Festing

“ Butler had very little insight into the "temperament" of Pauli, and the whole of the extraordinary story increases our conviction that this sardonic and sarcastic analyst of imaginary life was as powerless as a child in face of reality. The dreadful Pauli adventure, told for the first time by Mr. Festing Jones, in his deliberate, unimpassioned way, is the most amazing revelation of simplicity traded upon by fraud that it is possible to imagine. ”

“ In fact, one learns in England that one's views about many things—— But I'm talking nonsense."
"No," said Maud. "You have told me what you feel; now tell me what you do."
Festing, who was on surer ground, did his best. He wanted her to understand something of the strain and effort the Western farmers bore and made. He told her of their anxiety about the June rain, and how they watched the clear green sky in autumn, when early frosts nip the ripening wheat. ”

“ I'm afraid we're rather a materialistic lot on the plains. You see, life has graces we can't enjoy, and, perhaps, foolishly despise. It's well to rely upon oneself, but at times one gets lonely—horribly lonely in the bitter winter nights. Even the farm books pall; you begin to feel you want something more."
"Are you describing Bob Annet's feelings now, or yours?"
Festing made an abrupt movement. "I believe I'm talking about my own."
The girl smiled. "Romance calls to everybody, but many will not hear. After all, I suppose some of the prairie farmers do fall in love." ”

“ In fact, I rashly undertook a troublesome job for a friend."
"Friends have a way of putting things like that on you, if you're not careful," said the other.
Then it got suddenly cold and very damp, and the light-haired girl rose with a little cry of annoyance. The valley below was filled with mist, which overflowed and streamed across the mountain tops, and the wind began to roar among the gullies. The fog got thicker, and Festing understood the risk of going down, since a few yards in the wrong direction might lead one over the edge of a precipice. ”

“ The stones were undisturbed and not scratched by nails, but the girl went on with the fearless confidence and grace of a mountain deer, and he helped her companion as well as he could. At length the big stones ended, and a smooth slope of gravel ran down into the mist. It looked nearly perpendicular, but a path a few inches wide, which the mountain sheep had made, crossed it obliquely. Festing's nerve was good, but he hesitated.
"I suppose it's safe?" he said.
"It's not really dangerous," the girl replied. ”

“ Miss Kenrick was obviously Annet's choice, and, as he had rashly given his promise, he must do his best for Bob.
"Bob's a very good fellow, and the right man for Canada. Nothing tires him; I think he revels in difficulties. He has had a few bad setbacks, but he's the kind of fellow that trouble nerves. He's cool, steady as a rock, and essentially practical."
"Yes," she agreed, "Bob was like that. But I suppose he has some faults?"
Festing pondered. He was Bob's friend, but the girl ought to be warned.
"He has certainly no weaknesses, but perhaps one's useful virtues can be too marked. ”

“ They give two performances every day, from six to eight and from nine to eleven, all the year round, Sundays and festas included, unless some irremovable obstacle, such as an illness or a wedding in the family, or the death of the king or an earthquake, necessitates the closing of the theatre. Nearly all the rest of every day they are cleaning up and preparing for the next performance. ”

“ The Origin and Purpose of Festivals—Ideas suggested by Christmas—Pagan and Christian Elements—The Names of the Festival—Foundation of the Feast of the Nativity—Its Relation to the Epiphany—December 25 and the Natalis Invicti—The Kalends of January—Yule and Teutonic Festivals—The Church and Pagan Survivals—Two Conflicting Types of Festival—Their Interaction—Plan of the Book.
It has been an instinct in nearly all peoples, savage or civilized, to set aside certain days for special ceremonial observances, attended by outward rejoicing. ”

“ FEASTS AND FESTIVALS. A festival or feast [1] is a day or series of days specially and publicly set apart for religious observances. Whether its occurrence be casual or periodic, whether its ritual be grave or gay, carnal as the orgies of Baal and Astarte, or spiritual as the worship of a Puritan Sabbath, it is to be regarded as a festival or “holy day” as long as it is professedly held in the name of religion.
To trace the festivals of the world through all their variations would be to trace the entire history of human religion and human civilization. ”

“ The word "fair" is derived from the Latin word feria, which means a festival, the parish feast day. On the festival of the patron saint of a village church crowds of neighbours from adjoining villages would flock to the place, the inhabitants of which used to keep open house, and entertain all their relations and friends who came from a distance. They used to make booths and tents with boughs of trees near the church, and celebrated the festival with much thanksgiving and prayer. ”

“ At the minor festival preceding the Great Feast, the usual invitation stakes planted before the dead are supplemented by others placed before the graves of those in whose honor the festival is to be given. ”

“ Throughout the entire fortnight, the houses, both of bride and bridegroom, are flung open to all corners;—feasting and song occupy the day—feasting and song occupy the hours of the night, and this continued revel is only broken by the ceremonies of which we have endeavoured to convey a faint idea. In these festivals the sages or ulemma take a distinguished part, doing their utmost to ruin the contracted parties, by the wonderful despatch which they make of the fowls and viands, sweetmeats, and strong waters provided for the occasion. ”

“ It was the last day of carnival, which is the most noisy festival of the year, when a fever of joy, a mania of amusement, unparalleled in any other country, seized the Roman people. Everybody is disguised; hardly does there remain at the windows, an unmasked spectator: the scene of gaiety commences at a given hour on a certain day, and scarcely ever does any public or private event of the year hinder any person from joining the sports of the season. ”

“ Of folks-festivals, with processions, illuminations, and fireworks, always the same, now in honor of one saint, now of another, and frequently of the Madonna, we have generally two every week. The brilliant parts of the festival, are often very brilliant and tasteful; but the horrible explosions of powder-men, which are set up, like a kind of mustard-pot, in rings and rows on the square, which tumble about everywhere, after they have exploded; the smoke which they occasion, and the incessant jingling of bells, disturb our hearing, our eye-sight and all our other senses. ”

