LET IN THE SUNLIGHT

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 19, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 32.

LET IN THE SUNLIGHT.

"The average woman," says Lucy M. Hall, "seems to be possessed of a positive mania for keeping the sunlight excluded from her house. This domestic photophobia is one of the most obdurate as well as one of the most general of maladies. The sufferers will consent to cough, to limp, to endure the torturing twinges of rheumatism, or to see their children grow up pale and peevish, rather than that the colors of the cherished carpets should be dimmed by a hated sunbeam; or that a "horrid fly," invited by such radiance, should dare to buzz within their sacred domains. Occasionally we see a pretty bay-window invitingly thrown out; and we cannot help thinking what a lovely place for mother's sewing-chair, a reading-desk, or, oh, horror! the children's play-things. But from a shutter drawn grudgingly a little to one side we see—what? A plaster image or a piece of pottery perched upon a spindle-legged stand, all the radiance which is permitted to enter, lost upon its senseless particles. There was a substratum of reason in the so-called 'blue-glass craze' of a score of years ago. It meant that pallid houselings sat in the sunshine and got well. 'Tis pity that a folly so wise should have been abandoned."