"
"Happy would it be if all had the same faculty and the same disposition to
put it in use."
"I shall not presume to teach one as wise and as experienced as yourself,
eccellenza, but if an humble man might speak freely in this honorable
presence, he would say that it is not common to meet with a fact without
finding it a very near neighbor to a lie. They pass for the wisest and the
most virtuous who best know how to mix the two so artfully together, that,
like the sweets we put upon healing bitters, the palatable may make the
useful go down. Such at least is the opinion of a poor street buffoon,
who has no better claim to merit than having learned his art on the Mole
and in the Toledo of Bellissima Napoli, which, as everybody knows, is a
bit of heaven fallen upon earth!"
The fervor with which Pippo uttered the customary eulogium on the site of
the ancient Parthenope was so natural and characteristic as to excite a
smile in the judge, in spite of the solemn duty in which he was engaged,
and it was believed to be an additional proof of the speaker's innocence.
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