The Supper-Table

The pleasant firelight! I must still keep harping on it. The kitchen
hearth had an old-fashioned breadth, depth, and spaciousness, far
within which lay what seemed the butt of a good-sized oak-tree, with
the moisture bubbling merrily out at both ends. It was now half an
hour beyond dusk. The blaze from an armful of substantial sticks,
rendered more combustible by brushwood and pine, flickered powerfully
on the smoke-blackened walls, and so cheered our spirits that we cared
not what inclemency might rage and roar on the other side of our
illuminated windows. A yet sultrier warmth was bestowed by a goodly
quantity of peat, which was crumbling to white ashes among the burning
brands, and incensed the kitchen with its not ungrateful fragrance.
The exuberance of this household fire would alone have sufficed to
bespeak us no true farmers; for the New England yeoman, if he have the
misfortune to dwell within practicable distance of a wood-market, is as
niggardly of each stick as if it were a bar of California gold.

But it was fortunate for us, on that wintry eve of our untried life, to
enjoy the warm and radiant luxury of a somewhat too abundant fire. If
it served no other purpose, it made the men look so full of youth, warm
blood, and hope, and the women--such of them, at least, as were anywise
convertible by its magic--so very beautiful, that I would cheerfully
have spent my last dollar to prolong the blaze. As for Zenobia, there
was a glow in her cheeks that made me think of Pandora, fresh from
Vulcan's workshop, and full of the celestial warmth by dint of which he
had tempered and moulded her.