It is impossible, alas! to analyze the best of this eloquence, all made of love, intimate apprehension, and fire.

The written word can no more give an idea of it than it can give us an idea of a sonata of Beethoven or a painting by Rembrandt.

We are often amazed, on reading the memoirs of those who have been great conquerors of souls, to find ourselves remaining cold, finding in them all no trace of animation or originality.

It is because we have only a lifeless relic in the hand; the soul is gone.

It is the white wafer of the sacrament, but how shall that rouse in us the emotions of the beloved disciple lying on the Lord's breast on the night of the Last Supper?
The class from which Francis recruited his disciples was still about the same; they were nearly all young men of Assisi and its environs, some the sons of agriculturists, and others nobles; the School and the Church was very little represented among them.[18] Everything still went on with an unheard-of simplicity.