A simple and well-lighted hill at Chestnut Hill, Mass. 



CHAPTER VIII 

 HALLS AND STAIRWAYS 



HE hall is the oldest room of the private dwelling. It is satu- 

 rated with tradition and romance. We moderns strive for these 

 in vain, forgetful of the origin and true purpose of the room. 

 In the early feudal dwelling of northern Europe the hall was 

 in reality the house itself, being used for entertainment, eating 

 and sleeping in turn. It was large in size and all-important in 

 the consideration of the building. As time went on other rooms 

 were tacked on in a somewhat haphazard fashion mere necessities, unstudied 

 a-nd unrelated. This general jumble of rooms was due partly to the fact that 

 the feudal castle, being built on a rough and irregular site for purposes of defence, 

 naturally communicated its lack of symmetry to the plan. 



With the added rooms came the staircase, an equally unimportant necessity. 

 This was spiral in form, to economise space, small in size and conveniently 

 stowed away within the thickness of a wall, and later in turrets as well as 

 walls. As it was deemed important, owing to the spirit of the times, that 

 there should be several ways of traversing the motley array of rooms, these 

 much begrudged must-be-hads were peppered into the general lay-out with an 

 apparent abandon truly remarkable. The secret staircase of romance, under 

 guard of concealed buttons and sliding panels, had its beginning in the rugged 

 existence of this period. This belittlement of the staircase continued with the 



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