Page:Life in Mexico vol 2.djvu/65

Rh feeling may be equally strong in the frequenters of both places of worship; but as long as we possess senses which can be affected by external objects, the probabilities of the most undivided devotional feeling are in favor of the latter. The eye will wander—the thoughts will follow where it leads. In the one case it rests on elegant forms and fashionable toilettes—in the other, it sees nothing but a mass of dark and kneeling figures, or a representation of holy and scriptural subjects.

However, one consequence of the exceeding dirtiness of the Mexican churches, and of the number of léperos who haunt them, as much in the way of their calling as from devotion, is that a great part of the principal families here, having oratorios in their houses, have engaged the services of a padre, and have mass at home. There is a small chapel in the house of General B a, the handsomest house in Mexico, where there is a Virgin carved in wood, one of the most exquisite pieces of sculpture that can be seen. The face is more than angelic—it is divine; but a divine nature, suffering mortal anguish.

27th.—On the first of February we hope to set off on an expedition to tierra caliente, from which Cn returned some time ago. We have, by good fortune, procured an excellent Mexican housekeeper, under whose auspices everything has assumed a very different aspect, and to whose care we can entrust the house when we go. Nothing remarkable has occurred here lately—the usual routine of riding on horseback, visiting in carriage, walking very rarely in the Alameda, driving in the Paséo, dining at