and historic-looking public building, except the highly preserved, little old court-house at Newport, that I can now think of in the United States.
Adjoining it is an old Spanish cathedral, damaged by paint, and late alterations and repairs, but still a fine thing in our desert of the reverend in architecture. Enough, that while it is not new, it is not shabby, and is not tricked out with much frippery,[1] gingerbread and confectionery work. The door is open; coaches and crippled beggars are near it. A priest, with a face the expression of which first makes one think of an ape and then of an owl, is coming out. If he were not otherwise to be heartily welcomed to fresh air and sunlight, he should be so, for the sake of the Sister of Charity who is following him, probably to some death-bed, with a corpse-like face herself, haggard but composed, pensive and absorbed, and with the eyes of a broken heart. I think that I may yet meet them looking down compassionately and soothingly, in some far distant pestilent or war-hospital. In lieu of holy-water, then, here is money for the poor-box, though the devil share it with good angels.
Dark shadows, and dusky light, and deep, subdued, low organ strains pervade the interior; and, on the bare floor, here are the kneeling women—"good" and "bad" women—and, ah! yes, white and black women, bowed in equality before their common Father. "Ridiculously absurd idea," say democratic Governors Mc Duffie and Hammond; "Self-evident," said our ancestors, and so must say the voice of conscience, in all free, humble hearts.
In the crowded market-place, there were not only the pure old Indian Americans, and the Spanish, French, English, Celtic, and African, but nearly all possible mixed varieties of these, and no doubt of some other breeds of mankind.
- ↑ Contemptible; from the root Fripper, to wear out.—Webster.
