“You must undo the wrappings, not case yourself in fresh ones; “Not by multiplying clothes shall you make your body sound and healthy, but rather by discarding them ... “For a soldier who is going on a campaign does not seek what fresh furniture he can carry on his back, but rather what he can leave behind; “Knowing well that every additional thing which he cannot freely use and handle is an impediment.”(193) In short, lives based on having are less free than lives based either on doing or on being, and in the interest of action people subject to spiritual excitement throw away possessions as so many clogs. Only those who have no private interests can follow an ideal straight away. Sloth and cowardice creep in with every dollar or guinea we have to guard. When a brother novice came to Saint Francis, saying: “Father, it would be a great consolation to me to own a psalter, but even supposing that our general should concede to me this indulgence, still I should like also to have your consent,” Francis put him off with the examples of Charlemagne, Roland, and Oliver, pursuing the infidels in sweat and labor, and finally dying on the field of battle. “So care not,” he said, “for owning books and knowledge, but care rather for works of goodness.” And when some weeks later the novice came again to talk of his craving for the psalter, Francis said: “After you have got your psalter you will crave a breviary; and after you have got your breviary you will sit in your stall like a grand prelate, and will say to your brother: ‘Hand me my breviary.’ ... And thenceforward he denied all such requests, saying: ‘A man possesses of learning only so much as comes out of him in action, and a monk is a good preacher only so far as his deeds proclaim him such, for every tree is known by its fruits.’ ”(194)