Four Years in France: or, Narrative of an English Family's Residence there during that Period; Preceded by some Account of the Conversion of the Author to the Catholic FaithBeste, Henry Digby
Religion
Four Years in France: or, Narrative of an English Family's Residence there during that Period; Preceded by some Account of the Conversion of the Author to the Catholic Faith
Beste, Henry Digby
France -- Description and travel
"Your son was perfect, as far as human nature can be so: so much
self-denial, tenderness to the feelings of others, such strict
attention to his religious duties, whatever pleasures might be offered
him, I never met with in any character; and in so young a man, at a
distance from all who had a right to control him, it was most
extraordinary, and bespoke a mind whose every feeling was governed by
religion. Could you have heard the general regret for his loss, and the
remarks made on his conduct and manners by all who knew him, you would
have been gratified; but you have a higher source of comfort," &c.
I will cite another testimony; that of the priest who was his director
during his visit to his native land:--"I was much affected by the news
of the death of the amiable Henry Kenelm; and yet I cannot but regard it
as a great mercy in Almighty God to snatch him in his innocence from the
horrid corruptions and impieties of the world. Now he is gone, it is not
unlawful for me to say that I thought him one of the most innocent,
watchful, and mortified souls I had ever met with of his age."
On the morrow of his return he began a drawing of an infant Jesus from
an engraving of a picture by Raphael in the Palazzo Pitti: it was to be
finished in the French style, with much exactness and labour. He said,
"the infant shall be ready for his birth-day;" and in effect he
concluded his work on Christmas eve. I saw the features of this infant
Jesus with an astonishment, the motive of which I explained to Kenelm;
it is not yet time to reveal it to the reader.
This winter Kenelm took lessons in fencing, and, after having acquired
some skill in the noble science of defence, he engaged a sous-officier
to come daily to the house to teach him the manual exercise. He had
learned dancing in his college, where masters attended for that purpose.
During his first winter at Avignon he refused to take dancing lessons,
from scruples suggested to him by a devout person, who also endeavoured
to engage me to forbid my children to learn to dance, supporting his
opinion of its unlawfulness by the usual topics. I replied, "I should be
ashamed for my children, if I thought they could not dance without
finding in it a proximate occasion of sin: the thing is innocent in
itself; let those who find it, or make it otherwise, avoid it." In his
second winter Kenelm surmounted the scruples of our devout friend, and
resumed his dancing lessons, and now continued them, not so much out of
a desire to perfect himself, as for the sake of joining in the amusement
of the family party.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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