Here she can be as independent as she pleases of the family and the
guests who come and go through the other living-rooms of the house.
Here she can have her counsels with her children, or her tradespeople,
or her employees, without the distractions of chance interruptions, for
this one room should have doors that open _and_ close, doors that are
not to be approached without invitation. The room may be as austere and
business-like as a down-town office, or it may be a nest of comfort and
luxury primarily planned for relaxation, but it must be so placed that
it is a little apart from the noise and flurry of the rest of the house
or it has no real reason-for-being.
Whenever it is possible, I believe the man of the house should also have
a small sitting-room that corresponds to his wife's boudoir. We
Americans have made a violent attempt to incorporate a room of this kind
in our houses by introducing a "den" or a "study," but somehow the man
of the house is never keen about such a room. A "den" to him means an
airless cubby-hole of a room hung with pseudo-Turkish draperies and
papier-mache shields and weapons, and he has a mighty aversion to it.
Who could blame him? And as for the study, the average man doesn't want
a study when he wants to work; he prefers to work in his office, and
he'd like a room of his own big enough to hold all his junk, and he'd
like it to have doors and windows and a fireplace.
Pages:
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136