Some Roundabout Papers

by William Makepeace Thackeray

that rubbed away the bitter tears at night after parting as the

  coach sped on the journey to school and London; that looked out

  with beating heart as the milestones flew by, for the welcome

  corner where began home and holidays.

  It is night now: and here is home. Gathered under the quiet

  roof elders and children lie alike at rest. In the midst of a

  great peace and calm, the stars look out from the heavens. The

  silence is peopled with the past; sorrowful remorses for sins

  and shortcomings -- memories of passionate joys and griefs rise

  out of their graves, both now alike calm and sad. Eyes, as I

  shut mine, look at me, that have long ceased to shine. The town

  and the fair landscape sleep under the starlight, wreathed in the

  autumn mists. Twinkling among the houses a light keeps watch

  here and there, in what may be a sick chamber or two. The clock

  tolls sweetly in the silent air. Here is night and rest. An

  awful sense of thanks makes the heart swell, and the head bow, as

  I pass to my room through the sleeping house, and feel as though

  a hushed blessing were upon it.

  ROUND ABOUT THE CHRISTMAS TREE

  The kindly Christmas tree, from which I trust every gentle reader

  has pulled out a bonbon or two, is yet all aflame whilst I am

  writing, and sparkles with the sweet fruits of its season. You

  young ladies, may you have plucked pretty giftlings from it; and

  out of the cracker sugar-plum which you have split with the

  captain or the sweet young curate may you have read one of those

  delicious conundrums which the confectioners introduce into the

  sweetmeats, and which apply to the cunning passion of love.

  Those riddles are to be read at your age, when I daresay they are

  amusing. As for Dolly, Merry, and Bell, who are standing at the

  tree, they don't care about the love-riddle part, but understand

  the sweet-almoned portion very well. They are four, five, six

  years old. Patience, little people! A dozen merry Christmases

  more, and you will be reading those wonderful love-conundrums,

  too. As for us elderly folks, we watch the babies at their

  sport, and the young people pulling at the branches: and instead

  of finding bonbons or sweeties in the packets which we pluck off

  the boughs, we find enclosed Mr Carnifex's review of the

  quarter's meat; Mr Sartor's compliments, and little statement

  for self and the young gentlemen; and Madame de Sainte-

  Crinoline's respects to the young ladies, who encloses her

  account, and will sent on Saturday, please; or we stretch our

  hand out to the educational branch of the Christmas tree, and

  there find a lively and amusing article from the Rev. Henry

  Holyshade, containing our dear Tommy's exceedingly moderate

  account for the last term's school expenses.

  The tree yet sparkles, I say. I am writing on the day before

  Twelfth Day, if you must know; but already ever so many of the

  fruits have been pulled, and the Christmas lights have gone out.

  Bobby Miseltow, who has been staying with us for a week (and who

  has been sleeping mysteriously in the bath-room), comes to say he

  is going away to spend the rest of the holidays with his

  grandmother -- and I brush away the manly tear of regret as I

  part with the dear child. "Well, Bob, good-bye, since you will

  go. Compliments to grandmamma. Thank her for the turkey.

  Here's ----" (A slight pecuniary transaction takes place at this

  juncture, and Bob nods and winks, and puts his hand in his

  waistcoat pocket.) "You have had a pleasant week?"

  Bob. -- "Haven't I!" (And exit, anxious to know the amount of the

  coin which has just changed hands.)

  He is gone, and as the dear boy vanishes through the door (behind

  which I see him perfectly), I too cast up a little account of our

  past Christmas week. When Bob's holidays are over, and the

  printer has sent me back this manuscript, I know Christmas will

  be an old story. All the fruit will be off the Christmas tree

  then; the crackers will have cracked off; the almonds will have

  been crunched; and the sweet-bitter riddles will have been read;

  the lights will have perished off the dark green boughs; the

  toys growing on them will have been distributed, fought for,

  cherished, neglected, broken. Ferdinand and Fidelia will each

  keep out of it (be still, my gushing heart!) the remembrance of a

  riddle read together, of a double almond munched together, and of

  the moiety of an exploded cracker.... The maids, I say, will have

  taken down all that holly stuff and nonsense about the clocks,

  lamps, and looking-glasses, the dear boys will be back at school,

  fondly thinking of the pantomime fairies whom they have seen;

