Mosses from an old manse
of departed love and hope; and, if all earthly things had grown
distasteful, he could gladden the fireside muser with golden glimpses
of a better world. And, amid this varied communion with the human soul,
how busily would the sympathizer, the deep moralist, the painter of
magic pictures, be causing the teakettle to boil!
Nor did it lessen the charm of his soft, familiar courtesy and
helpfulness that the mighty spirit, were opportunity offered him, would
run riot through the peaceful house, wrap its inmates in his terrible
embrace, and leave nothing of them save their whitened bones. This
possibility of mad destruction only made his domestic kindness the more
beautiful and touching. It was so sweet of him, being endowed with such
power, to dwell day after day, and one long lonesome night after
another, on the dusky hearth, only now and then betraying his wild
nature by thrusting his red tongue out of the chimney-top! True, he had
done much mischief in the world, and was pretty certain to do more; but
his warm heart atoned for all. He was kindly to the race of man; and
they pardoned his characteristic imperfections.
The good old clergyman, my predecessor in this mansion, was well
acquainted with the comforts of the fireside. His yearly allowance of
wood, according to the terms of his settlement, was no less than sixty
cords. Almost an annual forest was converted from sound oak logs into
ashes, in the kitchen, the parlor, and this little study, where now an
unworthy successor, not in the pastoral office, but merely in his
earthly abode, sits scribbling beside an air-tight stove. I love to
fancy one of those fireside days while the good man, a contemporary of
the Revolution, was in his early prime, some five-and-sixty years ago.
Before sunrise, doubtless, the blaze hovered upon the gray skirts of
night and dissolved the frostwork that had gathered like a curtain over
the small window-panes. There is something peculiar in the aspect of
the morning fireside; a fresher, brisker glare; the absence of that
mellowness which can be produced only by half-consumed logs, and
shapeless brands with the white ashes on them, and mighty coals, the
remnant of tree-trunks that the hungry, elements have gnawed for hours.
The morning hearth, too, is newly swept, and the brazen andirons well
brightened, so that the cheerful fire may see its face in them. Surely
it was happiness, when the pastor, fortified with a substantial
breakfast, sat down in his arm-chair and slippers and opened the Whole
Body of Divinity, or the Commentary on Job, or whichever of his old
folios or quartos might fall within the range of his weekly sermons. It
must have been his own fault if the warmth and glow of this abundant
hearth did not permeate the discourse and keep his audience comfortable
in spite of the bitterest northern blast that ever wrestled with the
church-steeple. He reads while the heat warps the stiff covers of the
volume; he writes without numbness either in his heart or fingers; and,
with unstinted hand, he throws fresh sticks of wood upon the fire.
A parishioner comes in. With what warmth of benevolence—how should he
be otherwise than warm in any of his attributes?—does the minister bid
him welcome, and set a chair for him in so close proximity to the
hearth, that soon the guest finds it needful to rub his scorched shins
with his great red hands! The melted snow drips from his steaming boots
and bubbles upon the hearth. His puckered forehead unravels its
entanglement of crisscross wrinkles. We lose much of the enjoyment of
fireside heat without such an opportunity of marking its genial effect
upon those who have been looking the inclement weather in the face. In
the course of the day our clergyman himself strides forth, perchance to
pay a round of pastoral visits; or, it may he, to visit his mountain of
a wood-pile and cleave the monstrous logs into billets suitable for the
fire. He returns with fresher life to his beloved hearth. During the
short afternoon the western sunshine comes into the study and strives
to stare the ruddy blaze out of countenance but with only a brief
triumph, soon to be succeeded by brighter glories of its rival.
Beautiful it is to see the strengthening gleam, the deepening light
that gradually casts distinct shadows of the human figure, the table,
and the high-backed chairs upon the opposite wall, and at length, as
twilight comes on, replenishes the room with living radiance and makes
life all rose-color. Afar the wayfarer discerns the flickering flame as
it dances upon the windows, and hails it as a beacon-light of humanity,
reminding him, in his cold and lonely path, that the world is not all
snow, and solitude, and desolation. At eventide, probably, the study
was peopled with the clergyman’s wife and family, and children tumbled
themselves upon the hearth-rug, and grave puss sat with her back to the
fire, or gazed, with a semblance of human meditation, into its fervid
depths. Seasonably the plenteous ashes of the day were raked over the
mouldering brands, and from the heap came jets of flame, and an incense
of night-long smoke creeping quietly up the chimney.
Heaven forgive the old clergyman! In his later life, when for almost
ninety winters he had been gladdened by the firelight,—when it had
gleamed upon him from infancy to extreme age, and never without
brightening his spirits as well as his visage, and perhaps keeping him
alive so long,—he had the heart to brick up his chimney-place and bid
farewell to the face of his old friend forever, why did he not take an
eternal leave of the sunshine too? His sixty cords of wood had probably
dwindled to a far less ample supply in modern times; and it is certain
that the parsonage had grown crazy with time and tempest and pervious
to the cold; but still it was one of the saddest tokens of the decline
and fall of open fireplaces that, the gray patriarch should have
deigned to warm himself at an air-tight stove.
