CHAPTER II.

MRS. MONTEAGLE.

“Heaven knows I wish Darrell a long life and a happy one,” said Colonel Redacre, heaving a sigh from the bottom of his heart; “but when one sees how he suffers from this terrible rheumatism, one can’t help feeling that death would be a blessed release to him, poor fellow!”

“It is dreadful! I wonder if he has ever tried homœopathy?” said Mrs. Redacre.

“Not he! He is too out-and-out a conservative to go in for any of those new-fangled systems,” replied the colonel.

“That is so foolish! I really think I will write and urge him to call in a homœopathist.”

“It would not be of the slightest use,” said her husband.

“My dear Hugh! How can you say that when you know that my father’s life was prolonged ten years by homœopathy? You know Dr. New rescued him, one may say, out of his coffin that time.”

“I mean there would be no use in your writing to Darrell about it. He would laugh at you.”

“I don’t mind his laughing, if I could persuade him to try it. He has always been civil to me, and I have not written to him for an age. I will write to him this very day.”

“You will do nothing of the sort,” snapped the colonel; “he is quite old enough to manage his own affairs and look after his own health.”

“My dear Hugh, a man never knows how to manage himself,” protested Mrs. Redacre gently. “You all want a woman to do that for you; and it seems to me the dean is a particularly helpless creature. He does absolutely nothing for his rheumatism, and if it goes on as he describes it it may go to his heart one of these days and carry him off in an instant.”

“Do as you like; you always get your own way,” said the colonel. “My opinion is you had better not meddle with Darrell’s concerns; if he gives in to you, and if the rheumatism goes to the heart, people will say it was homœopathy that killed him.”

“Let them say what they like. The rheumatism is much more likely to kill him if it is left to itself. If he goes on in this agony without something being done to relieve him, he can’t hold out many months, I feel certain.”

“Do as you like, do as you like,” said the colonel.

“Now, don’t say that, my dear Hugh. You know how I hate you to give in to me in that way. I won’t write, if it annoys you.”

“Why the deuce should it annoy me? You don’t suppose I wish him dead? Heaven knows I want the money. It is becoming impossible to make ends meet on our present income, and things grow worse and worse in this infernal country, where the rent is perpetually being raised, and where a tradesman can’t send in a bill without announcing that _tout est augmenté, monsieur_, as an excuse for swelling his items. I don’t know where it is to end—I don’t, indeed.”

“We have no debts, at any rate, thank Heaven!” said Mrs. Redacre.

“No,” assented her husband; “I would rather live on beefsteaks and beer than swindle a tradesman. All the same it is hard work, this screwing one’s wants within one’s income; and poor Darrell, if the Almighty called him away, could not leave his money to anybody harder up for it than myself.”

Mrs. Redacre made no comment, but went on sorting her wools, while her husband turned over the pages of the newspaper with an ill-humored jerk and an occasional grunt. She was puzzled and pained. Could it be possible that his reluctance to let her write to the dean sprang from any unworthy motive?—he who was so emphatic in declaring in season and out of season that he devoutly wished his cousin to outlive him, that it was only on account of his children he cared for the inheritance, his present income sufficing for his own wants; and as to ambitions, he had none.

Every now and then within the last few years Col. Redacre had thrown out hints of some remote but possible catastrophe overtaking them all; he never said anything definite, but in a vague, moody way would remark that there was no saying what straits they might not be one day reduced to, and that it was well to look the danger in the face, so as not to be taken altogether by surprise if a catastrophe occurred. When he first took to saying this sort of thing Mrs. Redacre was very miserable, and conjured up all kinds of dreadful spectres to explain the mysterious words. She first thought he gambled; but after watching him for a time as a cat watches a bird, she gave that up and took to suspecting him of betting on the turf; but this, too, proved itself a chimera. Then she began to suspect him of having made some bad investments and being in terror of a sudden collapse; but this was in its turn dispelled by a conversation with their man of business, who assured her that Col. Redacre’s money—or rather his wife’s, for he had, so to speak, none of his own—was safe beyond the reach of speculating schemers. When everything was tried and found non-proven Pearl set down the gloomy forebodings to Balaklava.

“You may be sure, mamma, it is all the east wind or some turn in the weather—nothing else. I have noticed that we never hear of the ‘catastrophe’ except when Balaklava is worrying papa.” And Mrs. Redacre was thankful to believe that this was really the word of the riddle.

Mrs. Monteagle lived on the floor above the Redacres. She received on no particular evening, but she was at home every evening in general, seldom going out anywhere except to her old friends’ on the entresol. Pearl and Polly were up and down all day long with her, and she declared they hardly ever came near her.

“Why should you, my dears? A tiresome old woman—what should you young things have to say to her? But I am very glad whenever you have time to pop in for five minutes. Not that I care much about seeing anybody. One gets selfish as one grows old; one cares for nobody. And really, living amongst these French people, it is no wonder. What a set they are, to be sure! And what a government! Good gracious! when I remember how it used to be when I came to Paris first. We had a court then, and real nobles attended it. They were not much to look at, I must say; you never saw such toilettes in your life as they used to wear coming to make their court to Mme. d’Angoulême, and the Duchesse de Berri, and all of them. But it was much pleasanter. People got themselves up like guys, but nobody minded that, and they had not to ruin themselves in fine clothes. I remember one evening the Duchesse de R—— presented herself in a dyed pea-green gown with dirty feathers and lace that was the color of strong tea. I felt ashamed for her, poor thing!—I did indeed; but, goodness me! nobody saw it, I believe, but myself; the Duchesse d’Angoulême received her as if she had been dressed like the Queen of Saba. They knew how to receive, those princesses—not like this little woman you have at the Tuileries now. But it won’t last, my dear. Things are going from bad to worse, I hear. People fancy that because I don’t go _dans le monde_, as they call it, I know nothing about what is going on. Ha! ha!” And the old lady shook her finger at some invisible contradictor. “I can tell you I know a great deal more than any of you. I hear many things that I keep to myself; but I can tell you things are looking very badly indeed. I suppose you are going to the ball at the Tuileries to-morrow night, all of you?”

“Polly and I have our dresses ready,” said Pearl; “but I am afraid papa won’t be well enough to come with us.”

“What’s amiss with him? Balaklava troublesome?”

“Yes, dreadfully. I wonder if Mme. Léopold is going? I dare say she would take us, if papa asked her.”

“He mustn’t, though; he mustn’t do that, my dear,” said Mrs. Monteagle very emphatically; and then, seeing Pearl’s brown eyes widening in wonder, she added. “It would never do to have you sallying in after Blanche, my dear; three young girls in a group are sure to interfere with each other. It wouldn’t do at all.”

“What a funny idea!” And Pearl laughed merrily.

“And besides, the Léopolds are such out-and-out Bonapartists your father would not care to have you appear under their flag,” continued the old lady; “not that he thinks as much of that as he ought to do, I’m sorry to say. We English get into very loose ways when we live abroad; going to the theatre on Sunday, and going to these pinchbeck people at the Tuileries, and doing all sorts of improper things. It is very naughty of us—it is indeed; for we ought to know better. As to those French people, one never expects anything from them; there is no truth in them; they all tell lies, every one of them—they do indeed, my dear.”

“If we can’t go with Mme. Léopold I don’t see whom we can go with,” said Pearl musingly. “Polly will be awfully disappointed. There was to be a cotillon; it is in honor of the little archduchess. She can’t wait for the _petit Lundi_, and the empress said she should have the cotillon to-night. Polly would have looked so lovely in her new dress!”

“Where do you expect to go in the next world, you vain minx!” said Mrs. Monteagle. “You are a great deal too conceited about Polly.”

Pearl laughed.

“Is there to be anybody at this ball to-morrow that she is particularly anxious not to disappoint?” inquired the old lady, looking hard at Pearl.

“No; she doesn’t care a straw for one of them. I wonder if she ever will? I can’t imagine Polly in love.” And Pearl laughed gently to herself.

“More’s the pity. I don’t like a girl who goes flirting on her way, making every man she meets fall in love with her, and not caring a straw for one of them. I suppose she means to marry for money, or rank, or something of that sort.”

“O dear Mrs. Monteagle! how could you say such a thing of Polly?” said Pearl. “She is incapable of marrying for anything but love!”

“Then, you silly puss, what did you mean by saying that she could not fall in love?”

“I meant—well, I don’t know exactly. Only there is nobody going to-morrow that she is the least in love with.”

“And you? Is there to be any one you are not cruel to? Come, tell me all about them like a good child.”

Pearl tossed back her sunny head and laughed.

“As if anybody would look at me when Polly is there!”

“Nonsense! that is a matter of taste. If I were a young man I know what would be my taste,” said Mrs. Monteagle; “and I shrewdly suspect there is a certain young gentleman who is of the same opinion.” She looked steadily at Pearl as she said this, and, raising a finger, shook it at the laughing, astonished face. Pearl looked as unconscious as a baby at first, but as the finger continued its slow, significant shake she grew a little confused, then she blushed, first slightly, but the pink tint rapidly deepened to scarlet and spread all over her face and neck.

“Ha! you naughty puss. I knew I should find you out,” said Mrs. Monteagle with a mischievous laugh. “I know all about it, and, since you care for him, it is all right. I think he is a good fellow, although I confess I should have preferred your marrying an Englishman; however, since you are in love with one another, one must make the best of it.”

“Dear Mrs. Monteagle, what _do_ you mean?” said Pearl, who had now recovered her self-possession, and was looking mystified and curious, but not the least guilty.

“I know all about it, my dear. I tell you I know more about most things than people imagine. I have been watching this little game quietly in my corner while you and M. Léon were singing and playing at your piano.”

“M. Léon? Capt. Léopold?”

“Capt. Léopold, of the Third Hussars, officier de la Légion d’Honneur, and heir to the title of baron. I don’t begrudge him any of his glories, my dear; I only wish there were ten times more. I suppose he will be very well off; not that you care about that.”

“No, indeed, I don’t!” cried Pearl. “Why should I?”

“Nonsense, child, nonsense! All the same I like to hear you say it. Nowadays you young girls are so worldly-minded you only think of what a husband can give you. It is dreadful—it is indeed; as to these French, it is positively frightful to think of the way they go about it—just as if they were buying a horse or hiring a house. But your Frenchman will, I am sure, prove an exception. Of course he is supposed not to have said a word to you himself; but you don’t expect me to believe that—”

“Indeed, dear Mrs. Monteagle, I give you my solemn word of honor—” broke in Pearl.

“Ah! yes, my dear. Words of honor in a case like this are made to be broken; but has his mother spoken to you—that is to say, to your father yet?”

“Dear Mrs. Monteagle, I don’t know what you are talking about—I don’t indeed! M. Léon has never opened his lips to me on such a subject, and I feel sure he hasn’t to papa either.”

“Well, perhaps not; you young people have a way of understanding each other without much talking. I know all about it; I was young once myself, though you may not believe it. I know that in my time a young man could tell a girl he adored her without putting it in so many words.”

“I dare say they can do so nowadays, too,” said Pearl; “but I know that M. Léon never told me, in words or in any other way, that he adored me.”

“Tut! tut! Then he made his sister say it for him; these French people have peculiar ways I know. I dare say the little French girl did it.”

“Blanche? She declares that Léon adores only two things, fighting and jam. ‘Set him before the enemy or before a _pot de confiture_ and he is the happiest of men!’ That is what Blanche says of him.”

“Good gracious! what a character for any girl to give her brother. She had a motive in it, my dear—depend upon it she had a motive. She wanted to stand in your way, to prevent the marriage. I always thought she was a sly minx; they all are, those French girls, though they look as if butter would not melt in their mouths.”

Pearl was going to enter an indignant protest against this attack on her friend, but she was prevented by the arrival of visitors. Mme. de Kerbec and Mme. Léopold entered together.

Pearl started up from her seat of honor on the sofa beside Mrs. Monteagle, and as Mme. Léopold came forward, profusely affectionate, to embrace her, she blushed scarlet.

“Chère petite!” said the fond mother, playfully stroking the warm red cheek, of which Pearl for very rage with herself could have scratched the skin off. It was tantamount to confessing herself in love with Léon to blush up and look so confused the moment his mother appeared. Mme. Léopold and Mrs. Monteagle evidently thought so, too, for they laughed significantly at one another as they shook hands and glanced at Pearl.

Mme. de Kerbec wondered what the little joke was about. She was not in the intimacy of Mme. Léopold, because, as she put it, the deputy and his wife were not _de notre monde_. They were of the court set, and Mme. de Kerbec was of the faubourg; so, at least, she said, and as nobody of the other set had the _entrée_ of the faubourg, nobody contradicted her.

“How is every one _chez vous, mon enfant_—your dear mother and your excellent father? I suppose we shall meet him with you both to-morrow evening?” said Mme. Léopold.

“I hope so, madame; but papa is not very well....” Pearl began to explain.

“No; and very likely he will ask you to—” interrupted Mrs. Monteagle; but Pearl made such imploring eyes at her and gave her hand such a terrible squeeze that the old lady did not finish the sentence, but turned off the subject by exclaiming on the splendor of Mme. de Kerbec’s dress.

“You talk of the extravagance of the Tuileries set; but if we are to judge your old faubourg by you, countess, you are a great deal worse. Good gracious! what a superb costume, to be sure. In my young days one never saw such things, except it might be at court; and even there, poor old Queen Charlotte and Queen Adelaide never were much to speak of in the way of elegance; and as to the people here at the Tuileries in those days—”

When Mrs. Monteagle was thus fairly embarked Pearl seized the opportunity to slip away.

“What a sweet girl she is!” said Mme. Léopold as the door closed on the slight young figure.

“She is charming,” assented Mme. de Kerbec; “but Polly’s beauty throws her quite into the shade.”

Both the French lady and Mrs. Monteagle exclaimed at this. “I think her face more sympathetic and her manner infinitely more so!” said Mme. Léopold.

“No comparison!” chimed in Mrs. Monteagle; “and she has three times the brains of Polly.”

“One does not want much brains with such an amount of beauty,” said Mme. de Kerbec. “Polly is sure to marry much better. Men don’t care for clever wives; they are jealous of them.”

“That may be the case with Englishmen, but I protest in the name of my own countrymen,” said Mme. Léopold. “I never knew a Frenchman yet who objected to his wife having brains.”

“Very likely not,” said Mrs. Monteagle; “provided she has money, I don’t suppose a Frenchman would object to anything, even to her being a lunatic.”

“You are severe, chère madame,” said Mme. Léopold, looking hurt.

“Mrs. Monteagle suspects every Frenchman of marrying for money,” said Mme. de Kerbec. This was a tender point with her, for everybody, of course, knew that M. de Kerbec had married her for her money, and that she had married him for his title.

“I can only judge by what I see,” said Mrs. Monteagle; “and I see that the first and last and only thing that they ask, or rather that their family asks, about a young lady is, ‘How much money has she?’”

“You do us an injustice there; that may be the first question, because it is after all the essential one, but it is not the last,” said Mme. Léopold. “And I can assure you our young men of the present day follow very much the English fashion in marrying; they like to marry themselves, and they often feel a great, a very decided sympathy for their _fiancée_ before the family interferes at all. My son always said he would marry himself _à l’anglaise_.”

“I am glad to hear it, madame, and I hope you will let him have his way,” said Mme. de Kerbec.

“Certainly; my dearest wish is to see him happy,” replied Mme. Léopold, and she looked at Mrs. Monteagle. It was immediately borne in on Mme. de Kerbec that there was a marriage in the air between Léon and Pearl, and that Mme. Léopold was here to discuss the matter with Mrs. Monteagle, and, being a kind woman, she naturally felt at once a deep interest in the match.

“I suppose Col. Redacre will give very handsome fortunes to both his daughters,” she remarked; “but I think that arrangement very unjust. Pearl should have it all; Polly has beauty enough to make a queen’s dower.”

“For my part, I would rather have Pearl without a penny than Polly with the two _dots_ together,” said Mrs. Monteagle with a little angry grunt.

“Their mother was an heiress, so there will be plenty for all the children,” Mme. de Kerbec went on; “and then Dean Darrell is enormously wealthy, and his money all comes to the Redacres. To be sure he may live twenty years yet.”

“I did not know they had such great expectations,” said Mme. Léopold, her interest kindling as she listened to these details. “Who is this M. Darrell?”

“He is a cousin of Col. Redacre’s, and holds the property which comes to the Redacres at his death. It is not much to speak of, I believe; but the Dean is very rich, and will leave them all his money. He is Pearl’s godfather, too, and they say he will leave a very large sum to her.”

“She deserves it; she is a most angelic girl. I never saw any girl I admired so much,” said Mme. Léopold, waxing enthusiastic as Pearl’s merits were thus unfolded to her. “_You_ know what I feel about her, chère madame,” she added, addressing Mrs. Monteagle.

Other visitors came in, but Mme. Léopold contrived when saying _au revoir_ to whisper to Mrs. Monteagle a request that she would, at her earliest convenience, speak to Col. Redacre upon the subject “near our hearts.”

“And M. Léon’s heart?” said Mrs. Monteagle once more before committing herself.

“Chère madame! why will you doubt my dear boy?” said the mother with a smile.

TO BE CONTINUED.

VOLTAIRE AND HIS PANEGYRISTS.

Voltaire has to this day, among a certain class of people, the unenviable privilege of sharing with his great friend and patron the devil a popularity which he richly deserves. He belongs to that race of scoffers and liars that has never been wanting in the world since the arch-deceiver was allowed entrance into it, and will never be wanting as long as he sees in it anything bearing the image of God which he may hope to destroy, any truth which he may contradict, any beauty which he may defile, any goodness which he may turn into evil. Celsus, Porphyry, Jamblichus, Julian the Apostate, Luther, were of that race; and if Voltaire be inferior to most of these in genius, he has nevertheless done the work of their common master as zealously, and certainly as successfully, as any of his predecessors. Give, then, the devil his due, and let the philosopher of Ferney have the admiration of his votaries. Let him inhale in long draughts the incense which they offer him. It is not the rich perfumes of Arabia that they burn upon his altars. The god of the Revolution would have very little relish for anything sweet and pure. He delights in filth, and filth they serve him in abundance. From every cess-pool and garbage-plot, from every loathsome swamp and poisonous marsh, from every infected spot, a thick cloud laden with nauseous odors and death rises up to his nostrils. Surely the god must be satisfied. What else has he sought during his long career from his boyhood to his old age? To what did he devote his wonderful activity but to create those very sinks of moral degradation which send back to him from their unclean depths the impure homage which they are fit to give? Voltaire deserves a statue; let him have it. Why should the French government hesitate to comply with the desires of the Commune in this regard? What more worthy hands can they find for the purpose than those stained by the blood of so many innocent victims? Why should not one who thirsted during his whole life for the destruction of what is most sacred suffer the well-merited punishment of having a monument raised in his behalf by cut-throats to perpetuate his ignominy? A statue to Voltaire? Yes; and in Paris, too. Only choose the right place, and let it be emblematical of the lewdness with which the works of that infamous man reek. The fitting spot is that where all the sewers of the great city empty themselves into the Seine.

