organisms is always horrible.
Only distinguished creatures are beautiful in death, or know how to die
like gentlemen."

"Who are on your side to-day, signor?" asked Henry Lennox.

"More than I know, I hope. Gobineau is my lighthouse in the storm. You
must read him, if you have not done so. He was the incarnate spirit of
the Renaissance. He radiated from his bosom its effulgence and shot it
forth, like the light of a pharos over dark waters; he, best of all men,
understood it, and, most of all men, mourned to see its bright hope and
glory perish out of the earth under the unconquerable superstition of
mankind and the lamentable infliction of the Jewish race. Alas! The Jews
have destroyed many other things besides the Saviour of us all."

They found the Renaissance to be the favorite theme of Signor Mannetti.
He returned again and again to it, and it was typical of him that he
could combine assurances of being a devout Catholic with sentiments
purely pagan.

"Christianity has operated in the making of many slaves and charlatans,"
he said. "One mourns the fact, but must be honest. It has too often
scourged the only really precious members of society from the temple of
life. It has cast the brave and clean and virile into outer darkness,
and exalted the staple of humanity, which is never brave, or virile, and
seldom really clean. A hideous wave submerges everything that matters.
The proud, the beautiful--the only beings that justify the existence
of mankind--will soon be on the hills with the hawks and leopards, and
hunted like them--outcast, pariah, unwanted, hated."

"The spirit of christianity is socialistic, I fear," said Sir Walter.
"It is one of those things I do not pretend to understand, but the
modern clergy speak with a clear voice on the subject."

"Do your clergy indeed speak with a clear voice?"

"They do; and we must, of course, listen. Truth is apt to be painful.
And how can we reconcile our aristocratic instincts with our faith? I
ask for information and you will forgive the personality. I find myself
in almost entire agreement with your noble sentiments. But, as a good
Christian, ought I to be so? How do you stand with the one true faith in
your heart and these opinions in your head, signor?"

The old man twinkled and a boyish smile lighted his aged countenance.

"A good question--a shrewd thrust, Sir Walter. There can be only one
answer to that, my friend. With God all things are possible."

Hen