I
The log was white birch. The beautiful satin bark at once kindled into
a soft, pure, but brilliant flame, something like that of naphtha. There
is no other wood flame so rich, and it leaps up in a joyous, spiritual
way, as if glad to burn for the sake of burning. Burning like a clear
oil, it has none of the heaviness and fatness of the pine and the
balsam. Woodsmen are at a loss to account for its intense and yet
chaste flame, since the bark has no oily appearance. The heat from it
is fierce, and the light dazzling. It flares up eagerly like young love,
and then dies away; the wood does not keep up the promise of the
bark. The woodsmen, it is proper to say, have not considered it in its
relation to young love. In the remote settlements the pine-knot is still
the torch of courtship; it endures to sit up by. The birch-bark has
alliances with the world of sentiment and of letters. The most poetical
reputation of the North American Indian floats in a canoe made of it;
his picture-writing was inscribed on it. It is the paper that nature
furnishes for lovers in the wilderness, who are enabled to convey a
delicate sentiment by its use, which is expressed neither in their ideas
nor chirography. It is inadequate for legal parchment, but does very
well for deeds of love, which are not meant usually to give a perfect
title. With care, it may be split into sheets as thin as the Chinese
paper. It is so beautiful to handle that it is a pity civilization
cannot make more use of it. But fancy articles manufactured from it are
very much like all ornamental work made of nature's perishable seeds,
leaves, cones, and dry twigs,--exquisite while the pretty fingers are
fashioning it, but soon growing shabby and cheap to the eye. And yet
there is a pathos in "dried things," whether they are displayed as
ornaments in some secluded home, or hidden religiously in bureau drawers
where profane eyes cannot see how white ties are growing yellow and ink
is fading from treasured letters, amid a faint and discouraging perfume
of ancient rose-leaves.
The birch log holds out very well while it is green, but has not
substance enough for a backlog when dry. Seasoning green timber or men
is always an experiment. A man may do very well in a simple, let us say,
country or backwoods line of life, who would come to nothing in a more
complicated civilization. City life is a severe trial. One man is struck
with a dry-rot; another develops season-cracks; another shrinks and
swells with every change of circumstance. Prosperity is said to be more
trying than adversity, a theory which most people are willing to accept
without trial; but few men stand the drying out of the natural sap
of their greenness in the artificial heat of city life. This, be it
noticed, is nothing against the drying and seasoning process; character
must be put into the crucible some time, and why not in this world? A
man who cannot stand seasoning will not have a high market value in any
part of the universe. It is creditable to the race, that so many men and
women bravely jump into the furnace of prosperity and expose themselves
to the drying influences of city life.
The first fire that is lighted on the hearth in the autumn seems to
bring out the cold weather. Deceived by the placid appearance of the
dying year, the softness of the sky, and the warm color of the foliage,
we have been shivering about for days without exactly comprehending what
was the matter. The open fire at once sets up a standard of comparison.
We find that the advance guards of winter are besieging the house. The
cold rushes in at every crack of door and window, apparently signaled
by the flame to invade the house and fill it with chilly drafts and
sarcasms on what we call the temperate zone. It needs a roaring fire
to beat back the enemy; a feeble one is only an invitation to the
most insulting demonstrations. Our pious New England ancestors were
philosophers in their way. It was not simply owing to grace that
they sat for hours in their barnlike meeting-houses during the winter
Sundays, the thermometer many degrees below freezing, with no fire,
except the zeal in their own hearts,--a congregation of red noses and
bright eyes. It was no wonder that the minister in the pulpit warmed up
to his subject, cried aloud, used hot words, spoke a good deal of the
hot place and the Person whose presence was a burning shame, hammered
the desk as if he expected to drive his text through a two-inch plank,
and heated himself by all allowable ecclesiastical gymnastics. A few of
their followers in our day seem to forget that our modern churches are
heated by furnaces and supplied with gas. In the old days it would
have been thought unphilosophic as well as effeminate to warm the
meeting-houses artificially. In one house I knew, at least, when it was
proposed to introduce a stove to take a little of the chill from the
Sunday services, the deacons protested against the innovation. They said
that the stove might benefit those who sat close to it, but it would
drive all the cold air to the other parts of the church, and freeze the
people to death; it was cold enough now around the edges. Blessed days
of ignorance and upright living! Sturdy men who served God by resolutely
sitting out the icy hours of service, amid the rattling of windows and
the carousal of winter in the high, windswept galleries! Patient women,
waiting in the chilly house for consumption to pick out his victims, and
replace the color of youth and the flush of devotion with the hectic
of disease! At least, you did not doze and droop in our over-heated
edifices, and die of vitiated air and disregard of the simplest
conditions of organized life. It is fortunate that each generation
does not comprehend its own ignorance. We are thus enabled to call our
ancestors barbarous. It is something also that each age has its choice
of the death it will die. Our generation is most ingenious. From our
public assembly-rooms and houses we have almost succeeded in excluding
pure air. It took the race ages to build dwellings that would keep out
rain; it has taken longer to build houses air-tight, but we are on the
eve of success. We are only foiled by the ill-fitting, insincere work of
the builders, who build for a day, and charge for all time.