ready, for his own part, to give up his share in the glory of our Empire if only he can see the friendly fields in chill December.  I sympathize with him.  Away with the mendicants, rich and poor—­away with the gushing parasites who use a kindly instinct and a sacred name in order to make mean profit—­away with the sordid hucksters who play with the era of man’s hope as though the very name of the blessed time were a catchword to be used like the abominable party-cries of politicians!  But when I come to men and women who understand the real significance of the day—­when I come to charitable souls who are reminded of One who was all Charity, and who gave an impulse to the world which two thousand years have only strengthened—­when I come among these, I say, “Give us as much Yule-tide talk as ever you please, do your deeds of kindness, take your fill of innocent merriment, and deliver us from the pestilence of quacks and mendicants!” It is when I think of the ghastly horror of our own great central cities that I feel at once the praiseworthiness and the hopelessness of all attempts to succour effectually the immense mass of those who need charity.  Hopeless, helpless lives are lived by human creatures who are not much above the brutes.  Alas, how much may be learned from a journey through the Midlands!  We may talk of merry frosty days and starlit nights and unsullied snow and Christmas cheer; but the potter and the iron-worker know as much about cheeriness as they do about stainless snow.  Then there is London to be remembered.  A cheery time there will be for the poor creatures who hang about the dock-gates and fight for the chance of earning the price of a meal!  In that blank world of hunger and cold and enforced idleness there is nothing that the gayest optimist could describe as joyful, and some of us will have to face the sight of it during the winter that is now at hand.  What can be done?  Hope seems to have deserted many of our bravest; we hear the dark note of despair all round, and it is only the sight of the workers—­the kindly workers—­that enables us to bear up against deadly depression and dark pessimism.

December, 1888.

THE FADING YEAR.

Even in this distressed England of ours there are still districts where the simple reapers regard the harvest labour as a frolic; the dulness of their still lives is relieved by a burst of genuine but coarse merriment, and their abandoned glee is not unpleasant to look upon.  Then come the harvest suppers—­noble spectacles.  The steady champ of resolute jaws sounds in a rhythm which is almost majestic; the fearsome destruction wrought on solid joints would rouse the helpless envy of the dyspeptics of Pall Mall, and the playful consumption of ale—­no small beer, but golden Rodney—­might draw forth an ode from a teetotal Chancellor of the Exchequer.  August winds up in a blaze of gladness for the reaper.  On ordinary evenings he sits stolidly in the dingy