, _the resurrection of desire_.

* * * * *

Some Arab writers have asserted that the widespread eruption of
skin-diseases which marks the thirteenth century, was caused by the
taking of certain stimulants to re-awaken and renew the defaults of
passion. Undoubtedly the burning spices brought over from the East,
tended somewhat to such an issue. The invention of distilling and of
divers fermented drinks may also have worked in the same direction.

But a greater and far more general fermentation was going on. During
the sharp inward struggle between two worlds and two spirits, a third
surviving silenced both. As the fading faith and the newborn reason
were disputing together, somebody stepping between them caught hold of
man. You ask who? A spirit unclean and raging, the spirit of sour
desires, bubbling painfully within.

Debarred from all outlet, whether of bodily enjoyment, or the free
flow of soul, the sap of life thus closely rammed together, was sure
to corrupt itself. Bereft of light, of sound, of speech, it spoke
through pains and ominous excrescences. Then happened a new and
dreadful thing. The desire put off without being diminished, finds
itself stopped short by a cruel enchantment, a shocking
metamorphosis.[40] Love was advancing blindly with open arms. It
recoils groaning; but in vain would it flee: the fire of the blood
keeps raging; the flesh eats itself away in sharp titillations, and
sharper within rages the coal of fire, made fiercer by despair.

[40] Leprosy has been traced to Asia and the Crusades; but
Europe had it in herself. The war declared by the Middle Ages
against the flesh and all cleanliness bore its fruits. More
than one saint boasted of having never washed even his hands.
And how much did the rest wash? To have stripped for a moment
would have been sinful. The worldlings carefully follow the
teaching of the monks. This subtle and refined society, which
sacrificed marriage and seemed inspired only with the poetry
of adultery, preserved a strange scruple on a point so
harmless. It dreaded all cleansing, as so much defilement.
There was no bathing for a thousand years!

What remedy does Christian Europe find for this twofold ill? Death and
captivity; nothing more. When the bitter celibacy, the hopeless love,
the passion irritable and ever-goading, bring you into a morbid state;
when your blood is decomposing, then y