inually stirred to fresh vigour by the influence
of Savonarola. In spite of the wearisome visions and allegories from
which she recoiled in disgust when they came as stale repetitions from
other lips than his, her strong affinity for his passionate sympathy and
the splendour of his aims had lost none of its power. His burning
indignation against the abuses and oppression that made the daily story
of the Church and of States had kindled the ready fire in her too. His
special care for liberty and purity of government in Florence, with his
constant reference of this immediate object to the wider end of a
universal regeneration, had created in her a new consciousness of the
great drama of human existence in which her life was a part; and through
her daily helpful contact with the less fortunate of her fellow-citizens
this new consciousness became something stronger than a vague sentiment;
it grew into a more and more definite motive of self-denying practice.
She thought little about dogmas, and shrank from reflecting closely on
the Frate's prophecies of the immediate scourge and closely--following
regeneration. She had submitted her mind to his and had entered into
communion with the Church, because in this way she had found an
immediate satisfaction for moral needs which all the previous culture
and experience of her life had left hungering. Fra Girolamo's voice had
waked in her mind a reason for living, apart from personal enjoyment and
personal affection; but it was a reason that seemed to need feeding with
greater forces than she possessed within herself, and her submissive use
of all offices of the Church was simply a watching and waiting if by any
means fresh strength might come. The pressing problem for Romola just
then was not to settle questions of controversy, but to keep alive that
flame of unselfish emotion by which a life of sadness might still be a
life of active love.

Her trust in Savonarola's nature as greater than her own made a large
part of the strength she had found. And the trust was not to be lightly
shaken. It is not force of intellect which causes ready repulsion from
the aberration and eccentricities of greatness, any more than it is
force of vision that causes the eye to explore the warts on a face
bright with human expression; it is simply the negation of high
sensibilities. Romola was so deeply moved by the grand energies of
Savonarola's nature, that she found herself listening patiently