The Great British Christmas




A Christmas Carol and Other Haunting Tales







Yuletide In An Old English City.
By Cecil Logsdail
from New England Magazine, 1893


Pleasant as it is to revisit the memorable scenes of childhood after an absence of years passed in the most rapidly developing country in the world, a tinge of sadness is apt to color the traveller's thoughts and feelings because the old war horse, so to speak, seems unable to keep pace with the times and is fast falling out of the ranks in the battle of life. If the old customs and usages are still in vogue in many parts in England, and are yet full of interest to the poet and the man of letters, it cannot be denied that those who have become adopted sons of America find it almost impossible to reconcile themselves to old-country habits, and gladly return to their new homes, well satisfied that they have made a change for the better. Yet, in studying the rapid strides made by civilization in modern years, the perfection which this country has reached in the art of living, so far as material things are concerned, the enormous improvements effected in machinery and the infinite uses to which it is applied, the swift means of communication and transit on sea and land, and the wonderful possibilities of the future in process of realization, it is useful to be able to look at older cities and countries, to know that the old landmarks in the world's history are not yet obliterated, and to see what sort of persons our ancestors were from the living portraits of those who still cling to the ancient habits with pathetic pride, and ridicule all modern innovations as new-fangled and even wicked.

It is a wild December morning, gray with long banks of lowering cloud, threatening



Note: Most images appearing in this article were unlabeled, but appear in the same location as the original.



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