Reminder: Chesterton, Dickens, and Christmas

Just a reminder that I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show this morning at about 6:50 a.m. Central Time/7:50 a.m. Eastern Time. Matt Swaim and I will talk about G.K. Chesterton's great appreciation of Dickens and particularly of A Christmas Carol!

Listen live here; the podcast will be archived here! 

As Chesterton commented in his praise of A Christmas Carol, as much as it is a Christmas story, and as much as it is a ghost story, it is also a conversion story:

The Christmas Carol (sic) is a happy story first,

because it describes an abrupt and dramatic change. It is not only the story of a conversion, but of a sudden conversion; as sudden as the conversion of a man at a Salvation Army meeting. Popular religion is quite right in insisting on the fact of a crisis in most things. It is true that the man at the Salvation Army meeting would probably be converted from the punch bowl; whereas Scrooge was converted to it. That only means that Scrooge and Dickens represented a higher and more historic Christianity.

And everyone loves a conversion story, because it gives us hope that we can change, that we can be better, and do good all the year long!

Preview: Chesterton, Dickens, and Christmas

So on Monday, December 16, I'll continue the mini-series on the Son Rise Morning Show on Chesterton and Christmas, this time talking about Chesterton, Charles Dickens, and A Christmas Carol. Listen live here at about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central and then the segment will be repeated sometime during the EWTN hour (an hour earlier) and stored in the show's SoundCloud.

As we know, Chesterton wrote a lot; among all that he wrote, he wrote a lot about Dickens: a complete study in 1906; essays in the various journals he contributed to, and introductions to "cheap" editions of Dickens' novels and collections.

Of Chesterton's 1906 work on Charles Dickens, Dale Ahlquist comments:

T.S. Eliot said that Chesterton’s book on Dickens is the “best on that author that has ever been written.”

One of the most surprising things about the book is that at the time it was written, the novels of Dickens were experiencing something of an eclipse in England. But Chesterton’s book helped spark a wide revival of Dickens, prompting J.M. Dent to publish new editions of all his books for the Everyman’s Library – and to invite G.K. Chesterton to write an introduction for each of the twenty-four volumes.

In 1942, The Readers Club (with an editorial committee comprised of Clifton Fadiman, Sinclair Lewis, Carl Von Doren, and Alexander Woolcott) brought out a new edition of Chesterton’s book on Dickens with the subtitle, The Last of the Great Men. In his introduction to this edition, Alexander Woolcott, says he feels qualified to describe the book as “readable” – since he himself has read it at least a dozen times.

It's when we turn to the introduction Chesterton wrote to the J.M. Dent edition of Dickens' Christmas Books, including The Christmas Carol that we see what Chesterton saw in Dickens' vision of Christmas: a man reviving a tradition--a Catholic and even Medieval tradition--in spite of himself:

The mystery of Christmas is in a manner identical with the mystery of Dickens. If ever we adequately explain the one we may adequately explain the other. And indeed, in the treatment of the two, the chronological or historical order must in some degree be remembered. Before we come to the question of what Dickens did for Christmas we must consider the question of what Christmas did for Dickens. How did it happen that this bustling, nineteenth-century man, full of the almost cock-sure common-sense of the utilitarian and liberal epoch, came to associate his name chiefly in literary history with the perpetuation of a half pagan and half Catholic festival which he would certainly have called an antiquity and might easily have called a superstition? Christmas has indeed been celebrated before in English literature; but it had, in the most noticeable cases, been celebrated in connection with that kind of feudalism with which Dickens would have severed his connection with an ignorant and even excessive scorn. Sir Roger de Coverley kept Christmas; but it was a feudal Christmas. Sir Walter Scott sang in praise of Christmas; but it was a feudal Christmas. And Dickens was not only indifferent to the dignity of the old country gentleman or to the genial archæology of Scott; [104]he was even harshly and insolently hostile to it. If Dickens had lived in the neighbourhood of Sir Roger de Coverley he would undoubtedly, like Tom Touchy, have been always “having the law of him.” If Dickens had stumbled in among the old armour and quaint folios of Scott’s study he would certainly have read his brother novelist a lesson in no measured terms about the futility of thus fumbling in the dust-bins of old oppression and error. So far from Dickens being one of those who like a thing because it is old, he was one of those cruder kind of reformers, in theory at least, who actually dislike a thing because it is old. He was not merely the more righteous kind of Radical who tries to uproot abuses; he was partly also that more suicidal kind of Radical who tries to uproot himself. In theory at any rate, he had no adequate conception of the importance of human tradition; in his time it had been twisted and falsified into the form of an opposition to democracy. In truth, of course, tradition is the most democratic of all things, for tradition is merely a democracy of the dead as well as the living. But Dickens and his special group or generation had no grasp of this permanent position; they had been called to a special war for the righting of special wrongs. In so far as such an institution as Christmas was old, Dickens would even have tended to despise it. He could never have put the matter to himself in the correct way—that while there are some things whose antiquity does prove that they are dying, there are some other things whose antiquity only proves that they cannot die.

