WOOD CHIMNEY-PIECES. 



33 



the lozenge panels with the waving, arched line ol the 

 moulding below. We can quite imagine ladies exclaim 

 ing, &quot; Oli, I should not like anything like that ! &quot; It 

 would he bordering on the unconventional, running the 

 risk ol a trespass on customary drawing-room decorums, 

 if one may thus attempt to interpret the objection at 

 the back of the mind of the speaker. It is precisely 

 I his sanctioned drawing-room convention that requires 

 to be broken down, because, while it is not only 

 negative towards fresh ideas, it is actually affirmative 

 to many bad old ways which could not otherwise 

 exist. Who really likes, if they come to question the 

 existing order of things, either the boxed white marble 

 legs and table top of the Karly Victorian, or its 

 successor, quite equal in enormity, the typical ingle- 

 nook combination ol the showroom, trumpery in con 

 struction and futile in design, that has superseded it in 

 Fashion s graces ? Mow is it possible to obtain that 

 note ol grace, proportion and harmony that every 

 interior, however simple, must possess unless the same 

 mind that conceived the room as a whole also 

 originates what is likely to be its centre point of 

 interest ? Skill and care bestowed on windows, doors, 

 ceiling and floor must not be jeopardised by some 

 commonplace at the focus of the hearth. 



How the Anglo-Saxon mind revolved round 

 the fireplace was amusingly illustrated in the case 



of an 



51. IN A BEDROOM. 



50. -CHIMNEY-PIECE AND I ANKI.I.IM&quot;.. 

 a !, e d 



official, transplanted from his old quarters to one ol 

 those palatial edifices that recent (iovernments have 

 erected in Whitehall. After a volley of complaints 

 about his new quarters, he wound up by saying, &quot; and 

 then there are those radiators, and no place where a 

 man can knock out his pipe ! This is to serve a&amp;gt; a 

 preface to the remark that there are other chimney- 

 piece designs of a bolder character to be evolved tor 

 billiard-room, smoking-room and library, in which 

 there should be some reflection of the chani Mcr of the 

 room and of its owner. The design of the fireplace 

 really belongs to a long, continuous and most intercM nu 

 development. We have arrived at a point where the 

 actual grate has probably reached its minimum 

 dimensions. From the old days of wide, cavernous 

 openings, when whole logs could be burnt, the use ol 

 coal, as the conditions or its economical consumption 

 have been worked out, has brought us to the tiny 

 interior, one and a-lialf feet wide by two and a-lialf 

 high, which yet gives a heat more constant while as 

 powerful as the great fire of logs in an opening, say, 

 six feet wide by four high. 



As may be expected, modern designs still show 

 traces of the original opening. &quot; Surrounds,&quot; as they 

 are called, of marble, stone and tiles are used to reduce 

 the customary width to the new conditions, and the 

 name of the grate itself &quot; an interior &quot; is also 

 suggestive of the facts. The dog grate, so called 

 from its original the dogs on which the logs were 

 piled is a hazardous compromise. It is usually 

 accompanied by the smoke trouble in an aggravated 

 form, and it is not really a scientific way of consuming 



