CHAPTER VI.

CARLIN’S NEST.

Yes, life was beginning to grow beautiful to them――beautiful in the sweet, natural sense. Here and there a buckle that held the burden of it was loosed, here and there a flower was set. That uneasy feeling that one ought to be doing something, which often haunts and wearies even those who do nothing and never will do anything, began to give place to a contentment far more favorable to the accomplishment of real good. A generous wish to share their peacefulness with others made them practise every little kindness that occurred to them. Not a hand was stretched to them in vain, no courtesy from the humblest remained unacknowledged, and thus, accompanied by a constant succession of little beneficences, like a stream that passes between flowery banks its own waters keeping fresh, their lives flowed sweetly and brightly on from day to day.

Of course they had the reputation of being angels with the poor about them. It is so easy for the rich and happy to be canonized by the poor. A smile, a kind word, and a penny now and then――that is all that is necessary. But the kindness of these three women was something more than a mere good-natured generosity; for no one of them was very rich, and all had to deprive themselves of something in order to give.

Life was indeed becoming beautiful to them; for they had not yet settled, perhaps were not of a nature to settle, into the worse sort of Roman life, in which idle people collected from every part of the world gradually sink into a round of eating, visiting, gossip, and intrigue, which make the society of the grandest city of the world a strange spectacle of shining saintliness and disgusting meanness and corruption moving side by side.

There is, indeed, no city that tries the character like Rome; for it holds a prize for every ambition, except that of business enterprise. The Christian finds here primitive saintliness flowering in its native soil, and can walk barefoot, though he have purple blood in his veins, and not be wondered at; the artist, whether he use chisel, brush, or pen, finds himself in the midst of a lavish beauty which the study of a life could not exhaust; the lover of nature sees around him the fragments of an only half-ruined paradise; the tuft-hunter finds a confusion of ranks where he may approach the great more nearly than anywhere else, and, perhaps, chat at ease with a princess who, in her own country, would pass him without a nod of recognition; the idle and luxurious can live here like Sybarites on an income that, in another country, would scarcely give them the comforts of life; the lover of solitude can separate himself from his kind in the midst of a crowd, and yet fill his hours with delight in the contemplation of that ever-visible past which here lies in the midst of the present like an embalmed and beautiful corpse resting uncorrupted in the midst of flowers. But one must have an earnest pursuit, active or intellectual; for the _dolce far niente_ of Italy is like one of the soulless masks of women formed by Circe, which transformed their lovers into beasts.

“I have heard,” the Signora said, “of a man who, lying under a tree in summer-time and gazing at the slow, soft clouds as they floated past, wished that that were work, and he well paid for doing it. My life is almost a realization of that man’s wish. What I should choose to do as a pleasure, and the greatest pleasure possible to me, I have to do as a duty. It is my business to see everything that is beautiful, and to study and dream over it, and turn it into as many shapes as I can. If I like to blow soap-bubbles, then it becomes a trade, and I merit in doing it. If a science should catch my fancy, and invite me to follow awhile its ordered track, I go in a palace-car, and the wheels make music of the track for me. And what friends I have, what confidences receive! The ugliest, commonest object in the world, scorned or disregarded by all, will look at me and whisper a sweet word or reveal a hidden beauty as I pass. You see that log,” pointing to the fire-place, where a mossy stick lay wreathed about by a close network of vine-twigs clinging still in death where they had clung and grown in life. “The moment my eyes fell on that it sang me a song. In every balcony, every stair, every house they are cutting down to make their new streets, every smallest place where the wind can carry a feathered seed, the seed of a story has lodged for me, and, as I look, it sprouts, grows, blossoms, and overshadows the whole place. But for the pain of bringing out and putting into shape what is in my mind, my life would be too exquisite for earth. If I could give immediate birth to my imaginings, I should be like some winged creature, living for ever in air. I’m glad I work in words, and not in marble, like Carlin here. And, apropos, suppose we should go in there.”

Carlin was the sculptor whose studio was attached to _Casa Ottant’-Otto_. He was a great friend of the Signora, who had permission to see him work when she liked, and to go and come with her friends as it pleased her.

“We may as well take our work,” she said. “It is pleasanter there than here this morning. When Mr. Vane and Isabel come in from their visit, we shall hear them ring the bell.”

The two went out to the _loggia_, where the morning sun was blazing hotly on the pink and purple morning-glories, and, passing an ante-room where two marble-workers were chipping away, each at his snowy block, tapped at the door of an inner chamber.

A loud “_Avanti!_” answered the knock.

“Welcome!” said a voice when they entered. “Make yourselves at home. I’m busy with a model, you see.”

Bianca glanced about in search of the source of this salutation, and perceived presently a large head looking at them over the top of a screen. The rest of the body was invisible. This head was so colossal and of such a height that for a moment she doubted if it might not be a colored bust on a shelf. But its eyes moved, and in a second it nodded itself out of sight, leaving on the gazer an impression of having seen a large, kind Newfoundland dog. Poor Carlin was very shaggy, his hair almost too profuse, and constantly getting itself tangled, and his beard growing nearly to his eyes. But the eyes were bright, dark, and pleasant, the nose superlatively beautiful, and, by some unexplained means, every one was aware at once that under this mass of shadowy beard there were two deep dimples, one in the cheek and another in the chin.

Before they had well shut the door, the screen was swept aside and the sculptor’s whole form appeared. It was so large as to reduce the head to perfect proportion, and was clad in a suit of dull blue cotton worn with a careless grace that was very picturesque. One hand held a bit of clay; the other pulled off his skull-cap in reverence to his visitors. He said nothing, but immediately replaced the cap, and began rolling the clay between his hands.

He was modelling a group, and his model, a beautiful young _contadina_, stood before him with her arms up, holding a copper water-vase on her head. Her mother sat near, a dark, bilious, wrinkled Lady Macbeth, who wore her soiled and faded clothes as if they had been velvets and embroideries, and reclined in an old leather chair as superbly as if she sat on a gilded throne with a canopy over her head. A pair of huge rings of pure gold hung from her ears, and two heavy gold chains surrounded her dark neck, and dropped each its golden locket on her green bodice.

“We won’t mind them,” the Signora said to her friend. “Come and be introduced to the bird of our country.”

“He’s been behaving badly to-day,” the sculptor said, “and I had to beat him. Look and see what he has done to my blouse! The whole front is in rags. He flew at me to dig my heart out, I suppose, with his claws, and screamed so in my face that I was nearly deafened. It took both the men to get him off.”

This contumacious eagle was chained to his perch, and had the stick with which he had been beaten so placed as to be a constant reminder of the consequences attending on any exhibition of ill-temper. He was greatly disconcerted when the two ladies approached him, changed uneasily from foot to foot, and, half lifting his wide wings, curved his neck, and seemed about to hide his head in shame. Then, as they still regarded him, he suddenly lifted himself to his full height, and stared back at them with clear, splendid eyes.

“What pride and disdain!” exclaimed Bianca. “I had no idea the creature was so human. Let’s go away. If we stay much longer, he will speak to us. He considers himself insulted.”

Three walls of the room and a great part of the central space were occupied by the usual medley of a sculptor’s studio――busts, groups, masks, marble and plaster, armor, vases, and a hundred other objects; but the fourth side was hung all over with fragments of baby contours. Single legs and crossed legs; arms from the shoulder down, with the soft flattening of flesh above the elbow, and the sustained roundness below; little clenched fists, and hands with sprawling, dimpled fingers; chubby feet in every position of little curled toes, each as expressive of delicious babyhood as if the whole creature were there――the wall was gemmed with them. In the midst was a square window, without a sash, and just then crowded as full as it could be. A vine, a breeze, and as much of a hemisphere of sunshine as could get in were all pressing in together. The breeze got through in little puffs that dropped as soon as they entered; the sunshine sank to the tiled floor, where it led a troubled existence by reason of the leaf-shadows that never would be still; and the vine ran over the wall, and in and out among the little hands and feet, kissing them with tender leaf and bud, which seemed to have travelled a long distance for nothing else but that.

Bianca put her face to this window, and drew it back again. “There is nothing visible outside,” she said, “but a fig-tree, half the rim of a great vase, a bit of wall, and a sky full of leaves.”

She seated herself by the Signora, and they made believe to work, dropping a loop of bright wool or silken floss now and then, and glancing from time to time at the artist as he punched and pressed a meaning into the clay before him.

“I never see a sculptor make a human figure in clay without thinking of the creation of Adam and Eve,” the Signora said. “The Mohammedans say that angels first kneaded the clay for I don’t know how many years. How beautiful they must have been! ‘_In His own image._’ Did you observe in the Barbarini gallery Domenichino’s picture of Adam and Eve driven out of Paradise? You were too much occupied with the Cenci. Everybody is at first. I was thinking, while I looked at that representation of the Creator, reclining on his divan of cherubim, what a pity it is that artists should have tried to do it, or, trying, should not have been able to do more. How that eagle does fret! It requires all my friendship for Carlin to prevent my cutting the leather thong that holds the chain to its leg some fine day. Wouldn’t it be pleasant to see him shoot like a bomb out through the window, tearing the vines away like cobwebs with his strong wings, and carrying off little green tendrils clinging to his feathers! The sunlight would be shut out a moment, there would be a rush as of waters, then the room would be light again. But, in such an event, the only gain would be a change of personality in the prisoner, and thirty _lire_ out of my pocket. That is what Carlin paid for this unhappy wretch, and what I should be bound to pay him to buy another unhappy wretch to languish in his place. How do you like Carlin?”

“I don’t know,” Bianca answered slowly. “Isn’t he a sort of savage?――a good one, you know.”

“Precisely! All the polish he has is inside. Fortunately, however, he is transparent, and the brightness is bright enough to shine out through him. He is full of good-nature and enthusiasm. Once liking him, you will like him always, and better and better always. None but dishonest people dislike him, though there are some very good people who say he is not to their taste. Dear me! he is making a mistake in that group. O Carlin!” she called out, “do let me say something. Your water-carrier is going to look like a teapot if you place her so. Let her put the other arm out for a spout, and the thing will be perfect.”

It was a group of a girl and her lover at a fountain.

He was just knitting his brows over the hand that held the handle of the vase, rolling bits of clay between his palms and arranging them for fingers. He threw the last one away. “I know it’s a stupid thing,” he said discontentedly; “but what can I do? It struck me as a pretty subject; but now I have begun to work it out, it seems to me I remember having seen a hundred like it, each one as stupid as mine. I was this instant thinking my grandmother must have had a cream-pitcher of this design.”

“Why don’t you make her stooping a little to lift the vase to her head, and looking up at the fellow?” the Signora suggested. “It will bring out your knowledge of anatomy a little more, and it will wake her up. Don’t you see her face is as dull as her sandal?”

This conversation, being in English, was not understood by the model, who stood stupid, and straight, and tired, trying to look picturesque.

The artist considered a minute, then said abruptly: “Put down the vase, not on the floor, but in a chair.”

She obeyed.

“Now take it up――slowly――and stop the instant I tell you.”

She bent her strong and supple figure a little, and began lifting the vase.

“Stop there!” he called out, “and look up at me. Look as pretty as you can. Think that I am some _giovanotto_ who is going, perhaps, to ask you of your mother.”

Half shy, half saucy, she looked up as commanded, gratified vanity and friendly regard uniting to give her face as much expression as it was capable of.

Carlin seized his pencil and began sketching rapidly.

“He hasn’t a particle of imagination,” the Signora said in a low tone, “but he has excellent eyes and much humor. I sometimes think that humor and imagination never go together. Indeed, I don’t believe they ever do in any superlative degree.”

A little bell sounded timidly at her side, pulled by a cord that she perceived now by its vibration coming in at the window, the bell itself being quite hidden by the vine-leaves, where it was held between two large nails driven into the window-frame.

“Would――you――be so very kind――as to throw――that――loaf of bread out of the window, Signora?” the artist asked, abstractedly dropping one word at a time between the strokes of his pencil and glances at his model, whose fire was beginning to fade. “I can’t stop.”

The lady looked at him in wonder.

“It’s a beggar,” he explained after a moment, scratching away rapidly. “I can’t be bothered with them in here.”

She looked out of the window as well as she could for the leaves, and saw an arm in a ragged coat-sleeve, and a hand stretching toward the wall, and, at the same instant, the bell rang in her very ear with a force that made her start back. The bread was on a little shelf near by, an old knife beside it. She prudently cut the loaf in two, and dropped half to the unseen mendicant.

“That’s just like Carlin!” she exclaimed. “I don’t suppose any one else would think of rigging up a beggars’ bell.”

“I shall know where to go when I want bread,” she said aloud, seeing him pause in his work. “It will be only to come under your window, pull a string, and hold up my apron.”

“Oh! by the way, please to pull in the string,” he added. “I never let it hang out, except when I have made an appointment. I told him to come if he didn’t get anything for dinner. Said he hadn’t eaten anything for twenty-four hours. It’s a disagreeable thing to go twenty-four hours without eating.”

Carlin knew what it was well. He had come to Rome fifteen years before without a dollar in his pocket, except what had paid his passage, and, without patronage, almost without friends, had climbed, step by step, through all the dark, steep ways of poverty, suffering what no one but himself knew, till at length a modest success rewarded his efforts. He never told his experiences, seemed to choose to forget them; but never a pitiful tale of suffering from poverty was told him without the ready answer, “Yes, yes, I know all about it,” springing as if involuntarily to his lips.

There was a knock at the door, which immediately opened without a permission, and a young man entered――one of those odious, well-dressed, rather handsome, and easy-mannered men who repel one more than rags, and ugliness, and stupidity.

“Good-morning!” he said with confident politeness. “Don’t let me interrupt you. I only want to see Mrs. Cranston’s bust. Promised her I would take a look at it.”

His coming produced the effect of a slight frost in the air. The Signora grew dignified, and made a little sign to Bianca to take a seat which would turn her back to the new-comer. Carlin frowned slightly and bent to his work; the old _contadina_ glared from the man to her daughter, and the daughter blushed uneasily.

The young man seemed to be entirely unconscious of not having received a welcome, sauntered across the studio, pausing here and there, and at length, stopping under the pretence of examining a bust, fixed his eyes on the model.

“Look here, sir!” said Carlin, after five minutes of silence, “you’d better come in some other time, when I’m not busy.”

“Oh! don’t mind me,” was the careless reply.

Carlin waited a minute longer, then swung the screen round between his model and her tormentor.

The young man smiled slightly, gave his shoulders the least possible shrug, and began to saunter about the studio again, pausing finally at a spot that gave him a still better view of the girl.

The pencil quivered in Carlin’s hands, but his voice was gentle enough when he spoke again. “I don’t care to have visitors in the morning,” he said. “Come in in the afternoon, when I am working in marble. I work in clay always in the morning.”

“My dear fellow, I don’t want you to trouble yourself in the least about me. I can amuse myself,” the visitor replied.

Carlin seemed to be galvanized so suddenly he started upright, with anger in every nerve of him. “Confound you!” he cried out, “do you want me to pitch you out of the window? Go about your business.”

He had no cause to repeat the request. Coolly and disdainfully, but with a paleness that showed both fear and anger, the young exquisite walked out as leisurely as he had come in.

A laugh as sharp and bright as a blade shot across the old woman’s face, but she said not a word.

“You are getting acquainted with him rapidly,” the Signora whispered to her friend. “Isn’t he refreshing? It is so beautiful to see a man whose first impulse is to protect a woman from annoyance, even when the woman doesn’t belong to him. Carlin is truly a manly, honorable fellow.”

“I hear a faint little song, sweet and low,” said Bianca, listening with her pretty head aside and her eyes lifted.

“It is Carlin’s bird,” said the Signora.

The girl glanced about, but saw no cage.

“It is a soft, cooing sound,” she said.

“It is Carlin’s dove,” the Signora replied.

Bianca looked at her inquiringly, her lips still apart, and her head turned to listen to the melody.

“He doesn’t keep it in a cage, but in a nest,” the Signora went on, smiling. “Come, and I will show you. Step lightly, and do not speak. He is too busy to notice, and this great tapestry will hide us. You must examine this some time, by the way. It is all in rags, but very precious. See that foot on it! Doesn’t it look as if it were just set on the green ground――after a bath, too? It is so fresh and perfect.”

She led the way to an alcove of the studio hidden from the other rooms by this tapestry, and pointed to the inner wall, where a small, low door showed, half hidden by draperies and armor. “Some day we will go in; but to-day I will give you a peep only.”

She went to the door, and noiselessly pushed away a little slide in the panel, then motioned Bianca to look through. The girl obeyed, and found herself looking into a square room whose one great arched window had a snow-white fringed curtain waving slowly in the slight breeze, alternately giving glimpses of, and hiding, a _loggia_ full of flowers and the green outside curtain of a grape-vine. Only tiny glints of sunshine entered through this double drapery, making the white curtain look as if it were embroidered with spots of gold. From the centre of a vaulted white ceiling hung a brass lamp, swinging slowly on its chain, and catching a point of light in place of the extinguished flame. On the white wall opposite the door hung high up an ebony crucifix, with a blue niche below, in which stood a marble statue of the Madonna. A tiny lamp burned before the two, and a branch of roses was twisted about the statue’s feet. In the centre of the room a green-covered table stood on a large green cloth that covered nearly the whole of the stone floor, and two or three cane-seated chairs were visible. The bird still sung her low, cooing song, an improvised melody set to inarticulate murmurs that now and then broke softly into words――a word of human love and blessing, a word of prayer, or a word of happiness. As when a gentle brook flows with only its waters now, and now with a flower or leaf, and now a little boat on its tide, and now a break of foam, and then a clear reflection as vivid as a tangible object, so the song flowed, with its word here and there.

Carlin’s dove was a young woman with a sweet, motherly face, and, as she sang, she swung to and fro a hammock that was hung directly under the blue niche of the Virgin; and her eyes were raised from time to time to the statue or the crucifix, with an _Ave_ or a _Gesù mio_, or dropped to the baby she hushed to sleep with a word as tender. All the room seemed to swing with the hammock, as if it were in a tree-top; to float in an atmosphere of love and happiness with the mother and her child. Slowly the white lids of the little one dropped, like two rose-petals that cover two stars, and a dimpled hand clinging to the mother’s loosened its hold, as the angel of sleep unclasped it gently, finger by finger. Silence settled over the song, the hammock ceased to swing, and the mother, shining with love and happiness, bent over her sleeping babe, gazing at it as if her eyes were gifted to see through its white and rosy flesh, and behold the resting, folded soul hidden there like a sleeping butterfly in a shut flower.

The Signora closed the slide as noiselessly as she had opened it, and the two, exchanging a smile of sympathetic pleasure, turned away from Carlin’s nest.

The sculptor had made his sketch, and was just sending his model away. He turned immediately to his visitors, and began to show them his latest works, half a dozen things in clay, some finished, some requiring still a few touches. One group was especially pretty. It represented a family scene in one of the little Italian towns where all the business of life goes on in the street. On the rude stone steps outside a door sat a mother winding a skein of yarn held for her by a pretty girl of ten years or thereabouts, whose small arms were stretched to their utmost extent in the task. A little chubby boy leaned on the mother’s lap, and put up his finger to pull at the thread. At the front of the steps sat the father cobbling shoes.

“I found that at Monte Compatri,” he said; “and the figures are all portraits. I was afraid I couldn’t do it, for it is better adapted for canvas than marble; but the walls hold them together, you see.”

“We must go to Monte Compatri, Bianca,” the Signora said. “It’s one of the most primitive places in the world――a Ghetto perched on a mountain-top, as filthy and as picturesque as can be imagined. The air is delicious, the view superb, and the salads beggar description.”

All Carlin’s best groups and figures were, like this, copies from nature. When he attempted anything else, he unconsciously copied the works of others or he failed.

“I’m so glad you made that suggestion about the water-carrier,” he said, taking up his sketch. “I find it is always better for me to put considerable action into my figures. If I give them a simple _pose_, they are stupid. Would you have her looking up or down?”

“Let the little minx look up, by all means,” the Signora said. “She’s a good girl, enough, as a butterfly or a bird may be good. There isn’t enough of her for a down look; but that saucy little coquettish up-look is rather piquant. Besides, it is true to her nature. If she thought any one were admiring her, she wouldn’t have subtilty enough to look down and pretend not to see, and she wouldn’t have self-control enough, either. She would wish to know just how much she was admired, and to attitudinize as long as it paid her vanity to do so. Bianca, my dear, there is our bell. Your father and Isabel must have come home.”

They went down again through the complicated passages and stairs, where arched windows and glimpses into vaulted rooms and into gardens crowded with green made them seem far from home.

“How beautiful orange-trees are!” Bianca exclaimed, stopping to look at one that filled roundly a window seen at the end of a long passage. “It has the colors of Paradise, I fancy. I don’t like yellow to wear, not even gold; but I like it for everything else.”

“Wait till you see the snow on an orange-tree, if you would see it at its perfection,” was the reply. “Perhaps you might wait many years, to be sure. I saw it once, and shall never forget. A light snow came down over the garden a few winters since, and dropped its silvery veil over the orange-trees. Fancy the dark green leaves and the golden fruit through that glittering lace! I had thought that our northern cedars and pines, with their laden boughs, were beautiful; but the oranges were exquisite. Would you believe that our kitchen door was so near?”

Isabel ran to meet the two, all in a breeze.

“Hurry on your things in two minutes to go to the Vatican,” she said. “Here are the cards. Monsignor forgot to send them, and has only now given them to us. The carriage is at the door.”

Off came the summer muslins in a trice, and in little more than the time allowed the three ladies tripped, rustling, down the stairs, in their black silk trains and black veils.

“I am constantly going to the Vatican in this breathless way,” the Signora said, as they drove rapidly through the hot sunshine. “With the usual sublime ignorance of men, and especially of clergymen, of the intricacies of the feminine toilet, my kind friends always give me ten minutes to prepare. One needs to keep one’s papal court dress laid out all ready for use at a moment’s warning. Fortunately, it is very simple. But Bianca has found time to mount the papal colors,” she added, seeing a bunch of yellow jasmine tucked into her friend’s belt.

“Is it allowed?” the girl asked doubtfully. “I can leave it in the carriage. But I always like to have a flower about me.”

“Oh! keep it,” her friend replied, and smiled, but suppressed the words that would have followed. For while Bianca Vane carried that face about with her, she never lacked a flower.

They were just in time for the audience, and an hour later drove slowly homeward through the silent town. Bianca was leaning back in the corner of the carriage with her eyes shut. The audience had been especially pleasant for her; for the Holy Father, seeing her kneel with her hands tightly clasped, and her eyes, full of delight, raised to his face, had smiled and laid his hand on her head, instead of giving it to her to kiss. The others said but little. The languor of the hour was upon them.

“Does any one say, Signora, that the Pope has a shining face?” Mr. Vane asked.

“Certainly,” she replied.

“Then I am not original in thinking that I found something luminous about him,” the gentleman went on. “It is as if I had seen a lamp. And what a sweet voice he has! He said ‘_la Chiesa_’ in a tone that made me think of David mourning over Absalom.”

Mr. Vane had been much impressed by the beautiful presence of the reverend Pontiff, and had behaved himself, not only like a gentleman, but like a Catholic. The Signora had seen how he blushed in kissing the Pope’s hand, not as if with shame at paying such an act of homage, but as if some new sentiment of tender reverence and humility had just entered his heart. It had been very pleasant to her to see this, both on account of the love she bore the object of the homage, and the respect she had, and wished to retain, for him who paid it.

The driver held in his panting horses, and walked them on the side of the streets where a narrow strip of shadow cooled the heat of the burning stones; the pines and cypress in the gardens they passed, which in the morning had been so full of silvery twitterings that the fine, sweet sounds seemed almost to change the color of them and make them glisten with brightness, were now sombre and silent. The birds were all hid in their dark green shadows, or perched in cool, sunless angles and nooks of vases, balustrades, statues, and cornices of church or palace. Here and there a workman lay stretched at length on the sidewalk or on steps, sleeping soundly.

At length they reached home. The porter sat sleeping in his chair at the great door, and a family of beggars, four or five women and children, lay curled up outside on the curbstone.

Inside all was deliciously cool and tranquil. Dinner was on the table; for the servants had been watching for them, and had brought the soup in directly, and they sat down with appetites improved by the delay. The Signora poured out some wine for herself.

“The people here say that you should take a little wine before your soup,” she said. “My former _padrona_ told me the nuns in the convents she knew always did. I don’t know why it is good for the stomach, but bow to their superior wisdom.”

“Doesn’t the hair on the top of my head look unusually bright?” Bianca asked after a while. She was still thinking of the sacred hand that had rested there, still feeling its gentle pressure.

The others looked, not understanding.

“Why, your veil covers it,” Isabel said. “But there’s a bright garnet and gold pin at the top.”

Bianca lifted her arms to loosen the veil, took the gold hairpin out and kissed it. “He must have touched it,” she said, “and so it has been blessed. Do you know, Signora, what thought came into my mind at the moment? I thought as he touched me, ‘It is the hand that holds the keys of purgatory and of heaven!’”

“My own thought!” her friend exclaimed. “I had the same benediction once, and it set me rhyming. I do not set up for a poet, you know, but there are feelings that will sing in spite of one. This was one, and I must show you the lines some time soon, to see if they express you. I don’t know where they are.”

“I know where something of yours is,” Bianca said eagerly. “I saw it in your blotting-book, and had to call up all my honesty not to read it. Reward me now! I will bring it.”

She looked so bright and coaxing, and the others so cordially joined in her request, that the Signora could not but consent, though usually shy of reading her unpublished productions to any one.

“How I like hot noons!” she sighed through a smile of languid contentment, leaning back in her chair, and dropping in her lap the folded paper Bianca had brought her. “I found out the charm of them when I was in Frascati. At this early season the heat of the city, too, is good――a pure scorch and scald. In August it is likely to be thick and morbid. That first noon in Frascati was a new experience to me. I went to see Villa Torlonia, which was open to the public only between the hours of eleven and five――a time when scarcely any one, especially any Italian, wants to go out in hot weather. I wished to see the villa, however, and I went, stealing along the shadowy edges of streets, and down a long stairway street that is nearly or always shaded by the tall houses at either side and the hill behind, catching my breath as I passed through the furnace of sunshine in the open _piazza_, finally, with my face in a flame, stepping under the great trees inside the gate, and pausing to refresh myself a little before going on. There was still the open terrace to pass, and the grand unshaded steps to ascend; but it was easier to go forward than back, for a few minutes would bring me to avenues as dim as _Ave Maria_ time. I stood a little and dreaded the sun. The _casino_ and the gravel of the terrace and the steps were reflecting it so that one might almost have fancied the rays clashed on each other in the midst of the opening. The rose-trees in the flower-garden looked as if they bore clusters of fire-coals, and some sort of flowering tree in the green spaces between the stairs seemed to be breaking out into flame with its red and yellow blossoms. I remembered Mrs. Browning’s

“‘The flowers that burn, and the trees that aspire, And the insects made of a song or a fire.’”

She paused to lay a laurel leaf over a _carafon_ of cream that a fly was buzzing about, then exclaimed: “Why wasn’t that woman a Catholic, and why isn’t she alive now, that I may kiss her hand, and her cheek, if she would let me? Fancy such a genius consecrated to religion! You know the other stanza of that poem I have just quoted:

“‘And, oh! for a seer to discern the same,’ Sighed the South to the North; ‘For the poet’s tongue of baptismal flame, To call the tree and the flower by its name,’ Sighed the South to the North.

“It seems to me that not one person in a thousand――Italians no more than strangers――would know there were anything remarkable here, if a small, small number of persons hadn’t told them there is. How they all repeat the same words, from the teeth out, and talk learnedly of what they know nothing about! They don’t one of them find a beauty that isn’t in the guidebooks.”

She sighed impatiently, and returned to her subject.

“I was telling you about noon in Villa Torlonia: I stood under the great solid trees awhile, then took courage and walked into the sun again, across the terrace, with only a glance at the vast panorama visible from it, up the steps that were hot to my feet, and then plunged into the upper avenues as into a cool bath. There was another opening to cross, for I wanted to go to the upper fountain; but here the cascade cooled the eyes, at least. I went up the cascade stairs as the waters came down, and found myself alone in that beautiful green-walled drawing-room, with the fountain leaping all to itself in the centre, and the forty masks of the balustrade about the basin each telling its different story. Beside the tall central jet there used to be, perhaps may now be, a jet from each of these masks that are carved on the great posts of the balustrade, no two alike. I made a circuit of the place to assure myself that no one else was there; looking down each path that led away through the over-arching trees. Not a soul was in sight. There was no danger of Italians being there; and as for _forestieri_, there were none in Frascati. How delicious it was simply to sit on one of the stone benches and live! A spider’s web glistened across the place, starting straight from a tree behind me. Where it was fastened at the other end I could not guess; for the nearest object in that line was the tossing column of foamy water, fifty feet, may be more, distant, then an equal distance to the trees at the other side. There was no sound but that of falling water, that seemed to carry the chirp of the _cicali_ and the whisper of the trees, as the waters themselves carried the dry leaves and twigs that fell into them. All around the sun searched and strove to enter through the thick green, so near that his fiery breath touched my face. How my chains melted off! How pure the heat was, and how sweet! One bird sang through it now and then――sang for me: he the only lark abroad at that hour, as I was the only signora. I answered him with a little faint song, to which again he replied. I never was so happy, never felt so free from all that could annoy. Probably Adam and Eve had some such delight in the mere feeling that they were alive. And so I sat there, hour after hour, half asleep, half fainting with the heat, in which I seemed to float. If I had been called on then to say what God is, I should have said, He is a fire that burns without consuming. Fire and its attendant heat were the perfection of all things, and coldness was misery――but a pure, clear fire which an anemone could pass through unscathed.”

The Signora drew a breath that was half a sigh, and took up the folded paper from her lap. “How happy I am in Italy in the summer!” she said, half to herself. “I can work in the cool months, but I live in the hot ones.”

“Bianca wants me to read this rhyme? It is a summer rhyme, too, and commemorates a little incident of my first summer here――a visit to _Santa Maria della Vittoria_. You have not been there yet. It is very near, just out on the _Via della porta Pia_, which the new people call _Venti Settembre_, because the invaders came in that way on the 20th of September. They try to keep the anniversary, and to make the city look as if the people cared for it, but it is a dreary pretence. A military procession, a few flags hung out here and there from houses of government officials and foreigners, chiefly Americans――that is all.”

She read:

Never so fair a rose as this, I think, E’er bloomed on a rose-tree; So sweet a rose as this, I surely know, Was never given to me. Like the reviving draught to fainting lips, The gentle word to strife, Cool, fresh, and tender, in a bitter hour, It dropt into my life.

Hid in the silence of a darkened room, With sleepless eyes I lay, And an unresting mind, that vainly strove To shut its thoughts away. When through the loosened _perslane_ slipped A sunbeam, sharply bright, That cleft the chamber’s quiet duskiness, And put my dreams to flight.

Before the windows, in a dusty square Fretted by restless feet, Where once a palace-garden had unrolled Its alleys green and sweet, Men rooted up a fountain-base that lay Whitened like bleaching bones, Or into new walls piled, with a weary care. The weary, ancient stones.

And all about the slowly-growing work, In warlike mantles drest, Disputing with the spade for every sod, The angry poppies prest. And when I thought how fate uproots always My gardens, budding sweet, The hot _scirocco_ of an angry pain Blew me into the street.

The unveiled heights of sapphire overhead Dazzled the lifted eyes; The sun, in lovely splendor, blazed from out The keystone of the skies; And Rome sat glowing on her seven hills, Yellow with fervid heat, And scorched the green Campagna, where it crept And clung about her feet.

The ways were silent where the sunshine poured Its simmering, golden stream; For half the town slept in its shaded halls, Half worked as in a dream; The very fountains dropt from sleepiness, Pillowed in their own foam, I only, and the poppies, it would seem, Were wide awake in Rome.

There were the gray old ruins, in whose nooks Nodded each wild flower-bell, Where San Bernardo’s fane is hidden, like A pearl within its shell. There marched the Piedmont robber and his host In through the long, long street; And there the open portal of a church Drew in my straying feet.

Silence and coolness, and a shade so deep, At first I saw no more Than circling clouds and cherubs, with the dome’s Bright bubble floating o’er; Wide flocks of milk-white angels in the roof, The hovering Bird divine; And, starring the lower dusk, the steady lamps That marked each hidden shrine.

Then marble walls and gilded galleries Grew slowly into sight; And holy visions peered from out the gloom Of chapels left and right; And I perceived a brown-robed sacristan, With a good, pleasant face, Who sat alone within an altar-rail To guard the sacred place.

He showed me all their treasures――the dead saint Within her altar-shrine; Showed where the Master sat, in gilded bronze, Blessing the bread and wine; Unveiled the niche whose swooning marble form ’Tis half a sin to see―― Bernini’s St. Teresa――and betrayed Her dying ecstasy;

Then led me to the sacristy, where hung, Painted the glorious field―― Lepanto’s――and he told the ancient tale, How, like a magic shield, Our Lady’s sacred picture, borne aloft In the dread battle’s shock. Had sent the scattered Paynim flying far, Like foam from off a rock.

When all was seen and said, my parting foot A soft “Aspetti!” stayed Just where a tiny garden ’mid the walls Its nook of verdure made. And while I waited, was broke off for me A bright geranium bloom, And this blush-rose, whose richly-perfumed breath Has sweetened the whole room.

“_O Rosa Mystica!_” I thought, and felt Consoled, scarce knowing why; It seemed that in that brief hour all my wrong Had righted silently, As when, new-shriven, we go forth to tread The troubled ways of men. Folded in peace, and with no need, it seems, Ever to speak again.

Lady invincible! Her grander fields Are praised ’neath every sun; But who shall count the secret victories Her gentler arms have won? Hers are the trumpet and the waving flag; But there is one who knows That on a certain summer day in Rome She conquered with a rose.

LONDON GUILDS AND APPRENTICES.

The halls of the old London guilds or companies are still among the most interesting sights of London. They are not only interesting as the relics of by-gone times and manners, but as living and active representatives of the influential bodies whose names they bear. Many of the companies give an annual dinner to the members of the Cabinet (of no matter which of the two great political parties), and all are wide awake and progressive. They bestow the honorary membership of their various crafts upon outsiders as a very great distinction and favor, and with many of the proudest names of the nobility this or that company has a hereditary connection. Their actual halls are none of them of great antiquity, as they can date no further back than 1666, the year of the great fire of London, when every building of any consequence in the city was destroyed; and many are far more modern than that, having been rebuilt in our own century. The Company of the Goldsmiths, which at present ranks fifth in the order of precedence among the London guilds, boasts of being one of the oldest of all, its first charter dating from 1327 (before its rivals possessed a similar royal license), and its records prove that it existed more than two hundred years previous to that date, and was even fined in 1180 for its irregular and independent being. This was under Henry II., and it is presumable that it was not even then in its infancy. The craftsmen of the capital were obliged to protect themselves by associations of mutual comfort and defence, and the goldsmiths especially, as they were most often liable to taxation and forcible levies for the benefit and at the caprice of the king. They were the earliest bankers, both in England and in other countries. Their power and organization, before they obtained the charter of incorporation under Edward III. in 1327, is shown by the following account given by Maitland, the historian of the city of London, and copied by him from an old chronicler, Fabyan――no doubt a witness of the fray:

“About the same time (1269) a great difference happened between the Company of Goldsmiths and that of the Merchant Tailors [or, as it was written, ‘Taylors’]; and other companies interesting themselves on each side, the animosity increased to such a degree that on a certain night both parties met (it seems by consent) to the number of 500 men, completely armed; when fiercely engaging, several were killed and many wounded on both sides; and they continued fighting in an obstinate and desperate manner, till the sheriffs raised a great body of citizens, suppressed the riot, and apprehended many of the combatants, who were soon after tried by the mayor and Laurence de Brooke, one of the king’s justices; and thirteen of the ringleaders being found guilty, they were condemned and hanged.”

The goldsmiths stood, both to individuals and to the government, in the relation of agents in the transfer of bullion and coin, in making payments and obtaining loans, and in the safe custody of treasure. This branch of their business has not been relinquished so very long ago; for we find a statement made in a book called _A General Description of all Trades_, and published in 1747, to the effect that――

“Goldsmiths, the fifth company, are, strictly speaking, all those who make it their business to work up and deal in all sorts of wrought gold and silver plate; but of late years the title of goldsmith has been generally taken to signify one who banks, or receives and pays running cash for others, as well as deals in plate; but he whose business is altogether cash-keeping is properly a banker.”

To distinguish such of the craft as did not bank, the name silversmith was used; and these again were sub-divided into the working silversmiths, who fashioned the precious metals, and the shopkeepers, who only sold them. This statement has been preserved by Malcolm in his work on the city, called _Londinium Redivivum_. The distinction is practically obsolete in our day, and the whole craft goes more generally by the name of jewellers. It would be difficult at present to find one jeweller who is still a banker, though there is no doubt that private negotiations of the sort described may sometimes take place; but as to the safe-keeping of jewels and plate, the London jewellers do a very extensive business. Full as many people keep their family heirlooms at the great jewellers’――Hancock, Emmanuel, Garrett, Tessier, Hunt, and Roskell, etc., etc.――as they do at banks; and, again, the secret loans on valuable jewels, and the sale of some, to be replaced by cunningly-wrought paste, constitute, as of old, an important though private branch of their traffic. The great goldsmiths of old times were pawnbrokers on a magnificent scale, as well as bankers, and even church plate often came for a time into their keeping. Royal jewels and the property of the nation were not seldom in their hands as pledges, and through their aid alone could war be carried on or clamoring mercenaries paid.

Italy was more liberal towards her goldsmiths than England. Here they were artists and ranked as such; in England they were artificers and traders. In the latter country they were powerful, but only through the wealth they controlled; in Italy they were admired, courted, and flattered in society, but politically their power was less. The English at all times excelled rather in manual skill than in design; and to this day the designers of jewellers, lamp-makers, furniture-makers, house-decorators, and even silk, ribbon, and cotton merchants, in England, are generally not English.

In ancient times the London goldsmiths all lived in or near Cheapside, or, as it was often called, West Cheap, to distinguish it from the other Cheap Street, more to the east. “Cheap” was the same as market. Close by was the Royal Exchange, where the bullion for the coinage of the realm was received and kept, and the street in which stood this building is still called the Old Exchange. Whether by law or custom, only goldsmiths were allowed to have shops in this neighborhood; but even if the right was at first but a prescriptive one, the company soon contrived to have laws passed to forbid any other craft from encroaching on their domains. This localizing of various crafts was common all over Europe in the middle ages, and in many instances was really a convenience to purchasers, as well as a means of defence for the members of the guilds. In the case of the goldsmiths the government had an object of its own. It might have been thought that the concentration of other turbulent companies would have been rather a danger and a provocation to the royal authority; but it was obviously the policy of the king to make the services of this wealthy company as accessible as might be, in case of any sudden emergency requiring a loan or a tax. It was not politic to let any of the fraternity escape contribution by hiding himself in some obscure part of the city; so that not only were other tradesmen prohibited from opening shops among the goldsmiths, but the latter were themselves forbidden from setting up their shops elsewhere. Although neither law nor custom now interferes with them, the majority of the great jewellers have their glittering shops in Bond Street, London, while in other countries the same rule, on the whole, still prevails. The _Rue de Rivoli_ and the _Palais Royal_ are the chief emporiums for these precious goods in Paris; in Vienna they are mainly sold in the _Graben_, and one street leading out of it; Rome has its _Via Condotti_, thronged with jewelry shops and those selling objects of _virtu_; Venice has its _Procurazie_, an arcade beneath which nearly all the jewellers in the city are congregated; and in many old Italian cities the _Strada degli Orefici_ (goldsmiths’ street) still fully deserves its name. This is particularly the case at Genoa, where this old, crooked lane, bordered by the booths and dens that we moderns would take for poor cobblers’ shops, is still one of the most surprising and picturesque sights of the city. Goldsmiths’ Row is thus described in Maitland’s _History_:

“The same was built by Thomas Wood, goldsmith, one of the sheriffs of London in the year 1491. It contained in number ten dwelling-houses and fourteen shops, all in one frame, uniformly built, four stories high, beautified towards the street with the goldsmith’s arms and the likeness of _woodmen_, in memory of his name, riding on monstrous beasts, all of which were cast in lead, richly painted over and gilt. The said front was again new painted and gilt over in the year 1594, Sir Richard Martin being then mayor, and keeping his mayoralty in one of them.”

The Row, however, before this embellishment, had existed in the same place, and covered adjoining parts of Cheapside, betwixt Bread Street end and the Cross in Cheap. This beautiful monument is now gone, but it stood at the west end of the street, in the middle of an open space from which St. Martin-le-Grand (still one of the London parishes) branches out on the one hand, and St. Paul’s churchyard on the other. The “churchyard,” still retaining its name, is now filled with gay shops, mostly for the sale of silks, feathers, and other female gear, and quite equal to the resplendent shops of the West End of London. The Cross in Cheap was one of a series which Edward I. built at every place where the body of his wife, Queen Eleanor, rested on the way from Herdeley in Lincolnshire to Westminster, where she was buried.

In 1629 the appearance of the goldsmiths’ shops is thus described:

“At this time the city greatly abounded in riches and splendor, such as former ages were unacquainted with; then it was beautiful to behold the glorious appearance of goldsmiths’ shops in the South Row of Cheapside, which in a continued course reached from the Old ’Change to Bucklersbury, exclusive of four shops only of other trades in all that space.”

Another reason that had been early alleged for the concentration of the guild was that “it might be seen that their works were good and right”; for as early as 1327 complaints were made of the substitution of paste for real gems, and of plated ware for genuine metal. Some of the fraternity were wont to hide themselves in by-lanes and obscure turnings, and buy stolen plate, melt it down, and resell it secretly to merchants about to put to sea.

“And so they made also false work of gold and silver, as bracelets, lockets, rings, and other jewels; in which they set glass of divers colors, counterfeiting real stones, and put more alloy in the silver than they ought, which they sold to such as had no skill in such things. And that the cutlers in their workhouses covered tin with silver so subtilly, and with such slight,[3] that the same could not be discerned and severed from the tin; and by that means they sold the tin so covered for fine silver, to the great damage and deceit of the king and his people.”

All this was very distasteful to the respectable members of the company, from whose petition the above words are quoted, and henceforward the law did all it could to protect both the public from deceit and the guild from dishonor. Yet, since human law never yet reached an abuse upheld by obstinate men interested in law-breaking or law-evading, the ordinances had to be constantly renewed. As years went on the law was more and more disregarded. One order was passed in 1629 to confine the goldsmiths to Cheapside and Lombard Street; another in 1635, another in 1637, and two in 1638. Summary proceedings were taken against the intrusive shopkeepers who paraded their “mean trades” among the privileged goldsmiths. For instance, “if they should obstinately refuse and remain refractory, then to take security of them to perform the same by a certain day, or in default to commit them to prison until they conform themselves.” The arbitrary Star Chamber, whose rule under the later Stuarts became a real “Reign of Terror,” threatened that if such shops were not forthwith shut up, the alderman of the ward, or his deputy, should be committed to prison. But these were the last among the despotic threats of the terrible tribunal, which was soon after abolished, and the twenty-four common shops which were enumerated in 1638 as spoiling the fair appearance of Goldsmiths’ Row were soon reinforced by many others. The prohibitory ordinances ceased, and custom alone was not strong enough to expel intruders. Besides, the great fire soon came to sweep away almost the whole city, and the plague that preceded it did much to break up all local customs and attachments. The tide of fashion afterwards carried the jewellers with it, setting every year more and more to the west of the city, and the old landmarks and restrictions died a natural death. Lombard Street, however, originally named from the Lombard refugees who settled in London as bankers and pawnbrokers as well as jewellers, is still distinguished by the number of banks and imposing warehouses it contains, and by the comparatively stately architecture of some of its great commercial buildings.

