Omaha daily bee., 1908-11-08
GLOW OF WINTERS FIRESIDE
Farewell to the V~aniShinR Open Fire,
Banished by Modern Com
traptiOns.

With the coming Of long evenings that
mark winters approach, the home-loving
man, his feet on the radiator and his
pipe in his mouth, let's his wandering
fancy bark back in unconscious atavism
to the blazing hearth of song and story,
with its group of blithe faces gathered
around in an arc of kindness and good
cheer. Yet most of the present-day flat
jewellers know the open fire and the
lively group around IL only from history
and hearsay. This generation has, for
the most part, had to warm itself sue
cessively at the parlor stove. the register
and the radiator. Only the elders with
frosted hair have remembrance of the
open fire; deep in their hearts they know
what the hearth has meant in the family
life of years gone by.
1t was a social center. the old open fire
place. with its polished firedogs and its
red sparks from the sputtering hickory
logs swarming up the chimney. It warmed
the cookies Of the heart, expanded the
generous qualities of companionship, and,
melting the too sharp outlines that some
times separated the me and thee Of old
courtship nights, made a ~hospitable air OF
sympathy and fellowship instead. True,
the young lover, to his discomfort, some
times found that the comfortable miscel-
lany of an evening at home around the
fire afforded neither the time nor place
for solitary Withdrawals or the tete-a-tete
dearer to his heart. The fireside group
was an alembic that distilled the aroma
md essence of home life, a forge that
riveted the natural ties of blood into a
still sweeter kinship of spirit.
Something vital went out Of home life
when they walled up the old fireplace,
but the integrity Of the family circle was
tempered and wrought too truly to be
rent asunder by such empty solaces as
the register and radiator. Bereft of its
lifegiving center, behold, then, the family
circle drawn around the evening Tampa
student lamp or an argand burner, inno-
cent OF nouveau art forms or roycrofters
craft, With it's change of base the family
group now took on a new character; II
became less expansive, more thoughtful;
II segregated into individuals of separate
preoccupations, as study, reading, work.
II became less communicative, though 1t
still held to somewhat of it's old solidarity.
But the light-bearing center table of the
back parlor was the last OF
the group idea in family life. With the
waning of its vogue, the decline of the
family group, like the decline of Rome,
has been insidious, gradual, but sure.
The cozy corner, with its smothered
scenic lighting, the piano lamp, the wall
sconce-which women OF uncertain years
find so kindly-and the persistent,
pendant. chandelier, itself ETERNAL
changeless as the fixed idea II springs
from-all these alien and barbarian IN"
truders have broken up the living room
into an assembly of special features In
which the reading lamp is only a casual
and negligible episode, II, perchance' II
Is to be found at all. Too often the stay
at-home man, with all the pest intentions
in the world and all the accessories of
pipe, slipper and Morris chair Is frus-
trated and brought to naught in his en-
deavors by the absence of that one need
full thing-a light near enough, clear
enough, mellow enough to create The illu-
sion of that intimacy, comfort and cheer
for which his heart inherits a craving
from his fire-worshiping, hearth-hoVer
ing ancestors.
scattered now is the family group. Its
! disintegration due to the removal OF the
magnetic center. The lure OF light and
warmth is an old, old one, and the tradi-
lions Of their association with the sweet
ness of HON lie deep in the human
| breast. There are moments in the life
Of every man and of nearly every woman
when the open fire and an intimate llgh'
near by. but not too near by, were
paradise enow." such moments should
he INDUCED and prolonged. In the real
home the opportunity for their encourage
ment ought TO be permanently Installed,
II Is as truly necessary as bed and board