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Those who, like the Indian fakir or the hermits of the Middle Ages, have staked their all on this ideal of perfection, have found it necessary to suppress life in every way possible, the fakirs often remaining motionless for long periods at a time, and one of the mediaeval saints going so far as to live on the top of a high column where life and movement were well-nigh impossible.
These and scores more of the dismal dens in which true hermits had worn out their wasted bodies on the rock, and the rock under their sleeping bodies, and their praying knees, all came into his mind, and he said to himself, "This sweet retreat is for safety of the soul; but what for penance Jesu aid me against faults to come; and for the fault I rue, face of man I will not see for a twelvemonth and a day."
Soon she came out with that little silver cup, which we had found in the penthouse when we first opened it, and asked me if she might give it to the hermits. "They will have no use for it," I said, smiling at the thought. "I think they will," she said. "Ask, for I cannot." So I asked the brother who was with us, and he looked at the cup gravely.
"Sir," saith Lancelot, "What do you with these arms?" "Sir," saith he, "this forest is right lonely, and this hermitage is far from any folk, and none are there here-within save me and my squire. So, when robbers come hither, we defend ourselves therewith." "But hermits, methought, never assaulted nor wounded nor slew." "Sir," saith the hermit, "God forbid I should wound any man or slay!"
For a great number of years I have lived here on this spot, like one of those hermits of bygone times, living on roots and other primitive food, and never tasting of a decent cooked meal, because I have never ceased to fear that those who wished to get my money would try to poison me in order to get it sooner. This fear I know no longer.
She provoked the enmity of a favorite general, embraced his cause as soon as he was disgraced, created a new emperor in Syria and Egypt, raised an army of seventy thousand men, and persisted to the last moment of her life in a fruitless rebellion, which, according to the fashion of the age, had been predicted by Christian hermits and Pagan magicians.
Undismayed by these evils, brought on by excessive austerities, he determined to retire to a life of solitude. About fifty miles southeast from Antioch was a barren waste of nature but a paradise for monks the Desert of Chalcis. On its western border were several monasteries. All about for miles, the dreary solitudes were peopled with shaggy hermits.
This seems to be one of my lucky days, because I've already snapped off some pictures that ought to be worth while. When we start to talking about hermits and such things we'll have something to show for it." Starting off, they were speedily in the heart of what seemed to be a dense wood.
The ascetics, monks and hermits augmented the strength of this barbarous faction, and not only the women, but also all who took solemn looks, sordid garments, and a love of solitude, for real piety, were vehemently prepossessed in their favor."
It would seem, nevertheless, that those pious exercises wherewith hermits chiefly occupy themselves were not his only occupation; for long after the chapel itself had become a ruin its sight was marked by a great stone which bore an inscription in rude characters the single word Liba. Doubtless Sir Sibert had hewn this epitaph with his own hands. Rolandseck and Nonnenwerth
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