It is perfectly natural that Pickwick should be the character to inspire Dickens to those warm, whole-souled thoughts at a season when our enthusiasm is always more perceptible. A quotation from a preface prepared for an edition of his writings, which was designated in the dedication to John Forster as the best edition of his works, will allow us to realise the importance of Pickwick as such a vehicle. Dickens says: “It has been observed of Mr. Pickwick, that there is a decided change in his character, as these pages proceed, and that he becomes more good and more sensible. I do not think this change will appear forced or unnatural to my readers, if they will reflect that in real life the peculiarities and oddities of a man who has anything whimsical about him generally impress us first, and that it is not until we are better acquainted with him that we usually begin to look below these superficial traits, and to know the better part of him.” So here at the Manor Farm we find ourselves joining in those wholesome sports and human interests that make these Christmas chapters so contagious. “As brisk as bees, if not altogether as light as fairies, did the four Pickwickians assemble on the morning of the 22nd of December.” Who can resist such enthusiasm and not feel the purport of these lines. “And numerous indeed are the hearts to which Christmas brings a brief season of happiness and enjoyment. How many families whose members have been dispersed and scattered, far and wide, in the restless struggles of life are then reunited, and meet once again in that happy state of companionship and mutual good-will, which is a source of such pure and unalloyed delight and one so incompatible with the cares and sorrows of the world, that the religious belief of the most civilised nations and the rude traditions of the roughest savages alike number it among the first joys of a future condition of existence provided for the blessed and happy! How many old recollections, and how many dormant sympathies, does Christmas time awaken! “We write these words now, many miles distant from the spot at which, year after year, we met on that day, a merry and joyous circle. Many of the hearts that throbbed so gaily then have ceased to beat; many of the looks that shone so brightly then have ceased to glow; the hands we grasped have grown old; the eyes we sought have hid their lustre in the grave; and yet the old house, the room, the merry voices and smiling faces, the jest, the laugh, the most minute and trivial circumstances connected with those happy meetings, crowd upon our mind at each recurrence of the season, as if the last assemblage had been but yesterday! Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; and transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fireside and quiet home.”