But a word yet weaker than
"hotel" illustrates the same point--the word "restaurant." There again
you have the admission that there is a definite building or statue to
"restore"; that ineffaceable image of man that some call the image of God.
And that is the holiday; it is the restaurant or restoring thing that, by
a blast of magic, turns a man into himself.
This complete and reconstructed man is the nightmare of the modern
capitalist. His whole scheme would crack across like a mirror of Shallot,
if once a plain man were ready for his two plain duties--ready to live and
ready to die. And that horror of holidays which marks the modern
capitalist is very largely a horror of the vision of a whole human being:
something that is not a "hand" or a "head for figutes." But an awful
creature who has met himself in the wilderness. The employers will give
time to eat, time to sleep; they are in terror of a time to think.
To anyone who knows any history it is wholly needless to say that holidays
have been destroyed. As Mr. Belloc, who knows much more history than you
or I, recently pointed out in the "Pall Mall Magazine," Shakespeare's
title of "Twelfth Night: or What You Will" simply meant that a winter
carnival for everybody went on wildly till the twelfth night after
Christmas. Those of my readers who work for modern offices or factories
might ask their employers for twelve days' holidays after Christmas.
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