Christmas: Its Origin and Associations Part 39

THE CHRISTMAS BELLS.

"Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing l.u.s.t of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be."

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[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CHRISTMAS BELLS.]

As the poet Longfellow stood on the lofty tower of Bruges Cathedral the belfry chimes set him musing, and of those chimes he says:

"Then most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden times, With their strange, unearthly changes, rang the melancholy chimes, Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in the choir; And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar.

Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain: They who live in history only seemed to walk the earth again."

CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR CARDS

were first circulated in England in 1846. That year not more than a thousand copies were printed, and that was considered a large sale.

The numbers distributed annually soon increased to tens and hundreds of thousands, and now there are millions of them. Mr. J. C. Horsley, a member of the Royal Academy, designed this first card which was sent out in 1846. It represents a family party of three generations--grandfather and grandmother, father and mother, and little children--and all are supposed to be joining in the sentiment, "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you." The card was issued from the office of one of the periodicals of the time, _Felix Summerley's Home Treasury_. It was first lithographed, and then it was coloured by hand.

Christmas and New Year Cards became very popular in the decade 1870-1880. But then, however, simple cards alone did not suffice. Like many other things, they felt the influence of the latter-day _renaissance_ of art, and by a sort of evolutionary process developed cards monochrome and coloured, "Christmas Bell" cards, palettes, scrolls, circular and oval panels, stars, fans, crescents, and other shaped novelties; embossed cards, the iridescent series, the rustic and frosted cards, the folding series, the jewel cards, the crayons, and private cards on which the sender's name and sentiments are printed in gold, silver, or colours; hand-painted cards with landscapes, seascapes, and floral decorations; paintings on porcelain; satin cards, fringed silk, plush, Broche, and other artistically made-up novelties; "art-gem" panels; elaborate booklets, and other elegant souvenirs of the festive season. Many of the Christmas booklets are beautifully ill.u.s.trated editions of popular poems and carols.

"Quartette" cards, "Snap" cards, and other cards of games for the diversion of social gatherings are also extensively used at Christmastide.

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RUSTIC CHRISTMAS MASQUE.

In compliance with a wish expressed by the Lady Londesborough, a Masque, ent.i.tled, "Recollections of Old Christmas," was performed at Grimston at Christmas, 1850, the following prologue being contributed by Barry Cornwall:--

"When winter nights grow long, And winds without blow cold, We sit in a ring round the warm wood-fire, And listen to stories old!

And we try to look grave (as maids should be), When the men bring in boughs of the laurel tree.

O the laurel, the evergreen tree!

The poets have laurels--and why not we?

How pleasant when night falls down, And hides the wintry sun, To see them come in to the blazing fire, And know that their work is done; Whilst many bring in, with a laugh or rhyme, Green branches of holly for Christmas time!

O the holly, the bright green holly!

It tells (like a tongue) that the times are jolly!

Sometimes--(in _our_ grave house Observe this happeneth not;) But at times, the evergreen laurel boughs, And the holly are all forgot!

And then! what then? Why the men laugh low, And hang up a branch of--the misletoe!

Oh, brave is the laurel! and brave is the holly!

But the misletoe banisheth melancholy!

Ah, n.o.body knows, nor ever _shall_ know, What is done under the misletoe!"

A printed copy of the Masque, which bears date, "Tuesday, XXIV December, MDCCCL.," is preserved in the British Museum.

"CHARACTERS

(Which speak)

"Old Father Christmas Hon. Mr. Th.e.l.luson Young Grimston Hon. Mr. Denison Baron of Beef Hon. Miss Th.e.l.luson Plum-Pudding Hon. Miss Denison Mince-Pie Hon. Miss Selina Denison Wa.s.sail-Bowl Hon. Miss Isabella Denison

"CHARACTERS

(Which do not speak, or say as little as possible--all that they are requested to do)

Ursa Minor Hon. Miss Ursula Denison Baby Cake Hon. Henry Charles Denison."

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UNDER THE HOLLY BOUGH.

Ye who have scorn'd 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 sinn'd against and sinning, Forget their strife's beginning; Be links no longer broken, Be sweet forgiveness spoken, Under the holly bough.

Ye who have lov'd 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'er-burdened 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, LL.D._

The author of this beautiful poem (Dr. Charles Mackay) was born at Perth in 1814, and died on Christmas Eve, 1889, at his residence, Longridge Road, Earl's Court, Brompton.

GHOST STORIES.

Everybody knows that Christmas is the time for ghost stories, and that Charles d.i.c.kens and other writers have supplied us with tales of the true blood-curdling type. Thomas Hood's "Haunted House," S. T.

Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner," and some other weird works of poetry have also been found serviceable in producing that strange chill of the blood, that creeping kind of feeling all over you, which is one of the enjoyments of Christmastide. Coleridge (says the late Mr. George Dawson)[88] "holds the first place amongst English poets in this objective teaching of the vague, the mystic, the dreamy, and the imaginative. I defy any man of imagination or sensibility to have 'The Ancient Mariner' read to him, by the flickering firelight on Christmas night, by a master mind possessed by the mystic spirit of the poem, and not find himself taken away from the good regions of 'ability to account for,' and taken into some far-off dreamland, and made even to start at his own footfall, and almost to shudder at his own shadow. You shall sit round the fire at Christmas time, good men and true every one of you; you shall come there armed with your patent philosophy; that creak you have heard, it is only the door--the list is not carefully put round the door, and it is the wintry wind that whistles through the crevices. Ghosts and spectres belong to the olden times; science has waved its wand and laid them all. We have no superst.i.tion about us; we walk enlightened nineteenth-century men; it is quite beneath us to be superst.i.tious. By and bye, one begins to tell tales of ghosts and spirits; and another begins, and it goes all round; and there comes over you a curious feeling--a very unphilosophical feeling, in fact, because the pulsations of air from the tongue of the storyteller ought not to bring over you that peculiar feeling. You have only heard words, tales--confessedly by the storyteller himself only tales, such as may figure in the next monthly magazine for pure entertainment and amus.e.m.e.nt. But why do you feel so, then? If you say that these things are mere hallucinations, vague air-beating or tale-telling, why, good philosopher, do you feel so curious, so all-overish, as it were? Again, you are a man without the least terror in you, as brave and bold a man as ever stepped: living man cannot frighten you, and verily the dead rise not with you. But you are brought, towards midnight, to the stile over which is gained a view of the village churchyard, where sleep the dead in quietness.

Your manhood begins just to ooze away a little; you are caught occasionally whistling to keep your courage up; you do not expect to see a ghost, but you are ready to see one, or to make one." At such a moment, think of the scene depicted by Coleridge:--

"'Twas night, calm night, the moon was high; The dead men stood together.

All stood together on the deck, For a charnel-dungeon fitter: All fixed on me their stony eyes, That in the moon did glitter.