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House & Garden 
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1 
•SJ 
SYPHON REFRIGERATOR 
THE lustrous white porce- 
^ lain steel lining, the un¬ 
usually efficient insulation 
and the Bohn syphon system 
of air cooling in the 
BOHN SYPHON 
REFRIGERATOR 
have given it an indispen¬ 
sable place in the modern 
kitchen. 
The words, “I have a Bohn Syphon 
Refrigerator,” so often heard are 
always accompanied by that thrill 
of satisfaction that comes with the 
pride of ownership. 
Adopted by the Pullman Company and 
dining car service of all American Railroads 
BOHN REFRIGERATOR CO. 
SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA 
New York Exhibit Chicago Exhibit 
53 West 42nd Street 
68 E. Washington Street 
Books for the Guest Room 
(Continued from page 41) 
topic; you drag it into the small talk, 
you have rubbed the book in with the 
lather while shaving; the subject glows 
with the suffused tint of your cheek, 
even though it might be rubbed off. 
You think you have discovered some¬ 
thing to- talk about, but in reality your 
hostess has “planted” the book in your 
room for a purpose. She has just been 
to hear Chesterton lecture, she has just 
met Leacock, she has just heard from 
an English friend about the League of 
Nations, a relative traveling in Japan 
has written her “the truth” about the 
future supremacy of the Pacific—the 
tell-tale marks are on your book-shelf, 
though they seem to be gathered cas¬ 
ually. 
Unappropriateness 
There is a danger, of course, in try¬ 
ing to be too impressive in the guest 
room. Somehow Wells’ History of the 
World — the much-talked-of “Outlines” 
—is not out of place: here is an historian 
who writes like a novelist; it’s a book 
everyone should at least touch. Then 
Keyne’s “Economic Peace” gives an 
“I’ve been there” lightness to the sub¬ 
ject, and your hostess has marked it 
here and there for her club paper on 
current events, and it is essential that 
you tell her how interesting her pencil 
cullings are. But in the bedroom it is 
just as well to remember that you don’t 
wish to solve problems; you are no 
longer a citizen, a social reformer, a 
philanthropist—you are just human, and 
you slip out of your social self into 
your dressing-gown. All evening you 
have been pinched in your tight-fitting 
fashion—now you are in a flowing state 
of airiness, in no mood for the encyclo¬ 
pedia. The arms of Morpheus suggest 
literature that appeals to the emotions. 
If you are by the window seat, over¬ 
looking the garden, book-shelves should 
be within reach; the misty colors of 
night, the moonlight, the fragrance 
draw you toward small volumes—selec¬ 
tions from the poets, anthologies old or 
young. Personally, at such moments, I 
like to come across odd assortments, of 
essays: it may be a chance meeting 
with Vernon Lee’s “In Praise of Old 
Houses” or Pater or Patmore, with a 
chance to turn to Agnes Repplier and 
Katherine Gerould and the genial Dr. 
Crothers. If you must have the truths 
of life in the week-end guest room, they 
must sit lightly on the eyelids. That is 
why every visitor is sure to run across 
Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus and Emer¬ 
son in “nugget” form. One likes in the 
quiet of one’s room to be hit lightly 
by profundity. Besides, small books 
make less noise and are less likely to 
waken you should they drop from your 
hand as you try to read. 
And a book may mar the pleasure 
of your dreams, if you have no care 
in their choice. I recall a week-end 
spent with a Scotch friend of mine— 
an elderly man who was spending his 
odd moments in compiling a monumen¬ 
tal work on the druidical remains of 
the British Isles. Near my bed was a 
cumbersome volume on the subject,— 
a hard granite pillow for me to go to 
sleep on. I was awakened with the 
thought of obelisks falling on me. An¬ 
other week-end host left me Euripides 
in Greek, though I could not read it, 
and Freud on psychoanalysis, which en¬ 
lightened me so that I began to fear it 
was improper for me to sleep at all. 