Please note that this is the source of Chesterton's "democracy of the dead" quotation!

Chesterton ascribes three qualities to the celebration of Christmas in this tradition. There's an element of drama, that anyone making final preparations knows: we're trying to fit as much celebration and festivity as we can into a 24 hours or a weekend or even two weeks (when we observe the true Christmas Season). Then there's the weather, at least in our hemisphere: it's cold, snowy, and wintry. Finally, there's an element of the grotesque, of goblins and ghosts; of joy and ugliness (contrasted to sorrow and beauty). As Chesterton then concludes, Dickens brings all these elements to the fore in his Christmas books:

All Dickens’s books are Christmas books. But this is still truest of his two or three famous Yuletide tales—The Christmas Carol (sic) and The Chimes and The Cricket on the Hearth. Of these The Christmas Carol is beyond comparison the best as well as the most popular. Indeed, Dickens is in so profound and spiritual a sense a popular author that in his case, unlike most others, it can generally be said that the best work is the most popular. It is for Pickwick that he is best known; and upon the whole it is for Pickwick that he is best worth knowing. In any case this superiority of The Christmas Carol makes it convenient for us to take it as an example of the generalisations already made. If we study the very real atmosphere of rejoicing and of riotous charity in The Christmas Carol we shall find that all the three marks I have mentioned are unmistakably visible. The Christmas Carol is a happy story first, because it describes an abrupt and dramatic change. It is not only the story of a conversion, but of a sudden conversion; as sudden as the conversion of a man at a Salvation Army meeting. Popular religion is quite right in insisting on the fact of a crisis in most things. It is true that the man at the Salvation Army meeting would probably be converted from the punch bowl; whereas Scrooge was converted to it. That only means that Scrooge and Dickens represented a higher and more historic Christianity.

Again, The Christmas Carol owes much of its hilarity to our second source—the fact of its being a tale of winter and of a very wintry winter. There is much about comfort in the story; yet the comfort is never enervating: it is saved from that by a tingle of something bitter and bracing in the weather. Lastly, the story exemplifies throughout the power of the third principle—the kinship between gaiety and the grotesque. Everybody is happy because nobody is dignified. We have a feeling somehow that Scrooge looked even uglier when he was kind than he had looked when he was cruel. The turkey that Scrooge bought was so fat, says Dickens, that it could never have stood upright. That top-heavy and monstrous bird is a good symbol of the top-heavy happiness of the stories.

There are limitations even to Dickens' celebration of Christmas: while there are spirits aplenty, the religious and spiritual aspects of the solemnity aren't there: Dickens doesn't consider the doctrine of the Incarnation in any depth at all. A Christmas Carol both restricts Christmas to one day and then spreads its cheer throughout the year. Nevertheless, as Chesterton notes, it revived the celebration of Christmas in England after ages of neglect and ambivalence. As the title of book by Les Standiford avers, Charles Dickens is The Man Who Invented Christmas--at least our modern celebration of Christmas--and Chesterton admired him for that achievement.

EWTN's Register Radio Today

The National Catholic Register asked me to write an article about how Christmas was banned in England and in the English American Colonies, and so I did:

The English Victorian Christmas is an ideal: the glowing Christmas tree, the carols, figgy pudding, Christmas goose or turkey, special charity for the poor, and the holly and the ivy. Then there’s the more extended English medieval Christmas: wassail, the Yule log and the festive Twelve Days of Christmas until the feast of the Epiphany. There’s a mixture of English, Welsh, German and French traditions in these images.

Even if we have to face the ghosts of Christmases past (or present and future), we want that perfect celebration of family and faith. Between the medieval era and the Victorian, however, the very idea of celebrating the birth of Our Savior with feasting and revelry was banned in 17th-century England. Every December was like Narnia because, although it was winter and it might be cold and snowy, there was no Christmas.

I manage to work in Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, Ulysses S. Grant, and all the trappings of Christmas--it should be in the next print edition.

Then they asked me to appear on a segment of EWTN's Register Radio, and so I did. It will be broadcast this evening at 6:00 Central and repeated on Sunday at 10:00 a.m. Central. The broadcast will be archived here.

Chesterton and Dickens on the Son Rise Morning Show

Annie Mitchell and I will discuss my latest blog post at the National Catholic Register this morning a little after 7:45 Eastern Time/6:45 Central Time on the Son Rise Morning Show: listen live here. The post will be on-line later today:

Gilbert Keith and Frances Chesterton celebrated Christmas with poems and plays. Frances Chesterton wrote a poem every year for their Christmas card; one of her poems, “Here is the Little Door” was set to music by Herbert Howells and has been featured in the Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College Chapel, Cambridge and elsewhere. Frances also wrote plays for the many godchildren and other children who celebrated with them. Nancy Carpentier Brown has collected these works in “How Far Is It to Bethlehem”.