The Goldsmiths’ Company, by letters-patent of Edward III., was granted the privilege of assaying (or testing) all gold and silver plate before it could be exposed for sale. But this was probably only a renewal of a right already exercised by them; for it is mentioned in the document that all work ascertained to be of the proper fineness shall have upon it “a stamp of a puncheon with a leopard’s head, as of ancient time it hath been ordained.” The company also has the privilege of assisting at what is called “the trial of the pyx”――that is, the examination of the coinage of the realm, with a view of ascertaining whether it is of the sterling weight and purity. The pyx is the box in which the coins to be weighed and analyzed are contained. The jury of goldsmiths summoned on this occasion usually consists of twenty-five, and they meet with great formalities and ceremonies in a vaulted chamber on the east side of the cloisters at Westminster, called the Chapel of the Pyx.

Since the great fire the company has built two halls, the present one dating only from 1829, when the old one was pulled down. It stands immediately behind the new post-office, and is an Italian building, more worthy of examination inside than out. The hall which preceded the present one was celebrated for a court-room elaborately decorated and possessing a richly-sculptured marble chimney-piece and a massive bronze grate of the value of a hundred pounds, in days when that sum meant thrice as much as it does now. Like all the companies, that of the goldsmiths possessed some valuable pictures, chiefly portraits of distinguished members or protectors. Hawthorne mentions the hall of the Barber-Surgeons’ Company, in Monkwell Street, which boasted of a picture by Holbein, representing the company of barber-surgeons kneeling before Henry VIII., receiving their charter from his hands, and for which the company very rightly refused $30,000, and even $6,000 for a single head of a person of the name of Pen, which the late Sir Robert Peel wished to cut out from the canvas and replace by a copy which should rival the original in fidelity and minuteness. The heads in this picture were all portraits, and represent grave-looking personages in dark, sober costumes. The king is in scarlet. Round the banqueting-room of this hall were other valuable pictures of the distinguished men of the company, and notably one, by Vandyke, of an elderly, bearded personage, very stately in demeanor, refined in feature, and dressed in a style of almost courtly though chastened elegance. The company also treasures its old vellum manuscript book of records, all in black letter, and in which there has been no entry made for four hundred years. The hall has a lofty, carved roof of wood, and a sombre, rich appearance from its antique furniture and numerous old portraits. There is a sky-light in the roof, which may have served to cast light on bodies dissected on the great table below. In old times the barbers and surgeons formed but one company; but we believe that the latter alone now claim the possession of this hall (one of the oldest now standing in London, and the work of Inigo Jones), although, in official nomenclature, they still retain the double title of barber-surgeons. Close by Monkwell Street is shown a dilapidated Elizabethan row of almshouses, erected by a pious and charitable alderman for six poor men. Their successors and representatives still enjoy the founder’s bounty, but the almshouses are now choked up by a network of unwholesome streets, and the funds of the institution, which have enormously increased in relative value, remain in the hands of the trustees. The number of those who, under different names, belong to the fraternity of goldsmiths, is, at a rough calculation, nearly eight hundred, exclusive of watchmakers who are also jewellers. Indeed, in the country these two trades are always joined, and even many shops of this mixed kind are found in London.

The Fishmongers were the fourth of the incorporated companies, ranking just before the goldsmiths. At one time they were the wealthiest and most powerful; but although they existed and flourished as a civic association long before they obtained a regular charter, they referred the latter privilege to no earlier date than 1433. The inherent spirit of division and local jealousy which seems to animate all bodies corporate, whether political, commercial, or artistic, caused the fishmongers punctiliously to keep asunder and form two separate companies――that of the salt-fishmongers (which had the earliest charter), and that of the stock-fishmongers, whose letters-patent were not granted till 1509. In Catholic times, of course, the consumption of fish was great among all classes, and its sale a very important business. The salt-fishmongers naturally had the largest trade, and at one period so great was the influence of their company that it gave to the city six lord-mayors in the space of twenty-four years. The last and most famous of these was Sir William Walworth, who in 1381, under Richard II., slew the rebel Wat Tyler with his own hand, in the market-place at Smithfield, when that leader was at the head of thirty thousand rebels. The king knighted him for this act of prowess――a far different cause for the honor from that which is so indulgently thought sufficient now, _i.e._, the accident of a royal visit during a mayor’s term of office, irrespective of any merit in the holder of the office.

The glory and power of the fishmongers stirred up the envy and ill-will of their fellow-citizens, and Walworth’s successor, John of Northampton, a draper of an imperious and turbulent character, well known in his day by the popular titles of Troubletown and Cumbertown, was able to array the interest of several rival companies against the too prosperous fishmongers, and to procure from the crown leave for foreigners (meaning strangers or persons not freemen) to sell fish in London, in violation of the company’s right of monopoly. Maitland even records that he made the company acknowledge that its occupation was “no craft, and was therefore unworthy of being reckoned among the other mysteries.” It was also enacted that for the future no lord-mayor should be chosen from among the fishmongers. But the credit of the fishmongers revived as soon as John of Northampton’s term of office ended, and the company was soon restored by Parliament to all its old rights and privileges, except the right of holding courts for the trial of complaints. This was transferred to the supreme city court, that of the lord-mayor himself. In 1536 the two companies of salt and stock fishmongers were incorporated into one by Henry VIII. under the title of “The Wardens and Commonalty of the Mystery of Fishmongers.”

After the Reformation the sale of fish diminished so as to endanger the trade of the company, and a curious act of Parliament was passed in 1563, under Elizabeth, enjoining the exclusive use of fish on Wednesdays and Saturdays, “as well for the maintenance of shipping, the increase of fishermen and mariners, and the repairing of port-towns, as for the sparing and increase of the flesh victual of the realm.” The cases excepted, of course, were those of sickness, and of ability and willingness to pay for a license to eat flesh-meat on those days. The fine for disobeying the law was £3 for each offence, and the licenses of exemption cost for a peer £1 6s. and 8d., for a knight and a gentleman 13s. and 4d., for the commonalty 6s. and 8d. Even the license, however, only authorized the eating of mutton and fowl, not beef; but that there might be no mistake as to the motive of this odd, restrictive law――so like the sumptuary laws, and almost as unavailing――this clause was added:

“But because no person shall misjudge the intent of this statute, be it enacted that whoever shall, by preaching, teaching, writing, or open speech, notify that any eating of fish, or forbearing of flesh, mentioned in this statute, is of any necessity for the soul of man, or that it is the service of God, otherwise than as other politic laws are and be, then such persons shall be punished as spreaders of false news ought to be.”

It is probable that this regulation failed of its effect, for a subsequent statute again renewed the prohibition, though limiting it to Saturdays only; still, the concession was but partial, for the _sale_ of flesh was forbidden on Fridays and Saturdays and during all Lent.

There were three streets in the city named after the Fishmongers’ Company――Old Fish Street, New Fish Street, and Fishmonger Row, now called Thames Street. In each of these the two original companies had each one hall, making no less than six halls for the whole guild; but on their fusion they chose one in Thames Street for their common hall, since which time there have been three successive buildings on or about the same spot. The first, a very old one, originally the gift of Sir John Cornwall, Lord Franhope, was destroyed in the great fire of 1666, and soon after Sir Christopher Wren built them another, famed for a magnificent double flight of stone stairs on the wharf. According to old historians, those were the times when the Strand was an open road, bordered sparsely with pleasant houses, having large gardens down to the river’s edge. This hall was taken down about 1830 to make room for the approaches of the new London Bridge, and the present hall was built just a little to the west of the site of its predecessor. This is another of those heavy, would-be-palatial buildings which attest the bad architectural taste of the first half of the present century.

It has long been customary to enroll as honorary members of the civic companies many royal and noble personages; and when, in 1750, Frederick, Prince of Wales, was admitted as a freeman, the clerk of the Fishmongers’ Company, Mr. Tomkyns, proudly reminded him that “this company, sir, is famous for having had near threescore lord-mayors of the city of London, besides many of the most considerable merchants and eminent citizens, free of it.”

King James I. incorporated himself with the guild of cloth-workers in 1607, and Stow’s _Chronicle_, continued by Howes, gives the following description of the occurrence:

“Being in the open hall, he [the king] asked who was master of the company, and the lord-mayor answered, ‘Sir William Stowe,’ unto whom the king said: ‘Wilt thou make me free of the cloth-workers?’ ‘Yea,’ quoth the master, ‘and think myself a happy man that I live to see this day.’ Then the king said: ‘Stowe, give me thy hand; and now I am a cloth-worker.’”

Sir Samuel Pepys was master of the company seventy years later, and presented them with a rich loving-cup, which is still used on solemn occasions. The Winthrops, ancestors of the famous governor of the Massachusetts Company, were hereditarily connected with this cloth-workers’ guild, several of them becoming members by regular apprenticeship to the trade; and Adam Wyntrope, the governor’s grandfather, is mentioned as master of the company in 1551, having previously held all the minor offices leading to that dignity.

Intimately connected with the system of the companies was the status of the London apprentices. Both have been materially modified, and their representatives have ceased to exercise the tangible power they once possessed. But when the system was in full operation, every trade having its separate guild; and when, in order that any one might exercise a trade, it was necessary he should have the freedom of the guild, this freedom could only be obtained by serving an apprenticeship to a member of the company. In old times the apprentices were a superior class of men, and it was not permitted to every one to exercise the chief trades. Under Henry IV. an act was passed containing a clause to the effect that no one should put his son or daughter apprentice to a handicraft trade, “except he have land or rent to the value of 20s. by the year,” which in those days would be a fair competency. The regulations of the city of London forbade any to be admitted to be bound apprentice except such as were “gentlemen born,” by which was understood freeborn, and not in a state of villeinage――the son of a free-holder or a yeoman. In the days of the Tudors and Stuarts even the younger sons of gentlemen often served in the commercial establishments of rich citizens. The chronicler Stow attributes to this cause their “costly apparel, their wearing weapons, and frequenting schools of dancing, fencing, and music.”

But this very pretension to “gentility” it was which Ben Jonson rebuked in his _Eastward Hoe_, a comedy, the counterpart of Hogarth’s subsequent caricatures in pencil. The old goldsmith boasts that he made his wealth by “hiring me a little shop; bought low; took small gain; kept no debt-book; garnished my shop, for want of plate, with good, wholesome, thrifty sentences, as, ‘Touchstone, keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee’; ‘Light gains make heavy purses,’ etc.”

The apprentices were very clannish, and ready to defend each other to the death, and this spirit often led to riots and serious disturbances, but a curious poem published in 1647, called _The Honor of London Apprentices_, mentions that this bravery had led them to distinguish themselves in a nobler field than a city brawl――namely, in the Crusades and on the field of Crécy.

Their duties, it seems to us, corresponded in their way to the service required from youths of good birth as pages and esquires in the house of a knight, before they themselves could aspire to the honor of knighthood. These waited at table, served the ladies, and performed many offices now termed menial; and, as a tract published in London in 1625 avers, so too did the apprentices:

“He goes bare-headed, stands bare-headed, waits bare-headed, before his master and mistress; and while as yet he is the youngest apprentice, he doth perhaps, for discipline’s sake, make old leather over-night shine with blacking for the morning; brusheth a garment, runs of errands, keeps silence till he have leave to speak, follows his master or ushereth his mistress, and sometimes my young mistresses their daughters (among whom some one or other of them doth not rarely prove the apprentice’s wife), walks not far out but with permission, and now and then, as offences happen, he may chance to be terribly chidden or menaced, or [for?] what sometime must be worthily corrected.”

Stow, in his _Survey of London_, says that “when apprentices and journeymen attended upon their masters and mistresses at night, they went before them carrying a lantern and a candle in their hands, and a great long club on their necks; and many well-grown, sturdy apprentices used to wear long daggers in the daytime on their backs or sides.” All this the master in his young days had done for _his_ master, and all this the present apprentice had the prospective right of claiming for himself in the future; so in this inequality for the nonce there was no element of caste and no room for foolish murmuring. The turbulence of these young fellows was turned now against the city authorities, now against foreign or unlicensed traders and artificers, now against their masters. From the thirteenth to the seventeenth century――times when all classes were turbulent enough――these occasional riots went on and were punished; but what chiefly led to their cessation was the gradual falling to pieces of the old system, and the more effectual police force which patrolled the city after 1688. But the peculiarity of the apprentices’ privileges and of the influence of the companies in England was that, no matter how low a man began, his industry and good behavior could raise him to high public honor. This was not the case in most other European countries. Wealth and domestic happiness, of course, attended virtue and application to business, but such advancement as the English Constitution offered existed nowhere, unless, perhaps, in the Low Countries. This has been significantly commented upon by Lichtenberg, an admirer and critic of Hogarth, and professor of natural history at the University of Göttingen. “In Hogarth’s country,” says he, “it is not unfrequent that the son of a weaver or a brewer may distinguish himself in the House of Commons, and his grandson or great-grandson in the House of Lords. Oh! what a land, in which no cobbler is certain that the favors of his great-grandson may not one day be solicited by kings and emperors. And yet they grumble!”

Although there are no restrictive laws as to trade in the London of our day, and though much of the state of the companies has dwindled into formalities, and is more interesting from a historical than a political point of view, still the foundations on which the system was built are unalterable. In these days, as in centuries gone by, the pride in one’s work, the personal industry, and the _esprit de corps_ of tradesmen are the real steps by which they mount to civic and political success. They were once embodied in the close system of alliance and defence encouraged by the guilds; times and customs have changed, and each man stands more or less on his own merits alone, but the underlying principle is the same. It is not every tradesman or merchant who, because he is honest and thrifty, becomes lord-mayor of London, is knighted, or elected M.P.; but these prizes are within the reach of all. The city records for the latter half of the eighteenth century, for instance, witness to the perseverance of many men born in the lowest and most hopeless circumstances, and that, too, when the ancient prestige of the companies had somewhat faded. Sir James Sanderson, sheriff and lord-mayor of London, was the son of a poor grocer of York, who died young, leaving his widow to manage the business till his son should be old enough to carry it on. The son left the shop to his mother for her support, and went to London, entered the service of a hop-merchant, and throve so well through his industry that he attained great wealth and position. He was afterwards made a baronet. Alderman Boydell came to London on foot, from Shropshire, and worked as an engraver. After great trials, he too succeeded and became lord-mayor, besides being a great patron of the arts. Skinner was apprenticed to a box-maker and undertaker, and, through obscure local influence, began a small business of auctioneering; he ended by becoming lord-mayor, and the first auctioneer of the kingdom. Sir William Plomer began life in an oil-shop in Aldgate, a dingy old part of the city. Brooke Watson, M.P. for the city of London,[4] was the son of a journeyman tailor, and served his apprenticeship to that trade. Sir John Anderson, lord-mayor and member for the city, was the son of a day laborer. Macauley was the son of a captain of a coasting vessel, who died leaving nine children unprovided for. Sir William Staines and Alderman Hamerton were both working paviors and stone-masons. Aldermen Wright and Gill were servants in a warehouse of which they afterwards became masters; they lived for sixty years in partnership as stationers, and never disagreed, although the latter married the former’s sister. Wright made £400,000. The two old friends died the same year, beloved and regretted by many who had experienced their kindness and generosity.

To point out contrary instances would not be so easy――they are legion; but the typical idle apprentice of Hogarth is a fair specimen of those who wreck their lives through weakness of resolve and inordinate love of so-called enjoyment. These we have under our eyes every day, in every country.

[3] Sleight or skill.

[4] The members for the city have the right to wear scarlet gowns on the first or opening day of every Parliament, and sit all together on the right hand of the chair, next the speaker. No other members, except the speaker and the clerks, have the right of wearing robes.

THE SAINTE CHAPELLE OF PARIS AND THE CROWN OF THORNS.

In the very heart of Paris, to the northwest of _Notre Dame_, and as if a flower detached from her garland, or a graceful sapling from the majestic parent tree, sprang up, more than six centuries ago, the _Sainte Chapelle_.

It almost seems as if Heaven had extended a special protection to the sanctuary raised to enshrine the precious relics of the Passion of our Lord; for although injured and despoiled by evil hands in the time of the First Revolution, it was subsequently restored to all the splendor of its pristine beauty; and again, when the conflagrations kindled by the _Commune_ were raging around it, the _Sainte Chapelle_, with its fearless _flêche_, its protecting angel, and its golden crown, stood unharmed in the very midst of the flames, and so remained when they had died out, amid the heaps of ashes and the crumbling ruins left around its unscathed walls.

Since the time of St. Louis France has possessed the crown of thorns of our Lord Jesus Christ, and there is great interest in tracing the vicissitudes through which this priceless treasure has passed, and in learning the circumstances under which the saintly monarch obtained it. In the year 1204 the French and the Venetians, having captured Constantinople, established there as emperor Baldwin, Count of Flanders. On the division of the booty this prince requested for his share the sacred crown of our Saviour, which was found among the treasure of the emperors of the East, offering, if it were adjudged to him, to give to the Doge of Venice a large portion of the true cross in exchange.

His successor, Baldwin II., finding his empire, in the year 1238, threatened by the Greeks on the one side, and on the other by the Bulgarians, came into the West to seek aid and protection against his enemies. Whilst at the court of France, whither he had gone to entreat the assistance of St. Louis, tidings reached him that the nobles whom he had left at Constantinople, finding their resources completely exhausted, were on the point of pledging the holy crown to the Venetians for a sum of money. The young emperor, strongly disapproving of this measure, offered as a free gift to St. Louis the precious relic which the lords of Byzantium were wishing to sell. “For,” said he, “I greatly desire to bestow it upon you, my cousin, who are my lord and benefactor, as well as upon the realm of France, my country.”

St. Louis eagerly accepted such a gift as this, and immediately, at the same time that Baldwin despatched one of his officers with letters-patent commanding that the holy crown should be sent to him, the French monarch sent two of the Friars Preachers, named James and Andrew, to receive it in his name. Journeys in those days, however, were by no means expeditious, and on the arrival of the messengers at Constantinople they found the sacred relic gone from the treasury, and pledged to the Venetians for 13,075 hyperperia, or about £157,000 sterling. It had been deposited by their chamberlain, Pancratius Caverson, in the church of Panta Craton, that of his nation at Byzantium. On receiving the emperor’s orders the Latin lords rearranged the matter with the Venetians, and it was agreed that, if within a reasonably short time the latter did not receive the reimbursement of the sum they had paid, the sacred crown should become their undoubted property. Meanwhile, it was to be carried to Venice, accompanied by the envoys of the King of France, one of whom, Father Andrew, had formerly been guardian of the convent of his order at Constantinople, and, having on several occasions seen the crown, knew its appearance perfectly well. It was this circumstance which had determined St. Louis to send him as one of his messengers.

Every possible precaution was taken to secure the identification of the holy crown, which was enclosed in three chests, the first of gold, the second of silver, on which the Venetian lords affixed their seals, the third of wood, which was sealed by the French nobles.

The season, being Christmas, was unfavorable for the voyage by sea, but the envoys had no hesitation in embarking, secure in the conviction that the crown of Jesus would be their protection in the tempest and the perils of the wintry seas. Nor was their trust disappointed. They escaped unharmed from other dangers also; for the galleys of Vataces, the Greek pretender to the imperial throne, having started in pursuit of their vessel, were unable to overtake or even to discover them, and they reached Venice in safety.

The holy crown was at once borne to St. Mark’s, and there placed among the treasures in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, where reposed the body of the Evangelist, between the two columns of alabaster which are said to have been brought from the Temple of Solomon. At the same time one of the Dominican Fathers set out for France to acquaint St. Louis with the terms agreed upon.

These were approved of by the king, who directed the French merchants to repay the Venetians the sum they had advanced. The sacred relic was then delivered into the hands of the French envoys, who, after assuring themselves that the seals were intact, started homewards with their treasure on the road to France. No sooner had the king heard of the arrival of the holy crown at Troyes, in Champagne, than he immediately set out, with the queen-mother, Blanche of Castile, the princes his brothers, and several of the chief prelates and nobles, to receive and accompany it to the capital. The meeting took place at Villeneuve l’Archevêque, five leagues from Sens, on the 10th of August, 1239. The seals were then broken, and in the midst of an indescribable emotion the sacred relic was displayed.

The king and his brother, the Comte d’Artois, both barefooted and wearing a simple tunic of wool, taking it upon their shoulders, bore it in great pomp to the metropolitan church of Sens, where it remained exposed for the veneration of the faithful until the following day, when the march towards Paris was resumed, and they reached the capital in eight days’ time. A platform had been raised at St. Antoine des Champs, where the crown was placed; and when everyone had contemplated it with an inexpressible joy, the king and his brother, taking it, as before, upon their shoulders, carried it in procession to the palace chapel, at that time dedicated to St. Nicholas, where it was deposited.

Besides all the precautions taken to render any substitution impossible, we may add that Baldwin, on being required to examine and identify the relic, declared its authenticity in a document written on parchment, which was in existence until the Revolution of 1793, signed with his own hand in Greek characters, traced in cinnabar, and having his own seal, of lead covered with gold, affixed. On one side of this seal the emperor was represented enthroned, with the inscription: “_Balduinus Imperator Romaniæ semper Augustus_.” On the other he was on horseback, with the inscription in Greek letters: “_Baudoin, Empereur, Comte de Flandre_.” It must also be borne in mind that the Venetians, before lending so considerable a sum for such a pledge, would be certain to satisfy themselves beyond all doubt as to its authenticity, and that, even had he been so minded, Baldwin could not in this matter have imposed upon the credulity of St. Louis, as some modern writers have asserted, but that he did really receive that which the whole Christian world regarded as the crown of thorns of our Lord Jesus Christ. Still, some additional proof may be required, and for this we must go back to an earlier period. We must also consider the nature of this crown; for many churches affirm, and with good reasons, that they possess thorns or fragments of the same, and yet these portions frequently do not resemble that which is at Paris.

In the first place, it is certain that a century and a half before the reign of St. Louis, at the time of the First Crusade, all the world admitted that a very large portion of the crown was preserved at Constantinople, in the chapel of the Greek emperors. When Alexis Comnenus wished to induce the Christian princes to go to his assistance, he spoke to them of the very precious relics which they would help to save, amongst which he especially designated the crown of thorns.

Also, in the time of Charlemagne, all the West had the certainty that Constantinople possessed this treasure, of which a considerable part was equally known to be at Jerusalem. Towards the year 800, according to Aimoin, the Patriarch of Jerusalem had detached some of the thorns, which he sent to Charlemagne, who deposited them at Aix-la-Chapelle with one of the nails of the true cross, and it was these relics which were afterwards given by Charles le Chauve to the Abbey of St. Denis.

The existence of the crown is a fact constantly alluded to in the sixth century, by St. Gregory of Tours amongst others; and about the year 409 St. Paulinus of Nola knew of its preservation. He writes: “The thorns with which the Saviour was crowned, and the other relics of his Passion, recall to us the living remembrance of his presence.”

No written testimonies of an earlier date remain, but these appear to be fully sufficient, as they are the expression of an oral tradition well known to every one. As for the idea that such a relic as this could have been _invented_ in those ages of conscience and of faith, it is wholly inadmissible.

The crown was not found with the cross and nails on Mount Calvary, nor is it probable that it was there buried with them, but that, when Joseph of Arimathea took down the body of Jesus from the cross, he would have preserved it apart. That no mention of this remains to us is easily accounted for by the silence and the exceeding precautions necessary so long as the persecutions by Jews and pagans continued. During this time the relics of the Passion which had been in the custody of the Blessed Virgin, or by her entrusted to others, could not, for reasons of safety, have been distributed to the various churches, but were honorably preserved in private dwellings, to be brought forth and publicly acknowledged when peace was granted to the church by the conversion of Constantine. Then it was that St. Helena sought with pious eagerness for every memorial that could be found of the Crucifixion, and distributed them chiefly among the churches of Jerusalem, Constantinople, and Rome.[5]

An apparent difficulty still remains, which obliges us to inquire into the nature and form of the sacred crown, with respect to which ancient authors differ from one another, some asserting that it was formed of reed (_juncus palustris_), about which, however, there are no points of any great sharpness; while others maintain it to have been made from the branches of a shrub belonging to the genus _Rhamnus_, several species of which, especially the _Zizyphus Spina Christi_, or the thorn of Christ, are furnished with exceedingly long, hard, and sharply-pointed thorns, exactly similar to those venerated in several churches, but bearing no resemblance whatever to the holy crown at Paris, which is, in fact, of reed.

How is this diversity to be accounted for? Thanks to the learned researches of M. Rohault de Fleury,[6] it is fully explained. The crown at Paris is a circle formed of small reeds bound together, and from which only a small number of particles have been taken. The opening is large enough to encircle the head and to fall rather low over the brow. But this circle is only the support or foundation, so to speak, of the painful crown of our Lord. The branches of those thorns of which we have been speaking were twined alternately within and without, and twisted across in such a manner as to form of these sharp spines not only a _circlet_ but a _cap_, as it were, of torture, which covered the Redeemer’s head.

The year 1241 added new treasures to those already acquired by St. Louis. These were also from Constantinople, and sent as expressions of the homage paid by the Emperor Baldwin to the “Most Christian King.” These relics were accompanied by a parchment document to establish their authenticity, and which especially designated three remarkable portions of the true cross: the first and largest, _Crucem Sanctam_; the second, _Magnam partem Crucis_; and the third, which was smaller, and known as the Cross of Victory, because it had been borne before the armies of Constantine and his successors, _Aliam crucem mediocrem quam Crucem Triumphalem veteres appellabant_. With these was sent also the point of the lance which had pierced our Saviour’s side, and which, from the beginning of the seventh century, had been kept in the chapel of the _Martyrion_, raised by Constantine on Mount Calvary over the very place of the Crucifixion. Heraclius, fearing lest the lance should fall into the hands of the Persians, sent it to Constantinople, from which the greater part of it was later taken to Antioch, where the Crusaders found it in 1097, but the point had been retained in the former city, and was sent from thence to Paris.

It was also in the palace of the _Bucoleon_ at Byzantium that were for a long period preserved a portion of the purple robe, the reed, and the sponge of the Passion. Baldwin I., by means of certain concessions made to the other crusading princes, obtained that the chapel in this palace should remain undisturbed, and thus secured for himself the greater part of its treasures, which were so largely drawn upon by his successor for the benefit of St. Louis and of France.

On their arrival the king immediately prepared to erect an edifice that should be as worthy as possible to receive relics so precious; nor were there wanting at that time great artists well able to furnish the design. The middle of the thirteenth century was perhaps the best and purest period of religious architecture. Churches and cathedrals then arose the majesty of whose beauty has never been surpassed or even equalled. For the execution of his work Louis chose his own architect, Pierre de Montereau, the most renowned master-worker in stone of the great school of Philippe Auguste, whom he charged to construct, in place of the chapel of St. Nicholas, which was old and ruinous, another which should be not so much a church as a delicate reliquary in stone, with open-worked carving like a filigree of gold, paved with enamel, and lighted by windows filled with richly-colored glass.

The artist was no less ready to enter into the ideas of the king than he was competent to realize them. A plan, wonderful in the beauty of its proportions and the gracefulness of its design, was soon ready and submitted to the monarch’s approval, who found it so excellent that his one desire was to see it carried out as expeditiously as possible.

The legendary spirit of the middle ages, which did not easily allow that a too perfect work could be the result of a man’s own thought and labor, has, as usual, embroidered facts with fancies, and attributed the conception of so exquisite a design to supernatural and magical means. It is not difficult to understand that the simple imagination of the people may have had some scope in the colossal construction of the ancient cathedrals, which required centuries for their completion, and which often left no name of the master who conceived the design or of those who executed it; but the _Sainte Chapelle_ was not to have such dimensions as to require time and labor either very great or prolonged, and, moreover, he who cut this jewel would engrave on it his name.[7]

It is evident that the chief intention of the architect was to give to his work as spiritual a character as it is possible to impress upon matter, and to translate into stone the _sursum corda_ of religious aspiration.

The first stone was laid by the king in the year 1245. The proportions of the plan are considered perfect by competent judges. It forms a lengthened parallelogram, terminated at the east end by an apse, and formed of two chapels, one above the other, without aisles or transepts. The edifice measures outside 36 metres 33 centimetres in length, by 17 in width; the exterior elevation from the ground of the lower chapel to the front gable is 42m. 50cm.; the spire[8] rises 33m. 25cm. above the roof. The interior elevation measures 6m. 60cm. in the lower chapel, and from 20m. to 50m. in the upper. The king’s desire for the speedy completion of the building was so great that, notwithstanding the conscientious care bestowed upon every detail, the work went on with such rapidity that in three years the whole was finished, and the fairy-like beauty of the edifice excited the most enthusiastic admiration, tempered, however, by serious apprehensions as to the stability of the fabric――apprehensions which raised a tempest of reproaches against the daring architect. Pierre de Montereau was himself for a time dismayed at the possible consequences of his boldness. How could he be certain that a church so slight, so delicate, and, in comparison with its area, so lofty, would stand securely, almost in defiance of possibilities?

Sebastien Rouillard declares that scarcely was the _Sainte Chapelle_ erected when it was seen to oscillate in the wind, and the spire to sway to and fro in the air when its bells were rung. Thus, _Quasimodo_ or “Low” Sunday of the year of grace 1248, on which the church was consecrated, far from being a festival or triumph for the hapless architect, was to him a day of anguish. So effectually had he hidden himself that, though everywhere sought for, he could nowhere be found; and, to quote the words of Paul de St. Victor, “The very workmen had all fled, fearing that they might be taught the laws of equilibrium from the top of a gibbet. But time has proved that the seeming rashness of the mediæval master was well reasoned, and that this fair flower of his planting has the roots of an oak.”

The proportions had been so carefully drawn, and the laws of mathematics so exactly observed, the materials so well chosen and shaped with such precision, that the aerial structure could not fail to consolidate itself in settling firmly upon its foundation. “One cannot conceive,” writes M. Viollet-le-Duc, “how a work so wonderful in the multiplicity and variety of its details, its purity of execution, its richness of ornamentation, could have been executed in so short a time. From the base to the roof-ridge it is built entirely of hard freestone, every layer of which, cramped together by iron hooks run into the lead, is cut and placed with perfect exactness; the composition and carving of the sculpture likewise give evidence of the utmost care. Nowhere can one find the least indication of negligence or hurry!”[9]

Nor was it the _Sainte Chapelle_ alone that was completed by the end of these three years, but also the beautiful sacristy adjoining, which was in itself a masterpiece of Gothic architecture, with a touch of peculiar refinement about it suggestive of some influence from the East.

The upper and lower chapels corresponded with the two divisions of the palace. The lower one, which is less a crypt than a splendid church, with its sparkling windows, its paintings, its slender pillars with sculptured capitals, was destined for the officers and domestics of the royal household. Over the principal door was placed the image of the Blessed Virgin, which, according to a graceful legend, bent its head to Duns Scotus, in sign of thanks to that learned theologian, who had defended the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and which ever afterwards retained this attitude. The upper chapel was reserved for the king and court, and the cell which was the oratory of St. Louis, may still be seen adjacent to the southern wall.

This church was his especial delight. He had it solemnly consecrated by two illustrious prelates on the same day; the lower chapel to the Blessed Virgin, by Philippe de Berruyer, Archbishop of Bourges, and the upper dedicated to our Lord’s Crown of Thorns, by Eudes de Châteauroux, Bishop of Tusculum and legate of the Holy See. The sacred treasures which the king had received from Constantinople were placed in reliquaries of marvellous richness, wrought in gold and enamel, adorned with carbuncles and pearls. These again were enclosed in what was called _La Grande Châsse_, or “The Great Shrine,” which was in the form of an arch of bronze, gilt, and adorned with figures in the front. It was raised on a kind of Gothic pedestal behind the high altar, and closed with ten keys, each fitting a different lock, six of which secured the two exterior doors, and the four others an inner trellis-work or grating. The relics themselves were in frames or vases of gold and crystal. There the holy crown was placed, in the centre, between the largest portion of the true cross on the one side and the lance on the other. Thanks to the luxury of locks and to the six archers who every night kept guard within the _Sainte Chapelle_, its riches were safe from all possibility of robbery or fraud.

All these things could not be accomplished without enormous outlay. The cost of the _Sainte Chapelle_ amounted to more than £800,000. The sums sent to the Emperor of Constantinople, and those spent upon the reliquaries, amounted to two millions; and when it was suggested to the king that this lavish expenditure, even upon holy things, was somewhat excessive, he replied: “Diex m’a donné tout ce que possède; ce que dépenserai pour lui et pour les nécessiteux sera tousiours le mieux placé.”[10]

He did not wait until the completion of the church before establishing there a college of seventeen ecclesiastics, amply endowed. The clergy of the _Sainte Chapelle_, in virtue of certain privileges and exemptions granted by Pope Innocent IV., were under the immediate jurisdiction of the Holy See. The same pope, at the prayer of the king, enriched the relics with numerous indulgences, and at the same time granted to St. Louis and his successors the privilege of making the exposition of them every Shrove Tuesday. On this day, therefore, the court of the palace was filled, from the hour of seven in the morning, by the inhabitants of the twelve parishes of Paris, who there waited, as it was impossible for the chapel to contain the multitude. Then the king, taking the cross, elevated it, whilst the people sang _Ecce Crux Domini_; after which he exposed it before the central window of the apse in such a manner that through the open portal of the church the crowds could behold and venerate it from the court outside.

Those days were occasions of exceeding happiness to the saintly monarch, who, besides, took delight in everything connected with the sanctuary he had raised, whether in the pomp of its religious solemnities or in the solitude of the holy place. There he devoutly followed the divine Office, and there he was wont to pass long hours, alone, in prayer, kneeling in his oratory, or prostrate on the pavement near the altar. He had there created for himself something of that East towards which the thoughts and desires of his heart were ever turning, and around this glorified Calvary which he had raised to the honor of God he seemed to behold an ideal representation of the Holy Land. All the neighboring streets had taken the names of towns or villages of Palestine: Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jerusalem, etc. But the pious illusion did not satisfy a soul so in love with the cross as that of St. Louis; his knightly heart bounded at the story of the misfortunes in the East, and on the 25th of May, 1270, he again enrolled himself among the Crusaders; his sons and barons did the same. He first directed his operations against Tunis in Africa, but before he reached that place he died near it, in August, 1270.

Great was the mourning in France when tidings came of the death of the king. The _Sainte Chapelle_ seemed plunged, as it were, into widowhood, and the poet Rutebeuf, in his _Regrets au Roy Loeys_, has not forgotten the desolation which seemed to be shed over it:

“Chapèle de Paris, bien êres maintenue, La mort, ce m’est advis, t’a fest desconvenue, Du miex de tes amys, t’a laissé toute nue. De la mort sont plaintifs et grant gent et menue.”[11]

A day of joy and renewed life, as it were, was, however, in store for the royal sanctuary, when the departed monarch received within its precincts the first homage of the Christian world as one of the glorious company whom the church had raised to her altars. Pope Benedict VIII., in accordance with the ardent prayers of the whole of France, had, in his bull of the 11th of August, 1297, declared the sanctity of Louis IX. The following year Philip le Bel convoked in the abbey church of St. Denis all the prelates, abbots, princes, and barons of the realm; the body of St. Louis was placed in a _châsse_ or coffer of silver, and borne by the Archbishops of Rheims and Lyons to the _Sainte Chapelle_, where immense multitudes were assembled to receive it, and where it remained three days exposed for the veneration of the faithful. Philip would fain have kept it there in future, but, fearing to violate the rights of the royal abbey of St. Denis, he restored it thither, excepting the head, which he caused to be enclosed in a bust of gold, and placed amongst the sacred treasures of the holy monarch’s favorite sanctuary.

Long and prosperous days were yet in store for the _Sainte Chapelle_, which reckons in its annals a series of great solemnities. Although its circumscribed space did not allow large numbers of people to assemble at a time within its precincts, it was very suitable for certain festivals of a family character, such as royal marriages and the coronation of queens, at which none but the principal prelates and nobles were present. Here it was that, in 1275, Mary of Brabant, daughter of Philip le Hardi, received the royal consecration, and that, in 1292, Henry VII., Emperor of Germany, in presence of the king, espoused Margaret of Brabant. In due time the daughter of this prince, Mary of Luxemburg, here became the wife of Charles le Bel, who had been married once before, and who, on the death of his second wife, not long afterwards took a third, Jeanne d’Evreux. Here also the too famous Isabel of Bavaria gave her hand to the unfortunate Charles VI. About a century previous a noble and touching ceremony had taken place within these walls, when the Emperor Charles IV., accompanied by his son Wenceslaus, King of the Romans, after having, together with the King of France, assisted at the first Vespers of the Epiphany, on the following day, at the High Mass, which was sung by the Archbishop of Rheims, these three august personages, representing the Magi, bore their gifts to the altar, and there offered gold and frankincense and myrrh.

The _Sainte Chapelle_ was always the place of meeting and departure of every expedition, public or private, to the Holy Land. Even at the period when the Crusades were no longer in favor, it was here that the last sparks of religious enthusiasm were kindled in their regard. In 1332 a noble assemblage was gathered in the upper chapel. There were present Philippe II. of Valois; John of Luxemburg, King of Bohemia; Philippe d’Evreux, King of Navarre; Eudes IV., Duke of Burgundy; and John III., the Good, Duke of Brittany; prelates, lords, and barons. The Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierre de la Pallu, who was addressing the assembly, drew so heartrending a picture of the misfortunes of the Holy Land that all present arose as one man, and, with their faces turned to the altar and their right hands stretched out towards the sacred cross and crown of the Saviour, vowed to go to the rescue of the holy places. Alas! the days of Tancred and Godfrey de Bouillon were gone by, and this generous ardor was doomed to be paralyzed by circumstances more powerful than the courage of brave hearts.

The clergy appointed by St. Louis were more than sufficient for the service of the chapel, which for a long period retained its privileges and organization. Up to the time of the Revolution it was served by a treasurer, a _chantre_ or (chief) “singer,” twelve canons, and thirteen clerks. The chantry had been founded in 1319 by le Long. The treasurer was a person of very considerable importance, wore the episcopal ring, and officiated with the mitre. He was sometimes called the pope of the _Sainte Chapelle_. This office was borne by no less than five cardinals, as well as by many archbishops and other prelates.

There were certain ceremonies peculiar to the chapel. For example, on the Feast of Pentecost flakes of burning flax were let fall from the roof, in imitation of the tongues of fire, and a few moments afterwards a number of white doves were let fly in the church, which were also emblematic of the Holy Spirit. Lastly, at the Offertory one of the youngest children of the choir, clad in white garments, and with outspread golden wings, suddenly appeared hovering high above the altar, by the side of which he gradually descended, and approached the celebrant with a silver ewer for the ablutions. Again, on the festival of the Holy Innocents, and in their honor, the canons gave up their stalls to the choir-children, who, being made for a few hours superior to their masters, had the honor of chanting the divine Office and of carrying out all the ceremonial. These juvenile personages sat in state, wore the copes, and officiated with the utmost gravity and propriety. Nothing was wanting; even the cantoral baton was entrusted to the youthful hands of an improvised _præcentor_. This custom was observed with so much reverence and decorum that it continued in existence until as late as the year 1671.

The splendors of the _Sainte Chapelle_ began to decline from the day that the kings abandoned the _Ile du Palais_ to take up their abode on the northern bank of the Seine; and from the commencement of the sixteenth century it gradually fell almost into oblivion. The subsequent events which have from time to time called attention towards it have nearly all been of a dark and distressing character. Scarcely had the Reformation, by its appearance in France, roused the evil passions which for long years plunged the land into all the miseries of civil war, when fanaticism here signalized itself by the commission of a fearful sacrilege. On the 25th of August, 1503, a scholar, twenty-two years of age, rushed into the chapel during the celebration of holy Mass, snatched the Host out of the hands of the priest, and crushed it to pieces in the court of the palace. He was arrested, judged, and condemned to be burnt. A solemn service of expiation was held in the church, and the pavement upon which the fragments of the sacred Host had fallen was carefully taken up and deposited in the treasury.

We mentioned before that the largest portion of the cross, as well as the smallest (the _Crux Triumphalis_), were preserved in the great shrine, together with the sacred crown; but the intermediate one, designated _aliam magnam partem_, being the portion exposed, from time to time, for the veneration of the faithful, was deposited in the sacristy. All at once, on the 10th of May, 1575, it was found that this piece had disappeared, together with the reliquary that contained it. Great was the general grief and consternation. No pains were spared in the search for it, and large rewards were offered to any persons who should discover any trace of the robbers: all in vain, although public prayers and processions were made to obtain the recovery of the lost relic.

But the guilty person was one whom no one thought of suspecting. Grave historians have nevertheless affirmed that the robber was none other than the king himself, Henry III., who, under the seal of secrecy, had, for a very large sum of money, given back this portion into the hands of the Venetians. A true cross, however, must be had for the solemn expositions customary at the _Sainte Chapelle_. In September of the same year Henry III. caused the great shrine to be opened, and cut from the _Crucem Sanctam_ a piece which was thenceforth to take the place of that which was missing, and which he caused to be similarly shaped and arranged. A reliquary was also to be made like the former one, the decoration of which furnished the unblushing monarch with a fresh opportunity of enriching himself at the expense of the treasures of the _Sainte Chapelle_, from which he managed to abstract five splendid rubies of the value of 260,000 crowns, and which his successor, Henry IV., was unable to recover from the hands of the usurers to whom they had been pledged. About thirty years later the church narrowly escaped destruction by a fire which, owing to the carelessness of some workmen, broke out upon the roof; but although the timber-work was burnt and the sheets of lead that covered it melted, yet the lower roof resisted, and even the windows were uninjured. The beautiful spire was consumed, and replaced by one so poor and ill constructed that a century and a half later it was found necessary to take it down.

But where the fire had spared man destroyed. A devotion to the straight line led certain builders to commit, in 1776, an act of unjustifiable vandalism. The northern _façade_ of the _Palais de Justice_ was to be lengthened; and as the exquisite sacristy which Pierre de Montereau had placed by the _Sainte Chapelle_, like a rosebud by the side of the expanded flower, was found to be within the line of the projected additions, these eighteenth-century architects hesitated not: the lovely fabric was swept away to make room for heavy and unsightly buildings which well-nigh hid the _Sainte Chapelle_ and took from its windows half their light.

The days of the Revolution soon afterwards darkened over France. The National Assembly, at the same time that it declared the civil constitution of the clergy, suppressed all church and cathedral chapters, together with all monasteries and abbeys. The _Sainte Chapelle_ was deprived of its priests and canons, and the municipality of Paris set seals upon the treasury until such time as it should choose to take possession. Louis XVI., who only too truly foresaw the fate that was in store for all these riches, resolved to save at least the holy relic, and sending for M. Gilbert de la Chapelle, one of his counsellors, in whom he could place full confidence, he charged him to transfer them from the treasury to some place where they would be secure.

On the 12th of March, 1791, therefore, the king’s counsellor, assisted by the Abbé Fénelon, had the seals removed in presence of the president of the Chamber of Accounts and other notable personages; took out the relics, and, after having presented them to the monarch, accompanied them himself to the royal abbey of St. Denis, where they were at once deposited in the treasury of the church. No one then foresaw that the sacrilegious hand of the Revolution would reach not only thither, but to the very extremities of the land.

In 1793 a mocking and savage crowd forced itself into the _Sainte Chapelle_, and made speedy havoc of the accumulated riches of five centuries. Besides the great shrine and the bust containing the head of St. Louis, there were statues of massive gold and silver, crosses, chalices, monstrances, and reliquaries, of which the precious material was but of secondary value in comparison with their exquisite workmanship. There were delicate sculptures in ivory, richly-illuminated Missals and Office-books of which even the jewelled binding alone was of enormous value. Every tiling was hammered, twisted, broken, wrenched down, torn, or dragged to the mint to be melted into ingots. But, worse than this, the relics that had been taken to St. Denis were soon after to be snatched from their place of shelter. On the night of the 11th-12th of November in that dismal year this venerable cathedral was desecrated in its turn. We will not dwell upon the horrible saturnalia enacted there; but first of all the treasures of the sanctuary were carried off to Paris, with the innumerable relics they contained, and handed over to the Convention as “objects serving to the encouragement of superstition.”

