THE CATHOLIC WORLD,
VOL. I., NO. 3. JUNE, 1865.
THE WORKINGS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
A LETTER TO THE REV. E. B. PUSEY, D.D. BY HENRY EDWARD MANNING, D.D.
MY DEAR FRIEND,—I do not know why twelve years of silence should
forbid my calling you still by the name we used both to give and to
accept of old. Aristotle says indeed—
but he did not know the basis and the affections of a Christian
friendship such as that to which—though I acknowledge in myself no
claim to it—you were so kind as to admit me. Silence and suspension
of communications cannot prevail against the kindliness and confidence
which springs from such years and such events as once united us.
Contentions and variances might indeed more seriously try and strain
such a friendship. But, though we have been both parted and opposed,
there has been between us neither variance nor contention. We have
both been in the field indeed where a warfare has been waging, but,
happily, we have not met in contest. Sometimes we have been very near
to each other, and have even felt the opposition of each other's will
and hand; but I believe on neither side has there ever been a word or
an act which has left a needless wound. That I should have grieved and
displeased you is inevitable. The simple fact of my submitting to the
Catholic Church must have done so, much more the duties which bind me
as a pastor. If, in the discharge of that office, I have given you or
any one either pain or wound by personal faults in the manner of its
discharge, I should be open to just censure. If the displeasure arise
only from the substance of my duties, "necessity is laid upon me," and
you would be the last to blame me.
You will perhaps be surprised at my beginning thus to write to you. I
will at once tell you why I do so. Yesterday I saw, for the first
time, your pamphlet on the legal force of the Judgment of the Privy
Council, and I found my name often in its pages. I have nothing to
complain of in the way you use it. And I trust that in this reply you
will feel that I have not forgotten your example. But your mention of
me, and of old days, kindled in me a strong desire to pour out many
things which have been for years rising in my mind. I have long wished
for the occasion to do so, but I {290} have always felt that it is
more fitting to take than to make such an occasion: and as your
kindness has made it, I will take it.
But before I enter upon the subject of this letter I wish to say a few
words of yourself, and of some others whom I am wont to class with
you.
Among the many challenges to controversy and public disputation which
it has been my fortune to receive, and, I may add, my happiness to
refuse, in the last twelve or thirteen years, one was sent me last
autumn at Bath. It was the only one to which, for a moment, I was
tempted to write a reply. The challenger paid me compliments on my
honesty in leaving the Church of England, denouncing those who,
holding my principles, still eat its bread. I was almost induced to
write a few words to say that my old friends and I are parted because
we hold principles which are irreconcileable; that I once held what
they hold now, and was then united with them; that they have never
held what I hold now, and therefore we are separated; that they are as
honest in the Church of England now as I was once; and that our
separation was my own act in abandoning as untenable the Anglican
Church and its rule of faith, Scripture and antiquity, which you and
they hold still, and in submitting to the voice of the Catholic and
Roman Church at this hour, which I believe to be the sole
authoritative interpreter of Scripture and of antiquity. This
principle no friend known to me in the Church of England has ever
accepted. In all these years, both in England and in foreign
countries, and on occasions both private and public, and with persons
of every condition, I have borne this witness for you and for others.
I felt no little indignation at what seemed to me the insincerity of
my correspondent, but on reflection I felt that silence was the best
answer.
I will now turn to your pamphlet, and to the subject of this letter.
You speak at the outset of "the jubilee of triumph among
half-believers" on the occasion of the late Judgment of the Crown in
Council; and you add, "A class of believers joined in the triumph. And
while I know that a very earnest body of Roman Catholics rejoice in
all the workings of God the Holy Ghost in the Church of England
(whatever they think of her), and are saddened in what weakens her who
is, in God's hands, the great bulwark against infidelity in this land,
others seemed to be in an ecstasy of triumph at this victory of
Satan." [Footnote 55] Now, I will not ask where you intended to class
me. But as an anonymous critic of a pamphlet lately published by me
accused me of rejoicing in your troubles, and another more
recently—with a want of candor visible in every line of the attack—
accused me of being "merry" over these miseries of the Church of
England, I think the time is made for me to declare how I regard the
Church of England, and events like these; and I know no one to whom I
would rather address what I Have to say than to yourself.
I will, then, say at once:
1. That I rejoice with all my heart in all the workings of the Holy
Ghost in the Church of England.
2. That I lament whensoever what remains of truth in it gives way
before unbelief.
3. That I rejoice whensoever what is imperfect in it is unfolded into
a more perfect truth.
4. But that I cannot regard the Church of England as "the great
bulwark against infidelity in this land," for reasons which I will
give in their place.
1. First, then, I will say what I believe of the Church of England,
and why I rejoice in every working of the Holy Spirit in it. And I do
this the more gladly because I have been sometimes grieved at hearing,
and once at even seeing in a handwriting which I reverence with
affection, the {291} statement that Catholics—or at least the worst
of Catholics called converts—deny the validity of Anglican baptism,
regard our own past spiritual life as a mockery, look upon our
departed parents as heathen, and deny the operations of the Holy
Spirit in those who are out of the Church. I do not believe that those
who say such things have ever read the Condemned Propositions, or are
aware that a Catholic who so spoke would come under the weight of at
least two pontifical censures, and the decrees of at least two general
councils.
I need not, however, do more than remind you that, according to the
faith and theology of the Catholic Church, the operations of the Holy
Spirit of God have been from the beginning of the world co-extensive
with the whole human race. [Footnote 56]
Believing, then, in the operations of the Holy Spirit, even among the
nations of the world who have neither the revelation of the faith nor
the sacraments, how much more must we believe his presence and grace
in those who are regenerate by water and the Holy Ghost? It would be
impertinent for me to say to you—whose name first became celebrated
for a tract on baptism, which, notwithstanding certain imperfections
inseparable from a work written when and where you wrote it, is in
substance deep, true, and elevating—that baptism, if rightly
administered with the due form and matter, is always 'valid by
whatsoever hand it may be given. [Footnote 57]
Let me, then, say at once
1. That in denying the Church of England to be the Catholic Church, or
any part of it, or in any divine and true sense a church at all, and
in denying the validity of its absolutions and its orders, no Catholic
ever denies the workings of the Spirit of God or the operations of
grace in it.
2. That in affirming the workings of grace in the Church of England,
no Catholic ever thereby affirms that it possesses the character of a
church.
They who most inflexibly deny to it the character of a church affirm
most explicitly the presence and the operations of grace among its
people, and that for the following reasons:
In the judgment of the Catholic Church, a baptized people is no longer
in the state of nature, but is admitted to a state of supernatural
grace. And though I believe the number of those who have never been
baptized to be very great in England, and to be increasing every year,
nevertheless I believe the English people, as a mass, to be a Baptized
people. I say the number of the unbaptized is great, because there are
many causes which contribute to produce this result. First, the
imperfect, and therefore invalid, administration of baptism through
the carelessness of the administrators. You, perhaps, think that this
is exaggerated, through an erroneous belief of Catholics as to the
extent of such carelessness among the Protestant ministers, both in
and out of the Church of England. It is, however, undeniable, as I
know from the evidence of eye-witnesses, that such carelessness has,
in times past, been great and frequent. This I consider the least, but
a sufficient, reason for believing that many have never been baptized.
Add to this, negligence caused by the formal disbelief of baptismal
regeneration in a large number of Protestant ministers. There are,
however, two other reasons far more direct. The one is the studied
rejection, as a point of religious profession, of the practice of
infant baptism. Many therefore grow up without baptism who in adult
life, for various causes, never seek it. {292} The other, the sinful
unbelief and neglect of parents in every class of the English people,
who often leave whole families of children to grow up without baptism.
Of the fact that many have never been baptized, I, or any Catholic
priest actively employed in England, can bear witness. There are few
among us who have not had to baptize grown people of every condition,
poor and rich; and, of children, often whole families together. There
has indeed been, in the last thirty years, a revival of care in the
administration of baptism on the part of the Anglican ministers, and
of attention on the part of parents in bringing their children to be
baptized; but this reaction is by no means proportionate to the
neglect, which on the other side has been extending. My fear is that,
after all, the number of persons unbaptized in England is greater at
this moment than at any previous time.
Still the English people as a body are baptized, and therefore
elevated to the order of supernatural grace. Every infant, and also
every adult baptized, having the necessary dispositions, is thereby
placed in a state of justification; and, if they die without
committing any mortal sin, would certainly be saved. They are also, in
the sight of the Church, Catholics. St. Augustine says, "Ecclesia
etiam inter eos qui foris sunt per baptismum generat suos." A mortal
sin of any kind, including prava voluntatis electio, the perverse
election of the will, by which in riper years such persons chose for
themselves, notwithstanding sufficient light, heresy instead of the
true faith, and schism instead of the unity of the Church, would
indeed deprive them of their state of grace. But before such act of
self-privation all such people are regarded by the Catholic Church as
in the way of eternal life. With perfect confidence of faith, we
extend the shelter of this truth over the millions of infants and
young children who every year pass to their Heavenly Father. We extend
it also in hope to many more who grow up in their baptismal grace.
Catholic missionaries in this country have often assured me of a fact,
attested also by my own experience, that they have received into the
Church persons grown to adult life, in whom their baptismal grace was
still preserved. Now how can we then be supposed to regard such
persons as no better than heathens? To ascribe the good lives of such
persons to the power of nature would be Pelagianism. To deny their
goodness, would be Jansenism. And, with such a consciousness, how
could any one regard his past spiritual life in the Church of England
as a mockery? I have no deeper conviction than that the grace of the
Holy Spirit was with me from my earliest consciousness. Though at the
time, perhaps, I knew it not as I know it now, yet I can clearly
perceive the order and chain of grace by which God mercifully led me
onward from childhood to the age of twenty years. From that time the
interior workings of his light and grace, which continued through all
my life, till the hour in which that light and grace had its perfect
work, to which all its operations had been converging, in submission
to the fulness of truth of the Spirit of the Church of God, is a
reality as profoundly certain, intimate, and sensible to me now as
that I live. Never have I by the lightest word breathed a doubt of
this fact in the divine order of grace. Never have I allowed any one
who has come to me for guidance or instruction to harbor a doubt of
the past workings of grace in them. It would be not only a sin of
ingratitude, but a sin against truth. The working of the Holy Spirit
in individual souls is, as I have said, as old as the fall of man, and
as wide as the human race. It is not we who ever breathe or harbor a
doubt of this. It is rather they who accuse us of it. Because, to
believe such an error possible in others shows how little
consciousness there must be of the true doctrine of grace in
themselves. And such, I am forced {293} to add, is my belief, because
I know by experience how inadequately I understood the doctrine of
grace until I learned it of the Catholic Church. And I trace the same
inadequate conception of the workings of grace in almost every
Anglican writer I know, not excepting even those who are nearest to
the truth.
But, further, our theologians teach, not only that the state of
baptismal innocence exists, and may be preserved out of the Church,
but that they who in good faith are out of it, if they shall
correspond with the grace they have already received, will receive an
increase or augmentation of grace. [Footnote 58] I do not for a
moment doubt that there are to be found among the English people
individuals who practise in a high degree the four cardinal virtues,
and in no small degree, though with the limits and blemishes
inseparable from their state, the three theological virtues of faith,
[Footnote 59] hope, and charity, infused into them in their baptism. I
do not think, my dear friend, in all that I have said or written in
the last fourteen years, that you can find a word implying so much as
a doubt of the workings of the Holy Spirit among all the baptized who
are separated from the Catholic Church.
I will go further still. The doctrine, "Extra ecclesiam nulla salus"
is to be interpreted both by dogmatic and by moral theology. As a
dogma, theologians teach that many belong to the Church who are out of
its visible unity; [Footnote 60] as a moral truth, that to be out of
the Church is no personal sin, except to those who sin in being out of
it. That is, they will be lost, not because they are geographically
out of it, but because they are culpably out of it. And they who are
culpably out of it are those who know—or might, and therefore ought
to, know—that it is their duty to submit to it. The Church teaches
that men may be inculpably out of its pale. Now they are inculpably
out of it who are and have always been either physically or morally
unable to see their obligation to submit to it. And they only are
culpably out of it who are both physically and morally able to know
that it is God's will they should submit to the Church; and either
knowing it will not obey that knowledge, or, not knowing it, are
culpable for that ignorance. I will say then at once, that we apply
this benign law of our Divine Master as far as possible to the English
people. First, it is applicable in the letter to the whole multitude
of those baptized persons who are under the age of reason. Secondly,
to all who are in good faith, of whatsoever age they be: such as a
great many of the poor and unlettered, to whom it is often physically,
and very often morally, impossible to judge which is the true
revelation or Church of God. I say physically, because in these three
hundred years the Catholic Church has been so swept off the face of
England that nine or ten generations of men have lived and died
without the faith being so much as proposed to them, or the Church
ever visible to them; and I say morally, because the great majority of
the poor, from lifelong prejudice, are often incapable of judging in a
question so far removed from the primary truths of conscience and
Christianity. Of such simple persons it may be said that, infantibus
aequiparantur, they are to be classed morally with infants. Again, to
these may be added the unlearned in all classes, among whom many have
no contact with the Catholic Church, or with Catholic books. Under
this head will come a great number of wives and daughters, whose
freedom of religious inquiry and religious thought is unjustly {294}
limited or suspended by the authority of parents and husbands. Add,
lastly, the large class who have been studiously brought up, with all
the dominant authority of the English tradition of three hundred
years, to believe sincerely, and without a doubt, that the Catholic
Church is corrupt, has changed the doctrines of the faith, and that
the author of the Reformation is the Spirit of holiness and truth. It
may seem incredible to some that such an illusion exists. But it is
credible to me, because for nearly forty years of my life I was fully
possessed by this erroneous belief. To all such persons it is morally
difficult in no small degree to discover the falsehood of this
illusion. All the better parts of their nature are engaged in its
support: dutifulness, self-mistrust, submission, respect for others
older, better, more learned than themselves, all combine to form a
false conscience of the duty to refuse to hear anything against "the
religion of their fathers," "the church of their baptism," or to read
anything which could unsettle them. Such people are told that it is
their duty to extinguish a doubt against the Church of England, as
they would extinguish a temptation against their virtue. A conscience
so subdued and held in subjection exercises true virtues upon a false
object, and renders to a human authority the submissive trust which is
due only to the divine voice of the Church of God.
One last point I will add. I believe that the people of England were
not all guilty of the first acts of heresy and schism by which they
were separated from the Catholic unity and faith. They were robbed of
it. In many places they rose in arms for it. The children, the poor,
the unlearned at that time, were certainly innocent: much more the
next generation. They were born into a state of privation. They knew
no better. No choice was before them. They made no perverse act of the
will in remaining where they were born. Every successive generation
was still less culpable, in proportion as they were born into a
greater privation, and under the dominion of a tradition of error
already grown strong. For three centuries they have been born further
and further out of the truth, and their culpability is perpetually
diminishing; and as they were passively borne onward in the course of
the English separation, the moral responsibility for the past is
proportionately less.
The divine law is peremptory—"to him who knoweth to do good, and
doeth it not, to him it is sin." [Footnote 61] Every divine truth, as
it shines in upon us, lays its obligation on our conscience to believe
and to obey it. When the divine authority of the Church manifests
itself to our intellect, it lays its jurisdiction upon our conscience
to submit to it. To refuse is an act of infidelity, and the least act
of infidelity in its measure expels faith; one mortal act of it will
expel the habit of faith altogether. [Footnote 62] Every such act of
infidelity grieves the Holy Ghost by a direct opposition to his divine
voice speaking through the Church; the habit of such opposition is one
of the six sins against the Holy Ghost defined as "impugning the known
truth." All that I have said above in no way modifies the absolute and
vital necessity of submitting to the Catholic Church as the only way
of salvation to those who know it, by the revelation of God, to be
such. But I must not attempt now to treat of this point.
Nevertheless for the reasons above given we make the largest allowance
for all who are in invincible ignorance; always supposing that there
is a preparation of heart to embrace the truth when they see it, at
any cost, a desire to know it, and a faithful use of the means of
knowing it, such as study, docility, prayer, and the like. But I do
not now enter into the case of the educated or the learned, or of
those who have liberty of mind and means of inquiry. I cannot class
them under {295} the above enumeration of those who are inculpably out
of the truth. I leave them, therefore, to the only Judge of all men.
Lastly, I will not here attempt to estimate how far all I have said is
being modified by the liberation and expansion of the Catholic Church
in England during the last thirty years. It is certain that the
restoration of the Catholic hierarchy, with the universal tumult which
published it to the whole world, still more by its steady,
wide-spread, and penetrating action throughout England, is taking away
every year the plea of invincible ignorance.
It is certain, however, that to those who, being in invincible
ignorance, faithfully co-operate with the grace they have received, an
augmentation of grace is given; and this at once places the English
people, so far as they come within the limits of these conditions, in
a state of supernatural grace, even though they be out of the visible
unity of the Church. I do not now enter into the question of the state
of those who fall from baptismal grace by mortal sin, or of the great
difficulty and uncertainty of their restoration. This would lead me
too far; and it lies beyond the limits of this letter.
It must not, however, be forgotten, for a moment, that this applies to
the whole English people, of all forms of Christianity, or, as it is
called, of all denominations. What I have said does not recognize the
grace of the Church of England as such. The working of grace in the
Church of England is a truth we joyfully hold and always teach. But we
as joyfully recognize the working of the Holy Spirit among Dissenters
of every kind. Indeed, I must say that I am far more able to assure
myself of the invincible ignorance of Dissenters as a mass than of
Anglicans as a mass. They are far more deprived of what survived of
Catholic truth; far more distant from the idea of a Church; far more
traditionally opposed to it by the prejudice of education; I must add,
for the most part, far more simple in their belief in the person and
passion of our Divine Lord. Their piety is more like the personal
service of disciples to a personal Master than the Anglican piety,
which has always been more dim and distant from this central light of
souls. Witness Jeremy Taylor's works, much as I have loved them,
compared with Baxter's, or even those of Andrews compared with
Leighton's, who was formed by the Kirk of Scotland.
I do not here forget all you have done to provide ascetical and
devotional books for the use of the Church of England, both by your
own writings, and, may I not say it, from your neighbor's vineyard?
With truth, then, I can say that I rejoice in all the operations of
the Holy Spirit out of the Catholic Church, whether in the Anglican or
other Protestant bodies; not that those communions are thereby
invested with any supernatural character, but because more souls, I
trust, are saved. If I have a greater joy over these workings of grace
in the Church of England, it is only because more that are dear to me
are in it, for whom every day I never fail to pray. These graces to
individuals were given before the Church was founded, and are given
still out of its unity. They are no more tokens of an ecclesiastical
character, or a sacramental power in the Church of England, than in
the Kirk of Scotland, or in the Wesleyan connexion; they prove only
the manifold grace of God, which, after all the sins of men, and in
the midst of all the ruins he has made, still works in the souls for
whom Christ died. Such, then, is our estimate of the Church of England
in regard to the grace that works not by it, nor through it, but in
it and among those who, without faults of their own, are detained by
it from the true Church of their baptism.
And here it is necessary to guard against a possible misuse of what I
have said. Let no one imagine that he may still continue in the Church
of England because God has hitherto mercifully bestowed his grace upon
{296} him. As I have shown, this is no evidence that salvation is to
be had by the Church of England. It is an axiom that to those who do
all they can God never refuses his grace. He bestows it that he may
lead them on from grace to grace, and from truth to truth, until they
enter the full and perfect light of faith in his only true fold. The
grace they have received, therefore, was given, not to detain them in
the Church of England, but to call them out of it. The grace of their
past life lays on them the obligation of seeking and submitting to the
perfect truth. God would "have all men to be saved, and to come to the
knowledge of the truth." [Footnote 63] But his Church is an eminent
doctrine, and member of that truth; and all grace given out of the
Church is given in order to bring men into the Church, wheresoever the
Church is present to them. If they refuse to submit to the Church they
resist the divine intention of the graces they have hitherto received,
and are thereby in grave danger of losing them, as we see too often in
men who once were on the threshold of the Church, and now are in
rationalism, or in states of which I desire to say no more.
2. Let me next speak of the truths which the Church of England still
retains. I have no pleasure in its present trials; and the anonymous
writer who describes me as being "positively merry" over its disasters
little knows me. If I am to speak plainly, he seems to me to be guilty
of one of the greatest offences—a rash accusation against one whom he
evidently does not know. I will further say that I lament with all my
heart whensoever what remains of truth in the Anglican system gives
way before unbelief.
I do not, indeed, regard the Church of England as a teacher of truth,
for that would imply that it teaches the truth in all its
circumference, and in all its divine certainty. Now this is precisely
what the Church of England does not, and, as I will show presently,
has destroyed in itself the power of doing. I am willing to call it a
teacher of truths, because many fragmentary truths, shattered,
disjointed from the perfect unity of the Christian revelation, still
survive the Reformation, and, with much variation and in the midst of
much contradiction, are still taught in it. I have been wont always to
say, and to say with joy, that the Reformation, which has done its
work with such a terrible completeness in Germany, was arrested in
England; that here much of the Christian belief and Christian order
has survived. Until lately I have been in the habit of saying that
there are three things which missionaries may take for granted in
England: first, the existence of a supernatural world; secondly, the
revelation of Christianity; and thirdly, the inspiration of Scripture.
The Church of England has also preserved other doctrines with more or
less of exactness, such as the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the
incarnation, baptism, and the like. I will not now enter into the
question as to what other doctrines are retained by it, because a few
more or a few less would make little difference in the final estimate
a Catholic must make of it. A teacher of Christian truths I gladly
admit it to be. A teacher of Christian truth—no, because it rejects
much of that truth, and also the divine principle of its perpetuity in
the world. Nevertheless, I rejoice in every fragment of doctrine which
remains in it; and I should lament the enfeebling or diminution of any
particle of that truth. I have ever regarded with regret the so-called
Low-Church and Latitudinarian schools in the Anglican Church, because
I believe their action and effect is to diminish what remains of truth
in it. I have always regarded with joy, and I have never ceased to
regard with sympathy, notwithstanding much which I cannot either like
or respect, the labors of the High-Church or Anglo-Catholic party,
because I believe that their action and effect are "to strengthen the
things which remain, which were ready {297} to die." For myself, I am
conscious how little I have ever done in my life; but as it is now
drawing toward its end, I have at least this consolation, that I
cannot remember at any time, by word or act, to have undermined a
revealed truth; but that, according to my power, little enough as I
know, I have endeavored to build up what truth I knew, truth upon
truth, if only as one grain of sand upon another, and to bind it
together by the only bond and principle of cohesion which holds in
unity the perfect revelation of God. A very dear friend, whose
friendship has been to me one of the most instructive, and the loss of
which was to me one of the hardest sacrifices I had to make, has often
objected to me, with the subtlety which marks his mind, that my act in
leaving the Church of England has helped forward the unbelief which is
now invading it. No doubt he meant to say that the tendency of such an
act helped to shake the confidence of others in the Church of England
as a teacher of truth. This objection was, like his mind, ingenious
and refined. But a moment's thought unravelled it, and I answered it
much in these words:
I do not believe that by submitting to the Catholic Church any one
can weaken the witness of the Church of England for the truth which
it retains. So far as it holds the truth, it is in conformity to the
Catholic Church. In submitting to the Catholic Church, I all the
more strongly give testimony to the same truths which the Church of
England still retains. If I give testimony against the Church of
England, it is in those points in which, being at variance with the
truth, the Church of England is itself undermining the faith of
Christianity.
It was for this reason I always lamented the legalizing of the
sacramentarian errors of the Low-Church party by the Gorham Judgment;
and that I lament now the legalizing of the heresies of the "Essays
and Reviews," and the spreading unbelief of Dr. Colenso. I believe
that anything which undermines the Christianity of England is drawing
it further and further from us. In proportion as men believe more of
Christianity, they are nearer to the perfect truth. The mission of the
Church in the world is to fill up the truth. Our Divine Lord said, "I
am not come to destroy, but to fulfil;" and St. Paul did not overthrow
the altar of the Unknown God, but gave to it an object of divine
worship and a true adoration. For this cause I regard the present
downward course of the Church of England and the Christianity of
England with great sorrow and fear. And I am all the more alarmed
because of those who are involved in it so many not only refuse to
acknowledge the fact, but treat us who give warning of the danger as
enemies and accusers.
One of my critics has imagined, that I propose to myself and others
the alternative of Catholicism or atheism. I have never attempted to
bring any one to the perfect truth by destroying or by threatening the
imperfect faith they might still possess. I do not believe that the
alternative before us is Catholicism or atheism. There are lights of
the natural order, divine witnesses of himself inscribed by the
Creator on his works, characters engraven upon the conscience, and
testimonies of mankind in all the ages of the world, which prove the
existence and perfections of God, the moral nature and responsibility
of man anterior to Catholicism, and independently of revelation. If a
man, through any intellectual or moral aberration, should reject
Christianity, that is Catholicism, the belief of God and of his
perfections stands immutably upon the foundations of nature.
Catholicism, or deism, is indeed the only ultimately logical and
consistent alternative, though, happily, few men in rejecting
Catholicism are logically consistent enough to reject Christianity.
Atheism is an aberration which implies not only an intellectual
blindness, but a moral insensibility. The theism {298} of the world
has its foundation on the face of the natural world, and on the
intellect and the heart of the human race. The old paganism and modern
pantheism are reverent, filial, and elevating compared with the
atheism of Comte and of our modern secularists. It would be both
intellectually and morally impossible to propose to any one the
alternative of Catholicism or atheism. Not only then do I lament to
see any truth in the Church of England give way before unbelief, but I
should regard with sorrow and impatience any attempt to promote the
belief of the whole revelation of Christianity by a mode of logic
which undermines even the truths of the natural order. The Holy See
has authoritatively declared that the existence of God may be proved
by reason and the light of nature, [Footnote 64] and Alexander VIII.
declared that men who do not know of the existence of God are without
excuse. [Footnote 65] Atheism is not the condition of man without
revelation. As Viva truly says in his comment on this declaration,
atheists are anomalies and exceptions in the intellectual tradition of
mankind.
Nay, I will go further. I can conceive a person to reject Catholicism
without logically rejecting Christianity. He would indeed reject the
divine certainty which guarantees and proposes to us the whole
revelation of the day of Pentecost. But, as Catholic theologians
teach, the infallible authority of the Church does not of necessity
enter into the essence of an act of faith. [Footnote 66] It is,
indeed, the divine provision for the perfection and perpetuity of the
faith, and in hac providentia, the ordinary means whereby men are
illuminated in the revelation of God; but the known and historical
evidence of Christianity is enough to convince any prudent man that
Christianity is a divine revelation. It is quite true that by this
process he cannot attain an explicit faith in all the doctrines of
revelation, and that in rejecting Catholicism he reduces himself to
human and historical evidence as the maximum of extrinsic certainty
for his religion, and that this almost inevitably resolves itself in
the long run into rationalism. It is an inclined plane on which, if
individuals may stand, generations cannot. Nevertheless, though the
alternative in the last analysis of speculation be Catholicism or
deism, the practical alternative may be Catholicism and fragmentary
Christianity.
I have said this to show how far I am from sympathizing with those, if
any there be, and I can truly say I know none such, who regard the
giving way of any lingering truth in the Church of England under the
action of unbelief with any feeling but that of sorrow. The Psalmist
lamented over the dying out of truths. "Diminutae sunt veritates a
filiis hominum," and I believe that every one who loves God, and
souls, and truth must lament when a single truth, speculative or
moral, even of the natural order, is obscured; much more when any
revealed truth of the elder or of the Christian revelation is rejected
or even doubted. Allow me also to answer, not only for myself, which
is of no great moment, but for an eminent personage to whom you have
referred in your pamphlet. I can say, with a personal and perfect
knowledge, that no other feeling has ever arisen in His Eminence's
mind, in contemplating the troubles of the Anglican Church, than a
sincere desire that God may use these things to open the eyes of men
to see the untenableness of their positions; coupled with a very
sincere sorrow at the havoc which the advance of unbelief is making
among the truths which yet linger in the Church of England.
3. It is, however, but reason that I {299} should rejoice when
whatsoever remains in it of imperfect truth is unfolded into a more
perfect faith: and that therefore I desire to see not only the
conversion of England, but the conversion of every soul to whom the
more perfect truth can be made known. You would not respect me if I
did not. Your own zeal for truth and for souls here speaks in my
behalf. There are two kinds of proselytism. There are the Jews whom
our Lord condemned. There are also the Apostles whom he sent into all
the world. If by proselytizing be meant the employing of unlawful and
unworthy means, motives, or influences to change a person's religion,
I should consider the man who used such means to commit lèse-majesté
against truth, and against our Lord who is the truth. But if by
proselytizing be meant the using all the means of conviction and
persuasion which our divine Master has committed to us to bring any
soul who will listen to us into the only faith and fold, then of this
I plead guilty with all my heart. I do heartily desire to see the
Church of England dissolve and pass away, as the glow of lingering
embers in the rise and steady light of a reviving flame. If the Church
of England were to perish to-morrow under the action of a higher and
more perfect truth, there would be no void left in England. All the
truths hitherto taught in fragments and piecemeal would be still more
vividly and firmly impressed upon the minds of the English people. All
of Christianity which survives in Anglicanism would be perfected by
the restoration of the truths which have been lost, and the whole
would be fixed and perpetuated by the evidence of divine certainty and
the voice of a divine Teacher. No Catholic desires to see the Church
of England swept away by an infidel revolution, such as that of 1789
in France. But every Catholic must wish to see it give way year by
year, and day by day, under the intellectual and spiritual action of
the Catholic Church: and must watch with satisfaction every change,
social and political, which weakens its hold on the country, and would
faithfully use all his power and influence for its complete removal as
speedily as possible.
4. But lastly, I am afraid we have reached a point of divergence.
Hitherto I hope we may have been able to agree together; but now I
fear every step of advance will carry us more wide of each other. I am
unable to consider the Church of England to be "in God's hands the
great bulwark against infidelity in this land." And my reasons are
these:
1.) First, I must regard the Anglican Reformation, and therefore the
Anglican Church, as the true and original source of the present
spiritual anarchy of England. Three centuries ago the English people
were in faith unius labii: they were in perfect unity. Now they are
divided and subdivided by a numberless multiplication of errors. What
has generated them? From what source do they descend? Is it not
self-evident that the Reformation is responsible for the production of
every sect and every error which has sprung up in England in these
three hundred years, and of all which cover the face of the land at
this day? It is usual to hear Anglicans lament the multiplication of
religious error. But what is the productive cause of all? Is it not
Anglicanism itself which, by appealing from the voice of the Church
throughout the world, has set the example to its own people of
appealing from the voice of a local and provincial authority?
I am afraid, then, that the Church of England, so far from, a barrier
against infidelity, must be recognized as the mother of all the
intellectual and spiritual aberrations which now cover the face of
England.
2.) It is true, indeed, that the Church of England retains many truths
in it. But it has in two ways weakened the evidence of these very
truths which it retains. It has detached them from {300} other truths
which by contact gave solidity to all by rendering them coherent and
intelligible. It has detached them from the divine voice of the
Church, which guarantees to us the truth incorruptible and changeless.
The Anglican Reformation destroyed the principle of cohesion, by which
all truths are bound together into one. The whole idea of theology, as
the science of God and of his revelation, has been broken up.
Thirty-nine Articles, heterogeneous, disjointed, and mixed with error,
is all that remains instead of the unity and harmony of Catholic
truth. Surely this has been among the most prolific causes of error,
doubt, and unbelief. So far from the bulwark against it, Anglicanism
appears to me to be the cause and spring of its existence. As I have
already said, the Reformation placed the English people upon an
inclined plane, and they have steadily obeyed the law of their
position, by descending gradually from age to age, sometimes with a
more rapid, sometimes with a slower motion, but always tending
downward. Surely it would be unreasonable to say of a body always
descending, that it is the great barrier against reaching the bottom.
I do not, indeed, forget that the Church of England has produced
writers who have vindicated many Christian truths. I am not unmindful
of the service rendered by Anglican writers to Christianity in
general, nor, in particular, of the works of Bull and Waterland in
behalf of the Holy Trinity; of Hammond and Pearson in behalf of
Episcopacy; of Butler and Warburton in behalf of Revelation, and the
like. But whence came the errors and unbeliefs against which they
wrote? Were they not generated by the Reformation abroad and in
England? This is like the spear which healed the wounds it had made.
But it is not the divine office of the Church to make wounds in the
faith that it may use its skill in healing. They were quelling the
mutiny which Protestantism had raised, and arresting the progress of
the Reformation which, like Saturn, devours its own children.
Moreover, to be just I must say that if the Church of England be a
barrier against infidelity, the Dissenters must also be admitted to a
share in this office and commendation. And in truth I do not know
among the Dissenters any works like the Essays and Reviews, or any
Biblical criticism like that of Dr. Colenso. They may not be very
dogmatic in their teaching, but they bear their witness for
Christianity as a divine revelation, for the Scriptures as an inspired
book, and, I must add further, for the personal Christianity of
conversion and repentance, with an explicitness and consistency which
is not less effectual against infidelity than the testimony of the
Church of England. I do not think the Wesleyan Conference or the
authorities of the three denominations would accept readily this
assumed superiority of the Anglican Church as a witness against
unbelief. They would not unjustly point to the doctrinal confusions of
the Church of England as causes of scepticism, from which they are
comparatively free. And I am bound to say that I think they would have
an advantage. I well remember that while I was in the Church of
England I used to regard Dissenters from it with a certain, I will not
say aversion, but distance and recoil. I never remember to have borne
animosity against them, or to have attacked or pursued them with
unkindness. I always believed many of them to be very earnest and
devoted men. I did not like their theology, and I believed them to be
in disobedience to the Church of England; but I respected them, and
lived at peace with them. Indeed, I may say that some of the best
people I have ever known out of the Church were Dissenters or children
of Dissenters. Nevertheless, I had a dislike of their system, and of
their meeting-houses. They seemed to me to be rivals of the Church of
England, and my loyalty to it made me look somewhat impatiently upon
them. But I remember, from {301} the hour I submitted to the Catholic
Church, all this underwent a sensible change. I saw that the whole
revelation was perpetuated in the Church alone, and that all forms of
Christianity lying round about it were but fragments more or less
mutilated. But with this a sensible increase of kindly feeling grew
upon me. The Church of England and the dissenting communions all alike
appeared to me to be upon the same level. I rejoiced in all the truth
that remains in them, in all the good I could see or hope in them, and
all the workings of the Holy Spirit in them. I had no temptation to
animosity toward them; for neither they nor the Church of England
could be rivals of the imperishable and immutable Church of God. The
only sense, then, in which I could regard the Church of England as a
barrier against infidelity, I must extend also to the dissenting
bodies; and I cannot put this high, for reasons I will give.
3.) If the Church of England be a barrier to infidelity by the truths
which yet remain in it, I must submit that it is a source of unbelief
by all the denials of other truths which it has rejected. If it
sustains a belief in two sacraments, it formally propagates unbelief
in five; if it recognizes an undefined presence of Christ in the
sacrament, it formally imposes on its people a disbelief in
transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the altar; if it teaches that
there is a church upon earth, it formally denies its indissoluble
unity, its visible head, and its perpetual divine voice.
It is not easy to see how a system can be a barrier against unbelief
when by its Thirty-nine Articles it rejects, and binds its teachers to
propagate the rejection, of so many revealed truths.
4.) But this is not all. It is not only by the rejection of particular
doctrines that the Church of England propagates unbelief. It does so
by principle, and in the essence of its whole system. What is the
ultimate guarantee of the divine revelation but the divine authority
of the Church? Deny this, and we descend at once to human teachers.
But it is this that the Church of England formally and expressly
denies. The perpetual and ever-present assistance of the Holy Spirit,
whereby the Church in every age is not only preserved from error, but
enabled at all times to declare the truth, that is the infallibility
of the living Church at this hour—this it is that the Anglican Church
in terms denies. But this is the formal antagonist of infidelity,
because it is the evidence on which God wills that we should believe
that which his veracity reveals. Do not be displeased with me. It
appears to me that the Anglican system, by this one fact alone,
perpetually undoes what it strives to do in behalf of particular
doctrines. What are they, one by one, when the divine certainty of all
is destroyed? Now, for three hundred years the Anglican clergy have
been trained, ordained, and bound by subscriptions to deny not only
many Christian truths, but the divine authority of the
the living Church of every age. The barrier against infidelity is the
divine voice which generates faith. But this the Anglican clergy are
bound to deny. And this denial opens a flood-gate in the bulwark,
through which the whole stream of unbelief at once finds way.
Seventeen or eighteen thousand men, educated with all the advantages
of the English schools and universities, endowed with large corporate
revenues, and distributed all over England, maintain a perpetual
protest, not only against the Catholic Church, but against the belief
that there is any divine voice immutably and infallibly guiding the
Church at this hour in its declaration of the Christian revelation to
mankind. How can this be regarded as "the great bulwark in God's hand
against infidelity?"
It seems to me that the Church of England, so far from being a bulwark
against the flood, has floated before it. Every age has exhibited an
advance to a more indefinite and heterogeneous state of religious
opinion within its {302} pale. I will not go again over ground I have
already traversed. Even in our memory the onward progress of the
Church of England is manifest. That I may not seem to draw an
unfavorable picture from my own view, I will quote a very unsuspected
witness. Dr. Irons, in a recent pamphlet, says: "The religion of the
Church has sunk far deeper into conscience now than the surviving men
of 1833-1843 are aware of. And all that Churchmen want of their
separated brethren is that they accept nothing, and profess nothing,
and submit to nothing which has 'no root' in their conscience."
[Footnote 67] If this means anything, it means that objective truth
has given place to subjective sincerity as the Anglican rule of faith.
You will know better than I whether this be the state of men's minds
among you. To me it is as strange as it is incoherent, and a sign how
far men have drifted. This certainly was not the faith or religion
that we held together in the years when I had the happiness of being
united in friendship with you. Latitudinarian sincerity was not our
basis, and if the men of 1833 and 1843 have arrived at this, it is
very unlike the definite, earnest, consistent belief which animated us
at that time. You say in your note (page 21) kindly, but a little
upbraidingly, that my comment on your letter to the "Record" was not
like me in those days: forasmuch as I used then to join with those
with whom even then you could not. It was this that made me note your
doing so now. It was this which seemed to me to be a drifting backward
from old moorings. For myself, it is true, indeed, that I have moved
likewise. I have been carried onward to what you then were, and beyond
it. What I might have done then, I could not do now. What you do now
seems to me what you would not have done then. I did not note this
unkindly, but with regret, because, as I rejoice in every truth, and
in every true principle retained in the Church of England, it would
have given me great joy to see you maintaining with all firmness, not
only all the particular truths you held, but also the impossibility of
uniting with those who deny both those truths and the principles on
which you have rested through your laborious life of the last thirty
years.
And now I will add only a few more words of a personal sort, and then
make an end. It was not my fate in the Church of England to be
regarded as a contentious or controversial spirit, nor as a man of
extreme opinions, or of a bitter temper. I remember indeed that I was
regarded, and even censured, as slow to advance, somewhat tame,
cautious to excess, morbidly moderate, as some one said. I remember
that the Catholics
used to hold me somewhat cheap, and to
think me behindhand, uncatholic, over-English, and the like. But now,
is there anything in the extreme opposite of all this which I am not?
Ultramontane, violent, unreasoning, bitter, rejoicing in the miseries
of my neighbors, destructive, a very Apollyon, and the like. Some who
so describe me now are the same who were wont then to describe me as
the reverse of all this. They are yet catholicizing the Church of
England, without doubt more catholic still than I am. Well, what shall
I say? If I should say that I am not conscious of these changes, you
would only think me self-deceived. I will therefore only tell you
where I believe I am unchanged, and then where I am conscious of a
change, which, perhaps, will account for all you have to say of me.
I am unconscious, then, of any change in my love to England in all
that relates to the natural order. I am no politician, and I do not
set up for a patriot; but I believe, as St. Thomas teaches, that love
of country is a part of charity, and assuredly I have ever loved
England with a very filial love. My love for England {303} begins with
the England of St. Bede. Saxon England, with all its tumults, seems to
me saintly and beautiful. Norman England I have always loved less,
because, though more majestic, it became continually less Catholic,
until the evil spirit of the world broke off the light yoke of faith
at the so-called Reformation. Still, I loved the Christian England
which survived, and all the lingering outlines of dioceses and
parishes, cathedrals and churches, with the names of saints upon them.
It is this vision of the past which still hovers over England and
makes, it beautiful, and full of memories of the kingdom of God. Nay,
I loved the parish church of my childhood, and the college chapel of
my youth, and the little church under a green hillside, where the
morning and evening prayers, and the music of the English Bible, for
seventeen years, became a part of my soul. Nothing is more beautiful
in the natural order, and if there were no eternal world I could have
made it my home. But these things are not England, they are only its
features, and I may say that my love was and is to the England which
lives and breathes about me, to my countrymen whether in or out of the
Church of England. With all our faults as a race, I recognize in them
noble Christian virtues, exalted characters, beautiful examples of
domestic life, and of every personal excellence which can be found,
where the fulness of grace and truth is not, and much, too, which puts
to shame those who are where the fulness of grace and truth abounds.
So long as I believed the Church of England to be a part of the Church
of God I loved it, how well you know, and honored it with a filial
reverence, and labored to serve it, with what fidelity I can affirm,
with what, or if with any utility, it is not for me to say. And I love
still those who are in it, and I would rather suffer anything than
wrong them in word or deed, or pain them without a cause. To all this
I must add, lastly, and in a way above all, the love I bear to many
personal friends, so dear to me, whose letters I kept by me till two
years ago, though more than fifty of them are gone into the world
unseen, all these things are sweet to me still beyond all words that I
can find to express it.
You will ask me then, perhaps, why I have never manifested this
before? It is because when I left you, in the full, calm, deliberate,
and undoubting belief that the light of the only truth led me from a
fragmentary Christianity into the perfect revelation of the day of
Pentecost, I believed it to be my duty to walk alone in the path in
which it led me, leaving you all unmolested by any advance on my part.
If any old friend has ever written to me, or signified to me his wish
to renew our friendship, I believe he will bear witness to the
happiness with which I have accepted the kindness offered to me. But I
felt that it was my act which had changed our relations, and that I
had no warrant to assume that a friendship, founded upon agreement in
our old convictions, would be continued when that foundation had been
destroyed by myself, or restored upon a foundation altogether new. And
I felt, too, a jealousy for truth. It was no human pride which made me
feel that I ought not to expose the Catholic Church to be rejected in
my person. Therefore I held on my own course, seeking no one, but
welcoming every old friend—and they have been many—who came to me.
This has caused a suspension of nearly fourteen years in which I have
never so much as met or exchanged a line with many who till then were
among my nearest friends. This, too, has given room for many
misapprehensions. It would hardly surprise me if I heard that my old
friends believed me to have become a cannibal.
But perhaps you will say, This does not account for your hard words
against us and the Church of England. When I read your late pamphlet I
said to myself, Have I ever written such hard words as these? I will
not quote them, but truly I do not think {304} that, in anything I
have ever written, I have handled at least any person as you, my dear
friend, in your zeal, which I respect and honor, have treated certain
very exalted personages who are opposed to you. But let this pass. It
would not excuse me even if I were to find you in the same
condemnation.
One of my anonymous censors writes that "as in times past I had
written violently against the Church of Rome, so now I must do the
same against the Church of England." Now I wish he would find, in the
books I published when out of the Church, the hard sayings he speaks
of. It has been my happiness to know that such do not exist. I feel
sure that my accuser had nothing before his mind when he risked this
controversial trick. I argued, indeed, against the Catholic and Roman
Church, but I do not know of any railing accusations. How I was
preserved from it I cannot tell, except by the same divine goodness
which afterward led me into the perfect light of faith.
But I have written, some say, hard things of the Church of England.
Are they hard truths or hard epithets? If they are hard epithets, show
them to me, and I will erase them with a prompt and public expression
of regret; but if they be hard facts, I cannot change them. It is
true, indeed, that I have for the last fourteen years incessantly and
unchangingly, by word and by writing, borne my witness to the truths
by which God has delivered me from the bondage of a human authority in
matters of faith. I have borne my witness to the presence and voice of
a divine, and therefore infallible, teacher, guiding the Church with
his perpetual assistance, and speaking through it as his organ. I have
also borne witness that the Church through which he teaches is that
which St. Augustine describes by the two incommunicable notes—that it
is "spread throughout the word" and "united to the Chair of Peter."
[Footnote 68] I know that the corollaries of these truths are severe,
peremptory, and inevitable. If the Catholic faith be the perfect
revelation of Christianity, the Anglican Reformation is a cloud of
heresies; if the Catholic Church be the organ of the Holy Ghost, the
Anglican Church is not only no part of the Church, but no church of
divine foundation. It is a human institution, sustained as it was
founded by a human authority, without priesthood, without sacraments,
without absolution, without the real presence of Jesus upon its
altars. I know these truths are hard. It seems heartless, cruel,
unfilial, unbrotherly, ungrateful so to speak of all the beautiful
fragments of Christianity which mark the face of England, from its
thousand towns to its green villages, so dear even to us who believe
it to be both in heresy and in schism. You must feel it so. You must
turn from me and turn against me for saying it; but if I believe it,
must I not say it? And if I say it, can I find words more weighed,
measured, and deliberate than those I have used? If you can, show them
to me, and so that they are adequate, I will use them always
hereafter. God knows I have never written a syllable with the intent
to leave a wound. I have erased, I have refrained from writing and
speaking, many, lest I should give more pain than duty commanded me to
give. I cannot hope that you will allow of all I say. But it is the
truth. I have refrained from it, not only because it is a duty, but
because I wish to disarm those who divert men from the real point at
issue by accusations of bitterness and the like. It has been my lot,
more than of most, to be in these late years on the frontier which
divides us. And—why I know not—people have come to me with their
anxieties and their doubts. What would you have done in my place? That
which you have done in your own; which, mutato nomine, has been my
duty and my burden.
And now I have done. I have a hope that the day is coming when all
{305} in England who believe in the supernatural order, in the
revelation of Christianity, in the inspiration of Holy Scripture, in
the divine certainty of dogmatic tradition, in the divine obligation
of holding no communion with heresy and with schism, will be driven in
upon the lines of the only stronghold which God has constituted as
"the pillar and ground of the truth." This may not be, perhaps, as
yet; but already it is time for those who love the faith of
Christianity, and look with sorrow and fear on the havoc which is
laying it waste among us, to draw together in mutual kindness and
mutual equity of judgment. That I have so ever treated you I can truly
say; that I may claim it at your hands I am calmly conscious; but
whether you and others accord it to me or not, I must leave it to the
Disposer of hearts alone to determine. Though we are parted now, it
may not be for ever; and morning by morning, in the holy Sacrifice, I
pray that the same light of faith which so profusely fell upon myself,
notwithstanding all I am, may in like manner abundantly descend upon
you who are in all things so far above me, save only in that one gift
which is not mine, but his alone who is the Sovereign Giver of all
grace.
Believe me, my dear friend,
Always affectionately yours,
HENRY EDWARD MANNING.
ST. MARY'S, BAYSWATER,
Sept. 27, 1864.
P.S.—My attention has just been called to the concluding pages of the
last number of the Quarterly Review, in which I am again described
by a writer who evidently has abilities to know better, to be in
"ecstasies." The writer represents, as the sum or chief argument of my
"Second Letter to an Anglican Friend," the passing reference I there
made to the Lord Chancellor's speech. I quoted this to prove that the
late judgment is a part of the law, both of the land and of the Church
of England. But the whole of the letter, excepting this single point,
is an argument to show that the vote of the Convocation carries with
it no divine certainty, and resolves itself into the private judgment
of the majority who passed it. For all this argument the writer has
not a word. I cannot be surprised that he fills out his periods with
my "ecstasies," "shouts of joy," "wild paeans," a quotation from
"Shylock," and other things less fitting. This is not to reason, but
to rail. Is it worthy? Is it love of truth? Is it good faith? Is it
not simply the fallacy of evasion? I can assure him that this kind of
controversy is work that will not stand. We are in days when
personalities and flimsy rhetoric will not last long. Neither will it
bear to be tried by "the fire," nor will it satisfy, I was about to
say, nor will it mislead, men who are in earnest for truth or for
salvation. I had hoped that this style of controversy had been cured
or suppressed by a greater sincerity and reality of religious thought
in these days of anxiety and unbelief. There either is, or is not, a
divine Person teaching perpetually through the Church in every age,
and therefore now as always, generating faith with divine certainty in
the minds of men. This question must be answered; and, as men answer
it, we know where to class them, and how to deal with them. All the
evasions and half-arguments of such writers are becoming daily more
and more intolerable to those of the English people—and they are a
multitude—who would give all that they count dear, and life itself, to
know and to die in the full and certain light of the revelation of God
in Jesus Christ.
H. E. M.
{306}
Translated from Le Correspondant.
A RUSSIAN RELIGIOUS.
BY PRINCE AUGUSTIN GALITZIN.
On the 6th of May, 1840, in a little hut upon the slope of that chain
of mountains which separates the northern from the southern states of
the American Union, died an old man who had spent his life in
spreading the faith through those distant regions. A crowd of persons
surrounded his bed in tears; for during half a century he had been the
depositary of public misfortunes, domestic troubles, and spiritual
distress. Though known by the humble name of Father Smith, this priest
was not a native of the land which received his last breath: he was a
Russian by birth, and his name was Galitzin.
On the 1st of September in the same year eight women landed at New
York, clad all in black, and wearing no ornament but a cross on the
breast. They came to educate new generations in the New World. The
eldest of them was not, like her sisters, a Frenchwoman; the same
blood ran in her veins as in those of the missionary just dead, and
her heart beat with the same love. She too was a Russian, and her name
was Madame Elizabeth Galitzin.
Born at St. Petersburg in 1795, the Princess Elizabeth was the
daughter of a woman of whom it is praise enough to say that she was
the worthiest and most intimate friend of Madame Swetchine, who called
her "her second conscience." [Footnote 69] On the day when Elizabeth
reached her fifteenth year, her mother confided to her the secret that
she had become a Catholic, and told the reasons which had induced her
not, as is still supposed in Russia, to abandon the faith of her
fathers, but to return to it in all its integrity. Elizabeth thus
describes the emotion which she felt in listening to this disclosure,
and the influence which it had upon her own future. [Footnote 70]
"The secret which my mother confided to me filled me with despair; I
burst into tears, without uttering a word. For several days I wept
bitterly whenever I was alone, and during the night. I believed that
my mother had committed a great sin, because the government punished
so severely those who forsook the religion of the country. The reasons
which she gave made no impression on me; I did not even understand
them: the moment of the fiat lux was not yet come. From that day I
felt an implacable hatred of the Catholic religion and its ministers,
especially of the Jesuits, who, as I supposed, had effected my
mother's conversion. One night, as I was lamenting my isolated
condition, separated from my mother by this division of sentiments, I
was struck by the sudden thought, 'If the Jesuits have gained over so
excellent a woman as mamma,—a woman so reasonable, so well-informed,
and of so much experience, what will they not do with an ignorant,
unsophisticated girl like me? I must protect myself against their
persecutions. I firmly believe that the Greek Church is the true
church; I am resolved to be faithful to it unto death. To withdraw
myself effectually from the seductions of the Jesuits, I will write
down a vow that I will never change my religion.' No sooner said than
{307} done. I rose at once, and despite the darkness wrote out my vow
in due form, invoking the wrath of God if I ever broke it. Then I went
back to bed, feeling much more composed, and believing that I had
gained a great victory over the devil. Alas! it was he that guided my
pen. For four years I repeated that vow every day when I said my
prayers; I never omitted it. I gloried in my obstinacy, and took every
opportunity to show my aversion to the Catholic religion, and above
all to the Jesuits. In this I was encouraged by my confessor. He asked
me one day if I had any leaning toward Catholicism.
"'I, father! I detest the Catholic religion and the Jesuits!'
"'Good, good!' said he; 'that is as it should be.'
"I let slip no occasion of defaming these holy men. I delighted in
repeating all the absurd stories that I heard against them, and
believed them as much as if they were articles of faith. But about the
middle of the fourth year an excellent Italian priest, who had given
me lessons, died. My mother sometimes requested me to go to the
Catholic church on days of great ceremony, and I durst not refuse,
though I used to go with rage in my heart. When she invited me,
however, to go with her to the funeral of the poor priest, I consented
willingly, out of gratitude, and respect for the memory of the
deceased. As soon as I entered the church a voice within me seemed to
say, 'You hate this church, but you will one day belong to it
yourself.' The words sank into my heart. I was deeply moved, and shed
abundance of tears all the while I remained in the church—I could not
tell why. A thought all at once occurred to me: 'You hate the
Jesuits,' said I to myself; 'is not hatred a sin? When did you learn
to consider this feeling a virtue? If it is a sin, I must not commit
it again: I will not hate the Jesuits then; I will pray for them.' And
so, in fact, I did, every day from that moment. I struggled against my
dislike for them.
"In the meanwhile we went to pass the summer away from home. In this
retirement our good Lord vouchsafed to speak to my heart and inspire
me with such a lively sorrow for my sins that I often passed part of
the night in weeping. I watered my couch with tears, and judging
myself unworthy to sleep on a bed, I cast myself on the ground, and
used to lie there until fatigue obliged me to return to my pillow. At
the end of three months we went back to St. Petersburg, and I there
learned that a cousin of mine [Footnote 71] had become a convert. I
was deeply pained. I accused the Jesuits of being the cause of the
step, and had hard work not to yield to my old hatred of them. I
avoided speaking with my cousin alone, because I did not want to
receive the confidence which I knew she was anxious to give me. But at
last, to my great regret, I had to listen to her. When she had told me
what I was so unwilling to know, I burst into tears, and replied:
"'If you believe that the Catholic religion is the true one, you were
right to embrace it; but I do not understand how you could believe
it.'
"'Oh,' said she, 'if you would only read something that my mother
[Footnote 72] has written on the Greek schism and the truth of the
Catholic Church, you would be persuaded as I was.'
"'You may send me whatever you wish,' I answered, 'but you may be
certain that it will not affect me. I am too firmly convinced that
truth lives in the Greek Church.'
