A CORNER FOR WRITING.
One of my greatest pleasures, when I am planning the furnishing of a house, is the selection and equipment of the necessary writing-tables. Every room in every house has its own suggestion for an original treatment, and I enjoy working out a plan for a writing-corner that will offer maximum of convenience, and beauty and charm, for in these busy days we need all these qualities for the inspiration of a pleasant note. You see, I believe in proper writing-tables, just as I believe in proper chairs. I have so many desks in my own house that are in constant use, perhaps I can give you my theory best by recording my actual practice of it.
I have spoken of the necessity of a desk in the hallway, and indeed, I have said much of desks in other rooms, but I have still to emphasize my belief in the importance of the equipment of desks.
Of course, one needs a desk in one's own room. Here there is infinite latitude, for there are dozens of delightful possibilities. I always place my desks near the windows. If the wall space is filled, I place an oblong table at right angles to a window, and there you are. In my own private sitting-room I have a long desk so placed, in my own house. In a guest-room I furnished recently, I used a common oblong table of no value, painting the legs a soft green and covering it with a piece of sage-green damask. This is one of the nicest writing-tables I know, and it could be copied for a song. The equipment of it is what counts. I used two lamps, dull green jars with mauve silk shades, a dark green leather rack for paper and envelopes, and a great blotter pad that will save the damask from ink-spots. The small things are of green pottery and crystal. In a young girl's bedroom I used a sweet little desk of painted wood, a desk that has the naïve charm of innocence. I do hope it inspires the proper love-letters.
I always make provision for writing in dressing-rooms—a sliding shelf in the dressing-table, and a shallow drawer for pencils and paper—and I have adequate writing facilities in the servants' quarters, so that there may be no excuse for forgetting orders or messages. This seems to me absolutely necessary in our modern domestic routine: it is part of the business principle we borrow from the efficient office routine of our men folk. The dining-room and the bathrooms are the only places where the writing-table, in one form or another, isn't required.
I like the long flat tables or small desks much better than the huge roll-top affairs or the heavy desks built after the fashion of the old armoire. If the room is large enough, a secretary after an Eighteenth Century model will be a beautiful and distinguished piece of furniture. I have such a secretary in my own sitting-room, a chest of drawers surmounted by a cabinet of shelves with glass doors, but I do not use it as a desk. I use the shelves for my old china and porcelains, and the drawers for pamphlets and the thousand and one things that are too flimsily bound for bookshelves. Of course, if one has a large correspondence and uses one's home as an office, it is better to have a large desk with a top which closes. I prefer tables, and I have them made big enough to hold all my papers, big enough to spread out on.
There are dozens of enchanting small desks that are exactly right for guest-rooms, the extremely feminine desks that come from old France. One of the most fascinating ones is copied from a bureau de toilette that belonged to Marie Antoinette. In those days the writing of letters and the making of a toilet went together. This old desk has a drawer filled with compartments for toilet things, powders and perfumes and patches, and above this vanity-drawer there is the usual shelf for writing, and compartments for paper and letters. The desk itself suggests brocade flounces and powdered hair, so exquisitely is it constructed of tulipwood and inlaid with other woods of many colors.
Then there are the small desks made by modern furniture-makers, just large enough to hold a blotting-pad, a paper rack, and a pair of candlesticks. There is always a shallow drawer for writing materials. Such a desk may be decorated to match the chintzes of any small bedroom.
If it isn't possible for you to have a desk in each guest-room, there should be a little writing-room somewhere apart from the family living-room. If you live in one of those old-fashioned houses intersected by great halls with much wasted space on the upper floors, you may make a little writing-room of one of the hall-ends, and screen it from the rest of the hall with a high standing screen. If you have a house of the other extreme type, a city house with little hall bedrooms, use one of these little rooms for a writing-room. You will require a desk well stocked with stationery, and all the things the writer will need; a shelf of address books and reference books—with a dictionary, of course; many pens and pencils and fresh blotters, and so forth. Of course, you may have ever so many more things, but it isn't necessary. Better a quiet corner with one chair and a desk, than the elaborate library with its superb fittings where people come and go.
Given the proper desk, the furnishing of it is most important. The blotting-pad should be heavy enough to keep its place, and the blotting-paper should be constantly renewed. I know of nothing more offensive than dusty, ink-splotched blotting-paper. There are very good sets to be had, now, made of brass, bronze, carved wood, porcelain, silver or crystal, and there are leather boxes for holding stationery and leather portfolios to be had in all colors. I always add to these furnishings a good pair of scissors, stationery marked with the house address or the monogram of the person to whom the desk especially belongs, an almanac, and a pincushion! My pincushions are as much a part of the equipment of a desk as the writing things, and they aren't frilly, ugly things. They are covered with brocade or damask or some stuff used elsewhere in the room and I assure you they are most useful. I find that pins are almost as necessary as pens in my correspondence; they are much more expedient than pigeon-holes.
In country houses I think it shows forethought and adds greatly to the comfort of the guests to have a small framed card showing the arrival and departure of trains and of mails, especially if the house is a great distance from the railway-station. This saves much inquiry and time. In the paper rack there should be not only stamped paper bearing the address of the house, telephone number, and so forth, but also telegraph blanks, post cards, stamps, and so forth. Very often people who have beautiful places have post cards made showing various views of the house and garden.
Test the efficiency of your writing-tables occasionally by using them yourself. This is the only way to be sure of the success of anything in your house—try it yourself.