LIFE IN THE HOUSE 9 



might safely face than we ever do when unalarmed about 

 our health. It gives us also a hint that some of the 

 greatest risks to health may possibly arise from excessive 

 precautions against cold. 



The comparative darkness of the rooms in which we 

 read or write may be roughly estimated by anybody who 

 has practised indoor photography. An exposure fifty 

 times as long as would be requisite out of doors has often 

 to be allowed in order to get a tolerable picture of the 

 furniture of a room. Green plants kept in our rooms, 

 unless they are set directly in the windows, show by 

 thriving so ill how feeble is the light in which we live 

 and work. The strain upon the eyes caused by our in- 

 cessant efforts to define insufficiently illuminated objects 

 may be one cause of the early decay of our eyesight. 



The air of the house is charged with dust. We see the 

 motes dance in the sunbeam. They settle in all quiet 

 corners. The housewife pursues them with a dry duster, 

 capturing an insignificant proportion, and merely stirring 

 up the remainder. Microscopic examination of floating 

 dust reveals fragments of nearly all the organic substances 

 which are used in the dwelling for food or furniture, as 

 well as living germs of bacteria and fungi, most of them 

 harmless to health, a few of them mischievous or even 

 deadly. Take a bright lantern, and throw its beam across 

 the air of an inhabited room by night. Innumerable 

 floating particles are revealed. Try the same experiment 

 in a field bordered by trees ; very often you will fail to 

 discover any floating particles at all. There is no better 

 filter for purifying the air which we breathe than wet 

 grass and leafy trees. 



Our posterity will no doubt find a remedy for these 

 evils. It may be that they will live in houses almost as 

 well-lit as our green-houses, and filled with a constant 

 flow of pure air. If so, they will look upon us with some 

 such compassion as we bestow upon the wretches who 

 sleep upon a heap of hot ashes in a cellar, giving up fresh 