What was to become of the true cross and of the holy crown in such hands as these? They who burnt the mortal remains of St. Denis and of St. Geneviève would not scruple to destroy the sacred memorials of the Passion. But they were to be saved. Happily, it was put into the heads of the Convention that, in the light of curiosities, some of these “objects” might serve to adorn museums and similar collections, and they were therefore submitted to the examination of learned antiquarians. The Abbé Barthélemy, curator of the _Bibliothèque Nationale_, affirmed the crown to be of such great antiquity and rarity that no enlightened person would permit its destruction; and having obtained that it should be confided to him, preserved it with the utmost care in the National Library. M. Beauvoisin, a member of the commission, took the portion of the cross (_Crucem magnam_) and placed it in the hands of his mother. The nail was saved in the same manner, besides a considerable number of other very precious relics, which, in various places of concealment, awaited the return of better days.

But the hand of the spoiler had not yet finished its work upon the _Sainte Chapelle_. Not that, like many other ancient sanctuaries, it was wholly demolished, but its devastation was complete. The grand figure of our Lord on the principal pier of the upper chapel, the Virgin of Duns Scotus, the admirable bas-reliefs, the porch, the richly-sculptured tympanum and arches, the great statues of the apostles in the interior, the paintings and enamels which adorned the walls――not one of these escaped destruction at the hands of the iconoclasts of the Revolution, who left this once dazzling sanctuary not only bare but mutilated on every side. And as if this had not been ruin enough, the pitiless hardness of utilitarians put the finishing stroke to the havoc already made by anti-Christian fanaticism. The administrators of 1803 thought they could do nothing better than make of the _Sainte Chapelle_ a store-room for the records of the Republic.

Then were the walls riddled with hooks and nails, along the arcades and in the defoliated capitals. Up to a given height a portion of the rich glazing of the windows was torn down round the whole compass of the building, and the space walled up with lath and plaster, along which was fixed a range of cupboards, shelves, and cases with compartments. Dulaure, in his _Description of Paris_, highly applauds these proceedings, and considers that the place had rather gained than lost by being turned into a store for waste paper. “The _Sainte Chapelle_,” he says, “is now consecrated to public utility. It contains archives, of which the different portions are arranged in admirable order. The cupboards in which they are placed occupy a great part of the height of the building, and present by their object and their decoration a happy mixture of the useful and the agreeable. O Prudhomme! thou art eternal.”[12]

And yet this poor flower, so rudely broken by the tempest, had tried to lift her head, as it were, and recover something of the past, when the dawn of a brighter day shed some of its first rays on her.

In the year 1800, while Notre Dame, still given up to schismatic ministers, was utterly deserted, two courageous priests, the Abbé Borderies, since Bishop of Versailles, and the Abbé Lalande, afterwards Bishop of Rodez, first gathered together the faithful within the walls of the _Sainte Chapelle_ for holy Mass, and also for catechisings which were long afterwards remembered. In 1802 these good priests held there a ceremony which for years past had been unknown in France――the First Communion of a large number of children and young persons, whom they had carefully watched over and prepared. This earliest ray of light after the darkness soon shone upon all the sanctuaries of the land.

When the churches were opened again, priests were needed for them, and of these there remained, alas! but too few. The _Sainte Chapelle_ had to be left without any, and it was then put to the use we have described. A few years later, when an endeavor was about to be made to have it employed for its original purposes, it was found to require so much repairing that the question arose whether it would not be advisable to pull it down rather than attempt to restore it. Happily, neither course was then taken. The architects of the Empire and of the Restoration were alike incapable of touching unless irremediably to spoil so delicate a mediæval gem. Its state was, however, so ruinous that after the Revolution it was impossible to think of replacing the sacred relics in a building no longer capable of affording them a safe shelter; they were therefore, in 1804, at the request of Cardinal Belloy, Archbishop of Paris, given into the hands of the vicar-general of the diocese, the Abbé d’Astros, by M. de Portalis, then Minister of Public Worship. The holy crown, of which the identity was established beyond all doubt, was at first carried to the archbishop’s palace, where it remained two years, during which time a fitting reliquary was prepared for its reception, and on the 10th of August it was transferred to Notre Dame and solemnly exposed for veneration.

Beyond the removal of a few small particles, it had not undergone the least alteration, nor had it certainly been broken into three parts, as has been stated. M. Rohault de Fleury, who was permitted to examine it minutely, could not discover the least trace of any fracture. It is now enclosed in a reliquary of copper gilt, measuring 3 feet 2 inches in height and 1 foot in width, of which the rectangular pedestal rests on lions’ claws, while upon it kneel two angels, supporting between them a globe on which is inscribed _Vicit Leo de Tribu Juda_. The background is of lapis lazuli veined with gold. In the flat mouldings about the base are various inscriptions relating to the principal facts in the history of the holy crown. The globe, which is made to open in the middle, encloses a reliquary of crystal within another of silver, in the form of a ring, and it is within this circular tube of ten inches and a half in diameter that the precious relic is enshrined.

Another crystal reliquary contains the portion of the _Crucem magnam_ which had replaced that which disappeared from the sacristy in 1575. This remarkable fragment is no less than eight inches in length. The nail of the Passion which was formerly in the great shrine is also at Notre Dame.

In addition to several other relics which were part of the treasure of the _Sainte Chapelle_, there are also various articles that belonged to St. Louis, and amongst others the discipline, which is accompanied by a very ancient inscription, as follows: “_Flagellum ex catenulis ferreis confectum qua SS. rex Ludovicus corpus suum in servitutem redigebat._” William of Nangis mentions this discipline, with which Louis IX. caused himself to be scourged by his confessor every Friday. The ivory case in which it was kept contains a piece of parchment whereon is written in Gothic letters: “_Cestes escourgestes de fer furent à M. Loys, roy de France._”[13] The sacred relics of the Passion are exposed at Notre Dame on all Fridays in Lent. In their crystal reliquaries, which are suspended from a cross of cedar-wood, they are placed on a framework covered with red hangings, which occupies the central space at the entrance of the choir, and is separated from the nave by a temporary railing. The nail is placed within the holy crown, and above them is the portion of the true cross.

We must return, for a few parting words, to the _Sainte Chapelle_, which for more than thirty years remained in a state of ever-increasing dilapidation and decay, until, in 1837, M. Duban was charged to commence repairing it by strengthening the fabric, and soon afterwards two other architects were associated with him in the work of careful and complete restoration which it was intended should be effected. It is enough to mention the names of MM. Lassus and Viollet-le-Duc to show how wise a choice had been made, these gentlemen having not only a thorough and scientific knowledge of mediæval architecture, an appreciation of its beauty and a sympathy with its spirit, but also that power of patient investigation, coupled with an accurate instinct, which would accomplish the reconstruction of a building from the study of a fragment, just as Cuvier, from a fossil bone, would delineate the entire form of an extinct animal.

The _Sainte Chapelle_ was built in three years, but its restoration occupied nearly twenty-five. Every breach and rent was studied with an attentive eye and closed by an experienced hand. Nothing was left to imagination or caprice. Here the original foliage must be restored to the broken capital; there the modern paint and whitewash must be carefully removed to discover what remained beneath of the ancient paintings, and supply with accurate similarity of coloring and design the numerous portions that had been disfigured or destroyed. Fragments of the ancient statues and stained glass were carefully sought for in private gardens and in heaps of rubbish, and in some cases it was found practicable to reconstruct an entire statue from the pieces discovered here and there at different times; otherwise, from the indications afforded by a portion, a copy of the original was produced.

This long and painstaking labor, which alone could ensure the restoration of the _Sainte Chapelle_ to its former condition, has been crowned with complete success. Nothing is wanting. Exteriorly the buttresses and pinnacles rise as heretofore, with their flowered finials and double crowns; that of royalty being dominated by the crown of Christ. The bas-reliefs and statues are in their places; the roofs have recovered their finely-cut crests of leaden open-work; the golden angel stands as of old over the summit of the apse; and springing above all, from amid the group of saintly figures at its base, loftily rises the light and slender spire, its open stone-work chiselled like a piece of jewelry.

The lower chapel, standing on a level with the ground, is entered by the western porch, to the pier of which the Virgin of Duns Scotus has returned. It is lighted by seven large openings, and also by the seven narrower windows of the apse. The low-arched roofs rest upon fourteen very graceful though not lofty pillars with richly-foliated capitals and polygonal bases. Arcades, supported by light columns, surround the walls, which are entirely covered by paintings. The roof is adorned by _fleurs-de-lis_ upon an azure ground.

Quitting the lower chapel by a narrow and winding staircase, which still awaits its restoration, you arrive beneath the porch of the upper one, and, entering, suddenly find yourself in an atmosphere of rainbow-tinted light. The characteristics of this beautiful sanctuary which at once strike you are those of lightness, loftiness, and splendor. A few feet from the floor the walls disappear, and slender, five-columned pillars spring upwards to the roof, supporting the rounded mouldings by which it is intersected. The space between these pillars is occupied by four great windows in the nave, while in the apse the seven narrower ones are carried to the roof. Half-figures of angels bearing crowns and censers issue from the junction of the arches, and against the pillars stand the majestic forms of the twelve Apostles, in colored draperies adorned with gold, each of them bearing a cruciform disc in his hand. It was these discs which received the holy unction at the hands of the Bishop of Tusculum when the building was consecrated.

The walls beneath the windows are adorned by richly gilt and sculptured arcades filled with paintings. No two of the capitals are alike, and the foliage is copied, not from conventional, but from natural and indigenous, examples.

The windows are all of the time of St. Louis, with the exception of the lower compartments, which were renewed by MM. Steinheil and Lusson, and the western rose-window, which was reconstructed under Charles VIII. The ancient windows are very remarkable, not only for the richness of their coloring, but for the multitudes of little figures with which they are peopled. Subjects from the Old Testament occupy seven large compartments in the nave and four windows in the apse, the remaining ones being devoted to subjects from the Gospels and the history of the sacred relics. The translation of the crown and of the cross affords no less than sixty-seven subjects, in several of which St. Louis, his brother, and Queen Blanche appear; and notwithstanding the imperfection of the drawing, these representations very probably possess some resemblance to the features or bearing of the originals. In the window containing the prophecies of Isaias the prophet is depicted in the act of admonishing Mahomet, whose name is inscribed at length underneath his effigy.

The altar, which was destroyed, has not yet been replaced. That of the thirteenth century had in bas-relief on the retable the figures of our Lord on the cross, with the Blessed Virgin and St. John standing beneath, painted, on a gold ground. A cross hung over it, at the top of which was balanced the figure of an angel with outspread wings, bearing in his hands a Gothic ciborium, in which was enclosed the Blessed Sacrament. And why not still? Why is the mansion made once more so fair when the divine Guest dwells no longer there? When the magistracy assembles to resume its sittings, Mass is said. One Mass a year said in the _Sainte Chapelle_!

[5] A branch from the crown of thorns was presented to the church at Treves. Two of the thorns also are in that of _Santa Croce in Gerusalemme_ at Rome.

[6] _Mémoire sur les Instruments de la Passion._

[7] Until the Revolution the tomb of Pierre de Montereau still existed in the abbey church of St. Germain des Près, where he had built an exquisitely beautiful chapel to the Blessed Virgin, and where he was buried, at the age of fifty-four.

[8] The present spire was erected by M. Lassus, who has faithfully followed the character of the rest of the building.

[9] _Dictionnaire Archéologique._

[10] God has given me all that I possess; that which I shall spend for him and for the needy will be always the best invested.

[11] “Chapel of Paris, erst so well maintained, Death, as I am advised, has robbed thee Of thy best friend, and left thee desolate Great folk and small, all make complaint at death.”

[12] See Paul de St. Victor, _Sainte Chapelle_.

[13] These _escourgettes_ of iron belonged to Monsieur Louis, King of France.

SIR THOMAS MORE.

_A HISTORICAL ROMANCE._

FROM THE FRENCH OF THE PRINCESSE DE CRAON.

XIV.

The following day, toward noon, Thomas More was seated, as usual after dinner, in the midst of his children. No one could discover in his countenance any trace of anxiety. He conversed with his customary cheerfulness. Margaret was a little pale, and it was evident that she had been weeping. She alone kept silence and held aloof from Sir Thomas. Near the window overlooking the garden, on the side next the river, sat Lady More engaged in knitting, according to her invariable habit, and murmuring between her teeth against the monkey, which had three or four times carried off her ball of yarn and tangled the thread.

Sir Thomas from time to time raised his eyes to the clock; he then began to interrogate his children about the work each had done during the morning. At last he called the little jester, who was pulling the dog’s ears and turning summersaults in one corner of the room, trying to make his master laugh, whom he found less cheerful than usual.

“Come hither,” said Sir Thomas. “Henry Pattison, do you hear me?”

The fool paid no attention to what his master said to him.

“Henry Pattison!” cried Sir Thomas.

“Master, I haven’t any ears.” He turned a summersault and made a hideous grimace, which he thought charming.

“Since you have no ears, you can hear me as well where you are. Understand, then, little fool, that I have given you to the lord-mayor. I have written to him about you this morning, and I have no doubt but that he will send for you to-day or to-morrow.”

Had a pail of boiling water been thrown on the poor child, he could not have jumped up more suddenly. On hearing these words he ran toward Sir Thomas, and, throwing himself at his feet, burst into a torrent of tears.

“What have I done, master?” he cried. “How have I offended you? Why have you not told me? Forgive me, I will never do so any more; but don’t drive me away. I will never, never displease you again! No! no! don’t send me away!”

“My child,” said Sir Thomas, “you are mistaken. I am not at all displeased or vexed with you; on the contrary. You will be very happy with the lord-mayor; he will take good care of you, and that is why I prefer giving you to him.”

“No! no!” cried Henry Pattison, sobbing. “Don’t let me eave you, I implore you! Do anything you please with me, only don’t send me away. Why is it you no longer want me? Dame Margaret, take pity on me, and beg your father to let me stay!”

But Margaret, usually very willing to do what she was requested, turned away her head and paid no attention to this petition.

“Master, keep me!” he cried in despair. “Why do you not want me with you any longer?”

“My child,” said Sir Thomas, “I am very much distressed at it; but I am too poor now to keep you in my house, to furnish you with scarlet coats and all the other things to which you are accustomed, You will be infinitely better off with the lord-mayor.”

“I want nothing with the lord-mayor. I will have no more scarlet coats nor gold lace; and if I am too expensive to feed, I will go eat with the dog in the yard. You don’t send him away; he is very happy. It is true that he guards the house, and that I――I am good for nothing. Well, I will work; yes, I will work. I implore you, only keep me. I will work. I don’t want to leave you, my dear master. Have pity on me!”

Sir Thomas was greatly disturbed. Alas! his heart was already so full, it required so much courage to conceal the state of his soul, he was in such an agony, that he felt if the dwarf said any more he would be forced to betray himself.

Assuredly it was not the thought of being separated from his jester that afflicted him to such a degree, but the attachment of this deformed and miserable child, his tears, his entreaties, his dread of losing him, reminded him but too forcibly of the grief which later must seize on the hearts of his own children; for the composure which they saw him maintain at this moment alone prevented them from indulging in expressions of affection far more harrowing still.

“Margaret,” he said, “you will take care of him, will you not?” And fearing he had said too much, he arose hurriedly, and went to examine a vase filled with beautiful flowers, which was placed on the table in the centre of the apartment, and thus concealed the tears which arose and filled his eyes. But the dwarf followed, and fell on his knees before him.

“Come, come, do not distress yourself,” said Sir Thomas; “I will take care of you. Be quiet. Go get your dinner; it is your hour now.”

Sir Thomas approached the window. While he stood there William Roper entered, and, going to him, told him that the boat was ready and the tide was up. More was seized with an inexpressible grief. For an instant he lost sight of everything around him; his head swam.

“Whither go you?” asked his wife.

“Dear Alice, I must to London.”

“To London?” she replied sharply. “But we need you here! Why go to London? Is it to displease his majesty further, in place of staying quietly here in your own house, and doing simply whatever they ask of you? Well did I say that you did wrong in giving up your office. That is what has made the king displeased with you. You ought to write to Master Cromwell; he has a very obliging manner, and I am sure that all this could be very easily arranged; but you are ever loath to give up anything.”

“It is indispensably necessary for me to go,” replied Sir Thomas. “I much prefer remaining. Come!” he said.

“Father! father!” exclaimed all the children, “we will go with you to the boat.”

“Lead me, dear papa,” said the youngest.

Sir Thomas cast a glance toward Margaret, but she had disappeared. He supposed she did not wish to see him start, and he was grieved. However, he felt that it would be one trial less.

“No, my children,” he replied; “I would rather that you come not with me.”

“Why not, dear father?” they cried in accents of surprise and regret.

“The wind is too strong, and the weather is not fair enough,” said Sir Thomas.

“Yes, yes!” they cried, and threw their arms around his neck.

“You cannot go to-day. I do not wish it,” said Sir Thomas in a decided manner.

Words cannot describe the sufferings of this great man; he knew that he would no more behold his home or his children, and that, determined not to take the oath which he regarded as the first step toward apostasy in a Christian, they would not pardon him. He cast a last look upon his family and hurried toward the door.

“You will come back to-morrow, will you not, father?” cried the children in one voice.

He could not reply; but this question re-echoed sadly in the depths of his soul. He hastened on still more rapidly. Roper, who knew no more than the others, was alarmed at the alteration he saw in the features of Sir Thomas, and began to fear that something had happened still more distressing than what he had already heard. However, More had told them so far that it was impossible for him to be found guilty in the affair of the Holy Maid of Kent, but Roper knew not even who she was. The absence of Margaret alone seemed to him inexplicable. Entirely absorbed in these reflections, he followed Sir Thomas, who walked with extraordinary rapidity, and they very soon reached the green gate.

“Come, my son,” said Sir Thomas, “hasten and open the gate; time presses.”

Roper felt in his belt; he found he had not the key.

“I have not the key,” he said. “I must return.”

“O God!” exclaimed Sir Thomas when he found himself alone; and he seated himself on the step of the little stairway, for he felt no longer able to stand on his feet.

“My God!” he cried, “to go without seeing Margaret! Oh! I shall see her again; if not here, at least before I die. Adieu, my cherished home! Adieu, thou loved place of my earthly sojourn! Why dost thou keep within thy walls those whom I love? If they had left thee, then I could abandon thee without regret. I shall see them no more. This is the last time I shall descend these steps, and that this little gate will close upon me. Be still, my soul, be still; I will not listen to you; I will not hear you; you would make me weak. I have no heart; I have no feeling; I do not think. Well, since you will have me speak, tell me rather why this creeping insect, why this straw, has been crushed in the road? Ah! here is Roper.”

He at once arose. They went out and descended to the boat. Then Sir Thomas seated himself in the stern, and spoke not a word. Roper detached the cable, and, giving a push with the bar against the terrace wall, the boat immediately put off and entered the current of the stream.

“This is the end,” said Sir Thomas, looking behind him. He changed his seat, and remained with his eyes fixed upon his home until in the distance it disappeared for ever from his view. He continued, however, gazing in that direction even when the house could no longer be seen, and after some time he observed some one running along the bank of the river, which ascended and descended, and from time to time waving a white handkerchief. He was not able to distinguish whether it was a man or a woman, and told Roper to approach a little nearer to the bank. Then his heart throbbed; he thought he caught a glimpse of, he believed he recognized, Margaret, and he immediately arose to his feet.

“Roper! Margaret! there is Margaret! What can be wrong?”

They drew as near the bank as they could, and Margaret (for it was indeed she) leaped with an unparalleled dexterity from the shore into the boat.

“What is it, my dear child?” exclaimed Sir Thomas, with eager anxiety.

“Nothing,” replied Margaret.

“Nothing! Then why have you come?”

“Because I wanted to come! I also am going to London.” And looking round for a place, she seated herself with a determined air. “Push off now, William,” she said authoritatively.

“My daughter!” exclaimed Sir Thomas.

She made no reply, and More saw that she had a small package under her left arm. He understood very well Margaret’s design, but had not the courage to speak of it to her.

“Margaret, I would rather you had remained quietly at Chelsea,” he said.

She made no reply.

“Your mother and sisters need you!”

“Nobody in this world has need of me,” replied the young girl coldly, “and Margaret has no longer any use for anybody.”

“Margaret, you pain me sorely.”

“I feel no pain myself! Row not so rapidly,” she said to Roper; “I am in no hurry; it is early. Frail bark, couldst thou only go to the end of the earth, how gladly would I steer thee thither!” And she stamped her foot on the bottom of the boat with passionate earnestness.

Sir Thomas wished to speak, but his strength failed him. His eyes filled with tears, and, fearing to let them flow, he bowed his head on his hands. It was the first time in her life that Margaret had disobeyed him, and now it was for his own sake. Besides, he knew her thoroughly, and he felt sure that nothing could change the resolution she had taken not to leave him at that moment.

They all three sat in silence. The father dared not speak; Roper was engaged in rowing the boat; and Margaret had enough in her own heart to occupy her. She became pale and red alternately, and turned from time to time to see if they were approaching the city. As soon as she perceived the spires of the churches she arose.

“We are approaching the lions’ den,” she cried; “let us see if they will tear Daniel.”

And again she took her seat.

They were soon within the limits of the city, and found, to their astonishment, the greatest noise and excitement prevailing. Crowds of the lowest portion of the populace thronged the bridges, were running along the wharves, and gesticulating in the most violent manner. This vile mob, composed of malefactors and idlers, with abuse in their mouths and hatred in their hearts, surges up occasionally from the lowest ranks of society, of which they are the disgrace and the enemy, to proclaim disorder and destruction; just as a violent storm disturbs the depths of a foul marsh, whose poisonous exhalations infect and strike with death every living being who imprudently approaches it. At such times it takes the names of “the people” and “the nation,” because it has a right to neither, and only uses them as a cloak for its hideous deformity and a covering for its rags, its filthy habiliments. They buy up its shouts, its enthusiasm, its incendiaries, terrors, and assassinations; then, when its day is ended, when it is wearied, drunk, and covered with crimes, it returns to seethe in its iniquitous depths and wallow in contempt and oblivion.

Cromwell was well aware of this. Delighted, he moved about among the rabble, and smiled an infamous smile as he heard the cries that burst on the air and pierced the ear: “Long live Queen Anne! Death to the traitors who would dare oppose her!”

“And yet men say,” he repeated to himself, “that it is difficult to do what you will. See! it is Cromwell who has done all this. Not long since the streets resounded with the name of Queen Catherine; to-day it is that of Anne they proclaim. What was good yesterday is bad to-day; is there any difference? What are the masses? An agglomeration of stupid and ignorant creatures who can be made to howl for a few pieces of silver, who take falsehood for wine and truth for water. And it is Cromwell who has done all this. Cromwell has reconciled the people and the king; he has made his reckoning with virtue, and seen that nothing would remain for him. He has then taken one of the scales of the balance; he has placed therein the heart of a man branded and dishonored by an impure passion, which has sufficed to carry him out of himself; the beam has inclined toward him. He has added crimes; he has added blood, remorse, treason; he will heap it up until it runs over, rather than suffer him to recover himself in the least. Shout, rabble! Ay, shout! for ye shout for me.” And he looked at those red faces, blazing, perspiring; those features, disfigured by vice and debauchery; those mouths, gaping open to their ears, and which yet seemed not large enough to give vent to their thousand discordant and piercing sounds.

“There is something, then, viler than Cromwell,” he went on with a fiendish glee; “there is something more degraded and baser than he. Come, you must confess it, ye moralists, that crime, in white shirts and embroidered laces, is less hideous than that which walks abroad all naked, and with its deformities exposed to the bold light of day.”

He looked toward the river, but the light bark which carried Sir Thomas and his party escaped his keen vision: carried along by the force of the current, she shot swiftly as an arrow under the low arches of the first bridge.

“Alas!” said Sir Thomas, “what is going on here?”

He looked at Margaret and regretted she was there; but she seemed entirely unmoved. Margaret had but one thought, and that admitted of no other.

On approaching the Tower they were still more surprised to see an immense crowd assembled and thronging every avenue of approach. The bridges and decks of the vessels were covered with people, and there seemed to be a general commotion and excitement.

“Thither she comes,” said some women who were dragging their children after them at the risk of having them crushed by the crowd.

“I saw her yesterday,” said another. “She is lovely; the fairest plumes on her head.”

“And how her diamonds glittered! You should have seen them.”

“Be still there, gabblers!” said a fat man mounted on a cask, leaning against a wall. “You keep me from hearing what they are shouting down yonder.”

“My troth! she is more magnificent than the other.”

“They say we are to have fountains of wine at the coronation, and a grand show at Westminster Hall.”

“All is not gold that glitters,” said the fat man, who appeared to have as much good sense as flesh.

He made a sign to a man dressed like himself, who advanced with difficulty through the crowd, pushing his way by dint of effort and perseverance. He seemed to be swimming on a wave of heads, each oscillation of which threw him back in spite of the determined resistance he made. The other, perceiving this, extended his hand to him, and, supporting himself by a bar of iron he found near, he drew his companion up beside him.

“Eh! good-day to you, Master Cooping. A famous day, is it not? All this scum goes to drink about five hundred gallons of beer for the monks.”

“May they go to the devil!” replied the brewer, “and may they die of thirst! Hark how they yell! Do you know what they are saying? Just now I heard one of them crying: ‘Long live the new chancellor.’ They know no more about the names than the things. This Audley is one of the most adroit knaves the world has ever seen. There is in him, I warrant, enough matter to make a big scoundrel, a good big vender of justice. I have known him as an advocate; and as for the judge, I remember him still.” As he said this he struck the leathern purse he carried in the folds of his belt.

“These lawyers are all scoundrels; they watch like thieves in a market for a chance to fleece the poor tradesmen.”

Above these men, who complained so harshly of the lawyers and of those who meted out justice to all comers, there was a window, very high and narrow, placed in a turret that formed the angle of a building of good appearance and solid construction. This window was open, the curtains were drawn back, and there could be seen coming and going the heads of several men, who appeared and disappeared from time to time, and who, after having looked out and surveyed the river and the streets adjacent, returned to the extremity of the apartment.

This house belonged to a rich merchant of Lucca named Ludovico Bonvisi; he was a man of sterling integrity, and in very high repute among the rich merchants of the city. Established in England for a great number of years, he had been intimate with Sir Thomas More at the time the latter was Sheriff of London, and he had ever since retained for him a particular friendship and esteem. On this day Ludovico had invited four or five of his friends to his house; he was seated in the midst of them, in a large chair covered with green velvet, before a table loaded with rare and costly wines, which were served in decanters of rock crystal banded with hoops of silver. There were goblets of the same costly metal, richly carved, and a number of these were ornamented with precious stones and different kinds of enamel. Superb fruits arranged in pyramids on rare porcelain china, confectioneries, sweetmeats of all kinds and in all sorts of figures, composed the collation he offered his guests, among whom were John Story, Doctor of Laws; John Clement, a physician of great celebrity, and most thoroughly versed in the Greek language and the ancient sciences; William Rastal, the famous jurist; his friend John Boxol, a man of singular erudition; and Nicholas Harpesfield, who died in prison for the Catholic faith during the reign of Elizabeth. They were all seated around the table, but appeared to be much more interested in their conversation than in the choice viands which had been prepared for them by their host. John Story, particularly, exclaimed with extraordinary bitterness against all that was being done in the kingdom.

“No!” said he, “nothing could be more servile or more vile than the course Parliament has pursued in all this affair. We can scarcely believe that these men, not one of whom in his heart approves of the divorce and the silly and impious pretensions of the king, have never dared to utter a single word in favor of justice and equity! No, each one has watched his neighbor to see what _he_ would do; and when there has been question for debate, they have found no other arguments than simply to pass all that was asked of them. The only thing they have dared to suggest has been to insert in this shameful bill that those who should speak against the new queen and against the supremacy of the king would be punished only so far as they had done so _maliciously_. Beautiful and grand restriction! They think to have gained a great deal by inserting that, so closely are they pursued by their fears.

“When they have instituted proceedings against those unfortunates who shall have offended them, do you believe that Master Audley, and Cromwell, and all the knaves of that class will be at great pains to have entered a well-proven maliciousness? No; it is a halter that will fit all necks――their own as well as those of all others. I have often told them this, but they will believe nothing. Later they will repent it; we shall then be in the net, and there will be no way to get out of it. Yes, I say, and I see it with despair, there is no more courage in the English nation, and very soon we shall let ourselves be seized one by one, like unfledged birds trembling on the edge of their devastated nest.”

“It is very certain,” replied William Rastal, “that I predict nothing good from all these innovations; there is nothing more immoral and more dangerous to society than to let it become permeated, under any form whatever, with the idea of divorce――at least, unless we wish it to become transformed into a vast hospital of orphans abandoned to the chance of public commiseration, into a camp of furious ravishers, excited to revenge and mutual destruction. Take away the indissolubility of marriage, and you destroy at the same blow the only chances of happiness and peace in the interior and domestic life of man, in order to replace them by suspicions, jealousies, crimes, revenge, and corruption.”

“Or rather,” said John Clement, “it will be necessary to reduce women to a condition of slavery, as in the ancient republics, and place them in the ranks of domestic animals.”

“And, as a natural consequence, be ourselves degraded with them,” cried John Story, “since we are their brothers and their sons.”

“With this base cowardice in Parliament, all is possible,” interrupted Harpesfield, “and I do not see how we are to arrest it. When they no longer regard an oath as an inviolable and sacred thing, what guarantee is left among men? You know, I suppose, what the Archbishop of Canterbury has done with the king’s approval, in Westminster even, at the moment of being consecrated?”

“No!” they all answered.

“He took four witnesses aside before entering the sanctuary, and declared to them――he, Cranmer――that the antiquity of the usage and custom of his predecessors requiring that he should take the oath of fidelity to the pope on receiving the pallium from him, he intended, notwithstanding, to pledge himself to nothing in opposition to the reforms the king might desire to make in the church, of which he recognized him as the sole head. What think you of the invention of this preservative of the obligations that bear the sanctity and solemnity of an oath made at the foot of the altar, in presence of all the people, accustomed to listen to and see it faithfully observed? That proceeding sufficiently describes the age in which we live, our king, and this man.”

“But everybody knows very well that Cranmer is an intriguer, void of faith or law,” replied Rastal, “who has been foisted into his present position in order to do the will of the king and accommodate himself to his slightest desires.”

“He has given him a wife,” said John Clement, pouring out a glass of Cyprus wine, whose transparent color testified to its excellent quality; “I verily believe she will not be the last.”

“What kind of a face has she, this damsel Boleyn? Is she dark or fair? Fair, without doubt; for the other was dark. This is perfect nectar, Ludovico! Have you more of it?”

“You are right; she has lovely blue eyes. She sings and dances charmingly.”

“How much more, Ludovico? A small barrel――hem!――of the last invoice? _Excellentissimo_, Signor Ludovico!”

“Well, we will see her pass very soon; they escort her to the Tower, where she will remain until the coronation. They say the king has had the apartments in the Tower furnished with an unparalleled magnificence.”

“Yes; and to sustain that magnificence he is contracting debts every day, and all his revenues do not cover his expenses.”

“A good king is a good thing,” said Harpesfield; “but nothing is worse than a bad one, and the good ones are so rare!”

“That is because,” replied Boxol, who was very deliberate, “the power, renown, and flattery surrounding the throne tend so much to corrupt and encourage the passions of a man that it is very difficult for him, when seated there, to maintain himself without committing any faults. Besides, my masters, we must remember that the faults of private individuals, often quite as shameful, remain unknown, while those of a king are exposed to all eyes and counted on all fingers.”

“Well,” said John Clement; “but this one is certainly somewhat weighty, and I would not care to be burdened by having his sins charged to my account, to be held in reserve against the day of the last judgment.”

“Good Bonvisi, give me a little of that dish which has nothing in common with the _brouet spartiate_.”

“A good counsellor and a true friend,” said John Story――“that is what is always wanting to princes.”

“When they have them, they don’t know how to keep them,” said Ludovico. “See what has happened to More! Was not this a brilliant light which the king has concealed under a bushel?”

“Assuredly,” replied Boxol; “he is an admirable man, competent for, and useful in, any position.”

“He is a true Christian,” said Harpesfield; “amiable, moderate, wise, benevolent, disinterested. At the height of prosperity, as in a humble position, you find him always the same, considering only his duty and the welfare of others. He seems to regard himself as the born servant and the friend of justice.”

“Hold, sirs!” replied Clement, turning around on his chair. “There is one fact which cannot be denied; which is, that nothing but religion can render a man ductile. Otherwise he is like to iron mixed with brimstone. We rely upon him, we confide in his face and in the strength of his goodness; but suddenly he falls and breaks in your hands as soon as you wish to make some use of him.”

“There must be a furious amount of sulphur in his majesty’s heart,” replied Harpesfield, “for he is going to burn, in Yorkshire, four miserable wretches accused of heresy. For what? I know not; for having wished, perhaps, to do as he has done――get rid of a wife of whom he was tired! There is a fifth, who, more adroit, has appealed to him as supreme head of the church; he has been immediately justified, and Master Cromwell set him at liberty. Thus the king burns heretics at the same time that he himself separates from the church. All these actions are horrible, and nothing can be imagined more absurd and at the same time more criminal.”

“As for me,” replied Clement, who had been watering his sugared fruits with particular care for a quarter of an hour, “I have been very much edified by the pastoral letter of my Lord Cranmer to his majesty. Have you seen it, Boxol?”

“No,” replied Boxol, who was not disposed to treat this matter so lightly as Master Clement, as good an eater as he was a scholar, and what they call a _bon vivant_; “these things make me very sick, and I don’t care to speak of them lightly or while dining.”

“For which reason, my friend,” replied Clement, “you are excessively lean――the inevitable consequence of the reaction of anxiety of soul upon its poor servant, the body; for there are many fools who confound all and disown the soul, because they are ashamed of their hearts and can discern only their bodies. As if we could destroy that which God has made, or discover the knots of the lines he has hidden! He has willed that man should be at the same time spirit and matter, and that these two should be entirely united; and very cunning must he be who will change that union one iota. They will search in vain for the place of the soul; they will no more find where it is than where it is not. Would you believe――but this is a thing I keep secret because of the honor of our science――that I have a pupil who asserts that we have no soul, because, says this beardless doctor, he has never been able to distinguish the moment when the soul escaped from the body of the dying! Do you not wonder at the force of that argument? And would it not be in fact a very beautiful thing to observe, and a singular spectacle to see, our souls suddenly provided with large and handsome wings of feathers, or hair, or some other material, to use in flying around and ascending whither God calls them? Now, dear friends, believe what I tell you: the more we learn, the more we perceive that we know nothing. Our intelligence goes only so far as to enable us to understand effects, to gather them together, to describe them, and in some cases to reproduce them; but as for the causes, that is an order of things into which it is absolutely useless to wish to penetrate.”

“Come, now, here is Clement going into his scientific dissertations, in place of telling us what was in Cranmer’s letter!” cried Ludovico, interrupting him.

“Ah! that is because I understand them better; and I prefer my crucibles, my nerves and bones, to the subtleties, the falsehoods, of your pretended casuists. Boxol could tell you that very well; but after all I have been obliged to laugh at the sententious manner, grave and peremptory, in which this archbishop, prelate, primate, orthodox according to the new order, commands the king to quit his wicked life and hasten to separate from his brother’s wife, under pain of incurring ecclesiastical censure and being excommunicated. What think you of that? And while they distribute copies of this lofty admonition among the good tradesmen of London, who can neither read nor write, nor see much farther than the end of their noses and the bottom of their money-bags, they have entered proceedings at Dunstable against that poor Queen Catherine, who is cast out on the world and knows not where to go. Can anything more ridiculous or more pitiable be found? Ha! ha! do you not agree with me?”

“Verily,” said Boxol, who became crimson with anger, “Clement, I detest hearing such things laughed at.”

“Ah! my poor friend,” replied Clement, “would you have me weep, then? Your men are such droll creatures! When one studies them deeply, he is obliged to ridicule them; otherwise we should die with weeping.”

“He is right,” said John Story. “We see how they dispute and flay each other daily for a piece of meadow, a rut in the road which I could hold in the hollow of my hand. They write volumes on the subject; they sweat blood and water; they compel five hundred arrests; then afterwards they are astonished to find they have spent four times as much money as the thing they might have gained was worth. Why cannot men live at peace? If you put them off without wishing to press the suit, they become furious; and yet they always begin by representing their affairs to you in so equitable a light that the devil himself would be deceived. There is one thing I have observed, and that is, there is nothing which has the appearance of being in such good faith as a litigant whose case is bad, and who knows his cause to be unjust.”

“Come, my friends,” cried Clement, “you speak well; all that excites compassion. You often ridicule me and what you please to call my simplicity, and yet I see everything just as clearly as anybody else; but I have a plain way of dealing, and I do not seek so much cunning. If God calls me, I answer at once: Lord, here I am! I have spent the nights of my youth in studying, in learning, in comparing; I have examined and gone to the depths of all the philosophers of antiquity, apparently so lucid, so luminous; I have found only pride, weakness, darkness, and barrenness. I have recognized that it was all profitless and led to no good; it was always _the man_ that I was finding; and of that I had enough in myself to guide and support. Then I took the Bible, and I felt that it was God who spoke to me from its inspired pages; whereat I abandoned my learning and all those philosophical wranglings which weary the mind without bettering the heart. I go straight to my object without vexing myself with anything. There are things which I do not understand. That is natural, since it has pleased God to conceal them from me. Evidently I do not need to comprehend them, since he has not revealed them; and there is no reason, because I find some obscurities, why I should abandon the light which burns in their midst. ‘Master Clement,’ they ask me, ‘how did God make that?’ ‘Why that?’ My dear friends, this is just as far as we know. ‘And this, again?’ This I know nothing about, because it cannot be explained. When our dear friend More read us his _Utopia_, I remember that I approached him and said: ‘Why have you not founded a people every man of whom followed explicitly the laws of the church? That would have given you a great deal less trouble, and you would at once have arrived at the art of making them happy, without employing other precepts than these: to avoid all wrong-doing, to love their neighbor as themselves, and to employ their time and their lives in acquiring all sorts of merits by all sorts of good works. There you would find neither thieves nor slanderers, calumniators nor adulterers, gamblers nor drunkards, misers nor usurers, spendthrifts nor liars; consequently, you would have no need of laws, prisons, or punishments, and such a community would unite all the good and exclude the bad.’ He smiled and said to me: ‘Master Clement, you are in the right course, and you would walk therein with all uprightness, but others would turn entirely around and never even approach it.’ Therefore, when I see a man who has no religion, I say: ‘That man is capable of the utmost possible wickedness’; and I am by no means astonished, when the occasion presents, that he should prove guilty. I mentally exclaim: ‘My dear friend, you gain your living by selfish and wicked means’; and I pass by him, saying, ‘Good-day, my friend,’ as to all the others. He is just what he is; and what will you? We can neither control him nor change his nature.”

His companions smiled at this discourse of John Clement, whom they loved ardently, and who was a man as good as he was original. A little brusque, he loved the poor above all things, and was never happier than when, seated by their humble bedsides, he conversed with them about their difficulties and endeavored to relieve them. Then it seemed to him that he was king of the earth, and that God had placed in his hands a treasure of life and health for him to distribute among them. As often as he added largely to his purse, just so often was it drained of its contents; but he had for his motto that the Lord fed the little birds of the field, and therefore he would not forget him; and, besides, nobody would let John Clement die of hunger. Always cheerful, always contented with everything, he had gone entirely round the circle of science, and, as he said, having learned all that a man could learn, was reduced to the simplicity of a child, but of an enlightened child, who feels all that he loses in being able to go only so far.

“But take your breakfast now, instead of laughing at and listening to me,” he cried.

As he spoke the sound of music was suddenly heard in the distance, and a redoubled tumult in the streets. A dull murmur, and then a loud clamor, reached their ears. They immediately hurried to the window, and left John Clement at the table, who also arose, however, and went to the window, where he arrived the last.

“It is she! It is Queen Anne!” was heard from all sides; and heads arose one above the other, while the roofs even of the houses were covered with people.

There is a kind of electricity which escapes from the crowd and the eager rush and excitement――something that makes the heart throb, and that pleases us, we know not why. There were some who wept, some who shouted; and the sight of the streamers floating from the boats, which advanced in good order like a flotilla upon the river, was sufficient to cause this emotion and justify this enthusiasm; for the people love what is gay, what is brilliant; they admire, they are satisfied. In such moments they forget themselves; the poet sings without coat or shoes; his praises are addressed to the glowing red velvet, the nodding white plume, the gold lace glittering in the sunlight. A king, a queen――synonyms to him of beauty, of magnificence――he waits on them, hopes in them, applauds them when they pass, because he loves to see and admire them.

Six-and-twenty boats, painted and gilded, ornamented with garlands of flowers and streaming banners, with devices and figures entwined, filled with richly-dressed ladies, surrounded the bark which conveyed the new spouse. Anne, arrayed in a robe of white satin heavily embroidered with golden flowers, was seated on a kind of throne which had been erected in the centre of the boat. A rich pavilion was raised above her head, and her long veil of magnificent point lace was thrown back, permitting a view of her beautiful features and fair hair. She was glowing with youth and satisfaction; and her heart thrilled with delight at seeing herself treated as a queen, and making her entry in so triumphant a manner into the city of London.

Her cheeks were red and delicate as the flower of spring; her eyes sparkled with life and animation. The old Duchess of Norfolk, her grandmother, was seated beside her, and at her feet the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Wiltshire, her brother, Viscount Rochford, her sister-in-law, and other relatives. The king was in another boat, and followed close. In all the surrounding boats there were musicians. The weather was superb, and favored by its calmness and serenity the _fête_ that had been prepared for the new queen. Soon shouts arose of “Long live the king!” “Long live the queen!” and the populace, trained and paid by Cromwell, rushed upon the quays, upsetting everything that came in its way, in order to bring its shouts nearer. They seemed like demons seized with an excess of fury; but the eye confounded them among the curious crowd, and the distance harmonized to the royal eyes their savage expression.

Meanwhile, the boats, having made divers evolutions, drew up before the Tower, and Anne Boleyn was received at the landing by the lord-mayor and the sheriffs of the city, who came to congratulate and escort her to her apartments. It would be difficult to describe the ostentation displayed by Henry VIII. on this occasion; he doubtless thought in this way to exalt, in the estimation of the people, the birth of his new wife, and impose on them by her dignity. The apartments in the Tower destined to receive them had been entirely refurnished; the grand stairway was covered from top to bottom with Flanders tapestry, and loaded with flowers and censers smoking with perfume, which embalmed the air with a thousand precious odors. A violet-colored carpet, embroidered with gold and furs, extended along their line of march and traversed the courtyards. Anne and all her _cortège_ followed the route so sumptuously marked out. As she rested her delicate feet on the silken carpet she was transported with joy, and gazed with delighted eyes on the splendors surrounding her. “I am queen――Queen of England!” she said to herself every moment. That thought alone found a place in her heart; she saw nothing but the throne, the title, this magnificence; she was in a whirl of enjoyment and reckless delight.

* * * * *

In the meantime Margaret and Sir Thomas were also entering the Tower. The young girl shuddered at the aspect of the black walls and the long and gloomy corridors through which she had been made to follow. Her heart throbbed violently as she gazed at the little iron-grated windows, closely barred, rising in tiers one above the other. It seemed to her she could see at each one of those little squares, so like the openings of a cage, a condemned head sighing at the sight of heaven or the thought of liberty. She walked behind Sir Thomas, and her heart was paralyzed by terror and fear as she fixed her eyes on that cherished father.

They at length reached a large, vaulted hall, damp and gloomy, the white-washed walls of which were covered with names and various kinds of drawings; a large wooden table and some worm-eaten stools constituted the only furniture. A leaden inkstand, some rolls of parchment, an old register lying open, and a man who was writing, interrogated Sir Thomas.

“Age?” asked the man; and he fixed his luminous, cat-like eyes on Thomas More.

“Fifty years,” responded Sir Thomas.

“Your profession?”

“I have none at present,” he answered.

“In that case I shall write you down as the former lord chancellor.”

“As you please,” said More. “But, sir,” continued Sir Thomas, “I have received an order to present myself before the council, and I should not be imprisoned before being heard.”

“Pardon me, sir,” replied the clerk quietly, “the order has been received this morning; and if you had not come to-day, you would have been arrested this evening.”

