dyed black, that put ebony to shame for richness of color and fineness of grain. No ebony that I ever saw was black, naturally. It was brown, and became black by oiling and varnishing. There is a variety, called “bastard ebony,” which is full of whitish brown stripes, and is soft like pine, but the true ebony is not to me a precious wood, although it is expensive, and, in some cases, undeniably handsome. In spite of all selection, aided by good judges, I have frequently found my “black ebony” any thing but black; it is full of season streaks and cracks, and splits in the most perverse and unexpected manner.