While On Our Way To The Garden We Passed A Spot Where There Was An Alarming Buzzing, And Found Ourselves

Surrounded by what appeared to be an angry swarm of bees; closer inspection showed that the host was a medley

One, composed of wasps, huge hornets, hive-bees, humble- bees, flies, dragon-flies, butterflies, and all kinds of insects, flying about a single patch of ivy in full blossom, which attracted them so strongly that they neglected everything else. I think some of them were intoxicated. If this was so, then perhaps Bacchus is called "ivy-crowned" because ivy-blossoms intoxicate insects, but I never remember to have before observed that ivy-blossoms had any special attraction for insects.

I have forgotten to say anything about a beam of wood which may be seen standing out at right angles from the tower to the right of the main building. This I believe to have been the gallows. Another like it may be seen at S. Giorio, but I have not got it in my sketch of that place. The attendant who took us round S. Michele denied that it was the gallows, but I think it must have been. Also, the attendant showed us one place which is called Il Salto della belle Alda. Alda was being pursued by a soldier; to preserve her honour, she leaped from a window and fell over a precipice some hundreds of feet below; by the intercession of the Virgin she was saved, but became so much elated that she determined to repeat the feat. She jumped a second time from the window, but was dashed to pieces. We were told this as being unworthy of actual credence, but as a legend of the place. We said we found no great difficulty in believing the first half of the story, but could hardly believe that any one would jump from that window twice. {14}

CHAPTER IX - The North Italian Priesthood

There is now a school in the sanctuary; we met the boys several times. They seemed well cared for and contented. The priests who reside in the sanctuary were courtesy itself; they took a warm interest in England, and were anxious for any information I could give them about the monastery near Loughborough - a name which they had much difficulty in pronouncing. They were perfectly tolerant, and ready to extend to others the consideration they expected for themselves. This should not be saying much, but as things go it is saying a good deal. What indeed more can be wished for?

The faces of such priests as these - and I should say such priests form a full half of the North Italian priesthood - are perfectly free from that bad furtive expression which we associate with priestcraft, and which, when seen, cannot be mistaken: their faces are those of our own best English country clergy, with perhaps a trifle less flesh about them and a trifle more of a not unkindly asceticism.

Comparing our own clergy with the best North Italian and Ticinese priests, I should say there was little to choose between them. The latter are in a logically stronger position, and this gives them greater courage in their opinions; the former have the advantage in respect of money, and the more varied knowledge of the world which money will command. When I say Catholics have logically the advantage over Protestants, I mean that starting from premises which both sides admit, a merely logical Protestant will find himself driven to the Church of Rome. Most men as they grow older will, I think, feel this, and they will see in it the explanation of the comparatively narrow area over which the Reformation extended, and of the gain which Catholicism has made of late years here in England. On the other hand, reasonable people will look with distrust upon too much reason. The foundations of action lie deeper than reason can reach. They rest on faith - for there is no absolutely certain incontrovertible premise which can be laid by man, any more than there is any investment for money or security in the daily affairs of life which is absolutely unimpeachable. The funds are not absolutely sale; a volcano might break out under the Bank of England. A railway journey is not absolutely safe; one person, at least, in several millions gets killed. We invest our money upon faith mainly. We choose our doctor upon faith, for how little independent judgment can we form concerning his capacity? We choose schools for our children chiefly upon faith. The most important things a man has are his body, his soul, and his money. It is generally better for him to commit these interests to the care of others of whom he can know little, rather than be his own medical man, or invest his money on his own judgment; and this is nothing else than making a faith which lies deeper than reason can reach, the basis of our action in those respects which touch us most nearly.

On the other hand, as good a case could be made out for placing reason as the foundation, inasmuch as it would be easy to show that a faith, to be worth anything, must be a reasonable one - one, that is to say, which is based upon reason. The fact is, that faith and reason are like desire and power, or demand and supply; it is impossible to say which comes first: they come up hand in hand, and are so small when we can first descry them, that it is impossible to say which we first caught sight of. All we can now see is that each has a tendency continually to outstrip the other by a little, but by a very little only. Strictly they are not two things, but two aspects of one thing; for convenience sake, however, we classify them separately.

It follows, therefore - but whether it follows or no, it is certainly true - that neither faith alone nor reason alone is a sufficient guide:

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