BE HONEST AND KEEP WARM.
The architect went home to translate
the instructions he had received into the language
that builders understand. Jack and Jill established
themselves in the house that Jack built. The proposed
amendments were indefinitely postponed; Jill having
consented to take the house temporarily as she had
taken Jack permanently for better or worse only
claiming her reserved right, in the case of the house,
of privately finding all the fault she pleased.
Even the staircase, so favorable to a swift descent,
remained unchanged, and in their own room the bed
stood squarely in the middle of the floor. Jack
averred that this was intended when the house was
planned, because the air is so much better in the
centre of a room, and there is not so much danger of
being struck by lightning.
One day there came a cold, gloomy
rain on the wings of a raw east wind, and after Jack
had gone to his office it occurred to Jill that a fire
on the hearth in the parlor, which they used as a common
sitting-room, would be exceedingly comfortable, but
on removing a highly ornamental screen that served
as a “fireboard,” she found neither grate
nor fireplace, only a blank wall plastered and papered.
Her righteous wrath was kindled, not because she was
compelled to get warm in some other way, but by the
fraudulent character of the chimney-piece. “I
can imagine nothing more absurdly impertinent,”
she declared to Jack when he came home, “than
that huge marble mantel standing stupidly against
the wall where there isn’t even a chimney for
a background. As a piece of furniture it is superfluous;
as a wall decoration it is hideous; as a shelf it
is preposterous; as a fireplace it is a downright lie.
If our architect suggests anything of the kind he
will be dismissed on the instant.”
“Don’t you think the room
would look rather bare without a mantel? You
know it’s the most common thing in the world
to have them like this. I can show you a hundred
without going out of town.”
“Common! It’s worse
than common; it is vulgar, it is atrocious, it is
the sum of all villainies!” said Jill, her indignation
rising with each succeeding epithet. “A
fireplace is a sacred thing. To pretend to have
one when you have not is like pretending to be pious
when you know you are wicked; it is stealing the livery
of a warm, gracious, kindly hospitality to serve you
in making a cold, heartless pretense of welcome.”
“I didn’t mean to do anything
wrong,” Jack protested with exceeding meekness.
“Such mantels were all the fashion when this
house was built, and fashions in marble can’t
be changed as easily as fashions in paper flowers.”
“There ought not to be ‘fashions’
in marble, but of course it was fashion. Nothing
else than the blindest of all blind guides could have
led people into anything so hopelessly silly and unprincipled.
I shall never enjoy this room again,” she continued,
“knowing, as well I know, that yonder stately
piece of sculpture is a whited sepulchre, a delusion
and a snare. I shall feel that I ought to unmask
it the moment a visitor comes in, lest I should be
asked to make a fire on the hearth and be obliged
to confess the depravity in our own household.”
“Now, really, my dear, don’t
you think you are coming it rather strong, if I may
be allowed the expression? Isn’t it possible
that your present views may be slightly tinged by
the color of the east wind, so to speak?”
“Not in the least. You
know perfectly well, Jack, that insincerity is the
bane of domestic and social life; that hypocrisy is
a child of the Evil One, and that vain and false pretensions
are the fatal lures that lead us on to destruction.
How can we respect ourselves or expect our friends
to respect us if the most conspicuous thing in the
house is a palpable fraud?”
“Very well, dear, I’ll
bring up a can of nitro-glycerine to-morrow and blow
the whole establishment into the middle of futurity.
Meanwhile, let us see if anything can be done to make
it endurable a few hours longer.”
Dropping on his knees in front of
the fictitious fireplace, Jack pulled the paper from
the wall, disclosing a sheet-iron stove-pipe receiver,
set there for a time of need, and communicating in
some mysterious way with a sooty smoke flue.
Having found this, he telephoned to the stove store
for a portable grate that is to say, a Franklin
stove with ornamental tiles in the face of it and
in less than an hour the room was radiant with the
blaze of a hickory fire, while a hitherto unknown
warmth came to the lifeless marble from its new neighbor.
