The Jonathan Papers Part 18

I suppose in the old days, in a less "literary" age, all such busy folk found this necessary rest and refreshment in a single book--the Bible.

Doubtless many still do so, but not so many; and this, quite irrespective of religious considerations, seems to me a great pity. The literary quality of the Scriptures has, to be sure, been partly vitiated by the lamentable habit of reading them in isolated "texts," instead of as magnificent wholes; yet, even so, I feel sure that this constant intercourse with the Book did for our predecessors in far larger measure what some of these other books of which I have been speaking do for us--it furnished that contact with greatness which we all crave.

It may be accident, though I hardly think so, that to find such books we must turn to the past. Doubtless others will arise in the future--possibly some are even now being brought to birth, though this I find hard to believe. For ours is the age of the short-story--a wonderful product, perhaps the finest flower of fiction, and one which has not yet achieved all its victories or realized all its possibilities. All the fiction of the future will show the influence of this highly specialized form. In sheer craftsmanship, novel-writing has progressed far; in technique, in dexterous manipulation of their material, the novices of to-day are ahead of the masters of yesterday.

This often happens in an art, and it is especially true just now in the art of fiction. Yes, there are great things preparing for us in the future, there are excellent things being done momently about us. But while we wait for the great ones, the excellent ones sometimes create in us a sense of surfeit. We cannot hurry the future, and if meanwhile we crave repose, leisure, quiet, steadiness, the sense of magnitude, we must go to the past. There, and not in the yearly output of our own publishers, we shall find our "comfortable" books.

XVII

In the Firelight

Jonathan had improvidently lighted his pipe before he noticed that the fire needed his attention. This was a mistake, because, at least in Jonathan's case, neither a fire nor a pipe responds heartily to a divided mind. As I watched him absently knocking the charred logs together, I longed to s.n.a.t.c.h the tongs from his indifferent hands and "change the sorry scheme of things entire." Big wads of smoke rolled nonchalantly out of the corners of the fireplace and filled the low ceiling with bluish mist, yet I held my peace, and I did not s.n.a.t.c.h the tongs. I know of no circ.u.mstances wherein advice is less welcome than when offered by a woman to a man on his knees before the fire. When my friends make fudge or rare-bits, they invite criticism, they court suggestion, but when one of them takes the tongs in his hand, have a care what you say to him! In our household a certain convention of courtesy--fireplace etiquette--has tacitly established itself, in accordance with which the person who wields the tongs, a.s.suming full responsibility for results, is free from criticism or suggestion.

Disregard of such etiquette may not have precipitated divorce, but I have known it to produce distinctly strained relations. And so, while Jonathan tinkered in a half-hearted way at the fire, I ruled my tongue.

At last, little vanishing blue flickers began to run along the log edges, growing steadier and yellower until they settled into something like a blaze.

Jonathan straightened up, but there was a trace of the apologetic in his tone as he said, "That'll do, won't it?"

"Why, yes," I replied cautiously, "it's a fire."

"Well, what's the matter with it?" he asked tolerantly.

"Since you press me, I should say that it lacks--style."

Jonathan leaned back, puffing comfortably--"Now, what in thunder do you mean by style?"

But I was not to be enticed into an empty discussion of terms. "Well, then, say frowsy. Call it a frowsy fire. You know what frowsy means, I suppose. Of course, though, I don't mean to criticize, only you asked me." And I added, with perhaps unnecessary blandness, "I'm _warm_ enough."

Jonathan smoked a few moments more, possibly by way of establishing his independence, then slowly rose, remarking, "Oh, well, if you _want_ a stylish fire--"

"I didn't say stylish, I said style--"

But he was gone. He must have journeyed out to the woodshed,--however, there was a moon,--for he returned bearing a huge backlog. He had been magnanimous, indeed, for it was the sort that above all others delights my heart--a forked apple log with a big hollow heart. In a moment, I was on my knees clearing a place for it, and he swung it into position on the bed of embers, tucked in some white birch in front, and soon the flames were licking about the flaking gray apple bark and shooting up through the hollow fork in a fashion to charm the most fastidious.

