It is literally true, as the thankless say, that they have nothing to be thankful for. He who sits by the fire, thankless for the fire, is just as if he had no fire. Nothing is possessed save in appreciation, of which thankfulness is the indispensable ingredient. But a thankful heart hath a continual feast.

Cameron argues that gratitude is not merely a polite response to good fortune but the very condition by which good things become “possessed” in any meaningful sense. The image of someone sitting beside a fire yet feeling no gratitude suggests that benefits can be psychologically nullified by ingratitude: warmth exists, but it is not inwardly received. By defining appreciation as the basis of possession, he shifts value from external ownership to internal recognition. The closing proverb-like line—“a thankful heart hath a continual feast”—frames gratitude as a renewable source of abundance, implying that thankfulness multiplies ordinary goods into ongoing contentment.