Tinder

“ Being now furnished with well-made arms, I soon brought down my birds, and might have fared sumptuously, could I have procured a fire. All my waking hours were, therefore, spent in bewailing this want, when one morning, as I was digging with my stick to come at a land tortoise that had crept into a hole, I raked out a piece of flint, and the tinder-box occurring to my mind, I struck it on the back of my knife, and instantly produced sparks, which actually made me leap for joy. My delight, however, was but of short duration. How were the sparks to be collected? I had no tinder—no matches. ”

“ And all that Fate did, in order to satisfy this spirit of mischief, was to cause Sir Marmaduke to forget his tinder-box in the front parlor of Mistress Martha Lambert's cottage.
A tinder-box is a small matter! an object of infinitesimal importance when the broad light of day illumines the interior of houses or the bosquets of a park, but it becomes an object of paramount importance, when the night is pitch dark, and when it is necessary to effect an exchange of clothing within the four walls of a pavilion. ”

“ Gaping visitors are usually shown, by partial demonstration, with flint-and-steel, how our long-suffering and patient ancestors struck a light, but the process is not demonstrated in its entirety. To strike a spark off a flint with a piece of steel is an easy matter, but if the whole process of directing the sparks upon the tinder in the tinder-box and then blowing the tinder into a flame were gone through, visitors would be very much more astonished at the inconveniences endured by our forbears before the invention of matches. ”

“ Many persons remember the tinder-box that was taken from its warm nook beside the fire-place whenever a light was wanted; the matches tipped with sulphur used to start a blaze from the glowing tinder are also familiar to the older generation. ”

“ The path to it is sacred to me. No one will disturb you; you are secure as a bird in its nest. There is a bed in a corner; rushlight and holder and tinder-box on a table by. Light, and take possession. I must go and reassure Portlock.”
I heard him move softly over the floor; a trap opened somewhere, letting in a momentary weak film of light, and he was gone.
For a time I stood motionless, hearing the murmur of voices somewhere below; then, suddenly panic-struck, groped for the table and tinder, and shakily struck fire. ”

“ To ignite these, we must hold them as in fig. 1, and use the steel to strike downwards upon the flint. In the second division (b) are:--tinder of burnt rags, tinder of any kind with grains of gunpowder strewed over it, and touch-wood. All these require tinder-boxes, as explained below. There are also many other substances belonging to both divisions of tinder, in use. A traveller should inform himself about those peculiar to the country that he visits.
a Amacou, punk, or German tinder, is made from a kind of fungus or mushroom that grows on the trunks of old oaks, ashes, beeches, etc. ”

“ By dawn bands of the restless had begun to drift about from village to village, eager to discuss the position, and by degrees gaining a certain coherence of intention. Even those who hung back from the idea of active interference joining the crowd out of curiosity and so increasing the quantity of human tinder ready for ignition by the smallest spark. Before noon Khân Mahomed Lateef Khân, looking out from his ruined tower, saw a cloud of dust beyond his bare brown fields and ere long was in parley with a recruiting band. ”

“ If the tinder happened to be damp, as it sometimes was, and the spark wouldn't lay hold, you were not one bit nearer quieting the baby, or meeting whatever might be the demand for a light in the night time, than was an ancient Briton ages ago! ”

“ Let Tinder lose her name, her family,
And alimony (which she values most) ,
If Tilly suffer not for this disgrace.
All. We vow the like: revenge may be excus'd,
For love resolves to hate when 'tis abus'd. ”

“ At first Parks, as most, had come to think that the man was innately a libertine, awaiting but the right one to strike the hidden flint and set the tinder aglow—the tinder that would burn, and consume, and destroy. He had known of men like that—of men who went the even pathway of their lives until there crossed it another who tore them from it; and that one they followed, leaving soul and morals and decency and cleanliness forever behind them. This, at first, he had thought to be John Schuyler. For the woman was beautiful—beautiful as an animal is beautiful.... ”

