The Drawing-Room
Social pressure — Agreeable evening parties — Troubles of party-giving — Musical parties — Flowers on a balcony — Window-gardening — Crowded drawing-rooms — The library or study — Gas, candles, and candlesticks — Original outlay on furniture — Different styles of furniture — Raffaelesque decorations — Carpets, curtains, and chair coverings — Portières — Window blinds — Rugs — Care required in buying furniture — Ornaments — Dusting — Chiffoniers useless — Portfolio stand — Mirrors.
This section of our subject involves our relations with society; and here not even our vanity can make us believe that modern customs are really improvements.
What chance has any lady of our time of emulating the graceful manner in which Madame Récamier held her salon, although she may have as much learning as Madame de Staël?
We are too heavily weighted, our social intercourse is too complicated, too much clogged with ceremony, to move easily; and where our highest faculties should be allowed full play, we find so much hard work and consequent fatigue, that we look upon every dinner and evening party in the light of an uphill road with a difficult team to drive.
We all know and applaud the French manner of visiting. Receiving friends on a stated day of the week, simply enjoying their society, and exerting the intellectual faculties instead of merely opening the purse for their entertainment.
Why have we so seldom the courage to follow this example?
It is because we fear to show less well to the eyes of our acquaintance if our own habits seem less expensive than theirs. A low purse-pride is at the bottom of it all. Our dress must be costly and perpetually changing, our servants and establishment must be displayed, if we are ourselves smothered beneath their weight.
So we give up our precious daylight to morning calls, as we ridiculously call those visits of ceremony which are paid in the afternoon. These afford us no pleasure, while they are an infliction to the people called upon. Do not most of us know the feeling of relief that we have after paying a round of visits, when, on finding, as the day was fine, the greater number of our friends from home, we return with an empty card-case, and say, with the complacency of self-satisfied persons who have done their duty, “There, that is done and need not be done again for a month.” Whereas we are sorry when even our slight acquaintances “regret they cannot accept” our invitations to an evening party, when we might enjoy their company, and they the society of each other, at the same time, and at a reasonable hour for enjoyment.
Our “at homes” are on a radically wrong principle. We crowd our rooms, we insist on late hours and fullest dress, and our pleasure in consequence becomes a toil.
But how agreeable is the easy evening gathering in a cheerful and early lighted drawing-room, where few or many welcome guests drop in, knowing it to be our “at home” day. Where we talk and sip tea, play and sing, or amuse ourselves, if clever, with paper games—capital promoters of laughter and whetstones to the wits—and go away as early as we please. All to be over by half-past ten, at any rate, in order not to interfere with early rising next morning. I have found nothing, not even guinea lessons from eminent masters, more conducive to family improvement in music than this way of enjoying society, since one is obliged to have a few new things always at one’s fingers’ ends ready to perform; and in homely little parties like these, young girls “not yet out” may pass many pleasant evenings under their mother’s wing, with real advantage to themselves.
The simpler the dress worn by the ladies who are “at home,” the better the taste shown. Here again we may learn much from the French, who perfectly understand the art of demi-toilette.
Our theatres and concert-rooms are filled night after night by people who pay to be entertained. They never take food in their pockets, and the passing to and fro of sellers of refreshment is felt to be a nuisance. Why should people who have dined late be supposed to want supper, unless they have been dancing, or are sitting up later than is good for them? And the proof that they do not want it is in the very little they take of it, except some stout elderly ladies who prepared for it before they came, and who consequently have felt too low all the evening to be moderately cheerful.
People who dine early always make a solid tea about six o’clock. It is only the bourgeois class who love their hot suppers, and the taste stamps them.
How can we use hospitality one towards another without grudging, when, instead of being able to rejoice that a friend is sharing our daily pursuits and repasts, we must spend a fortune in jellies, pastry, and unwholesome sweets, whenever we invite our friends inside our doors; when we are compelled to import from the confectioner piles of plates, dishes, and hired cutlery, turn our houses into scenes of confusion for a week, and feed our children upon what have been aptly called “brass knockers,” the remains of the feast? No wonder most of us dread giving a party! No; I would have special banquets on special occasions—Christmas, comings of age, marriages, silver, and above all golden, weddings, welcomes from abroad, and other joyful days. But our enjoyment of society need not be limited to such observances as these, but rather the crop of friendship increased by attentive cultivation.
