The Portland daily press., 1883-02-19
london Globe
English Smoking-Rooms.

One element of cosiness, however, we
have which our ancestors had not-the
smoking-room; and we take it that no house,
especially if it be in the country, can be
deemed complete without its smoking room.
But of course there are smoking-rooms and
smoking-rooms. (. But in one respect
smoking-room owners are agreed-in the
idea that there should not be the smallest
attempt at formality or rigid arrangement
about them that, just as disjointed, easy
flowing Spontaneous smoking-room chat is
the pleasantest of all conversation, so the
careless, unmethodical appearance of a
smoking-room is most soothing to the man
wearied with toll orpleasure. It's chairs are
intended to be sat in; one may move about
without being in constant dread of shattering
costly ornaments or of disturbing the math-
ematically precise arrangement of furniture;
one may laugh, or sing or whistle, or dance
if one feels so disposed-in fact, one may act
as free agent, unbound by formality, or ct
iquette, or enactments of society. A mans
real nature comes out in his smoking-room
decoration, just as in his smoking-room
chat. Men who have no more appreciation
of high art than their dogs, are obliged to
conform to popular fashion, and to furnish
their drawing and dining-rooms in high art
style. Sir Gorgius Midas Grams his keeping
rooms with costly gimcrackery about which
he knows or cares as little as about quadrat-
ic equations. Mrs. Smith must overload
her walls with harmonies and symphonies
simply because Mrs. Brown does: but
mans smoking-room is generally pretty
accurate index of his nature and character.
Often we may read the whole history of
mans life in the decoration of his smoking
room as clearly as in a book. Here will be
found the athletic trophies of his youthful
days-the well-pegged cricket-bat off which
he made so many" fours'' at school; the gob-
lets he won upon the running-path; the
travel-stained flag which waved at the bow
of the four-oar he stroked on Thames, Sew
ern, Seine and Loire; the alpenstock, brand
ed with the names of genuine mountain con-
quests; old football caps; bis academic
mortar board''; curios picked up in all
parts of the world and hundred othersodd
trifes of no value, as the advertisements
say, to anyone but the owner. Trophies OF
the chase may adorn the walls, or hunting
sketches, or specimens of his own amateur
haudiwork banished from other domestic re-
gions by the severely trained judgment of
his better-half, or photographs of himself in
every variety of posture and costume but
those sanctioned in the album on the draw
ing-room table. AS to bookshelf, if there
are any they are only of the very highest
calibre, and generally in yellow-back form.
A man in his smoking room is what he
rarely is elsewhere-his own self. He is
absolute monarch between these four walls;
his tongue moves freely, his ideas run
smoothly, he is neither better nor worse
than anyone else; the laugh rises heartily
to his lips, his stories are twice as well told
as elsewhere, his jokes twice as pungent-
and, perhaps best of all, he may dress ex-
actly as he pleases, and may produce him.
self in the most comfort-inducing attitude
without any fear of violating the proprieties.
With what genuine joy does he, when the
formal dinner party is over, cast off his
war paint" put on his seediest shooting
jacket and his Oldest slippers, and with a
choice crony or two adjourn to the smoking
room for an hours unrestrained chat! At
ter good run with the hounds, or seven
hours striding over moor or stubble, or a
long wet days rushing about the city, he
counts the very minutes until the happy
hour of smoking comes. The enemies of
nicotine may thunder their scientific argu-
ments and pour forth their datribes, but as
long as an EngIshman's house is his castle,
so long will the invulnerable keep of that
castle be his smoking room.