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. He had the proper
orthodox fit of admiration over it, and then we went through the
other rooms. After a while we found ourselves before West's
picture of "Christ healing the sick." My French friend did not, I
suppose, examine it very carefully, at any rate he believed he was
again before the raising of Lazarus by Sebastian del Piombo; he
paused before it and had his fit of admiration over again:
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