title: Home Comfort
author: Hardyment
description: Primarily based on an examination of the great rural mansions owned by the National Trust in Britain, this book explains how the inhabitants of the vast edifices the English call "country houses" met their physical needs in past centuries. The text reveals little about the domestic arrangements of ordinary people other than those who happened to be servants in very wealthy rural households. What the butler did, what the linen closet contained, why a dovecote was needed and how it was designed, how baths were taken and sewage removed, how houses were lighted in different periods, how clotted cream was made--all these details will fascinate a large number of Masterpiece Theatre fans. Hardyment ( Mangle to Microwave , Blackwell, 1988) offers some fairly interesting sociological observations as well. Many public libraries will find the book useful, but most academic libraries can safely skip it.<BR><I>- Robert W. Frizzell, Hendrix Coll. Lib., Conway, Ark.</I><BR>Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  Returning Home  
    
  
  
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  # Returning Home
  
  
  ### Anthony Trollope
  
  
  
  
  
  This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com  
    
  
      
  
  This etext was produced by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk,
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  It is generally supposed that people who live at home,—good
  
  
  domestic people, who love tea and their arm-chairs, and who keep the
  
  
  parlour hearth-rug ever warm,—it is generally supposed that these
  
  
  are the people who value home the most, and best appreciate all the
  
  
  comforts of that cherished institution. I am inclined to doubt
  
  
  this. It is, I think, to those who live farthest away from home, to
  
  
  those who find the greatest difficulty in visiting home, that the
  
  
  word conveys the sweetest idea. In some distant parts of the world
  
  
  it may be that an Englishman acknowledges his permanent resting
  
  
  place; but there are many othe