er? This is a wonderful thing
about a candle.

We have here a good deal of wind, which will help us in some of our
illustrations, but tease us in others; for the sake, therefore, of a
little regularity, and to simplify the matter, I shall make a quiet
flame--for who can study a subject when there are difficulties in the way
not belonging to it? Here is a clever invention of some costermonger or
street stander in the market-place for the shading of their candles on
Saturday nights, when they are selling their greens, or potatoes, or fish.
I have very often admired it. They put a lamp-glass round the candle,
supported on a kind of gallery, which clasps it, and it can be slipped up
and down as required. By the use of this lamp-glass, employed in the same
way, you have a steady flame, which you can look at, and carefully
examine, as I hope you will do, at home.

You see, then, in the first instance, that a beautiful cup is formed. As
the air comes to the candle it moves upwards by the force of the current
which the heat of the candle produces, and it so cools all the sides of
the wax, tallow, or fuel, as to keep the edge much cooler than the part
within; the part within melts by the flame that runs down the wick as far
as it can go before it is extinguished, but the part on the outside does
not melt. If I made a current in one direction, my cup would be lop-sided,
and the fluid would consequently run over,--for the same force of gravity
which holds worlds together holds this fluid in a horizontal position, and
if the cup be not horizontal, of course the fluid will run away in
guttering. You see, therefore, that the cup is formed by this beautifully
regular ascending current of air playing upon all sides, which keeps the
exterior of the candle cool. No fuel would serve for a candle which has
not the property of giving this cup, except such fuel as the Irish
bogwood, where the material itself is like a sponge, and holds its own
fuel. You see now why you would have had such a bad result if you were to
burn these beautiful candles that I have shewn you, which are irregular,
intermittent in their shape, and cannot therefore have that nicely-formed
edge to the cup which is the great beauty in a candle. I hope you will now
see that the perfection of a process--that is, its utility--is the better
point of beauty about it. It is not the best looking thing, but the best
acting thing, which is the most advantageous to us. This good-lo