Quarto

“ And then, when we retire to bed in a room with thick, woollen curtains closely drawn, and a fire in the room, how sweet a lullaby is the piping of the gale down the flues, and the peppering of the rain on the tiles and windows; while we are now and then rocked in the house as if in a cradle! ”

“ Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had a cold in his head) upon the Bob. Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall. ”

“ The huge bed, with its deep crimson hangings, the walls of similar colour, the carved ebony chest, the cupboards, the closet in the corner, looked deep and mysterious enough for anything. However, as my hostess and her attendant never seemed even to suspect that I should dislike sleeping so far from all companionship, I was ashamed to confess my superstitious feelings, and called out a careless “Good night” to them down the passage, just as if I were quite at my ease. ”

“ My chamber was large and beautifully furnished; the hall and dining room of our flat would have gone into it with a good remainder; yet it was not a place I could settle down in for work. It conveyed the idea of impermanence, making me feel transient as in a hotel bedroom. This, of course, was the fact. But some rooms convey a settled, lasting hospitality even in a hotel; this one did not; and as I was accustomed to work in the room I slept in, at least when visiting, a slight frown must have crept between my eyes. ”

“ It was the regular bedroom of the maison meublée—worn carpet, discoloured and dingy wallpaper, faded rep curtains and mahogany bedstead with a vast édredon, like a giant pincushion. My candle, guttering wildly in the unaccustomed breeze blowing dankly through the chamber, was the sole illuminant. There was neither gas nor electric light laid on. ”

“ Back of the sitting-room is the bedroom, just large enough to contain the bedstead, the washstand, the bureau and two chairs. One thing, however, attracts our special attention. The bed is not a mere collection of blankets, thrown together and never disturbed. ”

“ Standing in the small, brown, lowceilinged sitting-room, a horror of a room, with two frightful paintings of her mother's father and mother, rocking-chairs, a couch with a knitted afghan, a table with a lamp, an album of World's Fair views, and a pressed-glass holder harbouring souvenir spoons, she had a new realization of the hopelessness of her plight. ”

“ I cannot imagine anyone sleeping calmly in such a room!
This bedroom is eminently suited to the needs of a man. The hangings are of a plain, soft stuff, accenting one of the deep tones of the wall covering, and the sash curtains are of white muslin. The furniture is of oak, of the Jacobean period. The bed is true to its inspiration, with turned legs and runners, and slatted head and foot boards. The legs and runners of the bed were really inspired by the chairs and tables of the period. This is an excellent illustration of the modern furniture that may be adapted from old models. ”

“ The Lad knows how I feel about the room, and though he races into his own with muddy feet, stands in awe of the place where only girls are made at home.
I have but two maid-servants, both of whom must be busy in kitchen and dining-room when the house is full of guests. So I always make the rounds of the bedrooms in the evening, to see to lights and water, and to turn down the coverings on the beds. The Skeptic's room needed only a touch here and there to put it in order for the night. The Philosopher's needed none. ”

“ All the little familiar objects, the intimate associations of the furniture of a room that has been for years your boudoir as well as your sleeping room, all the decorations that you fondly dreamed gave to your room a cachet—the mark of a distinctive personality,—these are of no more comfort to you than would be strange bare stone walls and a close unfamiliar iron grating. ”

“ It is much more comfortable than our bed coverings in America. I tuck myself into my nest at night, and in the morning after breakfast, when I return to my room—agramento-presto-change!—my bed is converted into a sofa, my basin is laid on the shelf, the soap-dish and my combs and brushes are scuttled away into the drawer ”

“ Can there be anything more disagreeable [42] than to find one’s bed-room, at night, cold as a cellar, from the necessity of keeping the window open to the last minute to dispel the smoke which inattention at first has produced, and the smell of which still adheres to every article, instead of finding a warm room, a comfortable arm-chair turned towards a bright fire, a shining kettle singing a quiet tune, and a clean-swept hearth? ”

“ It's so customary to find strangers in the living room, talking or using the telephone, that when I am ready for bed at night I don't dart out of the bathroom and leap into bed as I did at first. First I press my ear against the door, so that I can hear the rumble of voices if anyone is in the living room. ”

“ Nothing can be at once cleaner or more wholesome than the beautiful wainscotted walls we sometimes see in the fine old country houses built in Queen Anne’s reign. A bedroom of that date, if we except the bed itself, and the probable absence of all bathing conveniences, presented a nearly perfect combination of fresh air, spotless cleanliness, and stately and harmonious beauty to the eyes of an artist or the nose of a sanitary inspector. ”

“ I perceived that I was upon a low couch of elegant construction—without curtains—but in their stead a mosquito-netting spread its gauzy meshes above and around me. The snow-white colour and fineness of the linen, the silken gloss of the counterpane, and the soft yielding mattress beneath, imparted to me the knowledge that I lay upon a luxurious bed. ”

“ I verily believe that a fair description—none of your poetical balderdash, but an honest plodding description of a perfectly comfortable bed, and of the process of going to sleep, would, judiciously administered soon after dinner, overpower the vivacity of any tranquil gentleman who loves a nap after that meal—gently draw the curtains of his senses, and extinguish the bed-room candle of his consciousness. ”

“ In the large spare bedroom that looks out on the slate roof there stands in the corner an old oak chest; aye, older than I, my dears, a great deal older; older than my grandmother. Play anywhere else in the house, but not there. ”

“ In a sitting-room, on the other hand, the sworn abode of the sweet and delicate talk and music of women, just as the dining-room was that of the serene discussions of men, there should be something of the lush luxuriance in shape and colour of the midsummer woods, knights and ladies and all the figures of romance and fairy-tale passing together. ”