“ She stood with the tinder-box and the flint and brimstone matches in her hands. "I wonder if the tinder is burnt enough, Alexander," she said; and with the words she sharply struck the flint. A spark fell instantly and set fire to it, and she lit her match and watched it blaze with a singular look of triumph on her face. Somehow the trifling affair irritated the elder. "What are you doing at a'? You're acting like a silly bairn, makin' a blaze for naething. There's a fire on the hearth: whatna for, then, are you wasting tinder and a match?"
"Maybe it wasna for naething, Elder. ”

“ No matter how great the manifestation of such so-called love, it all the more repels a woman and adds to her loathing day by day. Then there was something worse than all,"—she was almost weeping now—"I might have been able to bear the thought even of that hideous marriage—others have lived through the like—but—but after—that—that day—when you—it seemed that your touch was a spark dropped into a heart full of tinder, which had been lying there awaiting it all these years. ”

“ In those primitive days of our country, it was a very common thing for a farmer’s wife to run into a neighbor’s and borrow some one of these necessary articles, and it was usually the tinder, which she had neglected to prepare when fire was plenty, that was the thing needed. ”

“ You dream like mad, you love like tinder, you aspire like a star-struck moth—for what? That you may hive little lyrics, and sell to a publisher for thirty pieces of silver. ”

“ Soon after the Queen’s coronation, I had another brother, who was called William Henry, and when he was about two months old, my father went to Manchester, and brought back with him the greatest of household comforts of that day—a dozen boxes of Congreve or Lucifer matches. Only those who have stood shivering over the old tinder box on a bitter winter night, trying to get a spark while the baby screamed in the darkness, can form any estimate of the pleasure which these few boxes of matches made in our house. ”

“ You know, says she, that a small Spark will set Fire to Tinder, and that Tinder [111] properly placed will fire a House; an angry Word is with you as that Spark, for you are both as touchy as Tinder, and very often make your own House too hot to hold you. To prevent this, therefore, and to live happily for the future, you must solemnly agree, that if one speaks an angry Word, the other will not answer, 'till he or she has distinctly called over all the Letters in the Alphabet, and the other not reply, 'till he has told twenty ”

“ Thou art a shrewd wench, trust me.
Tin. Well, ladies, I know a new-minted lord, that can act the Spanish Don, with a peaked beard and a starched look, to an hair.
Fri. O Madam Tinder, I guess where you are; but he wants a little of your spirit. He can cringe and caress better than he dare fight. A lady's honour might perish under such a feverish champion.
Car. For love's sake, let's make haste. Nothing will be done till we come.
Enter Christabel with a crutch.
Chris. Good madam landlady, take lame Christabel along with you; she means to have a bout for her ale-money. ”

“ Consider, for a moment, what the result of a popularising of the tinderbox would have been:—In the first place what was looked upon as a miracle would have ceased to be regarded as such and, with the miraculous, a good deal of Kanu’s influence would have gone. Then,—the old woman whose function it was to carry fire-sticks would not alone have lost her importance, but would have had to carry heavy loads like the other women. ”

“ Strike on the tinder, ho! 140
Give me a taper! call up all my people!
This accident is not unlike my dream:
Belief of it oppresses me already. ”

“ Why, I like to be with her, and to see her, and to hear her talk and laugh. I want to help her along if I can—she is a high-spirited creature, and will take things hardly. But I cannot be romantic, and take advantage of a romantic child. Mind you, I think that these friendships between men and women are good for both, if they aren't complicated by love: the worst of it is that passion is a tindery thing, and lights up suddenly when people least expect it. ”

“ But, nevertheless, it gives the clever and courageous match-maker an advantage of which the eligible bachelor complains that she makes the most pitiless use. He finds himself manœuvred into "paying the attentions" which society considers the usual prelude to a marriage, with a dexterity which it is all but impossible to evade. The lady is played into his hands with much the same sort of skill that a conjuror exhibits in forcing a card. There are perhaps a number of other ladies present, in promiscuous flirtation with whom he sees, at first glance, an obvious means of escape. ”

