out of doors. They sun themselves
in the streets. Half their life is in public. The genial air woos them
forth, and keeps them abroad. They enter their houses merely to eat and
sleep. They can scarcely be said to _live_ there.

How different is it with us! The raw air without, during so many months
of the year, drives us within doors. Hence we cultivate all manner of
home pleasures. Hence the host of delightful associations which rise up
in the mind at the mention of the word Home. Hence our household god,
Comfort.

We are not satisfied merely with a home. It must be comfortable. The
most wretched, indeed, are those who have no homes--the homeless! But
not less wretched are those whose homes are without comfort--those of
whom Charles Lamb once said, "The homes of the very poor are no homes."
It is Comfort, then, that is the soul of the home--its essential
principle--its vital element.

Comfort does not mean merely warmth, good furniture, good eating and
drinking. It means something higher than this. It means cleanliness,
pure air, order, frugality,--in a word, house-thrift and domestic
government. Comfort is the soil in which the human being grows,--not
only physically, but morally. Comfort lies, indeed, at the root of many
virtues.

Wealth is not necessary for comfort. Luxury requires wealth, but not
comfort. A poor man's home, moderately supplied with the necessaries of
life, presided over by a cleanly, frugal housewife, may contain all the
elements of comfortable living. Comfortlessness is for the most part
caused, not so much by the absence of sufficient means, as by the
absence of the requisite knowledge of domestic management.

Comfort, it must be admitted, is in a great measure _relative_. What is
comfort to one man, would be misery to another. Even the commonest
mechanic of this day would consider it miserable to live after the style
of the nobles a few centuries ago; to sleep on straw beds, and live in
rooms littered with rushes. William the Conqueror had neither a shirt to
his back, nor a pane of glass to his windows. Queen Elizabeth was one of
the first to wear silk stockings. The Queens before her were
stockingless.

Comfort depends as much on persons as on "things." It is out of the
character and temper of those who govern homes, that the feeling of
comfort arises, much more than out of handsome furniture, heated rooms,
or household luxuries and conveniences.

Comfortable people are kindly-tempered