_5th October 1894._
To-morrow is the Durga Festival. As I was going to S----'s yesterday, I
noticed images being made in almost every big house on the way. It struck
me that during these few days of the Poojahs, old and young alike had
become children.
When we come to think of it, all preparation for enjoyment is really a
playing with toys which are of no consequence in themselves. From outside
it may appear wasteful, but can that be called futile which raises such a
wave of feeling through and through the country? Even the driest of
worldly-wise people are moved out of their self-centred interests by the
rush of the pervading emotion.
Thus, once every year there comes a period when all minds are in a melting
mood, fit for the springing of love and affection and sympathy. The songs
of welcome and farewell to the goddess, the meeting of loved ones, the
strains of the festive pipes, the limpid sky and molten gold of autumn,
are all parts of one great paean of joy.
Pure joy is the children's joy. They have the power of using any and every
trivial thing to create their world of interest, and the ugliest doll is
made beautiful with their imagination and lives with their life. He who
can retain this faculty of enjoyment after he has grown up, is indeed the
true Idealist. For him things are not merely visible to the eye or audible
to the ear, but they are also sensible to the heart, and their narrowness
and imperfections are lost in the glad music which he himself supplies.
Every one cannot hope to be an Idealist, but a whole people approaches
nearest to this blissful state at such seasons of festivity. And then what
may ordinarily appear to be a mere toy loses its limitations and becomes
glorified with an ideal radiance.