the whole English
race all over the world.

At Nainee Tal, or any other of our stations in our wondrous Indian
possession, the day is kept. Alas, how dreary it is for the hearts that
are craving for home! The moon rises through the majestic arch of the
sky and makes the tamarisk-trees gorgeous; the warm air flows gently;
the dancers float round to the wild waltz-rhythm; and the imitation of
home is kept up with zeal by the stout general, the grave and scholarly
judge, the fresh subaltern, and by all the bright ladies who are in
exile. But even these think of the quiet churches in sweet English
places; they think of the purple hedges, the sharp scent of frost-bitten
fields, the glossy black ice, and the hissing ring of the skates. I know
that, religiously as Christmas is kept up even on the frontier in India,
the toughest of the men long for home, and pray for the time when the
blessed regions of Brighton and Torquay and Cheltenham may receive the
worn pensioner. One poet says something of the Anglo-Indian's longing
for home at Christmas-time; he speaks with melancholy of the folly of
those who sell their brains for rupees and go into exile, and he appears
to be ready, for his own part, to give up his share in the glory of our
Empire if only he can see the friendly fields in chill December. I
sympathize with him. Away with the mendicants, rich and poor--away with
the gushing parasites who use a kindly instinct and a sacred name in
order to make mean profit--away with the sordid hucksters who play with
the era of man's hope as though the very name of the blessed time were a
catchword to be used like the abominable party-cries of politicians! But
when I come to men and women who understand the real significance of the
day--when I come to charitable souls who are reminded of One who was all
Charity, and who gave an impulse to the world which two thousand years
have only strengthened--when I come among these, I say, "Give us as much
Yule-tide talk as ever you please, do your deeds of kindness, take your
fill of innocent merriment, and deliver us from the pestilence of quacks
and mendicants!" It is when I think of the ghastly horror of our own
great central cities that I feel at once the praiseworthiness and the
hopelessness of all attempts to succour effectually the immense mass of
those who need charity. Hopeless, helpless lives are lived by human
creatures who are not much above the brutes. Alas, how much may be
learned f