IV

The fireplace wants to be all aglow, the wind rising, the night heavy
and black above, but light with sifting snow on the earth, a
background of inclemency for the illumined room with its pictured
walls, tables heaped with books, capacious easy-chairs and their
occupants,--it needs, I say, to glow and throw its rays far through
the crystal of the broad windows, in order that we may rightly
appreciate the relation of the wide-jambed chimney to domestic
architecture in our climate. We fell to talking about it; and, as is
usual when the conversation is professedly on one subject, we
wandered all around it. The young lady staying with us was roasting
chestnuts in the ashes, and the frequent explosions required
considerable attention. The mistress, too, sat somewhat alert, ready
to rise at any instant and minister to the fancied want of this or
that guest, forgetting the reposeful truth that people about a
fireside will not have any wants if they are not suggested. The
worst of them, if they desire anything, only want something hot, and
that later in the evening. And it is an open question whether you
ought to associate with people who want that.

I was saying that nothing had been so slow in its progress in the
world as domestic architecture. Temples, palaces, bridges,
aqueducts, cathedrals, towers of marvelous delicacy and strength,
grew to perfection while the common people lived in hovels, and the
richest lodged in the most gloomy and contracted quarters. The
dwelling-house is a modern institution. It is a curious fact that it
has only improved with the social elevation of women. Men were never