FullReads

Once upon a time–but whether in the time past or time to come is a
matter of little or no moment–this wide world had become so
overburdened with an accumulation of worn-out trumpery, that the
inhabitants determined to rid themselves of it by a general bonfire.
The site fixed upon at the representation of the insurance
companies, and as being as central a spot as any other on the globe,
was one of the broadest prairies of the West, where no human
habitation would be endangered by the flames, and where a vast
assemblage of spectators might commodiously admire the show. Having
a taste for sights of this kind, and imagining, likewise, that the
illumination of the bonfire might reveal some profundity of moral
truth heretofore hidden in mist or darkness, I made it convenient to
journey thither and be present. At my arrival, although the heap of
condemned rubbish was as yet comparatively small, the torch had
already been applied. Amid that boundless plain, in the dusk of the
evening, like a far off star alone in the firmament, there was merely
visible one tremulous gleam, whence none could have anticipated so
fierce a blaze as was destined to ensue. With every moment,
however, there came foot-travellers, women holding up their aprons,
men on horseback, wheelbarrows, lumbering baggage-wagons, and other
vehicles, great and small, and from far and near, laden with
articles that were judged fit for nothing but to be burned.

“What materials have been used to kindle the flame?” inquired I of a
bystander; for I was desirous of knowing the whole process of the
affair from beginning to end.

The person whom I addressed was a grave man, fifty years old or
thereabout, who had evidently come thither as a looker-on. He
struck me immediately as having weighed for himself the true value
of life and its circumstances, and therefore as feeling little
personal interest in whatever judgment the world might form of them.
Before answering my question, he looked me in the face by the
kindling light of the fire.

“O, some very dry combustibles,” replied he, “and extremely suitable
to the purpose,–no other, in fact, than yesterday’s newspapers,
last month’s magazines, and last year’s withered leaves. Here now
comes some antiquated trash that will take fire like a handful of
shavings.”

As he spoke, some rough-looking men advanced to the verge of the
bonfire, and threw in, as it appeared, all the rubbish of the
herald’s office,–the blazonry of coat armor, the crests and
devices of illustrious families, pedigrees that extended back, like
lines of light, into the mist of the dark ages, together with stars,
garters, and embroidered collars, each of which, as paltry a bawble
as it might appear to the uninstructed eye, had once possessed vast
significance, and was still, in truth, reckoned among the most
precious of moral or material facts by the worshippers of the
gorgeous past. Mingled with this confused heap, which was tossed
into the flames by armfuls at once, were innumerable badges of
knighthood, comprising those of all the European sovereignties, and
Napoleon’s decoration of the Legion of Honor, the ribbons of which
were entangled with those of the ancient order of St. Louis. There,
too, were the medals of our own Society of Cincinnati, by means of
which, as history tells us, an order of hereditary knights came near
being constituted out of the king quellers of the Revolution. And
besides, there were the patents of nobility of German counts and
barons, Spanish grandees, and English peers, from the worm-eaten
instruments signed by William the Conqueror down to the bran-new
parchment of the latest lord who has received his honors from the
fair hand of Victoria.