Keeping Fine Houses Healthful
An old writer says, “When men lived in houses of reed, they had constitutions of oak; when they lived in houses of oak, they had constitutions of reeds.” This is a very picturesque description of the injury which may come to us from fine houses too closely sealed, thus keeping out the fresh air, and too heavily curtained, preventing the entrance of sunshine, which is almost or quite as important as air. But it is not at all necessary to have our fine houses unhealthful, and it only requires intelligence and thoughtfulness to render a house of oak as promotive of health as a cabin. Fresh air will come into a well-ventilated oaken house as well as through the open cracks in a house of reeds, and sunlight through a window in a palace as well as a hovel.—Health.