Life — December 4, 1913 — page 5: what you’re looking at

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

_LAMIHALIFE Heacitaa) The Christmas-Shopper’s Guide ECHANICAL TOY: An ingenious de- vice which, when wound up and set going, affords great amusement to the parents of young. boys and girls. Noah's Ark: A collection of chewing- paints of various colors, mounted on wooden blocks carved into animal-shape to appeal to the baby. Bonbons: A filling or stuffing material appropriate for young ladies. Nov Milk and water, prepared in suitable form to accompany the bonbons, Whiskey: Liquefied Christmas cheer. Locket: A woman's device for keeping a man hanging around. Opera-glass: An acceptable gift for the theatre-lover, enabling him to make out the clothes on the modern hero- ine or chorus girl. Socks: A convenient, last-minute purchase, which will do very well for father. Gift-book: Two or three hundred feet of Whitcomb Riley or “Alf” Tennyson with a Christy illustration every four or five feet. Money: A substitute for the imagination of the giver. Welcome everywhere. Christmas Card: An economical subterfuge serving for those whom you dare to leave out of the big list. Something Useful: A necessity disguised as an intra- family Christmas gift. Life’s Little Optimisms HAT the Christmas Spirit will some time be more as it once was than it is now is a fact which needs no elucidation. Not only is it unassailable; it is indis- putable and indubitable as well. How could it be otherwise? No man or woman whose prejudices are not petrified can fail to observe the mighty forces which are going forward and which make for the rehabilitation of all that is best in the Christmas ideal. Not by all odds. On the contrary, Charles Dickens was right. Christmas was never intended to be a buying debauch, a mere shopping scheme, a retailer’s revel or a rummage sale of fragilities. This is amply proved by all but the last few sections of history. Therefore a reaction must come. There is no reason to believe that Christmas should not yield with all our other institutions to the best interpretations of modern mental, political and sociological hygiene. The proof is within ourselves. Christmas is essentially a human ordeal. The human animal is essentially a reasoning animal. The inference is clear. We humans have too many magnates presenting us with too many libraries, the shelves of which are loaded with too many books of logic, to allow ourselves long to be misled by an unhealthy, subversive or untoward Christmas Spirit. Let us turn a glad face to the future. Let us look with uncongealed gladness upon what the days to come will bring. Let us look upon the next few years as an eraser which will expunge the blot which is now upon us, E.0.J. Senor is the art of making people wonder how much more one knows. BM BE MSE ABE AG -An Ideal Gt Ar the otorist COVERS EVERY Genuine Leather Binding t. New, York State N Middle West. » Far West. Your appreciation of the many pleasant hours spent in the tonneau of your friend’s car can best be shown by giving hima 1914 Automobile Blue Book. Certificates may be exchanged after April 15th, 1914, for any volume of the Blue Book or one Leather, Transparent Blue Book Holder(Morocco). Certificates sent direct upon receipt of $2.50—or on sale at all good Book Stores and Automobile Supply Houses. THE AUTOMOBILE BLUE BOOK PUB. CO. 908 S. Michigan Ave. 2162 Broadway Chicago, Illinois New York City