ere the note has been struck with the sudden vibration of the
_vox humana_. In human tradition it has been struck chiefly in the old
celebrations of Christmas. In literature it has been struck chiefly in
Dickens's Christmas tales.

In the historic celebration of Christmas as it remains from Catholic
times in certain northern countries (and it is to be remembered that in
Catholic times the northern countries were, if possible, more Catholic
than anybody else), there are three qualities which explain, I think,
its hold upon the human sense of happiness, especially in such men as
Dickens. There are three notes of Christmas, so to speak, which are also
notes of happiness, and which the pagans and the Utopians forget. If we
state what they are in the case of Christmas, it will be quite
sufficiently obvious how important they are in the case of Dickens.

The first quality is what may be called the dramatic quality. The
happiness is not a state; it is a crisis. All the old customs
surrounding the celebration of the birth of Christ are made by human
instinct so as to insist and re-insist upon this crucial quality.
Everything is so arranged that the whole household may feel, if
possible, as a household does when a child is actually being born in it.
The thing is a vigil and a vigil with a definite limit. People sit up at
night until they hear the bells ring. Or they try to sleep at night in
order to see their presents the next morning. Everywhere there is a
limitation, a restraint; at one moment the door is shut, at the moment
after it is opened. The hour has come or it has not come; the parcels
are undone or they are not undone; there is no evolution of Christmas
presents. This sharp and theatrical quality in pleasure, which human
instinct and the mother wit of the world has wisely put into the popular
celebrations of Christmas, is also a quality which is essential in such
romantic literature as Dickens wrote. In romantic literature the hero
and heroine must indeed be happy, but they must also be unexpectedly
happy. This is the first connecting link between literature and the old
religious feast; this is the first connecting link between Dickens and
Christmas.

The second element to be found in all such festivity and all such
romance is the element which is represented as well as it could be
represented by the mere fact that Christmas occurs in the winter. It is
the element not merely of contrast, but actually of antagonism.