improving studies. He did not live in a cell, like Jerome, or a
cave, like Mohammed; but no man was ever more indebted to solitude
and meditation than he for that insight and inspiration which
communion with God and great ideas alone can give.

And yet, though recluse and student, he had great experiences with
life. He was born among the higher ranks of society. He inherited
an ample patrimony. He did not shrink from public affairs. He was
intensely patriotic, like Michael Angelo; he gave himself up to the
good of his country, like Savonarola. Florence was small, but it
was important; it was already a capital, and a centre of industry.
He represented its interests in various courts. He lived with
princes and nobles. He took an active part in all public matters
and disputations; he was even familiar with the intrigues of
parties; he was a politician as well as scholar. He entered into
the contests between Popes and Emperors respecting the independence
of Italy. He was not conversant with art, for the great sculptors
and painters had not then arisen. The age was still dark; the
mariner's compass had not been invented, chimneys had not been
introduced, the comforts of life were few. Dames of highest rank
still spent their days over the distaff or in combing flax. There
were no grand structures but cathedral churches. Life was
laborious, dismal, and turbulent. Law and order did not reign in
cities or villages. The poor were oppressed by nobles. Commerce
was small and manufactures scarce. Men lived in dreary houses,
without luxuries, on coarse bread and fruit and vegetables. The
crusades had not come to an end. It was the age of quarrelsome
popes and cruel nobles, and lazy monks and haughty bishops, and
ignorant people, steeped in gloomy superstitions, two hundred years
before America was discovered, and two hundred and fifty years