Page:Letters from England.djvu/40

 preaching beneath a high crucifix; for the first time in my life I beheld the proclaiming of the faith to heretics. It was extremely nice and concluded with song, in which I attempted to sing alto; unfortunately I did not know the tune. A few crowds were devoted exclusively to song; in their midst a little man takes his stand with a baton, gives the note and the whole crowd sings, and indeed in a very decent and polyphonic manner. I wanted to listen in silence, for I don’t belong to this parish, but my neighbour, a gentleman in a top-hat, urged me to sing too, so I sang aloud and glorified the Lord without words and without tune. A pair of lovers comes this way, the youth takes the cigarette from his mouth and sings, the girl also sings, an old lord sings, and a youth with a cane under his arm sings, and the shabby little man in the midst of the circle gracefully conducts as in Grand Opera; no thing here has pleased me so much before. I sang with two other churches besides this and listened to a sermon on Socialism and to