Fireside

“ Welcome, my old friend, Welcome to a foreign fireside, While the sullen gales of autumn Shake the windows. ”

“ “And indeed, what is better than to sit by one’s fireside in the evening with a book, while the wind beats against the window and the lamp is burning?” ”

“ They who reared it, should their banner be triumphant, were to pour sunshine over New England’s rugged hills and scatter flower-seeds throughout the soil. Jollity and gloom were contending for an empire. Midsummer eve had come, bringing deep verdure to the forest, and roses in her lap of a more vivid hue than the tender buds of spring. But May, or her mirthful spirit, dwelt all the year round at Merry Mount, sporting with the summer months and revelling with autumn and basking in the glow of winter’s fireside. ”

“ A dreamer may dwell so long among fantasies that the things without him will seem as unreal as those within.
When eve has fairly set in, therefore, I sally forth, tightly buttoning my shaggy overcoat and hoisting my umbrella, the silken dome of which immediately resounds with the heavy drumming of the invisible raindrops. Pausing on the lowest doorstep, I contrast the warmth and cheerfulness of my deserted fireside with the drear obscurity and chill discomfort into which I am about to plunge. ”

“ But take especial care of the fire fear the fire-spirit in the forest desert! He comes from the unextinguishable pile—he comes from the thunder-cloud, riding on the blue lightning's flame, which kindles the thick, dry moss of the earth: trees and bushes are kindled, the flames run from tree to tree—it is like a snow-storm of fire! ”

“ With a plentiful supply of dry pine-logs on the fire, and its cheerful blaze streaming far up into the sky, illuminating the valley far and near, and exhibiting the animals, with well-filled bellies, standing contentedly at rest over their picket-fire, I would sit cross-legged, enjoying the genial warmth, and, pipe in mouth, watch the blue smoke as it curled upwards, building castles in its vapoury wreaths, and, in the fantastic shapes it assumed, peopling the solitude with figures of those far away. ”

“ A small blaze among the withered leaves of autumn a child may extinguish; but when the winds have hurled it, and the wild fire is running and leaping from point to point, streaming up trees and wrapping the forest in sheets of flame, it will take the energies of thousands to quench it. ”

“ I experience such an interior comfort, far removed from the sense of cold, as if the thin atmosphere were rarefied by heat, were the medium of invisible flames, as if the whole landscape were one great hearthside, that where the shrub oak leaves rustle on the hillside, I seem to hear a crackling fire and see the pure flame, and I wonder that the dry leaves do not blaze into yellow flames. ”

“ It must, I guessed, be somewhere in the neighbourhood of the former fire, and, of course, it is where man is that forest fires are frequent; for man is the only animal that makes fires for himself, and it is from his fires that the flames spread to the woods. Sometimes, in very dry seasons, the woods ignite of themselves, but that is rare.
Of course, as the summer grew, we moved about and wandered abroad as in other years, keeping in the neighbourhood of the streams, sheltering during the heat of the day, and roaming over the mountains in the sweet cool air of the night and morning. ”

“ I'm with you, for when the old fireplace is built, and the wind is whistling down the canyon, bringing messages of snow, we'll forget everything outside and just be happy toasting before a great log fire. ”

“ Small fires were burning in the vegetable mould or surface brush, and the opacity of the forest yielded to the pretty flame which danced and almost sang in a household crackle, like a young girl in love humming tunes as she kindles a fire. ”

“ A little curl of smoke, a tiny flame struggles for a moment for life. The slightest breath of air falls upon it—a gleam, scarcely larger than a fire-fly among the tangled leaves, and in an instant a lurid flame leaps forth—is kindled into a furnace-like glare, and directly a wandering hill of flame is sweeping resistlessly over the prairie. ”

“ Nobody likes an outdoor fire more than I do, whether it is a real camp fire, a little back yard faggot fire just enough to roast a few potatoes and onions and play gypsy, or a big blazing bonfire, almost dangerous and wholly splendid. What I don't like is a sickly, smouldering pile of leaves sending out a suffocating smudge, bursting with sudden flame at night and having to be put out after you had your slippers on and had begun a new book. Such a fire is a nuisance to you and to the neighbourhood and no satisfaction. ”

