Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/223

Rh Yesterday I took leave of my captain with a promise of visiting him at Bologna on my return. He is a true representative of the majority of his countrymen. Here, however, I would record a peculiarity which personally distinguished him. As I often sat quiet, and lost in thought, he once exclaimed, "Che pensa? non deve mai pensar l'uomo, pensando s'invecchia;" which, being interpreted, is as much as to say, "What are you thinking about? A man ought never to think. Thinking makes one old." And now for another apothegm of his: "Non deve fermarsi l'uomo in una sola cosa, perche allora divien matto; bisogna aver mille cose, una confusione nella testa;" in plain English, "A man ought not to rivet his thoughts exclusively on any one thing: otherwise he is sure to go mad. He ought to have in his head a thousand things, a regular medley."

Certainly the good man could not know that the very thing which made me so thoughtful was my having my head mazed by a regular confusion of things, old and new. The following anecdote will serve to elucidate still more clearly the mental character of an Italian of this class. Having soon discovered that I was a Protestant, he observed, after some circumlocution, that he hoped I would allow him to ask me a few questions; for he had heard such strange things about us Protestants, that he wished to know for a certainty what to think of us. "May you," he said, "live with a pretty girl without being married to her? do your priests allow you to do so?" To this I replied, that "our priests are prudent folk, who take no notice of such trifles. No doubt, if we were to consult them upon such a matter, they would not permit it." "Are you, then, not obliged to ask them?" he exclaimed. "Happy fellows! as they do not confess you, they of course do not find it out." Hereupon he gave vent, in many reproaches, to his discontent with his own priests, uttering at the same time loud praises