when my ship comes home i shall have a study of a very superior kind built. a part of the scheme will be a garden and a greenhouse which shall be especially adapted to the exigencies of authorcraft.—j. ashby-sterry, cucumber chronicles.
hile silence is pre-eminently golden in the study, the study, nevertheless should be more than “a chamber deaf to noise.” situated away from disturbing household sounds, it should also be withdrawn from ready access on the part of all intruders. it should be a “den” in the literal sense of the word—a covert, a haven. not that it should necessarily be below ground, but the way leading to it should be difficult to find; and, like the fox’s den, it should be provided with two entrances or means of escape, the more readily to baffle pursuers.
in how many houses, even those which are supposed to have been most carefully planned, are not the library and the study 65placed in close proximity to the front entrance, where anything like continuous repose is as far removed as the constellation orion, and where the volume with which one endeavors to be engaged is forever chafed by the friction of passing inmates! apart from mere noise, the discomfort of a library or study so situated is always great from the facility it offers to the wiles of innumerable outside forces. it is necessarily unpleasant to have certain visitors thrust unceremoniously upon one. you can not tell by the mere ring of the bell whether it is a, b, or c who has come to honor you with his presence—to bore or to charm; and without at every announcement making a sudden dive at the risk of being seen or heard, you are liable to be chambered for an hour with the very person you may most desire to avoid. thoreau often waited for the visitor who never comes; many of us must wait for the visitor who never goes.
not that i would limit visitors to a circumscribed few, or banish welcome ones at an early hour. i entertain the highest regard for the maxim of pope respecting the coming and the parting guest; yet, in the very nature of things, there are always some to whom one would fain send the conventional message, “not at home.” it was to obviate such monstrous misplacements as a library near the front door (a library 66merely in name), that naudé, years since, in his advis pour dresser une bibliothèque, gave this excellent advice: “let the library be placed in a portion of the house most removed from noise and disturbance, not only from without, but also from family and servants; away from the street, the kitchen, sitting-room, and similar places; locating it, if possible, between some spacious court and a fine garden where it may have abundant light, pure air, and extended and agreeable views.”
in the case of all houses where rooms are thus misplaced, some means of spiriting one’s self away through a side or rear door are absolutely essential to even a semblance of comfort. a study amid such surroundings, without safe and instantaneous means of flight from unwelcome callers is a grotesque misnomer. is not a man’s house his castle? the term “growlery,” often applied to the study, undoubtedly arose from an apartment so situated, referring not to a cage where the master of the house may work off his surly moods, as some ladies erroneously suppose, but to the anathemas bestowed by its harassed inmate upon the architect who planned a place for retirement where retirement is only possible after midnight. all these can the more readily comprehend the force of a passage in walden-“the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation; 67what is called resignation is confirmed desperation.” a trap-door, concealed by an oriental rug, that would respond to a certain pressure of the foot known only to the initiated, might be worthy of consideration by house-builders in this connection. or some kind of reflecting-glass might be devised that would enable coming events of an unpleasant nature to cast their shadows before.
even though one meet his modest accounts with all reasonable promptitude, there are still creditors oblivious to the amenities of life, who, instead of forwarding annual or semi-annual statements through the certain channel of the mails, send their “cards of compliment” for collection through the medium of middlemen or runners, who, even yet more callous to the finer feelings of humanity, and intent solely upon pouching their guerdon, invariably present themselves at the front door to force a passage within. fancy an intrusion of this kind while you may be rereading the eve of st. agnes, or perusing the good-natured man! though it occur but once a year, the shock must still remain. at one time or another this form of visitant is bound to appear to every one; for the species of fiend exists in common with front-door book-agents, itinerant venders, census-takers, expressmen, telegraph-messengers, 68and the rest of the customary mob that charges upon one’s front entrance wherever and whenever it is the most accessible means of invasion. even the parcels’-delivery, despite reiterated warnings, will not unfrequently persist in demanding ingress through the forbidden portal. indeed, the front door is a constant factor of discord, the baiting-place of disquiet, the arch enemy of household peace.
many of the vexations that are ever striving to wedge their way through the vestibule may be avoided by intelligent, well-drilled servants who are capable of reading human nature, and at a glance can distinguish the false from the true. a thoroughly competent house-maid should wear her cap internally as well as externally, and, like a thrasher’s sieve, be able to winnow the chaff from the wheat. but such discriminating cerberi are as rare as they are desirable, and the melancholy fact exists that the servant is invariably ready to leave so soon as she or he has become really valuable or thoroughly accustomed to your ways.
