But though this may be a refinement of fancy, it is no fancy that one kind of wood differs from another in glory. There is the white birch, gay, light-hearted, volatile, putting all its pretty self into a few flaring moments--a butterfly existence. There is black birch, reluctant but steady; there is chestnut, vivacious, full of sudden enthusiasms; the apple, cheerful and willing; the maple and oak, sober and stanch, good for the long pull. Every locality has its own sorts of wood, as its own sorts of people. Mine is a New England wood basket, and as I look at it I recognize all my old friends. Of them all I love the apple best, yet each is in its own way good. For a quick blaze, throw on the white birch; for a long evening of reading, when one does not want distraction, pile on the oak and maple. They will burn quietly, unobtrusively, importuning you neither for care nor appreciation. But for a fire to sit before with friends, bring in the apple wood. Lay the great backlog, the more gnarled the better, and if there is a hole through which the flames may shoot up, that is best of all--such logs we hoard for special occasions. Then with careful touch arrange the wood in front, your bundles of twigs, your pretty white birch sticks and your dry chestnut to start the fun, then the big apple forelog, the forestick and the backstick, not too much crowding or too much space. Ah, there is a seemly fire! There is a fire for friends! For the renewal of old friendships, as for the perfecting of new ones, there is nothing like a fire. I met a friend after years of separation. We came together in a modern house, just modern enough to be full of steam pipes and registers and gas-logs, but not so modern as to have readopted open fireplaces. The room had no centre--there was no hearth to draw around, there was no reason for sitting in one place rather than another. We could not draw around the steam pipes or the register. The gas-log was not turned on, it would have been too hot, and anyhow--a gas-log! We sat and talked for hours in an aimless, unsatisfactory sort of way. I felt as if we were, figuratively speaking, sitting on the edges of our chairs. It was better than nothing, but it was not a real meeting. The next year we were together again, but this time it was before our own blazing apple log. We did not talk so much as we had done before, but we were silent a great deal more, which was better. For in really intimate communion, silence is the last, best gift, but it cannot be forced, it cannot be snatched at. You may try it, but you grow restless, you begin to consider your expression, you wonder how long it will last, you fancy it may seem to mean too much, and at last you are hurried over into talk again. But before a fire all things are possible, even silence. Chance acquaintances and intimate friends fall alike under its spell, talk is absolutely spontaneous, it flows rapidly or slowly, or dies away altogether.