Evening star., 1931-12-25
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

What better day can there be for
reading Charles Dickens mastery story
"A Christmas Carol" than Christmas
day itself?
For the past five years this column
has advocated the reading OF this story
| on Christmas eve. Perhaps that Is the
happieSt time. But If any one forgot
today Is as good as any.
There were hundreds OF Christmas
| stories before the great novelist penned
his carol" and there were hundreds
written afterward.
Not one Of them, however, managed
to get into itself a certain spirit OF a
hearty Christmas which the world has
come to associate with the celebration
Only "A Christmas Carol" succeeded
Dickens himself tried to do 1t again
and again, but he never exactly hit it
Since his day, the formal writing OF
Christmas tales has fallen by the way
sloe. along with so many other Victorian
habits Of mind
For time, following the World War
1t was a fashion among the so-called
intelligent portion of young America to
sneer at the Victorians.
scarcely anything they did, and espe-
ciaily scarcely anything they wrote, was
to be regarded as worth while or held
in esteem
Holding anything in esteem, as a
matter OF fact, was rather suspicious
IN itself. The popular attitude was to
thumb the nose at reSpectability and
| all that respectability held dear.
Holding anything dear, as a matter
OF fact, was unthinkable. II one wanted
to thank any one else for a favor, the
thing to do was not to say, with simple
| coUrC,Sy, Thank you" or Thank
you very much" or some such genteel
| statement but to blurt out, without any
| approach to politeness, as the old fogIes
| knew it, The usual thanks" or some
such f1ippancy
There has been a revolution during
the past few years among the young
people.
| Many of them are getting their bear
| ings in life. They are beginning to see
that Charles Dickens, for all his fIubdub
| was great writer
TennySon is once more regarded BY
our young intellectuals as true poet.
1t is to be suspected that MANY a
/ young man OF high school age has read
"A Christmas Carol" not because II
was written by Dickens not because II
was a product of an era long past, bu,
| simply because it is rattling good
story, and one which does somehow
manage to incorporate a warm feeling
| of humanity of the sort we like to think
! about as associated with Christmas.
J Just how this effect was achieved 1t is
! impossible to analyze. Surely the rat. Il
superabundant, florid manner OF Dickens
! had something to do with 1t. His heavy
elaborated style, when held down to a
minimum, as he saw it, gave a breadth
even to his slightest mental whims.
The Dickensian, in reading the
Carol" is conscious all through it oi
the favor Of the writer. Now that
| flavor is not pleasant to every reader
especially If one possesses that curious
! trait Of mind which manifests itself ir
literary impatience.
Literary lmpatience is disease which
| has not been studied enough. The mar
| OF wide tastes will not shrink from any
writer simply because that writer hap
| pens to write in way which Is perhaps
not his first choice
There are only few writer's in the
world who suit any one reader from
every standpoint. But the man OF