Perhaps the most unlovely circumstance about the “palatial residences” of our country is that everything in them appears to have been bought at once. Everything is equally new, and equally innocent of any imprint of the owner’s personality. He has not lived among his possessions long enough to mould them to his own likeness, and very often he has not even selected them himself. I have known whole libraries purchased in a week, and placed _en masse_ upon their destined shelves; whole rooms furnished at one fell swoop with all things needful, from the chandelier in the ceiling to the Dresden figures in the cabinet. I have known people who either mistrusted their own tastes, or who had no tastes to mistrust, and so surrendered their houses to upholsterers and decorators, giving them _carte blanche_ to do their best or worst. A room which has been the unresisting prey of an upholsterer is, on the whole, the saddest thing that money ever bought; yet its deplorable completeness calls forth rapturous commendations from those who can understand no natural line of demarcation between a dwelling-place and a shop. The same curious delight in handsome things, apart from any beauty or fitness, has resulted in our over-ornamented Pullman cars, with their cumbrous and stuffy hangings; and in the aggressive luxury of our ocean steamers, where paint and gilding run riot, and every scrap of wall space bears its burden of inappropriate decoration. To those for whom a sea voyage is but a penitential pilgrimage, the fat frescoed Cupids and pink roses of the saloons offer no adequate compensation for their sufferings; whitewash and hangings of sackcloth would harmonize more closely with their sentiments. Yet these ornate embellishments pursue them now even to the solitude of their staterooms, and the newest steamers boast of cabins where the wretched traveler, too ill to arise from his berth, may be solaced by Cupids of his own frisking nakedly over the wash-bowl, and by pink roses in profusion festooning his narrow cell. If he can look at them without loathing, he is to be envied his unequaled serenity of mind.
It is strange that the authors who have written so much about luxury, whether they praise it satirically, like Mandeville, or condemn it very seriously, like Mr. Goldwin Smith, or merely inquire into its history and traditions, like that careful scholar, M. Baudrillart, should never have been struck with the amount of discomfort it entails. In modern as in ancient times, the same zealous pursuit of prodigality results in the same heavy burden of undesirable possessions. The youthful daughter of Marie Antoinette was allowed, we are told, four pairs of shoes a week; and M. Taine, inveighing bitterly against the extravagances of the French court, has no word of sympathy to spare for the unfortunate little princess, condemned by this ruthless edict always to wear new shoes. Louis XVI. had thirty doctors of his own; but surely no one will be found to envy him this royal superfluity. He also had a hundred and fifty pages, who were probably a terrible nuisance; and two chair-carriers, who were paid twenty thousand livres a year to inspect his Majesty’s chairs, which duty they solemnly performed twice a day, whether they were wanted or not. The Cardinal de Rohan had all his kitchen utensils of solid silver, which must have given as much satisfaction to his cooks as did Nero’s golden fishing-hooks to the fish he caught with them. M. Baudrillart describes the feasts of Elagabalus as if their only fault was their excess; but the impartial reader, scanning each unpalatable detail, comes to a different conclusion. Thrushes’ brains, and parrots’ heads, peas mashed with grains of gold, beans fricasseed with morsels of amber, and rice mixed with pearls do not tempt one’s fancy as either nourishing or appetizing diet; while the crowning point of discomfort was reached when revolving roofs threw down upon the guests such vast quantities of roses that they were well-nigh smothered. Better a dish of herbs, indeed, than all this dubious splendor. Nothing less enjoyable could have been invented in the interests of hospitality, save only that mysterious banquet given by Solomon the mighty, where all the beasts of the earth and all the demons of the air were summoned by his resistless talisman to do honor to the terrified and miserable banqueters.