282 The Pods' Beasts. 



live in ease and peace. Fate spins them a more generous 

 length of days, and when the fatal day comes it is really an 

 altar that awaits them. 



For what is Christmas in its festal aspect but a feast in 

 honour of the genius of good living, and what are the store 

 of choice viands that we prepare for it but sacrifices ? So 

 the pig, the bullock, and the sheep find, just as in the old 

 pagan days, the fillets of sacrificial flowers, the garlands, 

 and the ornaments ready. There is ceremony over the act 

 of offering, and reverent appreciation of the remains. 



The Pontifex Maximus of the market himself prepares 

 the prize beef, and the ordinary ministers of the place 

 attend the rite in deferential attention. With what scientific 

 nicety the joints are got ready ; with what conciseness of 

 skill and brave affectations of gesture the operator does his 

 work. He might be a surgeon with an emperor for his 

 subject. And then with what parade of circumspection 

 each portion is removed, with what fine quibblings as to 

 trifles of position each is placed aside. Dexterous hands 

 have already carved the lucid turnip and the glowing carrot 

 into floral effigies, and the blue satin bows have fringes of 

 silver tinsel, and the skewer is gilt. Under the master's 

 own eye the decorations are affixed. In private there are 

 many rehearsals, till at length taste is satisfied, and then 

 the lordly fragments are brought out for public view. Now 

 all this circumstance of demise, this consequential pomp 

 of posthumous adornment, ought surely to have an elevating 

 influence upon the bullock and his friends. 



They are the descendants of " the wild lierds that own 

 no master's stall," of the reem — the animal that had such 

 wide horns that Noah (so the Talmudists say) could not 

 get it into the ark, and had to tow it behind — and of the 

 urus, which Julius Cxsar says was only a trifle smaller than 

 the elephant. And to-day they arc the brothers of the 

 American bison, "the majestic brute that roams in herds 