“Has friendship increased?” asks wise Sir Arthur Helps. “Anxious as I am to show the uniformity of human life, I should say that this, one of the greatest soothers of human misery, has decreased.”
Lady Morgan, an experienced leader of society, used to tell me, “My dear, give them plenty of wax-candles and people will enjoy themselves;” to which I add, manage the music well, and teach your daughters to help you, and cultivate musical young men, keeping, however, the law in your own hands.
Almost the only art we have not spoiled by machinery is music—for we do not consider the barrel-organ in the light of music.
Perhaps it is because in this art we had scope for invention, not finding a good thing ready made to our hands by the Greeks, which we might imitate mechanically, and become slaves of its tradition. Possibly it is a blessing in disguise that the music of the ancients is lost to us, for having no models we have no fetters.
There is, however, in music, less liberty for the performer than for the master-inventor; and this is as it should be: we interpret his greater mind. Wilful music is seldom pleasing.
What Ruskin says about truth of line in drawing applies equally to music: In the rapid passages of a presto by Beethoven, the audience at St. James’s Hall would know if Hallé played one single note out, even if he slightly touched the corner of a wrong black key; for our ears have been wonderfully trained. And the time must be as accurate as the tone, and the proper degree of light and shade must be expressed, or you are no master. What must it be to be the creator of the music which it is so difficult even to copy!
Yet in our drawing-rooms we permit people to talk all the time music is being played, showing respect neither to the composition nor to the performer. This should not be, and abroad this ill-bred custom has not obtained.
There is, however, something to be said on the other side. The music we hear in society is frequently either flimsy and not worth studying; or it is too difficult for the capacity of the performer, perhaps having been learnt in too idle a manner, in which case conversation shields the composer.
But the chief cause of the distressing rudeness complained of, is that there is too much music at a party, and it is not well arranged. Glees are got up and fail deplorably; harps and flutes are not in tune with other instruments; people accompany songs they have never seen before; and much time and talk are consumed in wishing for absent tenor or bass voices. A little good music would have been delightful; the noise of so many imperfect efforts is only a bore.
In our parties we carelessly lose Nature’s purest delights: those which appeal most strongly to our finest perceptions. Is it not true enjoyment to sit among the roses on a balcony listening to a sweet voice within singing an air of Schubert or Mozart? And if the charm be enhanced by moonlight, it is a pleasure for the gods!
It is true that roses will not flourish on London balconies, the coal-smoke being so injurious to them; but pinks, and many other fragrant flowers, grow well and easily, without the cost of frequent renewal required for roses. The general use of window gardens, and the due encouragement of greenery over our houses, would tend much to improve our vitiated atmosphere, and we may have the gratification of feeling that we are doing good to our neighbours while we cultivate plants for our own benefit. Perhaps, by-and-by, a tax may be charged upon every empty window-sill.
The front and back of every house would make a good-sized bit of garden, only it will be perpendicular instead of horizontal. We ought all to grow our own pears trained against the walls, as these ripen as well in town as in the country; and most of us might dwell under our own vines and fig-trees.
A balcony, however small it may be, is an extra room, and frequently it is a good play-room for children if kept clean and well syringed. No training is better for children than the culture of flowers—it unites work and play with every advantage of both. It is an education in itself. Mr. Gladstone calls the love of flowers a peculiarly English taste. He seems to have forgotten the special fondness for plants shown by the French and Belgians; though the Dutch tulip mania reminds one somewhat of a commercial speculation. His remarks on the children’s flower-show held at Grosvenor House merit particular attention. He observes that owing to the increased value of land, large masses of the population are removed from contact with nature, and at this period it is important that every family should learn that they possess a resource in the cultivation of flowers both in their cottages and windows, and at every point where contact with the open air may be obtained. He hopes that with the needful improvements in the dwellings of the poor, some means may be devised for fostering cottage horticulture and cottage floriculture.
