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But what help is there for him whose life is tied down to the narrow sphere of the convent, to the monotony of a bare cell, to the endless repetition of the same prayers, the same chants, the same prostrations, especially when all that ever redeemed it from monotony has been that image and that sympathy which conscience now bids him forget?
The dozen negroes, old and young, led by Achille, began to sob in music one of those sweet undertone chants for the dead which no race but theirs can master. They sung the power of the man and the tenderness of the young sister whose soul followed her brother's, and they called from that ark on the waters for saints and angels to come down and bless the beds of the two.
It flouts the moon and the sun and everyone who passes by, showing its round face at its door and even coming out, at odd times of the day, to stare and bob and play the clown. It does not cry "Tuwhoo, Tuwhoo," as the poets would have it, but laughs, jabbers, squeaks and chants clamorous duets with its spouse. All this I knew.
It happened to be in the evening that she was talking about this. She sat down at the piano, and played some of the Gregorian chants she had heard, and it had a soothing influence on everyone. Even Joe, the fidgetiest of all, sat quite still through it.
Still we ceased not to sleep on the same carpet knowing naught of the case, albeit she was more thoughtful, more intelligent and quicker witted than I. Now when my father had made an end of his preparations, and naught remained for him but to write out the contract and for me but to consummate the marriage with my cousin, he appointed the wedding for a certain Friday, after public prayers; and, going round to his intimates among the mer chants and others, he acquainted them with that, whilst my mother went forth and invited her women friends and summoned her kith and kin.
But the chants, while few in number, are the most individual part of his production; and up to the year 1918 the most impressive. For in The Congo we have real minstrelsy. The shoulder-notes, giving detailed directions for singing, reciting, intoning, are as charming in their way as the stage-directions of J. M. Barrie.
Then it was that hymns and psalms, after the oriental rite, were introduced, lest the spirits of the flock should fail under the wearisome delay." Confess. ix. 15. In the same passage, speaking of his baptism, he says: "How many tears I shed during the performance of Thy hymns and chants, keenly affected by the notes of Thy melodious Church!
Oh, what silence reigns around! How difficult, even for the sonorous chants of choristers and priests to disturb that silence, to be more than echoes of a distant music which seems to come from the very courts of heaven itself: to some a holy sanctuary, where one may meditate among crowds and feel alone; where one breathes an atmosphere which changes not with heat or cold; and where the ever-burning lamps and clouds of incense diffusing the fragrance of the East, and the rich dresses of the mitred priests, and the unnumbered symbols, suggest the ritualism of that imposing worship when Solomon dedicated to Jehovah the grandest temple of antiquity!
Throughout all the funeral solemnities of savage and heathen nations the same distinguishing mark is to be observed, they are the vain devices, the miserable inventions of men who sorrow for their departed friends as those that have no hope. Nothing, it is asserted, can awake in the breast more melancholy feelings than the funeral chants of the Australians.
Drums and chants echoed up the road, and the sounds of manifold feastings. She crept away down by the wall, where the moon laid a strip of blackness, crept away to unbar the gates of heaven for her lord and master. By EDNA FERBER From Ladies Home Journal Mrs. Hosea C. Brewster always cleaned house in September and April.
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