Twentieth Century Culture and Deportment / Or the Lady and Gentleman at Home and Abroad; Containing Rules of Etiquette for All Occasions, Including Calls; Invitations; Parties; Weddings; Receptions; Dinners and Teas; Etiquette of the Street; Public Places, Etc., Etc. Forming a Complete Guide to Self-Culture; the Art of Dressing Well; Conversation; Courtship; Etiquette for Children; Letter-Writing; Artistic Home and Interior Decorations, Etc.

by Maud C. Cooke

A Door Divan.

Chairs and sofas we have without end in variety and beauty. Every alcove and nook in every possible sort of room has been thought of and provided for except the one place that exists in almost every house and is the one place where people are always wanting to sit—that is the doorway itself. Folding doors between communicating rooms are seldom closed. An ordinary chair within a few feet of the space never looks well. It shows its back to one room or the other and is in the way.

A divan is an addition to any decorative arrangement of either room. It does not interfere with any graceful drapery that may be arranged at the door. It is decidedly useful, convenient and gives a certain touch of the unusual to the room.

An Improvised Bookcase.

A superfluous doorway or window too often mars the effect of a room, and the present day architecture, as found in cheap apartments and houses, frequently abounds in this sort of generosity.

To surmount the difficulty a very useful inclosure can be constructed by placing two uprights and a few shelves within the door jamb, or against it, as the case may be. Staining or painting them to match the rest of the woodwork is a small matter, while arranging brass rods and pretty curtains is not much more.

Screens.

Screens are a necessary object of household adornment. It is not requisite that they should be expensive, but the uses to which they can be put are legion. A plain frame of hard wood, or pine stained, rectangular, three or four inches wide and one inch thick, furnished with feet, and with or without castors, is all that is necessary. Covering may be done with a great variety of materials, cheap or dear. Ornamentation may be applied, embroidered, sketched, outlined, or painted. If the screen is made in two or three parts to fold like clothes bars, feet will not be necessary.

A rustic fire-screen is a unique affair, handsome and useful where there are open fires, as a shield from heat in cold weather, and as a screen for the emptiness of grate or fireplace during the summer. It is formed from natural branches, two straight and two crotched ones, from which all the smaller branches and twigs have been cut away so as to have but little more than protruding knots. When these are well seasoned, rub, brush and rebrush, both with a soft brush and a stiff one, to remove from every crevice in the bark every loose particle of moss and dust. Then, with liquid gold, gild the bark all over, or, if preferred, gild only the bare wood where it is exposed at the ends and where the limbs are cut off, and give a touch of gold to every crack or protuberance, or, if a smoother finish is desired, remove all of the bark and smoothly gild or enamel the whole surface.

The screen, suspended from the upper crosspiece, is a fringed silk rug woven on a hand loom, as old-fashioned carpets were woven. It falls freely from the top, its own weight keeping it in place, but it might be tied to the standards—half way down and at the upper corners—with bows of braid, soft ribbon or with heavy tassel-tipped cords, or a smaller rug without fringe might be suspended by gilt rings and finished at the bottom with a row of tassels in mingled shades.