The last counsel you gave me was to open the eyes of my house for the daylight to shine through without let or hindrance.  I’m beyond advice on that subject.  Carpets and curtains shall fade rather than wife and babies.  My windows yawn like barn-doors.  There isn’t a room in the house that won’t have the sun a part of the day, and he looks into the sitting-room from the moment his cloudy bedclothes are thrown off in the morning, till he hides his face behind Mount Tom at night.  My glass bill will count up, but I’d rather pay for glass in windows than for iron in the shape of tonics.

Now, if you will settle the question of warming and ventilating you shall be honorably discharged.  Don’t try to show off your science by telling me how carbon, the wicked, poison stuff, is heavy, and we must leave a hole near the floor where it can run out and be coaxed up to the ridgepole after it gets cold, and then make pictures covered with arrow-heads to show how well-educated air ought to go!  Talk as many gases as you please to other folks.  I know two or three things for certain.  Coal costs ten dollars a ton; that’s one.  I want just as large a house in winter as in summer; that’s another.  I mean the whole house must be comfortable, in shape to use when needed.  I know a man will be cut off suddenly by his own breath if he has nothing else for his lungs.  Mixing fresh air with it will prolong his career more or less, but it’s only a question of time when he shall give up the ghost if he attempts to subsist on anything less simple and pure in the way of respiration than the out-door atmosphere.  That’s bad enough in some places.  What I don’t know and want you to tell me, is how to keep cool in summer, warm in winter, and at the same time have all the fresh air we can possibly consume.  I know how to keep warm:  build a tight room, keep it shut up, set a box stove in the middle of it, and blaze away.  A ton of anthracite or a cord of hickory will keep you warm all winter, especially if you die before spring, as you probably will.  I know how to have fresh air too:  open the windows and let it blow; but unless a man lives down in a coalmine he can’t well afford to keep warm under such circumstances.

I believe this question is the chief concern of builders here below, and whoever invents an economical solution of it will not only make a fortune, but he’ll deserve one.  Why don’t you go for it?

Yours,
JOHN

LETTER XXXVIII.

From the Architect.

WHEN THE DOCTORS DIFFER.