Page:A hundred years hence - the expectations of an optimist (IA hundredyearshenc00russrich).pdf/317

 comfort); and lighting arrangements will naturally be free from their present inadequacy.

Except that no one has yet troubled to think about it, there is surely no reason why bathing should be such a tedious operation as it is. Probably the speediest dresser of our own day does not consume less than a quarter of an hour over his morning tub and the operation of drying himself. A hundred years hence, people will be so avid of every moment of life, life will be so full of busy delight, that time-saving inventions will be at a huge premium, It is not because we shall be hurried in nerve-shattering anxiety, as it is often complained that we now are, but because we shall value at its true worth the refining and restful influence of leisure, that we shall be impatient of the minor tasks of every day. The bath of the next century will lave the body speedily with oxygenated water delivered with a force that will render rubbing unnecessary, and beside it will stand the drying cupboard, lined with some quickly-moving arrangement of soft brushes, and fed with highly desiccated air, from which, almost in a moment, the bather will emerge, dried, and with a skin gently stimulated, and perhaps electrified, to clothe himself quickly and pass down the lift to his breakfast, which he will eat to the accompaniment of a summary of the morning's news read