The sto­ry begins with a famil­iar fairy tale where a dis­grun­tled old witch curs­es a princess’s life, turn­ing bless­ings into bur­dens. This serves as a metaphor for the state of mod­ern soci­ety, where the gifts of sci­ence and indus­try, intend­ed to improve life, have instead caused harm. The dis­cov­ery of cen­tral heat­ing, once unimag­in­able to the courtiers of Louis XIV, has trans­formed from an extrav­a­gant lux­u­ry into an essen­tial part of life. But this change begs the ques­tion: has it been ben­e­fi­cial, phys­i­cal­ly or men­tal­ly, for soci­ety?

In oth­er lands, spring brings joy and vital­i­ty, but in our over-heat­ed, arti­fi­cial­ly-con­trolled envi­ron­ments, such sea­son­al delights are lost. Peo­ple who have been liv­ing in a con­stant, sti­fling warmth find it dif­fi­cult to appre­ci­ate the nuances of a mild spring day. Even in pub­lic spaces, such as schools, chil­dren endure over­heat­ed rooms, a sit­u­a­tion jus­ti­fied by a teacher’s reluc­tance to open win­dows due to her cold. This lack of ven­ti­la­tion results in pale, unhealthy chil­dren, a con­di­tion seen across schools in the city.

The wide­spread use of heat­ing has led to a pref­er­ence for sti­fling warmth in all envi­ron­ments, includ­ing pub­lic vehi­cles. The intro­duc­tion of heat­ing meth­ods like Franklin’s stoves and steam heat, while ini­tial­ly promis­ing, has reduced the nat­ur­al ven­ti­la­tion that once kept peo­ple healthy. The con­se­quences are vis­i­ble: the rosy cheeks of chil­dren have dis­ap­peared, and social spaces lack vital­i­ty.

Despite com­plaints about sum­mer heat, there seems to be an increas­ing accep­tance of liv­ing in over­heat­ed con­di­tions. Offices and homes are sealed off, with air nev­er prop­er­ly refreshed, lead­ing to poor health among work­ers. One indi­vid­ual who spends his days near a radi­a­tor suf­fers from con­stant colds but recalls being health­i­er when exposed to freez­ing tem­per­a­tures in a farm­house. This sit­u­a­tion high­lights how our obses­sion with warmth may be dam­ag­ing our health.

Many inven­tions, like sta­tion­ary wash­stands and revolv­ing doors, are designed to exclude fresh air, fur­ther con­tribut­ing to unhealthy, stag­nant envi­ron­ments. Today, cool rooms are a lux­u­ry, and hav­ing an open fire has become a sym­bol of refine­ment and good taste. A room filled with invis­i­ble, exces­sive heat now rep­re­sents bad taste, while a warm, crack­ling fire is a hall­mark of cul­ture and hos­pi­tal­i­ty. The con­trast between these two extremes under­scores how our dis­re­gard for fresh air and nat­ur­al tem­per­a­ture has led to a seri­ous loss of bal­ance in our liv­ing envi­ron­ments.