I said “with my genuine soul” because recently living in Europe and coming in frequent contact with people who on every appropriate and inappropriate occasion are fond of taking in vain every sacred name which should belong only to man’s inner life, that is to say, with people who swear to no purpose, I being, as I have already confessed, a follower in general not only of the theoretical – as contemporary people have become – but also of the practical sayings of popular wisdom which have become fixed by the centuries, and therefore of the saying which in the present case corresponds to what is expressed by the words: “When you are in Rome do as Rome does”, decided, in order not to be out of harmony with the custom established here in Europe of swearing in ordinary conversation, and at the same time to act according to the commandment which was enunciated by the holy lips of Saint Moses “not to take the holy names in vain”, to make use of one of those examples of the “newly baked” fashionable languages of the present time, namely English, and so from then on, I began on necessary occasions to swear by my “English soul”. BTG I