M 



HOUSES AND GARDENS 



candle light," a romance which, now banished from the modern house, we are 

 driven to find in printed books, but which is not so incompatible with the 

 conditions of the modern house as may be supposed. 



Science starting out at a tangent, after many improvements and compli- 

 cations, comes back at last to some slight modification of the simplest and 

 earliest methods, and the most recent developments in the modern grate on 

 scientific lines show a return to the ancient custom of the fire on the hearth. 



In the planning of the modern ingle-nook it is well to consider it not so 

 much a recess in the room in which is another recess for the fire, but rather 

 as an enlargement of the fire recess itself. Modern requirements will insist 

 on a more satisfactory disposal of the smoke than the old type of ingle allowed 

 of, and so there must be a hood over the fire of metal or masonry ; and if the 

 fire in the ingle is placed in an inner recess, this should be shallow and 

 wide, and not be too sharply defined in structure or materials from the 

 whole treatment. The spirit of the fire should govern the design of the 

 whole. 



It is not desirable that the modern ingle-nook should be very deeply 

 recessed, or the room itself is not satisfactorily heated, and yet the best 

 position for a settle or couch in the room is often at the 

 *&'><>- side of the fire. These conditions suggest that the 

 -n ingle nook should not be in the centre of one side of 



. F the room, but placed in the corner with a long seat 



against the wall on one side, and the other side of the 

 fire left open for movable chairs. Modern ideas of 

 PLATS comfort are apt to place the arm-chair before the couch, 

 except for actual reclining, as the former encloses its 

 occupant at the sides, and gives support to the arms. 

 And so the fitting of an ingle, with fixed seats on 

 each side, is not always desirable. Here, as elsewhere 

 in the house, the fixing of furniture to the structure is readily capable of 

 abuse. Where the form of the room and the special conditions suggest 

 fixtures, this principle may well be followed, but pushed to excess it 

 constitutes a tyranny of the designer which may justly annoy the average 

 man who may wish to use his own judgment as to where he shall sit 

 or write. 



A necessary qualification of the designer of interiors is a saving sense of 

 humour, which, after all, to a large extent, consists in a fine sense of the 

 fitness of things, and few could occupy one of these little polished and 

 upholstered seats which flank so many modern ingles without being conscious 

 of the absurdity of the situation. As a matter of fact, the average person 

 who indulges in the art ingle does not occupy the seats, and so reserves for 

 them that admiration which is only awarded to those features of the house 

 which claim to be merely ornamental. 



In the treatment of the fireplace generally what is mainly required is a 

 greater breadth and simplicity. The little grate surrounded by its scrap of 

 tiling, and wooden mantel, full of niches and shelves, is a formula which may 



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