The writing is small and clear, with the upstrokes and downstrokes rather long in comparison with the level letters; but some small blurs and blots show that the letter was written in unusual haste. It ends with these words: "Smalley has written a letter full of shriekings and cursings about my innocent article; the Americans will get their notion of it from that, and I shall never be able to enter America again. "Ever yours, M. A." This was the last letter which Matthew Arnold ever wrote, and it closed a friendship which had been one of the joys and glories of my life. XXXVI CHRISTMAS "Christmas, now," as Mr. Brooke in "Middlemarch" might have said--"I went a good deal into that kind of thing at one time; but I found it would carry me too far--over the hedge, in fact." That, I imagine, pretty well represents the attitude of the adult world towards the feast which closes the year. We all loved it when we were young. Now, it is all very well for once in a way; it might pall if frequently repeated; even recurring only annually, it must be observed temperately and enjoyed moderately. Anything resembling excess would carry one too far--"over the hedge, in fact." But, within these recognized and salutary limits, Christmas is an institution which I would not willingly let die. In the days of my youth a Jewish lady caused me not a little consternation by remarking that it seemed very odd for Christians to celebrate the Feast of Redemption with gluttony and drunkenness. She lived, I am bound to say, in a very unregenerate village in a remarkably savage part of the country, and as, of course, she did not go to church, I dare say that Gluttony and Drunkenness were the forms of Christmas observance which most obtruded themselves on her notice. Even Cardinal Newman seems to have remarked the same phenomenon in his youth, though he satirized it more delicately. "Beneficed clergymen used to go to rest as usual on Christmas-eve, and leave to ringers, or sometimes to carollers, the observance which was paid, _not without creature comforts_, to the sacred night." Now all that is changed. Churches of all confessions vie with one another in the frequency and heartiness and picturesque equipment of their religious services. Even the _Daily Telegraph_ preaches Christmas sermons; and I very much question whether the populace gets more drunk at Christmas than at Easter. But, though we may have learnt to celebrate the festival with rites more devout and less bibulous, we have not yet escaped my Jewish friend's reproach of gluttony. The Christmas Dinner of the British Home is still a thing imagination boggles at. The dreadful pleasantries of the aged--their sorry gibes about the doctor and the draught; hoary chestnuts about little boys who stood up to eat more--remain among the most terrible memories of the Christmas dinner. And they were quite in keeping with the dinner itself. I say nothing against the Turkey, which (as