CANDLES

Evening Star, Issue 21742, 9 June 1934, Page 2

CANDLES

[Written by Panachk, for the ‘ Evoking Star.’] J. B. Priestley, in a wireless talk, spoke of the positively sensuous delight of a now full box of matches. The sensuous pleasure of a new full packet of wax candles is greater. Shy within the pastoral blue of the wrappings are sixslim virginal figures, straight as a wand, Jlutcd to avoid the monotony of smoothness. Delightful as candles arc to stroke, to sniff, to gaze on, to joggle gently, they are more interesting for the atmosphere they create.

A packet of candles can supply the atmosphere for any scene, from the squalid to the magnificent. Salvage one of the beer bottles your neighbour drops over your fence, stick one of the candles in it, put it on a deal table, cut your dirtiest pack of cards, and lick your thumb. The scene is set for squalor. Take another candle, pare its end, force it into an enamel candlestick, put on soft slippers, remove your denture, and you are a devoted mumbling retainer, dropping grease from your unsteady hand as you pad round the house removing stains- from an ancient name. Put half a candle in a lantern, and you can present that put-upon child, Lucy Grey, lighting her father through the snow. Wash your hands; put on your nightgown, take a candle in your hand, and you are Lady Macbeth. In all oases the emotional effect depends upon the candle.

Our elegant slim candles can boast of a lineage that stretches farther back than the Norman conquest. Their ancestors were humble, but the stock was enriched by science and by discovery, while glamour was added by eccelesiastical connections. The earliest forefathers of the candle were homely rush lights, made from the pith of rushes soaked in household grease. Even more plebeian were the ancestors on the distaff side, flax and' cotton thread dipped in tallow. In the fifteenth century candlemakers attained the dignity of a corporation. The age of discovery showed them the spermacetti of the' whale. The scientist Chevreul, by his researches on oils and fats, caused paraffin wax or stearine to he generally used in the manufacture of candles. It seems a blot on the Wax Chandlers’ Company that Chevreul should have no prettier title than “ the father of the fatty acids.” The ecclesiastical branch of the candle family was not ready to adopt new materials, and beeswax was used for candles for Mass. The most interesting foreign branch of the family is in China, where candles are made from the wax of the candleherry tree. I dread going to China, lest I see a candleberry tree and find that it is not a bit like a chestnut with flambeaux, only bigger, like Chinese lanterns.

Some candles are unfortunate in their setting. The most pathetic are those that hang limply from the perpendicular precipice of_ a piano. Seldom lit, they branch awkwardly under: a beetling ledge of photographs. Tallow candles look at home' in bottles, and the ends, used by plumbers have no foreign aid of ornament when they lighten the gloom beneath the superheater. It is sad to see a fluted wax candle in an enamel candlestick, one end tortured to make it fit, or impaled on the melting remains of a brother. Ecclesiastical candles are fittingly put in sonorous candelabra, of the kind that Moses was ordered to make for the Tabernacle, of hammered gold, a talent in weight.

Lamps smoke; they require cleaning and filling; they have wicks that need trimfning; they have glasses that crack, in spite of the bent hairpin crooked over them as a precaution. They arc the despair of foolish virgins. Electric lights blare and dazzle; they are hard and efficient, and would be impossible to live,. with if they did not 'occasionally and unexpectedly fail It is a most blessed relief to find that anything as punctual,. dependable, efficient as elec-' tricity can fail. Candles are neither as troublesome as lamps nor as inhuman as electricity. At their worst they are merely inadequate or untidy, and if they do go out in their prime it is because of the wind, an act of God. The light a candle sheds is small, but the candle acts prettily. It glows, it glimmers, it flickers; its ugliest gesture is to gutter. In town candles are decorative adjuncts in crystal or brass to dinner or dressing table; but in the real country there is no glare of electricity except in the quarters given over to the rites of the sacred cow. The evening is spent in the pool of light shed by a large lamp, and the night is heralded by bedroom on the hull table. Here is a sight to thrill the guest with its old English touch; but before the tender flame has been cherished to the end’of the draughty passage the guest is treacherously wishing he had brought a torch from home. From the little oasis of light the outskirts of the bedroom look as foreign as jungles, and it is understandable that our grandmothers formed the habit of peering under beds before getting into them. Yet within the oasis it is reassuring. By candle light almost anybody can look handsome, or at least sinister. When the guest is in bed he finds that if he is to read, as he must, ho has to take his candle with him. Before the candle was romantic; now it is both dangerous and inadequate. It can singe the ear without lighting up the further page. The distance a little candle can throw its beams has been over-rated. Portia’s avenue is dwarfed, or there is a very poor chance for good deeds in this naughty world. In the days of Alfred the passage of time was measured by a candle, and we still symbolise the years by the number of candles on a birthday cake. Tho brilliance of the brightest lights is told in terms of a candle, for the candle is the unit of luminosity. But we cherish candles, not because they illumine, but because they make for illusion.