er been
bitten by an Orthodox clergyman, and cannot say whether his teeth
are at all leonine; though I have seen seven of them together
enjoying their lunch at an hotel with decorum and dispatch.
But the twisting of the hair in the womanish fashion does for us
touch that note of the abnormal which the mystic meant to convey
in his poetry, and which others feel rather as a recoil into humour.
The best and last touch to this topsy-turvydom was given when a lady,
observing one of these reverend gentlemen who for some reason did
not carry this curious coiffure, exclaimed, in a tone of heartrending
surprise and distress, "Oh, he's bobbed his hair!"

Here again of course even a superficial glance at the pageant
of the street should not be content with its comedy. There is
an intellectual interest in the external pomp and air of placid
power in these ordinary Orthodox parish priests; especially if we
compare them with the comparatively prosaic and jog-trot good nature
of the Roman monks, called in this country the Latins. Mingling in
the same crowd with these black-robed pontiffs can be seen shaven men
in brown habits who seem in comparison to be both busy and obscure.
These are the sons of St. Francis, who came to the East with a grand
simplicity and thought to finish the Crusades with a smile.
The spectator will be wise to accept this first contrast that strikes
the eye with an impartial intellectual interest; it has nothing
to do with personal character, of course, and many Greek priests
are as simple in their tastes as they are charming in their manners;
while any Roman priests can find as much ritual as they may happen
to want in other aspects of their own religion. But it is broadly
true that Roman and Greek Catholicism are contrasted in this way
in this country; and the contrast is the flat contrary to all our
customary associations in the West. In the East it is Roman Catholicism
that stands for much that we associate with Protestantism.
It is Roman Catholicism that is by comparison plain and practical
and scornful of superstition and concerned for social work.
It is Greek Catholicism that is stiff with gold and gorgeous
with ceremonial, with its hold on ancient history and its inheritance
of imperial tradition. In the cant of our own society, we may say
it is the Roman who rationalises and the Greek who Romanises.
It is the Roman Catholic who is impatient with Russian and
Greek childishness, and perpetually app