As he coolly said these words he passed to him a roll of paper from which hung suspended the seal of state. Sir Thomas opened it, and casting his eyes over the pages, the long and useless formula of which he knew by heart, he came at once to the signature of Cromwell below that of Audley. He recalled this man, who had coolly dined at his table yesterday, surrounded by his children. He then took up the great seal of green wax which hung suspended by a piece of amaranth silk. The wax represented the portrait of Henry VIII., with a device or inscription. He held the seal in his hand, looked at it, and turned it over two or three times.

“This is indeed the royal seal,” said he. “I have been familiar with it for a long time; and now the king has not hesitated to attach it to my name. Well, God’s will be done!” And he laid the seal and the roll of paper on the table.

“You see it,” said the clerk, observing from the corner of his eye that he had replaced the paper. “Oh! I am perfectly at home with everything since I came here. It was I who registered Empson and Dudley, the ministers of Henry VII., and the Duke of Buckingham. A famous trial that! High treason also――decapitated at Tower Hill. A noble lord, moreover; he――listen, I am going to tell you; for it is all written here.” And he began to turn the leaves of the book. “Here, the 17th of May, 1521, page 86.” And placing the end of his finger on the page indicated, he looked at Sir Thomas complacently, as if to say: “Admire my accuracy, now, and my presence of mind.”

On hearing this Margaret arose involuntarily to her feet. “Silence, miserable wretch!” she cried. “What is it to us that you have kept an account of all the assassinations which have been committed in this place? No! no! my father shall not stay here; he shall not stay here. He is innocent――yes, innocent; it would be impossible for him to be guilty!”

The clerk inspected her closely, as if to determine who she could be. “That is the custom; they always say that, damsel. As for me, however, it concerns me not. They are tried up above; but I――I write here; that is all. Why do they allow themselves to be taken? People ought not to be called wretches so readily,” he added, fixing his eyes upon her. “I am honest, you see, and the worthy father of a family, you understand. I have two children, and I support them by the fruit of my labor.”

“Margaret,” said Sir Thomas, “my dearest daughter, you must not remain here!”

“You believe――you think so! Well, perhaps not; and yet I implore you! Undoubtedly I am only a woman; I can do nothing at all; I am only Margaret!”

And a gleam shot from her eyes.

Sir Thomas regarded her, overwhelmed with anguish and despair. He took her by the arm and led her far away from the clerk, toward the large and only window, looking out on the gloomy and narrow back yard. “Come,” he said, “let me see you display more courage; do not add to the anguish that already fills my soul! Margaret, look up to heaven.” And he raised his right hand toward the firmament, of which they could see but the smallest space. “Have these men, my daughter, the power to deprive us of our abode up there? Whatever afflictions may befall us here on earth, one day we shall be reunited there in eternity. Then, Margaret, we shall have no more chains, no more prisons, no more separations. Why, then, should you grieve, since you are immortal? What signify the years that roll by and are cast behind us, more than a cloud of dust by which we are for a moment enveloped? If my life was to be extinguished, if you were to cease to exist, then, yes, my despair would be unlimited; but we live, and we shall live for ever! We shall meet again, whatever may be the fate that attends me, whatever may be the road I am forced to follow. Death――ah! well, what is death? A change of life. Listen to me, Margaret: the present is nothing; the future is everything! Yes, I prefer the gloom of the prison to the brilliancy of the throne; all the miseries of this place to the delights of the universe, if they must be purchased at the cost of my soul’s salvation. Cease, then, to weep for me. If I am imprisoned here, it is only what He who called me out of nothing has permitted; and were I at liberty to leave, I would not do so unless it were his will. Know, then, my daughter, that I am calm and perfectly resigned to be here, since God so wills it. Return home now; see that nothing goes wrong there. I appoint you in my place, without, at the same time, elevating you above your mother; and rest assured that your father will endure everything with joy and submission, not because of the justice of men, but because of that of God!”

Margaret listened to her father without replying. She knew well that she would not be permitted to remain in the prison, and yet she so much wished it.

“No,” she exclaimed at last, “I do not wish to be thus resigned! It is very easy for you to talk, it is nothing for me to listen; but as for me, I am on the verge of life. Without you, for me life has no longer the least attraction! Let them take mine when they take yours! It is the same thing; they owe it to the king. He so thirsts for blood that it will not do to rob him of one drop. Have you not betrayed him? Well! I am a traitor also; let him avenge himself, then; let him take his revenge; let him pick my bones, since he tears my heart. I am you; let him devour me also. Write my name on your register,” she continued, suddenly turning toward the clerk, as if convinced that the reasons she had given could not be answered. “Come, friend, good-fortune to you――two prisoners instead of one! Come, write; you write so well! Margaret More, aged eighteen years, guilty of high treason!”

The clerk made no reply.

“Is there anything lacking?” said Margaret.

“But, damsel,” he replied, placing his pen behind his ear with an air of indecision, “I cannot do that; you have not been accused. If you are an accomplice and have some revelations to make, you must so declare before the court.”

“You are right; yes, I am an accomplice!” she cried. “Therefore come; let nothing stop you.”

“My beloved child,” said Sir Thomas painfully, “you would have me, then, condemn myself by acknowledging you as an accomplice in a crime which I have not committed?”

“O my father!” cried the young girl, “tell me, have you, then, some hope? No! no! you are deceiving me. You see it! You have heard it! They would have come this night to tear you from our arms, from your desolated home! No; all is over, and I too wish to die!”

As she said these words, Cromwell, who had rapidly and noiselessly ascended the stairs, pushed open the door and entered. He came to see if More had arrived. He saluted him without the least embarrassment, and remarked the tears that wet the beautiful face of Margaret. She immediately wiped them away, and looked at him scornfully.

“You come to see if the time has arrived!” she said; “if my father has fallen into your hands. Yes, here he is; look at him closely, and dare to accuse him!”

“Damsel,” replied Cromwell, bowing awkwardly, “ladies should not meddle with justice, whose sword falls before them.”

As he said this, Kingston, the lieutenant of the Tower, entered, followed by an escort of armed guards.

The sound of their footsteps, the clanking of their arms, astonished Margaret. Her bosom heaved. She felt that there was no longer any resistance to be offered; she understood that it was this power which threatened to crush and destroy all she loved――she, poor young girl, facing these armed men, covered with iron, clashing with steel; these living machines, who understood neither eloquence, reason, truth, sex, age, nor beauty. She regarded them with a look of silent despair.

She saw Kingston advance toward her father, and say he arrested him in the name of the king; and then take his hand to express the regret with which he executed this act of obedience to the king. “The coward!” she thought; “he sacrifices his friend.”

She saw her father approach her, to clasp her in his arms, to bid her adieu, to tell her to return home, to watch over her sisters, to respect her mother, take care of Henry Pattison, for his sake. She heard all this; she was almost unconscious, for she saw and heard, and yet remained transfixed and motionless. Then he left her. Kingston conducted him, the guards surrounded him, he passed through the door leading into the interior of the Tower; it closed, and Margaret was alone.

She stood thus for a long time, as if paralyzed by what had just passed before her. She put her hand upon her forehead; it was burning, and she could recall nothing more. By degrees animation returned, and she felt she was cold. She looked around her; she saw the clerk still seated at his desk, writing. Absolute silence reigned; those great walls were gloomy, deaf, and mute. Then she arose. She saw the day was declining; she thought she would try to go. Roper was waiting, and perhaps uneasy. She cast a lingering look at the door she had seen close upon her father; she set these places in her memory, saying: “I will return.” She then went out, and slowly descended to the bank of the river, where she found Roper, who had charge of the boat, and who was astonished at her long absence.

“Well, Margaret, and your father?” he said, seeing her alone. She drooped her head. “Will he not return?”

“No,” she replied, and entered the boat; then she suddenly seized the hands of Roper. “He is there――do you see?――within those black walls, in that gloomy prison. The guards have taken him; they seized and surrounded him; he disappeared, and I am left――left alone! He has sent me away; he told me to go. Kingston! Cromwell! O Roper! I can stand no more; let us go.” And Margaret sank, panting and exhausted, upon the forepart of the boat. Roper listened and looked at her.

“What! he will not return?” he repeated; and his eyes questioned Margaret.

But the noble and beautiful young girl heard him not; with her eyes fixed on the walls of the Tower, she seemed absorbed in one thought alone.

“Farewell, farewell, my father!” she said. “Your ears no more hear me, but your heart responds to my own. Farewell, farewell!” And she made a sign with her hand, as though she had him before her eyes.

“Is it true, Margaret, that he will not return?”

“No! I tell you he will not. We are now all alone in the world. You may go. You may go quickly now, if you wish.”

“Well,” said Roper, “he will be detained to stand his trial; that will end, perhaps, better than you think.” And he seated himself quietly at the oars; because Roper, always disposed to hope for the best in the future, concluded that Margaret, doubtless frightened at the imposing appearance of justice, believed Sir Thomas to be in far greater danger than he really was; and, following the thread of his own thoughts, he added aloud: “Men are men, and Margaret is a woman.”

“What would you say by that?” she asked with energy. “Do you mean to say that I am your inferior, and that my nature is lower than your own? What do you mean by saying ‘a woman’? Yes, I am inferior, but only in the animal strength which enables you to row at this moment and make me mount the wave that carries me. I am your inferior in cruelty, indifference, and selfishness. Ah! if I were a man like you, and could only retain under your form all the vigor of my soul and the fearlessness with which I feel myself transported, you would see if my father remained alone, abandoned without resistance in the depths of the prison where I saw him led; and if the oppressor should not, in his turn, fear the voice of the oppressed; and if this nation, which you call a nation of _men_, should be allowed to slaughter its own children!”

“Margaret,” said Roper, alarmed, “calm yourself.”

“I must sleep, I suppose, in order to please you, when I see my father delivered into the hands of his enemies! He is lost, I tell you, and you will not believe it, and I can do nothing for him. Of what good is courage to one who cannot use it? Of what use is strength, if one can only wish for it? To fret one’s self in the night of impossibility; to see, to hear, and have power to do nothing. This is the punishment I must endure for ever! Nothing to lean upon! Everything will fall around me. He is condemned, they will say; there will be only one human creature less! That will be my father!”

And Margaret, standing up in the middle of the boat, her hair dishevelled, her eyes fixed, seemed to see the wretchedness she was describing. The wind blew violently, and scattered the curls of her dark hair around her burning face.

“Margaret,” cried Roper, running to her and taking her in his arms――“Margaret, are you dreaming? What would your father say if he knew you had thus abandoned yourself to despair?”

“He would say,” replied Margaret, “that we must despise the world and place our trust in Heaven; he would recall resignation into my exasperated soul. But shall I see him henceforth? Who will aid me in supporting the burdens of this life, against which, in my misery, I revolt every instant? Oh! if I could only share his chains. Then, near him, I would brave tyrants, tortures, hell, and the devils combined! The strength of my will would shake the earth, when I cannot turn over a single stone!”

At this moment the boat, which Roper, in his trouble, had ceased to guide, struck violently against some piers the fishermen had sunk along the river. It was almost capsized, and the water rushed in through a hole made by the stakes.

“We are going to sink,” cried Roper, leaving Margaret and rushing toward the oar he had abandoned.

“Well! do what you can to prevent it,” replied the young girl coldly, as she seated herself in her former position in the stern of the boat.

But the water continued to rush in, and was already as high as their feet. Roper seized his cloak, and made it serve, though not without considerable difficulty, to close the vent through which the water entered. A plank which he found in the bottom of the boat was used to finish his work, and they were able to resume their course; the boat, however, made but slow way, and it was constantly necessary to bail out the water that leaked through the badly-repaired opening. Night came on, and it was already quite late when they succeeded in reaching the Chelsea terrace, at the foot of which they landed.

Roper, having attached the boat to the chain used for that purpose, opened the gate, and they entered together. Margaret’s heart throbbed violently; this lonely house, deprived of him who had made the happiness of her life; the gate which they had closed without his having entered it――everything, even to the sound of her own footsteps, pierced her soul with anguish. She passed rapidly through the garden and entered the house, where she found the rest of the family assembled as usual. All appeared sad, Lady More alone excepted; this woman, vulgar and coarse, was not in a condition to comprehend the position in which she found herself; the baseness of her sentiments, the littleness of her soul, rendered her a burden as annoying as she was painful to support. Margaret, in particular, could feel no affection for her. Frank and sincere herself, she abhorred the cunning and artifice her stepmother believed herself bound to employ to make up for her deficiency of intellect; and when, in the midst of a most interesting and elevated conversation, the reasoning of which Margaret caught with so much avidity, she heard her loudly decide a question and pronounce a judgment in the vulgar phrases used among the most obscure class of people, she was not always able to conceal her impatience. Her father, more cheerful, more master of himself, recalled by a glance or a smile his dear Margaret to a degree of patience and respect he was always ready to observe.

On entering, therefore, Margaret’s indignation was excited by hearing her stepmother abusing unmercifully poor Henry Pattison, who had wept incessantly ever since the departure of his master.

“Till-Wall! Till-Wall!” she cried. “This fool here will never let us have any more peace! Sir Thomas had better have taken him with him; they could have acted the fool together!”

Margaret listened at first to her stepmother, but she could not permit her to continue. “Weep!” she cried――“yes, weep, poor Pattison! for your master is now imprisoned in the Tower, and God knows whether you will ever see him again. Weep, all of you,” she continued, turning to her sisters, “because you do not see your father in the midst of us. Believe in my presentiments; they have never deceived me. Those souls, coarse and devoid of sensibility, over whom life passes and dries like rain upon a rock, will always reject such beliefs; but if, when one is united by affection to a cherished being, the slightest movement of his eyes enables you to read his soul, and you discover the most secret emotion of his heart, we must believe also that nature, on the approach of misfortunes which are to befall us, reveals to us the secrets of the future. That is why I say to you, Weep, all of you; for you will never see him again. I――no, I will not weep, because to me this means death! I shall die!”

And crossing the room, she went and threw herself on her knees before the arm-chair usually occupied by her father. “Yesterday at this hour he was here; I have seen him here; I have heard him speak to me!” she cried, and it seemed to her she still heard him; but in place of that cherished voice which sounded always near her that of Lady More alone fell on her ear.

“Cecilia,” she said, “go and see if supper is ready; it should have been served an hour ago. I have waited for you,” she added, looking at Margaret, “although you may not have expected it, judging from the time you were absent.”

“I thank you,” replied Margaret. “It was not necessary; I could not eat.”

“That is something one could not guess,” angrily replied Lady More, rising from her arm-chair and proceeding to the dining-room.

They all followed her; but, on seeing her stepmother take Sir Thomas’ place, and begin in a loud voice to say grace (as was customary in those days, when heads of families did not blush to acknowledge themselves Christians), Margaret was unable to restrain her tears, and immediately left the dining-room. Roper cast an anxious look after her, but on account of her stepmother he said nothing.

“It appears,” said Lady More, whilst helping the dish which was placed before her, “that we are at the end of our trouble. All my life I’ve been watching Sir Thomas throwing himself into difficulties and dangers: at one time he would sustain a poor little country squire against some powerful family; at another he was taking part against the government; and now, I fear, this last affair will be the worst of all. But what have you heard, Roper? Why has Sir Thomas not returned?”

Roper then related to her how he had waited in the boat; how he had seen the new queen pass, followed by the most brilliant assembly; and, finally, what Margaret had told him concerning her father.

“You see!” she exclaimed at every pause he made in his narration. “I was right! Say if I was not right?”

Meanwhile, her appetite remained, undisturbed; she continued to eat very leisurely while questioning Roper.

He was anxious to finish satisfying the curiosity of his stepmother, who detained him for a long time, giving the details of Lady Boleyn’s dress, although, in spite of his complacent good-will, Roper was unable to describe but imperfectly the inventions, the materials, jewelry, and embroideries which composed her attire.

“How stupid and senseless these scruples of Sir Thomas are!” she cried on hearing these beautiful things described. “I ask you now if it is not natural for me to wish to be among those elegant ladies, and to be adorned like them? But no; he has done everything to deprive himself of the king’s favor, who has yielded to him to the utmost degree. But I will go and find him; I will speak to him, and demonstrate to him that his first duty is to take care of his family, and not drag us all down with him.” As she said this, she shook her gray head, and assumed a menacing air as she turned towards Roper. But he was gone. He was afraid she would make him recommence his narrative; and, contrary to his usual custom, he was greatly troubled at the condition in which he saw Margaret.

He softly ascended to the chamber of the young girl, and paused to listen a moment at the door. The light shone through the windows, and yet he heard not the slightest sound. He then entered, and found Margaret asleep, kneeling on the floor like a person at prayer. She was motionless, but her sleep seemed troubled by painful dreams; and her eyebrows and all the features of her beautiful face were successively contracted. Her head rested on her shoulder, and she appeared to be still gazing at a little portrait of her father, which she had worn from her childhood, and which she had placed on the chair before her.

Roper regarded her a moment with a feeling of intense sorrow. He then knelt by her side and took her hand.

The movement aroused Margaret. “Where are we now, Roper?” she said, opening her eyes. “Have you finished mending the boat?”

But scarcely had she pronounced the words when, looking around her, she perceived her error. “Ah!” she continued, “I had forgotten we had reached home.”

“My dear Margaret,” said Roper, “I have felt the most dreadful anxiety since you left your stepmother.”

“Oh! my stepmother,” cried Margaret. “How happy she is! How I envy her the selfishness which makes us feel that in possessing ourselves all our wishes are accomplished! She is, at least, always sure of following and carrying herself in every place; they cannot separate her from the sole object of her love, and nothing can tear her from it.”

“Is it, then, a happiness to love only one’s self? And can you, dear Margaret, desire any such fate?”

“Yes!” replied Margaret. “The stupid creature by whom the future is disregarded, the past forgotten, the present ignored, makes me envious! Why exhaust ourselves in useless efforts? And why does not man, like the chrysalis which sleeps forty days, not await more patiently the moment when he shall be born in eternity――the moment that will open to him the sources of a new existence, where he shall love without fearing to lose the object of his devotion; where, happy in the happiness of the Creator himself, he will praise and bless him every moment with new transports of joy? William, do you know what that power is which transforms our entire being into the one whom we love, in order to make us endure his sufferings a thousand times over? Do you understand well that love which has neither flesh nor bone; which loves only the heart and mind; which mounts without fear into the presence of God himself; which draws from him, from his grandeur, his perfections, from his infinite majesty, all its strength and all its endurance; which, fearing not death, extends beyond the grave, and lives and increases through all eternity? That celestial love――have you ever felt it? that soul within a soul, which considers virtue alone, lives only for her, and which is every moment exalted by its sacrifices and its devotion? that life within another life, which feels that nothing can extinguish it, and considers the world and creatures as nothing? Speak, Roper, do you entirely comprehend it? O my friend! listen attentively to me; when the fruit of experience shall have ripened for you, when your fellow-creatures shall no more speak of you but as ‘the old man,’ when you shall have long looked upon your children’s children, then you will assemble them round you, and tell them that in other times a tyrant named Henry VIII. devastated their country, and immolated, in his bloody rage, the father of Margaret; you will tell them that you loved Margaret, and that she perished in the flower of her youth; and you will teach them to execrate the memory of that cruel king, to weep over the oppressed, and to defend them.”

“Margaret!” cried Roper, “whither have your excited feelings carried you? Who will be able to take you from me? And the children of whom you speak――will they not also be yours?”

“No, they will not be mine! Upon the earth there remains for me neither father nor husband, now that all are reduced to slaves. And learn this, if you do not already know it: Slaves should have no hearts! But I――I have one,” she cried, “and I well understand how to keep it out of their hands!”

“Margaret,” replied Roper, “you are greatly to blame for expressing yourself in this manner. What! because the king sends for your father to come and take an oath which he believes he has a right to exact, you already accuse him of wishing to encompass his death? Your father is lost, you say. Have you forgotten, then, the numberless assurances of protection and particular regard which the king has not ceased to bestow on him in the most conspicuous manner? Has he not raised him to the highest position in his kingdom? And if your father had not voluntarily renounced it, the office would have been still in his possession.”

“Without doubt,” replied Margaret, “if my father had been willing to barter his conscience, they would have bought it. To-day they will weigh it in the balance against his life. He is already doomed.”

TO BE CONTINUED.

SANCTA SOPHIA.[14]

The new and improved edition of Father Cressy’s compendium of the principal treatises of the English Benedictine, Father Baker, entitled _Sancta Sophia_, or Holy Wisdom, which has now appeared, has been long looked for, and we give it a cordial welcome. In compliance with an earnest request of the very reverend and learned prelate under whose careful supervision this new edition has been prepared, we very gladly make use of the opportunity which is thus presented of calling attention to this admirable work, and to some topics of the greatest interest and importance which are intimately connected with its peculiar nature and scope as a book of spiritual instruction. It belongs to a special class of books treating of the higher grades of the spiritual life, and of the more perfect way in which the soul that has passed through the inferior exercises of active meditation is led upward toward the tranquil region of contemplation. It is a remarkable fact, and an indication of the increasing number of those who feel the aspiration after this higher life, that such a demand has made itself felt, within a comparatively recent period, for spiritual treatises of this sort. The most voluminous and popular modern writer who has ministered to this appetite of souls thirsting for the fountains of pure spiritual doctrine, is the late holy Oratorian, Father Faber. The unparalleled circulation of his works is a matter of common notoriety. The lives of saints and of holy persons who have been led in the highways of mystic illumination and union with God, which have poured forth in such copious abundance from the Catholic press, and have been so eagerly read, are another symptom as well as a cause of this increasing taste for the science and wisdom of the saints. The most choice and elevated spiritual works which have appeared are, however, with few exceptions, republications of books of an older and bygone time. Among these we may mention that quaint treatise so often referred to by Father Baker, called _The Cloud of the Unknowing_, Walter Hilton’s _Scala Perfectionis_, the _Spiritual Dialogues_ of St. Catherine of Genoa, St. Teresa’s writings, Dom Castaniza’s _Spiritual Conflict and Conquest_, and above all others that truly magnificent edition in an English version of the _Works of St. John of the Cross_, for which we are indebted to Mr. Lewis and his Eminence the Cardinal of Westminster. As a manual for common and general use, the _Sancta Sophia_ of Father Baker has an excellence and value peculiarly its own. Canon Dalton, a good authority on subjects of this kind, says that “it is certainly the _best book_ we have in English on prayer.” Bishop Ullathorne says of it: “Nothing is more clear, simple, solid, and profound.” Similar testimonies might be multiplied; and if the suffrages of the thousands of unknown but devout persons in religious communities and in the secular state, who have made use of this book, could be collected, the result would prove that the high esteem in which it has ever been held by the English Benedictines is perfectly well deserved, according to the sense of the most pious among the faithful.

The first modern edition of _Sancta Sophia_ was published in New York in 1857. Before this time it was wholly unknown in this country, so far as we are informed, excepting in the convent of Carmelite Nuns at Baltimore. At the ancient convent on Aisquith Street, where a small community of the daughters of St. Teresa had long been strictly practising the rule of their holy mother, an old copy of the first edition of _Sancta Sophia_ was preserved as their greatest treasure. It was there that Father Walworth became acquainted with the book, and, charmed with its quaint style and rare, old-fashioned excellence, resolved to have a new edition of it published for the benefit of the Catholics of the United States. By permission of the Very Rev. Father Bernard, of holy memory, who was then provincial of the Redemptorists, it was published, under Father Hecker’s supervision, by James B. Kirker (Dunigan & Bro.) of New York. It was reprinted correctly, though in a plain and unattractive form, without any change excepting in the spelling of words and the omission of certain forms of short prayers and aspirations which were added to the treatises in the original. There is no substantial difference, as to the text of the work itself, between this edition and the new one edited by Dr. Sweeney. He has, however, had it published in a much better and more attractive form, has restored all the parts omitted, and, besides carefully revising the text, has added prefatory matter, notes, and appendices, which make his edition more complete. A portrait of the venerable Father Baker is prefixed. If an index of the contents of the chapters had been added, it would have made the edition as perfect as we could desire. That it will now become once more widely known and appreciated in England we cannot doubt, and we trust that it will also obtain a much wider circulation in this country than it has hitherto enjoyed. There is but one serious obstacle in the way of its becoming a universal favorite with those who have a taste for solid spiritual food. It is food of the most simple, dry, and hard quality, served without sauce or condiments of any kind――pure nutriment, like brown bread, wheaten, grits, farina, or Scotch porridge. It is most wholesome and conducive to spiritual growth, but altogether destitute of the eloquence which we find in Tauler, the deep philosophy and sublime poetry of St. John of the Cross, the ecstatic rapture of St. Teresa. Whoever studies it will have no stimulus but a pure and simple desire for instruction, improvement, and edification. The keynote to the entire mode and measure of the book is given in the chapter, borrowed from Father Walter Hilton, on the spiritual pilgrimage: “One way he knew, which, if he would diligently pursue according to the directions and marks that he would give him――though, said he, I cannot promise thee a security from many frights, beatings, and other ill-usage and temptations of all kinds; but if thou canst have courage and patience enough to suffer them without quarrelling or resisting, or troubling thyself, and so pass on, having this only in thy mind, and sometimes on thy tongue, _I have naught, I am naught, I desire naught but to be at Jerusalem_, my life for thine, thou wilt escape safe with thy life, and in a competent time arrive thither.” Father Baker attempts nothing but to furnish a plain guide-book over this route. For descriptions of the scenery, photographic views of mountains, valleys, lakes, and prospects, one must go elsewhere. A clear, methodical, safe guide-book over the route he will find in _Sancta Sophia_. This is not to say that one should confine himself exclusively to its perusal, or deny himself the pleasure of reading other books in which there is more that pleases the imagination and awakens the affections, or that satisfies the demands of the intellect seeking for the deepest causes of things and the exposition of sublime truths. The most important and practical matter, however, is to find and keep the right road. And certainly many, if not all, of those who are seeking the straightest and safest way to perfection and everlasting beatitude, will value the _Sancta Sophia_ all the more for its very plainness, and the absence of everything except that simple and solid doctrine which they desire and feel the need of amid the trials and perplexities of the journey of life.

The doctrine of Father Baker has not, however, lacked opponents from his own day to the present. Since the publication of _Sancta Sophia_ in this country we have repeatedly heard of its use being discountenanced in religious communities and in the case of devout persons in the world. Dr. Sweeney calls attention directly to this fact of opposition to Father Baker’s doctrine, and devotes a considerable part of his own annotations to a refutation of the objections alleged against it. He has pointed out one seemingly plausible ground of these censures which we were not before aware of, and which was unknown to the American editors of _Sancta Sophia_ when they republished it in this country. We cannot pass this matter by without some examination; for although on such subjects controversy is disagreeable, and to the unlearned and simple-minded may be vexatious and perplexing, it cannot be avoided where a question of orthodox soundness in doctrine is concerned. The gist of the whole matter is found in chapter the seventh, “On the Prayer of Interior Silence,” to which Dr. Sweeney has appended a long note of explanation. The matter of this chapter is professedly derived from an old Spanish work by Antonio de Rojas, entitled _The Life of the Spirit Approved_, which was placed on the Index about fifty years after the death of Father Baker, and two years after the condemnation of Quietism. We have never seen this book, but we are informed by Dr. Sweeney that its language, taken in the most natural and obvious sense, leads to the conclusion that the state of charity which is requisite to perfection excludes all private interest, not only all fear of punishment, but all hope of reward――that is, all desire or consideration of the beatitude of heaven. In order to attain this state of indifference and annihilation of self-love, all express acts are discountenanced, and that kind of silence and passivity in prayer recommended which suppresses the active movements of the soul toward God, such as hope, love toward God as the chief good, petition and supplication, thanksgiving, etc. Now, such a doctrine as this is manifestly tinged with some of the errors of Quietism, and seems to be precisely similar to the semi-Quietism of Madame Guyon and Fénelon which was condemned by Innocent XII. in 1699. The second of the propositions from Fénelon’s _Maxims of the Saints_ condemned by this pope is as follows: “In the state of contemplative or unitive life every interested motive of fear and hope is lost.” The doctrinal error here is the notion that the soul’s love of itself, desire and hope for its own beatification in God, and love to God as its own sovereign good, is incompatible with a pure, disinterested, perfect love of God, as the sovereign good in himself. The practical error is the inculcation of direct efforts to suppress every movement of interested love to God in prayer, in order to make way for passive, disinterested love. Father Baker lived so long before the errors of false mysticism had been thoroughly investigated, refuted, and condemned that it was very easy for him to fail of detecting what was unguarded, inaccurately expressed, exaggerated, or of erroneous tendency in a book which was approved by a number of prelates and theologians. He has certainly not borrowed or adopted what was erroneous in the book, but that portion of its teaching which was sound and safe, upon which the error was a mere excrescence. The mere fact of citing a book which has been placed on the Index is a matter of small and only incidental moment. Dr. Sweeney seems to us to have followed too timorous a conscience in his way of treating the chapter of _Sancta Sophia_ in which the work of De Rojas is quoted. We cannot agree with him that Father Baker would have suppressed that chapter if the book had been censured during his lifetime. He would have suppressed his commendation of the book, and looked carefully to see what the error was on account of which it had been condemned, as any good Catholic is bound to do in such a case. But we feel confident that he would not have felt himself obliged to make any essential alteration in what he had written on the prayer of silence, though he would probably have explicitly guarded it against any possible misapprehension or perversion. Any one who reads the _Sancta Sophia_, especially with Dr. Sweeney’s annotations, will see at once how absurd is the charge of a tincture of semi-Quietism against so sober and practical a writer as Father Baker, and how remote from anything favoring the illusions of false spirituality are his instructions on prayer. It would be almost as absurd to impute Quietism to Father Baker as rigorism to St. Alphonsus. We are afraid that Dr. Sweeney’s signal-board of “caution” will scare away simple-minded and devout readers from one of the most useful chapters of _Sancta Sophia_, one which is really the pivot of the whole book. Father Baker’s special scope and object was not to give instruction in meditation and active exercises, but to lead the soul through and beyond these to contemplation. The instructions on the prayer of interior silence are precisely those which are fitted to enlighten and direct a person in the transition state from the spiritual exercises of discursive meditation to that state of ordinary and acquired contemplation which Scaramelli and all standard writers recognize as both desirable and attainable for those who have devoted a considerable time to the practice of mental prayer. Father Baker’s directions on this head should be judged by what they are intrinsically in themselves, without any regard to anything else. Are they singular, imprudent, or in any respect contrary to the doctrine of the saints and other authors of recognized soundness in doctrine? We cannot see that they are. Whatever perversion of the method of prayer in question may have been contained in the book of De Rojas, sprang from his erroneous doctrine that explicit acts of the understanding and will in prayer should be suppressed in order to eradicate the implicit acts, the habits, and tendencies of the soul, by which its intention and desire are directed toward its own supreme good and felicity in God. But this is no reason against the method itself, apart from a perversion no trace of which is to be found in Father Baker’s own language. The well-known and justly-revered Father Ramière, S.J., in his introduction to a little work by another Jesuit, Father De Caussade, entitled _L’Abandon à la Providence Divine_, remarks in reference to the doctrine of that book, which is quite similar in its spirit to the _Sancta Sophia_, as follows: “There is no truth so luminous that it does not change into error from the moment when it suffers diminution or exaggeration; and there is no nourishment, however salutary to the soul, which, if imprudently used, may not produce in it the effect of a noxious poison.” It would seem that some are so afraid of the perversion of the luminous truths of mystical theology, and of the abuse of the salutary nourishment it affords to the soul, that they would desire to avoid the danger by shutting out the light and locking up the food in a closet. They would restrict all persons whatever, in every stage and condition of the spiritual life, to certain methods of prayer and the use of certain books, excellent for the majority of persons while they are beginners or proficients, but unsuitable, or even injurious, to some who are of a peculiar disposition, or who have advanced so far that they need something of a different order. It is a great mistake to suppose that such a course is safe or prudent. There are some who cannot, even in the beginning, make use of discursive meditation. It is a generally-recognized rule that those who can, and actually do, practise this kind of mental prayer, ought, as soon as it ceases to be pleasant and profitable to them, to change it for a simpler method. Even those set methods which are not discursive, if they consist in oft-repeated acts of the understanding, the affections, and the will, become frequently, after the lapse of time, too laborious, wearisome, and insipid to be continued with any fervor. The soul needs and instinctively longs for the cessation of this perpetual activity in a holy repose, in tranquil contemplation, in rest upon the bosom of God. It is for such souls that the chapter on the prayer of interior silence was written.

We may now examine a little more closely the passages which Dr. Sweeney seems to have had in view, as requiring to be read with caution because similar to statements made by De Rojas and other writers whose doctrine is tinctured with Quietism. Dr. Sweeney remarks: “When afterwards (in the book of De Rojas) express acts toward God are discountenanced, and it is declared that an advantage of this kind of prayer is _self-annihilation_, and that resignation then becomes so pure that all private interest is forgotten and ignored, we see the prudence and watchfulness of the Holy See in cautioning her children against a book which, if it does not expressly, distinctly, and advisedly teach it, yet conveys the impression that a state of charity excludes all private interest, such as fear of punishment and hope of reward, and that perfection implies such a state.”[15]

Father Baker says that in the prayer of silence, “with the will she [the soul] frames no particular request nor any express acts toward God”; that “by this exercise we come to the most perfect operation of self-annihilation,” and practise in the most sublime manner “resignation, since the soul forgets all private interests”; and more to the same effect. Nevertheless, the dangerous and erroneous sense which this language might convey, if intended or interpreted to mean that the soul must suppress all hope or desire for its own private good as incompatible with the perfect love of God, is plainly excluded by the immediate context in which it occurs. The soul, says Father Baker, should “continue in his presence _in the quality of a petitioner_, but such an one as makes no special, direct requests, but contents herself to appear before him _with all her wants and necessities_, best, and indeed only, known to him, who therefore needs not her information.” Again, he compares the soul to the subject of a sovereign who abstains from asking any particular favors from his prince, because he knows that “he is both most wise to judge what favors may become the one to give and the other to receive, and in that that he has a love and magnificence to _advance him beyond his deserts_.”

Once more he says that in this prayer the soul exercises in a sublime manner “_hope_, because the soul, placing herself before God _in the posture of a beggar_, confidently expects that he will impart to her both the knowledge of his will and ability to fulfil it.”

It is equally plain that Father Baker’s method of the prayer of interior silence is not liable to the censure which Dr. Sweeney attaches to the one of De Rojas when he remarks that “we can at once see what danger accompanies such an exercise, if that can be called an exercise where all activity ceases and prayer is really excluded.” “_Since an intellectual soul is all activity_,” says Father Baker, “so that it cannot continue a moment without some desires, the soul then rejecting all desires toward created objects, she cannot choose but tend inwardly in her affections to God, for which end only she put herself in such a posture of prayer; her tendence then being much like that of the mounting of an eagle after a precedent vigorous springing motion and extension of her wings, which ceasing, _in virtue thereof the flight is continued for a good space with a great swiftness_, but withal with great stillness, quietness, and ease, without any waving of the wings at all or the least force used in any member, being in as much ease and stillness as if she were reposing on her nest.” For the further defence of Father Baker’s doctrine from the other parts of _Sancta Sophia_, and in general from his known method of personal conduct and his direction of others, what his learned Benedictine editor has furnished amply suffices.

We are not content, however, with simply showing that Father Baker’s method of conducting souls to perfection by means of contemplative prayer is free from the errors of Quietism and the illusions of false mysticism. The _Sancta Sophia_ is not merely a good book, one among the many English books of devotion and spiritual reading which can be safely and profitably read. We think Canon Dalton’s opinion that it is the best book on prayer we have in the English language is correct. It is a guide for those who will scarcely find another book to fill its place; and we venture to affirm that the very part of it which we have been specially criticising is not only defensible, but positively in accordance, even to its phraseology, with the doctrine of the most approved authors, and of special, practical value and importance.

In an appendix which Father Ramière has added to the little book by Father Caussade already once cited in this article, there is a chapter taken from Bossuet, entitled “A Short and Easy Method of making the Prayer of Faith and of the simple presence of God,” from which we quote the following passages: “Meditation is very good in its own time, and very useful at the beginning of the spiritual life; but it is not proper to make it a final stopping-place, for the soul which is faithful in mortification and recollection ordinarily receives a gift of prayer which is purer and more simple, and may be called the prayer of _simplicity_, consisting in a simple view, or fixed, attentive, and loving look directed toward some divine object, whether it be God in himself, or some one of his perfections, or Jesus Christ, or one of the mysteries relating to him, or some other Christian truths. In this attitude the soul leaves off reasoning, and makes use of a quiet contemplation, which keeps it peaceful, attentive, and susceptible to the divine operations and impressions which the Holy Spirit imparts to it; it does little and receives a great deal; its labor is easy, and nevertheless more fruitful than it would otherwise be; and as it approaches very near to the source of all light――grace and virtue――it receives on that account the more of all these. The practice of this prayer ought to begin on first awaking, by an act of faith in the presence of God, who is everywhere, and in Jesus Christ, whose eyes are always upon us, if we were even buried in the centre of the earth. This act is elicited either in the ordinary and sensible manner, as by saying inwardly, ‘I believe that my God is present’; or it is a simple calling to memory of the faith of God’s presence in a more purely spiritual manner. After this, one ought not to produce multifarious and diverse acts and dispositions, but to remain simply attentive to this presence of God, and as it were exposed to view before him, continuing this devout attention and attitude as long as the Lord grants us the grace for doing so, without striving to make other acts than those to which we are inspired, since this kind of prayer is one in which we converse with God alone, and is a union which contains in an eminent mode all other particular dispositions, and disposes the soul to passivity; by which is meant, that God becomes sole master of its interior, and operates in it in a special manner. The less working done by the creature in this state, the more powerful is the operation of God in it; and since God’s action is at the same time a repose, the soul becomes in a certain way like to him in this kind of prayer, receiving in it wonderful effects; so that as the rays of the sun cause the growth, blossoming, and fruit-bearing of plants, the soul, in like manner, which is attentive and tranquilly basking under the rays of the divine Sun of righteousness, is in the best condition for receiving divine influences which enrich it with all sorts of virtues.”[16]

St. John of the Cross declares that “the soul having attained to the interior union of love, _the spiritual faculties of it are no longer active_, and still less those of the body; for now that the union of love is actually brought about, the faculties of the soul _cease from their exertions_, because, now that the goal is reached, all employment of means is at an end.”[17]

Again: “He who truly loves makes shipwreck of himself in all else, that he may gain the more in the object of his love. Thus the soul says that it has lost itself――that is, deliberately, of set purpose. This loss occurs in two ways. The soul loses itself, making no account whatever of itself, but referring all to the Beloved, resigning itself freely into his hands without any selfish views, losing itself deliberately, and seeking nothing for itself. Secondly, it loses itself in all things, making no account of anything save that which concerns the Beloved. This is to lose one’s self――that is, to be willing that others should have all things. Such is he that loves God; he seeks neither gain nor reward, but only to lose all, even himself according to God’s will. This is what such an one counts gain.… When a soul has advanced so far on the spiritual road as to be lost to all the natural methods of communing with God; when it seeks him no longer by meditation, images, impressions, nor by any other created ways or representations of sense, but only by rising above them all, in the joyful communion with him by faith and love, then it may be said to have gained God of a truth, because it has truly lost itself as to all that is not God, and also as to its own self.”[18]

In another place the saint explains quite at length the necessity of passing from meditation to contemplation, the reasons for doing so, and the signs which denote that the time for this change has arrived. The state of beginners, he says, is “one of meditation and of acts of reflection.” After a certain stage of progress has been reached, “God begins at once to introduce the soul into the state of contemplation, and that very quickly, especially in the case of religious, because these, having renounced the world, quickly fashion their senses and desires according to God; they have, therefore, to pass at once from meditation to contemplation. This passage, then, takes place when the discursive acts and meditation fail, when sensible sweetness and the first fervors cease, when the soul cannot make reflections as before, nor find any sensible comfort, but is fallen into aridity, because the spiritual life is changed.… It is evident, therefore, that if the soul does not now abandon its previous ways of meditation, it will receive this gift of God in a scanty and imperfect manner.… If the soul will at this time make efforts of its own, and encourage another disposition than that of _passive, loving attention_, most submissive and calm, and if it does not _abstain from its previous discursive acts_, it will place a complete barrier against those graces which God is about to communicate to it in this loving knowledge.… The soul must be attached to nothing, not even to the subject of its meditation, not to sensible or spiritual sweetness, because God requires a spirit so free, so _annihilated_, that every act of the soul, even of thought, of liking or disliking, will impede and disturb it, and break that _profound silence of sense and spirit_ necessary for hearing the deep and delicate voice of God, who speaks to the heart in solitude; it is in profound peace and tranquillity that the soul is to listen to God, who will speak peace unto his people. When this takes place, when the soul feels that it is silent and listens, its loving attention must be most pure, _without a thought of self, in a manner self-forgotten_, so that it shall be wholly intent upon hearing; for thus it is that the soul is free and ready for that which our Lord requires at its hands.”[19]

We have sufficiently proved, we trust, that there is no reason to be disquieted by a certain verbal and merely apparent likeness between some parts of Father Baker’s spiritual doctrine and the errors of a false mysticism. We may, perhaps, return to this subject on a future occasion, and point out more distinctly and at length the true philosophical and theological basis of Catholic mystical doctrine, in contrast with the travesties and perversions of its counterfeits in the extravagant, absurd, and revolting systems of infidel and heretical visionaries. At present a few words may suffice to sum up and succinctly define the difference between the true and the false doctrine in respect to the case in hand. That doctrine which is false, dangerous, and condemned by the unerring judgment of the holy church teaches that the love and pursuit of our own good and happiness, even in God, is sinful, or at least low and imperfect. It inculcates, as a means for suppressing and eradicating our natural tendency towards the attainment of the good as an end, and annihilating our self-activity, the cessation of all operation of the natural faculties of understanding and volition, at least in reference to God as our own supreme and desirable good. It inculcates a fixed, otiose quietude and indifference toward our own happiness or misery. Its effect is therefore to quench the life of the soul, to extinguish its light, and to reduce it to a state of torpor and apathy resembling that of a stoical Diogenes or an Indian fakir. Its pretence of disinterestedness and pure love to God for himself alone is wholly illusory and founded on a false view of God as the intrinsically sovereign good and the object of supreme love to the intelligent creature. The goodness of God as the first object of the love of complacency cannot be separated from the same goodness as the object of desire. The extrinsic glory of God as the chief end of creatures is identified with the exaltation and happiness of those intellectual and rational beings whom he has created and elevated to a supernatural end. Hope, desire, and effort for the attainment of the good intended for and promised to man is a duty and obligation imposed by the law of God. It is impossible to love God and be conformed to his will without loving our neighbors, and our own soul as our nearest neighbor. Moreover, we are not saved merely by the action of God upon us passively received, but also by a concurrence of our understanding and will, a co-operation of our own active efforts with the working of God in us, or, as it is commonly expressed, by a diligent and faithful correspondence to grace. Not to desire our own true happiness is therefore a suicidal, idiotic folly. Not to work for it is presumption, ingratitude, and the deadly sin of sloth. Moreover, to attempt to fly with unfledged wings; to soar aloft in the sky among the saints when we ought to be walking on the earth, to undertake while yet weak beginners the heroic works of the perfect; to anticipate by self-will the time and call which God appoints, and pervert the orderly course of his providence; to strive by our own natural powers to accomplish what requires the special gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit, is imprudent, contrary to humility, and full of peril. The dupe of false spirituality may, therefore, either take an entirely wrong road or attempt to travel the right road in a wrong manner; in either case sure to fail of reaching his intended goal, if he persists in his error.