The idol of the French Commune is not without his admirers on this side of the Atlantic. One of our leading journals, speaking of the demonstration that took place on the 30th of May in the French capital in honor of Voltaire, gave us the following eulogistic and edifying editorial, which we quote as a fair specimen of the cant that is now and then reproduced in this country from the French radical papers of the most advanced school:

“France, it is said, celebrated in a characteristic way the memory of one of her great men, one of the makers of the great Revolution. Voltaire did France more service than any twenty generals, but did it by strictly intellectual methods; by operation on the national mind; by exposure of the shams, pretences, villanies, and oppressions of the system of organized wrong that those exposures did so much to undermine and destroy. He created in great part that public opinion, that common judgment of the nation, in the presence of which it was impossible that the ancient _régime_ should continue to exist beyond the day when the power to end it fell into the hands of the representatives of the people. As his influence was felt by its intellectual results, it is characteristic and just that his memory should be celebrated, not by monuments or other preservations of a great man’s name, but by the dissemination of a printed volume of his own best thoughts, so distributed that a copy may be given to every Frenchman. By this method honor is done to Voltaire and good is done to the people; for the world is very much as yet in the condition in which he criticised it, and his keen, sound judgments on liberty, on the rights of the people and persons, on the church, on law, on government, on freedom of the press, may yet continue his influence with great advantage to society” (New York _Herald_, May 31).

It would be difficult to condense into a short page a greater number of false assertions, of wrong appreciations and misleading suggestions. “_Mentons; il en restera toujours quelque chose_,” the favorite motto of Voltaire, continues to inspire his disciples all over the world. It is the idiosyncrasy by which the members of the family are recognized. The result of these often-repeated falsehoods is, in France, to keep the people in a chronic state of dissatisfaction periodically finding vent in those violent up-heavings of society which have more than once during the last hundred years brought that beautiful country to the verge of ruin; and though, in other places where they are rehearsed, they may not produce the same fatal effects, they serve, nevertheless, to make dupes of the ignorant who are unable to judge for themselves of the truth or falsity of assertions stated with such unhesitating boldness and assurance that the most glaring errors are accepted by them as articles of faith; they are an insult to the conscience not only of Catholics but of all those who still profess to retain the least vestige of Christianity; they are a gross calumny thrown in the face of France herself, who, by the voice of her most illustrious children and by a vast majority, protests against the idea that Voltaire is one of her great or representative men. “Lately,” says a French writer (the _Correspondant_, May 25), “the radicals conceived the purpose of showing to Europe the genius of France, personified in the image of Voltaire. A lying symbol, assuredly. For if it be the glory of France that they intended to represent, there are in our history twenty reputations nobler, wider, purer which would contend with our rivals for the admiration of the world. Voltaire possessed only one feeble spark of the French genius; but, thank God, the flame has been more powerful and shone with a deeper and brighter lustre, it ascended to greater heights, with St. Bernard, Pascal, Bossuet, Corneille, Racine, Molière, Mirabeau, Châteaubriand, Lamartine; and as to the other qualities that are characteristic of the French people, France would disavow them had they their type and model in Voltaire; and, in fact, how could she recognize in him that generosity which is foremost amongst the gifts of her race, her warm heart, her heroic soul, her chivalrous valor, her Christian beneficence, her love for the weak and the oppressed, her loyalty, her passion for great ideas and great actions? How could she sacrifice to the genius of Voltaire all that she had of French genius in those times of Charlemagne, of Godfrey de Bouillon, of St. Louis, of Joan of Arc, of Richelieu, of Louis XIV., when those who were her chief ornaments by their brilliant virtues so little resembled Voltaire? To pretend that a nation which has deserved to be called by Shakspere ‘the soldier of God’; a nation that has given to religion so many saints and heroes, so many doctors and martyrs; a nation that has raised by its thought and art so many monuments to Catholicity; a nation that can cite so many names dear to the church from St. Jerome, Pope Sylvester, Peter the Hermit and Suger, to St. Francis of Sales, De Bérulle, Fénelon, Massillon, and Lacordaire—to pretend that such a nation ought and desires to have its personification in Voltaire is a mockery.”

Bold indeed is the man who dares associate the idea of greatness with the name of Voltaire in presence of the evidence we have to the contrary, and which cannot be ignored by any one who has the slightest acquaintance with the literature of the last century. He uses words at random and cares very little about their true signification, or he unduly presumes on the ignorance of others. We find in Voltaire no element that constitutes the great man. He lacks those qualities of the heart which ennoble their possessor and surround him with a halo of serene splendor even in the lowliest station; his private life from beginning to end is there to show us all the meanness of his character. He had no civic virtue; he denied his country and despised the people. As a philosopher he has discovered no truth, elucidated none, contributed nothing to the advancement of knowledge. What he did was to direct all his efforts to obscure by sophistry and revile by sarcasms those truths of which mankind was in time-honored possession. He has no claim to the reputation of a great poet; all critics worthy of the name, even those of the age in which he lived, are at one in assigning to him an inferior rank in this regard. Voltaire tried his hand in every department, in literature, in the natural sciences, in philosophy, in politics, in history, in theology, and has only succeeded in giving proofs of his ignorance of the subjects he attempted to treat or of his mediocrity. “Voltaire,” says W. Schlegel (_Dramatic Literature_, lect. xix.), “wished to shine in every department; a restless vanity permitted him not to be satisfied with the pursuit of perfection in any single walk of literature; and, from the variety of subjects in which his mind was employed, it was impossible for him to avoid shallowness and immaturity of ideas.... He made use of poetry as a means to accomplish ends foreign and extrinsical to it; and this has often polluted the artistic purity of his compositions.”

We often read in the lives of holy personages that, in their very infancy, they gave signs of their future greatness and sanctity. As to Voltaire, he manifested in his early youth a degree of perverseness which foreshadowed but too well what he subsequently proved to be. The precocity of his mind showed itself by his precocious unbelief. Every one knows the prediction which his impious sneers at religion elicited from Father Le Jay when at the college of Louis-le-Grand—a prediction which was so truly realized afterwards: “Wretch,” said the father to him, “you will one day be the standard-bearer of infidelity in France.” Expelled several times from his father’s house for improper conduct, he pursues his career in the world, which he fills with the scandals of his life. His disgraceful intrigues in politics and in love, his dishonesty in business matters, his greed of money, his writings breathing lust and revolt, fixed upon him the attention of the police, and more than once brought him to the Bastille and sent him into exile. He had no heart; he proved it by the contempt he entertained for his nearest relations. He felt no shame in destroying the reputation of his mother; from allusions he makes in a letter addressed to Richelieu, and in other passages of his works, he throws suspicions upon the legitimacy of his birth. Voltaire at first signed his name “Arouet”; but soon this family name disgusted him, as he himself avows, and he rejected it for that of Voltaire. To discard the name of one’s own family is certainly no sign of a good son. He was no better citizen. The French having been beaten at Rossbach by the King of Prussia, Frederick II., Voltaire, who kept a correspondence with that prince, ridiculed his countrymen, and heaped upon them the most injurious epithets. He wishes a Prussian officer to come and take a certain city of France. He writes to the King of Prussia: “Look upon me as the most devoted subject that you have, for I have no other, and wish to have no other, master but yourself. It is to my own sovereign that I write.” The vile and crouching sycophant goes so far as to call Frederick “a god” and “the son of God.” Is it not incredible and the height of impudence that men who call themselves Frenchmen should urge their country to decree national honors to be paid to this idolatrous worshipper of Prussia, and that after the disasters of 1871? These men deserve the scorn of the whole world. Not satisfied with having turned Prussian, the ambition of Voltaire was to become Russian, and for this purpose he disowned France. In a letter of the 18th of October, 1771, to the Empress of Russia, Catherine II., after having called the French who had gone to the assistance of Poland fools and boors, he adds: “It is the Tartars who are civilized, and the French have become Scythians. Please to observe, madame, that I am not Welsh (that is, French); I am a Swiss, and, if I were younger, I would become Russian.” And Russian he soon became in spite of his old age, and Catherine could send him her felicitations on his being already “so good a Russian.” We shall not transcribe the words of sacrilegious adulation which he addressed to his idol, to a woman stained with the blood of her husband and living in adultery. “To make of the flatterer of Frederick II., the adulator of Catherine II., the adorer of Mme. de Pompadour, a republican citizen, would be a difficult task. But to make a patriot of the man who applauded the victory of Rossbach, who saw without pity the blood of France flow, who defiled the reputation of Joan of Arc with the loathsome profanation that we know, and who aspired to the happiness ‘to die a Prussian,’ would be a want of respect for France and of pride for the republic. In presence of the victors of Metz and of Sedan, in presence of Alsace-Lorraine, France would betray herself and the republic would disown France, were the one with the help of the other to erect the image of Voltaire as that of our wounded country, which stands waiting and hoping” (_Correspondant_).

We must never be astonished at anything from such a courtier of Fortune as Voltaire was. The most irascible of poets is the most flexible servant of the reigning powers. If, to use an expression of Diderot, he bore a grudge to every pedestal placed in the path of his literary glory, no one more grovellingly than he kissed the dust before every statue of success raised to command men or to impose upon them. He deserts to the King of Prussia after the defeat of De Rohan, he kisses the blood-stained hand of that other Lady Macbeth seated on the throne of Russia; he will do more: he will lower the purple of Richelieu before that of the ignoble Dubois, to whom the Revolution alone could give notoriety. Young, he had not the dignity which talent imparts; old, he had not that of his gray hairs. His pretty prose and his small, prurient madrigals will be scattered freely in the antechamber of every courtesan who has usurped for the time being the rightful place of the queens of France. It is to a Marquise de Prie, mistress of the heart and of the politics of the Duke of Bourbon, or to a Mme. de Pompadour, that he offers his mean and impure adulations. Mme. de Pompadour, metamorphosed into an Agnes Sorel, is still but a mortal; Mme. du Barry will be a divinity in this distich of the octogenarian of Ferney:

“C’est assez aux mortels d’adorer votre image, L’original était fait pour les Dieux.”

So much for the irreproachable citizen who reviled his country, rejoiced at her misfortunes, and sold himself to her enemies; so much for the model republican who fawned on despots and courted the good graces of the most abandoned characters, provided they stood around a throne. But what of Voltaire, the great democrat, the devoted friend of the people? Those who wish to enlighten the working classes by the dissemination among them of a printed volume of Voltaire’s _own best thoughts_ have taken care, of course, to exclude from the precious popular volume, _destined to perpetuate the great man’s influence in France_, such passages as these, which clearly show his sentiments on the subject. He writes to a friend:

“I believe that we do not understand each other on the question of the people, who, according to you, deserve to be instructed. I understand by _people_ the populace, or those who are forced to gain their livelihood by the labor of their hands. I doubt whether that class of citizens will ever have the leisure or the capacity required for instruction. It appears to me essential that there should be ‘ignorant boors.’ When the vulgar begin to reason, all is lost. The absurd insolence of those who tell you that you must think like your tailor and your washerwoman should not be tolerated. As to the _canaille_, it will never be anything else but the _canaille_. I have nothing to do with it.”

And again: “The _canaille_ whom every yoke fits is not worth enlightening.” That hatred for the poor, the laboring classes, the people, is a satanic trait characteristic of Voltaire. Were the principles which he sought to establish to obtain in the world, we would soon see the worst times of paganism return, when the vast majority of men were slaves under unfeeling masters. From this abject condition Christianity rescued the human race. It is Christianity that can still make the people free; it is Christianity that saves it now, in spite of the efforts made to exclude Christ’s influence from the face of the earth and substitute for it that of Freemasonry, socialism, and radicalism, which would willingly replace the worship of the Redeemer by that of a Voltaire or a Mazzini. Were it possible to abolish the Christian religion in the world, the earth would at once become a den of wild beasts tearing one another to pieces. Witness the French Revolution. It is Christ who said: “Come to me, all you that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you”; it is Christ who ennobled labor by embracing a life of toil; it is Christ who taught the poor that poverty is no disgrace, but rather an honor, ever since the King of Kings sanctified it and glorified it in his own person; it is Christ who gave us the true signification of sufferings, and revealed to us their chastening and purifying influence when they are borne with resignation. But it is Christ also who taught the rich to be charitable to those not possessed of the goods of this world, and to consider themselves but as God’s stewards in favor of the needy. In the acceptance of those principles is to be found the solution of the social problems which become more and more entangled in proportion as society withdraws itself from the light of the Gospel. “Jesus has wept and Voltaire has smiled,” said Victor Hugo at the celebration of the 20th of May, “and from those divine tears and that human smile the sweetness of our civilization was the result,” and the crowd applauded. Foolish and blasphemous words! To associate Christ and his reviler in the same mission for the regeneration of the human race! Voltaire never smiled—he grinned, and in his infernal sneer he embraced those for whom Jesus especially came and wept, suffered and died. But the tactics of the evil one are always the same and are followed by his disciples, to draw men into his snares by creating illusions around them.

The age of Voltaire had no philosophy. Its great voice was silent, and was heard no more until it resounded again in the first part of this century in De Maistre and De Bonald. The generation of Malebranche, Descartes, and Bossuet had passed away, and was succeeded by a sect of sophists headed by Voltaire, whom they nicknamed the “Philosopher of Ferney.” The eighteenth century was the reign, not of philosophy, but of philosophism, which consisted in an abuse of reason directed to the demolition, by means of sarcasm and ridicule, by the corruption of morals and by falsehood, of the religion of Christ and of all the principles upon which human society is based. The pretended Reformation had given the signal; in weakening the foundations of faith and the respect for spiritual authority it opened the door to every error, to revolt, and to all corruptions. Germany began, England followed, and from England came out that spirit of incredulity and atheism which would have plunged Europe into all the agonies of dissolution, and made it a prey to renewed barbarism, had not the terrific thunder-peals of the French Revolution awakened it on the brink of the abyss and warned men to turn their eyes towards God and his church. Rousseau gives us in his _Emile_ a faithful picture of those mad dreamers, possessed by the genius of evil, who in his time proudly called themselves philosophers:

“Turn away from those who, under pretext of explaining nature, sow in the hearts of men subversive doctrines, and whose apparent scepticism is a hundred times more affirmative and dogmatic than the decided tone of their adversaries. Under the haughty pretence that they alone are enlightened, true, and sincere, they impose upon us their peremptory decisions, and pretend to give us for the true principles of things the unintelligible systems which their imagination has built. Besides overthrowing, destroying, and trampling upon everything that men revere, they take away from the afflicted the last consolation in their miseries, from the powerful and the rich the only check of their passions; they snatch from the depth of the human heart remorse for crime, the hope which supports virtue, and still boast of being the benefactors of mankind. Never, do they say, is truth injurious to men. I believe as they do, and it is, in my opinion, a strong proof that what they teach is not the truth.”

Of all those who, at that period, took part in the infernal struggle against Christianity, Voltaire was the recognized chief and leader. He and Rousseau are the two men who did most to undermine the foundations of religion, to extend the reign of unbelief, and destroy the bulwarks that protect order and the family; the former by his inexhaustible fund of impious raillery that scoffed at everything, and the latter by an affectation of sickly sentimentality that paved the way but too well for the atrocities by which the last years of that disgraceful century were polluted. The eighteenth century is appropriately called the _Siècle de Voltaire_; it will be its eternal shame. For Voltaire, notwithstanding his sparkling wit and a few happy productions in literature, will remain eternally the type of a mean character, of a corrupt intellect and perverted reason. It is the conclusion to which men will necessarily arrive who wish to draw their knowledge of Voltaire from another source than that of an ignorant fanaticism, and who, not satisfied with vague sounds floating in the air, will take the trouble to study his life and his works. Not long ago the illustrious Bishop of Orleans, from his senator’s seat, instructed the radicals of his country on this subject, and his method is sure. It would be more in the interest of truth to re-echo his voice on our shores than to spread amongst us those groundless and erroneous appreciations issuing from disordered brains maddened by passion. He cited to them the judgments of men whom their party chiefly consults, to whom they defer, whom they admire and revere most, as Rousseau, Marat, Béranger, Victor Hugo, Louis Blanc, Sainte-Beuve, and Renan. He placed before their eyes the very writings of Voltaire; and thus, by testimony that commanded their confidence, he taught them what Voltaire was worth as a democrat, a citizen, a patriot, and even as a philosopher. We have no space to give quotations from those writers; but we cannot resist the temptation to place before our readers a few lines written by Victor Hugo himself, when he had not as yet lent his unquestionable genius to the vagaries of modern radicalism. They tell us what the distinguished poet then thought of the man whom he now extols to the skies and dares to put on a level with Christ. He speaks of that filthy production of Voltaire’s pen, _The Maid of Orleans_, and warns purity and innocence to beware of the poison contained in that infamous book: “An old book is there, a romance of the last century! A work of ignominy! Voltaire then reigned, that monkey of genius, sent on a mission to man by the devil himself. O eighteenth century, impious and chastised, society without God, struck by God’s hand! world-blind for Christ, which Satan illumines! Shame on thy writers in the face of nations! The reflection of thy crimes is in their renown! Beware, O child! in whose tender heart no tainted breath has as yet been felt. O daughter of Eve! Poor young mind! Voltaire the _serpent_, _Doubt_, and _Irony_ is in a corner of thy blessed sanctuary; with his eye of fire he spies thee and laughs. Tremble! This false sage has caused the ruin of many an angel. That demon, that black kite, pounces upon pious hearts and crushes them. Oftentimes have I seen under his cruel claws the feathers fall one by one from white wings made to rise and take flight towards heaven” (_Rayons et Ombres_).

Voltaire was not a great thinker, not a great poet, not a great historian, not a great novelist, and not a great manager or man of action. Of his twenty-eight or thirty dramatic pieces scarcely one rises to the highest line of dramatic art; his comedies, like his epics, are no longer read; his histories are sprightly and entertaining, but not authentic; and his essays, both in prose and verse, with perhaps the single exception of his historical disquisitions, have ceased to instruct. This is the judgment about the man which we find recorded in the _American Cyclopædia_, and we have no doubt of its correctness. If we seek, then, for the secret of his success, we must turn not to his lighter compositions, as has been advised, but to the corruption of the age in which he lived. Voltaire found around him a society in a state of disorganization produced by the orgies of the Regency, and the spirit of incredulity which had invaded the whole of Europe. He seized upon those materials which he used against Christianity. He wished to destroy it. His intention was not doubtful; it had been clearly revealed by his _Mahomet_, a tragedy given to the public in 1741. The piece had no success at first, or rather people were frightened by it. Christianity was too openly attacked in it not to revolt public opinion, which was as yet profoundly Christian. It was withdrawn after three representations; but, resumed ten years later, it was received with enthusiasm. It is at that date and with that the eighteenth century properly begins. In 1751 all was changed. Religion, morals, taste, national honor, military glory were soon to disappear from the soil of France. Fleury had ceased to live, and voluptuousness had seated a Pompadour upon the throne; flattery erected altars in her honor, whilst a philosophy, the enemy of God and of the laws, placed itself under the protection of that worthy patroness. It was not difficult to see already looming on the horizon the horrors of 1793. Voltaire, undoubtedly, was one of the makers of the great Revolution—“that grand conflict which,” as Schlegel says, “must be looked upon in no other light than as a religious war; for a formal separation, not only from the church, but from all Christianity, a total abolition of the Christian religion, was an object of this Revolution.” It is no wonder, then, that all revolutionists have made an idol of Voltaire, who played so prominent a part in bringing it about. It is still Voltaire the enemy of Christianity whom they celebrate. This they openly avow. One of the organs of the party, the _Bien Public_, declared that it was not the centenary of Voltaire the man of letters that they intended to celebrate, but that of him who had said “_Écrasons l’infâme_” (Let us crush the wretch). The _Droits de l’Homme_ also wrote: “Voltaire had no respect for things established; he dared look Christ in the face; he insulted him. This is the reason why we have chosen Voltaire to pay him our respects.” It is his hatred for the religion of Christ which they wish to propagate. The volume containing Voltaire’s _best thoughts_, ordered to be printed and distributed among the people, tells us that “everything which is related of Jesus is worthy of a pack of fools”; that “miracles are ridiculous and the work of charlatans”; that “Christ himself was a vile mechanic from the scum of the people, a seducer who had lost all scruple”; that “our sacred books are the work of insanity, and that Christians are dupes, fools, and cowards.” And they desire such a book to replace among the masses the catechism and the Gospel! Do so, and you have wolves instead of men.