"I went home in great distress of mind. For the first time in four
years I omitted to repeat my vow before going to bed; it seemed to me
rash. I retired, but God would not let me sleep; he filled my mind
with salutary thoughts. 'I must examine this matter,' said I, 'it is
certainly worth the {308} trouble; it is something of too much
consequence to be deceived about.' I thought over all that I knew
about the Catholic faith, and at that moment God opened my eyes. I saw
as clear as day that hitherto I had been in the wrong, and the truth
was to be found only in the Catholic Church. 'It is our pride,' I
exclaimed, 'which prevents our acknowledging the supremacy of the
Pope: to-morrow I will embrace the truth. Yet how can I? And my vow?
Ah, but the vow is null; it can be no obstacle to the fulfilment of my
resolution. If I had taken an oath to commit a murder, the oath would
have been a sin, and to fulfil it would be another. I will not commit
the second sin. I will not put off being a Catholic beyond to-morrow.'
"I waited impatiently for day that I might read my aunt's little
treatise,—not because I needed arguments to convince me, but I
wanted to have it to say that I had read something. At day-break I
wrote to my cousin these words: 'Send me the manuscript, pray for me,
and hope.' I read it quickly; it consisted of not more than thirty
pages. I found in it all that I had said to myself during the night. I
hesitated no longer, but hastened to my mother, declared myself a
Catholic, and begged her to send for Father Rozaven. He came the same
morning. He was not a little surprised at the unexpected intelligence,
and asked me if I was ready to suffer persecution, even death itself,
if need were, for the love of the religion which I was going to
embrace. My blood froze in my veins, but I answered: 'I hope
everything from the grace of God.' The good father doubted no longer
the sincerity of my conversion, and promised to hear my confession the
next day but one, that is, the 18th of October. It was during the
night of the 15th and 16th of October, 1815, that God spoke for me the
words fiat lux."
After she had been received into the Church, Father Rozaven said to
her: "I wish to establish in your heart a great love of God which
shall manifest itself not by fine sentiments but by practical results,
and shall lead you to fulfil with zeal and courage all your duties
without exception. I want you to strive ardently to acquire the solid
virtues of humility, love of your neighbor, patience and conformity to
the will of God. I want to see in you a grandeur, an elevation, and a
firmness of soul, and to teach you to seek and find your consolation
in God."
The princess became all that her wise director wished her to be; and
the constant practice of the fundamental Christian virtues soon led
her to aim at a still more perfect life. Even her mother for a long
time opposed her design. Her friends ridiculed her for wanting to lead
what they called a "useless" life. Sensitive to this reproach, so
constantly made by people who themselves do nothing at all, she begged
the learned Jesuit to furnish her with weapons to repel it. Her
request called forth the following excellent reply, which may be read
with especial profit just now, when so much is said about the
uselessness of nuns:
"Tell me, my child, have you read the catechism? One of the first
questions is, Why has God created us and placed us in this world? To
know him, love him, and serve him, and by this means to obtain
everlasting life. It does not say, to be 'useful.' Even when a nun is
of no use to others, she is useful to herself, and to be so is her
first duty; she labors to sanctify herself and to save her soul. Is
not this the motive which led St. Paul, St. Anthony, and so many
thousands of anchorets into the desert? These saints were certainly
not fools. Beside, is it true that nuns are useless? Was it not the
story of the virtues of St. Anthony which determined the conversion of
St. Augustine? and certainly this conversion was something far greater
than all that St. Anthony could have done by remaining in the world.
But to say nothing of the example of the saints, are not nuns useful
to each {309} other? Do you see no advantage in the union of twenty or
thirty persons, more or less, who incite each other to the acquisition
of virtue, and take each other by the hand in their journey to the
same goal, the salvation of their souls? And then again, many
religious communities devote themselves to the education of youth; and
surely there are few occupations more useful than bringing up in the
knowledge and practice of religion young girls who are destined to
become mothers of families, and to fulfil all the duties of society
that belong to their sex."
A devotion of this sort commended itself especially to our young
convert. She made choice of the new order of the Sacred Heart, and
after eleven years' delay finally entered it at Metz in 1826. She made
her vows in 1828 at Rome, and remained there until she was ordered to
France in 1834 and made general secretary of the congregation. In 1839
she was chosen assistant mother, and appointed to visit the houses of
the Sacred Heart in America, and to found some new ones. Her
correspondence during this period with her mother is now before me,
and will show, far better than any words of mine, not only her piety,
but the serenity of her soul and that love of country and kindred,
which religion, far from extinguishing, can alone purify by carrying
it beyond the narrow boundaries of this life. Like those austere
Christians whose lives Count de Montalembert has written, she kept a
large place in her heart for love and friendship, and clung ardently
to those natural ties which she did not feel called upon to break when
she gave herself to God.
I shall then leave Madame Elizabeth to speak in her own words; and in
so doing, it seems to me that I am fulfilling the wish of Madame
Swetchine, who wrote thus to Father Gagarin (ii. 360): "There are many
details respecting her life which might be found and authenticated,
and I am convinced that many interesting particulars might be obtained
from her correspondence during her two journeys in America."
NEW YORK, Sept. 1, 1840.
MY DEAREST MAMMA,—I arrived at New York a few hours ago, after a
voyage of forty-five days. Our voyage, thank God, was a good one,
despite thirty-two days of contrary winds. We had neither storms nor
rough weather; the trip was a long one, that is all. Having two
priests with us, we had mass often; you may imagine what a
consolation it was to us. I was sea-sick only one week; after that,
so well that I passed a great part of my time in drawing.
"I am here for only four days; at least I trust that the business
which I have to transact with the bishop will not keep me longer.
Then I shall go with my seven companions and a worthy priest who has
us in charge, to St. Louis in the state of Missouri, 2,000 versts
from New York. They say that we shall reach there in twelve days; by
this reckoning we shall arrive at our first house about the 20th of
September. I believe that I shall die of joy when I get there; for
here in the midst of the world, though surrounded by excellent
people, who show us a thousand attentions, I am like a fish out of
water. I will write to you as soon as I reach St. Louis. I cannot
remain with our family of the Sacred Heart there more than a
fortnight, for I must then visit two other establishments not far
distant. I shall return to St. Louis, and leave there about the
middle of November for our house at St. Michael, near New Orleans,
which is 1,500 versts from St. Louis. After a few days' rest I shall
then go to our house at Grand Coteau, also in Louisiana; and after
staying there three weeks I shall return to pass the winter at St.
Michael. I hope to do well there, for the climate is warmer than
that of Rome. In the spring I shall make another visitation of the
houses in Missouri, and then go back to New York to begin the
foundation {310} of a new establishment there. So you see I shall
not be very long in any one place.
"What a consolation it will be for me if I find a letter from you at
St. Louis! I am impatient for news of you and my brothers. How did
they take the news of my departure for America? With indifference
perhaps; but they are far from being indifferent to me. God knows
what wishes I form for them, and how sweet it is to me to be able to
offer up for them the fatigues and petty sufferings which divine
Providence sends us. When you write to my brothers do not fail to
remember me to them, for, they are dearer to me than ever in our
Lord.
"I was in hopes of finding our relative in America; but he is dead.
He died universally regretted. Everybody looked upon him as a saint.
I will make it a point to obtain his works and send them to you."
"St. Louis, Nov. 9, 1840.
"I have had the consolation of receiving your letter dated the 15th
of July. Write to me now at St. Louis, at the Academy of the
Ladies of the Sacred Heart, for so they call here those religious
houses which receive pupils as boarders. For my part, I am
determined to send you this letter at once, because I am afraid that
Paris will be turned topsy-turvy by the remains of Bonaparte, which
are to be removed thither in the month of November.
"It is too true that our 'American uncle' is dead. You may suppose
how deeply I regret it. He was not a bishop; only a simple
missionary. He invariably refused all dignities, and devoted himself
for more than forty years to the missions, in which he displayed a
zeal worthy of an apostle. He died at the age of seventy-two, like a
saint as he had lived, having given himself to God since his
seventeenth year. The whole country in which he preached the gospel
weeps for him as for a father. His memory is revered in America
among Protestants as well as Catholics. I have been shown an article
about him in the Gazette: it gives his whole history, and it would
be impossible to write a more touching eulogy of him. I have some of
his works; they are excellent.
"I expected that my departure for America would have but little
effect upon my brothers. Our good Lord permits it to be so, and we
must wish whatever he wishes. A day will come, I trust, when their
hearts will be touched. Let us wait and pray, and suffer with more
fervor than ever. Remember me to them and to my aunts. Beg for me
the light of the Holy Ghost: I need it sorely, for my post is a very
difficult one."
"ST. MICHAEL, Dec. 6, 1840.,
"Here I am, near New Orleans; but I shall soon start on another
journey, and not be at rest again before the month of June. I am now
in the land of the sugar-cane; it is very nice to eat, or rather to
suck. As if I brought the cold with me in all my travels, I had
scarcely arrived here when bitter cold weather set in, and the ice
was as thick as a good fat finger. The weather has moderated since
then—to my great satisfaction, for I have not enough of the spirit
of mortification to bear cold very well. I begin to believe that
there is not a single warm country under the sun, and that the
reputation of those lands that are called so is not well-founded.
"I send you only these few words, that you may not be uneasy about
me; for I have no leisure. Remember me to my brothers. Bless me, and
believe, dear mamma, in my tender and respectful attachment."
"ST. MICHAEL, Feb. 28, 1841.
"I leave this place on the 15th of March, and shall be in St. Louis
for the feast of the Annunciation. I shall remain three weeks at
three of our houses in Missouri, and then go to Cincinnati and
Philadelphia; so I hope to be in New York by the beginning of May.
Do not fear on my {311} account the dangers of railroads and
steamboats. Those who are sent on a mission are under the special
protection of divine Providence. I have never met with the slightest
accident; and this constant journeying about has moreover rid me of
my fever. I am perfectly well. I rise every morning at twenty
minutes after four; I fast and abstain; and nothing hurts me. So
don't be uneasy about me. I think I shall stay in New York until
November, if God opposes no obstacle to my doing so; I shall then
make a last visit to our houses in Louisiana and Missouri, and sail
for Europe probably during the summer of 1842. In fifteen months I
shall be afloat again on the great ocean. I hope Alexander will not
be off again before that, so that I may have the consolation of
seeing him once more. He is the only one of my brothers whom I may
never see again, and he was my Benjamin. Tell them I do not forget
them in my prayers, and I wish they would also remember me before
God: that will come some day, I hope. Pray have some masses said for
me; I have great need of them. If you only knew what it was to hold
such an office as mine! The responsibility is enough to make one
tremble."
"LOUISIANA, March 29, 1841.
"Before starting on my journey I must send you a few lines. It is a
little before my accustomed time for writing; but I shall be nearly
two months on the route before reaching New York, and I am afraid I
shall have no opportunity of writing except on my arrival in that
city, and after my return here. So do not be anxious on account of
my future silence: it will not be a sign of anything bad. I am
better than ever. Make your mind at rest about my health. Our Lord
gives me astonishing strength. Fatigue has no effect upon me."
"NEW YORK, May 15, 1841.
"I arrived here without accident, and take comfort in thinking that
I shall be stationary now until October. Since I left Rome I have
not been six weeks at a time in any one place. I am about founding
an establishment here, and the task is no easy one, in any point of
view. The expenses to be incurred are enormous, and our resources,
to say the best of them, are very moderate. So I have begged our
mother-general to allow the 200 francs which you were so good as to
send us for postage, to be devoted to the first expenses of the
chapel.
"You have no idea how deeply our 'relative' is regretted here. He
was universally loved and respected. People look upon me with favor,
because I bear the same name."
"NEW YORK, June 20, 1841.
"The climate of New York is very disagreeable. It was so cold
yesterday that even with a woollen coverlid I had hard work to keep
warm through the night. It is not cold two days in succession. The
temperature varies even between morning and evening—that is, when it
is not continually raining. I believe after all that the climate of
St. Petersburg is the best. Oar summers at least are superb, and we
have long days; but here it is hardly light, this time of year, at
half after four in the morning, and by half after seven in the
evening we need lamps. In fact, you must go to a cold climate if you
want to keep warm and to see well!
"I have had an agreeable surprise here, and you would never guess
what it is. It is to have klioukva [Footnote 73 ] to eat nearly
every day; it is the first time I have seen them since I left
Russia. This is absurd, I know, but I cannot tell you what pleasure
it gave me.
"New York is an immense city; it has nearly 400,000 inhabitants, and
is as noisy as Paris. There are some 80,000 Catholics and only eight
churches, but religion is making progress. The next time I write to
you, it will be from our house of the Sacred {312} Heart. I am
burning with impatience to be in it; for though we are extremely
comfortable with the good Sisters of Charity, who are truly sisters
to us, we nevertheless long to be at home, where we can live in
conformity to our rule and customs.
"What news of my brothers? How happy I shall be when you can tell me
that all is well with them! I would give a thousand lives for that.
The day and hour of God will come; let us be patient and pray. Say a
thousand affectionate things to them for me."
"NEW YORK, Aug. 2, 1841.
"I dare say you will be pleased to learn, dear mamma, that I have
just opened a little mission among the Indian savages in Missouri,
300 miles beyond St. Louis. Four of our community have been
established there. The population consists of 900 Indians, all
converted by the Jesuits. Thanks be to God, his kingdom is extending
itself, and what it loses on one side through the wiles of the
enemy, it gains on another.
"I never let a month pass without writing to you, despite my many
occupations, because I know your anxiety; but do not distress
yourself. I am, if possible, but too well, in every respect. Our
houses here are like those in Europe; while within doors we never
could suspect that we had been transplanted into the new world (that
used to be). Don't be afraid about crocodiles. The country abounds
in them, as it does in snakes; but nobody thinks of them, and I have
never even seen one. Several, however, have been pointed out to me;
but as my eyes were cast down, I saw nothing."
"NEW YORK, Sept. 13, 1841.
"Our establishment is well under way; the house is finished, and we
have already twelve pupils. I have no doubt their number will
increase next month to twenty, and perhaps more, for there have been
already at least forty applications. Beside this, I have just
established a mission among the Potawatamie Indians in the Indian
Territory. There is a population of 3,000 Indians in the place where
our ladies are, 1,000 of whom are fervent Catholics; the others are
pagans, but to some extent civilized. We have there already a school
of fifty little girls, and a great many women come to learn from us
how to work.
"I shall leave New York and pass the winter in Louisiana. I am quite
well—better than in Europe; but I am over-burdened with work. You
may readily believe it when I tell you that beside governing this
house, and my province, which comprises seven houses, I have had to
paint three large pictures for the chapel, and to finish them in six
weeks. At last, thank God, they are done, and our chapel is really
charming. What a pity that you cannot come and hear mass in it!"
"En route, between St. Michael and Grand Coteau, Dec. 4, 1841.
"From a tavern on the banks of the Mississippi I write to wish you
and all the family a happy New Year! I pray devoutly that it may be
fertile in graces and divine blessings; everything else is
superfluous and valueless, and therefore unnecessary. I have
travelled a good deal since I wrote you from Harrisburg, Penn. I am
now going to our house at Grand Coteau, where I shall stay about
five weeks; then I shall spend an equal time at St. Michael. This
will bring me to the end of February; after which I shall start for
St. Louis, and visit our other establishments in Missouri, including
our new mission among the Potawatamie savages. Don't let the word
'savages' frighten you. They won't eat me; for they are more than
civilized. One thousand of them are Catholics, in the place to which
I have sent our sisters, who are only four in number, and have a
school which succeeds admirably. Our good savages are so fervent
that they come every day to church at half-past five in the morning.
They say their prayers, meditate for half an hour, and then hear
mass, {313} during which they sing canticles in their savage
fashion. After mass one of the Indians teaches the catechism to
about thirty little boys and a like number of girls; that over, they
go off to their respective employments, and about six in the evening
they come back to the church to say their prayers together. It was
the Jesuits who converted this tribe, and they are still doing a
vast amount of good out there. I shall probably go there in April;
it will be a three-weeks' journey. After that I mean to return to
New York, and probably about the 1st of June I shall sail for Havre.
So there you have my route; you see that I lead the life of a
regular courier more than ever. But fortunately, to one who has the
happiness of being a religious, all things are indifferent, provided
they are in accordance with holy obedience. I am very much afraid I
shall miss some of your letters, for they must follow me at a
gallopping pace or they will not overtake me.
"Assure yourself, my dear mamma, that Russia is not the coldest
country in the world. The so-called burning Louisiana is colder.
From the 25th to the 30th of November we had hard frosts which
chilled us through and through. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I have a
pleasant recollection that in November at St. Petersburg we have
more rain than frost. In a word, now that I have tried, so to speak,
all climates, I am firmly persuaded that there is not a warm country
on the face of the earth, and I have resigned myself to look for
pleasant and eternal warmth only in the next world.
"What news of my brothers and my sisters-in-law? Are they as great
vagabonds as I? Ah, if their hearts and minds could only be composed
and settled in God alone! It will come, some day or other; we must
hope, even against all hope. Our Lord is the master of hearts, and
he wills from all eternity that these hearts shall be wholly his. A
touch of his grace will soften those of my brothers; the day of
illusions will pass away, and we shall sing eternally with them that
God is good and his mercies are unspeakable. A thousand kisses, dear
mamma; bless your dutiful and grateful daughter
ELIZABETH."
In 1842 Madame Elizabeth went to Rome to give an account of her
fruitful mission to her superiors. I have before me a last letter of
hers, written to her mother, whom she had just lost at St. Petersburg
almost at the same hour in which her eldest brother died in Paris in
the bosom of the Catholic Church.
"I confess to you," she says, "that for several months past, I have
continually felt impelled to make a sacrifice of my life for my
brothers. Perhaps you will think this presumptuous on my part, so I
will explain myself. When I am making my preparation for death,
according to custom, the thought often comes into my mind to offer
the sacrifice of my life in advance, and to beseech our Lord to
accept it, as well as all the sufferings I may have to undergo,
especially at that terrible moment when the soul is separated from
the body, in order that I may obtain the conversion of my brothers.
I have asked permission to transfer to them all the merit which, by
God's grace, I may acquire through resignation or suffering—not only
in my last sickness, but even during the period of life which yet
remains to me—so that, accumulating no more merits by way of
satisfaction for my own sins, I may have, for my part, purgatory
without any alleviation; for in that place of propitiation and peace
I can no longer be of any use to them. I hope our Lord will grant my
request: all I know is that since that time my habitual gladness of
heart is increased a hundred-fold, and that I think of death with
unspeakable consolation."
This sacrifice, which reminds one of a similar incident in the life of
St. Vincent de Paul, [Footnote 74] seems to have been {314} accepted
by God. Returning to America in 1843, Madame Elizabeth had not time to
enjoy the fruits of her labors. She was attacked at St. Michael by the
yellow fever, and there fell asleep in the Lord on the feast of the
Immaculate Conception, saying: "I do not fear death; I long for it, if
it is God's will." [Footnote 75]
"What more glorious title of nobility," says Monseigneur the Duke
d'Aumale, "than to count saints and martyrs among one's ancestors?" My
object is not so much to lay claim to this distinction, as to show,
for the honor of my country, the part which some of her children have
taken in the genesis of civilization and Catholicism in America. And
this ambition will perhaps seem excusable to those who admit that
every gift of God ought to be an object of our most religious care.
From The Month.
THE STOLEN SKETCH.
I was sitting in the National Gallery, copying one of Murillo's
glorious little beggar-boys. A tube of color fell from my box and
rolled out upon the floor. A gentleman passing picked it up, and
restored it to me. I thanked him; and then he lingered some minutes by
my chair, watching my work and giving me some useful hints with the
air of a person who thoroughly understands the art. I was striving to
be an artist, struggling through difficult uphill labor. I was not
acquainted with any one of the profession. I had no one to give me
counsel. Those few friendly words of advice from a stranger fell on my
ear like so many pearls, and I gathered them gratefully and stored
them fast in memory's richest jewel-casket.
After that he seemed to take an interest in my progress, gave me
valuable lessons, and occasionally lent me colors or brushes. I
wondered at myself for conversing with him fearlessly, for I was
usually shy of strangers; but his manner was so quiet and easy, his
tone so deferential, and he spoke so well on the subjects which
interested me most, that I forgot to be nervous, and listened and
answered with delight. He was copying a picture quite near to me, and
I felt humbled when returning to my own effort after glancing at his
masterly work. But he cheered me with kind words of encouragement,
which had a different effect upon me from my mother's fond admiration
and Hessie's eloquent praises. It was so new to be told to expect
success by one whose words might be hailed as a prophecy. I grew to
look forward with increased interest to my long day's work in the
gallery, and to think the place lonely when the kind artist {315} was
not there. Before my picture was finished I felt that I had gained a
friend.
One afternoon on leaving the gallery I was dismayed to find that it
rained heavily. Quite unprepared for the wet, I yet shrank from the
expense of a cab. While standing irresolute upon the steps, I
presently saw my artist friend at my side. He shot open his umbrella,
and remarked on the unpleasant change in the weather. Perhaps he saw
my distress in my face, for he asked me how far I had to go. He also
was going to Kensington, he said, and begged permission to shelter me.
I was obliged to accept his offer, for it was getting late. It was one
of those evenings so dreaded by women who are forced to walk alone in
London, when the light fades quickly out, and darkness drops suddenly
upon the city.
Tying my thick veil over my face, and wondering at myself, I took his
arm and walked by his side through the twilight streets. I thought of
a time long ago when I used to get upon tiptoe to clasp my father's
arm, he laughing at my childish pride, while we sauntered up and down
the old garden at home, far away. Never, since that dear arm had been
draped in the shroud, had my hand rested on a man's sleeve. Memory
kept vexing me sorely; and I, who seldom cried, swallowed tears behind
my veil and went along in silence. Still I liked the walk. As we
passed on, sliding easily through those rough crowds which at other
times I dreaded so much, I felt keenly how good it is to be taken care
of. I seemed to be moving along in a dream. Even when it began to
thunder, and lightning flashed across our eyes, the storm could not
rouse me from my reverie. I felt no fear, stoutly protected as I was.
II.
When we reached my home, a violent gust of rain made my friend step
inside the open doorway. I asked him to come into the parlor till the
shower should lighten; and he did so. My mother sat by the fender in
her armchair, the fire burned blithely, the tea-things were on the
table. The room looked very cosy after the stormy streets.
My mother received the unexpected visitor cordially. She had heard of
his kindness to me before. Hessie came in with the bread and butter,
in her brown housefrock, with her bright curls a little tossed, and
her blue eyes wondering wide at sight of a stranger. My mother asked
him to stay for tea, and I went upstairs to take off my bonnet.
Never before had I felt so anxious to have my hair neat, and to find
an immaculate collar and cuffs. My hands trembled as I tied my apron
and drew on my slippers. This was always to me a pleasant hour, when
my return made Hessie and my mother glad, when I got refreshingly
purified from the stains and odor of paint, and when we all had tea
together. To-night a certain excitement mingled with my usual quiet
thankful satisfaction.
I hurried down to the parlor. Hessie was filling the cups, and Edward
Vance (our new friend) was talking pleasantly to my mother. He looked
up as I came in, and when I reached my seat a sensation of gladness
was tingling from my heart's core to my finger-ends. My mother took my
hand and fondled it in hers, and thanked him for his kindness to her
"good child." I felt that he could not but sympathize with my dear,
sick, uncomplaining mother, and I somehow felt it sweet that she
should give me that little word of praise while speaking to him. After
tea Hessie played us dreamy melodies from Mozart in the firelight, and
I sat by mother's side tracing pictures in the burning coals.
After that first evening Edward Vance often came to our house. At
these times our conversation was chiefly upon art-subjects. Hessie and
my mother were deeply interested in them for my sake; I, for their
own, and for {316} the hopes which were entwined about them.
I thought him an ambitious man, one whose whole soul was bent upon
success. I liked him for it. I thought, "The noblest man is he who
concentrates all his powers upon one worthy aim, and wins a
laurel-crown from his fellow-men as the reward of his stead-fastness."
Yet he seemed often troubled when we asked him about his own works.
A remark I overheard one day in the gallery puzzled me. Some one said,
"Vance? Oh, yes! he's a clever copyist—a determined plodder; but he
originates nothing." I don't know that I had any right to be
indignant; but I was. That very evening I asked him to show us some of
his designs. His face got a dark troubled look upon it, and he evaded
the promise.
Meantime he took a keen interest in my work. He taught me how to
finish my etchings more delicately, and his remarks on my compositions
were always most useful. His suggestions were peculiarly happy. The
drawing was ever enhanced in strength or beauty by his advice. His
ideas were just and true; his taste daintily critical. This convinced
me that the remark overheard in the gallery was made either in
ignorance or ill-nature; or perhaps that there were more artists
called Vance than one.
He came often now, very often. I ceased to feel angry at myself for
starting when his knock came. Many small things, too trivial to be
mentioned, filled my life with a delicious calm, and breathed a
rose-colored atmosphere around me. Everything in my inner and outer
world had undergone a change. I grew subject to idle fits at my work;
but then the suspended energy came back with such a rush of power,
almost like inspiration, that I accomplished far more than I ever had
done in the former quiet days when there was little sunshine to be
had, and I thought I had been born to live contentedly under a cloud
all my life. Art seemed glorified a thousandfold in my eyes. The
galleries had looked to me before like dim treasuries of phantom
beauty, shadowy regions of romance and perfection, through the gates
of which I might peer, though the key was not mine. Now they teemed
with a ripe meaning; the meaning which many glorious souls that once
breathed and wrought on this earth have woven into their creations;—a
meaning which unlocked for me the world of love, and gave me long
bright visions of its beautiful vistas.
My mother looked from Edward Vance to me, and from me to him; and I
knew her thought. It sweetened yet more that food of happiness on
which I lived. Something said to me, "You may meet his eye fearlessly,
place your hand frankly in his clasp, follow his feet gladly."
One evening after he had gone my mother stroked my head lying on her
knee.
"You are very happy, Grace?" she said.
"I am, mother," I whispered.
"Ah! your life is set to music, my love," she murmured; "the old
tune."
III.
Never was one sister so proud of another as I of Hessie. She was only
seventeen, three years younger than I, and I felt almost a motherly
love for her. She was slight and fair, and childish both in face and
disposition. I gloried in her beauty; her head reminded me of
Raffaelle's angels. I thought that one day I should paint a picture
with Hessie for my model—a picture which should win the love and
admiration of all who gazed. One leisure time, in the midst of my
happiness, I suddenly resolved to commence the work. I chose a scene
from our favorite poem of Enid—the part where the mother goes to
her daughter's chamber, bearing Geraint's message, and finds
{317}
'Half disarrayed, as to her rest, the girl,
Whom first she kissed on either cheek, and then
On either shining shoulder laid a hand,
And kept her off, and gazed into her face,
And told her all their converse in the hall,
Proving her heart. But never light and shade
Coursed one another more on open ground,
Beneath a troubled heaven, than red and pale
Across the face of Enid, hearing her;
While slowly falling, as a scale that falls
When weight is added only grain by grain,
Sank her sweet head upon her gentle breast.
Nor did she lift an eye, nor speak a word,
Rapt in the fear, and in the wonder of it."
I made a sketch. Never had I been so happy in any attempt. My own
mother, worn, sad, dignified—I gave her face and form to the poet's
conception of Enid's mother. And Hessie made a very lovely Enid, with
the white drapery clinging to her round shoulders, and her golden head
drooped. I wrought out all the accessories with scrupulous care—the
shadowy old tower-chamber; the open window, and the dim drifts of
cloud beyond; the stirring tapestry; the lamp upon the table, flinging
its yellow light on the rich faded dress of the mother and on Enid's
glistening hair.
I toiled at the sketch almost as if I had meant to make it a finished
picture. It was large. I lavished labor upon it with a passionate
energy. I never wearied of conjuring up ideas of beauty, to lay them
in luxurious profusion under my brush. I gloried in the work of my
hands; and yet I felt impatient when others praised it. I burned to
show them what the finished picture should prove to be. This sketch,
much as I prized it as an earnest of future success, I held only as
the shadow of that which must one day live in perfection on the
canvas. So I raved in my dreams.
I had resolved not to speak of it to Edward Vance till I had completed
the sketch. I had Hessie's promise not to show it, not to tell him. I
worked at it daily, not feeling that I worked, but only that I
lived—only that my soul was accomplishing its appointed task of
creation; that it breathed in its element, revelled in its God-given
power; that it was uttering that which should stir many other souls
with a myriad blessed inspirations, long after the worn body had
refused to shelter it longer, and eternity had summoned it from the
world of endeavor to that rest which, in the fever of its earnestness,
it knew not yet how to appreciate.
And Hessie stood for me, patient day after day.
"But never light and shade
Coursed one another more on open ground,
Beneath a troubled heaven, than red and pale
Across the face of Enid, hearing her."
I read aloud the passage again and again, that Hessie might feel it as
well as I. And truly, as I worked, the color on Hessie's cheek changed
and changed under my eyes, till I forgot my purpose in wondering at
her. One day, while I laid down my brush questioning her, she burst
into tears, and sobbed in childish impetuous distress. She would not
answer my anxious questions; she shunned my sympathy.
But that night, before I slept, I had my little sister's secret. She
worshipped Edward Vance as simple childish natures worship heroes whom
they exalt to the rank of gods.
IV.
I had no more joy, no more heart to work. I laid my sketch in my
portfolio, and said that it was finished, and that I should not
commence the picture at present. I could not work looking at Hessie's
changed face.
What should I do? How should I restore happiness to my little sister?
This was the question which haunted me. Night or day it would give me
no peace. I could not rest at home. I undertook a work once more at
the National Gallery, and stayed away all day. Often I sat for hours,
and did nothing, thinking with painful pertinacity of that one
question, "How should I restore happiness to my little sister?" Edward
Vance had never asked me to be his wife. Perhaps Hessie did not guess
that I had believed and hoped that he would. My mother—but then a
mother's eye will see where others are blind.
I sat in my deserted corner of the gallery, dropping tears into my
lap, {318} and pondering my question. If my mother were dead, if I
were married, how lonely would not Hessie be in her misery! But if
Hessie were a happy wife, why, I could support myself and live in
peace and independence, blessed with congenial occupation, solaced by
the love and joy of my art. "Edward Vance must never ask me to be his
wife." I repeated the words again and again, till the resolve burnt
itself into my heart.
"I believe that he has loved me, that he loves me now; but I can so
wrap myself up in my work, so seem to forget him in my art, that I
shall cease to be loveable; and then he must, he will, perceive
Hessie's affection, and take her to his heart. He cannot help it,
beautiful and fresh and simple as she is." So I looked at her face as
she lay dreaming, sullen and grieved like a vexed child, even in
sleep; and I vowed to carry out my strange resolve—to crush my love
for Edward, to destroy his for me, to link the two dear ones together,
and go on my life alone, with no comforter but God and my toil. It was
but a short time since I had contemplated such a prospect with calm
content; and why could I not forget all that had lately been, and
return to my serene quiet? I said it should be so.
But in this I assumed a power over my own destiny and the destinies of
others which none but God had a right to sway, and he had entered it
against me in the great book of good and evil. He had planted in my
heart a natural affection, and laid at my feet a treasure of
happiness. I had stretched forth my hand to uproot that beautiful
flower which should have borne me joy. I had turned aside from the
rich gift, and thought to sweep it from my path. I had vowed to do
evil, that good might come of it; and a mighty hand was already
extended to punish my presumption.
V.
In pursuance of my resolve, I absented myself from home as much as
possible, leaving Hessie to entertain Edward Vance when he came. I did
not intend to quarrel with him—I could not have done that; but I
wanted him to see more of Hessie and less of me. I had so much faith
in her superior beauty and loveableness, that in the morbid frame of
mind into which I had fretted myself, I believed my object would soon
be accomplished.
I had succeeded in obtaining some tuitions; and between the time which
they occupied and the hours spent in the galleries, I was very little
at home. My mother looked at me uneasily; but I smiled and deceived
her with pleasant words. On coming home late, I sometimes heard that
Mr. Vance had been there; my mother always told me—Hessie never. I
longed to lay my head on my mother's knee and say, "Did he ask for
me?" but the voice never would come.
Sometimes he came, as of old, to spend the whole evening. I would not
notice how he bore my altered ways. I sat all the time apart by the
window, seemingly absorbed, puzzling out some difficult design, or
working up some careful etching. I did not ask his advice; I did not
claim his sympathy with my occupation. I sat wrapped up within myself,
grave and ungenial, while he lingered by Hessie at the piano, and
asked her to play her soft airs again. And all the time I sat staring
from my paper into the little patch of garden under the window,
twining my sorrow about the old solitary tree, building my unhealthy
purpose into the dull wall of discolored brick, which shut us and our
troubles from our neighbors. I sat listening to the plaintive tunes
with which so many associations were inwoven, hearing Hessie's musical
prattle—she was always gay while he stayed—and Edward's rich voice
and pleasant laugh, contrasting with them as a deep wave breaks in
among the echoes of a rippling creek. I sat and listened in silence,
while all my life {319} rebelled in every vein and pulse at the false
part I acted.
But it was too late now to retract. Though every day proved to me that
the task I had undertaken was too difficult, the step had been made
and could not be retraced. I had lifted my burden, and I must bear it
even to the end. I had no doubt from Hessie's shy happy face that at
least my object must be attained, whatever it might cost myself.
I had never shown Edward Vance the dear sketch for which I had once so
keenly coveted his approval. So absorbed had I lately been in other
thoughts, that it lay by forgotten. One evening my mother desired
Hessie to bring it out and show it to him. I seldom looked at him, but
for a moment I now glanced at his face. His eyelids flickered, and a
strange expression passed over his countenance. It was admiration,
surprise, and something else—I knew not what; something strange and
unpleasant. The admiration, I jealously believed, was for Hessie's
face in its downcast beauty. He gazed at it long, but put it aside
with a few cold words of commendation. I felt, with an intolerable
pang, that even so he had put me aside, and thought no more about me.
But at different times afterward I saw him glance to where the sketch
lay.
That night my mother kept me with her after Hessie had gone to bed.
She questioned me anxiously; asked me if I had quarrelled with Edward
Vance. I said, "No, mother, why should we quarrel?"
By-and-by she said, "Grace, can it be that he has not asked you to be
his wife?"
I answered quickly, "Oh, no; it is Hessie whom he loves."
My mother looked puzzled and grieved, though I smiled in her face.
VI.
One evening I came home and found Hessie dull and out of humor. My
mother told me that Mr. Vance had called and mentioned that he was
about to leave town for some weeks. He had left his regards for me. I
knew by Hessie's face that he had said nothing to make her happy
during his absence.
Some evenings after, I found my mother sitting alone in the parlor,
and on going upstairs Hessie curled up on our bed with her face in the
pillows. I so loved this little sister, that I could not endure to see
her grieve without sharing her vexation. So I sat down by her side and
drew her head upon my shoulder. Sitting thus I coaxed her trouble from
her. She had been out walking, and had met Edward Vance in Kensington.
He had seen her. He had pretended not to see her. He had avoided her.
At first this seemed so very unlikely, I jested with her, laughed at
her, said she must have been mistaken. He had been delayed in London,
and had not recognized her. But Hessie declared vehemently that he had
purposely avoided her, and cried as though her heart would break.
Then I said: "Hessie, if he be a person to behave so, we need neither
of us trouble ourselves about him. We lived before we knew him, and I
dare say we shall get on very well now that he has gone." But Hessie
only stared and turned her face from me. She could not understand such
a view of the case. She thought I did not feel for her.
After that the weeks passed drearily. We heard no news of Edward
Vance; but he had not left London, for I saw him once in the street. I
told Hessie, for I thought it right to rouse her a little rudely from
the despondent state into which she had fallen. I tried, gently but
decidedly, to make her understand that we had looked on as a steadfast
friend one who for some reason had been tired of us, and made an
excuse to drop our acquaintance; and that she would be doing serious
injury to her self-respect did she give him one more thought.
For myself I mused much upon his {320} strange conduct. It remained an
enigma to me. A dull listlessness hung upon me, which was more
terrible than physical pain. I spent the days at home, because I could
not leave Hessie to mope her life away, and damp my mother's spirits
with her sad face. So I had not even the obligation of going out to
daily work to stimulate me to healthful action. Now, indeed, was my
life weary and burdensome for one dark space, which, thank God and his
gift of strong energy, was not of vast compass. So long as we
sacrifice ourselves for those we love, whether in reality or in
imagination, something sublime in the idea of our purpose—whether that
purpose be mistaken or not—is yet a rock to lean on in the weakest
hour of anguish. But when our eyes are opened, and we see that we have
only dragged others as well as ourselves deeper into misery, then
indeed it is hard to "suffer and be strong."
VII.
I had done nothing of late—nothing, although I had toiled
incessantly; for I did not dignify with the name of "work" the
soulless mechanical drudgery which had kept me from home during the
past months. My spirit had grovelled in a state of prostration,
stripped of its wings and its wand of power. I now knelt and cried:
"Give, oh, give me back my creative impulse!"
I had never since looked at the beloved sketch. I longed now to draw
it forth, and commence the picture while I stayed at home. But Hessie
shuddered when I spoke of it, and looked so terrified, pleading that
she could not stand for me, that I gave up the idea for the time. I
thought she had distressing memories connected with it, and I tried to
rid her of them by speaking cheerfully of how successful I expected
the picture to be, and what pleasure we should have in working at it.
I regretted bitterly that I had not commenced it long before, just
after I had made the sketch. I should then, perhaps, have had it
finished in time for the Exhibition drawing near. But that was
impossible now. I must wait in patience for another year. I did not at
that time even look between the leaves of the portfolio. Though I
thought it right to talk briskly and cheerily about it for both our
sakes, I had sickening associations with that work of my short,
brilliant day of happiness which Hessie, with all her childish
grieving, could hardly have comprehended.
I allowed some time to pass, and at last I thought Hessie's whim had
been indulged long enough. She must learn how to meet a shock and
outlive it. I did not like the idea of having ghosts in the house—
skeletons of unhealthy sentiment hidden away in unapproachable
chambers. The shadow should be hunted from its corner into the light.
The sketch must grow into a picture, which a new aspect of things must
despoil of all stinging associations.
I went to seek the sketch; but the sketch was gone. I sought it in
every part of the house; but to no purpose. It had quite disappeared.
I mentioned the strange circumstance to my mother in Hessie's
presence, and Hessie suddenly left the room. Then it struck me for the
first time that my sister had either destroyed it (which I could
hardly believe), or that some accident had happened to it in her
hands. I observed that she never alluded to it, never inquired if I
had found it. I did not question her about it. Indeed I felt too much
vexed to speak of it. I grieved more for its loss than I had believed
it remained in me to grieve at any fresh trial. I loved it as we do
love the creation on which we have lavished the most precious riches
of our mind, on which we have spent our toil, in which we have
conquered difficulty, striven and achieved, struggled and triumphed. I
should have loved it all my life, hanging in my own chamber, if no one
might ever see it but myself; and borne my {321} sorrows with a better
spirit, and tasted keener joys, while thanking God that I had been
permitted to call it into existence. I gloried too much in the work of
my own hands, and I was punished.
Never since have I tasted that vivid sense of delight in any
achievement of my own. I have worked as zealously, and more
successfully, but it has been with a humbler heart. And looking
backward, I now believe that it was my inner happiness which haloed my
creation with a beauty that was half in my own glad eyes.
VIII.
The succeeding few months were quiet, in the dullest sense of the
word. Strive as I would, the sunshine had gone from our home. Hessie
was no longer the bright Hessie of old days.
I tried to forget my dear sketch of "Enid," and made several attempts
to paint some other picture; but the Exhibition drew near, and I had
nothing done.
One bright May morning I read in the newspaper an account of the
Academy Exhibition. The list of artists and their works stirred me
with a strange trouble. Tears rose in my eyes and blotted out the
words. I spread the paper on the table before me, pressed my temples
with my fingers, and travelled slowly through the criticisms and
praises which occupied some columns. Why was there no work of mine
mentioned there? Why had I lost my time so miserably during the past
months? And questioning myself thus, I was conscious of two sins upon
my own head. The first was in glorying in and worshipping the creation
of my own labor: the second, in exalting myself upon an imaginary
pinnacle of heroism by a fancied self-sacrifice, and having brought
deeper trouble upon the sister whose happiness I thought to compass. I
wept the choking tears out of my throat and read on.
Something dazzled my eyes for a moment, and brought the blood to my
forehead. A picture was mentioned with enthusiastic praise; a picture
by E. Vance. It was called "Enid," and was interpreted by a quotation
from the poem; my passage—the subject of my lost sketch! A strange
idea glanced across my mind. I half smiled at it and put it away. But
all day I was restless; and that evening I proposed to Hessie an
expedition early next morning to see the pictures. My mother longed to
go with us; but as she could not, I promised to bring home a
catalogue, and describe each painting to the best of my memory.
With a feverish haste I sought out the picture of "Enid" by E. Vance.
Was I dreaming? I passed my hand across my eyes as though some
imaginary scene had come between me and the canvas. I did not feel
Hessie's hand dropping from my arm. I stood transfixed, grasping the
catalogue, and staring at the picture before me.
It was my "Enid." My own in form, attitude, tint, and expression. It
was the "Enid" of my dreams realized; the "Enid" of my labor wrought
to completion; the "Enid" of my lost sketch ennobled, perfected,
glorified.
My work on which I had lavished my love and toil was there, and it was
not mine.
Another, a more skilled, a subtler hand, had brought out its meaning
with delicate appreciation, ripened its original purpose, enriched the
subdued depths of its coloring, etherealized the whole by the purest
finish. But that hand had robbed me, with cruel cowardly deliberation.
It had stolen my mellow fruit; taken my sweetest rose and planted it
in a strange garden. I felt the wrong heavy and sore upon me. I
resented it fiercely. I could not endure to look at the admiring faces
around me. I turned away sick and trembling, while the blood pulsed
indignantly in my throat and beat painfully at my temples.
Why should he who had already so troubled my life enjoy success and
gold which should have been mine? {322} "O mother, mother!" I inwardly
cried, "how much would the price of this picture have done for you!"
And I thought of her yearnings for the scent of sea spray, and the
taste of sea breath, which the scanty purse forbade to be satisfied.
I sought Hessie, and found her sitting alone and very pale. I said,
"Come home, Hessie;" and she followed me, obeying like a child.
When we reached our house, I was thankful that my mother slept upon
the couch, for I needed a time to calm myself, and think and pray. I
threw away my bonnet, and sat down by our bedside. Hessie came and
crept to my feet.
"Grace," she sobbed, "can you ever forgive me? I gave him the sketch;
but I declare on my knees that I did not know why he wanted it."
For a moment I felt very harsh and stern, but my woman's nature
conquered. What were all the pictures in the world compared with my
little sister's grief? I bent over her, and wiped away the tears from
her face.
"Don't say any more about it, Hessie," I said; "I'd rather not hear
any more. I know that you meant to do me no wrong. It is with him that
the injustice lies. But, Hessie, I will only ask you one question: Can
you—do you think you ought to waste a regret on such a person?"
Hessie dried up her tears with more resolution than I had ever seen
her show before, and answered:
"No, no, Grace dear; I am cured now."
And then she put her arms about my neck, asking my pardon for all her
past wilful conduct; and in one long embrace all the estrangement was
swept away, and we two sisters were restored to one another. Hessie
went off to get tea ready with a cheerful step, and I to make the room
cosy and kiss my mother awake, when the fire glowed and the pleasant
meal was on the table. We both sat by her with bright faces, and told
her all about the pictures we could remember; all except one.
IX.
* * * * * *
I have outlived all that trouble about the picture of "Enid," and many
troubles beside; I have kissed my mother's dear face in her coffin. I
have won success, and I have won gold; and neither seem to me quite
the boons some hold them to be.
Hessie's early grief passed away like a spring shower. She is now a
happy wife; and I have at this moment by my side a little gold-haired
fairy thing, her child. My dear sister's happiness is secured; her
boat of life is safe at anchor. Edward Vance's shadow only crossed her
path and passed away. She never met him since the old days; I but
once. His career has strangely disappointed his friends.
For me, my life is calm and contented. I think the healthy-spirited
always make for themselves happiness out of whatever materials may be
around them; and I find rich un-wrought treasure on every side,
whithersoever I turn my eyes. My sister's glad smile is a blessing on
my life; and one rare joy is the bright-faced little lisper at my
side, who peers over my shoulder with spiritual eyes, and asks
mysterious questions about my work. And, standing always by my side
like an angel, bearing the wand of power and the wings of peace, I
have my friend, my beautiful art. She fills my days with purpose and
my nights with sweet rest and dreams. She places in my hands the means
of doing good to others. While illumining my upward path, she seems to
beckon me higher and yet higher. Looking ever in her dear eyes, I
bless God for the abundance of his gifts; and I muse serenely on the
time when she, the interpreter of the ideal here on earth, will
conduct me to the gates of eternal beauty.
{323}
From Once a Week.
IMPERIAL AND ROYAL AUTHORS.
BY S. BARING GOULD.
Is the present Emperor of the French aware that in publishing his Vie
de César, he is treading a beaten path? that his predecessors on the
French throne have, from a remote age, sought to unite the fame of
authorship with the glory of regal position? and is he aware of the
fact, that their efforts in this quarter have not unfrequently been
accounted dead failures? Julius Caesar has already been handled by one
of them, and with poor success, for Louis XIV., at the age of sixteen,
produced a translation of the first book of the Commentaries of
Caesar, under the title Guerre des Suisses, traduite dupremier livre
des Commentaires de Jules César, par Louis XI V., Dieu-Donné, roi de
France et de Navarre. This work, consisting of eighteen pages, was
printed at the royal press in folio, 1651.
Louis XIV., however, was not the first French monarch to try his hand
upon Julius Caesar; he had been preceded by Henry IV., who translated
the whole work, and did not give it up after the first book. Will the
present Vie de César reach a second volume? and, if it does, will it
extend to a fourth? Those who know best the occupations of the
imperial writer, say that it might be rash to feel sure beyond the
first volume, or to calculate on more than a second. Let us see
whether there is much novelty in the circumstance of a monarch
becoming an author. We shall only look at the emperors of Rome and the
kings of France. We know well enough that our own Alfred translated
Boethius, Orosius, and Bede, and that Henry VIII. won the title of
"Defender of the Faith" by his literary tilt with Luther; and that
James I. wrote against tobacco; and we are not disposed to revive the
dispute about the Eikon Basilike.
Let us then turn to the Roman emperors after Caesar, who was an author
himself, or neither Henry IV., nor Louis XIV., nor Louis Napoleon,
would have had much to say about him.
Augustus, we are told by Suetonius, composed several works, which he
was wont to read to a circle of friends. Among these were,
"Exhortations to the Study of Philosophy," which we have no doubt the
select circle listened to with possible edification, and probable
ennui. He wrote likewise his own memoirs in thirteen books, but he
never finished them, or brought them beyond the Cantabrian war. His
epigrams were written in his bath. He commenced a tragedy upon Ajax,
but, little pleased with it, he destroyed it; and in answer to the
select circle which asked, "What had become of Ajax?" "Ah! poor
fellow!" replied the emperor, "he fell upon the sponge, and perished;"
meaning that he had washed the composition off his papyrus.
Tiberius, says the same author, composed a lyric poem on the death of
Julius Caesar, but his style was full of affectation and conceits.
Claudius suffered from the same passion for becoming an author, and
composed several books of history, as well as memoirs of his own life,
and these were read in public, for the friendly circle was too narrow
for his ambition.
He also invented three letters, which he supposed were necessary for
the perfection of the alphabet, and he wrote a pamphlet on the
subject, before assuming the purple. {324} After having become
emperor, he enforced their use. He wrote also, in Greek, twenty books
of Tyrian, and eight of Carthaginian history, which were read publicly
every year in Alexandria. Nero composed verses, Domitian a treatise on
hair-dressing, Adrian his own life; Marcus Aurelius wrote his
commentaries, which are lost, and his moral reflections, and letters
to Fronto, which are still extant. Julian the Apostate was the author
of a curious work, the "Misopogon, or Foe to the Beard," a clever and
witty squib directed against the effeminate inhabitants of Antioch. A
few passages from this work will not be out of place.
"I begin at my face, which is wanting in all that is agreeable, noble,
and good; so I, morose and old, have tacked on to it this long beard,
to punish it for its ugliness. In this dense beard perhaps little
insects stroll, as do beasts in a forest; I leave them alone. This
beard constrains me to eat and to drink with the utmost
circumspection, or I should infallibly make a mess of it. As good luck
will have it, I am not given to kissing, or to receiving kisses, for a
beard like mine is inconvenient on that head, as it does not allow the
contact of lips. …… You say that you could twine ropes out of my
beard; try it, only take care that the roughness of the hair does not
take the skin off your soft and delicate hands."
Valentinian I. is said to have emulated Ausonius in licentious poetry.
Of the later emperors some have obtained celebrity by their writings.
Leo VI., surnamed the Wise, was the author of a very interesting and
precious treatise on the art of warfare. He also composed some
prophecies, sufficiently obscure to make the Greeks in after ages find
them apply to various events as they occurred. Constantine VI. was
also an eminent contributor to literature. This prince had been early
kept from public affairs by his uncle Alexander, and his mother Zoe,
so that he had sought pleasure and employment in study. After having
collected an enormous library, which he threw open to the public, he
employed both himself and numerous scribes in making collections of
extracts from the principal classic authors. The most important of
these, and that to which he attached his own name, consisted of a mass
of choice fragments, gathered into fifty-three books. This vast work
is lost, together with many of the books cited, except only two parts:
one treating of embassies, the other of virtues and vices. Constantine
also wrote a curious geographical account of the provinces of the
Greek empire, a treatise on the administration of government, and
another on the ceremonies observed in the Byzantine Court; a life of
the Emperor Basil, an account of the famous image of Edessa, and a few
other trifles.
Let us now turn to the French monarchs, and we shall find that they
began early to take the pen in hand; and, unfortunately, the very
first royal literary work in France was a blunder. King Chilperic
wrote a treatise on the Trinity, under the impression that he had a
gift for theological definition, and he signalized his error by
asserting that the word person should not be used in speaking of the
three members of the Trinity. Having burned his fingers by touching
theology, the semi-barbarian king attempted poetry with like success.
But his pretensions did not end there. He added the Greek letter u to
the Latin alphabet, and three characters of his own invention, so as
to introduce into that language certain Teutonic sounds. "He sent
orders," writes Gregory of Tours, "into every city of his kingdom,
that all children should be taught in this manner, and that ancient
written books should be effaced, and rewritten in the new style."
The great and wise Charlemagne, perceiving the glories of his native
tongue, and the beauties of his national poetry, carefully collected
the Teutonic national poems, and commenced a grammar of the language.
Robert II. {325} was not only a scholar, but a musician; he composed
some of the Latin hymns still in use in the Church, with their
accompanying melodies. His queen, Constantia, seeing him engaged on
his sacred poetry, one day, in joke, asked him to write something in
memory of her. He at once composed the hymn, O constantia martyrum,
which the queen, not understanding Latin, but hearing her name
occurring in the first line, supposed to be a poem in her honor.
Louis XI. is supposed to have contributed to the Cent Nouvelles
nouvelles, which collection, however much credit it may do him in a
literary point of view, is inexcusably wanting in decency.
A volume of poems by Francis I. exists in MS. in the Imperial Library.
It contains, among other interesting matter, a prose letter, and
another in verse, written from his prison to one of his mistresses.
The king was bad in his orthography, as may be judged from the
following portion of a letter written by him to his mother at the
raising of the siege of Mézieres:—
"Madame, tout asetheure (à cette heure), yn sy (ainsi) que je me
vouloys mettre o lyt (au lit), est arycé (arrivé) Laval, lequel m'a
aporté la serteneté (certitude) deu lèvemant du syège de Mésyères."
I presume a schoolboy would be whipped if he wrote as bad a letter as
this king.
Louis XIII. had, says his epitaph, "a hundred virtues of a valet, not
one of a master;" but he could write sonnets, and compose the music
for them. The best, perhaps, is that composed on, or for, Madame de
Hautefort,—
"Tu crois, bean soleil!
Qu'à ton éclat rien n'est pareil;
Mais quoi! tu pâlis
Auprès d'Amaryllis,"
—set to music which is charming. But Louis XIII. was more of a barber,
gardener, pastrycook, and farmer, than an author.
Louis XIV., beside his translation of Caesar's Commentaries, Book I.,
composed Memoires historiques, politiques, et militaires; but his
writings were not remarkable, as his education had been so neglected
by his mother and Mazarin, that, according to La Porte, his valet, he
was not allowed to have the history of France read to him, even for
the sake of sending him to sleep.
Louis XV. wrote a little treatise on the course of the rivers of
Europe, and printed it with his own hands. It consisted of sixty-two
pages, and contained nothing which was not perfectly well known
before, as, for instance, that the Thames ran into the North Sea or
German Ocean, and that the Rhone actually fell into the Mediterranean.
In 1766 appeared a description of the forest of Compiègne, and guide
to the forest, by Louis, afterward Louis XVI., composed by the
unfortunate prince at the age of twelve.
Louis XVIII. wrote an account of a journey from Paris to Coblentz,
which was published in 1823.
This work was full of inaccuracies and mistakes, so that it became the
prey of critics.
Finally, Napoleon I. wrote much, but not in the way of bookmaking,
though he began a history of Corsica, which remained in MS. His
writings have been collected and published in five volumes, under the
title, OEuvres de Napoléon Bonaparte. 8vo. 1821.
{326}
From The Lamp.
HISTORY OF A BLIND DEAF-MUTE.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF M. CARTON,
HEAD OF THE INSTITUTE FOR THE
DEAF AND DUMB AT BRUGES,
BY CECILIA CADDELL.
