[The Cathedral by Joris-Karl Huysmans]@TWC D-Link book
The Cathedral

CHAPTER X
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"But to return to our monastery.

Nowhere, I repeat, are the services performed with so much pomp.

You should see it on the occasion of some high festival! Picture to yourself above the altar, where commonly the tabernacle shines, a Dove suspended from a golden crozier, its wings outspread amid clouds of incense; then a whole army of monks deploying in a solemn rhythmic march, and the Abbot standing, on his brow a mitre thickly set with jewels, his green and white ivory crozier in his hand, his train carried by a lay-brother when he moves, while the gold of many copes blazes in the light of the tapers, and a torrent of sound from the organ bears the voices up, carrying to the very vault the cry of repentance or the joy of the Psalms.
"It is glorious.

It is not the penitential austerity of the liturgy as it is used by the Franciscans or at La Trappe: it is luxury offered to God, the beauty He created dedicated to His service, and in itself praise and prayer.

But if you wish to hear the music of the Church in its utmost perfection you must go to the neighbouring Abbey: that of the Sisters of Saint Cecilia." The Abbe paused, whispering to himself, thinking over his reminiscences; and then he slowly spoke again,-- "Wherever you go, the voice of a nun preserves, merely by reason of her sex, a sort of emotion, a tendency to the cooing tone, and, it must be owned, a certain satisfaction in hearing herself when she knows that others can hear her; so that the Gregorian chant is never perfectly executed by nuns.
"But with the Benedictine Sisters of Sainte-Cecile all the graces of earthly sentimentality have vanished.


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