"One of those delightful villas..."
Scroll to see some.....BUT: Before any pictures: What do you think E. Nesbit meant when she called this house "delightful"? Do you think she was saying what she meant or saying the opposite of what she meant? Why or why not? (AFTER you have thought, scroll to see what I think: but decide what you think first. You may need to go back to the story and read the sentence again to decide.)
I think E.Nesbit was saying the opposite of what she meant when she called the villa "delightful," because she says "gable where there was never need of gable." If she really thought the villa was delightful, why would she make that comment?
Another clue is that she says the pretty red brick was only in the front -- in back, "where it doesn't show so much," there was yellow brick. (What does this tell about the people who built and lived in the house? What was important to them?)
I have a third clue: I know that a "villa called after Queen Anne" means a big house (a villa) built during the reign of Queen Victoria (Victoria was the Queen of England while E. Nesbit was writing), but in a style called Queen Anne (a Queen of England who died hundreds of years ago).
I lived in England when I was a child and I've seen and read about the "Queen Anne" houses built when E. Nesbit was writing. The villa in the story probably looked something like these houses:
Here is a photograph of E.Nesbit's favorite house that she lived in as a child -- Halstead Hall:
<If anyone is looking at this page, write to me and I'll put up the picture! --Libby>
As soon as E.Nesbit had earned enough money from writing her books TO buy a house, she bought a very old house called "The Moat House." This is it:
Here is what the history book I had as a child in England said about Victorian houses. English history is divided up into reigns: instead of saying "the nineteen twenties" or "in the 1800s" as we would, they say who the King or Queen was. So "Victorian" was when Queen Victoria reigned , from 1837 to 1901. E.Nesbit was born then, and these "delightful villas" were new then -- and very popular with some people.
The builders of Queen Anne's reign and of Georgian days [in the 1700s all the English kings were named George, so those times were called "Georgian"] knew how to build a house which was handsome and pleasing in proportion. During Victorian days there were great changes in style, and houses became ugly in shape and grossly over-decorated. Perhaps in the haste to make money there was no time for beauty and good taste in buildings, furniture, and pictures, or perhaps the people who could not see the misery of the poor, and the ugliness of the factory towns, were just as blind to fair and shapely things. If a picture, a chair, or a house is badly shaped, it cannot be improved afterwards by putting on a lot of fancy and unnecessary decoration. Yet this is exactly what the Victorian builders tried to do. Their houses were ugly in shape, and every kind of pinnacle, turret, balcony and iron railing [and gable!] was added.
--Looking at History , Unstead
A room in Victorian times -- do you think it has "a lot of fancy and unnecessary decoration"?
If you draw a "handsome, pleasing in proportion" house -- or one that is "ugly in shape and grossly over-decorated"! -- and send it to me, I'll put it in this book. And if you tell me what you think about houses here, I'll put that in the book, too. E.Nesbit and the English history book prefer the proportions of Queen Anne houses. You may like Victorian ones better -- do you? Why or why not?
Back to the story "The Charmed Life."
