Apartment

“ So saying I led the way to the principal apartment in the house, which served as parlor, drawing room, and dining room—where the landlady soon made her appearance. She was a small, thin-faced woman, her form wiry and attenuated; her motions rapid and nervous; countenance much wrinkled, and of most forbidding expression, and a voice from which no art could have extracted a sound bearing the remotest relationship to harmony. ”

“ Apartment houses—regular flat buildings, with elevator service and all that—shoved their aggressive stone and brick faces up to the pavement line of a street where before old white houses with green shutters and fluted porch pillars had snuggled back among hack berries and maples like a row of broody old hens under a hedge. ”

“ The great apartment, with the purple clouds of tobacco smoke, which were settling against its low ceiling and in its far corners, transfused with golden gleams of candles and rosy flashes of fire-light, dingy as to wall-paper and carpet, with the dust of months upon all shiny surfaces, seemed a very fortress of bachelorhood wherein no woman might enter. ”

“ In the apartment everything betokened wealth and taste. The silken divans, with their downy, brightly-coloured cushions, the priceless inlaid tables, the genuinely antique cabinets with doors of mother-of-pearl, the Eastern rugs of beautifully-blended shades, the rich embroideries, and the profusion of flowers, all combined to render it the acme of comfort and luxury, and graced by such a bewitching vision of Eastern beauty, the scene seemed more like a glimpse of fairyland than a reality. ”

“ Antique hair trunks lined the sides, under the eaves, and quaint garments hung about on pegs. The attic was the only apartment in this strange house that received the light of day, for the two little windows like staring eyes were not boarded up. ”

“ The result was most fortunate. No sooner had I crossed the threshold of the neat and homely apartment thrown open to my use, than it recalled a room in which I had slept two years before and in which I had read a little book I was only too glad to remember at this moment. ”

“ The air of lifelessness and abandonment permeated the apartment, which for a long time had remained unvisited, and where the timber of the walls, the furniture and other objects gave forth a slight odor of continued putrescence. ”

“ The beauty of the evening drew many from their dwellings to enjoy it in the open air, and others whom thrift or need forbade to suspend longer their occupations, resumed them with fresh vigor—a murmur of voices, mingled with other sounds of busy life, softened and blended by distance, found its way into the open windows of the apartment. ”

“ In the vast extent of this apartment we perceive an image of the pride which gloried more in the number of its retainers than in the luxury or refinement of its accommodations. Oaken tables, and benches of the same homely material, stretched from side to side, show that our ancestors required but rude accessories to recommend to them the substantial enjoyments of their mighty repasts. Through lofty windows strengthened by mullions and decorated with intricate carvings, the light streams softened by neither blind nor curtain. ”

“ We must have an apartment fitting for an author already notable and soon to take a well-deserved place among the foremost writers of the day; an apartment which should be expensive without being pretentious, furnished in such a fashion that any one could discern at a glance the touch of the man of taste and refinement, the natural aristocrat, the man of temperament; in a word, the artist. Having settled the question of the apartment, she next turned her attention to my wardrobe, which was, I confess, sadly in need of attention. I must no longer go about in ready-made clothing. ”

“ This humble residence contained only a but and a ben, or inner and outer apartment, and both were furnished with box-beds opening in front with doors. The first chamber, though floored with hard beaten clay, was as clean as whitening and sprinkled sand could make it; a large fire of wood and peats blazed on the rude hearth; and in its ruddy light the various rows of Flemish ware, beechwood luggies, milk-bowies, horn-spoons, and polished pewter arrayed above the wooden buffet or dresser, were all glittering in that shiny splendour which a smart housewife loves. ”

“ By a dim light I observe that my apartment is remarkably small, bare, damp, and dome-shaped. The window is a barred aperture in the door; is only a foot square, and looks on to the patio, or narrow passage, where unlimited wall stares me in the face. ”

“ The apartment was crowded with persons of every age, and apparently every condition, all conversing noisily and eagerly together, and evidencing as little seeming restraint as though within the walls of a café. ”

