THE BILLIARD-ROOM AND LIBRARY.
‘There must be nothing frivolous, light, or airy in the aspect of either
of these rooms; all must be sombre and steady, if not dark;’ and though
I do not go so far as this--the ordinary dictum of the upholsterer--I am
quite willing to allow that in the billiard-room at least lightness and
frivolity are out of place, albeit I cannot allow that even this room
need be sombre and dreary, while certainly it ought to light up well, as
it is a room which is generally used merely at night.
Wherever it can be afforded, and wherever there are young men or lads in
the house, there should always be a billiard-table, and the girls should
be encouraged to play with their brothers and their brothers’ friends as
long as their mother or father can remain in the room as some sort of
guard and guide; the pleasanter home is made the less inclination will
young men have to go elsewhere for their amusements, and if they are
accustomed to be made happy and feel that their friends are welcome too,
they will not keep outside home for the pleasure that is to be found
without crossing the threshold. A billiard-room in winter, a couple of
good tennis-courts in summer, and the hours of leisure will pass
comfortably along, and leave neither time nor opportunities for less
desirable pleasures.
Example is everything in a house: a thousand sermons will not speak as
loudly against betting, and gambling, and drink--the horrors of my
existence--as will the example of a house where such things are never
allowed, and yet where amusements of all kinds are not frowned upon and
refused, where games are encouraged for their own sakes, and where a
healthy outdoor life replaces the bar-frequenting, loafing hours, which
are all too often the portion of those who have been accustomed to
‘nipping’ and loafing, because they have seen these two habits allowed
as a matter of course from their earliest days.
And before I speak of the mere walls and furniture of a billiard-room
let me impress upon my readers not to allow this room to be turned into
a base imitation of a tap-room. I am not a teetotaler, and have small
patience with those intolerant individuals whose language and statements
are all too often as bad and violent as they are absolutely unreliable
and untrue, and I do not believe in the possibility of living our
present eager and artificial existence without the aid of alcohol in
some shape or the other, certainly not after we have borne the heat and
stress of the day, and we require something stronger than water to
sustain us, but I do absolutely condemn the insane and insensate habit
in which so many indulge nowadays of continually drinking between meals.
Were stimulants taken at meals only, were spirits, with the exception of
brandy (which should be kept entirely as a most valuable medicine),
abolished, we should have no drunkards, and the teetotalers would lose
all excuse for their most unpleasant and untruthful existences; and as
we now seldom see a drunkard in our streets, and never contemplate the
pleasing scenes which after dinner, in our great-grandmothers’ times,
were visible in many dining-rooms, from which no gentleman ever issued
to join the ladies, because he was generally under the table or else
fast asleep with both arms on it, I am in great hopes that we are
learning to be a sober nation, though I hope sincerely never to see it
an absolutely teetotal one, for beer and wine are necessary, I am
convinced, in our climate, and we should be miserable indeed were we
debarred, as the fanatics would debar us, from the use of all fermented
or alcoholic drinks.
But we must be moderate and we must not drink between meals, and we must
avoid the constant sodas-and-brandies which appear inseparable from some
billiard-rooms, and to which is due, no doubt, the pious horror many
good folks have of this chamber in a house; and I should like it to be
firmly understood that the room was for the game merely, and that
anything like ‘nipping’ would be at once and sternly discouraged. This
being satisfactorily settled, we may proceed to plan and decorate our
billiard-room with a clear conscience, secure in the fact that we are
simply providing a place for innocent amusement, that will be of
invaluable service at night and on wet Saturday afternoons, and that
will not prove a snare and stumbling-block to any, more especially if we
as sternly refuse to allow gambling as we refuse to allow imbibing at
odd moments of the day or night.
