CHRISTMAS.

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 作者：华盛顿·欧文投票推荐加入书签留言反馈

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But is old, old, good old Christmas gone? Nothing but the hair of his good, gray old head and beard left? Well, I will have that, seeing I ot have more of him.

 HUE AND CRY AFTER CHRISTMAS.

 A man might then behold

 At Christmas, in each hall<bdi>.９9ｌｉｂ.</bdi>

 Good ?res to curb the cold,

 A freat and small.

 The neighbors were friendly bidden,

 And all had wele true,

 The poor from the gates were not chidden

 When this old cap was new.

 OLD SONG.

 NOTHING in England exercises a more delightful spell over my imagination than the lingerings of the holiday s and rural games of former times. They recall the pictures my fancy used to draw in the May m of life, when as yet I only khe world through books, and believed it to be all that poets had pai; and they bring with them the ?avor of those ho days of yore, in which, perhaps with equal fallacy, I am apt to think the world was more homebred, 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 try, partly dilapidated by the waste of ages and partly lost in the additions and alterations of latter days.

 Poetry, however, gs 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 ard mouldering tratefully repaying their support by clasping together their t remains, and, as it were, embalming them in verdure.

 Of all the old festivals, however, that of Christmas awakens the stro and most heartfelt associations. There is a tone of solemn and sacred feeling that blends with our viviality and lifts the spirit to a state of hallowed and elevated enjoyment.

 The services of the Church about this seasoremely tender and inspiring. They dwell on the beautiful story of the in of our faith and the pastoral ses that apas annou. They gradually increase in fervor and pathos during the season of Advent, until they break forth in full jubilee on the m that brought pead good-will to men. I do not know a grander effeusi the moral feelings than to hear the full choir and the pealing an perf a Christmas anthem in a cathedral, and ?lling every part of the vast pile with triumphant harmony.

 It is a beautiful arra, also, derived from days of yore, that this festival, whiorates the annou of the religion of pead love, has been made the season fathering together of family es, and drawing clain those bands of kindred hearts which the cares and pleasures and sorrows of the world are tinually 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 affes, there to grow young and loving again among the endearios 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.

 Our feelings sally forth and dissipate themselves over the sunny landscape, and we "live abroad and everywhere." The song of the bird, the murmur of the stream, the breathing fragrance of spring, the soft voluptuousness of summer, the golden pomp of autumh with its mantle of refreshing green, and heaven with it deep delicious blue and its cloudy magni?ce,--all ?ll us with mute but exquisite delight, and we revel in the luxury of mere sensation. But in the depth of winter, when Nature lies despoiled of every charm and ed in her shroud of sheeted snow, we turn for rati?cations to moral sources.

 The dreariness and desolation of the landscape, the shloomy days and darksome nights, while they circumscribe our wanderings, shut in our feelings also from rambling abroad, and make us more keenly disposed for the pleasure of the social circle. Our thoughts are more trated; our friendly sympathies more aroused. We feel more sensibly the charm of each others society, and are brought more closely ></a>together by dependen each other for enjoyment. Heart calleth unto heart, and we draw our pleasures from the deep wells of loving-kindness which lie in the quiet recesses of our bosoms, and which, wheed to, furnish forth the pure element of domestic felicity.

 The pitchy gloom without makes the heart dilate oering the room ?lled with the glow and warmth of the evening ?re. The ruddy blaze diffuses an arti?cial summer and sunshihrough the room, and lights up each tenan a kindlier wele.

 Where does the ho face of hospitality expand into a broader and more cordial smile, where is the shy glance of love more sweetly eloquent, than by the winter ?reside? and as the hollow blast of wintry wind rushes through the hall, claps the distant door, whistles about the casement, and rumbles down the ey, what be mrateful than that feeling of sober and sheltered security with which we look round upon the fortable chamber and the se of domestic hilarity?

 The English, from the great prevalence of rural habit throughout every class of society, have always been found of those festivals and holidays, which agreeably interrupt the stillness of try life, and they were, in former days, particularly observant of the religious and social rites of Christmas. It is inspiring to read even the dry details whie antiquaries have given of the quaint humors, the burlesque pageants, the plete abandoo mirth and good-fellowship with which this festival was celebrated. It seemed to throw open every door and unlock every heart. It brought the peasant and the peer together, and blended all ranks in one warm, generous ?ow of joy and kindness.

