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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41922 ***
+
+THE BED-ROOM AND BOUDOIR.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+  THE
+  BED-ROOM AND BOUDOIR.
+
+  BY
+  LADY BARKER.
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  LONDON:
+  MACMILLAN AND CO.
+  1878.
+
+  [_The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved._]
+
+
+
+
+  _FIFTH THOUSAND._
+
+  LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+Too much attention can scarcely be expended on our sleeping rooms in
+order that we may have them wholesome, convenient and cheerful. It is
+impossible to over-estimate the value of refreshing sleep to busy
+people, particularly to those who are obliged to do much brainwork. In
+the following pages will, we hope, be found many hints with regard to
+the sanitary as well as the ornamental treatment of the bed-room.
+
+  W. J. LOFTIE.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                          PAGE
+
+     I.--AN IDEAL BED-ROOM--ITS WALLS                 1
+
+    II.--CARPETS AND DRAPERIES                       15
+
+   III.--BEDS AND BEDDING                            26
+
+    IV.--WARDROBES AND CUPBOARDS                     44
+
+     V.--FIRE AND WATER                              57
+
+    VI.--THE TOILET                                  70
+
+   VII.--ODDS AND ENDS OF DECORATION                 80
+
+  VIII.--THE SICK ROOM                               94
+
+    IX.--THE SPARE ROOM                             110
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+                                                   PAGE
+
+  A CORNER WARDROBE                      _Frontispiece_
+  DUTCH BEDSTEAD                                     27
+  BEDSTEAD AND TOILET STAND                          30
+  OAK BEDSTEAD                                       32
+  CHILDREN'S BEDSTEADS                               37
+  AN INDIAN SCREEN                                   41
+  WARDROBE                                           45
+  ANTIQUE LOCK-UP                                    48
+  BUREAU                                             49
+  TRAVELLING CHEST OF DRAWERS                        51
+  CHINESE CABINET                                    55
+  FIRE-PLACE                                         58
+  CHAIR AND TABLE                                    59
+  BEDSIDE TABLE                                      62
+  FIRE-PLACE                                         63
+  CANDLESTICK                                        65
+  FRENCH WASHING-STAND                               66
+  CHINESE WASHING-STAND                              67
+  CORNER-STAND                                       68
+  SHRINE "À LA DUCHESSE"                             71
+  ANTIQUE TOILET TABLE                               72
+  CHEST OF DRAWERS                                   73
+  A SIMPLE TOILET TABLE                              76
+  CANE ARM-CHAIR                                     81
+  CANE SOFA                                          82
+  OAK SETTLE                                         83
+  LARGE ARM-CHAIR                                    84
+  CORNER FOR PIANO                                   85
+  PRINT-STAND                                        88
+  SOUTH AMERICAN PITCHER                             91
+  INVALID TABLE                                     107
+  DESK                                              112
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+BED-ROOM AND BOUDOIR.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+AN IDEAL BED-ROOM.--ITS WALLS.
+
+
+It is only too easy to shock some people, and at the risk of shocking
+many of my readers at the outset, I must declare that very few bed-rooms
+are so built and furnished as to remain thoroughly _sweet_, fresh, and
+airy all through the night. This is not going so far as others however.
+Emerson repeats an assertion he once heard made by Thoreau, the American
+so-called "Stoic,"--whose senses by the way seem to have been
+preternaturally acute--that "by night every dwelling-house gives out a
+bad air, like a slaughter-house." As this need not be a necessary
+consequence of sleeping in a room, it remains to be discovered why one's
+first impulse on entering a bed-room in the morning should either be to
+open the windows, or to wish the windows were open. Every one knows how
+often this is the case, not only in small, low, ill-contrived houses in
+a town, but even in very spacious dwellings, standing too amid all the
+fragrant possibilities of the open country. It is a very easy solution
+of the difficulty to say that we ought always to sleep with our windows
+wide open. The fact remains that many people cannot do so; it is a
+risk--nay, a certainty--of illness to some very young children, to many
+old people, and to nearly all invalids. In a large room the risk is
+diminished, because there would be a greater distance between the bed
+and window, or a space for a sheltering screen. Now, in a small room,
+where fresh air is still more essential and precious, the chances are
+that the window might open directly on the bed, which would probably
+stand in a draught between door and fireplace as well.
+
+I take it for granted that every one understands the enormous importance
+of having a fireplace in each sleeping-room in an English house, for the
+sake of the ventilation afforded by the chimney. And even then a sharp
+watch must be kept on the house-maid, who out of pure "cussedness"
+(there is no other word for it) generally makes it the serious business
+of her life to keep the iron flap of the register stove shut down, and
+so to do away entirely with one of the uses of the chimney. If it be
+impossible to have a fireplace in the sleeping-room, then a ventilator
+of some sort should be introduced. There is, I believe, a system in use
+in some of the wards of St. George's Hospital and in the schools under
+the control of the London School Board, known as Tobin's Patent.
+Ventilation is here secured by means of a tube or pipe communicating
+directly with the outer air, which can thus be brought from that side of
+the building on which the atmosphere is freshest. If report can be
+trusted, this system certainly appears to come nearer to what is wanted
+than any with which we are yet acquainted, for it introduces fresh air
+without producing a draught, and the supply of air can be regulated by a
+lid at the mouth of the pipe. A sort of double-star is often introduced
+in a pane of glass in the window, but this is somewhat costly, and it
+would not be difficult to find other simpler and more primitive methods,
+from a tin shaft or loosened brick in a wall, down to half a dozen large
+holes bored by an auger in the panel of the door, six or eight inches
+away from the top, though this is only advisable if the door opens upon
+a tolerably airy landing or passage. If it does not, then resort to some
+contrivance, as cheap as you please, in the outer wall leading directly
+into the fresh air. In most private houses it is generally possible to
+arrange for those to whom an open window at night is a forbidden luxury,
+that they should sleep with their door open. A curtain, or screen, or
+even the open door itself will ensure the privacy in which we all like
+to do our sleeping, but there should then be some window open on an
+upper landing, day and night, in all weathers. Believe me, there are few
+nights, even in our rigorous climate, where this would be an
+impossibility. Of course common sense must be the guide in laying down
+such rules. No one would willingly admit a fog or storm of driving wind
+and rain into their house, but of a night when the atmosphere is so
+exceptionally disturbed it is sure to force its way in at every cranny,
+and keep the rooms fresh and sweet without the necessity of admitting a
+large body of air by an open window.
+
+Supposing then that the laws of ventilation are understood and acted
+upon, and that certain other sanitary rules are carried out which need
+not be insisted upon here,--such as that no soiled clothes shall ever,
+upon any pretence, be kept in a bed-room,--then we come to the next
+cause of want of freshness in a sleeping-room:--Old walls. People do not
+half enough realise, though it must be admitted they understand a great
+deal more than they once did, how the emanations from the human body are
+attracted to the sides of the room and stick there. It is not a pretty
+or poetical idea, but it is unhappily a fact. So the only thing to be
+done is to provide ourselves with walls which will either wash or clean
+in some way, or are made originally of some material which neither
+attracts nor retains these minute particles.
+
+Nothing can be at once cleaner or more wholesome than the beautiful
+wainscotted walls we sometimes see in the fine old country houses built
+in Queen Anne's reign. A bed-room of that date, if we except the bed
+itself, and the probable absence of all bathing conveniences, presented
+a nearly perfect combination of fresh air, spotless cleanliness, and
+stately and harmonious beauty to the eyes of an artist or the nose of a
+sanitary inspector. The lofty walls of panelled oak, dark and lustrous
+from age and the rubbing of many generations of strong-armed
+old-fashioned house-maids, were walls which could neither attract nor
+retain objectionable atoms, and ventilation was unconsciously secured by
+means of high narrow windows, three in a row, looking probably due
+south, and an open chimney-place, innocent of "register stoves" or any
+other contrivance for blocking up its wide throat. Such a room rises up
+clearly before the eyes of my mind, and I feel certain that I shall
+never forget the deliciously quaint and hideous Dutch tiles in the
+fireplace, nor the expressive tip of Ahasuerus' nose in the tile
+representing his final interview with Haman. How specially beautiful was
+the narrow carved ledge, far above one's head, which served as a
+mantelpiece, over which simpered a faded lady with low, square-cut
+boddice, her fat chin held well into the throat, and a rose in her pale,
+wan little hand. A dado ran round this room about five feet from the
+floor, and I used to be mean enough, constantly, to try if it was a
+dust-trap, but I never could find a speck. That was because the
+house-maid had been taught how to wipe dust off and carry it bodily
+away, not merely, as Miss Nightingale complains, to disturb it from the
+place where it had comfortably settled itself, and disperse it about the
+room.
+
+But what I remember more vividly in this room than even its old-time
+beauty, was the thorough _conscientiousness_ of every detail. The
+cornice might fairly claim to rank as a work of art, not only from its
+elaboration, but from its finish. The little square carved panels on
+each side of the chimney, serving as supports to the mantelpiece, held
+but one leaf or arabesque flourish apiece, yet each corner was as
+sharply cut, each curve as smoothly rounded, as though it had been
+intended for closest scrutiny. The wood of neither walls nor floors had
+warped nor shrunk in all these years, and the low solid doors hung as
+true, the windows opened as easily, as if it had all been built
+yesterday. What do I say? built yesterday? Let any of us begin to
+declare his experience of a new, modern house, and he will find many to
+join in a doleful chorus of complaints about unseasoned wood,
+ill-fitting joists, and hurried contrivances to meet domestic ills, to
+say nothing of the uncomfortable effects of "scamped" work generally. In
+spite of our improved tools, and our greater facilities for studying and
+copying good designs, I am convinced that one reason why we are going
+back in decorative taste to the days of our great grandmothers is, that
+we are worn out and wearied with the evanescent nature of modern
+carpenter's and joiner's work--to say nothing of our aroused perceptions
+of its glaring faults of taste and tone. Unhappily we cannot go back to
+those dear, clean, old oaken walls. They would be quite out of the reach
+of the majority of purses, and would be sure to be imitated by some
+wretched sham planking which might afford a shelter and breeding-place
+for all kinds of creeping things. No; let those who are fortunate
+enough to possess or acquire these fine old walls treasure them and keep
+them bright as their grandmothers did; not _whitewash_ them, as actually
+has been done more than once by way of "lightening" the room. And who
+shall say, after that, that the Goths have ever been successfully driven
+back?
+
+I dwell on the walls of the bed-room because I believe them to be the
+most important from a sanitary as well as from a decorative point of
+view, and because there is really no excuse for not being able to make
+them extremely pretty. You may tint them in distemper of some delicate
+colour, with harmoniously contrasting lines at the ceiling, and so be
+able to afford to have them fresh and clean as often as you choose, or
+you may paint them in oils and have them washed constantly. But there is
+a general feeling against this cold treatment of a room which, above all
+others, should, in our capricious climate, be essentially warm and
+comfortable. The tinted walls are pretty when the curtains to go with
+them are made of patternless cretonne of precisely the same shade,
+manufactured on purpose, with exactly the same lines of colour for
+bordering. I am not sure, however, that the walls I individually prefer
+for a bed-room are not papered. There are papers made expressly, which
+do not attract dirt, and which can be found of lovely design. A
+bed-room paper ought never to have a distinct, spotted pattern on it,
+lest, if you are ill, it should incite you to count the designs or
+should "make faces at you." Rather let it be all of one soft tint, a
+pearly gray, a tender sea-shell pink, or a green which has no arsenic in
+it; but on this point great care is requisite. You should also make it
+your business to see, with your own eyes, that your new paper, whatever
+its pattern or price, is not hung _over_ the old one, and that the walls
+have been thoroughly stripped, and washed, and dried again before it is
+put on.
+
+Bed-room walls, covered with chintz, stretched tightly in panels, are
+exceedingly clean and pretty, but they must be arranged so as to allow
+of being easily taken down and cleaned. The prettiest walls I ever saw
+thus covered, were made of chintz, with a creamy background and tendrils
+of ivy of half a dozen shades of green and brown artfully blended,
+streaming down in graceful garlands and sprays towards a dado about four
+feet from the ground. It was a lofty room, and the curtains, screens,
+&c., were made to match, of chintz, with sprays of ivy, and a similar
+border. I know other bed-room walls where fluted white muslin is
+stretched over pink or blue silk (prettiest of all over an apple-green
+_batiste_). I dislike tapestry extremely for bed-room walls; the
+designs are generally of a grim and ghostly nature, and even if they
+represent simpering shepherds and shepherdesses, they are equally
+tiresome. There is a Japanese paper, sometimes used for curtains, which
+really looks more suitable and pretty when serving as wall-hangings in
+the bed-rooms of a country house. I know a whole wing of "bachelors'
+quarters" papered by fluted Japanese curtains, and they are exceedingly
+pretty. The curtains of these rooms are of workhouse sheeting lined and
+bordered with Turkey red, and leave nothing to be desired for quaint
+simplicity and brightness. I must ease my mind by declaring here that I
+have a strong prejudice against Japanese paper except when used in this
+way for wall-decoration. The curtains made of it are not only a sham,
+pretending to be something which they are not--a heinous crime in my
+eyes--but they are generally of very ugly patterns, and hang in stiff,
+ungraceful folds, crackling and rustling with every breath of air,
+besides being exceedingly inflammable.