I am always astonished that no crusade has been raised against the
national sin of gambling. Drink ruins the homes of poor men, but not
more certainly or rapidly than gambling ruins the homes of rich men, and
of men far from rich. Drink may kill a man, but it takes a great many
drunkards to imbibe an estate, while one night’s gambling may scatter
the savings of a lifetime and turn all the wretched children of a
selfish gambler into the streets to starve. I have been horrified
sometimes to see ladies and gentlemen hot, eager, excited, gambling in
private houses, the host actually bent on winning from those who are
enjoying his hospitality, the hostess almost insulting her guests in her
awful anxiety to gain the contents of their purses; and I am convinced
that the only way to escape this demon is to refuse to pander to it at
all, to never allow one single penny to be staked at cards in one’s own
house, and to make this such a rule that it would be impossible to break
it on any consideration whatever. I have seen pennies played for which
begat the taste for gambling for much larger sums; and I have never seen
a house where gambling was allowed truly prosper, or be anything save
the residence of those whose ideas and hopes were centred in this world
only, and never rose above the mere ‘society’ existence, than which
nothing can be more despicable and awful.
This book is not a tract, and therefore I do not say one half I should
like to on this subject; but as I remember the ruined homes--one family
especially, where all are scattered and most are dead, where gambling
went on in the schoolroom and drawing-room alike, at every moment which
could be snatched for the purpose; the broken hearts, the miserably
wrecked careers, entirely due to this vice; when one can hardly take up
a paper without seeing the dreary fate of some wretched youth, whose
tendencies to betting and gaming have caused him to rob his master’s
till and landed him in penal servitude, I must say I cannot help feeling
astonished that the eager teetotalers do not try their hands at putting
down gaming, especially as they have the law on their side--the kind,
good, well-devised law which snaps up little boys who play
pitch-and-toss at the corners of the streets, that winks at
Tattersall’s and the big races, and finally is utterly powerless to
punish the high-class gamester, who spends his nights at gaming-hells
and ruins his home and his wretched constitution at the same time.
However, lest I weary my readers in dwelling on this subject, about
which one cannot say too much, I think I will now simply speak of the
decoration of the billiard-room, having, I hope, so judiciously
sandwiched the powder between the jam in this chapter, that those who
seek for information about the room itself may unawares come upon it,
and so be forced to meditate, whether they like it or not, on some of
the reasons why so many people dread the idea of a billiard-room where
there are boys. If gambling were non-existent, the veriest Chadband
might learn to handle the cue; while a pastor at a dissenting chapel
need not dread the eyes of his deacons were he found disporting himself
in the halls of the ungodly, which would cease to be ungodly, or be no
more so than the harmless tennis-courts, were betting eliminated from
among their charms, and nothing but the game itself really and truly
encouraged and allowed.
A big room is a necessity for a billiard-room, which should never, by
any chance, be shorter than twenty-six feet long by twenty broad; a
full-sized table measures twelve feet by six, and the size I have spoken
of only allows sufficient comfortable room for walking round the table,
and for the usual raised seats which are always put at the ends and on
one side of the room. Personally, I should prefer a much larger room
still, as I like to see one end of the room furnished as a species of
sitting-room; but, of course, in London the twenty-six by twenty room
would be ample. In the country, the billiard-table comes in for days
when shooting is impossible, and the sitting-room end there is a great
advantage in more ways than one.
Quite a charming billiard-room can be made by using all brown paint and
a high dado, to the top of the door, of brown and gold Japanese leather
paper; above the dado the wall should be painted _café-au-lait_; the
cornice should be replaced by a coving, which should terminate in a
top-light, from whence the ordinary cross-lights could be hung for use
at night, and these surely could be in beaten iron with some prettier
shades than the hideous green things which match the equally hideous
cloth, which I hope to see replaced soon by something a little more
artistic, say in such a room as the one I have just described, by a dull
brown cloth, which surely would be every bit as satisfactory as the
green, which is certainly the most aggressive shade of green which has
ever been made. In this case the shades could be blue, with some lace
over them, or the yellow with no lace at all.