The sound and orthodox doctrine of Catholic mystical theology presents God as he is in his own intrinsic essence, as the object of his own beatific contemplation, and of the contemplation of the blessed who have received the faculty of intuitive vision by the light of glory. The nearest approach to this beatific state, as well as the most perfect and immediate preparation for it, is the state of quiet, tranquil contemplation of God by the obscure light of faith. The excellence and blessedness of this state consists in the pure love of God. It is of the nature of love and the intention of the mind toward the sovereign good, by which the will is directed in its motion toward the good which it loves and in the fruition of which it finds its repose, that the consideration of the object precede the consideration and desire of the fruition of the object. Liberatore, who is a good expositor of the doctrine of St. Thomas and all sound Catholic philosophers on this head, proposes and proves this statement in the clearest terms. The object is first apprehended and loved for its intrinsic goodness. Reflection on the enjoyment which is received and delight in this enjoyment, though a necessary consequence of the possession of the chief good, is the second but not the first act. St. John of the Cross teaches the same truth: “As the end of all is love, which inheres in the will, the characteristic of which is to give and not to receive, to the soul inebriated with love the first object that presents itself is not the essential glory which God will bestow upon it, but the entire surrender of itself to him in true love, without any regard to its own advantage. The second object is included in the first.”[20] Father Mazzella, S.J., of Woodstock College, in his admirable work on the infused virtues, makes a lengthened exposition of the distinction between that love of benevolence and complacency toward God which is the principle of perfect contrition, and by itself takes away sin and unites the soul with God, and the love of desire which terminates on the good received from God. The first considers God as the sovereign good in himself; the second considers him directly and explicitly as the source and giver of good to us. It manifests itself as an efficacious desire for the rewards of everlasting life, accompanied by a fear of the punishment of sin in the future state, and is the principle of imperfect contrition or attrition, which of itself does not suffice for justification, though it is a sufficient condition for receiving grace through the appointed sacraments. The Catholic teachers of mystical theology direct the soul principally and as their chief purpose toward the higher and more perfect love. The second object is included in this first object, and taken for granted. It is not excluded, but comparatively neglected, because it follows of itself from the first, and is sought for by the natural, necessary law of our being, without any need of direct, explicit efforts. The resignation, forgetfulness of private interests, self-annihilation, so strongly recommended, do not denote any suppression or destruction of our natural beatific impulses, but only of our own personal notions, wishes, and interests in respect to such things as are merely means to the attainment of an end, a conformity of our will to the will of God, and an abandonment of solicitude respecting our own future happiness, founded on filial confidence in the wisdom and goodness of God.

It follows from this doctrine of sound, mystical writers that the quietude of the state of contemplation and union with God is totally opposite to a condition of apathy and sloth. It is a state of more tranquil activity, of more steady and therefore more imperceptible yet more rapid movement. Previously the soul was like a boat propelled by oars against wind and tide. Now it is like a yacht sailing with a press of canvas under a strong and fair breeze.

So far as the imprudent misuse of mystical theology is concerned, we need not waste words on a truism of spiritual direction, that beginners and unlearned, inexperienced persons must follow the counsel of a guide, if they can have it. If not, they must direct themselves as well as they can by good books, which will instruct them gradually and soberly in the first principles of solid virtue and piety, and afterwards lead them on to perfection. They cannot have a better guide than _Sancta Sophia_. It is a book that will last for years, and even for a lifetime; for it is a guide along the whole way, from the gate at the entrance to the river of death, for such as are really and earnestly seeking to attain perfection by prayer, and desire to lead an interior life amid the external occupations, duties, and trials of their state in life, or even in the most strict cloistral seclusion. The exterior persecutions to which the church is subject, the disorders of the times, and the multifarious troubles of every kind, both outward and inward, to which great numbers of the best-disposed and most virtuous people are subjected, have an effect to throw thoughtful persons on the interior life as a refuge and solace. Pius IX., whose long experience and great sanctity, as well as his divine office, make him as a prophet of God to all devout Catholics, has told us that the church is now going through the exercises of the purgative way as a preparation for receiving great gifts from the Holy Spirit, which will accompany a new and glorious triumph of the kingdom of Jesus Christ on the earth. Whatever external splendor the reign of Christ over this world may exhibit, it is in the hearts of men that his spiritual royalty has its seat. There is nothing on earth for which, so to speak, he really cares, except the growth of the souls of men. The world and the church were made for this purpose. The wisdom of the ancients was an adumbration of the truth, and that doctrine which teaches the full and complete form of it alone deserves to be called in the highest sense wisdom, and to win the love and admiration of all men for its celestial beauty.

[14] _Sancta Sophia; or, Directions for the Prayer of Contemplation, etc._ Extracted out of more than forty treatises written by the late Father Augustin Baker, a monk of the English Congregation of the Holy Order of St. Benedict; and methodically digested by R. F. Serenus Cressy. Doway, A.D. 1657. Now edited by the Very Rev. Dom Norbert Sweeney, D.D., of the same order and congregation. London: Burns & Oates. 1876. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

[15] P. 492, note.

[16] _L’Abandon à la Providence Divine_, pp. 164-167.

[17] Complete Works, Lewis’ Trans., vol. ii. p. 75.

[18] _Ib._ pp. 158, 159.

[19] Complete Works, etc., vol. ii. pp. 267-270.

[20] Complete Works, vol. ii pp. 198, 199.

EVENING ON THE SEA-SHORE.

FROM THE FRENCH OF VISCOUNT DE CHATEAUBRIAND.

The woods, the sand-beach desolate and bare, Blend dusky with the shadows dim and far, And, glittering from the depths, the evening star Gleams solitary through the silent air.

Westward, and sparkling under purest skies, Foams on the long, low reef the line of white; And towards the north, o’er seas of crystal light, The gathering mist of deepening purple flies.

The mountains redden still with sunset fire, Soft dies the plaintive breeze in murmurs low, And, each to each linked in their gentle flow, The waves roll calmly shoreward and expire.

All grandeur, mystery, love! In this, the time Of dying day, all nature with her state Of mountain ranges and her forests great, The eternal order and the plan sublime,

Stands like a temple on whose walls of light The beauties of creation’s day are shown―― A sanctuary, where is the Godhead’s throne Veiled by the curtains of the holy night

Whose cupola high to the zenith towers, A glorious harmony, a work divine, And painted with the heavenly hues that shine In dawns, in rainbows, and in summer flowers.

LETTERS OF A YOUNG IRISHWOMAN TO HER SISTER.

FROM THE FRENCH.

NOVEMBER 2.

“Voici les feuilles sans sève Qui tombent sur le gazon.”[21]

What a solemn day to the Christian is All Souls’ day! I prayed much, very much, for all our dear friends in the other world. Oh! how I pity the suffering souls consumed by the flames of purgatory. They have seen God; they have had a glimpse of his glory on the day of their judgment; they long for the Supreme Good with unutterable ardor. What torment! And some there are who will be in those lakes of fire even to the end of the world. We can do nothing but offer our prayers, and they bring deliverance! Who would not devote themselves to the suffering souls? What misfortune more worthy of pity than theirs? I love the “Helpers of the Holy Souls!”[22] It is to me a great happiness to be united with them in thought, prayer, and action. A thousand memories have come into my mind; there have passed before me all my beloved dead, all the dead whom I have known or whom I have once seen. How numerous they are, and yet I have not been living so very long. Each day thins our ranks, links drop off from the chain. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord!

Here is winter upon us――melancholy winter, which makes poor mothers weep.

Meditated yesterday on the joys of the love of Jesus, which in Holy Communion melts our heart like two pieces of wax into one only――Jesus, the only true friend, who consoles and sustains, and without whom all is vanity. The Christian who has prayer and Communion ought to live in perpetual gladness of heart.

I must confess to you, my Kate, that I envy Johanna, Berthe, and Lucy. They allow me to share largely in their maternal joys, but these treasures in which I take such pleasure, why are they not my own? I felt sad about it yesterday, and murmured to myself these lines of Brizeux:

“Jours passés, que chacun rappelle avec des larmes, Jours qu’en vain on regrette, aviez vous tant des charmes? Ou les vents troublaient-ils aussi votre clarté, Et l’ennui du présent fait-il votre beauté”[23]

René was behind me. “What, then, do you regret, my Georgina?” I told him all, and how gently and sweetly he comforted me――as you would, my Kate! Poor feeble reed that I am, I lean upon you.

May the Blessed Virgin Mary protect us, dear sister!

NOVEMBER 13.

Eleven days between my two letters, my note-book tells me. Happily, René has taken my place, and you are aware in what occupations I have been absorbed, dear Kate. The poor are becoming quite a passion with me. I catechise them, I clothe them; it is so delightful to lavish one’s superabundance on the disinherited ones of this world! To-morrow we go to Nantes to take leave of our saintly friend Elizabeth, who will shortly depart for Louisiana. She has received permission to come and bid adieu to her mother――perhaps a lifelong adieu; for who can say whether she will return? I have had a letter from Ellen, giving me many details of her sojourn in the Highlands. The wound is still bleeding. The sight of a child makes her weep; and in her dreams she sees her son. May God support her!

To-day is St. Stanislaus――the gentle young saint whose feast Margaret pointed out to me with a hope which is not realized. Our dear _Anglaise_ wanted to have us _all together_ in her princely dwelling. The absence of the _Adrien family_, Lucy’s journey――all these dispersions have disarranged the grand project. And yet there are moments when I experience a kind of home-sickness――a thirst to see our dear Erin again, a longing to live under my native sky――which tells upon my health. Do not pity me too much, Kate; I possess all the elements of happiness which could be brought together in a single existence. I love the seraphic Stanislaus, holding in his arms the infant Jesus. O great saint! give me a little of your love of God, a little of your fervent piety, that I may detach myself from the world! I am afraid of loving it too much, my sister. The day before yesterday was the feast of St. Martin――this hero whose history is so poetic. I like to think of this mantle, cut in two to clothe a poor man, and of our Lord appearing that night to the warrior, who in the Saviour’s vestment recognized the half of his mantle. Kind St. Martin! giving us a second summer, which I find delightful, loving as I do the warm and perfumed breezes of the months that have long days, and regretting the return of winter with its ice, when, shivering in well-closed rooms, one thinks of the poor without fire and shelter. Dear _poor of the good God_![24] Margaret shares my fondness for them. Never in our Brittany will the sojourn of this sweet friend be forgotten.

What noise! _Adieu_, my sister; _Erin go bragh!_

NOVEMBER 17.

You have heard the joyful tidings, Kate dearest――the triumph of Mentana? Gertrude writes to us. _Adrien_ and his two sons fought like lions, and his courageous wife followed the army, waiting on the wounded, praying for her dear ones, who had not a scratch! They were afterwards received in private audience by the Holy Father, who seemed to them more saintly and sublime than ever. God does indeed do all things well! All these loving hearts, torn by the departure of Hélène, have recovered their happiness, are enthusiastic in their heroism and devotion, have been violently snatched from all selfish regrets, and have enriched themselves with lifelong memories. Mgr. Dupanloup has written to the clergy of his diocese, ordering thanksgivings to be offered in the churches; and the holy and illustrious Pius IX. has written to the eloquent bishop, to whom he sends his thanks and benediction.

Truly, joy has succeeded to sorrow. But how guilty is Europe! Can you conceive such inertia in the face of this struggle between strength and weakness? Our good _abbé_ is in possession of all the _mandements_ (or charges) of the bishops of France. He is making a collection of them. Yesterday he quoted to me the following passage from that of Mgr. de Perpignan: “Princes of the earth, envy not the crown of Rome! One of the greatest of this world’s potentates was fain to try it on the brow of his son, and placed it on his cradle; but it weighed too heavily on that frail existence, and the child, to whom the father’s genius promised a brilliant future, withered away, and died at the age of twenty years”; and this other by Mgr. de Périgueux: “When God sends great trials upon his church, he raises up men capable of sustaining them. We are in one of these times of trial, and we have Pius IX.”

Dear Isa sends me four pages, all impregnated with sanctity. Her life is one long holocaust; all her aspirations tend to one end, and one that I fear she will not attain. God will permit this for his glory. How much good may one soul do! I see it by Isa. Her life is one of the fullest and most sanctified that can be; she sacrifices herself hour by hour, giving herself little by little, as it were, and yet all at a time. Ellen is starting for Hyères; she is mortally stricken. They deceived themselves with regard to her. She herself, overwhelmed for a time by the side of that cradle changed into a death-bed, did her best to look forward cheerfully to the future. Her last letter, received only fifteen days afterwards, and which was long and affectionate, appeared to me mysterious; she spoke so much of _outward_ things. Dear, dear Ellen! I wish I could see her. Impossible, alas! Isa’s letter is dated the 10th. The sad, dying one must have crossed the Channel that same day. There is something peculiarly sorrowful in the thought of death with regard to this young wife, going away to die far from her home, her country, and her family, beneath mild and genial skies, where life appears so delightful. Her state is such as to allow of no hope, but her husband wishes to try this last remedy. The little angel in heaven awaits his mother.

A terrible gale――quite a tempest. I am thinking of the poor mariners. These howlings of the wind, these gusts which rush through the long corridors, resemble wild complaints; one would think that all the elements, let loose, weep and implore. O holy Patroness of sailors! take pity on them.

Visits all the week――pious visits, such as I love. My heart attaches itself to this country.

Let us praise the Lord, dear Kate! May he preserve to Ireland her faith and her love! There is no slavery for Christian hearts.

NOVEMBER 19.

A line from Karl――one heart-rending plaint, thrown into the post at Paris after Ellen had received your last kiss. “Pray,” he says to me, “not for this soul, of whom I was not worthy, and who is going to rejoin her son, but for my weakness, which alarms me.” René wept with me. Oh! how sad is earth to him who remains alone. The same thought of anguish and apprehension seized us both. Ah! dearest, let your prayers preserve to me him in whom I live.

_Saint Elizabeth_, “the dear saint,” this fair and lovely flower of Hungary transplanted into Thuringia, there to shed such sweetness of perfume! I have been thinking of her, of her poetic history, of all that M. de Montalembert has written about her――the veritable life of a saint, traced out with poetry and love. You remember that St. Elizabeth was one of the chosen heroines of my childhood. I could wish that I had borne her name. I used to dream of becoming a saint like her. What an unparalleled life hers was! Dying so young, she appeared before God rich in merits. Born in the purple, the beloved daughter of the good King Andrew, and afterwards Duchess of Thuringia; united to the young Duke Louis, also so good and holy, so well suited to the pure and radiant star of Hungary seen by the aged poet; then a widow at nineteen years of age, and driven from her palace with her little children, drinking to its dregs the cup of bitterness and anguish――my dear saint knew suffering in its most terrible and poignant form. How I love her, from the moment when the good King Andrew, taking in his arms the cradle of solid gold in which his Elizabeth was sleeping, placed it in those of the Sire de Varila, saying, “I entrust to your knightly honor my dearest consolation,” until the time when I find her, clad in the poor habit of the Seraph of Assisi, reading a letter of St. Clare! What an epoch was that thirteenth century, that age of faith, when the throne had its saints, when there was in the souls of men a spring of energy and of religious enthusiasm which peopled the monasteries and renewed the face of the earth! Who will obtain for me the grace to love God as did Elizabeth? O dear saint! pray for me, for René, Karl, Ellen, the church, France, Ireland, the universe.

Here is something, dear sister, which I think would comfort Karl:

“To desire God is the essential condition of the human heart; to go to God is his life; to contemplate God is his beatitude. To desire God is the noble appanage of our nature; to go to God is the work which grace effects within us; to contemplate God is our state of glory. To desire God is the principle of good; to go to God is the way of good; to contemplate God is the perfection of good.

“God is everything to the soul. The soul breathes: God is her atmosphere. The soul needs nourishment and wherewith to quench her thirst: God is her daily bread and her spring of living water. The soul moves on: God is her way. The soul thinks and understands: God is her truth. The soul speaks――God is her word; she loves――God is her love.”[25]

Exquisite thoughts! Oh! love, the love of God, can replace everything. May we be kindled with this love, dear sister of my life!

NOVEMBER 22.

My sweet one, I love to keep my festivals with you! Yesterday, the Presentation of Mary in the Temple, we spent here _in retreat_――a retreat, according to all rules, preached by a monsignor! René is writing you the details. I am not clever at long descriptions; with you especially it is always on confidential matters that I like to write――the history of my soul, my thoughts, my impressions.

What a heavenly festival! How, on this day of the Presentation, must the angels have rejoiced at beholding this young child of Judea, scarcely entered into life, and yet already so far advanced in the depths of divine science, consecrating herself to God! How must you, O St. Anne! the happy mother of this immaculate child, have missed her presence! This sunbeam of your declining years, this flower sprung from a dried-up stem, this virgin lily whose fragrance filled your dwelling, all at once became lost to you. Ah! I can understand the bitterness which then flowed in upon your soul, and it seems to me that for this sacrifice great must be your glory in heaven!

To-day, St. Cecilia, the sweet martyr saint, patroness of musicians, the Christian heroine, mounting to heaven by a blood-stained way. Louis Veuillot, in _Rome and Loretto_, speaking of the “St. Cecilia” of Raphael, calls it “one of the most thoroughly beautiful pictures in the world.” “The saint,” he says, “is really a saint; one never wearies of contemplating the perfect expression with which she listens to the concert of angels, and breaks, by letting them fall from her hands, the instruments of earthly music.” Kate, do you remember the museum at Bologna, and how we used to stand gazing at this page of Raphael?

I am reading Bossuet with René. What loftiness of views! What vehemence of thought! Another consolation for Karl: “Death gives us much more than he takes away: he takes away this passing world, these vanities which have deceived us, these pleasures which have led us astray; but we receive in return the wings of the dove, that we may fly away and find our rest in God.” Hélène had copied these lines into her journal, and remarked upon them as follows: “Beautiful thought! which enchants my soul, and makes me more than ever desire that hour for which, according to Madame Swetchine, we ought to live; that day when my true life will begin, far from the earth, where nothing can satisfy the intensity of my desires.” We are going to travel about a little, and visit the funeral cemetery of Quiberon and various other points of our Brittany, so rich in memories. I am packing up my things with the pleasure of a child, assisted by the gentle Picciola and pretty little Alix, whom I have surnamed Lady-bird.[26] One of my Bengalese is ill, and all the young ones are interested about it, wanting to kiss and caress it, and give it dainty morsels, but nothing revives the poor little thing. Ah! dear Kate, this Indian bird dying in Brittany makes me think of Ellen, a thousand times more lovable and precious, and who is also bending her fair head to die.

Sister, friend, mother, all that is best, most tender, and beloved, God grant to us to die the same day, that together we may see again the kind and excellent mother who confided me to your love.

DECEMBER 2.

Here we are, home again, in the most _Advent-like_ weather that ever was. We have seen beautiful things; we have lived in the ideal, in the true and beautiful, in minds, in scenery, in poetry, and music――in a feast of the understanding, the eyes, and the heart. But with what pleasure we have again beheld our _home_, so calm, so pious, and so grand! It is only two hours since I took possession of my rooms. We found here piles of letters; René is reading them to me while I am saying good-morning to you――Kate, dearest, _you_ first of all; this beautiful long letter which I reverently kiss, which I touch with delight; it has been with you; it has _seen you_! How I want to see you again!

A letter from Ireland from Lizzy, who is anxious about Ellen.

Alas! her anxiety is only too well founded. Karl writes to me that Ellen grows weaker every day; strength is gradually leaving the body, while the soul is fuller of life and energy than ever before, and preparing for her last journey with astonishing serenity, and also preparing for it him who is the witness of her departure. In a firm hand she has added a few lines to the confidences of Karl: “Dear Georgina, will you not come and see me at Hyères? Your presence would help me to quit this poor earth, here so fair, which I would always inhabit on account of my good Karl. The will of our Father be done! Tender messages to Kate and to your good husband. Pray for me.”

Poor, sweet Ellen! How can I refuse this last prayer? But there is no time to be lost; René will consult my mother. Ah! my sister, pray that this journey may be possible, and that the angel of death may not so soon pluck this charming flower which we love so much.

_Evening._――How good God is! We are _all_ going; my mother wishes it to be so. “I do not,” she said to me, “want to have any distance between you and me.” The winter is so severe that my sisters are glad to get their children away from the season which is setting in. I am writing to Lizzy and to Karl. We shall be at Hyères next week. Pray with us, beloved.

DECEMBER 12.

Arrived, dear Kate, without accident, and all installed in a beautiful _chalet_ near to that of Ellen, who welcomed us with joy. Karl had gently prepared her for this meeting. How thin she has become!――still beautiful, white, transparent; her fine, melancholy eyes so often raised, by preference, to heaven, her hands of marble whiteness, her figure bending. She would come as far as to the door of her room to meet us, and there it was that I embraced her and felt her tears upon my cheek. “God be praised!” These were her first words. Then she was placed on her reclining-chair, and by degrees was able to see all the family. I was trembling for the impression the children might make upon her; but she insisted. Well, dearest, she caressed, admired, listened to them, without any painful emotion or thought of herself; one feels that she is already in heaven. Every day, by a special permission granted by Pius IX., Mass is said in a room adjoining hers. The removal of a large panel enables her to be present at the Holy Sacrifice. This first moment was very sweet. In spite of this fading away, which is more complete than I could have imagined it, to find her _living_ when I had so dreaded that it might be otherwise, was in itself happiness; but when I had become calm, how much I felt impressed! Karl’s resignation is admirable. René compels me to stop, finding me pale enough to frighten any one. Love me, my dearest!

DECEMBER 20.

Dearest sister, Ellen remains in the same state――a flickering lamp, and so weak that René and I are alone admitted into this chamber of death, which Karl now never leaves. Yesterday Ellen entreated him to take a little rest, and he went out, suffocated by sobs, followed by René; then the sufferer tried to raise herself so as to be still nearer to me. I leaned my head by hers and kissed her. “Dear Georgina, thanks for coming. You will comfort Karl. Do not weep for me; mine is a happy lot: I am going to Robert. Ah! look, he comes, smiling and beautiful as he was before his illness; he stretches out his arms to me. I come! I come!” And she made a desperate effort, as if to follow him. I thought the last hour was come, and called. René and Karl hastened in; but the temporary delirium had passed, and Ellen began again to speak of her joy at our being together.

The window is open. I am writing near the bed where our saint is dying. The weather is that of Paradise, as Picciola says――flowers and birds, songs and verdure. It is spring, and death is here, ready to strike.

DECEMBER 25.

_Sic nos amantem, quis non redamaret?_ Ellen departed to heaven while René was singing these words[27] after the Midnight Mass. This death is life and gladness. I am by _her_, near to that which remains to us of Ellen. Lucy and I have adorned her for the tomb; we have clothed her in the white lace robe which was her mother’s present to her, and arranged for the last time her rich and abundant hair, which Karl himself has cut. It is, then, true that all is over, and that this mouth is closed for ever. She died without suffering, after having received the Beloved of her soul. What a night! I had a presentiment of this departure. For two days past I have lived in her room, my eyes always upon her, and listening to her affectionate recommendations. On the 23d we spoke of St. Chantal――that soul so ardent and so strong in goodness, so heroic among all others, who had a full portion of crosses, and who knew so truly how to love and suffer. On the 24th a swallow came and warbled on the marble chimney-piece. “I shall fly away like her, but I shall go to God,” murmured Ellen. At two o’clock the same day her confessor came; we left her for a few minutes, and I had a sort of fainting fit which frightened René. Karl’s grief quite overcame me. Towards three o’clock Ellen seemed to be a little stronger; she took her husband’s hand, and, in a voice of tenderness which still resounds in my ear, said to him slowly: “Remember that God remains to you, and that my soul will not leave you. Love God alone; serve him in the way he wills. Robert and I will watch over your happiness.” She hesitated a little; all her soul looked from her eyes: “Tell me that _you will be a priest_; that, instead of folding yourself up in your regrets, you will spend yourself for the salvation of souls, you will spread the love of Him who gives me strength to leave you with joy to go to him!” Karl was on his knees. “I promise it before God!” he said. The pale face of the dying one became tinged with color, and she joined her hands in a transport of gratitude; then she requested me to write at her dictation to Lizzy, Isa, Margaret, and Kate. Her poor in Ireland were not forgotten. She became animated, and seemed to revive, breathing with more ease than for some time past. She received “all the dear neighbors,” said a few heartfelt words to each, asked for the blessing of our mother, who would not absent herself any more, and shared our joys and sorrows. The doctor came; René went back with him. “It will be to-morrow, if she can last until then.” O my God! And the night began――this solemn night of the hosanna of the angels, of the Redeemer’s birth. I held one of her hands, Karl the other; my mother and René were near us, our brothers and sisters in the room that is converted into a chapel. At eleven o’clock I raised the pillows, and began reading, at the request of Ellen, a sermon upon death. After the first few lines she stopped me with a look; Karl was pale again. The dear, dying one asked us to sing. Kate, we were so _electrified_ by Ellen’s calmness that we obeyed! She tried to join her voice to ours. The priest came; the Mass began. Ellen, radiant, followed every word. We all communicated with her. After the Mass she kissed us all, keeping Karl’s head long between her hands――her poor little alabaster hands; then, at her request, René sang the _Adeste_: “_Sic nos amantem, quis non redamaret?_” At this last word Ellen kissed the crucifix for the last time and fled away into the bosom of God. The priest had made the recommendation of the soul a little before. Oh! those words, “Go forth, Christian soul!”

_Excelsior!_ Let us love each other, dear Kate.

DECEMBER 29.

“In Rama was a voice heard, weeping and lamentation: Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.” Poor mothers of Bethlehem, what must you not have suffered! But you, ye “flowers of martyrdom,” as the church salutes you――you who follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth――how happy were you to die for him who had come to die for you!

Dear sister, we followed her to the church, and then Karl and René set out, taking this coffin with them to Ireland. The family have wished it thus. This sorrowful journey has a double object: Karl is going to settle his affairs, and in two months at most he will enter the _Séminaire des Missions Etrangères_, the preparatory college of the foreign missions. He will see you at that time. He was sublime. God has been with us, and the soul of Ellen shone upon these recent scenes. My mother would not consent to my going also. I was weaker than I thought. On returning to the _chalet_ I was obliged to go to bed. What an inconvenience I should have been to the dear travellers! But how sad it is to end a year, a first year of marriage, without René! This beautiful sky, this luxuriant nature, all the poetry of the south, which I love so much――all this appears to me still more beautiful since that holy death. Why were you not with us? There are inexpressible things. I have understood something of what heaven is. Sweet Ellen! What peace was in her death, what suavity in her words! I did not leave her after her death, but remained near her bed, where I had so much admired her. I tried to warm her hand, to recall her glance, her smile, until the appearance of the gloomy coffin. O my God! how must Karl have suffered. Those hammer-strokes resounded in my heart!

Dear, she is with God; she is happy. Sweet is it thus to die with Jesus in the soul. It is Paradise begun.

I embrace you a hundred times, my Kate. We had some earth from Ireland, and some moss from Gartan, to adorn Ellen’s coffin. O death! where is thy sting? O grave! where is thy victory?

JANUARY 1, 1868.

O my God! pardon me, bless me, and bless all whom I love.

Dear sister of my soul, the anniversary of my marriage has passed without my having been able to think of it to thank you again for your share in making my happiness. But you know well how I love you! It is the 1st of January, and I wish to begin the year with God and with you. May all your years be blessed, dearest, the angel Raphael of the great journey of my life! I have wished to say, in union with you, as I did a year ago, the prayer of Bossuet: “O Jesus! by the ardent thirst thou didst endure upon the cross, grant me a thirst for the souls of all, and only to esteem my own on account of the holy obligation imposed upon me not to neglect a single one. I desire to love them all, since they are all capable of loving thee; and it is thou who hast created them with this blessed capacity.” I said on my knees the last thought copied by Ellen in the beautiful little volume which she called _Kate’s book_: “Everything must die――sweetness, consolation, repose, tenderness, friendship, honor, reputation. Everything will be repaid to us a hundred-fold; but everything must first die, everything must first be sacrificed. When we shall have lost all in thee, my God, then shall we again find all in thee.”

Yesterday the _Adrien family_ arrived. What nice long conversations we shall all have! George and Amaury have been heroic. All are in need of repose. How delightful it is to meet again _en famille!_ And René is far away. May God be with him, with you, and with us, dear Kate!

JANUARY 6.

Need I tell you about the first day of this year, beloved? Scarcely had I finished writing to you than the children made an irruption into my room. Then oh! what kissing, what outcries of joy, what smiles and clapping of hands, at the sight of the presents arrived from Paris, thanks to the good Vincent, who has made himself wonderfully useful. How much I enjoyed it all! Then, on going to my mother, she blessed me and gave me a letter from René, together with an elegantly-chased cup of which I had admired the model. Then in the drawing-room all the greetings, and our poor (for my passion follows me everywhere), and your letter, with those from Ireland and Brittany (from the good _curé_ who has charge of our works)――what delight for the whole day! Karl thanks me for having copied for him these consoling words: “No; whatever cross we may have to bear in the Christian life, we never lose that blessed peace of the heart which makes us willingly accept all that we suffer, and no longer desire any of the enjoyments of which we are deprived.” It is Fénelon who says that.

We have been making some acquaintances, amongst others that of a young widow who is spending the winter here on account of her daughter, a frail young creature of an ideal beauty――graceful, smiling, and affectionate; a white rose-bud half open. Her blue, meditative eyes remind me of Ellen’s. This interesting widow (of an officer of rank) knows no one, with the exception of the doctor. Her isolation excited our compassion. Lucy made the first advances, feeling attracted by the sadness of the unknown lady. Now the two families form but one. Picciola and _Duchesse_ have invited the sweet little Anna to share their lessons and their play. Her mother never leaves her for a moment; this child is her sole joy.

The 3d, Feast of St. Geneviève: read her life with the children. What a strong and mortified soul! I admire St. Germanus distinguishing, in the midst of the crowd, this poor little Geneviève who was one day to be so great. Is not this attraction of holy souls like a beginning of the eternal union?

Yesterday, St. Simon Stylites, that incomparable penitent separated from the world, living on a lofty column, between heaven and earth. Thus ought we also to be, in spirit, on a column――that of love and sacrifice.

I am sad about my first separation from René, and for so sorrowful a cause. That which keeps me from weeping is the certainty of Ellen’s happiness, and also the thought that from heaven she sees René and Karl together.

To-day is the Epiphany――this great festival of the first centuries, and that of our call to Christianity. Gold, frankincense, myrrh, the gifts of the happy Magi, those men of good-will who followed the star――symbolic and mysterious gifts: the gold of love, the incense of adoration, the myrrh of sacrifice――why cannot I also offer these to the divine Infant of the stable of Bethlehem? Would that I had the ardent faith of those Eastern sages――the faith which stops at nothing, which sees and comes! And the legendary souvenirs of the bean, an ephemeral royalty which causes so much joy!

My mother is fond of the old traditions. We have had a kingcake.[28] _Anna_ had the bean; she offered the royalty to Arthur. Cheerful evening. Mme. de Clissey was less sad. We accompanied her back to her house _in choir_.

Good-night, beloved sister; I am going to say my prayers and go to sleep.

JANUARY 12.

René will be in Paris on the 15th, darling Kate. He will tell you about Karl, Lizzy, Isa, all our friends, and then I shall have him again! Adrien is reading Lamartine to us; I always listen with enchantment. What poetry! It flows in streams; it is sweet, tender, melancholy, moaning; it sings with nature, with the bird, with the falling leaf, the murmuring stream, the sounding bell, the sighing wind; it weeps with the suffering heart, and prays with the pleading soul. Oh! how is it that this poet could stray aside from his heavenly road, and burn incense on other altars? How could he leave his Christian lyre――he who once sang to God of his faith and love in accents so sublime? Will he not one day recover the sentiments and emotions of his youth, when he went in the footsteps of his mother to the house of God

_Offrir deux purs encens, innocence et bonheur._[29]

The _Harmonies_ are rightly named. I never read anything more harmoniously sweet, more exquisite in cadence. How comes it that he should have lost his faith where so many others have found it――in that journey to the East, from which he ought to have returned a firmer Catholic, a greater poet? Could it be that the death of his daughter, she who was his future, his joy, his dearest glory, overthrew everything within him? O my God! this lyre has, almost divinely, sung of thee; thou wilt not suffer its last notes to be a blasphemy. Draw all unto thyself, Lord Jesus, and let not the brows marked by the seal of genius be stamped eternally with that of reprobation!

Mme. de Clissey has told us her history; you must hear it, since your kind heart is interested in these two new friends of your Georgina. Madame is Roman, and has been brought up in Tuscany. You know the proverb: “A Tuscan tongue in a Roman mouth.”[30] Her mother made a misalliance, was cast off by her family after her husband’s death, and the poor woman hid at Florence her loneliness and tears. Thanks to her talents as a painter, she was enabled to secure to Marcella a solid and brilliant education; but her strength becoming rapidly exhausted by excessive labor, Marcella, when scarcely sixteen years of age, saw her mother expire in her arms. She remained alone, under the care of a venerable French priest, who compassionated her great misfortune, and obtained for his _protégée_ an honorable engagement. She was taken as governess to her daughter by a rich duchess, who, after being in ecstasies about her at first, cast her aside as a useless plaything. Her pupil, however, a very intelligent and affectionate child, became the sole and absorbing interest of the orphan; but the young girl’s attachment to her mistress excited the jealousy of the proud duchess, who contrived to find a pretext for excluding Marcella from the house. Her kind protector then brought her to France, and, as it was necessary that she should obtain her living, she entered as teacher in a boarding-school in the south. A year afterwards a lady of high rank engaged her to undertake the education of her daughters. She thankfully accepted this situation, but had scarcely occupied it a month before she was in a dying state from typhoid fever and inflammation of the brain. For fifty-two days her life was in danger, and for forty-eight hours she was in a state of lethargy, from which she had scarcely returned, almost miraculously, to consciousness, before she had to witness the death of the kind priest who alone, with a Sister of Charity, had done all that it was possible to do to save her life. What was to become of her? The slender means of which the old man had made her his heir lasted only for the year of her convalescence; she then unexpectedly made the acquaintance of a rich widow who was desirous of finding a young girl as her companion, promising to provide for her future. Marcella was twenty years of age; the old lady took a great fancy to her, and took her to Paris and to Germany. Unfortunately, the character of her protectress was not one to inspire affection. Ill-tempered, fanciful, exacting, life with her was intolerable. Her servants left her at the end of a month. Marcella became the submissive slave of her domineering caprice, and was shut up the whole day, having to replace the waiting-woman, adorn the antique idol, enliven her, and play to her whatever she liked. In the drawing-room, of an evening, she had to endure a thousand vexations; at eleven o’clock the customary visitors took leave, and Marcella examined the account-books of the house under the eye of the terrible old dowager, who, moreover, could not sleep unless some one read to her aloud. “Till five o’clock in the morning I used to read Cooper or Scott.” What do you think of this anticipated purgatory, dear Kate? Marcella, timid, and without any experience of life, tried to resign herself to her lot, until at Paris M. de Clissey asked her to exchange her dependent condition for a happy and honored life. She accepted his offer, to the no small despair of the old lady, who loudly charged her with ingratitude, and thought to revenge herself by not paying her the promised remuneration. M. de Clissey triumphantly took away his beautiful young bride to his native town. “It seemed to me as if I had had a resurrection to another life. For ten years our happiness was without alloy. But the cross, alas! is everywhere; and I am now, at thirty-two years of age, a widow, with unspeakable memories and my pretty little Anna, whose love is my consolation.”

Thank God! Marcella has friends also, and my mother wishes to propose to her to live with us.

Kate, what a good, sweet, happy destiny God has granted us! How I pity those orphans who have not, as I have, a sister to love them! Oh! may God bless you, and render to you all the good that your kind heart has done to me! Hurrah for Ireland! Erin mavourneen!

JANUARY 20.

I have recovered my happiness: René is here. I never weary of hearing him, of rejoicing that I have him. Dearest, I am enchanted with what he tells me about you. Tell me if ever two sisters loved each other as we do? No; it is not possible.

Lord William, Margaret, Lizzy, Isa, all our friends beyond the sea, are represented on my writing-table――under envelopes. Karl will come back to us; he “is burning to belong to God.” You know all the details: the father blessing the coffin of his daughter, the sister, abounding in consolation――all these miracles of grace and love. O dear Kate! how good God is.

What will you think of my boldness? Isa has often expressed regret at her inability to read _Guérin_, as Gerty used to say; so I thought I would attempt a translation. I write so rapidly that I shall soon be at the end of my task. The souls of Eugénie and of Isa are too much like those of sisters not to understand each other. These few days spent in the society of the Solitary of Cayla have more than ever attached me to that soul at the same time so ardent and so calm, a furnace of Jove, concentrated upon his brother Maurice, who was taken from him by death――alas! as if to prove once more that earth is the place of tears, and heaven alone that of happiness.

“Qu’est-ce donc que les jours pour valoir qu’on les pleure?”[31]

Hélène wrote to me on the 10th, Feast of St. Paul the Hermit, full of admiration for the poetic history of this saint: the raven daily bringing half a loaf to the solitary; the visit of St. Antony; St. Paul asking if houses were still built; St. Antony exclaiming when he returned to the monastery: “I have seen Elias; I have seen John in the desert; I have seen Paul in Paradise”; the lions digging the grave of this friend of God――what a poem!

René has brought me back the _Consolations_ of M. de Sainte-Beuve. How is it that the poets of our time have not remained Christian? In his _Souvenirs d’Enfance_ (“Memories of Childhood”) the author of the _Consolations_ says to God:

“Tu m’aimais entre tous, et ces dons qu’on désire, Ce pouvoir inconnu qu’on accorde à la lyre, Cet art mystérieux de charmer par la voix, Si l’on dit que je l’ai, Seigneur, je te le dois.”[32]

Karl tells me that he carefully keeps on his heart the last words traced by Ellen. It is like the _testament_ of our saintly darling, whom I seem still to see. I had omitted to mention this. The evening before her death, after I had written by her side the solemn and touching effusions for those who had not, like us, been witnesses of the admirable spectacle of her deliverance, the breaking of the bonds which held her captive in this world of sorrows, Ellen asked me to let her write. Ten minutes passed in this effort, this victorious wrestling of the soul over sickness and weakness. On the sealed envelope which she then gave me was written one word only――“Karl.” Would you like to have this last adieu, Kate? How I have kissed these two almost illegible lines:

“My beloved husband, I leave you this counsel of St. Bernard for your consolation: ‘Holy soul, remain alone, in order that thou mayest keep thyself for Him alone whom thou hast chosen above all!’”

What a track of light our sweet Ellen has left behind her! Love me, dearest Kate!

JANUARY 25.

We leave in a week, my dearest Kate. René made a point of returning to the south, whose blue sky we shall not quit without regret; and also he wished to pray once more with us in Ellen’s room. Karl does not wish the _Chalet of souvenirs_ to pass into strange hands. He had rented it for a year; René proposed to him to buy it, and the matter was settled yesterday. I am writing to Mistress Annah, to lay before her the offer of a good work, capable of tempting her self-devotion――namely, that she should install herself at the _chalet_, and there take in a few poor sick people, and we might perhaps return thither. What do you think of this plan, dearest Kate?

We are all in love with Marcella and her pretty little girl, who are glad to accompany us to Orleans. Gertrude has offered Hélène’s room to our new friend, whose melancholy is gradually disappearing. It is needless to say that she is by no means indifferent to Kate. You would love her, dear sister, and bless God with me for having placed her on our path. She has the head of an Italian Madonna, expressive, sympathetic, sweet; her portrait will be my first work when we return to Orleans.

On this day, eighteen centuries ago, St. Paul was struck to the earth on his way to Damascus; he fell a persecutor of Christ, and arose an apostle of that faith for which he would in due time give his life. Let us also be apostles, my sister.

A visit from Sarah on her wedding journey. Who would have thought of my seeing her here?

We prayed much for France on the ill-omened date of the 21st. O dearest! if you were but to read M. de Beauchêne’s _Louis XVII._ It is heartrending! Poor kings! It is the nature of mountain-tops to attract the lightning. René has given to Marcella _Marie Antoinette_, by M. de Lescure. Adrien has been reading it to us in the evenings. The grand and mournful epic is related with a magical charm of style which I find most attractive. Marie Antoinette, the calumniated queen, there appears in all the purity and splendor of her beauty. This reading left on my mind a deep impression of sadness. Poor queen! so great, so sanctified. “The martyrology of the Temple cannot be written.” The life of Marie Antoinette is full of contrasts; nothing could be fairer than its dawn, nothing more enchanting than the picture of her childhood, youth, and marriage――this latter the dream of the courts of Austria and France, which made her at fifteen years old the triumphant and almost worshipped Dauphiness. And yet what shadows darkened here and there the radiant poem of her happy days! She went on increasing in beauty; she became a mother; and beneath the delightful shades of Trianon, “the Versailles of flowers which she preferred to the Versailles of marble,” she came to luxuriate in the newly-found joys which filled her heart. Then came a terrible grief, the sinister precursor of the horrible tempests which were to burst upon the head of this queen, so French, but whom her misguided people persisted in calling _the foreigner_――the death of Maria Theresa the Great. What a cruel destiny is that of queens! Marie Antoinette, whose heart was so nobly formed for holy family joys, quitted her own at the age of fifteen, going to live far from her mother, whom she was never to see again, even at the moment when that heroic woman rendered up to God the soul which had struggled so valiantly. The Revolution was there, dreadful and menacing. Marie Antoinette began her militant and glorious life, and the day came when “the monster” said with truth: “The king has but one man near him, and that man is the queen.” O dear Kate! the end of this history makes me afraid. What expiation will God require of France for these martyrdoms?

And we are going away.… Shall we return?

We are to visit Fourvières, Ars, Paray-le-Monial, and first of all the Grande Chartreuse――what a journey!――and _you_ afterwards. I am fond of travelling――fond of the unknown, of beautiful views, movement, the pretty, wondering eyes of the little ones, the halts, for one or two days, in hotels, all the moving of the household which reminds me of the pleasant time when I used to travel with my Kate. Dearest sister, I long, I long to embrace you! Your kind, rare, and delightful letters, which I learn by heart the first day, the feeling of that nearness of our hearts to each other which nothing on earth can separate――this is also you; but to _see_ you is sweeter than all the rest.

Marcella wishes to be named in this letter. You know whether or not the whole family loves Mme. Kate.

Send us your good angel during our wanderings, and believe in the fondest affection of your Georgina.

TO BE CONTINUED.

[21] “Behold the sapless leaves, which fall upon the turf.”

[22] “_Dames Auxiliatrices du Purgatoire._”

[23] Past days, which each of us recalls with tears, Days we regret in vain, had you so many charms? Or was your brightness also marred by winds, And doth our weariness of the present make you seem so fair?

[24] In Brittany the poor are habitually called _les pauvres du Bon Dieu_.――TRANSL.

[25] Mgr. de la Bouillerie

[26] In French, _L’Oiseau du Bon Dieu_; in Catholic England, “Our Lady’s bird.”

[27] In the hymn _Adeste fideles_.

[28] _Gâteau des Rois_, “Twelfth-Cake.”

[29] To offer two pure [grains of] incense: innocence and happiness.

[30] The purest Italian, “_Lingua Toscana in bocca Romana_.”

[31] What, then, are days, that they should deserve our tears?

[32] “Thou lovedst me amongst all, and the gifts that men desire――this unknown power accorded to the lyre, this mysterious art of pleasing by the voice――if I am said to own it, Lord, I owe it all to thee.”

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI’S POEMS.[33]

Christina Rossetti is, we believe, the queen of the Preraphaelite school, the literary department of that school at least, in England. To those interested in Preraphaelites and Preraphaelitism the present volume, which seems to be the first American edition of this lady’s poems, will prove a great attraction. The school in art and literature represented under this name, however, has as yet made small progress among ourselves. It will doubtless be attributed to our barbarism, but that is an accusation to which we are growing accustomed, and which we can very complacently bear. The members of the school we know: Ruskin, Madox Brown, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, all the other Rossettis, Swinburne, Morris, and the rest; but we know no school. It has not yet won enough pupils to establish itself among us, and we at best regard it as a fashion that will pass away as have so many others: the low shirt-collar, flowing locks, melancholy visage, and aspect of general disgust with which, for instance, the imitators of Byron, in all save his intellect, were wont to afflict us in the earlier portion of the present century. The fact is, our English friends have a way of running into these fashions that is perplexing, and that would seem to indicate an inability on their part to judge for themselves of literary or artistic merit. To-day Pope and Addison are the fashion; to-morrow, Byron and Jeffreys; then Wordsworth and Carlyle; then Tennyson and Macaulay; and now Rossetti, Swinburne, Morris, and their kin, if they are not in the ascendant, gain a school, succeed in making a great deal of noise about themselves, and in having a great deal of noise made about them. It is the same with tailoring in days when your tailor, like your cook, is an “artist.”

