Window blind

“ I will open the window, my dear, and let you feel the breeze, and know that the light is around you, but your eyes are weak yet—so weak that it would hurt them very much—perhaps blind them entirely, if the light fell on them, so you must let me tie a handkerchief lightly over them before I open the window, and promise me you will not take it off while it is open. ”

“ Only two things have occurred to disturb my equanimity. The first is trivial in itself, and no doubt to be easily explained. The upper window where I saw the light on the night of November 4, with the shadow of a large head and shoulder upon the blind, is one of the windows in the square room under the roof. In reality it has no blind at all!
Here is the other thing. I was coming home last night in a fresh fall of snow about eleven o'clock, my umbrella low down over my head. Half-way up the alley, where the snow was wholly untrodden, I saw a man's legs in front of me. ”

“ A bright red blind, drawn down over the broad window, prevents the passers-by from gazing in there, but, round the open door, there are gathered a set of wild, dirty faces looking in upon us. Such a semicircle they make, as the strong gas-light falls upon them! They are mostly children with disheveled hair, and ragged, uncared-for clothes ”

“ And looking around that large sombre room, with its shadowy window bays, its recesses and alcoves, one could well understand the legends that had sprouted in its black corners, its germinating darkness. My candle was a little tongue of light in its vastness, that failed to pierce the opposite end of the room, and left an ocean of mystery and suggestion beyond its island of light. ”

“ Venetian blinds have become increasingly important as a treatment for windows in all parts of the house. Venetian blinds permit the user to control the light and add a decorative note to a room regardless of its period. Tapes of the blind should match the floor covering, the walls, or harmonize with the color scheme of the room. Although the off-white, cream, and buff blinds are most popular, colored blinds in keeping with the color scheme of the room also are in good taste. Other window treatments are roller window shades, glass curtains, and draperies. ”

“ With the ordinary short blind, which vulgarises any house, and to which English house-mothers cling with a devotion worthy of a better cause, one must keep the windows closed during the process of dressing, as the blind goes up with the window, and leaves the room exposed to the glances of anyone who may be passing by. The thicker curtains hang from a separate brass rod, which is rather larger than those used for the muslin. ”

“ The single slats of which they are composed do not revolve, and consequently it is not easy to 'peep through the blind just to hear the band play.'
"Venetian shades, with their multiplicity of bright-colored straps, cords, hooks and trimmings, are picturesque and graceful. They are somewhat subject to dust and repairs, and when the window is open are not proof against tornadoes and thunder showers.
"Inside blinds are sometimes contrived to slide sideways, like barn doors, into cavities formed to receive them. ”

“ As soon as this is the case, she has only to remove the covering sheets, to fill the bottles and ewers with fresh water, to place the looking-glass in a safe situation, that it may not be blown over by the window being open, and carefully to shut the door, that no dust may fly in from the other rooms; if it is [55] summer and the blinds are let down to keep the room cool, care must be taken not to leave the blind loose, so as to blow about at the risk of breaking the window or looking-glass ”

“ When you set a blind up to dry, set the bottom end up, and be sure to have the slats lie flat side up. Why? Because the bottom end of the blind when hung is more apt to drag on the window sill than the top end is to touch the jam above. ”

“ They like to curl up in large masses inside the window-blinds [Pg 279] on the east or south side of the house, where they remain too torpid to stir at your approach, until the sun pours in its warm flood of light, to wake them to life and activity. Wherever they are thus found massed together, if at all within reach, be sure and spare no effort to destroy them early in the morning, while in this torpid condition. It is very easy then to kill them: take a pitcher of boiling-hot water, raise the window carefully and pour it over them ”

“ Woe's me for a music sweeter than theirs—
The quick, light bound of a step on the stairs,
The greeting of lovers too sweet to last:
And ever the wind like a soul in pain
Knocks and knocks at the window-pane. ”

“ There, in the high bright window he dreams, and sees What we are blind to,—we who mass and crowd From wall to wall in the darkening of a cloud. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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?” ”

“ On the other hand, inside blinds are accessible; they can be opened and closed without leaning half one's length out of the window; they do not hide the glory of plate glass; they graciously permit windows to stand where they please and to be as large as they please; and they never quarrel with piazza roofs, awnings, hoods or other outside accessories. ”

