Chapter 4 The Light Nuisance.

Tieck tells us, in his "History of the Schildbürger," that the town council of that spirited community was very wise. It had been noticed that many worthy aldermen and common-councilors were in the habit of looking out of window when they ought to be attending to their duties. A vote was therefore, on one occasion, passed by a large majority, to this effect, namely-Whereas the windows of the Town-hall are a great impediment to the dispatch of public business, it is ordered that before the next day of meeting they be all bricked up.

When the next day of meeting came, the worthy representatives of Schildbürg were surprised to find themselves assembling in the dark. Presently, accepting the unlooked-for fact, they settled down into an edifying discussion of the question, whether darkness was not more convenient for their purposes than daylight. Had you and I been there, my friend, our votes in the division would have been, like the vote in our own House of Commons a few days ago, for keeping out the Light Nuisance as much as possible. Darkness is better than daylight, certainly.

Now this admits of proof. For, let me ask, where do you find the best part of a lettuce?-not in the outside leaves. Which are the choice parts of celery?-of course, the white shoots in the middle. Why, sir? Because light has never come to them. They become white and luxurious by tying up, by earthing up, by any contrivance which has kept the sun at bay. It is the same with man: while we obstruct the light by putting brick and board where glass suggests itself, and mock the light by picturing impracticable windows on our outside walls-so that our houses stare about like blind men with glass eyes-while this is done, we sit at home and blanch, we become in our dim apartments pale and delicate, we grow to look refined, as gentlemen and ladies ought to look. Let the sanitary doctor, at whose head we have thrown lettuces, go to the botanist and ask him, How, is this? Let him come back and tell us, Oh, gentlemen, in these vegetables the natural juices are not formed when you exclude the light. The natural juices in the lettuce or in celery are flavored much more strongly than our tastes would relish, and therefore we induce in these plants an imperfect development, in order to make them eatable. Very well. The natural juices in a man are stronger than good taste can tolerate. Man requires horticulture to be fit to come to table. To rear the finer sorts of human kind, one great operation necessary is to banish light as much as possible.

Ladies know that. To keep their faces pale, they pull the blinds down in their drawing-rooms, they put a vail between their countenances and the sun when they go out, and carry, like good soldiers, a great shield on high, by name a Parasol, to ward his darts off. They know better than to let the old god kiss them into color, as he does the peaches. They choose to remain green fruit: and we all know that to be a delicacy.

Yet there are men among us daring to propose that there shall no longer be protection against light; men who would tax a house by its capaciousness, and let the sun shine into it unhindered. The so-called sanitary people really seem to look upon their fellow-creatures as so many cucumbers. But we have not yet fallen so far back in our development. Disease is a privilege. Those only who know the tender touch of a wife's hand, the quiet kiss, the soothing whisper, can appreciate its worth. All who are not dead to the tenderest emotions will lament [pg 606] the day when light is turned on without limit in our houses. We have no wish to be blazed upon. Frequently pestilence itself avoids the sunny side of any street, and prefers walking in the shade. Nay, even in one building, as in the case of a great barrack at St. Petersburg, there will be three calls made by disease upon the shady side of the establishment for every one visit that it pays to the side brightened by the sun; and this is known to happen uniformly, for a series of years. Let us be warned, then. There must be no increase of windows in our houses; let us curtain those we have, and keep our blinds well down. Let morning sun or afternoon sun fire no volleys in upon us. Faded curtains, faded carpets, all ye blinds forbid! But faded faces are desirable. It is a cheering spectacle on summer afternoons to see the bright rays beating on a row of windows, all the way down a street, and failing to find entrance any where. Who wants more windows? Is it not obvious that, when daylight really comes, every window we possess is counted one too many? If we could send up a large balloon into the sky, with Mr. Braidwood and a fire-engine, to get the flames of the sun under, just a little bit, that would be something rational. More light, indeed! More water next, no doubt! As if it were not perfectly notorious that in the articles of light, water, and air, Nature outran the constable. We have to keep out light with blinds and vails, and various machinery, as we would keep out cockroaches with wafers; we keep out air with pads and curtains; and still there are impertinent reformers clamoring to increase our difficulty, by giving us more windows to protect against the inroads of those household nuisances.

I call upon consistent Englishmen to make a stand against these innovators. There is need of all our vigor. In 1848, the repeal of the window-tax was scouted from the Commons by a sensible majority of ninety-four. In 1850, the good cause has triumphed only by a precarious majority of three. The exertions of right-thinking men will not be wanting, when the value and importance of a little energetic labor is once clearly perceived.

What is it that the sanitary agitators want? To tan and freckle all their countrywomen, and to make Britons apple-faced? The Persian hero, Rustum, when a baby, exhausted seven nurses, and was weaned upon seven sheep a day, when he was of age for spoon-meat. Are English babies to be Rustums? When Rustum's mother, Roubadah, from a high tower first saw and admired her future husband Zal, she let her ringlets fall, and they were long, and reached unto the ground; and Zal climbed up by them, and knelt down at her feet, and asked to marry her. Are British ladies to be strengthened into Roubadahs, with hair like a ship's cable, up which husbands may clamber? In the present state of the mania for public health, it is quite time that every patriotic man should put these questions seriously to his conscience.

One topic more. Let it clearly be understood, that against artificial light we can make no objection. Between sun and candle there are more contrasts than the mere difference in brilliancy. The light which comes down from the sky not only eats no air out of our mouths, but it comes charged with mysterious and subtle principles which have a purifying, vivifying power. It is a powerful ally of health, and we make war against it. But artificial light contains no sanitary marvels. When the gas streams through half a dozen jets into your room, and burns there and gives light; when candles become shorter and shorter, until they are "burnt out" and seen no more; you know what happens. Nothing in Nature ceases to exist. Your camphine has left the lamp, but it has not vanished out of being. Nor has it been converted into light. Light is a visible action; and candles are no more converted into light when they are burning, than breath is converted into speech when you are talking. The breath, having produced speech, mixes with the atmosphere; gas, camphine, candles, having produced light, do the same. If you saw fifty wax-lights shrink to their sockets last week in an unventilated ball-room, yet, though invisible, they had not left you; for their elements were in the room, and you were breathing them. Their light had been a sign that they were combining chemically with the air; in so combining they were changed, but they became a poison. Every artificial light is, of necessity, a little workshop for the conversion of gas, oil, spirit, or candle into respirable poison. Let no sanitary tongue persuade you that the more we have of such a process, the more need we have of ventilation. Ventilation is a catchword for the use of agitators, in which it does not become any person of refinement to exhibit interest.

The following hint will be received thankfully by gentlemen who would be glad to merit spectacles. To make your eyes weak, use a fluctuating light; nothing can be better adapted for your purpose than what are called "mould" candles. The joke of them consists in this, they begin with giving you sufficient light; but, as the wick grows, the radiance lessens, and your eye gradually accommodates itself to the decrease: suddenly they are snuffed, and your eye leaps back to its original adjustment, there begins another slide, and then leaps back again. Much practice of this kind serves very well as a familiar introduction to the use of glasses.