STRUGGLES IN MILAN. 127 



compared with the relish of an epicure the respective 

 merits of nasturtium leaves, rue, parsley, and other herbs, 

 as economic means of making bread and water savoury 1 . 

 At the same time he worked on with a restless energy, 

 and knew that he should win the prize on which his heart 

 was set, not wealth for a few years, but renown for cen- 

 turies. 



In spite of all his eccentricities and errors, within a rude 

 exterior the disputatious and excitable young scholar had 

 shut up a fine spirit and a tender heart. His ethical 

 writings uttered throughout life the language of a spiritual 

 nature. The unique candour with which he publishes 

 his faults often such faults as many men commit and no 

 man names though he may have been stung to it by a 

 contempt for the hollow affectation of respectability that 

 would have hunted him for ever as a bastard, had he not 

 been strong enough to stand at bay, and though such can- 

 dour may sometimes be scaroely sane, yet it bespeaks a 

 sturdy truthfulness, an innate generosity that we must 

 honour. Jerome was a faithful son, and to the world at 

 any rate an uncomplaining husband. There remain but 

 slight and accidental traces of any discord between him 

 and Lucia; of his wife's father, mother, brothers and 

 sisters, he speaks with domestic kindliness; and though he 

 accuses justly his own errors as a father, it will be found 

 1 De Ut. ex Adv. Cap. Liber de Paupertate. 



