poetic spirits in that age found their most congenial atmosphere in
these awful renunciations? Why did he who loved where all men were
blind, seek to blind himself where all men loved? Why was he a monk, and
not a troubadour? These questions are far too large to be answered fully
here, but in any life of Francis they ought at least to have been asked;
we have a suspicion that if they were answered we should suddenly find
that much of the enigma of this sullen time of ours was answered also.
So it was with the monks. The two great parties in human affairs are
only the party which sees life black against white, and the party which
sees it white against black, the party which macerates and blackens
itself with sacrifice because the background is full of the blaze of an
universal mercy, and the party which crowns itself with flowers and
lights itself with bridal torches because it stands against a black
curtain of incalculable night. The revellers are old, and the monks are
young. It was the monks who were the spendthrifts of happiness, and we
who are its misers.

Doubtless, as is apparent from Mr Adderley's book, the clear and
tranquil life of the Three Vows had a fine and delicate effect on the
genius of Francis. He was primarily a poet. The perfection of his
literary instinct is shown in his naming the fire 'brother,' and the
water 'sister,' in the quaint demagogic dexterity of the appeal in the
sermon to the fishes 'that they alone were saved in the Flood.' In the
amazingly minute and graphic dramatisation of the life, disappointments
and excuses of any shrub or beast that he happened to be addressing,
his genius has a curious resemblance to that of Burns. But if he avoided
the weakness of Burns' verses to animals, the occasional morbidity,
bombast and moralisation on himself, the credit is surely due to a
cleaner and more transparent life.