FIRE! FIRE!
A REMONSTRANCE WITH THE NINTH OF NOVEMBER.
How melancholy an object is a “polished front,” that vain-glorious and inhospitable array of cold steel and willow shavings, in which the emancipated hearth is annually constrained by careful housewives to signalise the return of summer, and its own consequent degradation from being a part of the family to become a piece of mere formal furniture. And truly in cold weather, which (thanks to the climate, for we love our country) is all the weather we get in England, the fire is a most important individual in a house: one who exercises a bland authority over the tempers of all the other inmates—for who could quarrel with his feet on the fender? one with whom everybody is anxious to be well—for who would fall out with its genial glow? one who submits with a graceful resignation to the caprices of every casual elbow—and who has never poked a fire to death? one whose good offices have endeared him alike to the selfish and to the cultivated,—at once a host, a mediator, and an occupation.
We have often had our doubts (but then we are partial) whether it be not possible to carry on a conversation with a fire. With the aid of an evening newspaper by way of interpreter, and in strict confidence, no third party being present, we feel that it can be done. Was there an interesting debate last night? were the ministers successful, or did the opposition carry it? In either case, did not the fire require a vigorous poke just as you came to the division? and did not its immediate flame, or, on the contrary, its dull, sullen glow, give you the idea that it entertained its own private opinions on the subject? And if those opinions seemed contrary to yours, did you not endeavour to betray the sparks into an untenable position, by submitting them to the gentle sophistry of a poker nicely insinuated between the bars? or did you not quench with a sudden retort of small coal its impertinent congratulation at an unfortunate result? until, when its cordial glow, penetrating that unseemly shroud, has given evidence of self-conviction, you felt that you had dealt too harshly with an old friend, and hastened to make it up with him again by a playful titillation, more in jest than earnest.
But this is all to come. Not yet (with us) have the kindly old bars, reverend in their attenuation, been restored to their time-honoured throne; not yet have the dingy festoons of pink and white paper disappeared from the garish mantel. Still desolate and cheerless shows the noble edifice. The gaunt chimney yawns still in sick anticipation of deferred smoke. The “irons,” innocent of coal, and polished to the tip, skulk and cower sympathetically into the extreme corner of the fender. The very rug seems ghastly and grim, wanting the kindly play of the excited flame. We have no comfort in the parlour yet: even the privileged kitten, wandering in vain in search of a resting-place, deems it but a chill dignity which has withdrawn her from the warm couch before the kitchen-fire. Things have become too real for home. We have no joy now in those delicious loiterings for the five minutes before dinner—those casual snatches of Sterne, those scraps of Steele. We have left off smiling; we are impregnable even to a pun. What is the day of the month?
Surely were not October retrospectively associated (in April and glorious May) with the grateful magnificence of ale, none would be so unpopular as the chilly month. There is no period in which so much of what ladies call “unpleasantness” occurs, no season when that mysterious distemper known as “warming” is so epidemic, as in October. It is a time when, in default of being conventionally cold, every one becomes intensely cool. A general chill pervades the domestic virtues: hospitality is aguish, and charity becomes more than proverbially numb.
In twenty days how different an appearance will things wear! The magic circle round the hearth will be filled with beaming faces; a score of hands will be luxuriously chafing the palpable warmth dispensed by a social blaze; some more privileged feet may perchance be basking in the extraordinary recesses of the fender. We shall consult the thermometer to enjoy the cold weather by contrast with the glowing comfort within. We shall remark how “time flies,” and that “it seems only yesterday since we had a fire before;” forgetful of the hideous night and the troublous dreams that have intervened since those sweet memories. And all this—in twenty days.
We are no innovators: we respect all things for their age, and some for their youth. But we would hope that, in humbly looking for a fire in the cold weather, even though November be still in the store of time, we should be exhibiting no dangerous propensities. If, as we are inclined to believe, fires were discovered previously to the invention of lord mayors, wherefore should we defer our accession to them until he is welcomed by those frigid antiquities Gog and Magog? Wherefore not let fires go out with the old lord mayor, if they needs must come in with the new? Wherefore not do without lord mayors altogether, and elect an annual grate to judge the prisoners at the bar in the Mansion House, and to listen to the quirks of the facetious Mr. Hob-ler?
AN APPROPRIATE GIFT.
We perceive that the fair dames of Nottingham have, with compassionate liberality, presented to Mr. Walter, one of the Tory candidates at the late election, a silver salver. What a delicate and appropriate gift for a man so beaten as Master Walter!—the pretty dears knew where he was hurt, and applied a silver salve—we beg pardon, salver—to his wounds. We trust the remedy may prove consolatory to the poor gentleman.
NOT A STEP FA(R)THER.
The diminutive chroniclers of Animalcula-Chatter, called small-talk, have been giving a minute description of the goings on of His Grace of Wellington at Walmer. They hint that he sleeps and wakes by clock-work, eats by the ounce, and drinks and walks by measure. During the latter recreation, it is his pleasure, they tell us, to use one of Payne’s pedometers to regulate his march. Thus it is quite clear the great Captain will never become a
“SOLDIER TIRED.”
A MALE DUE.
The Post-office in Downing-street has been besieged by various inquirers, who are anxiously seeking for some information as to the expected arrival of the Royal Male.
CURIOUS SYNONYMS.
Sir Peter Laurie discovered during his residence in Boulogne that veau is the French for veal. On his return to England, being at a public dinner, he exhibited his knowledge of the tongues by asking a brother alderman for a slice of his weal or woe.
HAPPY LAND!
Six young girls, inmates of the Lambeth workhouse, were brought up at Union Hall, charged with breaking several squares of glass. In their defence, they complained that they had been treated worse in the workhouse than they would be in prison, and said that it was to cause their committal to the latter place they committed the mischief. What a beautiful picture of moral England this little anecdote exhibits! What must be the state of society in a country where crime is punished less severely than poverty?
Old England, bless’d and favour’d clime!
Where paupers to thy prisons run;
Where poverty’s the only crime
That angry justice frowns upon.
THE NEW STATE STRETCHER.
“What an uncomfortable bed Peel has made for himself!” observed Normanby to Palmerston. “That’s not very clear to me, I confess,” replied the Downing-street Cupid, “as it is acknowledged he sleeps on a bolstered cabinet.” The pacificator of Ireland closed his face for the remainder of the day.
The latest case of monomania, from our own specially-raised American correspondent:—A gentleman who fancied himself a pendulum always went upon tick, and never discovered his delusion until he was carefully wound up in the Queen’s Bench.
“VERY LIKE A WHALE.”
The first of all the royal infant males
Should take the title of the Prince of Wales;
Because ’tis clear to seaman and to lubber,
Babies and whales are both inclined to blubber.
ARRIVED AT LAST.
We perceived by a paragraph copied from the “John o’Groats Journal,” that an immense Whale, upwards of seventy-six feet in length, was captured a few days since at Wick. Sir Peter Laurie and Alderman Humphrey on reading this announcement naturally concluded that the Wick referred to was our gracious Queen Wic, and rushed off to Buckingham-palace to pay their united tribute of loyalty to the long-expected Prince of Wales.
EPIGRAM.
I’m going to seal a letter, Dick,
Some wax pray give to me.
I have not got a single stick,
Or whacks I’d give to thee.