A beautiful yet cold day for the greatest feast of the year. It is hard to concentrate on the glories of the Birth of Our Lord in a modern city. One is apt to delight only in presents and Xmas dinners. I tried to reflect on the rejoicing and the simple faith of the Tyrolese peasants near Dachau, and to get the Stimmung as they would have it. 12 Mass went off splendidly [in St Patrick’s Church]. Only the organist is so rotten up there. The boys looking like little cherubs in their surplices and soutanes marched in alright, headed by the beadle, but they straggled out very badly and it did not look at all becoming for Xmas Day. Still, the music was glorious. We went home in Stockleys’ taxi, ate and enjoyed our Xmas dinner of turkey and plum-pudding to the full, and then sat down to enjoy the evening in peace and quietness. Read and worked at stamps. Strange to say, the reaction was not so bad this Xmas. Last year I was almost in despair just before the lighting of the Xmas tree, and then I swung over to an ecstasy of joy. Still I am always a Jacobin, a radical reactio.
