The conflict between a middle/upper class link between fresh air and health
and the lower orders' belief that night air will kill you seems eternal. In
Elizabeth von Arnim's books (the German ones) there is a lot about the
stupid peasants sealing themselves into their houses and sewing their
children into their clothes while Elizabeth believes the children would be
healthier if they got some fresh air. There's an incident in (I think) The
Master of Maryknoll where the Buckinghams are forced to spend the night in
a cottage and joke that the windows have probably never been opened. The
first example would be late nineteenth century, the second 1950s.
Natasha wrote
Or, more likely, one wandering around the house opening windows, and the
other quietly closing them.
--
Barbara Dryden
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