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“This place Rome? It is but the tomb of mighty Rome.”
He showed Gerard that twenty or thirty feet of the old triumphal arches were underground, and that the modern streets ran over ancient palaces, and over the tops of columns; […] "I tell thee this village they call Rome is but as one of those swallows' nests ye shall see built on the eaves of a decayed abbey."

A zealot in art, the friar was a sceptic in religion.
In every age there are a few men who hold the opinions of another age, past or future. Being a lump of simplicity, his sceptism was as naif as his enthusiasm. He affected to look on the religious ceremonies of his day as his models, the heathen philosophers, regarded the worship of gods and departed heroes: mummeries good for the populace…

But suddenly a thought struck him.
Signor Pietro,said he, we Dutchmen are hard bargainers.We are the lads 'een eij scheeren,'that is, 'to shave an egg.'Therefore, I,for my lost dinner,do claim to feast mine eyes on your picture,whose face is toward the wall

Nay, nay,said the painter hastily,ask me not that; I have already misconducted myself enough towards thee.I would not shed thy blood

Saints forbid! My blood?

A Roman woman of the humbler class sat with her child at her half-bared breast, silent amid that wailing throng: her cheek ashy pale; her eye calm; and her lips moved at times in silent prayer, but she neither wept, nor lamented, nor bargained with the gods. Whenever the ship seemed really gone under their feet, and bearded men squeaked, she kissed her child; but that was all. And so she sat patient, and…

Why,what shame was it for such as I to turn beggar? Beggary was an ancient and most honourable mystery.What did holy monks,& bishops,& kings, when they would win Heaven's smile? why, wash the feet of beggars,those favourites of the saints. 'The saints were no fools,' he told me. Then he did put out his foot. 'Look at that,that was washed by the greatest king alive, Louis,of France,the last Holy Thursday that was…

“Mistress Reicht," said Denys, with great dignity and ceremony, indeed so great as to verge on the absurd, "you are turned off. If on a slight acquaintance I might advise, I'd say, since you are a servant no more, be a mistress, a queen."

"Easier said than done," replied Reicht bluntly.”

Gunpowder has spoiled war. War was always detrimental to the solid interests of mankind. But in old times it was good for something: it painted well, sang divinely, furnished Iliads. But invisible butchery, under a pall of smoke a furlong thick, who is any the better for that? Poet with his note-book may repeat, "Suave etiam belli certamina magna tueri;" but the sentiment is hollow and savours of cuckoo.

Some are old in heart at 40, some are young at 80.Margaret Van Eyck loved her young namesake with youthful ardour.Nor was this new sentiment a mere caprice;she was quick at reading character,& saw in Margaret Brandt that which in one of her own sex goes far with an intelligent woman;genuineness. But,besides her own sterling qualities,Margaret had from the first a potent ally in the old artist's bosom.
Human nature.

All nature seemed to stare now as lonely as himself.
He, the ghost of his former self, wandered alone…

He knelt and gathered a little snow.
“Nay, I dream not; for this is snow: cold as the world's heart. It is bloody, too: what may that mean? Fool! 'tis from thy hand. I mind not the wound Ay, I see: thorns. Welcome! kindly foes: I felt ye not, ye ran not into my heart. Ye are not cruel like men.”

“The perverse toad (I thank thee, Manon, for teaching me that word) was inclined to bestow her slight affections upon Gerard. Not that she was inflammable: far less so than many that passed for prudes in the town. But Gerard possessed a triple attraction that has ensnared coquettes in all ages. 1. He was very handsome. 2. He did not admire her the least. 3. He had given her a good slap in the face.”

“We are old acquaintances, and you want not for sagacity: now advise me in a strait. My custom is somewhat declining: this girl Manon is the talk of the town; see how full the inn is to-night.She doth refuse to be my chambermaid. I have half a mind to marry her.What think you?shall I say the word?"

Denys in reply merely open his eyes wide with amazement.

The landlord turned to Gerard with a half-inquiring look,

“Let go, man," said Gerard.

"Not so. You are my prisoner."

"Prisoner?"

"Ay."

"What for, in Heaven's name?"

"What for? Why, sorcery."

"SORCERY?"

"Sorcery.”

“It is a little one," said he, "but I know it of old for a good one; Les Trois Poissons.' But what is this writ up? I mind not this;" and he pointed to an inscription that ran across the whole building in a single line of huge letters.
“Oh, I see. 'Ici on loge a pied et a cheval,'" said Denys, going minutely through the inscription, and looking bumptious when he had effected it.

Gerard went away chilled to the heart by the isolation of the monastic life, and saddened too. "Alas!" he thought, "here is a kind face I must never look to see again on earth; a kind voice gone from mine ear and my heart for ever. There is nothing but meeting and parting in this sorrowful world. Well-a-day! well-a-day!" ”

I fare not to Cologne,was the calm reply

Why, whither then?

To Burgundy

To Burgundy?Ah, no! that is too good to be sooth

Sooth 'tis,& sense into the bargain.What matters it to me how I go to Rome?

