The Drawer is led into these observations out of its love for Christmas.  It is impossible to conceive of any holiday that could take its place, nor indeed would it seem that human wit could invent another so adapted to humanity.  The obvious intention of it is to bring together, for a season at least, all men in the exercise of a common charity and a feeling of good-will, the poor and the rich, the successful and the unfortunate, that all the world may feel that in the time called the Truce of God the thing common to all men is the best thing in life.  How will it suit this intention, then, if in our way of exaggerated ostentation of charity the distinction between rich and poor is made to appear more marked than on ordinary days?  Blessed are those that expect nothing.  But are there not an increasing multitude of persons in the United States who have the most exaggerated expectations of personal profit on Christmas Day?  Perhaps it is not quite so bad as this, but it is safe to say that what the children alone expect to receive, in money value would absorb the national surplus, about which so much fuss is made.  There is really no objection to this—­the terror of the surplus is a sort of nightmare in the country—­except that it destroys the simplicity of the festival, and belittles small offerings that have their chief value in affection.  And it points inevitably to the creation of a sort of Christmas “Trust”—­the modern escape out of ruinous competition.  When the expense of our annual charity becomes so great that the poor are discouraged from sharing in it, and the rich even feel it a burden, there would seem to be no way but the establishment of neighborhood “Trusts” in order to equalize both cost and distribution.  Each family could buy a share according to its means, and the division on Christmas Day would create a universal satisfaction in profit sharing—­that is, the rich would get as much as the poor, and the rivalry of ostentation would be quieted.  Perhaps with the money question a little subdued, and the female anxieties of the festival allayed, there would be more room for the development of that sweet spirit of brotherly kindness, or all-embracing charity, which we know underlies this best festival of all the ages.  Is this an old sermon?  The Drawer trusts that it is, for there can be nothing new in the preaching of simplicity.

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF WRITERS

It is difficult enough to keep the world straight without the interposition of fiction.  But the conduct of the novelists and the painters makes the task of the conservators of society doubly perplexing.  Neither the writers nor the artists have a due sense of the responsibilities of their creations.  The trouble appears to arise from the imitativeness of the race.  Nature herself seems readily to fall into imitation.  It was noticed by the friends of nature that when the peculiar coal-tar colors were