Story Telling.—Page 239.
It is apparently by a group of the latter kind that this branch of the Christmas amusements is illustrated in the plate. The youthful members of a family are listening, in all probability, to some tale of their sires, related by the withered crone, who, grown old in that service, links those young beings with a generation gone by, and stands, as it were, prophesying "betwixt the living and the dead." If we may judge from the aspect of the aged sybil herself, and the pale and earnest faces that surround her, the narrative which she is imparting is one of the fearful class, and not to be listened to beyond the cheering inspirations of that bright fire; although the moving shadows which it flings upon the old walls are amongst the terrors which are born of her story. For the scene of these emotions, the artist has chosen, as artists still love to do, the chamber of an ancient mansion, with its huge chimney and oriel-window. And it may be that for picturesque effects which are to address themselves to the eye, artists are right in so doing. No doubt, the high chronicles of chivalry, and the mysterious traditions of the past, comport well with the gloom of the gothic gallery;—and, certainly, the long rambling passages of an old house afford at once room for the wandering of ghosts, and that dim, shadowy light by which imagination sees them best. But the true poetry of life is not confined to ancient dwellings; and every house, in every crowded thoroughfare of every city, has its own tales to tell around the Christmas fire. The most pert-looking dwelling of them all, that may seem as if it were forever staring out of its sash windows into the street, has its own mysteries, and is, if it have been tenanted sufficiently long, as closely haunted by recollections as the baron's castle, or the squire's old manor-house. Like them,—
"Its stones have voices, and its walls do live;
It is the house of memory!"
Within its neat parlors and light saloons, the lyre of human passions has been struck on all its chords. Birth and death, marriage and separation, joy and grief, in all their familiar forms, have knocked at its painted door, and crossed its narrow threshold; and the hearts within have their own traditions of the past, and their own reckonings to take, and their own anecdotes to revise, and their own ghosts to bring back, amid the commemorations of this festal time.
And—whatever may be said for the ancient ghost stories, which are fast losing ground—fitting it is that, amid the mirth of this pleasant time, such thoughts should be occasionally stirred, and those phantoms of the heart brought back. Not that the joy of the young and hopeful should be thereby darkened, but that they may be duly warned that "youth's a stuff will not endure," and taught in time the tenure upon which hope is held. That was a beautiful custom of the Jews which led them, when they built houses, to leave ever some part unfinished, as a memento of the ruin and desolation of their city. Not that they, therefore, built the less, or the less cheerfully; but that in the very midst of their amplest accommodations they preserved a perpetual and salutary reference to the evil of their condition,—a useful check upon their worldly thoughts. And thus should mirth be welcomed and hopes built up, wherever the materials present themselves; but a mark should, notwithstanding, be placed upon the brightest of them all, remembrances ever let in, which may recall to us the imperfect condition of our nature here, and speak of the certain decay which must attend all hopes erected for mere earthly dwellings.
But thou shouldst speak of this, thou for whom the following lines were written long ago, though they have not yet met thine eye, thou who hast learnt this lesson more sternly than even I, and speakest so well of all things! Many a "Winter's Tale" have we two read together (Shakspeare's among the rest—and how often!), and many a written lay has linked our thoughts in a sympathy of sentiment, on many an evening of Christmas. It may be that on some night of that which is approaching, these lines may meet thy notice, and through them, one more winter's eve may yet be spent by thee and me, in a communion of thought and feeling. No fear that joy should carry it all, with us! No danger that the ghosts of the past should fail to mingle with our Christmas feelings, in that hour! There can be no future hope built up for thee or me, or for most others who have passed the first season of youth, to which something shall not be wanting; which shall not, like the houses of the Jews, be left imperfect in some part; and for the same reason,—even for the memories of the ruined past!
Farewell! I do not bid thee weep;
The hoarded love of many years,
The visions hearts like thine must keep,
May not be told by tears!
No! tears are but the spirit's showers,
To wash its lighter clouds away,
In breasts where sun-bows, like the flowers,
Are born of rain and ray;
But gone from thine is all the glow
That helped to form life's promise-bow!
Farewell! I know that never more
Thy spirit, like the bird of day,
Upon its own sweet song shall soar
Along a sunny way!
The hour that wakes the waterfall
To music, in its far-off flight,
And hears the silver fountains call,
Like angels through the night,
Shall bring thee songs whose tones are sighs
From harps whose chords are memories!
Night! when, like perfumes that have slept,
All day, within the wild-flower's heart,
Steal out the thoughts the soul has kept
In silence and apart;
And voices we have pined to hear,
Through many a long and lonely day,
Come back upon the dreaming ear,
From grave-lands, far away;
And gleams look forth, of spirit-eyes,
Like stars along the darkening skies!
When fancy and the lark are still—
Those riders of the morning gale!
And walks the moon o'er vale and hill
With memory and the nightingale;
The moon that is the daylight's ghost
(As memory is the ghost of hope),
And holds a lamp to all things lost
Beneath night's solemn cope,
Pale as the light by memory led
Along the cities of the dead!
Alas, for thee! alas for thine!
Thy youth that is no longer young!
Whose heart, like Delphi's ruined shrine,
Gives oracles—oh! still divine!—
But never more in song!
Whose breast, like Echo's haunted hall,
Is filled with murmurs of the past,
Ere yet its "gold was dim," and all
Its "pleasant things" laid waste!
From whose sweet windows never more
Shall look the sunny soul of yore!
Farewell! I do not bid thee weep,
The smile and tear are past for thee;
The river of thy thoughts must keep
Its solemn course, too still and deep
For idle eyes to see!
Oh! earthly things are all too far
To throw their shadows o'er its stream!
But, now and then, a silver star,
And, now and then, a gleam
Of glory from the skies be given,
To light its waves with dreams of heaven!
To the out-door sports of this merry time which arise out of the natural phenomena of the season itself, we need do no more than allude here, because every school-boy knows far more about them than we are now able to tell him, though we too reckoned them all amidst the delights of our boyhood. The rapid motions and graceful manœuvres of the skilful amongst the skaters, the active games connected with this exercise (such as the Golf of our northern neighbors, not very commonly practised in England), the merry accidents of the sliders, and the loud and mischievous laugh of the joyous groups of snowballers,—are all amongst the picturesque features by which the Christmas time is commonly marked in these islands. To be sure, the kind of seasons seems altogether to have abandoned us in which the ice furnished a field for those diversions during a period of six weeks; and the days are gone when fairs were held on the broad Thames, and books were printed and medals struck on the very pathway of his fierce and daily tides. Even now as we write however, in this present year of grace, old Winter stands without the door in something like the garb in which as boys we loved him best, and that old aspect of which we have such pleasant memories, and which Cowper has so well described:
"O Winter! ruler of the inverted year!
Thy scattered hair with sleet-like ashes filled;
Thy breath congealed upon thy lips; thy cheeks
Fringed with a beard made white with other snows
Than those of age; thy forehead wrapt in clouds;
A leafless branch thy sceptre; and thy throne
A sliding car indebted to no wheels,
But urged by storms along thy slippery way!"