Gaskell on my way home, it
will probably be Friday or Saturday in next week before I return to
Haworth. Martha will thus have a few days more time, and must not
hurry or overwork herself. Yesterday I saw Cardinal Wiseman and
heard him speak. It was at a meeting for the Roman Catholic Society
of St. Vincent de Paul; the Cardinal presided. He is a big portly
man something of the shape of Mr. Morgan; he has not merely a double
but a treble and quadruple chin; he has a very large mouth with oily
lips, and looks as if he would relish a good dinner with a bottle of
wine after it. He came swimming into the room smiling, simpering,
and bowing like a fat old lady, and sat down very demure in his chair
and looked the picture of a sleek hypocrite. He was dressed in black
like a bishop or dean in plain clothes, but wore scarlet gloves and a
brilliant scarlet waistcoat. A bevy of inferior priests surrounded
him, many of them very dark-looking and sinister men. The Cardinal
spoke in a smooth whining manner, just like a canting Methodist
preacher. The audience seemed to look up to him as to a god. A
spirit of the hottest zeal pervaded the whole meeting. I was told
afterwards that except myself and the person who accompanied me there
was not a single Protestant present.
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