Room

“ O darling room, my heart's delight,
Dear room, the apple of my sight,
With thy two couches soft and white,
There is no room so exquisite,
No little room so warm and bright,
Wherein to read, wherein to write. ”

“ 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! ”

“ It was a pleasant room, with the simplest of furniture. The night-breeze ruffled the curtains at the windows, and filled the room with the cool odour of the woods—how different it was from the odour of dirty asphalt! ”

“ And all that he now revealed to her—the fine corridors, the great dining-room, the ball-room, the old carving, the old painted ceilings, the old tapestries, the old furniture—gave her a pleasure that deepened to pain. ”

“ The room is as you left it; your last touch—
A thoughtless pressure, knowing not itself
As saintly—hallows now each simple thing;
Hallows and glorifies, and glows between
The dust's grey fingers like a shielded light. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We see this in the papering of rooms, for how painful is the sensation of being in a small room, the walls of which are covered with a pattern that seems to make them come near, and almost close upon us, like the iron tomb which grew less and less every night, though by almost imperceptible degrees. ”

“ Behind her was confusion in the room,
Of chairs turned upside down to sit like people
In other chairs, and something, come to look,
For every room a house has—parlor, bed-room,
And dining-room—thrown pell-mell in the kitchen. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Enormous Room is filled with a new and beautiful darkness, the darkness of the snow outside, falling and falling and falling with the silent and actual gesture which has touched the soundless country of my mind as a child touches a toy it loves.... ”

“ 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. ”

“ Even this old room, with its bare walls, little table and chairs, which I have thought and studied in so long, that it seems difficult to think and study anywhere else, will crowd out of memory images of many a loftier scene. ”

“ One painting in a room fixes attention; two divide it; more than two disperse it. Than a wall plastered with bad canvases I know of nothing more distracting and confusing except a wall plastered with good ones. It is like a swarm of pretty girls, or a table d’hôte dinner in a country hotel, where all you are to eat is brought in at once and arranged round your plate. It kills the appetite. ”

“ Through room after room,--there seemed no end to the rooms, and each one more beautiful than the last,--from garden to garden,--some full of trees, some with beautiful lakes in them, some full of solid beds of flowers,--they went, sometimes dancing, sometimes walking, sometimes, it seemed to the Little Sweetheart, floating. Every hour there was some new beautiful thing to see, some new beautiful thing to do. ”

“ The very place, at the end of a few minutes, the commodious, "handsome" room, far back in the fine old house, soundless from position, somewhat sallow with years of celebrity, somewhat sombre even at midsummer—the very place put on for her a look of custom and use, squared itself solidly round her as with promises and certainties. ”

“ The modern habit of regarding the walls of a room chiefly as a background to pictures, furniture, or people, and perhaps the smallness of the average room, has brought rather small, thickly dispersed, leafy patterns into vogue, retiring in colour for the most part. ”

“ My room is so large that even when the candles are lit, there might be somebody sitting at the other end of it without your knowing it. You could not even hear people speaking from one end to the other! ”

“ And a very dainty little room it was, with pale blue-tinted walls and light woodwork, soft mull curtains looped back with pale blue ribbons, the brass bed, satin-wood dresser, writing desk, and chairs, and the little bookcase from her playroom. ”

“ The ancient appearance of the room—the old panelling of the wall—the chimney blackened with smoke and age—would have carried us back a hundred years at least, and we should have gone dreaming on, until the pewter-pot on the table, or the little beer-chiller on the fire, had started into life, and addressed to us a long story of days gone by. ”

“ I always look at a room as a painting. It never occurs to me whether the articles in it are cheap or dear, so that only the general effect is warm, and social, and agreeable. And that is just what you have made these rooms. ”

“ A room that has been lived in, a piece of silver that has been rubbed [Pg 261] and handled for a lifetime, the steps of an ancient building worn by thousands of passing feet, a wall whose angles are softened and whose surface is stained by having fronted the sun and rain for many years—all these have the natural and inimitable charm produced by the touch of life—they no longer stand in crude isolation, they are related to the goings-on of the world. ”

“ Once or twice he rose, rubbed his eyes, and looked round the room—the room where as a boy he had spent idle hours, where as a student he had been in the hands of his tutor, and as a young man had found recreations such as belong to ambitious and ardent youth. ”

“ 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! ”

“ In centre of the room is a pillar, having looking-glass all round without a visible line to mar the effect, which is exquisite, especially where it reflects that marvellous scenery so wondrously enchanting. ”