Wind and scorching sunshine are the great adversaries to window gardening, but both of these evils may be obviated by simple contrivances in the way of screens.
Very few plants can be cultivated in our sitting-rooms with advantage either to themselves or to our furniture. They are greatly injured by gas, as well as by the dry heat of our fires, while they cause a dampness in the atmosphere which speedily produces mildew and other ill effects of moisture.
We should bear in mind, in furnishing a drawing-room, that the guests are the principal part of the furniture, and leave sufficient space for the number we wish our room to hold. A drawing-room as empty as one of Orchardson’s pictures may be overcrowded by twenty people.
The walls may be adorned to profusion with objects of taste, without their inconveniently occupying space; but tiny tables and flower-pot stands are often in jeopardy.
In a room crowded with furniture the guests cannot circulate—one because there is not space enough to pass between a lady’s dress and the small table with a vase upon it that is so likely to be upset; another because an ottoman just before her keeps her a prisoner on the sofa where she was planted on entering the room—until ladies are thankful to do a little something inaudible at the piano as a pretext for moving, and gentlemen are only too glad to be required to force a passage in the service of a lady. And this not merely in the absurd and terrible crush at an “at home” in the London season, but at a simple evening party anywhere.
It is often agreeable to have several afternoon tea-tables in the drawing-room, as the ladies can pair off at each, and become pleasantly acquainted while serving each other. But in the case of large musical “at homes,” it is better to have refreshments served in the dining-room, as the clatter of spoons and the bustle of waiting disturbs the music; besides injury being often done by ice plates left about, tea spilt, and crumbs trodden into the carpet.
We will now leave the subject of parties and study the drawing-room in its ordinary appearance as the sitting-room of the family out of working hours. A drawing-room should be used, and look as if it were used, and if used properly it need never be dirty nor in disorder. A library, or study, greatly aids the drawing-room by preventing its too indiscriminate use. Indeed, where boys and girls have school-work to prepare, this is almost a matter of necessity, as there is neither rest nor comfort for their elders while lessons are going on; and if other members of the family occupy themselves much in writing or painting, it is a great hindrance to have to remove their paraphernalia every time the table is required for some other purpose.
The room may be called a study, morning-room, or library, according to its purpose, bearing in mind that although the name is more high sounding, a library with few books is only ridiculous. And when there are many and good books, the room must be held in great respect, and those who use it trained to extreme neatness and order. I find it a good plan to instal my eldest son as responsible librarian at a small salary; he sees that the younger children put away their books after them.
A gas-standard lights a study better than anything else for general use, though “the Queen’s reading lamp” is good for weak eyes.
The standard must be firm on its base, so as not easily to upset; it is less in the way if it stands on the floor rather than on the table, and it should be capable of being raised to the height of six feet, or lowered to any point. It ought to be easily movable in any direction, and the tube long enough to admit of its being placed in any part of the room. The only kind of tubing that really prevents a disagreeable smell escaping from the gas is the snake tubing. I had at first a kind that was dearer than the ordinary india-rubber tubing, but, although assured by the gasfitter that it would be inodorous, I was obliged to change it for the snake, for which I paid twelve shillings, and have had no trouble since.
We all know that wax candles are the nicest and most becoming light for a drawing-room; but they are dear, and candlesticks, however elegant, require frequent cleaning. The commoner kind of candles are greasy, and grease is very troublesome when it drops about, though wax and sperm are readily removed by warming the spots. There is a kind of candle called the dropless candle which answers very well to its name.
Paraffin, and almost all patent candles, fill the air with burnt smoke, and this, to many people, is insufferable.
Sperm candles are preferable to any others for general use at the piano and for bed-rooms. And candles need not be an expensive item when a house is well fitted with gas, as much music practising may be done by daylight and gaslight; while in bed-rooms we ought not to require much length of candlelight.