“ In a word, as résumé, it seems to me that an apartment—not a place of reception, but of intimacy—should be lighted with as careful study, as much art, as though it were a picture.
Therefore, a great many things must be sacrificed in the shadow and the half-tone, in order to bring out the high lights. Then the eye and the mind are refreshed and rested, as they gaze with pleasure, love, and a sort of poetic contemplation, on such an interior. ”

“ The walls were of enormous thickness, and the small windows were massively barred; the apartment was hung with rich cream-coloured arras, studded with gorgeous red flowers; the cornices, the chairs, the panelling of the doors and shutters were all profusely gilded; a gittern, an embroidery frame, a few black-letter books of poetry and romance, and a few vellum illuminations of Scripture, with various other things which might serve to wile away a lady's time, were scattered on the buffets and window-seats ”

“ The great apartment itself is exquisitely finished in various beautifully colored woods so richly, yet so daintily carved, that they match the loveliness of the Mosaic floor, which seems too fine for common use. ”

“ Now this stylish apartment house looks out at the rear upon a series of common tenement houses, where in old brick or frame buildings a dense mass of people look out of the back windows on their more aristocratic neighbors. ”

“ Altogether it was an apartment suited to a skilled artisan earning high wages. From the room we are now in, branched on one side a small but commodious kitchen; on the other side, on which the door was screened by a portiere, with a border prettily worked by female hands—some years ago, for it was faded now—was a bedroom, communicating with one of less size in which the children slept. ”

“ Then the Little Woman strayed into another new house, and was captivated by a series of rooms that ran merrily around a little extension in a manner that allowed the sun to shine into every window.
We had become connoisseurs by this time. We could tell almost the exact shape and price of an apartment from its outside appearance. After one glance inside we could carry the plan mentally for months and reproduce it minutely on paper at will. We had [Pg 80] learned, too, that it is only by living in many houses in rotation that you can know the varied charms of apartment life. ”

“ I strode up to the door of the apartment house, and rapped sharply on the knocker. It was a low, grimy, building, with many grimy windows, whose shuttered blinds had once been green, but now were grey with grease and dust. A card in either lower windows signified its calling: "Apartments to let!" ”

“ In that exceedingly simple room, with its oil-clothed floor, or possibly with its well-scrubbed boards, and leather-covered sofas, you see an apartment where a certain number of gentlemen meet after dinner to smoke their cigars, and take their coffee, and where they chat over the occurrences of the day, much in the same way that they would do in your presence. ”

“ My first experience in an apartment, living on an even plane, no running up and down stairs, was as pleasant as it was surprising. I had no idea of the comfort and convenience of this method of keeping house. Our apartment in Paris consisted of drawing room, dining room, library, a good-sized hall, in which stood a large American stove, five bedrooms, bathroom, and kitchen, and a balcony fifty-two feet long and four feet wide. ”

“ Instead of one room shared with one or more tired engineers subject to grouches, he has a four-room apartment with bath—really a five-room flat, for the broad sheltered balconies shaded by vines form the real living room. ”

“ Mounting into the parlor, we discovered a good-sized apartment, its windows looking out through the foliage of the ilexes over the sea, skirted by the extensive coast view. Behind was the dining-room; on each side were the brothers' bedrooms; and leading from a small entrance-hall at the back was a large billiard-room. ”

“ The pictures in our apartment have travelled. One by one they have journeyed from the smoking-room down the long hall, stopping a day or two in each room, and all finding a resting-place except one, which will not look well in any colour, any spot, on any wall, nor in any light. It was a wedding-present from some one we like, or Aubrey would have put his foot through it long ago. ”

“ Miss Forster looked about the room into which he had ushered her, the first room on the right when you had come through the front door. It was the usual ground-floor front apartment of the £45 a year suburban "modern residence," a fair size, as a habitation for a "single gentleman," with a sufficiency of light, and air, and space. ”

