Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-12-24
CHRISTINA

readers merry CHflstiHaS' IL Seiiioiui"
at the present time this holiday season
will be celebrated with more than the aver
age cheerfulness, for the year has been a
one from a business standpoint,
and farmers and merchants and miners
alike have done fairly we'll. OF course
Christmas cannot bring pleasure to every
one. There is no magic in it to cure the
pinch of poverty, to alleviate the pain of
illness, to atone for the loss of the loved
ones who have passed away. But since no
conceivable advances in prosperity and
progress can deliver us from death and
consequent unhappiness, it is the part OF
wisdom TO make the best of our condition,
whatever it is, and to enjoy, without
troubling ourselves over the future, the
comforts which are attainable. And it is
not necessary to be rich to do this. The
secret of happiness is contentment with
our present circumstances. The ragged
tramp may thus be happier than the
millionaire, and he who has nothing than
he whose every desire is within lis reach.
All these statements are truisms, no
doubt but human nature remains the same
that it was in the beginning of intellectual
life, and therefore whatever applies to it
is old and familiar. To say new things
about it one must say things which attain
originality by the sacrifice of truth. and
that is never worth while.
Christmas happiness, however, is more
easily attainable than most other kinds,
because it can be had by making other peo-
pie happy. Whoever seeks happiness
solely through self. qualification must be
disappointed, and ought to be disappoint-
eli. The only kind Of pleasure which
never pals is that which is found in altru-
ism. No doubt the depravity of mankind
is such that people often make believe to
find extreme pleasure in doing apparently
unselfsh things which if analysed would
appear anything but what they seem.
Thus the henpecked husband who buys
handsome presents for his very much bet
ter half at Christmas is really DESTROYS
rather of purchasing temporary domestic
peace for himself than of contributing to
her happiness. In the same way the man
WAC lavishss wealth upon his mother-in-
law at this season always supposing that
she lives with him), cannot be acquitted of
a selfish and in fact pusillanimous purpose.
We will not go so far as to say that the
average husband and wife are actuated by
any such hidden motives. On the con.
trary, we believe that they are moved
solely by honest affection, and that though
in some cases the husband knows that he
will presently be called on to pay the bill
for the gifts which his sweet spouse has be-
slowed upon him, SO powerful is the bond
of marital love that he succeeds in con-
cealing this knowledge even from himself,
while he expresses delight at the wholly
unexpected benefaction.
But after all it is the children who enjoy
the holiday most and who are the cause
of the greatest pleasure to Others. 1t is SO
serious business with the little people,
and every little present ELECTS from them
such disproportionate enthusiasm, that he
must be churl indeed who would not
crafty their innocent expectations. And
surely it has never been SO easy to spend
money at Christmas time, for Art has
stepped in to enrich the field of present.
giving, and the choice of really beautiful
things to be had at all possible prices is
quite bewildering. And then the Christ
mas card business has been wrought to
such pitch of elaborateness that we can
purchase for dollar really artistic and
fascinating memorial, far too pretty to
throw away when Christmas is over, and
capable of being worked into almost any
scheme of mural decoration. Estheti-
cism has done something for the world in
this direction, if it has vexed the genera
ton with "Anglo- Saxon attitudes and
unbearable furniture and household uglif-
cation generally. The Christmas cards in
fact are so cheap7and beautiful that every
body can have little bit of Art to give or
send away, and they are bright and pleas
ant things to receive, and well calculated
to make the receiver cheerful.
1t is good time, too, to think of the
distressed and afflicted, though it is al
ways good time for that. But man is so
constituted that he feels more charitable
when he has better dinner than usual in
prospect, and when his purse and heart
have both been opened by the necessity of
responding to the conventional demands of
Christmas. As to the young men and
maidens who are now exchanging presents
of marvellous kinds, they walk in an at
mosphere of their own, which excludes all
older people, and they possess language
and feeling of their own which we have
all shared at some time of our lives; which
we can all sympathize with but which a
great many of us have gone beyond Ito our
loss, no doubt. 1t is needless to adjure
these young people to enjoy Christmas.
They cannot help enjoying it, and in their
pleasure many elders will have to seek the
only faint reflex of vanished past at all
likely to come to them. But for all and
each we trust that the occasion will bring
good gifts and leave sunny memories, and
that the RECORD UNIONS Christmas story
will be read and approved wherever two or
three are gathered together all over the
Pacific coast, and in out-of-the-way quiet
places as well as in busy towns and cities,
and amid pine-clad mountains, and by the
side of clear streams, and where the miner
delves, and where the farmer plows and
that everywhere there will be at once the
materials for Merry Christmas, and the
promise of Happy New Year.
VIRGINIA REPUTATION.
A very impudent and dishonest attempt
is being made in some quarters to deceive