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Title: The Book of Christmas
Author: Various
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Book of Christmas" ***
[Illustration: THE HOLY NIGHT. _Correggio._]
_The
BOOK of
Christmas_
_With an
Introduction
by_
Hamilton W
Mabie
_and an
Accompaniment of
Drawings by_
George Wharton
EDWARDS
_New York
The Macmillan
Company
1909_
COPYRIGHT, 1909,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1909
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
INTRODUCTION
Carols are still sung in almost numberless churches, lights glow on
altars bound and wreathed with spruce and holly, trees are set up in
innumerable homes, and mobs of merry children sing and dance around
them, stockings take on grotesque shapes and hang gaping with treasures
for early marauders on Christmas morning, and hosts of men and women
keep the day in their hearts in all peace and piety.
The festival, dear to the heart of sixty generations, has survived the
commercial uses which it has been compelled to serve; the weariness
of buying and selling in the vast bazaar of nations, stocked with all
manner of things which stimulate the offerings of friendship; the
wide-spread sense of irony which success without happiness breeds;
the indifference of feeling and satiety of emotion fostered by great
prosperity without that grace of culture which subdues wealth to the
finer uses of life. It has survived the cynical spirit that distrusts
sentiment and sneers at emotion as weaknesses which have no place in a
scientific age and among men and women who know life. It has survived
that preoccupation with affairs which leaves little time for feelings,
and that resolute determination to make men good which leaves scant
room for efforts to make them happy.
But even in this age of hard-headed practical sagacity and hard-minded
goodness ruthlessly bent on doing the Lord's work by the methods
of a police magistrate, Christmas carols are still sung; and the
organization of virtue in numberless societies with presidents and
secretaries, and, above all, with treasurers, has not dimmed the glow
of the love which bears fruit in a forest of Christmas trees, with mobs
of merry children shouting around them.
The plain truth is that the world is not half so heartless as it
pretends to be. In its desire to wear that air of weary omniscience
which is supposed to bear witness to a wide experience of life it
often pooh-poohs appeals which make its well-regulated heart beat with
painful irregularity. There is as much hypocrisy in the scornful as in
the sentimental; and the worldly-wise man often sniffles behind the
handkerchief with which he pretends to stifle a sneeze. We pretend
to have become too wise to be moved by lighted candles or stirred by
children's voices singing of angels and shepherds; but in our heart of
hearts the old story is dear to us, and we are eager eavesdroppers when
the ancient mysteries of love and sympathy and friendship are talked
about by the poets or novelists.
We speak patronizingly of those old-fashioned Christmas essays in the
"Sketch Book," and we pretend to be amused by the recollection that
"The Christmas Carol" once filled us with an almost insane desire to
make somebody happy. But it is noticeable that the old text-books of
Christmas sentiment reappear year after year in an almost endless
variety of forms; and that in an age when the strong man boasts of
his distrust of emotion, and the strong woman holds sentiment in the
contempt one feels for out-grown toys, books that have to do with
Christmas are read with surreptitious pleasure. We apologize publicly
for our interest in them and deprecate the attempt to revive a faded
interest and recall a decayed tradition; but in private we read with
avidity these survivals of archaic feeling and prehistoric emotion.
When "The Birds' Christmas Carol" appeared, we laughed over it so as
to hide our tears. Mr. Janvier's charming account of Christmas ways in
Provence captivated us, and we found excuse for its tender regard for
old habits and observances in the fact that Mr. Janvier has been in the
habit of spending a good deal of time with a group of unworldly old
poets who still dream of joy and beauty as the precious things of life,
and hold to the fellowship of artists instead of forming a labor union.
Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, Mr. F. Marion Crawford, and Mr. F. Hopkinson
Smith have written undisguised Christmas stories with as little sense
of detachment from modern life as if they were telling detective tales;
and, what is more astonishing to the worldly-wise man, these stories
have a glow of life, a vitality of charm and sweetness in them, that
make scorn and cynicism seem cheap and vulgar. And here comes Dr.
Crothers and stirs the smouldering Christmas fire into a blaze and sits
down before it as if it were real logs in combustion and not a trick
with gas, and makes gentle sport of the wisdom of the sceptic. These
recent revivals of Christmas literature show a surprising vitality,
and have met with a surprising response from a generation popularly
believed to be given over to the making of money and the extirpation
of human feeling. It is even said that there are men and women of
such insistent hopefulness that they anticipate a time when the aged
in feeling, the worn-out in sentiment, the infirm in imagination, and
the crippled in heart will be brought again within sound of Christmas
bells.
There is little hope of bringing in the reign of good feeling by
lighting a single Christmas fire, but a long line of such fires
touching the receding horizon of the past with a happy glow is
like a revival of a fading memory; it makes us suddenly aware of
half-forgotten associations with the days that were once full of life
and rippling with merriment like a mountain stream suffused with
sunlight. We surrender ourselves so completely to the noisy activities
of our own age that we forget how infinitesimal a portion of time it
is and how misleading its emphasis often is. It is only a point on the
face of the dial; but we accept it as if it were a present eternity, a
final stage in the evolution of men. That many of its sacred texts are
the maxims of a short-sighted prudence, many of its major interests as
short-lived as the passions of children, many of its ideas of life the
cheapest parvenus in the world of thought, does not occur to us; its
cynicisms are often reflections of its spiritual shallowness, and its
scepticisms mere records of its meanness or corruption. Like all the
times that have gone before it, it is a fragment of a fragment, and the
only way to see life whole is to get away from it and look down on it
as it takes its little place in the larger order of history.
In this greater order of time the long line of Christmas fires glows
like a great truth binding the fleeting generations into a unity
of faith and feeling. When we light our fire, we are one with our
ancestors of a thousand years ago; we evade the isolation of our time
and escape its provincial narrowness; we rejoin the race from whose
growth we have unconsciously separated ourselves; we open long-unused
rooms and are amazed to find how large the house of life is and how
hospitable. It has hearth room for all experience and for every kind
of emotion; for the thoughts that move in the order of logic; for the
emotions that rise and fall like great tides that flow in from the
infinite; for the vigor that is born of will, and for the power evoked
by discipline. It is when the different ages, with their diversities
of interest and growth, send their children to sit together before the
Christmas fire that we realize how wide life is, and how impossible it
is for any age to compass it. The faith against which one age shuts the
door stands serene and smiling in the centre of the next age; the joy
which one generation denies itself lies radiant on the face of a later
generation; the imagination which the reign of logic in one epoch sends
into the wilderness returns with full hands to be the master of a wiser
period.
Before the Christmas fire that for two thousand years has sunk into
embers to blaze again into a great light at the end of the twelfth
month, men are not only reunited in the unbroken continuity of their
fortunes, but in the wholeness of their life; in their power of vision
as well as of sight, in their power of feeling as well as of thought,
in their power of love as well as of action.
This large hospitality of the Christmas fire, before which kings and
beggars sit at ease and every human faculty finds its place, makes room
for every gift and grace; for reason, with severe and wrinkled face;
for sentiment, tender and reverent of all sweet and beautiful things;
for the imagination, seeing heavenly visions, and the fancy catching
glimpses of quaint or grotesque or fairy-like images, in the flame;
for poetry, singing full-throated with Milton, or homely, familiar and
domestic with the makers of the carols; for the story-tellers, spinning
their fascinating tales within the circle of the embracing glow; for
humor, full of smiles or filling the room with Homeric laughter; for
the players, whose mimic art shows the manger, the shepherds and
the kings to successive generations crowding the playhouse with the
eager joy of children or with the sacred memories of age; for the
preachers, to whom the season brings a text apart from the disputes and
antagonisms of the schools and churches; for companies of children,
impatiently waiting for the mysterious noise in the chimney; and for
graybeards recalling old days and ways,--yule logs, country dances,
waits singing under the frosty sky, stage coaches bearing guests and
hampers filled with dainties to country houses standing with open doors
and broad hearths for the fun and frolic, the tenderness and sentiment,
the poetry and piety, of Christmas-tide.
At the end of nearly two thousand years Christmas shows no signs
of decrepitude or weariness; its danger lies not in forgetfulness
but in perverted uses and overstimulated activities. Its commercial
availability is pushed so far that its sentiment often loses
spontaneity and charm in excessive organization and prodigal
distribution. The Christmas shopper suffers such a perversion of
feeling that she hates the season she ought to bless; and the modern
Santa Claus is so intent on the ingenuity or the cost of his gifts
that he overlooks the only gift that warms the heart and translates
Christmas into the vernacular.
If Christmas is to be saved from desecration and kept sacred, not only
to faith but to friendship, its sentiment must be revived year by year
in the joyful celebration of the old rites. We have been so eager of
late years to rid ourselves of superstition and "see things as they
are," that we have lost that vision of the large relations of things
in which alone their meaning and use is revealed. We have studied the
field at our doorsteps so thoroughly that we have lost sight of the
landscape in which its little cup of fruitfulness is poured as into
a great bowl rimmed by the horizon. One day out of three hundred and
sixty-five, detached from its ancient history and isolated from the
celebrations of centuries, cannot keep our hearts and hearths warm; we
must rekindle the old fires and join hands with the vanished companies
of friends who have kept the day and made it merry in the long ago.
The echoes of ancient song and laughter give it a rich merriment, a
ripe and tender wealth of associations. The mirth of one Christmas
overflows into another until the sense of an unbroken joy, sinking and
rising year after year like the tide of life in the fields, is borne
in upon us. This sense of the unity of men in the great experiences
steals back again into our hearts when we hear the old songs and read
the old stories. Alexander Smith, whose book of essays, "Dreamthorp,"
is one of the books of the heart,--for there are books of the heart as
well as books of knowledge and books of power,--kindled his imagination
into a responsive glow by rereading every Christmas Day Milton's "Ode
on the Morning of Christ's Nativity." When one opens the volume at
this great song, it is like going into a church and hearing the organ
played by unseen hands; the silence is flooded by a vast music which
lifts the heart into the presence of great mysteries. But there is a
time for private devotions as well as for public worship, for domestic
as well as religious celebrations; and for every hour and place and
mood there is a song and story. There are tender hymns for the devout,
and spirited songs for those who celebrate together old days and
ancient friendships; there are quaint carols for those whose hearts
long for the quiet and pleasant ways of an olden time, and there are
roaring catches for those whose gayety rises to the flood; there are
meditations for the solitary, and there are stories for the little
groups about the fire.
A Book of Christmas is a text-book of piety, friendship, merriment; a
record of the real business of the race, which is not to make money,
but to make life full and sweet and satisfying. It is a book to put
into the hands of young men eager to start on the race and of young
women to whom the future holds out a dazzling vision of a prosperity
of pleasure and success; for it translates the word on all lips into
its only comprehensible terms. In the glow of the Christmas fire the
man who has made a fortune without making friends is a tragic failure,
and the woman who has won the place and power she saw shining with
delusive splendor on the far horizon and missed happiness faces one of
life's bitterest ironies. It is a book for those who have fallen under
the delusion that action is the only form of effective expression, and
that to be useful one must rush along the road with the ruthless speed
of an automobile; forgetting that action is only a path to being, and
that the joy of life is largely found by the way. It is a book for
those ardent spirits to whom the one interest in life is making people
over and fitting them into their places in a rigid order of arbitrary
goodness, forgetting that to the heart of a child the Kingdom of Heaven
is always open, and the ultimate grace of it is the purity which is
free and unconscious. It is a book for the sceptical and cynical, whose
blighted sympathy and insight regain their vitality in the atmosphere
of its love and kindness, its fun and frolic, its fellowship of loyal
hearts and true.
Above all, the Book of Christmas is a book of joy in the sadness of the
world, a book of play in the work of the world, a book of consolation
in the sorrow of the world.
HAMILTON W. MABIE
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION _Hamilton W. Mabie_ v
I
SIGNS OF THE SEASON
"The Time draws near the Birth of Christ" _Alfred Tennyson_ 4
An Hue and Cry after Christmas _Old English Tract_ 5
The Doge's Christmas Shooting _F. Marion Crawford_ 6
Thursday Processions in Advent _William S. Walsh_ 7
The Glastonbury Thorn _Alexander F. Chamberlain_ 9
In the Kitchen _Old English Ballad_ 11
Christmas in England _Washington Irving_ 12
Christmas Invitation _William Barnes_ 16
A Christmas Market _Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick_ 17
The Star of Bethlehem in Holland _Bow-Bells Annual_ 18
The Pickwick Club goes down to Dingley Dell _Charles Dickens_ 19
A Visit from St. Nicholas _Clement C. Moore_ 24
Crowded Out _Rosalie M. Jonas_ 26
II
HOLIDAY SAINTS AND LORDS
My Lord of Misrule _T. K. Hervey_ 31
St. Nicholas _Collated_ 32
An Old Saint in a New World _Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer_ 33
St. Thomas _Collated, W. P. R._ 35
Kriss Kringle _Thomas Bailey Aldrich_ 36
Il Santissimo Bambino _Collated, W. P. R._ 37
The Christ Child _Elise Traut_ 38
The April Baby is Thankful "_Elizabeth_" 38
Good King Wenceslas _Old English Carol_ 41
Jean Valjean plays the Christmas Saint _Victor Hugo_ 42
St. Brandan _Matthew Arnold_ 45
St. Stephen's, or Boxing Day _Collated, W. P. R._ 47
St. Basil in Trikkola _J. Theodore Bent_ 48
III
CHRISTMAS CUSTOMS AND BELIEFS
The Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ _From "The Golden Legend"_ 55
Folk-lore of Christmas Tide _Collected by A. F. Chamberlain_ 58
Hunting the Wren _Quoted by T. K. Hervey_ 61
The Presepio _Hone's Year Book_ 64
Hodening in Kent _Contributed to The Church Times_ 65
Origin of the Christmas Tree _William S. Walsh_ 66
Origin of the Christmas Card _William S. Walsh_ 67
The Yule Clog _T. K. Hervey_ 68
"Come bring with a Noise" _Robert Herrick_ 69
Shoe or Stocking _Edith M. Thomas_ 70
Jule-Nissen _Jacob Riis_ 71
"Lame Needles" in Eubœa _J. Theodore Bent_ 73
Who Rides behind the Bells? _Zona Gale_ 76
Guests at Yule _Edmund Clarence Stedman_ 78
IV
CHRISTMAS CAROLS
"I saw Three Ships" _Old English Carol_ 83
"Lordings, listen to Our Lay" _Earliest Existing Carol_ 84
The Cherry-Tree Carol _Old English Carol_ 86
"In Excelsis Gloria" _From the Harleian MSS._ 87
"God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen" _Old English Carol_ 87
The Golden Carol _Old English Carol_ 89
Caput apri refero resonens laudes domino
_From a Balliol MS. of about 1540_ 90
"Villagers All, this Frosty Tide" _Kenneth Grahame_ 90
Holly Song _William Shakespeare_ 92
"Before the Paling of the Stars" _Christina G. Rossetti_ 92
The Minstrels played their Christmas Tune _William Wordsworth_ 93
A Carol from the Old French _Henry W. Longfellow_ 95
"From Far Away we come to you" _Old English Carol_ 97
A Christmas Carol _James Russell Lowell_ 98
A Christmas Carol for Children _Martin Luther_ 99
V
CHRISTMAS DAY
The Unbroken Song _Henry W. Longfellow_ 104
A Scene of Mediæval Christmas _John Addington Symonds_ 105
Christmas in Dreamthorp _Alexander Smith_ 111
By the Christmas Fire _Hamilton W. Mabie_ 113
Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity _John Milton_ 114
Christmas Church _Washington Irving_ 119
Dolly urges Silas Marner to go to Church _George Eliot_ 124
Yule in the Old Town _Jacob Riis_ 127
The Mahogany Tree _William Makepeace Thackeray_ 132
The Holly and the Ivy _Old English Song_ 134
Ballade of Christmas Ghosts _Andrew Lang_ 135
Christmas Treasures _Eugene Field_ 136
Wassailer's Song _Robert Southwell_ 138
VI
CHRISTMAS HYMNS
A Hymn on the Nativity _Ben Jonson_ 143
While Shepherds Watched _Nahum Tate_ 144
O, Little Town of Bethlehem _Phillips Brooks_ 145
The First, Best Christmas Night _Margaret Deland_ 146
It Came upon the Midnight Clear _Edmund H. Sears_ 147
A Christmas Hymn _Eugene Field_ 149
The Song of the Shepherds _Edwin Markham_ 150
A Christmas Hymn _Richard Watson Gilder_ 152
A Christmas Hymn for Children _Josephine Daskam Bacon_ 153
Slumber-Songs of the Madonna _Alfred Noyes_ 154
VII
CHRISTMAS REVELS
"Make me Merry both More and Less"
_Old Balliol MS. of about 1540_ 164
The Feast of Saint Stephen in Venice _F. Marion Crawford_ 165
The Feast of Fools _William Hone_ 167
The Feast of the Ass _William Hone_ 168
The Revel of Sir Hugonin de Guisay _William S. Walsh_ 170
Revels of the Inns of Court _T. K. Hervey_ 172
King Witlaf's Drinking-Horn _Henry W. Longfellow_ 175
Old Christmastide _Sir Walter Scott_ 176
Christmas Games in "Old Wardle's" Kitchen _Charles Dickens_ 179
A "Mystery" as performed in Mexico _Bayard Taylor_ 183
VIII
WHEN ALL THE WORLD IS KIN
Christmas Night of '62 _William Gordon McCabe_ 191
Merry Christmas in the Tenements _Jacob Riis_ 192
Christmas at Sea _Robert Louis Stevenson_ 200
The First Christmas Tree in the Legation Compound, Tokyo
_Mary Crawford Fraser_ 202
Christmas in India _Rudyard Kipling_ 208
A Belgian Christmas Eve Procession _All the Year Round_ 210
Christmas at the Cape _John Runcie_ 215
The "Good Night" in Spain _Fernan Caballero_ 216
Christmas in Rome _John Addington Symonds_ 218
Christmas in Burgundy _M. Fertiault_ 222
Christmas in Germany _Amy Fay_ 225
Christmas Dinner in a Clipper's Fo'c'sle
_Herbert Elliot Hamblen_ 227
Christmas in Jail _Rolf Boldrewood_ 229
Colonel Carter's Christmas Tree _F. Hopkinson Smith_ 231
IX
CHRISTMAS STORIES
Christmas Roses _Zona Gale_ 241
The Fir Tree _Hans Christian Andersen_ 245
The Christmas Banquet _Nathaniel Hawthorne_ 257
A Christmas Eve in Exile _Alphonse Daudet_ 275
The Rehearsal of the Mummers' Play _Eden Phillpotts_ 280
X
NEW YEAR
New Year _Richard Watson Gilder_ 298
Midnight Mass for the Dying Year _Henry W. Longfellow_ 299
The Death of the Old Year _Alfred Tennyson_ 301
A New Year's Carol _Martin Luther_ 303
New Year's Resolutions "_Elizabeth_" 303
Love and Joy come to You _Old English Carol_ 305
Ring Out, Wild Bells _Alfred Tennyson_ 307
New Year's Eve, 1850 _James Russell Lowell_ 308
Rejoicings upon the New Year's Coming of Age _Charles Lamb_ 309
New Year's Rites in the Highlands _Charles Rogers_ 315
The Chinese New Year _H. C. Sirr_ 316
New Year's Gifts in Thessaly _J. Theodore Bent_ 319
"Smashing" in the New Year _Jacob Riis_ 322
New Year Calls in Old New York _William S. Walsh_ 323
Sylvester Abend in Davos _John Addington Symonds_ 325
XI
TWELFTH NIGHT--EPIPHANY
"Now have Good Day!" _Old English Carol_ 337
A Twelfth Night Superstition _Barnaby Googe_ 338
Twelfth-Day Table Diversion _John Nott_ 339
The Blessing of the Waters _J. Theodore Bent_ 341
La Galette du Roi _William Hone_ 344
Drawing King and Queen _Universal Magazine_ 345
St. Distaff's Day and Plough Monday _Hone's Year Book_ 346
XII
THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT
"As Little Children in a Darkened Hall" _Charles Henry Crandall_ 350
Christmas Dreams _Christopher North_ 351
The Professor's Christmas Sermon _Robert Browning_ 358
Awaiting the King _F. Marion Crawford_ 359
Elizabeth's Christmas Sermon "_Elizabeth_" 361
Nichola's "Reason Why" _Zona Gale_ 362
The Changing Spirit of Christmastide _Washington Irving_ 363
A Prayer for Christmas Peace _Charles Kingsley_ 365
Under the Holly Bough _Charles Mackay_ 366
Christmas Music _John Addington Symonds_ 367
A Christmas Sermon _Robert Louis Stevenson_ 368
LIST OF PLATES
The Holy Night _Correggio_ _Frontispiece_
PAGE
The Holy Night _C. Müller_ _facing_ 16
The Arrival of the Shepherds _Lerolle_ " 40
The Bells _Blashfield_ " 72
The Madonna _Bellini_ " 96
The Virgin adoring the Infant Christ _Correggio_ " 120
The Madonna _Murillo_ " 152
Holy Night _Van Ulade_ " 184
The Holy Family with the Shepherds _Titian_ " 216
Madonna della Sedia _Raphael_ " 272
The Adoration of the Magi _Paolo Veronese_ " 304
The Adoration of the Magi _Memling_ " 344
I
SIGNS OF THE SEASON
[Illustration: SIGNS OF THE SEASON]
An Hue and Cry after Christmas
The Doge's Christmas Shooting
Thursday Processions in Advent
The Glastonbury Thorn
In the Kitchen
Christmas in England
Christmas Invitation
A Christmas Market
The Star of Bethlehem in Holland
The Pickwick Club goes down to Dingley Dell
A Visit from St. Nicholas
Crowded Out
[Illustration]
The time draws near the birth of Christ:
The moon is hid; the night is still;
The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.
Four voices of four hamlets round,
From far and near, on mead and moor,
Swell out and fail, as if a door
Were shut between me and the sound:
Each voice four changes on the wind,
That now dilate, and now decrease,
Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace,
Peace and goodwill, to all mankind.
ALFRED TENNYSON
An Hue and Cry after Christmas
_"Any man or woman ... that can give any knowledge, or tell any
tidings, of an old, old, very old gray-bearded gentleman, called
Christmas, who was wont to be a verie familiar ghest, and visite all
sorts of people both pore and rich, and used to appear in glittering
gold, silk, and silver, in the Court, and in all shapes in the Theater
in Whitehall, and had ringing, feasts, and jollitie in all places, both
in the citie and countrie, for his comming: ... whosoever can tel what
is become of him, or where he may be found, let them bring him back
againe into England."_
That curious little tract "An Hue and Cry after Christmas" bears
the date of 1645; and we shall best give our readers an idea of its
character by setting out that title at length, as the same exhibits a
tolerable abstract of its contents. It runs thus: "The arraignment,
conviction, and imprisoning of Christmas on St. Thomas day last, and
how he broke out of prison in the holidayes and got away, onely left
his hoary hair and gray beard sticking between two iron bars of a
window. With an Hue and Cry after Christmas, and a letter from Mr.
Woodcock, a fellow in Oxford, to a malignant lady in London. And divers
passages between the lady and the cryer about Old Christmas; and what
shift he was fain to make to save his life, and great stir to fetch him
back again. Printed by Simon Minc'd Pye for Cissely Plum-Porridge, and
are to be sold by Ralph Fidler Chandler at the signe of the Pack of
Cards in Mustard Alley in Brawn Street."
Besides the allusions contained in the latter part of this title to
some of the good things that follow in the old man's train, great pains
are taken by the "cryer" in describing him, and by the lady in mourning
for him, to allude to many of the cheerful attributes that made him
dear to the people. His great antiquity and portly appearance are
likewise insisted upon. "For age this hoarie-headed man was of great
yeares, and as white as snow. He entered the Romish Kallendar, time
out of mind, as old or very neer as Father Mathusalem was,--one that
looked fresh in the Bishops' time, though their fall made him pine away
ever since. He was full and fat as any divine doctor of them all; he
looked under the consecrated lawne sleeves as big as Bul-beefe,--just
like Bacchus upon a tunne of wine, when the grapes hang shaking about
his eares; but since the Catholike liquor is taken from him he is
much wasted, so that he hath looked very thin and ill of late." "The
poor," says the "cryer" to the lady, "are sorry for" his departure;
"for they go to every door a-begging, as they were wont to do (_good
Mrs., Somewhat against this good time_); but Time was transformed,
_Away, be gone; here is not for you_." The lady, however, declares that
she for one will not be deterred from welcoming old Christmas. "No,
no!" says she; "bid him come by night over the Thames, and we will
have a back-door open to let him in;" and ends by anticipating better
prospects for him another year.
T. K. HERVEY
The Doge's Christmas Shooting
At certain fixed times the Doge was allowed the relaxation of shooting,
but with so many restrictions and injunctions that the sport must have
been intolerably irksome. He was allowed or, more strictly speaking,
was ordered to proceed for this purpose, and about Christmas time, to
certain islets in the lagoons, where wild ducks bred in great numbers.
On his return he was obliged to present each member of the Great
Council with five ducks. This was called the gift of the "Oselle," that
being the name given by the people to the birds in question. In 1521,
about five thousand brace of birds had to be killed or snared in order
to fulfil this requirement; and if the unhappy Doge was not fortunate
enough, with his attendants, to secure the required number, he was
obliged to provide them by buying them elsewhere and at any price, for
the claims of the Great Council had to be satisfied in any case. This
was often an expensive affair.
There was also another personage who could not have derived much
enjoyment from the Christmas shooting. This was the Doge's chamberlain,
whose duty it was to see to the just distribution of the game, so that
each bunch of two-and-a-half brace should contain a fair average of fat
and thin birds, lest it should be said that the Doge showed favour to
some members of the Council more than to others.
By and by a means was sought of commuting this annual tribute of
ducks. The Doge Antonio Grimani requested and obtained permission to
coin a medal of the value of a quarter of a ducat, equal to about four
shillings or one dollar, and to call it "a Duck," "Osella," whereby it
was signified that it took the place of the traditional bird.
F. MARION CRAWFORD in _Salve Venetia!_
Thursday Processions in Advent
The Eve of the festival of St. Nicholas, December 5, in mediæval
days was the occasion when choir and altar boys met and in solemn
mimicry of the procedure of their elders elected a boy-bishop and his
prebendaries who remained in office and moreover exercised practically
full episcopal functions until Holy Innocents Day.
In the full vestments of the church these minor clergy made
"visitations" in the neighborhood usually on three successive
Thursdays, and collected small sums of money known as the "Bishop's
Subsidy." Says Barnaby Googe:--
"Three weeks before the day whereon was borne the Lorde of Grace,
And on the Thursdays boyes and gyrles do runne in every place
And bounce and beat at every doore, with blowes and lustie snaps
And crie the Advent of the Lord, not borne as yet perhaps,
And wishing to the neighbors all, that in the houses dwell,
A happy year, and everything to spring and prosper well;
Here have they peares, and plumbs and pence, each man gives
willinglie,
For these three nights are always thought unfortunate to bee,
Where in they are afrayde of sprites, cankred witches spight,
And dreadful devils blacke and grim, that then have chiefest might.
* * * * *
In these same dayes yong, wanton gyrles that meete for marriage bee,
Doe search to know the names of them that shall their husbands bee
Four onyons, five, or eight, they take, and make in every one
Such names as they do fansie most and best do think upon;
Thus neere the chimney them they set, and that same onyon than,
That first doth sproute, doth surely beare the name of their good
man."
In these same December nights it is that these "yong gyrles," according
to Barnaby, creep to the woodpile after nightfall and at random each
pulls out the first stick the hand touches.
"Which if it streight and even be, and have no knots at all,
A gentle husband then they thinke shall surlie to them fall;
But if it fowle and crooked bee, and knotties here and there,
A crabbed churlish husband then they earnestly do feare."
In the last days before Christmas, says Lady Morgan, Italian
_pifferari_ descend from the mountains to Naples and Rome in order
to play their pipes before the pictures of the Virgin and the Child,
and--out of compliment to Joseph--in front of the carpenters' shops.
Somewhat akin is the old English custom of the carrying about the
images of the Virgin and Christ in the week before Christmas by poor
women who expect a dole from every house visited.
In certain parts of Normandy the farmers give to their children, or
to little ones borrowed from their neighbors, prepared torches, well
dried; with which these little folk--no one over twelve is eligible
for the office--run hither and yon, under the tree boughs, into fence
corners, singing the spell supposed to command the vermin of the field.
W. S. Walsh gives this translation of their incantation:--
Mice, caterpillars, and moles,
Get out, get out of my field; or
I will burn your blood and bones:
Trees and shrubs,
Give me bushels of apples.
Condensed from _Some Curiosities of Popular Customs_.
The Glastonbury Thorn and other Plant Lore of Christmastide
The legend of the Glastonbury Thorn is that after the death of Christ,
Joseph of Arimathea came over to England and a few days before
Christmas rested on the summit of Weary-all Hill, Glastonbury. There
he thrust into the ground his staff which on Christmas Eve was found
to be covered with snow white blossoms; and until it was destroyed
during the Civil wars the bush continued so to bloom, as cuttings from
the original thorn are said to bloom in the same wonderful way even
yet; but, with a fine disregard for the Gregorian reformation of the
Calendar, the blossoms do not appear until the 5th of January.
The Sicilian children, so Folkard tells us, put pennyroyal in their
cots on Christmas Eve, "under the belief that at the exact hour and
minute when the infant Jesus was born this plant puts forth its
blossom." Another belief is that the blossoming occurs again on
Midsummer Night.
In the East the Rose of Jericho is looked upon with favour by women
with child, for "there is a cherished legend that it first blossomed
at our Saviour's birth, closed at the Crucifixion, and opened again at
Easter, whence its name of Resurrection Flower."
Gerarde, the old herbalist, tells us that the black hellebore is called
"Christ's Herb," or "Christmas Herb," because it "flowreth about the
birth of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Many plants, trees, and flowers owe their peculiarities to their
connection with the birth or the childhood of Christ. The _Ornithogalum
umbellatum_ is called the "Star of Bethlehem," according to Folkard,
because "its white stellate flowers resemble the pictures of the star
that indicated the birth of the Saviour of mankind." The _Galium
verum_, "Our Lady's Bedstraw," receives its name from the belief that
the manger in which the infant Jesus lay was filled with this plant.
"The brooms and the chick-peas began to rustle and crackle, and by
this noise betrayed the fugitives. The flax bristled up. Happily
for her, Mary was near a juniper; the hospitable tree opened its
branches as arms and enclosed the Virgin and the Child within their
folds, affording them a secure hiding-place. Then the Virgin uttered
a malediction against the brooms and the chick-peas, and ever since
that day they have always rustled and crackled." The story goes on to
tell us that the Virgin "pardoned the flax its weakness, and gave the
juniper her blessing," which accounts for the use of the latter in some
countries for Christmas decorations,--like the holly in England and
France.
"One Christmas Eve a peasant felt a great desire to eat cabbage and,
having none himself, he slipped into a neighbour's garden to cut some.
Just as he had filled his basket, the Christ-Child rode past on his
white horse, and said: 'Because thou hast stolen on the holy night,
thou shalt immediately sit in the moon with thy basket of cabbage.'"
And so, we are told, "the culprit was immediately wafted up to the
moon," and there he can still be seen as "the man in the moon."
ALEXANDER F. CHAMBERLAIN
The Signs of the Season in the Kitchen
"The cooks shall be busied, by day and by night,
In roasting and boiling, for taste and delight,
Their senses in liquor that's happy they'll steep,
Though they be afforded to have little sleep;
They still are employed for to dress us, in brief,
Plum-pudding, goose, capon, minc'd-pies, and roast beef.
"Although the cold weather doth hunger provoke,
'Tis a comfort to see how the chimneys do smoke;
Provision is making for beer, ale, and wine,
For all that are willing or ready to dine:
Then haste to the kitchen for diet the chief,
Plum-pudding, goose, capon, minc'd-pies, and roast beef.
"All travellers, as they do pass on their way,
At gentlemen's halls are invited to stay,
Themselves to refresh and their horses to rest,
Since that he must be old Christmas's guest;
Nay, the poor shall not want, but have for relief
Plum-pudding, goose, capon, minc'd-pies, and roast beef."
From EVANS' _Collection of English Ballads_
Christmas in England
There is nothing in England that exercises a more delightful spell
over my imagination than the lingerings of the holiday customs and
rural games of former times. They recall the pictures my fancy used
to draw in the May morning of life when as yet I only knew the world
through books, and believed it to be all that poets had painted it;
and they bring with them the flavour of those honest days of yore, in
which, perhaps with equal fallacy, I am apt to think the world was more
home-bred, social, and joyous than at present. I regret to say that
they are daily growing more and more faint, being gradually worn away
by time, but still more obliterated by modern fashion. They resemble
those picturesque morsels of Gothic architecture which we see crumbling
in various parts of the country, partly dilapidated by the waste of
ages, and partly lost in the additions and alterations of latter days.
Poetry, however, clings with cherishing fondness about the rural game
and holiday revel, from which it has derived so many of its themes--as
the ivy winds its rich foliage about the Gothic arch and mouldering
tower, gratefully repaying their support by clasping together their
tottering remains, and, as it were, embalming them in verdure.
Of all the old festivals, however, that of Christmas awakens the
strongest and most heartfelt associations. There is a tone of solemn
and sacred feeling that blends with our conviviality, and lifts the
spirit to a state of hallowed and elevated enjoyment. The services
of the church about this season are extremely tender and inspiring.
They dwell on the beautiful story of the origin of our faith, and the
pastoral scenes that accompanied its announcement. They gradually
increase in fervour and pathos during the season of Advent, until
they break forth in jubilee on the morning that brought peace and
good-will to men. I do not know a grander effect of music on the moral
feelings than to hear the full choir and the pealing organ performing
a Christmas anthem in a cathedral, and filling every part of the vast
pile with triumphant harmony.
It is a beautiful arrangement, also derived from days of yore, that
this festival, which commemorates the announcement of the religion of
peace and love, has been made the season for gathering together of
family connections, and drawing closer again those bonds of kindred
hearts which the cares and pleasures and sorrows of the world are
continually operating to cast loose; of calling back the children of a
family who have launched forth in life, and wandered widely asunder,
once more to assemble about the paternal hearth, that rallying-place
of the affections, there to grow young and loving again among the
endearing mementoes of childhood.
There is something in the very season of the year that gives a charm to
the festivity of Christmas. At other times we derive a great portion of
our pleasures from the mere beauties of nature.
* * * * *
In the course of a December tour in Yorkshire, I rode for some distance
in one of the public coaches, on the day preceding Christmas. The coach
was crowded, both inside and out, with passengers, who, by their talk,
seemed principally bound to the mansions of relations and friends to
eat the Christmas dinner. It was loaded also with hampers of game,
and baskets and boxes of delicacies; and hares hung dangling their
long ears about the coachman's box--presents from distant friends for
the impending feasts. I had three fine rosy-cheeked schoolboys for my
fellow-passengers inside, full of the buxom health and manly spirits
which I have observed in the children of this country. They were
returning home for the holidays in high glee, and promising themselves
a world of enjoyment. It was delightful to hear the gigantic plans of
pleasure of the little rogues, and the impracticable feats they were to
perform during their six weeks' emancipation from the abhorred thraldom
of book, birch, and pedagogue. They were full of anticipations of the
meeting with the family and household, down to the very cat and dog;
and of the joy they were to give their little sisters by the presents
with which their pockets were crammed; but the meeting to which they
seemed to look forward with the greatest impatience was with Bantam,
which I found to be a pony, and, according to their talk, possessed of
more virtues than any steed since the days of Bucephalus. How he could
trot! how he could run! and then such leaps as he would take--there was
not a hedge in the whole country that he could not clear.
They were under the particular guardianship of the coachman, to whom,
whenever an opportunity presented, they addressed a host of questions,
and pronounced him one of the best fellows in the whole world. Indeed,
I could not but notice the more than ordinary air of bustle and
importance of the coachman, who wore his hat a little on one side, and
had a large bunch of Christmas greens stuck in the button-hole of his
coat. He is always a personage full of mighty care and business, and he
is particularly so during this season, having so many commissions to
execute in consequence of the great interchange of presents.
* * * * *
Perhaps the impending holiday might have given a more than usual
animation to the country, for it seemed to me as if everybody was in
good looks and good spirits. Game, poultry, and other luxuries of
the table, were in brisk circulation in the villages; the grocers',
butchers', and fruiterers' shops were thronged with customers. The
housewives were stirring briskly about, putting their dwellings in
order; and the glossy branches of holly, with their bright red berries,
began to appear at the windows. The scene brought to mind an old
writer's account of Christmas preparations:--"Now capons and hens,
besides turkeys, geese, and ducks, with beef and mutton--must all die;
for in twelve days a multitude of people will not be fed with a little.
Now plums and spice, sugar and honey, square it among pies and broth.
Now or never must music be in tune, for the youth must dance and sing
to get them a heat, while the aged sit by the fire. The country maid
leaves half her market, and must be sent again, if she forgets a pack
of cards on Christmas eve. Great is the contention of Holly and Ivy,
whether master or dame wears the breeches. Dice and cards benefit the
butler; and if the cook do not lack wit, he will sweetly lick his
fingers."
WASHINGTON IRVING
Christmas Invitation
Come down to marra night, an' mind
Don't leave thy fiddle-bag behind.
We'll shiake a lag an' drink a cup
O' yal to kip wold Chris'mas up.
An' let thy sister tiake thy yarm,
The wa'k woont do 'er any harm:
Ther's noo dirt now to spwile her frock
Var 'tis a-vroze so hard's a rock.
Ther bent noo stranngers that 'ull come,
But only a vew naighbours: zome
Vrom Stowe, an' Combe, an' two ar dree
Vrom uncles up at Rookery.
An' thee woot vine a ruozy fiace,
An' pair ov eyes so black as sloos,
The pirtiest oones in al the pliace.
I'm sure I needen tell thee whose.
We got a back bran', dree girt logs
So much as dree ov us can car:
We'll put 'em up athirt the dogs,
An' miake a vier to the bar,
An' ev'ry oone wull tell his tiale,
An' ev'ry oone wull zing his zong,
An' ev'ry oone wull drink his yal,
To love an' frien'ship al night long.
We'll snap the tongs, we'll have a bal,
We'll shiake the house, we'll rise the ruf,
We'll romp an' miake the maidens squal,
A catchen o'm at bline-man's buff.
Zoo come to marra night, an' mind
Don't leave thy fiddle-bag behind.
We'll shiake a lag, an' drink a cup
O' yal to kip wold Chris'mas up.
WILLIAM BARNES
[Illustration: THE HOLY NIGHT. _C. Müller._]
A Christmas Market
Out of doors the various market-places are covered with little stalls
selling cheap clothing, cheap toys, jewellery, sweets, and gingerbread;
all the heterogeneous rubbish you have seen a thousand times at German
fairs, and never tire of seeing if a fair delights you.
But better than the Leipziger Messe, better even than a summer market
at Freiburg or at Heidelberg, is a Christmas market in any one of the
old German cities in the hill country, when the streets and the open
places are covered with crisp clean snow, and the mountains are white
with it, and the moon shines on the ancient houses, and the tinkle of
sledge bells reaches you when you escape from the din of the market,
and look down at the bustle of it from some silent place, a high
window, perhaps, or the high empty steps leading into the cathedral.
The air is cold and still, and heavy with the scent of the Christmas
trees brought from the forest for the pleasure of the children. Day
by day you see the rows of them growing thinner, and if you go to the
market on Christmas Eve itself you will find only a few trees left out
in the cold. The market is empty, the peasants are harnessing their
horses or their oxen, the women are packing up their unsold goods. In
every home in the city one of the trees that scented the open air a
week ago is shining now with lights and little gilded nuts and apples,
and is helping to make that Christmas smell, all compact of the pine
forest, wax candles, cakes, and painted toys, you must associate so
long as you live with Christmas in Germany.
MRS. ALFRED SIDGWICK in _Home Life in Germany_
The Star of Bethlehem as Seen in Holland
The Star of Bethlehem, as seen in Holland, is a pretty but a cheap
sight, for it costs nothing. 'Tis the Harbinger of Christmas--a huge
illuminated star which is carried through the silent, dark, Dutch
streets, shining upon the crowding people, and typical of the star
which once guided the wise men of the East.
The young men of a Dutch town who go to the expense of this star,
which, carried through the streets, is the signal that Christmas has
come once again, are swayed by the full intention of turning the Star
of Bethlehem to account.
They gather money for the poor from the crowds who come out to welcome
the symbol of peace, and having done this for the good of those whom
fortune has not befriended, they betake them to the head burgomaster
of the town, who is bound to set down the youths who form the Star
company to a very comfortable meal. 'Tis a great institution, the Star
of Bethlehem, in many Dutch towns and cities; and may it never die out,
for it does harm to no man, and good to many.
_Bow-Bells Annual_
The Pickwick Club goes down to keep Christmas at Dingley Dell
As brisk as bees, if not altogether as light as fairies, did the
four Pickwickians assemble on the morning of the twenty-second
day of December, in the year of grace in which these, their
faithfully-recorded adventures, were undertaken and accomplished.
Christmas was close at hand, in all his bluff and hearty honesty; it
was the season of hospitality, merriment, and open-heartedness; the old
year was preparing, like an ancient philosopher, to call his friends
around him, and amidst the sound of feasting and revelry to pass gently
and calmly away. Gay and merry was the time; and right gay and merry
were at least four of the numerous hearts that were gladdened by its
coming.
* * * * *
The portmanteaus and carpet-bags have been stowed away, and Mr. Weller
and the guard are endeavouring to insinuate into the fore-boot a huge
cod-fish several sizes too large for it, which is snugly packed up,
in a long brown basket, with a layer of straw over the top, and which
has been left to the last, in order that he may repose in safety on
the half-dozen barrels of real native oysters, all the property of Mr.
Pickwick, which have been arranged in regular order, at the bottom of
the receptacle. The interest displayed in Mr. Pickwick's countenance
is most intense, as Mr. Weller and the guard try to squeeze the
cod-fish into the boot, first head first, and then tail first, and then
top upwards, and then bottom upwards, and then side-ways, and then
long-ways, all of which artifices the implacable cod-fish sturdily
resists, until the guard accidentally hits him in the very middle of
the basket, whereupon he suddenly disappears into the boot, and with
him, the head and shoulders of the guard himself, who, not calculating
upon so sudden a cessation of the passive resistance of the cod-fish,
experiences a very unexpected shock, to the unsmotherable delight of
all the porters and by-standers. Upon this, Mr. Pickwick smiles with
great good humour, and drawing a shilling from his waistcoat pocket,
begs the guard, as he picks himself out of the boot, to drink his
health in a glass of hot brandy and water, at which the guard smiles
too, and Messrs. Snodgrass, Winkle, and Tupman, all smile in company.
The guard and Mr. Weller disappear for five minutes, most probably
to get the hot brandy and water, for they smell very strongly of it,
when they return; the coachman mounts to the box, Mr. Weller jumps up
behind, the Pickwickians pull their coats round their legs, and their
shawls over their noses; the helpers pull the horse-cloths off, the
coachman shouts out a cheery "All right," and away they go.
They have rumbled through the streets, and jolted over the stones,
and at length reach the wide and open country. The wheels skim over
the hard and frosty ground; and the horses, bursting into a canter at
a smart crack of the whip, step along the road as if the load behind
them, coach, passengers, cod-fish, oyster barrels, and all, were but
a feather at their heels. They have descended a gentle slope, and
enter upon a level, as compact and dry as a solid block of marble, two
miles long. Another crack of the whip, and on they speed, at a smart
gallop, the horses tossing their heads and rattling the harness as
if in exhilaration at the rapidity of the motion, while the coachman
holding whip and reins in one hand, takes off his hat with the other,
and resting it on his knees, pulls out his handkerchief, and wipes his
forehead partly because he has a habit of doing it, and partly because
it's as well to show the passengers how cool he is, and what an easy
thing it is to drive four-in-hand, when you have had as much practice
as he has. Having done this very leisurely (otherwise the effect would
be materially impaired), he replaces his handkerchief, pulls on his
hat, adjusts his gloves, squares his elbows, cracks the whip again, and
on they speed, more merrily than before.
A few small houses scattered on either side of the road, betoken the
entrance to some town or village. The lively notes of the guard's
key-bugle vibrate in the clear cold air, and wake up the old gentleman
inside, who carefully letting down the window-sash half way, and
standing sentry over the air, takes a short peep out, and then
carefully pulling it up again, informs the other inside that they're
going to change directly; on which the other inside wakes himself up,
and determines to postpone his next nap until after the stoppage. Again
the bugle sounds lustily forth, and rouses the cottager's wife and
children, who peep out at the house-door, and watch the coach till it
turns the corner, when they once more crouch round the blazing fire,
and throw on another log of wood against father comes home, while
father himself, a full mile off, has just exchanged a friendly nod
with the coachman, and turned round, to take a good long stare at the
vehicle as it whirls away.
And now the bugle plays a lively air as the coach rattles through the
ill-paved streets of a country town; and the coachman, undoing the
buckle which keeps his ribands together, prepares to throw them off
the moment he stops. Mr. Pickwick emerges from his coat collar, and
looks about him with great curiosity: perceiving which, the coachman
informs Mr. Pickwick of the name of the town, and tells him it was
market-day yesterday, both which pieces of information Mr. Pickwick
retails to his fellow-passengers, whereupon they emerge from their coat
collars too, and look about them also. Mr. Winkle, who sits at the
extreme edge, with one leg dangling in the air, is nearly precipitated
into the street, as the coach twists round the sharp corner by the
cheesemonger's shop, and turns into the market-place; and before Mr.
Snodgrass, who sits next to him, has recovered from his alarm, they
pull up at the inn yard, where the fresh horses, with cloths on, are
already waiting. The coachman throws down the reins and gets down
himself, and the other outside passengers drop down also, except those
who have no great confidence in their ability to get up again, and they
remain where they are, and stamp their feet against the coach to warm
them; looking with longing eyes and red noses at the bright fire in the
inn bar, and the sprigs of holly with red berries which ornament the
window.
But the guard has delivered at the corn-dealer's shop, the brown paper
packet he took out of the little pouch which hangs over his shoulder
by a leathern strap, and has seen the horses carefully put to, and has
thrown on the pavement the saddle which was brought from London on the
coach-roof, and has assisted in the conference between the coachman
and the hostler about the grey mare that hurt her off-fore-leg last
Tuesday, and he and Mr. Weller are all right behind, and the coachman
is all right in front, and the old gentleman inside, who has kept the
window down full two inches all this time, has pulled it up again,
and the cloths are off, and they are all ready for starting, except
the "two stout gentlemen," whom the coachman enquires after with some
impatience. Hereupon the coachman and the guard, and Sam Weller, and
Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snodgrass, and all the hostlers, and every one of
the idlers, who are more in number than all the others put together,
shout for the missing gentlemen as loud as they can bawl. A distant
response is heard from the yard, and Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman come
running down it, quite out of breath, for they have been having a glass
of ale a-piece, and Mr. Pickwick's fingers are so cold that he has been
full five minutes before he could find the sixpence to pay for it.
The coachman shouts an admonitory "Now, then, gen'l-m'n," the guard
re-echoes it--the old gentleman inside, thinks it a very extraordinary
thing that people will get down when they know there isn't time for
it--Mr. Pickwick struggles up on one side, Mr. Tupman on the other,
Mr. Winkle cries "All right," and off they start. Shawls are pulled
up, coat collars are re-adjusted, the pavement ceases, the houses
disappear; and they are once again dashing along the open road, with
the fresh clear air blowing in their faces, and gladdening their very
hearts within them.
Such was the progress of Mr. Pickwick and his friends by the Muggleton
Telegraph, on their way to Dingley Dell; and at three o'clock that
afternoon, they all stood high and dry, safe and sound, hale and
hearty, upon the steps of the Blue Lion, having taken on the road
enough of ale and brandy, to enable them to bid defiance to the frost
that was binding up the earth in its iron fetters, and weaving its
beautiful network upon the trees and hedges.
CHARLES DICKENS
A Visit from St. Nicholas
'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap--
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below;
When what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick!
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled and shouted, and called them by name:
"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall!
Now dash away, dash away, dash away all!"
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys--and St. Nicholas, too.
And then in a twinkling I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.
His eyes, how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry;
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow.
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook, when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump--a right jolly old elf;
And I laughed, when I saw him, in spite of myself.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.
He sprang in his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle;
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight:
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"
CLEMENT C. MOORE
Crowded Out
Nobody ain't Christmas shoppin'
Fur his stockin',
Nobody ain't cotch no turkkey,
Nobody ain't bake no pie.
Nobody's laid nuthin' by;
Santa Claus don't cut no figger
Fur his mammy's little nigger.
Seems lak everybody's rushin'
An' er crushin';
Crowdin' shops an' jammin' trolleys,
Buyin' shoes an' shirts an' toys
Fur de white folks' girls an' boys;
But no hobby-horse ain't rockin'
Fur his little wore-out stockin'.
He ain't quar'lin, recollec',
He don't 'spec'
Nuthin'--it's his not expectin'
Makes his mammy wish--O Laws!--
Fur er nigger Santy Claus,
Totin' jus' er toy balloon
Fur his mammy's little coon.
ROSALIE M. JONAS
II
HOLIDAY SAINTS AND LORDS
[Illustration: HOLIDAY SAINTS AND LORDS]
My Lord of Misrule
St. Nicholas
An Old Saint in a New World
St. Thomas
Kriss Kringle
II Santissimo Bambino
The Christ Child
The April Baby is Thankful
Good King Wenceslas
Jean Valjean plays the Christmas Saint
St. Brandan
St. Stephen's, or Boxing Day
St. Basil in Trikkola
[Illustration]
"Here comes old Father Christmas,
With sound of fife and drums;
With mistletoe about his brows,
So merrily he comes!"
ROSE TERRY COOKE
My Lord of Misrule
"Firste," says Master Stubs, "all the wilde heades of the parishe
conventynge together, chuse them a grand Capitaine (of mischeef) whom
they innoble with the title of my Lorde of Misserule, and hym they
crown with great solemnitie, and adopt for their kyng. This kyng
anoynted, chuseth for the twentie, fourtie, threescore, or a hundred
lustie guttes like hymself, to waite uppon his lordely majestie, and
to guarde his noble persone. Then every one of these his menne he
investeth with his liveries of greene, yellowe or some other light
wanton colour. And as though that were not (baudie) gaudy enough I
should saie, they bedecke themselves with scarffes, ribons and laces,
hanged all over with golde rynges, precious stones and other jewelles:
this doen, they tye about either legge twentie or fourtie belles with
rich hankercheefes in their handes, and sometymes laied acrosse over
their shoulders and neckes, borrowed for the moste parte of their
pretie Mopsies and loovyng Bessies, for bussyng them in the darcke.
Thus thinges sette in order, they have their hobbie horses, dragons,
and other antiques, together with their baudie pipers, and thunderyng
drommers, to strike up the Deville's Daunce withall" (meaning the
Morris Dance), "then marche these heathen companie towardes the church
and churche yarde, their pipers pipyng, drommers thonderyng, their
stumppes dauncyng, their belles iynglyng, their handkerchefes swyngyng
about their heades like madmen, their hobbie horses and other monsters
skyrmishyng amongst the throng: and in this sorte they goe to the
churche (though the minister bee at praier or preachyng) dauncyng and
swingyng their handkercheefes over their heades, in the churche, like
devilles incarnate, with suche a confused noise that no man can heare
his owne voice. Then the foolishe people, they looke, they stare, they
laugh, they fleere, and mount upon formes and pewes, to see these
goodly pageauntes, solemnized in this sort."
Quoted by T. K. HERVEY
St. Nicholas
According to Hone's "Ancient Mysteries" Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra,
was a saint of great virtue and piety.... The old legend is that the
sons of a rich Asiatic, on their way to Athens for education, were
slain by a robber innkeeper, dismembered, and their parts hidden in
a brine tub. In the morning came the Saint, whose visions had warned
him of the crime, whose authority forced confession, and whose prayers
restored the boys to life. The Salisbury Missal of 1534 contains a
curious engraving of the scene, in which the bodies of the children
are leaping from the brine tub at the Bishop's call even while the
innkeeper at the table above their heads is busily cutting a leg and
foot into pieces small enough for his purposes.
Ever since, St. Nicholas has been the special saint of the school-boy,
and certain of the customs of montem day at Eton College are said to
have originated in old festivals in his honor.
