The Christmas Banquet

"I have here attempted," said Roderick, unfolding a few sheets of
manuscript, as he sat with Rosina and the sculptor in the summer-
house,--"I have attempted to seize hold of a personage who glides
past me, occasionally, in my walk through life. My former sad
experience, as you know, has gifted me with some degree of insight
into the gloomy mysteries of the human heart, through which I have
wandered like one astray in a dark cavern, with his torch fast
flickering to extinction. But this man, this class of men, is a
hopeless puzzle."

"Well, but propound him," said the sculptor. "Let us have an idea
of hint, to begin with."

"Why, indeed," replied Roderick, "he is such a being as I could
conceive you to carve out of marble, and some yet unrealized
perfection of human science to endow with an exquisite mockery of
intellect; but still there lacks the last inestimable touch of a
divine Creator. He looks like a man; and, perchance, like a better
specimen of man than you ordinarily meet. You might esteem him
wise; he is capable of cultivation and refinement, and has at least
an external conscience; but the demands that spirit makes upon
spirit are precisely those to which he cannot respond. When at last
you come close to him you find him chill and unsubstantial,--a mere
vapor."

"I believe," said Rosina, "I have a glimmering idea of what you
mean."

"Then be thankful," answered her husband, smiling; "but do not
anticipate any further illumination from what I am about to read. I
have here imagined such a man to be--what, probably, he never is--
conscious of the deficiency in his spiritual organization. Methinks
the result would be a sense of cold unreality wherewith he would go
shivering through the world, longing to exchange his load of ice for
any burden of real grief that fate could fling upon a human being."

Contenting himself with this preface, Roderick began to read.

In a certain old gentleman's last will and testament there appeared
a bequest, which, as his final thought and deed, was singularly in
keeping with a long life of melancholy eccentricity. He devised a
considerable sum for establishing a fund, the interest of which was
to be expended, annually forever, in preparing a Christmas Banquet
for ten of the most miserable persons that could be found. It
seemed not to be the testator's purpose to make these half a score
of sad hearts merry, but to provide that the stern or fierce
expression of human discontent should not be drowned, even for that
one holy and joyful day, amid the acclamations of festal gratitude
which all Christendom sends up. And he desired, likewise, to