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.
