They Could Scarcely
Have Yielded Themselves To The Sway Of Any Passion More Difficult
Of Gratification, For They Have No
Means of communicating with the
busy world except through European travellers; and these, in
consequence I suppose of that restlessness
And irritability that
generally haunt their wanderings, seem to have always avoided the
bore of giving any information to their hosts. As for me, I am
more patient and good-natured, and when I found that the kind monks
who gathered round me at Nazareth were longing to know the real
truth about the General Bonaparte who had recoiled from the siege
of Acre, I softened my heart down to the good humour of Herodotus,
and calmly began to "sing history," telling my eager hearers of the
French Empire and the greatness of its glory, and of Waterloo and
the fall of Napoleon! Now my story of this marvellous ignorance on
the part of the poor monks is one upon which (though depending on
my own testimony) I look "with considerable suspicion." It is
quite true (how silly it would be to INVENT anything so witless!),
and yet I think I could satisfy the mind of a "reasonable man" that
it is false. Many of the older monks must have been in Europe at
the time when the Italy and the Spain from which they came were in
act of taking their French lessons, or had parted so lately with
their teachers, that not to know of "the Emperor" was impossible,
and these men could scarcely, therefore, have failed to bring with
them some tidings of Napoleon's career.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 115 of 325
Words from 31917 to 32184
of 89094
