Publisher's Synopsis
In the internal decoration, if not in the external ar-chitecture of their residences, the English are supreme. The Italians have but little sentiment beyond marbles and colours. In France, meliora probant, deteriora se-quuntur-the people are too much a race of gada-bouts to maintain those household proprieties of which, indeed, they have a delicate appreciation, or at least the elements of a proper sense. The Chinese and most of the eastern races have a warm but inappropri-ate fancy. The Scotch are poor decorists. The Dutch have, perhaps, an indeterminate idea that a curtain is not a cabbage. In Spain they are all curtains-a nation of hangmen. The Russians do not furnish. The Hotten-tots and Kickapoos are very well in their way. The Yankees alone are preposterous.
