The mendicant friar, who had lived from his boyhood in the
monastery, and never eaten or slept except by rule, ceased to feel the
com- pulsion under which he lived. Through the power of this habit he
led, amid all outward hardships, a life of inward peace, by which he
impressed his hearers far more than by his teaching. Looking at him,
they could believe that it depends on ourselves whether we bear up
against misfortune or surrender to it. 'Amid want and toil he was
happy, because he willed to be so, because he had contracted no evil
habits, was not capricious, inconstant, immoderate; but was always
contented with little or nothing.' If we heard Contarini himself,
religious motives would no doubt play a part in the argument--but the
practical philosopher in sandals speaks plainly enough. An allied
character, but placed in other circumstances, is that of Fabio Calvi of
Ravenna, the commentator of Hippocrates. He lived to a great age in
Rome, eating only pulse 'like the Pythagoreans,' and dwelt in a hovel
little better than the tub of Diogenes. Of the pension which Pope Leo
gave him, he spent enough to keep body and soul together, and gave the
rest away. He was not a healthy man, like Fra Urbano, nor is it likely
that, like him, he died with a smile on his lips. At the age of ninety,
in the sack of Rome, he was dragged away by the Spaniards, who hoped
for a ransom, and died of hunger in a hospital.
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