olesome supper of doughnuts and
cheese, was pleasing in respect to furniture, but questionable in regard
to physiology. The house was not more than twenty years old, and the
chamber must therefore have been aired within that distance of time, but
not, I should have judged, more recently. Perhaps its close, oppressive
atmosphere could not have been analyzed into as many separate odors
as Coleridge distinguished in Cologne,--but I could easily identify
aromatic vinegar, damp straw, lemons, and dyed silk gowns. And, as each
of the windows was carefully nailed down, there were no obvious means of
obtaining fresh air, save that ventilator said to be used by an eminent
lady in railway-cars,--the human elbow. The lower bed was of straw, the
upper of feathers, whose extreme heat kept me awake for a portion of the
night, and whose abundant fluffy exhalations suggested incipient asthma
during another portion. On rising from these rather unrefreshing
slumbers, I performed my morning ablutions with the aid of some
three teacupsful of dusty water,--for the pitcher probably held that
quantity,--availing myself, also, of something which hung over an
elegant towel-horse, and which, though I at first took it for a child's
handkerchief, proved on inspection to be "Chamber Towel, No. 1."

I remember, as I entered the breakfast-room, a vague steam as of frying
sausages, which, creeping in from the neighboring kitchen, obscured
in some degree the six white faces of your wife and children. The
breakfast-table was amply covered, for you were always what is termed
by judicious housewives "a good provider." I remember how the beefsteak
(for the sausages were especially destined for your two youngest
Dolorosi, who were just recovering from the measles, and needed
something light and palatable) vanished in large rectangular masses
within your throat, drawn downward in a maelstrom of coffee;--only
that the original whirlpool is, I believe, now proved to have been
imaginary;--"that cup was a fiction, but this is reality." The
resources of the house also afforded certain very hot biscuits or
breadcakes, in a high state of saleratus;--indeed, it must have been
from association with these, that certain yellow streaks in Mr. Ruskin's
drawing of the rock, at the Athenaeum, awakened in me such an immediate
sense of indigestion;--also fried potatoes, baked beans, mince-pie, and
pickles. The children partook of these dainties largely, but without
undue was