And I, likewise,—who have found a home in this ancient owl’s-nest since
its former occupant took his heavenward flight,—I, to my shame, have
put up stoves in kitchen and parlor and chamber. Wander where you will
about the house, not a glimpse of the earth-born, heaven-aspiring fiend
of Ætna,—him that sports in the thunder-storm, the idol of the Ghebers,
the devourer of cities, the forest-rioter and prairie-sweeper, the
future destroyer of our earth, the old chimney-corner companion who
mingled himself so sociably with household joys and sorrows,—not a
glimpse of this mighty and kindly one will greet your eyes. He is now
an invisible presence. There is his iron cage. Touch it, and he
scorches your fingers. He delights to singe a garment or perpetrate any
other little unworthy mischief; for his temper is ruined by the
ingratitude of mankind, for whom he cherished such warmth of feeling,
and to whom he taught all their arts, even that of making his own
prison-house. In his fits of rage he puffs volumes of smoke and noisome
gas through the crevices of the door, and shakes the iron walls of his
dungeon so as to overthrow the ornamental urn upon its summit. We
tremble lest he should break forth amongst us. Much of his time is
spent in sighs, burdened with unutterable grief, and long drawn through
the funnel. He amuses himself, too, with repeating all the whispers,
the moans, and the louder utterances or tempestuous howls of the wind;
so that the stove becomes a microcosm of the aerial world. Occasionally
there are strange combinations of sounds,—voices talking almost
articulately within the hollow chest of iron,—insomuch that fancy
beguiles me with the idea that my firewood must have grown in that
infernal forest of lamentable trees which breathed their complaints to
Dante. When the listener is half asleep he may readily take these
voices for the conversation of spirits and assign them an intelligible
meaning. Anon there is a pattering noise,—drip, drip, drip,—as if a
summer shower were falling within the narrow circumference of the
stove.
These barren and tedious eccentricities are all that the air-tight
stove can bestow in exchange for the invaluable moral influences which
we have lost by our desertion of the open fireplace. Alas! is this
world so very bright that we can afford to choke up such a domestic
fountain of gladsomeness, and sit down by its darkened source without
being conscious of a gloom?
It is my belief that social intercourse cannot long continue what it
has been, now that we have subtracted from it so important and
vivifying an element as firelight. The effects will be more perceptible
on our children and the generations that shall succeed them than on
ourselves, the mechanism of whose life may remain unchanged, though its
spirit be far other than it was. The sacred trust of the household fire
has been transmitted in unbroken succession from the earliest ages, and
faithfully cherished in spite of every discouragement such as the
curfew law of the Norman conquerors, until in these evil days physical
science has nearly succeeded in extinguishing it. But we at least have
our youthful recollections tinged with the glow of the hearth, and our
life-long habits and associations arranged on the principle of a mutual
bond in the domestic fire. Therefore, though the sociable friend be
forever departed, yet in a degree he will be spiritually present with
us; and still more will the empty forms which were once full of his
rejoicing presence continue to rule our manners. We shall draw our
chairs together as we and our forefathers have been wont for thousands
of years back, and sit around some blank and empty corner of the room,
babbling with unreal cheerfulness of topics suitable to the homely
fireside. A warmth from the past—from the ashes of bygone years and the
raked-up embers of long ago—will sometimes thaw the ice about our
hearts; but it must be otherwise with our successors. On the most
favorable supposition, they will be acquainted with the fireside in no
better shape than that of the sullen stove; and more probably they will
have grown up amid furnace heat in houses which might be fancied to
have their foundation over the infernal pit, whence sulphurous steams
and unbreathable exhalations ascend through the apertures of the floor.
There will be nothing to attract these poor children to one centre.
They will never behold one another through that peculiar medium of
vision the ruddy gleam of blazing wood or bituminous coal—-which gives
the human spirit so deep an insight into its fellows and melts all
humanity into one cordial heart of hearts. Domestic life, if it may
still be termed domestic, will seek its separate corners, and never
gather itself into groups. The easy gossip; the merry yet unambitious
Jest; the life-like, practical discussion of real matters in a casual
way; the soul of truth which is so often incarnated in a simple
fireside word,—will disappear from earth. Conversation will contract
the air of debate, and all mortal intercourse be chilled with a fatal
frost.
In classic times, the exhortation to fight “pro axis et focis,” for the
altars and the hearths, was considered the strongest appeal that could
be made to patriotism. And it seemed an immortal utterance; for all
subsequent ages and people have acknowledged its force and responded to
it with the full portion of manhood that nature had assigned to each.
Wisely were the altar and the hearth conjoined in one mighty sentence;
for the hearth, too, had its kindred sanctity. Religion sat down beside
it, not in the priestly robes which decorated and perhaps disguised her
at the altar, but arrayed in a simple matron’s garb, and uttering her
lessons with the tenderness of a mother’s voice and heart. The holy