 The old halls of castles and manor-houses resounded with the harp and the Christmas carol, and their ample broaned uhe weight of hospitality. Even the poorest cottage weled the festive season with green decorations of bay and holly--the cheerful ?re glas rays through the lattice, inviting the passeo raise the latd join the gossip knot huddled round the hearth<tt>99lｉb.t> beguiling the long evening with legendary jokes and oft-told Christmas tales.

 One of the least pleasing effeodern re? is the havoc it has made among the hearty old holiday s. It has pletely taken off the sharp tougs and spirited reliefs of these embellishments of life, and has worn down society into a more smooth and polished, but certainly a less characteristic, surface. Many of the games and ceremonials of Christmas have entirely disappeared, and, like the sherris sack of old Falstaff, are beatters of speculation and dispute among entators.

 They ?ourished in times full of spirit and lustihood, when men enjoyed life roughly, but heartily and vigorously--times wild and picturesque, which have furnished poetry with its richest materials and the drama with its most attractive variety of characters and manners. The world has beore worldly. There is more of dissipation, and less of enjoyment. Pleasure has expanded into a broader, but a shallower stream, and has forsaken many of those deep and quiet els where it ?owed sweetly through the calm bosom of domestic life. Society has acquired a more enlightened and elegant tone, but it has lost many of its strong local peculiarities, its homebred feelings, its ho ?reside delights. The traditionary s of goldeed antiquity, its feudal hospitalities, and lordly wassailings, have passed away with the baronial castles and stately manor-houses in which they were celebrated. They ported with the shadowy hall, the great oaken gallery, and the tapestried parlor, but are uo the light showy saloons and gay drawing-rooms of the modern villa.

 Shorn, however, as it is, of its a aive honors, Christmas is still a period of delightful excitement in England.

 It is gratifying to see that home-feeling pletely aroused which holds so powerful a pla every English bosom. The preparations making on every side for the social board that is again to unite friends and kihe presents of good cheer passing and repassing, those tokens ard and quiers of kind feelings; the evergreens distributed about houses and churches, emblems of pead gladness,--all these have the most pleasing effe produg 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, eg them with the sacred and joyous occasion, have almost fahem into another celestial choir announg pead good-will to mankind.

 How delightfully the imagination, when wrought upon by these moral in?ueurns everything to melody ay! The very crowing of the cock, heard sometimes in the profound repose of the try, "telling the night-watches to his feathery dames,"

 was thought by the on people to annouhe approach of this sacred festival.

 "Some say that ever gainst that season es

 Wherein our Saviours birth is celebrated,

 This bird of dawning sih all night long;

 And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad,

 The nights are wholesome--then no plas strike,

 No fairy takes, no witch hath power to charm,

 So hallowd and so gracious is the time."

 Amidst the general call to happiness, the bustle of the spirits, and stir of the affes which prevail at this period what bosom remain insensible? It is, ihe season eed feeling--the season for kindling not merely the ?re of hospitality in the hall, but the genial ?ame of charity in the heart.

 The se of early love again rises green to memory beyond the sterile waste of years; and the idea of home, fraught with the fragrance of home-dwelling joys, reanimates the drooping spirit, as the Arabian breeze will sometimes waft the freshness of the distant ?elds to the ilgrim of the desert.

 Stranger and sojourner as I am in the land, though for me no social hearth may blaze, no hospitable roof throw open its doors, nor the warm grasp of friendship wele at the threshold, yet I feel the in?uence of the season beaming into my soul from the happy looks of those<bdo>９9liｂ.</bdo> around me. Surely happiness is re?ective, like the light of heaven, and every tenance, bright with smiles and glowing with i enjoyment, is a mirror transmitting to others the rays of a supreme and ever-shining benevolence. He who turn churlishly away from plating the felicity of his fellow-beings, and sit down darkling and repining in his loneliness when all around is joyful, may have his moments of stroement and sel?sh grati?cation, but he wants the genial and social sympathies which stitute the charm of a merry Christmas.

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