Being a Quaker by birth, therefore educated to respect every man’s religion, and to believe that every man respects mine, nevertheless I felt misgivings incumbent upon the meeting of extremes. I was ushered into a large drawing-room and was examining the pictures, which generally tell the character of the owner, when Mr. Chatard entered. As he asked me to be seated, I thought, as some one has expressed it before me, “the whole world over, there are but two kinds of people,—‘man and woman.’”
The youth of this college may thank their stars that America has given them one of her most learned and worthy sons, though the sect to which his mother once belonged must deplore his loss.
In conversation with this Reverend gentleman, I obtained the requirements necessary to an introduction to the Pope, and was a little surprised that he should question my willingness to conform to the same. It was however, explained. He had been much embarrassed by the demeanor of some of the American women. Seeking the privilege of meeting the Pope in his own palace, where common courtesy and etiquette naturally demand a deference to the Lord of the Manor, yet these ladies, having previously guaranteed a compliance with the laws of ceremony, after gaining admission refused to obey them.
Seeing the Pope was not, to me, a religious service and is not generally so considered.
My only fear was that my plain manners in their brusqueness, would have the appearance of “omission.”
But the requirements are simple. Bending the knee, as a physical performance, was a source of anxiety. I at once called to mind the great difficulty which, as a young girl, I had in the play:
“If I had as many wives
As the stars in the skies,” etc.
Notwithstanding the person who had to kneel in the game had a large cushion to throw before her to receive the fall, I always shook the house from the foundations when I went down. I can hear the pendants now, of a chandelier in a certain frame house in my native town ring out my weight, as I flung the cushion in front of a boy that knew “he was not the one,” and took to my knees. True, the Vatican is not shaky in its underpinnnings, and faithful practice upon the floor of my apartment in Bocca di Leone, I thought, would be productive of some good. Quickly running through this train of reflection, and finally trusting that the gathering would not be disturbed by any marked awkwardness, I returned home to await the tidings.
Monday Evening. Have seen Pio Nono—have committed no enormity.