If Christmas is good, why not more of it? Then we smile, wryly, and say, "Why, of course, we couldn't. The rest of life isn't like that—and we have to live, you see."
Ah, that is where we are wrong—utterly wrong. The rest of life is like that. That is life—Loving and Giving.
"Tut! Tut!" says the Practical Man. "That's emotional nonsense. That's womanish." Two-thirds right, my practical friend. It is not nonsense, but it is "emotional" and it is "womanish."
Emotion is consciousness under pressure. When we feel Power, we call it emotion. Emotions vary: some are helpful and some hateful, according to the nature of the instrument; but not to be emotional at all is not to be alive. Those who spend their lives lit by a blaze of emotion, warmed by a deep, slow-burning fire of emotion, pouring forth that emotion in great works—we call Geniuses. Genius is simply more Power.
As to being womanish: that word is no longer a term of reproach or belittlement. To be womanish is to be human, and we may now turn round and pitifully dismiss much old world folly and passion as merely "mannish." To be womanish—and practical—let us repeat, Life is Loving and Giving. When we realize this, intelligently and completely, we shall have a "continuous performance" of Christmases and a higher level of happiness the year round, varied by greater heights. At present the natural flood of Life Force, pouring through us in unbounded creative energy, resulting in the myriad forms of human achievement and manufacture, is sadly thwarted in its output by lingering remains of our old period.
For a long time we lived by getting: to hunt, to catch, to kill, to eat was all we knew: no loving or giving there save as the mother fulfilled the law. But since our Humaness began, since all our thousand powers and talents grew for mutual service, since we learned to do things for each other—to make things for each other, to give things to each other—then grew in us that rising tide of Power which lives out in expression.
In spite of our old world perverseness, that Power pours on. Though we scorn the gifts of those who make the comforts of life for us, though we despise their service and so cruelly use them as to greatly thwart their love—still we are fed and housed and clothed and carried by the love and service of our kind, the daily, hourly gifts of those who work.
"They are not gifts," cries the Practical Man. "They are paid for—every bit of 'em." Yes, Brother. And how paid for? Paid how much? What scant reward, what meagre living, what miserable houses, what stinted food, what limited education, and what poisoned pleasures do we pay to those who make every necessity, comfort, convenience and luxury for us!
Pay indeed! If a man "saves your life" once, and you give him twenty cents an hour for his exertions in your behalf—have you paid him? By the life-long labor of the human race—all those dead workers who built up the structure of our present world, all those living workers who keep the wheels revolving now—by these labors we live, all of us, all the time.
Pay? Pay for daily—hourly—maintenance, protection, food, shelter, safety, comfort? Pay for being kept alive?