Being uneasy about our agent's course at the Vatican, I have come over
to Rome to see about it. He is an Irishman, with a little of Father TOM
in him, and has got into a "controversy" with his Holiness about
infallibility. Our African bishop (otherwise PHELIM BURKE) insists that
PUNCHINELLO is infallible! The Pope says this is ridiculous! Father
PHELIM replies that "there are two that can play that same game." I
found them in the midst of this when ANTONELLI ushered me into the Papal
presence. PIUS was up on his feet, talking Latin like a crack student of
the Propaganda. PHELIM had his sleeves rolled up. ANTONELLI, with a
"_Pax vobiscum_" got the two contending powers quieted down; and, after
a proper salutation from me, we began our talk. His Holiness is not much
on English. Says he, "I speak vat-I-can English." Had he said _non
possumus_ to it, it would have been better. However, PHELIM translated
him; so we got on.
"Your Holiness enjoys, I hope, a good constitution?"
"The _constitutio de fide_ is, indeed, very good. Catholics must every
where subscribe to it."
"Dr. DÕLLINGER, I trust, don't disturb your appetite?" "_Anathema
maranatha!_" which means (said PHELIM,) "Oh no, I never mention him."
Whereupon PHELIM, who had breakfasted on gin-and-milk, began to hum that
tune. I at once trod upon his toe, and he stopped.
"On the whole, what does your Holiness think of the prospect?"
"From this window, it is very fine. But I'm getting a little
dim-sighted.
"Don't you see that crowd of people coming up?"
"No I don't--it's only a herd of cattle from the Campagna."
"Take my glass. There, now; don't you see, I am right?"
"Yes," and the old man crossed himself, "It is so; I was mistaken."
"Thrue for you!" gobbled out PHELIM; "we've got to make a note of that!
PUNCHINELLO never made the likes of a mistake!"
"But, _what's in your glass?_ I see strange men there. GARIBALDI, and
MAZZINI, and HYACINTHE, STROSSMEYER, DÕLLINGER, DUPANLOUP, and CUMMING,
all together! I see a troop of schoolmasters; a larger one of
newspaper-venders; and a whole army of _colporteurs_, each with a bag of
Bibles on his back! And, what do I see? They enter ST. PETER'S; they
leave the door wide open. Did I hear it? They are singing LUTHER'S
Hymn!"
The old man fell now into his seat, and I took the glass from him. "Only
one of his attacks," said ANTONELLI. "He is not quite so strong as he
was." "Thrue again," said PHELIM. With that sense of propriety for which
your representative has over been distinguished, I took PHELIM by the
arm and retired.
Poor Pius! He means well, and if we only had him for a while out West,
where I came from, we might make something sensible out of him yet. But,
when a man will live so far away from the Rocky Mountains as away over
here, what can be expected? We can't civilize the whole world at once.
Father PHELIM, by the way, is to be proposed as the new King of Spain.
His father's uncle's second cousin by the mother's side partook of a
good deal of BOURBON. That's reason enough, you know especially as they
only want a King LOG.