At another friend’s, I made my first 
acquaintance with the “Later Letters of 
Edward Lear”, and these set me to look¬ 
ing whether by chance a volume of the 
Nonsense verses were around. For you 
may be sure that in the majority of 
cases the friends who visit you have a 
touch of the child still left in them, 
and Maxfield Parrish’s “Arabian 
Nights” pictures or Arthur Rackham’s 
picture books—especially his Grimm and 
British Ballads—will amuse you. Re¬ 
member, there is a danger of boring 
your guest. I recall another hostess of 
mine who used to catechise me as to 
the latest things I had read, and used 
to crush me with an “Oh!” if I failed 
her. 
There are week-enders and week¬ 
enders; these variations require a shift¬ 
ing of the books in the guest room. 
For example, I can imagine one’s Aunt 
Julia—with a displacement of two hun¬ 
dred pounds—requiring careful arrange¬ 
ment of the book-shelf. Perhaps even 
you will have to give up your own bed¬ 
room to her, for it is on the side of 
the house where the sun does not shine 
too brilliantly at six o’clock in the 
morning, and where the birds are dis¬ 
creet enough not to chirp her awake. 
A yellow novel is a red rag to her; 
she has sent you Uncle John’s copy of 
Keble’s “Christian Year”, and has un¬ 
earthed from a garret her own copy of 
Mrs. Gatty’s “Parables from Nature”. 
I always, as a boy, shied at spending 
week-ends with an uncle who gave me 
Cobbet’s “Advice to Young Men” and 
Smiles’s “Self Help”. 
There should be good taste, not heavy 
taste, in filling the book-shelf in the 
guest room. I recall that one of my 
hosts had on a table near the window 
a Royal Worcester vase, with a “host 
of dancing daffodils” in it. He had 
selected a book to lay at this shrine in 
harmony both in binding and in con¬ 
tent. I don’t believe in ordering a yard 
of red books or blue books or green, 
as I know some do, who have the five- 
foot shelf habit, but I do think pretty 
bindings are a tonic to the eye. 
I am a believer, also, in catering to 
the “bold bad butterfly” spirit of man: 
have a sprinkling of those perfectly 
damned books not spoken of in society 
but eagerly devoured in privacy. A 
stray collection of the “Decameron” 
may still bear the tell-tale mark of ash 
from your cigar between its pages, or 
a hairpin still remains where it has 
snooped between some uncut leaves. In 
such a mood one is ready for any spirit¬ 
ual experience—all the circles of Dante’s 
Purgatory—Francesca, Paul and Vir¬ 
ginia, Tristan, or Fiona Macleod. On 
such a night no priest is more ready 
than you to listen to a tale of sin. 
Placing the Book-Shelf 
Now, where shall the book-shelf be 
placed? If the bed is close to the wall, 
then there can be built a cupboard-like, 
carved closet, and much as a glorified 
sailor in his bunk, you can rummage 
among the books without exertion. If 
the bed is between windows, the shelves 
may hug the sills on either side. The 
reading lamp is hung just so, or placed 
at your elbow. But I have a way of 
finding the lamp still alight at four 
o’clock, when a flower petal, falling 
from the vase, awakens me and is the 
only stirring thing in the wide, wide 
world outside or in. 
Some little attention, these days, 
should be paid to the political nerves 
of your visitor. I can’t imagine wish¬ 
ing a Republican pleasant dreams, and 
having at his bedside a volume of Wood- 
row Wilson’s Addresses; nor would a 
Democrat have sweet repose on Lodge’s 
explanations of Article X. But Roose¬ 
velt’s “Letters to His Children” would 
be good entertainment for anyone, and 
I believe Charnwood’s “Lincoln” would 
go well side by side with Drinkwater’s 
play. Such are the diplomatic consid¬ 
erations of week-ends. 
Now, if you have a particularly at- 
(Continued on page 88) 
