If he succeeds in winning it three years in succession it is to become
his own property.
Christmas has come round again, and peace still seems a far-off thing.
"What shall he have that killed the deer?" someone asks somebody else in
_As You Like It_. But there is a better question than that, and it is
this: "What shall they have that preserve the little dears?" And the answer
is--honour and support. For there can be no doubt that in these critical
times, when the life of the best and bravest and strongest is so cheap, no
duty is more important than the cherishing of infancy, and the provision of
seasonable joys to the youngest generation, gentle and simple. More than
ever Mr. Punch welcomes the coming of Santa Klaus:
Thou who on earth was named Nicholas--
There be dull clods who doubt thy magic power
To tour the sleeping world in half-an-hour,
And pop down all the chimneys as you pass
With woolly lambs and dolls of frabjous size
For grubby hands and wonder-laden eyes.
Not so thy singer, who believes in thee
Because he has a young and foolish spirit;
Because the simple faith that bards inherit
Of happiness is still the master key,
Opening life's treasure-house to whoso clings
To the dim beauty of imagined things.
_January, 1918_.
While avoiding as a rule the fashionable _role_ of prophet, Mr.
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