lovers in the wilderness, who are enabled to convey a delicate sentiment by its use, which is expressed neither in their ideas nor chirography.  It is inadequate for legal parchment, but does very well for deeds of love, which are not meant usually to give a perfect title.  With care, it may be split into sheets as thin as the Chinese paper.  It is so beautiful to handle that it is a pity civilization cannot make more use of it.  But fancy articles manufactured from it are very much like all ornamental work made of nature’s perishable seeds, leaves, cones, and dry twigs,—­exquisite while the pretty fingers are fashioning it, but soon growing shabby and cheap to the eye.  And yet there is a pathos in “dried things,” whether they are displayed as ornaments in some secluded home, or hidden religiously in bureau drawers where profane eyes cannot see how white ties are growing yellow and ink is fading from treasured letters, amid a faint and discouraging perfume of ancient rose-leaves.

The birch log holds out very well while it is green, but has not substance enough for a backlog when dry.  Seasoning green timber or men is always an experiment.  A man may do very well in a simple, let us say, country or backwoods line of life, who would come to nothing in a more complicated civilization.  City life is a severe trial.  One man is struck with a dry-rot; another develops season-cracks; another shrinks and swells with every change of circumstance.  Prosperity is said to be more trying than adversity, a theory which most people are willing to accept without trial; but few men stand the drying out of the natural sap of their greenness in the artificial heat of city life.  This, be it noticed, is nothing against the drying and seasoning process; character must be put into the crucible some time, and why not in this world?  A man who cannot stand seasoning will not have a high market value in any part of the universe.  It is creditable to the race, that so many men and women bravely jump into the furnace of prosperity and expose themselves to the drying influences of city life.

The first fire that is lighted on the hearth in the autumn seems to bring out the cold weather.  Deceived by the placid appearance of the dying year, the softness of the sky, and the warm color of the foliage, we have been shivering about for days without exactly comprehending what was the matter.  The open fire at once sets up a standard of comparison.  We find that the advance guards of winter are besieging the house.  The cold rushes in at every crack of door and window, apparently signaled by the flame to invade the house and fill it with chilly drafts and sarcasms on what we call the temperate zone.  It needs a roaring fire to beat back the enemy; a feeble one is only an invitation to the most insulting demonstrations.  Our pious New England ancestors were philosophers in their way.  It was not simply owing to grace that they sat for hours in their barnlike meeting-houses