Stephen Leacock

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I am and have always been a fan of Stephen Leacock, every since I read his 1918 Frenzied Fiction.  If you read the stories through, you go from enthusiasm for the Great War (in "Father Knickerbocker") to, well, this (the end of "Merry Christmas"):

"But presently, perhaps," said Father Christmas, "if I
dry and mend them. Look, some of them were inscribed
already! This one, see you, was written '_With father's
love_.' Why has it never come to him? Is it rain or tears
upon the page?"

He stood bowed over his little books, his hands trembling
as he turned the pages. Then he looked up, the old fear
upon his face again.

"That sound!" he said. "Listen! It is guns--I hear them."

"No, no," I said, "it is nothing. Only a car passing in
the street below."

"Listen," he said. "Hear that again--voices crying!"

"No, no," I answered, "not voices, only the night wind
among the trees."

"My children's voices!" he exclaimed. "I hear them
everywhere--they come to me in every wind--and I see them
as I wander in the night and storm--my children--torn
and dying in the trenches--beaten into the ground--I hear
them crying from the hospitals--each one to me, still as
I knew him once, a little child. Time, Time," he cried,
reaching out his arms in appeal, "give me back my children!"

"They do not die in vain," Time murmured gently.

But Christmas only moaned in answer:

"Give me back my children!"

Then he sank down upon his pile of books and toys, his
head buried in his arms.

"You see," said Time, "his heart is breaking, and will
you not help him if you can?"

"Only too gladly," I replied. "But what is there to do?"

"This," said Father Time, "listen."

He stood before me grave and solemn, a shadowy figure
but half seen though he was close beside me. The fire-light
had died down, and through the curtained windows there
came already the first dim brightening of dawn.

"The world that once you knew," said Father Time, "seems
broken and destroyed about you. You must not let them
know--the children. The cruelty and the horror and the
hate that racks the world to-day--keep it from them. Some
day _he_ will know"--here Time pointed to the prostrate
form of Father Christmas--"that his children, that once
were, have not died in vain: that from their sacrifice
shall come a nobler, better world for all to live in, a
world where countless happy children shall hold bright
their memory for ever. But for the children of To-day,
save and spare them all you can from the evil hate and
horror of the war. Later they will know and understand.
Not yet. Give them back their Merry Christmas and its
kind thoughts, and its Christmas charity, till later on
there shall be with it again Peace upon Earth Good Will
towards Men."

His voice ceased. It seemed to vanish, as it were, in
the sighing of the wind.

I looked up. Father Time and Christmas had vanished from
the room. The fire was low and the day was breaking
visibly outside.

"Let us begin," I murmured. "I will mend this broken
horse."

You can find this book here:

http://www.online-literature.com/stephen-leacock/frenzied-fiction/

This man is fucking AMAZING.