No Fire without Smoke

THE scene conjured up by this famous ode is positively Dickensian. It is Christmas time at Dingley Dell. Outside, the snow is lying about, deep and crisp and even. Indoors, the guests and servants have gathered in the great hall, where the Yule log is blazing merrily. From one angulus comes the laughter of Miss Arabella Allen, from another the rhythmic breathing of the Fat Boy. Mr. Wardle, overflowing with benignity and hospitality, calls for more logs and more Brown October or Old Crusted. In a moment the whole company will burst into Auld Lang Syne. The harmony is so idyllic that it seems almost sacrilegious to suggest that there may be a rift in the lute or a puncture in the bagpipe. Fie on those who speculate where Horace can have had a house or a villa from which Soracte was visible! And my soul is not so dead as to wonder how, even if Soracte was visible, Horace could have possibly seen it through a foot or two of brick and concrete. Picture windows had not been in

Environmental health · Geography · Meteorology · Smoke · Environmental Science · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Medicine · Migration, Policy, and Dickens Studies