AMONG the literary recreations that serve to brighten the life of a bachelor-recluse I know of none more delightful than those which are compressed within the last of the waking hours, the hour spent in one's sleeping chamber before setting bedward. To the full enjoyment of that sweet session of the mind some material aids are required, to wit, the ease of dressing-gown and slippers, a restful arm-chair, some shelves of books at one's elbow, and, o' winter nights, a clear fire in the grate; to complete the conditions, however, there should be included a small reading-table with the added grace thereon of a lighted candle. That last item is indispensable; to it belongs the charm of the situation. To give it place the flame of gas has been extinguished; when it shone, as Nerissa said of the moon, one did not see the candle," but now no longer "doth the greater glory dim the less," the pale illuminant is re-instated, and, for the time being, amid shadowy surroundings one dwells within the halo of its mild radiance. In this city of ours, with its garish gas, its lamps of oil and lurid lights electric, the candle has fallen largely out of use. It has survived the link, but its place is properly among the ancient lights. In the procession of modern ones it lags remotely in the rear. It no longer lights some of us to bed even, and when one thinks of it in that connection it is associated with the hall tables and apartments of country inns where one has stayed on holiday journeys; or perhaps one remembers some old country house, where, in the dining-room at night, the lights that graced the table were placed in candelebra of silver, the lustre thereof being reflected in the shining mahogany beneath, conditions of life which gave birth to that homely saying that the entrance of a cheerful face into a room was like the lighting of another candle. In this wise does the modest composite bring with it an oldworld charm; it becomes a centre of attraction round which one's thoughts circle moth-like. Ought one in such circumstances to seek some light of knowledge from its rays? Faraday's "Chemistry of a Candle" is to hand, but that scarcely fits the mood; exact science must be left to an hour of brighter illumination; the light of other days shines from the candle's flame and sheds on the mind a subdued and mellow radiance favourable to reverie and retrospection. One's thoughts move backward, and it is Shakespeare rather than the modern scientist who holds possession of the mind, with many little points of candlelight gleaming out of his pages. The taper burns in Portia's hall, and the sight of it leads the gentle lady to say to Nerissa: How far that little candle throws its beams! The candle discloses too much for Jessica-clad the while in boy's clothes-when Lorenzo says to her: Descend for you must be my torch-bearer, To which the lady replies: What must I hold a candle to my shame? They in themselves, forsooth, are too, too light. The taper is turned into an instrument of torture for poor Falstaff when he is besieged by Sir Hugh Evans, Pistol, Dame Quickly, Mistress Ann Page, and the rest, disguised as hobgoblins and fairies, who pinch him, and try him by fire, burning his finger-tips, the while they sing that song which ends thus: Pinch him and burn him, and turn him about Till candle and starlight and moonshine be out. It was the fate of the fat knight not only to be burnt with a candle but to have himself likened to one. In "King Henry IV." the Lord Chief Justice addresses him thus: "What you are as a candle, the better part burnt out," to which Jack replies: "A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow; if I did say of wax my growth would approve the truth." From Falstaff to the stars is a wide leap, but one remembers how they are described as the candles of heaven. Says Romeo to Juliet: Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day And Banquo says to Fleance as they stand at night in the courtyard of Macbeth's castle : There's husbandry in heaven, Their candles are all out. The candle becomes an emblem of human life in Macbeth's soliloquy, with its : Out, out brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow. And again when Clifford, lying wounded on the battlefield, says: Here burns my candle out, ay, here it dies, The candle on my table lights me down many other avenues of thought. In its association with death, as a corpse-candle, it burns gruesomely, and in that old balled "A Lyke Wake Dirge," we have this doleful burden : This ae nighte, this ae nighte, Every nighte and alle, Fire and sleet and candle lighte, And Christe receive thy saule. There is humour reflected from it too, when, as in Hogarth's "Politician," we see that the candle has been taken from the stick to throw a closer light on the newspaper, and as the reader holds it in his hand he is all unconscious that it is burning its way with much smoke and flame, through the brim of his hat. With something of the same humour it is associated when one remembers how a similar accident would frequently happen to that absorbed, self-centred thinker De Quincey, of whom one of his daughters says: "Those nights were exceptions on which he did not set something on fire, the commonest incident being for someone to look from work or book to say earnestly, 'Papa, your hair is on fire!' of which a calm, 'Is it, my love?' and a hand rubbing out the blaze was all the notice taken." Then again, somewhat further back, does not our old friend Samuel Pepys tell how his wig caught fire, and how all the people laughed at him? Among the recollections of another kind which the flame of my candle lights up is that of Orchardson's picture, which he calls "Hard Hit," and wherein he shows us a room where some gamesters have been making a night of it. The candles, ranged in sconces on the walls, have burnt down through the waning night. Cards are strewn upon the floor, and at a table sit three of the players, who are watching curiously the departure of their companion, who with disordered dress and haggard looks, pauses with his hand on the handle of the door to look back upon the scene of his defeat. It would be easy to multiply these flickering reflections, and perhaps in such a case the game might be worth the candle, but at least another must be indulged in as leading one to a more definite purpose. Let me go on to say, therefore, that if you would enjoy the choicest and most exquisite humour ever suggested by candlelight you must turn to Elia's essay on the popular fallacy, "That we should lie down with the lamb." Therein does he say: "Man found out long sixes-Hail candlelight! without disparagement to sun or moon, the kindliest luminary of the three if we may not rather style thee their radiant deputy, mild viceroy of the moon! We love to read, talk, sit silent, eat, drink, sleep by candlelight-they are everybody's sun and moon. This is our peculiar and household planet. Wanting it, what savage unsocial nights must our ancestors have spent, wintering in caves and unillumined fastnesses! They must have lain about and grumbled at one another in the dark. What repartees could have passed when you must have felt about for a smile or handled a neighbour's cheek to be sure that he understood it? This accounts for the seriousness of the older poetry. It has a sombre cast (try Hesiod or Ossian) derived from the traditions of those unlanterned nights. Jokes came in with candles." Moreover, Lamb goes on to tell us that “there is absolutely no such thing as reading but by a candle." In Maclise's caricature of him he is so depicted, a figure with a spare body, large head and immaterial legs, resting on the edge of a chair, as he leans forward over a table to read, across intermediate books, a folio propped up there, whose pages are illumined by a couple of long sixes. In my candlelight readings I give the choice to old authors or those who are relatively so; current literature suits not so well. I like best the books that can be read and re-read without weariness. Among these I count the writings of George Borrow, with whom I have, again and again, travelled in Spain, and indulged, elsewhere, in |