ALTRUISM

Christmas is supposed to be an altruistic festival. Then, if ever, we
allow ourselves to go out to others in sympathy expressed by gifts and
good wishes. Then self-forgetfulness in the happiness of others becomes a
temporary fashion. And we find--do we not?--the indulgence of the feeling
so remunerative that we wish there were other days set apart to it. We
can even understand those people who get a private satisfaction in being
good on other days besides Sunday. There is a common notion that this
Christmas altruistic sentiment is particularly shown towards the
unfortunate and the dependent by those more prosperous, and in what is
called a better social position. We are exhorted on this day to remember
the poor. We need to be reminded rather to remember the rich, the lonely,
not-easy-to-be-satisfied rich, whom we do not always have with us. The
Drawer never sees a very rich person that it does not long to give him
something, some token, the value of which is not estimated by its cost,
that should be a consoling evidence to him that he has not lost
sympathetic touch with ordinary humanity. There is a great deal of
sympathy afloat in the world, but it is especially shown downward in the
social scale. We treat our servants--supposing that we are society
--better than we treat each other. If we did not, they would leave us. We
are kinder to the unfortunate or the dependent than to each other, and we
have more charity for them.

The Drawer is not indulging in any indiscriminate railing at society.
There is society and society. There is that undefined something, more
like a machine than an aggregate of human sensibilities, which is set
going in a "season," or at a watering-place, or permanently selects
itself for certain social manifestations. It is this that needs a
missionary to infuse into it sympathy and charity. If it were indeed a
machine and not made up of sensitive personalities, it would not be to
its members so selfish and cruel. It would be less an ambitious scramble
for place and favor, less remorseless towards the unsuccessful, not so
harsh and hard and supercilious. In short, it would be much more
agreeable if it extended to its own members something of the
consideration and sympathy that it gives to those it regards as its
inferiors. It seems to think that good-breeding and good form are
separable from kindliness and sympathy and helpfulness. Tender-hearted
and charitable enough all the individuals o