of God; with _the first of vegetables_, coffee; with _the first
of beasts_, the Arab horse. What am I saying?--with a whole world of
treasures, silk, sugar, and a host of herbs all-powerful to relieve
the heart, to soothe and lighten our sufferings.

All this breaks upon our view about the year 1300. Spain herself,
whose brain is wholly fashioned out of Moors and Jews, for all that
she is again subdued by the barbarous children of the Goth, bears
witness in behalf of those _miscreants_. Wherever the Mussulman
children of the Devil are at work, all is prosperous, the springs well
forth, the ground is covered with flowers. A right worthy and harmless
travail decks it with those wondrous vineyards, through which men
recruit themselves, drowning all care, and seeming to drink in
draughts of very goodness and heavenly compassion.

* * * * *

To whom does Satan bring the foaming cup of life? In this fasting
world, which has so long been fasting from reason, what man was there
strong enough to take all this in without growing giddy, without
getting drunken and risking the loss of his wits?

Is there yet a brain so far from being petrified or crystallized by
the teaching of St. Thomas, as to remain open to the living world, to
its vegetative forces? Three magicians, Albert the Great, Roger Bacon,
Arnaud of Villeneuve,[39] by strong efforts make their way to Nature's
secrets; but those lusty intellects lack flexibility and popular
power. Satan falls back on his own Eve. The woman is still the most
natural thing in the world; still keeps her hold on those traits of
roguish innocence one sees in a kitten or a child of very high spirit.
Besides, she figures much better in that world-comedy, that mighty
game wherewith the universal Proteus disports himself.

[39] Three eminent schoolmen of the thirteenth century, whose
scientific researches pointed the way to future
discoveries.--TRANS.

But being light and changeful, she is all the less liable to be carked
and hardened by pain! This woman, whom we have seen outlawed from the
world, and rooted on her wild moor, affords a case in point. Have we
yet to learn whether, bruised and soured as she is, with her heart
full of hate, she will re-enter the natural world and the pleasant
paths of life? Assuredly her return thither will not find her in good
tune, will happen mainly through a round of ill. In the coming and
going of the storm she i