Dickens and Monasticism

Extract

Not in the Pictures from Italy, published in 1846 after the first long visit to that country, is the true perception of monasticism revealed. In the presence of ceremonial activities the comic spirit possessed Dickens. Ludicrous comparisons invaded his mind when he gazed upon ecclesiastical or civil solemnities. The constitutional irreverence of the newspaper reporter could not be subdued—not even in Rome itself. Dickens noted that the Pope had ‘a pleasant and venerable face,’ but the carrying of his Holiness in a chair round St. Peter’s on a great occasion after High Mass had ‘nothing solemn or effective in it; and certainly much that was droll and tawdry.’ The ‘whole ceremony’ indeed left no other impression ; ‘except the raising of the Host, when every man in the guard dropped on one knee instantly, and dashed his naked sword on the ground; which had a fine effect.’

Dickens, of course, poked fun at the regular clergy —as good men have done in every age—and he found them everywhere in Italy in the forties. Dislike of the Jesuits is not concealed. The sons of St. Ignatius are ‘stealthy,’ they ‘creep in and out’ of St. Peter’s; in Milan they were observed in the streets ‘slinking noiselessly about in pairs.’ (But how did Dickens know they were Jesuits? Did the ‘velvet tread’ of popular repute give them away? Is the footgear of the Jesuit really unique? Father Thurston might clear up the mystery).