Where the ceiling is coved, the coving should always be decorated either
with gold leather paper or by an artist’s brush; and I have seen most
elaborately drawn pictures of the old wooden ships of Henry VIII.’s time
in a similar coving, in sepia on a cream ground, which looked perfectly
beautiful, and which I should recommend in a similar room, where stags’
heads and other trophies of the chase should be arranged on the painted
wall, which should be too high for pictures, which could not be hung on
the dado either, for fear of their being damaged by the ends of the
cues. I should advise the use of printed yellow linen for curtains,
edged, of course, with ball fringe, were there any windows in the room
beside the top-light, which should have a gathered soft yellow blind
arranged to draw over it in very hot weather; while the table itself,
when not in use, should be covered with a large square of yellow serge
lined with American cloth, with a big monogram embroidered on one
corner; this would preserve the table, and look much better than the
ordinary cloth.
The floor should be parqueterie with strips of velvet pile carpet in
golden brown on the four sides; these should be mitred at the corners,
and no other carpet would be required, save, of course, a square if we
had the drawing-room end to the room I advocated before; if not, the
room should be kept for billiards only, when the strips round the table
would be quite sufficient; the leather seats should be covered in brown
leather, and the fire should be protected by one of the admirable guards
sold by Benham & Co., and which have padded tops, on which people can
sit and watch the game, and get comfortably warm at the same time.
I have seen a most ingenious arrangement of small cupboards in the
overmantel of a billiard-room, which was pronounced invaluable for the
safe storing away of cigars and tobacco, which should be mentioned, as
of course smoking will be principally carried on in this room. The
mantel-piece was walnut, and the fireplace the orthodox open grate and
tiled hearth and back; the overmantel was carved to match the mantel,
and was quite flat to the wall, which had been scooped out in some
manner behind it, to allow of the formation of sundry square cupboards
in the wall itself; these each held a cedar-wood box of cigars, with the
front end off; and the cigars were so arranged that they could be taken
out one by one, when the square wooden block in the overmantel, which
formed the entrance to the cupboard, was unlocked, and fell forward on a
hinge. No one could have suspected the overmantel of being a cupboard,
and yet it was one; while at the same time this particular spot was
especially pleasing, I believe, to the constitution of a cigar, which
appears to require a certain amount of warmth, until it disappears
finally into smoke, leaving its terrible odour behind it. On the
mantel-piece itself were dull blue vases holding spills; several
ingenious and expensive match-boxes, on which all matches appeared to me
to refuse to ignite, and the usual _débris_ one always finds in similar
localities, filthy-looking pipes, old date stands, and stands for
holding the hunt appointments, and similar expensive and broken toys,
being there in vast abundance. Another excellent manner of decorating a
billiard-room, where the owner had pictures to dispose of, and did not
want a very elaborate or costly decoration, would be formed by papering
the room entirely with real brown paper, and painting the room the same
soft brown; a frieze should be added, if possible, of one of the
Japanese hand-painted friezes one can buy occasionally at any
decorator’s, representing a flight of wild ducks, or else of storks,
among reeds and flowers; but if this cannot be either found or afforded,
a plain gold and brown Japanese leather frieze would look well. This
should not be less than fourteen inches wide; anything less is
distinctly ugly; while it might come almost to the top of the door,
which should be surmounted by one of Wallace’s simple over-doors to hold
china, which should be blue and white. The curtains in this room should
be Liberty’s very dark blue and white reversible cretonnes; the chairs
could be either dark blue leather or saddle-bags with dark blue velvet
surrounds; and the carpet should be dark blue pile. This would look
well, and be an entirely pleasant scheme of decoration; a hand-painted
frieze on brown paper would also be capital if expense were no object.
Yet another and a bolder decoration could be made by using Essex golden
‘Othmar’ paper, with Mandarin paint, and a wide frieze of the dull green
‘Othmar,’ dull green carpets, and Graham & Biddle’s beautiful yellow
poppy cretonne, edged with dull green ball fringe, and lined dull green;
the carpet should be the dull green ‘Stella’ pile carpet from Wallace’s,
and all the chairs should be dull green leather.
