Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/506

332 ! He did not retire into trackless deserts like the 'eremites' of old, but like a retiring beauty, suffered his flight from the world to be seen, and was shocked when he was followed. Whilst rendering himself an object of loathing and disgust, and attenuating his body to the proper point of sanctity, it was swelling with holy pride and inward gratulation; but as soon as this part of his object was once accomplished, he threw off his tattered robes, and iron chain, he diminished his hours of prayer, and grander prospects and mightier power began to open before him. Not that he would have hesitated to continue them for the purpose of preserving his reputation or securing an important object; but what is to be remarked, is, that those things which he had formerly considered indispensable, were now no longer thought so, and that without any change of the circumstances which originally made them necessary, and it is not sufficient to resort to visions to account for the change. For, although an enthusiastic imagination might see such things 'in dim perspective,' the whole of the conduct of Ignatius marks him to be a cool persevering and calculating politician, and the visions themselves ceased, when