own to our ancestors, through
whose rooms all the winds of heaven whistled, and who were glad enough to
shelter themselves from draughts in the sitting-room by the high screen
round the fire, and in the sleeping-room by the thick curtains of the
four-post bedstead, which is now rapidly disappearing before a higher
civilisation. We therefore absolutely require to make for ourselves the
very ventilation from which our ancestors tried to escape.

But, ladies, there is an old and true proverb, that you may bring a horse
to the water, but you cannot make him drink. And in like wise it is too
true, that you may bring people to the fresh air, but you cannot make
them breathe it. Their own folly, or the folly of their parents and
educators, prevents their lungs being duly filled and duly emptied.
Therefore, the blood is not duly oxygenated, and the whole system goes
wrong.

Paleness, weakness, consumption, scrofula, and too many other ailments,
are the consequences of ill-filled lungs. For without well-filled lungs,
robust health is impossible.

And if any one shall answer--"We do not want robust health so much as
intellectual attainment. The mortal body, being the lower organ, must
take its chance, and be even sacrificed, if need be, to the higher
organ--the immortal mind:"--To such I reply, You cannot do it. The laws
of nature, which are the express will of God, laugh such attempts to
scorn. Every organ of the body is formed out of the blood; and if the
blood be vitiated, every organ suffers in proportion to its delicacy; and
the brain, being the most delicate and highly specialised of all organs,
suffers most of all and soonest of all, as every one knows who has tried
to work his brain when his digestion was the least out of order. Nay,
the very morals will suffer. From ill-filled lungs, which signify ill-
repaired blood, arise year by year an amount not merely of disease, but
of folly, temper, laziness, intemperance, madness, and, let me tell you
fairly, crime--the sum of which will never be known till that great day
when men shall be called to account for all deeds done in the body,
whether they be good or evil.

I must refer you on this subject again to Andrew Combe's 'Physiology,'
especially chapters iv. and vii.; and also to chapter x. of Madame de
Wahl's excellent book. I will only say this shortly, that the three most
common causes of ill-filled lungs, in children and in young ladies, are
stillness, sile