Chapter 10

I looked curiously at those two islands as I passed them. They both bear the name of the saint, and are called the East and the West. I wondered to myself whether the appetite for hermitage would soon return; for that it must return soon or late is certain; it is of permanent recurrence in the history of mankind. All up and down Europe you may mark the stage in the history of the islands, the small islands, when they were thus hermitages or places of seclusion for small communities of religious or for one holy man.…