IN THE FIRELIGHT 227 



will burn quietly, unobtrusively, importun 

 ing 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 hoard 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 space. 

 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 separ 

 ation. 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. 



