It is Christmas, merry Christmas, as we have been duly informed this
morning by every inhabitant of Donaldson Manor, from Col. Donaldson to
the pet and baby Sophy Dudley, who was taught the words but yesterday,
for the occasion. Last evening our readings were interrupted, for all
were busy in preparing for this important day. Miss Donaldson was
superintending jellies and blanc-manges, custards and Charlottes des
Russes; Col. and Mrs. Donaldson were preparing gifts for their servants,
not one of whom was forgotten, and Annie and I, and, by his own special
request, Mr. Arlington, were arranging in proper order the gifts of that
most considerate, mirthful and generous of spirits, Santa Claus. This
morning the sun rose as clear and bright as though it, too, rejoiced in
the joy of humanity; but long before the sun had showed himself, little
feet were pattering from room to room, and childish voices shouting in
the unchecked exuberance of delight. I sometimes doubt whether the
children are so happy as I am, on such occasions. One incident that
occurred this morning would have been enough, in my opinion, to repay
all the time, the trouble, and the gold, which Santa Claus, or his
agents, had expended on their preparations. Aroused by the voices of the
children, I threw on a dressing-gown and hastened to the room
appropriated to their patron saint, which I entered at one door just as
little Eva Dudley appeared at another. Without being in the least a
beauty, Eva has the most charming face I know; merry and bright as
Puck's, or as her own life, which from its earliest dawn has been joyous
as a bird's carol. She gazed now with eager delight on the toys
exhibited by her brothers and sisters, without, apparently, one thought
of herself, till Robert said, "But see here, Eva, look at your own."
As her eyes rested on the large baby-house, with its folding-doors open
to display the furniture of the parlors, and the two dolls, mother and
daughter, seated at a table on which stood a neat china breakfasting
set, she clasped her dimpled hands in silent ecstasy for half a minute,
then rising to her utmost height on her rosy little toes, she exclaimed,
"Oh, isn't I a happy little woman!"
Dear Eva! a little _girl's_ heart would not have seemed to her large
enough to contain such a rapture.
Our party has been augmented since breakfast by the arrival of several
families of Donaldsons--some of whom live at too great a distance for
visits at any other time than Christmas, when all who stand in any
conceivable, or I was about to say inconceivable, degree of relationship
to the Donaldsons of Donaldson Manor, are expected to be here. Among
this host of uncles and aunts and cousins, I was really grateful for my
own prefix of aunt, and I heard Mr. Arlington whisper a request to
Robert to call him uncle--a title to which I have no doubt he would
willingly make good his claim.
In the midst of this general hilarity, the religious character of the
day was not forgotten, and all the family and some of the visitors
attended the morning services in the church. We know that there are
those who, doubting the testimony on which the Christian world has
agreed to observe the 25th of December as the birthday into our mortal
life of the world's Saviour, and the era from which man may date his
hopes of a happy immortality, consider the religious observances of this
day a sheer superstition. On such a controversy I could say but little,
and I should be very unwilling so say that little here; but I would ask
if it can be wrong in the opinion of any--nay, if it be not right, very
right, in the opinion of all--to celebrate once in the year an event so
solemn and so joyous to our race; and whether any day can be better for
such a purpose, than that which has been for centuries associated with
it wherever the Angel's song of "Peace on earth and good will to man"
has been heard? Another class of objectors there are who complain that a
day so sacred should be desecrated, as they express it, by revelry and
mirth. To their objection I should not have a word of reply, if it were
limited to a condemnation of that wild uproar and senseless jollity by
which men sometimes make fools or brutes of themselves; but when they
condemn the cheerfulness that has its home and its birthplace in a
grateful heart, when they frown upon the happy family gathering once
more within the old walls that had echoed to their childish gambols,
calling up by the spells of association, from the dim recesses of the
past, the very tones and looks of the mother that watched their cradled
sleep, and the father that guided their first tottering steps in the
pursuit of truth; tones and looks by which, if by any thing, the cold,
selfish spirit of the world to whose dominion they have yielded, may be
exorcised, and the loving and generous spirit of their earlier life may
again enter within them; when they declare these things inconsistent
with the Christian's joyful commemoration of that event to which he owes
his earthly blessings as well as his heavenly hopes. I can only pity
them for their want of harmony with the Great Spirit of the Universe,
the spirit of Love and Joy.
Our Christmas was continued and concluded in the same spirit in which it
was commenced--the spirit of kindly affection to Man and devout
gratitude to Heaven. Those guests whose homes were distant remained for
the night, and in the evening, before any of our party had left us,
Col. Donaldson called on Robert Dudley to repeat a poem winch he had
learned at his request for the occasion. Robert was a little abashed at
first at being brought forward so conspicuously; but he is a manly,
intelligent boy, and his voice soon gathered strength and firmness, and
his eyes lost their downward tendency, and kindled with earnest feeling,
as he recited those beautiful lines of Charles Sprague, entitled--
THE FAMILY MEETING.
We are all here!
Father, mother,
Sister, brother,
All who hold each other dear.
Each chair is fill'd, we're all at home,
To-night let no cold stranger come;
It is not often thus around
Our own familiar hearth we're found.
Bless, then, the meeting and the spot;
For once be every care forgot;
Let gentle Peace assert her power,
And kind affection rule the hour;
We're all--all here.
We're NOT all here!
Some are away--the dead ones dear,
Who throng'd with us this ancient hearth,
And gave the hour to guiltless mirth.
Fate, with a stern, relentless hand,
Look'd in and thinn'd our little band:
Some like a night-flash pass'd away,
And some sank, lingering, day by day;
The quiet grave-yard--some lie there--
And cruel Ocean has his share--
We're _not_ all here.
We _are_ all here!
Even they--the dead--though dead so dear.
Fond Memory, to her duty true,
Brings back their faded forms to view.
How life-like, through the mist of years,
Each well-remember'd face appears!
We see them as in times long past,
From each to each kind looks are cast,
We hear their words, their smiles behold,
They're round us as they were of old--
We _are_ all here.
We are all here!
Father, mother,
Sister, brother,
You that I love with love so dear.
This may not long of us be said,
Soon must we join the gather'd dead,
And by the hearth we now sit round
Some other circle will be found.
Oh, then, that wisdom may we know,
Which yields a life of peace below!
So, in the world to follow this,
May each repeat, in words of bliss.
We're all--all _here_!