It is a part of that
false halo with which enthusiastic admiration (reckless of gilding and
ruinously prodigal of ochre) delights to endue the favored heads of the
_beati_. The saint himself countenances the folly, and meekly inclines
his head (sideways) to the rays. It is a part of the capital of the
calling to look interesting. The revered and reverend Charles Honeyman,
in the hands of that acute manager, Mr. Sherrick, was bidden to sit in
his pew at evening service and _cough_. A qualified consumption and a
moderate bronchitis are no bad substitutes for eloquence, learning, and
that indiscreet piety which is so careless of feminine favor as to
bring into the pulpit a robust person and to the dinner-table a healthy
appetite.
But the saint, if he have a reasonable sense of his pastoral duty, gets,
_malgre lui_, a very fair share of that open-air medicine which is
supposed to be the great lack of his profession. For if he be a
clergyman in a rural parish of tolerable extent and with no great
superfluity of wealth, he will not want for either air or exercise. The
George Herbert so situated finds by no means his whole round of duty in
the study.
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