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
The Gentlest Art
_A Choice of Letters by Entertaining Hands_
EDITED BY E. V. LUCAS
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first to last, as almost to inspire one to attempt the restoration of
the lost art.
"There is hardly a letter among them all that one would have left out,
and the book is of such pleasant size and appearance, that one would
not have it added to, either."--_The New York Times._
"The author has made his selections with admirable care. We do not
miss a single old favorite. He has given us all that is best in
letter-writing, and the classification under such heads as 'Children
and Grandfathers,' 'The Familiar Manner,' 'The Grand Style,'
'Humorists and Oddities' is everything that can be desired."--_The
Argonaut._
"Letters of news and of gossip, of polite nonsense, of humor and
pathos, of friendship, of quiet reflection, stately letters in the
grand manner, and naïve letters by obscure and ignorant folk."
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The Friendly Craft
EDITED BY ELIZABETH D. HANSCOM
In this volume the author has done for American letters what Mr. Lucas
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"... An unusual anthology. A collection of American letters, some
of them written in the Colonial period and some of them yesterday;
all of them particularly human; many of them charmingly easy and
conversational, as pleasant, bookish friends talk in a fortunate
hour. The editor of this collection has an unerring taste for
literary quality and a sense of humor which shows itself in prankish
headlines.... It is a great favor to the public to bring together in
just this informal way the delightful letters of our two centuries of
history."--_The Independent._
"There should be a copy of this delightful book in the collection of
every lover of that which is choice in literature."--_The New York
Times._
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The Golden Treasury Series
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AMONG THEM ARE:
Addison, John. Essays.
Aphorisms and Reflections. By T. H. Huxley.
Arnold, Matthew, Poems.
Art of Worldly Wisdom. By B. Gracian. Trans. by J. Jacobs.
Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. By O. W. Holmes.
Bacon, Sir Francis. Essays. Ed. by W. A. Wright.
Ballad Book. Ed. by W. Allingham.
Balladen und Romanzen. Ed. by C. A. Buchheim.
Book of Golden Deeds. By C. M. Yonge.
Book of Golden Thoughts. By H. Attwell.
Book of Worthies. By Charlotte M. Yonge.
Byron, Lord. Poems. Chosen by M. Arnold.
Children's Garland, The. Selected by C. Patmore.
Children's Treasury of Lyrical Poetry. Selected by F. T. Palgrave.
Christian Year, The. By J. Keble, Ed. by Charlotte M. Yonge.
Clough, A. H. Poems by. Ed. by W. Benham.
Cowper, W. Letters of. Ed. by Mrs. Oliphant.
Deutsche Lyrik. Selected by C. A. Buchheim.
Epictetus. Golden Sayings of. Ed. by H. Crossley.
Golden Treasury Psalter.
Golden Treasury of the Best Songs and Lyrics. By F. T. Palgrave.
---- ---- Second Series.
Fairy Book. Selected by Mrs. D. M. Craik.
House of Atreus, The. By Æschylus. Trans. by E. A. Morshead.
Hydriotaphia, etc. By Sir T. Browne. Ed. by W. A. Greenhill.
Jest Book. Arranged by Mark Lemon.
Keats, John. Poems. Ed. by F. T. Palgrave.
Landor, W. S. Poems. Selected by E. S. Colvin.
Lieder und Gedichte. By H. Heine.
London Lyrics. By F. Locker-Lampson.
Lyre Francaise, La. Arranged with notes by G. Masson.
Lyric Love. An Anthology. Ed. by W. Watson.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Thoughts of. By G. H. Rendall.
Mohammed, Speeches and Table Talk. Ed. by S. Lane-Poole.
Moore, Thos. Poems. Selected by C. L. Falkiner.
Old Age; Friendship. By Cicero. Trans. by E. S. Schuckburgh.
Phædrus, Lysis, etc. By Plato. Trans. by J. Wright.
Pilgrim's Progress. By John Bunyan.
Religio Medici. By Sir T. Browne. Ed. by W. A. Greenhill.
Republic. By Plato. Trans. by J. L. Davies & D. J. Vaughan.
Robinson Crusoe. By D. Defoe. Ed. by J. W. Clark.
Rossetti, C. Poems. Chosen by W. M. Rossetti.
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. By E. Fitzgerald.
Shakespeare, W. Songs and Sonnets. Ed. by F. T. Palgrave.
Shelley, P. B. Poems. Ed. by S. A. Brooke.
Southey, R. Poems. Chosen by E. Dowden.
Steele. R. Essays. Ed. by L. E. Steele.
Tales from Shakespeare. By C. Lamb.
Tennyson, Lord Alfred.
Idylls of the King.
In Memoriam.
Lyrical Poems. Ed. by F. T. Palgrave.
The Princess.
Theocritus, Bion and Moschus. Ed. by A. Lang.
Tom Brown's Schooldays. By T. Hughes.
Trial and Death of Socrates. By Plato. Trans. by A. J. Church.
Wordsworth, W. Poems. Selected by M. Arnold.
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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
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London's Lure
_An Anthology in Prose and Verse_
BY HELEN AND LEWIS MELVILLE
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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.
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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
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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.