Chesterton wrote many essays and poems for Christmas too. His reflections have been collected in a book of Advent and Christmas meditations, and there is an out of print collection of poems and essays which is indeed rare and expensive (“The Spirit of Christmas”)—and a newer edition of essays (“A Chesterton Christmas: Essays, Excerpts, and Eggnog”). In “The Everlasting Man”, the chapter titled “The God in the Cave” is Chesterton’s extended meditation on the First Christmas, the Nativity, with discussion of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Angels, the shepherds, and the Wise Men.

Last Friday night, our G.K. Chesterton group celebrated our annual festive meeting of readings from Chesterton on Christmas, Christmas carols and refreshments. It was great fun.

I've already seen part of three or four versions of A Christmas Carol on Turner Classic Movies, including the 1935 version titled Scrooge, with a famous stage interpreter of the role of Ebeneezer Scrooge, Sir Seymour Hicks:

Released in England by Twickenham Studios in 1935, Scrooge was the first feature-length sound adaptation of A Christmas Carol. In retrospect, it has been overshadowed by MGM's 1938 A Christmas Carol. Because of the largely British cast headed by Reginald Owen, viewers often erroneously assume that MGM's version is the original British film adaptation. While the MGM adaptation benefits from glossier production values, Scrooge stars legendary stage actor Seymour Hicks in the title role, which gives it a greater historical importance. . . .

Of all the plays and films he appeared in throughout his illustrious career, Seymour Hicks was best known for playing Ebenezer Scrooge in various interpretations of A Christmas Carol. In later years, the actor liked to claim that he had played Scrooge in over 2,000 performances. He first took on the role in 1901, when he was 30 years old. In 1913, he starred in Scrooge, a silent film produced by the Zenith Company based on J.C. Buckstone's stage adaptation of A Christmas Carol, which was still running at the Coliseum Theatre in London. When he was selected to appear in the first feature-length sound version at age 64, he had finally aged into the role.

Christmas and Easter Meet in Dickens' "A Christmas Carol"

John M. Grondelski writes some "Catholic Thoughts on A Christmas Carol" for Crisis Magazine, highlighting the religious lessons to be learned from Dickens' classic Christmas ghost story:

Justice and Mercy Meet. Marley suffers because of the man he made himself into: “I wear the chain I forged in life” and now fetters him eternally. The same fate threatens Scrooge, whose chain was “as heavy and as long as this seven Christmas Eves ago.” But that turn of justice is not something external, imposed by an angry God: it is rather that we reap what we have sown. The women justify theft of Scrooge’s deathbed curtains by his life: “Every person has a right to take care of themselves. He always did.” If he took care of himself, why can’t she? And if neglect breeds ignorance, despair, and death, then Tiny Tim’s fate is not imposed but ineluctable: “If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.” But if they are changed, if “courses be departed from,” things can be different. God lets us have what we want: we need to be sure it’s indeedreally what we want.

Kids love the “spirits” and thrills of A Christmas Carol, a story with an easily dislikable villain and a happy ending, a blend of Christmas and Halloween. One can reduce the Carol to that cartoon level. But there’s a greater richness in the story where, through the intervention of the supernatural, a man takes stock of himself and rises a new creature. It that sense, it’s a blend of Christmas and Easter.

G.K. Chesterton also noted the theme of "a man takes stock of himself and rises a new creature" in his study of Dickens, in which he notes that each of us, as much as Scrooge, need to undergo that process, that conversion:

And as with his backgrounds of gloom, so with his backgrounds of good-will, in such tales as "The Christmas Carol." The tone of the tale is kept throughout in a happy monotony, though the tale is everywhere irregular and in some places weak. It has the same kind of artistic unity that belongs to a dream. A dream may begin with the end of the world and end with a tea-party; but either the end of the world will em as trivial as a tea-party or that tea-party will be as terrible as the day of doom. The incidents change wildly; the story scarcely changes at all. "The Christmas Carol" is a kind of philanthropic dream, an enjoyable nightmare, in which the scenes shift bewilderingly and seem as miscellaneous as the pictures in a scrap-book, but in which there is one constant state of the soul, a state of rowdy benediction and a hunger for human faces. The beginning is bout a winter day and a miser; yet the beginning is in no way bleak. The author starts with a kind of happy howl; he bangs on our door like a drunken carol singer; his style is festive and popular; he compares the snow and hail to philanthropists who "come down handsomely;" he compares the fog to unlimited beer. Scrooge is not really inhuman at the beginning any more than he is at the end. There is a heartiness in his inhospitable sentiments that is akin to humour and therefore to humanity; he is only a crusty old bachelor, and had (I strongly suspect) given away turkeys secretly all his life. The beauty and the real blessing of the story do not lie in the mechanical plot of it, the repentance of Scrooge, probable or improbable; they lie in the great furnace of real happiness that glows through Scrooge and everything around him; that great furnace, the heart of Dickens. Whether the Christmas visions would or would not convert Scrooge, they convert us. Whether or no the visions were evoked by real Spirits of the Past, Present, and Future, they were evoked by that truly exalted order of angels who are correctly called High Spirits. They are impelled and sustained by a quality which our contemporary artists ignore or almost deny, but which in a life decently lived is as normal and attainable as sleep, positive, passionate, conscious joy. The story sings from end to end like a happy man going home; and, like a happy and good man, when it cannot sing it yells. It is lyric and exclamatory, from the first exclamatory words of it. It is strictly a Christmas carol.