BRETON LEGENDS OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN.

The steadfastness of Breton Catholicity is proverbial. From the far-away time when the disciples of the good St. Patrick, among whom, says the Breton legend, “he was like a nightingale among wrens, or a beech-tree among ferns,” first planted the cross in Armorica, up to that last crusade in defence of it wherein only yesterday, as it were, Lamoricière and Pimodan and their gallant comrades sacrificed themselves as chivalrously as any knight of old on the fatal field of Castelfidardo, the Breton has never wavered in his faith. Evil example has not availed to weaken it; persecution has only made it stronger; the poisoned arrow of the scoffer, deadlier than the Moor’s, has fallen blunted on the armor of its tranquil simplicity. When all France beside, with few exceptions, had sunk into indifferentism or infidelity, Breton peasant and Breton gentleman still held fast to their fathers’ creed, still doffed their hats as reverently as of yore to wayside cross or Madonna, still knelt as devoutly side by side in the little rustic chapels which so cover the land “that,” says a sympathetic writer, “it seems fertilized by so many holy shrines.” Some idea may be had of the number of the religious monuments of Brittany from the fact that when, at the Restoration, the proposition was mooted to replace the wayside crosses which the iconoclastic frenzy of the Revolution had overturned, it was found that 1,500,000 francs would be needed to restore those in the department of Finisterre alone.

Indeed, it may be said that the Revolution in Brittany took the form not so much of a political struggle as of a religious proscription. It was not the royalist so much as the Catholic who was there the object of partisan fury. To the butchers of the Temple, the mad idolaters of Reason, religion was a crime even greater than loyalty. “It was,” says the author already quoted,[134] “a conflict between the guillotine and a people’s faith—a merciless conflict, in which the guillotine blunted its knife and was baffled.” Catholic Brittany offered but a passive resistance to her persecutors, but it was a resistance none the less stubborn, unflinching, unconquerable. On her knees with clasped hands she defied the _noyades_ of Carrier and the bayonets of Hoche. “Nothing,” says M. Souvestre, “could alter the freshness of her faith. She gave way neither to anger nor to fear. The red cap might be put upon her head, but not upon her thoughts.

“‘I will throw down your belfries,’ said Jean Bon-Saint-André to the mayor of a village, ‘so that you will have no longer any reminder of your effete superstitions.’

“‘You will still have to leave us the stars,’ returned the peasant, ‘and we can see them farther than our belfries.’”

Nevertheless, the threat was carried out, at least so far that the churches were closed, the celebration of Mass was made a crime, the priests were hunted like wild beasts, and the faithful were reduced to much the same straits as their English co-religionists under Elizabeth, or as Irish Catholics under the Penal Laws. Among the many shifts they were put to to evade their savage pursuers, the coast population were often driven to take to their boats and put to sea, where, under favor of the midnight, the faithful pastor offered Mass upon a raft. Surely the people who could resort to such measures rather than forego the exercise of their faith must have been devoted to it.

It may seem strange that so brave and hardy, nay, so fiery, a race as the Bretons should submit so tamely to provocation so bitter. Unlike La Vendée, Brittany never, as a province, made any effectual head against the Revolution, which made so ruthless an onslaught upon all that Breton and Vendean held most sacred. The uprising in Upper or Western Brittany which broke out just as the Vendean insurrection was about being crushed, and which is known to history as the _Chouannerie_, or war of the Chouans, was but a desultory guerilla warfare, confined for the most part to that division of Brittany which has preserved fewest of the Breton characteristics. The only important engagement which took place in Lower Brittany during the Revolution was the surprise of Fort Penthièvre by Hoche, when “the sickle sweep of Quiberon Bay” reaped its harvest of slaughter; and there the royalists were in the main composed of _emigrés_, nobles, and Chouans from Western Brittany. Even the brothers Cottereau, nicknamed _Chouan_,[135] who gave its name to this insurrection, were not Bretons, but from Maine. Doubtless had not De la Rouarie’s plot miscarried through treachery and the premature death of that far-seeing and audacious schemer, the result might have been otherwise. As it was, the counter revolution took in Brittany and La Vendée very different directions. In the former it was the hostility of the “patriots” to the church that was most deeply felt and most bitterly resented; while the Vendeans fought for their faith, indeed, and their army bore the name of “Catholic and loyal,” but they fought at least as directly for their king. We have not space to philosophize upon this curious distinction, further than to point out that Brittany, so far as the bulk of its population is concerned, has always been rather Catholic than royalist. It is not so very long ago that a Frenchman was nearly as much of an alien as the hated _Saozon_ or Saxon[136] himself to the man of Tréguier or the Léonnais; even two centuries of submission to an enforced and distasteful union scarcely sufficed to make the Breton look upon the French king as other than a usurper. In this, as in devotion to the faith, which the same apostle brought to both, and in readiness to give up all for it, the parallel between Brittany and that other great Celtic colony, Ireland, is of the closest kind. True, the union of Brittany and France, like that of England and Scotland, was effected through marriage,[137] and not, as in the Irish union, by force and fraud. But it was none the more popular for that; and though all overt opposition was effectually crushed with the overthrow of the League, headed by the ambitious and self-seeking though gallant Duc de Mercœur, in the early part of the seventeenth century, there still remained a smouldering fire of resentment and dislike which only lately, if ever at all, has been extinguished. And from that time, too, to quote M. Souvestre again, of the two sovereign powers on which the feudal edifice was based, the nobility and the church, the latter alone preserved its authority in Brittany. Deceived and disappointed in his worldly leaders, it seemed as though the Breton peasant turned more implicitly to his spiritual guides. Certain it is that in no Catholic land, not even in Ireland, has the priesthood retained more ascendency, nor, if we may trust writers who cannot be accused of partiality, deserved it more.

The spirit of devotion breathes all through the Breton’s daily life. No important act is begun without its appropriate religious ceremonies. Is it a house or a barn that he has built?—he will use neither till they have been blest, as in Aubrey de Vere’s “Building of the Cottage”:

“Mix the mortar o’er and o’er, Holy music singing; Holy water o’er it pour, Flowers and tresses flinging. Bless we now the earthen floor; May good angels love it! Bless we now the new-raised door, And that cell above it!”

He thinks, with the poet,

“Better to roam for ay than rest Under the impious shadow of a roof unblest.”

In little acts as in great ones it is the same. The knife does not cut the loaf until it has made over it the sign of the cross; the children tell their ages by the number of Easters they have made; the sowing of the grain is preceded by a solemn procession. “The barren field,” says the Breton proverb, “grows fertile under the stole of the priest.” In all his thoughts the religious idea is uppermost. “I was walking in the fields,” says M. de la Villemarquée, “reading a book, when a peasant accosted me. ‘Is it,’ said he, ‘the _Lives of the Saints_ you are reading?’” And the strongest idea a Breton can give you of the truth of any book is that it was written and printed by a priest.

It is not surprising, therefore, that among a people of such simple and fervid faith devotion to the Blessed Virgin should especially have flourished. The popular impulse towards the expression of piety which displayed itself in France in the sixteenth century, and which soon covered the land with Calvaries and Chapels of Notre Dame, was nowhere more outspoken or lasting than in Brittany. _Mme. Marie de Bon Secours, mère des pêcheurs_—Mme. Mary of Good Help, mother of fishermen—is invoked as heartily on the coast of Tréguier as _Notre Dame de tous les remèdes_—Our Lady of All-Healing—on the mountains of Cornouailles. And, as might be looked for in an impressionable and imaginative race, this devotion has entwined itself with many quaint and curious legends. It is a general belief in Brittany—as, indeed, it is among the peasantry elsewhere in France, and we believe in some parts of Spain—that our Lord and his Blessed Mother visited their country _in propria persona_ after the Resurrection. Ask a peasant of Vannes, for example, the origin of the _galgals_, or heaps of pebbles which diversify the monotony of his vast _Landes_, and he will tell you that the Blessed Virgin carried them there in her apron. The folk-lore of the country turns largely upon her intervention for the protection of those who call upon her. Two of the most curious of these legends we propose to give our readers from M. Souvestre’s very interesting collection entitled _Le Foyer Breton_. So far as we know they have not been rendered into English except in a mutilated and imperfect version styled _Popular Legends and Tales of Brittany_, which is simply the translation of a German adaptation of Souvestre’s book, and in which the essentially Catholic features of the original are for the most part studiously eliminated. This process of “evangelizing” Catholic literature is familiar enough from _Dies Iræ_ down; it is to be regretted that Catholic publishers are sometimes found willing to father and to circulate such counterfeits.

The first of our legends is one current in the country of Tréguier—the Lower Breton still divides his beloved province, not into the departments fixed by the Revolution, but as of old into the four bishoprics of Léon, Tréguier, Vannes, and Cornouailles—and is known as _Les Trois Rencontres_, or, as we shall call it,

THE THREE BEGGARS.

Once upon a time, in the days when Jesus Christ and his Mother came often to visit Lower Brittany, when along the roads there were as many cells of holy hermits as there are now new houses with a manger and a branch of mistletoe by the door, there lived in the bishopric of Léon two young lords as rich as heart could wish, and so handsome that even their mother could not have wished them better-looking. They were called Tonyk and Mylio.

Mylio, who was the elder, was going on sixteen, while Tonyk was but fourteen. Both had taken lessons from masters so able that there was nothing to hinder them from becoming priests at once, if they had been old enough and had had a vocation.

Now, Tonyk was pious, ever ready to help the poor and forgive injuries. Money stayed no longer in his hand than anger in his heart; while Mylio would give to no one more than his due, and even haggled over that, and if anybody offended him he never rested until he had avenged himself to the utmost of his power.

As God had taken their father from them while they were still in long clothes, the widow, who was a woman of great virtue, had brought them up herself; but now that they were well grown, she deemed it time to send them to an uncle of theirs at a distance, from whom they might look for good counsel as well as a great inheritance. So one day, making each of them a present of a new hat, shoes with silver buckles, a purple cloak, a well-lined purse, and a horse, she bade them be off to the house of their father’s brother.

The two lads set out, glad enough of the chance to see strange lands. Their horses went so fast that at the end of some days they found themselves in another kingdom, where the trees and grain were unlike any they had seen at home. But one morning, as they were passing a cross-roads, they spied a poor woman sitting by the cross, her face buried in her apron. Tonyk pulled up his horse to ask her what was the matter. The beggar-woman told him with sobs that she had just lost her only son, who was her all, and that she was thrown upon the charity of Christians.

The lad was greatly touched; but Mylio, who had stopped some paces off, cried out with a jeering air:

“You are not going to swallow everything the first whimpering old woman tells you? That creature is there only to trick travellers out of their money.”

“Hush, my brother,” replied Tonyk, “hush, in God’s name! Your words make her cry still harder. Do you not see that she has the years and mien of our own mother, God bless her!”

Then, bending forward and handing his purse to the beggar-woman, “Take it, poor woman,” he said; “I can only help you, but I will pray to God to console you.”

The beggar-woman took the purse, and, kissing it, said to Tonyk:

“Since your lordship has wished to enrich a poor woman, you will not refuse to take from her this nut, which holds a wasp with a diamond sting.”

Tonyk took the nut, thanked the beggar-woman, and went his way with Mylio.

The two soon came to the edge of a wood, where they saw a little child, nearly naked, who was prying about in the hollows of the trees, and singing the while an air sadder than the chants of the Mass for the Dead. Often he stopped to slap his little frozen hands together, saying in a kind of sing-song, “I’m so cold! I’m so cold!” And then they could hear his teeth chatter.

At this sight Tonyk felt like crying, and he said to his brother:

“For pity’s sake, Mylio, do you see how this poor little innocent suffers from the cold?”

“He is a great baby, then,” said Mylio. “I, for my part, do not find the wind so cold.”

“Because you have on a velvet vest, and over that a cloth coat, and over that again your purple cloak, while he is clad only in the air of heaven.”

“Well, what of it?” said Mylio. “He is only a little peasant.”

“Alas!” replied Tonyk, “when I think that you might have been born in his place, my brother, my heart bleeds and I cannot see him suffer so.”

With these words he drew rein, called the little boy, and asked him what he was doing there.

“I am looking for the _winged needles_[138] that sleep in the crannies of the trees,” answered the child.

“And what wouldst thou do with these winged needles?” said Mylio.

“When I have enough of them I will sell them in the city and buy a coat which will keep me warm as if it was always sunshine.”

“Hast thou found any yet?” went on the young noble.

“But one,” replied the child, showing a little cage of rushes within which he had shut the blue fly.

“Very good, I will take it,” broke in Tonyk, throwing him his cloak. “Wrap thyself up in that precious cloth, little one, and add every evening in thy prayers a Hail Mary for Mylio and another for her who bore us both.”

The two brothers went on their way, and Tonyk at first suffered much from the wind for want of the cloak he had given away; but when they had got through the wood the wind fell, the air grew milder, the fog lifted, and a _vein of the sun_[139] shone along the clouds.

Just then they came to a meadow where there was a spring, and by the side of it an old man in rags carrying upon his shoulder the sack of the _seekers for bread_.[140] When he saw the two cavaliers he called to them in a supplicating voice. Tonyk went up to him.

“What would you, father?” he asked, lifting his hand to his hat out of respect for the beggar’s age.

“Alas! dear sir,” replied he, “you see how white my hair is and how wrinkled my cheeks. I am grown so weak from age that my legs can no longer carry me; so I must needs die in this spot, unless one of you will sell me his horse.”

“Sell thee one of our horses, bread-seeker!” cried Mylio with a scornful air. “And wherewith wilt thou pay us?”

“You see this hollow acorn?” said the beggar. “It holds a spider which can spin webs stronger than steel. Let me have one of your horses, and I will give you the spider and the acorn for it.”

The elder of the two lads burst out laughing.

“Do you hear, Tonyk?” he cried, turning to his brother. “By my baptism! there must be two calves’ feet in this man’s _sabots_.”[141]

But the younger replied gently: “The poor man can offer only what he has.” Then, getting off his horse and going up to the old man, “I give you my horse, my good man,” said he, “not because of the price you put on it, but in remembrance of Him who has said that the _seekers for bread_ were his elect. Take it as your own, and thank God, who has made use of me to offer it you.”

The old man murmured a thousand blessings, got upon the horse with the lad’s help, and was soon out of sight across the meadow.

But Mylio could not forgive his brother this last almsgiving, and it led to an outbreak.

“_Big mouth!_”[142] he cried to Tonyk, “you ought to be ashamed of the plight your folly has brought you to. You thought, no doubt, that, once stripped of everything, you would be let share my money, my horse, and my cloak; but do not hope it! I want the lesson to do you good, that by feeling the hardships of prodigality you may be more thrifty hereafter.”

“It is indeed a good lesson, my brother,” Tonyk answered mildly, “and I am perfectly willing to take it. I never thought to have any part in your money, your horse, or your cloak; so go your way without troubling yourself about me, and may the Queen of the angels guide you!”

Mylio deigned no answer and set off on a trot, while his young brother kept on afoot, watching him from afar and bearing him no grudge in his heart.

They came thus to the opening of a narrow pass between two mountains which lost themselves in the clouds. It was called the Cursed Pass, because a _Rounfl_, or ogre, dwelt upon the cliffs, and there lay in wait for travellers as a hunter lies in wait for the game. He was a giant, blind and without feet, but of so quick an ear that he could hear the worm working underneath the ground. His servants were two eagles he had tamed, one white and the other red (for he was a great magician), and he sent them out to seize his prey when he heard it coming. So the people of that country, whenever they had to go through the pass, carried their shoes in their hands, like the girls of Roscoff when they go to the market of Morlaix, scarce daring to breathe for fear the ogre should hear them. Mylio, who had no warning of this, rode in on his horse, and the giant was aroused by the noise of the hoof-strokes on the flint.

“Ho, there! my eagles,” cried he, “where are you?”

The white eagle and the red eagle ran to him.

“Go get me for my supper what is going by,” cried the ogre.

Like two balls from a gun they plunged to the bottom of the pass, seized Mylio by his purple cloak, and bore him away to the ogre’s dwelling.

At this moment Tonyk reached the mouth of the pass. He saw his brother carried off by the two birds, and with a cry ran towards him; but the eagles and Mylio were out of sight in the clouds which covered the highest mountain.

The lad stood for a moment rooted to the spot and beside himself with grief, staring at the sky and the cliff as steep as a wall; then he sank upon his knees with clasped hands and cried:

“Almighty Lord, Creator of the world, save my brother Mylio!”

“Trouble not God the Father for such a trifle,” replied three small voices which he heard all at once near by.

Tonyk turned round wonder-stricken.

“Who spoke then, and where are you?” he asked.

“In your waistcoat pocket,” replied the three voices.

The lad felt in his pocket, and pulled out the nut, the acorn, and the little cage of rushes, wherein were the three insects.

“Is it you, then, who wish to save Mylio?” said he.

“Yes, yes, yes!” replied they in their three different voices.

“And how will you go about it, my poor nobodies?” said Tonyk.

“Open our cages and you will see.”

The lad did as they asked; then the spider made up to a tree, against which she began a web shining and strong as steel; then she got upon the _winged needle_, who wafted her gently into the air, while she went on with her web, whose threads were far enough apart to make a kind of ladder, reaching higher and higher as they went up. Tonyk followed them up this wonderful ladder until he had reached the top of the mountain. The wasp flew in front of him, and together they came to the giant’s house.

It was a cave hollowed in the rock and as high as a church. In the middle of it sat the ogre, without eyes or legs. He kept rocking himself to and fro like a poplar, while he sang these words to an air of his own:

“The Léonard’s flesh I love to eat, Fed is he on the fattest of meat; The man of Tréguier tastes beside Of sweet new milk and pancakes fried; But Vannes and Cornouailles who could eat, Bitter and tough as their coarse buckwheat?”