There is no need of more than one candle to be carried about, and that is for the person who turns off the gas to go upstairs with.
An Italian lucerna is a picturesque object for this purpose; oil is burnt in it—colza will do, though they burn olive oil in Italy, and it gives double the light of colza. On no account use petroleum, or any of the mineral oils. Besides their horrible smell and associations, all the kinds are more or less explosive, and for the little use for which we should require lamps, the difference in cost is trifling.
One occasionally sees curious and quaint old iron or bronze candlesticks, and it is well to seize the opportunity of purchasing such treasures; but if not fortunate enough to get a better thing, it is easy to procure one of those funny little brass candlesticks, in the shape of a frying-pan, so commonly used in the Belgian hotels.
As there are no servants in our model establishment, tallow candles need never be bought, and no candlebox will be required, nor any kitchen candlesticks, to be stuck periodically in a row in the fender to melt their grease and solder, and lose their extinguishers and snuffers.
So we see, even in this small instance, how a young couple beginning to furnish will want few of these superfluities, and, not being compelled to buy common things for servants, may afford things of choice quality for themselves, and to these they may add others as time goes on.
Take, for another example, the breakfast-cups; they may at first buy two very pretty cups and saucers for their own use, and a third equally pretty for their lady friend, or help, as they may like to call her; and either title is honourable, only one seems kinder than the other.
And so they need not purchase what is called a whole set, or, more shopmanly, a “suite,” comprising a dozen of almost everything, whose chief merit is in its completeness, of which we tire; and this merit is destroyed when on breaking one of the two bread-and-butter plates we find it is a last year’s pattern, and cannot be matched at the shop without its being specially made for us.
How much more we should be attached to a pretty thing if we could say of it: “Don’t you remember we bought that cup when So-and-So came to stay with us?” Such associations endow everyday objects with life.
The original outlay throughout the house may proceed in like manner, and spare rooms may be furnished after the other rooms.
This would enable more young people to marry, and they need not go to a shop whose advertisements recommend them to furnish on the three years’ system, by the end of which time they will have paid double the value of their furniture, and most of it will probably be discarded, or broken in pieces.
Perhaps a day may come when nobody will heed an advertisement, and only look at a circular when they write memoranda on its clean side. Then our postmen will be spared the bulk of their work, which makes it a perpetual Valentine’s-day for them.
It is too visionary to hope that our eyes may cease to be distressed by posters blazing everywhere, or that nearly half of every book or newspaper we buy may not be made up of advertisements.
But no more on this irritating topic, as I would only counsel those about to furnish not to be too much tempted with novelties, especially patent novelties.
Some of us are beginning to tire of the mediævalism which was the natural reaction from the preposterous designs of the wall-papers, curtains, and other furniture which disguised our rooms—the ridiculous carpets with such patterns as orange-blossoms tied with white satin favours (“So sweet for a bride”), and rugs with huge blue roses.
But we have now gone too far the other way, and made all our houses like “High” churches, not permitting even the simplest unconventional design to interfere with the severity of our Gothic taste. This is a mistake; for as our houses ought not to be turned into Greek temples, as they were in the time of the first French Empire, as little should they be decorated like Gothic churches.
Many styles, and many beautiful yet diverse objects, may be made to harmonize by tasteful arrangement; and this freer latitude is well adapted to our varied moods and our many-sided lives. Few people of moderate means can carry out one style in its entirety.
I have seen a very handsome drawing-room fitted up perfectly in the Louis Quatorze style, and spoiled by some German bead-mats on the table; and some of the most beautiful upholstery I ever saw, of Neo-Greek designs painted on straw-coloured satin, covering chairs of purely Greek form, looked droll on a Brussels carpet with fuchsias upon it.
Twenty years ago, people of taste and pretension to archæological knowledge furnished their houses in the Elizabethan style, with the result of uncomfortable furniture abounding in anachronisms.