Chesterton on A Christmas Carol on the Son Rise Morning Show

I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show this morning to talk about Chesterton and Dickens' A Christmas Carol, based on my blog posts last week leading up to our Chesterton Christmas at Eighth Day Books--which was a rousing success, by the way.  If you want to see those posts, search for "Chesterton Christmas" in the search window in the upper left hand corner and this is what you should get!

Matt Swaim and I will discuss how Dickens revived the celebration of Christmas--which certainly fell on hard times (!) in England during the Puritan Interregnum of the 17th century--and how Chesterton revived appreciation of Dickens!

Please listen live here after the 7:45 a.m. Eastern news break on the Son Rise Morning--6:45 a.m. Central time!

God Bless Us, Everyone!!

Chesterton on Scrooge's Conversion--and Ours

As Chesterton points out, A Christmas Carol is a conversion story. The first ghost, Jacob Marley, comes to save Ebenezer Scrooge from a fate like his, loaded in chains, unable to do what he should have done while alive:

Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before his face.

"Mercy!'' he said." Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?''

"Man of the worldly mind!'' replied the Ghost, "do you believe in me or not?''

"I do,'' said Scrooge. "I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?''

"It is required of every man,'' the Ghost returned, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world -- oh, woe is me! -- and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!''

Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain, and wrung its shadowy hands.

"You are fettered,'' said Scrooge, trembling. ``Tell me why?''

"I wear the chain I forged in life,'' replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?''

Scrooge trembled more and more.

"Or would you know,'' pursued the Ghost, "the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!''

Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but he could see nothing.

"Jacob,'' he said, imploringly. "Old Jacob Marley, tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob.''

"I have none to give,'' the Ghost replied. "It comes from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of men. Nor can I tell you what I would. A very little more, is all permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked beyond our counting-house -- mark me! -- in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before me!''

After Scrooge complains that Marley might have come sooner if he knew Scrooge was in trouble:

The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of the night, that the Ward would have been justified in indicting it for a nuisance.

"Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,'' cried the phantom, "not to know, that ages of incessant labour by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunities misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!''

"But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,'' faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.

"Business!'' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!''

It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.

"At this time of the rolling year,'' the spectre said, "I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode? Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!''

And that's the purpose of the next three Spirits, to get Scrooge to look up, visit the poor, see the want and need around him, and even in himself. But he also sees the joy and love around him and in himself. Chesterton makes the point that Scrooge isn't all bad--but that we aren't all good either. We need conversion as much as Scrooge: we need to begin to apply this warning to ourselves:

Scrooge is not really inhuman at the beginning any more than he is at the end. There is a heartiness in his inhospitable sentiments that is akin to humour and therefore to humanity; he is only a crusty old bachelor, and had (I strongly suspect) given away turkeys secretly all his life. The beauty and the real blessing of the story do not lie in the mechanical plot of it, the repentance of Scrooge, probable or improbable; they lie in the great furnace of real happiness that glows through Scrooge and everything around him; that great furnace, the heart of Dickens. Whether the Christmas visions would or would not convert Scrooge, they convert us. Whether or no the visions were evoked by real Spirits of the Past, Present, and Future, they were evoked by that truly exalted order of angels who are correctly called High Spirits. They are impelled and sustained by a quality which our contemporary artists ignore or almost deny, but which in a life decently lived is as normal and attainable as sleep, positive, passionate, conscious joy. The story sings from end to end like a happy man going home; and, like a happy and good man, when it cannot sing it yells. It is lyric and exclamatory, from the first exclamatory words of it. It is strictly a Christmas carol.

A Final Reminder: the Greater Wichita local chapter of the American Chesterton Society will host A Chesterton Christmas at Eighth Day Books tonight from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. Readings, carols, refreshments, gift ideas, and other Christmas preparations will be provided--and a visit, not by St. Nick, Jacob Marley or three other Spirits, but of G.K. Chesterton!

Tomorrow Night: A Chesterton Christmas at Eighth Day Books

In his analysis of Dickens and Christmas, chapter seven of his biography of Charles Dickens, Chesterton notes that Dickens restored the celebration of Christmas to its medieval glory of festivity and joy in A Christmas Carol. One scene that demonstrates the colour and vitality that Dickens brought to the preparation for Christmas is the shopping scene in Stave II as the Ghost of Christmas Present takes Scrooge on a spree of mercantilism that the miser could never imagine--people are spending money for feasting and rejoicing, not saving it or lending it for interest and accumulation:

For the people who were shovelling away on the housetops were jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball -- better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest -- laughing heartily if it went right and not less heartily if it went wrong. The poulterers' shops were still half open, and the fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chesnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was something going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and round their little world in slow and passionless excitement.

