to have an intermediary between ourselves and this dreadful deity; to
have a priest to intercede for us with the god of life and death; to
send an ambassador to the fire. That priest is the poker. Made of
a material more merciless and warlike than the other instruments of
domesticity, hammered on the anvil and born itself in the flame, the
poker is strong enough to enter the burning fiery furnace, and, like
the holy children, not be consumed. In this heroic service it is often
battered and twisted, but is the more honourable for it, like any other
soldier who has been under fire.

Now all this may sound very fanciful and mystical, but it is the right
view of pokers, and no one who takes it will ever go in for any wrong
view of pokers, such as using them to beat one's wife or torture one's
children, or even (though that is more excusable) to make a policeman
jump, as the clown does in the pantomime. He who has thus gone back to
the beginning, and seen everything as quaint and new, will always see
things in their right order, the one depending on the other in degree of
purpose and importance: the poker for the fire and the fire for the man
and the man for the glory of God.

This is thinking forwards. Now our modern discussions about everything,
Imperialism, Socialism, or Votes for Women, are all entangled in
an opposite train of thought, which runs as follows:—A modern
intellectual comes in and sees a poker. He is a positivist; he will not
begin with any dogmas about the nature of man, or any day-dreams about
the mystery of fire. He will begin with what he can see, the poker; and
the first thing he sees about the poker is that it is crooked. He says,
"Poor poker; it's crooked." Then he asks how it came to be crooked; and
is told that there is a thing in the world (with which his temperament
has hitherto left him unacquainted)—a thing called fire. He points
out, very kindly and clearly, how silly it is of people, if they want
a straight poker, to put it into a chemical combustion which will very
probably heat and warp it. "Let us abolish fire," he says, "and then
we shall have perfectly straight pokers. Why should you want a fire
at all?" They explain to him that a creature called Man wants a fire,
because he has no fur or feathers. He gazes dreamily at the embers for
a few seconds, and then shakes his head. "I doubt if such an animal is
worth preserving," he says. "He must eventually go under in the cosmic