CHRISTMAS AND THE WINTER WORLD 301 



make a visit to the "deserving poor," feeling as good as 

 Scrooge, and expecting that some Tiny Tim will cry, 

 "God bless us every one." 



But perhaps we are pressing the essayist's privilege 

 of discursiveness too far in thus departing from our 

 theme of Christmas and the winter world. Yet it is 

 often such thoughts as these which come to me, far 

 though I am from cities and the problems of cities, 

 from wars and rumours of wars, wandering over snowy 

 fields where only the varying hare has been ahead. 

 Sometimes the problems of life are never so clearly 

 seen as in solitude, and certainly the strength to 

 meet them is never so well engendered as in silence and 

 meditation. I like best to think of Christmas with 

 all its old-fashioned flavouring of roast goose and plum 

 pudding and Santa Claus and tinselled trees and rap- 

 turous kiddies and jingling sleigh-bells. I like to see the 

 light and jollity within, the clear, cold, white world 

 without, sparkling under the frosty stars. I like to 

 glow with greeting for my neighbours, and feel well- 

 disposed toward all the universe. I love to put the 

 candles behind the wreaths in the windows and wait 

 for our village choir to arrive outside, and then to hear 

 their voices raised in the still night air, singing, 



Good King Wenceslaus looked out 



On the feast of Stephen 

 and 



We three kings of Orient are, 

 Bearing gifts, we travel afar 



