was beautiful. No doubt there will always be people who will regard
the passing of time as sufficient justification for any article of
furniture; I could wish that they were equally tolerant among the arts
as among the crafts, so that in 2120 this very article which I write
now could be referred to with awe as a genuine 1920; but all that the
passage of time can really do for your dresser is to give a more
beautiful surface and tone to the wood. This, surely, is a matter
which you can judge for yourself without being an expert. If your
dresser looks old you have got from it all that age can give you; if
it looks beautiful you have got from it all that a craftsman of any
period can give you; why worry, then, as to whether or not it is a
"genuine antique"? The expert may tell you that it is a fake, but
the fact that he has suddenly said so has not made your dining-room
less beautiful. Or if it is less beautiful, it is only because an
"expert" is now in it. Hurry him out.





The Robinson Tradition



Having read lately an appreciation of that almost forgotten author
Marryat, and having seen in the shilling box of a second-hand
bookseller a few days afterward a copy of _Masterman Ready_, I went in
and bought the same. I had read it as a child, and remembered vaguely
that it combined desert-island adventure with a high moral tone; jam
and powder in the usual proportions. Reading it again, I found that