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Updated: June 1, 2025
The firelight glimmers upon the walls of your cherished home, like the Vestal fire of old upon the figures of adoring virgins, or like the flame of Hebrew sacrifice, whose incense bore hearts to Heaven. The big chair of your father is drawn to its wonted corner by the chimney-side; his head, just touched with gray, lies back upon its oaken top.
The friendly word was circulated by a kind of estafet from farm to farm, was carried by neighbor or passing traveller, or was discussed and planned and agreed upon in the noon-house, or at the tavern chimney-side on Sunday during the nooning, that on a certain date unless there set in the tantalizing and swamping January thaw, a thaw which might be pushing and unseasonable enough to rush in in December and quite as often hung off and dawdled into February that on the appointed date, at break of day, the annual ride to market would begin.
I forced him to swallow it like a child; and, being still perished with the cold of the night, I followed his example. "It has to be told, Mackellar," said he. "It must be told." And he fell suddenly in a seat my old lord's seat by the chimney-side and was shaken with dry sobs. Dismay came upon my soul; it was plain there was no help in Mr. Henry.
Even the master himself came no longer to mull his wine by the andirons; and the very dogs stretched themselves less often and with less content at the chimney-side. All the rooms at Shirley are richly panelled to the ceiling, and have heavy, ornate cornices and fine, carved mantelpieces and doorways.
When father came home, the rack had driven down the harbor and left clear sky; it was near nightfall; they'd been searching the shore all day, to no purpose. But that rainbow, I always took it for a sign. Father was worn out, yet he sat in the chimney-side, cutting off great quids and chewing and thinking and sighing.
The women began to talk, and the children collected in groups and listened with cheerful grins. She could pick up little Jane's kitten, or give a pat to small Thomas' mongrel dog, in a manner which threw down barriers. "Don't put out your pipe," she said to old Grandfather Doby, rising totteringly respectful from his chimney-side chair. "You have only just lighted it.
The table stood by the chimney-side, where supper had been laid, Carew brought a napkin from the linen-chest, and spread it upon the board. Then he went to the server's screen and looked behind it, and tried the latches of the doors; and having thus made sure that all was safe, came back to the table again, and setting the rush-light there, turned the contents of his purse into the napkin.
His face was pale and swollen; as he sat in the chimney-side with his Latin, he would drop off sleeping and the book roll in the ashes; some days he would drag his foot, others stumble in speaking. The amenity of his behaviour appeared more extreme; full of excuses for the least trouble, very thoughtful for all; to myself, of a most flattering civility.
"'If it was anything possible, I'd hump my back and do it, but it isn't! he jerked, knocking his pipe against the chimney-side before it was half empty and then refilling it; 'it's either a vacation or the knoll which shall it be?
A wild courage, a Stoicism not of the schools but of the blood, shines in every anecdote, and has given that book its immense fame. We need books of this tart cathartic virtue more than books of political science or of private economy. Life is a festival only to the wise. Seen from the nook and chimney-side of prudence, it wears a ragged and dangerous front.
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