By sitting directly in front of it Jill discovered
that in appearance the general effect was nearly as
good as that of a genuine fireplace, the warmth diffused
being decidedly greater.
“I’m sorry I lost my temper,”
said she, after they had sat a while in silence enjoying
the ameliorating influence of the blaze, “but
I do hate a humbug. We will let this stove
stand here all summer to remind you that neither your
house nor your wife is perfect, and to keep me warm
when the east wind blows.”
Jack’s response to this magnanimous
remark must be omitted, as it had no direct bearing
upon house-building.
“When I went into the kitchen
this morning to get warm,” Jill observed later
in the evening, “I found Bridget ironing; the
stove was red-hot, the bath boiler was bubbling and
shaking with the imprisoned steam, and the outside
door was wide open. It struck me that there was
heat enough going out of doors, not to mention the
superheated air of the kitchen itself, to have made
the whole house comfortable such days as this, if
it could only be saved. Don’t you think
it would be possible to attach a pipe to some part
of the cooking-range that would carry steam or hot
water to the front of the house. We shouldn’t
want it when the furnace was running, nor in very
warm weather, and at such times it could be turned
off.”
Jack thought it could be done, and
expressed a willingness to be a roasted martyr occasionally
if he could by that means make some use of the perennial
fire in the kitchen, a fire that seemed to be the hottest
when there was no demand for it.
“It’s my conviction,”
said he, “that if the heat actually evolved from
the fuel consumed by the average cook could be conserved
on strictly scientific principles, it would warm the
house comfortably the year round without any damage
to the cooking, and with a saving of all the bother
of stoves, fireplaces and furnaces.” And
his conviction was well founded, provided the house
is not too large and the weather is not too cold.
“Shall we try it in the new house?”
“No, not unless somebody invents
a new patent low-pressure, automatic-cooking-range-warming-attachment
before we are ready for it. We shall have fireplaces
in every room real ones and steam
radiators beside.”
“What! in every room, those
ugly, black, bronzy, oily, noisy, leaking, sizzling,
snapping steam radiators that are always in the way
and keep the air in the room so dry that everybody
has catarrh, the doors won’t latch, and the
furniture falls to pieces? You know how the old
heirloom mahogany chair collapsed under Madam Abigail
at Mrs. Hunter’s party went to pieces
in a twinkling like the one-horse shay and
all on account of the steam heat.”
“Yes, I remember; it was a comical
tragedy; and before we run any such risks let us look
over our advisory letters. Here’s one from
Uncle Harry, who, as you know, is never without a
hobby of some sort. Just at present he is devoted
to sanitary questions. To be well warmed, ventilated
and plumbed is the chief end of man. He begins
by saying that ’sun’s heat is the only
external warmth that is natural or beneficial to human
beings. When men have risen above the dark clouds
of sin and ignorance they will discover how to preserve
the extra warmth of the torrid zone and of the hot
summers in our own latitudes to be evenly diffused
through colder climes and seasons. Next to sun’s
heat is that which comes from visible combustion the
burning of wood and coal. Such spontaneous, radiant,
living warmth differs essentially from that which
we receive by contact with artificially-warmed substances,
somewhat as fruit that has been long gathered differs
from that taken directly from the vine.’”
“Isn’t this getting sort
of misty, what you might call ’transcendental
like’?”
“Possibly, and this is still
more so: ’Warmth is the vital atmosphere
of life, and a living flame imparts to us some of nature’s
own mysterious vitality. Hence, the sun’s
rays and the blaze of burning fuel give not only a
material but a spiritual comfort and cheer, which
mere warm air is powerless to impart. Here is
another reason why direct radiation, even from a black
iron pipe, is preferable to a current of warm air
brought from a distance: in a room warmed by such
a current nothing is ever quite so warm as the air
itself unless so situated as to obstruct its flow,
but every solid substance near a hot stove or radiator
absorbs the radiated heat and is satisfied, while the
air for respiration remains at a comparatively low
temperature.’”
