I understood a great deal of the spirit of what went on. Indeed it would be difficult not to understand the “Miserere,” which I take to be the composition of an atheist. If it ever be a good thing to take such despondency to heart, the “Miserere” is the right music, and a cathedral a fit scene. So far I am at one with the Catholics:⁠—an odd name for them, after all? But why, in God’s name, these holiday choristers? why these priests who steal wandering looks about the congregation while they feign to be at prayer? why this fat nun, who rudely arranges her procession and shakes delinquent virgins by the elbow? why this spitting, and snuffing, and forgetting of keys, and the thousand and one little misadventures that disturb a frame of mind laboriously edified with chaunts and organings? In any playhouse reverend fathers may see what can be done with a little art, and how, to move high sentiments, it is necessary to drill the supernumeraries and have every stool in its proper place.