If by chance there can be afforded or managed a drawing-room end to the
billiard-room, a couple of screens will be found most invaluable; and if
these screens have a long spike in each fold, to receive which a
corresponding hole is bored in the floor, a great objection to screens
will be done away with. Furnished with these spikes, which should be
able to be unscrewed and removed quite easily, they could not possibly
be knocked over; and, in my opinion, the tall standard lamps, which are
so much in request just at present, should be furnished with similar
spikes, as they always appear to me dreadfully dangerous, especially
where there are children, or even dogs, or careless servants; for
though, of course, the danger of fire is entirely done away with if we
use Defries’s excellent patent for putting out the light as the lamp
falls, the oil must be spilt and damage the carpet, while an unpleasant
smash and fright are absolutely certain. We should be saved anything of
the kind were my simple spike arrangement adopted by all those who use
these lamps.
The drawing-room end of the billiard-room should have a bow window with
a seat round, several cosy arm-chairs, a table capable of holding the
week’s supply of newspapers and the month’s supply of magazines, each in
its own proper corner, and a couple of serviceable paper-knives should
be always forthcoming. There should be a nice little writing-table for
the use of any who wish to scribble notes; and, above all, there should
be either a long bookcase on the wall full of frivolous literature, or
else one of Trübner’s excellent bookcases, which revolve and so allow
one to reach any book in the case without rising from one’s comfortable
seat.
A venerable piano which has seen better days is no mean addition to the
comfort and pleasure of the billiard-room, and many an hilarious and
impromptu entertainment has chased away the melancholy caused by a wet
afternoon in the dismal winter country, due entirely to the happy
presence among the company of a piano which was quite good enough to be
used to accompany comic songs on, and amply good enough to form the
basis for a recitation after--a long way after--Corney Grain or the
immortal John Parry.
But though a big room is much better than a small one for billiards,
people should not be deterred from having a table in their houses
because their space does not allow of a full-sized one. The very nicest
billiard-room I was ever in, and which, alas! is now no more, was that
formed by using the square hall of a country vicarage; that table
existed before the present age of artistic decorations, but whenever I
remember it and the dear old house in which it stood I forget all art,
and only remember the extreme fascination that place had for me, and can
scent again the mingled odours of the vicar’s pipes and Maréchal Niel
roses, which are inseparable from my remembrance of the place. The table
stood squarely in the front hall, which was covered with brown linoleum,
and was seldom unmarked by dogs’ feet for more than five minutes after
it had been freshly washed, and we used to perch about on the tops of
oak chests, the fender, anywhere, while the game progressed, as there
was no room for seats. In addition to the hall table, the hat-stand,
decorated with all sorts and conditions of hats, male and female, and
the oak chests, one of which held the rugs and whips, the other the
parish registers from some very bygone date, the walls themselves were
decorated with stuffed birds and animals in glass cases, sundry collars
and chains belonging to the dear dogs, driving-whips suspended in some
cunning manner to keep them in shape, a barometer which survived the
most fearful amount of banging and shaking that ever barometer was
subjected to, and finally by the post-bag, which hung from a nail until
it was fetched by a small village girl who rejoiced in the remarkable
name of ‘Rhody Jemimy,’ who had to take and fetch the bag morning and
evening from the ‘World’s End,’ the mail-cart bringing it and taking it
from and to that mysterious location, for we were far too primitive in
those parts to have a postman, and had our one post a day contentedly
enough, though I believe the present denizen of the vicarage has
clamoured until he has not only a postman but a second post; albeit,
neither were ever required by us, who were perfectly happy in those
blessed days without them. I dwell upon this room rather at length in
order to encourage anyone who may hanker after a billiard-room, and not
dare to think of it seriously because the necessary twenty feet by
twenty space is not forthcoming, and, moreover, because they dread the
expense as much as the want of room. Of course a new full-sized table is
a very expensive thing, and fittings and all could not cost less than
150_l._; but as soon as we have made up our minds that we can really
have a billiard-table we must begin to look out for the sales, for very
often there are compulsory sales about, where a very good billiard-table
can be purchased for a quarter the price of a new one. I have known one
sold for 25_l._, as the owner had forgotten to renew his lease and was
given summary notice of dismissal, while a friend of mine bought a
beauty for 40_l._ which simply required a little polish about the legs
to be quite as good as new; but should money be of no real object, it
would be better to go to some really first-class maker and have the
table properly set up and made, for I believe there is great art in the
proper placing of the table, and this should only be undertaken by
someone who thoroughly understands the business; still, in a small room,
and with a small and second-hand table, there may be found vast
enjoyment if the bigger and more elaborate arrangement cannot possibly
be managed.