Anna, the deaf, dumb, and blind girl, whose story I am about to
relate, was born at Ostend, of poor but honest parents, in the year
1818. She was blind from her birth, but during the first years of her
infancy appeared to have some sense of hearing. This, unfortunately,
soon vanished, leaving her blind, deaf, and dumb; one of the three
persons thus trebly afflicted existing at this moment in the province
of West Flanders. Losing both her parents while still an infant, she
was brought up by her grandmother, who received aid for the purpose
from the "Commission des Hospices" of the town. To the good offices of
these gentlemen she is likewise indebted for the education she has
since received; for when I first proposed taking her into my
establishment, both her aunt and her grandmother were most unwilling
to part with her, fearing, very naturally, that strangers would never
give her the affectionate care which, in her helpless condition, she
so abundantly required; they only yielded at last to the
representations and entreaties of their charitable friends. Their love
for this poor child, who could never have been anything but an anxiety
and expense to them, was indeed most touching; and they wept bitterly
when they parted from her; declaring, in their simple but expressive
language, that I was taking away from them the blessing of their
house. They were soon satisfied, however, that they had acted for the
best; and having once convinced themselves of her improvement both in
health and happiness, they never, to the day of their death, ceased to
rejoice at the decision which they had come to in her regard. When
Anna was first entrusted to my care, her relations, and every one else
who knew her, supposed her to be an idiot, and this had been their
principal reason for opposing me in my first efforts for her
instruction. Poor themselves and ignorant, and earning their bread by
the labor of their own hands, they had had neither time nor thought to
bestow on the development of this intellect, closed as it was against
all the more ordinary methods of instruction; and the child had been
left, of necessity, to her own resources for occupation and amusement.
Few, indeed, and trivial these resources were! Blind, and fearing even
to move without assistance; deaf, and incapable of hearing a syllable
of the conversation that was going on around her; dumb, and unable to
communicate her most pressing wants save by that unearthly and
unwilling cry which the deaf mutes are compelled to resort to, like
animals in the moment of their utmost need,—the child had remained day
after day seated in the same corner of the cottage. Knowing nothing of
the bright sunshine, or the green field, or the sweet smell of
flowers; nothing of the sports of childhood or its tasks; night the
same as day in her estimation, excepting for its sleep; winter only
distinguished from summer by the sharper air without, and the
increased heat of the wood-piled fire within—no wonder that she
seemed an idiot. Her only amusement—the only thing approaching to
occupation which her friends had been able to procure her—consisted,
at first, in a string of glass beads. These Anna amused herself by
taking off and {327} putting on again at least twenty times a day; and
this and the poor meals, which she seemed to take without appetite or
pleasure, were the only breaks in the twelve long hours of her
solitary days. Some charitable person at last made her a present of a
doll; and with this doll she played, after her own fashion, until she
was twenty years of age. She never, in fact, lost her taste for it
until she had succeeded in learning to knit; then it was cast from her
with disdain, and she never afterward recurred to it for amusement.
Notwithstanding her enforced inaction, she managed to tear her clothes
continually. Perhaps, poor child, she found some relief from the
tedium of her daily life in this semblance of an occupation, for she
had an insuperable objection to changing her tattered garments; and it
was a long time before we could induce her to do so with a good grace.
Once, however, accustomed to the change, she seemed to take pleasure
in it, delighted in new clothes, and used often to come of her own
accord to beg that the old ones might be washed. There was nothing
very prepossessing in her external appearance; at first it was almost
repulsive. She was of the ordinary height of a girl of her age; but
her hands were small and thin, from want of use, as those of a little
child. When she first came to my establishment her head was bowed down
on her neck from weakness; she had sore eyes; her face was covered
with a cutaneous eruption; she walked with difficulty, and appeared to
dislike the exertion excessively. Afterward, care and good feeding
improved her very much. She acquired strength; and the skin disease
which had been her chief disfigurement entirely disappeared. I have no
intention of describing all that she did and said (by signs), or all
the pains and trouble that she cost us in the early months of her
residence among us. During that time, however, I kept a journal of her
conduct; which, as a history of her mental development, is so curious,
that I venture to lay some extracts from it before my readers, the
remainder being reserved for future publication.
I must begin by explaining my ideas as to the proper method to be
pursued in instructing these unfortunates. I try, in the first place,
to put myself in the place of a person deaf, blind, and dumb; and then
ask myself, "What do I know, what can I know, in such a state?" In my
first course of instruction, therefore, I make it a rule never to give
the word until certain that the thing which that word expresses has
been clearly understood. In the case of Anna there was an additional
difficulty. Not only had she no' preconceived idea of the use or
nature of a word, but her blindness prevented her seeing the
connection between it and the substance it was intended to represent.
Nor would it be sufficient for her full instruction that she should
learn by the touch to distinguish one word from another; she would
also require to be taught the elements of which words were themselves
composed. If I began by giving her words alone, she would never have
learned to distinguish letters. If, on the other hand, I commenced
with letters, without attaching any especial idea to them, she would
have been disgusted, and have left off at the second lesson. A letter,
in fact, would have been nothing but a letter to her; for there would
be no means of making her comprehend that it was but the first step
toward the knowledge I was desirous of imparting. I resolved,
therefore, neither to try letters by themselves nor whole words in the
first lesson which I gave her. It was in the Flemish language, of
course; but the method I pursued would be equally applicable to any
other.
In order to give, at one and the same moment, the double idea of a
letter and a word, I chose a letter which had some resemblance to the
form I intended it to express, and gave it the significance of an
entire word. For {328} this purpose I fixed upon the letter O, and
made her understand that this letter signified mouth, in fact it is
one of the four letters which express the word in Flemish—mond,
mouth. Afterward I took a double o(00), which are the first letters
in the Flemish, oog, eye. One O, then, signified mouth; two meant
eyes. The lesson was easy; she caught it in a moment; and thus, with
two words and two ideas attached to them, her dictionary was
commenced. It was quite possible, however, that as these letters
represented, to a certain extent, the objects of which they were the
expression, she might fall into the error of supposing that all
letters did the same; and in order to prevent this mistake, I
immediately added the letter R to her collection.
This not only became a new acquisition for her dictionary, but, by
forming with the two previous letters the Flemish word oor (ear), it
became an easy transition between the natural expression dependent on
the form, which she had already acquired, and the arbitrary, dependent
on the spelling, which it was my object she should acquire. Proceeding
on this principle, and always taking care to commence the lesson from
a point already known, we lessened the difficulties, and made rapid
progress. A cap, an apron, a ribbon, or gown, always interest the sex;
and, like any other girl, Anna valued them extremely. I took care
likewise often to choose words expressive of anything she liked,
especially to eat; and it was by the proper use of these words that
she first convinced me how completely she had seized upon the meaning
of my lessons. Whenever she was desirous of obtaining any little
dainty, she used to point to the word in her collection; and of course
it was given to her immediately. Poor child! her joy, when she found
she could really make herself understood, was very touching; and her
surprise was nearly equal to her joy.
A person born blind does not naturally make signs; for a sign
addresses itself to the sight, and of the faculty of sight they have
no conception. A sign in relief, however—a sign which they can
distinguish by the touch, and by means of which they can communicate
with their fellow-men—must come to these benighted intelligences like
a message of mercy from God himself. We always gave Anna the object,
in order to make her comprehend the word—the substance, to explain
the substantive. One day, not long after her arrival, her instructress
gave her the word egg, placing one at the same time before her; and
Anna immediately made signs that she wished to eat it. She offered me
at the same moment a small piece of money, which some one had given
her, as if for the purpose of buying the food. The bargain was made at
once; and she ate the egg, while I pocketed the money. I quite
expected she would try this over again, for she had some money, and
was fond of eggs. The very next day, in fact, she searched the word
out in her vocabulary, and brought it to her instructress, with an air
that quite explained her meaning. I placed an egg before her; she
touched it—touched the word; coaxed and patted the egg; and at last
burst into a fit of laughter, caused, no doubt, by pleasant
astonishment at having so easily obtained her wish. I hoped and
expected that she would propose to purchase, for I was anxious to find
out if she had any real notion of the use of money. My hopes were
fulfilled, for she offered at once her price of two centimes, with the
evident intention of making a purchase. Much to her astonishment,
however, this time I took both the money and the egg. At first she
laughed, evidently thinking that I was only joking. I gave her time to
comprehend that I was serious, and that, having taken both, I meant to
keep them. She acquiesced at last with regard to the egg; it was mine,
and I had a right to keep it if I liked; but she was indignant that I
did not return the money. She asked for it in {329} every way she was
capable of asking, and grew at last both red and angry at the delay. I
had tried her sufficiently. It was high time to prove myself an honest
man; so I gave her back her money, and she restored me to her good
graces. I was happy indeed to find so clear a sense of justice, so
complete a knowledge of the value of "mine" and "thine," in a creature
so defective in her animal organization.
Once in possession of a little stock of words, Anna was never weary of
augmenting it, and she soon found out a way of compelling us, almost,
to satisfy her wish. She would take the hand of her mistress, and with
it imitate the action of writing, by making points upon the paper with
the finger. If her wishes were complied with, she was delighted; but
if, to try her, the mistress pretended to hesitate, then Anna took the
matter into her own hands, and positively refused to do anything else.
Every other employment suggested to her would be indignantly rejected,
and she would persist in asking over and over again for the word she
wanted, never resting or letting any one else rest until she got it.
The nuns, of course, always ended by complying with her desires; and
it would be hard to say which felt most delight,—the blind girl, who
had succeeded in adding to her small stock of knowledge, or the
religious, who by the aid of Providence had enabled her to do so.
A mother who hears for the first time the low stammering of her child
can alone form a conception of all one feels at such a moment, for God
is very good; and when he imposed upon society the task of instructing
the ignorant, he attached an ineffable delight to the accomplishment
of that duty.
When Anna knew how to read and understand about forty substantives, I
taught her the manual alphabet, and from that moment I could test her
knowledge with unfailing exactitude. She first read the word with her
fingers, and then repeated it by means of the dactology; it was a
lesson in reading and writing both. She was soon sufficiently advanced
to venture upon verbs. I began with the imperative mood; not only
because it is the simplest form of the verb, but also because I myself
would have to use it in giving her the lesson. She seized with
wonderful facility upon the relative positions of the substantive and
verb.
I always made her perform the action signified by the verb which she
had learned, and thus the lesson became quite an amusement to her.
However silly in appearance might be the association between the verb
and substantive, she never failed to apprehend it; and when told to do
anything ridiculous or out of the common way, she enjoyed the fun, and
never failed to execute the commission to the best of her ability. If
I told her to walk upon the table, she would take off her shoes, climb
up, and walk cautiously upon it; if told to eat the chair, after a
minute's hesitation as to the best manner of complying with the order,
she would take it up and pretend to devour it. One day she was
terribly embarrassed by some one writing the following phrase: "Throw
your head on the floor." She read the sentence over and over again to
make sure that she was not mistaken, laughed very much, and then
suddenly growing serious, shook her head, as much as to say, the thing
was absolutely impossible. At last, however, and as if to finish the
business, she took her head in both her hands, and made a gesture, as
if to fling it on the floor. Having done this, she evidently felt that
nothing more could be expected from her, and showed herself both
pleased and proud at having understood the phrase, and found so easy a
method of getting out of the difficulty.
She distinguished very readily between the verbs "to lay down" and "to
throw down," clearly comprehending that the one action was to be {330}
done with vivacity, the other with caution; and it was curious to
watch her perplexity when commanded to throw down anything liable to
be broken. She knew well what would be the consequence of the command,
and you could see the questioning that went on in her own mind as to
how it could be accomplished with least damage to the article in
question. She would begin by feeling all along the ground, and trying
to form an exact idea of the distance it would have to fall; and then
at last she would throw it down with a mixture of care and yet of
caution, which showed she was perfectly aware of the mischief she was
doing.
The moment she thoroughly understood the imperative, we had only to
add her name or that of one of the sisters to produce the indicative;
and then, by changing Anna into I, she passed easily to the pronouns,
as thus: "Strike the table;" "Anna strikes the table;" "I strike the
table." I had at first omitted the article; but I soon perceived my
mistake. We have no means of teaching a deaf-mute the reason for
preceding a substantive by an article; and still more impossible would
it be to give any plausible explanation of the distinction between the
genders. Habit does this for each of us when we learn our mother
tongue; and habit and frequent repetition did it so well for Anna,
that now she rarely, if ever, makes any mistake.
When she had advanced thus far, I made her observe that by adding the
letters en, which constitute our Flemish plural, several of the same
sort of substantives were intended to be expressed; and passing from
this to numbers, I gave her a lesson in numeration. She readily seized
upon both ideas; and constant practice soon made her perfect in their
application.
Verbs such as jeter, to throw down, poser, to lay down, naturally
introduced the use of prepositions to express the mode in which the
verb acts upon the substantive. This enabled me to make various
combinations with words known to her already; and I found it of great
use to place the same word in such different positions in a phrase as
to alter entirely, or at least modify, the meaning.
The last lesson which she received was to make use of and understand
the meaning of the pronouns "my," "your," "our," and the conjunction
"and." We have also made her comprehend the use and meaning of
adjectives expressive of forms, as "square," "round," etc., as well as
the physical and mental state of being implied in the words "good,"
"bad," "sick," "well," etc. She makes such phrases as the following,
and reads them easily when they are given to her in writing: "Give me
my knitting;" "My work is on the table;" "My apron is square."
One last observation I must make about the pronouns. The third person
singular or plural would have been difficult to Anna, since, being
blind, she could not have distinguished whether the action spoken of
had been done by one person or by several; by "him," in fact, or by
"they." The pronouns which she can most readily comprehend are the
first and second; and to these I generally confine her. For "he" or
"they" I have substituted "one:" "One strikes the table."
Anna might have been taught the others; but she would often probably
have been mistaken in their application, and would perhaps have ended
by supposing that there was no positive rule in their regard, and that
they might be used as it were at random.
People only learn willingly what they can clearly comprehend; and if
children dislike instruction, the fault is almost always with the
master. If the latter would but bring his intelligence to the level of
his pupils, he might be almost certain of their attention.
To sum up the whole, I will give the order in which I taught her the
different parts of speech necessary for the knowledge of a language.
The substantive, because, being itself an object, it falls more
immediately beneath the {331} recognition of the senses; the verb,
because by the verb alone we speak, and without it there could be no
language; the preposition, because it indicates the nature of the
action expressed by the verb; and finally, the adjective and the
adverb. I had many reasons for keeping back these two last to the end.
Neither of them is essential to a phrase which can be complete without
them. Anna would have been much retarded in her progress if I had
stopped to teach her the attributes of words, when words themselves
were what she wanted. She could learn language only by use and habit;
and it was of the highest importance that she should acquire that
habit as speedily as possible. I threw aside, therefore, without
hesitation, all that could embarrass her progress, and confined
myself, in the first instance, to such things as it was absolutely
essential she should know, in order to be able to converse at all. It
may be asked why I taught her to make phrases by means of whole words,
instead of giving her the letters of the alphabet and teaching her to
make words themselves. The result of the mode I did adopt must be my
answer. Anna has already a clear idea of language; all her
acquisitions in the way of words are classed in her mind as in a
dictionary, and ready to come forth at a moment's notice. The reason
for this rapid progress is very plain. It is far less troublesome to
take a whole word, and put it in the grammatical order it ought to
occupy, than to be obliged to make the word itself by means of
separate letters. She had need of all her attention to learn the
elements of a phrase; and it would have been imprudent to weaken that
attention by directing it also to learn the elements of words. I
divided difficulties in order to overcome them: this was the secret of
my method, and the cause of its success. My lessons were also almost
or entirely an amusement to her; and sometimes I composed a phrase
which she first read, and acted afterward. Sometimes it was I who
performed the action, while she gave me an account of what I had done
in writing.
It was a lesson at once in reading and in writing, in hearing and in
speaking; and the moment we had got thus far, communication by means
of language was established between us. I had given my lessons at
first by words or phrases written in a book; but now, to test more
perfectly the knowledge she had acquired, and to prevent her reading
becoming a mere matter of form and guess-work, I cut all her phrases
into words, gummed them upon cardboard, and threw them pell-mell into
a box, from which she had to take out every separate word that she
required for a phrase. This new exercise vexed her very much at first;
but if it was tedious, it was also sure. By degrees she became
accustomed to it, and at last seemed to prefer it to the book,
probably because it admitted of greater facilities for varying her
phrases. Nevertheless it was troublesome work; and I was curious to
see if Anna would seek, of her own accord, to arrange her words in
such a way as to avoid the trouble of hunting through the whole mass
for every separate one she wanted. It seemed not unlikely, for she was
very ingenious; and so, in fact, it happened.
From time to time I observed that she put aside certain words, and
kept them separate from the others; and it was impossible to mistake
her exultation when these selected words were called for in her
lesson. Of course I saw them as she put them by; and, in order to
encourage her, I managed to introduce them pretty often into our
conversations. Acting also upon this hint, I had a drawer divided into
small compartments placed in the table at which she took her lessons.
Each compartment was intended for a separate class of words, but she
was permitted to arrange them according to her own ideas; and the
moment a word had been examined and understood, she placed it in the
compartment to which she imagined it belonged. Nouns, pronouns, verbs,
articles—each {332} had their separate partition; but I observed, with
delight, that when I gave her the verb "to drink," instead of placing
it with the other verbs, she put it at once into the compartment she
had destined for liquids. Having remarked that it was always employed
with these substantives, it naturally struck her that its proper place
would be among them. To casual observers this may seem but a trifling
thing to mention, but it was an act of reasoning; and in their
half-mutilated natures the whole power of instruction hangs so
entirely on the capacity for passing by an act of reason from one fact
to another, from the known to that which is still unknown, that every
indication which a pupil gives of possessing such capacity is hailed
with delight by her teacher as an assurance of further progress.
Without it he knows that instruction would be impossible.
When Anna was first introduced into my establishment, she evidently
comprehended that she had fallen among strangers. She brought us her
poor playthings, and insisted on our examining them attentively, for
she was a baby still; a baby of twenty years of age indeed, but as
anxious to be caressed and as requiring of notice as a child of two
years old. When led in the evening to her bedside, she immediately
began to undress herself, and the next morning rose gaily, showing
herself much pleased with the good bed in which she had passed the
night. She made a little inclination of the head to the sister who
waited on her, as if to salute her. At breakfast we observed that she
ate with more cleanliness and propriety than is usual among the blind.
Her first regular lesson was to knit; and we found it far less
difficult to teach her the stitch itself than to habituate her to work
steadily for a long time together. She had evidently no idea of making
it the regular occupation of the day. She would begin by knitting a
little; then she would undo or tear up all that was already done; and
this would happen regularly over and over again at least twenty times
a day. It was weary work at first; but after a time we managed to turn
this dislike for continuous occupation into a means of teaching her
more important things. The moment she threw aside her work, we took it
up, and pretended to insist upon her continuing it; and then at last,
when we saw that she was quite vexed and wearied out by our
solicitations, we used to offer her her letters. She would take them,
and, evidently to avoid further worry, begin to study them; but the
letters, like the knitting, were soon flung aside, and then the work
once more was put into her hands. In this way, and while she fancied
she was only indulging in her own caprices, we were advancing steadily
toward our object—training her to occupation, and giving her the
means of future communication with her fellow-creatures. We also
discovered that it was quite possible to pique her out of her idle
habits; for one day in the earlier period of her education, when she
happened to be more than usually idle and inattentive, her mistress
led her toward a class of children busily employed in working, and
said to her by signs, "These little children work; and you, who are
twice their size, do you wish to sit there doing nothing?" From that
time we had less trouble with her; and once she had learned to knit
well and easily, this kind of work seemed to become a positive
necessity to her. She delighted in feeling with her fingers the
progress she was making, and the needles were scarcely ever out of her
hands. When Sunday came, she asked as usual for her knitting, and was
terribly disappointed when she found that it was withheld. I took the
opportunity to give her an idea of time— avery important point in her
future education; so I said to her, "You shall not knit to-day; but
after having slept once more—to-morrow in fact—the needles shall
be given to you again." I foresaw this to be an explanation that would
need repeating; and {333} accordingly, the very next Sunday, she asked
again for her knitting, and was again refused. She was vexed at first,
but grew calm directly I had assured her she should have it "on the
morrow."
Many weeks afterward, and when she seemed quite to understand that
work on this day was forbidden, she came with a very serious
countenance and demanded her knitting; then bursting into a fit of
laughing, made signs that she knew she was not to knit on that day,
but that to-morrow she should have her work again. She obtained a
knowledge of the past and future much sooner than she did of the
present, using the signs expressive of the two first long before she
made an attempt even at the latter.
It was a matter of great importance that she should understand them
all; therefore I not only introduced them over and over again in our
conversations, in order to render her familiar with them, but I
watched her carefully to see that she made a right use of them in her
communications with her companions. A circumstance at last occurred
which satisfied me that she was perfect in the lesson. On the feast of
St. Aloysius Gonzaga she went with the other children to a church
where the festival was being celebrated. On her return she expressed
her gratitude for the pleasure she had received, and the next morning
I observed that she told every one she met that "yesterday she had
been to such a church;" while the day afterward I perceived that in
telling the same story she made the sign of "yesterday" twice over—a
proof how perfectly she comprehended the nature and division of time.
For a long time after she began to reside with us, she never mentioned
either her grandmother or aunt, probably because she was so completely
absorbed by the lessons of her new existence as to have no time to
think of them. Gradually, however, they came back to her recollection,
and then she spoke of them with gratitude and affection. She began
also to compare her present state with her past, evidently considering
the change for the better in her physical and mental being as due to
the care that has been bestowed on her here. She has twenty little
ways of expressing her gratitude. "My face was all over blotches," she
says by signs; "I could neither write nor walk; now I can hold myself
upright, and I can read, and know how to knit." This consciousness,
however, does not at all interfere with her affection for her
grandmother; and when the old woman died she grieved for some time
bitterly. What idea does the word "death" bring to the mind of this
child? I know not; but when we told her about her grandmother, her
mistress made her lie down on the floor, and then reminded her of a
child who had died in the establishment about a year before; after
which we explained to her that the body would be laid in the ground,
and be seen upon earth no more. She wept a great deal at first; but
suddenly drying her tears knelt down, making signs to her mistress and
companions that they should do the same; and, that there might be no
mistake about her meaning, she held up her rosary, to show them they
must pray. She did not forget her poor grandmother for a considerable
time, and every morning made it a point to inquire from her companions
if they also had remembered her that day. One of her aunts died about
the same time, leaving to Anna as a legacy a portion of her wardrobe.
Anna's attention instantly became concentrated upon this new
acquisition, and gowns and handkerchiefs underwent a minute and
searching examination. The gowns pleased her exceedingly; so also did
some woollen pelerines, which she instantly observed must be intended
for the winter. At that moment she was a complete woman, with all a
woman's innate love of dress and desire for ornamentation. "Are there
not also ear-rings?" she asked, anxiously; and being answered in the
negative, she expressed clearly, by her gestures, that it was a pity:
it was quite a pity.
{334}
Anna soon came to understand that I was her master, and she attached
herself in consequence more strongly to me than to any one else, for
she perfectly appreciated the service she has received. One day after
a lesson, at which I had kept her until she thoroughly understood it,
she showed herself more than usually grateful. She took my hand and
kissed it repeatedly, gratitude and affection beaming in her face, and
then, drawing her mistress toward her, she made her write, "I love M.
Carton." I, on my part, was enchanted to find that she thus, of her
own accord, asked for words to express the sentiments of the heart;
and I felt not a little proud of being the object by whom this latent
feeling had first been called into expression. But if Anna loves me,
she also fears me. In the beginning of her education, I was the only
person about her who had strength enough to prevent her scratching or
kicking—exercises to which she was rather addicted when put in a
passion. She likewise knew that it was I who imposed any penance on
her, and that when she was compelled to remain without handkerchief or
cap in the schoolroom, it was to M. Carton she was indebted for the
humiliation. One day, in a fit of anger, she tore her cap; and her
mistress, as soon as she was calm enough to understand her,
remonstrated with her, telling her at the same time that I should be
informed of her misdeeds. To escape the punishment which she knew must
follow, she had recourse to the other children, acknowledged her fault
to them, and begged them to kneel down and join their hands, in order
to obtain her pardon. Not one of the children, whether among the blind
or deaf mutes, misunderstood her signs, and this was one of the
actions of Anna which astonished me the most. Some one was foolish
enough once to tell her that I was going away for some days, and she
took advantage of the chance to behave extremely bad. They made the
sign by which she understands that they mean me, and by which they
generally contrived to frighten her into submission; but it was all in
vain. She laughed in the face of her mistress, and told her she was
quite aware that I should not be back for three days. They have taken
good care ever since not to let her know when I am absent, though it
probably would make no difference now, for her character has
completely changed since those early days, and it is six months at
least since she has indulged in anything like a fit of passion. After
me, her greatest affection is reserved for my friend, M. Cauwe. She is
quite delighted when he comes, and feels his face all over to make
sure that it is he. If she has a new dress, he must feel and remark
it; if she learns a new phrase, or a new kind of work, it must be
shown to him immediately, in order that she may receive his praise;
and if by any chance his visit has been delayed, she is sure to
perceive it, and to inquire into the cause of his absence.
Anna is also very fond of all the younger deaf and dumb children. She
takes them on her knees, carries them in her arms, pets and punishes
them, and adopts a general and motherly air of kindness and protection
toward them. One of them the other day happened to be in an
exceedingly troublesome and tormenting mood. Anna could not keep her
quiet, or prevent her teasing; and at last, rather than lose her
temper, and strike her, as she would formerly have done, she left her
usual place, and went to sit at the opposite side of the room. In
fact, she never now attempts to attack any of her companions, though
she does not fail in some way or other to pay back any provocation she
has received. She takes nothing belonging to others, but attaches
herself strongly to her own possessions, and is particularly indignant
if they attempt to meddle with her objects for instruction. One of the
blind children happened to take a sheet of her writing in points, in
order to try and read it; but Anna was no {335} sooner aware of the
theft than she angrily reclaimed it. The next day the same child
begged as a favor that she would lend her a sheet, in order to
practise her reading; but Anna curtly refused, observing, that
yesterday she had taken it without leave, and that to-day she
certainly should not have it, even for the asking. Anna's chief pet
and charge among the little children is a child, blind, and maimed of
one arm, called Eugénie. When this little thing was coming first to
the establishment Anna was told of it, and the expected day named for
her arrival. She immediately set to work and made all sorts of
arrangements in her own mind for the reception of the new child. The
mistress would, of course, teach it to read; but it would have a seat
beside Anna, and with the companion whom she already had, there would
be three to walk and amuse themselves together. It so happened that
Eugénie did not arrive on the expected day. Anna was quite downcast in
consequence; and when at last it did appear, it instantly became the
object of all her tenderest petting and endearment. She led it to its
seat, tried to make it understand all that it would have to do and
learn, and at last, when she touched its little arm, and found that it
was maimed, and incapable of being used, she burst into tears, and was
for a long time inconsolable. I tried to find out the cause of her
grief, and in what she considered the greatness of the child's
misfortune to consist, and she immediately directed my attention to
the fact that the child would never be able to learn to knit. The
power of occupation had been such an inestimable boon to herself, that
she naturally felt any inability on that score to be the most
intolerable misfortune that could befall a human being. When we
assured her that Eugénie would be able to knit as well and easily as
she did herself, she became calm. The next day, however, she was
discovered trying to knit with both hands shut, as if they had been
maimed like the blind child's, and she immediately made her mistress
observe that in such a state she could neither knit, blow her nose,
nor dress herself, ending all by expressing the immense happiness she
felt at possessing the free use of her hands. Providence has provided
an antidote to every misfortune. The blind child pities the deaf-mute,
the deaf-mute sighs over the blind, and the blind, deaf, and dumb girl
feels her heart filled with inexpressible compassion for one deprived
of the free use of her hands. Anna kept her word, and took great care
of the little Eugénie. She placed herself indeed somewhat in the
position of a mother to the child, watched over its conduct, examined
its work, and went so far as occasionally to administer a slight
correction.
If the weather was cold, she never went to bed herself without feeling
that Eugénie was well covered up, and giving her her blessing; a good
deed she always took care to make known to me in the morning. When
first the little thing came it was rather refractory and disinclined
to submit to rules, and the mistress acquainted Anna with the fact.
"Does not she like to knit?" asked Anna. "It is not with that,"
answered the mistress, "but with her reading lesson, that she will not
take pains." Anna immediately went over to the child, to try and
persuade her to fulfil her duty. She took her hand, laid it on the
book, remained for at least a quarter of an hour persuading and
encouraging her; and then, perceiving that she had begun to be really
attentive, bade her get up and ask pardon of her mistress for her past
disobedience.
Another day she examined the child's knitting, and finding it badly
done, shook her head gravely, in sign of disapprobation. She then took
Eugénie's hand, made her feel with her own fingers the long loose
stitches she had made; and making her kneel down in the middle of the
room, pinned the work to her back, with threats of even more serious
punishment in the future. Just then the {336} mistress joined the
class, and found Eugénie in tears, and on her knees, with her work
pinned behind her. "Eugénie," she asked, "what are you doing there,
and why do you cry?" "The deaf and dumb girl has punished me because
my knitting was badly done," said the child; "and she says, when M.
Carton comes in, he will throw a glass of water in my face." In order
to prevent this terrible assault, the mistress advised her to ask
pardon of Anna, which she immediately did; but the latter felt it due
to the dignity of the situation to allow herself to be entreated a
long time before she consented to grant it.
But though Anna considered it a part of her duty to punish Eugénie for
her idleness, she was always otherwise very gentle to the child. In
giving her a lesson, her mistress, with a view of testing her
knowledge of the verb in question, once bade her "strike Eugénie."
Anna behaved very prettily on this occasion. Before she would perform
the act required, she took the blind child's hand and laid it on the
letters, in order to show her that if she struck her, it was not
because she was angry with her, but simply because that phrase had
been given to her as an exercise in language. On another occasion one
of the blind children disturbed the arrangement of her words in their
separate cases, and one or two of them were lost. Anna wept bitterly;
and not content with doing everything in her own power to discover the
author of the mischief, she asked her mistress to assist in her
researches. The guilty one was found out at last, and, in the heat of
the moment, Anna demanded that she should be punished; but yielding
afterward to the natural goodness of her heart, she went herself and
interceded for the little criminal. "She is blind, like myself," she
said, by way of excuse; and then embraced her with great cordiality in
token of forgiveness. From that time, however, she became suspicious,
and scarcely dared to leave her place for fear of a similar
misfortune. Some one, seeing this, advised her to keep her letters in
her pocket. "Very pleasant indeed!" she answered, bursting into a fit
of laughter; "and a nice way, certainly, of preventing confusion! No;
I will ask M. Carton to give me a lock and key for my box, and then no
one can touch them without my knowing it." This was accordingly done;
and the key once safe in her pocket, Anna could leave her property in
perfect security that it would not be injured or stolen in her
absence.
Anna likes dainty food, and is very fond of fruit. I suspected,
however, when first she came, that she had not an idea of the way in
which it was procured. She had been so shut up in her old home, that
nature was still an unexplored page to her; and blind, deaf, and dumb
as she was, it was only through the fingers that even now this poor
child could ever be taught to read and comprehend it. It is not
difficult, therefore, to imagine her astonishment and joy at each new
discovery of this kind which she makes. One day I led her to an
apricot tree, and made her feel and examine it all over. She dislikes
trees extremely, probably because in her solitary excursions she must
have often hurt herself against them. She obeyed me, however, though
very languidly and unwillingly at first; but I never saw such
astonishment on any face before as I did on hers, when, after a short
delay, I took her hand and laid it on an apricot. She clasped her
hands delightedly together, then made me touch the fruit, as if she
expected that I also would be astonished; and then recommenced her
examination of the tree, returning over and over again, with an
expression of intense joy over all her person, to the fruit she had so
unexpectedly discovered. I permitted her at last to pull the fruit and
eat it, and she kissed my hand most affectionately, in token of
gratitude for the immense favor I had conferred upon her. After
classtime she returned alone to the garden; {337} and as I foresaw
that the discovery of the morning would not be sterile, but that, once
put on the track, she would continue her explorations on her own
account, I watched her closely. So, in fact, it happened.
She was no sooner in the garden than she began carefully to examine
all the plants and trees around her, and it was amusing beyond
anything to watch her making her way cautiously among the cabbages,
touching the leaves and stems, and trying with great care and prudence
to discover if this plant also produced apricots. I suffered her to
continue this exercise for a little time in vain; then coming to the
rescue, after making her comprehend that cabbages, though good in
themselves to be eaten, did not bear apricots, I led her to various
kinds of fruit-trees growing in the garden. I did not name any of them
to her then, for I knew that in time she would learn to distinguish
one from the other, and she had still so much to discover of nature
and her ways, that I did not like to delay her by dwelling on
distinctions which were, comparatively speaking, of little consequence
to her in that early stage of her education. This little course of
botany we continued throughout the year. She was taught to observe the
fall of the leaf, encouraged to examine the tree when entirely bereft
of foliage, and when the spring-buds began to swell she was once more
brought to touch them, and made to understand that they were about to
burst again into leaf and flowers. The moment the leaves were visible
she inquired of one of her companions if the tree was going to bear
fruit likewise; and received for answer that it would certainly do so
whenever the weather should become sufficiently warm. Satisfied with
this information, she waited some time with patience; but a few very
warm days chancing to occur in the month of May, she reminded her
companion of what she had been told, and inquired eagerly if the fruit
was at last come.
In this way, during all that summer, she found constant amusement in
watching the progress of the different fruit-trees, and I found her
one day examining a pear with great attention. She had not met with
one before, so it was quite a discovery to her, and she begged me to
let her have it in order that she might show it to her mistress and
learn its name. With all her love of fruit, however, I must record it
to the honor of this poor child that she never attempted to touch it
without permission; and that having been guided once to a tree by one
of her deaf-mute companions, and incited to gather the fruit, she made
a very intelligible sign that it must not be done without an order
from me. On another occasion I gave her a bunch of currants and told
her to eat them, but the moment she touched them she discovered that
they were not ripe, and made signs to me that she "must wait for a few
days longer, and that then they would be good to eat."
Her delicacy of touch is in fact surprising. I have often effaced her
letters, and flattened them with my nail until it seemed impossible to
discover even a trace of them, and yet with her finger she has never
failed in following out the form. She often also finds pins and small
pieces of money, and picks them up when walking. She is very proud on
these occasions, and takes good care to inform any one who comes near
her of the fact. She is very active now, and always ready to go and
look for any thing or person that she wants; and if she does not
succeed in finding them, she engages one of her companions to aid her
in the search. She seemed indeed always to suspect that we knew better
than she did what was passing around us; though it was probably some
time before she asked herself what the nature of her own deficiency
might be. A day came, however, upon which she obtained some clearer
knowledge on the subject; and this was the way it happened.
She had dropped one of her knitting-needles, and after a vain attempt
to {338} find it for herself, she was obliged to have recourse to her
mistress, who immediately picked it up and gave it back to her. Anna
appeared to reflect earnestly for a moment, and then drawing the
sister toward her writing-table, she wrote: "Theresa," naming one of
the pupils of the institution—"Theresa is deaf; Lucy is deaf; Jane is
blind; I am blind and deaf; you are—;" and then she presented her
tablets to the sister, in order that the latter might explain to her
the nature of that other faculty which she possessed, and which
enabled her to find so easily anything that was lost.
This was a problem which had evidently occupied her for a long time;
and with her head bent forward and fingers ready to seize the
slightest gesture, Anna waited eagerly for the answer by which she
hoped the mystery would be solved to her at last. In a second or two
the embarrassment of the mistress was nearly equal to the eagerness of
the pupil; but after a minute's hesitation she, with great tact,
resolved to repeat the action which had caused Anna's question. Making
the blind-mute walk down the room with her, she desired her once more
to drop her needle and then to pick it up again, after which she wrote
upon the board, "The needle falls; you touch the needle with your
hand; you pick it up with your fingers." Anna read these words with an
air which seemed to say, "I know all that already; but there must be
something more;" and so there was.
Her mistress made her once more drop her needle; and then, just as
Anna was stooping to pick it up, she dragged her, in spite of the poor
girl's resistance, so far from it that she could not touch it either
with her hands or feet. "It is ever so far away," Anna said, in her
mute language; and stooping down to the floor, she stretched out her
hand as far as ever it would go in a vain attempt to reach it. The
sister waited until she was a little pacified, and then wrote: "The
needle falls." Anna answered: "Yes." "The needle is far off," the
sister wrote again; and Anna replied: "Alas, it is." "Sister N. cannot
touch the needle with her hand." "Nor I either," Anna wrote in answer.
"Sister N. can touch the needle with her eyes." Then followed a mimic
scene, in which the thing expressed by words was put into action. Anna
understood at last; but, evidently in order to make certain that she
did, she desired the sister to guide her hand once more to the fallen
needle. Her mistress complied with her request, and Anna was
convinced. The experiment was repeated over and over again. Anna threw
her needle into various places, and then asked the sister if she could
touch it without stooping. "Yes," replied her mistress; "I touch the
needle with my eyes." "Can you pick it up with your eyes?" asked Anna.
The sister made her feel that her eyes were not fingers; and then once
more picking up the needle she gave it to Anna, to be satisfied that
she at last understood the nature of the faculty which her
instructress possessed and which was wanting in herself.
From that time she invariably made a distinction between the blind
children and those who were merely deaf-mutes. She had always hitherto
been ready enough to avenge herself on any of her companions who
struck her, whether accidentally or on purpose. Now if she found it
was a blind child who had done so, she would of her own accord excuse
her, saying, "She is blind; she cannot touch me with her eyes when I
am at a distance from her." In the same manner, if she lost anything,
she would ask the first deaf-mute whom she met to help her to look for
it, while she never attempted to seek a similar service from any of
the children whom she knew to be blind. She showed her knowledge of
the difference between the two classes most distinctly upon one
occasion, when her knitting having got irretrievably out of order, she
communicated her perplexity to the {339} blind child at her side. The
latter wanted to take it from her in order to arrange it; but Anna
drew it back, and, touching first the eyes of the child and then her
own, as if she would have said, "You also are blind, and can do no
better than myself," she waited quietly until she could give it to the
mistress to disentangle for her.
Anna delights in telling her companions all her adventures, though she
takes care never to mention her faults or their punishment. She will
acknowledge the former if taxed with them, but she does not like to be
reminded either of the one or of the other. "I have done my penance,"
she says: "it is past; you must not speak of it any more." With this
exception she tells all that she has done or intends to do; and she is
enchanted beyond measure when she can inform them that she has
succeeded in playing a trick on her mistress. She will tell the story
with infinite glee, and always contrives exceedingly well to put the
thing in its most ridiculous light before them.
She was fond of milk, and observed, or was told, one day that a cup of
milk had been given to a child who was sick. The next morning, while
in chapel, she burst into tears. Her mistress led her from the class,
and asked what was the matter. She coughed, showed her tongue, held
out her hand, that the mistress might feel her pulse; in fact she was
as ill as she could be, and excessively thirsty. A cup of milk was
brought; and the medicine was so good, that five minutes afterward she
managed to eat her breakfast with an excellent appetite. During the
recreation that followed, she took care to explain to her companions
the means by which she had procured herself the milk. A few days
afterward she recommenced the comedy, and played it so well, that,
thinking she really was ill, her mistress desired her to go to bed.
This was more than she wished for; but she went upstairs, trusting, no
doubt, that something would happen to extricate her from the dilemma.
Her mistress went to see her; and finding her sitting on the side of
the bed, asked why she did not get into it, as she had been desired.
"Madame," said Anna, "it is very cold, but I should get warm if you
would give me a cup of milk; that would cure me in no time; and a
little bread and butter with it would also do me good." The sister
then perceived how the case really stood, and answered promptly, "If
you will get into bed you shall have the milk, but not the bread and
butter. If, on the contrary, you prefer to go downstairs, you shall
have the bread and butter, but not the milk. Which do you choose?"
"Both," quoth Anna. But as both were not to be had, she was obliged to
content herself with the amusement of telling her intended trick to
her companions, which she did with many regrets that it had not been
successful.
But though Anna likes to tell all these little schemes and adventures
to any one who will listen to her; and though, if taxed with them by
her mistress, she is quite ready to acknowledge them with a laugh, it
is far otherwise when the action itself contains anything seriously
contrary to honesty or justice. In that case she takes good care to be
silent on the subject; and if silence is impossible, she endeavors, in
all manner of ways, to explain it away or excuse it.
One day she entered the schoolroom before any of the other pupils, and
finding that a piece of wire, belonging to the pedal of the piano, was
loose, she broke it quite off, put it into her pocket, and returned
triumphantly to her place. Her mistress, happening to be in the room
at the moment, saw the whole affair, and placed herself in her way, in
order that Anna might know she had been observed. She then asked her
what she had put in her pocket, and Anna instantly replied that it was
her beads. Her mistress gave her to understand that she was trying to
deceive her, and made her touch, as a {340} proof, the other end of
the wire which she had broken. She was evidently confused, and became
as red as fire, but with marvellous adroitness managed to let the wire
slip out of her pocket to the ground. She had, of course, no idea that
it would make a noise in falling; and fancying that she had concealed
the theft, continued positively to deny it. In order still better to
prove her innocence, she then knelt down and began feeling all over
the floor, until she had found the wire which she had dropped, and
holding it up in triumph, said, by signs, "I will ask M. Carton to
give it to me that I may make it into a cross for my beads."
In this way she is always being ingenious in finding excuses for her
faults. Her mistress once complained of her knitting, and she
immediately held up her needles, which were bent, as if she would have
said, "How is it possible to knit with such needles as these?" Another
day, feeling more idle than usual, and wishing to remain in bed, she
made them count her pulse, and begged by signs that they would send
immediately for M. Verte, the physician of the house. We knew well it
was only a trick to stay a little longer in bed, and she was the first
to acknowledge it as soon as she had risen.
I like to watch her when she fancies herself alone, as I then often
find in her most trivial actions a something interesting or suggestive
for her future improvement. I discovered her once alone in the
class-room and busily engaged in examining every corner of the desks.
All at once she went toward the black table on which the deaf-mutes
write their exercises, and taking a piece of chalk, began to trace
lines upon it at random. I was curious to know what discovery she was
trying to make, and in a few minutes I perceived it. As soon as she
had traced her lines, she passed her hands over them to see if she
could read them. She was aware that her companions read upon this
board; and as she knew of no other method of reading than by letters
in relief, she naturally supposed that the lines she had traced would
be sufficiently raised to enable her to do so. For a few minutes she
continued thus trying to follow with her finger the chalk-lines she
had made; but finding considerable difficulty in doing so, she at last
returned to her book, compared the letters in it with the lines on the
board, and evidently pronounced a verdict in favor of the former. I
could see, in fact, that she was quite delighted with its apparent
superiority, and she never attempted to write on the black-board
again.
She often makes signs that seem to indicate an inexplicable knowledge
of things of which it is impossible she can naturally have any real
perception. She was born blind; she can look at the sun without
blinking, and the pupil of the eye is as opaque as the skin.
Nevertheless her mistress happening to ask her one night why she had
left off her work, she answered that it was too dark to work any
longer, and that she must wait for a light. [Footnote 76] In chapel,
also, she has evidently impressions which she does not receive
elsewhere. She likes to go there; often asks to be permitted to do so,
and while in it always remains in an attitude and with an expression
of face which would indicate a profound consciousness of the presence
of God. One of her companions once told her that I was ill. Anna
perceived that the child was crying: "I will not cry," she said
immediately, "but I will pray;" and she actually did go down on her
knees, and remained in that position for nearly a quarter of an hour.
She told me this herself, and I was enchanted; for who can doubt that
God held himself honored by the supplicating attitude of his poor
mutilated creature? And yet what passes in the mind of this child
during the moments which she spends in the attitude of prayer? What is
her idea of {341} God? What is the language of her heart when she thus
places herself in solemn adoration in his presence? What is, in fact,
her prayer? I know not; it is a mystery—yet a mystery—which I trust
she will some day find words to explain to me herself. One thing alone
is certain;—there is that in her heart and mind which has not been
placed there by man, and which tells her there is a Father and a God
for her in heaven.
CONCLUSION.
Extract of a letter from M. Carton, announcing the death of the blind
mute, Anna Timmermans, after a residence of twenty-one years in his
establishment at Bruges:
BRUGES, Sept. 26, 1859.
GENTLEMEN,—I write to you in deep affliction, for death hath this
day deprived me of my blind mute, Anna Timmermans, whom you may
remember to have seen at my establishment last year.
She was just forty-three years of age; and twenty-one of these had
been passed at my asylum. God has taken her from this life to bestow
upon her a better, and his holy will be done! It was a great mercy
to her, but I shall regret her all my lifetime, even while rejoicing
at her present happiness, and feeling most thankful for that love
and knowledge of Almighty God to which, through all the physical
difficulties of her position, he enabled her to attain. She loved
him indeed with all the náiveté, and invoked him with the simple
confidence of a child; and the last weeks of her life were almost
entirely devoted to earnest entreaties that he would call her to
himself.
You are the first to whom I announce my loss, because of all those
persons who have visited my house, you seem best to have
comprehended the painful position of a deaf-mute, and the exquisite
sensibility which they are capable of feeling toward any one who
shows them sympathy and affection. I have already described Anna as
she was when she came first among us—a girl twenty-one years of age,
with the stature of a woman and the habits of a child. I need not
recall her to your remembrance as she appeared to you last year, a
woman thoughtful beyond the common, and endowed with such true
knowledge of God and of religion, that you deemed it no indignity to
ask her prayers, and were pleased by her simple promise never to
forget you.
Thanks be to God for his great goodness toward his poor, afflicted
child! She not only learned to know him and to love him, but we were
enabled by degrees to place her in still closer communication with
him, by means of those sacraments which he has appointed to convey
grace to the soul. The last confession which she made previous to
receiving extreme unction reminds me of all the difficulty we had
long ago experienced in persuading her to make her first.
"It will soon be Easter," said one day to her the sister appointed
to prepare her for this duty. "It will soon be Easter, and then you
and all of us will have to go to confession."
"What is confession?" asked Anna. "It is to tell our sins to the
priest," explained the sister; "and to ask pardon of them from God."
"But why should we do that?" quoth Anna.
"Because," replied the sister, "God himself has commanded us to
confess our sins. You will have to do it, therefore, like the rest
of us; and when you go to confession, you must say in your heart to
God, 'I am sorry for my sins. Forgive me, O my God; and I promise I
will sin no more.'"
"And what are the sins I must confess?" asked Anna. She was standing
in the midst of her class, who had all assembled to receive
instruction, at the moment when she put the question.
"You have been in a passion," replied the sister; "you must confess
{342} that. You have broken M. Carton's spectacles. You have torn
the cap of Sister So-and-so. You have scratched one of the blind
children;—and you must mention all these things when you go to
confession."
"All these things are past and gone," replied Anna, resolutely;
"when I broke M. Carton's spectacles, I was made, for my punishment,
to kneel down; and," she continued, lightly passing one hand over
the other, as if rubbing out something, "that was effaced. When I
tore Sister So-and-so's cap, I was not allowed any coffee; and,"
repeating the action with her hands, "that was effaced. When I
scratched the blind child, I went to bed without supper; and that
was effaced. I will not, therefore, confess any of these things."
"But, Anna," replied the sister, "we are all obliged to go to
confession. I am going myself, as well as you."
"Oui da! Have you, then, also, been in a passion, my sister? Have
you broken M. Carton's spectacles, torn our sister's cap, and
scratched a blind child?"
Anna asked these questions with an immense air of triumph, and
waited the answer with a wicked smile, which seemed to say she had
put the sister in a dilemma. Not one of the class misunderstood the
little malice of her questions. Indeed, the uncharitable surmise as
to the nature of their mistress's conduct appeared so piquant to all
of them, that they unanimously insisted on its receiving a reply. It
is not difficult, indeed, to imagine their amusement, for they were
all daughters of Eve; and, beside, the best of children have an
especial delight in embarrassing their superiors. Altogether it was
a scene for a painter.
"I have not been in a passion; God forbid!" replied the poor sister,
gently. "And I have not scratched or done injury to any one; but I
have done so-and-so, and so-and-so." And here, with the greatest
náiveté and humility, the sister mentioned some of her own
shortcomings. "I have done so-and-so and so-and-so, and am going to
confess them; for I know I have sinned by doing these things; but I
hope God will pardon me, and give me grace not to offend him again
in like manner."
When the children heard this humble confession, they one by one
quietly left the class, like those in the gospel, beginning with the
eldest; but Anna, even while acknowledging herself defeated, could
not resist the small vengeance of giving the sister a lecture on her
peccadilloes.
"Remember, my sister, you are never again to do so-and-so and
so-and-so. You must be very sorry, and promise to be wiser another
time. And above all other things, you must go to confession to
obtain God's pardon."
"And you?" asked the sister, as her only answer to this grave
exhortation.
"And I also will go to confession," replied Anna, completely
vanquished at last by the tenderness and humility of the good
religious.
From that time, in fact, Anna went regularly to confession; and so
far from having any difficulty in persuading her to do so, she often
reminded us herself when the time was approaching for the
performance of that duty.
During the winter preceding her death she grew weaker from day to
day; and her loss of appetite, extreme emaciation, and inability to
exert herself, all convinced us that we were about to lose her. She
herself often spoke about dying, though for a long time she would
not permit any one else to address her on the subject. If any of the
sisters even hinted at her danger, she would grow quite pale, and
turn off the conversation; and even when she alluded of her own
accord to the symptoms that alarmed her, it seemed as if, like many
other invalids, she did so in order to be reassured as to her state.
She became convinced at last, however, that she could not recover,
and from that moment her life was one uninterrupted act of
resignation {343} to the will of God, submission to his providence,
and hope and confidence in his mercy. These sentiments never forsook
her even for a moment. "I suffer," she used to say,—"I suffer a
great deal; but Jesus suffered more;" and, embracing her crucifix,
she would renew all her good resolutions to suffer patiently, and
her earnest entreaties for grace to do so.
Previous to receiving the last sacraments, Anna disposed of
everything belonging to her in favor of her companions, and then
causing them all to be brought to her bedside, she kissed each one
affectionately, and bade her adieu. After that she refused to see
any of them again, seeking only the company of the sisters, and of
that one in particular who best understood the silent language of
the fingers. "Let us speak a little," the poor sufferer would often
say, "of God and heaven;" and then would follow long and earnest
conversations full of faith and hope and love, confidence in the
mercies of Almighty God, and gratitude for his goodness.
During these communications Anna would become quite absorbed, as it
were, in the love of God; her poor face would brighten into an
expression of absolute beauty; and she seemed to lose all sense of
present suffering in her certain hope and expectation of the joy
that was about to come in on her soul.
"A little more," she would often say, when she fancied the
conversation was about to finish; "speak to me a little more of God.
I love him and he loves me. O my dear sister, will you not also come
soon to heaven, and love him for evermore?"
Her agony commenced on the morning of the 26th of September, and she
expired about noon, so quietly that we scarce perceived the moment
in which she passed away (safe and happy, as I trust) to the
presence of her God.
I recommend her to your good prayers; and I trust that she also will
sometimes think of us and pray for us in heaven.
{344}
From Macmillan's Magazine.
TWILIGHT IN THE NORTH.
"UNTIL THE DAY BREAK, AND THE SHADOWS FLEE AWAY."
Oh the long northern twilight between the day and the night,
When the heat and the weariness of the world are ended quite;
When the hills grow dim as dreams; and the crystal river seems
Like that River of Life from out the Throne where the blessed walk in white.
Oh the weird northern twilight, which is neither night nor day,
When the amber wake of the long-set sun still marks his western way;
And but one great golden star in the deep blue east afar
Warns of sleep and dark and midnight—of oblivion and decay.
Oh the calm northern twilight, when labor is all done,
And the birds in drowsy twitter have dropped silent one by one;
And nothing stirs or sighs in mountains, waters, skies—
Earth sleeps—but her heart waketh, till the rising of the sun.
Oh the sweet, sweet twilight, just before the time of rest,
When the black clouds are driven away, and the stormy winds suppressed:
And the dead day smiles so bright, filling earth and heaven with light—
You would think 'twas dawn come back again—but the light is in the west.
Oh the grand solemn twilight, spreading peace from pole to pole!—
Ere the rains sweep o'er the hill-sides, and the waters rise and roll,
In the lull and the calm, come, O angel with the palm—
In the still northern twilight, Azrael, take my soul.
{345}
From Chambers's Journal.
A NIGHT IN A GLACIER.
Nothing is more common than to hear the wish expressed among ordinary
tourists "to see Switzerland in the winter;" and nothing is more
disappointing than its fulfilment. To see Switzerland then is just
what you cannot do; all that is visible is one vast sheet of blinding
snow, unrelieved by a particle of color; and the view is not even
grand—it is simply monotonous. However, in April, 1864, I made the
experiment of choosing that month, instead of the conventional August,
for a mountaineering ramble; and having been weather-bound at least
half a dozen times, in various places, found myself in the same
miserable predicament, at the hospice of the Great St. Bernard. It was
terribly wearisome work. We had exhausted all our small-talk, had
discussed all the celebrated passages of the Alps, from that of
Hannibal with his vinegar-cruets to that of Macdonald with his
dragoons; had worked the piano to death by playing derisive waltzes;
had elicited fearful wheezings from the harmonium, and blundered
inappropriate marches on the organ—when, early on the third morning,
two momentous events occurred. In the first place, the weather had
become suddenly fine; and in the second, the news had arrived that a
party of Italian wood-carvers had reached St. Remy, on their passage
to the Rhone valley, and that two of their number had left the main
body on the previous evening, avowing their intention of making their
way to a little stone hut, which is used in summer as a dairy for the
supply of the hospice, and passing the night there. This hut, however,
had been visited that morning, and found to be untenanted; and as the
traces of the two wanderers had been obliterated by the snow during
the night, the messenger had been sent forward to obtain assistance in
the search for them.
Though the unusually large fall of snow in the winter of 1863-64 made
mountain-climbing singularly easy in the past autumn (Mont Blanc was
ascended by more than seventy tourists in the latter year), yet in the
spring the passes were rendered more than usually difficult by the
loose snow which the sun had not yet been powerful enough to solidify
by regelation. Most travellers who cross in summer must have noticed a
line of stout posts about ten or twelve feet high, which are placed on
the most elevated points of the path, so that their summits, which the
snow rarely reaches, may serve as landmarks in the winter; but at this
time the posts were entirely covered, and it was not without great
difficulty that the man who brought the news had been able to find his
way to the Hospice. There was no time to be lost. Abandoning their
usual costume for a dress more suited to do battle with the elements,
four of the "fathers" were soon ready to start, two of them
shouldering knapsacks of provisions, one bearing a stout rope, and the
fourth carrying an axe, with which to cut steps, if necessary, in the
ice. Just as they were leaving, it was discovered that the last-named
implement had a crack in its handle, which would most probably cause
it to break short off when brought into active service; and as some
delay would be caused by fitting a fresh handle, Père Christophe, to
whose cordial politeness few travellers are not indebted, came to ask
for the loan of my axe for the day. "Perhaps, however," he said, "as
monsieur is used to glacier expeditions, he would like to accompany us
in our search, and so to carry his axe himself?"—a proposal {346} with
which I eagerly closed, promising that my preparations should not
delay them above five minutes.