St. Nicholas is the grand patron of the children of France, to whom
he brings bonbons for the good, but a cane for the naughty child. In
Germany he acts as an advance courier examining into the conduct of the
children, distributes goodies and promises to those with good records
a further reward which the Christ Child brings at Christmas time. But
his own peculiar celebration takes place in a tiny seaport of southern
Italy where it is curiously interwoven with ancient usages possibly
remaining from some worship of Neptune.
On St. Nicholas's Day, the 6th of December, the sailors of the port
take the saint's image from the beautiful church of St. Nicholas and
with a long procession of boats carry it far out to sea. Returning with
it at nightfall they are met by bonfires, torches, all the townspeople,
and hundreds of quaintly dressed pilgrims, who welcome the returning
saint with songs and carry him to visit one shrine after another,
before returning him to the custody of the canons.
W. S. Walsh quotes a writer in Chambers' "Book of Days" as saying:
"Through the native rock which formes the tomb of the saint, water
constantly exudes, which is collected by the canons on a sponge
attached to a reed, squeezed into bottles and sold to pilgrims as a
miraculous specific under the name of the "manna of St. Nicholas."
An Old Saint in a New World
While Catholicism prevailed, St. Nicholas was everywhere the children's
saint. In Holland, where his personality was modified by memories of
Woden, god of the elements and the harvest, he had a peculiar hold on
popular affection which persisted into Protestant times. The children
of the Dutch still believe that St. Nicholas brings the gifts that
they always get on the eve of his titular day, December 6. In New
Amsterdam this day was one of the five chief feastdays of the year.
After New Orange became New York the characteristic traits of the Dutch
children's festival were transferred to the near-by Christmas festival
which was English as well as Dutch. It cannot now be said when the
change began or when it was firmly established. It is known, indeed,
that by the middle of the eighteenth century St. Nicholas Day had
been dropped from the list of official holidays which, religious and
patriotic together, then numbered twenty-seven. But, on the other hand,
more than one memoir and book of reminiscences says that as late as the
middle of the nineteenth century some conservative old Dutch families
still celebrated the true St. Nicholas Day in their homes in the true
old fashion, then bestowing the children's annual meed of gifts. Nor
is any light thrown on the question by certain entries in a local
newspaper, _Rivington's Gazetteer_, dated in December, 1773 and 1774,
and referring to celebrations of "the anniversary of St. Nicholas,
otherwise called Santa Claus," for they speak of social meetings of
the "sons of that ancient saint" in which children can hardly have
participated, and they indicate days which were neither Christmas Day
nor the true St. Nicholas Day.
It is clear, however, that on Manhattan by a gradual consolidation
of the two old festivals Christmas became pre-eminently a children's
festival presided over by the children's saint whose modern name, Santa
Claus, is a variant of the Dutch St. Niclaes or San Claas. In all
European countries Christmas still means simply the day of Christ's
nativity; for the "Old Christmas" whom we meet in English ballads of
earlier times, the "Father Christmas" of Charles Dickens, and the
"Père Noël" of the French are abstractly mythical figures in no way
related to St. Nicholas. But anywhere in our America the domestic
observance of Christmas centres around Santa Claus with his burden
of gifts. The stockings that our children hang on Christmas Eve were
once the shoes that the children of Amsterdam and New Amsterdam set in
the chimney corners on the eve of December 6; and the reindeer whose
hoofs our children hear represent the horse, descended from Woden's
horse Sleipner, upon whose back St. Nicholas still makes his rounds in
Holland. The Christmas-tree is not Dutch but German; about the middle
of the nineteenth century we acquired it from our German immigrants.
But even this the American child accepts at the hands of Santa Claus,
not of the Christ Child as does the little German. "Kriss Kringle,"
it may be added, a name now often mistakenly used as though it were a
synonym of Santa Claus, is a corruption of the German Christkindlein
(Christ Child).
MRS. SCHUYLER VAN RENSSELAER
From the _History of the City of New York_
St. Thomas
Another of the Saints of the holiday season is doubting Thomas, whose
festival appropriately comes on Dec. 21, just when the child mind is
almost ready to doubt the efficacy of all those letters to Santa Claus,
and has more than doubts whether conduct has been so perfect as to
warrant hope for the Christmas stocking.
St. Thomas seems to have remained a doubter to the end, for in the
cathedral of Prato is shown the girdle of the "Madonnadella Cintola";
her ascension into heaven took place when Thomas was not with his
brother apostles, whose account of the miracle he refused to believe;
whereon the indignant Madonna threw her girdle back to him from heaven
as evidence,--or so the legend reads,--with the girdle to prove it.
His emblem as an apostle is a builder's rule or square; possibly
associated with that other legend of the king of the Indies who ordered
the saint to build him a magnificent palace. On the return of the king
and his discovery that the money for this building had all been given
to the poor, the saint was thrown into a dungeon. Before worse befel,
the king died and four days later appeared to his heir with an account
of the splendid palace of gold and precious stones built for him in
heaven by the charities of the saint on earth.
W. P. R.
Kriss Kringle
Just as the moon was fading
Amid her misty rings,
And every stocking was stuffed
With childhood's precious things,
Old Kriss Kringle looked round,
And saw on the elm-tree bough,
High-hung, an oriole's nest,
Silent and empty now.
"Quite like a stocking," he laughed,
"Pinned up there on the tree!
Little I thought the birds
Expected a present from me!"
Then old Kriss Kringle, who loves
A joke as well as the best,
Dropped a handful of flakes
In the oriole's empty nest.
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
_By permission of the Houghton Mifflin Company_
Il Santissimo Bambino
"Il Santissimo Bambino," of the _Ara Cœli_ in Rome, smiles placidly
with the gravity of a sphinx on all alike. Wee little folk before it
clasp dimpled hands and lispingly recite their speeches of praise.
Older folk lift up a prayer for the safe return of friends afar;
sometimes, as a concession to the faithful--at a price--it is driven
out in a bannered coach to bless the sick. If the patient is to live,
the image will turn red; if he is to die, it will turn pale. Should its
attendant monks by chance forget to return it to the gorgeous manger of
the Franciscan church to which it belongs, perchance it will return of
its own will, borne by no human hands, while all the bells of churches
and convents are set a-swaying by the touch of angel hosts--or so the
Roman peasants say.
In England similar images have been used in the service which follows
the midnight mass of Christmas Eve; so soon as the Host is safely
returned to its receptacle there is disclosed to the view of the
reverently adoring monks the tiny waxen doll, elaborately swathed yet
so as to leave visible the pink, expressionless face, and half hidden
hands and feet. The officiating priest lifts the image and facing the
waiting monks holds it reverently while in circling procession, one
after another, each bends for a moment to kiss the tiny figure on face
or hands, crosses himself and passes on. The ceremony is one to be
seen only among the Trappist monks and only at this one service of the
Christmas season.
W. P. R.
The Christ Child
Elise Traut relates the legend that on every Christmas eve the little
Christ-child wanders all over the world bearing on its shoulders a
bundle of evergreens. Through city streets and country lanes, up and
down hill, to proudest castle and lowliest hovel, through cold and
storm and sleet and ice, this holy child travels, to be welcomed or
rejected at the doors at which he pleads for succor. Those who would
invite him and long for his coming set a lighted candle in the window
to guide him on his way hither. They also believe that he comes to them
in the guise of any alms-craving, wandering person who knocks humbly
at their doors for sustenance, thus testing their benevolence. In many
places the aid rendered the beggar is looked upon as hospitality shown
to Christ.
The April Baby is Thankful
December 27th.--It is the fashion, I believe, to regard Christmas as a
bore of rather a gross description, and as a time when you are invited
to overeat yourself, and pretend to be merry without just cause. As a
matter of fact, it is one of the prettiest and most poetic institutions
possible, if observed in the proper manner, and after having been more
or less unpleasant to everybody for a whole year, it is a blessing to
be forced on that one day to be amiable, and it is certainly delightful
to be able to give presents without being haunted by the conviction
that you are spoiling the recipient, and will suffer for it afterward.
Servants are only big children, and are made just as happy as children
by little presents and nice things to eat, and, for days beforehand,
every time the three babies go into the garden they expect to meet the
Christ Child with His arms full of gifts. They firmly believe that it
is thus their presents are brought, and it is such a charming idea that
Christmas would be worth celebrating for its sake alone.
As great secrecy is observed, the preparations devolve entirely on me,
and it is not very easy work, with so many people in our own house and
on each of the farms, and all the children, big and little, expecting
their share of happiness. The library is uninhabitable for several days
before and after, as it is there that we have the trees and presents.
All down one side are the trees, and the other three sides are lined
with tables, a separate one for each person in the house. When the
trees are lighted, and stand in their radiance shining down on the
happy faces, I forget all the trouble it has been, and the number of
times I have had to run up and down stairs, and the various aches in
head and feet, and enjoy myself as much as anybody. First the June baby
is ushered in, then the others and ourselves according to age, then
the servants, then come the head inspector and his family, and other
inspectors from the different farms, the mamsells, the bookkeepers and
secretaries, and then all the children, troops and troops of them--the
big ones leading the little ones by the hand and carrying the babies in
their arms, and the mothers peeping round the door. As many as can get
in stand in front of the trees, and sing two or three carols; then they
are given their presents, and go off triumphantly, making room for the
next batch. My three babies sang lustily too, whether they happened to
know what was being sung or not. They had on white dresses in honour
of the occasion, and the June baby was even arrayed in a low-necked
and short-sleeved garment, after the manner of Teutonic infants,
whatever the state of the thermometer. Her arms are like miniature
prize-fighter's arms--I never saw such things; they are the pride and
joy of her little nurse, who had tied them up with blue ribbons, and
kept on kissing them. I shall certainly not be able to take her to
balls when she grows up, if she goes on having arms like that.
When they came to say good-night, they were all very pale and subdued.
The April baby had an exhausted-looking Japanese doll with her, which
she said she was taking to bed, not because she liked him, but because
she was so sorry for him, he seemed so very tired. They kissed me
absently, and went away, only the April baby glancing at the trees as
she passed and making them a curtesy.
"Good-bye, trees," I heard her say; and then she made the Japanese doll
bow to them, which he did, in a very languid and blasé fashion. "You'll
never see such trees again," she told him, giving him a vindictive
shake, "for you'll be brokened long before next time."
She went out, but came back as though she had forgotten something.
"Thank the Christkind so much, Mummy, won't you, for all the lovely
things He brought us. I suppose you're writing to Him now, isn't you?"
From _Elizabeth and her German Garden_
[Illustration: THE ARRIVAL OF THE SHEPHERDS. _Lerolle._]
Good King Wenceslas
Good King Wenceslas looked out,
On the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about,
Deep, and crisp, and even:
Brightly shone the moon that night,
Though the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight,
Gath'ring winter fuel.
"Hither, page, and stand by me,
If thou know'st it, telling,
Yonder peasant, who is he?
Where and what his dwelling?"
"Sire, he lives a good league hence,
Underneath the mountain;
Right against the forest fence,
By St. Agnes' fountain."
"Bring me flesh, and bring me wine,
Bring me pine logs hither;
Thou and I will see him dine,
When we bear them thither."
Page and monarch forth they went,
Forth they went together;
Through the rude wind's wild lament,
And the bitter weather.
"Sire, the night is darker now,
And the wind blows stronger;
Fails my heart, I know not how,
I can go no longer."
"Mark my footsteps, good my page!
Tread thou in them boldly;
Thou shalt find the winter's rage
Freeze thy blood less coldly."
In his master's steps he trod,
Where the snow lay dinted;
Heat was in the very sod
Which the saint had printed.
Therefore, Christian men, be sure,
Wealth or rank possessing,
Ye who now will bless the poor,
Shall yourselves find blessing.
Version by JOHN MASON NEALE
Jean Valjean plays the Christmas Saint
As for the traveller, he had deposited his cudgel and his bundle in a
corner. The landlord once gone, he threw himself into an arm-chair and
remained for some time buried in thought. Then he removed his shoes,
took one of the two candles, blew out the other, opened the door, and
quitted the room, gazing about him like a person who is in search of
something. He traversed a corridor and came upon a staircase. There
he heard a very faint and gentle sound like the breathing of a child.
He followed this sound, and came to a sort of triangular recess built
under the staircase, or rather formed by the staircase itself. This
recess was nothing else than the space under the steps. There, in the
midst of all sorts of old papers and potsherds, among dust and spiders'
webs, was a bed--if one can call by the name of bed a straw pallet so
full of holes as to display the straw, and a coverlet so tattered as to
show the pallet. No sheets. This was placed on the floor.
In this bed Cosette was sleeping.
The man approached and gazed down upon her.
Cosette was in a profound sleep; she was fully dressed. In the winter
she did not undress, in order that she might not be so cold.
Against her breast was pressed the doll, whose large eyes, wide open,
glittered in the dark. From time to time she gave vent to a deep sigh
as though she were on the point of waking, and she strained the doll
almost convulsively in her arms. Beside her bed there was only one of
her wooden shoes.
A door which stood open near Cosette's pallet permitted a view of a
rather large, dark room. The stranger stepped into it. At the further
extremity, through a glass door, he saw two small, very white beds.
They belonged to Éponine and Azelma. Behind these beds, and half
hidden, stood an uncurtained wicker cradle, in which the little boy who
had cried all the evening lay asleep.
The stranger conjectured that this chamber connected with that of the
Thénardier pair. He was on the point of retreating when his eye fell
upon the fireplace--one of those vast tavern chimneys where there is
always so little fire when there is any fire at all, and which are
so cold to look at. There was no fire in this one, there was not even
ashes; but there was something which attracted the stranger's gaze,
nevertheless. It was two tiny children's shoes, coquettish in shape and
unequal in size. The traveller recalled the graceful and immemorial
custom in accordance with which children place their shoes in the
chimney on Christmas eve, there to await in the darkness some sparkling
gift from their good fairy. Éponine and Azelma had taken care not to
omit this, and each of them had set one of her shoes on the hearth.
The traveller bent over them.
The fairy, that is to say, their mother, had already paid her visit,
and in each he saw a brand-new and shining ten-sou piece.
The man straightened himself up, and was on the point of withdrawing,
when far in, in the darkest corner of the hearth, he caught sight
of another object. He looked at it, and recognized a wooden shoe, a
frightful shoe of the coarsest description, half dilapidated and all
covered with ashes and dried mud. It was Cosette's sabot. Cosette, with
that touching trust of childhood, which can always be deceived yet
never discouraged, had placed her shoe on the hearth-stone also.
Hope in a child who has never known anything but despair is a sweet and
touching thing.
There was nothing in this wooden shoe.
The stranger fumbled in his waistcoat, bent over and placed a louis
d'or in Cosette's shoe.
Then he regained his own chamber with the stealthy tread of a wolf.
VICTOR HUGO in _Les Miserables_
Saint Brandan
Saint Brandan sails the northern main;
The brotherhoods of saints are glad.
He greets them once, he sails again;
So late! such storms! The saint is mad!
He heard, across the howling seas,
Chime convent-bells on wintry nights;
He saw, on spray-swept Hebrides,
Twinkle the monastery-lights;
But north, still north, Saint Brandan steered;
And now no bells, no convents more!
The hurtling Polar lights are neared,
The sea without a human shore.
At last (it was the Christmas-night;
Stars shone after a day of storm)
He sees float past an iceberg white,
And on it--Christ!--a living form.
That furtive mien, that scowling eye,
Of hair that red and tufted fell,
It is--oh, where shall Brandan fly?--
The traitor Judas, out of hell!
Palsied with terror, Brandan sate;
The moon was bright, the iceberg near.
He hears a voice sigh humbly, "Wait!
By high permission I am here.
"One moment wait, thou holy man!
On earth my crime, my death, they knew;
My name is under all men's ban:
Ah! tell them of my respite too.
"Tell them, one blessed Christmas-night
(It was the first after I came,
Breathing self-murder, frenzy, spite,
To rue my guilt in endless flame),--
"I felt, as I in torment lay
'Mid the souls plagued by heavenly power,
An angel touch mine arm, and say,--
'Go hence, and cool thyself an hour!'
"'Ah! whence this mercy, Lord?' I said.
'The leper recollect,' said he,
'Who asked the passers-by for aid,
In Joppa, and thy charity.'
"Then I remembered how I went,
In Joppa, through the public street,
One morn when the sirocco spent
Its storms of dust with burning heat;
"And in the street a leper sate,
Shivering with fever, naked, old;
Sand raked his sores from heel to pate,
The hot wind fevered him fivefold.
"He gazed upon me as I passed,
And murmured, 'Help me, or I die!'
To the poor wretch my cloak I cast,
Saw him look eased, and hurried by.
* * * * *
"Once every year, when carols wake,
On earth, the Christmas-night's repose,
Arising from the sinner's lake,
I journey to these healing snows.
"I stanch with ice my burning breast,
With silence balm my whirling brain.
O Brandan! to this hour of rest,
That Joppan leper's ease was pain."
Tears started to Saint Brandan's eyes;
He bowed his head, he breathed a prayer,
Then looked--and lo, the frosty skies!
The iceberg, and no Judas there!
MATTHEW ARNOLD
St. Stephen's, or Boxing Day
In old England St. Stephen's Day is chiefly celebrated under the
name of Boxing Day,--not for pugilistic reasons, but because on that
day it was the custom for persons in the humbler walks of life to go
the rounds with a Christmas-box and solicit money from patrons and
employers. Hence the phrase Christmas-box came to signify gifts made at
this season to children or inferiors, even after the boxes themselves
had gone out of use. This custom was of heathen origin and carries us
back to the Roman Paganalia when earthen boxes in which money was
slipped through a hole were hung up to receive contributions at these
rural festivals.
Aubrey in his "Wiltshire Collections" describes a _trouvaille_ of Roman
relics: "Among the rest was an earthen pot of the color of a crucible,
and of the shape of a Prentice's Christmas-box with a slit in it,
containing about a quart which was near full of money. This pot I gave
to the Repository of the Royal Society at Gresham College."
Of the Prentice's Christmas-box, a recognized institution of the
seventeenth century, several specimens are preserved,--small and wide
bottles of thin clay from three to four inches in height, surrounded by
imitation stoppers covered with a green baize. On one side is a slit
for the introduction of money; the box must be broken before the money
can be extracted.
W. P. R.
St. Basil in Trikkola
Trikkola is very Turkish, having only been in Greek hands for eight
years; but though you see mosques and latticed windows at every turn,
there is not a Greek left; when his rule is over the Mussulman packs
his luggage; he will not live subject to the infidel. It is very
squalid indeed, and down the bazaar ran an open drain; but nevertheless
the walk by the river is pretty and towards evening women came down
to the stream to wash and fetch home water in quaint round bottles. I
think one of the most marked distinctions between Turk and Greek is
whitewash. Greeks love whitewash; houses, churches, public buildings
are excessively clean outside, and promise what the interior fails to
fulfill. This is especially remarkable at Trikkola, where the brown mud
houses of Turkish days are being rapidly converted into white Greek
ones.
St. Basil's Eve--that is to say the Greek New Year's Eve--is a very
marked day in the period of the twelve days, and one on which all make
merry. The squalid streets of Trikkola even looked bright as bands
of gaily dressed children, nay, even grown-up young men, went round
singing the Kalends songs--Greek Kalends that is to say, which though
it is twelve days later than ours came at last. And on this the eve
of the Kalends these bands paraded the streets, each carrying a long
pole to the top of which was tied a piece of brushwood, within which
was concealed a bell, and to which were tied many scraps of colored
ribbon. At each house the singers stopped. The inhabitants came out to
greet them and offer them refreshments,--figs, nuts, eggs and other
food,--which were stowed away by one of the band who carried a basket.
Their songs to our ears were exceedingly ugly, long chanted stories. I
asked a priest whose acquaintance I had made to copy down one of them,
of which the following is a rough translation:--
From Cæsarea came the holy Basil;
Ink and paper in his hands he held.
Cried the crowd who saw him coming,
"Teach us letters, dear St. Basil."
His rod he left them for instruction--
His rod which buds with verdant leaves,
On which the partridges sit singing
And the swallows make their nests.
Jangle went the bell in the brushwood--"the thicket" as they call
it--and out came the housewife when the singing was over, her hands
full of homely gifts, in return for which she was presented with
one of the silk ribbons from the trophy. This she will keep for the
whole of the ensuing year, for it will bring her good luck. And after
many good wishes for the coming year the troupe moved on to another
house.... It seems that this is the most favorite Greek method of
celebrating a festive season. The people in no way resent these
constant visitors and claims on their hospitality; nay, rather they
would be deeply hurt if the bands of children passed them by.
J. THEODORE BENT
III
CHRISTMAS CUSTOMS AND BELIEFS
[Illustration: CHRISTMAS CUSTOMS AND BELIEFS]
The Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ
Folk-lore of Christmas Tide
Hunting the Wren
The Presepio
Hodening in Kent
Origin of the Christmas Tree
Origin of the Christmas Card
The Yule Clog
Come bring with a Noise
Shoe or Stocking
Jule-Nissen
"Lame Needles" in Eubœa
"Who Rides behind the Bells?"
Guests at Yule
[Illustration]
Some sayes, that ever 'gainst that Season comes
Wherein our Saviours Birth is celebrated,
The Bird of Dawning singeth all night long:
And then (they say) no Spirit can walke abroad,
The nights are wholesome, then no Planets strike,
No Faiery talkes, nor Witch hath power to Charme:
So hallowed, and so gracious is the time.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
The Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ
When the world had endured five thousand and nine hundred years, after
Eusebius the holy saint, Octavian the Emperor commanded that all the
world should be described, so that he might know how many cities, how
many towns, and how many persons he had in all the universal world.
Then was so great peace in the earth that all the world was obedient to
him. And therefore our Lord would be born in that time, that it should
be known that he brought peace from heaven. And this Emperor commanded
that every man should go into the towns, cities or villages from whence
they were of, and should bring with him a penny in acknowledgment that
he was subject to the Empire of Rome. And by so many pence as should
be found received, should be known the number of the persons. Joseph,
which was then of the lineage of David, and dwelleth in Nazareth, went
into the city of Bethlehem, and led with him the Virgin Mary his wife.
And when they were come thither, because the hostelries were all taken
up, they were constrained to be without in a common place where all
people went. And there was a stable for an ass that he brought with
him, and for an ox. In that night our Blessed Lady and Mother of God
was delivered of our Blessed Saviour upon the hay that lay in the rack.
At which nativity our Lord shewed many marvels. For because that the
world was in so great peace, the Romans had done made a temple which
was named the Temple of Peace, in which they counselled with Apollo to
know how long it should stand and endure. Apollo answered to them,
that it should stand as long till a maid had brought forth and borne a
child. And therefore they did do write on the portal of the Temple: Lo!
this is the temple of peace that ever shall endure. For they supposed
well that a maid might never bear ne bring forth a child. This temple
that same time that our Lady was delivered and our Lord born, overthrew
and fell all down. Of which christian men afterward made in the same
place a church of our Lady which is called Sancta Maria Rotunda, that
is to say, the Church of Saint Mary the Round. Also the same night,
as recordeth Innocent the third, which was Pope, there sprang and
sourded in Rome a well or a fountain, and ran largely all that night
and all that day unto the river of Rome called Tiber. Also after that,
recordeth S. John Chrysostom, the three kings were in this night in
their orisons and prayers upon a mountain, when a star appeared by
them which had the form of a right fair child, which had a cross in
his forehead, which said to these three kings that they should go to
Jerusalem, and there they should find the son of the Virgin, God and
Man, which then was born. Also there appeared in the orient three suns,
which little and little assembled together, and were all on one. As it
is signified to us that these three things are the Godhead, the soul,
and the body, which been in three natures assembled in one person. Also
Octavian the Emperor, like as Innocent recordeth, that he was much
desired of his council and of his people, that he should do men worship
him as God. For never had there been before him so great a master and
lord of the world as he was. Then the Emperor sent for a prophetess
named Sibyl, for to demand of her if there were any so great and like
him in the earth, or if any should come after him. Thus at the hour of
mid-day she beheld the heaven, and saw a circle of gold about the sun,
and in the middle of the circle a maid holding a child in her arms.
Then she called the Emperor and shewed it him. When Octavian saw that
he marvelled over much, whereof Sibyl said to him: Hic puer major te
est, ipsum adora. This child is greater lord than thou art, worship
him. Then when the Emperor understood that this child was greater lord
than he was, he would not be worshipped as God, but worshipped this
child that should be born. Wherefore the christian men made a church
of the same chamber of the Emperor, and named it Ara cœli. After this
it happed on a night as a great master which is of great authority in
Scripture, which is named Bartholemew, recordeth that the Rod of Engadi
which is by Jerusalem, which beareth balm, flowered this night and bare
fruit, and gave liquor of balm. After this came the angel and appeared
to the shepherds that kept their sheep, and said to them: I announce
and shew to you a great joy, for the Saviour of the world is in this
night born, in the city of Bethlehem, there may ye find him wrapt in
clouts. And anon, as the angel had said this, a great multitude of
angels appeared with him, and began to sing: Honour, glory and health
be to God on high, and in the earth peace to men of goodwill. Then said
the shepherds, let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing. And when they
came they found like as the angel had said. In this time Octavian made
to cut and enlarge the ways and quitted the Romans of all the debts
that they owed to him. This feast of Nativity of our Lord is one of
the greatest feasts of all the year, and for to tell all the miracles
that our Lord hath shewed, it should contain a whole book; but at this
time I shall leave and pass over save one thing that I have heard once
preached of a worshipful doctor, that what person being in clean life
desire on this day a boon of God, as far as it is rightful and good
for him, our Lord at the reverence of this blessed high feast of his
Nativity will grant it to him.
From _The Golden Legend_
Folk-Lore of Christmas Tide
Scottish folk-lore has it that Christ was born "at the hour of midnight
on Christmas Eve," and that the miracle of turning water into wine
was performed by Him at the same hour. There is a belief current in
some parts of Germany that "between eleven and twelve the night before
Christmas water turns to wine"; in other districts, as at Bielefeld, it
is on Christmas night that this change is thought to take place.
This hour is also auspicious for many actions, and in some sections of
Germany it was thought that if one would go to the cross-roads between
eleven and twelve on Christmas Day, and listen, he "would hear what
most concerns him in the coming year." Another belief is that "if one
walks into the winter-corn on Holy Christmas Eve, he will hear all that
will happen in the village that year."
Christmas Eve or Christmas is the time when the oracles of the folk
are in the best working-order, especially the many processes by which
maidens are wont to discover the colour of their lover's hair, the
beauty of his face and form, his trade and occupation, whether they
shall marry or not, and the like.
The same season is most auspicious for certain ceremonies and practices
(transferred to it from the heathen antiquity) of the peasantry of
Europe in relation to agriculture and allied industries. Among those
noted by Grimm are the following:--
On Christmas Eve thrash the garden with a flail, with only your shirt
on, and the grass will grow well next year.
Tie wet strawbands around the orchard trees on Christmas Eve and it
will make them fruitful.
On Christmas Eve put a stone on every tree, and they will bear the more.
Beat the trees on Christmas night, and they will bear more fruit.
In Herefordshire, Devonshire, and Cornwall, in England, the farmers and
peasantry "salute the apple-trees on Christmas Eve," and in Sussex they
used to "worsle," _i.e._ "wassail," the apple-trees and chant verses to
them in somewhat of the primitive fashion.
Some other curious items of Christmas folk-lore are the following,
current chiefly in Germany.
If after a Christmas dinner you shake out the tablecloth over the bare
ground under the open sky, crumbwort will grow on the spot.
If on Christmas Day, or Christmas Eve, you hang a wash-clout on a
hedge, and then groom the horses with it, they will grow fat.
As often as the cock crows on Christmas Eve, the quarter of corn will
be as dear.
If a dog howls the night before Christmas, it will go mad within the
year.
If the light is let go out on Christmas Eve, some one in the house will
die.
When lights are brought in on Christmas Eve, if any one's shadow has
no head, he will die within a year; if half a head, in the second
half-year.
If a hoop comes off a cask on Christmas Eve, some one in the house will
die that year.
If on Christmas Eve you make a little heap of salt on the table, and it
melts over night, you will die the next year; if, in the morning, it
remain undiminished, you will live.
If you wear something sewed with thread spun on Christmas Eve, no
vermin will stick to you.
If a shirt be spun, woven, and sewed by a pure, chaste maiden on
Christmas Day, it will be proof against lead or steel.
If you are born at sermon-time on Christmas morning, you can see
spirits.
If you burn elder on Christmas Eve, you will have revealed to you all
the witches and sorcerers of the neighbourhood.
If you steal hay the night before Christmas, and give the cattle some,
they thrive, and you are not caught in any future thefts.
If you steal anything at Christmas without being caught, you can steal
safely for a year.
If you eat no beans on Christmas Eve, you will become an ass.
If you eat a raw egg, fasting, on Christmas morning, you can carry
heavy weights.
The crumbs saved up on three Christmas Eves are good to give as physic
to one who is disappointed.
It is unlucky to carry anything forth from the house on Christmas
morning until something has been brought in.
It is unlucky to give a neighbour a live coal to kindle a fire with on
Christmas morning.
If the fire burns brightly on Christmas morning, it betokens prosperity
during the year; if it smoulders, adversity.
These, and many other practices, ceremonies, beliefs, and
superstitions, which may be read in Grimm, Gregor, Henderson, De
Gubernatis, Ortwein, Tilte, and others who have written of Christmas,
show the importance attached in the folk-mind to the time of the
birth of Christ, and how around it as a centre have fixed themselves
hundreds of the rites and solemnities of passing heathendom, with its
recognition of the kinship of all nature, out of which grew astrology,
magic, and other pseudo-sciences.
Collected by A. F. CHAMBERLAIN
Christmas succeeds the Saturnalia, the same time, the same number of
Holy-days; then the Master waited upon the Servant like the Lord of
Misrule.
Our Meats and our Sports, much of them, have Relation to Church-works.
The Coffin of our Christmas-Pies, in shape long, is in Imitation of the
Cratch; our choosing Kings and Queens on Twelfth-Night, hath reference
to the three Kings. So likewise our eating of Fritters, whipping of
Tops, roasting of Herrings, Jack of Lents, etc., they were all in
imitation of Church-works, Emblems of Martyrdom.
_The Table-Talk of John Selden_
Hunting the Wren
The custom, which is called "hunting the wren," is generally practised
by the peasantry of the south of Ireland on St. Stephen's Day. It bears
a close resemblance to the Manx proceedings described by Waldron,--as
taking place however on a different day. "On the 24th of December,"
says that writer, in his account of the Isle of Man, "towards evening
the servants in general have a holiday; they go not to bed all night,
but ramble about till the bells ring in all the churches, which is at
twelve o'clock. Prayers being over, they go to hunt the wren; and after
having found one of these poor birds, they kill her and lay her on a
bier with the utmost solemnity, bringing her to the parish church and
burying her with a whimsical kind of solemnity, singing dirges over her
in the Manx language, which they call her knell; after which Christmas
begins."
The Wren-boys in Ireland, who are also called Droleens, go from house
to house for the purpose of levying contributions, carrying one or more
of these birds in the midst of a bush of holly, gaily decorated with
colored ribbons; which birds they have, like the Manx mummers, employed
their morning in killing. The following is their song; of which they
deliver themselves in most monotonous music:--
"The wren, the wren, the king of all birds,
St. Stephen's-day was caught in the furze,
Although he is little, his family's great.
I pray you, good landlady, give us a treat.
"My box would speak, if it had but a tongue,
And two or three shillings would do it no wrong;
Sing holly, sing ivy--sing ivy, sing holly,
A drop just to drink, it would drown melancholy.
"And if you draw it of the best,
I hope, in heaven your soul will rest;
But if you draw it of the small,
It won't agree with these Wren-boys at all."
If an immediate acknowledgment, either in money or drink, is not made
in return for the civility of their visit, some such nonsensical verses
as the following are added:--
"Last Christmas-day, I turned the spit,
I burned my fingers (I feel it yet),
A cock sparrow flew over the table,
The dish began to fight with the ladle.
"The spit got up like a naked man,
And swore he'd fight with the dripping pan;
The pan got up and cocked his tail,
And swore he'd send them all to jail."
The story told to account for the title of "king of all birds," here
given to the wren, is a curious sample of Irish ingenuity, and is thus
stated in the clever "Tales of the Munster Festivals," by an Irish
servant in answer to his master's inquiry:--
"Saint Stephen! why, what the mischief, I ask you again, have I to do
with Saint Stephen?"
"Nothen, sure, sir, only this being his day, when all the boys o' the
place go about that way with the wran, the king of all birds, sir, as
they say (bekays wanst when all the birds wanted to choose a king,
and they said they'd have the bird that would fly highest, the aigle
flew higher than any of 'em, till at last when he couldn't fly an inch
higher, a little rogue of a wran that was a-hide under his wing took
a fly above him a piece, and was crowned king, of the aigle an' all,
sir), tied in the middle o' the holly that way you see, sir, by the
leg, that is. An old custom, sir."
Vainly have we endeavored to arrive at the probable origin of hunting
and killing these little birds upon this day. The tradition commonly
related is by no means satisfactory. It is said that a Danish army
would have been surprised and destroyed by some Irish troops, had not
a wren given the alarm by pecking at some crumbs upon a drum-head,--the
remains of the sleeping drummer's supper; which roused him, when he
instantly beat to arms. And that from this circumstance the wren became
an object of hatred to the Irish.
T. K. HERVEY
The Presepio
After Christmas Day, during the remainder of December, there is a
Presepio, or representation of the manger in which our Savior was laid,
to be seen in many of the churches at Rome. That of the Ara Cœli is
best worth seeing; which church occupies the site of the temple of
Jupiter, and is adorned with some of its beautiful pillars.
On entering we found daylight completely excluded from the church; and
until we advanced we did not perceive the artificial light, which was
so managed as to stream in fluctuating rays from intervening silvery
clouds, and shed a radiance over the lovely babe and bending mother,
who in a most graceful attitude lightly holds up the drapery which half
conceals her sleeping infant from the bystanders. He lies in richly
embroidered swaddling clothes, and his person as well as that of His
virgin mother, is ornamented with diamonds and other precious stones;
for which purpose we are informed the princesses and ladies of high
rank lend their jewels. Groups of cattle grazing, peasantry engaged
in different occupations, and other objects enliven the picturesque
scenery; every living creature in the group, with eyes directed towards
the Presepio, falls prostrate in adoration.
From HONE'S _Year Book_
Hodening in Kent
When I was a lad, about forty-five years since, it was always the
custom on Christmas Eve, with the male farm-servants from every farm
in our parish, to go round in the evening from house to house with
the hodening horse, which consisted of the imitation of a horse's
head made of wood, life size, fixed on a stick about the length of a
broom handle. The lower jaw of the head was made to open with hinges;
a hole was made through the roof of the mouth, then another through
the forehead coming out by the throat; pulled through this was passed
a cord attached at the lower jaw, which, when pulled by the cord at
the throat, caused it to close and open; on the lower jaw large headed
hobnails were driven in to form the teeth. The strongest of the lads
was selected for the horse; he stooped and made as long a back as he
could, supporting himself by the stick carrying the head; then he was
covered with a horse-cloth, and one of his companions mounted his back.
The horse had a bridle and reins. Then commenced the kicking, rearing,
jumping, etc., and the banging together of the teeth.
There was no singing by the accompanying paraders. They simply by
ringing or knocking at the houses on their way summoned the inmates to
the doors and begged a gratuity. I have seen some of the wooden heads
carved out quite hollow in the throat part, and two holes bored through
the forehead to form the eyes. The lad who played the horse would hold
a lighted candle in the hollow, and you can imagine how horrible it was
to any one who opened the door to see such a thing close to his eyes.
A contributor to the _Church Times_, Jan. 23, 1891
Origin of the Christmas Tree
A Scandinavian myth of great antiquity speaks of a "service tree"
sprung from the blood-drenched soil where two lovers had been killed by
violence. At certain nights in the Christmas season mysterious lights
were seen flaming in its branches, that no wind could extinguish.
One tale describes Martin Luther as attempting to explain to his wife
and children the beauty of a snow-covered forest under the glittering
star besprinkled sky. Suddenly an idea suggested itself. He went into
the garden, cut off a little fir tree, dragged it into the nursery, put
some candles on its branches and lighted them.
"It has been explained," says another authority, "as being derived
from the ancient Egyptian practice of decking houses at the time of
the winter solstice with branches of the date palm--the symbol of life
triumphant over death, and therefore of perennial life in the renewal
of each bounteous year." The Egyptians regarded the date palm as the
emblem not only of immortality, but also of the starlit firmament.
Some of its traditions may have been strongly influenced by the fact
that about this time the Jews celebrated their Feast of Chanuckah or
Lights, known also as the Feast of Dedication, of which lighted candles
are a feature. In Germany, the name for Christmas Eve is Weihnacht,
the Night of Dedication, while in Greece at about this season the
celebration is called the Feast of Lights.
As a regular institution, however, it can be traced back only to
the sixteenth century. During the Middle Ages it suddenly appears
in Strassburg; it maintained itself along the Rhine for two hundred
years, when suddenly at the beginning of the nineteenth century the
fashion spread all over Germany, and by fifty years later had conquered
Christendom.
W. S. WALSH in _Curiosities of Popular Customs_
(condensed)
Origin of the Christmas Card
The Christmas Card is the legitimate descendant of the "school pieces"
or "Christmas pieces" which were popular from the beginning to the
middle of the nineteenth century. These were sheets of writing-paper
sometimes surrounded with those hideous and elaborate pen flourishes
forming birds, scrolls, etc., so unnaturally dear to the hearts of
writing masters, and sometimes headed with copper-plate engravings,
plain or colored. These were used by school boys at the approach of
holidays for carefully written letters exploiting the progress they had
made in composition and chirography. Charity boys were large purchasers
of these pieces, says one writer, and at Christmas time used to take
them round their parish to show and at the same time solicit a trifle.
The Christmas Card proper had its tentative origin in 1846. Mr. Joseph
Cundall, a London artist, claims to have issued the first in that year.
It was printed in lithography, colored by hand, and was of the usual
size of a lady's card.
Not until 1862, however, did the custom obtain any foothold. Then
experiments were made with cards of the size of an ordinary _carte de
visite_, inscribed simply "A Merry Christmas" and "A Happy New Year."
After that came to be added robins and holly branches, embossed
figures and landscapes. "I have the original designs before me now,"
wrote "Luke Limner" (John Leighton) to the London _Publishers'
Circular_, Dec. 31, 1883: "they were produced by Goodall & Son. Seeing
a growing want and the great sale obtained abroad, this house produced
(1868) a Little Red Riding Hood, a Hermit and his Cell, and many other
subjects in which snow and the robin played a part."
W. S. WALSH in _Curiosities of Popular Customs_
The Yule Clog
Amid the interior forms to be observed, on this evening, by those who
would keep their Christmas after the old orthodox fashion, the first to
be noticed is that of the Yule Clog. This huge block, which, in ancient
times, and consistently with the capacity of its vast receptacle, was
frequently the root of a large tree, it was the practice to introduce
into the house with great ceremony, and to the sound of music.
In Drake's "Winter Nights" mention is made of the Yule Clog, as "lying,
in ponderous majesty, on the kitchen floor," until "each had sung his
Yule song, standing on its centre,"--ere it was consigned to the flames
that
"Went roaring up the chimney wide."
This Yule Clog, according to Herrick, was to be lighted with the brand
of the last year's log, which had been carefully laid aside for the
purpose, and music was to be played during the ceremony of lighting.
This log appears to have been considered as sanctifying the roof-tree,
and was probably deemed a protection against those evil spirits over
whom this season was in every way a triumph. Accordingly, various
superstitions mingled with the prescribed ceremonials in respect of
it. From the authority already quoted on this subject, we learn that
its virtues were not to be extracted unless it were lighted with clean
hands--a direction, probably, including both a useful household hint to
the domestics, and, it may be, a moral of a higher kind:--
"Wash your hands or else the fire
Will not tend to your desire;
Unwash'd hands, ye maidens, know,
Dead the fire though ye blow."
Around this fire, when duly lighted, the hospitalities of the evening
were dispensed; and as the flames played about it and above it, with
a pleasant song of their own, the song and the tale and the jest went
cheerily round.
T. K. HERVEY
Come bring with a Noise
Come bring with a noise,
My merry merry boys,
The Christmas log to the firing;
While my good dame, she
Bids ye all be free,
And drink to your heart's desiring.
With the last year's brand
Light the new block, and
For good success in his spending,
On your psaltries play,
That sweet luck may
Come while the log is a tending.
Drink now the strong beer,
Cut the white loaf here,
The while the meat is a shredding,
For the rare mince-pies;
And the plums stand by,
To fill the paste that's a kneading.
ROBERT HERRICK
Shoe or Stocking
In Holland, children set their shoes,
This night, outside the door;
These wooden shoes Knecht Clobes sees,
And fills them from his store.
But here we hang our stockings up
On handy hook or nail;
And Santa Claus, when all is still,
Will plump them, without fail.
Speak out, you "Sober-sides," speak out,
And let us hear your views;
Between a stocking and a shoe,
What do you see to choose?
One instant pauses Sober-sides,
A little sigh to fetch--
"Well, seems to me a stocking's best,
For wooden shoes won't stretch!"
EDITH M. THOMAS
_By permission of Houghton Mifflin Company_
Jule-Nissen
I do not know how the forty years I have been away have dealt with
"Jule-nissen," the Christmas elf of my childhood in far-off Denmark. He
was pretty old then, gray and bent, and there were signs that his time
was nearly over. So it may be that they have laid him away. I shall
find out when I go over there next time. When I was a boy we never sat
down to our Christmas Eve dinner until a bowl of rice and milk had been
taken up to the attic, where he lived with the martin and its young,
and kept an eye upon the house--saw that everything ran smoothly. I
never met him myself, but I know the house cat must have done so. No
doubt they were well acquainted; for when in the morning I went in for
the bowl, there it was, quite dry and licked clean, and the cat purring
in the corner. So, being there all night, she must have seen and likely
talked with him....
The Nisse was of the family, as you see,--very much of it,--and
certainly not to be classed with the cattle. Yet they were his special
concern; he kept them quiet, saw to it, when the stableman forgot,
that they were properly bedded and cleaned and fed. He was very well
known to the hands about the farm, and they said that he looked just
like a little old man, all in gray and with a pointed red night-cap and
long gray beard. He was always civilly treated, as indeed he deserved
to be, but Christmas was his great holiday, when he became part of
it, indeed, and was made much of. So, for that matter, was everything
that lived under the husbandman's roof or within reach of it. Even the
sparrows that burrowed in the straw-thatch and did it no good were not
forgotten. A sheaf of rye was set out in the snow for them on the
Holy Eve, so that on that night at least they should have shelter and
warmth unchallenged, and plenty to eat. At all other times we were
permitted to raid their nests and help ourselves to a sparrow roast,
which was by long odds the greatest treat we had. Thirty or forty of
them, dug out by the light of the stable-lantern and stuffed into Ane's
long stocking, which we had borrowed for a game-bag, made a meal for
the whole family, each sparrow a fat mouthful. Ane was the cook, and
I am very certain that her pot roast of sparrow would pass muster at
any Fifth Avenue restaurant as the finest dish of reed-birds that ever
was. However, at Christmas their sheaf was their sanctuary, and no one
as much as squinted at them. Only last winter, when Christmas found me
stranded in a little Michigan town, wandering disconsolate about the
streets, I came across such a sheaf raised on a pole in a dooryard, and
I knew at once that one of my people lived in that house and kept Yule
in the old way. So I felt as if I were not quite a stranger.
Blowing in the Yule from the grim old tower that had stood eight
hundred years against the blasts of the North Sea was one of the
customs of the old town that abide, however it fares with the Nisse;
that I know. At sun-up, while yet the people were at breakfast, the
town band climbed the many steep ladders to the top of the tower, and
up there, in fair weather or foul--and sometimes it blew great guns
from the wintry sea--they played four old hymns, one to each corner
of the compass, so that no one was forgotten. They always began with
Luther's sturdy challenge, "A Mighty Fortress is Our God," while
down below we listened devoutly. There was something both weird and
beautiful about those far-away strains in the early morning light of
the northern winter, something that was not of earth and that suggested
to my child's imagination the angels' songs on far Judean hills. Even
now, after all these years, the memory of it does that. It could not
have been because the music was so rare, for the band was made up of
small store-keepers and artisans who thus turned an honest penny on
festive occasions. Incongruously enough, I think the official town
mourner, who bade people to funerals, was one of them. It was like
the burghers' guard, the colonel of which--we thought him at least a
general, because of the huge brass sword he trailed when he marched at
the head of his men--was the town tailor, a very small but very martial
man. But whether or no, it was beautiful. I have never heard music
since that so moved me. When the last strain died away, came the big
bells with their deep voices that sang far out over field and heath,
and our Yule was fairly under way.
JACOB RIIS in _The Old Town_
[Illustration: THE BELLS. _Blashfield._]
"Lame Needles" in Eubœa
In the first place, it must be clearly understood that Christmas time
to a Greek is by no means considered as festive; in fact they look upon
the twelve days which intervene between Christmas and Epiphany rather
with abhorrence than otherwise; it is to them the season when ghosts
and hobgoblins are supposed to be most rampant; it is generally cold,
ungenial weather, and the Greeks of to-day, like their ancestors, live
contented only when the warm rays of the life-giving sun scorch them.
They can get up no enthusiasm as we can about yule logs and blazing
fires, for they have nothing to warm themselves with save small
charcoal braziers capable of communicating heat to not more than one
limb at a time; all the festive energies of the race are reserved for
Carnival and Easter-tide, when the warmth of spring enables them once
more to enjoy life out-of-doors--the only one tolerable when you know
what their low dirty houses are like....
For a month before Christmas every pious Greek has observed a rigid
fast; consequently the "table" which on that day is spread in every
house produces something akin to festivity. On a small round table was
placed a perfect mountain of maccaroni and cheese--coarse sheep's-milk
cheese which stung the mouth like mustard and left a pungent taste
which tarried therein for days. There were no plates, no forks,
no spoons. What a meal it was indeed, as if it were a contest in
gastronomic activity! I was left far behind in the contest, and great
was my relief when it was removed and dried fruits and nuts took its
place. To drink we had resinated wine--that is to say wine which had
been stored in a keg covered with resin inside, which gives the flavor
so much relished by the Greeks, but which is almost as unpalatable
to an Englishman as beer must be to those who drink it for the first
time. The wine, however, had the effect of loosening the tongues of my
friends, who had been too busy as yet to talk, and they told me many
interesting Christmas tales.
In the first place the conversation turned on certain spirits called
"lame needles," which every Eubœan woman of low degree will tell you
visit the earth at this season of the year; one lame needle, presumably
the leader, comes on Christmas Eve, and the rest of the tribe put in an
appearance on Christmas Day. They are dreadful creatures to look upon,
and according to my friends, they live in caves whilst on earth, near
which no wise person at this season of the year will venture.
They subsist, like the Amazons of old, on snakes and lizards, and
sometimes on women, if they are lucky enough to entrap one.
These demons are only dangerous at night from sunset to cockcrow. When
not engaged in dancing the lame needles wander about, and do any amount
of mischief. It is their custom to enter houses by the chimney, so
every housewife is careful at this season of the year to leave some
embers burning all night, for they dread fire and also crosses, and
it is for this reason that at Christmas time we see so many whitewash
crosses on the cottage doors in Greece.... When Epiphany comes these
lame needles are forced to flee again underground; but before they
go they take a hack at the tree which supports the world, and which
one day they will cut through. In appearance these ugly visitors are
supposed to be goat-footed goblins, far taller than any man; in fact,
I should imagine that they are lineal descendants of the satyrs of old
still haunting their accustomed purlieus.... I will give you a specimen
of one of the stories which my friends told me when I slightly threw
discredit on the above described apparitions. It is not a very lively
one, but will show the character of the Christmas stories which are
current in Greece to-day.
"A lame needle once overheard two women settling to get up at night
during the season of the twelve days to leaven bread at the house of
one of them. Accordingly he knocked at the door of the woman who was
going to carry her dough to the other's house and pretended to be a
messenger sent to hurry her.
"Fearing nothing, the silly woman set off with her dough accompanied
by the uncanny messenger. When they had got a little distance the lame
needle turned round and said, 'Stop; I wish to eat you!' Whereat the
woman recognized who he was, and mindful of the fact that lame needles
are very inquisitive, she replied, 'Just wait till I tell you a story.'
It was very long and very interesting, so the first cock crew before
it was finished. 'It is only the black one; go on; I have yet time,'
said the eager lame needle. Then the second cock crew, and he said, 'It
is only the red one; I have nought yet to fear.' Just as the woman had
reached the most thrilling part of her story the third cock crew, 'It
is the white one,' exclaimed the terrified hobgoblin; 'I must be gone.'"
I am sure this story is believed by the peasants of Eubœa.
J. THEODORE BENT
Who Rides behind the Bells?
Our shabby drawing-room was ablaze with red candles; and what with
holly red on the walls and the snow banking the casements and bells
jingling up and down the avenue, the sense of Christmas was very real.
For me, Christmas seems always to be just past or else on the way; and
that sixth sense of Christmas being actually Now is thrice desirable.
On the stroke of nine we two, waiting before the fire, heard Nichola on
the basement stairs; and by the way in which she mounted, with labor
and caution, I knew that she was bringing the punch. We had wished to
have it ready--that harmless steaming punch compounded from my mother's
recipe--when our guests arrived, so that they should first of all hear
the news and drink health to Eunice and Hobart.
Nichola was splendid in her scarlet merino and that vast cap effect
managed by a starched pillow-case and a bit of string, and over her arm
hung a huge holly wreath for the bowl's brim. When she had deposited
her fragrant burden and laid the wreath in place she stood erect and
looked at us solemnly for a moment, and then her face wrinkled in all
directions and was lighted with her rare puckered smile.
"Mer--ry Christmas!" she said.
"Merry Christmas, Nichola!" we cried, and I think that in all her years
with us we had never before heard the words from her lips.
"_Who_ goes ridin' behind the sleigh-bells to-night?" she asked then
abruptly.
"Who rides?" I repeated, puzzled.
"Yes," Nichola said; "this is a night when all folk stay home.
The whole world sits by the fire on Christmas night. An' yet the
sleigh-bells ring like mad. It is not holy."
Pelleas and I had never thought of that. But there may be something in
it. Who indeed, when all the world keeps hearth-holiday, who is it that
rides abroad on Christmas night behind the bells?
"Good spirits, perhaps, Nichola," Pelleas said, smiling.
"I do not doubt it," Nichola declared gravely; "that is not holy
either--to doubt."
"No," we said, "to doubt good spirits is never holy."
ZONA GALE in _The Loves of Pelleas and Etarre_
Guests at Yule
Nöel! Nöel!
Thus sounds each Christmas bell
Across the winter snow.
But what are the little footprints all
That mark the path from the church-yard wall?
These are those of the children waked to-night
From sleep by the Christmas bells and light:
Ring sweetly, chimes! Soft, soft, my rhymes!
Their beds are under the snow.
Nöel! Nöel!
Carols each Christmas bell.
What are the wraiths of mist
That gather anear the window-pane
Where the winter frost all day has lain?
They are soulless elves, who fain would peer
Within, and laugh at our Christmas cheer:
Ring fleetly, chimes! Swift, swift, my rhymes!
They are made of the mocking mist.
Nöel! Nöel!
Cease, cease, each Christmas bell!
Under the holly bough,
Where the happy children throng and shout,
What shadows seem to flit about?
Is it the mother, then, who died,
Ere the greens were sere last Christmastide?
Hush, falling chimes! Cease, cease, my rhymes!
The guests are gathered now.
EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN
_By permission of Houghton Mifflin Company_
IV
CHRISTMAS CAROLS
[Illustration]
CHRISTMAS CAROLS
"I saw Three Ships"
"Lordings, listen to Our Lay"
The Cherry-Tree Carol
"In Excelsis Gloria"
"God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen"
The Golden Carol
Caput apri refero resonens laudes domino
"Villagers All, this Frosty Tide"
Holly Song
"Before the Paling of the Stars"
The Minstrels played their Christmas Tune
A Carol from the Old French
"From Far Away we come to you"
A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol for Children
[Illustration: GEORGE WHARTON EDWARDS]
The First Christmas Carol
Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which
shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of
David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find the babe wrapped in
swaddling clothes lying in a manger.
_Chorus_
Glory to God in the highest, and on
earth peace, goodwill toward men.