“There may be a little sense
in that,” said Jack, “but the rest is
several fathoms too deep for me. Has he any practical
advice to give?”
“That depends upon what you
call practical. ‘I have little patience,’
he says, ’with the common objection to direct
radiation, that it brings no fresh air. Fresh
air can be had for the asking under a small stove
or radiator standing in a room as well as under a large
stove or boiler standing in the cellar; neither does
the dampness or dryness of the atmosphere depend primarily
upon the mode of warming it, while, as for the appearance
of steam pipes, if they are not beautiful as usually
seen, it only proves that art is not wisely applied
to iron work, and that architects have not learned
the essential lesson that whatever gives added comfort
to a house will, if rightly treated, enhance its beauty.
Steam-pipes or radiators may stand under windows, behind
an open screen or grill of polished brass, or they
may be incorporated with the chimney piece, and need
not, in either case, be unsightly or liable to work
mischief upon the carpets or ceilings under them.
Wherever placed, a flue to bring in fresh air should
be provided and fitted with a damper to control the
currents.’”
“I like the notion of putting
them beside the fireplace,” said Jack.
“When they are both running, it would be like
hitching a pair of horses before an ox-team or a steam
engine attachment to an overshot water-wheel.
It means business. Uncle Harry improves.
What next?”
“He expounds his theories of
light and shade, of plumbing, sewer-gas and malaria,
and casually remarks that ’the variation of the
north magnetic pole and the points of compass are
not yet fully understood in their relation to human
welfare.’”
“I should hope not! He
must be writing under the influence of a full moon.
Let us try a fresh correspondent.”
“Very well. Here is Aunt
Melville’s latest, with a new set of plans.
There will be neither trancendentalism nor vain repetitions
here:
“’MY DEAR NIECE: Since
writing you last I have had a most interesting
experience, and hasten to give you the benefit of
it. You remember Mr. Melville’s niece
married a young attorney in Tumbledonville; very
talented and of good family, but poor, desperately
poor. He hadn’t over two or three thousand
dollars in the world, but he has built a marvelous
little house, of which I send you the plans.
You enter a lovely hall, positively larger than,
mine, an actual room in fact, with a staircase
running up at one side and a charming fireplace at
the right, built, if you will believe it, of common
red bricks that cost only five dollars a thousand.
It couldn’t have taken over two hundred
and fifty to build it.
“Just think of that! A
charming fireplace for a dollar and a quarter!
“Communicating with the hall by
a wide door beautifully draped with some astonishingly
cheap material is the parlor, fully equal in every
respect to my library, and adjoining that the dining-room,
nearly as large. On the same side is a green-house
between two bay windows, the whole arrangement
having a wonderful air of gentility and culture.
I am convinced that you ought to invest three-fourths
of your father’s wedding present in some
safe business, and with the remainder build a house
like this, buying a small lot for it, and defer
the larger house for a few years. Keeping
house alone with Jack and perhaps one maid-of-all-work
will be perfectly respectable and dignified; the
experience will do you good, and I have no doubt you
will enjoy it. It will not only be a great economy
in a pecuniary way, but society is very exacting,
and a large house entails heavy social burdens
which you will escape while living in a cottage.
This will give you plenty of time to improve your
taste in art, which is indispensable at present.
There will be great economy, too, in the matter
of furniture. A large house must be
furnished according to prevailing fashions, but in
a small one you may indulge any unconventional,
artistic fancy you please.’”
“If Aunt Melville’s advice
and plans could be applied where they are needed they
would be extremely valuable. Suppose we found
a society and present them to it for gratuitous distribution.”
“We can’t spare them yet;
we shall not use them, but it is well to hear all
sides of a question.”