Sponging house

“ The houses themselves were substantial and very decent. One could walk all round, seeing little front gardens with auriculas and saxifrage in the shadow of the bottom block, sweet-williams and pinks in the sunny top block; seeing neat front windows, little porches, little privet hedges, and dormer windows for the attics. But that was outside; that was the view on to the uninhabited parlours of all the colliers’ wives. The dwelling-room, the kitchen, was at the back of the house, facing inward between the blocks, looking at a scrubby back garden, and then at the ash-pits. ”

“ There is no such unwholesome atmosphere as that of an old home, rendered poisonous by one's defunct forefathers and relatives. I speak of what I know. There is a certain house within my familiar recollection,—one of those peaked-gable (there are seven of them) , projecting-storied edifices, such as you occasionally see in our older towns,—a rusty, crazy, creaky, dry-rotted, dingy, dark, and miserable old dungeon, with an arched window over the porch, and a little shop-door on one side, and a great, melancholy elm before it! ”

“ In my childhood the shunned house was vacant, with barren, gnarled and terrible old trees, long, queerly pale grass and nightmarishly misshapen weeds in the high terraced yard where birds never lingered. We boys used to overrun the place, and I can still recall my youthful terror not only at the morbid strangeness of this sinister vegetation, but at the eldritch atmosphere and odor of the dilapidated house, whose unlocked front door was often entered in quest of shudders. ”

“ I choked down my own emotions and solemnly answered: "Yes, he is building her a home. You must have seen the stones that are being piled up yonder on the verge of the forest."
He turned, glared at me, made a peculiar sound with his lips, and then stood silent, opening and closing his hands in a way that made my blood run chill in spite of myself.
"A house!" he murmured, at last; "I wish I had the building of that house!" [23]
The tone, the look he gave, alarmed me still further.
"You would build it well!" I cried. It was his trade, the building of houses. ”

“ Nothing is more fascinating to a thoughtful mood than rambling through a deserted house, imagining it peopled with one's own domestic gods, and also conjecturing the life of the former occupants. A home keeps so many subtle vestiges. The creak of the stair, the stain on the wall-paper, the hooks in the cupboard, the soot of the fireplace, all these are mysterious and alluring whispers out of that unknown household. ”

“ Low thatched cottages, with deep, wide eaves overhanging the street, stand in a dark mass. To the left, a little way from the others and back a few paces from the street, is a small house, the home of Jardin. Through a window in the room on the right side comes a faint light as from a low-burning lamp. To the left of the window, one feels that there is a door, though, either on account of intervening bushes or perhaps because of a porch that makes it darker there, one does not see it. ”

“ Two small windows, destitute of glass, permitted us to peer into the interior of this dilapidated old structure, and we saw within, a floor of beaten earth, a rough stone fireplace, and a few rude horse-stalls. We felt sure that this tumble-down building had been neither a dwelling-house nor a stable, but a noon-house; and the occupants of a neighboring farm-house confirmed our decision. Too worthless to destroy, too out of the way to be of any use to any person, that old noon-house, through neglect and isolation, has remained standing until to-day. ”

“ The topmost shelf of every closet was made to yield up its secret, cellar and coal-bin were probed to their darkest depths and, as a final stage in the lustral rites, the entire house was swathed in penitential white and deluged with expiatory soapsuds. ”

“ ONE holy day, it happened that our dame,
As from the neighb'ring church she homeward came;
And passed a house, some wight, concealed from view;
A basket full of filth upon her threw.
WITH anxious care apologies were made;
The lady, frightened by the frolick played,
Quite unsuspicious to the mansion went;
Her aged friend for other clothes she sent,
Who hurried home, and ent'ring out of breath;
Informed old hunks—what pained him more than death
ZOUNDS! ”

“ We enter the porch, and find ourselves in the hall, with its great fireplace, its large south window, where sits the mistress at her needlework, as of old; and here is the high table, the [62] wall panelled and carved, where sit the yeoman and his family at meals, whilst the labourers sit below. This very simple yet interesting house is quite a fortress; it is walled up against the stormy gales that sweep the moor. It is a prison too, for it catches and holds captive the sunbeams that fall into the bright little court. ”