_St. Luke's Gospel_
I saw Three Ships
I saw three ships come sailing in,
On Christmas day, on Christmas day;
I saw three ships come sailing in,
On Christmas day in the morning.
And what was in those ships all three,
On Christmas day, on Christmas day?
And what was in those ships all three,
On Christmas day in the morning?
The Virgin Mary and Christ were there,
On Christmas day, on Christmas day;
The Virgin Mary and Christ were there,
On Christmas day in the morning.
Pray, whither sailed those ships all three,
On Christmas day, on Christmas day?
Pray, whither sailed those ships all three,
On Christmas day in the morning?
O they sailed into Bethlehem,
On Christmas day, on Christmas day;
O they sailed into Bethlehem,
On Christmas day in the morning.
And all the bells on earth shall ring,
On Christmas day, on Christmas day;
And all the bells on earth shall ring,
On Christmas day in the morning.
And all the Angels in Heaven shall sing,
On Christmas day, on Christmas day;
And all the Angels in Heaven shall sing,
On Christmas day in the morning.
And all the souls on earth shall sing,
On Christmas day, on Christmas day;
And all the souls on earth shall sing,
On Christmas day in the morning.
Then let us all rejoice amain,
On Christmas day, on Christmas day;
Then let us all rejoice amain,
On Christmas day in the morning.
_Old English Carol_
Lordings, listen to Our Lay
Lordings, listen to our lay--
We have come from far away
To seek Christmas;
In this mansion we are told
He his yearly feast doth hold:
'Tis to day!
_May joy come from God above,
To all those who Christmas love._
Lordings, I now tell you true,
Christmas bringeth unto you
Only mirth:
His house he fills with many a dish,
Of bread and meat and also fish,
To grace the day.
_May joy come from God above,
To all those who Christmas love._
Lordings, through our army's band
They say--who spends with open hand
Free and fast,
And oft regales his many friends--
God gives him double what he spends,
To grace the day.
_May joy come from God above,
To all those who Christmas love._
Lordings, wicked men eschew,
In them never shall you view
Aught that's good;
Cowards are the rabble rout,
Kick and beat the grumblers out,
To grace the day.
_May joys come from God above,
To all those who Christmas love._
Lords, by Christmas and the host
Of this mansion hear my toast--
Drink it well--
Each must drain his cup of wine,
And I the first will toss off mine:
Thus I advise,
Here then I bid you all _Wassail_,
Cursed be he who will not say _Drinkhail_.
_Earliest Existing Carol; Thirteenth Century_
The Cherry-Tree Carol
As Joseph was a-walking,
He heard an angel sing,
"This night shall be the birth-time
Of Christ, the heavenly King.
"He neither shall be born
In housen nor in hall,
Nor in the place of paradise,
But in an ox's stall.
"He neither shall be clothèd
In purple nor in pall,
But in the fair white linen
That usen babies all.
"He neither shall be rockèd
In silver nor in gold,
But in a wooden manger
That resteth on the mould."
As Joseph was a-walking,
There did an angel sing,
And Mary's child at midnight
Was born to be our King.
Then be ye glad, good people,
This night of all the year,
And light ye up your candles,
For his star it shineth clear.
_Old English_
In Excelsis Gloria
When Christ was born of Mary free,
In Bethlehem, in that fair citie,
Angels sang there with mirth and glee,
_In Excelsis Gloria!_
Herdsmen beheld these angels bright,
To them appearing with great light,
Who said, "God's Son is born this night,"
_In Excelsis Gloria!_
This King is come to save mankind,
As in Scripture truths we find,
Therefore this song have we in mind,
_In Excelsis Gloria!_
Then, Lord, for thy great grace,
Grant us the bliss to see thy face,
Where we may sing to thy solace,
_In Excelsis Gloria!_
_From the Harleian MSS._
God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen
God rest you merry, gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay,
For Jesus Christ, our Saviour,
Was born upon this day;
To save us all from Satan's power,
When we were gone astray.
_O tidings of comfort and joy,
For Jesus Christ our Saviour
was born on Christmas Day._
In Bethlehem in Jewry
This blessed babe was born,
And laid within a manger
Upon this blessed morn;
The which His mother Mary
Nothing did take in scorn.
_O tidings of comfort and joy_,--
From God, our Heavenly Father,
A blessed Angel came,
And, unto certain shepherds,
Brought tidings of the same;
How, that in Bethlehem was born
The Son of God by name.
_O tidings of comfort and joy_,--
* * * * *
The Shepherds at those tidings,
Rejoicèd much in mind,
And left their flocks a-feeding
In tempest, storm, and wind,
And went to Bethlehem straightway,
This blessed Babe to find.
_O tidings of comfort and joy_,--
But when to Bethlehem they came,
Where as this Infant lay,
They found him in a manger
Where oxen feed on hay,
His mother Mary kneeling
Unto the Lord did pray.
_O tidings of comfort and joy_,--
Now to the Lord sing praises
All you within this place,
And with true love and brotherhood
Each other now embrace,
This holy tide of Christmas
All others doth deface.
_O tidings of comfort and joy,
For Jesus Christ our Saviour
was born on Christmas Day._
_Old English_
The Golden Carol
(Of Melchior, Balthazar, and Gaspar, the Three Kings of Cologne)
We saw the light shine out a-far,
On Christmas in the morning,
And straight we knew Christ's Star it was,
Bright beaming in the morning.
Then did we fall on bended knee,
On Christmas in the morning,
And prais'd the Lord, who'd let us see
His glory at its dawning.
Oh! ever thought be of His Name,
On Christmas in the morning,
Who bore for us both grief and shame,
Afflictions sharpest scorning.
And may we die (when death shall come),
On Christmas in the morning,
And see in heav'n, our glorious home,
The Star of Christmas morning.
_Old English_
Caput apri refero resonens laudes domino
The boar's head in hands I bring,
With garlands gay and birds singing!
I pray you all help me to sing,
_Qui estis in convivio_!
The boar's head I understand,
Is chief service in all this land,
Wheresoever it may be found,
_Servitur cum sinapio_!
The boar's head I dare well say,
Anon after the twelfth day,
He taketh his leave and goeth away!
_Exivit tunc de patria!_
_From a Balliol MS. of about 1540_
Villagers All, this Frosty Tide
Villagers all, this frosty tide,
Let your doors swing open wide,
Though wind may follow, and snow beside,
Yet draw us in by your fire to bide;
_Joy shall be yours in the morning_!
Here we stand in the cold and the sleet,
Blowing fingers and stamping feet,
Come from far away you to greet--
You by the fire and we in the street--
_Bidding you joy in the morning_!
For ere one half of the night was gone,
Sudden a star has led us on,
Raining bliss and benison--
Bliss to-morrow and more anon,
_Joy for every morning_.
Goodman Joseph toiled through the snow--
Saw a star o'er a stable low;
Mary she might not further go--
Welcome thatch, and litter below!
_Joy was hers in the morning!_
And then they heard the angels tell
'Who were the first to cry Nowell?
Animals all, as it befell,
In the stable where they did dwell!
_Joy shall be theirs in the morning!_'
Quoted in _The Wind in the Willows_, by KENNETH GRAHAME.
_By permission of Charles Scribner's Sons_
Holly Song
Blow, blow, thou winter winde,
Thou art not so unkinde,
As mans ingratitude
Thy tooth is not so keene,
Because thou art not seene,
Although thy breath be rude.
_Heigh ho, sing heigh ho, unto the greene holly,
Most frendship is fayning; most Loving, meere folly:
Then heigh ho, the holly,
This Life is most jolly._
Freize, freize, thou bitter skie
That dost not bight so nigh
As benefitts forgot:
Though thou the waters warpe,
Thy sting is not so sharpe,
As freind remembred not.
_Heigh ho, sing heigh ho, unto the greene holly,
Most frendship is fayning; most Loving, meere folly:
Then heigh ho, the holly,
This Life is most jolly._
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Before the Paling of the Stars
Before the paling of the stars,
Before the winter morn,
Before the earliest cockcrow,
Jesus Christ was born:
Born in a stable,
Cradled in a manger,
In the world His hands had made
Born a stranger.
Priest and King lay fast asleep
In Jerusalem,
Young and old lay fast asleep
In crowded Bethlehem:
Saint and Angel, ox and ass,
Kept a watch together
Before the Christmas daybreak
In the winter weather.
Jesus on His Mother's breast
In the stable cold,
Spotless Lamb of God was He,
Shepherd of the fold:
Let us kneel with Mary Maid,
With Joseph bent and hoary,
With Saint and Angel, ox and ass,
To hail the King of Glory.
CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI
"The Minstrels played their Christmas Tune"
The minstrels played their Christmas tune
To-night beneath my cottage eaves;
While, smitten by a lofty moon,
The encircling laurels, thick with leaves,
Gave back a rich and dazzling sheen,
That overpowered their natural green.
Through hill and valley every breeze
Had sunk to rest with folded wings:
Keen was the air, but could not freeze,
Nor check the music of the strings;
So stout and hardy were the band
That scraped the chords with strenuous hand.
And who but listened?--till was paid
Respect to every inmate's claim:
The greeting given, the music played,
In honour of each household name,
Duly pronounced with lusty call,
And "merry Christmas" wished to all!
* * * * *
For pleasure hath not ceased to wait
On these expected annual rounds;
Whether the rich man's sumptuous gate
Call forth the unelaborate sounds,
Or they are offered at the door
That guards the lowliest of the poor.
How touching, when, at midnight, sweep
Snow-muffled winds, and all is dark,
To hear--and sink again to sleep!
Or, at an earlier call, to mark,
By blazing fire, the still suspense
Of self-complacent innocence.
The mutual nod,--the grave disguise
Of hearts with gladness brimming o'er;
And some unbidden tears that rise
For names once heard, and heard no more;
Tears brightened by the serenade
For infant in the cradle laid.
* * * * *
Hail, ancient Manners! sure defence,
Where they survive, of wholesome laws;
Remnants of love whose modest sense
Thus into narrow room withdraws;
Hail, Usages of pristine mould,
And ye that guard them, Mountains old!
* * * * *
Yes, they can make, who fail to find
Short leisure even in busiest days,
Moments, to cast a look behind,
And profit by those kindly rays
That through the clouds do sometimes steal,
And all the far-off past reveal.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
A Carol from the Old French
I hear along our street
Pass the minstrel throngs;
Hark! they play so sweet,
On their hautboys, Christmas songs!
_Let us by the fire
Ever higher
Sing them till the night expire!_
In December ring
Every day the chimes;
Loud the gleemen sing
In the street their merry rhymes.
_Let us by the fire
Ever higher
Sing them till the night expire!_
Shepherds at the grange,
Where the Babe was born,
Sang, with many a change,
Christmas carols until morn.
_Let us by the fire
Ever higher
Sing them till the night expire!_
These good people sang
Songs devout and sweet;
While the rafters rang,
There they stood with freezing feet.
_Let us by the fire
Ever higher
Sing them till the night expire!_
* * * * *
Who by the fireside stands
Stamps his feet and sings;
But he who blows his hands
Not so gay a carol brings.
_Let us by the fire
Ever higher
Sing them till the night expire!_
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
_A Paraphrase from the Old French_
[Illustration: THE MADONNA. _Giovanni Bellini._]
From Far Away
From far away we come to you.
_The snow in the street, and the wind on the door_,
To tell of great tidings, strange and true.
_Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor._
From far away we come to you,
To tell of great tidings, strange and true.
For as we wandered far and wide,
_The snow in the street, and the wind on the door_,
What hap do you deem there should us betide?
_Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor._
Under a bent when the night was deep,
_The snow in the street, and the wind on the door_,
There lay three shepherds, tending their sheep.
_Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor._
"O ye shepherds, what have ye seen,
_The snow in the street, and the wind on the door_,
To stay your sorrow and heal your teen?"
_Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor._
"In an ox stall this night we saw,
_The snow in the street, and the wind on the door_,
A Babe and a maid without a flaw.
_Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor._
"There was an old man there beside;
_The snow in the street, and the wind on the door_,
His hair was white, and his hood was wide.
_Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor._
"And as we gazed this thing upon,
_The snow in the street, and the wind on the door_,
Those twain knelt down to the little one.
_Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor._
"And a marvellous song we straight did hear,
_The snow in the street, and the wind on the door_,
That slew our sorrow and healed our care."
_Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor._
News of a fair and a marvellous thing,
_The snow in the street, and the wind on the door_,
Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, we sing.
_Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor._
_Old English Carol_
A Christmas Carol
"What means this glory round our feet,"
The Magi mused, "more bright than morn?"
And voices chanted clear and sweet,
"To-day the Prince of Peace is born!"
"What means that star," the Shepherds said,
"That brightens through the rocky glen?"
And angels, answering overhead,
Sang, "Peace on earth, good-will to men!"
'Tis eighteen hundred years and more
Since those sweet oracles were dumb;
We wait for Him, like them of yore;
Alas, He seems so slow to come!
But it was said, in words of gold,
No time or sorrow e'er shall dim,
That little children might be bold
In perfect trust to come to Him.
All round about our feet shall shine
A light like that the wise men saw,
If we our loving wills incline
To that sweet Life which is the Law.
So shall we learn to understand
The simple faith of shepherds then,
And, clasping kindly hand in hand,
Sing, "Peace on earth, good-will to men!"
But they who do their souls no wrong,
But keep at eve the faith of morn,
Shall daily hear the angel-song,
"To-day the Prince of Peace is born!"
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
A Christmas Carol for Children
Good news from heaven the angels bring,
Glad tidings to the earth they sing:
To us this day a child is given,
To crown us with the joy of heaven.
This is the Christ, our God and Lord,
Who in all need shall aid afford:
He will Himself our Saviour be,
From sin and sorrow set us free.
To us that blessedness He brings,
Which from the Father's bounty springs:
That in the heavenly realm we may
With Him enjoy eternal day.
All hail, Thou noble Guest, this morn,
Whose love did not the sinner scorn!
In my distress Thou cam'st to me:
What thanks shall I return to Thee?
Were earth a thousand times as fair,
Beset with gold and jewels rare,
She yet were far too poor to be
A narrow cradle, Lord, for Thee.
Ah, dearest Jesus, Holy Child!
Make Thee a bed, soft, undefiled,
Within my heart, that it may be
A quiet chamber kept for Thee.
Praise God upon His heavenly throne,
Who gave to us His only Son:
For this His hosts, on joyful wing,
A blest New Year of mercy sing.
MARTIN LUTHER
V
CHRISTMAS DAY
[Illustration: CHRISTMAS DAY]
The Unbroken Song
A Scene of Mediæval Christmas
Christmas in Dreamthorp
By the Christmas Fire
Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity
Christmas Church
Dolly urges Silas Marner to go to Church
Yule in the Old Town
The Mahogany Tree
The Holly and the Ivy
Ballade of Christmas Ghosts
Christmas Treasures
Wassailer's Song
[Illustration]
The Unbroken Song
I heard the bells on Christmas Day,
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
A Scene of Mediæval Christmas
Let us imagine Christmas Day in a mediæval town of Northern England.
The cathedral is only partly finished. Its nave and transepts are the
work of Norman architects, but the choir has been destroyed in order
to be rebuilt by more graceful designers and more skillful hands. The
old city is full of craftsmen assembled to complete the church. Some
have come, as a religious duty, to work off their tale of sins by
bodily labor. Some are animated by a love of art--simple men who might
have rivalled with the Greeks in ages of more cultivation. Others,
again, are well-known carvers brought for hire from distant towns and
countries beyond the sea. But to-day, and for some days past, the sound
of hammer and chisel has been silent in the choir. Monks have bustled
about the nave, dressing it up with holly boughs and bushes of yew,
and preparing a stage for the sacred play they are going to exhibit
on the feast-day. Christmas is not like Corpus Christi, and now the
market-place stands inches deep in snow, so that the Miracles must be
enacted beneath a roof instead of in the open air. And what place so
appropriate as the cathedral, where poor people may have warmth and
shelter while they see the show? Besides, the gloomy old church, with
its windows darkened by the falling snow, lends itself to candle-light
effects that will enhance the splendor of the scene. Everything is
ready. The incense of morning mass yet lingers round the altar. The
voice of the friar, who told the people from the pulpit the story of
Christ's birth, has hardly ceased to echo. Time has just been given
for a mid-day dinner, and for the shepherds and farm lads to troop in
from the countryside. The monks are ready at the wooden stage to draw
its curtain, and all the nave is full of eager faces. There you may see
the smith and carpenter, the butcher's wife, the country priest, and
the gray-cowled friar. Scores of workmen, whose home the cathedral for
the time is made, are also here, and you may know the artists by their
thoughtful foreheads and keen eyes. That young monk carved Madonna and
her Son above the southern porch. Beside him stands the master-mason,
whose strong arms have hewn gigantic images of prophets and apostles
for the pinnacles outside the choir; and the little man with cunning
eyes between the two is he who cuts such quaint hobgoblins for the
gargoyles. He has a vein of satire in him, and his humor overflows into
the stone. Many and many a grim beast and hideous head has he hidden
among vine-leaves and trellis-work upon the porches. Those who know him
well are loath to anger him, for fear their sons and sons' sons should
laugh at them forever caricatured in solid stone.
Hark! there sounds the bell. The curtain is drawn, and the candles
blaze brightly round the wooden stage. What is this first scene? We
have God in Heaven, dressed like a pope with triple crown, and attended
by his court of angels. They sing and toss up censers till he lifts
his hand and speaks. In a long Latin speech he unfolds the order of
creation and his will concerning man. At the end of it up leaps an ugly
buffoon, in goatskin, with rams' horns upon his head. Some children
begin to cry; but the older people laugh, for this is the Devil, the
clown and comic character, who talks their common tongue, and has no
reverence before the very throne of Heaven. He asks leave to plague
men, and receives it; then, with many a curious caper, he goes down
to Hell, beneath the stage. The angels sing and toss their censers as
before, and the first scene closes to a sound of organs. The next is
more conventional, in spite of some grotesque incidents. It represents
the Fall; the monks hurry over it quickly, as a tedious but necessary
prelude to the birth of Christ. That is the true Christmas part of
the ceremony, and it is understood that the best actors and most
beautiful dresses are to be reserved for it. The builders of the choir
in particular are interested in the coming scenes, since one of their
number has been chosen, for his handsome face and tenor voice, to sing
the angel's part. He is a young fellow of nineteen, but his beard is
not yet grown, and long hair hangs down upon his shoulders. A chorister
of the cathedral, his younger brother, will act the Virgin Mary. At
last the curtain is drawn.
We see a cottage room, dimly lighted by a lamp, and Mary spinning
near her bedside. She sings a country air, and goes on working, till
a rustling noise is heard, more light is thrown upon the stage, and a
glorious creature, in white raiment, with broad golden wings, appears.
He bears a lily, and cries, "Ave Maria, Gratia Plena!" She does not
answer, but stands confused, with down-dropped eyes and timid mien.
Gabriel rises from the ground and comforts her, and sings aloud his
message of glad tidings. Then Mary gathers courage, and, kneeling in
her turn, thanks God; and when the angel and his radiance disappears,
she sings the song of the Magnificat, clearly and simply, in the
darkened room. Very soft and silver sounds this hymn through the great
church. The women kneel, and children are hushed as by a lullaby.
But some of the hinds and 'prentice-lads begin to think it rather
dull. They are not sorry when the next scene opens with a sheep-fold
and a little camp-fire. Unmistakable bleatings issue from the fold,
and five or six common fellows are sitting round the blazing wood.
One might fancy they had stepped straight from the church floor to
the stage, so natural do they look. Besides, they call themselves by
common names--Colin and Tom Lie-a-bed and Nimble Dick. Many a round
laugh wakes echoes in the church when these shepherds stand up, and
hold debate about a stolen sheep. Tom Lie-a-bed has nothing to remark
but that he is very sleepy, and does not want to go in search of it
to-night; Colin cuts jokes, and throws out shrewd suspicions that Dick
knows something of the matter; but Dick is sly, and keeps them off the
scent, although a few of his asides reveal to the audience that he is
the real thief. While they are thus talking, silence falls upon the
shepherds. Soft music from the church organ breathes, and they appear
to fall asleep.
The stage is now quite dark, and for a few moments the aisles echo only
to the dying melody. When, behold, a ray of light is seen, and splendor
grows around the stage from hidden candles, and in the glory Gabriel
appears upon a higher platform made to look like clouds. The shepherds
wake in confusion, striving to shelter their eyes from this unwonted
brilliancy. But Gabriel waves his lily, spreads his great gold wings,
and bids good cheer with clarion voice. The shepherds fall to worship,
and suddenly round Gabriel there gathers a choir of angels, and a song
of "Gloria in Excelsis" to the sound of a deep organ is heard far off.
From distant aisles it swells, and seems to come from heaven. Through
a long resonant fugue the glory flies, and as it ceases with complex
conclusion, the lights die out, the angels disappear, and Gabriel fades
into the darkness. Still the shepherds kneel, rustically chanting a
carol half in Latin, half in English, which begins "In dulci Jubilo."
The people know it well, and when the chorus rises with "Ubi sunt
gaudia?" its wild melody is caught by voices up and down the nave. This
scene makes deep impression upon many hearts; for the beauty of Gabriel
is rare, and few who see him in his angel's dress would know him for
the lad who daily carves his lilies and broad water-flags about the
pillars of the choir. To that simple audience he interprets Heaven,
and little children will see him in their dreams. Dark winter nights
and awful forests will be trodden by his feet, made musical by his
melodious voice, and parted by the rustling of his wings. The youth
himself may return to-morrow to the workman's blouse and chisel, but
his memory lives in many minds and may form a part of Christmas for the
fancy of men as yet unborn.
The next drawing of the curtain shows us the stable of Bethlehem
crowned by its star. There kneels Mary, and Joseph leans upon his
staff. The ox and the ass are close at hand, and Jesus lies in jeweled
robes on straw within the manger. To right and left bow the shepherds,
worshiping in dumb show, while voices from behind chant a solemn hymn.
In the midst of the melody is heard the flourish of trumpets, and
heralds step upon the stage, followed by the three crowned kings. They
have come from the far East, led by the star. The song ceases, while
drums and fifes and trumpets play a stately march. The kings pass by,
and do obeisance one by one. Each gives some costly gift; each doffs
his crown and leaves it at the Saviour's feet. Then they retire to a
distance and worship in silence like the shepherds. Again the angels'
song is heard, and while it dies away the curtain closes and the lights
are put out.
The play is over, and the evening has come. The people must go from the
warm church into the frozen snow, and crunch their homeward way beneath
the moon. But in their minds they carry a sense of light and music and
unearthly loveliness. Not a scene of this day's pageant will be lost.
It grows within them and creates the poetry of Christmas. Nor must we
forget the sculptors who listen to the play. We spoke of them minutely,
because these mysteries sank deep into their souls and found a way into
their carvings on the cathedral walls. The monk who made Madonna by
the southern porch will remember Gabriel and place him bending low in
lordly salutation by her side. The painted glass of the chapter-house
will glow with fiery choirs of angels learned by heart that night.
And who does not know the mocking devils and quaint satyrs that the
humorous sculptor carved among his fruits and flowers? Some of the
misereres of the stalls still bear portraits of the shepherd thief, and
of the ox and ass who blinked so blindly when the kings, by torchlight,
brought their dazzling gifts. Truly these old miracle-plays and the
carved work of cunning hands that they inspired are worth to us more
than all the delicate creations of Italian pencils. Our homely Northern
churches still retain, for the child who reads their bosses and their
sculptured fronts, more Christmas poetry than we can find in Fra
Angelico's devoutness or the liveliness of Giotto. Not that Southern
artists have done nothing for our Christmas. Cimabue's gigantic angels
at Assisi, and the radiant seraphs of Raphael or of Signorelli, were
seen by Milton in his Italian journey. He gazed in Romish churches on
graceful Nativities, into which Angelico and Credi threw their simple
souls. How much they tinged his fancy we cannot say. But what we know
of heavenly hierarchies we later men have learned from Milton; and what
he saw he spoke, and what he spoke in sounding verse lives for us now
and sways our reason, and controls our fancy, and makes fine art of
high theology.
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
Christmas in Dreamthorp
This, then, is Christmas. Everything is silent in Dreamthorp. The
smith's hammer reposes beside the anvil. The weaver's flying shuttle
is at rest. Through the clear, wintry sunshine the bells this morning
rang from the gray church tower amid the leafless elms, and up the walk
the villagers trooped in their best dresses and their best faces--the
latter a little reddened by the sharp wind: mere redness in the middle
aged; in the maids wonderful bloom to the eyes of their lovers--and
took their places decently in the ancient pews. The clerk read the
beautiful prayers of our Church, which seem so much more beautiful
at Christmas than at any other period. For that very feeling which
breaks down at this time the barriers which custom, birth, or wealth
have erected between man and man, strikes down the barrier of time
which intervenes between the worshipper of to-day and the great body
of worshippers who are at rest in their graves. On such a day as this,
hearing these prayers, we feel a kinship with the devout generations
who heard them long ago. The devout lips of the Christian dead
murmured the responses which we now murmur; along this road of prayer
did their thoughts of our innumerable dead, our brothers and sisters in
faith and hope, approach the Maker, even as ours at present approach
Him.
Prayers over, the clergyman--who is no Boanerges, or Chrysostom,
golden-mouthed, but a loving, genial-hearted pious man, the whole
extent of his life, from boyhood until now, full of charity and kindly
deeds, as autumn fields with heavy, wheaten ears; the clergyman, I
say--for the sentence is becoming unwieldy on my hands and one must
double back to secure connection--read out in that silvery voice of
his, which is sweeter than any music to my ear, those chapters of
the New Testament that deal with the birth of the Saviour. And the
red-faced rustic congregation hung on the good man's voice as he spoke
of the Infant brought forth in a manger, of the shining angels that
appeared in the mid-air to the shepherds, of the miraculous star that
took its station in the sky, and of the wise men who came from afar
and laid their gifts of the frankincense and myrrh at the feet of the
child. With the story every one was familiar, but on that day, and
backed by the persuasive melody of the reader's voice it seemed to
all quite new--at least they listened attentively as if it were. The
discourse that followed possessed no remarkable thoughts; it dealt
simply with the goodness of the Maker of heaven and earth, and the
shortness of time, with the duties of thankfulness and charity to the
poor; and I am persuaded that every one who heard returned to his house
in a better frame of mind. And so the service remitted us all to our
own homes, to what roast-beef and plum-pudding slender means permitted,
to gatherings around cheerful fires, to half-pleasant, half-sad
remembrances of the dead and absent.
ALEXANDER SMITH
By the Christmas Fire
When the fire has reached a degree of intensity and magnitude which
Rosalind thinks adequate to the occasion, I take down a well-worn
volume which opens of itself at a well-worn page. It is a book which I
have read and reread many times, and always with a kindling sympathy
and affection for the man who wrote it; in whatever mood I take it up,
there is something in it which touches me with a sense of kinship.
It is not a great book, but it is a book of the heart, and books of
the heart have passed beyond the outer court of criticism before we
bestow upon them that phrase of supreme regard. There are other books
of the heart around me, but on Christmas Eve it is Alexander Smith's
"Dreamthorp" which always seems to lie at my hand, and when I take up
the well-worn volume it falls open at the essay on "Christmas." It
is a good many years since Rosalind and I began to read together on
Christmas Eve this beautiful meditation on the season, and now it has
gathered about itself such a host of memories that it has become part
of our common past. It is indeed a veritable palimpsest, overlaid with
tender and gracious recollections out of which the original thought
gains a new and subtle sweetness. As I read it aloud I know that she
sees once more the familiar landscape about Dreamthorp, with the low
dark hill in the background, and over it "the tender radiance that
precedes the moon," the village windows are all lighted and the "whole
place shines like a congregation of glow-worms." There are the skaters
still "leaning against the frosty wind"; there is "the gray church
tower amid the leafless elms," around which the echoes of the morning
peal of Christmas bells still hover; the village folk have gathered,
"in their best dresses and their best faces"; the beautiful service
of the church has been read and answered with heartfelt responses,
the familiar story has been told again simply and urgently, with
applications for every thankful soul, and then the congregation has
gone to its homes and its festivities--all these things, I am sure,
lie within Rosalind's vision although she seems to see nothing but the
ruddy blaze of the fire; all these things I see as I have seen them
these many Christmas Eves agone; but with this familiar landscape there
are mingled all the sweet and sorrowful memories of our common life,
recalled at this hour that the light of the highest truth may interpret
them anew in the divine language of hope. I read on until I come to the
quotation from the "Hymn to the Nativity" and then I close the book,
and take up a copy of Milton close at hand.
HAMILTON W. MABIE in _My Study Fire_
_By permission of Dodd, Mead & Co._
Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity
This is the month, and this the happy morn
Wherein the Son of Heaven's Eternal King,
Of wedded maid and virgin mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing
That He our deadly forfeit should release,
And with His Father work us a perpetual peace.
That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of Majesty
Wherewith He, wont at Heaven's high council-table
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,
He laid aside; and, here with us to be,
Forsook the courts of everlasting day,
And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.
Say, heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford a present to the Infant God?
Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain
To welcome Him to this His new abode
Now while the heaven, by the sun's team untrod,
Hath took no print of the approaching light,
And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?
See how from far, upon the eastern road,
The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet:
O run, prevent them with thy humble ode
And lay it lowly at His blessed feet;
Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,
And join thy voice unto the Angel quire
From out His secret altar touched with hallow'd fire.
THE HYMN
It was the winter wild
While the heaven-born Child
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature in awe to Him
Had doff'd her gaudy trim,
With her great Master so to sympathize:
It was no season then for her
To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour.
Only with speeches fair
She woos the gentle air
To hide her guilty front with innocent snow;
And on her naked shame,
Pollute with sinful blame,
The saintly veil of maiden white to throw;
Confounded, that her Maker's eyes
Should look so near upon her foul deformities.
But He, her fears to cease,
Sent down the meek-eyed Peace;
She, crown'd with olive green, came softly sliding
Down through the turning sphere,
His ready harbinger,
With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing;
And waving wide her myrtle wand,
She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.
No war, or battle's sound
Was heard the world around:
The idle spear and shield were high uphung;
The hooked chariot stood
Unstain'd with hostile blood;
The trumpet spake not to the armed throng;
And kings sat still with awful eye,
As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.
But peaceful was the night
Wherein the Prince of Light
His reign of peace upon the earth began;
The winds, with wonder whist,
Smoothly, the waters kist,
Whispering new joys to the mild ocean--
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.
The stars, with deep amaze,
Stand fix'd in steadfast gaze,
Bending one way their precious influence;
And will not take their flight
For all the morning light,
Or Lucifer that often warn'd them thence;
But in their glimmering orbs did glow
Until their Lord Himself bespake, and bid them go.
And though the shady gloom
Had given day her room,
The sun himself withheld his wonted speed,
And hid his head for shame,
As his inferior flame
The new-enlightened world no more should need;
He saw a greater Sun appear
Than his bright throne, or burning axletree could bear.
The shepherds on the lawn
Or ere the point of dawn
Sate simply chatting in a rustic row;
Full little thought they than
That the mighty Pan
Was kindly come to live with them below;
Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep
Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep:--
When such music sweet
Their hearts and ears did greet
As never was by mortal finger strook--
Divinely-warbled voice
Answering the stringed noise,
As all their souls in blissful rapture took:
The air, such pleasure loth to lose,
With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close.
* * * * *
Such music (as 'tis said)
Before was never made
But when of old the Sons of Morning sung,
While the Creator great
His constellations set
And the well-balanced world on hinges hung;
And cast the dark foundations deep,
And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep.
Ring out, ye crystal spheres!
Once bless our human ears,
If ye have power to touch our senses so;
And let your silver chime
Move in melodious time;
And let the bass of heaven's deep organ blow;
And with your ninefold harmony
Make up full consort to the angelic symphony.
For if such holy song
Enwrap our fancy long,
Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold;
And speckled Vanity
Will sicken soon and die,
And leprous sin will melt from earthly mould;
And Hell itself will pass away,
And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day.
Yea, Truth and Justice then
Will down return to men,
Orb'd in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing,
Mercy will sit between
Throned in celestial sheen,
With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering;
And Heaven, as at some festival,
Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall.
* * * * *
But see! the Virgin blest
Hath laid her Babe to rest;
Time is, our tedious song should here have ending:
Heaven's youngest-teemed star
Hath fix'd her polish'd car,
Her sleeping Lord with hand-maid lamp attending:
And all about the courtly stable
Bright-harnessed Angels sit in order serviceable.
JOHN MILTON
Christmas Church
When I awoke on Christmas morning, while I lay musing on my pillow,
I heard the sound of little feet pattering outside of the door, and
a whispering consultation. Presently a choir of small voices chanted
forth an old Christmas carol, the burden of which was,
Rejoice, our Saviour he was born
On Christmas Day in the morning.
I rose softly, slipped on my clothes, opened the door suddenly, and
beheld one of the most beautiful little fairy groups that a painter
could imagine. It consisted of a boy and two girls, the eldest not
more than six, and lovely as seraphs. They were going the rounds of
the house, and singing at every chamber-door; but my sudden appearance
frightened them into mute bashfulness. They remained for a moment
playing on their lips with their fingers, and now and then stealing a
shy glance from under their eyebrows, until, as if by one impulse, they
scampered away, and as they turned an angle of the gallery, I heard
them laughing in triumph at their escape.
Everything conspired to produce kind and happy feelings in this
stronghold of old-fashioned hospitality. The window of my chamber
looked out upon what in summer would have been a beautiful landscape.
There was a sloping lawn, a fine stream winding at the foot of it,
and a tract of park beyond, with noble clumps of trees, and herds of
deer. At a distance was a neat hamlet, with the smoke from the cottage
chimneys hanging over it; and a church with its dark spire in strong
relief against the clear cold sky. The house was surrounded with
evergreens, according to the English custom, which would have given
almost an appearance of summer; but the morning was extremely frosty;
the light vapour of the preceding evening had been precipitated by
the cold, and covered all the trees and every blade of grass with its
fine crystallizations. The rays of a bright morning sun had a dazzling
effect among the glittering foliage. A robin, perched upon the top of
a mountain-ash that hung its clusters of red berries just before my
window, was basking himself in the sunshine, and piping a few querulous
notes; and a peacock was displaying all the glories of his train,
and strutting with the pride and gravity of a Spanish grandee on the
terrace-walk below.
[Illustration: THE VIRGIN ADORING THE INFANT CHILD. _Correggio._]
I had scarcely dressed myself, when a servant appeared to invite me
to family prayers. I afterwards understood that early morning service
was read on every Sunday and saint's day throughout the year, either
by Mr. Bracebridge or by some member of the family. It was once almost
universally the case at the seats of the nobility and gentry of
England, and it is much to be regretted that the custom is fallen into
neglect; for the dullest observer must be sensible of the order and
serenity prevalent in those households, where the occasional exercise
of a beautiful form of worship in the morning gives, as it were, the
keynote to every temper for the day, and attunes every spirit to
harmony.
"If you are disposed to go to church," said Frank Bracebridge, "I can
promise you a specimen of my cousin Simon's musical achievements. As
the church is destitute of an organ, he has formed a band from the
village amateurs, and established a musical club for their improvement;
he has also sorted a choir, as he sorted my father's pack of hounds,
according to the directions of Jervaise Markham, in his Country
Contentments; for the bass he has sought out all the 'deep solemn
mouths,' and for the tenor the 'loud ringing mouths,' among the country
bumpkins; and for 'sweet mouths,' he has culled with curious taste
among the prettiest lasses in the neighbourhood; though these last, he
affirms, are the most difficult to keep in tune; your pretty female
singer being exceedingly wayward and capricious, and very liable to
accident."
As the morning, though frosty, was remarkably fine and clear, the
most of the family walked to the church, which was a very old building
of gray stone, and stood near a village, about half-a-mile from the
park gate. Adjoining it was a low snug parsonage, which seemed coeval
with the church. The front of it was perfectly matted with a yew-tree
that had been trained against its walls, through the dense foliage of
which apertures had been formed to admit light into the small antique
lattices. As we passed this sheltered nest, the parson issued forth and
preceded us.
* * * * *
The usual services of the choir were managed tolerably well, the vocal
parts generally lagging a little behind the instrumental, and some
loitering fiddler now and then making up for lost time by travelling
over a passage with prodigious celerity, and clearing more bars than
the keenest fox-hunter to be in at the death. But the great trial was
an anthem that had been prepared and arranged by Master Simon, and on
which he had founded great expectation. Unluckily there was a blunder
at the very outset; the musicians became flurried; Master Simon was in
a fever, everything went on lamely and irregularly until they came to
a chorus beginning "Now let us sing with one accord," which seemed to
be a signal for parting company: all became discord and confusion; each
shifted for himself, and got to the end as well, or rather as soon,
as he could, excepting one old chorister in a pair of horn spectacles
bestriding and pinching a long sonorous nose; who, happening to stand
a little apart, and being wrapped up in his own melody, kept on a
quavering course, wriggling his head, ogling his book, and winding all
up by a nasal solo of at least three bars' duration.
The parson gave us a most erudite sermon on the rites and ceremonies
of Christmas, and the propriety of observing it not merely as a day
of thanksgiving, but of rejoicing; supporting the correctness of his
opinions by the earliest usages of the Church, and enforcing them by
the authorities of Theophilus of Cesarea, St. Cyprian, St. Chrysostom,
St. Augustine and a cloud more of Saints and Fathers, from whom he made
copious quotations. I was a little at a loss to perceive the necessity
of such a mighty array of forces to maintain a point which no one
present seemed inclined to dispute; but I soon found that the good
man had a legion of ideal adversaries to contend with; having, in the
course of his researches on the subject of Christmas, got completely
embroiled in the sectarian controversies of the Revolution, when the
Puritans made such a fierce assault upon the ceremonies of the Church,
and poor old Christmas was driven out of the land by proclamation of
parliament. The worthy parson lived but with times past, and knew but a
little of the present.
Shut up among worm-eaten tomes in the retirement of his antiquated
little study, the pages of old times were to him as the gazettes of the
day; while the era of the Revolution was mere modern history. He forgot
that nearly two centuries had elapsed since the fiery persecution of
poor mince-pie throughout the land; when plum-porridge was denounced as
"mere popery," and roast beef as anti-christian; and that Christmas has
been brought in again triumphantly with the merry court of King Charles
at the Restoration. He kindled into warmth with the ardour of his
contest, and the host of imaginary foes with whom he had to combat; had
a stubborn conflict with old Prynne and two or three other forgotten
champions of the Roundheads, on the subject of Christmas festivity;
and concluded by urging his hearers, in the most solemn and affecting
manner, to stand to the traditionary customs of their fathers, and
feast and make merry on this joyful anniversary of the Church.
I have seldom known a sermon attended apparently with more immediate
effects; for on leaving the church the congregation seemed one and all
possessed with the gaiety of spirit so earnestly enjoined by their
pastor. The elder folks gathered in knots in the churchyard, greeting
and shaking hands; and the children ran about crying Ule! Ule! and
repeating some uncouth rhymes, which the parson, who had joined us,
informed me had been handed down from days of yore. The villagers
doffed their hats to the Squire as he passed, giving him the good
wishes of the season with every appearance of heartfelt sincerity, and
were invited by him to the Hall, to take something to keep out the cold
of the weather; and I heard blessings uttered by several of the poor,
which convinced me that, in the midst of his enjoyments, the worthy old
cavalier had not forgotten the true Christmas virtue of charity.
WASHINGTON IRVING
Dolly urges Silas Marner to go to Church on Christmas Day
"There's the bakehus if you could make up your mind to spend a twopence
on the oven now and then,--not every week, in course--I shouldn't like
to do that myself,--you might carry your bit o' dinner there, for it's
nothing but right to have a bit o' summat hot of a Sunday, and not
to make it as you can't know your dinner from Saturday. But now, upo'
Christmas-day, this blessed Christmas as is ever coming, if you was to
take your dinner to the bakehus, and go to church, and see the holly
and the yew, and hear the anthim, and then take the sacramen', you'd be
a deal the better, and you'd know which end you stood on, and you could
put your trust i' Them as knows better nor we do, seein' you'd ha' done
what it lies on us all to do."
Dolly's exhortation, which was an unusually long effort of speech for
her, was uttered in the soothing persuasive tone with which she would
have tried to prevail on a sick man to take his medicine, or a basin of
gruel for which he had no appetite.
* * * * *
But now, little Aaron, having become used to the weaver's awful
presence, had advanced to his mother's side, and Silas, seeming to
notice him for the first time, tried to return Dolly's signs of
good-will by offering the lad a bit of lard-cake. Aaron shrank back a
little, and rubbed his head against his mother's shoulder, but still
thought the piece of cake worth the risk of putting his hand out for it.
"Oh, for shame, Aaron," said his mother, taking him on her lap,
however; "why, you don't want cake again yet awhile. He's wonderful
hearty," she went on, with a little sigh--"that he is, God knows. He's
my youngest, and we spoil him sadly, for either me or the father must
allays hev him in our sight--that we must."
She stroked Aaron's brown head, and thought it must do Master Marner
good to see such a "pictur of a child." But Marner, on the other side
of the hearth, saw the neat-featured rosy face as a mere dim round,
with two dark spots in it.
"And he's got a voice like a bird--you wouldn't think," Dolly went on;
"he can sing a Christmas carril as his father's taught him; and I take
it for a token as he'll come to good, as he can learn the good tunes
so quick. Come, Aaron, stan' up and sing the carril to Master Marner,
come."
Aaron replied by rubbing his forehead against his mother's shoulder.
"Oh, that's naughty," said Dolly, gently. "Stan' up, when mother tells
you, and let me hold the cake till you've done."
Aaron was not indisposed to display his talents, even to an ogre,
under protecting circumstances; and after a few more signs of coyness,
consisting chiefly in rubbing the backs of his hands over his eyes,
and then peeping between them at Master Marner, to see if he looked
anxious for the "carril," he at length allowed his head to be duly
adjusted, and standing behind the table, which let him appear above it
only as far as his broad frill, so that he looked like a cherubic head
untroubled with a body, he began with a clear chirp, and in a melody
that had the rhythm of an industrious hammer,--
"God rest you merry, gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay,
For Jesus Christ our Saviour
Was born on Christmas-Day."
Dolly listened with a devout look, glancing at Marner in some
confidence that this strain would help to allure him to church.
"That's Christmas music," she said, when Aaron had ended, and had
secured his piece of cake again. "There's no other music equil to
the Christmas music--'Hark the erol angils sing.' And you may judge
what it is at church, Master Marner, with the bassoon and the voices,
as you can't help thinking you've got to a better place a'ready--for
I wouldn't speak ill o' this world, seeing as Them put us in it as
knows best; but what wi' the drink, and the quarrelling, and the bad
illnesses, and the hard dying, as I've seen times and times, one's
thankful to hear of a better. The boy sings pretty, don't he, Master
Marner?"
"Yes," said Silas, absently, "very pretty."
The Christmas carol, with its hammer-like rhythm, had fallen on his
ears as strange music, quite unlike a hymn, and could have none of
the effect Dolly contemplated. But he wanted to show her that he was
grateful, and the only mode that occurred to him was to offer Aaron a
bit more cake.
GEORGE ELIOT.
Yule in the Old Town
A whole fortnight we kept it. Real Christmas was from Little Christmas
Eve, which was the night before the Holy Eve proper, till New
Year's. Then there was a week of supplementary festivities before
things slipped back into their wonted groove. That was the time of
parties and balls. The great ball of the year was on the day after
Christmas,--Second Christmas Day we called it,--when all the quality
attended at the club-house, where the amtman and the burgomaster, the
bishop and the rector of the Latin School, did the honors and received
the people. That was the grandest of the town functions. The school
ball, late in autumn, was the jolliest, for then the boys invited each
the girl he liked best, and the older people were guests and outsiders,
so to speak. The Latin School--the Cathedral School, as it was still
called--was the oldest institution there next to the church and the
bishop, and when it took the stage it was easily first while it lasted.
The Yule ball, though it was a rather more formal affair, for all that
was neither stiff nor tiresome. Nothing was, in the Old Town; there
was too much genuine kindness for that. And then it was the recognized
occasion when matches were made by enterprising mammas, or by the
young themselves, and when engagements were declared and discussed as
the great news of the day. We heard all of those things afterward and
thought a great fuss was being made over nothing much. For when a young
couple were declared engaged, that meant that there was no more fun to
be got out of them. They were given, after that, to mooning about by
themselves and to chasing us children away when we ran across them;
until they happily returned to their senses, got married, and became
reasonable human beings once more.
When we had been sent to bed, father and mother used to go away in
their Sunday very best, and we knew they would not return until two
o'clock in the morning, a fact which alone invested the occasion with
unwonted gravity, for the Old Town kept early hours. At ten o'clock,
when the watchman droned his sleepy lay, absurdly warning the people to
"Be quick and bright,
Watch fire and light,
Our clock it has struck ten,"
it was ordinarily tucked in and asleep. But that night we lay awake
a long time listening to the muffled sound of heavy wheels in the
snow, rolling unceasingly past, and trying to picture to ourselves the
grandeur they conveyed. Every carriage in the town was then in use and
doing overtime. I think there were as many as four.
When we were not dancing or playing games, we literally ate our way
through the two holiday weeks. Pastry by the mile did we eat, and
general indigestion brooded over the town when it emerged into the
white light of the new year. At any rate, it ought to have done so. It
is a prime article of faith with the Danes to this day that for any one
to go out of a friend's house, or of anybody's house, in the Christmas
season without partaking of its cheer, is to "bear away their Yule,"
which no one must do on any account. Every house was a bakery from the
middle of December until Christmas Eve, and, oh! the quantities of
cakes we ate, and such cakes! We were sixteen normally in our home,
and mother mixed the dough for her cakes in a veritable horse trough
kept for that exclusive purpose. As much as a sack of flour went in, I
guess, and gallons of molasses, and whatever else went to the mixing.
For weeks there had been long and anxious speculations as to "what
father would do," and gloomy conferences between him and mother over
the state of the family pocketbook, which was never plethoric; but at
last the joyful message ran through the house from attic to kitchen
that the appropriation had been made, "even for citron," which meant
throwing all care to the winds. The thrill of it, when we children
stood by and saw the generous avalanche going into the trough! What
would not come out of it! The whole family turned to and helped make
the cakes and cut the "pepper nuts," which were little squares of cake
dough we played cards for and stuffed our pockets with, gnashing them
incessantly. Talk about eating between meals: ours was a continuous
performance for two solid weeks.
The pepper nuts were the real staple of Christmas to us children. We
rolled the dough in long strings like slender eels and then cut it a
little on the bias. They were good, those nuts, when baked brown. I
wish I had some now.
Christmas Eve was, of course, the great and blessed time. That was the
one night in the year when in the gray old Domkirke services were held
by candle-light.
A myriad wax candles twinkled in the gloom, but did not dispel it.
It lingered under the great arches where the voice of the venerable
minister, the responses of the congregation, and above it all the
boyish treble of the choir, billowed and strove, now dreamingly with
the memories of ages past, now sharply, tossed from angle to corner
in the stone walls, and again in long thunderous echoes sweeping all
before it on the triumphant strains of the organ, like a victorious
army with banners crowding through the halls of time. So it sounded to
me as sleep gently tugged at my eyelids. The air grew heavy with the
smell of evergreens and of burning wax, and as the thunder of war drew
farther and farther away, in the shadow of the great pillars stirred
the phantoms of mailed knights whose names were hewn in the gravestones
there. We youngsters clung to the skirts of mother as we went out and
the great doors fell to behind us. And yet those Christmas eves, with
mother's gentle eyes forever inseparable from them, and with the glad
cries of "Merry Christmas!" ringing all about, have left a touch of
sweet peace in my heart which all the years have not effaced, nor ever
will....
When Ansgarius preached the White Christ to the vikings of the North,
so runs the legend of the Christmas-tree, the Lord sent his three
messengers, Faith, Hope, and Love, to help light the first tree.
Seeking one that should be high as hope, wide as love, and that bore
the sign of the cross on every bough, they chose the balsam fir,
which best of all the trees in the forest met the requirements....
Wax candles are the only real thing for a Christmas-tree, candles of
wax that mingle their perfume with that of the burning fir, not the
by-product of some coal-oil or other abomination. What if the boughs
do catch fire? They can be watched, and too many candles are tawdry,
anyhow. Also, red apples, oranges, and old-fashioned cornucopias made
of colored paper, and made at home, look a hundred times better and
fitter in the green; and so do drums and toy trumpets and wald-horns,
and a rocking-horse reined up in front that need not have cost forty
dollars, or anything like it.
I am thinking of one, or rather two, a little piebald team with a
wooden seat between, for which mother certainly did not give over
seventy-five cents at the store, that as "Belcher and Mamie"--the name
was bestowed on the beasts at sight by Kate, aged three, who bossed the
play-room--gave a generation of romping children more happiness than
all the expensive railroads and trolley-cars and steam engines that
are considered indispensable to keeping Christmas nowadays. And the
Noah's Ark with Noah and his wife and all the animals that went two by
two--ah, well, I haven't set out to preach a sermon on extravagance
that makes no one happier, but I wish--The legend makes me think of
the holly that grew in our Danish woods. We called it "Christ-thorn,"
for to us it was of that the crown of thorns was made with which the
cruel soldiers mocked our Saviour, and the red berries were the drops
of blood that fell from his anguished brow. Therefore the holly was a
sacred tree, and to this day the woods in which I find it seem to me
like the forest where the Christmas roses bloomed in the night when the
Lord was born, different from all other woods, and better.
JACOB RIIS in _The Old Town_
The Mahogany Tree
Christmas is here;
Winds whistle shrill,
Icy and chill,
Little care we:
Little we fear
Weather without,
Sheltered about
The mahogany tree.
Once on the boughs,
Birds of rare plume
Sang, in its bloom;
Night-birds are we:
Here we carouse
Singing, like them,
Perched round the stem
Of the jolly old tree.
Here let us sport,
Boys, as we sit;
Laughter and wit
Flashing so free.
Life is but short--
When we are gone,
Let them sing on,
Round the old tree.
Evenings we knew,
Happy as this;
Faces we miss,
Pleasant to see.
Kind hearts and true,
Gentle and just,
Peace to your dust!
We sing round the tree.
Care, like a dun,
Lurks at the gate:
Let the dog wait:
Happy we'll be!
Drink every one;
Pile up the coals,
Fill the red bowls,
Round the old tree!
Drain we the cup.--
Friend, art afraid?
Spirits are laid
In the Red Sea.
Mantle it up;
Empty it yet;
Let us forget,
Round the old tree.
Sorrows, begone!
Life and its ills,
Duns and their bills,
Bid we to flee.
Come with the dawn,
Blue-devil sprite,
Leave us to-night,
Round the old tree.
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
The Holly and the Ivy
The Holly and the Ivy,
Now both are full well grown;
Of all the trees that spring in wood,
The Holly bears the crown.
The Holly bears a blossom,
As white as lily flow'r;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ,
To be our sweet Saviour,
_To be our sweet Saviour_.
The Holly bears a berry,
As red as any blood;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ,
To do poor sinners good.
The Holly bears a prickle,
As sharp as any thorn;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ,
On Christmas day in the morn,
_On Christmas day in the morn_.
The Holly bears a bark,
As bitter as any gall;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ,
For to redeem us all.
The Holly and the Ivy,
Now both are full well grown;
Of all the trees that spring in wood,
The Holly bears the crown,
_The Holly bears the crown_.
_Old English Song_
Ballade of Christmas Ghosts
Between the moonlight and the fire,
In winter twilights long ago,
What ghosts we raised for your desire,
To make your merry blood run slow;
How old, how grave, how wise we grow,
No Christmas ghost can make us chill,
Save those that troop in mournful row,
The ghosts we all can raise at will!
The beasts can talk in barn and byre,
On Christmas Eve, old legends know,
As year by year the years retire;
We men fall silent then, I trow;
Such sights hath memory to show,
Such voices from the silence thrill,
Such shapes return with Christmas snow--
The ghosts we all can raise at will.
Oh, children of the village choir,
Your carols on the midnight throw;
Oh, bright across the mist and mire,
Ye ruddy hearths of Christmas, glow!
Beat back the dread, beat down the woe,
Let's cheerily descend the hill;
Be welcome all, to come or go,
The ghosts we all can raise at will!
ENVOY
Friend, sursum corda, soon and slow
We part like guests, who've joyed their fill;
Forget them not, nor mourn them so,
The ghosts we all can raise at will.
