The Sun.
London, England, 1852-03-15 00:00:00

COMFORT versus MUDDLE. •
(From Eliza Cook's Journal.)
We English folks love Comfort dearly. The word
Comfort is said to be peculiarly English; and untrans-
latable, in its full meaning, into any foreign language.
It might almost be said of many families—they worship
Comfort. That it is their Household god, is not saying
too much.
Comfort is closely identified with the idea of Home.
At least, we English never dissociate the one notion
from the other. Abroad, the people can contrive to live
out of doors. They Snd pleasure in public gardens or
casinos, listening to music and sipping coffee. In
warmer climes they sun themselves in the streets. Half
their life is in public. The genial air woos them forth,
and keeps them out of doors. They enter their houses
merely to eat and sleep. They scarcely can be said to
live there.
How different it is with us! The raw air without,
during so many months in the year, drives us within
doors. Hence we cultivate all manner of home plea-
sdres. Hence the hest of delightful associations which
rise up in the mind at the very mention of the word.
Hence our household god—Comfort.
We are not satisfied merely with a home. It must be
comfortable. The most wretched are indeed thissee 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 aro no homes.". And why not? &vault) they are
without comfort. It is Comfort, then, that is the very
soul of the home—its essential principle—its vital
element.

Comfort does not mean merely warmth, good furni-
ture, and good eating and drinking. It means some-
thing far more than this. It includes cleanliness, pure
air, order, frugality—in a word, housethrift and domestic
government. Comfort is the soil in which the human
being grows—not only physically, but morally also. It
lies, indeed, at the root of m'any virtues.
Do not think that wealth is 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. Of
course, there must be a sufficiency of the temporal
means to supply these necessaries, without leaving any
aching void" to be filled up. But oar conviction is, that
comfortlessness is caused, in the great majority of cases,
not so much by the absence of the sufficient means, as
by the want of the requisite knowledge of housethrift
and domestic management. And this is a matter which
women should look to.
Comfort, it must be admitted, is in a great measure a
relative term. What is comfort to one man would be
deemed wretchedness by another accustomed to nicer
habits of living. Even the commonest mechanic of this
day would consider it misery to have to live after the
style of nobles a fow centuries back; to sleep on straw beds,
and lire in rooms littered with rashes; without glazed win-
dows to their apartments, and these lit up in the even-
ings by a pine torch, the wind careering through the
dreary chamber. In respect of the elements of sub-
stantial comfort, there can be no question that the Eng-
lish people have made extraordinary progress during
the last few centuries.
See the working man's cottage now—what it is, or
what it ought to he. All tight and snug, dry and clean;
the floor swept and sanded; a bright fire blazing in the
chimney; a clean, warm bed to lie in; books on the shelf,
and flowers in the window; a home of contentment,
taste, and comfort. That is what every house, even the
poorest man's, ought to be.
Bat that is not all. Where there is comfort there is
contentment and absence of fidget. Comfort depends as
much on persons as on " things." And it is out of the
character and temper of those who govern households,
that the feeling of comfort arises, much more than out
of handsome furniture, warm rooms, or any sort of
home luxuries and conveniences.
Comfortable people are kindly-tempered. That may
be set down as an invariable condition of comfort.
There must be peace, mutual forbearance, mutual help,
and a disposition to make the best of everything.
" Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a
stalled ox and hatred therewith."
Comfortable people are persons of sound common
sense, discretion, prudence, and economy. They have a
natural affinity, for honesty and justice, goodness, and
truth. They do not run into debt, for that is a species
of dishonesty. They live within their means, and lay
by something for a rainy day They provide for the
things of their own household, yet they are not wanting
either in a proper hospitality and benevolence on fitting
occasions. And what they do in the latter direction is
done without ostentation or loud talking.
Comfortable people do everything in order. They
are systematic, steady, sober, industrious. You will'
never find them in a bustle of tidying-up. As they do
everything at the right time, so nothing is done in a
hurry, or " slobbered over." Take, for instance, the
Quakers---as a class the most comfortable in England;
really an embodiment of the highest ideas of domestic
comfort. Some think they are even too comfortable;
and that their prim ways do not at all accord with the
notions of old George Fox, and his " hull of leather."
But we live in other times, and have different notions;
and Quakers must " progress" like other people.
Comfortable people dress comfortable. They adapt
themselves to the season, neither shivering in winter,
nor perspiring in summer, in their efforts to toil after a
" fashionable appearance." You will find they expend
more on warm stockings than on gold rings; and
prefer healthy, good bedding to gaudy window-curtains.
They do not so much care about dressing " youthful," as
to dress comfortably. Their chairs are solid, not gim-
crack. They will bear sitting upon, though they may
not .be ornamental. They do not sport " bright
pokers." Their pokers are meant for use, to stir up the
fire; and you may see how bright the blaze is. Every-
thing they have is convenient, snug, comfortable, and
you have pleasure in feeling yourself in the midst of
them.
