first glance.
There was everything in the place which is considered necessary for a
bedroom, and everything was perfect of its kind, spotless and dustless,
and carefully arranged in order. But almost everything was of an unusual
and unfamiliar shape, as though designed for some especial reason to
remain in equilibrium in any possible position, and to be moved from
place to place with the smallest imaginable physical effort. The carved
bedstead was fitted with wheels which did not touch the ground, and
levers so placed as to be within the reach of a person lying in it. The
tables were each supported at one end only by one strong column, fixed
to a heavy base set on broad rollers, so that the board could be run
across a bed or a lounge with the greatest ease. There was but one chair
made like ordinary chairs; the rest were so constructed that the least
motion of the occupant must be accompanied by a corresponding change
of position of the back and arms, and some of them bore a curious
resemblance to a surgeon's operating table, having attachments of
silver-plated metal at many points, of which the object was not
immediately evident. Before a closed door a sort of wheeled conveyance,
partaking of the nature of a chair and of a perambulator, stood upon
polished rails, which disappeared under the door itself, showing that
the thing was intended to be moved from one room to another in a certain
way and in a fixed line. The rails, had the door been opened, would have
been seen to descend upon the other side by a gentle inclined plane
into the centre of a huge marble basin, and the contrivance thus made
it possible to wheel a person into a bath and out again without
necessitating the slightest effort or change of position in the body. In
the bedroom the windows were arranged so that the light and air could
be regulated to a nicety. The walls were covered with fine basket work,
apparently adapted in panels; but these panels were in reality movable
trays, as it were, forming shallow boxes fitted with closely-woven
wicker covers, and filled with charcoal and other porous substances
intended to absorb the impurities of the air, and thus easily changed
and renewed from time to time. Immediately beneath the ceiling were
placed delicate glass globes of various soft colours, with silken
shades, movable from below by means of brass rods and handles. In the
ceiling itself there were large ventilators, easily regulated as might
be required