“Friday.
“My Dear Sir,
“In the best bedroom is a four-post bed. Mrs. C. assures me that it will be quite impossible for her to invite any friend to stay with her unless the four-poster be removed, and its place occupied by a brass or iron double-tester. Four-posters are entirely exploded articles. I will trouble you to see to this at your earliest convenience this week.
“Yours faithfully,
“C. C.”
Of course I complied. Two years ago I went to a sale. As I was not very well I did not remain, but left word with my agent to buy certain articles for me. Next day a waggon arrived with my purchases, and among them—a mahogany four-post bed. “Why, good gracious! I do not want that.” “It was going so cheap, and is of solid mahogany,” answered my agent, “so I thought you ought to have it.” That four-poster has never been put together. It lies now in an outhouse with a chaff-cutter, empty cement barrels, and much rubbish. It probably never will be used, except by boring woodworms.
I saw some little while ago in one of the illustrated papers a recommendation how to make use of old carved four-post beds—that is to say, of the carved four posts. Let them be sawn through, and converted into massive picture frames or ornamental chimney-pieces.
I am sorry that the four-poster is doomed to extinction, for it has a history, and it attaches us to our Scandinavian ancestry.
The Greeks and Romans had nothing of the sort. Their beds were not closed in on all sides; it is a little doubtful whether these beds were very comfortable. In great houses they were richly ornamented, the legs enriched with ivory, and were sometimes even of precious metal. They were covered with silk and tissues of interwoven gold; but somehow in classic literature we do not come upon much that speaks of the luxurious comfort of a bed. In the charming passage on Sleep in the first Ode of the Second Book, Horace makes no allusion to the bed as having any relation to sleep, does not hang upon it tenderly as something to be fond of. The bedroom of a Roman house was a mere closet. The Roman flung himself on a bed because he was obliged to take some rest, not because he loved to sink among feathers, and enjoy repose.
The modern Italian bed is descended by direct filiation from the classic lectus, and what an uncomfortable article it is! There are plenty of representations of ancient beds on tombstones and on vases; they are not attractive; they look very hard, unpleasantly deficient in soft mattresses.