Of
course there is a grace and influence belonging to such a custom, but
it is not of that I am speaking but of the pleasing sensation of order
and accomplishment which attaches to a day one has opened by Mass; a
purely temporal, and, for all I know, what the monks back at the
ironworks would have called a carnal feeling, but a source of
continual comfort to me. Let them go their way and let me go mine.
This comfort I ascribe to four causes (just above you will find it
written that I could not tell why this should be so, but what of
that?), and these causes are:
1. That for half-an-hour just at the opening of the day you are silent
and recollected, and have to put off cares, interests, and passions in
the repetition of a familiar action. This must certainly be a great
benefit to the body and give it tone.
2. That the Mass is a careful and rapid ritual. Now it is the function
of all ritual (as we see in games, social arrangements and so forth)
to relieve the mind by so much of responsibility and initiative and to
catch you up (as it were) into itself, leading your life for you
during the time it lasts. In this way you experience a singular
repose, after which fallowness I am sure one is fitter for action and
judgement.
3. That the surroundings incline you to good and reasonable thoughts,
and for the moment deaden the rasp and jar of that busy wickedness
which both working in one's self and received from others is the true
source of all human miseries. Thus the time spent at Mass is like a
short repose in a deep and well-built library, into which no sounds
come and where you feel yourself secure against the outer world.
4. And the most important cause of this feeling of satisfaction is
that you are doing what the human race has done for thousands upon
thousands upon thousands of years. This is a matter of such moment
that I am astonished people hear of it so little. Whatever is buried
right into our blood from immemorial habit that we must be certain to
do if we are to be fairly happy (of course no grown man or woman can
really be very happy for long - but I mean reasonably happy), and, what
is more important, decent and secure of our souls. Thus one should
from time to time hunt animals, or at the very least shoot at a mark;
one should always drink some kind of fermented liquor with one's
food - and especially deeply upon great feast-days; one should go on
the water from time to time; and one should dance on occasions; and
one should sing in chorus.
