In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the
ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit
down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass
knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tubeshaped hall like a tunnel: a very
comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted,
provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats - the hobbit
was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into
the side of the hill - The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it - and many
little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going
upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes
(he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same
floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left-hand side
(going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep-set round windows
looking over his garden and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river. In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the
ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit
down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass
knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tubeshaped hall like a tunnel: a very
comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted,
provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats - the hobbit
was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into
the side of the hill - The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it - and many
little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going
upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes
(he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same
floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left-hand side
(going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep-set round windows
looking over his garden and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river.