The story of The Gift of the Magi you retold below reminded me of a great tale by Giovanni Boccaccio in his Decameron. It's about a man, Federigo degli Alberighi, a wealthy Florentine who falls in love with Monna Giovanna and spends all his money giving parties in her honor, trying to conquer her heart with no success (she was already married). After losing everything, he goes to live in a small cottage in the countryside together with his last valuable thing: a beautiful trained falcon that he used to hunt.
One day Monna Giovanna's husband gets ill and dies, and for a while she dedicates herself only to her beloved son, a not very healthy boy. Looking for a good climate in order to invigorate him, they go for a sojourn in the country in the summertime, staying in a house near Federigo's. There the boy gets close to him and gets amazed by his falcon, spending hours giving orders to the bird, seeing it hunting and coming to alight on his arm. However, some time later, Monna Giovanna's son gets very ill. Suffering very much in bed, he says to his mom that in order to recover his good health he needs to have Federigo's falcon. She has no choice besides going to the neighbor's house and asking him the bird for her son.
When Federigo - who still loves her dearly - sees her coming to his house at lunchtime, he decides to offer her a good meal, but he has nothing that is good enough to cook, because now his living conditions are very poor. So, constrained by his circumstances, he decides to cook his most valuable thing to her: the falcon. The couple has a nice time, talking for long over their meal. But in the end, when Monna Giovanna asks him whether he can give her the falcon, he bursts into tears and tell her that he had already given it to her in the form of the lunch they had just had.
A few days later the boy gets worse and dies. After some time, Monna Giovanna's brothers start pressuring her to remarry. After a while she resolves to do it, choosing to marry Federigo, who had proved to be so generous and noble-hearted, and had suffered so much for her. Initially the brothers disapprove her choice, because Federigo is poor, but she remains adamant. Then Monna Giovanna and Federigo gets married and both live happily well and comfortable again, because she was a wealthy woman.
I expect that we always cultivate generosity towards each other and all the people we love. Money and material things are valuable only to the extent they can be used to provide us with comfort and things that are meaninful to our happiness. I am not interested in accumulating a fortune just for the sake of being rich and recognized by that. For you, no doubt I would be able to act like Federigo did.
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