“Then why such mortifications of the flesh, father?”
Looking up from his pruning, he beamed over the world.
“I am a very human rogue.”
“Human!”
“Well, you see, sister, mea culpa, I loved the world when I was in it like my own life, and even now if I did not gnash upon myself I should grow frivolous at times. When I have spent a night in the rain, or plied my scourge, it is marvellous how swiftly vain the fabrics of a vaunting pride become. ‘I am dust, I am dust,’ I cry, and am sound at heart again. I look upon bread and olives and a draught of river water as true godsends. Having endured exceeding discomfort of the flesh, I am as happy in the sun here among my flowers as a mortal could be.”
Igraine rested on her hoe, and put her head back, while the evening light gave her hair a rare metallic lustre.
“You believe in a life of contrasts, father?”
The old man became suddenly more serious.
“To tell you the truth,” he said, “I have found that by making myself fanatically uncomfortable so many hours a day, I can attain for the rest of it that simple, contented, and heaven-soaring mood that belongs to the honest Christian. Man’s great peril is apathy, and my customs save me from sleepy ease. There is such a thing as living to pander to the flesh; it is the creed of the majority. In order to enjoy a truly spiritual end, I annihilate the appetites of the body, and ecce homo,—merry, conscience whole, clean.”
Igraine resumed her harrowing of reprobate green-stuff.