Then
what was oppression yesterday is justifiable defence to-day; fanaticism
becomes logic; and credulity and pliant submission get, in two centuries,
to be deference to the venerable opinion of our fathers! But let it
go--thou wert speaking of thanking God, and in that; Roman though I am, I
fervently and devoutly join with or without saints' intercession."
The honest baron did not like his friend's allusions, though they were
much too subtle for his ready comprehension, for the intellect of the
Swiss was a little frosted by constant residence among snows and in full
view of glaciers, and it wanted the volatile play of the Genoese's fancy,
which was apt to expand like air rarefied by the warmth of the sun. This
difference of temperament, however, so far from lessening their mutual
kindness, was, most probably, the real cause of its existence, since it is
well known that friendship, like love, is more apt to be generated by
qualities that vary a little from our own than by a perfect homogeneity of
character and disposition which is more liable to give birth to rivalry
and contention, than when each party has some distinct capital of his own
on which to adventure, and with which to keep alive the interest of him
who, in that particular feature, may be but indifferently provided.
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