+
+Of course the first rule in bed-room decoration, as in all other, is
+that it should be suitable to the style of the house, and even to the
+situation in which the house finds itself. The great point in the
+wall-decoration of a town bed-room is that you should be able to replace
+it easily when it gets dirty, as it is sure to do very soon if your
+windows are kept sufficiently open. I _have_ known people who kept the
+windows of both bed and sitting-rooms always shut for fear of soiling
+the walls. I prefer walls, under such conditions, which can be cheaply
+made clean again perpetually. There are wall-papers by the score,
+artistically simple enough to please a correct taste, and sufficiently
+cheap not to perceptibly shrink the shallowest purse.
+
+But in the country it is every one's own fault if they have not a lovely
+bed-room. If it be low, then let the paper be suitable--something which
+will not dwarf the room. I know a rural bed-room with a paper
+representing a trellis and Noisette roses climbing over it; the carpet
+is shades of green without any pattern, and has only a narrow border of
+Noisette roses; the bouquets, powdered on the chintzes, match, and
+outside the window a spreading bush of the same dear old-fashioned rose
+blooms three parts of the year. That is a bower indeed, as well as a
+bed-room. Noisette roses and rosebuds half smothered in leaves have been
+painted by the skilful fingers of the owner of this room on the
+door-handles and the tiles of the fireplace as well as embroidered on
+the white quilt and the green cover of the writing-table. But then I
+acknowledge it is an exceptionally pretty room to begin with, for the
+dressing-table stands in a deep bay window, to which you ascend by a
+couple of steps. Belinda herself could not have desired a fairer shrine
+whereat to worship her own beauty.
+
+The memory of other walls rises up before me; even of one with plain
+white satiny paper bordered by shaded pink ribbon, not merely the stiff
+paper-hanger's design, but cut out and fixed in its place by a pair of
+clever hands. This border of course looked different to anything else of
+the kind I had ever seen; but according to strict rules of modern taste
+it was not "correct." Yet a great deal depends on the way a thing is
+done. I see the Misses Garrett frowning as I go on to say that here and
+there a deep shadow was painted under it, and its bows and ends drooped
+down at the corners of the room, whilst over the fireplace they made the
+bright, circling border for a chalk drawing of a rosy child's head. But
+it _was_ a pretty room, notwithstanding its original faulty design, and
+I describe it more as an illustration of the supremacy of a real genius
+for decoration over any hard and fast rule than as an example to be
+copied. Rules are made for people who cannot design for themselves, and
+original designs may be above rules, though they should never be above
+taste.
+
+I might go on for ever describing bed-room walls instead of only
+insisting on their possessing the cardinal virtues of cleanliness and
+appropriateness. Whether of satin or silk, of muslin or chintz, or of
+cheapest paper, nothing can be really pretty and tasteful in
+wall-decoration which is not scrupulously clean, without being cold and
+glaring, and it should be in harmony with even the view from the
+windows. Every room should possess an air of individuality--some
+distinctive features in decoration which would afford a clue to the
+designer's and owner's special tastes and fancies. How easy it is to
+people old rooms with the imaged likeness of those who have dwelt in
+them, and how difficult it would be to do as much for a modern bower!
+
+If I had my own way, I would accustom boys as well as girls to take a
+pride in making and keeping their bed-rooms as pretty and original as
+possible. Boys might be encouraged to so arrange their collections of
+eggs, butterflies, beetles, and miscellaneous rubbish, as to combine
+some sort of decorative principle with this sort of portable property.
+And I would always take care that a boy's room was so furnished and
+fitted that he might feel free, there at least, from the trammels of
+good furniture. He should have bare boards with only a rug to stand on
+at the bed-side and fireplace, but he should be encouraged to make with
+his own hands picture-frames, bookcases, brackets, anything he liked, to
+adorn his room, and this room should be kept sacred to his sole use
+wherever and whenever it was possible to do so. Girls might also be
+helped to make and collect tasteful little odds and ends of ornamental
+work for their own rooms, and shown the difference between what is and
+is not artistically and intrinsically valuable, either for form or
+colour. It is also an excellent rule to establish that girls should keep
+their rooms neat and clean, dust their little treasures themselves, and
+tidy up their rooms before leaving them of a morning, so that the
+servant need only do the rougher work. Such habits are valuable in any
+condition of life. An eye so trained that disorder or dirt is hideous to
+it, and a pair of hands capable of making such conditions an
+impossibility in their immediate neighbourhood, need be no unworthy
+addition to the dowry of a princess.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CARPETS AND DRAPERIES.
+
+
+In the very old-fashioned, stately rooms of Queen Anne's reign the
+carpeting was doled out in small proportions, and a somewhat comfortless
+air must have prevailed where an expanse of floor was covered here and
+there by what we should now characterise as a shabby bit of carpeting.
+In fact a suitable floor-covering or appropriate draperies for these old
+rooms is rather a difficult point. Modern tastes demand comfort and
+brightness, and yet there is always the dread of too glaring contrasts,
+and an inharmonious groundwork. Quite lately I saw a fine old-time
+wainscotted room, whose walls and floor had taken a rich dark gloss from
+age, brightened immensely and harmoniously by four or five of those
+large Indian cotton rugs in dark blue and white, to be bought now-a-days
+cheaply enough in Regent Street. The china in this room was of Delft
+ware, also blue and white, and it had _short_ full curtains of a bright
+French stuff, wherein blue lines alternated with a rich red, hanging in
+the deep windows, whilst colour was given in a dusky corner by a silken
+screen of embroidered peonies. A Turkish carpet is of course
+inadmissible in a bed-room, and the modern Persian rugs are too gaudy to
+harmonise well with the sober tone of a wainscotted bed-room, but it is
+quite possible to find delicious rugs and strips of carpeting in
+greenish blue copied from Eastern designs. The difficulty is perhaps
+most simply met by a carpet of a very dark red, with the smallest
+possible wave or suggestion of black in it, either in strips or in a
+square, stopping short within two feet or so of the walls. I know a
+suite of old-fashioned bed-rooms where the floor is covered with quite
+an ecclesiastical-looking carpet, and it looks very suitable, warm and
+bright, and thoroughly in keeping. In a house of moderate size there is
+nothing I like so much as the whole of a bed-room floor being carpeted
+in the same way--landings, passages, dressing-rooms, and all--and on the
+whole, taking our dingy climate into consideration, a well-toned red
+carpet or nondescript blue will generally be found the most suitable.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Strange to say, next to red carpets white ones wear the best, but they
+make such a false and glaring effect, that they cannot be considered
+appropriate even for a pretty bowery bed-room, half dressing-room, half
+boudoir. With ordinarily fair wear white carpets only take a creamy tint
+as they get older, and then their bouquets and borders, have a chance of
+fading into better harmony. But most of the designs of these carpets are
+so radically wrong, so utterly objectionable from the beginning, that
+the best which can be hoped from time is that it will obliterate them
+altogether. It is true we flatter ourselves that we have grown beyond
+the days of enormous boughs and branches of exaggerated leaves and
+blossoms daubed on a crude ground, but _have_ we escaped from the
+dominion of patterns, more minute it is true, but quite as much outside
+the pale of good taste? What is to be said in defence of a design which,
+when its colours are fresh, is so shaded as to represent some billowy
+and uneven surface, fastened at intervals by yellow nails? or spots of
+white flowers or stars on a grass-green ground? The only carpet of that
+sort of white and green which I ever liked had tiny sprays of white
+heather on a soft green ground, in the miniature drawing-room of a
+Scotch shooting-box. _There_, it was so appropriate, so thoroughly in
+keeping with even the view out of the windows, with the heathery chintz,
+the roe-deer's heads on the panels of the wall, that it looked better on
+the floor than anything else could possibly have done. Morris has
+Kidderminster carpets for bed-rooms, in pale pink, buff, and blue, &c.,
+which are simply perfect in harmony of colour and design.
+
+People who consider themselves good managers are very apt to turn the
+half worn-out drawing-room carpet into one of the bed-rooms, but this is
+not a good plan, for it seldom matches the draperies, and is also apt to
+become frowsy and fusty. I am not so extravagant as to recommend that a
+good carpet with plenty of possibilities of wear yet in it should be
+thrown away because it is not suitable for a bed-room. There are many
+ways and means of disposing of such things, and even the threadbare
+remains of an originally good and costly carpet can find a market of its
+own. What I should like to see, especially in all London bed-rooms, is a
+fresh, inexpensive carpet of unobtrusive colours, which can be
+constantly taken away and cleaned or renewed, rather than a more costly,
+rich-looking floor-covering, which will surely in time become and remain
+more or less dirty. But light carpets are seldom soft in tone, and I
+should be inclined to suggest felt as a groundwork, if the bare boards
+are inadmissible, with large rugs thrown down before the fireplace,
+dressing and writing-tables, &c. These should of course contrast
+harmoniously with the walls. If you have a room of which the style is a
+little too sombre, then lighten it and brighten it by all the means in
+your power. If it be inclined to be garish and glaring, then subdue it.
+
+People cannot always create, as it were, the place in which they are
+obliged to live. One may find oneself placed in a habitation perfectly
+contrary to every principle of correct taste as well as opposed to one's
+individual preferences. But that is such an opportunity! out of
+unpromising materials and surroundings you have to make a room, whether
+bed-room or boudoir, which will take the impression of your own state.
+As long as a woman possesses a pair of hands and her work-basket, a
+little hammer and a few tin-tacks, it is hard if she need live in a room
+which is actually ugly. I don't suppose any human being except a gipsy
+has ever dwelt in so many widely-apart lands as I have. Some of these
+homes have been in the infancy of civilisation, and yet I have never
+found it necessary to endure, for more than the first few days of my
+sojourn, anything in the least ugly or uncomfortable. Especially pretty
+has my sleeping-room always been, though it has sometimes looked out
+over the snowy peaks of the Himalayas, at others, up a lovely New
+Zealand valley, or, in still earlier days, over a waving West Indian
+"grass-piece." But I may as well get out the map of the world at once,
+and try to remember the various places to which my wandering destiny has
+led me. All the moral I want to draw from this geographical digression
+is that I can assert from my own experience--which after all is the only
+true standpoint of assertion--that it is possible to have really pretty,
+as well as thoroughly comfortable dwelling-places even though they may
+lie thousands of miles away from the heart of civilisation, and
+hundreds of leagues distant from a shop or store of any kind. I mean
+this as an encouragement--not a boast.
+
+Chintz is what naturally suggests itself to the inquirer's mind as most
+suitable for the drapery of a bed-room, and there is a great deal to be
+said in its favour. First of all, its comparative cheapness and the
+immense variety of its designs. Cretonnes are comely too, if care be
+taken to avoid the very gaudy ones. If there is no objection on the
+score of difficulty of keeping clean, I am fond, in a modern bed-room,
+of curtains all of one colour, some soft, delicate tint of blue or rose,
+with a great deal of patternless white muslin either over it or beneath
+it as drapery to the window. This leaves you more free for bright,
+effective bits of colour for sofa, table-cover, &c., and the feeling of
+the window curtains can be carried out again in the screen. A bed-room,
+to be really comfortable, should always have one or even two screens, if
+it be large enough. They give a great air of comfort to a room, and are
+exceedingly convenient as well as pretty. The fashion of draped
+toilet-tables is passing away so rapidly that they cannot be depended
+upon for colour in a room, though we get the advantage in other ways. So
+we must fall back upon the old idea of embroidered quilts once more to
+help with colour and tone in our bed-rooms. They are made in a hundred
+different and almost equally pretty designs. Essentially modern quilts
+for summer can be made of lace or muslin over pink or blue batiste or
+silk to match the tints of the room; quilts of linen embroidered with
+deliciously artistic bunches of fruit or flowers at the edge and
+corners; quilts of eider-down covered with silk, for preference, or if
+our means will not permit so costly a material, then of _one_ colour,
+such as Turkey red, in twilled cotton. I have never liked those gay
+imitation Indian quilts. They generally "swear" at everything else in
+the room.