The Grocers'! oh the Grocers'! nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such glimpses! It was not alone that the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in the best humour possible; while the Grocer and his people were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws to peck at if they chose.

But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the bakers' shops. The sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice when there were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was! God love it, so it was!

I think that Chesterton would say that those last words describe Dickens' celebration of all the good of Christmas--"And so it was! God love it, so it was!" God loves Christmas: He gave us Christmas because He gave us Christ!

Note on the bakers' shops--when housing in London did not have stoves for cooking and only fires for warmth, the baker would cook the food brought to them for Christmas dinner (for a fee)!

Chesterton on "A Christmas Carol": Modern and Medieval Spirits

From his 1922 introduction, Chesterton compares and contrasts two of Dickens' great misers, Scrooge in A Christmas Carol and Gradgrind in Hard Times:

In this one work of Dickens, therefore, the historical and moral importance is really even greater than the literary importance. In this respect it bears some resemblance to another of his works, which might seem superficially its very contrary. "A Christmas Carol" is perhaps the most genial and fanciful of all his stories. "Hard Times " is perhaps the most grim and realistic. But in both cases the moral beauty is perhaps greater than the artistic beauty; and both stand higher in any study of the man than of the writer. And although one represents the first skirmish in defence of the old traditions, and the second the final pitched battle against the new theories, in both cases the author is fighting for the same cause. He is fighting an old miser named Scrooge, and a new miser named Gradgrind; but it is not only true that the new miser has the old avarice, it is also true that the old miser has the new arguments. Scrooge is a utilitarian and an individualist; that is, he is a miser in theory as well as in practise. He utters all the sophistries by which the age of machinery has tried to turn the virtue of charity into a vice. Indeed this is something of an understatement. Scrooge is not only as modern as Gradgrind but more modern than Gradgrind. He belongs not only to the hard times of the middle of the nineteenth century, but to the harder times of the beginning of the twentieth century; the yet harder times in which we live. Many amiable sociologists will say, as he said, "Let them die and decrease the surplus population." The improved proposal is that they should die before they are born.

So without meaning to, Dickens anticipated a commentary the modern eugenics and abortion movement--according to Chesterton. In the same way, without meaning to, Dickens celebrated the spirit of the Middle Ages, again according to Chesterton in his study of Dickens ("Dickens and Christmas"):

It would be hard to find a better example of this than Dickens's great defence of Christmas. In fighting for Christmas he was fighting for the old European festival. Pagan and Christian, for that trinity of eating, drinking and praying which to moderns appears irreverent, for the holy day which is really a holiday. He had himself the most babyish ideas about the past. He supposed the Middle Ages to have consisted of tournaments and torture-chambers, he supposed himself to be a brisk man of the manufacturing age, almost a Utilitarian. But for all that he defended the mediæval feast which was going out against the Utilitarianism which was coming in. He could only see all that was bad in mediævalism. But he fought for all that was good in it. And he was all the more really in sympathy with the old strength and simplicity because he only knew that it was good and did not know that it was old. He cared as little for mediævalism as the mediævals did. He cared as much as they did for lustiness and virile laughter and sad tales of good lovers and pleasant tales of good livers. He would have been very much bored by Ruskin and Walter Pater if they had explained to him the strange sunset tints of Lippi and Botticelli. He had no pleasure in looking on the dying Middle Ages. But he looked on the living Middle Ages, on a piece of the old uproarious superstition still unbroken; and he hailed it like a new religion. The Dickens character ate pudding to an extent at which the modern mediævalists turned pale. They would do every kind of honour to an old observance, except observing it. They would pay to a Church feast every sort of compliment except feasting.

As Chesterton further notes in another work on Dickens, his Appreciations and Criticisms, it is rather a mystery that Dickens did so much to revive in some ways the old traditions of celebrating Christmas:

How did it happen that this bustling, nineteenth-century man, full of the almost cock-sure common-sense of the utilitarian and liberal epoch, came to associate his name chiefly in literary history with the perpetuation of a half pagan and half Catholic festival which he would certainly have called an antiquity and might easily have called a superstition? Christmas has indeed been celebrated before in English literature; but it had, in the most noticeable cases, been celebrated in connection with that kind of feudalism with which Dickens would have severed his connection with an ignorant and even excessive scorn. Sir Roger de Coverley kept Christmas; but it was a feudal Christmas. Sir Walter Scott sang in praise of Christmas; but it was a feudal Christmas. And Dickens was not only indifferent to the dignity of the old country gentleman or to the genial archæology of Scott; he was even harshly and insolently hostile to it. If Dickens had lived in the neighbourhood of Sir Roger de Coverley he would undoubtedly, like Tom Touchy, have been always "having the law of him." If Dickens had stumbled in among the old armour and quaint folios of Scott's study he would certainly have read his brother novelist a lesson in no measured terms about the futility of thus fumbling in the dust-bins of old oppression and error. So far from Dickens being one of those who like a thing because it is old, he was one of those cruder kind of reformers, in theory at least, who actually dislike a thing because it is old.

