322 Economy of Fuel. 



are almost too obvious to require to be seriously urged in argument, 

 yet such is the force of habit, as to render most persons insensible to 

 the justness of this distinction ; and to induce a supposition that actu- 

 al exposure to fire is the only means pf maintaining a comfortable 

 condition of body, and a cheerful state of mind. But, do we ever 

 sigh for the spectacle of a glowing fire in the days of July, or the 

 evenings of August ? Do we, at that season, contend that the parlor 

 is void of social attraction, because it has no brilliant grate, or the 

 breakfast room cheerless, because no " blazing hearth" is seen to 

 greet our entrance ? And ivhy do we not shiver at the sight of a 

 drawing room without its fire in summer, as well as in icinter ? Ob- 

 viously, because the idea of discomfort is then in no way connected 

 with the absence of firelight. And the same would be true of our 

 apartments in winter, were we equally accustomed to be free from 

 pain, and equally sure of beholding cheerful countenances around us, 

 while removed from a sight of the process of combustion. So strong 

 a prepossession has taken hold of many minds ori this subject, that 

 mere reasoning would probably not convince one in ten, that he would 

 be able to endure a winter's evening without a sight of the fire. But 

 I have seldom seen an individual, who when present in a room, oth- 

 erwise heated, did not actually soon forget his artificial ivant, and be- 

 come not merely reconciled to the deprivation of a glowing fire, but 

 actually delighted with the summer-like influence which prevailed 

 around him. 



But aside from the mere consideration of temperature and from 

 its variableness, when governed by the action of fire ivithin the apart- 

 ment to be heated, there is, in the very pleasure which we fancy to 

 be found only in the sight of a fire, not unfrequently, an intermixture 

 of pain and of peril, sufficient, one should suppose, to counterbalance 

 all the good proposed by that peculiar arrangement of things. The 

 eye is often pained and sometimes actually injured by the continued 

 glare to which it is exposed. Resort is then had to screens or other 

 defences to shield us from the blasting " excess of light" on which it 

 has been our pleasure to fix our gaze. 



Again, the radiation of heat, at first grateful, is by degrees in- 

 creased until not only the face but the whole person Is ibund In a glow 

 far beyond what tire system can safely endure. But the retreat 

 w''"ch at length becomes necessary, is not always made until profuse 

 perspiration has been induced, and then we remove to a distance at 

 v^/hich the radiation is almost unfelt and where its efiects on the air 



