Their
humility is not at all misplaced, for you see at a glance (poor
fellows!) that they belong to the LAG REMOVE of the human race. If
the taking of the cowl does not imply a complete renouncement of
the world, it is at least (in these days) a thorough farewell to
every kind of useful and entertaining knowledge, and accordingly
the low bestial brow and the animal caste of those almost Bourbon
features show plainly enough that all the intellectual vanities of
life have been really and truly abandoned. But it is hard to
quench altogether the spirit of inquiry that stirs in the human
breast, and accordingly these monks inquire--they are ALWAYS
inquiring inquiring for "news"! Poor fellows! they could scarcely
have yielded themselves to the sway of any passion more difficult
of gratification, for they have no means of communicating with the
busy world except through European travellers; and these, in
consequence I suppose of that restlessness and irritability that
generally haunt their wanderings, seem to have always avoided the
bore of giving any information to their hosts. As for me, I am
more patient and good-natured, and when I found that the kind monks
who gathered round me at Nazareth were longing to know the real
truth about the General Bonaparte who had recoiled from the siege
of Acre, I softened my heart down to the good humour of Herodotus,
and calmly began to "sing history," telling my eager hearers of the
French Empire and the greatness of its glory, and of Waterloo and
the fall of Napoleon! Now my story of this marvellous ignorance on
the part of the poor monks is one upon which (though depending on
my own testimony) I look "with considerable suspicion.
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