They made the customary promise not to forget
me, but credulity must stop somewhere, and at this point I must confess
my easy faith gave out, and left me skeptical.
* * * * *
I have given the preference in order of narrative, as well as in memory,
to guides who proved competent, willing, and true, who, if they seasoned
the intercourse between us with a little encouragement to my
self-esteem, had nothing in them obsequious or timeserving, and who set
me a wholesome example of clear convictions and firmness in the
maintenance of right. But not only are the virtues of the race whom I
have chosen for a theme subjects of congratulation; even the
uncertainties and misfits of these frequently rusty keys to the past
excite a mirth that lightens the toil with which one rummages through
the corridors of time. It would be treason to tell the name of that
antique university-chapel where a certain wooden-headed verger was
betrayed into the absurdest error; it would be personal to give the name
of the waggish friend who made him his innocent butt; but the facts and
the joke claim no disguise.
The solemn British beadle had been rehearsing the history of numerous
sarcophagi and monuments, dwelling with mingled pathos and indignation
upon the injuries which the chapel, its railings, and its statues had
sustained at the hands of that arch-destroyer and his soldiery who, in
their zeal for the new Commonwealth, trampled brutally upon the records
of past grandeur and royalty.
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