But The
Englishman With Ingenuous Ardour Thinks To Believe In The Burning Bush
Wonder, And In So Far His Intelligence
Is infected; with equal ardour he
excludes the cow-performance from the range of possibility; and to him
it matters
Considerably which of the miracles are true and which are
false, seeing that his conduct is supposed to take colour from such
supernatural events. Ultra-credulous as to one set of narratives, he has
no credulity left for other sets; he concentrates his believing energies
upon a small space, whereas the Italian's are diffused, thinly, over a
wide area. It is the old story: Gothic intensity and Latin spaciousness.
So the Gothic believer takes his big dose of irrationalism on one fixed
day; the Latin, by attending Mass every morning, spreads it over the
whole week. And the sombre strenuousness of our northern character
expects a remuneration for this outlay of faith, while the other
contents himself with such sensuous enjoyment as he can momentarily
extract from his ceremonials. That is why our English religion has a
democratic tinge distasteful to the Latin who, at bottom, is always a
philosopher; democratic because it relies for its success, like
democratic politicians, upon promises - promises that may or may not be
kept - promises that form no part (they are only an official appendage)
of the childlike paganism of the south. . . .
Fifteen francs will buy you a reliable witness for a south Italian
lawsuit; you must pay a good deal more in England.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 402 of 488
Words from 108092 to 108341
of 131203
