Yet this, the essence of the man, the fundamental trait of
his character which shines out of every page of his writing and every
detail of his daily life--this, the feature by which he was known to his
fellows and ought to be known to posterity--it is intelligible from that
account only if you read between the lines. Is that the way to write
"biography"?
Fortunately he has written himself down; so has Ramage; and it is
instructive to compare the wayside reflections of these two
contemporaries as they rove about the ruins of Italy; the first, ardent
Catholic, his horizon close-bounded by what the good fathers of
Stonyhurst had seen fit to teach him; the other, less complacent, all
alive indeed with Calvinistic disputatiousness and ready to embark upon
bold speculations anent the origin of heathen gods and their modern
representatives in the Church of Rome; amiable scholars and gentlemen,
both of them; yet neither venturing to draw those plain conclusions
which the "classic remains of paganism" would have forced upon anybody
else--upon anybody, that is, who lacked their initial warp, whose mind
had not been twisted in youth or divided, rather, into watertight
compartments.
A long sentence....
Pisa
After a glacial journey--those English! They will not even give us coal
for steam-heating--I arrived here. It is warmer, appreciably warmer. Yet
I leave to-morrow or next day. The streets of the town, the distant
beach of San Rossore and its pine trees--they are fraught with sad
memories; memories of an autumn month in the early nineties.
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