Surely the laws and canons of art are constant. The good is good and the bad bad, by whomsoever written or wrought. Affectation cannot cover poverty of thought or conception. A return to old ways, old models, old methods, is good, provided we go deeper than the mere fringe and trappings of such. How the name Preraphaelite first came we do not know. It originated, we believe, in an earnest revolt against certain viciousness in modern art. It was, if we mistake not, a return, to a great extent, to old-time realism. The question is, How far back did the originators of the movement go? If we take the strict meaning of the word, Homer was a Preraphaelite; so was Virgil; so was Horace; so were the Greek tragedians; so was Aristophanes. Apelles’ brush deceived the birds of heaven; Phidias made the marble live ages before Raphael. Nay, how long before Raphael did the inspired prophets catch the very breathings of God to men, and turn them into the music and the religion of all time? These are surely Preraphaelites; yet we find few signs of their teachings in this fussy, ardent, and aggressive little modern English school.

We do not deny many gifts to certain members of the school. Swinburne, for instance, seems capable of playing with words as he pleases, of turning and tuning them into any form of melodious rhythm. But he begins and ends with _words_. Dante Gabriel Rossetti has given us some massive fragments, but nothing more. We look and say, “How much this man might have done!” but there our admiration ceases. Morris has written much and well, but he teases one with the antique. Set Byron by the side of any or all of them, and at once they dwindle almost into insignificance. Yet Byron wrote much that was worthless. He wrote, however, more that was really great. He never played tricks with words; he never allowed them to master him. He began the _Childe Harold_ in imitation of Spenser; but he soon struck out so freely and vigorously that, though it may be half heresy to say it, Spenser himself was left far in the rear, and we believe that any intelligent jury in these days would award a far higher prize to the _Childe Harold_ than to the _Faerie Queen_. Byron was a born poet. Like all great poets, undoubtedly, he owed much to art; but then art was always his slave. He rose above it. The fault with our present poets, not excepting even Tennyson, is that they are better artists than they are poets. Consequently, they win little cliques and knots of admirers, where others, as did Byron, win a world in spite of itself. It is all the difference between genius and the very highest respectability.

Miss Rossetti we take to be a very good example of the faults and virtues of her school. Here is a volume of three hundred pages, and it is filled with almost every kind of verse, much of which is of the most fragmentary nature. Some of it is marvellously beautiful; some trash; some coarse; some the very breathing and inspiration of the deep religion of the heart. In her devotional pieces she is undoubtedly at her best. Surely a strong Catholic tradition must be kept alive in this family. Her more famous brother sings of the Blessed Virgin in a spirit that Father Faber might have envied, and in verse that Father Faber never could have commanded. How she sings of Christ and holy things will presently appear. But her other pieces are not so satisfactory. The ultra-melancholy tone, the tiresome repetitions of words and phrases that mark the school, pervade them. Of melancholy as of adversity it may be said, “Sweet are its uses,” provided “its uses” are not too frequent. An ounce of melancholy will serve at any time to dash a ton of mirth.

But our friends the Preraphaelites positively revel in gloom. They are for ever “hob and nob with Brother Death.” They seem to study a skeleton with the keen interest of an anatomist. Wan ghosts are their favorite companions, and ghosts’ walks their choice resorts. The scenery described in their poems has generally a sad, sepulchral look. There is a vast amount of rain with mournful soughing winds, laden often with the voices of those who are gone. A favorite trick of a Preraphaelite ghost is to stalk into his old haunts, only to discover that after all people live in much the same style as when he was in the flesh, and can manage to muster a laugh and talk about mundane matters even though he has departed. Miss Rossetti treats us to several such visits, and in each case the “poor ghost” stalks out again disconsolate.

There is another Preraphaelite ghost who is fond of visiting, just on the day of her wedding with somebody else, the lady who has jilted him. The conversation carried on between the jilt and the ghost of the jilted is, as may be imagined, hardly of the kind one would expect on so festive an occasion. For our own part, we should imagine that the ghost would have grown wiser, if not more charitable, by his visit to the other world, and would show himself quite willing to throw at least the ghost of a slipper after the happy pair.

Between the Preraphaelite ghosts and the Preraphaelite lovers there seems really little difference. The love is of the most tearful description; the lady, wan at the start, has to wait and wait a woful time for the gentleman, who is always a dreadfully indefinite distance away. Strange to say, he generally has to make the journey back to his lady-love on foot. Of course on so long a journey he meets with all kinds of adventures and many a lady gay who keep him from his true love. She, poor thing, meanwhile sits patiently at the same casement looking out for the coming of her love. The only difference in her is that she grows wanner and more wan, until at length the tardy lover arrives, of course, only to find her dead body being carried out, and the good old fairy-story ending――that they were married and lived happy ever after――is quite thrown out.

It will be judged from what we have said that, whatever merits the Preraphaelite school of poetry may possess, cheerfulness is not one of them. As a proof of this we only cull a few titles from the contents of the book before us. “A Dirge” is the eighth on the list; then come in due order, “After Death,” “The Hour and the Ghost,” “Dead before Death,” “Bitter for Sweet,” “The Poor Ghost,” “The Ghost’s Petition,” and so on. But Miss Rossetti is happily not all melancholy. The opening piece, the famous “Goblin Market,” is thoroughly fresh and charming, and, to our thinking, deserves a place beside “The Pied Piper of Hamlin.” Is not this a perfect picture of its kind?

“Laughed every goblin When they spied her peeping; Came towards her hobbling, Flying, running, leaping, Puffing and blowing, Chuckling, clapping, crowing, Clucking and gobbling, Mopping and mowing, Full of airs and graces, Pulling wry faces, Demure grimaces, Cat-like and rat-like, Ratel and wombat-like, Snail-paced in a hurry, Parrot-voiced and whistler, Helter-skelter, hurry-skurry, Chattering like magpies, Fluttering like pigeons, Gliding like fishes―― Hugged her and kissed her; Squeezed and caressed her; Stretched up their dishes, Panniers and plates; ‘Look at our apples Russet and dun, Bob at our cherries, Bite at our peaches, Citrons and dates, Grapes for the asking, Pears red with basking Out in the sun, Plums on their twigs; Pluck them and suck them, Pomegranates, figs.’”

Of course this is not very high poetry, nor as such is it quoted here. But it is one of many wonderful pieces of minute and life-like painting that occur in this strange poem. From the same we quote another passage as exhibiting what we would call a splendid fault in the poet:

“White and golden Lizzie stood, Like a lily in a flood―― Like a rock of blue-veined stone Lashed by tides obstreperously; Like a beacon left alone In a hoary, roaring sea, Sending up a golden fire; Like a fruit-crowned orange-tree White with blossoms honey-sweet, Sore beset by wasp and bee; Like a royal virgin town, Topped with gilded dome and spire, Close beleaguered by a fleet, Mad to tug her standard down.”

Undoubtedly these are fine and spirited lines, and, some of them at least, noble similes. What do they call up to the mind of the reader? One of those heroic maidens who in history have led armies to victory and relieved nations――a Joan of Arc leading a forlorn hope girt around by the English. Any picture of this kind it would fit; but what is it intended to represent? A little girl struggling to prevent the little goblin-men from pressing their fatal fruits into her mouth! The statue is far too large for the pedestal. Here is another instance of the same, the lines of which might be taken from a Greek chorus:

“Her locks streamed like the torch Borne by a racer at full speed, Or like the mane of horses in their flight, Or like an eagle when she stems the light Straight toward the sun, Or like a caged thing freed, Or like a flying flag when armies run.”

The locks that are like all these wonderful things are those of Lizzie’s little sister Laura, who had tasted the fruits of the goblin-men. How different from this is “The Convent Threshold”! It is a strong poem, but of the earth earthy. As far as one can judge, it is the address of a young lady to her lover, who is still in the world and apparently enjoying a gay life. She has sinned, and remorse or some other motive seems to have driven her within the convent walls. She gives her lover admirable advice, but the old leaven is not yet purged out, as may be seen from the final exhortation:

“Look up, rise up; for far above Our palms are grown, our place is set; There we shall meet as once we met, And love with old familiar love.”――

Which may be a very pleasant prospect for separated lovers, but is scarcely heaven.

The poem contains a strong contrast――and yet how weak a one to the truly spiritual soul!――between the higher and the lower life.

“Your eyes look earthward; mine look up. I see the far-off city grand, Beyond the hills a watered land, Beyond the gulf a gleaming strand Of mansions where the righteous sup Who sleep at ease among the trees, Or wake to sing a cadenced hymn With Cherubim and Seraphim; They bore the cross, they drained the cup, Racked, roasted, crushed, rent limb from limb―― They, the off-scouring of the world: The heaven of starry heavens unfurled, The sun before their face is dim.

“You, looking earthward, what see you? Milk-white, wine-flushed among the vines, Up and down leaping, to and fro, Most glad, most full, made strong with wines, Blooming as peaches pearled with dew, Their golden, windy hair afloat, Love-music warbling in their throat, Young men and women come and go.”

Something much more characteristic of the school to which Miss Rossetti belongs is “The Poor Ghost,” some of which we quote as a sample:

“Oh! whence do you come, my dear friend, to me, With your golden hair all fallen below your knee, And your face as white as snow-drops on the lea, And your voice as hollow as the hollow sea?”

“From the other world I come back to you, My locks are uncurled with dripping, drenching dew. You know the old, whilst I know the new: But to-morrow you shall know this too.”

* * * * *

“Life is gone, then love too is gone, It was a reed that I leant upon: Never doubt I will leave you alone And not wake you rattling bone with bone.”

But this is too lugubrious. There are many others of a similar tone, but we prefer laying before the reader what we most admire. We have no doubt whatever that there are many persons who would consider such poems as the last quoted from the gems of the volume. To us they read as though written by persons in the last stage of consumption, who have no hope in life, and apparently very little beyond. The lines, too, are as heavy and clumsy as they can be. Perhaps the author has made them so on purpose to impart an additional ghastliness to the poem; for, as seen already, she can sing sweetly enough when she pleases. Another long and very doleful poem is that entitled “Under the Rose,” which repeats the sad old lesson that the sins of the parents are visited on the heads of the children. A third, though not quite so sad, save in the ending, is “The Prince’s Progress,” which is one of the best and most characteristic in the volume. As exhibiting a happier style, we quote a few verses:

“In his world-end palace the strong Prince sat, Taking his ease on cushion and mat; Close at hand lay his staff and his hat. ‘When wilt thou start? The bride waits, O youth!’ ‘Now the moon’s at full; I tarried for that: Now I start in truth.

‘But tell me first, true voice of my doom, Of my veiled bride in her maiden bloom; Keeps she watch through glare and through gloom, Watch for me asleep and awake?’ ‘Spell-bound she watches in one white room, And is patient for thy sake.

‘By her head lilies and rosebuds grow; The lilies droop――will the rosebuds blow? The silver slim lilies hang the head low; Their stream is scanty, their sunshine rare. Let the sun blaze out, and let the stream flow: They will blossom and wax fair.

‘Red and white poppies grow at her feet; The blood-red wait for sweet summer heat, Wrapped in bud-coats hairy and neat; But the white buds swell; one day they will burst, Will open their death-cups drowsy and sweet; Which will open the first?’

Then a hundred sad voices lifted a wail; And a hundred glad voices piped on the gale: ‘Time is short, life is short,’ they took up the tale: ‘Life is sweet, love is sweet; use to-day while you may; Love is sweet and to-morrow may fail: Love is sweet, use to-day.’”

The Prince turns out to be a sad laggard; but what else could he be when he had to traverse such lands as this?

“Off he set. The grass grew rare, A blight lurked in the darkening air, The very moss grew hueless and spare, The last daisy stood all astunt; Behind his back the soil lay bare, But barer in front.

“A land of chasm and rent, a land Of rugged blackness on either hand; If water trickled, its track was tanned With an edge of rust to the chink; If one stamped on stone or on sand, It returned a clink.

“A lifeless land, a loveless land, Without lair or nest on either hand Only scorpions jerked in the sand, Black as black iron, or dusty pale From point to point sheer rock was manned By scorpions in mail.

“A land of neither life nor death, Where no man buildeth or fashioneth, Where none draws living or dying breath; No man cometh or goeth there, No man doeth, seeketh, saith, In the stagnant air.”

So far for the general run of Miss Rossetti’s poems. It will be seen that they are nothing very wonderful, in whatever light we view them. They are not nearly so great as her brother’s; indeed, they will not stand comparison with them at all. The style is too varied, the pieces are too short and fugitive to be stamped with any marked originality or individuality, with the exception, perhaps, of the “Goblin Market.” But there is a certain class of her poems examination of which we have reserved for the last. Miss Rossetti has set up a little devotional shrine here and there throughout the volume, where we find her on her knees, with a strong faith, a deep sense of spiritual needs, a feeling of the real littleness of the life passing around us, of the true greatness of what is to come after, a sense of the presence of the living God before whom she bows down her soul into the dust; and here she is another woman. As she sinks her poetry rises, and gushes up out of her heart to heaven in strains sad, sweet, tender, and musical that a saint might envy. What in the wide realm of English poetry is more beautiful or more Catholic than this?

THE THREE ENEMIES.

_The Flesh._

“Sweet, thou art pale.” “More pale to see, Christ hung upon the cruel tree And bare his Father’s wrath for me.”

“Sweet, thou art sad.” “Beneath a rod More heavy, Christ for my sake trod The wine-press of the wrath of God.”

“Sweet, thou art weary.” “Not so Christ; Whose mighty love of me sufficed For Strength, Salvation, Eucharist.”

“Sweet, thou art footsore.” “If I bleed, His feet have bled; yea, in my need His Heart once bled for mine indeed.”

_The World._

“Sweet, thou art young.” “So He was young Who for my sake in silence hung Upon the Cross with Passion wrung.”

“Look, thou art fair.” “He was more fair Than men, Who deigned for me to wear A visage marred beyond compare.”

“And thou hast riches.” “Daily bread: All else is His; Who living, dead, For me lacked where to lay His Head.”

“And life is sweet.” “It was not so To Him, Whose Cup did overflow With mine unutterable woe.”

_The Devil._

“Thou drinkest deep.” “When Christ would sup He drained the dregs from out my cup. So how should I be lifted up?”

“Thou shalt win Glory.” “In the skies, Lord Jesus, cover up mine eyes Lest they should look on vanities.”

“Thou shalt have Knowledge.” “Helpless dust, In thee, O Lord, I put my trust: Answer Thou for me, Wise and Just.”

“And Might.” “Get thee behind me. Lord, Who hast redeemed and not abhorred My soul, oh! keep it by thy Word.”

And what a cry is this? Who has not felt it in his heart? It is entitled “Good Friday”:

“Am I a stone and not a sheep, That I can stand, O Christ! beneath Thy Cross, To number drop by drop Thy Blood’s slow loss, And yet not weep?

“Not so those women loved Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee; Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly; Not so the thief was moved;

“Not so the Sun and Moon Which hid their faces in a starless sky, A horror of great darkness at broad noon,―― I, only I.

“Yet give not o’er, But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock; Greater than Moses, turn and look once more And smite a rock.”

It would seem that the heart which can utter feelings like these should be safely housed in the one true fold. There, and there only, can such hearts find room for expansion; for there alone can they find the food to fill them, the wherewith to satisfy their long yearnings, the light to guide the many wanderings of their spirits, the strength to lift up and sustain them after many a fall and many a cruel deceit. Outside that threshold, however near they may be to it, they will in the long run find their lives empty. With George Eliot, they will find life only a sad satire and hope a very vague thing. Like her heroine, Dorothea Brooke, the finer feelings and aspirations of their really spiritual and intensely religious natures will only end in petty collisions with the petty people around them, and thankful they may be if all their life does not turn out to be an exasperating mistake, as it must be a failure, compared with that larger life that they only dimly discern. How truly Miss Rossetti discerns it may be seen in her sonnet on “The World”:

“By day she wooes me, soft, exceeding fair: But all night as the moon so changeth she; Loathsome and foul with hideous leprosy, And subtle serpents gliding in her hair. By day she wooes me to the outer air, Ripe fruits, sweet flowers, and full satiety: But through the night, a beast she grins at me, A very monster void of love and prayer. By day she stands a lie: by night she stands, In all the naked horror of the truth, With pushing horns and clawed and clutching hands. Is this a friend indeed; that I should sell My soul to her, give her my life and youth, _Till my feet, cloven too, take hold on hell?_”

Could there be anything more complete than this whole picture, or anything more startling yet true in conception than the image in the last line, which we have italicized? One feels himself, as it were, on the very verge of the abyss, and the image of God, in which he was created, suddenly and silently falling from him. But a more beautiful and daring conception is that in the poem “From House to Home.” Treading on earth, the poet mounts to heaven, but by the thorny path that alone leads to it. Her days seemed perfect here below, and all happiness hers. Her house is fair and all its surroundings beautiful. She tells us that

“Ofttimes one like an angel walked with me. With spirit-discerning eyes like flames of fire, But deep as the unfathomed, endless sea, Fulfilling my desire.”

The spirit leaves her after a time, calling her home from banishment into “the distant land.” All the beauty of her life goes with him, and hope dies out of her heart, until something whispered that they should meet again in a distant land.

“I saw a vision of a woman, where Night and new morning strive for domination; Incomparably pale, and almost fair, And sad beyond expression.

* * * * *

“I stood upon the outer barren ground, She stood on inner ground that budded flowers; While circling in their never-slackening round Danced by the mystic hours.

“But every flower was lifted on a thorn, And every thorn shot upright from its sands To gall her feet; hoarse laughter pealed in scorn With cruel clapping hands.

“She bled and wept, yet did not shrink; her strength Was strung up until daybreak of delight; She measured measureless sorrow toward its length, And breadth, and depth, and height.

“Then marked I how a chain sustained her form, A chain of living links not made nor riven: It stretched sheer up through lightning, wind, and storm, And anchored fast in heaven.

“One cried: ‘How long? Yet founded on the Rock She shall do battle, suffer, and attain.’ One answered: ‘Faith quakes in the tempest shock: Strengthen her soul again.’

“I saw a cup sent down and come to her Brimful of loathing and of bitterness: She drank with livid lips that seemed to stir The depth, not make it less.

“But as she drank I spied a hand distil New wine and virgin honey; making it First bitter-sweet, then sweet indeed, until She tasted only sweet.

“Her lips and cheeks waxed rosy――fresh and young; Drinking she sang: ‘My soul shall nothing want’; And drank anew: while soft a song was sung, A mystical low chant.

“One cried: ‘The wounds are faithful of a friend: The wilderness shall blossom as a rose.’ One answered: ‘Rend the veil, declare the end, Strengthen her ere she goes.’”

Then earth and heaven are rolled up like a scroll, and she gazes into heaven. Wonderful indeed is the picture drawn of the heavenly court; but we have already quoted at such length that we fear to tire our readers. Still, we must find room for the following three verses:

“Tier beyond tier they rose and rose and rose _So high that it was dreadful_, flames with flames: No man could number them, no tongue disclose Their secret sacred names.

“As though one pulse stirred all, one rush of blood Fed all, one breath swept through them myriad-voiced, They struck their harps, cast down their crowns, they stood And worshipped and rejoiced.

“Each face looked one way like a moon new-lit, Each face looked one way towards its Sun of Love; Drank love and bathed in love and mirrored it And knew no end thereof.”

We might go on quoting with pleasure and admiration most of these devotional pieces, but enough has been given to show how different a writer is Miss Rossetti in her religious and in her worldly mood. The beauty, grace, pathos, sublimity often, of the one weary us of the other. In the one she warbles or sings, with often a flat and discordant note in her tones that now please and now jar; in the other she is an inspired prophetess or priestess chanting a sublime chant or giving voice to a world’s sorrow and lament. In the latter all affectation of word, or phrase, or rhythm disappears. The subjects sung are too great for such pettiness, and the song soars with them. The same thing is true of her brother, the poet. Religion has inspired his loftiest conceptions, and a religion that is certainly very unlike any but the truth. We trust that the reverence and devotion to the truth which must lie deep in the hearts of this gifted brother and sister may bear their legitimate fruit, and end not in words only, but blossom into deeds which will indeed lead them “From House to Home.”

[33] Poems by Christina G. Rossetti. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1876.

ECHO TO MARY.

Who gently dries grief’s falling tear? Maria. Of fairy flowers which fairest blows? The Rose. What seekest thou, poor plaining dove? My Love. Rejoice, thou morning Dove! Earth’s peerless Rose, without a thorn, Unfolds its bloom this natal morn―― Maria, Rose of Love!

What craves the heart of storms the sport? A Port. And what the fevered patient’s quest? Calm Rest. What ray to cheer when shadows slope? Hope. O Mary, Mother blest! Through nights of gloom, through days of fear, Thy love the ray by which to steer, Bright Hope! to Port of Rest.

Desponding heart what gift will please? Heart of Ease. What scent reminds of a hidden saint? Jess’mine Faint. What caught its hue from the azure sky? Violet’s Eye. O Mary, peerless dower! A balm to soothe, love’s odor sweet, A glimpse of heaven in thee we greet―― Heartsease, Jess’mine, Violet flower!

Of Mary’s love who most secure? The Pure. What lamp diffuses light afar? A Star. When is light-wingéd zephyr born? At Morn. My eyes, with watching worn, Will vigil keep till day returns; To see thy light my spirit yearns, Mary Pure, Star of Morn!

What name most sweet to dying ear? Maria. On heavenly hosts who smiles serene? Their Queen. What joy is perfected above? Love. Welcome, thou spotless Dove! Awake, my soul, celestial mirth! This day brings purest joy to earth! Maria, Queen of Love.

NATIVITY B. V. MARY, September 8.[34]

[34] The above is a free translation from a beautiful short Spanish poem which lately appeared in the _Revista Catolica_ of Las Vegas, New Mexico.

THE HIGHLAND EXILE.

A recent number of the London _Tablet_ contains some very interesting facts concerning the return of the Benedictine Order to Scotland. This event is expected soon to take place, after a banishment of the Order for nearly three hundred years from those regions of beauty where for many previous centuries it had been the source and dispenser of countless spiritual and temporal blessings to the people.

It is among the most marvellous of the wonderful compensations of divine Providence in these days of mysterious trial for the church as to her temporalities, and of her most glorious triumphs in the spiritual order, that the place for this re-establishment should have been fixed at Fort Augustus, in Inverness-shire――the very spot which the “dark and bloody” Duke of Cumberland made his headquarters while pursuing with merciless and exterminating slaughter the hapless Catholics of the Highlands after the fatal field of Culloden in 1746. No less significant is the fact that a descendant of the Lord Lovat who was beheaded for his participation in that conflict, and the inheritor of his title, should have purchased Fort Augustus from the British government with a view to this happy result, though he was not permitted to live long enough to witness the accomplishment of his pious purpose.

A more beautiful or appropriate abode for the devoted sons of St. Benedict could not have been found than this secluded spot, where, far removed from all the turmoil and distractions of the world, they will be free to exercise the spirit of their holy rule, and draw down abundant benedictions upon the surrounding country. The buildings are situated near the extremity of Loch Ness, commanding toward the east a view of that picturesque lake, and to the west of the wild range of Glengarry Mountains.

It is consoling to reflect that the place which, notwithstanding the fascinations of its extraordinary beauty, has so long been held in detestation by the faithful Catholic Highlanders, on account of the fearful atrocities once committed under protection of its strong towers, is destined thus to become the very treasure-house of Heaven’s choicest blessings for them in the restoration of their former benefactors and spiritual directors.

Very pleasant, also, to every child of the faith the world over, is the thought that these hills and glens, long so “famous in story,” will once again give echo, morning, noon, and night, to the glad tidings of salvation proclaimed by the holy Angelus, and to the ancient chants and songs of praise which resounded through the older centuries from the cloisters of this holy brotherhood; and that in these solitudes the clangor of the “church-going bell” will again summon the faithful to the free and open exercise of the worship so long proscribed under cruel penalties. The tenacity with which the Highlanders of Scotland clung to their faith through the most persistent and appalling persecutions proved that the foundations of the spiritual edifice in that

“Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, Land of the mountain and the flood,”

were laid broad and deep by saints not unworthy to be classed with the glorious St. Patrick of the sister shores.

In the course of our studies of history in early youth, before we were interested in such triumphs of the church, save as curious historical facts not to be accounted for upon Protestant principles, we were deeply impressed by proofs of her supernatural and sustaining power over this noble race which came within our personal notice.

During a winter in the first quarter of this century my father and mother made the journey from Prescott, Upper Canada, to Montreal, in their own conveyance, taking me with them.

We stopped over one night at an inn situated on the confines of a dismal little village, planted in a country as flat and unattractive in all its features as could well be imagined. The village was settled entirely by Highlanders exiled on account of their religion and the troubles which followed the irretrievable disaster of Culloden. Its inhabitants among themselves spoke only the Gaelic language, which I then heard for the first time. My father’s notice was attracted by the aged father of our host, a splendid specimen of the native Highlander, clad in the full and wonderfully picturesque costume of his race. Although from his venerable appearance you might have judged that

“A hundred years had flung their snows On his thin locks and floating beard,”

yet was his form as erect and his mind as clear as when in youth he trod his native glens.

My father soon drew him into a conversation to which their juvenile companion was an eager and retentive listener. The chief tenor of it was concerning the state of Scotland, and the prevailing sentiment of her people in the north, before the last hapless scion of the Stuarts made the fatal attempt which resulted in utter defeat and ruin to all connected with it. In the course of their chat, and as his intellect was aroused and excited by the subject, a narrative of his own personal knowledge of those matters and share in the conflict fell unconsciously, as it were, from his lips.

He was a young lad at the time his father’s clan gathered to the rallying-cry of the Camerons for the field of Culloden. Young as he was, he fought by his father’s side, and saw him slain with multitudes of his kin on that scene of carnage. He was among the few of his clan who escaped and succeeded by almost superhuman efforts in rescuing their families from the indiscriminate slaughter which followed. Among the rocks and caves of the wild hills and glens with which they were familiar they found hiding-places that were inaccessible to the destroyers who were sent out by the merciless Cumberland, but their sufferings from cold and hunger were beyond description. In the haste of their flight it was impossible to convey the necessary food and clothing, and the whole country was so closely watched by scattered bands of soldiers that there was no chance of procuring supplies. Insufficiently clad and fed, and very imperfectly sheltered from the wild storms of those bleak northern regions, many of the women, the children, and the aged people perished before it was possible to accept offers made by the British government of founding colonies in Nova Scotia and Upper Canada for those who, persistently refusing to renounce the Catholic faith, would consent to emigrate. Large rewards and the most tempting inducements were held out to all who would surrender their faith, embrace Protestantism, and remain among their beloved hills.

So intense is the love of country in the hearts of this brave and generous people that many could not tear themselves away from scenes inwoven with their tenderest affections, but remained, some to enjoy in this world the price of that apostasy which imperilled their eternal interests for the next, while multitudes sought the most remote and unapproachable nooks of the rugged north, and remained true to their religion in extreme poverty and distress, with no hope of alleviation. Our aged narrator joined a band of emigrants from the neighborhood of Loch Ness, and came to the dreary wilderness where the present village has grown up. My father expressed his surprise that they should have chosen a place so entirely different in all its features from their native scenes, in preference to the hilly parts of Canada, where it would seem that they would have been more at home.

“Na, na!” exclaimed the venerable old man, his dark eye kindling with the fire of youth, while he smote the ground with his staff, as if to emphasize his dissent――“na, na; sin’ we could na tread our native hills, it iss better far that we had nane! I think the sicht of hills withoot the heather wad drive me mad! Na, na; it iss far better that we should see nae hills!”

His touching recital of the wrongs sustained by his people at the hands of their ruthless conquerors, and the bitter sufferings they endured for the faith, awakened my deep and enduring sympathy.

My father questioned whether, after all, it would not have been better for them to have submitted in the matter of religion, accepted the liberal terms offered under that condition, and remained contented in their beloved homes, rather than make such cruel sacrifices, for themselves and the helpless ones dependent upon them, in support of a mere idea, as the difference between one religion and another seemed to him. The old man rose in his excitement to his feet, and, standing erect and dignified, with flashing eyes exclaimed: “Renounce the faith! Sooner far might we consent that we be sold into slavery! Oh! yes; we could do _that_――we could bow our necks to the yoke in _this_ world that our souls might be free for the _next_――but to renounce the faith! It iss that we could na do whatever; no! not the least one among us, though it wass to gain ten kingdoms for us in this warld!”

My father apologized for a suggestion which had such power to move him, remarking that he was himself quite ignorant concerning the Catholic religion, and, indeed, not too well informed as to any other; upon which the hoary patriarch approached him, laid his hand upon his head, and said with deep solemnity: “That the great God, who is ever merciful to the true of heart, might pour the light of his truth into yours, and show you how different is it from the false religions, and how worthy that one should die for it rather than yield the point that should seem the most trifling; for there iss nothing connected with the truth that will be trifling.”

The grand old man! He little suspected that his words struck a responsive chord in the hearts of his listeners that never ceased to vibrate to their memory!

A few years after this incident I was passing the months of May and June with a relative in Montreal. Several British regiments were then quartered in that city. One of them, I was told, was the famous “Thirty-ninth” which had won, by its dauntless valor on many hard-fought battle-fields in India, the distinction of bearing upon its colors the proud legend, “_Primus in Indis_.”

It was ordered to Canada for the invigorating effect of the climate upon the health of soldiers exhausted by long exposure, in fatiguing campaigns, to the sultry sun of India. It was composed chiefly, if not wholly, of Scotch Highlanders, well matched in size and height, and, taken all together, quite the finest body of men in form and feature, and in chivalrous bearing, that I have ever seen. Their uniform was the full Highland dress, than which a more martial or graceful equipment has never been devised. Over the Scotch bonnet of each soldier drooped and nodded a superb ostrich plume.

Under escort of the kind friend to whose care I had been committed, and who was delighted with the fresh enthusiasm of his small rustic cousin, just transported from a home in the woods to the novel scenes of that fair city, I witnessed repeatedly the parade of the troops on the _Champ de Mars_. The magnificent Highlanders took precedence and entirely eclipsed them all, while the bitterness of feeling with which the other regiments submitted to the ceremony of “presenting arms” whenever the gallant “Thirty-ninth” passed and repassed was apparent even to me, a stranger and a mere child.

Impressive as these scenes on the _Champ de Mars_ were, however, to the eager fancy of a juvenile observer, they fell far short of the thrilling effect produced by a pageant of a widely different nature which I was soon to witness.

While I was expressing my glowing admiration for those “superb Highlanders,” my kinsman, himself a Presbyterian elder, would exclaim: “Oh! this is nothing at all. Wait until you have seen them march to church and assist at a grand High Mass!”

Accordingly, on one fine Sunday morning in June he conducted me to an elevated position whence the muster of the regiment with its splendid banners, and the full line of march――to the music of the finest band in the army, composed entirely of Highland instruments――could be distinctly observed. Then, taking a shorter turn, we entered the church, and secured a seat which overlooked the entrance of the troops within the sacred precincts. The full band was playing, and the music breathed the very spirit of their native hills. It was a spectacle never to be forgotten. The measured tramp of that multitude as the footfall of one man; their plumed bonnets lifted reverently before the sacred Presence by one simultaneous motion of the moving mass; their genuflections, performed with the same military and, as it seemed to a spectator, automatic precision and unity; the flash and clash of their arms, as they knelt in the wide space allotted to them under the central dome of the immense edifice; the rapt expression of devotion which lighted up each face; the music of the band, bursting forth at intervals during the most solemn parts of the first High Mass I had ever attended, now exquisitely plaintive and soul-subduing, and again swelling into a volume of glorious harmony which filled the whole church and electrified the hearts of the listeners――all this combined to produce emotions not to be expressed in words. Strangers visiting the city, and multitudes of its non-Catholic inhabitants, were drawn week by week to witness the solemn and soul-awakening ceremonial; first from curiosity, and afterwards, in many instances, from the conviction that a religion whence flowed a worship so sublime and irresistible in its power over the souls of men must be the creation of the great Author of souls.

It seemed a fitting compensation to this noble race, after the degradation and oppression to which they had been subjected by their ruthless conquerors, that this valiant band of their sons should have been enabled to achieve such renown as gave them the most distinguished position in the British army, and placed them before the world with a prestige and a glory not surpassed by the bravest of their ancestors at the period of their greatest prosperity. But infinitely more precious than all earthly fame was the right, won back, as it were, by their arms, to practise fully and freely the religion of those ancestors, so long proscribed and forbidden to their people. Nor was it a slight satisfaction to their national pride and patriotism to be permitted to resume the costume which had also been proscribed and included in the suppression of the clans.

Since those days of long ago we have not seen a Scottish Highlander; but the notice in the London _Tablet_ of which we have spoken awakened the recollections we have thus imperfectly embodied as our slight tribute to the cairn that perpetuates, in this world, the memory of all this people have done and suffered for that faith which shall be their eternal joy and crowning glory in the next.

THE LATE ARCHBISHOP OF HALIFAX, N. S.

The Catholic Church in America has recently lost, in the person of the Most Reverend Dr. Connolly, one of her most distinguished prelates. Thomas Louis Connolly was born about sixty-two years ago in the city of Cork, Ireland. In his person were found all the virtues and noble qualities of head and heart that have made his countrymen loved and honored. Like many other distinguished churchmen, he was of humble parentage; and there are many townsmen of his in America to-day who remember the late archbishop as a boy running about the streets of Cork. He lost his father when he was three years old; nevertheless, his widowed mother managed to bring up her little son and a still younger daughter in comfort. She kept a small but decent house of entertainment, and the place is remembered by a mammoth pig that stood for years in the window, and which bore the quaint inscription:

“This world is a city with many a crooked street, And death the market-place where all men meet. If life were merchandise that men could buy, The rich would live and the poor would die.”

Father Mathew, the celebrated Apostle of Temperance, whose church was but a few doors from young Connolly’s home, noticed the quiet, good-natured boy who was so attentive to his church and catechism, and, perhaps discerning in him some of the rare qualities which afterwards distinguished him as a man, became his friend, confidant, and adviser. The widow was able to give her only son a good education, and we learn that at sixteen young Connolly was well advanced in history and mathematics and in the French, Latin, and Greek languages. The youth, desiring to devote his life to the church, became a novice in the Capuchin Order, in which order Father Mathew held high office.

In his eighteenth year he went to Rome to complete his studies for the priesthood. He spent six years in the Eternal City, and they were years of hard study, devoted to rhetoric, philosophy, and theology. Even then he was noted for his application, and was reserved and retiring in his disposition, except to the few with whom he was intimately acquainted. He left Rome for the south of France, where he completed his studies, and in 1838, at the cathedral at Lyons, he was ordained priest by the venerable archbishop of that city, Cardinal Bolæ. The following year he returned to Ireland, and for three years he labored hard and fervently in the Capuchin Mission House, Dublin, and at the Grange Gorman Lane Penitentiary, to which latter institution he was attached as chaplain. In 1842, when Dr. Walsh was appointed Bishop of Halifax, the young Capuchin priest, then in his twenty-eighth year, volunteered his services, and came out as secretary to the studious and scholarly prelate whom he was afterwards to succeed.

Until 1851, a period of nine years, Father Connolly labored incessantly, faithfully, and cheerfully as parish priest, and after a while as Vicar-General of Halifax. In the prime of his manhood, possessed of a massive frame and a vigorous constitution, with the ruddy glow of health always on his face, the young Irish priest went about late and early, in pestilence and disease, among the poor and sick, hearing confessions, organizing societies in connection with the church, preaching in public, exhorting in private, doing the work that only one of his zeal and constitution could do, and through it all carrying a smiling face and cheering word for every one. It is this period of his life that the members of his flock love to dwell upon, and to which he himself, no doubt, looked back with pleasure as a time when, possessed of never-failing health, he had only the subordinate’s work to do, without the cares, crosses, and momentous questions to decide which the mitre he afterwards wore brought with it. Indeed, at that time Father Connolly was everywhere and did everything. All the old couples in Halifax to-day were married by him; and all the young men and women growing up were baptized by him.

The worth, labors, and abilities of the ardent missionary could not fail to be recognized, and when Dr. Dollard died, in 1851, on the recommendation of the American bishops Father Connolly was appointed to succeed him as Bishop of St. John, New Brunswick. He threw all his heart and soul into his work, and before the seven years he resided in St. John had passed away he had brought the diocese, which he found in a chaotic, poverty-stricken, and ill-provided state, into order, efficiency, and comparative financial prosperity. Without a dollar, but with a true reliance on Providence and his people, he set to work to build a cathedral, and by his energy and the liberality of his flock soon had it in a tolerable state of completion. He seems to have taken a special delight in building, and no sooner was one edifice fairly habitable than he was at work on another. Whatever little difficulties or differences he may have had with the Catholics under his jurisdiction can be all traced to this; they were money questions, questions of expense. He always kept a warm corner in his heart for the orphans of his diocese, whom he looked upon as especially under his care, and who were to be provided for at all costs; and soon the present efficient Orphan Asylum of St. John sprang up, nuns were brought from abroad to conduct it, and, through the exertions of their warm-hearted bishop, the little wanderers and foundlings of New Brunswick were provided with a home.

On the death of Archbishop Walsh, in 1859, Bishop Connolly was appointed by the present Pontiff to succeed him. In his forty-fifth year, with all his faculties sharpened, his views and mind widened, and his political opinions changed for the better by his trying experience, Bishop Connolly came back to Halifax a different man, in all but outward appearance, from the Father Connolly who had left that city eight years before.

Halifax is noted as being one of the most liberal and tolerant cities on the continent. Nowhere do the different bodies of Christians mingle and work so well together; and although it is not free from individual bigotry, the great mass of its citizens work and live together in harmony and cordial good-will. It is too much to credit the late archbishop with this happy state of affairs, for it existed before his time, and owes its existence to the good sense and liberality of the Protestant party as well as the Catholic; but it is only common justice to say that the archbishop did all in his power to maintain it. Hospitable and genial by nature, it was a pleasure to him to have at his table the most distinguished citizens of all creeds, to entertain the officers of the army and navy, and to extend his hospitality to the guests of the city. Without lessening his dignity, and without conceding a point of what might be considered due to the rights of his church, he worked and lived on the most friendly and intimate footing with those who differed from him in religion. A hard worker, an inveterate builder, and a great accumulator of church property, he was hardly settled in his archdiocese before he set to work to convert the church of St. Mary’s into the present beautiful cathedral. The work has been going on for years under his personal supervision, and he resolutely refused to let any part out to contract; and although his congregation has grumbled at the money sunk in massive foundations, unnecessary finish, and the extras for alterations, yet time, by the strength, durability, and thoroughness of the work, will justify the archbishop in the course he adopted. School-houses were built, homes for the Sisters of Charity, orphanages, an academy, and a summer residence for himself and clergy at the Northwest Arm, a few miles from the city. All of these buildings have some pretensions to architecture, and are substantial and well built. Excepting the cathedral, the archbishop was generally his own architect; and as he was a little dogmatic in his manner, and not too ready to listen to suggestions from the tradesmen under him, he on more than one occasion made blunders, more amusing than serious, in his building operations. A man’s religion never stood in his way in working for Archbishop Connolly.

His duties as the father of his flock were not neglected on account of his outside work. No amount of physical or mental labor seemed too much for him. After the worry, work, and travelling of the week, it was no uncommon thing for him to preach in the three Catholic churches in the city on the one Sunday. His knowledge of the Scriptures was astonishing, even for a churchman, and was an inexhaustible mine on which he could draw at pleasure. His reading was wide and extensive. It was hard to name a subject on which he had not read and studied; on the affairs and politics of the day he was ready, when at leisure, to talk; and on his table might be found the periodical light literature as well as heavier reading. In 1867, when the confederation of the different British provinces into the present Dominion of Canada was brought about, he took an active part in politics. Believing that Nova Scotia would be rendered more prosperous, and that the Catholics would become more powerful by being united to their Canadian brethren, he warmly advocated the union. But despite his position and influence, and the exertions of those on his side, the union party was defeated at the polls all over the province as well as in the city of Halifax. Since that he ceased to take an active part in politics, and refrained from expressing his political opinions in public.

As a speaker he was noted for his sound common sense and the absence of anything like tricks of rhetoric or of manner. His lectures and addresses from the pulpit of his own church to his own people were generally extempore. He was powerful in appealing to a mixed audience, and spoke more especially to the humbler classes. He had a fund of quaint proverbs and old sayings, and, by an odd conceit or happy allusion, would drive his argument home in the minds of those of his own country. He could, at times, be eloquent in the true sense of the word; and when he prepared himself, girded on his armor for the conflict, he was truly powerful. On the melancholy death of D’Arcy McGee the archbishop had service in St. Mary’s, and delivered a panegyric on the life and labors of that gifted Irishman, who was a personal friend of his own, which is looked upon as one of his ablest efforts.

If he was quickly excited, he was just as quick to forgive; and when he thought he had bruised the feelings of the meanest, he was ever ready to atone, and never happy till he did so. Like many great republicans, while claiming the greatest freedom of thought, word, and action for himself, he was, though he knew it not, arbitrary in his dictates to others. Whatever he took in hand he went at heart and soul. The smallest detail of work he could not leave to another, but would himself see it attended to――from a board in a fence to the building of a cathedral. Travelling over a scattered diocese with poor roads and poor entertainment, preaching, hearing confessions, and administering the sacraments of the church, can it be wondered at that his health broke down? that a constitution, vigorous at first, wore out before its time? With everything to do and everything a trouble to him, can we wonder that some mistakes were made, that some things were ill-done?

Though hospitable, witty, and a lover of company, he was very abstemious and temperate in his habits; and, although never attacked by long disease, his health was continually bad. Last fall he visited Bermuda, which was under his jurisdiction, partly for his health, and also to see to the wants of the few Catholics there. In the spring he returned to Halifax, but little benefited by the change.

If there was one subject of public importance more than another in which the archbishop was interested, it was the public-school question. No question requires more careful handling; none involves vaster public interests. His school-houses had been leased to the school authorities; he had brought the Christian Brothers to Halifax, and these schools were under their charge; and the Catholics in Halifax had, thanks to their archbishop and the tolerance of their fellow-citizens, separate schools in all but the name. For a long time past there had been personal and private differences and grievances between the archbishop and the brothers. What they were, and what the rights and the wrongs of the matter are, was never fully made public, nor is it essential that it should be. On the Sunday after his arrival from Bermuda the archbishop was visited by the director-general of the brothers, a Frenchman, who gave him twenty-four hours to accede to the demands of the brothers, or threatened in default that they would leave the province. Both were hot-tempered, both believed they had right on their side, and it is more than probable that neither thought the other would proceed to extremities. The archbishop did not take an hour to decide; he flatly refused. Next day saw the work of years undone; the brothers departed; their places were temporarily filled by substitutes; the School Board took the matter in hand; and the sympathies of the Catholics of Halifax were divided between their archbishop and the teachers of their children.

Many think the excitement and worry that he underwent on this occasion had much to do with his death. A gentleman who had some private business with the archbishop called at the glebe-house on the Tuesday following the Sunday on which the rupture with the brothers had taken place. Although it was ten o’clock in the morning, and the sun was shining brightly outside, he found the curtains undrawn, the gas burning, and the archbishop hard at work writing at a table littered with paper. In the course of their conversation he mentioned incidentally to his visitor that he had not been to bed for two nights, nor changed his clothes for three days. Even after the difficulty had been smoothed over, and matters seemed to be going on as of old, it was noticed that the archbishop had lost his cheerfulness and looked wearied and haggard. His duties were not neglected, though sickness and sadness may have weighed him down. He began a series of lectures on the doctrines of the church which unhappily were never to be completed. On the third Sunday before his death, in making an appeal to his parishioners for funds to finish the cathedral, he enumerated the many other works he wished to undertake, and stated that he trusted he had ten or fifteen years of life before him wherein to accomplish these works. The meeting which he had called for that afternoon was poorly attended, and the amount subscribed not nearly what he expected. It was noticed that this troubled him; for he loved to stand well with his people always, and he took this as a sign that his popularity was on the wane.

