When the procession reached the town the
band joined in, the governor got off his mule, room was made for our
party in the rank behind him, I suppose, as "distinguished foreigners;"
and so with banners flying, crosses nodding, drums beating, priests and
choristers chanting, we marched in a body into the church, where the
female portion of the crowd and all the beggars followed us. I had now,
however, had enough of the "humours of the fair," and left the town
without waiting to try my luck at the _tombola_, which was to come off
directly High Mass was over.
CHAPTER XV. THE HOLY WEEK.
The _nil admirari_ school are out of favour. In our earnest working age,
it is the fashion to treat everything seriously, to find in every thing a
deep hidden meaning, in fact, to admire everything. Since the days of
Wordsworth and Peter Bell, every petty poet and romantic writer has had
his sneer at the shallow sceptic to whom a cowslip was a cowslip only,
and who called a spade a spade. I feel, therefore, painfully that I am
not of my own day when I express my deliberate conviction, that the
ceremonies of Holy Week at Rome are--the word must come out sooner or
later--an imposture. This is not the place to enter into the religious
aspect of the Catholic question, nor if it were, should I have any wish
to enter the lists of controversy as a champion of either side.
Pages:
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183