The Commissioned Carol for King's College, Cambridge

On Christmas Eve, the great Choir of King's College, Cambridge will present its annual Lessons and Carols. Since 1982, the Choir has commissioned a new Christmas carol for the service: this year, Thea Musgrave wrote the music for a Willliam Blake poem:

 This year's commissioned carol for A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols has been composed by Thea Musgrave. It is a setting of the William Blake poem 'Hear the voice of the Bard' (1794).

The composer said: "It was with the greatest pleasure that I accepted a commission to write a carol for the famous choir of King's College, Cambridge, and their conductor Stephen Cleobury.

"After much consideration I chose one of the poems from the Songs of Experience by William Blake.

"The poem speaks of how the 'Bard's Voice' calls out to the 'lapséd soul' and for the 'Holy Word' to renew the 'fallen light'. It also calls for the earth to return after a long night; for the dawn to come and so for the sun to reappear."

Musgrave has won numerous awards for her large and varied body of work and received a CBE in 2002.

The poem she selected:

HEAR the voice of the Bard,
Who present, past, and future, sees;
Whose ears have heard
The Holy Word
That walk’d among the ancient trees;

Calling the lapsèd soul,

And weeping in the evening dew;
That might control
The starry pole,
And fallen, fallen light renew!

‘O Earth, O Earth, return!

Arise from out the dewy grass!
Night is worn,
And the morn
Rises from the slumbrous mass.

‘Turn away no more;

Why wilt thou turn away?
The starry floor,
The watery shore,
Is given thee till the break of day.’

In keeping with my fascination with Dickens' A Christmas Carol, I think I should note that Thea Musgrave wrote an operatic adaptation, with optional children's chorus!

More about the Lessons and Carols from the College website. I appreciate the clarity of the instructions for the queue for possible admittance to the service:

If you would like to attend the service, please join the queue at the main entrance to the College. Normally anyone joining the queue before 9am will get in, but we cannot guarantee this. The queue is admitted into the Chapel at 1.30pm and the service begins at 3pm. The service ends at around 4.30pm. Please note that the service is not suitable for young children. There is no charge for attending, as with any service in the Chapel. A retiring collection is taken after the service for the maintenance of the Chapel.

Arrangements for those who want to queue are as follows:

1. The only entrance to the College will be via the main gate on King's Parade. All other gates will be locked.
2. Members of the public in the queue will be admitted to the College grounds via the front gate from 7.30am.
3. The Porters will monitor the number of people joining the queue and, once there are as many people in the queue as there are seats available, members of the public will be advised that it is unlikely that they will be able to attend the service.
4. Bags and packages cannot be taken into the Chapel and must be deposited with the Porters in the designated area.
5. Once inside the College grounds toilet facilities are available and refreshments can be purchased from the College coffee shop.

Then the program has more detailed instructions about silence and decorum for those attending, since the service is broadcast live on the BBC:

In order not to spoil the service for other members of the congregation and radio listeners, please do not talk or cough unless it is absolutely necessary. Please turn off chiming digital watches and mobile phones. . . .

 

And, whatever you do, don't talk during the organ prelude!

"A Christmas Carol" on the Silver Screen

Last night, TCM showed several film adaptations of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, starting with the Albert Finney musical and then moving on to the classic Alistair Sim version, the first sound version, the Reginald Owen version, and a Rod Serling adaptation.

As with all film adaptations of literary works, the different versions take liberties with the text: Scrooge!, the musical, adds a scene with Marley and Scrooge in Hell--Scrooge is to be Satan's clerk and finds himself wrapped in heavy chains in a ice cold office, colder than the office he kept for his clerk, Bob Cratchit.

Except for the rousingly ironic "Thank You Very Much", I don't think the musical numbers are that memorable, and the Ghost of Christmas Present does not reveal the boy and girl, Ignorance and Want before he departs his time on earth. Once he's transformed and converted, Ebenezer visits the Cratchit house to deliver the prize turkey and presents, all dressed up as Father Christmas.

The Reginald Owen version also shows Scrooge visiting the Cratchit house on Christmas Day--I think both of those changes are mistakes because it eliminates the tension and surprise on December 26 when poor Bob Cratchit arrives late to work and fears he'll lose his job.

The Alistair Sim version is excellent, including the young Ebenezer, George Cole, and includes that most Dickensian scene of the undertaker, housekeeper, and laundress selling Scrooge's few earthly possessions.

Truly, my favorite is the 1984 George C. Scott version, made for television (CBS). The cast is very strong throughout from the protagonist to Susannah York (Mrs. Cratchit), David Warner (Bob), Roger Rees (Fred, Scrooge's nephew), Frank Finlay (as Marley's Ghost), and another good younger Scrooge, Mark Strickson, who once played a Doctor Who sidekick (the Fifth Doctor).