ANDREW LANG
_By permission of Longmans, Green, & Co., London, and Charles
Scribner's Sons, New York._
Christmas Treasures
I count my treasures o'er with care,--
The little toy my darling knew,
A little sock of faded hue,
A little lock of golden hair.
Long years ago this holy time,
My little one--my all to me--
Sat robed in white upon my knee
And heard the merry Christmas chime.
"Tell me, my little golden-head,
If Santa Claus should come to-night,
What shall he bring my baby bright,--
What treasure for my boy?" I said.
And then he named this little toy,
While in his round and mournful eyes
There came a look of sweet surprise,
That spake his quiet, trustful joy.
And as he lisped his evening prayer
He asked the boon with childish grace,
Then, toddling to the chimney place,
He hung this little stocking there.
That night, while lengthening shadows crept,
I saw the white-winged angels come
With singing to our lowly home
And kiss my darling as he slept.
They must have heard his little prayer,
For in the morn, with rapturous face,
He toddled to the chimney-place,
And found this little treasure there.
They came again one Christmas-tide,--
That angel host, so fair and white!
And singing all that glorious night,
They lured my darling from my side.
A little sock, a little toy,
A little lock of golden hair,
The Christmas music on the air,
A watching for my baby boy!
But if again that angel train
And golden-head come back for me,
To bear me to Eternity,
My watching will not be in vain!
From _A Little Book of Western Verse_; copyright, 1889, by Eugene
Field; published by Charles Scribner's Sons
Wassailer's Song
Wassail! wassail! all over the town,
Our toast it is white, and our ale it is brown;
Our bowl is made of a maplin tree;
We be good fellows all;--I drink to thee.
Here's to our horse, and to his right ear,
God send master a happy new year;
A happy new year as e'er he did see,--
With my wassailing bowl I drink to thee.
Here's to our mare, and to her right eye,
God send our mistress a good Christmas pie;
A good Christmas pie as e'er I did see,--
With my wassailing bowl I drink to thee.
Here's to our cow, and to her long tail,
God send our master us never may fail
Of a cup of good beer: I pray you draw near,
And our jolly wassail it's then you shall hear.
Be here any maids? I suppose here be some;
Sure they will not let young men stand on the cold stone!
Sing hey O, maids! come trole back the pin,
And the fairest maid in the house let us all in.
Come, butler, come, bring us a bowl of the best;
I hope your sould in heaven will rest;
But if you do bring us a bowl of the small,
Then down fall butler, and bowl and all.
ROBERT SOUTHWELL
VI
CHRISTMAS HYMNS
[Illustration: CHRISTMAS HYMNS]
A Hymn on the Nativity
While Shepherds Watched
O, Little Town of Bethlehem
The First, Best Christmas Night
It Came upon the Midnight Clear
A Christmas Hymn
The Song of the Shepherds
A Christmas Hymn
A Christmas Hymn for Children
Slumber-Songs of the Madonna
[Illustration]
Hark! the herald angels sing,
"Glory to the new-born King!
Peace on earth, and mercy mild;
God and sinners reconciled."
CHARLES WESLEY
A Hymn on the Nativity
I sing the birth was born to-night,
The author both of life and light;
The angels so did sound it.
And like the ravished shepherds said,
Who saw the light, and were afraid,
Yet searched, and true they found it.
The Son of God, th' Eternal King,
That did us all salvation bring,
And freed the soul from danger;
He whom the whole world could not take,
The Word, which heaven and earth did make,
Was now laid in a manger.
The Father's wisdom willed it so,
The Son's obedience knew no No,
Both wills were in one stature;
And as that wisdom had decreed,
The Word was now made Flesh indeed,
And took on Him our nature.
What comfort by Him do we win,
Who made Himself the price of sin,
To make us heirs of Glory!
To see this babe, all innocence,
A martyr born in our defence:
Can man forget this story?
BEN JONSON
While Shepherds Watched
While shepherds watch'd their flocks by night,
All seated on the ground,
The Angel of the Lord came down,
And glory shone around.
"Fear not," said he (for mighty dread
Had seized their troubled mind);
"Glad tidings of great joy I bring
To you and all mankind.
"To you in David's town this day
Is born of David's line
The Saviour, who is Christ the Lord;
And this shall be the sign:
"The heavenly Babe you there shall find
To human view display'd,
All meanly wrapt in swathing-bands,
And in a manger laid."
Thus spake the seraph; and forthwith
Appear'd a shining throng
Of angels praising God, and thus
Address'd their joyful song:
"All glory be to God on high,
And to the earth be peace;
Good-will henceforth from heaven to men
Begin, and never cease!"
NAHUM TATE
O, Little Town of Bethlehem
O, little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by;
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee to-night.
For Christ is born of Mary;
And gathered all above,
While mortals sleep, the angels keep
Their watch of wondering love!
O, morning stars, together
Proclaim the holy birth!
And praises sing to God the King,
And peace to men on earth.
How silently, how silently,
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear His coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him still,
The dear Christ enters in.
O, holy Child of Bethlehem!
Descend to us, we pray!
Cast out our sin, and enter in,
Be born to us to-day.
We hear the Christmas angels
The great, glad tidings tell;
O, come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord Emmanuel.
PHILLIPS BROOKS
The First, Best Christmas Night
Like small curled feathers, white and soft,
The little clouds went by,
Across the moon, and past the stars,
And down the western sky:
In upland pastures, where the grass
With frosted dew was white,
Like snowy clouds the young sheep lay,
That first, best Christmas night.
The shepherds slept; and, glimmering faint,
With twist of thin, blue smoke,
Only their fire's cracking flames
The tender silence broke--
Save when a young lamb raised his head,
Or, when the night wind blew,
A nesting bird would softly stir,
Where dusky olives grew--
With finger on her solemn lip,
Night hushed the shadowy earth,
And only stars and angels saw
The little Saviour's birth;
Then came such flash of silver light
Across the bending skies,
The wondering shepherds woke, and hid
Their frightened, dazzled eyes!
And all their gentle sleepy flock
Looked up, then slept again,
Nor knew the light that dimmed the stars
Brought endless peace to men--
Nor even heard the gracious words
That down the ages ring--
"The Christ is born! the Lord has come,
Good-will on earth to bring!"
Then o'er the moonlit, misty fields,
Dumb with the world's great joy,
The shepherds sought the white-walled town,
Where lay the baby boy--
And oh, the gladness of the world,
The glory of the skies,
Because the longed-for Christ looked up
In Mary's happy eyes!
MARGARET DELAND in _The Old Garden and Other Verses_
_By permission of Houghton Mifflin Company_
It Came upon the Midnight Clear
It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth
To touch their harps of gold:
Peace to the earth, good-will to men,
From heaven's all gracious King.
The world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the angels sing.
Still through the cloven skies they come,
With peaceful wings unfurled;
And still their heavenly music floats
O'er all the weary world:
Above its sad and lowly plains
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever o'er its Babel-sounds
The blessed angels sing.
Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long.
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man at war with man hears not
The love-song that they bring;
Oh, hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing.
O ye beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way,
With painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing:
Oh, rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing.
For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophet bards foretold,
When with the ever-circling years
Comes round the age of gold;
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendours fling,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.
EDMUND HAMILTON SEARS
A Christmas Hymn
Sing, Christmas bells!
Say to the earth this is the morn
Whereon our Saviour-King is born;
Sing to all men,--the bond, the free,
The rich, the poor, the high, the low,
The little child that sports in glee,
The aged folk that tottering go,--
Proclaim the morn
That Christ is born,
That saveth them and saveth me!
Sing, angel host!
Sing of the star that God has placed
Above the manger in the east;
Sing of the glories of the night,
The Virgin's sweet humility,
The Babe with kingly robes bedight,--
Sing to all men where'er they be
This Christmas morn;
For Christ is born,
That saveth them and saveth me.
Sing, sons of earth!
O ransomed seed of Adam, sing!
God liveth, and we have a king!
The curse is gone, the bond are free,--
By Bethlehem's star that brightly beamed,
By all the heavenly signs that be,
We know that Israel is redeemed;
That on this morn
The Christ is born
That saveth you and saveth me!
Sing, O my heart!
Sing thou in rapture this dear morn
Whereon the blessed Prince is born!
And as thy songs shall be of love,
So let my deeds be charity,--
By the dear Lord that reigns above,
By Him that died upon the tree,
By this fair morn
Whereon is born
The Christ that saveth all and me!
From _A Little Book of Western Verse_; copyright, 1889, by Eugene
Field; published by Charles Scribner's Sons
The Song of the Shepherds
It was near the first cock-crowing,
And Orion's wheel was going,
When an angel stood before us and our hearts were sore afraid.
Lo! his face was like the lightning,
When the walls of heaven are whitening,
And he brought us wondrous tidings of a joy that should not fade.
Then a Splendor shone around us,
In a still field where he found us,
A-watch upon the Shepherd Tower and waiting for the light;
There where David, as a stripling,
Saw the ewes and lambs go rippling
Down the little hills and hollows at the falling of the night.
Oh, what tender, sudden faces
Filled the old familiar places,
The barley-fields, where Ruth of old went gleaning with the birds.
Down the skies the host came swirling,
Like sea-waters white and whirling,
And our hearts were strangely shaken by the wonder of their words.
Haste, O people: all are bidden--
Haste from places high or hidden:
In Mary's Child the Kingdom comes, the heaven in beauty bends!
He has made all life completer,
He has made the Plain Way sweeter,
For the stall is His first shelter, and the cattle His first friends.
He has come! the skies are telling:
He has quit the glorious dwelling;
And first the tidings came to us, the humble shepherd folk.
He has come to field and manger,
And no more is God a Stranger:
He comes as Common Man at home with cart and crookèd yoke.
As the shadow of a cedar
To a traveler in gray Kedar
Will be the kingdom of His love, the kingdom without end.
Tongue and ages may disclaim Him,
Yet the Heaven of heavens will name Him
Lord of prophets, Light of nations, elder Brother, tender Friend.
EDWIN MARKHAM in _Lincoln and Other Poems_
_By permission_
A Christmas Hymn
Tell me what is this innumerable throng
Singing in the heavens a loud angelic song?
_These are they who come with swift and shining feet
From round about the throne of God the Lord of Light to greet._
O, who are these that hasten beneath the starry sky,
As if with joyful tidings that through the world shall fly?
_The faithful shepherds these, who greatly were afeared
When, as they watched their flocks by night, the heavenly host
appeared._
Who are these that follow across the hills of night
A star that westward hurries along the fields of light?
_Three wise men from the east who myrrh and treasure bring
To lay them at the feet of him, their Lord and Christ and King._
What babe new-born is this that in a manger cries?
Near on her bed of pain his happy mother lies.
_O, see! the air is shaken with white and heavenly wings--
This is the Lord of all the earth, this is the King of kings._
Tell me, how may I join in this holy feast
With all the kneeling world, and I of all the least?
_Fear not, O faithful heart, but bring what most is meet;
Bring love alone, true love alone, and lay it at his feet._
RICHARD WATSON GILDER
_By permission of Houghton Mifflin Company_
[Illustration: THE MADONNA. _Murillo._]
A Christmas Hymn for Children
Our bells ring to all the earth,
_In excelsis gloria!_
But none for Thee made chimes of mirth
On that great morning of Thy birth.
Our coats they lack not silk nor fur,
_In excelsis gloria!_
Not such Thy Blessed Mother's were;
Full simple garments covered Her.
Our churches rise up goodly high,
_In excelsis gloria!_
Low in a stall Thyself did lie,
With hornèd oxen standing by.
Incense we breathe and scent of wine,
_In excelsis gloria!_
Around Thee rose the breath of kine,
Thy only drink Her breast Divine.
We take us to a happy tree,
_In excelsis gloria!_
The seed was sown that day for Thee
That blossomed out of Calvary.
Teach us to feed Thy poor with meat,
_In excelsis gloria!_
Who turnest not when we entreat,
Who givest us Thy Bread to eat.
_Amen._
From the volume of _Poems_ by JOSEPHINE DASKAM BACON
_By permission of Charles Scribner's Sons_
Slumber-Songs of the Madonna
PRELUDE
Dante saw the great white Rose
Half unclose;
Dante saw the golden bees
Gathering from its heart of gold
Sweets untold,
Love's most honeyed harmonies.
Dante saw the threefold bow
Strangely glow,
Saw the Rainbow Vision rise,
And the Flame that wore the crown
Bending down
O'er the flowers of Paradise.
Something yet remained, it seems;
In his dreams
Dante missed--as angels may
In their white and burning bliss--
Some small kiss
Mortals meet with every day.
Italy in splendour faints
'Neath her saints!
O, her great Madonnas, too,
Faces calm as any moon
Glows in June,
Hooded with the night's deep blue!
What remains? I pass and hear
Everywhere,
Ay, or see in silent eyes
Just the song she still would sing.
Thus--a-swing
O'er the cradle where He lies.
I
Sleep, little baby, I love thee;
Sleep, little king, I am bending above thee!
How should I know what to sing
Here in my arms as I swing thee to sleep?
Hushaby low,
Rockaby so,
Kings may have wonderful jewels to bring,
Mother has only a kiss for her king!
Why should my singing so make me to weep?
Only I know that I love thee, I love thee,
Love thee, my little one, sleep.
II
_Is it a dream? Ah, yet it seems
Not the same as other dreams!_
I can but think that angels sang,
When thou wast born, in the starry sky,
And that their golden harps out-rang
While the silver clouds went by!
The morning sun shuts out the stars,
Which are much loftier than the sun;
But, could we burst our prison-bars
And find the Light whence light begun,
The dreams that heralded thy birth
Were truer than the truths of earth;
And, by that far immortal Gleam,
Soul of my soul, I still would dream!
A ring of light was round thy head,
The great-eyed oxen nigh thy bed
Their cold and innocent noses bowed,
Their sweet breath rose like an incense cloud
In the blurred and mystic lanthorn light!
About the middle of the night
The black door blazed like some great star
With a glory from afar,
Or like some mighty chrysolite
Wherein an angel stood with white
Blinding arrowy bladed wings
Before the throne of the King of kings;
And, through it, I could dimly see
A great steed tethered to a tree.
Then, with crimson gems aflame
Through the door the three kings came,
And the black Ethiop unrolled
The richly broidered cloth of gold,
And pourèd forth before thee there
Gold and frankincense and myrrh!
III
See, what a wonderful smile! Does it mean
That my little one knows of my love?
Was it meant for an angel that passed unseen,
And smiled at us both from above?
Does it mean that he knows of the birds and the flowers
That are waiting to sweeten his childhood's hours,
And the tales I shall tell and the games he will play,
And the songs we shall sing and the prayers we shall pray
In his boyhood's May,
He and I, one day?
IV
All in the warm blue summer weather
We shall laugh and love together:
I shall watch my baby growing,
I shall guide his feet,
When the orange trees are blowing,
And the winds are heavy and sweet!
When the orange orchards whiten
I shall see his great eyes brighten
To watch the long-legged camels going
Up the twisted street,
When the orange trees are blowing,
And the winds are sweet.
_What does it mean? Indeed, it seems
A dream! Yet not like other dreams!_
We shall walk in pleasant vales,
Listening to the shepherd's song,
I shall tell him lovely tales
All day long:
He shall laugh while mother sings
Tales of fishermen and kings.
He shall see them come and go
O'er the wistful sea,
Where rosy oleanders blow
Round blue Lake Galilee,
Kings with fishers' ragged coats
And silver nets across their boats
Dipping through the starry glow,
With crowns for him and me!
Ah, no;
Crowns for him, not me!
_Rockaby so! Indeed, it seems
A dream! Yet not like other dreams!_
V
Ah, see what a wonderful smile again!
Shall I hide it away in my heart,
To remember one day in a world of pain
When the years have torn us apart,
Little babe,
When the years have torn us apart?
Sleep, my little one, sleep,
Child with the wonderful eyes,
Wild miraculous eyes,
Deep as the skies are deep!
What star-bright glory of tears
Waits in you now for the years
That shall bid you waken and weep?
Ah, in that day, could I kiss you to sleep
Then, little lips, little eyes,
Little lips that are lovely and wise,
Little lips that are dreadful and wise!
VI
Clenched little hands like crumpled roses,
Dimpled and dear,
Feet like flowers that the dawn uncloses,
What do I fear?
Little hands, will you ever be clenched in anguish?
White little limbs, will you droop and languish?
Nay, what do I hear?
I hear a shouting, far away,
You shall ride on a kingly palm-strewn way
Some day!
But when you are crowned with a golden crown
And throned on a golden throne,
You'll forget the manger of Bethlehem town
And your mother that sits alone
Wondering whether the mighty king
Remembers a song she used to sing,
Long ago,--
"_Rockaby so,
Kings may have wonderful jewels to bring,
Mother has only a kiss for her king!_"...
Ah, see what a wonderful smile, once more!
He opens his great dark eyes!
Little child, little king, nay, hush, it is o'er,
My fear of those deep twin skies,--
Little child,
You are all too dreadful and wise!
VII
But now you are mine, all mine,
And your feet can lie in my hand so small,
And your tiny hands in my heart can twine,
And you cannot walk, so you never shall fall,
Or be pierced by the thorns beside the door,
Or the nails that lie upon Joseph's floor;
Through sun and rain, through shadow and shine,
You are mine, all mine!
ALFRED NOYES in _The Golden Hynde_
Copyrighted by Messrs. Blackwood in _Forty Singing Seamen_
VII
CHRISTMAS REVELS
[Illustration: CHRISTMAS REVELS]
Make me merry both more and less
The Feast of Saint Stephen in Venice
The Feast of Fools
The Feast of the Ass
The Revel of Sir Hugonin de Guisay, 1393
Revels of the Inner Temple--Inns of Court
King Witlaf's Drinking-Horn
Old Christmastide
Christmas Games in "Old Wardle's" Kitchen
A "Mystery" as performed in Mexico
[Illustration]
_Make me merry both more and less,
For now is the time of Christymas!_
Let no man come into this hall,
Groom, page, not yet marshall,
But that some sport he bring withal!
_For now is the time of Christmas!_
If that he say, he cannot sing,
Some other sport then let him bring!
That it may please at this feasting!
_For now is the time of Christmas!_
If he say he can naught do,
Then for my love ask him no mo!
But to the stocks then let him go!
_For now is the time of Christmas!_
_From a Balliol MS. of about 1540_
The Feast of Saint Stephen in Venice
The Doge's banquets especially took the importance of public
spectacles, and were always five in number, given at the feasts of
Saint Mark, the Ascension, Saint Vitus, Saint Jerome, and Saint
Stephen, after the last of which the distribution of the 'oselle' took
place, representing the ducks of earlier days, as the reader will
remember. At these great dinners there were generally a hundred guests;
the Doge's counsellors, the Heads of the Ten, the Avogadors and the
heads of all the other magistracies had a right to be invited, but the
rest of the guests were chosen among the functionaries at the Doge's
pleasure.
In the banquet-hall there were a number of side-boards on which was
exhibited the silver, part of which belonged to the Doge and part to
the State, and this was shown twenty-four hours before the feast. It
was under the keeping of a special official. The glass service used on
the table for flowers and for dessert was of the finest made in Murano.
Each service, though this is hard to believe, is said to have been used
in public only once, and was designed to recall some important event of
contemporary history by trophies, victories, emblems, and allegories.
I find this stated by Giustina Renier Michiel, who was a contemporary,
was noble, and must have often seen these banquets.
The public was admitted to view the magnificent spectacle during the
whole of the first course, and the ladies of the aristocracy went in
great numbers. It was their custom to walk round the tables, talking
with those of their friends who sat among the guests, and accepting the
fruits and sweetmeats which the Doge and the rest offered them, rising
from their seats to do so. The Doge himself rose from his throne to
salute those noble ladies whom he wished to distinguish especially.
Sovereigns passing through Venice at such times did not disdain to
appear as mere spectators at the banquets, which had acquired the
importance of national anniversaries.
Between the first and second courses, a majestic chamberlain shook a
huge bunch of keys while he walked round the hall, and at this hint
all visitors disappeared. The feast sometimes lasted several hours,
after which the Doge's squires presented each of the guests with a
great basket filled with sweetmeats, fruits, comfits, and the like, and
adorned with the ducal arms. Every one rose to thank the Doge for these
presents, and he took advantage of the general move to go back to his
private apartments. The guests accompanied him to the threshold, where
his Serenity bowed to them without speaking, and every one returned his
salute in silence. He disappeared within, and all went home.
During this ceremony of leave-taking, the gondoliers of the guests
entered the hall of the banquet and each carried the basket received
by his master to some lady indicated by the latter. "One may imagine,"
cries the good Dame Michiel, "what curiosity there was about the
destination of the baskets, but the faithful gondoliers regarded
mystery as a point of honour, though the basket was of such dimensions
that it was impossible to take it anywhere unobserved; happy were they
who received these evidences of a regard which at once touched their
feelings and flattered their legitimate pride! The greatest misfortune
was to have to share the prize with another."
F. MARION CRAWFORD in _Salve Venetia!_
The Feast of Fools
Beletus, who lived in 1182, mentions the Feast of Fools, as celebrated
in some places on New Year's day, in others on Twelfth Night and in
still others the week following. It seems at any rate to have been
one of the recognized revels of the Christmas season. In France, at
different cathedral churches there was a Bishop or an Archbishop of
Fools elected, and in the churches immediately dependent upon the papal
see a Pope of Fools.
These mock pontiffs had usually a proper suite of ecclesiastics, and
one of their ridiculous ceremonies was to shave the Precentor of Fools
upon a stage erected before the church in the presence of the jeering
"vulgar populace."
They were mostly attired in the ridiculous dresses of pantomime players
and buffoons, and so habited entered the church, and performed the
ceremony accompanied by crowds of followers representing monsters
or so disguised as to excite fear or laughter. During this mockery
of a divine service they sang indecent songs in the choir, ate rich
puddings on the corner of the altar, played at dice upon it during the
celebration of a mass, incensed it with smoke from old burnt shoes, and
ran leaping all over the church. The Bishop or Pope of Fools performed
the service and gave benediction, dressed in pontifical robes. When it
was concluded he was seated in an open carriage and drawn about the
town followed by his train, who in place of carnival confetti threw
filth from a cart upon the people who crowded to see the procession.
These "December liberties," as they were called, were always held at
Christmas time or near it, but were not confined to one particular day,
and seem to have lasted through the chief part of January. When the
ceremony took place upon St. Stephen's Day, they said as part of the
mass a burlesque composition, called the Fool's Prose, and upon the
festival of St. John the Evangelist, they had another arrangement of
ludicrous songs, called the Prose of the Ox.
WILLIAM HONE in _Ancient Mysteries_
The Feast of the Ass
As this was anciently celebrated in France, it almost entirely
consisted of dramatic show. It was instituted in honor of Balaam's ass,
and at one of them the clergy walked on Christmas Day in procession,
habited to represent the prophets and others.
Moses appeared in an alb and cope with a long beard and a rod. David
had a green vestment. Balaam, with an immense pair of spurs, rode on
a wooden ass which enclosed a speaker. There were also six Jews and
six Gentiles. Among other characters, the poet Virgil was introduced
singing monkish rhymes, as a Gentile prophet, and a translator of the
sibylline oracles. They thus moved in a procession through the body
of the church chanting versicles, and conversing in character on the
nativity and kingdom of Christ till they came into the choir.
This service, as performed in the cathedral at Rouen, commenced with
a procession in which the clergy represented the prophets of the
Old Testament who foretold the birth of Christ; then followed Balaam
mounted on his ass, Zacharias, Elizabeth, John the Baptist, the sibyl,
Erythree, Simeon, Virgil, Nebuchadnezzar, and the three children in the
furnace. After the procession entered the cathedral, several groups
of persons performed the parts of Jews and Gentiles, to whom the
choristers addressed speeches; afterwards they called on the prophets
one by one, who came forward successively and delivered a passage
relative to the Messiah. The other characters advanced to occupy their
proper situations, and reply in certain verses to the questions of the
choristers. They performed the miracle of the furnace; Nebuchadnezzar
spoke, the sibyl appeared at the last, and then an anthem was sung,
which concluded the ceremony.
The Missal of an Archbishop of Sens indicates that during such a
service, the animal itself, clad with precious priestly ornaments, was
solemnly conducted to the middle of the choir, during which procession
a hymn in praise of the ass was sung--ending with--
Amen! bray, most honour'd Ass,
Sated now with grain and grass:
Amen repeat, Amen reply,
And disregard antiquity.
_Hez va! hez va! hez va! hez!_
The service lasted the whole of a night and part of the next day, and
formed altogether the strangest, most ridiculous medley of whatever
was usually sung at church festivals. When the choristers were thirsty
wine was distributed; in the evening, on a platform before the church,
lit by an enormous lantern, the grand chanter of Sens led a jolly band
in performing broadly indecorous interludes. At respective divisions
of the service the ass was supplied with drink and provender. In
the middle of it, at the signal of a certain anthem, the ass being
conducted into the nave of the church, the people mixed with the clergy
danced around him, imitating his braying.
WILLIAM HONE in _Ancient Mysteries_
The Revel of Sir Hugonin de Guisay
Memorable as an illustration of the manners of the French Court was
a catastrophe that occurred in Paris in 1393. Riot and disorder had
run wild all through the Christmas festivities. But the Court was not
yet satisfied. Then Sir Hugonin de Guisay, most reckless among all
the reckless spirits of the period, suggested that as an excuse for
prolonging the merriment a marriage should be arranged between two of
the court attendants. This was eagerly agreed upon. Sir Hugonin assumed
the leadership, for which he was well fitted. He was loved and admired
by the disorderly as much as he was hated and feared by the orderly.
Among other pleasant traits, he was fond of exercising his wit upon
tradesmen and mechanics, whom he would accost in the street, prick with
his spurs, and compel to creep on all fours and bark like curs before
he released them. Such traits endeared him to the courtiers of the
young Most Gracious Majesty and Christian King of France. The marriage
passed off in a blaze of glory and accompaniments of Gargantuan
pleasantry. At the height of the ceremonies Sir Hugonin quietly
withdrew with the king and four other wild ones, scions of the noblest
houses in France. With a pot of tar and a quantity of tow the six
conspirators were speedily changed into a very fair imitation of the
dancing bears then very common in mountebanks' booths. A mask completed
the transformation. Five were then bound together with a silken rope.
The sixth, the king himself, led them into the hall.
Their appearance created a general stir. "Who are they?" was the cry.
Nobody knew. At this moment entered the wildest of all the wild Dukes
of Orleans. "Who are they?" he echoed between hiccoughs. "Well, we'll
soon find out." Seizing a brand from one of the torch bearers ranged
around the wall, he staggered forward. Some gentlemen essayed to stay
him. But he was obstinate and quarrelsome. Main force could not be
thought of against a prince of the blood. He was given his way. He
thrust his torch under the chin of the nearest of the maskers. The
tow caught fire. In a moment the whole group was in flames. The young
Duchess of Berri seized the king and enveloped him in her ample quilted
robe. Thus he was saved. Another masker, the Lord of Nanthouillet,
noted for strength and agility, rent the silken rope with a wrench of
his strong teeth, pitched himself like a flaming comet through the
first window, and dived into a cistern in the court, whence he emerged
black and smoking, but almost unhurt. As for the other four, they
whirled hither and thither through the horrified mob, struggling with
one another, fighting with the flames, cursing, shrieking with pain.
Women fainted by scores. Men who had never faltered in a hundred fights
sickened at the hideous spectacle. All Paris was roused by the uproar,
and gathered, an excited mob, about the palace. At last the flames
burnt out. The four maskers lay in a black and writhing heap upon the
floor. One was a mere cinder. A second survived until daybreak. A third
died at noon the next day. The fourth--none other than Sir Hugonin
himself--survived for three days, while all Paris rejoiced over his
agonies. "Bark, dog, bark," was the cry with which the citizens saluted
his charred and mangled corpse, when it was at last borne to the grave.
W. S. WALSH in _Curiosities of Popular Customs_
Revels of the Inner Temple--Inns of Court
On St. Stephen's Day, after the first course was served in, the
constable marshal was wont to enter the hall (and we think he had much
better have come in, and said all he had to say beforehand) bravely
arrayed with "a fair rich compleat harneys, white and bright and
gilt, with a nest of fethers, of all colours, upon his crest or helm,
and a gilt pole ax in his hand," and, no doubt, thinking himself a
prodigiously fine fellow. He was accompanied by the lieutenant of the
Tower, "armed with a fair white armour," also wearing "fethers," and
"with a pole ax in his hand," and of course also thinking himself a
very fine fellow. With them came sixteen trumpeters, preceded by four
drums and fifes, and attended by four men clad in white "harneys,"
from the middle upwards, having halberds in their hands, and bearing
on their shoulders a model of the Tower, and each and every one of
these latter personages, in his degree, having a consciousness that he,
too, was a fine fellow. Then all these fine fellows, with the drums
and music, and with all their "fethers" and finery, went three times
round the fire, whereas, considering that the boar's head was cooling
all the time, we think once might have sufficed. Then the constable
marshal, after three courtesies, knelt down before the Lord Chancellor,
with the lieutenant doing the same behind him, and then and there
deliberately proceeded to deliver himself of an "oration of a quarter
of an hour's length," the purport of which was to tender his services
to the Lord Chancellor, which, we think, at such a time, he might have
contrived to do in fewer words. To this the Chancellor was unwise
enough to reply that he would "take farther advice therein," when it
would have been much better for him to settle the matter at once, and
proceed to eat his dinner. However, this part of the ceremony ended
at last by the constable marshal and the lieutenant obtaining seats
at the Chancellor's table, upon the former giving up his sword; and
then enter, for a similar purpose, the master of the game, apparelled
in green velvet, and the ranger of the forest, in a green suit of
"satten," bearing in his hand a green bow, and "divers" arrows, "with
either of them a hunting-horn about their necks, blowing together three
blasts of venery." These worthies, also, thought it necessary to parade
their finery three times around the fire; and having then made similar
obeisances, and offered up a similar petition in a similar posture,
they were finally inducted into a similar privilege.
But though seated at the Chancellor's table, and no doubt sufficiently
roused by the steam of its good things, they were far enough as yet
from getting anything to eat, as a consequence; and the next ceremony
is one which strikingly marks the rudeness of the times. "A huntsman
cometh into the hall, with a fox, and a purse-net with a cat, both
bound at the end of a staff, and with them nine or ten couple of
hounds, with the blowing of hunting-horns. And the fox and the cat
are set upon by the hounds, and killed beneath the fire." "What this
'merry disport' signified (if practised) before the Reformation," says
a writer in Mr. Hone's Year Book, "I know not. In 'Ane compendious boke
of godly and spiritual songs, Edinburgh, 1621, printed from an old
copy,' are the following lines, seemingly referring to some pageant:--
'The hunter is Christ that hunts in haist,
The hunds are Peter and Pawle,
The paip is the fox, Rome is the Rox
That rubbis us on the gall.'"
After these ceremonies, the welcome permission to betake themselves to
the far more interesting one of an attack upon the good things of the
feast appears to have been at length given; but at the close of the
second course the subject of receiving the officers who had tendered
their Christmas service was renewed. Whether the gentlemen of the law
were burlesquing their own profession intentionally or whether it was
an awkward hit, like that which befell their brethren of Gray's Inn,
does not appear. However the common serjeant made what is called "a
plausible speech," insisting on the necessity of these officers "for
the better reputation of the Commonwealth;" and he was followed, to the
same effect, by the King's serjeant-at-law till the Lord Chancellor
silenced them by desiring a respite of further advice, which it is
greatly to be marvelled he had not done sooner.
And thereupon he called upon the "ancientest of the masters of the
revels" for a song,--a proceeding to which we give our unqualified
approbation.
T. K. HERVEY
King Witlaf's Drinking-Horn
Witlaf, a king of the Saxons,
Ere yet his last he breathed,
To the merry monks of Croyland
His drinking-horn bequeathed,--
That, whenever they sat at their revels,
And drank from the golden bowl,
They might remember the donor,
And breathe a prayer for his soul.
So sat they once at Christmas,
And bade the goblet pass;
In their beards the red wine glistened
Like dew-drops in the grass.
They drank to the soul of Witlaf,
They drank to Christ the Lord,
And to each of the Twelve Apostles,
Who had preached His holy word.
They drank to the Saints and Martyrs
Of the dismal days of yore,
And as soon as the horn was empty
They remembered one Saint more.
And the reader droned from the pulpit,
Like the murmur of many bees,
The legend of good Saint Guthlac,
And Saint Basil's homilies;
Till the great bells of the convent,
From their prison in the tower,
Guthlac and Bartholomæus,
Proclaimed the midnight hour.
And the Yule-log cracked in the chimney
And the Abbot bowed his head,
And the flamelets flapped and flickered
But the Abbot was stark and dead.
Yet still in his pallid fingers
He clutched the golden bowl,
In which, like a pearl dissolving,
Had sunk and dissolved his soul.
But not for this their revels
The jovial monks forbore,
For they cried, "Fill high the goblet!
We must drink to one Saint more."
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Old Christmastide
Heap on more wood!--the wind is chill;
But let it whistle as it will,
We'll keep our Christmas merry still.
Each age has deemed the new-born year
The fittest time for festal cheer.
Even heathen yet, the savage Dane
At Iol more deep the mead did drain;
High on the beach his galley drew,
And feasted all his pirate crew;
Then in his low and pine-built hall,
Where shields and axes decked the wall,
They gorged upon the half-dressed steer;
Caroused in seas of sable beer;
While round, in brutal jest, were thrown
The half-gnawed rib and marrow-bone,
Or listened all, in grim delight,
While scalds yelled out the joy of fight,
Then forth in frenzy would they hie,
While wildly loose their red locks fly;
And, dancing round the blazing pile,
They make such barbarous mirth the while,
As best might to the mind recall
The boisterous joys of Odin's hall.
And well our Christian sires of old
Loved when the year its course had rolled,
And brought blithe Christmas back again,
With all his hospitable train.
Domestic and religious rite
Gave honour to the holy night:
On Christmas eve the bells were rung;
On Christmas eve the mass was sung;
That only night, in all the year,
Saw the stoled priest the chalice rear.
The damsel donned her kirtle sheen;
The hall was dressed with holly green;
Forth to the wood did merry men go,
To gather in the mistletoe;
Then opened wide the baron's hall
To vassal, tenant, serf, and all;
Power laid his rod of rule aside,
And ceremony doffed his pride.
The heir, with roses in his shoes,
That night might village partner choose;
The lord, underogating, share
The vulgar game of "post and pair."
All hailed, with uncontrolled delight,
And general voice, the happy night
That to the cottage, as the crown,
Brought tidings of salvation down.
The fire, with well-dried logs supplied,
Went roaring up the chimney wide;
The huge hall-table's oaken face,
Scrubbed till it shone, the day to grace,
Bore then upon its massive board
No mark to part the squire and lord.
Then was brought in the lusty brawn
By old blue-coated serving man;
Then the grim boar's head frowned on high,
Crested with bays and rosemary.
Well can the green-garbed ranger tell,
How, when, and where, the monster fell;
What dogs before his death he tore,
And all the baiting of the boar.
The Wassail round, in good brown bowls,
Garnished with ribbons, blithely trowls.
There the huge sirloin reeked; hard by
Plum-porridge stood, and Christmas pie;
Nor failed old Scotland to produce,
At such high tide, her savoury goose.
Then came the merry masquers in,
And carols roared with blithesome din;
If unmelodious was the song,
It was a hearty note, and strong,
Who lists may in their mumming see
Traces of ancient mystery;
White shirts supplied the masquerade,
And smutted cheeks the vizors made:
But, O! what masquers, richly dight,
Can boast of bosoms half so light!
England was merry England, when
Old Christmas brought his sports again.
'Twas Christmas broached the mightiest ale;
'Twas Christmas told the merriest tale;
A Christmas gambol oft could cheer
The poor man's heart through half the year.
SIR WALTER SCOTT
Christmas Games in "Old Wardle's" Kitchen
[According to annual custom, on Christmas eve, observed by old
Wardle's forefathers from time immemorial.]
From the centre of the ceiling of this kitchen, old Wardle had just
suspended with his own hands a huge branch of mistletoe, and this
same branch of mistletoe instantaneously gave rise to a scene of
general and most delightful struggling of confusion; in the midst of
which Mr. Pickwick, with a gallantry which would have done honour
to a descendant of Lady Tollimglower herself, took the old lady by
the hand, led her beneath the mystic branch, and saluted her in all
courtesy and decorum. The old lady submitted to this piece of practical
politeness with all the dignity which befitted so important and serious
a solemnity, but the younger ladies, not being so thoroughly imbued
with a superstitious veneration of the custom, or imagining that the
value of a salute is very much enhanced if it cost a little trouble to
obtain it, screamed and struggled, and ran into corners, and threatened
and remonstrated, and did everything but leave the room, until some
of the less adventurous gentlemen were on the point of desisting, when
they all at once found it useless to resist any longer, and submitted
to be kissed with a good grace. Mr. Winkle kissed the young lady with
the black eyes, and Mr. Snodgrass kissed Emily; and Mr. Weller, not
being particular about the form of being under the mistletoe, kissed
Emma and the other female servants, just as he caught them. As to the
poor relations, they kissed everybody, not even excepting the plainer
portion of the young-lady visitors, who, in their excessive confusion,
ran right under the mistletoe, directly it was hung up, without knowing
it! Wardle stood with his back to the fire, surveying the whole scene
with the utmost satisfaction; and the fat boy took the opportunity of
appropriating to his own use, and summarily devouring, a particularly
fine mince-pie, that had been carefully put by for somebody else.
Now the screaming had subsided, and faces were in a glow and curls
in a tangle, and Mr. Pickwick, after kissing the old lady as
before-mentioned, was standing under the mistletoe, looking with a very
pleased countenance on all that was passing around him, when the young
lady with the black eyes, after a little whispering with the other
young ladies, made a sudden dart forward, and, putting her arm round
Mr. Pickwick's neck, saluted him affectionately on the left cheek;
and before Mr. Pickwick distinctly knew what was the matter, he was
surrounded by the whole body, and kissed by every one of them.
It was a pleasant thing to see Mr. Pickwick in the centre of the group,
now pulled this way, and then that, and first kissed on the chin and
then on the nose, and then on the spectacles, and to hear the peals
of laughter which were raised on every side; but it was a still more
pleasant thing to see Mr. Pickwick, blinded shortly afterwards with a
silk-handkerchief, falling up against the wall, and scrambling into
corners, and going through all the mysteries of blind-man's buff, with
the utmost relish for the game, until at last he caught one of the
poor relations; and then had to evade the blind-man himself, which he
did with a nimbleness and agility that elicited the admiration and
applause of all beholders. The poor relations caught just the people
whom they thought would like it; and when the game flagged, got caught
themselves. When they were all tired of blind-man's buff, there was a
great game at snap-dragon, and when fingers enough were burned with
that, and all the raisins gone, they sat down by the huge fire of
blazing logs to a substantial supper, and a mighty bowl of wassail,
something smaller than an ordinary wash-house copper, in which the hot
apples were hissing and bubbling with a rich look, and a jolly sound,
that were perfectly irresistible.
"This," said Mr. Pickwick, looking round him, "this is, indeed,
comfort."
"Our invariable custom," replied Mr. Wardle. "Everybody sits down with
us on Christmas eve, as you see them now--servants and all; and here
we wait till the clock strikes twelve, to usher Christmas in, and wile
away the time with forfeits and old stories. Trundle, my boy, rake up
the fire."
Up flew the bright sparks in myriads as the logs were stirred, and
the deep red blaze sent forth a rich glow, that penetrated into the
furthest corner of the room, and cast its cheerful tint on every face.
"Come," said Wardle, "a song--a Christmas song. I'll give you one, in
default of a better."
"Bravo," said Mr. Pickwick.
"Fill up," cried Wardle. "It will be two hours good before you see the
bottom of the bowl through the deep rich colour of the wassail; fill up
all round, and now for the song."
Thus saying, the merry old gentleman, in a good, round, sturdy voice,
commenced without more ado--
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
I care not for Spring; on his fickle wing
Let the blossoms and buds be borne:
He woos them amain with his treacherous rain,
And he scatters them ere the morn.
An inconstant elf, he knows not himself,
Or his own changing mind an hour,
He'll smile in your face, and with wry grimace,
He'll wither your youngest flower.
Let the Summer sun to his bright home run,
He shall never be sought by me;
When he's dimmed by a cloud I can laugh aloud,
And care not how sulky he be;
For his darling child is the madness wild
That sports in fierce fever's train;
And when love is too strong, it don't last long,
As many have found to their pain.
A mild harvest night, by the tranquil light
Of the modest and gentle moon,
Has a far sweeter sheen for me, I ween,
Than the broad and unblushing noon.
But every leaf awakens my grief,
As it lies beneath the tree;
So let Autumn air be never so fair,
It by no means agrees with me.
But my song I troll out, for Christmas stout,
The hearty, the true, and the bold;
A bumper I drain, and with might and main
Give three cheers for this Christmas old.
We'll usher him in with a merry din
That shall gladden his joyous heart,
And we'll keep him up while there's bite or sup,
And in fellowship good, we'll part.
In his fine honest pride, he scorns to hide
One jot of his hard-weather scars;
They're no disgrace, for there's much the same trace
On the cheeks of our bravest tars.
Then again I sing 'till the roof doth ring,
And it echoes from wall to wall--
To the stout old wight, fair welcome to-night,
As the King of the Seasons all!
This song was tumultuously applauded, for friends and dependents make
a capital audience; and the poor relations especially were in perfect
ecstasies of rapture. Again was the fire replenished, and again went
the wassail round.
CHARLES DICKENS
A "Mystery" as performed in Mexico
Against the wing-wall of the Hacienda del Mayo, which occupied one end
of the plaza, was raised a platform, on which stood a table covered
with scarlet cloth. A rude bower of cane-leaves, on one end of the
platform, represented the manger of Bethlehem; while a cord, stretched
from its top across the plaza to a hole in the front of the church,
bore a large tinsel star, suspended by a hole in its centre. There
was quite a crowd in the plaza, and very soon a procession appeared,
coming up from the lower part of the village. The three kings took the
lead; the Virgin, mounted on an ass that gloried in a gilded saddle
and rose-besprinkled mane and tail, followed them, led by the angel;
and several women, with curious masks of paper, brought up the rear.
Two characters, of the harlequin sort--one with a dog's head on his
shoulders, and the other a bald-headed friar, with a huge hat hanging
on his back--played all sorts of antics for the diversion of the
crowd. After making the circuit of the plaza, the Virgin was taken to
the platform, and entered the manger. King Herod took his seat at the
scarlet table, with an attendant in blue coat and red sash, whom I took
to be his Prime Minister. The three kings remained on their horses
in front of the church; but between them and the platform, under the
string on which the star was to slide, walked two men in long white
robes and blue hoods, with parchment folios in their hands. These were
the Wise Men of the East, as one might readily know from their solemn
air, and the mysterious glances which they cast towards all quarters of
the heavens.
In a little while, a company of women on the platform, concealed behind
a curtain, sang an angelic chorus to the tune of 'Opescator dell'
onda.' At the proper moment, the Magi turned towards the platform,
followed by the star, to which a string was conveniently attached, that
it might be slid along the line. The three kings followed the star
till it reached the manger, when they dismounted, and inquired for the
sovereign, whom it had led them to visit. They were invited upon the
platform, and introduced to Herod, as the only king; this did not seem
to satisfy them, and, after some conversation, they retired. By this
time the star had receded to the other end of the line, and commenced
moving forward again, they following. The angel called them into the
manger, where, upon their knees, they were shown a small wooden box,
supposed to contain the sacred infant; they then retired, and the star
brought them back no more. After this departure, King Herod declared
himself greatly confused by what he had witnessed, and was very much
afraid this newly found king would weaken his power. Upon consultation
with his Prime Minister, the Massacre of the Innocents was decided
upon, as the only means of security.
[Illustration: THE HOLY NIGHT. _Von Uhde._]
The angel, on hearing this, gave warning to the Virgin, who quickly got
down from the platform, mounted her bespangled donkey, and hurried off.
Herod's Prime Minister directed all the children to be handed up for
execution. A boy, in a ragged sarape, was caught and thrust forward;
the Minister took him by the heels in spite of his kicking, and held
his head on the table. The little brother and sister of the boy,
thinking he was really to be decapitated, yelled at the top of their
voices, in an agony of terror, which threw the crowd into a roar of
laughter. King Herod brought down his sword with a whack on the table,
and the Prime Minister, dipping his brush into a pot of white paint
which stood before him, made a flaring cross on the boy's face. Several
other boys were caught and served likewise; and, finally, the two
harlequins, whose kicks and struggles nearly shook down the platform.
The procession then went off up the hill, followed by the whole
population of the village. All the evening there were fandangoes in the
méson, bonfires and rockets on the plaza, ringing of bells, and high
mass in the church, with the accompaniment of two guitars, tinkling to
lively polkas.
BAYARD TAYLOR in _Eldorado_
VIII
WHEN ALL THE WORLD IS KIN
[Illustration: WHEN ALL THE WORLD IS KIN]
Christmas
Christmas Night of '62
Merry Christmas in the Tenements
Christmas at Sea
The First Christmas Tree in the Legation Compound, at Tokyo, Japan
Christmas in India
A Belgian Christmas Eve Procession
Christmas at the Cape
The "Good Night" in Spain
Christmas in Rome
Christmas in Burgundy
Christmas in Germany
Christmas Dinner in a Clipper's Fo'c'sle
Christmas in Jail
Colonel Carter's Christmas Tree
[Illustration]
But Christmas is not only the mile-mark of another year, moving
us to thoughts of self-examination,--it is a season, from all its
associations, whether domestic or religious, suggesting thoughts of
joy. A man dissatisfied with his endeavors is a man tempted to sadness.
And in the midst of winter, when his life runs lowest and he is
reminded of the empty chairs of his beloved, it is well that he should
be condemned to this fashion of the smiling face.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
Christmas Night of '62
The wintry blast goes wailing by,
The snow is falling overhead;
I hear the lonely sentry's tread,
And distant watch-fires light the sky.
Dim forms go flitting through the gloom;
The soldiers cluster round the blaze
To talk of other Christmas days,
And softly speak of home and home.
My sabre swinging overhead,
Gleams in the watch-fire's fitful glow,
While fiercely drives the blinding snow,
And memory leads me to the dead.
My thoughts go wandering to and fro,
Vibrating 'twixt the Now and Then;
I see the low-browed home agen,
The old hall wreathed with mistletoe.
And sweetly from the far off years
Comes borne the laughter faint and low,
The voices of the Long Ago!
My eyes are wet with tender tears.
I feel agen the mother kiss,
I see agen the glad surprise
That lighted up the tranquil eyes
And brimmed them o'er with tears of bliss,
As, rushing from the old hall-door,
She fondly clasped her wayward boy--
Her face all radiant with the joy
She felt to see him home once more.
My sabre swinging on the bough
Gleams in the watch-fire's fitful glow,
While fiercely drives the blinding snow
Aslant upon my saddened brow.
Those cherished faces all are gone!
Asleep within the quiet graves
Where lies the snow in drifting waves,--
And I am sitting here alone.
There's not a comrade here to-night
But knows that loved ones far away
On bended knees this night will pray:
"God bring our darling from the fight."
But there are none to wish me back,
For me no yearning prayers arise.
The lips are mute and closed the eyes--
My home is in the bivouac.
In the Army of Northern Virginia.
WILLIAM G. MCCABE
Quoted from W. P. Trent's _Southern Writers_
Merry Christmas in the Tenements
It was just a sprig of holly, with scarlet berries showing against the
green, stuck in, by one of the office boys probably, behind the sign
that pointed the way up to the editorial rooms. There was no reason
why it should have made me start when I came suddenly upon it at the
turn of the stairs; but it did. Perhaps it was because that dingy hall,
given over to dust and draughts all the days of the year, was the last
place in which I expected to meet with any sign of Christmas; perhaps
it was because I myself had nearly forgotten the holiday. Whatever the
cause, it gave me quite a turn.
I stood, and stared at it. It looked dry, almost withered. Probably it
had come a long way. Not much holly grows about Printing-House Square,
except in the colored supplements, and that is scarcely of a kind to
stir tender memories. Withered and dry, this did. I thought, with a
twinge of conscience, of secret little conclaves of my children, of
private views of things hidden from mamma at the bottom of drawers,
of wild flights when papa appeared unbidden in the door, which I had
allowed for once to pass unheeded. Absorbed in the business of the
office, I had hardly thought of Christmas coming on, until now it was
here. And this sprig of holly on the wall that had come to remind
me,--come nobody knew how far,--did it grow yet in the beechwood
clearings, as it did when I gathered it as a boy, tracking through
the snow? "Christ-thorn" we called it in our Danish tongue. The red
berries, to our simple faith, were the drops of blood that fell from
the Saviour's brow as it dropped under its cruel crown upon the
cross....
* * * * *
The lights of the Bowery glow like a myriad twinkling stars upon
the ceaseless flood of humanity that surges ever through the great
highway of the homeless. They shine upon long rows of lodging-houses,
in which hundreds of young men, cast helpless upon the reef of the
strange city, are learning their first lessons of utter loneliness;
for what desolation is there like that of the careless crowd when all
the world rejoices? They shine upon the tempter setting his snares
there, and upon the missionary and the Salvation Army lass, disputing
his catch with him; upon the police detective going his rounds with
coldly observant eye intent upon the outcome of the contest; upon
the wreck that is past hope, and upon the youth pausing on the verge
of the pit in which the other has long ceased to struggle. Sights
and sounds of Christmas there are in plenty in the Bowery. Balsam
and hemlock and fir stand in groves along the busy thoroughfare, and
garlands of green embower mission and dive impartially. Once a year
the old street recalls its youth with an effort. It is true that it
is largely a commercial effort; that the evergreen, with an instinct
that is not of its native hills, haunts saloon-corners by preference;
but the smell of the pine woods is in the air, and--Christmas is not
too critical--one is grateful for the effort. It varies with the
opportunity. At "Beefsteak John's" it is content with artistically
embalming crullers and mince-pies in green cabbage under the window
lamp. Over yonder, where the mile-post of the old lane still
stands,--in its unhonored old age become the vehicle of publishing the
latest "sure cure" to the world,--a florist, whose undenominational
zeal for the holiday and trade outstrips alike distinction of creed and
property, has transformed the sidewalk and the ugly railroad structure
into a veritable bower, spanning it with a canopy of green, under which
dwell with him, in neighborly good-will, the Young Men's Christian
Association and the Jewish tailor next door....
Down at the foot of the Bowery is the "panhandlers' beat," where the
saloons elbow one another at every step, crowding out all other
business than that of keeping lodgers to support them. Within call of
it, across the square, stands a church which, in the memory of men
yet living, was built to shelter the fashionable Baptist audiences
of a day when Madison Square was out in the fields, and Harlem had a
foreign sound. The fashionable audiences are gone long since. To-day
the church, fallen into premature decay, but still handsome in its
strong and noble lines, stands as a missionary outpost in the land of
the enemy, its builders would have said, doing a greater work than they
planned. To-night is the Christmas festival of its English-speaking
Sunday-school, and the pews are filled. The banners of United Italy,
of modern Hellas, of France and Germany and England, hang side by side
with the Chinese dragon and the starry flag-signs of the cosmopolitan
character of the congregation. Greek and Roman Catholics, Jews and
joss-worshippers, go there; few Protestants, and no Baptists. It is
easy to pick out the children in their seats by nationality, and as
easy to read the story of poverty and suffering that stands written in
more than one mother's haggard face, now beaming with pleasure at the
little ones' glee. A gayly decorated Christmas tree has taken the place
of the pulpit. At its foot is stacked a mountain of bundles, Santa
Claus's gifts to the school. A self-conscious young man with soap-locks
had just been allowed to retire, amid tumultuous applause, after
blowing "Nearer, my God, to Thee" on his horn until his cheeks swelled
almost to bursting. A trumpet ever takes the Fourth Ward by storm.
A class of little girls is climbing upon the platform. Each wears a
capital letter on her breast, and together they spell its lesson.
There is momentary consternation: one is missing. As the discovery is
made, a child pushes past the doorkeeper, hot and breathless. "I am
in 'Boundless Love,'" she says, and makes for the platform, where her
arrival restores confidence and the language.
In the audience the befrocked visitor from up-town sits cheek by jowl
with the pigtailed Chinaman and the dark-browed Italian. Up in the
gallery, farthest from the preacher's desk and the tree, sits a Jewish
mother with three boys, almost in rags. A dingy and threadbare shawl
partly hides her poor calico wrap and patched apron. The woman shrinks
in the pew, fearful of being seen; her boys stand upon the benches,
and applaud with the rest. She endeavors vainly to restrain them.
