If you find, in the works of a poet whose instinct is to write about everything under the sun, one obvious theme untouched, or touched hardly at all, then it is at least presumable that there was some good reason for that abstinence.  Such a poet was Shakespeare.  It was one of the divine frailties of his genius that he must be ever flying off at a tangent from his main theme to unpack his heart in words about some frivolous-small irrelevance that had come into his head.  If it could be shown that he never mentioned Christmas, we should have proof presumptive that he consciously avoided doing so.  But if the fact is that he did mention it now and again, but in grudging fashion, without one spark of illumination—­he, the arch-illuminator of all things—­then we have proof positive that he detested it.

I see Dryasdust thumbing his Concordance.  Let my memory save him the trouble.  I will reel him off the one passage in which Shakespeare spoke of Christmas in words that rise to the level of mediocrity.

  Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes
  Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
  The bird of dawning singeth all night long: 
  And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad;
  The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
  No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
  So hallowed and so gracious is the time.

So says Marcellus at Elsinore.  This is the best our Shakespeare can vamp up for the birthday of the Man with whom he of all men had the most in common.  And Dryasdust, eternally unable to distinguish chalk from cheese, throws up his hands in admiration of the marvellous poetry.  If Dryasdust had written it, it would more than pass muster.  But as coming from Shakespeare, how feeble-cold—­aye, and sulky-sinister!  The greatest praiser the world will ever know!—­and all he can find in his heart to sing of Christmas is a stringing-together of old women’s superstitions!  Again and again he has painted Winter for us as it never has been painted since—­never by Goethe even, though Goethe in more than one of the Winter-Lieder touched the hem of his garment.  There was every external reason why he should sing, as only he could have sung, of Christmas.  The Queen set great store by it.  She and her courtiers celebrated it year by year with lusty-pious unction.  And thus the ineradicable snob in Shakespeare had the most potent of all inducements to honour the feast with the full power that was in him.  But he did not, because he would not.  What is the key to the enigma?

For many years I hunted it vainly.  The second time that I met Carlyle I tried to enlist his sympathy and aid.  He sat pensive for a while and then said that it seemed to him “a goose-quest.”  I replied, “You have always a phrase for everything, Tom, but always the wrong one.”  He covered his face, and presently, peering at me through his gnarled fingers, said “Mon, ye’re recht.”  I discussed the problem with Renan, with Emerson, with Disraeli, also with Cetewayo—­poor Cetewayo, best and bravest of men, but intellectually a Professor, like the rest of them.  It was borne in on me that if I were to win to the heart of the mystery I must win alone.