Our Modern Nerves, Our Irritable Sym-
Pathies, Our Easy Discomforts And Fears, Make One Think
(In Some Relations) Less Respectfully Of Human Nature.
Unless, Indeed, It Be True, As I Have Heard It Main-
Tained, That In The Middle Ages Every One Did Go Mad,
- Every One _Was_ Mad.
The theory that this was a
period of general insanity is not altogether indefensible.
Within the old walls of its immense abbey the
town of Villeneuve has built itself a rough faubourg;
the fragments with which the soil was covered having
been, I suppose, a quarry of material. There are no
streets; the small, shabby houses, almost hovels, straggle
at random over the uneven ground. The only im-
portant feature is a convent of cloistered nuns, who
have a large garden (always within the walls) behind
their house, and whose doleful establishment you look
down into, or down at simply, from the battlements of
the citadel. One or two of the nuns were passing in
and out of the house; they wore gray robes, with a
bright red cape. I thought their situation most pro-
vincial. I came away, and wandered a little over the
base of the hill, outside the walls. Small white stones
cropped through the grass, over which low olive-trees
were scattered. The afternoon had a yellow bright-
ness. I sat down under one of the little trees, on the
grass, - the delicate gray branches were not much
above my head, - and rested, and looked at Avignon
across the Rhone.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 238 of 276
Words from 65181 to 65433
of 75796