Through the movie adaptations, the impact of A Christmas Carol continues.

God bless us, everyone!

Another Christmas Present: On Its Way

Back from Wichita's remaining Barnes & Noble where I bought two half-price calendars (the annual White West Highland Terrier calendar and one of London--no Norwich Terrier calendars for 2013!)--and the Christmas issue of the BBC Music Magazine. All purchases made with gift cards. My husband bought me a one year subscription to the BBC Music Magazine and I look forward to receiving it next year.

The Christmas issue is filled with articles about Christmas music, with highlights like the cover story on Charles Dickens and carols, a consideration of the agnostic Ralph Vaughn Williams, and Heinrich Schutz's "The Christmas Story" and includes a CD of Christmas music performed by Laudibus!

The Impact of Dicken's "A Christmas Carol"

Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol was first offered for sale on December 19, 1843 and it has had a great impact on the celebration of Christmas (good and bad), as this blog notes:

All 6,000 copies of the first edition were sold in only four days! The book became instantly popular, though the high cost of printing, including the fine illustrations, limited Dickens’s profits. Before long, however, vast numbers of people in England and America knew the story, not only from reading the book, but also from dramatic presentations and many public readings by Dickens himself.

Because our own celebrations of Christmas have been so strongly influenced by Dickens, we can easily overlook his special contributions to our traditions, such as:

• Christmas as a major holiday. At the time of Dickens, it was relatively ignored by most people.

• Christmas as a one (or two) day celebration rather than the traditional twelve.

• Christmas as an occasion for family and close friends to gather for luscious food, singing, dancing, and games. Before A Christmas Carol, turkey was an uncommon on Christmas tables. After the book, it became the meat of choice for this holiday.

• Christmas as a time for being generous to the poor.

Dickens did not so much invent these traditions as he resurrected them and popularized them. Much of what we assume to be true of Christmas celebrations today derives from the vision of Dickens, especially as portrayed in A Christmas Carol.

So close was the connection between Charles Dickens and Christmas that, when he died in 1870, a young woman who heard of it was aghast. “Dickens dead?” she exclaimed. “Then will Father Christmas die too?” Well, as it turns out, Father Christmas didn’t die along with his greatest promoter, Charles Dickens. The influence of this man, and most of all his masterful novella, A Christmas Carol guaranteed that Christmas would be kept for generations upon generations.

When I say good and bad, I'm referencing that one bad point: "Christmas as a one (or two) day celebration rather than the traditional twelve"! So that's why we see Christmas trees on the curb December 26!

Les Standiford tells the story of how Dickens' novella became such an influence in The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits:

Acclaimed popular historian Les Standiford whisks us back to Victorian England, where we find out how a struggling Charles Dickens came to write the small book that would transform a somber, faded holiday into the celebration of charity and good cheer we know today.

Just before Christmas in 1843, a debt-ridden and dispirited Charles Dickens wrote a small book he hoped would keep his creditors at bay. His publisher turned it down, so Dickens used what little money he had to put out A Christmas Carol himself. He worried it might be the end of his career as a novelist.

The book immediately caused a sensation. And it breathed new life into a holiday that had fallen into disfavor, undermined by lingering Puritanism and the cold modernity of the Industrial Revolution. It was a harsh and dreary age, in desperate need of spiritual renewal, ready to embrace a book that ended with blessings for one and all.

With warmth, wit, and an infusion of Christmas cheer, Les Standiford whisks us back to Victorian England, its most beloved storyteller, and the birth of the Christmas we know best. The Man Who Invented Christmas is a rich and satisfying read for Scrooges and sentimentalists alike.

I think that I have seen all the sound era movie versions of A Christmas Carol, including the updated, Americanized versions. I even like the musical version (Scrooge!) with that fun scene, "Thank You Very Much" when Scrooge doesn't realize everyone is happy just because he's dead!

God Bless Us, Every One!

All You Need to Know: Figgy Pudding

As I've posted before:

The Puritans banned Christmas during the Interregnum (the period between the fall and execution of Charles I until the restoration of Charles II)--and didn't understand why people keep breaking the rules, steaming their puddings and roasting their geese!

This is surely one instance that supports H.L. Mencken's definition: Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

Conflict over Christmas marked the relations between Parliament and the Court of Charles I before the English Civil War and the capture and execution of Charles I. The Puritans knew what the word ChristMAS means--and that the celebration of the Catholic Mass was at the center of the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. They also thought all the other festivities and feasting centered around Christmas were "Popish" and "Papastical," very bad things to be! Once they had the power, if Parliament proclaimed the fourth Saturday of December was to be a day of fasting and the fourth Saturday of December happened to be December 25, Christmas Day, the day of fasting trumped the day of feasting and celebration. Even if Christmas Day fell on a Sunday, there was to be no special commemoration. The Book of Common Prayer was banned and the Church of England, like the Catholic Church, gone underground. Celebrating Christmas was an act of rebellion against the rebels who had become the rulers of England!

