Paolo Laurenzano was their best pupil. For the first time he became
more reconciled with his new life. As the grain of mustard seed in the
Gospel the small triumph of ambition had fallen into the heart of the
child, and this little seed grew into a mighty tree and all the
passions built their nests therein. Torn apart from all that had been
dear to his child's heart, he now knew no joy exceeding that of study
or the praise of his preceptor. His every endeavour, his only thought
was the task of the following day. Whilst the others played _Boccia_ in
the court of the College, or billiards in the dining-rooms, the
favorite game of the Holy Ignatius, for Paternosters, or dominoes for
Ave Marias, which the loser had to repeat for the winner, he pored over
his books and writings. Only one passion governed him, to excel the
others, to be the best among good scholars. Whoever opposed him in
this, became his foe, and he stole hours from sleep, from play, even
from the supervision of the teacher to attain this end. A son of Naples
he was a born rhetorician; especially adapted for the cultivation of
oratory, and argument was the course of study followed in the school of
the Jesuits. Here everything brilliant was cherished, everything which
caught public attention: Latin declamation and disputation, poetry, the
comedy of the schools, sophistical philosophy and bombastical oratory,
in short all empty show which impressed the ignorant. It was in this
very rhetorical display that lay Paolo's special gift, and when he, at
some of the exhibitions, which were frequently performed in the
interest of the College, hailed down his Latin with all the rattling
velocity of a Neapolitan tongue on some weaker opponent, or
pathetically declaimed in his sonorous soft voice long extracts from
Vergil or Lucian, when he hurled down from the lofty rostra pompous
speeches in sounding periods at the well-dressed audience, which
applauded with the quickness of an Italian assembly every pointed
antithesis, cheered every epigrammatic proposition, noisily acclaimed
every school boyish twaddle, Paolo felt himself then to be not as other
men are, and the proud tread with which he left the platform after the
end of his speech might have served as model to the Triumvirate of
Rome. Thus the education given by the Fathers had envenomed with the
poison of self-love the blood of this gifted boy, it raged within him
as a burning fire, and never left him a moment's pea