fireplace.

Man is the only creature that dares to light a fire and to live with it.
The reason? Because he alone has learned how to put it out.

It is true that two of his humbler friends have been converted to
fire-worship. The dog and the cat, being half-humanized, have begun to
love the fire. I suppose that a cat seldom comes so near to feeling a
true sense of affection as when she has finished her saucer of bread and
milk, and stretched herself luxuriously underneath the kitchen stove,
while her faithful mistress washes up the dishes. As for a dog, I am
sure that his admiring love for his master is never greater than when
they come in together from the hunt, wet and tired, and the man gathers
a pile of wood in front of the tent, touches it with a tiny magic wand,
and suddenly the clear, consoling flame springs up, saying cheerfully,
"Here we are, at home in the forest; come into the warmth; rest, and
eat, and sleep." When the weary, shivering dog sees this miracle, he
knows that his master is a great man and a lord of things.

After all, that is the only real open fire. Wood is the fuel for it.
Out-of-doors is the place for it. A furnace is an underground prison
for a toiling slave. A stove is a cage for a tame bird. Even a broad
hearthstone and a pair of glittering andirons--the best ornament of a
room--must be accepted as an imitation of the real thing. The veritable
open fire is built in the open, with the whole earth for a fireplace and
the sky for a chimney.

To start a fire in the open is by no means as easy as it looks. It is
one of those simple tricks that every one thinks he can perform until he
tries it.

To do it without trying,--accidentally and unwillingly,--that, of
course, is a thing for which any fool is fit. You knock out the ashes
from your pipe on a fallen log; you toss the end of a match into a patch
of grass, green on top, but dry as punk underneath; you scatter the
dead brands of an old fire among the moss,--a conflagration is under way
before you know it.

A fire in the woods is one thing; a comfort and a joy. Fire in the woods
is another thing; a terror, an uncontrollable fury, a burning shame.

But the lighting up of a proper fire, kindly, approachable, serviceable,
docile, is a work of intelligence. If, perhaps, you have to do it in the
rain, with a single match, it requires no little art and skill.

There is plenty of wood everywhere, but not a bit to burn. The fallen
trees are