+
+But there are still more beautiful quilts of an older style and date. I
+have seen some made of coarse linen, with a pattern running in parallel
+strips four or six inches wide, formed by pulling out the threads to
+make the groundwork of an insertion. The same idea looks well also when
+carried out in squares or a diamond-shaped pattern. Then there are
+lovely quilts of muslin embroidered in delicate neutral tints, which
+look as if they came straight from Cairo or Bagdad, but which have never
+been out of England, and owe their lightness and beauty to the looms of
+Manchester.
+
+One of the prettiest and simplest bed-rooms I know had its walls covered
+with lining paper of the very tenderest tint of green, on which were
+hung some pretty pastel sketches, all in the same style. The chintzes,
+or rather cretonnes, were of a creamy white ground with bunches of
+lilacs powdered on them, and the carpet, of a soft green, had also a
+narrow border with bouquets of lilacs at each corner. The screens were
+of muslin over lilac batiste, and the quilt of the simple bedstead had
+been worked by the owner's own fingers, of linen drawn out in threads.
+The very tiles of the fireplace--for this pretty room had an open hearth
+with a sort of basket for a coal fire in the middle--and the china of
+the basin-stand as well as the door-handles and plates, were all
+decorated with the same flower, and although essentially a modern room
+in a modern house, it was exquisitely fresh and uncommon. This was
+partly owing to the liberal use of the leaves of the lilac, which are in
+form so exceedingly pretty.
+
+In an old-fashioned house if I wanted the draperies and quilt of my
+bed-room to be thoroughly harmonious I should certainly go to the Royal
+School of Art Needlework in the Exhibition Road for designs, as they
+possess extraordinary facilities for getting at specimens of the best
+early English and French needlework, and they can imitate even the
+materials to perfection. I saw some curtains the other day in a modern
+boudoir from this Royal School of Art Needlework. They were of a
+delicate greenish blue silk-rep, which hung in delicious round folds and
+had a bold and simple design of conventionalised lilies in a material
+like Tussore silk _appliqué_-d with a needlework edge. Of course they
+were intended for a purely modern room, but there were also some copies
+of draperies which went beautifully with Chippendale chairs and lovely
+old straight up and down cupboards and settees.
+
+There is rather a tendency in the present day to make both bed-rooms and
+boudoirs gloomy; a horrible vision of a room with walls the colour of a
+robin's egg (dots and all) and _black_ furniture, rises up before me,
+and the owner of this apartment could not be induced to brighten up her
+gloom by so much as a gay pincushion. Now our grandmothers understood
+much better, though probably no one ever said a word to them about it,
+how necessary it was to light up dark recesses by contrasts. You would
+generally have found an exquisite old blue and white Delft jar full of
+scented rose-leaves, a gay beau-pot full of poppies, or even a
+spinning-wheel with its creamy bundle of flax or wool bound by a scarlet
+ribbon, in the unregarded corner of a dingy passage, and I think we do
+not bear in mind enough how bright and gay the costumes of those days
+used to be. To a new house, furnished according to the present rage for
+old-fashioned decoration, our modern sombre apparel is no help. We do
+not lighten up our rooms a bit now by our dress, except perhaps in
+summer, but generally we sit, clad in dingiest tints of woollen
+material, or in very inartistic black silk, amid furniture which was
+originally designed as a sort of background to much gay and gallant
+clothing, to flowered sacques and powdered heads, to bright steel
+buttons and buckles and a thousand points of colour and light. Let us
+follow their old good example thoroughly, if we do it at all, and do our
+best to brighten the dull nooks and corners which will creep into all
+dwellings, by our attire, as well as in all other ways.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+BEDS AND BEDDING.
+
+
+When we discuss a bed-room, the bed ought certainly to be the first
+thing considered. Here at least, is a great improvement within even the
+last forty or fifty years. Where are now those awful four-posters, so
+often surmounted by huge wooden knobs or plumes of feathers, or which
+even offered hideously carved griffin's heads to superintend your
+slumbers? Gone, "quite gone," as children say. At first we ran as usual
+into the opposite extreme, and bestowed ourselves at night in frightful
+and vulgar frames of cast iron, ornamented with tawdry gilt or bronze
+scroll-work, but such things are seldom seen now, and even the cheap
+common iron or brass bedstead of the present day has at least the merit
+of simplicity. Its plain rails at foot and head are a vast improvement
+on the fantastic patterns of even twenty years ago, and the bedsteads
+of the present day will long continue in general use in modern houses.
+Their extreme cheapness and cleanliness are great points in their
+favour, and when they are made low, and have a spring frame with one
+rather thick mattress at the top, they are perfectly comfortable to
+sleep in besides being harmless to look at.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
+
+But in many rooms where the style of both decoration and furniture has
+been carried back for a century and a half, and all the severe and
+artistic lines of the tastes of those days must needs be preserved, then
+indeed an ordinary iron or brass bedstead, of ever so unobtrusive a
+pattern would be ludicrously out of place. Still, if our minds revolt
+from anything like a return to the old nightmare-haunted huge Beds of
+Ware, we can find something to sleep on which will be in harmony with
+the rest of the surroundings, and yet combine the modern needs of air
+and light with the old-fashioned strictness of form and beauty of
+detail. Here is a drawing (Fig. 1) made from an old Dutch bedstead by
+Mr. Lathrop. The sides are of beautifully and conscientiously inlaid
+work, whilst the slight outward slope of both the head and foot-board
+insures the perfection of comfort. To avoid a too great austerity of
+form, the upper cap of the foot-board has been cut in curves, and the
+solidity of the legs modified ever so slightly. The bedding of this
+bedstead must by no means project beyond its sides, but must fit into
+the box-like cavity intended to receive it. In this bedstead (Fig. 2),
+which was made from a design by Mr. Sandier, more latitude is allowed
+in this respect, and its perfect simplicity can only be equalled by its
+beauty.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
+
+The form of wooden bedstead (Fig. 3), which could easily be copied at
+all events in its general idea, by any village carpenter, would be
+exceedingly pretty and original for a young girl's bed-room. It is
+intended to be of oak with side rails which are to pass through carved
+posts, and be held by wooden pins, as are also the end rails. For
+durability as well as simplicity this design leaves nothing to be
+desired, and it can be made in almost any hard wood, whilst every year
+would only add to its intrinsic worth. How many of us mothers have taken
+special delight in preparing a room for our daughters when they return
+from school "for good"--when they leave off learning lessons out of
+books, and try, with varied success, to learn and apply those harder
+lessons, which have to be learned without either books or teachers.
+
+What sumptuous room in after years ever affords the deep delight of the
+sense of ownership which attends the first awakening of a girl in a room
+of her very own? and it is a vivid recollection of this pure delight of
+one's own bygone girl-days which prompts us to do our best to furbish up
+ever so homely a room for our eldest daughter. If a pretty, fresh
+carpet is unattainable, then let us have bare boards, with rugs, or
+skins, or whatever is available. Necessity developes ingenuity, and
+ingenuity goes a long way. I never learned the meaning of either word
+until I found myself very far removed from shops, and forced to invent
+or substitute the materials wherewith to carry out my own little
+decorative ideas.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 3.]
+
+Some very lofty rooms seem to require a more furnished style of bed, and
+for these stately sleeping-places it may be well to have sweeping
+curtains of silk or satin gathered up quite or almost at the ceiling,
+and falling in ample straight folds on either side of a wide, low
+bedstead. They would naturally be kept out of the way by slender arms or
+brackets some six or eight feet from the floor, which would prevent the
+curtains from clinging too closely round the bed, and give the right
+lines to the draperies. But, speaking individually, it is never to such
+solemn sleeping-places as these, that my fancy reverts when, weary and
+travel-stained, and in view of some homely wayside room, one thinks by
+way of contrast, of other and prettier bed-rooms. No, it is rather to
+simple, lovely little nests of chintz and muslin, with roses inside and
+outside the wall, with low chairs and writing-table, sofa and toilet all
+in the same room--a bed-room and bower in one. Edgar Allan Poe declares
+that to
+
+                    "slumber aright
+  You must sleep in just such a bed."
+
+But he only says it of the last bed of all. Without going so far as
+that, I can declare that I have slumbered "aright" in extraordinary
+beds, in extraordinary places, on tables, and under them (that was to be
+out of the way of being walked upon), on mats, on trunks, on all sorts
+of wonderful contrivances. I slept once very soundly on a piece of
+sacking stretched between two bullock trunks, though my last waking
+thought was an uneasy misgiving as to the durability of the
+frail-looking iron pins at each end of this yard of canvas, which fitted
+into corresponding eyelet holes in the trunks. I know the uneasiness of
+mattresses stuffed with chopped grass, and the lumpiness of those filled
+by amateur hands with wool--_au naturel_. Odours also are familiar unto
+me, the most objectionable being, perhaps, that arising from a feather
+bed in a Scotch inn, and from a seaweed mattress in an Irish hotel, in
+which I should imagine many curious specimens of marine zoology had been
+entombed by mistake.
+
+But there is one thing I want to say most emphatically, and that is that
+I have met with greater dirt and discomfort, worse furniture, more
+comfortless beds (I will say nothing of the vileness of the food!), and
+a more general air of primitive barbarism in inns and lodgings in
+out-of-the-way places in Great Britain and Ireland, than I have ever
+come across in any colony. I know half-a-dozen places visited by heaps
+of tourists every year, within half-a-dozen hours' journey of London,
+which are _far_ behind, in general comfort and convenience, most of the
+roadside inns either in New Zealand or Natal. It is very inexplicable
+why it should be so, but it is a fact. It is marvellous that there
+should often be such dirt and discomfort and general shabbiness and
+dinginess under circumstances which, compared with colonial
+difficulties, including want of money, would seem all that could be
+desired.
+
+However, to return to the subject in hand. We will take it for granted
+that a point of equal importance with the form of the bedstead is its
+comfort but this must always be left to the decision of its occupant.
+Some people prefer beds and pillows of an adamantine hardness, others of
+a luxurious softness. Either extreme is bad, in my opinion. As a rule,
+however, I should have the mattresses for children's use _rather_
+hard--a firm horsehair on the top of a wool mattress, and children's
+pillows should _always_ be low. Some people heap bed-clothes over their
+sleeping children, but I am sure this is a bad plan. I would always take
+care that a child was quite warm enough, especially when it gets into
+bed of a winter's night, but after a good temperature has been
+established I would remove the extra wraps and accustom the child to
+sleep with light covering. A little flannel jacket for a young child who
+throws its arms outside the bed-clothes is a good plan, and saves them
+from many a cough or cold. In the case of a delicate, chilly child, I
+would even recommend a flannel bed-gown or dressing-gown to sleep in in
+the depth of winter, for it saves a weight of clothes over them. I never
+use a quilt at night for children; it keeps in the heat too much, but
+blankets of the best possible quality are a great advantage. The cheap
+ones are heavy and not nearly so warm, whereas a good, expensive blanket
+not only wears twice as long, but is much more light and wholesome as a
+covering. Nor would I permit soft pillows; of course there is a medium
+between a fluff of down and a stone, and it is just a medium pillow I
+should recommend for young children and growing girls and boys. The
+fondest and fussiest parents do not always understand that, on the most
+careful attention to some such simple rules depend the straightness of
+their children's spines, the strength of their young elastic limbs,
+their freedom from colds and coughs, and in fact their general health.
+Often the daylight hours are weighted by a heavy mass of rules and
+regulations, but few consider that half of a young child's life should
+be spent in its bed. So that unless the atmosphere of the room they
+sleep in, the quality of the bed they lie on, and the texture of the
+clothes which cover them, are taken into consideration, it is only half
+their existence which is being cared for.
+
+[Illustration: FIG 4.]
+
+All bedsteads are healthier for being as low as possible; thus insuring
+a better circulation of air above the sleeper's face, and doing away
+with the untidy possibility of keeping boxes or carpet-bags under the
+bedstead. There should be no valance to any bedstead. In the daytime an
+ample quilt thrown over the bedding will be quite drapery enough, and at
+night it is just as well to have a current of air beneath the frame of
+the bed. The new spring mattresses are very nearly perfect as regards
+the elasticity which is so necessary in a couch, and they can be suited
+to all tastes by having either soft or hard horsehair or finely picked
+wool mattresses on the top of them. Whenever it is possible, I would
+have children put to sleep in separate bedsteads, even if they like to
+have them close together as in Fig. 4.