“ Nine men out of ten naturally choose the latter alternative, too often in that presumptuous spirit of self-confidence which is the match-maker's best ally.
A bachelor is perhaps never in so great danger of being caught as when he has come to the conclusion that he sees perfectly through the mother's little game and merely means to amuse himself by carrying on a strictly guarded flirtation with the daughter. We mean, of course, on the assumption that the daughter is either a pretty or clever girl, with whom any sort of flirtation is in itself perilous. ”

“ And, indeed, all that appertains to matrimony is made very difficult by the extraordinary manner in which English society looks upon the relations between young men and girls; in some measure allowing great familiarity, and in another way turning on anyone and calling her ‘match-maker,’ should the unfortunate individual attempt to bring together those she thinks would like to see a little more of each other. Match-maker, indeed! Why, I consider it the duty of every happily married woman to try and make others happy in a similar way ”

“ The melancholy truth is that the gentle craft of match-making has been so vulgarized by course and clumsy professors, and its very name has in consequence been brought into such disrepute, that few respectable women have the courage openly to recognise it. They are haunted by visions of the typical match-maker who does work for fashionable novels and social satires, and who is a truly awful personage. To her alone of mortals is it given to inspire, like the Harpies, at once contempt and fear. ”

“ But to subject a man to this trying ordeal, as the too eager match-maker does, before he is sufficiently in love to be proof against it, is like sending him into a snow-storm without a great-coat.
The romantic match-maker is, in her way, as mischievous as the coarse or the clumsy one. She is usually a good sort of woman, but with decidedly more heart than head. She gets her notions of political economy from Mr. Dickens' novels, and holds [174] that, whenever two nice young people of opposite sexes like each other, it is their business then and there to marry. ”

“ Sir We had decided that it was time for his daughter to marry, so he sent for a match-maker and commissioned her to find a suitable husband. Old Dschang heard this, and was pleased. He prepared food and drink, entertained the match-maker, and told her to recommend him as a husband. But the old match-maker went off scolding.
The next day he invited her to dinner again and gave her money. Then the old match-maker said: "You do not know what you wish! Why should a gentleman's beautiful daughter condescend to marry a poor old gardener like yourself! ”

“ It is because women, consciously or unconsciously, recognize the commercial nature of the undertaking that they interest themselves so strongly in the business of match-making, other than their own. Men have admitted that interest, of course—the thing is too self-evident to be denied—and, as their manner is, attributed it to an exuberant sexuality which overflows on to its surroundings ”

“ You are free as air. No one will be any the wiser, and you are none the worse for our little escapade—romance—call it what you will.
"A little affair in the life of a telegraph operator will not set the heart of the great world throbbing with excitement. I am sorry affairs have turned out this way; for, upon my word, I could have liked you. There is but one thing to do under the circumstances; that is, to part company. I advise you to go quietly back and marry the rich lover Mrs. Deering has selected for you. That will be better than drudging your life away in a telegraph office. ”

“ There are also women who are professional match-makers—quite a remunerative line of business, I am told. Anyhow, when the young man has been sufficiently allured into matrimonial ideas, if he has any common sense he generally wishes to see the girl before saying yes or no. ”

“ I was born a bachelor. I should have said, 'Miss Dixon, if you love me, let me remain a bachelor.’ She would have said, 'As a bachelor you first loved me; be always my own bachelor.’ It is, alas! my single talent. I was made for singleness.”
“Rubbish! You know you like Millicent.”
“Dear madam, I like all ladies—as a garden of flowers, yet I cannot bring myself to pluck one.”
“Then why do you sigh for ten years back?”
That is the worst of women—they have a way of being suddenly logical when no one expects it of them. Mrs. Loring is a charming woman, but I must be careful. ”

“ You say, “Well, may I speak to her?” The voice says, “Who?” You shout, “Miss Doe.” The voice says, “She ban out.” You shriek, “Oh, go to hell!” and assuming a graceful, easy position in the booth, you proceed to tear the telephone from the wall. Later on in the day, when you have two or three hours of spare time, you can telephone Miss Doe again and arrange for the evening’s visit.
Not realizing his mistake, the Groom stands waiting for the Bridal Procession, apparently in high spirits and the best of health. Such an attitude toward a wedding is in the worst possible taste. ”