146 LIBERTY AND A LIVING. 



dred and fifty years, and it is no small pleasure 

 to dream of the people, long since dead and 

 gone, who have watched the flames reflected in 

 those burnished brass relics of the olden time. 

 The man who has not learned to love a log fire 

 has missed one of the comforts of life ; it is the 

 love of a fire which has kept me from moving 

 to Florida or some country where vegetation 

 and gardens flourish the year round. Fond as 

 I am of working among growing things, and 

 eagerly as I look forward year after year to the 

 first dandelion, I cannot bear the idea of losing 

 my noble blaze and the peculiar odor which a 

 log fire, especially of pine wood, gives to a room 

 when the winter blast outside sends an occa- 

 sional whiff of smoke and flame down the chim- 

 ney. Along with the petty miseries of life in 

 large cities I should be inclined to place the ab- 

 sence of a wood fire, for even if there is a big 

 fireplace, which is not always the case in a city 

 house of the ordinary type, wood is too dear to 

 allow of its use as I understand it. I want a fire 

 of logs a foot through and four feet long, which 

 burns from morning till late at night, which 

 throws out light enough to do without lamps 

 until the dinner-bell rings, and I am sure that 



