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A Little Book for Christmas by Cyrus Townsend Brady

C >> Cyrus Townsend Brady >> A Little Book for Christmas




Do they have Christmas out West? Well, they have it in their hearts if
no place else, and, after all, that is the place above all others where
it should be.




A CHRISTMAS WISH

_For Everybody, Everywhere_


MAY peace and goodwill, prosperity and plenty, joy and satisfaction
abound in your homes and in your hearts this day and all days. May
opportunities for good work be many, and may you avail yourselves of
them all. May your sorrows be lightened, may your griefs be assuaged.
May your souls be fitted for what they must endure; may your backs be
strengthened for your burdens; may your responsibilities be met; may
your obligations be discharged; may your duties be performed. May love
abound more and more until the perfect day breaks in your lives. In
short, every wish that would be helpful, uplifting, and comforting, I
wish you at this hour and in all hours.

In the words of Tiny Tim.

"_God Bless us every one!_"

CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY.



FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: These loving and appealing verses were written by Harriet
F. Blodgett, of whom unfortunately I know absolutely nothing but her
name. I am sure, however, that if they had been written today another
verse, even more touching than those I have quoted, would have been
inspired by present conditions. And we should have seen "The Little
Christ" coming down between the lines in Flanders, on the Balkan
Frontier, amid the snows of Russia and the deserts of Mesopotamia, and
perhaps, as of old, even walking on the waters in the midst of the sea.]

[Footnote 2: This bit of personal history is reprinted from my book
_Recollections of a Missionary in the Great West_ by the courtesy of
Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, the publishers thereof. Incidentally
the reader will find much interesting matter in the way of reminiscence
and anecdote in that little volume, should he chance upon it.

There are some amusing things connected with the publication in serial
form of these episodes. The great magazine in which it appeared has very
strong views on certain subjects. Following out a policy which has
deservedly won them perhaps the largest circulation of any magazine in
the world it seemed to the editors necessary and desirable to make some
changes in the story as originally written and as it appears hereafter.

For instance the revised serial version made the cowboy lift the flask
of whiskey to his lips and then it declared that after a long look at
the sleeping children he put it down! I was quite agreeable to the
change. I remember remarking that the cowboy certainly did "put it
down." It was a way cowboys had in those bygone days; so the editor and
the author were both satisfied.

Another amusing thing I recall in connection with the serial publication
was this: The art editor of the magazine wrote to the officials of the
railroad, the name of which I gave in the first version but which I now
withhold, saying that the magazine had a story of a snow-bound train on
the railroad in question and asking for pictures of snow-bound trains to
help the artist illustrate it. By return mail came an indignant
remonstrance almost threatening a lawsuit because the railroad in
question, one of the southerly transcontinental roads, made a point in
its appeal to travellers that its trains were never snow-bound! The art
editor who was not without a vein of humour wrote back and asked if they
could furnish him with pictures of snow-bound trains on competing roads
and they sent him a box full! C.T.B.]

Copyright (c) 2007. bestextbooks.com. All rights reserved.

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Despite red faces over its fictional content, the Holocaust memoir that impressed Oprah Winfrey is still to be published
Articles published by guardian.co.uk Books

Obituary: Donald Westlake

The disputed Holocaust memoir which was dropped from Penguin Group's publication schedule at the end of December is set to appear as a work of fiction.

Herman Rosenblat's memoir - which Oprah Winfrey called "the single greatest love story" she had heard in two decades in television - recounted how as a teenage boy in a Nazi concentration camp, he was kept alive by the food which was thrown to him by a young girl, Roma Radzicky. Penguin's US imprint Berkley Books had planned to publish the story, which sees Rosenblat reunited with Radzicky on a blind date years later, as Angel at the Fence: the True Story of a Love That Survived, next month.

But a Holocaust historian said it would have been impossible to approach the fence in the Schlieben concentration camp to throw food over it, concluding that this part of the story was made-up. Berkley initially defended the book, saying it was a work of memory, but then decided to cancel its planned publication, and demanded the return of the advance it had made to Rosenblat. A $25m film based on the book, to be called The Flower of the Fence, is still going ahead, with production due to start this year.

Publisher York House Press based in White Plains, New York, has entered into a tentative agreement with the film production company to publish a novel based on the film script early this spring. It said the book would be "grounded in fact", and would rise "to the proper levels of artistic value, ethical conduct and social responsibility".

A spokesperson for York House Press condemned the attacks which were made on the 80-year-old Rosenblat after the veracity of his story was questioned, describing them as a "savage" response to what was otherwise "a credible, heart-wrenching, and verifiable account" of his time in the concentration camp.

"No deliberate untruth is permissible, but beneath any fabrication is motivation and intent. We believe Mr. Rosenblat's motivations were very human, understandable and forgivable," the spokesperson said. "It is beyond our expertise to know how Holocaust survivors cope with their trauma. Do they deny, try to forget, rationalise or fantasise and promote fiction along with truth? Perhaps the coping mechanisms are as individual as the survivors themselves."

The president of the company producing the film, Harris Salomon from Atlantic Overseas Productions, said the book, "regardless of its shortcomings", would "challenge, educate and enlighten" readers about the horrors of the Holocaust. "The documented fact, acknowledged by his critics, is that Herman is a survivor of concentration camps," he said.

But Rosenblat's agent, Andrea Hurst, said that neither she nor Rosenblat were involved with this version of his story. "Usually book rights from films come out after the movie is released," she told guardian.co.uk. "I think the timing on this is very insensitive."

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