Let me illustrate what I mean by an example. At a small house we possess in Watford there is the third room in question, which has been made into a very pretty library by the clever hand of Mr Arthur Smee, but which the first year we were in possession had never been used save as a home for books and a reception place for anyone who might come on business. No one had ever sat there, nor could I discover anyone who would; but I myself was then ‘on the shelf,’ and had never entered the room at all, being often absent from home, and always, whether there or elsewhere, confined to the circumscribed area of my own bed and sitting-rooms. I had asked questions about the room but could never get a satisfactory reply only the ever-repeated answer, ‘Oh, it looks all right, but just you try to sit there, that’s all, you’ll soon see why we can’t do anything of the kind.’ Now here is the room produced just as it was before I went into it, and I wonder if anyone can see the real mistake in the design? I own I could not perceive it from the picture. At first I asked if my people were ridiculous enough to fancy the room had a ghost. No not a ghost exactly; but in a tentative tone of voice something quite as uncanny and quite as intangible. Was it draughty? They didn’t think so; and yet it was impossible to warm it. In fact, it was quite out of the question that it could be sat in, and there it remained until one day
when I felt rather better than usual, and went downstairs determined to conquer or die in the attempt. Dear readers! if you could only have seen that room you would, some of you, never have believed in me again for one single moment. The centre table was heaped with books, old papers and magazines. The matting on the floor had one long, thin and solitary rug. There were aimless cretonne curtains at the window, which couldn’t possibly be reached, because the desk was stuck right against it; and, worst fault of all, the door opened on the wrong side, and so whenever it was open the fire was as it were in the passage. And as had been rightly said, there was not a single place to put a chair; and, indeed, the untidy thing in the photograph was the only specimen of the genus that the chamber possessed, if we except an ordinary bedroom seat, and another of a similar kind by the desk, neither of which could be sat upon, save by an individual who had serious writing to do. Then someone had placed in one corner a deck-lounge, in, I suppose, a feeble attempt at being happy, and never did a lounge less deserve its name. It was located between the window and the fire, and therefore succeeded in nothing, save in being entirely out of place and in the way. There too the shelves for books were left as shown in the photograph, and had none of the small curtains over the smaller recesses, so necessary to break up the lines and to serve as hiding-places for old and way-worn literature. The fireplace was hideous, and a Moloch as regards coal, while, of course the room could never be brought above freezing pitch, because of the relative positions of the fireplace, door, and window, each of which was put just exactly where it ought not to be. The design and colour of the room were right enough, but the touches which turn a room into a habitation were never more conspicuous by their absence.
I don’t know how it is, but I can put a room straight in five minutes when another person merely grumbles and declares that nothing can be done; and in a pious rage I set to work and very soon had made a considerable alteration in the place. Although, of course, much could not be accomplished until I sent for my factotum Joe, and had the door moved to the other side, that elegant plaster in the ceiling dislodged, and the hideous tiles in the grate renovated. Then I had a good thick portière placed inside the door, hung the pictures properly, arranged the books and china, put the curtains where they were required in the bookcase, altered the window-curtains, put the desk on one side, not in the very centre of the window, and imported a couple of deep, good basket-chairs from Heelas, of Reading, and some smaller Liberty chairs and tables. The centre table was put on one side, and not in the middle of the room, with magazines and newspapers; and after that I put down proper and suitable rugs, instead of the big one,—beautiful in itself and in its proper place which was a passage—but ridiculous in the middle of a matted floor, where it resembled nothing so much as a garden walk. Since then the room has been more used than any other sitting-room in the house, and is now pronounced one of the most comfortable in the dreary little place, or, I should say, in what was a dreary little place until it was taken vigorously in hand. Albeit, nothing can make the house a real success, because it is built east and west, and with all the windows to the west and to the north and south: these, by the way, raking the back yards of the neighbours fore and aft: while, except for the bath-room window, there is not one which looks towards the east, where, of course, one gets the pleasantest view and the morning sun: a great consideration in a house which is literally a summer house, and where therefore, the western