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¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 Feb Rome 654
¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 pilasters and columbs (sic) gives a rich effect, like Florentine mosaic-
¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 1 Over nearly all of the alters [sic] are very large mosaic tableaux of great merit that require close inspection to discover that they are really not painted- One of them represent [sic] Marys first visit to the Temple with a white Dove and olive branch in her arms- so the wall around that chapel has several bas reliefs about the highth of my head, each one the same, of a white Dove about the size and grace of a Goose. Thats all very well for that chapel, but when I afterwards found the same all around the church in scores of places I decided that was not “all right on the Goose”.
¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 On all of the papal tombs are marble statues of the Popes. All of them are sitting, and all very graciously extending the right hand in the attitude of blessing.
¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0 The space beyond the high alter [sic] is more than one third as long as from it to the front doors- –
¶ 6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 0 In the arm of the cross could sit the largest church in Cleveland- Around the sides of these arms, are double barrelled [sic] confessionals, neatly built of walnut, having three openings in the front. The central for the priest, and one each side for the Sinners. Each building, for a different language, and in one arm I counted eleven different languages, (neatly spicified [sic] over the door of the priest-)-
¶ 7 Leave a comment on paragraph 7 0 In this grand and beautiful church there are no seats.
¶ 8 Leave a comment on paragraph 8 0 The above trip was on Friday, the day on which visitors are admitted into the Villa Doria Pamfili on the summit of the hills
¶ 9 Leave a comment on paragraph 9 0 [-Confessional-]
A general term for being “on the right side” of any question. Feminist Victoria Woodhull used it as follows:
“Society permits a woman to have a dozen men, legally, in as many years, and she is all right. She’s sound on the Goose Question. But if a woman live with her sexual mate without the payment of the [marriage license] fee, she is all wrong; she is a prostitute. And this is called purity, called morality! I say damn such morals.”
However, here’s a contemporary explanation of the term, from “Chronicles of Secessia,” published in Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862:
‘Sound on the Goose Question.’
Who is there among our readers who has not heard that phrase? It has now for some years been transferred from one political topic to another, until its flavor of novelty is well-nigh gone. But whence the expression? An antiquarian would probably hint at the geese whose sound saved Rome. The great goose question of the Reformation was the burning of one Huss, whose name in English signifyeth Goose, for which reason he is said to have exclaimed to his tormentors ‘Now ye indeed roast a goose, but, lo! after me there will come a swan whom ye can not roast;’ which was strangely fulfilled in Luther, whose name-slightly varied-signifies in Bohemian a swan. But, reader, ‘an it please you,’ here is the original and ‘Simon Pure’ explanation, as furnished by a correspondent:-
‘Are you right on the goose question?’ But do you know the origin of the phrase? It was told to me, at Harrisburg, in Pennsylvania, when I was there in “Fremont’s time,” anno 1856. Alas! the fates deal hardly with Fremont. C. and F., now a satellite of C., helped to slaughter him once before in Pennsylvania-sold him out to Know-Nothings. Hope they haven’t now in Missouri pitched him over to be succeeded by Do-Nothings. But to the story. Harrisburg has wide, clean, brick sidewalks. Many of the poorer sort there kept geese years ago, and sold or ate their progeny in the days of November and December-the “embers of the dying year.” Jenkins was up for constable. The question whether geese should run at large was started. The Harrisburg geese made at times bad work on the clean sidewalks, as do their examplars, spitting on the pave of Broadway. A delegation of the geese-owners waited on Jenkins. Seeing that they had many votes, he declared himself in favor of the geese running at large. The better sort of people, who were in favor of clean sidewalks, hearing of this, set up an opposition candidate, who avowed himself opposed to having the sidewalks fouled by these errant fowls. The canvass waxed warm; a third candidate took the field; he put himself in the hands of an astute “trainer” for the political fray. We don’t know whether or not this was before the day when Mr. Cameron counseled in politics at Harrisburg, but his Mentor bid this new candidate, when the delegations applied for his views on the all-absorbing issues, to say nothing himself, but to refer to him, the Mentor aforesaid. And when the delegations accordingly came to Mentor to find the position of the third candidate, he said to each, with unction, “You will find my friend sound on the goose question.” Third candidate was elected. His story got wind, and from that day till Bull Run all the politicians of the land have striven likewise to be ‘sound on the goose question.’
Therefore let us be duly thankful that the time hath come when it shall no longer advantage a man to say, ‘Lo! I am sound,’ or-as Prince Albert was reported to reply constantly to his royal consort during the early years of their marriage-‘I dinks joost as you dinks,’-since in these-days vigorous acts and not quibbling words are the only coin which shall pass current in politics.
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