lamb, in one of his essays on popular fallacies, has said some excellent things about visitors. if certain visitors would only read these things, and, reading, comprehend! and if the visitor who never knows when to leave, as distinguished from those who, staying late, always leave too 69soon, would only peruse and ponder! in his category of intruders lamb emphasizes “purposeless visitants and droppers-in,” and he sometimes wonders from what sky they fall. whittier’s demon of the study, too, would indicate that the type still flourishes in new as well as old england. under the inspiration of an architect who is yet to be born, the house of the millennium will be able to avoid all unpleasant intrusions upon a privacy that is its inherent right, but which, alas! exists not in the home of the present.
it is apparent at once that the ideal haven can not hide itself amid the turmoil of the first floor. to fulfill its mission it must betake itself to surroundings more retired, and soar to a serener sphere. the true place for the study, therefore, is on an upper floor, and in the ideal house i would have it a spacious oriel approached by a hidden staircase.
hawthorne’s idea was an excellent one—the study in the tower or upper story of his residence at concord, which he approached by a ladder and trap-door, pulling the ladder up after him, and placing a weight over the door for additional security. here he could look out upon his favorite walk amid the evergreens, almost touch the crowns of the leafy elms, and bathe in the sunshine that illumined the fertile plain 70across the roadway. his first residence at concord—the old manse—was sufficiently remote to dispense with a trap-door, unless, indeed, this was an after-consideration owing to family reasons. at an opposite extremity of the village, far removed from emerson and even the fleet feet of thoreau, situated at a distance from the highway, the house itself of a gray neutral tone to baffle observation, and half concealed amid the shade of the distant suburbs, he was here free from all external annoyances. here in the retired three-windowed study in the rear of the house, which overlooked the romantic concord river below, he could set about his chosen task with no dread of interruption from the outside world.
montaigne’s was a model study, a true sanctum. without the quiet and reclusion it afforded, the pervading charm of the essays would never have been ours. instead of sauntering and loitering along with the easy abandon they do, they would have hurried and galloped by at breakneck speed, striding the noisy highway rather than pacing the shady lane. the placid, thinking, receptive mind of montaigne was obviously the direct outcome of the calm and tranquillity exhaled by the inaccessible round tower of périgord.
the enchanting landscape, too, that 71smiled through the spacious windows was, no doubt, a constant inspiration, serving to rest the eye and mind when they were wearied by the tyranny of print, or fatigued by protracted writing. there would doubtless be more montaignes were it possible to reproduce the life and surroundings amid which the essays were inspired. genius is capable of much; but, to be at its best, even genius must be in the mood, and moods are largely the result of surroundings. “no doubt,” observes lord lytton, “the cradle and nursery of definite thought is in the hazy limbo of reverie. there ideas float before us, rapid, magical, vague, half formed; apparitions of the thoughts that are to be born later into the light, and run their course in the world of man.”
“like the rain of night,” remarks henri amiel in the journal intime, “reverie restores color and force to thoughts which have been blanched and wearied by the heat of the day.”
the true flavor of a fine vintage may not be savored if the wine be roiled, or served at an improper temperature; the fine effluence that should emanate from the study—the framing of one’s mood and the molding of one’s thoughts, is only to be obtained in its perfect measure when the mind is freed from all disturbing influences.