"Tick, tick!" goes the old clock over the door through which wealth and
fashion went out long years ago, and poverty came in....
Within hail of the Sullivan Street school camps a scattered little
band, the Christmas customs of which I had been trying for years to
surprise. They are Indians, a handful of Mohawks and Iroquois, whom
some ill wind has blown down from their Canadian reservation, and
left in these West Side tenements to eke out such a living as they
can, weaving mats and baskets, and threading glass pearls on slippers
and pin-cushions, until one after another they have died off and gone
to happier hunting-grounds than Thompson Street. There were as many
families as one could count on the fingers of both hands when I first
came upon them, at the death of old Tamenund, the basket maker. Last
Christmas there were seven. I had about made up my mind that the only
real Americans in New York did not keep the holiday at all, when one
Christmas eve they showed me how. Just as dark was setting in, old Mrs.
Benoit came from her Hudson Street attic--where she was known among the
neighbors, as old and poor as she, as Mrs. Ben Wah, and was believed
to be the relict of a warrior of the name of Benjamin Wah--to the
office of the Charity Organization Society, with a bundle for a friend
who had helped her over a rough spot--the rent, I suppose. The bundle
was done up elaborately in blue cheese-cloth, and contained a lot of
little garments which she had made out of the remnants of blankets and
cloth of her own from a younger and better day. "For those," she said,
in her French patois, "who are poorer than myself;" and hobbled away.
I found out, a few days later, when I took her picture weaving mats in
the attic room, that she had scarcely food in the house that Christmas
day and not the car fare to take her to church! Walking was bad, and
her old limbs were stiff. She sat by the window through the winter
evening and watched the sun go down behind the western hills, comforted
by her pipe. Mrs. Ben Wah, to give her her local name, is not really an
Indian; but her husband was one, and she lived all her life with the
tribe till she came here. She is a philosopher in her own quaint way.
"It is no disgrace to be poor," said she to me, regarding her empty
tobacco-pouch; "but it is sometimes a great inconvenience." Not even
the recollection of the vote of censure that was passed upon me once by
the ladies of the Charitable Ten for surreptitiously supplying an aged
couple, the special object of their charity, with army plug, could have
deterred me from taking the hint....
In a hundred places all over the city, when Christmas comes, as
many open-air fairs spring suddenly into life. A kind of Gentile
Feast of Tabernacles possesses the tenement districts especially.
Green-embowered booths stand in rows at the curb, and the voice of the
tin trumpet is heard in the land. The common source of all the show is
down by the North River, in the district known as "the Farm." Down
there Santa Claus establishes headquarters early in December and until
past New Year. The broad quay looks then more like a clearing in a pine
forest than a busy section of the metropolis. The steamers discharge
their loads of fir trees at the piers until they stand stacked mountain
high, with foot-hills of holly and ground-ivy trailing off toward the
land side. An army train of wagons is engaged in carting them away
from early morning till late at night; but the green forest grows, in
spite of it all, until in places it shuts the shipping out of sight
altogether. The air is redolent with the smell of balsam and pine.
After nightfall, when the lights are burning in the busy market, and
the homeward-bound crowds with baskets and heavy burdens of Christmas
greens jostle one another with good-natured banter,--nobody is ever
cross down here in the holiday season,--it is good to take a stroll
through the Farm, if one has a spot in his heart faithful yet to the
hills and the woods in spite of the latter-day city. But it is when the
moonlight is upon the water and upon the dark phantom forest, when the
heavy breathing of some passing steamer is the only sound that breaks
the stillness of the night, and the watchman smokes his only pipe on
the bulwark, that the Farm has a mood and an atmosphere all its own,
full of poetry which some day a painter's brush will catch and hold....
Farthest down town, where the island narrows toward the Battery, and
warehouses crowd the few remaining tenements, the sombre-hued colony of
Syrians is astir with preparation for the holiday. How comes it that
in the only settlement of the real Christmas people in New York the
corner saloon appropriates to itself all the outward signs of it? Even
the floral cross that is nailed over the door of the Orthodox church
is long withered and dead; it has been there since Easter, and it is
yet twelve days to Christmas by the belated reckoning of the Greek
Church. But if the houses show no sign of the holiday, within there is
nothing lacking. The whole colony is gone a-visiting. There are enough
of the unorthodox to set the fashion, and the rest follow the custom of
the country. The men go from house to house, laugh, shake hands, and
kiss one another on both cheeks, with the salutation, "Kol am va antom
Salimoon." "Every year and you are safe," the Syrian guide renders it
into English; and a non-professional interpreter amends it: "May you
grow happier year by year." Arrack made from grapes and flavored with
aniseseed, and candy baked in little white balls like marbles, are
served with the indispensable cigarette; for long callers, the pipe....
The bells in old Trinity chime the midnight hour. From dark hallways
men and women pour forth and hasten to the Maronite church. In the loft
of the dingy old warehouse wax candles burn before an altar of brass.
The priest, in a white robe with a huge gold cross worked on the back,
chants the ritual. The people respond. The women kneel in the aisles,
shrouding their heads in their shawls; a surpliced acolyte swings his
censer; the heavy perfume of burning incense fills the hall.
The band at the anarchists' ball is tuning up for the last dance. Young
and old float to the happy strains, forgetting injustice, oppression,
hatred. Children slide upon the waxed floor, weaving fearlessly in and
out between couples--between fierce, bearded men and short-haired women
with crimson-bordered kerchiefs. A Punch-and-Judy show in the corner
evokes shouts of laughter.
Outside the snow is falling. It sifts silently into each nook and
corner, softens all the hard and ugly lines, and throws the spotless
mantle of charity over the blemishes, the shortcomings. Christmas
morning will dawn pure and white.
JACOB RIIS in _Children of the Tenements_ (abridged)
Christmas at Sea
The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;
The decks were like a slide, where a seaman scarce could stand;
The wind was a nor'wester, blowing squally off the sea,
And the cliffs and spouting breakers were the only thing a-lee.
We heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day,
But 'twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.
We tumbled every hand on deck, instanter, with a shout,
And we gave her the maintops'l, and stood by to go about.
All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North;
All day we hauled the frozen sheets and got no further forth;
All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,
For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.
We gave the South a wider berth, for there the tide-race roared;
But every tack we made we brought the North Head close aboard:
So's we saw the cliffs and houses, and the breakers running high,
And the coast-guard in his garden, with his glass against his eye.
The frost was on the village roofs as white as ocean foam;
The good red fires were burning bright in every 'longshore home;
The windows sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed out,
And I vow we sniffed the victuals as the vessel went about.
The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty jovial cheer,
For it's just that I should tell you how (of all days in the year)
This day of our adversity was blessed Christmas morn,
And the house above the coast-guard's was the house where I was born.
O well I saw the pleasant room, the pleasant faces there,
My mother's silver spectacles, my father's silver hair;
And well I saw the firelight, like a flight of homely elves,
Go dancing round the china-plates that stand upon the shelves.
And well I know the talk they had, the talk that was of me,
Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea;
And O a wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way,
To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessed Christmas day!
They lit the high sea-light, and the dark began to fall.
"All hands to loose top-gallant sails," I heard the captain call.
"By the Lord, she'll never stand it," our first mate, Jackson, cried.
"It's the one way or the other, Mr. Jackson," he replied.
She staggered to her bearings, but the sails were new and good,
And the ship smelt up to windward just as though she understood.
As the winter's day was ending, in the entry of the night,
We cleared the weary headland and passed below the light.
And they heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board but me,
As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out to sea;
But all that I could think of, in the darkness and the cold,
Was just that I was leaving home and my folks were growing old.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
_By permission of Charles Scribner's Sons_
The First Christmas Tree in the Legation Compound at Tokyo, Japan
A huge Christmas tree, the first that had ever grown in our compound,
for the children of our servants and writers and employés, who make
up the number of our Legation population to close on two hundred,
beginning with H----, and ending with the last jinriksha coolie's
youngest baby. I could not have the tree on Christmas Day, owing to
various engagements; so it was fixed for January 3d, and was quite the
most successful entertainment I ever gave!
When I undertook it, I confess that I had no idea how many little ones
belonged to the compound. I sent our good Ogita round to invite them
all solemnly to come to Ichiban (Number One) on the 3d at five o'clock.
Ogita threw himself into the business with delighted goodwill, having
five little people of his own to include in the invitation; but all
the servants were eager to help as soon as they knew we were preparing
a treat for the children. That is work which would always appeal to
Japanese of any age or class. No trouble is too great, if it brings
pleasure to the "treasure flowers," as the babies are called. I am
still too ignorant of their special tastes to trust my own judgment
in the matter of presents; so Mr. G---- left the dictionary and the
Chancery for two or three afternoons, and helped me to collect an
appropriate harvest for the little hands to glean. Some of them were
not little, and these were more difficult to buy for; but after many
cold hours passed in the different bazaars, it seemed to me that there
must be something for everybody, although we had really spent very
little money.
The wares were so quaint and pretty that it was a pleasure to sort and
handle them. There were workboxes in beautiful polished woods, with
drawers fitting so perfectly that when you closed one the compressed
air at once shot out another. There were mirrors enclosed in charming
embroidered cases; for where mirrors are mostly made of metal, people
learn not to let them get scratched. There were dollies of every size,
and dolls' houses and furniture, kitchens, farmyards, rice-pounding
machines--all made in the tiniest proportions, such as it seemed
no human fingers could really have handled. For the elder boys we
bought books, school-boxes with every school requisite contained in a
square the size of one's hand, and penknives and scissors, which are
greatly prized as being of foreign manufacture. For decorations we
had an abundant choice of materials. I got forests of willow branches
decorated with artificial fruits; pink and white balls made of rice
paste, which are threaded on the twigs; surprise shells of the same
paste, two lightly stuck together in the form of a double scallop
shell, and full of miniature toys; kanzashi, or ornamental hairpins for
the girls, made flowers of gold and silver among my dark pine branches;
and I wasted precious minutes in opening and shutting these dainty
roses--buds until you press a spring, when they open suddenly into a
full-blown rose. But the most beautiful things on my tree were the
icicles, which hung in scores from its sombre foliage, catching rosy
gleams of light from our lamps as we worked late into the night. These
were--chopsticks, long glass chopsticks, which I discovered in the
bazaar; and I am sure Santa Klaus himself could not have told them from
icicles. Of course every present must be labelled with a child's name,
and here my troubles began. Ogita was told to make out a correct list
of names and ages, with some reference to the calling of the parents;
for even here rank and precedence must be observed, or terrible
heart-burnings might follow. The list came at last; and if it were
not so long, I would send it to you complete, for it was a curiosity.
Imagine such complicated titles as these: "Minister's second cook's
girl. Umé, age 2; Minister's servant's cousin's boy. Age 11"; "Student
interpreter's teacher's girl"; "Vice-Consul's jinriksha-man's boy."
And so it went on, till there were fifty-eight of them of all ages,
from one year up to nineteen. Some of them, indeed, were less than a
year old; and I was amused on the evening of the 2d at having the list
brought back to me with this note (Ogita's English is still highly
individual!): "Marked X is declined to the invitation." On looking
down the column, I found that ominous-looking cross only against one
name, that of Yasu, daughter of Ito Kanejiro, Mr. G----'s cook. This
recalcitrant little person turned out to be six weeks old--an early age
for parties even nowadays. Miss Yasu, having been born in November, was
put down in the following January as two years old, after the puzzling
Japanese fashion. Then I found that they would write boys as girls,
girls as boys, grown-ups as babies, and so on. Even at the last moment
a doll had to be turned into a sword, a toy tea-set into a workbox, a
history of Europe into a rattle; but people who grow Christmas trees
are prepared for such small contingencies, and no one knew anything
about it when on Friday afternoon the great tree slowly glowed into a
pyramid of light, and a long procession of little Japs was marshalled
in, with great solemnity and many bows, till they stood, a delighted,
wide-eyed crowd, round the beautiful shining thing, the first Christmas
tree any one of them had ever seen. It was worth all the trouble, to
see the gasp of surprise and delight, the evident fear that the whole
thing might be unreal and suddenly fade away. One little man of two
fell flat on his back with amazement, tried to rise and have another
look, and in so doing rolled over on his nose, where he lay quite
silent till his relatives rescued him. Behind the children stood the
mothers, quite as pleased as they, and with them one very old lady
with a little child on her back. She turned out to be the Vice-Consul's
jinriksha-man's grandmother; the wife of that functionary was dead, and
the old lady had to take her place in carrying about the poor little V.
C. J. R. S. M.'s boy baby.
The children stood, the little ones in front and the taller ones
behind, in a semicircle, and the many lights showed their bright
faces and gorgeous costumes, for no one would be outdone by another
in smartness--I fancy the poorer women had borrowed from richer
neighbours--and the result was picturesque in the extreme. The older
girls had their heads beautifully dressed, with flowers and pins and
rolls of scarlet crape knotted in between the coils; their dresses were
pale green or blue, with bright linings and stiff silk obis; but the
little ones were a blaze of scarlet, green, geranium pink, and orange,
their long sleeves sweeping the ground, and the huge flower patterns of
their garments making them look like live flowers as they moved about
on the dark velvet carpet. When they had gazed their fill, they were
called up to me one by one, Ogita addressing them all as "San" (Miss
or Mr.), even if they could only toddle, and I gave them their serious
presents with their names, written in Japanese and English, tied on
with red ribbon--an attention which, as I was afterwards told, they
appreciated greatly. It seemed to me that they never would end; their
size varied from a wee mite who could not carry its own toys to a tall
handsome student of sixteen, or a gorgeous young lady in green and
mauve crape and a head that must have taken the best part of a day to
dress.
In one thing they were all alike: their manners were perfect. There
was no pushing or grasping, no glances of envy at what other children
received, no false shyness in their sweet happy way of expressing
their thanks. I had for my helpers two somewhat antagonistic
volunteers--Sir Edwin Arnold, basking in Buddhistic calms, and Bishop
Bickersteth, intensely Anglican, severe-looking, ascetic. There had
already been some polite theological encounters at our table, and I
did not feel sure that the combination would prove a happy one. But
each man is a wonder of kind-heartedness in his own way; and my doubts
were replaced by sunshiny certainties, when I saw how they both began
by beaming at the children, and ended by beaming on one another. I
was puzzled by one thing about the children: although we kept giving
them sweets and oranges off the tree, every time I looked round the
big circle all were empty-handed again, and it really seemed as if
they must have swallowed the gifts, gold paper and ribbon and all. But
at last I noticed that their square hanging sleeves began to have a
strange lumpy appearance, like a conjurer's waistcoat just before he
produces twenty-four bowls of live goldfish from his internal economy;
and then I understood that the plunder was at once dropped into these
great sleeves so as to leave hands free for anything else that Okusama
might think good to bestow. One little lady, O'Haru San, aged three,
got so overloaded with goodies and toys that they kept rolling out of
her sleeves, to the great delight of the Brown Ambassador Dachshund,
Tip, who pounced on them like lightning, and was also convicted of
nibbling at cakes on the lower branches of the tree.
The bigger children would not take second editions of presents, and
answered, "Honourable thanks, I have!" if offered more than they
thought their share; but babies are babies all the world over! When
the distribution was finished at last, I got a Japanese gentleman to
tell them the story of Christmas, the children's feast; and then they
came up one by one to say "Sayonara" ("Since it must be," the Japanese
farewell), and "Arigato gozaimasu" ("The honourable thanks").
"Come back next year," I said; and then the last presents were given
out--beautiful lanterns, red, lighted, and hung on what Ogita calls
bumboos, to light the guests home with. One tiny maiden refused to go,
and flung herself on the floor in a passion of weeping, saying that
Okusama's house was too beautiful to leave, and she would stay with me
always--yes, she would! Only the sight of the lighted lantern, bobbing
on a stick twice as long as herself, persuaded her to return to her
own home in the servants' quarters. I stood on the step, the same step
where I had set the fireflies free one warm night last summer, and
watched the little people scatter over the lawns, and disappear into
the dark shrubberies, their round red lights dancing and shifting as
they went, just as if my fireflies had come back, on red wings this
time, to light my little friends to bed.
MARY CRAWFORD FRASER
Christmas in India
Dim dawn behind the tamarisks--the sky is saffron-yellow--
As the women in the village grind the corn,
And the parrots seek the river-side, each calling to his fellow
That the Day, the staring Eastern Day is born.
Oh the white dust on the highway! Oh the stenches in the byway!
Oh the clammy fog that hovers over earth!
And at Home they're making merry 'neath the white and scarlet berry--
What part have India's exiles in their mirth?
Full day behind the tamarisks--the sky is blue and staring--
As the cattle crawl afield beneath the yoke,
And they bear One o'er the field-path, who is past all hope or caring
To the ghat below the curling wreaths of smoke.
Call on Rama, going slowly, as ye bear a brother lowly--
Call on Rama--he may hear, perhaps, your voice!
With our hymn-books and our Psalters we appeal to other altars
And to-day we bid "good Christian men rejoice!"
High noon behind the tamarisks--the sun is hot above us--
As at Home the Christmas Day is breaking wan.
They will drink our healths at dinner--those who tell us how they love
us,
And forget us till another year be gone!
Oh the toil that needs no breaking! Oh the Heimweh, ceaseless, aching!
Oh the black dividing Sea and alien Plain!
Youth was cheap--wherefore we sold it. Gold was good--we hoped to hold
it,
And to-day we know the fulness of our gain.
Gray dusk behind the tamarisks--the parrots fly together--
As the sun is sinking slowly over Home;
And his last ray seems to mock us shackled in a lifelong tether
That drags us back howe'er so far we roam.
Hard her service, poor her payment--she in ancient, tattered raiment--
India, she the grim Stepmother of our kind.
If the year of life be lent her, if her temple's shrine we enter,
The door is shut--we may not look behind.
Black night behind the tamarisks--the owls begin their chorus--
As the conches from the temples cream and bray.
With the fruitless years behind us, and the hopeless years before us,
Let us honor, O my brothers, Christmas Day!
Call a truce, then, to our labors--let us feast with friends and
neighbors,
And be merry as the custom of our caste;
For if "faint and forced the laughter," and if sadness follow after,
We are richer by one mocking Christmas past.
RUDYARD KIPLING
_By permission of the author and Messrs. Methuen & Co._
A Belgian Christmas Eve Procession
A certain stir and bustle in the street evidently portended some
important event. Spectators, market-women; workmen and bloused
peasants, homeward bound with baskets emptied of eggs, chickens and
shapeless lumps of butter, began to congregate, mingling with some
score or so of that minor bourgeoisie that lives frugally on its
modest income and having overmuch leisure is greedy for a sight of
any street spectacle. There were idle troopers too belonging to the
cavalry, whose trumpets rang out shrilly ever and anon from the
barracks hard by; while a milk-woman on her rounds, with glittering
brass cans in the little green cart that her sturdy mastiff with his
brass-studded harness and red worsted tassels drew so easily, forgot
her customers as she secured for herself a place in the foremost
rank. Then children suddenly appeared, basket-laden, strewing the
street with flowers and cut fragments of colored paper until the rough
paving-stones all but disappeared beneath an irregular mosaic of red
and green and blue. The bells of neighboring churches sent forth with
common accord a joyous peal which was echoed by those of a monastery
on the farther side of my hotel, and through the gate of which I had
often seen the poor--such beggars as Sterne depicted--going in for
their daily dole of bread and soup. From afar came the boom and clang
of music, blended with the deep rich notes of chanting, as the head of
a procession came in sight.
It was difficult to believe that the town could have contained so many
girls--young, well dressed and pretty, as had been, by ecclesiastical
influence, or by social considerations, induced to walk in that
procession. They were of all ages, from the lisping child ill at
ease in her starched frock and white shoes, to the tall maiden,
carrying a heavy flag with the air of a Joan of Arc; but there they
were--squadrons of girls in white; bevies of girls in blue; companies
of girls in pink or lilac or maize color; all either actually bearing
some emblem or badge, or feigning to assist the progress of some shrine
or reliquary, or colossal crucifix, or group of images, by grasping
the end of one of the hundreds of bright ribbons that were attached to
these the central features and rallying points of the show. On, on they
streamed, walking demurely to the musical bassoon and serpent cornet
and drum, of clashing cymbal and piping clarionet, while the musicians,
collected from many a parish of city and suburbs, beat and blew their
best. Anon the music was hushed, and nothing broke the silence save the
deep voices of the chanting priests, and then arose the shrill singing
of many children as school after school, well drilled and officered
by nuns or friars, as the case might be,--marched on to swell the
apparently interminable array.
A marvellous effect was there of color and grouping, and a rare display
too of treasures ecclesiastic that seldom see the light of day. There
is nothing now in the market, were an empress the bidder, to equal
that old point lace just drawn forth from the oaken chest in which it
usually reposes, and which was the pious work of supple fingers that
crumbled to dust two centuries ago. Where can you find such goldsmith's
work as yonder casket, that in bygone ages was consecrated as the
receptacle of some wonder-working relic; or see such a triumph of art
as that jewelled chalice, the repoussé work of which was surely wrought
by fairy hammers, so light and delicate is the tracery?
... On, and onwards still, as if the whole feminine population of the
kingdom--between the ages of seven, say, and seven-and-twenty--had been
pressed into the service, swept the procession. Fresh bands of music,
new companies of chanting priests, of deep-voiced deacons whose scarlet
robes were all but hidden by costly lace, awakened the echoes of the
quiet streets. Chariots with bleeding hearts conspicuously borne aloft;
chariots with gigantic crucifixes; chariots resplendent as the sun,
with lavish display of cloth of gold, and tenanted by venerated images,
went lumbering by.
And still the children sang and the diapason of the chanting rolled
out like solemn thunder on the air, while at every instant some novel
feature of the ever varying spectacle claimed its meed of praise.
Prettiest, perhaps, of all the sights there was a little--a very
little--child, a beautiful boy with golden curls, fantastically clad
in raiment of camel's hair, who carried a tiny cross and led by a blue
ribbon a white lamb, highly trained, no doubt, since it followed with
perfect docility and exemplary meekness. A more charming model of
innocent infancy than this youthful representative of John the Baptist,
as with filleted head, small limbs seemingly bare, and blue eyes that
never wandered to the right or left, he slowly stepped on, none of the
great Italian masters ever drew....
The spectators, I noticed, behaved very variously. There were _esprit
forts_ clearly among the bourgeoisie looking on, who seemed coldly
indifferent to what they saw, if not actually hostile, and who declined
to doff their hats as the holiest images and the most hallowed
emblems were borne by. But the peasants one and all bared their heads
in reverence; and the milk-woman, with her cart and her cans, had
pulled her rosary, with its dark beads and brass medals, out of her
capacious pocket and was telling her beads as devoutly as her own
great-grandmother could have done.
Some rivalry there may possibly have been between the different
parishes which had sent forth their boys and girls, their bands and
flags, and the jealously guarded treasures from crypt and chancel and
sacristy to swell the pomp--Saint Jossé, with its famed old church, to
which pilgrims resort even from the banks of Loire and Rhine, could not
permit itself to be outshone by fashionable Saint Jacques, where it is
easy for a bland abbé, who knows the world of the salons, to collect
subscriptions that are less missed by the givers than a lost bet on
the races, or a luckless stake at baccarat. And Saint Ursula, grim
patroness of a network of ancient streets, where aristocratic mansions
of the mediæval type are elbowed by mean shops and hucksters' stalls,
yet tries to avoid the disgrace of being overcrowded by moneyed,
pushing parvenu All Saints, where tall new houses, radiant with terra
cotta and plate glass, shelter the rich proprietors of the still taller
brick chimneys that dominate a mass of workmen's dwellings on the
outskirts of the parish. But such a spirit of emulation only serves to
enhance the glitter of the show.
And now the clashing cymbals, and the boom and bray of the brass
instruments lately at their loudest, are hushed, that the rich thunder
of the chanting may be the better heard, and the spectators press
forward, or stand on tiptoe, to peer over the shoulders of those in
the foremost rank. Something was plainly to be looked for that was
regarded as the central pivot, or kernel, of the show. And here it
comes,--surrounded by chanting priests, and preceded by scarlet capped
and white robed acolytes swinging weighty censers, under his canopy
of state borne over his head by four stronger men, some dignitary of
the Church goes by. He wears no mitre--not even that of a bishop _in
partibus infidelium_--and therefore I conjecture him to be a dean. He
is at any rate splendid as jewels, and gold embroideries, and antique
lace can make him; and he walks beneath his gorgeous baldaquin of gold
and purple, chanting too, but in a thin reedy voice, for he is old,
and his hair, silver white, contrasts somewhat plaintively with the
magnificence that environs him as amidst clouds of steaming incense he
totters on. The bystanders begin to disperse, for it is getting late
and cold, and the shadows are beginning to creep from darkling nooks
and corners, and the spectacle is over. The procession is out of sight,
and fainter grow the sounds of the music and of the chanting. The last
spectator to depart was a young monk, with a pale face and dreamy eyes,
clad in the brown robes of his order, who during all this time had
knelt on the cold stones at the monastery gate, his lips moving as his
lean fingers grasped his rosary, and an expression of rapt devotion on
his wan countenance, that would have done credit to some hermit saint
of a thousand years ago when the crown of martyrdom was easy to find.
From _All the Year Round_
Christmas at the Cape
Your Christmas comes with holly leaves
And snow about your doors and eaves;
Our lighted windows, open wide,
Let in our summer Christmas tide;
And where the drifting moths may go--
Behold our tiny flakes of snow;
But carol, carol in the cold;
And carol, carol as ye may,--
We sing the merry songs of old
As merrily on Christmas Day.
Your hills are wrapped in rainy cloud,
Your sea in anger roars aloud;
But here our hills are veiled with haze
In harmonies of blues and grays;
The waters of two oceans meet
With friendly murmurs by our feet;
But carol, carol, Christmas Waits,
And carol, carol, as ye may,--
The Crickets by our doors and gates
Sing in the grace of Christmas Day.
The rain and sunshine of the Cape
Lie folded in the ripening grape,
And Stellenbosch and Drakenstein,
With bounteous orchard, field of vine,
And every spot that we pass by--
Lie burnished 'neath our Christmas sky;
So carol, carol in your snow
And carol, carol as ye may,--
We carol 'mid our blooms ablow,
The grace of Summer's Christmas Day.
JOHN RUNCIE
[Illustration: THE HOLY FAMILY WITH THE SHEPHERDS. _Titian._]
The "Good Night" in Spain
Who is he that has seen a Nativity and has not felt it? Who has not
found himself in his own home, in his own domain, there in that
fantastic world of cork and gummed paper, with its shadowy caves,
where a saintly anchorite prays before a crucifix--sweet and simple
anachronism, like that of the hunter who in a thicket of rosemary
shrubs aims his gun at a partridge large as a stork perched on
the tower of a hermitage, or that of the smuggler with his Spanish
cloak and slouch hat, who with a load of tobacco hides behind a paper
rock to give free passage to the three kings journeying in all their
glory along the lofty summits of those cork Alps? Who does not feel
an inexplicable pleasure at seeing that little donkey, laden with
firewood, passing over a proud bridge of paper stone? And that meadow
of milled green baize in which feed so tranquilly those little white
lambs! Does not that hoar frost so well imitated with steel filings
turn you cold? Do you not take comfort in the heat of that ruddy
bonfire which the shepherds are kindling to warm the Holy Child? Who
is not startled to discover, under the strips of glass which represent
so well a frozen river, the fish, the tortoises, the crabs, reposing
with all ease upon a bed of golden sand and swollen to dimensions
unknown to naturalists? Here is a crab under whose claws can pass an
eel, his neighbor, as under the arch of a bridge. Here is a colossal
rat regarding with a bullying air a diminutive and peaceful kitten.
Over yonder a donkey is disputing with a rabbit about the respective
magnificence of their ears, which are, in fact, of the same size, and
a bull is holding a similar discussion, on the subject of horns, with
a snail, while a stout duck refuses to yield the honors to a rickety
swan. And these birds of all colors, gladdening that profound forest of
little evergreens which forms the background of this enchanting scene,
would you not think that they had gathered here from the four quarters
of the earth? Does it not make you happy to see the shepherds dance?
And, above all, do you not adore with tender reverence the Divine
Mystery contained in that humble porch with its thatch of straw and,
in its depths, a halo or glory of light? I say it frankly,--on that
holy and merry Christmas Eve, all these things seem to me to live and
feel; these little figures of clay, shaped by clumsy hands, placed
there with such faith and such devotion, seem to me to receive breath
and being from the joy and enthusiasm that reign. The star which guides
the Magi, tinsel and glass though it is, seems to me to shine and shoot
forth rays. The aureole surrounding the manger where the Holy Child is
lying seems to glow not as a transparency with candles placed behind
it, but with a reflection of celestial light. The tambourines and drums
and songs give out melodies as simple and as pleasing as if they were
echoes of those heard by the shepherds on that first blest Christmas
Eve.
Could there be a festival more joyous, more natural, more tender in
appeal and at the same time more exalted in significance--the birth
of the Child in the rude stable, with only shepherds to wish him joy;
innocence, poverty, simplicity, the very foundations of the magnificent
structure of Christianity? Well may children and the poor keep a merry
Christmas. They bring to God the gifts which please him best,--purity,
faith and love. O, night, well called in Spain "The Good Night,"
blither than the carnival and holy as Holy Week itself!
From _Holy Night_, by FERNAN CABALLERO. Translated by Katharine Lee
Bates
Christmas in Rome
What is the meaning of our English Christmas? What makes it seem so
truly Northern, national, and homely, that we do not like to keep the
feast upon a foreign shore? These questions grew upon me as I stood
one Advent afternoon beneath the Dome of Florence....
The same thought pursued me as I drove to Rome by Siena, still and
brown, uplifted mid her russet hills and wilderness of rolling plain;
by Chiusi, with its sepulchral city of a dead and unknown people;
through the chestnut forests of the Apennines; by Orvieto's rock,
Viterbo's fountains, and the oak-grown solitudes of the Ciminian
heights, from which one looks across the broad Lake of Bolsena and the
Roman plain. Brilliant sunlight, like that of a day in late September,
shone upon the landscape, and I thought--Can this be Christmas? Are
they bringing mistletoe and holly on the country carts into the towns
in far-off England? Is it clear and frosty there, with the tramp of
heels upon the flag, or snowing silently, or foggy, with a round red
sun and cries of warning at the corners of the streets?
I reached Rome on Christmas-eve in time to hear midnight services in
the Sistine Chapel and St. John Lateran, to breathe the dust of decayed
shrines, to wonder at doting cardinals begrimed with snuff, and to
resent the open-mouthed bad taste of my countrymen, who made a mockery
of these palsy-stricken ceremonies. Nine cardinals going to sleep,
nine train-bearers talking scandal, twenty huge, handsome Switzers in
the dress devised by Michael Angelo, some ushers, a choir caged off
by gilded railings, the insolence and eagerness of polyglot tourists,
plenty of wax candles dripping on people's heads, and a continual nasal
drone proceeding from the gilded cage, out of which were caught at
intervals these words, and these only--"Sæcula Sæculorum, amen." Such
was the celebrated Sistine service. The chapel blazed with light, and
very strange did Michael Angelo's Last Judgment, his Sibyls, and his
Prophets appear upon the roof and wall above this motley and unmeaning
crowd.
Next morning I put on my dress-clothes and white tie and repaired,
with groups of Englishmen similarly attired, and of Englishwomen in
black crape (the regulation costume), to St. Peter's. It was a glorious
and cloudless morning; sunbeams streamed in columns from the southern
windows, falling on the vast space full of soldiers and a mingled
mass of every kind of people. Up the nave stood double files of the
pontifical guard. Monks and nuns mixed with the Swiss cuirassiers and
halberds. _Contadini_ crowded round the sacred images, and especially
round the toe of St. Peter. I saw many mothers lift their swaddled
babies up to kiss it. Valets of cardinals, with the invariable red
umbrellas, hung about side chapels and sacristies. Purple-mantled
_monsignori_, like emperor butterflies, floated down the aisles from
sunlight into shadow. Movement, color, and the stir of expectation
made the church alive. We showed our dress-clothes to the guard,
were admitted within their ranks, and solemnly walked up towards the
dome. There, under its broad canopy, stood the altar, glittering with
gold and candles. The choir was carpeted and hung with scarlet. Two
magnificent thrones rose ready for the Pope. Guards of honor, soldiers,
attachés, and the élite of the residents and visitors in Rome were
scattered in groups, picturesquely varied by ecclesiastics of all
orders and degrees. At ten a stirring took place near the great west
door. It opened, and we saw a procession of the Pope and his cardinals.
Before him marched the singers and the blowers of the silver trumpets,
making the most liquid melody. Then came his Cap of Maintenance and
three tiaras; then a company of mitred priests; next the cardinals in
scarlet; and last, aloft beneath a canopy upon the shoulders of men,
and flanked by the mystic fans, advanced the Pope himself, swaying to
and fro like a Lama or an Aztec king. Still the trumpets blew most
silverly, and still the people knelt; and as he came, we knelt and had
his blessing. Then he took his state and received homage. After this
the choir began to sing a mass of Palestrina's, and the deacons robed
the Pope. Marvellous putting on and taking off of robes and tiaras
and mitres ensued, during which there was much bowing and praying and
burning of incense. At last, when he had reached the highest stage of
sacrificial sanctity, he proceeded to the altar, waited on by cardinals
and bishops. Having censed it carefully, he took a higher throne and
divested himself of part of his robes. Then the mass went on in earnest
till the moment of consecration, when it paused, the Pope descended
from his throne, passed down the choir, and reached the altar. Every
one knelt; the shrill bell tinkled; the silver trumpets blew; the
air became sick and heavy with incense, so that sun and candle-light
swooned in an atmosphere of odorous cloud-wreaths. The whole church
trembled, hearing the strange subtle music vibrate in the dome, and
seeing the Pope with his own hands lift Christ's body from the altar
and present it to the people. An old parish priest, pilgrim from some
valley of the Apennines, who knelt beside me, cried and quivered with
excess of adoration. The great tombs around, the sculptured saints
and angels, the dome, the volumes of light and incense and unfamiliar
melody, the hierarchy ministrant, the white and central figure of the
Pope, the multitude, made up an overpowering scene.
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
Christmas in Burgundy
Every year at the approach of Advent, people refresh their memories,
clear their throats, and begin preluding, in the long evenings by
the fireside, those carols whose invariable and eternal theme is the
coming of the Messiah. They take from old closets pamphlets, little
collections begrimed with dust and smoke, to which the press, and
sometimes the pen, has consigned these songs; and as soon as the first
Sunday of Advent sounds, they gossip, they gad about, they sit together
by the fireside, sometimes at one house, sometimes at another, taking
turns in paying for the chestnuts and white wine, but singing with
one common voice the grotesque praises of the _Little Jesus_. There
are very few villages even, which, during all the evenings of Advent,
do not hear some of these curious canticles shouted in their streets,
to the nasal drone of bagpipes. In this case the minstrel comes as a
reinforcement to the singers at the fireside; he brings and adds his
dose of joy (spontaneous or mercenary, it matters little which) to the
joy which breathes around the hearth-stone; and when the voices vibrate
and resound, one voice more is always welcome. There, it is not the
purity of the notes which makes the concert, but the quantity,--_non
qualitas, sed quantitas_; then (to finish at once with the minstrel)
when the Saviour has at length been born in the manger, and the
beautiful Christmas Eve is passed, the rustic piper makes his round
among the houses, where every one compliments and thanks him, and,
moreover, gives him in small coin the price of the shrill notes with
which he has enlivened the evening entertainments.
More or less until Christmas Eve, all goes on in this way among our
devout singers, with the difference of some gallons of wine or some
hundreds of chestnuts. But this famous eve once come, the scale is
pitched upon a higher key; the closing evening must be a memorable
one. The toilet is begun at nightfall; then comes the hour of supper,
admonishing divers appetites; and groups, as numerous as possible, are
formed to take together this comfortable evening repast. The supper
finished, a circle gathers around the hearth, which is arranged and
set in order this evening after a particular fashion, and which at a
later hour of the night is to become the object of special interest to
the children. On the burning brands an enormous log has been placed.
This log assuredly does not change its nature, but it changes its
name during this evening: it is called the _Suche_ (the Yule-log).
"Look you," say they to the children, "if you are good this evening,
Noël" (for with children one must always personify) "will rain down
sugar-plums in the night." And the children sit demurely, keeping as
quiet as their turbulent little natures will permit. The groups of
older persons, not always as orderly as the children, seize this good
opportunity to surrender themselves with merry hearts and boisterous
voices to the chanted worship of the miraculous Noël. For this final
solemnity, they have kept the most powerful, the most enthusiastic, the
most electrifying carols. Noël! Noël! Noël! this magic word resounds
on all sides; it seasons every sauce, it is served up with every
course. Of the thousands of canticles which are heard on this famous
eve, ninety-nine in a hundred begin and end with this word; which
is, one may say, their Alpha and Omega, their crown and footstool.
This last evening, the merry-making is prolonged. Instead of retiring
at ten or eleven o'clock, as is generally done on all the preceding
evenings, they wait for the stroke of midnight: this word sufficiently
proclaims to what ceremony they are going to repair. For ten minutes or
a quarter of an hour, the bells have been calling the faithful with a
triple-bobmajor; and each one, furnished with a little taper streaked
with various colors (the Christmas Candle) goes through the crowded
streets, where the lanterns are dancing like Will-o'-the-Wisps, at
the impatient summons of the multitudinous chimes. It is the Midnight
Mass. Once inside the church, they hear with more or less piety the
Mass, emblematic of the coming of the Messiah. Then in tumult and
great haste they return homeward, always in numerous groups; they
salute the Yule-log; they pay homage to the hearth; they sit down at
table; and, amid songs which reverberate louder than ever, make this
meal of after-Christmas, so long looked for, so cherished, so joyous,
so noisy, and which it has been thought fit to call, we hardly know
why, _Rossignon_. The supper eaten at nightfall is no impediment,
as you may imagine, to the appetite's returning; above all, if the
going to and from church has made the devout eaters feel some little
shafts of the sharp and biting north-wind. _Rossignon_ then goes on
merrily,--sometimes far into the morning hours; but, nevertheless,
gradually throats grow hoarse, stomachs are filled, the Yule-log burns
out, and at last the hour arrives when each one, as best he may,
regains his domicile and his bed, and puts with himself between the
sheets the material for a good sore-throat, or a good indigestion, for
the morrow. Previous to this, care has been taken to place in the
slippers, or wooden shoes of the children, the sugar-plums, which shall
be for them, on their waking, the welcome fruits of the Christmas log.
In the Glossary, the _Suche_, or Yule-log, is thus defined:--
"This is a huge log, which is placed on the fire on Christmas Eve, and
which in Burgundy is called, on this account, _lai Suche de Noël_. Then
the father of the family, particularly among the middle classes, sings
solemnly Christmas carols with his wife and children, the smallest of
whom he sends into the corner to pray that the Yule-log may bear him
some sugar-plums. Meanwhile, little parcels of them are placed under
each end of the log, and the children come and pick them up, believing,
in good faith, that the great log has borne them."
M. FERTIAULT. Translated by Henry W. Longfellow
Christmas in Germany
BERLIN, _December_ 25, 1871
To-day is Christmas day, and I have thought much of you all at home,
and have wondered if you've been having an apathetic time as usual. I
think we often spend Christmas in a most shocking fashion in America,
and I mean to revolutionize all that when I get back. So long a time
in Germany has taught me better. Here it is a season of universal joy,
and everybody enters into it. Last night we had a Christmas tree at the
S.'s, as we always do. We went there at half past six, and it was the
prettiest thing to see in every house, nearly, a tree just lighted,
or in process of being so. As a separate family lives on each floor,
often in one house would be three trees, one above the other, in the
front rooms. The curtains are always drawn up, to give the passers-by
the benefit of it. They don't make a fearful undertaking of having a
Christmas tree here, as we do in America, and so they are attainable
by everybody. The tree is small, to begin with, and nothing is put on
it except the tapers and bonbons. It is fixed on a small stand in the
centre of a large square table covered with a white cloth, and each
person's presents are arranged in a separate pile around it. The tree
is only lighted for the sake of beauty, and for the air of festivity
it throws over the thing.--After a crisp walk in the moonlight (which
I performed in the style of "Johnny-look-up-in-the-air," for I was
engaged in staring into house-windows, so far as it was practicable),
we sat down to enjoy a cup of tea and a piece of cake. I had just
begun my second cup, when, Presto! the parlour doors flew open, and
there stood the little green tree, blossoming out into lights, and
throwing its gleams over the well-laden table. There was a general
scramble and a search for one's own pile, succeeded by deep silence and
suspense while we opened the papers. Such a hand shaking and embracing
and thanking as followed! concluding with the satisfactory conviction
that we each had "just what we wanted." Germans do not despise the
utilitarian in their Christmas gifts, as we do, but, between these and
their birthday offerings, expect to be set up for the rest of the year
in the necessaries of life as well as in its superfluities. Presents of
stockings, underclothes, dresses, handkerchiefs, soaps--nothing comes
amiss. And every one must give to every one else. That is LAW.
AMY FAY in _Music-Study in Germany_.
Christmas Dinner in a Clipper's Fo'c'sle
Christmas Day we were running before a fine westerly gale for the mouth
of the channel. We had been hove to for forty-eight hours; for, though
we had sighted Fayal in the Azores, the Scotchman was afraid to run
because the sun was obscured and he couldn't get an observation. So he
lay under lower main topsail and fore topmast staysail, and let the
fine fair wind blow away while he waited for the sun to come out so he
could find out where he was. Not much like Captain Hurlburt in the old
Tanjore. Early Christmas morning, a little topsail schooner--one of the
fleet of clippers known as "Western Island Fruiters"--came flying along
before the wind like a little butterfly, and, seeing the big ship hove
to, I suppose they thought there must be something the matter with her;
so they kindly ran under our stern and hailed. After finding out where
we were from, and where bound, the skipper asked us what was the matter.
"Nothing," said Russell.
"Well," said the schooner skipper, "what are ye hove to for?"
Russell told him he wanted to get a "sight" to find his position.
"Foller me, you blahsted fool," said the skipper, and putting up his
helm he left us. It must have been the sight of that little schooner
running so confidently that shamed him, for he squared away and made
sail at once. The cook had killed the pig the day before, so we were
to have fresh meat, that is, baked pork and plum duff, with sauce, for
our Christmas dinner. Although I could not eat much of anything, I
looked forward with great anticipations to the fresh meat which I was
anxious to taste. When the watch was called at half-past eleven, she
was running dead before, and rolling both rails under; for iron ships
are proverbially wet. Some call them "diving bells." Three men went to
the galley: one for the duff, one for the pork, and the other for the
duff sauce.
They got their grub and started forward. Just as they got nicely clear
of the deck-house, where there was nothing to protect them, she gave a
heavy roll to port, scooping up several tons of water over the rail;
then she rolled as far to starboard, doing the same trick again. And
now the decks being full of water level with both rails, a big sea
raised her stern high in air. The fellow who had the pork yelled for
somebody to open the door, and somebody did, with the result that as
her stern went up the three men with the grub and a tidal wave of salt
water all came into the forecastle together.
Oh, what a merry Christmas that was! The whole watch were sitting
on their chests waiting for their dinner, or perhaps some were not
entirely dressed when that green sea came in. It washed all the men and
chests up into the eyes of her, and drowned out all the lower bunks.
The pork and duff went somewhere. The sauce, of course, disappeared
entirely. Every man was soaked, and so was every rag of clothing
belonging to the whole watch, except the bedding in the upper bunks,
and that was pretty well wet from the splashing. Fortunately, I had the
upper bunk next the door, so that it all went by me, and I expected the
splashing caused by the sudden stoppage of the water by the bows. After
the flood had subsided, there came a jawing match.
"Who hollered to open that door?" "No." "But what bloody fool opened
it?"
So and so.
"You're a liar!"
I thought there would be a general row, but they were too wet and too
cold and disheartened to fight about anything. They pulled their chests
out from under each other, satisfied themselves that they didn't own a
dry stitch for a change, and then, fishing out the pork and duff from
under the bunks, threw the latter overboard, and made a sorry Christmas
dinner on semi-saturated fresh pork and hardtack.
HERBERT ELLIOTT HAMBLEN in _On Many Seas_
Christmas in Jail
"Richard Marston, I charge you with unlawfully taking, stealing, and
carrying away, in company with others, one thousand head of mixed
cattle, more or less, the property of one Walter Hood, of Outer Back,
Momberah, in or about the month of June last."
"All right; why don't you make it a few more while you're about it?"
"That'll do," he said, nodding his head; "you decline to say anything.
Well, I can't exactly wish you a merry Christmas--fancy this being
Christmas Eve, by Jove!--but you'll be cool enough this deuced hot
weather till the sessions in February, which is more than some of us
can say. Good-night." He went out and locked the door. I sat down on my
blanket on the floor and hid my head in my hands. I wonder it didn't
burst with what I felt then. Strange that I shouldn't have felt half as
bad when the judge, the other day, sentenced me to be a dead man in a
couple of months. But I was young then.
* * * * *
Christmas Day! Christmas Day! So this is how I was to spend it after
all, I thought, as I woke up at dawn, and saw the gray light just
beginning to get through the bars of the window of the cell.
Here was I locked up, caged, ironed, disgraced, a felon and an outcast
for the rest of my life. Jim, flying for his life, hiding from every
honest man, every policeman in the country looking after him, and
authorized to catch him or shoot him down like a sheep-killing dog.
Father living in the Hollow, like a black-fellow in a cave, afraid
to spend the blessed Christmas with his wife and daughter, like the
poorest man in the land could do if he was only honest. Mother half
dead with grief, and Aileen ashamed to speak to the man that loved and
respected her from her childhood. Gracey Storefield not daring to think
of me or say my name, after seeing me carried off a prisoner before
her eyes. Here was a load of misery and disgrace heaped up together,
to be borne by the whole family, now and for the time to come--by the
innocent as well as the guilty. And for what? Because we had been too
idle and careless to work regularly and save our money, though well
able to do it, like honest men. Because, little by little, we had let
bad dishonest ways and flash manners grow upon us, all running up an
account that had to be paid some day.
And now the day of reckoning had come--sharp and sudden with a
vengeance! Well, what call had we to look for anything else? We had
been working for it; now we had got it, and had to bear it. Not for
want of warning, neither. What had mother and Aileen been saying ever
since we could remember? Warning upon warning. Now the end had come
just as they said. Of course I knew in a general way that I couldn't be
punished or be done anything to right off. I knew law enough for that.
The next thing would be that I should have to be brought up before
the magistrates and committed for trial as soon as they could get any
evidence.
After breakfast, flour and water or hominy, I forget which, the warder
told me that there wasn't much chance of my being brought up before
Christmas was over. The police magistrate was away on a month's leave,
and the other magistrates would not be likely to attend before the end
of the week, anyway. So I must make myself comfortable where I was.
Comfortable!
ROLF BOLDREWOOD in _Robbery under Arms_
Colonel Carter's Christmas Tree
Soon there stole over every one in the room that sense of peace and
contentment which always comes when one is at ease in an atmosphere
where love and kindness reign. The soft light of the candles, the low,
rich color of the simple room with its festoons of cedar and pine, the
aroma of the rare wine, and especially the spicy smell of the hemlock
warmed by the burning tapers--that rare, unmistakable smell which only
Christmas greens give out and which few of us know but once a year, and
often not then; all had their effect on host and guests. Katy became
so happy that she lost all fear of her father and prattled on to Fitz
and me (we had pinned to her frock the rose the Colonel had bought for
the "grown-up daughter," and she was wearing it just as Aunt Nancy
wore hers), and Aunt Nancy in her gentle voice talked finance to Mr.
Klutchem in a way that made him open his eyes, and Fitz laughingly
joined in, giving a wide berth to anything bearing on "corners" or
"combinations" or "shorts" and "longs," while I, to spare Aunt Nancy,
kept one eye on Jim,[1] winking at him with it once or twice when he
was about to commit some foolishness, and so the happy feast went on.
[1] "Jim" is the pickaninny in buttons, who, as Chad says, "looks like
he's busted out with brass measles."
As to the Colonel, he was never in better form. To him the occasion was
the revival of the old Days of Plenty--the days his soul coveted and
loved: his to enjoy, his to dispense.
But if it had been delightful before, what was it when Chad, after
certain mysterious movements in the next room, bore aloft the crowning
glory of the evening, and placed it with all its candles in the centre
of the table, the Colonel leaning far back in his chair to give him
room, his coat thrown wide, his face aglow, his eyes sparkling with the
laughter that always kept him young!
Then it was that the Colonel, gathering under his hand a little sheaf
of paper lamplighters which Chad had twisted, rose from his seat,
picked up a slender glass that had once served his father ("only seben
o' dat kind left," Chad told me) and which that faithful servitor had
just filled from the flow of the old decanter of like period, and with
a wave of his hand as if to command attention, said, in a clear, firm
voice that indicated the dignity of the occasion: "My friends,--my
vehy dear friends, I should say, for I can omit none of you--certainly
not this little angel who has captured our hearts, and surely not
our distinguished guest, Mr. Klutchem, who has honored us with his
presence,--befo' I kindle with the torch of my love these little
beacons which are to light each one of us on our way until another
Christmas season overtakes us; befo', I say, these sparks burst into
life, I want you fill yo' glasses (Chad had done that to the brim--even
little Katy's) and drink to the health and happiness of the lady on my
right, whose presence is always a benediction and whose loyal affection
is one of the sweetest treasures of my life!"
Everybody except the dear lady stood up--even little Katy--and
Aunt Nancy's health was drunk amid her blushes, she remarking to
Mr. Klutchem that George would always embarrass her with these too
flattering speeches of his, which was literally true, this being the
fourth time I had heard similar sentiments expressed in the dear lady's
honor.
This formal toast over, the Colonel's whole manner changed. He was no
longer the dignified host conducting the feast with measured grace.
With a spring in his voice and a certain unrestrained joyousness, he
called to Chad to bring him a light for his first lamplighter. Then,
with the paper wisp balanced in his hand, he began counting the several
candles, peeping into the branches with the manner of a boy.
"One--two--three--fo'--yes, plenty of them, but we are goin' to begin
with the top one. This is yours, Nancy--this little white one on the
vehy tip-top. Gentlemen, this top candle is always reserved for Miss
Caarter," and the lighted taper kindled it into a blaze. "Just like yo'
eyes, my dear, burnin' steadily and warmin' everybody," and he tapped
her hand caressingly with his fingers. "And now, where is that darlin'
little Katy's--she must have a white one, too--here it is. Oh, what a
brave little candle! Not a bit of sputterin' or smoke. See, dearie,
what a beautiful blaze! May all your life be as bright and happy. And
here is Mr. Klutchem's right alongside of Katy's--a fine red one. There
he goes, steady and clear and strong--And Fitz--dear old Fitz. Let's
see what kind of a candle Fitz should have. Do you know, Fitz, if I
had my way, I'd light the whole tree for you. One candle is absurd for
Fitz! There, Fitz, it's off--another red one! All you millionnaires
must have red candles! And the Major! Ah, the Major!"--and he held out
his hand to me--"Let's see--yaller? No, that will never do for you,
Major. Pink? That's better. There now, see how fine you look and how
evenly you burn--just like yo' love, my dear boy, that never fails me."
The circle of the table was now complete; each guest had a candle
alight, and each owner was studying the several wicks as if the future
could be read in their blaze: Aunt Nancy with a certain seriousness. To
her the custom was not new; the memories of her life were interwoven
with many just such top candles,--one I knew of myself, that went out
long, long ago, and has never been rekindled since.
The Colonel stopped, and for a moment we thought he was about to take
his seat, although some wicks were still unlighted--his own among them.
Instantly a chorus of voices went up: "You have forgotten your own,
Colonel--let me light one for you," etc., etc. Even little Katy had
noticed the omission, and was pulling at my sleeve to call attention
to the fact: the Colonel's candle was the only one she really cared
for. "One minute," cried the Colonel. "Time enough; the absent ones
fust"--and he stooped down and peered among the branches--"yes,--that's
just the very one. This candle, Mr. Klutchem, is for our old Mammy
Henny, who is at Caarter Hall, carin' for my property, and who must be
pretty lonely to-day--ah, there you go, Mammy!--blazin' away like one
o' yo' own fires!"