People whose open fires are machine-fed--who arrange for their wood as they do for their groceries, by telephone--know little of the real joys of a fire. It is laid by a servant,--unintelligently laid,--and upon such ma.s.ses of newspaper and split kindling that it has no choice but to burn. The match is struck, the newspapers flare up, and soon there is a big, meaningless blaze. Handfuls of wood--just wood, any kind of wood--are thrown on from time to time, and perhaps a log or two--any log, taken at random from the wood-box. Truly, this is merest savagery, untrained, undiscriminating; it is the Bushman's meal compared to the Frenchman's dinner. Not thus are real hearth fires laid. Not thus are they enjoyed. You should plan a fire as you do a dinner party, and your wood, like your people, should be selected and arranged with due regard to age, temperament, and individual eccentricity. A fire thus skillfully planned, with some good talkers among the logs, may be as well worth listening to as the conversation about your table--perhaps better.

To get the full flavor of a fire you must know your wood-- I had almost said, you must remember where the tree stood before it was cut--white birch in the dry, worn-out slopes, black birches from the edges of the pasture lots, chestnut from the ledges, maple from the swamps, apple from the old orchard, oak cut in sorrow when the fullness of time has come, and burned with the honor due to royalty.

But though this may be a refinement of fancy, it is no fancy that one kind of wood differs from another in glory. There is the white birch, gay, light-hearted, volatile, putting all its pretty self into a few flaring moments--a b.u.t.terfly existence. There is black birch, reluctant but steady; there is chestnut, vivacious, full of sudden enthusiasms; the apple, cheerful and willing; the maple and oak, sober and stanch, good for the long pull. Every locality has its own sorts of wood, as its own sorts of people. Mine is a New England wood basket, and as I look at it I recognize all my old friends. Of them all I love the apple best, yet each is in its own way good. For a quick blaze, throw on the white birch; for a long evening of reading, when one does not want distraction, pile on the oak and maple. They will burn quietly, un.o.btrusively, importuning you neither for care nor appreciation. But for a fire to sit before with friends, bring in the apple wood. Lay the great backlog, the more gnarled the better, and if there is a hole through which the flames may shoot up, that is best of all--such logs we h.o.a.rd for special occasions. Then with careful touch arrange the wood in front, your bundles of twigs, your pretty white birch sticks and your dry chestnut to start the fun, then the big apple forelog, the forestick and the backstick, not too much crowding or too much s.p.a.ce. Ah, there is a seemly fire! There is a fire for friends!

For the renewal of old friendships, as for the perfecting of new ones, there is nothing like a fire. I met a friend after years of separation.

We came together in a modern house, just modern enough to be full of steam pipes and registers and gas-logs, but not so modern as to have readopted open fireplaces. The room had no centre--there was no hearth to draw around, there was no reason for sitting in one place rather than another. We could not draw around the steam pipes or the register. The gas-log was not turned on, it would have been too hot, and anyhow--a gas-log! We sat and talked for hours in an aimless, unsatisfactory sort of way. I felt as if we were, figuratively speaking, sitting on the edges of our chairs. It was better than nothing, but it was not a real meeting. The next year we were together again, but this time it was before our own blazing apple log. We did not talk so much as we had done before, but we were silent a great deal more, which was better. For in really intimate communion, silence is the last, best gift, but it cannot be forced, it cannot be s.n.a.t.c.hed at. You may try it, but you grow restless, you begin to consider your expression, you wonder how long it will last, you fancy it may seem to mean too much, and at last you are hurried over into talk again. But before a fire all things are possible, even silence. Chance acquaintances and intimate friends fall alike under its spell, talk is absolutely spontaneous, it flows rapidly or slowly, or dies away altogether. What need for talk when the fire is saying it all--now flaring up in a blaze to interpret our rarest enthusiasms, now popping and snapping with wit or fury, now burning with the even heat of steady, rational life, now settling into a contemplative glow of meditation.

