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We know only parlours: we call them drawing-rooms. At the bottom of our middle-class hearts we regard them fondly: the folding-doors thrown back, they make rather a fine apartment. The only drama that we know takes place in such rooms: the hero sitting in the gentleman's easy chair, of green repp: the heroine in the lady's ditto, without arms the chair, I mean.
However, on the very threshold of the little salon, Madame Theodore stopped short in wonderment herself, for her sister Hortense was sobbing and crouching on one of the armchairs, upholstered in blue repp, of which she was so proud. "What is the matter? What has happened to you?" asked Madame Theodore.
The candles danced and flickered in the candelabra, evergreen framed every picture on the walls. Aunt Judith's quaint sofa and chairs had always been covered with crimson repp, and the color seemed brighter in the evening light. The old hand-made rugs looked quaint upon the floor, and the logs in the grate burned gaily, as if anticipating the arrival of the little guests.
These acres of meaningless battle-pieces, Algerian warfare and what not are characteristic of the "Citizen-King" whose fondness for red plush, green repp and horsehair sofas was notable. What he did at Versailles was almost as great a vandalism against art as that wrought by the Revolution.
Out of doors the rain was falling with a dull roar, and violent gusts of wind beat angrily against the window-shutters. Winter seemed to have returned. Rosalie had carefully drawn the red repp curtains; and the small, cosy dining-room, illumined by the steady light of the white hanging-lamp, looked, amidst the buffeting of the storm, a picture of pleasant, affectionate intimacy.
When I reached my step-mother's bed-chamber, the heavy curtain of padded repp, which was suspended for the prevention of such draughts as might be smuggled in through key-holes, or other minute openings caused by an ill-fitting door, was drawn quite across the entrance, and in my hasty and unforeseeing impatience I pushed it rudely aside with rough hands and admitted myself within the sacred precincts, just in time to see myself branded by my own actions, an intolerable little imp, who, on this occasion, if never before, was "enough to provoke a saint."
It was Kemble also who first gave The Dream of the Rood a modern English rendering.* * A translation of the fragment in Old Northumbrian had indeed been attempted at the beginning of the nineteenth century by Mr. Repp and also by a disciple of the great Fin Magnusen, Mr. J. M. M'Caul, but the least said about these versions the better, both being wide of the mark.
However, on the very threshold of the little salon, Madame Theodore stopped short in wonderment herself, for her sister Hortense was sobbing and crouching on one of the armchairs, upholstered in blue repp, of which she was so proud. "What is the matter? What has happened to you?" asked Madame Theodore.
"The chairs were originally covered in cherry-coloured repp, over that is a cover of flowered chintz, over that is a cover of brown holland, over that is a capacious antimacassar, over that, each night of the week, is carefully draped a linen dust sheet. The carpet is covered with a drugget, the ornaments are covered with glass shades, the fire-screen is covered with crackly oilskin.
Even the footstools have little hoods to draw on over the beadwork. I have lived here for two years, and on one occasion we got down as far as the chintz stratum, when Cousin Mary Robinson and dear Mrs MacDugal from Aberdeen came to stay for the night, but my eyes have never yet been dazzled by the glory of the cherry-coloured repp."
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