If You Stay In The Holy City Long Enough To Fall Into Anything Like
Regular Habits Of Amusement And Occupation,
And to become, in
short, for the time "a man about town" at Jerusalem, you will
necessarily lose the enthusiasm
Which you may have felt when you
trod the sacred soil for the first time, and it will then seem
almost strange to you to find yourself so entirely surrounded in
all your daily pursuits by the designs and sounds of religion.
Your hotel is a monastery, your rooms are cells, the landlord is a
stately abbot, and the waiters are hooded monks. If you walk out
of the town you find yourself on the Mount of Olives, or in the
Valley of Jehoshaphat, or on the Hill of Evil Counsel. If you
mount your horse and extend your rambles you will be guided to the
wilderness of St. John, or the birthplace of our Saviour. Your
club is the great Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where everybody
meets everybody every day. If you lounge through the town, your
Bond Street is the Via Dolorosa, and the object of your hopeless
affections is some maid or matron all forlorn, and sadly shrouded
in her pilgrim's robe. If you would hear music, it must be the
chanting of friars; if you look at pictures, you see virgins with
mis-fore-shortened arms, or devils out of drawing, or angels
tumbling up the skies in impious perspective. If you would make
any purchases, you must go again to the church doors, and when you
inquire for the manufactures of the place, you find that they
consist of double-blessed beads and sanctified shells.
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