Part 9 (1/2)
Whatever you buy or make, do not let it be rubbish. Things ill considered get dreadfully in our way, and by-and-by we cannot endure their discordance; that is, if they last long enough for us to weary of them. When you purchase anything, remember that it has to be taken care of and dusted every day, and the smaller the trifle the more troublesome it is to keep clean. Think, before you buy it, whether or not you will like it when it is tarnished, and if you can value it sufficiently to devote thought and a minute of time to it every day for years.
We squander our money on frippery--not in dress merely, but in hideous ornaments for our fire-places, in antimaca.s.sars of disagreeably suggestive name, in toys and trinkets and imitation rubbish of all kinds, which enc.u.mber our table-surfaces, and are dust-traps occupying the minds and mornings of our parlour-maids to keep them clean. We spend in this taste-destroying trash the change of the twenty pounds which would have bought one ornament of real beauty, which would only take the same time to dust as one of the fifty frivolities costing from half-a-crown to seven-and-sixpence each.
This is mostly so much waste, or worse, because it helps the habit of foolish, ill-considered spending; and while we thus bedizen our drawing-rooms, we render them so uninhabitable that they fall out of use for our own comfort, and become merely show places for visitors.
A long article might be written on dusting. We can hardly have too little of the carpet-broom (which all housemaids love to use every week to the detriment of our carpets), and hardly too much of the feather-brush for lightly touching curtains, walls, and pictures, or of the duster for rubbing furniture. If a little is done daily, furniture will never need polis.h.i.+ng, but will always look bright, as dust will not have entered the crevices.
It is easier, and also better for the durability of carpets, to take them up occasionally to be beaten, and have the dusty floor beneath them cleaned, than to have everything smothered weekly in the dust raised by the carpet-broom. A pair of steps is necessary in a house where cleanliness is attended to, to unhang curtains and pictures and replace them after dusting. The walls need to be whisked over weekly with the feather-brush.
The elegant china and gla.s.s gaseliers which are now so general are easily cleaned with a damp sponge; those of Venetian gla.s.s are still more beautiful, and not much more expensive: these also can be washed with little trouble. Adopting the plan of cleaning one room each day, it will not take a great deal of time, or cause much fatigue; while the light daily dusting required is a mere nothing to any one doing it dexterously.
I have a great dislike of chiffoniers; the very name presupposes them receptacles of _chiffons_ and lumber. I cannot see any use for them in a drawing-room. Music-books should be in the music-stand, a lady's work in her work-table, and books either in use or put away in the book-case.
A portfolio-stand is of great service in preserving and displaying drawings and prints which require careful and practised handling. Sir Felix Slade, the eminent print-collector, used to complain that many persons, especially young ladies, made a bent mark with their thumbs in the margin of an engraving; he always insisted on having his prints taken up by what he called their north-west corner, and carefully laid on the print-stand. A portfolio-stand should have a piece of stuff laid over the books and cases, wrapped inside the woodwork of the stand.
This is easily removed when the stand is in use; as it is left hanging down on one side, it keeps much dust from the pictures, and if of some nice silk or other stuff is ornamental in itself.
A sofa with a rack-end to let down at pleasure at any angle is a great convenience, but such couches are not often made, unless especially ordered.
Numerous mirrors injure the repose of a room, causing bewilderment; but one or two are pleasing, as they have the effect of water in a landscape, repeating the lines and echoing the forms of objects. They also tend to give s.p.a.ce, though not to the same extent as pictures do, which are the most decorative of all ornaments; and when they are very good they rank with our most precious possessions.
Brackets may be appropriately used for ornaments, such as terra-cotta and others; a few fine bronzes, besides being handsome in themselves, give value to the colouring of a room.
BED AND DRESSING ROOMS.
Ventilation--Window curtains and blinds--Bedsteads--Spring mattresses --Towels--Danger of fire at the toilet--Mantelpiece--Pictures and frames--Superfluous necessaries--Taine's criticisms--Aids to reading in bed--Service of the bath--Improvements in washstands--Arranging the rooms--Attics made beautiful--Sick-rooms--Neatness--Disinfectants-- Chlorine gas--Condy's solution--Filters--Invalid chairs--Generous efforts of the medical profession to improve the national health.
We pa.s.s a third of our time in our bed-rooms when we are in health, and the whole of it when we are ill; therefore their ventilation and general arrangement demand our most earnest consideration.
Some bed-rooms are draughty, occasioning cold and neuralgia, but the more common fault is that they are not airy enough; for with our extreme attention to what is called ”English comfort,” we too frequently make our bed-rooms almost air-tight.
This causes restlessness by night and headache by day. It were far better to accustom ourselves to sleep with our windows open, as the night air is not at all injurious in dry weather, unless an east wind is blowing. We must be guided by the weather, and trim to the wind; our feeling will tell us whether we may, or may not, safely leave our windows open much more surely than the almanac. The time when windows should be shut throughout the house is when the dew is rising and falling; then the damp enters and saturates everything.
People seldom attend to this point, but keep their windows open too late in the afternoon, which in Italy is recognized as the dangerous time. We have but little malaria in England, but what little there is is at work just before and after sunset. Many persons, too, who like myself have immense faith in fresh air, throw open their windows on leaving their rooms in the morning, regardless of whether the air be dry and warm, or whether a fog or bitter east wind will penetrate the whole house to damp or chill it. It is more prudent, in case of bleak or raw weather, to wait for an hour or two before opening the windows, ventilation from the door being sufficient for the room while it is empty.
It is useless to lay down laws as to the windows in our variable climate. We must work by our natural thermometer, and let our skin perform one of its most useful functions and tell us whether it is cold or hot; but if our feelings are uncertain, give judgment in favour of fresh air.
If your rooms have the old-fas.h.i.+oned long and narrow windows which are always found in houses built in the reigns of the early Georges, the j.a.panese paper curtains, being very cheap, are as good as any, the intention being to drape a skeleton window, which curtainless is a dismal object.
But more modern windows should not, or at least need not, have long hanging curtains, but only just sufficient to cover the window without leaving a streak of light. The drapery may hang from one side or from both, according to taste; but unless you are very particular to admit no light in your bed-room, a mere valance, or some ornament at the top of the window, is enough. For instance, some pretty design in fretwork, as the tracery of an Arabian arch, made of deal an inch thick, cut out with a steam saw and stained or enamelled black, would be effective when lined with rose colour, or any drapery suited to your room; and you might furnish an appropriate design for the fretwork. This would be easily dusted, and is not expensive.
White blinds are clean and pleasant for bed-rooms, but dark-green ones are better for persons with weak sight; either these or Venetian blinds are very useful where there are no shutters.
Bra.s.s and iron bedsteads have almost entirely superseded wooden ones, and they are generally made without fittings for curtains. Indeed, in our well-built modern houses there are so few draughts to be guarded against that curtains are seldom necessary.
In bed-rooms of the present time valances to the beds are quite superfluous, as the bed-round is completely out of fas.h.i.+on. This was the name of the breadth of carpet which went round three sides of the bed, leaving the remainder of the floor bare. The fas.h.i.+on was healthy and economical, certainly, but it was tryingly ugly and cheerless.
For a bed-room, nothing is so good as the square carpet, with a broad margin of the floor stained and varnished, as this is very easily taken up for the floor and carpet to be cleaned. The carpet must be laid down the first time by a man from the carpet-warehouse, so that it may be evenly stretched, which is seldom done by a carpenter; but after that it is easily spread, as it remains in shape, and needs very few nails to keep it in position.