perhaps the finest flower of fiction, and one which
has not yet achieved all its victories or realized all its
possibilities. All the fiction of the future will show the influence of
this highly specialized form. In sheer craftsmanship, novel-writing has
progressed far; in technique, in dexterous manipulation of their
material, the novices of to-day are ahead of the masters of yesterday.
This often happens in an art, and it is especially true just now in the
art of fiction. Yes, there are great things preparing for us in the
future, there are excellent things being done momently about us. But
while we wait for the great ones, the excellent ones sometimes create in
us a sense of surfeit. We cannot hurry the future, and if meanwhile we
crave repose, leisure, quiet, steadiness, the sense of magnitude, we
must go to the past. There, and not in the yearly output of our own
publishers, we shall find our "comfortable" books.

XVII

In the Firelight

Jonathan had improvidently lighted his pipe before he noticed that the
fire needed his attention. This was a mistake, because, at least in
Jonathan's case, neither a fire nor a pipe responds heartily to a
divided mind. As I watched him absently knocking the charred logs
together, I longed to snatch the tongs from his indifferent hands and
"change the sorry scheme of things entire." Big wads of smoke rolled
nonchalantly out of the corners of the fireplace and filled the low
ceiling with bluish mist, yet I held my peace, and I did not snatch the
tongs. I know of no circumstances wherein advice is less welcome than
when offered by a woman to a man on his knees before the fire. When my
friends make fudge or rare-bits, they invite criticism, they court
suggestion, but when one of them takes the tongs in his hand, have a
care what you say to him! In our household a certain convention of
courtesy--fireplace etiquette--has tacitly established itself, in
accordance with which the person who wields the tongs, assuming full
responsibility for results, is free from criticism or suggestion.
Disregard of such etiquette may not have precipitated divorce, but I
have known it to produce distinctly strained relations. And so, while
Jonathan tinkered in a half-hearted way at the fire, I ruled my tongue.
At last, little vanishing blue flickers began to run along the log
edges, growing steadier and yellower until they settled into something
like a blaze.

Jonathan straightened up, but the