Three candles now were all that were left unlighted; two of them side
by side on the same branch, a brown one and a white one, and below
these a yellow one standing all alone.
The Colonel selected a fresh taper, kindled it in the flame of Aunt
Nancy's top candle, and turning to Chad, who was standing behind his
chair, said:--
"I'm goin' to put you, Chad, where you belong,--right alongside of me.
Here, Katy, darlin', take this taper and light this white candle for
me, and I'll light the brown one for Chad," and he picked up another
taper, lighted it, and handed it to the child.
"Now!"
As the two candles flashed into flame, the Colonel leaned over, and
holding out his hand to the old servant--boys together, these two, said
in a voice full of tenderness:--
"Many years together, Chad,--many years, old man."
Chad's face broke into a smile as he pressed the Colonel's hand.
"Thank ye, marster," was all he trusted himself to say--a title the
days of freedom had never robbed him of--and then he turned his head to
hide the tears.
During the whole scene little Jim had stood on tiptoe, his eyes growing
brighter and brighter as each candle flashed into a blaze. Up to the
time of the lighting of the last guest candle his face had expressed
nothing but increasing delight. When, however, Mammy Henny's candle,
and then Chad's were kindled, I saw an expression of wonderment
cross his features which gradually settled into one of profound
disappointment.
But the Colonel had not yet taken his seat. He had re-lighted the
taper--this time from Mammy Henny's candle--and stood with it in his
hand, peering into the branches as if looking for something he had lost.
"Ah, here's another. I
wonder--who--this--little--yaller--candle--can--be--for," he said
slowly, looking around the room and accentuating each word. "I reckon
they're all here. Let me see--Aunt Nancy, Mr. Klutchem, Katy, Fitz,
the Major, Mammy Henny, Chad, and me. Yes--all here. Oh!"--and he
looked at the boy with a quizzical smile on his face--"I came vehy near
forgettin'.
"This little yaller candle is Jim's."
F. HOPKINSON SMITH in _Colonel Carter's Christmas_
_Copyright, 1903, by Charles Scribner's Sons_
IX
CHRISTMAS STORIES
[Illustration: CHRISTMAS STORIES]
Christmas Roses
The Fir Tree
The Christmas Banquet
A Christmas Eve in Exile
The Rehearsal of the Mummers' Play
[Illustration]
"It was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if
any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us,
and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed,
GOD BLESS US,
EVERY ONE."
CHARLES DICKENS
Christmas Roses
When our guests were gone Pelleas and I sat for some while beside the
drawing-room fire. They had brought us a box of Christmas roses and
these made sweet the room as if with a secret Spring--a Little Spring,
such as comes to us all, now and then, through the year. And it was the
enchanted hour, when Christmas eve has just passed and no one is yet
awakened by the universal note of Get-Your-Stocking-Before-Breakfast.
"For that matter," Pelleas said, "every day is a loving cup, only some
of us see only one of its handles: Our own."
And after a time:--
"Isn't there a legend," he wanted to know, "or if there isn't one there
ought to be one, that the first flowers were Christmas roses and that
you can detect their odour in all other flowers? I'm not sure," he
warmed to the subject, "but that they say if you look steadily, with
clear eyes, you can see all about every flower many little lines, in
the shape of a Christmas rose!"
Of course nothing beautiful is difficult to believe. Even in the
windows of the great florists, where the dear flowers pose as if for
their portraits, we think that one looking closely through the glass
may see in their faces the spirit of the Christmas roses. And when the
flowers are made a gift of love the spirit is set free. Who knows?
Perhaps the gracious little spirit is in us all, waiting for its
liberty in our best gifts.
And at thought of gifts I said, on Christmas eve of all times, what had
been for some time in my heart:--
"Pelleas, we ought--we really ought, you know, to make a new will."
The word casts a veritable shadow on the page as I write it. Pelleas,
conscious of the same shadow, moved and frowned.
"But why, Etarre?" he asked; "I had an uncle who lived to be ninety."
"So will you," I said, "and still--"
"He began translating Theocritus at ninety," Pelleas continued
convincingly.
"I'll venture he had made his will by then, though," said I.
"Is that any reason why I should make mine?" Pelleas demanded. "I
_never_ did the things my family did."
"Like living until ninety?" I murmured.
O, I could not love Pelleas if he was never unreasonable. It seems to
me that the privilege of unreason is one of the gifts of marriage; and
when I hear The Married chiding each other for the exercise of this
gift I long to cry: Is it not tiresome enough in all conscience to have
to keep up a brave show of reason for one's friends, without wearing a
uniform of logic in private? Laugh at each other's unreason for your
pastime, and Heaven bless you!
Pelleas can do more than this: He can laugh at his own unreason. And
when he has done so:--
"Ah, well, I know we ought," he admitted, "but I do so object to the
literary style of wills."
It has long been a sadness of ours that the law makes all the poor
dead talk alike in this last office of the human pleasure, so that
cartman and potentate and philosopher give away their chattels to the
same dreary choice of forms. No matter with what charming propriety
they have in life written little letters to accompany gifts, most
sensitively shading the temper of bestowal, yet in the majesty of
their passing they are forced into a very strait-jacket of phrasing so
that verily, to bequeath a thing to one's friend is well-nigh to throw
it at him. Yes, one of the drawbacks to dying is the diction of wills.
Pelleas meditated for a moment and then laughed out.
"Telegrams," said he, "are such a social convenience in life that I
don't see why they don't extend their function. Then all we should need
would be two witnesses, ready for anything, and some yellow telegraph
blanks, and a lawyer to file the messages whenever we should die,
telling all our friends what we wish them to have."
At once we fell to planning the telegrams, quite as if the Eye of the
Law knew what it is to wrinkle at the corners.
As,
MRS. LAWRENCE KNIGHT,
Little Rosemont,
L. I.
I wish you to have my mother's pearls and her mahogany and my Samarcand
rug and my Langhorne Plutarch and a kiss.
AUNT ETARRE
and
MR. ERIC CHARTERS,
To His Club.
Come to the house and get the Royal Sevres tea-service on which you
and Lisa had your first tea together and a check made out to you in my
check book in the library table drawer.
UNCLE PELLEAS
And so on, with the witnesses' names properly in the corners.
"Perfect," said I with enthusiasm. "O Pelleas, let us get a bill
through to this effect."
"But we may live to be only ninety, you know," he reminded me.
We went to the window, presently, and threw it open to the chance of
hearing the bird of dawning singing all night long in the Park, which
is of course, in New York, where it sings on Star of Bethlehem night.
We did not hear it, but it is something to have been certain that it
was there. And as we closed the casement,
"After all," Pelleas said seriously, "the Telegraph Will Bill would
have to do only with property. And a will ought to be concerned with
soberer matters."
So it ought, in spite of its dress of diction, rather like the motley.
"A man," Pelleas continued, "ought to have something more important to
will away than his house and his watch and his best bed. A man's poor
soul, now--unless he is an artist, which he probably is not--has no
chance verbally to leave anybody anything."
"It makes its will every day," said I.
"Even so," Pelleas contended, "it ought to die rich if it's anything of
a soul."
And that is true enough.
"Suppose," Pelleas suggested, "the telegrams were to contain something
like this: 'And from my spirit to yours I bequeath the hard-won
knowledge that you must be true from the beginning. But if by any
chance you have not been so, then you must be true from the moment that
you know.' Why not?"
Why not, indeed?
"I think that would be mine to give," Pelleas said reflectively; "and
what would yours be, Etarre?" he asked.
At that I fell in sudden abashment. What could I say? What would I
will my poor life to mean to any one who chances to know that I have
lived at all? O, I dare say I should have been able to formulate many a
fine-sounding phrase about the passion for perfection, but confronted
with the necessity I could think of nothing save a few straggling
truths.
"I don't know," said I uncertainly; "I am sure of so little, save
self-giving. I should like to bequeath some knowledge of the magic of
self-giving. Now Nichola," I hazarded, to evade the matter, "would no
doubt say: 'And from my soul to your soul this word about the universe:
_Helping is why_.'"
"But you--you, Etarre," Pelleas persisted; "what would the real You
will to others, in this mortuary telegram?"
And as I looked at him I knew.
"O Pelleas," I said, "I think I would telegraph to every one: 'From my
spirit to your spirit, some understanding of the preciousness of love.
And the need to keep it true.'"
I shall always remember with what gladness he turned to me. I wished
that his smile and our bright hearth and our Christmas roses might
bless every one.
"I wanted you to say that," said Pelleas.
ZONA GALE in _The Loves of Pelleas and Etarre_
The Fir Tree
Far away in the deep forest there once grew a pretty Fir Tree; the
situation was delightful, the sun shone full upon him, the breeze
played freely around him, and in the neighbourhood grew many companion
fir trees, some older, some younger. But the little Fir Tree was
not happy: he was always longing to be tall; he thought not of the
warm sun and the fresh air; he cared not for the merry, prattling
peasant children who came to the forest to look for strawberries and
raspberries. Except, indeed, sometimes, when after having filled their
pitchers, or threaded the bright berries on a straw, they would sit
down near the little Fir Tree, and say, "What a pretty little tree this
is!" and then the Fir Tree would feel very much vexed.
Year by year he grew, a long green shoot sent he forth every year; for
you may always tell how many years a fir tree has lived by counting the
number of joints in its stem.
"Oh, that I was as tall as the others are," sighed the little Tree,
"then I should spread out my branches so far, and my crown should look
out over the wide world around! the birds would build their nests among
my branches, and when the wind blew I should bend my head so grandly,
just as the others do!"
He had not pleasure in the sunshine, in the song of the birds, or in
the birds, or in the red clouds that sailed over him every morning and
evening.
In the winter time, when the ground was covered with the white,
glistening snow, there was a hare that would come continually
scampering about, and jumping right over the little Tree's head--and
that was most provoking! However, two winters passed away, and by the
third the Tree was so tall that the hare was obliged to run around it.
"Oh! to grow, to grow, to become tall and old, that is the only thing
in the world worth living for;"--so thought the Tree.
The wood cutters came in the autumn and felled some among the largest
of the trees; this happened every year, and our young Fir, who was
by this time a tolerable height, shuddered when he saw those grand,
magnificent trees fall with a tremendous crash, crackling to the earth:
their boughs were then all cut off. Terribly naked, and lanky, and long
did the stem look after this--they could hardly be recognized. They
were laid one upon another in wagons, and horses drew them away, far,
far away, from the forest. Where could they be going? What might be
their fortunes?
So next spring, when the Swallows and the Storks had returned from
abroad, the Tree asked them, saying, "Know you not whither they are
taken? have you not met them?"
The swallows knew nothing about the matter, but the Stork looked
thoughtful for a moment, then nodded his head, and said: "Yes, I
believe I have seen them! As I was flying from Egypt to this place I
met several ships; those ships had splendid masts. I have little doubt
that they were the trees that you speak of; they smelled like fir wood.
I may congratulate you, for they sailed gloriously, quite gloriously!"
"Oh, that I, too, were tall enough to sail upon the sea! Tell me what
it is, this sea, and what it looks like."
"Thank you, it would take too long, a great deal!" said the Stork, and
away he stalked.
"Rejoice in thy youth!" said the Sunbeams; "rejoice in thy luxuriant
youth, in the fresh life that is within thee!"
And the Wind kissed the Tree, and the Dew wept tears over him, but the
Fir Tree understood them not.
When Christmas approached, many quite young trees were felled--trees
which were some of them not so tall or of just the same height as the
young restless Fir Tree who was always longing to be away. These young
trees were chosen from the most beautiful, their branches were not cut
off, they were laid in a wagon, and horses drew them away, far, far
away from the forest.
"Where are they going?" asked the Fir Tree. "They are not larger than
I am; indeed, one of them was much less. Why do they keep all their
branches? where can they be gone?"
"We know! we know!" twittered the Sparrows. "We peeped in through
the windows of the town below! we know where they are gone! Oh, you
cannot think what honour and glory they receive! We looked through
the window-panes and saw them planted in a warm room, and decked out
with such beautiful things--gilded apples, sweetmeats, playthings, and
hundreds of bright candles!"
"And then?" asked the Fir Tree, trembling in every bough; "and then?
what happened then?"
"Oh, we saw no more. That was beautiful, beautiful beyond compare!"
"Is this glorious lot destined to be mine?" cried the Fir Tree, with
delight. "This is far better than sailing over the sea. How I long for
the time! Oh, that I were even now in the wagon! that I were in the
warm room, honoured and adorned! and then--yes, then, something still
better must happen, else why should they take the trouble to decorate
me? it must be that something still greater, still more splendid, must
happen--but what? Oh, I suffer, I suffer with longing! I know not what
it is that I feel!"
"Rejoice in our love!" said the Air and the Sunshine. "Rejoice in thy
youth and thy freedom!"
But rejoice he never would: he grew and grew, in winter as in summer
he stood there clothed in green, dark green foliage; the people that
saw him said, "That is a beautiful tree!" and, next Christmas, he was
the first that was felled. The axe struck sharply through the wood,
the tree fell to the earth with a heavy groan; he suffered an agony, a
faintness, that he had never expected. He quite forgot to think of his
good fortune, he felt such sorrow at being compelled to leave his home,
the place whence he had sprung; he knew that he should never see again
those dear old comrades, or the little bushes and flowers that had
flourished under his shadow, perhaps not even the birds. Neither did he
find the journey by any means pleasant.
The Tree first came to himself when, in the court-yard to which he
first was taken with the other trees, he heard a man say, "This is a
splendid one, the very thing we want!"
Then came two smartly dressed servants, and carried the Fir Tree into
a large and handsome saloon. Pictures hung on the walls, and on the
mantel-piece stood large Chinese vases with lions on the lids; there
were rocking-chairs, silken sofas, tables covered with picture-books,
and toys that had cost a hundred times a hundred rix-thalers--at least
so said the children. And the Fir Tree was planted in a large cask
filled with sand, but no one could know that it was a cask, for it was
hung with green cloth and placed upon the carpet woven of many gay
colours. Oh, how the Tree trembled! What was to happen next? A young
lady, assisted by the servants, now began to adorn him.
Upon some branches they hung little nets cut out of coloured paper,
every net filled with sugar-plums; from others gilded apples and
walnuts were suspended, looking just as if they had grown there; and
more than a hundred little wax tapers, red, blue, and white, were
placed here and there among the boughs. Dolls, that looked almost like
men and women,--the Tree had never seen such things before,--seemed
dancing to and fro among the leaves, and highest, on the summit, was
fastened a large star of gold tinsel; this was, indeed, splendid,
splendid beyond compare! "This evening," they said, "this evening it
will be lighted up."
"Would that it were evening!" thought the Tree. "Would that the lights
were kindled, for then--what will happen then? Will the trees come out
of the forest to see me? Will the sparrows fly here and look in through
the window-panes? Shall I stand here adorned both winter and summer?"
He thought much of it; he thought till he had bark-ache with longing,
and bark-aches with trees are as bad as head-aches with us. The candles
were lighted,--oh, what a blaze of splendour! the Tree trembled in all
his branches, so that one of them caught fire. "Oh, dear!" cried the
young lady, and it was extinguished in great haste.
So the Tree dared not tremble again; he was so fearful of losing
something of his splendour, he felt almost bewildered in the midst
of all this glory and brightness. And now, all of a sudden, both
folding-doors were flung open, and a troop of children rushed in as
if they had a mind to jump over him. The older people followed more
quietly; the little ones stood quite silent, but only for a moment!
then their jubilee burst forth afresh; they shouted till the walls
re-echoed, they danced round the Tree, one present after another was
torn down.
"What are they doing?" thought the Tree; "what will happen
now!" And the candles burned down to the branches, so they were
extinguished,--and the children were given leave to plunder the Tree.
Oh! they rushed upon him in such riot, that the boughs all crackled;
had not his summit been festooned with the gold star to the ceiling he
would have been overturned.
The children danced and played about with their beautiful playthings;
no one thought any more of the Tree except the old nurse, who came and
peeped among the boughs, but it was only to see whether perchance a fig
or an apple had not been left among them.
"A story, a story!" cried the children, pulling a short, thick man
toward the Tree. He sat down, saying, "It is pleasant to sit under the
shade of green boughs; besides, the Tree may be benefited by hearing
my story. But I shall only tell you one. Would you like to hear about
Ivedy Avedy, or about Humpty Dumpty, who fell downstairs, and yet came
to the throne and won the Princess?"
"Ivedy Avedy!" cried some; "Humpty Dumpty!" cried others; there was
a famous uproar; the Fir Tree alone was silent, thinking to himself,
"Ought I to make a noise as they do? or ought I to do nothing at all?"
for he most certainly was one of the company, and had done all that had
been required of him.
And the short, thick man told the story of Humpty Dumpty, who fell
downstairs, and yet came to the throne and won the Princess. And the
children clapped their hands and called out for another; they wanted
to hear the story of Ivedy Avedy also, but they did not get it. The
Fir Tree stood meanwhile quite silent and thoughtful--the birds in
the forest had never related anything like this. "Humpty Dumpty fell
downstairs, and yet was raised to the throne and won the Princess!
Yes, yes, strange things come to pass in the world!" thought the Fir
Tree, who believed it must all be true, because such a pleasant man
had related it. "Ah, ah! who knows but I may fall downstairs and win a
Princess?" And he rejoiced in the expectation of being next day again
decked out with candles and playthings, gold and fruit.
"To-morrow I will not tremble," thought he. "I will rejoice in my
magnificence. To-morrow I shall again hear the story of Humpty Dumpty,
and perhaps that about Ivedy Avedy likewise," and the Tree mused
thereupon all night.
In the morning the maids came in.
"Now begins my state anew!" thought the Tree. But they dragged him out
of the room, up the stairs, and into an attic-chamber, and there thrust
him into a dark corner, where not a ray of light could penetrate. "What
can be the meaning of this?" thought the Tree. "What am I to do here?
What shall I hear in this place?" And he leant against the wall, and
thought, and thought. And plenty of time he had for thinking it over,
for day after day and night after night passed away, and yet no one
ever came into the room. At last somebody did come in, but it was only
to push into the corner some old trunks; the Tree was now entirely
hidden from sight, and apparently entirely forgotten.
"It is now winter," thought the Tree. "The ground is hard and covered
with snow; they cannot plant me now, so I am to stay here in shelter
till the spring. Men are so clever and prudent! I only wish it were
not so dark and dreadfully lonely! not even a little hare! Oh, how
pleasant it was in the forest, when the snow lay on the ground and the
hare scampered about,--yes, even when he jumped over my head, though I
did not like it then. It is so terribly lonely here."
"Squeak, squeak!" cried a little Mouse, just then gliding forward.
Another followed; they snuffed about the Fir Tree, and then slipped in
and out among the branches.
"It is horribly cold!" said the little Mice. "Otherwise it is very
comfortable here. Don't you think so, you old Fir Tree?"
"I am not old," said the Fir Tree; "there are many who are much older
than I am."
"How came you here?" asked the Mice, "and what do you know?" They were
most uncommonly curious. "Tell us about the most delightful place on
earth. Have you ever been there? Have you been into the store room,
where cheeses lie on the shelves, and bacon hangs from the ceiling;
where one can dance over tallow candles; where one goes in thin and
comes out fat?"
"I know nothing about that," said the Tree, "but I know the forest,
where the sun shines and where the birds sing!" and then he spoke of
his youth and its pleasures. The little Mice had never heard anything
like it before; they listened so attentively and said, "Well, to be
sure! how much you have seen! how happy you have been!"
"Happy!" repeated the Fir Tree, in surprise, and he thought a moment
over all that he had been saying,--"Yes, on the whole, those were
pleasant times!" He then told them about the Christmas eve, when he
had been decked out with cakes and candles.
"Oh!" cried the little Mice, "how happy you have been, you old Fir
Tree!"
"I am not old at all!" returned the Fir; "it is only this winter that I
have left the forest; I am just in the prime of life!"
"How well you can talk!" said the little Mice; and the next night they
came again, and brought with them four other little Mice, who wanted
also to hear the Tree's history; and the more the Tree spoke of his
youth in the forest, the more vividly he remembered it, and said,
"Yes, those were pleasant times! but they may come again, they may
come again! Humpty Dumpty fell downstairs, and for all that he won
the Princess; perhaps I, too, may win a Princess;" and then the Fir
Tree thought of a pretty little delicate Birch Tree that grew in the
forest,--a real Princess, a very lovely Princess, was she to the Fir
Tree.
"Who is this Humpty Dumpty?" asked the little Mice. Whereupon he
related the tale; he could remember every word of it perfectly: and
the little Mice were ready to jump to the top of the Tree for joy. The
night following several more Mice came, and on Sunday came also two
Rats; they, however, declared that the story was not at all amusing,
which much vexed the little Mice, who, after hearing their opinion,
could not like it so well either.
"Do you know only that one story?" asked the Rats.
"Only that one!" answered the Tree; "I heard it on the happiest evening
of my life, though I did not then know how happy I was."
"It is a miserable story! Do you know none about pork and tallow?--no
store-room story?"
"No," said the Tree.
"Well, then, we have heard enough of it!" returned the Rats, and they
went their ways.
The little Mice, too, never came again. The Tree sighed. "It was
pleasant when they sat round me, those busy little Mice, listening to
my words. Now that, too, is all past! however, I shall have pleasure in
remembering it, when I am taken away from this place."
But when would that be? One morning, people came and routed out the
lumber room; the trunks were taken away, the Tree, too, was dragged out
of the corner; they threw him carelessly on the floor, but one of the
servants picked him up and carried him downstairs. Once more he beheld
the light of day.
"Now life begins again!" thought the Tree; he felt the fresh air, the
warm sunbeams--he was out in the court. All happened so quickly that
the Tree quite forgot to look at himself,--there was so much to look
at all around. The court joined a garden, everything was so fresh and
blooming, the roses clustered so bright and so fragrant round the
trellis-work, the lime-trees were in full blossom, and the swallows
flew backwards and forwards, twittering, "Quirri-virri-vit, my beloved
is come!" but it was not the Fir Tree whom they meant.
"I shall live! I shall live!" He was filled with delighted hope; he
tried to spread out his branches, but, alas! they were all dried up
and yellow. He was thrown down upon a heap of weeds and nettles. The
star of gold tinsel that had been left fixed on his crown now sparkled
brightly in the sunshine.
Some merry children were playing in the court, the same who at
Christmas time had danced round the Tree. One of the youngest now
perceived the gold star, and ran to tear it off.
"Look at it, still fastened to the ugly old Christmas Tree!" cried he,
trampling upon the boughs till they broke under his boots.
And the Tree looked on all the flowers of the garden now blooming in
the freshness of their beauty; he looked upon himself, and he wished
from his heart that he had been left to wither alone in the dark corner
of the lumber room; he called to mind his happy forest life, the merry
Christmas eve, and the little Mice who had listened so eagerly when he
related the story of Humpty Dumpty.
"Past, all past!" said the poor Tree. "Had I but been happy, as I might
have been! Past, all past!"
And the servant came and broke the Tree into small pieces, heaped
them up and set fire to them. And the Tree groaned deeply, and every
groan sounded like a little shot; the children all ran up to the place
and jumped about in front of the blaze, looking into it and crying,
"Piff, piff!" But at each of those heavy groans the Fir Tree thought
of a bright summer's day, or a starry winter's night in the forest, of
Christmas eve, or of Humpty Dumpty, the only story that he knew and
could relate. And at last the Tree was burned.
The boys played about the court; on the bosom of the youngest sparkled
the gold star that the Tree had worn on the happiest evening of his
life; but that was past, and the Tree was past, and the story also,
past! past! for all stories must come to an end, some time or other.
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
The Christmas Banquet
In a certain old gentleman's last will and testament there appeared
a bequest, which, as his final thought and deed, was singularly in
keeping with a long life of melancholy eccentricity. He devised a
considerable sum for establishing a fund, the interest of which was to
be expended, annually forever, in preparing a Christmas Banquet for ten
of the most miserable persons that could be found. It seemed not to be
the testator's purpose to make these half a score of sad hearts merry,
but to provide that the storm of fierce expression of human discontent
should not be drowned, even for that one holy and joyful day, amid the
acclamations of festal gratitude which all Christendom sends up. And
he desired, likewise, to perpetuate his own remonstrance against the
earthly course of Providence, and his sad and sour dissent from those
systems of religion or philosophy which either find sunshine in the
world or draw it down from heaven.
The task of inviting the guests, or of selecting among such as might
advance their claims to partake of this dismal hospitality, was
confided to the two trustees or stewards of the fund. These gentlemen,
like their deceased friend, were sombre humorists, who made it their
principal occupation to number the sable threads in the web of human
life, and drop all the golden ones out of the reckoning. They performed
their present office with integrity and judgment. The aspect of the
assembled company, on the day of the first festival, might not, it is
true, have satisfied every beholder that these were especially the
individuals, chosen forth from all the world, whose griefs were worthy
to stand as indicators of the mass of human suffering. Yet, after
due consideration, it could not be disputed that here was a variety
of hopeless discomfort, which, if it arose from causes apparently
inadequate, was thereby only the shrewder imputation against the nature
and mechanism of life.
The arrangements and decorations of the banquet were probably intended
to signify that death in life which had been the testator's definition
of existence. The hall, illuminated by torches, was hung round with
curtains of deep and dusky purple, and adorned with branches of
cypress and wreaths of artificial flowers, imitative of such as used
to be strown over the dead. A sprig of parsley was laid by every
plate. The main reservoir of wine was a sepulchral urn of silver,
whence the liquor was distributed around the table in small vases,
accurately copied from those that held the tears of ancient mourners.
Neither had the stewards--if it were their taste that arranged these
details--forgotten the fantasy of the old Egyptians, who seated a
skeleton at every festive board, and mocked their own merriment with
the imperturbable grin of a death's-head. Such a fearful guest,
shrouded in a black mantle, sat now at the head of the table. It was
whispered, I know not with what truth, that the testator himself
had once walked the visible world with the machinery of that same
skeleton, and that it was one of the stipulations of his will, that
he should thus be permitted to sit, from year to year, at the banquet
which he had instituted. If so, it was perhaps covertly implied that
he had cherished no hopes of bliss beyond the grave to compensate
for the evils which he felt or imagined here. And if, in their
bewildered conjectures as to the purpose of earthly existence, the
banqueters should throw aside the veil, and cast an inquiring glance
at this figure of death, as seeking thence the solution otherwise
unattainable, the only reply would be a stare of the vacant eye caverns
and a grin of the skeleton jaws. Such was the response that the dead
man had fancied himself to receive when he asked of Death to solve the
riddle of his life; and it was his desire to repeat it when the guests
of his dismal hospitality should find themselves perplexed with the
same question.
"What means that wreath?" asked several of the company, while viewing
the decorations of the table.
They alluded to a wreath of cypress, which was held on high by a
skeleton arm, protruding from within the black mantle.
"It is a crown," said one of the stewards, "not for the worthiest, but
for the wofulest, when he shall prove his claim to it."
The guest earliest bidden to the festival was a man of soft and
gentle character, who had not energy to struggle against the heavy
despondency to which his temperament rendered him liable; and therefore
with nothing outwardly to excuse him from happiness, he had spent a
life of quiet misery that made his blood torpid, and weighed upon his
breath, and sat like a ponderous night fiend upon every throb of his
unresisting heart. His wretchedness seemed as deep as his original
nature, if not identical with it. It was the misfortune of a second
guest to cherish within his bosom a diseased heart, which had become so
wretchedly sore that the continual and unavoidable rubs of the world,
the blow of an enemy, the careless jostle of a stranger, and even the
faithful and loving touch of a friend, alike made ulcers in it. As is
the habit of people thus afflicted, he found his chief employment in
exhibiting these miserable sores to any one who would give themselves
the pain of viewing them. A third guest was a hypochondriac, whose
imagination wrought necromancy in his outward and inward world, and
caused him to see monstrous faces in the household fire, and dragons in
the clouds of sunset, and fiends in the guise of beautiful women, and
something ugly or wicked beneath all the pleasant surfaces of nature.
His neighbor at table was one who, in his early youth, had trusted
mankind too much, and hoped too highly in their behalf, and, in meeting
with disappointments, had become desperately soured....
One other guest remains to be described. He was a young man of smooth
brow, fair cheek, and fashionable mien. So far as his exterior
developed him, he might much more suitably have found a place at some
merry Christmas table, than have been numbered among the blighted,
fate-stricken, fancy-tortured set of ill-starred banqueters. Murmurs
arose among the guests as they noted the glance of general scrutiny
which the intruder threw over his companions. What had he to do among
them? Why did not the skeleton of the dead founder of the feast unbend
its rattling joints, arise, and motion the unwelcome stranger from the
board? "Shameful!" said the morbid man, while a new ulcer broke out in
his heart. "He comes to mock us!--we shall be the jest of his tavern
friends!--he will make a farce of our miseries, and bring it out upon
the stage!"
"O, never mind him!" said the hypochondriac, smiling sourly. "He shall
feast from yonder tureen of viper soup; and if there is a fricassee
of scorpions on the table, pray let him have his share of it. For the
dessert, he shall taste the apples of Sodom. Then, if he like our
Christmas fare, let him return again next year!"
"Trouble him not," murmured the melancholy man, with gentleness. "What
matters it whether the consciousness of misery come a few years sooner
or later? If this youth deem himself happy now, yet let him sit with us
for the sake of the wretchedness to come."
The poor idiot approached the young man with that mournful aspect of
vacant inquiry which his face continually wore and which caused people
to say that he was always in search of his missing wits. After no
little examination he touched the stranger's hand, but immediately drew
back his own, shaking his head and shivering.
"Cold, cold, cold!" muttered the idiot.
The young man shivered too, and smiled.
"Gentlemen--and you, madam," said one of the stewards of the festival,
"do not conceive so ill either of our caution or judgment, as to
imagine that we have admitted this young stranger--Gervayse Hastings
by name--without a full investigation and thoughtful balance of his
claims. Trust me, not a guest at the table is better entitled to his
seat."
The steward's guaranty was perforce satisfactory. The company,
therefore, took their places, and addressed themselves to the serious
business of the feast, but were soon disturbed by the hypochondriac,
who thrust back his chair, complaining that a dish of stewed toads and
vipers was set before him, and that there was green ditch water in
his cup of wine. This mistake being amended, he quietly resumed his
seat. The wine, as it flowed freely from the sepulchral urn, seemed
to come imbued with all gloomy inspirations; so that its influence
was not to cheer, but either to sink the revellers into a deeper
melancholy, or elevate their spirits to an enthusiasm of wretchedness.
The conversation was various. They told sad stories about people who
might have been worthy guests at such a festival as the present. They
talked of grisly incidents in human history; of strange crimes, which,
if truly considered, were but convulsions of agony; of some lives
that had been altogether wretched, and of others, which, wearing a
general semblance of happiness, had yet been deformed, sooner or later,
by misfortune, as by the intrusion of a grim face at a banquet; of
death-bed scenes, and what dark intimations might be gathered from the
words of dying men; of suicide, and whether the more eligible mode were
by halter, knife, poison, drowning, gradual starvation, or the fumes
of charcoal. The majority of the guests, as is the custom with people
thoroughly and profoundly sick at heart, were anxious to make their own
woes the theme of discussion, and prove themselves most excellent in
anguish. The misanthropist went deep into the philosophy of evil, and
wandered about in the darkness, with now and then a gleam of discolored
light hovering on ghastly shapes and horrid scenery. Many a miserable
thought, such as men have stumbled upon from age to age, did he now
rake up again, and gloat over it as an inestimable gem, a diamond, a
treasure far preferable to those bright, spiritual revelations of a
better world, which are like precious stones from heaven's pavement.
And then, amid his lore of wretchedness, he hid his face and wept.
* * * * *
The banquet drew to its conclusion, and the guests departed. Scarcely
had they stepped across the threshold of the hall, when the scene
that had there passed seemed like the vision of a sick fancy, or an
exhalation from a stagnant heart. Now and then, however, during the
year that ensued, these melancholy people caught glimpses of one
another, transient, indeed, but enough to prove that they walked the
earth with the ordinary allotment of reality. Sometimes a pair of
them came face to face, while stealing through the evening twilight,
enveloped in their sable cloaks. Sometimes they casually met in
church-yards. Once, also, it happened that two of the dismal banqueters
mutually started at recognizing each other in the noonday sunshine of
a crowded street, stalking there like ghosts astray. Doubtless they
wondered why the skeleton did not come abroad at noonday too.
But whenever the necessity of their affairs compelled these Christmas
guests into the bustling world, they were sure to encounter the young
man who had so unaccountably been admitted to the festival. They saw
him among the gay and fortunate; they caught the sunny sparkle of
his eye; they heard the light and careless tones of his voice, and
muttered to themselves with such indignation as only the aristocracy of
wretchedness could kindle--"The traitor! The vile impostor! Providence,
in its own good time, may give him a right to feast among us!" But
the young man's unabashed eye dwelt upon their gloomy figures as they
passed him, seeming to say, perchance with somewhat of a sneer, "First,
know my secret!--then, measure your claims with mine!"
The step of Time stole onward, and soon brought merry Christmas round
again, with glad and solemn worship in the churches, and sports, games,
festivals, and everywhere the bright face of joy beside the household
fire. Again likewise the hall, with its curtains of dusky purple,
was illuminated by the death torches gleaming on the sepulchral
decorations of the banquet. The veiled skeleton sat in state, lifting
the cypress wreath above its head, as the guerdon of some guest
illustrious in the qualifications which there claimed precedence.
As the stewards deemed the world inexhaustible in misery, and were
desirous of recognizing it in all its forms, they had not seen fit to
reassemble the company of the former year. New faces now threw their
gloom across the table.
There was a man of nice conscience, who bore a blood stain in his
heart--the death of a fellow-creature--which, for his more exquisite
torture, had chanced with such a peculiarity of circumstances, that
he could not absolutely determine whether his will had entered into
the deed or not. Therefore, his whole life was spent in the agony of
an inward trial for murder, with a continual sifting of the details
of his terrible calamity, until his mind had no longer any thought,
nor his soul any emotion, disconnected with it. There was a mother,
too--but a desolation now--who, many years before, had gone out on
a pleasure party, and, returning, found her infant smothered in its
little bed. And ever since she has been tortured with the fantasy
that her buried baby lay smothering in its coffin. Then there was an
aged lady, who had lived from time immemorial with a constant tremor
quivering through her frame. It was terrible to discern her dark shadow
tremulous upon the wall; her lips, likewise, were tremulous; and the
expression of her eye seemed to indicate that her soul was trembling
too. Owing to the bewilderment and confusion which made almost a chaos
of her intellect, it was impossible to discover what dire misfortune
had thus shaken her nature to its depths; so that the stewards had
admitted her to the table, not from any acquaintance with her history,
but on the safe testimony of her miserable aspect. Some surprise was
expressed at the presence of a bluff, red-faced gentleman, a certain
Mr. Smith, who had evidently the fat of many a rich feast within him,
and the habitual twinkle of whose eye betrayed a disposition to break
forth into uproarious laughter for little cause or none. It turned out,
however, that with the best possible flow of spirits, our poor friend
was afflicted with a physical disease of the heart, which threatened
instant death on the slightest cachinnatory indulgence, or even that
titillation of the bodily frame produced by merry thoughts. In this
dilemma he had sought admittance to the banquet, on the ostensible plea
of his irksome and miserable state, but, in reality, with the hope of
imbibing a life-preserving melancholy....
And now appeared a figure which we must acknowledge as our acquaintance
of the former festival. It was Gervayse Hastings, whose presence had
then caused so much question and criticism, and who now took his place
with the composure of one whose claims were satisfactory to himself
and must needs be allowed by others. Yet his easy and unruffled face
betrayed no sorrow. The well-skilled beholders gazed a moment into
his eyes and shook their heads, to miss the unuttered sympathy--the
countersign, never to be falsified--of those whose hearts are cavern
mouths, through which they descend into a region of illimitable woe and
recognize other wanderers there.
"Who is this youth?" asked the man with a blood stain on his
conscience. "Surely he has never gone down into the depths! I know all
the aspects of those who have passed through the dark valley. By what
right is he among us?"
"Ah, it is a sinful thing to come hither without a sorrow," murmured
the aged lady, in accents that partook of the eternal tremor which
pervaded her whole being. "Depart, young man! Your soul has never been
shaken. I tremble so much the more to look at you."
"His soul shaken! No; I'll answer for it," said bluff Mr. Smith,
pressing his hand upon his heart and making himself as melancholy as he
could, for fear of a fatal explosion of laughter. "I know the lad well;
he has as fair prospects as any young man about town, and has no more
right among us miserable creatures than the child unborn. He never was
miserable and probably never will be!"
"Our honored guests," interposed the stewards, "pray have patience with
us, and believe, at least, that our deep veneration for the sacredness
of this solemnity would preclude any wilful violation of it. Receive
this young man to your table. It may not be too much to say, that no
guest here would exchange his own heart for the one that beats within
that youthful bosom!"
"I'd call it a bargain, and gladly, too," muttered Mr. Smith, with a
perplexing mixture of sadness and mirthful conceit. "A plague upon
their nonsense! My own heart is the only really miserable one in the
company; it will certainly be the death of me at last."
Nevertheless, as on the former occasion, the judgment of the stewards
being without appeal, the company sat down. The obnoxious guest made
no more attempt to obtrude his conversation on those about him, but
appeared to listen to the table talk with peculiar assiduity, as if
some inestimable secret, otherwise beyond his reach, might be conveyed
in a casual word. And in truth, to those who could understand and
value it, there was rich matter in the upgushings and outpourings of
these initiated souls to whom sorrow had been a talisman, admitting
them into spiritual depths which no other spell can open. Sometimes out
of the midst of densest gloom there flashed a momentary radiance, pure
as crystal, bright as the flame of stars, and shedding such a glow upon
the mysteries of life that the guests were ready to exclaim, "Surely
the riddle is on the point of being solved!" At such illuminated
intervals the saddest mourners felt it to be revealed that mortal
griefs are but shadowy and external; no more than the sable robes
voluminously shrouding a certain divine reality and thus indicating
what might otherwise be altogether invisible to mortal eye.
"Just now," remarked the trembling old woman, "I seemed to see beyond
the outside. And then my everlasting tremor passed away!"
"Would that I could dwell always in these momentary gleams of light!"
said the man of stricken conscience. "Then the blood stain in my heart
would be washed clean away."
This strain of conversation appeared so unintelligibly absurd to good
Mr. Smith, that he burst into precisely the fit of laughter which his
physicians had warned him against, as likely to prove instantaneously
fatal. In effect, he fell back in his chair a corpse, with a broad
grin upon his face, while his ghost, perchance, remained beside it
bewildered at its unpremeditated exit. This catastrophe of course broke
up the festival.
"How is this? You do not tremble?" observed the tremulous old woman
to Gervayse Hastings, who was gazing at the dead man with singular
intentness. "Is it not awful to see him so suddenly vanish out of the
midst of life--this man of flesh and blood, whose earthly nature was
so warm and strong? There is a never-ending tremor in my soul, but it
trembles afresh at this! And you are calm!"
"Would that he could teach me somewhat!" said Gervayse Hastings,
drawing a long breath. "Men pass before me like shadows on the wall;
their actions, passions, feelings are flickerings of the light, and
then they vanish! Neither the corpse, nor yonder skeleton, nor this old
woman's everlasting tremor, can give me what I seek."
And then the company departed.
We cannot linger to narrate, in such detail, more circumstances of
these singular festivals, which in accordance with the founder's will,
continued to be kept with the regularity of an established institution.
In process of time the stewards adopted the custom of inviting, from
far and near, those individuals whose misfortunes were prominent above
other men's, and whose mental and moral development might, therefore,
be supposed to possess a corresponding interest. The exiled noble of
the French Revolution, and the broken soldier of the Empire, were alike
represented at the table. Fallen monarchs, wandering about the earth,
have found places at that forlorn and miserable feast. The statesman,
when his party flung him off, might, if he chose it, be once more a
great man for the space of a single banquet. Aaron Burr's name appears
on the record at a period when his ruin--the profoundest and most
striking, with more of moral circumstances in it than that of almost
any other man--was complete in his lonely age. Stephen Girard, when
his wealth weighed upon him like a mountain, once sought admittance of
his own accord. It is not probable, however, that these men had any
lesson to teach in the lore of discontent and misery which might not
equally well have been studied in the common walks of life. Illustrious
unfortunates attract a wider sympathy, not because their griefs are
more intense, but because, being set on lofty pedestals, they the
better serve mankind as instances and bywords of calamity.
It concerns our present purpose to say that, at each successive
festival, Gervayse Hastings showed his face gradually changing from the
smooth beauty of his youth to the thoughtful comeliness of manhood,
and thence to the bald, impressive dignity of age. He was the only
individual invariably present. Yet on every occasion there were
murmurs, both from those who knew his character and position, and from
them whose hearts shrank back as denying his companionship in their
mystic fraternity.
"Who is this impassive man?" had been asked a hundred times. "Has he
suffered? Has he sinned? There are no traces of either. Then wherefore
is he here?"
"You must inquire of the stewards or of himself," was the constant
reply. "We seem to know him well here in our city and know nothing of
him but what is creditable and fortunate. Yet hither he comes, year
after year, to this gloomy banquet, and sits among the guests like a
marble statue. Ask yonder skeleton; perhaps that may solve the riddle!"
It was in truth a wonder. The life of Gervayse Hastings was not merely
a prosperous, but a brilliant one. Everything had gone well with
him. He was wealthy, far beyond the expenditure that was required by
habits of magnificence, a taste of rare purity and cultivation, a love
of travel, a scholar's instinct to collect a splendid library, and,
moreover, what seemed a magnificent liberality to the distressed. He
had sought happiness, and not vainly, if a lovely and tender wife, and
children of fair promise, could insure it. He had, besides, ascended
above the limit which separates the obscure from the distinguished,
and had won a stainless reputation in affairs of the widest public
importance. Not that he was a popular character, or had within him the
mysterious attributes which are essential to that species of success.
To the public he was a cold abstraction, wholly destitute of those
rich hues of personality, that living warmth, and the peculiar faculty
of stamping his own heart's impression on a multitude of hearts by
which the people recognize their favorites. And it must be owned that,
after his most intimate associates had done their best to know him
thoroughly, and love him warmly, they were startled to find how little
hold he had upon their affections. They approved, they admired, but
still in those moments when the human spirit most craves reality, they
shrank back from Gervayse Hastings, as powerless to give them what they
sought. It was the feeling of distrustful regret with which we should
draw back the hand after extending it, in an illusive twilight, to
grasp the hand of a shadow upon the wall.
As the superficial fervency of youth decayed, this peculiar effect of
Gervayse Hastings's character grew more perceptible. His children,
when he extended his arms, came coldly to his knees, but never climbed
them of their own accord. His wife wept secretly, and almost adjudged
herself a criminal because she shivered in the chill of his bosom. He,
too, occasionally appeared not unconscious of the chillness of his
moral atmosphere, and willing, if it might be so, to warm himself at a
kindly fire. But age stole onward and benumbed him more and more. As
the hoar-frost began to gather on him his wife went to her grave, and
was doubtless warmer there; his children either died or were scattered
to different homes of their own; and old Gervayse Hastings, unscathed
by grief,--alone, but needing no companionship,--continued his steady
walk through life, and still on every Christmas day attended at the
dismal banquet. His privilege as a guest had become prescriptive now.
Had he claimed the head of the table, even the skeleton would have been
ejected from its seat.
Finally, at the merry Christmas-tide, when he had numbered fourscore
years complete, this pale, high-browed, marble-featured old man
once more entered the long-frequented hall, with the same impassive
aspect that had called forth so much dissatisfied remark at his first
attendance. Time, except in matters merely external, had done nothing
for him, either of good or evil. As he took his place he threw a calm,
inquiring glance around the table, as if to ascertain whether any
guest had yet appeared, after so many unsuccessful banquets, who might
impart to him the mystery--the deep, warm secret--the life within
the life--which, whether manifested in joy or sorrow, is what gives
substance to a world of shadows.
"My friends," said Gervayse Hastings, assuming a position which his
long conversance with the festival caused to appear natural, "you are
welcome! I drink to you all in this cup of sepulchral wine."
The guests replied courteously, but still in a manner that proved them
unable to receive the old man as a member of their sad fraternity. It
may be well to give the reader an idea of the present company at the
banquet.
One was formerly a clergyman, enthusiastic in his profession, and
apparently of the genuine dynasty of those old puritan divines whose
faith in their calling, and stern exercise of it, had placed them among
the mighty of the earth. But yielding to the speculative tendency of
the age, he had gone astray from the firm foundation of an ancient
faith, and wandered into a cloud region, where everything was misty
and deceptive, ever mocking him with a semblance of reality, but still
dissolving when he flung himself upon it for support and rest. His
instinct and early training demanded something steadfast; but, looking
forward, he beheld vapors piled on vapors, and behind him an impassable
gulf between the man of yesterday and to-day, on the borders of which
he paced to and fro, sometimes wringing his hands in agony, and often
making his own woe a theme of scornful merriment. This surely was a
miserable man....
There was a modern philanthropist, who had become so deeply sensible
of the calamities of thousands and millions of his fellow-creatures,
and of the impracticableness of any general measures for their relief,
that he had no heart to do what little good lay immediately within
his power, but contented himself with being miserable for sympathy.
Near him sat a gentleman in a predicament hitherto unprecedented, but
of which the present epoch probably affords numerous examples. Ever
since he was of capacity to read a newspaper this person had prided
himself on his consistent adherence to one political party, but, in
the confusion of these latter days, had got bewildered and knew not
whereabouts his party was. This wretched condition, so morally desolate
and disheartening to a man who has long accustomed himself to merge his
individuality in the mass of a great body, can only be conceived by
such as have experienced it. His next companion was a popular orator
who had lost his voice, and--as it was pretty much all that he had
to lose--had fallen into a state of hopeless melancholy. The table
was likewise graced by two of the gentler sex--one, a half-starved,
consumptive seamstress, the representative of thousands just as
wretched; the other, a woman of unemployed energy, who found herself in
the world with nothing to achieve, nothing to enjoy, and nothing even
to suffer. She had, therefore, driven herself to the verge of madness
by dark broodings over the wrongs of her sex, and its exclusion from a
proper field of action....
[Illustration: MADONNA DELLA SEDIA. _Raphael._]
In their own way, these were as wretched a set of people as ever had
assembled at the festival. There they sat, with the veiled skeleton of
the founder holding aloft the cypress wreath, at one end of the table,
and at the other, wrapped in furs, the withered figure of Gervayse
Hastings, stately, calm, and cold, impressing the company with awe, yet
so little interesting their sympathy that he might have vanished into
thin air without their once exclaiming, "Whither is he gone?"
"Sir," said the philanthropist, addressing the old man, "you have been
so long a guest at this annual festival, and have thus been conversant
with so many varieties of human affliction, that, not improbably, you
have thence derived some great and important lessons. How blessed were
your lot could you reveal a secret by which all this mass of woe might
be removed!"
"I know of but one misfortune," answered Gervayse Hastings, quietly,
"and that is my own."
"Your own!" rejoined the philanthropist. "And, looking back on
your serene and prosperous life, how can you claim to be the sole
unfortunate of the human race?"
"You will not understand it," replied Gervayse Hastings, feebly, and
with a singular inefficiency of pronunciation, and sometimes putting
one word for another. "None have understood it--not even those who
experience the like. It is a chillness--a want of earnestness--a
feeling as if what should be my heart were a thing of vapor--a haunting
perception of unreality! Thus seeming to possess all that other men
have--all that other men aim at--I have really possessed nothing,
neither joy nor griefs. All things, all persons--as was truly said to
me at this table long and long ago--have been like shadows flickering
on the wall. It was so with my wife and children--with those who seemed
my friends: it is so with yourselves, whom I see now before me. Neither
have I myself any real existence, but am a shadow like the rest."
"And how is it with your views of a future life?" inquired the
speculative clergyman.
"Worse than with you," said the old man, in a hollow and feeble tone;
"for I cannot conceive it earnestly enough to feel either hope or fear.
Mine--mine is the wretchedness! This cold heart--this unreal life! Ah!
it grows colder still."
It so chanced that at this juncture the decayed ligaments of the
skeleton gave way, and the dry bones fell together in a heap, thus
causing the dusty wreath of cypress to drop upon the table. The
attention of the company being thus diverted for a single instant from
Gervayse Hastings, they perceived, on turning again towards him, that
the old man had undergone a change. His shadow had ceased to flicker on
the wall.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
A Christmas Eve in Exile
It is Christmas Eve in a large city of Bavaria. Along the streets,
white with snow, in the confusion of the fog, among the rattle of
carriages and the ringing of bells, the crowd hurries joyously towards
the open-air roast-meat shops, the holiday stalls and booths. Brushing
with a light rustling sound the shops decorated with ribbons and
flowers, branches of green holly and whole spruce trees covered with
pendants move along in the arms of passers-by, rising above all the
heads, like a shadow of the Thuringian Forests, a touch of nature in
the artificial life of winter. Night is falling. Over there, behind
the gardens of the "Résidence," one sees still a glow of the setting
sun, deep red through the fog; and throughout the city there is such
gayety, so many festive preparations, that every light that flames up
at a window seems to hang on a Christmas tree. But this is no ordinary
Christmas. We are in the year of Grace 1870; and the birth of Christ
is but a pretext the more to drink to the illustrious Van der Than,
and to celebrate the triumph of Bavarian arms. Noël! Noël! Even the
Jews in the lower city join in the merriment. There is old Augustus
Cahn, turning the corner at "The Blue Grape" on the run. Never have
his ferret-eyes sparkled as to-night. Never has his brush-like queue
wriggled so merrily. On his sleeve, worn threadbare by the cords of his
wallet, hangs a tidy little basket, full to the brim, covered with a
yellow napkin, with the neck of a bottle and a sprig of holly peeping
out.
What the deuce is the old usurer going to do with all that? Is he, too,
going to celebrate Christmas? Will he gather together his friends,
his family, to drink to the German Fatherland? But no. Every one
knows well that old Cahn has no Fatherland. _His_ Fatherland is his
strong-box. He has neither family nor friends; nothing but creditors.
His sons, his associates too, left three months ago with the army. Down
there behind the gun-carriages of the home guard they ply their trade,
selling brandy, buying watches, and at night, after a battle, going
out to rifle the pockets of the dead and to empty the knapsacks that
have fallen in the trenches by the way. Father Cahn, too old to follow
his children, has remained in Bavaria, and there he does a magnificent
business with the French prisoners. Always prowling about the barracks,
it is he who buys watches, medals, money-orders. One sees him gliding
through the hospitals and among the ambulances. He approaches the
bedside of the wounded and asks them very softly in his hideous
gibberish:--
"Haf you anydings to zell?"
Look! At this very moment, when you see him trotting so briskly with
his basket under his arm, it is because the Military Hospital closes
at five o'clock; and there are two Frenchmen waiting up there in that
big black building, with its narrow-barred windows, where Christmas to
illumine its coming has only the pale lights which guard the bedside of
the dying....
These two Frenchmen are Salvette and Bernadou. They are infantrymen,
two Provençals of the same village, enrolled in the same battalion, and
wounded by the same shell. Only, Salvette is the stronger; and already
he begins to get up, to make some steps from his bed to the window.
Bernadou, for his part, will not recover. Between the wan curtains of
his hospital cot his face looks thinner, more languid, day by day; and
when he speaks of his country, of the return, it is with the sad smile
of the invalid, in which there is more of resignation than of hope.
Nevertheless, to-day he is a little animated, thinking of the beautiful
Christmas festival, which in our Provençal country seems like a great
bonfire lighted in the midst of winter, recalling the midnight mass,
the church decorated, glowing with light, the dark village streets
filled with people, then the long watch about the table, the three
traditional torches, the "_aioli_,"[2] the snails, and the pretty
ceremony of the Yule log, which the grandfather carries about the
house, and anoints with steaming wine.
[2] A mayonnaise sauce richly flavored with garlic.
"Ah! my poor Salvette, what a sad Christmas we are going to have this
year!... If we only had enough to buy a white roll and a bottle of
claret!... How happy I would be if, once more, before taps sound for
me, I could drink with you over the Yule log!"
The sick man's eyes brighten as he speaks of the wine and the white
bread. But how is it to be done? They have nothing left--poor
fellows!--no money, no watch. To be sure, Salvette still keeps in the
lining of his jacket a money-order for forty francs. But that is for
the day when they shall be free; for the first halt that they make in
a French inn. That money is sacred. No way to touch that. But poor
Bernadou is so ill! Who knows if he will ever be able to take up the
journey home? And since here is a beautiful Christmas which they can
still celebrate together, were it not best to profit by it?
