The monks having attended their abbot to the door of his cell, he dismissed them with an air of conscious superiority in which humility’s semblance combated with the reality of pride.

He was no sooner alone, than he gave free loose to the indulgence of his vanity. When he remembered the enthusiasm which his discourse had excited, his heart swelled with rapture, and his imagination presented him with splendid visions of aggrandizement. He looked round him with exultation, and pride told him loudly that he was superior to the rest of his fellow-creatures.