Now, there is much to be said in favour of the Emersonian theory of giving. Certainly it has the advantages of cheapness and convenience. Many a poet could more easily give his friend a whole ode or a sequence of sonnets or a bale of vers libre than he could give a box of cigars, or a cigar. Many a painter could more easily cover his children’s Christmas tree with his own cubist canvases than with peppermint canes and toy locomotives and dolls and little trumpets. A storekeeper or a manufacturer of any sort can more easily select his gifts from his own stock than he can select them elsewhere. Should a brewer, for instance, desire to help make Mr. Bryan’s Christmas happy, it would be a simpler matter for him to put in that gentleman’s stocking a case of beer than a case of grape juice. But cheapness and convenience are not the chief reasons for this sort of giving. A poet who gives a poem when he should give a pair of fur gauntlets, a painter who gives a painting when he should give a doll, does so, it often happens, in spite of the fact that he has thousands of dollars in the bank and lives within a block of a department store, which he much enjoys visiting. He gives the gifts that he does give because of his selfishness and conceit. He gives his own wares because they advertise his talent. The poet knows that his friend will not say, to inquiring admirers of his fur gauntlets, “These were given me by Ezra Dusenbury, author of ‘Babylonian Bleatings’ and other Lyrics: Smith, Parker & Co., $1 net.” The painter knows that the infant he has enriched will not say to her young companions: “‘Bettina’ was given me by the illustrious Gaspar Slifestein whose incomprehensiblist canvases are now on exhibition at the Microscopic Mania Gallery, 249 Fifth Avenue, New York City.” These gentlemen take a violent interest in their own work, and when they give presents of that work they are trying to force their friends to share that interest and to extend it to all the world. They are trying to force their friends to become their press agents. Of course there are exceptions to the rule that a giver should not give his own wares. Any man who deals in wares that are universally delightful may express himself in his gifts to his heart’s content and no one will criticise him. So let no brewer or cigar-maker or money-changer of my acquaintance puzzle his head long in the effort to discover in the marts of the world something appropriate to my peculiar tastes. These honest citizens may be as Emersonian in their giving as they wish. As I said, there is much to recommend the idea that inspired the hypothetical dentist on his Yuletide denting; there is much to recommend the gift-expressing-the-giver theory. It is convenient, it is cheap, it is satisfying to the giver’s conceit. It is in many respects excellent. But it does not happen to be suited to Christmas Day. It is suited to the celebration of Emerson’s birthday, if any one knows the date of that festival.