The messenger had arrived at eight in the morning; and in less than
half an hour afterward, we were making our way over the lake on the
Italian side of the pass. Two of the renowned dogs were with us; but
their proceedings did not confirm the idea which had long ago been
produced on my childish mind by the well-known print of a St. Bernard
dog, with a bottle of wine and a basket of food round its neck,
scratching away the snow under which a wayfarer was supposed to lie
buried. For finding lost travellers, indeed, they are, as I was
assured by the monks, in no-wise adapted; their function, and a most
important one it is, is to find the direct path up and down the pass,
when it is covered with snow, and in this duty they are unrivalled.
Fortunately, the frosts had been very severe, so that we were able to
tramp cheerily over the crisp snow, instead of having to undergo the
fatigue of sinking up to our knees at every step. But probably the
poor fellows down below wished that the frost had been lighter, and
our walk heavier. The scene was grand in its wildness. Huge clouds
hung along the mountain-sides at our feet, now whirling boisterously,
now creeping sullenly along; and rough gusts of wind dashed the snow
with blinding coldness into our faces, and produced on ears and nose a
tingling terribly suggestive of frost-bites. It was unusual, M.
Christophe said, for the fathers themselves to go out in search of
travellers; the latter generally waited at the house of refuge near
the Cantine, or that near St. Remy, and a servant was sent down with a
dog to lead them up; but in cases like the present, where search must
be made in different directions, it was of advantage to have three or
four people with local knowledge to join in it. Beside, the expedition
was a relief to the ordinary monotony of convent life; though the
kindness of English travellers had done much for the comfort of the
brethren, in supplying them with musical instruments, books, and
similar means of recreation. The circumstances under which the Prince
of Wales sent them their piano were curious enough. He had bought one
of the dogs, which, being quite young and very fat, was given into the
charge of a porter to carry down. The man stupidly let it fall, and it
was killed on the spot. The prince (this was some time ago) burst into
tears, and was almost inconsolable; but the monks, on hearing of the
loss, sent another dog, which the prince received while at Martigny;
and when he reached Paris, he forwarded, as a royal acknowledgment for
the gift, one of Erard's best piano-fortes, which has been the great
cheerer of their winter evenings, and on which they set no small
store.
Pleasantly chatting after this fashion, my friend beguiled the way to
the house of refuge, which we reached before ten o'clock, and where we
found collected about five-and-twenty people, waiting to be led up to
the hospice. Leaving them in charge of one of the monks, we proceeded
along the valley where the vacherie of the hospice is situated,
toward the Col de la Fenêtre, in search of the man and woman who were
missing. It appeared that they were natives of the Val de Lys, which
descends from Monte Rosa toward Italy, and the inhabitants of which
have, from time immemorial, held themselves aloof from all
communication with their neighbors, and have formed of their little
community a sort of nation within a nation, to which a native of
Alagna or St. Martin would have no more chance of being admitted by
marriage, than a reformer of the franchise would of being elected a
member of the Carlton Club. So we discovered that the two lost sheep,
presuming on their fortunate accident of birth, had been sneering at
the others as having been "raised" in the country of cretins and lean
pigs, and had excited such a storm of abuse about their ears, that,
finding themselves only two to twenty, they {347} had beaten a
retreat, and decided to sleep at the cow-hut. At this we arrived in
about half an hour; but it was evident that it had not been tenanted
for some weeks by anything but marmots, of which we saw a couple
scudding along with that awkward mixture of scratch and shuffle which
is their ordinary mode of locomotion. From here we each made casts, to
use the hunting phrase, in different directions, especially trying
places which lay on the leeward side of rocks, and on which,
therefore, any tracks might not have been effaced by the night's snow.
A diabolical yell, which was the result of an attempt to imitate the
jödel of the Oberland guides, met with no human response, but was
taken up, as it seemed, by a chorus of imps in the depths of the
mountain; and by the multiplying echoes so common in Switzerland was
carried on from crag to crag, till it appeared to be lost only at the
top of the valley. We fixed on a point about a mile off at which to
reunite, as what was snow in the lower part of the valley would be ice
higher up, and would probably be crossed by crevasses, among which it
would be dangerous to go singly, and without the protection of the
rope. Presently there came a shout from the extreme left of our
quartett, and we saw the young marronnier (that is, a half-fledged
monk or deacon) standing on the top of some rocks, and indulging in
various contortions and gesticulations, which we interpreted as a
summons for our help; and when we reached him, he wanted it badly
enough, for right before him were the objects of our search; but how
to get at them was a problem which required all our skill and all our
strength for its solution.
He had come to where the glacier joined the rocks over which our
course had hitherto been, when his progress was stopped by a
bergschrund or deep chasm between a nearly perpendicular wall of
rock on one side, and a wall of ice on the other, inclined at an angle
of probably sixty-five degrees. On reaching this, we could see the
fugitives about fifty feet below us, and were relieved by the
assurance that they were neither of them seriously injured, except by
the cold, which had made them unable to do anything to extricate
themselves. It was evident that nothing could be done from the side of
the rocks, so we made our way as quickly-as-possible along the side of
the bergschrund, to cross on to the glacier. This involved a long
detour; but the bergschrund was too wide to be jumped, and far too
steep to be scaled, while the insecurity of the snow-bridges over it
was apparent. At last we found one that seemed solid, and M.
Christophe led the way upon it boldly, but had scarcely reached the
middle, when it suddenly broke down; and but for the rope—that great
protection of mountaineers—he would have had very little chance of
seeing the hospice again. As it was, I was the chief sufferer, for I
happened to be second in line, and had my waist (round which the rope
was tied in a slip-knot) reduced to wasp-like proportions by the jerk
of a man of fourteen stone falling in front, and the counteracting
strain which my rear-rank man forthwith put on behind. At last we
crossed, and hastily made our way to the scene of action. I have
estimated the angle of the ice-wall at sixty-five degrees, and
tremendous as that inclination is, I believe I have rather understated
it, though, as my clinometer was left behind, I could only compare it
mentally with the well-known ice-wall on the Strahleck, which seemed
about fifteen degrees less. Our rope was about ten feet too short to
reach the bottom, so the axe was brought into requisition to cut steps
for that distance, and to carve out a ledge which should give us
secure hand-hold as well. This done, we let down the rope; but the
man's fingers were so benumbed with the night's exposure, that he was
unable to tie it round his wife; and though she offered to attach it
to him first, he refused to be drawn up until after her. This
punctilio seemed rather misplaced, as it involved {348} the descent of
one of our number; but you cannot argue with a man who has spent the
night in the heart of a glacier; so the lightest of our party lost no
time in descending, which was only difficult from the piercing cold
that was beginning to get the better of us, and which was so
benumbing, that cutting the five-and-fifty steps for the descent was a
rather formidable task.
The appearance of the girl's face—she was scarcely more than a girl—
was one to fix itself in the memory. It was white—almost as white as
the snow which had so nearly formed her cold winding-sheet; stains of
blood were on the blue lips, which she had involuntarily bitten
through in that night's agony. Her large Italian eyes seemed
fascinated by the wall of snow at which she glared; and even now, when
rescue was certain, she could only burst into a flood of tears, and
repeatedly ejaculate "gerettet!" (saved!) having again sunk into the
crouching position from which the question as to the rope had roused
her. The tears indeed gave relief to the heart over which a shadow of
a terrible death had for long hours been brooding. The shortness of
our rope caused the only difficulty in the ascent; but we managed to
hew out a sort of stage on the ice at which we could rest with her,
while the two younger monks carried the rope to the top, and then
completed her restoration to the upper day. The husband's ascent was
rather harder of achievement, as his chilled limbs made him as
helpless as a child in arms, without reducing his weight in the same
proportion; but after some awkward slips, it was managed; and having
refreshed the inner man, we made our way painfully toward the hospice,
obliging the husband to walk, in spite of the agony which it caused
him, as the only means of saving his limbs. We then learned that on
the previous evening they had started for the chalet, the situation of
which was well known to them, but had been completely enveloped in a
cloud of thick mist which had risen from the valley, and had obscured
their way; that after numerous turnings, they had decided, just before
darkness came on, to make their way up the St. Bernard valley, knowing
that in time they must come to the hospice, but that they had actually
mistaken for it the valley leading up to the Col de la Fenêtre, which
is nearly at right angles to the other, and had come upon the
bergschrund at a point where there was fortunately a huge cornice of
snow. On this they must have unwittingly walked, as they believed, for
many yards, when it suddenly gave way with that terrible rushing sound
at which most explorers of the great ice-world have shuddered once or
twice in their lives. Fortunately, an immense mass of snow gave way,
and its bulk broke their fall, and saved them from being dashed with
fatal violence against the rocks. They were warmly clad, and had the
courage to keep in motion during nearly the whole night, performing an
evolution corresponding to the goose-step of the volunteers, as they
dared not change their ground in the darkness.
When the gray morning showed that there was no possibility of their
extricating themselves, and the snow fell, which they knew would hide
their track, the husband sank down in despair, saying: "Nun bedeckt
mich mien Grabtuch" (Now my shroud is covering me)—and two hours of
inaction were sufficient to allow the cold to seize his hands and
feet. It was curious to observe how, as we gleaned the story from
husband and wife, each praised the other's endurance, and depreciated
his or her own. They had only been married at Gressonnay St. Giacomo
four days before, and were on their way to the celebrated wood-carving
manufactory at Freyburg. We had nearly reached the hospice, having had
hard work in helping our friend to walk, and in beating his fingers
smartly to restore circulation, when the girl, who had refused our aid
en route, suddenly gave a shriek and fainted away. The cause of this
had not to be sought for long. Our path had led {349} us close by the
Morgue, in which, as is well known, the rarity of the air preserves
the corpses so thoroughly that they retain for years the appearance of
only recent death. There, placed upright against the wall, is the
ghastly row; and one figure—that of a woman with a child in her arms—
is especially noticeable for having preserved not only the features,
but even the expression which marked the last agony of despair. To see
these, you must generally wait some moments before your eyes get
accustomed to the dim light in which they are; but on this occasion,
the glare reflected from the snow threw the whole interior of the
charnel-house into full view, and the revulsion of feeling was too
much for the poor girl, who had so narrowly escaped a similar fate.
She was borne into the hospice, and soon recovered; and on the
following morning, both were able to resume their journey, though it
was feared by the monks, who had had large experience of frostbites,
that one of the man's fingers would be sacrificed. They were profuse
in their gratitude, and left, determined that the superiority of the
inhabitants of the Val de Lys over all other Piedmontese, Italians,
and Savoyards, was not best maintained by spending a night in a
bergschrund.
From The Month.
CONSTANCE SHERWOOD.
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
BY LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON.
CHAPTER VI.
I was to travel, as had been ordered for our mutual convenience and
protection, with Mistress Ward, a gentlewoman who resided some months
in our vicinity, and had heard mass in our chapel on such rare
occasions as of late had occurred, when a priest was at our house, and
we had commodity to give notice thereof to such as were Catholic in
the adjacent villages. We had with us on the journey two serving-men
and a waiting-woman, who had been my mother's chambermaid; and so
accompanied, we set out on our way, singing as we went, for greater
safety, the litanies of our Lady; to whom we did commend ourselves, as
my father had willed us to do, with many fervent prayers. The
gentlewoman to whose charge I was committed was a lady of singular
zeal and discretion, as well as great virtue; albeit, where religion
was not concerned, of an exceeding timid disposition; which, to my no
small diversion then, and great shame since, I took particular notice
of on this journey. Much talk had been ministered in the county
touching the number of rogues and vagabonds which infested the public
roads, of which sundry had been taken up and whipped during the last
months, in Lichfield, Stafford, and other places. I did perceive that
good Mistress Ward glanced uneasily as we rode along at every
foot-passenger or horseman that came in sight. Albeit my heart was
heavy, and may be also that when the affections are inclined to tears
they be likewise prone to laughter, I scarce could restrain from
smiling at these her fears and the manner of her showing them.
"Mistress Constance," she said at last, as we came to the foot of a
steep {350} ascent, "methinks you have a great heart concerning the
dangers which may befall us on the road, and that the sight of a
robber would move you not one whit more than that of an honest pedler
or hawker, such as I take those men to be who are mounting the hill in
advance of us. Doth it not seem to you that the box which they do
carry betokens them to be such worthy persons as I wish them to
prove?"
"Now surely," I answered, "good Mistress Ward, 'tis my opinion that
they be not such honest knaves as you do suppose. I perceive somewhat
I mislike in the shape of that box. What an if it be framed to entice
travellers to their ruin by such displays and shows of rare ribbons
and gewgaws as may prove the means of detaining them on the road, and
a-robbing of them in the end?"
Mistress Ward laughed, and commended my jesting, but was yet ill at
ease; and, as a mischievous and thoughtless creature, I did somewhat
excite and maintain her fears, in order to set her on asking questions
of our attendants touching the perils of the road, which led them to
relate such fearful stories of what they had seen of this sort as
served to increase her apprehensions, and greatly to divert me, who
had not the like fears; but rather entertained myself with hers, in a
manner such as I have been since ashamed to think of, who should have
kissed the ground on which she had trodden.
The fairness of the sky, the beauty of the fields and hedges, the
motion of the horse, stirred up my spirits; albeit my heart was at
moments so brimful of sorrow that I hated my tongue for its
wantonness, my eyes for their curious gazing, and my fancy for its
eager thoughts anent London and the new scenes I should behold there.
What mostly dwelt in them was the hope to see my Lady Surrey, of whom
I had had of late but brief and scanty tidings. The last letter I had
from her was writ at the time when the Duke of Norfolk was for the
second time thrown in the Tower, which she said was the greatest
sorrow that had befallen her since the death of my Lady Mounteagle,
which had happened at his grace's house a few months back, with all
the assistance she desired touching her religion. She had been urged,
my Lady Surrey said, by the duke some time before to do something
contrary to her faith; but though she much esteemed and respected him,
her answer was so round and resolute that he never mentioned the like
to her any more. Since then I had no more tidings of her, who was
dearer to me than our brief acquaintance and the slender tie of such
correspondence as had taken place between us might in most cases
warrant; but whether owing to some congeniality of mind, or to a
presentiment of future friendship, 'tis most certain my heart was
bound to her in an extraordinary manner; so that she was the continual
theme of my thoughts and mirror of my fancy.
The first night of our journey we lay at a small inn, which was held
by persons Mistress Ward was acquainted with, and by whom we were
entertained in a decent chamber, looking on unto a little garden, and
with as much comfort as the fashion of the place might afford, and
greater cleanliness than is often to be found in larger hostelries.
After supper, being somewhat weary with travel, but not yet inclined
for bed, and the evening fine, we sat out of doors in a bower of
eglantine near to some bee-hives, of which our hostess had a great
store; and methinks she took example from them, for we could see her
through the window as busy in the kitchen amongst her maids as the
queen-bee amidst her subjects. Mistress Ward took occasion to observe,
as we watched one of these little commonwealths of nature, that she
admired how they do live, laboring and swarming, and gathering honey
together so neat and finely, that they abhor nothing so much as
uncleanliness, drinking pure and clear water, even the dew-drops on
the leaves and flowers, {351} and delighting in sweet music, which if
they hear but once out of tune they fly out of sight.
"They live," she said, "under a law, and use great reverence to their
elders. Every one hath his office; some trimming the honey, another
framing hives, another the combs. When they go forth to work, they
mark the wind and the clouds, and whatsoever doth threaten their ruin;
and having gathered, out of every flower, honey, they return loaded in
their mouths and on their wings, whom they that tarried at home
receive readily, easing their backs of their great burthens with as
great care as can be thought of."
"Methinks," I answered, "that if it be as you say, Mistress Ward, the
bees be wiser than men."
At the which she smiled; but withal, sighing, made reply:
"One might have wished of late years rather to be a bee than such as
we see men sometimes to be. But, Mistress Constance, if they are
indeed so wise and so happy, 'tis that they are fixed in a condition
in which they must needs do the will of him who created them; and the
like wisdom and happiness in a far higher state we may ourselves
enjoy, if we do but choose of our free will to live by the same rule."
Then, after some further discourse on the habits of these little
citizens, I inquired of Mistress Ward if she were acquainted with mine
aunt, Mistress Congleton; at the which question she seemed surprised,
and said,
"Methought, my dear, you had known my condition in your aunt's family,
having been governess for many years to her three daughters, and only
by reason of my sister's sickness having stayed away from them for
some time."
At the which intelligence I greatly rejoiced; for the few hours we had
rode together, and our discourse that evening, had wrought in me a
liking for this lady as great as could arise in so short a period. But
I minded me then of my jests at her fears anent robbers, and also of
having been less dutiful in my manners than I should have been toward
one who was like to be set over me; and I likewise bethought me this
might be the cause that she had spoken of the bees having a reverence
for their elders, and doubted if I should crave her pardon for my want
of it. But, like many good thoughts which we give not entertainment to
by reason that they be irksome, I changed that intent for one which
had in it more of pleasantness, though less of virtue. Kissing her, I
said it was the best news I had heard for a long time that I should
live in the same house with her, and, as I hoped, under her care and
good government. And she answered, that she was well pleased with it
too, and would be a good friend to me as long as she lived. Then I
asked her touching my cousins, and of their sundry looks and
qualities. She answered, that the eldest, Kate, was very fair, and
said nothing further concerning her. Polly, she told me, was
marvellous witty and very pleasant, and could give a quick answer,
full of entertaining conceits.
"And is she, then, not fair?" I asked.
"Neither fair nor foul," was her reply; "but well favored enough, and
has an excellent head."
"Then," I cried, letting my words exceed good behavior, "I shall like
her better than the pretty fool her sister." For the which speech I
received the first, but not the last, chiding I ever had from Mistress
Ward for foolish talking and pert behavior, which was what I very well
deserved. When she had done speaking, I put my arm round her neck—for
it put me in mind of my mother to be so gravely yet so sweetly
corrected—and said, "Forgive me, dear Mistress Ward, for my saucy
words, and tell me somewhat I beseech you touching my youngest cousin,
who must be nearest to mine own age."
"She is no pearl to hang at one's ear," quoth she, "yet so gifted with
a well-disposed mind that in her grace {352} seems almost to supersede
nature. Muriel is deformed in body, and slow in speech; but in
behavior so honest, in prayer so devout, so noble in all her dealings,
that I never heard her speak anything that either concerned not good
instruction or godly mirth."
"And doth she not care to be ugly?" I asked.
"So little doth she value beauty," quoth Mistress Ward, "save in the
admiring of it in others, that I have known her to look into a glass
and smiling cry out, 'This face were fair if it were turned and every
feature the opposite to what it is;' and so jest pleasantly at her own
deformities, and would have others do so too. Oh, she is a rare
treasure of goodness and piety, and a true comfort to her friends!"
With suchlike pleasant discourse we whiled away the time until going
to rest; and next day were on horseback betimes on our way to
Coventry, where we were to lie that night at the house of Mr. Page, a
Catholic, albeit not openly, by reason of the times. This gentleman is
for his hospitality so much haunted, that no news stirs but comes to
his ears, and no gentlefolks pass his door but have a cheerful welcome
to his house; and 'tis said no music is so sweet to his ears as
deserved thanks. He vouchsafed much favor to us, and by his merry
speeches procured us much entertainment, provoking me to laughter
thereby more than I desired. He took us to see St. Mary's Hall, which
is a building which has not its equal for magnificence in any town I
have seen, no, not even in London. As we walked through the streets he
showed us a window in which was an inscription, set up in the reign of
King Richard the Second, which did run thus:
"I, Luriche, for the love of thee
Do make Coventry toll free."
And further on, the figure of Peeping Tom of Coventry, that false
knave I was so angry with when my father (ah, me! how sharp and sudden
was the pain which went through my heart as I called to mind the hours
I was wont to sit on his knee hearkening to the like tales) told me
the story of the Lady Godiva, who won mercy for her townsfolk by a
ride which none had dared to take but one so holy as herself. And, as
I said before, being then in a humor as prone to tears at one moment
as laughter at another, I fell to weeping for the noble lady who had
been in so sore a strait that she must needs have chosen between
complying with her savage lord's conditions or the misery of her poor
clients. When Mr. Page noticed my tears, which flowed partly for
myself and partly for one who had been long dead, but yet lived in the
hearts of these citizens, he sought to cheer me by the recital of the
fair and rare pageant which doth take place every year in Coventry,
and is of the most admirable beauty, and such as is not witnessed in
any other city in the world. He said I should not weep if I were to
see it, which he very much desired I should; and he hoped he might be
then alive, and ride by my side in the procession as my esquire; at
the which I smiled, for the good gentleman had a face and figure such
as would not grace a pageant, and methought I might be ashamed some
years hence to have him for my knight; and I said, "Good Mr. Page, be
the shutters closed on those days as when the Lady Godiva rode?" at
the which he laughed, and answered,
"No; and that for one Tom who then peeped, there were a thousand eyes
to gaze on the show as it passed."
"Then if it please you, sir, when the time comes," I said, "I would
like to look on and not to ride;" and he replied, it should be as I
pleased; and with such merry discourse we spent the time till supper
was ready. And afterward that good gentleman slackened not his efforts
in entertaining us; but related so many laughable stories, and took so
great notice of me, that I was moved to answer him sometimes in a
manner too forward for my years. He told us of the queen's visit to
that {353} city, and that the mayor, who had heard her grace's majesty
considered poets, and herself wrote verses, thought to commend himself
to her favor by such rare rhymes as these, wherewith he did greet her
at her entrance into the town:
"We, the men of Coventry,
Be pleased to see your majesty,
Good Lord! how fair you be!"
at the which her highness made but an instant's pause, and then
straightway replied,
"It pleaseth well her majesty
To see the men of Coventry.
Good Lord! what fools you be!"
"But," quoth Mr. Page, "the good man was so well pleased that the
Queen had answered his compliment, that 'tis said he has had her
majesty's speech framed, and hung up in his parlor."
"Pity 'tis not in the town-hall," I cried; and he laughing commended
me for sharpness; but Mistress Ward said:
"A sharp tongue in a woman's head was always a stinging weapon; but in
a queen's she prayed God it might never prove a murtherous one." Which
words somewhat checked our merriment, for that they savored of rebuke
to me for forward speech, and I ween awoke in Mr. Page thoughts of a
graver sort.
When we rode through the town next day, he went with us for the space
of some miles, and then bade us farewell with singular courtesy, and
professions of good will and proffered service if we should do him the
good at any time to remember his poor house; which we told him he had
given us sufficient reason not to forget. Toward evening, when the sun
was setting, we did see the towers of Warwick Castle; and I would fain
have discerned the one which doth bear the name of the great earl who
in a poor pilgrim's garb slew the giant Colbrand, and the cave 'neath
Guy's Cliff where he spent his last years in prayer. But the light was
declining as we rode into Leamington, where we lay that night, and
darkness hid from us that fair country, which methought was a meet
abode for such as would lead a hermit's life.
The next day we had the longest ride and the hottest sun we had yet
met with; and at noon we halted to rest in a thicket on the roadside,
which we made our pavilion, and from which our eyes did feast
themselves on a delightful prospect. There were heights on one side
garnished with stately oaks, and a meadow betwixt the road and the
hill enamelled with all sorts of pleasing flowers, and stored with
sheep, which were feeding in sober security. Mistress Ward, who was
greatly tired with the journey, fell asleep with her head on her hand,
and I pulled from my pocket a volume with which Mr. Page had gifted me
at parting, and which contained sundry tales anent Amadis de Gaul,
Huon de Bordeaux, Palmerin of England, and suchlike famous knights,
which he said, as I knew how to read, for which he greatly commended
my parents' care, I should entertain myself with on the road. So,
one-half sitting, one-half lying on the grass, I reclined in an easy
posture, with my head resting against the trunk of a tree, pleasing my
fancy with the writers' conceits; but ever and anon lifting my eyes to
the blue sky above my head, seen through the green branches, or fixed
them on the quaint patterns the quivering light drew on the grass, or
else on the valley refreshed with a silver river, and the fair hills
beyond it. And as I read of knights and ladies, and the many perils
which befel them, and passages of love betwixt them, which was new to
me, and what I had not met with in any of the books I had yet read, I
fell into a fit of musing, wondering if in London the folks I should
see would discourse in the same fashion, and the gentlemen have so
much bravery and the ladies so great beauty as those my book treated
of. And as I noticed it was chiefly on the high-roads they did come
into such dangerous adventures, {354} I gazed as far as I could
discern on the one I had in view before me with a foolish kind of
desire for some robbers to come and assail us, and then a great
nobleman or gallant esquire to ride up and fall on them, and to
deliver us from a great peril, and may be to be wounded in the
encounter, and I to bind up those wounds as from my mother's teaching
I knew how to do, and then give thanks to the noble gentleman in such
courteous and well-picked words as I could think of. But for all my
gazing I could naught perceive save a wain slowly ascending the hill
loaden with corn, midst clouds of dust, and some poorer sort of
people, who had been gleaning, and were carrying sheaves on their
heads. After an hour Mistress Ward awoke from her nap; and methinks I
had been dozing also, for when she called to me, and said it was time
to eat somewhat, and then get to horse, I cried out, "Good sir, I wait
your pleasure;" and rubbed my eyes to see her standing before me in
her riding-habit, and not the gentleman whose wounds I had been
tending.
That night we slept at Northampton, at Mistress Engerfield's house.
She was a cousin of Mr. Congleton's, and a lady whose sweet affability
and gravity would have extorted reverence from those that least loved
her. She was then very aged, and had been a nun in King Henry's reign;
and, since her convent had been despoiled, and the religious driven
out of it, having a large fortune of her own, which she inherited
about that time, she made her house a secret monastery, wherein God
was served in a religious manner by such persons as the circumstances
of the time, and not their own desires, had forced back into the
world, and who as yet had found no commodity for passing beyond seas
into countries where that manner of life is allowed. They dressed in
sober black, and kept stated hours of prayer, and went not abroad
unless necessity compelled them thereunto. When we went into the
dining-room, which I noticed Mistress Engerfield called the refectory,
grace was said in Latin; and whilst we did eat one lady read out loud
out of a book, which methinks was the life of a saint; but the fatigue
of the journey, and the darkness of the room, which was wainscotted
with oak-wood, so overpowered my senses with drowsiness, that before
the meal was ended I had fallen asleep, which was discovered, to my
great confusion, when the company rose from table. But that good lady,
in whose face was so great a kindliness that I never saw one to be
compared with it in that respect before or since, took me by the hand
and said, "Young eyes wax heavy for lack of rest, and travellers
should have repose. Come to thy chamber, sweet one, and, after
commending thyself by a brief prayer to him who sleepeth not nor
slumbereth, and to her who is the Mother of the motherless, get thee
to bed and take thy fill of the sleep thou hast so great need of, and
good angels will watch near thee."
Oh, how I did weep then, partly from fatigue, and partly from the dear
comfort her words did yield me, and, kneeling, asked her blessing, as
I had been wont to do of my dear parents. And she, whose countenance
was full of majesty, and withal of most attractive gentleness, which
made me deem her to be more than an ordinary woman, and a great
servant of God, as indeed she was, raised me from the ground, and
herself assisted to get me to bed, having first said my prayers by her
side, whose inflamed devotion, visible in her face, awakened in me a
greater fervor than I had hitherto experienced when performing this
duty. After I had slept heavily for the space of two or three hours I
awoke, as is the wont of those who be over-fatigued, and could not get
to sleep again, so that I heard the clock of a church strike twelve;
and as the last stroke fell on my ear, it was followed by a sound of
chanting, as if close unto my chamber, which resembled what on rare
occasions I had heard performed {355} by two or three persons in our
chapel; but here, with so full a concord of voices, and so great
melody and sweetness, that methought, being at that time of night and
every one abed, it must be the angels that were singing. But the next
day, questioning Mrs. Ward thereupon as of a strange thing which had
happened to me, she said, the ladies in that house rose always at
midnight, as they had been used to do in their several convents, to
sing God's praises and give him thanks, which was what they did vow to
do when they became religious. Before we departed, Mistress Engerfield
took me into her own room, which was small and plainly furnished, with
no other furniture in it but a bed, table, and kneeling-stool, and
against the wall a large crucifix, and she bestowed upon me a small
book in French, titled "The Spiritual Combat," which she said was a
treasury of pious riches, which she counselled me by frequent study to
make my own; and with many prayers and blessings she then bade us
God-speed, and took leave of us. Our last day's lodging on the road
was at Bedford; and there being no Catholics of note in that town wont
to entertain travellers, we halted at a quiet hostelry, which was kept
by very decent people, who showed us much civility; and the landlady,
after we had supped, the evening being rainy (for else she said we
might have walked through her means into the fair grounds of the Abbey
of Woburn, which she thanked God was not now a hive for drones, as it
had once been, but the seat of a worthy nobleman; which did more
credit to the town, and drew customers to the inn), brought us for our
entertainment a huge book, which she said had as much godliness in
each of its pages as might serve to convert as many Papists—God save
the mark!—as there were leaves in the volume. My cheeks glowed like
fire when she thus spoke, and I looked at Mistress Ward, wondering
what she would say. But she only bowed her head, and made pretence to
open the book, which, when the good woman was gone,
"Mistress Constance," quoth she, "this is a book writ by Mr. Fox, the
Duke of Norfolk's old schoolmaster, touching those he doth call
martyrs, who suffered for treason and for heresy in the days of Queen
Mary,—God rest her soul!—and if it ever did convert a Papist, I do not
say on his deathbed, but at any time of his life, except it was
greatly for his own interest, I be ready …"
"To be a martyr yourself, Mistress Ward," I cried, with my ever too
great proneness to let my tongue loose from restraint. The color rose
in her cheek, which was usually pale, and she said:
"Child, I was about to say, that in the case I have named, I be ready
to forego the hope of that which I thank God I be wise enough to
desire, though unworthy to obtain; but for which I do pray each day
that I live."
"Then would you not be afraid to die on a scaffold," I asked, "or to
be hanged, Mistress Ward?"
"Not in a good cause," she said.
But before the words were out of her mouth our landlady knocked at the
door, and said a gentleman was in the house with his two sons, who
asked to pay their compliments to Mistress Ward and the young lady
under her care. The name of this gentleman was Rookwood, of Rookwood
Hall in Suffolk, and Mistress Ward desired the landlady presently to
bring them in, for she had often met them at my aunt's house, as she
afterward told me, and had great contentment we should have such good
company under the same roof with us; whom when they came in she very
pleasantly received, and informed Mr. Rookwood of my name and
relationship to Mistress Congleton; which when he heard, he asked if I
was Mr. Henry Sherwood's daughter; which being certified of, he
saluted me, and said my father was at one time, when both were at
college, the closest friend that ever he had, and his esteem for him
was so great that he would be better {356} pleased with the news that
he should see him but once again, than if any one was to give him a
thousand pounds. I told him my father often spake of him with singular
affection, and that the letter I should write to him from London would
be more welcome than anything else could make it, by the mention of
the honor I had had of his notice. Mistress Ward then asked him what
was the news in London, from whence he had come that morning. He
answered that the news was not so good as he would wish it to be; for
that the queen's marriage with monsieur was broke off, and the King of
France greatly incensed at the favor M. de Montgomeri had experienced
at her hands; and that when he had demanded he should be given up, she
had answered that she did not see why she should be the King of
France's hangman; which was what his father had replied to her sister,
when she had made the like request anent some of her traitors who had
fled to France.
"Her majesty," he said, "was greatly incensed against the Bishop of
Ross, and had determined to put him to death; but that she was
dissuaded from it by her council; and that he prayed God Catholics
should not fare worse now that Ridolfi's plot had been discovered to
declare her highness illegitimate, and place the Queen of Scots on the
throne, which had moved her to greater anger than even the rising in
the north.
"And touching the Duke of Norfolk," Mistress Ward did ask, "what is
like to befal him?"
Mr. Rookwood said, "His grace had been removed from the Tower to his
own house on account of the plague; but it is reported the queen is
more urgent against him than ever, and will have his head in the end."
"If her majesty will not marry monsieur," Mistress Ward said, "it will
fare worse with recusants."
Upon which one of the young gentlemen cried out, "'Tis not her majesty
will not have him; but monsieur will not have her. My Lord of Oxford,
who is to marry my Lord Burleigh's daughter, said yesterday at the
tennis court, that that matter of monsieur is grieviously taken on her
grace's part; but that my lord is of opinion that where amity is so
needful, her majesty should stomach it; and so she doth pretend to
break it off herself by reason of her religious scruples."
At the which both brothers did laugh, but Mr. Rookwood bade them have
a care how they did suffer their tongues to wag anent her grace and
such matters as her grace's marriage; which although in the present
company might be without danger, was an ill habit, which in these
times was like to bring divers persons into troubles.
"Hang it!" cried the eldest of his sons, who was of a well-pleasing
favor and exceeding goodly figure; "recusants be always in trouble,
whatsoever they do; both taxed for silence and checked for speech, as
the play hath it. For good Mr. Weston was racked for silence last week
till he fainted, for that he would not reveal what he had heard in
confession from one concerned in Ridolfi's plot; and as to my Lord
Morley, he hath been examined before the council, touching his having
said he would go abroad poorly and would return in glory, which he did
speak concerning his health; but they would have it meant treason."
"Methinks, Master Basil," said his father, "thou art not like to be
taxed for silence; unless indeed on the rack, which the freedom of thy
speech may yet bring thee to, an thou hast not more care of thy words.
See now, thy brother keeps his lips closed in modest silence."
"Ay, as if butter would not melt in his mouth," cried Basil, laughing.
And I then noticed the countenance of the younger brother, who was
fairer and shorter by a head than Basil, and had the most beautiful
eyes imaginable, and a high forehead betokening thoughtfulness. Mr.
Rookwood drew his chair further from the table, and conversed in a low
voice with Mrs. Ward, {357} touching matters which I ween were of too
great import to be lightly treated of. I heard the name of Mr. Felton
mentioned in their discourse, and somewhat about the Pope's Bull, in
the affixing of which at the Bishop of London's gate he had lent a
hand; but my ears were not free to listen to them, for the young
gentlemen began to entertain me with divers accounts of the shows in
London; which, as they were some years older than myself, who was then
no better than a child, though tall of mine age, I took as a great
favor, and answered them in the best way I could. Basil spoke mostly
of the sights he had seen, and a fight between a lion and three dogs,
in which the dogs were victorious; and Hubert of books, which he said,
for his part, he had always a care to keep handsome and well bound.
"Ay," quoth his brother, "gilding them and stringing them like the
prayer-books of girls and gallants, which are carried to church but
for their outsides. I do hate a book with clasps, 'tis a trouble to
open them."
"A trouble thou dost seldom take," quoth Hubert. "Thou art ready
enough to unclasp the book of thy inward soul to whosoever will read
in it, and thy purse to whosoever begs or borrows of thee; but with
such clasps as shut in the various stores of thought which have issued
forth from men's minds thou dost not often meddle."
"Beshrew me if I do! The best prayer-book I take to be a pair of
beads; and the most entertaining reading, the 'Rules for the Hunting
of Deer;' which, by what I have heard from Sir Roger Ashlon, my Lord
Stafford hath grievously transgressed by assaulting Lord Lyttleton's
keepers in Teddesley Haye."
"What have you here?" Hubert asked, glancing at Mr. Fox's Book of
Martyrs, and another which the landlady had left on the table; A
profitable New Year's Gift to all England.
"They are not mine," I answered, "nor such as I do care to read; but
this," I said, holding out Mr. Page's gift, which I had in my pocket,
"is a rare fund of entertainment and very full of pleasant tales."
"But," quoth he, "you should read the Morte d'Arthur and the Seven
Champions of Christendom."
Which I said I should be glad to do when I had the good chance to meet
with them. He said, "My cousin Polly had a store of such pleasant
volumes, and would, no doubt, lend them to me. She has such a sharp
wit," he added, "that she is ever exercising it on herself or on
others; on herself by the bettering of her mind through reading; and
on others by such applications, of what she thus acquires as leaves
them no chance in discoursing with her but to yield to her superior
knowledge."
"Methinks," I said, "if that be her aim in reading, may be she will
not lend to others the means of sharpening their wits to encounter
hers."
At the which both of them laughed, and Basil said he hoped I might
prove a match for Mistress Polly, who carried herself too high, and
despised such as were slower of speech and less witty than herself.
"For my part," he cried, "I am of opinion that too much reading doth
lead to too much thinking, and too much thinking doth consume the
spirits; and often it falls out that while one thinks too much of his
doing, he leaves to do the effect of his thinking."
At the which Hubert smiled, and I bethought myself that if Basil was
no book-worm neither was he a fool. With such like discourse the
evening sped away, and Mr. Rookwood and his sons took their leave with
many civilities and pleasant speeches, such as gentlemen are wont to
address to ladies, and hopes expressed to meet again in London, and
good wishes for the safe ending of our journey thither.
Ah, me! 'tis passing strange to sit here and write in this little
chamber, after so many years, of that first meeting with those
brothers, Basil and Hubert; to call to mind how they did look and
speak, and of the pretty kind {358} of natural affection there was
betwixt them in their manner to each other. Ah, me! the old trick of
sighing is coming over me again, which I had well-nigh corrected
myself of, who have more reason to give thanks than to complain. Good
Lord, what fools you be! sighing heart and watering eyes! As great
fools, I ween, as the Mayor of Coventry, whose foolish rhymes do keep
running in my head.
The day following we came to London, which being, as it were, the
beginning of a new life to me, I will defer to speak of until I find
myself, after a night's rest and special prayers unto that end, less
heavy of heart than at present.
CHAPTER VII.
Upon a sultry evening which did follow an exceeding hot day, with no
clouds in the sky, and a great store of dust on the road, we entered
London, that great fair of the whole world, as some have titled it.
When for many years we do think of a place we have not seen, a picture
forms itself in the mind as distinct as if the eye had taken
cognizance thereof, and a singular curiosity attends the actual vision
of what the imagination hath so oft portrayed. On this occasion my
eyes were slow servants to my desires, which longed to embrace in the
compass of one glance the various objects they craved to behold.
Albeit the sky was cloudless above our heads, I feared it would rain
in London, by reason of a dark vapor which did hang over it; but
Mistress Ward informed me that this appearance was owing to the smoke
of sea-coal, of which so great a store is used in the houses that the
air is filled with it. "And do those in London always live in that
smoke?" I inquired, not greatly contented to think it should be so;
but she said Mr. Congleton's house was not in the city, but in a very
pleasant suburb outside of it, close unto Holborn Hill and Ely Place,
the bishop's palace, in whose garden the roses were so plentiful that
in June the air is perfumed with their odor. I troubled her not with
further questions at that time, being soon wholly taken up with the
new sights which then did meet us at every step. So great a number of
gay horsemen, and litters carried by footmen with fine liveries, and
coaches drawn by horses richly caparisoned and men running alongside
of them, and withal so many carts, that I was constrained to give over
the guiding of mine own horse by reason of the confusion which the
noise of wheels and men's cries and the rapid motion of so many
vehicles did cause in me, who had never rode before in so great a
crowd.
At about six o'clock of the afternoon we did reach Ely Place, and
passing by the bishop's palace stopped at the gate of Mr. Congleton's
house, which doth stand somewhat retired from the high-road, and the
first sight of which did greatly content me. It is built of fair and
strong stone, not affecting fineness, but honorably representing a
firm stateliness, for it was handsome without curiosity, and homely
without negligence. At the front of it was a well-arranged ground
cunningly set with trees, through which we rode to the foot of the
stairs, where we were met by a gentleman dressed in a coat of black
satin and a quilted waistcoat, with a white beaver in his hand, whom I
guessed to be my good uncle. He shook Mistress Ward by the hand,
saluted me on both cheeks, and vowed I was the precise counterpart of
my mother, who at my age, he said, was the prettiest Lancashire witch
that ever he had looked upon. He seemed to me not so old as I did
suppose him to be, lean of body and something low of stature, with a
long visage and a little sharp beard upon the chin of a brown color; a
countenance not very grave, and, for his age, wanting the authority of
gray hairs. He conducted me to mine aunt's chamber, who was seated in
an easy-chair near unto the window, with a cat upon her knees and
{359} a tambour-frame before her. She oped her arms and kissed me with
great affection, and I, sliding down, knelt at her feet and prayed her
to be a good mother to me, which was what my father had charged me to
do when I should come into her presence. She raised me with her hand
and made me sit on a stool beside her, and stroking my face gently,
gazed upon it, and said it put her in mind of both of my parents, for
that I had my father's brow and eyes, and my mother's mouth and
dimpling smiles.
"Mr. Congleton," she cried, "you do hear what this wench saith. I pray
you to bear it in mind, and how near in blood she is to me, so that
you may show her favor when I am gone, which may be sooner than you
think for."
I looked up into her face greatly concerned that she was like so soon
to die. Methought she had the semblance of one in good health and a
reasonable good color in her cheeks, and I perceived Mr. Congleton did
smile as he answered:
"I will show favor to thy pretty niece, good Moll, I promise thee, be
thou alive or be thou dead; but if the leeches are to be credited, who
do affirm thou hast the best strength and stomach of the twain, thou
art more like to bury me than I thee."
Upon which the good lady did sigh deeply and cast up her eyes and
lifted up her hands as one grievously injured, and he cried:
"Prithee, sweetheart, take it not amiss, for beshrew me if I be not
willing to grant thee to be as diseased as will pleasure thee, so that
thou wilt continue to eat and sleep as well as thou dost at the
present and so keep thyself from dying."
Upon which she said that she did admire how a man could have so much
cruelty as to jest and jeer at her ill-health, but that she would
spend no more of her breath upon him; and turning toward me she asked
a store of questions anent my father, whom for many years she had not
seen, and touching the manner of my mother's death, at the mention of
which my tears flowed afresh, which caused her also to weep; and
calling for her women she bade one of them bring her some hartshorn,
for that sorrow, she said, would occasion the vapors to rise in her
head, and the other she sent for to fetch her case of trinkets, for
that she would wear the ring her brother had presented her with some
years back, in which was a stone which doth cure melancholy. When the
case was brought she displayed before my eyes its rich contents, and
gifted me with a brooch set with turquoises, the wearing of which, she
said, doth often keep persons from falling into divers sorts of peril.
Then presently kissing me she said she felt fatigued, and would send
for her daughters to take charge of me; who, when they came, embraced
me with exceeding great affection, and carried me to what had been
their schoolroom and was now Mrs. Ward's chamber, who no longer was
their governess, they said, but as a friend abode in the house for to
go abroad with them, their mother being of so delicate a constitution
that she seldom left her room. Next to this chamber was a closet,
wherein Kate said I should lie, and as it is one I inhabited for a
long space of time, and the remembrance of which doth connect itself
with very many events which, as they did take place, I therein mused
on, and prayed or wept, or sometimes laughed over in solitude, I will
here set down what it was like when first I saw it.
The bed was in an alcove, closed in the day by fair curtains of
taffety; and the walls, which were in wood, had carvings above the
door and over the chimney of very dainty workmanship. The floor was
strewn with dried neatly-cut rushes, and in the projecting space where
the window was, a table was set, and two chairs with backs and seats
cunningly furnished with tapestry. In another recess betwixt the
alcove and the chimney stood a praying stool and a desk with a cushion
for a book to lie on. Ah, me! how often has my head {360} rested on
that cushion and my knees on that stool when my heart has been too
full to utter other prayers than a "God ha' mercy on me!" which at
such times broke as a cry from an overcharged breast. But, oh! what a
vain pleasure I did take on that first day in the bravery of this
little chamber, which Kate said was to be mine own! With what great
contentment I viewed each part of it, and looked out of the window on
the beds of flowers which did form a mosaical floor in the garden
around the house, in the midst of which was a fair pond whose shaking
crystal mirrored the shrubs which grew about it, and a thicket beyond,
which did appear to me a place for pleasantness and not unfit to
flatter solitariness, albeit so close unto the city. Beyond were the
bishop's grounds, and I could smell the scent of roses coming thence
as the wind blew. I could have stood there many hours gazing on this
new scene, but that my cousins brought me down to sup with them in the
garden, which was not fairer in natural ornaments than in artificial
inventions. The table was set in a small banqueting-house among
certain pleasant trees near to a pretty water-work; and now I had
leisure to scan my cousins' faces and compare what I did notice in
them with what Mistress Ward had said the first night of our journey.
Kate, the eldest of the three, was in sooth a very fair creature,
proportioned without any fault, and by nature endowed with the most
delightful colors; but there was a made countenance about her mouth,
between simpering and smiling, and somewhat in her bowed-down head
which seemed to languish with over-much idleness, and an inviting look
in her eyes as if they would over-persuade those she spoke to, which
betokened a lack of those nobler powers of the mind which are the
highest gifts of womanhood. Polly's face fault-finding wits might
scoff at as too little for the rest of the body, her features as not
so well proportioned as Kate's, and her skin somewhat browner than
doth consist with beauty; but in her eyes there was a cheerfulness as
if nature smiled in them, in her mouth so pretty a demureness, and in
her countenance such a spark of wit that, if it struck not with
admiration, filled with delight. No indifferent soul there was which,
if it resisted making her its princess, would not long to have such a
playfellow. Muriel, the youngest of these sisters, was deformed in
shape, sallow in hue, in speech, as Mistress Ward had said, slow; but
withal in her eyes, which were deep-set, there was lacking neither the
fire which betokens intelligence, nor the sweetness which commands
affection, and somewhat in her plain face which, though it may not be
called beauty, had some of its qualities. Methought it savored more of
heaven than earth. The ill-shaped body seemed but a case for a soul
the fairness of which did shine through the foul lineaments which
enclosed it. Albeit her lips opened but seldom that evening, only
twice or thrice, and they were common words she uttered and fraught
with hesitation, my heart did more incline toward her than to the
pretty Kate or the lively Polly.
An hour before we retired to rest, Mr. Congleton came into the garden,
and brought with him Mr. Swithin Wells and Mr. Bryan Lacy, two
gentlemen who lived also in Holborn; the latter of which, Polly
whispered in mine ear, was her sister Kate's suitor. Talk was
ministered among them touching the queen's marriage with Monsieur;
which, as Mr. Rookwood had said, was broken off; but that day they had
heard that M. de la Motte had proposed to her majesty the Due
d'Alençon, who would be more complying, he promised, touching religion
than his brother. She inquired of the prince's age, and of his height;
to the which he did answer, "About your majesty's own height." But her
highness would not be so put off, and willed the ambassador to write
for the precise measurement of the prince's stature.
"She will never marry," quoth Mr. Wells, "but only amuse the French
{361} court and her council with further negotiations touching this
new suitor, as heretofore anent the archduke and Monsieur. But I would
to God her majesty were well married, and to a Catholic prince; which
would do us more good than anything else which can be thought of."
"What news did you hear, sir, of Mr. Felton?" Mistress Ward asked.
Upon which their countenances fell; and one of them answered that that
gentleman had been racked the day before, but steadily refused, though
in the extremity of torture, to name his accomplices; and would give
her majesty no title but that of the Pretender; which they said was
greatly to be regretted, and what no other Catholic had done. But when
his sentence was read to him, for that he was to die on Friday, he
drew from his finger a ring, which had diamonds in it, and was worth
four hundred pounds, and requested the Earl of Sussex to give it to
the queen, in token that he bore her no ill-will or malice, but rather
the contrary.
Mr. Wells said he was a gentleman of very great heart and noble
disposition, but for his part he would as lief this ring had been
sold, and the money bestowed on the poorer sort of prisoners in
Newgate, than see it grace her majesty's finger; who would thus play
the hangman's part, who inherits the spoils of such as he doth put to
death. But the others affirmed it was done in a Christian manner, and
so greatly to be commended; and that Mr. Felton, albeit he was
somewhat rash in his actions, and by some titled Don Magnifico, by
reason of a certain bravery in his style of dress and fashion of
speaking, which smacked of Monsieur Traveller, was a right worthy
gentleman, and his death a blow to his friends, amongst whom there
were some, nevertheless, to be found who did blame him for the act
which had brought him into trouble. Mistress Ward cried, that such as
fell into trouble, be the cause ever so good, did always find those
who would blame them. Mr. Lacy said, one should not cast himself into
danger wilfully, but when occasion offered take it with patience.
Polly replied, that some were so prudent, occasions never came to
them. And then those two fell to disputing, in a merry but withal
sharp fashion. As he did pick his words, and used new-fangled terms,
and she spoke roundly and to the point, methinks she was the nimblest
in this encounter of wit.
Meanwhile Mr. Wells asked Mr. Congleton if he had had news from the
north, where much blood was spilt since the rising; and he apprehended
that his kinsmen in Richmondshire should suffer under the last orders
sent to Sir George Bowes by my Lord Sussex. But Mr. Congleton did
minister to him this comfort, that if they were noted wealthy, and had
freeholds, it was the queen's special commandment they should not be
executed, but two hundred of the commoner sort to lose their lives in
each town; which was about one to each five.
"But none of note?" quoth Mr. Wells.
"None which can pay the worth of their heads," Mr. Congleton replied.
"And who, then, doth price them?" asked Kate, in a languishing voice.
"Nay, sister," quoth Polly, "I warrant thee they do price themselves;
for he that will not pay well for his head must needs opine he hath a
worthless one."
Upon which Mr. Lacy said to Kate, "One hundred angels would not pay
for thine, sweet Kate."
"Then she must needs be an archangel, sir," quoth Polly, "if she be of
greater worth than one hundred angels."
"Ah, me!" cried Kate, very earnestly, "I would I had but half one
hundred gold-pieces to buy me a gown with!"
"Hast thou not gowns enough, wench?" asked her father. "Methought thou
wert indifferently well provided in that respect."
"Ah, but I would have, sir, such a {362} velvet suit as I did see some
weeks back at the Italian house in Cheapside, where the ladies of the
court do buy their vestures. It had a border the daintiest I ever
beheld, all powdered with gold and pearls. Ruffiano said it was the
rarest suit he had ever made; and he is the Queen of France's tailor,
which Sir Nicholas Throgmorton did secretly entice away, by the
queen's desire, from that court to her own."
"And what fair nymph owns this rare suit, sweetest Kate?" Mr. Lacy
asked. "I'll warrant none so fair that it should become her, or rather
that she should become it, more than her who doth covet it."
"I know not if she be fair or foul," quoth Kate, "but she is the Lady
Mary Howard, one of the maids of honor of her majesty, and so may wear
what pleaseth her."
"By that token of the gold and pearls," cried Mr. Wells, "I doubt not
but 'tis the very suit anent which the court have been wagging their
tongues for the last week; and if it be so, indeed, Mistress Kate, you
have no need to envy the poor lady that doth own it."
Kate protested she had not envied her, and taxed Mr. Wells with
unkindness that he did charge her with it; and for all he could say
would not be pacified, but kept casting up her eyes, and the tears
streaming down her lovely cheeks. Upon which Mr. Lacy cried:
"Sweet one, thou hast indeed no cause to envy her or any one else,
howsoever rare or dainty their suits may be; for thy teeth are more
beauteous than pearls, and thine hair more bright than the purest
gold, and thine eyes more black and soft than the finest velvet, which
nature so made that we might bear their wonderful shining, which else
had dazzled us:" and so went on till her weeping was stayed, and then
Mr. Wells said:
"The lady who owned that rich suit, which I did falsely and
feloniously advance Mistress Kate did envy, had not great or long
comfort in its possession; for it is very well known at court, and
hence bruited in the city, what passed at Richmond last week
concerning this rare vesture. It pleased not the queen, who thought it
did exceed her own. And one day her majesty did send privately for it,
and put it on herself, and came forth into the chamber among the
ladies. The kirtle and border was far too short for her majesty's
height, and she asked every one how they liked her new fancied suit.
At length she asked the owner herself if it was not made too short and
ill-becoming; which the poor lady did presently consent to. Upon which
her highness cried: 'Why, then, if it become me not as being too
short, I am minded it shall never become thee as being too fine, so it
fitteth neither well.' This sharp rebuke so abashed the poor lady that
she never adorned her herewith any more."
"Ah," cried Mr. Congleton, laughing, "her majesty's bishops do come by
reproofs as well as her maids. Have you heard how one Sunday, last
April, my Lord of London preached to the queen's majesty, and seemed
to touch on the vanity of decking the body too finely. Her grace told
the ladies after the sermon, that if the bishop held more discourse on
such matters she would fit him for heaven, but he should walk thither
without a staff and leave his mantle behind him."
"Nay," quoth Mr. Wells, "but if she makes such as be Catholics taste
of the sharpness of the rack, and the edge of the axe, she doth then
treat those of her own way of thinking with the edge of her wit and
the sharpness of her tongue. 'Tis reported, Mr. Congleton, I know not
with what truth, that a near neighbor of yours has been served with a
letter, by which a new sheep is let into his pastures."
"What," cried Polly, "is Pecora Campi to roam amidst the roses, and go
in and out at his pleasure through the bishop's gate? The 'sweet lids'
have then danced away a large slice of the Church's acres. But what, I
pray you, sir, did her majesty write?"
"Even this," quoth her father, "I {363} had it from Sir Robert
Arundell: 'Proud Prelate! you know what you were before I made you,
and what you are now. If you do not immediately comply with my
request, I will unfrock you, by God!—ELIZABETH R.'"
"Our good neighbor," saith Polly, "must show a like patience with Job,
and cry out touching his bishopric, 'The queen did give it; the queen
doth take it away; the will of the queen be done.'"
"He is like to be encroached upon yet further by yon cunning Sir
Christopher," Mr. Wells said; "I'll warrant Ely Place will soon be
Hatton Garden."
