WOOD FIRES 



upon the wood fire, and how the greedy flame is 

 sure to reduce it all to a gray mass ! But while 

 it lasted, Griselle was sure to dance in it and float 

 over it with line and colour, evanescing into some 

 beyond with a beckoning incandescence, just be 

 cause the insistent fancy, when it is in a yellow dog s 

 condition of receptivity, will not rest at ashes. 



Sometimes during these vigils, when Charlie 

 had dropped off to sleep, and I was dreamily 

 boring, with my imagination, into the voluptuous 

 embers for a fleeting phantasm, there would come 

 a rustle behind me, as if something had lit softly 

 on the earth. It was probably a little gust that 

 came under the door as the wind shifted. But in 

 the dead silence it was like the folding of a wing. 

 Once, and only once, the yellow dog lifted up 

 her head sharply, cocked her ears, and looked 

 eagerly into the shadows ; but not having any 

 imagination, fell into a new limpness and went to 

 sleep again. That was all; and yet, do you know 

 that such is the hypnotic influence of a wood fire 

 and unperturbed solitude, that I could not quite 

 divest myself of the absurd notion that all the 

 ardent fancies that had gone up the chimney had 

 spread themselves out ethereally and telegraphed 

 something into the Beyond. 



These traumerei were healthy and illuminative 

 beside the dreams that I had experienced in the 

 city, and which always left a waking shudder. 

 They had come with a tocsin crash ; and blanched 

 faces, stricken with sudden terror, went swiftly 

 by. Always a quick panic and mighty rushes 



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