danced; I have wept with you, and you have not mourned" lies in the
fact that it might have been uttered with equal truth by any man who
had ever piped or wept. There is in the human race some dark spirit of
recalcitrance, always pulling us in the direction contrary to that in
which we are reasonably expected to go. At a funeral, the slightest
thing, not in the least ridiculous at any other time, will convulse
us with internal laughter. At a wedding, we hover mysteriously on the
brink of tears. So it is with the modern Christmas. I find myself in
agreement with the cynics in so far that I admit that Christmas, as
now observed, tends to create melancholy. But the reason for this
lies solely in our own misconception. Christmas is essentially a _dies
iræ_. If the cynics will only make up their minds to treat it as such,
even the saddest and most atrabilious of them will acknowledge that he
has had a rollicking day.
This brings me to the second fallacy. I refer to the belief that
"Christmas comes but once a year." Perhaps it does, according to the
calendar--a quaint and interesting compilation, but of little or no
practical value to anybody. It is not the calendar, but the Spirit of
Man that regulates the recurrence of feasts and fasts. Spiritually,
Christmas Day recurs exactly seven times a week. When we have frankly
acknowledged this, and acted on this, we shall begin to realise the
Day's mystical and terrific beauty. For it is only every-day things
that reveal themselves to us in all their wonder and their splendour.
A man who happens one day to be knocked down by a motor-bus merely
utters a curse and instructs his solicitor, but a man who has been
knocked down by a motor-bus every day of the year will have begun to
feel that he is taking part in an august and soul-cleansing ritual.
He will await the diurnal stroke of fate with the same lowly and pious
joy as animated the Hindoos awaiting Juggernaut. His bruises will be
decorations, worn with the modest pride of the veteran. He will cry
aloud, in the words of the late W.E. Henley, "My head is bloody but
unbowed." He will add, "My ribs are broken but unbent."
I look for the time when we shall wish one another a Merry Christmas
every morning; when roast turkey and plum-pudding shall be the staple
of our daily dinner, and the holly shall never be taken down from the
walls, and everyone will always be kissing everyone else under the
mistletoe. And what is right as regards Christmas is right as regards
all other so-called anniversaries. The time will come when we shall
dance round the Maypole every morning before breakfast--a meal at
which hot-cross buns will be a standing dish--and shall make April
fools of one another every day before noon. The profound significance
of All Fool's Day--the glorious lesson that we are all fools--is
too apt at present to be lost. Nor is justice done to the sublime
symbolism of Shrove Tuesday--the day on which all sins are shriven.
Every day pancakes shall be eaten, either before or after the
plum-pudding. They shall be eaten slowly and sacramentally. They shall
be fried over fires tended and kept for ever bright by Vestals. They
shall be tossed to the stars.
I shall return to the subject of Christmas next week.
A SEQUELULA TO "THE DYNASTS"[7]
_By_
TH*M*S H*RDY
[Footnote 7: _This has been composed from a scenario thrust on me
by some one else. My philosophy of life saves me from sense of
responsibility for any of my writings; but I venture to hold
myself specially irresponsible for this one._--TH*M*S H*RDY.]
The Void is disclosed. Our own Solar System is visible,
distant by some two million miles.
Enter the Ancient Spirit and Chorus of the Years, the Spirit
and Chorus of the Pities, the Spirit Ironic, the Spirit
Sinister, Rumours, Spirit-Messengers, and the Recording Angel.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES.
_Yonder, that swarm of things insectual_
_Wheeling Nowhither in Particular--_
_What is it?_
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS.
_That? Oh that is merely one_
_Of those innumerous congeries_
_Of parasites by which, since time began,_
_Space has been interfested._
SPIRIT SINISTER.
_What a pity_
_We have no means of stamping out these pests!_
SPIRIT IRONIC.
_Nay, but I like to watch them buzzing round,_
_Poor little trumpery ephaeonals!_
CHORUS OF THE PIETIES (aerial music).
_Yes, yes!_
_What matter a few more or less?_
_Here and Nowhere plus_
_Whence and Why makes Thus._
_Let these things be._
_There's room in the world for them and us._
_Nothing is,_
_Out in the vast immensities_
_Where these things flit,_
_Irrequisite_
_In a minor key_
_To the tune of the sempiternal It._
SPIRIT IRONIC.
_The curious thing about them is that some_
_Have lesser parasites adherent to them--_
_Bipedular and quadrupedular_
_Infinitesimals. On close survey_
_You see these movesome. Do you not recall,_
_We once went in a party and beheld_
_All manner of absurd things happening_
_On one of those same--planets, don't you call them?_
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS (screwing up his eyes at the Solar System).
