The Sacro Monte at Varese
The Sacro Monte is a kind of ecclesiastical Rosherville Gardens, eminently the place to spend a happy day.
The processions were best at the last part of the ascent; there were pilgrims, all decked out with coloured feathers, and priests and banners and music and crimson and gold and white and glittering brass against the cloudless blue sky. The old priest sat at his open window to receive the offerings of the devout as they passed, but he did not seem to get more than a few bambini modelled in wax. Perhaps he was used to it. And the band played the barocco music on the barocco little piazza and we were all barocco together. It was as though the clergymen at Ladywell had given out that, instead of having service as usual, the congregation would go in procession to the Crystal Palace with all their traps, and that the band had been practising “Wait till the clouds roll by” for some time, and on Sunday, as a great treat, they should have it.
The Pope has issued an order saying he will not have masses written like operas. It is no use. The Pope can do much, but he will not be able to get contrapuntal music into Varese. He will not be able to get anything more solemn than La Fille de Madame Angot into Varese. As for fugues—! I would as soon take an English bishop to the Surrey pantomime as to the Sacro Monte on a festa.
Then the pilgrims went into the shadow of a great rock behind the sanctuary, spread themselves out over the grass and dined.