FIVE

DEFENCE OF FEASTING


And now I can hear the superior sceptic disdainfully questioning: "Yes,
but what about the orgy of Christmas? What about all the eating and
drinking?" To which I can only answer that faith causes effervescence,
expansion, joy, and that joy has always, for excellent reasons, been
connected with feasting. The very words 'feast' and 'festival' are
etymologically inseparable. The meal is the most regular and the least
dispensable of daily events; it happens also to be an event which is in
itself almost invariably a source of pleasure, or, at worst, of
satisfaction: and it will continue to have this precious quality so long
as our souls are encased in bodies. What could be more natural,
therefore, than that it should be employed, with due enlargement and
ornamentation, as the kernel of the festival? What more logical than
that the meal should be elevated into a feast?

"But," exclaims the superior sceptic, "this idea involves the idea of
excess!" What if it does? I would not deny it! Assuredly, a feast means
more than enough, and more than enough means excess. It is only because
a feast means excess that it assists in the bringing about of expansion
and joy. Such is human nature, and it is the case of human nature that