A Little Protestant in Rome by Eglanton Thorne
Paul Bernard, not yet five years old, travels through Rome with his mother, Clarice Bernard, a wealthy American whose beauty and elegance mask deep unhappiness. Fatherless in the boy's experience, Paul is being raised largely by his devoted but sternly Calvinist Scottish nurse, Janet, who has instilled in him an unshakeable, guileless Protestant faith. Clarice, secretly estranged from her English husband, John Bernard, after having willfully fled their home years earlier, drifts toward the Roman Catholic Church through her friend Mrs. Dunton and the gentle Sister Célestine, hoping the confessional might absolve the unnamed "sin" of her broken marriage and ease her constant remorse. Paul's artless questions about God, priests, and forgiveness repeatedly cut through the adults' evasions and formalities. A visit to the Vatican gardens, arranged by Mrs. Dunton, leads to a comic misadventure: Paul wanders off, is befriended by the Pope's gardener, and glimpses the Pope himself—only to declare, to the amusement and quiet respect of Monsignore Nero, that he wished to see "the Holy Father" meaning God, not the pontiff, and that he remains proudly, fearlessly a Protestant even at the prospect of martyrdom. A parallel thread follows Mademoiselle Grand, a beautiful, expensively dressed young woman traveling with her devoted pug, Fritz, whom the other hotel guests regard with suspicion as an "adventuress." Paul befriends her and the dog. One evening, having slipped away from Janet during a game of hide-and-seek on the Pincio, Paul discovers Mademoiselle Grand on the verge of throwing herself from an ancient wall in despair over her estrangement from her stern father. Paul's simple, confident assurance that fathers always forgive—likening her situation to the prodigal son—dissuades her, and she resolves to return home to Scotland. She later writes Paul a grateful letter confirming her reconciliation with her father, which visibly humbles Janet, who recognizes her own earlier lack of Christian charity toward the young woman. Paul's persistent, guileless questioning also works on his mother: after she confesses to him, without detail, that she has been "very naughty," his childlike certainty that God freely forgives penitents (with no need of priestly intervention) begins to undo the appeal of the confessional and the Roman Church for her. She quietly abandons her visits to the convent and instead throws herself into personally educating her son, all the while grieving the husband and married life she sacrificed to her own pride. Meanwhile, in a separate encounter in the Protestant Cemetery, a grave, unwell-looking English gentleman traveling with his large St. Bernard dog, Beppo, meets and talks with Paul, drawing out the child's revelation that his name is Bernard and that he prays daily for the father he has never met. The stranger is revealed to be John Bernard himself, secretly in Rome and covertly observing his estranged wife's grief over their long separation, unable to bring himself to approach her directly. On the eve of the family's departure from Rome, Mrs. Dunton and Clarice plan a moonlight visit to the Coliseum, from which Paul—feverish and forbidden to come—is excluded. Left in Janet's care while his mother is out, Paul wakes alone, grows delirious with fever, dresses himself, and wanders out into the moonlit city in a fevered bid to see the Coliseum himself. He collapses, exhausted, on the steps of a church. There, by chance, Beppo discovers him, and John Bernard—out walking after having watched his wife from a distance at the Coliseum—carries the unconscious boy back to his lodgings and summons both a doctor and Clarice. At Paul's bedside, husband and wife are reconciled through their shared anguish and prayer for the sick child, who is diagnosed with scarlet fever. John gently but firmly persuades Clarice to return to her hotel to avoid infection risk to their son, extracting from her, in exchange, a promise that she will be summoned if Paul's life is truly endangered. During the following weeks of quarantine and convalescence, John and Clarice meet daily, walking together in Rome's gardens, and their long-broken marriage is fully restored. The novel closes at Frascati during the summer, where the reunited family—John, Clarice, Paul, Janet, and Beppo—settles happily. Watching the elaborate Corpus Christi procession from their balcony, Clarice confesses to John how close she came to converting to Catholicism, crediting Paul's innocent faith with saving her from that "fatal mistake" and revealing to her that forgiveness comes directly from God without priestly mediation. The book ends on this note, affirming that Paul's simple, childlike Protestant faith—untainted by adult doubt, formalism, or worldly compromise—has been the unwitting instrument of redemption for both his repentant mother and the once-fallen Mademoiselle Grand, and of reconciliation between his long-estranged parents.
By Eglanton Thorne · First published 1900 · Genre: Religious Fiction, Children's Literature, Domestic Fiction · 13 chapters · 26,274 words
First lines
Not Ashamed of his Faith.
"I LIKE that big wound wooin," said Paul Bernard, sprawling across his mother's knees in his endeavour to gaze till the last moment in which they could be seen at the mighty sunlit walls rising against the deep, pure blue of the Roman sky.
"Sit up, Paul, directly. You are hurting me. What a rude, rough little boy you are getting! And I wish you would not say wooin. You can sound your r's if you take the trouble."
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A Little Protestant in Rome is listed on Textopian as a novella by Eglanton Thorne, dated 1900 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Novella
- Author: Eglanton Thorne
- Date: 1900 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Religious Fiction, Children's Literature, Domestic Fiction, Victorian Literature, Sentimental Fiction
- Length: 26,274 words
- Structure: 13 chapters, 617 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)
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- Work identity for A Little Protestant in Rome by Eglanton Thorne
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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Genres
- Religious Fiction — The narrative is dominated by Paul's Protestant faith, theological instruction from his nurse, conflicts between Protestant and Catholic doctrine, and spiritual themes of redemption and divine forgiveness that form the moral core of the work.
- Children's Literature — The protagonist is a young child under five, the narrative adopts a child's innocent perspective, and the text functions as moral instruction through Paul's examples and questions, typical of Victorian juvenile literature.
- Domestic Fiction — Central focus on family relationships—Paul with his mother and nurse, the missing father, and the emotionally climactic reconciliation of husband and wife form the primary narrative arc.
- Victorian Literature — The language, moral framework, social attitudes, narrative style, and concerns with religious propriety and moral instruction are distinctly characteristic of Victorian-era fiction.
Tags
protestantism · catholicism · religious-conflict · rome · italy · faith · spirituality · identity · cultural-differences · coming-of-age · personal-journey · self-discovery
Contents
- CHAPTER I
- CHAPTER II
- CHAPTER III
- CHAPTER IV
- CHAPTER V
- CHAPTER VI
- CHAPTER VII
- CHAPTER VIII
- CHAPTER IX
- CHAPTER X
- CHAPTER XI
- CHAPTER XII
- CHAPTER XIII