man, but is a shy beast you must hunt as you may in the forests that are round about the Walls of Heaven.  And I do hereby curse, gibbet, and denounce in execrationem perpetuam atque aeternam the man who hunts in a crafty or calculating way—­as, lying low, nosing for scents, squinting for trails, crawling noiselessly till he shall come near to his quarry and then taking careful aim.  Here’s to him who hunts Truth in the honest fashion of men, which is, going blindly at it, following his first scent (if such there be) or (if none) none, scrambling over boulders, fording torrents, winding his horn, plunging into thickets, skipping, firing off his gun in the air continually, and then ramming in some more ammunition anyhow, with a laugh and a curse if the charge explode in his own jolly face.  The chances are he will bring home in his bag nothing but a field-mouse he trod on by accident.  Not the less his is the true sport and the essential stuff of holiness.

As touching Christmas—­but there is nothing like verse to clear the mind, heat the blood, and make very humble the heart.  Rouse thee, Muse!

  One Christmas Night in Pontgibaud
      (Pom-pom, rub-a-dub-dub)
  A man with a drum went to and fro
      (Two merry eyes, two cheeks chub)
  Nor not a citril within, without,
  But heard the racket and heard the rout
  And marvelled what it was all about
      (And who shall shrive Beelzebub?)

  He whacked so hard the drum was split
      (Pom-pom, rub-a-dub-dum)
  Out lept Saint Gabriel from it
      (Praeclarissimus Omnium)
  Who spread his wings and up he went
  Nor ever paused in his ascent
  Till he had reached the firmament
      (Benedicamus Dominum).

That’s what I shall sing (please God) at dawn to-morrow, standing on the high, green barrow at Storrington, where the bones of Athelstan’s men are.  Yea,

  At dawn to-morrow
    On Storrington Barrow
  I’ll beg or borrow
    A bow and arrow
  And shoot sleek sorrow
    Through the marrow. 
  The floods are out and the ford is narrow,
  The stars hang dead and my limbs are lead,
    But ale is gold
    And there’s good foot-hold
  On the Cuckfield side of Storrington Barrow.

This too I shall sing, and other songs that are yet to write.  In Pagham I shall sing them again, and again in Little Dewstead.  In Hornside I shall rewrite them, and at the Scythe and Turtle in Liphook (if I have patience) annotate them.  At Selsey they will be very damnably in the way, and I don’t at all know what I shall do with them at Selsey.

Such then, as I see it, is the whole pith, mystery, outer form, common acceptation, purpose, usage usual, meaning and inner meaning, beauty intrinsic and extrinsic, and right character of Christmas Feast. Habent urbs atque orbis revelationem. Pray for my soul.