“ So with the lamps all put out, the moon sunk, and a thin rain drumming on the roof a downpouring of immense darkness began. Nothing, it seemed, could survive the flood, the profusion of darkness which, creeping in at keyholes and crevices, stole round window blinds, came into bedrooms, swallowed up here a jug and basin, there a bowl of red and yellow dahlias, there the sharp edges and firm bulk of a chest of drawers. Not only was furniture confounded; there was scarcely anything left of body or mind by which one could say, “This is he” or “This is she.” ”

“ The blinds are are drawn in all the windows; a dead silence is everywhere. Only above, in a dormer window, are seen a white head and two folded, sere hands, those of an old woman who, praying, looks up to the ruddy clouds. A beautiful contrast:below,—the wild, whirling, untrammelled life;here,—its end. ”

“ We find it in here and there a window only, white light shining unmitigated from windows all round. Perhaps in the window itself there is a breakage, and a stream of light pours through it, spoiling, if not its beauty, all enjoyment of it. It is not generally understood how completely the effect of glass depends upon the absence of light other than that which comes through it. Every ray of light which penetrates into a building excepting through the stained glass does injury to the coloured window; more often than not, therefore, we see it under most adverse circumstances. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If built with extreme care and handled with the utmost tenderness they are a degree less obtrusive than when wholly dependent on hinges. Likewise, outside blinds may be contrived to swing horizontally as well as vertically, standing out from the top of the window like a small shed roof. They are not quite wide enough to serve as awnings, and are liable to catch more wind than they can hold. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Fault, no doubt, has been found with the windows that they do not throw down the light sufficiently from above, but the windows themselves are traceried and filled with beautiful stained glass. Upon entering by the great portal at the west, the eye is caught in the far distance by the glimmering colours of the grand east window, whose dimensions are colossal, as may be gathered from the fact that its traceried compartments comprise no fewer than 350 pictures in glass, copies, in many instances, of known paintings. ”

“ Occasionally a window, so deep that under ordinary conditions of light it is obscure, may need the [Pg 383] strongest possible illumination; but even in the case of very deep-toned windows—such, for example, as those in the transepts of the Duomo at Florence—the glass, as a whole, is best seen by a sober light. You get the maximum of colour effect with the minimum of hurt to any individual window, if there be any hurt at all. A really garish window may be beautiful as the light wanes. The great North Rose at Notre Dame (Paris) is impressive at dusk. ”

“ Most of the windows are only used to admit light except one that is used to look out of and is inhabited by an old lady who sits all day and knits for her grandchildren. It must not be so bad, I think, to look out of the window upon life instead of always rushing off to catch a car that takes one into the thick of it. ”

“ He must know them and humour them. Bars have to be accepted as needful supports, leads to be acknowledged as convenient joints; glass must be allowed its translucency, and painting kept to what it can best do. A window should own itself a window.
And what is the aim and use of a stained glass window? To “exclude the light,” said the poet, sarcastically. Yes, to subdue its garishness, soften its glare, tinge it with colour, animate it with form perhaps.
The man who means to do good work in windows will devote as serious study to old glass as a painter to the old masters. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No degree of familiarity with old glass quite prepares one for the kind of thing which has made the humdrum market town of Gouda famous. Imagine a big, bare, empty church with some thirty or more huge windows, mostly of six lights, seldom less than five-and-twenty feet in height, all filled with great glass pictures, some of them filling the whole window, and designed to suggest that you see the scene through the window arch. ”

“ You don't know what silence is till you find it in the light like that, not morning but night, no sunrising, no shadow, but everything as clear as the day.
It did not make any difference as the slow minutes went on: one o'clock, two o'clock. How strange it was to hear the clocks striking in that dead light when there was nobody to hear them! But it made no difference. The window was quite blank; even the marking of the panes seemed to have melted away. I stole up again after a long time, through the silent house, in the clear light, cold and trembling, with despair in my heart. ”

“ Draperies, if they are very beautiful, are more favourably displayed when facing the light (as in the case of portières) than at the windows, where they are liable to fade, and the light shining through them hides their beauty. Draught more often enters from doorways than by the windows; and in summer doors are often unhung for the sake of coolness and additional space, and the portières are comfortable to use on chilly days.
Venetian blinds are the best of any interior blinds, though window awnings are much pleasanter in summer. ”