Full text of "The Catholic world"

THE 






CATHOLIC WORLD. 



MONTHLY MAGAZINE 



OF 



GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE, 



VOL. XXVIII. 
OCTOBER,. 1878, TO MARCH, 1879. 







NEW YORK : 

THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY CO. 
9 Barclay Street. 

I8/9- 



Copyrighted by 
I. T. HECKER, 

1879. 




THE NATION PRESS, 2; ROSE STREET, MEW YORK', 



CONTENTS. 



A Happy Family, . 

Acta. Sanctorum, The Bollandist, , 

Aliscamps, The, .... 

American Novel, The, 

An Imperial Conspirator, 



Babette, 

Ballymurry, 

Barriers between Labor and Capital. 
Bismarck's Peace Negotiations, 
Blanche Blake's Choice, . 
Bollandist A eta Sanctorum, . 



Canova, 

Cardinal Manning, .... 
Chambly, Recollections of, 
Christianity, Protestant Criticism of, 
Civilization and its Laws, 

Dr. Newman and Dr. Pusey, . 

Education, Technical, 

Encyclical, The Pope's, . 

English Poetry, Protestant Element in, 



Felix Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, 

Fernando, . . . 

From an Irish Country-House, . - 261, 

Kulda, the Monastery of, 

Fall of Liberius, The Pretended, 
Fourvieres, Heights of, . . . 

Gracs, Mazzella's Treatise on, . 
Guardian Angel, What it Costs to be a, . 

Heights of Fourvieres, 

Italy and the Pope, 

Jasmin, . .... 
Jews in Rome, The, in Heathen Times. 

Lady Chatterton. Memcirs of. . 

Labor and Capital, Barriers between, 

Liberius, Pretended Fall of, 

Letter of Pope Leo XIII. to Cardinal Nina. . 



345 



43 
3 2 5 



549 
207 
230 
8,7 
790 



243 
762 

IO2 

88 
605 

184 
5" 

105 

538 
828 
, 53 
301 
no 
172 

379 
172 
461 

59 1 
336 

145 
230 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld, . 
Madame Duchesne, Life of, ... 
Mazzella's Treatise on Grace, . 
Material Mission of the f hurch, 
Memoirs of Gcorgiana, Lady Chatterton, 
Monastery of Fulda, .... 



395 
'85 
'3 1 
659 
MS 
301 



Newman and Pusey, ..... 184 

New School of Philosophical Fiction, The, . 837 

Nicodemus a Slave, 119 

Novel, The American, 325 

Our Roman Letter 710 

Pearl, . . . 13. 159, 311. 442, 619, 735 

Pore Monsabre, 651 

Plain Chant, ... 32. 269, 407, ("36, 774 
Protestant Criticism of Christianity, . . 88 
Protestant Element in English Poetry, . . 105 
Protestant Theology in Short Clothes, . . 672 
Pusey and Newman, 184 

Reality of Knowledge, 7* 1 

Reality of the World, r 77 

Recollections of Chambly, .... 102 

Rome's Recruits, 433 

Rome under the Popes, .... 701,754 



Knowledge, Reality of, 



. 721 



Sister Mary Agnes, 

Socialism and Communism in The Indepen- 
dent, 



The Aliscamps, 

The First Vow, 

Technical Education, . 

The New School of Philosophical Fiction, 

The Pope's Encyclical, . 

Tom Ffrench's Christmas, 

Two Famous Deans, . 

What it Costs to be a Guardian Angei, . 
World, Reality of the, 

Year of Our Lord 1878, 



8c8 



43 
368 
5" 
837 

T4- 



5S3 



IV 



Contcnts. 



A Child's Desire, ...... 309 

A Day's Lesson, 205 

A Mountain Echo, 101 

A Provencs Rose, 806 

A Valentine, 761 

Art Sonnets, .... 158, 344, 441, 619 

Bead Pauperes Animo, 714 

Cradle and Cross, 



POETRY. 

. 309 King Oswy of North umbria, 

. 205 

. lot Longing, .... 

Mater Dolorosn, 
State-Craft's Pilot, 



Epiphany, 

" Extra Ecclesiam Nulls Salu>." . 

Tn Memoriam, ..... 



The Flowers' Homily, 
418 The Bollandist Fathers, . 

The Brooklet, .... 
To S3. Peter and Andrew Crucified, 



Vision of Marie de 1'Incarnation, 



4' 
75.3 
118 

79 

8? 

671 

848 

648 



NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



A Lytel Boke for ye Maryemonth, . 
A Strange Village, and Other Stories, 
Acts of the Early Martyrs, 
Alzog's Universal Church History, . 



141 Manual of Sacred Chant, .... 140 

144 Month Dedicated to the Seraphic Patriarch 
143 St. Francis by his Children and Devout 

283 Clients, .860 



Aspirations of the World, .... 430 

Cantiones Sacrae, . . . . . .140 

Cardinal Wolsey, ...... 143 

Catechism of History of Ireland, . . . 142 

Christian Life and Virtues, .... 143 

Compendium of Philosophy of Ancient His- 

tory, ........ 141: 

Cyprus, ........ 431 

De Re Sacramentaria Praelectiones, . . 285 

Elements of Intellectual Philosophy, . . 284 

Epistles and Gospels, ..... 288 

Excerpta ex Rituali Romano, .... 720 



(iod the Teacher of Mankind, . . 

Heroic Women of the Bible and the Church. 
Histoire de Mme. Duchesne 
History of Roman Literature, ... 
Hours with the Sacred Heart, ... 

Interest Tables, 



Lady Nell ........ 

Latin Grammar, ...... 

Latin Exercises, ...... 

Lectures on Mediaeval Church History, . 

Lloyd Pennant, ....... 

Libri Quatuor de Imitatione Christi, . . 
Life of Mme. de la Rochefoucauld, . . 

Little Treatise ........ 

Lives of the Irish Martyrs and Confessor;;, . 
Lives of the Early Popes: St. Peter to St. 
Sylvester, ....... 



431 

431 
425 
719 
719 

43Z 



42 

144 

429 

142 

719 

429 



O'Connell Centenary Record, 



Picturesque Ireland, 
Points in Canon Law, 

Raphaela, 



Sensible Etiquette, 

Shadows of the Rood, 

Social Aspects of Catholicism and Protestan- 
tism, 

Society of Jesus, History of, .... 
Songs, Legends, and Ballads, .... 
Sufferings of the Church in Brittany, 
St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland, 

Theologia Dogmatica, 

The Illustrated Catholic Family Annual for 

1879 

The Jesuits, * 

The Jesuits : Their Trials and Triumphs, 
The Little Good-for-Nothing, .... 
The Protestant Reformation, Anglicanism and 

Ritualism, 

The Poet and his Master, and Other Poems, . 

The Rule of Faith 

The Teacher of our Faith 

True Love of God, ...... 

True Men as we need Them, .... 



429 



430 

428 
141 

428 
140 
287 
4*7 
860 



720 
7 t 5 



8=;g 
859 
720 
143 
141 
288 



859 Yo mg Girl's Month of November, 



THE 



CATHOLIC WORLD. 



VOL. XXVIIL, No. 163. OCTOBER, 1878. 



KING OSWY OF NORTHUMBRIA. 

A CHRONICLE POEM, TAKEN CHIEFLY FROM THE VENERABLE BEDE. 
BY AUBREY DE VERE. 

L'ENVOY. 

'Mm quiet meads, or cities midnight-stilled, 

Well pleased the indweller hears from distant Alps, 

Wakeful by night, on fitful breeze the voice 

Of torrents murmuring down their rocky beds : 

The rude old Chronicles of ancient days, 

Reader, might thus content thee. This is one. 



Young, beauteous, brave the bravest of the brave 
Who loved not Oswin ? All that saw him loved : 
Aidan loved most, monk of lona's Isle, 
Northumbria's bishop next, from Lindisfarne 
Ruling in things divine. One morn it chanced 
That Oswin, noting how with staff in hand 
Old Aidan roamed his spiritual realm, footbare, 
Wading deep stream, and piercing thorny brake, 
Sent him a horse his best. The saint was pleased ; 
But, onward while he rode, and, musing, smiled, 
To think of these his honors in old age, 
A beggar claimed his alms. " Gold have I none," 
Aidan replied ; " this horse be thine !" The king, 
Hearing the tale, was grieved. "Keep I, my lord, 
No meaner horses fit for beggar's use 
That thus my best should seem a thing of naught? 
To whom old Aidan : " Beggar's use, my king!" 

Copyright : Rev. I. T. HECKER. 1878. 



King Osivy of Northumbria. 

" What was that horse ? The foal of some poor mare ! 

The least of men the sinner is God's child !" 

Then dropped the king on both his knees, and cried: 

" Father, forgive me !" As they sat at meat 

Oswy was mirthful, and, the jest scarce made, 

His hungry thanes laughed loud. But great, slow tears 

In silence trickled down old Aidan's face : 

These all men marked ; but no man question made. 

At last to one beside him Aidan spake 

In Irish tongue, to all save them unknown, 

" God will not leave such meekness long on earth." 

Who loved not Oswin ? Not alone his realm, 
Deira, loved him, but Bernician lords 
Whose monarch, Oswy, was a man of storms, 
Fierce king, albeit in youth to clerist baptized, 
At heart half pagan. Swift as northern cloud 
Through summer skies, down swept he with his host 
Upon the rival kingdom. Face to face 
The armies stood. But Oswin, when he marked 
His own a little flock 'mid countless wolves, 
Addressed them thus : "Why perish, friends, for me ? 
From exile came I : for my people's sake 
To exile I return, or gladlier die. 
Depart in peace." To Gilling Tower he rode, 
And waited there his fate, Thither next day 
King Oswy marched, and slew him. 

Twelve days passed ; 

Then Aidan, while through green Northumbria's woods 
Pensive he paced, steadying his doubtful steps, 
Felt 'death approaching. Giving thanks to God, 
The old man laid him by a church half raised 
Amid great oaks and yews, and, leaning there 
His head against the buttress, passed to God. 
They made their bishop's grave at Lindisfarne; 
But Oswin rested at the mouth of Tyne 
Within a wave-girt, granite promontory 
Where sea and river meet. For many an age 
The pilgrim from far countries came in faith 
To that still shrine men called it " Oswin's Peace," 
Thither the outcast fled for sanctuary : 
The sick man there found health. Thus Oswin lived, 
Though dead, a benediction in the land. 

^ What gentlest form kneels on the rain-washed ground 
From Gilling's keep a stone's-throw ? Whose those hands 
Now pressed in anguish on a bursting heart, 
Now o'er a tearful countenance spread in shame ? 



King Oswy of Northumbria. 

What purest mouth, but roseless for great woe, 
With zeal to youthful lovers never known 
Presses a new-made grave, and through the blades 
Of grass wind-shaken breathes her piteous prayer? 
Save from remorse came over grief like hers ? 
Yet how could ever sin, or sin's remorse, 
Find such fair mansion ? Oswin's grave it is ; 
And she that o'er it kneels is Eanfleda, 
Kinswoman of the noble dead, and wife 
To Oswin's murderer Oswy. 



Saddest one 

And sweetest! Lo, that cloud which overhung 
Her cradle swathes once more in deeper gloom 
Her throne late won, and new-decked bridal bed. 
This was King Edwin's babe, whose natal star 
Shone on her father's pathway doubtful long, 
Shone there a line of light, from pagan snares 
Leading to Christian baptism. Penda heard 
Penda, that drew his stock from Odin's loins, 
Penda, that drank his wine from skulls of foes, 
Penda, fierce Mercia's king. He heard, and fell 
In ruin on the region. Edwin dead, 
Paulinus led the widow and her babe, 
The widow, Ethelburga, Bertha's child 
And Ethelbert's, the twain that ruled in Kent, 
Back to that southern shore. 



The infant's feet 

Pattered above the pavement of that church 
In Canterbury by Augustine raised ; 
The child grew paler when Gregorian chants 
Shook the dim roofs. Gladly the growing girl 
Gave ear to stones of her ancestress 
Clotilda, boast of France, but weeping turned 
From tales low-whispered by her Saxon nurse 
Of Loke, the spirit accursed that slanders gods, 
And Sinna, Queen of Hell. The years went by ; 
The last had brought King Oswy's embassage, 
With suit obsequious, " Let the princess share 
With me her father's crown." To simple hearts 
Changes come gently. Soon, all trust, she stood 
By God's high altar with her destined lord : 
Adown her finger as the bride-ring slid 
So slid into her heart a true wife's love : 
Rooted in faith, it ripened day by day- 
Behold the end of all 



King Oswy of Northumbria. 

There as she knelt 

A strong foot clanged behind her. " Weeping still !' 
Up, wife of mine ! If Osvvin had not died 
His gracious ways had filched from me my realm, 
My thanes so loved his meekness !" Turning not 
She answered low : "He died an unarmed man." 
And Oswy : " Fool that fought not when he might; 
So had his slaughtered war-troop decked his grave ! 
I scorned him for his grief that men should die; 
And, scorning him, I hated ; for which cause 
His blood is on my sword !" 

Yet Oswy's heart, 

In wrath so wild, had moods of passionate love. 
A warrior of his host, Tosti by name, 
Plague-stricken lay : both kith and kin had fled : 
Whole days the king sustained upon his knees 
The sufferer's head, and cheered his heart with songs 
Of Odin, strangely blent with Christian hymns, 
While ofttimes stormy bursts of tears descended 
Upon that face upturned. Ministering he sat 
Till Death the vigil closed. 

The priests of God 

Had faced the monarch and denounced his crime : 
They might as well have preached to ocean's waves: 
Anger he felt not : he but deemed them mad, 
And smiling went his way. Thus autumn passed : 
The queen he knew it when alone wept on : 
Near him the pale face smiled : the voice was sweet : 
Loving the service ; the obedience full : 
Neither by words, by silence, nor by looks 
She chid him. Like some penitent she walked 
That mourns her own great sin. 

One winter night 

Oswy from distant hunting late returned, 
And passed by Oswin's grave. The snow, new-fallen,. 
Lay thick upon it. In the blast she knelt, 
While coldly glared the broad and bitter moon 
Upon those flying flakes that on her hair 
Settled, or on her thin, light raiment clung. 
She heard him not draw nigh. She only beat 
Her breast, and, praying, wept: " Our sin, our sin !" 
There as the monarch stood a change came o'er him : 
Old, exiled days in Alba as a dream 
Redawned upon his spirit, and that look 
In Aidan's eyes when, binding first that cross 
Long by his pupil craved, around his neck, 




King Oswy of Northumbria. 

He whispered : " He who serveth Christ, his Lord, 

Must love his fellow-man." As when a stream, 

The ice dissolved, once- more grows audible, 

So came to him those words. They dragged him down : 

Beside his wife he knelt, and beat his breast, 

And said, " My sin, my sin!" Till earliest morn 

Glimmered through sleet that twain wept on, prayed on : 

Was it the rising sun that lit at last 

The fair face upward turned ; enkindled there 

A lovelier dawn than o'er it blushed when first 

Dropped on her bridegroom's breast ? Aloud she cried : 

"Our prayer is heard : our penitence finds grace " : 

Then added : "Let it deepen till we die ; 

A monastery build we on this grave. 

So from this grave, while fleet the years, that prayer 

Shall rise both day and night, till Christ returns 

To judge the world a prayer for him who died; 

A prayer for one who sinned, but sins no more." 

Where Gilling's long and lofty hill o'erlooks 
For leagues the forest-girdled plain, ere long 
A monastery stood. That self-same day 
In tears the penitential work began ; 
In tears the sod was turned. The rugged brows 
Of March relaxed 'neath April's flying kiss : 
Again the violet rose, the thrush was loud ; 
Mayday had come. Around that hallowed spot 
Full many a warrior met ; some Christians vowed ; 
Some muttering oft of Odin. Near to these 
Stood one of lesser stature, keener eye, 
More fiery gesture. Splenetic, he marked, 
Christian albeit himself, those Christian walls 
By Saxon converts raised. He was a Briton. 
The day was dim : feebly through mist the woods 
Let out the witchery of their young fresh green 
Backed by the dusk of older trees that still 
Reserved at heart the old year's stubbornness, 
Yet blent it with that purple distance glimpsed 
Beyond the forest alleys. 

In a tent 

Finan sang Mass : his altar was that stone 
First reared where Oswin died. Before it knelt 
The king, the queen : alone their angels know 
Their thoughts that hour. The sacred rite complete, 
They raised their brows, and, hand-in-hand, made way 
To where, beyond the portal, shone blue skies. 
The throngfor each with passion it had prayed- 
Divided as they passed. From either face 



King Oswy of Northumbria. 

Looked forth the light of that conceded prayer, 
The peace of souls forgiven. 

From that day forth 

Hourly in Oswy's spirit soared more high 
The one true greatness. Flaming heats of soul, 
At last subjected to a law divine, 
Wrought Virtue's work. The immeasurable strength 
Had found at once its master and its goal, 
And, by its task ennobled, spared to God. 
In all his ways he prospered, work and word 
Yoked to one end. Till then the Kingdoms Seven, 
Opposed in interests as diverse in name, 
Had looked on nothing like him. Now, despite 
Mercia that frowned, they named him king of kings 
Bretwalda ; and the standard of the seven 
In peace foreran his feet. The spirits of might 
Before his vanguard winged their way in war, 
Scattering the foe ; and in his peacefuler years 
Upon the aerial hillside high and higher 
The golden harvest clomb, waving delight 
On eyes upraised from winding rivers clear 
Gladdened with milky sails. His feet stood firm,. 
For with his growing greatness ever grew 
That penitence its root. The cloistered choir, 
Year after year pleading o'er Oswin's tomb, 
Still sang, " To him who died thy Vision, Lord \ 
To him the slayer, penitence and peace ; 
Let Oswin pray for Oswy." 

Day by day 

Meantime with tempest clave to Penda's brow, 
Chief hater of the Cross, of pagan gods 
Chief champion. This not Edwin learned alone : 
Eight years on Oswald Penda fixed his eye; 
Then smote him. Earlier yet East Anglia's king 
Had bled beneath his vengeance Sisibert, 
Who, issuing from the sacred cloistral shades, 
Fought for his own, and perished. Anna next 
Succeeding, shared his fate : earlier than these 
Had Egeric died. Thus perished five great kings 
Slain by this portent of false gods and foul. 

What answered Penda when the tidings came 

Of Oswy glorying in the yoke of Christ, 

Of Oswy's victories next ? Grinding his teeth, 

He spake what no man heard. Then .rumor rose 

Of demon-magic making Oswy's tongue 

Fell as his sword. '{ Within the sorcerer's court," 



King Qswy of NortJinmbria. 

It babbled, " stood the brave East Saxon king- 
Upon his shoulder Oswy laid a hand 
Accursed and whispered in his ear The king 
Down sank, perforce, a Christian ! Lightning flashed 
From under Penda's gray and shaggy brows 

Forth to Northumbrian son," he cried, "and back 
And learn if this be true." 



That son obeyed, 

Peada, to whose heart another's heart, 
Alcfrid's, King Oswy's son, was knit long since 
As David's unto Jonathan. One time 
A tenderer heart had leaned, or seemed to lean, 
The self-same way, Alcfleda's, Alcfrid's sister, 
Younger than he six years. 'Twas so no more: 
No longer on Peada's eyes her eyes 
Rested well-pleased : not now the fearless hand 
Tarried in his contented. " Sir and king," 
Peada thus to Oswy spake. " of old 
Thy child then child indeed would mount my knee; 
Now, when I seek her, like a swan she fleets, 
That arches back its neck 'twixt snowy wings, 
And, swerving, sideway drifts. My lord and king, 
The child is maiden : give her me for wife !" 
Oswy made answer : " He that serves not Christ 
Can wed no child of mine." Alcfleda then 
Dropping the broidered tapestry, gently raised 
Once more that dewy light of child-like eyes 
And spake, "But he in time will worship Christ !" 
Then, without blush or tremor, to her work 
Softly returned. Silent her mother smiled. 
That moment, warned of God, from Lindisfarne 
Finan, unlocked for, entered. Week by week 
An honored guest he preached the Saviour-Lord : 
Grave-eyed, with listening face and brow hand-propt, 
The prince gave ear, not like that trivial race 
That catch the sense ere spoken. On his brow 
At times the apprehension dawned, at times 
Faded. Oft turned he to his Mercian lords : 
" How trow ye, friends ? He speaks of what he knows ! 
Good tidings these ! At midnight when I muse 
Distinct they shine like yonder mountain range ; 
At morn the mists conceal them." Passed a month ; 
Then suddenly, as one that wakes from dream, 
Peada rose : " Far rather would I serve 
Thy Christ," he said, "and thus Alcfleda lose, 
Than win Alcfleda, and reject thy Christ !' 
He spake : old Finan first gave thanks to God, 



King Osivy of Northumbna. 

Then took his hand and led him to that cross 

On Heaven-field raised beneath the Roman Wall 

That cross King Oswald's standard in the fight, 

That cross Cadwallon's sentence as he fell, 

" That cross which conquered "; there to God baptized ; 

Likewise his thanes and earls. 

Meantime, far off 

In Penda's palace-keep the revel raged, 
High feast of rites impure. At banquet sat 
The monarch and his chiefs; chant followed chant 
Bleeding with wars foregone. The day went by, 
And, setting ere his time, a sanguine sun 
Dipped into tumult vast of gathering storm 
That soon incumbent leant from tower to tower 
And rocked them to their base. As high within 
The revel mounted, meeting storm with storm, 
Till cried that sacrificial priest whose knife 
At morn had pierced the willing victim's throat, 
" Rejoice ! already with the gods we feast ; 
Hark! round Valhalla swell the phantom wars !' 
So spake the priest : then sudden from his seat 
Uprose the warrior Saxo, in one hand 
The goblet, in the other Alp, his sword, 
Pointing to heaven. "To Odin health !" he cried: 
" Would that this hour he rode into this hall ! 
He should not hence depart till blood of his 
Had reddened Sleipner's flank, his snow-white steed : 
This sword would shed that blood!" In wrath upleaped 
Warriors sixteen, and for a moment rage 
Made the hall rock. But Saxo waved his sword, 
And, laughing, shouted, " Odin's sons, be still ! 
Count it no sin to battle with high gods ! 
Great-hearted they ! They give the blow and take ! 
To Odin who was ever leal as I ?" 
As sudden as it rose the tumult fell : 
So sudden ceased the storm : but with it ceased 
The rapture and the madness, and the shout : 
The wine-cup still made circuit ; but the song 
Froze in mid-air. Strange shadow hung o'er all : 
Neighbor to neighbor whispered : courtiers slid 
Through doors scarce open. Rumor had arrived, 
If true or false none knew. 

The morrow morn 

From Penda's court the bravest fled in fear, 
Questioning with white lips, " Will he slay his son?" 
Or skulked apart. Then Penda by the throat 
Catching a white-cheeked courtier, cried : " The truth ! 
What whisper they in corners?" On his knees 



King Oswy of Northumbria. 

That courtier made confession. Penda then, 

" Live, since my son is yet a living man ! ' 

A Christian, say'st thou ? Let him serve his Christ ! 

That man whom ever most I scorned is he 

Who vows him to the service of some god, 

Yet breaks his laws ; for that man walks a lie. 

My son shall live, and after me shall reign : 

Northumbria's realm shall die !" 

Thus Penda spake 

And sent command from tower and town to blow 
Instant the trumpet of his last of wars, 
Fanning from Odin's hall with ice-cold airs 
Of doom the foes of Odin. " Man nor child," 
He sware, " henceforth shall tread Northumbrian soil, 
Nor hart nor hind. I spare the creeping worm : 
My scavenger is he." The Mercian realm 
Rose at his call, innumerable mass 
Of warriors iron-armed. East Anglia sent 
Her hosts in aid. Apostate Ethelwald, 
Though Oswy's nephew, joined the hostile league, 
And thirty chiefs beside that ruled by right 
Princedom or province. Mightier far than these 
Old Cambria, brooding o'er the ancestral wrong, 
The Saxon's sin original, met his call, 
And vowed her to the vengeance. 



Bravest hearts 

Hate most the needless slaughter. Oswy mused : 
" Long since too much of blood is on this hand : 
Shall I for pride or passion risk once more 
Northumbria, my mother ; rudely stain 
Her pretty babes with blood ?" To Penda then, 
Camped on the confines of the adverse realms, 
He sent an embassage of reverend men 
In order ranged. Twelve caskets bare they heaped 
With gems and gold, and thus addressed the king : 
41 Our lord, Northumbria's monarch, bids thee hail : 
He never yet in little thing or great 
Hath wronged thee ; yet thine amity he wooes : 
Depart in peace." Penda with backward hand 
Waved them far from him, and vouchsafed no \vord. 
In sadness they returned : but Oswy smiled 
Hearing their tale, and said : " My part is done : 
Let God decide the event." He spake, and took 
The caskets twelve, and placed them, side by side, 
Before the altar of his chiefest church, 
And vowed to raise to God twelve monasteries, 
In honor of our Lord's Apostles Twelve, 



IO King Osivy of Northnmbria. 

On greenest upland, or in sylvan glade 
Where purest stream kisses the richest mead. 
His vow recorded, sudden through the church 
Ran with fleet foot a lady mazed with joy, 
Crying, " A maiden babe ! and lo, the queen 
Late dying lives and thrives !" That eve the king 
Bestowed on God the new-born maiden babe, 
Laying her cradled 'mid those caskets twelve, 
Six at each side ; and said : " For her nor throne 
Nor marriage bower ! She in some holy house 
. Shall dwell the Bride of Christ. But thou, just God, 
This day remember England !" 

When that night 

Was deepest through Northumbria's sighing woods 
Penda in musings marched, and by his side 
A Cambrian prince, gray-grown, that rode and slept, 
And, sleeping, dreamed. In dream once more he stood 
Where Severn parts from Wales the Wessex bound, 
And marked twelve bishops in a circle ranged 
With monks from Bangor.- Mitred, he from Rome, 
The midmost, sat Augustine. Hour by hour 
The British bishops hurled defiance stern 
Against his head, while Cambrian peaks far off 
Darkened, and thunder muttered. From his seat, 
Slowly and sadly as the sun declined 
(So dreamed that prince, recalling what, a child, 
His eyes had seen), that stranger rose and stretched 
A lean hand t'ward that circle, speaking thus : 
" Hear then the sentence of your God on sin ! 
Because ye will not peace, behold the sword ! 
Because ye grudged your foe the Faith of Christ, 
And scorned to lead him on the ways of life, 
Behold, for that cause from the Saxon hand 
Destruction is upon you !" 



Windwaed field 

Heard, distant still, that multitudinous foe 
Trampling the darksome ways. With pallid face 
Morning beheld their standards, raven-black 
Penda had thus decreed, before him sending 
Northumbria's sentence. On a hill, thick-set 
Stood Oswy's army, small, yet strong in faith, 
A wedge : like phalanx, fenced by rocks and woods ; 
A river in its front. His standards white 
Shone with the Mother-Maid and Babe Divine : 
From many a crag his altars rose, choir-girt, 
And crowned by incense wreath. 



King Oswy of Northmnbria. 

An hour ere noon 

That river passed, in thunder met the hosts ; 
But Penda, straitened by that hilly tract, 
Could wield not half his force. Sequent as waves 
On rushed they : Oswy's phalanx like a cliff 
Successively down dashed them. Day went by : 
At last the clouds dispersed : the westering sun 
Glared on the spent eyes of that Mercian mass 
Which in its blindness each the other smote, 
Or, trapped by hidden pitfalls, fell on stakes', 
And died blaspheming. Little help that day 
Gat they from Cambria. She on Heaven-field height 
Had felt her death-wound, slow albeit to die. 
The Apostate Ethelwald in panic fled : 
The East Anglians followed. Swollen by recent rains, 
Sudden the river burst its bound, and rolled 
In ruin o'er the devastated plain 
Till cry of drowning horse and shriek of man 
Rang far and farther o'er that sea of death, 
A battle-field but late. This way and that 
Briton or Mercian where he might escaped 
Through wave or forest. Penda scorned to fly. 
Thrice with extended arms the fugitives 
He met, and cursed them. Headlong as they passed 
He flung his crowned helm into the flood, 
And bit his brazen shield, above its rim 
Levelling a look that smote with chill like death 
Their hearts that saw it. Yet one moment more 
He sat like statue on some sculptured horse 
With upraised hand, close-clenched, denouncing Heaven : 
Then burst his mighty heart. As stone he fell 
Dead on the plain. With reverence due his foe 
Honored his corse, that found in Mercian earth 
Ancestral grave. Not less in after times 
Full many a Mercian said, " Without a wound 
King Penda died, although on battle-field, 
Therefore with Odin Penda shares not feast." 



Thus pagan died old Penda as he lived: 

Yet Penda's sons were Christian, kindlier none ; 

His daughters nuns ; and lamb-like Mercia's House 

Lions erewhile made end. King Oswy raised 

His monasteries twelve. Benigner life 

Around them spread : wild waste, and robber bands 

Vanished : the poor were housed, the hungry fed, 

And Oswy sent his little new-born babe 

All dewy with her mother's tears, Elfleda, 

Like some young lamb with fillet decked and flower, 



II 



12 King Oswy of Northumbria. 

But dedicated not to death, but life, 

To Hilda sent her, on her sea-washed hill, 

Who made her Bride of Christ. The years went by, 

And Oswy, now an old king, glory-crowned, 

His country from the Mercian thraldom loosed, 

And free from sea to sea, in heart resolved 

A pilgrim, Romeward faring with bare feet, 

By Peter's tomb and Paul's to make his rest. 

God willed not thus. Within his native realm 

The sickness unto death clasped him with hold 

Gentle but firm. Long sleepless, t'ward the close 

Amid his wanderings smiling, from his couch 

He stretched a shrivelled hand, and pointing said, 

" Who was it fabled she had died in age ? 

In all her youthful beauty holy and pure, 

Lo, where she kneels upon the wintry ground, 

The snow-flakes round her circling, yet with face 

Bright as a star !" So spake the king, and taking 

Into his heart that vision, slept and died. 

His daughter, abbess then on Whitby's height, 

In her fair convent laid her father's bones 

Beside her grandsire's, Edwin. Side by side 

They rested, one Bernicia's king, and one 

Deira's great Northumbrians sister realms ; 

Long foes, yet blended by that mingling dust. 



FearL 



PEARL. 



BY KATHLEEN o'MEARA, AUTHOR OF " IZA ? S STORY, 



A SALON IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE " " ARE 
YOU MY WIFE? " ETC. 



CHAPTER IV. 

CAPTAIN DARVALLON. 



ON the Saturday following " the 
catastrophe " which Colonel Red- 
acre had so long vaguely prophe- 
sied there was great excitement 
in Paris about the threatened dis- 
missal, or resignation, of the min- 
istry. Everybody was busy nam- 
ing a new cabinet, and proving 
that their nominee was the one 
man who could save the country 
that arduous feat which every new 
minister has been called upon to 
perform in France this century 
past. 

These perpetually-recurring op- 
portunities of saving the country 
offer great chances to men like M. 
Leopold deputies who go to bed 
common men, with the possibility 
of waking up amongst the Immor- 
tals. They are conscious of no rea- 
sons why a portfolio should not be 
offered to them ; there are palpa- 
bly many why it should. 

Colonel Redacre took a great in- 
terest, as a rule, in French politics, 
and was always very active in cri- 
ses like the present, choosing his 
own man and vehemently oppos- 
ing everybody else's. But his 
mind was just now too painfully 
occupied by personal anxieties to 
care much about politics. His 
wife's salon was not open this even- 
ing, Balaklava had been driving 
him mad for some days, and Polly 
had a headache. These were the 
reasons given for not admitting the 
few friends who rang at the entre- 
sol between eight and nine ; but 



the greater number did not present 
themselves. What was the use of 
intruding on people who were so 
full of trouble ? It would only be 
a mockery to go and drink their 
tea and talk gossip to them. 

Mrs. Monteagle had spent the 
afternoon with Alice, helping very 
efficiently with her clear head and 
nimble pen, and still more even, 
perhaps, by her offers of material 
help, so generously made in her 
outspoken, downright way that 
it was very hard to persist in re- 
jecting them. 

Pearl went up after dinner to 
have a talk with her alone over 
possible plans and the future in 
general. 

" I wonder if anybody would 
take me as a governess?" she said. 
" I could teach English and French 
and German and music ; singing, 
too, but not so well as the rest." 

"You could teach it better than 
nine-tenths of the conceited dun- 
ces who set up for finishing govern- 
esses. But I won't hear, of your 
doing anything of the sort ; you 
must wait quietly a little and see 
how things turn. Who knows? 
There may be a nice, good hus- 
band getting ready for you, my 
dear. You are much better suited 
for that than for the governess- 
ing." 

" I don't know," said Pearl du- 
biously; she looked very tender 
and sweet, leaning her head on her 
hand, as she sat in a low causeuse 



Pearl. 



on one side of the fire. " I don't 
see why people take it for granted 
that every girl is suited to be mar- 
ried any more than that she is, suit- 
ed to be a governess or an actress. 
You never hear anybody say that 
one is not suited to have a hus- 
band ; yet it seems to me that one 
wants special capabilities for mak- 
ing a good wife quite as much as 
for making a good governess, and 
one must be born with them, too." 

" And you think you were born 
without them ?" said Mrs. Mont- 
eagle, looking hard at Pearl over 
her spectacles. 

" I don't know. I sometimes 
think I was. I think Polly was 
meant to be a wife ; I am sure she 
was." 

Pearl heaved a sigh as she said 
this. 

"And so she will be, please 
God. Why should you speak of it 
in the past?" said Mrs. Montea- 

gle. 

" Oh ! we have no money now ; 
nobody would marry her now, al- 
though she is so beautiful !" 

" No Frenchman ; but I hope 
she does not want to marry a 
Frenchman. I should be ashamed 
of her if she did." 

" I don't think she wants to mar- 
ry any one not just now, at any 
rate." 

" Who can this be ?" said Mrs. 
Monteagle, as the hall bell sound- 
ed. 

" M. le Capitaine Leopold et M. 
le Capitaine Darvallon \" called 
out the servant. 

Pearl started and stood up, ir- 
resolute whether to go or stay. 
Leon shook hands and M. Dar- 
vallon bowed. 

" Sit down, my dear," said. Mrs. 
Monteagle. 

" Madame, I avail myself with- 
out delay of your gracious permis- 



sion to present my friend to you," 
said L6on. "You were kind enough 
to say we might come any even- 
ing." 

" Yes, I seldom leave my coin du 
feu once the winter sets in. It is 
very good of you two young men 
to come and see an old woman 
like me. I can't imagine why you 
should think it worth while, for I 
am neither young nor handsome, 
nor good for anything." 

" Jeune, peutetre, madam f ; belle, 
vojis Fetes toujours" protested Leon 
with his most solemn face. 

" Goodness me ! what story-tell- 
ers you Frenchmen are. But it is 
very pretty and very amusing, I 
must say, and when one knows it 
means nothing it does no harm. 
But don't you lend an ear to their 
nonsense, my dear," said the old 
lady, lifting a warning finger at 
Pearl. " Never you believe one of 
their pretty compliments ; you will 
regret it if you do !" 

Pearl blushed and laughed mer- 
rily. 

" Madame ! you are cruel," pro- 
tested the two gentlemen in cho- 
rus. 

"Not a bit of it. You are all 
born menteurs. But I like you 
very much in spite of it." 

" Madame, we need that word 
of consolation," said M. Darval- 
lon. 

"There, you are just as bad as 
your friend, I see," retorted Mrs. 
Monteagle ; " and yet you have a 
very honest face. I beg you won't 
pay me any compliments, for I 
might believe them on the strength 
of your face." 

" Madame, I entreat you, reserve 
that confidence for me," said Leon. 
"He is an arch-deceiver; the wo- 
man who listens to him is lost." 

" Ah ! my dear, that warning is 
evidently meant for you," said Mrs. 



Pearl. 



Monteagle, nodding at Pearl. " But 
what business have you to bring 
such a dangerous man into my 
house ? How do I know but he 
may whisper something in made- 
moiselle's ear the moment he gets 
my back turned, and break her 
heart on the spot?" 

" I will keep my eye on him," 
said Leon ; " but I think mademoi- 
selle would be proof against even 
this ruthless conqueror." 

Pearl felt herself grow crimson 
as Leon, with these bantering words, 
turned his black eyes on her. 
What business had he to say what 
she was proof against ? Was it 
that he had fancied she had been 
proof against himself, and that he 
resented it ? She had been very 
uncomfortable that night at the 
Tuileries ; Mme. Leopold had been 
so facetious about her son, and 
then the sudden change in her 
manner had been puzzling and of- 
fensive. 

" You have been under fire to- 
gether, messieurs, have you not ? " 
said Mrs. Monteagle. 

" Yes ; we fought side by side in 
the Crimea," said M. Darvallon. 
"We were both wounded on the same 
field ; we won our spurs and our 
red ribbon together." 

"And you are not jealous of one 
another ?" 

" Nay, madame, soldiers never 
are; we shoot one another when 
we disagree, but we have souls 
above such a pettiness as jealousy." 

" That is because you have not 
been tested yet. If you both fell 
in love with the same woman, would 
your magnanimity hold, I wonder?" 

" If that misfortune befell us," 
said Leon, " my friend would im- 
mediately blow his brains out and 
hand over the object of our united 
affections to me." 

" And she would, of course, con- 



sent to be handed over? You en- 
tertain no doubt, evidently, on that 
score. What vain animals men 
are, my dear !" 

This last remark was to Pearl, 
who looked round at Leon, laugh- 
ing; but she fancied there was a 
sudden embarrassment about him. 
M. Darvallon, meantime, had fixed 
his eyes on her with an expression 
of curious interest ; it may have 
been the magnetism of this glance 
as much as the contagion of Leon's 
shyness that made Pearl's color 
rise and forced her to look away. 

" Mon Dieu ! madam, what a 
piece of fairy-work you are creat- 
ing there," exclaimed M. Darvallon, 
seized with a sudden interest in 
Mrs. Monteagle's tapestry, which 
was indeed very pretty and artistic 
a Watteau scene painted on pale 
green cloth with the loveliest silks. 
" Ah ! you have an eye for works 
of art," said the embroidress, flat- 
tered; " it is not the fashion nowa- 
. days for ladies to do much of this 
sort of thing; they are too busy 
dressing themselves. But tell me 
something about politics. Are the 
ministers going out ? Are we going 
to have war ?" 

" No such luck !" said Leon" I 
mean about the war. They are go- 
ing to make it up. I felt sure it 
was all swagger and that the gov- 
ernment meant to make it up with 
England." 

" And so much the better for you 
if the government succeeds. You 
would get beaten till you had not a 
leg to stand on," said Mrs. Montea- 
gle. "And serve your vanity right. 
Not that anything would ever cure 
it. No amount of beating will take 
the conceit out of you French ; 
if you were thrashed every three 
years, you would be as bumptious 
as ever at the end of a century. 
But things are looking very black 



i6 



Pearl. 



just now ; you may boast as much 
as you like, but in your hearts you 
all know that France is in a very 
bad way. I saw three deputies 
yesterday, and I could see they 
were looking uncommonly glum." 

" Deputies always do ; that is 
part of their business," said Leon. 

" Who is this ? Another visitor ?" 
said Mrs. Monteagle, as the bell 
sounded again. " M. de Kerbec! 
This is very kind of you, I am 
sure." 

" Ah ! you were caught like me, 
you two," said M. de Kerbec when 
he saw L6on and his friend : " you 
went to the entresol, and they 
would not let you in, so you came 
on up here." 

" We did nothing of the kind," 
said Leon. " We had not the least 
intention of calling on Mme. Red- 
acre ; we came on purpose and 
solely to present our respects to 
madame," bowing to the hostess. 
" Did we not, Darvallon ?" 

But before M. Darvallon could 
answer Mrs. Monteagle went into 
peals of laughter. 

" How silly of me not to guess 
how it was ! But I am delighted to 
see you all the same; and when- 
ever you can't get in down-stairs " 

"Madame, I protest most sol- 
emnly," broke in Leon ; but Pearl 
was laughing outrageously, and M. 
Darvallon, after a strong effort to 
withstand the effect of this merri- 
ment, and Leon's indignation, and 
M. de Kerbec's face of blank 
amazement, gave it up and laugh- 
ed outright too. 

"What is all the fun about?" 
said Mr. Kingspring, who came in 
while it was still at its height. A 
fresh peal of laughter answered 
him. 

"You are one of the victims, 
too!" said Mrs. Monteagle. "You 
could not get in down-stairs ?" 



" No ; it seems Redacre is not 
very well, so I thought I would 
try if you were at home. Now 
may I hear what the fun is about ?" 

" Mais cest brutale ! J'appelle cela 
de la dernier e brutaliti !" protested 
Leon, glaring coldly at the English- 
man " to tell a lady that you came 
to see her as a pis-aller ! I would 
be shot before I owned it." 

Pearl's laugh rang out in fresh 
peals, in which the rest joined, at 
this chivalrous protestation. Mr. 
Kingspring crossed over to shake 
hands with her, and began to in- 
quire about her father. So the in- 
cident was closed, as the French 
Chamber says.; but Leon Leopold 
still threw occasional glances of 
savage scorn at the English brute 
and the French idiot who had 
given rise to it. 

"Is anything definite settled?" 
Mr. Kingspring inquired in a con- 
fidential tone under cover of the 
three Frenchmen's voluble talk. 

" Papa is to go to London the 
moment he feels equal to the jour- 
ney ; the lawyer says he must." 

" If it is anything that any one 
else could do for him, I would go 
with the greatest pleasure and repre- 
sent him," said Mr. Kingspring. 
" I wish you would tell him so." 

" You are a good friend," said 
Pearl with feeling. 

"I mean what I 'say, at any rate, 
though I am a brute, according to 
Leopold. What is that other man 
doing here ? He came, it seems, 
to spend this evening at your 
house." 

" Not if we are .to believe M. 
Le"on," she said, laughing. 

" But he as good as owned it. 
Did Darvallon ask to come and see 
you the other night ?" 

"No." 

" He does not seem a bad sort of 
fellow, considering." 



Pearl. 



" Considering what ?" 
" That he is the son of a black- 
smith, or some such distinguished 
profession. " 

" He is the nicest Frenchman I 
have ever met," said Pearl; "he is 
more like an Englishman, he is so 
quiet in his manners." 

" Humph ! he is good-looking ; 
I suppose you girls would say so, 
at least." 

" I don't know what we girls 
would say about his looks, but we 
would all say he looked like a gen- 
tleman," said Pearl. 

" Yes, it is wonderful, really. I 
should think he must feel rather 
like a fish out of water, though, 
amongst people so completely 
above him." 

" People as much above him as 
the Comte de Kerbec, for instance. 
What an absurdity it does seem 
that because Shakspere and Mo- 
liere are not born gentlemen, they 
are to look up to Captain Fitznoo- 
dle and Sir Lavender Dunce as 
their social superiors !" 

"Why, you have become a little 
howling radical, I declare," said 
Mr. Kingspring, looking at her in 
surprise. " Who has done it ?" 

"It came of itself. I think it is 
very mean to be always casting 
a man's birth in his teeth when he 
has every other qualification that 
makes a gentleman. I wonder how 
you would like it in his place." 

" I should not like it much ; but 
if I were in his place I should stay 
there." 

" If you had been born the son 
of a blacksmith you would have 
been a blacksmith too? I don't 
believe you would ; you have intel- 
ligence aiid ambition enough to 
want to be something more though 
the smith's profession is as grand 
and poetic in its way as any. I 
could fancy M. Darvallon looking 

VOL. XXVIII. 2 



very picturesque striking the anvil 
with the furnace flaming round 
him." 

" He would be immensely flatter- 
ed if he knew the interest you take 
in him and his original career. I 
suppose, as a small boy, he wielded 
the hammer and stood amidst the 
flames. I dare say he would tell 
you all about it if you asked him." 

"Perhaps I may one of these 
days." Pearl said this in merest 
jest, moved by a spirit of contra- 
diction and by a generous impulse 
that threw her sympathies on the 
side of a man whom she thought 
hardly used by the aristocratic pre- 
judices of the world; but Mr. 
Kingspring saw more in the words 
than this, and the look of surprise 
and annoyance that he turned on 
her made Pearl feel he had given 
them a more personal interpreta- 
tion. 

" Come and dispense the tea, my 
dear," called out Mrs. Monteagle. 
" The least we can do for these 
poor young men is to give them 
some tea, and put plenty of sugar 
in it. They like their tea like sy- 
rup ; how they can drink it I can't 
imagine." 

" Madame, I beg leave to pro- 
test for my part," said M. Darval- 
lon. " I take it a ranglaise" 

"No, no; that is more of your 
French flattery. I know your 
ways ; my dear, put six lumps into 
monsieur's cup, and let them be 
big ones." 

M. Darvallon hastened to rescue 
his tea from this terrible sentence, 
and Pearl complied with his en- 
treaty to let him off with two 
lumps. 

" Has your mind been quite 
poisoned against us by your friend, 
mademoiselle? Do you think we 
are all menteurs .?" he inquired, as 
Pearl poured in the cream for him. 



J8 



Pearl. 



" I am afraid I have imbibed 
some of the poison. I suspect you 
are fond of saying pretty things 
without meaning them." 

" How can you know that we do 
not mean them ? It is unchari- 
table to make rash judgments, 
especially when you must know 
how sensitive we are where your 
good opinion is concerned. But, 
perhaps, there again you will 
say that there is no chivalry 
amongst Frenchmen nowadays; 
Mme. Monteagle has been assur- 
ing us that we are utterly degene- 
rate in that respect, too." 

"There does not seem to be 
much romance amongst modern 
Frenchmen, certainly," said Pearl. 
"That is a serious charge; but 
perhaps society is more to blame for 
;it than we are. Society nowadays 
is out of sympathy with romance ; it 
is in too great a hurry to dream; 
sit can't take breath even to think, 
and we are driven on with its fu- 
rious pace. In olden times men 
had leisure in their lives for ro- 
mance ; now they have none. We 
are like machines set going by 
steam; we are governed by the 
telegraph and by les convenances. 
Our hearts have lost all individual 
freedom, and, what is worse, all de- 
sire for it. We marry when our 
family think the time is come for 
us to do so, and we take the wife 
they have chosen for us without 
doubts and without illusions, satis- 
fied that the family have secured 
the necessary conditions exacted by 
.les convenances. This is the law, 
and we all bow to it ; we French- 
men rebel against every other law, 
but you seldom find one of us re- 
belling against this one. The 
slavery of les convenances has be- 
come second nature to us." 

" But it has always been so in 
France, has it not ?" said Pearl. 



" Why do you speak of les convenan- 
ces as if they were a modern inven- 
tion." 

"Alas! you are right, mademoi- 
selle : it has always been so. We 
have only changed the form of our 
slavery, though we have, it is true, 
gained in some ways by even that 
change. But if things were worse 
under the old regime, the system of 
loveless marriages was more ex- 
cusable then than nowadays. A 
noble under the old regime was 
bound by so many obligations to 
his order that to violate them 
through any promptings of person- 
al feeling would have been little 
short of treason in his eyes. This 
old order of things has passed 
away ; nous avons change 1 tout cela, 
nevertheless the traditions then in 
force have come down to us in a 
modified form and control our lives 
with a tyranny that no longer finds 
its justification in existing circum- 
stances. There is no reason why 
we should not make a revolution 
against this tyranny, and consti- 
tute personal choice and sympathy 
the rule of our marriages ; but we 
do not." 

" Then it is really true, as Mrs. 
Monteagle says, that Frenchmen 
never marry except when and 
whom their family tells them?" 
said Pearl, taking up the conversa- 
tion when she had provided cups 
of tea for every one. 

"Very seidom. It is not, per- 
haps, quite so rare a phenomenon 
in the middle classes; they are not 
so completely governed by les con- 
venances as the upper ones; they 
don't owe everything to the family ; 
they have to shift for themselves, 
and so they sometimes take the 
liberty of marrying to please them- 
selves." 

" Then ! I should think that 
Frenchmen are much better off 



Pearl. 



who don't belong to the upper 
classes," said Pearl, laughing. 

M. Darvallon smiled. 

" There' are compensations, no 
doubt." 

It was a tacit admission that he 
felt the need of them. And yet it 
seemed to Pearl, as with a rapid 
mental glance she compared him 
with the well-born men of her ac- 
quaintance, that he might have 
dispensed with compensations or 
found them abundantly in his own 
personality, for instinctively she re- 
cognized in this son of the Alsatian 
blacksmith a royal nature, a con- 
queror born to rule his own soul with 
undisputed sovereignty, if destiny 
denied him a wider kingdom. She 
herself was already subdued by his 
calm strength, as we all are by the 
imperious power of genuine supe- 
riority. Pearl had been accustom- 
ed to take captive the men she 
came in contact with, almost un- 
consciously, as by a law of nature 
which compelled them to bow 
down to the charm and graces of 
her womanhood ; but here was a 
man who was in some mysterious 
way subduing her, destroying her 
prejudices, the whole formula of 
her social life. There was some- 
thing in the contact of his calm 
energy, in the expression of his 
eyes, so earnest, so quietly in- 
tense, in the clear, deep tones 
of his voice, full of " larger mean- 
ing " than his words, that seemed 
to open out to her suggestions of 
some stronger, nobler life than she 
had yet awakened to something 
different from the frivolous activity, 



the fitful effort, the harmless self- 
indulgence, the narrow proprie- 
ties which had hitherto constitut- 
ed life to her. It was vcn 
like 'the break of martial music 
borne to us across the .hills on a 
summer's day, stirring our lazy 
pulses to a quicker beat, and b< 
ing to us the echo of some life be- 
yond our own, onward, vigorous, 
triumphant. Pearl made a silence 
within her and listened till the 
sounds died away. 

"What are you two talking 
about so seriously?" said M. de 
Kerbec, bringing back his tea-cup 
and sitting down beside her. " May 
I listen, or shall I be in the way ?" 

"Not the least," said Pearl. 
"Monsieur has been confessing to 
me what mercenary, cold-hearted 
creatures you Frenchmen are ; 
you never fall in love, and you 
never marry for anything but les 
convenances" 

" Nay, mademoiselle, never is a 
terrible word," protested M. Dar- 
vallon. " I only hope it may be 
the good fortune of one of my 
countrymen some day to prove to 
you that there are exceptions to 
the rule." 

'"''Never that, certainly!" said 
Pearl emphatically, and she looked 
at him with laughing eyes. " I have 
no dot!" 

" You are severe on us, made- 
moiselle ; but we deserve it." 

He looked pained. Pearl was 
sorry she had spoken so harshly. 
Not that it signified anything to 
her whether she pained or pleased 
this friend of Captain Leopold's. 



CHAPTER V. 



A DINNER AT CAPTAIN JACK'S. 

THE Redacres were at breakfast There was one for Col. Redacre 
next morning, Sunday, when the bearing the post-town stamp 
English letters were brought in. Broom Hollow. He opened it with 



20 



Pearl. 



some surprise, for he knew nobody 
in that neighborhood but Dean 
Darrell, and it was not his writing. 

" My God ! This is a piece of 
news ! Darrell is dead !" he ex- 
claimed after glancing at the letter. 

Mrs. Redacre and the girls 
echoed in an awe-stricken chorus, 
"Dead!" There was a moment's 
pause while the colonel read the 
letter again to himself. 

"Yes," he said, "dead! Tins 
is from his man of business, Mr. 
Jervis, who writes from Broom 
Hollow. Poor Darrell ! I am 
heartily sorry for him. A better 
man never lived." 

*' Does Mr. Jervis say anything 
about does he give any particu- 
lars ?" inquired Alice, with a look 
that her husband perfectly under- 
stood. 

" The poor fellow died very 
suddenly; there was nobody near 
him at the time. He had been in 
his usual health the day before. 
The moment his death was discov- 
ered Briggs, his old servant, tele- 
graphed for Mr. Jervis." 

" But, papa, has he left us his 
money ?" said Polly, in a tone 
that said plainly enough, " What 
else need we care about?" 

" My dear, this is not the mo- 
ment to think of that," replied her 
father sternly. " I had a great re- 
gard for Darrell, and you will all 
of you remember how often I have 
expressed a hope that his life might 
be long spared, if such were the will 
of the Almighty." 

Mrs. Redacre knew now, as well 
as if she had read the letter, that 
it was all right about the will. 

" But since it has been the will 
of the Almighty to take him away, 
I hope he has left us his money, 
papa ?" persisted Polly, who look- 
ed ready to cry. 

"Mr. Jervis says that I am the 



sole legatee, poor Darrell having 
made his will to that effect some 
year and a half ago. You, Pearl, 
were specially remembered, it 
seems, and have been very hand- 
somely provided for. You will al- 
ways cherish a grateful recollection 
of your godfather, I hope." 

" O papa ! how wonderful that 
it should come just at this mo- 
ment," cried Pearl, her eyes fill- 
ing with tears of thankfulness. 
" All our troubles will be over now, 
will they not ?" 

" I hope so. Poor Darrell ! He 
was an excellent fellow, with all 
his eccentricities." 

"He was indeed!" said Polly 
heartily. " I am so glad he has 
left you a good lot of money Pearl ; I 
am more grateful to him than if he 
had left it to me." And she got up, 
and went to her sister and kissed 
her in the prettiest way. 

"My dear children! dear Hugh ! : ' 
said Mrs. Redacre; and the tears 
streamed down her face as she 
looked from one to the other. 

" I told you Providence would 
pull us through, if we only kept a 
stout heart," said the colonel. 

"Yes, dear Hugh, and I was 
very cowardly. It seems now as 
if it would have been so easy to 
have trusted!" she said, laughing 
gently. "Let me see the letter, 
dear." 

He tossed it over to her. 

" Here is something written 
across," she said after perusing it. 
" Did you see it ? Poor man, he 
was in the act of writing to you 
when death overtook him; there 
was a sheet of paper before him, 
dated that day, and beginning, ' My 
dear Hugh, I have just heard, to my 
inexpressible surprise, . . .' How 
strange !" exclaimed Mrs. Redacre, 
looking up. " Good gracious ! 
what is the matter, darling ?" 



Pearl. 



21 



Polly had fainted, and must have 
fallen if Pearl had not caught her 
in her arms. 

"Open the window! Give her 
air!" cried Mrs. Redacre, and her 
husband hastened to do so. 

"Poor child! she is so sensi- 
tive," he said, taking her in his 
arms and carrying her to the sofa. 
" This good news, after the emotion 
of the last ten days, has been too 
much for her." 

Polly soon revived, and the con- 
versation and breakfast were re- 
sumed. She took little part in 
either; but this was naturally ac- 
counted for by the violent emotion 
that had momentarily overcome 
her. 

"You are to go over at once, 
papa?" said Pearl. 

" Yes. I must be there at the 
opening of the will," said Col. 
Redacre. 

" But it has been opened ! How 
would Mr. Jervis know what was 
in it if it had not ?" 

"It was he drew it up for Dar- 
rell. He wrote this letter before 
there was time to look for it; but 
he tells me what the contents were 
to set my mind at rest on the sub- 
ject at once. It was very consid- 
erate of Jervis ; there is more real 
kindness in the world than people 
are apt to think." 

" Shall we go and live at the 
Hollow now ?" said Pearl. 

" Certainly ; it is the only place 
in England where the climate is 
endurable. I never knew a day's 
ill health there ; and when I return- 
ed to England years afterwards I 
was driven mad with rheumatism." 

" I hope mamma will be able to 
live there," said Pearl, with an anx- 
ious look at her mother. 

" My darling, I shall be well 
anywhere that I see you all happy. 
Everything has all come so sudden- 



ly that I can't realize it. Hu^h, 
are you quite sure we are all wide 
awake and that this letter is not a 
dream ?" said Alice, rubbing her 
eyes with a pretence of sleep. 

"The Almighty is very good to 
us," said her husband with becom- 
ing reverence ; " but I always told 
you he would come to our assist- 
ance." 

" I suppose there will be money 
enough that you can put your 
hands on at once to pay off the 
bill," said his wife presently. 

" I should say so. I don't know 
how poor Darrell had his property 
invested ; but I know that he had a 
strong predilection for the funds, 
and a positive horror of anything 
above four per cent. He was a 
very liberal man in most things, 
gave largely away in charities and 
that sort of thing; but he had pe- 
culiar views about the sacredness 
of money. A man who jeopardized 
his capital to the extent of ^100 
was a sort of criminal in Darrell's 
eyes. This was why I was so 
averse to letting him know of our 
misfortune ; he would have been so 
shocked at my imprudence that he 
would have been capable of disin- 
heriting me. Poor fellow ! I won- 
der if he knows anything about it 
now." 

" That sentence at the beginning 
of his letter to you looks as if he 
had heard something before he 
went," said Alice. 

"Ay, so it does; well, the news 
evidently came too late to bring its 
punishment. We have every rea- 
son, indeed, to be grateful to Pro- 
vidence," said the colonel, stroking 
Balaklava, who was not very com- 
fortable in spite of the glad tidings 
that rejoiced his master. 

" I suppose you will start by this 
evening's mail, dear?" said Mrs. 
Redacre. 



22 



Pearl. 



" I suppose I ought ; but if the 
Channel is as rough as it has been 
these last twenty-four hours, I shall 
have to wait at Calais. The boat 
won't put out while the gale lasts." 

" Is it absolutely necessary for 
you to go, papa ?" said Pearl. 
" Must you hurry over at once?" 

" I need not hurry at all, except 
to be in time for the funeral. Of 
course, at any inconvenience, I 
must pay that mark of respect to 
poor Darrell ; it is to take place, 
Jervis says, on Saturday, if that suits 
me. This gives me five clear days 
to wait, if I choose." 

" Then, dearest, you had better 
wait till Tuesday at any rate," said 
Mrs. Redacre. 

And so it was settled that he 
would not start till Tuesday. 

The news, meantime, spread with 
incredible rapidity that the Reda- 
cres had inherited a fortune and 
were suddenly delivered from all 
their troubles. Everybody was pro- 
digal of congratulations. 

"Mon cher" said M. Leopold, 
who hurried in the next day, "fap- 
prends que vous avez realist m. votre 
cousin! Je vons felicite" And he 
embraced the colonel. 

Mme. Leopold wrote a gushing 
little note to Mrs. Redacre ; she 
was overflowing with happiness to 
know that her dear friends, her 
sweetest Pearl especially, were 
again as happy as they deserved to 
be. 

Mme. de Kerbec flew in person 
as soon as she heard the good 
news, and was loud in her rejoic- 
ings. 

" We have had a miserable time 
of it this last week," she said. "I 
am quite overdone with the strain 
of it ; and now we must make a lit- 
tle rejoicing en famille to console 
ourselves. You will all come and 
dine with me to-morrow ; Mr. 



Kingspring, you are included in 
the invitation," she said as that 
gentleman walked in. 

" Delighted," he replied. " Have 
you heard the news? Leopold is to 
be minister ; he has been offered the 
porte-feuille of Public Worship." 

" Nonsense ! Impossible !" cried 
Mme. de Kerbec. 

"Why not? He's a capital fel- 
low," said the colonel. 

" How delighted Mme. Leopold 
must be !" said Mrs. Redacre, with 
good-natured, wifely sympathy. 

" She will lose her head," said 
Mme. de Kerbec; "though one 
can't see why she should. She is 
very well born; you know she is 

ne'e De X . We thought it quite 

a mesalliance in the faubourg when 
she married M. Leopold. Many of 
her old friends dropped her ; I 
always kept up with her, poor wo- 
man ! I think people were rather 
too hard on her; she had no dot to 
speak of, and he married her to 
get into the faubourg." 

"And he never got his nose in- 
side the door," said Colonel Reda- 
cre. " And served him right ; 
serves any man right who marries 
for anything but love." 

"That is what the count always 
says," said Mme.de Kerbec. "But 
is it quite true, I wonder, that 
Leopold is to be minister ?" 

" I met Darvallon at the club 
just now, and he told me the report 
had come from headquarters," said 
Mr. Kingspring. " Darvallon ought 
to be well informed." 

"Who is he?" said Colonel 
Redacre "one of those D'Arres- 
Vallons we met in Normandy ?" 

" No ; he is not one of those 
D'Arres-Vallons," replied Mr. King- 
spring; and involuntarily he glanc- 
ed at Pearl, and wondered if she 
would speak. But Pearl made no 
remark. 



Pearl. 



" He left his card here last even- 
ing," said Mrs. Redacre ; "the 
girls danced with him the other 
evening at the Tuileries." 

" He is a very nice man, papa; 
he and Captain Leopold are like 
brothers," said Polly, with a vague 
notion that Pearl would like her to 
stand up for Leon's friend. 

" His father was a shoeblack, I 
believe," said Mme. de Kerbec. 

" Oh ! no, a blacksmith," cried 
Pearl quickly. 

" Well, my dear, we'll not dis- 
pute the distinction," said Mme. 
de Kerbec, with a supercilious 
laugh " a shoeblack or a black- 
smith, whichever sounds most re- 
spectable." 

Pearl blushed up and thought 
Captain Jack odious. 

" Come, come," said Mr. King- 
spring. "There is a wide differ- 
ence between a shoeblack and a 
son of Vulcan ; I protest for Dar- 
vallon." 

"Why did he change his name, 
then?" said Mme. de Kerbec. "I 
despise a man who is ashamed of 
his father's name. I suppose he 
thought Darvallon sounded better 
than Vulcan." 

There fell upon the company one 
of those awful pauses which occa- 
sially followed upon Mme. de Ker- 
bec's discourses. Polly Redacre 
broke it by exploding into her 
pocket-handkerchief with a fright- 
ful noise ; but luckily at the same 
moment Mrs. Monteagle was an- 
nounced, and this made a diver- 
sion. 

Mine, de Kerbec invited her 
also to the little dinner to-morrow, 
and then withdrew, sweeping away 
in her dark green velvet and sables 
with the majesty of a Semiramis. 

Mrs. Monteagle outstayed every- 
body to have a talk with the colo- 
nel. They discussed the will and 



the bill, and the wise and merci 
ful ways of Provrdence, and then 
M. Leopold's impending elevct'on 
came on the tapis. 

" He's a fool, but a good-natur 
ed fool," said Mrs. Montea: 

" No, he's not a fool," said the 
colonel ; " he's an ass, but a good- 
natured ass. Nobody is more ready 
to oblige than Leopold." 

" Yes, when it costs him noth- 
ing; but would he oblige you with 
a five-pound note if you were hard 
up ? Some people get the name of 
being good-natured because they 
have a benevolent countenance 
and a way of pulling a long face 
when they talk of other folks' 
troubles. As to her, she is insuffer- 
able ; but I won't talk of her. And 
that son of theirs is the greatest 
coxcomb I ever met. Blanche is 
a noodle, and a spitfire, I suspect, 
into the bargain, though she looks 
so demure ; there is no knowing 
what those French girls are up to." 

Colonel Redacre laughed. 

"Why, I thought you rather 
liked the Leopolds ?" he said, when 
Mrs. Monteagle had demolished the 
family one by one. 

" Not I. I never like French 
people ; there is no truth in them. 
You should have heard the lies 
that young Leopold told at my 
house' last night. By the way, do 
you know his friend, Captain Dar- 
vallon ?" 

"No; he left his card here last 
night, but I have not seen him. 
They were talking of him when 
you came in just now. It appears 
he is the son of a blacksmith, or 
something of that sort. How did 
Leopold take up with him so inti- 
mately ?" 

" It is nne amitic dt champ dc ba- 
taille, as they call it in their senti- 
mental way. He is one of the 
nicest Frenchmen I have ever met, 



Pearl. 



whoever his father was ; you Avill 
like him very much." 

"I will do nothing of the sort. 
I don't mean to make his acquaint- 
ance. What brought him here to 
make mine ? He heard my girls 
had money, and he came to see if 
he could catch one of them, I 
suppose." 

" He was not likely to have 
heard anything of the sort. As 
far as anybody knew, the girls had 
no dot at all last night. He heard 
that you had got into trouble 
Leon told him something of what 
had happened, and he said he 
should like to come and pay his 
respects to the young ladies whom 
he had been dancing with the 
other evening ; and to you espe- 
cially, as an old Crimean hero, 
whom he knew well by name. He 
particularly asked Leopold if his 
visit would not be considered in- 
trusive ; he meant it as a mark of 
sympathy." 

" That was rather gentleman-like 
of him," said the colonel in a modi- 
fied tone. " But I don't care to 
make his acquaintance. I disap- 
prove on principle of men rising 
from the ranks ; it will be the ruin 
of our army if that system ever 
gets encouraged to any extent in 
England, and I am sorry to say 
we are heading that way. A nice 
prospect it will be to have our 
sons sitting at mess with low fel- 
lows who get their epaulets, as 
bulls or prize-fighters might, for 
physical courage fellows who 
don't know how to handle knife 
and fork, and who fancy themselves 
gentlemen because they have got 
into a uniform !" 

" They will learn the use of a 
knife and fork before they get to 
the mess-table," said Mrs. Mont- 
eagle, who took a wicked pleasure 
in exasperating the colonel by prog- 



nosticating the reform of the army 
and the abolition of the purchase 
system. " I think myself it is a dis- 
grace to our Christian civilization, 
as we call it, to say that a man is 
absolutely debarred from rising in 
his profession by the accident of 
his birth, and that he is never to 
be recognized as a gentleman be- 
cause he chances not to have 
been born one." 

"For a sensible woman, you are 
talking great nonsense," said the 
colonel, taking out his snuff-box. 
" Look round about you, and tell 
me if it is not stamped on every 
man you know whether he is born 
a gentleman or not. As to the 
son of a shoeblack ever growing 
so like the true thing as to be mis- 
taken for it, you no more believe 
it possible than I do. We see the 
effect of race in our horses and 
dogs ; why should we not see it 
still more in men and women ?" 

" Horses and dogs have not 
souls and minds whose cultivation 
changes their whole nature." 

" I don't know about souls ; but 
I will venture to say I have known 
some dogs who had more brains 
than many a man of my acquaint- 
ance," said the colonel ; " but they 
were all well-born dogs dogs who 
had a tradition in their family, who 
had inherited well-bred instincts. 
I suppose you believe in inherited 
instincts? If a man has a trick 
of making faces, ten to one his son 
will inherit it and come into the 
world making faces. That is the 
real danger of low marriages ; the 
vulgarity gets into the family, and 
there is no getting rid of it." 

"And do you think that well- 
born people, as we call ourselves, 
never bring any grimacing tricks 
into a family nasty, lying, dishon- 
orable tricks of drinking and gam- 
bling and swindling in horse-flesh ?" 



Pearl. 



demanded Mrs. Monteagle. "You 
admit, I suppose, that the sons of 
gentlemen may inherit these sort 
of things ?" 

" At any r^te they inherit the 
manners of gentlemen." 

"That is begging the question. 
Besides, manners can be taught 
when they are not inherited ; one 
pays that extra twopence for 
them." 

" A swindle, obtaining the mo- 
ney under false pretences ; nobody 
but fools ever pay that twopence, 
and only knaves ask for it. No- 
thing but genius, and that of a very 
rare order, ever enables a man to 
get over the want of what they call 
here the premiere education" 

" I have known men who were 
no geniuses, and yet I defy you to 
find out that they wanted the pre- 
miere education" 

" Have you ? If ever I meet 
such a man I will lay down my 
prejudices ; but until I do I'll 
stick to them." 

" Let me Introduce Captain 
Darvallon to you." 

"No; I won't seek the danger, 
lest I perish therein." 

" I call that shabby to stick to 
one's prejudices out of sheer ob- 
stinacy," said Mrs. Monteagle. 

" Humph ! If it comes to that, 
I'm not sure if one ought not to 
stick to one's prejudices as stanch- 
ly as one does to one's principles ; 
in practical things they often 
stand one in better stead than prin- 
ciple." 

" What rank nonsense you are 
talking, to be sure! "said Mrs. Mont- 
eagle. " But you are in a mood to 
be contradictory, so I'll go." And 
she stood up. 

" Just tell me this," said Colonel 
Redacre, rising too : " is there any 
law that makes it a sin for a lady 
to marry her footman ? None 



whatever ; it is a mere matter of 
prejudice. Now, you won't say that 
society would be the better of 
ting rid of that prejudice ?" 

Mrs. Monteagle looked at him, 
tapped her head, and walked 
away. 

"The fact is, you are off your 
head this morning," she said. " I 
hope you will be in a more ration- 
al frame of mind to-morrow when 
we meet at dinner." 

" At dinner ? Oh ! by the bye, 
we were to dine at Captain Jack's; 
but the thing is impossible. I 
don't know why some one did not 
say so when she proposed it. We 
could not be so lost to propriety 
as to dine out anywhere before 
poor Darrell is buried. The wo- 
man was out of her mind to ima- 
gine such a thing; the fact is, we 
were all a little off our heads, as 
you say. And yet I have a heavy 
heart, I can tell you. Poor Dar- 
rell ! what an excellent fellow he 
was." 

The little dinner was put off un- 
til the following week, when Colo- 
nel Redacre should have returned 
from the funeral of the wealthy 
cousin whom he had 4 '* realized," 
or whom he was about to realize, 
for some formalities remained to- 
be gone through before he could 
come into possession of the dean's 
property. 

The weather took a turn for the 
better; soon Tuesday evening, as 
it had been arranged, he started on 
his journey. 

" Keep your comforter well 
about your throat, Hugh," said 
Mrs. Redacre, giving it a parting 
pull, "and see that you don't have 
a draught in the train." 

" I hope Balaklava won't worry 
you, papa," said Polly, as she kiss- 
ed him for the last time. 



26 



Pearl. 



" That you may be sure he will," 
said the colonel; "the damp al- 
ways plays old Harry with him. 
But I sha'n't think about that; I 
am too thankful to the Almighty for 
his mercies, and Balaklava may do 
his worst. Good-by all of you ! 
Alice, you will write to the boys 
to-morrow." 

"You will let us hear as soon as 
you are safe at the Hollow, papa ?" 
said Pearl. 

"Yes, I will drop a line to say I 
am there; but don't expect to hear 
from me again. I will take the 
mail on Monday, and be with you 
that evening, please God." 

Mrs. Redacre and the girls 
watched the brougham out of sight 
from the window, as it drove away 
with the colonel and his man. 

The late post next evening 
brought the promised line announc- 
ing the traveller's safe arrival at 
Broom Hollow. The week went 
quietly by, and on Monday all 
was pleasant excitement, expecting 
his return that night. But instead 
of himself there came, some hours 
before he was due, a telegram with 
the following message: 

" Unavoidably detained for some 
days. Willow rite to-morrow." 

" Some tiresome law business," 
said Mrs. Redacre. 

" I wish papa had written and 
told us more about it," said Pearl ; 
" I hate telegrams ; they give one a 
fright, and they explain nothing." 

"We must send word to Mme. 
de Kerbec," said Polly ; " she will 
put off the dinner, I suppose." 

But Mme. de Kerbec would do 
nothing of the kind. 

" I will give another for the 
colonel when he comes home," she 
said. " But we really must not put 
this one off again ; it will be un- 
lucky if we do. And what is it but 
a little family pot-au-feu after all ? 



We shall be only ourselves, you 
know. Mrs. Monteagle and Mr. 
Kingspring don't count as stran- 
gers, do they?" 

She was so earnest, in fact, that 
there was no getting out of it, and 
Mrs. Redacre had no reason parti- 
cularly to hold out, for the girls 
were evidently anxious to go ; es- 
pecially Polly. 

The strain and irritation of the 
last week or so had told more se- 
verely on Polly than on her sister, 
and now she was feeling the reac- 
tion. Her spirits rose to the high- 
est pitch of excitement; she was 
bubbling over with laughter all 
day, dancing through the rooms, 
and kissing her mother and Pearl 
whenever she passed them. 

" Oh ! what a mercy that we are 
not going to be poor," she ex- 
claimed. " I do believe I should 
have gone mad if we had lost all 
our money, mamma." 

" My darling ! No, you would 
have been braver than you think ; 
but I don't like to hear you talk 
so." 

" What are we to wear to-mor- 
row at Mme. de Kerbec's ?" said 
Polly, suddenly apostrophizing 
Pearl. 

" Our mourning dresses, of 
course ; what else could we wear?" 

" How I detest black !" said Pol- 
ly. " But with a square-cut body 
it won't be so near one's face." 

"As if it mattered a pin with 
your face, you goosey !" said Pearl, 
kissing the pout off the full coral 
lips. But it grated on her to see 
Polly so self-absorbed just now. 
It was natural they should all be 
very happy, even while feeling a 
due share of regret for the dead 
cousin who had proved such a de- 
liverer; but Pearl would have liked 
to see Polly a little subdued, a 
little chastened by the two events 



Pearl. 



which within a few days of each 
other had so shaken their quiet, 
happy lives. 

One result of the successive 
shocks that Pearl was more espe- 
cially thankful for was the change 
in her mother's health. Alice had 
regained the activity of her young- 
est days and something of her girl- 
ish bloom. It was a wonder to see 
her moving swiftly about the rooms 
she who for years was perpetually 
reclining on her sofa. When, this 
evening, she entered Mme. de Ker- 
bec's drawing-room, she looked 
more like the elder sister than the 
mother of her daughters. 

" Now we are going to be a jolly 
little family party!" said the hos- 
tess, who stood forth to greet them 
in a gorgeous pale pink satin, rich- 
ly trimmed with black lace, and 
further set off with emerald orna- 
ments, the whole forming a striking 
contrast to the black dresses of the 
Redacres. 

" How splendid you are !" said 
Pearl, with hearty girlish admira- 
tion. 

" You like my dress, dear ? I 
am glad of that," replied Mme. de 
Kerbec in the subdued tone she 
always assumed when toilette was 
mentioned. " I was rather anxious 
as to how the Spanish point would 
do. Mme. Galbois feared it would 
be heavy. I felt it was a risk my- 
self; but I should do something 
with the lace after paying two hun- 
dred pounds for it, you know. And 
you really think it looks well? But 
does it become me ? Tell me frank- 
ly what you think ; I had rather 
know the truth, and one never can 
trust those dressmakers." 

" I don't think pink becomes you 
as well as other colors," said Pearl. 
" I think it would have suited you 
better if she had put more black 
lace about the body." 



"Pearl, you are a true friend," 
said Mme. de Kerbec, pressing her 
hand. " That is exactly what I feel 
about it myself: the pink is trying 
to my complexion ; it wants toning 
down." 

"I think it is trying to every- 
body's complexion, except, perhaps, 
Polly's," said Pearl; "she can wear 
every color under the sun." 

"That is just what I complain 
of in the dressmakers," continued 
Mme. de Kerbec. " They only think 
of turning out a dress that will do 
credit to themselves; they don't 
care a straw whether it becomes 
one or not. I call it very unprin- 
cipled, besides being selfish; they 
should consider us when we pay 
them the highest price. I always 
say to Galbois : ' Mme. Galbois, I 
don't want to beat down your 
prices, but consider my face ' ; but 
that is the last thing she ever con- 
siders." 

The conversation, which had now 
become deeply interesting to Mme. 
de Kerbec, was here cut short by 
the servant's calling out "Madame 
est scrvie. /" and every one adjourn- 
ed to the dining-room. There were 
only three gentlemen, the host, Mr. 
Kingspring, and Leon Leopold. 

The one department where M. 
de Kerbec was master in his own 
house was the cooking ; he engaged 
the cook, he ordered the dinner, 
and he was responsible for its suc- 
cess or failure. There were ill- 
natured people who said that this 
was why he was allowed to take 
the management of it; since the 
mistress of the house should have 
some one to attack when the din- 
ner displeased 'her, it was plea- 
santer to be able to fall foul of the 
count, who was on the spot, than 
to have to nurse her wrath until 
the next morning and vent it on 
the cook. This supremacy in the 



28 



Pearl. 



culinary department was, indeed, 
paid for at a price by M. de Ker- 
bec : if the dinner gave satisfaction 
he was rewarded by seeing madame 
enjoy it, but he got no thanks ; if 
it did not give satisfaction he was 
complimented on his cook, and 
not allowed to eat a mouthful in 
peace. He had taken great pains 
to give satisfaction to-day ; he had 
held a long conference with " his 
cook," and submitted the menu to 
madame before finally ordering it, 
and she had been very kind. To his 
anxious inquiries as to whether she 
was sure she liked the various 
dishes, and that they would not 
disagree with her, madame had re- 
plied that he must not worry about 
that, but consider what would suit 
everybody else. " You know me, 
Jack; you know I can always dine 
off a mutton-chop." For many a 
long day this mutton-chop was 
served as regularly as the soup, al- 
though it was seldom touched, and, 
when it was, it was generally dis- 
missed with contumely for* being 
done to a rag, or raw, or as tough 
as leather; in fact, Jack shook in 
his shoes when his wife called for 
her chop, because she never did so 
until she had pronounced every 
dish on the table "not fit to eat," 
and then he knew what was in 
store for him. A great deal de- 
pended on the temper she happen- 
ed to be in when they sat down to 
dinner. To-day, unfortunately, she 
was put out about her dress ; Pearl 
had destroyed her peace of mind 
for the evening by confirming her 
suspicion that pink was unbecom- 
ing to her, and that Mme. Galbois 
had selfishly refused to consider 
her face instead of the fashion- 
book. 

Everything went on pleasantly 
till the roast came on ; Mme. de 
Kerbec had let every dish pass her, 



but the count, whose eye watched 
each dismissal with growing anx- 
iety, made sure she would take a 
bit of roast chicken. To his dis- 
may, she waved it aside and said 
something to the butler; lie signed 
to another servant, who came and 
exchanged a few words with his 
mistress, and was hurrying out of 
the room when M. de Kerbec call- 
ed out. 

"What is it, ma chere amie?" 

" Oh ! nothing ; your cook forgot 
to send in my mutton-chop. Don't 
mind me; go on with your dinner." 

But this was easier said than 
done. The count kept his eyes 
nervously on the door till the ser- 
vant who had gone in search of 
the forgotten chop reappeared 
without the chop. 

"O dear! O dear!" exclaimed 
the guilty Jack, moving uneasily in 
his chair. 

Some words passed between 
madame and the footman. 

" I guessed as much," remarked 
madame; and she sat back in her 
chair with the air of a victim. 

" Ma chere amie, you so seldom 
touch it of late that I suppose the 
cook thought " began M. de Ker- 
bec deprecatingly. 

"Did you order that mutton- 
chop to-day ?" demanded Capt. Jack 
sternly. 

" Ma chere amie, I am afraid I 
did not specially mention it to-day; 
it is so long since you have touch- 
ed" 

"Jack, I think you have heard 
me say that I liked a mutton- 
chop ?" said his wife. 

" But, my dear, if' 

" Answer me that : have I or have 
I not said that I liked a mutton- 
chop ?" 

Thus adjured, the unfortunate 
Jack was compelled to say that she 
had said so, and to confess, more- 



Pearl. 



over, that he had taken upon him- 
self to tell his cook not to prepare 
the mutton-chop to-day. 

"I was perfectly sure of it," said 
Mme. de Kerbec. " I knew the 
woman, bad as she is, would never 
have dared neglect it if you had 
not told her. But it does not mat- 
ter ; I can do without any dinner." 
And she folded her arms and lay 
back in her chair, her emeralds 
shining out in lustrous mockery of 
her woe. 

" Ma chere amie, I entreat you, 
take a bit of chicken," said her 
husband piteously. 

The servant presented the dish, 
but, after scanning it for a moment, 
Mme. de Kerbec said, " No, thank 
you," and lay back again. 

" I have a delicious liver-wing 
that I have not touched ; let me 
send it to you. You can always eat 
the liver," pleaded ''poor Jack. 
But she requested that he would 
attend to his dinner and not mind 
her. Everybody was distressed at 
the mishap, but it was one of those 
cases where it was difficult to ex- 
press sympathy, and where the 
best tiling was to ignore the mis- 
fortune altogether. So the com- 
pany went on talking, and tried to 
seem unconscious of the sad fact 
that their hostess was starving 
while they were feasting u-nder her 
eyes. It was natural enough that 
they should do so, but that her 
own husband should go on devour- 
ing his food, while she sat opposite 
to him, not tasting a morsel, was 
selfishness not to be endured. 

" Count," she said presently, 
calling to him across the table, 
" since you are so kind as to offer 
me that liver-wing, I think I will take 
it ; that is, if you are quite sure 
you don't mind letting me have it." 

The count dropped his knife and 
fork. 



" Grand Dieu ! I have eaten it," 
he cried. 

" Ah ! it doesn't matter. I 
thought you meant it when you of- 
fered it to me." 

" Ma chere amie, you distinctly 
refused " 

" I say it does not matter. Go 
on with your dinner." 

This was almost too much for 
the gravity of the company ; J,< 
look of despair, and Capt. Jack's 
face expressing mingled triumph 
and disgust, made two pictures in 
the highest degree comical. It was 
absolutely necessary for some one 
to say something, or else one min- 
ute more and there would have 
been a general explosion ; as it was, 
Polly Redacre was violently chok- 
ing in her pocket-handkerchief. 
Mr. Kingspring came to the res- 
cue. 

" Talking of the wing of a chick- 
en," he said, "reminds me of a 
story that a friend of mine tells of 
a pair who eloped to Gretna Green. 
They stopped on the way to get 
some refreshment, and there was 
nothing at the inn but one-half of 
a chicken. The bridegroom helped 
the young lady to the leg, and kept 
the wing for himself; whereupon 
she stood up and wished him good- 
morning. ' If this is how you treat 
me before/ she said, ' what will it 
be after ?' And not a step farther 
could he persuade her to go ; home 
she went." 

" And quite right," said Mrs. 
Monteagle ; " no girl of spirit would 
have done otherwise. What do 
you say, Pearl ?" 

" I think it served him right," 
said Pearl. 

"Men are so selfish !" said Mme. 
de Kerbec. " If we knew them be- 
forehand, we should all run away." 

"A Frenchman would not have 
done that," said Leon. "With all 



Pearl. 



our faults, we are not capable of 
anything so brutal; eh, M. de Ker- 
bec?" 

But Mme. de Kerbec shrugged 
her shoulders and said : " You are 
ten times more selfish than English- 
men." 

"This particular man seems to 
me to have been a fool as well as 
a brute," said Mrs. Redacre, laugh- 
ing. 

"Yes," said M. de Kerbec, ven- 
turing a little joke, " he was a fool 
not to have sacrificed the wing for 
once." 

" Count, you ought to be asham- 
ed of yourself!" said his wife, sit- 
ting up and looking at him with a 
glance that must have pulverized 
him on the spot, if it could but 
have hit him ; "but it only proves 
what I say you are ten times worse 
than our own men, you French- 
men." 

Jack collapsed after this. In 
spite of these little skirmishes be- 
tween the host and hostess the 
dinner went off pleasantly enough ; 
everybody knew that everybody 
else was making violent efforts not 
to laugh at the wrong moment, and 
this knowledge kept up a ripple of 
merriment that broke out the more 
heartily for being every now and 
then forcibly suppressed. Still, on 
the whole, there was a sense of re- 
lief when Mme. de Kerbec gave 
the signal to rise. 

" I suppose, in compliment to 
Mr. Kingspring, you will think it 
necessary to stay behind over your 
wine," she said to the host. " But 
I beg you won't stay long; you 
hear me, count ?" 

The count said he would find the 
moments hours' till he rejoined ces 
dames; and as soon as they were 
out of the room he drew a long 
breath and looked like a captive 
emancipated. The three gentle- 



men drew near one another, and fill- 
ed their glasses, and prepared to en- 
joy the respite. The topic of conver- 
sation which at once engrossed them 
was the formation of the new cabinet. 
Leon declared he had no more cer- 
tain information about his father's 
nomination than they had; he took 
the affair very philosophically, not 
seeming to care one way or the 
other. 

" If it had been la Guerre they 
offered him, that would have been 
different," he said. " One might 
have had a chance of war then; at 
least I should have had a chance of 
impressing on the paternal mind 
the desirability of going to war. 
But what can the minister of Culte 
Public do? It is part of his busi- 
ness to prevent war, to do away 
with fighting altogether. I think 
myself \\\z porte-feuille du Culte Pub- 
lic ought to be abolished. I see no 
use in it." 

" You can see no use in anything 
that does not tend to get up a 
fight," said Mr. Kingspring. " I 
never knew such a bloodthirsty 
fellow as you are, Leopold. Pass 
the Chateau Margaux, please." 

"What is the fun of being a sol- 
dier if one has no fighting to do?" 
said Leon. " It is like being a bar- 
rister and having no briefs." 

" You may have some fighting in 
the streets one of these days ; I 
suppose you would rather have that 
than nothing." 

" I can't say I hanker much after 
that kind of war ; it brings no glory 
and it demoralizes the troops. But 
I don't expect we shall have any." 

"No," said M. de Kerbec, "the 
emperor will not push things to 
extremities ; he is too prudent. I 
have a great opinion of his states- 
manship myself. It would not do 
for me to say that in public, of 
course ; my people would not like 



Pearl. 



it ; but entre nous, he is the man 
we want. He knows how to rule us ; 
he is a despot, but we like that 
France likes to be ruled with a high 
hand. This I say, of course, con- 
fidentially. You will never let it 
go farther ?" 

Both his friends pledged them- 
selves never to divulge the senti- 
ment thus confided to them, and 
M. de Kerbec, emboldened by their 
assurance, went on to say a great 
many more things about the pre- 
sent government, growing at last 
quite reckless in his conversation. 
He gave it as his private opinion 
that le roi was a chevalier, a Bay- 
ard, but no more fit to govern the 
France of the nineteenth century 
than Godefroi de Bouillon would 
be if he got out of his grave. 

Leon and Mr. Kingspring egged 
him on till he had committed him- 
self to opinions which, he said, were 
they to be overheard, would ruin 
him for ever ; his life would not be 
'worth an hour's purchase. It was 
assumed, naturally, that he meant, 
in the faubourg ; and his friends 
repeated their promise that no word 
of these criminal remarks should 
ever reach that noble region. 

The time was going quickly in this 
free flow of soul and with the count's 
generous old wine ; but, luckily for 
the revellers, Mine, de Kerbec was 
holding a consultation with Pearl 
and Polly as to the best way of rem- 
edying the mistake which Mine. 
Galbois had made in her dress, so 
she did not notice that the regimen- 
tal ten minutes had twice expired. 
M. de Kerbec never was himself in 
his wife's presence, and he expand- 
ed in self-importance during the 



short after-dinner episode in a way 
that highly diverted his friends. 
No man held his own more firmly 
than he did then ; no man ruled 
his^ household more despotically. 

" I like this English habit' of 
yours," said Leon, stretching him- 
self comfortably in his chair. " I 
suppose it is barbarous, *.* ccs iL>. 
say, to lose ten minutes of their so- 
ciety for the sake of chatting togeth- 
er over one's glass; but it is very 
pleasant, especially for an unfor- 
tunate like myself who is not rich 
in small talk. I never know what 
to say to ladies. I wish it would 
come into fashion here to leave 
them a little while to themselves 
after dinner." 

"It never will," said Mr. King- 
spring; "they dislike it, and they 
are the masters." 

" Not always, mon cher, not al- 
ways," protested M. de Kerbec. 
" My wife has a particular dislike to 
the practice, but I agree with Leo- 
pold that it is a pleasant one, and 
I invariably adopt it whenever we 
have an Englishman to dine." 

" But one has not always an Eng- 
lishman to dine," said Leon, " and 
when you have not I suppose you 
don't have your own way about it; 
there would be no excuse." 

" I want no excuse for having 
my own way," said M. de Kerbec ; 
" I am Julius Csesar in my own 
house." 

" Then, Julius Caesar, will you 
please to march ?" said a voice be- 
hind him. And Julius Caesar did, 
Leon and Mr. Kingspring following 
in silence, as Captain Jack led the 
way into the drawing-room. 



TO FE CONTINUED 




\\ i a * i o 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



PLAIN CHANT IN ITS RELATION TO THE LITURGY.* 



I. OBJECT OF THE WORK. 

" Converte luctum nostrum in gaudium, ut vi- 
ventes laudemus nomen tuum, Domine, et ne claudas 
ora te canentium." ESTHER xiii. 17. 

THE surprising revolution which 
has taken place in the ecclesiasti- 
cal life of Germany during the last 
decade, the rich and variegated 
blossoms put forth by the life-giv- 
ing tree of the Catholic Church, 
the strenuous efforts made to pre- 
serve from decay the house of God, 
to cleanse and enlarge it, and to 
deck it with its rightful and becom- 
ing ornaments, should, we trust, 
prepare the way for an apprecia- 
tion of our efforts to draw attention 
to a part of the church's inner life 
which in its scope and significance 
occupies no inferior place in divine 
worship. We refer to church mu- 
sic. Not that we believe due con- 
sideration has not already been 
given to this subject. On the con- 
trary, we acknowledge that it has 
recently been treated, from both 
an historical and musical point of 
view, with a remarkable amount of 
learning and assiduity. Although 
thus far the results attained have 
not been altogether satisfactory, 
yet diligent researches, not unfre- 
quently combined with great sacri- 
fices, have in a most laudable man- 
ner enriched the treasury of the 
church's song, and have in many 
ways shed light upon the old tra- 
ditions. Above all we should not 

* This and succeeding articles under the same 
title are from the pen of the Very Rev. Benedict 
Sauter, O.S.B., formerly the prior of the Abbey of 
Beuron, ISigmaringen, who published the matter 
contained in them under the title of Choral und 
Liturgie. Those who are interested in the subject 
of the reform of church music, now being much 
agitated both in Europe and America, will peruse 
the work of the eminent author with as much 
pleasure as profit. ED. C. W. 



underrate the deep interest, the 
lively and praiseworthy zeal, with 
which very many critics and lovers 
of sacred song, at times with great 
acumen and good taste, have en- 
deavored to establish rules for its 
execution. 

Nevertheless, no one can well 
escape the conviction that very little 
has as yet been accomplished. A 
chaotic confusion of views prevails. 
Some continue to their hearts' con- 
tent to tickle the ear with senti- 
mental and worldly music; the at- 
tention of some is drawn from the 
diamond of the liturgical text, and 
the pearls of the Gregorian melo- 
dies, by the splendid setting given 
them by the style of Palestrina; 
others mutilate and split into frag- 
ments both text and melody, thus 
destroying the spirit and meaning 
of both in a way positively insuffer- 
able ; while we must frankly con- 
fess that we rarely find any who 
sing plain chant. 

In such a state of things it 
ought not to surprise us that a high- 
ly-esteemed popular author of our 
times should pronounce the chant 
" colorless," and that we should 
find another asserting that " plain 
chant freezes the inmost soul and 
benumbs the heart," and "is just 
the thing to drive people from the 
church." Nor was our own opin- 
ion at all different from this until 
we had the good fortune not only 
to learn from men of extensive ex- 
perience the principles of a correct 
execution of the chant, but also to 
live in the midst of those who speak 
faultlessly this language of angels 
we mean who sing the Gregorian 
chant intelligently. 



Plain CJiant in 



its Relation to the Liturgy. 



33 



Those who find the chant " co- the influence of divine inspiration 
lorless" and "heartrending" evi- and for centuries have produced 



dently.have in their minds the 
rendering of it to be heard at the 
present time in our churches, but 
surely not that chant of which St. 
Augustine says : " How did I weep 
during thy hymns and canticles, 
touched to the quick by the voices 
of thy sweet-attuned church ! The 



the effects of which we have just 
spoken. 

We may trace the opposition to 
the chant on the one hand to its 
defective execution, on the other to 
the perverted taste of the last cen- 
turies. This corrupted taste will 
vanish when we have remedied the 






voices flowed into mine ears, and defects which have given rise to it 

the truth distilled into my heart, But it would be absurd to look for 

whence the affections of my devo- a reformation in the popular taste 

tion overflowed, and tears ran down, while we ourselves continue to vio- 

and I was happy therein." They late good taste in our rendering of 

i i i i*ir i i 



cannot mean that chant which for 
millions of holy souls has been 



church music. Let us improve 
our singing of the chant, and an 



an indispensable spiritual nourish- intelligent and appreciative taste 



ment, a living fountain of graces 
springing up unto eternal life that 
chant once heard by the' Christian 
folk with holy joy, to whose tones 
kings and emperors in their leisure 
hours delighted to unite their 
voices. 

How comes it, then, that plain 
chant, pure and simple, has so few 
friends, that the common opinion 
is that, to make it barely enjoyable, 
the rare sublimity of its noble tones 
must be set forth with every kind 
of artificial appendage ? Is it be- 
cause the pure Gregorian melodies 
have not yet been definitely ascer- 
tained and restored? It is plain 
that this pretext is inadmissible. 
Is there, then, a lack of zeal in the 
cause of plain chant? It would 
hardly be fair to maintain this, al- 
though many more sacrifices by 
far of time and labor have been 
devoted to every other branch of 
music. Perhaps, then, the fault lies 
in some deficiency in the text ? But 
the words are almost all from Holy 
Scripture, the dictations of the 



will certainly follow. 

What is first of all necessary to 
this end is not mechanical instruc- 
tion in the modes of the chant, nor 
merely learning to sing or accom- 
pany them books with this aim, 
are in superabundance nor even 
the discovery of the genuine Gre- 
gorian melodies. For of what use 
is the correctness of a version, if it 
cannot be read ? The remarks of 
the learned Abbot Gueranger of 
Solesmes are here to the point: 
*' The correct execution of the Gre- 
gorian chant is so indispensable 
for this that, even were we in pos- 
session of the antiphonary used by 
St. Gregory himself, it would be of 
no use to us if we had to hear his 
wonderful melodies performed with- 
out knowledge of the rhythm and 
without the correct execution. We 
could a hundred times better en- 
dure our worst and most faulty 
editions, if the chant were but ren- 
dered in accordance with rules 
known and followed of old." 

A correct execution is therefore 



Holy Ghost. Must we find the ob- of especial importance in the sing- 



stacle in some peculiarity of the 
melodies ? Yet these melodies were 
noted down by holy men, under 
VOL. xxvni. 3 



ing of the chant. But presuppos- 
ing such elementary knowledge as 
is absolutely indispensable, the 



Plain Chant in its Relation to t/ie Liturgy. 



first condition for a correct execu- 
tion of the chant is a just concep- 
tion of its significance in Christian 
worship and its essential connec- 
tion with the liturgy. 

We beg, therefore, the reader to 
fallow us with attention in our 
explanations on this point with 
which we must necessarily preface 
the special rules for the singing of 
plain chant ; for by such a dis- 
cussion alone can the principles be 
understood which we intend to set 
forth in the later chapters upon the 
^nature and essence, the rhythm, 
<the tonality, and the modes of the 
Jiturgical chant. 

ill. A GENERAL ESTIMATE OF THE 
LITURGICAL CHANT. 

In the preface to a recent edi- 
tion of the Book of St. Gertrude 
we find words so clearly express- 
ing our view that it seems appro- 
priate to begin with them : 

"If the holy hours together with the 
liturgical sacrifice made up the aposto- 
lic divine service, the daily routine of the 
first Christians, then it must without 
hesitation be asserted that these blessed 
first-born children of the church, with 
psalmody and hymnody, steeled their 
souls for the mighty struggle of martyr- 
dom. Ojficium and Sacrificiiun i.e., 
Holy Scripture and the liturgy these 
two consecrated vessels filled by the 
Holy Ghost and set up in the sanctuary 
of the New Covenant, yielded to those 
happy disciples of the apostles the sole 
substance of their spiritual nourishment. 
From out of them with joy they daily 
drew the heavenly manna that strength- 
ened and refreshed their heroic souls 
upon their desert pilgrimage to the land 
of promise. What the fiery tongues of 
the Holy Ghost had spoken in the 
apostles quivered anew, in the holy 
songs of the hours and of the litur- 
gy, upon the tongue of every baptiz- 
ed Christian ; so that the church, the 
ibride of Jesus Christ, offered to her 
heavenly Bridegroom a full, worthy, 
undivided, undiminished praise; and thus 



the whole church, not alone the sacrific- 
ing priesthood, was like a mighty harp 
of David, whose golden chords the Fin- 
ger of God's Hand, the Holy Ghost, 
wondrously played to the sweet praise 
of the Most High and of the Lamb." 

In this attractive passage we 
find the sacrifice and the office or 
the liturgical chant brought into 
the closest connection. Indeed, so 
essential is their mutual relation 
that one stands and falls with the 
other. Where the dogma of the 
Real Presence was abandoned, 
there also the canonical hours had 
to disappear. The religious wor- 
ship of Protestants, if we can speak 
of any such thing among them, fur- 
nishes us with the readiest proof of 
this. And where, upon Catholic 
ground, the canonical hours, the 
public liturgical prayer of the 
church, have been hushed, there, in- 
stead of the original strong faith and 
the fulness of fervent religious life, 
have crept in at least lukewarm- 
ness, scepticism, and cold indiffer- 
ence to the supernatural. The ex- 
istence of this deplorable state of 
affairs is only too frequently at- 
tested by the voice of the clergy. 

It needs but a hasty glance at 
the beginnings of Christian wor- 
ship in order to establish the di- 
vinely-willed connection of the lit- 
urgy with its chant. As the an- 
gels sang when the Eternal Word 
was made flesh, so also sang the 
God-Man with his apostles in the 
ccenaculum when for the first time 
he wrought the sacramental change 
of bread into his body (Matt. 
xxvi. 30) ; and after the Spirit of 
God had been poured out upon 
the church the apostles continued, 
and exhorted the faithful to con- 
tinue, this holy singing (Eph. v. 
19). Thus the liturgical chant 
grew and was perfected along with 
the growth of the church and the 



Plain CJiant 



in its Relation to the Liturgy 

e>^ * 



35 



development 
ship. 



of Christian 



wor- presses. We must consider, also, 
that the royal prophet not onlv 



Among all those peoples whose pointed two hundred and eighty- 
religious systems were sufficiently eight singing masters for the in- 
organized to admit of a regular struction as singers of four thou- 
worship, we invariably find sacred sand Levites, and thus caused the 
music in the service of religion and music of the temple to be per- 
of the Sacrifice. To begin with formed systematically, but lie was 
the chosen .people, we have the an- also in the possession of instru- 
tiphonal song of Moses, Aaron, and merits whose employment necessa- 
Mary (Ex. xv.), the song of the rily presupposes a knowledge of 
children of Israel on the borders regulated modulation. We men- 
of Moab (Num. xxi. 17), the song tion only David's favorite instru- 
of Deborah and Barak (Judges v.). raent, the kinnur, or cithara (i 
David, the royal singer, was ex- Kings xvi. 23), and the nebel, or 
pressly called by Jehovah to set 
in order the liturgical song of 
God's people. Although the man- doubt that the Holy Ghost inspir- 
ner in which this chant, as David ed the royal singer with melodies 
arranged it, was executed can 
hardly be ascertained, yet at all 



nablium, a kind of harp 
xxxii. 2). Besides, who 



(Ps. 
can 



appropriate to his sublime lan- 
guage ? Or would Jehovah, who 



events the supposition is plainly prescribed with the greatest exact- 



untenable that its recitation was 
less of a chant than a declama- 
tory delivery, with a fixed punc- 
tuation and an elevation of the 
voice to some extent arbitrary. It 



ness not only the ceremonial but 
even the construction and furni- 
ture of the temple, down to the 
smallest detail would this Jeho- 
vah, ever zealous for the honor of 



is altogether more probable that his house, abandon to human in- 
under David there existed for the genuity and the primitive musical - 
service of God a fully-developed appliances of the time, without 
melodious chant, as surely may be his divine ruling and guidance, 
inferred from the headings to so important a thing as the music 
many psalms, which, according to of his sanctuary ? Useless then 
the opinion of weighty commen- would have been the vocation of 
tators Le Blanc, for instance in David, of whom St. Augustine so 
some cases give the names of popu- beautifully speaks: " Erat David 
lar songs to which each particular vir in canticis eruditus, qui harmo- 
psalm was to be sung. Thus the niam musicam non vulgari volup- 
twenty-first Psalm was to be sung tate sed fideli voluntate dilexerit, 
to the "Hind of the Dawn," or, as eaque Deo suo, qui verus est De- 
an other reading has it, " For the us, mystica rei magnae figuratione 
morning protection"; the fifty- servierit ; diversorurn enim sono- 
sixth Psalm to the "Mute Dove of rum ratio nobilis moderatusque 
the Distant Places." Sometimes concentus concorde varietate com- 
the appropriate instrument for the pactam bene ordinatoe civitatis iri- 
accompaniment of the psalm is sinuat umtatem" (De Civ. Dei, c. 
named, as at the beginning of the xiv.) We will only add that this 
eighth Psalm, "For the Gittith," music of the temple, founded am 
an instrument so called on account introduced by David, had 
of its resemblance to the wine- wards a continual pious cultivation 



Plain CJiant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



in the schools of the prophets. 
From the Hebrews the knowledge 
of instrumental and' vocal music 
came at a very early date to the 
Greeks, and so long as their sim- 
plicity of life was not supplanted 
by luxury its exclusive use was 
in praising the gods and the deeds 
of their forefathers (Odyssey, i. 
388). Nor is the case different 
with ancient Rome, where we also 
find it principally dedicated -to the 
service of religion, for which rea- 
son Horace calls it " arnica tem- 
plo." Finally, it is an established 
fact that among the ancient Ger- 
mans the singers were at the same 
time priests, as the Gallic bards 
were also Druids, and they not 
only started the war-songs but 
sang hymns in honor of their 
gods. 

The passage we have quoted 
from the Book of St. Gertrude 
shows, secondly, that the office, as 
consisting of liturgical prayer and 
singing, has been sanctioned by the 
Holy Ghost. Of this there can be 
no doubt. The office is made up 
partly of Biblical extracts, partly of 
the traditional language of the 
church, the mouthpiece of the self- 
same Spirit. 

Our citation further goes to 
prove that the liturgical prayer and 
chant were not intended for the 
exclusive edification of any par- 
ticular class or caste of Christian 
society, but were rather meant to 
be a living bond enclasping the 
whole church on earth, a holy ser- 
vice in which, by divine ordinance, 
the entire mystical body of Christ, 
clergy and laity, should share, 
just as all partake of the sacra- 
mental wells of grace, and as all 
join in the central act of Christian 
worship, the unbloody Sacrifice of 
the altar. 

Neumaier, in his History of 



Christian Art (vol. i. 81, p. 368), 
gives us a correct idea of this 
general participation of the people 
in the liturgical singing. He re- 
marks that in the early church the 
singing was partly congregational 
{populi concentus) and partly anti- 
phonal, the choir and the people 
singing by turns (populi succentus), 
but that the rendering of the mu- 
sic by a few well-drilled singers 
was a practice unknown in the 
primitive church. The Aposto- 
lical Constitutions prescribe this 
common participation of the faith- 
ful in the service : " Peractis per 
binos lectionibus, quidam alius 
Davidis hymnos psallat et populus 
extrema versuum succinat " (lib. ii. 
c. 37) "When the lessons, read 
each by two persons, are over, let 
some one else sing the hymns of 
David, and let the people chant in 
reply the ends of the verses." St. 
Clement of Alexandria calls the 
music of the church " the common 
voice of the faithful " (pcovijv r?)v 
HOivriv and St. Basil "the com- 
mon bond of charity and concord " 
(Epist. ad Neoccesar). " Bono- 
rum maximum, caritatem conciliat 
psalmorum cantus, qui concentum 
ceu quoddam vinculum ad concor- 
diam jucundam adinvenit, popu- 
lumque ad chori unius symphoniam 
congregat. . . . Tandem a preca- 
tione surgentes ad psalmodiam 
transeunt. Et mine quidem in 
dims partes divisi alternis succi- 
nentes psallunt. . . . Postearursus 
uni committentes, ut prior canat, 
reliqui succinunt " " Charity, the 
greatest of all goods, is won by the 
singing of psalms, which devises 
harmony as a bond unto joyful 
concord, and collects the people in 
the unison of one choir. ... At 
length, rising from prayer, they 
pass to psalmody. And now, di- 
vided into two parts, they sing al- 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 37 

ternately. . . . Again committing tive church is the use of our mod- 

it to one, as the prior sings the ern figured music, and what a poor 

rest chant in reply. St. Ambrose exchange it is for plain chant. Of 

likens the holy singing of a Chris- this more hereafter Since we 

tian congregation, in which young have no idea of trying to remodel 

men and maidens, old men and the church on the primitive plan 

children, unite in praising God, to we take ecclesiastical authority as 

the majestic roaring of the sea: our guiding star in the exposition 

" Ut cum undarurn leniter alluen- of our principles. 

tium sono certent cantus psailen- But let us anticipate a possible 

tium, plaudant insuke tranquillo objection. Should any one assert 

fluctuum sanctorum choro, hymnis that the chant of the first Chris- 

sanctorum personent ; unde mihi tians was but a crude medley, since 

ut omnem pelagi pulchritudinem it was not figured music in the mo- 

comprehendam, quam vidit ope- dern sense, we can bring forward a 

rator? Et quid plura? Ecquid passage which clearly points out 

aliud ille concentus undarum, nisi by what spirit this mode of singing 

quidamconcentusest plebis. Unde in common was not only brought 

bene mari plerumque comparatur into being, but, through constant 

ecclesia, quse primo egredientis inspiration, regulated. It is from 

populi agmine totis vestibulis undas St. Chrysostom's Homily on the 



vomt; deinde in oratione totius 
plebis tanquam undis refluentibus 
stridet, turn responsoriis psalmo- 
rum, 



i45th Psalm: EipahXe TTOTS 6 
Aavid sv tfsaXjuoiZ, xai 
rov Aavid 



cantus virorum, multerum, nai yap xai yvvainsS uoa avdpe? 



virgintim, parvulorum consonus tin- 



npsajSvrai KOI vloi du'jprjv- 



darum fragor resultat " (ffexcem. ton v^voodia? Xo'yor. Trjv yap 

iii. c. 5). The words of St. Atha- fxaffrov (pGov?)v ro nvev^a rrep- 

nasius on this point are particular- affav p.iav zv artaGiv 8pyd2,Tai 

ly beautiful : " Praestabat certe is- TifV j^eXcodiav "David chanted 

tud, hinc enim unanimitatem cer- then in psalms, and we after his 

nere erat, hincque Deus est ad ex- example, . . . men and women, old 

audiendum promptior. Si namque and young, lifting up the voice of 

juxta ipsius Salvatoris promissio- hymnody. For the Spirit maketh 

nem dtiobus ob quamlibet causam the voice of each one to perform 

convenientibus, quodcunque petie- with all one and the same melody." 

rint, dabitur illis : quid si tanti This was the so-called symphonic 

populi convenientis una vox pro- chant, soon afterwards united with 

feratur, qua Deo dicunt : Amen ?" the antiphonal, cantus rcsponsorius, 

We have similar testimony from vnaKOij, populi succentus, the me- 

St. Chrysostom (Horn. 36 in i. ad thod of which is to this day per- 

Cor.), St. Leo (Serm. 2 in Annivers. fectly preserved in the public reci- 

Assumpt.), and others. Sozomen tation of the office. Of this anti- 

ascribes it to this practice of the phonal chant St. Gregory the Great 

Christians that St. Athanasius remarks that the singing from side 

found the means of escaping from to side is a token of mutual charity, 

his enemies (lib. iii. c. 5 ; cf. So- as at the end all join in the anti- 

crates, lib. ii. c. 8). These fine phon as with one voice. 
passages inform us how very con- In these three points the con- 

trary to the practice of the primi- nection of the liturgical chant with 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



the liturgical sacrifice, its text, and 
its general prayerfulness we have 
the fundamental principles which 
are to guide us in determining the 
place due to plain chant in our 
worship. They are so essential 
not only to a full appreciation of 
the chant, but also for the estab- 
lishment of principles for its execu- 
tion, that we must enter into them 
more particularly. 

IIL THE CONNECTION OF THE LI- 
TURGICAL CHANT WITH THE LI- 
TURGICAL SACRIFICE. 

The liturgical sacrifice offered 
upon our altars is the continual 
unbloody representation of that in- 
conceivably mysterious drama once 
for all enacted in its fulness in a 
bloody manner upon Golgotha. 
There was the act of redemption 
accomplished; here must the graces 
of redemption be bestowed upon a 
race thirsting for salvation. Thus 
the difference between the two sac- 
rifices lies in the manner of the 
external offering, and in the way 
in which men partake of the bene- 
fits of each. There it was a dei- 
cide, with all the dreadful circum- 
stances attendant upon such an 
act ; here it is a glorious sacrifice 
of love, offered with all the pomp 
of ceremonial which only the in- 
ventive love of the Bride, under 
the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, 
could devise for the perpetual cele- 
bration of her union with her hea- 
venly Bridegroom a sacrifice of 
love, performed amidst an august 
choir of deathless spirits, there 
bringing to the Lord their homage, 
in union with a singing and rejoic- 
ing priesthood, an exulting multi- 
tude thirsting after blessings. The 
Christian altar is the holy place of 
the New Covenant, chosen by God 
for his communings with his people 



in a blessed, never-ending union, 
where above all things it is his de- 
light to be with the children of 
men, where he will be their God 
and they shall be his people. 

This communion of God with 
his people is not a dumb, lifeless 
quiescence. It is rather accom- 
plished with active and vital move- 
ments, and mutual converse of the 
soul and heart with the angels and 
saints, and with the sacred huma- 
nity and divinity of our Saviour. 
There is an effusion of joy, praise, 
and thanksgiving ; then a sighing, 
a compassionate sorrow, and heart- 
felt sympathy ; then a wonder- 
fully sweet, heavenly consolation, 
the communion, so full of mystery, 
of the Bridegroom with the dear 
soul, his bride ; then again,, as from 
one voice, a far-resounding cry of 
joy and homage from countless 
voices. There to the King of Hea- 
ven, enthroned upon the altar, is 
offered by redeemed humanity the 
highest act of reverence and ho- 
mage, while, in the pomp of Chris- 
tian worship, material things vie 
with human ingenuity in honoring 
the God-Man. For in that hal- 
lowed place is performed the sub- 
lime drama whose scene is laid 
upon the hill of Calvary, whose 
mysterious plot, woven and worked 
out in every Mass, shall be fully 
solved only at the end of time, 
when the Hero, our Divine Re- 
deemer, shall lead his b-ride, still 
followed by the hellish dragon, 
home to his Father's house, to per- 
petual nuptials. This is the great 
and sublime drama at which, while 
men take a visible part through the 
medium of the offering priesthood, 
singing angels invisibly assist ; in 
which the Eternal Word, Jesus 
Christ, our Paschal Lamb, lies a 
victim upon our altars, while the 
Holy Ghost conducts the faithful 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



39 



people to him, praying in them 
with groanings unutterable, and the 
eye of the Heavenly Father is fixed 
upon the act that paralyzes the arm 
of his justice and opens the flood- 
gates of his mercy unto benedic- 
tion. 

Everything that constitutes and 
accompanies this sublime drama of 
the altar is included when we speak 
of the liturgy. Among all these 
accompaniments, such as the cere- 
monial, vestments, ornamentation 
of the altar, the liturgical chant 
holds the most important place as 
the text of the drama now narrat- 
ing historically, now illustrating and 
interpreting, now sighing and moan- 
ing, now mounting to vaulted roofs 
in glad shouts of victory ; then with 
lovely sweetness adoring and giv- 
ing thanks to the Saviour on the 
altar, then again representing him 
in converse with his beloved souls; 
now plunging into the secret depths 
of the mystery, and then with heigh- 
tened and more piercing tones in- 
viting all creation to a common 
song of praise. This is the task 
and office of the liturgical chant. 
It is, in short, in the accomplish- 
ment of the sacrifice, the quicken- 
ing word, in the application of the 
sacrifice, the intelligible language 
between God and his people, 
between the people and their 
God. 

Let us go yet a step further. The 
sacrifice of the Mass does not stand 
alone without relation to the other 
parts of Christian worship. Its 
rays of light are shed like sun- 
beams upon the entire circle of the 
Christian year. To quote Doni 
Gueranger again, in the introduc- 
tion to his Liturgical Year we read 
as follows : 



"Jesus Christ is the beginning and 
the end of the liturgy. The church's 
year is nothing but the manifestation of 



Christ, and the mysteries relating to him, 
in the church and in the devout soul. 
It is that divine cycle in which all the 
works of God, each in its appropriate 
place, beam forth the week of creation, 
the Pasch and the Pentecost of the an- 
cient people, the advent of the Word 
made flesh, his sacrifice, his triumph, 
the sending of the Holy Ghost, the Holy 
Eucharist, the unutterable glories of the 
all-pure Virgin Mother of God, the 
brightness of the angels, the merits and 
victories of the saints so that we can 
say that this cycle takes its starting- 
point under the laws of the patriarchs, 
receives a still further development in 
written laws, and ever waxes towards 
completion under the law of love, to re- 
ceive its final consummation only when 
it shall lose itself in eternity ; even as 
the written law fell of itself on the day 
when the invincible blood of the Lamb 
rent by its might the veil of the Temple. 
. . . How happy should we be could 
we portray all the glory which the adora- 
ble Trinity, our Lord, the Virgin Mary, 
the blissful angels and saints receive 
from the yearly celebration of so many 
wonders ! If the church year by year 
reneweth her youth like the eagle's, it is 
because through this liturgical cycle she 
receives in proportion to her needs the 
visitations of her celestial Bridegroom. 
Each year she sees him once more a 
child in the manger, fasting on the 
mount, offering himself on the cross, 
rising from the grave, ascending to the 
right hand of the Father; and the graces 
flowing from these heavenly mysteries 
are continually renewed in her, so that 
this garden of delights, fertilized accord- 
ing to its wants beneath the breathing 
winds from north and south, ever sends 
up to the heavenly Bridegroom a most 
precious odor (Cant. iv. 16). Each year 
she draws a new increase of life from 
the maternal bounty of the Blessed Vir- 
gin, poured forth upon the days of her 
joys, her sorrows, and her glories. And, 
finally, the dazzling constellations form- 
ed by the blended rays of the nine choirs 
of the holy angels, and the various ranks 
of the saints, the apostles, the martyrs, 
the confessors, the virgins these also 
shower down upon the church mighty 
and unspeakable consolations." 

We have here, in the words of 
the learned abbot, a glowing pic- 
ture of the true nature and scope 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



of the church's liturgy, and with it 
we get also an idea of the impor- 
tance and wide range of the litur- 
gical chant. Christ our Lord is 
the central point of both the sacri- 
fice and the liturgy. As far as the 
sacrifice sends forth its rays of light 
are heard the strains of the chant 
that accompanies it. Our Lord is 
followed whithersoever he goeth by 
the chants and prayers of angels 
and faithful souls. The whole ec- 
clesiastical year is therefore filled 
up with plain chant, which thus be- 
comes as essential a part of the 
liturgy as the ceremonial. 

The important position that is 
held by the music of the church 
has been unfortunately lost sight of 
in those places where its intimate 
connection with the sacrifice and 
the altar has been dissolved ; where 
the singers, far removed from the 
sanctuary, stand in no other rela- 
tion to the sacrifice and the sacri- 
ficing priest than still to sing a few 
responses, and to be silent or sing 
at the proper places. The music 
in this case, instead of accompany- 
ing step by step the holy action at 
the altar, is entirely separated from 
it ; and thus forming of itself an in- 
dependent element in the service, 
it either most improperly governs 
the priest at the altar, or, if he ig- 
nores it, is badly spoiled. In 
many of our churches the cele- 
brant must be recollected to an ex- 



traordinary degree if his thoughts 
are not disturbed by the perform- 
ances of the choir. Fancy, then, 
the effect upon those poor people 
who are unfortunate enough to 
possess an acute ear and a discri- 
minating taste. 

What an altogether different pic- 
ture of the holy service of the altar 
is presented to us by the early 
church ! A pious band of clerics, 
surrounding the altar in the pres- 
bytery or sanctuary, intoned the 
holy chants, winch were re-echoed, 
if not always in the mouths, at least 
in the hearts, of the assembled 
Christian congregation, enabling 
them to join even in the smallest 
details of the holy action. Tin's 
has ever been the ideal of Chris- 
tian worship, as is proven by the 
venerable and irrefragable testi- 
mony of all Christian antiquity, 
and to-day the mind and intention, 
and to some extent the practice, of 
the church are the same. There- 
fore we cannot refrain from brand- 
ing as imperfect, and as under 
some circumstances reprehensible, 
any practice opposed to this essen- 
tial spirit of the church. Let it be 
remembered that we here lay down 
principles true in themselves and 
historically provable, but which 
we know are not readily realized. 
Our trust is in Almighty God, who 
has surely yet much to do for the 
glorification of his churclu 



Longing. 



LONGING. 

BY maples wrought, above my head 

Hangs veil of shadowy green 
Shot 'through with golden thread the sun 

Spinneth the dark between, 
Flinging his shuttle to and fro, 

As lifts the wind the leaves, 
Till through the mottled tapestry 

The sky its azure weaves. 

No cloud hides aught of heaven to-day, 

No cloud-shade dims the earth, 
Though clear-cut hill and clean-winged wind 

Alike of storm have birth. 
And hides no storm-wrack in the glens, 

Forging a misty chain 
To bind the sunlit peaks that hold 

The blessing of the rain 

That speaketh in the fuller voice 

Of spendthrift streams that fling 
Unto the sunshine and the shade 

Great diamonds glittering. 
Seemeth the robin from the wood 

To call with note more clear 
As if the chastening storm had left 

Heaven to earth more near. 

With earth so fair and heaven so near, 

My heart yet wandering flies 
Beyond the blue line of the hills 

That fade in far-off skies ; 
Seeking in restless thought a spot 

Less fair than these great hills, 
Where sound of feet on stone-bound street 

Mingles with voice of bells ; 

Where from the broad, salt river's edge 

A forest tall doth rise 
Of barren masts and leafless spars 

Fine-lined 'gainst sunny skies. 
Barren, save here and there a flower 

Of bright-hued bunting spread, 
And leafless, save for light-reefed sail 

With smoke discolored. 



42 Longing. 



Seeketh my heart a grassy square 

Noisy with children's glee, 
Where west wind scattereth wide to-day 

The fountain's charity ; 
Where falls no note of mountain bird 

Pure, heart-unburdened song 
Breaks only timeless twittering 

Of songless sparrow throng;. 

Where stirs the wind no murmurous chant 

As in yon pine-wood sighs 
Too scant the struggling growth to breathe 

The forests' symphonies. 
Still on beyond the sunny square 

My heart seeks resting-place 
Even thy altars, Lord of Hosts ! 

Thy smile, dear Queen of Grace. 

Fair are the altars of the hills, 

Lessons sublime are theirs, 
Shadows of Sion's holy gates 

Where enter all our prayers ; 
But fairer in heart's sight to-day 

The far-off smile of grace, 
The damp-stained walls that gird about 

The consecrated place. 

Dearer to-day than sculptured peak 

The pinions white and still 
Of angels twain that with clasped hands 

In adoration kneel 
Where, lifting thought through earth to heaven, 

A light celestial falls 
From faces of brave saints of God 

Shining from rugged walls. 

Nobler than all the lesser hills 

Yon mountain crest doth rise, 
Crowned with a wreath of purest flowers, 

Kissed by the tenderest skies ; 
So 'mong the glorious holy ones 

Our Mother dear doth shine, 
Crowned with the wreath immaculate 

Of purity divine ; 

Bearing within her arms the light 

That softens dreariest skies, 
That with its tenderness o'erfills 

The heaven of her eyes. 



The Aliscamps. ,- 

Longeth my wandering heart to rest 

Beneath that blessed gaze, 
While lack the music of the pines, 

The birds' glad-hearted lays, 

The blue hills' silent harmony 

One note of love divine 
Whereto, to-day, my heart replies 

Alone in far home-shrine 
Where, sweeter than the wind-tuned psalm 

Or sun-waked voice of bird, 
Tinkles the consecration-bell* 

In holy silence heard ; 

Where, fairer than these hills of God, 

To-day seems thought of man 
The foot-way visible whereby 

Th' invisible we span. 
By painted semblance upward led 

Weak souls find rest in Heaven, 
Whence God descends that Heaven's peace 

Even on earth be given. 

O wandering heart, that this calm day 

Seekest thy love so far, 
He is beside thee ; here, as there,. 

His arms about thee are ; 
Yet ever long, O heart of mine, 

To be of him possessed 
He who hath made us for himself 

Only can give thee rest. 



THE ALISCAMPS. 

PROVENCE, in spite of the cloud- perous and fair is more indebted 
less azure of its heavens, the blue- for its reputation to the poetic fan- 
ness of the sea that washes its cy of its troubadours than the coun- 
shores, the arrowy Rhone and tur- try and climate for the most part 
bulent Durance that fertilize its merit. There are miles where the 
valleys, the soft olive-woods and land is of astonishing roughness, al- 
groves of flowery almonds that cov- most beyond the reach of cultiva- 
er its slopes, the sun-bleached tion, with only an occasional oasis 
mountains, perfumed with the laven- to break the dreary monotony, 
der and wild thyme in spite of There are pools and broad marshes 
ancient ruins which rival those of from which rise pestilential miasmas, 
Italy,, and of modern towns pros- that are even more melancholy than 



44 



The Aliscauips. 



the parched and desolate plains. 
As you go down from Orgon to- 
wards Aix, for instance, along a 
road bordered with sickly, mutilated 
willows, olives gray as ashes, all 
nature clothed in pale neutral tints, 
with a lonely farm-house here and 
there among tall cypresses that only 
add to the dreariness, you would 
never imagine yourself in rose-flush- 
ed Provence sung by the poet and 
romancer. Add to this the im- 
petuous blast of the mistral fill- 
ing the air with clouds of dust, 
and a burning sun withering the 
last remnant of vegetation after 
months of dryness, and the shrill 
notes of the cicada wearying the air 
with their ominous sound, and the 
picture seems to be anything but 
attractive. 

Southeast of Aries, on the left 
bank of the Rhone, is a district twen- 
ty or thirty miles in breadth, over- 
spread in some remote prehistoric 
age with an immense deposit of 
stones, worn by friction, from the 
size of one's head to that of an egg. 
This desolate plain is called the Crau 
by the peasants. To the ancients it 
was known as the campus lapideus. 
Here and there a spot has been 
brought under cultivation by artifi- 
cial means, but it is mostly aban- 
doned to coveys of partridges, 
herds of wild, shaggy cattle, and 
vast flocks of sheep. Geologists 
ascribe this layer of stones, twenty 
yards or more in depth, to the 
agency of water, and affirm them 
from their nature to have been 
brought down from the Alpine val- 
leys ; but all lovers of the marvel- 
lous and legendary will prefer to 
give credence to the ancients, who 
claimed to be full as familiar with 
the secrets of nature, and far more 
so with those of the gods. Accord- 
ingto JEschylus, Hercules, after de- 
livering Prometheus, who had been 



chained on the Caucasus, set out 
for the garden of the Hesperides. 
Prometheus gave him directions 
for the journey : " Thou wilt come 
to a place beaten by Boreas. Take 
care lest the violence of the cold 
winds carry thee away. There thou 
wilt encounter the Ligurians, and, 
notwithstanding thy valor, wilt find 
thyself left without means of de- 
fence, the Fates having decreed that 
thy arrows shall be spent. The 
earth will not even furnish thee a 
stone to cast at thy enemies. But 
Jupiter will be touched with com- 
passion. He will cover the hea- 
vens with a thick cloud and cause 
a hail of round stones with which 
thou canst repel thy opponents." 
This reminds us of the Biblical ac- 
count of the great stones cast down 
from heaven upon the five kings of 
the Amorites and their hosts in the 
time of Josue, leaving the ground 
covered, it is said, to this day. 
Strabo and Pomponius Mela attri- 
bute the Crau to the same origin, 
with some variations. According 
to the latter, Hercules, returning 
from Iberia, where he had been to 
carry off the cattle of Geryon, was 
stopped on the plains of Aries the 
ancient Theline, or the Fertile by 
two giants, Albion and Belgion, 
sons of Neptune. He exhausted 
his arrows on them in vain, and 
then invoked the aid of Jupiter, who 
rained down great stones that kill- 
ed them, making a desert of the 
once fruitful plain. This desolate 
region was once absolutely sterile, 
but since the time of Adam de Cra- 
ponne, who was born in a little 
village on its outskirts, it has been 
undergoing a gradual transform- 
ation by canals which diffuse 
around them the fertilizing waters 
of the Durance. Wherever these 
extend, trees have sprung up and 
meadows and wheat-fields have been 



The Aliscamps. 



45 



formed. Still, a large part is like 
the burning plains of Africa, and, 
as there, the excessive expansion 
of the air in summer that comes in 
contact with the smooth quartz 
pebbles heated by the sun causes a 
continual mirage which makes you 
think you are approaching the sea. 
And even the occasional oases with 
their poplars, mulberries, and the 
oak from which the vermilion is 
gathered, and the wild birds and 
wandering herds, all give a strange 
aspect to the whole region that be- 
longs to another clime. About 
three hundred thousand sheep and 
goats pass part of the year here. 
They come down from the moun- 
tains in the winter, though it is 
sometimes very cold on the Gran 
with the icy bise sweeping across 
the broad, defenceless plain, furious 
as in the days of Hercules. Mis- 
tral in his pastoral, Mireio, de- 
scribes the descent of these flocks 
from the hills of Dauphine : 

" You should have seen this multitude 
Defile into the stony road : 
The early lambkins, heading the whole band, 
Come on in merry throngs, 
The lamb-herd guiding them ; then come 
The asses with their bells, in pairs, their foals 

beside, 
Or in disorder trotting after them. 

Captains of the brigade, 

With horns turned back, 

Next come on abreast, jingling their bells, 

And with looks askance, 

Five proud buck goats with threatening heads ; 

Behind come the mothers 

With their little mad-cap kids." * 

Then the chief shepherd in his 
plaid, guiding his flock, the defiant 
rams with their muzzles in the air 
and their horns thrice wound 
around their ears, the ewes bleat- 



brow so wise that you would take 
him for the beautiful King David 
when he went to water his flocks 
at the wells of Bethlehem. 

This desert, so striking to the 
imagination, like the Campagna 
around Rome, attunes the mind for 
entering the venerable city of 
Aries. For there is a certain mel- 
ancholy about this old patrician 
place, downfallen as it is, that re- 
minds one of the Niobe of nations. 
Ausonius called it in its prime, when 
it numbered one hundred thousand 
within its walls, Gallula Roma 
Arelas the Rome of the Gauls. 
How much more now, when she 
stands 

"Crownless, in her voiceless woe," 

a fallen queen indeed, for Aries 
was once the capital of a king- 
dom. 

Our hotel was in the Place du 
Forum, and had antique remains 
encrusted in its walls. In every 
part of the city, as in Rome, are 
venerable Christian monuments, 
and still more ancient pagan ruins. 
Once we emerged from the narrow, 
gloomy streets to find ourselves 
among the debris of the old Roman 
theatre, with two stately columns 
rising into the clear air, and chil- 
dren playing in the sun amid scat- 
tered remains that attest its past 
magnificence. St. Hilaire has been 
reproached by archaeologists for the 
destruction of this theatre, said to 
have rivalled that of Marcellus at 
Rome, as if a few marbles and 
columns were preferable to the 
triumph of Christianity over the 



ing to the lambs, all marked on vo i up tuous sensualism which then 
the side, hurrying on in a cloud of ' p erva ded the theatre and made it 
dust, and kept in bounds by the rea ii v a school of vice. The classic 

staff, 

hun- 



m 

dogs. The owner, wita his 
looks on, as they go past in 
dreds, with sparkling eyes 



* Mr. Grant's translation of Mireio. 



tragedies of Greece and Rome were 
no & longer in vogue, but the infa- 
and mous plays of a degenerate age. 
A priest named Cyrillus, in particu- 



The Aliscamps. 



hir, is said to have stirred up the 
people by his preaching to demol- 
ish it. Others, with perhaps as 
much reason, attribute its destruc- 
tion to the Saracens. Several 
statues of merit have been found 
amid the ruins, among others the 
Venus of Aries, now in the Louvre, 
remarkable for the beauty of its 
head encircled by bandelettes. 
Its discovery gave rise to a fa- 
mous controversy whether it was a 
Venus or Diana. The people of 
Aries naturally inclined to the lat- 
ter opinion, as Diana was consider- 
ed by their ancestors the tutelary 
divinity of the city, and M. Ver- 
tron thus replied to the author of 
the Entretiens de Callisthlne : 

*' Silence, Callisth&ne, et ne dispute plus ! 

Tes sentiments sont trop profanes ; 
Dans Aries c'est a tort que tu cherche Venus, 
On n'y trouve que des Dianes "; 

which may be thus rudely rendered : 

*' Dispute no more, good Callisthene. 
Thy sentiments are too profane : 
A Venus in Aries cannot be found, 
Only Dianas here abound." 

Then there is the amphitheatre, 
capable of holding twenty-five 
thousand spectators, where Chris- 
tians were slain by the wild beasts, 
and Constantine the Great used to 
give shows to the people. The 
Moors transformed it into a citadel 
and built the tall, square towers that 
still give it so unique an appearance. 
It is wonderfully preserved, con- 
sidering the sieges and assaults it 
has withstood, and the open arches 
against the blue sky produce a 
fine effect. Besides these, Aries 
had a circus, public baths, arches 
of triumph, columns, temples, an 
Egyptian obelisk, a magnificent 
forum, and an imperial palace. We 
walked around the ramparts, now 
converted into a promenade over- 
looking the marshy plain, once an 
inland sea that made Aries an im- 
portant port, and bethought our- 



selves of the two giant sons of Nep- 
tune coming in from the sea to en- 
counter the mighty Hercules; of 
the old Phocsean colonists coming 
from the East, bringing with them 
the worship of Diana and a taste 
for the beautiful, innate with the 
Greeks ; of the conquering Romans 
who, in their turn, brought a new 
civilization and love for the arts ; 
and of the apostles of a holier re- 
ligion who came to purify and ele- 
vate what was earthly and sensual. 
No church in Gaul has a better 
right to claim an apostolic origin 
than Aries, and it was one of the 
first cities in the Roman Empire 
to embrace Christianity. ' The first 
apostle of Aries was St. Trophi- 
mus. He was born on the happy 
shores of the Ionian Sea at Ephe- 
sus, famed for its temple of the 
great Diana, and dear to Chris- 
tians as the see of the Beloved 
Disciple, with whom, according to 
some, the Blessed Virgin went to 
reside and hence ascended to hea- 
ven, leaving in her tomb roses and 
lilies instead of the ashes of cor- 
ruption, and where, at all events, a 
council in defence of Catholic doc- 
trine asserted her to be the Mother 
of God. From St. John, therefore, 
if not from Mary, Trophimus learn- 
ed all the details of the Saviour's life, 
even many of those which the evan- 
gelist tells us were never written 
down. He was one of the twelve 
on whom St. Paul laid apostolic 
hands as he passed through Ephe- 
sus, and he accompanied the apos- 
tle of the Gentiles in his journey 
to Macedonia and Troas ; was with 
.him when he was proclaimed a god 
and when he was storied ; when he 
stood before rulers and when he 
was in prison. At Jerusalem he 
was the cause of a great riot, for 
the Jews, seeing St. Paul take an 
uncircumcised Greek with him into 



The Aliscamps. 



the temple, thought it done out of 
contempt for the law, and laid 
hold of him, and drew him out, and 
would have slain him had he not 
been rescued and taken before the 
rulers and finally sent to Rome, 
where he remained two years. St. 
Trophimus was left at Miletum 
sick when St. Paul went to Rome 
the second time. St. Peter sent 
him afterwards to Gaul, as twenty- 
nine Narbonnese bishops wrote 
Pope Leo in 450 : " The Gauls 
know, and Rome is not ignorant, 
that the city of Aries had for its 
first bishop one sent by St. Peter." 
The city has a monument worthy 
of its first apostle in the fine me- 
diaeval church of St. Trophimus. 
It is entered by a porch, superb 
with its sculptures, and its pillars 
resting on huge lions devouring 
their prey. There is Christ above 
coming with the twelve apostles to 
judge the world. Angels bear the 
righteous to heaven, and the wick- 
ed O day of wrath ! are borne 
away in chains to hell. Among 
the other sculptures is the martyr- 
dom of St. Stephen, his soul, under 
the form of an infant, issuing from 
his mouth and received by an an- 
gel. Over the door is an ancient 
statue of St. Trophimus with the 
inscription : 

Cenitur eximius 
Vir, Christi discipulorum 
De numero, Trophimus, 
Septuaginta duorum. 

The interior of the church has re- 
cently been restored, which has, of 
course, effaced the stamp of anti- 
quity. 

Seven chapels radiate around 
the choir, dim and solemn. Sev- 
eral of the altars have sculptured 
marble fronts from old sarcopha- 
gi formerly in the Aliscamps. 
The beautiful cloister adjoining is 
well preserved and very curious. 



47 

Nothing could be more quiet and 
peaceful. The grassy quadrangle, 
closely cropped, was green and 
starred with daisies. A guardian 
lived in a cell that opened into the 
arcades an old, palsied man, gar- 
rulous as to the marvels of Aries, 
among which he reckoned, as pre- 
eminent, the beauty of the women, 
of the old Greek type, though he 
said they were not so handsome as 
when he came to Aries twenty-five 
years before. His heart had grown 
chill in this old cloister, or age had 
dimmed his eyes. He shuffled 
around to explain the carvings on 
the capitals of the double columns 
that support the arcades. Here 
are all the chief events of the life 
of Christ, very quaintly and beau- 
tifully told. On one are the three 
wise men of the East, all in one 
bed, and an angel coming to awake 
them with the glad tidings. There 
are three horses all saddled and 
bridled, and the guiding star in the 
Orient. 

St. Trophimus could hardly have 
felt himself in a foreign land at 
Aries. The Greek language pre- 
vailed all along the Rhone from 
Lyons to Marseilles, and was long 
used even in the offices of the 
church. In fact, there are still 
many words of Greek origin in the 
Provenfal tongue. He found Di- 
ana worshipped here as at Ephe- 
sus. Human sacrifices were an- 
nually offered her during the ka- 
lends of May on the famed ara lata 
which, according to some, gave its 
name to the city an immense altar 
set up on marble pillars, as we are 
told in the nocturns of the old 
breviary of Mont Majour ; and the 
apostle so effectually preached the 
great Sacrifice which rendered use- 
less even the shedding of the 
blood of beasts that the horrid 
practice was abolished. He set 



TJie Aliscamps. 



up the cross in the Aliscamps, or 
Elysian Fields, where lay genera- 
tions of pagans, and then built a 
chapel to which he gave the name 
of Mary while she was still living, 
according to the tradition record- 
ed on an old stone once over her 
altar, but carried to Rome by Car- 
dinal Barberini for his cabinet of 
antiquities: "Hoc saccllum dedica- 
tum f nit Deiparce adhuc viventi" 

The ancient necropolis of the 
Aliscamps is the most impressive 
thing to be seen at Aries, and its 
history, as told by the monuments 
from those set up before the in- 
troduction of Christianity down to 
the urns dedicated to the consuls 
who fell victims of the pestilence 
of the eighteenth century com- 
prises the history of the city. It is 
on the southeast side of Aries, for 
no one was allowed in Roman times 
to be buried within the walls. 
Dante and Ariosto have both sung 
this celebrated field of the dead, 
where, according to the latter, re- 
pose some of the companions of 
Orlando, 



Presso ad Arli, ove il Rodano stagna, 
Piena di sepolture & la campagna." 



For as ^Eschylus chose the strange 
desert of the rocky Crau for the 
contest of Hercules with the giants 
of Gaul, so Ariosto makes Orlando, 
the famous paladin, combat on the 
same arid shore, and bury his fallen 
knights in the plain of the legen- 
dary Aliscamps. And it might well 
be the theatre of mythological tra- 
ditions and romances of Christian 
chivalry. One should visit this 
valle tenebrosa, as M. de la Gour- 
nerie tells us, at the solemn hour 
of twilight, when darkness with its 
pensive influences is just begin- 
ning to gather around the plain. 
Then to go up this avenue of the 



dead, shaded by plane-trees, and 
lined with great stone sarcophagi 

14 Whose sacred dust was scattered long ago," 

with mortuary chapels here and 
there, and sepulchral monuments, 
and on every side fragments of old 
altars and memorial stones amid 
rank nettles and briars, till you 
come to the ivy-clad ruins of Notre 
Dame de la Grace amid funereal 
cypresses, where St. Trophimus set 
up the first Christian altar, and 
look off towards the canal that 
comes from the Durance with its 
slimy waters across the melancholy 
plain like a fabled river of hell, the 
wind-mills, phantom-like in the 
obscurity, silently beating the dun 
air with their long white arms, 
seems like a scene from the Infer- 
no. And Dante compares the 
place where the arch-heretics are 
confined in burning tombs to this 
very cemetery : 

41 As where the Rhone stagnates on the plains of 

Aries; 

The place is all thick spread with sepulchres. 
So it was here, save what in horror here 
Excell'd ; for midst the graves were scattered 

flames, 

Wherewith intensely all throughout they burned, 
That iron for no craft there hotter needs." 

And as we go slowly, thought- 
fully along, looking into the enor- 
mous sarcophagi, some open, others 
with great heavy lids on them 
which we almost expect to see rise 
up and give issue to sad moans 
and dolorous sighs, such as the 
great Florentine heard coming 
from the fiery tombs, we feel the 
awful solemnity of a place thick 
with the shades of eighteen hun- 
dred years. 

The Aliscamps constituted the 
great ' necropolis for the whole 
country around, to which even 
other cities in pagan times sent 
their most distinguished citizens to 
be buried. The statue of Mars, as 
at Rome, was set up in the centre 



The Aliscamps. 



49 



Fvi, nonsvm ; estis, non eritis. 
Nemo immortalis 



to watch over the generations of 
the silent dead. On every hand 

were the protecting images of the I was, I am no more; you are, 

No one is immor- 



Dei Manes to terrify the sacrilegi- you will not be. 



ous violator of tombs and cinerary tal." Another says : " Let no one 

urns, some of which were of silver honor me with tears; I have paid a 

and gold, and even the most com- cruel tribute, but one common to 

mon ojies of clay often contained a11 -" One records the sorrow of a 

jewels the deceased had worn, or mother: "O grief! how many tears 



ornaments that adorned the pur- nave bedewed this sepulchre in 
pie robes which, as Virgil tells us, 
were laid on the funeral pyre : 



" Purpureasque supef vestes, velamina nota 
Conjiciunt." 



which lies Lucina Lucina, the 
sweet joy of her mother. Yes, she 
is here under the cold marble. 
Would to the gods she might be 
animated with new life ! Then 
With these were lacrymatory would she know how great is my 
vials, often of rare crystal, in which affliction. She lived twenty-seven 
love and tenderness had shed the years, ten months, and thirteen 
expression of ; inconsolable grief, days. Parthenope, her unhappy 
and in the tombs were lamps, fre- mother, erected this monument." 
quently of artistic design, some- Tradition says our Saviour de- 
times, it is Said, giving eternal scended in person, at the prayer of 
light, symbolic*' of the immortality St. Trophimus, to bless this old 
of the soul. pagan cemetery, and the sacred 

When the cujjstom of burning the chapel of the Genouillade, analo- 
dead was abolished, then came gous to that of the Domine quo 



magnificent sarcophagi, some hewn 
out within, like a mould of the hu- 
man form, to contain its inmate, 
like many of those which still bor- 
der the sad avenue of the Alis- 
camps ; some covered with beauti- 
ful sculptures like that in the mu- 
seum at Aries on which Apollo 
and the nine Muses are represent- 
ed ; some plain and massive and 
huge enough to contain the giants 
Albion and Belgion. Families used 



vadis near Rome, was erected over 
the stone on which he left the im- 
press of his knees. An old docu- 
ment at Aries gives the details of 
this delightful legend : how, when 
the church built by St. Trophimus 
was completed, several of the early 
bishops of Gaul assembled to con- 
secrate it to the worship of the- 
true God St. Paul Sergius of 
Narbonne, St. Maxiniin of Aix, St. 
Saturnin of Toulouse, St. Martial 
to vie with each other in these of Limoges, St. Eutrope of Orange, 
tombs, and, as' Bossuet says, seem- and others of equally holy memo- 



ed to try to hide the shame of cor- 



While a saintly contest was 



ruption under pompous emblems going on who among them should 

and expressions. They even de- perform the ceremony, Christ him- 

nied themselves almost essential self appeared in the resplendent 

comforts to^atisfy this pride, clouds, and, after blessing the ceme- 

There is a mjjfancholy interest in tery and church and the assem- 

reading the inscriptions of eigh- bled multitude, disappeared, leav- 

teen hundred years ago. They stll ing behind him the imprint of the 

have the invocation, Diis Manibus. Sainte Genouillade. 



On one we read : 
VOL. xxvui. 4 



No wonder that in this thrice- 



The Aliscainps. 



blessed spot angels were often 
heard to sing melodiously, accord- 
ing to the testimony of the Blessed 
Quirin, Bishop of Uzes, and many 
others of past ages. No wonder 
that, as we are told by Gervase of 
Tilbury, marshal of the kingdom 
of Aries in the thirteenth century, 
no diabolical influence could ever 
disturb those happy enough to find 
.rest in this privileged spot. 

" No evil thing that walks by night 
In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen, 
Blue, meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost 
That breaks his magic chains at curfew time, 
Can harm them." 

All the people of the surround- 
iing country looked forward with 
the hope of finally reposing in this 
<campo santo. The dwellers on the 
banks of the Rhone, as Gervase of 
Tilbury relates, were so desirous 
of sending their dead here that 
.they used to seal them up in a box 
with the droit de mortellage, or sum 
for funeral expenses, and set it 
-afloat on the river. The current 
used to carry it along, and, however 
violent the wind, it never went be- 
yond the old quarter of Aries call- 
ed La Roquette. There it was 
taken possession of by the monks 
.of St. Honorat, as the cemetery 
church is sometimes called, and 
buried with suitable obsequies. 
.Among the marvels that were con- 
stantly occurring in those delight- 
ful days, it is. related how a tun 
was one day seen floating down 
.the Rhone, only guided by the 
finger of God, and, passing between 
Tarascon and Beaucaire, the peo- 
,ple of the castle of Beaucaire drew 
the tun ashore, and, opening it, 
found the body of a knight and a 
large sum of money for his inter- 
ment. They took possession of 
the money, sealed the body up 
.again, and cast it into the river. 
But the strong current seemed no 
longer .to have any power over it. 



The tun only floated to and fro 
before the castle, and finally at- 
tracted the attention of the Count 
of Toulouse, who was lord of 
Beaucaire. His inquiries led to 
the discovery of the robbery, and 
he had the money restored to the 
last farthing, upon which the tun 
resumed its course, and so came 
safely to Aries and the holy ceme- 
tery, where the knight received 
honorable burial. It is not sur- 
prising that the spirits of this river 
once the great thoroughfare of 
the dead are still said to dance 
on the old bridge of Trinquetaille, by 
which passed the Aurelian Way to 
Spain : 

" Per quern Roman! commercia suscipis orbis," 

as Ausonius says. Mistral, the last 
of the Proven9al troubadours, sings 
how " the Rhone 15 full of phan- 
toms, and ghosts, and spiritual ap- 
pearances, especially on St. Me- 
dard's night, when die souls of the 
dead revisit the earth, seeking for 
some good deed of their past lives, 
some act of faith that may open to 
them the gates of Paradise." Alas ! 
some find but heavy sins and 
crimes 'gainst which they stumble 
and seek Heaven's pardon in vain 
for ever. 

The Aliscamps, with its sacred 
chapels and tombs of the saints, 
acquired such renown as to become 
a place of pilgrimage, and many 
pardons, or indulgences, were at- 
tached thereto and conferred on 
those who by their alms aided in 
their repairs. One noble gentle- 
man, a Seigneur de la Roche, is 
mentioned as having employed his 
whole fortune in founding hospices 
wherein to lodge pilgrims in honor 
of Notre Dame de la Grace. 
Many ancient bishops were buried 
here in the pagan sarcophagi whose 
dust had been scattered to the 



The Aliscamps. 



winds by the Goths and Saracens. 
The Diis Manibus was changed to 
Deo Maximo, and the pagan em- 
blems replaced by the alpha and 
omega, the monogram of Christ, 
the vine, fish, or dove, or some 
other symbol of the primitive 
church. On some were carved the 
wine-press, the olive harvest, Moses 
smiting the rock, Jonas and the 
whale, etc., similar to the sepul- 
chral carvings to be seen in the 
Lateran palace at Rome. 

The chapel built by St. Trophi- 
mus, to which so many traditions 
and legends are attached, has un- 
dergone a thousand vicissitudes 
from time and the calamities of 
centuries. Threatened with ruin 
in the sixth century, St. Virgil, 
who was then archbishop of Aries, 
undertook to restore it and incor- 
porate it with the church after- 
wards known as St. Honorat's. 
Every one in the city contributed 
either money or materials or labor. 
One man alone, says the legend a 
thousand years old, refused, and 
expressed ridicule and contempt 
of the work. But when the church 
was completed he could not resist 
his curiosity to see it consecrated, 
and during the ceremony was sud- 
denly struck blind. Whereupon 
the assembled multitude, out of 
Christian compassion, when they 
heard his cries, fell on their knees 
to pray for him, and the bishop 
anointed his eyes with oil from 
the Virgin's lamp, by which he re- 
covered his sight. The penitent 
man then sold all he had and be- 
came a monk at St. Honorat's, 
where a community of Cassianites 
from Marseilles had been estab- 
lished. The church, ruined by 
the Saracens, was restored and 
richly endowed by Charlemagne. 
In the thirteenth century the prin- 
ces and people throughout the 



51 

Christian world were called upon 
to aid in the rebuilding of this 
venerable sanctuary, again in ruins, 
and the. appeal was so favorably 
received that a large edifice was 
erected with three naves, and in 
the ancient chapel of the Virgin, 
still preserved with veneration, was 
set up the black Madonna that be- 
came famous as Notre Dame de la 
Grace, with the tomb of St. Tro- 
phimus for the altar. In this 
church, too, reposed St. Honorat, 
who had been torn from his sweet 
solitude at Lerins to be the bishop 
of Aries. It is said that the monks 
of Lerins, desirous of having the 
remains of their holy founder, un- 
dertook to bear them secretly away 
in the night, but when they opened 
the tomb in which he lay all the 
other dead in the Aliscamps, by 
the will of God, rose up from their 
graves and cried out against them, 
at which the monks desisted and 
left the body in the sepulchre. 
But some time after they took fresh 
courage and made a second attempt 
to obtain it, but the dead rose up 
again and cried out louder than 
before ; which so terrified the monks 
that they abandoned their pur- 
pose. The greater part of St. Ho- 
norat's remains were, however, fin- 
ally transferred to Lerins, but a 
portion was kept here, and his 
tomb served as the high altar of 
the church. Beneath was the 
crypt built by the early Christians, 
to which you descended by a 
double rampe. There was the 
stone altar of sacrifice on which 
St. Trophimus used to offer the 
unbloody, the clean oblation of 
the New Law, and around it stood 
seven marble tombs of admirable 
workmanship, containing the bodies 
of seven saints St. Dorothea, the 
virgin of Aries, and St. Genes the 
martyr, and St. . Hilaire, St. Eone, 



The Aliscamps. 



St. Virgile, St. Concorde, and St. 
Holland, all bishops of this ancient 
see. St. Genes was a citizen of 
Aries, who in the time of Diocle- 
tian was appointed clerk and 
obliged to register the penalties 
against the Christians. Struck by 
their virtues, lie became a follower 
of Christ and threw away his pen 
to take up the palm of martyrdom. 

The tomb of St. Hilaire is now 
in the museum at Aries. It bears 
the inscription : Sacrosanctcz I eg is 
antistes, H Harms hie quiescit, and 
on it is carved a cross, two doves, 
and a heart, symbolic of the chari- 
ty of one who sold all he possessed 
and gave the money to the poor, 
who kept up in the episcopate the 
penitential life he had led as a 
monk at Lerins, denied himself 
even the use of a horse and always 
performed his journeys on foot, sold 
the vessels of the church to redeem 
captives, and, though of noble birth, 
said the highest degree of nobility 
is to be counted among the servants 
of Christ, in whom we are all equal. 
Well might St. Leo call him " Hi- 
lary of holy memory." He was so 
beloved by the people of Aries that 
the very Jews followed him to the 
grave, chanting the Psalms in the 
Hebrew tongue and filling the air 
with his praises. They alone could 
speak. The voices of the Chris- 
tians were stifled by grief. 

The tomb of St. Rolland used to 
be constantly filled with miraculous 
water of singular purity, to which 
the people had recourse in fevers 
and diseases of the eye. On the 
tomb of St. Eone was carved the 
Labarum, and beneath was the 
Emperor Constantine, wearing the 
paludamentum, gazing up at a cross 
suspended in the air surrounded 
by the well-known In hoc vinces. 
On the cover were his wife, Fausta, 
and their son. On one end was a 



man in a long tunic pouring water 
on the head of a warrior. On the 
other the same person was pouring 
water on the head of a nude infant 
over whom hovered the imperial 
eagle. This tomb, a work of the 
fourth century, was probably in- 
tended for one of the royal family. 
At all events it commemorated the 
miraculous apparition of the Cross 
to Constantine, which several grave 
authors assert to have taken place 
in the Aliscamps. We know that 
Aries was a favorite residence of 
Constantine, and when he decided 
to leave Rome he hesitated between 
this city and Byzantium. He al- 
ways came here gladly, and built 
the palace of La Trouille, near the 
Rhone, the brick tower of which is 
still standing. Here he lived with 
Fausta, and here Constantine II. 
was born. In his reign was con- 
voked at Aries the first council of 
the West, styled by St. Augustine 
plenarium Ecclesia universes concil- 
ium. This was in 314, eleven years 
before the Council of Nice. Three 
English bishops took part in it 
Eborius of York, Restitutus of Lon- 
don, and Adelphius of Chester. It 
was held in the church of Notre 
Dame la Major, built on the site of 
an old temple of Cybele, and its de- 
cisions related principally to the 
Donatists, the keeping of Easter, 
etc. Two other councils have been 
held in this interesting old church, 
one convoked by St. Hilaire in 439. 
Aries for a long time enjoyed a re- 
ligious pre-eminence in Gaul, and 
twenty councils have been held in 
the city, first and last. And it 
prides itself on remaining pure 
from all taint of heresy, for which 
reason it is said the Sire de Join- 
ville gave it the name of Aries le 
Blanc, or the Spotless. 

But to return to the Aliscamps. 
It was here St. Cesaire established 



The Aliscamps. 



his famous convent of nuns which 
gave eleven known saints to the 
church besides St. Cesaria, his sis- 
ter, who was placed over it. At 
one time it numbered two hundred 
members. Part of their duties was 
to transcribe the sacred writings, 
in which they excelled. St. Cesaria 
had stone coffins for herself and 
the nuns ranged around their 
chapel, and they sang the praises of 
God day and night with their tombs 
open before them. 

