THE MISANTHROPE
He supped on sorrow till his soul
Was sated with the noxious fare;
But not one drop of Love’s pure wine
Could his repleted spirit bear.
Clara Dargan Maclean.
THE STORY OF THE YEAR-GIFTS
TO BE TOLD TO THE CHILDREN ON NEW YEAR’S EVE
By Robert Wilson Neal
There was an old man, and he was very old indeed—so old that he did not know his own age, though he knew the age of every boy and girl, and every man and woman, and every city, and every country, in the world—so old that he had seen the mountains rise out of the land and the continents out of the great oceans. He was very, very old indeed, you see; the oldest man that ever was. He had long, white hair and a long, white beard that fell quite down to his waist.
But though he was so very old, he was very strong and healthy, so that no one ever thought that he would die. And because he was so, he was able to accomplish everything. He was never idle and never had been—no, not for one minute. He worked while people slept and while they played; no one ever knew him to stop. That is why he had done so very, very much. For he had formed great peoples so long ago that nobody but he knows anything about them; and many, many centuries ago had written wonderful stories that we still read; and had built great churches and palaces, and painted beautiful pictures, and carved beautiful statues, and composed wonderful music, and had discovered wonderful new ways of doing things and wonderful elements in earth and air that nobody had thought of, and had done so many things that ought to be done, that I believe a thousand men could not tell all of them if they wrote all their lives.
He was very good, too, for he meant that everything he did should make people happier. But oftentimes he made mistakes, and did things wrong, or seemed to, and then people suffered—sometimes only a few people for a little while, and sometimes many people for years and years. But as soon as he saw that he had done wrong or that things were not going as they should, he set to work to undo his mistake and make things come right; and he never stopped until he did this, so that people came to say that he would bring everything right in the end if only it were left to him. And though he was so busy and so old, he was always glad when he had done good and was always happy with people he had helped.
He had millions of children, too—millions alive and millions dead. All the people in the world were his children. If there were a baby Hottentot born, it was his; and if there were a little Greenlander born, that was his, too. Even the greatest man that ever lived, whom we all love, whether we think or not that he was just a man, like others, was his child, and knew it; for this is what he meant when he said, “The hour is come.”
Now you may be very sure that this kind, strange old man loved his children or he would not have worked so very long and hard for them. So every twelve months he gave each of them a wonderful present; not one kind of present for one and another for another, but just the same thing for everybody. The little beggar-boy, standing on his frost-nipped feet by the king’s road, got just the same as the king who rattled past in his chariot and never gave him even a copper; the poor Indian squaw, with nothing to wear but an old wolf skin, got just the same as the beautiful lady who had wonderful silken dresses and diamond necklaces and shoes with golden buckles. Yet everybody got just what he wanted, and would not even think of trading off his present for anything else in the world.
There never has been and never will be anything worth so much as a single one of these presents. If a boy, or a girl, or a man either, had all the silver mines of Mexico, and all the gold mines of the Yukon, and all the diamond fields of South Africa, they would not be worth as much as just one of these presents, for the presents could be used in any way and for anything. Yet all that this kind old man asked of people was, please to use the gifts the best they knew how. If they did so, they were all happier, but if they did not, they became very miserable, and even the gifts themselves were a sorrow to them.
Now there was a man and his wife who had a son they loved greatly; and they had made good use of their presents and were happy. But one day the boy said, “I want to take my presents now and go to college.” The mother was glad, but the father said, “The way to use them is the way I tell you. Then I’ll put mine with yours, and we will use them both together.”
“I cannot, father,” the boy said. “Mine were not meant to be used that way.”
Then the boy left home so that he could use his presents; and his mother died: and his father was angry towards him. The boy used as well as he knew how the presents he received, but he did not know well at first how to use them (though he learned after awhile), and he was very unhappy and his life was almost ruined. And his father continued angry with him, and misused all his presents after that, and was very miserable until he died; for he saw that what his son had done was right, yet he would not forgive when he was asked, and all the gifts he had received only made him feel the sadder.
Again, there was an old man who used his presents to make money. He had always used them so, and he meant always to use them so. He would not use them to help people who did not know how to use their own, no, not even to help a friend. But he could not do that, for nobody would be friends with such a man. He would not even use any part of them to serve his country when it was at war and needed him. And every twelve months he was more miserable, and swore he would give all the money he had made, just for a little happiness; yet every time he used his gifts in the same selfish way.
At last the old, old man sent word to this old man (who was nothing but an hour-old babe beside the other), that he might take back the next gift at any time. The money-lover trembled and shook; but in a little while he had forgotten all about his warning and was misusing the gift as he had done with all he ever had. Then came the old man one dark night, and snatched back the present from the miser. And the old man who had never used his presents well, screamed in his terror and fell back dead.
This stern, kindly old man gave his gifts to nations, too, for the nations were his children just the same as the boys and girls. Now one time, in midsummer, word was brought him that he had a new nation child.
“I declare,” he exclaimed, “I’ve only a piece of a present left for it. That will be enough, though; the child won’t live.”
But that was once the old man was wrong, for the child did live; and it made such good use of its present that he gave it another, and another, and another. And the nation kept growing, for it used his gifts wisely, and helped him to do away with many things that were not good; and at last it used his gifts to save weaker people from hunger, and sword, and what is worse than either.
And if there be such an old man now (I hope there is, don’t you?), I hope he has already taught us how to use his gifts; and if there be such a nation, the child of Father Time, I pray that God has made it wise enough so that the gifts of years will make certain centuries of existence.
