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Show The Pope Leads an Active Life. The greatest interest js being taken in a book just published by an anonymous anony-mous author detailing the life of the pope. The details are of the most intimate inti-mate kind and show a thorough knowledge knowl-edge of the secrets of the Vatican. The book is called "Pius X and the Papal Court," and I hear that his holiness Is well pleased with its accuracy. The pope has never led such an active life as at the present moment. During the life of the late Dr. Lapponl he was always very careful to follow the lat-ter's lat-ter's advice, and accordingly worked little, walked a great deal, dieted himself him-self carefully and abstained, as far as possible, from giving fatiguing audiences. audi-ences. Now, however, things are different. dif-ferent. His holiness' medical advisers, Drs. Petacci and Marchlafava, are less exacting than Dr. Lapponi and. since they take upon themselves to offer him but little advice of any kind, he is able to follow his own inclinations. Thus Pius X on a large scale works really nard, eats just what pleases him, and withal finds himself in good health. Just now politics occupy a great deal of his time. Throughout the dispute with the French government he has worked without direct assistance. Cardinal Car-dinal Merry Del Val has been merely the instrument. Every day the pope receives twenty or thirty persons in private audience and hundreds, or sometimes even thousands collectively. Music occupies the most important place amongst the present pope's amusements. Perosi composes for the pope alone, and it is a frequent occurrence occur-rence for the maestro before handing a work over to his publishers to submit it to his holiness, who not infrequently suggests modifications or improvements. improve-ments. Pius X is himself an accomplished accom-plished musician. He is the possessor of a rich baritone voice and is an able executant on both the piano and organ. For some time past, too. the; phonograph phono-graph has been installed at the, Vatican. The machine in question was the gift of a Baltimore firm, and its rendering of sacred and secular music fclike affords af-fords the distinguished listener great enjoyment. ( (Another favorite amusement of the I I pope is a game of cards with his secretaries, sec-retaries, but it need hardly be stated that no money is staked on such occasions. occa-sions. He is also a great newspaper reader, scanning each day the columns of Italian, German, French and occasionally occa-sionally English and American journals. jour-nals. ' Sometimes his holiness contributes contri-butes articles to the Osservatore Pko-mano. Pko-mano. The pope is extremely scrupulous as to his personal devotions, spending three hours daily in prayer. He is a brilliant conversationalist, and for some time past has been able to speak a fair amount of French; but among his own relatives he invariably uses the Venetian dialect. |