St. Cesaire was the son of the 
count of Chalons, and while a mere 
you tli became a monk at Lerins. 
He succeeded his kinsman, St. 
Eone, as bishop of Aries in the 
time of the Visigoths, and was so 
given to works of charity that he 
stripped the pillars and rails of the 
churches of their silver, and sold 
the sacred vessels to relieve the 
poor prisoners brought into the city. 
And when Theodoric sent him a 
silver vase weighing sixty pounds, 
with three hundred pieces of gold 
in it, he sold the vase and ransom- 
ed captives with the money. The 
inhabitants regarded him with so 
much veneration that, when recall- 
ed from exile under Alaric, they 
went out to meet him with wax ta- 
pers, singing psalms, and attributed 
to his instrumentality the rain that 
presently fell, relieving a great 
drought. There are many old le- 
gends respecting St. Cesaire. Ger- 
vase of Tilbury relates one connect- 
ed with a sea-breeze, sometimes 
called the vent de St. Cesaire, pecu- 
liar to a certain valley of the king- 
dom of Aries called Nyons, which 
was densely peopled, and so com- 
pletely encircled by abrupt hills 
that no wind could possibly enter 
it. The sterility of the soil was at- 
tributed to this fact. St. Cesaire 
went down to the shore of the 
Mediterranean and filled his glove 



53 

with, the sea-wind, which he held 
tight till he arrived at the confines 
of this secluded valley. Then, in 
the name of Christ, he cast it 
against the cliff with the injunction 
to go on blowing for ever. And an 
opening was instantly made in the 
rock, through which the wind has 
never ceased to blow. It is some- 
times called the Pontias wind, or 
de ponto, from the sea. This wind 
never extends beyond a certain 
limit, and is considered favorable 
to fertility. 

In the Aliscamps is likewise the 
chapel of Notre Dame delaMiseri- 
corde, near the church of St. Hon- 
orat. Here the celebrated family 
of the Porcelets were buried, and 
their armes parlantes, emblazoned 
on the walls a pig passant sable in 
a field or recalls the old tradition 
concerning the origin of their name, 
which, if not glorious for them, af- 
fords a striking lesson of Christian 
charity. It is said that their an- 
cestress, then a young matron, hav- 
ing curtly refused alms to a beggar- 
woman under the pretence that the 
poor had no business with so many 
children, the woman, pointing to a 
certain animal lying recumbent in 
the sun with its young around it, in 
the same position in which ^Eneas 
found a similar one where rose Al- 
ba Longa, the mother city of Rome, 
replied: "The time will come 
when you will have as many at 
once as yonder beast has little 
ones." The lady is said to have 
had nine, who became known as the 
Porcelets, or Piglets. The Porce- 
lets proved to be a noble race, even 
if they had nine pigs on their ecu. 
A Porcelet was the devcted friend 
of Richard Cceur de Lion, and not 
only accompanied him in the Cru- 
sades but saved his life, Avhen a 
Saracen was aiming a blow at him, 
by crying: "I am the king." At 



54 



The A Use amps. 



the massacre of the Sicilian Ves- 
pers the only Frenchman spared 
was Guillaume de Porcelet, on ac- 
count of his virtues. He was one 
of the hundred men chosen as 
champions by Charles of Anjou 
when he defied Don Pedro of Ara- 
gon to mortal combat. The Force- 
lets enjoyed several special privi- 
leges at Aries on account of their 
services and eminent virtues. 
Every year the fishermen carried 
them the first sturgeon caught in 
the Rhone to the sound of the fife 
and tambour in. At one of the 
windows of their mansion was an 
iron trellis, and the condemned 
criminal who succeeded in taking 
refuge behind it was spared, as if 
in a sanctuary. 

Another chapel in the Aliscamps 
was built by the Baron de Beaujeu 
as an expiatory monument for hav- 
ing killed the young lord Accurse 
de la Tour in a private combat by 
the gateway of the cemetery. It is 
known as the chapel of St. Accurse. 
The tomb of the victim is without 
the walls, and over it are represented 
the two combatants with sword in 
hand. 

Among the other noted families 
of the city is that of the Arlatans, 
which already existed in the remote 
time when the Crau was infested 
by a monster that came forth from 
its den to devour men, women, and 
children. The first of the name, 
after receiving the sacraments, went 
forth from the city, armed from tip 
to toe, to slay the dragon. He 
found it on a heap of vermilion, 
and thrust his lance down the dra- 
gon's throat. When the animal 
was sufficiently weakened from loss 
of blood, he drew out the lance and 
gave it to his son, who had followed 
him. He then bestrode the beast, 
and, after being carried to some dis- 
tance, cut off its head, and the body 



was drawn in triumph to the city 
and suspended in the church of St. 
Antoine, where it was long preserv- 
ed beside the relics of the titular 
saint. The victor was regarded as 
the deliverer of the city, and allowed 
a percentage 1 on all the vermilion 
gathered in the Crau a privilege 
which good King Rene afterwards 
confirmed to the family. 

The dragon of the Crau is said 
to have had for its lair the mysteri- 
ous subterranean cavern called the 
Trou des Fees, or the Fairies' Den, 
that has puzzled the erudition of 
antiquarians to such an extent, but 
is generally supposed to be a Dru- 
idical excavation connected with 
their secret rites. There is an old 
legend of a Druid who, after quaff- 
ing the elixir of life, slept here for 
more than a thousand years. The 
Saracens, too, are believed to have 
concealed their treasures in this 
den, but, in spite of many explora- 
tions, they have not yet been dis- 
covered. This Trou is on the way 
from Aries to Mont Majour in the 
hill of Cordes, from which there is 
a fine view over the valley. The 
eye can trace the majestic course 
of the Rhone, embracing with its 
two arms the delta of the Camargue, 
and before you is Aries with its 
square gray towers that rise above 
the last hold of the Moors. It was 
not far distant that Charles Martel 
defeated the Saracens on the spot 
where now stands the interesting old 
Romanesque chapel of Ste. Croix 
with its four bays, once so frequent- 
ed on the 3d of May. The rock 
on which it stands is honeycombed 
with tombs, and the church above 
seems to extend heavenward its 
arms to implore rest for those within 
them. It was here Ariosto makes 
Orlando contend with the Saracens 
and cut them down by thousands 
with his trenchant blade. Vesian 



The Aliscamps. 



and Vuillalme, nephews of Charle- 
magne, are said to have fallen here 
in battle, and to have been buried 
in the Aliscamps. It was the 
Moors who irreparably ruined so 
many of the pagan and Christian 
monuments of Aries. They pillag- 
ed and destroyed churches and 
convents, ravaged the sacred en- 
closure of the Aliscamps, and only 
spared the church of St. Trophi- 
mus to exact a tribute from those 
they allowed to worship there. 
The church of St. Honorat, the 
convent of St. Cesaria, and the 
tomb of St. Cesaire were among 
the precious monuments destroyed. 
Between the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, 
and repeated invasions of the Sara- 
cens, one is astonished that there 
are still so many ancient remains 
at Aries. And long after the Hu- 
guenots rivalled them in brutality 
and fury, scattering the ashes of the 
saints and despoiling the churches. 
They, too, swept over the Aliscamps 
and ruined the church of Notre 
Dame de la Grace, rifled its cha- 
pels, and laid their unholy hands 
on the tombs of the saints. It was 
they who broke in pieces the black 
Madonna, so long venerated, that 
gave its name to the church. This 
was afterwards replaced by a beau- 
tiful marble statue of Genoese 
workmanship, which, escaping at 
the Revolution, was borne by the 
sailors in the night-time by the 
light of torches to the church of 
St. Trophimus, where it now is. 

But the Aliscamps underwent a 
fate in one sense more cruel than 



55 

all these devastations, when the 
mercenary and the curiosity- hunter 
began to ransack its tombs and 
mounds for medals, lamps, statues, 
etc. Even the old sarcophagi 
were not spared. Thirteen were 
sent to Louis XIII. in 1634. Some 
were carried to Rome by Cardinal 
Barberini, which, we should say, 
was very much "like carrying 
screech-owls to Athens, or croco- 
diles to Egypt." Some went to 
Lyons, and there are a great many 
at Marseilles. The neighboring 
farmers thought they might as well 
have their part of the plunder, and 
many an old stone coffin is now 
used as a drinking-trough for cattle 
in the fields. In more recent times 
the railway, with its station and 
store-houses and workshops, has 
made a sad havoc in this venerable 
field of the dead. It was once a 
mile square, but is now reduced 
to a mere avenue not half a mile in 
length. The old hill of Mouleyres, 
where once stood the statue of 
Mars, and where St. Dennis the 
Areopagite set up a chapel to St. 
Peter, has become a quarry. No- 
thing remains except the oratory 
of the Sainte Genouillade, the cha- 
pels of St. Accurse and the Force- 
lets, and the ruins of the church of 
Our Lady of Grace, its crumbling 
walls still covered with the embla- 
zonry of old families, its altars 
stripped and unlighted, and the an- 
cient crypt, where once lay the 
bodies of so many saints, damp 
and mouldy everything ruined, 
touching, and desolate, 



Sister Mary Agnes. 



SISTER MARY AGNES. 



I HAVE a troublesome throat, 
and a husband who is troublesome 
chiefly in the view he takes of the 
care this throat requires a view 
that expatriates us and makes of us 
birds of passage in the Old World 
homeless sojourners wherever 
skies are sunny and breezes soft. 

It was very well a great deal 
more than very well while we were 
only two. But people do not al- 
ways stay only two. A baby is 
only a little creature ; a baby's 
nurse is not an untransportable ob- 
ject ; but a baby's wardrobe, bath, 
perambulator, crib, fire-guard ; 
nurse's tea, beer, bacon, and good- 
humor ; the soil and water where- 
on, the climate wherein, a baby 
thrives ; the contagions to which it 
must not be exposed ; the streets 
through which it must not be 
taken ; thevoiturfs de place in which 
it must not ride ; the houses where 
it cannot live, the houses where it 
is not permitted to try to live; the 
having one's precious, innocent 
child inquired after by disap- 
proving, conventionally-domiciled 
friends as " Tramp No. 3 "ah ! 
believe a gipsy mother, Bohemi- 
an ism in such conditions, with 
such limitations, is not a care-free, 
wholly joyous state. 

Among our British cousins pre- 
vail the best traditions as to the 
rearing of babies, the most tolera- 
tion for their needs, so we spent 
the first year of our small queen's 
life at various English spas and 
coast resorts, fixing ourselves for 
her second winter at sleepy but 
lovely, bland-aired Ventnor. 

Here came to us, toward spring, 



my husband's only brother, a 
young man of thirty, unmarried, as 
yet engaged in no business or pro- 
fession, the possessor of an income 
of comfortable amplitude, the dar- 
ling of the staid, Quaker home-cir- 
cle, but its great anxiety and sor- 
row, too, since he had become, 
some three years previously, an en- 
thusiastic Catholic. 

"We greatly fear," wrote to my 
husband one of his sisters, " that 
Henry goes abroad meaning to 
study somewhere there for the 
priesthood. Indeed, we fear what 
is worse even than that if any- 
thing could be worse that he 
thinks of becoming a Jesuit ! Thee 
knows this would kill our mother, 
and we have not dared hint to her 
what we dread. But for the last 
year he has hardly gone into so- 
ciety at all ; he has devoted more 
and more time to his superstitious 
observances and practices ; has 
gone every morning to some ser- 
vice or other; his table has been 
covered with mystical and devo- 
tional books, and especially with 
productions of that society called, 
blasphemously, of Jesus. I tremble 
to think what next step he may 
take. He has been for several 
months getting his property into 
such form that it can easily be 
managed, and he says he can't fix 
the time he will stay abroad, nor 
is he quite sure what he is going 
to do there. ' Perhaps study, per- 
haps get married/ he said the other 
night. 'O Uncle Harry! is thee 
engaged ?' Edie. screamed. * Is 
it somebody down South ? some- 
body out West ? Is she beautiful ?' 



Sister Mary Agnes. 



' I think it's somebody now for 
your French, missy somebody 
'la-Jtaut. And beautiful? What 
should you think of Eternal Beau- 
ty ?' If we question him earnestly 
he puts us off with some joke, for 
I think he is gayer than ever. Do 
thee find out, Rodney, and if 
there's anything thee can do to 
turn him from a scheme that would 
be misery to us all, I know thee 
won't refuse to try." 

So Harry came to us, and I, who 
had scarcely seen him before, lost 
my heart out and out to the tall, 
grand fellow whose childlike sim- 
plicity and gayety failed to hide a 
character of great strength and 
patience, and a nature magnani- 
mous and sweet to the core. But 
he was hardly more talkative to us 
than to the home friends of his in- 
tentions. He was to look about 
him for awhile this, in substance, 
was all we gained from him. We 
knew that he went every morning 
to the little Catholic chapel under 
St. Boniface's Down, and we be- 
lieved him to be keeping a very 
rigorous Lent ; but his piety was of 
the cheerfulest, most unobtrusive 
kind, and his fasting not done to 
be seen of men. Only one or two 
little things made us uneasy : his 
politeness to the two or three young 
ladies I knew in Ventnor was much 
too calm for the usual gallantry of 
a chivalrous young man ; if possi- 
ble, quietly, he avoided any en- 
gagement that would bring him 
into their society; and after one of 
his frequent journeys up to London 
he mentioned casually that he had 
been in Farm Street, and who ever 
heard, even, of Farm Street, save 
in connection with the Jesuit 
church there ? 

Early in April, when my two 
cavaliers had "done" the beauti- 
ful little island, from Ryde to 



57 

Freshwater, in a ten days' walking 
trip, and had come back to com- 
plain a little of the languid breezes 
of the Undercliff, I let myself be 
persuaded that I could better spare 
them then than later for another 
bachelor excursion they wished to 
make this time down among the 
Channel Islands. Walking with 
them to the station when they set 
off, we met on our way two ladies 
in the sombre garb of some reli- 
gious sisterhood. 

"Look, Harry!" I exclaimed, 
" there are some of your friends 
coming. To what order do those 
nuns belong ?" 

"To the order Sham, Helen. 
That's not the genuine article. 
They're Puseyite sisters." 

"They look real enough, I'm 
sure. The costume's very Roman. 
What makes you think they're An- 
glican ?" 

" Walk's too natural, undisci- 
plined. Gowns kilted up as you 
never saw any real nun gather up 
her skirts out of soil's way. And " 
he paused, for they were close 
upon us, passed us : a lady of 
thirty-five or so, indisputably Eng- 
lish, blue-eyed, strong-nosed, fiorid- 
complexioned, her companion a 
girl of twenty, perhaps, of national- 
ity impossible to determine, eyes 
large, gray, of wonderful beauty, 
eyebrows and hair of the darkest 
brown, features solid, almost heavy, 
pale but not pallid an opaque 
white tint with golden shadows 
about temples, eyes, and mouth a 
woman who narrowly missed the 
noblest beauty, and who would 
have looked an empress in rags 
"they talk, laugh, and glance free- 
ly about as Catholic nuns never do 
in the streets. But, Helen, what 
an exquisite face, and of what an 
unusual type !" 

Watching my baby getting her 



Sister Mary Agnes. 



bath that night, nurse said to 
me : 

" I think, ma'am, the bother 
hapartment is taken. Some sisters 
came about it, and were so delight- 
ed with the view they stayed on 
without looking further." 

"'Some sisters!' Two? Are 
they Catholic or Ritualist sis- 
ters ?" 

" I think they must be 'Igh 
Church, ma'am, for they were bask- 
ing Mrs. Morris about the hours 
for service at St. Catherine's and 
'Oly Trinity." 

Frequently during the next few 
days I saw the two sisters coming 
and going with their piles of prayer- 
books, driving about in a donkey- 
chaise, walking, once with a mace- 
rated-looking young curate most 
ecclesiastical in his " get-up " a 
straight collar, an M.B. waistcoat, 
a broad-leaved hat, and a coat 
down to his heels and had ex- 
changed greetings with them as we 
encountered in the house. But 
my baby had fatten violently in 
love with the younger sister Sis- 
ter Mary Agnes, nurse reported 
her title to be and I used to laugh 
of mornings, before I had left my 
bed, to hear the clear little flute- 
voice calling impatiently down the 
stairs to the housemaid the items 
of a desired, delayed breakfast 
" Otermeal, 'Liza, tote, and dam, 
'Liza, dam !" burst into a delight- 
ed shout of " Jingle-jingle ! O 
Jingle-jingle !" her name for her 
new friend, who would just then be 
coming in from her early church- 
going, and whose ponderous rosary 
hanging at her side ^//^/jingle-jingle 
as she ran lightly up and down the 
stairs. 

"'Jingle-jingle!' That's a fine 
name for one of my cloth, you dis- 
respectful sweet !" I heard Sister 
Mary Agnes answer this greeting 



one day. " And O nurse, nurse I 
how can you have your young lady 
swearing so at the top of her lungs 
through the house ?" 

" Isn't it funny to 'ear her, 
ma'am?" answered nurse, laughing. 
"You see, ma'am, it's honly lately 
mistress 'as bordered she's to get 
raspberry jam with her breakfast, 
and the child's crazy for it. What 
does baby want to eat with her 
toast?" and "Dam, "Liza, dam!" 
again resounded loudly and pro- 
fanely through the passages, and 
then I could hear a great frolic of 
shaking, kissing, flight, and pursuit. 
I wondered how my child bad dar- 
ed make her small advances to this 
very superb, however enticing-look- 
ing lady, play her small tricks upon 
her, be so hilariously affectionate ; 
but I considered it was either a bit 
of that second sight I bad already 
found baby to possess, or else who 
could resist my healthy, happy, lov- 
ing darling? 

And then suddenly I fell ill. A 
rather profuse hemorrhage from the 
throat alarmed the bouse a good 
deal, and established me very weak 
and white in bed ; and when I be- 
gan to recall what had happened, 
and realize that I was still left in a 
familiar world, I knew that, how- 
ever sorely I missed my usual care- 
taker, my husband, I could not 
wish for more skilful tendance than 
I was getting from Sister Gertrude, 
the ruddy, energetic, practical 
senior of the Anglican nuns, my 
neighbors. Just how or when- she 
took command of me I drd not re- 
member, but perfectly sure posses- 
sion I found she had, and very 
good in a despotic way she was to 
me. No service was too tiring, too 
humble for her to render. " Why, 
it is my business" she said when I 
would have remonstrated. " I had 
begun to* feel a lost and miserable 



Sister Mary Agnes. 



creature with no sick body to look 
after, and I'm very much obliged 
to you for falling ill when you did !" 
The younger sister did not ap- 
pear in my room for some days, but 
one morning she came in with Sis- 
ter Gertrude. " I have brought 
you for nurse," said the latter, put- 
ting her hand on her companion's 
shoulder, "the most helpless wo- 
man in a sick-room that ever was 
amongst all Eve's daughters. This 
is Sister Mary Agnes, and I want 
to leave you to her tender mercies 
three or four hours that I must 
spend at Shanklin. I have prom- 
ised her that you shall not bleed, 
faint, nor do any other alarming 
tiling whatever. And if you do not 
frighten her, s/ie \ISLS promised to be 
very good and useful." 

As Sister Gertrude briskly and 
bluntly enumerated the disagreea- 
ble things I was pledged not to 
perpetrate, I saw the young sister's 
face get fairly ashen with terror of 
her possible position, so I said to 
her reassuringly : 

" Oh ! I'm not at all ill now- 
only a little lazy, liking to be wait- 
ed on, to be read to, to have dainty 
messes devised for my meals, and 
grapes and cream in spendthrift 
profusion, If it won't be too tire- 
some to sit in this or the next room, 
it would be a charity to Sister Ger- 
trude and to me, and you shall em- 
ploy yourself as you choose." 

So Sister Gertrude left us. My 
empress in weeds throned herself 
upon a chair the furthest removed 
from me of any in the room. We 
exchanged a few civil sentences, 
then silence fell, and I closed my 
eyes as if to sleep. Feigning sleep, 
I really dropped off into oblivion, 
and when I opened my eyes again 
my new nurse had changed her 
position ; she was sitting in an 
easy-chair beside the fire r and was 



59 

quite buried in a book she had 
taken up. Her hand hung careless- 
ly over the arm of a chair, her coarse 
stuff sleeve and loose linen under- 
sleeve pushed up left bare a round, 
polished ivory wrist and lower arm 
one longed, from mere desire of the 
eye, to clasp and softly stroke. 

A beautiful hand, too, not small, 
but beautiful in outline, faintly 
dimpled, taper-fingered a hand 
that, like her whole person and 
manner, expressed strength joined 
with utmost grace and refinement 
over-refinement, maybe, for an ail- 
ing, workaday world. 

She was evidently deeply inter- 
ested in what she read. A light 
flush had risen to her cheeks. I 
could see her fingers now and then 
straighten themselves tightly to- 
gether, her dress rise and fall with 
the deep, slow breathing that occa- 
sionally forgot itself for a space, 
and came then as a sigh. I could 
have desired no finer rendering of 
a Reading Muse to gaze upon. 

Presently she made a smothered 
little half-cry, half-moan of passion- 
ate feeling, and I heard drops fall 
upon her page. She closed the book, 
sat quiet for a space, then rose to 
replace the volume whence she 
had taken it. I could see then 
what she had been reading a Life 
of St. Teresa, written by herself, 
that Harry had brought me return- 
ing from one of his London jour- 
neys. As she turned from the ta- 
ble she met my eyes fixed upon 
her and came toward me. 

" I am afraid I forgot you for a 
while," she said. " Have you been 
awake long? Have you needed 
anything?" 

" Only a few minutes, and I've 
wanted nothing, thank you. When 
my husband is with me I have to 
hurry my convalescences out of pity 
for his anxiety ; and it's such a 



6o 



Sister Mary Agnes. 



luxury to know I may lie here in 
my bed as idle and good for no- 
thing as I please that it takes all 
there is of me to enjoy that, and 
I'm afraid I can't live up to my 
privileges and be as whimsical as 
an invalid's right is. But Sister 
Gertrude spoils me so there's no 
telling into what I shall develop. 
What a capital nurse she is, and a 
Godsend to me ! Do you suppose 
Providence sent you here just for 
me ?" 

" I think you may very well be 
Sister Gertrude's errand here, but 
Providence knows too well my im- 
becility in a sick-room to have 
counted on my help. Or perhaps 
I was to read to you ; would you 
like me to do so now? Is there any- 
thing you fancy hearing ?" 

" But may one expect a sister to 
read 'anything'? Suppose I'm loo 
weak for hard sense, and of a ca- 
pricious appetite both for piety and 
poetry ?" 

" Still I think I may promise to 
read anything you please to hear." 

' Were you reading my St. Teresa ? 
I've had it but lately, and have 
scarcely opened it. But it ought 
to be admirable, since it's her own 
work. St. Teresa, for all her su- 
pernaturalness, was so human and 
had such excellent common sense ! 
I've had a special drawing to her 
since I knew she owned she could 
pray better when her elbows rested 
on a soft cushion." 

" Is that authentic ?" asked Sis- 
ter Mary Agnes, smiling. "And 
do you care so much for the hu- 
man element in the saints ? I'm 
accused of special devotion to the 
in -human saints, and I own my 
strongest attraction is not to those 
saints who've first, or once, been 
great sinners. But grand St. Tere- 
sa's not in that category, and I fling 
myself in the dust before her. I 



lighted on something in my reading 
just now human enough to please 
you, I think. 

" St. Teresa was speaking to one 
of her prioresses " going for the 
volume and silently turning the 
leaves for two or three minutes. 
" Here it is : * If you love me well, 
I assure you that I return your 
love and like you to tell me that 
you love me- Oh ! how true it is 
that our poor human nature looks 
for a return ; and this cannot be 
wrong since our Lord himself 
looks for it from us. And though 
there is an infinite distance be- 
tween the love we owe to Him who 
has so many claims to our service 
and that which belongs to feeble 
creatures, nevertheless it is an ad- 
vantage to us to resemble him in 
anything, if it be only this.'" 

She closed the book. "I re- 
member a tender little French say- 
ing that goes with that : " Les 
saintes ne vont pas a aimer Dieu a 
force de n'aimer personne, mais a 
aimer tout le monde plus qu'eux- 
memes a force d'aimer Dieu plus que 
tout.' But what a hard saying, too ! 
For me, I can scarcely care active- 
ly about my fellow-creatures at 
all. I often think I should be 
wonderfully happy to be deaf, 
dumb, and blind, or else, innocent, 
to be a prisoner for life with soli- 
tary confinement. Then my con- 
science wouldn't be for ever prick- 
ing me on my neighbor's behalf; I 
shouldn't be bungling at work for 
which I've no aptitude ; I shouldn't 
be awkward where awkwardness 
means serious mischief; one's tongue 
would cease to be a weapon of of- 
fence oh! the prospect grows too 
lovely to be gazed at." 

" Lovely indeed!" I said. "But 
if your fellow-creatures are rather 
tedious to you than otherwise, 
would it cost you nothing to be 



Sister Mary Agnei 



61 



shut away from all that is fine, no- 
ble in the conceptions and achieve- 
ments of mankind ? And could you 
cheerfully give np all God's beauti- 
ful outer world ?" 

" You will think me an utter 
misanthrope if I own I think I 
could bear to give up man and all 
his works; but it isn't pure mis- 
anthropy. As for nature why, 
I'm as mere a cit as a London 
sparrow, and, having light, air, and 
a little space for peace's sake, I 
should never sigh for field or forest, 
hill or plain, mountain or sea not 
even for this ' wrinkled ' sea of 
Tennyson's, that I never saw else- 
where wear the crepe look it has 
about the Isle of Wight ; how 
placid, glittering, and steel-blue it 
looks now from the windows !" 

" If you do not care for country 
and seaside I hope you have not 
had to come to Ventnor for health's 
sake? I know Sister Gertrude is 
well and strong." 

" I came because I had some 
troublesome thinking to do, and 
needed to get out of my groove for 
quiet and freedom ; and Sister Ger- 
trude came because she loves me, 
and fears that just now I must be 
carefully looked after. But she 
loves nature as well as she loves 
care-taking, so between us all she 
finds Ventnor charming. No, I'm 
in robust health ; you must not let 
my yellow face mislead you. I 
sleep enough for three, and eat 
frightful quantities of bread and 
meat." 

Looking at the unworn, cool, lily 
face, at the nobly-drawn outlines 
of a figure of only average height, 
listening to the firm tones of a 
voice deep and musical as a flaw- 
less bell, I felt what a rich vital- 
ity she had, how unperturbed of 
sympathy or passion was her youth, 
and could believe she had a keen 



relish for the simplest food, and 
that her slumbers were as sound 
and dreamless as a tired child's. 

'Yellow ' was not the word you 
wanted,"! said; "but, if you will 
pardon so personal a remark, yours 
is a wonderfully un-English tint, 
and if I had any wits now to men- 
tion they'd have been sorely puz- 
zled by it." 

" Oh ! I'm English," she answer- 
ed, " wholly English in feeling, but 
I'm afraid I must own I come of a 
rather puzzle-blooded family. A 
long-way-back grandmother was 
an East Indian princess ; a more 
modern one was a Greek woman; 
my own grandmother, living in Lon- 
don now, is a Pole ; and however 
English their descendants may 
reckon themselves, I suppose the 
old race-marks will crop out. I've 
a younger sister who is entirely 
Greek beautiful and classic 
enough to be cut, with fillet, bared 
arms, and shoulder-clasps, upon a 
seal; but, despite her looks, she's 
the intensest little Briton in the 
kingdom." 

" And you are mixed but most- 
ly the East Indian's granddaugh- 
ter?" 

"They say so; sluggish and 
lazy. But," rising and hovering 
aloof in a reluctant kind of way, 
"oughtn't you to have some drink, 
some medicine? Is there nothing 
that ought to be done for you?" 

" No, nothing. I want nothing 
save to be, in my quality of inva- 
lid, a little less repulsive to you. I 
really am so inoffensive !" 

" Oh ! you're not repulsive, but 
deadly dangerous. How can I 
tell what you may do, and then 
what I ought to do? I'm hope- 
lessly silly, and I can't help it. 
No woman will ever understand 
such an abnormal creature as a 
woman with only terror and loath- 



62 



Sister Mary Agnes. 



ing for the role of nurse. Since 
I've been a sister I was sent, to 
cure me and to learn nursing, into 
a hospital and into a men's ward. 
Fancy having to take care of a sick 
man!" The tragic disgust in face 
and accents was irresistible, and I 
went off in a fit of laughter, which, 
like an exemplary patient, I was 
trying to subdue when I heard 
Sister Gertrude's voice at the open 
door : " Now ! now ! I was afraid 
you'd be getting into mischief." 
And glancing up to where she stood 
with uplifted, threatening forefin- 
ger, there, over her shoulders, ap- 
peared the faces of my husband 
and brother, and sisters and sis- 
terhoods went quite out of my 
mind. 

When I had been duly happy, 
and petted, and pitied, and my 
two knights were sitting quietly be- 
side me, my husband said : " I have 
brought an invalid to keep you 
company. Harry has to lie by for 
a little while, and I shall have you 
out in Bath chairs together. It 
will be the most interesting invalid 
procession in Ventnor, and I sha'n't 
know how to walk humbly enough 
beside it. Only a few insignificant 
men will look at you, madam, but 
think of all the tender glances 
that'll be fixed on Harry ! ' Such 
a handsome young man!' 'The 
bloom of health on his cheek, too ; 
I wonder what's the matter with 
him ?' ' Poor fellow ! Mysterious, 
isn't it?'" 

" Harry !" I cried, " Harry ill?" 
And I looked incredulously at our 
brother's tall, strong figure and 
clear, bright-hued face. 

" Oh ! it is not much," said Harry. 
"I've given myself a little twist 
that will soon mend." 

" We had a bit of an accident," 
added Rodney. " There's a very 
rough sea off Sark for more than 



half the year, and landing on the 
island or getting off it again during 
the time's a difficult, often a hope- 
less, undertaking. We were a little 
early for smooth weather, and, 
though we got on shore easily 
enough, we had some trouble to 
leave it again. Two days we hnd 
to give it up, and, though we fetch- 
ed it on the third day, some of us 
got spilled into the water first oh ! 
we are here; you needn't clutch my 
hand so desperately and Harry 
strained his shoulder and got an 
ugly blow in the side, so he's to be 
put into cotton-wool for a week or 
two. 

" But my bag, Helen ! Your 
birthday present the nixies have 
got it! Harry's glad. He abused 
me all the way for being such a 
swell as to carry a toothbrush on a 
walking-trip, and this is how he 
chuckles over my misfortunes." And 
my husband drew from his pocket 
a Channel Islands Guide, whose fly- 
leaves were embellished with a 
series of sketches setting forth the 
adventures of the hapless dressing- 
bag in nixiedom the consterna- 
tion its advent created; the long- 
nosed, saw-nosed, cork-screw sea- 
creatures called in to pick the lock ; 
a porpoise presiding over the court 
of inquiry held upon the monogram 
on the bag and its fittings ; mer- 
maids with the pomade, combs, and 
hand-mirror; lobsters brushing 
their teeth ; lobsters variously over- 
come by their investigations into 
the nature of a novel fluid in the 
cognac flask ; a sea-horse anchor- 
ed to a button-hook the whole 
winding up with an octopus grasp- 
ing, squeezing, rolling, flattening 
the emptied bag, gathering it in 
with two or three arms to a heap 
of oysters beneath its monstrous, 
undulating shapelessness, while all 
the other arms were scrolling and 



Sister Mary Ag 



unscrolling, a mass of hideous 
sucker pustules showing here, an 
inflating, self-swallowing, turning- 
inside-out process going on there, 
in the indescribable octopoid ? oc- 
to-what ? fashion. 

" Reminiscences of the Brighton 
Aquarium," said Harry. " That 
devil-creature haunted me till I 
had to draw him to be rid of him. 
I nearly turned Manichee while I 
stood fascinated before his tank." 

I was alone when Sifter Ger- 
trude came next to see after my 
welfare. " I'm not to be given up," 
I cried so soon as I caught sight 
of her pleasant, friendly face. "I 
forgot my manners this morning; 
but why did you punish me by 
running away before I could pre- 
sent my husband to my new friend 
and kind nurse ?" 

Sister Gertrude assured me that 
my nurse clung tenaciously to her 
convalescing invalid, and then, ask- 
ing after my morning's experience 
with her companion, I easily drew 
her on to speak quite freely of 
Sister Mary Agnes. 

" She's as good as she is beauti- 
ful," said Sister Gertrude. " Do 
you not find her beautiful ? But 
though I love and admire her more 
than any person I've ever known, 
I often do not understand her, and 
I know she by no means returns 
my affection. She seems to have 
no love to spend upon human be- 
ings. I have heard her say that the 
leaving her family, when she enter- 
ed the sisterhood, was rather a re- 
lief than a sacrifice to her, and that 
of her home she missed chiefly its 
luxurious comforts and her per- 
sonal freedom there. But then her 
family, though extremely elegant 
and clever, are quite worldly peo- 
ple, with whom she could have lit- 
tle in common, and she thinks 
they, too, were relieved to have her 



ncs. 63 



away from them, safely and proper- 
ly sheltered and settled." 

" Is she a very useful member of 
your sisterhood?" I asked a little 
maliciously. 

" Not at all useful in many 
ways," answered Sister Gertrude 
with a^simple honesty that shamed 
me. '' But we have no sister intel- 
lectually so valuable as she is, no 
one so wholly given to spiritual 
things, so capable of religious 
teaching and influence. But, in 
spiritual as in many other matters. 
I feel beside her like some grovel- 
ling earth-creature beside a soaring 
lark. In everything it is the super- 
natural aspect that strikes her, and 
to see her once, rapt in prayer, is 
to see something one would never 
forget. Most persons, I think, 
turning to Heaven with love and 
for help, choose rather the Second 
Person of the Holy Trinity, a 
Brother human as well as divine, 
an Intercessor visibly linked to 
their poverty and feebleness, upon 
whom to cast themselves; Sister 
Mary Agnes' devotion of devotions 
is to the Holy Spirit. And she 
wishes that we had, as they have 
in the Roman branch, strictly 
cloistered and contemplative re- 
ligious orders of women like the 
Carmelites, for instance. At least 
she did wish it," Sister Gertrude 
corrected herself, " but of late she 
seems scarcely to know what she 
wishes. An old friend of hers, who 
went over to Rome some years ago, 
has recently become a Poor Clare 
in London, and by that, and some 
other things, Sister Mary Agnes 
has been a good deal upset." 

" You mean that she would like 
to follow her friend to Rome and 
the Poor Clares?" 

"Hardly that, I hope," said Sis- 
ter Gertrude, " but she thinks a 
Poor Clare's life would be the 



6 4 



Sister Mary Agnes. 



life her heart seeks. Sister Mary 
Agnes, of all creatures ! She is 
fervent enough to endure very se- 
vere bodily austerities, but natural- 
ly no one was ever more sensitive 
to the rose-leaf crumples. But she 
vows we are all smothered in com- 
forts, sunk in materialism, and de- 
clares sometimes that if heaven 
were only a state of natural beati- 
tude Anglicanism would be its 
surest path and nearest gate. You 
can imagine how dreadful it must 
be to us to have a sister saying such 
wild things! Most of our sisters 
have given her up, and believe she 
will end as a pervert ; but I cling to 
her, though when I tell you we are 
here now that she may consider 
whether she can .. conscientiously 
remain in the sisterhood or not, 
you will admit that my faith has 
need to be strong. But it holds, 
and I should not have said quite 
all I have done to you, only that I 
did not like you to be perplexed by 
things you are very likely to hear 
from her." 

" So you have begun the St. 
Teresa" said Harry, having taken 
refuge with me in the early even- 
ing from an outrageously active 
and noisy romp in progress in the 
sitting-room between my husband 
and his small daughter, and lifting, 
as he spoke, the book from the 
stand beside my bed, where Sister 
Mary Agnes had hastily dropped 
it. "I need not ask if you read it 
with indifference," he added sud- 
denly, showing me a curling, blis- 
tered leaf, which betrayed the pas- 
sionate rainfall from the beautiful 
eyes of my deputy nurse of the 
morning. 

" Those were not my tears," I 
said; "but I wish you would read 
me a page or two just there." And 
he complied, giving St. Teresa's 
description of her first visit to the 



first monastery of Discalced Friars 
founded by her disciple, St. John 
of the Cross. 

What happiest worldling could 
hear or read all unmoved the just- 
touched details she gives of the 
almost disembodied life she found 
men leading, for the love of God, 
in that lonely barn, where all was 
humility, fervor, and sternest aus- 
terity and poverty, from the broth- 
ers' beds of hay, strewn close un- 
der the low eaves, with stones for 
pillows, the holy prior sweeping 
walks and passage-ways, to the 
rough little wood-cut of the Cruci- 
fixion pinned against the wall with 
thorns, before which St. Teresa 
burst into joyful tears? 

" No wonder that moved Sister 
Mary Agnes," I said after a little 
silence; "that unearthly life would 
be so entirely after her own heart." 

" Sister Mary Agnes is the young- 
er of your two nurses, then ? for 
the elder one scarcely looks a per- 
son of ascetic tastes and tenden- 
cies." 

" I'm thankful for that," I ex- 
claimed ; "she makes all the better 
nurse, while her beautiful young 
companion is about as useful in a 
sick-room as some princess under 
a baleful spell, Undine before she 
found her soul, or any impossible 
cloud creature. But she's lovely 
to look at or listen to, and watch- 
ing her speaking or silent, moving 
or sitting quietly, affects me like 
hearing some perfect harmony." 

The splendors of the Bath-chair 
procession projected by my hus- 
band never came to pass. When 
I made my first sortie into the 
open air but one chair was brought 
to the door, and then, and for a 
good many days afterward, both 
the brothers strolled beside it up 
and down the cliff walk and 
through the bowery lanes of Bon- 



Sister Maty Agnes. 



church. As I grew rapidly strong, 
able to resume my active life on 
foot, the sisters joined us in our 
rambles, and we made together a 
number of the charming Liliputian 
excursions one may make from 
Ventnor, spent idle, happy, all-out- 
of-doors days wandering about the 
Landslip, stretched in the shade 
of an enormous boulder on the 
sands of some solitary cove, or 
nestled in some high, sunny, heath- 
grown hollow of the undulating 
downs, where we lost the Under- 
cliff and the nineteenth century al- 
together, and there was no world 
but that mid-air stretch of buoyant 
swells and falls of thick-matted, 
dwarf-herbaged turf ; where a pale- 
tinted, dappled arch of sky, whose 
low vault was filled with sun-shot 
haze, bent closely above us, and 
far, far below a beryl sea ringed us 
about, shimmering, silvering, dark- 
ening, widening ever to a softly- 
radiant horizon where cloud was 
sea, and sea was cloud; and no 
sound broke the brooding hush of 
spring in the airy solitude save our 
own speech and laughter, the rush 
of warm winds, the nearer or faint- 
er tinkling bells of cropping sheep, 
the bleating of young lambs, the 
loud humming of rover bees, the 
sudden, brief song-ecstasies of 
busy, over-blissful birds, or the in- 
frequent boom of a distant cuckoo, 
the notes coming mellow as clear 
from his miles-away covert in some 
sunny hill-coppice beloved of the 
early purple orchis, and crowded 
with tall ranks of juicy-stemmed 
hyacinths, whose thread-swung blos- 
soms one could fancy all tremulous 
with the emotion of the great, near 
cry. 

These sauntering, lounging, 
dreamy days pleased at least two 
of our number best. 

"This is too delicious!" Sister 
VOL. xxvin. 5 



Mary Agnes would say sometimes 
after she had sat a long time si- 
lent, her face turned seaward, her 
lightly-clasped hands dropped stir- 
less on her lap. " I should like never 
to move again. No, no, I shall ne- 
ver be a country-lover," she added 
in response to some saying of Sister 
Gertrude's to that effect. " The 
town for me, whoever made it. 
Souls are the highest things on the 
earth, and wherever souls are gath- 
ered must be the field of incessant 
supernatural activities, keen spiri- 
tual life, an atmosphere pierced 
through and through, electric, with 
God's swift, endless, multitudinous 
graces. One would feel so much 
safer from being forgotten by him 
there ! 

" I never understand what peo- 
ple mean who talk of the innocence 
of the country, its freedom from 
temptations, and so on. Why, the 
very inmost, subtlest temptations 
seem to me to dwell there. Was 
not our Lord even taken into a 
high mountain apart when the 
devil would tempt him? And that 
ancient curse, 'Cursed be the 
ground for thy sake' where has 
that been revoked, save in spots 
where his saints have lived and 
died, where he is served and wor- 
shipped, where his dead lie waiting 
his summons ? 

"But the stillness, the sweet air, 
the sweet sounds, are enchanting 
for a bit; and it is so good, for a 
bit, to rest from one's self and the 
needy neighbor !" 

Harry, too, liked resting best. 
He complained of nothing, but 
long walks or drives seemed more 
and more to tire him, and he visi- 
bly lost color, flesh, and appetite. 
If pressed concerning himself, he 
admitted a good deal of languor 
and a constant dull pain in the 
side, but he attributed the pain to 



66 



Sister Mary Agnes. 



the lingering irritation and soreness 
from the blow he had received, and 
the languor to the enervating Isle 
of Wight spring ; there was really 
nothing to speak of or be anxious 
about. Nor were we more than 
lightly anxious. He was constant- 
ly bright, and I, at least, though 
much occupied with him mentally, 
gave only passing thoughts to his 
bodily health. 

Just now I found, much in him 
to note and speculate about. His 
avoidance of ladies' society seemed 
to have vanished, or to have van- 
ished totally regarding our neigh- 
bors and daily companions, the 
sisters. He was tireless in render- 
ing them courtesies and little ser- 
vices : posted their letters; ordered 
their carriage when they drove 
without us somewhere for busi- 
ness or pleasure; handed them in 
and out of it ; brought them flowers 
and fruit ; walked with them to their 
church on Sundays, carrying their 
prayer-books like the gallant cava- 
lier he was, but scrupulously relin- 
quishing them to their owners and 
bowing his adieu at the church 
door ; even, once when they had 
gone to some even-song or after- 
noon service of a secular day, and 
a sudden shower dashed down, 
coming out of the church they 
found him waiting with umbrellas 
on the church steps to convoy them 
dryly home. 

" Sisters of St. Barnabas " our 
dear new friends were, and Harry 
I dubbed the " Brother of St. Bar- 
nabas," though I for a time, by dint 
of great self-restraint, reserved this 
title for my private gossips with 
my husband. At last, however, 
out it came one day that I found 
Harry solicitously buttoning the 
gloves on Sister Gertrude's plump, 
useful hands. It was received with 
a scream of laughter, and " Brother 



of St. Barnabas " he became by 
acclamation. 

"Harry," I asked afterward, 
''would you dare offer to button 
the gloves of one of your nuns ?" 

"Real nuns' gloves are not co- 
quette and have no buttons," he 
answered me. " They are coarse 
wool or cotton ones such as Sis- 
ter Mary Agnes wears," he added. 
" But I believe I should hardly be 
allowed to fasten them if they had 
buttons or have the cheek to pro- 
pose it." 

The Brother of St. Barnabas 
proffered his attentions to the sis- 
ters with the greatest impartiality, 
and his manner toward them, as 
our intimacy grew, became in truth 
that of a brother who had a right 
to be near them and protect them, 
and his tender deference was a 
pretty thing to see. Sister Ger- 
trude had the warmest friendship 
for him, and declared he was the 
most ideally charming young gen- 
tleman she had ever known. 

" But I'm afraid sometimes it's 
a great pity we ever came here," 
she would add when speaking to 
me alone. "I don't think he's a 
wolf, or, if he is, I don't think he 
means to be a wolf; but he's such 
a good wolf, don't you see ? And 
of course he thinks his way is the 
only sure way, and Sister Mary 
Agnes can't help seeing and feel- 
ing his goodness, his unlikeness to 
young men in general, and she is 
sure to fancy that it's his religion 
makes the difference. How will it 
all end? But I can't leave her 
here alone, and she says she's not 
in the least ready to go back, and 
doubts if she ever will be !" 

And "How will it all end?" I 
asked myself often enough. I ap- 
pealed to my husband : " What 
does Harry mean ? Is it Sister 
Mary Agnes or her soul he's after? 



Sister Mary Agnes. 



And can we, ought we, to do any- 
thing ?" 

"Why need Harry mean any- 
thing," returned Rodney, " but to 
be civil to two uncommonly nice 
women, one of whom has us deeply 
in her debt for the greatest kind- 
ness ? If, even, he means prose- 
lyting, how can we help it? 
Neither on your account nor on 
his do I think it best for us to 
make amove just yet. But nothing 
binds the sisters here; I suppose 
they would go if they felt uneasi- 
ness or annoyance. And how you 
can discern anything lover-like in 
him to be anxious about passes 
me. Why should you be anxious 
if there was ? I should as soon 
myself dream of making love to a 
saint in niche and nimbus as to 
Sister Mary Agnes ; but if Harry 
could fancy and win such a super- 
human kind of a wife, since his 
marriage would set at rest the 
home dread that we are to have at 
least a Father Ellison among us, if 
not that most terrible thing, a 
Father Ellison, S.J., why I should 
be glad to see him utterly taken 
off his feet by this paradoxical 
specimen of womanhood and ritu- 
alism." 

" Paradoxical for a woman to 
love heaven best, and for a ritualist 
to hanker after Rome !" 
"Ta-ta!" 

So the soft spring days slipped 
the one after the other for a time 
long in its passing but short in 
reality, for it was not yet the end 
of May when Sister Gertrude rous- 
ed me from my happy unconcern 
by assuring me of her certainty 
that Harry grew constantly weak- 
er, and her fear that the blow or 
strain at Sark had inflicted graver 
injury than we had suspected- 
' Realize, if you can," she said, 
4 how little he walks now. If he 



starts with us he makes an excuse 
to stop when we have gone but a 
little distance, and quite lately he 
declines to leave his chair on the 
balcony or in the garden for al- 
most any excursion. His hands 
are grown strangely pale and thin, 
and this week he has not once 
gone, as usual, to early Mass." 

Before I could tell my husband 
what Sister Gertrude had said, an 
accident some chance which in a 
frolic between Mabel and her 
uncle threw the child with sudden 
violence upon Harry's left knee 
and arm, the left being the injured 
side, and he dropped, as if shot, in 
a dead faint revealed to us all 
that his condition was an alarm- 
ing one. 

The verdict of the best medical 
skill we could summon was, in its 
precision and in its vagueness, 
much more terrible than anything 
our tardily-aroused fears had sug- 
gested : the injury had resulted in 
tumor, of malignant character, as 
it seemed, but at any rate so situ- 
ated that no operation was possi- 
ble, and we could do nothing but 
wait, give careful care, and hope 
what we could from a sturdy con- 
stitution and a chance turn of the 
malady. And we should not have 
long to wait, he added, for the case 
was one of rapid advance. This 
of Harry Harry, who had come 
to us so little while ago superb with 
the health and strength of unblem- 
ished young manhood ! 

"Doctor H ," Harry said 

when the physician came again, 
" didn't you forget to give one cau- 
tion to my people here ? They are 
so tender of me I shall be sure to 
suspect something!" 

And then our life went on again 
with greater change internally than 
externally. No more long walks 
for any of us, and Harry was to 



68 



Sister Mary Agnes. 



avoid fatigue of whatever kind ; but 
for a time a gentle drive was pos- 
sible to him, and he still spent 
hours on the balcony, in the gar- 
den, and on the turfy lap of the 
first easy slopes by which, from the 
very garden walls of those eyrie 
houses facing seawards along St. 
Boniface's road, the hill mounts 
up, and ever more sharply up, up, 
up to the breezy height of St. Boni- 
face's Down. Aught but cheery in 
his presence we could not be, he 
was so full of sweet brightness him- 
self, and we gathered about him 
and lingered beside him more, I 
thought sometimes, than he ought 
to bear ; but this he could not be 
brought to believe. 

Frequently now we were joined 
for an hour or two of an evening 
by two of Harry's Romanist friends, 
made in Ventnor : the parish priest, 
a handsome, jovial Irishman of 
charming musical abilities, and a 
mid- England canon, staying in 
Ventnor on sick- furlough " An Ox- 
ford man," said Sister Gertrude, 
"and one of the most dangerous of 
perverts. " She was at first very shy 
of these visitors, but the reverend 
canon was himself so blushing and 
easily disconcerted that she hastily 
concluded his powers and danger- 
ousness had been greatly overrated ; 
and when she found the shy man 
could warm into delightful dis- 
course, that nothing within his 
range escaped piercing glance and 
analysis, that his wit and his logic 
were as keen as inevitable, she had 
become so entirely interested in the 
details of reformatory work in 
which he was head, heart, and, more 
than all, his time and means engag- 
ed in his big and poorest of city 
parishes, so convinced that he, too, 
was a good wolf, that she forgot to 
keep persistently in mind the hid- 
den claws and fangs. She was, 



moreover, a good deal occupied 
with Harry, having, as soon as his 
condition was declared, installed 
herself as nurse-in-chief, with my 
husband for her very zealous and 
obedient subaltern. Both joined 
in shelving me as an incapable in 
the work, but Harry diplomatized 
my annoyance away. " What 
brother of St. Barnabas ever staged 
it down hill so attended and waited 
upon?" he said. "A famous Lon- 
don doctor for courier over the 
new route ; Sister Gertrude, the 
chief spoke in the wheel of a great 
hospital, at my back all day long; 
Rodney, too, the most tireless of 
lay brothers, as deputy nurse ; Helen 
to carry on the guardian angel de- 
partment, with Mabel for attend- 
ant cherub ; Fathers G and 

W as ghostly adjutants." 

" And Sister Mary Agnes, Har- 
ry ?" 

" Yes, Sister Mary Agnes what 
r6le would you assign her? The 
good, the true, and the beautiful ? 
Or shall we say that she's lee- 
trice to his most unworthy high- 
ness ?" 

His faithful reader she was daily, 
and this was a pleasure we mostly 
shared with him ; for, besides our 
desire to be near Harry, her lovely 
voice, which she used in reading " 
with vivid feeling and expression, 
drew us all like a spell. 

Middlemarch was then just com- 
pleted, and we had Middlemarch a 
reading which, with all its enjoy- 
ment, gave a first hard blow to the 
intense loyalty of certain of our 
number to George Eliot. Harry 
revelled in Alice 's Adventures in 
Wonderland, which the canon 
brought us, and could not enjoy 
enough the songs and the vanish- 
ing grin of the Cheshire cat. Then 
we had Mrs. Oliphant's St. Francis 
of Assist, and a little French me- 



Sister Mary Agnes. 



moir which, aside from its intrinsic 
merit, touched us keenly, because 
its subject, a priest of that fervid 
time in the Gallican Church of 
such priests as Fathers Lacordaire 
and Ravignan, such laymen as Mon- 
talembert, Rio, and Ozanam a sub- 
ject full of esprit, elan, graces of 
mind and manner, and on fire with 
heavenly love died in the rare 
promise of his early manhood. 
There was constant mention in the 
book of one and another of his 
friends among the leaders of Catho- 
lic thought and work in France ; 
at one of them, a name new to us, 
Sister Mary Agnes dropped the 
book upon her lap and looked at 
Harry. " I knew that man," she 

said, " Father P . God bless him 

wherever he is ! If ever man wore 
the visible beauty of holiness, he 
did. He was like an alabaster 
vase, translucent and softly radiant 
from lamp burning within it. He 
was very young when I saw him, 
and his youthfulness of aspect lent 
his sanctity something pathetic, 
angelic, irresistible. I don't think 
I was in his company for more than 
one hour, but that hour changed all 
my life, I hope." 

" Did he say something that 
moved you, or was it his look sim- 
ply?" asked Sister Gertrude. 

"A little thing he did; and I 
had been, from the first moment, 
very much impressed by his look 
and manner. It was between four 
and five years ago. I was just eight- 
een, and mamma had celebrated 
my own and a sister's release from 
governess and lesson-books by a 
Swiss summer, from which we re- 
turned via Paris, stopping there a 
month for sight-seeing. 

We had gone to see Father P 's 

church, and a note of introduction 
we carried to him from a Polish 
cousin who is a nun procured us 



our interview with him and his 
personal guidance about the church. 
" We were an entirely worldly par- 
ty churchwomen, oh ! yes, and I 
was even reckoned a Ptiseyite, and 
much berated by my aunt there- 
for. She was of the party, a faith- 
ful reader of The Rock, and of 
course bitterly anti-Roman, but the 
rest of us were quite indifferent 
contemptuous, if we had thought 
about it, but sufficiently conde- 
scending to find much enjoyment 
in our inspection of the church, 
which we treated as an art museum 
simply. 

" Returning from our tour through 
the side chapels, we had, to reach 
the sacristy whence we had enter- 
ed, to cross directly before the 
high altar, before which, of course, 
the sanctuary lamp was burning. 
You can imagine how we crossed 
heads erect, knees stiff, staring at, 
and audibly commenting upon, the 
altar and the picture above it. I 

was next to Father P , and he 

the last of the party. I turned, after 
walking past the gates of the sanc- 
tuary, for another look, or to address 
him some complimentary observa- 
tion, but in time to catch a look of 
pain and horror upon his face, and 
to see him throw himself upon his 
knees on the steps before the gates 
with such impetuous abandon that 
his forehead even was pressed 
against them. It was over in an 
instant, but like electricity the con- 
sciousness flashed through me how 
our graceless irreverence had 
shocked and hurt him, and that he 
had flung himself down, offering his 
love and homage in reparation of 
our rude scorn. In the same mo- 
ment came my first real thought 
about the Real Presence and what 
it must mean to one who truly be- 
lieved. I knew I had had a glimpse 
of a bared soul a soul fused with 



Sister Mary Agnes. 



love and absolute certainty. Years 
could not have convicted me more 
entirely of the relation to each oth- 
er of things temporal and things 
spiritual in that man's mind our 
Lord all, and the heaped gifts of 
earth, without him, only smoking 
flax. It was all so swift, I was so 
overwhelmed, so personally humili- 
ated, that without reason, only that 
I had somehow to do it, I dropped 
upon my knees where I stood. 

Father P waited for me to rise, 

and we were soon all in his parlor 
again. There he insisted upon of- 
fering us cakes, fruit, wine, and 
gave each of the party a little me- 
mento of our visit crosses of olive- 
wood, lace pictures, and to me a 
little medal of Our Lady. ' I 
should like to give you this,' he 
said. * Should you dislike or be 
afraid to wear it ?' 

" * Certainly not afraid, mon pere j 
but I can't promise that I will.' 

" l Bien. At least I am sure you 
will not treat with disrespect what 
I give you with so many good 
wishes.' And when we took our 
leave he added a special little word 
to me. 

" 'Adieu, mon enfant. I shall not 
forget you. Au del! if I never 
see you again on earth.' 

" ' And see the wily popery of 
the man ! I meant not to wear the 
medal, but I think he prayed it on 
to me, for so soon as I could get a 
chain I put it on my neck, and 
there it has been ever since !" 

When July came hope for Harry 
had well-nigh left us. He could 
no longer get down-stairs, but was 
still able to sit up some hours 
daily, and to bear being wheeled 
from his sleeping-room to our 
sitting-room on the same floor. 
The fainting-fits were of frequent 
recurrence, he was but the wan 
ghost of himself, and the doctor 



could say no more than that there 
was still a chance for life. Harry, 
however, complained of nothing. 
He would have all our life to go on 
as nearly as might be, as if he were 
not ill ; he was interested in all our 
small events, the sunshine of days 
whose every lapsing hour we felt 
menaced by a terror of darkness. 
Sister Gertrude he had taken alto- 
gether captive. 

" You are so good, Harry," she 
would say, " that I feel as if I were 
tending some stray angel." 

Even Sister Mary Agnes lost her 
fright at illness. " Who would 
dream," she said to me, " that a sick 
man, or sickness at all, could be 
like that? He is like a star fading 
out in a morning sky. I don't 
know if this is dying, but, if it 
were, who could, for him, be aught 
but happy ?" 

She read to him still, but not 
for long now, and chiefly what he 
could no longer read for himself 
the Gospel of the day, a chapter of 
The Following of Christ, something 
wholly devotional. 

Both the sisters had become very- 
dear to us all, and seemed in no- 
way aliens, but of ourselves, in this 
bitter-sweet time. As for Sister 
Gertrude, she was our staff; yet I 
could but wonder sometimes she 
was left to us so long. 

" How is it with Sister Mary Ag- 
nes?" I asked her. " Do the trou- 
bled waters of her spirit subside at 
all ? Does she seem nearer ability 
to make her decision about the 
sisterhood ?" 

"I fear it is no longer staying 
in the sisterhood that's in question,"" 
Sister Gertrude replied. ' I feel 
such a fraud to be going about in 
this dress,' she told me lately. 
'But I've no other garment to put 
on, and perhaps the keeping in 
these a little longer won't make my 



Sister Mary Agnes. 



crime any blacker.' I ask her no- 
thing; I'm afraid to listen when 
she begins speaking to me earnest- 
ly. For a while, when we first 
came, she read some doctrinal 
books, but they've long been put 
aside. I know she lias lately had 

several talks with Canon W , and 

she spends hours, when there's no 
service going on, in the Catholic 
chapel. I implored her to consid- 
er the scandal of an Anglican sis- 
ter haunting a Romish chapel, 
coming and going before all eyes, 
in the broad day and now she 
goes after dusk, when I can go 
with her. It's a poor little place 
enough, but the glories of the 
grandest cathedral wouldn't lighten, 
to me, the heavy minutes I wait there 
for her. But it might be heaven, 
to hear her : ' Can't you feel it ?' she 
cries to me ' the peace, the surety, 
the Presence ? Our Lord waiting 
there, and not withholding himself 
from even such a hesitating, cow- 
ardly skulker by night as I am?' 
Surely she has said enough to me, 
and some of our friends are al- 
ready gravely displeased that I 
linger here with her, and above all 
that we maintain close relations 
with a household containing such 
dangerous elements and allies. In- 
dulgence I am sure won't last 
much longer; I shall have to leave 
with her or go without her. How 
hard the latter looks I cannot tell 
you. People treat with respect 
the close friendship that may exist 
between men, but reckon lightly 
the strength of the affection women 
feel for each other. My love for 
Sister Mary Agnes is the strongest 
earthly sentiment I have known, 
and it is weak to say that death 
looks easier far to me than a life 
estranged from her in spirit and 
abiding-place. But I blame no- 
body least of all Sister Mary Ag- 



nes herself. Sometimes I think it 
was ordered our coming here, and 
the worst that can happen !" 

It was but a few days after this 
that our sad, hastily-thrust-aside 
forebodings for Harry became an 
anguished certainty: we must let 
him go. 

" I ought to tell you that there 
is no longer room for hope," de- 
clared the doctor. "I find this 
morning a fatal sign whose coming 
I have never known life to outlast 
a fortnight. There is less than 
usual prostration his young 
strength makes a brave battle 
but, if there are matters he 
would wish to settle, better not 
delay too long. The end may be 
at the furthest limit I have men- 
tioned, and it may be any time !" 

In the afternoon we were sitting, 
my husband and I, in Harry's 
room beside his bed. We were 
sorrowful, but in great peace we 
two ; Harry serene and joyous as 
one who starts on a long-desired, 
long-planned journey. We had 
talked freely of what was so nearly 
come, or, rather, Harry had talked, 
and we listened, clinging to him 
with eyes and hands. He was so 
calm, so happy, we could not be 
all unconsoled. Time and the 
world shrivelled as from their 
boundaries we gazed, with him, 
through the opening gates at life 
real, infinite. 

"As for my worldly affairs," said 
Harry, "there are still some things 
to be done. You, Rodney " he 
paused at a knock at the door, and 
Sister Gertrude entered, her face 
flushed and disfigured with much 
weeping. 

" Harry, Helen, Mr. Ellison, 
she began hurriedly, "I find I must 
go up to London to-night, and 
have come to say good- by, and to 
see w hat arrangements can be 



Sister Mary Agnes. 



made for supplying my place here 
with Harry." 

" Rodney and I will take care of 
Harry," I said; "but you are com- 
ing back ? You do not mean we 
are to say good-by finally ?" 

"I hope it is not a final good- 
by," she answered, "but I certain- 
ly go with no intention of returning. 
Don't think me quite forgetful and 
selfish ; I must go now, and I carry 
a great grief with me. I have lost 
Sister Mary Agnes ! She is no 
longer a Sister of St. Barnabas; 
she was baptized a Romanist by 

Canon W at the chapel this 

morning. I hope you, at least, are 
satisfied?" she finished, looking re- 
proachfully at Harry. 

" Thankful and pleased, dear 
Sister Gertrude," he returned, 
" but not quite satisfied. I could 
be more nearly that if you and my 
two dear people here were * such as 
I also am except these bonds.' " 

" And does Sister Ma can I 
learn to say Miss Rotheray? does 
she remain ?" I asked. 

"Yes, for a little, while she waits 
for letters from her family," was 
the answer. " It is not quite suit- 
able, her staying in lodgings by 
herself, but I am more troubled 
by what will become of her after- 
ward. Some members of the fami- 
ly will be very violent at her hav- 
ing become a per " she hesitated. 

" We'll compromise, Sister Ger- 
trude," cried Harry. " I won't say 
con, and you won't say per : we'll 
call her a 'vert /" 

" A Vert, then," said Sister Ger- 
trude, smiling faintly. " Her mo- 
ther will not be bitter Romanism 
is rather the high uncommon 
fashion of late but she is a great 
lady of limited means, with a bril- 
liant family of sons and daughters 
to settle in life sons and daugh- 
ters as worldly as their mother 



and to have so unsympathetic a 
daughter, whom she thought dis- 
posed of, returned upon her hands 
and her purse will be as uncom- 
fortable for her as the home life 
will be intolerable to the daughter. 
Even in its material aspects it is a 
sad business." 

"I wish, Sister Gertrude, that 
you would be so kind as to beg 
Miss Rotheray to come here with 
you for a few minutes," said Harry. 

She looked at him doubtfully, 
but resistance was impossible. 
" I'm an arch abetter of 'verts and 
popery myself," she murmured, but 
she left the room. 

" Rodney," said Harry, " you 
must not be hurt at anything I am 
going to say. It is a good many 
months now since I devoted a por- 
tion, and the larger portion, of my 
property to a special purpose quite 
distinct from claims of affection or 
kindred. The smaller portion goes 
in gifts and legacies already pro- 
vided for ; the larger is to be de- 
posited in a lump in the Bank of 
Heaven, and you, Rodney, are to 
administer the whole. You see I'm 
providing trouble for you when I 
shall be out of the way of furnish- 
ing it personally." 

" What you have is your own, 
dear boy, to do with exactly as you 
see fit," Rodney answered, and 
then we were silent till the door 
reopened to admit Sister Gertrude 
and her lost lamb. 

Miss Rotheray was no longer the 
Anglican sister in garb. She wore 
a black cashmere gown, plainly 
made, but fashioned like the gown 
of the period, its sombreness re- 
lieved by an ivory cross upon her 
breast, and white at throat and 
wrists, and her head was bare, 
showing the dark hair rippled to its 
roots in long, natural waves, but 
combed plainly away from her face, 






Sister Mary Agnes. 



73 



and fastened in heavy braids close- 
ly about her head long, rich, East- 
ern hair, such as Queen Esther 
must have worn. She bore some 
traces of the agitating scene she 
had had with Sister Gertrude ; her 
eyes shone as if recently visited by 
tears, and there was a simple sweet- 
ness in her look that was newly 
there, or that I for the first time 
discerned. Harry held out his 
hand. 

" I want to give you both hands," 
he cried, "but this left one's a soul- 
less, stock-still member. It was a 
beautiful morning's work ! How 
happy, how all at rest you are going 
to be ! I congratulate you with all 
my heart, for myself and for these 
people here who don't know yet 
how much they should rejoice for 
you." 

" Thank you," she answered. 
" I knew you would be glad. I 
wanted to send word to you yester- 
day that all doubt was over and 
that I sa\v my way clear, but it 
seemed best not. I am very happy 
and thankful." 

"Won't you sit down?" Harry 
begged. " Dear Sister Gertrude, 
you too ; please stay for a few 
minutes." 

He closed his eyes and was si- 
lent a moment or two, then, open- 
ing them, he turned his head on 
the pillow so that he could the more 
easily see Miss Rotheray. 

"This is very informal," he mur- 
mured, " yet it is formidable, too. 
Miss Rotheray, will you marry me ?" 

Sister Gertrude started violently, 
but her young companion beside 
her did not move. Instead the 
deep color rose to her face and 
passed over it wave after wave ; 
then she grew extremely pale. 

" I do not expect to marry," she 
said. " I have never meant to mar- 
ry anybody." 



"And it wouldn't be marrying 
anybody to marry me," returned 
Harry. " I am not a body, but a 
flying shadow ! But I understand 
you, and I must explain myself. 

" It is nearly two years now since 
it came to me very strongly that I 
was to give myself, and the larger 
share of such wealth as I possessed, 
to our Lord's special service in 
thanksgiving for the very especial 
manner in which he had sought me 
out and drawn me to him. I have 
not been clear as to what he would 
have of me, whether I was to serve 
as priest or layman. I came abroad 
hoping that my vocation and work 
might in these older homes of the 
faith, or in Rome, be revealed to 
me. I was not disappointed ; we all 
know what my vocation is my 
happiest vocation !" He stopped, 
rested a moment, and went on. 
" I am to go, but you, it is likely, 
may stay many years in this world. 
And there are my pledged worldly 
goods ; cannot you be my steward 
and dispense them for me ? I ask 
you to marry a dying man because 
I think that so some things may be 
made easier for you, and because 
to your own family, to some mem- 
bers of mine, and to the world 
generally it will be entirely natural 
that as my widow you should 
hold and dispose of my property." 

He stopped again and looked 
fixedly at the young girl, but she 
remained silent with eyes down- 
cast. 

" You are very beautiful," he said. 
"All through our Channel Islands 
journey I could not forget that 
glimpse I had had of you when 
starting. How it might have been 
with me had I come back unhurt, 
had I found you other than what 
you are, I can't say; but I could 
not know you without feeling that 
you were of those who on earth are 



74 



Sister Mary Agnes. 



to lead the angelic life, and I was 
at once by sister Helen, and later 
by yourself, so interested in your 
religious doubts and beliefs, and 
the difficulties of your position, 
that I had no thought for you save 
spiritually. But, spiritually, you 
possessed me. I felt in every way 
powerless to help you, but one day 
down in our little chapel, when I 
was yet quite unconscious that my 
injury was a mortal one, I offered 
my life to our Lord, to be at any 
moment yielded into his hands if 
but he would bestow the gift of 
faith upon you, lead your wander- 
ing feet into his fold. I don't know 
that he accepted my offering, but 
'greater love,' you know, 'hath no, 
man than this.' Have I not some 
claim upon you? Cannot you do 
for me some of the things I must 
leave undone serve for me as well 
as for yourself?" 

Still silence, but Miss Rotheray 
was intensely pale, and her eyes 
were fixed upon a small crucifix that 
stood upon a table placed near the 
head of the bed. Suddenly Sister 
Gertrude turned, showing a face 
drenched in tears. She caught 
hold of Miss Rotheray's arm. 

" You must, you know you must ! " 
she said. 

The girl rose to her feet and 
looked at Rodney and rne. Past 
speech, I waved her toward Harry 
with both hands in a gesture of 
benediction, and as silently Rodney 
rose, took her hand, and led her to- 
ward the bedside. Lifting the cru- 
cifix from the table, she dropped 
upon her knees beside the bed, 
placed the crucifix in Harry's hand, 
then clasped both her own around 
it. 

"I am not thinking of myself," 
she cried. " I was frightened, 
adrift. You are and have been 
wholly generous. I see it all. I 



will do whatever you ask : thank 
God for us both as well as I can, 
be as faithfully your steward as I 
can, and you will ask him to make 
me worthier your trust." 

Harry feebly drew the crucifix 
and the hands holding his to his 
lips. 

"Thank you!" he said, and 
"Send for your mother "; and then 
sank away from us in one of the 
habitual fainting-fits. 

Sister Gertrude promptly banish- 
ed the rest of us from the room, 
and, when Harry had recovered, 
she promised to await Mrs. Rothe- 
ray's coming to deliver her daugh- 
ter into her care ; but the marriage, 
which we fixed for the second 
morning following the betrothal, 
she could and must not stay to 
see. Mrs. Rotheray telegraphed 
in response to our summons that she 
would arrive in Ventnor the next 
evening. 

Rodney at once went out to 
make the necessary arrangements 
for the ceremony, and Harry sent 
for me. 

" I want her to wear white," he 
said " a real bride's dress, Helen ! 
Can you manage it ?" 

A bride's dress, and two nights 
and one day the time in which to 
prepare it, in a small seaside resort 
several hours from London ! 

But I would not discourage 
Harry, so, answering him hopefully, 
I left him to go at once to the lead- 
ing draper in Ventnor. 

He was overwhelmed at the need 
for haste, but less despairing than 
I had feared. There was still time 
to get things down from London, 
and for the gown itself " Entirely 
plain, you said, madam ?" " En- 
tirely." Well, it should be done. 
I might dismiss all uneasiness. 

Mrs. Rotheray and her eldest 
son arrived the next afternoon. 



Sister Mary Agnes. 



Sister Gertrude bad an hour's talk 
with them, then bade us a tearful, 
loving farewell and went sadly 
back to her sisters and her hospi- 
tal work. I suppose she and Miss 
Rotheray explained matters to the 
new-comers, and whether or not 
these had much difficulty in adapt- 
ing themselves thereto we my 
husband and myself did not know, 
but we found them very polite in 
the brief moments we could spare 
them from Harry. 

Rodney made them acquainted 
with Harry's wishes and arrange- 
ments as to the property which 
would be his wife's, its amount, etx. 
They seemed surprised that so 
large a sum should be left abso- 
lutely untrammelled. " My daugh- 
ter is a person of quite inconsider- 
ate generosity and enthusiasms," 
said Mrs. Rotheray. " I should 
be disposed to suggest that either 
a portion of this sum, or a fixed 
yearly income, be made inaliena- 
ble." It was impossible to explain 
to these auditors that the money 
was all a heavenly loan. " I will 
mention your suggestion to my 
brother," Rodney responded, and 
then he took Mrs. Rotheray in to 
see Harry and give a formal con- 
sent to the marriage. 

She came out of the room her 
stately repose somewhat shaken. 

" How charming he is !" she ex- 
claimed to me. " I never saw any 
man's face wear so angelic an ex- 
pression, and his manner is per- 
fectly winning. What an irrepara- 
ble loss to his family, and I can- 
not but feel what a loss to my 
daughter and ourselves !" 

There have been more joyous 
weddings, sadder weddings, than 
Harry's, but never one fuller of a 
sweet une arthlin ess. It was in the 
early morning, when Harry was at 
his brightest and strongest. The 



sun, across a sea of molten silver 
and the slate and red-rust-colored r 
verdure-smothered roofs of the 
older Ventnor, poured in level 
floods through the room's great 
eastern window of the high-hung 
house, and sparkled on chalice and 
candelabra of the altar at which 
Canon W was to say the mar- 
riage Mass, and on the gold embroi- 
deries of his white vestments. 
Scents of roses, honeysuckles, 
stocks, and carnations came through 
the open casements from the gar- 
den below to mingle with that of 
the great clumps of Annunciation 
lilies that filled alone the altar 

vases. Kind Father G was to 

serve Canon W at the Mass r 

and it was he who had arranged 
the altar, toiling repeatedly up and 
down the steep, long hillside that 
it might be decorated with the 
finest treasures of his little sacristy, 
Beside the bed he had placed a 
prie-dieu draped in white for the 
bride, and on its cushion lay the 
father's gifts to her a missal of 
snowy binding and a small silver 
crucifix of exquisite workmanship. 
And the bride herself who of us 
will ever forget the fair, grave vi- 
sion ? Her closely-fitting gown of 
thick white silk fell, unvexed by 
ornament, in flowing lines from 
throat to hem, but a train of sump- 
tuous sweep, caught in Watteau 
folds at the shoulders, lent the se- 
vere costume grace and majesty. 
A fichu of finely-plaited tulle filled 
the square-cut neck, plaited tulle 
frills finished the elbow sleeves and 
met the half-long gloves, and her 
veil was a cloud of the same misty 
material. She wore no jewel, no 
flowers save a cluster of such lilies 
as were upon the altar at her breast, 
and, simple as the toilette was, it 
harmonized perfectly with the se- 
rious, virginal beauty of its wearer. 



7 6 



Sister Mary Agnes. 



" You look a true bride of Hea- 
ven," Harry murmured as, the rites 
over and our friends withdrawn, 
we, his nearest, gathered about 
him, " and to Heaven I give you ! 
I shall hold you in only a mo- 
ment's bondage." 

It is three years since that wed- 
ding morning. A month ago Ma- 
bel and I journeyed from Hyeres 
to Antwerp to 'meet my husband, 
who had gone home to stand be- 
side his mother's deathbed, and, re- 
turning thence, brought with him 
his oldest and only unmarried sis- 
ter, to rest with us from the physi- 
cal and mental strain of long care- 
taking and great loneliness and 
grief. 

" Take me first where Henry 
died," she said, "and then I will 
go wherever you choose." 

So we crossed the Channel, went 
down to the Isle of Wight, and 
staid at Ventnor two or three weeks 
of the late spring. We showed her 
where Harry lay, the room where 
he died, the walks and views he 
loved best. Over and over again 
we recalled the incidents of those 
last months with us, what he said 
and did. She pointedly avoided 
asking any questions concerning 
his marriage. " It seemed to us a 
most inexplicable affair !" she said 
with stiff disapprobation, yet she 
listened intently to every word 
dropped concerning her whom we 
called always Sister Mary Agnes. 
She escaped from the room when- 
ever Father G called upon us; 

and we thought it as well, for we 
could not imagine what the genial 
young Irishman and the elderly, 
precise woman of Quaker garb and 
speech, who never in her life made 
a joke, understood one, or let pass 
unaccounted for a fantastic expres- 
sion, would make of each other. 



From Ventnor we went up to 
London to show her the great city 
at its busiest, sunniest time. Dis- 
cussing plans the morning after our 
arrival, she startled us by propos- 
ing that she should first of all be 
taken to see Harry's wife ! 

"I suppose from what thee says," 
she added apologetically to me, 
" she is too busy to go to see any 
one, and thee knows I ou^ht to see 
her." 

An hour later our little party of 
four got into a carriage at the Charing 
Cross Station to drive the remain- 
der of our way. Rodney briefly 
did the honors of the route, which 
I presently discovered was zizzag- 
ging to give our sister a little no- 
tion of the neighbors of the lady 
we were going to visit. 

" This, Beulah, is the Strand, 
and we're leaving it now to go to 
Covent Garden. Now you may 
brush up your history. Inigo 
Jones built nearly the whole region 
we're going to traverse. And here 
here's the famous market. Stop ! 
driver. I'm going to get out one 
moment. You can remember Pepys 
and all the rest of them while I am 
gone." 

He was back in brief space with 
a basket piled with wild and cot- 
tage-garden flowers cowslips, prim- 
roses, rock- croft, jonquils, wall- 
flowers, lilies of the valley, and 
white, fringy clove pinks sweets 
we had need of in our dismal round 
through Long Acre, Drury Lane, 
Seven Dials, and St. Giles. The 
sights, the smells, the noises, the 
grime, the poverty, the dreadful- 
ness of everything, frightened, as 
well they might, my little girl and 
her carefully-nurtured and shield- 
ed Quaker aunt. 

" Oh ! this is awful, awful," Beu- 
lah cried. " How, Rodney, can thee 
keep on talking about Dryden, and 






Sister Mary Agnes. 



Fielding, and the person thee calls 
Ellen Gwynn, and dead-and-gone 
folks and times, in such places as 
these ? Who ever saw such faces 
on human beings ? And children 
live in those black alleys and 
courts ! And gin-shops every- 
where ! And sounds as of the pit ! 
What a shame to London ! How 
can the queen sleep quietly in her 
bed of nights ? Is there any other 
place in the world so dreadful ?" 

A few moments more and we 
had crossed Oxford Street, had 
threaded a short passage-way or 
two, and were in a stately old thor- 
oughfare almost deserted of life, 
and soundless save for the deaden- 
ed roar of the busy, over-populous 
region and streets we had just 
quitted. The houses were the 
wide, substantial, aristocratic man- 
sions of an early day, given up now 
to the professional uses of soli- 
citors, physicians, publishers, and 
shabby-genteel lodging-house keep- 
ers. 

Before one of the largest of the 
fine old houses we stopped. It 
had signs of ordinary household 
occupancy: the steps were spot- 
Itss, the knocker glittered, there 
were window-boxes gay with dai- 
sies, and all the open windows of 
the upper stories had, ruffling and 
blowing in the fresh spring air, the 
short, full curtains of lace or mus- 
lin that mark an English dormi- 
tory. 

" BLANK STREET DAY NURSERY AND 

ORPHANS' HOME," 

read Beulah from the plate upon 
the door as we stood waiting on 
the steps. 

"Thee don't mean that Henry's 
wife lives here ? This is never the 
place of her charitable school ?" 

" Yes, sister," Rodney answered, 



77 

" and this house and its work are 
in memoriam Henry Ellison." 

She said no more, and was very 
quiet while we waited in the little 
reception-room whither a tidy little 
maid showed us, bringing us pres- 
ently " Sister Mary Agnes' dear 
love, and she would come to us in 
a very few minutes." Simple as 
any convent cell the room was 
the floor bare and waxed, a table 
and some chairs, on the wall two 
pictures, the Good Shepherd and 
a photograph of Francia's Pietct. 

Mabel stationed herself beside 
the door with the great basket of 
flowers. 

" See, auntie," she screamed, 
lifting it up as the door opened, 
" all for your little children." 

" And bless auntie's own dar- 
ling !" returned a voice, beautiful 
and bell-clear as of yore, but full 
now of ringing joyousness. " Dear 
Helen and Rodney," it said, and its 
owner lifted herself from the child's 
impetuous embrace and turned to- 
wards us with flushed cheeks and 
welcoming eyes. 

" This is our sister, Beulah Elli- 
son," Rodney said; then, "And, 
Beulah, this is Harry's wife our 
Sister Mary Agnes." 

Beulah acknowledged the pre- 
sentation with shy precision, but 
still remained unusually silent, and 
I could see she was observing her 
new relative very closely. I was 
quite willing she should, for, fasci- 
nating as Sister Mary Agnes had 
been in the days when we knew 
her first, I thought her by far love- 
lier now. In her expression and 
whole bearing was the same change 
one heard in the voice a radiant 
content. The eyes had lost their 
far-off look, the cheeks were faintly 
tinged with pink; she wore, with 
all her vestal grace, the air of ten- 
der promptness and practicality 



Sister Mary Agnes. 



that maternity, or an appeal to the 
maternal passion, gives women 
who have the true instinct of mo- 
therhood. 

Her gown of black stuff was as 
severely plain as Beulah's own, 
but its lines, and those of her some- 
what voluminous apron of white 
linen, with bib, could not, on her 
stately person, fail of elegance. 

" You look at my apron, Helen," 
she said, catching my admiring 
glance, " and it is very domestic 
uniform in which to receive visitors ; 
but I had kept you so long wait- 
ing " she lowered her voice, that 
Rodney, helping Mabel at the other 
side the room to untie the strings 
on the separate big bunches of 
flowers, might not hear " the 
truth is, a child was brought in this 
morning so unbelievably squalid, 
filthy, worse, that I could not ask 
anybody to undertake making her 
wholesome and tidy, and when I 
had finished with her myself no- 
thing but a bath and an entire 
change of garments was possible to 
me. You came just as I had be- 
gun my second toilette for the day. 
I thought there were but you and 
Rodney, that you would want to go 
among the children presently, so 
the apron went on. Rodney and 
Helen have told you what are the 
uses of this house, I suppose ?" she 
added to Beulah. 

"I knew thee had a home of 
some kind for orphans, but what is 
the day nursery? And is not this 
a very unhealthy neighborhood to 
choose for the orphans, to say no- 
thing of yourself and those who 
help you ? I could not have be- 
lieved there were such horrible 
places in the world as we came 
through near here this morning." 

" It is not like the country, nor 
like Kensington and Bayswater, 
certainly, but I hope it is not very 



unsanitary. The day nursery is a 
place where poor mothers who 
work all day away from home may 
leave their babies and young chil- 
dren during their absence, sure 
that they will be well and kindly 
cared for. Indeed, poor mothers 
who live in dens, and who do not 
go out from them to work, are glad 
to put their puny, often half-dying 
children where they can be made 
clean, have sunshine, air, and proper 
food. A creche must be near its 
patrons, and, living so near all this 
poverty and suffering, one finds 
endless opportunities for being of 
use. Perhaps some day we shall 
be rich enough to have a little 
place in the country for the or- 
phans. But won't you like to go 
over the house ? You know it is 
all your brother's ; I am only one of 
the workers in it." 

So in procession we set forth, 
beginning in the kitchen regions. 
Everywhere, save in the living- 
places of the children, we found 
the barest simplicity, but a shining, 
odorous cleanliness that extorted 
Beulah's warm commendation. 

The children were in three rooms 
the orphans, kept wholly by Sj^- 
ter Mary Agnes, in one, in another 
the elders of her loaned clientele, 
and those who were quite babies 
in the largest, sunniest of the suite. 
Whoever has seen a creche can 
fancy what we saw the gay pic- 
tures on the walls, the swinging 
beds, the skins and mattresses 
spread upon the floor for the babies 
to tumble harmlessly upon, the 
babies themselves, crowing, staring, 
kicking, sleeping some pretty and 
gleeful as babies of happiest for- 
tune, but more dwarfed, pale, and 
pathetically still and patient. Sis- 
ter Mary Agnes explained the care 
they had, and fondly picked up one 
and another of the little creatures 



The Flowers Homily. 



to show us how pitiful its state was, 
or how it was bettered or wholly 
flourishing. It was noon, and two 
or three mothers had run in to 
nurse their babies ; she had a 
pleasant word for each, and patient- 
ly listened to the vehemently-whis- 
pered tale of injury from one, and 
returned sympathy or hope of aid, 
judging from the woman's face. 
In the other rooms the older chil- 
dren clustered round her, clinging 
to her clothes, her hands, and when 
she lifted Mabel into a chair, and 
the distribution of handfuls of 
flowers began, the excitement rose 
to ecstasy. 

" The dormitories inspected, 
now," she said briskly, " I am going 
to show you my little sick children. 
I have to put them at the top of 
the house. An infirmary's the 
thing we need most a children's in- 
firmary. My heart is broken with 
having to refuse poor little patients 
day after day, and we've not an- 
other inch of space for them. I'm 
waiting for a miracle. A house 
alongside us is for sale ; 1,200 will 
buy it and fit it tolerably for hospi- 
tal use, I can spare two hundred 
pounds toward it, and our Lord 
has all the money, so I think we 



79 

shall sooner or later have the house. 
He has worked just worked a 
greater miracle : given me the best 
helper in the world to be at the 
head of the new infirmary. I'm the 
happiest woman the sun shines on ! 
Helen, Rodney, don't be afraid for 
Mabel ; there's nothing infectious 
amongst our patients, and I want 
you to see my miracle." She soft- 
ly opened the door wide, and there, 
stooping over a child in a low bed 
almost opposite, was Sister Ger- 
trude ! 

"Rodney," Beulah said the next 
morning, " I've slept upon it, and I 
think Henry's wife must have her 
hospital for the little children. 
Thee knows all those crosses, and 
images, and pictures of the Virgin 
are dreadful to me, and I certain- 
ly have no call to help idolatry and 
popery! But Mary Agnes is a good 
woman, full of charity and mercy. 
Her work is blessed work, and I 
don't think it'll hurt me to help it 
a little. May be I shall never put 
any of my money to better use. At 
any rate I mean well, and, Rodney, 
thee'll help me to turn over a thou- 
sand pounds to her as soon as thee 
can manage it. I understand Hen- 
ry's marriage now !" 



THE FLOWERS' HOMILY, 
i. 

UNTO Blessed Paul, whom love named " of the Cross," 
Spoke gracious words the soulless works of God, 
The gardens' delicate bloom, the forest broad; 
Even the golden grain-fields' seeming dross 
Of purple cockle and death-freighted head 
Of scarlet poppy in loud accents cried 
The amorous words man's rebel lips denied: 
" Love God, love God, whose love is life's true bread." 
All voiceless nature to the saint's wide heart 
This warm entreaty murmured evermore, 
This rosary of beads told o'er and o'er. 
No frailest grass-blade but bore well its part 



8o The Floivers Homily. 

In this vast unison of passionate praise 
That stilled in love's fine ear all lesser lays. 



Dearest, when came the spring's young day, the saint 
Obedient earth's fresh-flowered ways would tread, 
Bending his earnest gaze on each fair head 
In unreaped harvest lifted eloquent ; 
Hearing the voice that echoed from his heart 
From these love-lighted faces ever break 
" Love God, love God, whose love doth ever wake." 
Then "Silence, silence !" from his lips would start 
As softly he the pleading blossoms smote, 
The perishable things whose life, renewed, 
Filled their pure veins with gratitude 
While man's immortal soul stood coldly mute, 
Unheeding in the spring's skies' deeps of blue 
God's love more deep light's wide seas shining through. 



Did it so pain the saint that soulless life 
Knew need love's lesson unto men to teach 
That, soul-ashamed, he' silenced its sweet speech 
Lest broke his heart in sad, tormenting strife 
Of love that fain would conquer earth for God? 
For dear he held the flowers' homily, 
Bidding his brothers in that beauty see 
The constant call uprising from earth's sod, 
" Love God, love God, who suffered for man's sake." 
So well he read the words Christ spoke of old 
When 'neath his feet the multitude unrolled 
Its garments and in loud hosannas brake 
Of envious hearts rebuked. " Nay, should these cease, 
The very stones no more shall hold their peace." 

IV. 

Ah ! little one of Christ, on earth cross-signed, 
On high crowned saint of Jesus crucified, 
With us to-day still bloom the ways beside 

The flowers wherein the gracious words we find ; 

Ours too are blossoms rare for heaven grown, 

Marked with the cross and God's most loving heart. 
That, eloquent, amid our gardens start 

From precious seed thy faithful hand hath sown. 

And these cry out as faithless men pass by 
So well they know thy cloister-garden speech 
So far thy lessons of old days can reach 

" Love God, love God, whom love of thee made die ; 

His name call out in full heart's ecstasy, 

Lest silent soul be dumb eternally." 



The Bollandist A eta Sanctorum. 



81 



THE BOLLANDIST ACT A S4NCTORUM. 



AT the suppression of its parent 
society in 1773 tne subordinate 
work of- the Bollandist editors was 
naturally involved in the calamity. 
A hundred and thirty years had 
elapsed since the appearance of its 
first volume ; fifty volumes had 
brought down the work to the 
month of October, at an average 
rate of about two years and a half 
to each volume. At a similar rate 
some thirty volumes more, at the 
end of about eighty years, should 
have brought the whole series to 
a close somewhere about the year 
1850, or little more than two cen- 
turies from its commencement. 
The actual course of its history was 
destined to be very different in- 
deed. The Society of Jesus had 
disappeared, but a wish soon be- 
gan to be felt that its Bollandist 
Acta should not be interrupted. 
The wish was effectually supported 
by the Austrian government, and 
an arrangement sanctioned by 
which the library, museum, and 
whole stock of the Bollandists 
should be transferred to the 
Abbey of Caudenberg, at Brussels, 
a house of Augustinian Canons no 
longer existing, but of which the 
site is marked by the royal church 
of St. Jacques en Caudenberg in 
the Place Royale, familiar to tour- 
ists in Belgium. From this abbey 
issued the fourth volume of Octo- 
ber in 1780, and the fifth in 1786. 
Four ex-Jesuit editors, the last of 
the original Bollandist line, super- 
intended the work. Even this 
refuge was to fail it; Joseph II. 
suppressed the abbey, and the 
VOL. xxvin. 6 



work of Bollandus had once more 
to seek an asylum elsewhere. It 
was provided, through the munifi- 
cence of Godfrey Hermans, abbot 
of the Premonstratensian monas- 
tery of Tongerloo in Belgium, who 
purchased the Bollandist property 
for 21,000 florins (about $8,500) 
and set the press going once more. 
The first, and also the last, volume 
issued from Tongerloo bears the 
date of 1794. Its editors were no 
longer exclusively Jesuits. One of 
the original line, P. Bue, or Buaeus, 
had trained five coadjutors, one of 
them a Benedictine, another a 
Canon Regular, and the remaining 
three Premonstratensians of the 
abbey. But Tongerloo, like Cau- 
denberg, was doomed; the French 
Republic annexed Belgium, and the 
Acta Sanctorum ceased to advance 
for half a century. The museum 
and library were scattered ; a part 
was concealed by the peasants in 
the neighborhood, a part fell a 
prey to the flames, and a part was 
carried off to Westphalia in carts, 
and much injured in its transit, be- 
fore it was restored to Belgium. 

Yet there was still a vitality in 
the Bollandist idea. While France 
remained mistress of Belgium in- 
quiry began again to be made as to 
the possibility of reviving and com- 
pleting the work. In 1801, under 
the Consular Triumvirate, D'Her- 
bonville, prefect of Antwerp, was 
instructed to consult the editors 
who survived about the renewal of 
their labors. In 1803 the Institute 
revived the question and pressed 
the editors either to resume their 



82 



The Bollandist Act a Sanctorum. 



work or dispose of their materials 
at an agreed price. The materials 
being no longer available, neither 
alternative was possible. Napoleon 
himself, in 1810, set on foot an in- 
quiry of a similar kind, and was in- 
formed that all hope of resuming 
the great work must be abandoned 
unless the manuscript collections 
of Henschen and Papebroch could 
be recovered ; and at that time it 
was not suspected that they had 
survived the destruction of Ton- 
gerloo. At length, in 1825, all that 
remained of the original museum 
and library was brought to light. 
Belgium then formed part of Hol- 
land; the printed books were there- 
fore placed in the Royal Library at 
the Hague, with the exception of a 
portion sold by auction at Antwerp, 
and the large collection of MSS. 
was consigned in 1827 to the Bur- 
gundian Library, Palais de 1'Indus- 
trie, at Brussels, where the traveller 
may, on inquiry of the polite offi- 
cials, see them bound in seventy 
folio volumes in red morocco a 
unique and invaluable storehouse of 
materials for the future volumes of 
the Ada Sanctorum. Then came 
the establishment of Belgian inde- 
pendence, with its numerous con- 
sequences ; among them was the 
reanimation of the Bollandist work 
after a dormancy of upwards of 
forty years. About the year 1836 
it began to be rumored that a 
French literary association was 
projected for the resuscitation of 
theActa. M. Guizot, who was well 
aware of the historical value of the 
work, had promised a subsidy. 
Everything was cut and dried ; 
three volumes were to appear an- 
nually, and all was to be finished 
in ten years. Whether such a 
scheme could have been executed 
within the limited time may be 
doubted. But its more useful 



effect was to put the Belgian men 
of letters on their mettle, and call 
forth their efforts to secure the 
honor of finishing the work for the 
country that had given it birth. 
With this view Mgr. de Ram, rec- 
tor of the Catholic University of 
Louvain, presented a memorial to 
the Belgian Minister of the Interior, 
M. de Thetix, stating what he had 
heard, and urging the minister to 
save his country from the reproach 
of permitting a foreign country to 
place the crown on such a work. 
It must be reserved for Belgium ; 
and, the Society of Jesus having 
been restored by Pope Pius VII. in 
1814, it was to its Belgian province 
that all eyes were turned for the 
completion of the Acta. The min- 
ister was favorable; and early in 
1837 the society reported to him 
that three of their fathers, PP. 
Boone, Vandermoere, and Coppens, 
were prepared to resume the editor- 
ship of the work initiated by PP. 
Bolland, Henschen, and Papebroch. 
A fourth, P. Van Hecke, was soon 
afterwards added to the number. 
Free access to all public collec- 
tions of materials was guaranteed 
them, and an annual subsidy to be 
voted by the Belgian Chambers, 
amounting to $1,200. The subsidy 
was paid for about twenty years, 
and was then withdrawn. 

The Bollandists, then, were once 
more established and their work 
commenced. At first, and for 
several years, it consisted chiefly in 
reorganizing a system and collect- 
ing materials. Their French com- 
petitors, finding that the work had 
been appropriated by its legitimate 
owners, offered their co-operation 
as likely to promote the rapidity of 
publication. Their offer was de- 
clineoV Speed had no particular 
attraction for the disciples of the 
original Bollandists; the new so- 



The Bollandist Ada Sanctorum. 






ciety was in every respect the same 
as the old, and foreign co-operation 
formed no part of its programme. 

Pere Boone being rector of the 
College St. Michel, Brussels, that 
house became the seat of the New 
Bollandists, just as the professed 
house at Antwerp had been of their 
predecessors. The continuity of 
the system was secured by the tem- 
porary co-operation of Cyprian 
Goor, one of the Premonstraten- 
sian Canons, who had taken part in 
preparing the single Tongerloo vol- 
ume, and was now able to com- 
municate what he knew of the tra- 
ditional methods, as they were pur- 
sued in his day under the direction 
of the last ex-Jesuit, P. Bue. By 
the year 1845 the new library had 
been commenced, correspondence 
resumed, and the old machinery 
put into working order. An ap- 
propriate motto might have been 
affixed to their new museum : 
Heri, et Ho die et in Sczcula (Heb. 
xiii.i). In that year the fifty-fourth 
volume of the entire series, and the 
seventh of the month of October, 
was published. Nearly the whole 
of it was the work of P. Vander- 
moere, and consisted of a splen- 
did monograph of St. Teresa a 
worthy subject, and treated in a 
manner entirely worthy of it. A 
second part was issued the same 
year, and a subsequent volume in 
1853. Again, in 1858, 1861, and 
1864, respectively the ninth, tenth, 
and eleventh volumes of October. 
The last issue up to the present 
time took place in 1867, and in- 
cluded several of the saints of 
October 29. Several changes had 
in the meantime occurred in the 
constitution of the Bollandist so- 
ciety in consequence of the death 
and retirement of fathers. To the 
original members were added PP. 
Bossue, Victor de Buck, Tinne- 



broeke, Carpentier, Matagne, and 
Remi de Buck. The year 1860 
was a critical one for the new so- 
ciety. The government subsidy 
was then withdrawn, and the Bol- 
landists had nothing but voluntary 
contributions and the sale of the 
work to depend upon for carrying 
it forward. The literary world was 
appealed to, and it is gratifying to 
know that the officials of the British 
Museum Library, including the 
principal librarian and his subordi- 
nates, put on record their opinion 
that the abandonment of the Bol- 
landist scheme would be a regret- 
table loss to letters; that, in re- 
ference to the history of the mid- 
dle ages, the aid afforded by the 
work is invaluable, supplying ma- 
terials often to be found nowhere 
else, and throwing light not only 
on ecclesiastical and monastic in- 
stitutions and affairs, but also on 
civil transactions, on chronology, 
biography, local nomenclature, ge- 
nealogies, manners and customs. 
The philosophical writer and the 
archaeologist alike (in the opinion 
of these gentlemen) find a mine of 
wealth in these volumes ; and the 
great erudition displayed by its 
editors contributes to render the 
work of the utmost value. The 
work, then, still makes progress; 
but of late death, age, and enfee- 
bled health have made inroads on 
the small society and seriously re- 
tarded its labors. Six names appear 
on the title-page of the last volume, 
and within eight years from that 
date five of them had been re- 
moved from the active list, three 
of them by death. Other members 
have since been added to the num- 
ber, and in no long time the 
world of letters may look for the 
appearance of a new Bollandist 
volume, or perhaps of two, the last 
of the month of October and the 



8 4 



The Bollandist Act a Sanctorum. 



sixty-first and sixty-second of the 
long series. It will also probably 
contain (in pursuance of a Bol- 
landist custom to commemorate 
deceased members of their society) 
a memoir of the late Pere Ma- 
tagne, of whom the brightest hopes 
were conceived that in a few years 
he might have revived the best 
achievements of the Acta, but who 
lately died at the early age of thirty- 
eight- A supplementary volume 
may after that be expected, bring- 
ing up some arrears of former vol- 
umes belonging to October, the 
result of the many rude interrup- 
tions experienced by the work since 
the month was commenced, in 1765. 
In stating these future projects the 
writer is giving a summary of the 
information communicated to him 
for publication by P. Remi de 
Buck during a visit which will 
presently be described. 

It is impossible to look back on 
the history of such an undertaking 
without attempting some kind of 
forecast as to its probable progress 
and possible termination. The 
Bollandists themselves sometimes 
took a calm survey of a period far 
beyond the limit of their own lives; 
as when the editor of the last vol- 
ume of June, writing in 1717, thus 
expressed himself: " We are now 
about to enter on another period of 
six months, at the end of which 
those who will then be engaged in 
this work will finally have to revise 
and double the months of January 
and February ; for those months, 
as might be expected at the outset 
of the work, are more imperfect, 
and are deficient in many acta 
since acquired, and more particu- 
larly in 1660 by Henschen and 
Papebroch in their journey through 
Germany, Italy, and France. The 
other months, edited after that 
year, are not so deficient." There 



are some data to assist in forming an 
estimate of the probable duration of 
the work. The last volume of June 
contains an index of the saints' 
names comprised in the first six 
months of the year. Their number 
amounts to some ninety-six hundred. 
Similarly, in the first volume of 
October will be found a correspond- 
ing index for the preceding three 
months, July, August, and Septem- 
ber. The number of names in it is 
about forty-seven hundred. Again, 
the New Bollandists, in their origi- 
nal appeal, De Prosecutione Operis 
Bollandiani, 1838, published an 
Elenchus SS. Beatorum, etc., includ- 
ing some four thousand names. 
The whole sum may be taken to be 
from eighteen to twenty thousand. 
The third quarter of the year oc- 
cupied twenty-one volumes. The 
New Bollandists have published 
six volumes in some, thirty-five 
years. Assuming that the month 
of October contains one-third of 
the remaining number of 4,000, the 
share 'of the two closing months 
of the year would be about 2,660 
a number representing, say, ten 
more volumes, and requiring, in- 
point of time, some sixty years be- 
fore finis can be written on the last 
page. 

But even that estimate is not 
sufficient, if we remember the num- 
ber of saints declared venerable, 
beatified, and canonized within the 
years that have elapsed since the 
several Bollandist months were 
finished in their order. Still less 
can that estimate suffice if we re- 
flect on the future additions to the 
Canon of the Blessed, periodically 
attesting, and, as may be assumed, 
in unfailing sequence, the ever- 
young, ever-conquering force of 
grace over nature, of spirit over 
matter. Viewed from such a point 
as this,- Where can the vista close? 






The Bollandist Acta Sanctorum. 



one is tempted to ask. Will not 
the Opus Bollandi'anum, or its 
equivalent, remain to supply a 
perpetual want, as long as the 
church of Christ is to last, in con- 
nection with the life of this world ? 
The conception of Pere Rosweyde 
would thus receive an extension 
and amplification far beyond even 
the estimate of Cardinal Bellarmine. 
The twelve volumes would find 
themselves expanded into an end- 
less series. - 

A sketch of a visit paid by the 
writer to the library of the New 
Bollandists a year or two ago will 
appropriately conclude this brief 
history of the undertaking. An ac- 
count of it which he contributed 
to a London monthly was widely 
copied into newspapers and period- 
icals in America and in England, 
and in an abridged form appears 
in the Catholic Family Almanac of 
the present year. The College St. 
Michel at Brussels, in which the 
Bollandist fathers live and work, 
lies very much out of the beaten 
track of the tourist, in one of the 
narrow, steep streets behind the 
Hotel de Ville, the Rue des Ursu- 
lines. A visitor to the handsome 
church of Notre Dame de la 
Chapelle would find himself close 
to the upper end of the street. 
The first time the writer attempt- 
ed to "interview" a Bollandist 
he was unsuccessful; but a few 
days later he succeeded better, 
and, presenting his credentials, 
was received with perfect courtesy 
by the senior of two representa- 
tives of the long line of Bollan- 
dists by Pere Remi de Buck, 
whose brother, Pere Victor, then 
incapacitated for active work by 
infirmities, had for many years up- 
held the reputation of the Acta 
editors for learning and extensive 
acquirements. Pere Remi, after 



replying to a number of queries as 
to the present state and near pros- 
pects of the work, accede^ to the 
request that the writer might be 
permitted to walk through the li- 
brary. It consists of several rooms 
of unequal size, en suite, or opening 
into one another. The first that 
the visitor enters is one of the 
largest, and is filled all round, from 
floor to ceiling, with printed vol- 
umes of saints' lives, of various na- 
tions and in many languages. 
Hardly anything that once belong- 
ed to the original museum is now 
in the possession of the fathers. 
What they have collected has been 
either by purchase or as presents 
from public bodies, authors, and 
editors. A volume was shown to 
the writer which had been contri- 
buted by its author, the late Bishop 
Forbes of Brechin a handsome 
quarto volume of the lives of Scotch 
saints. Dr. O'Hanlon's collection 
of Irish saints' lives, as far as it 
had then advanced, was particu- 
larly pointed out as a work of real 
and very great value, as indeed it 
is. Passing out of this large room, 
we next entered a corridor leading 
to another hall, and filled with 
works on theology and canon 
law subjects entering largely, from 
time to time, into the scope of Bol- 
landist work. A smaller chamber 
adjoining contains a number of 
missals, breviaries, martyrologies, 
calendars, and liturgical books, 
some of them in Oriental lan- 
guages. We next entered the se- 
cond large hall, also filled with 
printed volumes on ecclesiastical 
and civil history and topography, 
arranged according to nationalities. 
France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and 
England are largely represented by 
wide spaces on the shelves, many 
of the works in this department 
being the gifts of governments; as, 



86 



The Bollandist Act a Sanctorum. 



for example, the series of English 
State Papers published by the Re- 
cord Office, under the sanction of 
the Master of the Rolls. On a 
rough calculation the entire col- 
lection in all the chambers may be 
estimated at from sixteen to eigh- 
teen thousand volumes. Its ar- 
rangement has a thoroughly prac- 
tical air, united to a striking sim- 
plicity in .harmony with the tone 
of a religious house. The only 
ornament in the hall of history is a 
speaking bust of the late Pere 
Matagne, too early lost to the 
great work he promised to serve so 
well. Here, in the scene of his 
unfinished labors, defunctus adhuc 
loquitur. 

As regards the completion of the 
library, the New Bollandists, at 
the time when they resumed the 
Acta, issued an invitation to all 
persons who held sacred antiquity, 
solid learning, and religion in hon- 
or to send them any special lives 
of saints, either in print or manu- 
script, especially if composed by 
contemporary writers, and any 
martyrologies or liturgical works 
of rare character; or, if not the ac- 
tual works, at least their titles, 
dates, and places of publication or 
transcription. Special works on 
history, descriptions of provinces, 
dioceses, cities, or monasteries, 
would be welcome, as also any- 
thing relating to translations of sa- 
cred relics, well-authenticated mi- 
racles, and other evidences of the 
sanctity of the servants of God. 
The request has, to some extent, 
contributed to furnish the shelves 
of the New Bollandist library. 

On the whole, a visit of singular 
interest, made with the recollec- 
tions of the early Bollandists fresh 
in one's mind, left a vivid impres- 
sion of the continuity of the work 
from first to last. Not only is the 



aim and object of it one now as 
then the methods of reaching 
them are the same ; the results are 
the same. Nay, the fathers them- 
selves resemble each other, as bro- 
thers of the same family might,, 
each in his own way ; with charac- 
teristic differences indeed, but with 
the stamp of their common pater- 
nity indelibly impressed on them 
all. The type of living and recent 
Bollandists is the same as that 
which marks those living portraits 
one meets with here and there 
among the Acta as members of 
the society died at their post, 
and in the next published volume 
the art of the engraver perpetuated 
their features and air. The noble 
words of the New Bollandists in 
their appeal were no idle boast ; 
their truth is apparent even to the 
eye of the stranger : " We need not 
dilate on the materials or the exe- 
cution of this work of hagiography. 
It is no new or unknown work that 
we propose to continue as far as 
our strength and industry will per- 
mit ; it is the same that our prede- 
cessors began and carried forward. 
The end they proposed to them- 
selves is also the end of our work 
namely, that by the devotion of 
ourselves and of our whole energy 
there may accrue, through his 
saints, Regi stzcuiorum immortali ef 
invisibili, soli Deo honor et gloria " 
(i Tim. i. 17). 

The literary interest and curiosi- 
ty awakened by the history of the 
Bollandists' work ought never to 
efface the recollection that it be- 
longs, in its essence and in its form,, 
to the supernatural and unchange- 
able (Heb. xii. 28) kingdom of 
grace, which lies beyond the mea- 
surement of human standards of 
comparison. The late Padre Gal- 
luzzi, S.J., used to say that every 
new life of a saint or servant of 



The Bollandist Fathers. 



God was in itself a fresh pleading 
for divine grace, and demonstrated 
that divine beneficence is not ex- 
hausted, but that every state of 
life, every nation, and every period 
of time is capable of producing the 
fruits of sanctity. If it be so as re- 
gards one such biography, what shall 
be said of the magnificent monu- 
ment erected in the Ada to the 
power of the cross of Christ, by one 
religious society, and as a single 



incident in their splendid history? 
Other biographers of saints have 
personally contributed valuable ma- 
terials to the same end ; Mabillon, 
for example, did for his Benedic- 
tine Order, and Wadding for his 
Franciscan, good and lasting work. 
It was reserved for the Bollandist 
Companions of Jesus to record the 
trials and the victories of all the 
saints. 



THE BOLLANDIST FATHERS. 



GREAT was the day when learned Rosweyd's brain 
The plan conceived of gathering into one 
All acts and lives of saints beneath the sun 
Of Christ's all-conquering Cross the priceless gain, 

And harvest of its graces' heavenly rain. 
Since the far-reaching plan was then begun 
Two troubled ages and a half have run, 
And, ere it end, another age must wane. 

Bolland and Henschen, Papenbroch and all 
Who inherited their honored toil, of fame 
Ne'er dreamed, or praise, for their memorial, 

Rich as the love that reared it, to the Name 
Of One who is of saints the crowning Saint, 
Beyond all tongue can tell or genius paint. 



88 



The New Protestant Criticism of Christianity. 



THE NEW PROTESTANT CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY. 



AMONG all the untruths which 
pass current with men who permit 
others to do their thinking for 
them, none is more groundless than 
the assertion that one of the prin- 
cipal characteristics of the present 
age is indifference to religious ques- 
tions. The very opposite of this 
is true. There has seldom been a 
period in history when men were 
more disposed to talk about and 
inquire into religion than they now 
are. It is no doubt true that never 
before have men outside the Ca- 
tholic Church been less inclined to 
practise the virtues inculcated by 
the Christian faith; never before 
have the inevitable consequences 
of that revolt against God's church 
known as the Protestant Reforma- 
tion been so fully developed and 
so sharply defined. When Martin 
Luther related that in his mid- 
night discourse with the devil the 
prince of the power of the air over- 
threw him in argument, and per- 
suaded him to forswear his priestly 
vows and set up a schism founded 
upon spiritual pride and fleshly 
lust,* he unconsciously paraded be- 
fore the world the real author of 
the Reformation not Luther him- 
self, but Satan working in him. 
Now, it is the business and the de- 
light of the devil to win souls from 
God ; and he had the sagacity to 
see that the most efficacious me- 
thod of accomplishing this purpose 
was to lead them to believe that 
they could reform God's own work. 
Before the Reformation infidels 
were scarcely known in Christen- 

* Audin's Life of Luther, in the appendix of 
which this conference is given in Luther's own 
Latin text. 



dom ; but the Reformation itself 
has been the nursing-mother of in- 
fidels. "The first step that the 
intractable Catholic takes is to 
adopt the Protestant principle of 
private judgment," wrote the late 
Archbishop Spalding ; " he estab- 
lishes himself judge of his religion, 
leaves it, and joins the reform. 
Dissatisfied with the incoherent 
doctrines he then discovers, he 
passes on to the Socinians, whose 
inconsequences soon drive him 
into deism ; still pursued by un- 
expected difficulties, he throws 
himself into universal doubt, where 
still experiencing uneasiness he 
proceeds to terminate the long 
chain of his errors in atheism. 
Let us not forget that the first link 
of this fatal chain is attached to 
the fundamental maxim of private 
judgment. It is, therefore, histori- 
cally correct that the same prin- 
ciple that created Protestantism 
three centuries ago has never 
ceased since that time to spin it 
out into a thousand different sects, 
and has concluded by covering 
Europe with that multitude of free- 
thinkers who place it on the verge 
of ruin." 

These words were written twenty 
years ago ; they have even more 
weight to-day. The work of Satan, 
beginning in this order with Lu- 
ther, has gone on from conquering 
to conquer, until there is not a 
Protestant sect in the world which 
has not only been the mother of 
infidels but which to-day nourishes 
infidels in her bosom and feeds 
them with her milk. In this con- 
sists a distinguishing mark between 
the church and the sects: one may 






The New Protestant Criticism of Christianity. 



89 



apostatize from the church, but an 
apostate cannot remain in her fold ; 
he must go from her, because he is 
not of her. But in the sects, more 
markedly in some of them than in 
others, one may do as he pleases, 
and believe or disbelieve as he 
pleases, and still retain his "con- 
nection." Most true is this, in 
its most serious sense, of the es- 
tablished Church of England, whose 
ministers have only within a few 
months been restrained from " play- 
ing at Mass," not by their own 
superiors but by the edict of a 
Parliament composed of Christians, 
Jews, and atheists ; and who are 
still perfectly free to believe and to 
preach anything they please with- 
out the slightest fear of punish- 
ment. The new law which is 
flagrantly disobeyed forbids cer- 
tain acts ; but a clergyman of 
the Establishment may to-morrow 
preach Unitarianism, or the denial 
of baptismal regeneration, or the 
Roman Catholic doctrine of the 
sacraments, or sheer infidelity, or 
even declare that the pope is right- 
fully supreme head of the church, 
and no one can molest him or 
make him afraid. The Protestant 
dogma of private judgment has, in 
a word, run its full course, and 
every one is left free to proclaim 
his beliefs or his unbeliefs. 

Two prominent English writers 
have recently told the world what 
they knew about the condition of 
religious thought in Christendom. 
They both arrived at the same 
conclusion 'that Faith is on its 
death-bed; that Infidelity is the 
coming sovereign ; and that the 
next generation will be one that 
shall not know God or fear him. 
The devil has done his work well ; 
and the picture of the present state 
of what in unconscious irony these 
writers call " religious opinion" is 



perhaps not overdrawn, if it be un- 
derstood that the figures on the 
canvas represent only non-Catho- 
lics. In the Catholic Church we 
are not bothered with "opinions " 
or " views " regarding matters of 
doctrine ; whatsoever we believe, 
we know God has revealed it by 
the unerring authority of the teach- 
ing church, and we have no more 
doubt about it than we have that 
water runs down hill. At no pe- 
riod in her long and glorious his- 
tory have the children of the 
church been more completely of 
one mind and heart than they now 
are, or more firm in their faith 
The spectacle of their unity has 
perhaps excited their foes all the 
more to rail against them. But Mr. 
Fronde and Mr. Mallock are not 
without reason in their assertions 
that the non-Catholic portion of 
Christendom has fought almost its 
last fight with Satan, and is about 
to surrender itself to his undisput- 
ed sway. We are not without 
hope that many fugitives may es- 
cape the danger and ignominy of 
the capitulation by seeking refuge 
in the church against which the 
gates of hell cannot prevail. The 
anxiety and agitation concerning 
the very basis of the Christian 
faith that now pervade the non- 
Catholic world strengthen . this 
hope. This remark brings us back 
to the point whence we have stray- 
edthe assertion that the minds of 
men to-day, instead of being indif- 
ferent and careless about religious 
matters, are strangely alert and 
anxious respecting these things. 
As a proof of this may be adduced 
the fact that the press, during the 
last twelve months, has brought 
forth an unusual, an almost in- 
credible, number of works upon 
religious topics. We propose to 
pass in review a few of these vol- 



9 o 



The New Protestant Criticism of Christianity. 



umes, and confining ourselves to 
those published in England and on 
the European Continent. The mag- 
nitude of our task may be estimat- 
ed when we say that we have to 
deal, in effect, with several hun- 
dred volumes, although we shall 
cite the names of, or make quota- 
tions from, but a small fraction of 
the whole. These books which 
may be taken as the best possible 
exponents of the non-Catholic re- 
ligious and anti-religious thought 
and opinion of to-day, and as the 
latest landmarks of the sinking of 
Protestantism into the slough of 
atheism we have divided into two 
classes : 

i st. Works with the avowed, or 
at least undisguised, purpose of in- 
culcating atheism. 

2d. Books written by men who 
still profess belief in the Christian 
religion, but who steal the livery 
of heaven to serve the devil in, 
and in the disguise of Christian 
philosophers teach anti-Christian 
doctrine. 

Let us get at the first class with- 
out further remark : 

The Physical Basis of Mind : being 
the Second Series of Problems of Life 
and Mind, is the title of the last 
production of the life and mind of 
George Henry Lewes the gentle- 
man who lived for years as the un- 
married husband of George Eliot, 
and who has long enjoyed the wor- 
ship of that numerous class of per- 
sons who are flattered by being 
told that they are fools. In 1874 
he issued the first volume of a book 
entitled Problems of Life and Mind; 
in the following year the second 
volume of this work appeared, and 
was found to consist mainly of de- 
monstrations of the impossibility 
of solving the problems proposed. 
It is difficult to make out what 
Mr. Lewes really believes. At times 



he is a materialist ; again he is a 
transcendentalist. He pretends to 
be a disciple of Comte, but if Comte 
were alive he would denounce 
Lewes as a heretic. Now, being 
old and near the end of his career, 
Mr. Lewes gives to the world his 
confession of atheism. It is a 
melancholy book, since it shows 
how one may spend a long life in 
patient study, in accumulating and 
marshalling facts of anatomy and 
physiology, and arrive at the con- 
clusion that after all he is only 

" An organism built up out of matter 
according to some system of trial and er- 
ror that has shaped him and all animals 
by the processes of evolution from the 
smallest of beginnings, said begin- 
nings being mere atoms of protoplasm 
that somehow or other had been infected 
with the endowment of life." 

Darwin is greater than Moses 
and the prophets, and Mr. Lewes 
is wiser than God, for he sneers at 
the " great Architect of the uni- 
verse " and asks : 

" What should we say of an architect 
who was unable, or, being able, was ob- 
stinately unwilling, to erect a palace ex- 
cept by first using his materials in the 
shape of a hut, then pulling it down 
and rebuilding thereon a cottage, then 
adding story to story and room to room, 
not with any reference to the ultimate 
purposes of the palace, but wholly with 
reference to the way in which houses 
were constructed in ancient times?" 

The Gospel of the World's Divine 
Order, by Mr. Douglas Campbell, 
is a demonstration of the fact that 
Mr. Douglas Campbell is vastly 
wiser than God, and that " the 
prudent, enterprising, and steady 
life of Benjamin Franklin " was 
much better than " the improvident 
and unsettled life of Jesus." Moses 
was a very blameworthy person, 
since it is evident that before 
writing 

" A history of the creation of light, or of 
the meanest thing on earth, it was first 



The Neiv Protestant Criticism of Christianity. 



incumbent on him to describe not only 
the creation of its elements, but to go 
further back still and describe the begin- 
ning of reason, and the first creation of 
proportion, whereby the square of three 
became nine, and the angles of a triangle 
began to be equal to two right angles." 

The History of Jesus of Nazara: 
freely investigated in its connection 
with the national life of Israel and 
related in detail. This is the trans- 
lated title of a ponderous work 
by Dr. Theodor Keim, in three 
heavy volumes, of which the last 
has recently been published. We 
class this German writer among the 
teachers of atheism, for, like Re- 
nan, whose methods he follows, 
he refuses to recognize Jesus Christ 
as God, while representing him as 
towering not only above the ordi- 
nary level of human nature, but far 
above the greatest, wisest, and best 
of the sons of men in all that makes 
humanity godlike. Dr. Keim's 
Jesus is a man, " the natural son 
of Joseph and Mary," but the 
greatest and best of men ; he was 
not God, but he was God-like. Dr. 
Keim has been good enough to 
take the four Gospels as the basis 
of his History of Jesus, but in 
this fashion : whatever in the Gos- 
pel he has found that displeased 
him he has rejected and thrown 
aside as-" unsound," " unhistorical," 
and " useless "; with what remained 
he has constructed a fancy sketch 
of a being who "in spirit, mind, 
and love was in perfect harmony 
and closest unity with the Eternal 
Father," but who, all the same, 
was a rank impostor. As for the 
miracles, they are rejected. Dr. 
Keim admits that Jesus healed the 
sick, and this, too, without medi- 
cine and only by his presence and 
his word. But these cures were 
mirifica a n d n o t in iracula. H e s ay s : 

" For the works of healing, and for 



them alone, we have also the testimony 
of the Acts of the Apostles, of the apos- 
tolic age, and even of the Talmud, which 
does not deny the works of either the 
Master or his disciples. Finally, these 
incidents of healing are confirmed by 
probabilities of every kind. . . . The 
healing itself seems, in a very prepon- 
derant degree, to have been communi- 
cated by and dependent upon a sentence 
uttered with infinite confidence, and 
with the self consciousness of one who 
was sure of success. ... In most cases, 
in the best-attested cases, and without 
exception in all the cases of the healing 
of the possessed, such an utterance is 
the only means employed by Jesus to 
effect the cure. . . . Whilst, therefore, 
the cause of the great results under con- 
sideration is to be sought, in the first in- 
stance, in Jesus himself, or, more exactly, 
in his spiritual life with his human force 
of will and his religious confidence, but 
also with that passionate sympathy and 
complete self-surrender with which he 
approached the universal misery, it lies 
in the nature of the subject that we must 
not forget the second factor, which the 
lips of Jesus sufficiently emphasized. 
As spirit, according to its nature, is in 
the highest degree capable of influenc- 
ing spirit, so, in these healing processes, 
the co-operation of the patients is be- 
yond all doubt recognized by Jesus. In 
the opinion of the people of Galilee, if 
not at Jerusalem, where the miraculous 
ceased, Jesus, reverenced as the great 
man, the prophet, the Saviour, called 
forth love by his personally-manifested 
love, faith by his faith, volition by his 
volition, powerfully enough to determine 
and change the course of the physical 
life. . . . This mastery of the spirit over 
the flesh is, according to its nature, 
without definite limits. At least expe- 
rience teaches that the agitation of vivid 
imaginings and volitions has suddenly 
and completely either overcome or pro- 
duced physical obstacles and pains." 

Such of the miracles as cannot 
be accounted for in this free-and- 
easy fashion Dr. Keim gets rid of 
by plainly denying their authenti- 
city ; and he exhausts his critical 
skill in elaborate efforts to show 
that the Gospels consist of a mass 
of fables grafted upon a frail branch 
of truth. 



TJie Nezv Protestant Criticism of Christianity. 



The third volume of Superna- 
tural Religion : an Inquiry into the 
Reality of Divine Revelation, is not 
less notable than the first two in- 
stalments of this adroit assault 
upon the very foundations of the 
Christian faith. The earlier vol- 
umes argued deftly, in favor of the 
opinion that the Gospels were 
written long after the death of the 
apostles whose names they bear; 
that the earliest date to which they 
can be assigned is A.D. 180; and 
that, consequently, there is no 
trustworthy evidence for the Gospel 
events and miracles. In the pre- 
sent volume the author seeks to 
show that the Acts of the Apos- 
tles is an untrustworthy book 
worthless as evidence for the mi- 
raculous origin of Christianity; 
that the letters of St. Paul afford 
no proof of it ; and that for the be- 
lief in the crucial miracles of the 
Resurrection and the Ascension 
there is no sufficient ground. He 
insists that the Acts was com- 
posed at a time too remote from 
the events it details to possess any 
historical value regarding them. 
He can find no mention of it ear- 
lier than the year 177 A.D. But he 
further insists that the internal 
evidence of the book itself dis- 
proves its accuracy and its reputed 
authorship. Here he enters on a 
field not at all new, and to which 
he brings little that is fresh. He 
arrives at the conclusion that the 
Acts is the work of an anonymous 
writer, who wove into his own 
framework and moulded according 
to his own plan the floating tradi- 
tions of the church and the narra- 
tive of a companion of St. Paul. 
This writer had a special purpose 
of his own to accomplish ; he had 
" a conception of the liberal atti- 
tude of the apostles inconsistent 
with the Gospels themselves and 



with the personal testimony of St. 
Paul." 

But there remains the great mi- 
racle the Resurrection of Jesus. 
How is this to be explained away ? 
How is the origin of the belief in 
it to be accounted for ? It is here 
that the assailants of Christianity 
have always stumbled ; they have 
seen that, while one might deny this 
or that miracle, the existence of 
Christianity itself could be explain- 
ed only by the reality of the great- 
est of all miracles the Resurrec- 
tion. The author of this book ex- 
ercises his best skill in an attempt 
to prove that the accounts of the 
Resurrection in the Gospels are 
inconsistent with each other, and 
asserts that in them is only " vague 
and unattested tradition." Had 
they been really written by their 
reputed authors, he admits, their 
testimony would be entitled to 
weight; but as they are forgeries, 
composed one hundred and fifty 
years after the events which they 
pretend to describe, they have no 
claim to authority. But some of 
the Epistles bearing the name of 
St. Paul were unquestionably writ- 
ten by him ; it is to these, then, 
that one turns to see what he has 
to say about the Resurrection he, 
a man who was contemporary with 
the event, and as explicit in his 
statements as he was implicit in his 
faith. He has long been supposed 
to have given " a very circumstan- 
tial account" of the Resurrection, 
relating, twenty years after, where 
and by whom Jesus was seen ; but 
now we are told that all this is 
"nothing except a catalogue by 
Paul of certain appearances which 
he did not himself see, but merely 
had * received ' from others with- 
out a detail or information of any 
kind." 

Nevertheless, the fact remains 



The Neiv Protestant Criticism of Christianity. 



that the belief in the Resurrection 
was universal in the church from 
the beginning, and the question 
which the author finds himself com- 
pelled to face is : " Did the church 
form the .belief in the Resurrection, 
or did the Resurrection frame the 
belief of the church?" He exam- 
ines, only to reject, the ingenious 
fable that Jesus did not die upon 
the cross, but, recovering, after- 
wards appeared to his disciples. 
He prefers the theory that Jesus 
was seen after his death, not really 
and bodily, but as an illusion and 
subjectively by men who were be- 
lievers, excited, and expectant. 
This is a very tempting and easy 
method of getting over the diffi- 
culty. " The enthusiastic followers 
of Jesus, basing their hopes on the 
Scriptures, reluctant to fancy their 
Messianic hopes fallacious, and hav- 
ing the Jewish credit in visions, 
mistook subjective impressions in 
their sensitive minds for objective 
appearances before their bodily 
eyes. Thus the illusions of the 
few became the belief of the many, 
passed into the tradition of the 
church, formed the basis of legends 
that are now Gospel narratives," 
and so on. This book, it will be 
seen, is a dangerous one ; but it is 
more important as an exponent of 
the condition of thought in the 
highest circles of non-Catholic so- 
ciety in England than as a teacher. 
It is the condensation of scholarly, 
cold, and critical infidelity. 

The Two Tests: the Superna- 
tural Claims of Religion tried by two 
of its own Rules, is a work of much 
the same character as the one just 
mentioned. Its author, Lionel 
Lisle, attempts to break down the 
historical evidence of Christianity 
by showing that the supernatural 
events in the life of Jesus are not 
established by " the accordant tes- 



93 

timony of two or three witnesses," 
and that " the New Testament 1 >ei- 
ty is Altogether different from the 
Mosaic," thus breaking the conti- 
nuity of Judaism and Christianity, 
and destroying the evidence of pro- 
phecy. In exchange for Christian- 
ity Mr. Lisle kindly offers us ag- 
nosticism and the religion of hu- 
manity. His work is clever, but 
can only be noticed here as an- 
other of the straws that show how 
the wind of " free thought " is 
blowing. 

We come now to a very learned 
work by a Hungarian savant, Ig- 
naz Goldziher. Its title gives a 
shock of surprise : Mythology among 
the Hebrews, and its Historical De- 
velopment. It has been supposed 
that a dissertation on this subject 
would necessarily be as brief as the 
famous chapter on snakes in Ire- 
land ; for it had long been almost 
an axiom that the Hebrews had no 
mythology. Renan has declared 
that "les Semites n'ont jamais eu 
de mythologie " ; Max Muller trac- 
ed the mythical incapacity of the 
Semite to the peculiar nature of 
his speech ; Bunsen said that " the 
Bible has no mythology ; it is the 
grand, momentous, and fortunate 
self-denial of Judaism to possess 
none." But if the learned Gold- 
ziher be right, Muller, Renan, and 
Bunsen were all wrong. He lias 
discovered that all the events re- 
lated in the Book of Genesis, and 
many of those in th other Biblical 
records, are myths, and he an- 
nounces his discovery as a great 
feather in the cap of monotheism : 

" He who feels the true meaning of 
religion must welcome these studies as 
a step in advance towards the highest 
ideal of religion, towards monotheism, 
pure and unsullied by anything coarse or 
pagan, which is independent of legends 
or traditions of race, and has its centre, 
its exclusive element of life, and its im- 



The New Protestant Criticism of Christianity. 



94 

pulse towards never-resting inquiry and 
self-perfection, in aspiration after the 
single living Source of all truth and mo- 
rality." 

Determined to make the facts 
square with his theory, Dr. Gold- 
ziher turns everything from matter 
of fact into mythical legend. He 
is certain that no such person as 
Abraham ever existed; and as a 
specimen of his style of argument 
we give his account of the willing- 
ness of the patriarch to sacrifice 
his son Isaac in obedience to the 
will of God : 

" One of the most prominent figures 
in Hebrew mythology is Abh-ram, the 
High Father, with his innumerable hosts 
of descendants. . . . Ram expresses the 
idea of ' being high,' . . . and in the 
old Hebrew myth the 'High' is the 
nightly or rainy sky. The best-known 
myth that the Hebrews told of their Abh- 
ram is the story of the intended sacrifice 
of his only son, Yischak, commonly call- 
ed Isaac. But what is Yischak? Lite- 
rally translated the word denotes ' he 
laughs,' or ' the laughing.' . . . Now, who 
is the ' He laughs,' the ' Smiling One'? 
No other but he who sits in heaven and 
laughs (Ps. xi. 4), whom the mythology 
of almost all nations, and their later poet- 
ry, too, likes to call the Laughing or 
Smiling One. When, as Plutarch tells 
in his life of Lycurgus, that legislator 
consecrated a statue to laughter (ysXcoS), 
and laughter enjoyed divine honors at 
Sparta, we are certainly not to under- 
stand it of the laughter that plays round 
the lips of mortals, but of the celestial 
smile with which mythology endows the 
sun, as when the Indian singer calls 
Ushas (the sun) the smiling one. . . . 
And so 'the "smiling one," whom the 
" High Father" intends to slay, is the 
smiling day, or, more closely defined, 
the smiling sunset, which gets the worst 
of the contest with the night sky, and dis- 
appears.' " 

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ 
is another evidence of the anxiety 
felt by the enemies of God to up- 
root from the minds of men the be- 
lief in the event which forms the 
corner-stone of Christianity. This 



essay is the work of " Reginald \V. 
Macan, M.A., senior student of 
Christ Church, Oxford, and late 
Hibbert travelling scholar." It 
may be taken, perhaps, as a fair 
specimen of the results which now 
follow an Oxford education an 
education in that magnificent uni- 
versity which was founded by Ca- 
tholic charity for the inculcation 
of Catholic truth, and has been 
perverted by its Protestant usur- 
pers into an institution for the cul- 
tivation and dissemination of athe- 
ism. Mr. Macan is quite certain, 
of course, that revealed religion 
and science are irreconcilably hos- 
tile, and that miracles are incredi- 
ble. He acknowledges that the 
resurrection of our Lord is the 
"crucial instance" which must 
finally decide between the claims 
of "supernatural revelation and 
miracles " on one hand, and those 
of " natural revelation and science " 
on the other ; but he proposes to 
leave untouched the question of 
the possibility of miracles, and to 
argue upon this one miracle on the 
historical evidence. He arrives 
at the conclusion that the accounts 
of the Resurrection in the four 
Gospels are " so contradictory as to 
be not only untrustworthy but ab- 
solutely incredible." He has thus 
far gone over the well-trodden 
ground of hundreds who have pre- 
ceded him, and has advanced no- 
thing that has not been as often re- 
futed. But he goes to explain 
how, in his wise opinion, the story 
of the Resurrection originated, and 
how it came to be so firmly believ- 
ed by those who were best quali- 
fied to judge of the facts. He very 
kindly admits that the apostles 
were not parties to a conspiracy to 
deceive; he insists upon their sin- 
cere and confident belief in the 
Resurrection. Paul believed that 



The New Protestant Criticism of Christianity. 95 

the risen Jesus had appeared to the plain letter of the text to his 
him, but he mistook a vision for a own esoteric interpretation of its 
reality ; Peter made the same mis- meaning. He makes a sort of 
take; and the five hundred breth- balance-sheet of texts the doctri- 
ren mentioned by St. Paul as hav- nal statements on one side and the 
ing seen the risen Lord were equal- moral precepts on the other fmd- 
ly the victims of a pious delusion. ing a large balance in favor of 
" There may have been five hundred moralltv > he decides that in the re- 
brethren together on some occasion, but, liglOtt of Jesus good morals are all 
if so, they can hardly have been drawn important, while dogmas are of no 
together by any other cause than the re- account whatever. This neit nrr 
port that Jesus had risen ; they were, in rp _ nf nrr : 



pun inai j esus uau iiberi ; mey were, in rp(JQ n r -..:..-, . ,1 
fact, possessed by one and the same idea " V " g the com Para- 

or feeling, and that they may have seen, tlve value of doctrines and morals 

by the rules of arithmetic is not, 
however, altogether conclusive; 
and Mr. Binney finds himself con- 
strained, ere he gets through, to 
become dogmatic himself, in this 
fashion : 

<( Although I endeavored as much as 
possible to prove my case from the let- 
ter of Scripture itself rather than from 
pure reason, I soon found that many 
startling and incredible statements are 
unquestionably advanced in the Gospels 
which, if accepted literally, must either 
neutralize the rest or else require to be 
explained away. Since, therefore, our di- 
vines themselves do not scruple to ex- 
plain away anything that tells against 
their own conclusions, I considered I 
should be equally justified in giving rea- 
sons why / could not accept these puz- 
zling texts as infallible truth. For this 
purpose it became necessary to establish 
the proposition that the Scriptures are 
not to be taken as literally and infallibly 
true, and that, therefore, texts which our 
reason rejects as anti-Christian or in- 
comprehensible may safely be so reject- 
ed." 



some of them or all of them (for it is not 
very likely that they were individually 
cross-questioned), something which they 
took for an appearance of the risen Lord 
is quite possible." 

It is " quite possible " that Mr. 
Macan is a splendid logician and a 
close reasoner ; but it is also quite 
possible that his explanation will 
seem to candid souls more incredi- 
ble than the event which it is em- 
ployed to consign to the domain of 
delusion. 

We now pass to the second class 
of books those written by men 
who still profess belief in some 
form of Christianity, but who, in 
the disguise of friends, are deadly 
foes of revealed religion. Dean 
Stanley is an excellent type of this 
most pestilent school; one of his 
advanced pupils is Frederick A. 
Binney. He has become dissatis- 
fied with the doctrines of modern 
orthodox theology, as he under- 
stands them, and has kindly con- 
structed a scheme of Christianity 



Having thus pronounced and de- 
fined the dogma of his own infalli- 
bility and enthroned himself as 



more in accordance with the 
original teaching of Christ than supreme judge, the rest of Mr. Bin- 
any of the systems of theology to ney's work is easy; and he pro- 
ceeds without further hesitation to 
frame his system of The Religion 



which Christians in modem times 
profess their adherence." His 
principle is in perfect accordance 
with the spirit of Protestantism; 



of Jesus. He begins by stripping 
Jesus of his divinity and by re- 



he exercises the right of private jecting the doctrine of the Atone- 
judgment; he appeals from the ment; but, curiously enough, he 
church to the Scripture, and from approves of the Resurrection and 



The New Protestant Criticism of Christianity. 



other miracles, the efficacy of pray- 
er, and the immortality of the soul. 
Dean Stanley should be proud of 
his pupil. 

John James Tayler, the head of 
the Unitarian College of Manches- 
ter, and a Unitarian clergyman, is 
also a great stickler for the supe- 
riority of morals and " gush " over 
dogma and duty. Here is a vol- 
ume of his sermons on Christian 
Faith and Duty p , all brimming over 
with expressions of admiration 
for the character of Jesus and 
for the beautiful words which he 
spoke, but insisting at the same 
time that it is sentiment and emo- 
tion which characterize the Chris- 
tian, and not faith wedded to 
good works. It is not belief in 
any dogma that is necessary, but 

" That principle of trust, of confiding 
sympathy with higher mind, of reliance on 
spiritual tendencies at first dimly appre- 
hended, but ever felt to be something 
real, exhaustless, and infinite, which is 
the essential element of all religious feel- 
ing, of all true faith." 

One need not trouble one's self 
about the authenticity of any book 
in the Bible, nor care whether this 
one is a forgery or that one wholly 
uninspired. All he need do is to 
be "sympathetic," and, if he finds 
anything he likes, accept it and 
make poetry about it. What one 
does not like may be rejected in 
the same free-and-easy method. 
Mr. Tayler says : 

" It would surely be a true reverence 
to surrender our souls with child-like 
simplicity to the influence of those 
grander and deeper truths which form 
the inner life of the Bible those inspi- 
rations of holiness and heroism and 
love and heavenly trust which prove 
themselves divine by their kindling ef- 
fect on our higher nature and drop- 
ping, as of no import to us, without any 
attempt to weave them into a theologi- 
cal theory, the human elements which 
unavoidably adhere to every historical 



manifestation, to press on in the work 
of our daily life towards that spiritual 
ideal of our humanity which Scripture 
sublimely images to us in a kingdom of 
God." 

This is the soft and easy way 
of blinking unpleasant and stern 
truths, and is the key to a fool's 
paradise. One's " higher nature," 
perhaps, might be shocked by find- 
ing it laid down that to marry a di- 
vorced woman was to commit adul- 
tery ; but if he were taught that this 
was only " a dogma," and was due 
to " the human elements which un- 
avoidably adhere," etc., he could 
content himself with "the grander 
and deeper truths," and go on his 
sinful way with a light heart. 

George Dawson, M.A., has often 
been compared to William Cobbett, 
and, in truth, he was not unlike 
him. He lived in Birmingham, 
but his fame as a pithy pamphlet- 
eer, a skilful advocate, an able 
debater, and a popular preacher 
was more than provincial. His 
conventicle was a queer place 
a Cave of Adullum wherein were 
gathered all manner of discontent- 
ed souls. For a while he was a 
Baptist, but he took leave of that 
sect in a sermon from the text, 
"Thank God, I baptized none of 



you 



What he afterwards be- 



came it would be difficult to say, 
further than that he was certainly 
a Dawsonian. He was always 
right, whoever else was wrong. 
In the volume of Sermons on 
Disputed Points and Special Occa- 
sions are collected his best dis- 
courses, and in one of them he 
thus exalts the advantage of often 
changing one's " views " on theolo- 
gy on such trifling points, for ex- 
ample, as the Divinity of Christ 
or the eternal punishment for un- 
repented sin : 

" Why should my change of views af- 



The Neiv Protestant Criticism of Christianity. 



feet my soul ? What is changed ? Is 
the sun less bright? Is the moon less 
clear? Has the peach less bloom? Is 
the poet less glorious? Is music less 
entrancing? Is man less noble? Is 
woman less sweet? Is the child less 
lovely ? Has anything happened to the 
heavens because I have changed my lit- 
tle creed ? Will the waves change their 
course ? Will the winds blow otherwise 
for the future ? Never ! And can God 
change? Do you believe that it is of 
any consequence to the Almighty what 
you think ? Read in that book of Job : 
' Can a man be profitable unto God as 
he that is wise may be profitable unto 
himself? Is it any pleasure to the Al- 
mighty that thou art righteous, or is it 
gain to him that thou makest thy ways 
perfect ?' And your ' views ' what does 
it matter to God what the)'- are ? Be a 
true child of humility, lowliness, and 
trust ; then, if you find your little mathe- 
matical problem wrong at last, it won't 
matter. If you have added it up badly, 
what will it signify to God? Why 
should I be miserable when I change my 
views ?" 

The Bible for Young People is 
a title well calculated to disarm 
suspicion; but beneath it two 
Dutch clergymen, Dr. H. Oort, 
Professor of Hebrew Antiquities 
at Leyden, and Dr. J. Hooykaas, 
pastor at Rotterdam, have issued 
one of the most pernicious works 
of the age. The extent to which 
rationalism has obtained posses- 
sion of the Protestant community 
in the Low Countries is shown by 
the fact that two of its leading 
teachers have found nothing better 
to do than to spend years in pre- 
paring a commentary upon, and 
a paraphrase or expansion of, the 
Bible, every page of which is mark- 
ed with the evidences of a desire 
to uproot the foundations of faith 
in the mind of the reader. The 
work is in several volumes the 
fifth of these, devoted to the " Nar- 
ratives of the New Testament," has 
recently appeared. The affectation 
of admiration for the character of 
VOL. XXYIII. 7 



97 

Jesus paraded in its pages cannot 
blind one to the true purpose of 
its authors. They wish to picture 
Jesus as a mere man a noble, 
elevated, but still at times a ca- 
pricious and vacillating character. 
His history as we have it in the 
Gospels is not authentic ; every- 
thing connected with his life was 
for^a while floating in unfixed tra- 
ditions, which the pious imagina- 
tions of believers modified, exag- 
gerated, and colored to suit them- 
selves. Thus what was at first 
figurative and metaphorical became 
mistaken for fact; and sectarian 
spirit grew up and became so 
strong that the book of Acts is 
only 

" An attempt conceived, no doubt, 
with the best of intentions to conceal 
Paul's real relations with the other apos- 
tles, and the differences of opinion that 
existed in the early Church. ... In 
order to reconcile Paul's enemies to him, 
and to establish peace between the two 
parlies, the sharp corners are considera- 
bly rounded off whenever the great and 
striking figure of the apostle of the 
heathens is introduced. At the same 
time Peter and James are made more 
liberal. Indeed, Peter is the first to 
preach the Gospel to the heathen, and on 
several occasions Paul is represented in 
the character of a strict Jewish Chris- 
tian." 

Some of the miracles are sheer 
inventions ; the friends of Christ 
could not bear that he should be 
outdone by the prophets Elijah 
and Elisha, and so they arranged 
stories of his wonderful works. 
But most of the miracles, although 
pretending to relate events which 
never happened, were not intended 
by their authors to be taken as de- 
scriptions of real events, but as 
mere symbolical expressions of 
spiritual truths. The miraculous 
draught of fishes never happened; 
the tale is only a fable to show the 
natural incapacity of the disciples 



9 8 



The New Protestant Criticism of Christianity. 



on the one hand and their success 
when speaking in the name of Jesus 
on the other. The miracle at the 
marriage-feast never was wrought ; 
the story was invented to shadow 
forth a description of Christ's work 
in the world. For a long time 
Jesus did not know exactly what 
he was about; his mind and char- 
acter gradually widened and de- 
veloped, not always for the better, 
either; it was only towards the end 
of his career that he conceived the 
idea of becoming the Messias ! 

" It was a life task, and to take it up 
required a stern resolve. When first 
the thought rose in his heart, and his 
sense of duty more and more clearly 
pointed him to the task, he must, in the 
nature of things, have paused for a time 
in uncertainty. A sublime act of faith 
was needed, like that by which John 
stood up to do Elijah's work, but loftier 
and mightier. As John had determined 
to hasten the coming of God's kingdom, 
so Jesus resolved to do neither more nor 
less than bring it to earth himself ! It is 
true that the period within which this 
important change in his conception of 
his task took place must have been very 
limited ; but intensity and concentration 
of life may make one year equivalent to 
many." 

But his temper grew sour; he 
quarrelled with the Pharisees; and 
he allowed himself to be deluded 
into the idea that if he could manage 
to get himself killed, God would 
raise him up again and place him on 
the throne of the heavenly kingdom 
on earth. 

" It is impossible to deny that the un- 
favorable reception Jesus had met, in 
such sharp contrast to the first appear- 
ance of success, disappointed him so 
bitterly as to cause an inevitable change 
in his conduct, his plans, and his pros- 
pects, and place his person and his 
preaching before us in quite a different 
light from that in which they appeared 
during those early months. He still ap- 
pears as pure, as great, as exalted as 
ever, and, indeed, his figure seems still 
bolder and more striking than before, 



but something of the winning gentleness 
is gone. At first his preaching had been 
'glad tidings 'in the fullest sense ; but 
at the close of his career, on the way to 
Jerusalem, in the City of the Temple, 
warnings and threatenings take an ever 
more prominent place in his teaching, 
and the last judgment, which he had 
previously passed over almost in silence, 
is the frequent topic of his discourses. 
He had previously laid chief stress upon 
the preparation, upon the gradual estab- 
lishment of the kingdom of God, upon 
the imperceptible conquests of his new 
principle in the hearts of men until it 
leavened all society ; but now the con- 
summation by an act of God, a great re- 
volution in the world, carrying terror to 
the unbelievers and the unconverted, 
comes into prominence. In that day he 
is to come again to receive his spiritual 
supremacy, no longer disputed by any 
creature, and unlimited by time or space. 

"There is an unquestionable loss in- 
volved in this change, but it is compen- 
sated by the heroism of the deed that 
Jesus was resolved to do. It was a 
giant's task which he laid upon himself 
when he resolved to make the kingdom 
come. But he did not shrink from the 
supreme sacrifice. He never lost his 
faith in God, in himself, in humanity : or 
in the future. He had resolved to be the 
Messias, and straightway to establish the 
Messianic kingdom. 

" To Jerusalem, then !" 

Renan and Strauss have written 
nothing worse than this ; Voltaire . 
and Paine have written nothing so 
bad. But this is the Bible for 
Young People prepared by two of 
the leading divines and scholars of 
the Dutch Church ! 

Matthew Arnold has had no small 
share in the propagation of that 
dangerous species of infidelity which 
professes ardent admiration for the 
written word, but labors to show 
that it is full of absurdities, false 
morality, and lies ; which is never 
tired of proclaiming its hysterical 
adulation of the character of Jesus, 
but delights in suggesting that he 
was a self-deceived enthusiast or a 
conscious deceiver. Mr. Arnold's 
most recent publication is his vol- 



The New Protestant Criticism of Christianity. 



99 



ume entitled Last Essays on Church 
and Religion ; and in these essays 
he exercises all bis grace of style, 
subtle humor, and brightness of 
manner in teaching infidelity while 
pretending to defend Christianity. 
For instance, Mr. Arnold denies 
the physical resurrection of Jesus, 
and has no credence in the state- 
ments of St. Paul on the miracu- 
lous, but praises the apostle as a 
great worker and teacher. St. Paul 
was egregiously wrong in believing 
in the Resurrection and the subse- 
quent appearances of Jesus ; but he 
was neither "a credulous enthusi- 
ast nor an unprofitable guide." 
How can tnis be? Merely, says 
Mr. Arnold, because his errors 
were due to the prevalent beliefs 
and notions of the time, while his 
truths were far superior to it. Sir 
Matthew Hale believed in witch- 
craft and demoniac possession 
delusions, in Mr. Arnold's opinion 
but no one denies his judgment 
and calm wisdom ; so St. Paul had 
clear, pure wisdom, although he 
was fool enough to believe in the 
Resurrection, and to share in the 
expectations and supernatural no- 
tions of his age. The creeds of 
the church are full of " statements 
that conflict with science and 
with reason " ; Mr. Arnold advises 
everybody to keep repeating the 
creeds, but to regard these state- 
ments as "mere poetry." "The 
services of the church," says 
he, " are full of direct recognitions 
of two really essential points of 
Christian belief salvation by right- 
eousness, and righteousness by Je- 
sus Christ. They are full, too, of 
what may be called approximate 
recognitions of them efforts of the 
human mind, in its gradual growth, 
to develop them, to fix them, to 
buttress them, to make them clear- 
er to itself, to bring them nearer by 



the addition of miracle and meta- 
physic. This is poetry." It is 
false that Jesus was conceived by 
the Holy Ghost in the womb of the 
Blessed Virgin; false that he arose 
from the dead and ascended into 
heaven; these are only the scho- 
lastic poetry of Christianity, "ex- 
alting Jesus by an imaginative play 
of abstract ideas." And this is " the 
light and sweetness" of one of the 
most readable of living English es- 
sayists ! 

Through Nature to Christ, by the 
Rev. Dr. Abbott, of St. John's Col- 
lege, Cambridge, is the result of 
this gentleman's speculations upon 
the possibility of making Christians 
out of people without requiring 
them to believe in Christianity. He 
is convinced that one may disbe- 
lieve "almost all" the historical 
facts of Christianity, such as the 
Incarnation, the Resurrection, the 
Ascension, and the miracles eve- 
rything that " would cause any dif- 
ficulty to an educated sceptic " and 
"yet hold a faith in Christ.". He 
has tried it himself, and is quite 
satisfied with the result. He does 
not believe in the historical accu- 
racy of the miraculous element in 
the Gospel records, and even in re- 
gard to the Incarnation and the 
Resurrection he thinks they are 
only " spiritually, not literally, 
true," whatever that may mean. 
God intends to deceive us in order 
to teach us the truth ; he filled the 
Bible with falsehoods, that through 
them we might be led to know him- 
who is truth ! This is Dr. Abbott's < 
great discovery. His proposition 
is that "as mankind has been train- 
ed from its infancy by illusions, so 
it is not unnatural that God in his 
Scriptures should train us by the 
same means." And what the priests 
of the "church of the future "should 
do with their people is to "endea- 



IOO 



The New Protestant Criticism of Christianity. 



vor to make Christ in his human 
nature appear to them admirable, 
lovable, adorable, and, in a word, 
so naturally necessary to their souls 
that in after-days, if they found 
themselves obliged to give up cer- 
tain historical beliefs, they would 
still retain their faith in Christ, be- 
cause that faith was based, not 
upon minute details of history, but 
upon the inherent necessities and 
aspirations of their own hearts." 
This imaginary and illusive Christ 
will after a while come to be not a 
person but the representation of 
ideas of self-sacrifice, love, and 
duty ; in the church of the future 
there will be no " prayer nor praise," 
but work ; death will lose its ter- 
rors^ and " for even the bad man 
there will be a sure and certain 
.hope in the life or in one of the 
many lives to come !" Dean Stan- 
ley ought to be proud of Dr. Ab- 
bott also. 

In two ponderous volumes Pro- 
fessor Otto Pfleiderer, of Jena, 
gives us the substance of the latest 
researches of German non-Catholic 
savants into the life, writings, and 
doctrines of St. Paul, under the 
title of Paulism : a Contribution to 
the History of Primitive Christian 
Theology. He begins by recogniz- 
ing as the only genuine writings of 
St. Paul the Epistles to the Corin- 
thians, Romans, Galatians, ist 
Thessalonians, Philippians, and 
Philemon ; the others are forger- 
ies of a later date. St. Paul had 
no miraculous conversion; that 
: story is a fable ; he was converted 
only by his intercourse with the 
Christians whom he persecuted. 
" His nervous, excitable constitu- 
tion caused his speculations on the 
testimony given by the Christians 
to the Resurrection and their faith 
in Jesus to move his mind and ima- 
;.gination .deeply; and it is not 



remarkable that the decisive hour 
of his conversion should be accom- 
panied to his ecstatic mind by a 
supposed external vision of the 
crucified Lord." For a while he re- 
garded Jesus only as a man glorified 
after his resurrection ; then as one 
who had been pre-existent in hea- 
ven ; finally as the one by whom 
the worlds were made. In a word, 
in Pfleiderer's learned opinion, St. 
Paul was a man with an enthusias- 
tic, vehement, and exalted intellect, 
but subject to illusions which he 
mistook for realities. 

We must conclude our task with 
a notice of a book that is of itself 
almost worthy of an article. This 
is the Lehrbuch der Evangelisch-Pro- 
testantischen Dogmatik " Manual 
of Evangelical Protestant Dogma- 
tic" by Prof. R. A. Lipsius.of the 
University of Jena. It shows most 
clearly what has been the down- 
ward progress of scientific dogma 
in Protestant German theology. 
Revelation is degraded into a spe- 
cies of " religious experience " ; it 
is " a fatal mistake " to claim for 
its forms a divine origin and au- 
thority; the dogmatic portions of 
the Bible are no part of the revela- 
tion ; Luther was right when he 
called the Epistle of St. James " an 
epistle of straw." Miracles are 
also lowered ; a miracle is " any 
event that excites the religious 
consciousness to recognize God," 
and all miracles have a physical 
causation. The Trinity, as a meta- 
physical proposition, is " a contra- 
diction in terms," and all attempts 
at conceiving it are "mere mytho- 
logy." As for the Divinity of 
Christ, 



" The church's assertion of the meta- 
physical Deity of Christ rests on a con- 
fusion between the fundamental princi- 
ple of Christianity and the Person of its 
Founder." 



A Mountain Echo. 



101 



Here we must pause, not because the Son of Man cometh shall he 
our material is exhausted but be- find faith on the earth? 
cause our space is limited. When 



A MOUNTAIN ECHO. 

FELL from the horn a feeble blast 

Unskilful in its art; 
Of all melodious grace bereft 

It smote the mountains' heart. 
Lo ! 'mid the pines that fringe the lake 

What full-voiced music broke, 
In pathless glen, on fire-scarred crest, 

A far-off sweetness woke. 
Tuned by the mountains' harmony, 

The trembling notes grew strong, 
Filled the wide silence of the sky 

With music lingering long. 



So fall, me thought, our human prayers 

Against our Father's breast 
A pitiful, uncertain sound 

Of little grace possessed. 
Caught by the faithful saints that gird 

The steps of God's great throne, 
The wavering note from their true hearts 

Wins sweeter depths of tone. 
In the soft silence of our hearts 

The cry comes back again 
The uncertain strain grown music strong, 

Grown praise the note of pain. 
Tuned by the touch of steadfast souls 

And depths of God's great peace, 
The earth-cry dies in echo sweet 

Of heavenly song of grace. 



ECHO LAKS, FRANCONIA, N. H. 



IO2 



Recollections of Chambly. 



RECOLLECTIONS OF CHAMBLY. 



Ye who have known the sudden tears that flow, 
Sad tears, yet sweet, the dews of twilight woe, 
When, led by chance, your wandering eye has crossed 
Some poor memorial of the loved and lost, 
Bear with my weakness as I look around 
On the dear relics of this holy ground. 

O. W. HOLMES. 



THE few surviving citizens of 
the United States who were ac- 
quainted with that part of Lower 
Canada still commonly called the 
" French Country," during the first 
quarter of this century, must re- 
member the primitive character 
and customs of its inhabitants. 

The peaceful contentment and 
glee which prevailed in their little 
villages and farming districts; the 
health-promoting simplicity of their 
dress, domestic habits, and diet ; 
their freedom from wearing cares 
and anxieties ; their polite and cor- 
dial interchange of all social courte- 
sies ; the gay hospitality with which 
the stranger was admitted to share 
in these and in their frugal repasts 
the staple articles of which were 
often the " black bread " and far- 
famed, but unsurpassed, " pea- 
soup " of the country all these 
were features in such entire con- 
trast with those of their ambitious, 
restless, and pampered neighbors 
of the " States " as, when once no- 
ticed, not easily to be forgotten. 

