Hadrian the Seventh

What was causing the special correspondents in Rome to exude the subterfuges, with which (as a pis-aller) they are accustomed to gain their daily bread, was no such recondite ma...

Cursors had shouted "Extra omnes": fifty-seven cardinals and three-hundred-and-eleven conclavists had been immured in three galleries of the Vatican. All the ceremonies ordained...

When their lords had entered the Xystine Chapel for this last exercise, the conclavists went away about their own affairs; and the door was shut. The Reverend George Arthur Rose...

Now things went briskly. There was a brain which schemed and a will to be obeyed. The hands began to realize that they would have to act manually. Dear deliberate Rome simply ga...

resembled a white flame. Not a sound was uttered. In silence they came; and they went away in silence. When the Pontiff was alone again, He strode and stopped in the middle of t...

Being physically tired with the exertion of withstanding the concentrated gaze of Rome, He rested all the afternoon. The palace was a scene of commotion. Cardinals and their fam...

He spent the first day at Castel Gandolfo in the garden, writing, enjoying the loveliness of late spring. He produced a score of sheets of swiftly-scribbled manuscript bristling...

After his morning's exertions in the way of taming and domesticating a prince of the church, Hadrian was conscious that He required a change of emotions. His thoughts went to th...

"The key to all your difficulties, present and to come, is Love." Hadrian was at His old self-analytical games again; and the aphorism, which He had gleaned in the most memorabl...

Hadrian knew that He was becoming confirmed in His pose of director. Not that He was inflated by His exaltation to the apostolature. He was conscious that people, except a few e...

That aggregation of intellectually purblind and covetous dullards, who formed the socialistic sect of the King of England's subjects, presently began in their rough rude way to...

Referring to our numerous enjoyable conversations on the subject of Socialism in which you have evinced entire acquiescence, I am directed by the Council of the Liblab Fellowshi...

The Liblab deputation had returned to England: but Jerry Sant and Mrs. Crowe hung on at a decent little hotel in Two Shambles Street, which was convenient to the English quarter...

On the night of the second of October, the German Emperor sat in the Imperial box at the Berlin Schauspielhaus. They were playing _Wilhelm Tell_. William II. looked-on at the mu...

Jerry Sant saw Mrs. Crowe driving in victorias with people who wore smartish bonnets. Professional experience enables him to recognize real ospreys. Three or four times he met h...

Hadrian was mooning about in the Treasury one morning, wondering why people will persist in using diamonds by themselves instead of as a setting for coloured gems: grieving at t...

Jerry Sant gnawed his rag of a moustache for a fortnight or so, till it was dripping and jagged. He began to have a notion that Mrs. Crowe would like to have him elsewhere. That...

In the morning, Hadrian summoned Gentilotto, Sterling, Whitehead, Carvale, della Volta, Semphill, Van Kristen. He fancied that the gentlemen-of-the-chamber curiously eyed Him. T...

Italy was not first in the heart of Hadrian. She was third. He served Her, because He saw Her instant need. The second of His loved lands did not know Herself to be in need of H...

The Italian Socialists having been won for Italy, and the German Socialists by the German Emperor, the British Socialists began to wonder where they themselves came in. The pred...

While the dwarves were diverting themselves as aforesaid, their rulers were in council together. And one day Sir Francis Bertram found no closed doors at the Vatican. He was gra...

The Cardinal-deacon of St. Cosmas and St. Damian did it. The acts of the consistory, in so far as they related to the calumny against the Pope, duly appeared in the _Times_ and...

April brought to Hadrian an experience of one of those periods of psychical disturbance which are incidental to the weakness of humanity, and inevitable by a man of His particul...

When the door was shut, Hadrian remained quite motionless on the throne; and set Himself to review what He had said. He wondered whether He for once had got-down to and laid-bar...

It was the festival of St. George, Protector of the Ninefold Kingdom. Hadrian noted with pleasure that it was what the Italians call one of His 'fortunate days.' His head was cl...