Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Book and heart: essays on literature and life

There constantly passes before me in full view a panorama of the daily life of the Roman Catholic parish-priesthood — the visits of high and low, particularly low — the arrival of hired carriages with weddings and baptismal parties — and the too profuse carriages for funerals. Then often at midnight I hear the stable doors roll back and the horse's hoofs soon after crunch upon the gravel, as the faithful priests drive away on some errand of mercy; and sometimes by day, as I am cutting the grass on the lawn, a man will come straggling past and volunteer the information that his wife has persuaded him to go and take the pledge before the praste, God bless him. Pledges thus taken, I am told, are almost sure to be kept, because they are given only for short periods, and perhaps renewed from time to time; the pledged man reporting at brief intervals and being kept under constant supervision. The regular church work I cannot watch, for the building lies on the other side of the house, accessible by a covered passage; but I know that good Father--, the predecessor of the present incumbent,