If one can find as good, or a better thing in art and quality, made to-day--by all means buy the thing of to-day, and let yourself and your children be credited with the hundred or two years of wear which is in it.

We can easily see that it is wiser to buy modern iridescent glass, fitted to our use, and yet carrying all the fascinating lustre of ancient glass, than to sigh for the possession of some unbuyable thing belonging to dead and gone Caesars.

And the case is as true of other modern art and modern inventions, if the art is good, and the inventions suitable to our wants and needs.
Yet in spite of the goodness of much that is new, there is a subtle pleasure in turning over, and even in appropriating, the things that are old.

There are certain fenced-in-blocks on the east side of New York City where for many years the choice parts of old houses have been deposited.

As fashion and wealth have changed their locality--treading slowly up from the Battery to Central Park--many beautiful bits of construction have been left behind in the abandoned houses--either disregarded on account of change in popular taste, or unappreciated by reason of want of knowledge.