let us mount the classic staircase with 72montaigne, and view the apartment so minutely described in the third chapter of the third book. the well-filled book-cases, the sunlight, the seclusion, the inviting prospect, the fireplace, and the immunity from noise, all are there:
“at home i betake me somewhat the oftener to my library, whence all at once i command and survey all my household; it is seated in the chiefe entrie of my house, thence i behold under me my garden, my base court, my yard, and looke even into most roomes of my house. there without order, without method, and by peece-meales i turn over and ransacke, now one booke and now another. sometimes i muse and rave; and walking up and downe i endight and enregister these my humours, these my conceits. it is placed on the third storie of a tower. the lowermost is my chapell; the second a chamber with other lodgings, where i often lie because i would be alone. above it is a great wardrobe. it was in times past the most unprofitable place of all my house. there i past the greatest part of my lives dayes, and weare out most houres of the day. i am never there a nights: next unto it is a handsome neat cabinet, able and large enough to receive fire in winter, and very pleasantly windowen. and if i feared not care, more than cost; (care 73which drives and diverts me from all businesse) i might easily joyne a convenient gallerie of a hundred paces long, and twelve broad, on each side of it, and upon one floore; having already for some other purpose, found all the walles raised unto a convenient height. each retired place requireth a walke. my thoughts are prone to sleepe, if i sit long. my minde goes not alone as if ledges did moove it. those that studie without bookes, are all in the same case. the forme of it is round, and hath no flat side, but what serveth for my table and my chaire: in which bending or circling manner, at one looke it offreth me the full sight of all my books, set round about upon shelves or desks, five rancks one upon another. it hath three bay-windowes, of a farre-extending, rich and unresisted prospect, and is in diameter sixteen paces wide. in winter i am less continually there: for my house (as the name of it importeth) is pearched upon an overpearing hillocke; and hath no part more subject to all wethers than this: which pleaseth me the more, both because the accesse unto it is somewhat troublesome and remote, and for the benefit of the exercise which is to be respected; and that i may the better seclude myselfe from companie, and keepe incroachers from me: there is my seat, that is my throne. i endeavour to make my rule 74therein absolute, and to sequester that only corner from the communitie of wife, of children, and of acquaintance. else-where i have but a verball authoritie, of confused essence. miserable in my minde is he, who in his owne home, hath no where to be to himselfe; where he may particularly court, and at his pleasure hide or with-draw himself. ambition paieth her followers well, to keepe them still in open view, as a statue in some conspicuous place.”[6]
6. florio’s translation.
aside from the quiet, sequestration, and conveniences of the philosopher’s study, it will be observed that among its many desirable features was that of its being “very pleasantly windowen” (très-plaisamment percé), the windows commanding a “farre-extending, rich, and unresisted prospect” (trois veuës de riche et libre prospect). assuredly the sunshine and light that warmed and brightened the apartment, and the unlimited view of hill and plain, were a stimulus to the writer.
fortunate is he who has a pleasing prospect to look in upon him—it invigorates and cheers like a cordial. whatever the time of year, the distant hills, visible through my windows, are a source of companionship and charm. so constantly are they 75before me, i have begun to consider them as my own, a remote part of the garden and the grounds to which they form the frame. i love to watch their changing expression and note their play of light and shade. meseems they almost resemble a human countenance in the varying sentiments they convey. content and malcontent are as plainly expressed by their mobile curves as they are by the lines of the human face. like the rest of us, in sunshine they smile, in storm they frown. they are warm, or cool, as the mood takes them; as they reflect or absorb the sky and atmosphere. for days they rest in absolute calm; again they recede, and, again, they advance. mirroring every change of the day and of the passing seasons, they are a dial that tells the hour, the time of year to me. the sun salutes one side of their profile the first thing in the morning; his parting rays illumine the other side the last thing in the evening. they hasten the dawn, and prolong the twilight. the full moon rising from the far horizon behind them, silvers their wooded slopes ere it gilds the topmost gables of my house. they catch the first drops of the summer shower, and receive the first flakes of the november snow. the loveliest blues and purples seek them, drawing a semi-transparent veil over them. on hot summer noontides the cloud-flocks 76repose upon them, and the orange afterglow lingers long upon their tranquil heights. in spring the earliest violets carpet their sheltered places; in autumn they yield me the last blue gentian bloom. i see the wind lifting their green skirts, and fancy i hear his voice murmuring through their umbrageous depths. my hills ever catch and focus color, and toy and play with wind and sun. whether shimmering in midsummer glare, or standing out against the wintry sky, or slumbering in the haze of the dreamy autumnal day, they are my finest landscape paintings. when the snow has spread its shroud over the silent fields they still speak to me in color—gray, bronze, and purple—by turns during the day; a kaleidoscope of tones when the sun sinks behind their serried ranks of trees.
seeing them thus year after year they have come to possess a personality; and when a rarefied atmosphere brings them unusually near, i find myself casting an imaginary lasso at them to bring them still closer to me that i may stroke their lovely contours. so familiar have i become with them, i have only to look out of my windows, and i am treading their luminous heights, and am fanned by the breeze that perpetually blows upon their peaceful crests.
