Life — December 2, 1899 — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

454 At Christmas Time. By Aones Rerrvier, HAT reconciles the adult mind to Christmas, to the annual exportof gold and import of undesirable commodities inseparable from the sacred scason, is the pleasure we feel at the reappearance of old familiar devices. Like the man who, being asked why he wrote with the back of his pen, answered sensibly, “because he always did,” we cling tenaciously to our traditions, and like best things hallowed by long acquaint- ance. Thus certain themes have, by common consent, been set apart for Christmas stories, and an acute writer is careful to avoid any offensive intrusion of novelty. There is, for example, the pernicious millionaire, who experiences a change of heart on Christmas Eve, AN AWFUL FATE. HERE was a naughty little girl who wouldn't sow her seam, And when sho went to bed at night she had an awful dream. She thought a great big sowing-bird camo hovering o'er her head, His claws wero fall of needles and his tall was made of thread. He whisked her off to a lonely isle where the thimble-berries grow, And there, hemmed in by cotton-trees, she had to ait and sow. Carolyn Wells, Dickens told us about him first many years ago; authors of less renown have been telling us about him ever since; and Mr. Thomas Nelson Page presen!s him once more to our consideration this winter—the same dear old millionaire of our childhood, dispensing dinners and partnerships on Christmas Day with all his accustomed vivacity. Angelic children doomed to early death enjoy a painful popu- larity with Christmas readers, The precise nature of their malady has never been ascertained, but a careful diagnosis proves that the disease invariably becomes malignant in December, and that the “HERE, WIFE, AFTRR I'VE SKIPPRD, HANG THIS ON THE DOOR A PICTURE 18 ONLY VALUABLE AFTER TUE ARTIST'S DEAD."