I am always amused at some people’s determination not to be either
happy, or _complete_ in their household arrangements, because they
cannot have the best of everything that is to be had, though I must
confess such conduct makes me just a little cross as well. I have known
folks utterly refuse to contemplate the joys of a jolly little pony and
chaise because they didn’t care to set up a carriage unless they could
do so properly; ‘properly’ in their case meaning the orthodox coachman,
footman, horses, and a couple of carriages; whereas they condemned
themselves to their own immediate neighbourhood and to tramping about
the lanes, or to staying at home, because they could not understand that
as much pleasure could be got out of the ‘shay’ as out of anything still
more gorgeous. I have known folks decline with scorn to cover their
ugly, depressing, bare walls with pictures, because they could not buy
Millais and Herkomers; whereas their lives and their houses would have
been brightened at once had they spent 20_l._ on autotypes. And I have
as constantly been acquainted with dozens of folks who would not do
this, that, or the other, because they must take a back seat so to
speak, and who in consequence waste half their opportunities. I except
society, by the way; if the best society is not forthcoming (and by the
best society I mean the society of people who are clever and who have
done, or long to do something to make the world brighter and happier
than they found it), don’t have any. The contact with mean, small, and
ignorant minds does one harm, not good; the constant rubbing against
time-serving shoulders and the shoulders of those who would do any
amount of grovelling to be received by what they consider the society of
the neighbourhood, only smirches us, and we had better sit at home all
our lives with our books alone than expose ourselves to the
deterioration we receive from association with such folk. But, apart
from society, I would rather have the second or third best of everything
if I can’t have the first, for the more one gets out of life the better,
and the more one sees of the world and of the nice people in it the
wider do our minds become, and the more appreciation and enjoyment do we
have from our lives.
With the plea for a secondhand billiard-table rather than none, I will
turn away from the room with one last suggestion--viz. to have good
thick curtains hung over any doors that there may be in the room,
outside; this will keep the smell of the smoke within proper bounds, and
will also keep out the sound of the click-click of the balls, than which
nothing is more annoying--to me at any rate. These curtains could be
made of Adams serge lined with Bolton sheeting; both these materials
will wash and are to be had from Burnett’s, and should be very wide and
full, and should hang well over the hinges and cracks of the door; these
should further be surrounded by ‘Slater’s patent’ for excluding
draughts, as naturally the room will be properly ventilated, and there
would be no need to think of that, all our care being centred on keeping
in the room all scent of the smoke and all sound of the balls. If the
room is separate from the house, and only connected with it by a long
passage, we may consider, I think, that nothing more is to be expected,
and that here is indeed the perfect billiard-room. This room should be
in the care of the head housemaid, whose first duty should be to open
all the available windows every morning, no matter what the weather is
like, to see all the cigar-ash is swept up, and finally to slip the
curtains off the poles (a matter of three minutes exactly), to have them
well shaken out of doors and left there for half an hour, having them
replaced the moment the room is cleaned and set straight. Treated like
this the billiard-room would always be fresh and nice, and would have no
more smell of smoke about it than would be pleasantly suggestive to
anyone who is not such a bitter enemy to smoke as I am.
