n on "thick double laid post," as the
advertisements say, I seized upon, and thrust their crumpled forms between
the sooty bars of the grate with some wood, the model of a mechanical
invention of my own, which had been rejected by a Society, and why, I knew
not; I severed limb from limb, and disposed their fragments across and
athwart on the letters previously mutilated. How to obtain my coal posed
me for a moment; but I recollected that in a geological cabinet under my
window, I was the possessor of a mass of pure Staffordshire, weighing some
twenty pounds. The doors of the cabinet flew open, and out it came; I had
a strong affection for this lump of coal, having extracted it myself from
the mines, and carried it many a weary mile on my return home. I felt loth
to commit it to the flames; but this was necessity, "stern necessity:"
one or two blows of the mineralogical hammer destroyed my scruples, and
produced the proper cleavages in the mass of coal. I laid the precious
stratum, _super stratum_ upon the two former, and other deposits of
_papyrus_ and _lignum_; such was my "coal formation." The magic touch of
a Promethean elicited my "grand agent" to the thick laid post; it consumed
rather sluggishly, but the dry pine wood of the broken model caught the
flame and entered into fair combustion, cracking and sparkling, and now
and then sending out a hiss of pyroligenous vapour; hissing yourself
thought I. The fiery example was soon followed by the coal at first slowly
sending up wreaths of dirty, green, yellow smoke, but as the fire waxed
warmer these disappeared, and vivid hissing jets of ignited gas shot forth
in abundance. The hissing annoyed me; why, I could not divine; but as the
heat increased I cooled from the state of excitement produced by the testy
destruction of my papers, model, and specimen. I sat down at the fire; had
I not better, said I, have made my wants known to the servant, than have
acted as I have done? No, I hate asking for what, as a duty should have
been ready to my hands. I endeavoured to persuade myself that I did not
regret the deed I had done, but could not succeed; something whispered me
that I should suffer for it. I felt myself an "uncomfortable gentleman."
I began to trace my fire from its origin up to its present state of
perfection; the letters were of no consequence--none--the model I made
myself and can make another--certainly--the coal I paid dearly for by
fatigue, but I can get another