He was
refined and urbane; of a casuistical and prying disposition; like many
sensitive men, unduly preoccupied with the sexual life of youth; like a
true feudal aristocrat, ever ready to apply force where verbal
admonition proved unavailing. . . .
In wonder-working capacities these saints were all put in the shade by
the Calabrian Francesco di Paola, who raised fifteen persons from the
dead in his boyhood. He used to perform a hundred miracles a day, and
"it was a miracle, when a day passed without a miracle." The index alone
of any one of his numerous biographies is enough to make one's head swim.
The vast majority of saints of this period do not belong to that third
sex after which, according to some, the human race has ever striven - the
constructive and purposeful third sex. They are wholly sexless, unsocial
and futile beings, the negation of every masculine or feminine virtue.
Their independence fettered by the iron rules of the Vatican and of
their particular order, these creatures had nothing to do; and like
the rest of us under such conditions, became vacuously introspective.
Those honourable saintly combats of the past with external enemies and
plagues and stormy seasons were transplanted from without into the
microcosm within, taking the shape of hallucinations and
demon-temptations. They were no longer actors, but sufferers; automata,
who attained a degree of inanity which would have made their old
Byzantine prototypes burst with envy.
