Dormer window

“ Ida, you have saved my life."
"Yes, and I fancy I have saved my reason at the same time. Take me back to my room, please; I am so tired, so tired."
Ida closed her eyes and slept again. But it was the dreamless sleep of the child, the nurse said with a smile, and there would be no more anxiety now. All the same, Mr. Cheriton must go away at once. As to his wife, it was a mere matter of time; Nature would do the rest.
*⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠*
People who know the story of the dormer window are many, but of all those who speak with authority not one can explain what lies beyond the veil. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ What goes by the name of a window is half of it stuffed with rags or covered by boards to keep out wind and rain; the rest is so begrimed and obscured that scarcely can light enter or anything be seen outside. Should you have ascended to the attic, where at least some approach to fresh air might be expected to enter from open or broken window, you look out upon the roofs and ledges of lower tenements, and discover that the sickly air which finds its way into the room has to pass over the putrefying carcases of dead cats or birds, or viler abominations still. ”

“ Remember the darkness, the nightingale’s song,
That night in the blackness, the thick-flowing dark?
I opened the window to the silvery darkness,
As winding about me the weir’s murmur fell.
Remember the lilac’s heavy smell,
In the yielding depths of that silvery night?
I opened the window to the darkness that echoed
The weir, the nightingale, rings on the moon,
And steps on the road that were fading away.
I opened the window: steps died into silence.
The steps of our sweet, shy, distant sins,
In the flowing darkness, the silvery silence. ”

“ The fashion of the day builds plate-glass windows round them, but it is truly a gross superfluity.” The room in which Lady Cressage and the luncheon-table awaited them was of a more hospitable aspect. A broad expanse of lawn, and of distant trees and sky-line fading away in the sunny autumn haze, made a luminous picture of the high embrasured window stretching almost from corner to corner across one side. By contrast with the other apartments, the light here was brilliant. ”

“ One small window let in a muffled daylight, and near it, on a miserable pallet bed, under a dirty and faded coverlet, was the outline of a human form, lying, slightly huddled up, on its right side, with its face turned away from the door, and consequently invisible. ”

“ Prom our windows at Houlgate (on the sea-coast, near Trouville) we can see modern, half-timbered houses, set in a garden of shrubs and flowers, with gables prettily 'fringed,' graceful dormer windows, turrets and overhanging eaves; solid oak doors, and windows with carved balconies twined about with creepers, with lawns [Pg 252] and shady walks surrounding—as different from the ordinary type of French country-house with its straight avenues and trimly cut trees, as they are remote in design from any ordinary English seaside residence ”

“ A window, perhaps, has been left open, or else is driven in by an unruly gust. It is not to be conceived, beforehand, what wonderful wind-instruments are these old timber mansions, and how haunted with the strangest noises, which immediately begin to sing, and sigh, and sob, and shriek,—and to smite with sledge-hammers, airy, but ponderous, in some distant chamber,—and to tread along the entries as with stately footsteps, and rustle up and down the staircase, as with silks miraculously stiff,—whenever the gale catches the house with a window open, and gets fairly into it. ”

“ In the house there is less need than in the church for severity, and more for liveliness, less occasion for breadth, and more for delicacy. The scale of the dwelling-room itself justifies, perhaps demands, a smaller treatment. Here, if anywhere, is opportunity for that preciousness of execution which, in work of more monumental character, it seems a pity to expend upon so frail a substance as glass—frailer than ever when it was the thin white glass employed for window panes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In other words, the true stained glass window—in a church building worthy of that name—is not now to give the beholder the impression that he is looking out through an opening and seeing, of something beyond, so much as the size of the opening will permit: in a word, the spectacular impression of looking into some beautiful out-door world through a hole in the wall. The beholder must be conscious still of looking at the wall itself, the translucent part of it, which confines him within the edifice as much as the stone or the brick. ”

“ It is indispensable to have the window open through the night in every sleeping-room. But here caution is needed, because when the body is quiet a draught is a serious injury. Strips of wood across the open part of the window will generally be sufficient protection. Some of you shiver at the idea of breathing out of door air in the winter. ”

“ All the windows looking, like mine, upon the air-shaft were shrouded in darkness; only a light still burned in the window beneath the grating with the iron stair to the little yard. What was at the foot of the stair I could not descry, but I thought I could recognize the outline of a door.
From the window of the cabinet de toilette to the yard the sides of the house, cased in stained and dirty stucco, fell sheer away. Measured with the eye the drop from window to the pavement was about fifty feet. With a rope and something to break one's fall, it might, I fancied, be managed. . . . ”

“ My bed was surrounded by light curtains of blue and white checked linen, and through these at the foot I could see that the hangings of the latticed window were of the same. The bed was covered with a white spread worked with a curious pattern in colored crewels. Everything was very quiet, but I could hear the distant hum of a spinning-wheel, and the singing of a robin outside my window.
I lay quietly a long time, half asleep and dreaming, half bewildered, feeling as if I had died and wakened into a new world, of which all I knew was that it was safe and friendly. ”

