ve always been ceasing to be children. It follows also that the
festival was originally got up by disillusioned adults, for the benefit
of the children. Which is totally absurd. Adults have never yet invented
any institution, festival or diversion specially for the benefit of
children. The egoism of adults makes such an effort impossible, and the
ingenuity and pliancy of children make it unnecessary. The pantomime,
for example, which is now pre-eminently a diversion for children, was
created by adults for the amusement of adults. Children have merely
accepted it and appropriated it. Children, being helpless, are of course
fatalists and imitators. They take what comes, and they do the best they
can with it. And when they have made something their own that was adult,
they stick to it like leeches.

They are terrific Tories, are children; they are even reactionary! They
powerfully object to changes. What they most admire in a pantomime is
the oldest part of it, the only true pantomime--the harlequinade! Hence
the very nature of children is a proof that what Christmas is now to
them, it was in the past to their elders. If they now feel and exhibit
faith and enthusiasm in the practice of the festival, be sure that, at
one time, adults felt and exhibited the same faith and enthusiasm--yea,
and more! For in neither faith nor enthusiasm can a child compete with a
convinced adult. No child could believe in anything as passionately as
the modern millionaire believes in money, or as the modern social
reformer believes in the virtue of Acts of Parliament.

Another and a crowning proof that Christmas has been diminished in our
hearts lies in the fiery lyrical splendour of the old Christmas hymns.
Those hymns were not written by people who made-believe at Christmas for
the pleasure of youngsters. They were written by devotees. And this age
could not have produced them.

* * * * *

No! The decay of the old Christmas spirit among adults is undeniable,
and its cause

John Holland Rose (1855-1942) was an influential English historian who wrote a famous biography of French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and also wrote a history of Europe, entitled The Development of the European Nations. Rose was the basis for C. P. Snows fictional character M. H. L. Gay (see Years of Hope: Cambridge, Colonial Administrator in the South Seas, and Cricket by Philip Snow.)

Robert Grant may refer to: