They drugged their babies, wore four layers of underwear and often went hungry. They are the Victorians, and they may as well have been ancient Greeks so different are the lives they lived from our own. 

I learned these facts from the book How to Be a Victorian and the experiences of author Ruth Goodman, who lived for a year on a Victorian farm where she dug turnips, squeezed into corsets, and brushed her teeth with soot (which she recommends as an alternative to modern toothpaste). 

More than halfway through the book now, I can say with some certainty that life was difficult for most Victorians, who worked hard and ate little. It makes me wonder about the lives of ease that so many of us live. How has comfort shaped us? How did adversity shape them? 

(Halfpenny meals for poor children, 1870, from Wikipedia)