+
+There are many varieties of elastic mattresses, though I prefer the more
+clumsy one of spiral springs inclosed in a sort of frame. For transport
+this is, however, very cumbrous, and in such a case it would be well to
+seek other and lighter kinds. It must be also remembered that these
+spring mattresses are only suitable for modern beds in modern rooms; the
+old carven beds of a "Queen Anne" bed-room must needs be made
+comfortable by hair and wool mattresses only.
+
+In many cases, however, where economy of space and weight has to be
+considered, I would recommend a new sort of elastic mattress which can
+easily be affixed to any bedstead. It resembles a coat of mail more
+than anything else and possesses the triple merit in these travelling
+days of being cool, clean, and portable.
+
+The frowsy old feather bed of one's infancy has so completely gone out
+of favour that it is hardly necessary to place one more stone on the
+cairn of abuse already raised over it by doctors' and nurses' hands. A
+couple of thick mattresses, one of horsehair and one of wool, will make
+as soft and comfortable a bed as anyone need wish for.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 5.]
+
+Instead of curtains, which the modern form of bedstead renders
+incongruous and impossible, screens on either side of the bed are a much
+prettier and more healthy substitute. I like screens immensely; they
+insure privacy, they keep out the light if necessary, and are a great
+improvement to the look of any room. It is hardly necessary to say they
+should suit the style of its decoration. If you are arranging a lofty
+old-fashioned room, then let your screens be of old Dutch leather--of
+which beautiful fragments are to be found--with a groundwork which can
+only be described by paradoxes, for it is at once solid and light,
+sombre and gay. Any one who has seen those old stamped leather screens
+of a peculiar sea-green blue, with a raised dull gold arabesque design
+on them, will know what I mean. There are also beautiful old Indian or
+Japan lacquered screens, light, and with very little pattern on them;
+even imitation ones of Indian pattern paper are admissible to narrow
+purses, but anything real is always much more satisfactory. If again
+your bower is a modern Frenchified concern, then screen off its angles
+by _écrans_ of gay tapestry or embroidered folding leaves, or
+paper-covered screens of delicate tints with sprays of trailing blossom,
+and here and there a bright-winged bird or butterfly. Designs for all
+these varieties of screens can be obtained in great perfection at the
+Royal School of Art Needlework. But for a simple modern English
+bed-room, snug as a bird's nest, and bright and fresh as a summer
+morning I should choose screens of slender wooden rails with fluted
+curtains of muslin and lace cunningly hung thereon. Only it must be
+remembered that these entail constant change, and require to be always
+exquisitely fresh and clean.
+
+It often happens that another spare bed is wanted on an emergency, and
+it is a great point in designing couches for a nondescript room, a room
+which is some one person's peculiar private property, whether called a
+den or a study, a smoking-room or a boudoir, that the said couch should
+be able "a double debt to pay" on a pinch. I have lately seen two such
+resting-places which were both convenient and comfortable. The first was
+a long, low settee of cane, with a thin mattress over its seat, and a
+thicker one, doubled in two, forming a luxurious back against the wall
+by day. At night, this mattress could be laid flat out on the top of the
+other, which gave increased width as well as softness to the extempore
+bed.
+
+The other, of modern carved oak, had been copied from the pattern of an
+old settle. It was low and wide, with only one deep well-stuffed
+mattress, round which an Algerine striped blue and white cotton cloth
+had been wrapped. Of course this could be removed at night, and the bed
+made up in the usual way. It struck me, with its low, strong railing
+round three sides, as peculiarly suitable for a change of couch for a
+sick child, though it could hardly be used by a full-grown person as a
+bed.
+
+So now all has been said that need be on the point of a sleeping place.
+It is too essentially a matter of choice to allow of more than
+suggestion; and at least my readers will admit that I am only arbitrary
+on the points of fresh air and cleanliness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+WARDROBES AND CUPBOARDS.
+
+
+Sometimes a room has to play the part of both bed-room and boudoir, and
+then it is of importance what form the "_garde-robes_" shall assume.
+Fortunately there are few articles of furniture on which more lavish
+pains have been bestowed, and in which it is possible to find scope for
+a wider range of taste and choice. Recesses may be fitted up, if the
+room be a large one, and have deep depressions here and there in the
+masonry with doors to match the rest of the woodwork, panelled, grained,
+and painted exactly alike, and very commodious hanging cupboards may
+thus be formed. But however useful these may be to the lady's maid, they
+are scarcely æsthetic enough to be entitled to notice among descriptions
+of art furniture. Rather let us turn to this little wardrobe (Fig. 6),
+too narrow, perhaps, for aught but a single gown of the present day
+to hang in, yet exquisitely artistic and pleasant to look upon. Its
+corner columns are mounted with brass, and every detail of its
+construction is finished as though by the hand of a jeweller. The lower
+drawers are probably intended for lace or fur, or some other necessary
+of a fine lady's toilette. It is very evident from the accommodation
+provided in the distant days when such wardrobes were designed, that
+"little and good" used to be the advice given to our grandmothers with
+their pin-money, and that even in their wildest dreams they never beheld
+the countless array of skirts and polonaises and mantles and Heaven
+knows what beside, that furnish forth a modern belle's equipment. Yet
+these moderate-minded dames and damsels must have loved the garments
+they did possess very dearly, for the heroine of every poem or romance
+of the last century is represented as depending quite as much on her
+clothes in the battle of life as any knight on his suit of Milan mail.
+Clarissa Harlowe mingles tragic accounts of Lovelace's villanies with
+her grievances about mismatched ruffles and tuckers, and even the
+excellent Miss Byron has by no means a soul above court suits or French
+heels. Still these lovely ladies had not much space assigned to them
+wherein to bestow their finery when it was not on their backs, and we
+must expect to find all the wardrobe designs of former times of somewhat
+skimpy proportions. Here is an antique lock-up (Fig. 7) of French make
+(most of the best designs for furniture came from France in those days)
+of a very practical and good form to copy in a humbler material. This is
+made of a costly wood, probably rosewood, with beautifully engraved
+brass fittings all over it. The door of the upper half seems rather
+cumbrous, being only a flap which opens out all in one piece, but a
+modern and less expensive copy might be improved by dividing this large
+lid into a couple of doors to open in the middle in the usual way,
+without at all departing from the original lines.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 6.]
+
+Fig. 8, again, is more of a bureau, and affords but scanty room for the
+ample stores of a lady's _lingerie_. It is, however, of a very good
+design in its way, its chief value being the workmanship of its fine
+brass ornaments. The handles of the drawers are peculiarly beautiful,
+and represent the necks and heads of swans issuing from a wreath of
+leaves. It would look particularly well in a bed-room in a large
+old-fashioned country house, where the rest of the furniture is perhaps
+rather cumbrous as well as convenient, and the glitter of the metal
+mounting would help to brighten a dingy corner. It cannot, however, be
+depended upon to hold much, and is chiefly valuable in a decorative
+sense, or as a stand for a toilette glass.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 7.]
+
+In strong contrast to these two designs is Fig. 9 of modern Japanese
+manufacture. It is easy to see that the original idea must have been
+taken from a common portable chest of drawers, such as officers use. The
+slight alteration in its arrangement is owing to Japanese common sense
+and observation, for it would have required more strength of character
+than a cockney upholsterer possesses, to divide one of the parts so
+unequally as in this illustration. But the male heart will be sure to
+delight specially in that one deep drawer for shirts, and the shallow
+one at the top for collars, pockethandkerchiefs, neckties, and so forth.
+The lower drawers would hold a moderate supply of clothes, and the
+little closet contains three small drawers, besides a secret place for
+money and valuables. When the two boxes, for they are really little
+else, are placed side by side they measure only three feet one inch
+long, three feet four high, and one foot five deep. They hardly appear,
+from the prominence of the sliding handles, intended to be packed in
+outer wooden cases as portable chests of drawers usually are; but it
+must be remembered that in Japan they would be carried from place to
+place slung on poles carried on men's shoulders. There is a good deal of
+iron used in the construction, which must be intended to give strength,
+but it does not add to the weight in any excessive degree, for it is
+very thin. The wood is soft and light, and rather over-polished, but the
+Japanese artist would have delighted in varnishing it still more, and
+covering it with grotesque gilt designs in lacquer, if he had been
+allowed. On page 55 will be found a roomy Chinese cupboard with drawers
+and nicely-carved panels.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 8.]
+
+Many of our most beautiful old Indian chests of drawers and cabinets
+have this black ground with quaintest bronze or brazen clamps and
+hinges, locks and handles, to give relief to the sombre groundwork.
+Except that the drawers seldom open well, and are nearly always
+inconveniently small, they are the most beautiful things in the world
+for keeping clothes in, but it would certainly be as well to have, out
+of the room in a passage, some more commodious and commonplace
+receptacles. I have seen a corridor leading to bed-rooms, lined on each
+side with wardrobes, about six or seven feet high, consisting merely of
+a plain deal top with divisions at intervals of some five feet from top
+to bottom. A series of hanging cupboards was thus formed, which had been
+lined with stretched brown holland, furnished with innumerable pegs, and
+closed in by doors of a neat framework of varnished deal with panels of
+fluted chintz. Besides these doors to each compartment, an ample curtain
+hung within, of brown holland, suspended by rings on a slender iron rod;
+and this curtain effectually kept out all dust and dirt, and preserved
+intact the delicate fabrics within. Such an arrangement must have been,
+I fear, far more satisfactory to the soul of the lady's maid than the
+most beautiful old Indian or French chest of drawers.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 9.]
+
+For rooms which are not old-fashioned in style, and in which it is yet
+not possible to indulge in French _consoles_ or Indian cabinets as
+places to keep clothes in, then I would recommend the essentially modern
+simple style of wardrobe and chest of drawers. I would eschew "gothic,"
+or "mediæval," or any other style, and I would avoid painted lines as I
+would the plague. But there are perfectly simple, inoffensive wardrobes
+to be procured of varnished pine or even deal (and the former wears the
+best) which, if it can only be kept free from scratches, is at least in
+good taste and harmony in a modern, commonplace bed-room. It is quite
+possible, however by the exercise of a little ingenuity to dispense with
+modern, bought wardrobes, and to invent something which will hold
+clothes, and yet be out of the beaten track. I happened only the other
+day, to come across so good an example of what I mean,[1] that I feel
+it ought to be described. First of all, it must be understood that the
+bed-room in question was a small one, in a London house recently
+decorated and fitted up in the style which prevailed in Queen Anne's
+reign, and to which there is now such a decided return of the public
+taste. The other portions of the furniture were in accordance with the
+original intention of the room and consisted of a very beautiful, though
+simple, carved oaken bedstead, and a plain spindle-legged toilette table
+and washstand, also old in design. The chairs were especially fine,
+having been bought in a cottage in Suffolk, and yet they matched the
+bedstead perfectly. They had substantial rush-bottomed seats, but the
+frame was of fine dark oak, and the front feet spread out in a firm,
+satisfactory fashion giving an idea of solidity and strength. The
+fireplace was tiled after the old style, and the mantelpiece consisted
+of a couple of narrow oak shelves, about a dozen inches apart, connected
+by small pillars. These ledges afforded a stand for a few curious little
+odds and ends, and on the top shelf stood some specimens of old china.
+But the difficulty remained about the wardrobe, for the room was too
+small to admit old _bureaus_ which would only hold half a dozen articles
+of clothing.
+
+[Footnote 1: See Frontispiece.]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 10.]
+
+So the ingenious owner devised a sort of corner cupboard to fit into an
+angle of the room, and to match the rest of the woodwork in colour and
+style, having old brass handles and plates like those on the doors. It
+is a sort of double cupboard; that is to say, whilst the left-hand side
+is a hanging wardrobe which only projects away from the wall
+sufficiently to allow the dresses to be hung up properly, the right-hand
+division is a chest of drawers. Not a row of commonplace drawers,
+however. No; the front surface is broken by the introduction of little
+square doors and other arrangements, for bonnets, &c. We must bear in
+mind these drawers extend much higher than usual, and the cornice being
+nearly on a level with that of the wardrobe, there can be no possibility
+of putting boxes and so forth on the top; but then, on the other hand, a
+goodly range of drawers of differing depth is provided. It certainly
+seemed to me an excellent way of meeting the difficulty; and I also
+noticed in other bed-rooms in the same house how odd nooks and uneven
+recesses were filled in by a judicious blending of cupboard and wardrobe
+which is evidently convenient in practice as well as exceedingly quaint
+yet correct in theory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+FIRE AND WATER.