In this rare blending of cheerful 
content with untiring industry, of 
extreme simplicity with refined 
tastes and a politeness which never 
permitted the most familiar inter- 
course to degenerate into rude 
freedom of speech or manner, an 
observing stranger might read, as 
in the printed lines of a book, 
traces of an invisible power ex- 
pressed through these visible re- 



sults a power exercised so silent- 
ly and gently that its subjects were 
almost unconscious of its domin- 
ion, yet of irresistible force in 
forming the character and habits 
of this happy people. That power 
was religion, exerted through the 
mild sway of the clergy and reli- 
gious orders. From early child- 
hood to old age its benign influence 
hovered constantly over them, in- 
structing, guiding, and protecting. 
In every parish M. le Curt was 
the confidential friend and ad- 
viser of his people in all their af- 
fairs, their chosen arbiter in any 
disputes which might arise, their 
best consoler under the afflictions 
of life. 

Very interesting was it in those 
days for even the Protestant way- 
farer along the Canadian highways 
between the rows of low-roofed, 
white-washed cottages, with their 
neat enclosures and gardens bril- 
liant with many-colored flowers 
to note the frequent religious sym- 
bols which adorned their course : 
here a tall cross with a crown of 
thorns, the hammer and nails, or 
spear and sponge cruel instru- 
ments of the sufferings of our Ador- 
able Redeemer there on an ele- 
vated pedestal a rudely carved 
image of the bowed and penitent 
St. Peter, facing the crowing cock 
which reminded him of his fearful 
prevarication. Scarcely a mile of 
the journey but presented objects 



Recollections of Chambly. 



103 



designed to awaken a train of holy 
thought. More impressive still, for 
one accustomed to the practice of 
habitual week-day religion, to mark 
the reverence with which the hali- 
tan, as he followed his pony and 
loaded cart in summer, or his train- 
can in the winter, along the way, 
would lift his hat, bless himself 
with the sign of salvation, kneel 
for a momentary prayer at the foot 
of the wayside cross, and pursue 
his journey, as if daily habit had 
made his religion the very breath 
of his life. 

Alas ! that the spirit of modern 
audacity, miscalled " progress " 
and "liberalism," should have en- 
tered these tranquil regions, as 
Satan of old entered the Garden 
of Eden, to teach this once simple 
and favored race errors which can 
only mar their happiness and dis- 
turb their peace. 

It is easy to trace the footsteps 
of this arch-deceiver, for those ex- 
ternal emblems, touching incite- 
ments to penitence and devotion, 
have vanished or become infre- 
quent before them; while crimes, 
at the very mention of which the 
simple-minded ancestors of these 
enlightened disciples of "modern 
ideas " would have stood aghast, 
have multiplied in proportion to 
the banishment of these religious 
mementos. The change is deplora- 
ble in its social and domestic 
aspects. How poor the com- 
pensation found in ambitious dis- 
content, dissensions, and unrest for 
the former blessings of peace, har- 
mony, and contentment ! 

Portions of my .childhood passed 
among this people in those earlier 
and happier days have furnished 
many pleasant recollections during 
the course of a life of such busy 
cares as mark the years of the rest- 
less New-Englander. The place 



of this sojourn was the beautiful 
little village of Chambly, over 
which the guiding spirit of the 
great and good Father Mignault 
then, and for many years there- 
after, presided, diffusing a sweet 
odor of holiness which still lingers 
among the scenes so long hallowed 
by his presence, in precious memo- 
ries of his saintly life and conver- 
sation. 

It was a singular impulse, and a 
blessed one for us, which moved 
our guardian, himself a stern Puri- 
tan, to whose care we had been 
committed by our dying father, to 
place the education of my little 
brother and myself under the 
charge of this excellent priest, 
whose reputation, even then far- 
spread, was such as to secure en- 
tire confidence. 

Never was bashful and affrighted 
child filled with more dismal fore- 
bodings or oppressed with a hea- 
vier sense of forlorn loneliness and 
abandonment, mingled with sharp 
anxiety for my little brother, over 
whose safety I felt bound, as his 
sister and elder by two years, to 
watch, than weighed upon my 
sinking heart when we were de- 
posited in the porch of that low 
stone cottage at Chambly, the 
home of our reverend guardian. 
Gloomy and dark as it seemed to 
me then, how little I could have 
thought that it was destined to be- 
come the very beacon of hope, the 
harbor of peace, for both of us in 
after-years ! 

Hitherto the cherished pets of 
the best of fathers, the youngest 
members of a large and happy 
household stricken and scattered 
by the event which left us father- 
less, it was the first time we had 
been placed in the care of a 
stranger. That this stranger was a 
Catholic priest a title associated 



104 



Recollections of Cliambly. 



in ray childish imagination with 
everything grim and severe added 
new terrors to those I should have 
suffered in the midst of new scenes 
and surrounded by the strange 
faces of ordinary people. It was 
therefore an inexpressible surprise, 
an event in my life never to be for- 
gotten, when the smiling counte- 
nance of Father Mignault appear- 
ed, and his tall form bent over us, 
drawing us to his embrace, as if to 
protect and shield us even from 
our own fears, while expressions 
of most tender compassion fell 
from his lips. 

It is said that grief sits lightly 
on the heart of childhood, but my 
remembrance of the despairing 
pangs of my own childhood under 
the pressure of those early afflic- 
tions contradicts this assertion, and 
has ever since quickened my sym- 
pathies for the sorrows of the 
young. To this day I recall with 
vivid emotion the chilling throbs 
of that silent, hopeless anguish for 
which I expected no pity and 
looked for no relief. My brother, 
younger than myself and less timid 
and shy by nature, suffered less. 
What a relief, then, to find here, 
where I least expected it, a friend 
who seemed to know all my dis- 
tress without being told, and whose 
encouraging words and gentle ca- 
resses conveyed a healing balm to 
the wounds of my bleeding heart! 
What a surprise that this dignified 
and venerable priest could under- 
stand the grief of a little child, and 
turn from the solemn duties of his 
high office to notice and console 
my despair ! 

Of all the considerate means and 
skilful devices by which he sought 
to lure us from thoughts of our 
great loss, of our bright and beau- 
tiful home broken and dissolved, 
of its dear inmates separated and 



widely scattered, it is not my pur- 
pose now to speak. That he would 
succeed in this exercise of " pure 
religion and undefiled " towards 
the " fatherless in their affliction" 
was a foregone conclusion. From 
that first day his home became a 
very father's house to us. Though 
the course of my education was 
conducted elsewhere under his 
direction my brother remaining 
with him I was his frequent guest 

and the pet of Miss F Mignault, 

the kind niece who had charge of 
his well-ordered household. On 
the occurrence of every festivity 
or any event which could interest 
me I was sure to receive an invita- 
tion to pass the day with Miss 

F . How eagerly were these 

invitations accepted ; and how 
thoroughly we, poor orphan waifs, 
enjoyed the quiet rambles together 
through the well-kept grounds, 
among the flowers, the birds, and 
the bees, dear to us as the familiar 
friends of those brief earlier years 
of happiness, before the blight of 
mortality had touched our earthly 
treasures and left us desolate ! 

On one of these occasions in 
early summer, as we were sitting 
with Miss F under a vine-cov- 
ered arbor in the garden watching 
the bees, which were about to 
swarm, a messenger arrived in 
great haste to announce the ap- 
proach of the bishop of Boston 
with a number of priests in his 
company. The dinner-hour was 
near at hand, and I supposed such 
news would create a great bustle. 
To my surprise the preparations 
went on as quietly as usual. Miss 

F called me to help prepare 

and ornament the tables in that 
dear old dining-room, so perfect 
in its quaint and simple elegance, 
which must ever be remembered 
with warm emotion by the thou- 



Recollections of Chambly. 



sands who have partaken of its 
good cheer. I entered with zeal 
upon my duties as her assistant. 
Having a special turn for arrang- 
ing bouquets, it was always my 
task, when visiting there, to prepare 
the flowers which were an indis- 
pensable garnish to Father Mig- 
nault's table. 

When all was done I heard with 
dismay that we little folk would 
not be permitted to become invisi- 
ble when the august bishop should 
arrive with his reverend compan- 
ions. Miss F insisted that we 

should make our appearance, and 
her venerable uncle sustained her 
decision with a firmness that was 
proof against all our entreaties ; so 
there was nothing for their small 
guests but to smother their fears 
and become resigned to the inevi- 
table. 

How I trembled when Father 
Mignault led us forward in our 
simple mourning dresses, and in- 
troduced us to the Right Reverend 
prelate as his " little Yankee 
wards !" 

" Ah ! then," said the bishop, tak- 
ing us both by the hand, " they be- 
long to me. I am the bishop of 
Yankeeland, and I claim all the 
little Yankees !" Then, drawing 
us gently to him, he asked our 
names, putting us at our ease by 
such playful chat as children love. 
When he heard our name he said : 
"You are of the good old Scottish' 
stock," and described the heraldic 
emblems anciently attached to the- 
name, how and when they were 
won by the ancestors of our race, 
adding : " They were heroic men, 
true to their faith and their coun- 
try through sore trials and tempta- 
tions ; no doubt their fervent pray- 
ers and constancy will yet be re- 
warded by the return to the glori- 
ous old sanctuary, for which they 



105 

freely gave their earthly possessions 
and their lives, of many among 
their descendants who have gone 
astray in evil times." 

Noticing that we were attracted 
by the gold cross suspended by a 
massive chain from his neck, he 
took it in his hand and said with 
impressive solemnity: "I am now 
about to show you what few little 
Yankee children are so favored as 
ever to look upon a portion of the 
very cross upon which our Divine 
Redeemer died." Then explaining 
to us how, when, and by whom the 
true cross was discovered, he pro- 
ceeded in a low voice, tremulous 
with emotion, to awaken our inter- 
est, our reverence, and our love for 
the precious relic and the priceless 
lessons it conveyed, while he open- 
ed the cross and revealed it to our 
sight. When he saw how earnest 
was our attention and how deeply 
moved we were by his words 
which fell like good seed upon soil 
prepared by the ploughshare of 
affliction and the blessed dew of 
tears he allowed us to kiss the 
sacred treasure, urging us, as he 
closed it from our sight, to cherish 
in our hearts the remembrance of 
the blessing we had enjoyed in see- 
ing and touching with our lips a 
part of the sacred wood, stained by 
the blood of our dying Lord, upon 
which the redemption of the world 
was wrought. Never was labored 
discourse so touching, so effective 
as the few solemn sentences which 
fell from his lips, to remain rooted 
in our memories while life should 
last. 

Even to the eye of a child it was 
perfectly manifest that this holy 
prelate was a most remarkable man. 
Such majesty, blended with such 
child-like simplicity ! To see him 
once was to remember him for ever. 
To this hour his countenance, his 



io6 



Recollections of Chambly. 



form, his manner, every intonation 
of his voice, every slightest word 
uttered that day by Bishop Chev- 
erus, afterwards Cardinal Archbish- 
op of Bordeaux, are as fresh in my 
memory as if but a week instead of 
more than half a century had pass- 
ed since I saw and heard him. 

The next morning, when about 
to leave for Montreal, he caused us 
to kneel before him and gave us 
his benediction, which rested for 
ever after upon our heads, as the 
seal of our union with the Holy 
Church Catholic, though it was 
long before we were permitted to 
make that union public and visi- 
ble. 

This visit to Chambly was made 
but a short time previous to his 
final departure for Europe. 

The memory of Bishop Cheverus 
is cherished as a sacred legacy by 
all the old Catholics of Boston, and 
held in affectionate respect by many 
of its oldest non-Catholic citizens ; 
but I doubt if it flourished anywhere 
in greener or more enduring fresh- 
ness than in the hearts of the two or- 
phans which his overflowing charity 
so completely enthralled in that 
short space of time. The dear 
brother departed long ago with 
" the sign of peace," but among the 
blessed recollections which cheer- 
ed his last days none were more 
precious or more frequently men- 
tioned by him, with grateful praise 
to the Author of all good, than 
those connected with this brief in- 
terview and the parting benediction 
bestowed upon us by this saintly 
prelate. 

We met at Father Mignault's 
house many distinguished ecclesi- 
astics and men of the laity eminent 
for learning, ability, and influence 
in the secular affairs of the world. 
His home was the resort of such ; 
his advice was sought by them 



upon subjects widely diverse, and 
his judgment highly valued by 
men cf different nationalities and 
of every variety of political and re- 
ligious opinion. 

During the rebellion in the win- 
ter of 1836-7 his efforts on the side 
of peace were like oil poured upon 
the troubled waters of Canadian 
politics, and it was noticed that the 
tidal wave of insurrection scarce- 
ly touched his beloved parish of 
Chambly, to the best interests of 
which he had consecrated his life. 

While we remained with him we 
became acquainted with many of 
its estimable inhabitants. The so- 
cial enjoyments of the place were 
always a charm to all who shared 
in them. The delightful little voy- 
ages of parties in numerous open 
boats across the beautiful Chambly 
basin of the river Richelieu, on 
visits to the pleasant neighborhood 
on the opposite shore; the picnic 
festivals on the islands in the basin 
for the dancing of which the 
reverend pastor, a most accom- 
plished violinist, furnished the mu- 
sic and the choice refreshments 
in iced wines and lemonades, as well 
as more substantial fare, provided 
by the same considerate purveyor ; 
the trips to Belleisle mountain, 
and rambles among its shady nooks 
and cool recesses these were 
our summer delights, all planned 
and provided for by M. le Curt, 
the presiding spirit of the place. 
In winter the social pastimes were 
no less enlivening. The meeting 
of the dwellers in two or three vil- 
lages for such sleigh-rides as, for 
comfort in the nature of the vehi- 
cles, in the abundant provision of 
furs, and of the heavy warmth-pre- 
serving material for wraps, can be 
found only in Canada; the merry- 
making at the rendezvous, where 
hospitality outdid itself in efforts 






Recollections of Chambly. 



107 






to furnish every variety of amuse- 
ment and good cheer all this was 
remembered in after-years as an 
oasis in lives passed under the 
chilling atmosphere of New Eng- 
land reserve and on the arid de- 
serts of its incessant toil. 

One incident of our residence 
there was of such singular interest 
that I may perhaps be pardoned 
for recording it here. In one of 
the neighboring villages, some years 
previous to the time of which I 
write, an accomplished and comely 
young lady from a New England 
State had been engaged by the Pro- 
testants of the place to teach a se- 
lect school. A thriving young Ca- 
nadian merchant became so fasci- 
nated with her charms that, al- 
though he was a most faithful and 
fervent Catholic, he paid his ad- 
dresses to her and persuaded her 
to become his wife. A younger 
sister, no less engaging and accom- 
plished, was brought to take the 
situation left vacant by that event. 
Very soon a younger brother, and 
partner of her sister's husband, fol- 
lowed his example and married the 
new teacher. They were happy 
beyond expression in these con- 
nections, with nothing to mar their 
complete domestic felicity save the 
difference in religion. This was in- 
deed sufficient to cast a cloud over 
the peace of the two truly faithful 
brothers. They besieged heaven 
with their prayers, and procured 
innumerable Masses to be offered 
by the clergy for the conversion of 
their wives, apparently with no ef- 
fect. The stubborn Yankee na- 
tures and prejudices were not easi- 
ly to be subdued. The only con- 
cession they could obtain was the 
privilege of educating their lovely 
group of boys and girls in Catholic 
schools. 

The only daughter of the elder 



brother was near my own age, and 
was placed in the private class to 
which I belonged for instruction. 
She was a most determined defen- 
der of her mother's attitude in reli- 
gious matters, and firmly set against 
Catholic influences. 

We became very fond of each 
other, and she was often included 
in the invitations to pass the day 
at Father Mignault's with me, while 
I was also invited to go with her 
when she was the guest of the day. 

One evening we received such an 
invitation for the next day. Soon 
after our arrival her father and mo- 
ther, accompanied by the uncle 
and aunt, arrived. I noticed that 
the brothers appeared more happy, 
and even joyful, than I had ever 
seen them. The sisters were se- 
rene as usual, with a shade of sol- 
emn gravity, rendered the more no- 
ticeable from its contrast with the 
gay aspect of the brothers. 

At the dinner-table the elder 
brother astonished Father Mig- 
nault, and almost paralyzed my 
poor little friend with horror, by 
announcing that the sisters, hither- 
to so obdurate, desired to make 
their profession of the Catholic 
faith before him on that very day. 
They had asked to be brought to 
see their boys at Father Mignault's 
college, and this daughter. On the 
way they had made known the joy- 
ful surprise they had in store for 
those most interested, and that they 
had long been secretly preparing 
for this solemn result by prayer, 
reading, and meditation. 

Soon after dinner all repaired to 
the church, and we witnessed for 
the first time the impressive cere- 
mony of the reception of wander- 
ers into the blessed fold of the 
great Shepherd, of which we our- 
selves were destined to be at a 
later day the happy subjects. 



loS 



Recollections of Chambly. 



The joy of the brothers was un- 
bounded, and their sons were hard- 
ly less delighted ; but my obstinate 

little F was inconsolable. She 

declared she would never be re- 
conciled to the change, and con- 
tinued bitterly to lament it for 
months, during which her father's 
constant entreaties that she should 
follow the example of her mother 
seemed entirely lost upon her. She 
would weep painfully over his fre- 
quent letters, and at length allowed 
me to read one of them. A more 
touching expression of paternal 
tenderness and persuasive entrea- 
ty language could not convey. 
When I returned it to her she 
said : 

" Well, what do you think of it?" 

" I think, my dear F ," I re- 
plied, " that if you could but real- 
ize, as I have been compelled to 
realize in unceasing tears and re- 
gret, what it is to lose such a dear 
and tender father, it would be im- 
possible for you to resist that mov- 
ing appeal. If I were in your 
place I should say, ' My parents are 
wiser and know much more than I, 
and I shall at least be safe in hon- 
oring my father and mother by act- 
ing in obedience to their wishes.' 
I do not see how you can excuse 
yourself if you do otherwise." 

" Perhaps you are right," she re- 
plied ; "but how can I ever go to 
confession?" 

" I could never fear to go to 
Father Mignault," I said, " for it 
seems to mje that I would gladly 
lay open to him every thought of 
my heart, and leave all the burden 
of my sinful thoughts, words, and 
deeds at his holy feet." 

A few days after this conversa- 
tion she asked me to go with her 
to the church, for she had resolved 
to make the dreaded approach to 
the sacred tribunal of penance. It 



was another blessed surprise for her 
excellent family, and I was greatly 
rejoiced for them and for her. They 
were ever after very grateful to me for 
encouraging her in taking the final 
step, and our friendship continued 
closer than ever until she died. She 
was one of the earliest victims to 
the cholera upon the first visit of 
that dread scourge in Canada. 

All these details were forcibly 
revived in my memory by reading 
the announcement of the death of 
her venerable mother at an ad- 
vanced age, fortified with all the 
rites of the holy church into which 
she was adopted, and of whose 
abundant graces her whole subse- 
quent life had furnished a most 
edifying and fruitful illustration. 
She survived all her children, but 
leaves a large circle of grandchil- 
dren to revere her memory and 
copy her virtues. 

When the time at length arrived 
for us to leave Chambly and to 
part with the reverend friend who 
had been a father indeed to us in 
our desolation, our grief was too 
lively and deep for expression. He 
also was deeply moved, and said, as 
he laid his hand upon our heads at 
parting, "My dear children, I shall 
yet see you good Catholics." 
Years later, when we were about to 
receive confirmation at the hands 
of the bishop of Boston, I had the 
happiness to meet the reverend father 
for the first time since that parting, 
and to entertain him in my own 
home, made happy by the conver- 
sion of our whole family to the an- 
cient faith. From that time our 
intercourse with Chambly was re- 
newed, and was always the source 
of great interest and enjoyment to 
us and to our children. 

When the temperance movement 
began in Canada Father Mignault 
was among the earliest and leading 



Recollections of Chambly. 



109 



promoters of the cause, at no slight 
sacrifice to his personal comfort at 
that late period of a life during the 
whole length of which he had been 
accustomed to take light French 
wines with his morning and evening 
meals, instead of coffee and tea, for 
which he had no relish. In the 
early stage of the temperance cam- 
paign, and while he was exerting all 
his influence on the side of total 
abstinence, we visited him on a cer- 
tain Saturday, with the purpose of 
remaining with him over Sunday. 
It happened that Lord Elgin, then 
Governor-General of Canada, with 
Lady Elgin, had been passing sev- 
eral days with Father Mignault, 
and had left that morning for Mon- 
treal. He had heard that some of 
his people who were not too well 
pleased with " this new doctrine of 
total abstinence," even when warm- 
ly advocated by one so revered 
as M. le Cure, had passed the 
remark one to another : " Now you 
will see that he will offer wine to 
Lord and Lady Elgin, in spite of 
his new temperance theories. " 

So after the close of his discourse 
on Sunday morning he took occa- 
sion to renew his fervent exhorta- 
tions to his people on the subject 
of temperance, and to mention 
the remarks of which he had heard, 
informing them that upon the 
arrival of his distinguished guests, 
Lady Elgin being in a very delicate 
state of health, he had thought 



proper to offer her a little wine as 
a refreshment after her fatiguing 
journey, but was happy to inform 
them that her ladyship declined, with 
the assurance that she never tasted 
anything of the kind except when 
compelled by the requirements of 
state etiquette to do so. 

Our last visit to Father Mignault 
was made after his health had been 
long and seriously declining. His 
mind was still vigorous at that 
extremely advanced age. A few 
months later his numerous pupils, 
scattered through the whole length 
and breadth of this Union from 
Maine to California, heard of his 
departure with emotions of deep 
regret. They will all testify with 
one heart and voice to the noble 
and generous qualities of the re- 
markable man to whose memory 
this imperfect tribute is paid. 

A devoted priest, disquieted by 
no motives of personal ambition ; a 
polished and courtly gentleman in 
his deportment; an exact Catholic 
theologian untainted by any touch 
of modern " liberalism," his learn- 
ing embraced the widest range of 
subjects, and his expansive charity, 
like that of the great -apostle of old, 
constrained him to become " all to 
all " that he might win many souls 
to Christ. Few among our aposto- 
lic men have been more successful 
in this respect, and none surely 
will be longer or more affectionate- 
ly remembered. 



110. 



The Pretended Fall of Liber ins. 



THE PRETENDED FALL OF LIBERIUS. 



MARCELLINUS FELIX LIBERIUS 
became pope on the 22d day of 
May, A.D. 352. At this time, un- 
der the Emperor Constantius, the 
greatest odium was being excit- 
ed and was already raging against 
Athanasius. The emperor, part- 
ly by cunning, partly by threats, had 
induced many provincial synods 
in the East, and some in the West, 
to condemn Athanasius. Liberius 
offered Constantius a firm resis- 
tance ; he condemned all the syn- 
ods which had yielded to the empe- 
ror, and did his best to bring the 
latter to a better mind ; he refus- 
ed to listen to Constantius' re- 
quests, spurned his presents, sent 
back his legates, and with the 
most undaunted courage defended 
the Catholic faith and the inno- 
cence of Athanasius. Constantius, 
weary of this resistance, sent the 
eunuch Eusebius to Rome, in 
order, either by stratagem or vio- 
lence, to bring Liberius to Milan, 
where he himself was. Eusebius 
had to use force, and in the year 
356 Liberius was dragged before 
the emperor. He withstood all at- 
tempts of the latter to shake his 
constancy, and boldly declared 
himself ready to die rather than 
condemn Athanasius and defile the 
Catholic faith. He was exiled to 
Bercea, in Syria. Two years after- 
wards he was recalled to Rome, 
where up to the time of his death 
he labored most strenuously and 
with the happiest results for the 
defence of Athanasius, the condem- 
nation of the Arians, and the re- 
conciliation of the fallen. The 
whole dispute in regard to Libe- 
rius rests on the fact of his re- 



turn from exile. What was the 
reason for which the Emperor 
Constantius permitted him to re- 
turn to Rome ? 

Some have undertaken to answer 
this question as follows : Because 
Liberius, overcome by the weari- 
ness and sufferings of his exile, 
signed the Arian creed, condemn- 
ed Athanasius, and communicated 
with the Arians. They attempt 
to prove this answer by many testi- 
monies of the Fathers, and histori- 
cal arguments ; and from all this 
they deduce as a consequence that 
the pope is not infallible. 

Hence arises a threefold ques- 
tion. 

The first question is merely his- 
torical : What was the true reason 
for which Constantius recalled Li- 
berius from exile ? 

The second is critico-philologi- 
cal in its nature : Are the testi- 
monies which are adduced to prove 
the fall of Liberius genuine, sup- 
posititious, or interpolated ? 

The third question is theological : 
Even supposing that Liberius fell, 
can any argument against the pon- 
tifical infallibility be derived from 
this fall ? 

We shall speak as briefly as pos- 
sible of each. 

I. THE HISTORICAL QUESTION. 

We propose to show two things : 
i. That any fall whatsoever on 
Liberius' part is excluded from the 
number of historical facts by the 
rules of criticism. 2. That most 
trustworthy and indubitable his- 
torical monuments give plainly the 
true cause of Liberius' return, 
which was not his fall. 



The Pretended Fall of Liberius. 



The fall of Liberius must be ex- 
cluded from the number of histori- 
cal facts, if we wish to follow the 
rules of criticism. 

The heroic constancy which Li- 
berius showed before the time of 
his exile in defence of the Catholic 
faith and of Athanasius, as well as 
his undaunted courage, from the 
very time of his return until his 
death, against the Arians and in 
favor of Athanasius, will not per- 
mit us to admit his fall. Indeed, it 
is incredible that one who had suf- 
fered so much and with so much 
constancy for Athanasius, who was 
possessed of true Roman courage, 
who was born of a family of consu- 
lar rank, who had animated and 
consoled exiled bishops, who had 
attained to the very highest dignity 
of the church, who was held in the 
greatest esteem and friendship by 
such men as St. Athanasius, St. Hi- 
lary, St. Eusebius of Vercelli,andSt. 
Eusebius of Cagliari, should have 
broken down and lost courage un- 
der a mere exile, and an exile, too, 
which could have been aggravat- 
ed by no corporal sufferings for 
whether we consider his own large 
private fortune and the exceeding 
great wealth of the Quintilii, or the 
solicitude of the Roman Church 
and the Roman matrons for their 
chief pastor, it is certain that he 
could not have suffered for the 
want either of the necessities or the 
conveniences of life an exile, fin- 
ally, in which he enjoyed epistolary 
Correspondence with his friends 
and the society of those who came 
to visit him. Hc^w can we suppose 
such a man to have been overcome 
by such an exile ! 

But the events which occurred 
after his return from exile are in- 
compatible with the idea of his 
fall. Had he really fallen, the Ca- 
tholics would have become hostile 



ill 

to him, the Arians his friends; he 
would have shown himself mild to- 
wards the Arians, cold towards the 
Catholics; he could not possibly 
have been, after his recall, the same 
Liberius that he had been before 
his exile. But what happened? 
After his return Liberius condemn- 
ed the Arians, repudiated the 
Council of Rimini, by which the 
word "consubstantial" had been 
struck out and Athanasius con- 
demned ; he was persecuted most 
bitterly by the Arians, and was 
compelled again to leave Rome in 
order to escape the violence of 
Constantius. Therefore it cannot 
be said that Liberius fell before his 
return. 

Again, if we admit the fall of Li- 
berius, it is impossible to explain 
the unanimity of all the documents 
of that age in praising the sanctity, 
constancy, and magnanimity of Li- 
berius. Our forefathers in the 
faith did, it is true, grant willing 
pardon to those who had fallen 
from the faith, upon their doing 
penance; but they never praised, 
extolled, and glorified them. Yet 
all the contemporary Fathers praise 
Liberius: St. Ambrose (lib. iii. 
de Virginitate, from chap. i. to iv.), 
St. Epiphanius (in Hczr., Ixxiii.), St. 
Athanasius (/// Historia Ar. ad. 
Mon., No. 35), St. Siricius (in 
Epist. Deer, ad Himmerium], etc. 
Almost all the martyrologies of the 
Latin Church (Steinger enume- 
rates more than forty), all the Syn- 
axaria and Menologies (martyrolo- 
gies) of the Greeks, all the Coptic, 
Egyptian, and Ethiopian martyro- 
logies, rank Liberius among the 
saints ; the Greek martyrologies 
especially praise him for resisting 
the heretical Constantius. 

All the contemporary historians, 
in speaking of Liberius, laud his 
fortitude, magnanimity, courage, 



112 



The Pretended Fall of Liber ins. 



constancy, and the hard-fought 
victories which he gained over the 
Arians. 

We cannot admit the fall of the 
pontiff in such a conflict with the 
emperor himself, and in such a 
cause, which shook the whole 
world, against the uniform silence 
of all contemporary historians and 
with the entire absence of histori- 
cal evidence. The following are 
the contemporary authorities who 
would surely have mentioned the 
fall of Liberius had any such fall 
taken place, yet none of whom 
have a single word that relates or 
supposes that fall : Socrates, Sul- 
picius Severus, Theodoretus, St. 
Athanasius, St. Hilary, St. Phce- 
badius, Sozomenus, Cassiodorus, 
St. Epiphanius, Theophanes, Nice- 
phorus Callixtus, the Acts of St. 
Liberius, the Libellus Precum 
(Book of Petitions) of Marcellinus. 
All of the foregoing narrate the 
history of the Arians and the acts 
of Liberius, yet, as we have said, 
none give the slightest hint that he 
fell. 

No genuine record can be shown 
in support of this fall. Those 
which are offered are entirely spu- 
rious. The only one among non- 
Arian writers who mentions the 
fall of Liberius is Sozomenus ; 
and he mentions it only to reject 
it and say that it is a calumny, in- 
vented after Liberius by the Arians 
(Hist., book iv. chap, xv.) 

Photius himself, the heresiarch 
and final author of the Greek 
schism, in his Epitome of Eccle- 
siastical History (Hist. EccL Epit., 
lib. iv. No. 3), gives the opinion of 
Philostorgius, an Arian, on the fall 
of Liberius, but gives it incredu- 
lously. 

We cannot admit the fall of Li- 
berius, because it was asserted, 
only many centuries after his 



death, with no foundation in con- 
temporary history, and moreover 
with so great and conflicting a va- 
riety in the circumstances alleged 
by the supporters of the charge 
that the opinion of one refutes and 
destroys that of the other. Among 
those who have admitted, since the 
sixteenth century, the fall of Li- 
berius, there are almost as many 
opinions as there are names. Let 
us give a short specimen. 

Blondel, Basnage, De Potter, 
etc., say that Liberius signed the 
second formula of Sirmium, and 
that he could not have signed 
either the first or third. 

Bossuet, De la Luzerne, Constant, 
Natalis Alexander, etc., endeavor 
to prove that Liberius could have 
signed no other than the first for- 
mula of Sirmium. 

Pagi, Valois, etc., create a fourth 
Sirmian formula, of which no one 
ever heard before, because, as they 
assert, Liberius could not have 
signed any of the three known for- 
mulas. These authors do not all 
agree as to the condemnation of 
Athanasius, nor as to the time of the 
signing ; there is as great a diver- 
sity as to the place where the for- 
mula was signed, the witnesses to 
the act, and the persons who per- 
suaded Liberius to its accomplish- 
ment. 

This remarkable discrepancy in 
the statements of these writers pro- 
ceeds from the fact that their ac- 
counts do not rest on certain docu- 
ments, but had to be made up of 
airy conjectures. 

2. The cause of Liberius' return 
from exile was not that he had 
fallen. 

This cause is expressly stated by 
historians both as a fact and ex- 
plicitly as the cause of his return ; 
and it so agrees with the rest of 
the history of Arianism and the 



The Pretended Fall of Liberius. 



empire that it cannot be denied. 
It was the political necessity under 
.which Constantius lay of satisfy- 
ing the desires of the Roman peo- 
ple, who had demanded the recall 
of Liberius, and had demanded it 
in such a way as to leave him no 
choice but to comply. 

The Roman people were most 
hostile to the Arians. See Theo- 
doret, book ii. chap, xvii.; Socra- 
tes, book ii. chap, xxxvii.; St. Atha- 
nasius, Hist. Ar., No. 41. 

The Roman people were most 
strongly attached to Liberius. 
See Sozomenus, book iv. chap, xv.; 
Ammianus, a pagan, book xv. 
chap, vii., and the preceding autho- 
rities. 

The Roman people entreated 
the emperor for the recall of Libe- 
rius. Theodoret (book ii. chap, 
xvii.) narrates how the Roman ma- 
trons, gathered together, went in 
great pomp to demand from Con- 
stantius the recall of Liberius. 
Sozomenus (book iv. chap, xi.) 
and the Libellus Precum of Mar- 
cellinus and Faustinas (in Prsef.) 
assert that the people of Rome, 
with frequent outcries, called upon 
Constantius to recall Liberius. 

Constantius promised the peo- 
ple of Rome to grant their request 
if his Arian bishops would consent. 
But while the affair was still un- 
settled he suddenly and unexpected- 
ly left Rome. The Romans there- 
upon broke out into a sedition, and, 
proceeding even to bloodshed, de- 
clared that they would not become 
quiet until Liberius should return. 
Sozomenus (passage above cited), 
Sulpiciiis Severus (book ii. chap, iv.), 
Socrates (book ii. chap, xxxvii.), 
Libellus Precum (place above cit- 
ed). 

Constantius did not willingly as- 
sent to this demand, as he would 
have done had he succeeded in 
VOL. xxvni. 8 



"3 

breaking the spirit of Liberius and 
overcoming his constancy. 

Socrates (place cited) : " The em- 
peror, though unwillingly, gave his 
consent." 

Theodoret (book ii. chap, xvii.) : 
"Being compelled (flexus), there- 
fore, the emperor ordered that il- 
lustrious man, worthy of all praise, 
to return from his exile." 

Theophanes (ad ann. 352) : " At 
last the emperor, compelled (coac- 
tus] by the prayers of the Romans, 
recalls Liberius from exile." 

Nicephorus Callixtus (book ix. 
chap, xvii.) says that the emperor 
consented with a bad grace. 

On the return of Liberius a great 
concourse of the Roman people 
welcomed him with joyful accla- 
mations, and his approach to Rome 
is called by all a triumphal en- 
trance. All historians agree in 
this. Now, the Romans most cer- 
tainly would not have given him 
such a reception had he fallen* 
from the faith. How they would 
have treated him in that case is 
sufficiently shown by the example 
of St. Felix, who ruled the Roman 
Church in the absence of Liberius. 
For having shown mildness (not 
favor) to the Arians he was first 
deserted by the Romans, and after- 
wards expelled by them from 
Rome before the return of Libe- 
rius. 

All the above facts show most 
clearly that the reason for Liberi- 
us' return was that the Roman peo- 
ple forced the emperor to recall' 
him. Nor is there any intrinsic 
improbability in this ; on the con- 
trary, there is every circumstance 
to confirm the fact. 

Constantius was a man of fickle 
disposition and very little firmness; 
he trusted little to the fidelity of 
his soldiers, and was hated by the 
people on account of his Arianism. 



114 



The Pretended Fall of Liberius. 



Rome was at that time the most 
powerful city of the empire, and 
was vehemently hostile to the em- 
peror, so that during the whole 
time of his reign he spent only a 
single month at Rome (May, A.D. 
358), and even this was not with- 
out fear, as is proved by his sud- 
den exit, which might be called a 
real flight. This is the reason he 
consented " unwillingly," " under 
compulsion," " with bad grace." 

Now, this action of the Roman 
people excludes, as we have shown, 
the idea of a fall of Liberius. 

II. THE CRITICO-PHILOLOGICAL 
QUESTION. 

It cannot be denied that there 
exist certain documents which 
have afforded foundation for the 
opinion of those who accuse Libe- 
rius of having fallen from the faith. 
How can these be reconciled with 
what we have said above ? Both 
cannot be true ; and the attempts 
which learned men have made to 
reconcile them have only served to 
generate in their narrations that 
lamentable confusion which we 
have noticed above. This diffi- 
culty was almost insoluble in the 
sixteenth century, especially to 
those who would admit no a priori 
argument in historical matters ; but 
at the present time, after so much 
critico-philological study of the gen- 
uine works of the Fathers of the 
fourth century, the whole difficulty 
has vanished. For, one after an- 
other, all the passages that were op- 
posed to Liberius have been found 
to be spurious ; and have been found 
so not by researches made for the 
purpose of vindicating Liberius, 
but in the course of investigations 
made for the end of restoring the 
legitimate text of the Fathers. 

Hence there is at present no one 



among the learned who admits 
this fall that is to say, among the 
learned who, with a mind free 
from prejudice, have given special 
attention to this kind of study. 
Let us give some of these docu- 
ments by way of example. 

i. The Epistles of Liberius: 
In the sixteenth century were pub- 
lished four letters of Liberius, in 
which he himself confesses to the 
Greek and Campanian bishops 
that he had'condemned Athanasius 
and subscribed to the Sirmian for- 
mula of faith. The Epistles are 
spurious and forged by the Arians. 
The following are the arguments to 
prove this assertion. 

The Arians were in the habit 
of forging such false documents. 
They even forged letters of Con- 
stantius. They were convicted of 
this crime in councils. They con- 
fessed it themselves, and not on 
one occasion only. St. Athana- 
sius, St. Hilary, and St. Jerome 
make the assertion in regard to 
letters and books bearing their own 
names. 

These letters bear intrinsic signs 
of falsity in the titles, the phrases, 
and the style, which are altogether 
unworthy of a pontiff so cultured 
and eloquent as was Liberius. 

They state or suppose facts 
which are absurd or which contra- 
dict all the most authentic and 
certain historical documents. 

They destroy each other ; for 
what one asserts another denies. 

They were unknown to the most 
diligent and sedulous investigators 
of Arian history; and yet they are 
encyclical letters, not addressed to 
one bishop only but sent to all the 
Oriental and Campanian prelates. 
These letters were never cited by 
the heretics in their own defence, 
not even when the latter were con- 
demned by Liberius. 



The Pretended Fall of Liberius. 



It is wonderful with what pains 
those who did not perceive the 
falsity of these letters have labored 
to reconcile all the evident contra- 
dictions which they involve, and 
how many absurdities they have 
put forward in the endeavor. At 
the present time these Epistles are 
rejected by all, and he who would 
cite them seriously would only 
make himself ridiculous. 

2. St. Hilary is said to specify 
the formula to which Liberius sub- 
scribed, and to pronounce more 
than once anathema against Libe- 
rius as a heretic. 

Now, in the genuine works of St. 
Hilary not a single word is found 
against Liberius. To the end of 
the works of St. Hilary have been 
tacked on certain " Fragments of 
St. Hilary " which are spurious. 
In these fragments are found the 
passages cited against Liberius. 
These fragments were published in 
the seventeenth century, first by 
Labbe, and afterwards by Con- 
stant. That they are spurious is 
proved as follows : 

These fragments are nothing else 
than a promiscuous collection of 
detached passages, letters, canons, 
parts of sermons, historical anec- 
dotes, evidently collected by some 
one as miscellaneous scraps which 
he could put to use. All refer to 
the Arians. They have no general 
title, but each part has its own 
special heading. The first chap- 
ter is headed : " Fragments of Hi- 
lary " {Fragmenta Hilarii), and 
it contains two pages. These, per' 
haps, may be referred to St. Hilary, 
but they are found in no work of 
his, and they may be the produc- 
tion of some other Hilary, not St. 
Hilary of Aries. This heading 
being the first in the manuscript, 
Labbe published the whole thing 
under the same title 



In this manuscript are contained 
many things unworthy of St. Hi- 
lary and altogether false (for ex- 
ample, the four Epistles of Libe- 
rius), and which, moreover, do not 
agree with what he has written in 
his undoubted works. 

The editors themselves, Labbe 
and Constant, confess that many 
of these things cannot be reconcil- 
ed with the works of St. Hilary. 

For other arguments to the same 
effect, should any others be desir- 
ed, it would be- well to consult 
Stilhng's learned treatise on these 
fragments. 

3. St. Athanasius, in his Let- 
ter to the Solitaries, says that 
" Liberius, after two years spent in 
, exile, at length gave way, and, be- 
ing terrified by threats of death, 
subscribed." 

This is most clearly an interca- 
lated and spurious passage, for this 
letter was written at Easter-tide in 
the year 357- that is to say, a 
whole year before the return of 
Liberius of which he there speaks; 
therefore it is absolutely impossi- 
ble that these words could have 
been written at the same time with 
the letter. " But," it may be said, 
" they might have been added af- 
terwards by Athanasius." Were 
they, in fact, so added by Atha- 
nasius? We must answer with 
an absolute negative ; because in 
this same letter Athanasius lauds 
Liberius' fortitude. Also, to prove 
his own innocence, he adduces 
the judgment of Liberius. There- 
fore had he himself added the 
passage in question, he would 
have altered these two oth'er pas- 
sages. 

Had Athanasius added the dis- 
puted words, ist, he would have 
done it more aptly, not interrupt- ' 
ing abruptly the thread of his dis- 
course. '2. He would not have 



The Pretended Fall of Liberius. 



said so ridiculous a thing as that 
which we read immediately after 
the words cited above, that the fall 
was a sign of fortitude. 

Long after this Epistle to the 
Monks Athanasius wrote his 
Apology for his Flight. In this 
apology he repeatedly praises the 
fortitude of Liberius, and says that 
he himself was judged innocent by 
that pontiff; but there is not a 
word of this fall. Therefore, when 
he wrote this apology, after the 
return of Liberius to Rome, St. 
Athanasius knew nothing of ,any 
fall, nor did he add anything af- 
terwards. Now, if he added the 
passage to his Epistle to the Monks, 
why did he not do the same here 
also ? 

This addition was made at least 
four centuries after the death of 
Athanasius ; for the Greek histo- 
rians as far as the seventh century 
never speak of the fall of Liberius. 
Therefore they never saw any men- 
tion of it in this epistle, from which 
epistle, nevertheless, they profess 
to have made up their history of 
the Arians. 

4. St. Jerome, in his Catalogue 
of Ecclesiastical Writers (chap, 
xcvii.), says of Fortunatian that " in 
this he is held detestable, that he 
was the first to overcome the con- 
stancy of Liberius when the latter 
was going into exile for the faith, 
and to compel him to subscribe to 
heresy." 

Then in his Chronicle (a. 354) 
he says : "Liberius, broken by the 
tedium of his exile, and subscrib- 
ing to heretical depravity, entered 
Rome like a victor." 

We answer to these two passages 
that their testimony does not agree. 
In the former Liberius is said to 
have been overcome and to have 
subscribed, while on his way into 
exile, by the persuasion of Fortu- 



natian ; in the latter he is said to 
have been overcome and to have 
subscribed after his exile and 
through the tedium of exile. Be- 
sides, Fortunatian of Aquileia was 
always a Catholic ; why should he 
have attempted to seduce Libe- 
rius ? Both passages are spurious 
and evidently intercalated by some 
Arian. The Catalogue of Writers 
is full of 'spurious and intercalated 
places, inserted after the death of 
St. Jerome. He himself says that 
he finished this catalogue in the 
year 392. He died in the year 420. 
Now, in the catalogue we find here 
and there many things which are 
posterior to the year 420 ; as, for 
example, the translation of the body 
of St. John Chrysostom, which 
took place in the year 439, etc., 
etc. Therefore these additions 
were made by another hand. 

The sentence referring to the 
fall of Liberius is awkwardly in- 
serted, because it breaks the con- 
tinuity of the passage ; it is against 
the custom of St. Jerome ; and it 
contains falsities in regard to For- 
tunatian. Therefore it is one of 
the supposititious passages. 

When Liberius was dragged into 
exile no one had even proposed to 
him a subscription in matters of 
faith ; the Arian emperor did not 
wish to raise the question of faith ; 
he sought from the pontiff only the 
condemnation of Athanasius on the 
charge of rebellious contumacy. 

The passage cited from the 
Chronicle is also spurious. It is 
notorious to every one that this 
Chronicle is, so to say, honeycomb- 
ed with additions from another 
hand. Pontseus, Scaliger, and 
Tillemont have proved this by irre- 
fragable arguments. It remains 
for us to prove that the passage in 
question is one of these spurious 
additions. 



The Pretended Fall of Liber ins. 



St. Jerome is in this Chronicle 
most sparing of his words ; he only 
hints or barely states facts, with- 
out explaining them, for his inten- 
tion was to determine tne dates of 
events, not their . series and de- 
pendence. He speaks of the exile 
of Liberius when treating of the 
exile of Eusebius of Vercelli, where 
he makes no mention of a fall. 
Why should he now speak again of 
this exile ? 

The partisans of Ursinus and 
Lucifer calumniated the Roman 
clergy, as we know from history, 
saying that they had broken their 
oath in obeying Felix, who filled 
the place of Liberius during the 
latter's exile. The passage of the 
Chronicle is only a repetition of 
this calumny. The followjng are 
the words of the whole period : 
" But when Felix had been substi- 
tuted in the sacred office by the 
Arians, many broke their oath, and 
a year afterwards were cast out, 
together with Felix, because Libe- 
rius, overcome by the tedium of 
exile, and subscribing heretical de- 
pravity, had entered Rome like a 
victor." 

It is .impossible that St. Jerome 
should have written these words. 
He himself was in Rome at the 
time ; he was very familiar with 
Roman history ; and since, more- 
over, this calumny was directed by 
Ursinus and Lucifer against Pope 
St. Damasus, whose secretary St. 
Jerome was, whom he regarded 
with the deepest affection and de- 
fended most strenuously, it be- 
comes- evident that the holy doctor 
never could have himself inserted 
this passage in the Chronicle. 

These words are merely a tran- 
script from the Libellus Precum 
of Marcellinus and Faustinus, who 
were schismatics and partisans 'of 
Ursinus, and who wrote against 



Damasus and many years before 
the Chronicle, St. Jerome would 
certainly have borrowed nothing 
from so infected a source as this. 
What we have said will suffice to 
show the spurious nature of the 
documents which are opposed to 
Liberius. We might say much 
more on the same subject, did 
space and time permit. 

III. THE THEOLOGICAL SIDE OF 
THE QUESTION. 

After the foregoing there no 
longer remains room for contro- 
versy on the theological side of 
the question ; for the fact itself 
being altogether denied and dis- 
proved, all the inferences which 
might have been drawn therefrom 
must necessarily fall to the ground. 
But supposing, for 'the sake of 
those who perchance may not or 
will not perceive the force of the 
foregoing arguments, that the fall 
be admitted as true ; would it 
prove anything against the infalli- 
bility of the popes of Rome ? This 
purely hypothetical question we 
'call a theological one, and, to- 
gether with all Catholics, say that 
no argument whatsoever could be 
drawn from this hypothetical fall 
against the papal infallibility. 

This we prove from two heads : 
first, from the nature of the formula 
to which Liberius in that hypothe- 
sis would have subscribed ; second- 
ly, from the nature of the act which 
he would have performed in so 
subscribing. 

I. From the nature of the for- 
mula itself. The Sirmian formulas 
are three in number. To the third 
Liberius could not have subscrib- 
ed, because it was written after his 
return from exile. The second he 
did not sign, because it was made 
by the bishops of the West, where- 
as the formula to which Liberius is 



State-Craft's Pilot. 



said, in the spurious documents, to 
have subscribed is there said to 
have been composed by Eastern 
bishops, whose names also are 
given. Therefore, if he signed 
any, it was the first. Bin St. Hila- 
ry and St. Athanasius assert and 
prove that the first was quite Ca- 
tholic, as appears also by examina- 
tion. Therefore if Liberius signed 
any formula, that formula was Ca- 
tholic, not heretical. Therefore 
he can be charged with no error in 
faith. 

The mere condemnation of Ath- 
anasius would not have been an 
error in faith but a sin against jus- 
tice; because Athanasius was not 
accused of heresy but of ordinary 
crimes. To communicate with the 
Arians would have been a sin 
against the discipline of the church, 
would have been complicity with 
heretics, but it certainly would not 
have constituted true heresy. 

Therefore, even if in defiance of 
historical truth we should admit 
the fall of Liberius, nothing could 
be thence concluded against the 
infallibility of the Roman pon- 
tiffs. 

2. From the nature of the act. 
Infallibility affects only a solemn 



act of definition ex cathedra, not 
the personal acts of the particular 
man who happens to be pope. 

But a solemn act of definition 
ex cathedra must be altogether free 
from compulsion and fear. Now, 
it could not have possessed this 
freedom in Liberius, broken with 
the miseries of exile. Therefore 
his act would not have been a 
solemn act of definition ex cathedra 
but a merely personal act. There- 
fore, even had he subscribed to 
some formula not Catholic in its 
doctrine, yet nothing could be 
thence concluded against the infal- 
libility of the pope. 

Hence it is that at the present 
time the so-called" Old Catholics," 
who deny the dogma of infallibility, 
no longer urge the fall of Liberius 
against the Catholics, having found 
this fall false in itself, supported 
only by spurious documents, and 
especially quite inconclusive and 
proving nothing whatsoever to 
their purpose, even were it true. 



NOTE. We may add to the foregoing that Libe- 
rius, if he had fallen, could not have rehabilitated 
himself, and reassumed his attitude as the great 
defender of the Catholic faith and the Nicene Coun- 
cil, without a solemn and public recantation, and 
an official cassation of his sentence against Athan- 
asius.-Eo. C. W. 



STATE-CRAFT'S PILOT. 

THUS spake Bismarck : 

" I pray 
To see the day 
When State's proud bark 
By Folly piloted shall dash 
Itself with purpose rash 

Against the Rock on which the church is set." 
N.B. He was no Prince as yet. 

But made the Prince of Prussia's realm, 
State-Craft yields up to him its helm. 
" Ah ! now," he cries, " I'll show this crew 
Bismarck's among the prophets too." 



Nicodemus a Slave. 



119 



"NICODEMUS A SLAVE. 1 



IT was five o'clock of a winter 
afternoon. The sun was drawing 
towards the horizon. In the south 
the sky wore the hue of the robin's 
egg; in the west the mild, undaz- 
zling gold of the low-lying clouds 
foretold a cloudless morrow, and 
already the half-moon shone out 
quietly, the herald of a radiant 
night. In Maviot the western win- 
dows of Hurd mansion were aglow, 
transforming the ancient and some- 
what dilapidated house to a palace, 
and in the wide, warm upper hall a 
small and stately lady was walking 
with measured tread, her snowy 
hair wound primly under a cap of 
the fashion of half a century before, 
her snowy kerchief fastened primly 
bya mourning-pin in an old-fashion- 
ed diamond setting that caught 
and glinted back the sun's rays, 
her soft old hands knitting primly 
some knitting for the poor. So at 
the sunset hour, in summer and win- 
ter, had Madam Hurd been wont 
to pace up and down for twenty 
years, except that on Sundays she 
carried her rosary instead of her 
knitting. 

In his great chair the squire read 
out to her the daily paper, pausing 
now and then to hear her com- 
ments on the news, or to look with 
her down the elm-bordered avenue 
to see if " our boy " was coming. 
On the walls hung six portraits, six 
fair girl-faces. Twenty years ago, 
when " our boy " was indeed only 
a boy, not twelve years old twen- 
ty years ago, in as calm and cloud- 
less a January day as this now clos- 
ing had been, Squire Hurd and his 



wife had laid away in the old 
churchyard the last of the daughters 
whose pictured loveliness alone re- 
mained to tell how once the house 
had been gladdened by their pres- 
ence. Then the parents' love had 
centred on their son, thus left 
their only child, and his going and 
coming made thenceforth the great 
events of their day. " He will 
be here soon," said Madam Hurd 
in a pause of the reading. So she 
had said every evening for twenty 
years, and her husband had always 
answered her : " Yes, my dear, very 
soon, please God." 

In a small house opposite the 
end of the avenue, so hidden by 
trees and big rocks from the sun 
that already it was dark in the bare, 
chilly parlor, a little girl sat drum- 
ming wearily at a cracked piano. 
Not a little girl really in age, but 
everyone thought of her and spoke 
of her as if she was still a child, 
though she was nineteen, almost 
twenty, years old. She was rather 
above woman's ordinary height, but 
her face was plump and unformed 
and sweet like a child's, with a child's 
easily-troubled, easily-cheered, sen- 
sitiveness stamped upon it. As 
the daylight faded out of the already 
dismal room, thus made more dis- 
mal, a dreary discontent crept over 
the maiden ; she stopped her scale- 
practising, stretched her arms and 
plump, tired fingers, and gave a 
fidgety scream. 

" How I hate them!" she cried. 
" Oh ! I must sing, or I shall cer- 
tainly go wild." And suddenly she- 
broke forth into a plaintive negro 
song, and with it the little girl 
changed into a different being. 



I2O 



Nicodemus a Slave. 



Music was her passion ; now she sat 
erect, her face as full of an odd 
pathos as her odd song was, and she 
sang the chorus three times over, 
and then again, as if it awoke some 
deep, responsive chord within her. 

" Nicodemus a slave was of African birth, 
And was bought for a bagful of gold ; 
He was reckoned upon as the salt of the earth, ' 

And he died, years ago, very old. 
The last sad request, as we laid him away 

In tha trunk of an old hollow tree, 
1 Wake me up,' was his charge,' at the first break 

o' day 
Wake me up for the great jubilee. 1 

Oh ! the good time's coming, 'tis almost here, 

Tis long, long, long on the way. 
Then run, tell Elijah to hurry up Pomp, 
And meet us at the gum-tree down by the 
swamp, 

To wake Nic-ode-mus to-day." 

Henrietta Denison sprang up 
when she had sung this for the 
fourth time sprang up with a look 
that said that, however the friends 
of Nicodemus. felt, she could wait 
no longer, but must have some sort 
of a good time at once ; ran from 
the cold parlor to her colder room 
above, wrapped herself in a big 
shawl and a scarlet cloud, from 
which her face shone forth like a 
round moon, then hurried down to 
the kitchen. 

There Anne, her elder sister, 
with a face as patient and care-tak- 
ing as Henrietta's was petulant and 
careless yet brightly lovable, was 
wearily getting supper. Henrietta 
saw the tired movements, but they 
only made her more eager to be rid 
of it all for a while. 

"Anne," she said, "I'm going to 
/Aunt Kurd's to tea. Tell father 
ihe need not come for me; I'm not 
afraid." And therewith she was 
away, not waiting for word of re- 
monstrance or farewell out from 
the fretting home-shadow of her 
daily life to that other life which 
made her sunshine. 

Madam Hurd was not really Hen- 



rietta Denison's aunt. Madam Hard 
was Mr. Denison's mother's cousin, 
but, as neither of the families had 
nearer relatives, the nearer title 
had come into use, and Henrietta 
said Uncle and Aunt Hurd as na- 
turally as though that was the true 
connection. And " our boy " was 
her "Cousin Tom," and in his fif- 
teen years' seniority and his varied 
learning, that to her seemed as 
wonderful as to his doting parents, 
he was to this child, in her igno- 
rance of mankind, the most wonder- 
ful of men. She was always wel- 
come in Hurd mansion, where every 
one, from the squire to the errand- 
boy, grew brighter at sight of her 
ready smile and winsome ways. 
The dismal little girl of the cottage 
underwent a transformation while 
she was in a house that was always 
warm and bright, and had a beau- 
tiful piano that she never had to 
practise scales upon, but where she 
could play and sing the sweetest or 
thejnost fantastic things she chose. 
No Anne was there to say, " My 
head aches, Ettie ; please be quiet "; 
no father casting up accounts that 
seemed to have no end and to 
bring no profit. Oh ! home was 
such a gloomy home to Henrietta, 
and the Hall was very bright. 

So she danced, yes, actually danc 
ed, up the avenue, avoiding the 
beaten track, and never so much as 
cracking the surface of the snow 
over which she sped. 

"Good day, William," she said, 
nodding blithely to the old garden- 
er, who answered with a look which 
she had become used to receive 
from people, as if she were a spoil- 
ed and petted child. 

Yet, standing for a moment on 
the topmost step of the long granite 
flight, and turning for a moment to 
see the sunset, always hidden from 
"her in the vale below, an expres- 



Nicodemus a Slave. 



121 



sion came into her face which, if it 
were still only a child's expression, 
was the quiet, far-offlook which you 
may sometimes see in a baby's eyes, 
and, seeing, reverence it. The sun 
had quite gone down, but the un- 
dazzling gold yet lingered, and the 
moon shone with its grave bright- 
ness full into Henrietta's face. 
The tide of keen animal spirit and 
vigor ebbed from her ; she was as 
one listening rather than seeing 
listening to something soft and 
soothing. Presently she sighed 
softly. " It is a good day," .said 
Henrietta, half aloud. " It rests 
me so. It is so quiet." 

And then she heard the clock 
clang the half-hour, and at once 
the merriment flashed back into 
her face, and she ran into the house 
like a small whirlwind. 

" Aunt Kurd !" she called, "*Jn- 
cle Hurd, are you up-stairs ? Of 
course. I'm coming right away, 
as soon as I take off my wraps. 
Has he come yet ? No, he hasn't. 
What fun ! I'm first to-night. I'll 
surprise him." 

They were silly things for a 
yoirlig lady almost twenty years of 
age to do, yet shall we begrudge 
her one last night of silliness? 
She locked the hall door and she hid 
the key ; she barricaded the hall 
stairs ; she hid the clothes-brush 
which fastidious Tom always used 
before he came into his mother's 
presence at night and she laughed 
while she did it, and called Rover 
and the cat to see it, and hugged 
them both, and then flew off to the 
upper hall. 

u I'm come," she cried breath- 
lessly a most unnecessary an- 
nouncement. " But wasn't I a long 
time coming, though ? Like Nico- 
demus' good time." And the gay 
voice, now with no trace of pathos 
in it, rang up to the round window 



in the roof and echoed among the 
heavy rafters. 

" 'Tis long, long, long <m. the way." 

"I'm come, Uncle Hurd. Are 
you quite well ? Oh ! I'm too 
glad to see you. I couldn't wait 
to come, hardly. Good-evening, 
Aunt Hurd. I just stopped in the 
hall to fix something. I mean, of 
course, to arrange to put in order 
to put in disorder may be. Oh ! 
how sweet your hyacinths are, 
Aunt Hurd." 

"Good-evening, my dear," said 
Madam Hurd placidly, able to 
speak in her turn, now that Henriet- 
ta's mouth was safely buried for a 
breathing space among the flowers. 

And " Good-evening, Ettie," said 
the squire. " We are glad to see 
you, my dear." 

" Yes, sir," answered Henrietta 
vaguely, emerging from the pink 
and creamy and purple blossoms. 
" Is he coming, Aunt Hurd ? Isn't 
he very late ?" 

" Well, no, my dear. It is his 
usual time. There he is now, bless 
him ! Do you see him, squire 
there by the old elm." 

The three stood watching him, 
pouring out their hearts' love on 
him. Up the avenue he came on 
his thoroughbred swift steed, whose 
like was not to be found 'in the 
four counties at whose intersection 
Maviot lay. Horse and rider 
seemed as a single creature, so obe- 
dient was the one to the slightest 
touch of rein or spur, or to the 
lightest word, so perfectly the 
other rode. That horse was Tom 
Kurd's one out-of-door luxury. He 
looked up to the window the 
chandelier had just been lighted 
he saw the aged faces bent to- 
wards him, he saw and smiled to 
see the y&ung face beside them. 
Taking off his hat, he waved it and 



122 



Nicodcnms a Slave. 



bowed low but this he would have 
done had the young face not been 
there then he passed from sight 
under the window. 

" Why does he not come in ?" 
his mother said; and Henrietta re- 
sponded gravely, hiding her danc- 
ing eyes among the hyacinths again, 
"How very strange !" 

u My dear Henrietta," said Ma- 
dam Hurd in a tone of mild reproof, 
" you have locked the door again. 
How very silly ! Go down at once 
and open it." 

" Yes 'em," answered Henrietta, 
nothing loath, and soon her voice 
was heard below : " Do you want 
to get in, Cousin Tom? Say 
please." 

" Please, and please, and please," 
said a. mellow, contented voice. 
" If you please, I am cold out 
here." 

In the wide doorway they stood 
face to face, she in her cheap, shab- 
by gown, with just a dash of gay 
color at her throat to relieve the 
sombre dress, her hair blown and 
tumbled about her face, her hands 
chapped and dingy and red with 
daily house-work ; he the picture of 
elegance, dressed faultlessly, in no 
whit disordered by his ride home, 
his hands the hands of a gentleman 
whose labor is professional only, 
though they were strong hands, too, 
as they had need to be if they were 
to control his much-prized horse. 

They greeted each other with 
light words and not the slightest 
approach to a lovelike token. Nei- 
ther of them knew what love was 
in that sense ; they were cousins, 
that was all. And sitting, as they 
had often sat before, at the cosey 
tea-table, neither of them thought, 
or ever had thought, of what might 
have entered any stranger's mind 
at once had he been told that these 
two were not brother and sister. 



There they sat opposite each 
other, between the squire and ma- 
dam, and Tom told the events of 
the day, and for a while Henrietta 
was comparatively silent, not only 
because she liked to listen to him 
but because she very much liked* 
her supper. At home she would 
have known beforehand just what 
the scanty meal would be, and 
either must have prepared it her- 
self or felt the stings of conscience 
because she had left Anne to do it 
alone. At home there would have 
been the soiled, crumpled table-cloth, 
which had to bear a whole week's 
use because they could not afford 
another, the cracked, chipped dish- 
es, the uninviting food. Here there 
was the old-fashioned blue India 
china that came from over seas a 
century back, the scarlet cloth that 
cha|med her eyes and warmed her 
dainty soul, the delicious food in 
hospitable abundance; and "Sing- 
ing does make one so hungry, Aunt 
Hurd," said Henrietta. Here, 
though she had not been obliged 
to bestow one thought on the meal, 
were just the viands she liked best. 
And when the others had finished 
their supper, she still sat compos- 
edly eating her sponge-cake a-nd 
preserved ginger, knowing well that 
the squire always lingered over the 
tea-table for a chat. 

Tom looked at her quizzingly 
he often made fun of her healthy 
appetite then the look changed to 
one of a sort of affectionate pity. 

"We shall miss you when you go 
to Baynooth, Ettie," he said. 

Henrietta dropped her spoon, 
and stared at him with eyes open- 
ed to their widest extent. " Where ?" 
she said. 

" Where ? That's a proper ques- 
tion to ask. Of course you know 
your father is obliged to move 
away." 



Nicodemus a Slave. 



I2 3 



" What ? What ? What ?" gasp- 
ed Henrietta in a choking cres- 
cendo. " Tell me all % about it. 
Quick, Cousin Tom !" 

"Too bad, too bad!" sighed the 
squire. " Didn't they toll you any- 
thing about it, dear, in all this 
time ?" 

" Perhaps we had best say noth- 
ing, then," added Madam Hurd. 

" But you have said something," 
cried Henrietta, " and you must 
tell. What do you mean, Cousin 
Tom ? Oh ! but you shall tell me." 

But, though she would take no 
refusal to her eager questions, her 
inmost heart rebelled all the while 
he spoke. Why did they tell her? 
Why need she ever know ? Oh ! 
what were these terrible words 
which fell like so many blows 
upon her quivering heart ? That 
her father was too poor to live 
any longer in Maviot ; that he 
must give up the cottage and take 
rooms in Baynooth, fifty miles away ; 
that he had found some work there ; 
that Henrietta could there have 
music scholars. And while they 
told her an undertone ebbed 
through their words, added by her 
own tortured, foreseeing mind. " I 
shall have to drudge and drudge 
in that dreadful place. I can never 
come to the Hall again. All the 
brightness will go away. I shall be 
like Anne; I shall be worse off than 
Anne; I shall be very wicked, or 
else I shall certainly die." 

They had said what they had to 
say ; they were looking at her with 
their pitying, dear faces. She could 
not endure the look. Up she 
sprang and hurried to the piano. 

" I will not believe it," she cried. 
" This one evening I will not be- 
lieve it. Go get your flute, Cousin 
Tom, and we will play and sing as 
though nothing had happened, just 
as we used to do. Just as we used. " 



She had said those last words 
over again with a little wail in 
them. Instantly she began the 
merriest waltz music that she knew. 
And while the gay notes flashed 
out beneath her fingers they sound- 
ed in her ears like the saddest mu- 
sic she had ever heard. Her eyes 
roved around the familiar room 
with its antique furniture, each 
piece dear to her; she noted the 
deep, low window-seats, the family 
portraits, the open fire, the heavy 
fire-dogs, the chandelier with its 
hundred sparkling pendants, the 
high-backed chairs by the fire, the 
two old people sitting there oppo- 
site one another as they had sat 
for half a century, and then she 
heard Cousin Tom coming down- 
stairs with his flute. 

Instantly a wild hope came to 
her, a way of escape from that fear- 
ful future, a plan that should make 
everything smooth and easy for her 
always. Cousin Tom and she might 
be married ! Why not ? Why should 
not they sit opposite one another at 
table and at fireside just as Uncle 
and Aunt Hurd were doing? It 
would be such an easy matter! 
Torn would only have to ask her ; 
that was all. 

She brought the waltz mwsic to 
an end in the very middle of its 
gayest bar. She looked up with 
sparkling eyes into Tom's face as 
he came to her just as he always 
did just as he would always come 
in that delicious and certain fu- 
ture. 

" Cousin Tom," she said, with 
her round face more childish than 
ever in its fearless expectation, "I 
am never going away from here, 
Cousin Tom. Am I ? I couldn't, 
could I?" asked confident Henri- 
etta. 

"We will think you are not for 
the present," Tom said cheerily. 



124 



Nicodemiis a Slave. 



(< We can't spare you, Ettie, that's 
a fact. Who should we have to 
sing for us ?" 

Her heart leapt and glowed at 
the words. Surely he meant it. It 
would be so easy for him to pre- 
vent all the trouble just with one 
tiny word. A brilliant light came 
into her eyes; her cheeks glowed 
rosy re,d ; she sang as they had 
never heard her sing before. The 
words of her song and the notes of 
the piano ran into each other in 
a jubilant chorus like so many bells 
and harps and trumpets and fifes 
and cymbals all doing their joy- 
fullest. Aunt Hurd awoke from 
her evening nap and smiled. The 
squire rose and came forward to 
say : "'My dear child, you surpass 
yourself." Tom thought that she 
was the strangest creature he had 
ever seen. And all the evening 
through she played and sang and 
talked and laughed with that one 
hope buoyant in her heart, and 
when ten o'clock came she and 
Cousin Tom walked down the ave- 
nue together under the grave, white 
moon. 

" He will ask me now," she 
thought jubilantly. "Oh! I wish 
he would make haste. I want to 
say yes so much." 

But he talked of the lovely sky, 
and of Rover, and then of how 
they would miss her, and in five 
minutes they stood at her door. 

" Now he must ask me," she 
thought; but no, he was saying 
good-night in his usual gentlemanly 
fashion, and turning away. 

Poor little soul! She did not 
love him in the least, except as her 
friend and relation. She never so 
much as gave it a thought in that 
light; she never once considered 
what Tom might wish. What she 
thought of was the wrench of sep- 
aration from all that made life 



sweet to her, the going away to a 
vague existence whose only salient 
features were poverty and dulness. 

" Cousin Tom," she said in a 
trembling voice. 

He came' back and stood look- 
ing up at her in the porch. It was 
a pretty picture, he thought then, 
but in after-years he used to recall 
it with a pang. The little girl 
leaned forward towards him ; her 
scarlet cloud had fallen off her 
head and around her neck, and the 
rough curls shone like an aureole 
about the infantile face. The lips 
trembled ; there were tears in the 
great eyes. 

" I haven't got to go away, have 
I, Cousin Tom ?" 

" Cheer up, Ettie," he said. 
" Things may not prove very bad 
after all. You will get used to it 
sooner than we shall in this hum- 
drum place. Good-night, and 
sleep it off like a good child. 
Good-night, dear." 

u Listen, listen, listen, Cousin 
Tom !" she exclaimed in her stam- 
mering vehemence, which he deem- 
ed most childish. " Oh ! I shall 
be singing it all night just like this, 
Cousin Tom." 

Well was it for fastidious Tojn 
that no other houses than their own 
were in hearing and no chance 
traveller was passing that way. 
With her usual thoughtless disre- 
gard of conventionalities, Henriet- 
ta's song went ringing upward to 
the stars in a pathetic appeal which 
Tom failed to understand. 



' Nicodemus a slave was of African birth, 

And was bought for a bagful of gold ; 
He was reckoned upon as the salt of the earth, 

And he died, years ago, very old. 
His last sad request, as they laid him away 

In the trunk of an old hollow tree, 
4 Wake me up,' was his charge, ' at the first break 

o' day 
Wake me up for the great jubilee.' 

Oh ! the good time's coming, 'tis almost h;re, 
'Tis long, long, /<; on the way. 



Nicodemus a Slave. 



12; 



Then run, tell Elijah to hurry up Pomp, 

And meet me at the gum-tree down by the 

swamp, 
a To wake Nicodemus to-day." 



" Henrietta, child, come into the 
house. Thomas, is that you? 
Won't you come in ?" 

"Oh ! won't you ?" pleaded Hen- 
rietta. 

" Not to-night, thanks," Tom 
answered, and then he was gone, 
really gone. Henrietta watched 
him go, and he never once glanced 
back she watched him till Anne 
dre\v her forcibly into the house. 

"You'll catch your death, Hen- 
rietta, standing there," said Anne 
plaintively ; " and wake father, too, 
with your singing, just as he was 
forgetting his troubles in sleep." 

"Other people have troubles," 
cried Henrietta, "and may be 
singing helps them to forget. O 
Anne, Anne ! why didn't you tell 
me ?" 

" We couldn't bear to," Anne 
said when she understood. "We 
thought you'd have to hear it soon 
enough anyhow. We would keep 
evil from you all our days, if we 
could, Ettie." 

" If we could !" Nobody dream- 
ed how sore an evil it appeared to 
this child. She went away to her 
room, and shut herself in, and sank 
all in a little heap by the window. 
The moon was her only light, as it 
had been for many a night previ- 
ous. That was one of the Deni- 
sons' small economies. 

" Why did Anne come to the 
door just then? He was surely 
going to ask me. I saw it in his 
eyes." 

And then a light flashed out 
from the conservatory at the Hall, 
and Henrietta knew that Uncle and 
Aunt Hurd had said good-night to 
their boy, and that Cousin Tom 
was smoking his evening cigar. 



Oh! how many hours must pass 
before day would dawn and he 
would come to her in haste and 
say what would he say ? " Ettie, 
you need not go. We will be mar- 
ried, and then you can stay with us 
always." 

In the conservatory Tom Hurd 
strode between the rows of plants 
thinking and smoking. Somehow 
Henrietta's face would not go 
away from his mind; somehow her 
voice kept sounding pathetically in 
his ears. How her lips had trem- 
bled, and how dim her eyes had 
been! He had never imagined 
that she had it in her to bring out 
with such realistic force the weary 
hunger of her song. He wished 
the poor child could have that good 
time she craved. If only somebody 
would marry her, and put an end 
to her poverty and the constraint 
of her daily life ! 

_ Somebody! And why not he 
himself, then ? 

Tom started as if he had been 
stung. Marry Henrietta Denison ! 
He had never dreamed of such a 
thing ; it would change his whole 
life. 

Aijd yet probably he would mar- 
ry some time, though even that idea 
was to him like a novelty. He 
had never seen any woman who 
came at all between his mother and 
himself, never any who at all came 
near her place in his heart, unless 
He stopped to think carefully. 
Yes, he was very fond of Ettie, 
very ; but 

As in a dream Tom painted 
what the house would be if Ettie 
lived there always. It was plea- 
sant now to have her come and go 
with her vagaries and her jests and 
her childish tricks, and the music 
which was indeed an unfailing 
source of delight, but it would be 
far otherwise to have these things 



126 



Nicodemus a Slave. 



before him without cessation or 
hope of relief. How changed the 
rooms would be from their perfect 
order : Ettie's shawl on the centre- 
table, her gloves in the great bowl 
of dried rose-leaves, her crochet 
downstairs, her needle upstairs, her 
restless presence everywhere. It 
was a sweet and lovely presence, 
but it would be such a bother 
sometimes. 

It would be expensive, also, and 
ready money was none too easy for 
the Kurds to find just then. Ettie 
was not economical ; he would feel 
obliged to help her father and 
Anne ; he might have to dress less 
exquisitely ; certainly he would 
have to give up his horse. No, it 
could not be. The whole idea was 
foolish ; he would put it out of his 
mind entirely. Besides, he was so 
much older than Ettie. 

Yet, through all his colloquy 
with himself, that pathetic face 
pleaded with him, and a sweet 
voice full of tears cried out to 
him : 

" 'Tis long, long, lottgon the way." 

It revealed her to him as he 
had never yet known her. /This 
child had it in her to become 
more than a child. Dwelling in 
his peaceful home, gladdening his 
parents, who loved her dearly, and 
gladdened by their unfailing love, 
sure of a husband's care and pa- 
tience always about her, what 
might not Henrietta be ? 

" Perhaps," Tom thought moodi- 
ly ; then shook his head. " It is too 
great a risk," quoth prudent Tom 
Kurd. 

Little he knew how great a risk 
the child was running, whose soul 
was far too deep for his prudent 
soul to read. The three weeks 
that intervened between that night 
and the day when Henrietta bade 



farewell to Maviot were weeks 
which even in after-years, when 
she had learned to " see divinest 
meaning threading each separate 
pain," she could not remember 
without keen suffering. 

Anne had to make every prepa- 
ration for them all; Henrietta was 
of no more use than a baby. 

" I am not going away from Ma- 
viot," she persisted obstinately. 

Each morning she thought : " He 
will ask me to-day." Each night, 
when she laid her weary head up- 
on her pillow, she murmured : 
" He will surely come to-morrow." 
And the days went by, and the 
nights went by, and he never said 
that little word which she fancied 
must render earth all that she 
could desire. 

Nobody probed her secret. 
They pitied the poor, dull face 
that nevertheless refused to lose its 
rich color and its child-like plump- 
ness. She ate her meals regularly, 
and almost greedily, with a sense 
that they served for a time to di- 
vert or to deaden her thoughts. 
She sang and played as she used, 
only with a feverish haste and ex- 
citement. They went to the Hall 
to tea. On their last evening they 
said their farewells composedly, 
all except Ettie, who positively re- 
fused to say good-by at all. She 
was not going, she said. And then 
at home she crawled up to her 
room for her last night there. 

Did Tom Kurd sleep peacefully 
that night ? Did no disturbing in- 
fluence upon his placid spirit bring 
him into magnetic connection with 
all the anguish which, at so short a 
distance away, that "little girl" 
was enduring ? When she suffer- 
ed body and soul suffered togeth- 
er. Quivering, all drawn into a 
confused heap upon the carpetless 
floor, she wore away one weary 



Nicodemus a Slave. 



127 



hour after another, counting the 
strokes of the clock whenever it 
sounded, as if each fell like a 
scourge across her body and her 
soul, till nature gave way and she 
slept. 

And there, on the floor, Anne 
found her in the morning, too weak 
to make any resistance or to seem 
to care. " Nicodemus a slave" 
those three words were literally 
everything she was able clearly to 
get into her mind, as the cars bore 
her from the bright past to the 
hopeless future, though she was 
dimly conscious that they meant to 
her that nothing but a bondage of 
misery was before her, with no hope 
of emancipation. 

n. 

84 Waye Place this,' then, was 
the place of their new home. Hen- 
rietta emerged a little from her 
apathy and looked about her. A 
dull street, a dreary house how 
could she enter that house ! And 
standing on the topmost step, as 
she had stood not so many weeks 
before at the Hall door, she turned 
and looked. 

No sunset sky now, no restful 
moon ; and yet, as Henrietta stood 
there, the tired, hungry expression 
went away from her face, and once 
again that far-off, quiet look was in 
her eyes. 

Before her, just across the street, 
was a church. Henrietta had never 
seen so large a building. The 
massive stones piled one upon an- 
other, the square-built tower, the 
broad, commanding front, gave a 
sense of strength and surety ; and 
the doors stood open, and now and 
then some one came in and out 
quietly, opening an inner door 
through which she caught a glimpse 
of long aisles and towering pillars, 
and far away a dim, red light. 



" It will be quiet in there," said 
Henrietta. " It will rest me. I 
will go in there." 

She had always been a Catholic, 
but not a strict one. Mass on Sun- 
day, the sacraments at Easter, a few 
morning and evening prayers and 
the rosary, had satisfied her con- 
science. They had lived at quite 
a distance from church, and she 
had never been in the habit of go- 
ing there for rest or comfort. 

She crept in now and knelt 
down before the altar, hiding her 
face against the chancel ' rail. 
There was no service going on; 
the organ, so dear to this poor little 
soul, was silent. Henrietta grew 
silent, too, in brain and heart. 
She was so tired, so fettered, so 
heartsore she was just like Nico- 
demus the slave, but without his 
hope. 

Silence ; and yet more clear, more 
powerful than sound of words, she 
was conscious of the thought of the 
Sacred Heart upon the altar, yearn- 
ing towards her, loving her. 

" My yoke is sweet, and my bur- 
den light, and I will give you rest. 
My yoke MY yoke is sweet." 

She was not praying or acting 
consciously in any way whatever. 
Passive she knelt there in the pres- 
ence of the Lord, and he -drew her 
gently and taught her a lesson she 
had never known before. 

There was a yoke, and it was 
sweet; there was a slavery which 
was better than freedom. 

The part of her nature which 
the calm sunset sky had had power 
to stir had met at length that 
which could fully satisfy it and 
break Henrietta's bonds. 

" His yoke is sweet," she sighed 
at last. " I wish I was a slave to 
him, then." 

Not the highest of motives \ Ah ! 
shall we cavil at it? There are 



128 



Nicodemut a Slave. 



, those whom the tender Shepherd 
chooses to carry in his arms. 

In the new home Anne was 
working wearily. " Shall I help 
you, dear?" Henrietta said, and 
went with ready content to work. 
It was not hard to work just then. 
Everything looked bright to her 
with that yoke upon her heart and 
that tender presence near. Strange ! 
she had had it all her life, had 
been a Catholic always, and yet 
how she had fretted and hungered 
for other and lesser things ! There 
was a- sweeter life opening to Hen- 
rietta now, just as she thought all 
joy was gone; she entered into it 
gladly, like a weary child come 
home to its parent's arms. 

Tom Hurd lived on, in untrou- 
bled serenity, for a full year in 
Maviot. Then, after a week's 
brief illness, his mother died ; and 
it came to pass then with Tom 
Hurd that he suddenly discovered 
that life meant more to him than a 
fine horse, fine clothes, a well-or- 
dered house, and quiet days. 
None of these things contented 
him now. It made his heart ache 
to see his father sit sad and lonely 
where another form had sat for so 
many years beside him. He long- 
ed for a woman's presence to bring 
the daily sunshine and the daily 
comfort that a woman's presence 
can so gently give. And strangely 
all these longings took the name of 
Henrietta. 

"I want her," said Tom.- "I 
don't care if she is a bother some- 
times. She is a darling always." 

One night his father spoke of 
her. " It would be very pleasant 
to see Ettie again," he said. 

" So I think, father," exclaimed 
Tom. " Would you like to have 
me go for her? Father, how 
would you like Ettie for a daugh- 
ter ?" 



It was worth some sacrifices 
even the sacrifice of a horse, per- 
haps to see the brightening of the 
aged face. 

" Bring them all home," the 
squire said. " It will comfort me 
to see James Denison, who knew 
me from a boy." 

Tom made his arrangements, 
and in a week departed for Bay- 
nooth. He did not send word that 
he was coming; he wanted to see 
Henrietta's start of joy when he 
met her unexpectedly. Would she 
have changed ? No, he did not 
wish her changed. Could she 
have met and cared for some one 
else? No; there had been letters 
before and since his mother's death, 
and not the slightest ground for 
suspecting anything of that sort. 
She would be the very Ettie he 
knew of old, ready and glad to 
come " home " to the old ways and 
the old life, which would have no 
more separation in it. 

Baynooth was a smoky manufac- 
turing city. Tom, albeit he was 
not given to sentimentalities, shiv- 
ered a little at sight of the streets, 
so full of noise and dirt, where his 
country flower had been doomed 
to dwell so long. Would she have 
faded and drooped ? But he would 
soon bring back the freshness to 
her life. 

No. 84 Waye Place that was 
their address; he found the row 
of dreary brick houses, and then 
the door which he sought. Anne 
answered his ring and welcomed 
him kindly, the tears coming to her 
eyes at sight of his mourning, for 
every one had loved Madam Hurd. 
Yet Anne looked more cheerful 
than she used, Tom thought. 

The sitting-room into which he 
was shown was dingy and dark ; 
nothing was to be seen from the 
window, except a dark and dingy 



Nicodcmus a Slave. 



129 



street, a dark and dingy tenement 
opposite, a few dismal passers-by. 
Henrietta's piano stood open, with 
some music on it. Its owner was 
away giving a lesson ; she would 
soon be at home. Yes, she was 
well, very well, Anne said, and so 
was papa. How was the squire ? 

And then questions and answers 
and sympathy followed in regard to 
Madam Kurd's illness and death, 
and suddenly, in the very midst of 
a sentence, courteous, self-possessed 
Tom stopped short, for he heard a 
light step on the pavement outside, 
and he seemed to feel it on his heart. 

He saw Henrietta before she saw 
him saw the sweet child-face, more 
sweet, more like a child's than ever, 
more free from care. But, turning 
and beholding him, a gray shade 
crept over it. She put out her hand 
with a sharp movement, as if some- 
thing pained her. What did it 
mean ? 

He spent an evening with them 
as of old, in talk and music, only 
the shadow of the recent grief he 
thought, or tried to think made 
Henrietta quieter; then he went 
away, promising to return on the 
morrow. And in that night, think- 
ing of her face and her sweeter 
heart, the strong chains of a man's 
true love wound themselves round 
him, making him a willing captive ; 
while in that night another soul 
could not sleep for joy, but sang 
thanksgivings and wept happy tears, 
because the chains of its own forg- 
ing had dropped off, and the good 
time long looked for was seen al- 
ready present, and " Nicodemus 
the slave " was awake and was free. 

Tom came next morning and saw 
Henrietta alone, and told her all 
told of the lonely house, the long, 
lonely evenings, spoke of his busi- 
ness, his plans, his future. She 
looked so young and inexperienced ; 

VOL, XXVIII. 



it was much that Tom was bring- 
ing to offer into her care and over- 
sight. 

" Ettie," he said when the long 
prologue was ended, " we want you 
very much. Would you like to 
come home to us, and live with us 
always in the old place, and 
take care of usyou and your fa- 
ther and Anne ?" 

Her whole face kindled into an 
amazement of delight; but before 
its loveliness, utterly devoid of 
earthly feeling, Tom shrank back 
in awe. 

"O Cousin Tom !" she cried rap- 
turously, " how good God is ! how 
good God is! I have been wait- 
ing, hoping, praying for something 
like this. I can't go to you and 
Uncle Hurd, Tom, but Anne can, 
and father, and then I shall be able 
to have my wish at last. And 
Anne will suit you both so nicely ; 
she is not disorderly and trouble- 
some like me, and she can keep 
house beautifully when she has 
enough. And I oh ! how shall I 
thank you, Cousin Tom? I shall 
have my heart's desire." 

"What is it, Ettie ?" he asked in 
dull foreboding. 

" I have not even told Anne 
yet," she answered humbly. "I 
have been so happy this year. 
Cousin Tom! you can't tell how 
unhappy I was to come here. I am 
ashamed to think of it now how 
selfish and mean I was. Oh ! how 
wretched it would have bee^. if 1 
had had what I wanted then." 

" What did you want then ?" said 
Tom. 

A slight flush was on her face. 
" Don't ask me," she pleaded^ 
am ashamed to remember it. 
wanted just to be comfortable and 
easy, never thinking about any- 
body else or anything better. But 
when I came here" 



130 



Niccdemus a Slave. 



She paused. 

" When you came here ?" repeat- 
ed Tom sadly, and, in the pause 
that still continued, all at once he 
seemed to see her again as he had 
seen her in the porch that winter 
evening, leaning forward towards 
him, her scarlet cloud fallen off her 
head and. about her neck, the rough 
curls shining round her face, her 
trembling'lips, the tears in her large 
eyes. Once more he seemed to 
hear the' weary hunger of her song. 
The comfort she might have crav- 
ed for then would be vainly offered 
now. She would never say to him 
again : " I haven't got to go away, 
have I, Cousin Tom?" 

She was thinking her thought 
out to herself. Quivering she stood 
there, as if tossed betwixt joy and 
pain. 

"What I wanted never could 
have been," she said huskily. " All 
sorts of comforts and ease and love 
couldn't have stopped the ach- 
ing." 

Tom understood her. He was a 
Catholic, come of an old Catholic 
line. Meagre as his spiritual life 
might be, he knew and reverenced 
the truth of the three great coun- 
sels. No sort of earthly happiness 
could ever have contented this deli- 
cate nature, filled with desires in- 
satiable in every way but one. He 
waited reverently for her to speak 
again. And the quivering frame 
grew still, and into Henrietta's eyes 
came that far-off look, revealing 
more and more to Tom the depth 
in this child's nature, which was in- 
deed that likeness to a little child 
which gains an entrance to higher 
joys than those of earth. 

" I wanted God," she said ; " I 
wanted God- He rests me. And 
he is enough." 

Tom Hurd went home alone, 
pondering a deep lesson as he 



journeyed thither. What was life 
and what was God to him ? 

By and by there followed him to 
Hurd mansion an old man to be 
his father's hourly companion, and 
with James Denison there came his 
daughter Anne. Early aged by 
care and suffering, the quiet of her 
present life brought freshness to 
body and soul ; she took delight in 
ministering to the old people and 
to Cousin Tom, and Tom found 
comfort in the very sense of her 
contented thankfulness. 

Strange, marked changes came to 
the old place. People wondered 
what had altered Tom Hurd. He 
had always been considered a very 
exemplary young man, but he was 
different now. Like a man with a 
set purpose he lived his life a life 
of alms-deeds ancj daily, thoughtful 
kindnesses and Anne soon began 
to work with him heartily. 

One day it came to pass that 
they were married- 

I do not claim for them any ro- 
mance. This alone I do claim : 
that they received that sacrament 
of matrimony wherein they found 
grace to love one another in the 
Lord, and that quietly and truly 
all their lives they did so love each 
other. There was a chapel built 
after a time on Hurd estate, where 
poor people came freely, and where 
the old squire and Mr. Denison 
made daily preparation for their end, 
and there Tom and Anne learned 
more and more to work for God. 

" They are most unselfish peo- 
ple," so their neighbors said 
" How happened it ?" 

Happened ? Among those who 
came and went at Hurd Hall 
through all the years that Anne 
reigned there one sweet girl-face 
was never seen again, one sweet 
girl-voice never more rang echoing 
upwards to the massive rafters. 



Father Mazzella s Treatise on Grace. 



When Henrietta said farewell in 
Baynooth to her only relatives, it 
was a final word. 

The soul that had delighted in 
song and mirth and creature com- 
fort found its joy in prayer; the 
heart that had craved for earth 
became content with the Sacred 



Heart alone. When people prais- 
ed Tom Hurd for the good works 
that he was doing, he and Anne 
mused upon a hidden life that once 
was as a part of their lives. " Her 
prayers are doing more for us and 
for those we strive to help than we 
are doing," they said. 




FATHER MAZZELLA'S TREATISE ON GRACE.* 



LAST year a theological treatise, 
entitled De Deo Creante, was pub- 
lished by Father Camillus Mazzella, 
S.J., professor of dogmatic theo- 
logy in Woodstock College. It 
received the highest eulogiums 
from theologians in America and 
Europe ; the reviews in Germany, 
France, and Italy manifested a 
marked unanimity in the praises 
which they bestowed upon it. 
What they admired was the fulness 
of Catholic doctrine, the judicious 
selection of matter, the force and 
completeness of the arguments, the 
'fitness of the work for the times 
in which we live, and most of all 
its order and method. As an in- 
stance we will refer to the review 
of the work in the Civilta Cattolica 
of Rome, a periodical of unques- 
tioned authority in these matters. 
The Civilta Cattolica considers that 
this course of theology which Fa- 
ther Mazzella has begun to publish 
is the best qualified among all re- 

* De Gratia CJtristi. Praelectiones Scholastico 
Dogmatics quas in Collegio SS. Cordis Jesu ad 
Woodstock, maxima ::iudiorum domo Societatis Jesu 
in Fcederatis America? Septentrionalis Statibus, ha- 
bebat A.D. MDCCCLXXVII.-VIII , Camillus Maz- 
zella, S. J., in eodem Collegio Studiorum Prsefectus 
et Theologian Dogmatical Professor. Woodstock, 
Marylandiae, ex officina typographica Collegii. 
1878.' i vol. 8vo, pp. 8n-xxxi. New York: Ben- 
ziger Bros. 



cent courses to raise sacred studies 
to that degree of dignity and im- 
portance which they have a right 
to claim, particularly in face of 
those difficulties and errors which 
in our times are so wide-spread in 
extent and so radical in nature. 

This year another volume is 
published by the same author, pur- 
suing the same course. This se- 
cond volume is entitled De Gratia 
Christi. All who are versed in 
sacred science are perfectly well 
aware that this subject, the grace 
of Christ, is the very touchstone 
of a man's theological acumen, in- 
dustry, diligence, and prudence. 
There are many reasons why it 
should be so. The subject in 
itself is abstruse, not easy to 
grasp, nor to be settled with mere 
arguments of reason. It is en- 
veloped in such a cloud of here- 
sies and errors, in such a multi- 
tude of Catholic systems which 
undertake to elucidate it, in such 
a confusion of individual opinions 
conflicting with one another, that 
to expose the doctrine successful- 
ly and safely has been the good 
fortune of very few, and those very 
select, authors. We think that we 
may number Father Mazzelra 



132 



Father Mazzellas Treatise on Grace. 



among these few; and it is with 
satisfaction we do so. 

Still, it is worth our while to ex- 
amine in detail the motives which 
lead us to this favorable conclu- 
sion. 

And, first, the method followed 
out in the treatise is highly note- 
worthy and praiseworthy. In theo- 
logy it is easier to prove than to ex- 
plain. It is easier to lay down a 
number of theses successively and 
prove each one satisfactorily than 
to explain the whole connection of 
the parts* and set forth the entire 
body of doctrine in its integrity. 
Theological demonstrations are 
found in theologies everywhere, 
and they are good as far as they 
go. But good expositions of doc- 
trine, full and coherent, are sel- 
dom to be found in courses used 
in the schools. There is a good 
reason for it. Philosophy is at the 
bottom of all theology, and right 
philosophical views are necessary 
for a comprehensive, coherent 
view in theology. Now, if the 
background on which a theologian 
sets forth his dogma is an incor- 
rect philosophical system, or a 
medley, perhaps, of systems, such as 
the last few centuries have brought 
forth in the schools, what wonder if 
his Catholic dogma, when expound- 
ed in theology, does not sit aright 
upon his system in philosophy, or 
what wonder if he leaves the ex- 
position aside altogether, and does 
not undertake to expound the body 
of doctrine but only to prove his 
theses? This one-sided and limp- 
ing way of teaching theology has 
prevailed, not through any want 
of a grand system of philosophy 
which is eminently consistent with 
the whole body of Catholic dogma, 
which was taught in germ by the 
Fathers and systematized in form 
-by St. Thomas, but through the 



wilful neglect and contempt shown 
during the last two centuries for 
that patristic and scholastic philo- 
s.ophy which so many centuries 
before had tried, criticised, and 
approved. And this hankering 
after new systems, tins contempt 
for the old scholastic philosophy, 
that great intellectual monument 
of minds like St. Thomas and St. 
Augustine, proceeded so far dur- 
ing the two last centuries that old 
words, old forms of speech, old 
axioms of the scholastics and Fa- 
thers, were indeed retained by the 
philosophers of the time, but their 
meaning was wantonly changed 
and corrupted. The consequence 
is that, if philosophers of these 
schools try to understand the Fa- 
thers they cannot; nay, they can- 
not even read aright the definitions 
of the church, for these defini- 
tions have to be interpreted ac- 
cording to the meaning with which 
they were drawn up, "in the same 
spirit in .which the writer writ." 
It is no matter of surprise, then, if 
some, or even many, authors who 
are not well grounded in scholastic 
and patristic philosophy, when 
they come to theology, either lay 
down Catholic doctrine and just 
prove it, but go no farther it is 
too much for them or, if they do 
go farther and try. to explain, it is 
all superficial ; there is none of the 
comprehensive grand view which 
satisfies the mind on twenty points 
at one glance, and prepares the 
student for using his theses after- 
wards comprehensively, forcibly, 
and in a manner eminently new. 

The learned author before us is 
manifestly more than a mere adept 
in philosophy. He is a master in 
the widest sense. And accordingly 
his scope in the treatment of every 
Catholic dogma is to set forth the 
same in the fullest and broadest 



Father Mazzellas Treatise on Grace. 



'33 



light of which it is capable. There 
are definitions of the church upon 
the dogma, and there are the 
writings of the Fathers bearing 
upon it, and in these there are 
words to be weighed and explained, 
and, if necessary, their sense is to 
be proved by the weight of autho- 
rity. All this our author does. 
And, besides, the dogmatic ques- 
tions which suppose philosophical 
principles are not elucidated them- 
selves until the philosophy which 
is presupposed has been accurately 
evolved and solidly proved ; for 
otherwise the student's mind will 
never find satisfaction in the dog- 
matic question itself, the founda- 
tion being wanting. For example, 
it is a Catholic dogma that we are 
possessed of free-will, in spite of 
our first parents' sin. The fact is 
dogmatic and defined ; but the un- 
derstanding of the fact is impos- 
sible unless free-will be understood. 
Hence our author lays down clearly 
and comprehensively the philoso- 
phical theory of scholastics and 
Fathers De hominis libertate ; and 
on that foundation the dogma of 
the church is explained, understood, 
and defended against heresy. In 
the same way, before laying down 
the exposition and proofs of the 
dogma on the merit of good works, 
he expounds the philosophical 
theory De meriti concepts et natura. 
This is his uniform method. 

The form of his preliminary ex- 
planation is peculiar to himself. 
Every separate question has its 
own explanation and development 
of the doctrine which is to be prov- 
ed in the thesis; and as he ad- 
vances towards the thesis he deter- 
mines the sense in which the 
church teaches it and in which he 
means to prove it, and he defines 
the meaning of words. This re- 
duces the process of demonstration 



to a minimum; for it is notorious 
how much of the labor of proving 
and repeating proofs in the an- 
swers to interminable objections, 
and trying to make the point come 
out clearly at length if possible, 
proceeds merely from this one sin- 
gle source, that the author never ex- 
plained beforehand what the point 
definitely was. Hence onr author 
seldom takes the trouble to string 
on objections to the end of a thesis 
proved ; they have all been antici- 
pated in his exposition beforehand, 
and anticipated in the way most 
conducive to unity and order. 

This method of procedure suffi- 
ciently shows the arrangement of 
the matter. The learned author 
records first the documents in 
which the church conveys her 
' teaching with regard to the present 
question. 

These documents are from any 
point or points of time between the 
apostolic age and the latest acts 
of Pius IX. After reporting the 
documents in their own words, he 
compares them, explains them, and 
deduces what the church has clearly 
defined, and what not, and what de- 
gree of certainty is tobe assigned to 
respective propositions. Straight- 
way he passes to the heretical tenets 
found in opposition, direct or in- 
direct, to the present dogma. He 
states and examines errors old and 
new; while he refutes Arius he 
does not leave Wegscheider alone. 
He proceeds then to state how far 
theologians and Fathers have agreed 
in teaching the substance of the 
present truth, that subsequently 
he may without confusion examine 
and select among diverging opin- 
ions what is to be taught as to the 
unessential parts of the dogma. 
The divergence being clearly laid 
down in the very words of the au- 
thors who are at variance, and 



134 



Father Mazzellas Treatise on Grace. 



their proofs being weighed, he de- 
cides with regard to their respec- 
tive degrees of probability. He 
does not affix notes of censure 
himself to any opinion which he 
rejects, but at most records the 
censure passed by others, and in 
their words sometimes, however, 
mollified by a few words of his own. 
Another motive we have for pro- 
nouncing so favorably in behalf of 
the new work regards the selection 
of matter therein. A treatise on 
grace is universal in its nature. 
The whole interior life of a Chris- 
tian is a life of grace, and therefore 
everything that concerns this life 
and its manifestation, and its opera- 
tions and effects, as well on earth 
as in heaven, may be in a manner, 
and must be, in fact, referred to 
grace. Hence no wonder if here- 
sies without end have been broach- 
ed under the influence of the evil 
spirit to attack and confound all 
notions about grace and to destroy 
the life of grace in Christian souls. 
All these errors claim their own 
place in the present treatise. To 
mention a few opposite errors at- 
tacking the same dogma from differ- 
-ent sides : The Pelagians, confound- 
ing grace with nature, left the faith- 
ful a life of nature and denied any 
other supernatural life of grace. 
The Protestants, denying that man 
had any natural free-will left after 
. original sin, saw in the Christian 
soul only a life of grace, without 
free-will, without merit a life of 
blind, physical predestination. 
These are the two cardinal errors ; 
others without number circle about 
them. The semi- Pelagians, ration- 
alists, and later positivists range 
themselves round Pelagius. The 
Jansenists and Baius follow Lu- 
ther. One party gives too much to 
nature ; the other too much to 
grace. 



If condemned errors are nume- 
rous, tolerated opinions among Ca- 
tholics are not less so, and all have 
to be examined. There is not a 
dogmatic point fixed and defined 
but has a side or an aspect which 
is anything but defined. To cite 
one sample out of a hundred, all 
Catholic doctors have to teach that 
every good act performed here in a 
way conducive to eternal salvation 
is done with the help of superna- 
tural grace. But what does the 
supernatural grace affect? Is it 
the very substance of the act, or is 
it the manner of performing it? 
Does it make the act supernatural 
quoad substantiam, or only quoad 
modum ? Some ancient theolo- 
gians thought it enough to assert 
only the latter; but the other 
opinion prevails, and Suarez calls 
it " more conformable to divine 
theology." But if an act thus con- 
ducive to salvation is supernatural 
specifically, quoad substantiam, how 
is it so ? Because grace exalts it ? 
That is certain. But is it equally 
certain that the formal object of 
such an act is and must be specifi- 
cally supernatural, so as specifically 
to elevate the act which it termi- 
nates ? Many say yes with Suarez ; 
others say no with De Lugo. So 
that, in the very vestibule of the 
treatise, scholastic questions of 
considerable importance for a full 
understanding of grace have to be 
sifted and ventilated not a little. 

There is no doubt that the sub- 
ject-matter, apart from heresies 
and scholastic questions, is most 
ample and full of dignity while it 
is teeming with profit. It embrac- 
es the whole of that divine gift in 
virtue of which we are called, and 
really are, the sons of God. The 
existence and nature, and the force 
and virtue, of that gift ; its necessity 
and utility ; God's providence in 



Father Mazzella s Treatise on Grace. 



135 



disposing of it, with its effects in 
man regarding his life here and 
his life hereafter ; its manner of 
working together with the soul, 
and the soul's working with it all 
these points, with numerous and 
important questions ranged under 
them, belong to the complete treat- 
ment of this most ample and most 
noble subject. 

In this abundance of material 
Father Mazzella avoids two ex- 
tremes, one that of saying not 
enough, the other that of saying 
all, but without a judicious order ; 
and a comprehensiveness without 
order is just as unsatisfactory to 
the theological student as to leave 
him half-satisfied if all be not 
said. Father Mazzella leaves 
nothing out that is worthy of note 
for an ecclesiastic, and by the se- 
lection of his varied matter avoids 
satiating the mind; and the obvious 
order of his questions binds the 
whole in one harmonious unit. 

Thus he divides the whole into 
six parts, called disputations. In 
the first he develops the meaning 
of a supernatural act and deter- 
mines the notion of grace. There 
are first some preliminary ideas to 
be cleared regarding the definition 
and divisions of grace, and then 
come six questions which fill up 
the whole disputation. The ques- 
tions are : Whether salutary acts, or 
acts which are conducive to salva- 
tion, are supernatural quoad sub- 
stantiam, and how they are so ; 
whether man has free-will since 
the fall ; whether actual grace 
consists in illumination of the mind 
and inspiration of the will ; 
whether anything else belongs to 
the notion of actual grace; how 
grace which excites the will to act 
is distinguished from the grace 
which assists it acting; how na- 
ture and grace work together in 



performing an act conducive to 
salvation. Here there are two 
principles declared to be concur- 
ring in the work of salvation, actual 
grace and the natural free-will. 
He proceeds to develop both of 
these ideas, and begins with actual 
grace. 

Wherefore in the second dispu- 
tation, which he entitles De ac- 
tualis gratia necessitate, he solves 
all the questions which regard the 
necessity of actual grace for per- 
forming acts whether of the natural 
or supernatural order, and he sets 
down the limits of this necessity. 
The questions are ten in number : 
Whether the actual grace of Christ 
is necessary for every good work 
conducive to salvation ; whether 
it is necessary to a just man who 
has habitual grace already ; whe- 
ther it is necessary for the very 
beginning of faith and salvation ; 
whether it is necessary for perse- 
verance in good ; can a man with- 
out a special privilege, which is 
over and above actual grace, avoid 
all venial sins; whether this ac- 
tual grace is necessary to observe 
the natural law itself and overcome 
temptations ; is it necessary, too, in 
order that a man love God with only 
a natural love ; can a man with- 
out sanctifying grace and without 
faith perform any good work ; 
can he sometimes elicit a good act 
with the mere powers of nature, 
unaided by any actual grace; 
whether actual' grace was necessa- 
ry for man in the state of inno- 
cence. 

The third disputation deals with 
sufficient grace and efficacious 
grace. Here he has to defend the 
necessity of free-will in man, hav- 
ing in the previous disputation 
proved the necessity of grace. 
There are seven questions : Is there 
really any such thing in our pre- 



136 



Father Mazzellas Treatise on Grace. 



sent state as grace which is really 
sufficient and not efficacious or 
effectual ; when a sufficient grace 
is given is any other grace required 
for the effect ; if the grace is effi- 
cacious or effectual is the will act- 
ing freely under it; in what does 
efficacious differ from sufficient 
grace ; is its efficaciousness to be 
referred to physical predetermin- 
ing, or to the dominant attractive- 
ness ofan object, dele c tat io vktrix ; 
wherein does this efficaciousness 
consist. He replies by expounding 
and defending the system of Mo- 
lina, and subjoins a couple of chap- 
ters, one to answer objections, the 
other to declare the mind of St. 
Thomas upon the subject. 

In the fourth disputation he in- 
vestigates the manner of Divine 
Providence in the dispensation of 
grace, how and on whom does God 
bestow it. This part is entitled 
De divines gratice ceconomia. Five 
questions are set down: Is the 
first grace which is bestowed on a 
man altogether gratuitous ; what 
does Catholic faith teach regarding 
the dispensation of grace ; does 
each and every just man receive 
grace enough for salvation ; do all 
sinners receive grace at least re- 
motely sufficient for their salva- 
tion ; do all infidels receive means 
enough for salvation ? 

So much for actual grace. Now 
the learned author turns towards 
the noble subject of habitual grace, 
and entitles the fifth disputation 
De gratia habituali seu sancti fie ante. 
There are eleven questions : What 
is sanctifying gr,ace ; in justification 
is there an interior renewal of the 
man by an inherent gift ; is habi- 
tual grace a created gift ; is it 
physically permanent, and what is 
it ; how does it differ from chari- 
ty ; are sins truly forgiven in jus- 
tification, and how ; do men be- 



come sharers of the divine nature 
by habitual grace, and how ; adop- 
tive sons of God, and how; is it 
so that the person of the Holy 
Ghost becomes united to their 
souls ; what faith is required for 
justification, and is it alone suffi- 
cient ; what are the qualities of 
justification ? 

Besides the essence and proper- 
ties, the causes and effects, of sanc- 
tifying grace, as discussed in the 
fifth disputation, there still re- 
mains one moral effect, called 
merit. The last disputation speaks 
De merito bonorum operum, in four 
questions: Do the just, by good 
works done in grace, truly merit 
before God; what are the condi- 
tions of such supernatural merit ; 
is eternal life due by a title of jus- 
tice in return for the good works 
of the just ; what are the rewards 
which this supernatural merit re- 
ceives ? 

This rapid inspection of the 
questions suffices to show how 
each article is connected with the 
whole disputation. The disputa- 
tions themselves are so united that 
one of them is the end and object 
of all the rest; and that one is the 
critical analysis of a supernatural 
act performed by a Christian man. 
There are two distinct principles 
of such an act namely, grace and 
free-will; there are distinct dispu- 
tations, one on free-will and two 
on grace; for there are two kinds 
of grace, actual and habitual, and 
each claims its own special treat- 
ment. And, finally, merit, that 
moral quality of a supernatural 
act whereby it leads to eternal sal- 
vation, deserves and receives a sep- 
arate treatment ; and the analysis 
of a supernatural act is thus made 
complete. One idea, therefore, 
that of an act done in grace, sug- 
gests everything ; and everything 



Father Mazzellas Treatise on Grace. 



137 



that is discussed in the volume 
tends back to the one idea a great 
merit in a scientific work, and a 
great assistance to the student of a 
scientific subject. 

We have stated two motives for 
the favor with which we regard 
this new book. We must now 
state a third. The substance of 
the author's doctrine is throughout 
only that which is most received 
and best established by the author- 
ity of theologians, and which is 
most consonant with the sense 
and spirit of the church's doctrinal 
teaching. In the questions which 
are open and free to admit of di- 
verging opinions the author is 
prudent and carefully discerning. 
We may instance his manner of ex- 
pounding and demonstrating the 
system of Molina in the great 
question of reconciling the effica- 
ciousness of grace with free-will in 
man. So much has been written 
on this most difficult question that 
every course of dogmatico-scholas- 
tic theology treats of it. Theolo- 
gians divide off -into opposing 
camps. The Fathers of the illus- 
trious order of St. Dominic solve 
the problem by their doctrine of 
physical predetermination. The 
Fathers of the Society of Jesus 
refer for the solution to the scientia 
media of God, by which knowledge 
he knows all the future contingen- 
cies of any and every free will, ir- 
respective of any decree of his own. 
The Fathers of the Augustinian 
order refer to a certain objective 
attractiveness which is dominant 
over the will, delcctatio victrix ; the 
will gives way infallibly (with a 
moral infallibility) and at the same 
time sweetly. Other opinions, lying 
midway between some of these, 
partaking of them and not agree- 
ing with any, are not wanting. But 
after a clear, profound, and full 



treatment of all the other opinions, 
the learned author proposes as his 
own, and defends in all its ampli- 
tude, the system of Molina. In the 
exposition of other systems, while 
all have full justice done to them, 
he pays special regard to that of 
the Thomists, which is developed 
in the words and according to the 
mind of the distinguished Domi- 
nican theologian, Father Billuart. 
We admire the tone of moderation 
which is so habitual with Father 
Mazzella that when strongest he is 
often gentlest, and tempers the 
edge of a hard argument with the 
modest reserve of him who argues ; 
so that what stands forth is the 
truth, not passion. For a full un- 
derstanding of this large and vexed 
question we must refer a student 
of theology to the third disputa- 
tion of Father Mazzella's work. 

If we have not already said 
enough about the method and man- 
ner which characterize the book, 
and Father Mazzella's style in gen- 
eral, we would add that if he 
spares words, without, however, 
losing in perspicuity, he certainly 
abounds in matter. He abounds 
in the Scripture texts which bear 
upon his subject, not merely quot- 
ing one or two and building all on 
them, but adding the illustration 
of so many other places of Holy 
Writ, and dividing them lucidly 
under heads for the distinct ele- 
ments of his demonstration. Then 
appears tradition, which he handles 
in two ways : exegetically, determin- 
ing the sense in which the Fathers 
interpreted the passages of Scrip- 
ture which he quotes ; and theologi- 
cally, proving dogma from the per- 
petual faith of the church. Her 
teaching authority, or magisteriiim, 
in definitions, liturgy, practice, etc., 
he introduces freely, using the defi- 
nitions as the foundation, and often- 



133 



Father Mazzellas Treatise on Grace. 



times for the framework, of his 
theses. In the last place, he lets 
reason have her say, whether that 
which is called theological reason, 
which shows the harmony of the 
point in hand with other points of 
Christian faith, or philosophical rea- 
son, which, arguing from human 
sciences, shows there is no conflict 
between reason and faith. His 
order of thought, combined with a 
perspicuous style, is easy enough 
to follow ; but we almost think it 
becomes easier still, and certainly 
more agreeable, when there are 
added all the additional helps of a 
clear distinction and numbering of 
paragraphs, judicious variety of 
type, and clearness, and even ele- 
gance, of the impression. 

We must conclude ; and we can- 
not conclude by saying anything 
better than what we have already 
said, that the treatise before us 
De Gratia is highly praiseworthy on 
all points for its clear and exact 
exposition of Catholic teaching, for 
its select fulness of matter, and for 
its solidity of doctrine, in which it 
is always on the safe side. The 
book could not contain anything 
new, but the old truths are here 
certainly in no antiquated way. 
Hence we think it necessary to 
commend it and recommend it, be- 
cause a better one, in its line, 
for a theological course we consid- 
er it hard to find. And not only 
for a theological course but for 



other purposes also do we recog- 
nize its eminent utility. Preachers, 
as well as directors of souls, have no 
more abundant source of edifying 
and varied truth, as well for sermons 
as for daily intercourse with the 
faithful, than what is taught about 
the nature of grace, its necessity, 
its effects, about the necessity of 
good works, and the fruit of mer- 
it which we earn thereby ; the 
more so as in this country and in 
these times we have to deal so much 
with Protestants and rationalists, 
whose notions of the supernatural 
order are altogether upset. With 
them there is no clear understand- 
ing of any harmony between those 
two principles of nature and grace 
from which all acts have to proceed 
in order to be conducive to eter- 
nal salvation. The author says at 
the beginning of his work what we 
will close with : that " since in the 
treatise on grace it is given to the 
mind of man to contemplate the 
work of God in faithful souls, and 
to conceive some relish for that im- 
mense charity with which God has 
loved us, and with which the new 
Adam, Jesus Christ, has redeemed 
us and bestowed on us the trea- 
sures of life everlasting, no one 
certainly will have reason to regret 
the time spent in perusing the trea- 
tise, or will peruse it without feeling 
his mind and heart elevated with 
divine consolation." 



New Publications. 



'39 



NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



TlIEOLOGIA DOGMATICA CATHOLICA SPE- 

CIALIS, a J. Katschthaler, S.T.D. et 
Professore (Univ. CEnipont). Lib. ii. 
Complectens Doctrinam De Pec- 
cato Originali, De Incarnatione et 
Redemptione. Ratisbon: G. J. Manz. 
1878. 

The first volume of this new theology 
has not been sent to us, and we are 
therefore ignorant of the entire scope of 
the work. It is very succinct and con- 
densed, but written in a remarkably 
good and clear Latin style, with a good 
arrangement of divisions, and a kind of 
type for text and notes which helps the 
reader to see at once what the contents 
of both present to view. The author is 
very learned and accurate in citing the 
opinions of ancient and modern schools 
and authors whether orthodox or hereti- 
cal. His quotations from standard au- 
thors are numerous and apposite with- 
out any cumbrous superfluity. As a 
theologian he is very cautious and safe, 
and uses theological reasoning with no 
little tact and ability. There is not 
much, however, of the speculative theo- 
logian or philosophical reasoner in the 
excellent professor. His work will, we 
think, be valuable to many clergymen 
and students who have not time to study 
more extensive treatises, like those of 
Kleutgen, Franzelin, and Mazzella. 
Theologies have multiplied of late. No 
text-book, we suppose, has ever equal- 
led in popularity and extensive use 
Perrone's Prelections. These are now 
out of date since the Council of the 
Vatican and the recent controversies. 
In some respects it is difficult to sup- 
ply the place which Perrone's Theology 
filled in the course of ecclesiastical 
study. We miss in other authors the 
rational elucidation and defence of cer- 
tain dogmas in which the late illustri- 
ous Roman professor excelled. Some- 
times we wish the learned authors who 
attempt a philosophical lucubration oc- 
casionally had abstained altogether 
from such an effort. Numbers of the 
recent theological treatises, whether in- 
tended as complete manuals for stu- 



dents or not so intended, have various 
and peculiar merits of their own. As a 
text-book for class instruction we give 
our individual preference to the Course 
of De Bonal, the French Sulpitian 
professor. In certain special topics 
Dr. Murray, of Maynooth, has distin- 
guished himself remarkably, and is 
scarcely surpassed, if equalled, by any 
other modern author we know of. We 
have already expressed our opinion of 
Father Mazzella's works, and it is not 
necessary to say that those of Franzelin 
are of the first order. These last two 
authors are emphatically those who are 
most useful to professors of theology 
and advanced students in respect to the 
topics they have respectively treated. 
Even with all these and several other 
recent works on theology to read or 
consult, the student can hardly afford to 
abandon Perrone to the dusty upper 
shelf. And, when it is question of the 
more metaphysical and speculative 
points of the divine science, we must 
beg leave to say that more satisfaction 
is to be found in the sturdy Dominican 
and Thomist Billuart than in any re- 
cent writer or more modern school. If 
any young ecclesiastic fails to become a 
good theologian with all the means at 
hand which are now accessible to every 
one, it must be ascribed to a lack either 
of the aptitude or the diligence which 
are essential requisites to a sacred 
vocation, or to a deficiency in both 
alike. 

A LATIN GRAMMAR, adapted to the use 
of Colleges. From the fifteenth edi- 
tion of Dr. F. Shultz's Grammar. 

LATIN EXERCISES, adapted to the same. 
F. Pustet. 1878. 

These books are published in the best 
style. Many Latin grammars have been 
published since this magazine was a 
school-boy. Some of these are so ex- 
cellent, and they supplant each other so 
frequently and rapidly, that it is hard 
for a critic to decide or a teacher to se- 
lect among them the one which is abso- 
lutely best. This one is undoubtedly 



140 



New Publications. 



very good, and the exercises are ditto. 
The schoolmaster must decide on their 
merits as compared with other books of 
the kind which are in general use. 

HISTORY OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. By 
J. M. S. Daurignac. Translated by 
James Clements. Second edition, with 
an appendix from 1862 to 1877. Bal- 
timore : J.. Murphy & Co. 1878. 

This history, which is nominally con- 
tained in two volumes but really in one 
stout volume of eight hundred pages, in 
so far as it is a compendium of the well- 
known work of Cretineau-Joly, is com- 
plete and valuable. The author's origi- 
nal supplement is very well so far as 
it goes, but is only an incomplete, su- 
perficial sketch, and the American edi- 
tor's appendix is still more scanty. The 
chief value of the book, therefore, lies in 
this, that it furnishes in reasonable com- 
pass to the ordinary English reader an 
account of the ancient history of the il- 
lustrious Society of Jesus. It cannot be 
called properly a history of the order in 
its recent and actual period, but only a 
brief and partial notice of some princi- 
pal and prominent facts in its history, 
and the more nearly it approaches the 
present time, the more meagre and 
vague it becomes. What information 
it does give, we believe, is trustworthy, 
and it is undoubtedly well worth read- 
ing. 

MANUAL OF SACRED CHANT. Containing 
the Ordinary of the Mass, the psalms 
and hymns of Vespers for the entire 
year, and Compline, according to the 
official edition of the Sacred Congre- 
gation of Rites ; together with a collec- 
tion of Latin hymns and prayers suit- 
able for different devotions. By Rev. 
Joseph Mohr, S.J. 

CANTIONES SACR^E. A collection of 
hymns and devotional chants for the 
different seasons of the year, the feasts 
of our Lord, of the Blessed Virgin, of 
the saints, Low Masses, etc. Arrang- 
ed for four mixed voices. By Rev. 
Joseph Mohr, S.J. 

These two works, issued from the pub- 
lication house of Mr. Pustet, are valua 
ble contributions to the cause of the re- 
vival of Gregorian Chant, and as such 
will be welcomed by many of our 
readers. The titles sufficiently explain 
their object, but of the latter part of the 



Manual of Sacred Chant we transcribe 
the explanation as given in the preface 
by the learned and zealous author: 

" One word on the fourth part, ' Can- 
tiones varies.' The Latin hymns which 
it contains are not intended to displace 
some beautiful English hymns already 
in use, and which are so deservedly 
popular ; but only to furnish a variety, 
and rescue from oblivion pious composi- 
tions which were the delight of our fa- 
thers, and which all friends of true re- 
ligious art must ever hold in high 
esteem. 

"The words of these hymns, for the 
most part, have been taken from the old 
manuals of the Congregations of the 
Blessed Virgin. Many of them mav be 
regarded as belonging to those old ec- 
clesiastical chants consecrated by imme- 
morial usage, and on this account may 
be sung when the Blessed Sacrament is 
solemnly exposed, as an answer given 
on the 3d of October, 1851, by the Card. 
Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of 
Rites, intimates. However, to prevent 
all confusion we have carefully distin- 
guished them from the liturgical chants. 
"With regard to the melodies, they 
have been chosen (a few modern compo- 
sitions excepted) from amongst the most 
beautiful that the last six centuries have 
bequeathed to us. 

" Repeating these sjmple accents of 
the Christians of past ages, our hearts 
will naturally respond to the sentiments 
of lively faith and ardent piety which 
animated them. At least it is not rash 
to hope so. 

" But perhaps this publication may be 
considered too grave and too serious by 
some persons, and scarcely suitable for 
schools, etc. 

''We admit that our selection has 
nothing in common with that style of 
melody which, in the opinion of all 
lovers of true religious music, ought to be 
at once and for ever banished from every 
Catholic church. In making the selec- 
tion we were influenced by no other idea 
than that which occupies the mind of the 
church herself namely, that in the 
house of God every song should be a 
prayer, and never of that soft, light, thea- 
trical, or trivial character which is better 
calculated to distract than to elevate the 
soul to God. 

" If a trial be made of these pious 
hymns with a good number of voices, 
well kept together and well accompa- 



New Publications. 



141 



nied, one can easily judge how this pow- 
erful unison, by its majesty, breadth, and 
piety, will speedily supplant those flimsy 
airs and tunes which have nothing to re- 
commend them either in the words or in 
the melody, whether judged from a re- 
ligious or from an artistic point of view. 
No doubt in the commencement the very 
simplicity of these chants may repel 
some persons, but the fault is not in the 
chants, but in the ear, attuned to melo- 
dies of bad taste with which the church 
has borne too long. ' Consuetude consue- 
tudine vindtur /' If they be practised 
with a little perseverance, the pupils 
will soon learn to appreciate them, and 
will feel spurred on by them to love God 
and labor for his glory, which is the 
object of all prayer, and therefore also 
of all sacred music. 

"To conclude, we recommend our 
little Manual to the kindness of all who 
are charged with the education of the 
young. To render it more complete for 
colleges, seminaries, schools, etc., we 
have added some useful prayers at the 
end of the book, so that the pupils can 
exercise their piety during a religious 
function when not called on to sing." 

SHADOWS OF THE ROOD ; or, Tvpes of our 
Suffering Redeemer, Jesus Christ, oc- 
currinrjn the Book of Genesis. Being 
the substance of a series of Moral 
Discourses delivered in the Church of 
the Assumption during the Lent of 
1856. By the Rev. John Bonus, B.D., 
Ph. et LL. D., graduate of the Univer- 
sity of Louvain, Priest and Mission- 
ary Apostolic. Second American 
edition, revised and corrected by the 
author. 'Baltimore : John Murphy & 
Co. 1878. 

The title of this little volume suffi- 
ciently explains its character. It draws 
out, in the simple and unpretending 
manner suitable to a series of Lenten 
discourses addressed to a mixed audi- 
ence, the various types of our Lord 
which occur in the earliest of fthe Scrip- 
tural records. Adam, Abel, Noe, Abra- 
ham, Isaac, Melchisedech, Jacob, Joseph, 
as their history foreshadows that of the 
Redeemer, furnish the themes for dis- 
courses full of practical suggestions and 
devout reflections. That on Melchise- 
dech, the type of ''Jesus the Priest of 
the Mass," while it is not free from slight 
defects of taste, is, on the whole, the 
best specimen of its author's skill in 



condensing and simplifying the results 
of a wide study of approved commenta- 
tors. It is a pity, however, that a book 
which it is worth while to republish, and 
which passes into a second edition, 
should not have been freed from the 
typographical errors which disfigure so 
many of its pages. The " Preface to 
the American Edition " is cut short in 
the middle of a sentence, and there is 
not a chapter scarcely a page which 
does not suffer from inexcusably care- 
less proof-reading. 

A LYTEL BOKE FOR YE MARYEMONTH. 
Compiled and arranged for the use of 
Our Blessed Ladye's Sodalists, and 
other Liegemen of her Dower, as Eng- 
land is called, by a former Prefect of 
the Sodality at Stonyhurst College, 
with a letter of commendation by the 
Rev. Edward Ignatius Purbrick, S.J., 
Rector of Stonyhurst. London : Burns 
& Gates. 1878. (For Sale by The 
Catholic Publication Society Co.) 

A very admirable series of practices, 
reflections, and suggestions in honor of 
Our Lady is this Lytel Boke. It is in- 
tended for the use of school-boys and 
other sodalists, and has been purposely 
compiled in as brief a form as possible, 
in order to bring home to them the devo- 
tion of the month of May, and to avoid 
the appearance of being a serious addi- 
tion to the customary devout observances 
of the school or the family. While it is 
especially adapted to English boys in the 
matter of the pilgrimages which are sug- 
gested, the more practical portions of 
the text will be found useful everywhere. 

THE TRUE LOVE OF GOD, AND OTHER 
DEVOTIONS OF DIVINE LOVE. By the 
Rev. James A. Maltus, O S.D. Lon- 
don: Burns & Gates. 1878. (For 
Sale by The Catholic Publication So- 
ciety Co.) 

This is a unique prayer-book, the result 
of a longing on the part of the pious Dc- 
minican who is its author to " do some- 
thing to move souls to divine love" be- 
fore his life shall end. It is composed 
of short prayers, in each of which some 
motive exciting to the love of God is 
presented, followed by a decade of acts 
of love, to be repeated while the thoughts 
remain fixed upon that motive. The 
divine attributes furnish the first sug- 
gestions ; afterward the mind rests upon 



142 



New Publications. 



our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, the 
Sacred Heart, and the love of Jesus in 
the Sacrifice of the Mass. The last sec- 
tion is devoted to Our Lady. It is full 
of devotion, and likely to enkindle it. 

A CATECHISM OF THE HISTORY OF IRE- 
LAND, ANCIENT, MEDIAEVAL, AND MO- 
DERN. By the Rev. Thomas J. Bren- 
nan. New York: Thomas Kelly. 

1878. 

There have long been two well-ground- 
ed objections to the serious study of 
Irish history which the present condens- 
ed and modest volume may, in part at 
least, remove. Heretofore most Irish 
histories have been so prolix in descrip- 
tion of scenes and actors of the semi- 
mythical period, so childishly minute 
in details of merely local events, and so 
plentifully bestrewn with unpronounce- 
able names of persons and places, that 
an ordinary student turned from their 
pages disheartened and disappointed. 
More than a quarter of a century ago J. 
O'Neill Daunt endeavored to popular- 
ize among O'Connell's " Repealers " the 
study of the annals of their ancestors by 
writing a short Catechism of Irish History. 
It was well received at the time, for, 
though a first effort, it presented many 
commendable features. It was plainly 
written, concise, and reasonably compre- 
hensive. Following the path marked 
out by Mr. Daunt, Father Brennan has 
lately given us a larger and better book, 
more varied in information, and much 
clearer and fuller in description. These 
with its other numerous merits will entitle 
it to rank as a valuable class-book in our 
schools ; while many persons who have 
neither patience nor inclination to wade 
through larger works, but who are yet 
desirous of becoming familiar with the 
leading historical events of the Irish 
people, will gladly accept it as a pleasant 
teacher and a reliable guide. 

LIFE OF MME. DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, 
DUCHESS OF DOUDEAUVILLE, AND 
FOUNDER OF THE SOCIETY OF NAZA- 
RETH. Translated from the French. 
Boston : Houghton, Osgood & Co. 
1878. 

Without doubt Mme. de la Rochefou- 
cauld led a beautiful and saintly life. 
In the midst of the peculiar trials which 
assail a woman of great personal attrac- 
tions who is thrown into a social circle 



noted for the license of its manners, she 
maintained a reputation which no breath 
of scandal ever dared to sully. Married 
at fifteen to a sickly boy of fourteen, she 
ever exhibited toward him a wife-like 
deference and affection which won from 
him a corresponding respect and attach- 
ment, and made what seemed an ill-as- 
sorted match a model of Christian mar- 
riage. A true daughter of the church at 
a time when to show her filial devotion 
was made a legal crime, she harbored 
priests, assisted religious, and never 
flinched in the open observance of the 
duties of a Christian. Toward the close 
of a long life, in which she had been by 
turns one of the sweetest types of the 
Christian daughter, wife, and mother, 
she was instrumental in founding a reli- 
gious society for the practical education 
of young girls which is, doubtless, des- 
tined to survive her long. 

With such material at hand, for the 
production of one of those charming re- 
ligious biographies with which French 
literature abounds, we hardly know how 
to express our extreme dissatisfaction 
with the result as laid before us in this 
volume. Apparently both author and 
translator are at fault. Stiff, unliterary, 
wanting in grace of expression, and even 
in accuracy, as the English version is, it 
appears to be intended as a faithful ver- 
sion of its original. If it be so, we can 
only regret that a subject so charming 
should have fallen into the hand.s of an 
artist so incapable. 

A COMPENDIUM OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
ANCIENT HISTORY. By the Rev. Hen- 
ry Formby. London : Burns & Oates. 
1878. (For sale by The Catholic Pub- 
lication Society Co.) 

We hail with delight this new work of 
Father Formby. Whatever treats of 
Rome must interest us in many ways, 
whether on the side of philosophy, his- 
tory, religion, or the arts. Rome has al- 
ways been a mysterious city in which 
the great conflict of good and evil is 
fought out to the end of the world ; and 
all eyes are drawn to Rome as by some 
instinctive impulse. Rome is the heart 
of the universe. Those who cannot live 
there still find a consolation which no 
lapse of years can diminish in reading 
about Rome, and he who has once tasted 
Facqua di Trevi will appreciate the words 
of Cassiodorus (Epist. iii. 21) : Piaculi 



New Publications* 



genus est absentem sibi Romam facere qui in 
ea possunt constitutis laribus habitare, 

Father Thebaud, S.J., in his Gentilism, 
has gone over part of the same ground 
as Father Formby, whose chapters eight 
and thirteen of the Compendium are 
splendidly developed by Bonetty in a re- 
cently-published work, of which the first 
volume appeared in 1867 : Documents 
Historiqucs sur la religion des Remains et 
fur la connaissance qiiils out pu avoir des 
traditions bibliques par lews rapports avec 
lesjuifs (4 vols. in 8). 

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE AND VIRTUES CON- 
SIDERED IN THE RELIGIOUS STATE. By 
Mgr. Charles Gaz. Vol. I. 

We confess to have only glanced at 
this new book of devotion, being indis- 
solubly wedded to Rodriguez ; but the 
brief of our late Holy Father, given on the 
I3th of December, 1877, places its ortho- 
doxy and usefulness beyond the necessi- 
ty of other praise. We have remarked 
a few slips even in our hasty view of this 
English translation, which appears, 
however, on the whole, to be a good 
one. 

On page xxxiv., preface, the misplaced 
apostrophe makes nonsense in this sen- 
tence : " Have they, I say, read these 
great works with less ardor, or with less 
fruit, than the multitude of Philothea's to 
whom the holy bishop of Geneva has 
especially addressed it?" A plural and 
not a genitive singular is meant. In 
the preface of the translator, page xii., 
the following sentence is obscure and 
incorrect: "The nomination of Abbe 
Gaz to the episcopal dignity in Decem- 
ber last, by the brief, prefixed to this trans- 
lation ... is not only," etc. The brief pre- 
fixed to this translation is not the one 
appointing Abbe Gaz to the episcopal 
dignity (as bishop of Anted ona in part.}, 
although bearing date of the same month 
and year of this appointment, but after a 
preliminary mention of the Pope's satis- 
faction at the report that every one was 
pleased to see him called to such an 
honor, is entirely confined to the vol- 
umes which the new bishop had present- 
ed to his Holiness. 

THE ACTS OF THE EARLY MARTYRS. By 
J. A. M. Fastre, S.J. Fifth series. 
Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham 
& Son. 1878. 
This volume contains the acts of St. 



Alexander and his companions, St. 
Margaret, and others less generally 
known but furnishing similar examples 
of Christian heroism. Nothing can be 
more interesting as well as edifying than 
such reading as this, or more needed in 
an age like ours, in which mortification 
and self-denial for God's sake have be- 
come so rare. 

THE TEACHER OF OUR FAITH, and THE 
ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH OF TO-DAY 
ALONE IS OUR TEACHER IN MATTERS OF 
RELIGION. Two Lectures delivered in 
the Cathedral of Alton, in January, 
1878, by Right Rev. P. J. Baltes, D.D., 
Bishop of Alton. St. Louis, Mo. : B. 
Herder. 1878. 

These two lectures form together a 
most clear statement and conclusive 
vindication of the Catholic doctrine 
concerning the grounds and nature of 
faith, which is the real essential distinc- 
tion between Protestantism and Catholi- 
city. It is hard to see how any Protes- 
tant sincerely desirous of arriving at the 
truth could have heard them, or could 
now read them, without being convinc- 
ed, especially as t hey are entirely free 
from that spirit of bitterness and sarcasm 
which so often entirely destroys the ef- 
fect of the labors of able controversial- 
ists, and blinds the eyes of their oppo- 
nents by exciting their passions. The 
charitable and kindly tone of these lec- 
tures will increase very much the effect 
which their unanswerable arguments 
alone would produce, and they cannot 
fail to put any sincere inquirer on the 
road that ends in conversion. 

CARDINAL WOLSEY ; OR, THE ABBOT OF 
ST. CUTHBERT'S. By Agnes Stewart. 
London : Burns & Gates. 1878. (For 
sale by The Catholic Publication So- 
ciety Co.) 

This is a harmless novel of the histori- 
cal kind, in which the most interesting 
parts are some sketches of the great car- 
dinal, " drawn largely," as the author 
says in her introduction, "from histori- 
cal records." The romance of the work 
is feeble ; and the writer makes a num- 
ber of slips which, however, only profes- 
sionals may notice. To begin with the 
title-page, we find a discrepancy between 
the name there given to the book and 
the one given on the first page, where 
the title of a book is generally repeated 
in full. It is a rule that the name of a 



144 



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book should convey some idea of its 
general drift; and most assuredly, in an 
historical novel which treats of the pe- 
riod when Henry VIII. was suppressing 
the monasteries of England, Abbot of 
St. Cuthbert's and Last Abbot of St. 
Cuthbert's are titles so different as to 
give rise to very different imaginings as 
to the possible issue of the fiction. To 
proceed : On page 12 a priest is de- 
scribed as administering Extreme Unc- 
tion before giving the holy Viaticum, 
which is contrary to the custom of the 
church ; on page 48 a good Benedictine 
monk belonging to a neighboring mon- 
astery wanders to a certain spot " to 
read his daily office " ; but monks, let us 
remark, recite their office in choir ; on 
page 53 the ordinary Latin name of the 
Imitation cf Christ is barbarized into 
Imitatione de Christe ; on page 99 a long 
train of priests, choristers, and acolytes 
passes slowly along " headed by the 
cardinal," but in religious processions 
the highest dignitary always walks last ; 
on page 139 the celebrated Fisher is 
called bishop of Carlisle, which he never 
was ; on page 156 the cardinal's admoni- 
tion to his ward, who is about to become 
a monk " You will at once take dea- 
con's orders" hath an Anglican turn 
about it which seemeth not in harmony 
with the Catholic idea of previous Minor 
Orders. Towards the end of the book 
the writer several times uses such an ex- 
pression as Father Cuthbert 11% Edward 
Lovel, but (apart from the bad accent in 
any case) the term ne'e is used only to 
denote the family name of a female be- 
fore marriage. There are other blem- 
ishes, some typographical, but we pass 
them by. 

LLOYD PENNANT : A Tale of the West. 
By Ralph Neville. Reprinted from 
Duffy's Hibernian Magazine. Balti- 
more : Kelly, Piet & Co. 

The scene of this novel is laid in Ire- 
land and the action takes place in 1796. 
There is the usual amount of mystery 
surrounding the hero's parentage and 
the usual amount of love-making, in a 
style, however, which smacks somewhat 
of the minuet de la cotu; and which is re- 
freshing after the paroxysmal sentimen- 
tality of the ordinary modern novel. 
The book is full of excellent " bits " of 
character. Michael Blake, for instance, 
who was one of that class that has ceas- 
ed to exist in Ireland the poor cadet of 



a noble family having a claim on Irish 
hospitality because he was a "poor rela- 
tion" and Captain Jack O'Mahony and 
his wife, who are painted with a light 
and skilful touch. The description of 
the means by which Mr. Blatherwell at- 
tained rank in society is another good 
thing that will be thoroughly enjoyed by 
those who are net deterred from reading 
it by the quiet, almost staid style in 
which the author tells his story. The 
book owes nothing to its manner, which, 
however, is correct enough, except when 
Mr. Neville speaks of " parvemte" as 
applied to a man and uses the verb " to 
ambition." 

A STRANGE VILLAGE, AND OTHER STO- 
RIES. 

THE ORPHAN OF ALSACE : A Story of 
the Crusaders. Translated from the 
French. 

LILY'S VOCATION, AND OTHER STORIES. 
THE THREE WISHES : A Tale for Girls. 
By M. F. S., author of Tom's Ciucifix, 
and other Tales. 

These nicely-bound books for the lit- 
tle folk are from the firm of Kelly, Piet 
& Co., Baltimore. They are all charm- 
ing, moral, and interesting, but we im- 
agine that the little reader will find the 
Three Wishes most charming and inter- 
esting, and its moral will insinuate it- 
self. Children of a larger growth might 
read it with pleasure and profit. The 
only fault we can find, leaving out a 
dropped Z, which we meet in the very 
first line, is that the author has not ela- 
borated the story, in order that it might 
present a more interesting appearance to 
the older folks than its present " toy- 
book " form. 

NEW PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. 
THE BIBLE FOR LEARNERS. By Dr. H. Oort, Pro- 
fessor of Oriental Languages, etc.. at Amsterdam, 
and Dr. I. Hooykaas, Pastor at Rotterdam, with 
the assistance of Dr. A. Kuenen, Professor of 
Theology at Leyden. Vols. i and ii. Boston : 
Roberts Brothers. 1878. 

AN EXEGETICAL DISCUSSION OF MATT XXVIII. I, 

ETC. By A. Webster, D.D., Pastor of St. John's, 
Baltimore. Baltimore : printed by J. F. Ches- 
ney. 1878. 

ON THE DURATION AND DEGREES OF FUTURE RE- 
WARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. Two sermons preach- 
ed at Nottingham, at St. Thomas' Church, on 
Advent Sunday, 1877. By Chr. Wordsworth, 
D D., Bishop of Lincoln. New York : Protes- 
tant Episcopal Tract Society. 

THE PROVIDENTIAL MISSION OF Pius IX. A dis- 
course delivered at the Requiem Mass for our 
Holy Father, Pope Pius IX., in the Cathedral of 
Baltimore, Feb. 18, 1878. By Rev. John J. 
Keane. Baltimore : printed by John Murphy. 

TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE PONTIFF 
Pius IX. by the Roman Catholics of the Dio- 
cese of Charleston. By the organ of the Catholic 
Institute. 






THE 



CATHOLIC WORLD 



VOL. XXVIII., No. 164. NOVEMBER, 1878. 



MEMOIRS OF GEORGIANA, LADY CHATTERTON.* 



THIS sketch of Lady Chatterton, 
by her second husband, Mr. Der- 
ing, is divided into two parts, the 
first formed of extracts from her 
diary during her first marriage a 
time in which she associated with 
the wits, poets, and other literary 
characters whose society made 
London a second Paris in the ear- 
lier part of this century; the sec-, 
ond written by Mr. Bering, con- 
sisting of an account of her con- 
version to the Catholic faith a pro- 
cess that lasted over ten years and 
of letters on theological subjects 
from Dr. Ullathorne, the Bishop of 
Birmingham. -ijJSte work is a per- 
sonal record ofherself rather than 
a full biography, as the author is 
careful to acknowledge ; her works 
are only mentioned as occupations, 
not analyzed as literary productions, 
and the few quotations from her late 
poems are inserted chiefly because 
they reflect her state of mind at 
the time. Of -her second marriage 
only general assertions as to its 
happiness and the mutual sympa- 
thy between husband and wife, and 

* Memoirs of Georgiana^ Lady Chatterton. 
With some passages from her diary. By Edward 
Heneage Bering. London : Hurst & Blackett. 
1878. 

COPYRIGHT : REV. 



a sketchy indication of their fre- 
quent moves on account of her 
failing health, appear on paper, un- 
til the story of her conversion is 
told; and this, probably, is the only 
event her biographer wished to 
impress on his reader's mind, for 
the second part of the book con- 
tains nothing else. Her character 
was singularly pure and her stan- 
dard high ; evil in any shape was 
more than commonly repulsive to 
her, so that she would at once de- 
tect it even when wrapped in its 
most specious or apparently excu- 
sable form, and her delicate con- 
scientiousness was so great as to be- 
come a source of suffering. This 
was a family characteristic, and not 
only had her father suffered from 
it, laboring under " a feeling of self- 
reproach " which had (morbidly, 
there is no doubt of it) twice in- 
duced him to refuse a bishopric, 
in the Anglican Church, but her 
great-uncle, B. Letheuillier, had 
been afflicted in the same way, as 
she accidentally discovered through 
an old letter of his, written nearly 
a hundred years before it came into 
her hands, and so like her father 
as regards sentiments and band- 

I. T. HECKER. 1878. 



146 



Memoirs of Georgiana, Lady Chattcrton. 



writing that, until she came to the 
signature, she had taken for grant- 
ed that it formed part of her father's 
correspondence. This uncle had 
had but little intercourse with her 
father, to whom he had left the 
family house in London in which 
Lady Chatterton lived many of her 
happiest years both before and after 
her marriage. It was this inherit- 
ed peculiarity, one which attacks 
only exceptional souls, that pre- 
vented her conversion taking place 
earlier; for among other impedi- 
ments created by this excessive 
sensitiveness of conscience was the 
fear of being influenced by a hu- 
man motive, her husband, Mr. Der- 
ing, being already a Catholic. This 
feeling accompanied her through 
life, often causing sadness and low 
spirits, suggesting doubts and ques- 
tions, and checking the develop- 
ment of her feelings in youth, as 
she pathetically says herself when 
she likens her life to that of a late- 
blooming rosebud. 

Lady Chatterton was the only 
child of the Rev. Lascelles Ire- 
monger, Prebendary of Winchester, 
and of Harriett Gambier, young- 
est sister of Admiral Lord Gam- 
bier. Another sister of the admi- 
ral married a cousin of Pitt, and 
both she and Harriett Gambier 
having been brought up by Lady 
Middleton, the wife of Sir Charles 
Middleton, afterwards Lord Bar- 
ham, First Lord of the Admiralty, 
a patron of literature and a philan- 
thropist, it followed that Lady 
Chatterton's earliest associations 
were all connected with things and 
people beyond the average. Bar- 
ham Court, a comfortable, rambling 
Italian villa, whose lawn and grove 
of Spanish chestnuts were its spe- 
cial boasts, but whose beautiful 
situation near the river Medway 
and among the undulating meadows 



of Kent is in itself adornment 
enough, was, at the time of Miss 
Gambler's stay there, the resort of 
many celebrated persons. In her 
childhood she remembered Dr. 
Johnson, of whom she told a story 
to this effect : Having left a car- 
pet-bag full of manuscript on a 
chair in the hall, he was groping 
his way down-stairs in the middle 
of the night to recover it when he 
put his hand on the banisters and 
suddenly felt what he thought to 
be the head of a man. Supposing 
it to be a burglar's, he seized it 
and called out, and when lights 
and help came it was discovered 
that a careless maid had left her 
old mistress' wig on one of the 
large round knobs of the carved 
oak staircase. 

Wilberforce was a later visitor at 
Barham Court, Lady Middleton 
being an enthusiastic and sympa- 
thetic supporter of his theories, 
and it is said that the abolition of 
slavery in the British West Indies 
was first talked over in that house. 
Sir Joshua Reynolds was another of 
Lady Middleton's intimate friends, 
and she herself was an excellent 
portrait-painter. Besides these 
higher associations, the young Gam- 
biers were familiar with the court 
of George III., and the incident 
of the old king powdering his nose 
in his unusual energy when he be- 
stowed on Harriett the conventional 
kiss given toyoung girls on their pre- 
sentation at court, is amusingly told 
by Lady Chatterton. This was one 
of the last occasions on which the 
old-fashioned minuet was danced 
before royalty, and powder and 
beauty-spots worn. Mrs. Pitt, too, 
was one of the last to cling to the 
fashion of masquerades at private 
houses, and the last given by her 
was distinguished by the presence 
of Mme. de Stae'l, who had just fled 



Memoirs of Georgiana, Lady Chatter ton. 



from Parisian censorship. "At 
one moment," says Lady Chatter- 
ton, " the crowd being excessive, 
Mme. de Stael remarked to my mo- 
ther : ' II parait qu'on souffre meme 
ici, de la liberte de la presse.'"* 
Tom Paine was another occasional 
guest of Mrs. Pitt, and one day, 
while breakfasting there, he receiv- 
ed a note from one of the Prince 
Regent's court (George IV.) to the 
effect that the prince desired to 
know if he, Tom Paine, had been 
bred to the sea. The writer had 
carelessly spelt the word bread, 
whereupon Tom Paine wrote in 
pencil on the cover : 

" No, not bread to the sea, 
But it was bread to me ; 
And bad bread it be." 

A very different visitor, and one 
of the Barham Court set, was Han- 
nah More, of whom Lady Chatter- 
ton's personal recollection is chiefly 
of the " peculiarly penetrating ex- 
pression of her black eyes. I was 
not afraid of her, and yet the 
piercing look of those eyes often 
haunted me, and sometimes when 
I felt naughty I fancied that they 
looked with disapproval on me. I 
can therefore understand the great 
influence she exerted in her day, 
an influence for good, I think, so 
far as it came direct from herself." 
Lady Chatterton was a backward 
child as regards technical know- 
ledge, and her delicate health was 
an adequate reason ; but her educa- 
tion can scarcely be called defec- 
tive, as, being an only child, she 
was constantly with her elders and 
in the society of people of note, 
intellectually. Much the same 
sort of teaching formed Mme. 
de Stael as she sat at her work in 
her mother's drawing-room. At 
eighteen, after one London season, 

* It seems that even here oe suffers from the 
liberty of the press. 



H7 

she married Sir William Chatter- 
ton and went to live at his place 
near Cork; but ill health soon 
obliged her to go abroad. At 
Florence she met Mrs. Blackwood, 
afterwards Lady Dufferin, the 
daughter of Sheridan and the sis- 
ter of Mrs. Norton. Florence at 
that time was a unique place, neu- 
tral territory, where the entree, was 
due rather to literary or social than 
to moral merit, but which welcom- 
ed respectability as an additional 
advantage. The most cosmopoli- 
tan and liberal of cities, it found 
prosperity and renown in the con- 
course of foreigners. The ac- 
quaintance with Mrs. Blackwood 
was renewed later in London, when 
Lady Chatterton relates an anec- 
dote, told her by that lady, of her 
father, Tom Sheridan, reproaching 
his father one day of being a party 
man. "What do you get by it?" 
said he. "For my part, I think I 
shall put a ticket on my head, ' To 
let.' " " Do so, my dear boy," said 
his father ; " only add, unfurnished.'" 
The son was, on occasions, no less 
ready with an answer, as when 
once threatened by his father that 
he would " cut him off with a shil- 
ling," he answered, " Very well, 
sir. By the way, you don't hap- 
pen to have the shilling in your 
pocket?" whereupon the father 
burst out laughing and forgave him. 
At Tunbridge Wells, in Kent, 
where Mrs. Iremonger was staying 
for her health and Lady Chatterton 
with her, she met the queen, then 
Princess Victoria, very frequently, 
and used to go to sing and play the 
harp with her. The princess had, 
it is said, a remarkably quick ear 
and memory, and could hum over 
correctly any air she had heard 
once only. After this Lady Chat- 
terton's life in London was identi- 
fied with that of all the most noted 



148 



Memoirs of Gecrgiana, Lady Chatterton. 



and intellectual people of the day ; 
she was a constant guest at Rogers' 
famous breakfasts, with the rare 
privilege of bringing to them any 
one she pleased, and her diary is 
studded with names even then well 
known and since then celebrated : 
Dean Milman, Hallam, Macaulay, 
Wordsworth, Sir David Brewster, 
Lord Brougham of whose novel, 
Albert Lunel, she and Milman were 
the first, and for years the only, 
readers, as the author suppressed 
the first edition before it had be- 
gun to be sold Landor, Browning, 
Mrs. Somerville, Moore, Monck- 
ton Milnes (now Lord Houghton), 
Lord Lytton, Sydney Smith, Car- 
lyle, Dickens, Chantrey the sculp- 
tor, Fonblanque and Lockhart the 
reviewers, the beautiful Misses Ber- 
ry, Montalembert, Daniel Webster, 
O'Connell, Joanna Baillie, Miss 
Sedgvvick, Mrs. Opie, Mrs. Jame- 
son, Mrs. Norton, Countess Hahn- 
Hahn, and many others too nume- 
rous to name. The first occasion 
of her taking to literature herself 
was her mother's death and the 
crushing sorrow it caused, driving 
her to continued and steady occu- 
pation as a relief. From a child 
she had been fond of making up 
and dictating stories, but had never 
put pen to paper. Of Landor she 
says after her first interview with 
him, when she sat next to him at 
breakfast without knowing who he 
was : " I have seldom seen the ex- 
pression of a highly-cultivated mind 
and courteous genius so beautifully 
stamped on any countenance as on 
the Landor of those days. The 
unamiabilities which sometimes 
cause the wits of the day to wound 
the feelings of those around seem- 
ed to be replaced in him by senti- 
ments which touch, elevate, and 
flatter those who listened to him, 
and also tended to place in a good 



point of view the person or subject 
on which he spoke. He talked a 
great deal, . . . and he not only 
did not say an ill-natured thing, 
but said something good of every 
one." The temptation to the con- 
trary for a man whose words are 
watched, waited for, repeated, and 
treasured up as such men's are is 
too great to be understood by less 
conspicuous people, and that a pro- 
fessed wit should sacrifice such 
chances for the sake of charity is a 
high tribute to him, and the more 
so in proportion as he lives in and 
among " society." Landor's say- 
ing as to the frittering effect of 
reading on great minds is worth 
recording : " I shall never be much 
read, still less remembered. 1 have 
filed away my mind by too much 
reading. Shakspere would never 
have become such an immortal au- 
thor if he had been a great reader, 
and Milton would have produced 
a greater poem if his head had not 
been so full of reading. He has con- 
fused us with his variety." Rogers, 
known equally for his bitterness as 
for his cleverness, showed uniform- 
ly his best side to Lady Chatterton, 
who modestly attributes this to her 
deafness, whereas the notorious in- 
fluence of some women's natures, 
hers among the number, accounts 
for the change to most of their mu- 
tual friends. If society as a whole 
were not the school of suppression 
of one's best feelings, this influence 
would be more universal; for most 
women desirous of shining have to 
stifle its dictates even as regards 
their own behavior, and so have 
no softening power left for the guid- 
ance of others. Several years later 
Rogers' last words, as he gazed on 
the sunset "with a look of intense 
hope on his face," were: "... I, too, 
must go very soon and pass through 
a momentary darkness ; but the sun 



Memoirs of Georgiana, Lady Chatterton. 



149 



will rise again, and so shall I !" 
And he pointed with his withered 
hand to the east. Of Chantrey a 
pleasant anecdote is told by Lady 
Chatterton, who was at breakfast 
with him at Rogers' house one day 
when the great sculptor pointed to 
a sideboard and asked his host: 

"Do you remember a poor little 
fat boy, in a common workman's 
dress, who came one morning, ma- 
ny, many years ago, to take some 
order about that sideboard ?" 

" Yes, I do," said Rogers, " for I 
thought what a fine head and intel- 
ligent look the poor boy had." 

" Well, he is the now celebrated 
sculptor, who not only goes to all 
the best houses in London, but 
gives parties that people are so 
good as to call pleasant, where all 
the highest and most intellectual 
people honor him with their pre- 
sence. Can you guess who it is ? 
Well," he added, while his honest 
face beamed with fun, " that cabi- 
net-maker's poor little apprentice 
was myself!" 

Macaulay, whom she met fre- 
quently, impressed her, at least so 
far as her diary tells her thoughts, 
chiefly by his historical knowledge 
of all the most celebrated pictures 
in the world, " the different hands 
they had fallen into, the escapes of 
some, the vicissitudes of others 
some having passed many years 
rolled up at the bottom of a canal 
under the Bridge of Sighs at Ven- 
ice. ... I wished that Macaulay 's 
essay on pictures, which lasted all 
dinner-time, could have been pub- 
lished, for it almost surpassed any 
of his best articles in the Edin- 
burgh" On another occasion she 
heard him speak on the same sub- 
ject, and she twice mentions that 
at various entertainments he had 
none of the "brilliant flashes of 
silence " which Sydney Smith attri- 



butes to him. On being asked as to 
his belief in Miss Martineau's alleged 
cures by mesmerism, he said, " with 
one of his rare smiles," and paro- 
dying a common English expres- 
sion of incredulousness : " Oh ! it's 
all in my eye and Hetty Marti- 
neau." At the same large party 
where this occurred a lady told 
Rogers that some friends of hers 
were much disappointed at not 
finding him at home the evening- 
she had been asked to dine with 
him. 

" Ali ! yes," said he with a pathe- 
tic look ; " I quite forgot that I 
had asked some people to dine 
with me that day, and I went out 
to dinner." 

" Ho\v very unfortunate !" said 
another lady. "And were you not 
horrified when you returned home 
and found that all the party had 
come and been obliged to go away 
without any dinner?" 

"Well, yes; but though they lost 
their dinner, they had a good story 
against me, which did just as 
well." 

Just after the publication of Lady 
Chatterton's first novel, Aunt Do- 
rothy s Tale, and the " first bit of 
commendation " from the Quarter- 
ly, which " kept her awake all night 
with joy," she happened to meet 
the two great critics and reviewers, 
Fonblanque and Lockhart, respec- 
tively of the Examiner and the 
Quarterly, and heard them speak- 
ing in extravagant praise of the 
works of Victor Hugo and Eugene 
Sue. Upon this she writes in her 
diary : " It is distressing to see how 
attractive evil is in the world. To 
represent evil principles in a good 
light, and delineate evil passions 
with that nervous vigor which the 
aggressive nature of evil makes 
comparatively easy, is to ensure a 
favorable inclination beforeh: nd. 



