Life — December 27, 1888 — page 22: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

6 > LIFE: indifferent to him, it is a failure; if you hate him, so far as concerns you, it is a catastrophe. You may suppose that to love your neighbor is a mat- ter of temperament, or of disposition, or of health, Those things have to do with it. Some men are good-natured because they have strength and a well-geared digestive ap- paratus, and to others the world is what Edwin Arnold calls “liver saddened"; but the Christmas feeling is much more than good-nature, and is not absolutely inconsistent with a reasonable degree of irritability. Thanks to Thomas Arnold's clever granddaughter, there will be more speculation this year than usual as to whether what happened eighteen hundred and eighty odd years ago was a vital matter to the world, or an event the importance of which has been greatly exaggerated. If you have never known the Christmas state of mind you may have doubts about the matter; but if you have known it—do know it, perhaps—you will be confident that the tidings that the shepherds heard was news of importance, and that it was on no fool's errand that the wise men came to Bethlehem. TO AN EMPIRE CANDLESTICK. ID you help to fasten a powdered cue, Or light the way for a naughty patch? Did you aid in sealing a billet-doux, Or the secret of some sweet love unlatch? Wm. Clyde Fitch, THE ADVANTAGES OF SNOW-SHOES. comicbooks.com