I shall be able to send you only one more letter, as I return in a few days--by balloon this time, I think, instead of by tunnel. VII. CHRISTMAS DAY. MY GOOD HANNEVIG: I have only just time to send you one more incident and scene. It being, as you may have observed at the top of my letter, Christmas Day, I was curious to see how this festival would be observed here. Somewhat to my surprise I observed that the population went about their avocations just as usual. Then I reflected, in a country, where every day after eleven in the morning a true holiday sets in, there being nothing for any one to do except to enjoy himself, it would be difficult fitly to celebrate any special fete day. In point of fact, there are none such. The people voted them out of the calendar, saying they had all they could do to kill the ordinary enjoyment hours of each week without having to invent new games or occupations for a dozen different feast days. So all holidays are prescribed by law except Christmas. This day is kept up for two reasons--because it is thought to be an excellent time to show off the children brought up by the State to the people, and also because on Christmas Day each child is allowed to spend the day at home. The exercises of the day began at the great Ethical Temple. Here ten thousand children were gathered to listen first to a lecture on the history of Christmas. There was a play in which Santa Claus appeared and a number of other legendary characters, to show the children in what mythological, absurd beings the children of the unenlightened nineteenth century believed in. Then ten thousand toys were distributed, dolls and whips and tops, and sleighs and skates. But as all were distributed indiscriminately by State officers to the children as they passed out on review, of course all the boys got the dolls and the girls the whips and tops. An hour afterward, outside the great building, I saw groups of the children doing a tremendous exchange, far more interested in bartering damaged dolls for shining skates than in endeavoring to establish the identity of their own parents, whom, indeed, having only seen a few times in the course of their lives, they barely know by sight. I was slowly walking homeward, speculating on these and other revelations made by a more intimate knowledge of the workings of this great community, when I encountered a familiar face. It was that of my young lady-friend, whose conversation I reported to you above. She joined me and we walked on together. “I hear you are going back to Sweden; is it true?” she asked. “Yes, I return in a few days.” “But you have enjoyed your trip--and--us?” “Immensely. You are a wonderful country.”