+
+
+Perhaps the part of any room which is most often taken out of, or put
+beyond the decorative hands of its owner, is the fireplace. And yet,
+though it is one of the most salient features in any English dwelling,
+it is, nine cases out of ten, the most repulsively ugly. When one thinks
+either of the imitation marble mantelpiece, or its cotton velvet and of
+false-lace-bedizened shelves, the artistic soul cannot refrain from a
+shudder. The best which can be hoped from an ordinary modern builder is
+that he will put in harmless grates and mantelpieces, and abstain from
+showy designs. The fireplace in either bed-room or boudoir should not be
+too large, nor yet small enough to give an air of stinginess, out of
+proportion to everything else. Here are two (Figs. 11 and 14). The
+design of each is as simple as possible, of plainest lines, but with no
+pretence of elaborate sham splendour. Fig. 11 is of course only suitable
+for a small unassuming room, but if the tiles were old Dutch ones and
+the rest of the bed-room ware quaint blue and white Delft, an effect of
+individuality and suitability would be at once attained. Such a
+fireplace would look best in a room with wall-paper of warm neutral
+tints of rather an old-fashioned design, and I should like a nice
+straight brass fender in front of it almost as flat as a kitchen fender
+with delightful possibilities of sociable toe-toasting about it. Such a
+one I came across lately that had been "picked up" in the far east of
+London. It was about eighteen inches high, of a most beautiful simple,
+flat, form with a handsome twist or scroll dividing the design into two
+parts. Although blackened to disguise by age and neglect at the time of
+its purchase, it shone when I saw it, with that peculiar brilliant and
+yet softened sheen which you never get except in real old brass; a hue
+seldom if ever attained in modern brazen work however beautiful the
+design may be. This fender stood firmly--a great and especial merit in
+fenders--on two large, somewhat projecting, feet, and its cheerful
+reflections gave an air of brightness to the room at once.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 11.]
+
+There must always be plenty of room for the fire, and the actual grate
+should of course be so set as to throw all the warmth into the room.
+Then, though it is rather a digression,--only I want to finish off the
+picture which rises up before me,--I would have a couple of chairs
+something like this (Fig. 12), and just such a table for a book or one's
+hair-brushes a little in front of these two chairs. And then what a
+gossip must needs ensue! Of course I would have a trivet on the fire, or
+before it. No bed-room can look really comfortable without a trivet and
+a kettle; a brass kettle for preference, as squat and fat and shining as
+it is possible to procure. There are charming kettles to be found,
+copied from Dutch designs.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 12.]
+
+Instead of the ordinary wide low mantelpiece one sees in bed-rooms, I am
+very fond of two narrower shelves over such a fireplace as this. They
+are perhaps best plain oak, divided and supported by little turned
+pillars, and if the top shelf has a ledge half-way a few nice plates
+look especially well. But there are such pretty designs for mantelpieces
+now to be procured, that it would be a waste of time to describe any
+particular style, and most fireplaces are made on scientific principles
+of ventilation. Nor is it, I hope, necessary to reiterate the injunction
+about every part of the decoration and detail of a room, whether fixture
+or moveable, matching or suiting all the rest. In some instances
+contrast is the most harmonious arrangement one can arrive at, but this
+should not be a matter lightly taken in hand. A strong feeling is
+growing up in favour of the old-fashioned open fireplaces lined with
+tiles, and adapted to modern habits by a sort of iron basket on low feet
+in the centre, for coals. Excellent fires are made in this way, and I
+know many instances where the prettiest possible effect has been
+attained. In a country where wood is cheap and plentiful, the basket
+for coals may be done away with and the fuel kept in its place by sturdy
+"dogs," for which many charming hints have been handed down to us by our
+grandfathers. Over the modern fireplace, even in a bed-room, a mirror is
+generally placed, but I would not advise it unless the room chanced to
+be so dingy that every speck of light must be procured by any means.
+Still less would I have recourse to the usual stereotyped gilt-framed
+bit of looking glass. In such a private den as we are talking about, all
+sorts of little eccentricities might be permitted to the decorator. I
+have seen a looking-glass with a flat, narrow frame, beyond which
+projected a sort of outer frame also flat, wherein were mounted a series
+of pretty little water-colour sketches, and another done in the same way
+with photographs--only these were much more difficult to manage
+artistically, and needed to be mounted with a background of greyish
+paper. For a thoroughly modern room, small oval mirrors are pretty,
+mounted on a wide margin of velvet with sundry diminutive brackets and
+knobs and hooks for the safe bestowal of pet little odds and ends of
+china and glass, with here and there a quaint old miniature or brooch
+among them. In old, _real_ old rooms anything of this sort would,
+however, be an impossibility, for the mantelshelf would probably be
+carried up far over the owner's head who might think herself lucky if
+she could ever reach, by standing on tip-toe, a candlestick off its
+narrow ledge. Our grandmothers seemed to make it their practice to hang
+their less choice portraits in the space above the mantelpiece, and to
+this spot seem generally to have been relegated the likenesses of
+disagreeable or disreputable, or, to say the least, uninteresting
+members of the family; the successful belles and heroes occupying a
+more prominent place downstairs. Fig. 14 shows a pretty arrangement of
+picture, mirror and shelves for china.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 13.]
+
+Before the subject of fire is laid aside, we must just touch upon
+candles and lamps. Fig. 13 is a simple and ordinary form of candlestick,
+which would be safe enough from risk of fire if these sheltering shades
+were made, as they often are, of tin, painted green, and then there
+would be no danger if it stood on a steady table, by the side of even
+the sleepiest student. But perhaps this design (Fig. 15) is the most
+uncommon, though it would not be safe to put so unprotected a light
+except in a perfectly safe draughtless place. However, there is also in
+this branch of decorative art a great variety of beautiful models to
+choose from. Antique lamps, copied from those exquisite shapes which
+seem to have been preserved for us in lava and ashes during all these
+centuries, with their scissors and pin and extinguisher, dangling from
+slender chains, lamps where modern invention for oil and wick meet and
+blend with chaste forms and lines borrowed from the old designers, and
+where the good of the eyesight is as much considered as the pleasure to
+the eye itself.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 14.]
+
+Of washing arrangements, it is not possible to speak in any arbitrary
+fashion. Here is a modern French washing-stand (Fig. 16) made, however,
+to close up, which is always an objectionable thing, in my opinion,
+though it may often be a convenient one. Let your basin invariably be as
+large as possible and your jug of a convenient form, to hold and pour
+from. Every basin-stand should be provided with a smaller basin and jug,
+and allow at the same time, plenty of space and accommodation for
+sponges and soap. If, from dearth of attendance, it is necessary to have
+a receptacle in the room, into which the basin may be emptied
+occasionally during the day, I would entreat that it should be also of
+china, for the tin ones soon acquire an unpleasant smell even from
+soapsuds. But I detest such contrivances, and they are absolutely
+inadmissible on any other score except economy of service. All bathing
+arrangements would be better in a separate room, but if this should be
+impossible, then they should be behind a screen. But indeed I prefer,
+wherever it is feasible, to contrive a small closet for all the washing
+apparatus, and to keep basin-stand, towel-horse, and bath in it.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 15.]
+
+It is sometimes difficult to hit exactly upon a plan for a washing-stand
+for a very small room or corner, and a copy of this Chinese stand (Fig.
+17) for a basin and washing appliances, would look very quaint and
+appropriate in such a situation. Only real, coarse, old Indian, or
+Japanese china, would go well with it, however, or it might be fitted
+with one of those wooden lacquered bowls from Siam, and a water-jar
+from South America of fine red clay, and of a most artistic and
+delightful form. There are hundreds of such jars to be bought at Madeira
+for a shilling or two, and they keep water deliciously cool and fresh.
+If a demand arose for them they would probably be imported in large
+quantities. All washing-stands are the better for a piece of Indian
+matting hung at the back, for much necessary flirting and flipping of
+water goes on at such places, which stains and discolours the wall; but
+then this matting must constantly be renewed, for nothing can be more
+forlorn to the eye or unpleasing to the sense of smell, than damp straw
+is capable of becoming in course of time.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 16.]
+
+For the corner of a boy's bed-room, or for the washing apparatus of that
+very convenient little cupboard or closet or corner which I always
+struggle to institute _down_-stairs, close to where the gentlemen of the
+family hang their hats and coats, this (Fig. 18) is a very good design.
+It is simple in form and steady in build, and a long towel over a roller
+just behind it will be found useful. The towel need not be so coarse as
+the kitchen "round" one, from which it is copied; and above all things
+do not have it _hard_. It is a needless addition to the unavoidable
+miseries of life to be obliged to dry your hands in a hurry on a new
+huckaback towel.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 17.]
+
+Many charming basin-stands have I seen extemporised out of even a shelf
+in a corner; but such contrivances are perhaps too much of make-shifts
+to entitle them to mention here, only one hint would I give. Take care
+that your washing-stand is sufficiently low to enable you to use it with
+comfort. I once knew a very splendid and elaborate basin-stand,
+extending over the whole side of a dressing-room, which could only be
+approached by mounting three long low steps. I always felt thankful when
+my ablutions had ended and left my neck still unbroken.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 18.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE TOILET.
+
+
+There is no prettier object in either bed-room 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.
+
+[Illustration: 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.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 20.]
+
+The defect of these old _tiroirs_ is that they are rather small and low,
+and consequently look best in a small room, but they offer great variety
+of decorative embellishment (Fig. 21), and are very satisfactory, as
+stands for a small oval toilet-glass in an old frame to match. The
+designs too of the brass mountings for door and drawer are nearly always
+exceedingly beautiful, and vary from the simplest shining ring to a
+small miracle of artistic brazen work. These shining handles take away a
+good deal from the severity of decorative treatment which would
+naturally exist in the rest of the room, and it is under such
+conditions, where form takes precedence of colour, that we learn the
+full value of these little traps to attract and keep a warm glitter of
+light.
+
+Here is a simpler design for a toilet-table (Fig. 22) which would look
+very well standing between the windows of a lofty room. If it was found
+that a good light for the looking-glass had been sacrificed to the
+general harmony of the room, then a smaller glass might be placed _in_ a
+window, just for occasional use.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 21.]
+
+Some of the old-fashioned "toilet-equipages" are very beautiful just as
+they have come down to us. They are occasionally made in silver, and
+comprise many articles which cannot by any possibility be brought within
+the faith or practice of a modern belle. Still they offer charming forms
+for imitation, especially in the frames of the old hand-mirrors, whose
+elaborate simplicity (if one may use such a paradox) puts to shame the
+more ornate taste of their modern substitutes. Next to silver or
+tortoise-shell, I like ivory, as the material for a really beautiful and
+artistic set of toilet appendages, its delicious creamy tint going
+especially well with all shades of blue in a room. But I prefer the
+surface of the ivory kept plain and not grotesquely carved as you get it
+in China or Japan, for dust and dirt always take possession of the
+interstices, and lead to the things being consigned to a drawer. Now I
+cannot endure to possess any thing of any kind which had better be kept
+out of sight wrapped carefully away under lock and key. My idea of
+enjoying ownership is for my possession to be of such a nature that I
+can see it or use it every day--and all day long if I choose--so I shall
+not be found recommending anything which is "too bright and good for
+human nature's daily food." I have seen toilet-tables under
+difficulties, that is on board of real sea-going yachts, where it has
+been necessary to sink a little well into which each brush, box or tray
+securely fitted; and I have seen toilet-tables in Kafir-Land covered
+with common sixpenny cups and saucers, and shown as presenting a happy
+combination of use and ornament, strictly in conformity with "Engleez
+fasson."
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 22.]
+
+But perhaps our business does not lie so much with these as with the
+ordinary dressing-table which is now more used in the modern shape of a
+convenient table with a scoop out of the middle, beneath which the knees
+can fit when you are seated at it, and with a couple of drawers on each
+side. This too is covered by a white _serviette_ of some sort, and
+supports a large toilet-glass of equally uncompromising utility and
+convenience. But however readily these good qualities may be conceded to
+the modern toilet-table it is but an uninteresting feature in an ideal
+bower. If the room be an essentially modern one, and especially if it be
+in the country, nothing affords a prettier spot of colour in it, than
+the old-fashioned toilet-table of deal covered with muslin draperies
+over soft-hued muslin or batiste. Of course the caricature of such an
+arrangement may be seen any day in the fearful and detestable
+toilet-table with a skimpy and coarse muslin flounce over a
+tight-fitting skirt of glaring pink calico, but this is a parody on the
+ample, convenient stand for toilet necessaries, the draperies of which
+should be in harmony with the other colours of the room. It would need
+however to possess many changes of raiment, in order that it may always
+be kept up to the mark of spotless freshness. These draperies are
+prettier of plain soft white muslin without spot or figure of any kind,
+and may consist of two or three layers, draped with all the artistic
+skill the constructor thereof possesses. It is also an improvement, if
+instead of only a hideous crackle of calico beneath, there be a full
+flounce or petticoat of batiste which would give colour and graceful
+folds together. This is a very humble arrangement I know, but it can be
+made as effective as if it cost pounds instead of pence. And this is one
+of the strong points in all hints on decoration, that they should be of
+so elastic a nature as to be capable of expansion under favourable
+circumstances, though not beyond the reach of extremely slender
+resources.
