"Sara," Said One, "Per Cento Anni,
Per Cinque Cento, Per Mille O Forse Per Dieci Mille Anni, Ma Non
Sara
Eterna; perche il Dio e un uomo forte - grande, generoso, di
buon cuore." {16} An Italian told me once that
If ever I came upon
a priest whom I wanted to tease, I was to ask him if he knew a
place called La Torre Pellice. I have never yet had the chance of
doing this; for, though I am fairly quick at seeing whether I am
likely to get on with a priest or no, I find the priest is
generally fairly quick too; and I am no sooner in a diligence or
railway carriage with an unsympathetic priest, than he curls
himself round into a moral ball and prays horribly - bristling out
with collects all over like a cross-grained spiritual hedgehog.
Partly, therefore, from having no wish to go out of my way to make
myself obnoxious, and partly through the opposite party being
determined that I shall not get the chance, the question about La
Torre Pellice has never come off, and I do not know what a priest
would say if the subject were introduced, - but I did get a talking
about La Torre Pellice all the same.
I was going from Turin to Pinerolo, and found myself seated
opposite a fine-looking elderly gentleman who was reading a paper
headed, "Le Temoin, Echo des Vallees Vaudoises": for the Vaudois,
or Waldenses, though on the Italian side of the Alps, are French in
language and perhaps in origin.
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