Page:The Lady Poverty - a XIII. century allegory (IA ladypovertyxiiic00giovrich).pdf/214

 discarding the artificial, is happy in the simple realities and in the bounties of nature, and feels no barrier between itself and the spiritual possession of the very earth itself.

Here it may be as well to take note how alien is the poverty of Francis from the vulgarity and squalor, the idleness and discontent, which mark too frequently the life of the poor. No greater misconception of Franciscan poverty could there be than to conceive it as sanctioning