irit and Chorus of the Pities, the
Spirits Sinister and Ironic with their Choruses, Rumours,
Spirit Messengers, and the Recording Angel.

SHAKESPEARE AND CHRISTMAS

_By_

FR*NK H*RR*S

That Shakespeare hated Christmas--hated it with a venom utterly
alien to the gentle heart in him--I take to be a proposition that
establishes itself automatically. If there is one thing lucid-obvious
in the Plays and Sonnets, it is Shakespeare's unconquerable loathing
of Christmas. The Professors deny it, however, or deny that it is
proven. With these gentlemen I will deal faithfully. I will meet them
on their own parched ground, making them fertilise it by shedding
there the last drop of the water that flows through their veins.

If you find, in the works of a poet whose instinct is to write about
everything under the sun, one obvious theme untouched, or touched
hardly at all, then it is at least presumable that there was some good
reason for that abstinence. Such a poet was Shakespeare. It was one of
the divine frailties of his genius that he must be ever flying off at
a tangent from his main theme to unpack his heart in words about some
frivolous-small irrelevance that had come into his head. If it could
be shown that he never mentioned Christmas, we should have proof
presumptive that he consciously avoided doing so. But if the fact
is that he did mention it now and again, but in grudging fashion,
without one spark of illumination--he, the arch-illuminator of all
things--then we have proof positive that he detested it.

I see Dryasdust thumbing his Concordance. Let my memory save him the
trouble. I will reel him off the one passage in which Shakespeare
spoke of Christmas in words that rise to the level of mediocrity.

Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed and so gracious is the time.

So says Marcellus at Elsinore. This is the best our Shakespeare can
vamp up for the birthday of the Man with whom he of all men had the
most in common. And Dryasdust, eternally unable to distinguish chalk
from cheese, throws up his hands in admiration of the marvellous
poetry. If Dryasdust had written it, it would more than pass
muster. But as coming from Shakespeare,