Of other furniture in a Levantine house' there are chiefly fixed shelves along the walls, upon which are set the more decorative objects of utility, as vases and bowls, and small and low tables entirely movable, with no permanent place in the room, but carried about as the persons seated on the deewan have occasion to eat, to smoke, or to play at some game. There is occa sionally a sort of cabinet, usually open, affording merely two or three shelves for the temporary deposit of a water-bottle or the like. The need of further furniture is removed by the use of cupboards in the wall, of which there' are a great number of different sizes and fitted with shelves of different depth and of different heights between the shelves. The absence of any dis tinction between dining-room, sitting-room, and reception-room destroys entirely our notions of the proper furnishing of each kind of room.
In a Japanese home simplicity of furnishing is carried still further than in the Moslem East. Closets in the walls fitted with shelves of differ ent sizes in length, width, and height between shelves, and usually closed by sliding doors, are used for clothing, and also for the storage of con siderable quantities of as yet uncut pieces. The space under an ordinary staircase may be oc cupied by shelves and drawers; shelves along the walls are used for lanterns, which are taken out at night, and for hats and the like; lengths of bamboo prettily combined serve for towel-racks and to suspend out-of-door garments; and a curious structure, composed of a vertical strip, which may be either a stiff board or a piece of textile fabric, carries a number of vases, cups, or round boxes of wood or bamboo, arranged in ver tical series, into which receptacles many utensils may be thrust for safe keeping, and when made more decorative may serve for fresh flowers. The simplicity and obvious cheapness of all these things is very remarkable. Almost no attempt is made, even in the palaces of the old daimios, or in such parts of the Imperial palace as have not been altered in very recent times, to give to the interior that costly and luxurious air which Europeans think essential to their own dignity, or which they consider inseparable from beauty of design and perfect taste. To the Japanese, the most refined of decorative artists, simplicity is thought to be the most attractive effect, except for a given piece, upon which the full resources of art are to be lavished. In a room used for the reception of visitors there will be no wall decoration at all, because the walls are either occupied with cupboards or the like, or are opened up into recesses, of which something is said below, or are represented by sliding screens of paper strained on light wooden frames. These
paper screens may indeed be richly painted with flowers .and birds, or, in many eases, are covered with those colored, flowered, and embossed papers which we in the West purchase under the erro neous name of 'Japanese wall-paper.' This, however, is rare; the decorative papers or the painted surfaces spoken of are used generally for the entirely movable screens in two, three, or four leaves, which are sometimes very low (three feet), as suiting the needs of people who are seat ed upon the floor, and sometimes of full height (six feet and six inches or even seven feet). It is sometimes asserted that the sliding screens them selves, which form a part of the inclosure of the house, are never decorated, but there is positive evidence that in many cases richly adorned sur faces are applied here as elsewhere.
Of movable furniture, then, there is cabinet with drawers and shelves, which is used mainly for the storage of very delicate objects; the writing-table, which may be five, six, or seven inches high, and from a foot to two and a half feet in length and of proportionate width; the boxes which contain paper for writing, which is often very decorative and needs especial care; and the small, light cases which contain a fire box or fire-pot, and are intended for the use of smokers; the sword-rack, upon which the gentle man of old Japan always laid his sword or swords on entering the house, the use being temporary only, for no sword would be kept there for any length of time; and, finally, very small stands, such as we use to set off vases and other orna mental objects, but which in Japan are used for actual utility, as, for example, to raise a dish with fruit or the like to a convenient height. Of utensils which are not commonly made of wood, except in a few cases, the fire-pot is the most im portant, and this, which is not unlike the brazero of older Italian usage, may sometimes be a heavy and almost permanent piece of furniture. In all the above list it is noticeable that hardly anything is more than three feet long or more than two feet high. The larger chests of drawers which are occasionally brought here from ,Tapan seem to have been rather traveling conveniences, as they were commonly arranged for transportation on the shoulders of men by means of a long pole passed through rings or slots.