77with the wind from the southeast, i hear the roar of the railroad trains, panting and steaming, coming and going along their slopes, leaving a trail of smoke to mark the passage of their flight. the ceaseless tide of travel ever hurries on. how many of those seated in the luxurious coaches note the beauty of my hills? cloud-shadows chase each other, and hawks wheel over their summits, while the train speeds on, intent upon overtaking other hills and its remote destination: the beauty of my hills remains for me.
a knock at my study-door interrupts my musings, and my hills abruptly recede. not that my friend sherlock drives them away; he is so versatile and colorful himself that the charm of his presence and conversation takes the place of my hills. i never learned until to-day why he has remained a bachelor. it was only when conversing about the ideal home that the true reason occurred to me—he has failed, not in discovering the ideal woman, but the ideal architect to carry out his admirable conceptions of the perfect house; and rather than fall below his artistic standard he passively submits to fate, and awaits the architect who is to be.
“you seem to overlook the probability of my being referred to a committee inquirendo lunatico, should my views ever be 78carried out; and it seems dangerous to commit them to print,” was my friend’s rejoinder to a request that he present his views in detail.
“but the simple story of my house will at most be read by a few,” i replied; “and these few will charitably give us credit for good intentions; moreover the critics are not nearly as black as they are painted.”
“my ideas,” continued my friend, “fly so rudely in the face of all convention that people would consider the order of nature reversed. ‘a kitchen in the front yard!’ i hear them say, ‘away with him!’
“nevertheless, had i the courage of my convictions, together with ten times as much money as i shall ever possess, i would build my house all front, and no rear!
“a capacious vestibule, say 20 × 20 feet, should be, not the entrance exactly, but a means of exclusion for unwelcome visitors. a door on one side should open to my lady’s reception-room where she should receive all formal and business calls; in short, every one whom she took no pleasure in seeing at all.
“this reception-room should be connected with the domestic end of the house; the store-rooms, servants’ hall, kitchen, kitchen-pantries, and, back of these, the dining- and breakfast-rooms.
79“on the opposite side of the vestibule should be a door, similarly accommodating all unwelcome guests of the master, being the entrance to the office, and connected by a heavy portière and door with the den and library. from these masculine apartments a staircase, concealed in the wall, should enable the good man of the house to disappear to his bath- and dressing-room; and there should also be an outer side-door from the den, through which could be ‘fired’ (and admitted also) such tardy and bibulous friends as might meet the disapproval of madame.
“the back of the vestibule should open and expand into the hall—a great living-room connecting the library at one end with the dining-room at the other, and out of which should open such little parlors and snuggeries as inventive genius might suggest.
“into this hall, the real house, only those one wished to see should be admitted. here the great staircase should rest the eye, and the great hearth should blaze. on occasions of festivity the guests, in their wraps, should ascend by a modest staircase in the vestibule to their disrobing rooms, and thence descend by the grand staircase.
“the kitchen being at one end of the front part of the house, and so conveniently accessible to the butcher, baker, and candlestick-maker, 80would leave all the space behind the house for piazzas, terraces, and gardens, with such fountains, statuary, and conservatories as might be within reach of the goodman’s purse; and all where the reporter and unwelcome caller could not intrude; for they would be secluded alike from the general public and the ordinary domestic offices. the principal apartments of all japanese houses, i may observe, are at the back of the house, looking out upon the garden with its lilies, irises, pæonias, azaleas, its foliage plants and flowering shrubs.
“thus you perceive my ideal house requires four staircases: the great one in the great hall, the modest one in the vestibule, the secret one (to escape creditors), and the one for the servants.
“when i consider that this is only two more than all civilized houses have, i am surprised at the moderation and restraint of the average house-builder. but pray remember i am anxious to avoid that committee of lunacy; and i have not yet begun to build.”
personally, i entertain the highest regard for my versatile friend’s ideal. were i to suggest any change in the main points, so admirably conceived, it would be to have the study removed to a still serener sphere, as has already been suggested. even with 81my friend’s excellent barricade, still, on some occasion when least expected—perchance a most momentous one, just as a long-lost conceit had winged its return—the dreaded intruder might force an entrance, and put the thought to instantaneous and irremeable flight.