The Queen Anne style, so fashionable at present, is far better suited to modern requirements than is the Elizabethan, which is of necessity kept exclusively English. The Jacobean style too is less rigid, as we may with propriety consider that much French and Italian elegance had been imported into the court of Scotland by the two French queens and Mary Stuart. The possession of a portrait by Vandyke would be of itself enough to make one wish to furnish a house in the stately and elegant style of his time.
Although it may not be so pure in taste, the style of the Renaissance is eminently adapted for comfortable household service. The delicate arabesques and grotesques followed from Raffaelle’s adornments of the Vatican are not too precious for use in household decoration—where painting cannot be expected to last as long as pictures framed and out of reach of daily handling—and yet they are graceful enough to refresh without exciting a tired mind.
Any one possessing artistic taste and some training can work out these fanciful decorations for home gratification, and being cherished, they will last three or four times as long as the graining of the house-painter. Besides, and this is a great consideration in cities, all the majolica ornaments and tiles, which are so suitable to this style of decoration, will wash, and be bright and clear for ever. Do not despise the Renaissance, for there is much delight in it, though not of the highest kind. We may keep the higher things for higher uses.
A Brussels carpet of Persian pattern is very nice for a drawing-room, as it is unobtrusive, and yet it is cheerful, and suits most styles of furniture. This, like the dining-room carpet, had better be made with a border, and so as to allow of a margin of the floor round it being varnished. If edged with fringe its appearance is enriched; and I do not in practice find the fringe inconveniently displaced by ladies’ dresses, nor in dusting, as I feared it might be when I added it to a carpet which required enlarging.
The remarks on dining-room curtains and rods apply equally here, as it is of great consequence that the room should be easily cleaned.
For a young couple beginning to furnish, it may be well to have some of the pretty cretonnes for curtains and chair-coverings, which would last clean and bright while better were being worked on simple materials from patterns, either original or borrowed from the Art Needlework Society. Then the cretonne curtains might be hung in the newly furnished spare bed-room. The chair-coverings would be replaced one by one as others were worked or nice materials met with.
In doing fancy-work, it is better to make one good thing large enough to take a pride in, than countless little elegances, such as mats, antimacassars, table banner-screens, etc., which seldom last long, and are terribly in the way. The time consumed in making pincushions, pocket-tidies, and tiny knick-knacks, would serve to tapestry a room, let alone making curtains for it.
Where there are fine views from the windows, they are better framed as pictures than curtained. Draperies, if they are very beautiful, are more favourably displayed when facing the light (as in the case of portières) than at the windows, where they are liable to fade, and the light shining through them hides their beauty. Draught more often enters from doorways than by the windows; and in summer doors are often unhung for the sake of coolness and additional space, and the portières are comfortable to use on chilly days.
Venetian blinds are the best of any interior blinds, though window awnings are much pleasanter in summer. Red tammy enriches the colour of the room, but it is not agreeable to sit long in a room filled with the flame-coloured light, though this softens as the blinds fade, which they soon do. Yellow blinds are very disagreeable, and tryingly sunny in summer. Blue are as unpleasantly cold, and make people look like ghosts. White holland gives as soft a light as any, and if carefully used the blinds will not go awry. Green tammy is good, but it soon fades.
With a gas fire there is no occasion for a hearth-rug, though fur and other large rugs look very comfortable spread before the windows in winter, and Indian mats look cool in summer, and preserve the carpet from fading.
In buying furniture it is safer to move cautiously. Seize, by all means, anything that strikes you as being “just the very thing,” the moment you see it, or it may escape you for ever; but do not be beguiled into buying a whole “suite” of everything at once, because you think you may as well finish the work while you are about it, but let your taste, as well as wisdom, have time to grow. We all know the feeling of vexation we endure when we have committed ourselves to any particular thing, and find subsequently something which would have suited us very much better.
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 antimacassars of disagreeably suggestive name, in toys and trinkets and imitation rubbish of all kinds, which encumber 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 polishing, 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 glass gaseliers which are now so general are easily cleaned with a damp sponge; those of Venetian glass 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 space, 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.