We
exposed the hollow mockery of Christmas sentiment; we abused the
indigestible Christmas dinner, the tiresome Christmas party, the silly
Christmas pantomime. Our funny member was side-splitting on the
subject of Christmas Waits; our social reformer bitter upon Christmas
drunkenness; our economist indignant upon Christmas charities. Only one
argument of any weight with us was advanced in favour of the festival,
and that was our leading cynic's suggestion that it was worth enduring
the miseries of Christmas, to enjoy the soul-satisfying comfort of the
after reflection that it was all over, and could not occur again for
another year.

But since those days when I was prepared to put this old world of ours
to rights upon all matters, I have seen many sights and heard many
sounds, and I am not quite so sure as I once was that my particular
views are the only possibly correct ones. Christmas seems to me somewhat
meaningless; but I have looked through windows in poverty-stricken
streets, and have seen dingy parlours gay with many chains of coloured
paper. They stretched from corner to corner of the smoke-grimed ceiling,
they fell in clumsy festoons from the cheap gasalier, they framed the
fly-blown mirror and the tawdry pictures; and I know tired hands and
eyes worked many hours to fashion and fix those foolish chains, saying,
"It will please him--she will like to see the room look pretty;" and
as I have looked at them they have grown, in some mysterious manner,
beautiful to me. The gaudy-coloured child and dog irritates me, I
confess; but I have watched a grimy, inartistic personage, smoothing it
affectionately with toil-stained hand, while eager faces crowded round
to admire and wonder at its blatant crudity. It hangs to this day in its
cheap frame above the chimney-piece, the one bright spot relieving those
damp-stained walls; dull eyes stare and stare again at it, catching a
vista, through its flashy tints, of the far-off land of art. Christmas
Waits annoy me, and I yearn to throw open the window and fling coal at
them--as once from the window of a high flat in Chelsea I did. I doubted
their being genuine Waits. I was inclined to the opinion they were young
men seeking excuse for making a noise. One of them appeared to know
a hymn with a chorus, another played the concertina, while a third
accompanied with a step dance. Instinctively I felt no respect for them;
they disturbed me in my work, and the desire grew upon me to