All depends upon who it is that is lying. One man may steal a
horse when another may not look over a hedge. The good man who
tells no lies wittingly to himself and is never unkindly, may lie
and lie and lie whenever he chooses to other people, and he will
not be false to any man: his lies become truths as they pass into
the hearers' ear. If a man deceives himself and is unkind, the
truth is not in him, it turns to falsehood while yet in his mouth,
like the quails in the Wilderness of Sinai. How this is so or why,
I know not, but that the Lord hath mercy on whom He will have mercy
and whom He willeth He hardeneth.
My Italian friends are doubtless in the main right about the
priests, but there are many exceptions, as they themselves gladly
admit. For my own part I have found the curato in the small
subalpine villages of North Italy to be more often than not a
kindly excellent man to whom I am attracted by sympathies deeper
than any mere superficial differences of opinion can counteract.
With monks, however, as a general rule I am less able to get on:
nevertheless, I have received much courtesy at the hands of some.
My young friend the novice was delightful - only it was so sad to
think of the future that is before him. He wanted to know all
about England, and when I told him it was an island, clasped his
hands and said, "Oh che Provvidenza!" He told me how the other
young men of his own age plagued him as he trudged his rounds high
up among the most distant hamlets begging alms for the poor. "Be a
good fellow," they would say to him, "drop all this nonsense and
come back to us, and we will never plague you again." Then he
would turn upon them and put their words from him. Of course my
sympathies were with the other young men rather than with him, but
it was impossible not to be sorry for the manner in which he had
been humbugged from the day of his birth, till he was now incapable
of seeing things from any other standpoint than that of authority.
What he said to me about knowing that Handel was a Catholic by his
music, put me in mind of what another good Catholic once said to me
about a picture. He was a Frenchman and very nice, but a devot,
and anxious to convert me. He paid a few days' visit to London, so
I showed him the National Gallery. While there I pointed out to
him Sebastian del Piombo's picture of the raising of Lazarus as one
of the supposed masterpieces of our collection.
