THE OPEN WOOD FIRE. 



49 



sorts of romance and poetic suggestion. When I see 

 smoke issuing from a chimney, and can smell the fra- 

 grance from a wood fire, I always feel that I really 

 am once more in the country. It is a perfume which 

 one finds only there. It has the genuine flavor of the 

 woods and meadows. 



Whitman speaks of his enjoyment of this feature 

 of the country upon one of his rambles near the Hud- 

 son ("Prose Works:" "Days at J. B's.— Turf Fires- 

 Spring Songs") : 



"As I go along the roads I like to see the farmers' fires in 

 patches, burning the dry brush, turf, debris. How the smoke 

 crawls along, flat to the ground, slanting, slowly rising, reach- 

 ing away, and at last dissipating ! I like its acrid smell— whiffs 

 just reaching me — welcomer than French perfume." 



The smoke, therefore, as it comes rolling and puff- 

 ing in clouds and fumes from the flue, and vanishes 

 into nothingness finally in thin feathery shreds and 

 whitish films, is always a symbol of home and has a 

 human interest. Do you recall Thoreau's poem upon 

 smoke, and what he says of it, in "Walden?" 



"When the villagers were lighting their fires beyond the 

 horizon, I too gave notice to the various wild inhabitants of 

 Walden vale, by a smoky streamer from my chimney, that I 

 was awake. — 



" Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird, 



Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight, 

 Lark without song, the messenger of dawn, 

 Circling above the hamlets as thy nest ; 

 Or else, departing dream, and shadowy form 

 Of midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts ; 



