Poverty I love is spiritual, and I address her as _Lady_, because she is
an idea, and all beauty resides in this same idea."

Satan smiled, and replied:

"Your maxims, Fra Giovanni, are the maxims of a wise man of Greece,
Diogenes by name, who taught at their Universities in the times when
Alexander of Macedon was waging his wars."

And Satan said again:

"Is it true you despise the goods of this world?"

And Fra Giovanni replied:

"I do despise them."

And Satan said to him:

"Look you! in scorning these, you are scorning at the same time the
hard-working men who produce them, and so doing, fulfil the order given
to your first father, Adam, when he was commanded, 'In the sweat of thy
face, thou shalt eat bread.' Seeing work is good, the fruit of this work
is good too. Yet you work not, neither have any care for the work of
others. But you receive and give alms, in contempt of the law laid on
Adam and on his seed through the ages."

"Alas!" sighed Brother Giovanni, "I am laden with crimes, and at once
the most wicked and the most foolish man in all the world. Wherefore
never heed me, but read in the Book. Our Lord said, 'Consider the lilies