All the while he sang this song he got ready slices of pork to roast Mylio, who lay at his feet, his legs and arms tied upon his back like a chicken trussed for the spit. The two eagles held a little aloof, near the chimney, and one set the turn-spit while the other stirred up the fire.

The noise the giant made in singing, and also the care he gave to getting ready his slices of pork, had kept him from hearing the approach of Tonyk and his three little servants. But the red eagle spied the lad; he darted upon him, and was about to make off with him in his claws when the wasp pierced his eyes with her diamond dart. The white eagle ran to help his brother, and his eyes were put out too. Then the wasp flew to the ogre, who had sprung up on hearing the cries of his two domestics, and fell to piercing him with her sting without let or truce. The giant roared like a bull in August. But it was in vain for him to dash his arms about like the sails of a windmill; he could not catch the wasp for want of eyes, and no more, for want of feet, could he get away.

At last he dropped face down upon the ground to escape the sting of fire; but the spider at once came up and wove about him a net which held him fast. In vain he called his two eagles to his aid. Mad with pain, knowing the ogre was helpless, they wished to avenge their long slavery; with flapping wings they rushed upon their former master and sought to tear him to pieces under his net of steel. At each stroke of their beaks they tore away a shred of flesh, and never stopped till they had picked his four bones clean. Then they lay down upon the carcass of the ogre, and, as the magician’s flesh was indigestible, they never got up again, but burst there on the spot.

As to Tonyk, he had untied his brother’s bonds, and, after embracing him with tears of joy, led him out of the ogre’s house to the edge of the cliff. The _winged needle_ and the wasp were soon at hand, harnessed to the little cage of rushes, now changed to a coach. Praying the two brothers to take seats, while the spider posted herself behind like the lackey of some great house, the equipage went off with the speed of the wind.

Tonyk and Mylio in this way crossed with the utmost ease meadows, mountains, and villages (for in the air the roads are always in good order) until they were come to their uncle’s castle.

There the carriage alighted and rolled towards the drawbridge, where the brothers saw their two horses waiting for them; but at Tonyk’s saddlebow hung his purse and cloak; only the purse was bigger and much better lined, and the cloak was all embroidered with diamonds.

The wondering lad would have turned to the carriage to ask the meaning of this; but the carriage was gone, and in place of the wasp, the _winged needle_, and the spider there stood only three angels dazzling with light.

The two brothers, confounded, fell upon their knees. Then one of the angels drew near Tonyk and said to him:

“Be not afraid, dear youth; for the woman, the child, and the old man thou didst succor were no other than the Virgin Mary, Jesus her Son, and St. Joseph. They have given us to thee that thou mightest make the journey without danger, and, now that it is ended, we go back to Paradise. Bethink thee only of what has happened to thyself, and let this be a warning.”

With these words the three angels spread their wings and flew off like three swallows, chanting the hosannah which is sung in the churches.

The motive of this tale, it will be observed, is the beauty of charity, and it is perhaps another form of the ancient legend of St. Julian which is found, in one shape or another, in the traditions of many peoples. But charity and hospitality are pre-eminently Breton as they are Irish virtues. With a “God save all here!” the beggar walks unbidden and unrepulsed into the first cabin he comes to, and takes his seat, as one expected, by the fireside or at the table. No one dreams of turning him away, for he is the guest of God. The following legend also turns on the same virtues; but it is peculiar in introducing a personage almost unique in Breton tradition—viz., a wicked priest. “In our pious Armorica,” says M. Souvestre, “the respect accorded to the priesthood partakes of worship. The tonsure is a crown which gives a right to royal homage.” But in proportion to the veneration paid to the good priest is the contempt and detestation visited upon the derelict, as the few “constitutional” _curés_ whom the Revolution found among the Breton and Vendean clergy were made fully aware. The reader of Carleton’s _Tales and Legends of the Irish Peasantry_ may discover here another element of likeness in the kindred race.

MAO, THE LUCKY.

Christians who wish a powerful protectress in heaven cannot do better than address themselves to _Notre Dame de tous remèdes_ (Our Lady of All-Healing), near the City of the Beech.[143] She has in that place the richest chapel that the hand of man ever built. All inside it is filled with golden statues; the belfry, which is brother to that of Kreisker, has more windows in it than there are holes in a Quimper waffle, and there is near the church a fountain of masonry whose waters wash away all evil of soul and body.[144] Our Lady of All-Healing is one of the four great Pardons of the Virgin Mary in Lower Brittany. The others are at Auray, at _Bois du fou_ (Fol-goat, or Madman’s Wood), and Callot.

It was to Our Lady of All-Healing that Mao stopped to pray. Mao was on his way from Loperek, a pretty parish between Kimerc’h and Logoma. He had neither kith nor kin, and his guardian had put in his hand a _frappe-tête_[145] with three silver crowns, telling him to seek his fortune where he would.

After saying at the foot of the great altar all the prayers his nurse and the rector had taught him, Mao left the church to go his way. But as he was about passing through the hedge he saw a crowd of folks gathered about a dead body lying on the grass at the door of the priest’s house; and he was told it was a poor _bread-seeker_ who had given up his soul the night before, and whom the priest refused to bury.

“Was he, then, a pagan or a wretch who had denied his baptism?” asked Mao.

“He was a true sheep of God’s fold,” made answer all who were there; “and even when hunger pressed him sore he would have taken neither the three ears of corn nor the three apples which custom permits the wayfarer to pluck.”

“Why, then, does the rector deny him the holy water and the consecrated earth?” asked the youth.

“Because poor Stevan left nothing to pay for the prayers of the church,” replied the spectators.

“What!” cried Mao, “is there a priest in this country, so hard-hearted that he shuts the door on the poor while living and will not open to them when dead? If it is money is wanted, here are three crowns. ’Tis all I have in the world; but I give it with all my heart to open to a Christian the consecrated earth.”

The unworthy priest was called; he took the three crowns, rattled off the prayers for the dead in as little time as it takes a carrier’s horse to eat his truss of hay, dumped poor Stevan into a hole in the ground, and went off to see that the sucking pig which was a-cooking for his dinner was properly done on both sides.

As for Mao, he made a cross with two branches of yew, planted it on the grave of the poor _seeker of bread_, and after saying a _De Profundis_ went on his way to Camfront.

But after a time Mao grew hungry and thirsty, and bethought him that he had nothing left of what his guardian had given him to buy food and drink. So he set about finding some mulberries or wild sorrel or wild plums, and all the while he hunted for them he kept looking at the birds who were picking away in the thickets, and saying to himself:

“Those birds there are better off than baptized creatures; they want neither for inns nor butchers, nor bakers nor gardeners; God’s heaven is all their own, and the earth spreads itself before them like a table always served; the little insects are their game, the seeds are their fields of standing corn, hips and haws their dessert; they have the right to take everywhere without paying or as much as saying by your leave. So the little birds are gay, and they sing all day long.”

Turning these thoughts in his mind, Mao slackened his pace, and at last sat down under a great oak and fell fast asleep.

But, lo and behold, all of a sudden while he slept there came to him a saint, all dressed in shining stuffs and crowned with a halo, and the saint said to him:

“I am the poor _seeker of bread_, Stevan, to whom thou hast opened the gates of Paradise by buying for his body a consecrated grave. The Virgin Mary, whose faithful servant I was on earth, has just had me made a saint, and she has let me come back to thee as the bearer of good tidings. Believe no longer that the birds of the air are happier than baptized souls, since for these the blood of the Son of God has been shed and they are the favorites of the Trinity. Hear, then, what the Three Persons have done to reward thy piety:

“Near by, beyond the meadows, is a manor which thou wilt know by its red and green weathercock. There lives a lord named Tréhouar, who is the father of a daughter as lovely as the day and as gentle as a babe in the cradle. Go and knock this evening at his door, and say that thou comest for what he well knows; he will receive thee, and the rest thou wilt learn thyself. Remember only, if thou hast need of help, thou must say,

“Come, dead beggar, come quick to aid Here am I all helpless stayed.”

With these words the saint vanished and Mao awoke.

His first care was to thank God for the safeguard he had sent him; then he took his way towards the meadows in order to seek the manor-house. As night was falling, he had at first some trouble to find it; but he saw at length a flight of pigeons and followed them, sure they could lead him only to a noble house.

Sure enough, he spied at last the red and green weathercock peeping above some trees loaded with black cherries—for that is the country where they grow. It is the mountain parishes which send all the wild cherries you see laid out on straw at the Pardons of the Léonnais, and which lovers bring to the _pennérèz_[146] in their great felt hats. Mao crossed the lawn set out with walnuts, knocked at the smallest door he could find in the manor-house, and said, as the saint bade him, that he came for what they knew.

The gentleman was told at once. He came shaking his head, for he was old and feeble, but leaning upon his granddaughter, who was young and fresh; so that to look at them you would have said it was a ruined wall held up by a blooming honeysuckle.

Both, with the utmost politeness, bade the young man come in; he was given a carpet-covered stool by the old man’s arm-chair, and served with sweet cider while supper was getting ready.

Mao wondered greatly at this greeting, and could not keep his eyes off the young girl as she ran about getting everything ready and singing like a lark. The more he looked the prettier he found her, and his heart beat like a clock.

“Alas!” he thought, “he alone may call himself happy who will be able to talk with the _pennérèz_ of the manor behind the gable.”[147]

At last, when supper was over, the grandfather had Liçzenn (that was the young girl’s name) clear away the things, and said to Mao:

“We have given you of our best and according to our means, young man, but not according to our wish, for the house of Tréhouar has long suffered from a grievous wound. Once upon a time we reckoned here as many as twenty horses and forty cows; but the fiend has made himself master of cattle-sheds and stables; cows and horses have vanished one after another and as often as they have been replaced, until I have sunk all my savings. All our prayers to conjure away the destroying spirit have been in vain; we have had to resign ourselves, and for lack of live-stock my lands are now lying fallow. I had some hopes of my nephew Matelinn, who has gone to the French wars; but as he never came back I have caused it to be given out through the country, at sermons and elsewhere, that the man who freed the manor should have Liçzenn to wife, and my whole estate after me. But all who have come here to this end and watched in the stable have disappeared like the cows and horses. I pray God you may have better hap.”

Mao, whom the remembrance of his vision emboldened to take the risk, answered that, with the grace of the Virgin Mary, he hoped to overthrow the hidden demon. With that he asked for some fire to keep his limbs from getting stiff, took his _frappe-tête_, and besought Liçzenn to think of him in her prayers.

The place to which they brought him was a great shed divided into two parts for the cows and the horses; but it was wholly empty, and spiders had spun their webs upon the feed-racks. Mao lit a fire of furze upon the great stones which served for pavement, and betook himself to his prayers.

For the first quarter of an hour he heard only the crackling of the flame; for the second quarter of an hour he heard only the wind whistling sadly through the cracks of the door; for the third quarter of an hour he heard only the little death’s hammer[148] which sounded in the wood-work; but at the fourth quarter a muffled sound was heard under the pavement, and at the end of the building in the darkest corner he saw the largest stone rise slowly and a dragon’s head come out of the ground; it was as big as a cheese-trough, flat like a viper’s, and all about its forehead flashed a row of parti-colored eyes.

The animal set two paws with red claws upon the edge of the pavement, looked at Mao, and left his hole with a hiss.

As he drew near Mao could see his scaly body unroll itself, coming out from under the stone like a great cable from the hold of a ship.

Although the lad was bold enough, yet his blood ran cold, and as he felt the fumes of the dragon’s breath he cried:

“Come, dead beggar, come quick to aid! Here am I all helpless stayed.”

That very instant the shining shape he had summoned stood by his side.

“Fear nothing,” said he; “the wards of the Mother of God will always prevail against the monsters of the earth.”

So saying, Stevan stretched forth his hand, spoke some words of the language they talk in heaven, and instantly the dragon rolled over on his side, struck dead.

At sun-up next morning Mao went and woke all the people of the manor and took them to the stables; but at sight of the dead beast the boldest fell back ten paces.

“Have no fear,” the young man said to them; “the Virgin Mary has helped me. The monster that devoured the cattle and their keepers is now but lifeless clay. Go fetch cords and drag him hence to some deserted quarry.”

They did as he bade them, and when the dragon had been dragged from his lair the entire body went twice round the buckwheat-thrashing yard.

Overjoyed to be freed from so dangerous a foe, the grandfather kept his promise to Mao and gave him Liçzenn to wife. The young _pennérèz_ was led to the church at Camfront, her right arm encircled, as usual, with a band of silver lace for each thousand francs in her dowry, and the story goes that she had eighteen.

Once married, Mao bought live-stock, hired servants, and the lands of the manor were soon worth more than ever. Then it was that the grandfather went to receive his reward from God, leaving all he owned to the young couple.

These last were happier than any other baptized creatures—so happy that every evening they could find nothing to ask of God, and could only thank him. But one day, just as they were sitting down to supper with their servants, who should come in with one of the maids but a soldier, so tall that his head touched the beams of the ceiling, and whom Liçzenn knew at once for her cousin Matelinn. He had come back from the French wars to marry the _pennérèz_, and, learning what had passed while he was away, great indeed was his wrath; but he took good care not to show it to the young couple, for he was a dissembler by nature.

Mao, nothing doubting, welcomed him with open arms; he gave him of the best in the manor, had the best room made ready for him, and rode with him everywhere about his fields, now covered with harvests.

But the taller Matelinn found the flax, and the heavier the wheat, the angrier he grew that all these things were not his, without speaking of his cousin Liçzenn, who seemed to him prettier than ever. So one day he got Mao to hunt with him on the downs of Logoma, and brought him to a far thicket where there was an abandoned windmill, against which bundles of furze had been piled for the baker of Daonlas; arrived there, he turned his eyes towards Camfront and said all of a sudden to the young man:

“Look! I can see from here the manor with its great court.”

“Which way?” asked Mao.

“Behind that little beechwood: don’t you see the windows of the great hall?”

“I am too short,” said Mao.

“You are right,” cried Matelinn, “and it is a great pity, for I see my cousin Liçzenn in the little paddock by the garden.”

“Is she alone?”

“No; she is talking to some gentlemen, who are whispering in her ear.”

“And what is Liçzenn doing?”

“Liçzenn is listening to them and twisting the strings of her apron.”

Mao stood on tip-toe.

“Oh! how I wish I could see,” he said.

“Nothing is easier,” replied Matelinn; “you have but to go up to the top of the mill, and you will be taller than I.”

Mao thought well of the advice and climbed the old ladder. When he was come to the top his cousin asked him what he saw.

“I see only trees which seem as near the earth as two-months corn,” answered he, “and houses which seem as little as shells left dry stranded on the shore.”

“Look nearer,” said Matelinn.

“Nearer I see only the sea with barks that skim the water like gulls.”

“Nearer yet,” continued the soldier.

“Nearer yet is the heather in bloom and the golden gorse.”

“But below you?”

“Below me!” cried Mao in a fright, “instead of the ladder to get down I see flames coming to devour me.”

And he saw truly, for Matelinn had taken away the ladder and set fire to the heaped-up piles of furze, so that the old mill was in the midst of a furnace.

In vain Mao begged the giant not to leave him to perish, in so cruel a manner; he turned his back and went off along the downs, whistling.

Then the young man, feeling himself near to stifle, repeated the invocation:

“Come, dead beggar, come quick to aid! Here am I all helpless stayed.”

Instantly the saint appeared, holding in his right hand a rainbow one end of which sank in the sea while the other shed a heavy dew, and in the left hand Jacob’s ladder which joined heaven and earth. The rainbow put out the fire, while Mao climbed down on the ladder and made his way back to the manor without the slightest hurt.

At sight of him Matelinn was thunderstruck; sure that his cousin would denounce him to justice, he ran to get his arms and his war-horse, but as he was going out of the great court Mao went up to him and said:

“Have no fear, cousin; for no man on earth will know what has passed on the heath of Daonlas. Your heart was sickened that God had given me more prosperity than you; I wish to cure your heart. From to-day on, while I live, you will have the right to half of all that is mine, save my dearest Liçzenn. Go, then, cousin, and have no more bad thoughts against me.”

This agreement was drawn up by the notary in due form, and Matelinn had every month half of all the produce of the fields, the poultry-yard, and the cattle.

But this generosity of Mao only embittered the venom of his heart. For undeserved benefits are like wine drunk without thirst; they give neither joy nor profit. He no longer sought Mao’s death, for, Mao dead, he would lose the allotted share of his wealth; but he hated him as a caged wolf hates the master who feeds him.

What heightened his wrath was that all turned to gold for his cousin. Up to that time only a child was wanting to his happiness, and Liçzenn now brought him a handsome, hearty boy who was born without a tear. Mao sent word to all the gentlefolks for more than five leagues round, praying them to the christening feast; they came from Braspars, from Kimerc’h, from Loperek, from Logoma, from Faou, from Irvilhac, and from Saint Eloi—all mounted on well-caparisoned horses, with their wives or daughters on pillions behind them. The baptism of a prince of Cornouailles would not have drawn together more people of rank.

All were gathered in front of the manor, and Mao was come to get the new-born infant in Liçzenn’s chamber with those who were to hold it at the font and his nearest friends, when in comes Matelinn, wearing on his face a treacherous smile. At his entrance the sick mother gave a cry, but he drew near, twisting his shoulders, and with many compliments thanked her for the present she had made him.

“What present?” asked the poor woman in bewilderment.

“Have you not just added an heir to my cousin’s wealth?” said the soldier.

“And if I have?” said Liçzenn.

“A deed on parchment entitles me to half of all that shall belong to Mao, save your dearly-beloved self,” added Matelinn, “and I come, therefore, to claim my half of the new-born heir.”

All present cried out, but Matelinn repeated coldly that he must have his share of the infant, adding that if denied he would take it himself; and he showed a great knife for cutting up pork which he had brought with him for the purpose.

Vainly did Mao and Liçzenn beseech him with clasped hands and on bended knees to give up his right; the giant’s only answer was to whet his knife on the steel which hung from his girdle. At last he was in the act of tearing the child from the young woman’s arms when Mao bethought him all at once of the appeal to the dead beggar, and repeated it aloud. He had no sooner ended than the room was flooded with a heavenly light, and the saint was descried upon a cloud with the Virgin Mary by his side.

“I am here, good people,” said the Mother of God; “my faithful servant has had me come from the starry realms to judge between you.”

“If you are the Mother of God, save the child,” cried Liçzenn.

“If you are the Queen of Heaven, make them give me my due,” said Matelinn with effrontery.

“Listen to me,” said Mary. “You first, Mao, and you, Liçzenn, draw near with the babe. Until now I had given you only the joys of life; I wish to do more, and so I give you the joys of death. You will follow me into the Paradise of my Son, where neither sorrow nor treason nor sickness comes. As for you, Goliath, it is your right to share the new good which is given them, and you will die like them, but to descend twelve hundred and fifty leagues[149] into the kingdom of the evil one.”

With these words she held out her hand, and the giant was swallowed up in a gulf of fire, while the young husband and wife with their child bent towards each other like a family asleep, and disappeared, borne upon a cloud.

