Backlog Studies

Dudley Warner Charles

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pubOne.info present you this new edition. The fire on the hearth has almost gone out in New England; the hearth has gone out; the family has lost its center; age ceases to be respected; sex is only distinguished by a difference 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 toast before the fire; you scarcely ever see in front of the coals a row of roasting apples, which a bright little girl, with many a 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. A good many things have gone out with the fire on the hearth.

Informations

• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 06 novembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819945970
• Langue: English

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BACKLOG STUDIES
By Charles Dudley Warner
FIRST STUDY
I
The fire on the hearth has almost gone out in NewEngland; the hearth has gone out; the family has lost its center;age ceases to be respected; sex is only distinguished by adifference between millinery bills and tailors' bills; there is nomore toast-and-cider; the young are not allowed to eat mince-piesat ten o'clock at night; half a cheese is no longer set to toastbefore the fire; you scarcely ever see in front of the coals a rowof roasting apples, which a bright little girl, with many a diveand start, shielding her sunny face from the fire with one hand,turns from time to time; scarce are the gray-haired sires who stroptheir razors on the family Bible, and doze in the chimney-corner. Agood many things have gone out with the fire on the hearth.
I do not mean to say that public and privatemorality have vanished with the hearth. A good degree of purity andconsiderable happiness are possible with grates and blowers; it isa day of trial, when we are all passing through a fiery furnace,and very likely we shall be purified as we are dried up and wastedaway. Of course the family is gone, as an institution, though therestill are attempts to bring up a family round a “register. ” Butyou might just as well try to bring it up by hand, as without therallying-point of a hearthstone. Are there any homesteads nowadays?Do people hesitate to change houses any more than they do to changetheir clothes? People hire houses as they would a masqueradecostume, liking, sometimes, to appear for a year in a littlefictitious stone-front splendor above their means. Thus it happensthat so many people live in houses that do not fit them. I shouldalmost as soon think of wearing another person's clothes as hishouse; unless I could let it out and take it in until it fitted,and somehow expressed my own character and taste. But we havefallen into the days of conformity. It is no wonder that peopleconstantly go into their neighbors' houses by mistake, just as, inspite of the Maine law, they wear away each other's hats from anevening party. It has almost come to this, that you might as wellbe anybody else as yourself.
Am I mistaken in supposing that this is owing to thediscontinuance of big chimneys, with wide fireplaces in them? Howcan a person be attached to a house that has no center ofattraction, no soul in it, in the visible form of a glowing fire,and a warm chimney, like the heart in the body? When you think ofthe old homestead, if you ever do, your thoughts go straight to thewide chimney and its burning logs. No wonder that you are ready tomove from one fireplaceless house into another. But you havesomething just as good, you say. Yes, I have heard of it. This age,which imitates everything, even to the virtues of our ancestors,has invented a fireplace, with artificial, iron, or compositionlogs in it, hacked and painted, in which gas is burned, so that ithas the appearance of a wood-fire. This seems to me blasphemy. Doyou think a cat would lie down before it? Can you poke it? If youcan't poke it, it is a fraud. To poke a wood-fire is more solidenjoyment than almost anything else in the world. The crowninghuman virtue in a man is to let his wife poke the fire. I do notknow how any virtue whatever is possible over an imitation gas-log.What a sense of insincerity the family must have, if they indulgein the hypocrisy of gathering about it. With this center ofuntruthfulness, what must the life in the family be? Perhaps thefather will be living at the rate of ten thousand a year on asalary of four thousand; perhaps the mother, more beautiful andyounger than her beautified daughters, will rouge; perhaps theyoung ladies will make wax-work. A cynic might suggest as the mottoof modern life this simple legend, — “just as good as the real. ”But I am not a cynic, and I hope for the rekindling of wood-fires,and a return of the beautiful home light from them. If a wood-fireis a luxury, it is cheaper than many in which we indulge withoutthought, and cheaper than the visits of a doctor, made necessary bythe want of ventilation of the house. Not that I have anythingagainst doctors; I only wish, after they have been to see us in away that seems so friendly, they had nothing against us.
