to Dante. When the listener is half asleep he may readily take
these voices for the conversation of spirits and assign them an
intelligible meaning. Anon there is a pattering noise,--drip,
drip, drip,--as if a summer shower were falling within the narrow
circumference of the stove.

These barren and tedious eccentricities are all that the air-tight
stove can bestow in exchange for the invaluable moral influences
which we have lost by our desertion of the open fireplace. Alas! is
this world so very bright that we can afford to choke up such a
domestic fountain of gladsomeness, and sit down by its darkened
source without being conscious of a gloom?

It is my belief that social intercourse cannot long continue what it
has been, now that we have subtracted from it so important and
vivifying an element as firelight. The effects will be more
perceptible on our children and the generations that shall succeed
them than on ourselves, the mechanism of whose life may remain
unchanged, though its spirit be far other than it was. The sacred
trust of the household fire has been transmitted in unbroken
succession from the earliest ages, and faithfully cherished in spite
of every discouragement such as the curfew law of the Norman
conquerors, until in these evil days physical science has nearly
succeeded in extinguishing it. But we at least have our youthful
recollections tinged with the glow of the hearth, and our life-long
habits and associations arranged on the principle of a mutual bond
in the domestic fire. Therefore, though the sociable friend be
forever departed, yet in a degree he will be spiritually present
with us; and still more will the empty forms which were once full of
his rejoicing presence continue to rule our manners. We shall draw