mark on one of the cypress trees, hundreds of times in succession, and
rarely missing his aim, Gilbert felt, in the silence he loved, that the
soul of Rome had taken hold of his soul, and that in Rome it was good
to live for the sake of dreaming, and that dreaming itself was life.
The past, with his mother's sins, his own sorrows, the friendship of
the boy Henry, the love of Queen Eleanor, were all infinitely far
removed and dim. The future, once the magic mirror in which he had seen
displayed the glory of knightly deeds which he was to do, was taken up
like a departing vision into the blue Roman sky. Only the present
remained, the idle, thoughtful, half-narcotic present, with a mazy
charm no man could explain, since so far as any bodily good was
concerned there was less comfort to be got for money, more fever to be
taken for nothing, and a larger element of danger in everyday life in
Rome than in any city Gilbert had traversed in his wanderings. Yet he
lingered and loved it rather for what it denied him than for what it
gave him, for the thoughts it called up rather than for the sights it
offered, for that in it which was unknown, and therefore dear to dwell
upon, rather than for the sadness and the darkness and the evil that
all men might feel.

But through all he felt, and in all he saw, welding and joining the
whole together, there was the still fervour of that something which he
had at first known in Sheering Abbey--something to which every fibre of
his nature responded, and which, indeed, was the mainspring of the
world in that age. For devotion was then more needful than bread, and
it profited a man more to fight against unbelievers for his soul's sake
than to wear hollows in altar-steps with his knees, or to forget his
own name and put off his own proper character and being, as a nameless
unit in a great religious order.