A Christmas message from Reverend Tendril

Rev. Tendril has spent most of his life in colonial India, preaching to British expatriates. Upon his return to England, he keeps on reading the same, now inappropriate, sermons. The Christmas one is the paroxysm of this phenomena:

"'How difficult it is for us,' he began, blandly surveying his congregation, who coughed into their mufflers and chafed their chilblains under their woollen gloves, 'to realize that this is indeed Christmas. Instead of the glowing log fire and windows tight shuttered against the drifting snow, we have only the harsh glare of an alien sun; instead of the happy circle of loved faces, of home and family, we have the uncompreheding stares of the subjugated, though no doubt grateful, heathen. Instead of the placid ox and ass of Bethlehem,' said the vicar, slightly losing the thread of his comparisons, 'we have for companions the ravening tiger and the exotic camel, the furtive jackal and the ponderous elephant...'"

Evelyn Waugh, A Handful of Dust, p.61

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