Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1875-12-29
CHRISTMAS AND DICKENS.

How the Tive are Connected in the
Thoughts of Reading NIen-A Happy
sketch.
From the st, Louis Republican,.
We are looking at vacant chair. 1t
is before desk In pleasant, light,
airy room, scholarly with books, not
profound but readable, and looking out
on to n road which men know and have
known from Shakspeare's time as Gad's
this bright sunlight from the sea not
far off shining on him, that the spirit
of Christmas sat and thought, and
wrote, and set the world to wondering
at the magic of his power. The spirit
of Christmas Does Christmas ever
return to the reading man, that
thoughts of Charles Dickens do not fill
him for the moment with strange
love and more earnest reverence of
the Christian season? Can he think OF
Christmas and the holiness of the senti-
ment inseparable from it and not think
of Dickens? Without irreverence.
looking to a preservation OF the GUS
toms of old Christmas, its holly and
mistleto, its jolly plum pudding and
roast beef allied with Christmases of a
thousand years agone perhaps--how
can we separate the man from the
season?
In goodly company with the ghosts
of Chrlstmases past, we cross the ocean
tonight of all nights of the year, and by
our side, forever with those sad, stern
eyes which seemed to be looking at
death, always at death as ready to strike
is the face and form of him whose pic
lures from the heart of Christmas as it
should be, will live, like Shakspeare's
kindred works, as long as the English
language stands Men and times will
change, and customs and the habits of
our age will give place to others until
the tradItloned arch of London bridge,
but zone touch of nature makes the
whole world kim and that sentiment,
come what may, will live until the wreck
of the eternal earthquake and the crash
of DOOM
Hark! There are the the chimes. The
chimes. The Christmas chimes. High
up in the steeple where the frosty air
blows SO keenly; that if it were not
Christmas time and you were not deal
ing with the shadows of those for
whom your love has grown with the
years; you would at once place yourself
within comfortable dressing gown and
slippers before rousing fire and stir no
more out until the Christmas tide bells
called you up in the morning.. Here
are the ghosts of the "Carol." Is not
the world better for them? Have not
kindlier thoughts been born in man to
brother man, for what Dickens EN-.
bodied in his immortal fancy there?
The spirit of Christmas past and, Christ
mas present, and the terrible self
accusing conscience of the haunted
man are here too. Who among the
best Of us may not have looked into
these as into a glass, which Like the
mirror that the blood bothered Banquo
held, will show US many more, even
the sad Lat of our own SHORTCOMINGS (?
Here, too, is Gabriel Grub, the sexton:
haunted by COLLINS In the church-yard.
and possessed of spirits on this Christ
mas night; with their weird shriekings
In his ears and their uneouthly gambols
before his poor old perplexed eyes.
Room for Dot. Sweet little wife, and
grand, hearty John Pereybingle.
Grand? Yes; with the heart of noble
Christian gentleman beating under the
smock frock of WAGNER. Poor old
Caleb, lovingly .defrauding his loving,
sightless child with wild theories of a
matchless dress coat and brass buttons
and of tabled wealth; but his boy came
at last from the golden South Ameri-
cas-, to gladden. them, and if Dickens
had never done anything else bat
bring that brave boy back from that
golden South Americas to give new life
and support to Caleb and his child and
prove to John how true wife ne had.
he had done enough to win her graft
tude forever.
Do we forget that Christmas day ct
the farm at Dingley DELE Can we fail
TO remember how mr.. Wrinkle came to
grief on skates under the very eyes of
Arabella Allen, his soul g best treasurer
Are we not looking at the venerable
Pickwick, as with the grace Ola por-
poise he plunges On to the slide and
gradually turns round rs he nears the
end? The fat boy, too, and Sannivel
Weller, best of "Boots, aud Allen
and Bob Sawyer, the 'saw bones In
training, and Tracy Tupman and all;
can weever forget one? Are they not
with us now. as distinctly as when We
olaiteu Wltn tnat quartette, and met
Alfred Jingle, Esq, at the All Mug
gieton cricket match twenty wears ago?
do we not all remember that lannon's
Christmas turkey, and sure there never
was such another, including the sance.
OF course; for next to the turkey there
never was such an achievement as the
sauce, and the blessing which came
over that meal from Tiny Tim:
-" God bless us all; every one," said
Tiny Tim, and all the eyes that have
moistened over those half dozen
words, might be numbered from the
Indus to the eternal nights of the
Polar seas.
We are looking again. reverently at
the vacant chair as it stands before the
the desk In the room In which he work
ed out bis life at Gad's Hill. 1t may