Besides the study of these older books, the monks are writing certain books themselves. The most important is the great chronicle, begun some years ago by the learned Brother Emeri. It commences with the creation of the world and Adam and Eve, tells about the Greeks and Romans and Charlemagne and his heirs, and then in much greater detail gives the recent history of the Duchy of Quelqueparte, the happenings at the abbey, and also much about the barons of St. Aliquis. Emeri is now dead, but the chronicle is continued from year to year. It is really a compendium of varied learning. From it, for example, you learn all about the wars of Julius Cæsar, the Crusades, the great lawsuit of ten years ago over some of the abbey lands, the feud between Conon and Foretvert, and how in 1216 a two-headed calf was born on a neighboring barony, and in 1217 a meteor struck near Pontdebois. The Latin in this chronicle is, on the whole, very good, sometimes almost equal to Livy's, and the story is embellished by constant citations not merely of Virgil and Horace, but of Homer and Plato. One would suppose from this that the authors were familiar with Greek. Such, however, is by no means the case. All the quotations from Greek authors and many of their Latin ones are taken from commonplace books. Nevertheless, the narrative seems the more elegant for this borrowed learning. The monks are proud of their chronicle and never fail to boast how much more complete, accurate, and erudite it is than similar works compiled at the rival institutions. When the monks are not actually studying, they are often copying. St. Aliquis has more than two hundred volumes in its library. Parchment is very expensive, but very durable. When the abbot sees his way to procure material for another volume, he is likely to send to some friendly convent to borrow a book which his monks do not yet possess. Then some of the most skillful brethren are put to work making a copy, if possible more beautiful than the original. In from six months to a year the work will probably be finished, although, if a duplicate is to be made of a work already on hand, there will be less haste and the process may extend over years.[100] Copying is an excellent means of propitiating Heaven. St. Bernard said emphatically, "Every word which you write is a blow which smites the devil," and Cassiodorus, much earlier, asserted: "By the exercise of the mind upon the Holy Scriptures you convey to those who read a kind of moral instruction. You preach with the hand, converting the hand into an organ of speech--thus, as it were, fighting the arch-fiend with pen and ink."