Page:The Life of Michael Angelo.djvu/115

 flee. . . Life is worth more than fortune. . . Remain in peace, make no enemy, confide in no one save God, and say neither good nor evil of any one, for we know not the end of things. Occupy yourself solely over your business. . . Meddle with nothing."

His brothers and friends laughed at his disquietude and said that he was crazy.

"Do not laugh at me," replied the saddened Michael Angelo; "one ought not to laugh at any one."

There was nothing, indeed, to laugh over in the perpetual agitation of this great man. He was rather to be pitied for his wretched nerves, which made him the victim of terrors against which he struggled in vain. All the more merit was due to him, on recovering from these humiliating attacks, for forcing his sick body and mind to face the danger, from which it was his first impulse to flee. Moreover, he had more reason to fear than another, for he was more intelligent, and, with his pessimistic outlook, he saw but too clearly the misfortunes which were about to fall on Italy. But, to have allowed himself, naturally timid as he was, to be drawn into the Florentine Revolution he must have been at the height of despair, which revealed the bottom of his soul.

Michael Angelo's soul, so timorously retired within itself, was ardently republican. We see this from the fiery words which, in confidential or feverish moments, sometimes escaped from him, particularly in the conversations which he had later with his friends Luigi