our chairs together as we and our forefathers have been wont for
thousands of years back, and sit around some blank and empty corner
of the room, babbling with unreal cheerfulness of topics suitable to
the homely fireside. A warmth from the past--from the ashes of
bygone years and the raked-up embers of long ago--will sometimes
thaw the ice about our hearts; but it must be otherwise with our
successors. On the most favorable supposition, they will be
acquainted with the fireside in no better shape than that of the
sullen stove; and more probably they will have grown up amid furnace
heat in houses which might be fancied to have their foundation over
the infernal pit, whence sulphurous steams and unbreathable
exhalations ascend through the apertures of the floor. There will
be nothing to attract these poor children to one centre. They will
never behold one another through that peculiar medium of vision the
ruddy gleam of blazing wood or bituminous coal---which gives the
human spirit so deep an insight into its fellows and melts all
humanity into one cordial heart of hearts. Domestic life, if it may
still be termed domestic, will seek its separate corners, and never
gather itself into groups. The easy gossip; the merry yet
unambitious Jest; the life-like, practical discussion of real
matters in a casual way; the soul of truth which is so often
incarnated in a simple fireside word,--will disappear from earth.
Conversation will contract the air of debate, and all mortal
intercourse be chilled with a fatal frost.

In classic times, the exhortation to fight "pro axis et focis," for
the altars and the hearths, was considered the strongest appeal that
could be made to patriotism. And it seemed an immortal utterance;
for all subsequent ages and people have acknowledged its force and
responded to it with the full portion of manhood that nature had