Celebration

“ The interests of this world are centred in the pleasures of life, the festivals which amused the court and the people by the pomp of their celebration from time to time, and in the intervals the amusements of the palace and the harem, sports in the water, the game of the swing, the plucking of flowers, song, dance, pantomime, and such other diversions as were necessary to while away the endless leisure of princes, who left the business of their realms to ministers and soldiers, while they spared themselves any fatigue more serious than that of love encounters. ”

“ Is it not the French who set aside a special night for foolery, when everyone appears in fancy costume? They should set the celebration forward in the day, and let the blazing sun stare upon their mirth. ”

“ The hand-clapping and thigh-smiting of primitive savages in a state of crowd-excitement, the song-and-dance before admiring spectators, the chorus of primitive ballads,—the crowd repeating and altering the refrains,—the rhythmic song of laboring men and of women at their weaving, sailors' "chanties," the celebration of funeral rites, religious processional and pageant, are all expressions of communal feeling, and it is this communal feeling—"the sense of joy in widest commonalty spread"—which has inspired, in Greece and Italy, some of the greatest artistic epochs. ”

“ In proportion to the numbers, no celebration ever passed off with more eclat—no one has been conducted with more order, and no feast partaken of with better zest, with more mutual love and friendship, nor with hearts more filled to overflowing with gratitude to God for the outpouring of His blessings and for the manifestations of His overruling hand. ”

“ The gesture, the movement begins in Advent and Celebration to disturb the stillness prevailing in the first two volumes of poems. Even here it is only gentle and shy at first like the stirring of a breath of wind over a quiet sea; and gentle beings make this first gesture, children and young women at play, singing, dancing or at prayer.
Particularly in the cycle Songs of the Maidens in the book Celebration, the atmosphere is condensed and becomes the psychic background of the landscape against which the gesture of longing or expectation is seen and felt. ”

“ Of the earnest manner in which our ancestors set about the celebration of this festival, the mock ceremonial with which they illustrated it, the quaint humors which they let loose under its inspiration, and the spirit of fellowship which brought all classes of men within the range of its beneficent provisions, we have a large body of scattered evidence, to be gleaned out of almost every species of existing record, from the early days of the Norman dynasty down to the times of the Commonwealth. ”

“ As to the purpose of the ceremony, there are those who maintain that entertainment is the main incentive, but the celebration or holiday seems to be a secondary consideration according to the explanation of the primitives themselves. ”

“ The actual celebration, which always occurs [Pg 242] at night, includes ceremonies which, in part, involve extreme pain to the novices. The youths are obliged to stand very close to a fire kindled in the centre of the ceremonial ground. ”

“ Strange, indeed, that men, endowed with many Christian virtues, should have ever thought it a duty to oppose so bitterly the celebration of a festival in honor of the Nativity of Christ! Happily, Time, the great ally of Truth, has worked a change in this respect ”

“ Here we pause. On the threshold of wedding nights stands a smiling angel with his finger on his lips.
The soul enters into contemplation before that sanctuary where the celebration of love takes place. ”

“ That we his blessed faith may teach,
May join above, and love below,
The Spirit of All Grace bestow! Amen.
↑ ⁠ Gautier reads Eterni: but I understand the poet to mean that the external celebration of the Festival is only the outspoken expression of the internal joy of the heart. ”

“ Still the principal object of public celebration is to express gratitude on the part of the people for the social blessings conferred by Woman, as the organ of that element in our nature on which its unity depends, and as the original source of moral power. ”

“ These festivities have up to this point been [87] occasions for rejoicing, with the single and significant exception of the melancholy singing of the bride’s friends on the eve and day of her wedding. There is a perfect naturalness about all the merry-making and festivals so far considered, and this is no less characteristic of the funeral celebrations now to be taken up. The description of these will conclude my treatment of the last group of festivals, which are more properly festival-ceremonies, or ceremonies that have been made the occasion of festivity. ”

“ It is not, as we have said, to be expected that after the full chorus of increased mirth which hath swelled up anew for the last of these celebrations, the ear should all at once accustom itself to a sudden and utter silence,—should endure the abrupt absence of all festival sound ”

“ The immense joy and universal jubilee of nature, called out by the annual renewing of warmth, light, life, and beauty, and the share and the sympathy of man in the diffusive and exuberant benediction, fix themselves and take form in stated and ordered celebrations all the world over. ”

“ The religious celebrations lasted three days, interspersed with feasts and other diversions, notably an acrobatic display by a performer who roused his audience to a frenzy of enthusiasm. At the beginning of each feast a priest called all the deities by name and executed the movements of a dance in their honour. These evolutions are an invitation to the divinities to take their place in the celebrations. ”

“ The men, too, give themselves over to the dance quite as vigorously and quite as gracefully as do the women, and a feast—all birth and wedding celebrations end with a feast—terminates the great event so far as a general participation{154} goes. ”

“ A drama was, it is clear, normally performed on an occasion of special rejoicing and solemnity, such as a festival of a god, or a royal marriage, or the celebration of a victory, and the place of performance thus naturally came to be the temple of the god or the palace of the king. We learn often in the drama and tales of the existence of dancing halls and music rooms in the royal palace where the ladies of the harem were taught these pleasing arts, and one of these could easily be adapted for a dramatic performance. ”

“ The celebrations take place with the music of female voices, with the noise of trumpets and drums, and the firing of salutations. The poets sing the praises of the most renowned leaders and the victories. Nevertheless, if any of them should deceive even by disparaging a foreign hero, he is punished. ”

“ For millions of Americans this is an especially joyous time of year. All across our country, families come together to celebrate Easter or Passover; parents reunited with their children, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, friends joining in these celebrations of faith and renewal. ”

