Once upon a time—but whether in the time past or time to come is a matterof little or no moment—this wide world had become so overburdened with anaccumulation of worn-out trumpery, that the inhabitants determined to ridthemselves of it by a general bonfire. The site fixed upon at therepresentation of the insurance companies, and as being as central a spot asany other on the globe, was one of the broadest prairies of the West, where nohuman habitation would be endangered by the flames, and where a vast assemblageof spectators might commodiously admire the show. Having a taste for sights ofthis kind, and imagining, likewise, that the illumination of the bonfire mightreveal some profundity of moral truth heretofore hidden in mist or darkness, Imade it convenient to journey thither and be present. At my arrival, althoughthe heap of condemned rubbish was as yet comparatively small, the torch hadalready 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 onetremulous gleam, whence none could have anticipated so fierce a blaze as wasdestined to ensue. With every moment, however, there came foot-travellers,women holding up their aprons, men on horseback, wheelbarrows, lumberingbaggage-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 toend.
The person whom I addressed was a grave man, fifty years old or thereabout, whohad evidently come thither as a looker-on. He struck me immediately as havingweighed for himself the true value of life and its circumstances, and thereforeas feeling little personal interest in whatever judgment the world might formof them. Before answering my question, he looked me in the face by the kindlinglight of the fire.
“O, some very dry combustibles,” replied he, “and extremely suitable to thepurpose,—no other, in fact, than yesterday’s newspapers, last month’smagazines, and last year’s withered leaves. Here now comes some antiquatedtrash that will take fire like a handful of shavings.”
As he spoke, some rough-looking men advanced to the verge of the bonfire, andthrew in, as it appeared, all the rubbish of the herald’s office,—theblazonry of coat armor, the crests and devices of illustrious families,pedigrees that extended back, like lines of light, into the mist of the darkages, together with stars, garters, and embroidered collars, each of which, aspaltry a bawble as it might appear to the uninstructed eye, had once possessedvast significance, and was still, in truth, reckoned among the most precious ofmoral or material facts by the worshippers of the gorgeous past. Mingled withthis confused heap, which was tossed into the flames by armfuls at once, wereinnumerable badges of knighthood, comprising those of all the Europeansovereignties, and Napoleon’s decoration of the Legion of Honor, the ribbons ofwhich 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 historytells us, an order of hereditary knights came near being constituted out of theking quellers of the Revolution. And besides, there were the patents ofnobility of German counts and barons, Spanish grandees, and English peers, fromthe worm-eaten instruments signed by William the Conqueror down to the bran-newparchment of the latest lord who has received his honors from the fair hand ofVictoria.
At sight of the dense volumes of