's
coffin, carefully closed and sealed, was deposited in holy ground, amid
the tombs that surrounded San Zenone, and of which some are Ancient
Roman monuments. But next morning the earth they had thrown over the
dead woman was found removed, and there lay the coffin open and empty.

THE HUMAN TRAGEDY

TO J.H. ROSNY

THE HUMAN TRAGEDY

[Greek: _Pas d' odyneros bios anthropon,
kouk esti ponon anapausis.
allo ti tou zen philteron, all' ho
skotos ampischon kryptei nephelais._]

(Euripides, _Hippolytus_, 190 sqq.)[1]

[Footnote 1: "All the life of man is full of pain, and there is no
surcease of sorrow. If there be aught better elsewhere than this present
life, it is hid shrouded in the clouds of darkness."]

I

FRA GIOVANNI

In those days the holy man, who, born though he was of human parents,
was veritably a son of God, and who had chosen for his bride a maiden
that folk open the door to as reluctantly as to Death itself, and never
with a smile,--the poor man of Jesus Christ, St. Francis, was gone up to
the Skies. Earth, which he had perfumed with his virtues, kept only his
body and the fruitful seed of his words. His sons in the spirit grew
meantime, and multiplied among the Peoples, for the blessing of Abraham
was upon them.

Kings and Queens girded on the cord of St. Francis, the poor man of
Jesus Christ. Men in multitudes sought in forgetfulness of self and of
the world the secret of true happiness; and flying the joy of life,
found a greater joy.

The Order of St. Francis spread fast through all Christendom, and the
Houses of the Poor Men of the Lord covered the face of Italy, Spain, the
two Gauls and the Teutonic lands. In the good town of Viterbo arose a
House of peculiar sanctity. In it Fra Giovanni took the vows of Poverty,
and lived humble and despised, his soul a garden of flowers fenced about
with walls.

He had knowledge by revelation of many truths that escape clever and
world-wise men. And ignorant and simple-minded as he was, he knew things
unknown to the most learned Doctors of the age.

He knew that the cares of riches make men ill-conditioned and wretched,
and that coming into the world poor and naked, they would be happy, if
only they would live as they were born. He was poor and merry-hearted.
His delight was in obedience; and renouncing the making of plans of any
sort for the future, he relished the bread of the heart. For the weight
of human actions is a he