_that's_ national--the objection, I mean. The Italians and French,
with those 'flags of abomination,' their pocket handkerchiefs, spit
there, and here, and every where else--in your face almost, and
therefore _object_ to it on the stage as _too familiar_. But we who
_spit_ nowhere--but in a man's face when we grow savage--are not
likely to feel this. Remember _Massinger_, and Kean's Sir Giles
Overreach--

"Lord! _thus_ I _spit_ at thee and at thy counsel!

Besides, Calendaro does _not_ spit in Bertram's face; he spits _at_
him, as I have seen the Mussulmans do upon the ground when they are
in a rage. Again, he _does not in fact despise_ Bertram, though he
affects it--as we all do, when angry with one we think our
inferior. He is angry at not being allowed to die in his own way
(although not afraid of death); and recollect that he suspected and
hated Bertram from the first. Israel Bertuccio, on the other hand,
is a cooler and more concentrated fellow: he acts upon _principle
and impulse_; Calendaro upon _impulse_ and _example_.

"So there's argument for you.

"The Doge _repeats_;--_true_, but it is from engrossing passion,
and because he sees _different_ persons, and is always obliged to
recur to the _cause_ uppermost in his mind. His speeches are
long:--true, but I wrote for the _closet_, and on the French and
Italian model rather than yours, which I think not very highly of,
for all your _old_ dramatists, who are long enough too, God
knows:--_look_ into any of them.

"I return you Foscolo's letter, because it alludes also to his
private affairs. I am sorry to see such a man in straits, because I
know what they are, or what they were. I never met but three men
who would have held out a finger to me: one was yourself, the other
William Bankes, and the other a nobleman long ago dead: but of
these the first was the only one who offered it while I _really_
wanted it; the second from good will--but I was not in need of
Bankes's aid, and would not have accepted it if I had (though I
love and esteem him); and the _third_ --------.[82]

"So you see that I have seen some strange things in my time. As for
your own offer, it was in 1815, when I was in actual uncertainty of
five pounds. I rejected it; but I have not forgotten it, although