File:American homes and gardens (1905) (18151311265).jpg

Title: American homes and gardens
Identifier: americanhomesgar00newy (find matches)
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Architecture, Domestic; Landscape gardening
Publisher: New York, Munn and Co
Contributing Library: The LuEsther T Mertz Library, the New York Botanical Garden
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February, 1906 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 115 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, owring 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 very tiny home library in an American cottage. It a house costs as much as ten thousand dollars, a fifth division or 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. Ii 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

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