V. The Drawing-Room

The 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 lot to each member of the familyr 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 schoolroom or at school. During the whole day then the hall remains unoccupied; 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 differentiated 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 was called the butt and the reception end the ben, and where a visitor was invited to “come ben.”

It helps to preserve that wholeness of the plan which is so helpful in securing beauty in the home. Such a form of drawing-room I prefer to call the “bower,” which admirably suggests its daintiness of treatment, and later on will be found an example illustrated and described. Open as it is to the hall it shares in its spaciousness, and in the warmth of the central fire, and its occupants do not feel that sensation of confinement which makes the small room so oppressive. It bears indeed the same relation to the hall as the verandah or garden room does to the outside world.

It has already been pointed out that the hall itself during the hours of the more formal calls will probably be unoccupied, and so the visitors in the bower need not be entertained in a separate apartment, while those more intimate friends who may pay a later visit require no isolation from the family circle in the hall.

In the larger establishment the drawing-room may be considerably increased in size, though the wholeness of the plan may still be retained by the use of sliding doors dividing it from the hall, giving on special occasions a large apartment. Or again it may become specialised as a reception room, so constantly used that it no longer fulfils its function as a private sitting-room for the mistress of the house. And so a boudoir is added to the plan for this purpose, and in special cases the germ of the bower develops into a series of state reception rooms, till the whole establishment becomes given up to the guests, and the family take refuge in a private suite of apartments.