thing, its glowing heart so shallow and ungenerous. It has no voice,
no personality, no surprises; it submits to the control of a gas
company, which, in its turn, is controlled by Parliament. Now, a fire
proper has nothing to do with Parliament. A fire proper has whims,
ambitions, and impulses unknown to gas-burners, undreamed of by
asbestos. Yet even the gas stove has advantages and merits when
compared with hot-water pipes. The gas stove at least offers a focus
for the eye, unworthy though it be; and you can make a semicircle of
good people before it. But with hot-water pipes not even that is
possible. From the security of ambush they merely heat, and heat whose
source is invisible is hardly to be coveted at all. Moreover, the heat
of hot-water pipes is but one remove from stuffiness.

Coals are a perpetual surprise, for no two consignments burn exactly
alike. There is one variety that does not burn--it explodes. This kind
comes mainly from the slate quarries, and, we must believe, reaches
the coal merchant by accident. Few accidents, however, occur so
frequently. Another variety, found in its greatest perfection in
railway waiting-rooms, does everything but emit heat. A third variety
jumps and burns the hearthrug. One can predicate nothing definite
concerning a new load of coal at any time, least of all if the
consignment was ordered to be "exactly like the last."

A true luxury is a fire in the bedroom. This is fire at its most
fanciful and mysterious. One lies in bed watching drowsily the play of
the flames, the flicker of the shadows. The light leaps up and hides
again, the room gradually becomes peopled with fantasies. Now and then
a coal drops and accentuates the silence. Movement with silence is one
of the curious influences that come to us: hence, perhaps, part of the
fascination of the cinematoscope, wherein trains rush into stations,
and streets are seen filled with hurrying people and bustling
vehicles, and yet there is no sound save the clicking of the
mechanism. With a fire in one's bedroom sleep comes witchingly.

Another luxury is reading by firelight, but this is less to the credit
of the fire than the book. An author must have us in no uncertain grip
when he can induce us to read him by a light so impermanent as that of
the elfish coal. Nearer and nearer to the page grows the bended head,
and nearer and nearer to the fire moves the book. Boys and girls love
to read lying full length on the hearthrug