eBooks Base 2000

Nothing is more strange than to think that this now dead
city--dead, as regards the purposes for which men live nowadays--was,
centuries ago, the seat and birthplace almost of art, the only art in
which the beautiful part of the human mind then developed itself. How
came that flower to grow among these wild mountains? I do not conceive,
however, that the people of Assisi were ever much more enlightened or
cultivated on the side of art than they are at present. The
ecclesiastics were then the only patrons; and the flower grew here
because there was a great ecclesiastical garden in which it was sheltered
and fostered. But it is very curious to think of Assisi, a school of art
within, and mountain and wilderness without.
My wife and the rest of the party returned from the convent before noon,
delighted with what they had seen, as I was delighted not to have seen
it. We ate our dejeuner, and resumed our journey, passing beneath the
great convent, after emerging from the gate opposite to that of our
entrance.


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