MAKE-BELIEVE AND NEW YEAR 257 



we find, much to our regret, that it is necessary to spend 

 so large a part of our time." The power of make-believe 

 is almost limitless, and makes its appearance even in the 

 speechless infant of less than two years old, who will 

 gather fruit from a coloured picture, generously offer you 

 a bite, and pretend to swallow the rest itself. Make-believe 

 must have been a very big factor in the life, of the ape-like 

 predecessors of prehistoric man. 



Deception in the world of reality is very different from 

 make-believe, and a terrible thing. To the child decep- 

 tion in regard to real things, whatever excuses adults may 

 put forward in its defence, is well-nigh unforgivable. To 

 be one who never says " it is " when it is not, nor " it 

 will be " when it will not be that is to be a friend on 

 whom a child rests in perfect trust and happiness. 



What have these thoughts to do with the New Year ? 

 Merely this, that it is not only with and for children that 

 we make-believe at this season we all of us, more or 

 less, indulge in a make-believe about the New Year. As 

 the clock strikes its twelve notes at midnight on December 

 3ist, and all the bells of a great city are heard hovering in 

 the air, sending forth their sweet sounds from far and near 

 into the fateful night, there are few of us who have not a 

 feeling that a great event has occurred. A physical change 

 has set in the Old Year is dead and gone, and the New 

 year, something tangible, which you can let in at the door or 

 the window has just come into being, and is there waiting 

 for us. We are, of course, indulging in "make-believe," 

 for there is no New Year, with any natural, noteworthy 

 thing to mark its commencement, starting at midnight on 

 December 3ist. New Years begin every day and hour, 

 and it is by no means agreed upon by all nations of the 

 earth to pretend that the ist of January is the critical day 

 which we must regard as that portentous epoch, the begin- 

 ning of the New Year. This choice of a day was made by the 



17 



