At such a time the best feature in the Pope's character, a sort of
feeble kindliness of nature, was sure to show itself. I cannot but think
indeed that the sight of the young boyish faces, whose words of reverence
might possibly be those of truth and honesty, must have given an unwonted
pleasure to the worn out, harassed, disappointed old man. "The holy
father," I read, "receiving with agitated feelings so many tokens of
homage, was delighted beyond measure." When the English poems were
recited to him, he called out, "can't understand a word, but it seems
good, very good." He spoke to each of the lads in turn, and, when he was
shown the statue of Washington, told them to give a cheer for their
country, to cry _Viva la Patria_ (the very offence, by the way, for which
ten days before he had put his own Roman fellow-countrymen into prison),
and then when the boys cheered, he raised his hands to his ears, and told
them laughingly, they would drive him deaf. Now all this is very
pleasant, or in young-lady parlance, very nice, and I wish, truly, I had
nothing more to tell. I trust, indeed, that the long abstinence from
food (as a priest who is about to celebrate the communion is not allowed
to touch food from midnight till the time when Mass is over, and in these
matters of observance Pius IX. is reputed to be strictly conscientious)
or else the excitement of the scene had been too much for the not very
powerful mind of the Pontiff; otherwise I know not how you can excuse an
aged man, on the brink of the grave, to say nothing of the Vicegerent of
Christ, using such language as he employed.
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