CHAPTER FIVE 



THE DRAWING ROOM 



HE title of "drawing-room" is perhaps a little misleading 

 in view of the uses of the modern apartment called by this 

 name. It was used originally as a withdrawing room for 

 the ladies from the revelry of the dining hall, and this 



traditional usage still lingers. But since it was given its 



original title, the other members of the family have also been allotted 

 their withdrawing rooms, and the name as applied to-day is hardly 

 sufficiently distinctive. It will be better to think of it as the ladies' or 

 mistress's room, just as the study is the master's room, and it is here that the 

 mistress of the house receives visitors, as it is in the study that the master 

 receives his. Inasmuch, however, as it is usually the mistress who presides 

 over the social functions of the house, it is the drawing-room which becomes 

 essentially the apartment for the reception of visitors. Its size and relative 

 importance on the plan will depend largely on the extent to which the 

 reception of visitors is practised by the family. It may safely be assumed 

 that in most cases this will vary directly with the size of the house, and 

 that those whose means are limited will not be prepared to entertain on an 

 extensive scale. 



To begin with the smallest kind of house, it may first be desirable to 

 consider under what circumstances the drawing-room may be omitted 

 altogether. The complete conception of a normal house plan would allot to 

 each member of the family group, besides a share in the common room 

 or hall, two private apartments, a bedroom and a sitting-room. The next 

 reduction in the plan would be to substitute for these a single apartment 

 the bed-sitting-room. Let us assume then that the bedroom of the mistress 

 of the house is so placed and so arranged that it is adapted for use as a sitting 

 room. It may possibly, under these circumstances, be placed on the ground 

 floor. As such, if properly planned, it might still to a certain extent be used 

 as a private reception room. But how far is the hall adapted for the 

 reception of visitors in such a household ? It may be assumed that the 

 master will be engaged during the day, either in his own room or at 

 his business, and that the children will either be in the nursery or school- 

 room or at school. During the whole day then the hall remains un- 

 occupied ; and there seems to be no reason why, except on special occasions, 

 it should not be used as a reception room. It is by such deliberate 

 concessions that the smallest kind of house can still retain its spaciousness, 

 and there is no reason in clinging to the cramped drawing-room simply 

 because somewhere in the remote past our ancestors were unduly merry 

 over their wine. 



The next step in the house where economic conditions are not quite so 

 rigorous will be the consideration of the drawing-room as partially differen- 

 tiated as a recess or appendage to the hall. This rudimentary treatment is to 

 be found in the old Scotch cottages, where the working end of the single room 



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