“ Beside the extinguished lamps which the hoofs had confusedly scattered, the fire, arrested by the watercourse, had consumed the grasses that fed it, and there the plains stretched, black and desert as the Phlegroean Field of the Poet's Hell. But the fire still raged in the forest beyond,—white flames, soaring up from the trunks of the tallest trees, and forming, through the sullen dark of the smoke-reek, innumerable pillars of fire, like the halls in the City of fiends. ”

“ During one of its wilder displays the fire rolled forward, an enormous horizontal whirl of flame, and then, with thunder and roar, the molten flames swept upward into a wall of fire; this tore to pieces, collapsed, and fell forward in fiery disappearing clouds. With amazing quickness the splendid hanging garden on the terraced heights was crushed and blackened. By my promontory went this magnificent zigzag surging front of flame, blowing the heavens full of sparks and smoke and flinging enormous fiery rockets. ”

“ Light flashes of flame would run from tree-top to tree-top, while farther back was a solid cone of fire—trunks from which all the foliage and lesser branches had fallen, stretching their glowing arms across the darkness, towering up against the starless background. ”

“ A sheet of flame, beginning with the size of a spark, would overspread the hillside, advancing on the wings of the wind with the roaring, rushing sound of many hosts, where the grass was thick, shooting huge forked tongues high into the air, and tall trees, the patriarchs of the forest, yielded their lives to the blast. ”

“ These fires occur—of course—in the summer—when the grass is dry as tinder—and the flames rush and roar over the prairie in a manner frightful to behold. They usually burn better than mine is burning to-night. ”

“ A glory of sleek fires sprang on the instant into life. We lay imprisoned in a house of glass at the foot of a smooth incline rising behind us to unknown heights. A wall of porous and opaque ice-rubbish, into which our feet had plunged deep, had stayed our progress. ”

“ Fires go out, but each new flame is a reincarnation. Our open fires are but miniatures of the old-time roarers that set the hall or tavern harmlessly ablaze, and lit its windows for the ruddy encouragement of winter-blown travelers. ”

“ In one ravine, the smoke from a bush-fire rolls lazily up in murky columns, till the gale, catching it as it emerges from the shelter of the gully, whirls it abroad, amid the dashing spray and driving rain. ”

“ And living fire leaps up to greet
The song of Wohelo."
As they chanted the words the girls acted out with gestures the dancing ghosts, the brooding forest, the rubbing sticks and the leaping fire. So they proceeded through the strange measures, ending up in a close circle around the fire, all making the hand sign of fire together. ”

“ The continued rushing sound of the fire, and the sighing of the hot wind, sounds monotonously on the ear, or interrupted only by an occasional crash, as from time to time some mighty tree succumbs to its fate, and the forest trembles at the fall of its verdant patriarchs. ”

“ Blow the third from morn till even,
When the fire leaps through the windows,
Through the door the sparks fly upward,
Clouds of smoke arise to heaven;
With the clouds the black smoke mingles,
As the storm-winds ply the bellows. ”

“ Against that curtain of blaze, strangely beautiful in its sinuous strength, I watch the black silhouettes of men running hither and thither like rats, gutting the houses, looting the stores, tearing the hearts out of the homes. The fire seems a great bird, and from its nest of furnace heat it spreads its flapping wings over the city. ”

“ With the crackling, hissing, seething noises of the fire mingle the groans of the perishing beasts, while huge clouds of smoke roll before the wind, like the billows of a wind-swept ocean, and live tongues of flame ever and anon light up the terrible scene with lurid splendour. ”

“ The sleepers, of all sexes and ages, are to lie there in a row, their feet to the fire, and their heads under the edge of the sloping roof. Nothing could be better contrived. The fire is in front: it is not a fire, but a conflagration—a vast heap of green logs set on fire—of pitch, and split dead-wood, and crackling balsams, raging and roaring. ”

“ Every now and then they meet with a puff of wind, which will perhaps strike a great wall of fire rushing up-hill as straight as a line, and divide it into two fiery horns like a crescent; then as the breeze changes again, the tips of flame will gradually approach each other till they meet, and go on again in a solid mass of fire. ”

