Transcription:
-2- this world that really deserve pity? The unlucky? No. The sick? No. The poor? No. Who then? The unhappy - they and they
only. And I am not unhappy. On the contrary, hut for my knowledge that those who are dear to me are often troubled with fears
on my account, I could truthfully say that this is the happiest period of my life. Of the particular reason for that I will
speak in a moment. My purpose in sending you this message is to wish you all the compliments of this joyous season, and to
let this take the place of the handshake and the casual words of kindness and friendship that would pass between us, if I
were going about and should meet you on the street or at the club or at some public affair. I am not so churlish as to fear
that I may be forgotten, but it is a comfort to be able to assure myself that I am on a direct, live circuit with my friends
at least once a year. Therefore, if you are disposed to write a word or two in response - a mere salutation and your autograph
will do at a pinch in this step lively world - I will put it with others in a special scrap-book to be labeled Christmas 1912
, to go on the shelves as one of my most precious possessions. Now to explain about that matter of happiness: I have discovered
that four years of illness coming to one who has led a life of considerable activity has one surprising form of compensation
- it gives him a chance to think. There is so much to think about in this big and wonderful world that it is a pity we can
so seldom take a good crack at it. Life was always an utter mystery to me awesome and tantalizing. At times the sense that
there was something I ought to understand, and did not, half terrified me, but usually 05331