Here the river is still itself, and if it knows toward what sea it is hastening, it knows nothing of the streams, more or less turbid, which shall disturb its limpidity, nor the dykes and the straightenings to which it will have to submit.
A long account by the Three Companions gives us a picture from life of these first essays at preaching: Many men took the friars for knaves or madmen and refused to receive them into their houses for fear of being robbed.

So in many places, after having undergone all sorts of bad usage, they could find no other refuge for the night than the porticos of churches or houses.

There were at that time two brethren who went to Florence.

They begged all through the city but could find no shelter.

Coming to a house which had a portico and under the portico a bench, they said to one another, "We shall be very comfortable here for the night." As the mistress of the house refused to let them enter, they humbly asked her permission to sleep upon the bench.
She was about to grant them permission when her husband appeared.