SPIRIT OF THE YEARS (to Recording Angel).

Can you authenticate this Rumour?

RECORDING ANGEL.

  Such festival they have, and call it “Christmas."

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES.

Then let us go and reconsider them
Next “Christmas."

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS (to Recording Angel).

When is that?

RECORDING ANGEL (consults terrene calendar).

This day three weeks.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS.

On that day we will re-traject ourselves.
Meanwhile, ’twere well we should be posted up
In details of this feast.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES (to Recording Angel).

Aye, tell us more.

RECORDING ANGEL.

I fancy you could best find what you need
In the Complete Works of the late Charles Dickens.
I have them here.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS.

Read them aloud to us.

The Recording Angel reads aloud the Complete Works of Charles
Dickens.

RECORDING ANGEL (closing “Edwin Drood").

’Tis Christmas Morning.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS.

Then must we away.

SEMICHORUS I. OF YEARS (aerial music).

’Tis time we press on to revisit
That dear little planet,
To-day of all days to be seen at
Its brightest and best.

Now holly and mistletoe girdle
Its halls and its homesteads,
And every biped is beaming
With peace and good will.

SEMICHORUS II.

  With good will and why not with free will?
    If clearly the former
  May nest in those bosoms, then why not
    The latter as well?
  Let’s lay down no laws to trip up on,
    Our way is in darkness,
  And not but by groping unhampered
    We win to the light.

  The Spirit and Chorus of the Years traject themselves, closely
    followed by the Spirit and Chorus of the Pities, the Spirits
    and Choruses Sinister and Ironic, Rumours, Spirit Messengers,
    and the Recording Angel.

  There is the sound of a rushing wind.  The Solar System is seen
    for a few instants growing larger and larger—­a whorl of dark,
    vastening orbs careering round the sun.  All but one of these
    is lost to sight.  The convex seas and continents of our planet
    spring into prominence.

  The Spirit of Mr. Hardy is visible as a grey transparency
    swiftly interpenetrating the brain of the Spirit of the Years,
    and urging him in a particular direction, to a particular
    point.

  The Aerial Visitants now hover in mid-air on the outskirts of
    Casterbridge, Wessex, immediately above the County Gaol.