+
+I do not recommend draped mirrors for modern toilet-tables on account of
+the danger from fire, and I like the style and frame of the
+looking-glass on the table to harmonise thoroughly with the rest of the
+furniture.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+ODDS AND ENDS OF DECORATION.
+
+
+It seems a pity that sofas and chairs made of straw or bamboo should not
+be more used than they are. I mean, used as they come from the maker's
+hands, _not_ painted or gilded, and becushioned and bedizened into
+hopeless vulgarity. They are only admissible _au naturel_, and should
+stand upon their own merits. Those we have as yet attempted to make in
+England are exceedingly weak and ugly compared with the same sort of
+thing from other countries. In Madeira, for instance, the chairs,
+baskets, and even tables, are very superior in strength and durability,
+as well as in correctness of outline, to those made in England; and when
+we go further off, to the East, we find a still greater improvement in
+furniture made of bamboo. Here is a chair (Fig. 23), of a pattern
+familiar to all travellers on the P. and O. boats, and whose
+acquaintance I first made in Ceylon. It is essentially a gentleman's
+chair, however, and as such is sinking into an honoured and happy old
+age in the dingy recesses of a London smoking-room. Without the
+side-wings, which serve equally for a table or leg-rest, and with the
+seat elongated and slightly depressed, such a chair makes a delicious,
+cool lounge for a lady's use in a verandah.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 23.]
+
+Then here (Fig. 24) is a Chinese sofa made of bamboo which, in its own
+country, would probably not be encumbered with cushions, for they can be
+removed at pleasure. Where, however, there is no particular inducement
+to use cane or bamboo, then it would be better to have made by the
+village carpenter a settee--or settle, which is the real word--something
+like this. The form is, at all events correct; and in a private
+sitting-room, furnished and fitted to match, the effect would be a
+thousand times better than the modern couches, which are so often padded
+and stuffed into deformity.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 24.]
+
+Nothing can be simpler than the lines of the design, as is seen in this
+drawing (Fig 25B), without the cushions; and it would come within the
+scope of the most modest upholstering genius. In one's own little
+den--which, by the way, I should _never_ myself dignify by the name of
+boudoir, a word signifying a place to idle and sulk in, instead of a
+retreat in which to be busy and comfortable--such odds and ends of
+furniture, so long as there be one distinct feeling running through
+it all, are far more characteristic than commonplace sofas and chairs.
+If one _must_ have large armchairs in a boudoir, or in a bed-room, here
+is one (Fig. 26) which is big enough in all conscience, and yet would go
+more harmoniously with an old-fashioned room than any fat and dumpy
+modern chair. If, on the other hand, the house in general, and this
+particular room, chances to be essentially in the style of the present
+day, then you would naturally choose some of the comfortable modern
+easy-chairs, taking care to avoid the shapes which are a mass of padded
+and cushioned excrescences. But modern armchairs can be very pretty, and
+I know several which are low and long, and straight and unassuming, and
+which yet preserve quite a good distinct outline. Such chairs as these
+are a sort of half-way house between bed and board, between absolute
+rest and uncomplaining unrest; famous places for thinking, for watching,
+for chatting, and, above all, for dozing.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 25A.]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 25B.]
+
+The bed-rooms I am thinking of and writing about have, we must bear in
+mind, a certain element of the bower or boudoir or private sitting-room
+in them, and so I must stand excused for a suggestion about a place for
+books or music. Here is a delightful corner for a piano (Fig. 27), but
+sometimes such a thing is out of the question, and it is only possible
+to find space for a few shelves. These can always be made suitable and
+pretty either of a simple old form in plainest oak to match the severe
+lines of an old-fashioned room, or of deal painted black, varnished,
+with a gilt line grooved in front, and a bit of bright leather to go
+with a more modern room. To my mind books are always the best ornaments
+in any room, and I never feel at home in any place until my beloved and
+often shabby old friends are unpacked and ranged in their recess. I once
+extemporised a capital book case out of a blocked-up window, and with, a
+tiny scrap of looking-glass let in where the arch of the window began
+its spring, and filled by some old bowls of coarse but capital old
+china, whose gaudy colours could only be looked at safely from a
+distance.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 26.]
+
+As time goes on, one is sure, in such a beloved little den, to
+accumulate a great deal of rubbish dear, perhaps, only to the owner for
+the sake of association. Which of us has not, at some tender time of our
+lives, regarded a withered flower, or valueless pebble, as our great
+earthly treasure? So, in later days, a plate, a cup, a pipe will be
+precious, perhaps, to one as mementoes of the place and companions where
+and with whom it was bought. But if such trifles, though too dear to be
+laid aside, are yet not intrinsically good enough to form part of a
+collection, and to take a prominent share in decoration, then I would
+either stand them aside on a little _étagère_ like that to be found on
+page 79, or else get the carpenter to put up graduated shelves, which
+may be quite pure and simple in taste and yet suit the rest of the
+room. This (Fig. 28) is a capital valuable hint to keep photographs or
+prints at hand, and yet in safety. Take my advice, and don't have fringe
+or mock lace, or gilt nails at the edges by way of decoration. Have a
+nice piece of wood, walnut, oak, even varnished pine, if you choose,
+neatly finished off at the edge, or, if it suits the rest of the room,
+black, with a little narrow gilt line in a depression. I think something
+ingenious might be done with Japanese tea-trays, taking care to choose
+good designs.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 27.]
+
+The worst of such a dear delightful den as I am imagining, or rather
+describing, is the tendency of the most incongruous possessions to
+accumulate themselves in it as time goes on. What do you think of a
+pitcher like this (Fig. 29) standing in one corner, just because, though
+of common ware, and rather coarsely modelled, the colour of the
+earthen-ware is delicious in tone, and the design bold and free? It was
+brought from South America, and cost only six shillings, or thereabouts,
+but if it had cost as many pounds it could not have been more thoroughly
+in harmony with the surroundings of its new home.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 28.]
+
+One hint may not be out of place here, and that is with respect to
+table-covers. Many people are fond of covering up writing-tables, and
+every occasional table, with a cloth; and these draped tables are
+generally great eyesores in an ill-arranged room. The covers seldom
+harmonise, and now-a-days many hideous pieces of work are accomplished
+in the name of the School of Art which are far removed from the artistic
+and beautiful designs which alone proceed from the School itself. There
+indeed you may find patterns which would go beautifully with any
+old-time furniture, and which might be worked on deliciously neutral
+tints of cloth or serge. But beware of staring, gaudy table-covers, of
+shabby material, of which the best that can be hoped is that they may
+speedily fade into better harmony. The Queen Anne tables were never
+intended by their designer to be covered up by drapery. They are
+generally inlaid in delicate designs, which it would be a sin to
+conceal; nor could we afford to lose the slender grace of the legs. The
+clumsy, ill-finished cheap table of the present day is all the better
+for a cover, and wonders may be done in improving a bare, cold,
+unhappy-looking room, by a good table-cover here and there, or a nicely
+embroidered sofa-pillow of cloth or satin, or, better still, one of
+those lovely new low screens, with the tall tufts of grass or lilies
+which we owe to Walter Crane's skilful pencil.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 29.]
+
+I confess I like a room to look as if it were inhabited, and that is the
+only drawback that the rooms furnished in the seventeenth century style
+have in my eyes. You scarcely ever feel as if any one lived in
+them--there are seldom any signs of occupation, especially feminine
+occupation, lying about, no "litter," in fact; litter being a powerful
+weapon in the hands of a person who knows how to make a room look
+comfortable. Then I am told that litter is incongruous in a Queen Anne
+room, for that the women of those days had not the same modes of
+employment as ourselves. The greatest ladies, if they were blessed with
+an energetic temperament, only gave it free scope with their medicine
+chest or in their still-room or linen closet; while the lazy ones were
+obliged to dawdle away a good deal of their time in bed or at their
+elaborate toilettes. But still I am always longing to overlay a little
+of the modish primness of the distant days we are now copying, with
+something of this busy nineteenth century's tokens of a love of art or
+literature. And in a room with any claim to a distinct individuality of
+its own, this would always be the case.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE SICK-ROOM.
+
+
+However skilfully designed the arrangements of a house may appear to be,
+however sumptuously decorated and furnished its rooms, it is impossible
+to know whether a great law of common sense and practical usefulness has
+guided such arrangements, until there has been an illness in the house.
+Then will it be discovered--too late alas!--whether doors and windows
+open conveniently, whether fireplaces give out proper warmth, how the
+apparatus for ventilation works, and whether the staircases, landings,
+cupboards, and a thousand unconsidered items of the architect's labours
+have been planned in the best possible way, or in the stupidest. For the
+comfort and convenience of the patient at such times, it is by no means
+necessary that much money should have been spent on the construction of
+the house that chances to shelter him in his hour of suffering, nor
+that its furnitures or decorations should be of a costly character.
+Fortunately such things need not aim at anything higher than cleanliness
+and convenience, and we only require to exert our own recollections in
+support of this assertion. As far as my individual experience goes, I
+have seen an old woman, who had been bed-ridden for years, more
+comfortably housed and tended beneath a cottage roof, and her room kept
+more exquisitely clean and sweet than that of many wealthy patients in
+splendid houses. Of course everything depends on the capacity for
+organisation and arrangement in the person who has charge of the
+invalid, but the nurse's task may be made much easier by having to
+perform it in a bed-room and under conditions which are in accordance
+with the exigencies of such a time.
+
+Many smart and pretty-looking bed-rooms are discovered by their sick
+owner to be very different abodes to what they seemed to him in health.
+Awkwardly-placed doors and windows produce unsuspected draughts; the too
+close proximity of an ill-arranged staircase or housemaid's closet
+becomes a serious trouble, and a low pitched ceiling prevents proper
+ventilation. It is more difficult than one imagines to find in a badly
+proportioned room a single convenient place for the patient's bed. It
+must be either close to the door, or touching the fireplace, or under a
+window or in some situation where it distinctly ought _not_ to be. I
+have known such faults--faults which occasioned discomfort every moment,
+and had to be remedied by a thousand make-shift contrivances, occur in
+splendid rooms in magnificent houses; and I have known poor little
+modern dwellings in a colony to be perfectly free from them. When I am
+told, "such or such a room or house is a very comfortable one _to be ill
+in_" then I know that the construction and arrangement of that abode,
+however simple it may appear, must needs be up to a very high mark
+indeed. Of course a great deal can be done to modify existing evils, by
+a judicious arrangement of screens and curtains, by taking out useless
+furniture, by substituting a comfortable low bed, easy to get at, for a
+cumbrous couch where the unhappy patient's nose seems as if it was
+intended to rub against the ceiling, and various other improvements. But
+what can remedy a smoky chimney, or a grate where all the heat goes up
+the chimney, or windows that rattle, and doors that open in every
+direction except the right one? How can an outside landing or lobby be
+created at a moment's notice, or a staircase moved a yard further off?
+Of course if an illness gave notice before it seized its victim, if
+people ever realised that a house should be so constructed as to reduce
+the chances of illness to a minimum, and raise its possible comforts to
+a maximum if it did come, then everything would go on quite smoothly and
+we should certainly live, and probably die, happy. But this is exactly
+what we do not do, and this chapter would never have been written if I
+had not seen with my own eyes innumerable instances where neither want
+of money, nor space, nor opportunity for improvement were the causes of
+a wretchedly uncomfortable sick-room.
+
+I have known bed-rooms which looked nests of rosy, luxurious comfort
+until their owner fell ill, and then turned suddenly, as it seemed, into
+miserable comfortless abodes of frippery and useless, tasteless
+finery--where a candle could scarcely be placed anywhere without risk of
+fire, and where the patient has deeply complained of the way the
+decorations of the room "worried" her. As a rule, in a severe illness,
+sick people detest anything like a confusion or profusion of ornaments
+or furniture. If I am in authority in such a case, I turn all gimcracks
+bodily out, substituting the plainest articles of furniture to be found
+in the house. Very few ornaments are allowable in a sick-room, and I
+only encourage those which are of a simple, correct form. I have known
+the greatest relief expressed by a patient, who seemed too ill to
+notice any such change, at the substitution of one single, simple
+classical vase for a whole shelf-full of tawdry French china ornaments,
+and I date the recovery of another from the moment of the removal out of
+his sight of an exceedingly smart modern dressing-table, with many bows
+of ribbon and flounces of lace and muslin. I do not mean to say that the
+furniture of a sick-room need be ugly--only that it should be simple and
+not too much of it. Nothing confuses and worries a person who is ill
+like seeing his attendants threading their way through mazes of chairs
+and sofas and tables; but he will gladly look and find relief and even a
+weary kind of pleasure in gazing at a table of a beautiful, simple form,
+placed where it is no fatigue for him to look at it, with a glass of
+flowers, a terra-cotta vase, a casket, anything which is so
+intrinsically beautiful in form as to afford repose to the eye.