In the circle of the hearth everything is good, but reminiscences are best of all. I sometimes think all life is valuable merely as an opportunity to acc.u.mulate reminiscences, and I am sure that the precious horde can be seen to best advantage by firelight. Then is the time for the miser to spread out his treasure and admire it. I remember once Jonathan and I were on a bicycle trip. My chain had broken and we had trudged eight long, hot, dusty miles to the river that had to be crossed that night. It was dark when we reached it, and it had begun to rain, a warm, dreary drizzle. As we stumbled over the railway track and felt our way past the little station toward the still smaller ferry-house, a voice from the darkness drawled, "Guess ye won't git the ferry to-night--last boat went half an hour ago."

It was the final blow. We leaned forlornly on our wheels and looked out upon the dark water, whose rain-quenched mirror dully reflected the lights of the opposite town. Finally I said, "Well, Jonathan, anyhow, we're making reminiscences."

This remark was, I own, not highly practical, but I intended it to be comforting, and if it failed--as it clearly did--to cheer Jonathan, that was not because it lacked wisdom, but because men are so often devoid of imagination save as an adornment of their easy moments.

Finally the same impersonal voice out of the dark uttered another sentence: "Might row ye 'cross if ye've _got_ to go to-night."

"How much?" said Jonathan.

"Guess it's wuth a dollar. Mean night to be out there."

We had, between us, forty-seven cents and three street-car tickets, good in the opposite town. All this we meekly offered him, and in the pause that followed I added desperately, "And we can each take an oar and help."

"Wall-- I'll take ye."

It seemed to me that the voice suggested an accompanying grin, but I had no proof.

And so we got across. We never saw the face of our boatman, but on the other side we felt for his hand and emptied our pockets into it--nickels and dimes and pennies, and the three car tickets; but as we were turning to grope our way up the dock the voice said, "Here--ye'll need two of them tickets to git home with. I do' want 'um."

Now already it must be evident to any one that my remark to Jonathan, though perhaps ill-timed, embodied a profound and cheering truth. The more uncomfortable you are, the more desperate your situation, the better the reminiscences you are storing up to be enjoyed before the fire.

Yes, there is nothing like firelight for reminiscences. By the clear light of morning--say ten o'clock--I might be forced to admit that life has had its humdrum and unpleasant aspects, but in the evening, with the candles lighted and the fire glowing and flickering, I will allow no such thing. The firelight somehow lights up all the lovely bits, and about the unlovely ones it throws a thick mantle of shadow, like the shadows in the corners of the room behind us. Nor does the firelight magic end here. Not only does it play about the fair hours of our past, making them fairer, it also vaguely multiplies them, so that for one real occurrence we see many. It is like standing between opposing mirrors: looking into either, one sees a receding series of reflections, unending as Banquo's royal line.

Thus, once last winter Jonathan and I spent a long evening reading aloud a tale of the "Earthly Paradise." Once last summer we sat alone before the embers and quietly talked. Once and only once. Yet firelit memory is already laying her touch upon those hours. Already, though my diary tells me they stood alone, I am persuaded that they were many. I look back over a retrospect of many long winter evenings, in whose cozy light I see again the ringed smoke of Jonathan's pipe and hear again the lingering verse of the idle singer's tales; a retrospect of many long summer twilights, wherein the warmth of the settling embers mingles with the sharp coolness of a summer night, and pleasant talk gives place to pleasant silence.

The apple logs have burned through and rolled apart, the great backlog has settled deeper and deeper into the ashes. The fire whispers and murmurs, it whistles soft, low notes, it chuckles and sighs, finally it sinks into reverie, stirring now and then to whisper "sh-h-h-h" lest we break the spell. Only the old clock in the hall refuses to yield, and soberly persists in its "tick-tock," "tick-tock." Jonathan's pipe is smoked out, but he does not fill it, and we sit there, looking deep into the rosy glow, and dreaming, dreaming--