“ People who appreciate more and more the joy of living have pulled hall and sitting-room together into one great family meeting place, leaving a small vestibule, decreased the size of the dining-room and built in many windows, so that it becomes almost an outdoor room, and given the parlor a little more dignity and serenity and its right name—the drawing-room. ”

“ But I have sometimes thought that a woman’s nature is like a great house full of rooms: there is the hall, through which everyone passes in going in and out; the drawing-room, where one receives formal visits; ”

“ Have you not sometimes noted,
When we unlock some long-disuséd room
With heavy dust and soiling mildew filled,
Where never foot of man has come for years,
And from the windows take the rusty bar,
And fling the broken shutters to the air,
And let the bright sun in, how the good sun
Turns every grimy particle of dust
Into a little thing of dancing gold?
Guido, my heart is that long-empty room,
But you have let love in, and with its gold
Gilded all life. ”

“ This room was chill, because it seldom had a fire; it was silent, because remote from the nursery and kitchen; solemn, because it was known to be so seldom entered. ”

“ It is astonishing what a difference there will be, even in a very short time, in the appearance of a room where there is carelessness in lighting the fire; the curtains, the books, everything in the room, gets a soiled appearance, and is unpleasant to the touch. ”

“ In the first place, you are to discard from your mind all images of two rooms and folding-doors, with a passage six feet wide, a narrow carpeted flight of steps, and a bed-room prepared for the ladies to uncloak in, and another in which the men can brush their hair and hide their hats. ”

“ Such a room is apt to be a fascinating one by reason of this very variety of use and purpose, and because it is a centre for all the family treasures. Books, pictures, papers, photographs, bits of decorative needlework, all centre here, and all are on most orderly behaviour, like children at a company dinner. ”

“ The dim, dusty room, with the busts staring down from the tall bookcases, the cozy chairs, the globes, and best of all, the wilderness of books in which she could wander where she liked, made the library a region of bliss to her. ”

“ I wrote so fully in my former book on the arrangement of sitting-rooms that I am only going to touch lightly on the orthodox papering and painting of dining-, drawing-, and morning-rooms, reserving all my new ideas for the billiard-room and library, neither of which rooms were considered likely to be required for the modest young couple starting in life, for whom I more particularly designed that special volume. ”

“ It was just like a little house of two rooms, one room being shut off from the other by heavy curtains.
The first room they went into was where they would eat and cook, and, when the table was cleared off, they could sit around it and read, or play games. ”

“ Thus we have a sleeping-room, a dining-room, a reception-room, an entertaining-room, a cooking-room, and so on, each designed and furnished to create the atmosphere and stimulate the spirits of the occupant to the mood which the environment best serves. ”

“ We know what is to come in out of the fresh air and complain that a room feels stuffy; but sit in the room a few minutes, and you get accustomed to its stuffiness; the senses are no longer a safe guide. ”

“ The bright dawn flooded the room and swept the fantastic shadows into dusky corners, where they lay shuddering. ”

“ There is heaps of room, and I am sure I could make it ever so nice. The bed could stand there, and the chest of drawers facing the window, and—oh, I could have a real writing table by the window. I could do real work if I had this all nice and quiet to myself, with my things about—and this view to look out at! ”

“ You can have the room at the top of the tower for your study and your smoking den, and the room under it can be your bedroom, so you can be just as independent as you please of the rest of us, and you can be living on your own place without interfering with us in the least. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She was allowed plenty of time to examine more ceiling beams and blue tiles, to admire photographs in silver frames, or to read the sporting newspapers and magazines that littered every table. The room was pretty—but dreadfully untidy. ”

“ The room I inhabit belongs to her, not to him. It is the invalid's room—that is, if any one is ill in the house, he is put there; it has nothing to recommend it except the view,—only four bare walls, no chest of drawers—in fact, nothing. ”

“ If one enters a room in which true proportion has been observed, where the openings, the doors, windows and fireplace, balance perfectly, where the wall spaces are well planned and the height of the ceiling is in keeping with the floor-space, one is immediately convinced that here is a beautiful and satisfactory room, before a stick of furniture has been placed in it. ”

“ Some were commonplace, some fantastic; most of the rooms were called after the colour of the decoration, or the style of the furniture. Thus there was the Oak room, the Walnut room, the Blue room, the Gray room, the Rose room; there were also the North room and the South room. At last I reached the beautiful octagon room which contained the painted windows, and which had so excited my mother’s emotions.
The title of this room gave me a good deal to ponder over. It was called the Chamber of Myths. I stayed for a long time here. I examined all the furniture. ”