He went on to praise the company they had just left, declaring that he knew no better way for a young man to form his mind than by frequenting the society of men of conflicting views and equal capacity.  “Nothing,” said he, “is more injurious to the growth of character than to be secluded from argument and opposition; as nothing is healthier than to be obliged to find good reasons for one’s beliefs on pain of surrendering them.”

“But,” said Odo, struck with this declaration, “to a man of your cloth there is one belief which never surrenders to reason.”

The other smiled.  “True,” he agreed; “but I often marvel to see how little our opponents know of that belief.  The wisest of them seem in the case of those children at our country fairs who gape at the incredible things depicted on the curtains of the booths, without asking themselves whether the reality matches its presentment.  The weakness of human nature has compelled us to paint the outer curtain of the sanctuary in gaudy colours, and the malicious fancy of our enemies has given a monstrous outline to these pictures; but what are such vanities to one who has passed beyond, and beheld the beauty of the King’s daughter, all glorious within?”

As though unwilling to linger on such grave topics, he turned the talk to the scene at their feet, questioning Odo as to the impression Naples had made on him.  He listened courteously to the young man’s comments on the wretched state of the peasantry, the extravagances of the court and nobility and the judicial corruption which made the lower classes submit to any injustice rather than seek redress through the courts.  De Crucis agreed with him in the main, admitting that the monopoly of corn, the maintenance of feudal rights and the King’s indifference to the graver duties of his rank placed the kingdom of Naples far below such states as Tuscany or Venetia; “though,” he added, “I think our economists, in praising one state at the expense of another, too often overlook those differences of character and climate that must ever make it impossible to govern different races in the same manner.  Our peasants have a blunt saying:  Cut off the dog’s tail and he is still a dog; and so I suspect the most enlightened rule would hardly bring this prompt and choleric people, living on a volcanic soil amid a teeming vegetation, into any resemblance with the clear-headed Tuscan or the gentle and dignified Roman.”

As he spoke they emerged upon the Chiaia, where at that hour the quality took the air in their carriages, while the lower classes thronged the footway.  A more vivacious scene no city of Europe could present.  The gilt coaches drawn by six or eight of the lively Neapolitan horses, decked with plumes and artificial flowers and preceded by running footmen who beat the foot-passengers aside with long staves; the richly-dressed ladies seated in this never-ending file of carriages, bejewelled like miraculous images and languidly bowing