Fireplace
256 quotes
Biography
A fireplace or hearth is a structure made of brick, stone or metal designed to contain a fire. Fireplaces are used for the relaxing ambiance they create and for heating a room.
"Gwell eo beroù war an oaled / Eget e ti marc'h rous ar pried (Better skewers on the fireplace than in the spouse's russet horse shed.)"
"In the winter on a Sunday afternoon, I can spend six hours in front of the fireplace, just looking at the flames and thinking. In the evening, I’m drunk with beautiful thoughts. My wife says to me, ‘What are you looking at?’ I say, ‘The fire.’ We have to take a step backward."
"There is nothing of greater interest connected with the Durham furnace than the manufacture of iron stove plates and their artistic embellishments. ...[T]he manufacture of iron stoves, for heating of buildings, was begun at the furnace about 1741, when controlled by George Taylor, James Logan and James Morgan, father of General , iron master. These were called the "Adam and Eve" stoves from the figures, cast on them. ...In 1745, the furnace began casting the famous "Franklin Stove," or fire-place, and continued until it blew out, 1793. They were favorably received and with minor improvements, extensively manufactured. It was the first stove made that could be utilized for baking and cooking, having an extra door above the fuel door, a plate the whole length of the stove and a descending flue the same as the Prince Rupert stove, 1678, cast in England. It was improved, 1754, by a door on one side. This was known as the Philadelphia pattern, though smaller in size. The Franklin sold at £4. 6s, each at the furnace, and at Philadelphia £18 per ton, the price varying with the metal. About 1775, a stove pattern, artistically decorated with a bony skeleton inscribed on the center of the side plates, grasping a bone in one hand in the act of striking a man, near the end of the plate, while another figure on rear end of plate is standing in a frightened attitude looking on the unequal battle. Beneath the figures is the following inscription:HIR. FEIT. MIT. MIR. DER. BITER. TOTER. BRINCT. MICH.INTOTS. NO.A free translation of this Swedish-German is "Here (man) presumes to fight with me, bitter death, but he cannot overcome death.""
"It happened because one day I was sitting one side of the fireplace, and my wife was sitting on the other, and I suddenly said to her, "Wouldn’t it be a good idea to write a story about some boys on an island, showing how they would really behave, being boys and not little saints as they usually are in children’s books.” And she said, "That’s a first-class idea! You write it!" So I went ahead and wrote it."
"Lele liilii ka lehu o kapuahi (He is scattering the ashes of the fireplace)."
"Our society, it turns out, can use modern art. A restaurant, today, will order a mural by Míro in as easy and matter-of-fact a spirit as, twenty-five years ago, it would have ordered one by Maxfield Parrish. The president of a paint factory goes home, sits down by his fireplace — it looks like a chromium aquarium set into the wall by a wall-safe company that has branched out into interior decorating, but there is a log burning in it, he calls it a fireplace, let’s call it a fireplace too — the president sits down, folds his hands on his stomach, and stares at two paintings by Jackson Pollock that he has hung on the wall opposite him. He feels at home with them; in fact, as he looks at them he not only feels at home, he feels as if he were back at the paint factory."
"And I live with the dead – my mother, my sister, my grandfather, my father... .Every day is the same – my friends have stopped coming – their laughter disturbs me, tortures me.. ..my daily walk round the old castle becomes shorter and shorter, it tires me more and more to take walks. The fire in the fireplace is my only friend – the time I spend sitting in front of the fireplace gets longer and longer.. ..at its worst I lean my head against the fireplace overwhelmed by the sudden urge – Kill yourself and then it’s all over. Why live? I light the candle – my huge shadow springs across half the wall, clear up to the ceiling and in the mirror over the fireplace I see the face of my own ghost."
"All these people come to see the White House and they see practically nothing that dates back before 1948. Every boy who comes here should see things that develop his sense of history. For the girls, the house should look beautiful and lived-in. They should see what a fire in the fireplace and pretty flowers can do for a house; the White House rooms should give them a sense of all that. Everything in the White House must have a reason for being there. It would be sacrilege merely to "redecorate" it—a word I hate. It must be restored—and that has nothing to do with decoration. That is a question of scholarship."
"In small rooms... the chimney often smokes unless the door or window be open, not only because the fire devours and carries off a large quantity of the air of the room, but also because the fire requires a continual supply of air for its support; so that, if a proportional quantity of air which the fire consumes and sends up the chimney does not enter the room (which it cannot do in small rooms with a large fire), the fire languishes, and the smoke increases, since flame is nothing more than a kindled smoke, and smoke is only an extinguished flame, or, at least, not yet kindled."
"I don't approve of open fires. You can't think, or talk or even make love in front of a fireplace. All you can do is stare at it."
