A single room, lofty, spacious, and lightsome, is more
palatial than a castleful of cabinets and cupboards.
Yet size in a
house, and some extent and intricacy of corridor, is certainly
delightful to the flesh. The reception room should be, if
possible, a place of many recesses, which are 'petty retiring
places for conference'; but it must have one long wall with a
divan: for a day spent upon a divan, among a world of cushions, is
as full of diversion as to travel. The eating-room, in the French
mode, should be ad hoc: unfurnished, but with a buffet, the table,
necessary chairs, one or two of Canaletto's etchings, and a tile
fire-place for the winter. In neither of these public places
should there be anything beyond a shelf or two of books; but the
passages may be one library from end to end, and the stair, if
there be one, lined with volumes in old leather, very brightly
carpeted, and leading half-way up, and by way of landing, to a
windowed recess with a fire-place; this window, almost alone in the
house, should command a handsome prospect. Husband and wife must
each possess a studio; on the woman's sanctuary I hesitate to
dwell, and turn to the man's. The walls are shelved waist-high for
books, and the top thus forms a continuous table running round the
wall. Above are prints, a large map of the neighbourhood, a Corot
and a Claude or two.
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