Oh! what good philosophy this is, and how much better it would be if
rich people, instead of raining the influence of their rank and
spending their money on leagues for this or that exceptional thing,
were to spend it in converting the middle-class to ordinary living and
to the tradition of the race. Indeed, if I had power for some thirty
years I would see to it that people should be allowed to follow their
inbred instincts in these matters, and should hunt, drink, sing,
dance, sail, and dig; and those that would not should be compelled by
force.

Now in the morning Mass you do all that the race needs to do and has
done for all these ages where religion was concerned; there you have
the sacred and separate Enclosure, the Altar, the Priest in his
Vestments, the set ritual, the ancient and hierarchic tongue, and all
that your nature cries out for in the matter of worship.

From these considerations it is easy to understand how put out I was
to find Mass over on this first morning of my pilgrimage. And I went
along the burning road in a very ill-humour till I saw upon my right,
beyond a low wall and in a kind of park, a house that seemed built on
some artificial raised ground surrounded by a wall, but this may have
been an illusion, the house being really only very tall. At any rate I
drew it, and in the village just beyond it I learnt something curious
about the man that owned it.

For I had gone into a house to take a third meal of bread and wine and
to replenish my bottle when the old woman of the house, who was a
kindly person, told me she had just then no wine. 'But,' said she, 'Mr
So and So that lives in the big house sells it to any one who cares to
buy even in the smallest quantities, and you will see his shed