Fires
A Friend of mine making a list of the things needed for the cottage that he had taken, put at the head "bellows." Then he thought for some minutes, and was found merely to have added "tongs" and "poker." Then he asked someone to finish it. A fire, indeed, furnishes. Nothing else, not even a chair, is absolutely necessary； and it is difficult for a fire to be too large. Some of the grates put into modern houses by the jerry-builders would move an Elizabethan to tears, so petty and mean are they, and so incapable of radiation. We English people would suffer no loss in kindliness and tolerance were the inglenook restored to our homes. The ingle humanises.
Although the father of the family no longer, as in ancient Greece, performs on the hearth religious rites, yet it is still a sacred spot. Lovers whisper there, and there friends exchange confidences. Husband and wife face the fire hand in hand. The table is for wit and good humour, the hearth is for something deeper and more

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