ISO 



Memoirs of Georgiana, Lady Chatterton. 



While Fonblanque was talking it 
so happened that Mrs. Jameson 
and Mrs. Gore, authors of various 
excellent novels, passed near us, 
and lie said within their hearing: 
* How I wish some English author 
could produce something as vigo- 
rous and intensely interesting as 
Notre Dame de Paris f At that 
moment it struck me that he resem- 
bled nothing so much as Retzsch's 
engraving of Mephistopheles in 
Faust." 

A very different impression was 
conveyed to her by a Frenchman 
of another stamp from the great 
but baneful novelists whom the 
critic so admired the Count de 
Montalembert, of whom she says: 
"A" slight tinge of melancholy in 
Montalembert, mingled with faith 
and hope, and his evident longing 
for sympathy, render him extreme- 
ly interesting." French literature 
is too unequally known, and the 
novelists are supposed to be its re- 
presentatives par excellence, whereas 
there is not: a greater difference 
between the tone of English and 
French fiction than exists between 
French novelists and French wri- 
ters on solid subjects. The latter 
seem to belong to a different race, 
and yet of their productions, wheth- 
er historical, scientific, religious, or 
philosophical, the world at large is 
obstinately ignorant. Montalem- 
bert is a fair, though perhaps not 
the strongest, example of this school. 
Personally his charm was very great. 
The writer can recollect a visit he 
paid at a country-house in England 
about twenty years ago, previous to 
a tour made with his hosts and the 
late Lord Dunraven ; his manner 
was very frank and hearty, less 
conventionally courteous than one's 
ideal of French manner, but far 
more satisfactory to English minds ; 
in fact, he had all the good points 



of an Englishman, as he had a 
right to have, his mother being 
English, and he himself having had 
an English education till the age 
of eighteen. Several years later 
we saw him in Paris under sad cir- 
cumstances, his family much dis- 
persed and his health irremediably 
gone ; he lay upon the sofa in a 
darkened room, and could hardly 
bear the excitement of seeing even 
an intimate friend for more than a 
few minutes. Lady Chatterton made 
acquaintance with Webster at the 
same time as Montalembert, and 
says of him : " Webster's counte- 
nance is benevolent, but his some- 
what self-dependent or self-confi- 
dent expression, though perhaps 
showing more power than the other, 
is to me less attractive, because, as 
Rogers says, it shows that he cares 
less for sympathy and the good 
opinion of others, which makes us 
feel that we can be of less use to 
him." Joanna Baillie figures among 
the brilliant circle in a way that 
makes the reader wish he had 
known her, " looking so humble, 
unpretending, and full of simplici- 
ty; ... her ne\\ old-fashioned 
dress, too, which could not have been 
worn more than once or twice, yet 
made according to the fashion of 
ten or twelve years ago, and smell- 
ing sweet of the rose-leaves and 
lavender with which it had proba- 
bly been shut up for years, delight- 
ed me, and so did the little old lace 
cap that encircled her peaceful face. 
The calm repose of her manner, 
the cheery and hopeful counte- 
nance, seems to do me good, it was 
so unruffled by the flutter and ex- 
citement of modern times. Har- 
ness, too, described to me her life 
original, simple, and full of real en- 
joyment." A very funny mistake 
of Miss Sedgvvick's is humorously 
told. Having first made acquain- 



Memoirs of Gcorgiana, Lady Chatter ton. 



tance with the literary people of the 
day at the breakfasts given by pro- 
minent men, she fancied this was 
the chief meal of English society, 
and when a lady asked her to a 
party at her house, without naming 
the hour, Miss Sedgwick asked at 
what time. 

" Oh ! come early, quite early, 
and we shall have a little pleasant 
talk before the others come. I ex- 
pect a very large party, so come 
before nine come at eight o'clock." 

Miss Sedgwick thought the Eng- 
lish must be very early risers to 
have a party at that hour, but "got 
up rather earlier than usual yester- 
day morning, and, after dressing 
with more than usual care, arrived 

at Mrs. M 's house punctually 

at eight in the morning. She found 
a housemaid coming out of the 
door to wash the steps, and after a 
while a footman appeared, strug- 
gling into his coat and looking at 
the carriage with evident conster- 
nation. 

" ' Is this Mrs. M 's house, and 

does she expect a party so early 
to breakfast ?' 

" ' No, ma'am,' he replied, ' there's 
no party to breakfast ; it is this 
evening that a large party is ex- 
pected.' " 

When Miss Sedgwick came again 
at eight in the evening she and her 
hostess had a merry laugh over her 
mistake. 

The eccentricities of old Lady 
Cork were a standing source of 
amusement to London society, 
and Lady Chatterton tells a few 
amusing anecdotes that happened 
within her own knowledge. We 
are inclined to think that to gain a 
reputation for oddity is perhaps 
the only way of enjoying society, 
for, once gained, it will cover all 
the anomalies which otherwise 
would be ruthlessly trodden down 



to the dead-level of artificial good 
manners. But it is not every one 
who can snatch this immunity as 
boldly as Lady Cork, who could 
borrow a friend's carriage without 
asking her for it, and then inno- 
cently suggest that, as the high 
steps did not suit her short legs, 
her friend might have them altered 
for her future use. And not only 
for short distances or periods 
would she thus confiscate a car- 
riage, but for the whole day and a 
long round of visits, leaving the 
owners to walk home or do the best 
they could. Her oddities were 
often useful to her, but then she 
always frankly avowed it. She 
was, for instance, an unblushing 
beggar for invitations, as on one oc- 
casion when she insisted on Lady 
Chatterton getting a card for a ball 
for some country girls, and said 
with her funny smile : 

"Yes, I am very kind, but then 
I always have some sinister design 
in it. I want to go to their coun- 
try place, for I have heard that it 
is a very pleasant house." 

One morning early she stopped 
at Rogers' house and made him 
come out to speak with her at the 
carriage. She wanted him to dine 
on a certain day at Mr. Paruther's. 

"Yes," said Rogers; "but why 
doesn't Mr. Paruther, whom I know 
very well, ask me himself?" 

"Because I am making up a par- 
ty for him, and I don't tell him of 
it till I find I can get some pleasant 

people. The S are in town, 

and I want to give them a very 
good dinner-party, because I like 
staying with them in the country. 
But I want men, and everybody is 
so much engaged just now and I 
must give them the dinner party 
this week and it's such short no- 
tice. By the bye, whose white hat 
is that on your hall-table?" she. 



152 



Memoirs of Georgiana, Lady Chatterton. 



asked, as her little sharp eyes 
peered into his hall. "That's not 
your hat. Who have you got with 
you? He is sure to be pleasant or 
you would not have him. Ask 
the white hat to dine with Mr. 
Paruther ; go and let me know if 
he can come." 

"That is Mr. , from York- 
shire, and he knows nobody in Lon- 
don." 

44 Never mind, I will have him ; 
he will be a novelty." And eventu- 
ally the bewildered Yorkshireman 
went and found the dinner agree- 
able. Lady Chatterton was at 
Rogers' house a few hours after- 
wards, and was .not surprised, when 
she reached her own home, to find 
a note from Lady Cork, pencilled in 
a hurry, and commanding her thus: 
"You are to dine with Mr. Par- 
uther on Friday. It will be a very 
good party." 

The old lady "gave very pleasant 
parties at her own house, too, and 
had a peculiar talent for adapting 
tlie furniture and everything in the 
room to promote real sociability 
and dispel shyness. Many of the 
chairs were fastened to the floor to 
prevent people pushing them into 
formal circles, or congregating in a 
crowd, or standing about uncom- 
fortably "; and as long as our civili- , 
zation is not equal to preventing 
stiffness and awkwardness in social 
gatherings, this mechanical rebuke 
would form a capital improvement 
in the arrangement of a drawing- 
room. Sometimes when a large 
party has just dispersed the furni- 
ture has got into natural and com- 
fortable positions, but it takes 
nearly the whole evening to arrive 
at this distribution, which, by adopt- 
ing Lady Cork's remedy, might be 
made permanent. 

The old lady was not the only 
.original in' Lady Chatterton's cir- 



cle, for the latter had an old ser- 
vant who had been sixty years in 
her father's family, and measured 
his answers at the door rather by 
his knowledge of his mistress' 
likes and dislikes than by the laws 
of politeness. " He contrives," 
says the diary, " in some mysteri- 
ous manner to find out the people 
I like most to see, and he has late- 
ly taken to a habit of saying that I 
am at home or not, according to 
his own idea of whether I should 
like to see certain people or not. 
At the end of last week a number 
of pleasant visitors had been let in, 
and we were all talking in great 
glee when the drawing-room door 
was opened, not by a servant, but 
by Sydney Smith himself, who 
walked in unannounced) and, stand- 
ing on the threshold, called out to 
us : 'Do I look like a bore?' The 
old servant afterwards excused him- 
self by saying that he considered 
the room was crowded enough, and 
that more visitors would tire me." 

Her experiences of Parisian so- 
ciety were all rose-colored ; au- 
thors and artists shine in her re- 
collections by the side of the old 
noblesse of the Faubourg St. Ger- 
main, of which (the locality) she 
says : " Far from being gloomy, as it 
is usually called, it has, I think, 
an air of cheerfulness, simplicity, 
and repose. The streets are wid- 
er, straighter, and better built than 
on this side of the river (this, how- 
ever, was before the improvements 
of Napoleon III.), and the houses 
look more dignified and clean." 
The cofrerieT of the charming and 
womanly Princess Czartoryski re- 
ceived her eagerly, and Guizot's 
sister, the Countess de Meulan 
whose morning costume, of "a thick, 
brown cotton gown and unfashion- 
able bonnet," made the English 
maid mistake her for " a female " 



Memoirs of Georgiana, Lady Chatterton. 



153 



and bid her sit down and wait in 
the ante-room gave her the entree 
to both private and official parties 
of the ministry and their friends. 
She says : " That winter in Paris was 
certainly most pleasant. . . . The 
intellectual society was adorned by 
many rare geniuses in fact, it was 
a combination of witty and poeti- 
cal-minded persons, such as at that 
time was also to be found in Lon- 
don." One of the most curious 
individuals she met, though not so 
generally known as those whose 
names stud her diary, was a cha- 
noinesse of St. Anne, who is said to 
have had a gift of second-sight, and, 
no matter how it is to be account- 
ed for, some of her predictions 
actually came true. But what is 
more remarkable is that Lady 
Chatterton, who disliked the no- 
tion of being told her future, and 
had hoped to escape such marks 
of distinction at her friend's hands, 
exerted, according to the seer her- 
self, a preventing influence. This 
is what she says of Mme. Marlay : 
" She also said that her power was 
quite involuntary she could only 
do it when much excited either by 
affection or dislike ; and she added, 
as she looked into my eyes with 
that strange penetration : '. . . It 
is very strange that, though I love 
you so much, I could never tell 
you anything; and I have always 
felt that you prevented me that 
you are preventing me now.' I 
had never told her of my dislike to 
be told, . . . but I had willed strong- 
ly in my own mind that she should 
not." Though circumstances na- 
turally restricted her to elegant so- 
ciety in Paris, her thoughtful mind 
read the evil signs of the times 
even in a passing sight in the 
streets. In December, 1846, she 
says : " Yesterday I noticed a num- 
ber of men in rusty black sitting 



and standing about reading the 
newspapers. Their bodies resem- 
bled those of half-dead autumnal 
flies, but, judging by the eager avidi- 
ty with which they swallowed their 
penny-worth of politics, their minds 
were by no means in so quiescent 
or harmless a state. The counte- 
nances of some showed that they 
had been bred and nurtured on po- 
litical dissension. Their hard fea- 
tures were cast in a mould of dis- 
content ; the only expression that 
broke the horrible monotony of 
their fixed sullenness was a savage 
glare that blazed up from, time to 
time, lighting up their features 
from the volcano of wickedness 
that lurked beneath. I shuddered 
to think what the actions of such 
diabolical-looking spirits would be 
if they were set in motion." She 
goes on to the reflection that only 
one Power could soften such " sa- 
tanic natures," which has been 
since proved by the work done 
among the most unpromising 
classes by a few devoted priests, or 
" brothers," whether singly or by 
association. Yet the mass of this 
socialist population continues to 
this day, and no triumphs of either 
order or religion should blind us to 
the fact that there it stands. The 
impressions made upon individual 
members by charity and devoted- 
ness, and those stamped on small 
bodies by the coercion or retribu- 
tion of government, cannot reach 
the core of the huge evil. 

Lady Chatterton's works were of 
widely various kinds, her novels 
and poems -being the best known, 
but others, such as Reflections on 
the History of the Kings of Judah, 
Extracts from Jean Paul, Memo- 
rials, Personal and Historical, of 
Admiral Lord Gambier, and two 
volumes of Extracts from the 
Works of Plato and those of Aris- 



154 



Memoirs of Georgiana, Lady Chattcrton. 



totle (for she was a good Greek 
scholar as well as learned in 
Italian and German literature), 
have more solid claims to the re- 
membrance of the few whom her 
style could please. She says her- 
self that, though fairly successful 
and well reviewed, no book of hers 
ever made "'a hit," and Mr. Der- 
ing adds with some truth : " One 
condition of general popularity is 
that the standard of right and 
wrong be lowered to the average 
tone of the multitude. It is true 
that most popular works have de- 
scribed extraordinary acts of hero- 
ism and self-devotion ; yet such 
acts do not appeal to the reader 
personally. They are not within 
the range of his daily life, and 
therefore do not tread on his 
self-esteem by reproaching him for 
not doing likewise ; whereas a per- 
sistently high tone of thought and 
action in every-day life, which all 
her writings without exception in- 
culcated, has a personal reference 
to us all, and the comparisons it 
suggests are perhaps the more per- 
sonal internally because we have 
to make them for ourselves." Of 
the mechanism of one of her novels, 
Allanston ; or, The Infidel, she says : 
** I find I have drawn out and built 
upon the inconsistencies of charac- 
ter more than is usually done. 
This, I fear, will appear unnatural 
to the generality of readers, because 
inconsistencies people acting con- 
trary to their real or supposed 
character are the last things 
which people discover to be com- 
mon in human nature. Most of us 
try to be blind to our own inconsis- 
tencies, and this, perhaps, makes us 
less aware of the inconsistency of 
others. Besides, it requires a deep 
study of mankind to discover how 
few good men there are who will not 
do a bad action when tempted sore- 



ly; how few bad men there are who 
will not sometimes do a good ac- 
tion." She herself was a very clear- 
sighted and discerning person, and 
not one to use words carelessly 
without sifting their meaning, of 
which the following remarks are a 
proof : 

" A clever book, like a clever-looking 
person, has generally something outre, 
some prominent feature i.e., defect 
such as a turn-up nose, small, piercing 
eyes, or an ill-natured mouth. We seldom 
think of saying that a really beautiful 
person or face or head shaped according 
to the Grecian model, which after all is 
the most intellectual we seldom say that 
he or she looks clever. In the same 
way a book or story that is really touch- 
ing or very amusing,* a book that is 
written in such a manner that it makes 
the reader feel what the author intended, 
but which does not draw his attention 
to the mechanism, or show the exact 
mode in which the various emotions are 
produced, will seldom be called a clever 
book. ... I have observed that when 
people's higher nature is appealed to by 
a person or a book, the word clever 
does not readily occur to the mind as a 
fitting epithet. To me it always suggests 
the idea of technical dexterity, and a 
sharp application of the means to obtain 
present success." 

The essence of popularity-hunting, 
to which dignity as well as morality 
is far more sacrificed now than 
when Lady Chatterton wrote this 
definition, is well described in 
these few words. Her constitu- 
tional dissatisfaction with herself 
is pictured in these lines after a 
visit to Mrs. Somerville :"...! 
felt so provoked with myself for 
not having said many things that I 
ought to have said that my plea- 
sure was spoilt. Does any one pass 
half an hour without saying, doing, 
or thinking something wrong or 
leaving something of consequence 
undone ?" Her activity of mind is 

* We are not so sure that this comes under the 
head of the beautiful and the true. 



Memoirs of Georgiana, Lady Chattcrton. 



155 



thus expressed : " As we advance 
in life, time flies so fast that it 
seems composed of nothing but 
Mondays." And again : "Employ- 
ment, duty, effort these alone 
often make life bearable. I cannot 
endure to do nothing." And yet 
she felt it to be her duty to be very 
tolerant of the exactions and in- 
terruptions of a society life, seeing 
duties of kindliness in this and an 
occasion for self-denial ; for she 
shrank naturally from society, and 
was shy and reserved. She says 
that after a seclusion of a little 
time she dreaded the idea of ever 
seeing any one again, but adds : " I 
think it neither fair towards society 
nor kind to one's neighbor to 
carry about a melancholy face and 
a silent tongue." If one could be 
assured that such self-denial did 
good to others, the example would 
be encouraging; but what is the 
proportion of good done to that 
of the inconvenience suffered? A 
quiet conversation is a different 
thing, and the writer has a person- 
al recollection of Lady Chatterton's 
kindness to beginners, and a token 
of her interest, in a copy of her 
poem " Leonore," with her name 
written by herself on the title-page. 
Her method with strangers as well 
as friends is well described in her 
own words : " The most agreeable 
persons are certainly those who 
have the greatest faith in the good- 
ness of others. By appealing to 
the best feelings of those with 
whom we converse, by giving 
them credit for good qualities, we 
can often call these qualities and 
these good feelings into play." 
Stuart Mill's Essay on Liberty has 
been so effective a book that it is 
worth while to record the impres- 
sion it made upon a woman of 
Lady Chatterton's stamp. "His 
meaning," she says, " is unmistak- 



ably clear cut out with a chisel. 
I was conscious of a power acting 
upon but not influencing me a 
kind of mechanical power, able to 
hurt and weary but not persuade. 
It made me feel as if I were chain- 
ed down in the dark centre of the 
earth and bruised between two 
enormous millstones. Yet, after 
all this grinding, I felt lighter, lar- 
ger in mind, more expansive than 
before. My mind seemed to 
bound upwards from beneath the 
hard, miry mass like a bird that 
had escaped from a bird-catcher." 
Some of these quotations from her 
diary explain the closing words of 
a " pleasant notice " in the London 
Times in 1843 to this effect: "It 
is, however, as a writer of maxims 
that Lady Chatterton shows the 
greatest talent, and we are con- 
vinced that of reflections concise- 
ly expressed and loosely strung 
together she might make a 
very agreeable volume a sort of 
good-natured La Rochefoucauld." 
Speaking of the difficulty of faith 
to those who are accustomed to 
scientific research and dependence 
on their own powers alone, she 
shrewdly remarks and in these 
days the saying applies to the 
large number of the really unedu- 
cated whom "popularized" science 
has made arrogant in their borrow- 
ed plumes : " But is it easier for 
people of less intellectual capaci- 
ty ? The devil promises to all who 
will listen to him that their eyes 
shall be opened, and surely the 
promise is at least as flattering 
to the ignorant as to the learn- 
ed." 

The practical appreciation not 
only of the highest good but of 
the means of reaching it is well 
expressed in these lines from 
her dramatic poem " Oswald of 
DeJfra :" 



156 



Memoirs of Georgiana, Lady Chatter ton. 



" Some moments seem to do the work of years, 
To mark the impress of a century 
On human minds and hearts so full are they 
Of life intensified, of love divine, 
Of all those essences of good required 
To mould and perfect never-dying souls. 
Yet are they oftentimes but the result 
Of time and patience, sorrows over lived, 
Self-discipline, and hope, and charity, 
And daily should we seek to garner them, 
To cull the truly beautiful and good, 
In other men and in ourselves. Who knows 
How many half* unconscious acts and thoughts, 
The overcoming of some pet desire, 
The vanquishing of some small faults, may give 
Such life to the expression of a face 
That e'en the worst of sinners, looking on 't, 
Will feel not only shame but penitence, 
And hate the conscious discord in his heart 
Which jars against that perfect harmony?" 

After several years of ill health 
her first husband, Sir William Chat- 
terton, died in 1855, and in 1859 
she married Edward Heneage Der- 
ing. He reverenced as much as 
he loved her, and in spite of the 
sorrow which her religious difficul- 
ties caused him, and the scruples 
which tormented her for ten years 
after he had, through her influence, 
become a Catholic, they were very 
happy. Three principles, he says, 
ruled her life : ;< She always sought 
to know the will of God and do 
it ; she always tried to see every- 
thing exactly as it was, without re- 
ference to her own wishes; she 
never turned aside from a difficulty, 
however easily avoided. By acting 
on these three principles she guid- 
ed my aspirations and trained my 
will, thus arming me against the 
two sophistries the sophistry of 
the mind and the sophistry of the 
heart through which one has to 
pass in finding one's way gradually 
out of Protestantism." Naturally 
Mr. Bering was more impatient for 
her conversion than the bishop of 
Birmingham, to whom she had ad- 
dressed herself in her increasing 
perplexity, and who wisely looked 
upon her delay as a matter of course, 
and invariably said to her husband, 
"Don't hurry her." As in the 
course of most conversions, detail- 
ed objections had to be met and 



certain distinctive doctrines vindi- 
cated one by one ; but the bishop 
went to the root of the matter when 
he wrote : " The way to faith is 
through prayer. Get as near to 
God as you can. Ask him with 
Peter, ' O Lord ! give me faith.' The 
affair is between God and your 
soul." And on the subject of faith 
he writes also : 

" Why doss the first hearing of a great 
supernatural truth give us a shock ? It is 
a blow not to our reason but at our ex- 
perience. . . . The human mind is no 
measure for the Divine mind, nor is hu- 
man reason the test or measure of the 
Divine reason. We have no measure 
or standard in us by which to criticise and 
judge the All-wise mind. . . . His divine 
reason does not contradict our human 
reason, but it transcends all our human 
experience. . . . How can God enter in- 
to a soul that is self-sufficient, that has 
already set up itself as the measure and 
standard of truth, that assumes superi- 
ority in taking the tone of criticism, that 
measures God by self, and his truth and 
operation by our poor experience?" 

The process of conversion is in 
no two souls exactly the same, ex- 
cept in the fact of God's grace being 
a direct gift to each, which, as a 
key, unlocks the doors that formerly 
seemed so immovable, and even so 
untransparent. Therefore the ad- 
vice of the bishop of Birmingham 
is most valuable when it takes this 
shape: "Prayer, and prayer with 
the heart open and as near to God 
as it can come, is the way to win 
the grace and gift of faith. Faith 
is a divine light and a divine force 
which God alone can give a light 
to see its principle, a force to lift 
up the heart and cause it to cleave 
with unwavering adhesion to that 
principle. And what is that princi- 
ple ? It is the authority of God, 
the one true voucher of supernatu- 
ral truth." Lady Chatterton's hus- 
band once said to her: "It is 
not faith you are searching for 



Memoirs of Georgiana, Lady Chatter ton. I5; 

it is sight, which we cannot have in " To form true judgment of any soul we 

this world. If you had not the must have the sum of all these elements of 

faith, you would not cling to it as knowled g e before us. We need to know 

you do and have so high an idea ;chainof f-H his lights from beginninr 

rv i j i- to end, the chain of all his training the 

of it as you have ; and tins sugges- chaia of all his providences, ,he ch'a'in of 

tion, he adds, threw a fresh light all his opportunities, the chain cf all his 

on her position, which she immedi- nel P s an <l graces, the chain of all his 

ately saw and acted upon. Later, a ts> flights, desires, and motives, and 

temptatins ' But 



when she was already a Catholic, 
-^ mi i i 

Dr. Ullathorne wrote to her: 



whatknowwf ..' 

Know we of the interior historv of 

any one except ourselves? What, again, 
"Remember this, for it is all-impor- d We ! cnow of the nati ve interior char' 



tint: that the greater the reluctance of 
nature to follow our will with enjoyment, 
so long as the will seeks God, the great- 
er is the actual love of the will, by reason 



acterof any soul except our own, or of 
the trials of the body to that soul ? 
We have vast evidence of our own weak- 
ness and sinfulness against light and 



, , 

of its working against the weight of our but we cannot judge another ex- 



' Gpt su ? erficiall y- ; - - As far as we can 

Remember this also, because it have e 7 lde "ce, each one must see, if he 

sees h ' mself >" God's light, that he has 



worse 



dull, corrupt, and irresponsive animal- 
ity. 

touches the root of the question : the 
end of our love of God is not to please 
ourselves but to please God, so long as 

we are in this life of trial. But all that A r 

sensible sweetness in loving is the Atter ner death, which took 

pleasing ourselves. Nevertheless, God place in February, 1875, less than a 

sometimes gives us joy in loving him to year after her final conversion, Dr. 

encourage and draw us on." Newman says of Mr. Dering's loss 

He had just quoted St. Angus- in writing to him : " There are 

tine's words on this subject: "God wounds of the spirit which never 

would have us love him as he de- close, and are intended in God's 

serves before we see him as he is. mercy to bring us nearer to him 

We must love him in faith, without and prevent us leaving him by their 

the joys of the sense of an over- very perpetuity. Such wounds, 

whelming love; love him with the then, may almost be taken as a 

appreciative -love and cleaving of pledge, or at least as a ground for 

our will, whether our nature swims humble trust, that God will give us 
contentedly and pleasurably on with 
our will, or is heavy, dull, and irre- 



the great gift of perseverance to the 
end." Another friend, a priest, 



sponsive in so far as we have any writes: "Her very lingering for a 
sense of it." In another part of time outside the portals of the 



this letter the bishop says : 



church was owing to the intense 



" There is only one point of communi- 
cation between God and us. For, al- 



fear and dread she had of whatever 
appeared to her at the time in the 

though he is everywhere, he is not every- least degree contrary to truth and 
to us. There is but one point of holiness." And the bishop says: 

" Her state of soul must be mea- 
sured by all the intellectual and 
moral ligatures from which she 
had to break, and by all the habits 
of life which she had to reverse, 



communication between God and us, 
and that is the centre of our own soul. . . 
The test of love is not feeling but obe- 
dience. ' If you love me, keep my com- 
mandments.' Then the love of God de- 
vours our self-love and our susceptive 
sensitiveness." 



and that in her suffering state of 
On the inexpediency of judging health." Her husband, after six- 



others he writes : 



teen years' close companionship, and 



158 



Art Sonnets. 



an interchange of influence which 
brought him "into the church as 
effectually as if she had been con- 
scious of what she was doing," and 
then worked upon her finally 
through his writings (for she often 
repeated that a book written by 
him, Sherborne; or, The House at the 
Four Ways, helped her into the 
church), says of her character that 
it was like a calm ocean, " translu- 
cent near the surface, difficult to 
sound in its depths. . . . The very 
openness of her disposition was a 
difficulty in the way, for it led peo- 
ple to suppose that they could see 
into her character when they real- 
ly were looking no farther than 
the surface, on which they saw 
something not unlike themselves 
reflected. ... A beautiful charac- 
ter, complete as a whole and pro- 
portioned in its parts, is often lia- 



ble to seem unreal when viewed 
from a distance, because every-day 
experience is an impediment to be- 
lief in its reality. I have myself 
mistaken a beautiful exotic flower 
for one made of wax, because it 
seemed to me to be too beautiful 
to be natural, and because I hap- 
pened to see it where wax flowers 
were more likely to be." Her truth- 
fulness and single-mindedness make 
of Lady Chatterton a model for 
her sex, and form a higher crown 
for her memory than the undoubt- 
ed breadth of intellect and the inge- 
nious play of fancy that were also 
hers. Of her it may be said that 
she experienced the truth of the 
saying of our Lord: "Seek ye 
therefore first the kingdom of God 
and his justice, and all these things 
shall be added unto you." 



ART SONNETS. 



TWO MADONNAS. 

Is it in grace maternal she excels 

Only, or sumptuous womanhood mature, 
This Lady of Sultana-like coiffure ? 

Nay, her dark eyes are thought's divinest wells. 

Nay, on her lips the lilies' perfume dwells, 
The seal of the angel : doth it not endure 
Immortally here, impressed on none less pure 

Than, in her arms, the child Emmanuel's? 

See, not less tender, less to be adored, 

This other Mary : child-eyes wonder-wide 
At her maternity, the mystic bride 

And Mother and meek handmaid of the Lord ! 

Murillo's peasant girl is strangely fair 

By that superb Madonna of the Chair. 



Pearl. 



159 



PEARL. 

RV KATHLEEN o'lWEARA, AUTHOR OF " IZA'S STORY," " A SALON IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE ' 

YOU MY WIFE? " ETC. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE ANSWER TO POLLY S LETTER. 



BROOM HOLLOW, Jan. 10, . 
" MY DEAR WIFE : I hoped to be home 
before this. I have been detained here by 
a very unpleasant matter. The will can't 
be found ; the last one, that is to say, in 
which Darrell named me and mine his 
heirs. An old will, dated fifteen years 
back, and in which he leaves everything 
he could will away to charitable institu- 
tions, has unfortunately turned up, and, 
as it is a legally-executed document, 
properly signed and witnessed, it must 
take effect in case the later one can't be 
found. We have not left a hole or cor- 
ner that we have not searched, and I be- 
gin to fear that Darrell must have de- 
stroyed it. Jervis felt sure he had from 
the moment the document was not found 
in a drawer where Darrell always kept it, 
and where he locked it up in Jervis' pre- 
sence with the remark : ' When it is want- 
ed you will know where to look for it. I 
always keep it here.' It was in a long- 
ish tin box, that fastened with a pecu- 
liar lock that nobody but Darrell could 
open ; he showed Jervis how to do it. 
This box we can't find. Jervis says that 
Darrell must have destroyed the will 
when he heard about that bill. Jervis 
is convinced he had heard of it, as, in- 
deed, the letter he was in the act of writ- 
ing seems to leave no doubt of; and it 
was just the vindictive, merciless thing 
I would have expected from him, know- 
ing the man he was. He never forgave 
a man for losing money. There never 
was a more selfish man than Darrell. I 
don't want to be hard on him now that 
he is gone, but if he has done this he 
deserves a heavier punishment than I 
will call down on him. But I don't 
quite despair yet. We have sent for a 
couple of detectives to come and search 
the house, and until they have given it 
up I won't. We have no clue as to who 
can have informed Darrell of the catas- 
trophe about the bill ; he received very 



few letters, and it was his habit to de- 
stroy them as soon as he read them. 
His old butler says that the morning of 
his death he received one that seemed 
to disturb him a good deal. Baggs was 
present when he opened it at breakfast 
time, and he says his master struck the 
table and gave vent to angry exclama- 
tions under his breath. This, taken with 
the tone of the letter begun to me and 
the disappearance of the will, seems pret- 
ty conclusive. Who the scoundrel is 
that has ruined us by his meddling I 
have no means of finding out ; the one 
thing I know is that if the new will don't 
turn up we are considerably worse off 
than we were a week ago, for we have 
now nothing to look for in the future. 
" Your affectionate husband, 

" HUGH REDACRE." 

" What is it, mamma ?" asked 
both the girls, who had been 
watching their mother's face while 
she read this letter. 

" My darlings, it is a an acci- 
dent that has occurred at the Hol- 
low ; but, please God, it will be all 
right I feel sure it will," said 
Alice, speaking calmly; but her 
sudden paleness and the tremor of 
her lips belied the words. 

The two girls went up to her, 
one on either side, caressing her 
tenderly. 

" Tell us what it is, mamma. 
May we read the letter?" said Pol- 
ly. Alice let her take it. 

" Read it aloud, dear," she said. 
" I hardly know what he says; it 
rather confused me." 

"Do you read it," said Polly, 
handing it to Pearl. 



i6o 



Pearl. 



Pearl read it in a clear voice, 
that grew excited and rapid as she 
went on, hoping and dreading to 
find some definite information in 
every succeeding line. When she 
had finished the last words of the 
letter a cry rang through the room 
that was heard all over the house; 
Polly had flung herself on the 
ground and lay as if she had 
been struck dead. 

The servants rushed in; Mrs. 
Monteagle hurried down-stairs. The 
doctor was sent for. Nearly an 
hour elapsed before Polly gave any 
signs of returning consciousness. 
Her mother was in an agony of 
distress ; the child had never faint- 
ed in her life but that once, a few 
days ago, on hearing Mr. Jervis' 
letter read, and the swoon then had 
only lasted some ten minutes. The 
doctor, however, assured her there 
was nothing to be frightened at ; 
but he advised everybody to leave 
the room except Pearl. 

" It will frighten her to see a 
crowd about her when she opens her 
eyes," he said, " and there is nothing 
to be done now but to go on chafing 
her temples with cold water." 

The mother obeyed him with that 
touching docility that sprang not 
from any weakness of will but 
from a sort of child-like trust in 
others, a ready unselfishness to 
surrender her own feelings to their 
judgment. She was terribly agi- 
tated. The shock of Colonel Red- 
acre's letter had been forgotten in 
the greater terror about her child ; 
but now that she was reassured 
concerning Polly, the contents of 
the letter came back and took ven- 
geance for the momentary forget- 
fulness. 

" Read this ; this is what has 
done it," she said, handing the let- 
ter to Mrs. Monteagle. 

Pearl, meantime, was watching 



anxiously by Polly's side, watching 
the death-like face, beautiful and 
still as a piece of sculpture, so pure 
and chiselled, so transparently 
white ; the full lips, with their deli- 
cate curves, were parted and mo- 
tionless as alabaster; the long, 
black lashes lay softly curled on 
the ivory cheek. Not the faintest 
sign of life was perceptible in the 
prostrate form as Pearl gazed on 
it. Would she never awake ? At 
last a sigh swelled the burdened 
breast, the white lids quivered, and 
Polly opened her eyes and looked 
round her with the blank gaze of 
awakening consciousness. 

" My darling !" whispered Pearl, 
kissing her gently. Polly looked 
all round the room, and then drew 
her sister down to her. " Do you 
know who did it?" she whispered. 
" // was I. Papa will kill me." 

" Hush ! He shajl never know 
it." 

" You mean you won't tell 
him ?" 

" I will never tell anyone. Only 
be good, Polly, and help mamma 
and all of us to bear it. Will you 
promise me ?" 

"O Pearl, Pearl! why don't 
you hate me ? Why don't you kill 
me ? I have brought ruin on us 
all, and all because I would not 
listen to you." 

She sat up and began to sob pas- 
sionately and wring her hands. 
Pearl sat down on the edge of 
the sofa and took her in her 
arms, rocking her to and fro like a 
baby. Their mother found them 
so when she came in. 

"We had better put her to bed, 
mamma," said Pearl. " She has 
had a great shock ; an hour's sleep 
would rest her better than any- 
thing." 

Polly made no resistance ; she 
seemed quite broken, and let Pearl 



Pearl. 



161 



i 



lead her to her room and put her 
to bed like a baby. 

Then Pearl came back to the 
study, where her mother was talk- 
ing over the dreadful news with 
Mrs. Monteagle. 

"I don't believe a word of it," 
said that lady. " I feel as sure the 
right will will be found as that I 
am sitting here. It is preposter- 
ous to suppose he destroyed it, 
and for such a reason." 

But Alice shook her head. 

" Hugh knows him, and he al- 
ways said that he was just the man 
to do it. I have heard him say 
over and over again : * Darrell 
would leave his money to pay off 
the national debt rather than leave 
it to me if he knew I had debts to 
pay.' He despised people who had 
debts and people who lost their 
money. He was a very odd man." 

" He was mad as mad as a hat- 
ter. This will must be broken if 
the other, can't be found," said 
Mrs. Monteagle. 

" I don't fancy there would be a 
chance of breaking it ; Mr. Jervis, 
who is a lawyer, would be sure to 
have suggested that if he saw any 
grounds for attempting it. After 
all we are only now just where we 
were, a week ago ; we have lost our 
fortune, and for some ten years or 
so we will have to rough it, to eat 
mad cow, as the French say," said 
Alice, with that smile of hers that 
was so heartrending in its sweet- 
ness ; and she drew Pearl closer to 
her. 

" I dare say mad cow is not such 
a bad thing, either, when it is 
properly cooked," said Pearl. " If 
we only knew it, perhaps we often 
eat it and call it filet au madere." 

" You and I must take the cook- 
ing in hand, dear," said Alice, 
stroking the glossy head that was 
nestling on her shoulder. "If we 

VOL. XXVIII. II 



can but persuade your father to be- 
lieve in our filets au madere! I 
wish he were back with us. I see 
no good in his staying on at the 
Hollow with Mr. Jervis and the de- 
tectives ; the excitement and disap- 
pointment will make him quite 
ill." 

" Was there ever a wife like you 
in this world, I wonder?" said Mrs. 
Monteagle. 

Alice laughed softly. " Plenty 
of better ones, I hope." 

" One thing I know," said Pearl : 
" there never was a mother like 
her in this world before." 

"You are a nice pair," said Mrs. 
Monteagle, pretending to laugh ; 
but she felt nearer crying, and 
both of them knew it. 

" If, supposing I only put it 
as a possibility that the right will 
does not turn up and that the old 
one holds, the Hollow still comes 
to you, does it not ?" she said pre- 
sently. 

" Yes ; it is entailed," said Alice. 

" Then you will be able to live 
there rent free ; there is always 
that coming out of it." 

"We could not keep it up," said 
Alice. " I have never seen the 
place myself, but I know it is a 
large house and requires a number 
of servants to keep it in order ; we 
never could afford to live there 
now." 

"You might let it, then, for a 
good rent." 

" I thought of that. But I doubt 
whether Hugh would consent .to 
let it ; he has a kind of reverence 
for the old place, has he not, 
dear ?" This was to Pearl. 

"Stuff! Nonsense!" snapped 
Mrs. Monteagle. " I hope he has 
more reverence for the comfort 
and respectability of his wife and 
children than for an old house." 

" It must be a lovely old house," 



162 



Pearl. 



said Pearl " Have you never seen 
the drawing we have of it? It is 
in mamma's bed-room ; I will run 
and fetch it." 

It certainly did look a lovely old 
house J a many-gabled, red brick 
house, as picturesque and romantic 
as irregularity and every caprice 
of individual taste and variety of 
style in architecture could make it ; 
the walls were thickly covered with 
ivy in some parts, and lightly fes- 
tooned with lichens and painted 
with mosses in others; there was an 
old Norman gate at one entrance ; 
there was a tower with mullioned 
windows at another; all along the 
south side there ran an airy veran- 
da where millions of white roses 
laughed up at the sun in summer 
time. It had but one story, the 
sitting-rooms being all on the 
ground floor, and the bed-rooms 
over them. It was a large house, 
as Mrs. Redacre said. 

" You see it covers a good bit of 
ground," said Pearl, holding the 
water-color drawing at arm's length 
on her knee for Mrs. Monteagle to 
look at ; and she proceeded to ex- 
plain the distribution of the rooms, 
as her father had done to them all 
scores of times. 

" It looks like a place where one 
might be very happy, does it not ?" 
said Mrs. Redacre. "I wish we 
could have lived there J but it is out 
of the question, you see." 

" It is larger than I thought," re* 
plied her friend ; " and is there 
much of a park ?" 

" There is a good bit of ground 
about itj and such fine old timber ! 
But that, again, takes an outlay and 
brings in nothing." 

" There are gardens, I suppose ? 
a kitchen garden ?" 

" Oh ! yes, a splendid one, as 
Hugh remembers it ; but I dare 
say the dean let it fall into neglect. 



He never saw anybody ; never en- 
tertained ; he lived like a hermit. 
so he would not have cared to 
keep up things in a large way. 
Hugh has not said a word about 
how the place looks, whether it is 
much out of repair or not; he has 
been anxious and worried evidently 
from the moment of his arrival 
there, poor fellow !" 

" If it is in tolerable order I 
fancy you could easily find a good 
tenant for it/' said Mrs. Montea- 
gle. " There is plenty of shooting 
and hunting in the neighborhood, 
is there not ?" 

" I believe so ; there is plenty of 
fishing, I know, for the river runs 
through the grounds, and Hugh, 
as a boy, used to catch lots of fish 
there. Poor fellow ! he was look- 
ing forward to landing the trout 
again on the old spot; he was talk- 
ing about it so happily the other 
morning!" 

"Well, don't let us despair vet," 
said Mrs. Monteagle ; " he may 
land his trout there sooner than 
you think. There is no use in 
saying anything about this letter of 
his for the present, is there ? We 
may as well wait till we hear again." 

"Yes," said Pearl; "the will 
may turn up after all. Those de- 
tectives are so clever; if it is in ex- 
istence they are sure to find it." 

" Just so, if it is in existence," 
said her mother. " Meantime we 
need not worry our friends use- 
lessly. We have been giving them 
a great deal to bear lately with all 
these surprises. Let us hope the 
last may be still the pleasant one." 

But Alice sighed heavily as she 
Uttered this cheerful remark ; in 
spite of her wish to hope, she felt 
powerless to do so. 

Another week passed in anxious 
watching for the daily post, in 
breathless panics when a loud ring 



Pearl. 



163 



came at an unusual hour; for Col. 
Redacre had promised to telegraph 
at once if the missing will were 
found. At last he returned him- 
self, looking very haggard and 
tired, and his temper suffering se- 
verely from recent anxiety and the 
effect of the damp country air on 
Balaklava. 

" And there is no redress, dear ?" 
said Alice, when they were all 
gathered round him in his study ; 
" there is no possibility of setting 
aside the old will, even partially?" 

"Not the least; it is a perfectly 
legal, valid instrument. He was in 
a sound mind when he made it 
that is, as far as Darrell ever was in 
a sound mind; I always believed 
he was as mad as a hatter." 

" How has he left the money ?" 
inquired Alice. 

"It is to be invested in the three 
per cents. that is to say, it is to re- 
main where it has been these forty 
years (proof positive that the man 
was not sane) and the interest is 
to be devoted to the deaf and dumb 
asylum at X , to the idiot asy- 
lum at V , and to the propaga- 
tion of the Gospel in the South Sea 
Islands. The only sane clause in 
it is one where he bequeaths a 
year's wages and ;ioo each to his 
servants." 

"What an extraordinary will to 
make !" said Pearl. " I never 
knew he was such a pious man, 
papa." 

"Darrell? An irreligious dog 
as ever lived ! If I had been asked 
my opinion I should have said 
Darrell believed neither in God 
nor devil. If he had he would 
have known his duty better than to 
rob his own kith and kin in favor 
of idiots and savages. If it were 
in any other country in the world, 
that will would not hold for five 
minutes ; it is as clear as daylight 



the man was stark, staring mad 
when he made it." 

" Then, papa, why should not we 
dispute the will ?" inquired Pearl. 

" Why ? I will tell you why : be- 
cause the law in England is made 
to protect fools and madmen and 
knaves against honest men of 
sound mind. The law is a sham and 
a swindle ; that is why !" 

Mrs. Redacre knew that when 
Hugh began on the iniquities of 
law or governments there was no 
reason why he should ever come 
to an end, and she dreaded his 
lashing himself into a rage about 
things in this way it was such 
waste of energy. 

" Dearest," she said, before he 
had gained breath to ride off again, 
" did nothing turn up to give a 
clue to who it was that wrote to 
Darrell about that unfortunate 
business?" 

"Nothing. What the deuce 
does it signify who did it ? The 
mischief is done, and no amount of 
cursing the man who did it will 
undo it." 

"That may not have had any- 
thing to do with it, papa," said 
Pearl ; " it seems absurd to suppose 
it had. Cousin Darrell might have 
been very angry, but he surely 
would not have punished us all as 
if we had done something wicked, 
something to disgrace him. You 
used to say he was so conscientious, 
so strict in doing whatever he 
thought his duty." 

" That is just it whatever he 
thought his duty; but he had the 
most extraordinary notions about 
duty of any man I ever knew. He 
had a craze for dogs, and he was 
going to build a hospital for mad 
dogs at one time; the dogs were to 
be kept there until they died, and 
their disease was to be made a 
subject of special scientific study 



164 



Pearl. 



by eminent physicians. Jervis only 
dissuaded him from building the 
house by assuring him that he never 
would get man or dog to enter it, 
and that, ten to one, the eminent 
physicians would pronounce him 
mad himself and get him locked 
up in a lunatic asylum." 

While this conversation went on 
Polly sat perfectly silent, her hands 
locked together on her knees. 
When the fatal letter was alluded 
to her color came and went and 
her lips twitched nervously ; but 
no one noticed this except Pearl. 
Colonel Redacre's eyes were resting 
on her, and the picture of pathetic 
misery, so young and so lovely, 
smote him with a sharp, sudden 
pain ; he laid his hand on Polly's 
head and tenderly stroked the 
glossy golden hair. She looked up 
at him, and then flung herself on 
his breast, sobbing passionately. 

" The child is so sensitive ; it 
breaks one's heart to see how she 
feels all our trouble," he said to 
Alice when Polly had left the room. 
" We must bear up at any cost be- 
fore her. Pearl, you must not give 
way in your sister's presence ; you 
are strong and better fitted to rough 
it than she is, poor child ! You 
must make it as light to her as pos- 
sible." 

"Yes, papa, I will," said Pearl. 

The worst had been faced and 
was now over. Arrangements had 
been made to meet the tremendous 
liabilities he had incurred, and 
Colonel Redacre was now free to en- 
ter with his family on their altered 
life. 

The choice of a new home was 
the subject that engrossed their 
thoughts above every other. Many 
plans were discussed, many places 
suggested as offering the essential 
conditions, but Colonel Redacre 



could not make up his mind to any- 
thing. He hated to leave Paris, and 
he hated still more to remain there 
and settle down in poverty amongst 
people who had known him in af- 
fluence. There were so many 
things to be considered, and the 
scope of possibilities was so limited, 
that it was very hard to arrive at 
any conclusion. 

"Suppose we went to Germany, 
papa?" said Pearl. "People live 
for nothing in some of the small 
towns there, they say, and there is 
delightful society to be had every- 
where in Germany." 

" My experience of life is that 
there is nothing delightful to be 
had in any country without money," 
said the colonel, "and to go to a 
distance and break new ground 
would hardly pay at our time of 
life ; your mother would never like 
it. Would you, Alice ?" 

Alice made no answer. She had 
been ruminating a plan that was 
beginning to take definite shape in 
her mind as every fresh one pro- 
posed by the others was examined 
and dismissed. 

" But, papa," continued Pearl, 
"wherever we go now, if we leave 
Paris we shall be breaking new 
ground. And then Germany 
would be such a good place for the 
boys' education ; the universities 
are so good there and so cheap. I 
don't see how they are to be edu- 
cated in England now ; we can't 
keep them at Eton, and we can't 
keep a tutor for them." 

" No, unless we had them home, 
and that I turned tutor myself for 
a couple of years," said her father. 
" My classics have grown pretty rus- 
ty, but I dare say I could rub them 
up soon ; I used to be rather strong 
in that line." He spoke half in 
jest ; but Alice dropped her work 
and looked up suddenly. 



Pearl. 



165 



" Dearest, I have been turning 
that very thought in my mind!" 
she cried, almost joyfully. " If you 
really would take the two boys in 
hand, I have a plan in my head 
that might be practicable." 

"Let us hear it," said her hus- 
band. 

" Why should we not go and live 
at the Hollow? You love the old 
place ; we should have fine air, a 
delightful house, plenty of vegeta- 
bles and fruit, and many compensa- 
tions that you would be debarred 
from in a town. We could have 
the boys home, and you would go 
on with their studies until they 
were ready for Woolwich, and then 
we have influence to help them on 
in that direction. What do you 
.say?" 

The two girls waited breathless- 
ly for their father's answer. 

" What should we have to keep 
up the Hollow ? My half-pay ?" 

" We should not want any keep- 
ing of it up; we would manage 
without servants altogether. The 
cooking and housework the girls 
and I would divide between us, 
the boys would lend their share of 
help, and I promise you we should 
make you as comfortable as if you 
had an establishment en regie" 

" O papa ! it would be delight- 
ful," cried Pearl, and she clasped 
her hands and was all excitement. 

" I would be parlor-maid and 
dressmaker to all the family," said 
Polly, " even to the boys ; you should 
have no tailors' or milliners' bills 
to pay, papa, except your own. I 
think it is a beautiful plan, mam- 
ma, and so much nicer than having 
to poke in a miserable apartment 
here in Paris, or else go off to some 
horrid strange place." 

Colonel Redacre evidently did 
not think the proposal too unrea- 
sonable to be considered. He was 



taken aback at first by the boldness 
of it, but he remarked presently in 
a meditative way : 

" The house is a great deal big- 
ger than you have any idea of; the 
sitting-rooms are double the size of 
these, and there are four of them." 

"We need not use them all," 
said Alice; " a drawing and dining 
room are all that we should want. 
From what you say of the house, it 
strikes me one might live there 
without servants more easily than in 
apartments ; and if we stay here 
we shall barely be able to keep a 
bonne a tout fair e" 

" It is a very snug house to live 
in, "said the colonel. "Jervismade 
the remark to me, when we were 
going over it, that there was every 
contrivance under the sun for sav- 
ing servants trouble ; I remember 
he also made the remark that one 
might almost dispense with ser- 
vants altogether there. The strange 
thing is that Darrell should have 
spent so much money on convenien- 
ces of that sort, and let the place 
go to rack and ruin for want of 
fresh paint. He actually put in a 
lift to save the servants the trouble 
of carrying up coals to his bed- 
room ; and he laid down hot and 
cold water pipes on the bed-room 
floor to spare the lazy dogs the 
fatigue of taking up water. Nice 
lot they would have been, the five 
of them, for you to take in hand ! 
They are hanging about the place 
still, it seems, in hopes that we will 
be persuaded to take them yet. 
Jervis is a discreet fellow ; he has 
said nothing to any one about our 
circumstances, and the neighbor- 
hood are anxiously looking out for 
the arrival of the new family." 

" The neighborhood won't gain 
much when it does arrive," said 
Alice, laughing ; " our entertain- 
ments won't add much to the coun- 



1 66 



Pearl. 



ty resources. Hugh," she contin- 
ued, after a moment's reflection, 
" suppose I were to run over and 
examine the place, and see whether 
this scheme of mine is practicable? 
The journey is not much, and we 
could not come to any decision 
until I saw with my own eyes what 
we were committing ourselves to." 

This proposal was met with vio- 
lent protests at first ; it was impos- 
sible for her to undertake the 
fatigue ; impossible for her to go 
alone, etc. But Mrs. Redacre 
quietly set aside every objection ; 
she felt no fear as to the fatigue, 
and she wanted no one to accom- 
pany her ; the gardener and his 
wife were still at Broom Hollow, 
and would do all that was neces- 
sary in the way of attendance. 
The colonel urged that she should 
take her maid, a faithful woman, 
who lingered on in their service, 
unable to apprehend the fact that 
her mistress had come down in 
the world to the extent of having 
to do without a maid ; but Alice 
ridiculed this as absurd, and finally 
carried her point, and two days 
later set out to investigate Broom 
Hollow. 

The county had been busy, 
meantime, in conjecturing who the 
new people were and what they 
would be like. Nothing was known 
of them, except that they were 
cousins of Mad Darrell, as the 
dean had been called, and that 
their name was Redacre; but this 
said nothing to the county, for the 
colonel had taken the name on his 
marriage, a condition attached to 
his wife's fortune, and the few still 
living in the neighborhood who 
might have remembered him as a 
boy did not identify him with the 
heir of Dean Darrell. 

But those who took the deepest 
interest in the character and con- 



cerns of the new-comers were the 
dean's late servants and trades- 
people. Were they a numerous 
family, and were they rich, and did 
they live like real gentlefolk ? Did 
they, in fact, run long bills, and pay 
without looking into items ? It 
made all the difference whether 
Mrs. Redacre was a real lady, who 
kept her place and left housekeep- 
ing to a housekeeper, or whether 
she dealt with these vulgar matters 
herself. Then was the colonel on 
half-pay, or retired altogether from 
the service? "There is no more 
pitiful customer than your half-pay 
officer," observed the butcher; and 
this opinion was echoed in chorus 
by the whole tribe of his respect- 
able fellow-tradesmen. 

The servants of the dean could 
throw no light on matters. Colo- 
nel Redacre's valet had kept proud- 
ly aloof, and gave no information 
of any sort concerning the family, 
while at the Hollow with his mas- 
ter. "A fellow who gave himself 
a deal more airs than a gentleman," 
was the character he left behind 
him. But this, as far as it went, 
told well for the family. Baggs, 
the dean's old butler, said he had 
never known a man so hard to 
please in his meals as this Frenchi- 
fied valet ; he never found anything 
good enough, but turned up his 
nose at everything and everybody. 
" One sees he is a man accustomed 
to the best," was Baggs' remark. 
This was all the trades-people had 
to build upon; but it*was a good 
foundation when you came to look 
at it. Half-pay officers, as a rule, 
do not keep valets, and a fine valet 
of this class does not stay in a 
place unless he is properly appre- 
ciated i.e., well paid, lightly work- 
ed, and fed on the fat of the land. 
That the colonel kept horses Baggs 
also suspected, for the valet asked 



Pearl. 



167 



to see the stables the day after their 
arrival, and evinced contemptuous 
surprise on being told there were 
no horses in them. 

"I thought you called that old 
fellow the coachman," he remark- 
ed, pointing with his thumb to- 
wards the veteran who had driven 
the dean in his youth, and still re- 
mained in his service, pottering 
about the garden. 

" So he ware ; but the dean he 
sold his 'osses, the two as didn't 
die, twenty years ago ; but the old 
coach and the dog-cart and the 
pony carriage be there in the coach- 
house. Gullet was a first-rate whip, 
I can tell you, sir; if your gentle- 
man wanted a coachman he might 
do worse than take him on. I sup- 
pose he wouldn't be minded to ?" 

" I rather think not," was the 
sententious reply, and Baggs did 
not venture to ask for explana- 
tions ; it might be that the colonel 
had a fine coachman of his own, or 
it might be that he did not mean 
to keep one. 

It was a cold, damp day when 
the 3.30 train stopped at Lamford 
and a lady alighted at the pretty 
station. There was no mistaking 
her for anything but a lady, al- 
though appearances were against 
her : she had no servant, no lug- 
gage but a small portmanteau that 
a lady might carry, and she wore a 
plain black waterproof that covered 
her dress completely. The station- 
master knew she belonged to nei- 
ther of " the families " hereabout, 
and she could not be going to stay 
with them, for both were absent 
just now. Still, he saw at once 
that she was a lady, and touched 
his hat when she came forward to 
speak to him. 

" Can I have a porter to carry 
my portmanteau ?" 

" Yes, ma'am. Here, Tomkins ! 



take this lady's portmanteau, will 
you? Where to, ma'am?" 

" To Broom Hollow. It is quite 
close, is it not?" 

"Well, ma'am, that is as one 
looks at it. I should not say you 
would find it quite close ; it will be 
a good step for you to foot. But 
there is a fly ready to hand ; if you 
like, I can have it up in five min- 
utes." 

" How far is it to the Hollow ?" 

"You won't do it under twenty 
minutes, ma'am ; it's up-hill most of 
the way." 

" Thank you ; I will walk," said 
Mrs. Redacre, after glancing at the 
sky and then down at her boots. 
And she set out bravely under her 
small umbrella, the porter leading 
the way. 

" That is the 'ousekeeper of the 
new family at the 'Ollow," remark- 
ed the station-master to Mr. Clack, 
the postman, as he crossed the line 
to the ticket-office; /' and an un- 
common nice person she is. I mis- 
took her for a lady." 

The walk to the Hollow was 
not pleasant. Everything about it 
seemed to Alice typical of the new 
life that had begun for her. It 
was up-hill, as the man had said, 
and the road was slippery from the 
rain, that had come after several 
days' hard frost; it was not falling 
in a heavy downpour, but a cold, 
drizzling mist, that pricked her face 
with ice-pins as the wind blew it 
under her umbrella. There were no 
pleasant fellow-travellers to cheer 
the dreary walk; people who toil on 
foot in the rain and the sleet most- 
ly have to do it alone. There were 
no merry welcomes waiting at the 
journey's end ; there is an east wind 
about poverty that keeps every- 
body but poor people aloof. Alice 
had been brave and cheerful, al- 
most elated, from the time she 



1 68 



Pearl. 



started on her expedition until she 
set out on this solitary walk up the 
hill to Broom Hollow ; but her cour- 
age melted away rapidly during this 
last stage, of the journey. All the 
world seemed bereft of sunshine ; 
life seemed doomed to perpetual 
drizzle and east wind as she trudg- 
ed on and on after the porter tramp- 
ing ahead with her portmanteau on 
his shoulder. She had not thought 
of being tired before, but now it 
occurred to her that she was utterly 
worn out with bodily fatigue, and 
she would gladly have paid the half- 
crown for the fly to be borne over 
the rest of the road. She had eaten 
very little since she left home, and 
this also was telling on her, though 
she did not think of it. Nothing 
was more surprising to herself than 
that she should have had the phy- 
sical strength to undertake the jour- 
ney at all, and under circumstances 
so calculated to increase the trial ; 
but her health had never fallen back 
since that sudden rally aft&r the 
first shock about the bill. 

"There be the 'Ollow, .ma'am," 
said the porter, as a break in the 
ground brought the old place in 
view. 

Alice could not refrain from an 
exclamation of delight and surprise. 
The rain had ceased; the clouds 
suddenly drifted away, and the sun 
shone out in a bright, long beam 
that fell upon the old ivy-clad 
house, touching the red bricks and 
the wet ivy with a light that 
glorified them as only the kiss of 
the western sun can glorify. It 
stood out against the pale, clear 
winter sky, a house built of topaz 
and emerald, with brave wreaths of 
sapphire smoke curling up from one 
solid stack of chimneys that told 
of a warm hearth under the slant- 
ing red roof. 

" What a dear, lovely old place 



it is ! No wonder Hugh longed to 
come and live in it!" said Alice, 
as she stood and looked from the 
top of the hill down into the hol- 
low where it nestled, sheltered and 
calm and strong. 

The rest of the road seemed only 
a step till she reached the park 
gate. " That is Wynmere Hall, is 
it not ?" she said to the porter, as 
he held the gate open for her. 

" Yes, ma'am, it be ; and that big 
'ouse away there to the left is 
Squire Barlow's place the Oaks 
they call it. He be away now, and 
Lady Wynmere too." 

" Those are the only houses in 
the immediate neighborhood, I be- 
lieve ?" said Alice. 

" Yes, ma'am, they be ; there be 
small 'ouses about, but no gentle- 
man's place but them and the 'Ollow 
within twelve miles round. It's as 
pretty a place as any in the county, 
the 'Ollow is, ma'am," said the por- 
ter complacently. " I hope the 
family as it belongs to now will soon 
be comin' to settle 'ere." 

" I hope so," said Alice. 

.They were at the house now, and 
a great mastiff having given timely 
notice of their approach, the gar- 
dener's wife was at the door to 
meet them. She had not had as 
large an experience of life as the 
station-master; but, narrow as it 
was, it had taught her to recognize 
a lady even under the disguise of 
shabby circumstances. She point- 
ed to the porter to take his burden 
round to the back door, and drop- 
ped a curtsy as Alice approached. 

" Good-morning. I am Mrs. 
Redacre ; you saw my husband, 
Colonel Redacre, here, did you 
not?" 

" Yes, ma'am. Please to walk in, 
ma'am ; I wish I had known you were 
coming, ma'am, and I would have 
made the place a bit welcome like. 



Pearl. 



169 



You won't find the rooms ready, 
ma'am ; but if you would be so kind 
as to wait awhile, I won't be long 
lighting a fire in the library, ma'am." 

" Would you mind my coming 
into the kitchen ?" said Alice, as the 
woman took off her wet waterproof 
and hung it up in the hall a square, 
old-fashioned hall, not too large for 
comfort, and large enough to give 
a character of roominess to the 
house at once. 

" I should be too proud, ma'am, if 
you would step in and sit by the 
kitchen fire a minute," said the 
woman cordially. " You must be 
cold this wet day, ma'am ; and may 
be you will like a cup o' tea ? 
I'll make it ready in no time." 

" Yes ; I should like that of all 
things," said Alice. They went 
into the kitchen, which was not far 
from the hall and close by the 
dining-room, as Mrs. Mills pointed 
out on their way to it. 

" It is so handy being next the 
parlor, ma'am ; and the dean he 
made a slide in the wall for sending 
in the dishes without carrying 'em 
round in the cold. There never was 
a master as thought more of saving 
folks trouble." Mrs. Mills poked 
the fire violently and soon sent the 
blaze crackling up cheerily ; it was a 
hearth to roast a Christmas ox the 
kind of fire servants delight to keep 
up when the coals cost them noth- 
ing. Alice looked round the 
spacious kitchen, boarded, and 
carpeted in the middle, the walls 
well flanked with dressers full of 
cooking utensils, china, etc., and 
adorned at intervals with capital 
prints, evidently chosen by no vul- 
gar taste. There was a long deal 
table in the centre of the room, and 
near the one broad window a 
smaller one with a bright green 
cloth, on which were a work-box and 
a few books. Alice took in all the 



details of the place, and thought it 
would be very comfortable to cook, 
and even to eat, one's dinner in this 
kitchen. When she had warmed 
herself at the great big fire, and 
had some cups of tea and nice but- 
tered toast, which Mrs. Mills pre- 
pared with hospitable haste, she got 
up and looked in at the scullery 
and the pantry, and saw the slide 
for sending in the dishes, and came 
to the conclusion that it would be 
easier to dispense with servants in 
this house than in any she had ever 
seen. 

Mrs. Mills, meantime, was se- 
verely exercised as to what Mrs. 
Redacre could have meant by com- 
ing down upon her in this sudden 
way, alone and without so much as 
giving an hour's notice to make 
a fire and a bed. A lady she was, 
and no mistake ; but these were 
odd ways for a lady. Then she 
bethought her that the dean had 
been a very odd man, and that pro- 
bably it ran in the family, and that 
the heirs had perhaps inherited the 
old gentleman's madness with his 
other belongings. It was still a mys- 
tery at Lamford what he had done 
with his property; it was only 
known that a will was missing which 
made a great change of some sort in 
the distribution of the money. 

" I should like to go over the 
house now, if it is not inconve- 
nient," said Alice. 

"Not the least, ma'am, if you 
will just be kind enough to wait 
while I go round and open the 
shutters," said Mrs. Mills. "It 
won't take long, ma'am." 

" Oh ! don't hurry yourself," 
said Alice considerately. " I only 
want to have a glimpse of the place 
before it grows dark." 

The visit was made quickly, and 
Alice was delighted with every- 
thing. The house was, as the 



Pearl. 



colonel told her, lamentably out of 
repair, and to have put it in letting 
order would have taken a much 
larger sum than they could have 
afforded ; but it was quite habita- 
ble for themselves. The only two 
rooms which the old dean had oc- 
cupied down-stairs were the library 
and dining-room, and these were 
not so dilapidated as might have 
been expected after forty years' 
constant use. The library looked, 
indeed, in excellent repair, Alice 
thought ; but Mrs. Mills explained 
that only six months ago it had 
been rehung with the dark crim- 
son paper that gave a warm, fur- 
nished appearance to the room as 
the setting sun poured in through a 
western window, making the wall 
glow like a sheet of ruby, and gild- 
ing afresh two large picture-frames 
that hung on either side of the 
mantelpiece. The furniture was 
piled up in the middle of the room 
and covered with sheets, so its 
shabbiness, if shabby it were, did 
not appear. 

The rooms up-stairs were sadly 
dilapidated, the carpets faded and 
moth-eaten, the paper stained and 
in many places curling off the 
walls. The dean's own room was 
the only one in good order; it, too, 
had been hung with crimson paper 
like the library, and at the same 
time. 

" What a strange fancy to hang a 
bed-room in such a dark color!" 
said Alice, speaking aloud to her- 
self, as she surveyed the apart- 
ment. 

" Yes, ma'am ; but he had very 
strange fancies, the dean. I don't 
mean it in any disrespect, but he 
was considered a little hodd in the 
county, if you'll excuse me sayin' 
it, ma'am." 

" He was an odd man," sighed 
Alice. " I hardly knew him my- 



self; were you long in the dean's 
service ?" 

" Eighteen years, ma'am, and my 
'usband over twenty ; the dean he 
married us himself, ma'am." 

" You must be fond of the place 
after living so long here. You 
would be sorry to leave it, I dare 
say ?" 

" I would indeed, ma'am ! And 
as to my 'usband, it'll be the break- 
ing of his 'eart leaving the 'Ollow. 
We did 'ope, ma'am, at first, as how 
perhaps we needn't 'ave to leave 
it." 

" Well, we will talk about that," 
said Alice ; she had taken a liking 
to the active, welcoming little wo- 
man, and was turning a plan in her 
head. 

They went down-stairs. The 
fire was lighted in the library, but 
Mrs. Mills had not had time to set 
the room to rights, so Alice return- 
ed to the bright kitchen. 

" Sit down, Mills ; I want to have 
a little talk with you," she said; 
and Mills drew a chair to the table 
and waited with a beating heart. 

" What did you do in the dean's 
household ? Did you cook for 
him?" 

"No, please, ma'am; I washed 
him and looked after the chickens." 

" Ah ! you are a good laundress ? 
Could you undertake to wash for a 
family ?" inquired Alice, brighten- 
ing perceptibly at this information. 

" Well, ma'am, that would de- 
pend on the size of the family. 
Might I ask, ma'am, how many 
there would be in the family ?" 

" Six : Col. Redacre and myself, 
and two young ladies and two 
boys." 

"And the servants, ma'am? I 
take it you keep a large establish- 
ment, ma'am?" 

The tone of reverence with which 
Mills pronounced the words "large 



Pearl 



171 



establishment " made Alice sudden- 
ly feel like an impostor, a sham, to 
be coming to take possession of a 
house like this with no establish- 
ment at all. How she would tum- 
ble off her pedestal in Mills' eyes 
when that fact became known ! 
Happily for Alice, she had a fine 
sense of humor which blunted the 
painful side of things by first pre- 
senting the comical one; for there 
are few disagreeable situations in 
life that have not their comical side, 
if one has but the grace to see it. 

" I have kept rather a large one 
up to the present, but for the fu- 
ture, for some years at any rate, 
we mean to do without servants al- 
together." 

"Indeed, ma'am!" 

The two words, and the face that 
accompanied them, said volumes. 

" Yes ; we mean to do the work 
of the house ourselves, my daugh- 
ters and I, "continued Alice.- "But 
we shall want some one to help in 
the scullery, to wash up the dishes, 
and that sort of work; I don't 
think we could manage to do that 
ourselves." 

" J-ust so, ma'am." 

" We must also have some one to 
look after the garden. Colonel 
Redacre and my sons would help 
a good deal, but we should need 
a gardener who understood the 
management of things, who would 
know how to keep us supplied with 
fruit and vegetables." 

" Exactly, ma'am." 

" Now, would it suit you and 
your husband to remain on here, 
he as gardener and general facto- 
tum out-of-doors, and you as our 
laundress and to help in the kitch- 
en ? The dean, we know, had a 
great regard for you both, as he 
proved by his remembrance of you, 
and we should much prefer keep- 
ing you to taking in two strangers." 



" I'm sure you're very good, 
ma'am; and, as far as I can say, 
nothing would please us more than 
to stay on in the old place and in 
the service of the family. But Ja- 
cob Mills is master of me, ma'am ; 
so, by your leave, I'll consult him 
and bring you his answer, ma'am." 

Alice was satisfied to wait until 
Jacob Mills sat in council with his 
wife on the matter, and, as she was 
very tired and had nothing more 
to do this evening, she went to 
bed. 

" There's madness in the family, 
that's as clear as can be," said Mrs. 
Mills to her husband as they sat 
over their supper; "but most like- 
ly its 'armless madness, like the 
poor dean's." 

" It's the most uncommon queer 
kind of madness ever I heard tell 
of!" said Jacob Mills. "For talks 
that have kep' a large establish- 
ment all their lives, to put it down 
and take to doing their own work 
when they come into more proper- 
ty is the very queerest thing ever 
was done out of a madhouse. The 
dean he was odd, but he lived like 
a gentleman." 

"When there's madness in the 
blood, it comes out in all sorts of 
ways," said Mrs. Mills. " But this 
freak of theirs wouldn't 'urt us ; 
she's as nice-spoken a lady as ever 
I'd wish to serve, and we'd find it 
'ard to get placed together, Jacob^; 
besides, we're not growing young." 

" You're for staying ?" said Jacob. 

"I am." 

Jacob lighted his pipe and took 
a few puffs before he spoke again. 

" It's a-lettin' one's self down to 
stay with folks that don't keep no 
servants," he remarked presently. 
" We'd not be able to hold our 
heads up in the neighborhood; 
everybody would be a-laughin' at 
us." 



The Heights of Fourvieres. 



11 1 thought of that," said Mrs. 
Mills; "but then, you see, it isn't 
as if they were poor people that 
couldn't afford to live like gentle- 
folks ; they have lots o' money, and 
there's no disgrace in bein' mad." 

"That's true; you're a wise wo- 
man, Sarah." 

" Why, wasn't the dean called 
* Mad Darrell ' all over the coun- 
ty ?" continued Sarah, elated by 
this tribute to her reasoning pow- 



ers, " and wasn't we all proud to 
be in his service ? though, for that 
matter, everybody knew, except for 
washing and cooking, he served 
himself, and might as well have 
done without all of us but one." 

"It's in the family, that's clear," 
said Mills emphatically; "that 
makes all the difference. As you 
say, Sarah, there's no disgrace in 
being mad, and so there can't be no 
disgrace in living with mad gentry." 



TO BE CONTINUED. 



THE HEIGHTS OF FOURVIERES. 



LYONS ; the great industrial city 
of France, shut in by steep hills 
between two strong rivers, running 
along busy quays and places of 
traffic, through sunny courts and 
squares, up narrow, sombre streets 
which no carriage could ascend 
up to the heights of Fourvieres, 
crowned with the famous^ sanctuary 
of Our Lady is picturesque as few 
cities are. It is the chief ecclesias- 
tical city of the republic also, a 
centre of missionary operations and 
other good works, and, though fer- 
menting w^th political and social 
agitations, has a deep moral life of 
its own, and an earnest piety often 
found in great cities full of corrup- 
tion, where the heart more than 
elsewhere feels the need of super- 
natural aid. The church of Lyons, 
celebrated for its antiquity, the 
number of its martyrs, and its un- 
broken traditions of apostolic ori- 
gin, is specially worthy of study. 
Every part of the city revives some 
interesting Christian memory the 
street of St. Polycarp, whose disci- 



ples, St. Pothin and St. Irenseus, 
were the first bishops of Lyons ; 
the Gourguillon, down which flowed 
the blood of the martyrs from the 
Forum Vetus (whence Fourvieres) 
in the time of Septimius Severus ; 
the dark, tomb-like crypts, ancient 
as the Christian traditions of the 
city, with bones of the saints and 
altars consecrated by popes; the 
Hotel Dieu, founded by King 
Childebert in the sixth century, that 
has never been closed on suffering 
humanity ; mediaeval churches cov- 
ered with marks of violence from 
the Huguenot and the revolution- 
ist ; and countless monasteries and 
convents of the nineteenth century. 
Every age is represented here, and 
over all is diffused an air of life and 
activity and modern progress that 
only enhances one's interest in the 
numerous vestiges of antiquity. 

Our hotel was the Ecu de France, 
in whose walls may be traced the 
remains of the old church of the 
Platiere, which, with an adjoining 
priory belonging to the Hermits of 



The Heights of Fourvieres. 



173 



St. Augustine, formerly stood here. 
It was originally a mere chapel for 
recluses built by St. Eucher in the 
fifth century under the title of 
Notre Dame des Bois, which be- 
speaks its religious solitude, the 
space between the Rhone and the 
Saone being then a forest. When 
rebuilt in the tenth century and 
given to the Augustinians, it was 
called the Eglise de la Platiere be- 
cause it stood on a platea, or es- 
planade, shaded by trees. It was 
to this church that Pope Innocent 
IV. came in 1245 to inaugurate the 
octave of the Nativity of the Bless- 
ed Virgin, which he had establish- 
ed in fulfilment of a vow made be- 
fore his elevation to the Papacy. 
The cardinals who attended him 
were clothed for the first time in 
scarlet robes that had hitherto been 
the distinctive dress of the canons 
of St. Jean, the metropolitan church 
of Lyons, who in return for their 
lost purple were allowed the honor 
of wearing the mitre. Nothing is 
left to remind one of this ancient 
church except a few fragments of 
its wall and the name it gave to 
the little Place de la Platiere. A few 
steps brings you to the Saone, and 
the first thing that strikes the eye 
is the colossal golden statue of Our 
Lady on the heights of Fourvieres 
with outstretched arms as if bless- 
ing the city peculiarly the city of 
Mary, for here she has always been 
specially honored. It was at 
Lyons the festival of the Immacu- 
late Conception, as well as the 
octave of the Nativity, was first 
celebrated. This was at the church 
of Ainay, the first in France that 
had an altar dedicated to Marie 
Immaculee. It is said that St. An- 
selm, Archbishop of Canterbury, 
during his exile from England in 
1099 and 1 100, took up his residence 
at Lyons among the Benedictines of 



Ainay, and in their abbey wrote 
his treatise De Concepts Virginali et 
Originali Peccato, and inspired such 
a devotion to the Immaculate Con- 
ception that the monks composed 
an office in honor of that mystery. 
The abbey of Ainay stood near the 
confluence of the Rhone and the 
Saone, on the spot where the sixty 
nations of the Gauls erected a 
sumptuous altar to the Emperor 
Augustus, and where some of the 
Lyonnese martyrs, among others 
the glorious St. Blandina, suffered 
for the faith. Like many other fa- 
mous abbeys, it grew out of the 
humble cell of a hermit whose 
sanctity of life drew other souls 
around him. The abbatial church 
is one of the most interesting in 
the city. It was at one of its al- 
tars that Bayard, the peerless 
knight, had his weapons blessed 
for his first essay at arms in a tour- 
nay held at Lyons, on which occa- 
sion his equipment was furnished 
by his uncle, the abbot of Ainay. 

Crossing the suspension bridge 
over the Saone, held by chains in 
the grasp of huge lions, we began 
the ascent to Fourvieres. Here, 
among the narrow-winding streets 
of mediaeval aspect, is the church 
of St. Paul on the site of a temple 
of Diana, according to a tradition 
confirmed by the remains of an- 
cient Roman masonry still to be 
seen in the foundations. It was at 
. first a mere oratory, which St. Sa- 
cerdos, the twenty-sixth bishop of 
Lyons, rebuilt in the year 545. 
This church, like several others of 
special sanctity in the Christian 
world, had a miraculous consecra- 
tion. An old legend tells how St. 
Sacerdos, the morning after the 
supernatural rites, found a can- 
dle on the altar that ever after 
burned without being consumed, 
and a censer of some mysterious 



174 



The Heights of Fourvtircs. 



metal encrusted with precious 
stones unlike any to be found on 
earth. These disappeared in the 
course of ages, but as late as the 
end of the sixteenth century an 
old levite used to tell how often 
he had borne the sacred candle 
from the sacristy to the altar and 
wondered it never lessened in size 
or weight. 

It was in memory of this miraculous 
consecration that Pope Innocent IV. 
accorded a grand Pardon for the 
festival of St. Sacerdos indulgentia 
omnium peccatorum vere confessis et 
contritis die xii. Scptembris, just as 
the indulgences of the present day 
are granted. On this great festi- 
val the bells were all rung, the 
church was hung with rich draper- 
ies, the seven-branched candle- 
stick before the altar was lighted, 
the priests put on their gorgeous 
vestments of crimson and gold, 
and the canons their glittering 
mitres. One of these dignitaries, 
wrapped in a cope, look the won- 
drous censer from its silver case, 
and, after exhibiting it to the peo- 
ple, set it up on the high altar 
where burned the miraculous can- 
dle before the small portable altar 
of St. John, which, according to 
tradition, had been used by that 
evangelist in celebrating the Eu- 
charistic Sacrifice, and probably 
brought from the East by St. Po- 
thin. Then the holy rites began. 
In more modern times a separate 
candle was placed on the altar, 
and a brasier, into which from time 
to time some grains of incense were 
thrown. 

It was on account of the pecu- 
liar sanctity of this divinely-conse- 
crated church that no one was al- 
lowed to be buried in its aisles. A 
legend says that Isabeau d'Har- 
court, a lady of high degree, wife 
of Humbert, Baron of Thoire, de- 



sirous of being buried in this 
church, of which she was a bene- 
factress, the very earth exuded 
blood by way of protestation when 
an attempt was made to fulfil her 
wishes, and her remains were tak- 
en to the cathedral of St. Jean and 
buried in the chapel of Notre 
Dame du Ilaut Don, to which she 
had given funds for a lamp to burn 
day and night before the altar of 
Our Lady. 

The church of St. Paul, includ- 
ing the cloister, had informer times 
the right of asylum. The refugee 
had only to cry Franchise ! on en- 
tering to be safe from all pursuit. 
The bon roi Rene had a particular 
affection for this church, and a 
death's head painted by him on 
the walls was long shown with 
pride. St. Thomas a Becket re- 
sided in the close of St. Paul's dur- 
ing his stay at Lyons. And John 
Gerson, chancellor of the Universi- 
ty of Paris, ended his days here, 
dividing his time between prayer 
and the instruction of poor chil- 
dren. It was here he wrote his 
Tractatus de Parvulis Trahendis ad 
Christum* 

The names of the benefactors to 
the church of St. Paul's used to be 
inscribed in a register, and they 
were annually commemorated on 
the day of their death. The care 
with which the gift of a missal or 
antiphonary was recorded shows 
how books were valued in those 
days. Some benefactors left spe- 
cial orders for an annual service, 
after which a repast was to be 
served to the priests, choristers, 
and acolytes. Even the recluses 
had a part in the distribution. 
These were persons who had for 
ever renounced the world and liv- 
ed in narrow cells generally attach- 
ed to a church, into which they 
looked by a small grate. Such re- 



The Heights of Fourvtircs. 



175 



cluseries were common at Lyons 
in the middle ages, and date from 
the time of St. Eucher, who had 
tasted the sweets of holy solitude 
on the shores of the blue Mediter- 
ranean, There were eleven of 
these in the city. Several for men 
were at St. Paul's. Those at St. 
Margaret's were reserved for de- 
vout women, some of whose names 
are to be found in the old records, 
For example : " Obit Constantina 
que duxit anachoritam vitam de- 
cem annis." The Liber Incatena- 
tus gives the ceremony of reclu- 
sion. The candidate was led to 
the high altar of the church to be 
consecrated to God, and then con- 
ducted by the clergy to a cell, where 
the life of St. Eucher was read, 
with the rule to be followed. Then 
the door was walled up, and the 
recluse left to spend the rest of 
life in prayer, receiving what food 
was necessary through a window. 

The Liber Incatenatus was an old 
book bound in parchment, and so 
called because chained to the wall 
of the sacristy. It contained all 
the ceremc-nies observed at St. 
Paul's on the different festivals, and 
was full of curious details of me- 
diaeval rites and customs. For in- 
stance, on Whitsunday, when the 
officiating priest intoned the Gloria 
in Excelsis, two doves were let 
down from the arches bearing the 
symbolic flame, " Fons vivus, ignis, 
charitas," and drawn up again at 
the Elevation. A similar custom 
has been handed down from the 
time of the Crusades and is still 
observed at the Duomo at Florence 
on Holy Saturday, when two artifi- 
cial doves, after rekindling the sa- 
cred fire on the altar, shoot forth 
above the crowd to the public 
square to ignite the immense pyra- 
mid of fireworks. 

One touching custom at Lyons, 



not wholly extinct, is when the 
priest the representative of Christ 
is going to the altar to celebrate 
the Holy Sacrifice, or is returning 
from it, the people in the aisle press 
forward to touch the border of his 
chasuble as he passes, and then 
make the sign of the cross. 

But perhaps the most thrilling 
custom was on Easter morning, 
when the canons of St. Jean as- 
cended to the top of the church- 
tower, and the canons of Notre 
Dame de Fourvieres went forth on 
their terrace overlooking the city, 
and there in the golden air they 
chanted alternately the joyful Alle- 
luia and the Resurrection hymn, O 
filii et filia, while the church-bells 
all rang out a triumphant peal. 

Formerly a church dedicated to 
St. Lawrence stood just beyond St. 
Paul's, only separated from it by a 
court. Here in 1429 was buried 
Gerson, whose memory was held in 
such veneration that crowds used 
to go to pray at his tomb, where 
many miracles are said to have 
taken place. Charles VIII., at the 
request of his chaplain, had an al- 
tar erected in this church, over 
which he hung the chancellor's por- 
trait, inscribed with his favorite de- 
vice Sursum Corda the words of 
the holy Mass which he wished to 
have graven on his tomb, but the 
Calvinists of 1562 destroyed altar 
and picture, and the memorial brass 
on the wall. A tablet to his me- 
mory, however, has been placed in 
the restored church of St. Paul's, 
with the inscription : 

Cancellario 
Johanni Gersoni 
pio et docto viro 
pueros catechisante 
in hac ecclesia Sancti Pauli 
Anno MCCCCXXII. 

St. Paul's was converted into a 
storehouse for saltpetre by the re- 



176 



TJie Heights of Fourvieres. 



volutionists, which nearly ruined it 
and made a complete restoration 
necessary, so that it has lost its im- 
press of antiquity. Its canons and 
recluses are gone, the cloister is de- 
molished, many of the old customs 
have been relinquished, the festival 
of St. Sacerdos is only modestly 
celebrated, but nothing can deprive 
it of the glory of having sheltered 
two such men as Gerson and St. 
Thomas of Canterbury. St. Tho- 
mas and St. Anselm were not the 
only English bishops who found 
hospitality at Lyons. St. Wilfrid 
of York and St. Bennet Biscop 
were entertained here by St. Enne- 
mond, or Chaumont, whose life was 
afterwards written by the Venerable 
Bede. It was this St. Ennemond 
whose martyred remains were borne 
to Lyons, according to the old le- 
gend, in a boat without a rower, 
the bells of all the churches ring- 
ing out of themselves as they came 
down the Rhone. He was buried 
in the old church of St. Pierre at 
Lyons, and is invoked for epilepsy. 
Resuming our way to Fourvieres, 
we climbed a weary ascent of one 
hundred and fifty stone steps. This 
was only the beginning. We kept 
ascending 'past old stone houses 
now and then adorned with a Ma- 
donna, of which there are about 
six hundred at Lyons. Every few 
moments we came to a convent. 
Over one gateway was a Holy Fam- 
ily in relief. Over another was 
graven La Pat'x, which Dante, too, 
sought in a monastery. The church 
of the Carmelites had its Virgin in 
front. We soon came out among 
hedges and trees and trickling foun- 
tains, and then along a wall with 
old Roman remains embedded in 
its sides a cippus found in the 
Rhone, antique urns, masques, cap- 
itals, fragments of mosaic, etc. till 
we found ourselves on a broad ter- 



race, shaded by plane-trees, over- 
looking a bend in the Saone. Here 
are seats where you can rest, with 
tables, and assiduous waiters to 
bring refreshments. Still winding 
up, we reached the Montee des 
Anges fit name for the ascent to 
Our Lady's sanctuary. Convents 
were on every hand holy asylums 
of prayer where souls weary of the 
bustling world below can meditate 
in peace. Over one entrance was 
Laus Jesu et Mar ice perpetuce. Close 
by is the celebrated chapel of No- 
tre Dame de Fourvieres, one of the 
most popular places of pilgrimage 
in France. 

On these heights was ancient 
Lugdunum, and where the chapel 
of Our Lady stands was once the 
forum of Trajan, with a magnificent 
column that was still erect in the 
eighth century. As long ago as 
the year 840 there was a little 
square oratory here, dedicated to 
Our Lady of Good Counsel, built 
of old Roman remains. This was 
not enlarged till three hundred 
years later, when Olivier de Cha- 
bannes, dean of St. Jean's, added 
another aisle communicating with 
the oratory by an arch. It is said 
that while this was being built the 
dean was one day walking with the 
archbishop of Lyons and St. Tho- 
mas a Becket on the Place St. Jean, 
from which, by the way, one of the 
most striking views of Fourvieres is 
to be had, and said he would con- 
secrate the new altar to the first 
martyr who should shed his blood 
for the faith " To you, perhaps," 
said he to St. Thomas. It was, in 
fact, consecrated to him in 1190, 
and devotion to the new martyr 
became very popular at Lyons. 
King Louis VII. sent an ex-voto 
here in gratitude for the recovery 
of his son, Philip Augustus, ascribed 
to the intercession of St. Thomas. 



The Heights of Fourvieres. 



177 



Louis XI. came to Notre Dame 
de Fourvieres to pray tor the suc- 
cess of his arms against Charles 
le Temeraire of Burgundy. He 
founded a daily Mass here, and or- 
dered the Salve to be sung after it, 
besides a High Mass on the six 
chief festivals of the year and the 
five principal feasts of the Virgin. 
He made Our Lady the chateleine 
of Charlieu and twenty-four other 
parishes, and gave the chapel an 
annual revenue, with other gifts to 
adorn it, unwilling, as he said, that 
une si belle Dame should lodge in so 
poor a house. A century later the 
Calvinists pillaged the church, de- 
stroyed the archives, and only left 
the four walls standing. The city 
of Lyons was consecrated to Notre 
Dame de Fourvieres in the seven- 
teenth century after a great pesti- 
lence, from which time it became 
the favorite sanctuary of the people, 
who in the time of every public 
calamity used .to ascend in peni- 
tential garments with tears and 
loud prayers that the evil might be 
averted. The church was again de- 
vastated at the Revolution, but was 
solemnly reopened for public wor- 
ship in 1805 by Pope Pius VII., who 
offered an expiatory Mass at Our 
Lady's altar and administered com- 
munion to twelve hundred people. 
Then he went forth on the brow of 
the hill and gave his benediction to 
the city, which prostrated itself be- 
fore him on the quays and public 
squares below. He moreover in- 
stituted the practice, still kept up 
at Fourvieres, of ringing the bell 
every evening to invite the people 
to pray for the dead. 

We found the church crowded, as 
it generally is in good weather. 
Every year there are more than fif- 
teen hundred thousand pilgrims. 
On the patronal festival of the As- 
sumption twenty-five or thirty thou- 
VOL, xxvui. 12 



sand people visit the sanctuary, and 
there is an immense number every 
Saturday and festival of the Virgin. 
On Thursdays several hundred sol- 
diers may be seen here paying their 
devotions, and on Sundays a con- 
fraternity of workmen. Processions 
from more than fifty villages around 
annually come here with their 
cure's at the head, to pray for their 
families and their crops. Nume- 
rous processions from the city also 
ascend the holy mount, among 
which the most touching and beau- 
tiful is that of the first communi- 
cants who come here to consecrate 
themselves to Mary Most Pure. 
There are seven altars in the 
church, at which are daily offered 
fifty or sixty Masses by priests from, 
all parts of the world. In the 
month of May there are often a 
thousand communions a day, and 
there are at least two hundred 
thousand in the course of the year. 
From this the moral influence of 
the church may be conjectured. 

An immense number of tapers, 
are continually burning in Our 
Lady's aisle, amounting to five or 
six thousand pounds a year, it is^ 
said. The walls are absolutely 
lined with the ex-votos. There are 
about four thousand of these, be- 
sides thousands of marble tablets 
with inscriptions of gratitude from 
those who have received some spe- 
cial grace. 

The church is far too small for 
the number of worshippers, and a 
new one is in process of erection 
which promises to be worthy of the 
reputation of the miraculous Ma- 
donna. Around are numerous 
shops for the sale of every con- 
ceivable object of devotion, and 
one path to the church is by fif- 
teen oratories, or colonnettes, con- 
secrated to the mysteries of the 
rosary. 



178 



The Heights of Fourvieres. 



But Notre Dame de Fourvieres 
is not the oldest chapel of Our 
Lady at Lyons. That is at St. 
Nizier, where St. Pothin, accord- 
ing to the ancient tradition, erect- 
ed his first altar and placed over it 
an image of the Virgin brought 
from the East. This is said to 
have been the first sanctuary of 
Mary in Gaul. It was only a poor 
cabin on an isle formed by the 
Rhone and the Sndne, covered 
with wood, and inhabited by fisher- 
men. This, from the accumula- 
tion of the soil, became in time a 
subterranean oratory, which is still 
to be setn beneath the modem 
church of St. Nizier, four yards 
square, with a bay each side giv- 
ing it the form of a Greek cross. 
As Pope Innocent IV. said, this 
was the first cathedral of Lyons, 
and it retained its prerogative till 
the fifth century. And here St. Ire- 
naeus probably held his two councils, 
one numbering twelve and the other 
thirteen bishops. After it ceased 
to be the cathedral it became a fa- 
vorite place of burial for the bish- 
ops, as the ancient discipline did 
not allow them to be buried in their 
own cathedral. Among these was 
St. Nizier, who lived in the latter 
part of the fifth century. His tomb 
became so popular as to give his 
name to the church that had been 
built over the crypt as soon as the 
era of persecution was over. When 
this venerable church needed re- 
storation in the fourteenth century, 
Pope Clement VII. issued a bull of 
indulgences to all who would aid in 
the work. Calixtus III. issued an- 
other in 1450, showing the constant 
custom of granting indulgences for 
such good works, though Luther 
made those accorded by LeoX. for 
the rebuilding of St. Peter's one of 
his pretexts for disaffection. The 
Calvinists destroyed all the ancient 



tombs at St. Nizier and carried off 
the bells. . 

From Notre Dame de Fourvieres 
we went to the large hospital of 
the Antiquailles, built on the site 
of the imperial palace in which 
Claudius and Caligula were born. 
A tablet on the front recalls a 
grander memory : "In this hospice 
is the crypt where St. Pothin, the 
first bishop of Lyons, received at 
the age of ninety the palm of mar- 
tyrdom on the xiii. of August 
cxxxvii., during the reign of Mar- 
cus Aurelius." We were taken 
down into this dungeon, now an 
oratory, and shown by the light of 
a dim lamp the great ring to which 
the aged bishop was fastened, and 
the altar that commemorates his 
steadfast courage. Dark, damp, 
and silent as a tomb, it is too im- 
pressive a spot to leave without a 
prayer. In the church above is 
recorded the visit of Pope Pius 
VII. in 1805. 

Beyond the Antiquailles we cross- 
ed a terrace with a large iron cross 
in the centre among the trees and 
purple lilacs. Here were seats, 
and children were playing in the 
alleys, making the air merry with 
their young voices. The birds 
seemed to be trying to outdo them. 
The air was full of perfume. Every- 
thing was fresh and sunny, with all 
the life and promise of a spring 
morning. Through the cool green 
boughs we could see the tawny 
height on which stands the fort of 
St. Irenee gilded by the sun. Na- 
poleon I. ordered the whole of this 
mount to be covered with fortifica- 
tions after his escape from Elba. 
This would have involved the de- 
struction of the many venerable 
sanctuaries, but happily the calam- 
ity was averted. 

We soon came to the narrow Rue 
des Maccabees, where once stood 



The Heights of Fourvtires. 



i 



a church of that name, the most 
ancient built above ground at 
Lyons, and so called from the bra- 
very of the Lyonnese martyrs of 
Roman times. It stood beside one 
of the great imperial roads that tra- 
versed Gaul, where the hill begins 
to slope towards the east, overlook- 
ing the confluence of the Rhone 
and the Saone. On this church the 
first cross was publicly set up, and 
the boatmen on the river below 
used to salute it at their departure 
and hail it with pious hymns and 
cries of joy at their return. St. 
Patient spent the whole of his im- 
mense fortune in building this 
church. Beneath was a crypt hol- 
lowed out by St. Zacharie, the 
third bishop of Lyons, after the 
massacre of the year 202. Sido- 
nius Apollinaris tells us it had a 
large atrium before it, the arcades 
of which were supported by pillars 
of marble from Aquitaine that is, 
from the Pyrenees. The walls 
were lined with precious marbles 
and sheets of gold. And the win- 
dows had figures of many hues on 
a groundwork of green, so that 
when the sun shone through them 
the church gleamed as if adorned 
with sapphires. At a later day this 
church took the name of St. Just, 
the thirteenth archbishop of Lyons, 
who retired into the deserts of 
Egypt and there ended his life in 
contemplation and prayer. This 
is said to have been from his ex- 
treme delicacy of conscience. A 
madman, who had stabbed some 
person in the street, took sanctuary 
in the church, and St. Just deliv- 
ered him up to the authorities on 
the condition that his life should 
be spared. He was put to death 
notwithstanding, and the archbishop 
was so filled with horror as to con- 
sider himself disqualified for the 
service of the altar. Accordingly, 



179 

he went to Marseilles and embark- 
ed for Egypt, where he spent the 
remainder of his days in retirement. 
His body was brought back to 
Lyons and enshrined in the church 
of the Maccabees, where his festival 
used to be celebrated with extraor- 
dinary pomp. The clergy passed 
the vigil in prayer around his tomb, 
and the next day solemnized his 
memory with such splendor and 
harmonious music that the people 
came in crowds to attend the ser- 
vice. In the middle ages there 
were twenty-eight canons attached 
to this church, who held the rank 
of barons and wore the mitre. They 
occupied twelve large houses in the 
adjoining close, where there were 
also twenty-eight smaller houses 
for the priests and chaplains. This 
cloister was fortified like a castle, 
the walls being flanked with twen- 
ty-two towers. When Pope Inno- 
cent IV. came to Lyons he took up 
his residence in the close of St. 
Just, and had for his guards the 
Knights Templars and of St. John 
of Jerusalem. And St. Louis of 
France was a guest here when he 
came to confer with the pope be- 
fore going to the Holy Wars. Pope 
Innocent IV. granted indulgences 
to all who should aid in enlarging 
the church, which seems to have 
been completed by the year 1305, 
when Bertrand de Goth was crown- 
ed pope here under the name of 
Clement V. in presence of many 
kings, princes, and mighty barons 
of France, England, and Burgundy. 
Francis I. left his mother and wife 
in this close when he went on his 
Italian campaign. Here his broth- 
er, the duke of Alencon, died and 
was buried in the church, and here 
Louise of Savoy learned the sad 
result of the battle of Pavia. 

The church of St. Just was mag- 
nificent in those days. In the 



i So 



The Heights of Fourvicrcs. 



choir were ninety oaken stalls with 
Scriptural scenes curiously carved 
on them and richly gilded. Twen- 
ty-four chapels with marble altars 
and elaborate parcloses of wrought 
iron opened into the aisles. In 
the ambulatory behind the high 
altar was the alabaster shrine of St. 
Just, set up on marble pillars ten 
feet high. Arid around the church, 
adding to its awful solemnity, were 
the tombs and shrines of thirteen 
Lyonnese saints, seven of whom 
had been bishops of the city. 
When Louis XI. visited Lyons he 
presented the church with a chasse 
of gold for the relics of one of the 
Holy Innocents. Here, under the 
patronage of Innocent IV., was es- 
tablished the devout confraternity 
of the Thirty-three in honor of the 
number of years our Lord spent on 
earth, which is perpetuated to this 
day. 

Of all this sumptuous church, 
rich with the gifts of princes that 
had been accumulating here for 
centuries, with its tombs and holy 
shrines, and the cloister where 
popes, kings, and great lords had 
been the guests of the canons, 
nothing absolutely nothing re- 
mains. One of the first acts of the 
terrible Baron des Adrets, when he 
and his horde of Huguenots took 
Lyons in 1562, was to destroy the 
cloister of St. Just, pillage the 
church, demolish the altars and 
shrines, and scatter the bones of 
the saints. Then they carried off 
the marble pillars and blew the 
church up. " Would to God," ex- 
claims Paradin, the historian of 
Lyons, " that they had built living 
temples of manners and virtues 
when they reduced to ruin and 
desolation those dead stones that 
offended no one !" 

In 1736, during some excava- 
tions made here for the foundations 



of a chapel, several tombs of the 
fourth and fifth centuries were 
found, showing the antiquity of the 
original church. We give a few cf 
the inscriptions : 

11 In this place reposes Leocadia, a 
young maiden consecrated to God, as 
her life proved. She lived only sixteen 
years. Happier is she in the Lord, to 
whom she gave up her soul in the xiii. 
consulate of Theodosius." 

Another is in memory of 

*' Flavius Flori, a tribune of the army, 
who lived eighty-seven years, and after 
thirty-nine years of military service 
spent eighteen in penitence. He is 
buried near the saints. The holy mother 
church of Lyons commemorates him. 
He died the tenth of the calends of the 
year. . . ." 

Another inscription is headed by 
two doves : 

" Here reposes Agricia, who lived as 
a recluse for sixteen years." 

The discovery of these tombs 
caused a great sensation at Lyons, 
and to prevent a veneration not 
sufficiently justified the archbishop 
ordered the chapel to be discon- 
tinued. 

The present church of St. Just 
stands a short distance from the 
original one. It is a spacious edi- 
fice, but with nothing striking about 
it. A bust of Pope Innocent IV. 
stands over the chief entrance. We 
found it flooded with yellow 
light that came through the eastern 
windows, and the nave filled with 
children, to whom a young abbe 
was explaining the catechism. 

The narrow, winding street of the 
Machabees, paved with cobble- 
stones weary to the feet, brought 
us to the church of St. Irenee, 
built over the ancient subterranean 
oratory hollowed out among the 
tombs of the early martyrs Matu- 
rus, Epipoy, Alexander, etc., etc. 
This was afterwards enlarged and 



The Heights of Fonrvicrcs. 



181 






richly adorned, and over it St. 
Patient built a church that was de- 
molished by the Saracens, rebuilt 
by Charlemagne, and again ruined 
by the Calvinists. The crypt, how- 
ever, escaped utter destruction, and 
is one of the most impressive of 
sanctuaries. We proceeded at 
once to visit it, going down by 
a lateral entrance through a Ro- 
manesque porch with a strong iron 
grille, which the concierge unlock- 
ed for us. We felt as if descending 
into the catacombs. What a world 
lies between the Lyons of to-day 
and this gloomy oratory of the early 
Christians where age after age has 
come to pray ! An old inscription 
of the tenth century, restored in 
mosaic on the inner walls, might 
appropriately hang in this porch : 

" In entering this sacred place smite 
your breast, implore pardon with groans, 
mingle tears with your prayers. Here 
repose the fellow-sufferers of the pontiff 
Jrenseus, who led them to heaven by the 
way of martyrdom. Their number, if 
you would know it, was nineteen thou- 
sand, not including the women and 
children. Victims of cruelty, they now 
enjoy the light of Christ." 

A stone staircase leads down to 
the gloomy vaults. We stopped to 
read on the walls : 

" Sit memoria eorum in benedictione 
et ossa pullulent de loco suo," 

and 

" Elegerunt magis mori quam infrin- 
gere legem Dei sanctam." 

At the foot of the stairs a tablet 
says : 

" This crypt was built by St. Patient, 
Bishop of Lyons, in the fifth century, on 
the spot where St. Pothin and St. Irenee, 
sent to Lyons by St. Polycarp, the disci- 
ple of St. John, used to assemble the 
first Christians." 

Here is a cubiculum, or grated 
niche, with a lamp burning before 
it, and, looking in, you see it heap- 



ed up with the bones of the ancient 
martyrs thrown promiscuously to- 
gether. On the wall is the inscrip- 
tion : 

"In MDLXII. the Calvinists devastat- 
ed this subterranean oratory and min- 
gied the relics of the martyrs with the 
bones of animals. M. Grolier, prior of 
at. Irenee, repaired it, and separated the 
profane substances from the holy relics, 
which he deposited in this arch." 

Over the arch is a sentence from 
the prose sung by the church of 
Lyons at the Mass of St. Pothin's 
day : 

" FAVSTA 

LVGDVNVM CI VITAS 

DITATA 
TOT MARTYRIBVS !" 

Happy city of Lyons, enriched 
with so many martyrs ! And ever 
the door leading into St. Polycarp's 
chapel : 

" Filii sanctorum sumus, filii resurrec- 
tionis." 

This subterranean church con- 
sists of a small nave with two 
aisles separated by twelve columns 
of red granite. The floor is of 
mosaic, and in the centre is the pit 
into which were thrown the mar- 
tyrs under Severns. The earth is 
said to be still red with their blood. 
It is covered with a grate on which 
a crown and palm are interlaced, 
and over it hangs a bronze lamp 
of antique pattern that burns day 
and night. The low Roman arch- 
es of this underground church, the 
glimmering lamp suspended over 
the pit once full of mangled re- 
mains, the long list of the martyrs 
on the wall, many of whom were 
women Albina, Grata, Julia, An- 
tonia, etc. the pale outlines of the 
saints against the shadowy niches, 
the faint light struggling through 
the small, low windows set in lead, 
the damp, chilly, sepulchral atmos- 



1 82 



The Heights of Fourvieres. 



phere, fill one with a solemn awe. 
We could almost hear St. Patient 
telling his flock how St. Irenseus 
dedicated this oratory to St. John, 
from whom his master had receiv- 
ed the faith. Nay, we recalled the 
time when the early Christians, 
awaiting their crown of martyr- 
dom, assembled on this mount to 
participate in the sacred mysteries 
and listen to the account of St. 
Polycarp's glorious end from St. 
Irenaeus himself, who, in that 
which he has left to us, says : " We 
gathered up his bones, which are 
more precious than jewels and 
gold, and preserved them in a 
suitable place where the Lord 
gave us the privilege to assemble, 
that with joy and rapture we might 
keep the anniversary of his martyr- 
dom." 

On the other side of the nave is 
a sachette, or recluserie, where 
perhaps the last woman was ever 
walled up to consecrate the re- 
mainder of her days to penitential 
exercises. This was a lady of a no- 
ble family, who lived in this dark 
cell nine years, and at her death 
was buried beneath. Her tomb- 
stone says : 

"D. O. M. 

"Here lies Damoiselle Marguerite de 
la Barge, of Lyons, who died Nov. 16, 
1692, aged forty-three years, and was 
only allowed to be entombed in this 
holy place on account of the penitent 
life she led here for nine years that she 
might be eternally united with the mar- 
tyrs of this church, whom she had so 
faithfully invoked here below. Requies- 
cat in pace. Amen." 

It is a dismal cell in which to 
grope one's way to the true light. 
Let us hope that the happiness to 
be found in renunciation and per- 
sistent prayer was not wanting to 
brighten the gloom. In 1863 some 
excavations were made under this 
cell, and the bones of the holy re- 



cluse were found with a pectoral 
cross, but were left undisturbed to 
await the resurrection among the 
martyrs in whose eternal glory she 
hoped to have part. 

Two staircases lead into the up- 
per church, lined with ancient in- 
scriptions. There are two aisles, 
a nave of the Byzantine style, and 
a semi-circular apsis. At the 
right of the main entrance is the 
tomb of St. Jubin under an altar. 
He was the first archbishop of Ly- 
ons to whom the Holy See (this 
was in 1078, during the pontificate 
of Gregory VII.) officially gave 
the title of Primate of Gaul, now 
merely honorary. A Huguenot 
who danced on his tomb in deri- 
sion is said to have fallen para- 
lyzed, and all further profanation 
was refrained from. The tomb was 
opened in 1826. Several bones 
were found, a small gold ring, a 
St. Anthony's cross of coral, and 
two silver coins of the eleventh 
century bearing the words Prima 
sedes Galliarum. 

The first chapel on the left con- 
tains the tomb of St. Zachary, the 
third bishop of Lyons, who escaped, 
by the Divine will, at the persecu- 
tion of Marcus Aurelius. It disap- 
peared in the ravages of the Calvin- 
ists, and was not found again till 
1863. A few bones were still re- 
maining, but they fell to pieces as 
soon as touched. A lamp burns be- 
fore the tomb. 

There is but little in the church 
now to please the artistic eye, but 
it is venerable for the glorious his- 
tory it commemorates. All the 
ancient riches were swept away by 
the Huguenots the silver lamps 
and vessels, the sacerdotal gar- 
ments, the old manuscripts, the 
mosaics and precious marbles, the 
altars, the shrines, and the bells. 
They broke to pieces a portion of 



The Heights of Fourviercs. 



183 



the Column of the Flagellation pre- 
served here, and mingled the re- 
lics of the martyrs with offal and 
the bones of beasts. When nothing 
m,ore was left for them to destroy, 
they removed the pillars in the 
crypt, supposing the vault would 
fall in. But it was so strongly 
built that it did not give way, and 
thus this venerable sanctuary was 
saved. They carried off the head 
of St. Irenseus and used it as a 
foot-ball. A barber at last obtain- 
ed possession of it and buried it 
till better days should arrive. Few 
churches in the world could have 
been more impressive than this in 
the middle ages, with the tomb of 
St. Irenxus for the high altar, sur- 
rounded by the remains of so many 
thousand martyrs. The canons of 
the church used to descend seven 
times a day to sing the divine of- 
fice among these tombs, but the 
humidity at length forced them to 
discontinue the practice. Then 
they only went down to chant the 
antiphon and Or emus. Eight 
times a year the canons of St. Jean 
came here in procession to vene- 
rate the martyrs and chant the Pre- 
tiosa in eonspectu Domini, with the 
prayer Deus qui nostram civitatem. 
The parish of St. Just came here 
five times a year, and all the par- 
ishes at the Rogations. 

The Fete des Merveilles was an- 
nually celebrated at Lyons in an- 
cient times in honor of the martyrs, 
whose remains, cast into the 
Rhone, were miraculously preserv- 
ed, according to St. Gregory of 
Tours and the constant tradition 
of the church. On this festival 
there was a procession of boats on 
the river which must have been 
very picturesque. Each parish 
had its own barge and torches 
and banners, and one after the 
other took up the responses in 



singing Matins and Lauds. The 
parish of St. Just intoned the 
Laudate when passing under the 
bridge, and, stopping, they entered 
the church of St. Nizier singing 
the litany De quacunque tribulatione, 
in which the Lyonnese saints are 
severally invoked. This festival 
in time degenerated into one of 
too mundane a character, and was 
abolished by the archbishop in the 
fourteenth century. 

Going out of the crypt of St. 
Irenee into the court behind, we 
came to the Calyaire on the edge 
of the terrace overlooking an im- 
mense extent of country the broad 
Rhone, the impetuous Saone, di- 
rectly beneath, winding through 
the busy city, the plains of Dau- 
phine afar off, and the Alps in the 
distance. The agitations and bus- 
tle of the world seemed to die 
away at our feet like a passing 
storm. On this height are set up 
three immense crosses Christ be- 
tween the two thieves, in full sight 
of the thronged streets below, a 
perpetual appeal to them, and to 
Heaven in their behalf. The 
crosses are of iron, but the images 
on them are of Carrara marble 
and of life-size. So are the statues 
of Our Lady and St. John at the 
foot of the central cross, and the 
Magdalen kneeling with clasped, 
uplifted hands, her hair flowing 
around her. Around the court are 
the fourteen stations of the Via 
Crucis, each one a small Greek 
temple with a cross and dove on 
the pediment, and a bas-relief of 
the mystery over the altar. 

Beneath the terrace is a garden 
with trees and vines, and there, in 
the side of the mount, is a chapel of 
Christ in the tomb. The busiest 
trafficker in the city below cannot 
help seeing many times a day, as 
he looks up at the sacred heights 



1 84 



Dr. Newman and Dr. Puscy. 



of Fourvieres, the Madonna cloth- the nineteen thousand martyrs, a 

ed, as it were, with the sun, or, as great crowd of witnesses indeed, 
is so often the case at Lyons, veil- 
ed in diaphanous mist, and, beyond, F 
the Calvary with its pallid Christ LvcovNvIfciviTAs 
and the venerable church behind DITATA 
it the church of St. Irenee and TOT MARTYRIBVS ! 



DR. NEWMAN AND DR. PUSEY. 



As I look back upon my re- 
collections of conversations with 
Father Newman, and turn over the 
notes made of them at the time, I 
feel a timidity in selecting a por- 
tion of them for publication. If we 
were now in 1900 instead of in 1878, 
the task would be more simple ; 
within the next twenty-two years 
Father Newman and the men of to- 
day of whom he spoke will, in all 
probability, have gone to their ac- 
count, and praise or criticism or 
irony from human lips will not 
affect them more. I cannot re- 
member having ever heard Father 
Newman say an ill-natured thing ; 
but sharp words, incisive phrases, 
irony keen, piercing, and irresist- 
ible come from his lips, when 
the occasion arises for them, as 
naturally as white-hot iron, struck 
upon the anvil, sends forth a show- 
er of burning sparks. He has a 
most tender, loving, and sympa- 
thetic heart, but a head hard as 
steel and clear as crystal. I can 
see him now, sitting in the little 
room where sometimes he received 
me, leaning his noble head, with 
its wild and shaggy hair, upon his 
right hand ; his neck encircled in 
that altogether incomprehensibly 
ill-fitting and mysteriously-rumpled 



collar which the fathers of the 
Oratory of St. Philip Neri always 
wear; his strongly-marked and 
deeply-furrowed face lighted up 
with a smile of wonderful pathos 
and sweetness; his eyes, far hidden 
behind his bushy brows, glowing 
with fire altogether a face, once 
seen, never to be forgotten ; a face, 
often seen, certain to fascinate and 
charm. 

It is thirty years since the Ora- 
tory at Edgbaston, with its church 
of the Immaculate Conception, was 
founded ; and there, with occasion- 
al absences, for thirty years half 
a long life-time Father Newman 
has done his work. From this ob- 
scurity his voice has been heard all 
over the world, and wherever the 
English language is spoken his 
name is mentioned with reverence. 
Mr. Gladstone has said that the 
secession of Dr. Newman from the 
Anglican Church was the hardest 
blow that pretentious fabric ever 
received ; and it is true that all he 
left behind him Pusey, Liddon, 
Dennison, Stanley, and the rest of 
them could not make up his sum. 
During these thirty years, from 
time to time have been heard com- 
plaints that he, the most able, or at 
least the most able but one, of 



Dr. Niwman and Dr. Pnscy. 



185 



English Catholics, was left to rust 
oat his days in the obscurity of the 
suburbs of a smoky, ill-favored, and 
comparatively unimportant manu- 
facturing town in the least pleasant 
county in England. " He should 
be bishop "; " he should be arch- 
bishop "; "he should be cardinal "; 
" he should be called to Rome and 
placed at the head of one of the 
congregations." These complaints 
and suggestions came as well from 
Protestant candid friends as from 
certain Catholics. The former 
knew quite well what, was the mat- 
ter : it was the machinations of 
the Jesuits. They were jealous of 
Dr. Newman ; he knew too much 
for them ; he was not " Ultramon- 
tane " enough for them. Father 
Newman is " Ultramontane " from 
the crown of his head to the sole 
of his foot ; he is possessed through 
and through with that perfect de- 
votion to the Holy See which the 
enemies of Peter call " Ultramon- 
tanism." But the Protestant ad- 
visers of the authorities of the 
church were quite confident that 
lie was a sort of Protestant, and 
for this reason they urged the Holy 
See to advance him to its highest 
dignities. Some Catholics occa- 
sionally joined in the cry, inspir- 
ed by different motives. " Why," 
said one of them to me he was 
one of the three English Catholics 
who were indiscreet enough to write 
letters to the Times in extenuation 
and in half-approval of Mr. Glad- 
stone's Vaticanism " Why, if Fa- 
ther Newman were brought to 
London and caused to preach every 
Sunday, or even every day, not one 
of our churches could hold the 
crowds that -would flock to hear 
him, and his converts would be 
counted by thousands. But they 
keep him stuck down tliere in 
smutty Birmingham, and his pearls 



are cast before the s\vine of the 
ugliest town in England." 

Observations of this kind are, in 
a sense, natural enough. The dig- 
nities of the church confer lustre 
even on the illustrious among those 
of their own day and generation. 
But in the eyes of posterity, even 
such dignities, high and holy as 
they are, are lost before the sight 
of the man. Dr. Newman, what- 
ever may yet come to him, will al- 
ways be Dr. Newman to us who 
have known him and to those who 
will come after us, and read him. 

That is enough. Who now in- 
quires whether St. Jerome, St. 
Augustine of Hippo, St. Thomas 
Aquinas, the saints, the great fa- 
thers, doctors, and lights of the 
church, were in their time bishops, 
archbishops, or cardinals? 

I well remember the day when, 
'inter alia, I asked Father Newman 
if he thought he was casting his 
pearls before swine. It was a bit- 
terly cold day in December, and I 
had travelled down from London 
in the face of a blinding snow- 
storm. The 'Cabman who took me 
from the railway station to the 
Oratory a long drive of two miles 
or more could hardly force his 
unfiery and much-tamed steed 
through the snow-drifts ; and he 
gladly accepted my suggestion that 
we should make two bites of our 
cherry, and take something "hot" 
at a half-way public-house. " Oh ! 
yes, your honor," said the cab T 
man, who was an honest Irishman, 
" his riverence will be surely at 
home. He never goes away." 
The little room at the end of the 
long corridor at the Oratory, where 
I waited until my card could be 
taken to Father Newman, was 
plainly, even severely, furnished. 
The floor was uncarpeted ; in the 
corner nearest the door was a con- 



1 86 



Dr. Newman and Dr. Fusey. 



fessional, but it consisted merely 
of a screen, with a seat on one side 
for the confessor, and on the other 
an uncommonly narrow and un- 
comfortable shelf for the penitent 
to kneel upon. There were two 
chairs, a crucifix, and upon the 
walls some religious engravings. 
But there also was an engrossed 
scroll, beautifully written, record- 
ing the fact that the persons whose 
names were inscribed upon it had 
enjoyed the privilege of contribut- 
ing the money necessary for the 
payment of the costs imposed upon 
Father Newman by an English 
court as the penalty for telling the 
truth about the apostate priest 
Achilli. On one occasion Father 
Newman spoke to me with some 
animation concerning this episode 
in his life. " It was necessary," he 
said, " that some one should make 
known the plain truth concerning' 
that wretched man, and it came to 
me to do it. The letter of the law 
condemned me, and I suffered vi- 
carious punishment, my generous 
friends atoning for me through 
their pockets. It is necessary that 
character should be protected if 
there be any to protect. In this 
case, of course, there was none ; 
but perhaps it was better that the 
law should be strained in favor of 
the assailed than in behalf of the 
assailant. If the cause of the as- 
sailant be good, and if he have the 
courage of his opinions, he will 
make the attack and take the con- 
sequences. My friends did not 
permit me to suffer, but I should 
have gladly gone to prison and re- 
mained there all my days, rather 
than have omitted to do what so 
clearly seemed to be my duty." 
So many years have passed since 
Father Newman wrote the burning 
words which for ever branded Achilli 
as a wretch too base to live and 



too deeply stained with sin to die 
as he was, that they may be repro- 
duced here : 

" Ah ! Dr. Achilli, I might have spoken 
of him last week had time admitted of it. 
The Protestant world flocks to hear him 
because he has something to tell of the 
Catholic Church. He has a something 
to tell, it is true ; he has a scandal to 
reveal ; he has an argument to exhibit. 
It is a simple one and a powerful one, as 
far as it goes, and it is one. That one 
argument is himself ; it is his presence 
which is the triumph of Protestants ; it 
is the sight of him which is a Catholic's 
confusion. It is, indeed, our great con- 
fusion that our holy mother could have 
had a priest like him. He feels the force 
of the argument, and he shows himself 
to the multitude that is gazing on him. 
'Mothers of families,' he seems to say, 
'gentle maidens, innocent children, 
look at me, for 1 am worth looking at. 
You do not see such a sight every day. 
Can any church live over the imputation 
of such a production as I am ? I have 
been a Catholic and an infidel ; I have 
been a Roman priest and a hypocrite ; I 
have been a profligate under a cowl. I 
am that Father Achilli who, as early as 
1826, was deprived of my faculty to lec- 
ture for an offence which my superiors 
did their best to conceal, and who in 
1827 had already earned the reputation 
of a scandalous friar. I am that Achilli 
who, in the diocese of Viterbo, in Feb- 
ruary, 1831, robbed of her honor a young 
woman of eighteen ; who in September, 
1833, was found guilty of a second such 
crime in the case of a person of twenty- 
eight, and who perpetrated a third in 
July, 1834, in the case of another aged 
twenty-four. lam he who afterwards was 
found guilty of sins similar, or worse, in 
two towns of the neighborhood. I am 
that son of Sf. Dominic who is known to 
have repeated these crimes at Capua in 
1834 or 1835, and again in 1840 in the 
case of a child of tender years, and who 
chose the sacristy of the church as the 
scene and Good Friday as the time for 
the deed. Look upon me, ye mothers 
of England, who feartPopery, for you 
4 ne'er will look upon my like again.' 
I am that veritable priest who, having 
done all this, began to speak against not 
only the Catholic faith but the moral 
law, and perverted others by my teach- 



Dr. Newman and Dr. Pusey. 



187 



ing. I am the Cavaliere Achilli who then 
went to Corfu, made the wife of a tailor 
faithless to her husband and lived pub- 
licly and travelled about with the wife of 
a chorus-singer. I am that professor in 
the Protestant College at Malta who, 
with two others, was dismissed from my 
post for offences which the authorities 
cannot get themselves to describe. And 
now attend to me, such as I am, and 
you shall see what you shall see about 
the barbarity and profligacy of the in- 
quisitors of Rome.' 

" You speak truly, O Achilli ! and we 
cannot answer you a word. You are a 
priest ; you have been a friar ; you are, 
it is undeniable, the scandal of Catholi- 
cism and the palmary argument of Pro- 
testants by your extraordinary depravity. 
You have been, it is true, a profligate, 
an unbeliever, and a hypocrite. Not 
many years passed of your conventual 
life, and you were never in choir, always 
in private houses, so that the laity ob- 
served you. You were deprived of your 
professorship, we own it ; you were pro- 
hibited from preaching and hearing con- 
fessions ; you were obliged to give hush- 
money to the father of one of your vic- 
tims, as we learn from the official report 
of the police of Viterbo. You are re- 
ported in an official document of the 
Neapolitan police to be ' known for ha- 
bitual incontinency.' Your name came 
before the civil tribunal at Corfu for your 
crime of adultery. You have put the 
crown on your offences by as long as you 
could denying them all. You have pro- 
fessed to seek after truth when you were 
ravening after sin. Yes, you are an in- 
controvertible proof that priests may fall 
and friars break their vows. You are 
your own witness. But while you need 
not go out of yourself for your argument, 
neither are you able. With you the ar- 
gument begins ; with you, too, it ends. 
The beginning and the ending you are 
both. When you have shown yourself 
you have done your worst and your all. 
You are your best argument and your 
sole. Your witness against others is 
utterly invalidated by your witness 
against yourself. You leave your sting 
in the wound. \ ou cannot lay the 
golden eggs, for you are already dead." 

Let me return, however, to hap- 
pier recollections. Father New- 
man is now seventy- seven years 



old; when I last saw him he was 
seventy-five, but his eye was not 
dim nor his natural strength abat- 
ed. Two of my happiest days 
were spent at Edgbaston-, and the 
happier was this day in dark De- 
cember. I had come to make 
a certain request, which Father 
Newman could not grant ; lie 
knew what it was, and he put me 
out of my misery by telling me so 
ere I could open my mouth. " It 
is a pity you came down in this 
storm," said he, laughing; "you 
might have written and saved 
yourself the journey. I am bound 
not to do what you want done, and 
that's the end of it. You must not 
even ask me questions about that 
and pump me. I'll talk to you all 
day long about anything else ; but 
we will leave that alone, if you 
please. I will not be interviewed 
on that subject at any price, be- 
cause I am bound in honor to 
Pickering, who is to have my manu- 
script as soon as I can complete it. 
By the way, I was working at it 
when you came." 

" And you had got as far as ?" 
said I mischievously. 

"It's of no use," he replied; 
"you can't get me to say a word. 
I am armed at all points. Do you 
suppose you are first in the field ? 
Why, you are about the last quite 
the last, I hope. But since you 
are here, stay with us a while. To 
begin with, come and eat." 

It was useless to indulge in the 
chagrin which I felt ; it was im- 
possible to resist the fascination of 
his manner and the temptation of 
enjoying an hour or two of such 
society. An hour or two ! It was 
one o'clock when I arrived, and I 
tore myself away just in time to 
catch the midnight train up to 
London. Disregarding my mum- 
bled words about going back to 



iSS 



Dr. Ncivman and Dr. Pusey. 



the hotel and taking the next 
train up to town, Father Newman 
swept me off with him to the re- 
fectory. 

"You are rather late, you know," 
said he as we entered the empty room. 
"We dine at noon, and all is over; 
but we shall manage somehow." 
And we sat down together at a lit- 
tle table on the left-hand side of 
the room. 

The room was long, broad, high, 
clean, and cold. These were 
the first impressions. Along either 
side were small tables, each ca- 
pable of seating four or five per- 
sons. There Avas something of the 
air of a restaurant about the place : 
each table was provided with plates 
ready laid, knives and forks, and 
a cruet-stand containing vinegar, 
oil, mustard, and pepper. A door 
at the upper end of the room led 
to the kitchen ; on one side of the 
door was a reading-desk; above it 
a crucifix and a picture of St. Phi- 
lip Neri; along the walls pictures 
of the saints. Father Newman's 
calls for the servitor were not an- 
swered. " He has gone," said he ; 
"we must wait upon ourselves." 
And now I beheld Father New- 
man in the character of a volunteer 
waiter. Disregarding my remon- 
strances, but telling me I might 
help him, he rummaged in the pan- 
try and brought forth not only 
bread and wine but other things. 
Laughing, we set the table togeth- 
er : he carried a pasty ; I bore the 
bread and cheese; he dragged 
forth a bottle of Bordeaux and 
loaded me with the remains of a 
joint. We pledged each other in 
a glass of wine and merrily began 
our repast. My journey in the 
cold morning had given me a keen 
appetite, and I enjoyed the meal. 
My host appeared to enjoy it with 
me ; probably he had forgotten to 



eat anything at the regular meal. 
We were very merry together for a 
while, and it was then that I hap- 
pened to speak about the pearls 
and the swine. "Well," said he, 
" of course there are pearls, but 
I don't know about the swine. 
I will find you to-day as pure 
and noble a soul dwelling in the 
breast of a blacksmith as there is 
in the bosom of a duke. Not 
but that some dukes have noble 
souls." And here he went on 
to tell me charming anecdotes 
about his beloved, if not his favor- 
ite, pupil, the Duke of Norfolk, 
whom he had trained with all the 
love of a father, and who, as I have 
reason to know, regards him with 
all the reverence and affection due 
from a son. It was to this young 
man, who, apart from his personal 
qualifications, is by very position a 
leader of the youth of England, 
that Father Newman dedicated his 
reply to Mr. Gladstone's assault 
upon the Vatican Decrees. By a 
mere accident on my part the name 
of Dr. Pusey chanced to be men- 
tioned. It acted like a spell to un- 
lock a chamber full of interesting 
recollections. " For twenty-two 
years we were the most intimate of 
friends ; for thirty-two years we 
have been separated. Do you 
know him? Have you seen him?" 
I was obliged to confess that this 
was something that I yet hoped to 
achieve. " You will find a great 
soul in him," said Father Newman. 
" He is a magnanimous man. 
When others were reviling me the 
worst thing he could find to 
say about me was that I had been 
prayed away from 1 him by the Pa- 
pists, and that my mission would 
be to so purify the church of God 
that it would be willing to ally it- 
self with the church of King Henry 
VIII." It would not be discreet 



Dr. Newman and Dr. Puscy. 



189 



in me to repeat the conversation 
that followed ; in writing about Irv- 
ing persons one must avoid be- 
traying confidences. But here 
and there a remark may be given. 
" Mr. Gladstone is at present sway- 
ed by passion rather than moved 
by judgment. There is not a sin- 
gle accusation against the church 
put forth in his pamphlet upon the 
Vatican Decrees to which there is 
not an overwhelming answer. Mr. 
Gladstone is a politician, and has 
been regarded as a statesman ; but 
hereafter the quality of his states- 
manship will be doubted." . . . 
" That England will become Cath- 
olic again is certainly to be hoped ; 
but as it cost her much to become 
Protestant, it will cost her much 
to return to the faith." In the 
ages of faith Oxford was the nurse 
of great saints as well as of eminent 
scholars and wise statesmen ; the 
truth was there fully recognized 
that as all knowledge comes from 
God, the knowledge of God as 
revealed in Christ is the true 
foundation of all science and 
philosophy, and that, apart from 
such knowledge, mere human learn- 
ing is weak and powerless. The 
very motto of the university, 
" Dominus Illuminatio Mea," show- 
ed the spirit of its founders ; but 
Oxford no longer wishes God to il- 
luminate her she prefers the de- 
lusive light that glimmers from 
what is called modern philosophy. 
The university is no longer an au- 
thoritative teacher of God's word ; 
it is a mere collection of human 
schools wrangling over Hegel, 
Kant, Comte, and Mill. There are 
still some pure and noble hearts at 
Oxford, said Father Newman, but 
they are powerless to make head 
against the downward tendency of 
the majority. 

With respect to the so-called 



ritualistic movement in England, 
Father Newman remarked that it 
unquestionably kept many souls 
out of the church. " These gentle- 
men," said he, " sail very near the 
wind, very near." We were at this 
time in his working-room, and he 
brought from his shelves a number 
of the ritualistic publications, and 
called my attention to the very 
close imitation of Catholic teach- 
ing and practice which they con- 
tained. One of these was The 
Priest at the Altar, edited by Canon 
Liddon. I took some notes of its 
contents, and of another which he 
showed me ; and in looking them 
over I find the doctrine of the Real 
Presence, the Invocation of the 
Saints, the office of Benediction of 
the Blessed Sacrament, the Rosary 
of the Blessed Virgin and of St. 
Joseph, and the Angelus, all cop- 
ied without any alteration from our 
own books. " You can see some- 
thing of what they are doing by 
these things," said- Father Newman ; 
" the counterfeit is skilful and the 
deception is easy. They tell their 
people they are safe where they are, 
and that it is a sin to think even 
of going to Rome; some of them 
go even so far as to assure their 
anxious people that they will be re- 
sponsible for their soul's salvation 
if they will observe their directions ! 
Ah ! yes, the half-way house now 
is the end of the journey of many. 
Not of all, however; our conver- 
sions are numerous and constant, 
and they are of the class most im- 
portant just at present." 

The chapel at the Oratory is 
large, handsome, and enriched with 
certain precious gifts. It was after 
a visit to the chapel that I parted 
at its door with Father Newman. 
I felt the warm grasp of his strong 
hand long after I had passed out 
into the cold night. 



i go 



Dr. Newman and Dr. Pusey. 



It was with some trepidation that 
I made my first visit to Dr. Pusey. 
Father Newman's discourse con- 
cerning him had given me cause to 
reflect that he might not care to 
converse upon the subjects respect- 
ing which I was most anxious to 
hear him speak ; and I had been 
warned from other sources that Dr. 
Pusey had very great skill in mak- 
ing himself disagreeable to those 
who annoyed him. Still, I had 
my letters of introduction, and I 
strengthened myself with the re- 
flection that I could* regulate my 
conduct according to his own and 
avoid stepping upon slippery places. 
But really there was no cause for 
my fears. There was a little stiff- 
ness in his manner at first, but it 
soon wore off; and when I hap- 
pened purposely to mention that 
I had recently seen Father New- 
man and had spent a day with 
him, he thawed at once, and dis- 
played the keenest interest in what 
I was able to tell him of his old 
friend. " I so seldom see any one 
who visits him," he said; "and is 
he quite well ? He is just one 
year my junior. Does he bear his 
age as well as I do ?" he inquired, 
straightening up his bent form, and 
peering at me with eyes that maybe 
large but that seem small, so hidden 
are they behind his shaggy brows, 
and sunk so far away. A curious- 
looking old gentleman is Dr. Pusey. 
His name, by rights, would be 
Bouverie; for he was the son of 
the Hon. Philip Bouverie, half- 
brother of the first Earl of Radnor, 
who, by royal license, assumed the 
name of Pusey. He is now seven- 
ty-eight years old. He was edu- 
cated at Christ Church, of which 
he is a canon ; he graduated B.A. 
with high honors, and was made a 
fellow of Oriel. He was only twen- 
ty-eight years old when he was ap- 



pointed regius professor of He- 
brew in the University and canon 
of Christ Church. For fifty-eight 
years he has spent his life in these 
academic shades, and he is one of 
the few remaining historical figures 
of the university. It was delightful 
to wander with him through Christ 
Church College, and to listen to his 
traditions concerning it. The uni- 
versity owes this college magnifi- 
cent in every way to the munifi- 
cence of Cardinal Wolsey. Three 
hundred and fifty-three years ago 
the cardinal obtained the charter 
for the erection of this college from 
Henry VIII. ; and although that 
monarch, as was his vront, seized 
upon the endowments when the 
cardinal fell under his displeasure, 
he had the grace to restore a por- 
tion of them seven years afterwards, 
and the meanness to call the estab- 
lishment the " College of King Hen- 
ry VIII." But in 1546 he set up the 
new bishopric of Oxford, and estab- 
lished the unique foundation ever 
since known as " Christ Church," 
which is at once a cathedral and a 
college. The " foundation " con- 
sists of a dean, six canons (of whom 
Dr. Pusey is one), eight chaplains, 
a schoolmaster, eight clerks, eight 
choristers, twenty-eight senior and 
fifty-two junior students. But to 
this foundation are added " noble- 
men, gentlemen-commoners, and 
commoners," numbering about one 
thousand, half of whom are mem- 
bers of Convocation. Dr. Pusey 
told me that the quadrangle, de- 
signed by Wolsey (two hundred and 
sixty-four by two hundred and six- 
ty-one feet), is the largest and most 
noble in Oxford. The cardinal's 
purpose was to build a cloister en- 
tirely around the quadrangle, but 
only the north side has been thus 
adorned. The hall is on the south 
side of the quadrangle ; its lobby 



Dr. Newman and Dr. Pusey. 



191 



has a stone roof, supported by a 
single column ; the hall itself is one 
hundred and thirteen feet by forty, 
and fifty in height, with a roof of 
carved oak, constructed in 1529, 
and bearing the arms of King Hen- 
ry and Cardinal Wolsey. "You 
have been everywhere," said Dr. 
Pusey ; " but where have you seen 
a more magnificent refectory than 
this ?" I mentally contrasted it 
with the one at Edgbaston, and 
owned that the latter was sadly in- 
ferior; I looked at my kind host, 
contrasted him with his old friend, 
and thought that of the two Father 
Newman was the happier as well as 
the greater man. 

Dr. Pusey is portly ; he is not 
tall ; his corpulence, without being 
aggressive, evidently gives him 
some trouble ; his features are large 
and rather coarse ; his bearing is 
not exactly dignified. I was great- 
ly puzzled by his eyes; a curious 
unrest seemed to lurk in them. At 
times he became abstracted, and 
either did not speak or replied at 
random. I feared I was fatiguing 
him, and begged him not to spend 
time in escorting me; but he said 
he had occasion to go to this place 
and to that, and that he would 
be glad of my company until we 
could return to his rooms. So we 
wandered about, looking a little at 
Holbein's portraits in the hall 
those of the cardinal, Henry VIII., 
and Queen Elizabeth attracting my 
closest attention ; into the chap- 
lain's quadrangle, on the north 
side of which was once the re- 
fectory of St. Frideswide, where 
now are rooms for the undergradu- 
ates ; into the cathedral, sadly 
mutilated, but still retaining some 
of the glory which it possessed 
when it was St. Frideswide's priory 
church ; and finally into the library, 
a noble edifice completed in 1761, 



142 feet long, 30 in width, and 37 
in height, and containing a magni- 
ficent collection of books. Here 
we sat down, and insensibly drifted 
into' a conversation which lasted a 
long while and took a wide range. 

"He is well, then," said Dr. 
Pusey, again referring to Father 
Newman, "and happy." Here 
came a pause and a sigh. " I do 
not doubt it; he would always act 
in accordance with his conscience, 
and that is happiness. But he has 
had his trials is it not so ? All is 
not peace at Rome ; by the way, 
his minimization of the Vatican 
Decrees was a masterly piece of 
work. I shall never forget the 
shock his secession gave me. I 
could not understand how such 
strong confidence as he had in our 
church could give place to doubt 
and then rejection. He did mag- 
nificent work for us ; he built us up 
as no one else ever did, and then 
he tore us all down again. I have 
often said that he left us because 
we were not good enough for him ; 
he is so sensitive to wrong that the 
crying evils which prevailed among 
us became unbearable to him. I 
am a duller and a more thick-skin- 
ned man ; these evils seemed to me 
something that of necessity must 
be endured; they went through 
him like knives, and he fled away 
from us. Whether the people to 
whom he went are good enough for 
him is another thing, but he seems 
to think so. If he were not satis- 
fied in his conscience he would not 
remain where he is an hour." 

Another long pause followed, 
and I scarcely cared to break it. 
"Do you know," said Dr. Pusey 
after a while, "what gave me my 
first fear that we were to lose him ? 
I heard that a hint had been sent 
perhaps from Cardinal Wiseman, 
perhaps from Rome that New- 



1 9 2 



Dr. Newman and Dr. Fusey. 



man might be got by praying for 
him ; that he was being prayed for 
by name in many churches and re- 
ligious communities on the Conti- 
nent, and that Masses were said for 
him. I felt a pang go through my 
heart when I heard this. I said to 
myself: 'While this is going on we 
are indifferent about this man 1 ; 
many of us even dislike him ; but 
Rome's children are praying for 
him, that he may come to them 
and be an instrument of God's 
glory among them. Will not God 
give them what they ask for, and 
cause us to lose what we do not 
care to keep ? When he did go to 
them, they knew their prayers were 
answered, and they knew what 
they had gained, while we" And 
here the old doctor's head sank up- 
on his breast, and he again was si- 
lent, while I gazed at him in as- 
tonishment and with eyes not all 
undimmed. Of what was he think- 
ing he who seemed to know so 
well and to appreciate so keenly 
the miraculous power of prayer 
and of the Holy Eucharist? Was 
he saying to himself, "Alas! no one 
has prayed for me, no one has of- 
fered the Holy Sacrifice for me "? 
He would have been wrong had he 
thought so, for his old friend had 
prayed for him with tears. But 
what a curious lesson of logic was 
betrayed in this confession ! God 
surely would not hear prayers for 
the translation of a man from the 
true to the false, from a pure 
church to an impure communion ; 
and, as truth is one, he could not 
juggle with the matter. This, 
however, is just the juggle with 
which Dr. Pusey and all his school 
deceive themselves " the branch 
of the church " theory. He pre- 
sently went on to say as much. 

" There was no use in our at- 
tempting to disguise the greatness 



of our loss," said he. " It was 
the heaviest blow that could have 
stricken us. We did not know 
what to do with him ; they did. 
He was buried among us; with 
them he has been a city set upon a 
hill that cannot be hid. Of course 
I hear that they have buried him 
in their turn, neglected him, com- 
pelled him to obscurity. But I 
know better, and so does he. When 
he went away from us, he went, un- 
conscious of his greatness, simply 
to perform an act of duty, and put- 
ting himself wholly in God's hands. 
He was only transplanted into an- 
other part of the Lord's vineyard, 
where there was work fit for him to 
do, which there was not with us. 
I thought also that God had taken 
Newman from us and given him to 
Rome in order that he might purge 
Rome of what is unholy in her 
practices, and bring us together 
again. I thought, too, that his loss 
might awaken us to a cleaning out 
of the heresy that exists among us, 
and which keeps Rome from ac- 
knowledging us. One of these ob- 
jects has certainly been accomplish- 
ed to some degree. The Church 
of England to-day believes more, 
and with a more intelligent faith, 
than she ever has done since the 
communion of the churches was in- 
terrupted. We ought soon to be so 
free from heresy that Rome could 
acknowledge us. But she has made 
it hard for us to acknowledge her. 
The proclamation of the Immacu- 
late Conception, and the Vatican 
Decrees, were steps in the wrong 
direction two more stumbling- 
blocks in the path of union. It is 
a lamentable thing, for our common 
foe, infidelity, assails us both, and 
we ought to join our forces. Rome 
ought to be satisfied. She has won 
Newman, and that was the greatest 
gain she has had since the Reform- 



Dr. Newman and Dr. Pusey. 



ation. But how many others has she 
won ! Manning, Faber, Oakeley, 
McMullen, and the rest. If anything 
could soften her heart, show her 
what is good in us, and dissipate 
her prejudices against us, would 
not the presence of such men who 
have gone from us' to her be enough 
to do it?" 

Dr. Pusey asked this question 
with such sudden vehemence and 
heat that I really thought he ex- 
pected a reply, and I ventured to 
suggest that I thought Rome would 
reason in the exactly opposite sense, 
and argue that if such good and 
wise men left the Anglican Church 
and came to . her it was because 
they were profoundly convinced 
that she was a false church, and 
that the truth was not in her; and 
I added that it was not only the 
'' heresy " that existed in the Church 
of England that prevented Rome 
from recognizing her, but Rome's 
belief that the Anglican Church 
was no church at all, and that her 
orders were not valid. He replied 
that he thought I was mistaken ; 
and that he believed if the matter 
of " orders " only stood in the way 
the reconciliation, as he called it, 
would soon be effected. 

We talked about many other 
things. I asked him whether the 
growth of the acceptance of Catho- 
lic truth and the spread of Catholic 
practices in the Anglican Church 
did or did not tend to lead its mem- 
bers to follow the path that Father 
Newman had taken. He thought 
it did not ; on the contrary, he be- 
lieved it held them to their own 
communion. " We have had much 
to weary us," said he, "much to 
exasperate us, much to cast us 
down ; but the spread of Catholic 
faith among us has been wonderful. 
The chief result of the Public Wor- 
ship Regulation Act has been to 
VOL. xxvin. 13 



193 

bring out the fact that the clergy- 
men against whom it was aimed 
have the firmest hold upon their 
people. You see our duty is very 
clear. We should and do love the 
Church of Rome ; we love her saint?, 
her holy teachers, and her high 
gifts, while we deplore her addi- 
tions or refinements or develop- 
ments of the faith. But our love 
for her is no reason why we should 
desert the church where God has 
placed us. She may be a poor 
church compared with Rome, with- 
out a saint, and without a visible 
head ; but she has the presence 
of Christ and the sacraments, and 
that is enough for us. As I told 
you before, there is no doubt about 
the validity of our orders ; in her 
secret heart Rome herself does not 
doubt them." 

I asked him here why, if this was 
the case, Rome required the or- 
dination of an Anglican clergyman 
who became a Catholic priest. If 
she believed he had already been 
ordained, was it not sacrilege on 
her part to reordain him ? 

" We may revert to that point 
later on," said he ; but we did not, 
for we both forgot it. " I was go- 
ing on to say," continued Dr. Pusey, 
" that we teach our people, as we 
ourselves believe, that nothing but 
an absolute conviction that to re- 
main in our church will imperil his 
soul can justify one of her members 
in leaving her. This conviction 
must be the fruit of the sure belief 
that she is not the church and is 
fatally rent from the body of Christ. 
Mr. Newman had this conviction ; 
I never understood how he got it. 
I never could have it. I plant my- 
self upon two rocks one our suc- 
cession ; the other that we have 
the life of the church and the sac- 
raments. We are not Protestants ; 
we are Catholics. Spiritual life 



I 9 4 



Dr. Newman and Dr. Puscy. 



among Protestants has dried up. 
Lutherismhas become Rationalism. 
Calvinism has become Unitarian- 
Is it not so in America ?" I 



ism. 



was obliged to say that it looked 
that way. "But here," continued 
he, " our church since the revival 
has gone onward and upward, and 
is to-day full of pure spiritual life 
and vigor. It is not true that our 
renewed life came from Rome ; it 
came from ourselves. Its source is 
the Body and Blood of Christ upon 
our altars. We have it, we have it, 
and, having it, we have the individ- 
ual presence of Christ. We have 
the power of the keys, and the 
practice of confession, growing 
more and more, is rewarded with 
the richest spiritual graces. We 
are more Catholic than the Romans, 
for in our liturgy we pray for 
' all bishops, priests, and deacons,' 
for 'the universal church,' for 
4 all bishops and curates,' so that 
we pray for the Roman and Greek 
prelates and priests as well as for 
our own. As our people become 
more and more instructed in the 
catholicity of our church, they are 
more and more satisfied to remain 
in her; and now that in so many 
places the baldness and coldness of 
our services are superseded by full 
and becoming rites, they are not 
led away by their eyes or ears." 

In our conversation about in- 
dividuals I observed much more 
acerbity of temper in Dr. Pusey than 
Father Newman ever betrayed. 
His remarks concerning some of 
his bishops were anything but com- 
plimentary; Mr. Disraeli, as he then 
was, he regarded with distrust; 
Mr. Gladstone had not wholly met 
with his approval. He spoke at 
some length upon the subject of 
education and of the prospective 
disestablishment of the church. 
He disclaimed having any fear of 



the latter, but thought that if, as he 
deemed most improbable, it should 
come to pass, the church would 
feel the blow far less than the na- 
tion, and that the latter would be 
the greater sufferer thereby. He 
expressed a rather slighting opinion 
of the "Old Catholic" movement, 
and I understood him to be of the 
opinion that the Church of England 
lowered herself by displaying eager- 
ness to have anything to do with 
schismatics of any kind. In this 
connection he spoke with strong 
disapproval of the occasional co- 
quetting of certain of the Broad 
Church clergymen with the Non- 
conformists, and of the presence of 
the Archbishop of Canterbury's 
prebendary at the meeting of the 
Evangelical Alliance in New York. 
For Dean Stanley and his school he 
cherished a dislike that he took no 
pains to conceal. 

With respect to the spread of 
latitudinarian and atheistic opin- 
ions at Oxford he spoke with much 
feeling and sorrow. The evil had 
been great ; young men had come 
to the university good and zealous 
Christians, with the design of pre- 
paring for the church, and had gone 
away saturated from head to foot 
with the false philosophy of Spen- 
cer, Mill, and Comte. But he 
thought that even in this respect 
there was a reaction, and that the 
evil was now confined to narrower 
limits. Still there was much of it, 
and in some of the colleges it 
was rampant. The general ten- 
dency of political affairs in Eng- 
land, he remarked at one period 
in our conversation, had been for 
years toward a gradual deprivation 
by the state of the rights of the 
church. Fifty years ago the con- 
nection between the church and 
the state was very close. To hold 
an office under the state a man 






The Protestant Element in English Poetry. 



195 



must be a member of the church. 
The repeal of the Test and Corpo- 
ration Acts put an end to that. 
The Catholic Emancipation Act 
was another step in the same di- 
rection ; the Disestablishment of 
the Irish Church another; the 
abolition of the university tests 
still another. But the Public Wor- 
ship Regulation Act was the first 
open avowal since the days of Eli- 
zabeth of the right of the state 
that is, Christians, Jews, and here- 
tics together to control the church 
in the administration of her cere- 
monies. Dr. Pusey did not look 
upon this with favor, but he did 
not think that in the end it would 
do the church much harm. 

It was long after sunset when I 
took my leave of Dr. Pusey and 



emerged from Christ Church by 
Canterbury Gate. A full moon 
was sailing in a sky speckled with 
but a few clouds, and her bright 
light brought into beautiful relief 
the ancient walls of the various 
colleges and halls that I passed on 
the way to my hotel. Oxford by 
daylight is impressive; in the si- 
lence of a moonlight night it is so- 
lemn. For eight hundred years it 
has been the seat of learning; for 
five hundred years it was the cen- 
tre of Catholic erudition in Eng- 
land. For three hundred years al- 
iens to the faith of those who built 
it have possessed it. Will it ever 
again revert to the faith to which 
it owes its creation and to the heirs 
of its rightful owners ? 



THE PROTESTANT ELEMENT IN ENGLISH POETRY. 



" LET no pious ear be offended," 
says Dr. Johnson, " if I advance, 
in opposition to many authorities, 
that poetical devotion cannot often 
please. The doctrines of religion 
may indeed be defended in a di- 
dactic poem ; and he who has the 
happy power of arguing in verse 
will not lose it because his subject 
is sacced. A poet may describe 
the beauty and. the grandeur of 
nature, the flowers of spring, etc. ; 
but contemplative piety, or the in- 
tercourse between God and the 
soul, cannot be poetical. Man, ad- 
mitted to implore the mercy of his 
Creator and to plead the merits of 
his Redeemer, is already in a high- 
er state than poetry can confer. 
Repentance, trembling in the pre- 
sence of the Judge, is not at leisure 



for cadences and epithets. The 
ideas of Christian theology are too 
simple for eloquence, too sacred 
for fiction, and too majestic for 
ornament. To recommend them 
by tropes and figures is to magnify, 
by a concave mirror, the sidereal 
sphere. " 

We fancy that the doctor, writ- 
ing this, had Milton in his mind's 
eye. He heartily detested botli 
the politics and the poetry of the 
Puritan bard, and his reverent 
mind shrank with horror before the 
bold and blasphemous manner in 
which Milton treats of the most 
awful themes of revelation. The 
regicide principles of the poet an- 
gered him enough, but his Arian- 
isrn shocked the good old man un- 
speakably. Johnson steadfastly de- 



196 



The Protestant Element in English Poetry. 



predated Paradise Lost not that he 
was insensible to its beauties, but 
because he was sensible of its anti- 
Christian tendency. His bias to 
Catholicity is well known, and it 
nevermore clearly showed itself than 
in his abhorrence of all innovation 
in doctrine, even if that doctrine 
was vaguely formulated in the 
Thirty-nine .Articles. Of a pro- 
foundly reverent spirit, as our quota- 
tion in comparison with others but 
feebly shows, he told Boswell that 
his repugnance to Milton arose 
from a consciousness that it was 
blasphemy to read Paradise Lost. 
The description of the Eternal 
Father, the inferior nature ascribed 
to the Only-begotten Son, the car- 
nal views of heaven, the poet's con- 
ception of Satan as open to sympa- 
thetic feelings, [remorse, hope, ad- 
miration, and other emotions, if not 
virtues, incompatible with the idea 
of the unmitigated evilness of the 
fiend, annoyed and distressed 
Johnson far more than they did the 
lighter and less devout mind of 
Addison. The Spectator was at- 
tracted by the majestic harmony 
of the poetry, and did not advert 
to the theological argument, or 
trouble himself much about those 
questions of " election, foreknow- 
ledge, and free-will " which the 
,poet so boldly and so erroneously 
discusses. 

The reader of Johnson's bio- 
.graphy of Milton in the Lives of the 
Poets is amused at the painful 
-struggle which the doctor feels be- 
tween his honest intention and de- 
sire to do justice to the great epic 
and lyrical powers of the poet, and 
his positive hatred of the life, the 
-character, and the political career 
of the man; and Johnson was a 
"good hater." We may suppose 
that, after having written the sketch, 
the old doctor, accompanied by 



Goldsmith and Bozzy, betook him- 
self to the Mitre Tavern, where the 
Literary Club which he had found- 
ed assembled, and that there, over 
his big bowls of tea, he stormed 
against the great poet to his heart's 
content. There he would have 
met the only man of whom he was 
afraid (if he could be said to have 
had fear of any one), Edmund 
Burke, who would have faced the 
old lion, and contended for the 
sublime and the beautiful in Mil- 
ton. Sir Joshua Reynolds, with 
trumpet at ear, would gravely lis- 
ten, and think of how many noble 
subjects for painting the Paradise 
suggests. Garrick, unawed by "big 
Sam," would mimic him behind 
his chair, and " Goldy " would en- 
deavor in vain to give clear and 
elegant expression to his clear and 
elegant thoughts. A la Walter 
Savage Landor, we may have an 
imaginary conversation : 

Johnson. Sir, there are innume- 
rable metrical mistakes in Milton. 
I was censured for condemning 
Lycidas. He only is justified in 
censuring who can show that it 
proceeds not from anger, from 
malice, or from ignorance. 

Boswell. But surely, doctor, all 
must allow that the versification of 
Milton is harmonious. 

Johnson. Sir, 

Hey diddle diddle, 

1 he cat and the fiddle, 

is harmonious versification, but 
who would call it a poem ? 

Goldsmith. The idea of Satan is 
sublime. 

Johnson. Sir, none but a man 
that felt a sublimely diabolical 
sympathy for Satan could have de- 
scribed him in such a manner 
that we are in doubt whether to 
pity his fall or to hope for his res- 
toration, etc., etc. 



The Protestant Element in English Poetry. 



197 



But what would the honest old 
doctor say if he had to encounter 
the anti-Christian poetry of our 
day? Matthew Arnold very wise- 
ly suggests an abridged edition of 
Johnson's Lives, embracing the 
biographies of Milton, Dryden, 
Pope, Gray, and a few other poets 
that have survived the onslaught 
of a false modern criticism, if for 
no other reason than the marvel- 
lously sound sense that marks 
Johnson's criticism. He himself 
was no poet,, and he thought Pope 
the equal of Shakspere an error, 
however, which does not detract 
from his immense value to the 
critical reader. He had in a pre- 
eminent degree that sound com- 
mon sense which Englishmen claim 
as their characteristic ; and this 
homely mother-wit, enlarged and 
polished by a profound knowledge 
of the classics of nearly all the 
civilized languages, made him su- 
preme as a critic for we must not 
mind Homer's occasional nap. How 
he would have stormed over D. G. 
Rossetti's recent Lives of the Poets, 
with its puffery of Keats, its idola- 
try of Shelley, and its formal lau- 
relling of Swinburne three charac- 
ters that of themselves would have 
hopelessly prejudiced the doctor 
against their poetry, unless, like 
Milton's, it were of superlative ex- 
cellence ! 

We dissent from the reason which 
Johnson gives for his objection to 
sacred poetry, or, rather, to the pro- 
priety of consecrating poetry to the 
high uses of religion. His argu- 
ment is a posteriori. There is no 
great sacred poem in the English 
language ; but it does not follow 
that such a poem is an impossibi- 
lity. The true reason is that Pro- 
testantism cannot woo the Chris- 
tian muse. Not only is it lacking 
in any poetical inspiration, but 



from its origin it has steadily set 
its face against poetry. Luther, 
breathing slaughter against the 
polished court of Leo X., sought 
to impart to the new creed a hard, 
prosaic, unpoetical character as a 
mark of its apostolical simplicity. 
He certainly succeeded in making 
Protestantism prosaic, if not apos- 
tolic. Traces of Calvinism remain 
to this day in the general Protes- 
tant distaste to poetry, music, art, 
and the amenities of literature. 
Luther was a musician, played on 
the flute, and is said to have com- 
posed that truly noble hymn, Ein 
feste Burg ist Unser Gott, but, luck- 
ily for him, his stentorian voice 
did not awaken the echoes of Ge- 
neva. The only " poetry " that 
Protestantism has inspired is made 
up of translations from the Psalms, 
set to plaintively nasal melodies by 
" sweet singers in Israel." The re- 
pression of the imagination and its 
legitimate uses has proved one of 
the elements of the earthly and 
material prosperity of Protestants. 
When people have no music, no 
holidays, no poetry, no art to lift 
them above earth, they busy them- 
selves mightily with the mere things 
of this world. Certain philosophers 
and historians have commented 
upon the great material prosperity 
of Protestant as contrasted with 
the poverty of Catholic countries, 
in which there are actually many 
days in the year when it is not 
permitted men to make money; 
and Protestant prosperity is rather 
inconsistently set down to the in- 
fluence of pure evangelical doc- 
trine. Pure evangelicism, one 
would suppose from the Gospel, 
would rather tend to keep its pro- 
fessors poor. 

