“Listen, Tommassino!” the cardinal said, turning over the leaves of a great folio.  “Here is a magnificent passage of St. Chrysostom’s;” and he read it out enthusiastically in fine, sonorous Greek.

“But I do not understand what it means,” said the pupil.

“To be sure;” and the savant at once translated the passage into musical Italian, and pointed out its beauties of thought and expression.  And so on, passage after passage, but never a word of grammar.

Another time it was another of the Fathers or a heathen poet or a chapter from the Bible read, translated and commented upon; but never from first to last did Tommassino learn to conjugate a verb or form a sentence from his learned professor.

“Mezzofanti,” the prior said, “was as good as he was learned.  He lived simply, would not have been known from a common priest by his dress in the street, and visited the sick like a parish priest.”

Just at the foot of the hill on which Asisi is built a farm-school was established a few years ago, the first director being the Benedictine abate Lisi, a nobleman by birth and a farmer-monk by choice.  His death a year or two ago was deeply regretted.  To this establishment boys are sent, instead of to prison, after their first conviction for an offence against the law.  We saw this school on a former visit to Asisi, and were much amused to see the tall, raw-boned abate stride about in his long black robe, which some of his motions threatened to rend from top to bottom.  Clergymen habituated to the wearing of the long robe acquire, little by little, a restrained step and carriage, somewhat like a woman’s, so that in ordinary masculine dress they may be discovered by their walk:  one would say that they walk like women dressed in men’s garments.  The free stride in a narrow petticoat is almost comical.

On this occasion we had a new exemplification of the almost incredible riches of Italy, for the abate Lisi’s house was crowded with objects dug up in digging cellars and drains and in cultivating the farm, though there had been no intention to excavate and the owner was rather embarrassed than otherwise by the riches he had acquired.  Ancient coins of many different nations, fragments of exquisite architectural carving, statuary and household utensils, loaded shelves, tables and drawers.  Italy would seem to be wrought of such like a coral-reef, down to its very foundations in the deep.

The abate had no utopian ideas concerning his work, though he heartily devoted his life to it.  “These boys,” he said, “will go out contadini—­still thieves, if you will—­but they will limit themselves to stealing a third out of their master’s portion of the produce.”

In Asisi we learned to understand what we may call atmospheric politics, and it confirmed our former opinion that the Italian people do not care a fig who governs them if only they are well fed.  When they are hungry they rebel, and the only freedom they covet is freedom from the pangs of hunger.  They are equally well pleased with the pope or with “Vittorio,” as they called him, if their simple meal is always within reach; and if on feast-days they can have a chicken, red wine instead of white, and a dolce, their contentment rises to enthusiasm.