_The Path to Rome_, on the contrary, is most particularly the book of a Catholic man at home in Christendom. Man is in no sense alienated. Myself (here openly the author) is a member of the Church Militant, destined for the Church Triumphant. Belloc tramps through the Alps, down into the broad Italian plains, and his heart expands under the graciousness of Catholic skies. An abounding good humour flows into every event, conferring on the most trivial encounter the character of high adventure. Here is the picture of a man who has fought the battle for Faith, and who has been granted some share of peace. He still ponders the nature of the soul. A man so at home with mountains, good wine, and the laughter of friends will never approach the supernatural with the confidence of a contemplative. Belloc’s delight is with the old Europe he loves so deeply, and if there be ecstasies beyond what he can see, he will “take them upon trust and see whether they could make the matter clearer in Rome.”[27] The irony of this essentially somber spirit is relieved by a humour that is thoroughly Catholic in its simplicity. This best of all travel books is vintage Belloc because it displays him in all the rich diverseness of his centralized personality. His grave mood, his Grizzlebeard, is constantly balanced by his robust vitality, by the Rabelaisian flavour of this latter-day Villon. He relishes existence with a zest that does due honour to the gifts of God; he laughs; he pontificates with mock solemnity; he trifles brilliantly with words (see the business about “windows”); he holds forth on the nature of Fools; and then he breaks into some of the loveliest lyrical prose in all English letters. And through all this adventuring and tramping runs a sanity that is almost more than human. If great beauty be the “common transfigured,” as Belloc holds it to be, then this record of a shanksmare hike to Rome shall ever stand as a symbol of what man can be if he will only cease being other than himself. The universe as seen by Hilaire Belloc in _The Path to Rome_, _Hills and the Sea_, and _The Cruise of the Nona_ is a thoroughly Catholic universe: physical nature is grasped as good in its very being, and to this inner worthiness of all things there has been added the sacramental seal of the power of God. One can almost see the Papal blessing _Urbi et Orbi_, hanging like a benediction over the vineyards and hills of Italy as they embrace the man coming down from the cold heights of the Alps.