“ I had always taken an interest in The Grim House since the time, some years ago, when I bought the house nearest it—a little place, separated from the privet hedge by a small field and a road. In the daytime I never passed the old place without thinking of a broken-down aristocrat, aloof and sullen, clinging to the husk of a former grandeur. ”

“ In place of a mosquito-infested shoe-box of a shack in a God-forsaken hole, we'll give you and your brother a fine concrete house on a breezy hill in God's own country—a real home, Miss Welkie, with great halls and wide verandas and sun-lighted rooms through which the sea breezes will blow at night so you can sleep in peace. ”

“ Bold is the man who undertakes to write his letters in his bedroom with country-house pens. But, to our friends. Jack and Sponge slept next door to each other; Sponge, as we have already said, occupying the state-room, with its canopy-topped bedstead, carved and panelled sides, and elegant chintz curtains lined with pink, and massive silk-and-bullion tassels; while Jack occupied the dressing-room, which was the state bedroom in miniature, only a good deal more comfortable. ”

“ The house itself was so shaded by horse-chestnuts that grass refused to grow in the door-yard. A porch shadowed the front door, which opened into a dark, square hall, full of dim figures that hung from the ceiling and stood in cases against the walls. ”

“ Every house in the block needed fresh paint. Lacking this renovation, the householders tried to make up for it by a display of lace curtains which, at every window, swayed in the smoke-weighted breeze. Strips of carpeting were laid down the front steps of the houses where the communities of young couples lived, and here, evenings, the inmates of the houses gathered, committing mild extravagances such as the treating of each other to ginger ale, or beer, or ice-cream.
Boyce watched these tawdry makeshifts at sociability with bitterness and loathing. ”

“ Be that as it may, the little, clumsy, meaningless jog ruined the house,--gave it an uncomfortably awry look, like a dining-table awkwardly pieced out for an emergency by another table a little too narrow.
The house had been for several years occupied by families of mill operatives, and had gradually acquired that indefinable, but unmistakable tenement-house look, which not even neatness and good repair can wholly banish from a house. The orchard behind the house had so run down for want of care that it looked more like a tangle of wild trees than like any thing which had ever been an orchard. ”

“ Across the street, and a little way down the road, is the square white house with a hopper-roof, which an elderly, childless widow, departing this life some forty years ago, thoughtfully left behind her for a parsonage. It is a pleasant, home-like house, open to sun and air, and the pleasantest of all its rooms is the minister's study. ”

“ His mansion was in complete darkness as he rode into the courtyard; it was with a sense of relief that he noticed the empty streets before it, the mob had not gathered yet.
No servant came forward to take his horse; he left the tired animal and entered the house. ”

“ After all, talking about a haunted house in broad daylight to one's fellow-clerks, in a large London office, is a very different thing from taking up one's residence in the same house, all alone, on a bleak winter's night, with never a soul within shouting distance. ”

“ We had rooms in a tall and filthy old house in the Rue Madame, one of those sinister and dark and narrow streets that one finds in the Rive Gauche, that seem as if they must harbour all variety of horrors, known and unknown, and are composed of houses whose incredible discomforts would break the spirit of any creature less inveterate in optimism than an Art student. ”

“ It is sad to think that the first part of the hitherto unbroken line of wall round this courtyard to succumb to this fell disease will be the most interesting portion of this historic house.
The kitchens, which lie between the Queen’s rooms and the banqueting hall, are likewise in a sad state; the depressed form of arch surmounting most of the doorways, despite the presence of “arches of construction,” are fast bowing their heads beneath the weight of masonry and the neglect of centuries. ”

“ In a large, square, old fashioned house, encircled by a neat white fence, which separated it from the street, might be seen a young girl, occupied in what New England housewives would call setting the house in order, and very carefully are all things arranged, the crockery being nicely washed and wiped to a shining brightness, stands neatly arranged in their proper places, on shelves scoured to a snowy whiteness. ”

