object being the advancement of science! Perhaps you would do away with
the orgiastic eating and drinking, and arrange for a formal conversation
about astronomy and the idea of human fraternity, upon strictly
reasonable rations of shredded wheat! You would thus create an original
festival, and eliminate all fear of a dyspeptic morrow. You would
improve the mind. And you would avoid the ridiculous. But also, in
avoiding the ridiculous, you would tumble into the ridiculous, deeply
and hopelessly! And think how your very original festival would delight
the participators, how they would look forward to it with joy, and back
upon it with pleasurable regret; how their minds would dwell sweetly
upon the conception of shredded wheat, and how their faith would be
encouraged and strengthened by the intellectuality of the formal
conversation!

* * * * *

He who girds at an ancient established festival should reflect upon
sundry obvious truths before he withers up the said festival by the
sirocco of his contempt. These truths are as follows:--First, a
festival, though based upon intelligence, is not an affair of the
intellect, but an affair of the emotions. Second, the human soul can
only be reached through the human body. Third, it is impossible to
replace an ancient festival by a new one. Robespierre, amongst others,
tried to do so, and achieved the absurd. Reformers, heralds of new
faiths, and rejuvenators of old faiths, have always, when they
succeeded, adopted an ancient festival, with all or most of its forms,
and been content to breathe into it a new spirit to replace the old
spirit which had vanished or was vanishing. Anybody who, persuaded that
Christmas is not what it was, feels that a festival must nevertheless be
preserved, will do well to follow this example. To be content with the