I just passed the last fifteen minutes or so standing in the shower examining the differences between amenability, convenience, and luxury. This was my first douche in the last five days, having lost first hot then cold water through climatic conditions, a continuing deep freeze.
Hot water I can produce, warming the cold supply in a kettle or pan, and my early training in privation makes it quite possible for me to scrape and lather my face, sloosh my hands and the least amenable portions of my anatomy in less than a pint of water.
As an entertaining aside sloosh is more generally spelt with an o-u in Britain, but that particular spelling in the States has a very specific urban meaning which good taste requires remain unshared.
Continual supply of hot water I would categorize as a luxury, something that till the nineteen thirties would have been considered a sign of considerable wealth, was probably cheaper previously to employ a lacky or two to heat the water on a stove and transport the bubbling liquid to satisfy the employers toiletry needs. I would suggest that water boilers were more likely originally utilized to heat radiators, to supply comfortable rooms for persons or merit to enjoy. I recall quite clearly when solid fuel fireplaces had boilers fitted in their flues for just such a purpose.
The adjacency of cold water is most decidedly a convenience, humans being dependent on the liquid for all manner of purposes, not the least being the necessity for consumption to avoid rapid medically dangerous dehydration. Amenability would place that cold water source, faucet, fountain, within easy reach, preferably one supply per household, for convenience and to avoid risks of contamination to a vast number, or from one family unit to another.
I commiserate with those suddenly detached from their regular convenience, its adjacency, but not particularly from its luxurious presentation. I am inclined to contemplate the fate of those many African tribeswomen who daily walk along dusty tracks with bowls of fresh drawn water balanced precariously upon their heads.
Daily Abstract Thoughts 