Cheerful Dining at Thonon-les-Bains

Horace Holley, who became a well-known Bahá’í writer and administrator, came from Sienna, in Italy, to see ‘Abdu’l-Bahá when He was spending a little time at the Hôtel du Parc in Thonon-les-Bains on Lake Geneva in France. Mr Holley recalled one dinner: ‘Our party took seats at two adjoining tables. The dinner was throughout cheerful and animated. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá answered questions and made frequent observations on religion in the West. He laughed heartily from time to time—indeed, the idea of asceticism or useless misery of any kind cannot attach itself to this fully-developed personality. The divine element in Him does not feed at the expense of the human element, but appears rather to vitalize and enrich the human element by its own abundance, as if He had attained His spiritual development by fulfilling His social relations with the utmost ardour.’

Source: Honnold, Annamarie, Vignettes from the Life of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, no. 57, p. 168

Collected from bahaistories.com (Subject: hospitality).

Various. *bahaistories.com archive*. https://bahaistories.com/subject/hospitality