So, without a word to his countryman, Salvette rips open his tunic,
takes out the order, and when old Cahn has come, as every morning,
to make his round in the halls, after long arguments and whispered
discussions he slips into the old Jew's hand this square of paper,
yellowed and stiff, smelling of powder, and stained with blood. From
that moment Salvette maintains an air of mystery. He rubs his hands and
laughs to himself as he looks at Bernadou. And now, as day falls, he is
there on watch, his forehead pressed against the narrow panes until he
sees, in the dusk of the deserted courtyard, old Augustus Cahn, all out
of breath, a little basket on his arm.
This solemn midnight, which sounds from all the bells of the city,
falls mournfully in this white camp of suffering. The hospital ward
is silent, lighted only by the night lamps hung from the ceiling.
Great wandering shadows float over the beds and the bare walls, with
an incessant vibration which seems the oppressed breathing of all
the sufferers stretched out there. At moments dreams talk aloud,
nightmares groan, while from the street rises a vague murmur, steps and
voices, confused in the cold, resonant air as if under the porch of a
cathedral. One feels the devout hastening, the mystery of a religious
festival, intruding upon the hour of sleep and throwing upon the
darkened city the dim light of lanterns and the glow of church windows.
"Art thou asleep, Bernadou?"....
Very gently, on the little table near his friend's bed, Salvette has
placed a bottle of Lunel wine and a round loaf--a comely Christmas
loaf, in which the sprig of holly is planted upright. The sick man
opens eyes darkly rimmed with fever. In the uncertain light of the
night lamps and under the white reflection of the great roofs where the
moon shines dazzling upon the snow, this improvised Christmas seems to
him a phantasy.
"Come, comrade, wake up!... It shall not be said that two Provençals
let Christmas Eve pass without toasting it in a cup of claret."... And
Salvette raises him with a mother's tenderness. He fills the glasses,
cuts the bread; and they drink, and talk of Provence. Little by little
Bernadou rouses, becomes tender.... The wine, the recalling of old
days.... With the childish spirit which comes again to the sick in
their weakness, he asks Salvette to sing a Christmas carol of Provence.
His comrade asks nothing better.
"Come! Which one do you want? 'The Host'? 'The Three Kings'? or 'Saint
Joseph Said to Me'?"
"No. I love better 'The Shepherds.' The one we always sang at home."
"'The Shepherds' let it be." In a low voice, his head between the
curtains, Salvette begins to hum. But suddenly, as he sings the last
couplet, where the shepherds, coming to see Jesus in his stable, have
laid their offerings of fresh eggs and cheese in the manger, and are
dismissed in kindly fashion:--
"Joseph leur dit: Allons I soyez bien sages,
Tournez-vous-en et faites bon voyage.
Bergers,
Prenez votre congé, ..."
poor Bernadou slips and falls heavily upon his pillow. His comrade,
thinking he sleeps, calls him, shakes him. But the sick man remains
motionless; and the little sprig of holly across the stiff coverlet
seems already the green palm that is laid on the pillow of the dead.
Salvette understands. Then, all in tears, and a little intoxicated with
the feast and with so great a sorrow, he takes up again in full voice,
in the silence of the ward, the joyous refrain of Provence:--
"Shepherds,
Take your leave!"
ALPHONSE DAUDET
The Rehearsal of the Mummers' Play
Then fell the great first rehearsal of the Christmas play, and Dennis
Masterman found that he had been wise to take time by the forelock in
this matter. The mummers assembled in the parish room, and the vicar
and his sister, with Nathan Baskerville's assistance, strove to lead
them through the drama.
"It's not going to be quite like the version that a kind friend has
sent me, and from which your parts are written," explained Dennis.
"I've arranged for an introduction in the shape of a prologue. I shall
do this myself, and appear before the curtain and speak a speech to
explain what it is all about. This answers Mr. Waite here, who is
going to be the Turkish Knight. He didn't want to begin the piece. Now
I shall have broken the ice, and then he will be discovered as the
curtain rises."
Mr. Timothy Waite on this occasion, however, began proceedings, as the
vicar's prologue was not yet written. He proved letter-perfect, but
exceedingly nervous.
"Open your doors and let me in,
I hope your favours I shall win.
Whether I rise or whether I fall,
I'll do my best to please you all!"
Mr. Waite spoke jerkily, and his voice proved a little out of control,
but everybody congratulated him.
"How he rolls his eyes to be sure," said Vivian Baskerville. "A very
daps of a Turk, for sartain."
"You ought to stride about more, Waite," suggested Ned Baskerville, who
had cheered up of recent days, and was now standing beside Cora and
other girls destined to assist the play. "The great thing is to stride
about and look alive--isn't it, Mr. Masterman?"
"We'll talk afterwards," answered Dennis. "We mustn't interfere with
the action. You have got your speech off very well, Waite, but you said
it much too fast. We must be slow and distinct so that not a word is
missed."
Timothy, who enjoyed the praise of his friends, liked this censure less.
"As for speaking fast," he said, "the man would speak fast. Because he
expects St. George will be on his tail in a minute. He says, 'I know
he'll pierce my skin.' In fact, he's pretty well sweating with terror
from the first moment he comes on the stage, I should reckon."
But Mr. Masterman was unprepared for any such subtle rendering of the
Turkish Knight, and he only hoped that the more ancient play-actors
would not come armed with equally obstinate opinions.
"We'll talk about it afterwards," he said. "Now you go off to
the right, Waite, and Father Christmas comes on at the left. Mr.
Baskerville--Father Christmas, please."
Nathan put his part into his pocket, marched on to the imaginary stage
and bowed. Everybody cheered.
"You needn't bow," explained Dennis; but the innkeeper differed from
him.
"I'm afraid I must, your reverence. When I appear before them, the
people will give me a lot of applause in their usual kindly fashion.
Why, even these here--just t'other actors do, you see--so you may be
sure that the countryside will. Therefore I had better practise the bow
at rehearsal, if you've no great argument against it."
"All right, push on," said Dennis.
"We must really be quicker," declared Miss Masterman. "Half an hour has
gone, and we've hardly started."
"Off I go, then; and I want you chaps--especially you, Vivian, and
you, Jack Head, and you, Tom Gollop--to watch me acting. Acting ban't
the same as ordinary talking. If I was just talking, I should say all
quiet, without flinging my arms about, and walking round, and stopping,
and then away again. But in acting you do all these things, and instead
of merely saying your speeches, as we would just man to man, over my
bar or in the street, you have to bawl 'em out so that every soul in
the audience catches 'em."
Having thus explained his theory of histrionics, Mr. Baskerville
started, and with immense and original emphasis, and sudden actions and
gestures, introduced himself.
"Here come I, the dear old Father Christmas.
Welcome or welcome not,
I hope old Father Christmas
Will never be forgot.
A room--make room here, gallant boys.
And give us room to rhyme...."
Nathan broke off to explain his reading of the part.
"When I say 'make room' I fly all round the stage, as if I was pushing
the people back to give me room."
He finished his speech, and panted and mopped his head.
"That's acting, and what d'you think of it?" he asked.
They all applauded vigorously excepting Mr. Gollop, who now prepared to
take his part.
Nathan then left the stage and the vicar called him back.
"You don't go off," he explained. "You stop to welcome the King of
Egypt."
"Beg pardon," answered the innkeeper. "But of course, so it is. I'll
take my stand here."
"You bow to the King of Egypt when he comes on," declared Gollop. "He
humbly bows to me, don't he, reverend Masterman?"
"Yes," said Dennis, "he bows, of course. You'll have a train carried by
two boys, Gollop; but the boys aren't here to-night, as they're both
down with measles--Mrs. Bassett's youngsters."
"I'll bow to you if you bow to me, Tom," said Mr. Baskerville. "That's
only right."
"Kings don't bow to common people," declared the parish clerk.
"Me and my pretended darter--that's Miss Cora Lintern, who's the
Princess--ban't going to bow, I should hope."
"You ought to, then," declared Jack Head. "No reason because you'm King
of Egypt why you should think yourself better than other folk. Make him
bow, Nathan. Don't you bow to him if he don't bow to you."
"Kings do bow," declared Dennis. "You must bow to Father Christmas,
Gollop."
"He must bow first, then," argued the parish clerk.
"Damn the man! turn him out and let somebody else do it!" cried Head.
"Let neither of 'em bow," suggested Mrs. Hacker suddenly. "With all
this here bowing and scraping, us shan't be done afore midnight; and I
don't come in the play till the end of all things as 'tis."
"You'd better decide, your reverence," suggested Vivian. "Your word's
law. I say let 'em bow simultaneous--how would that serve?"
"Excellent!" declared Dennis. "You'll bow together, please. Now, Mr.
Gollop."
Thomas marched on with amazing gait, designed to be regal.
"They'll all laugh if you do it like that, Tom," complained Mr. Voysey.
"Beggar the man! And why for shouldn't they laugh?" asked Jack Head.
"Thomas don't want to make 'em cry, do he? Ban't we all to be as funny
as ever we can, reverend Masterman?"
"Yes," said Dennis. "In reason--in reason, Jack. But acting is one
thing, and playing the fool is another."
"Oh, Lord! I thought they was the same," declared Vivian Baskerville.
"Because if I've got to act the giant----"
"Order! order!" cried the clergyman. "We _must_ get on. Don't be
annoyed, Mr. Baskerville, I quite see your point; but it will all come
right at rehearsal."
"You'll have to tell me how to act then," said Vivian. "How the
mischief can a man pretend to be what he isn't? A giant----"
"You're as near being a live giant as you can be," declared Nathan.
"You've only got to be yourself and you'll be all right."
"No," argued Jack Head. "If the man's himself, he's not funny, and
nobody will laugh. I say----"
"You can show us what you mean when you come to your own part, Jack,"
said Dennis desperately. "Do get on, Gollop."
"Bow then," said Mr. Gollop to Nathan.
"I'll bow when you do, and not a minute sooner," answered the innkeeper
firmly.
The matter of the bow was arranged, and Mr. Gollop, in the familiar
voice with which he had led the psalms for a quarter of a century,
began his part.
"Here I, the King of Egypt, boldly do appear,
St. Garge! St. Garge! walk in, my only son and heir;
Walk in, St. Garge, my son, and boldly act thy part,
That all the people here may see thy wondrous art!"
"Well done, Tom!" said Mr. Masterman, "that's splendid; but you mustn't
sing it."
"I ban't singing it," answered the clerk. "I know what to do."
"All right. Now, St. George, St. George, where are you?"
"Along with the girls, as usual," snapped Mr. Gollop.
As a matter of fact Ned Baskerville was engaged in deep conversation
with Princess Sabra and the Turkish Knight. He left them and hurried
forward.
"Give tongue, Ned!" cried his father.
"You walk down to the footlights, and the King of Egypt will be on one
side of you and Father Christmas on the other," explained the vicar.
"And you needn't look round for the females, 'cause they don't appear
till later on," added Jack Head.
A great laugh followed this jest, whereon Miss Masterman begged her
brother to try and keep order.
"If they are not going to be serious, we had better give it up, and
waste no more time," she said.
"Don't take it like that, miss, I beg of you," urged Nathan. "All's
prospering very well. We shall shape down. Go on, Ned."
Ned looked at his part, then put it behind his back, and then brought
it out again.
"This is too bad, Baskerville," complained Dennis. "You told me
yesterday that you knew every word."
"So I did yesterday, I'll swear to it. I said it out in the kitchen
after supper to mother--didn't I, father?"
"You did," assented Vivian; "but that's no use if you've forgot it now."
"'Tis stage fright," explained Nathan. "You'll get over it."
"Think you'm talking to a maiden," advised Jack Head.
"Do get on!" cried Dennis. Then he prompted the faulty mummer.
"Here come I, St. George----"
Ned struck an attitude and started.
"Here come I, St. George; from Britain did I spring;
I'll fight the Russian Bear, my wonders to begin.
I'll pierce him through, he shall not fly;
I'll cut him--cut him--cut him----"
"How does it go?"
"'I'll cut him down,'" prompted Dennis.
"Right!"
"I'll cut him down, or else I'll die."
"Good! Now, come on, Bear!" said Nathan.
"You and Jack Head will have to practise the fight," explained the
vicar; "and at this point, or earlier, the ladies will march in to
music and take their places, because, of course, 'fair Sabra' has to
see St. George conquer his foes."
"That'll suit Ned exactly!" laughed Nathan.
Then he marshalled Cora and several other young women, including May
and Polly Baskerville from Cadworthy, and Cora's sister Phyllis.
"There will be a daïs lifted up at the back, you know--that's a raised
platform. But for the present you must pretend these chairs are the
throne. You sit by 'fair Sabra,' Thomas, and then the trumpets sound
and the Bear comes on."
"Who'll play the brass music?" asked Head, "because I've got a very
clever friend at Sheepstor----"
"Leave all that to me. The music is arranged. Now, come on!"
"Shall you come on and play it like a four-footed thing, or get up on
your hind-legs, Jack?" asked St. George.
"I be going to come in growling and yowling on all fours," declared Mr.
Head grimly. "Then I be going to do a sort of a comic bear dance; then
I be going to have a bit of fun eating a plum pudding; then I thought
that me and Mr. Nathan might have a bit of comic work; and then I
should get up on my hind-legs and go for St. George."
"You can't do all that," declared Dennis. "Not that I want to interfere
with you, or anybody, Head; but if each one is going to work out his
part and put such a lot into it, we shall never get done."
"The thing is to make 'em laugh, reverend Masterman," answered Jack
with firmness. "If I just come on and just say my speech, and fight and
die, there's nought in it; but if----"
"Go on, then--go on. We'll talk afterwards."
"Right. Now you try not to laugh, souls, and I wager I'll make you
giggle like a lot of zanies," promised Jack.
Then he licked his hands, went down upon them, and scrambled along upon
all fours.
"Good for you, Jack! Well done! You'm funnier than anything that's gone
afore!" cried Joe Voysey.
"So you be, for certain," added Mrs. Hacker.
"For all the world like my bob-tailed sheep-dog," declared Mr. Waite.
"Now I be going to sit up on my hams and scratch myself," explained Mr.
Head; "then off I go again and have a sniff at Father Christmas. Then
you ought to give me a plum pudding, Mr. Baskerville, and I balance it
'pon my nose."
"Well thought on!" declared Nathan. "So I will. 'Twill make the folk
die of laughing to see you."
"Come on to the battle," said Dennis.
"Must be a sort of wraslin' fight," continued Head, "because the Bear's
got nought but his paws. Then, I thought when I'd throwed St. George a
fair back heel, he'd get up and draw his shining sword and stab me in
the guts. Then I'd roar and roar, till the place fairly echoed round,
and then I'd die in frightful agony."
"You ban't the whole play, Jack," said Mr. Gollop with much discontent.
"You forget yourself, surely. You can't have the King of Egypt and
these here other high characters all standing on the stage doing nought
while you'm going through these here vagaries."
But Mr. Head stuck to his text.
"We'm here to make 'em laugh," he repeated with bulldog determination.
"And I'll do it if mortal man can do it. Then, when I've took the
doctor's stuff, up I gets again and goes on funnier than ever."
"I wouldn't miss it for money, Jack," declared Vivian Baskerville.
"Such a clever chap as you be, and none of us ever knowed it. You ought
to go for Tom Fool to the riders. I lay you'd make tons more money than
ever you will to Trowlesworthy Warren."
"By the way, who is to be the Doctor?" asked Ned Baskerville. "'Twasn't
settled, Mr. Masterman."
Dennis collapsed blankly.
"By Jove! No more it was," he admitted, "and I've forgotten all about
it. The Doctor's very important, too. We must have him before the next
rehearsal. For the present you can read it out of the book, Mark."
Mark Baskerville was prompting, and now, after St. George and the Bear
had made a pretence of wrestling, and the Bear had perished with much
noise and to the accompaniment of loud laughter, Mark read the Doctor's
somewhat arrogant pretensions.
"All sorts of diseases--
Whatever you pleases:
The phthisic, the palsy, the gout,
If the Devil's in, I blow him out.
* * * * *
"I carry a bottle of alicampane,
Here, Russian Bear, take a little of my flip-flap,
Pour it down thy tip-tap;
Rise up and fight again!"
"Well said, Mark! 'Twas splendidly given. Why for shouldn't Mark be
Doctor?" asked Nathan.
"An excellent idea," declared Dennis. "I'm sure now, if the fair Queen
Sabra will only put in a word----"
Mark's engagement was known. The people clapped their hands heartily
and Cora blushed.
"I wish he would," said Cora.
"Your wish ought to be his law," declared Ned. "I'm sure if 'twas
me----"
But Mark shook his head.
"I couldn't do it," he answered. "I would if I could; but when the time
came, and the people, and the excitement of it all, I should break
down, I'm sure I should."
"It's past ten o'clock," murmured Miss Masterman to her brother.
The rehearsal proceeded: Jack Head, as the Bear, was restored to life
and slain again with much detail. Then Ned proceeded--
"I fought the Russian Bear
And brought him to the slaughter;
By that I won fair Sabra,
The King of Egypt's daughter.
Where is the man that now will me defy?
I'll cut his giblets full of holes and make his buttons fly."
"And when I've got my sword, of course 'twill be much finer," concluded
Ned.
Mr. Gollop here raised an objection.
"I don't think the man ought to tell about cutting anybody's giblets
full of holes," he said; "no, nor yet making their buttons fly. 'Tis
very coarse, and the gentlefolks wouldn't like it."
"Nonsense, Tom," answered the vicar, "it's all in keeping with the
play. There's no harm in it at all."
"Evil be to them as evil think," said Jack Head. "Now comes the song,
reverend Masterman, and I was going to propose that the Bear, though
he's dead as a nit, rises up on his front paws and sings with the rest,
then drops down again--eh, souls?"
"They'll die of laughing if you do that, Jack," declared Vivian. "I
vote for it."
But Dennis firmly refused permission and addressed his chorus.
"Now, girls, the song--everybody joins. The other songs are not written
yet, so we need not bother about them till next time."
The girls, glad of something to do, sang vigorously, and the song went
well. Then the Turkish Knight was duly slain, restored and slain again.
"We can't finish to-night," declared Dennis, looking at his watch, "so
I'm sorry to have troubled you to come, Mrs. Hacker, and you, Voysey."
"They haven't wasted their time, however, because Head and I have
showed them what acting means," said Nathan. "And when you do come on,
Susan Hacker, you've got to quarrel and pull my beard, remember; then
we make it up afterwards."
"We'll finish for to-night with the Giant," decreed Dennis. "Now speak
your long speech, St. George, and then Mr. Baskerville can do the
Giant."
Ned, who declared that he had as yet learned no more, read his next
speech, and Vivian began behind the scenes--
"Fee--fi--fo--fum!
I smell the blood of an Englishman.
Let him be living, or let him be dead,
I'll grind his bones to make my bread."
"You ought to throw a bit more roughness in your voice, farmer,"
suggested Mr. Gollop. "If you could bring it up from the innards,
'twould sound more awful, wouldn't it, reverend Masterman?"
"And when you come on, farmer, you might pass me by where I lie dead,"
said Jack, "and I'll up and give you a nip in the calf of the leg, and
you'll jump round, and the people will roar again."
"No," declared the vicar. "No more of you, Head, till the end. Then you
come to life and dance with the French Eagle--that's Voysey. But you
mustn't act any more till then."
"A pity," answered Jack. "I was full of contrivances; however, if you
say so----"
"Be I to dance?" asked Mr. Voysey. "This is the first I've heard tell
o' that. How can I dance, and the rheumatism eating into my knees for
the last twenty year?"
"I'll dance," said Head. "You can just turn round and round slowly."
"Now, Mr. Baskerville!"
Vivian strode on to the stage.
"Make your voice big, my dear," pleaded Gollop.
"Here come I, the Giant; bold Turpin is my name,
And all the nations round do tremble at my fame,
Where'er I go, they tremble at my sight:
No lord or champion long with me will dare to fight."
"People will cheer you like thunder, Vivian," said his brother,
"because they know that the nations really did tremble at your fame
when you was champion wrestler of the west."
"But you mustn't stand like that, farmer," said Jack Head. "You'm too
spraddlesome. For the Lord's sake, man, try and keep your feet in the
same parish!"
Mr. Baskerville bellowed with laughter and slapped his immense thigh.
"Dammy! that's funnier than anything in the play," he said. "'Keep my
feet in the same parish!' Was ever a better joke heard?"
"Now, St. George, kill the Giant," commanded Dennis. "The Giant will
have a club, and he'll try to smash you; then run him through the body."
"Take care you don't hit Ned in real earnest, however, else you'd
settle him and spoil the play," said Mr. Voysey. "'Twould be a terrible
tantarra for certain if the Giant went and whipped St. George."
"'Twouldn't be the first time, however," said Mr. Baskerville. "Would
it, Ned?"
Nathan and Ned's sisters appreciated this family joke. Then Mr. Gollop
advanced a sentimental objection.
"I may be wrong," he admitted, "but I can't help thinking it might be a
bit ondecent for Ned Baskerville here to kill his father, even in play.
You see, though everybody will know 'tis Ned and his parent, and that
they'm only pretending, yet it might shock a serious-minded person here
and there to see the son kill the father. I don't say I mind, as 'tis
all make-believe and the frolic of a night; but--well, there 'tis."
"You'm a silly old grandmother, and never no King of Egypt was such a
fool afore," said Jack. "Pay no heed to him, reverend Masterman."
Gollop snarled at Head, and they began to wrangle fiercely.
Then Dennis closed the rehearsal.
"That'll do for the present," he announced. "We've made a splendid
start, and the thing to remember is that we meet here again this day
week, at seven o'clock. And mind you know your part, Ned. Another of
the songs will be ready by then; and the new harmonium will have come
that my sister is going to play. And do look about, all of you, to find
somebody who will take the Doctor."
"We shall have the nation's eyes on us--not for the first time,"
declared Mr. Gollop as he tied a white wool muffler round his throat;
"and I'm sure I hope one and all will do the best that's in 'em."
The actors departed; the oil lamps were extinguished, and the vicar and
his sister returned home. She said little by the way, and her severe
silence made him rather nervous.
"Well," he broke out at length, "jolly good, I think, for a first
attempt--eh, Alice?"
"I'm glad you were satisfied, dear. Everything depends upon us--that
seems quite clear, at any rate. They'll all get terribly self-conscious
and silly, I'm afraid, long before the time comes. However, we must
hope for the best. But I shouldn't be in a hurry to ask anybody who
really matters."
EDEN PHILLPOTTS in _The Three Brothers_
X
NEW YEAR
[Illustration: NEW YEAR]
New Year
Midnight Mass for the Dying Year
The Death of the Old Year
A New Year's Carol
New Year's Resolutions
Love and Joy come to You
Ring Out, Wild Bells
New Year's Eve, 1850
Rejoicings upon the New Year's Coming of Age
New Year's Rites in the Highlands
The Chinese New Year
New Year's Gifts in Thessaly
"Smashing" in the New Year
New Year Calls in Old New York
Sylvester Abend in Davos
[Illustration: -_New Year_-]
New Year
Each New Year is a leaf of our love's rose;
It falls, but quick another rose-leaf grows.
So is the flower from year to year the same,
But richer, for the dead leaves feed its flame.
RICHARD WATSON GILDER
_By permission of Houghton Mifflin Company_
Midnight Mass for the Dying Year
Yes, the Year is growing old,
And his eye is pale and bleared!
Death, with frosty hand and cold,
Plucks the old man by the beard,
Sorely, sorely!
The leaves are falling, falling,
Solemnly and slow;
Caw! caw! the rooks are calling,
It is a sound of woe,
A sound of woe!
Through woods and mountain passes
The winds, like anthems, roll;
They are chanting solemn masses,
Singing, "Pray for this poor soul,
Pray, pray!"
And the hooded clouds, like friars,
Tell their beads in drops of rain,
And patter their doleful prayers;
But their prayers are all in vain,
All in vain!
There he stands in the foul weather,
The foolish, fond Old Year,
Crowned with wild-flowers and with heather,
Like weak, despised Lear,
A king, a king!
Then comes the summer-like day,
Bids the old man rejoice!
His joy, his last! O, the old man gray
Loveth that ever-soft voice,
Gentle and low.
To the crimson woods he saith,
To the voice gentle and low
Of the soft air, like a daughter's breath,
"Pray do not mock me so!
Do not laugh at me!"
And now the sweet day is dead;
Cold in his arms it lies;
No stain from its breath is spread
Over the glassy skies,
No mist or stain!
Then, too, the Old Year dieth,
And the forests utter a moan,
Like the voice of one who crieth
In the wilderness alone,
"Vex not his ghost!"
Then comes, with an awful roar,
Gathering and sounding on,
The storm-wind from Labrador,
The wind Euroclydon,
The storm-wind!
Howl! howl! and from the forest
Sweep the red leaves away!
Would, the sins that thou abhorrest,
O Soul! could thus decay,
And be swept away!
For there shall come a mightier blast,
There shall be a darker day;
And the stars, from heaven down-cast,
Like red leaves be swept away!
Kyrie, eleyson!
Christe, eleyson!
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW
The Death of the Old Year
Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,
And the winter winds are wearily sighing:
Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow,
And tread softly and speak low,
For the old year lies a-dying.
Old year, you must not die;
You came to us so readily,
You lived with us so steadily,
Old year, you shall not die.
He lieth still: he doth not move:
He will not see the dawn of day.
He hath no other life above.
He gave me a friend, and a true true-love,
And the New Year will take 'em away.
Old year, you must not go;
So long as you have been with us,
Such joy as you have seen with us,
Old year, you shall not go.
He froth'd his bumpers to the brim;
A jollier year we shall not see.
But tho' his eyes are waxing dim,
And tho' his foes speak ill of him,
He was a friend to me.
Old year, you shall not die;
We did so laugh and cry with you,
I've half a mind to die with you,
Old year, if you must die.
He was full of joke and jest,
But all his merry quips are o'er.
To see him die, across the waste
His son and heir doth ride post-haste,
But he'll be dead before.
Every one for his own.
The night is starry and cold, my friend,
And the New-year blithe and bold, my friend,
Comes up to take his own.
How hard he breathes! over the snow
I heard just now the crowing cock.
The shadows flicker to and fro:
The cricket chirps: the light burns low:
'Tis nearly twelve o'clock.
Shake hands, before you die.
Old year, we'll dearly rue for you:
What is it we can do for you?
Speak out before you die.
His face is growing sharp and thin.
Alack! our friend is gone.
Close up his eyes: tie up his chin:
Step from the corpse, and let him in
That standeth there alone,
And awaiteth at the door.
There's a new foot on the floor, my friend,
And a new face at the door, my friend,
A new face at the door.
ALFRED TENNYSON
A New Year's Carol
Ah! dearest Jesus, Holy Child,
Make Thee a bed, soft, undefil'd,
Within my heart, that it may be
A quiet chamber kept for Thee.
My heart for very joy doth leap,
My lips no more can silence keep,
I too must sing, with joyful tongue,
That sweetest ancient cradle song,
"Glory to God in highest Heaven,
Who unto man His Son hath given."
While angels sing, with pious mirth,
A glad New Year to all the earth.
MARTIN LUTHER
New Year's Resolutions
January 1st.--The service on New Year's Eve is the only one in the
whole year that in the least impresses me in our little church, and
then the very bareness and ugliness of the place and the ceremonial
produce an effect that a snug service in a well-lit church never would.
Last night we took Irais and Minora, and drove the three lonely miles
in a sleigh. It was pitch-dark, and blowing great guns. We sat wrapped
up to our eyes in furs, and as mute as a funeral procession.
"We are going to the burial of our last year's sins," said Irais, as
we started; and there certainly was a funereal sort of feeling in the
air. Up in our gallery pew we tried to decipher our chorales by the
light of the spluttering tallow candles stuck in holes in the woodwork,
the flames wildly blown about by the draughts. The wind banged against
the windows in great gusts, screaming louder than the organ, and
threatening to blow out the agitated lights together. The parson in
his gloomy pulpit, surrounded by a framework of dusty carved angels,
took on an awful appearance of menacing Authority as he raised his
voice to make himself heard above the clatter. Sitting there in the
dark, I felt very small, and solitary, and defenceless, alone in a
great, big, black world. The church was as cold as a tomb; some of the
candles guttered and went out; the parson in his black robe spoke of
death and judgment; I thought I heard a child's voice screaming, and
could hardly believe it was only the wind, and felt uneasy and full
of forebodings; all my faith and philosophy deserted me, and I had a
horrid feeling that I should probably be well punished, though for what
I had no precise idea. If it had not been so dark, and if the wind had
not howled so despairingly, I should have paid little attention to the
threats issuing from the pulpit; but, as it was, I fell to making good
resolutions. This is always a bad sign,--only those who break them make
them; and if you simply do as a matter of course that which is right
as it comes, any preparatory resolving to do so becomes completely
superfluous. I have for some years past left off making them on New
Year's Eve, and only the gale happening as it did reduced me to
doing so last night; for I have long since discovered that, though the
year and the resolutions may be new, I myself am not, and it is worse
than useless putting new wine into old bottles.
[Illustration: THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI. _Paolo Veronese._]
"But I am not an old bottle," said Irais indignantly, when I held
forth to her to the above effect a few hours later in the library,
restored to all my philosophy by the warmth and light, "and I find my
resolutions carry me very nicely into the spring. I revise them at the
end of each month, and strike out the unnecessary ones. By the end of
April they have been so severely revised that there are none left."
"There, you see I am right; if you were not an old bottle your new
contents would gradually arrange themselves amiably as a part of you,
and the practice of your resolutions would lose its bitterness by
becoming a habit."
She shook her head. "Such things never lose their bitterness," she
said, "and that is why I don't let them cling to me right into the
summer. When May comes, I give myself up to jollity with all the rest
of the world, and am too busy being happy to bother about anything I
may have resolved when the days were cold and dark."
"And that is just why I love you," I thought. She often says what I
feel.
From _Elizabeth and her German Garden_
Love and Joy come to You
Here we come a-wassailing
Among the leaves so green,
Here we come a-wandering,
So fair to be seen.
_Love and joy come to you,
And to you your wassail too,
And God bless you, and send you
A happy New Year._
We are not daily beggars
That beg from door to door,
But we are neighbours' children
Whom you have seen before.
_Love and joy, &c._
Good Master and good Mistress,
As you sit by the fire,
Pray think of us poor children
Who are wandering in the mire.
_Love and joy, &c._
We have a little purse
Made of ratching leather skin;
We want some of your small change
To line it well within.
_Love and joy, &c._
Call up the butler of this house,
Put on his golden ring;
Let him bring us a glass of beer,
And the better we shall sing.
_Love and joy, &c._
Bring us out a table,
And spread it with a cloth;
Bring us out a mouldy cheese
And some of your Christmas loaf.
_Love and joy, &c._
God bless the Master of this house,
Likewise the Mistress too,
And all the little children
That round the table go.
_Love and joy come to you,
And to you your wassail too,
And God bless you, and send you
A happy New Year._
_Old English_
Ring Out, Wild Bells
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow;
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
* * * * *
Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
ALFRED TENNYSON
New Year's Eve, 1850
This is the midnight of the century,--hark!
Through aisle and arch of Godminster have gone
Twelve throbs that tolled the zenith of the dark,
And mornward now the starry hands move on;
"Mornward!" the angelic watchers say,
"Passed is the sorest trial;
No plot of man can stay
The hand upon the dial;
Night is the dark stem of the lily Day."
If we, who watched in valleys here below,
Toward streaks, misdeemed of morn, our faces turned
When Vulcan glares set all the east aglow,--
We are not poorer that we wept and yearned;
Though earth swing wide from God's intent,
And though no man nor nation
Will move with full consent
In heavenly gravitation,
Yet by one Sun is every orbit bent.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Rejoicings upon the New Year's Coming of Age
The Old Year being dead, and the New Year coming of age, which he does,
by Calendar Law, as soon as the breath is out of the old gentleman's
body, nothing would serve the young spark but he must give a dinner
upon the occasion, to which all the Days in the year were invited.
The Festivals, whom he deputed as his stewards, were mightily taken
with the notion. They had been engaged time out of mind, they said, in
providing mirth and good cheer for mortals below; and it was time they
should have a taste of their own bounty. It was stiffly debated among
them whether the Fasts should be admitted. Some said the appearance of
such lean, starved guests, with their mortified faces, would pervert
the ends of the meeting. But the objection was overruled by Christmas
Day, who had a design upon Ash Wednesday (as you shall hear), and a
mighty desire to see how the old Domine would behave himself in his
cups. Only the Vigils were requested to come with their lanterns, to
light the gentlefolks home at night.
All the Days came to their day. Covers were provided for three hundred
and sixty-five guests at the principal table; with an occasional knife
and fork at the side-board for the Twenty-Ninth of February.
I should have told you, that cards of invitation had been issued. The
carriers were the Hours; twelve little, merry, whirligig foot-pages,
as you should desire to see, that went all round, and found out the
persons invited well enough, with the exception of Easter Day, Shrove
Tuesday, and a few such Moveables, who had lately shifted their
quarters.
Well, they all met at last--foul Days, fine Days, all sorts of Days,
and a rare din they made of it. There was nothing but, Hail! fellow
Day, well met--brother Day--sister Day,--only Lady Day kept a little on
the aloof, and seemed somewhat scornful. Yet some said Twelfth Day cut
her out and out, for she came in a tiffany suit, white and gold, like
a queen on a frost-cake, all royal, glittering, and Epiphanous. The
rest came, some in green, some in white--but old Lent and his family
were not yet out of mourning. Rainy Days came in dripping; and sunshiny
Days helped them to change their stockings. Wedding Day was there in
his marriage finery, a little worse for wear. Pay Day came late, as he
always does; and Doomsday sent word--he might be expected.
April Fool (as my young lord's jester) took upon himself to marshal
the guests, and wild work he made with it. It would have posed old
Erra Pater to have found out any given Day in the year to erect a
scheme upon--good Days, bad Days, were so shuffled together, to the
confounding of all sober horoscopy.
He had stuck the Twenty-First of June next to the Twenty-Second of
December, and the former looked like a Maypole siding a marrow-bone.
Ash Wednesday got wedged in (as was concerted) betwixt Christmas and
Lord Mayor's Days. Lord! how he laid about him! Nothing but barons of
beef and turkeys would go down with him--to the great greasing and
detriment of his new sackcloth bib and tucker. And still Christmas Day
was at his elbow, plying him with the wassail-bowl, till he roared,
and hiccupp'd, and protested there was no faith in dried ling, but
commended it to the devil for a sour, windy, acrimonious, censorious,
hy-po-crit-crit-critical mess, and no dish for a gentleman. Then he
dipt his fist into the middle of the great custard that stood before
his left-hand neighbour, and daubed his hungry beard all over with it,
till you would have taken him for the Last Day in December, it so hung
in icicles.
At another part of the table, Shrove Tuesday was helping the Second
of September to some cock broth,--which courtesy the latter returned
with the delicate thigh of a hen pheasant--so that there was no love
lost for that matter. The Last of Lent was spunging upon Shrove-tide's
pancakes; which April Fool perceiving, told him that he did well, for
pancakes were proper to a good fry-day.
In another part, a hubbub arose about the Thirtieth of January, who,
it seems, being a sour, puritanic character, that thought nobody's
meat good or sanctified enough for him, had smuggled into the room a
calf's head, which he had had cooked at home for that purpose, thinking
to feast thereon incontinently; but as it lay in the dish, March
Manyweathers, who is a very fine lady, and subject to the meagrims,
screamed out there was a "human head in the platter," and raved about
Herodias' daughter to that degree, that the obnoxious viand was obliged
to be removed; nor did she recover her stomach till she had gulped down
a Restorative, confected of Oak Apple, which the merry Twenty-Ninth of
May always carries about with him for that purpose.
The King's health being called for after this, a notable dispute arose
between the Twelfth of August (a zealous old Whig gentlewoman) and the
Twenty-Third of April (a new-fangled lady of the Tory stamp) as to
which of them should have the honour to propose it. August grew hot
upon the matter, affirming time out of mind the prescriptive right to
have lain with her, till her rival had basely supplanted her; whom she
represented as little better than a kept mistress, who went about in
fine clothes, while she (the legitimate Birthday) had scarcely a rag,
etc.
April Fool, being made mediator, confirmed the right, in the strongest
form of words, to the appellant, but decided for peace' sake, that the
exercise of it should remain with the present possessor. At the time,
he slily rounded the first lady in the ear, that an action might lie
against the Crown for bi-geny.
It beginning to grow a little duskish, Candlemas lustily bawled out
for lights, which was opposed by all the Days, who protested against
burning daylight. Then fair water was handed round in silver ewers, and
the same lady was observed to take an unusual time in Washing herself.
May Day, with that sweetness which is peculiar to her, in a neat speech
proposing the health of the founder, crowned her goblet (and by her
example the rest of the company) with garlands. This being done, the
lordly New Year, from the upper end of the table, in a cordial but
somewhat lofty tone, returned thanks. He felt proud on an occasion
of meeting so many of his worthy father's late tenants, promised to
improve their farms, and at the same time to abate (if anything was
found unreasonable) in their rents.
At the mention of this, the four Quarter Days involuntarily looked at
each other, and smiled; April Fool whistled to an old tune of "New
Brooms"; and a surly old rebel at the farther end of the table (who
was discovered to be no other than the Fifth of November) muttered
out, distinctly enough to be heard by the whole company, words to this
effect--that "when the old one is gone, he is a fool that looks for
a better." Which rudeness of his, the guests resenting, unanimously
voted his expulsion; and the malcontent was thrust out neck and heels
into the cellar, as the properest place for such a _boutefeu_ and
firebrand as he had shown himself to be.
Order being restored--the young lord (who, to say truth, had been a
little ruffled, and put beside his oratory) in as few, and yet as
obliging words as possible, assured them of entire welcome; and, with
a graceful turn, singling out poor Twenty-Ninth of February, that had
sate all this while mumchance at the side-board, begged to couple
his health with that of the good company before him--which he drank
accordingly; observing, that he had not seen his honest face any time
these four years, with a number of endearing expressions besides. At
the same time removing the solitary Day from the forlorn seat which had
been assigned him, he stationed him at his own board, somewhere between
the Greek Calends and Latter Lammas.
Ash Wednesday, being now called upon for a song, with his eyes fast
stuck in his head, and as well as the Canary he had swallowed would
give him leave, struck up a Carol, which Christmas Day had taught him
for the nounce; and was followed by the latter, who gave "Miserere" in
fine style, hitting off the mumping notes and lengthened drawl of Old
Mortification with infinite humour. April Fool swore they had exchanged
conditions; but Good Friday was observed to look extremely grave; and
Sunday held her fan before her face that she might not be seen to smile.
Shrove-tide, Lord Mayor's Day, and April Fool next joined in a glee--
Which is the properest day to drink?
in which all the Days chiming in, made a merry burden.
They next fell to quibbles and conundrums. The question being proposed,
who had the greatest number of followers--the Quarter Days said, there
could be no question as to that; for they had all the creditors in the
world dogging their heels. But April Fool gave it in favour of the
Forty Days before Easter; because the debtors in all cases outnumbered
the creditors, and they kept Lent all the year.
All this while Valentine's Day kept courting pretty May, who sate next
him, slipping amorous billets-doux under the table, till the Dog Days
(who are naturally of a warm constitution) began to be jealous, and
to bark and rage exceedingly. April Fool, who likes a bit of sport
above measure, and had some pretensions to the lady besides, as being
but a cousin once removed,--clapped and halloo'd them on; and as fast
as their indignation cooled, those mad wags, the Ember Days, were
at it with their bellows, to blow it into a flame; and all was in a
ferment, till old Madam Septuagesima (who boasts herself the Mother of
the Days) wisely diverted the conversation with a tedious tale of the
lovers which she could reckon when she was young, and of one Master
Rogation Day in particular, who was for ever putting the question to
her; but she kept him at a distance, as the chronicle would tell--by
which I apprehend she meant the Almanack. Then she rambled on to the
Days that were gone, the good old Days, and so to the Days before the
Flood--which plainly showed her old head to be little better than
crazed and doited.
Day being ended, the Days called for their cloaks and greatcoats, and
took their leaves. Lord Mayor's Day went off in a Mist, as usual;
Shortest Day in a deep black Fog, that wrapt the little gentleman
all round like a hedgehog. Two Vigils--so watchmen are called in
heaven--saw Christmas Day safe home--they had been used to the business
before. Another Vigil--a stout, sturdy patrole, called the Eve of St.
Christopher--seeing Ash Wednesday in a condition little better than he
should be--e'en whipt him over his shoulders, pick-a-back fashion, and
Old Mortification went floating home singing--
On the bat's back do I fly,
and a number of old snatches besides, between drunk and sober, but
very few Aves or Penitentiaries (you may believe me) were among them.
Longest Days set off westward in beautiful crimson and gold--the rest,
some in one fashion, some in another; but Valentine and pretty May took
their departure together in one of the prettiest silvery twilights a
Lover's Day could wish to set in.
CHARLES LAMB
New Year's Rites in the Highlands
New Year's Day was not in pre-Reformation times associated with any
special rites. Hence Scottish Reformers, while subjecting to discipline
those who observed Christmas, were willing that New Year's Day should
be appropriated to social pleasures. Towards the closing hour of the
31st December each family prepared a hot pint of wassail bowl of which
all the members might drink to each other's prosperity as the new year
began. Hot pint usually consisted of a mixture of spiced and sweetened
ale with an infusion of whiskey. Along with the drinking of the hot
pint was associated the practice of _first foot_, or a neighborly
greeting. After the year had commenced, each one hastened to his
neighbor's house bearing a small gift; it was deemed "unlucky" to enter
"empty handed."
With New Year's Day were in some portions of the Highlands associated
peculiar rites. At Strathdown the junior anointed in bed the elder
members of the household with water, which the evening before had been
silently drawn from "the dead and living food." Thereafter they kindled
in each room, after closing the chimneys, bunches of juniper. These
rites, the latter attended with much discomfort, were held to ward off
pestilence and sorcery.
The direction of the wind on New Year's Eve was supposed to rule the
weather during the approaching year. Hence the rhyme:
If New Year's Eve night-wind blow south,
It betokeneth warmth and growth;
If west, much milk,--and fish in the sea:
If north, much cold and storms there will be;
If east, the trees will bear much fruit;
If north-east, flee it, man and brute.
CHARLES ROGERS in _Social Life in Scotland_
The Chinese New Year
The anniversary of the New Year in China follows the variations of a
lunar year, falling in early February or toward the end of January; the
rejoicings are continued with great spirit for a week or more.
On the last day of the old year, accounts are settled, debts cancelled,
and books carefully balanced in every mercantile establishment from
the largest merchants or bankers, down to the itinerant venders of
cooked food and vegetable-mongers. In every house the swanpaun, or
calculating machine, is in use. This nation does not write down
figures, but reckons with surprising rapidity and accuracy by the aid
of a small frame of wood crossed with wires like columns and small
balls strung on them for counters.
It is considered disgraceful, and almost equivalent to an act of
bankruptcy, if all accounts are not settled the last day of the old
year; consequently it frequently happens that articles of ornament or
curiosity can be purchased at low rates in the last week of the year
from the desire of merchants to sacrifice their stock rather than go
without ready money. In all courts the official seals are locked in
strong-boxes, till the holiday is at an end.
On the last day of the old year is observed the ancient custom of
surrounding the furnace. A feast is spread in great form before males
in one room, females in another; underneath the table exactly in the
centre is placed a brazier filled with lighted wood or charcoal;
fireworks are discharged, gilt paper burned, and the feast eaten, the
younger sons serving the head of the house. After the repast there is
more burning of gilt paper, and the ashes are divided, while still
smouldering, into twelve heaps, which are anxiously watched. The twelve
heaps are each allotted to a month, and it is believed that from
the length of time it takes each heap to die completely out, can be
predicted the changes of rain or drought which will be of benefit to
the crops or the reverse.
The first celebration of the New Year is the offering _to heaven and
earth_. A table in the principal entrance is spread with a bucket of
rice, five or ten bowls of different vegetables (no meats) ten cups
of tea, ten cups of wine, two large red candles, and three sticks of
common incense or one large stick of a more fragrant kind. In the
wooden bucket holding the rice are stuck flowers or bits of fragrant
cedar, and ten pairs of chopsticks. On the sticks are laid mock money
only used at this season; to one of the sticks is suspended by a red
string an almanac of the coming year; and near the centre of the
table is always displayed a bowl of oranges. Then after a display of
fireworks each member of the family approaches and performs homage
by a ceremony of triple bowings. This is succeeded by ceremonies of
veneration to ancestors and tokens of respect and reverence to living
ancestors or relatives--but to the living neither incense, nor candle
nor mock money is offered,--not even food except the omnipresent loose
skinned orange whose colloquial name is the same as the term for
"fortunate."
On New Year's Day, the houses are decorated with inscriptions which are
hung at either side of the door, on the pillars or frames, and in the
interior of the houses; some are suspended from long poles attached
to the outside of the house. The color of the paper indicates whether
during the preceding year the inmates of the house have lost a relative
and if so the degree of the relation of the dead person to those
within. Those who are not in mourning use a brilliant crimson paper;
in many cases the word _happiness_ is repeated innumerable times; on
some are more ambitious mottoes:--"May I be so learned as to bear in
my memory the substance of three millions of volumes," "May I know the
affairs of the whole universe for six thousand years," "I will cheat no
man." The monasteries declare "Our lives are pure" and the nunneries
"We are grandmothers in heart."
In some parts of China there prevails a curious custom among mendicants
of electing a chief who goes to each shopkeeper and asks a donation.
If that received be liberal, a piece of red paper affixed to the
merchant's doorway exempts him from applications from the begging
fraternity for one year. During this term of immunity there will be no
annoyance from the clatter on his doorpost of the beggars' bamboo.
For the time being, business is suspended, tribunals are closed, houses
are decorated, gifts interchanged, large sums expended on fireworks,
and the celebration reaches full swing on the night of the Feast of
Lanterns, when every dwelling in the Kingdom from the mud-walled bamboo
hut, to the Emperor's palace with marble halls, are all illuminated
with lanterns of every size and shape. At the end of the feast a great
pyrotechnic display takes place, in the courtyard of the better class
of residences, in the streets before the abodes of the middle and lower
classes, each one trying to outdo the year before in the magnificence
of the display, the strangeness of the devices, and the brilliancy of
the fireworks. The air is illumined with millions of sparks, and the
eye rests upon thousands of grotesque monsters outlined in the many
colored flames.
H. C. SIRR in _China and the Chinese_
New Year's Gifts in Thessaly
No good Thessalian would think of being absent from the liturgy on New
Year's morning, and no good peasant would think of leaving behind him
the pomegranate which has been exposed to the stars all night, and
which they take to the church for the priest to bless. On his return
home the master of each house dashes this pomegranate on the floor
as he crosses his threshold, and says as he does so, "May as many
good-lucks come to my household as there are pips in this pomegranate;"
and apostrophizing, so to speak, the demons of the house, he adds,
"Away with you, fleas, and bugs, and evil words; and within this house
may health, happiness, and the good things of this world reign supreme!"
In like manner, no good housewife would neglect to distribute sweets
to her children on New Year's morning, considering that by eating them
they will secure for themselves a sweet career for the rest of the year.
And many other little superstitions of a kindred nature are considered
essential to the well-being of the family. In one house we entered
on New Year's Day we were presented with pieces of a curious and
exceedingly nasty leavened loaf, and were told that this is the New
Year's cake which every family makes; into it is dropped a coin, and he
who gets the coin in his slice will be the luckiest during the coming
year. Every member of the family has a slice given to him--even the
tiny baby, who has not the remotest chance of consuming all his; and
then besides the family slices, two large ones are always cut off the
cake and set on one side; one of these is said to be "for the house,"
which nobody eats, but when it is quite dry it is put on a shelf near
the sacred pictures, which occupy a corner in every home, however
humble, and is dedicated to the saints--the household gods of the old
days. The other slice is for the poor, who go around with baskets
on their arms on New Year's Day and collect from each household the
portion which they know has been put aside for them.
Every Thessalian, however poor, gives a New Year's gift "for good
luck," they say; and these gifts curiously enough are called
ἐπινομίδες--a word which we find Athenænus using as a translation of
the Roman term _strena_ for the same gift, which still exists in the
French _étrennes_ and Italian _strenne_. Even as in ancient Rome gifts
were given on this day _bona ominis causa_ so did we find ourselves
constantly presented with something on New Year's Day--nuts, apples,
dried figs, and things of a like nature, which caused our pockets to
become inconveniently crowded. I fancy it was much the same in Roman
days and probably earlier as it is now in out of the way corners of
Greece. We know how on New Year's Day clients sent presents to their
patrons--slaves to the lords, friends to friends, and the people to the
Emperor--and that Caligula, who was never a rich man, took advantage of
this custom and made known that on New Year's Day he wanted a dower for
his daughter, which resulted in such piles of gold being brought that
he walked barefoot upon them at his palace door.
The custom of giving New Year's gifts in Rome grew as great a nuisance
as wedding presents bid fair to become with us, and sumptuary laws
had to be passed to restrict the lavish expenditure in them, and
the earlier Christian divines took occasion to abuse them hotly,
St. Augustine calling New Year's gifts "diabolical" and Chrysostom
preaching that the first of the year was a "Satanic extravagance."
Wishing to Christianize a pagan custom as they always tried to do,
these earlier divines invented Christmas gifts as a substitute.
Wherefore we unfortunate dwellers in the West have the survival of both
Christmas and New Year's gifts; in Greece Christmas gifts are unknown;
but there exists not in Greece a man, however poor, who does not make
an effort to give his friends a gift on the day of the Kalends.
J. THEODORE BENT
"Smashing" in the New Year
The Old Year went out with much such a racket as we make nowadays,
but of quite a different kind. We did not blow the New Year in, we
"smashed" it in. When it was dark on New Year's Eve, we stole out with
all the cracked and damaged crockery of the year that had been hoarded
for the purpose and, hieing ourselves to some favorite neighbor's door,
broke our pots against it. Then we ran, but not very far or very fast,
for it was part of the game that if one was caught at it, he was to
be taken in and treated to hot doughnuts. The smashing was a mark of
favor, and the citizen who had most pots broken against his door was
the most popular man in town. When I was in the Latin School a cranky
burgomaster, whose door had been freshly painted, gave orders to the
watchmen to stop it, and gave them an unhappy night, for they were hard
put to it to find a way it was safe to look, with the streets full of
the best citizens in town, and their wives and daughters, sneaking
singly by with bulging coats on their way to salute a friend. That was
when our mothers, those who were not out smashing in the New Year, came
out strong after the fashion of mothers. They baked more doughnuts
than ever that night, and beckoned the watchman in to the treat; and
there he sat, blissfully deaf while the street rang with the thunderous
salvos of our raids; until it was discovered that the burgomaster
himself was on post, when there was a sudden rush from kitchen doors
and a great scurrying through the streets that grew strangely silent.
The town had its revenge, however. The burgomaster, returning home in
the midnight hour, stumbled in his gate over a discarded Christmas-tree
hung full of old boots and many black and sooty pots that went down
round him with a great smash as he upset it, so that his family came
running out in alarm to find him sprawling in the midst of the biggest
celebration of all. His dignity suffered a shock which he never quite
got over. But it killed the New Year's fun, too. For he was really a
good fellow, and then he was the burgomaster and chief of police to
boot. I suspect the fact was that the pot-smashing had run its course.
Perhaps the supply of pots was giving out; we began to use tinware more
about that time. That was the end of it, anyhow.
JACOB RIIS in _The Old Town_
New Year Calls in Old New York
From old Dutch times to the middle of the nineteenth century New Year's
Day in New York was devoted to an universal interchange of visits. Old
friendships were renewed, family differences settled, a hearty welcome
extended even to strangers of presentable appearance.
The following is an entry in Tyrone Powers the actor's diary for
January 1, 1834: "On this day from an early hour every door in New
York is open and all the good things possessed by the inmates paraded
in lavish profusion. Every sort of vehicle is put in requisition. At
an early hour a gentleman of whom I had a slight knowledge entered my
room, accompanied by an elderly person I had never before seen, and
who, on being named, excused himself for adopting such a frank mode of
making my acquaintance, which he was pleased to add he much desired,
and at once requested me to fall in with the custom of the day, whose
privilege he had thus availed himself of, and accompany him on a visit
to his family.
