obviously hopeless task (as the Church of Rome very well
understands) when he tried to put down seasonarianism. People must
and will go to church to be a little better, to the theatre to be a
little naughtier, to the Royal Institution to be a little more
scientific, than they are in actual life. It is only by pulsations
of goodness, naughtiness, and whatever else we affect that we can
get on at all. I grant that when in his office, a man should be
exact and precise, but our holidays are our garden, and too much
precision here is a mistake.

Surely truces, without even an arriere pensee of difference of
opinion, between those who are compelled to take widely different
sides during the greater part of their lives, must be of infinite
service to those who can enter on them. There are few merely
spiritual pleasures comparable to that derived from the temporary
laying down of a quarrel, even though we may know that it must be
renewed shortly. It is a great grief to me that there is no place
where I can go among Mr. Darwin, Professors Huxley, Tyndall, and
Ray Lankester, Miss Buckley, Mr. Romanes, Mr. Allen, and others
whom I cannot call to mind at this moment, as I can go among the
Italian priests. I remember in one monastery (but this was not in
the Canton Ticino) the novice taught me how to make sacramental
wafers, and I played him Handel on the organ as well as I could. I
told him that Handel was a Catholic; he said he could tell that by
his music at once. There is no chance of getting among our
scientists in this way.

Some friends say I was telling a lie when I told the novice Handel
was a Catholic, and ought not to have done so. I make it a rule to
swallow a few gnats a day, lest I should come to strain at them,