24 
House & Garden 
MUSINGS OF AN EASY CHAIR 
I N the parlance of the furniture stores I am known as an over¬ 
stuffed chair. 
Do you dislike that adjective as much as I do? “Overstuffed”— 
as if I were on the point of bursting my seams, like a dowager in black 
silk and a silvered fan, or an olive crammed with chopped pimentoes! 
Why, it sounds positively unhealthy as well as unnatural; and I think 
my whole family, as well as all their friends who have ever sat in me, 
will agree that I’m anything but that. 
They’re a good sort, this family of mine. A chair gets to know 
the people he lives with pretty well after six years of close daily 
contact. That’s the length of time since I left the shop and came out 
here to this field-stone house with its broad terrace and lawn dropping 
down toward the river. This morning when Jane had finished dust¬ 
ing the living room and gone upstairs (by the way, I’ve never seen 
those upstairs rooms in all the time iVe been here) I began figuring 
idly how many hours I’ve been sat in since I left the city, and it came 
to over seven thousand—almost three hundred days of continuous use. 
That’s something to think about, especially when you realize that 
for a good deal of the time I was doing triple duty—Master in me 
and Totty and Son on my two arms, while he told them stories by 
the firelight. I’m glad I am big and comfortable and strong enough 
for those parties, because Master and the youngsters are so genuine 
in their enjoyment of them. All three are jolly and chummy always, 
of course, but they’re especially so when I’m holding them. I like to 
imagine that I’m partly responsible for that, some way. 
T HERE’S a lot of personality in the way people sit in chairs. I’ve 
watched and felt many a one, so I know what I’m talking about. 
Some people sit 
as though they were 
afraid we’d break. 
They are the ones 
who lack confi¬ 
dence in everything 
in general and 
themselves in par¬ 
ticular — maybe 
someone fixed a 
tack for them once, 
point up. It’s not 
much satisfaction 
to a real chair to 
be under one of 
that kind; we’re 
always expecting 
them to jump up 
and beg some¬ 
body’s pardon, 
which isn’t very 
complimentary to 
us. Even if they 
don’t do that, 
they’re sure to be 
so restless and 
fidgety that we 
can’t get used to 
them and make 
them feel at home. 
Generally they just 
perch on our edges, 
ready to jump if 
they hear a crack. 
Fancy a real chair 
cracking! 
Then there are 
the nervous people, 
forever moving 
from one of us to 
another, as if they 
wanted to try us all 
before they left. 
They simply don’t 
seem able to keep 
still, and they al¬ 
ways remind me of 
birds hopping 
about in the 
branches of a tree. They must sit in an unconscionable number of chairs 
during their lives. I wonder why they do it? Are they born that way? 
Lazy people are different from either of these, and we like them 
better. They are so restful and appreciative. There is a certain satis¬ 
faction in having somebody sit down in us with a “Well, I’m here for 
several hours at least” sort of manner. It makes us feel that at least we 
are being enjoyed in a physical way. 
As between people who are thin and those who are stout, we have 
less preference than you might expect. Of course, fat people are 
usually the more comfortable, unless they are so large that they don’t 
fit; but lots of the thin ones know so well how to sit in a chair that 
the satisfaction is mutual, especially if the chair is deeply upholstered 
the way I am. The real test, from our standpoint, is one of charac¬ 
ter rather than physique. It makes little actual difference to us 
whether we are carrying one hundred pounds or two hundred, so long 
as they belong to someone with a human soul instead of an empty 
shell. For a genuine soul, you see, means sympathy and naturalness 
of thought; and a lack of it makes for an uncompromising body, too. 
A CHAIR of my age, especially if he has lived as much under 
people as I have, is bound to acquire something of a philosophy 
of life. You’ll not misunderstand me if I add that in making this state¬ 
ment I refer only to an honest chair, one intended to be sat in and not 
merely looked at as a rickety, high priced antique. 
A chair that nobody ever wants or dares to sit in is, to my mind, 
no chair at all; for what good are we unless we can give comfort to 
weary bodies? That is what we were intended for in the first place, 
and I’m sure that is our real purpose in life. The way Mistress sinks 
down into me when 
she comes in from 
shopping, or Son 
curls up in me be¬ 
fore dinner, when 
he’s been playing 
ball or skating all 
the afternoon, 
makes me feel I’m 
right about this. 
And when Master 
goes to sleep in 
me sometimes of an 
evening I am able 
to rest his mind as 
well as his body. 
It’s funny how 
many people do 
that—go to sleep in 
me in the evening, 
I mean. They’ll 
come in with a 
book or a magazine, 
light the reading 
lamp at my left 
shoulder, and set¬ 
tle down as if they 
were going to fin¬ 
ish a dozen chap¬ 
ters without stop¬ 
ping. The pages 
turn quite regular¬ 
ly for ten minutes 
or so, and then 
they begin to go 
more slowly. Pretty 
soon the book is 
laid on my arm, 
face down and 
open so as to keep 
the place. Proba¬ 
bly they think 
they’ll wake up in a 
little while and go 
on reading, but I 
know better. 
Yes, it’s rather 
fun, being a chair. 
R. S. L. 