And now about the library, the arrangement of which must depend entirely
on the individual tastes and pursuits of the master of the house, whose
room this is more especially; for in all big houses the mistress has her
morning-room, and the guests generally are provided with writing-tables
in their rooms, and would only venture into the library when the door
was open, or by the rule of the house was made free to them during
certain hours. Naturally, if the master were in no measure a literary
man, if he had no Parliamentary work, or work that required him to
isolate himself from the rest of the household at certain hours, the
room would always be free; but it should be kept for writing and reading
only, it should never be turned into a play-room of any kind; therefore
there should be a certain sobriety about it, and it should not be
furnished too frivolously or in such a manner as to suggest flirtation
instead of study, sweet sleep instead of proper, severe application to
one’s books.
Perhaps the very prettiest library I have ever seen is one in London,
which may sound frivolous, but is nothing of the kind, and has some of
the most serious work of the nation done between its four walls; it is
enamelled white--doors, cupboards, bookshelves, overmantel, indeed
everything, and has a most beautiful effect, especially against the
dun-coloured, gold-tinted calf volumes, with which the shelves are most
amply supplied; the shelves are supported on cupboards with brass locks
and hinges, and are wide and deep enough to hold quantities of law
papers; all these shelves and cupboards are ‘fitments’ passing
completely round the room, and continuing under the windows. The only
scraps of wall which show are papered with a very good Japanese leather
paper, and the space above the mantel-piece is filled in with an old
portrait; sundry pieces of blue china are on the mantel-piece, which are
never without their fresh flowers; the carpet is a very fine Oriental
one, with a great deal of white in it; the furniture is blue, as are the
curtains, which are arranged across the top of each window and down one
side only, while the enormous desk which occupies the centre of the room
is a most exquisitely inlaid piece of marqueterie, and is the only
coloured thing in the room, the frames of the chairs, &c., being
enamelled like the room itself. Now this white idea for a library in
London--dirty, smoky London--does seem absurd and a trifle frivolous,
but the effect thereof is perfect, and as the application of a damp
clean duster and a polish from a leather makes the room absolutely
spotless, I see no reason why the white library should be scoffed at as
an impossibility. A big beaten iron and copper lamp from Strode hangs in
the centre of the room, and gives the finishing touch to a very perfect
apartment.
Here the room is used for important work which requires absolute peace
and absolute solitude, where the books refer to the special subject of
study, and would be of no interest whatever to the ordinary man. Still,
a modified edition of the white room could easily be carried out, and
would be far more cheerful to live with, than the orthodox dark green
and carved oak, or a base imitation thereof that we find in far too many
houses; oak, in my opinion, being utterly unsuited to a modern house,
and should only be used in a big old house where one looks for it as a
matter of course. Of the modern imitation called Flemish oak I have no
words of condemnation sufficiently strong; it is abominable, ugly,
heavy, and badly executed, and should never be tolerated in any house
where artistic decoration is encouraged and sought after.
If, as I said before, the master of the house does not require so much
space for papers or books as to authorise him to cover in the entire
wall-space at his command with fitments, I advise him to run his
bookcases simply round the room to a height of an ordinary dado. Above
this could be hung the ever-useful Japanese paper, or a real
red-and-white paper, such as is Pither’s ‘buttercup.’ On the wall could
be hung pictures, or a large cupboard well designed (and I should
suggest Mr. Arthur Smee as the proper person to send to for this) should
break the space of wall in the centre. The doors could be of cathedral
glass in leaded squares, with broad brass hinges and locks; while the
same design, of course on a much smaller scale, could be introduced over
the mantel-piece. The desk could be enamelled white, and the top covered
with Japanese leather paper. Of course the handles on the drawers must
be brass; the blotting-book could be of red leather, with a plain
monogram stamped on, or else the name of the room and of the house; and
the head housemaid should be very particular about the state of the
inkstand and of the blotting-book, though she should be forbidden, of
course, to touch any of the papers on the desk, for fear she might lose
important manuscripts. The mistress of the house should dust these
herself if the master is touchy, or objects to other hands meddling with
his belongings.
