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235
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
·
George Gissing
218
To-day,
I
listen
with
no
heretical
promptings.
The
music,
whether
of
organ
or
of
word,
is
more
to
me
than
ever;
the
literal
meaning
causes
me
no
restiveness.
I
felt
only
glad
that
I
had
yielded
to
the
summons
of
the
Christmas
bells.
I
sat
among
a
congregation
of
shadows,
not
in
the
great
cathedral,
but
in
a
little
parish
church
far
from
here.
When
I
came
forth,
it
astonished
me
to
see
the
softly
radiant
sky,
and
to
tread
on
the
moist
earth;
my
dream
expected
a
wind-swept
canopy
of
cold
grey,
and
all
beneath
it
the
gleam
of
new-fallen
snow.
It
is
a
piety
to
turn
awhile
and
live
with
the
dead,
and
who
can
so
well
indulge
it
as
he
whose
Christmas
is
passed
in
no
unhappy
solitude?
I
would
not
now,
if
I
might,
be
one
of
a
joyous
company;
it
is
better
to
hear
the
long-silent
voices,
and
to
smile
at
happy
things
which
I
alone
can
remember.
When
I
was
scarce
old
enough
to
understand,
I
heard
read
by
the
fireside
the
Christmas
stanzas
of
"In
Memoriam."
To-night
I
have
taken
down
the
volume,
and
the
voice
of
so
long
ago
has
read
to
me
once
again--read
as
no
other
ever
did,
that
voice
which
taught
me
to
know
poetry,
the
voice
which
never
spoke
to
me
but
of
good
and
noble
things.
Would
I
have
those
accents
overborne
by
a
living
tongue,
however
welcome
its
sound
at
another
time?
Jealously
I
guard
my
Christmas
solitude.
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