artificial flowers?

But to return. Godric himself took part in the history of his own
miracles and life. It may be that he so overworked his brain that
he believed that he was visited by St. Peter, and taught a hymn by
the blessed Virgin Mary, and that he had taken part in a hundred
other prodigies; but the Prologue to the Harleian manuscript (which
the learned Editor, Mr. Stevenson, believes to be an early edition
of Reginald's own composition) confesses that Reginald, compelled by
Ailred of Rievaux, tried in vain for a long while to get the
hermit's story from him.

"You wish to write my life?" he said. "Know then that Godric's life
is such as this:--Godric, at first a gross rustic, an unclean liver,
an usurer, a cheat, a perjurer, a flatterer, a wanderer, pilfering
and greedy; now a dead flea, a decayed dog, a vile worm, not a
hermit, but a hypocrite; not a solitary, but a gad-about in mind; a
devourer of alms, dainty over good things, greedy and negligent,
lazy and snoring, ambitious and prodigal, one who is not worthy to
serve others, and yet every day beats and scolds those who serve
him: this, and worse than this, you may write of Godric." "Then he
was silent as one indignant," says Reginald, "and I went off in some
confusion," and the grand old man was left to himself and to his
God.

The ecclesiastical Boswell dared not mention the subject again to
his hero for several years, though he came after from Durham to
visit him, and celebrate mass for him in his little chapel. After
some years, however, he approached the matter again; and whether a
pardonable vanity had crept over Godric, or whether he had begun at