CHRISTMAS FEATURES
HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1948,
Odd Facts "The Night Before Christmas
About
PRÓF HOURE
HE man who wrote the most cele. brated of all Christmas poems wasn't proud of,
Clement Clarke Moore, Ph.D., did not care to have his name identi- fed with the jingles that were, in apite of his wishes, to make him immortal. His A Visit to St. Nicholas, better known as The Night Before Christnine, was not published under his name for more than 20 years after he composed it, on the spur of the moment, on Christmas Eve, 1822.
A graduate of a divinity school who was never ordained. Dr. Moore was then professor of Greek and Oriental Literature In
the (Episcopal) General Theologl cal Seminary and the author of the. first Hebrow-English lexicon. He lived in a colonial mansion upon a slope just west of 9th Ave., be- tween 22nd and 23rd Sts., Man- hattan. The name of the estate, Chelsea, is still borne by that whole district of New York.
The professor's wife, Catharine
Taylor Moore, was making up "baskets for the poor of Trinity Parish that Christmas Eve when she discovered sho didn't have enough turkeys. She coaxed the professor from his library and sent him to the store to get more.
The streets through which he passed had real Christmas eve dress-snow and moonlight. The cheeriness of the crowds in the streets and everything warmed up the usually aloof 43-year-old schol ar As he walked in the street he suddenly had the vision of Christ mas as all children see it, and a poem about it formed in his mind When he reached home, he wrote down the lines and he read them that evening to his soven children.
He had no thought of publishing the jingles, or indeed, of the poem ever going beyond his family
first time, the jingles had become. a classic in the public domain, and he could not reap royalties from all the publications.
Ironically, the professor's seri- ous works are forgotten today, He is mentioned in encyclopedias be cause, he wrote the celebrated ́ Christmas verses,
Numorous direct descendents of Dr. Moore survive today'; 'severn! are in New York's Social Register. None live in Chelsea now, but Chel. sca still has a link with the author: there is an annual Clement Clarke. Moore Memorial Service at St. Peter's Episcopal Church, which he founded, endowed and served for yours as warden and organist, IIls residence no longer stands, but the childhood home where he him- self hung up Christmas stockings and waited for visits from St. Nicholas, survives in what is now
"Now, Dashort now Dancer?, new,
Prancer and Viren!
Blitzent
On, Comtell on Cupid?'on-Donder, and To the top of the porch! To the top of
the scall Ant Then, in a twinkling, I heard on the
rooj The
Ari
►
oof and pawing of each firstd:
arew
around,
in my head, and was turning
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came
with bound, He was dressed all in fur, from his head
to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with
ashes' and sool?
A bundle of toys he had flung on his
back,
And he looked like a peddler just open-
ing hin pack.
His cụco-how they trotskled! his dim-
ples how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nois lika
⚫ a cherry!
Ilia ciroli
little mouth was drawn up like
hearthalde. But it so happened Elmhurst, L. 1. His grave, in up. And the beard of his chin was as white
that a young relative, Sarah Har- riet Butler, visiting the Moores that Christmas, delightedly put a copy in her diary, and read it to her father, the Rev. David Butler, when she returned to her home in Troy, N. Y.
The minister sent it next year to a newspaper, where it appeared among the miscellany, Dec. 23. 1823. The author's name was not given. Other newspapers printed. the jingles. They were placed on Christmas giveaways of mer- chants. They quickly became known all over the country, to the Membarrassment of Dr. Moore, who feared to have it known he was the author. He considered it undigui fied for a man of his scholastic atanding, to be the author of chil dren's Jingles. Also, at that time, Christmas merriment of any kind was frowned upon by religious zealots; and the professor had to be mindful of his position in the church.
per Trinity Cemetery, at 165th St. and Broadway, is decorated each Dec. 24th by persons who remem. ber with affection his now death- less lines:
'Twas the night before Christmas, when
all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a The stockings were hung by the chimney
with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon peonid
be there:
The children were nestled all sung in
their beds,
While visions of sugar-pluma danced in
their heads;
And mamma in her kerchief and I in my
cap.
Has just settled our brains for a long
teinter's nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such.
a clatter,
sprang from the bed to see what was
the matter.
ན་
Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore
the shutters, and threw up the open rosk. The moon on the breast of the new-fallen Gave
luster of mid-day to objèrie what to my wondering eyes should appear,
Below
Twenty-two years later, when. he had finally acknowledged. au-When, thorship publicly, and A Visit to St. Nicholas was brought out in book form under his name for the
Prof. Moore as He Visualized Ills Poem, Returns *ing from Market on Christmas Eve Drawing Made Especially for This Magazine by the World Renowned Artist, WILLIAM BITARP.
But a miniature sleigh, and eight ting"
reindeer
With a little old driver, so lively and
gutek
know in a moment it must be St. Nick. More rapid than eagles his coursera
they came,
And he schiolled and shouted, and calles.
them by name;
The
de the know!
stung' of a pipe ko held tight in his. teeth, And the smoke it ancircled his head like
a wreath; Ile had a broad faço and a round little
"-、·*!!,; That
took when he laughed like a bowl-
of jetty. Jut of He was chubby and plump, a right jolly'
old
authed when I saw him, in spitó
of mu
maelf:
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head, Soon gave me to know I had nothing to
"dread;
He spoke not a wory, but wont straight
to his work,
And
And filled all the stockings; then turned,
with n jerk, iraka and giving a nod, up the chimney he
laping his finger eelda hie noes, pee
La sprang to his pleigh, to his team para
whistle,
24
And away they all flow like the down of
a thistles
But i heard him exclaim, ere he drove
out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a'
good night!"
---Coortery N. Y. Publie Library Prof. Moore's Home In the Chelsea Sec lion of New York City.
J