This year, the English Historical Fiction blog tells you all about figgy pudding, starting off with Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol and the Cratchit's pudding:

"Hallo!A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper [boiler]. A smell like washing –day! That was the cloth [the pudding bag]. A smell like an eating house and a pastrycook’s next door to each other, with a laundress’s next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered—flushed, but smiling proudly—with the pudding. like a speckled cannon ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top." "Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage..."

Advent Resources: Magnificat and Laudamus Te

Every year, the Magnificat monthly prayer book publisher produces an Advent Companion book (it also presents a Lenten booklet) with daily meditations and other devotions for the season leading up to Christmas, including the great O Antiphons. This year's edition includes an essay on "Christmas in England" by James Monti, author of The King's Good Servant But God's First: The Life and Writings of St. Thomas More and of a book set for release next March, A Sense of the Sacred: Roman Catholic Worship In The Middle Ages.

Of course, Mr. Monti mentions English Carols, festivites during the Christmas Season, the Puritan attack on Christmas, and other highlights. Perhaps because his essay is focused on Christmas, he does not include consideration of the Ember Days during the Advent season.

For that, you would need the new publication, Laudamus Te--except that the Advent issue may be sold out! Still available as an ebook perhaps and here's a sample which shows an article on the Ember Days in the Table of Contents. Note that the Christmas issue is at the printer and will ship December 16:

What is Laudamus Te? It is The Magazine of the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Liturgy of the Roman Rite:

It is the mission of Laudamus Te to bear witness to the sublime beauty of the ancient Latin liturgy, to foster renewed devotion to its merits, and to aid the faithful in entering more deeply into its sacramental mysteries.

Since the sacred liturgy is at the center of Catholic life, it seems fitting to have a devotional magazine focused on deepening our mystical participation in this sacramental experience. Laudamus Te follows the liturgical seasons of the 1962 calendar, providing daily Mass readings for the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Catholic Mass as well as explanatory essays, commentaries by various saints and the Church Fathers, and devotional writings by priests, religious, and laity. Our aim is to draw Catholics into a better understanding of the Mass as a whole and to bring about fruitful meditation and deeper devotion, as well as to educate and inform those who are new to the Extraordinary Form.

My husband and I attend Sunday Mass in the Extraordinary Form regularly and we both have 1962 missals, but I'm thinking of subscribing to Laudamus Te (I have purchased single copies of the Advent and Christmas issues already).

Christmas Carols in English Cathedrals

I mentioned this yesterday on the Son Rise Morning Show during my discussion of the changing celebrations or non-celebrations of Christmas after the English Reformation: Fortunately for all of us who love Christmas Carols, England rebounded very well from the Interregnum's interruption of Christmas celebrations. Many Church of England cathedrals are celebrating the great English tradition of carols with concerts and services this week, including those at Canterbury, Ely, Chicester, Gloucester and Christ Church in Oxford, for example.

This 15th century English carol is quoted briefly in the first Stave of Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol, before Ebeneezer Scrooge chases the singer away:

God rest ye merry, gentlemen

Let nothing you dismay

Remember, Christ, our Saviour

Was born on Christmas day

To save us all from Satan's power

When we were gone astray

O tidings of comfort and joy,

Comfort and joy

O tidings of comfort and joy!

In Bethlehem, in Israel,

This blessed Babe was born

And laid within a manger

Upon this blessed morn

The which His Mother Mary

Did nothing take in scorn

O tidings of comfort and joy,

Comfort and joy

O tidings of comfort and joy!

From God our Heavenly Father

A blessed Angel came;

And unto certain Shepherds

Brought tidings of the same:

How that in Bethlehem was born

The Son of God by Name.

O tidings of comfort and joy,

Comfort and joy

O tidings of comfort and joy!

"Fear not then," said the Angel,

"Let nothing you affright,

This day is born a Saviour

Of a pure Virgin bright,

To free all those who trust in Him

From Satan's power and might."

O tidings of comfort and joy,

Comfort and joy

O tidings of comfort and joy!

The shepherds at those tidings

Rejoiced much in mind,

And left their flocks a-feeding

In tempest, storm and wind:

And went to Bethlehem straightway

The Son of God to find.

O tidings of comfort and joy,

Comfort and joy

O tidings of comfort and joy!

And when they came to Bethlehem

Where our dear Saviour lay,

They found Him in a manger,

Where oxen feed on hay;

His Mother Mary kneeling down,

Unto the Lord did pray.

O tidings of comfort and joy,

Comfort and joy

O tidings of comfort and joy!

Now to the Lord sing praises,

All you within this place,

And with true love and brotherhood

Each other now embrace;

This holy tide of Christmas

All other doth deface.

O tidings of comfort and joy,

Comfort and joy

O tidings of comfort and joy!