Before he eats it. ’Tis the primal curse,
But softened into mercy—made the pledge
Of cheerful days, and nights without a groan.”
139. I must not forget to speak of the paramount importance in a dwelling of an abundance of light—of daylight. Light is life, light is health, light is a physician! Light is life: the sun gives life as well as light; if it were not for the sun, all creation would wither and die. There is “no vitality or healthful structure without light.”[[28]] Light is health: it strengthens the frame, it cheers the heart, and tints the cheeks with a roseate hue! Light is a physician: it drives away many diseases, as the mists vanish at the approach of the sun; and it cures numerous ailments which drugs alone are unable to relieve.
140. Look at the bloom on the face of a milkmaid! What is it that tints her cheeks? An abundance of light. Behold the pallid, corpselike countenance of a factory girl! What blanches her cheek? The want of light, of air, and of sunshine.
141. A room, then, ought to have large windows in order that the sun might penetrate into every nook and corner of the apartment. A gardener thoroughly appreciates the importance of light to his flowers; he knows, also, that if he wishes to blanch some kinds of vegetables—such as celery and sea-kale—he must keep the light from them; and if my fair reader desires to blanch her own cheeks, she ought to keep the light from them; but, on the other hand, if she be anxious to be healthy and rosy, she must have plenty of light in her dwelling.
142. The want of light stunts the growth, dims the sight, and damps the spirits. Colliers, who a great part of their lives live in the bowels of the earth, are generally stunted; prisoners, confined for years in a dark dungeon, frequently become blind; people who live in dark houses are usually melancholic.
143. Light banishes from rooms foulness, fustiness, mustiness, and smells. Light ought therefore to be freely allowed to enter every house, and be esteemed as the most welcome of visitors. Let me then advise every young wife to admit into her dwelling an abundance of light, of air, and of sunshine.
144. Some ladies, to keep off the sun, to prevent it from fading the furniture, have, in the summer time, all the blinds of the windows of the house down. Hence they save the fading of their furniture, and, instead of which, they fade their own and their children’s cheeks. Many houses, with all their blinds down, look like so many prisons, or as if the inmates were in deep affliction, or as if they were performing penance; for is it not a penance to be deprived of the glorious light of day, which is as exhilarating to the spirits as, and much more beneficial than, a glass of champagne?
145. It is a grievous sin to keep out from a dwelling the glorious sunshine. We have heard of “a trap to catch a sunbeam:” let the open windows be a trap, and a more desirable prize cannot be caught than a sunbeam. Sunbeams, both physical and metaphorical, make a house a paradise upon earth!