Christmas Is Here, Merry Old

Poetry Had Breathed Over And Sanctified The Land.

It Was Shakespeare's Notion That On This Day Birds Begin To Couple; Hence Probably Arose The Custom Of Sending Fancy Love-billets.

I Profess Not To Know How Women's Hearts Are Wooed And Won. To Me They Have Always Been Matters Of Riddle And Admiration.

There Rise Authors Now And Then, Who Seem Proof Against The Mutability Of Language, Because They Have Rooted Themselves In The Unchanging Principles Of Human Nature. They Are Like Gigantic Trees That We Sometimes See On The Banks Of A Stream; Which, By Their Vast And Deep Roots, Penetrating Through The Mere Surface, And Laying Hold On The Very Foundations Of The Earth, Preserve The Soil Around Them From Being Swept Away By The Ever-flowing Current, And Hold Up Many A Neighboring Plant, And Perhaps Worthless Weed, To Perpetuity.

How Convenient It Would Be To Many Of Our Great Men And Great Families Of Doubtful Origin, Could They Have The Privilege Of The Heroes Of Yore, Who, Whenever Their Origin Was Involved In Obscurity, Modestly Announced Themselves Descended From A God.