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With a few companions he retired into the mountainous deserts of Accona, about fifteen miles from Sienna, where they gave themselves up to a life of asceticism and prayer, which attracted to their solitude many devout souls from various parts of the world. Satan, as usual, set his batteries in array against the new anchorites, and trials of various sorts assailed them in turn.
Thus it came to pass, that even among those rigid and absorbed young anchorites, who mortified themselves beneath the roof of Doctor Blimber, Paul was an object of general interest; a fragile little plaything that they all liked, and that no one would have thought of treating roughly.
Our youthful anchorites were lodged gratuitously by the people of Dormilleuse, who also liberally supplied them with food for fuel, scarce as it was, but if the pastor had not laid in a stock of provisions, the scanty resources of the village could not have met the demands of so many mouths, in addition to its native population.
When I have any more doctrinaire anchorites to convert, I shall not call a family council. But alas, poor Hartman! I was wrong about Hartman after all. He has written me again, and this is what he says: "Do you want to confirm the heretical opinions you argued against so manfully?
Is not their sap impregnated with the incense of offerings, and the exhalations of holy anchorites, who once lived and breathed here?" The learned, but superstitious Sham Rao would only answer our questions by new questions. But the central temple, built of red granite, stood unharmed by time, and, as we learned afterwards, a deep tunnel opened just behind its closely-shut door.
Shepherds, keeping their flocks, would have the spirit of the old anchorites; and laborers, whilst driving the plow, would talk happily with God. In a little while, vice would be banished and the kingdom of God would be realized on earth." Thus, her doctrine was directly opposite to the theories of the Jansenists.
The Topers, The Forge of Vulcan, are pictures that enthrall because of their robust simplicity and vast technical sweep though they do not possess the creative invention of the Mercury and Argus or The Anchorites. This latter is an amazing performance. Two hermits St. Antony the Abbot visiting St. Paul the Hermit are shown. A flying raven, bread in beak, nears them.
He recalled the legends of temptations to which the Evil One used to subject the anchorites of old, by causing to appear before them the attractive but illusive forms of the heathen deities.
One might as well describe the Thebaid without mentioning that the hermits expected eternal bliss as the reward of their sacrifices here on earth. I cannot share the hopes of the Bolsheviks any more than those of the Egyptian anchorites; I regard both as tragic delusions, destined to bring upon the world centuries of darkness and futile violence.
Easy as it would have been to lay the date of my story in the beginning of the fortieth year of the fourth century instead of the thirtieth, I have forborne from doing so because I feel able to prove with certainty that at the time which I have chosen there were not only heathen recluses in the temples of Serapis but also Christian anchorites; I fully agree with him that the beginnings of organized Christian monasticism can in no case be dated earlier than the year 350.
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