But look for a moment on the other side of the pic-
ture. What is the state of the muddlers—the discom-
fortable? You know of such—everybody knows more
or less of them.
Have you never entered "a
house in a muddle? Where
the smell of washing is constant? Where the sitting-
room is in a heap of litter with " things" mending,
getting-up, or taking to pieces? Where dirty children
are running about, falling and equalling alternately, at
all 'hours of the day? Where there is petting and den&
ling one moment, and scolding and beating the next?
Where nothing is clean, nothing mended, nothing ready,
nothing done? And in the midst of all, there is the un-
tidy, worn-out, distressed housewife herself, bitter
against servants, wroth against children, astonished at
husband's complaints, not pleased at untimely visitors
(who, by the way, are always untimely at such houses),
and in a constant pucker from morn till night, because
things don't go right, because things won't go right.
And the oddest thing of all in such houses is, that the
more work the more dirt, the bigger the washings the
greater the stock of dirty clothes, the more strainings at
comfort the less comfort there is.
A curious feature of the House of Muddle is, that
there inanimate, and elsewhere motionless, objects, be-
come endowed with the most wonderful powers of loco-
motion •, and an agency, or power, or person, called
" Nobody," whose very existence is denied in better-
regulated houses, seems to become invested with almost
supernatural powers of evil. A chair-leg has " got
broken," or a dish has " fallen down" and been smashed,
or the table has "got scratched," or a dress has "got
torn." It is always "Nobody" that did it; or, if not,
then the " things" have fallen, or broken, or torn, or
scratched themselves,—altogether of their own accord,
and out of sheer.spite and mischief.
A clever writer on this subject has recently produced
a book entitled " Homo Truths for Home Peace," which
ought to bo read and pondered by every housewife. It
is full of golden truths, set off by a rich and pregnant
humour. Here is her description of the peculiar cha-
racteristics of the households of Muddle,:which we have
above noted:—Cups, so long as there have been cups,
have slipped out of the maid's hands • and this, not when
she has let them go, but whilst holding them as tight as
ever she could. Glasses, &c., are constantly falling off
the edges of dressers and
of tables, although declared
by competent judges to have been far removed from such
a dangerous position, so that they have evidently moved
back again for the purpose of dashing themselves into
a thousand shivers. Other articles of fragile materials,
but less daring resolution, vary the monotony of their
existence, and assert their right to tender consideration,
by getting' such chips, cracks, and contusions, as no
rational person could ever venture to inflict. Nor are
the harder and less sensitive portions of our horisehold
furniture innocent of similar offences; the kieks,
as fixtures, are secure from injury by falling, will never-
theless 'get hampered,' stools come unlegged,' nails work
themselves out,' paint, varnish, &c., r rub off',' best-
made chairs will dislocate their arms, the strongest
tables break or distort their legs; whilst other objects,
too cowardly for self-inflictions, but equally perverse in
spirit, will choose the very moment when their presence
would be most desirable td 'get lost ;' that is to say,, to
hide in some out-of-the-way corner, to which no living
soul has ever had access, and in which consequently no
member of the family would ever think of looking.
always
kept the same spirit, useless, lumbering articles,
kept at the very top of the house, will get
down anyto seek
number of stairs, or flights of stairs, in order
th_ e
life
out low company in the kitchen, or to endanger
or limb of every inmate of the dwelling, by placing
in
themselves, with unblushing effronteryat passage.
of one's
Keys will shake off their rings, and get out
very pockets to crawl beneath the hearthrug or leap into
the dust-bin. Pitchers, notoriously dry whenever you
had approached them to obtain ot!lyre get filled 'too
of water,'
will find out the nearest pump, and ;
opportunityliruudeCruets,
of watering the
full'—rather than lose an
ess salads were to
bed-room floors, as if mustard
salt-cellars, and
spring np from the carpets..f
who is continually decanters mock the housewiyeeriegiy
discharging their
re-
plenishing them,' y
13-
as
Persether garments, put away on
contents; while shirts and ?
single stitch or fastening want-
Saturday night without atedto be fit for wear on Sunday
ing,' and naturally expect
up
again in the dead silence of
morning, will actually get
the night, and proceed to distant drawers and ward-
robes, that they may enjoy, the the malignant
satisfaction of
puffin;
off 'each others' strings and buttons! Thatsuch.
are the common con which
contrivances and perversities of
most things are found guilty,
under a domestic anarchy,
is asserted by all the miscalled heads of these comfort-
less establishments!"
Visit the House of Muddle, and you find its character
written outside—on the door-step, on the door-handle,
on the windows—through which you may even discern
something of the muddle that reigns within. Knock
• or knock and ring—it is some or ring, une before your
call is answered, ern and then, not until after sundry shuf-
flings and whispgs—now near, now remote—the
noise of rushing up and then down stairs—the hasty
opening and shutting of drawers, wherein things to be
"put by are suddenly shoved; until at last, perhaps, a
maid fresh from " the wash," or from the work of grate-
down, with the brush in her hand, or the draggled"