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Christmas
But is old, old, good old Christmas gone? Nothing but the hair of
his good, gray old head and beard left? Well, I will have that,
seeing I cannot have more of him.
HUE AND CRY AFTER CHRISTMAS.
A man might then behold
At Christmas, in each hall
Good fires to curb the cold,
And meat for great and small.
The neighbors were friendly bidden,
And all had welcome true,
The poor from the gates were not chidden
When this old cap was new.
OLD SONG.
NOTHING in England 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 flavor of those honest
days of yore, in which, perhaps with equal fallacy, I am apt to
think the world was more homebred, 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 fervor and pathos during
the season of Advent, until they break forth in full 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 bands 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 mementos 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.
Our feelings sally forth and dissipate themselves over the sunny
landscape, and we "live abroad and everywhere." The song of the
bird, the murmur of the stream, the breathing fragrance of
spring, the soft voluptuousness of summer, the golden pomp of
autumn, earth with its mantle of refreshing green, and heaven
with it deep delicious blue and its cloudy magnificence,--all
fill us with mute but exquisite delight, and we revel in the
luxury of mere sensation. But in the depth of winter, when Nature
lies despoiled of every charm and wrapped in her shroud of
sheeted snow, we turn for our gratifications to moral sources.
The dreariness and desolation of the landscape, the short gloomy
days and darksome nights, while they circumscribe our wanderings,
shut in our feelings also from rambling abroad, and make us more
keenly disposed for the pleasure of the social circle. Our
thoughts are more concentrated; our friendly sympathies more
aroused. We feel more sensibly the charm of each other's society,
and are brought more closely together by dependence on each other
for enjoyment. Heart calleth unto heart, and we draw our
pleasures from the deep wells of loving-kindness which lie in the
quiet recesses of our bosoms, and which, when resorted to,
furnish forth the pure element of domestic felicity.
The pitchy gloom without makes the heart dilate on entering the
room filled with the glow and warmth of the evening fire. The
ruddy blaze diffuses an artificial summer and sunshine through
the room, and lights up each countenance in a kindlier welcome.
Where does the honest face of hospitality expand into a broader
and more cordial smile, where is the shy glance of love more
sweetly eloquent, than by the winter fireside? and as the hollow
blast of wintry wind rushes through the hall, claps the distant
door, whistles about the casement, and rumbles down the chimney,
what can be more grateful than that feeling of sober and
sheltered security with which we look round upon the comfortable
chamber and the scene of domestic hilarity?
The English, from the great prevalence of rural habit throughout
every class of society, have always been found 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 antiquaries have given of
the quaint humors, 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
passengers 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 a 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 homebred 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 parlor, 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 honors,
Christmas is still a period of delightful excitement in England.
It is gratifying to see that home-feeling completely aroused
which holds 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.
How delightfully the imagination, when wrought upon by these
moral influences, turns everything to melody and beauty! The very
crowing of the cock, heard sometimes in the profound repose of
the country, "telling the night-watches to his feathery dames,"
was thought by the common people to announce the approach of this
sacred festival.
"Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long;
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad,
The nights are wholesome--then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, no witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time."
Amidst the general call to happiness, the bustle of the spirits,
and stir of the affections which prevail at this period what
bosom can remain insensible? It is, indeed, the season of
regenerated feeling--the season for kindling not merely the fire
of hospitality in the hall, but the genial flame of charity in
the heart.
The scene of early love again rises green to memory beyond the
sterile waste of years; and the idea of home, fraught with the
fragrance of home-dwelling joys, reanimates the drooping spirit,
as the Arabian breeze will sometimes waft the freshness of the
distant fields to the weary pilgrim of the desert.
Stranger and sojourner as I am in the land, though for me no
social hearth may blaze, no hospitable roof throw open its doors,
nor the warm grasp of friendship welcome me at the threshold, yet
I feel the influence of the season beaming into my soul from the
happy looks of those around me. Surely happiness is reflective,
like the light of heaven, and every countenance, bright with
smiles and glowing with innocent enjoyment, is a mirror
transmitting to others the rays of a supreme and ever-shining
benevolence. He who can turn churlishly away from contemplating
the felicity of his fellow-beings, and can sit down darkling and
repining in his loneliness when all around is joyful, may have
his moments of strong excitement and selfish gratification, but
he wants the genial and social sympathies which constitute the
charm of a merry Christmas.
Christmas, a short story by Washington Irving
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