Festival

“ As our week consists of seven Sundays, it follows that our amusements are only signs in the calendar, epochs of time, to which no one pays heed; and a festival is nothing but a play-room for the plans which every one has in his head, the boards on which he is to act his leading part, and the season for continuing the intrigue against victims of love and of ambition. Here there is, every minute, a stinging mosquito, and the thistle-seed of beautifully painted trouble flies round far and wide. ”

“ For a Festival-day gathers up into itself for joy and gladness the life of the place where it is kept: and you wish, somewhere in the day at least, to touch upon, and glance at, the things which lie beneath all the holiday and hospitality; which give a reason to our Festival, because they give a reason for being glad that our school should be, and flourish. And you rightly look to Chapel for this: for nothing in human life is truly explained or justified until it is explained or justified by something which can bear to be brought into God's sight, or to be spoken in the Name of God. ”

“ 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 festival, which lasted all day and concluded with dancing and fireworks, was a great success, and a young man who had been carousing all night, travelling all day, and had danced all the evening with pretty girls till his senses were in a whirl, could not help regarding the scene of the festival in a romantic light, as he stood there alone, late at night, surrounded by flaring torches, the fireworks sputtering and glittering about him. Some few of the students sat in the fields round flaming rings of pitch, an old Angel peasant keeping the fires alight and singing Danish songs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is the day when all the people, from the highest to the lowest, have a holiday. For days, and even weeks, preparations are made to celebrate the festival with proper ceremony. Never are the streets of the cities and towns so filled with gayly dressed crowds of people hurrying here and there, buying and selling, as during the last days of the dying year. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Festival follows festival, temples and images follow statues, posterity will turn with deep emotion to the love of the present, as we enraptured trace the past, only through this mutability, through this re-echoing of the Eternal Word is the truth made manifest to me, through this alone am I convinced that it went forth in former times, by this means, that it apparently changes, as the leaf into the blossom, the flower into the fruit, and the fruit yields again the seed of the flower, it is a permanent, an eternal truth ”

“ 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. ”

“ Of all nights of the year there is not one that is more anxiously awaited by young people than the night that precedes Christmas. Then begins the great festival of the year; the festival in honour of the birth of Christ; the festival that reminds us of the Child born in a manger, of the shepherds near Bethlehem watching their flocks by night, and of the angels that sang of peace and goodwill to men. It is the most joyous of all holiday seasons ”

“ Barry, who takes a peculiarly serious view of all things musical, claims that Festival Sounds, Sounds of Festivity or Echoes of a Festival is the portrayal in music of scenes that illustrate some great national festival; that the introduction, with its fanfares, gives rise to strong feelings of expectation. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This autumnal festival, when men are gathered in crowds in the streets as regularly and by as natural a law as the leaves cluster and rustle by the way-side, is naturally associated in my mind with the fall of the year. ”

“ All things that we ordained festival Turn from their office to black funeral- Our instruments to melancholy bells, Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast; Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change; Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse; And all things change them to the contrary. ”

“ And there, as the focus-point of our festival and symbol of it—the tree of light: light of our own childhood and of the world’s.
I do not know whether this simple masque will prove worthy to help in creating such a festival for our new Christmas time—I can only wish and hope that it may. ”

“ You anticipate the Festival, and the letters, and, which is better still, the time by your eagerness, and you bestow on us a preliminary festival. Such is what Your Reverence gives us. And we in return give you the greatest thing we have, our prayers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Know that we have a festival, called the festival of the New Year, when all the people use to take boat and go a-pleasuring on the river. So I went out, with my comrades, and saw a boat, wherein were half a score damsels like moons, and amongst them, the lady Budour, with her lute in her hand. She preluded in eleven modes, then returning to the first, sang the following verses:
Fire is not so fierce and so hot as the fires in my heart that glow, And granite itself is less hard than the heart of my lord, I trow. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These were of frequent occurrence and of the greatest diversity, so that the young people had plenty to amuse them. There were five great annual Festivals, which were the Festival of the New Year, the Festival of the Dolls, the Festival of the Banners, the Feast of Lanterns, and the Feast of Chrysanthemums. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ On the Minor Festival, which, as it terminates an arduous fast, is celebrated with more rejoicing than the other,139 servants and other dependants receive presents of new articles of clothing from their masters or patrons ”

“ Will horsemen carry torches and pass them one to another during the race?
Yes, said Polemarchus; and not only so, but a festival will be celebrated at night, which you certainly ought to see. Let us rise soon after supper and see this festival; there will be a gathering of young men, and we will have a good talk. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Concerts are an important accessory to this festival with both rich and poor; the former make every effort to secure the best singers and performers for their entertainment on this holiday; the latter, not being able to have the more delicate instruments content themselves with a clatter of basins, pots and frying-pans, and make with these a sort of burlesque concert. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Socially the agricultural festivals are the most important of the early festival ceremonies;413 they unite the people in public observances, thus furthering the communal life, and they satisfy the popular demand for amusement. ”

“ But the recurrent festival, celebrating some exploit in the chase or in war, or commemorating some departed chief, would furnish an occasion toward which men would look, for which they would prepare, and in which they would experience that pleasure which the excitement of a crowd affords, especially to the dependent mind, without resources of its own. ”

“ The men only partake of these public feasts; but the female part of the family of the chiefs assemble together, and enjoy corresponding entertainments within their chambers. The festival seldom lasts above one day. ”

“ The festival is highly enjoyed by the crowds who attend it; though there is little that a stranger would think could minister to their amusement: they seem to require nothing more to enliven them than crowds and bustle, with a pipe and a cup of coffee. ”

“ The Masked Festival on the 18th is a subject of considerable attraction, and wigs of every nature, style, and fashion, are in high request for the occasion—The Bob, the Tye, the Natural Scratch, the Full Bottom, the Queue, the Curl, the Clerical, the Narcissus, the Auricula, the Capital, the Corinthian, the Roman, the Spanish, the French, the Dutch—oh! we are full of business just now. ”

“ And if you wish to receive of the ancient city an impression with which the modern one can no longer furnish you, climb—on the morning of some grand festival, beneath the rising sun of Easter or of Pentecost—climb upon some elevated point, whence you command the entire capital; and be present at the wakening of the chimes. Behold, at a signal given from heaven, for it is the sun which gives it, all those churches quiver simultaneously. First come scattered strokes, running from one church to another, as when musicians give warning that they are about to begin. ”

“ CHAPTER XIV.
"'The first day's celebration of our Mission festival was at an end. It was then not early, but still on until late in the night the sounds of the songs of praise and thankfulness were to be heard in the houses, from the parsonage out to the furthest outlying houses of the peasants, and so it was also in the surrounding villages; for the parish village could by no means accommodate all the guests who had come to the festival, albeit not only the chambers and dwelling-rooms, but also the haylofts were made lodging-places for the sleepers. ”

“ The Government, ladies and gentlemen—and especially the Minister for Agriculture, whom a slight indisposition has debarred from being here to-day—says to you by my lips that this festival, a living proof of fecund prosperity and of useful activity, is a national festival. The affluence of every single commune is the affluence of the State ”