A wiser person would have kept such a thing discreetly to himself,
but with this harmless creature everything comes out. He hurts
his foot in a rut two thousand years old in exhumed Pompeii,
and presently, when staring at one of the cinder-like corpses unearthed
in the next square, conceives the idea that maybe it is the remains
of the ancient Street Commissioner, and straightway his horror softens
down to a sort of chirpy contentment with the condition of things.
In Damascus he visits the well of Ananias, three thousand years old,
and is as surprised and delighted as a child to find that the water
is "as pure and fresh as if the well had been dug yesterday."
In the Holy Land he gags desperately at the hard Arabic and Hebrew
Biblical names, and finally concludes to call them Baldwinsville,
Williamsburgh, and so on, "for convenience of spelling."
We have thus spoken freely of this man's stupefying simplicity
and innocence, but we cannot deal similarly with his colossal ignorance.
We do not know where to begin. And if we knew where to begin,
we certainly would not know where to leave off. We will give
one specimen, and one only. He did not know, until he got to Rome,
that Michael Angelo was dead! And then, instead of crawling away
and hiding his shameful ignorance somewhere, he proceeds to express
a pious, grateful sort of satisfaction that he is gone and out
of his troubles!
No, the reader may seek out the author's exhibition of his
uncultivation for himself.
Pages:
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275