This penitent, now famous, carried his provocation of the inexhaustible
goodness very far. At one time in his life he tried to blow out his
brains! By a mere chance--he probably said, by a miracle,--the wound was
not mortal; but he always retained the accusing scar. I never knew
whether this unpleasant adventure preceded or followed Mr. L.'s
conversion, or whether it was coincident with one of the relapses of
which that repentant sinner accused himself.
Another very religious friend was no less fragile in the observance of
his firm vow. Becoming a widower, he swore eternal fidelity to the
"departed angel." Soon after, he was seen with another wife on his arm!
"And your angel?" whispered a sceptic in his ear.
"Oh, my friend!" was the reply, "this one is an archangel."
Another figure haunted Delsarte and afforded yet another proof of his
tolerance. The Italian, C----, shared neither his political ideas nor
his religious beliefs; he was one of those refugees whom the defeats of
the Carbonari have cast upon our soil, and whose necessities
France--does our neighbor remember this?--for years supplied, as if they
were her own children. However, she could offer them but a precarious
living.
Signer C., to give some charm to his wretched existence, desired to add
to his scanty budget a strong dose of hope and intellectual enjoyment:
hope in--what came later--the independence and unity of Italy.
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