The River Falls journal. (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1857-1861, 1858-02-03
aflisttllanfous.
FERE.WORsHH
BY Y. HAWTHORNE.

1t is great revolution in social and
domestic life-and no less so in the life
Of the secluded student-this almost uni.
versal exchange of the open fireplace for
| the cherries and ungenial stove On
such morning as now lowers around our
old parsonage, I miss the bright faces
of my ancient friend, who was wont to
dance upon the heart. and play the part
/ of more familiar sunshine. 1t is hard
to turn from the sombre lanscape and
cloudy sky-from yondcr hill, with its
cloud of rusty, black pines, the foliage of
which is SO dismal in the absence of the
sun: that bleak pasture land, and the bro
ken surface of the potato field, with the
brown clods partly concealed by the snow
fall of last night; the swollen and slug
| gish river, with ice-cncrusted border,
dragging its blush grey stream along the
verge of our orchard, like a snake half
torpid with cold-it is sad to turn from
an outward scene of so little comfort, and
find the same sullen influences brooding
within nay study. Where is that brilliant
guest-tllat quick and subtle spirit whom
Promcthcus Iured from Heaven to civil
lie mankind, and cheer them in their
wintry dcsolation-that comfortable in
mate, whose smile during eight months
of the year was our sufficient consolation
for summers lingering advance AMI eacly
flight? Alas. blindly inhospitabIo grad
cling the food that kept him cherry and
mercurial, We have thrust him into an
iron prison, and compel him to shoulder
away his life on a daily pittance which
once would have been to scanty fer his
breakfast. Without metaphor, we now
build our fire in an a;r-tight stove, and
supply it with some half dozen sticks
of wood between morning and night
fall.
never shall be roconciled to this enor-
nifty, Truly may it be said that the
world looks darker for it. In one way
or another here and there, and all around
lis, the inventions of mankind are fast
blotting the picturesque, the poetic and
the beautiful, out of h IMAM life. The
domestic fire was a type of all these at
tributes, and seemed to bring might and
majesty, and wild Nature, and spiritual
essence, into our inmost home, and yet
to dwell with us in such frieRdIiness, that
its mysteries and marvels excited no DIS
may. The same mild companion, that
smiled 50 placidly in our faces, WAS he
that comes roaring out of Etna, an rush
es madly up the sky, Ike a fen break
ing loose from torment, and fighting for
place among the upper angels. He it
is, too that leaps from cloud to cloud amid
the crashing thunderstorm. 1t was he
whom the Gheber worshipped, with no
unnatural idolary; and it was he who
deyoured London and Moscow, and many
| anot err famous city, and he who loves to
riot through our own dark forests, and
sweep across our prairies, and to whose
raycnotls NAV, it is said the universe
shall one day be given as q final feast.
Meanwhile he is the great artisan and Ia
borcr by whose aid men are enabled to
build a world within world, or, at least,
to smoothe down the rough creation
which Nature, flung to us. He forges
the mighty anchor, and every lesser in
strument. He drives the steamboat and
drags the rai-car And it was he-this
creature of terrible might, and so many
sided utility, and allcomprohensive des-
tructiyeness-tha used to be the cheer
full, homely friend of our wintry days,
and whom we have made the prisoner of
$3.50
this iron cage.
How kindly he was, and, though the
tremendous agent Of change, yet bear
ing himself with such gentleness, SO rem
dering himself a part of all lifelong and
age -coeval associations, that it seems as if
he were the great conservative of Nature
While man was true to the freside, so
long would he be true to country and
law-to the God whom his fathers wor-
shipped-to the wife of his youth-and
to all things else which instinct or reli-
gion have taught us to consider sacred.
With what sweet humility did this el
emental spirit perform all needful Offices
for the household in which he was domes-
ticated He was equal to the connection
of a grand dinner, yet seorned not to roast
a potato, or toast bit of cheese. How
humanely did he cherish the school bows
lev fingers, and thaw the old mans Joint
with genial warmth, which almost equal