  whose gaudy gossamer wings are battered by this time; and whose

  pink cotton (or silk is it?) lower extremities are all dingy and

  dusty. Yet but a few days, Bob, and flakes of paint will have

  cracked off the fairy flower-bowers, and the revolving temples of

  adamantine lustre will be as shabby as the city of Pekin. When

  you read this, will Clown still be going on lolling his tongue

  out of his mouth, and saying, "How are you to-morrow?" To-

  morrow, indeed! He must be almost ashamed of himself (if that

  cheek is still capable of the blush of shame) for asking the

  absurd question. To-morrow, indeed! To-morrow the diffugient

  snows will give place to spring; the snowdrops will lift their

  heads; Ladyday may be expected, and the pecuniary duties

  peculiar to that feast; in place of bonbons, trees will have an

  eruption of light green knobs; the whitebait season will

  bloom ... as if one need go on describing these vernal phenomena,

  when Christmas is still here, though ending, and the subject of

  my discourse!

  We have all admired the illustrated papers, and noted how

  boisterously jolly they become at Christmas time. What wassail-

  bowls, robin-redbreasts, waits, snow landscapes, bursts of

  Christmas song! And then to think that these festivities are

  prepared months before -- that these Christmas pieces are

  prophetic! How kind of artists and poets to devise the

  festivities beforehand, and serve them pat at the proper time!

  We ought to be grateful to them, as to the cook who gets up at

  midnight and sets the pudding a-boiling, which is to feast us at

  six o'clock. I often think with gratitude of the famous Mr

  Nelson Lee -- the author of I don't know how many hundred

  glorious pantomimes -- walking by the summer wave at Margate, or

  Brighton perhaps, revolving in his mind the idea of some new

  gorgeous spectacle of faery, which the winter shall see complete.

  He is like cook at midnight (si parva licet). He watches and

  thinks. He pounds the sparkling sugar of benevolence, the plums

  of fancy, the sweetmeats of fun, the figs of -- well, the figs of

  fairy fiction, let us say, and pops the whole in the seething

  cauldron of imagination, and at due season serves up the

  Pantomime.

  Very few men in the course of nature can expect to see all the
r />   pantomimes in one season, but I hope to the end of my life I

  shall never forego reading about them in that delicious sheet of

  The Times which appears on the morning after Boxing-day. Perhaps

  reading is even better than seeing. The best way, I think, is to

  say you are ill, lie in bed, and have the paper for two hours,

  reading all the way down from Drury Lane to the Britannia at

  Hoxton. Bob and I went to two pantomimes. One was at the

  Theatre of Fancy, and the other at the Fairy Opera, and I don't

  know which we liked the best.

  At the Fancy, we saw "Harlequin Hamlet, or Daddy's Ghost and

  Nunky's Pison," which is all very well -- but, gentlemen, if you

  don't respect Shakspeare, to whom will you be civil? The palace

  and ramparts of Elsinore by moon and snowlight is one of

  Loutherbourg's finest efforts. The banqueting hall of the palace

  is illuminated: the peaks and gables glitter with the snow: the

  sentinels march blowing their fingers with the cold -- the

  freezing of the nose of one of them is very neatly and

  dexterously arranged: the snow storm rises: the winds howl

  awfully along the battlements: the waves come curling, leaping,

  foaming to shore. Hamlet's umbrella is whirled away in the

  storm. He and his two friends stamp on each other's toes to keep

  them warm. The storm-spirits rise in the air, and are whirled

  howling round the palace and the rocks. My eyes! what tiles and

  chimney-pots fly hurtling through the air! As the storm reaches

  its height (here the wind instruments come in with prodigious

  effect, and I compliment Mr Brumby and the violoncellos) -- as

  the snow storm rises (queek, queek, queek, go the fiddles, and

  then thrumpty thrump comes a pizzicato movement in Bob Major,

  which sends a shiver into your very boot-soles), the thunder-

  clouds deepen (bong, bong, bong, from the violoncellos). The

  forked lightning quivers through the clouds in a zig-zag scream

  of violins -- and look, look, look! as the frothing, roaring

  waves come rushing up the battlements, and over the reeling

  parapet, each hissing wave becomes a ghost, sends the gun-

  carriages rolling over the platform, and plunges into the water

  again.

