SPRING AND WINTER PASTIMES 203 



one season of the year when munificence is not 

 only fashionable but necessary. Generosity, 

 which at other times occupies an inconspicuous 

 position in men's thoughts — being often associ- 

 ated with " good nature " as one of the few 

 redeeming virtues of the scapegrace and the 

 spendthrift — becomes common enough in De- 

 cember, when the most parsimonious are im- 

 pelled to unbutton their purses, and the most 

 miserly give way to seasonable bouts of liber- 

 ality. The habit does not long obtain, and 

 with some justice may the cynic ridicule that 

 prevailing epidemic of generosity which would 

 seem to be only infectious for a brief winter 

 month, and to which men are apparently im- 

 mune during the remainder of the year. 



It is, indeed, the modern fashion to sneer at 

 Christmas presents, to complain of the trouble 

 attached to their purchase, of the burden en- 

 tailed in their receipt and acknowledgment. 

 But the habit thus criticized is one which we 

 should be loath to forego; the attitude of mind 

 that it engenders is essentially a wholesome one, 

 the ordeal undergone by giver and recipient is 

 not altogether intolerable. Christmas has a 

 beneficial effect in more ways than one. It in- 

 spires a spirit of unselfishness in the heart of 

 man, and it also stimulates the inventive genius 

 of the whole human race. For, while the choice 



