"
"There is no taint of sensuality in the purely spiritual," said the
Cardinal reprovingly.
"Not for your nature,--no! You have made your body like a
transparent scabbard through which the glitter of the soul-sword is
almost visible. But I am different. I am so much of a materialist
that I like to pull down Heaven to the warm bosom of Earth and make
them mingle. You would lift up Earth to Heaven! Ah, that is
difficult! Even Christ came down! It is the chief thing I admire in
Him, that He 'descended from Heaven and was made Man'. TRES CHER
Felix, I shall bewilder you to death with my specious and frivolous
reasoning,--and after all, I had much better come to the main fact
of what I intended to tell you,--a sort of confession out of church.
You know I have already told you I am going to die soon, and that I
am a bad man confessedly and hopelessly,--but among other things is
this, (and if you can give me any advice upon it I will take it,)
that for the last four or five years I have been dodging about to
escape being murdered,--not because I particularly mind being
murdered, because I probably deserve it,--and one way of exit is as
good as another,--but because I want to save the would-be murderer
from committing his crime.
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