He had no doubt of the perfection of the universe, that gentle old Franciscan who lives with his twenty-nine brethren on the islet of St. Francesco del Deserto, a rarely visited spot off Venice, that somehow reminded me of the island in Mr. H. A. Jones' "Michael and his Lost Angel." He had never been to Assisi, where his tutelary saint was born. "Have you no wish to see it?" I asked. "My only wish is to obey." Dear old man! He had stopped all his life; but thinking--ah! that is another matter. It was in this island that St. Francis preached to the birds. He was saying the Office when all the birds stopped to listen, and St. Francis took advantage of the opportunity. It was his disciple St. Antony who preached to the fishes, and there is a delicious picture in Padua showing all the fishes perking their heads out of the water and listening in devout dumbness, the very oysters open to conviction. Poor dear fishes! What a delightful change to receive from the upper world something else than hooks! What a sweet simple cloister hath this lonely monastery--a plain stone walk under a red-tiled arcade supported by rough brick pillars, the walls lined by quaint black-and-white engravings of saints engaged in miracles. There is a well in the centre which used to be of sea-water, but St. Bernard of Siena blessed it and it turned sweet. I have drunk of the water, so I can vouch the story is true. And there is a beautiful cypress walk. What a tranquil retreat! O Beata Solitudo! O Sola Beatitudo! as the inscription over the lintel hath it. I do not wonder that St. Francis came here when he was greatly fatigued, "after converting the Sultan of Egypt," as the old Franciscan naïvely explained. 'T is the sort of sanatorium Tolstoï would need, after converting the German Emperor! And despite St. Francis, and his doctrine of brotherhood with birds and fishes, we go on with our cannibal cookery, and even his own Church still teaches that animals have no souls, though that is perhaps because they have no _soldi_. And despite Tolstoï and his tracts, the people who stop will not think and the people who think will not stop. For to convert the world is the one miracle that the saints have never compassed. Yet is the sunshine of these sweet souls never lost, and the gentle mien of the old Franciscan made me feel at peace even with my sandolier when I found him sound asleep in his boat, wrapped up in my cloak.