“ The current of air admitted by the open jalousies, passing constantly through this apartment, renders it at all times delightfully cool; while the lattice-work serves to mellow the glare of light, which, under the sky of the tropics, is almost as disagreeable as the heat. An uncarpeted floor, composed of the hardest sorts of native wood, and subjected to a diurnal polish, contributes to increase the coolness.
This great hall is the principal apartment of the dwelling. ”

“ Lamps were lighted, and then I could perceive that the apartment was neatly—almost handsomely—furnished in the style of a Barbadian drawing-room of those days; a piano, music, flowers, pictures, books, and a few articles of bijouterie were there, with those pretty trifles which we usually find in such an apartment in all countries. ”

“ Except that I live in one, with apartment houses I have nothing to do—my concern is with lodgings.
There is only one philosophical observation to be made upon apartment houses. And that is this: How can all these people afford to live in them? When you go to look at apartments you are shown a place that you don't like particularly. ”

“ The front apartment is used as a bed-sittingroom, the back one as a store; and in some cases a lean-to outhouse has been built of blocks of the same material, in which cooking is done and the goats kept. ”

“ The apartment-house contains a public kitchen, steam-heating, ventilating and electric-lighting isolated plants, fuel-cellar, laundry, café, billiard-room, gentlemen’s smoking-room, ladies’ parlor, small public dining-rooms, and eighty suites, averaging five rooms, a bath-room and closets in each, and with a trunk or storage-room in the basement for each suite; four elevators and four fireproof staircases of iron and marble enclosed in brick walls from basement to roof. ”

“ I enclose a descriptive folder which will give you an idea of the grounds that we have for basing our claim that this is the most convenient apartment house that has ever been erected. The apartments vary in size, as you will see on the plan, and for long leases we can arrange any combination of rooms that may be desired. These features are common to all of the apartments. Every bedroom has a private bathroom. ”

“ You are shown into an apartment—very likely a big hall used in the day as a drawing-room—where you find perhaps several, perhaps only one or two, people, and the mistress of the house may ask whether you would like to see your room at once, or, if it is near tea-time, if you will stay and have a cup first? ”

“ Not so easy a task as one might imagine either, in an apartment which combined kitchen, laundry, bedroom, dining-room and the other conveniences common to housekeeping in a 12 × 15 space, as evidenced by the presence of a stove, a table with a tub concealed beneath, a machine, a bed, a washstand, two chairs, and a gayly decorated bureau, Norma's especial property, set forth with bottles of perfumery, a satin pin-cushion and a bunch of artificial flowers in a vase. ”

“ The family apartments are in a very antiquated taste, somewhat heavy and often inconvenient, but full of the solemn magnificence of former times, fitted up with rich though faded tapestry, unwieldy furniture, and loads of massy, gorgeous old plate. The vast fireplaces, ample kitchens, extensive cellars, and sumptuous banqueting-halls all speak of the roaring hospitality of days of yore, of which the modern festivity at the manor-house is but a shadow. ”

“ Every apartment has cheerful, sunny rooms, with two or three exposures; the rooms are never more than two deep, the apartments extending through the building, giving thus to all rooms, cross-ventilation; and a large number of the bedrooms are corner rooms. Living rooms and dining rooms are separate from the bedrooms, and the kitchen is also isolated ”

“ Crawling on all fours through a narrow passage, on either side of which a dog-kennel and a cook-house had been constructed, we found ourselves in an apartment, the highest side of which faced us, the roof gradually sloping down to the ground. ”

“ As his own apartment, which afforded me a temporary shelter, is much too narrow for a settled residence, we hired for the winter a convenient ready furnished apartment in the nearest part of the Rue de Bourg, whose back door leads in three steps to the terrace and garden, as often as a [75] tolerable day shall tempt us to enjoy their beauties; and this arrangement has even its advantage, of giving us time to deliberate and provide, before we enter on a larger and more regular establishment. ”