Supplying the taps is perfectly easy when only cold water is required,
and children and delicate persons may be indulged with jugs of warm
water, which, however, every boy using should fetch for himself. We
should thus be able to dispense with ewers and toilet-cans, which would
at once pay for the fitting of the pipe and tap to each room.
It is better and nicer to use filtered water for the toilet-decanter,
and not water drawn directly from the cistern, unless it has been
tested and found pure. In such a case, which is rare, no decanter will
be needed, unless we like to have a Venetian glass one for the sake of
its beauty.
Let all persons, in dressing, replace the things they have used, and
spread their towels on the horse to dry; then the rooms will be set in
order for the day, only needing the daily dusting, which will be done
after the beds are made. Boys and girls who go to school should make
their beds before they go, so they must open them to air immediately
they get up.
"These seem little things: and so they are unless you neglect them"
(_Sir A. Helps_).
Everybody should have his or her own wardrobe, and keep it in order.
Men and boys and little children will have everything neatly made and
mended for them, and laid in its proper place; so all they have to do
is to leave the drawers as tidy as they found them, taking heed not to
lose their gloves and neckties; the larger things take care of
themselves. The secret of keeping one's clothes tidy is not to have too
many.
Of course, where there are no servants to provide for, the house has
fewer rooms than a family of the same size requires in our present
experience, and the uglier part of the house is abolished, or where not
abolished, is converted from servants' bed-rooms and attics--unpleasant,
dusty, and ill furnished; redolent of tallow candle, shoes, brushes,
and stale perfumery; with closed windows and the floor strewn with old
letters, hair-pins, half-empty matchboxes, and dogs-eared penny
novels--into a bower-like study or morning-room, where a young lady may
entertain herself and her own especial visitors. I have even known an
attic in Baker Street so converted by the invention and taste of a
young lady, as to live in one's recollection as as pretty a summer room
as any country rectory could boast, by being papered with bright
flowery paper all over its sloping roof, and its window made cheerful
with climbing plants and flowers; tasteful draperies, a work-table and
work-basket in embroidered green satin, book-shelves carved by friends,
a piano just good enough for practising upon, and water-colour drawings
on the walls.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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