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Article: Of wood. (the art of stacking wood) (column)
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- January 27, 1984
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1984 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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IT IS SEVEN steps from tree to hearth: select, fell, trim, cut, split, stack, build. Each step invites what Hugh Kenner once called "the full critical act"--knowledge, comparison, love. There will be room for only the first few words on only one of these steps. Today it is Stacking. I may get around to the others, later; or I may not.
The way a man stacks wood tells you a lot about him. Some men just dump the logs on the ground every which way and burn them when they need them. Some make a stab at a proper stack but use an ignoble stratagem: They find a couple of trees 15 or twenty feet apart and use them as you'd use bookends for a bunch of books that want to ...