Life, 1900-12-01 · page 32 of 44
Life — December 1, 1900 — page 32: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Life* magazine contains three decorative cartoon strips at the top satirizing New Year's celebrations around the turn of the 20th century. The caption indicates these show "the nations all drew near, at the close of the XIX century" making resolutions, followed by disappointment as "the opening of the XX century is laden with disappointment." The cartoons depict various national figures (likely represented as caricatures) celebrating, toasting, and then deflating—a commentary on unfulfilled optimism about the new century's arrival. Below are two prose pieces: "A Romance," a humorous short poem about mistletoe reuniting separated lovers who were standing close together, and "On the Making of Gifts," an essay satirizing the anxious Christmas gift-giving tradition. The essay ironically argues that truly thoughtful gift-giving requires selecting items so utterly *useless* that the recipient cannot mistake material value for spiritual sentiment—poking fun at Victorian gift-giving pretensions and social anxiety.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
ap BUT THE OPENING OF THR XX CENTURY 18 LADEN WITH DISAPPOINTMENT, A Romance. LITTLE sprig of mistletoe Ono Christmas evo was fated To rounite a man and maid Who had been separated. ‘Twas not a feat so difeult As to inspire with wonder, Because, you seo, the man and maid Wero but a foot asunder. James Barrett Kirk. On the Making of Gifts. “‘ HRISTMAS is one of those inevitable institutions, which, together with its weight of blessings, carries with it also a sense of duty and a feeling of guilt in not doing unto others what we should rather not have them do to us. When we think of all the things we get for Christmas that we would rather not bave, and realize how painstaking our dearest friends have been to supply them to us, we may well consider with some despair the gifts we have given which we know too late have not been as inappropriate and useless as they might have been had more forethought been expended. The world moves so swiftly in these days, and Christmas comes on apace with such rapidity, that we do not give the subject that orderly consideration which it merits; and at the last moment we select haphazard a lot of things that we cannot afford, and many of which, in the confusion, may be just what the recipients have wanted. When I give my friend something that he may want, I am really violating the joyous Yuletide tradition. I am assum- ing that he cares more for the gift than the spirit in which it is given. I am distracting his attention from this spirit to some coarse, material thing, and I am placing him under obli- gation to me, The spirit under which the gift is bestowed is everything, and it should be so differentiated, so placed above all other things, that it may be viewed alone, apart, as a thing by it- self, The only way to do this, of course, is to buve the gift so utterly useless, so foreign to all desire, that this spirit stands out in its true relations, and we realize that only this