And numerous indeed are the hearts to
which Christmas brings a brief season of happiness and enjoyment. How many families whose members have been
dispersed and scattered far and wide, in the restless struggle of life, are
then reunited, and meet once again in that happy state of companionship and
mutual good-will, which is a source of such pure and unalloyed delight, and one
so incompatible with the cares and sorrows of the world, that the religious
belief of the most civilized nations, and the rude traditions of the roughest
savages, alike number it among the first days of a future state of existence,
provided for the blest and happy! How
many old recollections, and how many dormant sympathies, Christmas-time
awakens!
We
write these words now, many miles distant from the spot at which, year after
year, we met on that day, a merry and joyous circle. Many of the hearts that throbbed so gaily
then, have ceased to beat; many of the looks that shone so brightly then, have
ceased to glow; the hands we grasped, have grown cold; the eyes we sought, have
hid their luster in the grave; and yet the old house, the room, the merry
voices and smiling faces, the jest, the laugh, the most minute and trivial
circumstance connected with those happy meetings, crowd upon our mind at each
recurrence of the season, as if the last assemblage had been but
yesterday. Happy, happy Christmas, that
can win us back to the delusions of our childish days, recall to the old man
the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside
and quiet home!
-- Charles Dickens
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