“ I would go to bed.
My rooms at the Manor are the best in the house. Leta will have it so. I must explain their position for a reason to be understood later. My bedroom is in the southeast angle of the house; it opens on one side into a sitting-room in the east corridor, the rest of which is taken up by the suite of rooms occupied by Tom and Leta; and on the other side into my bathroom, the first room in the south corridor where the principal guest chambers are, to one of which it was originally the dressing-room. ”

“ Her little bed-sitting-room was like a lair, and she went out from it into this vast, dun world, with its smoke-gray houses, its glaring streets of shops, its dark streets of homes, its orange-lit windows, under skies of dull copper or muddy gray or black, much as an animal goes out to seek food. ”

“ No dingy, fusty, up-three-pair-of-stairs bed-room, which the unhappy bachelor enters with a shudder, and vacates with the satisfaction of an escaped convict. Here, all is bright and cheerful. There is no luxurious furniture, it is true ”

“ Our bedroom has a blue and white paper, is a bright, airy, two-windowed room, with a lovely eastward view over the river—the willows—and the pine woods. Our abundant space mocks one's longing to invite a good many dear old friends to visit one! ”

“ Everything is clean and in its proper place and the object-lesson is invaluable to these poor children. If you go into their homes you will find that the bed is a bundle of rags in some dark closet, while the front room is kept for company. Here I show them how easily this sunny room is made into a sitting-room by putting that screen in front of the bed and then there is a healthful place to sleep. ”

“ The bed was a triumph of artistic skill, designed and arranged under her own directions, the curtains enclosing it were delicate in colouring and so soft in fabric that the bed seemed enveloped in a mass of blue clouds, gold-lined, and all the sheets and clothing were filmy and lace-edged, and must have been the despair of the steam laundry; a blue silk covering, the colour of her own eyes, and embroidered with pale pink roses, gold-centred, reposed on it, matching the curtains, and an electric lamp shaded in rose colour depended from the French crown above the head ”

“ The guest room where you sleep at night must be shared with others. Along the inner wall stands a raised ledge of bricks. It is built like an oven and is heated with cattle-dung beneath; and on the platform the sleeper, if not half suffocated, is at any rate half roasted. ”

“ You will be entirely free to follow your own devices from morning to night—except as to going out. Here is a room of good size, where you can make yourself at home; there is a bed, a table, a bench—it is the best furnished room in the house. ”

“ Late in the day I succeeded in obtaining a sitting-room with a small bed-room attached, which made me somewhat more independent and comfortable—but you must pay highly for any departure from the routine life of the natives. Ladies enjoy a handsome drawing-room, with piano, sofas, and easy chairs, all to themselves. ”

“ You see how this corridor runs over to the new part, where my bedroom opens directly upon the hall there. Old P’lina sleeps near you, if you decide to take this room. You will see a picture of your mother that will give you great pleasure, I think, and I’m leaving you alone now, child,—to go in by yourself. You will find me in my bedroom for a while, but if you want to stay here, I will see that you are called for supper. It will be late, I think. We have supper, not dinner, at night, except when we have guests. ”

“ My bedroom opened on the long, wide balcony, and the space in front, partly enclosed and furnished with table and chairs, was my sitting-room. The little swing-door of the bedroom reached neither floor nor ceiling, so that it concealed little of the room. ”

“ When you have emptied the tables of rubbish so that you can put things down on them at need, placed them in a light where you can write on them in repose, or isolated real works of art in the middle of them; when you have set your dropsical sofas where you want them for talk, or warmth and reading; when you can see the fire from the bed in your sleeping-room, and dress near your bath ”

“ In bed-rooms especially is seen that truly English love of superfluous comforts which we mistake for civilization: it meets us everywhere, in and out of the house, but it abounds in our bed and dressing rooms. ”

“ I have seen such rooms in modern American houses that were quite as large as bedrooms, with the supreme luxury of open fireplaces. Think of the comfort of having one's bath and of making one's toilet before an open fire! This is an outgrowth of our passion for bedrooms that are so be-windowed they become sleeping-porches, and we may leave their chill air for the comfortable warmth of luxurious dressing-rooms. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Well, they’d only want to sleep in it. They could have that, and the rest of us could have the bedroom and living-room. We’d need some cot-beds—there’s a bully bed in the bedroom now, you know—and some sheets and blankets and things. ”

“ At night when people are ready to go to bed, the shelves are let down, and the curtains put up in front of them, and each person climbs up on his shelf, and undresses behind the curtain, and goes to bed. ”

“ There our own particular horrors were pretty well realized: dirty rooms over a saloon and lounging toughs on the corner; uneatable hunks of food at a table in a barroom, our dinner put in front of us on a platter, and no plates used at all. And the bedrooms! I slept on top of my bed wrapped in an ulster with my head on the lining of my coat. ”

“ You are aware, perhaps, that in this house all the servants sleep in the modern wing. This central block is made up of the dwelling-rooms, with the kitchen behind and our bedroom above. My maid, Theresa, sleeps above my room. There is no one else, and no sound could alarm those who are in the farther wing. ”

“ We passed through what seemed to me an endless number of rooms, and came at length into a large hall, furnished with ten small blue sofas for the ten young men, which served as beds as well as chairs, and with another sofa in the middle for the old man. As none of the sofas could hold more than one person, they bade me place myself on the carpet, and to ask no questions about anything I should see. ”

“ Our suite was so luxurious as to astonish us. It consisted of ten rooms, five being sleeping rooms furnished in carved teakwood, mahogany and rosewood. The bedsteads and other furniture were marvels of intricate carving, and statues, vases and ornaments were everywhere. ”