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In the cloisters of San Marco, enriched with splendid libraries by the liberality of the Medicean princes, he was at peace. The walls of that convent had recently been decorated with frescoes by Fra Angelico, even as a man might crowd the leaves of a missal with illuminations. Among these Savonarola meditated and was happy.
But the liturgical character of the compilation does somewhat qualify its title to give a complete picture of religion. One could not throw doubt on a ceremony of the Church, still less on a popular custom, because it was not mentioned in the missal, and we cannot assume that ideas or usages not mentioned in the Rig Veda did not exist at the time when it was composed.
And was not the personal appearance of the Virgin always in accordance with a poor child's dreams akin to some coloured figure in a missal, an ideal compounded of traditional beauty, gentleness, and politeness.
A little farther on, but close at hand, is a cloister with beautiful marble columns and tombs, and a colossal wood-carved Calvary, and beside that a small and very rich chapel; indeed, so full is the little town of the undisturbed past, that to walk in it is like opening a missal of the Middle Ages, all emblazoned and illuminated with saints and warriors, and it is so clean, and so still, and so noble, by reason of its monuments and its historic color, that I marvel much no one has ever cared to sing its praises.
The Prioress sat at her table, parchment and an open missal before her. Her face was very white; also there were dark shadows beneath her eyes. She did not smile at sight of old Antony, thus laden. "How now, Antony?" she said, almost sternly. "I did not bid thee to bring me food."
On one side was a claw-footed old table lashed to the deck; a thumbed missal on it, and over it a small, meagre crucifix attached to the bulk-head. Under the table lay a dented cutlass or two, with a hacked harpoon, among some; melancholy old rigging, like a heap of poor friars' girdles.
In the room behind her, a knight was talking to a lady sitting at a tambour frame; a lad of seventeen was standing at another window stroking a hawk that sat on his wrist, while a boy of nine was seated at a table examining the pages of an illuminated missal. "What will come of it, Eleanor?" the lady at the window said, turning suddenly and impatiently from it.
The cheek's red rose, that speaks of balmier air, The Celtic blackness of her braided hair; The gilded missal in her kerchief tied; Poor Nora, exile from Killarney's side!
The poor mother was almost ready to repent having ever afforded her the opportunity of hearing it. Meat and drink had become of secondary value to her daughter; she fed upon the sermon. Olive felt her mother's thought and knew that her mother knew her own; but now that she had confessed, she would ask a question: "Do you think, maman, that Père Jerome knows it was I who gave that missal?"
Thus our Saviour pronounced his great doctrines of Eternal Life, and of Personal Religion, and then turned to the world for a commentary. Under his teaching nature became an illuminated missal, lettered by the lilies of the field, and pencilled with hues that played through the leaves of Olivet.
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