* * * * *

In the incomplete version referred to the beggar-man is changed into a spirit of the air like the genii of the _Arabian Nights_, the Blessed Virgin, it is needless to say, makes no appearance at all, and the beautiful touch at the end, possible only in a Catholic legend, by which Mao and Liçzenn receive the crowning reward of their virtue on being translated to Paradise, is altogether omitted; so that all that is truly significant and characteristic in the story is lost.

Footnote 134:

M. Emile Souvestre has done more than almost any of his countrymen, except M. de la Villemarquée, to illustrate and set forth the Breton character.

Footnote 135:

A corruption of _chat-huant_ (screech-owl), the cry of which bird the brothers, who were salt-smugglers, used as a signal to inform one another of their whereabouts at night.

Footnote 136:

The Breton has preserved a thoroughly Celtic hatred of his ancient conqueror. “Yes,” said a little peasant girl, describing a shipwreck; “I saw them buried here in the sand; they were Saxons, you know, not Christians; and many an evening I have come with the village children to dance on the graves of the Englishmen who were turning to dust below there.”

Footnote 137:

Namely, of Anne, daughter of Francis II., the last duke, to Charles VIII., and after his death to Louis XII. of France. Brittany was her dowry.

Footnote 138:

The insect popularly known as dragon-fly the Bretons call _nadoz-aër_, or “needle of the air.”

Footnote 139:

_Goazenn-Hêault_—Breton expression for a ray of sunlight piercing the clouds.

Footnote 140:

_Chercheur de pain, Klasker_—the Breton name for beggar.

Footnote 141:

_Treid lué zo éné voutou_—_i.e._, he must be an idiot.

Footnote 142:

_Genowek_—a Breton insult equivalent to “imbecile.”

Footnote 143:

Faou, in the department of Finisterre (the ancient Pays de Cornouailles), was so called.

Footnote 144:

We are not to take literally, says M. Souvestre in a note, these Breton exaggerations. The church of Rumengol (corruption of _remed-ol_ = _tous les remèdes_) is remarkable without being a wonder; the _golden statues_ are gilded figures of rude workmanship, and the spire is far from being comparable to that of Kreisker at St. Pol de Léon.

Footnote 145:

_Pen-god_ or _pen-scod_—literally, a maul-pate, the Breton shillelagh.

Footnote 146:

_Pennérèz_—Breton for heiresses, marriageable girls.

Footnote 147:

Lovers met behind the gable end, because there there were no windows from which they could be overlooked; hence the expression for courtship, _to talk behind the gable_.

Footnote 148:

_Morzolik an ankou_ the Bretons call the wood-louse, in allusion to its faint, regular rapping. Cf. our _Death-watch_.

Footnote 149:

The precise distance at which the Bretons locate hell.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

PHILOCHRISTUS. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1878.

The peculiar merits of this book cannot be too highly valued by any sincere lover of Christ. Its sweet, earnest, intensely religious tone leads the reader through its learned pages over a most delightful walk of spiritual and intellectual recreation. Dry and unsatisfactory discussion is wholly avoided, and the all-absorbing subject, the human life of the divine Redeemer, is pictured in a light glowing with fascinating love and luminous with precise intelligence. Assuming the character of a disciple who actually lived with and followed Christ until the Ascension, the author represents himself as writing in Alexandria ten years after the destruction of Jerusalem, and when, he says, “almost all those disciples who with me saw the Lord Jesus in the flesh are now fallen asleep.” He admits the impossibility of portraying Christ “as he was in himself,” but he “determined rather to set forth an history of mine own life, wherein, as in a mirror, might perchance be discerned some lineaments of the countenance of Christ, seen, as by reflection, in the life of one who loved him.”

The book opens with a brief but strikingly graphic statement of the condition of Judea, both religiously and politically, at the time of our Lord’s public appearance. Its subjection to Roman domination had eliminated its existence as an independent state, whilst the excessive love of ceremonial into which the law had degenerated betokened the need of a new law and a new law-maker. For to be pious in those days meant “to be obedient to the light precepts of the law, such as the laws concerning the exact observance of the Sabbath, and concerning purifications, and concerning the consumption of nail-parings and the like” (p. 27). The nicety to which these casuistic pietists carried their human observances is shown from the example of one of them, Abuyah, who extolled the Law of the Tassels as most perfect; and so, he says, “once, because I had chanced to tread upon a portion of the fringe of my garment, going up a ladder, I steadfastly refused to move from the spot where I stood till such time as the rent had been repaired.” It was this same pious man that chid his mother “because she wore on her dress a ribbon that was not sewn but only fastened to her vesture, for thus she transgressed the law by bearing burdens on the Sabbath.”

Bringing in Philo and some Alexandrine Jews, with an exposition of their philosophical opinions, adds much interest to the narrative. The patriotic spirit of the enthusiastic Galileans who hastened to gather around Jesus, whom they thought to have come for the restoration of the ancient glory of Israel, is well depicted, and shown to have been the chief motive leading so many from that province to follow him. How slowly even the disciples learned the true mission of our Redeemer appears from the fact that Philochristus himself had no definite conception of it in the beginning. Conversing with Gorgias, a travelled Jew, he sees advancing the tetrarch’s Thracian guard, whose description, as well as that of the Roman soldiers, is admirable: “I looked and saw a band of about three hundred men, of a wild and savage aspect, bearing targets and girt with scimitars. But Gorgias, noting, as I suppose, the anger in my countenance, answered: ‘These dogs (may the Lord destroy them root and branch!) are swift indeed to shed the blood of women and children, but they are as naught compared with the Romans. Couldst thou see a Roman legion how they march, these would seem unto thee but as jackals at the lion’s tail. Mark but how the dogs straggle. But when the Romans march the spears in their hands all point one way, and the swords by their sides hang all after one fashion, and even their stakes and tools (which they carry behind their backs) do all swing to one time, and their feet, arms, and heads, yea, even to the winking of their eyes, go all together after the manner of a five-banked corn-ship of Alexandria, with her five hundred oars all keeping time; and when they charge, they charge like ten thousand elephants clad in iron.... Verily these Roman swine are all as children of Satan; but a Roman legion is as Satan himself’” (p. 126). As he had been listening to Christ teaching that whosoever would enter the kingdom should become as little children, it seemed not easy to him to reconcile this with the temporal restoration of Israel, and “methought,” he says, “it would be very hard to overthrow these Thracians, and much more the Romans, by becoming as little children” (_ibid._)

Although the work does not come out as a Catholic production, it is very encouraging to those who desire the spirit of Christ to be more universally diffused to find such books receiving extensive circulation. Dogmatic or formally doctrinal propositions are not to be found in it, yet the substantial doctrine of the Gospel is clearly discernible in the body of the work. Excepting the brief exposition of the doctrine of divorce at p. 213, there appears nothing in the whole book inconsistent with a candid, Catholic exegesis of Scripture. The beautiful exposition of Peter’s faith and the founding of the church thereupon, at p. 249, could not be easily surpassed. It is a good sign when Protestants have such works placed in their hands, and the publishers deserve well of the public for the creditable manner in which they have brought out this admirable volume. No professing Christian can read it without very much profit, and, indeed, he will be filled with the author’s declaration concerning Christ: “For in his presence I find life; but to be absent from him is death” (p. 242).

HOLY CHURCH THE CENTRE OF UNITY; or, Ritualism compared with Catholicism. Reasons for returning to the True Fold. By T. H. Shaw. London: R. Washbourne. 1877.

This pamphlet is not a little remarkable among those which issue from the pens of converts. It is very different from what its title leads us to expect. But perhaps it will take the Protestant mind all the better for its peculiarities. We confess, for our own part, to being disappointed at the same time that we are pleased. There is occasionally an exhibition of something like bad taste. There is extravagant use of italics—the effect of which is always weakening. There are outbursts of pious sentiment—a thing never suitable to polemical pages. Then, too, there is no continuity of argument. Each chapter stands by itself and needlessly repeats what other chapters have dealt with. Still, in spite of these defects, there is an earnestness from beginning to end which cannot fail to impress the mind of a real inquirer. And together with this earnestness there is a force in the way some of the arguments are put which is greater, by contrast, than it would appear in pages of the usual style of controversy.

The writer begins by telling us that he has been “for nearly fifty years a member of the Church of England.” He is therefore no hot-brained undergraduate. He adds that his “misgivings were first aroused as early as the year 1851”; and that his “convictions have become matured by means of earnest prayer for Divine guidance.” Here is a mental process that ought to strike a Protestant, and make him ask his conscience: “Am I seeking that I may find? Am I praying for light as this man did? Can I believe that such persistent prayer has ended in delusion?”

The author’s next paragraph is a specimen of his way of putting things:

“Regarding the Church of England—to say nothing of the overwhelming testimony against her through lack of ‘apostolic commission’ and her want of unity in doctrine—the endowments, the system of patronage, the untrained priesthood, are in themselves facts glaringly inconsistent with the idea of the guidance of the Spirit of that God who is the author and source of all unity. There is no trade or profession for which it is required that a youth should go through less training than that which suffices for the English clergy. Almost any scholar would pass for holy orders whose father had a lucrative benefice at his disposal. Is it so in Rome? I rather think that learning, self-sacrifice, and poverty are the main worldly requirements. Which most corresponds to our Blessed Lord’s life upon earth, whose ‘kingdom is not of this world’?”

On pages 22-25 he quotes from Father Harper’s reply to Dr. Fraser, Bishop of Manchester, on infallibility. The learned Jesuit is appealing to the testimony of the Third, Fourth, and Sixth Œcumenical Councils. All Anglicans profess to receive the Third and Fourth, some even the Sixth. If their divines should honestly state, as arguments on the Catholic side, the passages cited by Father Harper, their cause would be a lost one indeed, as many of them know but too well. It is therefore a great service to lay these passages before the candid inquirer, who, in all probability, has never heard of Father Harper’s “reply,” or would fear to read it if he had. Further quotations follow, from page 25 to page 27, showing how the dogma of Papal Infallibility, like all other definitions, is “at once old and new,” and thus refuting the stale charge of innovation.

We conclude our notice with another piece of excellent advice to professed inquirers:

“We should call a man insane who endeavored to roof in his house before he had laid the foundation or measured its dimensions; just so it is in fact when people seeking the true church begin by attacking and trying to understand every dogma. These can never be fully understood. It is only as the house becomes built up that the roofing begins; so it is in the spiritual house of the soul. Faith leads us to the church. Faith is, then, the foundation. As the soul _grows_ in grace and _humility_, so the mysteries of godliness expand before the eye of the soul, revealing that which at one time appeared most obscure.... The great thing needed is divine faith; and this is never found by mere arguing and reading. It is the free gift of God, to be obtained only by earnest prayer.... Get _this_, and then search whether Jesus Christ did establish a visible church.”

The “faith” here spoken of is not _fides formata_, for that “comes by hearing”; but the grace of a right disposition for accepting the “word of Christ.” And this disposition is not merely an attitude of earnest attention, but, essentially, a spirit of _humility_—the “becoming as a little child.” It is precisely the lack of this child-like spirit that makes our arguments barren of result even where they are listened to with respect.

LIFE OF ST. WINFRID, OR BONIFACIUS, MARTYR, ARCHBISHOP OF MENTZ AND APOSTLE OF GERMANY. By the author of _St. Willibrord_. London: Burns & Oates. 1878. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)

This latest life of the great apostle of Germany is a truly interesting contribution to the early missionary history of the church, and as such seems to commend itself in an especial manner to those of his wandering Anglo-Saxon children who would fain be of the church without being within it; since in this short narrative these may learn how, in the eighth century, their great English saint laid his spiritual allegiance at the feet of Peter before he went forth successfully to undertake the conversion of the heathen and the reform of abuses among half-hearted and unruly Christians. And might not these also ponder on the counsel of Pope St. Zacharias, addressed to the Saxon monk, when commenting on certain of the Gallic clergy who held nationality above unity, the fringes of the episcopal robe of greater value than the seamless raiment of the Bride of Christ? “Preach, dearest brother,” writes the holy pope, “the rule of Catholic tradition we have received from the Holy Roman Church which we serve, and of which God is the founder.”

The present English biographer of St. Boniface has enriched the historical account of the saint’s labors with letters that give a vivid picture of the faith and simplicity of those troubled times that seem so confusing a maze as we look back on them with the clouded memories of early school-days, when English history was a tangled web of Ethelwulfs and Ethelberts.

To American ears the name of St. Boniface grows familiar through the churches that rise in his honor among his German children in the United States, yet, while we seem to know him better under the title given him at Rome, we heartily enter into the feeling of loving pride that makes his English biographer dwell on the sweetness of the Saxon name, and with its peaceful syllables waken patriotic echoes among the forests of Thuringia and the waves of the Zuyder Zee—Boniface or Winfrid, he is alike peacemaker and worker of good for all the nations.

VOYAGE OF THE PAPER CANOE: A Geographical Journey of two thousand five hundred miles, from Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico, during the years 1874-5. By Nathaniel H. Bishop, Author of “One Thousand Miles’ Walk across South America,” and corresponding Member of the Boston Society of Natural History, and of the New York Academy of Sciences. Boston: Lee & Shepard; New York: Charles T. Dillingham. 1878.

Mr. Bishop has given us a most interesting and instructive book. It cannot fail to be interesting to every one who has any love for nature, or any appreciation of out-of-door life and adventure; and it is instructive in two ways: first, by showing what can be done by a paper boat (a thing which most people know little or nothing about) under skilful management, and, secondly, by the information it gives regarding that remarkable inland line of navigation which runs along almost our whole Atlantic coast, the very existence of which is perhaps known to comparatively few persons.

Mr. Bishop started from Quebec on July 4, 1874, in a large wooden canoe, with which he had at first proposed to make his journey, under the impression, in which well-informed seamen shared, that two hundred miles of his route would be on the open ocean. With this boat he ascended the St. Lawrence and Richelieu rivers to Lake Champlain, thence proceeding by the Champlain and Erie canals to Albany. At this point he concluded to adopt a lighter craft, which was made for him at Troy by Mr. Waters. This was the paper canoe with which the rest of the voyage was made; it was only one-eighth of an inch in thickness, and weighed only fifty-eight pounds. In this seemingly frail but really very strong boat he rowed along down the Hudson, through the Kill von Kull, up the Raritan, through the canal to the Delaware, down the Delaware to the bay and Cape Henlopen, thence along the coast nearly to Cape Charles. Here he had to take the steamer across Chesapeake Bay; but thence, with the exception of short land-portages, the voyage was pursued through the sounds and inlets skirting the coast, and the Waccamaw River, to the Florida line at St. Mary’s, and across Florida by the St. Mary’s and Suwanee Rivers to the Gulf of Mexico.

We have given a short sketch of what Mr. Bishop did; but how he did it, and the various incidents and adventures of his trip, must be learned from the book itself, which we commend heartily to the perusal of all who like to read a most interesting story, which has the advantage of being true from beginning to end.

SEVEN YEARS AND MAIR. By Anna T. Sadlier. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1878.

This is a pleasing and graceful little tale quite out of the common track. It opens amid the wild scenery and the wild people of the Shetlands, passes thence to France, and goes back to a happy ending in its Shetland home. The out-of-the-way scenery and characters afford unusual scope for a picturesque imagination, which Miss Sadlier seems to possess in a very high degree, but which she holds under, a wise restraint and never allows to run away with her. She delights in the long, low sunsets, the gloom of night, the roar of the tempest, the swell of the sea, the grey and the rosy dawn of morning, the solemn beauty of the starry night. All these have a meaning, a poetry, almost a life for her; and she is very happy in her descriptions of them. These are enhanced by a sweet, clear English, which she has doubtless caught from a mother whose name is and will long remain a household word among Catholic readers. The narrative is fresh and pure and simply quaint. Miss Sadlier does not affect to depict the psychological monstrosities which are the ambition of most of the story-writers of the day. She avoids microscopic inspections of the interiors, so to say, of impossible personages, and gives us instead a pleasing story of the romantic style, with a few characters strongly marked and well contrasted, the whole forming a refreshing change from the average fiction of the day.

THE CHRISTIAN REFORMED IN MIND AND MANNERS. By Benedict Rogacci, S.J. The translation edited by Henry James Coleridge, S.J. London: Burns & Oates. 1877. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)

This volume is the twenty-third of the quarterly series brought out by the Jesuits in London. The original is a work of the seventeenth century. “It may be considered,” says the editor, “as the fruit of the great experience of Father Rogacci in giving retreats,” and “is one of those series of meditations in which the whole substance and system of the Exercises of St. Ignatius are worked up, although not precisely in the form in which they lie in the Exercises themselves.” Moreover, “the meditations are meant for persons of all classes, not only for religious persons; and those who are familiar from practice with the text of the book itself of St. Ignatius will not fail to see how perfect an acquaintance with and mastery of it must have been possessed by Father Rogacci.”

The meditations are arranged for an eight days’ retreat, at the rate of four a day. But since this may be considered excessive, a “selection” is given on page xii. “for persons who desire to make only three a day.” Indeed, Father Rogacci’s own practice was “not to give more than three meditations a day, with a repetition, or some practical considerations helping to the reformation of life, in the afternoon.” “The place of these considerations,” continues the editor, “is supplied in the present work by a number of practical reflections which he calls _réforme_, one of which he would have the exercitant read each day at the time of the consideration. There are sixteen of these considerations, in order that the exercitant may choose for himself, or as directed by his spiritual guide, whose assistance is supposed in works like this, according to his special needs.”

Our own judgment of the work is that it is most excellent as a whole, and we recommend it specially to those who are called upon from time to time to give retreats, whether to religious or to sodalities. We regret, however, that the meditations on hell, which are assigned to the fifth day, have been left without annotations for those who may use the book in private. “Pious” exaggerations and figures of speech which may be necessary, by way of economy, to impress gross and sensual natures are very much out of place, we think, in a work of the kind before us.

OUR SUNDAY FIRESIDE: OR, MEDITATIONS FOR CHILDREN. By Rory of the Hill. London: Burns & Oates. 1878. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)

The author of this series of stories, as we find stated in the preface, aims “to supply, for the use of children, some meditations on the choice of life,” while he endeavors so to clothe, in a garb attractive to childish minds, great truths of salvation and of every-day morality—as well as the more complex relations of “church and state”—that, the picturesque raiment winning the eyes, the soul may be led to weigh the half-hidden substance. How far he has attained his aim remains for the children to prove to whom his words shall be read. To us the garb seems, in many cases, too deep-freighted with cabalistic embroidery for little hands to lift, and the substance too heavy with the world’s fate for little minds to weigh. “Many carps are to be expected when curious eyes come a-fishing,” says gentle Robert Southwell, and so our curious eyes open wide with wonder at the wise little maiden of thirteen years who discourses of “amphibologics” and “the hypodichotomy of petty schisms”; who quotes from Renan and Voltaire, Walpole and De Tocqueville, citing almost volume and chapter, and who sets before her younger brothers and sisters the question of the great social conflict of the age, the ceaseless war between Christ and the world in its modern phase of “Liberalism” versus the divine voice of the church of God. In his ardent interest in the subjects whereof he treats we fear the scholar has often forgotten himself, and so has failed to stoop low enough, or rise high enough, to reach the hearts of the little people for whom he writes, picturesque as are his descriptions and full of meaning as are his tales, among which we like best “The Way of Life,” for the greater simplicity of its action; “Forgiveness,” for the Christian pathos of its close; and “The Last Mass,” for the solemn beauty and true poetry of its cathedral vision.