“ But in autumn the prospect is as fair. The harvest is over; the earth, bronzed by the summer heat, is resting after her labour and nature is making variations in the ochres and umbers that in spring were half hidden, huddled together in the steep places where nothing will flourish ”

“ They form an organic whole, constituted in accordance with one definite idea, consisting of the three great festivals Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, each in itself the centre of a special season. The foundations and heart of the whole festal system of the Church were given by a higher Hand, and only the development—the much less important part of the whole—is to be attributed to the thoughts and contrivances of men.
It now remains for us to consider the second division of the Christian festival system—the Saints’ Days. ”

“ The Annual Feast to the Dead is a temporary arrangement, whereby the shades of those recently departed are sustained until the advent of the Great Feast to the Dead. The essence of the offerings of food and drink are supposed to satisfy the wants of the dead until they can be properly honored in the Great Festival. ”

“ Thus then the winter land waited for the oncoming of that strange travelling festival of the world which has roved into it and encamped gypsy-like from old lost countries: the festival that takes toll of field and wood, of hoof and wing, of cup and loaf; but that, best of all, wrings from the nature of man its reluctant tenderness for his fellows and builds out of his lonely doubts regarding this life his faith in a better one. ”

“ The new year is equivalent to the new harvest, the new supplies of food which through the raising of the taboo are blessed and made accessible. Where there are several fruits which ripen at different times there may be several ‘new year festivals’, as among the Thonga, but usually there is one principal sowing-time and consequently only one festival. A festival of this nature forms the great division of the year, and this fact is emphasised by the ceremonies which aim at clearing away everything old and beginning again. ”

“ Every attainable display of rustic sumptuousness and rustic gallantry is made to render the festival worthy of an occasion which can happen but once in a life. The labour and the care of months have been long providing the means wherewith to furnish the feast with plenty, and the assistants with gayety; and it is not unfrequent that the savings of a whole year are expended to do honour to this single day. ”

“ One festival is for their weapons of war, which they regard as sacred, or as being possessed of an innate divine power. At all these festivals they have dancing and the beating of drums, as well as singing and many ceremonies. ”

“ But besides these quinquennial festivals, celebrated on so grand a scale, and with, apparently, so large an expenditure of human life, it seems reasonable to suppose that festivals of the same sort, only on a lesser scale, were held annually, and that from these annual festivals are lineally descended some at least of the fire-festivals which, with their traces of human sacrifices, are still celebrated year by year in many parts of Europe. ”

“ The festival now “becomes a saturnale, during which servants forget their duty to their masters, children their reverence for parents, men their respect for women, and women all notions of modesty, delicacy, and gentleness; they become raging bacchantes.” Usually the Hos are quiet and reserved in manner, decorous and gentle to women. But during this festival “their natures appear to undergo a temporary change. ”

“ This great festival was, in former times, kept with so much freedom and openness of heart, that every one in the country where a gentleman resided, possessed at least a day of pleasure in the Christmas holydays; the tables were all spread, from the first to the last, with the sirloyns of beef, [142] the minc’d pies, the plumb-porridge, the capons, turkeys, geese, and plumb-puddings, were all brought upon the board; and all those who had sharp stomacks and sharp knives, eat heartily and were welcome, which gave rise to the proverb, Merry in the hall, where beards wag all. ”

“ The festivals divide themselves naturally into three groups: those of Spring, expressive of the hopes and fears for the growing crops and herds; [60] those of Summer, the festivals of fulfilment, including the celebration of harvest; and those of Winter, the festivals of sowing, of social rejoicing, and in the later months of purificatory anticipation of the coming year. ”

“ The festival endures three days, at the end of which the greatest part of the property of the bridegroom, even if he were previously in easy circumstances, has been wasted in this strange kind of riot and dissipation. ”

“ The very presence of a lengthened festivity—for festivity can never be solitary—would, apart from its sacred causes, promote these wholesome effects. The extended space of time over which this festival is spread, the protracted holiday which it creates, points it out for the gathering together of distant friends whom the passing nature of an occasional and single celebration would fail to collect from their scattered places of the world. ”

“ The folk festival in illuminating the past, in doing over before our eyes the things that inspire, would give us our bearings and the spirit with which to meet the issues of the present and future. Each dweller within our borders, having experienced such a festival occasion, would return to his little round of duty enlightened and sustained, with a clearer vision of the growing whole of which he is an integral factor. ”

“ We all know well enough what these feasts are. First, there is our village feast, a day set [292] apart in every year which is specially the feast day of this parish, and of all who belong to it. Then there are our harvest homes, which are not parish but family festivals; when the farmer and those who have worked with him, rejoice together over the garnering in of the fruits which God has given. Lastly, there is the feast which does not come every year, but at longer intervals, the feast of Scouring the White Horse, which is not the feast of one parish, but of the whole country side. ”

“ The day of our Lord’s Passion was universally regarded as a day of mourning—“dies amaritudinis,” St Ambrose calls it, “on which we fast.” [153] A fast day, on liturgical principles, can never be a festival, though, vice versâ, a festival can fall on a fixed day of fasting or abstinence, as, for example, the Annunciation.
When, at an early date, the Roman emperor made [74] a law forbidding the Courts to sit on Good Friday, this did not make it a festival. ”

“ YOU have not time, you have not thoughts, to spare for many words on a Festival-day. And yet, just because it is a Festival-day, you look to have some words spoken to you: and your Festival would not be complete without something of a sermon. ”