gospel of good cheer; it shows the beauty of doing for others; it breathes in every line the spirit of Christmas joy and merriment.

The story may not come up to the highest canons of art; the supernatural machinery of ghosts may not conform to the realism of the day, but the story is there and its moral, and "Old Scrooge" comes out all right, after his visions of Christmas past, present and to come.

Christmas literature may be of finer quality today than it was fifty years ago when Dickens and Thackeray were the annual purveyors of this kind of cheer, but somehow or other the Christmas stories of the present time do not make the impression theirs did, and we miss the robustness and heartiness of Old Wardle and Pickwick and Sam Weller and Trotty Veck and John Peerybingle and the rest.

The best three of Dickens' Christmas stories are "A Christmas Carol," first published in 1843; "The Chimes," published in 1844, and "The Cricket on the Hearth," published in 1845.

One of these, "The Cricket on the Hearth,” has been made forever memorable to all American playgoers by the art of Joseph Jefferson, whose portrayal of Caleb Plummer will never be for

gotten by those who have once seen him in that strange but noble character.

"The Chimes" is the story of Trotty Veck, a very humble person, a ticket porter to run errands, who stood outside the church door where

the chimes rang. It is a strange, weird tale—a prose poem-a Christmas idyl of sorrow and happiness. The chimes at last ring out and bring joy to the heart of the poor ticket porter. Here is the conclusion:

Had Trotty dreamed? Or are his joys and sorrows, and the actors in them, but a dream; himself a dream; the teller of this tale a dreamer, waking but now? If it be so, oh, listener, dear to him in all his visions, try to bear in mind the stern realities from which these shadows come; and in your sphere--none is too wide and none too limited for such an end-endeavor to correct, improve and soften them! So may the new year be a happy one to you, happy to many more whose happiness depends on you! So may each year be happier than the last, and not the meanest of our brethren or sisterhood debarred their rightful share in what our Great Creator formed them to enjoy.

He was

Dickens may not be to the present and future generations all that he was to his own. the most popular novelist of his day, because he spoke directly to the sensibilities of the men and women of his day. Times change and men and women with them, so that it would not be strange

if the popularity of this great genius should suffer some diminution. He drew his pictures large and with free hand tending to exaggeration. He laid on colors coarsely, but no one could mistake his meaning or the lesson he would teach. There are those to-day who do not like these loud and boisterous descriptions and portraitures and prefer their pictures in miniature and more finely executed. This is but natural, the reasonable swinging back of the pendulum carried too far.

But his novels are too vital, too deeply informed with human nature, ever to lose their hold entirely on the minds and imaginations of men. His genius was creative and in it was combined a rare completeness of humor and pathos that must survive as long as our literature endures.

And particularly is this true in respect to these Christmas stories that appeal in so many ways to the heart of humanity. Whoever comes under this charm and feels their force will recognize the debt he owes to this great writer, who has revealed the spirit of Christmas to the world.

Let us thank heaven for Charles Dickens and the Christmastide.

WILKIE COLLINS.

(1824-1889.)

WILKIE COLLINS was in truth the prince of story-tellers and held his readers breathless from beginning to end. No one ever yet began one of

his novels and threw it aside before the end came. They are not stories for a vacant half hour, to be picked up and thrown down at pleasure. Their fascination is of the deadly sort that holds the reader long after the midnight twelve has struck. For ingenuity of plot, for cleverness in handling the evolution of the plot and for power of rousing the reader's curiosity Mr. Collins stands alone. Even Dickens could not weave a chain of mysteries equal to Collins, and of course Thackeray never tried it. Collins created but very few characters whose names are remembered, but the incidents and adventures he related are so ingenious, and often so startling, that they hold our interest up to the last page. We care but little for the fate of any particular character, but we are

bound to go on with the story "to see how it comes out." Whether his works will live as literature may be doubtful, but as a writer of detective novels he has no English rival or equal, and he will consequently have at times and seasons a considerable circle of readers.

The greatest of his novels is "The Woman in White," which is, indeed, one of the memorable novels of the nineteenth century. Count Fosco, with his white mice and canaries, his resplendent waistcoats, his passion for music and his overmastering vanity, is one of the most masterly and superb creations in all fiction. What a masterful villain he was, and how completely he tamed his impetuous English wife! Even Marian Halcomb, who tells a part of the story in her diary, felt the spell of his magic influence. She thus describes him:

He looks like a man who could tame anything. If he had married a tigress, he would have tamed the tigress. If he had married me, I should have made his cigarettes, as his wife does. I should have held my tongue when he looked at me, as she does hers.

I am almost afraid to confess it, even to these secret pages. The man has interested me, has attracted me, has forced me to like him. In two short days he has made his way into my favorable estimation, and how he has worked the miracle is more than I can tell.