'Congesta manu! Ecco!—there they are'—and he pointed down the river to the three or four distant towns, each on its mountain spur, that held the valley between them and Orvieto—pale jewels on the purple robe of rock and wood.
'So Virgil saw them. So the latest sons of time shall see them—the homes of a race that we chatter about without understanding—the most laborious race in the wide world.'
And again he rolled out under his breath, for the sheer joy of the verse:
Salve, magna parens frugum, Saturnia tellus,
Magna virûm.
The priest looked at him with a smile; preoccupied yet shrewd.
'I follow you with some astonishment. Surely—I remember other sentiments on your part?'
Manisty coloured a little, and shook his black head, protesting.
'I never said uncivil things, that I remember, about Italy or the Italians as such. My quarrel was with the men that run them, the governments that exploit them. My point was that Piedmont and the North had been too greedy, had laid hands too rapidly on the South and had risked this damnable quarrel with the Church, without knowing what they were running their heads into. And in consequence they found themselves—in spite of rivers of corrupt expenditure—without men, or money, or credit to work their big new machine with; while the Church was always there, stronger than ever for the grievance they had presented her with, and turned into an enemy with whom it was no longer possible to parley. Well!—that struck me as a good object lesson. I wanted to say to the secularising folk everywhere—England included—just come here, and look what your policy comes to, when it's carried out to the bitter end, and not in the gingerly, tinkering fashion you affect at home! Just understand what it means to separate Church from State, to dig a gulf between the religious and the civil life.—Here's a country where nobody can be at once a patriot and a good Christian—where the Catholics don't vote for Parliament, and the State schools teach no religion—where the nation is divided into two vast camps, hating and thrusting at each other with every weapon they can tear from life. Examine it! That's what the thing looks like when it's full grown. Is it profitable—does it make for good times? In your own small degree, are you going to drive England that way too?—You'll admit, Father—you always did admit—that it was a good theme.'
The priest smiled—a little sadly.
'Excellent. Only—you seemed to me—a little irresponsible.'