Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-06-21

tend to establish the more firmly, that bright
auroral display is always followed by a whole
gale of wind and heavy rainfall.-ScOtch
Paper.
BIack-LOg studies.
c. d. Warner in Scribners Magazine.
The fire on the hearth has almost gone out in
New England; the hearth has gone out; the
family has lost its centre; age ceases to be re-
Spected; sex is only distinguished by the differ
ence between millinery bills and tailors' bills;
there is no more toast and cider the young are
not allowed to eat mince pies at ten O'Clock at
night; half a cheese is no longer set to roast
before the fire; you scarcely ever see in front
of the Goals a row of roasting apples, which
bright little girl, with many dive and start,
shielding her sunny face from the fire with one
hand, turns from time TO time; scarce are the
gray-haired SireS who Strop their raZOrS on the
family Bible, and doze in the chimney corner
good many things have gone out with the fire
on the hearth.
do not mean to say that public and private
morality have vanished with the hearth. A
good degree of purity and considerable happi-
ness are possible with CRATES and blowers; it is
a day of trial, when all are passing through a
fiery furnace, and very likely we shall be puri-
fed as we are dried up and wasted away. OF
course the family is gone, as an institution,
though there still are attempts to bring up fam
lily round "regisIer." But you might just as
well try to bring it up by hand as without the
rallying point of hearth-stone Are there any
homesteads nowadays? Do people hesitate TO
change houses any more than they do to change
their clothes? People hire houses as they would
Il masquerade costume, liking, sometimes, TO ap-
pear for year in little fictitious stone-lront
splendor above their means. Thus it happens
that so many people live in houses that do not
fit them. l should almost as soon think of
wearing another persons clothes as his house;
unless | could let it out and take it in until it
fitted, and somehow expressed my own charac-
ter and taste But we have fallen into the day
of conformity. 1t is no wonder that people con-
stantly 60 into their neighbOrs' houses by mis-
take, Just as, in spite of the Maine law, they
wear away each others hats from an evening
party. 1t has almost come to this, that you
might as well be anybody else as yourself.
Am ! mistaken in supposing that this is
owing TO the discontinuance of big chimneys,
ard wide fireplaceS in them? How can a per-
son be attached to a house that has no center of
attraction, no soul in it, in the visible form of
glowing fire, and warm chimney, like the |
heart in the body? When you think of the old |
homestead, if you ever do, your thoughts 90 |
straight in the wide chimney and its burning |
logs. No wonder that you are ready TO move |
from one fireplaceless house into another But |
you have something just as good, you say. |
Yes have heard of it. This age, which imi-
tates everything even to the virtues of our an
cestors, has invented fireplace and painted it,
in which gas is burned, so that it has the APP
pearance of wood fire. This seems to me
blasphemy. Do you think cat would lie
down before il? If you can't poke it, it is a
fraud. To poke wood fire is more solid en-
Joyment than almost anything else in the world
The browning human virtue in a man
is to let his wife poke the fire.
l do not know how any virtue
whatever is possible over an imitation gas log
What a sense of incincerity the family must
have, if they indulge in the hypocrisy of gath |
ering about it. With this centre of untruthful- |
ness what must the life in the family be? Per- |
haps the father will be living at the rate of ten |
thousand year on a salary of four thousand; |
perhaps the mother, more beautiful and younger
than her beautlted daughters, will rouge; per-
hapS the young ladies will make wax-work. A
cynic might suggest as the motto of modern
life this simple legend-"Just as good as real"
But am not cynic and | hope for the rekind-
ling Of wood fires, and a return of the beauti-
full home for them. If a wood fire is a luxury
it is cheaper than many we indulge without a
thought, and cheaper than the visits of a doctor,
made necessary by the want of ventilation of |
the house. Not that | have anything against
doctors; | only wish, after they have been to
see us in way that seems so friendly, they had
nothing against us.
My fireplace, which is deep, and nearly three |
feet wide, has a broad hearth-stone in front of |
II, where the live Goals tumble down, and a pair |
OF gigantic brass andirons The brasses are |
Furnished and shine cheerfully in the freight, |
and on either side stand tall shovel and tongs, |
like sentries, mounted in brass. The tongs, like |
the two-handed sword of Bruce, cannot be |
welded by puny people. We burn in it hickory |
wood, cut long We like the smell of this arc |
matte forest timber, and its clear fame. The |
birch is also sweet wood for the hearth, with a |
sort of spiritual fame and an even temper-no |
snappishneSs. Some prefer the elm, which /
holds the fire so well; and | have a neighbor |
who uses nothing but apple-tree wood-a solid |
family sort Of wood fragrant also, and full of |
delightful suggestions. But few people can |
afford m I'm nm nj fr,,it r |
soon think of lighting the fire with sweet-oil |
that comes in those graceful wcker-bound TASKS |
from Naples, or with manuscript sermons,
which, however, do not burn well, be they ever |
SO dry,-not half so well as printed editorials.
Few people know how to make wood fire, |
but everybody thinks he or she does You |
want, first, a large back log, which does not |
rest on the andironS. This will keep your fire |
forward, radate heat all day, and late in the
evening fall into ruin of glowing Goals, like |
the last days of good man, whose life is tie |
richest and most beneficeut at the close. when
the flames of passion and the sap of youth are
burned out, and there only remain the solid
bright elements Of character. Then you want a |
t0resuek on the andirons; and upon these
build the fire of lighter stuff. In this way YOU
have at once a cheerful blaze, and the fire grad
ually eats into the solid mass, sinking down
with increasing tervOr; Goals drop below, and
delicate tongues of fame sport along the beau
tiul gram OF the forestick. There are peo-
"hO uIe underneath. But
these are conceted people, who are
welded to their own way / suppose
an accomplished incendiary always starts a fire
in the attic, if he can. | am not an incendiary.
but hate bigotry. don't call those incendiaries
very good christians who, when they set fire
to the martyrs, touched off the faggots at the
bottom, so as to make them go slow. Besides
knowledge works down easier than it does up.
Education must proceed from the most enlight-
ened down to the most ignorant strata. If you
hpftpY mi ase h.. Ii.
of your colleges, and so on. Build your FIRE on
top. Let your light shine. have seen people
build FIRE under balky horse; but he wouldn't
go-he'd be horse martyr first. A fire kindled
under one never did him any good OF course
you can make fire on the hearth by kindIing
it underneath, but that does not make it right
| want my hearth-fre to be an emblem of the
best things.