OUR COUNTRY LIFE 



it was considered dangerous, and carefully excluded 

 from our homes? 



"But I always have my window open at night," cries 

 the average person, "and that amounts to the same 

 thing." 



No, Gentle Reader. No douht it is an excellent 

 thing to do; but never make the mistake of thinking 

 for an instant that it can be the same as sleeping out 

 of doors. I have slept in my own room when the ink 

 froze on the desk, and I know that I had fresh air; 

 but I also knew that it could not be as fresh as the out- 

 of-doors. Each piece of furniture in the room, each 

 curtain, rug, and picture, each book and paper, even, 

 takes something, no matter how small, from the purity 

 of the air; and this we cannot realize until we sleep 

 out of doors and enter that room in the morning. 



It also seems a waste of time to sleep when the night 

 is so enlightening, and one form of enchantment suc- 

 ceeds another. A half-moon hangs in the silent sky, 

 its rays form a broad sparkling path upon the waves. 

 Back and forth within this heavenly radiance drifts 



178 



