“Five men St. Peter deemed to be madmen,” rejoined their host. “One ate the sand of the sea so greedily that it ran out of his mouth: verily he was the covetous man of this world. The next madman stood over a pit filled with sulphur and pitch, and strove to inhale the noxious vapor that rose from the burning mass; he was the glutton and the debauchee. A third lay on a burning furnace, and endeavored to catch the sparks that rose from it, that he might feast on them: for he was rich, and would have fed on gold, though it would have been his death. The next lunatic sat on the pinnacle of the temple, with his mouth open to catch the wind, for he was a hypocrite; whilst the last madman devoured every finger and toe of his own he could get into his mouth, and laughed at others; for he was a calumniator of the good, and devoured his own kind.”
“And the sixth stayed up to read in a Christmas vacation,” suggested Thompson.
CHAPTER IV.
Modern Conversions of the Old Tales—The Three Black Crows—King Lear—The Emperor of Rome and his Three Daughters—The Merchant of Venice—The Three Caskets.
“What a mine must these tales of the old monks have been to writers of every age,” said Herbert, as the friends returned to their old book for the fourth evening.
“The purloiners of gems from their writings have been innumerable, and of all ages. Gower, Lydgate, Chaucer, Shakspeare, of olden days; and in our own times, Parnell, Schiller, Scott, and Southey have been indebted to the didactic fictions of the old monks for many a good plot and many an effective incident.”
“As the old monks themselves were indebted to the earlier legends of other lands, the traditions of their own convent, or the meagre pages of an old chronicle.”
“Even the veteran joker, Mr. Joe Miller, has been indebted to the Gesta for one of his standard tales,” said Lathom; “The Three Black Crows dates back to the middle ages.”