the discomfort of
all.

Physical comfort is necessary in a home. Some of the best women do not
understand this. They are disgusted with the sarcasm that "The road to a
man's heart is through his dinner." That would be disgusting if it were
the whole truth. But we must all eat every day of our lives, and
appetizing food prettily served adds much to the comfort of the day.
Indeed, without it only a boor or a saint can be really comfortable.

Women who are good cooks are sometimes ill-tempered and refuse to
exercise their art. But discomfort in the matter of dinner usually comes
from a different kind of housekeeper. There are some women who think it
is a weakness to care about food. Their rule is, "Eat what is set before
you, asking no questions," a sufficiently good rule for those who are
dining, but a miserable one for the housekeeper to force upon others.
There are still other women who have a definite opinion as to diet. They
have studied food from a hygienic point of view, and they watch the
effect of every mouthful. Such a study ought to be useful, but in point
of fact it is a frequent source of discomfort. Nothing ever digests well
when our mind is concentrated on our digestion. One difficulty may be
this. The women who have turned their attention to this subject have
often done so because they were invalids. They find certain food
injurious to them and decide it is injurious to everybody. So a whole
healthy household is restricted to the invalid's bill of fare. The
housekeeper is so certain she is doing her duty, that she easily steels
her heart against the murmurs of her family, and the discomfort
continues. A thoroughly healthy woman, however, will provide all the
better for her family if she understands the effect of different
articles of diet.

To be comfortable, a house should be warm enough. Of course, I do not
mean that we need to breathe the superheated atmosphere which foreigners
criticise in most American houses. It is the mother of the family who
must correct this. She can easily do so, because she has it entirely in
her power to form the habits of her children in this particular, and it
is rarely the case that a man likes an overheated room until he has been
trained by his more sensitive wife to bear it.

But I mean that nothing physical takes from the comfort of a home so
much as chilliness. So long as we are warm enough we may relish a very
frugal dinner, but a feast is unappetizing in a cold roo