THE SKETCH-BOOK.

MY FIRE.

(_For the Mirror_.)

On new year's morning, soon after daybreak, I entered my study, which is a
little room some eight feet square, and from a wayward fancy of my own,
closely resembles the cell of an alchymist. Its walls are hung with black
drapery, on which appear the mystical signs of the planetary bodies,
Hebrew, Persian, and various cabalistic characters, the dark enigmas of
the work of transmutation, and the invocations or prayers for success
employed by the alchymist. Here and there pieces of their quaint and
uncouth shaped apparatus, the aludel, the alembic, and the alkaner, the
pelican, the crucible, and the water-bath, occupy their respective
stations. The clumsy, heavy, oaken table in the centre is covered with
copies of scarce and valuable alchymical tracts, in company with the
_caput mortum_ and the hour-glass. A few antiques, consisting of
half-a-dozen cloth-yard arrows, the stout yew bow of the green clad yeoman,
the ponderous mace and helmet of the valiant knight, and other relics of
the days of chivalry, complete the decorations of this my sanctum.

In consequence of its dark and gloomy aspect, and the feeling of awe with
which the family and servants regard its mystical contents, I have its
undisturbed enjoyment; nobody feels a wish to enter it even in the day
time, and I verily believe they would not do so at the witching hour of
night, lest the mystical signs should take summary vengeance on their
unhallowed intrusion.

The neighbours imagine me to be an adept in the "black art," an astrologer,
or a fortune-teller, but I have no pretentions whatever to any such titles;
this report has got abroad in consequence of a maid-servant having once
had the temerity to peep through the key-hole, and observed on the wall
opposite her "line of sight," some triangular characters. She had been in
the habit of poring over a dream book, and the art of casting nativities;
the Prophetic Almanac was her oracle, and its terrific title-page she
informed her fellow servant "had just those queer triangle things as was
hung on the walls of young master's study." She was "sure that he could
tell her fortune." This important intelligence, delivered with due
confidence to her fellow servant, of course spread like wildfire among the
other occupants of the "lower regions," and from them amongst the
handmaidens of sundry other dwellings. Thus has my astrological character
been established.