The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft

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.