s. I
am aware that nearly everything here is the record of an epoch to
which I do not belong--that the world's mind has undergone a great
change even in the provinces since the influence that comes forth from
these silent traces of past thought were in harmony with it. What
interests me more than anything else here is an allegorical or
mystical map, designed, drawn, and coloured with all the patience and
much of the artistic skill of an illuminating monk of the thirteenth
century. I doubt if in any presbytery far out in the marshes or on the
mountains a priest could now be found with the motive to undertake
such a task. It belongs to the same order of ideas as the 'Pilgrim's
Progress.' In this map one sees the 'States of Charity,' the 'Province
of Fervour,' the 'Empire of Self-Contempt,' and other countries
belonging to a vast continent, of which the centre is the 'Kingdom of
the Love of God,' connected to a smaller continent--that of the
world--by a narrow neck of land called the 'Isthmus of Charity.' In
the continent of the world are shown the 'Mountain of Ingratitude,'
the 'Hills of Frivolity,' the territory of 'Ennui,' of 'Vanity,' of
'Melancholy,' and of all the evil moods and vices to which men are
liable. Separated from the mainland, and washed by the 'Torrent of
Bitterness,' are the 'Rocks of Remorse.' Among the allegorical emblems
in various parts of the chart is a very remarkable tree with blue
trunk and rose-coloured leaves called the 'Tree of Illusions.' Far
above it lies the 'Peninsula of Perfection,' and near to this, under a
mediaeval drum-tower, is the gateway of the 'City of Happiness.'

There is a little garden at the back of the house, where flowers and
vegetables are mixed up in the way I like. The jessamine has become a
thicket. Vines ramble over the trellis and the old wall, and from the
window I see many other vines showing their lustrous leaves against
tiled roofs of every shade, from bright-red to black. In the next
garden is my friend the _aumonier_, an octogenarian priest, who is
still nearly as sprightly of body as he is of mind. He lives alone,
surrounded by books, in the collection of which he has shown the broad
judgment, and impartiality of the genuine lover of literature. There
is a delicious disorder in his den, because there is no one to
interfere with him. He is now much excited against the birds because
they will not leave his figs alone, and someone has just lent him a
blunderbuss