Able books have been written to 
show the antagonism of the Pro- 
testant creed to all the sources of 



198 



The Protestant Element in English Poetry. 



poetry, to all forms of beauty, mo- 
ral and artistic. The Reformation 
in England was certainly fatal to 
the graces of life. Beauty was 
banished with the church, the true 
mother and inspirer of all moral, 
intellectual, and artistic grace 
mater pulchrce dilectionis. England's 
slow awakening from artistic and 
architectural barbarism is within 
the memory of men still living. 
Balmes and Gorres have exhausted 
the subject of the blighting influ- 
ence exercised by Protestantism 
upon modern civilization and aes- 
thetic culture; and the reader will 
find in their eloquent pages a pro- 
found analysis of the causes of such 
blight. In the poetry-bespangled 
pages of dear old Kenelm Digby, 
particularly the Mores Catholici, 
you learn all that can be learned 
about the influence and inspiration 
of the church with respect to poet- 
ry. Gorres gives a reason for the 
return of Protestantism to the ear- 
thiness and materialities of life, and 
he supports his reasoning with quo- 
tations from Luther which are too 
indecent for transcription here.* 

Dr. Johnson, then, could find no 
Christian poem in the range of 
English literature; and no doubt 
his experience of Watts' hymns was 
not likely to change his opinion as 
to the desirableness of addressing 
" the Heavenly Judge in metrical 
cadences and epithets." No Fa- 
ber or Keble had then arisen to 
combine the profoundest religious 
thought with its highest lyrical ex- 
pression. He was familiar with 
Dante's sublime song, but his nar- 
row religious training would not or 
could not suffer the appearance of 
Virgil upon the extra-mundane 
scene. It strikes even Catholics as 
somewhat incongruous for Dante 
to introduce into the Coinmedia so 

* Luth., Scrino de Mat., circa finem. 



many of the characters of ancient 
pagan history, just as we wonder 
at the poet's temerity in placing in 
the Inferno a pope whom the church 
afterward canonized ; but we do 
not interpret a poem by strict theo- 
logical or historical laws, and we 
can easily overlook the political 
prejudices, grievances, and passions 
of Dante the man, the persecuted 
Florentine, in view of that central 
and controlling spirit of faith which 
was his true guide as a poet 
throughout his awful vision. So, 
too, the Catholic may have a pro- 
founder appreciation of Milton than 
a Protestant. He sees more clear- 
ly the inequalities of the poem ; 
but he may be the better judge of 
its beauties. Certainly the highest 
reach of imagination as auxiliary 
to a great truth that any English 
poet, or perhaps any poet, has at- 
tained is that in which Milton, 
seizing all Olympus and all the 
false gods of Greece and Rome, 
thrusts them into the lowest circle 
of Pandemonium, among the mean- 
est of the fallen spirits that sur- 
round the ruined archangel. Olym- 
pic Jove himself becomes a mere 
imp. By touches such as these 
Milton exalts our conception of 
" Lucifer, son of the morning," and 
we are able to form a slight idea 
of that once glorious spirit of whom 
Christ said : " I saw Satan falling 
like lightning from heaven." The 
same massive genius is apparent in 
the Hymn on the Nativity. He 
wrote it before he had become an 
Arian, in the first flush of his youth, 
before he had fallen upon evil 
tongues and days, before lie had 
engaged in those subtle, metaphy- 
sical inquiries that twisted his mind 
from the truth, social, political, and 
religious. How miserably weak 
and faint does Tennyson's jingle 
about Christmas and "Ring out, 



The Protestant Element in English Poetry. 



199 



wild bells !" sound alongside of such 
a strain as this : 

" Ring out. ye crystal spheres, 

Once bless our human ears, 
If ye have power to touch our senses so ; 

And let your silver chime 

Move in melodious time, 
And let the bass of Heaven's deep organ blow, 

And with your ninefold harmony 

Make up full consort to the angelic symphony." 

Notice how beautifully Plato's 



cism upon a point in Milton, though 
one marvels why he does not apply 
his reflection to his own theology. 
After Raphael, "the affable arch- 
angel," has explained to Adam the 
glorious establishment of the Re- 
deemer's church, he goes on to 
speak of its corruptions, popery, 
licentious monks, etc. a wea'k 
harmony of the spheres is made to point in the archangelic argument, 
join with the music of the angelic after the glorious promises made 
choirs. The consummate learning to the church, and it is a point 
of Milton, and his wonderful com- which Mr. Gould takes well, 
mand over it for the purposes of We dwell thus long upon 'Milton 
his art, are illustrated in the stan- because he is claimed to be the 
zas descriptive of the effect pro- great bard of Protestantism, and as 
duced upon the heathen deities by such he illustrates in an eminent 

degree the idea of this article. 
The notion of calling Paradise Lost 
a Protestant poem is too absurd to 
detain us a minute. It could be 
called a Catholic poem with as 
great propriety. The theme, place, 
machinery, and accessories all an- 
tedate Christianity. But the poem 
illustrates the religious negative- 
ness of Protestant poetry and its 
average anti-Catholic bigotry. When 
we have said this of Milton we 
need not waste our time upon 
bards (such, for example, as Whit- 
tier) who string their rather dis- 
cordant lyres to dithyrambics 
against the Catholic Church. If 
we want to read a poetical attack 
upon the church, we prefer such a - 
sonnet as Milton's on the Pied- 
montese Persecution to such bal- 
lad-monger rhymes as Whittier's 
ode to Pius IX., The Triple Tyrant 
(which is bad grammar, not to 
speak of the poetry), or such a 
worn-out theme as Longfellow's 
Golden Legend, with its fat friars 
drinking with the devil in a monas- 
tery, etc. The established repu- 
tation of the man, and the high 
esteem in which he is held by 
Catholics, make us loath to say 
aught against his poetry. But did 



the birth of our Saviour : 

" The oracles are dumb; 

No voice or hideous hum 

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. 
Apollo from his shrine 
Can no more divine, 

With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. 
No nightly trance or breathed spell 
Inspires the pale-ey'd priests from the prophetic 
cell. 

" Nor is Osiris seen, 

In Memphian grove or green, 
Trampling the unshowered grass with lowings loud ; 

Nor can he be at rest 

Within his sacred chest : 
Naught but profoundest hell can be his shroud ; 

In vain with timbrePd anthems dark 

The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipt ark. 

tl He feels from Judah's land 
The dreaded Infant's hand." 



It is little wonder that the es- 
sentially rhetorical mind of Ma- 
caulay should have been so power- 
fully drawn to Milton that his ad- 
miration became extravagant in ex- 
pression both in his review of Mil- 
ton and in his History of England. 
His contrast between Dante and 
Milton is wofully false, for the 
poets were as different as their re- 
ligions. Dante is reverent, awe- 
stricken, prayerful, and humble 
throughout his poem the direct 
reverse of the English poet. 

Mr. S. Baring-Gould, in his book, 
TJie Origin and Development of Reli- 
gious Belief, has an excellent criti- 



200 



The Protestant Element in English Poetry. 



Catholics ever reflect that the ten- 
der religion of sweet Evangeline is 
nothing but a maudlin sentimen- 
talism which the church detests ? 
Did they ever analyze the Golden 
Legend which, because it has 
some saintly legends in it, is oh ! so 
Catholic and observe the studied 
purpose throughout to misrepre- 
sent, not to say ridicule, our faith, 
our sacred rites, our religious 
orders, and to represent Catholic 
ages as stifling with the grossest 
ignorance and superstition ? Whit- 
tier we take to be a fanatic, and 
consequently a man ignorant of 
our faith; yet he has several "le- 
gends " far more poetically told 
than half the translations and adap- 
tations of Longfellow. The charge 
direct of plagiarism was made 
against the latter in the case of his 
poem The Monk Gabriel, 2J\& his 
lines There is a Reaper whose Name 
is Death are said to be a literal 
and unacknowledged translation of 
Wieland's Der Schnitter Tod. 

The absence of all religious in- 
spiration in Protestantism is 
brought prominently into notice in 
recent English poetry. Even Vic- 
tor Hugo has some tender reminis- 
cences of the faith of his child- 
hood, but one looks in vain in con- 
temporary poetry for even slight 
acknowledgments and intimations 
of a Divine Power. Wordsworth 
may have called Poetry back to 
her native wilds and sylvan groves, 
but he has divested her of any de- 
cided religious character. There 
is no religion in the Excursion. 
His noble ode on Immortality, the 
finest in metrical finish since Dry- 
den's Alexander s Feast, is but an 
echo of the old Platonic dream of 
pre-existence. The soul 

("'Trailing clouds of glory, she did come 
From Heaven, which is her home ") 

has intimations of a previous stale 



of half-forgotten life. The Prelude 
contains a very noble eulogy upon 
the Church of England, but reli- 
gion, except it be what is known as 
nature-worship, has absolutely no 
influence upon the lives of the 
characters in the poem. The obli- 
gation of performing our duty, 
which is the theme of the Excursion, 
is drawn from wholly natural mo- 
tives. If our memory serve us 
aright, the Bible is referred to but 
once, and then only incidentally. 
Yet Protestantism claims Words- 
worth as another great religious 
poet. His pure, simple, and noble 
life, his entire dedication of him- 
self to poetry, the serenity of his 
home, and his intimate relations 
with the clergy would seem to 
mark him out as a great Protes- 
tant poet ; but there is no didac- 
tic poet less Protestant than he. 
Young's Night Thoughts are as 
dreary as any of the reverend au- 
thor's sermons, and we can readily 
pardon King George for going to 
sleep when Dr. Young preached in 
the royal chapel, though the sight 
of snoozing royalty cost the doctor 
many bitter tears of wounded vani- 
ty. Cowper's Task has an unplea- 
sant suspicion of clerical snobbish- 
ness. A ;,great critic, Christopher 
North, has declared that James 
Montgomery is the only religious 
poet of the language ; and certainly 
he is free from the faults of Young 
and Cowper, but he is hopelessly 
associated with his unfortunate 
poem of Satan, a composition 
which for ever makes us doubt ot 
the author's piety and sense. 
Wordsworth's religion was a sym- 
pathetic worship of God with na- 
ture ; but he is apt to linger too 
long in the mere works of God, and 
not lift his eyes to the Creator him- 
self. His acute sensibility and fine 
intellect enabled him to see the 



The Protestant Element in English Poetry. 



201 



beneficence of the Catholic Church 
much more clearly than Southey, 
whose Protestantism was of the 
narrow, conventional type. In 
the Ecclesiastical Sonnets Words- 
worth sought to break with his 
Protestant prejudices, but in vain, 
though the sonnet to the Virgin, 
and the opening ones on the early 
Saxon church, attest how power- 
fully toward truth and justice the 
poetic instinct will draw its pos- 
sessor. 

Wordsworth was intolerably vain 
a failing which may explain much 
in his intellectual and religious life. 
His egotism furnished abundant 
fun to his friends. Once he said 
to Charles Lamb : " Now, I think 
Shakspere much overrated. I 
could write as fine poetry as he, if I 
had a mind to." "So you see," 
Lamb would add, telling the story, 
" it was only the mind that was 
wanting." When Coleridge and 
he published their first poetical 
venture conjointly, and it failed, 
Wordsworth always ascribed the 
failure to the poem 2\'ie Ancient 
Mariner, which surpasses even 
Goethe's Erl-Kd'nigiu weird beauty 
of thought, description, and metre. 
Wordsworth owed much to Cole- 
ridge, whose mysticism he could 
understand and use, and whose ar- 
dent defence of Christianity must 
have stimulated him. It is rather 
a pity that Coleridge, as a study, 
has quite passed away, like the 
echo of one of his own wonderful 
monologues. But whoever wishes 
to find deep Christian poesy in 
any of the Lake school must 
turn to Aubrey de Vere, who, with 
possibly the exception of Father 
Faber, is its chief crown and flow- 
er. Wordsworth nobly fulfilled his 
saying that he would create the 
taste by which he would be en- 
joyed. 



Tennyson has deserted Protes- 
tantism for the Knights of the 
Table Round, feeling instinctively 
that where Wordsworth failed he 
should not venture. The In Me- 
moriam has been much praised by 
Catholic critics as an admirable 
philosophico-moral poem, full of 
Catholic thought, particularly with 
reference to communion with the 
departed. It appears to have es- 
caped their notice that the poet 
explains his communion with the 
beloved dead sometimes on a pan- 
theistic theory, sometimes by a 
false spiritualism, never by the 
doctrine of the communion of 
saints or that of intercessory 
prayer ; for Tennyson is a Protes- 
tant of the narrowest type, as his 
Queen Mary abundantly proves. 
It is high time that our critics 
should leave off tracing Catholic 
analogies in poets who scorn and 
detest the church. Better leave 
them to their idols, with our own 
comforting assurance that they will 
never compose a great moral poem 
so long as they remain under Pro- 
testant influences. 

It is a sad sign of the times when 
Shelley's horrid blasphemies are 
made the subject of wide reading 
and praise. It denotes that mor- 
bid tendency to annihilationism 
unhappily brought about by the 
speculations of infidel science. 
The revival of Shelleyism is, of all 
the misfortunes that can befall lit- 
erature, the one most to be depre- 
cated and deplored. Not only is 
he not a great poet, but he is not 
even a decent or moral one. We 
notice a new and enlarged edi- 
tion of Trelawney's Recollections of 
Shelley and Byron a bad, gossipy 
book that no true friend of either 
poet would have written. Perhaps 
the ghastliest and most tragic 
scene in the career of any poet was 



202 



The Protestant Element in English Poetry. 



the heathen obsequies of Shelley, at 
which Byron and Leigh Hunt as- 
sisted, and then indulged in a 
drunken orgy whilst the funeral 
pyre of their friend slowly consum- 
ed in approved Homeric style. 
Poor Shakspere, from all accounts, 
did not die a very good death, but 
his tomb, with its Christian inscrip- 
tion, is sacred compared with Shel- 
ley's " urn." 

Southey called the poets that 
crowned and imitated Byron the 
" Satanic school." The epithet is 
harsh and scarcely deserved, ex- 
cept in the case of Shelley; but, 
certainly, we need not look for any 
religious poetry among them. By- 
ron it was who introduced the fash- 
ion of eliminating God from po- 
etry, and also of adapting the Bi- 
ble, in true Protestant liberty of 
interpretation, to any view of a 
religious subject he might conde- 
scend to adopt. It is doubtful 
whether Milton's Satan or Byron's 
Cain is the more detestable crea- 
tion ; but let both divide the palm. 
Leigh Hunt, who was Thackeray's 
beau-ideal of a snob, wrote a good 
deal of twaddle, and in a book on 
Christianity, composed toward the 
close of his life, he came forward 
to the footlights like a fond pa- 
rent, and said, " Bless you, my chil- 
dren, bless you!" Like Tom Moore, 
who imitated Byron in his poem 
The Loves of the Angels, Hunt 
dearly loved a lord. What Byron 
thought of him was disclosed on 
the fly-leaf of a book which Hunt 
had presented him. Under the 
words "To Byron, from L. Hunt," 
his lordship wrote " Impudent 
puppy." Sir Walter Scott was 
not so great a poet as Byron who, 
indeed, in many respects, is the 
greatest English poet since Shak- 
spere but we venture to predict 
that Sir Walter will outlive him, 



as, indeed,'will many another and 
humbler singer whom Byron hated 
and despised. 

The negativeness of religious 
thought in English poetry is simply 
the result of the Protestant training 
of so many English poets. There 
is no inspiration in Protestantism. 
The poet in Protestantism has 
only one subject he must defame 
and ridicule the church. And 
there are scarcely three English 
poets that have not done this ne- 
gative service to Protestantism. 

We know that many Catholic 
critics are fond of detecting Catho- 
lic doctrine and ideas in all Eng- 
lish poetry ; but it has always 
struck us that such ideas either 
result from the poet's keen ap- 
preciation of what is true and 
beautiful, and consequently relat- 
ed to the church, or, as in Words- 
worth's and Byron's hymns to the 
Blessed Virgin, they are merely 
poetical exercises introduced as 
reliefs. Take Chaucer, who should 
have been a Catholic, but whom 
Warton pretty conclusively proves 
to have been a Lollard, or follower 
of Wycliffe. Our Catholic critic 
goes into ecstasies over the Canter- 
bury Tales. What a beautiful pic- 
ture of old Catholic times ! How 
true, how natural! Now, in fact, 
the poem is a lashing satire and 
false picture of a holy Catholic de- 
votion that, namely, of pilgrim- 
ages. The characters have no 
piety. They spend their time ca- 
rousing, courting, and tale-telling. 
The Nun's Tale is very prettily 
told, but its subject is one of those 
legends which no religieuse would 
dream of believing so very fervent- 
ly as this nun is described as be- 
lieving. The object is to cast 
doubt and ridicule upon the acts 
of the saints. The monks are un- 
sparingly ridiculed, and the "poor 



The Protestant Element in English Poetry. 



203 



parson of a town," with his whin- 
ing about poverty, his complaints 
against his ecclesiastical superiors, 
and his Bible-reading, is old Wy- 
cliffe himself, who was for ever 
howling about priestly wealth, the 
inefficacy of the sacraments when 
administered by unworthy hands, 
and the necessity of spreading the 
Bible in the vulgar tongue. We 
should much sooner believe that 
"Sweet Will" himself was a Ca- 
tholic, if for no other reason than 
that he leaves the poor friars 
alone at a time when to hunt and 
harry the monks with either stick 
or pen was the high-road to wealth 
and fame. 

We are utterly unable to find 
profound Catholic faith, dogma, 
theological illustrations, ritual, and 
piety in Spenser's Faerie Queene, 
which, either as an allegory or as a 
Christian poem, is inferior to Bun- 
van's Pilgrim s Progress. There is 
nothing but a wearisome proces- 
sion of virtues and vices, without 
any apparent reason for their parad- 
ing at all. Certainly the poem is 
more pagan than Christian, and if 
the " heavenly lady Una with her 
milk-white lamb " typifies faith, it 
is a type which St. Paul knew no- 
thing about. It should be a sub- 
ject of devout thanksgiving that 
several books of the Faerie Queene 
were consumed in the fire with 
which an enraged populace drove 
Spenser out of Ireland, whither he 
had been sent to play the part of 
" greedy Avarice," so well describ- 
ed in his own allegory. " I doubt 
not," saith Milton, " that our Spen- 
ser hath more wisdom than Aqui- 
nas. His face hath the sweet linea- 
ments of Gospel books." John 
must have seen Edmund some time 
before the fire. 

No one, of course, would look for 
religion in a play. The dramas of 



Beaumont and Fletcher, when they 
are not exceedingly immodest, are 
exceedingly dull. We beg to be 
excused from looking for " pearls 
of Catholic truth " in these muck- 
heaps. Glorious John Dryden, after 
his conversion, redeemed many a 
failing by that magnificent pen of 
his. Charles James Fox said of 
the defence of transubstantiation 
in the Hind and Panther that it is 
the finest specimen of argumenta- 
tive verse in any language. But 
Dryden never got any inspiration 
from Protestantism. Much is made 
of Pope's Catholicity, but a man 
that took Bolingbroke " for guide, 
philosopher, and friend" was cer- 
tainly no credit to the church. 
Johnson says, apropos of the Essay 
on Man, that Pope did not know 
what religious notions he was ad- 
vocating, and very probably no one 
else did. Dr. Warburton, a pom- 
pous pedant, discovered in it a 
fine argument for natural religion 
which might be carried out into 
a defence of Christianity (Heaven 
save the mark !) Pope was very 
much obliged to Warburton for 
discovering a depth of argument 
in the essay which he himself had 
never suspected. 

Goldsmith, Gray, and Collins 
keep shy of Protestantism and ad- 
mit only of the half-deistical moral 
reflections fashionable in their day. 
Gray's Elegy is very sweet and ten- 
der, but very pagan. We should 
be grateful that the muse was no 
longer prostituted and shamed as in 
the corrupt court of Charles II. a 
charge from which Dryden himself 
is not free. The English poetry of 
the last century is comparatively 
pure, but he must have a lynx eye 
who can find in it all sorts of Ca- 
tholic beauties. 

Cowper's Task is often referred 
to as a product of the Protestant 



204 



The Protestant Element in English Poetry. 



muse. It has an interest from the 
afflictions of the poet himself. 
He was melancholy mad upon re- 
ligion, and his malady was intensi- 
fied by the injudicious counsel of a 
preacher who assured him that he 
was possessed by the devil. The 
history of Cowper is a painful il- 
lustration of the helplessness of 
Protestantism to impart true re- 
ligious comfort ; for even in his 
lucid hours his religion was of that 
gloomy, repulsive cast that would 
drive a sane man mad, not to 
speak of one whose mind was al- 
ready diseased. The moral re- 
flections in the Task, like those in 
Thomson's Seasons, are of the nega- 
tive, colorless kind. We adore the 
Deity and praise his works, and 
learn this truth : enough for man to 
know that virtue alone is its own 
reward and happiness below 
which is not true. 

It is useless, nay, ridiculous, for 
Catholics to complain of the way 
in which the English . poets have 
treated the church. If classics of 
our language have been written by 
Protestants, classics they will re- 
main, and we are foolish not to 
read and to make use of them for 
our culture, education, amusement, 
and moral improvement, so far as 
they can improve us. We can 
read them with pure hearts and 
faith-enlightened eyes. It will 
not do for us to remain in igno- 
rance of them, or to show a very 
Catholic but perhaps a very Gothic 
scorn of them. Gibbon was an in- 
fidel, but what scholar can do with- 
out his history ? Hamlet, Othello, 
Macbeth, and Lear transcend the 
Trilogy of ^Eschylus. The Sam- 
son Agonistes of Milton might per- 
haps rank with the Prometheus 
Sound, of which Cicero said : "To 
tins alone among mortal utterances 
the term divine truly may be ap- 



plied." There is no sweeter idy 
than the Deserted Village, no ten- 
derer odes than Collins' Evening 
and Keats' Nightingale. We must 
know the rich and abundant poetry 
that lies about us in our English 
speech. When our Catholic sensi- 
bilities are jarred we must follow 
the rule of the musician, who, when 
his fingers trip upon the wrong key, 
drowns the discord at once by a 
" tempest of sweet sounds." We 
must forget the false notes of the 
poet for the sake of the greater 
melody that he can make us hear. 

We should not despair of a rich 
and glorious Catholic poetry, which 
assuredly will come when the time 
comes for shaking off the mastery 
of the great Protestant poets. 
There is no disguising the fact that 
where the religious element ap- 
pears in our poetry it is unmistaka- 
bly Protestant; as, fcr example, in 
the wishy-washy "poetry" that 
fills so large a space of our periodi- 
cal literature and popular books 
of poems. The sickly sentimental 
views of life, the scattering of 
flowers over death, the lack of 
strong, nervous Christian faith, 
hope, and charity, indicate the Pro- 
testant inspiration. Virulent at- 
tacks in verse upon the church are 
long out of fashion, except with 
that favorite of the Muses, the 
English Punch. 

The writer of this has found the 
benefit and agreeableness of con- 
fining his poetical reading to the 
older poets. A new poem is not 
like a new essay. This is the great 
distinction between poetry and 
prose : that while the latter is per- 
ishable from its nature, true poetry 
is immortal. Shakspere will out- 
last the British Empire. You will 
read this or that essay and never 
dream of reperusing it ; but you will 
turn time and again to your favor- 



A Days Lesson. 205 

ite poet, who is, or should be, one singers, but chiefly to those that 
that has already attained Parnas- consecrate their " heavenly aift to 
sus. Cheer and God-speed to all the the glory of God and of his church ' 



A DAY'S LESSON. 



UPON the hill-top not to-day I stand 

With heart-beat stilled and reverent soul bent low 

Before the glory of the evening's glow 
Lighting the skies and shadowing the land : 
Above my head blazes the still, hot noon, 

Through woods, song-silent, drifts the cricket's voice 

Persistent, telling with unceasing noise 
Of golden August's death so near, so soon ! 
The hill-crest's azure harvest now is o'er ; 

Shrivelled the clinging globes ; the leaves, grown red, 

Seem answering flames to burning sun o'erhead. 
A blackened circle seems our smouldering fire 
Where it has touched no green life springing more, 
And scarce its dusky smoke-wreaths to the sky aspire. 

ii. 

Feel we within our veins the summer's death, 
Our active life transfused in indolence, 
Steeped in the drowsy haze filling each sense 

With heaviness like one that slurabereth. 

Is all our life to-day a monotone 

Like to the cricket's hum, no heaven-sent song 
Bearing our souls in loftier ways along; 

All purpose shrivelled by the lifeless noon ? 

Idle the pencil by the sketch-book lies, 
Unread the poet whose June-rifled words 
Should have sufficed us for the hushed wood-birds; 

Heart-silent we, like viol all unstrung, 

Our smouldering thoughts scarce reach the burning skies 

As if for us naught heavenly had ever sung. 



The day wears on no more song-silent now. 
I hear sweet voices speak and, through the trees, 
Float tones remembered, on caressing breeze, 

While light intenser crowns the mountains' brow. 



206 A Days Lesson. 

Lo! in that light I see the berries blue 
Another harvest give, won by the death 
Of that sweet summer who so perisheth 

That our loved earth her beauty may renew. 

Even our fire-blight I see clothed in green, 
And richer harvest from its darkness spring ; 
The heavens' healing blue still borrowing 

Our grateful lips with royal hue to stain. 

Kind, thoughtful nature, in her strength serene, 

So giving to her dead a fuller life again. 



The smoky veil that seemed at noon to fill 
Soul, heart, and brain with empty indolence, 
Sun-woven now, steepeth our every sense 

With voiceless prayer and rapture strangely still. 

Light-glorified, the golden sea pours down; 
Mighty as love, it clothes the hills with grace, 
Hiding each seam and scar upon their face 

Circling their heads with more than royal crown. 

So shall life's scars one day such radiance wear. 
No cloud the brightness flecks, shadow and shine 
Seem but as one within that light divine. 

Low at our feet tire waves of heaven break, 

We hear their music in the silent air 

While softly our awed hearts to Love Eternal wake. 



v. 



The days wear on, and soon the crimson leaves 
Shall bid us tread the foot-ways of the plain 
And join home duty's loosened threads again ; 

The summer's harvest binding in its sheaves : 

Shall bid us leave the misty hills we love 

Where God's great shadow rests in solemn peace, 
Where souls from weary cares find sweet release 

So near earth seemeth to the sky above ! 

Soon shall our feet along the city's ways 

Press stones unyielding, bare of flower or moss. 
Yet shall the sunset burn the sky across 

God's shadow in the skies, e'en o'er the street, 

Kindling our lives to daily acts of praise, 

The love the mountains taught laid at our brothers' feet. 



Bally murry. 



207 



BALLYMURRY. 



IN the year 187- I was a clerk 
in the office of the Chief Secretary 
for Ireland at Dublin Castle. My 
salary was but a paltry three hun- 
dred a year less income-tax and, 
were it not for the aid of an occa- 
sional ten-pound Bank of Ireland 
note, always new, always crisp, 
transmitted to me by my maiden 
aunt, Miss Mary Anne Delaney, 
who resided in solitary grandeur 
in a lovely valley in the Wicklow 
Mountains, I could not have kept 
out of debt, or have maintained 
the pace of the society into which, 
thanks to my " swell " appointment, 
I was gently but rapidly floated. 

We chief secretary's clerks look- 
ed upon ourselves as the very 
creme de la creme of bureaucrats, re- 
garding the remainder of the Irish 
civil service as being simply " cad- 
dish," and holding on to the same 
high rung of the social ladder as 
the titled, lisping noodles who 
formed that corps d' elite known 
as the household of his excellency 
the lord lieutenant. We assumed 
the blast/ airs of Piccadilly nobs ; 
were dressed by Smallpage of Lon- 
don, who visited our " impossible 
country " twice a year ; we belong- 
ed either to the Kildare or 
Stephen's Green Clubs ; we at- 
tended the levees of the viceroy, 
claiming invitations to dinners and 
carpet-dances as a right; we din- 
ed with our chief at his lodge in 
the Phoenix Park in a word, were, 
now that I look back upon the 
office and its belongings, a set of 
pompous, stuck-up, long-eared jack- 
asses. My father, a member of the 
inner bar, died of brain fever, the 
result of overwork, while I was yet 



a child. My mother lived to see 
me installed in the office. Oh ! what 
a wrench it was to lose her tender 
companionship, her loving guidance, 
at the time I needed it most. 

My sole surviving relative was 
my aunt, a sister of my mother. 
Miss Delaney lived her own life. 
She had a turn for farming, and 
would take three crops out of her 
two hundred acres, while Myles 
Byrne, of Kilpatrick, " a knowledge- 
able man " with better land, could 
barely manage to squeeze out two. 
She had money in the three per 
cents., a few shares in the Grand 
Canal, some Pipe Water deben- 
tures, and a snug old-fashioned 
residence " bosomed high in tufted 
trees," of which more anon. She 
was the happy possessor of a tap of 
"curious" tawny port, laid down 
when " Boney wasleppin'" in other 
words, during the great Peninsular 
War ; a couple of well-bred, well- 
fed, but quiet horses, which on 
state occasions were attached to a 
yellow chariot of the year one, 
when a series of stately visitations 
were solemnly perpetrated. 

Father Luke Doyle, the parish 
priest of Innistogue, dined with my 
aunt every Sunday. Doctor Mo- 
riarty, the ^Esculapius of Bally- 
murry, was a constant caller ; not 
that my aunt required his profes- 
sional services, but she was in no- 
wise averse to a gossip, and the 
worthy knight of the pestle was au 
courant with the events of the hour, 
from the price Larry Muldoon got 
for his " boneens " at the fair of 
Glendalough to the very last phase 
in Mr. Gladstone's proposed 
Church Disestablishment Bill. With 



208 



Ballyumrry. 



the county magnates Miss Delaney 
was on visiting terms only. 

" They are too stuck up for me, 
Joe," she would say to me, " too 
new in their ways. No old rose- 
wood or mahogany about them. It's 
all Eastlake and ceremony and 
rubbish of every kind. They are 
always doing manners; and while 
good breeding is one thing and I 
must say some of them are very 
well bred people there is too much 
of London varnish all round to 
make it -pleasant for me. They 
don't take any interest in what's 
going on about them. Its all Rot- 
ten Row, and the Season, and Town, 
and gibberish of that kind. If you 
go to visit them, it's a cup of wash 
tea you're offered instead of a glass 
of port and a cut of seed-cake, as 
it used to be in my time. If you 
go to dine with them you don't 
know what you are eating, and 
everything is carved for you 'as if 
you were a child or that you had 
no teeth. Give me the good old- 
fashioned roast and boiled, and 
sherry wine at dinner and port 
wine after it. Now it's champagne. 
Pah ! I call it gutter." 

I was in the habit of visiting 
Ballymurry twice a year : at 
Christmas, which was celebrated in 
a good old-fashioned style, full of 
color, full of charm, and with a 
gladness that rang into the heart 
like peals of merry bells ; and at 
the commencement of the grouse- 
shooting season, for my aunt's farm 
proudly boasted a mountain, and 
the mountain proved a coigne of 
vantage to a pack or two of grouse 
driven from the preserves of a Mr. 
Peter Lambert, a London merchant, 
who considered it the " correct 
thing " to have a shooting-box in 
Ireland, and whose habit it was to 
repair thither and to blaze at birds 
that cost him in the neighborhood 



of five pounds apiece. My aunt 
would have nothing to say to her 
occasional neighbors, although this 
cockney sportsman made signs of 
copious civility. 

"He may bow and smirk as 
much as he pleases ; I'll take no 
notice of him. It's too bad to 
think of an English tradesman 
shooting over Tabborna Shulagh, 
where none but an O'Byrne should 
be permitted to plant his heel." 

Miss Delaney put up notices all 
along her mearing, grimly warning 
trespassers to beware, with an es- 
pecial postscript, enlivened by the 
rude effigy of an extended fore- 
finger, announcing that all dogs 
found straying on Ballymurry would 
be shot instanter. It was, then, no 
small chagrin to Mr. Peter Lambert 
to find that his best packs of grouse 
sought sanctuary on a mountain 
upon whose slopes neither he nor 
his dogs would be permitted to 
encroach ; and, although every pre- 
caution was taken to prevent the 
birds from straying, and every in- 
ducement offered them to remain, 
such was their perversity that they 
would fly over to Ballymurry even 
when Dinny Byrne, my aunt's /rt^- 
tum, and myself happened to be 
"handy" and a couple of guns at 
half-cock. 

At the period at which this story 
opens I had not met Mr. Lambert, 
although his pudgy form was quite 
familiar to me, clad in the loudest 
possible plaid, with Knickerbockers 
and bright scarlet heather stockings. 
I had no particular admiration for 
him, regarding him as a parvenu, 
vulgar, intrusive, and a bore; and 
although I knocked over, ay, and 
bagged, his birds, there were mo- 
ments when I felt positively asham- 
ed of myself for taking so mean and 
miserable an advantage ; moments 
when I felt inclined to step over to 



Ballymnrry. 



him and say: "Hang those con- 
founded notices ! Come after your 
own birds. They don't belong to 
us" In the office I used to become 
quite an authority as the grouse sea- 
son approached. I was in the habit 
of bragging about my mountain as 
if it was Sugnacullagh or Djouce, 
invariably speaking of it as mine 
own ; and when the 2oth approach- 
ed I was consulted as to the condi- 
tion of the birds in my part of the 
country : if they were " wild on the 
wing " or were "lying steady," and 
generally as to the prospects of the 
forthcoming shooting season. My 
confreres were very jealous of me 
because I did not offer them a day's 
shooting; but the fact is I had 
blown such loud trumpet notes 
anent the preserves that, like all 
impostors, I enjoyed a most whole- 
some terror of being discovered, 
and covered my retreat shabbily 
enough by explaining that the en- 
tire shooting scarcely sufficed for 
the members of my aunt's family. 
This was literally true : I was her 
sole living relative. 

It was the i8th of August, 187-, 
and, having applied to my chief, 
Sir Michael Hicks Beach, for leave, 
the welcome permission was ac- 
corded, and I was a free man for 
fourteen days a gentleman at 
large. I had received a letter from 
my aunt a week previously, giving 
me a whole list of commissions to 
execute. " Just step into Dolan's, 
in Thomas Street," she wrote, " and 
get me a couple of pounds of his 
green tea ; it's the best I can buy 
anywhere. As you'll be in Thomas 
Street, go up to James Street and 
order a box of mould-fours at Fin- 
negan's. Don't let him persuade 
you to take composite or sperma- 
ceti. I never was accustomed to 
them, and as long as the silver 
snuffers that belonged to my great- 
VOL. xxvin. 14 



grandmother lasts I'll use nothing 
but mould-fours. You can't mis- 
take Finnegan's ; it's a little shop 
near the poorhouse. I want you 
to call at Lundy Foot's for a pound 
of snuff don't think I use it all 
myself; I get help. Tell the young 
man a tallow-faced, lantern-jawed, 
civil fellow it's for me. I want half 
Blackguard, half High Toast. As 
you'll be so close to the North Wall, 
there's a ship-store where they sell 
red pocket-handkerchiefs ; give 
two shillings for three not a half- 
penny more or less, mind. When I 
was in Dublin last I left my front 
wig in a hair-dresser's in Wicklow 
Street. I'll want it badly, as the 
one I'm wearing had a hole burnt 
in it the night before last. I was 
reading the Wicklow News Letter, 
but it was so stupid that I went 
fast asleep over it. I forget the 
name of the hair-dresser, but Wick- 
low Street isn't Sackville Street, and 
it will do you good to take the 
walk." 

Such was the tenor of Miss De- 
laney's epistle. The idea of a man 
in the chief secretary's office going 
in search of a mouldy wig in Wick- 
low Street and of tallow candles 
near the poorhouse ! It was too 
much, and yet I managed to acquit 
myself of my absurd task ; for I was 
very, very much attached to my 
aunt, and clung to her as the last 
plank of a good old family who had 
all sunk in those waters that yield 
nothing back to the shore. The fel- 
lows in the office envied me as on the 
morning of the ipthl just looked in, 
very much as the chief might have 
done, about luncheon-time, with 
that superb sense of freedom only 
known to those who are compelled 
to the dreary drudgery of the desk's 
dead wood. I was received with 
the usual chaff. 

" Marston's off," cried one, "and 



210 



Ballymuvry. 



that's more than he will be able to 
say for his gun till we see him 
again." 

" I hear Joe Marston has fine 
shooting in Stoneybatter," laughed 
another. 

"Are you taking the lord-lieu- 
tenant with you, Joe ?" 

" Why, of course he is, for duck- 
shooting. Lord Spencer's red 
beard will make an elegant decoy." 

" Don't glut the market, Mars- 
ton." 

"I hear you sell the grouse at 
half a crown a brace and a drink." 

" Send the chief a hamper, and 
you'll be asked to eat the birds at 
the Lodge." 

" If you don't hit the birds, Joe, 
knock plenty of feathers out of 
them." 

"You'd better buy a couple of 
brace at Green's, in William Street, 
to take down with you." 

This sort of thing rained upon 
me !; 

" Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks 
In Vallombrosa." 

" By the way, Marston," exclaim- 
ed Alfred Bydeford, one of the 
" best form " in the office, " Fred 
Tremaine is going to shoot quite 
close to you." 

" Indeed ! Where ?" 

" On some fellow's mountain near 
Auchavana." 

" There are several mountains 
near Auchavana, Bydeford. I am 
ten miles the other side." 

" Your place is Bally something." 

" Ballymurry." 

" Is there a Kilnacarrick any- 
where about ?" 

" It lies beside my place." 

"Then that's where Tremaine is 
going to blaze away." 

" There is no shooting at Kilna- 
carrick I mean there's no one there 
Tremaine could possibly be ac- 
quainted with." 



"It's some London man that Tre- 
maine pioked up in the train." 

" A tallow-man ?" 

" Something that way." 

This was very disagreeable intel- 
ligence. Fred Tremaine was a 
walking sneer. Icy, polished, ele- 
gant, he had no good word for his 
fellow. Whenever he could utter a 
sarcasm he uttered it; whenever he 
could wound he wounded. His 
steel glittered and cut down on the 
nerve like a dissecting-knife. No- 
body knew who he was. He had 
been imported from England from 
the Home Office and put over our 
heads. A good man was deprived 
of a private secretaryship that Tre- 
maine might step into it. A good 
man was turned out of a set of 
apartments in the Castle to accom- 
modate Tremaine. He was dislik- 
ed, but he was feared, and this fear 
brought him kowtow. Barney Bod- 
kin was the only man in the office 
who openly defied him. Tremaine 
sneered at Barney, and Barney 
used his shillelagh pretty freely, as 
was his wont. One day Tremaine 
so far forgot himself as to taunt 
Barney with poverty. It was a ras- 
cally thing to do, and there were 
men in the office who would have 
given Tremaine an undoubted 
quietus had not Bodkin been so 
well able to defend his own corner. 

"I'll tell you why I'm poor, Mr. 
Tremaine," he said: "because out 
of my four hundred a year I'm 
supporting my mother and my two 
sisters; but, poor as I am, I am rich 
enough to pay my subscription to 
the Kildare St. Club and my sub- 
scription to the Royal St. George's 
Yacht Club. I see your name up 
for ballot at both these clubs, and 
I now give you fair warning get 
your proposer to take it down." 

Tremaine laughed at the idea of 
his being pilled at any club; but 



Ballymurry. 



211 



the Ides of March came, and with 
them such a shower of black beans 
as no candidate ever yet received 
at either of those aristocratic in- 
stitutions. Barney and I were 
close friends, and Mr. Tremaine 
hated me because of this. 

It is scarcely necessary to say 
that this visit of Tremaine's to Kil- 
nacarrick was the^ reverse of agree- 
able to me. I knew how he would 
sneer at my mountain and my 
shooting, of which I had so per- 
petually bragged, at my aunt, at 
my surroundings ; what stories he 
would tell, what lies he would hash 
up, what caricatures he would 
draw. For a moment I thought 
of giving up my visit, of telegraph- 
ing to say I could not get leave ; 
and then came a rush of indigna- 
tion in my heart against myself, 
and I resolved to go, to shoot, to 
enjoy myself. What was Mr. Fred 
Tremaine to me ? I could afford to 
laugh at his stories, laugh at his 
sneers, laugh, if necessary, at him- 
self and his friend. It was quite 
possible we might never meet ; and 
yet I felt that one of Tremaine's 
first acts would be to visit me 
merely for the purpose of gratify- 
ing a malignant curiosity. 

Having lunched with some of 
the fellows we always got our 
luncheon in from the mess-room of 
the Castle guard I strolled down 
Dame Street, and, turning into Suf- 
folk Street, dropped into Rigby's 
for my gun, ammunition, et cetera. 
Standing at the counter and ex- 
amining a central-fire stood Tre- 
maine. His slight, graceful figure, 
his delicate features, his small 
white hands he never wore gloves 
his tiny feet encased in varnished 
boots, and his general get-up, al- 
ways quiet, but always impossible 
to the man of the outer world, im- 
parted to him that ton which is 



ever so much after all in the race 
for place. The cruel sarcasm in 
his mouth, the cold glitter in his 
gray eyes, the quiver in the nos- 
tril told their own tale, labelling 
him with the single word " treach- 
erous." 

I did not want to join him, but, 
perceiving me, he came languidly 
forward. 

" How do, Marston ? Off to- 
day ?" 

" Yaas," endeavoring to imitale 
his careless drawl. 
" Wicklow?" 
"Yaas." 

" I'm offered some feathers at a 
place called Kilnacarrick." 

" Not at Lambert's, the chan- 
dler ?" 

" If his dinners are good, it's 
pretty much the same to me, be he 
chandler or chancellor." 
"Ah!" 

" Is the shooting good ?" 
This was a chance. I would 
put him off. 

" You'll do twenty miles, and 
then you'll not crack a cartridge." 
I did not say there were no 
birds. 

" Any hares ?" 
"A few." 

" Ah !" And turning on his heel, 
he left me. 

Having transacted my business 
with Rigby, I whistled for an out- 
side car, and placing my gun in a 
very prominent position, so as to 
show the Dubliners that I was 
about to leave them for a while, I 
told the man to drive me to the 
club, where lay my impedimenta. 
Fate was now busy with the skein 
of my life. I had resolved upon 
taking the 4.45 train at Westland 
Row for Rathdrum, making con- 
nection at Bray; but, finding an in- 
vitation to a garden party at Ma- 
rion's, fronVLady Charlemont, await- 



212 



Ballymurry. 



ing me under favor of the letter 
M in the club-rack, I went into 
the writing-room in order to reply 
to it. Here I met old " Five-to- 
Three " La Touche, so called on 
account of his invariably laying the 
odds at whist, although he never 
played nor did he know anything 
of the game. " Five-to-Three " at 
this time o' day was usually charg- 
ed to the muzzle with a story, and 
the man who dropped in for it 
dined out upon it. 

"So you are after the grouse, 
Marston," he exclaimed. " Ah ! it's 
twenty years since I tramped the 
heather or pulled a trigger. The 
last time I went out it was with 
Charlie Bagenal, as quare a fellow 
as ever stepped in shoe-leather. 
He comes up to Dublin once in 
a way, and drops in here. You 
must know him, Joe. He \vears 
a suit made out of hand-wove wool, 
and, upon me conscience, it is 
rough as a cocoanut. Well, I 
went down to Charlie on the ipth, 
and Bagenal Park was full from 
cellar to garret. There was wan 
English chap there that we all re- 
solved upon taking a rise out of. 
This fellow was a great dab at 
shooting, and promised to 'wipe 
our eyes ' which means in shooting 
language to knock over more birds 
than any of us the next day. Pad- 
dy Finn was Bagenal's game-keep- 
er, and Paddy was instructed 
to" 

" I beg your pardon, Mr. La 
Touche," I interrupted, after glanc- 
ing at my watch ; " but I've lost 
the 4.45 train from Westland Row, 
and I must do the 5.10 from Har- 
cotirt Street." 

" Be off, then, Joe ; the story will 
keep better than the birds." 

" How long will it take you to 
get to Harcourt Street station?" I 
asked the car driver. 



"Two shilltn's, sir." 

" All right," interpreting his wily 
meaning. 

He "decanted" me at the depot 
just as the last bell was ringing 
and a corduroyed porter in the act 
of closing the door. 

"That bell is worth th' odd six- 
pence, sir," pocketing my half- 
crown ; " anyhow the fright I got 
for fear I'd be late earned it. Ge- 
langout o' that !" to his sorry steed 
as he rattled merrily away. 

Having hastily procured a ticket, 
I sprang up the steep stone stairs 
leading to the platform, where the 
porter to whom I had entrusted my 
impedimenta awaited me. 

" Bedad yer shuck for a sate, sir, 
barrin' ye thravel third-class." 

" Anywhere," I cried. 

A gentleman descended from a 
first-class carriage. *' I am not go- 
ing by this train, sir," he courteous- 
ly said. " There is a seat in this 
compartment." 

The porter flung my round dozen 
of parcels on the vacant cushion, 
into the netting overhead, under 
the seat, everywhere, and, dexter- 
ously pocketing his shilling, vio- 
lently thrust me into the carriage, 
which was already in motion. 

When I had subsided a little I 
looked around. Right opposite to 
me sat my aunt's neighbor, Mr. 
Lambert, arrayed in a tartan com- 
bining the plaids of all the clans 
that fought that last fight at Drum- 
mossie Moor. His heather stock- 
ings were of bright crimson, his 
scarf to match, while in the band 
of a white Alpine hat he wore a 
short, perky, blood-red feather. 
Yellow gloves adorned his enor- 
mous hands, and on the forefinger 
of the right, outside the gauntlet, 
blazed a diamond ring. Beside 
him sat a white-faced, white-neck- 
tied youth, whose dawning mous- 



Ballymurry. 



213 



tache afforded him considerable 
trouble, since from the commence- 
ment to the end of our journey he 
never ceased a bootless endeavor 
to twist it into a hook or curl at 
either side of his mouth. This 
young gentleman bore a very 
strong resemblance to Mr. Lam- 
bert, being his son and heir; he 
Avas faultlessly attired in a mixed 
shooting suit, and. not being " strong 
on calves," discreetly elected to 
adorn his lower limbs with leather 
leggings. Beyond Mr. Lambert, 
Jr., was seated a /^//-looking man 
of five-and-thirty, recklessness and 
dissipation written upon his bold 
and handsome face, and good- 
breeding lying perdii) as if ashamed 
of being found with one so utterly 
unworthy. He wore the unmis- 
takable stamp of the British cavalry 
officer, and I mentally noted him 
as some shady swell whom Mr. 
Lambert was glad to brag about as 
" My son's friend, Captain De 
Blood." In the corner nestled a 
lady. She was dark almost to 
swart hi ness ; her black, black eyes 
were large, now glittering, now as 
though some unseen veil had sud- 
denly concealed their startling 
sheen. Her mouth was a very 
cradle for scorn. She was attired 
in black, no single gleam of collar 
or cuff relieving the dead same- 
ness. She seemed to shrink from 
the man beside her, not through 
fear but rather in dislike- 

The two seats on my right were 
occupied by baggage, the third by 
a lady youthful in form and close- 
ly veiled. Her dress was of blue 
serge in great plaits and trimmed 
with heavy hussar braid. Her 
small black felt hat, that sat upon 
luxurious chestnut hair, was orna- 
mented with a rich blue feather, 
which swept past it and down to 
her left shoulder. She wore black 



gauntlet gloves. By her side hung 
suspended a chatelaine of oxidized 
silver. The knick-knack being 
costly and in superb taste, I leaned 
a little forward in order to catch a 
glimpse of her face. She turned. 
Our eyes met, and no, I cannot 
describe the sensation that flashed 
through me. It was not a shock 
of pain nor yet a thrill of pleasure. 
It was ecstasy dashed with sadness, 
hope mingled with fear. She was 
not handsome, at least in the pro- 
fessional-beauty sense of the term. 
Her forehead was low, her brows 
too heavy for Phidias or Apelles, 
her nose not "on the line," her 
mouth, though rich and ripe, large 
if not massive. Her blue-gray eyes 
were large and pleading, and full 
of a deep, passionate tenderness. 
No, she was not handsome, and 
yet in that single look I saw some- 
thing that all my life long I ima- 
gined I must have been seeking, 
never finding it till now ; and in 
that moment the wheel of my life's 
fate was suddenly set moving. 
Yea, and I felt this. 

She withdrew her glance, color- 
ing ever so slightly. I turned, and 
my eyes met those of the dark wo- 
man, who smiled, as though she 
would have said : " I see it all ; / 
know what that look has done," as 
indeed she did. 

I began to wonder if these ladies 
belonged to the Lambert party. It 
might be so. Shooting brings 
strange people together. As a 
pre-eminently social institution it 
takes high rank in Ireland. It 
brings together at this pleasant 
holiday season those various idio- 
syncrasies who otherwise would 
rarely, if ever, meet : the wealthy 
squire and the impoverished retir- 
ed captain, his younger brother, 
or distant cousin, whose cavalry 
swagger has toned down to a sort 



214 



Ballymurry. 



of half-pay shamble, but whose old 
" form " returns when his foot is on 
his native stubble and the game- 
keepers address him as "Master 
Dick " ; the sporting barrister will 
join hands with the shooting attor- 
ney, and the bachelor baronet take 
wine with his extravagant nephew, 
who, nunquam non paratus. will im- 
prove the occasion during the visit 
by angling for " a little check." The 
2oth of August, too, has special 
charms for the fairer portion of hu- 
manity. In the first place the dull 
routine of the country-house is en- 
livened by guests who are often eli- 
gible partis. Beauty need no lon- 
ger " blush unseen," or "waste its 
sweetness " on the village doctor or 
the doubtful squireen, while many a 
successful match has resulted from 
the propinquity attendant upon this 
autumn gathering. 

My imaginings were soon dis- 
counted by reality. 

" Whew ! 'ow 'ot it is," exclaim- 
ed Mr. Lambert, removing his Al- 
pine hat and mopping his rubicund 
visage with a flaming silk handker- 
chief emblazoned in all four cor- 
ners with his monogram. 

" Much hotter than in town," ob- 
served his son. 

" Mam'selle, will you mind let- 
ting down that window a bit?" 
addressing the dark lady, who sat 
with her face to the engine. 

" It won't go down," she said, 
her accent being slightly foreign. 

" It's an Irish window," laughed 
the captain, showing a superb set 
of teeth. " See," he exclaimed, " it 
goes up when you want to put it 
down, and it goes down when you 
want to put it up," vigorously suit- 
ing the action to the word, and just 
succeeding in moving the window 
either way by one inch. " If it 
wasn't for the glass I'd soon open 
it," doubling his fist. 



"Never mind the glass," said 
Mam'selle sneeringly. 

"Bah!" laughed the captain, 
"you'd be the very first to cry 
Sacr-r-r-r-r-re bleu ! if you got a 
scratch in the shindy." 

" What do the officers of the Sixtli 
do if there is a shindy going for- 
ward ?" she asked, adding with in- 
tense maliciousness : " Back out, eh, 
Monsieur le Capitaine ?" 

A dark scowl crossed the man's 
face as he observed, with an attempt 
at jocoseness : 

" Mam'selle is in a Pere la Chaise 
mood to-day. Eh, Miss Lambert?" 
addressing the young lady opposite. 

She was, then, the daughter of 
Lambert. Would she drop her 
^'s ? She took no notice of the 
captain's remark. I felt glad, in- 
expressibly glad, at this. His easy 
swagger evidently possessed no at- 
traction for her. Her silence was 
contemptuous ; I read it in her 
mouth. 

The captain, perceiving that his 
shot had missed its mark, adroitly 
changed the subject. 

" I wonder, Lambert, has that 
old woman, your next-door neigh- 
bor, stuck up any fresh notices 
along the mountain's brow?" 

Mr. Lambert grew very red in 
the face, glanced furtively at me, 
coughed, wriggled uneasily, and 
made no reply. 

"What stories Dick here tells 
about her !" 

" Dick knows nothing about the 
lady," blurted Lambert. 

" If we don't have fun out of the 
old woman this season write me 
down an ass," chuckled the hope- 
ful scion of the house; "and if " 
Here a kick on the shin from his fa- 
ther caused him to utter a dismal 
howl. 

" I vote we run up counter no- 
tices," cried the captain. 



Ballymurry. 



215 



" If you will take my advice, 
Captain Molesworth," quietly ob- 
served Mam'selle, " you'll leave 
that very respectable old lady alone ; 
she's just the sort of woman who 
could, as hunting-men say, give you 
a ' c rum pier.' " 

" She's a dear old thing, with her 
coal-scuttle bonnet of the year one, 
and her ermine tippet, and her 
sable muff, and her Gampy umbrel- 
la," cried Miss Lambert enthusi- 
astically. " Any person who would 
annoy her is my enemy. I saw 
her twice last year, and, although she 
scowled at me most unmercifully, 
I felt as if I could have taken her 
pokey bonnet in my hands, have 
plunged my head down into the 
tunnel, and have kissed her." 

" I won't have no war on my 
neighbor, Miss Delaney," said Mr. 
Lambert, although glaring hard at 
me. " She is a little straitlaced 
and old-fashioned in her notions. 
I don't come but once a year, and 
it so 'appens as she won't 'ave me. 
I don't stop over-long, and I wish 
to be neighbor-like, but she won't 
'ave it. Everybody to their liking, 
say I. Amelia, look out ; this 'ere 
is Bray 'Ead." 

"Is it not exquisite !" exclaimed 
the young girl. "Such purple! 
The heather seems glowing with Ty- 
rian dye." 

The line runs right along the 
shore and beneath the frowning 
Bray Head, now through tunnels, 
now across fairy bridges suspend- 
ed high in air. It is needless my 
attempting to describe this sea- 
path among the shelving hills, whose 
bronzed faces smile at their own 
wildness in the liquid mirror. 
Now we seemed shut in by invest- 
ing lines of hill and wooded bank, 
with distant mountain sentinels to 
cutoff retreat, when, lo ! the sea- 
path suddenly opened for us, only 



to find us land-locked in another 
sequestered reach more romantic 
even than the last, with bars of 
light and shade travelling along 
the scarped slopes, and with the 
water itself changing color under 
every passing cloud. 

Happily, the conversation glid- 
ed into another .channel. I could 
see that Lambert pere had inform- 
ed his son I was no less a person- 
age than the kinsman of the lady 
of whom so free mention had been 
made, and that the news travelled 
"along the line" until it reached 
Miss Lambert in lier corner. I, 
with a great craving, stole occa- 
sional glances at this young lady 
as she gazed out to sea, drinking 
in a charm all so subtle, all so new. 
The one look which had caught 
and fixed my regard, and upon 
which my heart had closed, bore 
bright and beauteous blossom, for 
it sprang direct from that purest of 
all sources, a maiden's innocent 
soul. 

Mam'selle's strange black eyes 
ever and anon glittered over me, 
and when by chance my glance 
met hers the same knowing look 
invariably displayed itself at her 
mouth. Mr. Lambert betook him- 
self to the Times, Captain Moles- 
worth to Bell's Life, and Dick to 
sleep. A conversation in low tones 
was spasmodically maintained be- 
tween the two ladies for a little 
while, and then silence fell upon 
the compartment and its occupants, 
broken only when the train slowed 
into some station consisting of a 
porter and a platform, with an out- 
side jaunting-car lazily lying in 
wait for some local magnate who 
had run up to Dublin upon "urgent 
private affairs." 

Our station was Rathdrum. As 
the train slowed in, Dinny Byrne, 
my aunt's factotum, attired in a 



2l6 



Ballymurry. 



frieze coat reaching to his heels, 
and a caubeen with a suspicion of 
more than one ventilator in its bat- 
tered crown, and a great whip in 
his hand, suddenly caught sight of 
me he had been despatched with 
the car to meet and convey me to 
Ballymurry and, plunging to the 
door of the compartment, yelled as 
he trotted along by the side of the 
train : 

" More power, Masther Joe ! It's 
meself that's proud to see ye safe 
an' sound over Bray Head. Bad 
luck to it for a pass ! it'll kill some 
dacent people yit. Miss Mary Anne 
is well, sir, an' in illigant health an' 
sperrits. Yer just in the nick, Mas- 
ther Joe, for her snuff gev out this 
mornin* ; the last pinch was tuk be 
Docthor Moriarty, bad cess to him ! 
an' she was on the last grain as I 
dhruv from the doore. Father Luke 
is well, sir; an' so's Father Pat. 
He prached an illigant sermon last 
Sunda', an' who was there list'nin' to 
every word but Tom Dunphy, the 
Dublin jackeen that ould Lam- 
bert, the fat-man " 

I flung a Valise at Dinny, and so 
adroitly as to " rowl " him over; 
but he was on his feet in a second, 
and again at the window. The 
train came to a stand-still. 

" Ay, here's the gun, an* the 
rod, an' a pair o' boots, an' a new 
umbrella begorra, that's an illi- 
gant handle 1 an' a dhressin'-case. 
Where's the candles, Masther Joe, 
mowld-fours, an' the snuff, an " 
in a whisper " the thing, ye know, 
from the wig-maker's, an' " 

" You'll find everything in the 
parcel van. Don't block up the 
door, you stupid !" 

The delay consequent upon dis- 
lodging the numerous articles con- 
tained in the commission of my 
aunt enabled me to haunt Miss 
Lambert. I use the word advised- 



ly, for I ghosted her at a distance, 
never presuming to move within 
reach, and, ghostlike, not daring to 
speak unless spoken to. 

" This is too bad/' fumed Mr. 
Lambert. *' Not a carriage here, 
and no account of 'em. Wot does 
it mean ? There must be some in- 
fernal mistake, and we must go over 
to Kilnacarrick this 'ere night." 

" Cawnt we post ?" demanded 
the captain of the station-master. 

" No letters can be posted af- 
ter" 

" Pshaw !" interrupting the offi- 
cial. "Cawnt we get a carriage or 
car, or something?" 

" No, sir; every baste in the town 
is after Mrs. Gormly to the Seven 
Churches. Her remains left this 
at two o'clock." 

" Ay," added Dinny Byrne sotto 
voce, " an' ould Lambert's two min 
met the corpse on the road beyant 
Annamoe, and stopped for to take 
a dhrink wud it. Sorra a sight he\\ 
see av thim this side av to-mor- 
row." 

"Were they drunk?" I de- 
manded. 

" Faix, they wor humorin' their 
thirst anyhow." 

" You'd better tell Mr. Lambert 
this, Dinny." 

" Is it me, sir ?" 

"Certainly." 

" Arrah, shure, it's jokin* me 
y' are. Av I was seen givin' him 
anything but a lick av a stick, it's 
herself that wud run me." 

In common courtesy I should 
inform Mr. Lambert of the helpless 
condition of his retainers. It were 
bad form to be in possession of this 
knowledge and then fail to impart 
it. Miss Lambert was seated on a 
portmanteau gazing at the Aucha- 
vana Mountains, that were throwing 
a plaid of misty gray over their 
shoulders. "Mam'selle," chilly on 



Bally mnrry. 



217 



this glorious autumn evening, 
sought a heavy wrap. The captain 
moodily smoked whilst he kicked 
a couple of red setters away from 
him. Dick was engaged in hard 
swearing, and I fear that Lambert 
allowed some full-flavored language 
to escape his lips as he strode vio- 
lently up and down the little stone 
bridge that spanned the railway. 

" Why didn't I settle to go on to 
the Wooden Bridge ? The Wale of 
Ovoca is always pretty, and there's 
an inn there. Here one might as 
well be shipwrecked on a desolate 
island. I must get on to-night. 
I'll buy up a pair of their con- 
founded horses. It an't a ques- 
tion of money." 

"I beg your pardon," said I, 
lifting my hat ever so little and 
speaking at Miss Lambert, "my 
name is Marston. You are going 
to Kilnacarrick ; / am going to Bal- 
lymurry. I have three seats to 
spare, and " 

"Be jabers ! ye haven't wan at 
all, at all, Masther Joe ; are ye 
soft?" in an agonized whisper from 
Dinny. 

" You are very good, Mr. Mars- 
ton. My name is Lambert. We 
are next-door neighbors, sir, but I 
expect my carriage and my car 
here every moment. They should 
have been here on the arrival of 
this 'ere train. I can't under- 
stand why they an't up to time." 

I told him what Dinny had con- 
fided to me. After exploding a 
good deal he gradually calmed 
down. 

" I believe, Mr. Marston, I must 
accept your offer. This is Miss 
Lambert. This is Mam'selle Long- 
shay [Longche], her governess. 
These two ladies with myself will 
take seats with you." 

Miss Lambert dropped me a de- 
mure curtsey. Mam'selle smiled. 



" Tout va bien" she muttered. I 
did not comprehend her then ; I 
did so subsequently. 

I had considerable trouble with 
Dinny Byrne. At first he stoutly 
refused to take the proposed pas- 
sengers. 

" I'll be murthered, Masther Joe. 
She'll rowl me out as shure as me 
name's Dinny, an' unless ye have a 
good billet for me in the Castle av 
Dublin, jest lave well enough alone. 
Be sed be me. There's nothin' but 
thrubble to be got out av givin' 
them people a jaunt. Shure, sir," 
he continued, shifting his ground, 
" the little mare wudn't stand it. 
She wudn't face Ballynagonigaun 
hill wud that load av ye wor to 
feed her on goold." 

Seeing that I persisted, Dinny 
made a great show of preparation, 
shifting parcels, tightening girths, 
adjusting seats, and generally ar- 
ranging the vehicle. 

" Wirra, wirra, where's this wig- 
box for to go ? And thim candles '11 
melt in the well. Ay, I will hould 
me tongue, but will Miss Mary Anne 
hould hers ? Won't she flay me alive 
for doin' this ! I know her well. 
I'd rayther have a beehive on me 
nor her tongue I would, be the 
mortial !" 

Mr. Lambert and I occupied 
one side, while she and Mam'selle 
graced the other. The evening 
was simply a glory. The sun was 
setting in liquid amber as we 
bowled along the upper road that 
winds over the lovely Vale of 
Clara. Two or three miles took 
us up the valley, opening out at 
one end, perhaps, on some grand 
mountain, which seemed to grow 
loftier and grander as we ascended 
the dainty hill opposite to it, just 
as a really great man seems great- 
est to those who have climbed to 
something near his own altitude. 



218 



Ballymurry. 



Then another mile or two of scram- 
ble up paths, running between pur- 
ple heather and thymy banks, and 
ferns and brooks, and, lo ! a turn in 
the road gave a totally different 
scene. The great mountain was 
shut out, and from our ridge we 
looked down on the range of the 
peaceful valley with its white 
streams, green woods, up through 
which wreaths of smoke gracefully 
floated toward us, and the purple 
mountains in the foreground and 
blue hills in the far-off distance. 

"What a bit of nature! I must 
come and do this rock in water- 
colors. Stop one moment, if you 
please," exclaimed Miss Lambert. 

Here was a mere rock by the 
roadside, but it was shaded with 
red and white lichen like a deli- 
cate palette, and over it hung a 
bit of ivy, with a whole bed of pur- 
ple heather on the top, and a gleam 
of yellow gorse in its autumn blos- 
som through the heather ; and down 
on the ground, at the bottom, there 
were a few harebells, and a tangle 
of bracken and blackberry and 
honeysuckle round the corner. 
Further on a little brook poured 
down from the hills above, as clear 
as crystal, leaping and singing from 
rock to rock, till it dived into the 
dark pool under the red-berried 
mountain-ash where the little old 
bridge of huge stones spanned it, 
and led the way to the green mea- 
dow beyond. 

" Oh !" cried the enthusiastic 
young girl, " every turn in this love- 
ly road is so delightfully surprising 
that it seems as if Nature herself 
waited for us like a playful child 
round a corner to give us a kiss." 

I have no particular recollection 
of what Mr. Lambert said. I know 
that he talked a good deal, espe- 
cially about his 'ome at 'Erne '111, 
of his business connections in St. 



Petersburg and Moscow, and of 
an adventure he had had at the 
great fair of Nijni Novgorod. I 
was not paying him the slightest 
attention. I was thinking of the 
fair young girl at the other side of 
the car, from whom had come to 
me as in a breath a subtle under- 
standing of all that was fair and 
gracious, and a capacity for draw- 
ing into some new and fragrant 
chamber of my heart an image 
as delicate as the quivering light 
upon a leaf, the color of the 
sky, the painting of a flower, and 
yet in lines as hard as though 
chased in steel. Dinny Byrne 
caused me considerable irritation 
by his frequent allusions to the 
looming displeasure of my aunt. 

" We're bet intirely av she's on 
the road, Masther Joe. I wudn't 
face her for a crock av goold. Ye 
must ax thim to walk Spavin Hill, 
an' the minit ye get thim aff the 
car I'll let the mare have the whip, 
an' sorra a sight more they'll see 
av us. Shure ye can say she run 
away, an' that I cudn't hould her. 
Don't be afeared, sir ; I'll keep a 
throt for that hill, or me name's not 
Dinny." 

Finding that he made no im- 
pression upon me by his appeals, 
he endeavored to instil a whole- 
some terror into Miss Lambert's 
maid by recounting the viciousness 
of the " little mare " and her de- 
cided proclivities in favor of bolt- 
ing when ladies were on the car. 

.." The very minit she sees Spavin 
Hill, miss, she'll be aff like a 
rocket, an' it wud take tin min for 
to hould her." 

"Had we not better walk the 
hill?" 

" To be shure ye had, miss. 
It's an illigant hill; sorra finer 
walkin' from this to Glenmalure. 
The quollity all walks it." 



Ballymurry. 



219 






As a matter of fact we did dis- 
mount at the foot of the hill, and 
no sooner had we done so than 
Dinny started off at a pace that 
evinced the sincerity of his inten- 
tions. Nor did I again behold him 
until lie came into my bed-room at 
Bally murry, conveying my baggage. 

" I done that well, Masther Joe," 
he exclaimed, a half-frightened 
look upon his comical face. " Miss 
Mary Anne wud have kilt the both 
of us av she found us in sich low 
company as " 

"Silence, sir! Never speak of 
Mr. Lambert save in terms of re- 
spect," I sternly interrupted. 

"Arrah, what for, Masther Joe? 
If he was a good shot itself! Be- 
gorra, av he fired at the church 
beyant he'd hit the parish." 

I quitted the Lamberts at my 
own gate. 

" Come over to our 'ouse, Mr. 
Marston," said Mr. Lambert, wring- 
ing my hand. 

"Do, Mr. Marston," added 
Amelia. 

" You'll come, is it not so ?" half- 
whispered Mam'selle; and I said, 
" With very much pleasure." 

My aunt was very pleased to 
see me. 

"You are very late, Joseph. 
Dinny tells me that the mare lost a 
shoe near Annamoe, and that Billy 
Driscoll, the blacksmith, was ' as 
usual.' I see you've executed all 
my commissions ; but four-and-nine 
for teasing my front wig was four 
shillings too much. The snuff is 
not as pungent as it might be; it 
must have been taken out of an 
old canister. Ah, Lundy Foot, like 
every Irish institution, is goingdown. 
But come, you must be hungry. 
I've a trout for you that was caught 
at seven o'clock by little Lanty 
Regan in the Clohogue, and you 
can hear the hen clucking that laid 



the egg you're going to tap. Come 
into the dinner-room now and let 
me hear all the news. I hope you'll 
have good shooting. Those abomi- 
nable cockneys are expected to-day 
at Kilnacarrick, and " 

" Are they so abominable, aunt?" 
I burst in. 

" What could be worse ? a Lon- 
don tradesman. Faugh !" 

"I hear he's a most amiable, 
charitable, good-natured sort of 
man ; a little off color, vulgar, drops 
his /fc's, and all that sort of thing, 
but for all that not half bad." 

" It doesn't matter to us what he 
is. Let him keep his bounds." 

" He has a daughter, I believe." 

"Some brazen-faced hussy. I 
saw her last year, and the way she 
stared was just like English impu- 
dence." 

I dropped the subject, since it 
was one that required particularly 
delicate handling at particularly 
delicate moments. 

" Ye'll have the hoighth av shoot- 
in' this time, Masther Joe," ex- 
claimed Dinny upon the following 
morning, entering my room sans 
ce'remonie, lugging an enormous and 
bumptious tub after him. "Ye 
know little Lanty Regan, the lump 
av a gossoon that rings the chapel 
bell, an' attinds Father Pat's first 
Mass, and runs wud the letther- 
bag?" 

"Yes." 

" Well, sir, he's med a hole for 
himself in the side av Boher-na- 
Crutha, ould Lambert's best moun- 
tain, an' sorra resave the bird 
but he has it marked, an' where 
they lie, an' all their ha'nts. Well, 
sir," here Dinny seated himself on 
the edge of the tub, " Lanty is 
at his post like a sinthry, an' the 
minit he sees us comin' along the 
boreen he'll frighten the birds over 
to us. Dickens a feather we'll 



220 



Ballymurry. 



lave the talla I mane Misther 
Lambert, Esquire." 

" I don't intend to shoot to-day." 
The fact is, I was heartily ashamed 
of my semi-poaching performances 
past and gone. 

"Not shoot on the 2oth !" cried 
Dinny, falling back into the tub in 
his excitement and dismay. " Mo- 
ther o' Moses ! shure it's only fool- 
in' ye are, Masther Joe." 

" I'm in earnest." 

" What'll the whole cunthry say? 
What'll arrah, it's divartin yerself 
ye are." 

" I doubt if I'll shoot this season 
at all." 

Dinny uttered no word, made no 
sign, but, rising from his s*eat on 
the edge of the tub, stared gloomily 
at me for a moment, shook his head 
in a solemn and ghostlike manner, 
and slowly stalked from the apart- 
ment. 

Luckily, I had one of my Small- 
page suits with me, and arrayed in 
this, after a very prolonged and 
elaborate toilette, I descended to 
breakfast. 

" Dinny Byrne tells me you are 
not well, Joe," observed my aunt 
somewhat anxiously. 

*' Why on earth did he say such 
a thing?" 

" He says you do not intend to 
go out on the mountain to-day." 

" That is another question al- 
together. No, aunt, I will not go 
on the mountain, and I'll tell you 
why. If the birds were our own 
birds, hatched on our own moun- 
tain, I'd feel that I had a right to 
shoot them ; but it seems to me 
hardly fair to be potting another 
man's game." 

" Do you mean Lambert ?" 

" I mean Mr. Lambert." 

" Stuff and nonsense ! Balder- 
dash ! / have a better right to any 
bird that is hatched on Kilnacarrick 



than all the cockneys in the world. 
That mountain, every acre of it, 
was in the possession of the 
O'Byrnes since the Flood. These 
mushrooms are only squatters. 
Don't let me hear such trash again, 
Joseph. It's too ridiculous. Why, 
man alive," she added, smiting the 
breakfast-table with her clenched 
fist until the teacups rattled again, 
" if Kilnacarrick was in some coun- 
ties in Ireland, it's not the birds that 
would be shot" significantly wagging 
her head at me over a great brown 
earthenware teapot. 

Are there not occasions when 
the bravest men act the sneak 
and the coward ? There is no use 
in calling this sort of thing diplo- 
macy. It is much better to call a 
spade a spade ; and when I write 
this confession I pillory myself in 
these two humiliating terms, " sneak, 
coward." I diplomatized ; I actual- 
ly allowed Miss Delaney to imagine 
I was not quite up to the mark, that 
the pressure of the " dreary drudg- 
ery of the desk's dead wood " had 
told upon me, and that I needed 
repose more than doing twenty 
miles a day in a broiling harvest 
sun over stubble and brake and 
bog, and that a quiet stroll was 
more beneficial to me than tramps 
that were calculated to wear me 
out. 

"Just do as you please, Joe," 
said my aunt. " There's the week- 
ly Freeman it's a week old, but 
that doesn't matter and in the 
bookcase you'll find Clarissa Har- 
lowe, and the Sentimental Journey, 
and the Vicar ' of Wake field, and 
some elegant religious works that 
Father Doyle leaves here for his 
own reading. A little white wine 
whey will do you no harm, and 
what with calf s-foot jelly and beef- 
tea real sound tonics; none of 
your new-fangled rubbish you'll 



Ballymurry. 



221 






come nicely round. You needn't 
be wearing your best clothes down 
here," she added, sharply eying my 
swell Smallpage suit ; " there's no- 
body to see them. Keep them for 
last Mass on Sunday." 

I strolled over to Kilnacarrick. 
The gentlemen were on the moun- 
tain. Miss Lambert was in the gar- 
den a rare old garden, all box- 
wood hedges as impenetrable as the 
walls of Metz, all fuchsias, and 
dahlias, and gorgeous hollyhocks, 
and sweet, sweet honeysuckle. I 
found the object of my search 
seated beneath a venerable yew- 
tree that might have furnished 
darts a cloth-yard long for the 
O'Briens when they disputed the 
pass of Auchavana with the 
O'Tooles. She was reading. For 
a moment I stood to gaze at her, 
my heart beating very hard and 
fast and tumultuously. She looked 
up, and a bright glance was suc- 
ceeded by a slight blush, very 
slight rose pink, painting the lily of 
her face. * 

" I thought you would come," she 
said, then her face and neck and 
tiny ears flamed. " I mean I I 
that is, some menkind don't go out 
on the mountain on the first day." 

"/never missed fire till to-day, 
Miss Lambert, and upon my word 
I do not envy man, dog, or bird on 
the heather." 

" I am delightfully cool under 
this superb old tree. If it could 
speak, what tales it could tell !" 

" It is at its very best at the pre- 
sent moment." I suppose my eyes 
showed her that my heart was 
dragging its anchor, for she sud- 
denly exclaimed, holding up her 
book : 

" Have you read this ?" 

" I shall." 

"You do not know what it is." 

" That doesn't matter." 



"Suppose it were in Hindos- 
tanee ?" 

"Hindostanee can be learned." 

" It would require patience." 

"Patience is bitter, but the fruits 
of it are sweet." 

" This book will not tax your 
patience in any way ; it is one of 
Mrs. Gaskell's North and South. 
It is a charming story charmingly 
told." 

Afterwards, when I tried to re- 
member how I spent that time with 
her, I was only able to recall the 
foregoing scrappy words. I am sure 
we sat under that yew-tree for a long 
while; that we talked books, and 
pictures, and horses and dogs, and 
London town. All was in a rosy 
haze, an ethereal atmosphere. I 
was in Cloudland, the earthiness of 
earth millions of miles beneath me. 

" Mafoi /" This from Mam'selle, 
the same significant smile upon her 
mouth, in her strange eyes. "Your 
tete-a-tete must break up, as every- 
thing breaks up in this world. 
The gentlemen have come off the 
mountain and are hungry as great 
bears." 

I looked at my watch. It was 
half-past six, and my aunt dined at 
five. 

In passing through the house I 
encountered Mr. Lambert. 

" You'll stop for dinner, Mr. 
Marston? I've only a fifth-rate 
cook here my swell is at my 'ouse 
at Lancaster Gate but I promise 
you 'are soup we have caught one 
'are, ha! ha! and a haunch of 
mountain mutton with red-currant 
jelly, and a grouse pie. I an't re- 
sponsible for anything else." 

" Do stay," pleaded Amelia. 

" The fact is my aunt 

" Just drop a note to her to say 
you're 'ere. I'll send a servant 
over with it." 

" I'm not dressed." 



222 



Ballymurry. 



" We never dress here. We dine 
in our shooting-coats, rough and 
ready." 

I wrote a brief note to my aunt, 
stating I know not what ; and oh ! 
such an evening as that was. Mr. 
Lambert went to sleep after dinner. 
Captain Molesworth, after having 
vainly endeavored to induce me to 
try a hand at tcarte, followed his 
host's example. Dick betook him- 
self to the village. Mam'selle went 
in for crochet and forty winks in a 
dark corner of the old-fashioned, 
low-ceilinged, lavender-perfumed 
drawing-room, and Amelia and I 
were virtually alone. 

I was engaged in listening to a 
naive description of her visit to 
Ober-Ammergau to witness the 
Passion Play when a voice, which I 
recognized as belonging to Dinny 
Byrne, hoarsely called through the 
open window : 

" Masther Joe ! Masther Joe ! Be 
the mortial frost, they're all asleep." 

"What is it, sir?" I fiercely de- 
manded. 

" Come out o* this for love av 
heaven, or you'll be cut off wud a 
thraneen. Miss Mary Anne is lep- 
pin' mad. She's tuk half o' the 
snuff ye brought her from Dublin 
sense she got yer slip av a note. 
I" 

" Silence ! Go out of that ! Go 
back to Ballymurry," I shouted 
passionately, choking with anger 
and mortification. 

"Sorraa step, thin, Masther Joe. 
I'm sent for to bring ye home, and 
be me song I dar'n't face yer aunt 
wudout ye." 

I stormed ; I raved. I threaten- 
ed in my paroxysm of anger to 
horsewhip him ; but Dinny kept 
sturdily at the window, nor would 
he refrain from uttering such com- 
ments as it pleased him to lavish 
upon the immediate condition of 



affairs, and in a tone very far from 
being below his breath. I left 
Kilnacarrick like a schoolboy, mak- 
ing a deplorably weak attempt at 
passing the whole thing off as a 
joke ; and it was lucky for my aunt's 
retainer that he kept considerably 
in advance, or, as sure as my name 
is Joseph Penrose Marston, he 
would not have returned to Bally- 
murry with a whole skin. 

' What does this mean ?" was my 
aunt's query, as, arrayed in a short 
night-gown adorned with bulbous 
frills and worn over her ordinary 
attire, and a night-cap with a pon- 
derous border, she sternly con- 
fronted me, my note in her hand, 
as I sneaked yes, sneaked into 
the pretty dinner-room. 

"It means that I dined at Kilna- 
carrick," I replied. 

" You dined at Kilnacarrick, and 
with that man ?" 

" I dined with Mr. Lambert." 

"And so this is why you did not 
feel well enough to go on the 
mountain."' 

" The fact is " 

"And you drove those people 
on my car, with my horse, from 
Rath drum." 

" Really" 

" And you chose not to mention 
the matter to ;;/^." 

" 'Pon my honor, aunt " 

"Your breakfast will be ready 
for you at five o'clock to-morrow 
morning. You will catch the seven 
o'clock train for Dublin at Tinehely. 
I want no bridge to Kilnacarrick, 
and least of all the body of my sis- 
ter's child." And without another 
word Miss Delaney seized a brass 
candlestick in which flamed one of 
the identical mould-fours I had 
brought down the previous evening, 
and stalked from the room a la 
Lady Macbeth, leaving me standing 
in the middle of the floor, to use 



Ballymnrry. 



223 



a vulgarism, " struck all of a 
heap." 

" I tould ye the wax she was in," 
whispered Dinny Byrne, who had 
entered unperceived. " Av ye'd 
be sed be me, ye'd " 

" Oh ! go to Hongkong," I cried, 
brushing him aside, and bounding 
three steps at a time up to my bed- 
room, where I locked myself in, a 
prey to anger, mortification, sorrow, 
joy, and half a dozen other sensa- 
tions, above all of which rode the 
Rosy Archer bearing aloft the 
refulgent image of Amelia Lam- 
bert. 

I had scarcely prepared to un- 
dress when Dinny's voice made it- 
self heard through the keyhole. 

" Masther Joe ! Masther Joe ! for 
the love o' heaven don't go agin 
her. She's as pervarse as Miles 
McCormick's jackass, an' I'll go bail 
she'd kick just as hard. Masther 
Joe, are ye list'nin' to me? She'll 
alther the will, Masther Joe. She'll 
sind for that dirty little spalpeen 
av an attorney from Wicklow as 
sure as there's a bill on a crow. 
Considher yer act, Masther Joe. 
Don't let this place go from ye, an' 
the meadow below at Knocka- 
temple, an' all that she has up in 
the bank above in Dublin. Mas- 
ther Joe, mas Be the hokey ! 
but it's snorin' he is. What's to 
be done at all, at all?" 

In order to get rid of Dinny 
Byrne I had feigned sleep, accom- 
panied by those nasal sounds which 
so loudly assert the pre-eminence 
of the drowsy god. 

Should I take my aunt at her 
word ? Should I break the long 
chain of past kindness for ay, 
for what ? An idea. Granted ; but 
what man in love was ever able 
to analyze his own sensations ? 
What man in love who ever bowed 
to reason ? That man has yet to 



see the light. I was piqued, put 
on my mettle. No longer a school- 
boy, I refused to be treated as 
one. No dependant, I declined to 
act as one. I would take Mi?s 
Delaney at her word, and shake the 
dust of Ballymurry from my shoon. 
But in shaking the dust of Bally- 
murry from my shoon, would I not 
be leaving Amy Lambert behind 
me ? Would my heart not remain in 
that fern-clad valley between the 
purple hills ? Leave Ballymurry ? 
Yes. Leave the county of Wick- 
low ? No. 1 would go over to 
Fogarty's snug little inn at sweet 
Glenmalure, and come and go to 
Kilnacarrick as it pleased me. 

When I descended at five A.M. 
I found my dear old friend, Father 
Pat McLaughlin, reading his bre- 
viary in the hall. 

"What's all this I hear, Joe?" 
he asked after a warm greeting. 

" What do you mean, father ?" 

" Why, Dinny Byrne was with me 
this morning at cock-crow, and " 

" Dinny Byrne will get himself 
into trouble with his cursed offi- 
ciousness," I angrily burst in. 

Father McLaughlin laughed. 

" I've seen Miss Mary Anne, 
Joe, and it's all right ; ah ! here she 
comes after her morning walk." 

My aunt strode into the hall. 

"Joe," she said, " I'm sorry I 
was so hasty. Father Pat says this 
Englishman means well." 

"He sent me a check for twenty- 
five pounds last night towards 
flooring the chapel at Inchacul- 
liagh," chimed in the priest ; " and 
I'll tell you a good thing the Rev. 
Mr. Spoonbeg said, "refreshing him- 
self with a pinch of snuff (Mr. 
Spoonbeg was the Protestant 
rector of the parish, but a man 
who refused to lend himself to the 
bitter bigotry of the deluded fana- 
tics of his congregation). "Tne rec- 



224 



Ballymurry. 



tor was sitting with me when Mr. 
Lambert's check came in. 

"'This will never do,' said he. 

"'Why?' said I. 

" ' Because,' said he with a hearty 
laugh, * in flooring your chapel, 
Father Pat, I'm greatly afraid he'll 
floor my church' ' 

A tacit consent to an occasional 
visit to Kilnacarrick having been 
obtained, affairs resumed the status 
quo ante bellum, and I was miserably 
happy. 

Upon the following day, while 
strolling along the road, I was pass- 
ed by a Rathdrum car, its occu- 
pant being Mr. Fred Tremaine. 

He stopped and hailed me. 

" Are iyour tent-pegs driven in 
this wild place, Marston ?" 

"Yes." 

"How are the birds ?" 

"I haven't been out." 

" The deuce ! What's up ? Seen 
the tallow-chandler or his people?" 

"Yes." 

" Their place is not far off now, I 
believe." 

" That lych-gate is theirs." 

" I was going to offer you a lift." 

" Thanks ; I'm walking over." 

" To Lambert's ?" in some aston- 
ishment. 

"Yes." 

"So glad ! I'll tramp it, too. 
You fellow !" addressing the driver, 
"bowl on without me." 

We talked shop and Dublin gen- 
erally. As we turned into Kilna- 
carrick a girlish laugh betokened 
the presence of Amy. She was 
glad to see Tremaine, and he held 
her hand howl confounded him ! 
much longer than conventionality 
demanded. 

" So you've come at last," she 
said. 

" Mecca cawnt be done every day 
in the week, Miss Lambert." 

" How long do you intend to 



honor this heathery corner of the 
island?" 

" I wish I could stop for ever, 
but, alas ! a week is my uttermost. 
Yet," he added gaily, "vivelajoie, 
ten thousand years can be com- 
pressed into seven days." 

She had not spoken to me, save the 
stereotyped "How do you do?" 
Nor had she looked at me, her 
eyes being lowered, the long lashes 
sweeping across her cheeks. I felt 
almost dizzy with disappointment, 
and cut at the heather with my 
stick. 

" Tout va Men" almost whisper- 
ed the voice of Mam'selle close 
behind me. 

" I do not know what you mean, 
Mam'selle," I retorted almost sav- 
agely. 

" Nous allons voir. Will you to 
walk wit me ?" 

We strolled through the pine 
wood. 

"Who is this gentleman?" she 
asked. " Ah !" when I had inform- 
ed her. " Is he hunter of fortune ?" 

" I should say so." 

" He lose time. Amelia has not 
one centime." 

Why did I feel so glad of this ? 
Mam'selle read the writing on my 
face. 

" You rejoice. Fi done T 

" I do not rejoice that the daugh- 
ter of Mr. Lambert " 

" Tenez done. Amelia is not Mr. 
Lambert's daughter." 

" Not his daughter !" I exclaimed, 
recoiling in my astonishment. 

" No. Listen ; the story is quite 
a romance. Mr. Lambert go to 
Russia to buy grease yes, grease, 
faugh ! go every year. He meet a 
gentleman in the train ; they become 
friend fast friend. The gentleman 
have little child ; the gentleman 
live in St. Petersburg and is at- 
tached to the English Embassy. 



1 Bally rnurry. 



225 



The gentleman like Mr. Lambert, 
for Mr. Lambert bring gift to little 
child every time he go to Russia. 
The gentleman die one day, and as lie 
die Mr. Lambert come in from Eng- 
land. The gentleman say, * I die, 
Lambert. I have no friends; I 
spend all my money gambling. My 
relatives are none; I believe I have 
relative in Ireland, but it is too late. 
Take care of my child. She like 
you ; I love you. Be father to her ; 
you are honest man.' Lambert say 
he would. 'Swear,' say the dying 
gentleman. Lambert swear. * I 
die happy,' say the gentleman, and 
he die. Amelia is that child." 
Mam'selle faced me, telling her story 
with all the gesture and dramatic 
power of a clever Frenchwoman. 

" This is very strange," I said. 
"And and how does it come that 
her name is Lambert?" 

" Because that is her name ; was 
her father's name." 

" And did her guardian make no 
effort to dig up her relatives ?" 

" He advertise in one or two 
journal, but make no reply." 

As we approached the house I 
bade Mam'selle adieu. 

"Are you not coming to stay?" 
" I never care to be de trop" was 
my bitter retort, nodding fiercely 
in the direction of Amy and Fred 
Tremaine. 

"Tell rne !" said Mam'selle 
earnestly, " have you ever been 
in " she stopped " never before 
your heart speak to me?" 

I did not go near Kilnacarrick for 
three days. Taking a couple of dogs, 
but no gun, I wandered across the 
mountains, and actually revelled in 
the bitterness of my own imagin- 
ings. I thought of Amy down in that 
peaceful valley listening to the 
quips and gibes and sneers and jests 
of the small bureaucrat. I pictur- 
ed the pillory he rapidly and dex- 
VOL. xxvni. 15 



terously constructed wherein to 
set me and my shortcomings, and I 
imagined the amusement of the fair 
young girl as he mercilessly pelted 
me with word-painted garbage in 
the shape of satire. Would she 
think of me ? Would she send me a 
note asking me why I had absented 
myself ? 

The third day came, and with it 
no sign from Kilnacarrick. They 
had forgotten my existence. What 
an ass I had been, what a despica- 
ble day-dreamer ! 

" Aunt, I find that I must leave 
for Dublin to-morrow." 

" Why, Joe, your leave lasts till 
the 4th." 

" You see the office is short- 
handed, #nd " 

" Never mind the office. The 
office can do very well without you 
for a fortnight ; besides, Father 
Doyle and Father O'Reilly of Ark- 
low, and Father Fitzsimon from 
Glencullen, are coming to dine on 
Sunday, and, if you had to resign 
your appointment, you must stop 
till Monday morning." 

But I had resolved upon leaving. 
The unendurable fire of impatience 
in my heart was literally consum- 
ing me. The idea of Tremaine's 
success with Miss Lambert I 
never doubted it was torture so 
exquisite as to become no longer 
bearable. 

That night, almost unconscious- 
ly, I started along the road that led 
to Kilnacarrick. It was a glorious 
moonlight, the earth seeming bath- 
ed in liquid pearl. Lights from 
the house glimmered through the 
trees as I passed, and I fancied 
Amy singing, my confrere leaning 
over her at the piano and look- 
ing those unutterable things which 
mean, oh ! so much. Why not take 
one last look at her? There was 
not the slightest fear of detection. 



226 



Ballyrnurry. 



I could pass through the pine 
wood, and in the shadow of the 
fuchsias creep up to the drawing- 
room windows, which I knew to 
be open. I did not hesitate one 
second, and, obeying the impulse, 
found myself burglar-like approach- 
ing the house on tiptoe and with 
bated breath. As I crept cautiously 
onward voices in front of me caus- 
ed me to halt. 

" And you have refuse to marry 
Captain Molesworth ?" It was 
Mam'selle who spoke. " You did 
right. He is what you call black- 
leg." 

" Refuse !" Amy's voice was full 
of scorn. "Why, his offer was an 
insult." 

" Mr. Tremaine ?" How my heart 
beat ! 

"What of him?" asked Miss 
Lambert. 

" You have offend him." 

" I did lose my temper, and that's 
why I am out here to cool myself. 
He is a nasty, mean, contemptible 
iellov, and I told him so. He 
would not dare speak to Mr. Mars- 
ton as he presumed to speak to me 
.about him. I told him that Mr. 
Marston was & gentleman." 

"You are thinking a good deal 
.about Mr. Marston, my child ; is it 
not so?" 

Now I would have given worlds 
to have heard Miss Lambert's re- 
ply, but, having already tarried too 
long, honor bade me begone. Re- 
tiring as lightly as I came, I regain- 
ed the high-road. As I vaulted 
over the lych-gate I felt as though 
I could have leaped to the moon 
I dropped right at the feet of 
Mr. Fred Tremaine, who started 
violently. 

" You here ?" he gasped. 

" Yes, I am here." 

"Your absence has driven us all 
nearly wild," he sneered, adding: 



"I suppose that old tame cat, your 
aunt " 

"Stop!" I thundered. 

" What do you mean?" he angri- 
ly asked. 

" I mean that you'll air no sar- 
casm at the expense of Miss De- 
laney." 

"How respectful the three per 
cents make us, to be sure ! It's a 
little too soon to begin, though, for, 
in my opinion, this tough old per- 
sonage is " 

" I do not want your opinion, 
Mr. Tremaine, upon this subject 
or upon any other," I interrupted. 

"You're on a very high horse to- 
night, Marston. Take care and 
don't fall off, or you'll break your 
neck." And humming Spirito gentil 
he had an exquisite tenor voice 
he walked away from me, giving me 
no chance of a quarrel. 

Suddenly, and as though acting 
under some uncontrollable influ- 
ence, he turned, and, coming up to 
where I still stood, almost hissed : 

" I want to ask you a question or 
two, Mr. Marston." 

"I do not pledge myself to re- 
ply to any question you may put to 
me. " 

" You can answer or not as you 
please," he bitterly retorted. 

" I suppose so," was my cool re- 
joinder. 

He paused for a moment, his 
face deadly pale in the glorious 
harvest moonlight. 

"You think you can plant your 
flag on this fortress," jerking his 
head in the direction of the house ; 
"that you have merely to go in 
and win ; that you can humbug the 
old man and fascinate the girl. 
Bah ! I see your hand, and I tell you 
plainly, Mr. Marston, there's not a 
trump in it." I preserved a master- 
ly inactivity and waited. The man 
who waits gets three to one. I do 



Ballymurry. 



227 



not know to what motive he ascrib- 
ed my silence perhaps to fear, for 
he went on : 

" I'll permit no man to cross my 
path. I have never done so yet. I 
sweep aside all opposing force. 
Perhaps I'm not over-scrupulous, 
but I win. No, Mr. Marston,! am 
playing a game you see I can be 
very candid and I mean to play 
it alone. I want no opponent, nor 
will I permit any person to look 
over my shoulder. Do you under- 
stand me ?" 

"Not quite." 

" I will be still more candid with 
you. The government is about to 
appoint an assistant under-secreta- 
ry for Ireland. You are aware of 
this. It is in the distance, but al- 
ready a heavy canvass is going on. 
/ mean to have it. I could get it 
if I was able to bribe, not by mo- 
ney but by wine by giving dinners 
to the heavy swells whose voices 
will have weight. I have no way 
of getting money but one; that is 
by marriage. There is no money 
in Dublin. One or two aldermen 
can give five or six thousand to 
their daughters, and there it ends. 
Now I come to the point. Mr. 
Lambert " 

" Mr. Tremaine," I interrupted, 
"I do not desire this " 

"Listen!" he burst in. "You 
have no ambition of this sort that 
burns like fire in the very soul, 
consuming it in its white heat. 
You jog along from year's end to 
year's end, dancing, fishing, shoot- 
ing, knowing that on the first of 
every month you pick up a certain 
sum that will pay your landlady, 
your club bills, and your tailor. 
/ know you fashionable drones 
in the civil-service hive, and I mean 
to fly above the whole lot of you. 
Now you understand me. Lam- 
bert will give this girl fifty thou- 



sand pounds. / mean to marrv 
her." 

With some men thought is natu- 
rally slow, the result of antecedent 
fact or cautious reflection; with 
others instantaneous and partak- 
ing of the character of intuition. 
For one brief moment of my exist- 
ence I belonged to the latter class, 
and a thought-flash burst like a 
rocket in my mind. Was my mem- 
ory mocking me, or had not Barney 
Bodkin told me that this man was 
not in a position to woo any wo- 
man honestly that he was already 
married ? Love, that marvellous 
quickener of intelligence, intensi- 
fied my powers so that it was in the 
manner of an assertion rather than 
a question that I asked : 

" Can jy<?# marry ?" 

If he had been struck by a bul- 
let in some vital place, and felt his 
life-blood throbbing from him, he 
could not have shown a more 
ghastly terror. He placed his 
hand to his forehead, brushing off 
his hat in the action, and stood be- 
fore me in that lovely autumn 
moonlight, livid as a spectre. 

" Wh wh what do you mean?" 
his ashen lips refusing distinct ut- 
terance. 

" You had better ask your own 
conscience, Mr. Tremaine," I calm- 
ly retorted, turning upon my heel 
and leaving him standing in the 
middle of the road. 

I could not well leave Ballymur- 
ry now. It became my duty to 
remain, and interpose, if necessary, 
between this worthless wretch and 
the fair young girl whose future he 
would blight in his cursed greed 
for gold. What a keynote I had 
struck, what a mine I had sprung ! 
The few words uttered by Mam'- 
selle had caused the tide of hope, 
which had been strong on the ebb, 
to turn and flow, though the shore 



228 



Ballymurry. 



it had yet to cover was low-lying, 
bleak, and barren; but 

" Misther Tremenjous left be 
the mail-car this mornin' for Dub- 
lin, Masther Joe," cried Dinny 
Byrne, bursting into my room, as 
was his wont he invariably styl- 
ed Tremaine " Tremenjous " " an', 
be me song, his bones '11 git a da- 
cent joultin' over Inchanappa Hill. 
He'll be shuck like Mrs. Beltram's 
half-penny in the poor-box over in 
the church beyant, that the sexton 
tould me was all th' riz last Sunda', 
as stanch Protistints as they are. 
Dickins a worse road in th' barony; 
it bruck Tim O'Toole's collar-bone 
for divarshin, sorra a less, an' av 
he hadn't a sup in it's his neck 
that 1 wud have been cracked." 

Tremaine gone ! This was news 
indeed. I crossed over to Kilnacar- 
rick. 

" You are strangare," exclaimed 
Mam'selle, while Amy blushed and 
made no sign. 

I blundered forth some excuse in 
which the words "letters" and 
"business" came feebly to the 
i;front. 

'" Do you write letters on the top 
.of Siieve-na-monsa, Mr. Marston, 
and is your private secretary one 
;Mr. Denis Byrne?" laughed Miss 
Lambert. " Dinny told papa that 
you " 

" Dinny Byrne will be the direct 
cause of manslaughter," I inter- 
posed, inwardly vowing dire ven- 
geance against my aunt's loquacious 
i retainer. 

"I suppose you know that Mr. 
Tremaine has left us,'" observed 
Amy, after -some laughter. 
" Dinny -Byrne " I began. 
" Dinny 'Byrne again," she laugh- 
ed. 

" There are to be other depar- 
tures," observed Mam'selle signifi- 
cantly. 



Instinctively I turned to Miss 
Lambert. What did I read in those 
expressive eyes ! 

"Yes," she said, and her voice 
was low and sad, " we leave on 
Frjday." 

" Leave here ? leave Ireland ?" I 
faltered. 

" Yes. Mr. Lambert's partner 
in Moscow is dead. A telegram 
came this morning announcing the 
death, and we leave this lovely, 
lovely place to-morrow." 

Mam'selle, smiling that strange 
smile, rose and left the room. 

I said nothing. I could say 
nothing. I was crushed, over- 
whelmed. I walked over to a 
window, and, mechanically seizing 
the cord attached to the blind, 
commenced listlessly twisting it in 
my fingers. 

" We shall remain in London. 
Do you know London well, Mr. 
Marston ?" 

" Not well," with an effort. 
" Do you come to London often ?" 
"No." 

" When you run up to town you'll 
come and see us, won't you ?" 

" Yes." And this was all I could 
say. 

Mr. Lambert entered, a copy of 
the Times, his Koran, in his hand. 
"Ah! Marston. We're off for 
'ome; going to shut up this shop, 
and business so lively twenty-two 
brace yesterday to two guns. I 
wanted the captain and Dick to 
stop and keep open 'ouse, but 
they're both off color. Come and 
see us in London. 84 Lancaster 
Gate is my private residence it 
an't a cottage neither, I tell you 
and the Lane, Mincing Lane, E. C, 
will fetch one up at any time." 

I travelled with them up to 
Dublin. I saw them off at Kings- 
town for Holy head, and returned to 
the dreary drudgery of the desk's 



Ballymurry. 



229 



dead wood, aiyssed in a misery that 
recognized no ray of alleviation. 

One clerk attached to the chief 
secretary's department is told off 
for the session of Parliament, and 
transferred during the sitting of 
the House of Commons to the 
Irish office in London. This offi- 
cial chance is eagerly sought after, 
since it means six months " in 
town," very little work, and the 
entree to the crcme de la creme of 
official society. I applied for the 
post, the attorney-general for Ire- 
land being a close friend of mine. 

" I fear you are late, Joe," he 
said. " Tremaine has asked for it 
through Mr. Burke, the under-sec- 
retary." 

Tremaine again ! I detected his 
game, and resolved to checkmate 
it, cost me what it might. 

" If Mr. Tremaine yields in my 
favor, may I reckon on the ap- 
pointment ?" 

"If Tremaine does not go, you 
do," was the attorney-general's re- 
assuring reply. 

I marched straight to the office 
in which Mr. Tremaine killed two 
or three hours of the day by the 
perusal of the London " society " 
journals. He started violently as, 
unannounced, I entered his official 
den. I had not met him, save in 
passing up the Castle yard, since 
that memorable night when I left 
him at the lych-gate at Kilnacar- 
rick. 

" You have applied for the Irish 
clerkship, Mr. Tremaine," I said, 
plunging at once in medias res. 

He bowed. 

" I can guess pretty well what 
your object is in seeking this berth, 
and I may as well tell you that I 
have applied for it." 

" Indeed !" superciliously elevat- 
ing his eyebrows. 



"Under any other circumstances 
I would not think of interfering 
with a man's chance; but knowing 
what / know " Barney Bodkin had 
confided to me a ghastly and re- 
volting tale" I feel myself at per- 
fect liberty to act as I think proper 
in the protection of interests that 
are far dearer to me than my own." 

I said no more, but, bestowing a 
Grandisonian bow upon him, quit- 
ted the sumptuous apartment. 

" You're to be the London Irish- 
man, Marston," announced Barney 
Bodkin, as, on the following morn- 
ing, I entered the office. " Tre- 
mendous Tremaine cawnt leave 
lawland, you know." 

My first official visit was to 84 
Lancaster Gate, a superb mansion 
facing Hyde Park, and got up in a 
style of solid magnificence that al- 
most made me repent what brought 
me within its gilded shadow. 

As I sat in a gorgeous drawing- 
room, all mirrors, and paintings, 
and statues, and sheen, and dazzle, 
I bethought me of the fuchsias at 
Kilnacarrick, and of the quiet home 
in the lovely Wicklow valley. 
Would she, could she, be glad to 
see me in all this magnificence ? 
There I was a distraction ; here 
might I not prove a bore? Why 
did I come ? Why plunge into a 
stream whose bitter waters would 
eventually overwhelm me ? 

I do believe I was about to steal 
quietly away from the house, when 
\.\\Q frou-frou of a woman's dress de- 
tained me. It was Mam'selle, the 
same strange smile on her strange 
face. 

" I am glad you are come," she 
said. "She has waited for you. 
Hush !" And placing her finger on 
her lip, she glided from the apart- 
ment by another door. 

Amy was glad to see me, albeit 



2 3 



Some Barriers between Labor and Capital. 



a little blushing, and constrained, 
and confused. I read it in her 
eyes those soft, tender, expressive 
eyes whose first glance my heart 
had so fondly closed upon. 

I here copy an extract from a 
letter of my aunt written in the 
May of the following year: 

" You're in great luck, Joe, and you 
have my heart's wishes and blessing. 
Father Doyle sends his blessing, and so 
does Father Pat. I'll give you the 
twenty Pipe Water debentures as soon 
as I get the current interest, five for 
your wife and fifteen for yourself. Of 



course I'll go over to your wedding, and 
bring Dinny Byrne, who says he'll walk 
if I don't. I'll wear a lavender silk 
that will astonish some of the fine London 
ladies. I wonder if Amelia is any rela- 
tion of my poor friend Tom Lambert, 
that died in Russia some years ago ? He 
was a fine fellow, but a fool. If she is, 
her blood is as blue as an O'Byrne's." 

We were married. I am in the 
tallow business, and as I pass 
through Dublin every autumn, en 
route to my mountain at Ballymurry, 
I drop in to have a gossip with my 
quondam confreres in the chief 
secretary's office, poor Castle hacks 
that they are ! 



SOME BARRIERS BETWEEN LABOR AND CAPITAL. 



THE times are out of joint. The 
unhappy state of things which pre- 
vails not only here but in other 
lands, restricting our thoughts for 
the present to mundane affairs, is 
largely, if not wholly, due to a 
general departure from those pri- 
mary principles of action which 
should guide men in their dealings 
with each other. 

What do we see in our own land, 
blessed by Heaven above others in 
the extent, variety, and fertility of 
her agricultural soil, her internal 
and external natural channels of 
intercourse, her marvellous mine- 
ral wealth, her wholesome climate, 
and her free government ? Our 
fields have just yielded a harvest 
unequalled in quantity; our barns 
and storehouses are bursting with 
grain ; the entire production of the 
country, it is estimated, will not be 
less than 600,000,000 bushels of 
wheat and 1,200,000,000 bushels of 



corn; countless herds of cattle graze 
in our pastures or are driven across 
our prairies ; abundance so great 
that figures fail to give an idea of 
it, and that even the most mode- 
rate description of it seems an ex- 
travagance, prevails on every hand ; 
and yet men, women, and children 
are actually in want in the midst 
of this incredible plenty; beggars 
throng our cities and armies of 
sturdy " tramps " infest our country 
lanes. We build miles of new 
dwellings ; in Philadelphia alone 
a recent statement showed that 
there were 15,000 houses in that 
city without occupants; and yet 
thousands of men, women, and 
children are houseless. We manu- 
facture each year shoes enough to 
supply one-third of the whole hu- 
man race ; but there are hosts of 
people at our doors going bare- 
foot. We make clothing enough 
to attire in decency and comfort 



Some Barriers between Labor and Capital. 



231 



not only our own population but 
that of England and Germany be- 
sides; and yet many of our own 
people have scarcely rags to cover 
their nakedness. The whirring 
wheels of industry and trade re- 
volve unceasingly; production dou- 
bles, trebles, and quadruples itself; 
distribution is carried on with 
surprising facility and rapidity by a 
vast system of railways and steam- 
boats ; labor-saving machines de- 
crease the cost and increase the sup- 
ply of manufactured articles in a con- 
stantly-augmenting ratio ; the gold 
and silver mines of the Pacific slope 
add to the actual supply of the pre- 
cious metals an annual sum of from 
ninety to one hundred millions of 
dollars; and yet not only do the 
poor grow more numerous and 
poorer and the rich fewer and 
richer, but a feeling of estrange- 
ment between the two classes a 
sense of bitterness, anger, and op- 
pression on one hand, and of con- 
tempt, carelessness, indifference, 
selfishness, and pride on the other 
is growing up and manifesting 
itself in forms that threaten the 
gravest disasters. What is wrong ? 
In the present stage of human 
society a law has come into unusual 
prominence which works alike in 
shaping the destinies of nations 
and of individuals. We have no 
fault to find with this law ; Divine 
wisdom no doubt has decreed it, 
and in the long run men will see 
that it has worked for the greater 
glory of God and for the good of 
the human race. It may be called, 
for want of a better name, the law 
of aggregation. In nations its work- 
ings are shown in the tendency of 
each great power to extend its 
arms, to seize upon and draw to 
its embrace the outlying provinces 
and peoples that have in any way 
a homogeneousness with itself, and 



to crush out and defeat every at- 
tempt on the part of these provin- 
ces and peoples to retain or regain 
their political autonomy. Ireland 
sought to obtain her independence 
and failed. England holds on to 
her with more tenacity than ever, 
although she now seeks to strength- 
en her hold by awarding long-de- 
nied rights and undoing long-suf- 
fered wrongs. Not Ireland alone 
does England cling to, but she 
seeks to knit closer to her all her 
colonies; and not a little of the un- 
popularity incurred by Mr. Glad- 
stone in his later days of power 
was due to the somewhat ostenta- 
tious willingness he displayed to 
cast off the colonies, to let them 
shift for themselves, and virtually 
to disintegrate the empire. The 
sagacity of Lord Beaconsfield in 
taking the opposite course ; his 
creation of the Queen as Empress 
of India; his anxiety to knit the 
colonies closer to the mother-coun- 
try; his appointment of the son-in- 
law of the Queen to be lord-lieu- 
tenant in Canada; his acquisition 
of Cyprus all these things show 
that he has felt and recognized the 
force of the law of which we speak. 
Hungary sought to win her inde- 
pendence, and fought gallantly for 
it; but she failed, and the consoli- 
dated empire of Austria is now 
stretching out her hands and com- 
pelling to her embrace the unwill- 
ing inhabitants of Bosnia and 
Herzegovina. Our Southern States 
made their effort to regain the au- 
tonomy which they had surrender- 
ed when they accepted the Consti- 
tution of 1798; they struggled for 
it with a courage, skill, and perti- 
nacity unsurpassed; but all the 
world knows how complete was 
their failure. The formation of the 
German Empire is another evi- 
dence of the operation of this la\v. 



232 



Some Barriers between Labor and Capital. 



The late war in Europe furnishes 
another illustration ; for, whatever 
may have been the secret motives 
of the czar and his advisers, and 
however ardent may have been 
their aspirations for an extension of 
Russian dominion into the far East, 
he found himself obliged to pro- 
claim that his object was to secure 
peace and liberty for a people al- 
lied to his own by race and reli- 
gion; and there can be but little 
doubt that the new Roumania, de- 
spite the Treaty of Berlin, is al- 
ready looked upon at St. Peters- 
burg as virtually Russian territory. 
While the law of aggregation thus 
works in nationalities, it manifests 
its power quite as strikingly among 
individuals and in the every-day 
workings of our society. To him 
that hath is given, and from him that 
hath not is taken away even that 
which he hath. Every year the 
wealth of this 'Country, constantly 
increasing, aggregates itself more 
and more, and becomes more and 
more the property of a compara- 
tively small class a class that 
grows in wealth but diminishes in 
numbers. The law works inexora- 
bly and with almost marvellous ra- 
pidity. The big fish swallow up 
the little ones. Here, for instance, 
is a great retail dry-goods house in 
New York. It employs fifteen hun- 
dred persons; its sales-rooms cover 
acres of space. But it represents 
hundreds of small dealers whom it 
has crushed out of existence as 
traders on their own account, and 
whom it has taken into its employ- 
ment as its servants. They began 
their mercantile career with hopes 
of expanding their petty business 
into a large trade, acquiring a com- 
petence, and occupying an influen- 
tial position in society ; they have 
ended by becoming the paid ser- 
vants of the wealth that made these 



hopes illusions. They have passed 
from the class of employers to that 
of the employed; they were mas- 
ters, but now they are servants ; 
and their changed lot is not made 
easier to bear by the reflection that 
their sons and daughters cannot 
hope to rise above their parents' 
condition, and that the most they 
can expect is not to sink below it. 

This is but a typical instance. 
The operation of the law is to be 
seen everywhere, and in multiform 
shapes, but its results are practi- 
cally the same. The gold and sil- 
ver taken from the mines on the 
Pacific slope during the last thirty 
years has amounted probably to 
something like two thousand mil- 
lions of dollars ; but the great ma- 
jority of the people in that region 
are to-day painfully poor, while a 
few men are fabulously rich. The 
railway system of the country has 
been constructed at an immense 
expenditure of capital and labor; 
but the leading and controlling 
lines are now in the possession of 
a few men, who manipulate them 
altogether too much as they please. 
At a recent conference of these 
railway kings it was made manifest 
that a single individual or at the 
best a single interest controlled by 
him was the virtual master of an 
entire system of railroad communi- 
cation between New York and Chi- 
cago, and that his power extended 
even into Canada. The entire pro- 
duction, transportation, and sale of 
the anthracite coal of Pennsylvania 
and that is only another name 
for the whole anthracite coal pro- 
duct of the country have passed 
into the hands of seven companies, 
and are practically regulated by se- 
ven men, who prescribe how much 
of this indispensable article shall 
be produced, what the producers 
shall be paid for it, and what the 



Some Barrier^ between Labor and Capital. 



233 



consumers shall give for it. By the 
combination of these corporations 
individual enterprise in coal-min- 
ing has been made impracticable, 
and the private miners find them- 
selves transformed into the ser- 
vants of their rivals. In all de- 
partments of trade and industry the 
same process goes on : the wage- 
paying class constantly decreases, 
and the wage-receiving class as 
constantly increases ; there are few- 
er masters and more servants, and 
the power of the former over the 
latter grows greater, and at times is 
shown more harshly. 

Now, from this springs a danger 
that yearly becomes more serious. 
The wage-receiving class, by a 
common, one-sided, unspiritual edu- 
cation, and also recruited from 
above, has its intelligence quicken- 
ed, its appetites sharpened, its dis- 
content aggravated. The man of 
some culture and refinement, who 
began life as an employer and with 
a hope of rising, and who finds 
himself compelled to take the posi- 
tion of a servant, who can hope for 
nothing better than that he may be 
permitted to keep his situation and 
that his wages may not be lowered, 
is apt to be discontented. For the 
pleasant cottage he has been com- 
pelled to take the dismal flat in a 
tenement-house ; he has lost caste 
among his former associates ; his 
daughter must become a shop-girl 
and marry " beneath " her ; his son 
can no longer aspire to rise on the 
social ladder, but must become a 
servant like himself. This man, 
pressed down to association with 
those of a lower grade, either sinks 
to their level or tries to elevate 
them to his; in either case he is 
apt to be soured, discontented, if 
not dangerous. Society, he ima- 
gines, has treated him unjustly, and 
in his heart of hearts he would not 



feel sorry to see society punished. 
He is just in the mood to listen to 
revolutionary appeals ; not un fre- 
quently he is found making these 
appeals himself, and forming him- 
self as the Danton or the Robes- 
pierre of a little clique of fellow- 
sufferers. 

If we go a little further clown, 
and peer into the hearts of the ac- 
tual hewers of wood and drawers 
of water the men who dig our 
sewers, pave our streets, carry hods, 
hew stones, drive our horse-cars, 
labor on our docks, toil hard all 
day long, and sometimes all night 
long, for wages that barely give 
them and their families what are 
now considered by our increased 
and quickened wants necessaries of 
life we shall find a keen and by 
no means a dumb spirit of discon- 
tent and unrest. The writer has 
talked with these men at their noon- 
day meal, when they were eating 
their hard-earned dinner with a 
lime-splashed plank for their seat 
and their table, and their bruised 
and begrimed hands for knives and 
forks; he has seen them in their 
poor homes, where comfort was un- 
known, health a miracle, and do- 
mestic privacy impossible. They 
feel that their lot is harder than it 
need be; what is the cause of it 
they scarcely know ; but they listen 
earnestly to every one who pro- 
poses a remedy, however wild and 
chimerical. These are they who 
have listened so eagerly to the ap- 
peals of fools or knaves these who, 
in a popular commotion, would be 
most easily led to the commission 
of acts of violence, while those who 
instigated them would stand aloof 
to see how the matter might end. 

But this concentration of wealth 
in "a few hands, being a result of 
the working of causes that are in- 
separable from the present stage of 



234 



Some Barriers betivecn Labor and Capital. 



human society, is not to be com- 
plained about, or denounced, or at- 
tacked through schemes of commun- 
ism or socialism. On the contrary, 
it is to be accepted, not as a neces- 
sary evil, but as a law which is de- 
signed to work out great good. It 
would be unwise in the extreme to 
dream, as a remedy for the present 
evils of society, of legislating for 
the obliteration of our great corpo- 
rations, or for the extinction of our 
millionaire bankers, merchants, and 
manufacturers. The community is 
better served to-day by the great 
mercantile houses which have been 
built up on the ruins of the lit- 
tle shops which they have crush- 
ed out of existence than it would 
be had the little shops remained. 
The concentration of an entire sys- 
tem of railways under one manage- 
ment is better, take it all in all, 
than the division of this manage- 
ment among a dozen conflicting in- 
terests. It is better that fabrics 
should be woven in great mills, fill- 
ed with rapid machines so skilfully 
contrived that they almost seem 
to be gifted with intelligence, 
than that they should be manu- 
factured on hand-looms in cot- 
tages. We are as yet only upon 
the threshold of the economical, 
social, and moral changes that are 
to be wrought by this combination 
and concentration of wealth and 
skill in production and distribu- 
tion. It will depend upon the ac- 
ceptance and practice by society, 
and the masters of industry and 
commerce, of principles of action 
promotive of the best and highest 
interests of all, tending to the in- 
creased happiness of men and to 
the greater glory of God, or the re- 
jection of these principles, whether 
their rule be peaceful or whether 
it lead to the propagation of mis- 
ery, discontent, and sin, ending in 



an explosion of vengeance and ret- 
ribution that may sweep away in a 
day the fruits of a century. 

Great as is the power of the 
capitalist at present, and still great- 
er as it is destined to be, there 
stands behind him a potentially 
greater force that power which 
is called the government, and 
which, in a free country like ours, 
means, or may be made to mean, 
the deliberate will of a majority of 
the people. The fact that capi- 
tal often controls the men who 
administer the government does 
not really detract from the force 
of this statement; for where uni- 
versal suffrage prevails the people 
have always at their command a 
weapon, peaceful but of irresist- 
ible power, which, when they real- 
ly are in earnest about it, they will 
be sure to use. Now, it may come 
to pass that from time to time the 
people may wisely expand the 
functions of the government, and 
cause it to do for them some of 
the things which private or corpo- 
rate capital now does. It is con- 
ceivable, for instance, that up to 
this time the postal service of the 
United States might have been 
performed by individual enter- 
prise; we might have sent and re- 
ceived our letters through the 
agency of express companies or 
the like. Had this been the case, 
does not every one see that it 
would now be wise for the govern- 
ment to take this service upon it- 
self, and to discharge it as it now 
does not for the purpose of mak- 
ing money out of it, but for the 
general convenience and interest 
of the entire community ? But if 
the government can carry our let- 
ters at less expense than, and with 
as much celerity and safety as, 
could be afforded by private enter- 
prise, why might it not carry our 



Some Barriers between Labor and Capital. 



235 



persons and our property as well 
in other words, why should not the 
whole railroad system of the coun- 
try pass into the hands of the gov- 
ernment, and be administered by 
it, as the post-office is, not for the 
sake of making money out of the 
business, but for the promotion 
of the general convenience and 
welfare ? The thriving little king- 
dom of Belgium has done this to 
a great extent, having expended 
something like 600,000,000 francs, 
or $120,000,000, in the construc- 
tion of state railroads, conducted 
on a system which provides that 
the charges shall be only sufficient 
to pay for the running expenses, 
the repairs, the interest on the 
cost, and the gradual repayment 
of the principal by a sinking fund. 
The roads are admirably served, 
and travelling is cheaper in Bel- 
gium than in any other country 
in the world so cheap, indeed, 
that the jesting remark that one 
may travel all over the country for 
ten francs is scarcely an exaggera- 
tion. The rates are 18 centimes 
for a league of three miles, which 
is equivalent to 36 cents for 30 
miles, or 166 miles for $2. The 
taking over of the entire telegraph- 
ic system in the United Kingdom 
of Great Britain and Ireland was a 
step in the same direction ; the 
addition of savings-banks and an- 
nuity offices to the post-office de- 
partment was another. The gov- 
ernment paid large, even extrava- 
gant, sums to the private companies 
whose property it took; but now 
a despatch of twenty words can be 
sent to any point in the kingdom 
for one shilling, and the govern- 
ment is losing nothing by doing the 
business for the people. The pos- 
tal savings-banks and the annuity 
offices not only encourage the peo- 
ple in habits of economy and provi- 



dence, but they furnish an abso- 
lutely secure investment for their 
savings, and no such scenes of suf- 
fering by the failure of savings- 
banks as we have witnessed can 
there be possible. The supplying 
of the community with gas, with 
coal, with water, may also in time 
come to be regarded as the legi- 
timate function of governments; 
and private capitalists may find 
themselves relieved from the bur- 
den as well as deprived of the pro- 
fit attending the discharge of these 
duties. In such an event the com- 
munity would be certain to receive 
its coal, gas, water, and transporta- 
tion at the actual cost of the pro- 
duction and management of the 
same, and would no longer be com- 
pelled to pay interest \ipon the 
fictitious debts, or "watered 
stock," of railway, coal, gas, and 
water companies. This is not a 
question of paternal government, 
for which our people, and we in 
common with them, have no taste 
whatever, but a question of the 
function of political government, 
here and now, in view of the gene- 
ral welfare and interest of society as 
against individual capitalists and 
special corporations. 

It will be long, however, before 
such changes can be wrought; and 
even when, if ever, they are accom- 
plished, the domain in which pri- 
vate capital and privileged corpo- 
rations can exert their energies, and 
build up for themselves an ever- 
growing empire under the opera- 
tion of the law we have defined, 
will still be practically boundless. 
But meanwhile, in order to be as- 
sured of permission to execute its 
beneficent mission, capital must 
learn the lessons and follow the 
directions of the greatest of all 
rules, and the foundation of all 
law, and 'the radical bond of all 



236 



Some Barriers between Labor and Capital. 



human society namely, the love 
of God above all things, and of our 
fellow-man for the sake of God. 
Justly-accumulated wealth is a trust 
from God, to whpm alone by abso- 
lute right all things belong, and 
this trust-fund of wealth was given 
in order that it should be employ- 
ed under the law of divine brother- 
hood. The right and just use of 
wealth is not an easy stewardship; 
for no man has the right to dispose 
of his wealth in whatever way he 
pleases. It is a duty of justice 
which the rich owe to God, to 
communicate of their abundance 
to those who are in want. Wise- 
ly they should seek, as a duty of 
charity and mercy which they 
owe their fellow-men, to ameliorate 
the condition of the poorer and more 
numerous classes of society in the 
improved healthfulness and comfort 
of their homes; in the shortening 
of their hours of labor and in the 
lengthening of their seasons of re- 
laxation, amusement, and instruc- 
tion ; in cheapening the cost of 
their food and improving its vari- 
ety and quality; in providing gar- 
dens and parks for their children 
instead of the filthy, noisy, and 
dangerous streets ; in securing for 
them the best medical attendance, 
not in hospitals alone but in their 
own homes; in building grand tem- 
ples where they may be taught how 
to secure their glorious destiny, 
and worship God with all the hon- 
or and pomp due to his supreme 
majesty; in every way sweetening, 
elevating, and ennobling their lives 
on earth, taking from them the sore 
temptations to evil with which want 
and grinding poverty come armed, 
and robbing vice of what is often 
its most potent weapon. Shall we 
be told that capital will not do 
this? If so, we have two answers. 
First, capital has done it. It did 



it in the ages of faith, when the 
church guided, as she is destined 
to guide again and more perfectly, 
the hearts and consciences of men. 
It did it in England during that 
long and glorious period before the 
Reformation, when, as Cobbett says 
in his inimitable history of that 
wretched wrenching away of the 
faith from the English people, all 
England contained not a single 
pauper ; when the land was cover- 
ed with religious houses in which 
the wayfarer was ever welcome ; 
when the farmers contended with 
each other to become the tenants 
of the monks, so low were their 
rents, so equable their rule, so per- 
manent their tenure ; when, in the 
cities, master and servant, artificer 
and apprentice, employer and em- 
ployed, were bound together by a 
tie of common interest and were 
not separated by antagonistic and 
warring claims; when the divine 
law of universal brotherhood was 
vital and in daily practice. The 
present unholy and unnatural con- 
flict between capital and labor that 
is, between the man who pays and 
the man who works began with, 
and had its source in, the religious 
revolution of the sixteenth century; 
and it can only be peaceably ended 
by a rejection of the false teachings 
of that revolt, occasioned, in the re- 
ligious sphere, by the exaggeration 
of private judgment as the inter- 
preter of divine revelation, to the 
exclusion of the divine authority 
of the church of Christ, and, as a 
logical sequence, in the social or- 
der the introduction of the supre- 
macy of private interests at the 
expense of the general good of so- 
ciety ; thus introducing sects in- 
to Christianity, and setting up indi- 
vidual interests or selfishness as 
against the general good of society. 
Protestantism is false in earthly 



Some Barriers between Labor and Capital. 



237 






as well as in spiritual things, and 
a return, not by becoming mediae- 
valists, but to the hearty and sin- 
cere practice of Catholic principles 
in their application to legislation, 
society, and above all to our per- 
sonal conduct towards our fellow- 
men, is the true, radical, and only 
remedy for all existing social dis- 
orders. 

But not only did capital thus 
discharge its duties in the ages 
of faith, but since then, and even 
in our own day, in France and 
England and in our own land, 
have individual capitalists and 
these, too, often not of the visi- 
ble household of faith recogniz- 
ed their duties and endeavored to 
discharge them, too often, it is 
true, in a bungling and blundering 
manner; too often putting off the 
work too long ; too often, instead 
of executing it in their lifetime for 
themselves, leaving it as a legacy 
to their executors and furnishing 
only plunder for unscrupulous law- 
yers; but still evidently recognizing 
and wishing to act upon the princi- 
ple that they were but the stewards 
of their wealth, and that rightfully 
it should be used for the benefit 
of the class by whose labor it had 
been acquired. This is our first 
answer to the objection that capi- 
tal will not do what the divine 
principle of charity requires of it. 
It has done it, and it can do it 
again not in' isolated cases only, 
but as a rule. The second answer 
is that, unless capital does this, a 
worse thing will come upon it. As 
for communism or socialism in 
this land, we have as yet, and shall 
have for a century to come, perhaps, 
too many proprietors to render the 
actual triumph of communistic 
ideas at all possible. But it is the 
small proprietor who, even more 
keenly than the man who possesses 



nothing, feels the growing oppres- 
sion of the great capitalists, and is 
most anxious to resist it. One of 
the most significant signs of the 
leaven that is working in the body 
politic is the alliance that has sud- 
denly been formed between the 
discontented workmen of our cities 
and the small farmers in our rural 
districts. The almost fabulous 
circulation that was obtained for 
the organ of the new Labor Party, 
which sprang up like Jonas' gourd 
in a night, was secured, we are told, 
by the small farmers, who, after 
their day's work, mounted their 
horses and rode through their neigh- 
borhoods canvassing for subscrip- 
tions. As we are writing, the news 
arrives of the election in Vermont, 
and we are told that even in that 
staid and conservative State this 
new revolt against capital and for 
labor " has found great favor 
among the farmers and developed 
a strength the more surprising be- 
cause unexpected." Capital must 
not forget that in a country like 
this, where every man is a voter, its 
enormous accumulation, by indi- 
viduals as well as corporations, ex- 
ists only by law, and the law is 
subject to almost universal suffrage. 
It is the nature of power, money- 
power as all others, always to accu- 
mulate, especially so when organiz- 
ed and concentrated. It can pack 
primary meetings, control nominat- 
ing conventions, and secure, in or- 
dinary times, the return of its own 
paid agents, or those wedded to its 
interests, to State legislatures or to 
Congress. It has done this, we 
fear, in this country in recent days 
to a remarkable degree. Our Fed- 
eral Senate is composed almost 
wholly of lawyers, bankers, and 
men engaged in mining or in trade ; 
the House of Representatives in 
the last Congress was composed of 



238 



Some Barriers between Labor and Capital. 



one hundred and eighty-nine bank- 
ers and bank-stock holders, ninety- 
nine lawyers, fourteen merchants, 
thirteen manufacturers, seven doc- 
tors, and one mechanic. So long 
as their reasonable wishes and 
wants are carried out, the voters 
prefer to be represented by men of 
education and position ; but it is 
easy to imagine a state of feeling 
which would send to Washington a 
body of representatives resolved to 
make an application, in a wide and 
perhaps to a dangerous extent, of the 
example which the framers of our 
institutions have given of the au- 
thority of the state to modify the 
private ownership of property in 
their abolition of the right of primo- 
geniture. What is there to prevent 
this? There would not be the 
least need of violence or of a revo- 
lutionary or illegal procedure. It 
is within the resources of the mind 
of a man like General Butler, for 
instance, to devise a graduated in- 
come tax which would leave to the 
millionaire a stipend no larger than 
the wages which he pays to his 
coachman. Let us look at this 
prospect in the dry light of statis- 
tics. Of the 12,553,766 adult pop- 
ulation of the United States, ac- 
cording to the latest statistics, 
there were 5,922,471 engaged in 
agricultural pursuits ; 975,734 were 
domestic servants; 1,031,666 were 
day-laborers ; 1,191,238 were en- 
gaged in trade or transportation ; 
2,255,314 in manufacturing; 500, 
ooo in mining; and 677,343 were 
professional men and bankers. It 
is from the latter class that our 
legislators have chiefly been cho- 
sen; but these figures show how 
easily this rule might be reversed, 
and a Congress composed exclu- 
sively, or nearly so, of representa- 
tives of the agricultural, mechani- 
cal, and laboring classes sent to 



Washington with instructions to 
legislate with all possible severity 
against aggregated capital and 
wealth. One can imagine the de- 
clarations with which they would 
preface and justify their acts. 
" There was no natural right of 
property," they would say: "in the 
beginning private property often 
was acquired by force or by fraud ; 
strong and crafty men not rarely 
possessed themselves of things not 
their own ; and common consent 
permitted them to retain this. It 
is the authority of civil law that 
has sanctioned the division of those 
common goods, which the Creator 
gave originally to human society as 
a body, into private ownership of 
property ; and this sanction was 
bestowed, not in violation of man's 
original rights, but in addition to 
them, for the sake of the better care 
and improvement of things, the good 
order of society, and the more per- 
fect preservation of peace among 
men. Civil law to-day claims this 
authority, and frequently makes use 
of it, to limit and alter the private 
ownership of property in whatever 
way is deemed necessary and best 
for the general good of society." 
There is no disguising the fact that 
common consent embodied in civil 
law is the tenure which to-day 
permits a comparative handful of 
men or corporations to own one- 
fourth of the real estate in New 
York City. The same common 
consent could to-morrow practical- 
ly, under the plea of the general 
good, take it away from them by 
burdening it with taxes that would 
consume the whole of its income, 
or by openly confiscating it. The 
discontent that is rife, not only in 
this metropolis but throughout the 
land, is not yet strong enough or 
hopeless enough to be led to such 
measures. But that they are possi- 



Some Barriers between Labor and Capital. 



I 



ble in the future must be admitted, 
and capital, without being alarmed 
for its future, should look all its 
possible dangers in the face, and 
prepare to avoid them, not by 
denying their existence or ridicul- 
ing their seriousness, but in remov- 
ing their causes by more impartial 
legislation, and reconciling itself 
with the law of God and the teach- 
ings of the church, which, instinct 
with the spirit of her divine 
Founder, throughout all her history 
has ever been the champion, guard- 
ian, and defender of the liberties 
and rights of the people against the 
tyranny of kings and the oppressions 
of the great ones of the earth. 

At the last session of our Fede- 
ral Congress a wise step was taken. 
A physician, before prescribing for 
a patient, makes a careful diagno- 
sis of his disease. Congress, tar- 
dily conscious of the fact that the 
body politic was in bad health, ap- 
pointed a committee to ascertain 
the cause or causes of the disease 
and to recommend the necessary 
remedies. This committee was in- 
structed "to inquire into and as- 
certain the causes of general busi- 
ness depression, especially of labor, 
and to devise and propose measures 
of relief." Without exaggeration, 
it may be said that seldom has a 
more comprehensive and weighty 
duty been assigned to a legislative 
committee. The committee con- 
sisted of Messrs. Abram S. Hewitt, 
of New York ; W. W. Rice, of Mas- 
sachusetts ; T. A. Boyd, of Illinois ; 
J. M. Thompson, of Pennsylvania ; 
H. Y. Riddle, of Tennessee; H. 
L. Dickey, of Ohio ; and James T. 
Jones, of Alabama. Beginning 
their session on the ist of August, 
in this city, they continued, day 
after day for a month, to listen to 
and to record the facts, the theo- 
ries, and the appeals which no less 



239 

than sixty volunteer witnesses pre- 
sented to them. In no way, per- 
haps, could be shown at a single 
glance the wide-spread interest felt 
in the subject-matter of the com- 
mittee's investigations than by giv- 
ing even a partial list of the wit- 
nesses who, on their own motion, 
came before it. Here is such a 
list: 

Thomas Rock and Cornelius 
Egan, " representatives of the Stone 
Cutters' Association " ; Hugh Mc- 
Gregor, " a workingman " ; Cornelius 
O'Sullivan, of the " Granite Cutters' 
International Union"; William A. 
Carsey, " Secretary of the Green- 
back Labor Party " ; George W. 
Maddox, who described himself as 
" a thunderer " ; Mrs. Myra Hall, 
who said she was " the repre- 
sentative of twenty millions of 
slaves belonging to this country 
who have never yet been admitted 
to the elective franchise " ; J. J. 
O'Donnell, a machinist, who de- 
clared that he "represented him- 
self"; P. Benner, a tailor; Patrick 
Logan, whose representative char- 
acter did not appear ; Robert W. 
Hume, " President of the Labor 
League and the Congress of Hu- 
manity " ; Osborne Ward, " a re- 
presentative of the Social Demo- 
cracy of Brooklyn " ; Dr. Douai ; 
Geo. E. McNeil, " President of the 
International Labor Union " ; Alex. 
T. Peck, of Danbury, Connecticut, 
who seemed to be of no trade or 
business; Mr. Sellick, a merchant; 
Henry Kemp, " a produce broker " ; 
Henry V. Rothschild, "a manufac- 
turer of clothing " ; Morris Justice, 
" a house-owner " ; William Planson, 
" a watch-repairer " ; Mr. Schroe- 
der, " a piano-maker " ; Mr. James, 
editor of the New York Volks Zci- 
tiing ; Jeremiah E. Thomas, "a 
colored waiter and porter " ; A. 
Me r win, " a German " ; Y. E. 



240 



Some Barriers bctivecu Labor and Capital. 



Clark, "an ex-soldier"; Mr. Har- 
land, " a delegate from the Blue 
Ribbon Society"; Mr. Hastings, 
"a capitalist"; Morris Cohen, "a 
manufacturer of cloaks and suits, 
and representative of the socialis- 
tic labor movement in Brooklyn " ; 
Herbert Graham, who " represent- 
ed twenty thousand organized la- 
borers " ; Horatio D. Sheppard, 
" the representative of the National 
Reform Association " ; A. Strasser, 
" a workman for day's wages and 
President of the Cigar-Makers' 
Union " ; Wesley A. Parks, " a pub- 
lisher " ; Horace White, a former 
newspaper editor; Charles Francis 
Adams, Jr. ; Charles Frederick 
Adams, a lawyer; Charles F. Win- 
gate, " a workman " ; William E. 
Dodge, " a merchant in New York 
for fifty-one years " ; J. N. Stearns 
and A. M. Powell, "of the Ameri- 
can Temperance Society " ; John 
E. Hinchman, of Brooklyn, " a 
merchant out of employment"; 
Francis B. Thurber, a great grocery 
merchant ; Silas B. Kenyon, a ma- 
chinist ; Wm. Goodwin Moody, 
who said he had learned " the prin- 
ter's trade, but was now in no busi- 
ness " ; .Herbert Radcliff, ex-editor 
of the Boston Journal of Commerce ; 
William H. G. Smart, " an inde- 
pendent stone-cutter "; Charles H. 
Marshall, " a shipping commission 
merchant " ; Robert F. Austin, a 
wholesale grocer ; George Walker, 
ex-bank commissioner and vice- 
president of the Gold and Stock 
Telegraph Company; John Roach, 
the well-known iron-ship builder ; 
Charles Willis Elliott, " now of Ne- 
braska, formerly of Boston, and 
once a Park Commissioner in New 
York"; Cyrus Bussey, President of 
the New Orleans Chamber of Com- 
merce; and Wm. G. Sumner, "Pro- 
fessor of Political and Social Sci- 
ence " in Yale College. 



In the multitude of counsellors 
there is wisdom. Here, certainly, 
was a multitude of counsellors; but 
wherein shall we find the wisdom 
of their counsel ? No less than 
fifty-five separate and distinct cures 
for the present distress were pro- 
posed by these sixty counsellors, 
who, it will be observed, represent- 
ed almost every class. Many of 
these specifics consisted merely in 
the " abolition" of something. Thus 
it was proposed to abolish capital- 
ists, interest, private ownership of 
land, private properly of any kind, 
patent laws, customs duties, all 
laws for the collection of bills of 
credit, private ownership of machi- 
nery, the practice of giving public 
lands to railroad companies, the 
United States Senate, the practice 
of licensing tenement cigar facto- 
ries, the wages system, and the 
tariff. Another class of reformers 
went in for prohibition,' and pro- 
posed to prohibit the employment 
of children under fourteen years of 
age, the employment of anybody 
but citizens on public works, the 
doing of public work by contract, 
Chinese immigration, and the lock- 
ing up of trust-funds by assignees. 
Then came a long list of positive 
measures. These were the restric- 
tion of the powers of the executive 
and of the legislature within very 
narrow limits ; the passage of a law 
compelling people to spend their 
money immediately after they get 
it; the colonization of the unem- 
ployed on the prairies; fixing the 
rate of wages by law ; a national 
prohibitory liquor law; the loaning 
of four thousand millions of dollars 
to the people without interest; 
enacting that the people should 
have two half-holidays every week; 
a general apprentice law ; the issu< 
of United States bonds in sums 
as low as ten dollars ; the im- 



Some Barriers between Labor and Capital. 



241 



mediate resumption of specie pay- 
ments ; the reduction of taxes ; the 
imposition of a tax on steamships 
to give sailing vessels a better 
chance ; a general lien la\v ; the 
renting of all landed property to 
whoever will pay the highest taxes 
to the government; free travel on 
railroads at the government's exr 
pense ; a graduated tax on incomes 
to prevent large accumulations of 
property ; government work for the 
unemployed ; industrial schools at 
the expense of the government ; di- 
rect taxation ; the building of two 
hundred war-ships; the employ- 
ment of our soldiers in peaceful 
work on the prairies; a universal 
eight-hour law; the establishment 
of a Bureau of Labor Statistics and 
a Department of Industry; legisla- 
tion making it illegal for women to 
work more than four hours a day; 
the running of all machinery on the 
co-operative principle for the bene- 
fit of the people ; the amending of 
the Constitution for the benefit of 
the laboring class; government co- 
operative societies; the gratuitous 
administration of justice; extension 
of the suffrage to everybody, wo- 
men included ; the control of pub- 
lic education by the federal gov- 
ernment; minority representation; 
unlimited greenbacks; immediate 
paying off the national debt and 
the national bank-notes in green- 
backs; the taking over by the gov- 
ernment of all the railroads and 
telegraphs ; the exclusion of all 
"politicians " from office ; and the 
submission of all laws to the peo- 
ple for their approval or condem- 
nation. 

The list is a long one; but it is 
no part of our present purpose to 
point out the absurdity or to de- 
monstrate the wisdom of any of 
these suggested reforms. All that 
we care to do at this moment is to 
VOL. xxvm. 16 



show how wide-spread and deep is 
the popular distress and anxiety ; 
how general the conviction that 
" something should be done "; and 
to insist that, whatever may be the 
details of practicable and useful 
economical and political reforms, 
to be wholly and permanently fruit- 
ful of good they must have for their 
basis and their motive of action 
Catholic principle, and the practi- 
cal and thorough recognition of 
the great truth that the duties of 
property are as important and 
binding as its rights; that we are 
all absolutely and really, and not 
relatively or metaphorically, mem- 
bers of one another; that as God 
has made of one blood all the na- 
tions of the earth to dwell together, 
that which injures one will sooner 
or later injure all, while what is for 
the true good of one is for the true 
good of all; that the strong should 
protect the weak, while the weak 
respect the strong, not because they 
are merely strong but because they 
are good and strong. Let the 
great capitalists go on concentrating 
and developing in new fields the 
work ot production and distribu- 
tion ; labor-saving machines shall, 
be multiplied and perfected until 
perhaps one or two hours', more or 
less, work a day will do all that 
ten hours' toil can now accom- 
plish; the life of the workman, now 
too often wholly hard, colorless, and 
joyless, save perchance for the one 
blessed half-hour which he takes 
by force from his rest in order that 
he may worship God, will gradual- 
ly be made easier, softer, more like 
that of a free human being than of 
a beast of burden ; health and long, 
days will crown his life ; and with- 
out wishing for riches or for posi- 
tion, he will do his duty with cheer- 
fulness and faithfulness, as a hus- 
band, a father, a useful member 



242 Some Barriers between Labor and Capital. 



of society, and a Christian ; while 
the great captains of the industrial 
army the mighty capitalists, man- 
agers, and directors will see the 
sphere of their activity, usefulness, 
and power increase and not dimin- 
ish, but, instead of being inspired 
by self-interest, the desire merely 
to heap up wealth, to perpetuate a 
family, or to rule for the sake of 
ruling, will be actuated by that ce- 
lestial love for others of which the 
Saviour of mankind gave us the 
most perfect example, and of which 
the glorious company of the saints 
has afforded countless illustrations. 
Not solely in alms-giving, but in 
the wise, systematic, and ever-ex- 
panding application of the wealth 
earned by the community to the 
uses of the community, will the 
leaders in manufacture, commerce, 
and transportation spread happi- 
ness, peace, comfort, and security 
throughout the land, and chase 
from it for ever the spectre of Rev- 
olution and the skeleton of Want. 
There is but one society in the 
world which has not only the or- 
ganization but the spirit necessary 
for thus guiding men in the path of 
justice and safety. It is the church 
of God the church that has for 
ever been the dauntless friend of 
the poor as well as the sure in- 
structor and guide of the rich and 



mighty; the church that fears no- 
thing, because she knows she is 
divine and indestructible, and that 
never speaks with a halting or un- 
certain voice. She alone has in her 
hands the adequate motive for the 
charity which is now to be requir- 
ed of the rich and mighty ; she 
alone can inspire them with that 
wisdom that cometh from above, 
and without which all else is folly. 
Mere philanthropy will not be suf- 
ficient motive ; fear of the earthly 
consequences of the explosion of 
the wrath of the long-oppressed and 
wronged will not be an adequate 
incentive; the desire of leaving be- 
hind one a good name, or the fear 
of posthumous execration, will not 
suffice. It is the more harmoni- 
ous adjustment of our legislation, 
financial, political, and social, and 
the conduct of men with their fel- 
low-men with the primary princi- 
ples of Christianity, that will re- 
move all evils from society, and in- 
augurate the reign of justice, peace, 
and happiness upon earth. This 
is the bright hope that democratic 
American civilization holds out en- 
couragingly to humanity, and this 
glorious hope is identical with the 
certain promises of Christianity 
and the divine action of the Cath- 
olic Church in the history of the 
world. 



Canova. 



243 



CANOVA. 






ONE hundred and twenty years 
ago God bestowed a rare gift on 
Italy. He gave to that ever-favor- 
ed land a man who stood foremost 
in his art, who outstripped his im- 
mediate predecessors victims of 
the terrible decay and corruption 
into which sculpture and painting 
had fallen and who even to-day 
is not surpassed in the strength and 
power of his genius and the num- 
ber and kind of his works. He 
was a Christian gentleman, "with- 
out fear and without reproach." 
His name was honored among men. 
The very children in the streets 
cried : Ecco il noslro gran Canova 
"Behold our great Canova." To- 
day in Italy a visitor will meet 
many traces of his master-hand. 
To-day in America how many 
know him ? How many realize the 
influence he exerted over art, en- 
nobling and purifying it ? Few in- 
deed. He has not been shown to 
us that we may appreciate him. 
So, in the earnest desire to win for 
him a recognition of his admirable 
qualities as man and as artist, we 
give this little sketch of Antonio 
Canova. 

The once powerful republic of 
Venice claimed among its former 
and more splendid dependencies 
the province of Treviso. Within 
this province is situated the little 
village of Possagno. It is secluded 
from public observation by the 
hills of Asolano which surround it. 
Here, hidden by the obscurity of 
the village, among a simple people, 
unspoiled by any contact with an 
aristocratic and wealthy luxuriance, 
was born on the morning of All 
Sa ; nts' day, November i, 1757, one 



upon whose career the eyes of all 
Europe would rest as the great- 
est artist of the present age; and 
not alone of the present, but, per- 
haps, all things being considered, 
the greatest also of a preceding 
age. We say advisedly, all things 
considered. Any one who will 
carefully study the history of art 
in Italy to the time of Michael 
Angelo, and from that period 
through its decline till Canova 
appeared, a true renovator, will 
appreciate the force of our obser- 
vation. 

Antonio Canova was the only 
child of Pietro, a stone-cutter, and 
Angela Zardo, who, according to 
one of Canova's biographers, was 
nowise distinguished from the wo- 
men of her native hamlet. Shortly 
after his father's death, which oc- 
curred three years later, the young 
Antonio was deprived of his moth- 
er's care. She formed a second 
marriage, and removed to her na- 
tive town, Crespano. She natur- 
ally desired to carry her son to her 
new home. His grandfather, Pasi- 
no % Canova, however, pleaded so 
earnestly to keep the boy with him 
that it was finally settled he should 
remain part of the time with old 
Pasino, who proved a faithful 
guardian, and the other part with 
his mother, now Angela Sartori. 

Possagno, although insignificant 
compared with Venice and the 
more celebrated cities and towns 
of Italy, held nevertheless resources 
of its own. The country was rich 
in the fertility of its soil, while the 
wool of its sheep gave occupation, 
and even wealth, to many. But its 
own peculiar value consisted in the 



244 



Canova. 



abundance of a kind of soft stone 
which, because of its readiness 
to yield to the chisel, was much 
used in ornamental carvings, altars, 
and such like. The grandfather of 
our Antonio was a simple mason 
and stone-cutter. He was, perhaps, 
a little of an architect and sculptor, 
but very far from being an artist. 
That he loved his work, however, 
and labored faithfully in it, is suf- 
ficiently attested by the number of 
stucco, soft-stone, and sometimes 
marble carvings of his workman- 
ship in the churches and on the 
altars of Possagno and the neigh- 
boring villages. They show tol- 
erable power of execution and 
neatness of design, and evince at 
once the capability of the man, 
whose talents, while being in no 
way great, were sufficiently of im- 
portance to prevent his being hid- 
den in mediocrity; and in a limited 
sphere, far from great cities, they 
caused him to be employed in 
works rather above their and his 
own suitable occupation. The re- 
markable good-humor and intelli- 
gence of Pasino gave him a degree 
of ascendency over his equals, 
amongst whom he was very popular. 
Such was the man who, for the 
present, was to be the guardian of 
Antonio, who gave him his first'les- 
sons in the use of the chisel that 
chisel which was afterwards to as- 
tonish the world by the superiority 
of its work. 

Before taking up our young 
sculptor's life, with the commence- 
ment of his labors, we will devote 
a few words to her whom Canova 
ever warmly cherished, and who 
was to him a loving and sympa- 
thetic mother. This was Caterina 
Ceccato, the wife of Pasino, the 
boy's devoted grandmother. She 
watched his growth with the most 
affectionate solicitude, and by her 



tender care supplied the loss of his 
mother; for, as will be seen, the ar- 
rangement made at the time of 
Angela's second marriage could 
not continue. 

The native worth of men is 
deepened and brought into strong 
relief by the tender influence of a 
true mother. She holds the power 
to mould the strong nature, to soft- 
en its asp.erities, to render it more 
docile to the control of religion, to 
combine the mastery of a large in- 
tellect with the simplicity of a 
child's heart. And this is especial- 
ly true of a man of genius. His 
character cannot be rounded and 
complete unless the mother's sub- 
tle influence has worked its will. 
Talents and virtue mutually lend a 
noble dignity to each other. Vol- 
taire, with his wonderful gifts, was 
one-sided. He wanted a mother's 
love and piety. Byron had all the 
elements of true greatness, had they 
been mingled wisely. To him was 
denied the judicious and patient af- 
fection ever ready to prompt and to 
mould. Deprived of both parents, 
Canova, more fortunate than many, 
found a second mother in Cat- 
erina. She directed his childish 
acquirements as far as she was able ; 
she opened to him the way to vir- 
tue, and at last had the happiness 
of seeing the object of her earnest 
solicitude prove himself worthy of 
it. On his side Canova was per- 
mitted to enjoy one of the purest 
pleasures a genuine man can taste 
that of ministering to his grand- 
mother's wants in her old age. 
Upon her husband's death, as soon 
as his means permitted, Canova 
brought her to Rome to reside with 
him ; and we are told that yiany 
of his friends long remembered how 
earnest were his efforts to sooth 
her declining years. Canova had 
sculptured the bust of Caterina in 



Canova. 



245 



the native dress of her province, 
which was the same as that of 
Titian's mother, as seen in the pic- 
tures of that master. This bust he 
kept in his own apartments. Show- 
ing it one day to a friend, he said 
with deep feeling: "That is a 
piece which I greatly value. It is 
the likeness of her to whom I owe 
as much as it is possible for one 
human being to owe to another," 
adding with a smile, " You ladies 
are usually solicitous about ap- 
pearances. You see my grand- 
mother is dressed nearly as Titian's 
mother is represented by that 
artist ; but, unless affection renders 
me a partial judge, my relative is 
by far the finer old woman." 

The extreme poverty of his rela- 
tions made it necessary for the lad 
to be early taught some trade. It 
was natural,, therefore, that the 
grandfather should have regarded 
Antonio as his destined assistant 
and successor. Accordingly, be- 
fore his bent showed itself, just as 
soon as his hand could hold and 
manage a pencil, the old man began 
to initiate his grandson into the 
principles of drawing. Later, al- 
though still in tender years, the 
(Mttle fellow commenced to mould 
n clay, and at last was permitted 
he use of the chisel. Thus, early 
n life, long before his real art 
:areer had been entered upon, 
Canova acquired a dexterity in the 
nechanical use of the tools which 
Afterwards gave him the great ad- 
vantage of being able to execute 
the rapid conceptions of his genius 
with corresponding facility. 

It would seem that the arrange- 
ment made upon the second mar- 
riage of our young Antonio's 
mother proved a total failure. 
During the half-years he spent in 
his step-father's home he was con/ 
stantly in trouble with him. He 



openly averred he did not love him. 
Were his mother alone, he declared, 
he would work for her and live 
with her, as he loved her very dear- 
ly, and was very proud of his lit- 
tle half-brother, Giovanni Baptista 
Sartori. She had her husband now; 
she did not need him. The secret 
of this boyish sensitiveness and 
pride might be found in his devo- 
tion to his clay and chisel. He 
was constantly moulding and cut- 
ting, much to Francis Sartori's dis- 
gust. Yet we find no evidence of 
his neglecting the duties and tasks 
required from him. When with 
his grandfather, Antonio's daily 
labor was naturally in the work- 
shop, and here he was always to be 
found, except when his grandmo- 
ther's legendary lore allured him 
away to her side. Indeed, his en- 
thusiastic and ardent mind was 
as often swayed by the good old 
matron's tales and ballads as by 
his favorite employment. Thus 
constituted, the sports of the vil- 
lage boys held little attraction for 
him. 

At his mother's all was different. 
Francis Sartori has been reputed as 
a good, pious man, but probably 
had very little sympathy with his 
step-son's earnest love of his art. 
The outbreak was not long deferred, 
and it came in this wise: Antonio, 
then twelve years of age, had begun 
to rough-hew a statue of his own 
design. It was intended to repre- 
sent the Blessed Virgin, his Ma- 
donna, as he called her. The 
Feast of Corpus Christi was draw- 
ing near, and the boy was very 
anxious to finish his statue, for his 
cousin, Betta Biasi, and several of 
her young companions, who were 
Children of Mary, had promised, if 
it were very nice, to decorate it 
for the feast. Then they did not 
doubt but that their pastor would 



246 



Can ova. 



permit them to bear it in proces- 
sion. He worked very steadily, but 
only after his daily tasks were 
finished and his time his own. 
One morning, after Antonio had re- 
tired to a neglected part of the lit- 
tle garden, where an old arbor 
served him for a workshop, Francis 
Sartori came to him, evidently in 
great anger. He sternly demand- 
ed what he was doing. " This," 
replied the boy quietly, pointing 
to his statue, which stood upon a 
stool. 

" And is this what I bade you to 
do?" asked his step-father. 

" I have done my work, and it 
is only when I have finished it 
that I come here." 

Francis, whose anger against the 
poor lad had probably some jealous 
origin, then broke out into a tor- 
rent of abuse hardly consistent 
with the character of piety given 
him. Finally, taking a stone, he 
aimed it at the stool. The force 
of the blow caused the statue to 
fall from its pedestal. It was shiv- 
ered to pieces. At this Antonio, 
who had borne his step-father's 
outburst in silence, broke into a fit 
of passionate weeping. The sight 
of perhaps his first real piece of 
work lying "broken at his feet 
proved too much for the little fel- 
low. Still sobbing, he cried out: 
"If it is in this way you are going 
to treat me, I will not remain here 
another day." Then, collecting 
almost tenderly the bits of his Ma- 
donna, he put them into a bundle 
and left. Going through the house, 
he wished to say good-by to his 
mother. This Francis forbade. So 
Antonio left Crespano and walked 
to Possagno, where his grandfather 
warmly welcomed him. His story 
told, the old man blamed him for 
quarrelling with his step-father, 
and, much to the boy's astonish- 



ment, set off for Crespano to con- 
sult with the mother. It was then 
decided that he should live alto- 
gether with Pasino, spending Sun- 
days at his step-father's. Antonio's 
joy at this arrangement was great. 
He immediately set to work at his 
statue again, with the determina- 
tion to make a second, larger and 
better than the other; thus early 
revealing an all-important trait in 
a true genius perseverance and 
love of hard work. For, whatever 
may be the common notions re- 
specting the all-powerfulness of na- 
tive gifts in the production of great 
works, unceasing, arduous industry 
gives the best assurance of perfec- 
tion in the end. That perfection 
stands upon too high an eminence 
to be gained at a bound ; the 
height may only be reached by 
patient toil and devoted self-de- 
nial, and many who envy the ge- 
nius which gains the steep shrink 
from the labor that the struggle en- 
tails. 