+
+I have often observed that when people begin to take pleasure in
+_colour_, it is a sure sign of convalescence--for in severe illness,
+unless indeed it be of such a nature as to preclude all power of
+observation, form is of more importance to the patient than colour. One
+learns a great deal from what people tell one _after_ they are well
+enough to talk of such things as past, distempered fancies. For
+instance, I was once nursing a typhoid fever patient, who lay for some
+days in an agony of weakness. He had been deaf as well as speechless,
+and all his senses appeared to have faded away to the very brink of
+extinction. Yet afterwards when he became able to talk of his sensations
+at different stages of his illness, he mentioned that particular time,
+and I found he had been keenly conscious of the _forms_ of the objects
+around. He spoke of the pleasure which the folds of a curtain had
+afforded him, of the "comfort" of the shape of the old-fashioned
+arm-chair in which I used to sit, and of how grateful he had felt when
+he observed that divers gimcracks had been removed from his sight.
+Later, as he grew better, and the weary eyes craved for colour, I found
+it necessary to pretend to be busy dressing dolls or making pincushions,
+to afford myself an excuse for a little heap of brightest coloured silks
+and fragments of ribbon placed where he could see them, and the daily
+fresh bunches of flowers were a perpetual delight to his eyes.
+
+An ideal sick-room then should first of all possess walls which will not
+weary or worry the sick person, and no _good_ pattern will do this. The
+low bed should be so placed that whilst it would be sheltered from
+draught (the aid of one or two screens will be useful here) the light
+would not fall disagreeably on the patient's eyes. No rule can be given
+about light. In some cases the sick person loves to look out of the
+window all day, whilst in others a ray of light _on_ the face is agony.
+In such circumstances the bed should, if possible, be so arranged as to
+allow the light to come from behind, for it is only in rare and
+exceptional cases that sunshine as well as outer air may not be admitted
+daily into a sick-room. We are fast getting beyond the ignorance of a
+north aspect for a bed-room, and most of us know that sunshine is quite
+as necessary to a bed-room as to a garden. No children will ever thrive
+unless they have plenty of sunshine, as well as air in the rooms in
+which they sleep, and a sick-room should also have both in abundance. If
+the weather be hot, it is easy, in England, to modify the temperature by
+means of outer blinds, _persiennes_, open doors, and other means. Few
+people understand what I have learnt in tropical countries, and that is,
+how to exclude the outer air during the hot hours of the day. The
+windows of the nursery or sick-room (for we all need to be treated like
+children when we are ill) should be opened wide during the early cool,
+morning-tide, and the room flooded with sun and outer air. Then, by nine
+or ten o'clock, shut up rigorously every window, darkening those on
+which the sun would beat, _out-side_ the glass--by means of blinds or
+outer shutters--until the evening, when they may all be set wide open
+again. All woollen draperies, curtains and valences should be done away
+with in a sick-room. If the windows are unsightly without curtains, and
+the illness is likely to be a long one, then substitute soft,
+patternless muslin or chintz, or, prettiest of all, white dimity with a
+gay border, but let there be no places of concealment in a sick-room.
+Every thing unsightly or inodorous should be kept out of it, and herein
+is found the convenience of a well-planned and well-arranged house,
+where clothes-baskets, and things of that sort, can be so bestowed as to
+be at the same time handy and yet out of the way.
+
+If it were not for the unconceivable untidiness and want of observation
+which exists in the human race, such cautions as not to leave about the
+room the clothes the sick person has last worn, hanging up or huddled on
+a chair in a corner, would seem superfluous. But I have actually seen a
+girl stricken down by a sudden fever, lying at death's door, on her
+little white bed, whilst the wreath she wore at the ball where she took
+the fatal chill, still hung on her toilette glass, and her poor little
+satin shoes were scattered about the room.
+
+She had been ill for days; there were two ladies'-maids in the house,
+besides anxious sisters, parents, and nurses, and yet no one had thought
+of putting these things out of sight. The first rule, therefore, to be
+observed in nursing even bad colds, where the sufferer may have to stay
+in bed a few days, is to send all the linen he has been wearing to the
+wash _at once_, and to put away everything else in its proper place.
+Boots should never be allowed in a sick-room, for the leather and
+blacking is apt to smell disagreeably and they ought immediately to be
+removed to another place.
+
+Then there should be if possible _outside_ the door of the sick-room,
+either on a landing or in another room, a convenient table, covered with
+a clean, white cloth, on which should be ranged spare spoons, tumblers,
+glasses, and so forth, and whatever cooling drinks are wanted, all so
+managed that dust shall be an impossibility. Inside the room, on another
+small table, or shelf, or top of chest of drawers, according to
+circumstances, should be kept also on a snowy cloth, just whatever is
+actually needed at a moment's notice--medicines and their proper
+glasses, &c., and a spoon or two, but the instant anything is used, it
+should be an established rule that the nurse puts the spoon or glass
+_outside_, and supplies its place with a clean one. In most cases, a
+servant need only renew the supply outside twice a day.
+
+As for keeping trays with nourishment in the room, it is a sign of such
+careless nursing that I should hardly dare to mention it, if I had not
+more than once gone to relieve guard in a friend's splendid sick-room at
+daylight, and seen the nurse's supper-tray of the night before _on the
+floor_ whilst the room, in spite of all its beautiful decorations, smelt
+sickly and disgusting with the odour of stale beer and pickles. It is
+incredible that such things should happen, but in the confusion caused
+by a sudden and severe illness, untidy and careless habits are apt to
+come to the surface, and loom largely as aggressive faults. Sickness is
+not only a great test of the sufferer's own character and disposition,
+but of those of the people around him, and as a general rule, I have
+discovered more beautiful qualities in sick people, and those about
+them, who dwell in cottages or even hovels, than in more splendid homes.
+Everyone knows how really kind poor people are to each other, and never
+more so than when the angel of disease or death is hovering over the
+humble roof-tree.
+
+Food, or nourishment as it is called in sick-room phraseology, would not
+so often be refused by the patient if it were properly managed. Who
+does not know the wearisomeness of being asked, probably in the morning,
+when the very thought of food is an untold aggravation to one's
+sufferings what one could "fancy"? And this is probably followed by a
+discussion on the merits or possibilities of divers condiments, to each
+of which as it is canvassed before him the wretched patient is sure to
+declare a deep-rooted repugnance. A sick person, until he reaches that
+happy stage of convalescence when it is an amusement to him, should
+never be allowed to hear the slightest discussion on the subject of his
+nourishment. Whatever the doctor orders should be prepared with as wide
+a range of variety as can be managed, and offered to him in the smallest
+permissible quantities, exactly cold or hot enough to take, and served
+as prettily and daintily as possible, at exactly the right moment. The
+chances are a hundred to one that, if it is within the range of
+possibilities that he can swallow at all, he will take it. If he does
+not, there should be no argument, no attempt at forcing it on him; it
+should at once be taken quite away and something different brought as
+soon afterwards as is prudent. Few people realise how extraordinarily
+keen the sense of smell becomes in illness, and how the faint ghost of a
+possible appetite may be turned into absolute loathing by the smell of a
+cup of beef-tea, cooling by the bed-side for ten minutes before it is
+offered.
+
+I am always guided in a great degree about nourishment by the instincts
+of my patient, and I never force stimulants, or anything equally
+distasteful on a sick person who is at all reasonable upon such matters.
+I once had a patient to nurse, whose desperate illness had brought him
+very near the shadowy land. It had left him, and the doctors assured me
+that his life depended on how much brandy I could get down his throat
+during the night. I told him this, for he was quite sensible, when he
+refused the first teaspoonful, and he whispered in gasps, "I'll take as
+much milk as you like; that stuff kills me." So I gave him teaspoonfuls
+of pure milk all through the night every five minutes, and not a drop of
+brandy. The doctor's first reproachful glance in the morning was at the
+untouched brandy bottle, and he shook his head, but when he had felt the
+sick man's pulse his countenance brightened, and he graciously gave me
+permission to go on with the milk. Of course there are cases when the
+patient never expresses an opinion one way or other, and then the only
+safe rule is to obey the doctor's orders, but I never fly in the face of
+any strong instinct of a sick person rationally expressed. So now I
+hope we have some glimmering idea of what a sick-room should be: cool in
+summer, warm in winter, but deliciously sweet and fresh and fragrant
+always. Simple in its furniture, but the few needful articles, of as
+agreeable shapes and as convenient as possible--a room which can be
+looked back upon with a sort of affection as a place of calm, of
+discipline, and of organization, as well as of the mere kindness and
+willingness to help, which is seldom, if ever, absent from a sick-room,
+but which is not the beginning and end of what is necessary within its
+walls.
+
+There are bed-rests and bed-tables to be hired for a sick person's use
+in almost any town in England; or, if it is preferred, any village
+carpenter could make a table with legs six or eight inches high, and a
+top of a couple of smooth light planks, about two feet six long, scooped
+out in the middle. This is very convenient when the patient is well
+enough to sit up in bed and employ himself. The bed-rests are equally
+simple, the upper half of a chair, padded, and made to lower at
+convenience, while a loose jacket or wrapper, easy to slip on, of
+flannel, should also be provided to throw over the patient's shoulders
+when he uses chair and table. When the patient can sit up and occupy
+himself this sort of table will be found a great comfort. It might just
+as well be used when lying on a sofa.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 30.]
+
+One word more, like a postscript, for it has no real business to intrude
+itself here. It is only an entreaty to all nurses or those in authority
+in a sick-room, to wear the prettiest clothes they possess. Not the
+smartest, far from it; the simplest cottons, cambrics, what you will,
+but nice and fresh and pleasant to look at. If it is only a
+dressing-gown it may be a charming one. No hanging sleeves, or dangling
+chains, or streaming ribbons, but sufficient colour for weary eyes to
+rest on with pleasure. An ideal toilette for sick-room nursing would be
+a plain holland or cambric gown, made with absolute simplicity--long
+enough to be graceful without possessing a useless train--rather tight
+sleeves, and no frills or furbelows; a knot of colour at the throat and
+in the hair, or on the cap--only let your ribbons be exquisitely fresh
+and clean--and a nice large apron, or rather bib, with one big pocket in
+front. This apron may be tied back--not too tightly, please--with the
+same coloured ribbons, and a little change of hue now and then is a
+great rest and refreshment in a sick room. There are charming linen
+aprons now embroidered in School of Art designs of the shape I allude
+to, but they can be made equally well in print, or plain holland, or
+linen.
+
+No garment that rustles or creaks, or makes its presence audible should
+ever cross the threshold, but the toilette of the nurse should always be
+exquisitely clean and neat, and yet as bright and pretty as possible. No
+sitting up at night, no anxiety or unhappiness should be an excuse for a
+dirty, dishevelled attendant in a sick-room. It is _always_ possible to
+steal half an hour morning and evening to wash and change, and do one's
+hair neatly, and the gain and comfort to the patient as well as to the
+nurse, is incalculable. This also would not be touched upon if my own
+recollections did not supply me with so many instances, where all this
+sort of care was considered to be absolutely worthless, and yet sick
+people have remarked afterwards how perfectly conscious they had been of
+all such shortcomings, and how such and such a tumbled cap, or shawl
+pinned on awry had been like a nightmare to them. Beauty itself is never
+more valuable than in a sick-room, and if laws could be passed on the
+subject, I should like to oblige all the pretty girls of my acquaintance
+to take it in turn to do a little nursing. I venture to say that no
+ball-room triumphs would ever compare with the delight their possession
+of God's greatest and best gift would afford to His sick and suffering
+creatures. But a nurse may always make herself look pleasant and
+agreeable, and if she have the true nursing instinct, the ready tact and
+sympathy which a sick-bed needs, she may come to be regarded as "better
+than pretty" by her grateful patient.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE SPARE ROOM.
