re.

My friend Jones has just built what the newspapers call 'an elegant
mansion.' I was invited to the house-warming. Mrs. Jones's set is very
exclusive, and I was greatly complimented, of course. I went. Jones has
taste. I noticed the plaster walls. Jones had them colored to marble.
The wainscoting of the library was pine, but the pine lied itself into a
passable walnut. The folding doors of the parlor were pine, too, when I
came near. They pretended to be solid oak while I stood at the other end
of the room. Jones had succumbed to the demands of his time, and had
made his dwelling among lies. His 'elegant mansion' was a big, staring
lie from top to bottom. From the plated door-knob to the grained railing
round the garret stairs, he had 'made lies his refuge.' I was bewildered
that evening. It was impossible to say what was real. Miss Seraphina
Jones had a lovely color. Was it _done_ like the folding doors? Mrs.
Smythe had the whitest of teeth when she smiled. Were they only a
pretence at teeth? Mrs. Robinson had beautiful masses of that chestnut
hair around her handsome neck. The bewildering 'mansion' of my friend
made me half doubt even that splendid hair. Tom Harris's magnificent
whiskers, I _knew_, were not colored by fancy to that depth of darkness.
At last I actually began to doubt the sincerity of everybody present.
Their warm expressions of delight with Jones's new house, their pleasure
in each other's society, their earnest inquiries after each other's
welfare, all began to affect me with a sense of unreality, owing to that
masquerading 'mansion.' I began to think, in such a house, there might
be more shams than the marbled plaster or the grained pine.

Jones's church is not better. I occupied a seat in his 'eligible pew'
last Sunday. The lath and plaster walls pretended to be Caen stone. The
cheap deal was all 'make-believe' oak. The brick pillars were 'blocked
off,' and unblushingly claimed to be granite. As I entered, I observed
that the pulpit stood under the arch of a recess, roofed with carved
stone, with clustered columns rising on the sides and spreading into
graceful arches overhead. As I walked up the broad aisle, the recess
shifted strangely, and the clustered columns of 'carven stone' ran in
and out, at hide and seek. At last the truth flashed on me. The chancel
was only painted on the flat rear wall of the building! I don't know
what the sermon was about. It doesn't matter. How _could_ a man prea