hold furniture was in keeping with these precious objects.
Beds and armchairs in valuable woods, inlaid with ivory, carved, gilt,
painted in subdued and bright colours, upholstered with mattresses
and cushions of many-hued Asiatic stuffs, or of home-made materials,
fashioned after Chaldaean patterns, were in use among the well-to-do,
while people of moderate means had to be content with old-fashioned
furniture of the ancient regime.

[Illustration: 348.jpg DECORATED ARMCHAIR]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of these objects in the
tomb of Ramses III.

The Theban dwelling-house was indeed more sumptuously furnished than the
earliest Memphite, but we find the same general arrangements in both,
which provided, in addition to quarters for the masters, a similar
number of rooms intended for the slaves, for granaries, storehouses, and
stables. While the outward decoration of life was subject to change,
the inward element remained unaltered. Costume was a more complex
matter than in former times: the dresses and lower garments were more
gauffered, had more embroidery and stripes; the wigs were larger and
longer, and rose up in capricious arrangements of curls and plaits.

[Illustration: 349.jpg EGYPTIAN WIG]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by M. de Mertens.

The use of the chariot had now become a matter of daily custom, and
the number of domestics, already formidable, was increased by fresh
additions in the shape of coachmen, grooms, and _saises_, who ran before
their master to clear a way for the horses through the crowded streets
of the city.*

* The pictures at Tel el-Amarna exhibit the king, queen, and
princesses driving in their chariots with escorts of
soldiers and runners. We often find in the tomb-paintings
the chariot and coachman of some dignitary, waiting while
their master inspects a field or a workshop, or while he is
making a visit to the palace for some reward.

As material, existence became more complex, intellectual life partook of
the same movement, and, without deviating much from the lines prescribed
for it by the learned and the scribes of the Memphite age, literature
had become in the mean time larger, more complicated, more exacting,
and more difficult to grapple with and to master. It had its classical
authors, whose writings were committed to memory and taught in the
schools. These were truly masterpieces, for if some felt that they
u