Lots of light by night, and not too much drapery to shut
out the sunlight by day. Big, welcoming chairs, rather sprawly, and long
sofas. A big fire blazing on the open hearth. Perhaps, if we are very
lucky we may have some old logs from long since foundered ships, that
will flame blue and rose and green. He must indeed be of a poor spirit
who cannot call all sorts of visions from such a flame!
[Illustration: THE LIVING-ROOM IN THE C.W. HARKNESS HOUSE AT MORRISTOWN,
NEW JERSEY]
There should be a certain amount of order, because you cannot really
rest in a disorderly place, but there should be none of the formality of
the drawing-room. Formality should be used as a sort of foundation on
which the pleasant workaday business of the living-room is planned.
The living-room should always have a flavor of the main hobby of the
family, whether it be books, or music, or sport, or what not. If you
live in the real country there should be nothing in the room too good
for all moods and all weather--no need to think of muddy boots or wet
riding-clothes or the dogs that have run through the dripping fields.
I wonder if half the fathers and mothers in creation know just what it
means later on to the boys and girls going out from their roof-tree to
have the memory of such a living-room?
A living-room may be a simple place used for all the purposes of living,
or it may be merely an official clearing-house for family moods, one of
a dozen other living apartments.
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