"Well, for a neighbor," answered Polly, "I'd as soon have the queen's
lids as her hedge-bishop, and her sheep as her shepherd. 'Tis not all
for love of her sweet dancer her majesty doth despoil him. She never,
'tis said, hath forgiven him that he did remonstrate with her for
keeping a crucifix and lighted tapers in her own chapel, and that her
fool, set on by such as were of the same mind with him, did one day
put them out."
In suchlike talk the time was spent; and when the gentlemen had taken
leave, we retired to rest; and being greatly tired, I slept heavily,
and had many quaint dreams, in which past scenes and present objects
were curiously blended with the tales I had read on the journey, and
the discourse I had heard that evening. When I awoke in the morning,
my thoughts first flew to my father, of whom I had a very passionate
desire to receive tidings. When my waiting-woman entered, with a
letter in her hand, I foolishly did fancy it came from him, which
could scarcely be, so soon after our coming to town; but I quickly
discerned, by the rose-colored string which it was bounden with, and
then the handwriting, that it was not from him, but from her whom,
next to him, I most desired to hear from, to wit, the Countess of
Surrey. That sweet lady wrote that she had an exceeding great desire
to see me, and would be more beholden to my aunt than she could well
express, if she would confer on her so great a benefit as to permit me
to spend the day with her at the Charter House, and she would send her
coach for to convey me there, which should never have done her so much
good pleasure before as in that service. And more to that effect, with
many kind and gracious words touching our previous meeting and
correspondence.
When I was dressed, I took her ladyship's letter to Mrs. Ward, who was
pleased to say she would herself ask permission for me to wait upon
that noble lady; but that her ladyship might not be at the charge of
sending for me, she would herself, if my aunt gave her license, carry
me to the Charter House, for that she was to spend some hours that day
with friends in the city, and "it would greatly content her," she
added, "to further the expressed wish of the young countess, whose
grandmother, Lady Mounteagle, and so many of her kinsfolk, were
Catholics, or at the least, good friends to such as were so." My aunt
did give leave for me to go, as she mostly did to whatsoever Mrs. Ward
proposed, whom she trusted entirely, with a singular great affection,
only bidding her to pray that she might not die in her absence, for
that she feared some peaches she had eaten the day before had
disordered her, and that she had heard of one who had died of the
plague some weeks before in the Tower. Mrs. Ward exhorted her to be of
good cheer, and to comfort herself both ways, for that the air of
Holborn was so good, the plague was not likely to come into it, and
that the kernels of peaches being medicinal, would rather prove an
antidote to pestilence than an occasion to it; and left her better
satisfied, insomuch that she sent for another dish of peaches for to
secure the benefit. Before I left, Kate bade me note the fashion of
the suit my Lady Surrey did wear, and if she had on her own hair, and
if she dyed it, and if she covered her bosom, or wore plaits, and if
her stomacher was straight {364} and broad, or formed a long waist,
extending downward, and many more points touching her attire, which I
cannot now call to mind. As I went through the hall to the steps where
Mistress Ward was already standing, Muriel came hurrying toward me,
with a faint color coming and going in her sallow cheek, and twice she
tried to speak and failed. But when I kissed her she put her lips
close to my ear and whispered,
"Sweet little cousin, there be in London prisoners in a very bad
plight, in filthy dungeons, because of their religion. The noble young
Lady Surrey hath a tender heart toward such if she do but hear of
them. Prithee, sweet coz, move her to send them relief in food, money,
or clothing."
Then Mistress Ward called to me to hasten, and I ran away, but Muriel
stood at the window, and as we passed she kissed her hand, in which
was a gold angel, which my father had gifted me with at parting.
"Mrs. Ward," I said, as we went along, "my cousin Muriel is not fair,
and yet her face doth commend itself to my fancy more than many fair
ones I have seen; it is so kindly."
"I have even from her infancy loved her," she answered, "and thus much
I will say of her, that many have been titled saints who had not,
methinks, more virtue than I have noticed in Muriel."
"Doth she herself visit the prisoners she spoke of?"
"She and I do visit them and carry them relief when we can by any
means prevail with the gaolers from compassion or through bribing of
them to admit us. But it is not always convenient to let this be
known, not even at home, but I ween, Constance, as thou wilt have me
to call thee so, that Muriel saw in thee—for she has a wonderful
penetrative spirit—that thou dost know when to speak and when to keep
silence."
"And may I go with you to the prisons?" I asked with a hot feeling in
my heart, which I had not felt since I had left home.
"Thou art far too young," she answered. "But I will tell thee what
thou canst do. Thou mayst work and beg for these good men, and not be
ashamed of so doing. None may visit them who have not made up their
minds to die, if they should be denounced for their charity."
"But Muriel is young," I answered. "Hath she so resolved?"
"Muriel is young," was the reply; "but she is one in whom wisdom and
holiness have forestalled age. For two years that she hath been my
companion on such occasions, she has each day prepared for martyrdom
by such devout exercises as strengthen the soul at the approach of
death."
"And Kate and Polly," I asked, "are they privy to the dangers that you
do run, and have they no like ambition?"
"Rather the contrary," she answered; "but neither they nor any one
else in the house is fully acquainted with these secret errands save
Mr. Congleton, and he did for a long time refuse his daughter license
to go with me, until at last, by prayers and tears, she won him over
to suffer it. But he will never permit thee to do the like, for that
thy father hath intrusted thee to his care for greater safety in these
troublesome times."
"Pish!" I cried pettishly, "safety has a dull mean sound in it which I
mislike. I would I were mine own mistress."
"Wish no such thing, Constance Sherwood," was her grave answer.
"Wilfulness was never nurse to virtue, but rather her foe; nor ever
did a rebellious spirit prove the herald of true greatness. And now,
mark my words. Almighty God hath given thee a friend far above thee in
rank, and I doubt not in merit also, but whose faith, if report saith
true, doth run great dangers, and with few to advise her in these evil
days in which we live. Peradventure he hath appointed thee a work in a
palace as weighty as that of {365} others in a dungeon. Set thyself to
it with thy whole heart, and such prayers as draw down blessings from
above. There be great need in these times to bear in remembrance what
the Lord says, that he will be ashamed in heaven before his angels of
such as be ashamed of him on earth. And many there are, I greatly
fear, who though they be Catholics, do assist the heretics by their
cowardice to suppress the true religion in this land; and I pray to
God this may never be our case. Yet I would not have thee to be rash
in speech, using harsh words, or needlessly rebuking others, which
would not become thy age, or be fitting and modest in one of inferior
rank, but only where faith and conscience be in question not to be
afraid to speak. And now God bless thee, who should be an Esther in
this house, wherein so many true confessors of Christ some years ago
surrendered their lives in great misery and torments, rather than
yield up their faith."
This she said as we stopped at the gate of the Charter House, where
one of the serving-men of the Countess of Surrey was waiting to
conduct me to her lodgings, having had orders to that effect. She left
me in his charge, and I followed him across the square, and through
the cloisters and passages which led to the gallery, where my lady's
chamber was situated. My heart fluttered like a frightened caged bird
during that walk, for there was a solemnity about the place such as I
had not been used to, and which filled me with apprehension lest I
should be wanting in due respect where so much state was carried on.
But when the door was opened at one end of the gallery, and my sweet
lady ran out to meet me with a cry of joy, the silly heart, like a
caught bird, nestled in her embrace, and my lips joined themselves to
hers in a fond manner, as if not willing to part again, but by fervent
kisses supplying the place of words, which were lacking, to express
the great mutual joy of that meeting, until at last my lady raised her
head, and still holding my hands, cried out as she gazed on my face:
"You are more welcome, sweet one, than my poor words can say. I pray
you, doff your hat and mantle, and come and sit by me, for 'tis a
weary while since we have met, and those are gone from us who loved us
then, and for their sakes we must needs love one another dearly, if
our hearts did not of themselves move us unto it, which indeed they
do, if I may judge of yours, Mistress Constance, by mine own."
Then we kissed again, and she passed her arm around my neck with so
many graceful endearments, in which were blended girlish simplicity
and a youthful yet matronly dignity, that I felt that day the love
which, methinks, up to that time had had its seat mostly in the fancy,
take such root in mine heart, that it never lost its hold on it.
At the first our tongues were somewhat tied by joy and lack of
knowledge how to begin to converse on the many subjects whereon both
desired to hear the other speak, and the disuse of such intercourse as
maketh it easy to discourse on what the heart is full of. Howsoever,
Lady Surrey questioned me touching my father, and what had befallen us
since my mother's death. I told her that he had left his home, and
sent me to London by reason of the present troubles; but without
mention of what I did apprehend to be his further intent. And she then
said that the concern she was in anent her good father the Duke of
Norfolk did cause her to pity those who were also in trouble.
"But his grace," I answered, "is, I hope, in safety at present, and in
his own house?"
"In this house, indeed," she did reply, "but a strait prisoner in Sir
Henry Neville's custody, and not suffered to see his friends without
her majesty's especial permission. He did send for his son and me last
evening, having obtained leave for to see us, which he had not done
since the day my lord and I were married again, by {366} his order,
from the Tower, out of fear lest our first marriage, being made before
Phil was quite twelve years old, it should have been annulled by order
of the queen, or by some other means. It grieved me much to notice how
gray his hair had grown, and that his eyes lacked their wonted fire.
When we entered he was sitting in a chair, leaning backward, with his
head almost over the back of it, looking at a candle which burnt
before him, and a letter in his hand. He smiled when he saw us, and
said the greatest comfort he had in the world was that we were now so
joined together that nothing could ever part us. You see, Mistress
Constance," she said, with a pretty blush and smile, "I now do wear my
wedding-ring below the middle joint."
"And do you live alone with my lord now in these grand chambers?" I
said, looking round at the walls, which were hung with rare tapestry
and fine pictures.
"Bess is with me," she answered, "and so will remain I hope until she
is fourteen, when she will be married to my Lord William, my lord's
brother. Our Moll is likewise here, and was to have wedded my Lord
Thomas when she did grow up; but she is not like to live, the
physicians do say."
The sweet lady's eyes filled with tears, but, as if unwilling to
entertain me with her griefs, she quickly changed discourse, and spoke
of my coming unto London, and inquired if my aunt's house were a
pleasant one, and if she was like to prove a good kinswoman to me. I
told her how comfortable had been the manner of my reception, and of
my cousins' goodness to me; at the which she did express great
contentment, and would not be satisfied until I had described each of
them in turn, and what good looks or what good qualities they had;
which I could the more easily do that the first could be discerned
even at first sight, and touching the last, I had warrant from Mrs.
Ward's commendations, which had more weight than my own speerings,
even if I had been a year and not solely a day in their company. She
was vastly taken with what I related to her of Muriel, and that she
did visit and relieve poor persons and prisoners, and wished she had
liberty to do the like; and with a lovely blush and a modest
confusion, as of one who doth not willingly disclose her good deeds,
she told me all the time she could spare she did employ in making
clothes for such as she could hear of, and also salves and cordials
(such as she had learnt to compound from her dear grandmother), and
privately sent them by her waiting-maid, who was a young gentlewoman
of good family, who had lost her parents, and was most excellently
endowed with virtue and piety.
"Come to my closet, Miss Constance," she said, "and I doubt not but we
shall find Milicent at work, if so be she has not gone abroad to-day
on some such errand of charity." Upon which she led the way through a
second chamber, still more richly fitted up than the first, into a
smaller one, wherein, when she opened the door, I saw a pretty living
picture of two girls at a table, busily engaged with a store of
bottles and herbs and ointments, which were strewn upon it in great
abundance. One of them was a young maid, who was measuring drops into
a phial, with a look so attentive upon it as if that little bottle had
been the circle of her thoughts. She was very fair and slim, and had a
delicate appearance, which minded me of a snow-drop; and indeed, by
what my lady said, she was a floweret which had blossomed amidst the
frosts and cold winds of adversity. By her side was the most gleesome
wench, of not more than eight years, I ever did set eyes on; of a
fatness that at her age was comely, and a face so full of waggery and
saucy mirth, that but to look upon it drove away melancholy. She was
compounding in a cup a store of various liquids, which she said did
cure shrewishness, and said she would pour some into her nurse's
night-draught, to mend her of that disorder.
{367}
"Ah, Nan," she cried, as we entered, "I'll help thee to a taste of
this rare medicine, for methinks thou art somewhat shrewish also and
not so conformable to thy husband's will, my lady, as a good wife
should be. By that same token that my lord willed to take me behind
him on his horse a gay ride round the square, and, forsooth, because I
had not learnt my lesson, thou didst shut me up to die of melancholy.
Ah, me! My mother had a maid called Barbara—
'Sing willow, willow, willow.'
That is one of Phil's favorite songs. Milicent, methinks I will call
thee Barbara, and thou shalt sing with me—
'The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,—
Sing all a green willow;
Her hand on her bosom,'—
There, put thy hand in that fashion—
'her head on her knee,'—
Nay, prithee, thou must bend thy head lower—
'Sing willow, willow, willow.'"
"My lady," said the gentlewoman, smiling, "I promise you I dare not
take upon me to fulfil my tasks with credit to myself or your
ladyship, if Mistress Bess hath the run of this room, and doth prepare
cordials after her fashion from your ladyship's stores."
"Ah, Bess!" quoth my lady, shaking her finger at the saucy one; "I'll
deliver thee up to Mrs. Fawcett, who will give thee a taste of the
place of correction; and Phil is not here to-day to beg thee off. And
now, good Milicent, prithee make a bundle of such clothes as we have
in hand, and such comforts as be suitable to such as are sick and in
prison, for this sweet young lady hath need of them for some who be in
that sad plight."
"And, my lady," quoth the gentlewoman, "I would fain learn how to
dress wounds when the flesh is galled; for I do sometimes meet with
poor men who do suffer in that way, and would relieve them if I
could."
"I know," I cried, "of a rare ointment my mother used to make for that
sort of hurt; and if my Lady Surrey gives me license, I will remember
you, mistress, with the receipt of it."
My lady, with a kindly smile and expressed thanks, assented; and when
we left the closet, I greatly commending the young gentlewoman's
beauty, she said that beauty in her was the worst half of her merit.
"But, Mistress Constance," she said, when we had returned to the
saloon, "I may not send her to such poor men, and above all, priests,
who be in prison for their faith, as I hear, to my great sorrow, there
be so many at this time, and who suffer great hardships, more than can
be easily believed, for she is Protestant, and not through conforming
to the times, but so settled in her way of thinking, and earnest
therein, having been brought up to it, that she would not so much as
open a Catholic book or listen to a word in defence of papists."
"But how, then, doth she serve a Catholic lady?" I asked, with a
beating heart; and oh, with what a sad one did hear her answer, for it
was as follows:
"Dear Constance, I must needs obey those who have a right to command
me, such as his grace my good father and my husband; and they are both
very urgent and resolved that by all means I shall conform to the
times. So I do go to Protestant service; but I use at home my prayers,
as my grandmother did teach me; and Phil says them too, when I can get
him to say any."
"Then you do not hear mass," I said, sorrowfully, "or confess your
sins to a priest?"
"No," she answered, in a sad manner; "I once asked my Lady Lumley, who
is a good Catholic, if she could procure I should see a priest with
that intent at Arundel House; but she turned pale as a sheet, and said
that to get any one to be reconciled who had {368} once conformed to
the Protestant religion, was to run danger of death; and albeit for
her own part she would not refuse to die for so good a cause, she
dared not bring her father's gray hairs to the block."
As we were holding this discourse—and she so intent in speaking, and
I in listening, that we had not heard the door open—Lord Surrey
suddenly stood before us. His height made him more than a boy, and his
face would not allow him a man; for the rest, he was
well-proportioned, and did all things with so notable a grace, that
nature had stamped him with the mark of true nobility. He made a
slight obeisance to me, and I noticed that his cheek was flushed, and
that he grasped the handle of his sword with an anger which took not
away the sweetness of his countenance, but gave it an amiable sort of
fierceness. Then, as if unable to restrain himself, he burst forth,
"Nan, an order is come for his grace to be forthwith removed to the
Tower, and I'll warrant that was the cause he was suffered to see us
yesterday. God send it prove not a final parting!"
"Is his grace gone?" cried the countess, starting to her feet, and
clasping her hands with a sorrowful gesture.
"He goes even now," answered the earl; and both went to the window,
whence they could see the coach in which the duke was for the third
time carried from his home to the last lodging he was to have on this
earth. Oh, what a sorrowful sight it was for those young eyes which
gazed on the sad removal of the sole parent both had left! How her
tears did flow silently like a stream from a deep fount, and his with
wild bursts of grief, like the gushings of a torrent over rocks! His
head fell on her shoulder, and as she threw her arms round him, her
tears wetted his hair. Methought then that in the pensive tenderness
of her downcast face there was somewhat of motherly as well as of
wifely affection. She put her arm in his, and led him from the room;
and I remained alone for a short time entertaining myself with sad
thoughts anent these two young noble creatures, who at so early an age
had become acquainted with so much sorrow, and hoping that the
darkness which did beset the morning of their lives might prove but as
the clouds which at times deface the sky before a brilliant sunshine
doth take possession of it, and dislodge these deceitful harbingers,
which do but heighten in the end by contrast the resplendency they did
threaten to obscure.
[TO BE CONTINUED. Page 482]
{369}
From Temple Bar.
FRENCH COCHIN CHINA.
Between India and the Chinese empire lies the peninsula of Indo-China,
jutting out far into the Indian Ocean. The south-eastern portion of
this peninsula is occupied by the empire of Anam, of which the chief
maritime province is known to Europeans as Cochin China, but to the
natives as Dang-trong, or the outer kingdom. It is in lower Cochin
China that the French have succeeded in recently establishing a
military settlement. In extent these new territorial acquisitions of
our somewhat ambitious neighbors may be compared to Brittany, though
in no other respect can any resemblance be detected. The country is,
in fact, a strictly alluvial formation. Not only is it watered by the
Dong-nai and Saigon rivers, but it also embraces the delta of the
Mekong, at the mouth of which noble stream the Portuguese poet Camoens
was ship-wrecked in the year 1556, swimming to the shore with his left
hand, while in his right he held above the waters his manuscript copy
of the Lusiad. It is almost needless to add that a level plain
spreads far and wide, except quite in the north, and that fevers and
dysentery prevail throughout the greater part of the year. The climate
is certainly not a healthy one for Europeans. The rainy season lasts
from April to December, during which the inhabitants live in a
vapor-bath. The consequence is, that the French soldiers die off with
such frightful rapidity that it has been urgently recommended that
every regiment should be relieved after two years' service. The
authorities, however, have lost no time in improving the sanitary
condition of the new settlement. By means of native labor large tracts
of marsh-land have been drained, and good roads made in lieu of the
shallow tidal canals which previously constituted the sole channels of
traffic and mutual intercourse. Formerly every villager owned a small
boat, in which he moved about from place to place, taking with him his
small merchandise, or conveying home to his family the proceeds of his
marketing. The town of Saigon itself is estimated to contain one
hundred thousand inhabitants. The houses are exceedingly mean, being
constructed either of wood or of palm-leaves fastened together. Though
situated seventy miles inland, Ghia-din, as it is called by the
natives, is a very flourishing port, and exhibits a very active
movement at all seasons of the year. It is frequented by a large
number of Chinese vessels, and is now rising into importance as the
head of the French possessions in the East. So far back, indeed, as
the ninth century Saigon was noted for its muslin manufactures, the
fineness of which was such that an entire dress could be drawn through
the circumference of a signet-ring. Owing to the comparative absence
of noxious insects it is regarded by Europeans as a not altogether
unpleasant residence.
The population of the empire of Anam has been estimated at thirty
millions; but on this point there are not sufficient data to form a
very accurate opinion. But whatever may be their exact number, the
inhabitants are derived from three sources. The Anamites proper—that
is, the Cochin Chinese and the Tonkinese—are of a Chinese origin;
while the people of Camboge are descended from Hindoo ancestors; and
those in the interior—such as the Lao, Moi, and others—claim to be
the sons of the soil, with Malay blood flowing in their veins. Of the
early history of the Anamites few authentic details have reached us,
nor {370} are these of a nature to interest the general reader.
Although from an early date European missionaries appear to have
labored in their self-denying task of converting these disciples of
Buddhism to the purer tenets of Christianity, it was not until the
latter part of the eighteenth century that their influence was
sensibly appreciated. Even then they were indebted to an accident for
the increased importance they have since continued to possess. Fleeing
from a formidable and partially successful insurrection, the only
survivor of the royal family and heir to the throne—afterward the
celebrated Ghia-loung—took refuge in the house of Father Pigneau, a
French missionary of unblemished life and reputation. That worthy man
bravely afforded shelter not only to the fugitive, but also to his
wife, his sister, and his son, and even encouraged him to make a
strenuous effort to recover his rights. Foiled, however, for a time by
the superior forces of the rebels, the prince and his faithful
counsellor were compelled to flee for their lives to a small island in
the Gulf of Siam. Yielding to the advice of the missionary, Ghia-loung
now resolved to despatch an embassy to France, in the hope of
obtaining sufficient assistance to place himself on the throne of his
ancestors. Accordingly, in the year 1787, Father Pigneau, accompanied
by the youthful son of the unfortunate prince, proceeded to
Versailles, and actually prevailed upon Louis XVI. to conclude an
alliance, offensive and defensive, with his royal client. The terms of
this treaty are so far curious that they illustrate the practical and
realistic notion of an "idea" which characterized the old French
monarchy quite as much as it does the second Napoleonic empire.
Convinced of the justice of the Anamite prince's claim to the crown,
and moved by a desire to afford him a signal mark of his friendship,
as well as of his love of justice, his most Christian majesty agreed
to despatch immediately to the coasts of Cochin China a squadron
consisting of four frigates, conveying a land force of 1,200
foot-soldiers, 200 artillerymen, and 250 Caffres, thoroughly equipped
for service, and supported by an efficient field-battery. In return
for—or rather in expectation of receiving—this succor, the king of
Cochin China surrendered the absolute ownership and sovereignty of the
islands of Hoi-nan and Pulo Condor, together with a half-share in the
port of Touron, where the French were authorized to establish whatever
works and factories they might deem requisite for their safety and
commercial advantage. They were further to enjoy the exclusive
privilege of trading with the Cochin Chinese, and of introducing their
merchandise free of all charges and imposts. Neither was any trading
vessel or ship of war to be permitted to enter any port on the Cochin
China coast save only under the French flag. And in the event of his
most Christian majesty becoming involved in hostilities with any other
power, whether Asiatic or European, his faithful ally undertook to fit
out at his own expense both naval and land forces to co-operate with
the French troops anywhere in the Indian seas, but not beyond the
Moluccas or the Straits of Malacca. In consideration of his services
in negotiating this treaty, the ratifications of which were to be
exchanged within twelve months at the latest, Father Pigneau was
raised to the dignity of Bishop of Adran, and appointed ambassador
extraordinary from the court of Versailles to that of Cochin China.
The next step was to select a commander for the projected expedition;
and on the new prelate's urgent solicitation the king consented,
though with marked reluctance, to confer that distinction upon the
Count de Conway, at that time governor of the French establishments in
India. The selection proved an unfortunate one. Bishop Pigneau had
omitted one very important element from his calculation. He had made
no allowance for the disturbing influences of an improper {371}
connection with a "lovely woman." He may even have been ignorant of M.
de Conway's misplaced devotion to Mdme. de Vienne. Be this as it may,
on his arrival at Pondicherry he refused to wait upon that all-potent
lady, and offered her such slights that she became his avowed and
bitter enemy. It was through her, indeed, that the expedition was
never organized, and that the king of Cochin China was left to his own
resources to bring about his restoration. This he at length
accomplished, and in some small degree by the aid of a handful of
volunteers whom the Bishop of Adran had induced to accompany him to
Saigon. A sincere friendship appears to have existed between the
French prelate and the Anamite prince, which terminated only with the
death of the former in the last year of the eighteenth century. But
though Ghia-loung was fully sensible of the advantages to be derived
from maintaining a friendly intercourse with European nations, he was
not blind to the inconveniences likely to arise from allowing the
subjects of a foreign power to form independent settlements within his
dominions. Feeling that his end was at hand, the aged monarch
emphatically warned his son not to allow the French to possess a
single inch of land in his territories; but at the same time advised
him to cultivate amicable relations with that people. His successor
obeyed the paternal counsels only in part. He took care, indeed, to
prevent the French from settling permanently in his country; but he
went very much further, for he actively persecuted the Christian
converts, and exerted himself to the utmost to oppose the introduction
of western ideas and civilization. In the year 1825 Miñ-mâng—for so
was this emperor called—refused even to receive a letter and presents
forwarded by Louis XVIII., and expressed his determination to keep
aloof from all intercourse with European powers.
As Captain de Bougainville was provided neither with instructions how
to act under such circumstances, nor "with a sufficient force to
compel the acceptance of what was declined to be taken with a good
grace"—we quote from M. Leon de Rosny's Tableau de Cochinchine, to
which we are indebted for the matter of this article he formed the
wise resolution of withdrawing from those inhospitable shores. But
before he did so, he succeeded in landing Father Régéreau, a French
priest who had devoted himself to the work of making Christians of the
Anamites, whether they would or not. No sooner did this unwelcome news
reach the ears of the monarch, than it caused an edict to appear
enjoining the mandarins to exercise the utmost vigilance in preventing
the ingress of the teachers of "the perverse religion of the
Europeans," which is described as prejudicial to the rectitude and
right-mindedness of mankind. The doctrine of the missionaries was
further represented, in a petition said to have been inspired by the
emperor himself, as of a nature to corrupt and seduce the common
people by abusing their credulity. They employ, it was said, the fear
of hell and eternal punishment to terrify the timid; while, to attract
individuals of a different temperament, they promise the enjoyment of
heavenly bliss as the reward of virtue. By degrees the ill-feeling
entertained by the emperor toward the missionaries grew in intensity,
until they became the object of his bitter aversion; and as his
subordinates, according to custom, were anxious to recommend
themselves to favor by their demonstrative zeal, it was not long
before "the church of Cochin China was enriched by the crown of
numerous martyrs." The first of these martyrs was the Abbe Gagelin,
who was strangled on the 17th October, 1833; but then his offence was
twofold, for he had not only preached the forbidden doctrines, but, in
contravention of the king's commands, had quitted the town of Dong-nai
to do so. A very naive letter from a missionary named Jacquard
conveyed to the abbe the tidings of his forthcoming martyrdom. "Your
sentence," {372} he wrote, "has been irrevocably pronounced. As soon
as you have undergone the punishment of the cord, your head will be
cut off and sent into the provinces in which you have preached
Christianity. Behold you, then, a martyr! How fortunate you are!" To
this pious effusion the abbe replied in a similar strain: "The news
you announce of my being irrevocably condemned to death penetrates my
very heart's core with joy. No; I do not hesitate to avow it, never
did any news give me so much pleasure."
In the following year another missionary was tortured to death, not
merely as a teacher of the new religion, but because he was found in
the company of some rebels who had seized upon a fort. No other
martyrdom occurred after this until 1837, in which year the Abbé
Cornay was beheaded and quartered, after being imprisoned for three
months; and, in 1838, M. Jacquard himself escaped by strangulation
from the insults and outrages to which he had been for some time
subjected. Nor was it the missionaries alone who shared the fate and
emulated the calm heroism of the early apostles. The native neophytes
were not a whit less zealous to suffer in their Master's cause, and to
bear witness to the truth, in death as in life. The common people
eagerly flocked to behold their execution, not indeed to taunt and
revile the patient victims, but to secure some relic, however trifling
or otherwise disgusting, and to dip their garments in the
still-flowing blood. Pagans and Christians alike yielded to this
superstition or veneration, while the soldiers on duty drove a
lucrative trade in selling to the scrambling crowd fragments of the
dress and person of the yet-quivering martyr. Even the executioners
are reported to have affirmed that at the moment the head was severed
from the body a certain perfume exhaled from the gushing blood, as if
anticipating glorification in heaven. M. de Rosny, however, frankly
admits that Miñ-mâng was chiefly moved by political considerations to
persecute the followers of the new religion, whom he believed to be in
league with his worst enemies, especially after the capture of a
missionary in one of the rebel forts. His policy, whatever may have
been its real springs, was adopted by his son Thieou-tri, one of whose
first public acts was to command the governors of provinces to track
out the Christians to their most secret asylums. These orders were
only too faithfully obeyed. The French missionaries were ferreted out
of their lurking-places, thrown into prison, and otherwise
ill-treated, throughout this reign, which did not terminate before the
end of 1847.
The new monarch, commonly known as Tu-Duk, walked in the footsteps of
his father. An edict was issued almost immediately after his accession
to the throne, commanding that every European missionary found in Anam
should be thrown into the sea with a rope round his neck. And when the
mandarins hesitated to execute such sanguinary orders, a second edict
appeared enjoining that whosoever concealed in his house a propagator
of the Christian faith should be cut in two and thrown into the river.
The fiendish work then began in earnest. The sword of the executioner
was again called into request, and several most estimable men suffered
death on the scaffold. At last even a bishop, Monseigneur Diaz,
experienced the fate of his humbler brethren, on the 20th July, 1857;
and as this prelate happened to be a Spaniard, his death was avenged
by an allied Franco-Spanish expedition, which resulted in the conquest
of Lower Cochin China, and the cession of the provinces of Saigon,
Bien-hoa, and Myt-ho to the French. Let us now see what manner of men
were these Anamites whom the French, failing to convert, were
compelled, by their sense of spiritual duty, to conquer and subjugate.
M. de Rosny shall continue to be our guide.
The people of Anam Proper are evidently of Mongol extraction. Their
complexion is of a dark sallow hue, varying from a dirty white to a
yellowish {373} olive color. In stature they are short, but thickset,
and remarkably active. Their features are by no means beautiful
according to the European idea of beauty. They have short square
noses, prominent cheek-bones, thin lips, an small black eyes—the
eyeball being rather yellow than white. Their teeth, which are
naturally of a pure white, are stained almost black and otherwise
disfigured by the excessive use of betel-nut. Their countenances are
chiefly marked by the breadth and height of the cheek-bones, and are
nearly of the shape of a lozenge. The women are better-looking, and
decidedly more graceful, than the men, even in the lower classes, but
both sexes are particularly cheerful and vivacious. The upper classes,
however, affect the solemn air and grave deportment of the Chinese,
and are consequently much less agreeable to strangers than are the
less-dignified orders. Corpulence is considered a great beauty—a fat
face and a protuberant stomach constituting the ideal of an Adonis.
Both men and women wear their hair long, but gathered up at the back
of the head in a knot. It is never cut save in early youth, when it is
all shaved off with the exception of a small tuft on the top of the
crown. A close-cropped head of hair, indeed, is looked upon as a badge
of infamy, and is one of the distinguishing marks of a convicted
criminal. The beard is allowed to grow naturally, but consists of
little more than a few scattered hairs at the end of the chin; the
upper lip being as scantily furnished. The nails should be very long,
thin, and sharp-pointed, and by the women are usually stained of a red
color.
The Anamites dress themselves in silk or cotton according to their
means; but whatever the material, the form of their garb is always the
same. In addition to wide trousers fastened round the waist by a
silken girdle, they wear a robe descending to the knees, and
occasionally a shorter one over that; both equally opening on the
right side, but closed by five or six buttons. The men's sleeves are
very wide, and so long that they descend considerably lower than the
ends of the fingers. The women, however, who in other respects dress
precisely as do the men, have their sleeves somewhat shorter, in order
to display their metal or pearl bracelets. The under-garment is
generally made of country cotton, but the upper one, as worn by the
higher classes, is invariably of silk or flowered muslin, of Chinese
manufacture. Cotton trousers are often dyed brown, but even the
laboring population make use of silk as much as possible. For mourning
garments cotton alone is employed, white being the funereal color.
Out of doors men and women alike wear varnished straw hats, upward of
two feet in diameter, fastened under the chin, and very useful as a
protection against sun and rain, though somewhat grotesque in
appearance. Within doors the women go bareheaded, not unfrequently
allowing their fine black tresses to hang loose down their backs
almost to the ground. Ear-rings, bracelets, and rings on their fingers
are favorite objects of female vanity; but a modest demeanor is a
thing unknown; a bold, dashing manner being most admired by the men.
They are certainly not good-looking; but their natural gaiety and
liveliness amply compensate for the absence of personal charms.
Old men and persons of distinction alone wear sandals, the people
generally preferring to go barefooted. A pair of silken purses, or
bags, to carry betel, money, and tobacco, may be seen in the hand, or
hanging over the shoulder, of every man and woman not actually
employed in hard labor. They are, for the most part, of blue satin,
and sometimes richly embroidered. Like their neighbors the Chinese,
the Anamites are scrupulous observers of the distinctive insignia of
rank, but pay no regard to personal cleanliness. Notwithstanding their
frequent ablutions, their clothes, their hair, their fingers and
nails, are disgustingly filthy. Even wealthy persons wear dirty cotton
dresses within doors, over which {374} they throw their smart silken
robes when they go out.
Taste is proverbially a matter beyond dispute; but it would be very
hard for any European to agree with an Anamite as to what constituted
a delicacy and what an abomination. A Cochin Chinese epicure delights,
for instance, in rotten eggs, and is especially fond of them after
they have been under a hen for ten or twelve days. From stale fish,
again, he extracts his choicest sauce, and feasts greedily upon meat
in a state of putrefaction. Vermin of all sorts is highly appreciated.
Crocodile's flesh is also greatly prized; though boiled rice and a
little fish fresh,—smoked, or salted—are the ordinary food of the
poor. Among delicacies may be mentioned silk-worms fried in fat, ants
and ants' eggs, bees, insects, swallows'-nests, and a large white worm
found in decayed wood; but no dainty is more dearly relished than a
still-born calf served up whole in its skin and almost raw. In the way
of pastry the women greatly affect beignets made of herbs, sugar,
and clay. Among the rich the dishes are placed on low tables a foot or
two in height, round which the diners seat themselves on the ground in
the attitude of tailors. Forks and spoons are equally unknown, but
chop-sticks are used after the Chinese fashion. The dinner usually
begins, instead of ending, with fruit and pastry. During the meal
nothing liquid is taken, but before sitting down it is customary to
take a gulp or two of strong spirits distilled from fermented rice,
and after dinner several small cups of tea are drunk by those who can
afford to do so. Cold or unadulterated water is thought unwholesome,
and is therefore never taken by itself. Betel-nut mixed with quicklime
is constantly chewed by both men and women, and of late years the use
of opium has partially crept in.
The houses of the Anamites are only one story high, and very low in
the roof. They are, in fact, mere halls, the roof of which is usually
supported on bamboo pillars, on which are pasted strips of
many-colored paper inscribed with Chinese proverbs. The roof slopes
rather sharply, and consists of reed or straw. Neither windows nor
chimneys are seen. The smoke escapes and the light enters by the door.
The walls are made of palm leaves, though rich people often employ
wood for that purpose. In either case they are filthily dirty and
swarm with insects. At the further end of the house is a raised
platform, which serves as a bed for the entire family. The floor is of
earth, not unfrequently traversed by channels hollowed out by the rain
which descends through the roof. In every household one member remains
awake all night, to give the alarm in case of thieves attempting to
come in.
It is usual for the men to marry as soon as they have the means to
purchase a wife. The price of such an article varies, according to
circumstances, from two to ten shillings, though rich people will give
as much as twice or three times that sum for anything out of the
common run. Polygamy is permitted by the laws; but practically it is a
luxury confined to the wealthy, and even with them the first wife
reigns supreme over the household. The privilege of divorce is
reserved exclusively for the husbands, who can put away a disagreeable
partner by breaking in twain a copper coin or a piece of wood, in the
presence of a witness. Parents cannot dispose of their daughters in
marriage without their free consent. Previous to marriage the Cochin
Chinese are perfectly unrestrained; but as chastity is nothing thought
of, this is not a matter of much moment. Infanticide is punished as a
crime, but not so abortion. Adultery is a capital offense. The guilty
woman is trampled to death under the feet of an elephant, while her
lover is strangled or beheaded; but these sentences are frequently
commuted into exile. Wives are not locked up as in Mohammedan
countries, but with that exception they are quite as badly treated,
being altogether at the mercy of their husbands. They are, in truth,
little better than slaves or {375} beasts of burden. It is they who
build the houses, who cultivate the ground, who manufacture the
clothes, who prepare the food, who, in short, do everything. They have
nine lives, say their ungrateful husbands, and can afford to lose one
without being the worse for it. They are described as being less timid
than the men, more intelligent, more gay, and quite ready to adapt
themselves to the manners and customs of their French rulers. The men,
though by no means destitute of strength and courage, are lazy,
indolent, and averse to bodily exercise, and chiefly at home in the
petty intrigues of an almost retail commerce.
Great importance is attached to the funeral ceremonies. The dead are
interred—not burnt, according to the custom of neighboring nations—
and much taste is displayed in their burial-places. There is no more
acceptable present than a coffin, and thus it usually happens that one
is provided years before it can be turned to a proper account. The
deceased is clothed in his choicest apparel, and in his coffin is
placed an abundant supply of whatever he is likely to want in the new
life upon which he has entered through the portals of death. The
obsequies are generally deferred for six months, or for even a whole
year, in order to give more time for the necessary preparations. On
such occasions friends and relatives flock from afar to the "funeral
baked meats;" for a handsome banquet forms an essential part of the
otherwise melancholy details. From twenty to thirty bearers convey the
corpse to its last abode, amid the deafening discord of drums,
cymbals, and tom-toms. The procession moves with slow and measured
step, and on the coffin is placed a shell filled with water, which
enables the master of the ceremonies to ascertain that the coffin is
borne with becoming steadiness. Mourning is worn for twenty-seven
months for a father, mother, or husband; but only twelve months for a
wife. During this period it is forbidden to be present at any
spectacle, to attend any meeting, or to marry. At various intervals
after the interment, offerings of eatables are presented to the dead,
but which are scrupulously consumed by the offerers themselves.
Respect, bordering on reverence, is shown to old age; but then old
people are a rarity, few individuals attaining to half a century.
Sickness of all kinds is rife, including "the whole cohort of fevers."
The want of cleanliness is undoubtedly at the bottom of most of the
complaints from which the natives suffer. The system of medicine most
in vogue is borrowed from the Chinese. Every well-to-do family
maintains its own physician, who physics all its members to their
heart's content. Doctors, however, agree no more in Cochin China than
in any other region of the globe. There are two schools of
medicine—the one employing nothing but stimulants, the other adhering
solely to refrigerants, and both citing in favor of their respective
systems the most astounding and well-nigh miraculous cures.
The rules of politeness and etiquette are distinctly drawn and rigidly
observed. An inferior meeting a superior prostrates himself at full
length upon the ground, and repeats the act again and again according
to the amount of deference he wishes to exhibit. To address one by the
title of great-grand-father is to show the highest possible respect,
while grandfather, father, uncle, and elder brother mark the downward
gradations from that supreme point. There is, in truth, somewhat too
much of veneering visible in all that pertains to the private life and
character of the Anamites. Their moral code, based on the precepts of
Confucius, is irreproachable, but they seldom pause to regulate their
conduct after its wholesome doctrines. Pleasure, indeed, is more
thought of than morality, and gambling is a raging passion with all
classes. Cock-fighting, and even the combats of red-fishes, fill them
with especial delight; and when thoroughly excited they will stake on
any chance their wives and children, and even {376} themselves. Music,
dancing, and theatrical exhibitions are likewise much to their taste,
though the dancers are invariably women hired for the purpose.
The laws and police regulations are for the most part wise and
sensible, but are more frequently neglected than observed. Here, as in
other Asiatic countries, a gift in the hand perverteth the wisdom of
the wise, and thus only the poor and the stingy need suffer for their
sins. For most offences the bastinado is inflicted, but for heinous
crimes capital punishments are enforced. There is a sufficient variety
in the modes of execution. Sometimes the criminal is sentenced to be
strangled; at other time's he is decapitated, or trampled to death by
an elephant, or even hacked to pieces if his crime has been in any way
extraordinary. For minor delinquencies recourse is had to
transportation in irons to a distant province, or to hard labor, such
as cutting grass for the emperor's elephants.
Society is divided into two classes—the people and the mandarins.
Nobility is hereditary, but the son of a mandarin of the first order
ranks only with the second until he has done something to merit
promotion to his father's rank. In like manner the son of a
second-class mandarin belongs to the third rank, and so on to the
lowest grade; and there are nine of these—the highest two sitting in
the imperial council. But the most exalted honors are open to the most
humble. No man is so low born as to despair of becoming one of the
pillars of the empire. The competition system prevails here in its
full vigor. Everything depends upon the passing certain examinations;
but for all that the mandarins are described as oppressors of the
poor, evil advisers of the sovereign, addicted to fraud, given up to
their appetites, wasting their time in sensual and frivolous pursuits,
corrupt and venal in the administration of justice.
The patrimony is distributed equally among all the sons, whether
legitimate or otherwise, except that the eldest receives one-tenth of
the entire property in addition to his own share; in return for which
he is expected to guard the interests of the family, and above all to
look after his sisters, who cannot marry without his consent. The
daughters have no part in the inheritance save in the absence of male
heirs, but in that case they are treated as if they were sons. Through
extreme poverty children are often sold as slaves by their parents. An
insolvent debtor likewise becomes the bondsman of his creditor; and as
the legal rate of interest is thirty per cent., a debt rapidly
accumulates.
An Anamite hour is twice the length of a European one, and the night
is divided into five watches. A year consists of twelve lunar months;
so that every two or three years it becomes necessary to add another
month: in nineteen years there are seventeen of these intercalated
months. The lapse of time is marked by periods of twelve years, five
of which constitute a "grand cycle;" but in historical narratives the
dates are calculated from the accession of the reigning monarch. The
year begins with the month of February. The decimal system of
enumeration is the one adopted by the Cochin Chinese.
The religion of the people is a superstitious Buddhism; that of the
lettered classes a dormant belief in the moral teachings of Confucius.
Whatever temples there are, are of a mean order, and are served by an
ignorant and ill-paid priesthood. The malignant spirits are
propitiated by offerings of burnt paper inscribed with prayers, of
bundles of sweet-scented wood, and of other articles of trifling
value; the good spirits are mostly neglected. Sincere veneration,
however, is shown to the manes of deceased ancestors. The priests take
a vow of celibacy, to which they occasionally adhere. They abstain
entirely from animal food, and affect a yellow or red hue in their
apparel. After death their bodies are burned, and not buried as is the
case with the laity.
{377}
The inhabitants of Cochin China are naturally industrious, and possess
considerable skill as carpenters and upholsterers. They also work in
iron with some success, and display no mean taste in their pottery.
Their cotton and silk manufactures are, however, coarse and greatly
inferior to the Chinese. Their lackered boxes are famous throughout
the world, nor are their filigree ornaments unworthy of admiration.
But though skilful and intelligent as artisans, and abundantly endowed
with the faculty of imitation, they are wretchedly deficient in
imagination, and have no idea of invention. This defect is perhaps of
less consequence now that they have the benefit of receiving their
impulses from the most inventive nation in the world. Without doubt,
their material prosperity will be largely augmented by the French
domination, nor have they anything to lose in moral and social
respects. The conquest of Cochin China may therefore be regarded as an
advantage to the people themselves; but how far it is likely to yield
any profit to the French is altogether another question, and one which
at present we are not called upon to discuss. Sufficient for the day
is the evil thereof.
From The Dublin Review.
CONSALVI'S MEMOIRS.
Memoires du Cardinal Consalvi, Secrétaire d'État du Pape Pie VII.,
avec une Introduction et des Notes. Par J. CRÉTINEAU-JOLY. 2 vols.
8vo. Paris: Plon. 1864.
M. Crétineau-Joly is a Vendéan, and there seems to be in his blood
something of that pugnacious and warlike quality which so
distinguished his forefathers. Each of his former publications betrays
this combative propensity, and the introduction which accompanies
Cardinal Consalvi's Memoirs is worthy of its predecessors. M.
Crétineau-Joly is well known on the continent by his "History of the
Jesuits"—a work containing a considerable amount of valuable
information concerning that celebrated and much maligned order; but,
at the same time, it may be considered in the light of an Armstrong
gun, which batters and reduces to dust the bastions of an enemy.
Indeed, it was ushered forth at the very height of the warfare which
raged against the Church in France, a few years previous to the
downfall of Louis Philippe. In 1858 the same writer produced a
brochure bearing the following title, "The Church versus the
Revolution," another broadside fired against crowned revolutionists,
no less than against the sectarian hordes of a Mazzini and a
Garibaldi. Hardly a year had elapsed when the French emperor invaded
Lombardy, with what result the whole world is aware. So M.
Crétineau-Joly had taken time by the forelock. And now, again, he
comes forth with these highly interesting and authentic memoirs,
written by the cardinal and prime minister of Pius VII. In every
respect they may be proclaimed the most important, if not the most
voluminous, of the editor's publications. No one, at the same time,
will fail to perceive that between the actual situation of the Holy
See and that which marked its history in the eventful years between
1799 and 1811, there underlies a startling similarity. Singularly
enough, the second half of the nineteenth {378} century begins with
the same picture of violence, the same hypocrisy, the same contempt of
right by might, that characterized the dawn of the present age. On the
one side, an all-powerful ruler, intoxicated by success, backed by a
host of servile demagogues, and hardly less servile, though royal
infidels; on the other, a weak old man, backed by a calm, deliberate,
truly Christian genius—both wielding no other weapons but faith,
hope, and charity—both torn from their home and judgment-seat by the
iron hand of revolutionary despotism—and yet both riding triumphant
over the seething waves, whilst the grim corpses of their enemies are
washed to the shore, or startle the traveller as he comes suddenly
upon them in his wanderings through Russian wilds. Ay, there she goes,
that tiny ship of Peter's, with a Pius at her helm; now, as in bygone
days, with an Antonelli as a commander—much about the same man as a
Consalvi.
"Blow fair, thou breeze! She anchors ere the dark.
Already doubled is the cape—our bay
Receives that prow which proudly spurns the spray.
How gloriously her gallant course she goes!
Her white wings flying—never from her foes—
She walks the waters like a thing of life,
And seems to dare the elements to strife."
Setting aside metaphors and poetry, these memoirs are certainly one of
the most remarkable instances of calm self-possession and confidence
in a just cause that are to be met with in any time or country. Here
is a man, and prime minister of a captive sovereign, himself a
prisoner, who undertakes to write the history of the important events
in which he had played a most conspicuous part. He is closely watched,
and consequently obliged to write by fits and starts; he is deprived
of every source of documentary information, and consequently must
trust to his own memory. Will these hasty yet truthful sheets escape
his jailer's eye? He cannot tell. Will he ever recover his liberty, be
restored to his dear master's bosom and confidence? He cannot tell:
but nevertheless the great cardinal—for great he was universally
acknowledged—goes on bringing forth certain facts, known to himself
alone, and which throw more light on the true character of the first
Napoleon than the ponderous and garbled evidence of a Thiers, or even
the more trustworthy pages of M. Artaud, in his "Life of Pius VII."
Indeed, there are few comparisons of higher interest than to open
those two works at the parts which refer to the events narrated in
these memoirs. A labor of this kind, first originating in a spirit of
fair play, soon becomes a labor of love, so strong is the contrast
between the worldly, scheming, truckling, infidel historian of the
first empire, and the unassuming and conscientious, though bold and
resolute cardinal. One may safely say, that M. Thiers would have never
dreamt of bearding the headstrong Bonaparte, as Consalvi did on a
memorable occasion, which reminds us of those legates of old, who
daunted by their steady looks and unruffled patience the burly
violence of a Richard, or unveiled the cunning of a Frederic
Hohenstaufen.
At the very outset of these memoirs, the cardinal gives us their true
and solemn character. His last will, which accompanies them, and may
be considered as a sort of preface, contains the following lines:
"My heir and trustee, as well as those who may hereafter take charge
of my inheritance, are bound to bestow the greatest care on my
personal writings relative to the conclave held at Venice in 1799 and
1800; to the concordat of 1801; to the marriage of the Emperor
Napoleon with the Archduchess Maria Louisa of Austria; and, lastly, to
the papers on different periods of my life and ministry. These five
papers, some of which are nearly finished, and the others in course of
preparation, are not to be published before the death of those eminent
personages who are mentioned therein. In this way many disputes may be
avoided, for, though utterly unfounded, as my own writings rest on
truth alone, still {379} they might injure that very truth, and the
interests of the Holy See, to which I am desirous of leaving the means
of repelling any false attack published hereafter on these matters.
These memoirs on the conclave, the concordat of 1801, the marriage,
and the ministry, belonging more especially to the Holy Sec, and to
the pontifical government, my heir and trustee shall present them to
the reigning pontiff, and beseech the Holy Father to preserve them
carefully within the archives of the Vatican. They may be of use to
the Holy See on many occasions, but more particularly if any future
history be published of the events which form the object of the
present writings, or if it should become necessary to refute any false
statement. In regard to the memoirs concerning the different periods
of my own life, as the extinction of my family will leave behind me no
one directly interested in the following pages, they are to remain in
the hands of my heir and trustee, or in those of the successive
administrators of my fortune; or, again, they may be likewise handed
over to the archives of the Vatican, if they be deemed worthy of
preservation. My only desire is, that in case of the biography of the
cardinals being continued, my heir and executors shall cause these
memoirs to be known, so that nothing may be published contrary to
truth about myself; for I am ambitious of maintaining immaculate my
own reputation—a wish grounded on the prescriptions of Scripture. As
for the truth of the facts brought forward in my writings, I may make
bold to say, Deus scit quia non mentior."
Cardinal Consalvi was born at Rome, of a noble family, in 1757, and
was the eldest of five children, two of whom died at an early age. His
father bore the title of marquess, and his mother, the Marchioness
Claudia Carandini, was of Modenese origin.
The family itself, on the father's side, had sprung up in Tuscany at
Pisa, though not under the same name; but emigrated about a century
and a half ago to the Roman States, where it expanded, and gradually
grew into political, or rather ecclesiastical importance. Consalvi's
forefathers still, however, held in Tuscany some property, to which he
would have been entitled had he felt disposed to dispute the equity of
certain Leopoldine laws concerning trustees. But, with characteristic
disinterestedness the future cardinal never gave the matter a second
thought.
"I never felt (says he) a passion for riches; beside, my resources,
though far from opulent, were sufficient for a modest way of living,
thanks to the income arising out of the different offices which I held
successively. And thus being lifted, by Divine Providence, above
vanity and ambition, I never was tempted to prove that I was descended
from the Brunaccis and not from the Consalvis, whenever envy or
ignorance represented me as belonging to a stock unblessed with old
nobility. It would have been an easy matter to dispel these
imputations or errors. Being fully convinced that the best nobility
springs from the heart and from good deeds; knowing, likewise, that I
was a genuine Brunacci and not a Consalvi, I despised all such rumors.
… Nor did I alter my views when the high position which I
afterward attained afforded so many opportunities for putting an end
to those idle reports."
In the above passage we have already the whole man. During his long
and chequered life he never once exposed himself to the charge of
making his own fortune out of the numerous and even honorable
occasions which would have tempted a less exalted soul. It would be
useless to follow the young Consalvi through his course of studies,
which were brilliant, and partly gone through under the eye of
Cardinal York, the last of a fated race, who entertained for the
future minister an affectionate friendship that never cooled until his
death.
Hercules Consalvi had hardly finished his academical curriculum at
{380} Rome when he was called to the prelature, in 1783, as reporter
to the tribunal of the Curia. His talents and deep knowledge, though
so young, in canon and civil law, soon made him conspicuous among his
competitors. In 1786, the Pope Pius VI. appointed him Ponente del
buono govemo, a board, or congregation, charged with giving its
opinion on all municipal questions. This promotion was due to his
merit, but the cardinal himself confesses that it was a tardy one, not
on account of any neglect on the part of the pontifical government,
but merely because he did not avail himself of favorable
opportunities. "On the one hand," observes he, "my own disposition
never inclined to ask for favor, and still less to court the patronage
of those placed in high positions; whilst, on the other hand, I had
before my eyes, in such respects, the fine example of my own guardian,
the Cardinal Negroni. … He was wont to say, 'We never ought to ask
for anything; we must never flatter to obtain preferment; but manage
in such a way as to overcome every obstacle, through a most punctual
fulfilment of our duties, and the enjoyment of a sound reputation.' To
this piece of advice I strictly adhered through life." To those who
are so prone to malign the pomp and splendor of the Roman prelature,
it will be a matter of surprise to learn that at this very time the
only benefice conferred upon Consalvi amounted to the paltry stipend
of £12 a year.
The Pope, however, who seems to have been an excellent judge of true
merit, soon placed the young prelate at the head of the hospital of
San Michele, the largest and most important in Rome. The establishment
required a thorough reform; and Consalvi soon worked wonders, being
led on by his own innate ardor, and by a strong predilection for the
management of charitable institutions. But he had hardly realized his
intended labor of reformation, when he was superseded by another
prelate. Pius VI., in fact, did not wish Consalvi to wear out his
energies in the routine of administrative bureaucracy. The incident
which led to his promotion is so truly characteristic of both
personages, that we cannot refrain from a copious quotation:
"The sudden death of one of the votanti di segnatura, or Supreme
Court of Cassation, made a vacancy in that court. All my friends
engaged me not to lose a moment in applying for it. I did not yield
to their entreaties, nor, indeed, did the Pope allow me time for
that purpose. The above death had taken place on Maunday Thursday.
The very next morning, though it was Good Friday, and the sacred
services of the day were about to be solemnized; though all the
public offices were closed, according to custom, the Pope sent to
the Secretary of State an order to forward my immediate appointment
as votanti di segnatura. As soon as it arrived, I hastened to the
Pope to thank him. His Holiness was not in the habit of receiving
any one merely for the sake of hearing expressions of gratitude;
still less did I expect to be introduced on such a day, when the
Pope, after attending at the holy function, had retired to his
apartments, with a view of coming back for Tenebra, and was in
the very act of reciting Complin, which was to be followed by his
dinner.
"On learning that I was in the antechamber, where he had previously
given orders that I should not be sent away in case I should come,
he admitted me at once. After finishing Complin in my presence, he
addressed me so kindly that I shall remember his words as long as I
live. 'My dear Monsignor,' said he, 'you are well aware that we
receive no one merely to hear thanksgivings; and yet we have gone
against our usual custom, notwithstanding this busy day, and though
our dinner has just been served up, in order that we may have the
pleasure of making you the present communication. If you were not
included in the last promotion, it was {381} because we were obliged
to hand over to another the post really destined to yourself; and in
doing so we felt as much aggrieved as we are now delighted to offer
you immediately the vacant charge of votanti di segnatura. We do
it to show you the satisfaction which you afford us by your conduct,
We took you away from an administrative station merely to place you
on higher ground.'