Antonio's Madonna has quite a 
little history of its own, which is 
worth giving. 

Pasino, who had thus far been 
the lad's teacher, could be of no 
assistance here, for the old man 
had only sculptured leaves and 
mouldings, and had always follow- 
ed his model strictly with the help 
of a three-legged compass. Now, 
it chanced that there stood in a 
niche in the corner of the market- 
place at Possagno a Madonna 
which was held in great esteem by 
the people, and was probably a 
spot where pilgrimages were fre- 
quently terminated. Be this as it 
may*, this statue, partly on account 
of the homage paid it, and partly 
for lack of better material, served 
our young sculptor as his model. 
He took from it, however, only the 
general attitude and the drapery. 



Canova. 



2 47 



The face seems to have been in- 
spired by a picture after Raphael 
which had belonged to his father. 
For six weeks Antonio labored 
hard and steadily. Then his work 
was finished; loud were the praises 
on all sides ; for his grandfa- 
ther, in his simple delight, pro- 
claimed the statue a chef-d'aiiivre. 
The good parish priest, who, it 
would seem, was a connoisseur, was 
invited to see the already famous 
Madonna. He examined it care- 
fully, smiling a little, perhaps, at 
the eagerness with which the grand- 
parents, cousins, and friends of the 
boy awaited his verdict. And now 
it comes : " No, it is not a chef- 
d'oeuvre, but it shows remarkable 
promise. My child," he said, 
turning kindly to Antonio, "you 
have the germ of a great talent, but 
it depends upon your own earnest, 
faithful labors to be developed." 

Beyond all the lavish praise he 
had received did these words sat- 
isfy the young sculptor; for none 
knew better than himself the faults 
of his work, and none felt more 
keenly than he his powerlessness 
at the moment to do better. Em- 
boldened, however, by the kindness 
of the priest, the boy, while thank- 
ing him, said : " But, reverend fa- 
ther, please to grant me a great 
favor which will encourage me so 
much." 

" Speak, my child," returned the 
priest; " if this favor depends upon 
me, it certainly shall be granted to 
you." 

Then said the boy : " Father, I 
would like to offer to God and to 
the Blessed Virgin this first work of 
my hands. And perhaps, if this 
poor little statue is not too un- 
worthy of such an honor, you will 
place it in one of the chapels of the 
church ?" 

"My boy," replied the priest 



cordially, " that is a very happy 
thought of yours to offer to God 
and his Holy Mother the first 
fruits of your talent. Never forget, 
my child, that talents and genius 
are God's gifts. We must not al- 
low them to make us proud in our- 
selves, but must give all the glory 
to God alone. Think often of this, 
my little friend, and ever try to 
keep faithful to the inspiration that 
prompted you to-day to offer to 
God your first efforts. Henceforth, 
before you begin any work, implore 
his assistance, and say from your 
heart these words of the Psalmist : 
' Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but 
to thy name be the glory,' and 
you will see all your efforts crown- 
ed with success. In the earnest 
hope that you, my boy, will follow 
these counsels, and will never lose 
sight of the glory of God, I will 
willingly accord to you the favor 
you have asked. But I attach one 
condition ; it is that you will 
promise, when you become a great 
artist, to replace this statue by an- 
other more worthy of your talent, 
and above all more worthy of the 
One to whom you offer it to-day. 
Will you promise ?" 

" Yes, father, yes, I promise it 
with all my heart," cried the boy. 
filled with deep emotion ; " and if 
I ever become a real artist, I will 
give part of my work to ornament 
this church where I was baptized, 
and where I made my first commu- 
nion." 

" May God hear your promises 
and bless them ! In his name I 
bless you, my child." 

The boy fell on his knees, all 
around him knelt also, and the 
priest, making the sign of the cross, 
over Antonio, pronounced those 
exquisite words by which our holy 
mother church conveys her bless- 
ing to her children. 



248 



Canova. 



The next day our artist's Ma- 
donna was taken to the church 
and placed in the chapel of the 
Blessed Virgin. There the young 
Children of Mary assembled to 
cover it with flowers and jewels, 
according to the Italian custom. 
So lavish were they in their deco- 
rations that the little statue itself 
was completely hidden. On Cor- 
pus Christi it was borne in proces- 
sion. After the festival was over 
it was placed in a niche upon a 
pedestal which Pasino had himself 
prepared, and under which his 
little grandson engraved this in- 
scription : 

To the Blessed Virgin Mary. 
The humble offering 

of her 

Faithful and devoted servant, 

Antonio Canova, of Possagno. 

1770. 

We shall see later how more than 
well Antonio kept his promise; 
and may we not be very sure that 
the fidelity of the boy and the man 
to his good pastor's advice won 
for him the remarkable success 
which marked all his efforts, and 
enabled him to attain to so high a 
degree of excellence as artist and 
as Christian ? 

The natural beauty of the scen- 
ery in the province of Treviso, and 
the refreshing breezes from the 
Alps, caused many of the Venetian 
nobility to build their summer 
villas in the neighborhood of Pos- 
sagno and other obscure villages 
of this province. Among these 
noblemen was a certain Signor 
Giovanni Falieri, belonging to the 
patrician family Falieri of Venice. 
Signor Falieri, who often had oc- 
casion to employ Pasino Canova, 
held the old man in high regard 
for his many good qualities. Be- 
coming acquainted with his grand- 
son, he took the boy under his es- 



pecial patronage. Stories are re- 
lated of the manner in which his 
attention was first called to the 
boy's genius. Whatever truth may 
be attached to these anecdotes, it 
is very certain that Antonio early 
excited his patron's interest ex- 
cited it by gifts that promised 
much, by an ardent passion for an 
art in every way worthy of being 
cherished, and by the excellent 
virtues of his heart. An opportu- 
nity occurring at this time, Signor 
Falieri showed practical interest. 
He placed the boy under the in- 
struction of Bernardi Torretto, 
nephew of the sculptor Torretto, 
the elder, and himself one of the 
most skilful artists of Venice. He 
was then residing at Pagnano, at a 
short distance from Falieri's villa. 
Torretto quickly discovered the 
genius of Canova, and was very 
earnest in the direction of his 
pupil's studies ; while the boy's 
gentle manners and docile disposi- 
tion soon gained the master's heart. 
He remained with Torretto about 
three years, when the latter died, 
leaving Canova, who had only re- 
ceived the first instructions in his 
art, without any guidance for his 
future career. The boy returned 
to his grandfather and to the ob- 
scurity of the workshop. But he 
was not forgotten. Falieri, his 
kind patron, sent for him to come 
lo Venice and recommence his 
studies under Torretto's nephew, 
likewise a sculptor. The Falieri 
palace was opened freely to him, 
and every expense to be incurred 
in his studies was to be defrayed 
by his generous friend. 

One of the most strongly marked 
characteristics of Canova was his 
love of independence, his dislike to 
accept too freely of another's boun- 
ty if it could be avoided. This 
characteristic early showed itself 



Canova. 



249 



in the resolution be took, upon his 
arrival in Venice, of devoting half 
the day to the mechanical part of 
his art for some remuneration. 
While, therefore, we do not depre- 
ciate the great generosity of Signor 
Falieri towards his young protege 
we cannot but admire the firmness 
with which Canova adhered to his 
resolution ; and though the re- 
ward of ^his labors was a mere pit- 
tance, the true spirit of independ- 
ence exhibited by the lad (while 
he never once forgot his debt of 
gratitude to Falieri) is worthy of 
imitation. He remained not quite 
a year with Ferrari, the nephew of 
Torretto ; and now, from this his 
fifteenth or sixteenth year, we may 
follow the real art career of Anto- 
nio Canova. 

Hitherto the genius of this great 
mind had had no natural outlet. 
True, Canova was always working 
at his favorite employment in some 
form or other, but there was no 
decided aim. He was ambitious, 
yet for what he himself knew not. 
As we learn from one of those very 
few confidential letters he wrote in 
after-life of this period, his mind 
seemed to be oppressed with feel- 
ings which he could neither com- 
prehend nor subdue. He seemed 
to be urged forward by them to a 
high, imaginary goal of perfection. 
In his own expressive words': "He 
often felt as if he could have start- 
ed on foot with a velocity to out- 
strip the wind, but without know- 
ing whither to direct his steps; 
and, when activity could no longer 
be supported, he would have de- 
sired to lie down and die." This 
is a strong picture .the picture 
of a mind gifted with extraordina- 
ry powers, yet not knowing how 
to wield its own faculties. At 
times Canova w.ould suddenly ex- 
amine his drawings or his last 



model, and as suddenly turn from 
them, evidently seeking in vain for 
something still beyond him. We 
see in this dissatisfaction with him- 
self, this longing after excellence, 
after some hardly-descried emi- 
nence, the workings of a mind 
above its situation, held back not 
alone by lack of necessary infor- 
mation, but also by the crudity of 
those other qualities of the mind 
whose full maturity is needed to 
control and counterbalance the 
imagination of the boy. At Venice 
this inquietude began to leave him. 
He was no longer depressed by 
hopeless wishes. His aim was now 
clear and decided. He threw him- 
self with all ardor into the almost 
vast arena of study opening before 
him. Still, at this time, while his 
taste is constantly improving, and 
all through his life and art career, 
even in the fullest development of 
every faculty of his gifted mind, 
he will never find himself satisfied. 
This no real artist can ever be. 
Many dark hours of self-abase- 
ment in the realization of failure 
are before Canova. But these hours 
will be for him the irritation indicat- 
ing growth, and he will come out 
from them quickened and invigorat- 
ed with new determination to reach 
his ideal of excellence. 

Canova remained in Venice 
about eight years. The first year 
of this period was passed under 
the nephew of Torretto. He work- 
ed also with great success at the 
Academy of Arts, and he carved of 
white marble two baskets of fruit 
and flowers for the Farsetti family, 
to whose kindness he owed the 
privilege of devoting much time of 
study in the gallery of their palace. 
So earnest and unremitting were 
his exertions that in four years' 
time the young Antonio became 
sufficiently skilled in his profes- 



250 



Canova. 



sion to present himself before the 
world. He therefore set up his 
first studio in a vacant cell at the 
monastery of the Augustinian friars 
attached to the church of San 
Stefano. Here, and later in San 
Maurizio, he worked till 1780,* in 
which year he left Venice for 
Rome. 

For the reason that we could not, 
within the limits of this sketch, 
undertake a critical review of 
Canova's works, and because our 
idea is more a general notice or 
study of the sculptor and his man- 
ner of working than any extended 
consideration of the same, we will 
be content to mention only one or 
two of the ten pieces executed by 
him while at Venice. We will then 
pass with him to Rome, first, how- 
ever, touching on his method of 
study. The statues of Orpheus and 
Eurydice were his first after the 
baskets already spoken of. His 
last work before leaving Venice 
was the group of " Daedalus and 
Icarus." Both Quatremere de 
Quincy in his Canova et ses Ou- 
vragcs, and Memes in \\\<$> Biography, 
give an exhaustive criticism of this 
group, which may be said to mark 
the boundary line between the 
style of the student and the re- 
markable degree of perfection of 
reality and ideal which he after- 
wards attained. 

In order, however, to judge fairly 
of Canova's reformation in the 
method of study for artists, and to 
estimate its value correctly, it is 
of utmost importance that we real- 
ize the condition of sculpture not 
only during the time immediately 
preceding Canova, but more par- 
ticularly from that of Michael An- 
gelo whose death was followed by 



* Quatremere de Quincy gives October , 1779 ; 
Cicognara December, 1780. The evidence is in favor 
of the latter authority. 



a rapid degeneracy in art through 
the long period of decline lasting 
even to our Antonio's days. It is 
-beyond our power here to give 
anything like an adequate sketch 
or description of those times. The 
careful reader must search for him- . 
self to justify our statement that 
Canova was a true reformer where 
reform was needed. We shall be 
content to say that one great cause 
of the decline may be found even 
in Michael Angelo's days. What 
that great master noticed in the art 
of his period was a timidity of exe- 
cution, but a great fidelity to na- 
ture. This needed only deeper 
expression and freedom of the 
imagination. To combine these 
would have been to have restored 
art to its days of pristine glory, 
such as we have now only glimp- 
ses of in what is left us from 
the time of Phidias. This was 
what Michael Angelo in the com- 
mencement of his career promised. 
But to his vigorous perception the 
simplicity of the Greek sculpture 
seemed poverty. He resolved on 
a bold style which should appeal 
to the imagination alone. From 
the simple and natural he advanc- 
ed with rapid strides to the forced 
and exaggerated. Hence, while 
his works may be sublime, it is not 
the sublimity that connects itself 
with our sympathy. Rarely, if 
ever, are such muscular exaggera- 
tions met in nature. True art 
should always be the highest ideal 
of nature, not exaggerated but per- 
fected. The consequence of this 
neglect to follow nature was rapid 
decline. Michael Angelo's imme- 
diate successors, in following his 
example and receding more and 
more from nature, became more 
and more exaggerated. Defects 
which his great genius alone could 
conceal were in their hands a fruit- 



Canova. 



251 



ful source of corruption. Other in- 
fluences, too, were at work. Men's 
minds were drawn more towards 
intellectual and scientific studies. 
During the seventeenth century 
the genius of the time was turned 
to philosophical and mathematical 
researches. Some among those 
who still clung to art were sensible 
of its degeneracy, but they either 
failed to discover the secret, or, dis- 
covering it, lacked courage to re- 
form, or the times and the pat- 
ronage were against their efforts. 
So novelty at the expense of sim- 
plicity and the perfected ideal of 
nature was the characteristic of 
the days of corruption and decline 
in art. 

Canova realized this, and, early 
perceiving that he could not rest 
his hopes of excellence upon the 
imitation of the masters, resolved 
"to begin the art where the art 
itself had begun." In a word, he 
was both gifted and courageous 
enough to put aside the precon- 
ceived ideas of study, which his 
sound judgment showed him were 
false ; and, like the Greek, he stud- 
ied nature earnestly and faithful- 
ly. In this he went diametrically 
opposite to the schools of his day, 
where the sound maxim of Ghi- 
berti, that since sculpture consists 
in imitating truth we should begin 
by imitating with truth, was whol- 
ly disregarded. Canova estimated 
nature truly, and, although he 
could not yet entirely appreciate 
her full value, he felt he was on 
the right road in taking her simply 
for his model. The end proved 
him correct ; for in his works lie 
has united the classic simplicity of 
the Greeks with the perfection of 
nature and the ideal beauty of 
the imagination. All through his 
course of study, even to a late 
period in life, Canova devoted a 



large portion of his time to anato- 
my, which he justly regarded as 
"the secret of the art." Anato- 
mical knowledge alone would, 
however, have rendered him mere- 
ly theoretical, had he not united 
with it (as every artist should) the 
practical power gained from con- 
stant observation and sketches. 
He termed the studies made when 
watching the crowds of people 
in the streets, the animated ges- 
tures during conversation, or the 
display of all passions wherever 
witnessed, il scolpir del cuore 
the sculpture of the heart. His 
quick glance and ready memory 
enabled him to catch and retain 
those fugitive expressions of mus- 
cular action never to be perceived 
in the artificial movements of aca- 
demical models. The advantages 
of the warm Italian climate, where 
the lower classes are so little soli- 
citous about clothing, furnished 
abundant material for these acci- 
dental studies. 

Our readers should bear in mind 
that we write of no one portion of 
Canova's life, but simply describe 
his method of study as begun in 
early years, continued and perfect- 
ed to his death. The amount of 
hard work he accomplished seems 
almost incredible. But who, ex- 
cept those who- give themselves to 
just such hard work through years 
of long and painful pupilage, could 
effect what Canova did ? The num- 
ber and kind of his works bear wit- 
ness to his life. His daily sketches 
and studies from life, his constant 
and faithful comparisons of his 
ideal with nature, his earnest and 
skilful adaptation of anatomy to 
his art, show the secret of his suc- 
cess. He did not even dread the 
use of the dissecting-knife, in so 
far as it was necessary to a more 
perfect harmony of the human 



252 



Canova. 



body to his work. 'When he was 
fairly on the road of his profes- 
sion his daily labors ran thus: * 

He devoted the first hours of the 
morning, while his mind was fresh 
and vigorous, to composition or 
modelling. He sketched upon 
paper the outline of his thought, 
corrected and retouched it. Hav- 
ing at length satisfied himself 
with the design of his work as it 
would appear in painting, his next 
object was to examine and recom- 
pose it according to the principles 
of sculpture. For this he model- 
led the sketch in clay or wax. 
The arrangement of every indivi- 
dual part was carefully studied. 
The model in this condition had 
served the masters before him as 
the only guide for the statue. Not 
so Canova. This model was the 
first step to the real one, which 
he made of the same size as the 
marble to be carved. f With what 
skill and care it was finished those 
who have seen any of the original 
marbles may readily imagine from 
their perfection. When this model 
was completed so thoroughly that 
Canova knew it would prove an 
unerring guide, then, but not till 
then, was the manual labor of the 
marble confided to the workers in 
his employ. Many times, too, not 
content with this, he would block 
out the masses of marble himself. 
And to the labor entailed by such 
a course is traced the origin of the 



* For the details of Canova's daily labors we are 
greatly indebted to the Biography of the sculptor 
by M ernes. Among the other works consulted may 
be mentioned Cicognara, De Quincy, and Houclon. 

t It is only in this manner that the real effect of 
the full-sized statue which the sculptor is planning 
can be gained. Michael Angelo, late in life, be- 
came sensible of his error in not having followed 
this plan ; and Vasari, in his Vita de 1 M. Angela, 
says that towards the close of this master's life he 
began to study his compositions with more care, 
making his models for statues, and even architectu- 
ral ornaments, the full size. He then placed them 
at their proper height, in order to observe the true 
effect of the future work. 



disease that caused his death. 
The last touches were given by the 
master-hand alone, that the marble 
might seem to glow, as it were, 
with all the silent attributes of 
beauty and life. And even in 
these last touches he did not fail to 
compare his work with a living 
model. 

It is difficult to-day, when the 
study of nature in her highest 
forms is so earnestly inculcated, 
to realize the impression made on 
men's minds by Canova's works 
in that age of mannerism which 
has just preceded us that age of 
forced and exaggerated expres- 
sion, which, without the genius of 
a Michael Angelo to conceal its 
gross errors, was a total failure. 
To see a man stand forth, convinc- 
ed in his judgment that Nature is 
his true teacher, and to adopt her 
principles, not servilely, but with 
a breadth and nobility of purpose, 
is indeed a grand sight. And 
when we remember the wonderful 
mutual harmony between the natu- 
ral and the ideal, as evinced in the 
compositions which emanated from 
Canova's master-mind, we can 
hardly praise him enough for his 
courageous efforts to replace Art in 
her own genuine sphere. Many of 
our readers may not admire Can- 
ova's works, but even these can- 
not fail to pay their tribute to the 
man himself, and to appreciate his 
efforts to recall the wandering 
steps of his loved mistress and 
direct them towards their highest 
goal the perfection of the ideal 
and the real. A hair-breadth be- 
yond that perfection, and the down- 
ward path is rapid. And while we 
readily admit that Canova was not 
faultless, his imperfections are al- 
most lost in our earnest admira- 
tion of the fidelity with which he 
accomplished his work. With his 



Canova. 



253 



birth the fulness of time had come. 
God gave the work into his hands, 
and nobly did he perform it. 

Never yet lias man or nation un- 
dertaken any needed reform or at- 
tempted to establish any needed 
Jaws but instantly the mass of peo- 
ple springs up and defies them. 
Canova was not exempt from the 
bitterness of his labors. This, 
however, is hardly the place to re- 
peat all the comments and opposi- 
tion with which ignorance and pre- 
judice assailed him. Enough to 
say that the generosity with which 
he received these attacks, though 
suffering inwardly from their igno- 
ble pettiness, sooner or later dis- 
armed the crowd, who then did 
him justice. We might add that 
he was ill-fitted for such opposi- 
tion because of his modest reserve, 
being retiring and diffident almost 
to an extreme. Still, his high pur- 
pose bore him up; and in his mo- 
ments of discouragement, when he 
doubted if, in face of so much op- 
position, his views could be cor- 
rect, he subjected them to the se- 
verest examination. He hastened 
to the Capitol or the Vatican, and 
confronted them with the antique. 
The result enabled him to be con- 
stant to his method and patient 
with his opponents. 

We now pass with Canova to 
Rome Rome, the mother and 
mistress of the world. Kind 
friends had opened the way, and 
in 1781 our young artist found him- 
self on the road which was to lead 
to great after-success. When he 
arrived in Rome in 1780 he was 
courteously received by the Vene- 
tian ambassador, Cavaliere Juliani, 
to whom he carried letters. Thrs 
nobleman, when he had paid to the 
young Canova all the dues of hos- 
pitality, wished to be assured if 
the lad showed any promise of the 



future sculptor. He was a gene- 
rous protector, and, should Canova 
stand the trial, he would prove a 
firm friend. So Juliani caused 
the model of " Daedalus and Icarus " 
to be transported from Venice. 
He then invited artists and con- 
noisseurs of renown to inspect its 
merits. Among these may be men- 
tioned Volpato, Battoni, Puccini, 
Cades or Cadef, as the Italians 
write the name and Gavin Hamil- 
ton, an English painter, and author 
o f Schola Italics Pictures. C a n o v a 's 
trepidation, it may be imagined, 
was extreme. It would almost 
seem as though his whole future 
depended upon the decision of 
these men. He afterwards ac- 
knowledged that this was one of 
the most trying periods of his life. 
According to Cicognara, the guests 
stood around the group and gazed 
at it in silence. They did not dare 
to censure what commanded their 
deepest admiration, though at wide 
variance with the style then follow- 
ed. The simple beauties of the 
group so faithful to nature seemed 
like poverty of effect when compar- 
ed with the work from the schools 
of that day. Hamilton broke the 
silence. He cordially embraced 
the trembling artist. He congra- 
tulated him on the talent exhibited 
by the group. He exhorted him to 
follow the course he had adopted, 
and, by strenuously adhering to 
nature, unite its exact and beauti- 
ful imitation with the simplicity 
of taste and ideal of the ancients. 
Rome, he added, abounded with 
specimens of their grand work, to 
the study of which he urged the 
lad to devote himself. 

One of the guests present passed 
a severe censure on the group, 
which Canova overheard, and which 
pleased hfm more than any direct 
praise. This guest had observed 



254 



Canova. 



that the group must "nave been 
copied from models executed by 
the application of some soft mate- 
rial to the living form, so impossi- 
ble did it seem that the chisel alone 
could have produced so striking a 
representation of nature ; when, 
in truth, this group was the result 
of Canova's severe study of the hu- 
man form, unassisted by any me- 
chanical means. 

The merits of the young sculp- 
tor being thus recognized by all 
present, Juliani proved the sincer- 
ity of his promises of patronage ; 
and the work for which Canova's 
studies had prepared him now be- 
gan. The ambassador's manner of 
showing his interest was both deli- 
cate and gratifying by employing 
Canova on a large piece of statuary, 
the choice of the subject to be left 
to the sculptor. By providing 
the material, and, when the work 
was finished, if no other purchaser 
appeared, by considering it as be- 
longing to him on payment of its 
full value, he relieved his protege 
from all embarrassment of pov- 
erty, and yet left him indepen- 
dent. 

Rome inspired Canova with 
fresh ardor. He made profound 
and severe studies from the an- 
tique, without ever neglecting his 
observation of nature. His princi- 
pal works at this time were the 
"Theseus and Minotaur," a small 
" Apollo." and a " Psyche."' These 
were in marble. 

His fame now rose rapidly, and 
in 1792 he was employed on the 
tomb of Ganganelli, Clement XIV. 
Then followed with incredible 
celerity the group of " Cupid and 
Psyche," " Adonis and Venus," the 
" Magdalen kneeling," and many 
others. Such was his power and 
versatility; yet still to the severity 
of his own previous training is due 



this rapidity of conception and 
execution. 

The revolutionary frenzy which 
spread over Europe at the close of 
the eighteenth century filled Ca- 
nova with consternation. He cared 
nothing for politics, but, unable 
to endure those scenes of anarchy 
daily enacted in Rome in 1797-98, 
and the outrages committed on his 
loved pontiff, Pius VI., which he 
was powerless to avert, he left his 
studio, gave up his numerous works, 
and retired to his native town, Pos- 
sagno. Here he remained in quiet 
more than a year, studying and 
painting in oils. Charming stories 
are related of his reception at Pos- 
sagno, which he had left a poor, 
nameless youth, and to which he 
returned just before he had reach- 
ed the zenith of his fame. Betta 
Biasi, his cousin, and the heroine 
in his Madonna ftt, who was then 
married, formed a sort of conspi- 
racy (so runs one of the stories) 
with all the inhabitants of Possag- 
no. It was carried out in this 
wise : Canova, who had first visit- 
ed Crespano, went thence to his 
native hamlet. He made the jour- 
ney on foot; and what a walk that 
must have been ! How vividly 
that other walk in the far past 
must have come before him ! Then 
a little boy, his future all unknown, 
returning to his grandfather, his 
broken statue in his bundle, his 
heart heavy with grief, and denied 
his mother's parting kiss; after- 
wards the years of labor, the mo- 
ments of discouragement that were 
as years which had intervened, the 
hopes that trembled in the balance 
with the fears ; and now the success 
rtiat was crowning his efforts, his 
mistress, Art, smiling so kindly upon 
her lover! Absorbed, probably, 
in such thoughts, he kept his way; 
and as he n eared the town a crowd 



Canova. 



255 



of youngsters who were in ambus- 
cade burst upon him. They over- 
whelmed him with their greetings of 
joy and admiration, while their hear- 
ty Evvivas filled the air. The sculp- 
tor stopped, overcome by emotion, 
but they respectfully urged him to 
advance. Can ova always had a 
sincere repugnance to any kind of 
public demonstration and popular 
acclamations or honors. Imagine, 
then, his astonishment when twenty 
steps more brought him to a turn 
in the road, and he perceived that 
it was actually covered with im- 
mortelles, laurel branches, and 
roses. To the right and left of 
this triumphal path were the inhabi- 
tants of Possagno, Crespano, and 
neighboring towns. They had all 
assembled to greet him. The vil- 
lage bells were sounded, the old 
men and women joined the pro- 
cession, and with triumphal music 
and songs they conducted him to 
his old home, Pasino's house. 
For they were proud of the man 
who had gone forth from among 
them and had so nobly distinguish- 
ed himself. To them he was as a 
prince, and for a prince they could 
not do more. 

The affairs of the Holy See hav- 
ing assumed a more settled aspect, 
Canova returned to Rome and at- 
tained a still more brilliant renown. 
He soon after visited Germany for 
the benefit of his health, upon 
which his severe labors were tell- 
ing. It was at this time he exe- 
cuted the " Perseus with Medusa's 
Head." This remarkable piece was 
so truly classical in its beauty that, 
by the order of Pius VII., it was 
placed on one of the stanze of the 
Vatican hitherto reserved for the 
most precious relics of antiquity. 
This great privilege was supple- 
mented by the illustrious pontiff 
requesting Canova's presence at 



the Vatican, and there publicly em- 
bracing him, with genuine earnest- 
ness an honor accorded only to 
sovereigns (yet, in his art, was not 
Canova a sovereign ?). On this 
occasion he received from the 
hands of the pope the investiture 
in two of the Roman orders of 
knighthood, and was also nomi- 
nated Inspector-General of Fine 
Arts, in Rome and the Pontifical 
States. In the same year (1802) 
Napoleon invited Canova to Paris. 
He desired to see this great artist, 
whose praises resounded on all 
sides. He also desired to obtain 
some of his work. But Canova, 
while he admired the conqueror of 
Egypt, the vanquisher of Italy, 
could never forgive the author of 
the treaty of Campo Formio ; there- 
fore, though Napoleon's offers were 
brilliant, Canova remained faithful, 
and, had it not been for the inter- 
vention of the Sovereign Pontiff 
himself, Napoleon would have 
been refused. He went then as 
ambassador of the Holy See. 
Twice afterwards, in 1810 and 1815, 
he visited Paris. On his last visit 
he was charged with a special mis- 
sion namely, the recovery of the 
spoils taken from Rome by the 
order of the First Consul. What 
better man could have been chosen 
for this task than he who so loved 
the art treasures of which Rome 
had been despoiled, and who had 
so mourned their loss ? And what 
a joy to his heart when his efforts 
proved successful and Rome's trea- 
sures were restored ! 

As a result of the first two visits, 
he executed a colossal statue of 
Napoleon, a bust of Josephine, and 
another of tlie Empress Marie 
Louise. His conversations with 
Napoleon are full of interest. 

After his third visit to Paris, in 
1815, he passed over to England, 



2 5 6 



Canova. 



and tliere, in London, saw for the 
first time what he termed the fin- 
est Greek antiquities the world 
possesses the Elgin Marbles. His 
delight at the sight of them was 
intense. "These statues, these 
fragments," he exclaimed, " will 
produce a great change in art." 
Upon his return to Rome he la- 
bored harder than ever, not alone 
in relation to his own improvement, 
but also to establish the style of 
Phidias, as shown in the Elgin 
Marbles. And, as Cicognara re- 
marks, he himself acknowledged 
that a visible improvement and the 
highest efforts of his chisel were to 
-be found in the works which he 
executed subsequently to his visit 
to London. On his return, in 1816, 
he was enrolled among the Roman 
patricians with the title of Mar- 
quis of Ischia, and to this dignity 
was assigned the annual pension of 
three thousand crowns. Thus his 
name was inscribed in the Golden 
Volume of the Capitol. So many 
were the honors he received that 
we may not pause to enumerate 
them. Through all he showed the 
Same simplicity and unassuming 
modesty, united with untiring zeal 
and hard labor. Religion ever 
possessed strong influence over 
Canova, and to it he devoted his 
whole spiritual life untiringly. 

It was his great wish now to show 
some appreciation of all that had 
been done for him, and he propos- 
ed a colossal statue of "Religion," 
to be finished in marble at his own 
expense. The model, upwards of 
twenty feet in height, was complet- 
ed a grand and imposing figure 
but, from some unknown cause, 
obstacles from cardinals and 
princes were thrown in the way of 
the execution in marble of a work 
destined to commemorate the re- 
turn of the head of our holy 



church from banishment. A copy 
from an engraving made of the 
model was probably after Canova's 
death executed by the order of 
Lord Brownlow for his home in 
England. Under the masterly en- 
graving we have just mentioned, 
drawn by the sculptor's request in 
the strong hope that he might still 
accomplish his desire, were inscrib- 
ed these words: "Pro felici reditu 
Pii VII., Pontificis Maximi, Reti- 
gionis formam sua impensa in mar- 
more exculpendam Antonius Ca- 
nova libens fecit et dedicavit." 

The model of this statue of Reli- 
gion (which had already filled Italy 
with admiration at its excellence) 
gave evidence of its being one of 
Canova's finest designs, and it is 
greatly to be regretted that he was 
never permitted to finish the mar- 
ble, and enjoy the keen pleasure 
of offering it according to his 
heart's desire. The difficulties 
placed in his way are not a little 
puzzling, so we will pass them over 
in silence. 

The hour was come for Canova 
to fulfil his promise made in early 
youth to the good priest of his na- 
tive village. He had not forgotten 
it, but was biding his time. Faith- 
fully had he labored to cultivate to 
the utmost God's gift to him, and 
now, in the full strength of his pow- 
er, he would return that gift to God. 
He had, with the single exception 
of his half-brother, the Abbate 
Sartori Canova, to whom he was 
devotedly attached, no family ties ; 
so he resolved to devote his re- 
maining years, his time, energy, and 
property, to the building of a beau- 
tiful church at Possagno, which 
should contain some of his best 
pieces. His plan was to unite in 
this one temple all the beauties of 
the Parthenon of Athens and the 
Pantheon of Rome. He labored 



Canova. 



257 



incessantly upon all the means nec- 
essary for carrying this wonderful 
enterprise into execution ; and at 
last, in the summer of 1819, all his 
plans being matured, he went to 
Possagno to arrange for the be- 
ginning of his operations. He 
confided the direction of his plans 
to Giovanni Zardo, surnamed Fan- 
tolin, an architect of Crespano. 
He wished to associate in his great 
project all the inhabitants of Pos- 
sagno. Even the young girls were 
filled with enthusiasm, and almost 
rivalled the workmen in the ardor 
with which they labored they 
having persuaded Canova and their 
parish priest to permit them to 
carry the lighter stones and other 
materials needed ', and to this work 
they devoted their free hours on 
working days and their holidays. 
It was a genuine labor of love to 
these good people of Possagno, and 
a generous emulation possessed 
them. Canova, however, formed a 
contract with them and the work- 
ers, and right # royal was he in the 
payment of gratuities and wages. 
On one occasion, as he offered a 
gratuity to the young girls, and 
they had all received his gift, his 
face was noticed to beam with the 
conscious feeling of doing good, 
and he afterwards remarked that 
" this was one of the few days of 
real existence. Yet," he continued, 
" how little did it cost me to make 
so many human beings happy ! Af- 
ter all, the true value of money is 
to be estimated by the quantity of 
happiness which it may purchase 
for others; in this light riches are 
indeed desirable." 

On the nth of July, 1819, the 
corner-stone was to be laid. On 
that day an immense concourse of 
people assembled not only from 
the neighboring towns but even 
from Venice. Canova, after hav- 
VOL, xxvm. 17 



ing heard Mass in the humble little 
church where his Madonna was, 
and which his magnificent struc- 
ture was to supersede, habited in 
the robes of his office as Knight of 
Christ, headed the procession and 
proceeded to the spot. There, 
amidst the joyful acclamations of 
the crowd and the music of the 
church, the solemn rite of blessing 
the corner-stone, in the perfect 
ceremony of the ritual, was con- 
cluded. How Canova's deepest 
emotions must have been stirred at 
that moment a moment which wit- 
nessed the beginning of the end of 
all his labors, the crown of all his 
works, the final consecration of all 
his great gifts to the glory of God, 
to whom he had first promised 
them when as a mere lad he knelt 
at his pastor's feet and listened to- 
his kindly encouragement ! 

The work was pushed forward 
rapidly, and each autumn found 
Canova at Possagno, encouraging 
the workmen and directing the 
building; while in the winter at 
Rome he accepted new commis- 
sions, that there might be no lack 
of the necessary funds. The fol- 
lowing extract from his will, made 
shortly before his death, proves, 
how near and dear tojiis heart was 
this work: "To the honor and to 
the probity of my brother, and sole 
heir, I confide the obligation of 
continuing, completing, and embel- 
lishing in all its parts, without the 
least reservation and in the short- 
est time possible, the Temple of 
Possagno, according to the plans 
established by me and communi- 
cated to him. To which object, if 
the funds appointed prove insuffi- 
cient, all my effects and property 
are to be sold till the necessary 
sums be obtained." 

His constitution was shattered 
and his physical energy giving way* 



258 



Canova. 



Still he labored on indefatigably ; 
nor do any pieces executed by him 
at this time show any diminution 
of his power as sculptor. For his 
new church he made a group call- 
ed "The Pieta," which unfortunately 
never got beyond the model. It 
has been cast, however, we believe, 
in plaster, and is in the church it 
was intended to adorn in marble. 

In 1822 Canova, were it possible, 
was even more diligent; but the 
end was drawing near. In Septem- 
ber he made his usual visit to Pos- 
sagno, and superintended, with ac- 
tive and unwearying earnestness, 
the work of the builders. On the 
istof October he visited the Falieri 
villa a spot dear to him, recalling 
youthful associations. Thence he 
passed to Venice. Here his dis- 
order, which had been the source 
of great suffering all summer, re- 
turned with increasing violence. 
His stomach failed of its usual 
functions, and his days were now 
numbered. He retained to the last 
full possession of all his faculties, 
and bore his intense sufferings with 
the heroism of a Christian. On 
the 1 2th of October his friend 
Signor Aglietti told him that his 
death was very near. Canova re- 
ceived the news with perfect sereni- 
ty, saying simply : " Ecco noi veni- 
amo a questo mundo a far la nostra 
rivista e poi sic transit gloria 
mundi " Lo ! we come into this 
world to play our part, and then 
vanishes the glory of the scene. 
But he added a moment later, 
" Beato, beato che l'h a fatto bene" 
Happy, happy he who has played 
it well. He then made his confes- 
sion with deep earnestness, and in 
the evening the Extreme Unction 
and the Viaticum those last sacra- 
ments given him to prepare and 
sustain his soul when it should 
come into the awful presence of 



its God he received with all his 
wonted fervor, increased, may be, 
by the solemnity of the thought 
that he was dying. After this he 
remained quietly resting and wait- 
ing, saying a few words occasional- 
ly. It was noticed that he many 
times repeated: " Prima di tutto 
convien fare il proprio dovere " 
First of all we ought to do our own 
duty. What a deep impression 
would not the silence of that cham- 
ber, broken only by the hardly-re- 
strained emotion of his friends or 
the dying words of the sculptor, 
have made upon a stranger ! At 
last the time fixed in God's eternal 
decrees came. Those around him 
heard him utter rapidly several 
times: " Anima pura e bella " 
Pure and beautiful spirit; and a mo- 
ment later he expired calmly and 
quietly, his face suddenly growing 
more and more highly radiant and 
expressive. This was on the morn- 
ing of the i3th of October, 1822, 
when Canova was in his sixty-fifth 
year. 

A post-mortem examination re- 
vealed a combination of troubles, 
including paralysis of the stomach. 
The remote origin seems to have 
been in the depression of the right 
breast, occasioned by the bearing 
against the head of the trapano, an 
iron instrument in constant use 
among sculptors. 

His funeral was grand and impos- 
ing, and was in no way a heartless 
ceremony. Before the remains 
were conveyed to Possagno Venice 
desired to pay public honor to the 
man who had commenced his career 
under her shelter. The feeling 
which found vent there was some- 
thing almost incredible. It is only 
when we remember who and what 
the man whom they were honoring 
was that we can understand the 
depth of reverence, respect, and love 



Canova. 



2 59 



shown his remains. The multitude 
of all ranks stood uncovered and 
bending as the coffin was slowly 



nova's own model for the tomb 
of Titian (which had not been used), 
and erected it in marble in honor 



borne to St. Mark's, conducted by of the man they so dearly loved and 
the professors and pupils of the appreciated. But not alone in 
Art Academy. Over this vast con- Venice was his memory held in 
course perfect silence prevailed, such high esteem. Throughout all 
broken only by the solemn pealing Europe the tidings of his death 
of the requiem or the almost deep were everywhere received with ex- 
whisper of the response. Yet the pressions of sadness and a sense of 
most remarkable tribute, after the a loss not easy to replace, 
religious ceremony, was that paid What more can we say of this 
by the Academy in their great hall, illustrious man? If we have for- 
whither the remains were borne borne to find fault, to criticise his 
when the services at St. Mark's were 
ended. The walls were draped in 



black, and around them were hung 



cellences. 

Great private virtues apart from 



works, to pull to pieces his execu- 
tion that we might discover his 
imperfections, it is because in a 
engravings or drawings of Canova's sketch like this they seem wholly 
works. The hall was filled with lost in the grand sum of his ex- 
the most distinguished men of 
Venice. There, in the darkened 

room, with a solitary funeral torch his profession were his. Benevo- 
placed at the head of the bier, the lence, gratitude, single-heartedness, 
president of the Academy deliver- sincerity of friendship, and a splen- 
ed with the eloquence of truth an did generosity distinguished him. 
oration on the life and works of His purse, his chisel, his interest, 
him whose remains were in their were always at the command of 
midst. And it is recorded that those who lived in intimacy with 
when the orator touched on the him. His acquirements were those 
private virtues and sincere friend- of v an artist and a man of taste. 



ship of the man whose memory 
they were honoring, he was unable 
to proceed, being overcome with 
emotion. In that pause one spon- 



He was adverse to taking pupils, 
and never would receive them, 
though he was always ready to as- 
sist and show interest in any 



taneous burst of responsive feeling promising artist. He rarely wrote 



from the audience completed the 
oration. 

On the following day the bier 
was borne to Possagno, where the 
people greeted it with sobs and 
tears, and where, amidst every 
show of deep feeling, the body of 
Antonio Canova was consigned to 
its final resting-place. The Vene- 



on the subject of art, but to the 
memory and note-books of his 
friends, and an occasional letter, 
we owe our knowledge of his prac- 
tical methods, and these sources 
are both authentic and ample. 

One trait of Canova's an admi- 
rable one, well worthy of imitation 
mav be seen from a remark of 



tian Academy obtained his heart, his when he was urged to refute 
and, having enclosed the precious certain injurious expressions that 

had appeared against him in some 
of the literary journals. With, no- 



relic in a vase of porphyry with 
suitable inscriptions, placed it in 
the hall of the Palace of Arts. 
The Venetian artists selected Ca- 



ble candor he replied : " Le me 
opere sono in pubblico, e il pubbli- 



260 



Canova. 



co ha tutto il diritto di giiidicarle ; 
ma io mi sono proposito di non 
rispondere a qualunque critica os- 
servazione alt rime nte, che coll' im- 
piegare ogni studio per miglio 
fare " My works are before the 
public, and that public has every 
right to pass judgment upon them ; 
but, for my own part, it is my re- 
solve not to reply to any critical 
observation whatsoever, otherwise 
than by exerting every effort to do 
better. 

And again, an English nobleman, 
although admiring the simplicity 
and purity of the style shown in 
the group of " Theseus and the Mi- 
notaur," objected to it because it 
was, as he said, " too cold." The 
sculptor listened in silence to the 
critic's remarks. Some time after 
he produced that exquisite group 
of "Cupid and Psyche," in which the 
latter is recumbent, and the former 
bending over her as she just 
awakes. To the Englishman's ex- 
pression of surprise and delight 
Canova simply replied : " Preferis- 
co costantemente di rispondere a 
quanto convenevole osservato piti 
tosto collo-scarpello, che colle pa- 
role "I always prefer to answer 
a judicious observation with my 
chisel rather than by words. 

A nature like his was highly sus- 
ceptible to love, and twice he was 
on the point, according to Cicog- 
nara, of entering the married state, 
but was deterred, perhaps, by the 
feeling which Michael Angelo so 



well expresses: "Art is jealous, 
and requires the whole man to her- 
self." Art was his mistress and 
absorbed his all. His heart, how- 
ever, was never entangled by a low 
or unworthy passion. All his sen- 
timents accorded with the lofty 
character of the man. 

He had sculptured with his own 
hand 53 statues, 13 groups, 14 
cenotaphs, 8 great monuments, 7 
colossals, 2 groups of colossal sta- 
tues, 54 busts, 26 basso-relievos. 
He besides painted 28 oil-paint- 
ings, and left in his portfolio a 
large number of studies, architec- 
tural designs, and models. Memes 
divides his works into three classes 
or distinct orders, thus : 

I. Heroic compositions. 

II. Compositions of grace and 
elegance. 

III. Sepulchral monuments and 
relievos. 

Canova was very affectionately at- 
tached to Pius VII., and bequeathed 
to him in respectful terms the privi- 
lege of selecting from his whole 
possessions whatever might be 
most pleasing or agreeable to him ; 
desiring in this manner to testify 
his love and devotion to the oc- 
cupant of the Holy See. Leo 
XII., in 1826, caused a fine monu- 
ment to be placed in the entrance- 
hall of the new museum at Rome, 
in honor of Canova, and beneath 
it is this inscription : " Ad Ant. 
Canova Leo XII. , Pont. Max." 



From an Irish Country-House. 



261 



FROM AN IRISH COUNTRY-HOUSE. 



FROM England to Ireland is a 
far greater journey than the mere 
crossing of the water which lies be- 
tween Holyhead and Kingstown. 
Leaving the calm, prosperous, well- 
ordered, and matter-of-fact country 
of John Bull one summer's day, 
we found ourselves transported 
with an astonishing sense of change, 
distance, novelty all that consti- 
tutes the difference between na- 
tions into an Irish seaport town, 
gay, bright, and homelike, where 
poverty looks picturesque, and the 
whole country, if it suggests want, 
at the same time speaks of good- 
humor and kindliness. Kingstown 
is all the fashion in the summer- 
time ; " His Grace " of Marlbo- 
rough had just arrived, stopping a 
few hours on his way to Dublin, 
and the pretty town whence George 
IV. sailed long ago after his fa- 
mous visit wore an air of vicere- 
gal festivity. The town fronts the 
water; a series of hotels painted 
white or built of gray stone, with 
trim gardens and lawns, an irregu- 
lar line of villas, apartment-houses, 
and the like, may be seen as we 
sail up to the fine granite quay, 
and the long white road, well cared 
for and sunshiny in the month of 
June, is gay with carriages, " cars," 
and wagonettes. The Kingstown 
journals are constantly announcing 
fresh arrivals from the world of 
Mayfair, and no place in Ireland 
is so frequented at a certain season. 
From Kingstown to Dublin the road 
leads through various minor water- 
ing-places which seem to consist 
chiefly of bathing-machines and 



advertisements, the long line of 
yellow sands being dotted with 
those singular marine vehicles, 
while at intervals stone cottages 
on the roadside are labelled " Pa- 
trick Cloney's Bathing- House," or 
" Mrs. Dawson's Baths," or " Bath- 
ing suits and machines to hire; no 
dogs admitted." All these estab- 
lishments seemed to have allure- 
ments for the gentler sex, who were 
congregated at every such point in 
the beach road, in timid groups, pre- 
pared to rush into the water or 
coming back with the aid of the 
Cloneyor Dawson machines. Afar 
out where the tide had ebbed, 
leaving bare and green the sands 
and rushes, barefooted boys and 
girls were gathering moss and 
cockles the latter a sort of small, 
tough clam which abounds in these 
waters, and which seems to us a 
very poor and tasteless thing, 
though it delights the British 
palate. With glimpses of these 
gay little seaports, and here and 
there the interruption of a stretch 
of quiet, verdant country, Dublin 
was reached, and from there, later 
on, our route lay to a distant coun- 
ty in the north. 

There is a strange sense of fail- 
ure and half-developed splendor 
about Dublin ; the wide, beautiful 
streets, the solemn architecture of 
the granite buildings, the majestic 
cathedral, the university, the evi- 
dent intellectual ability and yet 
mental and political depression of 
the people all these seem strangely 
inharmonious, and one gets in some 
way a singular impression of a strug- 



262 



From an Irish . Country-House. 



gle, a constant, hopeless lifting of the 
voice against something which is eviL 

Of course such a feeling must be at 
this date the outcome of the past; 
must be, an Englishman would tell 
you, a mere sentiment; for Irish laws 
are now tolerably good, and even 
Irishmen themselves are divided 
as to the moral and political ad- 
vantages of Home Rule should they 
get it. But you cannot efface the 
marks of the past; Dublin, beauti- 
ful as she is, must speak to every 
stranger of something which has 
silenced her, which has turned her 
best purposes aside and given her 
the air of a dethroned sovereign. 

We left Dublin about four in the 
afternoon, taking the train for 
C , an obscure station in Coun- 
ty Cavan. The day was perfect, 
and the lights on hill and dale clear 
and soft, without a touch of haze, 
but always a brilliant clearness 
which gave emphasis to every out- 
line in the landscape, defining the 
shades of green, throwing out the 
colors of the blossoms on the hedge- 
rows, and sparkling upon the many 
bits of lake, river, and rivulet we pass- 
ed. Now and then, as we dashed into 
some station, we caught sight of an 
old woman, the " care-taker," knit- 
ting calmly in the waiting-room, 
while her grandchildren filled the 
doorway and lifted rosy, dirty 
faces to our view, stamping their 
brown, bare feet to some imaginary 
ture, or tossing a bit of hedge-flow- 
er with saucy fun at the vanishing 
train. When we stopped, the old wo- 
man in charge of the station would 
come out, knitting in hand, front- 
ing the evening light with a curious 
puckered expression generally end- 
ing in a smile, as she watched the 
passengers descend, extending a 
friendly greeting and a slow hand 
to some. 

"Is it yourself back again, 



ma'am ?" we hear her exchim as 
a comfortable, smiling-faced wo- 
man descends, with market-baskets 
on either arm. 

"I am, then," is the answer, 
" and no worse for a bit of going, 
I think, ma'am." And the railway 
porter, in uniform like the English, 
but sadly faded and threadbare, 
comes up to join in the talk ; while 
an outer circle of small people, 
wondering, ragged, and unkempt, is 
formed, and a pretty girl in neat 
gown and quite a fine headgear 
but bare feet, arrives to welcome 
the new-comer. 

The evening lights broke up in 
a splendor of reds and purples, fad- 
ing into that wonderful pale gray 
twilight which in Ireland lingers 
until the stars are all visible in the 
sky ; not a touch of gloom was in 

the dusk when we reached C , 

and throughout the long carriage- 
drive which followed there linger- 
ed this after-glow of day, broken 
here and there by that singular at- 
mospheric phenomenon for which 
the country is famous the mirage 
a token of warm weather, we 
were told, giving to the wide, irregu- 
lar country, with its chance anima- 
tion and otherwise unbroken still- 
ness, a weird, puzzling effect. 

From C to B , our desti- 
nation, is a drive of thirteen Irish 
miles (about seventeen miles in 
English or American measure), pass- 
ing through the town of , evi- 
dently a prosperous place, with 
hilly, well-built streets and the 
usual characteristics of every Irish 
town or village, the outskirting 
paths leading to whitewashed 
cabins, the shaded country roads, 
and a surrounding peacefulness in 
the landscape. Thence we drove 
on past several so-called u domains " 
marked by fine walls and % 
the house being always concealed 



From an Irish Country-House. 



263 



by the abundant foliage, down a 
closely-sheltered green road, past 
fine hedgerows, in at a white gate- 
way under a bower of lofty oaks, 
along a beautiful drive bordered 
with lawns and terraces, and before 
us stood a fine gray stone villa in 
the dignified and simple architec- 
ture of the last century, "with hos- 
pitable double doors thrown open, 
lights streaming out cheerfully 
upon lawn and carriage-drive, and 
within the comfortable luxuriance 
of an Irish country-house. 

"S R ," July, 1878. 

This household, I suppose, is typi- 
cal of the best class of Irish gentry. 
The house stands in a park about 
a mile from the little village of 

B C . It was built in the 

present century, but Irish archi- 
tects seem to cling to the models 
of a hundred years ago a gray 
stone villa, firm and substantial, 
with a sense of light and coolness 
in summer-time and warmth in 
winter; wide, cheerful windows, 
spacious rooms, and furnishings at 
once homelike and refined ; the 
drawing-room, dining-room, stew- 
ard's offices, etc., are on the ground 
floor ; above irregularly on two 
stories the sleeping and dressing 
rooms, all full of that air of home 
comfort which so impresses Ameri- 
cans on foreign shores, while a 
touch of high art has crept over 
from the splendid England of to- 
day. Without are lawns and terra- 
ces, beautifully kept, and the never- 
failing croquet and tennis grounds, 
the latter overlooking the lower 
terraces; a belt of deep green 
woodland and a stretch of open, 
peaceful country, upon which hay- 
makers come and go, the women 
in bright colors, the wagons paint- 
ed red, the men in dingy corduroys 
but strong in figure, with a gay, 



bold step and carriage which shows 
how much of their existence has 
been passed al fresco. 

At the back of the house are the 
flower-gardens, blooming with tall, 
old-fashioned shrubs and beds of 
dainty flowers; boxwood and laurel 
border the gravelled walks, which 
lead off into pine groves beyond ; 
at the upper end of the garden is 
a high stone wall built in the sun- 
shine, with apple, peach, and plum 
trees trained against it in the for- 
eign fashion, their fruits ripening 
slowly but richly, and the dusky 
foliage giving a tone to the garden- 
beds. From the fruit terrace we 
can see the "planting," as the first 
foliage is called, of the neighboring 
estates ; a broad, green valley be- 
yond, dotted with small lakes ; 
clumps of forest trees, centuries 
old; and far off against the horizon 
a bit of Lough Erne shining like a 
jewel- in its background of lofty 
blue hills. 

Country-house visiting here in 
Ireland has a peculiar fascination 
for us as Americans ; there is much 
merely in the system which is novel 
and interesting. The luxuries and 
comforts which usually belong only 
to town-houses in America are 
regularly expected in an Irish or 
English country-house, and the 
household management is quite 
perfect. Mistress and maid, mas- 
ter and servant, are on such admi- 
rable terms of self-control and dis- 
cipline that year after year the 
household can go on calculating to 
a nicety its resources, and feeling 
confident there will be none of 
those outbreaks which disorganize 
the menage of so many American 
homes. There are nine or ten 
house-servants, including both men 
and women, all perfectly under- 
standing their duties and their 
positions ; the butler has been 



264 



From an Irish Country-House. 



twenty years in his place; one of 
the gardeners died the other day 
after half a century of loyal service 
in the family ; and from the trim 
housemaids to the people in the 
kitchen there is that air of re- 
spectful comprehension of duty 
so seldom thoroughly understood 
in America. 

The house is full of guests, and 
they combine various elements very 
pleasantly : One of the number is a 
well-known author and traveller, 
who has just returned from a soli- 
tary journey of exploration across 
Asia and India, almost as hazard- 
ous and eventful as the African 
travels of Stanley, but tinged with 
the splendors of an Oriental color- 
ing; and of this he gives us de- 
lightful bits of description and in- 
cident as we sit over our afternoon 
tea or late dinner. Another mem- 
ber of the party is a young lady 
from Scotland, with a sweet touch 
of Aberdeen in her voice ; she is 
of the famous clan .of " Keppoch," 
and her hearty Jacobite tendencies 
drift in agreeably between the 
strong Catholicism and equally ar- 
dent Protestantism of our hosts and 
hostess. There is also a little Eng- 
lish lady, who is soon to set sail 
for India, that unknown land to 
Americans, but possessing so inti- 
mate and personal an interest to 
most British households. Besides 
these and the American visitors, an 
Oxford professor is expected to 
complete the group, which brings 
together the most varied but har- 
monious elements, while a frank 
hospitality and art of entertaining 
are combined in our hosts and hos- 
tess with everything that is cul- 
tured, earnest, and original. 

The day's routine begins with a 
charmingly informal breakfast at 
nine o'clock, which drifts on for a 
couple of hours, family and guests 



coming in irregularly; letters and 
newspapers are read and discussed, 
and plans for the day are developed. 
Then comes a morning of indivi- 
dual occupations : our hosts, being 
both county magistrates, have va- 
rious duties outside the estate ; our 
hostess has her household to set 
into working order for the day; 
the guests amuse themselves with 
the new books which are sent re- 
gularly from Dublin, or with letter- 
writing, walking, or gossip. Lunch- 
eon reassembles the party at two 
o'clock, and the afternoon is de- 
voted to riding, driving, croquet, 
or lawn tennis; six o'clock finding 
us, without change of costume, in 
the drawing-room for tea. Dinner 
is preceded by the dressing-bell at 
a quarter to seven, which disperses 
the tea-party; riding- hats and 
Knickerbockers vanish ; half an 
hour later a finely-dressed com- 
pany assembles in the drawing- 
room, the procession is formed and 
files out in solemn state, and the 
dinner, that concentration of for- 
eign etiquette and brilliancy, be- 
gins. As in England, the ladies 
retire before the gentlemen, when 
a dainty silver punch service is 
carried into the dining-room; and 
tea and coffee are served in the 
drawing-room at half-past nine. 

THURSDAY. 
" This is fair day at B 



" Fair day ?" echoes an Ameri- 
can voice. " How I should like to 
see a real Irish fair!" 

" It is not at all what it used to 
be in the good old times," said our 
host; "still, it might amuse you." 

This was at breakfast this morn- 
ing, and we were at once exhila- 
rated by the prospect of beholding 
a scene of fascinating revelry and 
trade which we had known only in 



From an Irish Country-Honsc. 



265 



novels and in Mr. Boucicatilt's 
plays. We set out about mid-day, 
the ladies in a phaeton, the gentle- 
men on foot. The shaded road 
led us in a few minutes to the out- 
skirts of the village, where a novel 
scene opened before us as we turn- 
ed up the hill to the market-place : 
there lay a broad, open space, the 
village green ; on one side a black- 
smith's forge, a Dissenting chapel, 
and the public pound, on the other 
a cluster of abandoned, roofless 
cabins standing at the head of the 
village street ; a large marquee tent* 
labelled " Refreshments, by P. Mo- 
riarty," stood in the centre of the 
green, and seemed to be the initial 
point from which radiated and re- 
volved the countless elements that 
made up the fair. The confusion 
of sights and sounds was bewilder- 
ing : there was neighing of horses 
and lowing of cattle; goats, sheep, 
swine, and barnyard fowls lifted 
up their voices, dogs barked; and 
finally, and most hideous of all, a 
donkey threw back his ears and 
greeted us with his own indescriba- 
ble music. Farmers and shepherds 
went about in groups or sat in the 
shade smoking short pipes and dis- 
cussing their own and other peo- 
ple's affairs; men and boys trotted 
horses and donkeys up and down 
to show their gait ; while in the 
outer circles sat several old women 
in long blue cloaks and clean white 
caps, with baskets of fresh eggs 
and butter before them, awaiting 
the brisk trade of a later hour. 
The groups shifted a little as we 
passed, men and women bobbing 
and curtseying with that quaint 
simplicity and respect which seems 
to dignify without degrading the 
Old-World peasantry; the children 
made the drollest little " bobs," pull- 
ing a lock of hair, smiling, and duck- 
ing in a half-shy, reverential fashion. 



"When any villager has been in 

America and returned," said F , 

"he always carries a lofty air, and 
does not like to take off his hat to 
the gentry." 

" And how do his comrades take 
it?" we asked. 

" They don't like his bad man- 
ners, as a general thing, for I think 
they feel that this outward show of 
respect neither exalts us nor de- 
grades them ; it is only a custom 
approved by their forefathers, 
and rather pleasing than other- 
wise." 

By this time we had passed the 
common and were in the village 
street, where a curious crowd had 
assembled in broken groups, each 
one bent upon admiring, watching, 
or erecting the temporary booths 
for the fair. There was an air of 
suspended excitement while the 
work progressed, but an hour later 
the fair was in full motion ; voices 
laughing, talking, disputing, gossip- 
ing, railing, and chaffing filled the 
air ; the booth's were full of wares ; 
an excited Cheap-John standing up 
in his wagon, with a varied collection 
of garments and household belong- 
ings at his feet, harangued an eager 
group of girls and women gather- 
ed about him. At another point 
a farmer was loudly praising his 
black-coated pigs, which, uncom- 
fortable behind their prison bars, 
rubbed each other's sides and grunt- 
ed unhappily; men and women 
were buying and selling butter and 
eggs ; a fine cow was being led up 
and down before three men in top- 
boots, corduroys, and gay-colored 
neckcloths, while at small stalls, 
above a queer assortment of crock- 
ery, lines of variegated handker- 
chiefs and hosiery were strung to 
attract the stronger sex, who pass- 
ed approving comments as they 
sauntered by. In the midst of the 



266 



From an Irish Country-House. 



Babel of voices the " Cheap-John's" 
rose loudest : 

" Sure is it this fine bit of prent 
ye'll be leaving, miss ? Take an- 
other look at it \vid thim soft eyes 
of yours." This to a pretty girl 
whose face was eagerly lifted in the 
sunshine while the vender danced 
a gay calico before her. The' girl 
wore a cloak which fell back from 
her shoulders, while a scarlet hand- 
kerchief was tied becomingly over 
her head. " Ye'll not know yerself 
in it, me dear," John goes on in a 
softer tone, while a flood of rosy 
color comes into the girl's face. 
"Ah ! be aisy now," as she is mov- 
ing shyly away, her mother linger- 
ing with some evident desire to 
criticise further. John sees her va- 
cillation. "Ah! now, woman dear, 
is it deprive her of her rights )*e 
would ? Four shillings, and ye have 
it. Garryowen! Garryowen !" he 
cries out, breaking into a shril- 
ler note and vigorously slapping 
his leg, on which the calico is drap- 
ed. " Garryowen ! Come on ! Buy, 
buy !" A timid brown hand is 
slipped up; a maternal voice says 
deprecatingly, " Ah ! thin, Katie, 
ye put everything on yer back," 
as Katie, still rosy red but pleased, 
pays her four shillings and takes 
the roll of print. Directly she is 
the centre of an eager, clamorous 
group, the women all criticising 
and admiring or deploring the pur- 
chase. 

" Ah ! now, Katie Brian, is it no 
sinse at a'all ye have left in ye, 
girl ?" 

" It'll not take the wather, surr," 
cries one woman, jerking up her 
hand disdainfully at John, who 
stands his ground : 

" Stand the wather, woman alive ! 
Sure the soap never was made that 
could take the color off it. Garry- 
owen, Garryowen !" he goes on in 



a shrill crescendo, and new pur- 
chasers come up. One of the last 
articles we see disposed of is a 
coat as deplorable in hue as Jo- 
seph's, and sadly tattered and 
threadbare, which a cow-boy pur- 
chased for "tuppence-ha'penny" 
amid shouts of derision from the 
bystanders. 

Among the calmer sales we no- 
ticed calicoes and sheetings, all re- 
markably high-priced ; unbleached 
muslins of rather poor quality go- 
ing for eight cents the yard, and a 
striped print, worth in America 
about six cents, being sold for ten, 
as John called Heaven to witness, 
"at a distasteful bargain." 

If the truth were known I am 
afraid some members of the Ameri- 
can party were a little disappointed 
that the fair went on with no signs 
of ''trailing of coats." "Did no- 
body feel warlike ?" an American 
lady ventured to inquire ; and 
everybody laughed and made a 
different answer. 

"Oh ! yes, there are often fights," 

said J , " but the constables are 

doubly vigilant on fair days, and 
order is tolerably well kept." 

The " Royal Irish Constabulary " 
are government police stationed in 
every Irish town or village, where 
we could see them leisurely patrol- 
ling the streets and lanes fine- 
looking men in neat black uniform 
and helmet, and armed with mus- 
ket as well as baton. Their bar- 
rack is in the village street, a two- 
storied building of unpretentious, 
whitewashed exterior, but bearing 
the royal arms and various govern- 
ment placards ; one of these offer- 
ed a reward of^i,ooo for informa- 
tion leading to the arrest of Lord 
Leitrim's murderers. 

"A useless advertisement," said 

Mr. B . " No Irish cabin ever 

gives up a fugitive ; no matter how 



From an Irish Country-House. 



267 



poor the shelter may be, it is freely 
given, and no reward offered has 
any effect" 

The constables appeared to be 
on excellent terms with the people, 
and seemed to be looked upon 
rather in the light of protectors 
than otherwise. 

" But where are the factions we 
read about in the newspapers?" 
said the lady from America. 

"Oh! they exist," answers our 
host, and forthwith goes on to tell 
us of two famous factions, known as 
" the Threes " and " the Fours," 
which originated at a fair. It ap- 
pears a certain man sold a cow, as- 
serting her age to be three years; 
the buyer declared it was four ; 
and at once each side had consti- 
tuents. The rival parties fought 
that day, and the next fair day, 
and so on, as time passed the 
factions growing in numbers and 
in bitterness. While we were in 
Ireland a trial for murder went 
on in Dublin, in which it appeared 
that a " Three " had killed a " Four " 
on no other provocation than the 
rage of -party spirit. In the trial an 
amusing witness was examined. 

" Teddy, were you present at the 
fair?" asked the lawyer. 

"I was, your honor, and saw the 
fight; it was a rale good one; they 
had sticks and stones, and every- 
thing that was handy to crack 
skulls." 

"Which side did you take?" 

" I like the ' Threes ' best, your 
honor." 

" Did the prisoner have a stone 
in his hand ?" 

" He did not, your honor; Mur- 
phy had nothing in his hand but 
his fist." 

Here a voice in the gallery ex- 
claimed disdainfully: "Sure it was 
not a dacent fight at all; only a 
few shillelahs were raised !" 



The fair went on with varied 
scenes until a late hour, when, I 
doubt not, had we waited, we might . 
have seen something like the " trail 
of a coat"; but we drove off about 
sunset, leaving the grounds still 
occupied by a busy throng, while 
far up the country road stretched 
a motley line of farmers and rus- 
tics, in cars or on foot, donkeys 
laden with baskets, cows, goats 
and swine, toiling homewards after 
their day's outing at the fair. 

FRIDAY. 

In talking of novelties the other 
day, one of our party declared 
there was one in Ireland she 
specially longed to see, and 
"could we not," with eyes turned 
towards our hostess " could we not 
see some day a genuine peat-fire ?" 

Hitherto the sunshine has been 
too luxurious to permit thought of 
fire, but this afternoon we drove 
out across the moorland, where the 
air blew freshly, full of fragrance 
like that of meadows near the sea, 
but certainly chill as September. 

We had recourse to rugs and 
wraps, and as we turned homeward 
about five o'clock the glimmer of 
firelight in the windows was most 
cheering. In the drawing-room 
blazed a turf-fire ; the flame danced 
and flickered and touched, the air 
with a curiously sweet and delicate 
perfume as of sandalwood or pine. 
Long red lines of light fell across 
the wall; the corners of the room 
seemed to send out shadows to 
meet them, and between firelight 
and the gloaming the afternoon 
tea-table stood invitingly spread. 
The member of Clan Keppoch had 
come in, cloaked in silk and fur, 
and held her hands joyfully out 
to the blaze, while one after an- 
other of the party gathered about, 
and the mingled fascination of tea- 



268 



From an Irish Country-House. 



time and firelight held us captive. 
What hour in the American calen- 
dar can compare with this in an 
English or Irish country-house ? 

At this hour what topic may not 
be discussed, what rash opinions 
and vague theories sent forth ! A 
delicious sense of irresponsibility 
seems to come over us with the 
twilight ; all faculties are pleasant- 
ly suspended, awaiting the touch of 
exhilaration which belongs to din- 
ner-time, and idle speculations or 
poetic sentiment of which, an hour 
later, we might feel ashamed, all 
seem part of the moment. This 
afternoon, while we sipped our tea, 
our friend from India gave us 
stories of Kurd and Arab, of East- 
ern cities and of the desert plain ; 
the young lady of Keppoch enter- 
tained us with her recent journey 
in the Tyrol and, in the inconse- 
quent fashion belonging to tea- 
time, we drifted off to the old and 
ever new subject of Ireland's pa- 
triots ; of the thrilling, agonizing, 
ennobling time when the "Young 
Ireland " crusade was preached. 
Our hostess is always eloquent on 
themes like this, and I suppose she 
felt in the gloaming a sort of pro- 
tective power, for no one could see 
her face while she repeated in a 
quiet undertone those immortal 
lines ' 

" Who fears to speak of '98, 
Who blushes at the name ?" 



Is there not a never-dying pas- 
sion in these words ? One is car- 
ried swiftly back to those dead days 
of heroism and struggle; one can 
see the prison-walls transfigured 
and made holy by the lives they 
held captive. Talking of this in 
Ireland seemed a sort of consecra- 
tion of the spirit and feeling in 
which we Irish-Americans were 
educated, and when the dressing- 
bell dispersed our party we went 
up-stairs with some strange vibra- 
tions in our hearts. Was our ear- 
nest, eloquent little hostess an in- 
cendiary? I know the spirit rous- 
ed by her recitation in the firelight 
lasted late on in the evening ; for 
after dinner a restless member of 
the party was asked to sing, and 
somehow no song seemed fitting 
but " The Wearing of the Green," 
and, not satisfied with the rebellious 
verses, a refrain had to be added : 

" And the green it shall be worn, 
And the orange shall be torn. 
And the green fields of Ireland 
Shall flourish once again." 

The gentlemen were still in the 
dining-room when this was sung, 
but they came in laughing and re- 
monstrating. " How do you dare 
to sing that here?" exclaimed our 
host in mock horror. But the 
Irish-American rebel who had been 
singing looked at our hostess and 
felt a thrill of new patriotism with- 
in her. 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 269' 



PLAIN CHANT IN ITS RELATION TO THE LITURGY. 



IV. THE TEXT OF THE LITURGI- 
CAL CHANT. 

THE text of the chant, by its 
connection with the sacrificial lit- 
urgy and the feasts of the church, 
is for ever shielded from capricious 
alteration. It must always be the 
Latin of the Roman Missal and 
Breviary. We have spoken before 
of the chant as the living text of 
the great drama of the altar, as a 
means of intercourse between God 
and men, as an essentially consti- 
tuent part of the liturgy. We now 
proceed to stamp it with the seal 
of a positive divine sanction. 

The words to which the chant is 
set must be taken, as we have re- 
marked, from the Missal and Bre- 
viary. They issue forth from the 
pure fountains of the Old and New 
Testaments, and from the church's 
never-silent voice of prophecy, for 
to her also was given a harp that 
she might "sing unto the Lord a 
new song" (Ps. xi. 9). Our faith 
teaches us the inspiration of the 
books of Holy Scripture, but the 
consensus fidelium has always been 
that the Holy Ghost has under his 
especial guardianship whatever, in 
the course of the Christian centu- 
ries, streaming forth in the ecsta- 
sies of the saints from the living 
consciousness of the church, has 
found a place in the liturgy, such 
as hymns, sequences, prefaces, etc. 
If, then, the text of the chant be 
hallowed and sanctioned by the 
divine will, we must logically con- 
clude that it was a part of God's 
design and ordinance to preserve 
it pure and entire, free from any 
unauthorized interpolations. This 



conclusion is further strengthened 
by a consideration of the constant 
practice of the church in all times 
and places, and by the innumera- 
ble utterances hereupon of ecclesi- 
astical authority. 

Thus, we read of the apostles 
and first Christians that they " con- 
tinued daily with one accord in 
the temple praising God" (Acts ii. 
46) ; and St. Paul makes known to 
us of what this daily praise of God 
consisted by his exhortation : "Ad- 
monish one another with psalms 
and hymns and spiritual songs " 
(Col. iii. 16). These are the very 
same means for God's praise now 
offered by the Missal and the Bre- 
viary. Every one versed in history 
knows with what jealous strictness 
the church of old guarded the 
purity, of the liturgical text, and 
especially in the times of St. Da- 
rn asus (371) and of St. Ambrose 
(398), until St. Gregory the Great 
(590) collected, sifted, and arrang- 
ed this precious material, hence- 
forth no more to be left to the un- 
certainty of tradition, and gave it 
into the exclusive charge of sing- 
ing schools, to which he himself 
often gave instruction from his 
sick-bed.* On this point also most 
of the councils have issued strin- 
gent decrees, especially the second 
of Nice, the eighth of Toledo, and 
that of Trent (Cone. Trid., cap. 
xviii. sess. xxiii. de reformat.) 

If we sometimes find the decrees 
of the church allowing other words 

* How essential St. Gregory deemed the instruc- 
tion furnished by these schools may be inferred 
from the circumstance that he refused to conse- 
crate the priest John a bishop u because he was 
not sufficiently instructed in the chant." 



270 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 




and music than the liturgical chant 
to be sung, this permission is plain- 
ly given only by way of toleration, 
out of consideration for long-es- 
tablished customs, on account of 
difficulties in the way of abolishing 
such music, or for similar reasons. 
But the tenor of all such ordinan- 
ces undoubtedly shows that it has 
always been the spirit and wish 
of the church that, at least in litur- 
gical services, the liturgical text 
should be strictly retained in its 
entirety and free from any inter- 
mixture. Pope Benedict XIV. de 
crees (const. Annus qui of Feb. 
19, 1749) that plain chant should 
be retained wherever it is in vogue, 
and that where it has fallen into dis- 
use it should again be introduced 
and kept up with care. He refers 
besides to a decree of Alexander 
"VII." which among other things en- 
acts that during the divine offices no 
other words or hymns should be 
sung than those prescribed in the 
Missal or Breviary: "Ut.per id 
tempus, quo divina persolviintur 
officia, nulla alia carmina seu verba 
cantentur nisi desumpta ex Brevia- 
rio vel Missali romano, quse in offi- 
ciis de proprio vel de communi 
pro currenti cujusque diei festo vel 
sancti solemnitate praescribuntur." 
This decree was renewed by Inno- 
cent XL December 3, 1678, and 
by Innocent XII. August 20, 1692. 
The latter orders that during the 
celebration of Mass there should 
be sung, besides the Kyrie, Gloria, 
Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei, only 
the Introit, Gradual, Offertory, and 
Communion. The same decree goes 
on to say : " In Vesperis vero nulla 
mutatione etiam minima facta, An- 
iphonse, quse initio cujusque Psal- 
mi vel in ejus fine dicuntur. In- 
super voluit et jussit, ut cantores 
musici omnino legem chori seque- 
rentur et cum eo prorsus conveni- 



rent,et quemadmodum in choro fas 
non est aliquid addere Officio vel 
Missae, ita enim musicis noluit id 
licere " " But at Vespers [there 
should be sung] without the slight- 
est change, the Antiphons which 
are said at the beginning and end 
of each Psalm. It is besides the 
wish and command [of the Holy 
Father] that singers should follow 
throughout the law of choir and 
be in perfect accordance with the 
same ; and as in choir it is not 
allowable to add anything to the 
Office or the Mass, so also [His 
Holiness] is unwilling that this 
permission should be granted to 
musicians." 

The decrees of bishops and dio- 
cesan synods are, 'of course, in har- 
mony with those of the Holy See. 
For example, the diocesan synod 
of Breslau, in the year 1653, strictly 
forbade anything to be sung at 
High Mass or Vespers, save what 
should be contained in the Office 
of the occurring day, in the Gradu- 
ale, or in the Psalter. Bishop Val- 
entin, of Ratisbon to give only 
one instance of episcopal decrees 
on this subject writing April 16, 
1857, gives the following injunc- 
tion : " During the celebration of 
Holy Mass, and on all other occa- 
sions of public worship, it is per- 
mitted to make use of only the oc- 
curring text, or at least some other 
words approved by the church, and 
taken either from Holy Scripture, 
from the liturgical books, or from 
the writings of the holy Fathers." 

The church in her wisdom has 
very willingly adopted the grave 
and dignified music of the organ ; 
she has even, in her indulgent large- 
heartedness, admitted polyphonic 
singing and orchestral accompani- 
ments ; but no one will for this 
reason deny that the old Gregorian 
chant, sung in unison, was for many 



Plain Chant in its Relation to tlie Liturgy. 



271 



centuries, and, please God, shall 
again be, more serviceable for the 
church's purposes, more expressive 
of the ecclesiastical idea, and far 
more in accordance with the true 
religious taste of the Christian 
people. 

Down to the fifteenth century 
the structure of the organ was so 
defective that such an execution 
as we hear to-day could scarcely 
be imagined. What information 
we possess of the organ and its use 
up to this time leads to the con- 
clusion that it was rarely, if ever, 
used to accompany, but was played 
before, between, and after the sing- 
ing. But as soon as the more per- 
fect construction of the organ was 
followed by a more frequent em- 
ployment of it in the divine ser- 
vice, the ecclesiastical authorities 
felt themselves obliged to issue 
stringent regulations, and not un- 
frequently to take energetic mea- 
sures to prevent abuses and en- 
croachments. Thus the holy sy- 
nod of Trent decreed : " Ab eccle- 
sia vero musicas eas, ubi sive or- 
gano sive cantu lascivum aut im- 
purum aliquid miscetur . . . ar- 
ceant, ut dooms Dei vere domus 
orationis esse videatur ac dici pos- 
sit" " Let those kinds of music in 
which tli ere is mingled, whether in 
the organ or in the chant, anything 
lascivious or impure be banished 
from the church, so that the house 
of God may be seen to be, and may 
be called in truth, the house of pray- 
er." Some councils, as the pro- 
vincial council at Mechlin in 1570, 
went so far as to establish the pen- 
alty of imprisonment for all those 
Avho in playing the organ should in- 
dulge in excesses offending against 
the gravity and dignity becoming 
the church. The papal General 
Vicariate at Rome, in the year 
1842, fixed by decree a fine of ten 



thalers upon all chapel-masters and 
organists violating the ecclesiastical 
ordinances; upon a repetition of 
the act the offender to pay double 
the amount, and upon the third 
offence to suffer a temporary sus- 
pension from his office. The de- 
crees on this subject are innume- 
rable, and are to be met with chief- 
ly where the church has had some 
occasion for speaking out her mind 
on this point. The spirit and sen- 
timent of the church with regard 
to the employment of the organ 
and other instruments in the di- 
vine service may be discovered by 
reference to the Bullarium of Bene- 
dict XIV., sections xi., xii., and 
xiii. of the constitution Anmis qui, 
1749, treating in order "de instru- 
mentis musicis, quorum usus in 
ecclesiis tolerari potest ; de illorum 
instrumentorum sono, qui cantui 
sociari solet ; de sono separatim a 
cantu i.e., de instrumentorum sym- 
phonia." Wherever the organ or 
other musical instruments are used 
in church music the singing should 
assume the exclusively predominant 
part, and hence it is the office of 
the organist to direct his playing 
to the support of the voices, to ac- 
company the chant without limit- 
ing its independence ; but he should 
never attempt to accommodate the 
free liturgical chant to the conven- 
tional rules of time and harmony. 
Our further expositions will shed 
more light upon this principle. 

Figured music dates from the 
invention of the gamut by the learn- 
ed monk Guido of Arezzo, and the 
invention of the measure by Fran- 
co of Cologne. Like organ-playing 
and other instrumental music, it 
degenerated soon after its rise, and 
gave early cause for ecclesiastical 
interference. It is acknowledged 
that only the model compositions 
of Palestrina redeemed polyphonic 



272 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



singing at the time of the Council 
of Trent. But such men as Pales- 
trina, Orlando, and Scarlatti are 
rare, and, we are almost tempted 
to say, still rarer is the ability ne- 
cessary for the execution of their 
compositions. What wonder, then, 
that the few good compositions 
should soon be unheard, and that 
figured music should fall back into 
the old, nay, into still grosser, er- 
rors, and thus necessitate another 
interference on the part of the 
church? (See in the Constitution 
of Benedict XIV., c. vii. of 1. ix., 
Syn. Dioc.) In order lo conclude 
from this that the church's liturgy 
hides within its bosom something 
of a higher character than aught 
that modern music can evolve, we 



ordinate the singing, still less drown 
it out, as though it were something 
inferior. Conformably with this 
the same decree allows the use of 
instrumental music only on condi- 
tion that permission be obtained 
on every occasion. Generally 
speaking, all those enactments of a 
prohibitive character issued with 
regard to the organ apply in a 
fuller measure to other instrumen- 
tal music. 

In confirmation of what we have 
said concerning the chant, the 
words of Pope Benedict XIV., who 
is speaking ex cathedra, are worthy 
of thought : . . . "Cantusiste ille 
est, qui fidelium animos ad devo- 
tionem et pietatem excitat, denique 
ille est, qui si recte decenterque 



have only to bring face to face with peragatur in Dei ecclesiis, a piis 



the abuses of the latter the unflag- 
ging zeal with which the church 
has so often and so strenuously in- 
terposed her authority against them. 
The earnest complaint of the learn- 
ed Abbot Gerbert is only too just 
at the present time also. Speaking 
of his own times, he says : " Reli- 
gious music has sunk lower than 
ever before. She, the holy daugh- 
ter of spiritual men, has become a 
vile courtesan to ears inflamed with 
sensuality; her only object to gra- 
tify a love of pleasure and win ad- 
miration and praise. Instead of 
turning soul and heart to God, she 
draws the attention directly away 
from him to fix it upon her artifi- 
cial vanities " (De Cantu et Musica 
Sacra, praefatio). 

With regard to instrumental or 
orchestral music, we refer to one 
of the express orders of Pius IX., 
issued through the General Vica- 
riate at Rome, November 20, 1856, 
which says that musical directors 
should bear in mind that instru- 
mental music is only tolerated, and 
therefore that it should never sub- 



hominibus libentius auditur et al- 
teri, qui cantus harmonious seu 
musicus dicitur, merito praefertur " 
"This is the chant which arouses 
the souls of the faithful to devotion 
and piety, and which, if it be cor- 
rectly and becomingly performed 
in the churches of God, is heard 
more willingly by pious men, and 
is justly preferred to the so-call- 
ed cantus harmonicus or musicus " 
(const. Annus qui). This truth 
is re-echoed with a like empha- 
sis from the mouth of the whole 
Catholic episcopate. It will be 
enough to let one voice of our own 
time speak. Bishop Valentin, of 
Ratisbon, at the beginning of the 
decree from which we have already 
quoted, says : "Above all it must 
be made clear that a union exists 
between the liturgical music and 
the liturgical words. A liturgical 
music without words, or with words 
chosen at random, the church can- 
not recognize. The church puts 
forth the text as invariable, and by 
rendering it in accordance with 
the church's conception of its 






Plain CJiant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



273 



meaning, which alone can possibly 
be correct, even its musical expres- 
sion is secured from the arbitrary 
and capricious notions of individu- 
als. We have, then, a chant estab- 
lished of old by the voices of men 
in whom the spirit of the church 
vvas living and active, especially by 
St. Gregory, and authorized by the 
acceptance and constant usage of 
the church. This is the Gregorian 
chant, called also cantus planus or 
firmus, which, from the time of St. 
Gregory on through all the centu- 
ries, the church has recognized as 
the only liturgical music, as the 
adequate expression of the spirit 
of the liturgy, and she has there- 
fore watched over it with jealous 
care." 

We have made somewhat of a 
digression here, because in the 
course of our treatise we shall 
scarcely touch again upon these 
subjects of harmonic singing and 
instrumental accompaniment, but 
shall occupy ourselves rather ex- 
clusively, or at least in great part, 
with the principles of the pure, 
unisonous, Gregorian chant. Let 
us now resume the thread of our 
observations. We have seen from 
the connection of the chant with 
the liturgy, from the constant prac- 
tice of the church, and from the 
ecclesiastical ordinances on this 
point, that the text of the chant is 
secured from subjection to the ca- 
price of man by a positive divine 
disposal. The truth of this fact 
weighs overwhelmingly in favor of 
the liturgical chant. Even from 
this point of view, were we to go 
no further, all other music, in pro- 
portion as it varies from that which 
accompanies the holy text, must 
the more decidedly be kept in the 
background, be it ever so clever 
and original, be it ever so artistic 
in its harmonies. For, in the first 
VOL. xxvin. 1 8 



place, it does not stand in that es- 
sential relation to the liturgy ; se- 
condly, it has not been suggested 
by the Holy Ghost; and, thirdly, it 
cannot be proved to be acceptable 
to either God or the church. On 
the contrary, it is often entirely 
out of keeping with the liturgical 
action ; frequently the production 
of men whose sanctity, to say the 
least, was doubtful ; and, at best, is 
only tolerated by the church out of 
regard to invincible prejudices, al- 
though failing to express her spirit 
and desire. 

To make quite clear the impor- 
tance of the conclusion we have 
reached, let us put the other side 
of the picture in contrast with the 
sketch we have given of Christian 
worship as it should be, in accord- 
ance with the idea of the church 
and the revealed will of God, and 
as it actually was in the most flour- 
ishing periods of Christian antiqui- 
ty. In Germany every one ac- 
quainted with the liturgy and with 
the Masses and Vespers in the ver- 
nacular can bear witness how little 
the latter have in common with the 
Latin text of the Missal and Brevi- 
ary. The texts are as far removed 
from each other as heaven is from 
earth ; or, when a slight resemblance 
is traceable, then either something 
is cut out or the music is prolong- 
ed by senseless repetitions. Such 
omissions and repetitions are also 
found in almost all figured Latin 
Masses, to say nothing of the lack 
of those parts which give expression 
to the particular character of each 
festival viz., the Introit, Gradual, 
Offertory, and Communion. With 
what superlative nonsense are sin- 
gle words, such as gloria, et in 
terra pax, patrem, etc., repeated 
in almost endless succession ! And 
when this has been kept up for a 
quarter or half an hour, to make 



274 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



up for the time and exertion that 
have been expended, the Gloria is 
suddenly broken off at "bonce vol- 
untatis" or the Credo at " et incar- 
natus est" Is this the intention of 
the church ? 

And what was the consequence 
of this wanton departure from the 
text of the liturgy ? Nothing less 
than that the union of the sinking 
with the liturgical action was lost 
sight of, the conception of this es- 
sential unity became more and more 
obscure, until at last church music 
was flooded with all those unbe- 
coming elements that bishops to- 
day strive with so much energy to 
remove. And this was not the only 
result. Religious earnestness, too, 
vanished from the hearts of the 
faithful in proportion as their in- 
timate participation in the holy sa- 
crificial action was lessened. In a 
church where perhaps a thousand 
may be collected at High Mass, 
could we glance at the prayer- 
books of those present while the 
Credo is being sung, how, many 
books should we find open at the 
Credo? And so with the other 
parts of the Mass. We merely ask, 
Is this the picture of Christian wor- 
ship, as one thinks of it among the 
early Christians or in the believing 
middle ages? We only ask, Is it 
proper that the people should pray 
to be delivered from evil while the 
priest is singing the Gloria, or, 
while he recites the Credo, that 
they should make a memento of 
the faithful departed? We will 
not take into consideration the in- 
telligent interest that Christians 
should reasonably take, in the 
course of the church's year, in the 
proprium de tempore and the daily 
feasts of the saints. A knowledge 
of these, whence springs continu- 
ous nourishment in the Christian 
life, the people must gain, with in- 



struction, from a familiar use of 
the liturgy. Its text contains an 
ever-refreshing, ever-eloquent les- 
son, and one without which all pri- 
vate devotion will be devoid of 
lasting fruit. 

To make this clearer let us take 
again as our guide a man whose 
authority in the domain of the 
liturgy, and whose true loyalty to 
holy church, offer a sufficient 
guarantee to the reader and a 
strong armor of defence to us. 
.Abbot Gueranger, in the preface to 
the Liturgical Year, writes as fol- 
lows : 

" For a long time past, in order to 
remedy an evil but confusedly realized, 
the spirit of prayer, and even prayer it- 
self have been sought for in methods 
and in" books containing, it is true, 
praiseworthy, even pious, thoughts, but 
after all only human thoughts. 'Ihis is 
but insipid nourishment, since it isolates 
the soul instead of leading it into union 
with the prayer of the church. Of this 
kind are so many of those collections of 
prayers and pious reflections which 
have been published, under different 
titles, during the last two centuries, and 
by which it was intended to edify the 
faithful, and suggest to them, either for 
hearing Mass, or going to the sacra- 
ments, or keeping the feasts of the 
church, certain more or less common- 
place considerations and acts, always 
drawn up in accordance with the 
thoughts and feelings peculiar to the 
author of each book. Each manual had, 
therefore, its own way of treating these 
subjects. Unfortunately, such books as 
these must serve even pious persons for 
want of something better, but they are 
powerless to impart a relish and spirit 
of prayer to such as have not yet receiv- 
ed these gifts. It may, perhaps, be ob- 
jected that, were all these practical 
books of devotion to be reduced to mere 
explanations of the liturgy, we should 
run the risk of weakening, if not of en- 
tirely destroying, by too strict an adhe- 
rence to form, the spirit of prayer and 
meditation one of the most precious 
gifts of the Church of God. To this we 
answer that, while asserting the incon- 
testable superiority of liturgical over 



Plain CJiant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



275 



individual prayer, we would not go so 
fir as to recommend the rejection of in- 
dividual methods ; we only wish them 
to be kept in their proper place. We 
assert, moreover, that in the holy psal- 
mody there are different degrees ; the 
lowest is near enough to the earth to 
be reached by souls that are still plod- 
ding in the fatigues of the via purgativa, 
but in proportion as a soul ascends this 
mystic ladder she feels herself illumi- 
nated\>\ a heavenly ra.y, until upon the 
summit she finds union and rest in the 
Highest Good. In fact, whence did the 
holy teachers of the first ages and the 
venerable patriarchs of the desert ac- 
quire that light and warmth which glow- 
ed within them, filling with life their 
deeds and writings ? Whence but from 
the rarely silent singing of the Psalms, 
during which the eternal truths, simple 
yet manifold, unceasingly passed before 
the eyes of their soul, filling it with rich 
streams of light and love. What gave to 
the seraphic Bernard that marvellous 
unction which like a stream of honey 
runs through all his writings ? To the 
author of the Following of Christ that 
sweetness, that hidden manna, still, affer 
so man} r centuries, as fresh as ever? To 
Louis Blosius that charm and incom- 
parable tenderness which move the 
heart of every reader? It was the daily 
use of the liturgy, in which they spent 
their lives, mingling their songs of joy 
and sorrow. 

" Let not, then, the soul, the beloved 
bride of Christ, be afraid in her holy 
zeal for prayer, that her thirst cannot be 
quenched by those wonderful streams of 
the liturgy which now seem like the 
gentle murmurings of the brooklet, now 
rush on like the thundering mountain 
torrent, and now overflow their banks 
till their expanse is like the ocean. She 
has only to come and drink of this clear, 
bright water which ' springeth up unto 
everlasting life' (St. John iv. 14), for 
this water flows even ' from the Saviour's 
fountains ' (Is. xii. 3), and the Spirit pf 
God quickens it with his power, render- 
ing it sweet and refreshing to the pant- 
ing hart (Ps. xli.) The soul taken 
captive by the charms of holy contem- 
plation should not shrink back from the 
loud-resounding harmonies of the chant 
in the liturgical prayer. Is she not her- 
self an harmonious instrument resound- 
ing to the touch of the Divine Spirit 
which possesses her ? She should sure- 



ly enjoy the heavenly intercourse in no 
other way than did the royal Psalmist, 
recognized by God and the Church as 
the model of all true prayer. Yet he, 
when he would enkindle the sacred 
flame within his breast, has recourse to 
his harp. ' My heart is ready,' he says ; 
4 O God ! my heart is ready : I will sing, 
and will give forth a psalm. Arise, my 
glory ; arise, psaltery and harp ; I will 
arise in the morning early. I will praise 
thee, O Lord ! among the people : and I 
will sing unto thee among the nations. 
For thy mercy is great above the hea- 
vens : and thy truth even unto the 
clouds' (Ps. cvii.) 

" He ' enters into the powers of the 
Lord'(Ps. Ixx. 16) ; 'in his meditation 
a fire flameth out' (Ps. xxxviii. 4), the 
fire of love's holy excitement, and to as- 
suage the heat which is burning within 
him he breaks forth into another canti- 
cle, singing : ' My heart hath uttered a 
good word : I dedicate my songs unto 
the King' (Ps. xliv. 2); and again and 
again he praises the beauty of the vic- 
torious Bridegroom, and the winning 
grace of his beloved bride. In like 
manner the liturgical prayer is to con- 
templative souls both the cause and the 
fruit of the visits they receive from God. 

" Above all it shows its divine power 
by being at the same time milk for 
children and bread for the strong ; while, 
like the miraculous bread in the desert, 
its taste varies according to the dif- 
ferent dispositions of those who eat. 
This property, which it alone possesses, 
has often excited the wonder of these 
who are no longer of the number of 
God's children, and fore* d them to 
admit that the Catholic Church alone 
knows the secret of prayer. This is due 
to the fact that Protestants have, proper- 
ly speaking, no liturgical prayer, just as 
they have no ascetical writers." 

Thus much from Dom Gueran- 
ger in confirmation of what we 
have said concerning the important 
relation that the liturgy holds to 
church music as well as to the 
Christian life. Yet, granting the 
absolute necessity of a strict ad- 
herence to the liturgical text, it 
may still be claimed that we are at 
liberty to clothe it in whatever 
musical form we please. To refute.- 



276 



Plain CJiant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



this assertion we will again refer 
to the decree of the bishop of 
Ratisbon, in which he justly points 
out that the liturgical music forms 
one whole with the liturgical text, 
and is no less independent of the 
capricious conceptions of indivi- 
duals; its foundations were laid by 
men in whom the spirit of the 
church was living and active, nota- 
bly by St. Gregory, and it has been 
adopted by the church in its tradi- 
tional form. We also refer again 
to the authoritative declarations of 
Benedict XIV., as well as to all the 
other quotations we have made in 
this chapter, which, although they 
apply particularly to the text, are of 
the same force when applied to the 
music which should accompany the 
sacred words. We will not dwell 
any longer on this point, because it 
will form the very pith of our sub- 
sequent discussion, and a true esti- 
mation of the question necessarily 
arises from a consideration of the 
nature and essence of plain chant 
in connection with the correct 
method of executing it. 

V. THE PRAYERFULNESS OF THE 
LITURGICAL CHANT. 

We have sought to form a con- 
ception of the liturgical music in 
its direct and immediate relation 
to the Sacrifice, and we cannot but 
regard it as an essential component 
part of the liturgy. But this is not 
its whole end and scope. Our ex- 
animation has farther set forth 
that the holy chant is not limited 
to any one particular act of wor- 
ship, be it ever so pre-eminent. 
On the contrary, its tones, with the 
sacred words that accompany them, 
are heard resounding throughout 
the cycle of the Christian year. 
Nor even here have we yet reached 
the limits of the importance belong- 



ing to the chant. It is dedicated 
to the Most High and to the Lamb, 
and therefore it should resound in 
every abiding-place of the Most 
High Lord and God, wherever 
flows the ill-powerful blood of the 
Lamb. In other words, the litur- 
gical song of praise and thanksgiv- 
ing should be offered to God by all 
beings who have ever felt the power 
of Christ's Blood and are capable 
of praising their Creator and Re- 
deemer. It is, therefore, not an ex- 
clusive privilege of the priesthood, 
like the celebration of Mass, neither 
need it be confined within the 
limits of the sanctuary. Through- 
out heaven's wide realm it resounds, 
though unheard by our ears, while 
here on earth it issues seven times 
a day from the mouths of many 
thousand chosen Levites of the 
holy church, with the assistance 
and participation of all the faithful 
laity. In this new aspect the 
chant bears a twofold character: 
it is the common public prayer of 
the 'Christian people, and also the 
official (officium) homage given by 
the creature to the Creator. As 
the former it is the language where- 
with the Christian people address 
their God, the medium of inter- 
course between the heavenly 
Bridegroom and his bride, the de- 
vout soul, and hence a channel of 
divine graces; as the latter it is 
the way divinely established in 
which the representatives of crea- 
tion offer in behalf of their fellow- 
creatures, by day and by night, a 
continual sacrifice of praise and 
thanksgiving to the Author of all 
good. Let us consider the chant 
more particularly in these two re- 
lations. 

Plain chant is the common pub- 
lic prayer of the Christian people. 
St. Peter, in the first Epistle (ii. 5- 
9), calls those he is addressing 



* 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



277 



holy priesthood" " sacerdotium 
sanctum "; " a royal priesthood " 
"regale sacerdotium"; " a chosen 
generation" " genus electum "; " a 
holy nation, a purchased people" 
" gens sancta, populus acquisi- 
tionis." Now, if the priestly cha- 
racter implies the power of offering 
sacrifice, the Christian people, to 
be rightly called a priesthood, must 
be a sacrificing people. The apos- 
tle goes on to explain the sense of 
his words: u To offer up spiritual 
sacrifices"- -" offerre spirituales hos- 
tias " . . . " that you may de- 
clare His virtues who hath called 
you out of darkness into his admira- 
ble light" " ut virtutes annuntietis 
ejus, qui de tenebris vos vocavit in 
admirabile lumen suum." This is 
the same spiritual sacrifice spoken 
of by the prophet Osee (xiv. 3) : 
"We will render the calves of our 
lips " " reddemus vitulos labiorum 
nostrorum "; and by St. Paul in the 
Epistle to the Hebrews (xiii. 15) : 
14 Let us offer the sacrifice of praise 
to God continually, that is, the 
fruit of lips confessing his name " 
"pfferamus hostiam laudis semper 
Deo, id est, fructum labiorum con- 
fitentium nomini ejus." "Magni- 
fy his name," says Jesus the son of 
Sirach, " and give glory to him 
with the voice of your lips, and 
with the canticles of your mouth, 
and with harps " (Ecclus. xxxix. 
20) ; and God, speaking by the 
mouth of the royal Psalmist, de- 
clares (Ps. xlix. 23) : "The sacri- 
fice of praise shall glorify me "- 
'* sacrificium laudis honorificabit 
me " and chooses this as the source 
or channel of his benedictions : 
"And that is the way by which I 
shall show him the salvation of 
God" " et illic iter, quo ostendam 
illi salutare Dei." Therefore does 
David often bid the people " offer 
unto God the sacrifice of praise " 



" immola Deo sacrificium laudis " 
not merely the flesh of bullocks 
and the blood of goats. 

Prayer, then, is principally the 
sacrifice enjoined upon Christians 
as a priestly people. Now, this is 
not to be understood of private 
prayer, but of the common public 
prayer of the church. For the uni- 
versal priesthood does not belong 
to individuals but to the people 
collectively. St. Peter does not 
speak of as many priests as there 
are souls, but of one great common 
priesthood. This universal sacri- 
fice is destined for the good of na- 
tions and peoples, for Christian so- 
ciety in general. It must, there- 
fore, be, in both matter and form, 
general and public, a prayer ex- 
cluding all the selfish interests of 
individuals, and yet adapted to 
supply their needs as well as those 
of the community. In this prayer, 
though offered by particular so- 
cieties in the name and in behalf 
of the people, each and every one 
has a share, proportionate to his 
capacity and pious impulses. Such 
is the common-prayer of the 
church, the Canonical Hours, a 
never-interrupted prayer of praise 
and thanksgiving, inspired by God 
and sanctioned by his church. 

For our further proofs we will 
again follow the solid but some- 
what prolix line of thought of 
the introduction to the Liturgical' 
Year. Prayer is man's richest 
boon. It is his light, his nourish- 
ment, his very life, for it brings him. 
into communication with God, who- 
is light (St. John viii. 12), nourish- 
ment (vi. 35), and life (xiv. 6).. 
But of ourselves "we know not 
what we should pray for as we- 
ought " (Rom. viii. 26) ; we must 
betake ourselves to Jesus Christ, 
and say to him with the apostles, 
"Lord, teach us to pray" (St. 



278 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



Luke xi. i). He alone can loosen 
the tongues of the dumb and make 
eloquent the mouths of babes; 
and he works this wonder by send- 
ing his "Spirit of grace and of 
prayers" (Zach. xii. 10), who re- 
joices to come to the help of our 
infirmity, "asking for us with un- 
speakable groanings" (Rom. viii. 
26). 

This divine Spirit dwells upon 
earth in the holy church. He 
came down to her in a mighty wind 
under the expressive symbol of 
fiery tongues. Ever since that day 
of Pentecost he has dwelt in this 
his favored spouse. He is her 
principle of life. He prompts her 
prayers, her desires, her songs of 
praise, her enthusiasm, and even 
her mourning. Hence her prayer 
is as uninterrupted as her exist- 
ence. Day and night is her voice 
sounding sweetly on the ear of her 
divine Spouse, and her words ever 
.finding a welcome in his heart. 
At one time, under the impulse of 
that Spirit which animated the 
Psalmist and the prophets, she 
takes the subject of her songs 
from the books of the Old Testa- 
ment ; at another, showing herself 
to be the true heiress of the apos- 
tles, she intones the canticles of 
the New Covenant ; and finally, 
mindful that to her also has been 
given the trumpet and the harp, 
she at times gives way to the Spirit 
which animates her, and sings unto 
God her own "new song" (Ps. 
cxliii. 9). 

The prayer of the church is, there- 
fore, the most pleasing to the ear 
and heart of God, and consequently 
the most efficacious of all prayers. 
Happy is he who prays with the 
church, and unites his own special 
petitions with those of this spouse, 
who is so dear to her Lord that he 
gives her all she asks. For this 



reason our Lord lias taught us to 
say " Our Father," and not " My 
Father," "give ?/s t " "forgive us," 
" deliver us" and not % " give me" 
"for give ;//<?," " deliver we" Hence, 
also, we find that the church, who 
prays seven times a day and at 
midnight in her temples, for more 
than a thousand years did not pray 
alone. The people shared in her 
prayers; they tasted with delight 
the manna hidden in the words and 
mysteries of the divine liturgy. 
Initiated into the sacred cycle of 
the mysteries of the Christian year, 
the faithful, hearkening to the 
voice of the Holy Ghost, came to 
know the mysteries of eternal life ; 
and therefore it should not sur- 
prise us that the chief pastors of 
the church often chose, to be a 
priest or bishop, a simple Christian 
bred only in this school of the 
liturgy, that he might pour out 
upon the people the treasures of 
wisdom and love drawn from the 
very fountain-head. 

For as prayer said in union with 
the church is light to the under- 
standing, so is it also the fire of 
divine love for the heart. The 
Christian soul does not seek seclu- 
sion when she would converse with 
God and praise his greatness and 
his tender mercy. She knows that 
the company of the bride of Christ 
could be no distraction to her. Is 
she not herself a part of this church, 
which is the spouse, and has not 
Jesus Christ said : " Father, grant 
that they may be one, as we also 
are one " ? (St. John xvii. n). And 
does not this same dear Saviour 
assure us that when two or three 
are gathered in his name he is in 
the midst of them ? (St. Matt, 
xviii. 20). Thus the soul can con- 
verse at pleasure with her God, 
who tells her that he is so near 
her ; she can with David sing 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



279 



Psalms " in the sight of the an- 
gels," whose eternal prayer blends 
with the prayer which the church 
utters in time. 

But novtf for many past ages 
Christians, fettered by worldly in- 
terests, have ceased to frequent 
the holy vigils and the mystical 
hours of the day. Long before 
the rationalism of the sixteenth 
century became the ally of the he- 
resies of that period by curtailing 
the solemnity of the divine service, 
the days for the people's uniting 
exteriorly witJi the prayer of the 
church had been reduced to Sun- 
days and festivals. During the 
rest of the year the solemnities of 
the liturgy were gone through with, 
but the people took no part in 
them, and each new generation in- 
creased in indifference to that which 
had been the strongest food of their 
forefathers. Individual devotion 
took the place of common prayer. 
The chant, the natural expression 
of the prayers and sorrows of the 
bride of Christ, was heard only on 
the solemn feasts. This was the 
first sad revolution in the life of 
Christians. 

But even then Christendom was 
still rich in churches and monas- 
teries, where, day and night, was 
heard the sound of the same ven- 
erable prayers as in the times gone 
by. So many hands lifted up to 
God drew down upon the earth the 
dew of heaven, calmed the tem- 
pests, and won victory for those 
who were in battle. These servants 
and handmaids of the Lord, sing- 
ing untiringly the eternal songs, 
were considered as solemnly de- 
puted by society, which was then 
still Catholic, to pay the full tri- 
bute of homage and thanksgiving 
due to God, his Blessed Mother, 
and the saints. Their meditations 
and prayers formed a treasury 



which belonged to all, and the 
faithful gladly united themselves in 
spirit to what was done. When 
any sorrow or joy led them into 
the house of God, they loved to 
hear those untiring voices in the 
holy hours ascending for ever to 
heaven for the welfare of Christen- 
dom. At times the zealous Chris- 
tian would lay aside his worldly 
business and cares and take part in 
the office of the church, and all 
had still an intelligent appreciation 
of the holy liturgy. 

Then came the Reformation, and 
at the outset it aimed a blow at 
this organ of life in Christian so- 
ciety. It sought to put an end to 
the sacrifice of holy songs of praise. 
It strewed Christendom with the 
ruins of our temples; the clergy, 
the monks, the consecrated virgins 
were either banished or put to 
death; and the churches which 
were spared were, in a great part of 
Europe, doomed to remain silent. 
The voice of prayer was hushed, 
faith grew weak, and rationalism 
reached a fearful development, and 
now in our days we see the pillars 
of human society totter. 

Heresy had brought about a sad 
desolation, but the end was not 
yet. The nations fell into that spi- 
rit of pride which is the enemy of 
prayer. The modern spirit would 
have it that " prayer is not action " ; 
as though every good action done 
by man were not a gift of God a 
gift which implies two prayers: 
one of petition, that it may be 
granted; and another of thanksgiv- 
ing, because it is granted. So 
there were found men who said : 
"Let us make to cease all the fes- 
tival days of God from the land " 
(Ps. Ixxiii. 8); and then came upon 
us that common calamity, which 
the good Mardochai besought God 
to avert from his people when he 



280 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



said : " Shut not, O Lord ! the lips 
of them that sing thy praise " 
(Esther xiii. 17). 

But, " through the mercies of the 
Lord, we are not consumed " (Lam. 
iii. 22). The remnants of Israel 
were preserved from destruction, 
and, lo ! " the number of them that 
believe increases in the Lord " 
(Acts v. 14). What is it that has 
moved the heart of our Lord to 
bring about this gracious conver- 
sion? Prayer has returned to its 
original channel. Numerous choirs 
of virgins consecrated to God, and, 
though far less in number, of monks 
with their holy chant, are again 
heard in our land like the voice of 
the turtle-dove (Cant. ii. 12). This 
voice grows daily stronger, and 
therefore the Lord causes his rain- 
bow to shine above the clouds. 
May the echo of this solemn pray- 
er soon again resound in our cathe- 
drals as of old ! May the faith and 
generosity of the people make us 
again witness those wonders of 
past ages, which owed their great- 
ness to the homage still paid by 
the public institutions of society to 
the all-power fulness of prayer ! 

But this liturgical prayer would 
soon become powerless were the 
faithful not to join in its songs and 
melodies, at least in heart, should 
they be unable to take part other- 
wise. It redounds to the welfare 
of the nations only in proportion 
as it is understood. Open, then, 
your hearts, ye children of the Ca- 
tholic Church, and come and pray 
together the prayer of your mother. 
Come,' and by your loving share in 
it fill up that harmony which is so 
sweet to the ear of God. The spi- 
rit of prayer must be revived at its 
natural source. Let us remind you 
of the exhortation of the apostle to 
the first Christians : " Let the peace 
of Christ rejoice in your hearts . . . 



let the word of Christ dwell in you 
abundantly, in <nll wisdom : teach- 
ing and admonishing one another 
in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual 
canticles, singing in grace in your 
hearts to God " (Col. iii. 15, 16). 

Nothing that we might say could 
add to this representation which 
we have taken bodily from Gue- 
ranger of the liturgical chant as 
the public prayer of the Christian 
people. Let us now touch briefly 
upon the other characteristic of 
plain chant. 

It is the official (pfficiuni) hom- 
age rendered by the creature to 
the Creator, the sublime mode of 
offering continually to the in- 
comprehensible Majesty of God, 
by the representatives of creation, 
their dutiful homage of praise and 
thanksgiving. This truth has be- 
come only too generally unfami- 
liar; and our position, though tho- 
roughly ecclesiastical, will appear 
strange to many. We have but to 
look at the question from the su- 
pernatural point of view, which ac- 
knowledges God as the sole and 
last end, and, judging of all actions 
and omissions, all human institu- 
tions and undertakings, according 
as they are referred to this end, it 
assigns everything a lower or a 
higher place as it contributes in a 
greater or less degree to the glory 
of God. From this stand-point 
many a thing apparently trivial be- 
comes great and sublime, while 
things seemingly great and admira- 
ble prove to be worthless and in- 
significant. Thus the common no- 
tions about utility, gain, and suc- 
cess are seen to be in the main 
wrong and deceptive, while all ac- 
tions are the more meritorious the 
further their intention is removed 
from earth and directed to the 
honor and glory of the Divine Ma- 
jesty. 



Plain Chant in its Relation to t/ie Liturgy. 



281 



Now, it is from this point of view 
that the holy Mass is recognized 
as the greatest and most august ac- 
tion, the action most pleasing to 
God, that man can perform upon 
earth. For from this unbloody 
sacrifice God receives an infinite in- 
crease of glory, since it lays at the 
feet of the Eternal Father in hea- 
ven the Son of God himself he, 
the first-born of all creatures, befit- 
tingly doing the work which gives 
the greatest glory to the Blessed 
Trinity. But after the Holy Sac- 
rifice of the Mass, what is it that 
gives the greatest glory to God ? 
It is the aureola surrounding with 
its rays the Holy Sacrifice, the Ca- 
nonical Hours, never silent in the 
praise of God. Jesus Christ offers 
himself continually in heaven as an 
oblation to the Father, and in like 
manner the ever-blessed angels in 
heaven, and on earth the Catholic 
priesthood, and especially the con- 
templative orders, offer to God the 
action that next to the Holy Sacri- 
fice most contributes to his honor. 
This is the perpetual singing of 
God's praise in the Canonical 
Hours, according to the words of 
the Psalmist: "I will sing praise 
unto thee in the sight of the an- 
gels " (Ps. cxxxvii. 2) ; " for," says 
St. Paul, " you are come to Mount 
Sion, and to the city of the living 
God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and 
to the company of many thousands 
of angels." 

We can easily see how much the 
angels have in common with the 
Catholic priesthood, in offering the 
divine sacrifice of praise in psalms 
and hymns. If we ask what God's 
intention was in creating the an- 
gels, in the beginning of the Epistle 
to the Hebrews (i, 14) we find the 
question : " Are they not all minis- 
tering spirits, sent forth to minister 
for those who shall receive the in- 



heritance of salvation ?" But this 
does not give us a complete an- 
swer. For God does not need the 
ministry of angels to bring men to 
eternal happiness, as he needs no 
assistance in any of his works. 
The angels were created before 
man came into being, and they will 
continue to exist for ever after the 
full achievement of the work of re- 
demption. The common opinion 
is that not all the angels by far, 
not even all the classes of angels, 
are employed on earth in the ser- 
vice of man, and those who have 
some personal office to perform 
here below, as the guardian angels, 
generally belong to the lowest rank 
of the angelic choir. Very seldom, 
and only upon the highest and 
most important missions, have the 
archangels been sent to earth, 
while the principalities, the powers, 
the dominations are still further re- 
moved from us, and, as it were, from 
the higher regions of the empyrean 
rule those parts of the world 
that have been allotted to them. 
But the cherubim and seraphim, 
those exalted spirits of flame, ap- 
pear never to leave the inmost 
sanctuary of heaven, never to be 
engaged in any exterior employ- 
ment, be it of ever so great dignity. 
Whenever Holy Scripture speaks 
of them they are represented as 
being continually in the immediate 
presence of the divine Majesty. 
For what end did God create these 
lofty intelligences? Many other 
parts of Holy Scripture supply the 
answer which is wanting in the 
passage quoted above from the 
Epistle to the Hebrews (Ps. cii. 
21 ; xcvi. 8; cxlviii. 2 ; Heb. i. 6; 
Is. vi. 3) ; and the Prefaces in the 
Missal proclaim in sublime words : 
"Mujestatem tuam laudant angeli, 
adorant dominationes, tremunt po- 
testates ; cceli ccelorumque virtutes, 



282 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



cherubim qtioque ac seraphim, qui 
non cessant clamare quotidie una 
voce dicentes: Sanctus, Sanctus, 
Sanctus." The holy angels form 
God's court in heaven ; they are 
the attendants at the throne of his 
unapproachable Majesty. Thus 
were they manifested to the eyes 
of the Seer of the New Covenant : 
" Et vidi et exaudivi vocem ange- 
lorum multorum in circuitu throni. 
. . . Et erat numerus eorum mil- 
lia millium " (Apoc. v. u). Thus 
were they seen by the prophet 
Daniel: " Millia millium ministra- 
bant ei, et decies millies centena 
milliaassistebant ei" (vii. 10). And 
among this host of spirits ever 
praising God the cherubim and 
seraphim stand nearest the throne 
those wondrous spirits, glowing 
meteor-like in mysterious love of 
God. How wonderfully sublime 
is this service of God, which, the 
more it is misunderstood by a 
world entangled in its own cares, 
the more completely is it raised 
into the higher regions of contem- 
plation, not to be withdrawn from 
mankind, so sadly in need of divine 



grace, but to throw wide open the 
gates of heaven, and shower down 
in richer streams the dew and sun- 
shine of Heaven's clemency ! The 
Mass and the Office are the golden 
chains of grace that link heaven to 
earth, the double rainbow of peace 
extending its arches above the re- 
newed earth, the symbol of God's 
covenant with his people. 

We have here unfolded the 
holiest and noblest significance of 
the liturgical chant. May it soon 
again rewound in our churches, and, 
filling all with pure and holy en- 
thusiasm, offer to our Creator and 
Redeemer the grandest tribute a 
creature can pay! Surely peace 
and joy would be brought back to 
thousands, the people would lead 
happier lives, governments would 
rule more mildly, were Moses again 
to pray upon the holy mountain. 
Then would we see continued, as 
in the palmiest periods of the 
church's history, the glorious line 
of saints, interrupted, alas ! in these 
last times, since this manifest duty 
to God has been neglected. May 
God so rule it ! 



New Publications. 



283 



NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



ALZOG'S UNIVERSAL CHURCH HISTORY. 
Vol. iii. (and last). Cincinnati : Clarke 
& Co. 1878. 

The publication of this History in Eng-- 
lish has dealt a death-blow to old-fash- 
ioned Protestantism, in our own country 
at least, if such a coup de grace was needed. 
The young, sincere, fair-minded, and in- 
quiring offspring of the old Protestant 
ancestry feel and know that they have 
been the victims of a gigantic swindle 
as soon as they find out the true history 
of the Reformation. Not that they ac- 
cuse their own immediate or intermedi- 
ate progenitors of intentionally deceiv- 
ing them, but that they discover the au- 
thors and original propagators of Lu- 
ther's revolution to have duped their fore- 
fathers, and these to have transmitted, 
for the most part ignorantly, an utter 
falsification of the history of Christian- 
ity, and of the motives, character, and 
work of the party which undertook to 
change the religion of Europe. This 
third volume of Alzog's great work, 
which has the merit and advantage of 
being both complete and compendious, 
places the historical truth of the matter 
in clearer and more open view before 
the English-reading world than has 
been done heretofore. The learning, 
accuracy, and truthfulness of the narra- 
tion cannot be denied by any candid 
person, and is plainly admitted by a 
number of Protestant reviewers. Seve- 
ral so-called church histories have ap- 
peared of late years, either written in 
English or translated into the same from 
the German, which, like the eggs of the 

3 oland top-knot hen, are more remark- 
ible for their bulk than their quality as 

ithentic history. But the sole result 
)f real historical investigation has been 
to dispel the false, illusive halo of glory 

rhich aforetime hung around the names 
ind the epoch of the Reformers. Dr. 
Alzog's history sets them out in the 
sight of all in their real moral deformity 
and intellectual incoherence, as many 
had done before him, but none in such 
a conclusive and intelligible way for 
English readers as he has now done 
through the medium of his American 
translators and annotators. This excel- 
lent work, now complete, will not super- 
sede other histories which we possess in 



cur mother-tongue, but it will take pre- 
cedence among them. The indexes, ad- 
ditions, tables, and maps of the learned 
and diligent editors much enhance its 
value. We could have wished, had it 
been convenient for the editors to have 
added one more piece of work to their 
elaborate performance, that all the ec- 
clesiastical provinces and dioceses of 
the Catholic Church, and all those also 
of the great schismatical communions, 
might have been exhibited in tables 
easy of inspection and reference. We 
notice also occasional oddities in spell- 
ing names and in the use of words, 
which are scarcely worth the trouble of 
particular mention, and one error in re- 
gard to an eminent modern writer, San 
Severino, who is classed as a Jesuit. 
The English style is in all important 
respects excellent, and the present vol- 
ume shows a great improvement on those 
which preceded. Dr. Alzog, though 
generally accurate and remarkably im- 
partial and fair when he gives the his- 
tory of theological and philosophical 
doctrines and opinions, does not always 
show an equal insight into the doctrines 
themselves, and his judgments on such 
matters are not always profound or cor- 
rect. One instance of this is found in 
the notice of Molina (p. 426) : " Unfor- 
tunately, about this time a work appear- 
ed in Spain, written by the Jesuit, Louis 
Molina" We cannot consider contro- 
versies among Catholics as unfortunate, 
for only in this way can theology make 
progress, and Molina is a signal in- 
stance of that happy union of bold ori- 
ginality and independence of thought 
with profound deference for the authori- 
ty of the church by which sacred science 
is most effectually promoted. Again, it 
is said (p. 428) that the system of Moli- 
na is " more or less Pelagian in ten- 
dency." This is neither true in fact nor 
just to those who hold the system of 
pure Molinism, irrespective of the ques- 
tion whether that system be true or false. 
Still more objectionable are the depre- 
ciatory remarks, scattered through those 
passages which give an account of the 
great moral theologians, on what is call- 
ed " casuistry," and in particular the 
following passage: " Unfortunately, the 
theory of ' Probabilism' started in the 
year 1572 by Bartholomew Medina, a 



284 



New Publications, 



Dominican, was introduced into the 
schools of theology, and gave rise to a 
series of propositions of a lax and de- 
moralizing tendency." It was not the 
theory, but a lax and abusive applica- 
tion of it, which gave rise to the afore- 
said proposii ions, which were never re- 
ceived by the school of Probabilist theo- 
logians, and have been condemned by 
the Holy See. Of course whatever the 
author has written must be faithfully re- 
produced by editors and translators, un- 
less expunged or altered by authority. 
But we think that in these cases quali- 
fying notes by the translators would have 
been highly opportune. 

Again, the learned author shows the 
inability to appreciate metaphysics which 
is so common to men of a decidedly 
historical genius, in his remarks on mo- 
dern efforts to revive and improve philo- 
sophical studies (beginning with p. 
900). Scholastic methods he considers 
obsolete, and the discussions of school- 
men wearisome logomachy. He speaks 
truly when he condemns the intolerance 
of certain advocates of the pure and 
simple system of the Peripatetic school. 
That some of these are too exclusive, 
and exaggerate the authority of tradition 
and great masters in a matter where 
authority has the least weight, and pure 
reason the most, by comparison with 
other branches of knowledge, mathe- 
matics excepted, we freely admit. But 
it is not true in fact that the scholastic 
"methods have been long since given 
up in the study of theology and philoso- 
phy," or are likely to be given up. On 
the contrary, they are recovering what 
ground they did lose for a time, and, as 
we think, to the great advantage of the 
two above-named sciences. Methods 
and principles are one thing, particular 
opinions are another, both in theology 
and philosophy. The latter must and 
ought to be discussed, and chiefly, 
where the supreme authority of the 
church gives no extrinsic rule, by the 
intrinsic force of argumentation upon 
the dictates of natural reason or those 
of revelation, or by deduction from pre- 
mises derived partly from each of these 
sources, with due deference, but not 
with submission, to purely human au- 
thority. There is no opening and no 
thoroughfare leading to any result, ex- 
cept by principles and methods accepted 
by all disputants, and these cannot be 
found in any 4 ' modern speculative me- 



thods," or anywhere except in the old, 
traditional philosophy of the great an- 
cient and mediaeval masters and schools, 
where Aristotle and St. Thomas have 
vindicated for themselves that supre- 
macy which belongs to the royal or- 
der of genius. 

However, we do not look to a com- 
pendious history for more than an out- 
side and superficial view of the history 
of doctrine and philosophy. It deals 
directly and chiefly with the extrinsic 
face of events and with concrete facts. 
The obiter dicta of such a work are of 
minor consequence. Dr. Alzog is a 
learned, impartial, veracious, and thor- 
oughly Catholic historian, and his work 
is a masterpiere. His American trans- 
lator is a man who is equal to the crigi 
nal author in erudition, and we must 
conclude by expressing our sense of the 
great value of his work of translation ns 
also of addition by supplementary mat- 
ter and annotation, and of the excellent 
service rendered by his editorial col- 
league. An admirable preface by the 
venerable metropolitan of Cincinnati 
fitly introduces this closing, and practi- 
cally most important, volume of the com- 
plete work, and gives the whole its due 
sanction and commendation. 

THE ELEMENTS OF INTELLECTUAL PHI- 
LOSOPHY. By Rev. J. De Concilio, 
author of Catholicity and Pantheism, 
Knowledge of Mary t etc. 

" How charming is divine philosophy ! 
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose ; 
But musical as is Apollo's lute, 
And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets, 
Where no crude surfeit reigns." 

MILTON'S Comus. 

New York : D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 

1878. 

An adequate criticism on the work 
the first part of which is now before us 
cannot be made until we have the com- 
plete whole. This first part contains 
the Introduction, and Logic, Ontology, 
and the first half of Anthropology, under 
which is included Psychology. The 
second part will contain the rest of An- 
thropology, Cosmology, Theodicy, and 
the Evidences of Christianity. The author 
has specially aimed at writing in pure, 
idiomatic, correct English. In this he 
has on the whole succeeded remarkably 
well, the style of the present vo ; ume be- 
ing far better than that of his previous 
works. He has also aimed at making a 
book easy of understanding, attractive 



New Publications. 



285 



to younger students, and really elemen- 
tary. In this effort, also, he has attain- 
ed no small success. The interspersing 
of choice and apposite selections of 
poetry here and there, and in general 
the literary tinting which softens the 
bare outlines of metaphysical reasoning, 
is, in our opinion, a happy thought, and 
we are quite sure that the young lads 
and lasses of sixteen or seventeen years 
who may have to study this book will 
bless the author for his little fragrant nose- 
gays of poesy, especially in the winter, 
when they cannot relieve the monotony of 
the study and class rooms by looking out 
of window at trees and flowers. The au- 
thor follows the scholastic doctrine of 
St. Thomas as commonly received in the 
most approved schools, and we have not 
observed anything thus far calling for 
special notice. The second part will treat 
of much more difficult and disputed ques- 
tions, we trust with the same judgment 
and prudence which are seen* in the 
general principles laid down in the in- 
troduction. As for the value of this 
Philosophy as an elementary text-book, 
we wait to hear the opinion of teachers 
and pupils who have made use of it. 
Experto oede. This can hardly be done 
before the complete work is published, 
and we trust that the Reverend author, 
who has prepared this first volume with 
a truly marvellous rapidity, will be as 
prompt as possible in giving us the one 
which will complete his undertaking. 
At the same time we suggest to him, in 
compliance with his invitation, that this 
first part is still susceptible of some 
emendations and improvements. We 
have heard it remarked, by a friend upon 
whose judgment we place much reliance, 
that the chapter- on Universals is not 
sufficiently plain and to the ordinary 
reader intelligible. In the chapter on 
Substance the author makes "to exist 
by its If' synonymous with " to exist 
f, om itself," or uncaused ; whereas, in 
the language of our best authors, it de- 
notes existing as a complete supposi- 
tum, marking the distinction from exis- 
tence in itselj as a substance. In another 
place he uses the word by in this latter 
sense, where he asks (p. 212): " Does 
each nature absolutely require its own 
subsistence in order to exist and act ; or 
is it possible and sufficient for it to sub- 
sist by the actuality of another nature?" 
Again, in explaining animation the lan- 
guage used is too explicit to suit the fas- 



tidious taste of English-speaking people, 
and therefore unsuitable for the class- 
room. In style and the use of English 
words and idioms there are some inadver- 
tent slips and departures from the princi- 
ples laid down by the author which are 
excusable in a foreigner, but still need 
correction. The use of "Nominals" 
for " Nominalists" is incorrect. "The 
beautiful spiritual " should be " the 
spiritual beautiful," or, better, " the 
spiritually beautiful." The Latin term 
ignoratio elenchi is employed when the 
ignoring of the point at issue, or something- 
equivalent, would do better. We have 
noticed other faults of this kind, some of 
which may be errors of the press, and 
we recommend a careful revision in this 
respect by an accurate English scholar, 
both of this volume and of the one in 
preparation. 

There seems, to be a considerable 
amount of irascibility among the great 
philosophers, and it is likely that we 
may have some lively controversy. For 
ourselves, we endeavor to bear in mind 
the advice of the great Pope, not of 
Rome but of England : 

" Let such teach others who themselves excel, 
And censure freely who have written well. ' 

Let every one write according to his 
gifts and lights, if he keep within the 
bounds of orthodoxy. It is no easy 
thing to make an easy text-book of 
philosophy. Repeated experiments will 
produce by and by, we hope, a master- 
piece. We desire to welcome all who 
write with competent knowledge and a 
good intention, and to be impartial in 
recognizing merit wherever we find it, 
criticising modestly and with a kindly 
spirit. 

Pereat diabohis ! 

Pereant o sores ! 

VlVAT PHILOSOP.HIA ! 

Vivant prof es sores ! 

Procedamus in pace ! Amen. 

DE RE SACRAMENTARIA PR/ELECTIONKS- 
SCHOLASTICO-DOGMATIC^: QUAS IN CoL- 
LEGioSS. CORDIS JESUAD WOODSTOCK 
HABEBAT A.D. 1877-78. yEmilius M. 
De Augustinis, S.J., Libr. Duo Prior, 
de Sacr. in Gen. de Bapt. Confirm, 
Euch. Woodstock : Ex Off. Typ. 
Coll. Benziger Fratres et al. 1878. 

Father De Augustinis is the colleague 
of Father Mazzella in the chair of dogma- 



286 



New Publications. 



tic theology at the scholasticate of Wood- 
stock. The course embraces four years, 
divided between the two professors, one 
of whom, called the morning professor, 
lectures daily on the topics of one de- 
partment of theology, such as De Deo, 
De Gratia, etc. ; the other, called the 
evening professor, also lectures daily on 
those of a second department, embrac- 
ing De Re Sacramentaria, etc. Father 
De Augustinis is the evening professor, 
and this present volume is his first con- 
tribution to the complete course which 
is in the way of being published at 
Woodstock. We understand that the 
three volumes already published will be 
followed during the current year by two 
others, and that the whole course will ap- 
pear in due time. The same thorough- 
ness of treatment is manifest in the 
present treatise which we have seen in 
the preceding ones, a'nd-a general simi- 
larity of method with that followed by 
Father MazzelH. It requires no little 
time and study to make a thorough ap- 
preciation of such a work possible, and 
without such previous examination we 
could not venture to express a formed 
and critical opinion on the precise and 
characteristic merits of such an impor- 
tant and elaborate treatise as this one is. 
That it is erudite and able is obvious 
from even a cursory inspection, and 
there seems to be a general similarity in 
exposition of doctrine to the treatise of 
Cardinal Franzelin on the same subjects. 
The Woodstock course will certainly 
take the first rank among its compeers 
as a series of enlarged text-books, of the 
greatest utility to professors, advanced 
students, and the clergy in general. 

We must say a word in praise of the 
typographical and mechanical part of 
the Woodstock publications, which 
would do credit to any printing estab- 
lishment in the country. 

In conclusion we beg leave to ex- 
press an opinion that when the task of 
summing up the theology of the past is 
completed, there remains a new and 
great work to be undertaken, for which 
more original investigation and thought 
will be required, because the road has 
not been prepared by so many great 
leaders. A great part of the theology 
wh ch is taken up in refuting the errors 
of the past three centuries is rapidly be- 
coming obsolete. The errors of the day 
are new phases of falsehood which must 
be confronted and quelled by new phases 



of the truth. Besides, we think that 
those who study theology con amore 
thirst after something more than the 
systematic presentation suitable for a 
class-book, and that this thirst can only 
be satisfied by the waters springing out 
of the old scholastic theology in which 
there is a large infusion of the philoso- 
phical element. Faiher Ramiere's last 
brochure has expressed admirably what 
the intellectual want of the age is, and 
the special task of those who are now 
called to labor in the construction of the 
edifice of Catholic science. The Cath- 
olics of America ought to be animated by 
a generous spirit of emulation to equal 
their European brethren in the prosecu- 
tion of the higher and the sacred science. 
We have reason to be proud of the Col- 
lege of Woodstock and of the works 
which have emanated from it already, 
and we 1 hope that what has been thus far 
accomplished is an earnest of more to 
come, and of other like institutions of 
learning to be raised to an equally high 
grade or to be newly founded and estab- 
lished. 

In an append ix to the treatise of Father 
De Augustinis some propositions con- 
demned by the S. C. in 1875 are for the 
first time, so far as we know, published. 
It would seem that any Catholic theolo- 
gian ought to condemn them even with- 
out any judicial censure having been 
pronounced. However, as they relate 
to one of the most abstruse, difficult, and 
disputed questions in metaphysics viz., 
that of the matter and form of corporeal 
substance the decision of the S. C. will 
undoubtedly be a certain safeguard 
against possible errors into which ama- 
teurs in philosophy might fall unawares, 
unless they were warned in due season, 
and therefore we are glad to see them pub- 
lished in an authentic form. The agree- 
ment in philosophy which is so desira- 
ble does not exist as yet even among 
those who profess adhesion in general to 
the principles and method of the Tho- 
mistic school, and it cannot be brought 
about except by thorough discussion. 
Happily, all parties are docile to the au- 
thority of the Holy See, and devoted to 
the cause of purity in faith and doctrine. 
It is to be hoped, therefore, that the dis- 
cussion of philosophical questions which 
have a connection with the manner of 
defending and explaining theological 
doctrines, conducted with sincerity and 
sobriety,''! will conduce to the clearer 



New Publications, 



287 



manifestation of the truth respecting 
those matters which are at present left 
by the church to investigation and argu- 
ment in the schools ; and promote har- 
mony of sentiment and conviction, so 
far as that is attainable, under the guid- 
ance of that authority which is assisted 
by divine wisdom in abstaining from 
deciding disputes prematurely, and in 
making those opportune decisions which 
are always welcome to those who love 
only truth, and love it for its own sake 
alone. 



SONGS, LEGENDS, AND BALLADS. By 
John Boyle O'Reilly. Boston: The 
Pilot Publishing Co. 1878. 

This is a new and enlarged edition of 
Mr. O'Reilly's poems. To those that 
are best known are here added many 
new and beautiful ones, though we doubt 
not the old favorites those strange, 
weird, melodious, and startlingly novel 
"Songs of the Southern Seas" will 
still remain the favorites. To our own 
thinking Mr. O'Reilly is best at a bal- 
lad. He has the swing, the roll, the* 
picturesque imagination, the free com- 
mand of a homely English and a simple 
imagery that tell best in this good old 
style of poem, which unhappily seems 
to be growing rarer and rarer. Then, 
too, he tells a story with great art, and 
generally springs a surprise on his read- 
ers. We trust he will not abandon this 
rich vein for the more modern and mawk- 
ish style of verse that begins and ends 
in nothing. Here and there throughout 
the volume is scattered a sweet little 
song, or a happy conceit, or a few verses 
full of tender fancy and gentle expres- 
sion. This last-mentioned quality is 
rare in Mr. O Reilly. His imagination 
is more fiery than tender, his expression 
more vigorous than sweet. Sometimes 
he seems to have written in too great a 
hurry, under the glow of an excitement 
which is not always inspiration. The 
result too often is a careless versifica- 
tion, which is rarely to be found in his 
longer and more finished poems. The 
poem " Star-Gazing" will illustrate our 
meaning : 



" Let be what is ; why should we strive and wres- 
tle 

With awkward skill against a suhtle dcubt, 
Or pin a mystery 'neath our puny pestle, 
And vainly try to bray its secret out ? 



41 What boots it me to gaze at other planets, 
And speculate on sensate beings there ? 
It comforts not that, since the moon began its 
Well-ordered course, it knew no breath of 
air . . ." 

Every man, even a poet, has his bent. 
Had Shakspere attempted to write like 
Chaucer, he would in all probability 
never have won the heart and the mind 
of the world. Mr. O'Reilly's bent does 
not seem to be the subtle and metaphy- 
sical. To " pin a mystery 'neath our 
puny pestle, and vainly strive to bray its 
secret out," is, to say the least, a very 
confused and confusing figure. " Pla- 
nets ' ; and " began its," too, is a very 
limping rhyme, and " there" and " air" 
might have been easily improved upon. 
So with " Venus " and " seen us," 
" greater " and " sweeter," " minor " and 
"diviner," "Satellite" and "might," 
"centre" and "enter," "road" and 
" God," " science " and " appliance," 
" raiment " and " payment," " betrays " 
and "blaze" in fact, as many rhymes 
almost as the poem contains. 

The same fault is to be noticed in sev- 
eral other poems, and it is strange to us 
how they can have passed Mr. O'Reilly's 
sharp eye and harmonious ear. The 
rarer, tenderer tone we have noticed 
above is beautifully expressed in the 
short poem, 

" FOR EVER. 

" Those we love truly never die, 
Though year by year the sad memorial wreath, 
A ring and flowers, types of life and death, 
Are laid upon their graves. 

" For death the pure life saves, 
And life all pure is love ; and love can reach 
From heaven to earth, and nobler lessons teach 
Than those by mortals read. 

" Well blest is he who has a dear one dead ; 

A friend he has whose face will never change, 
A dear communion that will not grow strange ; 
The anchor of a love is death. 

" The blessed sweetness of a loving breath 
Will reach our cheek all fresh through weary 

years. 

For her who died long since, ah ! waste not tears : 
She's thine unto the end. 

" Thank God for one dear friend, 

With face still radiant with the light of truth, 
Whose love comes laden with the scent of youth, 
Through twenty years of death.' 

Very rarely nowadays do we come 
across poems so sweet and sad and true 
and touching as this, and of him who 
has written it all good things may be 
hoped. 



New Publications. 



TRUE MEN AS WE NEED THEM. A Book 
of Instruction for Men in the World. 
By Rev. Bernard O'Reilly, L.D. New 
York : Peter F. Collier. 1878. 

It is to be hoped that " men in the 
world " will take up this book of instruc- 
tion. They will find in it much practi- 
cal wisdom, sound sense, and lessons in 
life and conduct that, if only even half 
taken to heart, would render this world 
a much happier place of abode than it 
now is for very many. Certainly one 
cannot read Dr. O'Reilly's very interest- 
ing volume without thinking not only 
how good it would be were we only all 
io live as he would have us true Chris- 
tian men but how easy it is to do it if we 
would only try. If to arouse this feeling 
in the heart of his reader was one of the 
excellent and learned author's objects in 
writing his book, he has certainly suc- 
ceeded so far ; and we only trust he may 
succeed in something more than arous- 
ing a mere passing sentiment. He has 
covered most of the avocations in life and 
all grades of society, and by example, 
precept, kindly exhortation, set before 
us not the ideal but the real man in each, 
and how very possible a being he is. The 
author believes in manhood ; he believes 
that these days may be made just as he- 
roic as any others by the lives' of men ; 
and this strong faith greatly facilitates 
the task he has set himself to woo men 
of the world out of that atmosphere of 
thought and action that makes lives 
which might be noble mean or color- 
less. There is nothing more heroic than 
to be a Christian in deed as well as in 
name, and this greatest heroism is open 
to all men. We cannot attempt to give 
an idea of Dr. O'Reilly's book. It cov- 
ers man's life in its family, social, and 
business relations. It is a book that 
one can read through, or pick up and 
dip into at a leisure moment, with equal 
profit. Every reader will find something 
peculiarly applicable to himself. It is 
calculated to give courage to those who 
are despondent about life here and here- 
after. Indeed, the whole book is heal- 
thy, cheery, and strong, yet. like its 
companion volume, 77te Mirror of True 
Womanhood, permeated by a spirit of 
tender piety and charitable humanity. 



They are both excellent works, and we 
heartily wish for them the success they 
richly merit. To men and women " in 
the world," to whom Dr. O'Reilly here 
chiefly addresses himself, works of spiri- 
tual guidance are, as a rule, hard to 
read. The life therein depicted seems, 
though it may not be, hopelessly far 
away from their every-day life. It is 
just here that Dr. O'Reilly steps in. 
Publishers, of course, know their own 
business best ; but it occurs to us that if 
The Mirror of True Womanhood and 
True Men as We Need Them were pro- 
duced in a very cheap and " handy " 
form, they would reach very many whom 
they would not otherwise reach, and 
great good might result. Their present 
form makes them too cumbersome for 
books that would make the best kind of 
"pocket companions." 

O'CONNELL CENTENARY RECORD, 1875. 
Published by authority of the O'Con- 
nell Centenary Committee. Dub- 
lin: Joseph Dollard. 1878. 

We can do no more at present than 
acknowledge the receipt of this magnifi- 
cent volume, which is just to hand, in 
a future number we shall give it the at- 
tention it richly deserves. 

EPISTLES AND GOSPELS FOR THE SUNDAYS 
AND HOLIDAYS. Boston : Thomas B. 
Noonan & Co. 1878. 

A very neat, clear, well-printed, and 
well-arranged edition, reflecting much 
credit on the publishers. 

WE have received from the Catholic 
Publication Society Co. Deharbes Cate- 
chism No. 2 ; The Young GirPs Month of 
October, by the author of Golden Sands ; 
and the Introductory. Hist ry of the Unit- 
ed States for the use of schools. 

From James Sheehy a new edition, 
with important addenda by the Rev. R. 
Brennan, of Miles O'Reilly's Lives of the 
Irish Martyrs and Confessors ; and The 
Joint Venture, by E A. Fitzsimon. 

From Henry C. Lea (Philadelphia) 
Superstition and Force, by Henry C. Lea. 

These works will receive due attention 
later. 



THE 



CATHOLIC WORLD 



VOL. XXVIII., No. 165. DECEMBER, 1878. 



AN IMPERIAL CONSPIRATOR. 



PRINCE JEROME NAPOLEON. 



ONE summer evening, sitting in 
my tent in Falcon Court, Fleet 
Street, London, and looking out 
from the window upon the Temple, 
there enters to me a swarthy-fac- 
ed, one-armed, and battle-scarred 
veteran of the corps of commis- 
sionaires, who with his remaining 
arm deftly unlocks the letter-pouch 
which he carries slung over his 
shoulder, extracts therefrom a bil- 
let, and presents it to me ; then with 
a salute draws himself up and 
stands at " attention," waiting my 
pleasure. Good fellows are these 
commissionaires ; picked men of 
the army and navy, who have serv- 
ed their twenty-one years on land 
or sea, or who have been retired at 
earlier periods by reason of wounds ; 
who receive their pension of a 
shilling a day, or $90 a year ; and 
who have been formed into a vol- 
untary association, under military 
discipline, for the purpose'of fur- 
nishing trustworthy messengers for 
merchants, lawyers, and others. 
They earn about a pound a week, 
and this with their pension enables 
them to live in tolerable comfort ; 

COPYRIGHT : REV. 1. 



although, like all other old soldiers 
and sailors whom I ever knew, they 
are chronic grumblers. 

" I am to fetch back the reply, 
sir, if you plaze," said my mes- 
senger. "And, by that same token, 
I'm paid already for both jobs; 
but the jintleman, sir, is in a vio- 
lent haste, he said, and wishes -to 
know immediate." 

The note was written in a large, 
bold hand that I knew well. 

" It is all arranged. He and his 
ordnance officer are coming. They 
are to be in the gallery, in the top 
seat on the left side of the centre 
door. You are expected to meet 
them there, but not to say anything 
in the hearing of others that may 
betray their identity. As soon as I 
have done speaking you are to con- 
duct them to the side door, where 
a cab will be in waiting and where 
I shall meet you. Then to dinner 
and for the great talk." 

" The reply is, I shall be there," 
said I to the commissionaire ; and 
the veteran, saluting, turned on his 
heel and marched off swiftly. 

An hour afterwards I was in 

T. HECKER. 1878. 



2QO 



An Imperial Conspirator. 



a hansom-cab, bowling merrily 
eastward. It was in August, 1871, 
and St. Paul's clock struck eight 
as we rattled by Sir Christopher 
Wren's greatest work. And this 
reminds me of two amusing stories 
concerning St. Paul's. Over the 
great door on the north side of 
the cathedral is the name of Sir 
Christopher, with the inscription, 
" Si queer is monumentum, circum- 
spice" A visitor to the cathedral, 
which has not within all its walls 
the image or the picture cf a saint, 
save a few figures on the eastern 
window of the chancel, but which 
is crammed with marble effigies of 
English military and naval heroes, 
was leaving it when he saw this in- 
scription. " I understand now," 
said he. " I have been trying to 
ascertain what god or saint it was 
in whose honor this pile was erect- 
ed ; but nothing indicated it. Now 
I see it is built in honor of St. 
Wren, and it is his monument." 
The other story is that an Italian 
sailor, coming to London for the 
finst time, saw St. Paul's, mistook it 
for a church, entered it, and, after 
gazing around for some moments 
in search of a shrine or an altar, 
knelt down, blessed himself, and 
began to offer his thanks to God 
for his prosperous voyage thus far, 
and his prayers for his safe return 
home. A verger saw him, rushed 
at him, and pulled him to his feet. 
"Come! come!" he cried to the 
astonished sailor, " no praying 
here, you know." 

When I told my cabby to drive 
me to the " New Hall of Science " 
I felt a little pang at the readiness 
with which he answered me. 
"New Hall of Science, sir?" said 
he. "Yes, sir, I know it." "Do 
you often go there ?" I asked. 
"Well, sir," he said, "if you mean 
with fares, I do go pretty often ; 



if you mean on my own account, 
not so often as I might wish. We 
cabbies, sir, are a little better than 
the sign-boards at the cross-roads : 
we tells people where to go, and 
we takes them there. But we sel- 
dom goes in ourselves. You see 
we can't afford it, sir. As for the 
New Hall of Science, I have popped 
in there now and again when off 
duty ; and I'd like to go oftener. 
A very powerful speaker he is, sir ; 
and, for my part, I think he is more 
than half right, although it does 
make my blood run cold some- 
times to hear him go on. Perhaps, 
sir, he doesn't mean it all. Do 
you think he does?" 

The New Hall of Science was 
once, I believe, a circus, or a me- 
nagerie, or a sale stable, or some- 
thing of the kind. Notwithstand- 
ing the changes that have been 
wrought in its interior arrange- 
ments, the perfume of the saw- 
dust and the straw hang round it 
still. In front is a ticket-taker's 
office, and above this are some 
apartments used as reading-rooms 
and committee-rooms. The hall 
itself is in the rear ; it is a long, 
high, oblong room, with a gallery 
around three sides, and a high 
platform at the lower end, upon 
which are a table and a score or 
so of chaifs. A flaring gasolier 
depending from the roof, and gas- 
jets along the walls, light up the 
place brilliantly. On this night 
of my visit it was crammed with 
men and women, the majority of 
whom were of the well-to-do lower 
middle-class : tradesmen, master- 
mechanics, students of law am 
medicine, small employers, solici- 
tors' clerks, and so on. The air 
of the place was very close and hot ; 
the ventilation was. imperfect ; the 
exhalations of the breath of the 
five or six hundred persons who 



An Imperial Conspirator. 



291 



filled the hall were anything but 
pleasant. 

This " New Hall of Science" is 
the headquarters in London of 
that rude, violent, and aggressive 
atheism of which my friend who 
had invited me there that evening 
is the chief exponent. On reflec- 
tion I think it best not to mention 
his name in these pages. His 
identity will not be concealed from 
those who know him at all, and 
who may chance to read what I 
am writing. If it seem strange to 
any one that a Catholic should call 
such a man his friend, it may be 
sufficient to say that my occupa- 
tion made it essential for me to 
know all manner of men; that in 
almost every one, no matter how 
erroneous may be his opinions or 
how detrimental his influence, there 
is to be found something to esteem 
and admire ; and that it is better, 
even if this be not so in an excep- 
tional case, to know your man well 
in order that you may combat him 
more effectually. There is no- 
thing more dangerous than fight- 
ing in the dark. In this case the 
man in question has not only a 
strong mind, a well-disciplined will, 
a highly-educated intelligence, and 
an extraordinary command of lan- 
guage, but he is gifted with a kind 
heart and an affectionate disposi- 
tion. He was driven into infidel- 
ity by the stupid harshness and 
bigotry of a Calvinistic parson un- 
der whose spiritual direction God 
save the mark ! he had been 
placed; and an ardent soul that 
might have been saved for God 
was thus lost to his service. He 
has waded so far in the dark 
waters of atheism and of revolu- 
tion that, in his opinion, to turn 
back were more tedious than to 
press on. True, to press on will 
lead him to eternal perdition, while 



to turn back, amid the jeers of his 
party and at the cost of the loss 
of his ambitious and not wholly 
groundless hopes of political ad- 
vancement, would perhaps enable 
him to save his soul. I told him 
so one day. He looked at me 
steadily and mournfully for some 
moments without replying. " Yes," 
said he at last, " perhaps you are 
quite right. Had I to live my life 
over again I should, at least, keep 
my opinions concerning God to 
myself. But it is too late now; 
and I cannot bear to think of turn- 
ing back. What! be pointed at 
as the converted atheist and the 
reformed revolutionist ? No ; it 
would cost too much. I must go- 
on, let the game end as it may." 

This was the man who, as I en- 
tered the " New Hall of Science " 
on this hot summer evening, was 
on the platform holding forth to 
the assemblage I have described. 
He was attired in faultless evening 
dress ; his large and strong form 
stood out boldly from the black 
background behind him; his ac- 
tion was suited to the word and 
the word to the action. I need 
say nothing concerning the subject 
of his discourse, further than that 
it was a vigorous, rude, uncompro- 
mising, and brutal assault upon 
God. It was a pitiful sight to see, 
a pitiful thing to hear most piti- 
ful, I thought, for the sake of the 
men and women who were listening 
to the speaker. 

However, at the designated 
place "in the gallery, in the top 
seat on the left side of the centre 
door," I found the men whom I 
had been bidden to seek. One 
was a swarthy, stout, sharp-eyed, 
quick-motioned person the very 
type of a Corsican. This was 
M. Roban, the attendant, servitor, 
guardian, major-domo, and confi- 



2 9 2 



An Imperial Conspirator. 



dant of the other. But who was 
the other? 

Sitting there in the hot and sti- 
fling gallery of the "New Hall of 
Science " ; jammed in. between a 
lean and hungry bookseller on one 
side, and a fat butcher on the 
other; dressed in a shaggy coat, 
and wearing, as was permitted in 
this free-and-easy place, a slouch- 
ed hat drawn far down over his 
face who was he ? He was the 
nephew of the greatest military 
conqueror the world has known 
since Alexander ; the son of a 
king; the son-in-law of another 
king ; the brother-in-law of a third 
king; and the cousin of a depos- 
ed and exiled emperor in other 
words, he was Napoleon Joseph 
Charles Paul Bonaparte, generally 
known as Prince Jerome, and not 
unfrequently spoken of by his foes 
as Plon-plon. 

By a skilful movement and the 
dexterous employment of a shil- 
Jing I displaced the fat butcher 
and installed myself by the side 
of the prince, who, after greet- 
ing me with a squeeze of the hand 
and a softly-spoken sentence, re- 
sumed his occupation of listening 
attentively to the speaker, and of 
casting observant but furtive 
glances at the people. He was 
very quiet; occasionally a strange- 
ly sarcastic and half-pitying smile 
passed over his face. He did not 
join in the applause that followed 
many of the brilliant periods of 
the speaker ; but now and again 
he made his comments, sotto voce. 
They were pungent. " That is 
well put ; how easily one could 
turn the affirmative into the nega- 
tive!" "That is a fallacy, but it 
.goes well; I have heard it used 
more clumsily." "Your English- 
man has not a logical mind, or 
.else he would not swallow that." 



"These are fireworks; what is 
behind them in the way of ac- 
tion ?" 

The peroration of the speaker 
was full of fireworks ; and in their 
blaze and smoke our party made 
its escape from the hall and found 
the hero of the night and the pro- 
mised cab waiting for us. We en- 
tered and were driven away, at a 
rattling pace, to a destination un- 
known to me. There was not 
much conversation during that 
drive. It was a strange company 
a prince, his officer, a revolu- 
tionary leader, and a looker-on 
sympathizing with neither of them, 
so far as he understood their aspi- 
rations and the principles of their 
action, but having an interest in 
each of them. This was not by 
any means my first meeting with 
Prince Jerome Napoleon; but our 
former intercourse had been cold 
and formal compared with the 
abandon of his Imperial Highness 
on this occasion, and the zest with 
which he entered into the spirit of 
the adventure. There is much 
difference, you see, between re- 
ceiving one's friends, flatterers, 
and sycophants in the salon of the 
Palais Royal, and meeting an ac- 
quaintance in the gallery of an 
atheistical and revolutionary hall, 
and driving in company with the 
leading spirit of that place to take 
dinner in a tavern that was cer- 
tainly respectable, but which 
could not by any stretch of cour- 
tesy be called princely. It was to a 
certain house on the Strand that we 
were driven ; on arriving there we 
entered by a side door, and present- 
ly we found ourselves in a comfor- 
table, spacious, but not too elegant 
room, wherein was a table prepar- 
ed as for a dinner for four persons, 
and the usual sleek English waiter 
in attendance. 



An Imperial Conspirator. 



293 



And now was the weakness and 
imbecility of the far-famed secret 
police of the French government 
made manifest. This was a time 
when it was really of much im- 
portance to the existing govern- 
ment in France to know what the 
Bonapartists were hoping, plan- 
ning, and doing; here was an ex- 
cellent opportunity to learn some- 
thing respecting these things. The 
proper course would have been to 
have dressed a police agent in the 
disguise of an English waiter, and 
installed him in our dining-room. 
That the movements of the prince 
were watched and reported to a 
certain extent we had evidence. 
" The pig who opened the door of 
the cab for us," said M. Roban, as 
we started on our drive, " was 
Brin; he is one of the most acute 
of the police agents. But he is off 
the scent now; he thinks we are 
going to Morley's, and he is satis- 
fied with his night's work. He is 
writing out his report now, and as 
soon as he posts it he will go to 
bed. Mean while, we are free from 
his cursed observation for a few 
hours." 

I do not remember much about 
the dinner, as a dinner, although 
my impression is that it was a good 
one; but almost all the conversa- 
tion, except the mere persiflage and 
trifling customary at a dinner, is 
fresh in my memory, and I find 
that a reference to my notes is 
scarcely necessary. 

The man who sat opposite me at 
table was fifty years of age. He 
was tall, well shaped, and athletic. 
His countenance was decidedly 
handsome and expressive. He 
wore no beard; his heavy mous- 
tache was very slightly touched 
with gray. His hair was thin ; he 
was a little bald; the hair came 
down to a point upon the high, 



broad, and noble forehead, exactly 
as one sees in the portraits of Na- 
poleon the Great. His dark brown 
eyes, set back behind rather deep 
brows, were very beautiful ; at times 
they gleamed like diamonds ; again 
they shone with a soft and lambent 
light. His mouth, faultlessly shap- 
ed, was, however, the most expres- 
sive feature of his countenance. 
When he smiled, he was fascinat- 
ing ; when he sneered and he of- 
ten sneered he was horrible to 
look upon. Good and evil, the 
delightful and the repulsive, were 
strangely mingled in that face. I 
afterwards came to know him as 
having a very affectionate heart, 
and an equally imperious and mis- 
directed will. Prince Napoleon 
understands English thoroughly, 
and writes it with ease and ele- 
gance ; he speaks it well enough ; 
but he knows that his pronuncia- 
tion and his command of our 
idioms are not perfect, and he has 
a childish dread of giving any one 
cause to laugh at him. So it 
pleases him best, when in company 
with Englishmen or Americans, 
that they speak in English and he 
reply in French. Such was the 
rule at this strange banquet. Na- 
turally, the conversation turned 
first upon the discourse to which 
we had been listening. " For your- 
self, my dear friend," said the 
prince, addressing the English 
atheist and revolutionist "for 
yourself you have made a great 
blunder. You should let God 
alone. We do not wish to be 
martyrs is it not so ? A hundred 
years or more from now, and God 
may be wiped out from the minds 
of men; but now he rules them, 
and you and I, if we wish power, 
must not assail him." 

