Father Pirrone is an outsider to the nobility—but after watching the Salinas closely for years, he has a unique insight into their mindset. He believes that the nobility are essentially different from the clergy, or from simple village folk. Their lives have not been concerned with bare survival, like the herbalist’s, or with eternity, like the priest’s. Rather, their efforts focus on the accumulation and maintenance of wealth. But Father Pirrone doesn’t condemn this, instead seeing it as just another mode of human life. In his view, each station of life has its own strengths and its own susceptibilities.