MihaElla ’s Reviews > The Cloister and the Hearth : A Tale of the Middle Ages > Status Update

At last she recovered her breath,&bade him look at the picture.It was the portrait he had made of her when they were young together,& little thought to part so soon.He held it in his hands &looked at it,but could scarce see it.He had left it in fragments,but now it was whole

They cut it to pieces,Gerard;but see,Love mocked at their knives

I implore thee with my dying breath,let this picture hang ever in thine eye

On the road Denys found out this priest was a kind soul,so told him his trouble,& confessed his heart was pretty near broken. "The great use our stout hearts,& arms,& lives till we are worn out,& then fling us away like broken tools." He sighed deeply,& it cost Gerard a great struggle not to hug him then and there,and tell him. But he wanted to do it all like a story book.Who has not had this fancy once in his life?

For ever? he cried aloud,with sudden ardour.Christians live for ever,&love for ever,but they never part for ever.They part,as part the earth & sun,to meet more brightly in a little while.You & I part here for life.And what is our life?One line in the great story of the Church,whose son &daughter we are;one handful in the sand of time,one drop in the ocean of 'For ever.'Adieu—for the little moment called 'a life!'

What, are all these words really fast upon the paper? Is it verily certain they will not go as swiftly as they came? And you took me for a magician! 'Tis 'Augustine de civitate Dei.' My sons, you carry here the very wings of knowledge. Oh, never abuse this great craft! Print no ill books! They would fly abroad countless as locusts, and lay waste men's souls.

As is the race of leaves so is that of men.

[…] So sat the fabled sphynx: so sits a tigress.

Yet there crept a chill upon her now that the assassin was gone. And moody misgivings heaved within her, precursors of vain remorse. Gerard and Margaret were before their age.
This was your true mediaeval. Proud, amorous, vindictive, generous, foolish, cunning, impulsive, unprincipled: and ignorant as dirt.

Power is the curse of such a creature.

And so he dived in foul waters, seeking that sorry oyster-shell, Oblivion.

Hear you that? said the friar. Show me the whip that can whip the vanity out of man's heart! The young monkey; how knoweth he that stranger is a sinner more than he?

Father, said Gerard, surely this is not to our Lord's mind. He was so pitiful

Our Lord? said the friar, crossing himself. What has He to do with this? This was a custom in Rome six hundred years before He was born…

…the door opened,& a superb beauty entered the room,followed by two maids.It was the young princess of the house of Cesarini.She came in talking rather loudly & haughtily to her dependents,but at sight of Gerard lowered her voice to a very feminine tone,& said, Are you the writer, messer?

I am, Signora.

Tis well.

She then seated herself; Gerard and her maids remained standing.

What is your name, good youth?

“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."