Simple as the house just given appears to be, there is quite as much variety in the arrangement of their rooms as with us. There are cheap types of houses in Japan, as in our country, where room follows room in a certain sequence; but the slightest attention to these matters will not only show great variety in their plans, but equally great variety in the ornamental finishing of their apartments.
The plan shown in _fig. 98_ is that of the house represented in figs. 36 and 37. The details are figured as in the previous plan. This house has on the ground-floor seven rooms besides the kitchen, hall, and bath-room. The kitchen and bath-room are indicated, as in the former plan, by their floors being ruled in wide parallel lines,--the lines running obliquely, as in the former case, indicating the bath-room or wash-rooms.
The owner of this house has often welcomed me to its soft mats and quiet atmosphere, and in the enjoyment of them I have often wondered as to the impressions one would get if he could be suddenly transferred from his own home to this unpretentious house, with its quaint and pleasant surroundings. The general nakedness, or rather emptiness, of the apartments would be the first thing noticed; then gradually the perfect harmony of the tinted walls with the wood finish would be observed. The orderly adjusted screens, with their curious free-hand ink-drawings, or conventional designs on the paper of so subdued and intangible a character that special attention must be directed to them to perceive their nature; the clean and comfortable mats everywhere smoothly covering the floor; the natural woods composing the ceiling and the structural finishing of the room everywhere apparent; the customary recesses with their cupboard and shelves, and the room-wide lintel with its elaborate lattice or carving above,--all these would leave lasting impressions of the exquisite taste and true refinement of the Japanese.
I noticed that a peculiarly agreeable odor of the wood used in the structure of this house seemed to fill the air of the rooms with a a delicate perfume;(12) and in this connection I was led to think of the rooms I had seen in America encumbered with chairs, bureaus, tables, bedsteads, wash-stands, etc., and of the dusty carpets and suffocating wall-paper, hot with some frantic design, and perforated with a pair of quadrangular openings, wholly or partially closed against light and air. Recalling this labyrinth of varnished furniture, I could but remember how much work is entailed upon some one properly to attend to such a room; and enjoying by contrast the fresh air and broad flood of light, limited only by the dimensions of the room, which this Japanese house afforded, I could not recall with any pleasure the stifling apartments with which I had been familiar at home.