ir eyes in ecstasy to
heaven, or turning them in ruth toward earth. Men and women of whom
the world was not worthy--at the hands of those old painters they have
received the divine grace, the dovelike simplicity, whereof Italians
in the fourteenth century possessed the irrecoverable secret. Each
face is a poem; the counterpart in painting to a chapter from the
Fioretti di San Francesco. Over the whole scene--in the architecture,
in the frescoes, in the coloured windows, in the gloom, on the
people, in the incense, from the chiming bells, through the
music--broods one spirit: the spirit of him who was 'the co-espoused,
co-transforate with Christ;' the ardent, the radiant, the beautiful in
soul; the suffering, the strong, the simple, the victorious over self
and sin; the celestial who trampled upon earth and rose on wings of
ecstasy to heaven; the Christ-inebriated saint of visions supersensual
and life beyond the grave. Far down below the feet of those who
worship God through him, S. Francis sleeps; but his soul, the
incorruptible part of him, the message he gave the world, is in the
spaces round us. This is his temple. He fills it like an unseen god.
Not as Phoebus or Athene, from their marble pedestals; but as an
abiding spirit, felt everywhere, nowhere seized, absorbing in itself
all mysteries, all myths, all burning exaltations, all abasements, all
love, self-sacrifice, pain, yearning, which the thought of Christ,
sweeping the centuries, hath wrought for men. Let, therefore, choir
and congregation raise their voices on the tide of prayers and
praises; for this is Easter morning--Christ is risen! Our sister,
Death of the Body, for whom S. Francis thanked God in his hymn, is
reconciled to us this day, and takes us by the hand, and leads us to
the gate whence floods of heavenly glory issue from the faces of a
multitude of saints. Pray, ye poor people; chant and pray. If all be
but a dream, to wake from this were loss for you indeed!

PERUSIA AUGUSTA

The piazza in front of the Prefettura is my favourite resort on these
nights of full moon. The evening twilight is made up partly of sunset
fading over Thrasymene and Tuscany; partly of moonrise from the
mountains of Gubbio and the passes toward Ancona. The hills are capped
with snow, although the season is so forward. Below our parapets the
bulk of S. Domenico, with its gaunt perforated tower, and the finer
group of S. Pietro, flaunting the arrowy 'Pennacchio di Peru