the things in her house
when she went into the country for the summer. 'Leave them just as they
are,' she said. 'But what about the dust and the moths, and the rust and
the tarnish?' She said, 'Why, the things would have to be all gone over
when I came back in the autumn, anyway, and why should I give myself
double trouble?' I asked her if she didn't even roll anything up and put
it away in closets, and she said: 'Oh, you mean that old American horror
of getting ready to go away. I used to go through all that at home, too,
but I shouldn't dream of it here. In the first place, there are no
closets in the house, and I couldn't put anything away if I wanted to.
And really nothing happens. I scatter some Persian powder along the
edges of things, and under the lower shelves, and in the dim corners, and
I pull down the shades. When I come back in the fall I have the powder
swept out, and the shades pulled up, and begin living again. Suppose a
little dust has got in, and the moths have nibbled a little here and
there? The whole damage would not amount to half the cost of putting
everything away and taking everything out, not to speak of the weeks of
discomfort, and the wear and tear of spirit. No, thank goodness--I left
American housekeeping in America.' I asked her: 'But if you went back?'
and she gave a sigh, and said:

"'I suppose I should go back to that, along with all the rest. Everybody
does it there.' So you see," my friend concluded, "it's in the air,
rather than the blood."

"Then your famous specific is that our eternal-womanly should go and live
in Paris?"

"Oh, dear, not" said my friend. "Nothing so drastic as all that. Merely
the extinction of household property."

"I see what you mean," I said. "But--what do you mean?"

"Simply that hired houses, such as most of us live in, shall all be
furnished houses, and that the landlord shall own every stick in them,
and every appliance down to the last spoon and ultimate towel. There
must be no compromise, by which the tenant agrees to provide his own
linen and silver; that would neutralize the effect I intend by the
expropriation of the personal proprietor, if that says what I mean. It
must be in the lease, with severe penalties against the tenant in case of
violation, that the landlord into furnish everything in perfect order
when the tenant comes in, and is to put everything in perfect order when
the tenant goes out, and the tenant is not to touch anything, to cl