Of all the old festivals, however, that of Christmas awakens the strongest and most heartfelt associations. There is a tone of solemn and sacred feel… - Washington Irving

Of all the old festivals, however, that of Christmas awakens the strongest and most heartfelt associations.

As I grew into boyhood, I extended the range of my observations. My holiday afternoons were spent in rambles about the surrounding country. I made myself familiar with all its places famous in history or fable. I knew every spot where a murder or robbery had been committed, or a ghost seen. I visited the neighboring villages, and added greatly to my stock of knowledge, by noting their habits and customs, and conversing with their sages and great men. I even journeyed one long summer's day to the summit of the most distant hill, whence I stretched my eye over many a mile of terra incognita, and was astonished to find how vast a globe I inhabited.

"Peter took no notice of the skulking throng, but strode up to the brawling, bully-ruffian, and pulling out a huge silver watch, which might have served in times of yore as a town-clock, and which is still retained by his descendants as a family curiosity, requested the orator to mend it and set it going. The orator humbly confessed it was utterly out of his power, as he was unacquainted with the nature of its construction. "Nay, but," said Peter, "try your ingenuity, man; you see all the springs and wheels and how easily the clumsiest hand may stop it, and pull it to pieces, and why should it not be equally easy to regulate as to stop it?" The orator declared that his trade was wholly different — that he was a poor cobbler, and had never meddled with a watch in his life — that there were men skilled in the art whose business it was to attend to those matters, but for his part he should only mar the workmanship, and put the whole in confusion. "Why, harkee, master of mine," cried Peter, turning suddenly upon him with a countenance that almost petrified the patcher of shoes into a perfect lapstone, "dost thou pretend to meddle with the movements of government to regulate, and correct, and patch,

And here I would note the great benefit of party distinctions in saving the people at large the trouble of thinking. Hesiod divides mankind into three classes — those who think for themselves, those who think as others think, and those who do not think at all. The second class comprises the great mass of society; for most people require a set creed and a file-leader. Hence the origin of party, which means a large body of people, some few of whom think, and all the rest talk. The former take the lead and discipline the latter, prescribing what they must say, what they must approve, what they must hoot at, whom they must support, but, above all, whom they must hate; for no one can be a right good partisan who is not a thoroughgoing hater.