"Till more effectual methods can take place, it would be of great service, to oblige all those Trades who make use of large Fires, to carry their Chimnies much higher into the air than they are at present...<!--pp. iv-v-->"
"Workmen should be consulted, and encouraged to make experiments, whether a particular construction of the Chimnies would not assist in conveying off the Smoke, and in fending it higher into the air before it is dispersed.<!--p. v-->"
"[N]ear half the children that are born and bred in London die under two years of age. ...[T]he constant and unremitting Poison is communicated by the foul Air, which, as the Town still grows larger, has made regular and steady advances in its fatal influence. ...[W]e are accustomed to read with great composure of the deaths of thosands of infants, suffocated every Year by Smoke and Stenches which good policy might in a great measure remove.<!--p. vii-->"
"And what is all this, but that Hellish and dismall Cloud of SEA-COALE? which is not onely perpetually imminent over her head... so universally mixed with the otherwise wholsome and excellent Aer, that her Inhabitants breathe nothing but an impure and thick Mist, accompanied with a fuliginous and filthy vapour, which renders them obnoxious to a thousand inconveniences, corrupting the Lungs, and disordering the entire habit of their Bodies; so that Catharrs, Phthisicks, Coughs and Consumptions, rage more in this one City, than in the whole Earth besides.<!--p 18-->"
"[N]ot from the Culinary fires, which for being weak, and lesse often fed below, is with such ease dispelled and scattered above, as it is hardly at all discernible, but from some few particular Tunnells and Issues, belonging only to Brewers, Diers, Lime-burners, Salt, and Sope-boylers, and some other private Trades, One of whose Spiracles alone, does manifestly infest the Aer, more than all the Chimnies of London put together besides.<!--p 19-->"
"Whilst these are belching it forth their sooty jaws, the City of London resembles the face rather of Mount Ætna, the Court of Vulcan, , or the Suburbs of Hell, than an Assembly of Rational Creatures... For when in all other places the Aer is most Serene and Pure, it is here Ecclipsed with such a Cloud of Sulphure, as the Sun itself... is hardly able to penetrate... and the weary Traveller, at many Miles distance, sooner smells, than sees the City to which he repairs.<!--p 19-->"
"It seems that those who have hitherto built or caused chimneys to be erected, have only taken care to contrive in the chambers certain places where wood may be burnt, without making a due reflection that the wood in burning ought to warm those chambers, and the persons who are in them; at least, it is certain that but a very little heat is felt of the fire made in the ordinary chimneys, and that they might be ordered so as to send forth a great deal more, only by changing the disposition of their jambs and wings."
"A plate of iron or copper bowed or bended after such a manner as is not at all disagreeable to the sight; a void behind, divided by certain small iron bands or partition plates, forming several spaces that have a communication one with another; a little vent hole in the middle of the hearth, a register plate in the upper part of the funnel; and for some shafts, a capital on the top, make up the whole construction and workmanship of our modern chimney. Now, can there be anything more simple or plain, or more easy to execute?"
"To be able to kindle a fire speedily, and make it, if you please, flame continually, whatever wood is burning, without the use of bellows; to give heat to a spacious room, and even to another adjoining, with a little fire; to warm one's self at the same time on all sides, be the weather ever so cold, without scorching; to breathe a pure air always fresh, and to such a degree of warmth as is thought fit; to be never annoyed with smoke in one's apartment, nor have any moisture therein; to quench by one's self, and in an instant, any fire that may catch in the tunnel of a chimney; all these are but a few of the effects and properties of these wonderful machines, not withstanding their apparent simplicity. Since I used this sort of chimney, I have not been troubled one moment with smoke, in a lodging which it rendered before untenable as soon as a fire was lighted; I have always inhaled, even during the sharpest seasons, a fresh air like that of the spring. In 1709, water that froze hard everywhere else very near the hearth, did not congeal at night in my chamber, though the fire was put out before midnight; and all that was brought thither in the day soon thawed; neither did I ever perceive the least moisture in winter, not even during thaws."
"[A]ny new proposal for saving the wood, and for lessening the charge and augmenting the benefit of fire, by some particular method of making and managing it, may at least be thought worth consideration."
"1. Air is rarefied by heat, and condensed by cold, that is, the same quantity of air takes up more space when warm than when cold. This may be shown... Take any clear glass bottle (a stript of the straw is best), place it before the fire, and, as the air within is warmed and rarefied, part of it will be driven out of the bottle; turn it up, place its mouth in a vessel of water, and remove it from the fire; then, as the air within cools and contracts, you will see the water rise in the neck of the bottle, supplying the place of just so much air as was driven out. Hold a large hot coal near the side of the bottle, and, as the air within feels the heat, it will again distend and force out the water. Or, fill a bladder not quite full of air, tie the neck tight, and lay it before a fire as near as may be without scorching the bladder; as the air within heats, you will perceive it to swell and fill the bladder, till it becomes tight, as if full blown; remove it to a cool place, and you will see it fall gradually, till it becomes as lank as at first.<!--pp. 36-37-->"
"2. Air rarefied and distended by heat is specifically lighter than it was before, and will rise in other air of greater density. As wood, oil, or any other matter specifically lighter than water, if placed at the bottom of a vessel of water will rise till it comes to the top; so rarefied air will rise in common air, till it either comes to air of equal weight, or is by cold reduced to its former density.<!--p. 37-->"
"[I]n any chimney, the air over the fire is rarefied by the heat, becomes lighter, and therefore immediately rises in the funnel, and goes out; the other air in the room (flowing towards the chimney) supplies its place, is rarefied in its turn, and rises likewise; the place of the air thus carried out of the room, is supplied by fresh air coming in through doors and windows, or, if they be shut, through every crevice with violence, as may be seen by holding a candle to a key-hole.<!--p. 37-->"
"If the room be so tight as that all the crevices together will not supply so much air as is continually carried off, then, in a little time, the current up the funnel must flag, and the smoke, being no longer driven up, must come into the room.<!--p. 37-->"
"1. Fire... throws out light, heat, and smoke (or fume.) The [first] two... move in right lines, and with great swiftness; the latter is but just separated from the fuel, and then moves only as it is carried by the stream of rarefied air; and without a continual accession and recession of air, to carry off the smoky fumes, they would remain crowded about the fire, and stifle it.<!--pp. 37-38-->"