Surely no man in his senses, no woman in hers, would, etc., etc. * * *!
But one of the spiritual advantages of feasting is that it expands you
beyond your common sense. One excess induces another, and a finer one.
This acceptance of the ridiculous is good for you. It is particularly
good for an Anglo-Saxon, who is so self-contained and self-controlled
that his soul might stiffen as the unused limb of an Indian fakir
stiffens, were it not for periodical excitements like that of the
Christmas feast. Everybody has experienced the self-conscious reluctance
which precedes the putting on of the cap, and the relief, followed by
further expansion and ecstasy, which ensues after the putting on.
Everybody who has put on a cap is aware that it is a beneficial thing to
put on a cap. Quite apart from the fact that the mysterious and fanciful
race of children are thereby placated and appeased, the soul of the
capped one is purified by this charming excess.

* * * * *

And the Tree! What an excess of the fantastic to pretend that all those
glittering balls, those coloured candles and those variegated parcels
are the blossoms of the absurd tree! How excessively grotesque to tie
all those parcels to the branches, in order to take them off again!
Surely, something less medieval, more ingenious, more modern than this
could be devised--if symbolism is to be indulged in at all! Can you
devise it, O sceptical one, revelling in disillusion? Can you invent a
symbol more natural and graceful than the symbol of the Tree? Perhaps
you would have a shop-counter, and shelves behind it, so as to instill
early into the youthful mind that this is a planet of commerce! Perhaps
you would abolish the doggerel of crackers, and substitute therefor
extracts from the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin! Perhaps you would
exchange the caps for blazonry embroidered with chemical formula, your