“ How the sparks mount and twinkle and disappear like tropical fireflies, and all the leaves murmur, and clap their hands! Some of the sparks do not go out: we see them flaming in the sky when the flame of the fire has died down. ”

“ On an appointed day there must be no single flame of fire in any house or on any hearth. From each house straw, and water, and brushwood must be fetched, and a stout oak-post driven fast into the ground, and a hole bored through it; in this a wooden wind- lass is stuck, well smeared with cart-pitch and tar, and turned round so long that, with the fierce heat and force, it gives forth fire. ”

“ It was rather a difficult matter to light a fire, but among the underbrush, in a wild, undisturbed spot, there will always be found some fragments of dried branches, and tufts of grass which the rain has not reached, and by the assistance of the spunk, or light-wood, with which travellers always go well provided, a comforting fire was at length blazing brightly. ”

“ The domestic fire was a type of all these attributes, and seemed to bring might and majesty, and wild nature and a spiritual essence, into our in most home, and yet to dwell with us in such friendliness that its mysteries and marvels excited no dismay. ”

“ In every draught, one side is chilled whilst the other is burned, as happens at the fireplace of an old country house, where one side is roasted, whilst on the other you are nearly blown up the chimney. ”

“ There's a place, far away from here, where a blaze like that comes from the ground sometimes when a camp fire is built too near it. But the wind whisks the flames out and then there's nothing but a smell. ”

“ Man carving a home out of the heart of the primeval bush, and everywhere the fire completing the work begun by the axe. The sky is shrouded in gloom from the smoke. We are told this is a good burning autumn. Last year was wet, but this season fires have been blazing for weeks, and of the poor forest, if it were sentient, one might say, "The smoke of its torment goeth up for ever." ”

“ As the tide of fire sweeps along, there is a general level, but the flame is broken up into distinct tongues and waves; and when it meets with some ancient and lofty clump of trees, it rushes up to the topmost point, and this burning spire towers far above the sea of fire beneath. In some places there may be a calm, and the tongues shoot straight up; at other places, the flames are agitated by a fierce tempest, and they are bent at right angles to their original direction. ”

“ The world's on fire. The forests are ablaze. Flames leaping skyward from the tallest trees, burst and vanish. Sparks soar and fall upon the bosom of a blood red sea. They dampen and die. Gigantic pines, fir, spruce and hemlocks fall in the flaming path. ”

“ All summer and until the rains come in the fall, they have to guard every minute, and even then sometimes the fires get away from them. And one of the first things a forester learns, Dan, is to be careful with fire. ”

“ The roaring flames, once started in such a season, are fanned by the winds which the heat generates, and, gathering strength, roll forward with resistless impetus; dense, resinous forest growths succumb before their assault, rivers are leaped by columns of fire, and everything goes down before the destroyer. ”

“ The action of a fire in a lodge-pole forest is varied. If the forest be an old one, even with much rubbish 192 on the ground the heat is not so intense as in a young growth. Where trees are scattered the flames crawl from tree to tree, the needles of which ignite like flash-powder and make beautiful rose-purple flames. ”

“ Fiercer and fiercer flashed the scorching flames; the trees bowed down their withered heads; the green grass shriveled on the hillsides; the rivers vanished from their slimy beds, and the black vapors rose with smoke and fire from the hidden depths of the mighty hills. ”

“ When the camp-fire smoke bends down, in the still air of midday or afternoon, a storm is apt to be brewing.
When by night the stars are extra sharp and twinkle less than usual, overhead, but are dim around the horizon, a storm is apt to be brewing. ”

“ You hear of a fire miles away, and next day, riding across the head of a gully, you hear a hissing and crackling and there is the fire running over the ground in lines and curves of thin blue smoke, snakelike, with old logs blazing on the blackened ground behind. ”

“ There will be the great fire-place, with a huge block for a back-log; then a pile will be built against it large enough for a bonfire—and then such a crackling and streaming! why the dark night just around there will be all in a blush with it. And the little window will glow like a red star to the people of the village ”