What the Mirrors Did for Us

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7134, 4 February 1930, Page 11

What the Mirrors Did for Us

While travelling in Europe, we kept remarking about the great number of mirrors we found in hotels and private houses. England, Prance, Germany, Switzerland, Italy—all seem to consider the looking-glass as an essential part of the furnishing of a room. We saw them in many shapes and sizes, placed in many parts of the room, and in every caso the effect was evry pleasing. Often the hotels wore furnished in what we called impossible taste; however, the glasses always seemed to relieve our displeasure. Usually, they were simply rectangular pieces set in the wall as panels, placed above a mantelpiece or a table, and extended up to the ceiling. Again, they were separate from the wall, and hung on it like a picture—the frame varying from one of the most elaborately carved gold scallops to the simplest brown wood.

At a hotel in Nurnberg, I remember one strip of wall just 11 inches wide (we were so impressed that we measured it), carrying a mirror 10 inches wide that ran from the floor of the ceiling. At present, in our three small rooms in Paris, we have five huge mirrors that cover one-third of the wall space.

This use of looking-glass has as one important result, that of giving a sense of spaciousness. Even one who is used to a room, one who knows that he is only looking at glass and not at an extra corner of the apartment, cannot help feeling that there is more space around him than if he saw only a strip of wall-paper in. place of the mirror.

, Looking-glasses are also pleasing because they are alluring. Animals, babies, children of all ages are fasciuated by the views of another room just out of reach, of other people who look much more interesting than those with whom they dwell. They all wait for a time when the mirror will melt like-mist as it did for Alice so that they may go “Through the Looking-Glass, open the mysteri-ous-looking doors, look out of the strange windows that they now can see in the farthest corner of the mirror. That fascination is never wholly outgrown by anyone. Mirrors are also cheering things to have within one’s four walls. Whatever light-there is in the room-is reflected by the glass,' and one 'feels at all times a benefit from this added

brightness. Even at night, the one ray appearing from a street lamp or a light next door is caught and sent back into the room by the mirror. Then, too, we are always pleased to be able to see farther than we expect, to have more space to look into if we are in a pensive mood. I remember once reading a tiny poem by Flora Lawrence Myers that said: Pools — If we would look at the dust, Show us the sky. This winter we are finding it equally true that mirrors, if we would look at a blank wall, show us countless new spaces, new views, where there, are np blank wals "and where thoughts, can find ample room in which to range.