_One of that very swarm it was, if I mistake not._
_It had a parasite that called itself_
_Napoléon. And lately, I believe,_
_Another parasite has had the impudence_
_To publish an elaborate account_
_Of our (for so we deemed it) private visit._
SPIRIT SINISTER.
_His name?_
RECORDING ANGEL.
_One moment._
(Turns over leaves.)
_Hardy, Mr. Thomas,_
_Novelist. Author of "The Woodlanders,"_
_"Far from the Madding Crowd," "The Trumpet Major,"_
_"Tess of the D'Urbervilles," etcetera,_
_Etcetera. In 1895_
_"Jude the Obscure" was published, and a few_
_Hasty reviewers, having to supply_
_A column for the day of publication,_
_Filled out their space by saying that there were_
_Several passages that might have been_
_Omitted with advantage. Mr. Hardy_
_Saw that if that was so, well then, of course,_
_Obviously the only thing to do_
_Was to write no more novels, and forthwith_
_Applied himself to drama, and to Us._
SPIRIT IRONIC.
_Let us hear what he said about Us._
THE OTHER SPIRITS.
_Let's._
RECORDING ANGEL (raising receiver of aerial telephone).
_3 oh 4 oh oh 3 5, Space.... Hulloa._
_Is that the Superstellar Library?_
_I'm the Recording Angel. Kindly send me_
_By Spirit-Messenger a copy of_
_"The Dynasts" by T. Hardy. Thank you._
A pause. Enter Spirit-Messenger, with copy of "The Dynasts."
_Thanks._
Exit Spirit-Messenger. The Recording Angel reads "The Dynasts"
aloud.
Just as the reading draws to a close, enter the Spirit of Mr.
Clement Shorter and Chorus of Subtershorters. They are visible
as small grey transparencies swiftly interpenetrating the
brains of the spatial Spirits.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES.
_It is a book which, once you take it up,_
_You cannot readily lay down._
SPIRIT SINISTER.
_There is_
_Not a dull page in it._
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS.
_A bold conception_
_Outcarried with that artistry for which_
_The author's name is guarantee. We have_
_No hesitation in commending to our readers_
_A volume which--_
The Spirit of Mr. Clement Shorter and Chorus of Subtershorters
are detected and expelled.
_--we hasten to denounce_
_As giving an entirely false account_
_Of our impressions._
SPIRIT IRONIC.
Hear, _hear_!
SPIRIT SINISTER.
Hear, _hear_!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES.
_Hear_!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS.
_Intensive vision has this Mr. Hardy,_
_With a dark skill in weaving word-patterns_
_Of subtle ideographies that mark him_
_A man of genius. So am not I,_
_But a plain Spirit, simple and forthright,_
_With no damned philosophical fal-lals_
_About me. When I visited that planet_
_And watched the animalculae thereon,_
_I never said they were "automata"_
_And "jackaclocks," nor dared describe their deeds_
_As "Life's impulsion by Incognizance."_
_It may be that those mites have no free will,_
_But how should I know? Nay, how Mr. Hardy?_
_We cannot glimpse the origin of things,_
_Cannot conceive a Causeless Cause, albeit_
_Such a Cause must have been, and must be greater_
_Than we whose little wits cannot conceive it._
_"Incognizance"! Why deem incognizant_
_An infinitely higher than ourselves?_
_How dare define its way with us? How know_
_Whether it leaves us free or holds us bond?_
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES.
_Allow me to associate myself_
_With every word that's fallen from your lips._
_The author of "The Dynasts" has indeed_
_Misused his undeniably great gifts_
_In striving to belittle things that are_
_Little enough already. I don't say_
_That the phrenetical behaviour_
_Of those aforesaid animalculae_
_Did, while we watched them, seem to indicate_
_Possession of free-will. But, bear in mind,_
_We saw them in peculiar circumstances--_
_At war, blinded with blood and lust and fear._
_Is it not likely that at other times_
_They are quite decent midgets, capable_
_Of thinking for themselves, and also acting_
_Discreetly on their own initiative,_
_Not drilled and herded, yet gregarious--_
_A wise yet frolicsome community?_
SPIRIT IRONIC.
_What are these "other times" though? I had thought_
_Those midgets whiled away the vacuous hours_
_After one war in training for the next._
_And let me add that my contempt for them_
_Is not done justice to by Mr. Hardy._
SPIRIT SINISTER.
