think Lamb would say about old cars?"

"Lamb be hanged on old cars!" and I sent the sparks flying with a fresh
stick.

"Well, then let's hear the rest of him on 'Old _China_.'" And so she
read, while the fire burned, and outside swept the winter storm.

I have a weakness for out-loud reading and Lamb, and a peculiar joy in
wood fires when the nights are dark and snowy. My mind is not, after
all, _much_ set on automobiles then; there is such a difference between
a wild January night on Mullein Hill and an automobile show--or any
other show. If St. Bernard of Cluny had been an American and not a
monk, I think Jerusalem the Golden might very likely have been a quiet
little town like Hingham, all black with a winter night and lighted for
the Saint with a single open fire. Anyhow I cannot imagine the
mansions of the Celestial City without fireplaces. I don't know how
the equatorial people do; I have never lived on the equator, and I have
no desire to--nor in any other place where it is too hot for a
fireplace, or where wood is so scarce that one is obliged to substitute
a gas-log. I wish I could build an open hearth into every lowly home
and give every man who loves out-loud reading a copy of Lamb and sticks
enough for a fire. I wish--is it futile to wish that besides the
fireplace and the sticks I might add a great many more winter evenings
to the round of the year? I would leave the days as they are in their
beautiful and endless variety, but the long, shut-in winter evenings

"When young and old in circle
About the firebrands close--"