“ So little light lives inside the churches of my churchyards, when the two are co-existent, that it is often only by an accident and after long acquaintance that I discover their having stained glass in some odd window. The westering sun slants into the churchyard by some unwonted entry, a few prismatic tears drop on an old tombstone, and a window that I thought was only dirty, is for the moment all bejewelled. Then the light passes and the colours die. ”

“ If your group of windows is so placed that there is no danger of people passing and looking in, then a short sash curtain of swiss muslin is all that you require, with inside curtains of some heavier fabric—chintz or linen or silk—that can be drawn at night.
If you are building a new house I strongly advise you to have at least one room with a group of deep windows, made up of small panes of leaded glass, and a broad window-seat built beneath them. There is something so pleasant and mellow in leaded glass, particularly when the glass itself has an uneven, colorful quality. ”

“ This window also had a shade, the shade was lowered, and on it the unseen lamp perfectly outlined the form of a third person. Without a mutter or the slightest gesture of passion, the man under the window raised the thing in his grasp as high as his shoulder, lowered it again and glanced around. He seemed to tremble. The man at his back did not move; his gaze, too, was now fastened, with liveliest manifestations of interest, on the window-shade and the moving image that darkened it. ”

“ As the window falls to pieces a flood of light invades my cell, and I feel the warm air, and smell a perfume as of new-mown hay. For a moment I am blinded, suffocated, then with both hands I seize the iron bars and draw myself up to the narrow window ledge. A confused noise of breaking glass gradually passing away in the distance, and the cracking of wood fills the pure air of the glorious summer morning; while on all sides are heard the voices of anxious men and women, all asking the same questions, “What has happened? Why are we revolting?” ”

“ There was one window at the gable end: a broken window, with fragments of glass lying about it. The light of the moon penetrated the window, making the fragments of glass glisten, and forming a pale avenue across the dusty floor.
There were old chests here and there, all mysteriously closed—perhaps locked. There were old garments hanging in obscure places. They made you think of persons lurking there in the dark. Outside the broken window an owl in a dark tree hooted mournfully.
Everychild crossed the attic cautiously. ”

“ The face in the darkness started away from the window as he looked at it, as if his own robust health and the light that dwelt about him startled its pinched shabbiness into solitude. He set the tumbler of flowers upon the window-ledge, and closing the window, made his toilet and returned to the sitting-room. Then, having banked up the fire, and set the matches in such a position that he could easily find them, he blew out the lamp, left his chambers, and ran down the tortuous stairs. ”

“ Every bedroom window should be made to open freely, and what other defects exist—such as the smallness of the apartment, or the absence of a fireplace—can be remedied to a great extent by means of the window. In many instances the bed is placed so near the latter that when it is open there is a strong draught playing directly on the bed, and this is an evil which must be avoided. ”

“ Sundown had brought no gleam to lift the pall of the dying day, but the monotonous grey of the sky was still sufficiently light to enable a practised eye to make out that the head of the window was filled with a broken medley of ancient glass, where translucent blues and yellows and reds mingled like the harmony of an old patchwork quilt. Of the lower divisions of the window, those at the sides had no colour to clothe their nakedness, and remained in ghostly whiteness ”

“ There are two high, curtainless windows with eight panes in the rear watt, and between them a small, low door. Two similar windows appear in the right wall. Night glooms through the windows, and when the door opens, the same deep blackness of night stares into the room. In general, however bright Man's rooms may be, the vast darkness of the windows engulfs the light.
On the left wall there is nothing but a small, low door leading to the rest of the house. At the window on the right stands a broad sofa covered with dark oilcloth. Man's desk is very simple and poor. ”

“ 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 [Pg 96] 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. ”

“ One whole side of the room had been converted into a vast bay-window; this looked due south, over the floweriest part of our flower-garden, over the rich green country beyond, miles away, to where the Pyrenees gloomed purple. As a shield against the sun the window was fitted with Venetian blinds, besides the curtains; and every morning, when I crept in from my own adjoining room, to pay my mother a visit, it was given me to witness a marvellous transformation scene. At first all was dark, or nearly dark, so that you could only distinguish things as shadowy masses. ”

“ I have just been at my window, and never beheld so gloomy a night—not a star twinkles through the massy clouds that are driven impetuously along by the sudden gusts of a rising storm—not a ray of light partially dissipates the profound obscurity, save what falls on a fragment of an opposite tower, and seems to issue from the window of a closet which joins the apartment of Glorvina. She has not yet then retired to rest, and yet ’tis unusual for her to sit up so late. For I have often watched that little casement—its position exactly corresponds with the angle of the castle where I am lodged. ”

“ I found the window, and looked out. It opened high above a courtyard closed in by walls. Again I tried the door. Then I remembered that it was a sort of passage-room; that there was a door leading from it to an apartment beyond. I managed to find this door, covered as it was with heavy tapestry hangings. Feeling very much like a thief, I tried the handle. It turned in my hand, and the door yielded noiselessly. Beyond, I saw a large square chamber, evidently a bedroom; but the bed was unoccupied. It was a quaint and haunted-looking room, with high oaken skirting and panelled ceiling. ”