the size of the study, methinks, should be small rather than large; yet ample enough to harbor the cheering grate-fire, the easy-chairs, the center-table, the writing-desk, the well-filled book-cases, and the artistic glass cabinet or cabinets, for such precious works as should be kept under lock and key and never loaned, or even touched by sacrilegious hands.
let these gems be worthily set as becomes their quality and rarity, so they may minister to the delight of the eye and the pleasure of the touch as they contribute to the delectation of the mind. “sashes of gold for old saints, golden bindings for old writings,” nodier expresses it; and charles asselineau affectionately exclaims: “my books, i love them! i have sought them, gathered them, searched for them; i have had them habited to the best of my ability by the best tailors of books.” my glass cabinet is my casket, my jewel-case; and in the many-colored morocco of the bindings that reflect the precious riches contained within them, i see all manner of jewels 82flash and glow. in these, and in some of the superb marblings employed in the finer french bindings—and here the exquisite beauty of the perfect half-morocco binding is apparent—i derive a satisfaction akin to that i receive from the contemplation of any fine art object. the airy conceits and felicities of phrase of a favorite author become yet more entrancing when held by these colored butterfly-wings and variegated plumes dreamed out by the artist, and stamped in permanent form by the skill of the binder.
thought is inclined to wander amid the freedom of a large room. but though the study should not be a vast apartment, it should be sufficiently spacious for comfort and to avoid overcrowding. sufficiently large it should also be and the ceiling sufficiently high to insure a pure atmosphere. on account of ventilation, a fire-place is of great advantage in the room where one is engaged in sedentary pursuits. it is the next thing to the walk and the elixir of the open air. de quincey worked in a room seventeen by twelve, and not more than seven and a half feet high. the low ceilings must have oppressed him; and the vitiated air and sense of suffocation, it is not unlikely, led him to yield to the dangerous stimulus that inspired the confessions.
most wisely has leigh hunt discoursed 83upon the study and its surroundings in that ever-pleasing essay, my books. “i do not like this fine large study. i like elegance. i like room to breathe in, and even walk about, when i want to breathe and walk about. i like a great library next my study; but for the study itself give me a small, snug place, almost entirely walled with books. there should be only one window in it looking on trees.... i dislike a grand library to study in. i mean an immense apartment with books all in museum order, especially wire-safed. i say nothing against the museum itself, or public libraries.... a grand private library, which the master of the house also makes his study, never looks to me like a real place of books, much less of authorship. i can not take kindly to it. it is certainly not out of envy; for three parts of the books are generally trash, and i can seldom think of the rest and the proprietor together.”
to be attractive and cozy, the study need not be extravagantly furnished. as in other apartments of the house, light is one of its first requisites; with color, ease, quiet, and, if possible, a pleasant prospect. in the study, above all, no discordant elements should intrude. the general tone of the walls, decorations, and furnishings, while rich, should yet be subdued and restful. a glaring placque, a staring figure in 84the wall or carpet pattern, or any subject unpleasing in its nature or sentiment, whether in paintings, pictures, or ornaments, has no place in an apartment which, by its very atmosphere, should conduce to reverie and a contemplative frame of mind. let dreamful landscapes, rather than figures in action, adorn and complement the rich slate or sage of its walls and hangings; and i picture my ideal study, when my second ship comes in, hung round about solely with daubigny’s tender twilights and peaceful river-reaches on his calm and slowly gliding oise.
for the closer concentration of thought, the working-chair would be placed in the most attractive corner of the apartment, back of the spacious writing-desk, with its amplitude of drawers and pigeon-holes; its topmost shelf and other convenient places so arranged with pictures and portraits of favorite authors and dear or absent friends as to create and constantly diffuse an atmosphere of congenial companionship.
a carved book-rest should hold the dictionary in place close to the working-chair, and a revolving case within arm’s reach should bring to it desired works of reference and such especially treasured volumes from which ideas may be collected—another name for inspiration. i would mention some of these—each worthy of crushed 85levant covers, the handicraft of a padeloup or payne—but for the fact that every one should choose such inspirations for himself. one may not be guided by another’s choice in a face or book that charms.
once during the day, but always unperceived, save for an added freshness pervading the apartment, my study should respond to the touch of gentle fingers. then, as i mount the secret staircase when i would be alone—a lingering aroma of violets and the vanishing rustle of a silken robe.
