It was bitter, though, that Christmas Day, as it drew on to

evening, and night, became a sort of bank holiday, flat and

stale. The morning was so wonderful, but in the afternoon and

evening the ecstasy perished like a nipped thing, like a bud in

a false spring. Alas, that Christmas was only a domestic feast,

a feast of sweetmeats and toys! Why did not the grown-ups also

change their everyday hearts, and give way to ecstasy? Where was

the ecstasy?

How passionately the Brangwens craved for it, the ecstasy.

The father was troubled, dark-faced and disconsolate, on

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Christmas night, because the passion was not there, because the

day was become as every day, and hearts were not aflame. Upon

the mother was a kind of absentness, as ever, as if she were

exiled for all her life. Where was the fiery heart of joy, now

the coming was fulfilled; where was the star, the Magi's

transport, the thrill of new being that shook the earth?

Still it was there, even if it were faint and inadequate. The

cycle of creation still wheeled in the Church year. After

Christmas, the ecstasy slowly sank and changed. Sunday followed

Sunday, trailing a fine movement, a finely developed

transformation over the heart of the family. The heart that was

big with joy, that had seen the star and had followed to the

inner walls of the Nativity, that there had swooned in the great

light, must now feel the light slowly withdrawing, a shadow

falling, darkening. The chill crept in, silence came over the

earth, and then all was darkness. The veil of the temple was

rent, each heart gave up the ghost, and sank dead.

They moved quietly, a little wanness on the lips of the

children, at Good Friday, feeling the shadow upon their hearts.

Then, pale with a deathly scent, came the lilies of

resurrection, that shone coldly till the Comforter was

given.

But why the memory of the wounds and the death? Surely Christ

rose with healed hands and feet, sound and strong and glad?

Surely the passage of the cross and the tomb was forgotten? But

no--always the memory of the wounds, always the smell of

grave-clothes? A small thing was Resurrection, compared with the

Cross and the death, in this cycle.

So the children lived the year of christianity, the epic of

the soul of mankind. Year by year the inner, unknown drama went

on in them, their hearts were born and came to fulness, suffered

on the cross, gave up the ghost, and rose again to unnumbered

days, untired, having at least this rhythm of eternity in a

ragged, inconsequential life.

But it was becoming a mechanical action now, this drama:

birth at Christmas for death at Good Friday. On Easter Sunday

the life-drama was as good as finished. For the Resurrection was

shadowy and overcome by the shadow of death, the Ascension was

scarce noticed, a mere confirmation of death.




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