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Bredimaco Angularus Directory 09
Page 05
And now I leave my subject, not without misgiving that I shall have disappointed you. But for the great attention which is being paid to the work from which I have quoted above, I should not have thought it well to insist on points with which you are, I doubt not, as fully impressed as I am: but that book weakens the sanctions of natural religion, and minimises the comfort which it affords us, while it does more to undermine than to support the foundations of what is commonly called belief. Therefore I was glad to embrace this opportunity of protesting. Otherwise I should not have been so serious on a matter that transcends all seriousness. Lord Beaconsfield cut it shorter with more effect. When asked to give a rule of life for the son of a friend he said, "Do not let him try and find out who wrote the letters of Junius." Pressed for further counsel he added, "Nor yet who was the man in the iron mask"--and he would say no more. Don't bore people. And yet I am by no means sure that a good many people do not think themselves ill-used unless he who addresses them has thoroughly well bored them--especially if they have paid any money for hearing him. My great namesake said, "Surely the pleasure is as great of being cheated as to cheat," and great as the pleasure both of cheating and boring undoubtedly is, I believe he was right. So I remember a poem which came out some thirty years ago in Punch, about a young lady who went forth in quest to "Some burden make or burden bear, but which she did not greatly care, oh Miserie." So, again, all the holy men and women who in the Middle Ages professed to have discovered how to make the best of life took care that being bored, if not cheated, should have a large place in their programme. Still there are limits, and I close not without fear that I may have exceeded them.
There were three passages there, called respectively the Casson, near the left bank; the Dos Ananas, in the centre; and the channel da Terra Preta, which we followed, on the right. At Lua Nova, the end of the Mangabel rapid, the river turned in a sweeping curve to the north, the rocks getting fewer and fewer until eventually the river became quite clear of them, with only high hills along both banks. Lua Nova was a little settlement of five houses and a shed, some of them whitewashed, with doors and windows painted green. A small plantation of Indian corn, sugar-cane, and _mandioca_ had been made, the soil being extremely fertile at that spot. We enjoyed a magnificent view to the west and north-north-west, the river there forming an elbow.
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