And it was no use asking for the money back or protesting. Mr Fingle
was an honest, straightforward man, who said a plain thing in a plain
way. They had left him to choose a suitable collection of books on
Catholicism, and he had chosen the best he knew. And thus did Mr Hard
(who has recently given a hideous font to the new Catholic church at
Bismarckville) learn the importance of estimating what words connote.
LECTOR. But all that does not excuse an intolerable prolixity?
AUCTOR. Neither did I say it did, dear Lector. My object was merely to
get you to San Lorenzo where I bought that wine, and where, going out
of the gate on the south, I saw suddenly the wide lake of Bolsena all
below.
It is a great sheet like a sea; but as one knows one is on a high
plateau, and as there is but a short dip down to it; as it is round
and has all about it a rim of low even hills, therefore one knows it
for an old and gigantic crater now full of pure water; and there are
islands in it and palaces on the islands. Indeed it was an impression
of silence and recollection, for the water lay all upturned to heaven,
and, in the sky above me, the moon at her quarter hung still pale in
the daylight, waiting for glory.
