The last person who went to bed the night before
had done exactly what Homer describes as the practice in Ulysses's
time, when he tells us that Ulysses covered himself with leaves
after he was washed ashore in Phaiakia:
"He lay down in the midst, heaping the fallen leaves above,
as a man hides a brand in a dark bed of ashes, at some outlying
farm where neighbors are not near, hoarding a seed of fire
to save his seeking elsewhere."
But first he must get a light. Matches are not yet invented.
So he takes from the shelf over the mantelpiece an old tin
or brass candlestick with a piece of tallow candle in it,
and with the tongs takes a coal from the ashes, and holds
the candle wick against the coal and gives a few puffs with
his breath. If he have good luck, he lights the wick, probably
after many failures.
My mother had a very entertaining story connected with the
old-fashioned way of getting a light. Old Jeremiah Mason,
who was probably the greatest lawyer we ever had in New England,
unless we except Daniel Webster, studied law in my uncle's
office and shared a room in his house with another law student.
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