  Hamlet's mother comes on to the battlements to look for her son.

  The storm whips her umbrella out of her hands, and she retires

  screaming in pattens.

  The cabs on the stand in the great market-place at Elsinore are

  seen to drive off, and several people are drowned. The gas-lamps

  along the street are wrenched from their foundations, and shoot

  through the troubled air. Whist, rush, hish! how the rain roars

  and pours! The darkness becomes awful, always deepened by the

  power of the music -- and see -- in the midst of a rush, and

  whirl, and scream of spirits of air and wave -- what is that

  ghastly figure moving hither? It becomes bigger, bigger, as it

  advances down the platform -- more ghastly, more horrible,

  enormous! It is as tall as the whole stage. It seems to be

  advancing on the stalls and pit, and the whole house screams with

  terror, as the Ghost of the Late Hamlet comes in, and begins to

  speak. Several people faint, and the light-fingered gentry pick

  pockets furiously in the darkness.

  In the pitchy darkness, this awful figure throwing his eyes

  about, the gas in the boxes shuddering out of sight, and the

  wind-instruments bugling the most horrible wails, the boldest

  spectator must have felt frightened. But hark! what is that

  silver shimmer of the fiddles? Is it -- can it be -- the grey

  dawn peeping in the stormy east? The ghost's eyes look blankly

  towards it, and roll a ghastly agony. Quicker, quicker ply the

  violins of Phoebus Apollo. Redder, redder grow the orient

  clouds. Cockadoodledoo! crows that great cock which has just

  come out on the roof of the palace. And now the round sun

  himself pops up from behind the waves of night. Where is the

  ghost? He is gone! Purple shadows of morn "slant o'er the snowy

  sward," the city wakes up in life and sunshine, and we confess we

  are very much relieved at the disappearance of the ghost. We

  don't like those dark scenes in pantomimes.

  After the usual business, that Ophelia should be turned into

  Columbine was to be expected; but I confess I was a little

  shocked when Hamlet's mother became Pantaloon, and was instantly

  knocked down by Clown Claudius. Grimaldi is getting a little old

  now, but for real humour there are few clowns like him. Mr

  Shuter, as the gravedigger, was chaste and comic, as he always

  is, and the scene-painters surpassed themselves.

  "Harlequin Conqueror and the Field of Hastings," at the other

  house, is very pleasant too. The irascible William is acted with

  great vigour by Snoxall, and the battle of Hastings is a good

  piece of burlesque. Some trifling liberties are taken with

  history, but what liberties will not the merry genius of

  pantomime permit himself? At the battle of Hastings, William is

  on the point of being defeated by the Sussex volunteers, very

  elegantly led by the always pretty Miss Waddy (as Haco

  Sharpshooter), when a shot from the Normans kills Harold. The

  Fairy Edith hereupon comes forward, and finds his body, which

  straightway leaps up a live harlequin, whilst the Conqueror makes

  an excellent clown, and the Archbishop of Bayeux a diverting

  pantaloon, &c. &c. &c.

  Perhaps these are not the pantomimes we really saw; but one

  description will do as well as another. The plots, you see, are

  a little intricate and difficult to understand in pantomimes;

  and I may have mixed up one with another. That I was at the

  theatre on Boxing-night is certain -- but the pit was so full

  that I could only see fairy legs glittering in the distance, as I

  stood at the door. And if I was badly off, I think there was a

  young gentleman behind me worse off still. I own that he has

  good reason (though others have not) to speak ill of me behind my

  back, and hereby beg his pardon.

  Likewise to the gentleman who picked up a party in Piccadilly,

  who had slipped and fallen in the snow, and was there on his

  back, uttering energetic expressions: that party begs to offer

  thanks, and compliments of the season.

  Bob's behaviour on New Year's day, I can assure Dr Holyshade, was

  highly creditable to the boy. He had expressed a determination

  to partake of every dish which was put on the table; but after

  soup, fish, roast-beef, and roast-goose, he retired from active

  business until the pudding and mince-pies made their appearance,

  of which he partook liberally, but not too freely. And he

  greatly advanced in my good opinion by praising the punch, which

  was of my own manufacture, and which some gentlemen present (Mr

  O'M--g--n, amongst others) pronounced to be too weak. Too weak!