"The Holy Father then added a few words concerning the opinion which
his kindness, and by no means my own merit, suggested to him
relatively to my future career. Indeed, the knowledge which I have
of myself would not allow me to transcribe those words. He then
continued as follows: 'What we now bestow upon you is really not
worth much, but I have nothing else for the present. Take it,
however, as a positive pledge of what I am disposed to do as soon as
an opportunity offers.'
"It is easy to understand that after such a speech, uttered in that
easy, affable, and yet majestic manner so peculiar to Pius VI., I
was at a loss for expressions to answer him. I could hardly stammer
out, that after the language he had just used about my
promotion—language showing that I had not incurred his disapproval
by my conduct at San Michele—my mind was quite at ease as to the
future. Indeed, I had no other ambition but to please him, and to
fulfil my duty in any station he might think fit to confer upon me.
"Here I was interrupted. 'I am satisfied—nay, highly
satisfied'—said the Pope, 'by your behavior at San Michele; but I
again say that I destine you to other purposes. What I promised
formerly was sincere, but still it was but empty words. This is
something matter of fact; not much, indeed, but yet better than
words. So don't refuse it; and now be off, for, you see, our dinner
is getting cold, and we must soon go back to chapel.'"
It would be doubtless congenial to our feelings to dwell upon these
touching details; but we are already in the year 1790, and the knell
of the old French monarchy is tolling. Let us plunge, therefore, at
once in medias res, and skip over the eight intervening years
between the time which saw Rome invaded by a revolutionary army, the
Pope torn from his throne, and led a prisoner, first to Florence, then
to Valence, where he was to die a martyr. On reading this part of the
memoirs, one is particularly struck with the similarity which it
presents with the history of Piedmontese invasion—the same hypocrisy,
the same attempts at provoking to insurrection the inhabitants at
Rome, and, these failing, the same recourse to violence. The
accidental death of General Duphot at last appears in its true colors,
but of course it supplied the Directory with a pretence for seizing
the Papal States, an act of spoliation it had been long preparing.
[Footnote 77] Thanks to the energy of Consalvi, to whom had been
entrusted the maintenance of public order, previous to the entry of
the French troops into the capital, no insurrection took place; but
for that very reason he was obnoxious to the government of the
invaders. After the Pope's departure he was thrown into prison, with
the prospect of being transported, together with many Roman
ecclesiastical and pontifical officers, to the fatal colony of
Cayenne. {382} To the honor of the French commander it must be said,
that he did all in his power to defend the energetic prelate against
his contemptible enemies, and to alleviate his captivity. The Paris
Directory had first banished him to Civita Vecchia, and then altered
his destination to Naples. But the Roman demagogues were determined
upon wreaking their vengeance on Consalvi:
"I had been detained (says he) about four or five and twenty days,
when I was visited in my prison by my dear brother Andrea, as well as
by my two friends, the Princes Chigi and Teano. This piece of good
fortune I owed to the kind commander of the fortress. They informed me
that they were bearers of both good and bad news. I was at last to be
transported, not, indeed, to Tuscany, but to Naples, so that I might
not join the Pope. At the same time, it had been ordained that I was
to ride through the streets of the city mounted on an ass, escorted by
policemen, and lashed all along with a horsewhip. Many a window under
which I was to pass by was already hired; and our Jacobins, as well as
the wives of our consuls, promised themselves much pleasure at the
sight of this execution. My friends were quite amazed at my
indifference on receiving this last piece of news, which, indeed,
caused me but little pain; for I really considered it rather as a
source of triumph and glory. On the contrary, I was deeply vexed at
not being able to proceed to Tuscany, where I was so desirous of
meeting the Pope."
The humanity of the French general prevented the Roman demagogues from
carrying into execution the latter part of the sentence; but he
remained inflexible as to Consalvi's removal to Naples. The latter
had, therefore, but to obey; and started for his destination, in
company with a band of eighteen convicts, and several political
prisoners like himself. After many difficulties, arising out of
Acton's tortuous policy, he succeeded at length in reaching Leghorn,
where he had to encounter obstacles of a different nature. His very
first step was to proceed to Florence, in hopes that the Duke of
Tuscany would facilitate his access to the captive Pontiff, who was
detained in a neighboring Carthusian monastery. But the jealous
watchfulness of the French plenipotentiary struck terror into the
heart of the Tuscan minister, who peremptorily refused to have
anything to do with the matter. Consalvi was not, however, to be
daunted when on the path of duty; he consequently set out on foot for
the Chartreuse, situated at about three miles from Florence, and
contrived his visit so secretly that he baffled detection. On
approaching the foot of the hill, the faithful servant could hardly
repress his emotions. But let us hear him in his own words:
"Every step which brought me nearer to the Holy Father increased the
strong feelings that welled up from my soul. The poverty and
solitude of the place, the sight of the two or three unfortunates
who attended him, brought tears to my eyes. At last I was introduced
into his presence. O God! what were my emotions at that moment; my
heart throbbed almost to breaking!
"Pius VI. was seated before a table, a posture which concealed his
weakness, for he had almost lost the use of his legs, and he could
not move without the help of two strong men. The beauty and majesty
of his features were still the same as at Rome; he still inspired a
deep veneration and a most ardent attachment. I fell prostrate at
his feet, which I bathed with my tears; I told him the difficulties
I had to encounter, and how ardently I desired to remain with him,
in order to serve him, assist him—in fact, share his fate. I
promised not to spare any effort for the furtherance of this
object."
A full hour quickly fled in thus communing with each other, and
Consalvi was obliged to take his leave. The aged Pope foresaw that
this prop of {383} his declining and martyred life would not be
allowed him; but still he clung fondly to the idea, and when his
faithful adherent, on a second and last visit, admitted that he had
failed in every endeavor to gain his end, and had even been ordered
out of the country, Pius evinced a strong feeling of regret, though no
surprise. This farewell visit is related in terms no less touching
than the former:
"During this audience, which lasted also a full hour, he bestowed
upon me the greatest marks of kindness, exhorting me successively to
practise resignation, wisdom, and those acts of firmness of which
his own life and his whole demeanor set such a fine example. He
appeared to me quite as great, and even far greater, than when he
reigned at Rome. I besought him to give me his blessing. He laid his
hands on my head, and, like the most venerable among the patriarchs
of old, raising his eyes toward heaven, he prayed unto the Lord, and
blessed me, with an attitude so resigned, so august, so holy, so
full of real tenderness, that to the last day of my life the
remembrance will remain graven on my heart in indelible characters.
"When I retired, my eyes were swimming with tears; I was beside
myself with grief; and yet I felt both encouraged and re-assured by
the inexpressible calmness of my sovereign, and the sweet serenity
of his features. It was indeed the greatness of a good man
struggling against misfortune."
Four-and-twenty hours afterward, Consalvi was obliged to leave
Florence for Venice; the Pope was hurried through Alpine snows to
Valence, in Dauphine, where he died of his sufferings on the 29th of
August, 1799.
And what a time for the election of a new pope! Italy overrun by the
French revolutionary armies, Rome in their possession, and ruled by a
horde of incendiary demagogues; the Russians, headed by Suwarow,
pouring into the Peninsula to oppose the French; whilst Austria,
governed by a Thugut, was watching her opportunity to get hold of the
new Pope—if there should be a Pope—and make him the pliant tool of her
ambition. Nor let us forget that Bonaparte was on his way back from
Egypt, preparing to swoop down, eagle-like, on those very Austrian
possessions wherein the conclave was to meet. And yet the conclave did
meet at Venice, on an island of that famous republic, which had so
often defied the bans and interdicts of the Roman pontiffs;—the
cardinals hurried from their neighboring cities or secret abodes,
though with views and intentions not perhaps exactly in accordance
with the solemnity and urgency of the occasion. It is, indeed, a
curious picture of human passions, though blended with higher motives
and purposes,—that truthful memoir drawn up by Consalvi on the
conclave of 1800, wherein he was unanimously elected secretary to the
assembly. The election lasted more than three long months, on account
of the two contending factions, headed by Cardinal Herzan, on the part
of Austria, and by the celebrated Maury, then Bishop of Montefiascone
in the Papal States. Consalvi, notwithstanding his wonted moderation,
boldly proclaims these divisions to have been scandalous in such
circumstances, and animadverts severely on the intrigues of the
imperial court. And yet he cannot help observing that, on such
occasions, the Sacred College seem led on, little by little, as it
were, by some higher power, to sacrifice their own private views and
interests to the common weal of Christendom. So it was, indeed, in the
present juncture, thanks to the extraordinary ability, to the
self-renouncement, prudence, and true Catholic spirit displayed
throughout by the youthful secretary. The votes were gradually won
over to Cardinal Chiaramonti, so well known afterward by the name of
Pius VII. Consalvi had truly displayed a master-mind; and the new
pontiff immediately showed how highly he appreciated his merit, by
appointing him Secretary of State. We can easily believe the surprise
and {384} alarm of the new minister; for doubtless his was no easy
task. The Austrians possessed nearly all the Papal States, whilst the
King of Naples held Rome itself. The court of Vienna, intent upon
keeping at least the three legations, which had recently been wrested
from the French, offered at the same time to restore to the Pope the
remaining parts of his dominions. To such a proposal the latter could
but oppose a flat denial, accompanied by a firm resolution to return
to Rome without delay. The imperial negotiator, Ghislieri, then
reduced his demands to the two legations of Bologna and Ferrara; but
he met with no better success. The spoliation of the Holy See, as the
reader may now perceive, is after all an old story. The Pope, indeed,
went so far as to write to the emperor a letter, in which he formally
demanded the restitution of all his provinces. No notice whatsoever
was taken of the Papal missive. At last, utterly worn out by Austrian
duplicity, Pius one day addressed Ghislieri in the following terms:
"Since the emperor refuses obstinately a restitution, which both
religion and equity require, I really do not see what new argument I
can produce to convince him. Let his majesty take care, however, not
to lay by in his wardrobe any clothes belonging, not to himself, but
to the Church. For not only will his majesty be unable to wear them,
but most probably they will pester with the grub his own hereditary
dominions, which may be worm-eaten in a short time."
The Marquess Ghislieri hurried out of the Papal presence in a rage,
which found vent when he met Consalvi. "The new Pope," he exclaimed,
"has hardly donned his own clothes; he is not yet accustomed to his
own craft, and he talks of the Austrian wardrobe being worm-eaten! He
knows but little of our power; it would require thousands of moths to
nibble it to dust." Two months after, the battle of Marengo had been
fought and won: the legations, Lombardy, Venetia, the hereditary
German states, the capital itself, had fallen a prey to the Corsican
conqueror! Pius VII. had scarcely set his foot on the shore of his own
dominions when the news of the famous defeat arrived: "Ah!" exclaimed
Ghislieri, a religious man, after all, "I now see fulfilled the Pope's
prediction: our wardrobe has truly been worm-eaten to tatters."
Pius VII. had but just returned to Rome, in the midst of a delighted
and grateful population, when he received the astounding news that the
conqueror of the Austrians was desirous of negotiating with the Holy
See for the restoration of religion in France. Whilst at Vercelli,
Bonaparte had met with Cardinal Martiniana, who was returning from the
conclave at Venice; and he expressed himself so clearly, so pointedly,
as to his future plans, that both Consalvi and the Pope were taken by
surprise. Their approbation was immediately given, and the Pope
himself wrote to Martiniana: "You may tell the First Consul that we
will readily enter into a negotiation tending to an object so truly
honorable, so congenial to our apostolical administration, and so
thoroughly conformable to our own views."
The history of this celebrated treaty, on which so much hangs in
France even in our own time, has been often related, and yet many a
detail of the intricate negotiations which preceded its conclusion had
remained secret until the publication of the present memoirs. Three
personages stand out in strong relief on that occasion, each with his
individual character: Cacault, the French ambassador at Rome,
Bonaparte, and Consalvi himself. Of the second, little need be said;
but M. Cacault is, we believe, hardly known in England. He was a
Breton by birth, and, as such, had imbibed those religious feelings
which stamp so strongly the most western province of France. As a
republican representative of the Directory, he did all in his power to
avert from the Papal See those evils and that invasion which {385}
ended in the captivity of Pius VI. When Napoleon's star was in the
ascendant, M. Cacault quickly discovered the depth and extent of his
genius, and thenceforward abetted his plans. At the same time, he was
by no means a flatterer, but ever plain-spoken to bluntness. A time
came, indeed, when the greatest conqueror of modern times found the
noble-hearted Breton rather too sincere, and consigned him to the
peaceful life of a seat in his new-fangled senate. But that day was
yet to come. In 1801, M. Cacault enjoyed the whole confidence of the
First Consul.
On leaving Bonaparte, the ambassador heard him utter those famous
words, which have been so often quoted: "Mind you treat the Pope as if
he had 200,000 men at his back. Remember, also, that in October, 1796,
I wrote to you how much I wished to save the Holy See, not to
overthrow it, and that both you and I entertained the same feelings in
this respect." With credentials like these, M. Cacault should have
found it an easy matter to negotiate with Rome; but, singularly
enough, the conservative government of Austria threw many an obstacle
in the way. The very idea of a reconciliation between revolutionary
France and the Papacy seems to have disquieted M. de Thugut, and he
did all in his power to breed a feeling of distrust, on the part of
Rome at least. The court of Naples was animated by the same policy;
and even Bonaparte himself, at one time, appeared to waver between the
impulse of his own good sense and the suggestions of his infidel
advisers. In the eyes of M. Cacault, the Pope stood too much on
theological tenets and opinions, when dealing with a victorious
adventurer. At any rate, matters soon grew from bad to worse. In a fit
of impatience, the consul ordered his ambassador to leave Rome in five
days, if the concordat sent from Paris was not signed at the
expiration of that short time.
At this critical juncture, the Breton came to a determination so truly
characteristic of the man, that we must allow him to speak for
himself. We borrow the following narrative from his secretary, M.
Artaud:
"We are bound to obey our government," said he, addressing himself to
me; "but then a government must be guided by a head capable of
understanding negotiations, by ministers capable of advising him
properly, and lastly, all must agree together. Every government ought
to have a plan, a will, an aim of its own. But this is no easy matter
with a new government. Now, though in a secondary station, I am really
master of this business; but if we go on in Rome as they are going on
in Paris, nothing can come out of it but a sort of chaos. … It is
fully understood that the head of the state wished for a concordat; he
wished for it so far back as Tolentino, and even before, when he
called himself the best friend of the Pope.… In fact, he has sent
me here to negotiate a concordat, and for that purpose has given me in
yourself the prop I myself desired. But then his ministers probably
don't wish for a concordat, and they have constant access to his ear.
Now the character most easy to irritate and to deceive, is that of a
warrior, who as yet understands nothing about politics, and is ever
returning to military orders and to the sword.… Shall we, like two
fools, leave Rome in this way because the despatch orders us to do so,
and give up France to irreligiosity—a word no less barbarous than
the thing itself? Shall we leave her to a sort of spurious
Catholicism, or that hybrid system which advises the establishment of
a patriarch? God knows, then, that the future destinies of the First
Consul will probably never be fulfilled.…
"I am fond of Bonaparte, fond of the general; but this patch-work name
of a First Consul is in itself ridiculous; he borrowed it from Rome,
where he has never set his foot. But in my eyes he is still nothing
more than an {386} Italian general. As for the fate of this terrible
general, it is now in my hands more than in his own; he is turning
into a sort of Henry the Eighth, flattering and scaring the Holy See
by turns; but how many sources of true glory will be dried up for him,
if he merely mimics Henry the Eighth! The measure is full; nations
now-a-days will not allow their rulers to dispose of them in regard to
religious matters. With concordats, on the contrary, miracles may be
wrought, more especially by him, or if not by him, supposing him to be
unwise, by France herself. Be sure, my dear sir, that great deeds
brought about at the proper moment, and bearing fruitful results, no
matter by what genius they are accomplished, are a wealthy dowry for
any country. In case of embarrassments, that country may ward off many
an attack by pointing to its history. France, with all her faults,
requires true grandeur. Our consul jeopardizes all by this pistol-shot
fired in time of peace, merely for the sake of pleasing his generals
whom he loves, but whose soldierlike jokes he fears, because he
himself now and then gives way to them. He thus breaks off a
negotiation which he wishes to succeed, and goes on casting rotten
seed. What can really be a religious concordat, that most solemn of
all human undertakings, if it is to be signed in five days? It reminds
one of the twelve hours granted by a general to a besieged town, which
can hope for no succor."
The result of the above conversation on the part of M. Cacault was a
determination to quit Rome, but to leave his secretary in that city,
whilst Consalvi himself was to set out immediately for Paris, as the
only means of preventing a positive rupture between the two courts,
for Bonaparte had already both a court and courtiers. The French
minister was by no means blind to the consequences of his boldness in
undertaking to correct the false steps of his own government; but, to
his credit be it said, the fear of those consequences did not make him
swerve one minute from his purpose. His very first step was,
therefore, to request an interview with Consalvi, and an audience from
the Pope. On meeting the cardinal, he began by reading in extenso
the angry despatch which he had received, not even omitting the
epithets "turbulent and guilty priest" which the Consul applied to
his eminence. M. Cacault then resumed as follows:
"There must be some misunderstanding; the First Consul is
unacquainted with your person, and still more with your talents,
your ability, your precedents, your adroitness, and your anxiety to
terminate this business. So you must start for Paris." "When?"
"To-morrow: you will please him; you are fit to understand each
other; he will then learn to know a statesmanlike cardinal, and you
will draw up the concordat together. But if you don't go to Paris, I
shall be obliged to break off all intercourse with you; and there
are yonder certain ministers, who advised the Directory to transport
Pius VI. to Guyana.…
"I again repeat it, you must go to Paris, you will draw up the
concordat yourself—nay more, you will dictate a part of it,
obtaining at the same time far better conditions than I could ever
do, fettered as I am by so many shackles.… One word more: In a
place like this, where there is so much gossipping, I can't allow
you to bear alone the responsibility of this action. I consider it
as something truly grand; but as it may turn out a false step,
to-morrow I must see the Pope, and take the whole upon my shoulders.
I shall not bore the Pope, having but a few words to tell him, in
order to fulfil the Consul's former instructions."
Consalvi, fired at the boldness of the plan, hurried to the Pope,
rather to prepare him for this unforeseen separation than to ask for
permission. When, on the other hand, the French diplomatist was
admitted to his presence, {387} he showed so much candor, such a true
spirit of Christian feeling, such a total forgetfulness of self, that
the pontiff could not refrain from shedding tears, and ended by
breaking out into these words: "Indeed, indeed, you are a true friend,
and we love you as we loved our own mother. At this very moment, we
will retire to our oratory, in order to implore God's blessing on this
journey, as well as for the successful issue of an undertaking, which
may afford us some consolation in the midst of so much affliction."
It was indeed a bereavement for the Pope, who, having hardly ascended
the throne, was accustomed to consider Consalvi as his main prop and
right hand in every affair of any importance. He, however, readily
consented to the separation, and on the following day the cardinal
left Rome, accompanied by M. Cacault, in an open carriage, to show the
gossipping Romans that no real coolness existed between the two
governments. This, in fact, strengthened the hands of the Papal
administration, as reports were already rife that a French army was
about to march once more into Rome, with a view of restoring the
republic.
At the distance of more than half a century Consalvi's determination
scarcely seems an act of daring; but, at that period, it was
considered in a different light. We must remember that France had been
for ten long years the scene of anarchy and bloodshed within, while
she had proved the terror of Europe on the field of battle. She was
but just emerging from that anarchy, thanks to the iron grasp of a
fortunate soldier, who might yet, for aught the world knew, turn out
to be a bloody tyrant quite as well as a sagacious ruler. For a
priest, and still more for a cardinal, to venture alone of his own
accord into the lair of those beasts of prey, as they were then
termed, certainly showed an extraordinary degree of moral courage,
however M. Thiers may taunt Consalvi with his fears. Those fears the
Papal minister did really entertain, as is proved by a few unwary
lines which he addressed before his departure to Acton at Naples, and
which were betrayed to Bonaparte in Paris. But then the cardinal,
prompted by a strong feeling of duty, overcame these apprehensions,
which is more perhaps than M. Thiers would vouch to have done on a
similar occasion, if we may judge from the infidel spirit and
intriguing disposition that are conspicuous alike throughout his own
career and writings. Success, not principle, ever appears to be his
leading star.
Once in Paris, Consalvi was not long in conquering that position which
the keenness of his friend Cacault foresaw that he was destined to
assume. Bonaparte approved in every respect the conduct of his
ambassador at Rome, appeared even flattered at being feared, at first
received the cardinal with affected coolness, but little by little
yielded to better feelings, and ended by turning into ridicule "that
fool Acton, who thought that he could stop the rush of a torrent with
cobwebs." To these friendly dispositions soon succeeded on both sides
a sincere confidence, and on one occasion the First Consul laughingly
inquired of Consalvi whether he was not considered as a priest-eater
in Italy; and then suddenly launched into one of those splendid
expositions of his future plans, by which he endeavored to fascinate
and charm those he aimed at winning over to his own views. In this
sparkling conversation the concordat held a foremost place. Napoleon
developed, just as he pleased, opinions half Protestant, half
Jansenist—in other words, exactly what he wanted the concordat to be,
and exactly what Consalvi could not allow. The contest between those
two rival spirits may well detain us a few moments longer. And why not
say at once that by degrees the master-genius of the age was obliged
to modify his own views, yielding, nolens volens, as he himself
admitted, to the graceful bearing and sound good sense of the man
whose countrymen had named him the Roman Syren?
{388}
We may gather from M. Thiers' work that Consalvi had undertaken a most
arduous task. Paris itself must have offered a strange sight to a
Roman cardinal in the very first year of the present century. The
churches were still shut, and bore upon their porches such
inscriptions as savored more of heathenism than of Christianity.
Wherever the legate's eye fell he was sure to meet with a temple of
plenty, of fraternity, of liberty, of trade, of abundance, and so
forth. And then when he went to court he found a ruler disposed to
break out into the most violent fits of anger if his will was
disputed, whilst on every hand he had to encounter a host of scoffers
and infidels, belonging to every hue and grade. The army, the bench,
the schools, the savants, and the very clergy, all vied in showing off
Rome as the hotbed of an obsolete superstition which it was high time
to do away with altogether. And when we mention the clergy, we mean
the remains of that schismatic body which had hailed the civil
constitution so formally condemned by the Holy See in 1791. They were
active, intriguing, influential, and had the ear of Bonaparte himself.
He was intent upon distributing among them a portion of the new sees
about to be erected, and it required all the firmness of Consalvi to
ward off this impending danger. If we may believe M. Thiers, many
among them were by no means of dissolute lives; yet he cannot disguise
the fact that they were ambitious, servile, and disposed to bend to
every caprice of the ruling power. But that power was fully aware that
the French population had no confidence whatever in their
ministrations; the non-jurors, or priests who had unflinchingly
remained faithful to their duty, were, on the contrary, sought out and
held in high esteem. In this strange society the functions of
Catholicism and the rites of our religion were openly resumed by
believers, who attended them in back streets, in by-ways, in dark
warehouses, whither some aged priest repaired at dawn, after escaping
but shortly before from the dungeons of the Directory or the scaffolds
of the Revolutionary Committee. The writer of these lines has known
more than one man who was baptized at that period in a miserable
garret by some ecclesiastic disguised as a common laborer, before the
eyes of his parents, though without any sponsors, for fear of
detection. That such men should turn round in the streets of Paris and
stare with wonder at the sight of a cardinal publicly making for the
Tuileries in one of the Consul's carriages is by no means surprising;
but the fact increases our admiration for the two eminent statesmen
who both cast such a firm glance into the depths of futurity.
Consalvi had only been a few hours in Paris when he was summoned
before the First Consul, who sent him word that "he was to show off as
much of a cardinal as possible." The able diplomatist was, however,
not in the least disposed to "show off," and contented himself with
wearing the indispensable insignia of his dignity. It will be well to
remember that, at the time we are speaking of, no priest would have
ventured to put on the clerical costume in the French capital. This
first audience took place in public, in the midst of all the high
functionaries of the state. On the cardinal approaching, Bonaparte
rose and said abruptly: "I am aware of the object of your journey to
France. My will is, that the conferences shall begin immediately. I
give you five days for the purpose, and tell you beforehand that, if
on the fifth day the negotiations have not come to a conclusion, you
may return to Rome; for, within my own mind, I have come to a
determination should such an event take place."
"By sending his prime minister to Paris (replied coolly the cardinal)
His Holiness proves at any rate the interest he takes in the
conclusion of a concordat with the French government, and I fully hope
to terminate this business in the time you have marked." {389}
Apparently satisfied with this answer, Bonaparte immediately broke
forth into one of those eloquent displays for which he was
remarkable—the concordat, the Holy See, the interests of religion,
the articles which had been rejected by the Pope, all became, on his
part, the subject of a most vehement and exhaustive speech, which was
silently listened to by the surrounding audience.
One of the most amusing and almost ludicrous instances of the Consul's
ignorance in regard to religious matters took place on this occasion.
He bore a bitter hatred to the Jesuits, and was constantly harping on
the subject. "I am quite astounded and scandalized (said he all of a
sudden) that the Pope should be allied to a non-Catholic power like
Russia, as is evident by the restoration of the Jesuits in that
country. Such a union ought surely to wound and irritate a Catholic
sovereign, since it contributes to please a schismatical monarch."
"I must answer candidly (resumed the cardinal) that your informations
are incorrect on this matter. Doubtless the Pope has deemed it
advisable not to refuse the request of the Russian emperor for the
restoration of the Jesuits in his own states, but, at the same time,
His Holiness has shown no less fatherly affection and deference for
the King of Spain, since an interval of several months has elapsed
between Paul's request and the bull, which was not sent before the
court of Spain had expressly stated that it would in no way complain
of the act."
When Bonaparte had fixed such a short term for the conclusion of the
concordat, he fully intended that not a single jot of his own plan
should be rejected by Rome. That plan, as we have already observed,
was half schismatic, and would have bound over the French Church to
the supreme will and power of the ruling government. But Consalvi
showed himself equally firm as to essentials, whilst he gracefully
yielded to every demand of minor importance. As to the wisdom of this
conduct, the present circumstances bear ample testimony; for, had the
cardinal been less firm, what might not be in 1865 the painful
situation of the French episcopacy? But the negotiations, instead of
ending in five days, were prolonged for more than three weeks, during
which the Abbé Bernier, who represented his government, was constantly
starting new difficulties, and threatening Consalvi with some new
outbreak of violence on the part of the First Consul.
At last, toward the middle of July, every difficulty being overcome,
and Bonaparte having formally promised to accept every article of the
concordat as it had been agreed to at Rome, nothing remained but to
copy and sign that famous treaty. The First Consul was to give a grand
dinner on the 14th of July to foreigners of distinction, and to men of
high standing in the country. His intention was to inform publicly his
guests of this happy event, and on the 13th the Moniteur published
the following laconic piece of news: "Cardinal Consalvi has succeeded
in the object which brought him to Paris." Bonaparte had selected his
brother Joseph, a councillor of state, and Bernier to sign the deed,
whilst on the other side were Consalvi, Monsignor Spina, and a
theologian named Father Caselli. But at the last moment there occurred
one of the most astounding incidents contained in the history of
diplomacy. As it has never been mentioned in any memoirs or documents
of those times, we cannot do better than let the cardinal relate it in
his own words:
"Toward four o'clock in the afternoon, Bernier arrived with a roll of
paper, which he did not unfold, but stated to be a copy of the
concordat that we were about to sign. We took our own with us, and set
out all together for the house of citizen Joseph, as was the slang of
the day, the brother to the First Consul. He received me with the
utmost politeness. Though he had been ambassador at Rome, I had not
been introduced to him, being yet but {390} a prelate. During the few
days I passed in Paris, I had not met him on a formal visit which I
paid him, for he often resided in the country. This was, therefore,
the first time we saw each other. After the usual compliments, he bade
us to sit down round a table, adding: 'We shall have soon done, having
but to sign the compact, as all is concluded.'
"On being seated round the table, the question arose who should sign
first. Joseph Bonaparte claimed the right as brother to the head of
the government. I observed with great mildness and firmness, that both
as a cardinal and a legate of the Holy See, I could not consent to
assume the second rank in signing; beside, under the old régime in
France, as well as everywhere else, the cardinals enjoyed a right of
precedence, which I could not give up, not indeed from any personal
motive, but on account of the dignity with which I was invested. It is
but due to Joseph to state, that after a momentary hesitation, he
yielded with very good grace, and begged of me to sign first. He
himself was to come after, followed by the prelate Spina, Councillor
Cretet, Father Caselli, and the Abbé Bernier.
"We set to work at once, and I had taken up the pen, when to my great
surprise the Abbé Bernier presented to me his copy, with the view of
making me sign it without examining its contents. On casting my eyes
upon it in order to ascertain its identity with my own copy, I
perceived that this ecclesiastical treaty was not the one agreed to by
the respective commissioners, not the one adopted by the First Consul
himself, but another totally different! The difference existing at the
very first outset induced me to examine the whole with the most
scrupulous attention, and I soon found out that this copy contained
the draught which the Pope had refused to accept without his
correction, the very refusal that had provoked an order to the French
agent to leave Rome; nay more, that this self-same draught was
modified in many respects by the insertion of certain clauses,
previously declared to be inacceptable even before it had been sent to
Rome.
"A proceeding of this character, so truly incredible, and yet so real,
which I shall not venture to qualify—for the fact speaks sufficiently
for itself—a proceeding of this kind literally paralyzed my hand. I
expressed my astonishment, declaring positively that on no condition
could I give my approval to such a deed. The First Consul's brother
did not appear less surprised than myself, pretending not to
understand the matter. The First Consul, he added, had assured him
that, everything being agreed to, nothing remained but to sign. As for
himself, he had just come up from the country, where he was busy with
Count Cobenzel about the affairs of Austria, being called upon merely
for the formality of signing the treaty. Concerning the matter itself,
he absolutely knew nothing about it."
Cardinal Consalvi, even when writing the above lines, does not seem to
doubt Joseph's sincerity, nor that of Councillor Cretet, who affirmed
his own innocence in terms equally strong. The latter could hardly
believe his own eyes, when the legate pointed out to him the glaring
discrepancies between both copies. The Pope's minister then turning
suddenly to Bernier: "Nobody better than yourself," said he, "can
attest the truth of what I affirm; I am highly astonished at the
studied silence which you maintain, and I must therefore call upon you
positively to communicate to us what you must know so pertinently."
"Then, with an air of confusion and an embarrassed countenance, he
faltered out that doubtless my language was but too true, and that he
would not deny the difference of the documents now proposed for our
signatures. 'But the First Consul has so ordained,' continued he,
'telling me that as long as no signature has been given, one is always
at liberty to make any alteration. So he requires these alterations,
{391} after duly considering the whole matter, he is not satisfied
with the previous stipulations.'"
The doctrine was so contrary to all precedents, that Consalvi had no
difficulty in convincing his auditors of its futility. He moreover
maintained his ground steadfastly, and refused to make any further
concession contrary to his duties. They cajoled him, they threatened
him with the violence and "fury" of the omnipotent Consul; he remained
unshaken. Joseph entreated him at least to go over the same ground
once more, following the Papal copy, and to this the cardinal
consented, firmly resolved not to give up one single point of
importance, but to modify such expressions as might induce Bonaparte
to accept the original treaty. So these six men sat down again at five
o'clock in the afternoon to discuss the whole question. The discussion
was laborious, precise, searching, and heated on both sides. It lasted
nineteen long hours, without interruption, without rest, without food,
without even sending away the servants or the carriages, as will often
happen when people hope to conclude at every minute some important
business. On one article alone they could never agree, and it was
specially reserved to the Pope's own decision. It was twelve o'clock
the next day before they came to a conclusion. But would the First
Consul adopt this plan? Would he not break all bounds, on finding his
duplicity discovered, and himself balked by the cardinal's firmness?
Joseph hurried to the Tuileries, in order to lay the whole before his
imperious brother, and in less than one hour came back, his features
evidently showing the grief of his soul. Says Consalvi:
"He told us that the First Consul had broken forth into the greatest
fury on being apprised of what had taken place. In his fit of anger he
had torn to pieces the concordat we had drawn up among us; but at
last, yielding to Joseph's entreaties and arguments, he had promised,
though with the most extreme repugnance, to accept every article we
had agreed to, except the one we had reserved, and about which he was
no less inflexible than irritated. The First Consul, added Joseph, had
closed the interview by telling him to inform me that he (Bonaparte)
was decided upon maintaining this article as it was expressed in
Bernier's copy:—consequently I had but two ways before me: either to
adopt this article just as it was in the concordat, or to give up the
negotiations. As for him, he had made up his mind to announce either
the signature or the rupture of the affair at the grand dinner he was
to give on that day.
"The reader will easily imagine our consternation at this message. We
had yet three hours until five o'clock, the time appointed for the
dinner, at which we were all to attend. I really am unable to repeat
all the Consul's brother and the two other commissioners said, to
conquer my resistance. The picture of the consequences likely to ensue
upon the rupture was indeed of the darkest color; they gave me to
understand that I alone should become responsible for those evils in
the face of France and Europe, as well as to my own sovereign and
Rome. I should be accused of an unreasonable stiffness, and of having
brought on the results of such a refusal. I felt a death-like anguish,
on conjuring up before my eyes the realization of these prophecies,
and I was—if I may be allowed such words—like unto the man of
sorrow. But my duty won the victory: thanks to heaven, I did not
betray it. I persisted in my refusal during the two hours of this
contest, and the negotiation was broken off.
"Such was the ending of this sad debate, which had lasted
four-and-twenty hours, having begun at four o'clock on the preceding
day, and closed toward the same hour of this unfortunate one. Our
bodily sufferings were doubtless very great, but they were nothing
when compared to our moral anxiety, which rose to such a pitch that
one must really have undergone {392} such tortures to form an idea of
them.
"I was condemned—and this was indeed a most cruel circumstance at
such a moment—to appear in an hour after at the famous banquet. I was
bound to front in public the very first shock of that headstrong anger
which the General Bonaparte would feel on being apprised by his
brother of the rupture.
"We hastened back to our hotel, in order to make a few rapid
preparations, and then hurried all three to the Tuileries. We had
hardly entered the saloon where the First Consul was standing—a
saloon filled with a crowd of magistrates, officers, state grandees,
ministers, ambassadors, and illustrious foreigners, who had been
invited to the dinner—when we were greeted in a way which may easily
be imagined, as he had already seen his brother. As soon as he
perceived me, he exclaimed, his face flushed with anger, and in a loud
and indignant tone:
"'Well, Monsieur le Cardinal, you have had your fling; you have broken
off: be it so! I don't stand in need of Rome. I will act for myself. I
don't stand in need of the Pope. If Henry the Eighth, who had not
one-twentieth part of my power, was enabled to change the religion of
his country, and to succeed in his plans, far better shall I know how
to do it, and to will it. By changing the religion in France, I shall
change it throughout the best part of Europe—everywhere, in fact,
where my power is felt. Rome will soon perceive her own faults; she
will rue them, but it will then be too late. You may take your leave;
it is the best thing you can do. You have willed a rupture: be it so!
When do you intend setting out?'
"'After dinner, general,' replied I, with the greatest calmness.
"These few words acted as an electric shock on the First Consul. He
stared at me for a few minutes; and, taking advantage of his surprise,
I replied to his vehement outbreak, that I neither could nor would go
beyond my instructions on matters which were positively opposed to the
maxims of the Holy See."
Here the Consul interrupted Consalvi, though in a milder tone, to tell
him that he insisted upon having the concordat signed according to his
own views, or not at all. "Well, then," retorted the cardinal, "in
that form I neither shall nor will ever subscribe to it; no—never."
"And that is the very reason," cried out Bonaparte, "why I tell you
that you are bent upon breaking off, and why Rome will shed tears of
blood on this rupture."
What a scene! and how finely the bold, calm demeanor of the Pope's
legate shows in strong relief against that dark, passionate, and
ominous, though intelligent face of Napoleon Bonaparte! What a
splendid subject for a painter, and how it calls up at once to our
mind those barbaric chieftains of old, fit enough to wield the
sword—fit enough even to lay the snares of a savage, but unable to
cope with the spiritual strength of a Christian bishop, and utterly
cowed by the meek sedateness of some missionary monk, just wafted over
from the shores of Ireland! Write the seventh, or the thirteenth,
instead of the nineteenth century, and say if the incident would be
clothed in different colors; for, in fact, what was Bonaparte himself
but the Hohenstaufen of his age—a strange mixture of real grandeur,
of seething passions, and of mean, crafty, fox-like cunning?
The French editor of these memoirs very justly observes that some
vestige of the above scene must still exist in the documents of the
Imperial archives, and expresses the wish that the charge of duplicity
so terribly brought home to the first Bonaparte may be properly sifted
and repelled. Of the existence of such information we have scarcely
any doubt, but we hardly believe that the select committee, headed by
Prince Napoleon, who have already so unscrupulously tampered with
{393} the correspondence of the great founder of the present dynasty,
will ever rebut the accusation, or even take notice of the narrative.
And yet it bears the stamp of truth in every line, so prone was
Napoleon to those fits of anger, which he sometimes used, Thiers
himself admits it, as tools for his policy, and to serve his end.
After all, the First Consul was glad to escape from the consequences
of his own violence, since, on the personal interference of the
Austrian ambassador, he again consented that the conferences should be
renewed. The two cardinal points on which, in the eyes of Rome, the
whole fabric of the concordat rested, were the freedom and publicity
of the Catholic worship. Without these two essential conditions, the
Pope and his ministers deemed that the Church obtained no compensation
for the numerous sacrifices which she consented to undergo in other
respects. The French government, on the contrary, admitted that
freedom and publicity, only so far as they were allowed to other forms
of worship, and saddled the article with the following rider: "The
public worship shall be free, as long as it conforms to the police
regulations." Such was the final difficulty against which Consalvi
maintained a most obstinate opposition, and it must be admitted that
his grounds were of a very serious nature. Taught by the experience of
other times and countries, he considered the obnoxious condition as a
bold attempt to enslave the Church by subjecting her to the secular
power. On the flimsy pretext of acting as the protector and defender
of the Church, a government was enabled to lord it over her, and
cripple her best endeavors for the fulfilment of her divine mission.
If such had been the case, even under the old French monarchy,
notwithstanding the strong Catholic dispositions of the Bourbon
sovereigns in general, as well as in the times of a Joseph II. and a
Leopold of Tuscany, what greater changes were to be feared on the part
of the revolutionary powers, which now swayed over France? The
cardinal readily admitted that, in the present state of the country,
it might be proper for the government to restrict on certain occasions
the publicity of the Catholic worship, for the very sake of protecting
its followers against the outbreaks of popular frenzy; but why lay
down such a sweeping and such an elastic rule? "With a clause of this
kind," said the legate, "the police, or rather the government, will be
enabled to lay their hands on everything, and may subject all to their
own will and discretion, whilst the Church, constantly fettered by the
words, 'As long as it conforms,' will have no right even to complain."
To these arguments the Consul constantly replied, "Well, if the Pope
can't accept such an indefinite and mild restriction, let him omit the
article, and give up publicity of worship altogether." As a curious
specimen of sincerity and candor, we must observe that Consalvi was
not even allowed to consult with his own court, nor to send a courier,
the French government refusing to supply him with the necessary
passports. So much for the international privileges of ambassadors.
Who can be astonished that the Papal minister should feel but little
confidence in the good faith of those he had to deal with?
Their attitude, indeed, seems to have strengthened his own unbending
firmness. In the course of these everlasting debates, he clenched the
subject in the following terms: "Either you are sincere in maintaining
that the government is obliged to impose a restriction upon the
publicity of the religious worship, being impelled thereunto by the
necessity of upholding the public peace and order, and in that case
the government cannot and ought not to hesitate as to asserting the
fact in the article itself; or the government does not wish it to be
so expressed; and in that case they show their bad faith, as also that
the only object of the aforesaid restriction is {394} the enslavement
of the Church to their own will."
The commissioners found nothing to reply to this dilemma; for, in
fact, Consalvi only asked that the reserve itself should be laid down
as a temporary restriction. At last they yielded, despairing of ever
overcoming, on this subject, their unflinching and powerful
antagonist. The concordat, duly signed and authenticated, was sent up
for approval to the First Consul, who, after another fit of anger,
gave his consent; but, as Consalvi himself presumes, from that hour he
resolved to annul the intrinsic and most beneficial effects of the
concordat by those celebrated organic articles which are even at this
moment a bone of contention between the French clergy and the Imperial
government.
It is, indeed, a most remarkable fact that the same man who
imperiously prescribed that the concordat should be drawn up and
signed in the course of five days, allowed a full year to elapse
before he published it and sent the official ratifications to Rome.
When he did fulfil these formalities, he coupled them with the
promulgation of those famous laws which, in reality, tended to cut off
all free communication between the Holy See and the Gallican clergy,
and to spread throughout Europe the false belief that the Pope himself
had concurred in the adoption of these obnoxious measures. In vain did
Pius VII. protest against them—in vain, at a later period, was he
induced to crown the emperor in Paris, in hopes of obtaining the
fulfilment of his own promises. Napoleon turned a deaf ear to the most
touching importunities. On considering the whole of his conduct, it is
hardly possible to refrain from concluding that Bonaparte ever looked
upon the Pope's supremacy and power as an appendage and satellite of
his own paramount omnipotence. Viewed by this light, many of his acts
in latter years will appear at least consistent, though by no means
justifiable on any principle whatsoever. Is there not often a certain
consistency in madness? And if so in ordinary life, why not in the
freaks and starts of despotism? And again, is not despotism itself
madness in disguise?
But why indulge in our own speculations and surmises, when we have
before us positive evidence that in 1801, as well as ten years
afterward, Napoleon entertained and maintained a plan for arrogating
to himself both the spiritual and temporal power? The examples set by
Henry VIII., Albert of Brandenburg, and Peter I. of Russia, were ever
before his eyes, blinding his own innate good sense, and exerting a
sort of ominous fascination over his best impulses. The reader has
doubtless heard of, if not perused, those wonderful pages in which the
fallen giant whiled away his tedious hours at St. Helena, pretending
to write his own history, but in reality veiling truth under fiction,
and endeavoring to palm upon the world certain far-fetched views of
benevolence or civilization, which he never dreamt of whilst he was on
the throne. Still, that strange Memorial of St. Helena often
contains many a startling proof of candor, as if the mask suddenly
fell, and revealed to our astonished gaze the inner man. Among such
passages, none perhaps are so remarkable as those referring to the
concordat and to the religious difficulties of later years. One day
Napoleon dictated to General Montholon these lines, which so strongly
justify Consalvi's fears and opposition:
"When I seized the helm, I already held the most precise and definite
ideas on all those principles which cement together the social body. I
fully weighed the importance of religion—on that head I was
convinced—and had resolved to restore it. But one can hardly realize
the difficulties I had to contend with when about to bring back
Catholicism. I should have been readily supported had I unfurled the
Protestant standard. This feeling went so far that, in the {395}
council of state, where I met with the strongest opposition against
the concordat, many a man tacitly determined to plot its destruction.
'Well,' used they to say, 'let us turn Protestants at once, and then
we may wash our hands of the business.' It is, indeed, quite true
that, in the midst of so much confusion and so many errors, I was at
liberty to choose between Catholicism and Protestantism; and still
truer that everything favored the latter. But, beside my own personal
bias inclining toward my national religion, I had most weighty reasons
to decide otherwise. I should thus have created in France two great
parties of equal strength, though I was determined to do away with
every party whatsoever; I should have conjured up all the frenzy of
religious warfare, whilst the enlightenment of the age and my own will
aimed at crushing it altogether. By their mutual strife these two
parties would have torn France asunder, and made her a slave to
Europe, whilst my ambition was to make her its mistress. Through
Catholicism I was far surer of attaining all my great objects. At
home, the majority absorbed the minority, which I was disposed to
treat with so much equity that any difference between both would soon
disappear; abroad, Catholicism kept me on good terms with the Pope.
Beside, thanks to my own influence and to our forces in Italy, I did
not despair, sooner or later, by some means or other, to obtain the
direction and guidance of the Pope; and then what a new source of
influence! what a lever to act upon public opinion, and to govern the
world!"
A few moments after the emperor resumed:
"Francis I. had a capital opportunity to embrace Protestantism, and to
become its acknowledged head throughout Europe. His rival, Charles V.,
resolutely sided with Rome, because he considered this the best way to
subject Europe. This alone should have induced Francis to defend
European independence. Instead of that, he left a reality to run after
a shadow, following up his pitiful quarrels in Italy, allying himself
with the Pope, and burning the reformers in Paris.
"Had Francis I. embraced Lutheranism, which is so favorable to the
royal supremacy, he would have spared France those dreadful
convulsions which were afterward brought on by the Calvinists, whose
republican organization was so near ruining both the throne and our
fine monarchy. Unfortunately, Francis was unable to understand
anything of the kind. As to his scruples, they are quite out of the
question, since this self-same man made an alliance with the Turks,
whom he introduced among us. Oh, those stupid times! Oh, that feudal
intellect! After all, Francis I. was but a tilting king—a
drawing-room dandy—a would-be giant, but a real pigmy."
It is scarce necessary to add, that at the time Napoleon is speaking
of he was an unbeliever, though a lurking respect for his national
religion still lingered at the bottom of his heart. But then, how
fully does he admit that religion was but a tool of his ambition! How
openly does he confess his plan to get hold of the Pope by some means
or other! How glaringly true must now appear in our eyes that
narrative of Consalvi's in which he exposes the mean trick that
Napoleon endeavored to play upon his vigilance! Lastly, how faithfully
does the emperor adhere to the plans secretly laid within the dark
mind of the First Consul! For, as if to leave no doubt as to the
fulfilment of those plans, he related to Montholon the most minute
details of what took place during the Pope's captivity at
Fontainebleau:
"The English," said Napoleon, "plotted an escape for him from Savona;
the very thing I could have wished for. I had him brought to
Fontainebleau, where his misfortunes were to end, and his splendor to
be restored. All my grand views had been thus fulfilled under disguise
and in secrecy. I had so managed that {396} success was infallible,
even without an effort. Indeed, the Pope adopted the famous concordat
of Fontainebleau, notwithstanding my reverses in Russia. But how far
different had I returned triumphant and victorious! So at last I had
obtained the long-wished-for separation of the spiritual and temporal
powers; whilst their confusion is so fatal to the former, by causing
trouble and disorder within society in the name of him who ought to
become a centre of union and harmony. Henceforward I intended to place
the Pope on a pinnacle; we would not even have regretted his temporal
power, for I would have made an idol of him, and he would have dwelt
close to me. Paris should have become the capital of the Christian
world, and I would have governed the spiritual as well as the
political world. By this means I should have been enabled to
strengthen the federative portions of the empire, and to maintain
peace in such parts as were beyond its limits. I should have had my
religious sessions, just the same as my legislative sessions: my
councils would have represented, all Christendom, and the popes would
have merely acted as their presidents. I should myself have opened
their assemblies, approved and promulgated their decrees, as was the
case under Constantine and Charlemagne. In fact, if the emperors lost
this kind of supremacy, it was because they allowed the spiritual
ruler to reside at a distance from them; and those rulers took
advantage of this act of weakness, or this result of the times, to
escape from the prince's government, and even to overrule it."
What words of ours could add to the bold significance of these? How
the proud spirit of the despot towers even within his prison! and how
little had he profited by the bitter lessons of experience! Never
before, do we believe, since the advent of Christianity, did any king
or conqueror profess such a barefaced contempt for the deepest
feelings of a Christian soul—the freedom of his spiritual being!
This pretended liberation from the court of Rome, this religious
government concentrated within the hands of the sovereign, became,
indeed, at one time, the constant object of Napoleon's thoughts and
meditations:
"England, Russia, Sweden, a large part of Germany (was he wont to
say), are in possession of it; Venice and Naples enjoyed it in former
times. Indeed, there is no doing without it, for otherwise a nation is
ever and anon wounded in its peace, in its dignity, in its
independence. But then such an undertaking is most arduous; at every
attempt I was beset with new dangers; and, once thoroughly embarked in
it, the nation would have abandoned me. More than once I tried to
awaken public opinion; but all was in vain, and I was obliged to
acknowledge that the people would not follow me."
On reading these last words, who will not remember Cacault's apothegm,
uttered in 1801: "Nations now-a-days will not allow their rulers to
dispose of them in regard to religious matters."
We hope that the reader will not accuse us of prolixity for having
related rather fully the negotiations which proceeded the concordat of
1801. Hitherto the main facts of this important event have been
gleaned from French sources of information. No voice had been raised,
we believe, on the part of Rome, and no one, it must be admitted, had
a better right to speak of that celebrated treaty than the man who
contributed so largely, so exclusively, we might almost say, to its
final adoption. And then, throughout the whole of his simple and
unpretending, yet clear and spirited memoirs, the great cardinal reads
us a grand lesson, which may be felt and understood by every human
soul. During the perusal of these two volumes, we have ever before our
eyes the struggle of right against might, of duty against tyranny, of
a true Christian soul against the truckling, shuffling, intriguing
spirit of the world. Ever {397} and anon, this able, firm, and yet
amiable diplomatist allows some expression to escape him which shows
that his heart and soul are elsewhere, that his beacon is on high, and
that he views everything and all things in this nether world from the
light of the gospel. And this, perhaps, is the very reason why,
throughout a long career of such numerous difficulties and dangers, he
moved serene, undaunted, unblemished in his honor, proclaimed wisest
amongst the wise, until kings, princes, warriors, and statesmen,
Protestants and Catholics, counted his friendship and esteem of
priceless value.
From Once a Week.
HYMN BY MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.
O Domine Deus, speravi in te!
O care mi Jesu, nunc libera me!
In dura catena, in misera pcena,
Desidero te;
Languendo, gemendo et genuflectendo,
Adoro, imploro, ut liberes me!
(TRANSLATION.)
O Lord, O my God, I have hoped but in thee;
Jesu, my dearest, now liberate me:
In hard chains, in fierce pains,
I am longing for thee:
Languishing, groaning and bending the knee,
I adore, I implore thou wouldst liberate me!
ASTLEY H. BALDWIN.
{398}
From The Lamp.
MANY YEARS AGO AT UPFIELD.
In the last decade of the last century, Upfield was a very healthy,
pretty, prosperous town in Suffolk. Its centre was a green;
undulating, irregular, and from four to five acres in area. Round it
were laborers' cottages, a forge, the inn, the veterinary surgeon's
house, the doctor's, the vicarage, and the Grey House, each with land
proportioned to its character. A little, very little way off, was the
church; belonging anciently to a Carthusian monastery, of which some
ruins still existed; and beyond that, but within a quarter of a mile
of Upfield, was Edward's Hall, the fine baronial residence of the
Scharderlowes, who had owned it since the reign of Henry IV., and
never forsaken the Catholic faith. Upfield was eloquent about the
past, as well as actually charming. The church, early English, was
little injured exteriorly. Inside it reminded one of a nun compelled
to wear a masquerade dress. The beautiful arches and lofty roof had
defied time and the vulgar rage of vicious fanaticism; so had the
pavement, rich in slabs imploring humbly prayers for the repose of the
dead who lay under it; but devotion and taste mourned over the changed
use of the sacred building, and the characteristics thereof; for
instance, a singing-gallery in the western end, with the royal arms
done in red and gilded plaster, fastened to it; high deal pews for the
mass of the congregation, and the squire's praying-made-comfortable
one within the carved oak screen in the south transept, where had been
the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament.
The Grey House was low, rambling, picturesque; the beau-ideal of a
happy, hospitable old English home. It had been built by instalments,
at distant intervals; and had derived its name from a Lord Grey, of
Codnoure, who had formerly possessed lands in the neighborhood. At the
time whence this story starts, it had been for a hundred years or more
in the family of the Wickhams, who claimed to be descended
collaterally from William of Wykeham—whether they were or not, had
never been discussed, and therefore never formally established; nor
did any one in the neighborhood, except Mr. Scharderlowe and his
family, know that a former Wickham had bartered his religion for a
wealthy Protestant wife, and allowed her to bring up their children in
her own way. In January, 1790, George Wickham, the head of the family,
died at the Grey House, of inflammation of the lungs, in his
forty-second year, and no one was ever more regretted. A
kinder-hearted man had never breathed. His attachments had been warm
and numerous; he had helped every one whom he could help, been
peculiarly gentle to the poor and his dependents, hated nothing but
wickedness, and believed in that only when it was impossible to be
blind to it. "Poor dear Mr. Wickham," said Mrs. Scharderlowe, when her
husband told her the news; "I'm heartily sorry. I always thought he
would become a Catholic—he was so liberal in all his feelings; only
the last time we met, conversation taking that turn—I forget why—he
said it was too bad that we could not worship God as we pleased,
without suffering for it; and that he was ashamed of Englishmen who
forgot that their noblest laws were made, and their most glorious
victories won, in Catholic times. What a loss he will be to Upfield
and his family!" "Yes," returned her husband, "that poor pretty little
widow is about as helpless and ignorant of the world as possible; she
never had occasion to think of anything but how to make {399} home
happy, which I believe she did; they were a particularly united
family. I hope he made a will; but I think it is likely he did not;
his illness was short and painful, and previously to it no one ever
had a fairer prospect of long life than he had."
Mr. Wickham's funeral was talked of in Upfield and the neighborhood
many years afterward. Mr. Scharderlowe sent his carriage; the county
member, and persons of every class, attended. The clergyman from an
adjacent parish, who had been requested to perform the burial-service,
because the vicar, Mr. Wickham's nephew, felt unequal to it, burst
into tears, and had to pause some minutes to recover himself. The
widow fainted; and her eldest son Robert, a youth in his nineteenth
year, tried to jump into the vault when his father's coffin was
lowered.
