Lady M——’s husband, formerly a physician, now a philosopher and author, and what the French call ‘un bon homme,’ affecting moreover the man of taste and judgment, gave me a book of his, containing a thoroughly materialist system of philosophy: there are, however, some good things in it, and it has altogether more merit than I should have expected from the author. I was busied in reading it half the night. From the unconnected and daring character of the whole, I however concluded either that Lady M—— had written a considerable portion of it herself, or at least that these views of things had thrown her mind into such a state of doubt and confusion, that she had actually imagined the question whether God might not possibly be malevolent. Your celebrated people are but men like others, Heaven knows!—scholars and statesmen, philosophers and poets. At every acquaintance of this sort that I make, I think of Oxenstierna, who, when his young son expressed some hesitation and diffidence as to the part he should play at the Congress of Münster in the presence of so many great and wise men, replied with a smile, “Ah, my son, depart in peace, and see by what manner of men the world is governed!”
Nov. 1st.
‘Les Catholiques me font la cour ici.’ The * * * sent me word through his wife, that as I was a lover of their church music, I should go to their chapel to-day, where the choir would be remarkably full and good, and he himself was to perform the service. I heard indeed some magnificent vocal music, (in which female voices took part,) accompanied only by some few notes of a powerful organ. It was a high enjoyment—this sublime music, which filled the soul with a fulness of delight, and raised it on its soft wings above the cares of this lower world, while the whole congregation knelt in reverent supplication.
You will begin to think, dear Julia, that I intend to imitate the Duke of C——, and turn Catholic. And to say the truth, the motives which lead to such a change do not appear to me wholly absurd. Protestantism,—such Protestantism as we commonly find,—is not a whit more rational, and far less poetical and attractive to the senses. I am fully persuaded, however, that a new Luther or a new Messiah is at hand, and will help us through all our difficulties and doubts: then we shall not need to cast a look behind us;—till then, I can quite imagine that many may find more consistency, at least, in the Catholic faith. It is no imperfect half-idolatry, but perfect and consistent,—a ladder descending from heaven to earth, whose last steps are those deified creatures, those kind sympathizing saints of both sexes, who are so near to us, and who know so well our human wishes, emotions, and passions! * * *
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When the priest and the acolytes toss about the censers; when the bishop every minute puts on a fresh embroidered garment,—now standing still before the altar, now running forwards, then backwards, then touching the ground with his forehead, and at length turning himself about like a weather-cock with the pyx, and then keeping his eyes fixed upon it as upon a microscope,—I am perfectly prepared to hear any of the miracles, wonders, or monstrous absurdities with which religion has been overlaid. But when a man in simple garb, and quiet reasonable appearance, gets up and speaks to me of patience, of purity, of eternal truth and eternal love, and then goes on to ascribe to the God of justice and of love, and to his noblest and purest interpreter on earth, fables and atrocities which shock every sound and unperverted understanding, and then requires me to receive them as something holy and divine,—I turn disgusted from such hypocrisy or such folly. A bigot may reply, Your sound understanding is no measure for the ways or the works of God. To which I answer, But your God is a human being; and our understanding and our reason, with our knowledge of external nature, and the experience thence derived, are the only true and genuine revelation of God, of which we are all sharers and which no one can doubt. Man is so formed by nature, that it is his inevitable destiny for ever to carry on through these means his own education, for ever to advance in the career of improvement. Thus Christianity was a consequence of this progressive civilization; as were at an earlier period the Mosaic law, and at a later the Reformation, and its second act the French Revolution. Its latest results are the universal liberty of thought and of printing which have sprung from the latter event, and all that is now preparing by their more tranquil but so much the more certain operation. In every case we find only the results of the same gradual civilization. No man can know the highest point which this civilization will reach; but be that point what it may, it must always retain its human character, and be furthered by human means.
November 2d.
My last and longest visit this morning was to the sweet girls I met at Lady M——’s. I took them some Italian music, which they sang like nightingales, and with a total absence of all pretension and all affectation. Their father is a distinguished physician; and like most of the ‘doctors’ of eminence here, a ‘Baronet’ or ‘Knight,’ a title which is not esteemed a mark of nobility in England, although some families of great antiquity and consideration bear it. There are, however, Creti and Pleti, as among our lower nobility. A Baronet is generally called not by his family, but by his Christian name; as Sir Charles, Sir Anthony; as in Vienna they say, Graf Tinterle, Kürst Muckerle, and so on. The medical Knight of whom I now speak, received his title in consequence of the establishment of excellent baths, and is a very interesting man. His wife seemed to me still more remarkable for talent. She is very superior to her celebrated relative in accurate tact and judgment, and possesses an extraordinary power of mimicry, whose comic bent does not always spare her own family. The daughters, though perfectly different, are both very original; the one in the gentle, the other in the wild ‘genre.’ I always call her Lady M——’s ‘wild Irish girl.’ All three have a characteristic nationality,[149] and indeed have never quitted Ireland.
In the evening Lady M—— told me that the translations of her works, which were often so bad as to destroy the sense, were a source of great vexation to her. In her Letters on Italy for instance, where she says of the Genoese, “They bought the scorn of all Europe,” the translator read for scorn, corn, and wrote, ‘Gênes dans ce temps achetait tout le blé de l’Europe.’
November 3d.