  A bottle of rum, a bottle of Madeira, half a bottle of brandy,

  and two bottles and a half of water -- can this mixture be said

  to be too weak for any mortal? Our
young friend amused the

  company during the evening, by exhibiting a two-shilling magic-

  lantern, which he had purchased, and likewise by singing "Sally,

  come up!" a quaint, but rather monotonous melody, which I am told

  is sung by the poor negro on the banks of the broad Mississippi.

  What other enjoyments did we proffer for the child's amusement

  during the Christmas week? A great philosopher was giving a

  lecture to young folks at the British Institution. But when this

  diversion was proposed to our young friend Bob, he said,

  "Lecture? No, thank you. Not as I knows on," and made sarcastic

  signals on his nose. Perhaps he is of Dr Johnson's opinion about

  lectures: "Lectures, sir! what man would go to hear that

  imperfectly at a lecture, which he can read at leisure in a

  book?" I never went, of my own choice, to a lecture; that I can

  vow. As for sermons, they are different; I delight in them, and

  they cannot, of course, be too long.

  Well, we partook of yet other Christmas delights besides

  pantomime, pudding, and pie. One glorious, one delightful, one

  most unlucky and pleasant day, we drove in a brougham, with a

  famous horse, which carried us more quickly and briskly than any

  of your vulgar railways, over Battersea Bridge, on which the

  horse's hoofs rung as if it had been iron; through suburban

  villages, plum-caked with snow; under a leaden sky, in which the

  sun hung like a red-hot warming-pan; by pond after pond, where

  not only men and boys, but scores after scores of women and

  girls, were sliding, and roaring, and clapping their lean old

  sides with laughter, as they tumbled down, and their hobnailed

  shoes flew up in the air; the air frosty with a lilac haze,

  through which villas, and commons, and churches, and plantations

  glimmered. We drive up the hill, Bob and I; we make the last

  two miles in eleven minutes; we pass that poor, armless man who

  sits there in the cold, following you with his eyes. I don't

  give anything, and Bob looks disappointed. We are set down

  neatly at the gate, and a horse-holder opens the brougham door.

  I don't give anything; again disappointment on Bob's part. I

  pay a shilling apiece, and we enter into the glorious building,

  which is decorated for Christmas, and straightway forgetfulness

  on Bob's part of everything but that magnificent scene. The

  enormous edifice is all decorated for Bob and Christmas. The

  stalls, the columns, the fountains, courts, statues, splendours,

  are all crowned for Christmas. The delicious negro is singing

  his Alabama choruses for Christmas and Bob. He has scarcely

  done, when, Tootarootatoo! Mr Punch is performing his surprising

  actions, and hanging the beadle. The stalls are decorated. The

  refreshment-tables are piled with good things; at many fountains

  "Mulled Claret" is written up in appetizing capitals. "Mulled

  Claret -- oh, jolly! How cold it is!" says Bob; I pass on.

  "It's only three o'clock," says Bob. "No, only three," I say

  meekly. "We dine at seven," sighs Bob, "and it's so-o-o coo-

  old." I still would take no hints. No claret, no refreshment,

  no sandwiches, no sausage-rolls for Bob. At last I am obliged to

  tell him all. Just before we left home, a little Christmas bill

  popped in at the door and emptied my purse at the threshold. I

  forgot all about the transaction, and had to borrow half-a-crown

  from John Coachman to pay for our entrance into the palace of

  delight. Now you see, Bob, why I could not treat you on that

  second of January when we drove to the palace together; when the

  girls and boys were sliding on the ponds at Dulwich; when the

  darkling river was full of floating ice, and the sun was like a

  warming-pan in the leaden sky.

  One more Christmas sight we had, of course; and that sight I

  think I like as well as Bob himself at Christmas, and at all

  seasons. We went to a certain garden of delight, where, whatever

  your cares are, I think you can manage to forget some of them,

  and muse, and be not unhappy; to a garden beginning with a Z,

  which is as lively as Noah's ark; where the fox has brought his