LETTER XXXVI.
Reading edition
From the Architect.
THE LESSON OF THE ICE-HOUSE.
MRS. JOHN: Dear Madam,—Without doubt the affair is getting serious, but do not give yourself any uneasiness as to the issue. The Divinity that shapes our matrimonial ends is, happily, a wiser power than that which designs our houses, however it may appear to outsiders. Your friend talks like a gentleman and a scholar. I admonished him discreetly, promised to study his interesting problem and give him a chapter on ventilation; which, by the way, is so intimately connected with warming, that I may be obliged to make a
Tell him also to protect his family as carefully as he protects his ice, and the house-warming will be a simple matter. The conditions are identical, only turned inside out. In one case the heat is to be kept from penetrating, in the other from escaping, and both require the same
These suggestions are "just to set him a thinking."