Life — December 25, 1902 — page 54: what you’re looking at

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

Pe ATF LIFE Serf THE WRONG STORE. Shopper No. 1: nee 1 HAVEN'T QUITE DECIDED WHAT TO GIVE HOW MCCH AKE THOSE PLAIN BRACELETS? “ONLY A HUNDRED AND TWENTY DOLLARS. SENT. OR TAKE IT Wid You?” WILL You AVR It THE RETURN OF CHRISTMAS. "THERE is an old song which says something about Christmas com- ing but once a year. It says it rather regretfully, as though the writer would have liked Christmas to come every quarter ; but this seems hardly within the bounds of possibility. To be sure, he wrote his song in those happy, care- less days, when the keeping of Christ- mas meant the burning of a Yule log, a great deal of eating and drinking (which never comes amiss), and some kindly feeding of the poor. Once a year is not too often for this sort of festivity ; but the strain of a modern Christmas could best be borne twice or thrice in a lifetime. Weshould then face it with courage, perhaps even with enthusiasm ; and recover our mental, physical and financial balance before the next celebration came round. Setting aside the main feature of the case, as it presents itself to-day—the purchase of Christmas gifts with which to burden our friends’ li the are other aspects which carry weariness to the soul. There are the annual inflictions of Christmas litera. ture—a courteous phrase—and of Christmas art. There are the Decem- ber magazine stories about ghosts, and dolls, and washerwomen's children, and newsboys of a type known only to the writer of fiction. There are news. paper articles upon ‘Early English Carols" and ‘Christmas Customs of the Olden Time.’’ There are the ever recurrent verses in which glittering stars and pealing chimes have served a century's apprenticeship, And there are the familiar inanities of the illus- trated weekly to undermine whatever intelligence may be left. If we will summon courage to look back over the Christmas copies of the Graphic and the London News for the past twenty-five years, we will realize the fearfal strain of designing colored supplements, of providing the great English-speaking nations with the Baby-Come-to-Supper school of art in which their souls delight. Think of the unhappy illustrator arranging and rearranging his well-known groups season after season. Hero is a hand- some young officer in his brilliant uniform lifting a little, fair-haired comicbooks.com