_Nor mine. And I have reason to believe_
_Those midgets shone above their average_
_When we inspected them._
A RUMOUR (tactfully intervening).
_Yet have I heard_
_(Though not on very good authority)_
_That once a year they hold a festival_
_And thereat all with one accord unite_
_In brotherly affection and good will._
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS (to Recording Angel).
_Can you authenticate this Rumour?_
RECORDING ANGEL.
_Such festival they have, and call it "Christmas."_
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES.
_Then let us go and reconsider them_
_Next "Christmas."_
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS (to Recording Angel).
_When is that?_
RECORDING ANGEL (consults terrene calendar).
_This day three weeks._
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS.
_On that day we will re-traject ourselves._
_Meanwhile, 'twere well we should be posted up_
_In details of this feast._
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES (to Recording Angel).
_Aye, tell us more._
RECORDING ANGEL.
_I fancy you could best find what you need_
_In the Complete Works of the late Charles Dickens._
_I have them here._
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS.
_Read them aloud to us._
The Recording Angel reads aloud the Complete Works of Charles
Dickens.
RECORDING ANGEL (closing "Edwin Drood").
_'Tis Christmas Morning._
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS.
_Then must we away._
SEMICHORUS I. OF YEARS (aerial music).
_'Tis time we press on to revisit_
_That dear little planet,_
_To-day of all days to be seen at_
_Its brightest and best._
_Now holly and mistletoe girdle_
_Its halls and its homesteads,_
_And every biped is beaming_
_With peace and good will._
SEMICHORUS II.
_With good will and why not with free will?_
_If clearly the former_
_May nest in those bosoms, then why not_
_The latter as well?_
_Let's lay down no laws to trip up on,_
_Our way is in darkness,_
_And not but by groping unhampered_
_We win to the light._
The Spirit and Chorus of the Years traject themselves, closely
followed by the Spirit and Chorus of the Pities, the Spirits
and Choruses Sinister and Ironic, Rumours, Spirit Messengers,
and the Recording Angel.
There is the sound of a rushing wind. The Solar System is seen
for a few instants growing larger and larger--a whorl of dark,
vastening orbs careering round the sun. All but one of these
is lost to sight. The convex seas and continents of our planet
spring into prominence.
The Spirit of Mr. Hardy is visible as a grey transparency
swiftly interpenetrating the brain of the Spirit of the Years,
and urging him in a particular direction, to a particular
point.
The Aerial Visitants now hover in mid-air on the outskirts of
Casterbridge, Wessex, immediately above the County Gaol.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS.
_First let us watch the revelries within_
_This well-kept castle whose great walls connote_
_A home of the pre-eminently blest._
The roof of the gaol becomes transparent, and the whole
interior is revealed, like that of a beehive under glass.
Warders are marching mechanically round the corridors of
white stone, unlocking and clanging open the iron doors of
the cells. Out from every door steps a convict, who stands at
attention, his face to the wall.
At a word of command the convicts fall into gangs of twelve,
and march down the stone stairs, out into the yard, where they
line up against the walls.
Another word of command, and they file mechanically, but not
more mechanically than their warders, into the Chapel.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES.
_Enough!_
SPIRITS SINISTER AND IRONIC.
_'Tis more than even we can bear._
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES.
_Would we had never come!_
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS.
_Brother, 'tis well_
_To have faced a truth however hideous,_
_However humbling. Gladly I discipline_
_My pride by taking back those pettish doubts_
_Cast on the soundness of the central thought_
_In Mr. Hardy's drama. He was right._
_Automata these animalculae_
_Are--puppets, pitiable jackaclocks._
_Be't as it may elsewhere, upon this planet_
_There's no free will, only obedience_
_To some blind, deaf, unthinking despotry_
_That justifies the horridest pessimism._
_Frankly acknowledging all this, I beat_
_A quick but not disorderly retreat._
He re-trajects himself into Space, followed closely by his
Chorus, and by the Spirit and Chorus of the Pities, the
Spirits Sinister and Ironic with their Choruses, Rumours,
Spirit Messengers, and the Recording Angel.
SHAKESPEARE AND CHRISTMAS
_By_
FR*NK H*RR*S
That Shakespeare hated Christmas--hated it with a venom utterly
alien to the gentle heart in him--I take to be a proposition that
establishes itself automatically. If there is one thing lucid-obvious
in the Plays and Sonnets, it is Shakespeare's unconquerable loathing
of Christmas. The Professors deny it, however, or deny that it is
proven. With these gentlemen I will deal faithfully. I will meet them
on their own parched ground, making them fertilise it by shedding
there the last drop of the water that flows through their veins.
