"These
people," they say, "make themselves very agreeable to you, and show you
their smooth side; we, who see more of them, know their rough one.
Knuckle under to them, and they will perhaps condescend to patronise you;
have any individuality of your own, and they know neither scruple nor
remorse in their attempts to get you out of their way. '_Il prete_' they
say, with a significant look, '_e sempre prete_.' For the future let us
have professors and men of science instead of priests."
I smile to myself at this last, and reply, that I am a foreigner come
among them for recreation, and anxious to keep clear of their internal
discords. I do not wish to cut myself off from one side of their
national character--a side which, in some respects, is no less
interesting than the one with which I suppose I am on the whole more
sympathetic. If I were an Italian, I should feel bound to take a side;
as it is, I wish to leave all quarrelling behind me, having as much of
that in England as suffices to keep me in good health and temper.
In old times people gave their spiritual and intellectual sop to Nemesis.
Even when most positive, they admitted a percentage of doubt. Mr.
Tennyson has said well, "There lives more doubt"--I quote from memory--"in
honest faith, believe me, than in half the" systems of philosophy, or
words to that effect.
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