These rooms are hardly parlor or sitting-rooms — that is, they
follow no especial idea in regard to furnishing, but every article is
bought with an idea to its place and future worth, thus successfully
embodying an artistic and ideal home. As you enter through the hall
into the parlors you see beautiful soft rugs covering the two parlor
floors, front and back parlor. Outside of the rug for the space of a
foot or more the wood has been stained and polished. Scattered around
the room are easels of wood, plainly made and put together, serving as
a support for the picture only, and not the picture serving only as a
medium to show off the easel. The mantel is filled with bric-a-brac, odd
china and pictures. Between the doors is a large lake gull, suspended
by an invisible wire and swaying in the air with poised wings as if ready
for a flight. Book-cases are fitted in each side of the mantel, made only
of shelves with end pieces, in as simple a fashion as possible, and filled
with books from the floor upward to the top of the mantelpiece, which
is as high as the bookcase extends.
Among the quaint things in this pretty house is a spinning-wheel in
one corner, just discernible through the door ; at the farther end of the
hall is one of the tall, old-fashioned clocks, and over the back mantel-
piece is an ebonized cabinet the length of the mantel and nearly to the .
height of the ceiling, filled with odd and quaint pieces of china.
Across the front of the bay window are lace curtains, gracefully
draped and suspended from poles from which drops a straight valance
of rich material with handsome fringe, and which is repeated in the
mantel, chair and table draperies. Above the front mantel is an ebon-
ized cabinet filled with china and brass ornaments. On a bracket in
one corner is an old china tea pot, ever and ever so many years old, and
on the wall near it a plate hung on silver hooks. The easels are tied
with bright bows and loops of ribbon, and fastened on one of the bam-
160 HOUSE FURNISHING.
boo-rods is a bunch of pea-fowl feathers. The quaintly shaped rattan,
bamboo and willow chairs have bright bands of ribbon interlaced
through the openings, and tied here and there in gay knots and ends.
In one corner stands a work-basket looking as if fair ringers had left
it but a few moments before ; one or two comfortable looking ottomans,
and a camp-stool foot-rest. Over one high-backed easy chair is a
bolster to make the head lie more comfortably; on the low divan couch
an afghan thrown across for the master to draw over the feet while
reposing after a weary day of labor ; between the parlors and dining-
room are portieres through which one catches a glimpse of the side-
board with niches and shelves filled with large vases, odd pitchers, and
quaint china, but with not a glimpse of silver — that glittering material
now being banished from the side-board.
On one side of the fireplace is a pile of cushions to sit upon, in lieu of
an ottoman, of which there are several scattered here and there
throughout the room. These things do not seem overcrowded, though
they may seem so to read of them, for the parlors are large, everything
seems to fit into place, and into the place especially designed for it.
Page 141
Presented as published in 1886. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
These rooms are hardly parlor or sitting-rooms — that is, they follow no especial idea in regard to furnishing, but every article is bought with an idea to its place and future worth, thus successfully embodying an artistic and ideal home. As you enter through the hall into the parlors you see beautiful soft rugs covering the two parlor floors, front and back parlor. Outside of the rug for the space of a foot or more the wood has been stained and polished. Scattered around the room are easels of wood, plainly made and put together, serving as a support for the picture only, and not the picture serving only as a medium to show off the easel. The mantel is filled with bric-a-brac, odd china and pictures. Between the doors is a large lake gull, suspended by an invisible wire and swaying in the air with poised wings as if ready for a flight. Book-cases are fitted in each side of the mantel, made only of shelves with end pieces, in as simple a fashion as possible, and filled with books from the floor upward to the top of the mantelpiece, which is as high as the bookcase extends.
Among the quaint things in this pretty house is a spinning-wheel in one corner, just discernible through the door ; at the farther end of the hall is one of the tall, old-fashioned clocks, and over the back mantelpiece is an ebonized cabinet the length of the mantel and nearly to the . height of the ceiling, filled with odd and quaint pieces of china.
Across the front of the bay window are lace curtains, gracefully draped and suspended from poles from which drops a straight valance of rich material with handsome fringe, and which is repeated in the mantel, chair and table draperies. Above the front mantel is an ebonized cabinet filled with china and brass ornaments. On a bracket in one corner is an old china tea pot, ever and ever so many years old, and on the wall near it a plate hung on silver hooks. The easels are tied with bright bows and loops of ribbon, and fastened on one of the bamboo-rods is a bunch of pea-fowl feathers. The quaintly shaped rattan, bamboo and willow chairs have bright bands of ribbon interlaced through the openings, and tied here and there in gay knots and ends.
In one corner stands a work-basket looking as if fair fingers had left it but a few moments before ; one or two comfortable looking ottomans, and a camp-stool foot-rest. Over one high-backed easy chair is a bolster to make the head lie more comfortably; on the low divan couch an afghan thrown across for the master to draw over the feet while reposing after a weary day of labor ; between the parlors and diningroom are portieres through which one catches a glimpse of the sideboard with niches and shelves filled with large vases, odd pitchers, and quaint china, but with not a glimpse of silver — that glittering material now being banished from the side-board.
On one side of the fireplace is a pile of cushions to sit upon, in lieu of an ottoman, of which there are several scattered here and there throughout the room. These things do not seem overcrowded, though they may seem so to read of them, for the parlors are large, everything seems to fit into place, and into the place especially designed for it.