sun is useless and tormenting. Even in the winter an afternoon sun is no earthly use, for by the time it comes round to the western windows it has to retire ignominiously into a bank of fog or cloud; therefore such a house as this especial one should never be taken unless the owner will close the north and north-west windows, and open out big square bows on the south and south-eastern aspect in the manner the windows should have been placed when the house was built. It is always a pleasing reflection to me that the man who designed this house is dead, and cannot now make any other person as miserable by his awkward vagaries as he has made me. If he had simply consented to one or two alterations, and had given us decent grates, and proper servants’ accommodation, the house wouldn’t have been ‘half bad,’ and I do not suppose would have cost a farthing more to build than it cost at first. The cornices were so terrible that they had in some cases to be cut away and reduced to one-fourth, while the elaborate and expensive style in which they had been liberally picked out in all the colours of the rainbow, was obliterated by colour-wash at once; yet the money spent on this ‘decoration’ would have gone some way towards new grates; and my pet plain wooden mantels would not have cost half what the monstrous marble ones did, with which one can’t wrestle, because of the round openings in the mantelpieces, which would not allow of the cheap introduction of the pretty, square, slow-combustion stoves, with plain tiles, to which I must confess I am absolutely devoted. I think, if their third room in any way resembles the one illustrated here, this picture will help my readers very much, if they are anxious to have a library, a room where the master can sit and smoke, and where business people can be interviewed. But, if books are not plentiful, and the husband doesn’t smoke and is not much at home, the room would not be of very much service to the mistress and her girls, should she be fortunate enough to be the proud possessor of grown-up daughters. And there are, of course, yet other means of treating and disposing of the room. If children are numerous, and bedrooms few, this third room may have to be taken for schoolroom purposes, or, at best, may have to be used by boys and girls in the holidays, or when lessons have to be prepared, and in this case it would require quite different treatment to what it would receive were it merely a pretty sitting-room, as it should most undoubtedly be.
If the sitting-room aspect has to be considered it should be made as bright and charming as possible, and should be furnished with an eye to the particular occupation of the house mistress, who is sure to have some idiosyncrasy, and will either work, write or ‘housekeep’ indefatigably. If she does this latter, she will want room for her household books, her receipt books, and her house books, containing all kinds of hints as to what to do and when to do it, which any woman collects if she is in the least house-proud and anxious to make the most of her surroundings. In this case, one of the recesses could be fitted with shelves on the same principle as those shown in the photograph, but they should not be higher than the mantelpiece, and where there is a gaping space, curtains should be hung, or else doors placed to make a species of cupboard with copper hinges and a good lock. In the other recess a writing-table could be placed, with some shelves above it to hold books of reference, and this table must be furnished with really good locks, for here should be kept account and cheque books, and receipts and any private unanswered letters. Though let me once more impress on all my readers never to keep any save business letters, and never to keep those when the business to which they refer is completely done with and ended. No one knows how long he or she may live, nor if sudden death or illness may not leave all one’s secrets, should one have any, or the secrets of others, open to anyone who may have access to one’s belongings; besides, we have no right to keep other folk’s letters, once they are replied to. We may ourselves be secrecy itself, but we cannot answer for the secret-keeping capacity of our nearest and dearest.
If the window should be, as I hope it may be, one of the delightful Caldecott ones, it should have a straight window-seat arranged exactly as in this sketch, and thus we should be provided with a most comfortable place to rest in, more especially if we supplement it with several big Liberty pillows. These can be covered in plain linen covers, edged with frills of the same or of Torchon lace. If this latter be used, a wide insertion should be laid on all round the pillows, about an inch from where the lace is sewn on. The lace must not be too full. If the pillow should be a yard square, or the more ordinary size of three-quarters of a yard, the quantity of lace used should be one-half longer than the length of the sides of the pillow, i.e., 6 yards of lace would be wanted for a pillow the sides of which measured 4 yards, while 3 yards would be sufficient for the smaller size, as the lace is only just fulled on. It should not be heavily gathered, or it will not look well.