CHAPTER VI.
THE TOILET.
THERE is no prettier object in either bedroom or boudoir than the spot where “the toilet stands displayed.” Whether it be a shrine à la Duchesse ([Fig. 19]) or the simplest form of support for a mirror, it will probably be the most interesting spot in the room to its fair owner. Consequently there is nothing upon which the old love of decoration has more expended itself even from its earliest days, or which modern upholstery makes more its special study than this truly feminine shrine. I will say nothing of mirrors with three sides which represent you as a female “Cerberus, three ladies in one,” or indeed of mirrors of any sort or kind, as our business lies at this moment more with the tables on which they should stand. These can be found or invented of every imaginable form, and contain every conceivable convenience for receiving and hiding away the weapons which beauty (or rather would-be-beauty, which is not at all the same thing) requires.
Fig. 19.
Here ([Fig. 20]) is a sort of old-fashioned tiroir of an exquisite simplicity, and with but little space outside for the “paraphernalia” of odds and ends which the law generously recognises as the sole and individual property of even a married woman. Such articles would need to be stowed away in one of its many drawers. Instead of the frivolous drapery which would naturally cover a deal toilet-table, the only fitting drapery for this beautiful old piece of furniture (of French design evidently) would be an embroidered and fringed strip of fine linen which should hang low down on either side. In a darksome room, imagine how the subdued brightness of its metal mountings would afford coigns of vantage to every stray sunbeam or flickering ray from taper or fire! And in its deep, commodious drawers too, might be neatly stowed away every detail of toilet necessaries. On it should stand a mirror which must imperatively be required to harmonise, set in a plain but agreeable frame without anything to mar the severe simplicity of the whole. There are several pieces of old furniture, however, which are better adapted to be used as toilet-tables than the subject of the illustration. Such a piece of furniture is more suitable when it is divided, as is often the case, into three compartments, the centre one being considerably further back than the side-pieces. In this way a place is secured for the knees, when seated at it, and this central cupboard, when filled with shelves, makes an excellent receptacle for brushes and combs, and so forth.