“ No festive function, civic or social, is too solemn for her presence : to receive a guest or to felicitate a friend, to welcome a superior or to celebrate a jubilee, to solemnise a wedding or to initiate a child into learning—aye, at times, to reverence a spiritual head or to honor a religious reviver, her song is the te deum of thankfulness, her dance the exhilaration of enthusiasm. ”

“ Although the profuse but somewhat indiscriminate hospitality, and some of the ruder of the Christmas games and ceremonies of our mediæval ancestors, have declined or fallen into general disuse, the anniversary of the advent of the founder of the national religion yet remains the chief season set apart especially for genial social intercourse, the gathering together of relatives and friends, the interchange of mutual good-will, and of festive enjoyment. ”

“ Then some carol-singers come to the Hall-door, and the bells of the church proclaim, in joyful peals, the birth of the New Year;—a new year of hopes, and joys, and cares, and griefs, and unions, and partings;—a new year of which, who then present shall see the end? who shall be there to welcome in its successor? who shall be absent, laid in the secret places of the earth? Ah, who? For, even in the midst of revelry and youth, the joy-peals of those old church bells can strike the key-note of a wail of grief.
Another charade follows, in which new actors join. ”

“ Successes so numerous and brilliant have carried joy to the heart of your country! Your representatives have decreed a festival, to be celebrated in all the communes of the Republic, in honor of your victories. There will your fathers, mothers, wives, sisters, all who hold you dear, rejoice over your triumphs, and boast that you belong to them. ”

“ Holding festival, then, in our whole life, persuaded that God is altogether on every side present, we cultivate our fields, praising; we sail the sea, hymning; in all the rest of our conversation we conduct ourselves according to rule. ”

“ After this ceremony they feasted upon all the offerings and presents of food, drinking the wine after their custom, as usual, until they had consumed it all. This was their feast of the new year, and the solemnity with which they believed themselves to render it perfectly agreeable to their idols. During the month Pop, there were also some of the most devout men who continued to celebrate this feast with their friends, such as the nobles and priests, they being, before others, always the first in the rejoicings and festivities. ”

“ The glad sound awakes a thrill of joy in many a heart. The children clap their tiny hands and laugh aloud in the exuberance of their mirth as bright visions of varied toys and rich confectionary flit before their minds. The sound of merry sports—the gathering of the social band—the banquet—all are scenes of joy. Shout on bright children, for your innocent mirth will rise as incense to Him who was even as one of you. The Son of God once reposed his head upon a mortal breast and wept the tears of infancy. ”

“ We penetrate bodily this incredible beauty; we dip our hands in this painted element; our eyes are bathed in these lights and forms. A holiday, a villeggiatura, a royal revel, the proudest, most heart-rejoicing festival that valor and beauty, power and taste, ever decked and enjoyed, establishes itself on the instant. ”

“ And our dreams are playing yet!
Singing lovers, long astray,
Each to each, and, sweeter things—
Singing in their marriage-day,
And a banquet holding all
These delights for festival.
THE TWINS. One 's the pictur' of his Pa,
And the other of her Ma—
Jes the bossest pair o' babies 'at a mortal ever saw!
And we love 'em as the bees
Loves the blossoms of the trees,
A-ridin' and a-rompin' in the breeze! ”

“ As a king's children gather'd for the hour
Of some high festival! Exultingly,
And kindred-like, and godlike, on they pass,
The glorious wandering shapes! aged and young,
Proud men and royal women! ”

“ While the usual religious ceremonies of the day are generally observed here, the mass of the community are inclined to treat the occasion as a festive rather than a solemn occasion, and upon festivity the whole population at the present time seems bent. ”

“ With the High Church people, again, it is a Holiday, to be enjoyed after a certain peculiar fashion of their own; while the great mass of the population outrage both these parties by treating half the day as a fast and the other half as a festival. ”

“ We know not "whether the holy man's blessing" is the best, nor whether there is more light of Truth in the Law, "that is all eyes," or in some blind love. Thus entangled in the meshes of life's sphinx-like wonders, we spend our day, little particles of the great world-struggle, wedding guests at Life's strange festival! ”

“ The scene in water colours thus I paint,
Is your own Festival, you Sloppy Saint!
Mother of all the Family of Rainers!
Saint of the Soakers!
Making all people croakers,
Like frogs in swampy marshes, and complainers! ”

“ Let us, who know what the day means, endeavor to make it both memorable and illuminating to those who do not, by opening the hearts of the children, of the poor and ignorant, of the distressed and disheartened alien within our gates, to at least a partial significance of what we honor in our glorious festival. Let us enter personally into the work, giving tender endeavor as well as means to the task of making the occasion the happiest of all the year to the ignorant and the wretched. ”

“ All the ceremonies upon these festival days were not strictly religious, but consisted of various sports and pastimes for amusement. On one day all the people went about making calls, in little parties. One of each group carried a wooden shovel, and immediately after entering the house, began to stir the ashes, and then to scatter a little upon the hearth, invoking the blessing of the Great Spirit upon the household.
Another amusement was to form little parties to go about and collect materials for a feast. Each family was expected to contribute something. ”

“ These festivals were the great events of the year — which made the people feel that they had a country, that they were children of a common race, inheritors of a common faith, and sharers of a common joy. ”

“ Blessed art thou, O Church, that in thy festivals,—the Watchers rejoice amid thy festivity!—for one night the Watchers gave praise,—on the earth which withheld and refused praise.—Blessed thy voices that have been sown and reaped,—and in Heaven stored up in garners!—Thy mouth is a censer, and thy voices as perfumes, breathing vapour in thy festivals. ”