"'He took no verbal notice of what I had said, but gave a tremendous shiver, and his flames began to play again. 'I'm of a warm and cheerful turn of mind,' says he, 'and I must say, that whenever I look out upon the men and women in the world, I see them warm and cheerful.' 'That's nothing wonderful,' said I; 'it's just because you see them sitting round your blaze.' 'Well,' says he, 'Mr. Spruce, I'm very glad you own so much; for my opinion is, that if you had shone out cheerfully when you were in the world, and warmed the folks that came within your influence—if you had put a little kindly glow into your countenance, you would have been surrounded always as I generally am.' 'You're young, says I, 'and you have had no experience; leastways, your experience has not been human. You get stirred when you're low, and people tend you for their own sakes—you ain't preyed upon by disappointments.'
"'Young!' said he; 'disappointments!' And, to my horror, he stood bolt upright, to be impressive. 'Look you, Mr. Spruce, the youngest is the wisest; the child remembers throughout years a happy day, and can forget his tears as fast as they evaporate. He grows up, and his budding youth imagines love. Two or three fancies commonly precede his love. As each of these decays, he, in his inexperience, is eloquent about his blighted hopes, his dead first love, and so on. In the first blossom of his manhood, winds are keen to him—at his first plunge into the stream of active life, he finds the water cold. Who shall condemn his shiver? But if he is to be a healthy man, he will strike out right soon, and glow with cheerful exercise in buffeting the stream. Youth, Mr. Spruce, may be allowed to call the water of the world too cold, but so long only as its plunge is recent. It is a libel on maturity and age to say that we live longer to love less. Preyed upon by disappointments—'
"'Yes,' says I, 'preyed upon.'
"'Say, rather, blessed with trial. Who'd care to swim in a cork jacket! Trouble is a privilege, believe me, friend, to those who know from whose hand, for what purpose, it is sent. I do not mean the trouble people cut out for themselves by curdling all the milk of kindness in their neighbors. But when a man will be a man, will labor with Truth, Charity, and Self-Reliance—always frank and open in his dealings—always giving credit to his neighbors for their good deeds, and humbly abstaining from a judgment of what looks like evil in their conduct—when he knows, under God, no helper but his own brave heart, and his own untiring hand—there is no disappointment in repulse. He learns the lesson Heaven teaches him, his Faith, and Hope, and Charity, by constant active effort became strong—gloriously strong—just as the blacksmith's right arm becomes mighty by the constant wielding of his hammer. Disappointment—let the coward pluck up courage—disappointment is a sheet-and-pumpkin phantom to the bold. Let him who has battled side by side with Trouble, say whether it was not an angel sent to be his help. Find a true-hearted man whose energies have brought him safe through years of difficulty; ask him whether he found the crowd to be base-natured through which he was called upon to force his way? Believe me, he will tell you "No." Having said this, his majesty broke out into a blaze, and lay down in his bed again. 'Well,' he said, 'Philip, will you come to bed with me?'
"'Why, sir,' said I, 'to say the best of it, you're under a misconception; but if it's in the nature of a coal to take such cheerful views of things as you appear to do, I'd rather be a coal than what I am. It's cold work living in the flesh, such as I find it—you seem jolly as a hot cinder, and for the matter of that, what am I now but dust and ashes? Coke is preferable.'
"'Coffin and Purse, you're wanted,' cried the king. And, indeed, Mrs. Pittis, and, indeed, gentlemen, I must turn aside one minute to remark the singularity of this king's body-guard, Coffin and Purse. 'Cash and Mortality,' said the king to me, 'make up, according to your theory, the aim and end of man. So with a couple of cinders you can twit him with his degradation. Sometimes Coffin, sometimes Purse, leaps out into his lap when he is cogitating.' 'Yes,' said I 'that will be extremely humorous. But, so please your majesty, I still have one objection to joining your honorable body.' 'What is that, Phil?' 'I suppose, if I sits down in them there flames, they'll burn me.' 'To be sure,' said the king, kicking up his heels, and scraping a furnace load of live coal over his body, just as you might pull up the blanket when you're in bed to-night, Mrs. Pittis. 'Well, your highness,' said I, 'how about the pain?' 'Pah!' says the king, 'where's your philosophy? Did you never see a fly jump into a lamp-flame?' 'Yes, sure,' I answered. 'And what happened then? A moment's crackle, and an end of it. You've no time to feel pain.' 'Well, then,' said I, 'if your majesty will make a hole for me as near the middle as is convenient to yourself, I will jump into the bed straightway.' The king made a great spatter among the coals, and in I jumped. You know, ma'am, that a great part of our bodies is composed of water.'
"'I don't know that of any gentleman in this room,' replied the landlady. 'But I do believe that you are two parts built out of strong beer.'
"There was a burst—a flash, gentlemen; the liquid part of me went off in instantaneous steam. I cried out with a sharp burn in my foot. The pot was boiling over furiously that contained our bit of dinner; and as I sat close in to the fire, I got considerably scalded. How I got back in the steam to my own fireside, I never rightly comprehended. Fill the can now, Mrs. Pittis."
"'Yes,' said the landlady, 'but let me tell you, Mr. Spruce, that king of the hearth is a gentleman, and if you really had gone with the coals and got acquainted with fire-sides, it would have done you a great deal of good. You'd have owned then that there is a mighty deal more love than hatred in the world. You'd have heard round almost any hearth you chose to play eavesdropper to, household words, any thing but hard or bitter. Some people do not pay their scores with me, but, on the whole, I live. Some of our human natures may run termagant; but, on the whole, we men and women love. Among the worst are those who won't bear quietly their share of work, who can't learn self-reliance, but run to and fro, squealing for help, and talking sentiment against their neighbors, who won't carry their burdens for them. It's all very well for a musty, discontented old bachelor to say there's no love in the world, but it's a falsehood. I know better.'
"'My pipe's out,' said the boy. 'Be smart there with the 'baccy.'"