Such are the bye-laws of this remarkable institution.
Few except the very rich are so under-worked that two or three days of
change and rest are not at times a boon to them, while the mere knowledge
that there is a place where repose can be had cheaply and pleasantly is
itself a source of strength. Here, so long as the visitor wishes to be
merely housed, no questions are asked; no one is refused admittance,
except for some obviously sufficient reason; it is like getting a reading
ticket for the British Museum, there is practically but one test--that is
to say, desire on the part of the visitor--the coming proves the desire,
and this suffices. A family, we will say, has just gathered its first
harvest; the heat on the plains is intense, and the malaria from the rice-
grounds little less than pestilential; what, then, can be nicer than to
lock up the house and go for three days to the bracing mountain air of
Oropa? So at daybreak off they all start trudging, it may be, their
thirty or forty miles, and reaching Oropa by nightfall. If there is a
weakly one among them, some arrangement is sure to be practicable whereby
he or she can be helped to follow more leisurely, and can remain longer
at the hospice. Once arrived, they generally, it is true, go the round
of the chapels, and make some slight show of pilgrimage, but the main
part of their time is spent in doing absolutely nothing.
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