On Saturday, the 22d of July, he complained of being unwell, but it did not prevent him from speaking as usual at the three churches on the morrow. He never allowed his own sufferings to interfere with what he considered his duty. None of the many who heard him that day surmised that the shadow of death was then on him, and that on the following Sunday they would see the corpse of the speaker laid out on the same altar. On Monday, still feeling unwell, he drove to his residence at the Northwest Arm, thinking that a little rest and quiet would restore him to his usual health. The next day, growing worse, and no doubt feeling his end approaching, he told his attendants to drive him to the glebe-house and to write to Rome. Next day the whole community was startled to hear that the archbishop was stricken down by congestion of the brain; that he was delirious; that he had been given up by the doctors; and that his death was hourly expected.

A gloom seemed to have fallen over the city. The streets leading to the glebe-house were filled all the next day and late into the night with a noiseless throng; and hour after hour the whisper went from one to another, “He still lives, but there’s no hope.” All this time the dying prelate remained unconscious. The heavy breathing and the dull pulse were all that told the watchful and sorrowing attendants that he yet lived. From his bedroom to the drawing-room, in which he had at times received such a brilliant company, they carried the dying man for air. Those who wished were allowed in to see him; but he saw not the anxious faces that gazed sorrowfully for a moment and then passed away; he heard not the low chant of the Litany for the Dying that was borne out through the open windows on the still night-air; he knew not of the tears that were shed by those who loved and honored him, and who could not, in the presence of death, repress or hide their sorrow. At midnight on Thursday, the 27th of July, the bell of the cathedral tolled out to tell the quiet city that the good archbishop lived no more.

The next day, in the same apartment, the corpse was laid in state, and was visited by hundreds of all creeds and classes, who came to take their last look at all that remained on earth of the wearied worker who had at last found rest. What were the thoughts of many who looked upon that face, now fixed in death? Among the throng were those who had come to him weighed down by sorrow and sin, and had left him lightened of their loads and strengthened in their resolutions of atonement and amendment by his eloquent words of advice. Some had felt his wide-spreading charity; for his ear and heart were ever open to a tale of distress, and he gave with a free and open hand, and his tongue never told of what his hand let fall. The general feeling was one of bereavement; for the great multitude of his people knew not his worth till they had lost him. Who would take his place? They might find his equal in learning, in eloquence, even in work; but could they find one in whom were united all the qualities that had so eminently fitted him for the position he so ably filled? Perhaps there were others present who had to regret that they had misjudged him, that they had been uncharitable in their thoughts toward him, that they had not assisted as they should have done the great, good, and unselfish man who had worked not to enrich or exalt himself, but who had worn out his life in the struggle for the welfare of his people and the glory of his church.

In his loved cathedral, the unfinished monument of his life, now draped in mourning, the last sad and solemn rites of the Catholic Church were performed by the bishops and clergy who had been ordained by him, who knew him so well and loved him so deeply. He was followed to his last resting-place by the civil and military authorities, by the clergymen of other denominations, and by hundreds of all creeds, classes, and colors, who could not be deterred by the rain, which fell in torrents, from testifying their respect for him who was honored and esteemed by all.

We may add that the late and much-lamented archbishop was ever the sincere and faithful friend of the Superior of the Paulist community. Among the first of their missions was one at St. John; and the archbishop afterwards called them also to his cathedral at Halifax. Both superior and congregation, no less than his own people, owe Dr. Connolly a debt of gratitude which it would indeed be difficult to pay.

The character of Archbishop Connolly was marked by an ardent zeal for the faith; a magnanimity which, whenever the occasion called for its exercise, rose above all human considerations whatever, even of his own life; and a charity that was not limited either by nationality, race, or religious creed.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

MEMOIRS OF THE RIGHT REVEREND SIMON WM. GABRIEL BRUTE, D.D., FIRST BISHOP OF VINCENNES. With sketches describing his recollections of scenes connected with the French Revolution, and extracts from his Journal. By the Rt. Rev. James Roosevelt Bayley, D.D., Bishop of Newark. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1876.

The Catholic Church in America has reason to be thankful that the seeds of faith were sown on her shores by some of the most eminent and holy men that ever lived. The names of Cheverus, Flaget, Carroll, Dubois, and Gallitzin might be fittingly blazoned on the same scroll with those of an Augustine, a Gregory, or an Ambrose. To the untiring labors, profound piety, and extensive learning of these men Catholic faith and sentiment in our land owe their freshness and vitality. To their devotion to the Holy See, and strictest adherence to all that is orthodox and canonical, American Catholics owe their unity and their ardent attachment to the fortunes of the Sovereign Pontiff. And if the distinguished ecclesiastics just mentioned contributed much to secure those glorious results, more still even did that prince of missionaries and model of bishops, Simon William Gabriel Bruté. The growing interest manifested in this admirable character is full, timely, and calculated to do much good. As a man he was eminently human, feeling for his fellows with a keenness of sensibility which could alone grow out of a heart that throbbed with every human emotion. This feature of high humanity also it was which gave that many-sidedness to his character, making it full-orbed and polished _ad unguem_. Thus viewed, he was in truth _totus teres atque rotundus_. His constantly-outgoing sympathies brought him into the closest relations with his people, and magnate or peasant believed that in him they had found one who could peculiarly understand themselves. Nature endowed him with just those gifts which pre-eminently fitted him for missionary life. Lithe, agile, and compactly built, he could endure exposure and privation beyond most men. Constantly cheerful, and with a mind which was a storehouse of the most varied and interesting knowledge, he could illumine darkness itself and convert despondency into joy. Travelling at all seasons and at all hours, his presence was everywhere hailed with delight, and many a cot and mansion among the regions of the Blue Ridge Mountains watched and welcomed his presence. So inured was he to hard labor that he deemed a journey of fifty-two miles in twelve hours a mere bagatelle. And the quaintness with which he relates those wonderful pedestrian achievements, interspersing his recital with humorous and sensible allusions to wayside scenes, is not only interesting, but serves often to reveal the simple and honest character of the man. His English to the end retained a slightly Gallic flavor, which, so far from impairing interest in what he has written, has lent it a really pleasing piquancy. He thus records one of his trips: “The next morning after I had celebrated Mass at the St. Joseph’s, I started on foot for Baltimore, without saying a word to anybody, to speak to the Archbishop.… Stopped at Tancytown at Father Lochi’s, and got something to eat. At Winchester found out that I had not a penny in my pocket, and was obliged to get my dinner on credit.… In going I read three hundred and eighty-eight pages in Anquetil’s history of France; … fourteen pages of Cicero _De Officiis_; three chapters in the New Testament; my Office; recited the chapelet three times.” As a worker he was indefatigable; nay, he courted toil, and the prospect of a long and arduous missionary service filled him with delight. Not content with preaching, administering the sacraments, and visiting the sick and poor, he was constantly drawing on his unbounded mental resources for magazine articles, controversial, philosophic, and historical. He longed to spread the light of truth everywhere, and to refute error and recall the erring was the chief charm of his life. He had early formed the habit of committing to paper whatever particularly impressed him, and recommended this practice to all students as the most effectual mnemonic help, and as accustoming them to precision and exactness. His admirable notes on the French Revolution were the normal outcome of the habit of close observation which this practice engendered. Nothing escaped his notice, and the slightest meritorious act on the part of a friend or acquaintance drew from him the most gracious encomiums, whilst the reproval of faults was always governed by extreme consideration and charity. Consecrated first Bishop of Vincennes, much against his will, he entered on his new field of labor with the same zeal and love of duty which had characterized him as missionary and teacher at Mt. St. Mary’s. The limitless distances he had to travel over in his infant diocese never daunted him. Four or five hundred miles on horseback, over prairie and woodland, had no terrors for him, who bore a light heart and an ever cheerful soul within him, praising and blessing God at every step for thus allowing him to do what was pleasing to the divine will. What he most regretted was his separation from the friends he left behind at Mt. St. Mary’s. He had a Frenchman’s love of places as well as of persons, and he accordingly suffered much from the French complaint of nostalgia, or home-sickness. But nothing with him stood in the way of duty; and when the _fiat_ was pronounced, he went on his new way rejoicing. His memory will grow among us “as a fair olive-tree in plains, and as a plane-tree by the waters”; “like a palm-tree in Cades, and as a rose-plant in Jericho.” When such another comes among us, our prayer should be, _Serus in cælum redeas_.

The Most Rev. Archbishop of Baltimore has honored himself by thus honoring the memory of a saintly bishop; and whoever knows the graces of style which the fluent pen of Archbishop Bayley distils will not delay a moment in obtaining this delightful volume.

THE VOICE OF CREATION AS A WITNESS TO THE MIND OF ITS DIVINE AUTHOR. Five Lectures. By Frederick Canon Oakeley, M.A. London: Burns & Oates. 1876. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

This little volume bears the undoubted impress of a high reverence for the Creator. It is not a mere refutation of atheistical opinions, as is the celebrated work of Paley, but an eloquent tribute to the divine beneficence as made manifest in the works of nature. Everywhere and in all things the author, looking through the eyes of faith, beholds the finger of God――not alone in those marvels of skill and design in which the animal and vegetable worlds abound, but in those apparent anomalies which the unseeing and unreflecting multitude often pronounce to be the dismal proofs of purposelessness. Canon Oakeley, however, is not a mere pietist, but a highly cultured, scientific man withal, and so grapples with the latest objections of godless philosophers, and disposes of them in a satisfactory manner. In his letter of approbation his Eminence Cardinal Manning thus expresses himself: “The argument of the third lecture on the ‘Vestiges of the Fall’ seems to me especially valuable. I confess the prevalence of evil, physical and moral, has never seemed to me any real argument against the goodness of the Creator, except on the hypothesis that mankind has no will, or that the will of man is not free.… If the freedom of the will has made the world actually unhappy, the original creation of God made it both actually and potentially happy.… What God made man marred.” His Eminence pronounces the book to be both “convincing and persuasive,” with which high approval we commend it to the attention of our readers.

UNION WITH OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST IN HIS PRINCIPAL MYSTERIES. For all seasons of the year. By the Rev. F. John Baptist Saint Jure, S.J. New York: Sadlier & Co. 1876.

Father Saint Jure flourished in the seventeenth century and is known as the author of several spiritual works. The present volume, which is a good translation of one of these works, published in a neat and convenient form, is intended as a help to meditation during the various seasons of the ecclesiastical year. It is very well adapted for that purpose――simple, brief, easy of use, and in every way practical.

REAL LIFE. By Madame Mathilde Froment. Translated from the French by Miss Newlin. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1876.

Real life is, generally speaking, a dull enough thing to depict. The living of a good Christian family life has nothing outwardly heroic in it, however much heroism there may be, and indeed must be, concealed under the constant calm of its exterior. For Christianity, in its smallest phase, is eminently heroic. It is just such a life that Madame Froment has taken up in the present volume, and out of it she has constructed a useful and, on the whole, an interesting narrative. The narrator is the heroine, who begins jotting down her experiences, hopes, thoughts, aspirations, while still a girl within the convent walls. On the twenty third page she is married, and thenceforth she gives us the story of her married life, its crosses and trials as well as its pleasures. The whole story is told in the first person, and in the form of a diary. This is rather a trying method, especially as in the earlier portions of the narrative Madame Froment scarcely catches the free, thoughtless spirit, the freshness and _naïveté_ of a young girl just out of a convent and entering the world. Then, too, many of the entries in the diary are remarkable for nothing but their brevity. Of course this may be a very good imitation of a diary, but too frequent indulgence in such practice is likely to make a very poor book. As the narrative advances, however, the interest deepens, and the whole will be found worthy of perusal. The translation, with the exception of an occasional localism, is free, vigorous, and happy.

SILVER PITCHERS AND INDEPENDENCE. A Centennial Love-Story. By Louisa M. Alcott. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1876.

Of course our Centennial would not be complete without its Centennial literature. We have had odes, poems, and all manner of bursts of song which might have been better, judged from a literary point of view, but which all possess the one undeniable character of genuine and unbounded enthusiasm. It was but proper, therefore, that we should have some Centennial story telling, and we are glad that the task has fallen into no worse hands then those of Miss Alcott. This lady has already recommended herself to the reading public by a series of fresh, sprightly, and very readable little volumes. She tells a story well. She is not pretentious, yet never low, and the English has not suffered at her hands. Of late it has somehow become the vogue among so-called popular writers to supply true tact and the power to enlist interest by a sort of _double-entendre_ style which, if it does not run into downright indecency, is at least prurient; and, alas! that we should have to say that our lady writers especially lay themselves open to this charge.

To our own credit be it said that this reprehensible manner of writing is more common in England than among ourselves. Miss Alcott has avoided these faults; and in saying this we consider we have said much in her praise. Her _Silver Pitchers_ is a charming little temperance story told in her best vein. It is somewhat New-Englandish, but that has its charms for some――ourselves, we must confess, among the number. Pity Miss Alcott could not understand that there are higher and nobler motives for temperance than the mere impulse it gives to worldly success and the desire to possess a good name. The siren cup will never be effectually dashed aside by the tempted ones till prayer and supernatural considerations come to their assistance.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXIV., No. 140.――NOVEMBER, 1876.

Copyright: Rev. I. T. HECKER. 1877.

THOUGHTS ON MYSTICAL THEOLOGY.

St. John of the Cross, in commenting on these two lines of the thirty-ninth stanza of his _Spiritual Canticle_:

“The grove and its beauty In the serene night,”

gives us a definition of mystical theology. “‘In the serene night’――that is, contemplation, in which the soul desires to behold the grove (God as the Creator and Giver of life to all creatures). It is called night because contemplation is obscure, and that is the reason why it is also called mystical theology――that is, the secret or hidden wisdom of God, wherein God, without the sound of words _or the intervention of any bodily or spiritual sense_, as it were in silence and repose, in the darkness of sense and nature, teaches the soul――and the soul knows not how――in a most secret and hidden way. Some spiritual writers call this ‘understanding without understanding,’ because it does not take place in what philosophers call the active intellect (_intellectus agens_), which is conversant with the forms, fancies, and apprehensions of the physical faculties, but in the intellect as it is passive (_intellectus possibilis_), which, without receiving such forms, receives passively only the substantial intelligence of them, free from all imagery.”[35]

Father Baker explains mystic contemplation as follows: “In the second place, there is a mystic contemplation which is, indeed, truly and properly such, by which a soul, without discoursings and curious speculations, without any _perceptible use_ of the internal senses or sensible images, by a pure, simple, and reposeful operation of the mind, in the obscurity of faith, simply regards God as infinite and incomprehensible verity, and with the whole bent of the will rests in him as (her) infinite, universal, and incomprehensible good.… This is properly the exercise of angels, for their knowledge is not by discourse (discursive), but by one simple intuition all objects are represented to their view at once with all their natures, qualities, relations, dependencies, and effects; but man, that receives all his knowledge first from his senses, can only by effects and outward appearances with the labor of reasoning collect the nature of objects, and this but imperfectly; but his reasoning being ended, then he can at once contemplate all that is known unto him in the object.… This mystic contemplation or union is of two sorts: 1. Active and ordinary.… 2. Passive and extraordinary; the which is not a state, but an actual grace and favor from God.… And it is called passive, not but that therein the soul doth actively contemplate God, but she can neither, when she pleases, dispose herself thereto, nor yet refuse it when that God thinks good to operate after such a manner in the soul, and to represent himself unto her _by a divine particular image, not at all framed by the soul, but supernaturally infused into her_.… As for the former sort, which is active contemplation, we read in mystic authors――Thaulerus, Harphius, etc.――that he that would become spiritual ought to practise the drawing of his external senses inwardly into his internal, there losing and, as it were, annihilating them. Having done this, he must then draw his internal senses into the superior powers of the soul, and there annihilate them likewise; and those powers of the intellectual soul he must draw into that which is called their unity, which is the principle and fountain from whence those powers do flow, and in which they are united. And, lastly, that unity (which alone is capable of perfect union with God) must be applied and firmly fixed on God; and herein, say they, consist the perfect divine contemplation and union of an intellectual soul with God. Now, whether such expressions as these will abide the strict examination of philosophy or no I will not take on me to determine; certain it is that, by a frequent and constant exercise of internal prayer of the will, joined with mortification, the soul comes to operate more and more abstracted from sense, and more elevated above the corporal organs and faculties, so drawing nearer to the resemblance of the operations of an angel or separated spirit. Yet this abstraction and elevation (perhaps) are not to be understood as if the soul in these pure operations had no use at all of the internal senses or sensible images (for the schools resolve that cannot consist with the state of a soul joined to a mortal body); but surely her operations in this pure degree of prayer are so subtile and intime, and the images that she makes use of so exquisitely pure and immaterial, that she cannot perceive at all that she works by images, so that spiritual writers are not much to be condemned by persons utterly inexperienced in these mystic affairs, if, delivering things as they perceived by their own experience, they have expressed them otherwise than will be admitted in the schools.”[36]

That kind of contemplation which is treated of in mystical theology is, therefore, a state or an act of the mind in which the intellectual operation approaches to that of separate spirits――that is, of human souls separated from their bodies, and of pure spirits or angels who are, by their essence unembodied, simply intellectual beings. Its direct and chief object is God, other objects being viewed in their relation to him. The end of it is the elevation of the soul above the sphere of the senses and the sensible world into a more spiritual condition approaching the angelic, in which it is closely united with God, and prepared for the beatific and deific state of the future and eternal life. The longing after such a liberation from the natural and imperfect mode of knowing and enjoying the sovereign good, the sovereign truth, the sovereign beauty, through the senses and the discursive operations of reason, is as ancient and as universal among men as religion and philosophy. It is an aspiration after the invisible and the infinite. When it is not enlightened, directed, and controlled by a divine authority, it drives men into a kind of intellectual and spiritual madness, produces the most extravagant absurdities in thought and criminal excesses in conduct, stimulates and employs as its servants all the most cruel and base impulses of the disordered passions, and disturbs the whole course of nature. Demons are fallen angels who aspired to obtain their deification through pride, and the fall of man was brought about through an inordinate and disobedient effort of Eve to become like the gods, knowing good and evil. An inordinate striving to become like the angels assimilates man to the demons, and an inordinate striving after a similitude to God causes a relapse into a lower state of sin than that in which we are born. The history of false religions and philosophies furnishes a series of illustrations of this statement. In the circle of nominal Christianity, and even within the external communion of the Catholic Church, heretical and false systems of a similar kind have sprung up, and the opinions and writings of some who were orthodox and well-intentioned in their principles have been tinctured with such errors, or at least distorted in their verbal expression of the cognate truths. This remark applies not only to those who are devotees of a mystical theology more or less erroneous, but also to certain philosophical writers with their disciples. Ontologism is a kind of mystical philosophy; for its fundamental doctrine ascribes to man a mode of knowledge which is proper only to the purely intellectual being, and even a direct, immediate intuition of God which is above the natural power not only of men but of angels.

There are two fundamental errors underlying all these false systems of mystical theology――or more properly theosophy――and philosophy. One is distinctively anti-theistic, the other distinctively anti-Christian; but we may class both under one logical species with the common _differentia_ of denial of the real essence and personality, and the real operation _ad extra_, of the Incarnate Word. The first error denies his divine nature and creative act, the second his human nature and theandric operation. By the first error identity of substance in respect to the divine nature and all nature is asserted; by the second, identity of the human nature and its operation with that nature which is purely spiritual. The first error manifests itself as a perversion of the revealed and Catholic doctrine of the deification of the creature in and through the Word, by teaching that it becomes one with God in its mode of being by absorption into the essence whose emanation it is, in substantial unity. The second manifests itself by teaching that the instrumentality and the process of this unification are purely spiritual. The first denies the substantiality of the soul and the proper activity which proceeds from it and constitutes its life. The second denies the difference of the human essence as a composite of spirit and body, which separates it from purely spiritual essences and marks it as a distinct species. The first error is pantheism; for the second we cannot think of any designating term more specific than idealism. Both these errors, however disguised or modified may be the forms they assume, conduct logically to the explicit denial of the Catholic faith, and even of any form of positive doctrinal Christianity. Their extreme developments are to be found outside of the boundaries of all that is denominated Christian theology. Within these boundaries they have developed themselves more or less imperfectly into gross heresies, and into shapes of erroneous doctrine which approach to or recede from direct and palpable heresy in proportion to the degree of their evolution. Our purpose is not directly concerned with any of the openly anti-Christian forms of these errors, but only with such as have really infected or have been imputed to the doctrines and writings of mystical authors who were Catholics by profession, and have flourished within the last four centuries. There is a certain more or less general and sweeping charge made by some Catholic authors of reputation, and a prejudice or suspicion to some extent among educated Catholics, against the German school of mystics of the epoch preceding the Reformation, that they prepared the way by their teaching for Martin Luther and his associates. This notion of an affinity between the doctrine of some mystical writers and Protestantism breeds a more general suspicion against mystical theology itself, as if it undermined or weakened the fabric of the external, visible order and authority of the church through some latent, unorthodox, and un-Catholic element of spiritualism. We are inclined to think, moreover, that some very zealous advocates of the scholastic philosophy apprehend a danger to sound psychological science from the doctrine of mystic contemplation as presented by the aforesaid school of writers. Those who are canonized saints, indeed, as St. Bonaventure and St. John of the Cross, cannot be censured, and their writings must be treated with respect. Nevertheless, they may be neglected, their doctrine ignored, and, through misapprehension or inadvertence, their teachings may be criticised and assailed when presented by other authors not canonized and approved by the solemn judgment of the church; and thus mystical theology itself may suffer discredit and be undervalued. It is desirable to prove that genuine mystical theology has no affinity with the Protestant heresies which subvert the visible church with its authority, or those of idealistic philosophy, but is, on the contrary, in perfect harmony with the dogmatic and philosophical doctrine of the most approved Catholic schools. It is only a modest effort in that direction which we can pretend to make, with respect chiefly to the second or philosophical aspect of the question. We must devote, however, a few paragraphs to its first or theological aspect.

From the mystery of the Incarnation necessarily follows the substantial reality of human nature as a composite of spirit and body, the excellence and endless existence, in its own distinct entity, not only of the spiritual but also of the corporeal part of man and of the visible universe to which he belongs as being an embodied spirit. The theology which springs out of this fundamental doctrine teaches a visible church, existing as an organic body with visible priesthood, sacrifice, sacraments, ceremonies, and order, as mediums subordinate to the theandric, mediatorial operation of the divine Word acting through his human nature. Sound philosophy, which is in accordance with theology, teaches also that the corporeal life and sensitive operation of man is for the benefit of his mind and his intellectual operation. He is not a purely intellectual being, but a rational animal. He must therefore derive his intelligible species or ideas by abstraction from sensible species furnished by the corporeal world to the senses, and then proceed by a discursive process of reasoning from these general ideas to investigate the particular objects apprehended by his faculties. False theology denies or undervalues the being of the created universe or the corporeal part of it. Under the pretence of making way for God it would destroy the creature, and, to exalt the spiritual part of the universe, reduce to nothing that part which is corporeal. Hence the denial of the visible church, the sacraments, the Real Presence, the external sacrifice and worship, the value of reason, the merit of good works, the essential goodness of nature, and the necessity of active voluntary co-operation by the senses and the mind with the Spirit of God in attaining perfection. The corporeal part of man, and the visible world to which it belongs, are regarded as unreal appearances, or as an encumbrance and impediment, at the best but temporary provisions for the earliest, most imperfect stage of development.

Some of the German mystics, especially Eckhardt and the author of the _Theologia Germanica_, undoubtedly prepared the way for the errors of Luther and the pantheists who followed him. But the doctors of mystic theology, the canonized saints of the church and their disciples, have invariably taught that as the human nature of Christ is for ever essentially and substantially distinct from the divine nature in the personal union, so much more the beatified, in their separate personalities, remain for ever distinct in essence and substance from God. So, also, as they teach that the body of Christ is immortal and to be adored for ever with the worship of _latria_, they maintain that the union of the soul with the body and the existence of corporeal things is for the advantage of the soul, and perpetual. It is only by comparison with supernatural life in God that natural life is depreciated by the Catholic mystics, and by comparison with the spiritual world that the corporeal world is undervalued. In a word, all things which are created and visible, even the humanity of the Word, are only mediums and instruments of the Holy Spirit; all nature is only a pedestal for grace; and the gifts and operations of grace are only for the sake of the beatific union with Christ in the Holy Spirit, in whom he is one with the Father. All things, therefore, are to be valued and employed for their utility as means to the final end, but not as ends in themselves; and, consequently, the lower are to give place to the higher, the more remote to the proximate, and that which is inferior in nature is to be wholly subordinated to that which is highest. Mystical theology is in doctrine what the lives of the great saints have been in practice. Neither can be blamed without impiety; and when the actions or doctrines of those whose lives or writings have not received solemn sanction from the church are criticised, it must be done by comparing them with the speculative and practical science of the saints as a standard.

The psychological doctrine of the doctors and other canonized authors who have treated scientifically of the nature of mystic contemplation, is not, however, placed above all critical discussion. A few important questions excepted, upon which the supreme authority of the Holy See has pronounced a judgment, the theory of cognition is an open area of discussion, and therefore explanations of the phenomena of the spiritual life, given by any author in accordance with his own philosophical system, may be criticised by those who differ from him in opinion. Those who follow strictly the psychology of St. Thomas, as contained in modern writers of the later Thomistic school, may easily be led by their philosophical opinions to suspect and qualify as scientifically untenable the common language of mystical writers. The passage quoted from Father Baker at the head of this article will furnish an illustration of our meaning. Those who are familiar with metaphysics will understand at once where the apparent opposition between scholastic psychology and mystical theology is found. For others it may suffice to explain that, in the metaphysics of the Thomists, no origin of ideas is recognized except that which is called abstraction from the sensible object, and that the precise difference of the human mind in respect to the angelic intellect is that the former is naturally turned to the intelligible in a sensible phantasm or image, whereas the latter is turned to the purely intelligible itself. Now, as soon as one begins to speak of a mode of contemplation similar to that of the angels――a contemplation of God and divine things without the intervention of images――he passes beyond the known domain of metaphysics, and appears to be waving his wings for a flight in the air, instead of quietly pacing the ground with the peripatetics.

Now, assuming the Thomistic doctrine of the origin of ideas and the specific nature of human cognition to be true, it is worthy of careful inquiry how the statements of mystical authors respecting infused contemplation are to be explained in accordance with this system. We cannot prudently assume that there is a repugnance between them. Practically, St. Thomas was one of those saints who have made the highest attainments in mystic contemplation. He is the “Angelical,” and the history of his life shows that he was frequently, and towards the close of his life almost habitually, rapt out of the common sphere of the senses, so as to take no notice of what went on before his eyes or was uttered in his hearing. His last act as an instructor in divine wisdom was an exposition of the Canticle of Solomon to the monks of Fossa Nuova, and he could no doubt have explained according to his own philosophical doctrine all the facts and phenomena of mystic contemplation, so far as these can be represented in human language. There cannot be any sufficient reason, therefore, to regard the two as dissonant or as demanding either one any sacrifice of the other.

In respect to the purely passive and supernatural contemplation, there seems, indeed, to be no difficulty whatsoever in the way. There is no question of an immediate intuition of the divine essence in this ecstatic state, so that, even if the soul is supposed to be raised for a time to an equality with angels in its intellectual acts, the errors of false mysticism and ontologism are excluded from the hypothesis. For even the angels have no such natural intuition. That the human intellect should receive immediately from angels or from God infused species or ideas by which it becomes cognizant of realities behind the veil of the sensible, and contemplates God through a more perfect glass than that of discursive reason, does not in any way interfere with the psychology of scholastic metaphysics. For the cause and mode are professedly supernatural. In the human intellect of our Lord, the perfection of infused and acquired knowledge, the beatific vision and the natural sensitive life common to all men co-existed in perfect harmony. It is even probable that Moses, the Blessed Virgin, and St. Paul enjoyed temporary glimpses of the beatific vision. Therefore, although it is true that, without a miracle, no mere man “can see God and live,” and that the ecstasies of the saints, in which there is no intuitive vision of the divine essence, but only a manifestation of divine things, naturally tend to extinguish bodily life, yet, by the power of God, the operations of the natural life can be sustained in conjunction with those which are supernatural, because they are not essentially incongruous. The only question is one of fact and evidence. Whatever may be proved to take place in souls so highly elevated, philosophy has no objection to offer; for these things are above the sphere of merely human and rational science.

The real matter of difficult and perplexing investigation relates to certain abnormal or preternatural phenomena, which seem to indicate a partial liberation of the soul from the conditions of organic life and union with the body, and to that state of mystic contemplation which is called active or acquired. In these cases there is no liberty allowed us by sound theology or philosophy of resorting to the supernatural in its strict and proper sense. We are restricted to the sphere of the nature of man and the operations which can proceed from it or be terminated to it according to the natural laws of its being. There is one hypothesis, very intelligible and perfectly in accordance with psychology, which will remove all difficulty out of the way, if only it is found adequate to explain all the certain and probable facts and phenomena which have to be considered. Father Baker furnishes this explanation as a probable one, and it no doubt amply suffices for the greatest number of instances. That is to say, we may suppose that whenever the mind seems to act without any species, image, or idea, originally presented through the medium of the senses, and by a pure, spiritual intuition, it is really by a subtile and imperceptible image which it has elaborated by an abstractive and discursive process, and which exists in the imagination, that the intellect receives the object which it contemplates.

But let us suppose that this hypothesis is found insufficient to explain all the facts to which it must be applied. Can it be admitted, without prejudice to rational psychology, that the soul may, by an abnormal condition of its relations to the body, or as the result of its efforts and habits, whether for evil or good, lawfully or unlawfully, escape from its ordinary limits in knowing and acting, and thus draw nearer to the state of separate spirits?

We must briefly consider what is the mode of knowing proper to separate spirits before we can find any data for answering this question. Here we avail ourselves of the explication of the doctrine of St. Thomas given by Liberatore in his interesting treatise on the nature of man entitled _Dell’Uomo_.[37]

St. Thomas, following St. Augustine, teaches that in the creation, the divine idea in the Word was communicated in a twofold way, spiritual and corporeal. In the latter mode this light was made to reverberate from the visible universe. In the former it was made to shine in the superior and intellectual beings――that is, the angels――producing in them ideally all that which exists in the universe really. As they approximate in intelligence to God, these ideas or intelligible species by which they know all things have a nearer resemblance to the Idea in the Divine Word――that is, approach to its unity and simplicity of intuition――are fewer and more general. As their grade of intelligence is more remote from its source, they depart to a greater and greater distance from this unity by the increasing multiplicity of their intelligible species. Moreover, the inferior orders are illuminated by those which are superior; that is, these higher beings present to them a higher ideal universe than their own, and are as if reflectors or mirrors of the divine ideas, by which they see God mediately in his works. The human soul, being the lowest in the order of intelligent spirits, is not capable of seeing objects distinctly, even in the light of the lowest order of angels. It is made with a view to its informing an organized body, and it is aided by the bodily senses and organic operations to come out of the state of a mere capacity of intelligence, in which it has no innate or infused ideas, into actual intelligence. It is naturally turned, as an embodied spirit, to inferior objects, to single, visible things, for the material term of its operation, and from these abstracts the universal ideas which are the principles of knowledge. The necessity of turning to these sensible phantasms is therefore partly the inchoate state of the intelligence of man at the beginning of his existence, partly its essential inferiority, and, in addition, the actual union of the soul with the body. There is, however, in the soul, a power, albeit inferior to that of angels, of direct, intellectual vision and cognition, without the instrumentality of sensation. When the soul leaves the body and goes into the state of a separate spirit, it has the intuition of its own essence, it retains all its acquired ideas, and it has a certain dim and confused perception of higher spiritual beings and the ideas which are in them. It is therefore, in a certain sense, more free and more perfect in its intellectual operation in the separate state than it was while united with the body. All this proceeds without taking into account in the least that supernatural light of glory which enables a beatified spirit to see the essence of God, and in him to see the whole universe.

We see from the foregoing that the necessity for using sensible images in operations of the intellect does not arise from an intrinsic, essential incapacity of the human mind to act without them. As Father Baker says, and as Liberatore distinctly asserts after St. Thomas, it is “the state of a soul joined to a mortal body” which impedes the exercise of a power inherent and latent in the very nature of the soul, as a form which is in and by itself substantial and capable of self-subsistence and action in a separate state. Remove the impediment of the body, and the spirit starts, like a spring that has been weighted down, into a new and immortal life and activity. The curtain has dropped, and it is at once in the world of spirits. The earth, carrying with it the earthly body, drops down from the ascending soul, as it does from an aeronaut going up in a balloon. “Animæ, secundum illum modum essendi, quo corpori est unita, competit modus intelligendi per conversionem ad phantasmata corporum, quæ in corporeis organis sunt. Cum autem fuerit a corpore separata, competit ei modus intelligendi per conversionem ad ea, quæ sunt intelligibilia simpliciter, sicut et aliis substantiis separatis”――“To the soul, in respect to the mode of being by union with a body, belongs a mode of understanding by turning toward the phantasms of bodies which are in the bodily organs. But when it is separated from the body, a mode of understanding belongs to it in common with other separate substances, by turning toward things simply intelligible.”[38] “Hujusmodi perfectionem recipiunt animæ separatæ a Deo, mediantibus angelis”――“This kind of perfection the separate souls receive from God through the mediation of angels.”[39] “Quando anima erit a corpore separata plenius percipere poterit influentiam a superioribus substantiis, quantum ad hoc quod per hujusmodi influxum intelligere poterit absque phantasmate _quod modo non potest_”――“When the soul shall be separated from the body, it will be capable of receiving influence from superior substances more fully, inasmuch as by an influx of this kind it can exercise intellectual perception without a phantasm, _which in its present state it cannot do_.” This language of St. Thomas and other schoolmen explains the hesitation of Father Baker in respect to certain statements of mystical authors, especially Harphius. He says, as quoted above: “This abstraction and elevation (perhaps) are not to be understood as if the soul in these pure operations had no use at all of _the internal senses or sensible images_ (for the schools resolve that cannot consist with the state of a soul joined to a mortal body).” He says “perhaps,” which shows that he was in doubt on the point. The precise question we have raised is whether there is reason for this doubt in the shape of probable arguments, or conjectures not absolutely excluded by sound philosophy. The point to be considered, namely, is whether the reception of this influx and the action of the intellect without the medium of sensible images is made absolutely impossible, unless by a miracle, by the union of the soul and body. It is a hindrance, and ordinarily a complete preventive of this kind of influx from the spiritual world into the soul, and this kind of activity properly belonging to a separate spirit. But we propose the conjectural hypothesis that there may be, in the first place, some kind of extraordinary and abnormal condition of the soul, in which the natural effect of the union with a body is diminished, or at times partially suspended. In this condition the soul would come in a partial and imperfect manner, and quite involuntarily, into immediate contact with the world of spirits, receive influences from it, and perceive things imperceptible to the senses and the intellect acting by their aid as its instruments. In the second place, that it is possible to bring about this condition unlawfully, to the great damage and danger of the soul by voluntarily yielding to or courting preternatural influences, and thus coming into immediate commerce with demons. In the third place, that it is possible, lawfully, for a good end and to the soul’s great benefit, to approximate to the angelical state by abstractive contemplation, according to the description given by Harphius and quoted by Father Baker. As for passive, supernatural contemplation, it is not possible for the soul to do more than prepare itself for the visitation of the divine Spirit with his lights and graces. In this supernatural condition it is more consonant to the doctrine of St. John of the Cross, who was well versed in scholastic metaphysics and theology; of St. Teresa, whose wisdom is called by the church in her solemn office “celestial”; and to what we know of the exalted experience of the most extraordinary saints, to suppose that God acts on the soul through the intermediate agency of angels, and also immediately by himself, without any concurrence of the imagination or the active intellect and its naturally-acquired forms. The quotation from St. John of the Cross at the head of this article, if carefully reperused and reflected on, will make this statement plain, and intelligible at least to all those who have some tincture of scholastic metaphysics.

There are many facts reported on more or less probable evidence, and extraordinary phenomena, belonging to diabolical and natural mysticism, which receive at least a plausible explanation on the same hypothesis. To refer all these to subjective affections of the external or internal senses and the imagination does not seem to be quite sufficient for their full explanation. It appears like bending and straining the facts of experience too violently, for the sake of a theory which, perhaps, is conceived in too exclusive and literal a sense. At all events it is worth investigation and discussion whether the _dictum_ of St. Thomas, _intelligere absque phantasmate modo non potest_, does not admit of and require some modification, by which it is restricted to those intellectual perceptions which belong to the normal, ordinary condition of man within the limits of the purely natural order.

[35] Complete works, vol. iii. p. 208.

[36] _Sancta Sophia_, treatise iii. sec. iv. chap. i. par. 5-12.

[37] _Dell’Uomo._ Trattato del P. Matteo Liberatore, D.C.D.G. Vol. ii. Dell’Anima Humana, seconda ed. corretta ed accresciuta. Roma. Befani: Via delle Stimate 23, 1875. Capo x. Dell’Anima separata dal Corpo.

[38] _Summ. Theol._, i. p. qu. 89, art i.

[39] Qq. disp. ii. _de Anima_, art. 19 ad 13.

AVILA.

Mira tu muro dichoso Que te rodea y corona, Pues de tantos victorioso! Mverece (en triumpho glorioso), Cada almena su corona. ――_Ariz grandezas de Avila._

It was on the 31st of January, 1876, we left the Escorial to visit the _muy leal, muy magnifica, y muy noble_ city of Avila――_Avila de los Caballeros_, once famed for its valiant knights, and their daring exploits against the Moors, but whose chief glory now is that it is the birthplace of St. Teresa, whom all Christendom admires for her genius and venerates for her sanctity.

Keeping along the southern base of the Guadarrama Mountains, whose snowy summits and gray, rock-strewn sides wore a wild, lonely aspect that was inexpressibly melancholy, we came at length to a lower plateau that advances like a promontory between two broad valleys opening to the north and south. On this eminence stands the picturesque city of Avila, the Pearl of Old Castile, very much as it was in the twelfth century. It is full of historic mansions and interesting old churches that have a solemn architectural grandeur. One is astonished to find so small a place inland, inactive, and with no apparent source of wealth, with so many imposing and interesting monuments. They are all massive and severe, because built in an heroic age that disdained all that was light and unsubstantial. It is a city of granite――not of the softer hues that take a polish like marble, but of cold blue granite, severe and invincible as the steel-clad knights who built it. The granite houses are built with a solidity that would withstand many a hard assault; the granite churches, with their frowning battlements, have the aspect of fortresses; and the granite convents with their high granite walls look indeed like “citadels of prayer.” Everything speaks of a bygone age, an age of conflict and chivalrous deeds, when the city must have been far more wealthy and powerful than now, to have erected such solid edifices. We are not in the least surprised to hear it was originally founded by Hercules himself, or one of the forty of that name to whom so many of the cities of Spain are attributed. Avila is worthy of being counted among his labors.

But whoever founded Avila, it afterwards became the seat of a Roman colony which is mentioned by Ptolemy. It has always been of strategic importance, being at the entrance to the Guadarrama Mountains and the Castiles. When Roderick, the last of the Goths, brought destruction on the land by his folly, Avila was one of the first places seized by the Moors. This was in 714. After being repeatedly taken and lost, Don Sancho of Castile finally took it in 992, and the Moors never regained possession of it. But there were not Christians enough to repeople it, and it remained desolate eighty-nine years. St. Ferdinand found it uninhabited when he came from the conquest of Seville. Alonso VI. finally commissioned his son-in-law, Count Raymond of Burgundy, to rebuild and fortify it.

Alonso VI. had already taken the city of Toledo and made peace with the Moors, but the latter, intent on ruling over the whole of the Peninsula, soon became unmindful of the treaty. In this new crisis many foreign knights hastened to acquire fresh renown in this land of a perpetual crusade. Among the most renowned were Henry of Lorraine; Raymond de St. Gilles, Count of Toulouse; and Raymond, son of Guillaume Tête-Hardie of Burgundy, and brother of Pope Calixtus II. They contributed so much to the triumph of the cross that Alonso gave them his three daughters in marriage. Urraca (the name of a delicious pear in Spain) fell to the lot of Raymond of Burgundy, with Galicia for her portion, and to him was entrusted the task of rebuilding Avila, the more formidable because it required numerous outposts and a continual struggle with the Moors. The flower of Spanish knighthood came to his aid, and the king granted great privileges to all who would establish themselves in the city. Hewers of wood, stone-cutters, masons, and artificers of all kinds came from Biscay, Galicia, and Leon. The king sent the Moors taken in battle to aid in the work. The bishop in pontificals, accompanied by a long train of clergy, blessed the outlines traced for the walls, stopping to make special exorcisms at the spaces for the ten gates, that the great enemy of the human race might never obtain entrance into the city. The walls were built out of the ruins left successively behind by the Moors, the Goths, and the Romans, to say nothing of Hercules. As an old chronicler remarks, had they been obliged to hew out and bring hither all the materials, no king would have been able to build such walls. They are forty-two feet high and twelve feet thick. The so-called towers are rather solid circular buttresses that add to their strength. These walls were begun May 3, 1090. Eight hundred men were employed in the work, which was completed in nine years. They proved an effectual barrier against the Saracen; the crescent never floated from those towers. How proud the people are of them is shown by the lines at the head of this sketch:

“Behold the superb walls that surround and crown thee, victorious in so many assaults! Each battlement deserves a crown in reward for thy glorious triumphs!”

It was thus this daughter of Hercules rose from the grave where she had lain seemingly dead so many years. Houses sprang up as by enchantment, and were peopled so rapidly that in 1093 there were about thirty thousand inhabitants. The city thus rebuilt and defended by its incomparable knights merited the name often given it from that time by the old chroniclers, _Avila de los Caballeros_.

One of these cavaliers, Zurraquin Sancho, the honor and glory of knighthood, was captain of the country forces around Avila. One day, while riding over his estate with a single attendant to examine his herds, he spied a band of Moors returning from a foray into Christian lands, dragging several Spanish peasants after them in chains. As soon as Zurraquin was perceived, the captives cried to him for deliverance. Whereupon, mindful of his knightly vows to relieve the distressed, he rode boldly up, though but slightly armed, and offered to ransom his countrymen. The Moors would not consent, and the knight prudently withdrew. But, as soon as he was out of sight, he alighted to tighten the girths of his steed, which he then remounted and spurred on by a different path. In a short time he came again upon the Moors, and crying “Santiago!” as with the voice of twenty men, he suddenly dashed into their midst, laying about him right and left so lustily that, taken unawares, they were thrown into confusion, and, supposing themselves attacked by a considerable force, fled for their lives, leaving two of their number wounded, and one dead on the field. Zurraquin unbound the captives, who had also been left behind, and sent them away with the injunction to be silent concerning his exploit.

A few days after, these peasants came to Avila in search of their benefactor, bringing with them twelve fat swine and a large flock of hens. Regardless of his parting admonition, they stopped on the Square of San Pedro, and related how he had delivered them single-handed against threescore infidels. The whole city soon resounded with so brave a deed, and Zurraquin was declared a peerless knight. The women also took up his praises and sang songs in his honor to the sound of the tambourine:

“Cantan de Oliveros, e cantan de Roldan, E non de Zurraquin, ca fue buen barragan.”[40]

A second band would take up the strain:

“Cantan de Roldan, e cantan de Olivero, E non de Zurraquin, ca fue buen caballero.”[41]

After rebuilding Avila Count Raymond of Burgundy retired to his province of Galicia, and, dying March 26, 1107, he was buried in the celebrated church of Santiago at Compostella. It was his son who became King of Castile under the name of Alonso VIII., and Avila, because of its loyalty to him and his successors, acquired a new name――_Avila del Rey_――among the chroniclers of the time.

But the city bears a title still more glorious than those already mentioned――that of _Avila de los Santos_. It was in the sixteenth century especially that it became worthy of this name, when there gathered about St. Teresa a constellation of holy souls, making the place a very Carmel, filled with the “sons of the prophets.” _Avila cantos y santos_――Avila has as many saints as stones――says an old Spanish proverb, and that is saying not a little. The city has always been noted for dignity of character and its attachment to the church.