There was a will, made during Mr. Wickham's last illness, and the
vicar was sole executor and trustee, with a legacy of £500. There was
ample provision for the younger children; and Robert was, when of age,
to succeed to a brewery, which his father had started many years
previously, and which was the most lucrative in the county. He was to
learn its management from James Deane, the confidential clerk, whose
salary was to be raised, and to whom £100 was left in token of Mr.
Wickham's appreciation of his services. The Grey House, and everything
in it, with £200 a year, was to be Mrs. Wickham's, and at her disposal
at death.
The brewery was half a mile from Upfield; Mr. Wickham had built it
where it would not injure the prospect, and Deane had a pretty cottage
attached to it, where he, a widower, lived with his sister and only
child, a daughter. He was a Catholic, son of a former steward of Mr.
Scharderlowe's, and extremely attached to Mr. Wickham, who had taken
him when a boy into the brewery, and advanced him steadily. He was a
well-principled, intelligent man, who had improved himself by taking
lessons in geography, grammar, and algebra, as the opportunities
offered; and he was, from his position, well-known in the
neighborhood. He told his sister that he feared that Mr. Wickham's
death was only the beginning of trouble for his family; for he
distrusted Mr. William, the vicar. "It isn't that he's a dishonorable
man, Lizzy; but it isn't likely that a crack shot, a bold rider after
the hounds, a gentleman who is as fond of a ball as anyone, and who
takes no trouble about his own affairs, will do justice to a dead
man's, though I don't doubt he means it now."
"But what harm can he do, James?"
"Why, he can ruin the younger children. Everything except the brewery
and what is left to Mrs. Wickham is as much in his power as it was in
his uncle's. I doubt if the poor dear gentleman wouldn't have arranged
differently if he'd had longer time: it's an awful lesson to be always
prepared for death; I'm sure I thought Mr. Wickham might live to be a
hundred. No doubt pain and sorrow confused his mind, and anyhow it was
natural that he should trust his own relations."
"He had better have trusted you, James."
"That was not to be expected, Lizzy, and I mightn't have been fit for
it. There's plenty on my hands. It is a large, increasing business,
and I have to teach it to Mr. Robert; and one can't tell how he'll
take to it; I've been afraid he would be unsteady, but he has taken
his father's death to heart uncommonly, and I hope he'll try to be as
good a man."
About this time people had begun to remark that Polly Deane, then in
her fifteenth year, was growing up a remarkably pretty girl; she was
an old established pet of the Wickhams; her mother had been the
daughter of a tenant, and so great a favorite that when she married
Deane, the wedding was celebrated at the Grey House. When, two years
later, she was dying of fever, Mr. and Mrs. Wickham promised to watch
over her child. All that {400} they undertook they carried out
generously, and Polly lived as much with them as with Aunt Lizzie, who
did her part toward her well—loving her fondly, keeping her fresh,
healthy, and merry, checking her quick temper, teaching her her
prayers, and taking her often to Mr. Scharderlowe's, to get his
chaplain's—Father Armand's—blessing; and when she was old enough,
to mass and the sacraments. The fact of the Wickhams having no
daughter increased their tenderness for her, and her father was
delighted and flattered by Mrs. Wickham's watchfulness over her dress
and manner, and Mr. Wickham's care for her education; it was the best
that could be had in Upfield, and good enough to make her as charming
as she need be. She did plain sewing extremely well, and some quaint
embroidery of hideous designs in wool and floss silks; she had worked
a cat in tent-stitch, and a parrot of unknown species in cross; her
sampler was believed to be the finest in the county; she could read
aloud very pleasantly, spell wonderfully, write a clear, stiff hand,
which one might decipher without glasses at eighty; she could not have
gone up for honors in grammar, but she talked very prettily; she had
never had occasion to write a letter; as to geography, she believed
that the world was round, for her father and Mr. Wickham said so, and
she had heard that Captain Cook had been round it; but only that she
was ashamed, she would have liked to ask some one how it could be, and
how it was found out; it was such a contradiction of observation, if
only because of the sea; she had never seen the sea, but she believed
in it, and could understand water remaining on level ground; there was
the horse-pond, for instance, but that thousands of miles of roaring,
angry, deep water should hold on to a round world was too much for
her. You could not puzzle her in the multiplication table, but she did
not take kindly to weights and measures. She had learned no history,
her father could not get a Catholic to teach her, and would trust no
one else, but she had picked up a few facts and notions; for instance,
she had heard of Alfred the Great and his lanterns; of St. Edward the
Confessor, and that he made good laws; of King Charles I., and those
wicked men—she fancied Guy Fawkes was one of them—had cut his head
off; when he lived she was not sure, and she hoped Mr. Wickham would
never ask her, for she should not like to say that she did not know,
and she was sometimes afraid that he would when he talked of Carlo's
being a King Charles spaniel. It was puzzling, because she remembered
Carlo a puppy, and she was sure that the king's name had been George
ever since she was born. She had an exquisite ear for music, and a
voice of great promise. Mr. Wickham was passionately fond of music,
and therefore, appreciating peculiarly this talent of Polly's, had
engaged a good master from the county-town to teach her to play on the
piano. She had profited well by his instructions, and only a few days
before Mr. Wickham was taken ill, she had played the accompaniment
when he sang "From the white-blossomed thorn my dear Chloe requested,"
"O lady fair," and "Oh life is a river, and man is the boat;" and he
had patted her head and kissed her, and asked her for the "Slow
movement in Artaxerxes" and "The harmonious Blacksmith," and—she was
so glad—she had played them without one mistake. Of course she
danced, and made cakes and pastry, beauty-washes, elder-wine, and
various preserves and salves; knitted her father's stockings and her
aunt's mittens, and read a romance whenever she could get one, but
that was very rarely.
The vicar made, at any rate, a good start, fulfilling his uncle's
instructions exactly; apprenticed his second son, Alfred, to the
College of Surgeons—that was the most liberal way in those days of
entering the medical profession—and placed him {401} to board with an
old family friend, an opulent practitioner. The third son was articled
to an eminent attorney; the others were sent to school. The void made
by the death of those even most important and most fondly loved is
soon filled up externally; how otherwise could justice be done to the
living? The widow acquiesced in the separation from her children; it
was her husband's plan, and for their advantage. She was sure she
could not long survive him; she might even be sinful enough to wish to
die, but for her sons' sakes, she was so utterly lonely. They loved
her truly, the darlings; but they could not understand her, never
would, unless—which God in his great mercy forbid—they ever came to
suffer as she suffered. To lose such a husband! so manly, yet so
tender and thoughtful. She had always looked forward to his nursing
her in her last illness, and receiving her last breath. He would have
grieved for her truly, she was sure of that; but he could have borne
it better; he would have been of more use to the boys. Thus she mused
often, weeping plentifully; but she never denied that she had many
consolations. No one could have suited her better than Polly, and she
was never more than a day or two absent from her. They were alike in
character—simple, self-sacrificing, and affectionate in an uncommon
degree. Polly's caresses seldom failed to arouse her; the gentle girl
felt how much more she could have done had Mrs. Wickham been
accessible to the comfort in which her own, the dear old faith,
abounded; and prayed daily that it might soon be hers, and did her
best. She never attempted direct consolation, but interested the
mourner in some trifle, or coaxed her into conversation or employment.
Sometimes she really could not arrange some obstinate flowers;
sometimes her work was all wrong, and no one but Mrs. Wickham could
show her how to put it right, and Mary Hodge's baby ought to have the
garment that evening. Once, when all her ingenuity failed, she was
actually delighted by Betty's running in with her darling kitten, wet
to the skin, just saved out of the water-butt; Mrs. Wickham dried her
eyes, and pitied it, and watched Polly wiping it, and arranging a
cushion inside the fender for it; and at last smiled at the endearing
nonsense she talked, and told her she was more than a mother to it.
Robert was quite steady; regular at the brewery, pleasant at home. Of
course it would have been dull for him without Polly: her youth,
beauty, and sisterly at-homeness made a glow in the dear old house.
Did he or his mother ever calculate on what was likely to come of that
near companionship? No: their actual life engrossed them. He first
drew his mother to look on while he and Polly played cribbage or
backgammon, and then to play herself a little. He took in the
Gentleman's Magazine, and showed her the curious old prints, and read
the odds and ends of news aloud. Music was unendurable to her for some
months; but she conquered herself by degrees, and came to enjoy it.
Then Robert and Polly sang every evening, she playing the
accompaniments. Summer brought the boys home for holidays, and that
did good. When the anniversary of the father's death came round, its
melancholy associations pressed evidently on the widow, and she spent
the greater portion of the day in her room; but she was resigned, and
better than those who watched her lovingly expected her to be.
The great feature of those Christmas holidays was Alfred's return in
an altered character. He had left Upfield a lout—the despair of his
mother and the maids; who were the more provoked, because he was
undeniably the handsomest of the family. To keep him clean, or make
him put on his clothes properly, had been impossible. He had credit
for talent; for, when sufficiently excited, he wrote what were deemed
wonderfully pretty {402} verses, and he was quick at repartee and
sarcasm; but he had been in perpetual disgrace at school, and silent
and awkward—sulky as a bear, his brothers called him at home. He made
a great sensation on the first evening of his return from London: he
was fluent in conversation, perfectly well dressed, and—chief
marvel—had clean, carefully-shaped nails. Polly smiled, wondered,
and said to herself that he was really very handsome, and sang
beautifully. All the Wickhams sang, but none of them, she thought,
could be compared to him. The change was not agreeable to Robert, and
he showed it; grumbled in an undertone about fops; and asked his
brother if he could play cricket or quoits, or skate, or take a
five-barred gate, or shoot snipe.
Alfred yawned, and replied:
"My dear Bob, don't you remember that I was never fond of trouble?
Those rough amusements are very well for country gentlemen and
farmers; and I give them up to them with all my heart. As to skating,
you none of you know anything about it; you should see the gentlemen,
and elegant ladies too, cutting out flowers, and other complicated
figures, on the Serpentine."
Then addressing himself to his mother and Polly—Robert's countenance
lowering as he observed the innocent girl's natural interest in
such-topics—he talked about the last drawing-room and the fashionable
plays. He had seen The School for Scandal and The Haunted Tower,
at Drury Lane; Othello and The Conscious Lovers, at Covent Garden,
and he recited—really well—some of the tender passages in Othello.
Next he described the lying-in-state of the Duke of Cumberland; the
trial and execution of Jobbins and Lowe for arson; the recent storms,
which had not touched Upfield, but had been terrible
elsewhere—chimneys killing people in their beds, the lightning
flowing like a stream of fluid from a glasshouse. And no one
interrupted him, till Robert said, savagely:
"That fellow will talk us all deaf."
"Not this time, Bob: you and I will sing 'Love in thine eyes' now. I
know Polly will play for us."
They did it; Alfred directing the sentiment to her, so as to make her
feel shy and uncomfortable, and his brother vowing inwardly that "he'd
give that puppy a good thrashing before he went back to London, if he
didn't mind what he was about."
Alfred had seen a good deal of what country folk call "finery" in
London; but he declared that breakfast at home was unrivalled,
particularly in winter. There was the superb fire of coal and oak
blocks, throwing a glow on the massive family plate and fine, spotless
damask: such a silver urn and teapot were not often seen. Further, the
young gentleman inherited a family predilection for an abundant show
of viands; liked to see—as was usual at an everyday breakfast
there—a ham just cut, a cold turkey, round of beef, and delicate
clear honey, with other sweet things, for which his mother's
housekeeping was famed. This was not all. The room formed one side of
a light angle in the picturesque old house, and from two sides of the
table one could see a magnificent pyrocanthus, the contrast between
its scarlet berries and the table-cloth positively delicious.
Robert and Alfred lingered one morning after the rest of the family
had left this room. Alfred was considering that it might be possible
to enjoy life in the country; Robert was watching him, half-curiously,
half-jealously: he did not believe that his brother was handsomer than
himself; but he detested the ease of manner and ready wit that gave
him ascendancy disproportioned to his years. He threw himself back in
a large armchair, stretched his legs, and said: "I'm not sure that I
don't envy you, Bob, after all."
"Your condescension is great certainly. Have you been all this time
finding out that it is a good thing to be George Wickham's eldest
son?"
{403}
"Ah, yes!—eldest son. Well, it's a comfort for the younger ones that
there's no superior merit in being born first. But I'm not going to
philosophize; it's too much trouble, and not your line. But, really,
to breakfast here every morning in all this splendid comfort, the
prettiest and gentlest of mothers pressing you to eat and drink more
than is good for you; and that lovely fairy, Polly—that perfect Hebe
—flitting about—is more than even an eldest son ought to enjoy. How
sorry you will be next year, when you come of age, unless"—and he
looked searchingly, through half-closed eyes, at Bob.
"Why, pray? And unless what?"
"Only that I conclude you will then set up a house of your own, unless—
as it is evident my mother could not part from pretty Polly—unless you
arrange to live here, and marry our pet."
Strange flushings and palenesses passed over Robert's face, and he had
to master a choking in his throat and heaving of his chest before he
spoke. He had never had his hidden feelings put into words before—he
had not even any definite intention about the young girl whom his eye
followed stealthily every where, and whose voice, the rustling of
whose dress even, was music to him. He only knew that he should
throttle any one who laid a finger on her. He had not guessed that any
one connected him with her, even in thought; and now here was all that
was most secret and sacred in his heart dragged out, and held
mockingly before him by a boy two years younger than himself. It
seemed to him hours instead of seconds before he spoke, and his voice
had the passionate tremulousness which betrays great interior tumult;
he was sure that he should say something he would rather not say, but
conscious every moment's delay gave an advantage to his abhorred
tormentor. Without raising his eyes, he said hoarsely, "The Wickhams
are proud—they don't make low marriages."
"Upon my word, Bob," returned his brother patronizingly, "I respect
you; I did not give you credit for so much good sense. The girl's a
perfect beauty, no doubt. What a sensation she'd make in London! But,
after all, she's our servant's daughter, and old Molly Brown's
grandchild. Then, again, that unlucky religion of hers! The
Scharderlowes throw a respectability over it here, for they are
well-born and wealthy, but anywhere else it would be extremely awkward
for you. I confess I had a motive for sounding you. Farmer Briggs's
eldest son hinted to me yesterday that he should be happy to lay West
Hill at Polly's feet."
"He 's an insolent rascal!" said Robert furiously.
"My dearest Bob, why? The poor fellow has eyes, and uses them; and one
would not wish our Hebe to be an old maid."
"I say," reiterated Robert, deadly pale, and stamping, "he's an
insolent rascal; and if I catch him coming to this house I'll tell him
so. A rustic boor like that to hint at marrying a girl who has always
been my parents' pet, and is my mother's favorite companion—"
He stopped abruptly; and his brother, who was a perfect mimic,
continued in precisely his tone, "And is so dear to Robert Wickham,
that he will not hear her name coupled with another man's—"
He had gone too far; Robert's indignation boiled over—he sprang at
him—and before he had time to stir, struck him a blow between the
eyes, which brought sparks from them, and blood from his nose. A crash
and struggle followed, which Polly heard. She ran to the room,
anticipating nothing more than that some of the large dogs, privileged
to roam about the house, were quarrelling over the cold meat. Amazed,
beyond all power of words, she stood silent and very pale. Then,
feeling, young as she was, instinctive womanly power over the
disgraced young men, and holding herself {404} so erect that she
looked a head taller than usual, she said, coldly and firmly, "I am
ashamed of you!"
By that time they were ashamed of themselves. Alfred, covering his
disfigured face with his handkerchief, left the room slowly. Robert,
who had received no visible hurt, threw up a sash, jumped out, and
when he turned to shut the window, looked earnestly and sadly at
Polly, so as to bring a strange unwelcome sensation to her heart.
There was an awkwardness at dinner that day. Polly had removed the
traces of the fray, and kept her counsel; but Alfred's features defied
concealment. He stayed in his room with raw beef on them, and
mutton-broth and barley-water for his regimen. His mother and Betty
could get nothing out of him but that Bob was a fool, and had licked
him for teasing him. He was by no means given to repentance; but his
bruises, and a message from the vicar, desiring to see him early next
morning, led him to the conclusion that he had better have "kept his
tongue within his teeth." He was sufficiently humbled to receive
silently unusually severe reproofs from his guardian, who had informed
him that he had sent for him in order to avoid the risk of paining his
excellent mother. It was not only that he knew all that Betty could
tell of "the row" between the brothers, and that he denounced the
"ruffianliness" of "brawling in a widowed mother's house," but that
Mr. Kemp, in whose house in London he lived, had inclosed bills of
disgraceful amount, in a letter complaining that Alfred's taste for
pleasure threatened to be his ruin; and regretting that justice to his
own family compelled him to decline retaining him as an inmate after
the approaching midsummer. The young man's unusual power of pleasing,
he said, made his example peculiarly dangerous.
"And now," said the vicar, "I ask you if your heart is not touched by
the thought of the pain that this letter would give your dead father,
were he living; and if you could bear your mother to know it? It is
only for her sake that I spare you. I will beg Mr. Kemp to retract his
resolution to dismiss you, if you become steadier, and I shall charge
him to let it be known that I will not pay any bills that exceed the
limit of your very handsome allowance: and I warn you that my natural
easiness and indolence shall not prevent my being severe if you
require it. As to the affair yesterday, I shall not inquire into it;
but I warn you that the recurrence of anything so disgraceful shall
prevent your spending your vacations at home; and I am sorry to say to
one of my good uncle's sons, that I am glad he must return to town the
day after to-morrow."
Alfred was surprised and alarmed, and made professions of penitence,
and promises of amendment.
There was a visible change thenceforward in Robert. He became more
manly in his bearing; and variable in his manner to Polly, saying even
at times very sharp things to her. The sweet-tempered girl gave no
provocation, and felt no resentment; but hid sometimes a tear. She did
not like to displease any one whom Mrs. Wickham loved. Robert attended
to business, took his proper place in society, and was popular; and
she felt it a relief when he was out, and she had not to play for him.
It was within three months of his twenty-first birthday, when, on
one of the frequent occasions of his dining with the vicar, that
gentleman asked him what were his plans. He replied that he hadn't
any.
"But, my dear boy, my authority over you is near its end, and so is
your enforced residence with your mother. It is time to think where
you will live."
"I don't think my mother will turn me out."
"No; but as her allowance for you ceases with your minority, you must,
in fairness to her, either contribute to {405} the household income,
or get a home of your own."
"I don't anticipate any difficulty about it."
"Merton Paddocks is to be let," continued William. "It is a nice
little place, and suitable to you in many ways. If you let it slip,
you may regret it. Your marrying is to be calculated on, and in that
event your living with your mother might not be agreeable to all
parties."
"I don't think of marrying."
"Oh, nonsense! every man's turn comes; and why should you escape?"
"As you escaped, perhaps."
"Me!—one old bachelor in a family is enough in two generations; and my
case may not be obstinate. I'm not actually too old."
"May I ask whom you think of elevating to the vicarage?" asked Robert,
laughing; but there was a pause which, he could not imagine why, made
him uncomfortable, before his cousin said:
"I have thought of Polly—do you forbid the banns?"
The room seemed turning round with Robert; but he swallowed a glass of
wine hastily, and said, as carelessly as he could, "That child!"
"Child! I don't know—she's seventeen, and I'm thirty-two—the
difference there was between your parents' ages when they married; and
Polly is two years older than your mother was then."
"Perhaps I'm no judge of the matter, William, but as you have broached
the subject, excuse me if I ask if you have any notion that Polly is
attached to you."
"None whatever; but any man can marry any woman provided he have a
fair field and no favor. What has really kept me doubtful has been a
distinct difficulty about pretty Polly's birth. It is awkward; and the
Wickhams have always been sensitive on such points; but I've nearly
resolved to sacrifice pride to Polly's charms. Her beauty and grace
would adorn any position; and as soon as my guardianship, and
consequent business relations with her father, ceases, I shall
probably ask my aunt's consent and blessing. It will be great
promotion for her pet, and insure her having her near her for life.
Meanwhile, Bob, I rely on your silence."
"Certainly."
Poor Robert! Here was one of his own family seeing no difficulty about
marrying the girl of whom he had spoken as beneath himself! another
man talking with assurance of being Polly's husband as soon as he
thought fit! while he, who had been domesticated with her from her
infancy—had never dared to give her a playful kiss since they had
ceased to be children—had never ventured on the least demonstration
of the fondness that tormented him for expression. He made an excuse
to go home early; walked in the shrubbery, wretched and irresolute,
till midnight; went to his room, threw himself undressed on the bed,
had some uneasy sleep, rose early, walked again, and appeared at
breakfast haggard and irritable. His mother observed it, and was
distressed. He had sat up too late, he said; and, for once, William's
wine was bad. He would not go to the brewery that day; but, if she
liked, he would drive her and Polly in the phaeton to Larchton, and
they could give Betty a treat by taking her. She was always glad to
visit her native place, and he knew she had not been there for a long
time. His mother was willing. Larchton was a two hours' drive; and
they put up the horses there.
Mrs. Wickham and Betty went to see some old people; and Robert
proposed to Polly to take a walk. She remembered afterward that she
had had an unusual feeling about that walk. They had often walked
together before, as a brother and sister might.
For the first time, however, Robert said, "Take my arm, Polly."
She took it; and they proceeded in silence in the fields for some
minutes.
Then he said abruptly, "Do you {406} ever think of getting married,
Polly?"
"No," she replied with an innocent laugh; "what would Mrs. Wickham do
without me?"
"And do you expect never to love any one better than my mother?"
"I really don't think it would be possible."
"But, Polly, you're not a child. You know there's a different—love
the love my father had for my mother."
"I have never thought about it," she said carelessly.
Her manner gave him courage; it was so easy and unconscious. Taking
the little hand that was on his arm, and holding it so firmly that he
could not feel her effort to withdraw it, he went on: "Polly, I made
an excuse to come here that I might talk to you without interruption.
The love that my father had for my mother, I have for you. I cannot
tell when it began; but I first knew how strong it was when Alfred
came home first from London. I was madly jealous of him because he was
forward and I was bashful. Do you remember the morning you found us
fighting in the breakfast-parlor? He had provoked me so much by
something that he said about you, that I could not help striking him.
I don't know what I might have done if you hadn't come in then; and
I've never been happy since. I've been irritable, and sometimes, I
know, cross and disagreeable. Something occurred last night which I
can't tell you now—I may another time—which made me wretched; and I
made up my mind this morning to put myself out of suspense, and ask
you, Polly, to be my wife."
He had been too full of his story to look at her while he was
speaking, but he looked then eagerly for her answer. He could not read
the lovely countenance which new and various feelings made different
from anything he had ever seen. The soft eyelids down, the lashes
moist, the lips trembling, the flush so deep that it would have
spoiled a less delicate skin. She was surprised to find how much he
loved her; grateful to him; sorry she had made him unhappy, and
believed him ill-tempered. Then came a rapid thought of how handsome
he was; but, sweeping everything away, perplexity followed. What would
Mrs. Wickham and her father wish her to do? What would Father Armand
say?
Robert could not guess all this; and there was almost agony in his
voice as he said, "Oh, Polly, Polly, do speak to me!"
She made a great effort, and replied, "I don't know what to say, or
what I ought to do!"
"Say, at any rate, that you don't dislike me."
"Oh, no!" she said readily, almost laughing to think that he could
suppose that possible.
"One thing more, Polly; do you prefer any one else?"
She hesitated a minute, for her quick wit told her that the question
involved a great deal; but she answered firmly, though shyly, "No; I
do not."
Distrustful as he had been of his power to please her, this was enough
for the time to make him almost beside himself with delight.
He said "God bless you!" heartily; and was silent awhile because he
could not command his voice. He resumed, "As to your 'ought to do,'
don't say anything to any one till I've spoken to my mother. We'll go
and look for her now." He talked a great deal of nonsense on the way,
and Polly said very little then, or during the drive. She was ashamed
to look at Mrs. Wickham, and was glad that her attention was drawn
from her to Robert. He "touched up" the young horses so wildly, that
she declared he should never drive her again, if he did not behave
better. Directly they got home, he told her that he wanted to speak to
her that moment alone; and he poured out his story. Such an old, old
story! So like what her own dead and buried George had told her long,
long ago. She stand in the way of an innocent love, and between two
of the creatures dearest to her on earth! She would be very glad {407}
to have Polly as a daughter—she loved her as one. As to pride and
such nonsense, people who had loved and lost, as she had, knew all its
profound folly. Polly's beauty and goodness might make any husband
proud, any home happy. As to William, there was no injustice done him.
In the first place, she was sure that Polly could never be brought to
think of him as a husband. She looked on him as quite an old man—he
was getting very bald; and in the next place, if he had had any real
love for her, he could not have spoken so coolly and confidently of
winning her. Robert said that the last observation was corroborated by
his own experience, and that his mother was a remarkably sensible
woman. Thereupon she smiled, and kissed and blessed him, and advised
him to go directly and tell the simple truth to the vicar.
Polly, meanwhile, sat alone in her pretty bedroom—her face buried in
her hands, her rich golden hair unbound and falling loosely over her
shoulders, dreading to go down to dinner. Not that she was ashamed of
dear, dear Mrs. Wickham. No; she could throw her arms around her neck
and hide her face there, and make her a confidante without any fear of
being repulsed; but how could she look at Robert, much less speak to
him? and of course the servant would see and understand all about it.
She wished she might stay in her room. If she had but a headache! but
she was really perfectly well; and false excuses she never dreamed of
making. Robert would be talking to her again as he had talked in the
fields. Really, really she did not know what to say to him. Indeed she
had never thought of getting married. She had looked forward to living
between the Grey House and her father's, beloved and welcome in both;
adding to his and Mrs. Wickham's happiness more and more as they grew
older and wanted greater care. Why could not this go on, with only the
difference that Robert should never be displeased with her? That had
made her unhappy. She did like him very much; better than any one,
next to her father and Mrs. Wickham; better than good old Aunt Lizzy.
He was very handsome, and sang well, and so attentive to his mother;
and ever since his father's death he had been quite fond of home. How
could he ever have supposed that she preferred any one else? But as to
being his wife—he was a Protestant. How she should feel his never
going to mass with her, his thinking confession useless, his not
believing in the dear Lord in the Blessed Sacrament! She had often
felt it hard that conversation about these things must be avoided in
the dear Grey House, and that her friends there, fond as they were of
her, wished her religion different. If she married Robert, it would be
worse, for she should love him better than any one on earth then; her
anxiety about his salvation would be so great as to make her quite
wretched, and he might not like her to talk to him about it. From her
earliest childhood, she prayed for the conversion of the Wickhams. She
began by saying one Hail Mary daily for the intention; and since she
had been older, she had said many novenas, and offered many communions
for it. She really did not think her father would give his consent;
and Father Armand would at any rate look grave and sad. She had heard
him tell pitiful stories of the unhappiness that had come of mixed
marriages among persons whom he knew. She did feel truly unhappy. She
walked to her window; she could see thence dear venerable Edward's
Hall, and knew exactly where the chapel was. She knelt down, fixing
her eyes there, and her heart on her divine Lord in the tabernacle,
and asked him that, for the love of his blessed mother, he would help
and direct her, and convert her friends.
Robert had not expected to feel it formidable to tell his story to his
cousin, and he was equally grieved and surprised by the way in which
he received it. He changed countenance so that he looked ten years
older; walked rapidly up and down the room; {408} threw himself into a
great chair, and buried his face in his hands; asked Robert to ring;
ordered sherry, and drank several glasses. Robert, utterly mystified,
was trying to say something soothing, when he interrupted him.
"My dear fellow, I'm not simply love-sick; but circumstances, which I
will explain another time, do make this a terrible shock to me. I have
been such a fool! To any one but myself, your falling in love with
Polly would have seemed the most natural thing in the world; but I was
blinded, stultified, as men who have—never mind now—go away—I'm not
fit to talk—I will call or write to you tomorrow. Blame you!
Certainly not. Give my love to your mother and Polly. God bless you
all!"
Next morning early came a note stating that he was going from home for
a few days; and that if he did not return, he would explain himself
fully in the following week.
Worthy of a peerage as Polly Deane seemed to Robert, he could not be
ignorant that to marry him was great promotion for her; and though
delicacy in her regard, and real respect for her father, made him ask
his consent with the utmost deference, he felt that this was a mere
matter of good manners.
Mr. Deane was visibly gratified; said that he could never have
expected a proposal so complimentary to his child, though he might be
pardoned for saying that he thought any one might be proud of her. His
obligations to the Wickham family were of many years' standing; in
fact, he owed everything to Mr. Wickham. He could never, making all
due allowance for Polly's beauty and goodness, express how honored he
felt himself and her on that occasion; but—and he made a long pause
in evident difficulty how to express himself; and Robert was mute with
surprise and alarm.
"But is it possible, Mr. Robert, that Mrs. Wickham and you don't see
one very great objection?"
"In the name of heaven, what is it?" gasped Robert.
"Why, surely, sir, the dear child's religion."
"Now is it possible, Deane, that you think we would ever interfere
with that? Have we ever done so by word, or look, or deed, in all the
years we've known you? Have not you, ever since you came into this
business, been free to observe your holy days in your own way? Have we
not always been ready—even when my mother's spirits were at the
lowest—to spare Polly to go to mass or confession? I am really hurt,
and feel that we don't deserve this?"
"It is all true, Mr. Robert, and the Lord reward you, as he will; but
don't you see it might be different—I don't say that it would; but
I'm bound to do my best for my girl's soul no less than her body—if
she was your wife, and so completely in your power? There's no doubt
that a young man in love will promise anything, and mean to keep his
word too; but ours is a despised religion (God be praised for it!');
it is one among many signs that it is the true one; and you might come
to be ashamed that one so near and dear to you belonged to it, and
that would breed great unhappiness. Then, again, you might have
children, and I should not dare give my consent to their being reared
Protestants. Perhaps, if some ancestor of yours had been firm in such
a case as this, you and yours might be still of the old faith."
"I'm sure, as far as I'm concerned, Deane, I wish we were. No one will
go to heaven, if Polly doesn't; and the religion that would take her
there can't be bad for any one. She might make a Catholic of me."
"God grant it, sir; but don't you see that I must not act on chance?
If the child was breaking her heart for you, and"—smiling—"it's not
come to that yet, I could not let her risk her soul, and perhaps her
children's souls."
"Look here, Mr. Deane: I'm quite ready to give you a written promise
{409} that I will never interfere in any way with Polly's practising
her religion, and that all her children—boys as well as girls—shall
be brought up in it; and I'm sure my mother will make no difficulty."
"You cannot say more, Mr. Robert; but still, if you please, I will
take a week to think the matter over, and talk about it to Father
Armand and Polly, and for that time I think she'd better come home.
She must feel awkward in the same house with you under present
circumstances. Will you give my respects to Mrs. Wickham, and say that
I will call for the child this evening?"
Numerous, and all wide of the truth, were Mrs. Wickham's and Robert's
conjectures respecting the vicar. They began even to consider whether
he had ever shown any symptoms of insanity, and were thankful to know
that it was not hereditary in the family.
The week stipulated for by Mr. Deane passed; and after consulting
Father Armand and Mr. Scharderlowe, he agreed to give his consent to
Polly's marrying Robert at the end of a year, if he were then equally
willing to bind himself by a written promise to respect her faith, and
have his children brought up in it. They said they thought that the
kind, liberal, honorable character of the Wickhams being considered,
and having been proved in all their conduct to the Deanes, and the
difficulty of Catholic marrying Catholic (which was far, far greater
in England then than it is now) being weighed, the case was as hopeful
as a mixed marriage could be.
Robert grumbled about the delay, every one else approved of it. His
mother thought a man young to even at twenty-two; and the time seemed
to Polly none too long for becoming accustomed to new feelings and new
prospects.
Two days after all this was arranged came the vicar's
anxiously-expected letter, dated Scarborough. It said:
"MY DEAR ROBERT,—The punishment of my youthful sins and
follies, which has been pursuing me for years, has at last
fallen so heavily upon me, that I feel inclined to cry
out, like Cain, that it is greater than I can bear. Try to
believe, as you read my humiliating confession, that the
bitterest portion of my suffering is the fact that I have
injured my uncle's family; and that I shall regret my
pangs less if they prove a useful warning to you and your
brothers. I can hardly remember when I was not in debt.
Before I was eight years old I owed pence continually for
fruits, sweets, toys. I suffered torture for fear of
detection while these trifles were owing, but directly
they were paid, I began a fresh score. At school I
borrowed money of every one who would lend it, and had a
bill at every shop to which a boy would be attracted. The
misery I continued to endure while I could not pay was
always forgotten directly I had paid; and I was in the
same difficulty over and over again. I must own, moreover,
that I was absolutely without excuse. I had as much money
and indulgence of every kind as any boy of my age and
position. I went to the university. My allowance was
liberal, but my debts became tremendous. I gave endless
wine-parties; drove to London frequently; entered into all
its pleasures, made expensive presents, bought horses, and
betted; and was of course done; finally, I got into the
hands of Jews. It is singular that my father never
suspected my delinquencies, and that I was wonderfully
helped by circumstances. I was young when I succeeded to
the living and a large amount of ready money. All was
swallowed up in the dreadful gulf that my unprincipled
extravagance had made. Year after year the greater portion
of my income has gone in payment of exorbitant interest.
Your dear father's legacy went that way; and my infamous
creditors, having ascertained that his will placed a great
deal in my power, threatened me with exposure—which would
have {410} been fatal to a man in my
position—till I had pacified them with thousands not my
own—with, in fact, a considerable portion of your
brothers' inheritance.
"At first I stifled my conscience by representing to
myself that being released from pressure which had worried
me for years, I should have a clear head for business; and
recover, by judicious speculation, the sums that I had
appropriated—as I hoped—but for a time. I have
speculated unfortunately, and made matters infinitely
worse; for whereas my previous creditors were rapacious
rascals to whom, in justice, nothing was due, my present
ones are the helpless children of my warm-hearted,
trustful, dead uncle.
"By this time old Smith is, I suppose, dead, and you are
aware of his will—as singular as all we know of his
life—but he is necessary to my story. A day or two before
I told you that I thought of marrying Polly he sent for
me, said that he felt himself breaking, and wished me to
witness his will, and be aware of its purport, that it
might not be said, when he was gone, that he had acted at
the priest's instigation. He said that at that moment no
one knew he was a Catholic, that he had led a godless life
for years, but he meant to make his peace with God before
he died. He had no relations who had any claim on him; he
had left £100 to Mr. Armand for religious uses, and the
rest of his money—nearly £20,000—to Polly. I thought the
man mad, and humored him. He understood me, and said so;
told me that existence had ceased to be more than
endurable when, twenty years ago, he entered Upfield a
stranger; and that therefore he had confined himself to
the necessaries of life, and been glad to be believed
poor. That he had thought of leaving his money to a
hospital; but that Polly had become so like the only woman
he had ever loved—and whom he had lost by death—that he
had grown to feel very fatherly toward her; and his
intention to make her his heiress had been decided by a
little fact very characteristic of Polly. She was walking
with your mother one very windy day, when he was out for
nearly the last time, and his hat blew off. He was too
infirm to follow it, and every one but Polly was too lazy
or too much amused to do so. She ran for it, and brought
it to him with a kindness which seems to have thoroughly
melted him. If he be still living, this must not be
mentioned; but, as I said before, I think it is
impossible. It is an old saying that 'drowning men catch
at straws.' Oppressed as I was by hopeless remorse, I
caught at the notion that I would marry Polly. Her father,
I thought, would be pleased with her elevation. I did not
anticipate any difficulty in making such a gentle creature
love me. I intended to do my utmost to make her life
happy; and I knew that she would give up anything to do
good to your family. I calculated that, living moderately,
my income would be ample, and that I could appropriate
Polly's fortune to repaying what I had misused, and still
without wronging her—for that, as my wife, she would have
advantages far beyond her father's expectations. How all
this scheming is defeated, you know. The only reparation
now in my power, I make willingly. Deducting a curate's
stipend and eighty pounds a year for myself, I will
furnish you with full powers to receive the residue of my
income, and apply it to your brothers' use. I will appoint
Deane guardian in my stead, and furnish him with all
necessary documents. If I live—and I pray that I may live
for that object—your brothers will not suffer ultimately.
I have made my will, and left them whatever property I may
possess when I die. I have, you know, expectations from
the Heathcotes.
"There is, I hope, some guarantee for my reform in the
willingness with which I accept my punishment. I am glad
that, with luxurious tastes, I must exist on very narrow
means for years; {411} that with sturdy
English prejudices I must live among foreigners. I had not
courage to make my shameful confession verbally, or to see
any of you afterward. I cross hence to Hamburg to-morrow.
My further course is undecided, but I will write to you;
and Hangham and Hunt, Fleet street, will forward letters
to me. Think of all I have lost, of all I have suffered
secretly, for years, of my dreary prospects, and try to be
merciful to your miserable cousin,—WILLIAM WICKHAM."
Polly had returned to the Grey House. Mrs. Wickham fretted, and
Robert—to be candid—was disagreeable in her absence. Shy and
conscious though she felt, she was quite willing to go back. Her
father was never at home till the evening—not always then. Aunt
Lizzie wanted no help or cheering up, and Polly's happiness depended
mainly on her being necessary to some one. There is, moreover, no
denying that, differently educated as she had been, her aunt's habits
and notions were not hers; and I could not say positively that she did
not miss Robert, and admit to herself that it was pleasant to expect
him at certain times, and to spend a good deal of time in his society.
When the vicar's letter arrived, she was at the breakfast-table, doing
the duties of president deftly and satisfactorily, as she did
everything—housewifely genius as she was.
"What a long affair!" exclaimed Robert, as he glanced at the letter.
"What can he have to say? I can't wait to read it now; I must be off
to the brewery. Here, my mother, you take it, and tell me all about it
when I come back."
She put it in her pocket, remembering that Polly was concerned in it,
and not liking to read it before her without mentioning its purport.
The thoughtful, methodical damsel soon departed for an hour's duty
among birds and flowers, and then the thunderbolt fell on poor Mrs.
Wickham. Her darling younger sons were not only fatherless, but almost
dependent on their brother. She was no woman of business; but she
guessed that there would not be more than £300 a year to come from the
vicar, when the deductions he mentioned had been made. She could of
course spare £100. What did she want with money? This would meet all
the expenses of education, supposing the vicar lived—and if he died!
In any case there was no capital to start her sons in their
professions; and, unluckily, Alfred, who would want it first, had
never been a favorite of Robert's. His assumption of superiority and
his sarcasm had nettled him extremely; and he dropped expressions
occasionally which showed he had not forgiven him. But Robert would be
very well able to help. Even supposing that—as she hoped he would—
he did marry Polly, and have a family, his brothers would be off his
hands before his children became expensive. If the story about poor
old Mr. Smith proved true, he would be a rich man. Polly would of
course do something handsome for her father and aunt, and yet have a
large fortune. That incident about the hat Mrs. Wickham remembered
perfectly; the poor old man looked enraptured when, lovelier even than
usual, glowing from her running and good-nature, she gave it to him.
It was, however, very wonderful. How much had happened in quiet
Upfield during the last two years! Then she began to pity the vicar
heartily; to make excuses for him, and forgive him. The sacrifices he
made proved the sincerity of his repentance: how miserable he would be
for years, poor and lonely in a foreign land! In those days anywhere
"abroad" seemed to simple inland folk something terrible. He might get
yellow fever, or the plague. She believed them to be imminent anywhere
out of the British Isles. She must talk to Polly, and have her for a
staunch ally before Robert came home. He had not his father's noble
impulsiveness, but he was just and honorable, and she and Polly could
do a great deal with him. Of {412} course she should omit telling her
about the vicar's having thought of marrying her, and the story about
old Smith. One fact would be painful to her; the other might be
untrue.
The two guileless creatures agreed fully that Robert must be worked
upon to forgive his cousin, and do all that was necessary for his
brothers. They were so radiant with hope and charity that their
countenances struck Robert peculiarly when he returned, and he said he
saw plainly that they had good news to tell him. It was an awkward
beginning: his mother feared that the contrary character of her
intelligence would displease him the more, and said timidly, "You had
really better read William's letter yourself, my dear boy; he tells
his story much better than I can."
The rush of events at Upfield seemed, for a few days, overpowering to
those whom it concerned; and those whom it concerned not were very
much excited. There was the vicar gone—no one knew wherefore or
whither, or for how long; and a curate with a wife and seven children
had taken possession of his trim bachelor's hall. Then there was Mr.
Smith, not very old, probably not more than fifty, dead. And he had
turned out to be a rich man! why who could have guessed it? He had
appeared one day at the inn, as suddenly as if he had dropped from the
clouds—had evidently come a long way afoot—had no luggage but a
valise; and was altogether so equivocal-looking that Mr. Mogg, the
veterinary surgeon, would not take him as a lodger without his paying
six months' rent in advance. He had paid his way regularly, certainly;
but no one could have supposed that he had anything to spare. He would
never talk of his affairs except to say that he had out-lived all his
near relations, and been a great deal in foreign parts. People had
suggested that he might be an escaped felon, a man resuscitated after
hanging, a deserter, a Jew. On the strength of the last notion Mr.
Mogg tested him with roast pig; and he liked it.
Then he never went to church. To be sure he was not the only person in
Upfield of whom that might be said; but no one guessed that he was a
papist. They had, at last, no proof that he was; but it was
understood, though not formally acknowledged, that the librarian at
Edward's Hall was a Catholic priest, and that persons of his communion
could and did benefit by his ministrations. Such things were winked
at, in spite of penal enactments, in the case of some Catholics of
high social standing, like Mr. Scharderlowe.
Now this librarian, Mr. Armand, had been sent for by Mr. Smith when he
was taken ill, had visited him frequently, and been with him when he
died. No doubt he was a papist. That might be the reason he left his
money to Polly Deane. Well, well! what luck some people had! Upfield
wouldn't be surprised if Robert Wickham married her; and the
neighborhood supposed it must call upon her, whether he did or not. It
wondered if Mr. and Mrs. Wickham had known all along of Mr. Smith's
intention; it wouldn't be surprised; there was something odd in the
way they had educated the girl, and taken her out of her sphere. But,
after all, Mrs. Pogram said, she mightn't like Robert Wickham; and
with such a fortune as hers, she could afford to please herself. Mrs.
Pogram's own sons were decidedly finer young men, had more dash, and
were in the army—every one knew that girls liked red coats.
Lancaster would be coming home soon, on leave. She would call at once;
let others do as they pleased. Deane was a highly-respectable man, and
no one could be ashamed of his daughter.
A year later there was a large family-gathering at the Grey House at
dinner, and Mrs. Wickham presided. Her grief had settled into a
placid, subdued character, which, with the weeds, gave a kind of
moonlight tone to her appearance, and became her so {413} well that no
one could wish to see her ever otherwise.
Robert and Polly, man and wife, had returned that day from a bridal
excursion to the English lakes. The younger brothers were assembled to
meet them. Aunt Heathcote was there with her ear-trumpet; and
queer-tempered Mrs. Trumball, all smiles. Mr. Deane, of the firm of
Wickham and Deane, urbane in shorts, black-silk stockings, and silver
knee and shoe buckles, was a father of whom the lovely bride felt
proud, as she did too of Aunt Lizzie; who looked as if she had worn
silks and laces, and kept her soft white large hands in mittens all
her life. Deep in every one's heart was the memory of warm-hearted,
generous George Wickham, gone for ever from those whose meeting there,
and in their mutual relations, he would have made more joyous; but no
one named him, for no one could have done it then and there in a voice
which would not have been thick with emotion. Tears must have followed
any mention of him; and who would have caused their flow at such a
happy gathering? Every one knew what every one was feeling and what a
long pause meant, which Robert broke by saying with a sigh, "Well, I
do wish that poor dear William were here; I am so happy that I wish
every one else was; and I hate to think of him, hospitable,
affectionate creature, dragging out his days among fat phlegmatic
Dutch boors, without a single soul to speak to." Polly, at his side,
contrived to give him, under the table, a little squeeze expressive of
the fullest approbation.
"I'm glad you have forgiven him, Bob," said his mother.
"Well, really, mother, it was but natural that I should be savage at
first. Men can't be quite as tender-hearted as women, I suppose; and
they see the consequences of pecuniary frailties more clearly, and
suffer more from them, than they do; but I must be a brute if, happy
as I am, I didn't wish well to everybody, especially to that good
fellow. Now don't cry, Polly."
Her father observed that there were great excuses for the vicar, and
that every one must admit that he had done his utmost to make
reparation.
"Yes," said Alfred, with mock gravity. It was his delight to puzzle
Aunt Lizzie; she never could make out whether he were joking or
oracular. "I have learned wisdom through the rudiments of a painful
experience; and, steady reformed man of mature years as I find myself,
I pronounce that William might have done much worse."
"Shall I write and urge him to come back?" asked Robert.
"Do! do! do!" resounded in various voices all around the table.
"Very well; I'm more than willing. Polly told me confidentially a few
days ago that she had no turn for extravagance; and I feel so domestic
and moderate, that I fancy we may manage to provide for the fine young
family that William's indiscretions have thrown on our hands, though
he will be able to give less help than if he remained at Rotterdam."
"Mr. Ridlem's stipend would be saved, you know, Bob."
"Not exactly, mother. William couldn't live at home as he lives now;
that would be painful to us and impossible for him."
"True; I forgot that."
"It is difficult for me to put in a word," said Alfred, "because I've
been a great expense to Bob, and he hasn't done with me yet; in fact
I've no right to make a suggestion; but it is my full intention to
reimburse him one of these days. I shouldn't have said so, only the
chance of helping to bring William back—"
"You're a good fellow, Alfred; I believe you; and must confess that I
have found you less trouble than I expected."
The result of the consultation was a letter to the vicar, signed by
every one present, entreating him to return forthwith; a letter over
which he cried like {414} a girl. It brought him back speedily, a
wiser and not a sadder man. He said indeed that, though down among the
dykes, he had never been so happy as since he made all square with his
conscience.
To follow the affairs of Upfield and the Wickhams further would
involve a series of stories. It must suffice to say that Robert's
marriage turned out really well; and that from the day of her
betrothal, the dearest wish of Polly's heart was gratified; for he,
unasked, joined her and the other stragglers who—the laws
notwithstanding—made their way on Sundays and holidays to a
side-entrance in venerable old Edward's Hall, and were admitted to
mass in the little well-loved chapel; Mr. Armand the librarian,
identical with Father Armand the priest, thanking God devoutly for the
addition to the fold.
From The Month.
A LOST CHAPTER OF CHURCH HISTORY RECOVERED.
BY JAMES SPENCER NORTHCOTE, D.D.
If we set before a skilful professor of comparative anatomy a few
bones dug out of the bowels of the earth, he will re-construct for us
the whole form of the animal to which they belonged; and it sometimes
happens that these theoretical constructions are singularly justified
by later discoveries. It is the province of an archaeologian to
attempt something of the same kind. A historian transcribes for our
use annals more or less fully composed and faithfully transmitted by
his predecessors. He may have to gather his materials from various
sources; he must distinguish the true from the false; and he gives
shape, consistency, and life to the whole; but, for the most part at
least, he has little to supply that is new from any resources of his
own. The archaeologian, on the contrary, if he be really a man of
learning and science, and not a mere collector of old curiosities,
aims at discovering and restoring annals that are lost, by means of a
careful and intelligent use of every fragment of most heterogeneous
materials that happens to come across him. And there is certainly
nobody in the present age whose talent and industry in this branch of
learning, so far at least as Christian archaeology is concerned, can
at all compare with that of Cavaliere G. B. de Rossi. For more than
twenty years he has devoted himself to the study of the Roman
catacombs, and at length we begin to enter upon the fruit of his
labors. He has just published (by order of the Pope, and at the
expense, we believe, of the Commission of Sacred Archaeology,
instituted by his Holiness in 1851) the first volume of Roma
Sotteranea; a magnificent volume, splendidly illustrated, and full of
new and varied information. An abstract of its contents would hardly
be suitable to our pages; but none, we think, can fail to be
interested in what we may venture to call the first chapter of the
History of the Catacombs—a chapter that had certainly never before
been written, even if it had been attempted.
All earlier authors upon subterranean Rome, so far as our experience
goes, whilst describing fully, and it may be illustrating with
considerable learning, the catacombs as they now exist, and all the
monuments they {415} contain, have been content to pass over with a
few words of apology and conjecture the question of their origin and
early history. They have told us that the Jewish residents in Rome had
burial-places of a similar character; and they have shown how natural
and probable it was that the first Roman Christians, unwilling to burn
their dead in pagan fashion, should have imitated the practices of the
ancient people of God. When pressed to explain how so gigantic a work,
as the Roman catacombs undoubtedly are, could have been carried on by
the Christians under the very feet of their bitter persecutors, yet
without their knowledge, they have pointed to the rare instance of a
cemetery entered by a staircase hidden within the recesses of a
sand-pit; they have guessed that here or there some Christian
patrician, some senator or his wife, may have given up a garden or a
vineyard for use as a burial-ground; and then they have passed on to
the much easier task of enumerating the subterranean chapels, tracing
the intricacies of the galleries, or describing the paintings,
sculptures, and inscriptions. The work of De Rossi is of a very
different character. It begins ab ovo, and proceeds scientifically.
It shows not only how these wonderful cemeteries may have been made,
but also—as far as is practicable, and a great deal further than
nine-tenths even of the most learned archaeologians ever supposed to
be practicable—how and when each cemetery really was made. From the
few scattered bones, so to speak, which lay buried, and for the most
part broken, partly in the depths of the catacombs themselves,
partly in the Acts of the Martyrs, the Liber Pontificalis, and a few
other records of ecclesiastical history, he has reconstructed with
consummate skill the complete skeleton, if we should not rather say
has reproduced the whole body, and set it full of life and vigor
before us. Not that he has indulged in hasty conjectures, or given
unlimited scope to a lively imagination; far from it. On the contrary,
we fear many of his less learned readers will be disposed to find
fault with the slow and deliberate, almost ponderous, method of his
progress, and to grow impatient under the mass of minute criticisms
with which some of his pages are filled, and by which he insists upon
justifying each step that he takes. Indeed, we have some scruple at
presenting our readers with the sum and substance of his argument,
divested of all these pièces justificatives, as our neighbors would
call them, lest they should suspect us of inventing rather than
describing. However, we think it is too precious a page of Church
history to be lost, and we therefore proceed to publish it, only
premising that nobody must pretend to judge of its truth merely from
the naked abstract of it which we propose to give, but that all who
are really interested in the study should examine for themselves in
detail the whole mass of evidence by which, in De Rossi's pages, it is
supported, most of which is new, and all newly applied.
To tell our story correctly, it is necessary we should step back into
pagan times, and first take a peep at their laws and usages in the
matter of burials. No classical scholar need be told how strictly
prohibited by old Roman law was all intra-mural interment. Indeed
every traveller knows that all the great roads leading into Rome were
once lined on either side with sepulchral monuments, many of which
still remain; and the letters inscribed upon them tell us how many
feet of frontage, and how many feet at the back (into the field),
belonged to each monument, [IN. FR. P. so many. IN. AG. P. so many.
In fronte, pedum—. In agro, pedum—.] M. de Rossi (the brother of
our author) has published a very interesting plan of one of these
monuments with all its dependencies, as represented on an ancient
marble slab dug up on the Via Lavicana. On this slab, not only are the
usual measurements of frontage and depth carefully recorded, but also
the private or public roads which crossed the {416} property, the
gardens and vineyards of which it consisted, the swampy land on which
grew nothing but reeds (it is called Harundinetum), and the ditch by
which, on one side at least, it was bounded. Unfortunately the slab is
not perfect, so that we cannot tell the exact measurement of the
whole. Enough, however, remains to show that the property altogether
was not less than twelve Roman jugera, or nearly 350,000 square
feet; and other inscriptions are extant, specifying an amount of
property almost equal to this as belonging to a single monument (e.g.
Huic monumento cedunt agri puri jugera decem). The necessity for so
large an assignment of property to a single tomb was not so much the
vastness of the mausoleum to be erected, as because certain funeral
rites were to be celebrated there year by year, on the anniversary of
the death, and at other times; sacrifices to be offered, feasts to be
given, etc.; and for these purposes exedrae were provided, or
semi-circular recesses, furnished with sofas and all things necessary
for the convenience of guests. A house also (custodia) was often
added, in which a person should always live to look after the
monument, for whose support these gardens, vineyards, or other
hereditaments were set apart as a perpetual endowment. It only remains
to add, that upon all these ancient monuments may be found these
letters, or something equivalent to them, H.M.H.EX.T.N.S. (Hoc
monumentum haeredes ex testamento ne sequatur); in other words, "This
tomb and all that belongs to it is sacred; henceforth it can neither
be bought nor sold; it does not descend to my heirs with the rest of
my property; but must ever be retained inviolate for the purpose to
which I have destined it, viz., as a place of sepulchre for myself and
my family," or certain specified members only of the family; or, in
some rare instances, others also external to the family. The same
sacred character which attached to the monuments themselves belonged
also to the area in which they stood, the hypogeum or subterranean
chamber, which not unfrequently was formed beneath them; but it is a
question whether it extended to the houses or other possessions
attached to them.
Nor were these monuments confined to the noblest and wealthiest
citizens. Even in the absence of all direct evidence upon the subject,
we should have found it hard to believe that any but the very meanest
of the slaves were buried (or rather were thrown without any burial at
all) into those open pits (puticoli) of which Horace and others have
told us. And in fact, a multitude of testimonies have come down to us
of the existence, both in republican and imperial Rome, of a number of
colleges, as they were called, or corporations (clubs or
confraternities, as we should more probably call them), whose members
were associated, partly in honor of some particular deity, but far
more with a view to mutual assistance for the performance of the just
funeral rites. Inscriptions which are still extant testify to nearly
fourscore of these collegia, each consisting of the members of a
different trade or profession. There are the masons and carpenters,
soldiers and sailors, bakers and cooks, corn-merchants and
wine-merchants, hunters and fishermen, goldsmiths and blacksmiths,
dealers in drugs and carders of wool, boatmen and divers, doctors and
bankers, scribes and musicians—in a word, it would be hard to say
what trade or employment is not here represented. Not, however, that
this is the only bond of fellowship upon which such confraternities
were built; sometimes, indeed generally, the members were united, as
we have already said, in the worship of some deity; they were
cultores Jovis, or Herculis, or Apollinis et Diana; sometimes
they merely took the title of some deceased benefactor whose memory
they desired to honor; e. g. cultores statuarum et clipeorum L.
