A Good Face The vexations of the season thicken around
us, like the fog through which the garish Christ- mas trees of Oxford Street and the artier oriental kings of Regent Street were glooming the other week. In one form or another anxiety neurosis tightens its grip. I have almost succumbed, like everybody. We must put a good face on it, Marie Battle told us recently. Well, of course; but there are limits. In my present mood I think well of the suggestion that the shopping streets which strangle themselves by putting up expensive overhead decorations might in future desist, and that the 'illuminations' might go up instead along the Embankment and the Mall. This would free the shopkeepers to exercise a little more imagina- tion on their window displays, which could do with improvement. Compared with those of Paris or New York, they are for the most part glum and tasteless. An extra touch of elegance would make our burdens more bearable.
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