NOTE from the HUMBOLDT HISTORIAN: This editorial appeared in the Northern Californian on December 21, 1859, at the time when Bret Harte was employed on this paper. It was reprinted in the Newsletter (the predecessor of the Humboldt Historian) in December 1956, with a note from Martha Beer Roscoe that stated, “We are convinced, through stylistic evidence, and through comparison of it with articles known to have been written by Bret Harte during this period, that this editorial came from his pen. We have read many excellent editorials written by the able, but matter-of-fact Colonel Whipple, and so feel reasonably sure that this could have been written only by Bret Harte.”

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The annual season of festivity and enjoyment is at hand. Not as of old, with its crisp snow, its ringing sleigh bells, its icy airs, its bewildering shows, and fascinating shop windows. Not as remembered by the western wanderer in his memories of eastern homes, yet blessed as the anniversary of such memories. A few weeks, and old Christmas will be laid away in one of Time’s niches, as carelessly as its broken toys, and favored gifts, no longer new, are tossed upon the closet shelf. But we pity the man who can look back on such days without regret, or can open the dark closet of his memory without a sigh over its broken baubles. We have a proper respect for manliness, yet how many of man’s full-grown hobbies have their shattered prototypes on those same forgotten shelves!

It’s an old saying that “Christmas comes but once a year.” Take it as a popular excuse for an annual Saturnalia, for the unrestricted indulgence of animal appetite, for gluttony and drunkenness, and let us be thankful that it comes but “once a year.” But take it as the blessed mediator of estranged affection, recalling the past, reviving old loves and friendships and kindling and awakening new; bringing friendliness and generosity, “peace on earth and good will towards men;” recalling in deed as well as name the advent of the meek and holy One — and heaven knows it comes too seldom!

Here in this favored land, in the new homes you have built, in the land of strangers and wanderers, in the region of “tarrying,” of inquiet and unrest, as you gather round the social board, — “THINK OF THE ABSENT!”

Think of the ties, once sacred, broken and disregarded. Think of the friendships that have grown cold by neglect and absence. Think of the distant ones, whose hearts might have been gladdened by slight remembrance, or the potent magic of a kindly letter. Think of them at their best. The old true faith, the honest simple hearts, unchilled by fortune, and unchanged by time.

Sons and daughters, think of the gray heads and bowed figures in different lands — but close to the one undefined country —  think of the dim eyes that gaze wistfully at the vacant chair, and the trembling lips and broken accents that couple your name with a parent’s blessing. Parents, think of the unexperienced souls launched on the ocean of Life, — how many have been sucked into the giddy vortex of deceit and folly, how many have foundered in sight of port, how many tossed about by contending elements, rudderless and alone, lit up by fiery passions, have drifted like a blazing ship, into outer darkness. Think of the snares that trip the nimblest feet, and how the fatal sisters’ shears have severed many a silken thread on which your neighbor wove the web of future fancy. Think how the great white shore of Eternity, with its bleaching skeletons of mighty ships, is yet strewn with the wreck of many a fairy shallop.

Think of those who have no home. Think of those who have no kith or kindred. Think what it is, at such a season, to sit alone, apart from the sacred circles, with no fellowship or sympathy, isolated and secluded, with no gentle hand to touch the heart strings, no one to know its secret compass, no one to draw out its hidden latent melody. There are such around you everywhere. Every little hamlet in California contains such strange and voiceless heart-chords, unknown, unswept, but not unmusical.

Think of this at the recurrence of each festivity. Then “eat, drink, and be merry.” We are not moralizing, nor do we hold ourself strictly “virtuous;” nor would we keep any from their “cakes and ales,” but we believe that the feast leaves no headache behind, when Memory sits at the board and Charity sweetens the chalice.

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