"Look," he continued, as he and Odo drew aside to escape the mud from an
emblazoned chariot, "at the gold-leaf on the panels of that coach and
the gold-lace on the liveries of those lacqueys. Is there any other city
in the world where gold is so prodigally used? Where the monks gild
their relics, the nobility their servants, the apothecaries their pills,
the very butchers their mutton? One might fancy their bright sun had set
them the example! And how cold and grey all soberer tints must seem to
these children of Apollo! Well--so it is with their religion and their
daily life. I wager half those naked wretches yonder would rather attend
a fine religious service, with abundance of gilt candles, music from
gilt organ-pipes, and incense from gilt censers, than eat a good meal or
sleep in a decent bed; as they would rather starve under a handsome
merry King that has the name of being the best billiard-player in Europe
than go full under one of your solemn reforming Austrian Archdukes!"
The words recalled to Odo Crescenti's theory of the influence of
character and climate on the course of history; and this subject soon
engrossing both speakers, they wandered on, inattentive to their
surroundings, till they found themselves in the thickest concourse of
the Toledo. Here for a moment the dense crowd hemmed them in; and as
they stood observing the humours of the scene, Odo's eye fell on the
thick-set figure of a man in doctor's dress, who was being led through
the press by two agents of the Inquisition.
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