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Page 1
Of the Second Temptation of Master Richard: and how he overcame it
Of the Dark Night of the Soul
How Sir John went again to the cell: and of what he saw there
How one came to Master Priest: how Master Priest came to the King's
Bedchamber: and of what he heard of the name of Jesus
Of Sir John's Meditations in Westminster Palace
How Master Richard went to God
Of his Burying
Introduction
In the winter of 1903-4 I had occasion to pass several months in
Rome.
Among other Religious Houses, lately bought back from the Government by
their proper owners, was one (whose Order, for selfish reasons, I prefer
not to specify), situated in the maze of narrow streets between the
Piazza Navona and the Piazza Colonna; this, however, may be said of
the Order, that it is one which, although little known in Italy, had
several houses in England up to the reign of Henry VIII. Like so many
other Orders at that time, its members moved first to France and then to
Italy, where it has survived in penurious dignity ever since.
The Religious were able to take with them at the time of exodus, three
and a half centuries ago, a part of the small library that existed at
the English mother-house, and some few of these MSS. have survived to
the present day; many others, however, have certainly perished; for in
the list of books that I was looking over there one day in March, 1904,
I observed several titles, of which, the priest-librarian told me, the
corresponding volumes have disappeared. To some half-dozen of these
titles, however, there was appended a star, and on enquiring the meaning
of this symbol, I was informed that it denoted that a translation had
been made into French and preserved in the library.
One of these titles especially attracted my attention. It ran as
follows: VITA ET OBITUS DNI RICARDI RAYNAL HEREMITAE.
Upon my asking to see this and its companions, I was conducted to a
dusty shelf in the little upstairs book-room, and was informed that I
might do as I pleased there for two hours, until the _Ave Maria_ rang,
and the doors would be locked.
When the librarian had gone with many nods and smiles, I took down
these half dozen books and carried them to the table by the window, and
until _Ave Maria_ rang I turned their pages.
The volume whose title had especially attracted my attention was a
quarto MS., written, I should suppose from the caligraphy, about the end
of the sixteenth century; a later hand had appended a summary to each
chapter with an appropriate quotation from a psalm. But the book was in
a shocking condition, without binding, and contained no more than a
fragment. The last page was numbered "341," and the first page+ "129."
One hundred and twenty-eight pages, therefore, were certainly lost at
the beginning, and I know not how many at the end; but what was left was
sufficiently engrossing to hold me standing by the window, until the
wrinkled face of the priest looked in again to inform me that unless I
wished to sleep in the library, I must be gone at once.
On the following morning by nine o'clock I was there again; and, after
an interview with the Superior, went up again with the keys in my own
possession, a quantity of foolscap and a fountain-pen in my hand, and
sandwiches in my pocket, to the dusty little room beneath the roof.
I repeated this series of actions, with the exception of the interview,
every day for a fortnight, and when I returned to England in April I
took with me a complete re-translation into English of the "_Vita et
obitus Dni Ricardi Raynal Heremitae_," and it is this re-translation
that is now given to the public, with the correction of many words and
the addition of notes, carried out during the last eighteen months.
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