+
+
+Perhaps the kindliest and wisest advice with regard to a spare room,
+would be the same as _Punch's_ famous counsel to young people about to
+marry--a short and emphatic "Don't." In a large country house, perhaps
+even in a small country house, the case is different, for the spare room
+too often represents all the social variety which the owners can hope
+for, from year's end to year's end--and the only change from town life
+possible to half the bees in the great hive. It is scarcely possible to
+imagine an English country house, be it ever so humble, without its
+spare room, or the warm cordial welcome which would be sure to greet its
+succeeding inhabitants. How fresh and sweet and dainty do its simple
+appointments look to jaded eyes! how grateful its deep stillness to
+world-deafened ears! How impossible, in a brief summer week, to believe
+that life can ever be found dull or monotonous amid such delicious calm!
+A walk in the gloaming in a country lane,--always supposing it is not
+too muddy--a cup of milk fresh from the cow, a crust off the home-baked
+loaf, are all treats of the first order to the tired cockney. I have
+often noticed the sort of half-pitying, half-contemptuous amazement with
+which my country hostess has beheld my delight at being installed in her
+spare room, my rapture at the sight of meadows and trees, or the sound
+of cawing rooks and the whirr of mowing machines. And how fresh and
+clean ought this country spare room to look! How inexcusable would be
+stain or spot, or evil odour amid such fragrant surroundings! Why should
+not the sheets _always_ smell of lavender (as a matter of fact, they do
+not, I regret to state)? why should not there be _always_ a jar of dried
+rose-leaves somewhere "around," as our dear, epigrammatic, Yankee
+cousins say?
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 31.]
+
+I do not think I really like silks and satins anywhere; I acknowledge
+that they fill me with a respectful admiration and awe for a short
+space, but that soon wears off, and my accidental splendour bores me all
+the rest of the time I have to dwell with it. No, the sort of
+guest-chamber which I love to occupy in the country is as simple as
+simple can be, and not so crowded with furniture, but that a little
+space is left here and there where a box can be placed without its
+intruding itself as a nuisance for which one feels constantly impelled
+to apologise. If I am so fortunate as to find in a corner of my room a
+little frame, about two feet high made by the village carpenter, or the
+big boys of the household, for this box to stand on, then, indeed, I
+know what luxury means. You have your box so much more under your
+control if it is raised a little from the floor, and it is ever so much
+easier to pack and unpack. The taste and characteristics of the owners
+of the house, which you may be sure is to be found in all their
+surroundings, is never more apparent than in the spare room. Sometimes
+your hostess tries to make you happy with looking-glasses, and I have
+shudderingly dwelt in a room with five large mirrors and sundry smaller
+ones; or else you are abashed to find how many gowns there is space for,
+and how few you have brought. But this extreme is better than the other:
+I have had to keep my draperies on all the available chairs in the room
+because I was afraid to open and shut the diminutive drawers of an
+exquisite, aged coffre which was provided for their reception. Beautiful
+as was this article of furniture, I would gladly have changed it for the
+commonest deal chest of drawers, long before the week was out. In spare
+rooms, as in all other rooms, money is not everything. It will not
+always buy taste, nor even comfort. Doubtless many of my readers who may
+happen to have led as varied a life as mine has been, will agree with me
+in the assertion, that as far as actual _comfort_ goes, they have often
+possessed it in a greater degree under a very humble roof-tree, than
+beneath many a more splendid shelter. Everybody has their "little ways"
+(some of them very tiresome and odd, I admit), and there are splendid
+spare rooms in which apparently no margin has been left, no indulgence
+shown, for any little individualities.
+
+I should not be an Englishwoman writing to other Englishwomen if I did
+not take it for granted that we all desire most ardently that our guests
+should be thoroughly comfortable in their own rooms as well as happy in
+our society, and so I venture to suggest that visitors should not be
+fettered by too many rules, that, however homely the plenishing of the
+guest-chamber must needs be, it should never lack a few fresh flowers, a
+place to write (Fig. 31), pen and ink, a tiny table which can be moved
+about at pleasure, a dark blind for the window, and such trifles which
+often make the difference between comfort and discomfort, between a
+homelike feeling directly one arrives, and the incessant consciousness
+of being "on a visit."
+
+But with regard to spare rooms in a town house, what advice can be given
+beyond and except that horrid "don't"? Especially true is this in
+London. No one has the least idea how many affectionate relations he
+possesses until he has an empty bed-room in a London house. It would
+almost appear as if such things as hotels and lodgings had ceased to
+exist, so incessant, so importunate are the entreaties to be "put up"
+for a couple of nights. And let me say here that visitors will prove
+much more of a tax in London than they ever are in the country. For
+rural visitors scarcely ever seem to realise or comprehend how
+methodically mapped out is the life of a professional man living in
+London, how precious are to him the quiet early hours which they insist
+upon leaving behind them in the solitude of the country. Speaking as a
+London hostess, I may conscientiously assert that the guests who have
+kept me up latest at night, who have voted breakfast at 9.30
+unreasonably early (without considering it was a whole hour later than
+our usual time) have been those people who ordinarily led the quietest
+and most clock-work existence in their country home. I will say nothing
+here of the impossibility of inducing them to regard distance or
+cab-hire as presenting any objection worth consideration in their
+incessant hunt after the bargains erroneously supposed by them to be
+obtainable in every shop. I have been scolded roundly by country
+visitors for keeping early hours and leading a quiet life in London, and
+I have never succeeded in impressing on them that in order to get
+through a great deal of hard work, both my husband and I found it
+necessary to do both.
+
+To a professional man, with a small income, the institution of a spare
+room may be regarded as an income tax of several shillings in the pound.
+It is even worse than that; it means being forced to take in a
+succession of lodgers who don't pay, who are generally amazingly
+inconsiderate and _exigeante_, and who expect to be amused and advised,
+chaperoned and married, and even nursed and buried. It is inconceivable
+upon what slender grounds, or for what far-fetched reasons, your distant
+acquaintance, or your--compared to yourself--rich relation, will
+unhesitatingly demand your hospitality. And oh, my unknown friends, how
+often are we tempted to say yes to the well-to-do relation who asks the
+question of us, and to find an excuse to shut out the poor one who
+really needs it? Ah how often?
+
+It is really a trial to be unable to receive one's nearest kith and kin,
+one's sailor brother or sister home from India, because "we have no
+spare room," yet that very beginning, natural and delightful as it is,
+cheerfully and laughingly borne as the little privations it entails may
+be, is often the beginning of a stream of self-invited guests who
+literally worry us, if they don't exactly "eat us," out of house and
+home.
+
+
+  THE END.
+
+
+  LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, BREAD STREET HILL.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration:
+  DESIGNER IN PORCELAIN & GLASS
+  JOHN MORTLOCK
+  ESTAB^D. 1746
+
+  POTTERY GALLERIES
+  203 & 204 OXFORD STREET.
+
+  31 ORCHARD STREET.
+  LONDON, W.]
+
+
+THE OLD POTTERY GALLERIES.
+
+
+  BY SPECIAL APPOINTMENT TO
+  HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN
+  AND
+  Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales.
+
+  MINTON'S CHINA.
+
+  JOHN MORTLOCK
+  BEGS TO CALL ATTENTION TO HIS
+  Specialties in Art Pottery.
+
+  BREAKFAST, DINNER, DESSERT, TEA,
+  AND TOILET SERVICES,
+  In Porcelain and Earthenware.
+  SERVICES OF CUT, ENGRAVED, OR PLAIN GLASS.
+
+  _The Pottery Studio, where Ladies can learn to decorate their own
+  rooms, is conducted by Young Ladies from South Kensington._
+
+  All Goods marked in plain figures, with a Liberal Discount for Cash.
+
+  202, 203, & 204, OXFORD STREET,
+  AND
+  30, 31, & 32, ORCHARD STREET, PORTMAN SQUARE,
+  LONDON, W.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+ART AT HOME SERIES.
+
+
+"In these decorative days the volumes bring calm counsel and kindly
+suggestions, with information for the ignorant and aid for the
+advancing, that ought to help many a feeble, if well-meaning pilgrim
+along the weary road, at the end whereof, far off, lies the House
+Beautiful.... If the whole series but continue as it has begun--if the
+volumes yet to be rival the two initial ones, it will be beyond praise
+as a library of household art."--_Examiner._
+
+
+_The following are now ready_:--
+
+     A PLEA FOR ART IN THE HOUSE. With Special Reference to the Economy
+     of Collecting Works of Art and the importance of Taste in Education
+     and Morals. By W. J. LOFTIE, F.S.A. With Illustrations. Fifth
+     Thousand. Crown 8vo. 2_s._ 6_d._
+
+     SUGGESTIONS FOR HOUSE DECORATION IN PAINTING, WOODWORK, AND
+     FURNITURE. By RHODA and AGNES GARRETT. With Illustrations. Sixth
+     Thousand. Crown 8vo. 2_s._ 6_d._
+
+     MUSIC IN THE HOUSE. By JOHN HULLAH. With Illustrations. Fourth
+     Thousand. Crown 8vo. 2_s._ 6_d._
+
+     THE DRAWING-ROOM: ITS DECORATIONS AND FURNITURE. By MRS.
+     ORRINSMITH. With numerous Illustrations. Fourth Thousand. Crown
+     8vo. 2_s._ 6_d._
+
+     THE DINING-ROOM. By MRS. LOFTIE. With numerous Illustrations.
+     Fourth Thousand. Crown 8vo. 2_s._ 6_d._
+
+     THE bed-room AND BOUDOIR. By LADY BARKER. With numerous
+     Illustrations. Fourth Thousand. Crown 8vo. 2_s._ 6_d._
+
+
+_In Preparation_:--
+
+     DRESS. By MRS. OLIPHANT.
+
+     DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. By J. J. STEVENSON.
+
+     DRAWING AND PAINTING. By H. STACEY MARKS.
+
+
+_Others to follow._
+
+MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+  HOWARD'S PATENT CARPET PARQUET.
+
+  SANITARY, BEAUTIFUL, AND DURABLE.
+
+  PRICE from 1/- PER FOOT.
+
+Recommended by =Dr. Richardson, F.R.S.=, in his lecture on "HYGEIA" for
+its _Sanitary Advantages_; and also by =Mrs. Orrinsmith in "The Drawing
+Room,"= page 55 ("=Art at Home Series=") for its _Sanitary Advantages_
+and _Artistic Effect_. It is made as borders to room floors, or to
+entirely cover the same, and can be laid either in a portable form, or
+be permanently fixed.
+
+For bed-rooms, it is specially recommended for cleanliness, and it also
+facilitates the lifting of the Carpet, as the heavy furniture stands on
+the Parquet clear of the Carpet.
+
+
+_Illustrated Catalogues priced, free on application, and patterns also
+sent when required._
+
+HOWARD AND SONS,
+
+Upholsterers and Decorators,
+
+MANUFACTURERS, BY STEAM POWER, OF ARTISTIC FURNITURE, PANELLING AND
+PARQUETERIE.
+
+25, 26, & 27, BERNERS STREET, LONDON, W.
+
+FACTORY: CLEVELAND WORKS, W.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE FINE ART SOCIETY'S
+
+SPECIALITIES FOR DECORATION.
+
+
+WATER-COLOUR DRAWINGS.
+
+The best Examples only of the English & Continental Schools.
+
+
+ENGRAVINGS.
+
+_The recently published Works of SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS._
+
+ENGRAVED BY S. COUSINS, R.A.
+
+  THE COUNTESS SPENCER AND LORD ALTHORPE.
+   THE DUCHESS OF RUTLAND (in progress).
+  THE HON. ANN BINGHAM. THE STRAWBERRY GIRL.
+  AND OTHERS.
+
+
+_ETCHINGS_
+
+  BY WHISTLER.--SEYMOUR HADEN, &c.
+
+
+PHOTOGRAPHS
+
+OF SEA AND SKY. BY COL. STUART-WORTLEY.
+
+  _EITHER ON PAPER, OPAL GLASS, OR IN A DECORATIVE FORM FOR WINDOW
+  TRANSPARENCIES--IN ALL SIZES._
+
+
+CHINA.
+
+  OLD BLUE-ORIENTAL CLOISONNÉ, &c., &c.
+
+
+  AT
+  THE FINE ART SOCIETY'S GALLERIES,
+  148, NEW BOND STREET, LONDON.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TRANSCRIBER NOTES:
+
+    Missing punctuation has been added and obvious punctuation errors
+    have been corrected.
+
+    Archaic words, mis-spellings and printer errors have been retained.
+
+    Footnote has been moved closer to its reference point.
+
+    Illustrations have been moved to accommodate the flow of text.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bedroom and Boudoir, by Lady Barker
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41922 ***