" Well," said the Englishman 
doggedly, " I have enlisted for the 



294 



An Imperial Conspirator. 



war, and I am not going to turn 
back. I may succeed if I go on ; 
I am sure to fail if I turn back ; so 
I take my chance." 

" You cannot succeed," said the 
prince. " From what class will you 
draw your support ? It is all very 
well to say that the upper classes 
in England are one with you .in 
their disbelief in God. That is a 
generalization, and generalizations 
are deceptive. One need not be a 
conjurer to know that many of 
your English nobles and gentlemen 
are as free from religious restraint 
as you are. But they are still 
bound by the force of public opin- 
ion and of the convenances of society. 
It is not yet respectable in England 
to be an infidel, as they call it, 
and your Englishman will not will- 
ingly put himself outside the pale 
of respectability. He will write 
magazine articles and books that 
are thoroughly rationalistic in their 
tone, and that tend to destroy 
faith. But this is a mere pastime ; 
he is only half in earnest ; he has 
not the Frenchman's courage of 
his opinions. He has the idea that 
the maintenance of religion is es- 
sential for the good order of so- 
ciety, and if a crisis should come 
you would find him on the side of 
his church. Besides, if these Eng- 
lishmen were willing to enter upoji 
a war against God, do you think 
they would take you, a man of the 
people, for their leader ? Not a 
bit of it ! What do you wish to do ? 
You wish to sweep away the mon- 
narchy and the nobility, and to set 
up a non-Christian republic. It is 
too much. One thing at a time. 
You might abolish the monarchy 
if you retained God. Cromwell did 
that, and the religious fervor of 
his troopers was the great source 
of their success. You might abol- 
ish God if you retained the mon- 



archy ; but to do both at once 
would be to give England what 
France had in the first Revolution; 
and we know how that ended." 

" I care nothing for the lords and 
the ladies," said the Englishman 
with a sneer; "my strength is with 
the people. I know them well, and 
I telly on, monseigneur, they are sick 
of it. They are sick of the monar- 
chy ; sick of the queen ; sicker still 
of the man who thinks he is to be 
king, but who never shall rule 
these islands; sick of the heredi- 
tary legislators, who do nothing 
but scold the Commons and then 
yield to them; sick of the Com- 
mons, who are the representatives 
only of three classes the manu- 
facturers, the merchants, and the 
land-owners. The populace, the 
great mass of the people, are weary 
of all this. It is from them that I 
shall get my support. They are 
with me. When the hour comes I 
shall have but to raise my hand, 
and the people the people will 
be at my command:" 

"I don't believe a word of it," 
said the prince ; " you will never 
be able to make yourself ruler of 
England. You have great abilities, 
but there are things which are 
impossible. What is your pro- 
gramme?" 

"Well," said the Englishman, 
" we do not propose to have a re- 
volution during the life of the pre- 
sent queW, but at her death " 

" That will do," said the prince, 
shrugging his shoulders. " She will 
probably outlive all of us. If your 
revolution is to be postponed until 
her death, none of us may live to 
see it. We do things better in 
France. We move quickly there." 

From this time on the conversa- 
tion flowed in an ever-widening 
but shallower channel, and mid- 
night arrived ere the repast was 



An Imperial Conspirator. 



295 



finished. The Englishman had ela- 
borated his schemes for preparing 
the country for a republic ; the 
prince had demonstrated the futi- 
lity of them, and had insisted that 
the tide was really flowing the oth- 
er way. In the course of his ob- 
servations, which were rather dis- 
connected, and were at times inter- 
rupted, but often illustrated, by an 
amusing story or a witty yw* d'esprit, 
he said : 

" Just now, of course, the empire 
is discredited in France, and we 
shall have a republic for a while. 
But there is an infinite amount of 
humbug about a republic. Repub- 
lican institutions, in their purity, 
are possible only in very small and 
primitive communities, where the 
duties of the government are sim- 
ple, and where every member of 
the commonwealth can give his in- 
telligent and personal attention to 
their discharge. But in a great 
empire like France, or England, or 
the United States the theory of 
popular sovereignty can never be 
but a name. It will not work in 
practice. The interests of the na- 
tion are too vast, too complicated, 
to be managed save by men who 
give up all else for that purpose. 
Even the elective legislators can- 
not do it ; they have their own 
business to attend to. You will 
find that they will become the tools 
of one or two leaders, whose orders 
they will obey. Thus, here it is 
Gladstone or Disraeli ; in France it 
will be Thiers or Gambetta, or " 

" Yourself, perhaps," said the 
Englishman. 

" You go too fast, my friend," 
said the prince, with a curious 
twinkle in his eyes. " My cousin, 
the emperor, still lives. No mem- 
ber of our family can entertain an 
aspiration to displace him." 

There was an awkward pause 



here ; but M. Roban adroitly broke 
it by complaining of the thinness 
of the Bordeaux and suggesting the 
trial of the champagne, which had 
thus far remained untasted. Pre- 
sently the prince broke out again : 
" Certainly I am a republican, 
just as I am a Catholic. I can see 
the theoretical beauty of republi- 
canism, just as I see the beauty of 
the faith in which I was born, of 
which my wife is a devout follower, 
and in which my children are edu- 
cated. For the moment we will 
not speak of that ma is je suis un 
Catholique. They were not true 
those stories that were told of me ; 
they had only a soup^on of truth. 
But as for republicanism, it is a 
delusion. Men wish to be govern- 
ed ; to be taken care of; to be 
guided ; to be guarded. Who wish- 
es to be his own gendarme, and 
keep himself out of bed patrolling 
around his house to guard it from 
thieves? That is the business of 
the government, and he pays his 
taxes that he may sleep in peace 
and safety. So with the whole of it. 
If I mistake not, you will agree 
with me that your American com- 
patriots are growing tired of the 
work of pretending to govern them- 
selves. Would they not rather be 
really governed by some one, whom 
they could hold responsible for 
making all things go well, and 
whose head they might chop off if 
he made things go too badly ? You 
will come to that in America be- 
fore very long. How many elections 
do you have, there every year ? I 
asked M. Roban to count them for 
me the other day. Perhaps he 
made an error in confounding lo- 
cal and general elections, but he 
showed me a list that would give 
one electoral contest for each week 
in the year. Mon Dieu ! Can you, 
then, afford to be always engaged 



296 



An Imperial Conspirator. 



in casting your ballots into the 
electoral urns? I have made a 
calculation. When I visited the 
United States this matter interest- 
ed me ; I inquired into the system. 
I learned what were the caucus, 
the primary meeting, the conven- 
tion, and the election. They are 
but parts of a machine, and the 
crank is turned by a few men who 
make a trade of it. A sad farce is 
played ; when the citizen comes to 
deposit his vote he only registers 
his approval of what has been ar- 
ranged for him on one side or the 
other. If he attempted to look af- 
ter it himself his time would be 
swallowed up and his business 
would go to ruin. Your Ameri- 
cans will grow weary of this in 
time. They will say, as did the 
Jews, ' Give us a king to rule over 
us.' They will want some one to 
be their Providence; to provide 
for them peace, security, and good 
order, and to leave them alone in 
their work of making money. They 
may not cail him a king, but names 
are nothing. A president for life, 
with great power, but immediate 
responsibility to the people, and 
with advisers immediately respon- 
sible to him that is what you want 
in America." 

" The most perfect form of gov- 
ernment on earth," said the prince 
at a later stage of the conversation, 
" is that of the Papacy. That the 
inferior should choose the superior, 
that the sheep should elect a shep- 
herd, is absurd. In the Papacy we 
have a supreme ruler chosen for 
life and invested with absolute pow- 
er. He is chosen by a select body 
of the wisest and best; he need 
not be one of their own number, 
although generally he is ; he may 
have been born a prince or a peasant. 
Once chosen, he becomes the Su- 
preme Pontiff and his will is law. 



The inconveniences and dangers of 
the hereditary transmission of sov- 
ereignty are here avoided ; the 
democratic principle of selection 
and the autocratic principle of au- 
thority are brought into harmony 
with each other. The pope reigns 
as well as governs, and well would 
it be for the nations if their rulers 
were chosen as the popes are elect- 
ed, and invested with the indispu- 
table authority that they exercise. 

" As for a republic founded on 
the principle tiiat the will of the 
majority shall be the supreme law," 
said the prince, " I cannot under- 
stand how it can possess any sta- 
bility or certainty. Nothing is so 
uncertain and capricious as the 
minds of men. To-day they are 
royalists; to-morrow they are dem- 
ocrats. To-day they are monoga- 
mists; to-morrow they are polyga- 
mists. If it be once admitted that 
there is no absolute right or wrong, 
no sanction of law higher than the 
will of the majority, we plunge 
straightway into a sea of unknown 
depth and with currents that lead we 
know not whither. It is here that 
the church has her great strength. 
She says to men, * Obey me, for I 
speak the words of absolute truth, 
and my commands are those of the 
unchangeable and omnipotent God.' 
She does not object to plebiscites, 
but--" 

" She will accept the decision 
only of those which are in her fa- 
vor," interjected the Englishman, 
who all this time had been mani- 
festing symptoms of displeasure 
and uneasiness. " To speak plain- 
ly, monseigneur, you seem to be 
amusing yourself with persuading 
our papistical friend here that you 
are a good Catholic at heart. Let 
us be done with shams. Your se- 
rene highness and myself are in 
the same boat. We have both been 



An Imperial Conspirator. 



297 



Christians; now we are infidels. 
We each are ambitious : you wish 
to rule France, I wish to rule Eng- 
land. Our path leads through re- 
volution ; in France your pot is 
boiling, in England mine is only 
simmering. But for neither of us 
is success possible save through 
utter revolution. We must destroy 
everything and rebuild from the 
ground. The greatest conservative 
force in the world is the Catholic 
Church ; before we can effect our 
work of destruction we must get 
her out of the way, and that is why, 
as you phrase it, I will not ' let 
God alone.' " 

M. Roban here interfered, and 
pointed out the fact that the hour 
for closing the tavern had passed. 
I suggested an adjournment to my 
own rooms in Falcon Court, and to 
my delight the prince welcomed it. 
Up to this moment I had not known 
whether I was the guest of the 
prince or the Englishman. But 
when the bill was brought in this 
doubt was settled. He took it, 
looked at it, and handed it to M. 
Roban. " Pay it," said he ; and 
then we went forth. It was long 
past midnight. The Strand was 
deserted save by policemen, wan- 
dering women, and a few belated 
persons like ourselves. We went 
eastward, past the Savoy, Somerset 
House, through Holywell Street, 
around St. Clement Danes, under 
Temple Bar, and so on to Falcon 
Court. And as we walked this 
extraordinary prince talked. He 
seemed to know all about the Sa- 
voy, and led us, very unwillingly 
on my part and on that of the En- 
glishman, down the narrow street 
that transports one from the bustle 
of the Strand to the sombre quiet 
of a graveyard. He said he wished 
to show us a view " a beautiful 
picture." He did it. There was 



the old church upon the hill, sur- 
rounded by tombstones ; the river 
flowed beneath, and Westminster 
Abbey and the Parliament Houses 
stood out against the still sky in 
the distance. His imperial high- 
ness now exhibited himself in the 
character of a cicerone. " You are 
an American," said he, "and you 
need not be ashamed to say that 
you do not know all the history of 
this place. There is our English 
friend, who never has given a 
thought to it. The past is nothing 
to him ; he is all for the future. 
But see what a past is here ! Here 
was the Savoy Palace, built by the 
brother of Archbishop Boniface and 
the uncle of Eleanor of Provence, 
the wife of Henry III. He gave it 
to the monks of Montjoy ; Queen 
Eleanor bought it from them and 
gave it to her son Edmund ; more 
than five hundred years ago it was 
the residence of the captive King 
John of France, who died and was 
buried here. At Chiselhurst, an 
hour's ride from here, there is an- 
other exiled sovereign of France 
waiting for his fate. What is it to 
be ? Shall he, too, be buried in an 
English churchyard?" 

This was in the summer. Early 
in the next winter the exiled em- 
peror of France had found a grave 
in the consecrated precincts of the 
little church of St. Mary at Chisel- 
hurst. His cousin knew that the 
emperor's disease was fatal. There 
existed, as I afterwards had good 
reason to know, a sincere and ar- 
dent affection between these two 
cousins. They had been boys to- 
gether, and their juvenile love for 
each other was never extinguished. 
But there were curiously antago- 
nistic elements at work in what 
should have been a happy family. 
Prince Jerome, who has his vir- 
tues as well as his faults, was 



298 



An Imperial Conspirator. 



heartily disliked by the Empress 
Eugenie. That there was reason 
for this dislike on her side is not 
to be questioned. After Sedan, 
after the fall of the empire, what 
remained for France ? A republic 
as an interregnum ; that was a 
matter of course. But what after 
the republic ? The reader must 
remember that I am writing now of 
affairs as they were six years ago. 
What has since happened was not 
foreseen by any of the Bonapartes. 
There was to be a republic ad in- 
terim; but it was to be a red re- 
public, that would overthrow pro- 
perty, family, and religion, and in 
the reaction against it the nation 
would stretch out its arms to Na- 
poleon as its saviour. But who 
should be the Napoleon? After 
the death of Napoleon III. and 
his death even at the moment of 
which I am writing was inevitable 
the empress naturally looked upon 
her son as the predestined ruler of 
France, and with her were M. 
Rouher and the whole imperialist 
party of the country. Prince Je- 
rome had notions of his own. He 
believed, of course, that only a 
Napoleon could save France ; but 
he himself was the Napoleon. 

Curious things occurred during 
the days immediately preceding 
and immediately following the 
death of the emperor at Chisel- 
hurst. Without knowing how it 
happened, I found myself mixed 
up in obscure intrigues at this 
time. Camden House, Chiselhurst, 
is a delightful place ; but during 
those months it was surrounded by 
an atmosphere of intrigue which 
was bewildering. As for the em- 
peror himself, in my humble opin- 
ion he was the one who least of 
all was interested in these plots 
and counterplots. He was very 
much in love with his wife; he was 



extremely fond of his son ; his 
pale cheeks would flush and his 
fathomless eyes would gleam with 
a strange light when he spoke of 
France and her future. But he 
knew that his part in shaping her 
destinies was ended. When he 
came to Chiselhurst he knew that 
he came there to die ; and there is 
no doubt, I think, that he made a 
good end of his life. Victor 
Hugo's History of a Crime is a 
fine piece of sensational writing; 
but when I read it I could not see 
'the resemblance between his Louis 
Napoleon and the Louis Napoleon 
whom I knew. Perhaps the fierce 
fires had burned away the base 
metal. From the time of his ar- 
rival in England until his death I 
had several conversations with the 
emperor. Once the empress and 
the prince imperial were with us ; 
once we were alone together, walk- 
ing in the grounds of Camden 
House. It was affecting to witness 
his anxiety to reconcile his wife 
with his cousin. But his amiable 
efforts failed ; the truce patched 
up between them immediately after 
his death was quickly broken, and 
since then they have been open 
and avowed enemies. 

In his exile at Chiselhurst the 
emperor was surrounded by a host 
of adherents, friends, and cour- 
tiers. Some of them many of 
them, I believe were sincere ; 
others, no doubt, were merely time- 
servers. Among the schemes that 
were in the air was one for affect- 
ing public opinion in France and 
throughout Europe by means of 
the American press. The theory 
was that if the organs of opinion 
in this country were to range them- 
selves upon the side of the empire, 
and to speak of its restoration as a 
desirable event, beneficial results 
would follow. This idea obtained 




An Imperial Conspirator. 



299 



such a hold upon the minds of a 
certain faction of the imperial 
party that an elaborate scheme for 
attempting to subsidize the Ameri- 
can press was devised. It was 
never carried into execution. 

My intercourse with the exiled 
family continued for many months; 
it was greatest with Prince Je- 
rome, but it extended to the em- 
peror, the empress, and the prince 
imperial. The death of the empe- 
ror was the signal for the com- 
mencement of a violent and acri- 
monious contest, of which the out- 
line is recorded in the columns of 
the London Times of that period, 
most clearly in the letters of a cor- 
respondent signing himself " One 
Who Knows." For some months 
before the emperor's death the em- 
press and Jerome had not been on 
speaking terms. But on the day 
of his death, when Jerome went to 
Chiselhurst, the empress, melted 
by her affliction, met him with open 
arms and embraced him tenderly. 
The selfish ambition of Jerome 
an ambition which, under the most 
advantageous circumstances, would 
have been almost hopeless of suc- 
cess, and which his course has ren- 
dered absolutely futile led him to 
insist upon the council de famille 
recognizing him as the head of the 
house, placing the prince imperial 
under his guardianship, and giv- 
ing to him the direction of the fu- 
ture policy of the imperialist par- 
ty. There was no question, I be- 
lieve, of the empress, the prince 
imperial, M. Rouher, or any of the 
family or leaders of the party as- 
senting to these demands. But 
Jerome made them ; and there was 
a period of a few hours when he 
thought they were to be granted. 
The decision against him was em- 
phatic ; and from that moment he 
has been openly, as he was before 



secretly, the foe of his own house- 
hold. 

It is not to be questioned that 
Jerome is by far the most able of 
all the living Bonapartes. He has 
not been a very arduous student ; 
but his knowledge of men and 
things is very extensive. It has 
been said that he was deficient in 
personal courage, but I have rea- 
son to believe that this is a calum- 
ny. His personal resemblance to 
the first Napoleon is very striking ; 
and he consciously, or unconscious- 
ly, emphasizes this by assuming at- 
titudes that every one knows are 
Napoleonic. After the partial de- 
struction of the Palais Royal by 
the Commune, Prince Jerome ma- 
naged to have what was left of the 
treasures of his residence there 
sent to him at London. He pur- 
chased a house on the Bayswater 
Road, and thither these articles 
were conveyed. The house was 
spacious, but they filled it from top 
to bottom and overcrowded it. He 
took me there one, day when noth- 
ing had been yet arranged and all was 
in confusion. Paintings, statuary, 
arms, armor, vases, carpets, rugs, 
china, plate all sorts of things 
were heaped up together. But in 
one room there were a marble bust 
of Napoleon I., and a marble group, 
by Canova, of Prince Jerome, as 
an infant, in his mother's arms. 
He gazed at them with admiration, 
as if he had neveT seen them be- 
fore, and then said to me : " You 
see the resemblance, do you not?" 
Indeed, it was striking. So far as 
a child could look like a'man, the 
infant Jerome was the counterfeit 
presentment of Napoleon I. 

During the months when the in- 
trigues of which Chiselhurst was 
the centre were most active, Prince 
Napoleon was often in my rooms 
in Falcon Court. No state was 



3 



An Imperial Conspirator. 



maintained there; the rooms were 
dingy and very plainly furnished, 
and they were approached by a 
dark and narrow stairway. But 
in a closet there were a store of 
good wine and boxes of fair ci- 
gars ; and by the aid of these com- 
forters Prince Jerome, M. Roban, 
and their English friend generally 
managed to make themselves com- 
fortable. What strange confer- 
ences were these ! Often protract- 
ed far into the morning, and seldom 
beginning until very late at night, 
they were marked with a rare free- 
dom, and even a license, of expres- 
sion. Very fascinating as a con- 
versationalist is Prince Jerome Na- 
poleon. He is very quick ; he 
knows what you are going to say 
before you have fairly shaped your 
sentence; and although he does 
not quite take the words out of 
your mouth, he comes very near it. 
If you leave him to do all the talk- 
ing, occasionally keeping up the 
ball by an adroit objection or a 
well-placed demurrer, he will charm 
you by the grace of his diction, the 
appositeness of his illustrations, 
and the cogency of his reasoning. 
But if there were any possibility of 
Prince Jerome becoming a power 
in France, the time for it has pass- 
ed away. He had grand schemes 
at the time of which I am writing, 
and they continued to occupy him 
for months afterwards. He thought 
of forming a party of his own in 
France a republican party, with 
himself as its leader, and with the 
understanding that he should be 
president first and emperor after- 
wards. The ramifications of his 
policy were bewilderingly exten- 
sive; they embraced the concep- 



tion of a Latin league, and in their 
ultimate Italy, Belgium, part of 
Switzerland, France, Spain, and 
Portugal were to form one great 
confederation. It is possible that 
Prince Jerome might have formed 
a party at one time. But his time 
has gone by. He had his partisans 
in France ; now, if I am well in- 
formed, he has none. He was 
never ready for action, and, what 
was most fatal, was unwilling to se- 
riously imperil his fortune or sacri- 
fice his ease and comfort by taking 
the steps which would have been ne- 
cessary to make himself formidable. 
The prince imperial is still so 
young that a judgment concerning 
his future cannot be pronounced. 
But every one who knows him is 
able to bear witness to his amia- 
bility, his religious principles, his 
personal intrepidity, his thorough 
understanding of, and adherence 
to, the political philosophy of his 
father, and the charm of his man- 
ner. France has now been re- 
publican for seven years at least 
she has governed herself, after a 
fashion, for that length of time. 
If the republican leaders in France 
are but half wise, they can con- 
tinue in power and establish a real 
republic. They must recognize 
the fact, however, that in France 
the republic must be Christian. 
The anti-Christian republic which 
M. Gambetta is believed to con- 
template will not live on that con- 
secrated soil. In the event of a 
great revolution in France the star 
of the Bonapartes might again 
arise ; but it would be upon the 
young Prince Louis, and not on 
the old Prince Jerome, that the 
eyes of the people would be fixed. 






The Monastery of Fulda. 



301 



THE MONASTERY OF FULDA.* 



ST. BONIFACE, after having found- 
ed numerous churches and monas- 
teries and established several epis- 
copal sees, conceived the design 
of founding a new monastery on 
a grander scale than any which 
had been heretofore erected. His 
disciple, Sturm the Bavarian, gave 
him an able and zealous co-opera- 
tion in carrying this great plan into 
execution. He was commissioned 
by Boniface to go forth from 
Fritzlar, in company with two as- 
sociates, to search through the 
great uninhabited tract of land 
called Buchonia, or Buchen-land, 
still covered with the original 
forest, for a proper site whereon to 
found the monastery. These en- 
voys were ordered to survey with 
the greatest care the whole region, 
examining its soil, its mountains 
and valleys, streams and fountains. 
They finally selected a site on the 
banks of the river Fulda. Carlo- 
man gave it to Boniface, with an 
adjacent domain of 4,000 paces in 
circumference. Boniface, with 
seven companions, took solemn 
possession of it on the i2th of 
January, 744, and immediately be- 
gan building a church and monas- 
tery, which were completed after 
an unintermitted labor of three 
years. As soon as the exterior edi- 
fice was completed Boniface ap- 
plied himself to the interior organi- 
zation of a monastic community. 
For this purpose he sent Sturm 
with two companions to study the 
arrangements of the most flourish- 
ing monasteries of Italy, and par- 
ticularly that of Monte Cassino. 

* Translated from Schoppner's Charakter-Bil- 
der. 



After his return Sturm was ap- 
pointed first superior of the monas- 
tery of Fulda. 

The new foundation thus solidly 
established and wisely organized 
by Boniface flourished and grew 
in a manner far beyond his antici- 
pations. The lands which lay in 
a wild, uncultivated state in the 
vicinity of the monastery were 
gradually reclaimed by the zealous 
and industrious monks, the forests 
were thinned out, the soil was 
brought under cultivation, and all 
sorts of mechanical and artistic 
labors were introduced. Skilled 
workmen, especially such as had 
trades useful for the monastery tan- 
ners, tailors, hatters, manufacturers 
of parchment, weavers of linen and 
woollen fabrics were induced to 
settle in the neighborhood. These 
weavers, at a later period, formed 
at Fulda the first guild, and were 
indebted to the monastery not only 
for their first foundation but also 
for many valuable rights which they 
afterwards acquired. All the 
works of the monastery baking, 
cooking, scrubbing the floors, car- 
pentering, gardening, sculpture, 
manufacture of articles made from 
the precious metals, painting, and 
the writing of chronicles were di- 
vided among the brethren. Brower 
gives us a correct and graphic 
picture of these various industries, 
in which all were employed with an 
emulous zeal : 

" No sort of employment which 
could call forth the activity of the 
mind or promote the common good 
was neglected by those men in 
whom the. divine wisdom dwelt, in 
that early age, but every moment 



3O2 



The Monastery of Fulda. 



which remained at their disposal, 
after their ecclesiastical and re- 
ligious duties had been fulfilled, was 
employed in the study of the 
sciences, the cultivation of the fine 
arts, and in reading, or listening to 
the reading, of the Holy Scriptures. 
Some dictated or wrote out com- 
mentaries on the books of the Old 
and New Testaments ; others un- 
dertook the work of translation and 
exposition ; others compiled antho- 
logies composed of texts from the 
Scriptures or the writings of the 
fathers ; others gathered collections 
of parallel passages illustrative of 
the meaning of important and ob- 
scure texts. Many of these monks 
gave evidence, through the saga- 
cious, discriminating, and judicious 
manner in which they elucidated 
and explained the sacred text, of a 
degree of learning and intelligence 
scarcely to be equalled by any of 
their contemporaries in other mo- 
nasteries or schools. Those who 
were not sufficiently gifted to at- 
tain the highest excellence in sci- 
ence or art found honorable em- 
ployment in assisting their brethren 
according to their capacity. Some 
painted the initial letters and orna- 
ments of the manuscripts on parch- 
ment, others put on the costly 
binding and clasps, or ruled the 
books and marked the larger let- 
ters at the beginning of verses and 
chapters with pencils of red lead 
or chalk. Others were copyists, 
and wrote out in a fair hand what 
had been hastily taken down from 
dictation on scraps of paper." 

The historical records kept at 
Fulda were of the utmost value for 
all future times. The earliest of 
the annals of the empire begun at 
the suggestion of Charlemagne and 
by his order, and which are mani- 
festly of an official character, are 
found in the annals of the monas- 



tery of Lorsch. These were the 
basis of the annals of Einhard, 
which come down to the year 826. 
The continuation of the annals ap- 
peared in the reign of Louis the 
Fat, contained in the Chronicles of 
Fulda, which are chiefly occupied 
with affairs of the empire, the do- 
mestic affairs of the monastery hold- 
ing a subordinate place. The com- 
pilers evidently stood in a close re- 
lation with the court, as we know 
in particular that one of them, Ru- 
dolph, was Louis' confessor; they 
manifest a thorough acquaintance 
with affairs, and, as official histo- 
rians, observe the same reserve in 
speaking of certain persons and 
events which we notice in the ear- 
lier annalists. They are written, 
moreover, in an excellent style, on 
a plan which was laid down by 
Einhard. They have the same 
calm and impartial dignity, without 
any obtrusiveness of the writer's 
personal sentiments upon the rea- 
der's attention, the events them- 
selves being presented objectively 
with a tranquil continuity from 
year to year, and with the simple 
view of conveying to future times 
correct information respecting his- 
torical events, and that in such a 
way that the writer tacitly deter- 
mines their judgment by the clear 
manner in which he presents his 
facts. These chronicles were not 
written up every year, yet they 
were always compiled within a 
comparatively short time after the 
events which they relate had oc- 
curred, and therefore we have in 
them an invaluable source of in- 
formation of the highest authority, 
only we must always bear in mind 
the special scope intended by the 
writers. The form is unpretend- 
ing, yet a careful inspection shows 
how much skill and art were requi- 
site to keep all things belonging to 



The Monastery of Fulda. 



303 



those disturbed times in view, to 
avoid digressions upon unimportant 
matters, and to relate concisely and 
comprehensively everything of es- 
sential consequence. 

Erhard, a monk of Fulda, of 
whom nothing more is known, was 
the first who undertook the con- 
tinuation of the work broken off 
by Einhard, Charles' biographer, 
at the year 829, for the period of 
the reign of Louis. After him the 
annals were continued by Rudolph, 
a worthy disciple of Rabanus Mau- 
rus, a man who possessed the en- 
tire confidence of the king, and 
was fully acquainted with all the 
secret affairs of the court, and 
for purity of style and lucid ar- 
rangement of his narrative worthy 
of being compared to Einhard. 
The work of his successors is by 
no means equal to his own in 
merit, and from the date of the 
death of Louis the Younger the 
annals show by their unrestrained 
censure of King Charles that their 
character underwent a complete 
change. After the successful at- 
tempt of Arnulph to seize on the 
imperial crown they laid down 
their pens, apparently because they 
waited for better times before con- 
tinuing their work. Besides these 
annals of the empire, there is much 
valuable historical literature in the 
shape of biographies of the abbots 
and other works, the product of the 
industry of the studious monks of 
Fulda. 

The monastic school of Fulda 
exercised the most important in- 
fluence on the culture of Germany. 
From the very beginning this 
school was divided into two dis- 
tinct parts : the inner school, for the 
members and pupils of the monas- 
tic institute, and the outer school, 
in which children were educated 
for all sorts of secular pursuits. 



Boniface sent to this school for in- 
struction and care a great number 
of youths from Bavaria, Franco- 
nia, and Thuringia. It speedily at- 
tained to a very flourishing condi- 
tion, especially during the reign of 
Charlemagne, who favored it very 
warmly and enriched it by valua- 
ble donations of land. He wrote a 
letter to the second abbot, Bau- 
gulph, remarkable for the wise and 
earnest exhortations with which he 
encouraged him to spare no pains 
for the improvement and perfection 
of the school, particularly in view 
of the important end of giving a 
thorough education to the clergy. 
Baugulph corresponded so faith- 
fully to the desires of Charles that 
this great emperor, as early as 787, 
recommended the school of Fulda 
as a model for all others, and laid 
i the foundations of its library, which 
became afterwards so famous. Both 
the school and the monastery were, 
however, chiefly indebted for their 
rapid development to the great 
Rabanus Maurus. He had been 
sent there as a pupil in his eleventh 
year, and in his eighteenth year 
Ratgar, the third abbot, who fully 
appreciated his -remarkable intelli- 
gence, sent him in company with his 
friend Hatto to the school of the 
most renowned teacher of that 
time, Alcuin, at Tours. Others of 
the most promising students were 
sent abroad at the same time, some 
to Einhard in Seligenstadt, others 
to Clement the Scot. This mea- 
sure of sending the young men of 
greatest talent in the monastery to 
foreign schools was very beneficial 
to Fulda. They returned home 
and brought with them scientific 
and literary treasures which were 
sent by the munificent Charlemagne 
for the advantage of learning and 
education in Germany. Rabanus 
did not remain very long with 



304 



The Monastery of Fulda. 



Alcuin; nevertheless a life-long 
friendship was formed between 
them, and Alcuin continued until 
death to regard Rabanus as his 
disciple, not only in human learning 
but also in the spiritual life. 

After Rabanus had completed 
his studies in Scripture, ethics, 
philosophy, and belles-lettres, he 
returned in company with his be- 
loved fellow-pupil to Buchonia. 
On his arrival the Abbot Ratgar 
entrusted to his care the organiza- 
tion and direction of the school, 
which soon rose to such a height of 
prosperity that it not only far out- 
stripped the Frankish and German 
schools, but even excelled those of 
England, which were then so cele- 
brated. Rabanus was made rector 
in the year 810, when he was bare- 
ly twenty-six years old, and the 
fame of his name drew pupils to. 
him from far and near, insomuch 
that the greater number of the ap- 
plicants for admission were rejected 
for want of sufficient accommoda- 
tion. The school soon became the 
centre of studious culture in Ger- 
many, and Rabanus himself possess- 
ed all the science which in that age 
was attainable. Counts and princes, 
bishops and scholars, frequented 
his society, admired his wisdom, 
and were astonished at the extent 
of his varied knowledge. When in 
the year 822 Rabanus became ab- 
bot of the monastery, and was sub- 
sequently made archbishop of May- 
ence, the school possessed an ample 
faculty of competent professors 
taken from among the priests of the 
community, and its reputation was 
so universally established that both 
school and monastery henceforth 
continued to expand by their own 
innate vital force. Many among 
the monks, also, were distinguished 
for skill in painting and sculpture. 
Rabanus founded a special school 



for the cultivation of these arts, 
which was brought to its comple- 
tion by Hadamar, the thirteenth 
abbot. By the order of these ab- 
bots certain pieces of property and 
certain revenues, pertaining to the 
chancery of the abbot, were special- 
ly devoted to defraying the ex- 
penses of the public worship in the 
church, and the whole remaining 
surplus of these funds was expend- 
ed, under the direction of the ab- 
bot and his chancellor, upon works 
of art of every description, in archi- 
tecture, sculpture, mechanical arts, 
and carving. It was the duty of 
the chancellor to take care that the 
abbot's coffer of construction was 
never empty, so that skilled work- 
men might be continually employ- 
ed and apprentices be trained under 
their direction, " in order that the 
Lord's house might never lack their 
labor, but might be decorated with 
fine moulded cast-work and every 
kind of ornament in wood, stone, 
copper, and the precious metals." 

The monastery of Fulda became 
in this manner for the subsequent 
periods of time a real university 
of sciences, and, what is worthy of 
particular mention, a nursery of 
the vernacular language, as well 
as, in addition, an academy of 
arts. What Monte Cassino was 
for Italy, St. Gall for Southern 
Germany, what Corvey afterwards 
became for Saxony and Northern 
Germany, that Fulda was for Mid- 
dle Germany. The works of Ra- 
banus and many other learned 
scholars, who resided or were edu- 
cated in that monastery, have been 
only partially preserved; the build- 
ings and works of art, moreover, 
have been almost entirely destroy- 
ed by the power of the elements 
and the gnawing tooth of time, in 
part also by the ravages of human 
avarice ; but the few surviving 



Monastery of Fulda. 



remnants suffice to give us some 
notion of the achievements of that 
former age in science and art, and 
to fill us with admiration of the 
activity, persevering industry, and 
skill of their authors. 

Boniface and his fellow-laborers 
wrought from no ambitious mo- 
tives, but for the glory of God and 
the good of men. Science and art 
were cultivated as instruments ser- 
viceable in promoting these great 
objects, and Fulda was made their 
nursery in order that through them 
it might minister more effectually 
to the propagation of Christian 
faith and morality. The wishes 
and plans of Boniface found a 
speedy fulfilment. Even during 
Sturm's administration the seven 
monks who founded Fulda increas- 
ed to four hundred, and the monas- 
tery became early in its history a 
seminary from which the most 
zealous and well-educated priests 
went forth. Previously to this 
time it had been foreign messen- 
gers of the faith who had made the 
light of the Gospel to blaze in Ger- 
many, but thenceforth they were 
native Germans who wrought the 
conversion of the Saxons and the 
other dwellers in Northern Ger- 
many. Most of these were educat- 
ed at Fulda, and they implanted 
the knowledge acquired at that 
school, at the same time with the 
Christian religion, in the soil of the 
remotest regions of their country. 
Rabanus, a native of Mayence, is 
to be regarded as the father of 
German learning, and he stands at 
the head of a numerous school, out 
of which we select for individual 
mention only the names of Wala- 
fried Strabo, Abbot of Reichenau ; 
Servatus Lupus, Abbot of Fer- 
rieres ; Otfried, monk of Weissen- 
burg ; and Rudolph, monk of 
Fulda. Schannat enumerates among 

VOL. XXVIII. 20 



other renowned alumni of Fulda 
eleven archbishops, as many bi- 
shops, and fourteen abbots who 
were all educated -there during its 
earliest period. Many other men 
were educated there who became 
councillors and chancellors of sov- 
ereigns, royal ambassadors and 
judges, and in those capacities ex- 
tended in wider and wider circles 
the religious and intellectual cul- 
ture they had imbibed at Fulda. 

Alongside of these high mental 
occupations, the hardest sort of 
field-work and mechanical labor 
held also an honorable place within 
and around the monastery. 

A part of the monks did not 
live within the monastic cloisters,, 
but had dwellings assigned them 
on its territory, which they were 
employed in clearing and bringing 
into an arable condition. Upon 
these spots of ground they at first 
built a little hut or cell, in the 
neighborhood of which they laid 
out a small garden, which they ex- 
tended by degrees to a larger and 
larger cultivated farm. These cells 
were gradually extended to a wider 
distance around the monastery,, 
other farmers and laborers joined 
themselves to the monks, and out 
of these small beginnings arose the 
villages which are situated in great 
numbers around Fulda, still bear- 
ing names derived from their first 
founders or their original purpose,, 
such as Maberzell, Bronnzell, Kiin- 
zell, Mackenzeil, Edelzell, Kehr- 
zell, Orzell, Sargenzell, Pilgerzell,. 
Kammerzell, Bonifaziuszell, and 
the like. The origin of villages is 
perhaps nowhere so easily traceable 
as in Buchonia, where the greater 
number of their modern names de- 
note what their beginning sprang, 
from in the early times. 

This most interesting historical 
picture which we have translated 



3o6 



The Monastery of Fulda. 



from Schoppner's admirable work 
in three volumes, in which a series 
of similar pictures from ancient 
and mediaeval and modern history 
are graphically drawn, as well as 
the description of Cluny which was 
published in a former number of 
this magazine, suggests some reflec- 
tions appropriate to our own time. 
In those old days princes and 
other laymen of high standing and 
wealth lent a zealous assistance to 
founders and superiors of religious 
orders and monasteries in carrying 
on feheir great and good work. 
Thus, they were able to accomplish 
speedily, and with a grandeur of 
achievement to us in these times 
astonishing, the noble designs con- 
ceived in their great souls. They 
worked industriously by their per- 
sonal labors in that part of their 
undertakings which justly fell to 
their share. But the property, the 
revenues, the external means neces- 
sary to them were liberally furnish- 
ed by the generous gifts of the 
wealthy laity, as well as by contri- 
butions in money, or its equivalents 
in labor and the fruits of .labor, by 
the common people. In modern 
times this co-operation of the pow- 
erful and wealthy with the clergy 
and religious orders has gradually 
diminished, until it has reached a 
low ebb. We say nothing of the 
spoliation committed by those who 
have rebelled against the church 
or usurped her just dominion over 
her own temporalities. We confine 
ourselves to the neglect and parsi- 
mony prevalent among professed 
Catholics who claim to be loyal 
and are willing to have ecclesias- 
tics and religious enjoy peaceably 
whatever they can earn or acquire 
for sacred uses, only too glad to 
be themselves sharers in. the com- 
mon benefit which thereby accrues 
to the faithful. The general rule 



of apathy and parsimony lias signal 
exceptions. We hear occasionally 
of instances of princely munifi- 
cence among the elite of the Catho- 
lic laity in Europe. At home we 
can point to some similar deeds of 
generosity, such as the foundation 
of the Westch ester Asylum and of 
the new College of Omaha. But, 
as a rule, those who undertake col- 
leges, schools, institutes for reli- 
gious and charitable purposes, ca- 
thedrals, churches, and similar 
works, are left to shift for them- 
selves, and not only to work in 
their proper vocation for the com- 
mon good of ricli and poor 
alike, but to earn the money, to 
borrow it, and to beg.it from the 
common multitude of the faithful, 
with which they can furnish the 
materials and the means which are 
a sine qua non for beginning and 
prosecuting their work. They must 
teach, and give missions, and lec- 
ture, and hold fairs, and set on 
foot excursions and entertainments, 
and perambulate, wherever the 
local ecclesiastical authority will 
permit or can be induced to con- 
nive at them, on mendicant tours, 
and draw on the charitable so- 
cieties of Europe, and drum in- 
cessantly in church on the never- 
ending appeal to that patient and 
hard-working mass of the faithful 
whose good-will so far outruns 
their ability. The rich must lay 
up fortunes for all and singular of 
the children whom they so fre- 
quently spoil and render shift- 
less and fit only to become spend- 
thrifts, by the effeminate education 
which they give them. They must 
also lavish their revenues in a cost- 
ly and magnificent style of living, 
in ostentatious splendor of dress 
and appointments which good taste 
as well as Christian morals con- 
demns, in every kind of pleasure 



The Monastery of Fulda. 



307 






and self-indulgence which belongs 
to an utterly worldly and dissipated 
life. The example of the very rich 
spreads downwards through every 
inferior grade of affluence, and 
reaches even to those who are ob- 
liged to spend the greater part of 
what they earn by their own con- 
stant exertion, in sacrifices to the 
idol of their vanity. The costly 
worship of idols leaves only a small 
residue to be given for decency's 
sake to the altar of the true God. 
The love of worldly pomp and 
pleasure extinguishes all zeal for 
the glory of God's house and all 
charity for men. Avarice and 
pride harden the heart against the 
poor and suffering, and make the 
mind too sordid to appreciate those 
things which appertain to the in- 
tellectual and spiritual part of hu- 
man nature. They even blind the 
mind in respect to one's own per- 
sonal interests which concern the 
future life. Hence it is so rare to 
find men solicitous to expiate their 
sins and merit grace by good works, 
and to provide for the relief of 
their own souls or those of their 
near and dear relatives, except by 
the ordinary celebration of the fu- 
neral obsequies, and with more re- 
gard to the ostentation of a grand 
funeral ceremony than to the al- 
leviation and shortening of the suf- 
ferings of the next world, which 
those whose life here has been fill- 
ed with earthly pleasures have more 
reason to dread than others. The 
want of good example on the part 
of so many who hold the most con- 
spicuous place among the laity, and 
their indifference toward the in- 
terests of religion, cause a similar 
tepidity to pervade that class of 
Catholics who are less worldly and 
more religious, and would be sus- 
ceptible to higher and nobler im- 
pulses if the atmosphere in which 



they live were not so relaxing and 
enervating. 

The consequence of this enfee- 
bled faith and charity is that enter- 
prises undertaken by men who have 
devoted their lives to the good of 
society and the church languish 
for lack of support. It is 'difficult 
for those who wish to promote Ca- 
tholic science and literature to pro- 
vide for the education of all classes, 
to make the arts which enhance 
the splendor of religion flourish, to 
give dignity and attractiveness to 
the divine worship, to multiply the 
means of religious and moral im- 
provement, to remedy the wants 
and miseries of social life, to get 
the books which they need for 
their libraries, to build and deco- 
rate churches, to afford the means 
of instruction to -pupils who de- 
sire it, to publish and circulate the 
works which they write or desire to 
write ; because they are left to earn, 
or slowly and painfully to gather up, 
the money which is absolutely re- 
quisite for such purposes. Every- 
body is ready to applaud them 
when they succeed, and to enjoy 
the benefit of their labor, but few 
are willing to help to produce the 
successful result. It seems to be 
thought that the works of religion 
and charity are the affair of the 
clergy and the religious orders, a 
kind of private enterprise for their 
interest, or something which they 
are bound to furnish to the people 
out of their own resources. As if 
the whole ecclesiastical and reli- 
gious fabric and its furniture were 
not for the temporal and spiritual 
good of all the faithful and society 
in general, and as if it were not 
enough for the clergy and religious 
to give themselves and contribute 
their mental and spiritual activity, 
without the added burden of fur- 
nishing material means, and being 



308 



The Monastery of Fulda. 



harassed with oppressive taxation 
upon these very means by which 
they are enabled to serve the 
common good. 

In our own country the dis- 
abling wound and paralyzing dis- 
ease which blights spiritual, intel- 
lectual, moral, and social vigor is 
division in religion. Even Catho- 
lics feel its ^malarious effects. Re- 
ligious unity is the only perfect 
remedy. The combination of all 
the best and soundest elements, of 
all the most valuable resources 
and efficient powers, in the unity of 
one religion and one church, would 
make the greatest and most far- 
reaching results possible and rela- 
tively easy. Unless that is effect- 
ed, those who have the most per- 
sonal interest in the stability and 
continuance of that imperfect or- 
der which we actually possess, have 
good reason to tremble at the pros- 
pect of a violent shaking of its 
foundations and the danger of 
their overthrow. If the lessons of 
the past are not sufficient to teach 
them wisdom, those of the present 
ought to startle them into at least 
common prudence. At all events 
Catholics ought to wake up to a 
more real and vivid apprehension 
of that to which they must give at 
least a " notional assent ": that all 
worth having and living for in this 
world is deposited in the Catholic 
Church and religion, and that they 
are bound to exert themselves for 
its preservation, increase, and trans- 
mission, unless they would be re- 
creant to their baptism and traf- 
fickers with the privileges of their 
birthright. Clunys and Fuldas, 
grand institutions and noble works, 
are as necessary in our age as in 
any which has preceded. It is 
only by a revival of the old spirit 
. of the ages of faith that the old 



deeds can be accomplished. The 
ruins of Cluny and Fulda are a 
symbol of a deeper and more in- 
trinsic devastation in Christian so- 
ciety. Let us hope that these 
ruins may be rebuilt, and that 
what has been laid waste may 
be restored, in the more ancient 
nations of Christendom ; and that 
we may emulate by new edifices in 
our new country the great works 
of past centuries in the Old World. 
A few of the magnificent monas- 
teries of the mediaeval period still 
continue to subsist with somewhat 
of their ancient splendor in the 
old archduchy of Austria, and Mr. 
Ticknor has given a most interest- 
ing account of a visit he made to 
two of these, which is published in 
his Memoirs. At Fulda there is still 
a large and flourishing Benedic- 
tine abbey, where great numbers 
of the German clergy have been 
during the present century wont to 
resort for making spiritual retreats. 
Since the beginning of the Cultur- 
Kampf the bishops of the German 
Empire have held a session there, 
at which they prepared and issued 
a joint pastoral to their people. 
They also agreed together in a 
project for establishing at Fulda a 
Catholic university when better 
times shall restore to the oppressed 
hierarchy and church of Germany 
due liberty of action, and the pro- 
ject is considered in the general 
assembly of German Catholics 
which is held every year. Many 
religious ^institutions still flourish 
there : a clerical seminary, several 
convents, excellent schools and a 
gymnasium. May the pious desire 
of the bishops be fulfilled, and simi- 
lar institutions in our own coun- 
try increase and flourish as in the 
olden time ! 



A Child's Desire. 309 



A CHILD'S DESIRE. 

And little things 
On little wings 
Bear little souls to heaven. 

-F. W. FABER. 

OUT at sea the day was ending, rosy sails fast growing blue, 
Glimmer of the light-house breaking fading sunset glory through. 

All the day our feet had wandered through the sweet bay, on the sand, 
And our eyes had been up-hoarding treasures of the sea and land, 

While a little maiden cousin had been learning strangest things 
Eyes bent down along the surf-line, lifted to the sea-gulls' wings. 

Now, her day's researches ended little cormorant herself 
Limpets drying on the table, star-fish on the window-shelf, 

Listening stories, eyes wide opened, my low chair she sat beside, 
With each story claimed another, evermore unsatisfied: 

Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty founts e'er fresh of fiction old 
Country Mouse, Enchanted Princess, Stupid Hans with purse of gold ; 

Each in turn the eager maiden heard with air of little queen 
Not the old Arabian caliph knew a more commanding mien. 

Not my store the wise sultana's, so I took a poet's words 
Read in music how St. Francis preached a sermon to the birds ; 

Told my little royal lady how once lived this gentle heart, 

This great saint who gave each creature in his own deep love a part; 

How he called the sun his brother, how his sister moon he praised, 
And upon his willing shoulders lambs, foot- weary, softly raised ; 

How the wolf, when he besought it, bent obedient its knees, 
How the little birds would greet him, singing in the olive-trees ; 

How they hushed their merry voices when he bade the song be still 
Till he should have preached unto them how life's purpose to fulfil; 

How, with meek and reverent silence, listened each obedient bird, 
Ruffled not a tiny feather, not one crimson top-knot stirred, 



310 A Child's Desire. 

Till the sermon was well ended and the saint gave leave to fly, 
When the happy flocks spread singing far up in the deep blue sky. 

Grave-eyed grew my cousin Alice never story seemed like this 

" Did the birds sit on his shoulders, and fierce wolf bend at his knees ? 

" Were there any sparrows with them ? And why weren't they afraid ? 
Do you think the birds would love me ? Did they know all that was 
said ? 

"I will be just like St. Francis would the birds then understand ? 
Would they listen if I called them, would they sit still in my hand ?" 

Never held, in her child-wisdom, fairy girdle gift so dear 
As this blessing bringing creatures into human heart so near. 

O my little wise-souled cousin, petted, cherished, sheltered maid, 
Bringing into us thy roses, thou to pick the thorns afraid, 

Fearing any dust-speck clinging to thy dainty, dimpled hand, 
Keep thy white soul world-unspotted, so thou too mayst understand 

How to win the birds to love thee, bring the lambs about thy feet, 
Win a heart all creatures loving, and a speech as honey sweet. 

Every day in self-denial learn thy dear self to- forget, 

Prize the thorns that guard thy roses, keep heart's garden ever wet 

With the dew of gentle pity given unto all who need, 

And love God with all thy loving so a saint one day indeed. 

And perhaps the birds will know thee as thou tread'st the busy street, 
Heart with God, and, for his service, footsteps diligent and fleet ; 

And their twitterings will grow softer as thou praisest in thy heart 
God that he hath let thee serve him, in his great love given thee part 

i 

With the least of all his creatures. Ah ! sweetheart, keep humble- 

souled; 
Life may have no great deeds for thee, only little things enfold, 

But thy littleness may crown thee with saint's halo, unawares. 
Blessing on thee, and St. Francis ever keep thee in his prayers ! 



Pearl. 



PEARL. 



BY KATHLEEN o'ltfEARA, AUTHOR OF " IZA^S STORY," " A SALON IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE," " ARE 

YOU MY WIFE? " ETC. 



CHAPTER VII. 



PARTING WORDS. 






THE preparations for the journey 
were nearly over; everything had 
been sold or sent on to Broom 
Hollow, and the Redacres were to 
leave Paris in a few days. Mean- 
time they were staying with Mrs. 
Monteagle, for their own apartment 
had been dismantled for more than 
a week. 

Everybody was kind and sympa- 
thetic, and the invitations to good- 
by dinners were more numerous 
than the colonel could accept. It 
was not a joyful occasion, but nei- 
ther was it one for mourning. 
They were leaving Paris under 
painful circumstances; but then 
things might have been much 
worse, and since her visit to Broom 
Hollow, and the satisfactory ar- 
rangement she had made with the 
Millses, Alice was as cheerful as a 
bride. She talked over the pros- 
pect of a house without servants as 
if it were some experiment they 
were going to try for their amuse- 
ment. Pearl fell in with this 
cheerful view quite naturally, laugh- 
ing and turning all the coming diffi- 
culties into fun. But what surprised 
every one was the way Polly rose up 
to face them ; she, who had always 
looked to have every little pebble 
carefully swept from her path, who, 
as her father said, seemed the most 
unfitted of human beings to rough 
it, was full of energy and fore- 
thought, as if the altered circum- 



stances had endowed her with a 
new character, tearing off the old 
one like a garment to be cast aside. 
Even her beauty was not the same. 
The sleepy languor of her deep 
blue eyes had changed to an ex- 
pression of tenderness that filled 
them with an altogether different 
light, as when the morning mist 
melts away and the young sun 
shines out in unveiled beauty and 
serenity. There was something 
indescribably touching in the way 
she followed Pearl about the house, 
watching to help her in every little 
thing, so gentle and diligent in 
doing whatever work Pearl set her 
to; and you may be sure it was al- 
ways the lightest that Pearl could 
find packing fragile knick-knacks,. 
or sewing something that was want- 
ed in a hurry, anything to keep 
Polly from tiring herself. The 
colonel was active and useful in his 
way, and wonderfully contented, 
all things considered. Balaklava 
was behaving beautifully, or at any 
rate no one heard anything to the 
contrary. 

There was a farewell soiree for 
them all at Mrs. Monteagle's this 
evening, and she particularly re- 
quested the girls to look their love- 
liest. 

"I want to wring everybody's 
heart," said the old lady, surveying 
them with affectionate admiration; 
" it will be some consolation to see 



Pearl. 



other people a little miserable when 
one is very uncomfortable one's self. 
But I congratulate you all on leav- 
ing this dreadful country. You 
are going in the very nick of time. 
\\e are on the eve of some fright- 
ful explosion. You are well out 
of it." 

" It would have been good fun to 
wait and see the blow-up," said the 
colonel. "I can't say I'm glad to 
miss it if there is going to be a 
row." 

" If there is ! Dear me, it's won- 
derful how people can shut their 
eyes to what is going on under 
their very nose !" said Mrs. Mont- 
eagle. 

" And what is going on ?" asked 
the colonel. 

" Everything that ought not to 
be going on. Here come the Le'o- 
polds. He keeps it all dark, of 
course ; but when I said to him 
yesterday that things were not go- 
ing on like this forever, he couldn't 
deny it; he tried to laugh it off. 
But / know what ministers are ; 
they are paid for telling lies 
French ministers, at least. Well, 
Excellence ! good-evening. It is 
very good of you fine people 
to come and spend your evening 
in unofficial company. Where is 
Blanche ? Ah ! putting a touch 
to her head-dress, I see. I was 
.afraid she had not come, and my 
young friends would have been so 
disappointed !" 

There was a ball at some am- 
bassador's this evening, so several 
of the guests came in full dress, 
with diamonds, etc., which gave quite 
a brilliant air to the gathering. 
Mme. Leopold was very affection- 
ate to Alice and the girls. Leon 
could not come with her and his 
father, but he was coming later, 
she hastened to assure Mrs. Mont- 
agle, who took the glad tidings 



rather indifferently. It was not 
long before he made his appear- 
ance with Captain Darvallon ; they 
were both in uniform, being bid- 
den to the ball. A brilliant military 
uniform always shows to advantage 
amidst a crowd of black coats, and 
though theirs were not the only ones 
present this evening, they were by 
far the handsomest, and both the 
hussars looked very well in them. 

" Who is that officer ?" said 
Colonel Redacre to Mrs. Mont- 
eagle. 

"The short man in the lancer's 
uniform ?" she answered, pretend- 
ing not to see who he meant. 

"No, that tall, fine-looking man 
speaking to Pearl." 

"That is M. Darvallon." 

" What ! the man who You 
don't mean it !" 

" Ha ! ha ! ha !" And Mrs. Mont- 
eagle, with this rude and aggravat- 
ing chuckle, turned away. 

"What is the fellow saying to 
Pearl?" muttered Colonel Red- 
acre to himself; and ostensibly to 
look after his daughter, but in real- 
ity moved by a desire to investi- 
gate the low-born, ridiculously well- 
bred-looking individual who was 
making himself agreeable to her, 
he walked straight up to them. 

" Mademoiselle, will you do me 
the honor of presenting me to M. 
le Colonel ?" said Darvallon to 
Pearl. 

The presentation was made. 

" Mon colonel, this is not the 
first time we have met. The last 
time I saw you was in the trenches 
before Sebastopol ; you were help- 
ing to carry away a brave young 
fellow, a brother officer of ours, 
who was wounded ; he died before 
you got him to the ambulance. I 
did not know who you were then ; 
Leopold told me since." 

"I remember; it was young De 



Pearl. 



313 



B ? Those were hard times 

in the trendies," said the colonel ; 
and, as if by magic, the ice was 
thawed, and in five minutes he was 
fighting his Crimean battles over 
again, and protesting inwardly that 
this was the most gentlemanlike 
Frenchman lie had met for a long 
time. 

Pearl left them and joined a 
group of ladies who had captured 
Baron Leopold, and were listening 
with charming attention to what he 
was saying; but he would not enter 
on official matters, much to their 
disappointment. 

" Ah ! mesdames, no. I must 
not be decoyed into discussing 
state affairs in such company ; be- 
fore I know where I am you will 
have bewitched me into betraying 
every state secret I possess. There 
is no danger we statesmen have to 
guard against like the magnetism 
of your beaux yeux. " 

"That is very unkind, M. le 
Ministre," said a pretty Dalilah, 
who had set her heart on getting 
les dernieres nouvelles from the 
minister to-night. " M. de Talley- 
rand trusted us more than that." 

" Ce n'est pas la ce que Talley- 
rand a fait de mieux," replied the 
ungallant and inexorable minister. 

" There is Mme. de Kerbec," 
cried Pearl. "How magnificent 
her dress is !" 

" Ergo, it is a failure," said the 
baron. "The mission of a dress is 
to beautify its wearer, never to 
draw attention to itself ; one should 
say on beholding a really well- 
dressed woman, * Quelle jolie 
femme !' never * Quelle jolie toi- 
lette !' That is the true philosophy 
of dress; I fear Mme. de Kerbec 
has not studied it." 

"Yes, she has indeed," said 
Pearl ; " at least I know that she 
complains of the dressmaker not 



considering her face and thinking 
only of the effect of the dress itself." 

Pearl really meant to take Mme. 
de Kerbec's part ; she was impress- 
ed by the serious tone of the states- 
man in criticising Mme. Galbois' 
latest combination ; but everybody 
laughed, and one lady observed 
that the dressmaker was " tres a 
plaindre." 

The object of these remarks, 
meantime, ploughed her splendid 
way through the cr^wd for the 
company was very numerous now 
and spying Pearl in her quiet black 
dress, she dropped M. de Kerbec's 
arm, and seized upon her and 
drew her to a seat in a window re- 
cess. 

They made a striking contrast 
as they sat there together, the large, 
elderly woman blazing in diamonds 
and amber satin, and past the fatal 
Rubicon of embonpoint, and the 
fair, slight girl in the severe sim- 
plicity of her black dress, that made 
her snowy shoulders glisten like 
alabaster. They had a little chat 
about things and people in general, 
and then Mme.de Kerbec, quitting 
the light tone befitting gossip, said 
gravely : 

" Pearl, what do you think of my 
dress?" 

" I think it is magnificent ; it 
dazzled me when you entered the 
room," said Pearl. 

" I am thankful to hear you say 
so ! You are a true friend, Pearl. 
I know you always tell me the truth ; 
and you will see that I am not un- 
grateful. I have been thinking a 
great deal about what I could do to 
help you and Polly, and I have hit 
upon a little scheme that I hope 
you will like. I mean to send you 
some of my ball-dresses. You will 
not be able to get pretty ones in 
England, you know, and mine will 
make a great effect down in Devon- 



Pearl. 



shire; and they will be a nice easy 
fit for you both." 

" It is very kind of you," said 
Pearl, whose dimples were starting 
into refractory fun at the last sen- 
tence, " but I fancy we shall have 
very few opportunities of wearing 
ball-dresses at the Hollow. We 
are to lead a very quiet life there." 

There was music going on now ; 
somebody began to sing, and con- 
versation was hushed for a few 
minutes. When it was resumed 
Baron Leopold remarked how 
handsome Mrs. Redacre was look- 
ing ; she did look wonderfully 
young and comely in her mourn- 
ing. 

"It is a great loss to us that they 
are leaving Paris." he observed ; 
" but for her it is un vrai malheur ; 
she is going to England just as her 
beauty is on the wane and there 
are no witnesses la bas to remem- 
ber its palmy days ; whereas here 
we have all seen it in its prime. To 
us she can say, ' Vous souvenez vous f 
and we can recall her succes in 
such and such a toilette, at such 
and such. a ball. Here she might 
have lived a long time yet on her 
souvenirs; but she will have no 
past to live upon la bas. Pauvre 
femme ! It is sad for her." And 
the tender-hearted Frenchman 
heaved a sigh as he gazed at the 
waning beauty at the mother 
whose youth was so abundantly re- 
newed in the blooming youth of 
her children that she would have 
laughed had the sigh of compassion 
readied her. 

Blanche and Polly were in a pri- 
vate corner, deep in conversation, 
exchanging vows of undying friend- 
ship, and pledging one another to 
keep up a full and regular corre- 
spondence. 

" I suppose they will marry me 
while papa is in office," said 



Blanche. " Mamma says I shall be 
considered a better partie while he 
is minister. I can't see how that 
makes any difference, unless they 
married me to some young man in 
diplomacy whom papa might push 
while we are in office; but even 
that he could on-ly do through his 
colleague at the Affaires Etrangeres, 
and mamma, is a little en froid with 
Mme. de M ." 

" Is there any one in view, 
Blanche ?" inquired Polly, who be- 
gan to suspect this close reasoning 
was not altogether in the abstract. 

"Not that I know of," said 
Blanche candidly. " There have 
been several projets, but they all 
came to nothing." 

" Would you like to marry a 
diplomatist ?" 

" I don't know. If he were a 
full-blown ambassador, yes ; that 
would be very nice. But the at- 
tache's* wives are not to be envied ; 
always dragged about de capitale 
en capitale ; having to pack up just 
as one has settled down and got 
to know people ; that is a bore. 
No, I should not care to marry a 
diplomflte" 

" But if he were very nice him- 
self?" 

" I could not find that out until 
I married him. He might be very 
nice to look at and not at all nice 
to live with ; that is why one must 
make so sure of the rest. When 
one has a good position and plenty 
of money, one can always make the 
best of one's husband." 

Polly was not an idealist ; she 
did not indulge in high flown 
dreams of romance, but this cool 
calculation, that stripped marriage 
of all poetry and left it a bare 
bargain of prose, struck her as un- 
natural, even shocking. Blanche 
had never before discussed her 
own future so openly; but then, as 









PearL 



315 



she said, circumstances had only 
now brought it home to her as a 
close-lying matter that had to be 
considered like other immediate 
business of high importance. 

" And that marquis that you 
danced with at the Tuileries the oth- 
er night is there no chance of his 
coming forward ?" inquired Polly. 

"M. de Cholcourt? Good gra- 
cious ! Why, he is the greatest 
parti going. He may marry the 
best-born heiress in the faubourg. 
There is a Russian princess, who 
will have twelve millions, looking 
after him, they say ; but she is 
hideous" added Blanche, empha- 
sizing the word with a most ex- 
pressive grimace. 

" It would be horrid of him to 
marry her, then," said Polly ; " he 
ought to marry a pretty girl with 
no money at all. If he were an 
Englishman he would." 

"Ah! but he is not; he is a 
Frenchman, and his mother is a 
Frenchwoman. If he had not a 
mother, he might marry himself; 
and then there is no saying what 
he might not do." 

" What a pretty girl that is that 
M. Leon is talking to!" said Polly, 
catching sight of her friend's bro- 
ther in the inner salon. 

" She is not a girl ; Leon would 
not be talking to Irer if she were. 

That is Mme. de V ; she is a 

Spaniard. She was married last 
month." 

" Papa and Captain Darvallon 
seem to be getting on very well 
together," observed Polly. " I bet 
anything they are storming Sebas- 
topol ! I wonder if soldiers ever 
have enough of fighting their bat- 
tles over again ? I get so sick of 
them when I have heard them three 
separate times ! Does M. Leon 
treat you to the Crimean battles 
every day of his life ?" 



" He is not with us many days 
of his life; but he never bores us 
much about his battles. It sends 
me to sleep, and it grates on 
mamma's nerves, and papa is too 
busy about politics to care to lis- 
ten ; but he and M. Darvallon go 
at it by the hour together, I sus- 
pect. Don't you like M. Darval- 
lon ? I think him so charming. 
He always reminds me of the Prince 
de Conde at least what I imagine 
Conde was, so brave and so gentle. 
Leon says he is a crusader come to 
life again. He saved Leon's life in 
the trenches; but he talks as if it 
were Leon who had saved his." 

" I can fancy him very chival- 
rous," said Polly; "there is some- 
thing so distinguished about him, 
too. Is it really true that he is of 
such low birth ?" 

"Bah! That is your English 
morgue. As if it signified in a 
military man what his birth was ! 
In France la noblesse d'epe'e ranks 
with the proudest aristocracy of 
birth. Our greatest marshals rose 
from the ranks," said Blanche, 
bridling up with a warmth that 
made Polly stare at her with a 
sudden suspicion in her eyes. 
Blanche read it and laughed. 

" He is my brother's friend. 
Leon positively adores him; if you 
were to say a word about M. Dar- 
vallon's low birth in his presence, 
he would be furious. But nobody 
ever does; nobody thinks of it, 
except to praise M. Darvallon." 

Polly was wondering what he 
and her father were conversing 
about now ; they were not making 
a sortie nor storming any place 
she could see that from her father's 
quiet manner; but, whatever subject 
they were engaged on, he was evi- 
dently interested in it. 

"No doubt it is often a great 
hindrance," M. Darvallon was say- 



3*5 



Pearl. 



ing ; " but I don't agree with you as 
to its being a dead weight on a 
man. He must be himself a poor 
creature who is conquered by 
poverty. When one comes to think 
of it, the conquerors of the world 
have all been poor. Look at every 
department of life science, art, 
the sword, the pen, philosophy; 
have not the greatest lights in them 
been poor ?" 

" They don't make a precedent 
for the common run of men," ob- 
jected Colonel Redacre. "They 
were men of genius ; not but that 
their genius would have thriven 
better had they been free from the 
worries and hindrances of poverty, 
instead of being, as many of them 
were, dependent on the bounty of 
some rich dunce or patronizing 
court flunkey. But the ordinary 
man who has to face the world 
with empty pockets is at a terrible 
disadvantage. Everybody makes 
small account of him ; he is an 
object of pity to good people, and 
the world despises him." 

"Just inasmuch as he despises 
himself no more, and jio less," 
said M. Darvallon. "If Ire feels 
contemptible in his own eyes, he 
will look contemptible in the eyes 
of the world. There is nothing so 
contagious as shame; if a man is 
ashamed of his poverty, other peo- 
ple are ashamed of it; if he car- 
ries it proudly, they respect it. 
Men are too apt to sneak out of 
their poverty; and there is nothing 
the world despises so much as a 
sneak." 

" That may be, but there is no- 
thing the world respects so much 
as appearances," said Colonel Red- 
acre. " If a man can keep up ap- 
pearances, let him be as poor as he 
likes, it does not much matter. 
There comes the hitch in your phi- 
losophy ; it sounds very ^\vell in 



theory, but it would not answer in 
practice." 

" I have found it answer. I am 
a poor man, and I have always had 
the courage to say so, and I have 
never found the world visit the 
fact on me with contempt on the 
contrary; and it is quite natural." 

" Yes, I suppose it is natural to 
respect courage," said Colonel Red- 
acre, himself doing instinctive ho- 
mage to the courage that dared to 
say, " I am a poor man." 

" Human nature, at bottom, is 
better than we make it out," con- 
tinued M. Darvallon ; " when we 
appeal to what is best in it we are 
seldom disappointed. My experi- 
ence is that the sympathies of man- 
kind are generally, almost invaria- 
bly, on the side of truth and cour- 
age and simplicity." 

" You are an optimist, I see," 
said Colonel Redacre. 

" Why should not every man be 
an optimist?" said .M. Darvallon, 
laughing. " It is, after all, only a 
choice of views ; and it is so very 
much pleasanter to look on the 
good side of things and people than 
on the bad." 

" Yes, that is good philosophy ; 
but it is not always practicable, 
any more than your theory about 
poverty. How, for instance, is a 
man to look at the good side of a 
wooden leg ?" 

" Messieurs, these young ladies 
insist upon having a dance ; let all 
those whom it concerns bestir them- 
selves," called out Mrs. Monteagle 
in a loud voice, so that everybody 
might hear. 

" Thank Heaven ! it don't con- 
cern me," said the colonel, nodding 
at her defiantly. 

" There is the answer to your 
question, mon colonel," said M. 
Darvallon, rising : " your wooden 
leg claims for you the privilege of 



Pearl. 



317 



sitting quiet, whereas the want of 
one compels me to abandon the 
pleasure of your conversation and 
exert myself in obedience to our 
hostess." 

And with this consoling remark 
he turned away to look for a part- 
ner. The dance was to be in the 
dining-room, a good, square room 
that opened into the middle of the 
larger salon ; the centre-table was 
removed, and the dancers paired 
off quickly and were soon whirling 
round to the spirited measure of a 
Strauss waltz which Pearl Redacre 
was executing on the piano. 

M. Darvallon was looking for 
her, and, seeing how she was en- 
gaged, he went up to the piano. 

" Have you promised the next 
dance, mademoiselle ?" 

" No, monsieur." 

" Then may I have the honor ?" 

"Yes." 

There was no reason why he need 
stand with his back to the wall, 
meantime, and watch Pearl till this 
waltz was played out, instead of 
getting another partner and joining 
in it ; but such was apparently his 
pleasure. Captain Darvallon was 
not a dancing man. He danced well, 
and he did not vote the perform- 
ance a bore ; while it lasted he en- 
joyed it that is, if he had a good 
partner; but he infinitely preferred 
talking to dancing. 

When the waltz was over Blanche 
Leopold came and offered to re- 
lieve Pearl, and then she and M. 
Darvallon went into the dancing- 
room. Pearl danced beautifully ; 
her slight figure swayed to the 
rhythm of the music like some docile 
instrument moved by its power; 
her feet seemed scarcely to touch 
the ground. She was tall enough 
not to be out of proportion with 
the commanding figure of her part- 
ner, who bore her along with easy 



strength, his brilliant uniform show- 
ing off more distinctly the graceful 
lines of her sable draperies. 

" It is pleasanter dancing in this 
way than in the crush of the Tui- 
leries the other evening," he said, 
when they stopped after a few 
turns. " Are you very fond of danc- 
ing, mademoiselle ?" 

" No, fortunately, not so very 
fond." 

"Why fortunately?" 

" Because I shall have to give it 
up now. This is my last taste of 
it for I don't know, indeed, how 
long; perhaps for ever." 

" I heard with regret that you 
were leaving Paris ; but I hoped 
that it was not for good." 

"I don't know; it is sure to be 
for a long time." And Pearl heaved 
a sigh. 

" You are sorry to leave France ? 
I am glad of that, though it may 
seem selfish to say so." 

" Why should you be glad ?" 

Why, indeed? Captain Darvallon 
was at a loss for an answer. It 
was already much for a Frenchman 
to have said more, assuredly, than 
he would have dared to say to a 
French girl. But he had forgotten 
that this English maiden was that 
unapproachable nonenity, une jeune 
fille ; he beheld in her only a lovely 
type of womanhood, an ideal wo- 
man, pure, fearless, gentle, and the 
chivalry of his nature did sponta- 
neous homage to her. He did not 
stop to question the impulse ; he 
saw that Pearl was clothed in all 
womanly grace without, and in- 
stinctively he accredited her with 
every lovely attribute within. Kin- 
dred natures, moreover, recognize 
one another, and from the first M. 
Darvallon had recognized in Pearl 
a nature that had many points of 
resemblance with his own. He 
knew something of her circumstan- 



318 



Pearl 



ces from Leon. He knew that life, 
which had dawned on her so bright- 
ly, had suddenly clouded over, and 
that poverty had overtaken her 
youth. For himself, he had learn- 
ed to defy that cruel foe to peace 
and happiness; but he knew the 
world too well not to realize what 
the battle with it meant for one 
like Pearl, and as he looked at her 
in her soft, dependent youth his 
manhood was moved to tenderest 
pity. Not that she looked like one 
claiming, or even needing, pity, 
either for herself or her surround- 
ings ; her dimpled face made a pic- 
ture of innocent brightness that 
was very good to see, and her fam- 
ily had no air about them of peo- 
ple who are down in the world. 
But that same world which crushes 
its victims so pitepusly also supports 
them in many ways ; it helps, nay, 
it compels, them to wear a smiling 
countenance in its presence ; be- 
yond it only the mask may be 
thrown aside and the bitter floods 
let loose. Colonel Redacre was a 
thorough man of the world, and 
not likely to gnash his teeth or tear 
his hair in public; but there was a 
tone of sadness and irritation un- 
derlying his good-humored affabi- 
lity, a note that sounded a harsh 
and angry revolt against the de- 
crees of his special fate. This had 
not escaped Captain' Darvallon. 
And Pearl, too, as he scrutinized 
her more closely, did not certainly 
wear that air of careless security 
in happiness that was to be read 
on the countenances of other 
young girls around her on 
Blanche Leopold's, for instance. 
More than once he had heard her 
sigh. This, however, only touch- 
ed the bright graces of her youth 
with a shade of pathos which lent 
another -charm, to th,em. While 
he was indulging in these reflec- 



tions Pearl was waiting for an 
answer to her question, " Why 
should you be glad ?" 

But it did not come. " Ah ! 
there is my friend Mr. King- 
spring!" she said, perceiving him 
in the distance. " I was wonder- 
ing why he was not here to- 
night." 

"Your friend!" repeated M. 
Darvallon. " It makes me wish 
I were an Englishman to hear you 
say that ; it must be so good for 
men to have friends such as you. 
In France we are debarred from 
that privilege ; we are forbidden 
to seek the kind of friendship 
which would be our -best safeguard 
as well as our best reward. It is 
hard on us." 

"Whose fault is it?" said Pearl, 
with an arch smile. 

"Ours, of course. And yet, I 
believe that if we were trusted 
more we should be the better for it. 
I believe we should prove our- 
selves worthy of the friendship of 
women, if they tried us." 

" I am sure you would," said 
Pearl impulsively. 

"Are you?" He turned a sud- 
den, grateful glance on her, and 
then, bending lower, he added in a 
grave tone : " Mademoiselle, will 
you try me? Will you let me 
prove whether I am worthy of 
being your friend ?" 

Pearl looked up at him in frank 
surprise ; but there was no dis- 
pleasure in the glance. 

" It is very kind of you to care," 
she said ; " I am sure you would 
be a good friend- But we are go- 
ing away ; you may never see any 
of us again. If we had met sooner 
we might have been friends." 
Her voice grew lower and trem- 
bled a little at the last words. 

"We may meet sooner than you 
calculate. Meantime, will you 



,u 





Pearl. 



319 



think of me as a friend, and try 
to forget that I am one of those 
mercenary, degenerate Frenchmen 
whom you think so ill of?" 

" Ah ! that is not generous to 
taunt me with my foolish words, 
now that we are going to part." 

"I did not* mean to taunt you 
with them ; I felt too keenly they 
were well deserved. But you have 
not answered my question." 

There was a moment's hesita- 
tion, and then Pearl said, "Yes." 

" And if at any time, in any 
way, I can be of use to you or any 
one belonging to you life is full of 
these unlikely opportunities will 
you give me a friend's privilege and 
tell me of it ?" 

" I will." 

" Merci!" 

They were silent for a few min- 
utes, and then Captain Darvallon 
said : 

"You are rested. Shall we 
take another turn ?" 

He drew his arm round her, and 
they finished the waltz. Then he led 
her to a seat and stood beside her. 

11 Is it true," he said, " that Colo- 
nel Redacre thinks of applying for 
the appointment of military at- 
tache here or elsewhere ?" 

"No," said Pearl. "Who told 
you he did ?" 

" I thought Leopold said some- 
thing to that effect ; if it had been 
true I might have been of some 
little use." 

"There was talk at first of his 
trying for something at home, at 
the Horse Guards," continued 
Pearl ; " but I don't think he will 
do so now. As we are going to live 



in the country ; he could not take 
a situation in London if it were 
offered to him." 

" And your brothers are too 
young to be fit for anything of that 
sort, I believe?" 

" Oh ! yes ; they are much young- 
er than my sister and I." And 
Pearl swallowed a sigh. "What a 
pity I am not a boy ! I might get 
something to do at once to help 
them at home." 

" You will help them still better 
by staying at home." 

"I don't know that. I might 
earn some money if I went away." 

"At the Horse Guards? 1 am 
afraid you are not qualified." 

He smiled; Pearl laughed mer- 
rily. 

" No ; in a family. I might go 
out as governess. Perhaps I may 
write to you one of these days, 
and ask you to look out for a situ- 
ation for me. Will you, if I do?" 
She was laughing still; but every 
trace of merriment died out of M. 
Darvallon's face as she said this, 
looking up at him. 

" Mon Dieu ! Serait-ce possi- 
ble . . . ?" he murmured almost in- 
audibly. There was a look of pas- 
sionate pity in the dark gray eyes 
as he bent them on her that made 
Pearl drop hers, while a pang shot 
through her a pang of mingled 
anguish and joy, that filled her with 
a strange trouble. What was 
there in this Frenchman that had 
power so to move her? No one, 
not even her mother, had ever 
looked at her with that glance a 
glance that pierced her heart and 
drew it like a spell. 



3 20 



Pearl. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



AT BROOM HOLLOW. 



IN the early afternoon of a raw, 
rheumatic day the Redacres alight- 
ed at Lamford. It was a pretty 
rural station, with a canal flowing 
amidst fields on one side, and on 
the other a road where the willows 
ran into line, with rising slopes and 
trees beyond, and the church spire 
in the distance. 

The station-master recognized 
Mrs. Redacre, and came forward 
with alacrity to offer his services. 
Jacob Mills had ordered the fly to 
be in waiting, and he was there 
himself with the donkey-cart from 
the Hollow to take up the luggage. 
The village was on tiptoe to see 
the new family, and its leading men 
were on the platform, under cover 
of the luggage shed, to inspect 
them individually. There was Mr. 
Huddle, the butcher; and Mr. 
Needham, the baker; and Mr. Ho- 
ney, the grocer a worthy group of 
representatives, well clad, and com- 
petent to judge the new-comers, 
for they had large experience of 
real gentry, and could tell a gen- 
tleman by the cut of his coat. 

"At your service, ma'am," said 
Mills, touching his hat to Mrs. Red- 
acre. " Welcome to the 'Ollow, sir ! 
The fly is ready, sir, if you and the 
ladies will please to get in and 
leave me to look after the lug- 
gage." 

" All right, sir ! I will see to the 
luggage," said the station-master. 
" Allow me, miss !"' And he polite- 
ly relieved Pearl and Polly of their 
large silver-mounted leather bags. 

The Redacres were the only 
first-class passengers who had 
alighted ; but there were a good 
many second and third class ones, 



and these became at once an ob- 
ject of interest and curiosity to the 
spectators on the platform. No 
liveries were to be seen, but, com- 
ing such a long journey, the men 
would naturally have taken to the 
comfort of coats and mackintoshes. 

"Will your servants follow on 
foot, sir, or is the fly to come back 
for them?" inquired the station- 
master, taking the colonel's hat- 
box from him. 

" There are no servants/' said 
Colonel Redacre. 

" Oh ! they come by the late 
train, sir? I will see to them. 
Here, Mark, you carry these bags 
to the fly. Do you know how 
many boxes there are, sir?" 

"Only three," said Mrs. Red- 
acre : " two large gray ones and 
a long, flat black one. The others 
all come later ; we sent them by 
sea." 

"Oh! just so, ma'am. And the 
servants come down with them, I 
suppose ?" 

" No; there are no servants com- 
ing." 

The station-master had no com- 
ment ready for this unexpected an- 
nouncement ; but he quickly recov- 
ered from the shock, and jumped 
at the. conclusion that the new peo- 
ple had decided on keeping on the 
dean's old servants. Just at this 
moment he saw a woman, carrying 
a huge band-box, go up to the two 
young ladies and say something. 
It was merely to ask them for some 
local direction, and, finding they 
could not supply it, she turned at 
their suggestion to the station-mas- 
ter. 

" How are you going up ? Mills 






Pearl. 



321 



can take you with him in the don- 
key-cart, if you don't care to walk," 
said the station-master. 

"Who is Mills?" inquired the 
woman. 

" The gardener from Broom 'Ol- 
low. You are Mrs. Redacre's 
lady's maid, an't you ?" 

" No, I am not. I am nobody's 
maid," said the woman, greatly ot- 
fended. " I want to know where 
the inn is." 

" Oh ! I beg your pardon. Cross 
the road and turn to your right, 
and you will see the sign of the 
Hiron Duke straight ahead." 

Meantime the colonel and Mrs. 
Redacre and the two young ladies 
had made their way to the fly; 
there was clearly no one else on 
the platform who could be mistaken 
for the lady's maid, so the station- 
master concluded that functionary 
was also to be replaced in the es- 
tablishment. 

" It's uncommon queer, though," 
said Mr. Huddle ; " it looks as if 
there was a screw loose, folks like 
them comin' to a strange place, 
without a single body to speak t*> 
their hantecedents and tell one 
something about 'em. I don't like 
the look of it." 

And Mr. Honey and Mr. Need- 
ham agreed that neither did they 
like the look of it. 

" What does Mills say about 
'em?" said the grocer; "he must 
know if the dean's people are en- 
gaged." 

"Whatever Mills knows he keeps 
to himself," said the butcher ; "he 
is a close fellow. But I tell you I 
don't like the look of it." 

He walked off with this oracular 
remark, and the other two trades- 
men followed him. 

The fly crept slowly up the hill, 
which was steep enough, as Alice 
remembered, and the road was 

VOL XXVIII. 21 



heavy from recent rains ; but they 
soon reached the top of it, and she 
was on the watch for that turn 
which brought the house in view. 
The colonel knew it well, and was 
keeping an impatient look-out too. 
" There it is ! There it is, the 
old place ! Look, Polly ! Look 
Pearl !"he cried with a kindling eye, 
all his face alight with pleasure. 

" O papa ! how lovely it looks,' 
exclaimed Pearl. "I had no idea 
that it was in a valley that is, that 
one looked down on it from such a 
height as this. Does it not look a 
dear old place, Polly ?" 

"Yes; a delicious old place!" 
said Polly. And glancing at her 
mother, she felt a sudden impulse 
to throw her arms round her neck 
and kiss her. This was a signal 
for everybody else to do the same, 
so they kissed each other all round 
and were very happy. 

The gates had been left open by 
Mills, so the fly did not stop at the 
park, but drove right on, the well- 
laden horse going at a tremendous 
pace down the avenue. 

"There is a dog!" cried Pearl 
in delight, as a sharp, loud bark 
notified the presence of that mem- 
ber of the household; and present- 
ly out he came to the front gate, 
where he proceeded to execute a 
war-dance round the horse, making 
feints at his legs, and darting back 
with his fore paws in the air, all the 
time keeping up a furious accom- 
paniment of barks. 

"Proud to welcome you to the 
'Ollow, sir ! My duty to you, 
ma'am, and the young ladies !" 
said Mrs. Mills, dropping a series 
of curtseys, as she opened the door 
of the fly and stood back. 

"How do you do, Mrs. Mills? 
I am glad to see 'you here to wel- 
come us all," said Alice. 

" I'm proud to hear you say so, 



3 22 



Pearl. 



ma'am ! I hope you don't feel too 
tired from the journey, young la- 
dies? Please let me take your um- 
brella, sir. Get away, you naughty 
Fritz ! Don't put your paws on 
the ladies, or I'll teach you !" But 
clearly Fritz had no fear of Mrs. 
Mills' teaching, for he continued 
to jump and bark as if she had 
promised him a bone for his pains. 

" How delicious ! O mamma ! 
isn't it a delightful old hall? And 
look at all the funny swords and 
daggers! And such a lot of ani- 
mals! And what a glorious fire 
there is !" cried Pearl, as she rap- 
idly took in the surroundings, and 
then ran to the blazing hearth and 
held out her hands. 

" I thought you would like a 
good fire, ma'am; it makes the 
place look cheerful, the first thing," 
said Mrs. Mills, highly gratified to 
see the success of her preparations. 

" Quite right," said the colonel ; 
"nothinglike a jolly good blaze when 
one comes off a journey. And you 
have got something to eat for us, 
eh ?" 

" Yes, sir; I have a comfortable 
'igh tea, as the mistress ordered, 
and I hope you will all have an 
appetite for it, sir." 

** I will certainly," said the colo- 
nel, as he let her take his coat, and 
sat down before the fire ; " I am 
as hungry as a hunter, Mrs. Mills." 

" And a trifle tired, sir, I dare 
say ? It's a long journey, all the 
way from Paris." 

"Yes; and Balaklava has found 
it an uncommonly fatiguing one. 
You don't know Balaklava yet, 
Mrs. Mills ?" 

" No, sir ; but I hope soon to 
make the young gentleman's ac- 
quaintance. They both come down 
to-morrow, ma'am, you said ?" 

A peal of laughter answered this 
inquiry, while Mrs. Mills, slightly 



disconcerted, looked from the col- 
onel to the ladies, and from them 
to him, wondering what it meant. 

" Allow me to present Balaklava 
to you, Mrs. Mills !" said the col- 
onel, stretching out his wooden leg, 
and with his left hand he made a 
gesture of presentation. 

The others went off into another 
peal. But Mrs. Mills did not see 
it, and, as she afterwards told 
Jacob, she began to feel uncomfor- 
table, remembering about the mad- 
ness, and being quite in the dark as 
to what particular form it took with 
these relations of the dean's, over 
and above the craze about the ser- 
vants. 

" Colonel Redacre fought in the 
Crimean war, and lost his leg at the 
battle of Balaklava," said the hero's 
wife, with a touch of gentle pride. 
" I dare say you know all about 
that dreadful war, and how our 
poor soldiers suffered out there in 
Russia ?" 

" I have heard Jacob Mills tell 
of it out of the papers, ma'am; he 
is a fine scholar, is Mills," said Mrs. 
l^ills in a tone that seemed to say 
that soldiers' wives were not the 
only ones who had a right to 
boast. 

" Then perhaps he remembers 
reading about papa's leg in the list 
of wounded after the Balaklava 
charge," said Polly ; " we call the 
wooden leg Balaklava in remem- 
brance of the battle." 

"And a proud thing it is for you, 
miss, and the master himself, and 
all the family," said Mrs. Mills, re- 
assured as to the sanity of the com- 
pany in the present instance at any 
rate, and curtseying deferentially 
to the wooden limb, which the col- 
onel held stretched out towards the 
blaze, while he surveyed it with a 
certain angry complacency. 

But the girls were all impatience 






Pearl. 



323 



to see their rooms and to visit the 
house ; so when they had enjoyed 
the fire and got well warmed, they 
set off with Mrs. Mills to inspect 
every nook and corner. They 
were in raptures with everything, 
especially with their own bed-room ; 
their mother chose it for them a 
large, bright room, with two little 
snowy beds set side by side, and 
two deep windows where the east- 
ern sun would come in to wake 
them every morning. The walls 
wanted rehanging, and the cur- 
tains were faded, and the rest of 
the furniture had a corresponding 
care-worn look ; but the bright fire 
within and the broad landscape 
without made up for these deficien- 
cies, and the two girls in five min- 
utes had filled up every vacancy 
and adorned the shabby room with 
their absent little gods, pictures, 
and vases, and work-baskets and 
brackets, and books, and two chairs 
worked each for the other as birth- 
day gifts, and a boxful of knick- 
knacks that were to arrive with the 
heavy luggage in a few days. 

Their mother's room was the late 
dean's, and very comfortable it 
looked, though a little solemn in its 
crimson dress, the red stuff curtains 
matching the color of the walls; 
there was a spacious dressing-room 
off it, and beyond that the room 
that had been made ready for the 
boys. 

"I sha'n't have so much to do after 
all," said Polly " only three rooms 
and the five beds; that won't take 
me so long of a morning." 

"The boys must make their own 
beds," said Pearl. " I mean to 
keep them hard at work, I can tell 
you." 

"They won't like it," said Polly. 
" Yes they will ; and if they don't, 
so much the worse for them. But 
they are dear boys, and I'm sure 



they'll do all they can to help us. 
I mean to bully them if they don't." 
" Not you," said Polly ; "you are 
not capable of bullying a mouse." 
And she threw her arms round 
Pearl and kissed her, looking lov- 
ingly into the brown eyes. 

"We must settle it between our- 
selves about the work," said Pearl. 
" Mamma will want to be doing all 
sorts of things ; but, of course, we 
won't let her. We will let her or- 
der, and keep the accounts, and do 
any amount of mending, but we 
mustn't let her do anything to tire 
herself." 

" And how about the cooking ?" 
said Polly. " You'll never be able 
to do it, Pearl !" 

" You see if I won't. I learnt a 
whole heap of things from old Fan- 
chette ; and Mrs. Monteagle's cook 
put me up to a good many econo- 
mical little ways and devices, and 
I have a capital cookery book that 
I can refer to when I want to at- 
tempt anything out of the common. 
But we sha'n't indulge much in 
plats monies, I expect," she added, 
laughing; "what I have been di- 
recting my genius to is the artistic 
arrangement of cold meat and vege- 
tables, and the manufacture of 
soups ; papa must have soup every 
day. You see if I don't do 
Fanchette credit ! I like Mrs. Mills ; 
don't you ? I think she is a bit of 
a character." 

" I wonder what she thinks of 
us?" said Polly. " I dare say she de- 
spises us ; or perhaps she thinks 
we are out of our minds. I shouldn't 
wonder if she set papa down as a 
1 hodd gentleman ' like the dean. 
Did you notice how scared she 
looked when he introduced Bala- 
klava to her?" 

u No wonder; papa looked so 
comically solemn," Pearl laughed. 

" I hope he is not going to be 



324 



Pearl. 



awfully bored," said Polly; "he 
will find it so dull, poor papa !" 

" No, he won't ; he will have the 
boys to teach and to look after. I 
hope they won't be very unmanage- 
able!" Pearl was conscious of a 
certain terror as the memory of 
past holidays came back on her, 
with all she had gone through to 
stand between the boys and the 
colonel in many a mad prank. 

" I wonder what sort of people 
the neighbors are ?" said Polly. 
" Dreadfully slow, I fancy ; but we 
will soon be able to judge for our- 
selves; they will all be coming to 
a call one of these days. I wish 
they would not come till the boxes 
arrive and we have made the place 
look habitable." 

" There don't seem to be many 
within calling distance," said Pearl. 
"Lady Wynmere lives alone, and 
Squire Barlow has only a wife and 
two daughters ; the rector's is a 
large family, but they are nearly 
all in the school-room or away at 
college. I don't see who else there 
is near." 

"No," said Polly; " and there is 
not much fun to be got out of any 
of them, as far as I can^see. And 
such a lot of women! Papa won't 
have any one to come and smoke 



with him and talk politics. He'll 
be bored to death, poor papa." 

But Pearl felt that a good deal of 
this commiseration for poor papa 
was intended for poor Polly herself, 
and the prospect of a dull life for 
Polly, and its probable effect upon 
her, preoccupied anxious Pearl 
more than similar fears for her 
father. 

" He will have plenty to do," 
she said; "he won't be a bit bor- 
ed, unless he sees we are, and 
that is not likely. O Polly! isn't 
it a blessing to be here in this 
nice house and all together, in- 
stead of poking somewhere in 
misery in a town, and I away as a 
governess! When I think of 
what might be and what is, I feel 
I could cry for thankfulness." 

" Yes ; but one can't forget what 
might have been and what is not," 
said Polly, dropping her voice. 

Pearl threw her arms round her, 
and, putting her lips close to her 
sister's ear, " You must forget that," 
she said; "if you keep thinking of 
that, Polly, we shall both be misera- 
ble ; if you love me, promise me to 
forget it." 

"I will try," said Polly in a 
choking voice, and she let Pearl kiss 
her, scarcely returning the caress. 



TO BE CONTINUED. 



The American Nov.el With Samples. 



325 



THE AMERICAN NOVEL WITH SAMPLES. 



I 



WHEN the poems of the late 
William Cullen Bryant were first 
published in England, the preface 
to the volume was written by 
Washington Irving. He said that 
Mr. Bryant's verse was " imbued 
with the independent spirit and the 
buoyant aspirations incident to a 
youthful, a free, and a rising coun- 
try." In reviewing the same vol- 
ume Christopher North, whose pen 
was so often dipped in gall for 
British poets, dipped it in honey 
for the American. 

" Many of the most delightful poems 
in this volume," he wrote, "have been 
inspired by a profound sense of the 
sanctity of the affections. That love 
which is the support and solace of the 
heart in all the duties and distresses of 
this life is sometimes painted by Mr. 
Bryant in its purest form and brightest 
colors, as it beautifies and blesses the 
solitary wilderness. The delight that 
has filled his own being, from the faces 
of his own- family, he transfuses into the 
hearts of the creatures of his imagina- 
tion as they wander through the woods 
or sit singing in front of their forest- ( 
bowers. Remote as these creatures are ' 
from the haunts and habits of our com- 
mon civilized life, they rise before us at 
once with the strange beauty of visionary 
phantoms, and with a human loveliness, 
that touch with a mingled charm our 
fancy and our heart. Our poetic and our 
human sensibilities are awakened to- 
gether." 

There is much in this that seems 
a fit characterization of our Amer- 
ican novel literature. It is certain- 
ly " imbued with the independent 
spirit and the buoyant aspirations 
incident to a youthful, a free, and 
a rising country." Most of our 
thoroughly popular novels are ex- 
tremely independent independent, 
perhaps, of life itself; often un- 



deniably independent of English 
grammar; and independent, alas! 
of Christian morals. They are full 
of the " buoyant aspirations " of a 
country young, free, and rising; but, 
unfortunately, those of our national 
infancy were better than their suc- 
cessors Cooper and Hawthorne 
have not been equalled. It may 
not be true that many of our cur- 
rent romances have been inspired 
" by a profound sense of the 
sanctity of the affections," although 
to illustrate affections is their com- 
monly-pretended aim; nor do our 
living novelists paint domestic life 
in " its purest form and brightest 
colors "; but no one who has read a 
dozen or two of these marvellous 
books will have the hardihood to 
deny that they are full of imaginary 
creatures, " remote from the haunts 
and habits of our common civilized 
life," and that by a diligent perusal 
of the description of their haunts 
and habits " our poetic and human 
sensibilities are awakened toge- 
ther." 

Nor is this a 

We cannot laugh at the American 
novel, for more reasons than one. 
Fiction constitutes three-fourths of 
the people's reading. Not women's 
eyes, but novels, 

" Are the books, the arts, the academes 
That show, contain, and nourish all the world." 

The American novel is the only 
really popular book in this repub- 
lic. Whether it be in yellow covers 
and sold for a half-dime; whether 
it assume a long-drawn serial form, 
and appear weekly in a hebdoma- 
dal consecrated to sensational ro- 
mance and wood-cuts; whether it 



326 



The American Novel With Samples. 



appear in a more pretentious style, 
and reach the circulating libraries 
in gaudy binding, with several 
pages of flattering "press notices," 
the novel is the only universal 
book among the American readers. 
Hundreds of thousands never read 
anything else. The records of all 
our public libraries show beyond 
dispute the magnitude of this kind 
of gormandizing. The newspaper 
is charged with deterring people 
from buying books because it 
leaves no time for their enjoyment ; 
but neither the best newspaper nor 
the worst has reduced the con- 
sumption of novels. The publish- 
ing business has felt severely the 
general depression of the period ; 
novels have been considered the 
only safe goods to put on the mar- 
ket. The New England deacon 
told a curious visitor that they 
were not sure whether they would 
use the proceeds of their church 
fair to buy an ice-cream freezer or 
a hearse; no such vacillation from 
gay to grave, from lively to severe, 
has embarrassed the book-makers. 
" Learning hath gained most by 
those books by which the printers 
have lost " ; but printers must not 
be expected in these straining times 
to live a chivalrous life toward 
learning. They must not be ex- 
pected to print books to lose upon 
in order that learning may be the 
gainer. Novels are the only books 
on which printers have not lost. 
Their sale has scarcely been affect- 
ed by the protracted panic. In all 
the trade-sales and book-auctions 
of the last few years the counters 
were freighted with contributions 
to science, to art, to humanity ; 
there were few or no novels among 
them. The novel has no middle 
fate. It either sells " hot " or goes 
into the waste-paper room. Ameri- 
can publishers of metropolitan ex- 



perience have learned the public 
taste in romance so well that they 
make now few blunders in accept- 
ing manuscripts. Novels, if at all 
tolerable, are accepted, and with 
these the literary market is kept 
well stocked. 

A caustic Englishwoman remark- 
ed to the writer that "in America 
people do two things : the men ex- 
pectorate and the women write 
novels." The men, alas! write 
novels too, and the country is not 
much the better for them ; but the 
great mass of American romance is 
made by women, and, with few ex- 
ceptions, and those not extraordi- 
nary, the novels written by Ameri- 
can women are bad. If the moral- 
ity be not open to the severest cen- 
sure, the literary style is atrocious. 
If the characters be not condemna- 
ble for depravity falsely painted as 
heroism or excused as eccentricity, 
they are insufferable for their dul- 
ness. If the ideals be not heathen- 
ish, the reality is so far out of na- 
ture as to be beyond the pale of 
civilization. The supposed aim of 
the maker of fiction " tha't morality 
of effect shall result from truth of 
representation " is not apparent 
in any popular American novel. 
Out of the general slovenliness of 
the work no truth of representa- 
tion can be made to appear ; out 
of the general ignorance of. and 
indifference to, moral philosophy 
there can be no morality of effect. 
Many a gilded hero who in actual 
life would be properly considered 
a brutal clown in gentleman's cloth- 
ing, is set up by women novelists 
as a society deity in a shrine for 
the worship of women votaries. 
Many an episode which, in real 
life, even the least sensitive of vir- 
tuous people would condemn under 
one or other of the Ten Command- 
ments, when recounted in one of 



The American Novel With Samples. 



327 



these frivolous romances appears 
quite consistent with lofty recti- 
tude. The fact is, most women's 
novels are written without any re- 
gard to actual life. There is no 
intention, no conscious design, of 
holding the mirror up to na- 
ture. If the gallant be of the 
good type, heaven contains no an- 
gel of brighter lustre; he becomes 
a minister and marries a heroine 
equally supernal and impossible. 
If a robust type be preferred, he 
is driven remorselessly on to the 
commission of offences for which, 
in real life, men are very properly 
thrust into jail ; yet for these very 
offences he is represented as lova-' 
ble in the highest degree, and 
many women's hearts (strictly sup- 
posititious hearts) are cast at his 
brutal feet. A New England boy 
was chid by his father for absence 
from " Sabbath " school. Jack re- 
plied, " Oh ! the cannibal and pirate 
books have arrived at the library, 
and I shall go ever*y Sunday now." 
A very large number of our popu- 
lar novels are of the cannibal and 
pirate kind, although they are not 
classified as juveniles. A man 
could scarcely fall into the error 
of drawing a profane pugilist and 
imagining that women would ad- 
mire him as an Apollo ; but women 
novelists do this strange thing with 
surprising assiduity. -Among cer- 
tain semi-civilized tribes a wife is 
said to measure the intensity of her 
husband's affection by the frequen- 
cy of his blows. Some of our wo- 
men romancers would have us be- 
lieve that brutality in man is the 
trait most cherished by the gentle 
and timid sex. 

St. Elmo is the master-novel of 
this class. There have been many 
attempts at imitating it, with only 
moderate success. It remains un- 
equalled ; let us hope that its su- 



periority shall continue without a 
rival. It stands at the head of 
American novels written by wo- 
men, if we judge it by inherent 
vigor and uniform popularity. " By 
merit raised to that bad eminence " 
it presents itself to the analytical 
mind as a most amazing conglome- 
ration of encyclopaedic rubbish and 
muscular brutality, tempered by 
absurd incidents, impossible wo- 
manly heroism, and the snivelling 
cant of a false morality. Like the 
style there is nothing in English 
or any other literature. Like the 
hero there is nothing in mankind. 
Like the plot there never was any- 
thing in nature, and never can be. 
Like the hero, the style is without 
a model, and happily is not in the 
least likely to prove one. It is a 
laughable mixture of bombast, 
pedantry, and the incomprehensi- 
ble. Encyclopsedias are spilled in- 
to it in heavy heterogeneousness. 
Metaphors jostle each other with 
pokes and pushes, and similes 
tickle each other in the ribs and 
giggle at their own incongruity. 
All history, all art, all industry, all 
speculation, all fancy, are remorse- 
lessly shovelled into one great 
caldron of ink, out of which an 
audacious pen constructs a unique 
style. After reading a dozen pages 
Hecate and the witches force them- 
selves upon the mind's vision : 

" Eye of newt and toe of frog, 
Wool of bat and tongue of dog," 
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting, 
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing. 



Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, 
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf 
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark, 
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark, 
Liver of blaspheming Jew, 
Gall of goat, and slips of yew 
Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse, 
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips." 

Out of some such distillation was 
the style of this appalling fiction 
formed. In the first chapter we 



328 



The American Novel With Samples. 



have a twelve-year-old girl singing 
the "words of the prophet upon 
3higionoth " to " a strange, wild, 
anomalous tune, solemn as the He- 
brew chant of Deborah and fully as 
triumphant," while she held a pail of 
water on her head " in an ancient 
classic Caryatides attitude." " The 
young face " " might have served 
as a model for a pictured Syriac 
priestess one of Baalbec's vestals, 
ministering in the olden time in 
that wondrous and grand temple 
at Heliopolis." Moreover, this 
Deborah, this Caryatid, this phe- 
nomenon, this Syriac priestess, 
" could not fail to recall to even 
casual observers the calm, power- 
ful face of Lorenzo de' Medici, 
which, if once looked on, fastens 
itself upon the heart and brain, to 
be forgotten no more " ; but so 
sudden are these breath-taking 
transitions ! her hair was ." black 
and straight as an Indian's," and 
she was dressed, this Syriac priest- 
ess and suggester of Lorenzo the 
Magnificent, in " a short-sleeved 
dress of yellow-striped homespun " ! 
And the reader must not fail to 
note that this vestal of Baalbec, 
with a " cedar pail " of water on 
her head it was a cedar pail did 
not remind the author of any of 
the other Medicis (of Ludovico or 
Alessandro, of Cosmo the Elder or 
Cosmo the Great, of Giovanni the 
general or Ippolito the cardinal), 
but of Lorenzo il magnified per- 
haps because, in addition to hav- 
ing a cedar pail of water on her 
head and being in a short-sleeved 
dress of yellow-striped homespun, 
her companion was a yellow dog, " a 
large, fierce yellow dog, with black, 
scowling face and ears cut close to 
his head " ! In the next chapter 
" it was a bright day in January," 
and this wonderful girl's grand- 
father, a village blacksmith, was 



smoking, sitting on his porch. The 
priestess of Baalbec " tied her pink 
calico bonnet under her chin," 
" buttoned his shirt-collar " 
thoughtful phenomenon ! " and 
bounded away in search of " 
what ? Some wonderful treasure 
of antiquity? No, " the cow, who 
often strayed so far off that she was 
despatched to bring her home." 
The succeeding passage must not 
be broken by such rude disturbers 
as partial quotation, hyphen, and 
interjection: 

" In the grand, peaceful, solemn woods, 
through which the wintry wind now 
sighed in a soothing monotone, the 
child's spirit reached an exaltation 
which, had she lived two thousand years 
earlier, and roamed amid the vales and 
fastnesses of classic Arcadia, would have 
vented itself in dithyrambics to the great 
' Lord of the Hyle,' the Greek 'All,' the 
horned and hoofed god, Pan. In every 
age, and among all people, from the 
Parsee devotees and the Gosains of In- 
dia to the pantheism of Bruno, Spinoza, 
and New England's ' Illuminati ' Na- 
ture has been apotheosized ; and the 
heart of the blacksmith's untutored dar- 
ling stirred with the same emotions of 
awe and adoration which thrilled the 
worshippers of Hertha when the veiled 
chariot stood in Helgeland, and which 
made the groves and grottoes of Phry- 
gia sacred to Dindymene. . . . The sun 
had gone down when she rose and hur- 
ried on in search of the cow /" 

The man who would write in 
this manner would be at once sat 
upon by a jiify de lunatic o ; but let 
us give women and poets license 
and hurry on after the cow a 
priestess of Baalbec, with Lorenzo 
the Magnificent's head, going after 
the cow : 

"The shadows of a winter evening 
gathered in the forest and climbed like 
trooping spirits up the rocky mountain 
side ; and as she plunged deeper and 
deeper into the woods, the child be- 
gan " 

One would anticipate a recita- 



The American NovelWith Samples. 



329 






tion of the quarrel between the 
Greeks about Briseis, but it is only 
" a wild cattle call." 

This is, to say the least, ambi- 
guous. Was the call " wild," or 
was it a call to " wild cattle "? The 
doubt is insoluble ; anyhow, " the 
old cow recognized her summons." 
She drove Brindle the cow's name 
was " Brindle " home before her, 
" merrily singing " no longer a 
" wild cattle cry," but, strange to 
relate, " singing her rude Ranz des 
Vaches" and suddenly, and in de- 
fiance of almanac regulations and 
weather records, " the moon rose 
full and round." Now, the moon 
was not there without " business," 
as the stage manager would say. 
The " business " of this round, full 
moon, which rose without a mo- 
ment's warning, like a moon made 
of a candle behind the hole in the 
.scene, was to show the old black- 
smith dead. 

The girl passed a bad night, 
which is scarcely to be wondered 
at under the circumstances, and 
for an "untutored child" her 
nightmare was astounding : 

" In delirious visions she saw her 
grandfather now struggling in the grasp 
of Phlegyas, and now writhing in the 
fiery tomb of Uberti, with jets of flame 
leaping through his white hair " 

From which it is to be inferred 
that the child had grave doubts 
about the eternal destiny of her 
good protector. Kind friends 
propose to take the phenomenon 
away to a distant home, and she 
insists on having the short-eared 
yellow dog with her, for one of 
two purposes : to let the author 
say that in the railroad coach the 
brute looked as " hideously savage 
as the Norse Managarmar," or to 
kill him in the accommodating ca- 
tastrophe which quickly followed. 



For while Edna was recalling, as 
the train sped, how she had clam- 
bered over the disappearing moun- 
tains " as fearlessly as the young 
llamas of the Parime," there was 
a succession of shrill sounds ; and 
at the end of the third chapter the 
casualties sum up as follows : a 
duel, four deaths, a railroad acci- 
dent in which many corpses, in- 
cluding the yellow dog's, were left 
behind, and Edna is " severely but 
not dangerously" injured. The 
dead and the debris out of the way, 
the young heroine is convalescent 
in the house of Mrs. Murray, a 
wealthy lady, who has a stately 
form, "polished hauteur" and a 
son a beautiful hero, who,* the au- 
thor assures us, is " a gentleman": 
". . . A gentleman strode into the 
room. At sight of Edna he stop- 
ped suddenly, and, dropping a bag 
of game on the floor, exclaimed 
harshly : 

" ' What the does this 

mean ?' " 

This "gentleman," profane in 
his mother's presence and to a 
sick little girl, " was a tall, athletic 
man, not exactly young, yet cer- 
tainly not elderly ; one of ano- 
malous appearance, prematurely 
old " ; his mouth " wore a chronic 
savage sneer, as if it only opened 
to utter jeers and curses." Per- 
haps the reader's acumen may be 
able to find out something about 
the fellow from this bit of- lucid de- 
scription: 

" Symmetrical and grand as that tem- 
ple of Juno, in shrouded Pompeii, whose 
polished shafts gleamed centuries ago 
in the morning sunshine of a day of woe, 
whose untimely night has endured for 
nineteen hundred years, so, in the glo- 
rious flush of his youth, this man had 
stood facing a noble and possibly a 
sanctified future ; but the ungovernable 
flames of sin had reduced him, like that 
darkened and desecrated fane, to a mel- 



330 



The American Novel Wilh Samples. 



ancholy mass of ashy arches and black- 
ened columns, where ministering priests, 
all noly aspirations, slumbered in the 
dust .... He -wore a straw hat . . . /" 

The effort to fit a straw hat and 
a pair of muddy boots to a mel- 
ancholy mass of ashy arches and 
blackened columns will not reward 
protracted toil. He continued to 
insult and abuse the child and his 
mother to the end of the chapter, 
where this description of the hero 
is given by a negro servant to Ed- 
na: 

" Whatever else you do, be sure not to 
cross Mass Elmo's path ! Keep out of 
his way, and he will keep out of yours ; 
for he is shy of strangers, and would 
walk a mile to keep from meeting any- 
body ; but if he finds you in his way he 
will walk roughshod right over you 
trample you. Nothing ever stops him 
one minute when he makes up his mind. 
He does not even wait to listen to his mo- 
ther, and she is about the only person 
who dares to talk to him. He hates 
everybody and everything, but he doesn't 
tread on folks' toes unless they are 
where they don't belong.'! (Generous 
soul !) " He is like a rattlesnake that 
crawls in his own track and bites every- 
thing that meddles or crosses his trail. 
Above everything, child, for the love of 
peace and heaven, don't argue with 
him ! If he says black is white, don't 
contradict him ; and if he swears water 
runs up stream, let him swear, and don't 
know it runs down. Keep out of his 
sight, and you will do well enough ; but 
once make him mad, and you!d better 
fight Satan hand-to-hand with red-hot 
pitch-forks ! . . ." 

This lovely gentleman is the pos- 
sessor of unbounded wealth, of 
course and a dog. This animal and 
the other, his master, furnish this 
gentle episode, of which Edna is the 
witness. St. Elmo leaped from his 
horse, seized the dog by the heavy 
brass collar, hurled him back on 
his haunches, and held him thus, 
giving vent the while to a volley of 
oaths : 



" Pointing to a large, half- decayed elm 
branch lying at a little distance, he tight- 
ened his grasp on the collar, and said to 
the still trembling girl : 

" ' Bring me that stick yonder." 
" Edna complied, and there ensued a 
scene of cursing, thrashing, and howling 
that absolutely sickened her" 

but not the author's encyclopae- 
dia, for the poor brute looked " as 
ferocious as the hounds of Gian Ma- 
ria Visconti, fed with human flesh 
by Squarcia Giramo." Edna at last 
interfered in pity : 

"' ! how dare 3'ou interfere? 

What is it to you if I cut his throat, as I 
mean to do ?' " 

He further assures the child that 
it would serve her right if he should 

"let the dog tear her limb from 
limb." She protests that the dog 
does not know how to behave any 
better. The " gentleman " answers : 

" Then, , I'll teach him !" 

The dog is at last released, and 
Edna tells St. Elmo that she is sorry 
for him. " Sorry for me ?" exclaims 
the noble knight. "For me ? Me 
the owner of as many thousands 
as there are hairs on your head ? 
Keep your pity for your poverty- 
stricken, vagrant self! Why the 
deuce are you sorry for me ?" 

The reader is by this time pre- 
pared for the announcement that 
Edna, when the proper period ar- 
rived, fell madly in love with St. 
Elmo, that he became a minister, 
and they were married, of course. 
Another specimen of the author's 
style, and we let this " great Amer- 
ican novel " go. This is St. Elmo's 
room : 

"Timidly she crossed the threshold, 
and stood within on the checkered floor, 
whose polished tiles glistened under the 
glare of gas from bronze brackets repre- 
senting Telamones, that stood at regular 
intervals around the apartment. The 
walls were painted in Saracenic style, 



The American Novel With Samples. 



331 



and here and there hung specimens of 
Oriental armor Turcoman cimeters, 
Damascus swords, Bedouin lances, and 
a crimson silk flag, with heavy gold 
fringe, surmounted by a crescent. The 
cornice of the lofty arched ceiling was 
elaborately arabesque, and as Edna 
looked up she saw through the glass 
roof the flickering of stars in the summer 
sky. In the centre of the room, imme- 
diately under the dome, stretched a bil- 
liard-table" (was it gaping and sleepy?), 
" and near it was a circular one of black 
marble, inlaid with red onyx and lapis 
lazuli, which formed a miniature zodiac 
similar to that at Denderah, while in the 
middle of this table sat a small Murano 
hour-glass, filled with sand from the 
dreary valley of El Ghor. A huge plas- 
ter Trimurti stood close. to the wall, on 
a triangular pedestal of black rock, and 
the Siva-face and the writhing cobra con- 
fronted all who entered. Just opposite 
grinned a red granite slab with a quaint 
basso-rilievo taken from the ruins of 
Elora. Near the door were two silken 
divans, and a richly carved urn three 
feet high " (by actual measurement, 
doubtless !), " which had once ornament- 
ed the fagade of a tomb in the royal days 
of Petr'a, ere the curse fell on Edom, now 
stood in an in memoriam of the original 
Necropolis," etc. 

The temptation to quote is al- 
most irrepressible, but we have 
reached only p. 79 in a volume of 
nearly six hundred, and St. Elmo, 
who had " stranded his life and was 
recklessly striding to his grave," 
must give place to a hero of a dif- 
ferent type " Christopher New- 
man," the "leading gentleman " in 
that much-admired and generously- 
lauded novel, The American, by 
Mr. Henry James, Jr. 

It will be hotly urged by Mr. 
James' friends, who are more nu- 
merous than his critics, that in TJie 
American we have just the counter- 
type to St. Elmo j that the essence 
of the story is natural, the style 
vivacious and simple, the action 
rapid but not turgid and confusing, 
the situations probable, the effects 
logical, the outcome rational. Per- 



haps the harshest thing which can 
be said of tip is book is simply that 
it is- not interesting ; the publishers' 
ledger undoubtedly confirms this 
more than suspicion. We take it 
as an illustration of the better class 
of American novels ; not as a popu- 
lar novel, for it lacks that vitaliza- 
tion of interest which is essential 
to popular success. That Mr. 
James has talent for writing fiction 
is apparent from others of his ef- 
forts as well as from this ; and it is 
criticism which he needs to spur 
him into a more artistic use of his 
gifts. Matthew Arnold insists that 
the rule of true and fruitful Eng- 
lish criticism maybe summed up in 
a word disinterestedness. The 
treatment which The American re- 
ceived from our home critics dis- 
played so little of this quality that 
we trust we shall not be accused of 
endeavoring to make up the defi- 
ciency. Mr. James' novel, judged 
by the standard set up at the out- 
set that " morality of effect shall 
follow from truth of representa- 
tion " must be ranked low. That 
it contains much accuracy of rep- 
resentation is true ; that much of it 
is vague, sketchy work, as dim in 
the author's comprehension as to 
the reader's perception, is also 
true ; and the clearest truth of all 
is that its effect is wholly aside 
from morality. It would be unfair 
to say that its effect is immoral; 
but a book without a positive effect 
one way or the other must be 
weak as a work of art, inefficient, 
and without an aim. What is the 
aim of The American ? It is im- 
possible to say. Not to inculcate 
any lesson of morals. To improve 
the manners of Americans abroad ? 
That were worthy of an American 
novelist; but the average reader 
is either so little disposed to analy- 
sis that he (or she, more often) 



332 



The American Novel With Samples. 



will see nothing in the language, 
the attitudes, the ambition, the 
motives of Mr. Christopher New- 
man to censure and avoid ; or the 
intended effect will be lost upon 
those keen enough to be amused by 
Mr. Newman's " pertinacious au- 
dacity," for such readers are too 
keen to read the book through, ex- 
cept in a flippant and careless way. 
It has not plot enough to hold an 
habitual novel-reader. Newman 
ceased attending school at twelve 
years of age; he served through 
the war and came out of it a gene- 
ral, of course ; he had no money, 
no friends, and, conveniently for 
the author, no relatives. He went 
to San Francisco penniless, and 
amassed a fortune with great speed. 
He goes to Paris to " be amused " 
and to buy a wife a " great wo- 
man." This is scarcely according 
to life. The American, no matter 
how quickly he makes his money, 
never thinks of going away from 
his own country to get a wife. 
Newman made his money on wash- 
tubs, and falls in love the author 
would have us so believe with a 
widow, whose eyes " were both 
gentle and intelligent, and New- 
man liked them immensely." This 
may be "simple" style! Here is 
the lady : 

" Newman stood a moment and then 
he approached Mme. de Cintre. She 
looked up at him as if she were thinking 
of something to say. But she seemed 
to think of nothing, so she simply smil- 
ed. He sat down near her, and she 
handed him a cup of tea. For a few 
moments they talked about that, and 
meanwhile he looked at her. He re- 
membered what Mrs. Tristram had told 
him of her perfection, and of her having, 
in combination, all the brilliant things 
that he dreamed of finding. This made 
him observe her not only without mis- 
trust but without uneasy conjectures." 

Why ? 
" The presumption, from the first mo- 



ment he looked at her, had been in her 
favor. And yet, if she was beautiful, it 
was not a dazzling beauty. She was 
tall and moulded in long lines ; she had 
thick, fair hair, a wide forehead, and 
features with a sort of harmonious irre- 
gularity. Her clear gray eyes were 
strikingly expressive ; and they were 
both gentle and intelligent, and Newman 
liked them immensely ; but they had not 
those depths of splendor, those many- 
colored rays which illumine the brow of 
famous beauties. Mme. de Cintre was 
rather thin, and she looked younger 
than she probably was. In her whole 
person there was something both youth- 
ful and subdued, slender and yet ample, 
tranquil yet shy a mixture of immaturi- 
ty and repose, of innocence and dignity." 

Does anybody know now what 
madame looked like ? Is there any 
evidence in this description to jus- 
tify anybody, even Newman, in 
falling in love with her ? Madame 
was the daughter of the Marquise 
de Bellegarde, who had two sons, 
one of whom, Valentin, is kijled in 
a duel, after partly revealing to 
Newman that his mother and bro- 
ther killed his father in order to 
compel his sister to marry De Cin- 
tre, who died in a couple of years. 
The Bellegardes, despising New- 
man, but anxious to sell the widow 
to him, at first consented to the 
marriage, then changed their minds. 
She was wholly under their con- 
trol, and went into a Carmelite 
convent a serious step much easi- 
er to take in fiction than in fact. 
He obtained from an old English 
servant of the family a dying de- 
claration by the marquis that ma 
dame had killed him, and with this 
Newman attempted what in fact 
would be called blackmail. He 
threatened the De Bellegardes that 
he would show the paper to their 
acquaintances if they did not re- 
store Mme. de Cintre to him. In 
the management of this part of his 
plot, "if plot it may be called," 






The American Novel With Samples. 



Mr. James shows nothing but fee- 
bleness. If Newman believed Mme. 
de Bellegarde guilty of the heinous 
offence charged, it was his duty to 
place the facts in the hands of the 
police. Morality would have de- 
manded that. If he did not be- 
lieve her guilty, what a brutal cow- 
ard was he not to taunt an old 
woman with so atrocious an accu- 
sation, and threaten to blacken her 
among her friends ! But the au- 
thor intends that we shall believe 
madame guilty, and that we shall 
understand that Newman so consi- 
dered her. Yet he used her crime 
only as a threat for the furtherance 
of his personal ends, and when he 
found that this could do him no 
good he destroyed the murdered 
man's statement. Thus there was 
neither Christian morality nor what 
the unchristian world calls "hon- 
or " in Newman's conduct. This 
man is represented as uneducated, 
clownish, given to profanity and 
"slang" and to stretching out of 
his legs; but manly, independent, 
generous, chivalrous. Some of the 
blame might be removable from his 
conduct could the plea be made 
that, although he held madame 
guilty, he had too much affection 
for her daughter to expose a crime 
whose disgrace would extend over 
the entire family. He did not keep 
the secret. He told a gossipy wo- 
man that the paper which he burn- 
ed in her presence contained some- 
thing which would " damn them if 
it were known." 

" ' Is it very bad, this secret?' 

'" Yes, very bad.' 

" ' For myself,' said Mrs. Tristram, ' I 
am sorry you have given it up. I should 
have liked immensely to see your paper. 
They have wronged me, too, you know, 
as your sponsor and guarantee, and it 
would have served for my revenge as 
well. How did you come into posses- 
sion of your secret?' j.^s 



333 

' ' It's a long story, but honestly at 
any rate.' 

And they knew you were master of 
it?" 

'"Oh! I told them.' 

' ' Dear me, how interesting !' cried 
Mrs. Tristram. ' And you humbled them 
at your feet?' 

" Newman was silent a moment. ' No, 
not at all. They pretended not to care 
not to be afraid. But I know they did 
care ; they were afraid.' 

" 'Are you very sure?' 
' ' Newman stared a moment. ' Yes, 
I'm sure.' 

" Mrs. Tristram resumed her slow 
stitches. ' They defied you, eh ?' 

' Yes,' said Newman, * it was about 
that.' 

" ' You tried by the threat of exposure 
to make them retract?' Mrs. Tristram 
pursued. 

" ' Yes, but they wouldn't. I gave 
them their choice, and they chose to 
take their chance of bluffing off the 
charge and convicting me of fraud. But 
they were frightened,' Newman added, 
' and I have had all the vengeance I 
want.' " 



How much reputation the Belle- 
gardes had left after Mrs. Tristram 
had finished retailing the story of 
Newman's burnt paper and griev- 
ous innuendo the author does not 
tarry to tell, for at this point the 
story ends. There is nothing in 
The American to improve anybody's 
morals or manners ; and the style, 
as an illustration of American pro- 
gress in literary art, is not likely to 
bring us credit. The conception 
of the story is wanting in breadth, 
clearness, vigor, life; there is not 
a gentleman or lady between its 
covers ; and foreigners, reading it 
as a representative American novel, 
would be sorely puzzled to know if 
Newman, whom Mr. James charac- 
terizes as not only "a fine Ameri- 
can " but also " a fine man," is a 
good specimen of our national 
manhood. He is asked if this is 
his " first time in Europe," and an- 
swers, "Yes, very much so"; he 



334 



The American Novel With Samples. 



describes a hack in which he had 
been riding as " having a greasy 
line along the top of the drab 
: cushions, as if it had been used for 
a great many Irish funerals " ; and 
when asked whether he desired a 
wife of a particular nationality, the 
" fine American " answers, " No 
Irish need apply." To make his 
success in life " perfect " he wants 
to see "a beautiful woman perched 
on the pile " ; he is sure that if 
people "notice my wife and ad- 
mire her " " I shall be mightily 
tickled "; and his figures of speech 
are drawn from the prize-ring and 
other equally refined associations. 
Mr. James does not intend to use 
for himself the careless language 
which he habitually sputters out of 
the mouth of his fine American. 
He says that Newman in the pre- 
sence of women was neither shy 
nor a\Vkward : " Grave, attentive, 
submissive, often silent, he was 
simply swimming in a sort of rapture 
of respect." 

We have given this book more 
space than it is entitled to ; yet it 
has been proclaimed as one of the 
very best American novels ever 
written. To be sure this is saying 
little; but before laying it aside 
is it not pardonable to inquire 
whether the bad types of our men 
and women are t not caricatured 
enough by foreigners ; whether it is 
commendable in American authors 
not merely to lampoon the national 
foibles which ought to be lam- 
pooned, but to paint an illiterate 
and audacious gawk in a pretend- 
edly fine frame and label him a re- 
presentative American ? A good 
specimen of the sturdy, honest, and 
peculiar American is " Robert 
Pagebrook " in Mr. George Gary 
Eggleston's A Man of Honor. 

Rutledge, which has held a 
prominent place among novels for 



twenty years and has never been 
permitted to go out of print, so 
constant is the demand for it, is 
of the St. Elmo class, but the hero 
is silent and incomprehensible in- 
stead of being a roaring blasphem- 
er. Like St.* Elmo, he is for years 
in love with a girl twenty years his 
junior, and does not let the fact 
out until almost the finale. The 
morality of the book is quite as ob- 
jectionable as its style. The scene 
is laid exclusively among what we 
are frequently assured is " aristo- 
cratic " New York society ; the 
personages who play the principal 
roles in the drama are presumably 
educated in their native language, 
since an ostentatious display is 
made of their accomplishments in 
foreign tongues; yet we read that 
Miss Josephine "looked charming- 
ly " until we wonder what it was 
she looked charmingly at ; and 
that Mr. Somebody " enjoyed vast- 
ly " something until we are puz- 
zled to know in what page of the 
finite dictionary he acquired his 
vastness ; and the heroine was 
" feeling awkwardly," and she, a 
paragon of attainments in English 
and French, arouses our amaze- 
ment with the question, " Who did 
she ask ?" The unusual reward 
bestowed upon the unnamed hero- 
ine is as out of nature as it is out 
of morals. After doing her ut- 
most to forfeit the esteem of the 
hero, a lover whom she is cruelly 
deceiving is driven to suicide in 
time to let her hear a declaration 
of love from Rutledge and get all 
his wealth. And all we are per- 
mitted to know of Rutledge is that 
he is ".immensely" wealthy; he is 
habitually silent, and has a curious 
way of popping in and out of the 
story without doing or saying 
much. The heroine makes herself 
an interesting hoiden, and takes 



The American Novel With Samples. 



335 



the benefit of the omission to put 
any good or attractive girl into the 
drama. As a picture of " first- 
class American society" it is as 
false in outline as it is absurd in 
detail. But as a novel it is not to 
be compared with the ridiculous and 
vicious trash so abundantly pro- 
duced by those confessedly " popu- 
lar American novelists," Mrs. South- 
worth, Mrs. Holmes, Mrs. Ste- 
phens, and their large brood of 
" weird sisters." The Lenas 'and 
Arthurs, the Ediths and Marians, 
and Johns and Hifghs, of these la- 
dies are simpering simpletons in 
contrast with whom the villains of 
the dime Indian series are respec- 
table. 

And what shall be said of the 
American taste which literally 
feeds on these productions? The 
writer of this article went a few 
weeks ago into the second in mag- 
nitude of the public libraries of 
the United States. Having the 
entree, he busied himself search- 
ing the shelves where the novels, 
according to the catalogue, were 
supposed to be kept. A polite 
attendant inquired, "What are 
you looking for ? A good nov- 
el ?" " No. I want a couple by 
Mrs. Southworth, Mrs. Holmes, and 
kindred spirits." " Oh !" said the 
attendant, laughing, "you will not 
find them on the shelves. They 
never get so far from the counter. 
They are all engaged weeks in ad- 
vance, and are taken up with uni- 
form haste as fast as they come in. 
We have ten copies of each novel 
of this kind ; but you will never 
find one on the shelf." This state- 
ment, reported with simple accuracy, 
explains why such novels are writ- 
ten. There is a demand for them. 
They " pay." Admirable and de- 
lightful romances remain on the 
shelves, to be called for by the 



"judicious few"; Lena Rivers and 
The Cameron Pride are as greedily 
clamored for by young women as 
The Cannibal of Cannibals' Island 
or Red- Handed Jake of the Bloody 
Mine by small boys. Matthew 
Arnold says that in the produc- 
tion of a master-work in literature 
two powers must concur, " the 
power of the man and the power 
of the moment, and the man is not 
enough without the moment ; the 
creative power has, for its happy 
exercise, appointed elements, and 
those elements are not in its own 
control." So we still await the ap- 
pearance of the true " American 
novel." Not yet have the power 
of the author and the power of the 
moment found each other out and 
united for the production of Ameri- 
can fiction. Is the happy time at 
hand ? There are no indications 
of its dawn. It might be hasten- 
ed could the prevailing popular 
"school" of American fiction be 
annihilated, and the popular novel- 
ists be persuaded to turn their 
pens into darning-needles. Mr. 
John Boyle O'Reilly, in his new 
volume of poems, tells the legend 
of the rainbow ; how it inspired 
one brother in the field to attend 
to his grain, and lured the other 
off in quest of the cup of diamonds 
to be found by him who would 
reach its base. 



' 'Tis the old, old storj : one man will read 

His lesson of toil in the sky ; 
While another is blind to the present need, 

But sees with the spirit's eye. 
You may grind their souls in the self-same mill ; , 

You may bind them, heart and brow ; 
But the poet will follow the rainbow still, 

And his brother will follow the plough." 



We would be much better off 
could our novelists who follow the 
rainbow be persuaded to take to 
the plough ; but so long as the 
popular taste rewards them with 



336 



The Jews in Rome in Heathen Times. 



fortune for it cannot give them 
fame so long as they actually find 
the crystal cup and its precious 



contents, in greenbacks if not in 
gems, it is a waste of time to argue 
further upon the subject. 



THE JEWS IN ROME IN HEATHEN TIMES. 



THE origin of the Jews in Rome 
is usually ascribed to the vast num- 
ber of slaves brought to 'the capital 
by Pompey after taking Jerusalem 
in the year 63 B.C., which was the 
first considerable event that fixed 
the attention of classical writers on 
this wonderful people. If credit, 
however, be given to a reading of 
Valerius Maximus, as found in his 
epitomizers, Julius Paris and Jan- 
uarius Nepotianus, first published 
by Cardinal Mai, they were of 
much older date in Rome, and 
from their earliest settlement had 
shown a disposition to proselytize 
which was considered dangerous to 
the republic. On this account 
they were expelled from the city 
and their synagogues were closed 
Judaos qtioque qui Romanis tradere 
sacra sua conatier ant idem Hispalus * 
urbe exterminavit, arasque privatas 
a publicis locis aj>jecit j but the men- 
tion of private altars erected by the 
Jews in public places has seemed 
so manifest an absurdity as to justi- 
fy some in rejecting the whole pas- 
sage as interpolated into the text 
of Valerius. We are loath to sur- 
render so valuable a testimony of 
the early presence in Rome of Jews 
in considerable numbers, and per- 



* This Cn. Cornelius Scipio Hispalus, who belong- 
ed to the noblest family of Rome, destined in after- 
ages to give martyrs, popes, and virgins to the 
Christian Church, was pr&tor peregrinus in B.C. 
i3Q, and as such responsible for the welfare and 
behavior of strangers in the city. 



haps the difficulty may be got over 
by supposing the pagans to have 
mistaken for an altar the elevated 
tribune or rostrum which stood in 
the centre of every synagogue and 
was used for prayer and the read- 
ing of the law. Our knowledge 
also that besides the regular syna- 
gogues, which were .walled in and 
roofed, the Jews had sometimes 
chapels or oratories open to the 
air, presumably near the squares 
and gates or adjoining the high- 
ways leading out of the city, may 
help to explain the meaning of re- 
moving their private altars from the 
public ground. Whatever we are 
to believe about this banishment of 
the Jews along with Chaldean as- 
trologers, it is quite certain that 
long before they had formed a dis- 
tinct settlement in the city, and be- 
gun this oldest unbroken colony 
of their race in Europe, there had 
been communication between Jeru- 
salem and Rome, and Jews visit- 
ed Rome either as ambassadors in 
the days of the Machabees or in fur- 
therance of that spirit of commer- 
cial enterprise which has always 
moved them. The earliest men- 
tion of the Romans with relation to 
the Jews in the Sacred Scriptures is 
found in Numbers xxiv. 24, where 
Balaam, speaking by anticipation of 
these conquerors of the ancient 
world, says that " they shall come 
in galleys from Italy: they shall 






The Jews in Rome in Heathen Times. 



337 



overcome the Assyrians, and shall 
waste the Hebrews" * Chittitu in 
this passage, which St. Jerome ren- 
ders by Italy in the Vulgate, is often 
used to denote the Romans, who 
became the masters of the peninsu- 
la; but the first historic and expli- 
cit mention of Rome in the Bible 
is in i Mach. i. n, where Antio- 
chus the Illustrious is described 
as having been a hostage there. 
About the year 161 B.C. the Jews 
were brought into close intercourse 
with the Romans when Judas Ma- 
chabeus, who had heard of their 
character and conquests^, sent am- 
bassadors to Rome with the con- 
sent of the council and people, in 
order to strengthen himself against 
Demetrius, King of Syria, and con- 
-cluded a defensive alliance' with the 
senate. " So Judas chose Eupole- 
mus f the son of John, the son of 
Jacob, and Jason the son of Elea- 
/ar, and he sent them to Rome to 
make a league of amity and con- 
federacy with them [the Romans]. 
And they went to Rome, a very long 
journey, and they entered into the 
senate-house " (i Mach. viii.) 

When the Jewish envoys for 
such they were, despite their Hel- 
lenized names arrived in' Rome 
the republic was approaching its 
highest point of prosperity and 
power. Carthage was effectually 
humbled, although not yet destroy- 
ed, and Roman arms and intrigues 
had made themselves felt through- 
out Macedonia, Greece, and Asia 
Minor; the whole of Italy was re- 
duced; Corsica and Sardinia were 
annexed ; Sicily was a Roman pro- 
vince; Spain had been overrun, 

* Licet enim Ronta tempore Balaam necdum 
esset condita, tauten Roiai et Romanes conditutn 
zn\ eosque hcec bella gestures, spiritu prophetico 
prcevidtbat Balaam (Cornelius a Lapide, Com, in 
Num.} 

t This Eupolemus has been identified by some 
writers with the author of the same name who 
wrote several books on the history of the Jews. 

VOL. XXVIII. 22 



the Gauls, Ligurians, Istrians been 
vanquished, and every people on 
the shores of the Mediterranean 
had heard of the fame of the Ro- 
mans, and that they were powerful 
and strong, and fear possessed them 
all. There already existed at that 
time, overlooking the Forum, one 
of the plainest, perhaps, but other- 
wise most important of all the pub- 
lic buildings of Rome from its con- 
nection with the foreign relations 
of the republic and afterwards of 
the empire. This was the Grcecosta- 
sis, a mere open although richly pav- 
ed and balustraded platform, whose 
only decoration was a small bronze 
figure of Concord, reserved as a wait- 
ing place, a sort of privileged tri- 
bune, for the ambassadors of Greece 
and the public agents and deputies 
of other states, before being ad- 
mitted to an audience of the senate,, 
whose debates could be heard from 
there, and whose decrees were af- 
terwards communicated to the en- 
voys there in presence of the peo- 
ple. Its situation on the right of 
the comitium made it conspicuous 
from the Forum, and the sight of 
princes and nobles from so many 
various nations, Greeks and Gauls,. 
Asiatics and Egyptians, in their 
national costumes, and frequently 
bearing splendid gifts, must have 
rendered the spectacle almost as 
gratifying as a triumph to Roman 
pride and love of pageantry. Here, 
then, stood to wait their turn Eu- 
polemus and Jason, the first mes- 
sengers of Jerusalem to Rome, the 
forerunners of those two other 
Jews, " ambassadors for Christ," 
who later were to make Rome 
happy by the spilling of their blood : 

O Roma felix, quse duorum principum 

Es consecrata glorioso sanguine : 

Horum cruore purpurata ceteras 

Excellis orbis una pulchritudines.* 
*Hymn of the Roman Breviary for feast of SS. 
Peter and Paul, 2gth of June, composed by Elpis > 
wife of the philosopher Boethius. 



338 



The Jeivs in Rome in Heathen Times. 



A memorial of this public inter- 
course between the Jews and the 
Romans, and which shows the last- 
ing impression it must have made 
upon the Christian mind of Rome 
in after-centuries, is found in that 
singular composition of some anti- 
quary of the middle ages, common- 
ly called the Mirabilia Romcz, writ- 
ten somewhere about the year 1150. 
We are there told that a copy of 
this famous treaty, inscribed in let- 
ters of gold on a large bronze 
plate, had been once set up in the 
wall of St. Basil's church : In muro 
Sancti Basilii fuit magna tabula erea 
infixa que erat aureis literis greets 
et latinis scripta continens pacem et 
amicitiam que fuit facta inter Juda- 
os et Romanos tempore Jude Machabci 
(from a MS. of the University of 
Prague apud Papencordt, Rom im 
Mittelalter}. We know that the 
originals or first drafts of interna- 
tional treaties were preserved by 
the Romans in the Tabularium of 
the Capitol, while copies engraved 
on metal were deposited in the 
Temple of Faith Fides Publica 
and it is not impossible that some 
zealous Christian may have saved 
the one* relating to the Jews and 
Romans from the rapacity of the bar- 
barians, and that it was afterwards 
exposed to public view, as the au- 
thor of the Mirabilia says ; but if 
it ever existed there it has long 
since disappeared, and from the 
fact, too, that it was not seen by 
him FUIT magna tabula Jordan, 
' while admitting the possibility of 
the thing, offers an ingenious solu- 
tion of the difficulty (Topographic 
der Stadt Rom im Alterthum, vol. ii. 
p. 471). The treaty of amity was 
renewed by Jonathan, who chose 
Numenius and Antipater to go to 
Rome. The latter was son of Ja- 
son, one of the first two commis- 
sioners. The former, accompanied 



by other Jewish ambassadors, was 
again despatched to Rome by Si- 
mon I., bringing a great shield of 
gold of a thousand pounds as a pre- 
sent to the senate, which received 
him well and gave him letters in 
favor of his countrymen, addressed 
to the various Eastern powers de- 
pendent on the republic through 
the consul Lucius, who is called in 
Machabees by his praenomen only, 
and is probably Lucius Caecilius* 
Metellus Calvus, consul in B.C. 142, 
immediately after Simon assumed 
the government. In the year B.C. 
65, when Syria was made a Roman 
province by Pompey, the Jews were 
still ruled by an Asmonean prince. 
Aristobulus had lately driven his 
brother Hyrcanus from the high- 
priesthdbd and proclaimed him-* 
self king; but Pompey, interfering, 
took the part of Hyrcanus, cap- 
tured Jerusalem, reinstated him, 
and brought his rival in chains to 
Rome. His sons, Alexander and 
Antigonns, and his two beautiful 
daughters accompanied Aristobu- 
lus. These royal captives were 
among the three hundred and twen- 
ty-four princes and chiefs who pre- 
ceded the car of Pompey at the 
splendid triumph for his Asiatic 
victories. Many other Jewish pri- 
soners were carried to Rome at the 
same time, where they were either 
sold into bondage or allowed to 
settle down to private pursuits. 
A special, district was soon assign- 
ed to this class, not on the site of 
the modern " Ghetto," between the 
Capitol and the river, but across 
the Tiber. Many of the slaves 
were redeemed by their fellow- 
countrymen already living in Rome, 
and wealthy; and others, recom- 

* He also belonged to one of those great patri- 
cian houses which was to give some of its noblest 
members to the early Christian Church. Vide 
Gueranger, Sainte C'ecile et la Socicte Romaine 
aux deux Premiers siecles, ch. xii. 



The Jews in Rome in Heathen Times. 



339 



i 



mending themselves to their mas- 
ters by their accomplishments, and 
in some cases by their religion, 
were made freedmen. Indeed, these 
despised foreigners made many 
proselytes from paganism to the 
worship of the true God, even 
among the higher classes, and thus, 
to use the words of Seneca, " The 
conquered gave laws to their con- 
querors " Vic tor ib us victi leges de- 
derunt. 

Pompey displayed unusual cle- 
mency after his triumph by spar- 
ing the lives of his chief prisoners, 
and even dismissing them, with few 
exceptions, to their several states. 
Alexander was allowed to go he 
was afterward beheaded at Anti- 
och but his father and brother 
were detained for eight years at 
Rome, when they escaped and ex- 
cited fresh disturbances at Jerusa- 
lem. Gabinius, the Roman gene- 
ral, sent Aristobulus back to Rome, 
where he remained until Caesar set 
him free, intending to send him 
into Syria with two legions to sup- 
port his interests there against the 
party of Pompey, by whose parti- 
sans, however, he was poisoned be- 
fore he could do anything. His 
body was preserved in honey,* and 
kept in Rome until Antony had 
it transported to Judea and laid in 
the sepulchre of the kings (Joseph., 
Antiq. Jud., xiv. 13). 

Julius Caesar showed the. Jews 
some kindness, allowing them the 
free exercise of their religion in 
Rome. They were the loudest 
and longest mourners at his obse- 
quies in the Forum, and their ha- 
tred of Pompey, the first Roman 
violator of their sanctuary, must 
have deepened their attachment to 
his conqueror. f 

* Mtllis natttra est, ut corpora non sinat coni- 
putrescere, says Pliny in his Natural Hist. 

t Insummo pubtico luctit exteraruin gentium 
multitude circulatim suo quaque more lamen- 



Mommsen, in his Roman History, 
has developed the singular position 
which the Jews were destined to 
occupy in the reorganization of 
government and society which 
Caesar began but did not live to 
complete.* Although the Jews 
who settled in Rome between the 
age of the Machabees and Pom- 
pey's capture of Jerusalem no doubt 
made a living by reputable traffic 
and industry, and some individu- 
als even rose to opulence perhaps, 
as Gibbon says, losing no opportu- 
nity of overreaching the idolaters 
in trade; after this national calami- 
ty, while their numbers increased, 
their respectability and popularity 
were much diminished by the im- 
mense influx which then brought 
in some of the poorest and most 
unruly of their brethren. From 
the contemptuous notices of the 
Jews which occur in the Latin au- 
thors after this period, most of 
them must have been in the lowest 
depths of penury, outcasts of so- 
ciety, utterly unscrupulous as to the 
means by which they lived mere 
foreign adventurers; and still, as 
Milman says, " the heathen could 
not but look with something of the 
interest excited by wonder on this 
strange, unsocial, and isolated peo- 
ple, who dwelt among them and 
yet were not of them. While the 
philosopher despised the fanaticism 
which he could not comprehend, 
the populace mingled something 
like awe with their dislike. The 
worse and more destitute of the 
race probably availed themselves 
of this feeling; many, half impos- 
tors and half enthusiasts, gained their 
livelihood by working on the super- 
stitious terrors of the people, who 

tat a est ; praecipue Judcei, qui etiam nnctibus 
continuis bustum frequentarent (Suetonius, 
C<?sar., 84). 
* Stellung der Juden im Staate Casars, 111. 533- 

535- 



340 



The Jtws in Rome in Heathen Times. 



were never more open to deception 
than in this age of comparative ad- 
vancement. The empire swarmed 
with Jewish wonder-workers, mathe- 
maticians, astrologers, or whatever 
other name or office they assumed 
or received from their trembling 
hearers " (History of the Jews, ii. 
466). The magician and false pro- 
phet called Barjesu (Ely mas being 
only the Arabic form), who had at- 
tached himself to the proconsul of 
Cyprus, Sergius Paulas, when the 
apostle visited the island (Acts 
xiii.), will occur to the reader, who 
may also recall this line of Juvenal : 



Qualiacumque voles Judaei somnia vendunt. 
Sat., vi. 547. 



The Jews formed under the em- 
pire the chief population on the 
other side of the Tiber the mo- 
dern " TrasteVere " whence Mar- 
tial's expression, Transtiberinus am- 
bulator, applied to one of them, 
and the principal business exchange 
of the smarter sort seems to have 
been a curious monument on the 
Forum, called Puteal Libonis or 
Scribonianum, resembling a well, 
whence its name. It was erected 
by one of the family of the Scri- 
bonii Libones, on whose coins it is 
represented.* The allusions to it 
in classical literature are associat- 
ed with indebtedness or litigation 
growing out of money matters, and 
it thus became a rendezvous for 
.usurers and brokers, among whom 
Jews abounded. Outside of the 
more thickly populated parts of 
the city a multitude of miserable 
Jews, particularly during Domi- 
tian's reign, pitched their camps, 
like modern gypsies, in the open 
air around the beautiful grove and 
fane and fountain of Egeria, their 

* Nichols, The Roman Forum, p. 127. 



furniture consisting of a basket 
and an armful of hay to lie on : 

Nunc sacri fontis nenius et delubra. locantur 
Jud&is, quorum cophinvs fanuiitqite supellex. 
Juvenal, Sat. iii. 13. 

Augustus, following the policy of 
his uncle, rather favored the Jews. 
Sharing in the general largess of 
corn which was distributed by the 
government among the poorer in- 
habitants of the city, he allowed 
them to have their portion reserv- 
ed if the distribution fell on a Sab- 
bath. Martial alludes to their 
filth, and describes them as ped- 
lars and junkmen, trafficking match- 
es for broken glass; Statins also 
mentions them in no complimen- 
tary terms. It was the amusement 
of the idle youth of Rome to visit 
the synagogue and make fun of the 
Jews ; and the wdl-krown passage 
in Horace's ninth Satire will occur 
to the classical reader : 

Hodie tricesima sabbata : z//V tu 
Curtis Judceis opfiedere? 

It is singular that the same low 
manner of showing contempt for 
the Jews which the poet was not 
ashamed to exhibit should have 
been associated with mockery of 
them for ages afterward, as we see 
by the fact that an ancient tower 
in one of the Avails of Paris, in 
which the Jews were permitted to 
open a synagogue in the twelfth 
century, was called from that time 
" Pet an Diable." 

Tiberius protected the Jews dur- 
ing the latter part of his reign after 
the fall of their enemy, the favorite 
Sejanus, but at an earlier period 
he drafted four thousand of th< 
younger men into the army to serv< 
in Sardinia and other unhealthy 
provinces, and banished the rest 
from the city : Externas ceremonias, 
^gyptios Judaicosque ritus compes- 
cuit ; coactis, qui super stitionc ea 



The Jews in Rome in Heathen Times. 



341 



tenebantur, rcligiosas vestes cum iu- 
striimeuto oinni comburerf. Judao- 
rumjuventutem,pcr speciem sacramcn- 
ti, in provincial gravioris cteli distri- 
buit ; reliquos gentis ejusdem, vel simi- 
lia sectantes, urbe submovit, sub pxna 
perpetuce servitutis, nisi obtemperas- 
sent (Suetonius, iii. 36). The im- 
mediate cause of their maltreat- 
ment was a sacrilegious fraud prac- 
tised by four of their number on 
a certain Fulvia, whom Josephus 
calls a woman of great dignity, and 
one that had embraced the Jewish 
religion (Antiq., xviii. 3). His suc- 
cessor, Caligula, grievously oppress- 
ed them and insulted their religion, 
and it was to seek relief by a per- 
sonal application to the emperor 
that the celebrated Philo, a Jew of 
Alexandria, undertook in the winter 
of A.D. 39-40, with four others of 
( his race, that embassy to Rome 
which he has so graphically de- 
scribed in his Legatio ad Cajum. 
Claudius, who succeeded his nephew 
by mere accident, commanded all 
Jews to depart from Rome, on ac- 
count of the tumults connected 
with the preaching of Christianity ; 
but this banishment cannot have 
been of long duration, for we find 
Jews residing in Rome, apparent- 
ly in considerable numbers, at the 
time of St. Paul's visit. They had 
a sort of council or house of judg- 
ment, which decided all matters of 
dispute among themselves ; there 
were also synagogues in different 
pans of the city, with their proper 
officers. Two old explorers of the 
Roman catacombs, Bosio and 
Aringhi, describe a Jewish cemetery 
on the Via Portuensis beyond the 
Tiber, which is now covered up 
again ; but since they wrote two 
other Jewish catacombs have been 
discovered or reopened, one on the 
Via Appia, on the opposite side of 
the road to the Christian cata- 



comb of San Sebastiano in the Vig- 
na Ran dan in i, in 1859, and the other 
which, however, has been only 
partially excavated in the Vigna 
Cimarraon the same road, in 1866.* 
All the national customs and pre- 
judices of the Jews were opposed 
to the Roman practice of burning 
the dead, which Tacitus asserts 
they never observed (Hist., v. 5), 
and they clung with tenacity to 
their own mode of sepulture. In 
the catacomb of the Vigna Randa- 
nini, which is the largest hitherto 
discovered, there are paintings, 
sculptured sarcophagi, inscriptions, 
and Jewish emblems such as the 
palm-tree a symbol of Judaea and 
the seven-branched candlestick, 
etc., cut on the terra-cotta or 
marble slabs that close the graves. 
Most of the inscriptions in these 
Jewish cemeteries (nearly two hun- 
dred having been found in that of 
the Vigna Randanini alone) are 
rudely engraved in Greek letters ; 
but the words of some are Latin, of 
others Hebrew, and some are He- 
brew in the Latin characters. At 
the principal entrance is an ob- 
long chamber open to the sky, but 
originally vaulted, with a good 
black and white mosaic pavement, 
in which are drains for letting the 
water run off, which shows that the 
place was used for washing the 
bodies. In the adjoining chamber 
are the remains of a well or lava- 
tory for ablution. A low door 
leads from here into the purely 
subterranean portions of the ceme- 
tery, and from one of the principal 
galleries six square rooms, or cubi- 
cula, open out : a lateral passage 
leads to other similar chambers. 
The greater part of the catacomb 

* The best account in English of these Jewish 
catacombs is in Parker's A-> chaolflgy >f Roms^ 
part xii. : and in Italian, in Father Garrucci's Dis- 
sertaziom A > cheolog'che di vario argvimnto, vol. 
ii. : Cimiteri drgli hbrei. 



342 



The Jews in Rome in Heathen Times. 



is merely dug out of the soft rock; 
nor is there any certain indica- 
tion of the age of the structure, 
except that, as Parker says, what 
architectural character there is in 
the upper part belongs to the first 
century. The construction of a wall 
at another entrance to the cata- 
comb is of the fourth century. 
In some parts of the cemetery the 
loculi) or graves, -are opened not 
parallel with, but at right angles to, 
the passage, and are cut in seve- 
ral tiers one above another, each 
capable of containing a corpse. 
(This disposition of the bodies was 
called cocim by rabbinical writers. 
Sometimes the usual lateral direc- 
tion of the graves is adopted, as in 
the Christian catacombs; and some- 
times, again, the graves are sunk in 
the floor of the passages and cham- 
bers. Some portions of the ceme- 
tery indicate great poverty, and a 
crowding of the dead to save ex- 
pense ; yet it has been searched 
and despoiled, probably by the 
Goths or Lombards, as the great 
quantity of marble fragments and 
the displaced inscriptions attest. 
The inscriptions that have been 
recovered are set up in situ, but 
there is a cold and cheerless look 
about the place very different from 
that of any neighboring Christian 
catacomb, so full ot the warmth of 
faith and hope and the sufferings 
of this life and of the delights of 
Paradise. The palm is found as 
an emblem in both Jewish and 
Christian cemeteries ; but while in 
these it symbolizes that victory 
which has long been won, in the 
other it suggests defeat and the 
judgments of God as in those 
famous coins of Vespasian, on 
which we see a woman at the 
foot of a palm-tree, bowed down 
and weeping, while a Roman sol- 
dier stands over her holding a 



spear, and we read the legend 
IVD^EA CAPTA.* 

The majority of the Jews were 
poor and despised by the haughty 
Romans, but other Jews lived in 
Rome in wealth and honor, their 
princes being received with royal 
distinction and lodged in the pal- 
ace of the Caesars. Chief among 
these were the Herods, who, al- 
though of Idumean descent, and 
consequently aliens by race, were 
Jews in faith. The Idumeans had 
been conquered by John Hyrcanus 
(B.C. 130), and from the time of 
their conversion to Judaism re- 
mained constant to it, looking up 
to Jerusalem as their metropolis, 
and claiming for themselves the 
name of Jews. Herod the Great, 
whose father, Antipas, had gained 
the friendship of Caesar, who made 
him a Roman citizen, was forced 
to fly to Rome (B.C. 40) before an 
invasion of the Parthians, where he 
was kindly received by Antony 
and Octavian. While in Rome he 
was appointed king of Judea by 
the senate to the exclusion of the 
Asmonean line, and signalized his 
elevation to the throne by offerings 
to the Capitoline Jupiter. Herod 
Antipas, his son, tetrarch of Gali- 
lee and Peraea, was induced by the 
ambition of Herodias to go to 
Rome and sue for the title of king; 
but he was opposed at court by 
the agents of Agrippa, and con- 
demned to perpetual banishment, 

* Many of the proper names in these Jewish 
catacombs are unmistakably Hebraic, and where 
the epitaphs refer to the station of the deceased it 
is always to officers of the synagogue as APKON- 
TEC (rulers), TPAMMATEI (scnbes), etc. ; but 
the names of other sleepers show them to have 
been Greek or Latin proselytes. The Jesuit anti- 
quary. Father Garrucci, has pointed out a peculi- 
arity in some of these inscriptions which shows 
the minuteness of Jewish opposition to the early 
Christians ; namely, that although they used the 
Greek EN EIPHNH In peace yet whenever they 
employed the Latin language, instead of giving the 
Greek equivalent they rendered it by In bom's, in 
order to avoid the well-known Christian acclama- 
tion, In face. 



The Jews in Rome in Heathen Times. 



