tions of worldly
discernment, judging things according to a very moderate standard of
what is possible to human nature. She could be satisfied with neither.
She brought to her long meditations over that printed document many
painful observations, registered more or less consciously through the
years of her discipleship, which whispered a presentiment that
Savonarola's retraction of his prophetic claims was not merely a
spasmodic effort to escape from torture. But, on the other hand, her
soul cried out for some explanation of his lapses which would make it
still possible for her to believe that the main striving of his life had
been pure and grand. The recent memory of the selfish discontent which
had come over her like a blighting wind along with the loss of her trust
in the man who had been for her an incarnation of the highest motives,
had produced a reaction which is known to many as a sort of faith that
has sprung up to them out of the very depths of their despair. It was
impossible, she said now, that the negative disbelieving thoughts which
had made her soul arid of all good, could be founded in the truth of
things: impossible that it had not been a living spirit, and no hollow
pretence, which had once breathed in the Frate's words, and kindled a
new life in her. Whatever falsehood there had been in him, had been a
fall and not a purpose; a gradual entanglement in which he struggled,
not a contrivance encouraged by success.

Looking at the printed confessions, she saw many sentences which bore
the stamp of bungling fabrication: they had that emphasis and repetition
in self-accusation which none but very low hypocrites use to their
fellow-men. But the fact that these sentences were in striking
opposition, not only to the character of Savonarola, but also to the
general tone of the confessions, strengthened the impression that the
rest of the text represented in the main what had really fallen from his
lips. Hardly a word was dishonourable to him except what turned on his
prophetic annunciations. He was unvarying in his statement of the ends
he had pursued for Florence, the Church, and the world; and, apart from
the mixture of falsity in that claim to special inspiration by which he
sought to gain hold of men's minds, there was no admission of having
used unworthy means. Even in this confession, and without expurgation
of the notary's malign phrases, Fra Girolamo shone forth as a man who
had sought his own