A MANUAL OF NURSING. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 1878.

In reading this little volume it will be seen that nursing is an art only to be acquired by a large experience and under competent instruction. Although this _Manual_ has been published expressly for the Training School for Nurses at Bellevue Hospital, nevertheless it would repay perusal by any person who is liable to be called upon to act as nurse. As is truly remarked in the preface, the infirm and superannuated are not suitable as nurses. The young and vigorous are the proper subjects to act in such capacity. Judging from its past record, the Training School is a success, and its pupils are far in advance of the old-time nurses who vegetated about Bellevue and charity hospitals. Many physicians state that numbers of patients are lost through injudicious acts on the part of the nurse. A careful perusal of this _Manual_, and a careful attention given to the physician’s advice, will certainly be important, and would repay the trouble a hundred-fold.

FREDERIC OZANAM, PROFESSOR AT THE SORBONNE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS. By Kathleen O’Meara. (First American Edition.) New York: The Catholic Publication Society Co., 9 Barclay Street. 1878.

We greet with pleasure the appearance of an American edition of this delightful biography, an article on which appeared in THE CATHOLIC WORLD, February, 1877, on the event of its publication in England. This edition has, we understand, been published at the request of the Supreme Council of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul of this city, and we trust there is not a member of the society in the country who will not read this life of one of the founders, in fact we may say _the_ founder, of the great and useful Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

VACATION DAYS: A Book of Instruction for Girls. By the author of _Golden Sands_. Translated from the French. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1878.

This is another of the admirable little series of devotional and instructive works which Miss McMahon has been the happy means of setting before the English-reading public. _Vacation Days_ follows _Golden Sands_ in its method of appealing simply and tenderly and with apt illustration to the young heart. We recommend it strongly to young people who have the opportunity of idling during these idle days. A passing glance once a day at a page or two of it will form an excellent antidote to the literary trash which nowadays constitutes the staple commodity of summer reading.

SELECT WORKS OF THE VENERABLE FATHER NICHOLAS LANCICIUS, S.J. Vol. I. London: Burns & Oates. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)

This is the first volume of a selected edition of the works of one who was a very holy Jesuit and great master of spiritual life during the first half of the seventeenth century. It is a spiritual treatise developing the eight days’ retreat which is founded on the Exercises of St. Ignatius, and contains many pious considerations supported and illustrated by opinions of the saints. We do not question the _doctrine_ of the book; it is solid, orthodox, and inviting; but we believe the book is one which, on the whole, is not adapted to people living in the world, and had better be confined to that class of persons, religious and people retired from the world, for whom it was originally written. Some of the examples taken from the lives of saints are “hard to be understood,” and several of the illustrations given in the chapter on “Helps to escape Purgatory” are not specially edifying to us. We do not care to believe in the vision of a certain monk, or even to think about numerous souls _impaled upon spits and roasted like geese before a large fire_, with a lot of devils around them acting the part of cooks. The work is well translated from the Latin, and contains a short preface by Father Gallwey, S.J., whose name stands deservedly high in England.

THE MYSTERIOUS CASTLE: A Tale of the Middle Ages. Translated from the French by Mrs. Kate E. Hughes. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co.

This quaint autobiography of the Baron de Rabasteins is charmingly written. It is full of pleasant, lively incidents of travel, with descriptions of the life and manners of the French people during the middle and latter half of the last century, a period which can hardly be classed as mediæval, as the title given to the translation imports. The adventures of the young baron in the so-called “mysterious” castle of Monségur surpass any story of the kind we have ever read in fiction. If they knew what a treat was in store for them by its perusal, there is not one of our young folks who would not like to get it as a school premium or as a Christmas present. However, we feel it our duty to say that there are numerous faults in translation which in future editions should be corrected. As, for example, on the first page we are confronted with the expression “decision of the holy siege,” by which we presume is meant “the judgment of the Holy See.”

THE ART OF KNOWING OURSELVES, etc. By Father John Peter Pinamonti, S.J. With TWELVE CONSIDERATIONS ON DEATH, by Father Luigi La Nuza, S.J., and FOUR ON ETERNITY, by Father John Baptist Manni, S.J. Translated by the author of _St. Willibrord_. London: Burns & Oates. 1877.

DAILY MEDITATIONS ON THE MYSTERIES OF OUR HOLY FAITH, and on the lives of our Lord Jesus Christ and of the Saints. First Part, containing Meditations for the five weeks of Advent, for the six weeks after Christmas, as also on the Mysteries of the Life of Christ. Translated from the Spanish of Rev. Father Alonso de Andrade, S.J. London: Burns & Oates. 1878. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)

Here are two more volumes of meditations written for other times and rescued from oblivion. Of the three brief treatises contained in the first volume, the “ART OF KNOWING OURSELVES” is a veritable gem. It may well be called “the looking-glass which does not deceive.” Regarding the other two treatises—the “Twelve Considerations on Death” and the “Four on Eternity”—we have to remark again that there is much in them unsuited to the present age. We greatly prefer the second volume from the Spanish of Father Andrade; for though here, too, in the meditations for the first week of Advent, will be found things rather calculated to irritate than to edify, yet the rest of the book is the more delicious for its quaintness, and has a way we have never seen surpassed of making us familiar with Jesus and Mary as our models, and of showing us what wealth is treasured up in the gospels which the church has chosen for her Mass.

ST. TERESA’S OWN WORDS; or, Instructions on the Prayer of Recollection, etc. London: Burns & Oates. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)

This is a good English translation, by Bishop Chadwick, of St. Teresa’s admirable method of interior prayer. It contains the sense and substance of the whole third book of the _Imitation of Christ_, showing us in brief how Truth speaks within, without the noise of words; and that interior conversation of Christ with the faithful soul is the surest means of possessing our Sovereign Good in this world and the next. It is, as Edmund Waller says, “infinite riches in a little space.”

THE NOTARY’S DAUGHTER. From the French of Mme. Donnet, by Lady Georgiana Fullerton. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co.

As the translator, Lady Fullerton, announces that this very pretty tale is an adaptation, and not in a strict sense a translation, we are assured that the gifted authoress of _Lady Bird_ has not only avoided servility in translating the parts of _Un Mariage en Province_ which she has decided to employ, but has added to a very charming French story some of her own excellent ideas, both in relation to plot and dialogue. The story brings us to the south of France, about Toulon, and is strikingly illustrative of the French theories in regard to matrimony. A notary, M. Lescalle, who possesses great political influence, has a very pretty daughter, Rose, whom he successively offers to all the great men in the neighborhood, desirous of his support, as a suitable wife for their sons. His offer is accepted by a rich roturier, but is abruptly broken off by M. Lescalle himself, in consequence of another offer of marriage by M. le Comte de Védelles, in behalf of his younger son, George. Now George, being considered a fada—namely, a half-witted person—is an object of aversion to Mlle. Rose; but, in spite of her repugnance, the ceremony takes place. It is needless to say that George is not a fada, but is a poet, unappreciated by his relations, and so everything is brought to a happy conclusion. The dialogue is above the average of novels, but even so, it is not very sprightly. The moral tone is exceptionally good. The plot affords an opportunity of condemning the system by which marriages are arranged in France, and invites reflections which cannot be discussed in a brief criticism.

THE PRECIOUS PEARL OF HOPE IN THE MERCY OF GOD. London: Burns & Oates (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)

We welcome this beautiful little book as a great addition to our ascetical literature. It is translated into English from the Italian, and, to judge by its grace and elegance, by a master of both languages. The aim of the pious author was to awaken and increase in us a sense of confidence in God, which is so necessary to our spiritual life; and he admirably answers objections drawn from certain passages of the Sacred Scriptures which heretics and others have abused, and from some opinions of the Fathers insisting on the severity of the divine judgments. We are reminded by this little work of the great and constant account which the early Christians made of the virtue of hope, whose symbol was an anchor—suggested by St. Paul to the Hebrews vi. 18-19—and which, either alone or in connection with the fish (symbol of our Lord and Saviour), or combined with a cross, substituted for the ring by which the anchor is attached, was a very common device cut or impressed on lamps, rings, and other objects of daily use. Among early Christian inscriptions, also, few are more frequent than those which express hope in the mercy of God, such as _Spes in Deo, Spes in Christo, Spes in Deo Christo_.

THALIA. From the French of Abbé A. Bayle, by a Sister of St. Joseph. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham & Son.

The vast majority of the lovers of light literature look upon classical stories with a certain mistrust. They fear them either to be too pedantic or wanting in “esprit.” _Thalia_ opens in Arles, thence we voyage to Alexandria, then to Rome, from Rome to Nicomedia, and so on. There are a few good scenes and descriptive passages; but, although a somewhat agreeable way of learning the history of the time, it does not necessarily make a pleasing romance. A Sister of St. Joseph has translated _Thalia_ into very correct English. The book is likely to be discarded as a light production by one who can appreciate its learned allusions, and to one who cannot, to read it will seem a task rather than a pleasure.

IRELAND, AS SHE IS, AS SHE HAS BEEN, AND AS SHE OUGHT TO BE. By James J. Clancy. New York: Thomas Kelly. 1877.

The comprehensive title of this work indicates the author’s intentions in giving it to the public, and, if he has not succeeded in doing justice to a theme so important, he has at least produced a very readable book, in which will be found many historical facts clearly and succinctly stated, and several suggestions that will command the attention of the thoughtful reader. With some of Mr. Clancy’s views on the past and present of his native country we cannot agree. They are those entertained by a certain class of radical and impracticable politicians whose sole claim to attention consists in the fact that they are continually inveighing against the inevitable, and criticising the acts of the able men who, like Edmund Burke and Daniel O’Connell, have conferred dignity on their native land and earned for themselves the world’s applause. Still, the author of the book before us advances his opinions with so much comparative moderation that, while they do not compel conviction, they certainly command our respectful consideration. Those who have read Mr. Sullivan’s _New Ireland_ will probably like to read this Irish-American version of the oft-told tale of Ireland’s wrongs and rights.

WRECKED AND SAVED. By Mrs. Parsons. London: Burns & Oates. 1878. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)

The author of this very pretty and instructive tale is already well known to the public as the writer of several moral stories which, while thoroughly Catholic in tone and interesting in plot, are sufficiently attractive in an artistic point of view to command the attention of all intelligent readers. _Wrecked and Saved_ is a story of everyday life very simply and gently told. The hero, who has been a shipwrecked babe, passed through all the phases of the life of a foundling, winning to himself friends by his good conduct, cheerful disposition, and intrinsic merits. Wrongfully accused of a heinous crime, he suffers imprisonment and mental torture, but, having finally been proven innocent, all ends happily. The plan of the book can scarcely be called original, but the lessons of patience, industry, and dependence on the will of Providence inculcated are excellent.

FORBIDDEN FRUIT. From the German of F. W. Hackländer. By Rosalie Kaufman. Boston: Estes & Lauriat. 1878.

This is a novel with the threadbare plot of a young heir being obliged to marry before a certain age or lose a considerable fortune. There is no grace or lightness about the dialogue, and scarcely a particle of humor in the entire book. There are one or two characters well drawn, of whom an old gentleman named Renner, and a young and vivacious beauty, Fräulein Clothilde, are possibly the best. As a rule, this kind of novel does not prove a success when translated for an American public. How it may succeed in Germany it is impossible to say, but certainly the book is even uncommonly stupid. When it is remarked that all the young ladies and gentlemen are distinguished for their elegance and beauty, the character of the story will be appreciated.

TOTAL ABSTINENCE IN ITS SOCIAL AND THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS. An address by the Rev. James J. Moriarty, Catholic pastor of Chatham Village, N. Y. Published by special request. Chatham Village, N. Y.: _Courier_ Printing-House. 1878.

This is a very earnest and eloquent address, which was delivered to a mixed audience of Catholics and Protestants. Studiously popular in its style, it is for that reason especially adapted to go home to the hearts of the people. Father Moriarty has happily hit on the peculiar danger and fascination of the vice of intemperance in the following passage: “It is a vice that lies in wait for the most prominent members of society, the highest in station, the most influential over their fellow-men. It is not the vice of the naturally mean, the selfish, or the miserly. It is more apt, of its nature, to attack those of the finest mind, the most brilliant talent, the brave, the frank, the generous-hearted, those open to the influence of the highest, the purest, the noblest sentiments.”

ERLESTON GLEN: A Lancashire Story of the Sixteenth Century. By Alice O’Hanlon. London: Burns & Oates. 1878. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)

The scene of this tale, as the title indicates, is laid in England, and the time is that of Queen Elizabeth, before the Catholic gentry of the country became almost extinct, and the persecuting spirit of the “Reformers” had died out for want of material upon which to exercise its fanaticism. The plot of the book is simple, and the story is, taken all together, sad. Two happy, unobtrusive families, allied by long acquaintance and sincere friendship, but still more by the bond of a common faith, are suddenly and cruelly interrupted in their retired happiness by the agents of that government which it is the boast of some modern historians to characterize as one of the most glorious England has ever had. Then follow espionage, arrests, mental suffering and physical torture, that, though less than historical facts and by no means distorted from the truth, sicken the heart and move us to thank God we live in the nineteenth and not in the sixteenth century. As a work of art _Erleston Glen_ is by no means perfect. Its stiffness of style argues an unpractised hand, and the incomprehensible Lancashire dialect is too often introduced to suit the general reader; but as a picture of English life as it was during the sudden paroxysm of Protestant reformatory zeal which characterized the reign of Elizabeth, it is both truthful and vivid. Many who do not care to read the more serious works lately printed in England on the same topic—the sufferings of Catholics in that country—will be both edified and instructed by a perusal of Miss O’Hanlon’s clever book.

* * * * *

The Catholic Publication Society Company has in press, and will shortly issue, one of the most important of its excellent series of educational works. This is the _History of the United States_ (for the use of schools), advance sheets of which lie before us. It is written by one of the most experienced and cultured of our writers, Mr. J. R. G. Hassard, author of the _Life of Archbishop Hughes_, _Life of Pius IX._, etc. Its letter-press, illustrations, and maps are beyond criticism. Its method is singularly well adapted to assist both scholar and teacher. At the foot of every page are questions on what has gone above. The _History_ begins with the discovery of America and brings us down to our own times. It has this special distinction to recommend it: it gives Catholics their due prominence in a history of which they occupy so large a place, but a place that has hitherto been resolutely denied them. It is well, it is necessary, that Catholic children should feel and know that they have as grand a share in the history, the development, the life, the struggles, the triumphs of their country as has any other class. Placing this _History_ in their hands at school is the very best means of instilling into their minds facts which it has been the custom to ignore in the histories thus far published.

The work is intended for the more advanced students in our schools and colleges. For younger scholars an _Introductory History_, arranged on the catechetical plan, has been prepared as an abridgment of the larger work, and will be issued simultaneously with the latter.

* * * * *

We would again call the attention of our readers to the new and excellent works published by the Catholic Publication Society Co., and especially intended for light summer reading. Such are _Six Sunny Months_, _Sir Thomas More_, _Letters of a Young Irishwoman_, _Alba’s Dream_, and the various volumes of stories collected from THE CATHOLIC WORLD. We only call attention to these because they are the most recent of their kind. The field of Catholic fiction is now happily a large and rich one, and Catholics who are given to this kind of reading might well turn aside from the foolish romances that are made to suit a vicious popular taste to works which are fully as interesting as the others without their nauseous flavor and immoral tone and tendency.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XXVII., No. 162.—SEPTEMBER, 1878.

THE MATHEMATICAL HARMONIES OF THE UNIVERSE.[150]

ARGUMENT.

The primary light of reflection which awakens the human mind to a distinct consciousness of itself at the same time reveals a world of unknown forms, the universe of space and succession, teeming with evolutions of order, beauty, and power. With the dawn of reason comes also the principle of causality, and man asks himself, What mean these mighty changes on earth and in the sky? What urges the wonderful motions of wind and wave, of sunshine and of shadow, and yonder golden fires that sparkle and burn in the high vault of heaven? Whence are they all, and whence am I? And the very first attempt to answer these spontaneous questions produces the first theory of natural theology, inaugurating the reign of the earliest natural religion.

But the curiosity of the intellect never slumbers, and the problem repeats itself from age to age: What is the magnificent and mysterious power above man and before nature, the primordial Cause of all phenomena? And in response to this constant and ever-recurring interrogatory the annals of speculation have presented several contradictory solutions, as the atheistic, the sceptical, and the pantheistic, none of which I shall now pause to criticise. I shall simply undertake to prove, in accordance with the rigorous rules of inductive logic, that the great cause, the fundamental efficient of all facts whatsoever, must possess the attributes of intelligence, and especially mathematical reason.

It will be remembered, however, that on the subject of causation, as to the reality of the abstract idea itself, the schools of both ancient and modern philosophy stand divided. The disciples of one sect assume the existence of secret forces in the bosom of nature, whose development results in those varied manifestations of mingled matter and motion which become perceptible to our senses; while their opponents, now including the _élite_ of the most enlightened thinkers, as strenuously contend that the knowledge of efficient causes lies altogether beyond the reach of the human faculties; that our science must therefore be limited to the strict generalization of phenomena according to their invariable conjunctions of simultaneity and succession, without the possibility of discovering any hidden _nexus_ or closer tie between them. This is the doctrine taught alike by the great names of Reid, Locke, Hume, Brown, Kant, and Comte.

But it is fortunate that the path of the present argument will not carry us into the mist of that interminable controversy. I shall not pretend to determine the specific qualities of causation in general. On the contrary, the whole extent of my purpose is to show that the fundamental efficient of all material facts, whatever else it may or may not be, must be endowed with the attribute of rationality.

I will begin by laying down the universal proposition: Every natural phenomenon having the characteristics of mathematical order and harmony, to the exclusion of chance, must be the effect of a rational cause.[151]

Now, it is evident that the foregoing assertion, the major premise of my intended syllogism, predicates a uniformity of relation between a certain class of facts and the power which produces them. In other words, it affirms an invariable correspondence betwixt a given quality in the consequent, or effect, and a like definite attribute in the antecedent, or cause, whichever terminology different schools may prefer. The existence of this relation would by some be deduced from _à priori_ principles founded on a mental analysis of the abstract notion of causation, while a large majority of mankind actually take it for granted as an intuitive axiom of self-evident truth; and thus, wherever they behold the appearances of design or the beautiful evidence of mathematical order, their inference of previous or contemporaneous causal intelligence is immediate and irresistible.

But neither of those procedures can be regarded as either certain or scientific. No sequence of events can attain to the dignity of a general and philosophic law until the antecedent and consequent are brought face to face and tested by the rigid rules of an infallible induction. The complicated web of circumstances must be unravelled to eliminate the extraneous facts, and discover what precise quality alone in the cause produces mathematical harmony in the effect.