If you find, in the works of a poet whose instinct is to write about
everything under the sun, one obvious theme untouched, or touched
hardly at all, then it is at least presumable that there was some good
reason for that abstinence. Such a poet was Shakespeare. It was one of
the divine frailties of his genius that he must be ever flying off at
a tangent from his main theme to unpack his heart in words about some
frivolous-small irrelevance that had come into his head. If it could
be shown that he never mentioned Christmas, we should have proof
presumptive that he consciously avoided doing so. But if the fact
is that he did mention it now and again, but in grudging fashion,
without one spark of illumination--he, the arch-illuminator of all
things--then we have proof positive that he detested it.
I see Dryasdust thumbing his Concordance. Let my memory save him the
trouble. I will reel him off the one passage in which Shakespeare
spoke of Christmas in words that rise to the level of mediocrity.
Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed and so gracious is the time.
So says Marcellus at Elsinore. This is the best our Shakespeare can
vamp up for the birthday of the Man with whom he of all men had the
most in common. And Dryasdust, eternally unable to distinguish chalk
from cheese, throws up his hands in admiration of the marvellous
poetry. If Dryasdust had written it, it would more than pass
muster. But as coming from Shakespeare, how feeble-cold--aye,
and sulky-sinister! The greatest praiser the world will ever
know!--and all he can find in his heart to sing of Christmas is a
stringing-together of old women's superstitions! Again and again he
has painted Winter for us as it never has been painted since--never
by Goethe even, though Goethe in more than one of the _Winter-Lieder_
touched the hem of his garment. There was every external reason why
he should sing, as only he could have sung, of Christmas. The Queen
set great store by it. She and her courtiers celebrated it year by
year with lusty-pious unction. And thus the ineradicable snob in
Shakespeare had the most potent of all inducements to honour the feast
with the full power that was in him. But he did not, because he would
not. What is the key to the enigma?
For many years I hunted it vainly. The second time that I met Carlyle
I tried to enlist his sympathy and aid. He sat pensive for a while and
then said that it seemed to him "a goose-quest." I replied, "You have
always a phrase for everything, Tom, but always the wrong one." He
covered his face, and presently, peering at me through his gnarled
fingers, said "Mon, ye're recht." I discussed the problem with Renan,
with Emerson, with Disraeli, also with Cetewayo--poor Cetewayo, best
and bravest of men, but intellectually a Professor, like the rest of
them. It was borne in on me that if I were to win to the heart of the
mystery I must win alone.
The solution, when suddenly it dawned on me, was so simple-stark that
I was ashamed of the ingenious-clever ways I had been following. (I
learned then--and perhaps it is the one lesson worth the learning of
any man--that truth may be approached only through the logic of the
heart. For the heart is eye and ear, and all excellent understanding
abides there.) On Christmas Day, assuredly, Anne Hathaway was born.
In what year she was born I do not know nor care. I take it she
was not less than thirty-eight when she married Shakespeare. This,
however, is sheer conjecture, and in no way important-apt to our
inquiry. It is not the year, but the day of the year, that matters.
All we need bear in mind is that on Christmas Day that woman was born
into the world.
If there be any doubting Thomas among my readers, let him not
be afraid to utter himself. I am (with the possible exception of
Shakespeare) the gentlest man that ever breathed, and I do but bid him
study the Plays in the light I have given him. The first thing that
will strike him is that Shakespeare's thoughts turned constantly to
the birthdays of all his Fitton-heroines, as a lover's thoughts always
do turn to the moment at which the loved one first saw the light.
"There was a star danced, and under that" was born Beatrice. Juliet
was born "on Lammas Eve." Marina tells us she derived her name from
the chance of her having been "born at sea." And so on, throughout the
whole gamut of women in whom Mary Fitton was bodied forth to us. But
mark how carefully Shakespeare says never a word about the birthdays
of the various shrews and sluts in whom, again and again, he gave
us his wife. When and were was born Queen Constance, the scold? And
Bianca? And Doll Tearsheet, and "Greasy Jane" in the song, and all
the rest of them? It is of the last importance that we should know.
Yet never a hint is vouchsafed us in the text. It is clear that
Shakespeare cannot bring himself to write about Anne Hathaway's
birthday--will not stain his imagination by thinking of it. That is
entirely human-natural. But why should he loathe Christmas Day itself
with precisely the same loathing? There is but one answer--and that
inevitable-final. The two days were one.
