Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2

n of every color; he repeats the marvel of the chameleon'
(_ibid._ p. 105). 'When they play a losing game, they yet rise winners
from the table. For it is their habit to insinuate themselves upon any
condition demanded, having arts enough whereby to make themselves
masters of those who bind them by prescribed rules. They are glad to
enter in the guise of galley-slaves with irons on their ankles; since,
when they have got in, they will find no difficulty in loosing their own
bonds and binding others' (_ibid._ p. 134). 'They command two arts: the
one of escaping from the bonds and obligations of any vow or promise
they shall have made, by means of equivocation, tacit reservation, and
mental restriction; the other of insinuating, like the hedgehog, into
the narrowest recesses, being well aware that when they unfold their
piercing bristles, they will obtain the full possession of the dwelling
and exclude its master' _(ibid_. p. 144). 'Everybody in Italy is well
aware how they have wrought confession into an art. They never receive
confidences under that seal without disclosing all particulars in the
conferences of their Society; and that with the view of using confession
to the advantage of their order and the Church. At the same time they
preach the doctrine that the seal of the confessional precludes a
penitent from disclosing what the confessor may have said to him, albeit
his utterances have had no reference to sins or to the safety of the
soul' (_ib._ vol. ii. p. 108). 'Should the Jesuits in France get hold of
education, they will dominate the university, and eradicate sound
letters. Yet why do I speak of healthy literature? I ought to have said
good and wholesome doctrine, the which is verily mortal to that Company'
(_ibid._ p. 162). 'Every species of vice finds its patronage in them.
The avaricious trust their maxims, for trafficking in spiritual
commodities; the superstitious, for substituting kisses upon images for
the exercise of Christian virtues; the base fry of ambitious upsta

John Addington Symonds (October 5, 1840 - April 19, 1893) was an English poet and literary critic. He was an early advocate of the validity of male love which included for him pederastic as well as egalitarian relationships, and which he would refer to as lamour de limpossible.

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