The piety of its ancient inhabitants is attested by the number and grave beauty of the churches, with their lamp-lit shrines of the saints and their dusky aisles filled with tombs of the old knights who fought under the banner of the cross. In St. Teresa’s time it was honored with the presence of several saints who have been canonized: St. Thomas of Villanueva, St. Peter of Alcantara, St. John of the Cross, and that holy Spanish grandee, St. Francis Borgia, besides many other individuals noted for their sanctity. But St. Teresa is the best type of Avila. Her piety was as sweetly austere as the place, as broad and enlightened as the vast horizon that bounds it, and fervid as its glowing sun.

“You mustn’t say anything against St. Teresa at Avila,” said the inevitable Englishmen we met an hour after our arrival.

“We are by no means disposed to, here or anywhere else,” was our reply. On the contrary, we regarded her, with Mrs. Jameson, as “the most extraordinary woman of her age and country”; nay, “who would have been a remarkable woman in _any_ age or country.” We had seen her statue among the fathers of the church in the first Christian temple in the world, with the inscription: _Sancta Teresa, Mater spiritualis_. We had read her works, written in the pure Castilian for which Avila is noted, breathing the imagination of a poet and the austerity of a saint, till we were ready to exclaim with Crashawe:

“Oh! ’tis not Spanish, but ’tis Heaven she speaks!”

and we had come to Avila expressly to offer her the tribute of our admiration. Here she reigns, to quote Miss Martineau’s words, “as true a queen on this mountain throne as any empress who ever wore a crown!”

At this very moment we were on our way to visit the places associated with her memory. A few turns more through the narrow, tortuous streets, and we came to the ponderous gateway of San Vicente on the north side of the city, so named from the venerable church just without the walls, beloved of archæologists. But for the moment it had no attraction for us; for below, in the broad, sunny valley, we could see the monastery of the Incarnation, a place of great interest to the Catholic heart. There it was that St. Teresa, young and beautiful, took the veil and spent more than thirty years of her life. The first glimpse of it one can never forget; and, apart from the associations, the ancient towers of San Vicente on the edge of the hill, the fair valley below with its winding stream and the convent embosomed among trees, and the mountains that girt the horizon, made up a picture none the less lovely for being framed in that antique gateway. We went winding down to the convent, perhaps half a mile distant, by the _Calle de la Encarnacion_. No sweeter, quieter spot could be desired in which to end one’s days. It is charmingly situated on the farther side of the Adaja, and commands a fine view of Avila, which, indeed, is picturesque in every direction. We could count thirty towers in the city walls as we turned at the convent gate to look back. St. Teresa stopped in this same archway, Nov. 2, 1533, to bid farewell to her brother Antonio, who, on leaving her, went to the Dominican convent, where he took the monastic habit. She was then only eighteen and a half years old. The inward agony she experienced on entering the convent she relates with great sincerity, but there was no faltering in her determination to embrace the higher life. The house had been founded only about twenty years before, and the first Mass was said in it the very day she was baptized. That was more than three centuries ago. Its stout walls may be somewhat grayer, and the alleys of its large garden more umbrageous, but its general aspect must be very much the same; for in that dry climate nature does not take so kindly to man’s handiwork as in the misty north, where the old convents are all draped with moss and the ivy green. It is less peopled also. In 1550 there were ninety nuns, but now there are not more than half that number.

There is a series of little parlors, low and dim, with unpainted beams, and queer old chairs, and two black grates with nearly a yard between, through which you can converse, as through a tunnel, with the nuns. They have not been changed since St. Teresa’s time. In one of these our Lord reproved her for her conversations, which still savored too much of the world. Here, later in life, St. Francis Borgia came to see her on his way from the convent of Yuste, where he had been to visit his kinsman, Charles V. Here she saw St. Peter of Alcantara in ecstasy. In one of these parlors, now regarded as a sacred spot, she held her interviews with St. John of the Cross when he was director of the house. It is related that one day, while he was discoursing here on the mystery of the Holy Trinity, she was so impressed by his words that she fell on her knees to listen. In a short time he entered the ecstatic state, leaving St. Teresa lost in divine contemplation; and when one of the nuns came with a message, she found them both suspended in the air! For a moment they ceased to belong to earth, and its laws did not control them. A picture of this scene hangs on the wall. In a larger and more cheerful parlor some nuns of very pleasing manners of the true Spanish type showed us several objects that belonged to St. Teresa, and some of her embroidery of curious Spanish work, very nicely done, as we were glad to see; likewise, a Christ covered with bleeding wounds as he appeared to St. John of the Cross, and many other touching memorials of the past.

We next visited the church, which is large, with buttressed walls, low, square towers, and a gabled belfry. The interior is spacious and lofty, but severe in style. There is a nave, and two short transepts with a dome rising between them. It is paved with flag-stones, and plain wooden benches stand against the stone walls. The high altar, at which St. John of the Cross used to say Mass, has its gilt retable, with colonnettes and niches filled with the saints of the order, among whom we remember the prophets who dwelt on Mt. Carmel, and St. Albert, patriarch of Jerusalem. The nuns’ choir is at the opposite end of the church. We should say _choirs_; for they have two, one above the other, with double black grates, which are generally curtained. It was at the grate of the lower choir, dim and mystic as his _Obscure Night of the Soul_, that St. John of the Cross used to preach to the nuns. What sermons there must have been from him who wrote, as never man wrote, on the upward way from night to light!

The grating of this lower choir has two divisions, between which is a small square shutter, like the door of a tabernacle, on which is represented a chalice and Host. It was here St. Teresa received the Holy Communion for more than thirty years. Here one morning, after receiving it from the hand of St. John of the Cross, she was mysteriously affianced to the heavenly Bridegroom, who called her, in the language of the Canticles, by the sweet name of Spouse, and placed on her finger the nuptial ring. She was then fifty-seven years of age. A painting over the communion table represents this supernatural event.

This choir is also associated with the memory of Eleonora de Cepeda, a niece of St. Teresa’s, who became a nun at the convent of the Incarnation. She was remarkable for her detachment from earth, and died young, an angel of purity and devotion. St. Teresa saw her body borne to the choir by angels. No Mass of requiem was sung over her. It was during the Octave of Corpus Christi. The church was adorned as for a festival. The Mass of the Blessed Sacrament was chanted to the sound of the organ, and the Alleluia repeatedly sung, as if to celebrate the entrance of her soul into glory. The dead nun, in the holy habit of Mt. Carmel, lay on her bier covered with lilies and roses, with a celestial smile on her pale face that seemed to reflect the beatitude of her soul. The procession of the Host was made around her, and all the nuns took a last look at their beautiful sister before she was lowered into the gloomy vault below.[42]

In the upper choir there is a statue of St. Teresa, dressed as a Carmelite, in the stall she occupied when prioress of the house. The nuns often go to kiss the hand as a mark of homage to her memory. The actual prioress occupies the next stall below.

It will be remembered that St. Teresa passed twenty-nine years in this convent before she left to found that of San José. She afterwards returned three years as prioress, when, at her request, St. John of the Cross (who was born in a small town near Avila) was appointed spiritual director. Under the direction of these two saints the house became a paradise filled with souls of such fervor that the heavenly spirits themselves came down to join in their holy psalmody, according to the testimony of St. Teresa herself, who saw the stalls occupied by them.

“The air of Paradise did fan the house, And angels office all.”

One of St. Teresa’s first acts, on taking charge of the house, was to place a large statue of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in the upper choir, and present her with the keys of the monastery, to indicate that this womanly type of all that is sweet and heavenly was to be the true ruler of the house. This statue still retains its place in the choir, and in its hand are the keys presented by the saint.

The convent garden is surrounded by high walls. It wears the same smiling aspect as in the saint’s time, but it is larger. The neighboring house occupied by St. John of the Cross, with the land around it, has been bought and added to the enclosure. The house has been converted into an octagon chapel, called the _Ermita de San Juan de la Cruz_. The unpainted wooden altar was made from a part of St. Teresa’s cell. In this garden are the flowers and shrubbery she loved, the almond-trees she planted, the paths she trod. Here are the oratories where she prayed, the dark cypresses that witnessed her penitential tears, the limpid water she was never weary of contemplating――symbol of divine grace and regeneration. St. Teresa’s love of nature is evident on every page of her writings. She said the sight of the fields and flowers raised her soul towards God, and was like a book in which she read his grandeur and benefits. And she often compared her soul to a garden which she prayed the divine Husbandman to fill with the sweet perfume of the lowly virtues.

In the right wing of the convent is a little oratory, quiet and solitary, beloved of the saint, where an angel, all flame, appeared to the eyes of her soul with a golden arrow in his hand, which he thrust deep into her heart, leaving it for ever inflamed with seraphic love. This mystery is honored in the Carmelite Order by the annual festival of the Transverberation. Art like-wise has immortalized it. We remember the group by Bernini in the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria at Rome, in which the divine transport of her soul is so clearly visible through the pale beauty of her rapt form, which trembles beneath the fire-tipped dart of the angel. What significance in this sacred seal set upon her virginal heart, from this time rent in twain by love and penitence! _Cor contritum et humiliatum, Deus, non despicies!_ was the exclamation of St. Teresa when dying.

The sun was descending behind the proud walls of Avila when we regained the steep hillside, lighting up the grim towers and crowning them with splendor. We stopped on the brow, before the lofty portal of San Vicente, to look at its wreaths of stone and mutilated saints, and read the story of the rich man and Lazarus so beautifully told in the arch. Angels are bearing away the soul of the latter on a mantle to Abraham’s bosom. On the south side of the church is a sunny portico with light, clustered pillars, filled with tombs, some in niches covered with emblazonry, others like plain chests of stone set against the wall. We went down the steps into the church, cold, and dim, and gray, all of granite and cave-like. The pavement is composed of granite tombstones covered with inscriptions and coats of arms. There are granite fonts for the holy water. Old statues, old paintings, and old inscriptions in Gothic text line the narrow aisles. The windows are high up in the arches, which were still light, though shadows were gathering around the tombs below. There was not a soul in the church. We looked through the _reja_ that divides the nave at the beautiful Gothic shrine of San Vicente and his two sisters, Sabina and Chrysteta, standing on pillars under a richly-painted canopy, with curious old lamps burning within, and then went down a long, narrow, stone staircase into the crypt――of the third century――and kept along beneath the low, round arches till we came to a chapel where, by the light of a torch, we saw the bare rock on which the above-mentioned saints were martyred, and the _Bujo_ out of which the legendary serpent came to defend their remains when thrown out for the beasts to devour. This _Bujo_ was long used as a place of solemn adjuration, a kind of _Bocca de la Verità_, into which the perjurer shrank from thrusting his hand, but the custom has been discontinued.

The following morning we went to visit the place where St. Teresa was born. On the way we passed through the Plaza de San Juan, like an immense cloister with its arcades, which takes its name from the church on one side, where St. Teresa was baptized. The very font is at the left on entering――a granite basin fluted diagonally, surrounded by an iron railing. Over it is her portrait and the following inscription:

Vigesimo octavo Martii Teresia oborta, Aprilis ante nona est sacro hoc fonte renata MDXV.

A grim old church for so sweet a flower to first open to the dews of divine grace in; the baptismal font at one end, and the grave at the other, with cold, gray arches encircling both like the all-embracing arms of that great nursing-mother――Death. At each side of the high altar are low, sepulchral recesses, into which you look down through a grating at the coroneted tombs, before which lamps hang dimly burning. Over the altar the Good Shepherd is going in search of his lost lambs, and at the left is a great, pale Christ on the Cross, ghastly and terrible in the shadowy, torch-lit arch. The whole church is paved with tomb-stones, like most of the churches of Avila, as if the idea of death could never be separated from life. But then, which is death and which life? Is it not in the womb of the grave we awaken to the real life?

One of the most popular traditions of Avila is connected with the Square of San Juan: the defence of the city in 1109 by the heroic Ximena Blasquez, whose husband, father, and brothers were all valiant knights. The old governor of the city, Ximenes Blasquez, was dead, and Ximena’s husband and sons were away fighting on the frontier. The people, left without rulers and means of defence, came together on the public square and proclaimed her governor of the place. She accepted the charge, and proved herself equal to the emergency. Spain at this time was overrun by the Moors who had come from Africa to the aid of their brethren. They pillaged and ravaged the country as they went. Learning the defenceless state of Avila, and supposing it to contain great riches and many Moorish captives, they resolved to lay siege to it. Ximena was warned of the danger, and, instantly mounting her horse, she took two squires and rode forth to the country place of Sancho de Estrada to summon him to her aid. Sancho, though enfeebled by illness, was too gallant a knight to turn a deaf ear to the behest of ladye fair. He did not make his entrance into the city in a very knightly fashion, however. Instead of coming on his war-horse, all booted and spurred, and clad in bright armor, he was brought in a cart on two feather-beds, on the principle of Butler’s couplet, which we vary to suit the occasion:

“And feather-bed ’twixt knight urbane And heavy brunt of springless wain.”

In descending at the door of his palace at Avila he unfortunately fell and was mortally injured, and the vassals he had brought with him basely fled when they found they had no chastisement to fear.

But the dauntless Ximena was not discouraged. Determined to save the city, she went from house to house, and street to street, to distribute provisions, count the men, furnish them with darts and arrows, and assign their posts. It is mentioned that she took all the flour she could find at the bishop’s; and Tamara, the Jewess, made her a present of all the salt meat she had on hand.[43]

On the 3d of July Ximena, hearing the Moors were within two miles of the city, sent a knight with twenty squires to reconnoitre their camp and cut off some of the outposts, promising to keep open a postern gate to admit them at their return. Then she despatched several trumpeters in different directions to sound their trumpets, that the Moors might suppose armed forces were at hand for the defence of the city. This produced the effect she desired. The knight penetrated to the camp, killed several sentinels, and re-entered Avila by the postern. Ximena passed the whole night on her palfrey, making the round of the city, keeping watch on the guards, and encouraging the men. At dawn she returned to her palace, and, summoning her three daughters and two daughters-in-law to her presence, she put on a suit of armor, and, taking a lance in her hand, called upon them to imitate her, which they did, as well as all the women in the house. Thus accoutred, they proceeded to the Square of San Juan, where they found a great number of women weeping and lamenting. “My good friends,” said Ximena, “follow my example, and God will give you the victory.” Whereupon they all hastened to their houses, put on all the armor they could find, and covered their long hair with sombreros. Ximena provided them with javelins, caltrops, and gabions full of stones, and with these troops she mounted the walls in order to attack the Moors when they should arrive beneath.

The Moorish captain, approaching the city, saw it apparently defended by armed men, and, deceived by the trumpets in the night, supposed the place had been reinforced. He therefore decided to retreat.

As soon as Ximena found the enemy really gone she descended from the walls with her daughters and daughters-in-law, distributed provisions to her troops on the Square of St. John, and, after the necessary repose, they all went in procession to the church of the glorious martyrs San Vicente and his sisters, and, returning by the churches of St. Jago and San Salvador, led Ximena in triumph to the Alcazar. The fame of her bravery and presence of mind extended all over the land, and has become the subject of legend and song. A street near the church of San Juan still bears the name of Ximena Blasquez.

A convent for Carmelite friars was built in the seventeenth century on the site of St. Teresa’s family mansion, in the western part of Avila. The church, in the style of the Renaissance, faces a large, sunny square, on one side of which is a fine old palace with sculptured doors and windows and emblazoned shields. Near by is the _Posada de Santa Teresa_. The whole convent is embalmed with her memory. Her statue is over the door of the church. All through the corridors you meet her image. The cloisters are covered with frescoes of her life and that of St. John of the Cross. Over the main altar of the church, framed in the columns of the gilt retable, is an alto-relievo of St. Teresa, supported by Joseph and Mary, gazing up with suppliant hands at our Saviour, who appears with his cross amid a multitude of angels. The church is not sumptuous, but there is an atmosphere of piety about it that is very touching. The eight side-chapels are like deep alcoves, each with some scene of the Passion or the life of the Virgin. The transept, on the gospel side, constitutes the chapel of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, from which you enter a little oratory hung with lamps and entirely covered with paintings, reliquaries, and gilding, as if art and piety had vied in adorning it. It was on this spot St. Teresa first saw the light in the year 1515, during the pontificate of Leo X. A quieter, more secluded spot in which to pray could not be desired. But Avila is full of such dim, shadowy oratories, consecrated by some holy memory. Over the altar where Mass is daily offered is a statue of St. Teresa, sad as the Virgin of Many Sorrows, representing her as when she beheld the bleeding form of Christ, her face and one hand raised towards the divine Sufferer, the other hand on her arrow-pierced breast. She wears a broidered cope and golden rosary. Among the paintings on the wall are her Espousals, and Joseph and Mary bringing her the jewelled collar. Two little windows admit a feeble light into this cell-like solitude. The ceiling is panelled. Benches covered with blue cloth stand against the wall. And there are little mirrors under the paintings, in true modern Spanish taste, to increase the glitter and effect. The De Cepeda coat of arms and the family tree hang at one end, appropriate enough here. But in the church family distinctions are laid aside. There only the arms of the order of Mt. Carmel, St. Teresa’s true family, are emblazoned.

In a little closet of the oratory we were shown some relics of the saint, among which were her sandals and a staff――the latter too long to walk with, and with a small crook at the end. It might have been the emblem of her monastic authority.

Beneath the church are brick vaults full of the bones of the old friars, into which we could have thrust our hands. Their cells above are less fortunate. They are tenantless, or without their rightful inmates; for since the suppression of the monasteries in Spain only the nuns in Avila have been left unmolested. Here, at St. Teresa’s, a part of the convent has been appropriated for a normal school. We went through one of the corridors still in possession of the church. _Ave Maria, sin peccado concebida_ was on the door of every cell. We entered one to obtain some souvenir of the place, and found a studious young priest surrounded by his books and pictures, in a narrow room, quiet and monastic, with one small window to admit the light.

Then there is the garden full of roses and vines, also sequestered, where St. Teresa and her brother Rodriguez, in their childhood, built hermitages, and talked of heaven, and encouraged each other for martyrdom.

“Scarce has she learned to lisp the name Of martyr, yet she thinks it shame Life should so long play with the breath Which, spent, could buy so brave a death.”

Avila was full of the traditions of the incomparable old knights who had delivered Spain from the Moor. The chains of the Christian captives they had freed were suspended on the walls of one of the most beautiful churches in the land, and those who had fallen victims to the hate of the infidel were regarded as martyrs. The precocious imagination of the young Teresa was fired with these tales of chivalry and Christian endurance. She was barely seven years of age when she and her brother escaped from home, and took the road to Salamanca to seek martyrdom among the Moors. We took the same path when we left the convent. Leaving the city walls, and descending into the valley, we came to the Adaja, which flows along a narrow defile at the foot of Avila, over a rocky bed bordered by old mills that have been here from time immemorial, this faubourg in the middle ages having been inhabited by dyers, millers, tanners, etc. We crossed the river by the same massive stone bridge with five arches, and went on and up a sunny slope, along the same road the would-be martyrs took, through open fields strewn with huge boulders, till we came to a tall, round granite cross between four round pillars connected by stone cross-beams that once evidently supported a dome. This marks the spot where the children were overtaken by their uncle. The cross bends over, as if from the northern blasts, and is covered with great patches of bright green and yellow moss. The best view of Avila is to be had from this point, and we sat down at the foot of the cross, among the wild thyme, to look at the picturesque old town of the middle ages clearly traced out against the clear blue sky――its gray feudal turrets; its _palacios_, once filled with Spanish valor and beauty, but now lonely; the strong Alcazar, with its historic memories; and the numerous towers and belfries crowned by the embattled walls of the cathedral, that seems at once to protect and bless the city. St. Teresa’s home is distinctly visible. The Adaja below goes winding leisurely through the broad, almost woodless landscape. Across the pale fields, in yonder peaceful valley, is the convent of the Incarnation, where Teresa’s aspirations for martyrdom were realized in a mystical sense. Her brother Rodriguez was afterwards killed in battle in South America, and St. Teresa always regarded him as a martyr, because he fell in defending the cause of religion.

The next morning we were awakened at an early hour by the sound of drum and bugle, and the measured tramp of soldiers over the pebbled streets. We hurried to the window. It was not a company of phantom knights fleeing away at the dawn, but the flesh-and-blood soldiers of Alfonso XII. going to early Mass at the cathedral of San Salvador on the opposite side of the small square. We hastened to follow their example.

San Salvador, half church, half fortress, seems expressly built to honor the God of Battles. Chained granite lions guard the entrance. Stone knights keep watch and ward at the sculptured doorway. Happily, on looking up we see the blessed saints in long lines above the yawning arch, and we enter. The church is of the early pointed style, though nearly every age has left its impress. All is gray, severe, and majestic. Its cold aisles are sombre and mysterious, with tombs of bishops and knights in niches along the wall, where they lie with folded hands and something of everlasting peace on their still faces. The heart that shuts its secrets from the glare of sunlight, in these shadowy aisles unfolds them one by one, as in some mystic Presence, with vague, dreamy thoughts of something higher, more satisfying, than the outer world has yet given, or can give. The distant murmur of the priests at the altars, the twinkling lights, the tinkling bells, the bowed forms grouped here and there, the holy sculptures on the walls, all speak to the heart. The painted windows of the nave are high up in the arches, which are now empurpled with the morning sun. Below, all dimness and groping for light; above, all clearness and the radiance of heaven! _Sursum corda!_

The _coro_, as in most Spanish cathedrals, is in the body of the church, and connected with the _Capilla Mayor_ by a railed passage. The stalls are beautifully carved. Old choral books stand on the lecterns ready for service. The outer wall of the choir is covered with sculptures of the Renaissance representing the great mysteries of religion, of which we never tire. Though told in every church in Christendom, they always seem told in a new light, and strike us with new force, as something too deep for mortal ever to fathom fully. They are the alphabet of the faith, which we repeat and combine in a thousand different ways in order to obtain some faint idea of God’s manifestations to us who see here but darkly.

These mysteries are continued in the magnificent retable of the time of Ferdinand and Isabella in the _Capilla Mayor_, where they are richly painted on a gold ground by Berruguete and other famous artists of the day, and now glorious under the descending morning light. It is the same sweet Rosary of Love that seems to have caught new lights, more heavenly hues.

The interesting chapels around the apsis are lighted by small windows like mere loop-holes cut through walls of enormous thickness. In the ambulatory we come to the beautiful alabaster tomb of Alfonso de Madrigal, surnamed _El Tostado_, the tawny, from his complexion, and _El Abulense_, Abula being the Latin for Avila. He was a writer of such astonishing productiveness that he left behind him forty-eight volumes in folio, amounting to sixty thousand pages. It is to be feared we shall never get time to read them, at least in _this_ world. He became so proverbial that Don Quixote mentions some book as large as all the works of _El Tostado_ combined, as if human imagination could go no farther. Leigh Hunt speaks of some Spanish bishop as probably writing his homilies in a room ninety feet long! He must have referred to _El Tostado_. He is represented on his tomb sitting in a chair, pen in hand, and eyes half closed, as if collecting his thoughts or listening to the divine inspiration. His jewelled cope, embroidered with scenes of the Passion, is beautifully carved. Below him are the Virtues in attendance, as in life, and above are scenes of Our Lord’s infancy, which he loved. This tomb is one of the finest works of Berruguete.

Further along we opened a door at a venture, and found ourselves in the chapel of San Segundo, the first apostle of Avila, covered with frescoes of his life. His crystal-covered shrine is in the centre, with an altar on each of the four sides, behind open-work doors of wrought brass. The chapel was quiet and dim and solemn, with burning lamps and people at prayer. Then, by another happy turn, we came into a large cloister with chapels and tombs, where the altar-boys were at play in their red cassocks and short white tunics. The church bells now began to ring, and they hurried away, leaving us alone to enjoy the cloistral shades.

When we went into the church again the service had been commenced, the _Capilla Mayor_ was hung with crimson and gold, candles were distributed to the canons, who, in their purple robes, made the round of the church, the wax dripping on the tombstones that paved the aisles, and the arches resonant with the dying strains of the aged Simeon: _Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine!_ For it was Candlemas-day.

The cathedral of San Salvador was begun in 1091, on the site of a former church. The pope, at the request of Alonso VI., granted indulgences to all who would contribute to its erection. Contributions were sent, not only from the different provinces of Spain, but from France and Italy. More than a thousand stone-cutters and carpenters were employed under the architect Garcia de Estella, of Navarre, and the building was completed in less than sixteen years.

After breakfast we left the city walls and came out on the Square of San Pedro, where women were filling their jars at the well in true Oriental fashion, the air vocal with their gossip and laughter. Groups of peasant women had come up from the plains for a holiday, and were sauntering around the square or along the arcades in their gay stuff dresses, the skirts of which were generally drawn over their heads, as if to show the bright facings of another color. Yellow skirts were faced with red peaked with green; red ones faced with green and trimmed with yellow. When let down, they stood out, in their fulness, like a farthingale, short enough to show their blue stockings. Their hair, in flat basket-braids, was looped up behind with gay pins. We saw several just such glossy black plaits among the votive offerings in the oratory of St. Teresa’s Nativity.

We stopped awhile in the church of San Pedro, of the thirteenth century――like all of the churches of Avila, well worth visiting――and then kept on to the Dominican convent of St. Thomas, a mile distant, and quite in the country. This vast convent is still one of the finest monuments about Avila, though deserted, half ruined, and covered with the garment of sadness. It was here St. Teresa’s brother Antonio retired from the world and died while in the novitiate. We visited several grass-grown cloisters with fine, broad arches; the lonely cells once inhabited by the friars, commanding a fine view over the rock-strewn moor and the Guadarrama Mountains beyond; the infirmary, with a sunny gallery for invalids to walk in, and windows in the cells so arranged opposite each other that all the sick could from their beds attend Mass said in the oratory at the end; the refectory, with stone tables and seats, and defaced paintings on the walls; the royal apartments, looking into a cloister with sculptured arches, and everywhere the arrows and yoke, emblems of Ferdinand and Isabella; and the broad stone staircase leading to the church where lies their only son Juan in his beautifully-sculptured Florentine tomb of alabaster, now sadly mutilated. On one side of this fine church is a chapel with the confessional once used by St. Teresa. It was here, on Assumption day, 1561, while attending Mass, and secretly deploring the offences she had confessed here, she was ravished in spirit and received a supernatural assurance that her sins were forgiven her. She was herself clothed in a garment of dazzling whiteness, and, as a pledge of the divine favor, a necklace of gold, to which was attached a jewelled cross of unearthly brilliancy, was placed on her neck. There is a painting of this vision on one side of the chapel, as well as in several of the churches of Avila. Mary Most Pure, in all the freshness of youth, appears with St. Joseph, bearing the garment of purity and the collar of wrought gold――a sweet yoke of love she received just before she founded the convent of San José.

Pedro Ybañez, a distinguished Dominican, who combined sanctity with great acquirements, and has left several valuable religious works, was a member of this house. He was one of St. Teresa’s spiritual advisers, and the first to order her to write her life.

We were glad to learn that this convent has been purchased by the bishop of Avila, and is about to be restored to the Dominican Order.

The Jesuit college of San Ginès, likewise among the things of the past, has some interesting associations. It was founded by St. Francis Borgia, and in it lived for a time the saintly Balthazar Alvarez, the confessor _par excellence_ of St. Teresa, who said her soul owed more to him than to any one else in the world. She saw him one day at the altar crowned with light, symbolic of the fervor of his devotion. He was a consummate master of the spiritual life, and the guide of several persons at Avila noted for their sanctity.

One day we walked entirely around the walls of Avila, and came about sunset to a terrace at the west, overlooking a vast plain towards Estramadura. The fertile Vega below, with the stream winding in long, silvery links; the purple mist on the mountains that stood against the golden sky; the snowy range farther to the left, rose-flushed in the sunset light, made the view truly enchanting. We could picture to ourselves this plain when it was filled with contending hosts――the Moslem with the floating crescent, the glittering ranks of Christian knights with the proudly streaming cross and the ensigns of Castile, the peal of bugle and clash of arms, and perchance the bishop descending with the clergy from his _palacio_ just above us to encourage and bless the defenders of the land.

Now only a few mules were slowly moving across the plain with the produce of peaceful labor, and the soft tinkle of the convent bells, calling one to another at the hour of prayer, the only sounds to break the melancholy silence.

Near by is the church of Santiago, where the _caballeros_ of Avila used to make their _veillée des armes_ before they were armed knights, and with what Christian sentiments may be seen from an address, as related by an old chronicle, made by Don Pelayo, Bishop of Oviedo, to two young candidates in this very church, after administering the Holy Eucharist. It must be remembered this was at the end of the eleventh or beginning of the twelfth century, being in the reign of Alonso VI., to whom the rebuilding of Avila was due:

“My young lords, who are this day to be armed knights, do you comprehend thoroughly what knighthood is? Knighthood means nobility, and he who is truly noble will not for anything in the world do the least thing that is low or vile. Wherefore you are about to promise, in order to fulfil your obligations unfalteringly, to love God above all things; for he has created you and redeemed you at the price of his Blood and Passion. In the second place, you promise to live and die subject to his holy law, without denying it, either now or in time to come; and, moreover, to serve in all loyalty Don Alonso, your liege lord, and all other kings who may legitimately succeed him; to receive no reward from rich or noble, Moor or Christian, without the license of Don Alonso, your rightful sovereign. You promise, likewise, in whatever battles or engagements you take part, to suffer death rather than flee; that on your tongue truth shall always be found, for the lying man is an abomination to the Lord; that you will always be ready to fly to the assistance of the poor man who implores your aid and seeks protection, even to encounter those who may have done him injustice or outrage; that you be ready to protect all matrons or maidens who claim your succor, even to do battle for them, should the cause be just, no matter against what power, till you obtain complete redress for the wrong they may have endured. You promise, moreover, not to show yourselves lofty in your conversation, but, on the contrary, humble and considerate with all; to show reverence and honor to the aged; to offer no defiance, without cause, to any one in the world; finally, that you receive the Body of the Lord, having confessed your faults and transgressions, not only on the three Paschs of the year, but on the festivals of the glorious St. John the Baptist, St. James, St. Martin, and St. George.”

Which the two young lords, who were the bishop’s nephews, solemnly swore to perform. Whereupon they were dubbed knights by Count Raymond of Burgundy, after which they departed for Toledo to kiss the king’s hand.

Not far from the church of Santiago is the convent of Nuestra Señora de la Gracia on the very edge of the hill, inhabited by Augustinian nuns. The church stands on the site of an ancient mosque. The entrance is shaded by a portico with granite pillars. Our guide rang the bell at the convent door, saying: “_Ave Maria Purissima!_” “_Sin peccado concebida_,” responded a mysterious voice within, as from an oracle. St. Teresa attended school here, and several memorials of her are shown by the nuns. St. Thomas of Villanueva, the Almsgiver, who is said to have made his vows as an Augustinian friar the very day Luther publicly threw off the habit of the order, was for a time the director of the house, and often preached in the church, which we visited. It consists of a single aisle, narrow and lofty, with the gilt retable over the altar, as in all the Spanish churches, and a tomb or two of some Castilian noblemen at the side. The pulpit, in which saints have preached, is a mere circular rail against the wall, ascended by steps. When used it is hung with drapery. On the same side of the church is a picture of the young Teresa beside her teacher, Maria Briceño, a nun of fervent piety, to whom the saint said she was indebted for her first spiritual light. This nun, who, it appears, conversed admirably on religious subjects, told her pupil one day how in her youth she was so struck on reading the words of the Gospel, “Many are called, but few are chosen,” that she resolved to embrace the monastic life; and she dwelt on the rewards reserved for those who abandon all things for the love of Christ――a lesson not lost on the eager listener.

At the end of the church is a large grating, through which we looked into the choir of the nuns, quiet and prayerful, with its books and pictures and stalls. Two nuns, with sweet, contemplative faces, were at prayer, dressed in queer pointed hoods and white mantles over black habits. At the sides of the communion wicket stood the angel of the Annunciation and Raphael with his fish――gilded statues of symbolic import.

One of the most interesting places in Avila is the convent of San José, on the little Plaza de las Madres, the first house of the reform established by St. Teresa. The convent and high walls are all of granite and prison-like in their severity of aspect, but we were received with a kindness by the inmates that convinced us there was nothing severe in the spirit within. It is true we found the doors most inhospitably closed and locked, even those of the outer courts generally left open, and we were obliged to hunt up the chaplain, who lived in the vicinity, to come to our aid. We thought he would prove equally unsuccessful in obtaining entrance, for he rang repeatedly (giving three strokes each time to the bell, we noticed), and it was a full quarter of an hour before any one concluded to answer so unwelcome a summons from the outer world. We began to suppose them all in the state of ecstasy, and the nun who at length made――her appearance, we were going to say――herself audible spoke to us from some inaccessible depth in a voice absolutely beatific, as if she had just descended from the clouds. We never heard anything so calm and sweet and well modulated. Thanks to her, we saw several relics of St. Teresa, whom she invariably spoke of as “Our holy Mother.” She also gave us bags of almonds and filberts, and branches of laurel, from the trees planted in the garden by the holy hands of their seraphic foundress.

The church of this convent is said to be the first church ever erected in honor of St. Joseph. There were several chapels before, which bore his name, in different parts of Europe――for example, one at Santa Maria ad Martyres at Rome――but no distinct church. St. Teresa was the great propagator of the devotion to St. Joseph, now so popular throughout the world. Of the first eighteen monasteries of her reform, thirteen were placed under his invocation; and in all she inculcated this devotion, and had his statue placed over one of the doors. She left the devotion as a legacy to the order, which has never ceased to extend it. At the end of the eighteenth century there were one hundred and fifty churches of St. Joseph in the Carmelite Order alone. His statue is over the door of the church at Avila, and beside him stands the Child Jesus with a saw in his hand. “For is not this the carpenter’s son?”

The church consists of a nave with round arches and six side chapels, the severity of which is relieved by the paintings and inevitable gilt retables. A statue of St. Joseph stands over the altar. The grating of the nuns’ choir is on the gospel side, opposite which is a painting of St. Teresa with pen in hand and the symbolic white dove at her ear. _Jesus_, _Maria_, _José_ are successively carved on the key-stones of the arches of the nave.

The first chapel next the epistle side of the altar contains the tomb of Lorenzo de Cepeda, St. Teresa’s brother, who entered the army and went to South America about the year 1540, where he became chief treasurer of the province of Quito. Having lost his wife, a woman of rare merit (it is related she died in the habit of Nuestra Señora de la Merced), he returned to Spain with his children, after an absence of thirty four years, and established himself at a country-seat near Avila. He had a great veneration for his sister, and placed himself under her spiritual direction. Not to be separated from her, even in death, he founded this chapel at San José’s, which he dedicated to his patron, San Lorenzo, as his burial-place. His tomb is at the left as you enter, with the following inscription: “On the 26th of June, in the year 1580, fell asleep in the Lord Lorenzo de Cepeda, brother of the holy foundress of this house and all the barefooted Carmelites. He reposes in this chapel, which he erected.”

In the same tomb lies his daughter Teresita, who entered a novice at St. Joseph’s at the age of thirteen and died young, an angel of innocence and piety.

Another chapel was founded by Gaspar Daza, a holy priest of Avila, who gathered about him a circle of zealous clergymen devoted to works of charity and the salvation of souls. His reverence for St. Teresa induced him to build this chapel, which he dedicated to the Nativity of the Virgin, with a tomb in which he lies buried with his mother and sister. It was he who said the first Mass in the church, Aug. 24, 1562, and placed the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle, after which he gave the veil to four novices, among whom was Antonia de Hanao, a relative of St. Teresa’s, who attained to eminent piety under the guidance of St. Peter of Alcantara, and died prioress of the Carmelites of Malaga, where her memory is still held in great veneration. At the close of this ceremony St. Peter of Alcantara, of the Order of St. Francis; Pedro Ybañez, the holy Dominican, and the celebrated Balthazar Alvarez, of the Society of Jesus, offered Masses of thanksgiving. What a reunion of saints! On that day――the birthday of the discalced Carmelites――St. Teresa laid aside her family name, and took that of Teresa de Jésus, by which she is now known throughout the Christian world.

Among the early novices at San José was a niece of St. Teresa’s, Maria de Ocampo, beautiful in person and gifted in mind, who, from the age of seventeen, resolved to be the bride of none but Christ. She became one of the pillars of the order, and died prioress of the convent at Valladolid, so venerated for her sanctity that Philip III. went to see her on her death-bed, and recommended himself and the kingdom of Spain to her prayers. Her remains are in a tomb over the grating of the choir in the Carmelite convent at Valladolid, suspended, as it were, in the air, among other holy virgins who sleep in the Lord.

Another niece of St. Teresa’s,[44] who belonged to one of the noblest families of Avila, also entered the convent of San José. Her father, Alonso Alvarez, was himself regarded as a saint. Maria was of rare beauty, but, though left an orphan at an early age with a large fortune, she rejected all offers of marriage as beneath her, and finally chose the higher life. All the nobility of Avila came to see her take the veil. Here her noble soul found its true sphere. She rose to a high degree of piety, and succeeded St. Teresa as prioress of the house.

Another chapel at San José, that of St. Paul, at the right as you go in, was founded by Don Francisco de Salcedo, a gentleman of Avila, who was a great friend of St. Teresa’s, as well as his wife, a devout servant of God and given to good works. St. Teresa says he lived a life of prayer, and in all the perfection of which his state admitted, for forty years. For twenty years he regularly attended the theological course at the convent of St. Thomas, then in great repute, and after his wife’s death took holy orders. He greatly aided St. Teresa in her foundations, and accompanied her in her journeys. He lies buried in his chapel of St. Paul.

Not far from St. Joseph’s is the church of St. Emilian, in the tribune of which Maria Diaz, also a friend of St. Teresa’s, spent the last forty years of her life in perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, which she called her dear neighbor, never leaving her cell, excepting to go to confession and communion at St. Ginès; for she was under the direction of Balthazar Alvarez. She had distributed all her goods to the poor, and now lived on alms. The veil that covers the divine Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar was rent asunder for her, and, when she communed, her happiness was so great that she wondered if heaven itself had anything more to offer. St. Teresa saying one day how she longed to behold God, Maria, though eighty years of age, and bowed down by grievous infirmities, replied that she preferred to prolong her exile on earth, that she might continue to suffer. “As long as we remain in the world,” she said, “we can give something to God by supporting our pains for his love; whereas in heaven nothing remains but to receive the reward for our sufferings.” Dying in the odor of sanctity, she was so venerated by the people that she was buried in the choir of the church, at the foot of the very tabernacle to which her adoring eyes had been unceasingly turned for forty years.

We have mentioned, too briefly for our satisfaction, some of the persons, noted for their eminent piety, who made Avila, at least in the sixteenth century, a city _de los Santos_. It is a disappointment not to find here the tomb of her who is the crowning glory of the place. The expectations of Lorenzo de Cepeda were not realized. He does not sleep in death beside his sainted sister. The remains of St. Teresa are at Alba de Tormes, where she died, in a shrine of jasper and silver given by Ferdinand VII. It stands over the high altar of the Carmelite church, thirty feet above the pavement, where it can be seen from the choir of the nuns, and approached by means of an oratory behind, where they go to pray. Her heart, pierced by the angel, is in a reliquary below.

We left Avila with regret. Few places take such hold on the heart. For those to whom life has nothing left to offer but long sufferance it seems the very place to live in. The last thing we did was to go to the brow of the hill by San Vicente, and take a farewell look at the convent of the Incarnation, where still so many

“Willing hearts wear quite away their earthly stains”

in one of the fairest, happiest of valleys. How long we might have lingered there we cannot say, had not the carriage come to hurry us to the station. And so, taking up life’s burden once more, which we seemed to have laid down in this City of the Saints, we went on our pilgrim way, repeating the lines St. Teresa wrote in her breviary:

“Nada te turbe, Let nothing disturb thee, Nada te espante, Let nothing affright thee; Todo se pasa. All passeth away. Dios no se muda. God alone changeth not. La pacienza Patience to all things Todo se alcanza, Reacheth, and he who Quien a Dios tiene, Fast by God holdeth, Nada le falta; To him naught is wanting; Solo Dios basta.” Alone God sufficeth.

[40] “Some sing of Oliver, and some of Roldan: We sing of Zurraquin, the brave partisan.”

[41] “Some sing of Roland, and others Oliver: We sing of Zurraquin, the brave cavalier.”

[42] See _Life of St. Teresa_.

[43] The butchery, at the repeopling of Avila, was given to Benjamin, the Jew, and his sister. There seem to have been a good many Jews in the streets now called St. Dominic and St. Scholastica.

[44] See _Life of St. Teresa_.

ST. TERESA.

“To suffer or to die.”

The air came laden with the balmy scent Of citron grove and orange; far beyond The cloister wall, like towering battlement, Sierra’s frowning range rich colors donned From ling’ring Day-Star’s robe; and brilliant hues Floated like banners on palatial clouds. Light floods the river, parts its mist-like shrouds; Each ripple soft, prismatic gleams transfuse. Below Avila lay; its cross-lit spires Blended their even-chime with seraph lyres; O’er mount and vale pealed out their call to prayer, And stole with joy upon the list’ning air.

Within the cloister’s fragrant, bowery shade, Gemmed with España’s blooms ’mid velvet lawns, Soft carols stirring leafy bough and glade, Teresa muses; on her chaste brow dawns A light celestial――peace and hope and love. The wasted form, than bending flower more frail, Is draped in Carmel’s saintly robe and veil. The pale, ethereal face is bowed; those eyes Whose gaze has revelled in the courts above, Now pearled with tears, are bent in mournful guise On image of the Crucified within Her fingers’ slender clasp; in sacred trance Now rapt, its mysteries are revealed; dark sin In ghastly horror rises; now her glance On bleeding form, pierced brow, is fixed; once more Upon those wounded shoulders, drenched in gore, The cross hangs trembling; o’er her soul, Transpierced with love, deep floods of anguish roll; And burning words her holy passion tell, Like fountain gushing from her heart’s deep cell:

“O earth! break forth in groans; ease thou my pain! Ye rivers, ocean, weep! My Love is slain! My Jesus dies, and I―― I cannot die, but through this exile moan A stranger, midst of multitudes alone, And vainly seek to fly Where harps ten thousand wake the echoing sky; My solace here, to suffer or to die!

“O Jesus! long and wildly have I striven, By fast and penance this vile body driven To thy sweet yoke to yield; And agonies of death have seized this frame, Dark devils made of me their mock and shame, Thou, thou alone my shield. A bower of roses!――looms so steep and high The path I strain, to suffer or to die!

“Thou walk’st before! O thorn-lined path and cross! A sceptred queen I walk, on beds of moss, Nor fear the dark, dark night. Love strains my sorrows to my heart with grasp Stronger than aught on earth, save God’s dear clasp Of soul beloved. The height Will soon appear; the glory I descry: Strength, Lord, with thee I suffer or I die!

“Augment my woes! Let flesh and spirit share Each separate pang thou, Crucified, didst bear, Nor drop of comfort blend. Let death’s stern anguish be my daily bread, Thy lance transfix my heart, thorns crown my head―― Pain, torture to the end; And while death’s angel seals my glazing eye, Heart, soul shall yearn to suffer or to die!”

Great soul! be comforted: thy prayer is heard More huge and terrible than human word May utter, mortal heart conceive, the throng Of woes that haste from Calvary to greet Thy every step. Like Jesus, hate and wrong Shall make of thee their jest; as purest wheat Thou shalt be crushed, yet newer life shalt claim; Slander, the hydra-tongued, shall cloud thy name; Treason with thee break bread; toil, hunger, cold, Thy daily ’tendants far from these sweet bowers. A score of years thy sorrows still enfold, But myriad souls shall feast on thy dark hours Through centuries to come, and learn of thee The path to peace, and prayer’s sweet mystery. The seraph waits with flaming lance to dart The fires of heaven within thy yearning heart, And up, far up the Mount of God will lead Thee face to face, as patriarch of old, With God; unveiled the Trinity shalt read, And its resplendent mysteries unfold To future doctors of the sacred lore. Then mount thy blood-stained path, heroic saint! While brave men stand aghast, strong hearts grow faint, Teresa’s seraph-soul its plaint shall pour Unsated yet: “More suffering, Lord, yet more!” M. S. P.

SIX SUNNY MONTHS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC.