Fresh air

“ I’m in the woods all day, and never comes home till supper—’cept, of course, in breeding-time, to fetch the meal and stuff for the birds—so I gets the fresh air, you see; and the fresh air is the life, sir. ”

“ The minute you are outside the door, the fresh morning air strikes your face, and you draw four or five big breaths, as if you would like to fill yourself as full as you could hold. If you have had a good night’s sleep and a good breakfast, the very feel of the outdoor air will make you want to run and jump and shout and throw your arms about. ”

“ The sky itself, falling out of its glorious full blue, into wonderful grays and olive tints deepening and deepening, yet everywhere breaking into streaks of light to the very edge of the horizon, gave a wonderful charm to everything below; and upon our faces came the fresh air, which was not wind, without violence, yet full of exhilaration, so fresh, so pure, so limitless—a world of sweet existence in itself. ”

“ Thus we see how important it is that we should provide ourselves with pure air; and that, in seeking warmth and comfort in our houses, we should provide an adequate supply of fresh atmosphere—because it is more vital to life than either water or food. ”

“ A wholesome taste for cleanliness and fresh air,” says Ruskin, “is one of the final attainments of humanity. There are not many European gentlemen, even in the highest classes: who have a pure and right love of fresh air. ”

“ If he has not wandered over arid plains, if his feet have not been scorched by the burning sands of the desert, if he has not breathed the hot and oppressive air reflected from the glowing rocks, how shall he delight in the fresh air of a fine morning. ”

“ The prejudice against fresh air, especially night air, is a difficult one to overcome. One mother, who kept her children scrupulously clean, could never understand the value of fresh air until a visitor explained to her how air was polluted by the soiled air that we {98} breathed out, just as water was polluted when we washed our hands in it. ”

“ But to the dwellers in pleasant country places, where the hills and dales are Nature's own—where the wide heaven is unsmirched by smoke, and the air is pure and bright, and fragrant with the springing Flowers and the fresh earth ”

“ That the house shall be so placed as to be as much as possible exposed to the fresh air and sunlight; because fresh air and sunlight are essential to the health, and growth, and life of the occupants. ”

“ We, therefore, open the window and door in order to create a current of fresh air, and so allow the oxygen to be renewed. In this we but imitate nature, which sends a wind to purify the close atmosphere on warm summer days. ”

“ And for this to be possible, the air, the earth, and the water that they grow up in and have around them must be clean. Fresh air, not bad air; clean earth, not foul earth; pure water, not dirty water; and the first teachings and impressions that they have at home must all be pure, and gentle, and firm. ”

“ God would be greatly glorified if housekeepers and church sextons were given a practical course in the use of fresh air, God's air. With that should be simple food, and simple dress, and abundant sleep, and simple standards of life. ”

“ In the foregoing we have shown the great advantages of abundant fresh air. We have referred to the fresh appearance of country people, especially of those who live on mountains, as also to the improved condition of tuberculous persons after having been exposed to as much fresh air as possible. ”

“ The perfect house is one in which there is a constant escape of every foul and vitiated particle of air through 195 one opening, while a constant supply of fresh outdoor air is admitted by another. In winter, this outdoor air must pass through some process by which it is brought up to a temperate warmth. ”

“ Rarely did the dull gray of the sky dim the glory of a whole day, and the short summer showers, freshening the beauty of the landscape and abating the fervid heat of mid-summer, seemed only too infrequent. And above all, the pure, free, upland air, that gives vigor and health to the body, joy and lightness to the heart, almost annihilates distance to the eye; and in breathing which, one drinks into the lungs the very wine of life. ”

“ Every intoxicating delight of early spring was in the air. The breeze that fanned her cheek was laden with subtle perfume of pollen and the crisp fresh odour of unfolding leaves. ”

“ Flowers thus restored have been put in a cold library, where the water, once hot, has frozen stiff, and yet have borne these two extremes of temperature without loss of beauty—in fact, have lasted presentably from Monday morning to Saturday night. What flowers cannot stand is the air we all live in—at what cost to our freshness we find out in the spring—the overheated furnace and gas-laden air of the modern dining-room. ”

“ The spotless day, if one might so call it, when the sky and the turf and the whole world looked as though washed clean, and nature, seen in the warm sunlight, seemed to palpitate and flutter in the wind that gently stirred ends of ribbon or tips of plumes, and set the fragrance of the country air astir. ”

“ This morning sky, after the night's tempest, is a pure and dazzling blue. The air—the delicious air!—is full of sweet resinous odors, shed from the countless pine-boughs broken and strewn by the gale. ”

“ Our green summer beauty is all draggled, and our faces are grown wan and wan; and the buds, the children whom we nourished, thrust us off, ungrateful, from our seats. Waft us down, you soft air-mothers, upon your wings to the quiet earth, that we may go to our home, as all things go, and become air and sunlight once again. ”

“ Nature says,—he is my creature, and maugre all his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me. Not the sun or the summer alone, but every hour and season yields its tribute of delight; for every hour and change corresponds to and authorizes a different state of the mind, from breathless noon to grimmest midnight. Nature is a setting that fits equally well a comic or a mourning piece. In good health, the air is a cordial of incredible virtue. ”

“ Now and again a puff of east wind—life-giving—would stir the whole countryside and pass on, leaving us glowing under a sun which warmed every cranny, and made the section of air just above the flat fields rock with heat. ”

“ We must seek it among the leafless woods and the brambly lanes, on the heathy moors and the great still hills, if we want to feel its joyous breath and hear its silent voices. There is a glorious freshness in the spring there. The scurrying clouds, the open bleakness, the rushing wind, and the clear bright air thrill one with vague energies and hopes. ”

“ The air is an elixir of life—as sweet and pure and refreshing as that which the first Man breathed, on the morning of Creation. You inhale the unadulterated elements of the atmosphere, for there are no exhalations from moist earth, vegetable matter, or the smokes and steams which arise from the abodes of men, to stain its purity. This air, even more than its silence and solitude, is the secret of one’s attachment to the Desert. ”

“ Last night there had been a heavy shower which had sent the temperature down, and the air smelled of a thousand flowers, whose perfume mingled with the sweet scent of new-cut grass and the freshness of moist earth. ”

“ Except in late autumn and early spring, you are living under almost cloudless skies, in an atmosphere steeped in sunshine, spicy with the healing resin of the pines and hemlocks and spruce, that not only scent the air but literally permeate it with the essences of their own life. You are living far above the vapors of sea level, in a region luminous of light. ”

“ The colours with which he paints seem yet wet and breathing, like those of the living statue in the Winter's Tale. Nature in his descriptions is seen growing around us, fresh and lusty as in itself. We feel the effect of the atmosphere, its humidity or clearness, its heat or cold, the glow of summer, the gloom of winter, the tender promise of the spring, the full overshadowing foliage, the declining pomp and deepening tints of autumn. ”

“ That the air and atmosphere of our globe is in the highest degree full of life, I may, I think, take here for granted and generally admitted. It is, however, of a mixed kind and quality, combining the refreshing and balsamic breath of spring with the parching simoons of the desert, and where the healthy odors fluctuate in chaotic struggle with the most deadly vapors. ”

“ The sun is cut off by the shadow of tall buildings and by smoke—the sun, the energizer of the world, the giver of all things which bring joy to the heart of man, the fitting object of worship of our forefathers. The ventilating and heating engineer hitherto has followed a great illusion in thinking that the main objects to be attained in our dwellings and places of business are chemical purity of the air and a uniform draughtless summer temperature. ”

“ Streams of cooling, refreshing water fall on the thirsty plants. The drooping flowers raise again their heads to blush in beauty, and their fragrance floats out on the balmy air once more. A delicious coolness surrounds the place, and we delight to be there. ”

“ The bracing coolness of the air, as yet still and calm after the chill and quiet of night, the gradually rising sun and increasing light, the unusual freshness of the flowers and green vegetation, in their sparkling bath of dew, and the quiet calls of birds,—all seemed to herald the birth of a new day, far richer in promise than any heretofore. ”

“ We find ourselves in the presence of a freshness, a primeval vigour which produces actually the effect of seeing new scenes, of facing a fresh climate. Her love of the soil, of flowers, and the sky, for whatever was young and unspoilt, seems to animate every page—even in her passages of rhetorical sentiment we never suspect the burning pastille, the gauzy tea-gown, or the depressed pink light. ”

“ When formed into clouds in the atmosphere it is borne back on the wings of the wind, condensed by the cold air and falls in copious showers of rain upon the earth, to purify the atmosphere, moisten and fertilize the fields and cause vegetation to spring forth in its beauty. ”

“ The cloud of vapor that covers the country at dusk was slowly rising and there was a poetry in the air, induced by the peculiar and enchanting freshness of the atmosphere that one feels in the woods at nightfall. ”

“ Toward evening the lower regions of the atmosphere are always more or less charged with vapours, the air no longer retains its morning transparency, and the setting of the sun is attended by a fiery tint which greatly mars the tranquil beauty of the spectacle. ”

“ The air was brisk and stimulating, with just enough warmth imparted by the sun to prevent its being cold, and a soft autumnal haze hung over the landscape and clothed it in mellow beauty. It was the kind of day when Nature is at her best and when it is good just to be alive. ”

“ When everything in nature has been refreshed, he should try to breathe in a little of the refreshment himself. The air is so pure, and everything in the fields and woods so beautiful that it is positively invigorating to share in the joy by which we are surrounded at such times. ”

“ When the rain sees the brown-burnt grass starting up into bright greenness, how thankful it must feel for its ability to refresh! I think even the wind is glad it can shake things up and scatter nasty germs and clean the air that people breathe! ”

“ The air works for him. The atmosphere, a sharp solvent, drinks the essence and spirit of every solid on the globe,—a menstruum which melts the mountains into it. Air is matter subdued [130] by heat. As the sea is the grand receptacle of all rivers, so the air is the receptacle from which all things spring, and into which they all return. ”

“ The air tastes cold, but the sun is warm. The great spring humming and promise is in the air. And a few thousand feet higher you wallow over the surface of drifts while a winter wind searches your bones. ”

“ It may well be supposed that, in this climate, the principal desideratum which art is called upon to furnish for the promotion of health, is warmth, as well in the external air as in the inhabited apartments. Exposure to a cold atmosphere, when the body is well clothed, produces no bad effect whatever beyond a frost-bitten cheek, nose, or finger. ”

“ We fly to hot countries, where the children of earth are sinking under sultry pestilential breezes our fresh cooling breath revives them. We diffuse ourselves through the atmosphere; we perfume it with the delicious fragrance of flowers ”

“ Warmer and sweeter grew the air; I could see the wall of rock on my right; and then I suddenly encountered a volume of air blown toward me, as if the sweetest perfumes of the earth were mingled in that breath of air. ”

“ The crisp air of summer early morning, so fragrant, so invigorating, eddied across the plains, wafting new life to the lungs, and increased vigor to jaded muscles. The sun was lifting above the horizon, bringing with it that expansion to the mind which only those whose lives are passed in the open, and whose waking hours are such as Nature intended, may know. ”

“ In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against Nature not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with Heaven and earth. ”