Looking
upon that face, which time touched only to enhance its calm, only to
make yet purer its sweet humanity, he felt himself an idle and
wanton child, and his entrance hither a profanation.
'Come and sit by me, son Basil,' said the abbot. 'I am at leisure,
and shall be glad to hear you speak of many things. Tell me first,
do you love reading?'
Basil answered with simple truth, that of late years he had scarce
read at all, his inclination being rather to the active life.
'So I should have surmised. But chancing to look from my upper
window not long after sunrise, I saw you walking with a book in your
hand. What was it?'
Basil murmured that it was the Book of Psalms.
'Look, then,' said Benedict, 'at what lies before me. Here is a
commentary on that book, written by the learned and pious
Cassiodorus; written in the religious house which he himself has
founded, upon the shore of "ship-wrecking Scylaceum," as saith
Virgilius. Not a week ago it came into my hands, a precious gift
from the writer, and I have read much in it. On the last of his many
journeys, travelling from Ravenna to the south, he climbed hither,
and sojourned with us for certain days, and great was my solace in
the communing we had together.
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