that he was unable to render a reason to himself or others for what he
chose to do, I should have thought that this very probably might have
been the case, were there not such strong evidence to the contrary. The
highest, or perhaps any high administrative ability is intuitive, and
precedes argument, and rises above it. It is a revelation of the very
thing to be done, and its propriety and necessity are felt so strongly
that very likely it cannot be talked about; if the doer can likewise
talk, it is an additional and gratuitous faculty, as little to be
expected as that a poet should be able to write an explanatory criticism
on his own poem. The English overlook this in their scheme of
government, which requires that the members of the national executive
should be orators, and the readiest and most fluent orators that can be
found. The very fact (on which they are selected) that they are men of
words makes it improbable that they are likewise men of deeds. And it is
only tradition and old custom, founded on an obsolete state of things,
that assigns any value to parliamentary oratory. The world has done with
it, except as an intellectual pastime. The speeches have no effect till
they are converted into newspaper paragraphs; and they had better be
composed as such, in the first place, and oratory reserved for churches,
courts of law, and public dinner-tables.


July 10th.--My wife and I went yesterday forenoon to see the Church of
San Marco, with which is connected a convent of Dominicans. . . . . The
interior is not less than three or four hundred years old, and is in the
classic style, with a flat ceiling, gilded, and a lofty arch, supported
by pillars, between the nave and choir. There are no side aisles, but
ranges of shrines on both sides of the nave, each beneath its own pair of
pillars and pediments. The pavement is of brick, with here and there a
marble tombstone inlaid. It is not a magnificent church; but looks dingy