For example, it is known that the air supports animal life as well as combustion. But that same atmosphere consists of two elements, oxygen and azote; how, then, shall it be ascertained which ingredient is the supporter of life and flame? To determine this question the natural philosopher performs an _experimentum crucis_ by plunging a bird or a lighted candle in a jar of pure azote from which the oxygen has been removed, when the bird instantly dies and the candle is extinguished. The problem is solved according to the inductive canon of difference. Nevertheless, to make sure he reverses the experiment, and treats the animal or the flame with oxygen instead of azote, when the functions of vitality and combustion proceed without disturbance—indeed, with additional vigor. Here there can be no longer any room for doubt. It is manifest as any demonstrated theorem in geometry that of the two elements in atmospheric air, the oxygen, and not the azote, sustains both life and combustion. And as I said before, this is the procedure of induction by what Mill so happily terms the method of difference—the most potent and unerring of all the five canons for the investigation of causes.

Now, what we need for our induction as to the real and absolute efficient of mathematical order and harmony in the motions of the universe is a similar analyzed instance, where the naked antecedent and consequent shall be detected in the very act of conjugation. And, by a propitious arrangement of nature in the great fact of our complex organization, we have it in our power to perform this decisive experiment in the same manner and with as much certainty as in the previous example. We can act as individual causes, either with or without the presence of a rational purpose. Then, let the student seat himself, pen or pencil in hand, to make marks on the paper, without any intelligent design, as we sometimes do in a state of reverie when the reason is exclusively occupied with some other subject. The result is a medley of irregular and disconnected figures, of letters and words written mechanically, without beauty, order, or consecutive meaning.

Again, let the experimentalist apply the test of his intelligence. The effect is a series of united diagrams solving some profound problem in geometry, or a divine page of impassioned and classical eloquence, or the elegant delineation of any particular object of nature or art, according to the specific intention of the person. Here the analysis is perfect, and realizes the exact conditions imposed by the inductive canon of difference. The circumstances are all precisely identical in both cases, save the presence of rationality and its consequent mathematical harmony in the one instance, and their absence in the other. Hence there can be no question that in human causation the attribute of reason is the actual efficient of every species of order.

Besides, even nature herself presents the same experiment in every case of total insanity. The madman is deprived of reason, but not of simple volition or bare causal power; and the consequence is utter disorder and want of method in his actions. He cannot produce mathematical effects, because he is deficient in mathematical intelligence.

The same general law is demonstrated also by the canon of agreement. Universal experience shows in every department of science, industry, literature, and art that intelligence is the invariable antecedent of order, and that the absence of that mental quality involves the corresponding absence of all regular and harmonious sequence.

It remains, however, to prove our major premise by the method of concomitant variations, the canon of which has been expressed with such clear and scientific accuracy in Mill’s _Logic_: “Whatever phenomenon varies in any manner whenever another phenomenon varies in some particular manner, is either a cause or an effect of that phenomenon, or is connected with it through some fact of causation.”

For instance, in the case of heat, by increasing the temperature of a body we enlarge its bulk, but by enlarging its bulk we do not increase its temperature; therefore heat must be the cause, and not the effect, of expansion. In a similar manner philosophers demonstrate the first law of motion, or uniform velocity in a straight line, by showing that retardation, or divergence, is always in the definite ratio of the obstacles encountered by the moving body.

The application of this rule to our argument, although its force cannot be augmented, gives the evidence the greatest variety and splendor. For the annals of all ages and nations, without one single exception, bear witness that, in exact proportion to the increase of rationality, the human mind has always displayed corresponding effects of beauty and order in every sphere of art and civilization. What investigators have extended the limits of natural knowledge by perfecting the science of geometry, or discovering the differential calculus, or fixing the true _principia_ of the material universe? Not a low class of intellects with feeble faculties of reason and no broad sweep of mathematical perception, but men of the loftiest genius, such as the immortal names of Euclid, Archimedes, Leibnitz, or Newton.

But I have already spent sufficient, and perhaps the reader will think too much, time on this primary induction, which indeed, from the universality of the law, has every appearance of being self-evident. Nevertheless, this fulness of discussion was indispensable to my purpose, that being to place all the premises of the argument on a scientific rather than a popular basis. And, if I am not mistaken, we are now entitled to consider the first proposition as completely proven: “That all natural phenomena having the attributes of mathematical order and harmony to the exclusion of chance must be the effects of a cause, or of causes, possessing rationality.”

I am aware, however, of the specious objection that the general induction is too wide for the warrant of its particular instances. It may be urged that although the demonstration is perfect as to the logical relation of intelligence as a cause and harmony as the consequent, yet still we are not justified in affirming that no other cause is capable of producing the same result. For example, a hundred separate antecedents may lead to death; and many ordinary facts follow very different material or mental efficients. Upon what principles, then, it will be asked, are we enabled to pronounce the universal negative that there cannot exist any unintelligent forces in the bosom of nature entirely adequate to the production of the mathematical order which we behold in the world of time and space? I state the adverse criticism in all its strength, because it is the only answer that can be interposed by the sceptical philosopher; and, besides, it constitutes the main difficulty in the minds of the multitude. Nevertheless, it cannot claim the slightest pretension to the dignity of a scientific argument.

In the first place, I remark that the objection, if it has any semblance of validity, proves too much, as it goes to overthrow every general proposition which can possibly be framed on the subject of causation, so far as assertion can proceed from the antecedent to the consequent. It cuts off from the realms of logic, at one reckless blow, the whole category of universal as to the predication of any causal sequence even among perceptible phenomena. Nay, it also denies the legitimacy of particular affirmations in all cases of causation; for if the sceptic has the logical liberty to assume the hypothesis of unknown and invisible efficients in one instance, he may with equal plausibility do so in all; and therefore these secret and unseen causes may be the real producing antecedents of every phenomenon whatever, and thus all knowledge must be reduced to naked conjecture.

By what rule, let me inquire, are we justified in extending the sublime law of gravitation to the various planets of the solar system, and even as high as the fixed stars? Obviously for the only reason that we perceive in the magnificent evolutions of the celestial bodies the same class of effects which appertain to terrestrial attraction. And upon that identical principle we are entitled to infer the existence of a rational cause wherever we behold mathematical harmonies or the manifest evidences of intelligence and design. The most stringent canons of induction give us this right, and I can see no motive for refraining from its exercise, if the process should perchance conduct us to the recognition of a Supreme Being. But as to this last point, we have not yet advanced far enough in the discussion to venture a positive declaration.

It must be admitted, however, that the axiom by which we are enabled to deduce a cause with specific attributes from any definite facts, such as we know by previous experience to be the natural consequents of that particular efficient, must be restricted to the special case where we have no acquaintance with any other cause competent for the production of the given phenomena. And this is precisely the condition of the case in our present argument. We have the most abundant and perfect experience that intelligence is adequate to produce the harmonious regularity and beautiful order of nature; but we are altogether destitute of scientific, or even superficial, knowledge as to the reality of any different cause which might yield those results.

As I have already observed, the most advanced schools of modern sensist philosophy entirely ignore the investigation of efficient or producing causes, _as removed beyond the sphere of the human senses_. On this point the Scotch metaphysicians speak as decidedly as the disciples of Locke and Hume, or the more profound and intensely critical Kant. Indeed, Dr. Thomas Brown has clearly demonstrated that in the physical world we can never hope to discover by sensation anything save phenomena, either antecedents or consequents, with their invariable laws of simultaneity and succession; while the deepest as the most laborious thinker of all, M. Auguste Comte, refuses even so much as to use the term cause in his _Course of Positive Philosophy_.

On the other hand, those who aver the existence of imperceptible powers and occult qualities as the actual efficients of phenomena do not attempt to define their character, nor pretend that they fall within the limits of sensible or intellectual cognition. A member of that sect, like the pedant in the old play, may explain “that opium produces sleep because it has a soporific property”; but if you ask him how he knows it to possess such a property, he can only answer, from the fog of his vicious circle, “because it produces sleep.” And such must ever be the virtual avowal of utter ignorance as to the nature of causation by the adherents of this obsolete school. And could they thus solve, even to their own satisfaction, the question of _secondary_ causes, they leave the question of the First Cause untouched.

It therefore follows, in accordance with all the rules of the most rigid and thorough induction, that the mathematical harmonies of the universe furnish conclusive proofs of an intelligent cause; and if we reject this inference there is not, and cannot be, the faintest shadow of a possible hypothesis for the explanation of natural phenomena.

I will next proceed to state my second proposition: All natural phenomena have the characteristics of mathematical order and harmony to the exclusion of chance.

Now, it is evident that a generalization so sweeping and universal as the above could only be made good by an immense, an almost infinite series of inductions. Nevertheless, we are not bound to assume an _onus_ of such overpowering magnitude. For as the syllogism of our argument belongs to the first figure, and we have to deal at present with the minor premise, that may well be particular; and the conclusion will be valid as to everything embraced within its terms, and that will be found sufficient to warrant our conclusion.

As a preliminary, however, it becomes necessary to explain the logical process for the exclusion or mathematical elimination of chance. Suppose there be two dice in a box, what are the chances of our turning an ace at a single throw? Obviously one-sixth, leaving six chances _minus_ one against the probability; while the chances against our throwing two aces, or any other equation, may be set down, with sufficient accuracy for the purpose of this argument, as the square of the last number, or thirty-six. The chances against an equation of four dice are 1,296; while against eight they amount to the enormous sum of 1,679,616—an impossible throw, unless the cubes have been loaded. And it is manifest from this example how very soon the multiplication of coincidences indicative of order must demonstrate causation to the utter elimination of chance. I will now commence with the particular cases of the general law announced in my second premise.

INSTANCE I.—MYSELF.

I survey my right hand: it has five fingers; I look at my left: it has five also—the other member of an algebraic equation. I then turn to my feet, and behold a similar equation of five toes on each. I next turn to my bodily senses, and again find the mystic five. The wonder is increasing. And now all the incalculable millions of my fellow-men rise up and sweep before the eye of the mind, in all the rich and radiant, or coarse and unseemly, varieties of humanity; and all these, too, present the identical God-announcing miracle, the quintuple equation of fives.

Let us, however, apply the rigorous rules for the calculation of chances, not forgetting the judicious remark of Whately: “That the probability of any given supposition must be estimated by means of a comparison with each of its alternatives.”

Now, there can be but two suppositions possible as to this uniform combination by which the number five is five times repeated in the human organism. The cause, whatever that may be, which produces these invariable equations must be endowed with intelligence or not. There is no other conceivable alternative; for the _abscissio infiniti_ effected by the word not, in logical division, always exhausts the whole category of things, both real and imaginary. Every object must be rational or not—rational in thought and in fact.

Therefore all these millionary equations of fives must have been produced by a cause, or causes, possessed of reason, or by a power destitute of that attribute. If we assume the first alternative there will be no chances for calculation, the efficient itself being amply adequate to develop the mathematical harmony.

But take up the other and only remaining supposition, that the causal agent producing the human organism is mere blind force of some unknown and unimaginable nature; what are the chances against such a hypothesis? We might say, in all logical strictness, that as we have no scientific knowledge of any such unintelligent cause capable of effecting the given phenomena of order, while we are acquainted with an efficient fully competent for the purpose, the chances against the naked assumption of blind force must be stated as infinity to zero. The chances against the equation of five fingers on each hand would be twenty-five. Add the five toes on each foot, and the chances will be six hundred and twenty-five. Then incorporate into the calculation the five senses, and the chances are three thousand one hundred and twenty-five. Let me procure a larger sheet, as the measureless sea of infinite and nameless numbers is flowing fast upon me. Next reckon the chances in the case of two persons, and they swell to the vast sum of nine millions, seven hundred and sixty-five thousand, six hundred and twenty-five; while the chances for four men will be the square of that number, and so on for ever. But the enormous sums soon overpower all the magnificent processes of our algebra, and no logarithmic abbreviations can aid us to grasp what stretches away into the unexplored fields of immensity. The attempt to apply the calculation even to the inhabitants now living on the globe would be as idle as the endeavor to enumerate the sunbeams shed during a solar year. The arithmetic of the archangel would perhaps be insufficient for the mighty computation.

In reference also to a single individual the subject might be pushed indefinitely farther—to the bones of the arms, head, feet, and the convolutions of the brain; for everywhere, and all through the physical framework, there runs a wonderful duality, where the series of constant equations counterbalance each other.

It must be borne in mind that I have shown in my major premise the necessity of rationality in the cause which effects mathematical order in the sequences of any natural phenomena. Hence such a cause is demonstrated for the whole of humanity. But, apart from the rigid logic of the argument, the question presents itself to popular apprehension: Could a cause without the intellect to perceive, the faculty to calculate and arrange, numerical relations, produce this infinity of mathematical harmonies?

If it be answered that the efficient is some unknown power or secret quality involved in the facts themselves or concealed beneath them, the problem still remains unsolved and rebounds upon us with accumulated force: Is that supposed secret power or occult quality self-conscious? Hath it the attribute of mathematical reason competent to the calculation and production of all these beautiful and boundless equations?

INSTANCE II.—CHEMISTRY.

Let us take our next comparisons from chemistry, that youngest sister of all the sciences, the splendid child of the galvanic battery, whose birth was brilliant as that of lightning.

Go analyze a cup of water. You find it composed of two parts of hydrogen to one of oxygen by volume, and eight parts of oxygen to one of hydrogen by weight. Nor do these numerical ratios ever vary. Freeze it into ice hard as the crystal of the jewelled mountains; dissipate it into vapor of such exquisite tenuity that a million acres of floating mist would scarcely form a single dewdrop; bring it from the salt solitudes of the ocean, or from the central curve of a rainbow, and submit it to the test of analysis; and still the pale chemist, as he watches the evolutions of the perpetual wonder from the depths of his laboratory, calls out: “Two to one, and one to eight, now and for ever!”

Let no one hope to estimate the chances against the hypothesis of the production of these mathematical relations by an unintelligent agent, unless he can first reckon the drops of a thunder-storm or measure the capacity of the sea.

A similar numerical harmony prevails in the atmosphere, which contains twenty parts of oxygen to eighty of nitrogen in every one hundred by volume, very nearly; the definite proportions never varying. Can it be imagined that the cause of this constant order, which rolled the aerial ocean of the breath of life forty-five miles deep around the globe, is itself destitute of the reason to perceive the ratios of its own wonderful works?

But select as another example a bit of limestone. You discover its elements to bear a quadruple proportion. There are twenty-two parts by weight of carbonic acid, and twenty-eight of lime. Lime yields on analysis twenty parts of the white metal calcium and eight of oxygen gas; while carbonic acid is composed of sixteen parts of oxygen to six of pure carbon. And these fixed relations of numbers are the same in every particle of limestone on the earth: in the snowy stalactite torn from the roof of coral caverns, in the ponderous fragment hurled up from the heart of the globe by the fiery hand of world-rocking volcanoes, and in the gleaming pebble which the child picks up from the waters of the brook. What a field is here for the calculation of chances! What a theme for devout and transcendent wonder! What a magnificent Bible with leaves of crystal is this among the old silent rocks! Must not such marvels of mathematical order have been produced by an efficient endowed with rationality—a cause that, to borrow the sublime language of Hebrew poetry, had the skill “to weigh the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance”?

But not only do we find numerical ratios here; symbolical angles are also detected. All the hundred forms of carbonate of lime split into six-sided figures, or regular rhombohedrons, whose alternate angles measure 105 deg. 55 min. and 75 deg. 5 min. Let the mathematician come with his trigonometry fresh from the schools to study this lofty lesson; although no science can avail for the computation of the chances against the hypothesis of an unintelligent cause for this celestial geometry of the crystal mountains.

INSTANCE III.—BOTANY.

We will make our next inductions in that study so charming to all genuine lovers of nature. Not over smoky furnaces or in darkened chambers will we read this division of our theme, but out in the sunny fields, and in the green-robed valleys, among the silken sisterhood of vegetable beauties, and beneath the radiant smile of the blue-eyed heavens.

The first ten classes of Linnæus are arranged simply according to the number of stamens presented in each blossom. For example, let us analyze a flower of the tobacco plant. It is of the fifth class, and of course has five stamens. But the equation does not end here; its corol has five parts, and the emerald cup of its calyx as many points.

Now, suppose that every bloom is produced by some efficient which cannot count; what are the chances against this combination of fives three times in a single specimen? Obviously one hundred and twenty-five; while for two flowers they amount to the sum of fifteen thousand, six hundred and twenty-five. For four blossoms the chances would be the square of the last number, and so on _ad infinitum_. What, then, must be the chances against the supposition of atheism in the flowers of a solitary field, in all the fields of a solar summer, in all the summers of sixty centuries?

But similar equations hold with all the vegetables to be found on the globe, and in their fruit as well as flower. Some blossoms are perfect time-pieces, marking the eternal march of the celestial lights in the firmament. Many open to the morning sun; some only to the fiery kisses of noonday; others at purple twilight when the gentle dews begin to fall; and a few in the depth of darkness, as it were to gaze on the glory of the midnight stars.

INSTANCE IV.—LIGHT.

I shall not hazard a remark as to the nature of that wonderful agent whose coming at the dawn of every day is like the sweet smile of some viewless yet omnipresent divinity, bringing with it the revelation of a new world. At present we have only to deal with mathematical evolutions, and not with the substantial essence of any fact or phenomenon.

The first law of light is an algebraic formula: The intensity of the fluid decreases as the square of the distance increases, and _vice versâ_.

The second law is equally mathematical: The angles of incidence and reflection are equivalent for every ray. Thus a sunbeam, falling on the table before me at an angle of forty-five degrees, will be reflected at the same angle.

Here, then, in the development of these two general laws, we behold the miracle of innumerable squares, circles, angles, such as sweep over countless millions of leagues in the stellar spaces, with a regularity that no Euclid or Legendre might ever hope to trace. And can it be possible that after all the great cause which thus _geometrizes_ may be devoid of all geometrical knowledge—nay, of even the faculty of rationality? If so, then might a blind mole, or the abstraction of a nonentity, compose a system of beauty and order superior in both accuracy and splendor to the _Principia_ of Newton or the sublime theories of La Place!

You can scarcely commence the estimation of chances in reference to these luminous angles being continually formed all over the material universe. Even imagination reels before the immensity of the conception. Think of all the fire-beams that emanate from the sun during one long summer day—of all the rays which flash out from the high stars for only a single night! Then let the mind travel back over the march of dim and distant centuries, gathering age upon age, rolling cycle after cycle, in those vast segments of eternity where the Alps and Andes seem evanescent as the snow-flakes that ride on the gyrations of the whirlwind around their hoary summits; where Platonic years are fleeting as the pulsations of the pendulum, and even the starry galaxies come and go “like rainbows.” Then bid your soaring fancy lift her lightning-wings away from world to world, and behold the horizon of the space which hath no limits, still opening for ever onwards and upwards, and thickening all around with serial columns of suns and stars, and undulating like some shoreless sea with its waves of nebulous light. Then tell me the number of rays that have shot athwart this teeming expanse of immensity since the sons of heaven shouted their choral hymns in the morning of creation. And answer me, who shall calculate the chances against the sceptical hypothesis here? Only a God of infinite intelligence may solve this infinite problem.

