When we moved there we had a broad sweep of view: I can remember
seeing the river from our dining-room. Now the city has grown up around
the old house and jostled it rudely, and shut out much of its sunshine.
There is a joy in the opportunity of creating a beautiful interior for a
new and up-to-date house, but best of all is the joy of furnishing an
old house like this one. It is like reviving an old garden. It may not
be just your idea of a garden to begin with, but as you study it and
deck its barren spaces with masses of color, and fit a sundial into the
spot that so needs it, and give the sunshine a fountain to play with,
you love the old garden just a little more every time you touch it,
until it becomes to you the most beautiful garden in all the world.
Gardens and houses are such whimsical things! This old house of ours had
been so long mistreated that it was fairly petulant and querulous when I
began studying it. It asked questions on every turn, and seemed
surprised when they were answered. The house was delightfully rambling,
with a tiny entrance hall, and narrow stairs, and sudden up and down
steps from one room to another like the old, old house one associates
with far-away places and old times.
The little entrance hall was worse than a question, it was a problem, but
I finally solved it.
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