228 THE JONATHAN PAPERS 



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, unsat 

 isfactory 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 snatched 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 abso 

 lutely 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, 



