CHAPTER III.
BEDS AND BEDDING.
WHEN we discuss a bedroom, the bed ought certainly to be the first thing considered. Here at least, is a great improvement within even the last forty or fifty years. Where are now those awful four-posters, so often surmounted by huge wooden knobs or plumes of feathers, or which even offered hideously carved griffin’s heads to superintend your slumbers? Gone, “quite gone,” as children say. At first we ran as usual into the opposite extreme, and bestowed ourselves at night in frightful and vulgar frames of cast iron, ornamented with tawdry gilt or bronze scroll-work, but such things are seldom seen now, and even the cheap common iron or brass bedstead of the present day has at least the merit of simplicity. Its plain rails at foot and head are a vast improvement on the fantastic patterns of even twenty years ago, and the bedsteads of the present day will long continue in general use in modern houses. Their extreme cheapness and cleanliness are great points in their favour, and when they are made low, and have a spring frame with one rather thick mattress at the top, they are perfectly comfortable to sleep in besides being harmless to look at.
Fig. 1.
But in many rooms where the style of both decoration and furniture has been carried back for a century and a half, and all the severe and artistic lines of the tastes of those days must needs be preserved, then indeed an ordinary iron or brass bedstead, of ever so unobtrusive a pattern would be ludicrously out of place. Still, if our minds revolt from anything like a return to the old nightmare-haunted huge Beds of Ware, we can find something to sleep on which will be in harmony with the rest of the surroundings, and yet combine the modern needs of air and light with the old-fashioned strictness of form and beauty of detail. Here is a drawing ([Fig. 1]) made from an old Dutch bedstead by Mr. Lathrop. The sides are of beautifully and conscientiously inlaid work, whilst the slight outward slope of both the head and foot-board insures the perfection of comfort. To avoid a too great austerity of form, the upper cap of the foot-board has been cut in curves, and the solidity of the legs modified ever so slightly. The bedding of this bedstead must by no means project beyond its sides, but must fit into the box-like cavity intended to receive it. In this bedstead ([Fig. 2]), which was made from a design by Mr. Sandier, more latitude is allowed in this respect, and its perfect simplicity can only be equalled by its beauty.
