[54] This is rather too favourable to the English of that day, as they certainly did not take warm baths so frequently as French people do now. They had not the conveniences. Few private houses had a bath-room and few towns had public baths.
[55] Especially in combination with the beautiful colour of the waxed walnut furniture and the red hangings of the beds.
[56] What follows is sketched from life.
[57] Plays were performed on Sunday at the court of Queen Elizabeth.
[58] Dancing, archery, leaping, May-games, and morris dances, were expressly permitted by James I. on Sunday in his Book of Sports. He forbade brutal sports only.
[59] The idea that governs the action of the Church of Rome with regard to the observation of Sunday in countries where she is free to do what she thinks best, appears to be simply the protection of toilers from their own drudgery on one day of the week. She herself keeps the day as a festival, and requires the attendance of the laity at one mass, which may be short and early.
[60] I made inquiry afterwards to ascertain what the parish priest thought of these proceedings, and discovered that he made a distinction. He did not approve of dancing on the public dancing-floors in the village, especially at night, because it sometimes led to wrong, but he was not opposed in any way to Sunday dancing in private houses.
[61] The distinction between sacred and profane music is fictitious, merely depending on the title that a musician chooses to give to his composition. The distinction between serious and light music is real, whatever the title. This is so well understood in the Church of Rome that the priests allow any music to be performed in their churches which is the expression of a serious or sublime idea.
[62] M. de St. Victor managed the estates belonging to the Countess de Talleyrand, and he lived at her old château of Montjeu, one of the most romantically situated places in France, in the midst of a large well-wooded park upon the hills.
[63] The passage is very well known, but I may quote it for the convenience of some readers:—