This is a sacrament, I think!
Holding the bottle toward the light,
As blue as lupin gleams the ink:
May Truth be with me as I write!

That small dark cistern may afford
Reunion with some vanished friend,--
And with this ink I have just poured
May none but honest words be penned!




OLD THOUGHTS FOR CHRISTMAS

[Illustration]

A new thought for Christmas? Who ever wanted a new thought for
Christmas? That man should be shot who would try to brain one. It is an
impertinence even to write about Christmas. Christmas is a matter that
humanity has taken so deeply to heart that we will not have our festival
meddled with by bungling hands. No efficiency expert would dare tell us
that Christmas is inefficient; that the clockwork toys will soon be
broken; that no one can eat a peppermint cane a yard long; that the
curves on our chart of kindness should be ironed out so that the "peak
load" of December would be evenly distributed through the year. No
sourface dare tell us that we drive postmen and shopgirls into
Bolshevism by overtaxing them with our frenzied purchasing or that it is
absurd to send to a friend in a steam-heated apartment in a prohibition