Some soul-secrets are so terrible that the most hardened realist of us
may well shrink from laying them bare. Such a soul-secret was this of
Shakespeare's. Think of it! The gentlest spirit that ever breathed,
raging and fuming endlessly in impotent-bitter spleen against the
prettiest of festivals! Here is a spectacle so tragic-piteous that,
try as we will, we shall not put it from us. And it is well that we
should not, for in our plenary compassion we shall but learn to love
the man the more.
[Mr. Fr*nk H*rr*s is very much a man of genius, and I should
be sorry if this adumbration of his manner made any one
suppose that I do not rate his writings about Shakespeare
higher than those of all "the Professors" together.--M.B.]
SCRUTS
_By_
ARN*LD B*NN*TT
I.
Emily Wrackgarth stirred the Christmas pudding till her right arm
began to ache. But she did not cease for that. She stirred on till her
right arm grew so numb that it might have been the right arm of some
girl at the other end of Bursley. And yet something deep down in her
whispered "It is _your_ right arm! And you can do what you like with
it!"
She did what she liked with it. Relentlessly she kept it moving till
it reasserted itself as the arm of Emily Wrackgarth, prickling and
tingling as with red-hot needles in every tendon from wrist to elbow.
And still Emily Wrackgarth hardened her heart.
Presently she saw the spoon no longer revolving, but wavering
aimlessly in the midst of the basin. Ridiculous! This must be seen
to! In the down of dark hairs that connected her eyebrows there was a
marked deepening of that vertical cleft which, visible at all times,
warned you that here was a young woman not to be trifled with. Her
brain despatched to her hand a peremptory message--which miscarried.
The spoon wabbled as though held by a baby. Emily knew that she
herself as a baby had been carried into this very kitchen to stir
the Christmas pudding. Year after year, as she grew up, she had been
allowed to stir it "for luck." And those, she reflected, were the only
cookery lessons she ever got. How like Mother!
Mrs. Wrackgarth had died in the past year, of a complication of
ailments.[8] Emily still wore on her left shoulder that small tag of
crape which is as far as the Five Towns go in the way of mourning. Her
father had died in the year previous to that, of a still more curious
and enthralling complication of ailments.[9] Jos, his son, carried
on the Wrackgarth Works, and Emily kept house for Jos. She with her
own hand had made this pudding. But for her this pudding would not
have been. Fantastic! Utterly incredible! And yet so it was. She was
grown-up. She was mistress of the house. She could make or unmake
puddings at will. And yet she was Emily Wrackgarth. Which was absurd.
[Footnote 8: See "The History of Sarah Wrackgarth," pp. 345-482.]
[Footnote 9: See "The History of Sarah Wrackgarth," pp. 231-344.]
She would not try to explain, to reconcile. She abandoned herself to
the exquisite mysteries of existence. And yet in her abandonment she
kept a sharp look-out on herself, trying fiercely to make head or
tail of her nature. She thought herself a fool. But the fact that
she thought so was for her a proof of adult sapience. Odd! She gave
herself up. And yet it was just by giving herself up that she seemed
to glimpse sometimes her own inwardness. And these bleak revelations
saddened her. But she savoured her sadness. It was the wine of life
to her. And for her sadness she scorned herself, and in her conscious
scorn she recovered her self-respect.
It is doubtful whether the people of southern England have even yet
realised how much introspection there is going on all the time in the
Five Towns.
Visible from the window of the Wrackgarths' parlour was that colossal
statue of Commerce which rears itself aloft at the point where Oodge
Lane is intersected by Blackstead Street. Commerce, executed in glossy
Doultonware by some sculptor or sculptors unknown, stands pointing her
thumb over her shoulder towards the chimneys of far Hanbridge. When I
tell you that the circumference of that thumb is six inches, and the
rest to scale, you will understand that the statue is one of the prime
glories of Bursley. There were times when Emily Wrackgarth seemed to
herself as vast and as lustrously impressive as it. There were other
times when she seemed to herself as trivial and slavish as one of
those performing fleas she had seen at the Annual Ladies' Evening Fête
organised by the Bursley Mutual Burial Club. Extremist!
She was now stirring the pudding with her left hand. The ingredients
had already been mingled indistinguishably in that rich, undulating
mass of tawniness which proclaims perfection. But Emily was determined
to give her left hand, not less than her right, what she called "a
doing." Emily was like that.
At mid-day, when her brother came home from the Works, she was still
at it.
"Brought those scruts with you?" she asked, without looking up.