The curtains in a library should be thick and warm, and should, in the
red-and-cream room, be in cream Roman satin, embroidered with red
flowers if possible, or else of deep red Roman satin or Bokhara plush.
The furniture sold by Hampton, covered in what they call ‘Khelims,’ but
which is quite unlike the ordinary striped material I have always
purchased as such, and is much more Oriental-looking, would do admirably
in this room, where there should certainly be a couple of good sofas and
four or five armchairs, and a small writing-table and chair beside the
bigger one; while great care should be taken with the lighting, it being
most important that a good light should fall on the book or
writing-table, which should throw no fidgety shadows. When the electric
light becomes general this advice will not be necessary, but until it is
great care must be taken, before the lights are absolutely fixtures, to
ascertain that they are in the right place, or else the unfortunate
would-be readers and writers will be continually annoyed. The large
standard lamps are useful in a library, as they can be moved at any
moment, and further care should be taken in the choice of a carpet,
which should be thick and soft, and should cover almost all the floor,
thus saving the student any chance of being fidgeted by the sudden
scroop of a chair pushed hastily back or by the noise of a falling book
or of a sudden footstep.
In a small house a library would be impossible, and therefore I give no
directions for a cheaper style of decoration, which, however, could be
managed in judiciously chosen shades of green and white, and I will only
now speak about the books and the manner of treating such a room.
No child or very young person, and no servant, no matter whom, should
ever be allowed to read the library books, which should never under any
pretext whatever be removed from the library, and should consist of
histories, travels, poetry, and all standard works that have survived
the fiery trial of a twenty years’ existence; the lighter works of
to-day, which one reads when one is tired or wants simply to be amused,
should be found in the billiard and morning rooms, and in every spare
room in the house (Mudie’s books being also in these rooms), and on no
account whatever should a really good book which forms part of a set, or
is valuable, be lent; listen to no entreaties, place the book _in the
room_ at the disposal of anyone who cares to read it, but lend it and
you may and will run the risk of losing your book, or of having to
torment for it, until your friend hates you, although in strict justice
he ought to hate himself for the trouble he has given you. In every
library and, indeed, in every house, there should be a list of the books
in each room, and whenever a book is added the name thereof should be
written down. I speak feelingly, if a little bitterly, on the subject,
for no one has lent more books than I have, and no one has been more
ruthlessly robbed; for people who would be absolutely incapable of
depriving one of a pin, lose and forget to return my books, and at last
I have come to the conclusion that I will never lend another; books are
cheap enough, goodness knows, and libraries swarm; let people borrow
there, and close your heart to the would-be borrower if you want to keep
your books, and not scatter them generously about the world at large.
Again, I should never forbid anyone to read any book whatever--a
prohibition makes people anxious at once; but the fact that the library
books must be kept in the library would deter the children from reading
what they ought not, and we would forbid certain literature because of
its binding, not because of the contents; this I have found act much
better than the wholesale orders we were given on the subject, in
consequence of which I had read all Defoe’s, Richardson’s, Fielding’s,
and other works I should never have seen before I was sixteen, and
wondered why on earth they were forbidden me. I should never have read
one of them had I not wanted to see why I must not; they did me no harm,
because I could not understand them; they might have done infinite harm
to any other girl who was less babyish for her age than I happened in
some mysterious manner to be, and therefore it is a good thing to keep
such books where children do not come and where they are forbidden to
touch books which are too well bound to be risked in their
all-too-generally grimy little paws.
As in all the other rooms in the house, cheerfulness should be first
thought of: a gloomy library, a library where the windows are obscured,
is a mistake; cheerfulness is the first thing to be seriously cultivated
by us all, in all relations of life, for it is indeed true, as the poet
says--
A merry heart goes all the way,
A sad one tires in a mile-a;
therefore, in choosing and furnishing the library, remember this axiom,
and let sunshine and brightness and cheerfulness be found there, as in
every other room and place in the house; for we are insensibly and
immensely influenced by our surroundings, and we should always make the
best of our lives and belongings in every way we possibly can.