INSTANCE V.—ASTRONOMY.

The first law of the celestial motions discovered by Kepler, like all the rest, expresses a mathematical formula: All the planetary orbits are regular ellipses, in the lower focus of which stands the sun.

Now, as the ellipse contains an infinite number of geometrical points, it follows that the chances against the repetition of this figure by the progress of the same body along the same path in space must be infinity multiplied into infinity, compared with zero.

The second law is equally decisive. It may be stated thus: The times occupied by a planet in describing any given arc of its orbit are always as the areas of the sectors, formed by straight lines from the beginning and end of the arcs to the sun as a common centre. And here it cannot fail to be remarked that every term of the enunciation is purely mathematical.

But the third law of Kepler is still more astonishing. The squares of the periods of the planetary revolutions vary as the cubes of their distances from the sun.

What amazing evolutions are these to be the work of unthinking masses of matter! What angel’s music is this among the stars to be chimed by the choir of tongueless atoms! And well might the inspired old man exclaim when the heavenly harmony first broke upon his ear: “I have stolen the golden secret of the Egyptians. I triumph. I will indulge my sacred fury. I care not whether my book be read now or by posterity. I can afford to wait a century for readers, when God himself has waited six thousand years for an observer.”

We will not speak of chances in the production of such a mathematical marvel. We dare not approach the stupendous calculation, unless we might borrow the geometry of the morning star.

But every region of astronomy overflows with similar wonders; yet I have only time to adduce one more. The sun and all his suite of luminous attendants rotate from west to east, on axes that remain nearly parallel to themselves. La Place has computed the probability to be as four millions to one that all the motions of the planets, whether of rotation or revolution, originated in a common cause. Is it, then, even so much as conceivable that the efficient of such an endless order should be itself destitute of all reason and foresight? For it is universally conceded that the discovery and quick perception of mathematical relations evince intellect of the most lofty character; how incomparably superior, therefore, must have been the rationality required for the primary composition and arrangement of these relations! If to think geometrically demands intelligence, can any cause work geometrically without possessing the attributes of thought? We admire the genius of a Kepler and of a Newton as almost superhuman, because they were enabled to understand the harmonious laws of the heavenly bodies; what madness, then, must it be to deny the existence of mind as the necessary efficient for the production of these very harmonies!

I might go on to career all over the fields of science, and show the prevalence of mathematical ratios and equations in every department of approachable nature. But on the strength of the instances already adduced I think we are entitled to assume our minor premise as thoroughly proven: that all natural phenomena have the characteristic of mathematical order and harmony to the exclusion of chance. And this induction, although it only rests for support on the canon of agreement—_per enumerationem simplicem, ubi non reperitur instantia contradictoria_—nevertheless has as broad and firm a basis as the philosophic axiom that every fact has a cause. For as we have never found a phenomenon without an efficient, so neither can we ever find one without its relations of mathematical order.

And now calling to mind our major premise—that every natural phenomenon having the characteristics of mathematical order and harmony must be the effect of a rational cause—it follows irresistibly by the rules of logic, from the conjugation of the two propositions, that all natural phenomena are the effects of a rational cause.

But we are not yet justified in dignifying the efficient of all these natural phenomena with the name of God. For the cause, though demonstrated to be intelligent, may be one or many, permanent or transient, good or evil. We have only inquired as to its existence, without considering any other attribute. However, we have not far to go in the sequel of the investigation, as the laws of logical inference founded on our previous inductions will enable us to give a speedy solution of the remaining problems, at least so fully as they may be susceptible of scientific explanation.

On the subject of causal unity it may be laid down as a general principle: That in the same sphere of time and space the identity of an efficient is to be concluded from the identity of the phenomena which experience has shown it to be capable of producing. Thus we refer all the electrical facts in the universe to a single imponderable agent; and we always predicate the power of heat whenever we witness its usual and well-known effects. Nevertheless, these instances are only analogous. But the following are precisely in point. The affirmation of a single human being, the truth of his separate existence as a real and rational unit, is inferred alone from his manifestations as a cause in time and space. He stands demonstrated, present or absent, by the power that he develops, or has developed, in his individual sphere. His physical features may change, yet he will still be revealed in his intelligent actions. The divine pictures of a Raphael or a Rubens may be identified for long ages after the hand that sketched the now immortal lineaments of some mortal face has been mouldering, like the lovely original, in darkness and dust. No two persons—that is to say, human causes—present exactly the same effects. Every fact evolved will differ more or less. And, lastly, every cause is manifested as a unit by its occupation or pervasion of a given space.

Applying, then, this axiom of identity to the efficient of natural phenomena, the unity of the great Cause becomes at once apparent. Everywhere we behold the same laws of mathematical harmony. The identical principle of gravitation, which we have proved to be the effect of a sublime rationality, carries us away to the utmost limits of the solar system, and shows us one sovereign efficient, one pervading force, that we may henceforth call God, all over those immeasurable fields of infinite azure. And when this path grows so dim and distant amidst that far-off wilderness of flaming worlds that we can no longer trace the footsteps of attraction, there still remains heaven’s own highway of radiant light to conduct us on and on towards the centre, or perchance it may be the circumference, of the universe, revealing the same God enthroned on every sun; because every ray that flashes from the great blue deep of the firmament preserves the same identical laws of reflection and refraction.

Who can elevate his mind to the contemplation of these amazing and magnificent depths of distance, those profound caverns of space, teeming and sparkling with worlds like crystals? That light which travels almost two hundred thousand miles in a second does not reach us from the star 61 Cygni until after a journey of nine years and three months; and yet that is one of the nocturnal luminaries which may be termed the nearest neighbors of our system. The number of registered stars amount to two hundred thousand; while the entire host accessible to the sweep of the telescope have been reckoned as a hundred millions, from some of which it takes the luminous rays thousands of years to fly down to the earth. What mathematician, then, shall measure this celestial expanse, brimming over with suns and stars, and swarming with galaxies of living flame? Imagination stoops beneath such a giddy summit, nor dares attempt to scale those cliffs of golden fire. Reason, faltering on the brink of that boundless ocean of immensity, recoils as from the verge of annihilation. None but God can walk the heights of those starry pinnacles, and the light that burns and flashes around his feet falls down to man as the proof of the divine presence. In fine, if we had never before known a Deity, the telescope would have revealed him.

The unity of God being established, can we predicate his eternity? In the first place, all history bears witness to the permanence of the same grand principles of causation, since the primary annals of the species; and then geology takes up the subject, and carries it back for countless ages through those records inscribed on the ancient rocks by the pencil of central fire, or the fierce pen of earthquakes and blazing volcanoes; and still everywhere we see the evidence of the same mathematical laws, the same attraction and gravitation. Everything alike shows the existence of the same all-creating Deity as anterior to itself; and further than this the canons of mere induction cannot go.

Nor can the goodness of God be demonstrated in the precise and conclusive manner which has marked our previous propositions. The beauties of nature and the blessings of Providence are sufficient proofs to the majority of mankind; and for all the rest one must depend on _à priori_ reasoning, or look to the clearer light of a divine revelation.

It must be observed that the foregoing argument differs essentially from that of the celebrated Paley. His is founded on the mechanical phenomena of the universe, but this on the mathematical relations of order and harmony—on the present as well as the past physical evolutions in time and space, thus proving the continued agency of the supreme Cause, the Deity, both in immanence and in act.

But it is not my purpose to criticise other theories, nor to answer objections, which must be impotent unless they can overthrow the legitimacy of my inductions. Accordingly, I submit the whole.

Footnote 150:

The following article was recently found in Chicago among the posthumous papers of Judge Arrington, who died in that city nine years ago, a convert to the Catholic Church. It was written twenty years previous, when he was struggling to escape from the meshes of pantheism, and seems to be a vigorous effort to prove to his own satisfaction the reality of a personal, rational Deity.

Some of the illustrations are recognized as having been used in a similar article published in the _Democratic Review_ about thirty years ago, which was extensively copied, and even translated into the French and German languages. The present is a much more elaborate statement than that, as if the author still dwelt upon the subject, and as the years rolled on wished with increasing knowledge to more strongly substantiate to his intellect what his higher nature so instinctively craved.

At the bar Judge Arrington stood almost without a peer in the great Northwest for legal learning and oratorical power. Whenever he indulged in the luxury of literary and poetical composition he showed an ability that promised a like pre-eminence in those pursuits, had he devoted himself to them.

This struggle of a great mind to fling off the incubus of modern error, whose every maze he had thoroughly explored, coupled with his subsequent conversion to Catholicity and his saint-like death in its communion, is an admirable practical illustration of the truth that nothing short of the light and grace to be found only in the true church of Christ can ever thoroughly satisfy a great soul.

Footnote 151:

Judge Arrington had devoted much time and attention to studying the nature and results of sagacity in animals; but he so distinctly saw that they are not _responsible agents_, and that the harmonious and orderly results produced by them—as, for example, the mathematical regularity of the cells of bees—are to be attributed not to them but to the Author of their wonderful instinct, that he does not even pause to treat this as an objection to his proposition or to draw a distinction between mediate and immediate causes.

PEARL.

BY KATHLEEN O’MEARA, AUTHOR OF “IZA’S STORY,” “A SALON IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE,” “ARE YOU MY WIFE?” ETC.

Early next day Mrs. Monteagle sent down to the entresol to know if Col. Redacre was well enough to come up and see her, or, if not, could she go down and see him; she wanted to speak to him on a matter of importance. The answer came on a card of Mrs. Redacre’s, written in pencil:

“I am so sorry! Hugh is really not able to see any one this morning. I hope you will come down to-morrow.—Yours affectionately,

“A. R.”

Mrs. Monteagle was surprised. There was nothing in the fact that the colonel was not able to come up-stairs—Balaklava sometimes made a great difficulty about stairs; but why could she not go down to him? The hope that she “would come down to-morrow” was clearly an intimation that she was not to go to-day. Why should she not go and see Mrs. Redacre, even if her husband was not in a humor to see people? The forenoon passed, and neither of the girls came near her. She inquired if the doctor had been sent for, but the servants said not. M. le Colonel had nothing the matter with him; he complained of Balaklava just as usual; there was no question of such an extreme measure as sending for the doctor. This made it all the more curious why an old friend like herself should be kept out for the day. Mrs. Monteagle, however, was not a gossip, and, after turning it in her mind for a reasonable time, she concluded that it was no business of hers, and that it would be a nuisance, having friends living in the same house with one, if one could not be left alone for a day without their seeing a mystery in it.

Late in the afternoon she went out to pay some visits. It was Mme. de Kerbec’s day. Mrs. Monteagle had rather a horror of “days,” but she was pretty regular in attending this one. Mme. de Kerbec was very particular about people calling on her day, and apt to take offence if they neglected it. To her it was the grand recurring opportunity of her life. She loved dress with a passionate love, tenderly, humanly; and her day was an opportunity for doing it honor, making a kind of feast to it. This was a trial to some of her friends; they felt obliged to respond to the challenge and come always finely dressed, and many were not inclined to don their first-best costumes on so ordinary an occasion. People, however, like Mrs. Monteagle, who had passed the age when society exacted this kind of homage from them, found great amusement in looking at the fine fashions, laughing at them very often, and at the mistress of the house, who, fat, fifty, and not fair, sat on her crimson satin sofa, with the latest and most magnificent costume spread out over it.

To-day she was gorgeous in a _Bismarck-en-colère_ moire antique, so trimmed that the original material nearly disappeared under elaborate passementerie, lace, and fringe. Nothing pleased her like being complimented on her dress; and Mrs. Monteagle, though she was fond of snubbing people when they deserved it, was fond, too, of pleasing them, and occasionally gratified this weakness of Captain Jack.

“How beautiful Mme. de Kerbec’s dress looks!” said some one, breaking a pause in the languishing conversation.

“That’s because it _is_ beautiful,” said Mrs. Monteagle in her literal way. “Where do you get those splendid costumes, countess? One does not know which to wonder at most, their magnificence or their variety. I suspect you have a Titania who works some time of the night weaving those lovely silks and making them up into costumes.”

“Oh! no,” said Mme. de Kerbec gravely. “I never would keep my maid up of a night working, and I always tell the dressmaker that I would rather wait any time than have her keep those poor girls up all night at my dresses; but I dare say she does it all the same—they are so selfish, that class of people.”

“Will you tell me the class that is not selfish?” said Mrs. Monteagle; but she happened to catch Mr. Kingspring’s eye, and there was a dangerous twinkle in it which made her look quickly away and observe that there would be a fine display of dresses at the ball to-night, no doubt.

“Yes, I should think there would be,” said Mme. de Kerbec, composing her countenance, as she always did when dress was spoken of, assuming that peculiar gravity of manner which many people put on when anything connected with the life to come is mentioned.

“It is a pity you don’t go to the Tuileries, countess,” said Mr. Kingspring; “you would cut them all out with your dress.”

“It is a pity in one way,” she replied; “but one has a principle or one has not. It would make no end of a scandal if we were to be seen at this court. The count would never be forgiven by the faubourg; and I have to consider his position before my own pleasure.”

“Of course, certainly,” said Mr. Kingspring.

“It is to be an unusually brilliant affair to-night; the Redacres are going, I believe,” some one remarked.

“I fancy not; the colonel is not well,” said Mrs. Monteagle.

“The young ladies are going with Mme. Léopold,” said Mr. Kingspring. “I met her just now, and she told me Mrs. Redacre had written to ask her to chaperone them, as their father would not go.”

Mrs. Monteagle looked at Mr. Kingspring as he announced this, and she fancied there was a glance of answering intelligence in his eyes.

“The colonel is not seriously ill?” inquired Mme. de Kerbec, who was rather proud of her intimacy with the Redacres.

“He’s not ill at all,” said Mr. Kingspring.

“Then why is he sending his daughters to the ball with Mme. Léopold?”

“I really can’t say, unless it be that he is not in a humor to go; a man does not always feel inclined to go to a ball, especially a man like Redacre.”

“Ah! to be sure. Balaklava is a constant trial to him, poor, dear man!” sighed Mme. de Kerbec.

“Have you seen him lately?” inquired Mrs. Monteagle.

“Yes,” said Mr. Kingspring. “I turned in there this morning for a moment. What does M. de Kerbec say of the ‘situation,’ as they call it? Does he think we shall have war?” This was to Mme. de Kerbec.

“He never tells me what he thinks,” said the lady in an aggrieved tone. “I have, in fact, given up asking him. He only cares to talk politics with men; that is the way with most of you.”

Mrs. Monteagle began to be seriously mystified. This sudden interest in M. de Kerbec’s view of the situation did not deceive her. Mr. Kingspring evidently had turned off the conversation from Col. Redacre on purpose. And why? She was not a meddling person or touchy, but really it was enough to set her wondering, this odd behavior of the Redacres. They were distinctly keeping her out of the way while Mr. Kingspring was allowed to come in! And then Mrs. Redacre writing to Mme. Léopold to chaperone the girls to-night! What did it all mean?

Suddenly it flashed on her that they were anxious to bring about a marriage between Pearl and Léon, and had seized on the ball to-night as an opportunity for suggesting the same idea to the Léopolds. On the other hand, this was such a thoroughly un-English way of proceeding that it was hardly fair to suspect the Redacres of adopting it. Pearl, too, was the last girl she knew who would be likely to fall in with such French manœuvring. Altogether it was puzzling. Mrs. Monteagle was angry with Mr. Kingspring, turned her back on him, and began to converse with a French lady near her. People were dropping in in ones and twos, and Mme. de Kerbec was in high delight, sweeping her glittering train behind her as she rose to greet each new-comer. Mrs. Monteagle took advantage of one of these triumphant moments to say good-by, and, without casting a glance on the offending Kingspring, made her exit.

Just as she reached her own porte cochère Mr. Kingspring overtook her.

“Are you going in to see the Redacres?” he said.

“No; Mrs. Redacre sent me word that she hoped I would go to-morrow, which meant evidently that I was not to go to-day.”

“If I were you I would not mind that; I would go at once. You are their oldest friend here; they will be the better for seeing you.”

“There is something amiss, then?” And Mrs. Monteagle forgot her grievance in real concern.

“There is. I can’t tell you any more. They will tell you themselves; you had better go in and see them.”

He shook hands and hurried away, fearing to say more if he loitered with her. Mrs. Monteagle went slowly up to the entresol, and, after an interval of hesitation, she pulled the bell. “The idea of my being nervous at pulling Alice Redacre’s bell!” she said to herself.

It was answered quickly.

“_Madame ne reçoit pas aujourd’hui_,” said the servant.

“She is not well?”

“Madame is a little indisposed; M. le Colonel also.”

Mrs. Monteagle left her compliments and regrets, and went on her way up-stairs.

“It is quite clear they do not wish to see me,” was her comment. “What can it mean? It looks odd—it is odd,” she added, correcting herself, as she was in the habit of doing to other people for the same inaccurate mode of speech.

Great was her surprise an hour later to see the two girls going out on horseback, accompanied by an old general officer who sometimes replaced their father in this way. Would they also go to the ball, in spite of the something that was amiss? They always ran up to show themselves to Mrs. Monteagle in their ball-dress whenever they went out; but she did not expect they would do so this evening. At nine o’clock, however, there was a ring, and in they came. Pearl looked sad, though there was no sign of tears in her face; but Polly looked, as she always did on occasions like this, a vision of triumphant beauty. Her blue-black eyes were all aglow with soft, tender lightnings, her curved red lips parted, her delicate skin bright as tinted alabaster. If the combined misfortunes of life had fallen on her as she stood there in her exulting loveliness, Polly might have defied them. She looked a creature born to happiness, buoyant, supple, invulnerable; you might as well have tried to hurt the mounting flame by sticking pins in it as to quench the glory of her youth in that royally beautiful maiden.

“Does she not look pretty?” said Pearl, surveying the young queen proudly.

“She _is_ pretty, you vain puss!” said Mrs. Monteagle. “But why do you always wear white, my dear? Pink would suit your brown eyes better, eh?”

“White is Polly’s color, and any color does for me,” said Pearl.

“Papa likes us to dress alike,” said Polly; “and pink does not go very well with my hair.”

“Tut, nonsense, child! Duckady mud would go well with your hair,” said the old lady. “But Pearl spoils you—that’s what it is.”

“She does indeed!” said Polly heartily, and she twined her lovely arms around Pearl and kissed her.

A voice came from the stairs announcing that Mme. Léopold’s carriage was at the door. The two girls kissed Mrs. Monteagle and hurried away, looking very like a couple of swans as they floated off with their waves of white tulle round them.

“Come up early to-morrow morning and tell me all about it,” said Mrs. Monteagle in a _sotto voce_ to Pearl; “of course it will be settled to-night.”

Pearl blushed up, and there was a sudden look of distress on her face as with an exclamation of protest she hastened after Polly.