Family life demands that the mother and father's room should be restful, isolated.
The day may have been of the kind, during the leaden passage of which:-
(1) Nanny has broken the bathroom window.
(2) A child has broken the only torch in the house.
(3) Another child has knocked over the drawing room standard lamp and broken that.
(4) The wireless won't go.
(5) The coal hasn't come.
(6) In which Cook has smashed the family heirloom china teapot;
that it is time to retire upstairs.
The Family are no longer seen through a glamorous glow of love.
Temporarily they have become one vast juggernaut of selfishness.
The Owner probably feels,
"Why should I work so hard just for them to make me pay out for their needless carelessness?"
The Owner's Wife thinks, "They just take it for granted that I am there to clean up the mess."
That is the time when a bare, almost austere room would be the wish of some folk. Straight, calm, unpatterned hangings, or a horizontal stripe on them to remind you of the peace of a horizon.
No ornaments or pictures, nothing that anyone can break. A shaded bed lamp, a bed turned down invitingly, a glass of hot milk or whatever one likes best by the bed, to fool oneself that someone has placed it there for you and is looking after you for a change.
A restful book with rather a long space between each full stop, the print dancing before your eyes, the intrusion of absurd, dream-thoughts between you and the printed story, the brain taking charge, and creating an entirely different story to the one you are reading, a golden haze enveloping you - almost, but not quite, you are asleep.
The Family Weekend Book - Beryl Irving
The Reader by Henry A. Payne
you know i love this post! i need to look up those books, too:) you always bring newness and beauty, lucille! thank you!
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