GOOD OLDE ENGLAND
CHARLES DICNENS AND CHRISTMAS
"by Godfried Bomans
There once lived a philosopher whose name, alas, escapes me,
hut who, if I'm not mistaken, "belonged to the school of Epicu
rus I place him there for the following reasons after exten
sive experimentation he discovered (as ordinary people usually
discover much earlier) that the feeling of comfort descending
upon him just as he dropped off to sleep was immeasurably en
hanced if it was raining, storming, or hailing outside.. By in
tensive reflection, the niceties of which I sha.ll spare you, he
hit upon a means to heighten this pleasures he hired a man to
walk up and down under his bedroom window, wringing his hands,
stamping his feet, and now and then groaning "Brrr!"The strik
ing contrast between his own and his hireling's condition made
the philosopher feel that his bed was a fortress, a bastion of
capok, wooland down.
Although one is justified in disapproving the state of mind
that could give birth to such an idea, one does wrong to reject
the idea itself. It lies at the base of that delightful sensa
tion which the English call "cosiness" and the Dutch "knus."
Now, cosiness is immutably contingent upon the absolute cer
tainty that it is not cosy outside. Cosiness is not really
possible in the month of August. Cosiness presupposes a small
stronghold of comfort in a wild and desolate space. Rain must
pound against the windows, wind roar down the chimney, a grey
mist swirl round the house. Then, and then only, is the condi
tion satisfied which is defined by the old English saying, "My
home is my castle."
In Dickens, England possesses a writer who has elevated to a
veritable rapture this bourgeois feeling whose rather specious
roots I have just exposed. Dickens, an ordinary, healthy man,
was in fact beyond all bounds in his ordinary healthiness.
And he puffed up the sensation of impregnability to an orgy of
gratification, a bacchanal of cosiness, an ecstasy of little
contentments. At Christmas time, especially, this intoxication
mounted to his head. Then, like an oyster, he v/ould shut his
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