[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.