We are proving more and more
every day--to our shame be it spoken!--that we can live without it. At
least do not let it be said we can pass a Christmas without it, merely
to make way for turkeys, fricassees, and ragouts! "Oh, reform it
altogether!"
* * * * *
England was always famous among foreigners for the celebration of
Christmas, at which time our ancestors introduced many sports and
pastimes unknown in other countries, or now even among ourselves. "At
the feast of Christmas," says Stowe, "in the king's court, wherever he
chanced to reside, there was appointed a lord of misrule, or master of
merry disports; the same merry fellow made his appearance at the house
of every nobleman and gentleman of distinction; and, among the rest, the
lord mayor of London and the sheriffs had their lords of misrule, ever
contending, without quarrel or offence, who should make the rarest
pastime to delight the beholders." Alas! where are all these, or any
similar, "merry disports" in our degenerate days? We have no "lords of
misrule" now; or, if we have, they are of a much less innocent and
pacific character.
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