ll to the full, taken it too
carelessly, not dwelt sufficiently on its rich, expressive hours. Each
year we feel the same, and however intent we may have been, however we
have watched and listened, sensitively eager to hold and exhaust each
passing moment, when the year-end has come, we seem somehow to have been
cheated after all. Who, at the beginning of each year, has not promised
himself a stricter attentiveness to his experience? This year he will
"load every rift with ore."

This year, I said, when first along the lane
With tiny nipples of the tender green
The winter-blackened hedge grew bright again,
This year I watch and listen; I have seen
So many springs steal profitless away,
This year I garner every sound and sweet.
And you, young year, make not such haste to bring
Hawthorn and rose; nor jumble, indiscreet,
Treasure on treasure of the precious spring;
But bring all softly forth upon the air,
Unhasting to be fair...

Yet, for all our watchfulness, the year seems to have escaped us. We
know that the birds sang, that the flowers bloomed, that the grass was
green, but it seems to us that we did not take our joy of them with
sufficient keenness; our sweetheart came, but we did not look deep
enough into her eyes. If only we live to see the wild rose again! But
meanwhile here is the snow.

Unless we are still numbered among those happy people for whom
Christmas-trees are laden and lit, this annual prematurity of Christmas
cannot but make us a little meditative amid our mirth, and if, while
Santa Claus is dispensing his glittering treasures, our thoughts grow a
little wistful, they will not necessarily be mournful thoughts, or on
that account less seasonable in character; for Christmas is essentially
a retrospective feast, and we may, with fitness, with indeed a proper
piety of unforgetfulness, bring even our sad memories, as it were to
cheer themselves, within the glow of its festivity. Ghosts have always
been invited to Christmas parties, and whether they are seen or not,
they always come; nor is any form of story so popular by the Christmas
fire as the ghost-story--which, when one thinks of it, is rather odd,
considering the mirthful character of the time. Yet, after all, what are
our memories but ghost-stories? Ah! the beautiful ghosts that come to
the Christmas fire!

Christmas too is pr