My fireplace, which is deep, and nearly three feetwide, has a broad hearthstone in front of it, where the live coalstumble down, and a pair of gigantic brass andirons. The brasses areburnished, and shine cheerfully in the firelight, and on eitherside stand tall shovel and tongs, like sentries, mounted in brass.The tongs, like the two-handed sword of Bruce, cannot be wielded bypuny people. We burn in it hickory wood, cut long. We like thesmell of this aromatic forest timber, and its clear flame. Thebirch is also a sweet wood for the hearth, with a sort of spiritualflame and an even temper, — no snappishness. Some prefer the elm,which holds fire so well; and I have a neighbor who uses nothingbut apple-tree wood, — a solid, family sort of wood, fragrant also,and full of delightful suggestions. But few people can afford toburn up their fruit trees. I should as soon think of lighting thefire with sweet-oil that comes in those graceful wicker-boundflasks from Naples, or with manuscript sermons, which, however, donot burn well, be they never so dry, not half so well as printededitorials.
Few people know how to make a wood-fire, buteverybody thinks he or she does. You want, first, a large backlog,which does not rest on the andirons. This will keep your fireforward, radiate heat all day, and late in the evening fall into aruin of glowing coals, like the last days of a good man, whose lifeis the richest and most beneficent at the close, when the flames ofpassion and the sap of youth are burned out, and there only remainthe solid, bright elements of character. Then you want a forestickon the andirons; and upon these build the fire of lighter stuff. Inthis way you have at once a cheerful blaze, and the fire graduallyeats into the solid mass, sinking down with increasing fervor;coals drop below, and delicate tongues of flame sport along thebeautiful grain of the forestick. There are people who kindle afire underneath. But these are conceited people, who are wedded totheir own way. I suppose an accomplished incendiary always starts afire in the attic, if he can. I am not an incendiary, but I hatebigotry. I don't call those incendiaries very good Christians who,when they set fire to the martyrs, touched off the fagots at thebottom, so as to make them go slow. Besides, knowledge works downeasier than it does up. Education must proceed from the moreenlightened down to the more ignorant strata. If you want bettercommon schools, raise the standard of the colleges, and so on.Build your fire on top. Let your light shine. I have seen peoplebuild a fire under a balky horse; but he wouldn't go, he'd be ahorse-martyr first. A fire kindled under one never did him anygood. Of course you can make a fire on the hearth by kindling itunderneath, but that does not make it right. I want my hearthfireto be an emblem of the best things.
II
It must be confessed that a wood-fire needs as muchtending as a pair of twins. To say nothing of fiery projectilessent into the room, even by the best wood, from the explosion ofgases confined in its cells, the brands are continually droppingdown, and coals are being scattered over the hearth. However much acareful housewife, who thinks more of neatness than enjoyment, maydislike this, it is one of the chief delights of a wood-fire. Iwould as soon have an Englishman without side-whiskers as a firewithout a big backlog; and I would rather have no fire than onethat required no tending, — one of dead wood that could not singagain the imprisoned songs of the forest, or give out in brilliantscintillations the sunshine it absorbed in its growth. Flame is anethereal sprite, and the spice of danger in it gives zest to thecare of the hearth-fire. Nothing is so beautiful as springing,changing flame, — it was the last freak of the Gothic architecturemen to represent the fronts of elaborate edifices of stone as onfire, by the kindling flamboyant devices. A fireplace is, besides,a private laboratory, where one can witness the most brilliantchemical experiments, minor conflagrations only wanting thegrandeur of cities on fire. It is a vulgar notion that a fire isonly for heat. A chief value of it is, however, to look at. It is apicture, framed between the jambs. You have nothing on your walls,by the best masters (the poor masters are not, however,represented), that is really so fascinating, so spiritual. Speakinglike an upholsterer, it furnishes the room. And it is never twicethe same. In this respect it is like the landscape-view through awindow, always seen in a new light, color, or condition. Thefireplace is a window into the most charming world I ever had aglimpse of.
Yet direct heat is an agreeable sensation. I am notscientific enough to despise it, and have no taste for a winterresidence on Mount Washington, where the thermometer cannot be keptcomfortable even by boiling. They say that they say in Boston thatthere is a satisfaction in being well dressed which religion cannotgive. There is certainly a satisfaction in the direct radiance of ahickory fire which is not to be found in the fieriest blasts of afurnace. The hot air of a furnace is a sirocco; the heat of awood-fire is only intense sunshine, like that bottled in LacrimaeChristi. Besides this, the eye is delighted, the sense of smell isregaled by the fragrant decomposition, and the ear is pleased withthe hissing, crackling, and singing, — a liberation of so manyout-door noises. Some people like the sound of bubbling in aboiling pot, or the fizzing of a frying-spider. But there isnothing gross in the animated crackling of sticks of wood blazingon the earth, not even if chestnuts are roasting in the ashes. Allthe senses are ministered to, and the imagination is