“ They ran round to the other side of the house. This was apparently still untouched, though the fiery tongues came darting over the rooftree every now and then, hissing and lapping, and the roof itself was covered with sparks and great patches of burning tinder, fragments of the costly stuffs and tissues that the house-owner had so dearly prized. ”

“ I have also visited very many homes in the suburbs of London, and I have looked in vain for the old precincts of the serving maid. The small house has powerfully affected the old individual attitude of home, for the hostile dignity of the past cannot survive when one man mows the lawn and the other clips the roses, each in his own garden, separated only by three sticks and some barbed wire. In detached houses it is worse, for they are now so close together that in certain architectural conditions preliminaries are required before one can take a private bath. ”

“ The attic was far away from the rest of the house; it was the top story of a wing, which had been added on to the tall, ramshackle old house. In some of the rooms underneath, the Franklin family themselves slept; in others they lived, and in others they cooked. The rest of the house, therefore, was free for the accommodation of lodgers. ”

“ With regard to the house itself, so far as it contributes to a pleasant environment, it should be remembered that architectural beauty is not dependent upon the ornament introduced; on the contrary, the use of the latter rather tends to deprive the dwelling of its homeliness, and of this truth the jerry-built house, with its scroll-cut lintel and moulded brick string-course, affords only too frequent an illustration. ”

“ What more natural than to descend from the porch to the ground by means of the heavy vines growing about the stone pillar supporting the porch roof at the corner, and, after walking quickly along the path a few steps, reach and re-enter the house through the front door, and appear almost at once among the others who had gathered in the upper hall as soon as the tragedy was known? I remembered at once that Miss Temple had appeared in a loose dressing gown. ”

“ With a quick intake of his breath, he resumed:
“My sister lives in an aged, pre-Revolutionary house, deep in the mountains. It is a lonely place, and a secluded dwelling. At one time it was probably a restful appearing country farmhouse. Today it is a weathered frame building, set in a grove of dead and whitened chestnut trees.
“The house is a one-story-and-attic affair, with rough stone fireplaces at the side, and a long sloping roof that pitches low at the rear. Owing to its age and the condition of the place, it is a dreary spot for one used to the city. ”

“ The house was an old one, and was let out in rooms to tenants who could afford only a small rent, consequently the neighborhood was now none of the best. There was an ill smell of cooking in the halls, and the sound of a constant banging of doors, and the shuffle of heavy feet on the bare stairs could always be heard. ”

“ Even if any strange person is in the house, nay, in the very sitting-room of the deceased, he cannot get into the bedroom, for the house is one built for the poor, with no communication between the different rooms, so that separate families, if need be, may inhabit each. Now, however, let us grant that some person has achieved the miracle of getting into the front room, first floor, 18 feet from the ground. At half-past six, or thereabouts, he cuts the throat of the sleeping occupant. How is he then to get out without attracting the attention of the now roused landlady? ”

“ What's the use o' havin' furnished rooms that you never use? Yes, it does look pretty empty, but after livin' in a jungle of old mahogany these many years, you don't know what a blessed relief it is to have a few empty spots about the house. Every [Pg 113] house ought to have one or two empty rooms, Maria, jest for folks to rest their eyes on.
"Yes, I did keep one piece o' the family furniture, but it wasn't mahogany. It was that little plain rockin'-chair with the oak-split bottom; there it sets in the corner. ”

“ The sponge is the lowest animal that is made of more than one cell. The sponge has a stomach on the inside and bones on the outside. By living, a great many of them, in one house or village, like those old cliff-dwellers, all the little sponges get along better. They live very close neighbors, all work for each other, buy their food of the same grocer, and pay for it in a lump. ”

“ This rude, unpainted structure, with its door at each end of the shanty, and a few windows relieving the barrenness of its sides, makes a very comfortable home for its rough occupants.
If the shanty-man be a widower or a bachelor, or even if he be a married man laboring under the belief that his wife and he are not true affinities, and that there is more war in the house than is good for the peace of the household, he looks about for a housekeeper. ”