Abulli Dextri; and sometimes the only bond of union seems to have
been service in the same house or family. A long {417} and curious
inscription belonging to one of these colleges, consisting mainly of
slaves, and erected in honor of Diana and Antinous, and for the
burial of the dead, in the year 133 of our era, reveals a number of
most interesting particulars as to its internal organization, which
are worth repeating in this place. So much was to be paid at entrance,
and a keg of good wine beside, and then so much a month afterward; for
every member who has regularly paid up his contribution, so much to be
allowed for his funeral, of which a certain proportion to be
distributed amongst those who assist; if a member dies at a distance
of more than twenty miles from Rome, three members are to be sent to
fetch the body, and so much is to be allowed them for travelling
expenses; if the master (of the slave) will not give up the body, he
is nevertheless to receive all the funeral rites; he is to be buried
in effigy; if any of the members, being a slave, receives his freedom,
he owes the college an amphora of good wine; he who is elected
president (magister), must inaugurate his accession to office by
giving a supper to all the members; six times a year the members dine
together in honor of Diana, Antinous, and the patron of the college,
and the allowance of bread and of wine on these occasions is
specified; so much to every mess of four; no complaints or disputed
questions may be mooted at these festivals, "to the end that our
feasts may be merry and glad;" finally, whoever wishes to enter this
confraternity is requested to study all the rules first before he
enters, lest he afterward grumble or leave a dispute as a legacy to
his heir.
We are afraid we have gone into the details of this ancient burial
club more than was strictly necessary for our purpose; but we have
been insensibly drawn on by their extremely interesting character,
reminding us (as the Count de Champagny, from whom we have taken them,
most justly remarks) both of the ancient Christian Agapae, or
love-feasts, and (we may add) the mediaeval guilds. This, however,
suggests a train of thought which we must not be tempted to pursue. De
Rossi has been more self-denying on the subject; he confines himself
to a brief mention of the existence of the clubs, refers us to other
authors for an account of them, and then calls our attention to this
very singular, and for our purpose most important fact concerning
them: viz., that at a time when institutions of this kind had been
made a cover for political combinations and conspiracies, or at least
when the emperors suspected and feared such an abuse of them, and
therefore rigorously suppressed them, nevertheless an exception was
expressly made in favor of those which consisted of "poorer members of
society, who met together every month to make a small contribution
toward the expenses of their funeral;" and then he puts side by side
with this law the words of Tertullian in his Apology, written about
the very same time, where he speaks of the Christians contributing
every month, or when and as each can and chooses, a certain sum to
be spent on feeding and burying the poor. The identity of language
in the two passages, when thus brought into juxtaposition, is very
striking; and we suppose that most of our readers will now recognize
the bearing of all we have hitherto been saying upon the history of
the Christian catacombs, from which we have seemed to be wandering so,
far.
We have already said that one of the first questions which persons are
inclined to ask when they either visit, or begin to study, the
catacombs, is this: How was so vast a work ever accomplished without
the knowledge and against the will of the local authorities? And we
answer (in part at least), as the Royal Scientific Society should
have answered King Charles the Second's famous question about the live
fish and the dead fish in the tub of water, "Are you quite sure of
your facts? Don't call upon us to {418} find the reason of a problem
which, after all, only exists perhaps in your own imagination." And so
in truth it is. The arguments of the Cavaliere de Rossi have satisfied
us that the Christians of the first ages were under no necessity of
having recourse to extraordinary means of secrecy with reference to
the burial of their dead; it was quite possible for them to have
cemeteries on every side of Rome, under the protection of the ordinary
laws and practices of their pagan neighbors.
But is not this to revolutionize the whole history of these wonderful
excavations? We cannot help it, if it be so; it is at least one of
those revolutions which are generally accepted as justifiable, and
certainly are approved in their consequences; for when it is complete,
everything finds its proper place; books and grave-stones, the
cemeteries and their ancient historians, every witness concerned gives
its own independent testimony, all in harmony with one another, and
with the presumed facts of the case. Let us see how the early history
of the catacombs runs, when reconstructed according to this new
theory. The first Christian cemeteries were made in ground given for
that very purpose by some wealthier member of the community, and
secured to it in perpetuity in accordance with the laws of the
country. There was nothing to prevent the erection of a public
monument in the area thus secured, and the excavation of chambers and
galleries beneath. And history tells us of several of the most ancient
catacombs that they had their origin from this very circumstance, that
some pious Christian, generally a Roman matron of noble rank, buried
the relics of some famous martyr on her own property (in praedio
suo.)
The oldest memorial we have about the tomb of St. Peter himself is
this, that Anacletus "memoriam construxit B. Petri, and places where
the bishops (of Rome) should be buried;" and this language is far more
intelligible and correct, if spoken of some public tomb, than of an
obscure subterranean grave; memoria, or cella memoriae, being the
classical designation of such tombs. How much more appropriate also
does the language of Caius the presbyter, preserved to us by Eusebius,
now appear, wherein he speaks (in the days of Zephyrinus) of the
trophies of the apostles being to be seen at the Vatican and on
the Ostian way? Tertullian, too, speaks of the bodies of the martyrs
lying in mausoleums and monuments, awaiting the general
resurrection. From the same writer we learn that the areae of the
Christian burials were known to and were sacrilegiously attacked by
the enraged heathens in the very first years of the third century; and
quite recently there has reached us from this same writer's country a
most valuable inscription, discovered among the ruins of a Roman
building, not far from the walls of the ancient Caesarea of
Mauritania, which runs in this wise: "Euelpius, a worshipper of the
word (cultor Verbi; mark the word, and call to mind the cultores
Jovis, etc.), has given this area for sepulchres, and has built a
cella at his own cost. He left this memoria to the holy church.
Hail, brethren: Euelpius, with a pure and simple heart, salutes you,
born of the Holy Spirit." It is true that this inscription, as we now
have it, is not the original stone; it is expressly added at the foot
of the tablet, that Ecclesia fratrum has restored this titulus at
a period subsequent to the persecution during which the original had
been destroyed; but both the sense and the words forbid us to suppose
that any change had been made in the language of the epitaph, to which
we cannot assign a date later than the middle of the third century.
But, finally, and above all, let us descend into the catacombs
themselves, and put them to the question. Michael Stephen de Rossi,
the constant companion of his brother's studies, having invented some
new mechanical contrivance for taking plans of subterranean
excavations, [Footnote 78] has made exact {419} plans of several
catacombs, not only of each level (or floor, so to speak) within
itself, but also in its relations to the superficial soil, and in the
relations of the several floors one with another. A specimen of these
is set before us by means of different colors or tints, representing
the galleries of the different levels, in the map of the cemetery of
St. Callixtus, which accompanies this volume; and a careful study of
this map is sufficient to demonstrate that the vast net-work of paths
in this famous cemetery originally consisted of several smaller
cemeteries, confined each within strict and narrow limits, and that
they were only united at some later, though still very ancient period.
For it cannot have been without reason that the subterranean galleries
should have doubled and re-doubled upon themselves within the limits
of a certain well-defined area; that they should never have
overstepped a certain boundary-line in this or that direction, though
the nature of the soil and every other consideration would have seemed
to invite them to proceed; that they should have been suddenly
interrupted by a flight of steps, penetrating more deeply into the
bowels of the earth, and there been reproduced exactly upon the same
scale and within the same limits. These facts can only be fully
appreciated by an actual examination of the map, where they speak for
themselves; but even those who have not this advantage will scarcely
call in question the conclusion that is drawn from them, when they
call to mind how exactly it coincides with all the ancient testimonies
we have already adduced on the subject, and when they learn the
singular and most interesting fact, that the Cav. de Rossi has been
able in more than one instance, by means of the sepulchral
inscriptions, to identify the noble family by whom the site of the
cemetery was originally granted.
It will be of course understood that we have been speaking of the
earliest ages of the Church's history, and that we are far from
denying that there were other periods during which secrecy was an
essential condition of the Christian cemeteries; on the contrary, did
our space allow, we could show what parts of the catacombs belonged to
the one period, and what to the other, and what are the essential
characteristics of each. We might unfold also, with considerable
minuteness, the economy of these cemeteries, even during the ages of
persecution; under whose management they were administered, whether
they were parochial or otherwise, together with many other highly
interesting particulars. But we have already exceeded the limits
assigned us, and we hope that those of our readers who wish to know
more on the subject will take care to possess themselves of the book
from which we have drawn our information, that so funds may not be
wanting for the completion of so useful a work. Nothing but a
deficiency of funds, in the present condition of the pontifical
treasury, hinders the immediate issue of other volumes of this and its
kindred work, the Inscriptiones Christianae, by the same author. He
announces his intention to bring out the volumes of Roma Sotterranea
and of the Inscriptions alternately, for they mutually explain and
illustrate one another, and are in fact parts of the same whole; and
the public has been long impatient for the volume which is promised
next, viz., the ancient inscriptions which illustrate Christian dogma.
{420}
MISCELLANY.
ART.
Domestic.—The fortieth annual exhibition of the National Academy of
Design was opened to the public on the evening of April 27th, under
circumstances which may well mark an era in the history of that
institution. After drifting from place to place through forty long
years, now deficient in funds, and now in danger of losing public
sympathy or support, sometimes unable to carry out its specific
purposes, and almost always cramped for space, or otherwise perplexed
in the details of its public exhibitions, the Academy, like Noah's
ark, long buffetted by waves and driven by tempests, finds a resting
place, not on Mount Ararat, but at the corner of Fourth avenue and
Twenty-third street. And as the "world's gray fathers," after their
troubled voyage, regarded with infinite satisfaction terra firma and
the blue sky, so doubtless the older of the academicians, those who
have accompanied the institution in all its wanderings, are doubtless
both pleased and amazed to find themselves arrived at a goodly haven
with secure anchorage. To drop the figure, the Academy is now
permanently established in an attractive and convenient building, well
situated in a central locality, and bids fair to enter upon a career
of usefulness far beyond the results of its previous experience.
The new building has been for so long a time completed externally,
that its merits have been canvassed with every shade of opinion, from
enthusiastic commendation to quite as decided disapprobation. The
majority of critics, having their reputation at stake, are afraid to
hazard an opinion, and prudently remain neutral, until some
authoritative decision shall be made. As an architectural effort it
may be called an experiment, on which account it presents perhaps as
many claims to critical notice as the works of art which adorn its
walls. The style, singularly enough, is assigned to no special era or
country, but is described to be of "that revived Gothic, now the
dominant style in England, which combines those features of the
different schools of architecture of the Middle Ages which are most
appropriate to our nineteenth-century buildings," which means probably
that the building is of an eclectic Gothic pattern. All modern styles
since the renaissance may be said to be eclectic, whether founded on
antique or mediaeval models, and the building in question differs from
other Gothic edifices, of more familiar aspect to us, chiefly in form,
external decoration, and the arrangement of its component parts. In
the American mind Gothic architecture is associated chiefly with
ecclesiastical structures and is popularly supposed to be subject to
no fixed laws, beyond an adherence to the irregular and picturesque.
Given a cruciform ground-plan, a pointed spire, steep roof, narrow
arched windows, buttresses, and pinnacles ad libitum, and you have
as good a Gothic building as the public taste can appreciate. Here,
however, is a nearly square building, covering an area of eighty by
about a hundred feet, which is neither a church nor a college, and is
without steep roof, spire, buttresses, or pinnacles. The public
evidently do not fathom the mystery at present, and those whose praise
of the new Academy borders on the extravagant, are perhaps as much
astray in their adherence to the omne ignotum pro magnifico
principle as those wiseacres who tell you knowingly that the architect
has tried to palm off upon us a palpable imitation of the doge's
palace in Venice. If the latter class of critics will refresh their
memory a little, or consult any good print of Venetian architecture,
they will find about as much resemblance between the two buildings as
exists between the old Custom House in Wall street and the Parthenon.
The plain fact is that we are so unused to Gothic architecture,
applied to secular purposes, and to any other forms of it than the
ecclesiastical, as to be without sufficient data to form a correct
idea of the present edifice. And yet, such is the conceit of
criticism, that thousands of persons pronounce their judgment upon it
with as much confidence as they would upon a trivial matter perfectly
{421} familiar to them. These may yet find that hasty opinions are
dangerous.
The Academy, as has been hinted above, is of rectangular shape, having
three stories, of which the first is devoted to the life school and
the school of design, the second to the library, reception rooms,
council room, and similar apartments, and the third to the exhibition
galleries, five in number, with which at present we have specially to
deal. The main entrance to the building is on Twenty-third street.
Passing up a double flight of marble steps and through a magnificent
Gothic portal into a vestibule, the visitor next enters the great
hall, in the centre of which commences a broad stairway, consisting at
first of a double flight of steps, and ultimately of a single flight,
leading to the level of the exhibition floor. Running all around the
open space on this story caused by the stairway is a corridor, two
sides of which, parallel with the stairway, comprise a double arcade,
supported on columns of variegated and polished marble, the capitals
of which, of white marble, are hereafter to be sculptured in delicate
leaf-and-flower work from nature. Opening from this corridor are the
exhibition rooms, which also communicate with each other, and of which
the largest is thirty by seventy-six feet, and the smallest, used as a
gallery of sculpture, is twenty-one feet square. These are all lighted
by sky-lights, and are intended for the purposes of the annual
exhibitions. In the corridor surrounding the stairway are to be hung
the works of art belonging to the Academy, although at present its
walls are covered with pictures contributed to this year's exhibition.
The several rooms described are well-lighted, and though smaller
perhaps than the large outlay upon the building might have led the
public to expect, seem excellently adapted for their purposes. The
largest of them is a model exhibition gallery in respect to
proportions and light, and all are tastefully finished and pannelled
with walnut from floor to ceiling. Throughout the building the same
costly and durable style prevails, the wood-work being of oak and
walnut, and the vestibules floored with mosaic of tiles.
So much for the interior, against which no serious complaint has been
uttered. Externally the walls of the basement story are of gray marble
relieved by bands of graywacke, those of the story above of white
marble with similar bands, while the uppermost story is of white
marble with checker-work pattern of oblong gray blocks, laid
stair-fashion. The whole is surmounted by a rich arcaded cornice of
white marble. The double flight of white marble steps on Twenty-third
street, leading to the main entrance, is, perhaps, the most marked
feature of the building, at once graceful, rich, and substantial, and
may fairly challenge comparison with any similar structure of like
pattern in the country. Under the platform is a triple arcade,
inclosing a drinking-fountain, and profusely decorated with sculpture,
and from the upper landing springs the great arched Gothic portal,
large enough almost for the entrance to a cathedral. On either side of
this are two columns of red Vermont marble with white marble capitals
and bases, on which rests a broad archivolt enriched with sculpture
and varied by voussoirs, alternately white and gray. The tympanum
above the door is to be filled with an elaborate mosaic of colored
tile work. The basement windows, on Fourth avenue, are double, with
segmental arches, each pair of which is supported in the middle on a
clustered column with rich carved capital and base. All the other
windows in the building have pointed arches, and the archivolts of
those in the first story are decorated like that of the doorway. In
the place of windows on the gallery floor are circular openings for
ventilation, filled with elaborate tracery. The building was designed
by Mr. P. B. Wight, and erected at a cost of over two hundred thousand
dollars.
Without attempting to inquire whether this or that portion of the
building is correctly designed, or even whether the whole is entirely
satisfactory, or the reverse, we may say that in the opinion of most
persons the external flight of steps and the entrance are too large
and elaborate for the building, reminding one of those remarkable
edifices for banking or other public purposes occasionally to be seen
in this city, which are all portico, as if the main structure had
walked away, or had not been considered of sufficient importance to be
added to the entrance. It is partly owing to this defect, and partly
to the insufficient area on which it is built, {422} that the Academy
seems wanting in height and depth, and therefore devoid of just
proportions—has in fact an unmistakable dumpy look. Many an
architect before Mr. Wight has been prevented by want of space from
effectively developing ideas intrinsically good, and perhaps the
severest criticism that can be pronounced against him in the present
instance is that ambition has led him to attempt what his better
judgment might have taught him was impossible. "Cut your coat
according to your cloth," is a maxim of which the applicability is not
yet exhausted. Again, the obtrusive ugliness of the skylights, rising
clear above the sculptured cornices, can hardly fail to offend the
eye, and suggests the idea of an encumbered or even an overloaded
roof. If to these defects be added the curious optical delusion by
which the gray marble checker-work on the upper story appears uneven
and awry, and which denotes a radical error in design, we believe we
have mentioned the chief features of the building which even those who
profess to admire it unite in condemning. The objection that the
building is of unusual form and appearance, and out of keeping with
the styles of architecture in vogue with us, is not worthy of serious
consideration.
Having said so much in depreciation of the Academy, we must also say
that it conveys on the whole an elegant, artistic, and even cheerful
impression to the mind, relieving, with its beautiful contrasts of
white and gray and slate, the sombre blocks of red or brown buildings
which surround it, and actually lightening up the rather prosaic
quarter in which it stands. Too much praise cannot be accorded to the
architect for the combinations of color which he has infused into his
design; and, granting that in this respect he has committed some
errors of detail, they are trifling in comparison with the good
effects which will probably result from the future employment of this
means of embellishment. What if the idea, imperfectly embodied in this
experimental building, should in the end compass the overthrow of that
taste which leads us to build gloomy piles of brown houses, overlaid
with tawdry ornamentation, and pronounce them beautiful? When such an
innovation is attempted and finds even a moderate degree of favor,
there is hope that the era of architectural coldness and poverty may
yet pass away. The carving profusely distributed on both the exterior
and interior of the building, and of which, we are told, "the flowers
and leaves of our woods have furnished the models," is for the most
part exquisite in design and execution. Here, at least, is
naturalistic art, against which the sticklers for idealism can offer
no objection, so beautiful and appropriate are the designs, and so
suggestive of the necessity of going back to nature for inspiration.
If the new Academy possessed no other merit than this, it would
nevertheless subserve a useful purpose in the development of taste.
Having devoted so much space to the building, we can only allude
generally to the contents of its galleries, of which we propose to
speak more at length in a future notice. The exhibition, though
inferior to those of some years in the number, exceeds them all in the
quality of its pictures, and presents on the whole a creditable and
encouraging view of the progress of American art. If the capacity of
the galleries is not so great as was expected, there is on the other
hand less danger that the eye will be offended by a long array of
unsightly works, and we may probably bid good-bye to the monstrosities
of composition and color which the Academy was formerly compelled to
receive, in order to eke out its annual exhibitions. Such has been the
increase in the number of our resident artists of late years, that but
a limited number of pictures, and those consequently their best
efforts, can henceforth be contributed by each. This fact alone will
ensure a constantly increasing improvement to succeeding exhibitions.
As usual, landscape predominates, with every variety of treatment and
motive, from Academic generalization and pure naturalism down to
Pre-Raphaelitism and hopeful though somewhat imperfect attempts at
ideal sentiment. Portraiture and genre are also well represented, with
a fair proportion of animal, flower, and still-life pieces, and of the
numerous family of miscellaneous subjects which defy classification.
History is even less affected than usual, the dramatic episodes of the
great rebellion failing to suggest subjects to our painters other than
those of an indirect or merely probable character. So far as the
present exhibition may be supposed to afford an {423} indication,
"high art," and particularly that branch of it which illustrates
sacred history, is defunct among us—a circumstance which those who
have witnessed previous efforts by contemporary American painters in
that department will not perhaps regret. The pictures are generally
hung with judgment, and in a spirit of fairness which ought to
satisfy, though it will not probably in every instance, the demands of
exhibitors. And it may be added that they appear to good effect, and
are daily admired, using the word in its derived as well as its more
common sense, by throngs of visitors.
Church, the landscape painter, has recently gone to the West Indies,
with the intention of passing the summer in the mountain region of
Jamaica, where he will doubtless find abundant materials for study. He
leaves behind a large unfinished work of great promise, "The Rainbow
in the Tropics," and some completed ones of less dimensions.
Augero, an Italian artist, has recently completed for a church in
Boston a picture of St. Andrew bearing the cross, of which a
contemporary says: "Mr. Augero has departed from the traditional types
that have descended to him, and has treated the picture in a manner
entirely his own. The head of the saint is finely handled, and,
without being too much spiritualized, has sufficient of the ideal to
give it value both as a church picture and a work of art. In general
arrangement and color the work is especially to be admired." This
artist is said to have received quite a number of commissions for
ecclesiastical decoration.
Palmer is completing a bust of Washington Irving, which has been
pronounced by the friends of the latter a successful likeness.
An essay on Gustave Doré, by B. P. G. Hamilton, will soon be published
by Leypoldt of Philadelphia.
The spring exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts is now
open in Philadelphia. The collections are said to be large and to
represent all departments of painting.
Foreign.—The Exhibition of the Society of British Artists and the
General Exhibition of Water Color Drawings opened in London in the
latter part of April. The former contains more than a thousand
pictures, few of which, it is said, rise above the most common average
of picture-making, while the greater part fall below it. "There is
something very depressing," says the Reader, "about such a large
display of commonplace art. It is almost painful to have the fact
forced upon one's mind, that the thought and labor represented in all
these pictures is misapplied, if not wasted; for to this conclusion we
must come, if we bring the display in Suffolk street to the test of
comparison with any real work of art. A fine picture by Landseer or
Millais would outweigh, in intrinsic value, the whole collection.
Denude the Royal Academy exhibition of the works of Landseer, Millais,
Philip, and other of its most accomplished contributors, and subtract
from it at the same time the works of promise which lend to it so
great an interest, and we should have a second Suffolk street
exhibition, characterized by a similar dead level of mediocrity and
insipidity; for neither highly accomplished work nor sign of promise
is to be seen in this the forty-second annual exhibition of the
Society of British Artists." From which it would appear that
contemporary art in England gives no remarkable promise.
A large collection of the late John Leech's sketches, etc., was lately
sold in London. It comprised the original designs for the political
cartoons and pictures of life and character which have appeared in
Punch during the last twenty years; the designs for the "Ingoldsby
Legends," "Jorrock's Hunt," "Ask Mamma," "Mr. Facey Romford's Hounds,"
and other sporting novels, and several pictures in oil. The prices ran
very high, the net result being £4,089.
The collection of paintings and water color drawings by the best
modern British artists, formed by Mr. John Knowles, of Manchester, was
recently disposed of in London at very handsome prices. The chief
attraction was Rosa Bonheur's "Muleteers Crossing the Pyrenees," which
brought 2,000 guineas. The collection realized £21,750.
Preparations are making to remove the cartoons of Raphael from Hampton
Court to the new north fire-proof gallery in the South Kensington
Museum, formerly occupied by the British pictures of the National
Gallery.
The Great Pourtalès sale has closed {424} after lasting upward of a
month and realizing a sum total of nearly three millions of francs. A
Paris paper states that, considering the interest of the sums expended
in forming the collection as money lost, the sale will give a profit
on the outlay of a million and a half of francs, or about a hundred
per cent.—a notable illustration of the mania for picture buying now
prevailing in Europe. The owner died ten years ago, leaving directions
that the collection should not be sold until 1864, for which his heirs
and representatives are doubtless properly grateful. The following
will give an idea of the prices fetched by the best pictures:
Campagne, Ph. de: The Marriage of the Virgin, formerly the altar-piece
of the chapel of the Palais Royal, sold for 43,500f. Hals, Francis: An
unknown portrait of a man; his left hand leaning on his hip and
touching the handle of his sword, 51,000f. Rembrandt: Portrait of a
Burgomaster, 34,500f. By the same: Portrait of a veteran soldier
seated at a table, 27,000f. Murillo: The Triumph of the Eucharist;
with the words "In finem dilexit eos," 67,500f.; bought for the
Louvre. By the same: The Virgin bending over the infant Christ, whom
she presses to her bosom, 18,000f. By the same: St. Joseph holding the
infant Christ by the hand, 15,000f. Velasquez: The Orlando Muerto, a
bare-headed warrior, in a black cuirass, lying dead in a grotto strewn
with human bones, his right hand on his breast, his left on the guard
of his sword; from the roof of the grotto hangs a lamp, in which the
flame is flickering, 37,000f. Albert Durer: A pen drawing,
representing Samson, of colossal size, routing the Philistines with
the jaw-bone of an ass, 4,500f. A portrait by Antonelli di Messina,
bought years ago in Florence by Pourtalès for 1,500f., and appraised
in his inventory at 20,000f., was sold to the Louvre, where it now
hangs in the salon carré, for 113,000f.
Gustave Doré is announced to have undertaken to illustrate Shakespeare
and the Bible.
The sale of the Due de Moray's gallery of paintings will take place in
June. It contains six Meissoniers, which cost, at the utmost, not
above 60,000 francs, but which will now probably fetch more than
double that price.
A picture by Ribera, representing St. Luke taking the likeness of the
Virgin, was sold recently in Paris for 21,000f.
French landscape art has lost one of its chief illustrators in the
person of Constant Troyon, who died in the latter part of March, aged
about fifty-two. He has been called the creator of the modern French
school of landscape, and delighted in cheerful aspects of nature,
which he rendered with masterly skill. Rural life, with its pleasing
accessories of winding streams, picturesque low banks, groups of
cattle, and shady hamlets, formed the favorite subjects of his pencil;
and though his style was not always exact, he succeeded in infusing an
unusual degree of physical life into his pictures, without ever
degenerating into mere naturalism. As a colorist he excelled all
contemporary animal and landscape painters, and used his brush with a
freedom rivalling that of Delacroix. He died insane, and is said to
have left a fortune of 1,200,000 francs. Some of his pictures are
owned in New York.
A painting by Murillo, from the collection of the late Marquis Aguado,
representing the death of Santa Clara, has been sold to the Royal
Gallery of Madrid for 75,000 francs.
{425}
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
THE CORRELATION AND CONSERVATION OF FORCES:
A SERIES OF EXPOSITIONS,
by Prof. Grove, Prof. Helmholtz, Dr. Mayer, Dr. Faraday, Prof. Liebig,
and Dr. Carpenter. With an Introduction and brief Biographical Notices
of the chief Promoters of the new views. By Edward L. Youmans, M.D.
12mo., pp. xlii., 438. New York: D. Appleton & Company.
Religious writers have repeatedly deplored the materialistic tendency
of modern scientific research, and in many cases, no doubt, the
complaint is a just one. But we must not forget that the bad tendency
is in the philosophical system which is sought to be built upon the
facts of discovery, not in the facts themselves. Every development, of
truth, every fresh unveiling of the mechanism of the universe, must of
necessity redound to the greater glory of God. And it seems to us that
no scientific theory which has been broached for many years speaks
more gloriously of the disposing and over-ruling hand of an all-wise
Creator than the one to which the volume now before us is devoted. If
there could be any place for comparison in speaking of the exercise of
omnipotence, we might say that the new view of the nature and mode of
action of the physical forces represents creation as a far more
marvellous act than the old one did.
We speak of the correlation and conservation of force as a "new"
theory because it is only lately that it has attracted much attention
beyond the higher scientific circles, and indeed it would perhaps be
going too far to say that it is yet firmly established. It has been
developing however for a number of years, and the most distinguished
experts in physical science have for some time accepted it with
remarkable unanimity. In the book whose title we have given above, Dr.
Yournans has brought together eight of the most valuable essays in
which the theory has been maintained or explained by its founders and
chief supporters. He has made his selection with excellent judgment,
and prefixed to the whole a clear and well-written introduction, by
the aid of which any reader of ordinary education will be able to
appreciate what follows. The longest and most important essay is that
by Professor Grove on "The Correlation of Physical Forces."
Force is defined by Professor Grove as that active principle
inseparable from matter which induces its various changes. In other
words, it is the agent or producer of change or motion. The
modifications of this general agent—heat, light, electricity,
magnetism, chemical affinity, gravity, cohesive attraction, etc.—are
called the physical forces. In many cases, where one of these is
excited all the others are set in motion: thus when sulphuret of
antimony is electrified, at the moment of electrization it becomes
magnetic; at the same time it is heated; if the heat is raised to
a certain intensity, light is produced; the compound is decomposed,
and chemical action is thereby brought into play; and so on.
Moreover, we cannot magnetize a body without electrizing it, and
vice-versa. This necessary reciprocal production is what is understood
by the term "correlation of forces"—or in other words, we may say
that any one of the natural forces may be converted into another mode
of force, and may be reproduced by the same force. A striking example
of the conversion of heat into electricity is furnished by an
experiment of Seebeck's. Two dissimilar metals are brought together
and heated at the point of contact. A current of electricity flows
through the metals, having a definite direction according to the
metals employed; continues as long as an increasing temperature is
pervading the metals; ceases when the temperature is stationary; and
flows backward when the heat begins to decrease. The immediate
convertibility of heat into light is not yet established beyond
question, although these two forces exhibit many curious analogies
with each other. But heat through the medium of electricity may easily
be turned into light, chemical affinity, magnetism, etc. Electricity
directly produces heat, as in the ignited wire, the electric spark,
and the {426} voltaic arc. The last-named phenomenon—the flame which
plays between the terminal points of a powerful voltaic battery
produces the most intense heat with which we are acquainted; so
intense, in fact, that it cannot be measured, as every sort of matter
is dissipated by it. For instance, it actually distils or
volatilizes iron, a metal which by ordinary means is fusible only at a
very high temperature. The voltaic arc also produces the most intense
light that we know of. Instances of the conversion of electricity into
magnetism and chemical action are familiar to everybody. The
reciprocal relations of light with other modes of force are thus far
very imperfectly known. Professor Grove however describes an
experiment by which light is made to produce simultaneously chemical
action, electricity, magnetism, heat, and motion. The conversion of
light into chemical force in photography is another exemplification of
the law of correlation, and Bunsen and Roscoe have experimentally
shown that certain rays of light are extinguished or absorbed in doing
chemical work. A familiar example of the change of light into heat is
seen in the phenomena of what is termed the absorption of light. Place
different colored pieces of cloth on snow exposed to sunshine: black
will absorb the most light, and will also develop the most heat, as
may be seen by its sinking deepest in the snow; white, which absorbs
little or no light, will not sink at all.
The evolution of one force or mode of force into another has naturally
induced many to regard all the different natural agencies as reducible
to unity, and much ingenuity has been expended on the question which
force is the efficient cause of all the others. One says electricity,
another chemical action, another gravity. Professor Grove believes
that all are wrong: each mode of force may produce the others, and
none can be produced except by some other as an anterior force. We can
no more determine which is the efficient cause than we can determine
whether the chicken is the cause of the egg, or the egg the cause of
the chicken. The tendency of recent researches however is toward the
conclusion that all the physical forces are simply modes of motion;
that as, in the case of friction, the gross or palpable motion which
is arrested by the contact of another body, is subdivided into
molecular motions or vibrations (or as Helmholtz expresses it,
peculiar shivering motions of the ultimate particles of bodies), which
motions are only heat or electricity, as the case may be; so the other
affections are only matter moved or molecularly agitated in certain
definite directions. The identity of motion with heat was established
in the last century by our countryman, Count Rumford, and has lately
been beautifully illustrated by Professor Tyndall in his charming
lectures on "Heat considered as a Mode of Motion." Dr. Mayer, of
Heilbronn, and Mr. Joule, of Manchester, independently of each other,
established the exact ratio between heat and motive power, showing
that a quantity of heat sufficient to raise one pound of water one
degree Fahrenheit in temperature is able to raise to the height of one
foot a weight of 772 pounds; and conversely, that a weight of 772
pounds falling from a height of one foot evolves enough heat to raise
the temperature of a pound of water one degree. That is, this quantity
of force, expressed as 772 "foot-pounds," is to be regarded as the
mechanical equivalent of 1° of temperature. Professor Grove considers
at some length the identity of motion with other forms of force,
especially electricity and magnetism, and alludes briefly to the
inevitable consequence of this theory, that the different forces must
bear an exact quantitative relation to each other. "The great
problem which remains to be solved," he says, "in regard to the
correlation of physical forces, is this establishment of their
equivalents of power, or their measurable relation to a given
standard."
The doctrine of the conservation or persistence of force seems to flow
naturally from what has been said above. It means simply that force is
never destroyed: when it ceases to exist in one form it only passes
into another. Power or energy, like matter, is neither created nor
annihilated: "Though ever changing form, its total quantity in the
universe remains constant and unalterable. Every manifestation of
force must have come from a pre-existing equivalent force, and must
give rise to a subsequent and equal amount of some other force. When,
therefore, a force or effect appears, we are not at liberty to assume
that it was self-originated, or {427} came from nothing; when it
disappears we are forbidden to conclude that it is annihilated: we
must search and find whence it came and whither it has gone; that is,
what produced it, and what effect it has itself produced."
(Introduction, p. xiii.) This branch of the subject will be found
clearly and concisely treated in Professor Faraday's paper on "The
Conservation of Force" (pp. 359-383).
Dr. Carpenter carries the new theory into the higher realms of nature,
and shows the applicability of the principle of correlation and
conservation to the vital phenomena of growth and development. "These
forces," he says, "are generated in living bodies by the
transformation of the light, heat, and chemical action supplied by the
world around, and are given back to it again, either during their
life, or after its cessation, chiefly in motion and heat, but also, to
a less degree, in light and electricity." Vital force is that power by
virtue of which a germ endowed with life is developed into an
organization of a type resembling that of its parents, and which
subsequently maintains that organism in its integrity. The prevalent
opinion until lately has been that this force is inherent in the germ,
which has been supposed to derive from its parent not merely its
material substance, but a germ-force, in virtue of which it develops
and maintains itself, beside imparting a fraction of the same force to
each of its descendants. In this view of the question, the aggregate
of all the germ-forces appertaining to the descendants, however
numerous, of a common parentage, must have existed in the original
progenitors. Take the case of the successive viviparous broods of
Aphides, which (it has been calculated) would amount in the tenth
brood to the bulk of five hundred millions of stout men: a
germ-force capable of organizing this vast mass of living structure
must have been shut up in the single individual, weighing perhaps the
1-1000th of a grain, from which the first brood was evolved! So, too,
in Adam must have been concentrated the germ-force of every individual
of the human race, from the creation to the end of the world. This,
says Dr. Carpenter, is a complete reductio ad absurdum. According to
his theory, the germ supplies not the force, but the directive agency.
The vital force of an animal or a plant is supplied by the same
physical agencies which we have considered above.
Dr. Youmans in his introduction is disposed to push this part of the
subject yet further, and to identify physical with intellectual force;
but into this dangerous region it is unnecessary to follow him.
Some of the explanations of natural phenomena which are drawn as
corollaries from the new theory of forces are in the highest degree
curious and beautiful. Many of our readers will find Dr. Mayer's paper
"On Celestial Dynamics" one of the most interesting portions of the
book. He applies the principle of the convertibility of heat and
motion to the question of the origin of the sun's heat, which he
ascribes to the fall of asteroids upon the sun's surface. That an
immense number of cosmical bodies are moving through the heavens and
streaming toward the solar surface, is well known to all physicists.
Now it is calculated that a single asteroid falling into the sun
generates from 4,600 to 9,200 times as much heat as would be generated
by the combustion of an equal mass of coal, and the mass of matter
which in the form of asteroids falls into the sun every minute is from
two to four hundred thousand billions of pounds! The enormous heat
which must be evolved by such a bombardment is almost inconceivable.
REAL AND IDEAL. By John W. Montclair. 12mo., pp. 119. Philadelphia:
Frederick Leypoldt. New York: Hurd & Houghton.
This is a dainty little volume of poems, partly translated from the
German, partly the offspring of the native muse. They are simple,
unpretending, and as a general thing melodious. The author probably
has not aspired to a very high place in the temple of fame; without
the ambition to produce anything very striking or very original, he
has been satisfied with the endeavor which he pithily expresses in his
"Prologue:"
"Clearer to think what others thought before—
Keenly to feel th' afflictions of our race—
Better to say what others oft have said—"
and if he does not always think clearer and speak better than those in
whose footsteps he treads, there is at all events that in his verse
which promises better {428} things after more practice. His faults are
chiefly those of carelessness and inexperience. His metaphors are
superabundant, and sometimes incongruous. He has a good ear for
rhythm; but we often find him tripping in his prosody. Often too the
requirements of the metre lead him to eke out a line with expletives,
or weaken it with unnecessary epithets.
But we can commend the book for its healthy tone. Mr. Montclair has no
tendency toward the morbid psychological school of poetry. He delights
rather in the contemplation of nature, and in moralizing on the life
and aspirations of man. In neither does he discover much that is new;
but the natural beauties which he sings are those of which we do not
easily tire, and his moral reflections are just though they may not be
profound. For the matter of his translations he has chosen some of the
simplest and shortest of the German legendary ballads. Several of them
are rendered with considerable neatness and delicacy. The following
version of a ballad to which attention has been particularly called of
late, is a favorable specimen of Mr. Montclair's powers:
"LENORE.
"Above the stars are twinkling—
The moon is shining bright—
And the dead they ride by night.
"'My love, wilt ope thy window?
I cannot long remain,
And may not come again.
"'The cock already crows—
Tells of the dawning day,
And warns me far away.
"'My journey distant lies;
Afar with thee, my bride,
A hundred leagues we'll ride.
"'In Hungary's fair land
I've found a tranquil spot,
A little garden plot.
"'And there, within the green,
A little cottage rests,
Befitting bridal guests.'
"'Oh, thou hast lingered long;
Beloved, welcome here—
Lead on, I'll never fear.'
"'So, wrap my mantle 'round;
The moon will be our guide,
And quick by night we'll ride.'
"'When will our journey end?
For heavy grows my sight,
And lonely is the night.'
"'Yon gate leads to our home:
Our bridal tour is done—
My purpose now is won.
"'Dismount we from our steed;
Here lay thy aching head—
This tomb's our bridal bed.
"'Now art thou truly mine:
I rode away thy breath—
Thou art the bride of death!'"
FAITH, THE VICTORY; ON A COMPREHENSIVE VIEW OF
THE PRINCIPAL DOCTRINES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.
By Rt. Rev. John McGill, D.D.,
Bishop of Richmond. 12mo., pp. viii.,
336. Richmond: J. W. Randolph.
This work is a curiosity as a specimen of the literature of the late
"Confederate States of America," and of course its typography and
general execution are plain and unpretending. The work itself is the
production of a prelate of high character and reputation for his
thorough theological erudition and ability as a writer, and as a clear
logical expounder of Catholic doctrine. It is written in a very
systematic and exact manner; the style is terse, the treatment of
topics brief but comprehensive; and yet, so lucid are the statements
and so simple the language, that it is throughout intelligible to the
ordinary reader, and in great part so to any one of good common sense
who can read English and is able to understand a plain, simple
treatise on religious doctrine. It may be characterized as an
elementary treatise on theology for the laity, and as such is adapted
to be very useful to Catholics, and also to those non-Catholics who
retain the doctrine of the old orthodox Protestant tradition. The
right reverend author is throughout careful to discriminate between
the defined doctrine of the Church and the teaching of theologians,
and is extremely cautious in expounding his opinion on those topics
which are controverted between the different schools. The authority of
the Catholic Church is established by the usual plain and irresistible
deductions from the premises admitted by those who fully accept
Christianity as a divine revelation and the Scripture as the
infallible word of God. The dogmas of the {429} Catholic faith are
stated in the plain ordinary language of the Church, with some account
of the principal methods of explaining difficulties in vogue among
theologians, and with proofs derived from Scriptures and tradition.
The stress of the entire argument rests principally on the evidence
that the Catholic dogmas have been revealed by God and clearly deduced
by the infallible authority of the Church, consequently must be
believed as certain truths. The line of fracture, where that fragment
of Christianity called orthodox Protestantism was broken off from the
integral system of Christian doctrine at the Reformation, is
distinctly traced, and orthodox Protestants are shown that they are
logically compelled to complete their own belief by becoming
Catholics. The old Protestant tradition has a far more extensive sway
in the southern states than among ourselves, and this excellent
treatise will no doubt be the means of bringing numbers of those who
are well-disposed, and need only to be taught what the revealed
doctrines of Christianity really are, into the bosom of the Church. In
this section of the United States, the greater portion of those who
are willing to examine the evidences of the Catholic religion have
floated far away from their old land-marks. In order to reach their
minds, it is necessary to present the rational arguments which will
solve their difficulties much more fully than is done in this
treatise, and to interpret for them ecclesiastical and theological
formulas in which divine truths are embodied in language which is
intelligible to their intellect in its present state. They are either
extreme rationalists or moderate rationalists; that is, they either
reject the supernatural revelation entirely, or admit only so much of
it as can be proved to them to be true on grounds of pure reason.
Hence, we are obliged to begin with the intrinsic evidence of the
truth and reasonableness of the Catholic faith, before we can bring
the force of extrinsic revelation by the authority of the Church to
bear upon their mind.
We welcome the present of this treatise from the Bishop of Richmond
for another reason, as well as for its intrinsic value. It is a sign
of the renewal of that ecclesiastical intercourse with our brethren of
the southern states which has so long been interrupted.
And, in conclusion, we desire to call particular attention to the
ensuing extract, as an evidence of the falsehood of the charge which
our enemies are at present disposed to make against the Catholic
Church of "sanctioning some of the worst enormities of slavery:"
"And here we would take occasion to deplore the conduct of the civil
government in this country, regarding the matrimonial contract of
slaves, which, though the rulers profess Christianity, is completely
ignored even as a civil contract, and left entirely to the caprice of
owners, who frequently without scruple or hesitation, and for the sake
of interest or gain, part man and wife, separate parents from their
children, and treat the matrimonial union among them as if it were
really no more than the chance association of unreasoning animals.
Often, also, some of these marriages are indissoluble by the
sacramental bond, as well as by the original design of the Creator,
and by the action of Christian proprietors and the neglect of a
Christian government, these separated parties are subjected to the
temptation to form criminal and forbidden alliances, from which
frequency, custom, and the condition of servitude have removed, in the
public view, the shame and stigma which they possess before God, and
according to the maxims of the gospel. Christian proprietors will know
and tolerate these alliances in their slaves, even when made without
any formality, and where they are aware that one or both is under the
obligation of other ties.
"It is not certain that the present dreadful calamities which afflict
the country are not the scourge of God, chiefly for this sin, among
the many that provoke his anger, in our people. He is not likely to
leave long unpunished in a nation the palpable and flagrant contempt
of his holy laws, such as is evinced in this neglect or refusal to
respect in slaves the holiness, the unity, and the indissolubility of
marriage. It would appear that by the present convulsions his
providence is preparing for them at least a recognition of those
rights as immortal beings which are required for the observance of the
paramount laws of God. And if citizens desire to see the nation
prosper and enjoy the blessing of God, let all unite to procure from
the civil government, for the slaves, that their marriages be esteemed
as God intends, and not be dealt with in future as they have been
hitherto."
{430}
MATER ADMIRABLIS; OR, FIRST FIFTEEN YEARS OF MARY IMMACULATE.
By Rev. Alfred Monnin, author of "The Life of the Curé d'Ars."
Translated from the French by the Sisters of Charity, Mount St.
Vincent, KY. 12mo., pp. 535. New York: James B. Kirker.
On the wall of a corridor in the convent of Trinità del Monti, at
Rome, there is a fresco representing the Blessed Virgin, Mater
admirabilis, at the age of fifteen. She is depicted spinning flax
within the precincts of the temple, with her work-basket and an open
book beside her. The picture was painted some twenty years ago by a
young postulant of the community of Ladies of the Sacred Heart, to
whom the Trinità belongs. It is not said that it is in any way
remarkable as a work of art; but it has acquired a celebrity among
pious Catholics second to that of hardly any picture in the world.
Since the year 1846, when the Holy Father gave his solemn blessing to
the picture, remarking that "it was a pious thought to represent the
most Holy Virgin at an age when she seemed to have been forgotten,"
signal favors have repeatedly been bestowed upon persons who have
prayed before it. The Rev. Mr. Blampin, a missionary from Oceanica,
recovered his voice at the feet of the Mater admirabilis, in 1846,
after having been deprived of it for twenty-one months. In a transport
of gratitude he obtained permission to say mass before the fresco, and
from that day the corridor became a real sanctuary. A great number of
miraculous cures were reported as having been wrought there, and
multitudes of sinners who came out of mere curiosity to gaze upon a
picture of which so much had been said, were converted by an
instantaneous infusion of divine grace. In 1849 Pope Pius IX., by an
apostolic brief, granted permission for the celebration of the
festival of the Mater admirabilis on the 20th of October, and
enriched the sanctuary with indulgences. In 1854, by a second
rescript, he confirmed an indulgence of three hundred days, which he
had previously granted verbally to all the faithful who should recite
three Hail Maries before this holy painting, adding the invocation,
Mater admirabilis, ora pro nobis; and in the following year the
indulgences were extended to the entire order of the Sacred Heart. The
devotion to the "Mother most admirable" spread rapidly, and copies of
the painting at the Trinità were soon to be found in various parts
of Europe and America. There is one in the Convent of the Sacred Heart
at Manhattanville, N. Y., from which the frontispiece to the volume
before us has been engraved. "I admit," says Father Monnin, speaking
of the original, "that of all the different ways by which art has
represented this Virgin by excellence, there is not one which better
corresponds with the beau ideal which, as a priest, I had loved to
form in my mind. Like the chaste Madonnas of the most fervent
ages—those of Beato in particular—this Madonna of the Lily makes
one feel and understand that its designer had prayed before painting
it, and that her imagination, fed by faith and the love of God, has
delineated the most holy virgin child by interior lights derived from
her meditations. By means of a constant communion with things divine,
the disciples of Fiesole have succeeded in placing themselves as so
many mediums between the Creator and the creature, by transmitting a
ray of that eternal light amidst which they live; we may say that
Mater admirabilis is of the school of Fra Angelico, although several
centuries have elapsed since his time. There is, as it were, the image
of a pure soul preserved ever from all stain, sent into the world to
be joined to a perfect and immaculate body, and to become, in this
twofold perfection and purity, the ineffable instrument of our
salvation! It is thus the prophet deserved to see her, brilliantly
resplendent with grace and innocence, with the clearness of eternal
light, and the splendor of eternal or perpetual virginity. The
ineffable peace which took possession of me, made me understand that
beauty of which St. Thomas speaks, the sight whereof purifies the
senses. …… There in the wall, within a niche contiguous to the
great church of the monastery, is the most holy Virgin, painted in
fresco at full size. …… The pilgrim looks in surprise, and very
soon feels as if the air around this fair flower of the field and lily
of the valley were embalmed with the perfumes of silence and
recollection. He sees her occupied in simply spinning flax; near her,
on the right, is a distaff resting upon a slender standard, and on the
left a lily rising out of a crystal vase, and bending its flexible
stalk toward Mary. …… Absorbed in her meditation, the most holy
child has suspended her work; her shuttle, become motionless, falls
from her hand, while her left hand still holds {431} a light thread
which remains joined to the flax in the distaff; one foot of this most
holy spinner rests upon a stool, near which lies an open book, spread
out on a work-basket, filled with shuttles and skeins. The features of
the youthful Mary express a purity in which there is nothing of earth;
her countenance is modestly tinged, the ringlets of her golden hair
are just perceptible through the wavings of a transparent veil which
covers her neck; her pure virginal brow, slender figure, and delicate
limbs give her a youthful appearance, full of grace and truthfulness.
It is truly the Virgin of virgins; it is truly Mary,—and Mary at an
age when but few works of art have sought to represent her."
The little chapel was soon decorated with votive offerings from all
parts of the world. It became a venerated shrine, and few devout
travellers now leave Rome without having prayed at it. The "archives
of Mater admirabilis," preserved at the Trinità, contain records
of the conversions, vocations, and cures effected at this consecrated
spot; and these, together with some devotional writings composed by
the pupils of the convent, form the groundwork of Father Monnin's
book. The matter is arranged in such a way that the work may be used
for the devotions of the month of May. It is divided into thirty-one
chapters, or "days," each of which contains a meditation having
special reference either to some virtue indicated by the picture, or
to Mary's childhood; this is followed by an appropriate prayer, and a
narrative taken from the archives.
Having explained the purpose of Father Monnin's book, we do not know
that we need say more by way of recommending it. Whatever tends to
foster love and veneration for the Blessed Virgin must commend itself
strongly to every pious Catholic; and in the new devotion, which is
here explained and illustrated, there is something so beautiful and
touching, that we believe it has only to be known in this country to
be embraced with the same eager affection as in Europe.
The external appearance of the volume is very attractive. We hail with
great pleasure the improvement in taste and liberality evinced by the
manufacture of such books as Kirker's "Mater Admirabilis" and O'Shea's
edition of Dr. Curnmings's "Spiritual Progress."
There is no sufficient reason why Catholics should not print and bind
books as well as other people.
THE LOVE Of RELIGIOUS PERFECTION; ON, HOW TO AWAKEN, INCREASE,
AND PRESERVE IT IN THE RELIGIOUS SOUL.
By Father Joseph Bayma, of the Society of Jesus. Translated from the
Latin by a Member of the same Society. 24mo., pp. 254. Baltimore: John
Murphy & Company.
The style and method of this little treatise are modelled upon those
of "The Imitation of Christ." The style is clear and severely simple,
not above the plainest comprehension, and not without attraction for
those who are somewhat fastidious in literary matters. Father Bayma
professes in his preface to have disregarded all ornaments of
composition, having written his little book not so much for the
edification of others as for the profit of his own soul. Our readers
can readily understand that it is for that very reason all the more
searching in its mental examinations and practical in its precepts.
Father Bayma divides his work into three books. The first treats of
the motives which should urge us toward religious perfection; the
second, of the means by which perfection is most easily obtained; and
the third, of the virtues in which it consists. The chapters are
short, and broken up into verses, and open where we will, we find
something to turn our thoughts toward God. Nor must it be supposed
that, because the book was written by a religious for his own
instruction, it contains only those more difficult counsels of
perfection which few people in the world are found strong enough to
follow. Like its prototype, "The Imitation of Christ" is a work for
all classes—for the easy-going Christian no less than for the saint.
Here is an extract from the chapter on "The Choice and Perfection of
Virtues;" we choose it because it illustrates how well even those
passages which are directly addressed to religious persons are adapted
to the use of persons in the world:
"1. So long as we are weighed down by our mortal flesh, we cannot
acquire the perfection of all virtues; and therefore, we have need of
selection that we may not labor in vain.
"Choose then a virtue to practise, until, {432} by the assistance of
God, thou become most perfect in it.
"Some virtues are continually called for in our daily actions, and are
necessary for all; and therefore, should be acquired with particular
industry.
"The more thou shalt make progress in meekness, patience, modesty,
temperance, humility, and others, that come into more frequent use,
the sooner wilt thou become holy.
"2. Some seek after virtues which have a greater appearance of
nobility, and are reckoned amongst men to be more glorious.
"They instruct with pleasure, but it must be in famous churches, and
to a large assembly of noble and learned men.
"They visit the sick with pleasure, and hear confessions, but only of
those that are conspicuous for riches or honors.
"See that thou set not a high value upon these things: it is more
perfect and safer to imitate Christ our Lord, and to go about
villages, than to hunt for the praise of eloquence and learning in
cities.
"It is more useful to thee to visit and console the poor and the rude,
than the rich and noble, who, moreover, are less prepared to listen to
and obey thy words.
"3. Some are content with the virtues that agree with their natural
inclinations; because they seem easier, and require not any, or a less
violent struggle.
"But when they have need of self-denial and mortification, they have
not the courage to practise virtue; but they lose heart, turn
faint-hearted, and think it is best to spare themselves.
"Do thou follow them not, for they that are such make no progress, but
rather fall away from the way of perfection, because they follow not
the teaching and example of Christ.
"For it was not those who spare themselves, and fear the hardship of
the struggle, whom Christ declared blessed, but those that mourn, and
fight manfully for justice sake."
LA MERE DE DIEU. From the Italian of Father Alphonse Capecelatro, of
the Oratory of Naples. 24mo., pp. 180. Philadelphia: Peter F.
Cunningham. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Company.
Why not say "The Mother of God?" And why should Father Capecelatro,
being an Italian, figure with the French name of Alphonse? If we
cannot have the title of the book in English, at least let us have it
in Italian—the language in which it was written—not in French.
But despite the bad taste displayed on the title-page, this is a very
good little book. It exhales a genuine aroma of piety; it is written
with great simplicity; and it is devoted to a subject which is dear to
all of us. It is supposed to be addressed by a Tuscan priest to his
sister. The first part treats of the respect to which the Blessed
Virgin is entitled; the second traces her life, principally in the
pages of the Holy Scriptures; and the third is devoted to an
exhibition of the marks of veneration which she has received from the
Church since the very beginning of Christianity. "It is charmingly,
almost plaintively sweet," says Father Gratry, of the Oratory of
Paris. "It is written as a prayer, not as a book; it is learned and
affectionate, religious and instructive."
COUNT LESLIE; OR, THE TRIUMPH OF FILIAL PIETY.
A Catholic Tale. From the French. 24mo., pp. 108.
PHILIP HARTLEY; OR, A BOY'S TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS.
A Tale for Young People. By the author of "The Confessors of
Connaught." 24mo., pp. 122.
THE CHILDREN OF THE VALLEY; OR, THE GHOST OF THE RUINS.
Translated from the French. 24mo., pp. 123.
MAY CARLETON'S STORY; OR, THE CATHOLIC MAIDEN'S CROSS.
THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER.
Catholic Tales. 24mo., pp. 115.
COTTAGE EVENING TALES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE.
Compiled by the author of "Grace Morton." 24mo., pp. 126.
Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham. New York: D. & J. Sadlier &
Company.
The above five volumes are portions of Cunningham's "Young Catholic's
Library." They seem to have an excellent moral tendency, and as a
general thing are well written—better written, we believe, than the
majority of tales intended, as these are, for sodality and
Sunday-school libraries. The first mentioned, however, "Count Leslie,"
is not rendered into irreproachable English. What respect can we
expect children to entertain for the English grammar if our school
libraries give them such cruel sentences to read as the following: "It
was this young man, and him, only, who knew the cause of his mother's
sadness?" With this exception we can honestly recommend so much as we
have seen of the Young Catholic's Library to public favor. Mr.
Cunningham has other volumes in preparation.