Processional

1799, Isaac D’Israeli, Mejnoun and Leila, the Arabian Petrarch and Laura, Book 4, in Romances, London: Cadell and Davies et al., pp. 170-171, The nuptial day arrives. The virgin, preceded by a splendid retinue, and followed by her mother, her female relatives, and the damsels of her tribe, issues from the tent of her father. […] The women then followed with solemn and processional steps.

The publick Processional-way to the Chapter-house at Windesor, used time out of mind, led from the Presence-Chamber, down through the Cloister, and the great Gate of the Kings Lodging, into the upper Ward of the Castle, thence through the middle Ward, and part of the lower, to and through the passage, between the East-end of the Chappel, and Tomb-house, and thence into the Chapter-house, situate at the North-East Corner of St. George’s Chappel.

The mediæval hierarchical services did not rise to their full majesty and impressiveness till celebrated under a Gothic cathedral. […] The enormous height more than compensated for the contracted breadth. Nothing could be more finely arranged for the processional services; and the processional services became more frequent, more imposing.

The oxen took up again their quiet processional gait and the old man walked ahead of them, his eyes on the ground.

All the urchins of the marketplace formed a processional tail behind him.

A perfectly drilled wedding procession, like a military one, should move forward in perfect step, rising and falling in a block or unit. To secure perfection of detail, the bars of the processional may be counted so that the music comes to an end at precisely the moment the bride and groom stand side by side at the chancel steps.

[…] a rainy Palm Sunday. […] At Grace Church on-the-Hill, the children and the acolytes stood huddled in the narthex; holding their palm fronds, they resembled tourists who’d landed in the tropics on an unseasonably cold day. The organist chose Brahms for the processional—“O Welt ich muss dich lassen”; “O world I must leave you.”

He saw the processional of world brotherhood tramp steadily through the paling sunset; saffron-vestured Mandarin marching by flax-faced Norseman and languid South Sea Islander—the diverse peoples toward whom he had always yearned.