uld not be
better timed. Further, its traditional spirit of peace and goodwill is
the very spirit which we desire to foster. And finally its customs--or
at any rate, its main customs--are well designed to symbolize that
spirit. If we have allowed the despatch of Christmas cards to degenerate
into naught but a tedious shuffling of paste-boards and overwork of
post-office officials, the fault is not in the custom but in ourselves.
The custom is a most striking one--so long as we have sufficient
imagination to remember vividly that we are all in the same boat--I
mean, on the same planet--and clinging desperately to the flying ball,
and dependent for daily happiness on one another's good will! A
Christmas card sent by one human being to another human being is more
than a piece of coloured stationery sent by one log of wood to another
log of wood: it is an inspiring and reassuring message of high value.
The mischief is that so many self-styled human beings are just logs of
wood, rather stylishly dressed.

* * * * *

And then the custom of present-giving! What better and more convincing
proof of sympathy than a gift? The gift is one of these obvious
contrivances--like the wheel or the lever--which smooth and simplify
earthly life, and the charm of whose utility no obviousness can stale.
But of course any contrivance can be rendered futile by clumsiness or
negligence. There is a sort of Christmas giver who says pettishly: "Oh!
I don't know what to give to So-and-So this Christmas! What a bother! I
shall write and tell her to choose something herself, and send the bill
to me!" And he writes. And though he does not suspect it, what he really
writes, and what So-and-So reads, is this: "Dear So-and-So. It is
nothing to me that you and I are alive together on this planet, and in
various ways mutually dependent. But I am bound by custom to give you a
present. I do not, however, take sufficient interest in your life to
know what object it would give you pleasure to possess; and I do not
want to be put to the trouble of finding out, nor of obtaining the
object and transmitting it to you. Will you, therefore, buy something
for yourself and send the bill to me. Of course, a sense of social
decency will prevent you from spending more than a small sum, and I
shall be spared all exertion beyond signing a cheque. Yours insincerely
and loggishly * * *." So managed, the contrivance of present-giving
becomes po