February, 1906 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS [15 
very tiny home library in an American cottage. If a house 
costs as much as ten thousand dollars, a fifth division or 
heard it said that Rudyard Kipling and George Ade 
were like photographic plates for receiving impressions, and 
that all that was necessary for them to do in their writings 
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3—The Library of Hatfield House 
was to reprint their impressions. Well, the maker of a suc- 
cessful library needs to be more or less of a photographic 
plate for receiving the impressions made by his surroundings. 
Figure 6 is the library of a sportsman, and is so distinctly 
such that it appears to be more like a den than a library. It 
faithfully partakes, however, of the sporting atmosphere 
which it is intended to portray. In the photograph the ceil- 
ing seems too high for the 
size of the room, but in re- 
ality this impression disap- 
pears, owing to the spacious 
proportions of the adjoin- 
ing rooms of the mansion in 
which it is located. Figure 
8 has the character of a 
library, but it lacks indi- 
viduality and charm;in fact, 
it is very commonplace. 
But in Figure 2 we have 
a good library atmosphere 
—a grateful sense of ease 
and restfulness. The ceil- 
ing is low. The room is 
well furnished and its ap- 
pointments are interesting. 
The bookcase, apparently 
set into the wall to the right 
of the window, is fascinat- 
ing. There is but one use- 
less thing and inharmonious 
note to the quiet which 
otherwise reigns in this li- 
brary, and that is the tiger 
skin. 
The libraries illustrated 
in Figures 2 and 8 belong to 
not very extravagant houses, 
while Figure 5 affords an 
enchanting glimpse of a 
chat eee > 
library is always planned, and a library is the first room to be 
added to a house which does not contain 
one, if an addition is made. We do not esteem 
it half as pretentious to say “‘in the library”’ 
as “in the drawing-room.” This is the reverse 
of the way it is in England, where drawing- 
rooms are as common as are parlors in 
America, but where libraries—judging from 
the illustrations that come to us—are rarely 
seen in the middle class type of house. It 
would seem that in England libraries rank 
with picture galleries and great halls belong- 
ing to the appurtenances of princely demesnes, 
such as Country Life is accustomed to exploit 
for our delectation; see library of Hatfield 
House, the seat of the Marquis of Salis- 
bury, Figure 3. 
Of course, authors like Ruskin, Carlyle and 
Dickens had libraries in their houses. The 
reader no doubt knows the engraving very 
well called “The Empty Chair at Gad’s 
Hill,” showing a portion of the library of 
Charles Dickens. 
It is not necessary that books should always 
be in evidence to denote the library, for there 
is the Vatican library, one of the finest in the 
world, with books nowhere to be seen, but 
all safely ensconced in cabinets which might 
contain anything but books. To have two or 
three different kinds of bookcases is always bad. If one 
bookcase will not accommodate your library, then the shelves 
should be built into walls as part of the architecture of the 
house, as is seen in Figure 1—a very splendid private library, 
beyond the means of the average house builder, but the 
principle is the same. 
It will be noted that the two American private libraries 
4—A Well Designed Library 