"I was the last man on earth likely to decline an offer made in such a
spirit; so entering his carriage, which was waiting, we drove to his
house on Broadway, where, after being presented to a very amiable lady,
his wife, and a pretty gentle-looking girl, his daughter, I partook of
a sumptuous luncheon, drank a glass of champagne, and on the arrival of
other visitors, made my bow, well pleased with my visit.
"My host now begged me to make a few calls with him, explaining, as we
drove along, the strict observances paid to this day throughout the
State, and tracing the excellent custom to the early Dutch colonists.
I paid several calls in company with my new friend, and at each place
met a hearty welcome, when my companion suggested that I might have
some compliments to make on my own account, and so leaving me, begged
me to consider his carriage perfectly at my disposal. I left a card
or two and made a couple of hurried visits, then returned to my hotel
to think over the many beneficial effects likely to grow out of such
a charitable custom which makes even the stranger sensible of the
benevolent influence of this kindly day, and to wish for its continued
observance."
At the period of which Power speaks there were great feasts spread in
many houses, and the traditions of tremendous Dutch eating and drinking
were faithfully observed. Special houses were noted for particular
forms of entertainment. At one it was eggnog, at another rum punch;
at this one, pickled oysters, at that, boned turkey, or marvellous
chocolate, or perfect Mocha coffee; or for the select _cognoscenti_ a
drop of old Madeira as delicate in flavor as the texture of the glass
from which it was sipped. At all houses there were the New Year's
cakes, in the form of an Egyptian _cartouche_, and in later and more
degenerate days relays of champagne-bottles appeared,--the coming in of
the lower empire.
Then followed the gradual breaking down of all the lines of
conventionality into a wild and unseemly riot of visits. New Year's
Day took on the character of a rabid and untamed race against time. A
procession, each of whose component parts was made up of two or three
young men in an open barouche, with a pair of steaming horses and a
driver more or less under the influences of the hilarity of the day,
would rattle from one house to another all day long. The visitors
would jump out of the carriage, rush into the house, and reappear in
a miraculously short space of time. The ceremony of calling was a
burlesque. There was a noisy, hilarious greeting, a glass of wine was
swallowed hurriedly, everybody shook hands all around, and the callers
dashed out, rushed into the carriage, and were driven hurriedly to the
next house.
A reaction naturally set in which ended in the almost complete disuse
of the custom of New Year's Calls.
W. S. WALSH in _Curiosities of Popular Customs_
Sylvester Abend in Davos
It is ten o'clock upon Sylvester Abend, or New Year's Eve. Herr Buol
sits with his wife at the head of his long table. His family and
serving-folk are around him. There is his mother, with little Ursula,
his child, upon her knee. The old lady is the mother of four comely
daughters and nine stalwart sons, the eldest of whom is now a grizzled
man. Besides our host, four of the brothers are here to-night; the
handsome melancholy Georg, who is so gentle in his speech; Simeon,
with his diplomatic face; Florian, the student of medicine; and my
friend, colossal-breasted Christian. Palmy came a little later, worried
with many cares, but happy to his heart's core. No optimist was ever
more convinced of his philosophy than Palmy. After them, below the
salt, were ranged the knechts and porters, the marmiton from the
kitchen, and innumerable maids. The board was tessellated with plates
of birnen-brod and eier-brod, kuchli and cheese and butter; and Georg
stirred grampampuli in a mighty metal bowl. For the uninitiated, it may
be needful to explain these Davos delicacies. Birnen-brod is what the
Scotch would call a "bun," or massive cake, composed of sliced pears,
almonds, spices, and a little flour. Eier-brod is a saffron-coloured
sweet bread, made with eggs; and kuchli is a kind of pastry, crisp and
flimsy, fashioned into various devices of cross, star, and scroll.
Grampampuli is simply brandy burnt with sugar, the most unsophisticated
punch I ever drank from tumblers. The frugal people of Davos, who live
on bread and cheese and dried meat all the year, indulge themselves but
once with these unwonted dainties in the winter.
The occasion was cheerful, and yet a little solemn. The scene was
feudal. For these Buols are the scions of a warrior race:--
"A race illustrious for heroic deeds;
Humbled, but degraded."
During the six centuries through which they have lived nobles in
Davos, they have sent forth scores of fighting men to foreign lands,
ambassadors to France and Venice and the Milanese, governors to
Chiavenna and Bregaglia and the much-contested Valtelline. Members of
their house are Counts of Buol-Schauenstein in Austria, Freiherrs of
Muhlingen and Berenberg in the now German Empire. They keep the patent
of nobility conferred on them by Henri IV. Their ancient coat--parted
per pale azure and argent, with a dame of the fourteenth century
bearing in her hand a rose, all counterchanged--is carved in wood and
monumental marble on the churches and old houses hereabouts. And from
immemorial antiquity the Buol of Davos has sat thus on Sylvester Abend
with family and folk around him, summoned from alp and snowy field to
drink grampampuli and break the birnen-brod.
These rites performed, the men and maids began to sing--brown arms
lounging on the table, and red hands folded in white aprons--serious at
first in hymn-like cadences, then breaking into wilder measures with a
jodel at the close. There is a measured solemnity in the performance,
which strikes the stranger as somewhat comic. But the singing was good;
the voices strong and clear in tone, no hesitation and no shirking of
the melody. It was clear that the singers enjoyed the music for its
own sake, with half-shut eyes, as they take dancing, solidly, with
deep-drawn breath, sustained and indefatigable. But eleven struck; and
the two Christians, my old friend and Palmy, said we should be late
for church. They had promised to take me with them to see bell-ringing
in the tower. All the young men of the village meet, and draw lots in
the Stube of the Rathhaus. One party tolls the old year out, the other
rings the new year in. He who comes last is sconced three litres of
Veltliner for the company. This jovial fine was ours to pay to-night.
When we came into the air we found a bitter frost; the whole sky
clouded over; a north wind whirling snow from alp and forest through
the murky gloom. The benches and broad walnut tables of the Rathhaus
were crowded with men in shaggy homespun of brown and grey frieze.
Its low wooden roof and walls enclosed an atmosphere of smoke, denser
than the eternal snow-drift. But our welcome was hearty, and we found
a score of friends. Titanic Fopp, whose limbs are Michelangelesque
in length; spectacled Morosani; the little tailor Kramer, with a
French horn on his knees; the puckered forehead of the Baumeister; the
Troll-shaped postman; peasants and woodmen, known on far excursions
upon pass and upland valley. Not one but carried on his face the memory
of winter strife with avalanche and snow-drift, of horses struggling
through Fluela whirlwinds, and wine-casks tugged across Bernina, and
haystacks guided down precipitous gullies at thundering speed 'twixt
pine and pine, and larches felled in distant glens beside the frozen
watercourses. Here we were, all met together for one hour from our
several homes and occupations, to welcome in the year with clinked
glasses and cries of Prosit Neujahr!
The tolling bells above us stopped. Our turn had come. Out into the
snowy air we tumbled, beneath the row of wolves' heads that adorn
the pent-house roof. A few steps brought us to the still God's acre,
where the snow lay deep and cold upon high-mounded graves of many
generations. We crossed it silently, bent our heads to the low Gothic
arch, and stood within the tower. It was thick darkness there. But far
above, the bells began again to clash and jangle confusedly, with
volleys of demoniac joy. Successive flights of ladders, each ending in
a giddy platform hung across the gloom, climb to the height of some
hundred and fifty feet; and all their rungs were crusted with frozen
snow, deposited by trampling boots. For up and down these stairs,
ascending and descending, moved other than angels--the frieze-jacketed
Burschen, Grisens bears, rejoicing in their exercise, exhilarated with
the tingling noise of beaten metal. We reached the first room safely,
guided by firm-footed Christian, whose one candle just defined the
rough walls and the slippery steps. There we found a band of boys
pulling ropes that set the bells in motion. But our destination was not
reached. One more aerial ladder, perpendicular in darkness, brought
us swiftly to the home of sound. It is a small square chamber, where
the bells are hung, filled with the interlacement of enormous beams,
and pierced to north and south by open windows, from whose parapets I
saw the village and the valley spread beneath. The fierce wind hurried
through it, charged with snow, and its narrow space thronged with
men. Men on the platform, men on the window-sills, men grappling the
bells with iron arms, men brushing by to reach the stairs, crossing,
re-crossing, shouldering their mates, drinking red wine from gigantic
beakers, exploding crackers, firing squibs, shouting and yelling in
corybantic chorus. They yelled and shouted, one could see it by their
open mouths and glittering eyes; but not a sound from human lungs
could reach our ears. The overwhelming incessant thunder of the bells
drowned all. It thrilled the tympanum, ran through the marrow of
the spine, vibrated in the inmost entrails. Yet the brain was only
steadied and excited by this sea of brazen noise. After a few moments
I knew the place and felt at home in it. Then I enjoyed a spectacle
which sculptors might have envied. For they ring the bells in Davos
after this fashon:--The lads below set them going with ropes. The
men above climb in pairs on ladders to the beams from which they are
suspended. Two mighty pine-trees, roughly squared and built into the
walls, extend from side to side across the belfry. Another, from which
the bells hang, connects these massive trunks at right angles. Just
where the central beam is wedged into the two parallel supports, the
ladders reach from each side of the belfry, so that, bending from the
higher rung of the ladder, and leaning over, stayed upon the lateral
beam, each pair of men can keep one bell in movement with their hands.
Each comrade plants one leg upon the ladder, and sets the other knee
firmly athwart the horizontal pine. Then round each other's waist they
twine left arm and right. The two have thus become one man. Right arm
and left are free to grasp the bell's horns, sprouting at its crest
beneath the beam. With a grave rhythmic motion, bending sideward in a
close embrace, swaying and returning to their centre from the well-knit
loins, they drive the force of each strong muscle into the vexed bell.
The impact is earnest at first, but soon it becomes frantic. The men
take something from each other of exalted enthusiasm. This efflux
of their combined energies inspires them and exasperates the mighty
resonance of metal which they rule. They are lost in a trance of what
approximates to dervish passion--so thrilling is the surge of sound, so
potent are the rhythms they obey. Men come and tug them by the heels.
One grasps the starting thews upon their calves. Another is impatient
for their place. But they strain still, locked together, and forgetful
of the world. At length, they have enough: then slowly, clingingly,
unclasp, turn round with gazing eyes, and are resumed, sedately, into
the diurnal round of common life. Another pair is in their room upon
the beam.
The Englishman who saw those things stood looking up, enveloped in his
ulster with the grey cowl thrust upon his forehead, like a monk. One
candle cast a grotesque shadow of him on the plastered wall. And when
his chance came, though he was but a weakling, he too climbed and for
some moments hugged the beam, and felt the madness of the swinging
bell. Descending, he wondered long and strangely whether he ascribed
too much of feeling to the men he watched. But no, that was impossible.
There are emotions deeply seated in the joy of exercise, when the body
is brought into play, and masses move in concert, of which the subject
is but half conscious. Music and dance, and the delirium of the battle
or the chase, act thus upon spontaneous natures. The mystery of rhythm
and associated energy and blood tingling in sympathy is here. It lies
at the root of man's most tyrannous instinctive impulses.
It was past one when we reached home, and now a meditative man might
well have gone to bed. But no one thinks of sleeping on Sylvester
Abend. So there followed bowls of punch in one friend's room, where
English, French, and German blent together in convivial Babel; and
flasks of old Montagner in another. Palmy, at this period, wore an
archdeacon's hat, and smoked a church-warden's pipe; and neither
were his own, nor did he derive anything ecclesiastical or Anglican
from the association. Late in the morning we must sally forth, they
said, and roam the town. For it is the custom here on New Year's
night to greet acquaintances, and ask for hospitality, and no one may
deny these self-invited guests. We turned out again into the grey
snow-swept gloom, a curious Comus--not at all like Greeks, for we had
neither torches in our hands nor rose-wreaths to suspend upon a lady's
door-posts....
However, upon this occasion, though we had winter wind enough, and cold
enough, there was not much love in the business. My arm was firmly
clenched in Christian Buol's, and Christian Palmy came behind, trolling
out songs in Italian dialect, with still recurring canaille choruses,
of which the facile rhymes seemed mostly made on a prolonged amu-u-u-r.
It is noticeable that Italian ditties are especially designed for
fellows shouting in the streets at night.... The tall church-tower and
spire loomed up above us in grey twilight. The tireless wind still
swept thin snow from fell and forest. But the frenzied bells had sunk
into their twelve-month's slumber, which shall be broken only by
decorous tollings at less festive times. I wondered whether they were
tingling still with the heart-throbs and with the pressure of those
many arms? Was their old age warmed, as mine was, with that gust of
life--the young men who had clung to them like bees to lily-bells, and
shaken all their locked-up tone and shrillness into the wild winter
air? Alas! how many generations of the young have handled them; and
they are still there, frozen in their belfry; and the young grow
middle-aged, and old, and die at last; and the bells they grappled in
their lust of manhood toll them to their graves, on which the tireless
wind will, winter after winter, sprinkle snow from alps and forests
which they knew.
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
XI
TWELFTH NIGHT
[Illustration: TWELFTH NIGHT]
"Now have Good Day!"
A Twelfth Night Superstition
Twelfth-Day Table Diversion
The Blessing of the Waters
La Galette du Roi
Drawing King and Queen on Twelfth Night
St. Distaff's Day and Plough Monday
[Illustration]
Down with the rosemary and bays,
Down with the mistletoe;
Instead of holly, now up-raise
The greener box, for show.
The holly hitherto did sway;
Let box now domineer,
Until the dancing Easter-day,
On Easter's Eve appear.
ROBERT HERRICK
Now have Good Day
_Now have good day, now have good day!
I am Christmas, and now I go my way!_
Here have I dwelt with more and less,
From Hallow-tide till Candlemas!
And now must I from you hence pass,
_Now have good day!_
I take my leave of King and Knight,
And Earl, Baron, and lady bright!
To wilderness I must me dight!
_Now have good day!_
And at the good lord of this hall,
I take my leave, and of guests all!
Methinks I hear Lent doth call,
_Now have good day!_
And at every worthy officer,
Marshall, painter, and butler,
I take my leave as for this year,
_Now have good day!_
Another year I trust I shall
Make merry in this hall!
If rest and peace in England may fall!
_Now have good day!_
But often times I have heard say,
That he is loth to part away,
That often biddeth "have good day!"
_Now have good day!_
Now fare ye well all in-fere!
Now fare ye well for all this year,
Yet for my sake make ye good cheer!
_Now have good day!_
_From a Balliol MS. of c. 1540_
A Twelfth Night Superstition
Twice six nights then from Christmasse, they do count with diligence,
Where in eche maister in his house doth burne by franckensence:
And on the table settes a loafe, when night approcheth nere,
Before the coles and franckensence to be perfumed there:
First bowing down his heade he standes, and nose and eares and eyes
He smokes, and with hos mouth receyves the fume that doth arise
Whom followeth streight his wife, and doth the same full solemly,
And of their children every one and all their family;
Which doth preserve they say their teeth and nose and eye and eare
From every kind of maladie, and sicknesse all the yeare.
When every one receyued hath this odour great and small
Then one takes up the pan with coales, and franckensence and all
An other takes the loafe, whom all the rest do follow here.
And round about the house they go with torch or taper clere,
That neither bread nor meat do want, nor witch with dreadful charme
Have power to hurt their children or to do their cattell harme
There are that three nightes only do perfoure this foolish geare
To this intent, and thinke themselves in safetie all the yeare.
BARNABY GOOGE'S versification of _The Popish Kingdome_
Twelfth-Day Table Diversion
John Nott, describing himself as "late cook to the dukes of Somerset,
Ormond, and Batton," writes in 1726: "Ancient artists in cookery inform
us that in former days, when good housekeeping was in fashion amongst
the English nobility, they used either to begin or conclude their
entertainments, and divert their guests with such pretty devices as
these following, viz:--
A castle made of pasteboard, with gates, drawbridges, battlements and
portcullises, all done over with paste, was set upon a table in a
large charger, with salt laid round about it, as if it were the ground
in which were stuck egg-shells full of rose or other sweet waters,
the meat of the egg having been taken out by a great pin. Upon the
battlement of the castle were planted Kexes covered over with paste, in
the form of cannons, and made to look like brass by covering them with
dutch leaf-gold. These cannons being charged with gunpowder, and trains
laid so that you might fire as many as you pleased, at one touch; this
castle was set at one end of the table.
Then in the middle of the table, they would set a stag made of paste,
but hollow, and filled with claret wine, and a broad arrow stuck in his
side; this was also set in a large charger, with a ground made of salt
with egg-shells of perfumed waters stuck in it as before.
Then at the other end of the table, they would have a ship made of
pasteboard, and covered all over with paste, with masts, sails, flags,
and streamers; and guns made of Kexes, covered with paste and charged
with gunpowder, with a train, as in the castle. This being placed in
a large charger was set upright in as it were a sea of salt, in which
were also stuck egg-shells full of perfumed waters. Then betwixt the
stag and castle, and the stag and ship, were placed two pies made of
coarse paste, filled with bran, and washed over with saffron and the
yolks of eggs; when these were baked the bran was taken out, a hole
was cut in the bottom of each, and live birds put into one and frogs
into the other. Then the holes were closed up with paste, and the lids
neatly cut up, so that they might be easily taken off by the funnels,
and adorned with gilded laurels.
These being thus prepared, and placed in order on the table, one of the
ladies was persuaded to draw the arrow out of the body of the stag,
which being done the claret wine issued forth like blood from a wound
and caused admiration in the spectators; which being over, after a
little pause, all the guns on one side of the castle were by a train
discharged against the ship; and afterwards the guns of one side of
the ship were discharged against the castle; then, having turned the
chargers, the other sides were fired off as in a battle. This causing a
great smell of powder, the ladies or gentlemen took up the eggshells
of perfumed water and threw them at one another. This pleasant disorder
being pretty well laughed over, and the two great pies still remaining
untouched, some one or other would have the curiosity to see what was
in them and on lifting up the lid of one pie, out would jump the
frogs, which would make the ladies skip and scamper; and on lifting up
the lid of the other out would fly the birds, which would naturally
fly at the light and so put out the candles. And so with the leaping
of the frogs below, and the flying of the birds above, would cause a
surprising and diverting hurley burley among the guests, in the dark.
After which the candles being lighted, the banquet would be brought
in, the music sound, and the particulars of each person's surprise and
adventures furnish matter for diverting discourse.
_The Cook and Confectioner's Dictionary_, 1726
The Blessing of the Waters
I was anxious to be present at the early liturgy of the morning of
Epiphany to witness the ceremony of the blessing of the waters in the
pretty quaint village on the island of Skiathos in a far-away corner
of Greece. It was a great effort, for the night had been cold and
stormy; however, by some process which will never be quite clear to
me, I managed to find myself at the door of the one church with its
many storied bell-tower, soon after four o'clock. Very quaint indeed it
looked as I went out of the cold darkness into the brilliantly lighted
church, and saw the pious islanders kneeling all around on the cold
floor as the liturgy was being chanted prior to the blessing of the
waters. Near the entrance stood the font filled to the brim; and close
to it was placed an eikon or sacred picture, representing the baptism
of our Lord; around the font were stuck many candles fastened by their
own grease; whilst pots and jugs of every size and description, full
of water, stood about on the floor in the immediate vicinity of the
font.
After the priest had chanted the somewhat tedious litany from the steps
of the high altar, he set off dressed sumptuously in his gold brocaded
vestments, round the church with a large cross in one hand, and a sprig
of basil in the other, accompanied by two acolytes, who waved their
censers and cast about a pleasant odor of frankincense. Every one was
prostrate as the priest read the appointed Scripture, signed the water
in the font and in the adjacent jugs with the cross and threw into the
font his sprig of basil. No sooner was this solemn impressive ceremony
over than there was a general rush from all sides with mugs and bottles
to secure some of this consecrated water. Everybody laughed and hustled
his neighbor; even the priest, with the cross in his hand, stood
and watched them with a grin. The sudden change from the preceding
solemnity was ludicrous in the extreme.
Before taking his departure for his home each person went up to kiss
the cross which the priest held and to be sprinkled with water from
the sprig of basil. Each person had brought his own sprig of basil
which he presented to the priest to bless, and in return for this favor
dropped a small coin into the plate held by one of the acolytes. Basil
is always held to be a sacred plant in Greece. The legend says that it
grew on Christ's tomb, and they imagine that this is the reason why its
leaves grow in a cruciform shape. In nearly every humble Greek dwelling
you may see a dried sprig of basil hanging in the household sanctuary.
It is this sprig which has been blessed at the Feast of Lights. It is
most effectual say they in keeping off the influence of the evil eye.
The day broke fine and the violence of the storm was over. Yet our
captain still lingered saying that perhaps toward evening we might
start, and for this delay I believe I discovered the reason. Towards
midday on Epiphany it is customary among these seafaring islanders to
hold a solemn function, closely akin to the one I had witnessed in the
church that morning, namely, the blessing of the sea.
From their homes by the shore the fishermen came, and all the
inhabitants of Skiathos assembled on the quay to join the procession
which descended from the church by a zigzag path, headed by two priests
and two acolytes behind them waving censers, and men carrying banners
and the large cross.
Very touching it was to watch the deep devotion of these hardy
seafaring men as they knelt on the shore whilst the litany was being
chanted, and whilst the chief priest blest the waves with his cross and
invoked the blessing of the most High on the many and varied crafts
which were riding at anchor in Skiathos harbor. When the service was
over there followed, as in the morning, an unseemly bustle, so ready
are these vivacious people to turn from the solemn to the gay. Every
one chatted with his neighbor and pressed forward toward a little
jetty to see the fun. Presently the priest advanced to the end of this
jetty with the cross in his hand, and after tying a heavy stone to it
he threw it into the sea. Thereupon there was a general rush into the
water; men and boys with their clothes on plunged and dived until at
length to the applause of the bystanders one young man succeeded in
bringing the cross to the surface, stone and all. A subscription was
then raised for the successful diver, the proceeds of which were spent
by him in ordering many glasses of wine at the nearest coffee shop,
and the wet men sat down for a heavy drink--to drive out the chill, I
suppose.
In many places you will find the boats hauled upon the beach the day
before Christmas, and nothing will induce their owners to launch them
again until after the blessing of the sea. I am sure the captain of
our steamer shared the superstition, though he chose to laugh at the
islanders' ways; for a few hours after the sea had been blessed we
put out into it, and I imagine could have started hours before if the
captain had been so inclined.
J. T. BENT
La Galette du Roi
In France, where it probably originated, the Twelfth Night cake, known
as La Galette du Roi ("the king's cake"), still survives.
The cake is generally made of pastry, and baked in a round sheet like
a pie. The size of the cake depends on the number of persons in the
company. In former times a broad bean was baked in the cake, but now a
small china doll is substituted.
[Illustration: THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI. _Memling._]
The cake is the last course in the dinner. One of the youngest people
at the table is asked to say to whom each piece shall be given. This
creates a little excitement and all watch breathlessly to see who gets
the doll. The person who gets it is king or queen, and immediately
chooses a king or queen for a partner. So soon as the king and queen
are announced they are under the constant observation of the rest of
the party and whatever they do is immediately commented upon. In a
short time there is a perfect uproar: "The king drinks," "the queen
speaks," "the queen laughs." This is kept up for a long time; then
there are games, music and dancing.
WILLIAM HONE in the _Everyday Book_
Drawing King and Queen on Twelfth Night
Hone, in his _Everyday Book_, describes a drawing as it was conducted
in 1823: "First, buy your cake. Then, before your visitors arrive, buy
your characters (painted cards), each of which should have a pleasant
verse beneath. Next, look at your invitation list and count the number
of ladies you expect; and afterwards the number of gentlemen. Then
take as many female characters as you have invited ladies; fold them
up, exactly of the same size, and number each on the back, taking care
to make the King No. 1 and the Queen No. 2. Then prepare and number
the gentlemen's characters. Cause tea and coffee to be handed to your
visitors as they drop in. When all are assembled, and tea over, put as
many ladies' characters in a reticule as there are ladies present; next
put the gentlemen's characters in a hat. Then call a gentleman to carry
the reticule to the ladies, as they sit, from which each lady is to
draw one ticket and preserve it unopened. Select a lady to bear the hat
to the gentlemen for the same purpose. There will be one ticket left in
the reticule and another in the hat, which the lady and gentleman who
carried each is to interchange, as having fallen to each. Next arrange
your visitors according to their numbers--the King No. 1, the Queen No.
2, and so on. The king is then to recite the verse on his ticket, then
the queen the verse on hers, and so the characters are to proceed in
numerical order.
This done, let the cake and refreshments go round, and hey! for
merriment.
St. Distaff's Day and Plough Monday
The day after Epiphany was called St. Distaff's day by country people,
because the Christmas holidays being ended the time had come for the
resumption of the distaff and other industrious employments of good
housewives.
The Monday after Twelfthday was a similar occasion for the resumption
of agricultural labors. Another writer connects the day with a custom
which among farm servants corresponded somewhat to the 'prentices
Boxing Day. The usage was "to draw around a plough and solicit money
with guisings, and dancing with swords, preparatory to beginning to
plough after the Christmas holidays."
Olaus Magnus describes the "dance with swords": First, with swords
sheathed and erect in their hands, they dance in a triple round; then
with their drawn swords held erect as before; afterwards extending them
from hand to hand, they lay hold of each other's hilts and points,
and while they are wheeling more moderately around and changing their
order, they throw themselves into the figure of a hexagon which they
call a rose: but presently raising and drawing back their swords, they
undo that figure, in order to form with them a four-square rose so
that they may rebound over the head of each other. Lastly, they dance
rapidly backwards, and vehemently rattling the sides of their swords
together, conclude their sport. Pipes or songs (sometimes both) direct
the measure which at first is slow, increasing to a very quick movement
at the close. Olaus Magnus adds: "It is scarcely to be understood how
gamely and decent it is."
WILLIAM HONE in _Year Book_
XII
THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT
[Illustration: THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT]
"As Little Children in a Darkened Hall"
Christmas Dreams
The Professor's Christmas Sermon
Awaiting the King
Elizabeth's Christmas Sermon
Nichola's "Reason Why"
The Changing Spirit of Christmastide
A Prayer for Christmas Peace
Under the Holly Bough
Christmas Music
A Christmas Sermon
[Illustration]
As little children in a darkened hall
At Christmas-tide await the opening door,
Eager to tread the fairy-haunted floor
About the tree with goodly gifts for all,
And into the dark unto each other call--
Trying to guess their happiness before,--
Or of their elders eagerly implore
Hints of what fortune unto them may fall:
So wait we in Time's dim and narrow room,
And with strange fancies, or another's thought,
Try to divine, before the curtain rise,
The wondrous scene. Yet soon shall fly the gloom,
And we shall see what patient ages sought,
The Father's long-planned gift of Paradise.
CHARLES HENRY CRANDALL in _Wayside Music_
Published by G. P. Putnam's Sons
Christmas Dreams
To-morrow is Merry Christmas; and when its night descends there will
be mirth and music, and the light sounds of the merry-twinkling feet
within these now so melancholy walls--and sleep now reigning over all
the house save this one room, will be banished far over the sea--and
morning will be reluctant to allow her light to break up the innocent
orgies.
Were every Christmas of which we have been present at the celebration,
painted according to nature--what a Gallery of Pictures! True that a
sameness would pervade them all--but only that kind of sameness that
pervades the nocturnal heavens. One clear night always is, to common
eyes, just like another; for what hath any night to show but one moon
and some stars--a blue vault, with here a few braided, and there a few
castellated, clouds? yet no two nights ever bore more than a family
resemblance to each other before the studious and instructed eye of him
who has long communed with Nature, and is familiar with every smile and
frown on her changeful, but not capricious, countenance. Even so with
the Annual Festivals of the heart. Then our thoughts are the stars that
illumine those skies--and on ourselves it depends whether they shall be
black as Erebus, or brighter than Aurora.
"Thoughts! that like spirits trackless come and go"--is a fine line of
Charles Lloyd's. But no bird skims, no arrow pierces the air, without
producing some change in the Universe, which will last to the day of
doom. No coming and going is absolutely trackless; nor irrecoverable
by Nature's law is any consciousness, however ghostlike; though many
a one, even the most blissful, never does return, but seems to be
buried among the dead. But they are not dead--but only sleep; though
to us who recall them not, they are as they had never been, and we,
wretched ingrates, let them lie for ever in oblivion! How passing sweet
when of our own accord they arise to greet us in our solitude!--as a
friend who, having sailed away to a foreign land in our youth, has been
thought to have died many long years ago, may suddenly stand before us,
with face still familiar and name reviving in a moment, and all that he
once was to us brought from utter forgetfulness close upon our heart.
My Father's House! How it is ringing like a grove in spring, with the
din of creatures happier, a thousand times happier, than all the birds
on earth. It is the Christmas holidays--Christmas Day itself--Christmas
Night--and Joy in every bosom intensifies Love. Never before were we
brothers and sisters so dear to one another--never before had our
hearts so yearned towards the authors of our being--our blissful
being! There they sat--silent in all that outcry--composed in all
that disarray--still in all that tumult; yet, as one or other flying
imp sweeps round the chair, a father's hand will playfully strive to
catch a prisoner--a mother's gentler touch on some sylph's disordered
symar be felt almost as a reproof, and for a moment slacken the fairy
flight. One old game treads on the heels of another--twenty within
the hour--and many a new game never heard of before nor since, struck
out by the collision of kindred spirits in their glee, the transitory
fancies of genius inventive through very delight. Then, all at once,
there is a hush, profound as ever falls on some little plat within a
forest when the moon drops behind the mountain, and small green-robed
People of Peace at once cease their pastime, and vanish. For she--the
Silver-Tongued--is about to sing an old ballad, words and air alike
hundreds of years old--and sing she doth, while tears begin to fall,
with a voice too mournfully beautiful long to breathe below--and, ere
another Christmas shall have come with the falling snows, doomed to be
mute on earth--but to be hymning in Heaven....
Then came a New Series of Christmases, celebrated, one year in this
family, another year in that--none present but those whom Charles
Lamb the Delightful calleth the "old familiar faces"; something in
all features, and all tones of voice, and all manners, betokening
origin from one root--relations all, happy, and with no reason either
to be ashamed or proud of their neither high nor humble birth, their
lot being cast within that pleasant realm, "the Golden Mean," where
the dwellings are connecting links between the hut and the hall--fair
edifices resembling manse or mansionhouse, according as the atmosphere
expands or contracts their dimensions--in which Competence is
next-door neighbor to Wealth, and both of them within the daily walk
of Contentment. Merry Christmases they were indeed--one Lady always
presiding, with a figure that once had been the stateliest among the
stately, but then somewhat bent, without being bowed down, beneath an
easy weight of most venerable years. Sweet was her tremulous voice to
all her grandchildren's ears. Nor did these solemn eyes, bedimmed into
a pathetic beauty, in any degree restrain the glee that sparkled in
orbs that have as yet shed not many tears, but tears of joy or pity.
Dearly she loved all those mortal creatures whom she was soon about to
leave; but she sat in sunshine even within the shadow of death; and the
"voice that called her home" had so long been whispering in her ear,
that its accents had become dear to her, and consolatory every word
that was heard in the silence, as from another world.
Whether we were indeed all so witty as we thought ourselves--uncles,
aunts, brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, cousins, and "the rest,"
it might be presumptuous in us, who were considered by ourselves and
a few others not the least amusing of the whole set, at this distance
of time to decide--especially in the affirmative; but how the roof did
ring with sally, pun, retort, and repartee! Ay, with pun--a species of
impertinence for which we have therefore a kindness even to this day.
Had incomparable Thomas Hood had the good fortune to have been born a
cousin of ours, how with that fine fancy of his would he have shone
at those Christmas festivals, eclipsing us all! Our family, through
all its different branches, had ever been famous for bad voices, but
good ears; and we think we hear ourselves--all those uncles and aunts,
nephews and nieces, and cousins--singing now! Easy it is to "warble
melody" as to breathe air. But we hope harmony is the most difficult
of all things to people in general, for to us it was impossible; and
what attempts ours used to be at Seconds! Yet the most woful failures
were rapturously encored; and ere the night was done we spoke with most
extraordinary voices indeed, every one hoarser than another, till at
last, walking home with a fair cousin, there was nothing left it but a
tender glance of the eye--a tender pressure of the hand--for cousins
are not altogether sisters, and although partaking of that dearest
character, possess, it may be, some peculiar and appropriate charms of
their own; as didst thou, Emily the "Wildcap!"--That soubriquet all
forgotten now--for now thou art a matron, nay a Grandam, and troubled
with an elf fair and frolicsome as thou thyself wert of yore, when
the gravest and wisest withstood not the witchery of thy dancing, thy
singings, and thy showering smiles.
On rolled Suns and Seasons--the old died--the elderly became old--and
the young, one after another, were wafted joyously away on the wings
of hope, like birds almost as soon as they can fly, ungratefully
forsaking their nests and the groves in whose safe shadow they first
essayed their pinions; or like pinnaces that, after having for a few
days trimmed their snow-white sails in the land-locked bay, close to
whose shores of silvery sand had grown the trees that furnished timber
both for hull and mast, slip their tiny cables on some summer day,
and gathering every breeze that blows, go dancing over the waves in
sunshine, and melt far off into the main. Or, haply, some were like
young trees, transplanted during no favorable season, and never to take
root in another soil, but soon leaf and branch to wither beneath the
tropic sun, and die almost unheeded by those who knew not how beautiful
they had been beneath the dews and mists of their own native climate.
Vain images! and therefore chosen by fancy not too plainly to touch
the heart. For some hearts grew cold and forbidding with selfish
cares--some, warm as ever in their own generous glow, were touched
by the chill of Fortune's frowns, ever worst to bear when suddenly
succeeding her smiles--some, to rid themselves of painful regrets,
took refuge in forgetfulness, and closed their eyes to the past--duty
banished some abroad, and duty imprisoned others at home--estrangements
there were, at first unconscious and unintended, yet erelong, though
causeless, complete--changes were wrought insensibly, invisibly,
even in the innermost nature of those who being friends knew no guile,
yet came thereby at last to be friends no more--unrequited love broke
some bonds--requited love relaxed others--the death of one altered the
conditions of many--and so--year after year--the Christmas Meeting
was interrupted--deferred--till finally it ceased with one accord,
unrenewed and unrenewable. For when Some Things cease for a time--that
time turns out to be forever....
For a good many years we have been tied to town in winter by fetters
as fine as frost-work, which we could not break without destroying a
whole world of endearment. That seems an obscure image; but it means
what the Germans would call in English--our winter environment. We are
imprisoned in a net; yet we can see it when we choose--just as a bird
can see, when he chooses, the wires of his cage, that are invisible in
his happiness, as he keeps hopping and fluttering about all day long,
or haply dreaming on his perch with his poll under his plumes--as free
in confinement as if let loose into the boundless sky. That seems an
obscure image too; but we mean, in truth, the prison unto which we
doom ourselves no prison is; and we have improved on that idea, for
we have built our own--and are prisoner, turnkey, and jailer all in
one, and 'tis noiseless as the house of sleep. Or what if we declare
that Christopher North is a king in his palace, with no subjects but
his own thoughts--his rule peaceful over those lights and shadows--and
undisputed to reign over them his right divine.
The opening year in a town, now answers in all things to our heart's
desire. How beautiful the smoky air! The clouds have a homely look
as they hang over the happy families of houses, and seem as if they
loved their birthplace;--all unlike those heartless clouds that keep
stravaiging over mountain-tops, and have no domicile in the sky! Poets
speak of living rocks, but what is their life to that of houses? Who
ever saw a rock with eyes--that is, with windows? Stone-blind all, and
stone-deaf, and with hearts of stone; whereas who ever saw a house
without eyes--that is, windows? Our own is an Argus; yet the good old
Conservative grudges not the assessed taxes--his optics are as cheerful
as the day that lends them light, and they love to salute the setting
sun, as if a hundred beacons, level above level, were kindled along a
mountain side. He might safely be pronounced a madman who preferred an
avenue of trees to a street. Why, trees have no chimneys; and, were you
to kindle a fire in the hollow of an oak, you would soon be as dead
as a Druid. It won't do to talk to us of sap, and the circulation of
sap. A grove in winter, bole and branch--leaves it has none--is as dry
as a volume of sermons. But a street, or a square, is full of "vital
sparks of heavenly flame" as a volume of poetry, and the heart's blood
circulates through the system like rosy wine.
But a truce to comparisons; for we are beginning to feel contrition for
our crime against the country, and, with humbled head and heart, we
beseech you to pardon us--ye rocks of Pavey-Ark, the pillared palaces
of the storms--ye clouds, now wreathing a diadem for the forehead of
Helvellyn--ye trees, that hang the shadows of your undying beauty over
the "one perfect chrysolite," of blessed Windermere!
Our meaning is transparent now as the hand of an apparition waving
peace and good-will to all dwellers in the land of dreams. In plainer
but not simpler words (for words are like flowers, often rich in their
simplicity--witness the Lily, and Solomon's Song)--Christian people
all, we wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New-Year in town or in
country--or in ships at sea.
CHRISTOPHER NORTH
The Professor's Christmas Sermon
Take all in a word: the truth in God's breast
Lies trace for trace upon ours impressed;
Though he is so bright and we so dim,
We are made in his image to witness him:
And were no eye in us to tell,
Instructed by no inner sense,
The light of heaven from the dark of hell,
That light would want its evidence,--
Though justice, good and truth were still
Divine, if, by some demon's will,
Hatred and wrong had been proclaimed
Law through the worlds, and right misnamed.
No mere exposition of morality
Made or in part or in totality,
Should win you to give it worship, therefore:
And, if no better proof you will care for,
Whom do you count the worst man upon earth?
Be sure, he knows, in his conscience, more
Of right what is, than arrives at birth
In the best man's acts that we bow before:
This last knows better--true, but my fact is,
'Tis one thing to know, and another to practise.
And thence I conclude that the real God-function
Is to furnish a motive and injunction
For practising what we know already.
And such an injunction and such a motive
As the God in Christ, do you waive, and "heady,
High-minded," hang your tablet-votive
Outside the fane on a finger-post?
Morality to the uttermost,
Supreme in Christ as we all confess,
Why need we prove would avail no jot
To make him God, if God he were not?
What is the point where himself lays stress?
Does the precept run "Believe in good,
"In justice, truth now understood
"For the first time?"--or, "Believe in me,
"Who lived and died, yet essentially
"Am Lord of Life?" Whoever can take
The same to his heart and for mere love's sake
Conceive of the love,--that man obtains
A new truth; no conviction gains
Of an old one only, made intense
By a fresh appeal to his faded sense.
ROBERT BROWNING from _Christmas Eve_
Awaiting the King
That sweetly prophetic evening silence, before the great feast of
Good-Will, does not come over everything each year, even in a lonely
cottage on an abandoned farm in Connecticut, than which you cannot
possibly imagine anything more silent or more remote from the noise of
the world. Sometimes it rains in torrents just on that night, sometimes
it blows a raging gale that twists the leafless birches and elms and
hickory trees like dry grass and bends the dark firs and spruces as if
they were feathers, and you can hardly be heard unless you shout, for
the howling and screaming and whistling of the blast.
But now and then, once in four or five years perhaps, the feathery snow
lies a foot deep, fresh-fallen, on the still country side and in the
woods; and the waxing moon sheds her large light on all, and Nature
holds her breath to wait for the happy day and tries to sleep, but
cannot from sheer happiness and peace. Indoors, the fire is glowing
on the wide hearth, a great bed of coals that will last all night and
be enough, because it is not bitter weather, but only cold and clear
and still, as it should be; or if there is only a poor stove, like
Overholt's, the iron door is open and a comfortable, cheery red light
shines out from within upon the battered iron plate and the wooden
floor beyond; and the older people sit round it, not saying much, and
thinking with their hearts rather than with their heads, but small
boys and girls know that interesting things have been happening in the
kitchen all the afternoon, and are rather glad that the supper was not
very good, because there will be more room for good things to-morrow;
and the grown-ups and the children have made up any little differences
of opinion they may have had, before supper time, because Good-Will
must reign, and reign alone, like Alexander; so that there is nothing
at all to regret, and nothing hurts anybody any more, and they are all
happy in just waiting for King Christmas to open the door softly and
make them all great people in his kingdom. But if it is the right sort
of house, he is already looking in through the window, to be sure that
everyone is all ready for him, and that nothing has been forgotten.
F. MARION CRAWFORD in _The Little City of Hope_
Elizabeth's Christmas Sermon
I cannot see that there was anything gross about our Christmas, and
we were perfectly merry without any need to pretend, and for at least
two days it brought us a little nearer together, and made us kind.
Happiness is so wholesome; it invigorates and warms me into piety
far more effectually than any amount of trials and griefs, and an
unexpected pleasure is the surest means of bringing me to my knees. In
spite of the protestations of some peculiarly constructed persons that
they are the better for trials, I don't believe it. Such things must
sour us, just as happiness must sweeten us, and make us kinder, and
more gentle. And will anybody affirm that it behooves us to be more
thankful for trials than for blessings? We were meant to be happy,
and to accept all the happiness offered with thankfulness--indeed,
we are none of us ever thankful enough, and yet we each get so much,
so very much, more than we deserve. I know a woman--she stayed with
me last summer--who rejoices grimly when those she loves suffer. She
believes that it is our lot, and that it braces us and does us good,
and she would shield no one from even unnecessary pain; she weeps
with the sufferer, but is convinced it is all for the best. Well, let
her continue in her dreary beliefs; she has no garden to teach her
the beauty and the happiness of holiness, nor does she in the least
desire to possess one; her convictions have the sad gray colouring
of the dingy streets and houses she lives amongst--the sad colour
of humanity in masses. Submission to what people call their "lot" is
simply ignoble. If your lot makes you cry and be wretched, get rid
of it and take another; strike out for yourself; don't listen to the
shrieks of your relations, to their gibes or their entreaties; don't
let your own microscopic set prescribe your goings-out and comings-in;
don't be afraid of public opinion in the shape of the neighbour in
the next house, when all the world is before you new and shining, and
everything is possible, if you only be energetic and independent and
seize opportunity by the scruff of the neck.
From _Elizabeth and her German Garden_
Nichola Expounds "the Reason Why" on Christmas Eve
"But the whole world helps along," she said shrilly, "or else we should
tear each other's eyes out. What do I do, me? I do not put fruit peel
in the waste paper to worrit the ragman. I do not put potato jackets in
the stove to worrit the ashman. I do not burn the bones because I think
of the next poor dog. What crumbs are left I lay always, always on the
back fence for the birds. I kill no living thing but spiders--which the
devil made. Our Lady knows I do very little. But if I was the men with
pockets on I'd find a way! I'd find a way, me," said Nichola, wagging
her old gray head.
"Pockets?" Hobart repeated, puzzled.
"For the love of heaven, yes!" Nichola cried. "Pockets--money--give!"
she illustrated in pantomime. "What can I do? On Thursday nights I
take what sweets are in this house, what flowers are on all the plants,
and I carry them to a hospital I know. If you could see how they wait
for me on the beds! What can I do? The good God gave me almost no
pockets. It is as he says," she nodded to Pelleas, "_Helping is why._
Yah! None of what you say is so. Mem, I didn't get no time to frost the
nutcakes."
ZONA GALE in _The Loves of Pelleas and Etarre_
The Changing Spirit of Christmastide
The English, from the great prevalence of rural habit throughout every
class of society, have always been fond of those festivals and holidays
which agreeably interrupt the stillness of country life; and they were,
in former days, particularly observant of the religious and social
rites of Christmas. It is inspiring to read even the dry details which
some antiquarians have given of the quaint humours, the burlesque
pageants, the complete abandonment to mirth and good-fellowship, with
which this festival was celebrated. It seemed to throw open every door,
and unlock every heart. It brought the peasant and the peer together,
and blended all ranks in one warm generous flow of joy and kindness.
The old halls of castles and manor-houses resounded with the harp and
the Christmas carol, and their ample boards groaned under the weight
of hospitality. Even the poorest cottage welcomed the festive season
with green decorations of bay and holly--the cheerful fire glanced its
rays through the lattice, inviting the passenger to raise the latch,
and join the gossip knot huddled round the hearth, beguiling the long
evening with legendary jokes and oft-told Christmas tales.
One of the least pleasing effects of modern refinement is the havoc it
has made among the hearty old holiday customs! It has completely taken
off the sharp touchings and spirited reliefs of these embellishments
of life, and has worn down society into a more smooth and polished,
but certainly a less characteristic surface. Many of the games and
ceremonials of Christmas have entirely disappeared, and like the
sherris sack of old Falstaff, are become matters of speculation and
dispute among commentators. They flourished in times full of spirit and
lustihood, when men enjoyed life roughly, but heartily and vigorously;
times wild and picturesque, which have furnished poetry with its
richest materials, and the drama with its most attractive variety of
characters and manners. The world has become more worldly. There is
more of dissipation, and less of enjoyment. Pleasure has expanded into
a broader, but shallower stream, and has forsaken many of those deep
and quiet channels where it flowed sweetly through the calm bosom of
domestic life. Society has acquired a more enlightened and elegant
tone; but it has lost many of its strong local peculiarities, its
home-bred feelings, its honest fireside delights. The traditionary
customs of golden-hearted antiquity, its feudal hospitalities, and
lordly wassailings, have passed away with the baronial castles and
stately manor-houses in which they were celebrated. They comported with
the shadowy hall, the great oaken gallery, and the tapestried parlour,
but are unfitted to the light showy saloons and gay drawing-rooms of
the modern villa.
Shorn, however, as it is, of its ancient and festive honours, Christmas
is still a period of delightful excitement in England. It is gratifying
to see that home feeling completely aroused which seems to hold so
powerful a place in every English bosom. The preparations making on
every side for the social board that is again to unite friends and
kindred; the presents of good cheer passing and repassing, those tokens
of regard, and quickeners of kind feelings; the evergreens distributed
about houses and churches, emblems of peace and gladness; all these
have the most pleasing effect in producing fond associations, and
kindling benevolent sympathies. Even the sound of the waits, rude as
may be their minstrelsy, breaks upon the mid-watches of a winter night
with the effect of perfect harmony. As I have been awakened by them in
that still and solemn hour, "when deep sleep falleth upon man," I have
listened with a hushed delight, and, connecting them with the sacred
and joyous occasion, have almost fancied them into another celestial
choir, announcing peace and good-will to mankind.
WASHINGTON IRVING
Charles Kingsley's Prayer for Christmas Peace
Christmas peace is God's; and he must give it himself, with his own
hand, or we shall never get it. Go then to God himself. Thou art
his child, as Christmas Day declares; be not afraid to go unto thy
Father. Pray to him; tell him what thou wantest: say, "Father, I am
not moderate, reasonable, forbearing. I fear I cannot keep Christmas
aright for I have not a peaceful Christmas spirit in me; and I know
that I shall never get it by thinking, and reading, and understanding;
for it passes all that, and lies far away beyond it, does peace, in the
very essence of thine undivided, unmoved, absolute, eternal Godhead,
which no change nor decay of this created world, nor sin or folly of
men or devils, can ever alter; but which abideth forever what it is, in
perfect rest, and perfect power and perfect love. O Father, give me thy
Christmas peace."
From _Town and Country Sermons_
Under the Holly Bough
Ye who have scorned each other,
Or injured friend or brother,
In this fast fading year;
Ye who, by word or deed,
Have made a kind heart bleed,
Come gather here.
Let sinned against, and sinning,
Forget their strife's beginning,
And join in friendship now:
Be links no longer broken,
Be sweet forgiveness spoken,
Under the Holly Bough.
Ye who have loved each other,
Sister and friend and brother,
In this fast fading year:
Mother and sire and child,
Young man and maiden mild,
Come gather here;
And let your hearts grow fonder,
As memory shall ponder
Each past unbroken vow.
Old loves and younger wooing
Are sweet in the renewing,
Under the Holly Bough.
Ye who have nourished sadness,
Estranged from hope and gladness,
In this fast fading year;
Ye, with o'erburdened mind,
Made aliens from your kind,
Come gather here.
Let not the useless sorrow
Pursue you night and morrow.
If e'er you hoped, hope now--
Take heart;--uncloud your faces,
And join in our embraces,
Under the Holly Bough.
CHARLES MACKAY
Christmas Music
Many elements mix in the Christmas of the present, partly, no doubt,
under the form of vague and obscure sentiment, partly as time-honoured
reminiscences, partly as a portion of our own life. But there is one
phase of poetry which we enjoy more fully than any previous age. That
is music. Music is of all the arts the youngest, and of all can free
herself most readily from symbols. A fine piece of music moves before
us like a living passion, which needs no form or color, no interpreting
associations, to convey its strong but indistinct significance. Each
man there finds his soul revealed to him, and enabled to assume a cast
of feeling in obedience to the changeful sound. In this manner all
our Christmas thoughts and emotions have been gathered up for us by
Handel in his drama of the _Messiah_. To Englishmen it is almost as
well known and necessary as the Bible. But only one who has heard its
pastoral episode performed year after year from childhood in the hushed
cathedral, where pendent lamps or sconces make the gloom of aisle and
choir and airy column half intelligible, can invest this music with
long associations of accumulated awe. To his mind it brings a scene
at midnight of hills clear in the starlight of the East, with white
flocks scattered on the down. The breath of winds that come and go,
the bleating of the sheep, with now and then a tinkling bell, and now
and then the voice of an awakened shepherd, is all that breaks the
deep repose. Overhead shimmer the bright stars, and low to west lies
the moon, not pale and sickly (he dreams) as in our North, but golden,
full, and bathing distant towers and tall aerial palms with floods of
light. Such is a child's vision, begotten by the music of the symphony;
and when he wakes from trance at its low silver close, the dark
cathedral seems glowing with a thousand angel faces, and all the air is
tremulous with angel wings. Then follow the solitary treble voice and
the swift chorus.
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
A Christmas Sermon
To be honest, to be kind--to earn a little and to spend a little less,
to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence, to renounce
when that shall be necessary and not be embittered, to keep a few
friends but those without capitulation--above all, on the same grim
condition, to keep friends with himself--here is a task for all that a
man has of fortitude and delicacy. He has an ambitious soul who would
ask more; he has a hopeful spirit who should look in such an enterprise
to be successful.
There is indeed one element in human destiny that not blindness itself
can controvert: whatever else we are intended to do, we are not
intended to succeed; failure is the fate allotted. It is so in every
art and study; it is so above all in the continent art of living well.
Here is a pleasant thought for the year's end or for the end of life:
Only self-deception will be satisfied, and there need be no despair for
the despairer.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON in _A Christmas Sermon_
By permission of Charles Scribner's Sons
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of life and poetry and fiction in 'The Ladies' Pageant.' No other
editor has so deft a hand for work of this character, and this volume
is as rich a fund of amusement and instruction as all the previous ones
of the author have been.
"Mr. Lucas does not compile. What he does, rather, is to assemble a
quantity of rough material, quaried from the classics, and then to
fashion out of it a fabric stamped with his own personality.... He
makes a little book in which old poems and bits of old prose take on
a new character, through being placed in a relation to one another
determined by Mr. Lucas' peculiar fancy.... He will always be sure of
an appreciative public."--_The New York Tribune._
_Now ready_
PUBLISHED BY
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York
London's Lure
_An Anthology in Prose and Verse_
BY HELEN AND LEWIS MELVILLE
A selection of what poets and prose writers have said about the great
metropolis--that capital of all Europe which has for most Americans the
closest attraction and the most lasting charm. Curious out-of-the-way
places and equally curious out-of-the-way people are tucked away in
some parts of the book, while elsewhere, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's
Cathedral, and other of the more renowned parts of the city come in
for their share of treatment. Every section of London is here and all
the different viewpoints from which it has been regarded, as well. The
authors selected range from Herrick, Shelley, Lamb, and Hazlitt to
Hood, Dickens, Thackeray, and Wilde.
_Cloth, $1.25 net_
The Wayfarer in New York
This book takes up New York in much the same way that London was
discussed in "London's Lure." A few pages from old books of travel
and correspondence show how the city changed in aspect through the
years. Then follow more or less impressionistic pictures of different
phases of the modern city, from the yeasty, seething East Side, west to
where old Greenwich grimly holds its own; from the "granite cliffs" of
lower Broadway to where by night "the serpent of stars" winds around
Morningside.
_Now Ready_
PUBLISHED BY
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York
Transcriber’s Notes:
The missing name 'Addison' has been added to the advertisement for
'The Golden Treasury Series'.
Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
Small capitals have been capitalised.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.
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