Now I am come to the difficult part of my subject--the tug of war, in fact--for I want men to do something for themselves, and women to do without something dear to their hearts. I think I will speak of the latter clause first. In bed-rooms especially is seen that truly English love of superfluous comforts which we mistake for civilization: it meets us everywhere, in and out of the house, but it abounds in our bed and dressing rooms. The amount of toilet so-called necessaries is incredible, and the number of patent objects overwhelming. When we consider that seven things only are necessary to our personal neatness and cleanliness--soap, sponge, towel, and tooth-brush for washing, and brush and comb and nail-scissors for the rest of the toilet--and then count the other paraphernalia seen in our dressing-rooms, we shall discover how many frivolous trades our superfluities maintain, to say nothing of ingenuity misplaced in making advertisements of dressing-cases and hair-restorers conspicuously attractive. The toilet-table is not alone to blame: the fault pervades the whole house and overwhelms the bed-rooms. M. Taine, in his "Notes on England," amusingly describing an English house, says, "In my bedroom is a table of rosewood, standing on an oilcloth mat on the carpet; upon this table is a slab of marble, on the marble a round straw mat--all this to bear an ornamented water-bottle covered with a tumbler. One does not simply place one's book on a table: upon the table is a small stand for holding it. One does not have a plain candlestick: the candle is enclosed in a glass cylinder, and is furnished with a self-acting extinguisher. All this apparatus hampers; it involves too much trouble for the sake of comfort." This was only a bachelor's room; what would the French critic have thought of the aids to reading in bed in an ordinarily well-appointed bed-room where the master indulges in that practice? By the Englishman's bedside is also a small table standing on a mat, and on this table another mat supporting a patent stand which screws up and down, and on this another mat with a candlestick with a nozzle and a patent protector of the candle from the draught, a glass shield set in an ormolu frame which has an elaborate screw; and by the side of the candlestick-stand another mat, on which is a patent screw for shading the light from the aforesaid candle. Then, besides the extinguisher, also on a stand and a mat, and patent matches in a patent box, he is supplied with a book-rest which will turn in every possible way, with a patent leaf-turner and leaf-holder, and a variety of other little conveniences. He only lacks an electric communication between the fire-escape outside and the patent night-bolt on his door, to prevent him being burnt in his bed, to make the thing complete.