Nay, nay;you but say so to pleasure me.The change is too sudden;& think me not so ill-hearted as take you at your word.Also did I not see your eyes sparkle at the wonders of Cologne?the churches,the images,the relics

Gerard groaned. "By the holy virgin, I wish you were both at Jericho, bellowing.'

"Thank you comrade. Then I'll bark no more, but at need I'll bite. If he has a lance, I have a sword; if he bleeds you, I'll bleed him. The moment his lance pricks your skin, little one, my sword-hilt knocks against his ribs; I have said it."

And Denys turned pale, folded his arms, and looked gloomy and dangerous.

Know, young man, that two schools of art contend at this moment throughout Europe. The Arabian, whose ancient oracles are Avicenna, Rhazes, Albucazis; and its revivers are Chauliac and Lanfranc; and the Greek school, whose modern champions are Bessarion, Platinus, and Marsilius Ficinus, but whose pristine doctors were medicine's very oracles, Phoebus, Chiron, Aesculapius, and his sons Podalinus and…

“Bah! I can read faces; and so must you, or you'll never take your four bones safe to Rome."

"Soldier, you would find me a dull companion, for my heart is very heavy," said Gerard, yielding.

"I'll cheer you, mon gars."

"I think you would," said Gerard sweetly; "and sore need have I of a kindly voice in mine ear this day.”

After waiting patiently long time,he asked a grim old fellow with a long white beard,who stalked solemnly in,&turned the hour-glass,&then was stalking out,when supper would be.The grisly Ganymede counted the guests on his fingers-When I see thrice as many here as now.Gerard groaned.
The grisly tyrant resented the rebellious sound.Inns are not built for one,if you can't wait for the rest,look out for another lodging

His love and heavy sorrow left no room in him for vulgar misgivings. Compared with rending himself from Margaret, it seemed a small thing to go on foot to Italy in that rude age.

All nations meet in a convent. So, thanks to his good friends the monks,& his own thirst of knowledge, he could speak most of the languages needed on that long road. He said to himself, "I will soon be at Rome; the sooner the better now."

Life and liberty, while safe, are little thought of: for why? they are matters of course. Endangered, they are rated at their real value. In this, too, they are like sunshine, whose beauty men notice not at noon when it is greatest, but towards evening, when it lies in flakes of topaz under shady elms. Yet it is feebler then; but gloom lies beside it, and contrast reveals its fire.

The courage,like the talent,of common men,runs in a narrow groove.Take them but an inch out of that,& they are done.Martin's courage was perfect as far as it went.He had met &baffled many dangers in the course of his rude life,& these familiar dangers he could face with Spartan fortitude,almost with indifference;but he had never been hunted by a bloodhound,nor had he ever seen that brute's unerring instinct baffled

Poor things! they were happy. To-morrow they must part. But that was nothing to them now. They had seen Death, and all other troubles seemed light as air. While there is life there is hope; while there is hope there is joy. Separation for a year or two, what was it to them, who were so young, and had caught a glimpse of the grave? The future was bright, the present was Heaven: so passed the blissful hours.

“Put not your trust in princes," said he.

"Alas! what else have we to trust in?"

"Knowledge."

"Well-a-day, father! your learning will not serve us here."

"How know you that? Wit has been too strong for iron bars ere to-day.”

“From that day Gerard spent most of his evenings with Margaret, and the attachment deepened and deepened on both sides, till the hours they spent together were the hours they lived; the rest they counted and underwent. And at the outset of this deep attachment all went smoothly. Obstacles there were, but they seemed distant and small to the eyes of hope, youth, and love. ”

The Hollanders were always an original and leading people. They claim to have invented printing (wooden type), oil-painting, liberty, banking, gardening, etc. Above all, years before my tale, they invented cleanliness. So, while the English gentry, in velvet jerkins and chicken-toed shoes, trode floors of stale rushes, foul receptacle of bones, decomposing morsels, spittle, dogs, eggs, and all abominations,…

“Speak not," murmured Margaret. "They say this is a world of sin and misery. Can that be? What is your opinion?"

"No! that is all a silly old song," explained Gerard. "'Tis a byword our elders keep repeating, out of custom: it is not true."

"How can you know? You are but a child," said Margaret, with pensive dignity.”

“Beshrew my shamefacedness!" said he. "But their words and their breeding were above their means, and something did whisper me they would not be known. I shall never see her more. Oh weary world, I hate you and your ways. To think I must meet beauty and goodness and learning—three pearls of price—and never see them more!”

Young Gerard was for many years of his life a son apart and he was going into the Church […] His trivialities were reading and penmanship, and he was so wrapped up in them that often he could hardly be got away to his meals. The day was never long enough for him; and he carried ever a tinder-box and brimstone matches, and begged ends of candles of the neighbours, which he lighted at unreasonable hours—

There is a musty chronicle, written in intolerable Latin, and in it a chapter where every sentence holds a fact. Here is told, with harsh brevity, the strange history of a pair, who lived untrumpeted, and died unsung, four hundred years ago; and lie now, as unpitied, in that stern page, as fossils in a rock. Thus, living or dead, Fate is still unjust to them.