343 



r,.c. 39. Archelaus, another son 
of Herod the Great, was brought 
up at Rome and became a favorite 
of Augustus, but his tyranny after 
being made ethnarch by the empe- 
ror caused him to be exiled to Vi- 
enne, in Gaul, A.D. 7. A grandson 
of Herod the Great, Agrippa I., was 
educated at Rome with the imperial 
princes Claudius and Drustis ; but 
he was a voluptuary like his com- 
panions,- and after squandering a for- 
tune in sumptuous entertainments, 
and bribes to the freedmen of the 
emperor, became so deeply involv- 
ed in debt that he was obliged to 
leave Italy in disgrace. After a 
life of strange vicissitudes, which 
Josephus narrates (Antiq., xviii. 7), 
he was thrown into a dungeon by 
Tiberius for an imprudent speech, 
and remained there until the acces- 
sion of Caligula, A.D. 37, who 
loaded him with favors, even pre- 
senting him with a golden chain 
equal in weight to the iron one he 
had been made to wear in prison. 
Agrippa II. was at Rome when 
his father died, and about A.D. 50 
was sent into the East with the in- 
signia of royalty. In the last war 
he took part with the Romans 
against his countrymen, and, after 
the fall of Jerusalem, retired to 
Rome with his sister Berenice. 
He was there invested with the 
dignity of praetor, and died in 
Trajan's reign at the age of seventy, 
being the last prince of the house 
of Herod. Another very celebrated 
Jew living at this time was Jose- 
phus, who assumed the additional 
name of Flavins as a dependant of 
the Flavian family, having received 
from Vespasian the freedom of the 
city of Rome, where he lived the 
latter part of his life, engaged in lit- 
erary pursuits and the composition 
of his works. His life reads more 
like a romance than sober history. 



After the capture of Jerusalem 
by Titus on the 8th of September, 
A.D. 70, multitudes of Jews were 
brought to Rome either as slaves 
or concubines, and seven hundred 
of the tallest and handsomest men 
were selected to grace the triumph 
of their conqueror. Among them 
were John of Giscala, Eleazar, and 
Simon Bar-Gioras, the three chief 
defenders of the city; to these 
were reserved the Scalce Gemonia, 
the passage from the Mamertine to 
the Cloaca Maxima and out into 
the muddy Tiber.* Four years 
after his triumph Vespasian dedi- 
cated the Temple of Peace. Its 
magnificence surpassed all expecta- 
tion. The golden table of show- 
bread, weighing many talents, and 
the golden candlestick, from the 
Temple of Jerusalem, were deposited 
there (Joseph., Bell. Jud., vii. 5, 7). 
This edifice was destroyed by fire 
in the sixth century, and even its 
ruins have disappeared ; but the 
Arch of Titus still exists, as if a 
special providence watched over 
it, on ihesittnma Via Sacra, midway 
between the Coliseum and the Capi- 
tol, and has a greater historical and 
artistic interest than any other relic 
of imperial Rome. On each side 
of the interior is a fine alto-rilievo 
representing the triumphal proces- 
sion of Titus. On the south side 
a number of persons carry aloft the 
spoils of the Temple the seven- 
branched candlestick, the table 
of show-bread, and two long trum- 
pets are clearly visible ; on the 
north side the emperor, standing in 
his car drawn by four horses, is sur- 

*" Jean de Giscala, Eleazar, Simon Bar-Gioras; 
qui pense & eux aujourd'hui ? L'univers entier pro- 
clame et vdnereles noms de deux pauvres juifs qui, 
quatre ans auparavant, dans cette meme prison, 
avaient eux aussi attendu le supplice ; mais le 
malheur, le courage, la mort tragique des autres, ne 
leur ont point donne la gloire, et un dedaigneux 
oubli les a effaces de la memoire des hbrnmes 
(Mme. Auguste Craven). 



344 



Art Sonnets. 



rounded by his guards and suite. 
Victory holds a crown of laurels 
over his head, and Rome personi- 
fied is guiding the reins. To this 
day the Jews go around and will 
not pass under this memorial of 
their ruin. Nearby is the Coliseum, 
to raise which twelve thousand cap- 
tive Jews were made to labor : 

Quid mereare Tttus docuit, docuere rapinis 
Pompeianae acies. quibuf extirpata per cmnes 



Terrarum, pelagique plagas tua membra feruntur. 
Exiliis vagus hue illuc fluitantibus errat 
Judaeus postquam patria de sede revulsus 
Supplicium pro caede luit, Christique negati 
Sanguine respersus commissa piacula solvit, 
Ex quo priscorum virtus defluxit avorum. 

Prudentius, Apoiheosis. 



The only ones to take pity on 
the Jews, to defend them from 
oppression, to raise a voice in 
their behalf, were the successors of 
the poor Fisherman of Galilee. 



ART SONNETS. 



FRA ANGELICO. 

NOT for earth's joys, triumphal, hymeneal, 

Those harp-strings twang, those golden trumpets blare. 

On gilded grounds, in place of the blue air, 
In Byzant lines unrounded and unreal, 
The simple monk worked out his own ideal 

And were there ever forms more heavenly fair? 

Nay, from the life the ineffable angels there 
Seem limned and cplored by their servant leal! 



What was his charm ? Whence the inflowing grace? 

The beauty of holiness ! His child-soul dreamed. 
When psalm and censer filled the holy place, 

Till to take shape the mist, the music seemed; 
Till Mary Mother's smile grew out of song, 

To symphony of the seraphic throng ! 



A Happy Family. 



345 



A HAPPY FAMILY.* 






A FRIGHTFUL journey ! 

Frightful ! 

I know the word is a strong one, 
and you will suspect me at once of 
having placed it there, much as one 
fires a rocket, to draw the eyes of 
the curious. But an abuse of words 
is very much the fashion in these 
days (would that the abuse were 
only confined to words!), and the 
more noise one tries to make the 
less he has to say. An example 
of the truth of this sage maxim, not 
altogether famous for its novelty, 
you will find in the present narra- 
tive. 

I was *at Amelie-les-Bains, where 
I was vainly endeavoring to get a 
much-needed rest. One morning 
the postman brought me a letter 
from Belgium which ran as fol- 
lows : 



" MY DEAR FRIEND : I am about to 
put your friendship to the proof. I 
ought to take my wife and children to 
Amelie-les-Bains. At the last moment 
an unforeseen accident prevents me. 
Political life, you know, makes impe- 
rious demands on us, and I cannot ab- 
sent myself at this moment. Meanwhile 
the demands of heahh. equally impe- 
rious with those of politics, absolutely 
forbid me to defer the departure of my 
family. What am I to do ? Was there 
ever anything so embarrassing? In a 
happy moment I learned that you were 
at Amelie-les-Bains, and at once I felt 
myself vaved. You will do for me what 
I would do for you in a similar case. 
My wife, my daughter, and my son in- 
valids all three, especially my wife 
will arrive at Perpiynan on the lyth. I 
dare not ask you to go that far to meet 
them, for I am well aware that you your- 
self are an invalid. But it will be easy 
for you to send some one to pilot them 
as far as Amelie-les-Bains. For the rest, 

* From the Revue Generale. 



I know that once there they will be able 
to count on you, and you will assist 
them in finding a suitable stopping- 
place. Thanking you beforehand for 
your kindness, believe me to be your 
most devoted servant, X ." 

The signer of this letter is a man 
by whose side I sat on the same 
university bench something like 
thirty years ago, alas! We were 
more or less intimate there, had 
the common habit for some years 
of saluting each other as friends 
when chance threw us together. 
After leaving the university our 
meetings were rare, for we pursued 
very different careers. I lived for 
work ; my old college chum lived 
for pleasure. The heir to a very 
pretty fortune and a title, he found, 
as do so many other. jolly fellows 
in this world, that the best return 
you can make to God for having 
created you under favorable con- 
ditions is to " enjoy life." This 
kind of enjoyment naturally sup- 
poses a large freedom, and scarcely 
concerns itself with any other code 
of morals than that india-rubber 
morality covering what the world 
calls an " honest man M a title that 
has grown to be wonderfully elastic 
in its application. Well, well, young 
men must " sow their wild oats," 
say your practical philosophers. 

X , then, had passed a gay 

youth, and, finding it too pleasant 
to allow it to glide away rapidly, 
he had prolonged it as much as 
possible up to the very borders of 
a ripe age. At last, when even he 
began to see the wrinkles come 
and the hair go, the purse flatten 
and the waistcoat bulge, by way of 
making a happy end of it all he, 



346 



A Happy Family. 






sensible man, married a very large 
fortune from the middle class. 
Soon after, stung by the fly of am- 
bition and egged on by his worthy 
father-in-law, a very influential per- 
son in his province, X threw 

himself into the broad road of libe- 
ralism and became straightway a 
man of politics a role that, once 
happily hit upon, demands no very 
vast amount of talent or wisdom to 
play successfully. 

The easy character of X , his 

joyous humor, had always brought 
him hosts of friends. " He is such 
a good fellow," people always said 
of him. The world is full of these 
" good fellows," whom an amiable 
thoughtlessness, a gay disregard of 
consequences, and the absence of 
all fixed principles bear along very 
far and, to themselves, very plea- 
santly on the whole. 

I confess that the " good fel- 
low's" letter made me a trifle ner- 
vous. I was scarcely able to go 
myself to Perpignan ; I had no one 
to " pilot " the party thence to 
Amelie les-Bains a matter that, to 
tell the truth, seemed to me of 
no absolute necessity. "They will 
only have to hire a carriage," 
thought I, " and that is scarcely 
a feat requiring an extraordinary 
amount of intelligence or labor." 
I would have telegraphed to this 

effect to X , but I saw that his 

letter had been delayed twenty-four 
hours and his family was already 
on the way. 

" So much the worse," sighed I 
to myself. "This lady and her 
children will be here very soon. 
Time enough then to trouble about 
them. Till then I will bother my 
head no more." 

But one is always thinking about 
the very things he ought not. Mme. 

X and her children stuck fast 

in my mind. To tell the truth, 



there was a strong touch of per- 
sonal feeling in my preoccupation. 
I could not well avoid certain re- 
lations with the new-comers, and 
what a turmoil that was going to 
create in my calm bachelor life of 
absolute retirement, divided equal- 
ly between labor and the cares of 
health ! I thought also of these 
three poor invalids arriving at 
Perpignan and finding no one at 
the station to aid or direct them. 
I asked myself if the situation 
would not be a very distressing one 
for them. I knew nothing of the 
children's age. If they were little 
things what might not be the em- 
barrassment of the mother, who, as 
my letter informed me, was the 
chief invalid ! It was not gentle- 
manly in me to abandon the poor 
woman thus. 

I passed a night battling with my 
conscience. -The fever, my nearest 
and dearest foe, brought to my eyes 
heartrending sights. A dying wo- 
man, holding in her arms children 
in their agony, dragged herself 
through the streets of Perpignan, 
calling upon me in a voice that 
was a groan. It was too piercing. 
Must I confess it ? My heart is 
weak and my mind not too firm. 
The thought that I was abandoning 
the widow and the orphan became 
insupportable to me. On the fol- 
lowing day, although suffering in- 
tensely, I started as best I could 
for Perpignan. It was a rash un- 
dertaking, for the northwest wind, 
which is never felt at Amelie-les- 
Bains, gives itself full play in the 
plains of Roussillon. On leaving 
the valley of Tech this horrible 
wind caught me. Ah ! one must 
have suffered from it in order to 
know rightly what it is. I appeal 
to all the sufferers whose nerves it 
has shattered, whose bones it has 
frozen, whose throats it has dried 



A Happy Family. 



347 



up, whose chests it has inflamed, 
all whose afflictions it has re- 
doubled. In Roussillon and Lan- 
guedoc it is not called mistral, as 
on the coast of Provence, but no 
matter. It does well to hide its 
name ; one soon recognizes this 
demon. During that journey of 
four hours' duration, crouched in 
a corner of the carriage, my teeth 
chattering with cold, I made cer- 
tain very cool reflections on the 
grand inconveniences of great sacri- 
fice's. It was on this very evening 

that Mine. X was to arrive at 

Perpignan. I had never even seen 
the lady; but it would surely not 
be difficult for me to recognize her 
at the depot. A sick lady, very 
feeble of course, two pale, wretched- 
looking children. ... I pictured 
them to myself, the whole three as 
interesting, and I dwelt with a 
sweet satisfaction on the thought 
of the graceful acknowledgment 
they would make on seeing me, so 
really ill myself, coming to the 
succor of my suffering fellow-crea- 
tures. This happy thought reliev- 
ed my nerves. 

Before the hour of the arrival of 
the last train from Bordeaux I 
could rest at the hotel. I will not 
say at which hotel, because I 
should be obliged to add that I 
found it horribly cold and damp, 
in spite of a little gas-fire with which 
they favored me, and which gave 
out no spark of heat, but made 
up for this want by exhaling a 
stifling odor. An original and in- 
teresting town is Perpignan. It 
lias a Spanish look. Certain quar- 
ters are very picturesque. I re- 
commend above all to travellers 
who are in good health to pay a 
visit to its market. There they 
will see Catalan costumes, and the 
throng has not that dead monoto- 
ny of aspect so exasperating in this 



age of fusion and confusion. Nei- 
ther must they forget to go and 
see the charming alley of plane- 
trees planted by Henry IV. I 
have passed through it. I can- 
not absolutely guarantee that these 
trees go back to the, Bearnais mon- 
arch, but I can and do affirm that 
they are magnificent. But above 
all I commend the cathedral to 
tourists ; it is beautiful, rich, in- 
teresting, majestic. As for travel- 
lers who are not strong, I would 
dissuade them from making a tardy 
stay in the Catalan town. They 
will scarcely benefit by it. I reach- 
ed the station a good, quarter of an 
hour before the arrival of the train, 
so fearful was I of missing my in- 
valids. As generally happens un- 
der such circumstances, there was 
a delay. I was chilled to the bone. 
At last came the warning whistle ; 
then the signal of the signal-man ; 
then the red round eye of the lo- 
comotive gleamed along the route ; 
then the earth trembled, and the 
train came hissing and roaring in- 
to the station. I looked at the 
carriage-doors; I saw a confusion 
of heads, but no particular head 
that seemed sufficiently ill. The 
carriages emptied themselves of 
their passengers. There were very 
few of the first-class. I saw a little 
gray-headed gentleman pop out of 
one compartment. In his button- 
hole he wore a rose; his air was 
that of a personage of great im- 
portance. He assisted a lady to 
alight, who was still young enough, 
but of so very generous a size that 
it seemed as though she were about 
to crush her little gray cavalier un- 
der her weight. While this mighty 
dame drew herself up with a haugh- 
ty air, shook out her skirt, and de- 
ployed her train on the sidewalk, 
a young man of interminable length 
issued after her. His inevitable 



348 



A Happy Family. 



ulster made him look like an um- 
brella in its case. He had that 
weary 'air, weary and at the same 
time impertinent, which is consider- 
ed so fashionable by certain young 
men. Behind him there appeared 
at the door a young lady to whom 
lie never dreamed of offering his 
hand to assist her in descending. 
She succeeded in alighting with the 
greatest difficulty, thanks to the 
supreme elegance with which her 
skirt, drawn tightly back, nipped her 
about and hindered her movements. 
She at last descended and had al- 
ready taken a step on the asphalt 
pavement while the end of her 
skirt was still in the train. She 
dragged this appendage after her, 
then advanced, balancing herself 
on her hips, to join the large lady 
and the important little man. All 
about her, from hat of all shapes or 
no shape at all to her boots with 
their bewildering bandelets and 
heels that seemed fashioned for 
vertigo, presented the accomplished 
type of young persons who aim at 
and succeed in being taken for 
ladies of that uncertain world that 
politeness calls by the significant 
title of a certain world. These four 
personages formed a group. The 
large lady had hooked her weighty 
arm in that of the little old man, 
who, despite his roguish and wag- 
gish air, was simply nowhere at 
all by the side of her. The pair, 
nose in air, looked to right and 
left of them. The young man and 
the young girl seemed quite lost, 
the one in his ulster, wherein he 
buried himself with a visible satis- 
faction, the other in her small veil 
of white tulle, which she pinned be- 
hind with such exactness that it 
moulded her face like a mask. 

I was quite disconcerted. Save 
the attenuated youth, I saw no person 
who bore the slightest appearance 



of delicate health. Then, again, 
what to make of this little old man, 
with his impertinent profile, whom 
I was certain I had never seen ? 
And yet there were no other travel- 
lers in whom I could recognize 
those of whom I was in search. 1 
made a step forward in order to 
show myself an utterly stupid pro- 
ceeding on my part, inasmuch as 
not a soul of them knew me. They 
looked at me, they exchanged a 
few words together, then in a me- 
tallic voice, while he watched me 
out of the corner of his eye, my 
gray little gentleman pronounced 
my name aloud as he asked his 
party if I ought not to have been 
at the station awaiting them. 
There was no need for further 
hesitation ; these indeed were my 
invalids; I addressed them. 

The stout female was Mme. 

X . She introduced me to the 

little gentleman whose arm she 
held. He was her father, a very 
rich manufacturer, and he return- 
ed my salute with as much stiffness 
as though his backbone were made 
of one of the iron bars fashioned 
in his workshops. "My son, my 
daughter," said Mme. X , pre- 
senting her two other companions. 
The young man disengaged himself 
a little from his collar and raised 
his hat; the young lady saluted by 
bending a little to one side her 
skirts not authorizing her to do 
otherwise accepted, although very 
much embarrassed by a fan sus- 
pended to her wrist, the arm I of- 
fered her, and we departed from 
the station. I had already engag- 
ed a carriage; a second one was 
needed. Moreover, a formidable 
quantity of luggage had to be seen 
to. The father, whom I shall call 
M. Rosette, gave in his coppery 
voice various resounding orders to 
a footman who had joined us, and 



A Happy Family. 



349 



whose manifold lace and scarlet 
vest had made a profound impres- 
sion on the omnibus drivers and 
commissionaires. 

"Jean! come here, Jean! Be 
very sure, Jean, that the countess* 
baggage and my baggage are all 
right. Do you hear, Jean ?" It 
was plain to see that M. Rosette 
was the bluest of blue blood in 
speaking of his daughter, in the 
loudest tones he could summon, as 
" the countess." 

"By the way, where shall we get 
out ?" he asked of me. 

I proposed my hotel, where I. had 
ascertained there were apartments 
unoccupied. 

" Very well," sighed Mine. X 

in a languishing voice. " Only let 
us make haste. I am horribly fa- 
tigued. But that frightful luggage. 
Arthur, could you not remain at 
the station with Jean, and make 
them bring it ?" 

But Arthur seemed very ill-dis- 
posed to offer his services for such 
a purpose. I ventured to propose 
that they should only take what 
was absolutely necessary for the one 
night they were to spend at Perpi- 
gnan, and to leave the rest at the 
station until the following day. 
My suggestion was adopted. But 
there was still a sorting to be 
made. Each one pointed out to 
Arthur the trunk and satchel that 
were absolutely indispensable to 
them, even for a single night. The 
young man went off with a bored 
air, the skirt of his ulster flapping 
about his legs, and we saw him 
wander in and out among the 
trunks, followed by the flaming red 
waistcoat of the footman. Mme. 

f X allowed herself ,to fall, with 

an air of aristocratic lassitude, in a 
carriage whose springs she tried to 
their very utmost ; her daughter, 
after engaging in a single combat 



with her weighty train, got lodged 
in another carriage where a maid 
scarcely found room to perch on 
the seat opposite. M. Rosette was 
agitated, and he took as mighty 
strides on the sidewalk as his little 
legs would allow him to take, 
complaining the while of the insuf- 
ficiency of the lighting arrange- 
ments. Finally the languishing 
Arthur returned, saying that the 
sorting was completed and that the 
indispensable baggage four trunks 
and as many satchels would fol- 
low ; whereupon he pried his way in- 
to the carriage occupied by his sister 
and her train. Then was heard a 
great rustling of silks and stuffs, 
and cries of " Take your tail out of 
the way" and "Take care now," 
which proved that the movement 
was not made without violence. I 
mounted into the other carriage, 

where Mme. X and her father 

were seated, and at last we started. 
As we rolled towards the hotel I 
learned that M. Rosette had de- 
cided at the last moment on ac- 
companying his daughter to Amelie- 
les-Bains. I could not prevent 
myself from thinking that if I had 
only received the slightest hint of 
this short father and this long son, 
I should without the least scruple 
have dispensed with the very dis- 
agreeable task to which I was now 
set. 

Our installation at the hotel was 

a very trying affair. Mme. X 

found the apartments odiously un- 
comfortable ; then it was neces- 
sary that her maid be lodged in 
the room next to hers; then her 
daughter could never occupy an iso- 
lated chamber ; then M. Rosette 
was accustomed to have a fire in his 
bed-room. They exhausted them- 
selves in plans, as though they in tend- 
ed putting up there for years. Arthur 
planted himself in the middle of the 



350 



A Happy Family. 



room which was assigned to him, 
and, his hands in the pockets of his 
trousers, his little hat pushed as 
far back on his head as it could go, 
he drawled out a " Well-1 1 !" which 
depicted his utter disgust at the 
whole proceedings and the ex- 
treme bitterness of his heart. Mile. 

X walked hither and thither, 

her train frou-frouing all over- the 
place, her heels going tic-toe, tic- 
toe ; but her discontent was mute, 
for the very good reason, doubtless, 
that her veil was drawn so tightly 
across her face as not to allow her 
to open her mouth. M. Rosette, 
on the contrary, was bubbling over ; 
he emitted little ironical laughs in 
his coppery way, declaring that, 
for his part, since their arrival at 
Perpignan the insufficiency of the 
light had prepared his mind for 
droll things. Whereupon Mme. 

X remarked, with a touch of 

heat, that for her part she saw no- 
thing at all droll in their being so 
frightfully lodged. At length they 
hit upon a combination of cham- 
bers which it was thought might 
possibly be endured for one night, 
deplorable as they were. 

Then with one voice they asked 
for supper. A new and grave 
trouble arose when it was discover- 
ed that there was no private saloon, 
and that they should descend to 
the public dining-room. In vain 
did the butler assure them 'that 
they would find there scarcely any 
other travellers at such an hour ; 
it was not so much the fact of pos- 
sible witnesses as that of so demean- 
ing themselves at all as to take 
supper in a common room. But 
hunger lent an argument of its own. 
Arthur gave vent to the void that 
was in him by saying with a yawn : 

" Well, let us have something to 
eat, any how !" 

His sister unmasked to say: 



" Well, mamma, it is very annoy- 
ing, of course. Still, if we do de- 
scend as for me, I'm famished." 

M. Rosette said, in a voice that 
grew more and more metallic, and 
with a laugh that grew also in irony : 

" Well, serve the supper as fast 
as you can." 

And Mme. X responded by 

a simple " Well " whose dull accent 
contained a whole history of resign- 
ed misfortune. 

After these four " wells " I was 
invited to join them at supper. I 
refused. In the first place, I never 
eat supper; in -the next place, the 
fatigue and annoyance made me 
extremely anxious to retire to my 
chamber. M. Rosette protested; 

Mme. X said that she had a 

multitude of things to ask me con- 
cerning Amelie-les-Bains. 

"You surely will not begin by 
abandoning us? My husband told 
me that you placed yourself alto- 
gether at my disposal." 

With difficulty I repressed a 
grimace ; but, as they really want- 
ed me, I accepted their invitation* 
Notwithstanding their famishing 
condition, they devoted half an 
hour tocertain preliminary touches 
of the toilette. At the end of half 
an hour I descended to the dining- 
room. Its sole occupant was a 
bearded man, who devoured to- 
gether with his supper a mass of 
journals of every kind which he 
drew from his pockets. Not a soul 

yet of the X family. Arthur 

was the first to appear, his hands 
plunged deep in the pockets of his 
startlingly-striped trousers; his long 
neck, being no longer upheld by 
the collar of his ulster, protruded 
itself lingeringly out of a collar that 
widened to his ears and was open 
to the collar-bone ; on his by no 
means large brow were coiled the 
two scales of a coiffure a la Capoul. 



A Happy Family. 



351 



He drifted up to me with the mo- 
tion of a frigate that is lying to, 
and asked : 

" Is not my mother here yet?" 
" I hardly think she is," I replied 
without a smile, but not without 
the passing thought that Mme. 
X \ras not precisely transform- 
ed into an invisible sylph. 

" At this rate we sha'n't sup till 
to-morrow. What a nuisance ! 
I'll go and see." 

And he drifted out without for 
a moment losing his air of grace- 
ful extension. 

In good time all the family as- 
sembled. Mme. X had on a 

robe of black satin, in which her 
robust form showed its bold out- 
lines as in a reflection of polished 
steel. There were chains, clasps, 
medallions gleaming on this black 
ground. Her expressionless face 
denoted rude health ; a little nose, 
perked upwards to the point of im- 
pertinence, pushed itself the best 
way it could from between two 
bloated cheeks ; the eyes, half closed, 
posed for the downward look (which 
some people consider gives them 
an air of distinction) ; in the whole 
woman there was that something 
of silly vanity which bespeaks from 1 
afar off the wealthy woman of the 
middle class who is consumed 
with the distinction of having mar- 
ried a title. Mile. Clementine 
for so I heard the young girl call- 
ed was an improvement on her 
mother. She had some elegance 
in her traits. But what a vice for 
overdoing fashion ! Such pinch- 
ings of skirts ! What a debauch of 
hair on her forehead and on the 
nape of her neck ! As for M. Ro- 
sette, vanity simply oozed out of 
all his pores; it was like an atmos- 
phere which he always carried 
about with him, and which one felt 
from afar off. 



The bearded eater, always deep 
in his journals, had to undergo, 
happily without suspecting it, more 
than one glance of displeasure and 
disdain from all the members of 
the family. 

" They told us we should be 
alone here !" murmured Mine. 

x , tightening a mouth which 

corresponded with her size. 

" Pray forgive that poor gentle- 
man, madame," said I in an under- 
tone. " Indeed, he does not even 
dream that his presence here of- 
fends you." 

The attention of M. Rosette, 
who found himself seated by the 
side of the intruder, was attracted 
by the journals. After some re- 
flection he seemed to come to the 
conclusion that it would not lower 
his dignity if he asked permission 
to cast an eye over one of the 
sheets. The gentleman immediate- 
ly offered him several in a very 
obliging manner, a*t the same time 
calling his attention to certain in- 
teresting intelligence. Soon after 
this traveller, whose accent and the 
rapidity of his speech pronounced 
him to be from some middle pro- 
vince of France; made a few re- 
marks, to which Jtf. Rosette con- 
descended to reply. A conversa- 
tion sprang up between the two, 
who found themselves in perfect 
accord on the matters which they 
so lucidly discussed. The French- 
man was a republican, a great ad- 
mirer of M. Thiers, and in close 
sympathy with M. Garnbetta ; the 
Belgian was a liberal, full of con- 
tempt for all the abuses of all the 
ages, save that in which God call- 
ed him into the world. M. Ro- 
sette having mentioned that he was 
a Belgian, the other, who seemed 
to interest himself about the poli- 
tics of every country in the world, 
put certain questions to him con- 



352 



A Happy Family. 



cerning the situation in Belgium. 
From the manner in which he re- 
sponded I saw soon enough that 
M. Rosette belonged to that class 
of men whom a party spirit moves 
to belittle their own country, with- 
out really recognizing the fact, I 
believe, just to give themselves the 
satisfaction of blackening their po- 
litical adversaries. 

But I soon lost track of this in- 
teresting and edifying discussion, 
my attention being necessarily de- 
voted to Mme. X , who plied 

me with questions about Amelie- 
les-Bains, how she might put up 
there, the manner of life they lived 
there, the society one met there, 
and so forth. 

It was -agreed that we should all 
start next morning for Amelie-les- 
Bains. I then begged and obtained 
permission to retire, for my fatigue 
was extreme. Indeed, it was suffi- 
ciently apparent, for Mme. X 

had already remarked that, to judge 
by my countenance, it did not seem 
that my stay at Amelie-les-Bains 
had greatly benefited me, and tliat 
" this was not very encouraging 
for poor invalids who went there in 
search of health." She was evi- 
dently thinking of herself at the 
time. 

I passed a horrible night, almost 
without sleep. I had over-exerted 
myself, and was moreover terrified 
at the prospect of the thousand- 
and-one annoyances that this ex- 
cruciating family promised me. I 
asked myself with stupefaction 
what ills these people pretended to 
come to cure at Amelie-les-Bains. 

If Mme. X , for instance, was 

consumptive she disguised it with 
admirable effect. I claim no great 
merit for having risen early next 
morning; after a sleepless night 
one's bed is a rack. I breakfast- 
ed without seeing a single one of 



my friends, and returned to my 
room. There I remained a long 
while, and was just on the point of 
wooing forty winks from a sofa 
when a tremendous rap came to 
the door. I jumped with fright, 
crying out at the same time, " Come 
in !" A clumsy and heavy hand 
fiddled at the lock for some mo- 
ments, then the door opened and 
the scarlet waistcoat of the footman 
flashed upon me, and the wearer 
of the waistcoat informed me that 
the countess was at table and 
awaited me in the dining-room. I 
gave vent to a sigh of resignation 
and descended. All the family 
had assembled and breakfast began. 

"You see, "said Mme. X , with 

a wicked air, as though intending a 
joke, while I took the seat reserved 
for me at her side " you see we 
have been waiting for you." 

They were astounded to learn 
that I had already breakfasted. 
Arthur observed between mouth- 
fills that I rose earlier than he, 
whence he seemed to conclude 
that his habits were better than 
mine. It was very near the hour 
that had been appointed the night 
before for our departure for Ame"- 
1 lie-les-Bains, and yet I beheld the 
whole family still in their morning 
costume, always excepting M. Ro- 
setle, who was the very identical 
M. Rosette of yesterday, as though 
some one had simply hung him up 
for the night to a peg and taken 
him down again in the morning. 
Arthur's gorgeous velvet dressing- 
gown and the ladies' long morning 
robes announced, on the contrary, 
by their elegance which, to tell the 
truth, was a trifle loud the. preme- 
ditated morning neglige of fashion- 
able people. 

Breakfast over, they declared that 
an hour would be amply sufficient 
time to make their toilettes; that 






A Happy Family. 



353 



afterwards they would take a walk 
through the town, after which they 
would start for Amelie-les-Bains. 
I thought it my duty to inform 
them that it would then be rather 
late and the route was long. They 
seemed to be convinced that all 
needed to reduce the journey by 
one-half was to pay the drivers 
double fare. I was silent. 

I was left alone in the dining- 
room with M. Rosette, who imme- 
diately tackled me on politics. A 
remark of mine the night before 
had given him a sad idea of my 
opinions. To improve them, doubt- 
less, he had the goodness to fur- 
nish me in detail with an exposition 
of his own views, or rather of those 
of the newspapers which he read ; 
for the poor little wretch had not 
an idea of his own, although he 
determined with cool assurance 
the gravest questions in politics, and 
even religion. I need not say that 
the Catholic Church had a very 
hard time of it under the merciless 
logic of M. Rosette. How much 
good the church might have ac- 
complished if, instead of "travers- 
ing again the course of ages," it 
had willed to follow the " march of 
humanity " ! As for him, Rosette, 
a man of his time, he was afflicted, 
of course, by none of the creduli- 
ties of other ages, but he under- 
stood how to deal with the igno- 
rance of the masses ; he knew that 
for them to pass at once from a 
blind credulity to an enlightened 
incredulity was an impossible thing; 
for a long time to come religion 
would still be necessary for the 
people. If Catholicity had only 
understood its rule and known how 
to make itself pliant and accommo- 
dating, it was the religion which 
enlightened men might have felt 
disposed to tolerate provisionally. 
But the Catholic Church seemed to 
VOL. XXYIII. 23 



feel it incumbent on it to render it- 
self impossible. What would be 
the result? Why, that Romanism 
would be absolutely rejected by all 
clear heads, and Protestantism, be- 
yond doubt, no matter under what 
form, would be the means to which 
men would have recourse in order 
to lead the peoples sweetly up to 
intellectual emancipation. 

I looked with astonishment at 
the old head whence issued this 
vulgar medley of commonplace and 
stupidity. But M. Rosette never 
blanched. He went on and on, 
thoroughly convinced, I believe, 
that I was lost in admiration at 
his intellectual power and elo- 
quence. After having exhausted 
the subject of religion, he proceed- 
ed, without drawing rein, to an ex- 
position of his views on politics. 
He was, he assured me, at once 
very liberal and very conservative. 
Conservative indeed ! He had mil- 
lions of reasons for being so. His 
enormous wealth gave him a well- 
grounded horror of radical ideas. 
But, on the other hand, he Knew 
the price of the great mental con- 
quests of the time, and laughed at 
the blind ones who deny progress. 
The future, according to him, be- 
longed to the middle classes, the 
only active and intelligent class. 
The nobility, ill-fitted for work and 
instinctively retrograde, would feel 
its powerlessness more and more, 
and would be compelled to sink 
itself in the middle class, carrying 
with it its titles and heraldic toys, 
on which fools stiil set some value. 
As though he suspected that I was 
thinking at that very moment of the 
emphasis with which' on every pos- 
sible occasion he called out the 
title of the countess, his daughter, 
M. Rosette felt himself obliged to 
inform me that as for him he had 
a profound contempt for all such 



354 



A Happy Family. 



matters, and that, had he wished 
it, he might have been created 
baron, even count, like so many 
others who, sprung from money- 
bags, industry, or commerce, posed 
before the world like sons of the 
Crusaders. 

Having thus given me a suffi- 
ciently complete resume Q{ his opin- 
ions on all possible subjects, this 
terrible little man proposed that 
we should continue our conversa- 
tion while walking through the 
streets of Perpignan. I refused 
with a start of apprehension. 

" You are right," he said ; " I 
was forgetting that you must offer 
your arm to the countess, who un- 
doubtedly will soon be down." 

I shivered. So awful a thought 
had never entered my head. To 
direct these people in their re- 
searches at Ame'lie-les-Bains I 
-vas perforce resigned. But to 
point out to them " the curiosi- 
ties " of Perpignan never! I had 
only one desire : to escape from 
t.he dining-room and lock myself 
in my room up to the moment of 
starting for Amelie-les-Bains. It 
was hard work to get rid of M. 
Rosette, who stuck to me like a 
cock-chafer. At last I succeeded, 
and, rushing for the stairs to get 
to my room and hide myself there, 
whom should I meet on the first 

landing but Mme. X in the very 

act of making a majestic descent. 

" O you active creature !" she 
said. " You are flying up-stairs to 
learn what has become of us. I 
acknowledge we are a little slow, 
but it is impossible to dress quick- 
ly when one has such bad accom- 
modations." 

Speaking thus, she took my arm. 
I babbled a few words of excuse. 
Fatigue, headache, sleeplessness, 
need of repose dropped from my 
lips. 



" Don't mention it," sighed she. 
" I am positively worn out. I 
have not been able to close an 
eye all night long because of my 
nerves. I don't really know how I 
have the strength to stand on my 
legs. But come, hurry ; the air will 
do us both good." 

She set out to descend the stairs. 
As she held my arm, I had to de- 
scend whether I liked it or no. It 
was very evident that she never 
contemplated the possibility of my 
not offering myself as her devoted 
cavalier. I have already confessed 
how deplorably weak I am under 

certain circumstances. Mme. X 

was such a circumstance. I pla- 
cidly allowed myself to be led 
away. 

Behold me and my lovely coun- 
tess in the streets of Perpignan ; 
Arthur and his sister follow ; M. 
Rosette heads the procession, and 
crunches the pavement under his 
feet so ferociously that one would 
think it belonged to him alone. 

"You told me yesterday that you 
were acquainted with the town," 
said Mme. X as she drag- 
ged herself along. And, indeed, I 
had been guilty of the imprudence 
of saying so. " Take me to the 
handsomest stores. I wish to make 
a few purchases." 

O agony ! All the members of 
this family had a mania for pur- 
chases. Instead of observing the 
interesting features of the town it- 
self, they had eyes for the shop- 
windows and for nothing else. 
They left one store only to enter 
another. Jewelry, toys, hardware, 
linen, perfumery what was there 
that they did not buy ? The youth- 
ful Arthur pushed cynicism to the 
verge of actually purchasing boots 
of two different shoemakers, because, 
as he put it, he admired their chic. 
I was disgusted. I should have 



A Happy Family. 



355 



! 



escaped had not Mme. X kept 

a keen watch over me and held fast 
to me with a pitiless care, consult- 
ing me obstinately on her pur- 
chases, despite my refusal of any in- 
terference whatever with matters of 
such gravity and so unknown to 
me. I verily believe that this wo- 
man had sworn to kill me. When 
they had finished rifling the princi- 
pal stores, they expressed a care- 
less wish to take a look at the an- 
cient quarters of the town, whose 
inspection might be of some inter- 
est. But again they fell to on ab- 
surd purchases, so that they saw 
nothing at all. I called their at- 
tention once more to the fact that 
the hour was drawing late and that 
they could no longer delay setting 
out for Amelie-les-Bains. Some 
one spoke of going to see the plane- 
trees of Henry IV. Mme. X 

declared that trees had no interest 
for her. We two accordingly re- 
turned to the hotel, while Rosette 
pere and the young people turned to 
the promenade. I was thus at liber- 
ty to enjoy freely and uninterrupt- 
edly the charms of the conversation 

of Mme. X . She began with 

he state of her health, and inform- 
ed me that, without appearing so, 
she suffered horribly from her nerves; 
she informed me, moreover, that 
Mile. Clementine of course without 
showing it was also very nervous 
and had a most sensitive nature 
corresponding to that of her mo- 
ther ; in fine, she gave me to under- 
stand that Arthur was quite broken 
down for having, " like all the 
youths of his rank," enjoyed life a 
little too freely. The leading lights 
of the medical profession had been 
consulted regarding these three pre- 
cious lives. In presence of this ner- 
vous mother, this sensitive daughter, 
and this broken-down son, the lead- 
ing lights, after numerous grave con- 



sultations, had ordered a trip south- 
wards. But the choice of a sta- 
tion was bristling with difficulties. 
Nice, Cannes, Mentone, San-Remo, 
which naturally occurred to one's 
mind, had been pronounced im- 
possible because of the mistral that 
would have inevitably slain the 
countess, and, moreover, because of 
the close proximity of the too gay 
and charming little town of Mona- 
co, which would infallibly offer to 
Viscount Arthur a chance of ex- 
posing himself to new and horrible 
attacks. The leading lights there- 
upon cast their eyes on Amelie-les- 
Bains, where there was neither 
mistral to slay the countess nor 
fast society to shatter the viscount. 

Nevertheless Mme. X did not 

conceal from me that the advice of 
the leading lights had left her in 
painful doubt regarding the pro- 
posal of a stay at Amelie-les-Bains 
"from a social point of view." 
Was not the place exclusively fre- 
quented by middle-class people ? 
Was it possible that persons " in 
society " could go there without 
lowering themselves in some way ? 

In " her world " Mme. X knew 

of no family who ever went to 
Amelie-les-Bains ; so that she could 
not help asking herself " if fashion 
really permitted her to go there." 
I hoped, despite my utter incompe- 
tence, to calm her fears on that 
score by assuring her that, hermit 
as I was, I had nevertheless heard 
pronounced more than one name 
which was a sufficient guarantee 
that she would find at Amelie-les- 
Bains some one to rub against 
without degrading herself. 

Although I answered thus with- 
out allowing my desire to laugh ap- 
pear, I was astonished for once 
again in my life at the ravages 
which vanity makes in certain cra- 
niums. This large woman, sailing 



356 



A Happy Family. 



along with her nose in air, was a 
type. 

Mine. X and I had already 

returned to the hotel for some time, 
and the charms of our tete-a-tete 
were becoming absolutely over- 
whelming, when the rest of the 
family came back. M. Rosette 
condescended to admit that the 
plane-trees of the Bearnais king 
were not bad, but that he had in 
his own park some that were quite 
as good. Arthur remarked with a 
yawn that the trees did not appear 
so very old, and that it was ridicu- 
lous to trace them back to Henry 
IV., " because in that case they 
would be more than a thousand 
years old " a chronological reflec- 
tion that no one ventured to dis- 
pute. Mile. Clementine confined 
herself to observing, as she freed 
her nose from the oppression of 
the veil, that the alley of plane- 
trees was full of an insupporta- 
ble dust. 

Meanwhile they resolved on set- 
ting out. Somebody went to look 
for carriages. The footman re- 
ceived detailed orders from Arthur 
regarding certain provisions, both 
liquid and solid, with which it was 
necessary to fortify themselves for 
a dejeuner on the route, to be ta- 
ken as best it could. 

"Well, that's all right," said the 
young man when he had finished 
giving his instructions. " But now 
how about the dinner?" 

" What dinner? We shall dine at 
Amelie-les-Bai#s. I suppose they 
know how to serve a dinner 
there ?" M. Rosette asked of me. 

I simply named to him the two 
chief hotels. 



"We'll send 
ahead," said he. 
where without 
coming. Order 



a despatch on 
" I never go any- 
announcing my 
the dinner to be 



served in a private room. 



Mine. X here interrupted to 

say that that was absolutely neces- 
sary. 

" Of course," said M. Rosette. 
"Arthur, will you see to the de- 
spatch?" 

" With pleasure. Give me paper, 
ink, and a pen to write with." 

The young man set to work; and 
the work in question seemed one 
of great difficulty, for scarcely had 
one despatch been written than it 
was torn up and a new one begun. 
Then in the midst of his editing he 
stopped, counted the words on his 
fingers, scratched his head with 
great vigor as though seeking for 
inspiration, bit the end of his pen 
almost to pieces, and began to sigh 
like a man weighed down by exces- 
sive labor. After a quarter of an 
hour of such exercise he laid down 
his pen. 

"Have you finished?" asked 
Mile. Clementine with an air of 
mock compassion. 

" No, I haven't finished," re- 
sponded Arthur angrily. " It is 
very easy for you to talk, who sit 
there with nothing else to do but 
look on. Do you want to write 
the despatch yourself?" 

" Thank you ; I have no desire 
to stain my fingers with ink." 

" Well, then, let me alone." 

"But, Arthur," interposed M. 
Rosette, " it does not seem to me 
so very difficult a matter 1 to order 
dinner." 

" Of course not when one has 
only to open his mouth. But by 
telegraph, plague take it ! it is not 
at all such an easy matter." 

" I should think not, indeed," 
said Mile. Clementine, still in 
her mocking tone. " 'A dinner at 
such an hour.' It is frightfully 
difficult to write that. For I sup- 
pose you are not amusing yourself 
by drawing up the menu." 



A Happy Family. 



357 



" I have already asked you to let 
me alone," responded Arthur, look- 
ing at her savagely. "In the first 
place, you don't know what you are 
saying. I suppose it is not neces- 
sary to tell them how many persons 
there will be, and that a private 
room is wanted. It is not so sim- 
ple a matter, let me tell you." 

The young' man set to work 
again, and after having spoiled 
several other sheets of paper, with 
an under accompaniment of curses 
"not loud but deep," he seemed 
satisfied with a final production. 

" Here's the despatch at last," 
he cried in a tone of triumph. 
"But what a nuisance!" he mut- 
tered, sucking his finger. K My 
whole nail is black from it." M. 
Rosette cast his eyes over the mes- 
sage. 

" It is not very readable," said 
he, adjusting his glasses. 

"I have never plumed myself on 
my penmanship," replied Arthur. 
"But what does it matter? The 
telegraph people ought to be able 
to read all sorts of writing." 

" But this seems to me very . . . 
difficult . . . indeed. . . . And then 
why do you spell dinner with one 
n?" . 

" Because a dinner wants an n." 
" Yes ; but it wants two. D-i-n- 
n-e-r dinner !" 

" Oil ! well, perhaps you spell it 
that way ; but other people spell it 
with one ;/." 

"But they spell it wrongly." 
" Well, I never found that it 
made any difference when I asked 
for it." 

" My dear Arthur," said M. Ro- 
sette, whose own ideas seemed to 
grow confused before the vigorous 
ignorance of his grandson, u I as- 
sure you it is spelt with two 's." 

"Well, then, throw in another , 
if it is any satisfaction to you. 



Still, I don't see much use in tele- 
graphing two of them when one 
would do just as well." 

" Then, again," said M. Rosette, 
growing more and more perplexed, 
" what is this second r doing at 
the end?" 

"Good heavens!" cried Arthur, 
tearing his finger out of his mouth, 
" you'll go through the whole 
twenty letters of the alphabet soon. 
The telegraph people don't bother 
themselves about spelling; the tele- 
graph wire doesn't know how to 
spell, does it ?" 

" No matter," said the grand- 
father; "this despatch seems to 
me a little . . . But wait." 
And he wrote another. 
" Good," murmured Arthur, 
crumpling his up in his hand and 
sending it to join the others, whose 
debris filled the fireplace. " That's 
good for the paper business," he 
added gaily. " Meanwhile, I must 
go and wash my hands. I never 
saw such smeary ink before. Just 
look at my nail. Give me your 
despatch with the two n's and the 
one r, and I'll take it to the tele- 
graph office." 

And he left the room, sucking 
away at his finger. 

If the coming in was trying, the 
setting out was terrible. The get- 
ting into the carriages took nearly 
half an hour. To begin with, 
we had to wait for Arthur. Then 
shawls and overcoats were wanted 
which no one had thought of provid- 
ing, and which each one in turn de- 
manded just as we were about to 
start. One would think there was 
a Avager among these people to see 
which one could detain us longest. 

Mme. X won ; for after having 

asked one after the other for va- 
rious objects her umbrella, her 
little bag, her purse, a pair of gloves 
she waited until we were just out- 



358 



A Happy Family. 



side the town to inform us that she 
could not possibly go any farther 
without her bottle of smelling-salts, 
which had been left on the table in 
her room. The footman, informed 
of the mishap, got down from the 
box and went in search of the bot- 
tle. We waited and waited, but, as 
he failed to put in an appearance, 
J^lme. X told us with unalter- 
able and highly aristocratic calm 
that she now remembered having 
left the bottle in a work-box where 
she was certain Jean would never 
find it. For once M. Rosette 
seemed to think this was too much. 
He ordered the driver to return to 
the hotel. Arthur, who with his 
sister occupied the second carriage, 
shot out of his ulster and his tor- 
por to ask, " Why were they going 
back ?" As nobody answered him, 
he ordered his driver to follow us, 
and presently the two carriages went 
rattling up to the hotel entrance. 
The porter, seeing them, thought 
they were new arrivals and gave a 
vigorous twang to the bell. The 
hotel-keeper, the butler, the wait- 
ers rushed out with the extraordi- 
nary display of eagerness belonging 
to this particular class of persons. 
They tore open the carriage doors, 
but no one descended, or even 
spoke to them, as they stood open- 
mouthed with surprise. Mme. 

X finally resolved on calling 

the maid who attended to her 
room. After some difficulty the 
maid was found, and when she ar- 
rived a key was given her with or- 
ders to go and look for the bottle 
of smelling-salts in the worl^box. 
She came back to say she could 
notfindit. Finally Mme. X an- 
nounced, always with the same im- 
perturbable calm, that she had it in 
her pocket. This time M. Rosette 
shrugged his shoulders and bade 
the driver start, promising him a 



triple pourboire if he drove us gai- 
ly. Anxious to show at once that 
he deserved such liberality, our 
driver lashed his horses furiously 
and set out at so terrific a pace 
that at the first turn he went with- 
in an inch- of driving over an old 
woman and very nearly got entan- 
gled with a wagon, whose driver, 
wearing on his head an immense 
red cap, rolled out a volley of Cat- 
alan oaths. Mme. X uttered a 

piercing cry and declared that if 
that was going to continue she pre- 
ferred to return to the hotel. M. 
Rosette, himself somewhat moved, 
expressed the hope that that would 
not continue. 

"But, sir," said the countess in 
a doleful voice to me, " what sort 
of a country is this? It is truly 
frightful to be threatened by such 
coachmen ! And what kind of a 
man is this with his horrible wag- 
on ? What language does he 
speak? What horrid cap is that 
on his head ? It is the bonnet of 
the revolutionists, is it not ? That 
is what they wear when they go to 
the barricades to kill everybody, 
is it not ?" 

"Madame," said I, "I think 
there are in all lands awkward 
drivers who run into one another, 
particularly when they want to go 
too fast. The man who has fright- 
ened you is simply a peasant, a 
little quick, perhaps, as are all the 
people of this region, to anger; the 
language which he speaks is pure 
Catalan a sweet language, sonor- 
ous and very expressive ; as for his 
head-gear, it is that of the country. 
In looking at it a second time you 
will acknowledge with me that it is 
original, picturesque, and far more 
pleasing to the eye than the vulgar 
cap of our Belgian peasants." 

"I know nothing about it; I 
don't admire red as the color of 






A Happy Family. 



359 



the people. I always hear say that 
the reds are the brigands who wish 
to destroy everything, to rob the 
rich and kill them afterwards. 
Are the peasants on this side of 
France as wicked as those ? Then 
I warn you that I will not stay at 
Amelie-les-Bains !" 

" Calm yourself, madame. I be- 
lieve I may safely promise that you 
will neither be robbed nor assassi- 
nated. True, people are a little 
radical hereabout; but what of 
that? The radicals maintain that 
they are none other than logical 
liberals, who, instead of halting by 
the way, go straight to the comple- 
tion and last consequences of their 
ideas." 

This reflection escaped me, be- 
cause I recalled the theories that I 
had heard developed the evening 
before, and again in the morning, 
by the father of the timid countess. 
The little old man started like a 
horse who feels the spur, and set to 
work to overwhelm me with the 
lame reasons by which doctrinaires 
attempt to escape the logic of the 
radicals. This went on a long 
while. But as I was careful not to 
respond, there was only one possi- 
ble end to the dispute. My elo- 
quent little friend, after having ex- 
hausted himself, relapsed into si- 
lence. And so we rolled along the 
road to Amelie-les-Bains. Mme. 

X found the country sad, and 

saw nothing to admire in the Pyre- 
nees, which already began to un- 
roll before us the gracefully-undu- 
lating line of the Canigou, of the 
mountains between which the val- 
ley of the Tech and the charming 
chain of the Alberes open out, 
whose last heights, crowned with 
Roman towers, lord it over Port- 
Vendres and Banyuls on the Medi- 
terranean. The countess had not 
a glance for the enormous aloes 



which formed the hedges along the 
route ; she had some just as fine in 
boxes on the terrace of her cha- 
teau; the climate here had nothing 
peculiar for her; the dust both- 
ered her; the sun was too hot 
(there was not a breath of air 
stirring that day). I could not help 
remarking that it is precisely this 
warm sun, this sky for ever clear, 
that people come to seek in winter 
time at Amelie-les-Bains. She de- 
clared that an ever-cloudless sky 
was insupportable to a person of 
weak nerves. To this opinion, held 
by many people whom I know, 
there was no answer. The con- 
versation slackened and died out. 

At this moment the carriage con- 
veying the young people passed 
ours. Arthur lay there stretched 
out gracefully, his feet resting on 
the seat in front of him. As he 
passed he greeted us with a gri- 
mace and a malicious smile, the 
meaning of which we understood 
a few instants after when we were 
blinded by the dust raised by the 
vehicle in front. To escape it 
somewhat we were compelled to 
tell our driver to stop awhile. 

At the village of Boulou, well 
known for its alkaline waters, which 
resemble those of Vichy but are 
more active, we made a short halt 
to breathe the horses. Arthur 
graciously profited by the delay to 
pay us a visit. With his elbows 
leaning- on the carriage-door, he re- 
garded us with an air that grew 
more and more malicious. His 
little hat, pushed ever so far back 
on his head, disclosed the beautiful 
parting in the middle, on either side 
of which fell his locks like curtains. 
He was quite at his best thus. 

" How goes it in your vehicle ?" 
he asked. 

" Dead from dust," said his mo- 
ther with a sigh. 



A Happy Family. 



" I should think so. When we 
were behind we suffered from it 
also. But I told our driver to 
whip up and take the lead. That 
was brutal, wasn't it ?" 

" Brutal indeed for us," said his 
grandfather, as he shook the dust 
off his rose. 

The "viscount " went into con- 
vulsions of laughter over his wick- 
edness. Then he invited us to 
come and see the horses wonder- 
ful beasts, thin as nails, ugly as the 
horses of the vigilantes, but running 
like poisoned rats, and dry as spunk 
after the hard trot to which they 
had been forced. As nobody ac- 
cepted his invitation, he said we 
were droll people to take no inter- 
est in the only thing which he had 
found worthy of remark since we 
first started on this infernal journey. 
M. Rosette . remarked that the 
country was indeed of little note 
and bare of every kind of industry. 

" As for . industry," said the 
young man, " that is all the same 
to . me ; but we have not seen a 
single chateau or met with a gen- 
tleman's carriage. Life cannot be 
very gay in this quarter. Will 
there be game even ? I fear it will 
not be worth much. No liveries ! 
Always these rascally vines. But 
I am wrong in saying rascally, for 
if these produce the liquor we 
drank last evening I salute them 
with respect. By the bye, when 
are we going to have breakfast? 
I begin to feel a strange void in a 
certain region." 

It was decided that at the next 
hill the footman should produce 
the eatables. When the moment 
came I saw spread out gastronomic 
wonders enough to make one be- 
lieve they had sacked all the provi- 
sion-stores in Perpignan. M. Ro- 
sette and his daughter particularly 
feasted themselves on pates de foie 



gras and meats, which they washed 
down with Grenache and Roederer. 
I regarded madame with admira- 
tion mingled with awe, and under- 
stood less and less the reasons on 
the score of health that summoned 
this very solid dame to Amelie-les- 
Bains. They heard with astonish- 
ment that I was not hungry, and 
looked upon me with compassion 
on learning that I only ate two 
meals a day. M. Rosette, strength- 
ening his assertion with a last 
mouthful of foie gras, declared that 
very many ailments had no other 
cause than insufficient nourishment. 
They next proceeded to discuss the 
pastry. Arthur then stopped the 
carriages on purpose to favor us 
with a second visit. He wore his 
hat still farther back on his head 
than before, and held in his hand a 
glass of champagne, in which he 
soaked a biscuit. He was in ex- 
cellent humor, and came to inquire 
how we had enjoyed the dejeuner 
which his forethought had pre- 
pared. 

"Not bad!" said M. Rosette, 
with a little smack of the tongue, as 
he untied the napkin which was 
fastened under his chin. 

" So that," pursued Arthur, as he 
closed his left eye with an air of 
extreme waggishness, "you will 
forgive me for having begun by 
making you eat dirt ?" 

This joke was heightened by a 
free gayety, and the grandfather, 
made tender by the good cheer, 
whispered aloud in my ear that his 
grandson was a mad wag and that 
his sallies were full of fun, fairly 
astonishing, in fact. Arthur then, 
making an end of his biscuit, invit- 
ed me to take a turn in his car- 
riage. I had not the slightest de- 
sire to do so ; but he insisted, say- 
ing that his sister, who was always 
bored to death when she was alone 









A Happy Family. 



361 



with him, had expressly charged 
him to bring me. 

" Indeed," said Mme. X , 

*' it will be exceedingly amiable in 



you 



to o and chat a little with 



poor Clementine." 

I resigned myself to my fate. In 
passing from one carriage to the 
other the viscount, who had be- 
come very affectionate, linked his 
arm in mine, and, gaily shaking his 
empty glass, cried out : " Hurrah ! 
now we'll have fun. As for my 
mother and grandfather, they will 
go to sleep. They always do after 
their meals." 

He gallantly surrendered to me 
his place by the side of his sister, 
who, in the interest of our legs, .had 
a new and terrible combat with her 
crackling train. Arthur, half-re- 
clining on the seat in front, hauled 
out a bottle of champagne, and in- 
sisted, right or wrong, on making 
me drink a bumper. My steady 
refusal annoyed him. 

" On my word of honor," he said, 
as he proceeded to drink it all 
alone, " if it is your health that 
condemns you to such a regimen, I 
pity you. I would rather die than 
live such a life. But come, now, be- 
tween ourselves, tell me what kind 
of a seaport is this Amelie-les- 
Bains. I have an awful dread 
that I am about to be bored in that 
place. Clementine shares my dread, 
although the sly thing never says a 
word about it." 

" You would do better to speak 
for yourself," she remarked in a 
dry tone. 

" Well done ! Now you are go- 
ing to play the serious daughter. 
You would have people believe that 
you don't care for the gay world, 
feteS) balls, concerts, sights, and all 
that sort of thing." 

41 At all events I shall know per- 
fectly well how to enjoy myself." 



" Yes, indeed ; we all know that. 
We shall soon see what a face you'll 
put on it or rather we sha'n't 
see, because I know well enough 
that if the air there does not agree 
with you, you, like myself, will do 
all you can to prevent our staying. 
Between us we shall have no great 
difficulty in changing mamma's 
ideas, who is already by no means 
too charmed to have come to the 
Pyrenees." 

The young man questioned me 
at length on the means of amuse- 
ment at Amelie-les-Bains. My re- 
plies were anything but satisfactory 
to him. 

"The deuce ! the deuce !" he 
cried, scratching his head with the 
greatest precaution for fear of dis- 
arranging ihe little coils that adorn- 
ed his forehead. " There's no fun 
in the place. No theatres, no balls, 
no races, not even a skating-rink. 
Why, hang it ! that isn't a civilized 
life at all. To admire beautiful 
nature, the beautiful sky, the beau- 
tiful mountains thank you for 
nothing ! I was sure of it. I was 
right in saying that we ought to go 
to the neighborhood of Monaco. 
There are friends of mine who have 
gone there and who are enjoying 
themselves amazingly." 

While he proceeded to light his 
cigar I addressed a word to his 
sister, with whom I desired to speak 
a little. She addressed herself to 
me with a good grace ; but it need- 
ed no long study to recognize in 
her a frivolous spirit and a charac- 
ter warped by a deplorable edu- 
cation which could be summed up 
in. two words vanity, frivolity. 
Arthur found a stupid pleasure in 
contradicting his sister and mock- 
ing at everything she said. She re- 
torted impatiently, and nothing was 
more painful to witness than this irri- 
tating misunderstanding that exist- 



362 



A Happy Family. 



ed between the pair. This change 
in brotherly love is another of the 
fruits of modern bourgeoisisme. The 
old spirit of family, growing with 
the years, carries with it the respect 
of children for their parents and a 
like affection of the children for 
each other. I looked with sadness 
on these two young people whom 
the lack of good sense, of reflection, 
and the general incompetence of 
those who were charged with their 
bringing up had already spoiled. 
What kind of a man, I asked my- 
self, will Arthur one day be ? What 
kind of a woman Clementine ? And 
how many Arthurs, how many 
Clementines, are there in a ceftain 
world where all the "old ideas" 
are systematically trampled under 
foot ! 

The brother and sistercontinued 
to snarl at each other, without 
dreaming of the reflections that 
were passing through my mind. 
As we entered the beautiful valley of 
the Tech I endeavored to draw their 
attention to the charms of the land- 
scape. My success was of the small- 
est. Arthur, who posed a little as 
a blast youth, regarded everything 
with indifference, and his sister was 
too superficial, too artificial, I may 
as well say, to be sensible to such 
impressions. In fine, I perceived 
that my young companions found 
me very tiresome. I, on my side, 
found them anything but entertain- 
ing, so that we ended by remaining 
silent. As we drew near Amelie- 
les-Bains, Arthur, in drawing his 
cigar-case from his pocket, pulled 
out a piece of paper, which he snatch- 
ed at. Scarcely had he cast -his, 
eyes over it than he was seized with 
a sudden attack of boisterous mer- 
riment. 

"Not bad! not bad! not bad!" 
he cried, as he roared with laughter 
and slapped his thighs in ecstasy. 



"What? What is the matter?" 
asked his sister. 

" The matter is oh ! it is too 
good." 

New bursts of laughter and re- 
newed slapping of the thighs. 

" You would do better to explain, 
Arthur, than to beat yourself in 
that way. Indeed, you have any- 
thing but an intellectual or witty 
appearance at this moment." 

" Oh ! but it is droll. Just 
imagine : this paper that fell from 
my pocket is grandfather's de- 
spatch !" 

"What does that signify?" 

"Simply that I forgot to carry 
it to the telegraph office." 

" A pretty matter for laughter 
that ! Go and tell grandpapa, and 
we shall see how he will enjoy the 
joke. You know that mistakes of 
this kind are the only faults which 
he does not pardon easily." 

'* Yes, yes, I know it well ; with 
his mercantile habits 'man of busi- 
ness,' as he calls it he wishes one 
to be exact in a matter of corre- 
spondence. It is hjs hobby. But, 
faith, so much the worse. I am no 
man of business." 

"No, indeed." 

" After all, why should I say that 
I have forgotten this rascally slip 
of paper?" 

" Don't you know that grandpa- 
pa's first words on arriving at a ho- 
tel are always : ' Did you receive 
my despatch ?'" 

'* They will answer, * No.' and the 
telegraph will be blamed." 

"You know also that in such 
a case he is very loud in his com- 
plaints. He would go immediately 
with you to the telegraphic bureau at 
Amelie-les-Bains. He would tele- 
graph to the bureau at Perpignan, 
to the hotel. You will be question- 
ed ; you will have to tell who car- 
ried the despatch." 



A Happy Family. 



363 



Arthur blew out several clouds 
of smoke, in order to clear his ideas. 

"Pooh!" cried he suddenly. 
" What a fuss you make about noth- 
ing! I will go this instant and 
confess. He will not eat me after 
all." . 

And as the horses proceeded at 
a walking pace, he vaulted over the 
door on to the road and went to 
the other carriage. He was absent 
a long while. And as I forced my- 
self, for politeness' sake, to con- 
verse with Mile. Clementine, I was 
far from suspecting the trick that 
her brother was playing upon me. 
He suddenly appeared at the side 
of our carriage and jumped in 
again. He seemed peculiarly well 
satisfied with himself. 

"Well," said he, throwing him- 
self back on the cushion, "he was 
a little mad at first. They must 
have slept badly behind us, for 
neither was in a gay humor. As 
soon as I had rattled off my' com- 
pliment you should have seen their 
faces ! Grandfather was really 
savage, on my word of honor, and 
mamma groaned out that it was a 
shame. She said 'that we should 
have no private room, and that she 
would rather go without dinner 
than expose herself to the com- 
pany of sick people. Indeed, it 
was a terrible affair. But all was 
settled at last." 

He looked at me and winked ; 
then, leaning over towards me, and 
patting me affectionately on the 
knee, said with an air of great 
grace : 

"Thanks to you. . . . You don't 
understand, eh ? I should think 
not. But see now how handsome- 
ly I extricate myself from an em- 
barrassing position, and confess that 
there are ideas in my head when 
there is need of them. . . . And, 
first of all, you must be very good 



and not spoil my little plot by rais- 
ing difficulties. That would be 
impolite, and I am very sure you 
do not wish to be impolite." 

" Good gracious ! what an 
amount of talk," cried out his 
sister. "Tell us in one word what 
you have done." 

" Nonsense ! He must first of 
all say ' agreed/ Come, Clemen- 
tine, be sweet for once and ask him 
for me." 

" It is impossible for me to un- 
derstand what you want of me," 
said I. " Will you please explain ?" 

"Well, 'tis the best way after all. 
I am an ass to make such a fuss 
about it. I am sure you would be 
incapable of ... In one word, I 
told grandpapa and mamma that 
we had decided not to go to the 
hotel ; that you had arranged 
everything; that you had invited 
us to dine at yours, and that I had 
already accepted the invitation in 
their name." 

I started with astonishment and 
let loose an '' Impossible !" in any- 
thing but an amiable tone. Any 
other than this youth would have 
been most eager to let the affair 
drop, but he went on in the coolest 
manner possible. 

" I know all that you would say : 
you have made no preparations ; a 
dinner does not get itself ready, 
and so forth. But I foresaw all 
that. I have a good head when I 
really set to work. From the mo- 
ment that the idea of a dinner at 
your place suggested itself to me I 
planned out everything. I was so 
well provisioned for the dejeuner 
that a heap of things remains in 
the baskets. So much for our din- 



ner. 



"And this is the manner in 
which you do me the honor of din- 
ing at my table ? Such an idea is, 
to say the least " 



A Happy Family. 



" To say the least, excellent," 
added Arthur, rubbing his hands in 
glee. But his sister interfered. 

" Arthur," said she angrily, " I 
could not believe it of you. The 
manner in which you make free 
with this gentleman's house is un- 
heard of; I am going this instant 
to speak to mamma, who will not 
permit such an outrage." 

" Go on," cried the young man. 
" Just look at her once she is off! 
What are you meddling with ? Al- 
low me to arrange my little affair 
with monsieur, and devote your at- 
tention to your rascally train, which 
is falling foul of our legs again." 

The girl wished to stop the car- 
riage in order to go and speak to 
her mother. Her brother prevent- 
ed her. The discussion was wax- 
ing warm. I felt that my position 
was becoming rather awkward, and 
took my part in the affray. 

"Mademoiselle," said I, "since 
your grandfather and your mother 
wish to honor me by visiting my 
apartments, resign yourself, I beg. 
I fear that your reception will be 
but a poor one, for which you will 
have chiefly to thank your brother. 
At present you would really 'dis- 
oblige me by further resistance." 

She responded, with some embar- 
rassment, that she only resisted 
through fear of causing me great 
annoyance. Then, turning to the 
young man, I said : 

" My dear Arthur, your plan is 
excellent. It is understood that 
you do me the honor of coming to 
dine with me. You must only omit 
from your programme the remains 
of the dejeuner with which you pro- 
pose to enrich my larder. You 
must content yourself with what- 
ever I can offer you. You will 
dine like an anchoret, or nearly so, 
but you alone will have no. cause 
for complaint, inasmuch as you 



alone are culpable. It will be a 
lesson for you. Another time you 
will not keep the despatches in your 
pocket which you have been trust- 
ed to forward." 

I gave the driver orders to go 
straight to my house. I put on a 
good countenance. In reality 1 
was provoked, put out, irritated 
more than I cared to say, yet very 
resigned to set my poor and mod- 
est fare before these convives who 
fell upon me as it were out of 
the moon. On leaving the car- 
riage I thought it an act of charity 

to warn Mme. X that I could 

only offer her just what would 
prevent her dying of hunger. For 
politeness* sake she pretended to 
be not in the least alarmed at such 
a prospect. But the simplicity of 
my quarters soon inspired her, it 
seemed to me, with serious fears, 
and beyond doubt they regretted 
having accepted " my invitation." 
The very aspect of the garden pro- 
duced a bad impression on my 
guests. 

"Have you no means of tak- 
ing a little exercise without leav- 
ing your own place ?" asked Mme. 
X . 

"Certainly; behold!" 

'" Those cabbage-plots?" 

" Exactly." 

" Heaven preserve us ! My 
nerves are already affected from 
walking among vegetables." 

"Take comfort. You will find 
better quarters elsewhere. There 
are villas at Amelie-les-Bains which 
have charming gardens." 

"Thank Heaven !" 

Having introduced my guests to 
the small apartment that I digni- 
fied with the name of parlor, I left 
them alone an instant to go and 
give a few orders. This was soon 
done. I was resolved to treat the 
X family in precisely the same 



A Happy Family. 



565 



way that I treated myself that is 
to say, in a very simple manner. On 
my return to the parlor I found them 
all very much cast down. Arthur, 
seated in a corner, sucked vicious- 
ly at his cane; Mile. Clementine 
and her skirts occupied a sofa; M. 
Rosette was engaged in examining, 
with visible disapprobation, a crack 
in the wall ; Mine. X over- 
flowed one arm-chair and cast any 
but charmed glances on the furni- 
ture. 

" It says * furnished ' here, does 
it not ?" she asked of me. 

" Naturally. Strangers don't 
come here with their furniture." 

" Is it not possible to bring fur- 
niture from Perpignan ?" 

"No doubt it is." 

"Well, this will be another an- 
noyance. Are there no villas here 
properly furnished ?" 

" Most assuredly. At the same 
time, if you expect luxury, I fear 
you will be disappointed." 

" Without pretending to luxury 
one might easily require ..." 

"Something better than you 
see here? Oh! no doubt." 

M. Rosette took me by the arm. 

" Have you remarked the crack 
in that wall ?" he asked in a tone 
full of grave anxiety. 

"Yes." 

" Are there any others in the 
house ?" 

"Possibly; I believe so, but I 
have paid no attention." 

" Then the house must be either 
on a bad foundation or the land on 
which it stands is not solid ?" 

" Perhaps." 

" Well ! and if a house like this 
should come to tumble about our 
ears ?" 

"As for that, I think there is no 
danger." 

" You are a philosopher, it seems 
to'me." 



"No more than any other man. 
For my quarters, as for everything 
else, I put up with what I can get: 
behold my philosophy." 

" Children," said Mme. X in 

a plaintive voice, " I feel that I 
should become demented if I had to 
live with the thought that the house 
might at any moment tumble upon 
me. I believe your father, if he 
saw what we now see, would be 
the first to say that we should 
think twice before remaining in 
such a country." 

" Most assuredly," said M. Ro- 
sette. 

The children only responded 
with expressive faces. I confined 
myself to urging on these impres- 
sionable people not to judge of 
Amelie-les-Bains on the strength of 
a few old chairs and a crack in the 
wall. 

" Perhaps so," said Mme. X . 

" But I will not conceal from you 
that the first impression is not a 
favorable one. Suppose we go and 
see the best of these villas ?" 

" I am at your orders, madame." 

Behold me, then, conducting my 
guests through the streets of Ame"- 
lie-les-Bains. We saw some villas 
excellently adapted for their use. 
But each member of this family 
had, it seemed, the notion of find- 
ing everything everywhere just as 
comfortable as at home. This is a 
mania rather more common than is 
generally supposed among a certain 
class of persons. Arthur objected to 
everything, giving emphasis to those 
points which he judged most likely 
to influence his mother unfavora- 
bly. Mile. Clementine on her side, 
in a subdued way and without 
seeming to do so, did her best in 
the same direction. Whatever she 
might say, it was evident that she 
had as little desire as her brother 
for a sojourn at Amelie-les-Bains. 



3 66 



A Happy Family. 



"How ill understood is every- 
thing here !" cried M. Rosette, as 
he criticised the arrangement of the 
houses. " There is nothing practi- 
cal about them. How easy it is to 
see that we are not in a country 
of industry ! . . . And the streets 
without gas even." 

I cut our visits short. There is 
a limit to patience. They asked to 
see the baths ; so the baths had to 
be seen. Overcome by the heat 

of the place, Mine. X clung to 

my arm and graciously allowed me 
to drag her along. 

" My dear sir," she said to me 
suddenly, with wildly-rolling eyes, 
" is there no fear of one suffocating 
in this sulphurous atmosphere ?" 

I consoled her as best I could, 
but the perspiration began to 
stream down her face. 

" I am dying," she cried. " Car- 
ry me out !" 

"Carry me " was an easy thing 
for her to say. . . . With the aid 
of M. Rosette I contrived to drag 
the enormous countess as far as 
the entrance, then to help her as 
far as the public square, where we 
had to procure her a chair. When 
she had finished puffing there like 
a porpoise we returned to my room. 
The dinner was ready. Arthur, 
who had remained behind, rejoined 
us at the door and informed us that 
he had just swallowed a large glass 
of sulphurous water. 

" There are fools who seem to 
think it unpleasant," said he. 
" That isn't true. I drank every 
drop of it without the least effort ; 
and, indeed, I think it has give.n 
me an excellent appetite." 

Mme. X said in a feeble 

voice that she was dying to take 
something, as she thought that 
would relieve her. I ordered din- 
ner at once, but scarcely had 
Arthur taken a few spoonfuls of 



soup than his complexion changed 
to an unmistakable green color and 
he made a sudden dash for the 
door. 

"What on earth is the matter?" 
exclaimed Mme. X . 

M. Rosette and I followed the 
poor youth. " The water ! the 
water !" he murmured in a broken 
voice, and begged to be allowed to 
take a walk among my cabbages. 
I left him in the company of his 
grandfather and returned to allay 

the fears of Mme. X . She 

thanked me faintly and made a 
show of resuming her dinner; but 
a few moments after she placed her 
large hands on her chest and de- 
clared that the choking was coming 
on again, affirming that all the 
sulphur which she had breathed in 
was consuming her internally. I 
attempted to reassure her, when 
suddenly, burying her face in the 
napkin, she burst forth into sobs 
and groanings. 

" It is only her nerves," said 
Mile. Clementine, without showing 
the slightest emotion. " If you will 
assist me, sir, we will set her on the 
sofa in your parlor. When she is 
laid out at full length the attack 
passes more quickly." 

We laid her out. The countess 
breathed like a forge-bellows and 
turned up the whites of her eyes. 

"I beg you, sir," said Mile. Cle- 
mentine, who seemed to be accus- 
tomed to this sort of thing, and 
whose admirable coolness never 
forsook her, " to return to your din- 
ner. You must be hungry, as you 
took no breakfast." 

I followed her advice, but w: 
scarcely seated at the table when 

heard Mme. X -utter a series of 

terrible cries. 

"A doctor! a doctor!" she 
screamed in agonizing tones. 

I threw away my napkin and 



A Happy Family. 



367 



rushed out. Mile. Clementine was 
cool and calm as ever. 

" I believe," she said in an un- 
dertone to me, "that you will have 
to send for a doctor. My mother 
is terribly frightened at the idea 
that she has taken in so much 
sulphur. Unless somebody as- 
sures her to the contrary, I don't 
know when the attack may pass 
over." 

I sent for Doctor B , who 

was soon on the spot. The coun- 
tess was always in a state of tears, 
of cries, of sighs. The doctor, who 
is a sensible man, saw soon enough 
the kind of patient he had to deal 
with. He gravely prescribed a 
peculiarly strong potion, consisting 
of sugar and water and orange 
flowers, and soothed his patient 
with fair words. She speedily re- 
covered her calm. At that mo- 
ment Arthur and his grandfatlfer 
came in. The young man felt bet- 
ter; nevertheless he preserved a 
cruelly green complexion, but M. 
Rosette declared that they were 
compelled to quit the garden be- 
cause a wind had sprung up strong 
enough to throw down the houses. 
And, in truth, we could hear the 
preliminary growl of one of those 
rude gusts that the Gulf of Lyons 
sends from time to time to Amelie- 
les-Bains. At the noise and at the 
mention of a wind strong enough 
to throw down the houses, Mme. 
X sprang to her feet and de- 
clared that she would leave the 
place at once. She gazed at the 
crack in my wall and expected 
every moment to find the house 
tumbling about her shoulders ; I 



was extremely careful not to 
disabuse her. The footman re- 
ceived some hurried orders; the 
carriages were brought up in a 
twinkling. I heard Arthur tell his 
grandfather of the good things he 
still had in stock, and promise him 
a charming little dinner on the 
route, and in which he would join 
him if only the effect of that ras- 
cally water with its horrible smell 
should have passed away. I had 
not even a chance of protesting, 
for politeness' sake, in behalf of my 
poor forsaken dinner. They rush- 
ed for the carriages, while they 
flung a few hasty words of thanks 
to me. 

Next day I received this note 
from M. Rosette : 

MY DEAR SIR : 

The countess, my daughter, and I 
have come to the conclusion that Ame- 
lie-les-Bains is not precisely the place 
that would respond to the necessities of 
her health and that of others of the fami- 
ly of Count X , my son-in-law. Be- 
fore returning again to that place we 
shall wait until it is lighted with gas, 
until they build a railroad between it 
and Perpignan, and until they build 
houses there that do not crack. I tele- 
graph to Count X , my son-in-law, 

apprising him of our departure for Mo- 
naco. 

We have to thank you for your kind- 
ness and hospitality. I do so with 
all my heart. 

Receive, dear sir, etc., etc. 

And if the reader find the jour- 
ney not so very frightful after all, 
I can only wish him to have this 
happy family on his hands for 
twenty-four hours. He may then 
form his own opinion. 



3 68 



The First Vow. 



THE FIRST VOW.* 



Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam." 



BEFORE daybreak on the Feast 
of the Assumption of Our Lady, in 
the year of grace 1534, a man who, 
in spite of a halting gait, walked 
with a rapid and energetic step, 
was descending the Rue Saint- 
Jaquesin the quarter of the univer- 
sity at Paris. Although he had ap- 
parently reached middle age, his 
dress was that of a poor scholar. 
But instead of the ink-horn usually 
suspended at the side of those of 
his class, a rosary hung from his 
girdle. From a stout cord passed 
over his threadbare cape was 
slung a wallet of coarse sacking, a 
far better weapon of defence than 
a sword for a night traveller 
through Paris. Mendicants are 
not objects of interest to robbers. 

As the student crossed the de- 
sertefl bridge the clock of the 
Sainte Chapelle struck three. He 
glanced up the Seine, bordered 
with dark houses, and saluted with 
a sign of the cross the towering 
mass of Notre Dame. No glimmer 
of light in the horizon announced 
as yet the approach of dawn. 

It was the hour when all Paris 
sleeps, whether in the sixteenth or 
the nineteenth century. Neither 
while traversing the city nor the 
network of narrow lanes environ- 
ing the halles, or public markets, 
did the traveller meet a living soul 
before he reached the gate of Mont- 

* In greatly abridging the discourse of St. Igna- 
tius the writer has nevertheless endeavored to re- 
tain all its most salient points. These pages, for 
which the writer is under great obligation's to M. 
Paul Feval, form the sequel, as to their subject, to 
an able and interesting article from another pen in 
THE CATHOLIC WORLD for March, 1878, and en- 
titled " The Holy Cave of Manresa." 



martre, in the vicinity of the pre- 
sent Rue du Mail. The first hous- 
es were not then built in the new 
street of St. Eustache, on the road 
encircling the outer walls, of which 
this street still marks the tortuous 
trace. 

"Whither go you?" demanded 
the sentinel. 

"To the Chapel of the Holy 
Martyr, to keep the Feast of Mary 
Ever-Virgin." 

The Chapel of the Holy Martyr, 
then situated in a lonely spot con- 
siderably below the parish church 
of Montmartre, and whose crypt, 
facing the Rue Marie-Antoinette, 
still remains, occupies the exact 
site of the altar of Mars, where St. 
Denis was martyred with his com- 
panions, Rusticus and Eleutherius, 
on the pth of October, 272, for re- 
fusing to offer sacrifice to Mercury. 

"You have ample time," answer- 
ed the sentinel, *' before the hour of 
the first Mass. Take the way to 
the right by the Fishmongers' Lane. 
The high-road is barred by the 
workmen at the Eau des Por- 
cherons." 

The stream of Menilmontant, or 
the Porcherons, which now runs 
underground, then crossed the road 
to Montmartre at the top of the 
present Rue de Provence. It par- 
tially dried up in summer, and its 
half-stagnant waters infected the 
air in its neighborhood. 

The traveller took the way to the 
left through the wood, reaching 
Montmartre on its eastern side by 
the fields between the villages of 
the Chapelle St. Denis [and Clig- 



The First Vow. 



369 



nancourt, at the place called the 
Fontanelle, or the Goutte d'Eau, of 
which popular use has made the 
Goutte d'Or. 

The morning twilight had not 
yet appeared, but the moon, sink- 
ing towards the horizon, threw 
vague gleams across the country. 
The spire of the abbey built by 
Suger rose from the middle of the 
plain, backed by the dark hills of 
Montmorency, and facing the four 
round towers of the Noble House of 
St. Ouen, from which the bells 
were sending forth a joyous caril- 
lon. Its masters, the Knights of 
the Star, instituted by King John 
in 1 35 1, every year assembled there 
in full chapter on this day of mid- 
August, from the hour of Prime 
until after Vespers on the mor- 
row. 

The poor student had also been 
a knight, but for long past had 
lived in humility, far from the 
glories of the world. It was not 
for him that the bells of the No- 
ble House were sounding. He 
was destined to found a chivalrous 
order otherwise illustrious than 
the Knights of King John. 

Arrived at the highest point of 
Montmartre, under the east end of 
the parish church, and on the self- 
same spot where now have been 
laid the. foundations of the basilica 
promised to the Heart of Jesus by 
the vow of France, he stopped, fa- 
tigued by the ascent, and, looking 
around, said to himself: "I am 
first at the rendezvous." 

Then, ' by way of resting, he 
knelt down to recite the rosary. 

Silence reigned on the bare 
crest, over which the wind of the 
summer night passed softly. The 
village of Montmartre, which show- 
ed its first houses right and left of 
the church, still slept. Nothing 
was visible on the rounded summit 
VOL. xxvui. 24 



of the slope, between the kneeling 
student and the church-yard wall, 
but a few dark and motionless 
objects, like stones of some Drui- 
dic monument. 

Four o'clock sounded from the 
church-tower, while at the same 
moment the chimes of the abbey 
began to ring for Matins. 

One of the seeming stones moved 
and stood upright, then two, then 
all. The student, rising also, said : 
"God be praised! I thought my- 
self first, and I am last." 

The rising sun shone upon six 
young men surrounding our scho- 
lar, who was older than they, and 
seemed to be a master among his 
disciples. All except one, who 
was a priest, wore also the garb of 
the studious little population which 
followed the teaching of the Uni- 
versity of Paris. 

The priest alone had the com- 
plexion of the sons of France. 
The brown visages of the rest, the 
elder included, wore the features 
of the Spanish race, which at that 
time shared with France so pre- 
ponderant an influence in the 
world. 

Francis I. was king; Charles Y ". 
emperor. Columbus had just dis- 
covered a new hemisphere. Alex- 
ander Farnese, under the name of 
Paul III., had succeeded Leo X. 
at Rome on the throne of St. 
Peter. In this year, 1534, Luther 
was fifty years of age, Calvin thirty- 
three. The poor student, whose 
wallet now showed through its 
coarse material the crusts of bread 
bestowed on him in charity, was in 
his forty-seventh year. 

But why do we tell the age of 
this poor scholar together with 
the ages of Luther and Calvin ? 
Because this man was more power- 
ful for good, himself alone, than 
Luther and Calvin were terrible 



v 



370 



The First Vow. 



and prolific in evil. His name was 
Ignatius de Loyola. 

That lie was a soldier was at 
once evident. The stamp of his 
indomitable valor could not be 
hidden by the humility in which 
his conversion had clothed him. 
But he was also a man of thought, 
and his brow had the nobility and 
amplitude of heads predestined for 
great things. 

There was something of the 
eagle in his whole countenance, 
whose proud lines reflected with 
difficulty the immense gentleness 
which, by the help of God and his 
own strength of will, he had com- 
pelled to enter his heart, full of 
warlike fever when the light had 
stricken him down. His face had 
an expression of generous loftiness, 
and from his eyes shone all the 
beauty of his soul. His look awed 
and won at the same time, so full 
was it of tenderness and power. 

Thirteen years had passed since 
the bloody night after the siege of 
Pampeluna, in which he had found 
himself vanquished in his victory, 
after the melee of twelve hours, 
which he had spent fighting like a 
lion. 

The Loyolas, lords of Ognez, 
were of Cantabrian race, hard as 
the steel of their own good swords. 
Ignatius, once a page of King Fer- 
dinand, and afterwards a brilliant 
captain, young, ambitious, proud, 
beloved, at first revolted under the 
Hand which held him prisoner to 
a bed from which he could hear 
the sound of battles. For lack of 
the chivalrous romances which he 
craved he read the books his at- 
tendants brought him lives of the 
martyrs and the sacred Passion of 
our Lord. 

There is a tradition in Guipuzcoa 
that Ignatius loved a beautiful 
maiden, rich and noble, and that 



she had been promised to him in 
marriage. But when he had read 
the story of the Passion in the 
Gospel of St. John, he laid aside 
a small portrait which he had worn 
near his heart, and, pressing to his 
lips a medal of Mary Mother of 
God, vowed his body to perpetual 
virginity and his soul to the free 
service of the faith, say ing: "Hence- 
forth I am knight of the great love 
and soldier of the sole glory." 

Ignatius quitted the world long 
before binding himself by any pub- 
lic or solemn promise. For this, 
however, he prepared himself by 
abandoning all his possessions to 
the poor and by severing his dear- 
est ties. This was his watch of 
arms; for it was as a knight that 
he approached the apostolate. With 
tearful eyes but steadfast heart he 
then departed, and on his way 
gave to poor suppliants his man- 
tle and others of his habiliments, 
and his horse. On a pillar in the 
monastery church of Montserrat, 
near Manresa, and the end of his 
pilgrimage, he hung his sword. 
This was his final sacrifice. 

In this monastery he made his 
general confession, which lasted 
three days; after which, clad in 
sackcloth, he retired to the grotto 
in which he had his first ecstasies 
and revelations, where he wrote 
the Spiritual Exercises and saw the 
plan of his Constitutions that is, 
the entire work of his grand life. 
He also saw another thing the 
necessity of learning in order ef- 
fectually to teach truth and com- 
bat error. 

But before taking his place 
among boys on the benches of a 
school the great captain thirsted 
to visit the Holy Sepulchre. 

Alone, on foot, without money, 
he set out, trusting to the grace of 
God ; obtained by charity his pas- 



The First Vow. 



371 






sage on board a ship of Barcelona; 
and arrived at Rome, where, after 
kissing the feet of the Holy Fa- 
ther, Adrian VI., he resumed his 
pilgrim's staff, traversed Italy, beg- 
ging his daily bread, and re-em- 
barked at Venice in a galley 
which landed him in the isle of 
Cyprus. From thence he went to 
Jaffa, and reached the Holy City 
after a journey which had taken 
him, in all, nearly a year to per- 
form. 

Had not Providence placed an 
obstacle in the way of his designs, 
all the future of his mission would 
have ended here. The land hal- 
lowed by the footsteps of Jesus 
held him by so powerful an at- 
traction that he resolved there to 
live and die. But the delegate of 
the Holy See, who had authority 
over the pilgrims, commanded his 
return to Europe, and Ignatius 
obeyed. 

Seven months afterwards he en- 
tered as student in the lowest class 
in the University of Barcelona. 
Persecuted for his marvellous 
piety, denounced as a sorcerer, re- 
peatedly imprisoned, driven from 
Barcelona to Sakimanca, and from 
thence to Alcala, and accepting 
every insult and injustice with si- 
lence and resignation, he at last 
quitted Spain, turning his steps 
towards Paris whose university was 
at that time the first in the world. 

Ignatius, arriving in France 
early in 1528, was then thirty-six 
years of age. He had the courage 
to recommence his humanities, 
first at the College of Montaign, 
then at Ste. Barbe; and notwith- 
standing the hindrances which his 
pious practices, absorbed medita- 
tions, and the apostolate which 
he already attempted seemed to 
place in the way of his elementary 
studies, he made progress. "But 



persecution followed him across 
the Pyrenees. 

Jean Pegna, one of the profes- 
sors of Ste. Barbe, accused him, not 
of sorcery, but of enticing the stu- 
dents to waste their time in mystic 
reveries which interfered with their 
studies. He was therefore con- 
demned to be flogged in presence 
of all the scholars. Ignatius sub- 
mitted to the sentence with so 
much humility that the principal 
of the college, amazed, resolved 
himself to interrogate him. 

On account of the perfection of 
his life, he was no favorite with 
the students. The news quickly 
spread that an exemplary flagella- 
tion was about to be administered, 
and the. event was eagerly antici- 
pated as an exciting entertainment. 
The crowd, already assembled in 
the great hall where the execution 
was to take place, testified its im- 
patience after the manner of spec- 
tators at a theatre before the cur- 
tain rises. 

The principal appeared, hold- 
ing, or rather dragging, Ignatius by 
the hand. He passed thus through 
the pitiless ranks, and when he 
stopped in the middle of the hall 
it was noticed with amazement 
that his eyes were full of tears. 
For a few moments he remained 
silent, as if mastering his emotion. 
Then, after embracing Ignatius 
(or, as some say, kneeling before 
him), he said with a loud voice : 
" Not only has Ignatius de Loyola 
suffered himself to be falsely ac- 
cused, but was about to submit 
with joy to the opprobrium of an 
unjust punishment ; and this in 
recompense for all the good that 
he has done. I find in him the 
conscience of a saint!" 

Hitherto even the less malevo- 
lent of the companions of Ignatius 
had ridiculed his ardor in turning 



372 



The First Vow. 



souls to God. It seemed to them 
that the function of director of 
consciences ill befitted this stran- 
ger, who lived on the pity of pass- 
ers-by, and the hair on whose brow 
was growing thin before he had 
taken any degree in sciences or 
letters. But after this incident 
impressions changed, and he was 
now sought by many. 

Ignatius repelled none, but it. 
was to a few only that he fully 
opened his heart. He was, in 
fact, carefully selecting those who 
were one day to be Jesuits. 

The first chosen was a very 
young man, of great sweetness and 
truthful simplicity of character 
Pierre Lefevre. He also had come, 
a pilgrim, from the deptli of Savoy 
to enter holy orders, and was al- 
ready renowned for his learning. 
Ignatius made himself at once both 
his master and disciple : his mas- 
ter in the faith, his disciple in all 
that related to study. Thanks to 
his devoted assistance, all remaining 
difficulties in the path of learning 
were speedily surmounted. Igna- 
tius took the degree of master of arts 
and entered the class of theology. 

Lefevre was united in the ten- 
derest friendship with a student of 
his own age, by name Francis 
Xavier, who belonged to a very 
poor but noble family of Navarre. 
This youth was ardent and viva- 
cious in character, full of energy 
and perseverance, and wonderfully 
eloquent. His heart was wholly set 
upon earthly fame and glory, but 
Ignatius undertook to convert him. 
It was with no small difficulty that 
he won this soul, but it was his 
most splendid conquest. Neither 
Lefevre nor Xavier knew as yet 
that they were enrolled as captains 
in the army which had no soldiers. 
The thoughts of Ignatius on this 
matter were known only to God. 



The third and fourth recruits ar- 
rived together from Spain with the 
determination of giving themselves 
to Ignatius, who sought not fame, 
but whom fame sought. lago 
Laynez and Antonio Salmeron were 
welcomed with open arms. The 
first glance of the master perceived 
on their youthful brows the stamp 
of sanctity and genius. 

Lastly came Alonzo from che 
village of Bobadilla, and the Por- 
tuguese Rodriguez de Azevedo. 
All six were so poor that, with the 
exception of Xavier, who was a 
professor of philosophy, they all 
lived on alms. Ignatius, the father 
of this family, stretched out his 
hand for his children. 

Never had he let them divine his 
projects, yet they looked for great 
things from him. 

Lefevre was ordained priest. 
Some time afterwards Ignatius ap- 
peared more than ever to seek soli- 
tude, in order to give himself up 
more undisturbedly to meditation 
and prayer. 

On the i3th of August, 1534, he 
bade his six companions fast and 
go to confession on the following 
day, the Eve o the Assumption. 
Then, telling Lefevre to prepare 
for saying Mass on that feast in 
the crypt of the Holy Martyr, he 
added : " Go all of you before day- 
break to the top of Montmartre, 
in the field behind the church, 
beneath the cemetery. I shall 
be there, and / will speak to 
you." 

.Those, then, who on this morning 
of the i5th of August surrounded 
Ignatius de Loyola at the place of 
rendezvous were Pierre Lefevre, 
priest, Francis Xavier, lago 
Laynez, Antonio Salmeron, Nicolas 
Alonzo de Bobadilla, and Simon 
Rodriguez de Azevedo, students. 
All these were destined to large 






The First Vow. 



373 



though unequal shares in the glory 
of their master. 

Ignatius kept his promise. On 
this mount, gloriously associated 
with the Apostle of the Gauls, and 
on which now the living God had 
taken the place of the dead gods of 
paganism, he spoke to this little 
band of chosen souls, who listened 
with eager interest. 

The sun's early beams gilded the 
royal towers of St. Depis in the 
distance, and caressed close at 
hand the humble church of Mont- 
martre, the ancient temple of Mer- 
cury, now sanctified by the blood 
of martyrs. As far as eye could 
reach all was solitary. Paris, 
awakening, folded in mist like 
dreams not yet dispelled, sent 
forth no sounds but those of the 
bells of her many sanctuaries, pro- 
claiming the glories of Mary. 

Paris, far in those days from 
Montmartre, was already called a 
great city, although but a confused 
assemblage of houses, palaces, and 
towers, occupying the centre of the 
plain, and dominated by the gray 
towers of Notre Dame. 

It ended on the eastern side at 
the gardens of St. Paul, widely 
separated from the Bastille, which, 
with its massive crenellated towers, 
almost resembled a ponderous 
chariot on the way to the donjon 
of Vincennes. The city ended at 
the Louvre on the west ; on the 
south at the enclosure of St. Ger- 
main des Pres ; and on the north 
at a few hundred paces from St. 
Eustache. Nothing at that time 
gave indication that it was so soon 
to spread far beyond its battlement- 
ed walls. 

All this was dimly discernible 
through the mist, the breath of 
Paris, above which feebly gleamed 
the gilt crosses on the churches, as 



through their blue veil they re- 
ceived a mysterious kiss of light. 

All was calm, but an indescriba- 
ble sense of portending storm im- 
pregnated the moral atmosphere of 
this repose. 

Ignatius spoke. His words live 
in his works, and his writings have 
immortalized them. Through the 
windows of the church came the 
sound of sweet chanting, while 
Ignatius, crossing himself, began the 
memorable discourse, of which we 
can only give a portion : 

" You are impatient, my brothers 
and my sons, because for some 
days you have been waiting forme. 
But I myself have been waiting for 
fourteen years. 

" For fourteen years past have I 
been raising my eyes to heaven 
and then looking around me at 
what is passing in the present age ; 
seeking to know what heaven is 
preparing for the age, and what the 
age is meditating against heaven. 

"The present time will occupy 
a long page in history. Peace to 
those whose names will not be 
heard of amid the tumult ! Ours 
will be written there, all of them 
some in letters of blood. 

" Selim and Solyman have in 
turn threatened Europe. The 
crescent gleams over Rhodes, where 
no longer floats the standard of 
Jerusalem. We have seen Chris- 
tians bidding God-speed to the 
Turk. We have heard a voice 
from the height of Rome denounce 
corruption in the cloister and false- 
hood that shelters itself beneath 
the shadow of the altar. Where 
will the chastisement for these 
things end ? What does God will ? 
And who may comprehend the 
language of his wrath? 

" Behold Luther, the apostate : 
the brutalization of genius, the en- 
slavement of mind, chained down 



374 



The First Vow. 



by sense. The depth of his shame 
is at the same time a lesson which 
proclaims to the world that heresy 
is less the rebellion of reason than 
the revolt of the flesh. 

" At his voice covetous Germany 
has with a bound plunged into sac- 
rilege, robbery, and murder. Her 
princes lead the mobs who will 
hereafter trample on their crowns. 
By pillaging cathedrals they show 
how to sack palaces. The teach- 
ing will be fruitful. 

" Hell triumphs insultingly. 
These men who call themselves 
Christians, and more than Chris- 
tians, since they pretend to reform 
Christianity, suppress the Mass 
that is, our Lord Jesus and cast 
from the altar Christ insulted and 
his Blessed Mother dishonored. 

" Behold them, these ' Reform- 
ers,' in arms against each other, 
and each accusing his fellows of 
disloyalty the sole thing in which 
they speak the truth. Behold them 
in their tourney of impiety : Carl- 
stadt, who kills the souls of little 
children by robbing them of the 
baptismal life ; Munzer, the furious 
leveller, finding in his falsified gos- 
pel the law of theft, the confusion 
of meum and tuum, and the ancient 
folly of the partition of lands ; John 
of Leyden, the histrionic prophet, 
preaching the community of all 
things, even of women this man, 
the masterpiece of Satan, parodies 
royalty, priesthood, and even mar- 
tyrdom ; Zwinglius, the austere 
maniac whose heritage Calvin will 
appropriate to himself. But what 
matter names ? Their.' reformation ' 
is hypocrisy, blasphemy, pillage, 
slaughter, and devastation. It is 
time put in place of eternity ; the 
riot of great words accommodated 
to the turpitude of men and the 
ignominy of things. This is ' re- 
form,' red with wine and blood; 



a leprosy travestied into a pana- 
cea. 

"The Turks deceive no man. 
They are barbarians, deceived by 
a false prophet. They have de- 
nied nothing. But Luther, Carl- 
stadt, Munzer, Zwinglius, John of 
Leyden knew Jesus and have sold 
him to their interests, their pas- 
sions, their love of power, of fame, 
and of enjoyment, and have made 
themselves, by their own free 
choice, ministers of the arch-ene- 
my of man. And the enemy, se- 
cure of his tools, plays with them 
at pleasure, and with the horrible 
mingles the grotesque. Christiern 
makes a prelate of his barber, and 
Henry VIII., the gallant so ready 
with the axe, finds time, between 
the assassination of two of his 
queens, to turn reformer also, and 
write pamphlets in which he calls 
Rome a prostitute because she re- 
fuses to countenance his unhallow- 
ed licentiousness. 

" For they are all alike. Each 
one of these * reformers ' accuses 
the church of the crime which he 
himself has notoriously committed. 
Evil drags Good to the pnetori- 
um with clamors of indignation. 
The assassin cries 'Murder!' the 
robber 'Thieves!' Judas de- 
nounces treason; the morality of 
Henry VIII. is scandalized, and 
the former ' Defender of the Faith ' 
dips his pen in the blood of wo- 
men, priests, and monks, and re- 
poses from his fatigues as execu- 
tioner by turning calumniator. 

"And is this all? Would to 
God it were ! We are in France, 
and there is Paris at our feet. Will 
the eldest daughter of the church 
protect her mother, threatened on 
all sides, behind the valor of her 
arm ? 

" It may be so. We will hope it. 
" But you as well as I are the 



The First Vow. 



375 



children of this grand University of 
Paris, the home of learning, the 
pride of the learned; and you, as 
I also, have shuddered at those 
sounds at first so timidly whisper- 
ed something keen yet stealthy, 
like the hissing of a serpent in the 
grass sounds which year after 
year have been gaining strength, 
until they are swelling like the 
distant roll that heralds the ap- 
proaching tempest. 

" We have not here as yet the 
profound and open degradation of 
the sectaries beyond the Rhine. 
We have not the burlesque scenes 
of the Wartbtirg, the Protestant 
Sinai, where Luther, intoxicated, 
converses with the devil as Moses 
conversed with God. Nor have 
we the cold epilepsy of the north- 
ern tyrants, in whose pagan soil the 
cross was so long forbidden to 
take root, and which has always 
been tottering in those regions. 
Still less have we here the impla- 
cable arithmetic of the London 
merchants, calculating what it 
may bring them in to have a pope 
of their own, all to themselves, 
sharing with them the church's 
patrimony, and handling with 
equal adroitness the sceptre, the 
censer, and the axe. 

" These things will not do for 
France. She requires other soph- 
isms, and, above all, more pre- 
caution in the manner of present- 
ing them. For her there must be 
an appearance of examination, a 
phantom of logic, some plaything 
with which she can amuse herself 
while giving it the name of Liber- 
ty. . . . Hitherto her acuteness 
and good sense have resisted the 
coarse bait held out to her, but 
the ardent and redoubtable spirit of 
the French has its own dangers. . . . 
It is woman who is opening the 
gates of France to the pestilence. 



" The king's sister, the Margue'- 
rite des Marguerites, shelters and 
warms the viper of vipers within 
her bosom John Calvin, the mas- 
ter-worker of the evil, who gives 
heresy its philosophical mask and 
its disguise of moderation; Cal- 
vin, who has already * reformed ' 
Luther, and who will himself be ' re- 
formed ' by hundreds more. For 
.the history of Protestantism has 
but one word, perpetually heated 
over again and thrown into some 
new mould Reform : that is, re- 
volt ; heresy hatching heresy, er- 
rors combining and multiplying in- 
to a chaos of contradiction, like a 
tangled and matted overgrowth of 
weeds in an ill-cultivated field. 

" I have promised to build a 
chapel (do not marvel : we shall 
build many chapels, and churches 
also) on the very spot where the 
first Lutheran sacrilege against 
the Blessed Virgin was committed 
in Paris. It was committed before 
my eyes in the Rue St. Antoine. 
You will know the spot when you 
see the foundations of the sanctu- 
ary laid. The sacrilegious horde 
was led on by a page in the livery 
of the Duchesse d'Estampes, the 
king's mistress herself also a ' re- 
former,' not of her own impure 
life but of the ancient honor of her 
race, by selling her betrayed faith 
and her deceived' sovereign to the 
intrigues of the English king. 

" It is under the favor of these 
two women, on whom God had 
lavished his gifts, that error is 
being propagated in France. Im- 
pious books swarm in the schools, 
and the first printed blasphemy of 
Calvin has been sent, bound in 
gold, to her through whom it can 
so surely find -its way into the 
king's hands. Thanks to these 
importunities, he has made the 
Lutheran, Nicholas Cop, rector of 



376 



The First Voiv. 



the University of Paris, where he 
preaches insurrection not only 
against the Vatican but also against 
the Louvre. 

"And is this all? No. This 
very year Calvin, who has not Lu- 
ther's boldness, and whose bur- 
dened conscience sees everywhere 
the spectre of personal danger, 
fled from Paris. And whither did 
he fly ? To the court of Nerac, to 
Marguerite of Valois, Queen of 
Navarre. From thence he ^en- 
deavors to introduce error into 
Catholic Spain, while from an- 
other quarter the poison, emanat- 
ing from Switzerland and travers- 
ing Savoy, penetrates into Pied- 
mont always hostile to the Holy 
See and is propagated by Renee 
of Ferrara, daughter of Louis XII., 
who well-nigh equals Marguerite 
de- Valois in her madness after 
Calvin, and encourages Jean Val- 
dez, whose emissaries insinuate 
themselves even into Rome. 

" There, in the Eternal City, the 
Vicar of Jesus Christ, sitting on 
his abandoned throne, his hands 
raised to heaven, sees the deluge 
rise rise unceasingly a tide of 
falsehood swelling from all parts of 
the horizon to overflow the heart 
of the Catholic Church, the last 
bulwark of faith, authority, and 
truth. 

" You, my sons' and my friends, 
know all this. The evil is so evi- 
dent that we can see it with our 
eyes shut, as the glow of a confla- 
gration is visible through closed 
eyelids. What I desire to show 
you is the strength of the batta- 
lions leagued against the faith. 

" But can the faith be vanquish- 
ed ? Never. Who will defend it ? 
Jesus. Where is the army of 
Jesus ? At Rome and in France. 

" The army of Rome is not nume- 
rous, but it is strong. 



" The army of France is here. 
Count it : six young men, and one 
mutilated, who will soon be an old 
man seven in all. 

"The army of France contains 
but one Frenchman. Despise it 
not, for by it God will do great 
things, 

" While you were waiting for me, 
wondering at my silence, the lowli- 
ness of my prayer raised me to 
those heights from which are seen 
the days to come. I have read our 
history in the secret of Jesus. 
God accepts us for his soldiers. 
He has shown me the immeasur- 
able battle-field where the other 
standard marches against his stan- 
dard. This have I seen. 

" I saw the whole world descend 
into the arena. I saw you. I saw 
myself. I ask you not if you are 
willing to fight. Why should I ? 
I know that your will abandons it- 
self to the will of God. 

" And I know that you are the 
companions of Jesus. You will 
have this name. You will not take 
it yourselves : God will give it you. 

. . . You will have hours of 
triumph so splendid that jealousy 
and hatred will rise in clouds about 
you, as water is troubled and 
steams when red-hot iron is plung- 
ed into it. You will have reverses 
so terrible that your enemies shall 
set their heel on what they believe 
to be your corpse. 

"You shall not strike, but they 
shall be overthrown. You shall 
strike, never ! This is your law, 
and by this law you shall conquer. 

" The name of the enemy is Re- 
volt. His rebellion is heresy, 
which is a lie. How are heresy 
and revolt to be combated ? By 
the authority which is the truth 
that is, the Catholic Church. The 
Catholic Church is attacked on 
every side. We are to defend her 



The First Vow. 



377 



by opposing revolt by obedience, 
self-seeking by denial of self, the 
slavery of insatiable covetousness 
by a free sacrifice. . . . We must, 
by the loyalty of truth, combat the 
treason of which perverted science 
is guilty against ignorance which 
cannot defend itself. We shall not 
be warriors by the sword but by 
the word by teaching the young 
and by preaching to men. . . . 

" . . . From the thrice-blessed 
hour in which, when I lay wound- 
ed, God visited me, I have been 
seeking the way that shall lead to 
the end so ardently desired the 
greater glory of God by the abun- 
dant salvation of men. Along this 
way my thoughts have had three 
stages. 

"In my grotto at Manresa I 
devoted myself to prayer and 
almsgiving. I knew not then the 
sickness of our times, yet some- 
thing within me murmured, ' This 
is not enough* 

" The Mother of Jesus, whom I 
incessantly implored, inspired me 
to visit Calvary. All the length of 
the way I heard a furious menace, 
launched in the name of Luther, 
and there arose within me the hope 
of combat. My heart burned for 
it, the supernatural combat of 
charity. 

** Already I heard from afar the 
cry of ' Hypocrite ! hypocrite ! ' 
which shall envelop me. This, of 
every outrage, is the hardest to bear, 
for my old pride of captain is still 
entrenched in a corner of my heart. 
' Hypocrite !' Let me, then, my 
Lord and my God, live satiated 
with this insult, and die enshroud- 
ed in it, so that my shame may be 
thy glory ! 

" Nevertheless, to preach and 
teach we must first know. I Stu- 
died, and in studying heard again 
the mysterious voice which I had 



heard at Manresa, still saying, 
' This is not enough.' 

" ' O Virgin and Mother Immacu- 
late!' I exclaimed, 'what is still 
wanting? Will not, then, my divine 
Master let me know what is his will?' 

"... And here I am withheld 
from speaking fully of the myste- 
rious and miraculous events which 
have marked my time of trial. 
Was I worthy to see and hear what 
I have seen and heard? O Jesus! 
glory of the lowly, treasure of 
the poor. From the hour that 
first I touched the hand of Pierre 
Lefevre my strength redoubled; 
the idea of our association arose 
within me, and never from that 
moment has the voice said to me, 
' This is not enough/ 

" It was enough. With the idea 
of association the plan of our so- 
ciety unfolded itself to my mind. 
I am a soldier : I could only plan 
an army. Besides, I remembered 
my first ecstasies, in which I saw 
the multitudes marching in gloom 
against the light of the cross, and 
the shock of the two standards in 
the boundless plain. 

" My army existed, although I was 
alone with Pierre Lefevre, to whom 
I had said nothing. You, my friends 
and my sons, came one after the 
other, and, unknown to yourselves, 
I enrolled you. Others came also, 
but I limited my choice to seven. 
The present moment will not 
have more. What the future may 
demand God will say. 

"We are seven against millions 
of men faithless to God, and the 
men who remain faithful to him 
will not always be with us. . . . 

" We have but one right that 
of giving ourselves without requir- 
ing anything in return. Our force 
is in the absence of force. We are 
the company founded to carry the 
cross of Jesus. 



378 



The First Vow, 



" Each of us will fall along the 
way, crushed beneath the weight 
of this sweet and terrible burden. 
What matters it ? The work will 
live and grow. I know it. The 
Company of Jesus will conquer in 
and by Jesus. It will arrest the 
progress of the desertions which 
desolate the temple, and fill up the 
voids in the ranks of the faithful. 
Doubt it not, for thus it will be. 

u Antiquity had a sublime fable : 
Orpheus going to seek his love'even 
in the darkness of death. We will 
do as did Orpheus. The Company 
of Jesus will go and seek out the 
victims of apostasy even in the 
very hell of the apostates, and snatch 
these precious souls from the depth 
of the abyss. 

" But there are also multitudes 
of little ones children, the beloved 
of Jesus. These we must take by 
the hand and lead them to God. 
Again, there are countless myriads 
of souls perishing in darkness be- 
yond the ocean. Xavier ! your 
eye kindles. You will go. We 
shall go. The Company of Jesus 
will ransom, with the blood of its 
martyrs, souls that shall outnumber 
the victims of those who have 
wrought the shipwreck of * reform,' 
and the double and treble, so great 
will be the crowds that shall press 
into the fold of the Good Shepherd. 

" To every army there must be 
a general. We shall have one who 
will be our earthly chief. From 
without, the authority which, in 
Jesus Christ, shall be entrusted by 
us to this chief will appear so vast 
that men will say, ' Nothing like 
this has ever existed. It is a troop 
of slaves led by a tyrant.' Others 
will go further and say, 'It is a 
despot enthroned upon corpses!" 
Singular slaves, who have none 
above them but God alone ! Jesus 
Christ is our beginning, our mid- 



dle, and our end. In our general 
we see Jesus Christ. Our general 
sees Jesus Christ in us. Christus 
oninia in omnibus ! 

" It* is thus that our Heavenly 
Master has given me, for you, an 
inheritance which is the Rule of 
Jesus sufficiently vast to contain 
at once perfect authority and per- 
fect liberty in the measure befit- 
ting the sorrowful pilgrimage of man 
here below. 

"By men, because of the mira- 
cle of our poverty, we shall be ac- 
counted thieves; for the miracle of 
our charity, hypocrites; for the mi- 
racle of our humility, cowards. 
Even our deaths will not disarm 
either mockery or insult. It shall 
be said of us, as it was of our di- 
vine Master, that we play our part 
to the very end, and that our last 
sigh is our last lie. Glory to God 
alone, and all to the greater glory 
of God!" 

Ignatius knelt down; the six 
knelt also. None had spoken. 
Ignatius raised his hands and said, 
his companions repeating after 
him : 

".Jesu patient issime : miserere nobis. 
Jesu obedientissime : miserere nobis. 
Jesu dulcis et mitis corde : miserere nobis. 

" God, who, by the intercession 
of the Immaculate Virgin, hast shed 
the light of thy Holy Spirit into the 
souls of thy servants, be pleased to 
grant that their dwelling here be- 
low may be built for all, and not 
for themselves, so that, giving their 
lives for the salvation of souls in 
Jesus Christ, they may never cease to 
be persecuted for thy greater glory, 
who livest and reignest eternally. 
Amen." 

And, crossing themselves, the 
seven rose. 

It was broad daylight. The peo- 
ple of the neighborhood were 
mounting the different pathways to 



What it Costs to be a Guardian Angel. 



379 



attend Mass at the abbey church 
of the parish. Ignatius and his 
sons descended the path which 
crossed the field reaching from the 
cemetery to the Chapel of the Holy 
Martyr, at that time an isolated 
spot. They entered alone the 
crypt, where the altar was prepar- 
ed for the Holy Sacrifice. 

Tradition fixes nine o'clock as 
the hour of its celebration by Pierre 
Lefevre. 

Here they all communicated, 



and, after taking the vows of pov- 
erty and chastity, made also a pro- 
mise to God that, after finishing 
their course of theology, they would 
repair to Jerusalem ; but that if, 
on account of the war, it should 
not be possible for them to reach 
the Holy City, they would go to 
kneel before the Sovereign Pontiff, 
to ask his permission to exist as an 
order, and receive his commands. 

The Company of Jesus was 
founded. 



WHAT IT COSTS TO BE A GUARDIAN ANGEL. 



IT is not of celestial angels that 
we are thinking, but of a kind of 
human beings who are frequently 
called angelic in the language of 
poetry. Angels are ministering 
spirits, exercising a benignant and 
gentle office of guardianship over 
men. Analogous to this is the 
truest and most perfect ministry of 
Christian women, who may justly 
be called, when they fulfil this lov- 
ing duty in the true spirit of femi- 
nine devotion towards their fathers, 
brothers, husbands, and sons, "an- 
gels and ministers of grace " to 
men. The care of ministering 
spirits over their human charges 
costs them no trouble or pain what- 
ever. But it is far otherwise with 
those feminine guardian angels 
whose nature is specially liable to 
suffering, and whose office involves 
in itself subjection to a law of self- 
sacrifice always severe, often ex- 
acting to the utmost limit of hu- 
man fortitude. It costs a great 
deal to be a guardian angel of this 
sort. To describe adequately what 
it has cost and will cost to the end 
of time, of sorrow, pain, heroic pa- 



tience, disinterested devotion, on 
the part of woman, to be man's 
consort in the work and struggle 
of life, and especially on the part of 
holy women, the elite of their sex, 
would surpass any graphic power 
ever wielded by a human pen. It 
would require a complete narrative 
of the history of the church and of 
nations, an exhaustive hagiology 
and martyrology, a story of infinite 
extent, embracing the annals of 
every family and the biography of 
every individual. It is impossible 
to do more than paint lightly and 
delineate faintly in this kind of 
drawing. The Virgin-Mother her- 
self is in the scene as the principal 
figure. What did it cost her to be 
the companion of the King and 
Redeemer of men ? Who can draw 
the portrait or narrate the earthly 
history of the Queen of Sorrows ? 
And she herself is only the first 
and greatest amid a countless num- 
ber, sharing her virginity or ma- 
ternity, participating in her cares 
or her martyrdom. Of the great 
saints and illustrious women whose 
glory is blended with that of the 



What it Costs to be a Guardian Angel. 



apostles and heroes of Christen- 
dom, or of those who have been 
separated by their vocation from 
the ordinary state, we do not pro- 
pose to speak ; or to linger on the 
theme of that kind of self-sacrifice 
by which they have paid the cost 
of their high part in the ministry 
of grace among men. The Virgin 
Mary is the model of all Christian 
women, of those who remain in 
the ordinary spheres of domestic 
and social life, subject to the obliga- 
tions and trials of the family house- 
hold, as well as of queens and 
foundresses, martyrs and cloistered 
devotees of contemplative prayer 
or active charity. Mary was an an- 
gel of solace to her spouse, the much- 
tried Joseph ; a guardian to her Di- 
vine Child ; the great guardian angel 
of universal humanity ; and this was 
at the cost of an inconceivable 
self-sacrifice. Those true Christian 
women who remain by the side of 
men in the every-day world, who 
leave the household of their pa- 
rents only when they plight their 
troth with the wedding-ring before 
the altar, who serve God and merit 
heaven among their children and 
domestics, are truly imitators of the 
Blessed Mother of God and share 
with her in the office of guardian 
angels over men. And this is really 
a more difficult, a more arduous, a 
more painful, and a much more ne- 
cessary office than that to which 
women are called by the religious 
vocation. The religious vocation 
is a favor, a privilege, a special 
grace exempting those who receive 
it from the severest part of the 
penalty inherited by the daughters 
of Eve. It is well for men and the 
world, and wisely ordered by the 
providence of God, that a few only 
can appreciate the happiness of 
such a life and find the way to it 
open to their choice in early youth. 



What would become of men and of 
children, if only fallen angels were 
left to be their guardians and com- 
panions ? It is a supernatural grace 
which calls a maiden to be the 
bride of the Lord, and prefer the 
care of school-girls, orphans, the 
poor and the sick, or the solitary 
tasks and prayers of the cloister, to 
the sphere of human love and care 
in the family. What it will cost to 
pay the penalty of Eve's disobedi 
ence, to bring forth children in 
sorrow and be under the rule of a 
man, is happily unknown and un- 
feared by those who in the joy and 
charm of their youth are so eager 
to follow the bent of their nature 
and to fulfil their appointed desti- 
ny. Neither do they shrink from 
the sacrifice when they begin to 
find out by experience how great 
and painful it is. God has fitted 
the feminine character to the spe- 
cial destiny he has given to the 
woman as the companion of the 
man. It is characteristic of wo- 
man to devote herself to a service 
of love towards man and to find 
her own happiness in this devotion. 
If self-sacrifice is required by the 
exigencies of this devotion, she 
accepts it quietly, as something 
belonging to her position. This 
sentiment is the most vivid and 
powerful when it takes the form of 
love towards one who is actually 
or in prospect in the relation of a 
husband. But feminine devotion 
is by no means confined to this 
most special and close of human 
relationships. It extends itself 
into all the other social relations of 
women with men, whether these 
are founded upon natural kindred 
or upon some other human basis 
and support. It gives grace and 
tenderness to filial, fraternal and 
maternal, as well as to conjugal 
devotion ; to friendship, to the 



What it Costs to be a Guardian Angel. 



honor and admiration given to men 
of great intellectual or moral worth ; 
it refines and beautifies all domes- 
tic and social life ; and it is even 
one of the main supports of the 
moral and political order and of 
religion when it is elevated, sanc- 
tified, and regulated by divine faith 
and the grace of God. 

Matrimony is a sacrament, both 
typifying the sacred relation be- 
tween Christ and his spouse the 
church, and actually effecting what 
it represents, by its own special 
sacramental and sanctifying grace. 
The sacrament of matrimony per- 
petuates and continually renews, 
in conjunction with the other sac- 
raments, regenerate and living hu- 
manity; the consort of the Son of 
God, wedded indissolubly to his 
person through the medium of his 
own human nature. The relation 
of the husband and wife is sacra- 
mental, uniting them in a special 
way, by a special bond, with Christ 
through the church ; and it is there- 
fore an application and extension of 
the relation of the church to Christ. 
Every real marriage is for a bap- 
tized person sacramental ipso facto, 
and its offspring, as St. Paul teaches 
(i. Cor. vii. 14), "are holy" ; that 
is, specially belonging to God and 
by their sacred birthright apt sub- 
jects for baptism. The sacrament 
of baptism consecrates infants to 
Christ in a common relation with 
their baptized parents, binding 
Christ, the church, the parents, and 
the children together in one sacred 
fellowship. The relation of parents 
and children in the church is sac- 
ramental ; and by this sacramental 
sanctity Christ is made the father 
and the church the mother of the 
family ; whose representatives are 
the natural parents, who are them- 
selves also of the children of the 
household of faith. The relation 



of brothers and sisters is likewise 
sacramental, and so is that of kin- 
dred, and also the natural or spiri- 
tual relation of affinity which springs 
from marriage or baptism. Every 
such relation is only a particular 
mode of the universal relation of 
all the baptized with each other 
and with Christ through faith and 
the sacraments, which makes the 
church one family. Marriage is 
necessary to the existence and per- 
petuation of this universal relation 
and its particular modes. It gives 
to baptism and confirmation and 
order the subjects of their indeli- 
ble characters ; to the church the 
successive generations of faithful 
children ; to the sanctuary its min- 
isters and priests and pontiffs, to 
the cloister its virgins, to the school 
its doctors, to heaven its crowned 
saints. Mary sprang from holy 
matrimony ; and in one sense 
Christ also, who came from Joach- 
im and Anna, from Adam and Eve, 
through his virginal mother by 
lineal descent ; and who was also 
born of one who was truly a wed- 
ded maid, and whose maternity 
was made legitimate and honorable 
before the human law by her mar- 
riage to St. Joseph. The family 
is the earthly type of the Trinity. 
Joseph, Mary, and the Child Jesus 
represent on earth the fellowship 
of the Three Persons in the God- 
head. Paternity and filiation very 
distinctly and intelligibly represent 
in human society the relations 
which they imitate in the divine 
Fellowship. The conjugal relation 
represents love and unity as they 
are in the prototype of the Trinity. 
To the human relation the femi- 
nine element is essential, because it 
makes that distinction and opposi- 
tion between the related persons 
which is the basis of the relation. 
Although there is no distinction of 



382 



WJiat it Costs to be a Guardian Angel. 



masculine and feminine in the 
Deity, yet there is a reason why 
the imitation of the relations sub- 
sisting in .the divine essence cannot 
be perfect in human nature without 
this distinction. The divine can- 
not be imitated in the human in its 
absolute simplicity, but is reflected 
and broken up into a multiplicity 
of partial images, like the ray of 
light refracted through the prism. 
The simple essence of God is vir- 
tually and eminently equivalent to 
an infinite multitude of beings, 
each one reflecting something of 
its absolute perfection. And, for 
this reason, the unity of the one 
essence of God in three distinct 
persons which constitutes the rela- 
tion of society in love and beati- 
tude subsisting between the Per- 
sons of the Blessed Trinity, in or- 
der that it may be imitated in a 
human society, requires a number 
of distinct and different individuals. 
In God, there is numerical unity of 
essence in three Persons. In crea- 
tures, distinction of persons re- 
quires numerical distinction in the 
actual, individual nature of the per- 
sons. In God, paternity exists 
completely in the Father ; in man, 
the parental relation requires two 
distinct parents, except in the mi- 
raculous instance of the virginal 
maternity of Our Lady, the Mother 
of God. In God, the essence or 
nature of the Father and the Son 
is numerically one, and the Son is 
of the same substance with the Fa- 
ther consubstantial ; in man, the 
parent and child are of like nature 
and substance only, but individu- 
ally distinct in nature. The femi- 
nine element in humanity is, for 
this reason, necessary to the ex- 
pression of the divine type in so- 
ciety. It completes the masculine 
element, and is equally essential in 
the constitution of the family, as 



the primordial society and the 
unit which, by its multiplication, 
furnishes the constituent parts of 
the more extensive associations of 
men in social and political commu- 
nities, and in the universal society 
of the human race. The Holy 
Family, which was the human type 
of the Trinity, was composed of 
Joseph, Mary, and the Child Jesus. 
But, as Joseph was only a repre- 
sentative father in this family, the 
Madonna and Child are more 
usually depicted in Christian art 
without him; and these two really 
represent in perfection the idea of 
the divine society in the human 
family. For the real relation of 
human parentage and filiation was 
completed between these two alone, 
through the miraculous maternity 
of the Virgin Mother; and the re- 
presentation of the Mother with 
her Divine Infant suggests to faith 
the Eternal Father, who cannot 
be represented under a visible 
form. The three persons of the 
Holy Family, Joseph, Mary, and 
Jesus, are, however, together, the 
prototype most perfectly expressed 
of the Christian family. And it is 
impossible to look with the eye of 
faith upon any group of a similar 
kind, where the father, the mother, 
and their child set before the sight 
a resemblance to the Holy Family, 
without a sentiment of its surpass- 
ing and mystical beauty. The 
very same is reproduced in the re- 
ligious community, where spiritual 
sons or daughters are grouped 
around the fathers and mothers 
who govern the sacred household ; 
and in the church, where the faith- 
ful are under their pastors and bi- 
shops, as children under fathers, 
and all together are under the 
tutelage of the Pope, as the " Holy 
Father " of Christendom. The 
most striking and impressive and 



What it Costs to be a Guardian Angel. 



383 



naturally beautiful object, never- 
theless, among all these is the one . 
which is the most visibly and out- 
wardly similar to its prototype in 
the Holy Family ; that is, the Chris- 
tian family itself, in the Christian 
home, where parents and their 
young children are united in one 
loving group, under all the hallow- 
ing influences of faith and sacra- 
mental grace. There are many 
such families, where the unseen 
angels may dwell contentedly, and 
where the Lord himself would look 
with complacency on the fulfilment 
of his own ideal, if he were to re- 
visit the earth in his natural pre- 
sence ; as he certainly does regard 
it with benignant approbation from 
heaven and from the Blessed Sac- 
rament. If the whole of mankind 
were such as these, the earth would 
become a Paradise, and the king- 
dom of God would be universally 
established in this world. 

It is our special object to con- 
sider the woman's office in the 
family, and we must therefore 
specify more distinctly what it is 
in the feminine character and in- 
fluence which has its own peculiar 
divine mark and quality. The 
mother is the immediate source and 
origin of life to man. as the instru- 
ment of the Creator. It is the law 
of the Creator that man should be 
born of woman and nourished by 
her during infancy. The Redeemer 
of mankind was born of a woman, 
as the indispensable condition of 
consanguinity with his fellow-men, 
though he had God alone for his 
father. This fact has elevated the 
one who is "blessed among wo- 
men " above all merely human 
beings and all other creatures, and 
given special honor to her sex. 
The nurture of childhood, the care 
of- the sick members of the family, 
the consolation of those who are 



in trouble, the intercession for such 
as are under the displeasure of the 
father of the family, spring natural- 
ly out of the maternal office and 
are better done by the mother be- 
cause of her feminine character and 
qualities. The mother is also the 
natural and rightful counsellor of 
the father, and for this duty also 
she is specially fitted by the finer 
and more subtle moral intuitions 
of the feminine nature. Whatever 
belongs to the order and decoration 
of the household, to the arrange- 
ment of festivities and home enjoy- 
ments, . it is her part to preside 
over and to give it the grace of re- 
finement and politeness. In all 
these things her power lies chiefly 
in her influence, persuasiveness, and 
fineness of tact, in her native facul- 
ty for the things belonging to social 
etiquette, in the primitive and best 
sense of that term, denoting "les- 
ser ethics," or whatever belongs to 
minor morals and manners : those 
customs and habitudes in daily 
common affairs which throw the 
charm of beauty and the grace of 
courtesy over the ordinary events 
and intercourse of the family and 
society. Above all it springs from 
the magic of love, " tender and 
true," disinterested, amiable, and 
self-sacrificing. In the nature of 
man, the wisdom, power, justice, 
and ruling providence of God are 
specially represented. In the fe- 
minine character, on the other 
hand, it is the beauty, the goodness, 
the love of God, and the gentle, 
persuasive .interior government of 
the soul by grace, which are express- 
ed in a human image ; most perfect- 
ly in Our Blessed Lady, and, to a 
lesser or greater degree, in those 
women who resemble their type 
and model. 

The guardian angels are the 
special ministers of grace, and in 



What it Costs to be a Guardian Angel. 



that capacity serve Our Lord, the 
Mediator of redemption, and Our 
Lady, the subordinate Mediatrix of 
grace, by their mediation and 
ministration of love between the 
heirs of salvation and the Heavenly 
Father. On account of the analo- 
gy between their office and that of 
the feminine compart of man in the 
human family, we have called her 
the " guardian angel of man." But 
it is not so much what man gains 
by Jier ministry as what it costs 
her to fulfil it which is the scope 
of our remarks upon this angelic 
and gracious ministry. The law of 
grace for fallen men is a law of suf- 
fering. The merciful ministry of 
Christ entailed upon him unspeak- 
able suffering in the entire sacrifice 
of himself which was finished when 
he expired upon Mount Calvary. 
The partnership of Mary entailed 
upon her suffering only less than 
his, but still unspeakable. 

Nobis saJutem conferant 
Deifaree tot lachrymte^ 
Quibus la.iiare sufficis 
Totius orbis crimina. 

The sin of Eve entailed upon 
her daughters, Mary included, so 
much special suffering and sacrifice 
as the condition of salvation, 
that .the Scripture declares in the 
form of an axiom that " Man, who 
is lorn of woman, is of few days 
and full of trouble." This k essen- 
tial suffering belongs even to the 
ideal state of Christian domestic 
and social life in its happiest con- 
ditions ; as well as in those which 
seem less favored, because they in- 
clude more visible and tangible 
hardships and privations. By the 
ideal state we mean such a one as 
can be made actual by the obser- 
vance in the family and society of 
all the divine laws, so that the miser- 
ies caused by actual sins against 
the divine order are excluded. 



Let society and the family be regu- 
lated by the divine law, as univer- 
sally and completely as human fra- 
gility will suffer this observance to 
exist practically, in the most favor- 
ed period of time among the most 
thoroughly Christianized portion of 
mankind, and there will remain the 
suffering which is inherent in the 
very law of life, from which none 
are exempt ; and that, moreover, 
which necessarily belongs to pov- 
erty, to which many must be always 
subject. This is the indispensable 
personal cost of all that is good 
and best in this world. The femi- 
nine character is beautified by suf- 
fering, and elevated from a resem- 
blance to the type of a heathen 
goddess to an angelic similitude 
and a conformity with the divine 
Madonna. In a holy family, all 
whose members are holy, the office 
of guardian angel involves pain and 
sacrifice. Every family may be 
called holy, in so faras.its members 
are united in the Catholic faith and 
the practice of the commandments 
of God and the precepts of the 
church, without any habitudes of 
grievous sin which destroy or seri- 
ously mar its sacramental unity 
and peace. In this sanctuary the 
altar and the censer cannot be 
wanting, and they require a chalice 
with the heart's blood in it for a sac- 
rifice, incense whose fragrant cloud 
ascends from the fire of suffering. 
The sacrifice which a Christian wo- 
man offers to God is herself. A 
man offers himself to God, to a 
great extent, by consecrating to 
him those things which are under 
his dominion, and his part is more 
that of a priest than of a victim. 
There is something in the senti- 
ment awakened by the sight of a 
novice receiving the religious veil, 
or making her religious profession 
quite different from any awakened 



What it Costs to be a Guardian Angel. 



385 



by the solemn ordination of a young 
ecclesiastic. The sacred virgin is 
a victim, who is offering her'heart 
with her hand to the Divine Spouse. 
It is a sacred bridal ; and, in a like 
manner, a bride before the altar, in 
her person, her dress, the fillet 
which binds her head, the ring 
which encircles her finger, presents 
the form of one who is devoted to 
another; who is given away at her 
own desire, but irrevocably, to be- 
come a part of another person, 
and thus to sacrifice her very self. 
This is her natural destiny, and it is 
a supernatural vocation which calls 
her to the celestial espousals of re- 
ligious vows. The feminine nature, 
which is specially fitted and intend- 
ed for such a destiny, makes every 
other relation in life, even in those 
who never receive either the wed- 
' ding-ring or the religious veil, sim- 
ilar in character to the relation 
contracted in marriage. The sister 
is in the same attitude to her broth- 
er, of one devoted to another who 
receives her devotion. The moth- 
er is in a similar attitude toward 
her son. And no matter who or 
what may be the object of this 
peculiarly feminine devotion, the 
same element is present and quali- 
fies the sentiment and the manner 
of bestowing human kindness or 
supernatural charity upon the re- 
cipient. And as the sentiment is 
peculiar, the necessity of suffering 
and sacrifice which accompanies 
it is involved in it, and receives its 
special character from the same 
cause. 

It is involved in it, and cannot 
ever be separated from it or remain 
long dormant, though at times it 
may slumber. It is called into fre- 
quent and vivid activity even dur- 
ing the most sunshiny periods of the 
most serene and happy lives, at 
least after the "trance of child- 

VOL. XXVIII. 2C 



hood" has come to a close. Very 
frequently, even when the trials 
which come are not caused by hav- 
ing sinned or been sinned against, 
the necessity for sacrifice and suf- 
fering comes either from the very be- 
ginning of life, or comes soon after- 
wards, or comes suddenly, or comes 
so pressingly at the end of a long 
period that it effaces all remem- 
brance of past enjoyment. Some 
are drawn by it to a life in the 
world as much apart from earthly 
enjoyment and as strictly self-deny- 
ing as the life of the cloister. They 
are not with the banded group 
who bear their veils and lights in 
company, but they carry them with 
equal vigilance, on the same road, 
apart by themselves. Others find 
in a household where suffering and 
poverty have intruded, without sin 
having opened the door to the un- 
welcome visitors, a sterner rule of 
abnegation and arduous exertion 
'than even that of a Trappist mon- 
astery. Or, in lone widowhood, 
with their half-orphans clinging 
around them, they must face, alone 
and unprotected, the anxieties, the 
cares, often the bitter privations, of 
a life of labors and struggles for 
which only manly strength and re- 
sources are naturally fitted. Per- 
haps some who have no such strug- 
gle to encounter suffer as much, 
or more, in the midst of affluence, 
when they are left alone with the 
portraits of the departed looking 
silently at them ; in the old home 
where the voices of the past are 
hushed; amid the pleasant places, 
where the familiar forms of bygone 
days no longer walk, and the merry 
group of children no longer make 
the lawn bright and vocal with 
their presence. 

This is one way in which the 
feminine heart pays the cost of its 
privilege. It is freely paid, and 



3 86 



What it Costs to be a Guardian Angel. 



draws from the hidden treasure 
the golden coin of pure love with- 
out stint. It has been stated in 
the papers that during the recent 
visitation of yellow fever at the 
South men have abandoned their 
wives, parents their children, and 
children their parents, but that not 
one case has been known of a wife 
abandoning her husband. It is 
needless to prove what is known to 
every one, that every possible way 
in which a wife can show her fideli- 
ty and love to her husband when 
he is in need or peril of any kind, 
to the extent of a superhuman for- 
titude and daring, either in suffer- 
ing or in action, is illustrated by 
countless known examples which 
can only be a small fraction of the 
whole sum of similar instances. 
The same is true in respect to pa- 
rents, children, and other relatives, 
and, moreover, in respect to those 
who are related only by the bond 
of common charity. The daugh- 
ter works for her dependent pa- 
rents, nurses them even with the 
sacrifice of health and the risk of 
life, and offers on this altar her own 
individual aspirations for a home 
of her own in her own household 
or in the cloister. Her life of de- 
votion is divided between the hum- 
ble abode made comfortable by her 
earnings, the school or workshop of 
her daily severe labor, and the 
church ; and she often fades early, 
showing all the unearthly sanctity 
which has bloomed unnoticed, only 
when a beautiful death attracts for 
a moment the admiration of a few 
who are its witnesses. A fond sis- 
ter offers the savings of years with- 
out a moment's hesitation to give a 
brother the last chance of saving 
'his life by an expensive journey to 
a milder climate. Another spends 
her days in teaching and her even- 
ings at the sewing-machine to send 



her brother to college, perchance 
denying herself the longing desire 
of her own heart for the cloister, 
without a murmur. A mother ex- 
erts the cultivated talents which 
once adorned the drawing-room, 
and puts to hard service the ele- 
gant accomplishments which were 
acquired as a decoration for a more 
prosperous state, writing for maga- 
zines, going through cold and heat 
and drenching rain to give lessons 
in French or music to dull and 
wayward pupils, or she makes a 
clerk of herself in a public office, 
or a private governess or a house- 
keeper, living sparingly, dressing 
shabbily, suffering silently, to give 
her sons and daughters an educa- 
tion, and to provide for their future 
whatever hope she can of becom- 
ing respectable and comfortable 
and happy in life. If there is no 
other way of serving others at her 
own expense, and no other outlet 
for the defrauded natural affections 
of her heart, a woman of the no- 
blest Christian type will find both 
in works of active charity among 
the poor and suffering, like the he- 
roine of A Sister s Story. All this 
is done spontaneously, cheerfully, 
unostentatiously, as something 
which belongs as a matter of course 
to her position and duty as a guar- 
dian angel. One may observe in 
the eye a moisture of suppressed 
tears, and a trembling of the lips, 
when counsel or assistance is ask- 
ed of a trusted friend and adviser 
about the way to make some sacri- 
fice or find some work, but no wa- 
vering of the heart can be detected, 
no shrinking of the will 'from its 
high and disinterested purpose. If 
only the end is gained in the good 
of the ones whom the angel is 
guarding, if there is responsive 
love, if there is solace and allevia- 
tion gratefully received, if there is 



What it Costs to be a Guardian Angel. 



387 



the reward of seeing the fruit of 
virtue, of piety, of honorable char- 
acter and effort on the part of those 
for whom she is devoting her labor 
and sacrifice, and a promise of reap- 
ing at last in joy what has been 
sown in tears, whether she herself will 
live to share it or only be consoled 
in death by seeing that it has come 
for others, the true Christian wo- 
man feels herself amply repaid and 
perfectly content. Whatever it has 
cost to be a guardian angel, it has 
not cost too much when such a re- 
sult has been accomplished. 

This is, however, the lightest and 
easiest kind of self-sacrifice which 
is demanded from Christian wo- 
' men by the exigencies of their posi- 
tion and the obligations involved 
in it, as things are in real life. The 
hard and heavy trials come from 
the unworthiness and delinquency 
of those who are the objects of 
their "angelic ministry, and who fail 
miserably in fulfilling their own 
duty in the family relation, or even 
grievously sin against its funda- 
mental laws. A brave woman suf- 
fers pain from the additional bur- 
den placed on her shoulders by the 
privation of that strong protection 
and efficient labor which it belongs 
to men to exercise. But, if husband 
and son are laid low without loss of 
honor, there is no bruising of her 
moral sensibilities. Our Lord suf- 
fered the real, interior cross in his 
soul from the sins of men, and 
Our Lady suffered more from sym- 
pathy with this moral pain than 
from mere compassion for the phy- 
sical torments of her Son. It is 
easier for a noble woman to see her 
husband die for his honor than to 
see him become a traitor ; to wit- 
ness the martyrdom than to behold 
the apostasy of her son. The de- 
linquencies which come from moral 
weakness only, even though they 



are very serious and bring after 
them great troubles and sorrows, 
are easily pardcned, so long as 
there remains unbroken a bond of 
mutual affection, and enough of 
moral soundness in the heart to 
produce repentance or give hope 
that it will eventually be produced. 
Nevertheless, it is a harder trial to 
endure even shiftlessness and un- 
manly inefficiency, though unac- 
companied by great moral faults, 
than to bear the greatest of the 
sufferings which come from a more 
worthy cause. Patient and indul- 
gent as a wife and mother may be, 
when the part of a man is thrown 
upon her shoulders; and those who 
are by nature manly become weak 
and womanish dependants upon 
her ; we cannot help thinking that 
it costs her too much to be a guar- 
dian angel under such circumstan- 
ces. When selfishness, indolence, 
and vice have brought about this 
moral helplessness and dependence, 
it is a still more pitiable spectacle. 
It is a sad and humiliating position 
for a man who is the head of a 
family to be a mere cipher in the 
sum of the household, even though 
weakness of character and the dis- 
couragement of adverse fortune are 
the sole cause of this imbecility. 
It may be redeemed by gentle and 
amiable qualities, or by some of 
those finer intellectual gifts of the 
poetic and artistic temperament so 
often disconnected from practical 
capacity in common affairs ; and if 
there is no need of struggling 
against poverty and encountering 
the hardships of misfortune, the 
wife may take on herself the man- 
aging and governing functions of 
the household without any serious 
damage to domestic happiness. So 
long as there is mutual respect and 
affection, and the wolf is kept from 
the door, the guardian angel can 



388 



What it Costs to be a Guardian Angel. 



fulfil her double task cheerfully, 
and perhaps enjoy her supremacy 
a little, even when she has to gov- 
ern her husband as well as her 
children. A man who has genius 
and is admired, one who is a 
scholar, a fine writer, or in some 
way recognized as of porcelain 
clay, is looked on with indulgence 
if he be somewhat feminine. If 
he is amiable, he may be more 
loved, notwithstanding a strange 
amount of shyness, awkwardness, 
or even childish helplessness, than 
one of more homely nature can be, 
however strong and useful in all 
common affairs. Nevertheless, it 
is a humiliating weakness in any 
man, even though he be a genius, 
to depend on a woman in those 
things in which the woman is na- 
turally dependent on the man. If 
he is made of any clay except very 
fine porcelain, he cannot escape at 
least some degree of contempt from 
his wife and children, even though 
it is involuntary and they feel at 
times compunction for it, especially 
when he comes to die, and they 
remember only what was good in 
him. But how seldom is it that 
this imbecility is a mere excusable 
weakness, or that its naturally dis- 
astrous consequences are impeded 
and counteracted by favorable cir- 
cumstances ! In itself it is a ruinous 
delinquency and failure, like the 
sinking in of one entire side of the 
foundations of a building ; and this 
failure is, generally speaking, moral- 
ly culpable. There is at least mo- 
ral cowardice and sloth, culpable 
negligence, carelessness, and shirk- 
ing of duty. When a true-hearted 
and generous woman must take the 
burden thrown upon her by an in- 
dolent and low-spirited man, it is 
extremely hard, even though he 
may be good-natured, and willing 
to acknowledge and praise the vir- 



tues of his wife or daughter while 
he lets them do his work for him. 
Most frequently there is something 
worse than sloth and cowardice at 
the bottom of these miseries. It 
is vicious self-indulgence, especial- 
ly hard drinking, which in the be- 
ginning has weakened and un- 
dermined the whole moral consti- 
tution, produced the state of indo- 
lent pusillanimity and unsteadiness 
of purpose, wasted the resources 
and destroyed the opportunities 
which were the germ and nucleus of 
future prosperity. It is enough 
merely to hint at the sins which 
are worse and more ruinous than 
drunkenness. We do not propose 
to go into the most dismal and dis- 
tressing regions of the guilt and 
misery and tragic crimes of human 
society, either high or low. Most 
of our readers know enough already 
of these things, at least from the 
delineations of popular literature, to 
dispense us from anything more 
than a reminder. We have no in- 
tention of attempting a description 
of what women in all ranks suffer 
from the tyranny, brutality, faith- 
lessness, and desertion of bad men, 
in palaces and in hovels alike. Vi- 
cious men are coarse, vile, and cruel, 
at least at times when they are 
under the excitement of their un- 
governed passions, if not habitu- 
ally ; whether they be princes or 
tramps. Even though they may 
not, if they are restrained by habits 
of outward decorum and the power 
of those laws which control the 
manners of polite society, use vio- 
lent language or commit personal 
outrages upon ladies who are so 
unhappy as to be -their near rela- 
tives, their conduct toward them is 
none the less base and cruel. 
What those women who are truly 
angelic have suffered from their 
connection with such men no Ian- 



What it Costs to be a Guardian Angel. 



389 



guage can express, and only they 
themselves can fully understand. It 
is not necessary to go lower than 
the palaces of kings, and these 
not heathen but Christian kings, to 
find illustrations. Queen Catha- 
rine of England and Maria Lec- 
zinska of France may suffice. It 
was an old saying among the heath- 
en Arabians, who used to bury their 
superfluous female children alive, 
that " the best son-in-law is the 
grave." Surely, it is much less 
sad to see a lovely young maid- 
en consigned to the grave than to 
see her doomed to such a marriage. 
It may become the occasion of he- 
roic virtue and extraordinary merit, 
and sometimes the most wicked 
men may become penitent and be 
saved through the prayers and 
the influence of saintly wives and 
daughters. Still, it is no less true 
that it would have been easier and 
more pleasant for these holy victims 
to have died in the trance of child- 
hood, without passing through such 
a martyrdom. The angelic beauty 
of character acquired at the cost of 
so great suffering and heroism is 
worth what it costs, and no price 
is too great which redeems a soul, 
however sinful. Yet this does not 
alter our just estimate of the great- 
ness of the cost, or of the odious- 
ness of the sins which exact such a 
costly sacrifice. To expiate the 
sins of those whom she loves with 
a superhuman devotion ; to reclaim 
them from sin and final impeni- 
tence ; to resist and counteract the 
ruinous influence of their vices, 
their impiety, or their indifference ; 
to be the visible representative 
and ministering angel of grace to 
hard and wayward men ; is the most 
divine but also the most arduous 
office of the Christian woman in the 
family and in the world. It is quite 
enough for her to fulfil her office 



of angelic ministration to those 
who are themselves faithful to their 
own duty, by supplying what they 
naturally need and lack the natural 
faculty of furnishing to themselves. 
The necessity of supplying also for 
their gross delinquency, and over- 
coming their apathy or opposition, 
is disgraceful to the manhood of 
the delinquents. 

It is the man who is the head of 
the woman and of the household in 
all things. In all the sacramental 
relations of marriage and paternity, 
as well as in the natural order, he 
is first and chief and ought to 
keep his place. It is for him to be 
the firm pillar of support to the fam- 
ily in respect to religion and morals, 
as well as in regard to temporal af- 
fairs. He is the ruler and judge, 
the domestic priest and -teacher, the 
exemplar in whom all should find 
their model and standard of con- 
duct. The wife ought to lean on 
him, and follow him in the practice 
of all religious duties and the moral 
virtues, and be only his coadjutor 
in ordering the household and 
training up the children in the way 
in which they ought to walk. It is 
a dishonor to his manhood when 
he falls away from the highest and 
noblest part of his duty, and leaves 
it to his wife. It is a shame for 
him to need to lean on her, and to 
be p-ersuaded and led like a child 
to fulfil whatever he does fulfil of 
his duty as a Christian man; still 
more when by apathy or raillery, 
by gross neglect and bad example, 
even by openly professing bad prin- 
ciples and positively leading away 
from piety and virtue his sons, he 
thwarts and counteracts the moth- 
er's instructions and influence. It 
is base to need perpetual watching, 
lest he be led away into dissipation, 
and to tax the patient love and 
kindness of a woman in nursing him 



390 



What it Costs to be a Guardian Angel. 



out of the miseries of intoxication. 
It is mean and ungrateful for sons 
to disappoint the hopes and break 
the heart of the mother who gave 
them life and nurtured their infan- 
cy, by worthless conduct; cruel 
and inhuman to make a sister blush 
for their degeneracy ; and meanest 
of all to flout and deride the fine, 
feminine sense of morality as weak 
sentimentalism, and to set the im- 
perious assertion of manly supe- 
riority as a shield against every 
just reproach and kind expostula- 
tion. The excuses and palliations 
which are thrown over these delin- 
quencies, that they are common 
among men, that the temptations of 
life are too great to be withstood, 
that the fault lies in circumstances 
over which they had no control, are 
as degrading to the manhood of 
those who plead them as the cow- 
ardice of an officer who pleads panic 
fear as an excuse for running away 
from the field of battle. One of 
the most sarcastic sentences ever 
penned is found among the sayings 
of a woman who was one of the 
most gentle and amiable, as well as 
heroic, feminine characters among 
the saintly women of our age Mme. 
Barat : " Les homines d'aujourdhui 
soat des femmes, ii faut que les 
femmes deviennent des hommes." 
It is a rebuke to the effeminate men 
of this generation, like that which 
the Avignonese cardinals felt they 
were receiving, when St. Catha- 
rine of Siena was exhorting them 
to rouse themselves to their neg- 
lected duty. Let women rival and 
equal men by rising above the ordi- 
nary level of the feminine character, 
and they deserve praise. 

" Fortem virili pectore, 
Laudemus, omnes, feminam." 

But men who have lost the virtue 
of true Christian manhood, that 



virtus which is the same as virility,, 
and are willing to sink into moral 
inferiority to women, deserve to be 
called Mantalinis, and not men or 
gentlemen. 

Women are not all angels. Some 
are even demons. Many, who are 
neither the one nor the other, share 
equally with men in degeneracy 
from the character and principles 
which constitute the true dignity 
and grace of human nature in the 
man and in the woman alike, and 
make the union of the two in a 
sacramental fellowship a real ex- 
pression of the divine type of Chris- 
tian marriage. The concurrence 
of both parties to the sacred con- 
tract is necessary for the full effect 
of the sacramental grace, which 
Christ our Lord has given in order 
that it may elevate and sanctify 
in a special manner those relations 
of parents, with each other and 
with their offspring, which were 
already by the natural law high 
and holy. The delinquency of 
either party more or less violates 
the natural or sacramental sanctity 
of marriage and frustrates its in- 
tention ; but the delinquency of 
woman is more fatal than that of 
man, and when both concur in 
impiety and immorality, a genera- 
tion of reprobates is the natural 
offspring of the debased parentage. 
The total overthrow of all moral 
and social order and the ruin of 
the whole human race would fol- 
low, if this degeneracy should be- 
come so universal as to make the 
generation of the reprobate every- 
where dominant. It is already 
general enough in Christendom to 
shake this order to its foundations, 
and to cause the ruin of a great 
multitude. The points of location, 
where the primitive causes of the 
general disorder of society lurk 
and work their fatal effects, are 



What it Costs to be a Guardian Angel. 



391 






families ; and to these points all 
preventive and remedial measures 
must be principally directed. 
From the family, regenerated and 
sanctified through the sacraments, 
incorporated into the church, and 
keeping the law of Christ, comes 
forth that multitude which consti- 
tutes the Christian people, of whom 
the church and the state are com- 
posed. Let the family once be 
placed on its right basis, and it 
is only necessary to continue and 
persevere in the observance of the 
law, to secure universal order and 
well-being. The Catholic Church 
has divine authority to promulgate 
and enforce this law, and the 
divine or Christian law can only be 
completely known, or in its full ex- 
tent practically applied as a moral 
rule, through the doctrine and the 
commandments of the church. 
Every Catholic \\ho is not igno- 
rant knows that this is true, and 
that the precepts of the church 
concerning marriage are binding 
under pain of mortal sin. Yet it 
may not be useless to recall to the 
remembrance of some a few of 
these precepts which, if not forgot- 
ten, are frequently ignored in prac- 
tice, and the reason on which they 
are based. 

Marriage is one of the seven sa- 
craments, and therefore entirely 
under the control of the church, 
whose jurisdiction extends to every 
baptized person. All marriages 
which the church declares to be 
null and void are absolutely null 
and void, whether sanctioned or 
condemned by the civil law. They 
are not merely devoid of all that is 
essential to make them valid sacra- 
mentally, but equally null as con- 
tracts, and are in no sense real 
marriages at all. Every true and 
valid marriage of baptized persons 
is a sacrament, and, like every 



other sacrament, must be received 
in accordance with the divine law 
declared by the church and the 
positive precepts enacted by her 
law-giving authority. Those who 
knowingly violate these laws when 
they marry receive a sacrament in 
the state of mortal sin, and profane 
a sacrament in the very act of re- 
ceiving it. They not only deprive 
themselves of the grace of the sa- 
crament, but they dishonor it and 
are guilty of contempt of the Author 
of the sacrament, who is our Lord 
himself. Those who act in good 
faith are innocent of sin in this mat- 
ter, because their ignorance of the 
law of God excuses them. We are 
not judging those who are without 
the pale of the Catholic Church, 
much less calling in question the 
validity of any marriage otherwise 
lawful, merely because it has not 
been celebrated before a true priest 
according to the Catholic rite. We 
are speaking now of and to instruct- 
ed Catholics, who cannot plead 
good faith as an excuse for trans- 
gressing laws which they know to 
be binding on their consciences. 
When they transgress these laws, 
it is simply because they do not 
care for the law of God, and are 
not governed by conscientious 
principles. Sin in the very sacra- 
ment which makes the indissolu- 
ble bond of marriage is a serpent 
in the nest. The punishment is 
sure to follow sooner or later, un- 
less the sin is expiated by penance, 
and the obstacle which prevents 
the sacramental and sanctifying 
grace from flowing in with its sweet 
waters upon the garden of domes- 
tic life is removed. 

We have shown what it costs to 
be a guardian angel, not to dis- 
courage those who have chosen or 
willingly may choose to accept the 
part which God has assigned to the 



392 



What it Costs to be a Guardian Angel. 



Christian woman as her ordinary 
vocation, but to set in a clear light 
the holy and arduous service which 
is exacted from them. Whoever 
has in his company or in his memo- 
ry of the past any of these angels ; 
a mother, a sister, a wife, a daugh- 
ter ; if he has any true manhood, 
must honor the sanctity of the femi- 
nine character in the true Christian 
woman, and scorn the meanness 
of conduct which makes a man un- 
worthy to be served by angels. 
Whoever aspires to be an angel 
guardian in a Christian household 
should remember, that it is only 
this feminine sanctity of a true 
Christian woman which can de- 
serve and receive such high honor 
as that which is the just tribute 
from man to one who is an angel 
and minister of grace in the house- 
hold. A Christian maiden needs 
as careful and religious an educa- 
tion for the fit and worthy reception 
of the bridal wreath and ring as a 
novice for her profession. Mar- 
riage is a sacrament, and there is 
no sacrament by which a special 
consecration to religion is sealed 
except holy orders. The vow of 
marriage is more absolutely indis- 
soluble than sacerdotal or religious 
vows. The road of matrimony 
leads to the same end with the 
straight road of religion and the 
middle way of ecclesiastical labor, 
though it is more circuitous. If 
it has its own special pleasantness 
by reason of its winding through 
smiling vales and by murmuring 
brooks and along flowery paths, it 
is in the- long run the most ardu- 
ous and painful of all the ways 
which lead to the summit of the 
mountain. It is also more full of 
dangers; and for all these reasons, 
if possible, more prudence, more 
fear of God and a greater trust in 
him, more solicitude in seeking for 



special graces, are requisite in one 
who would enter upon this road in 
the manner becoming a Christian 
than even for the aspirant to the 
life of the convent. 

The responsibility of parents and 
of those who have the charge of 
the education of young girls is very 
great in this respect. It is for them 
to supply that care and direction 
which is necessary for those who 
are too young to have all the pru- 
dence and forethought which are 
required in a matter so important, 
upon which the happiness, the re- 
ligious and moral security, and even 
the eternal salvation of their pre- 
cious charges are so dependent. 
Education is not a mere affair of 
schooling in certain studies and 
accomplishments suitable to the 
quality and position of a lady. It 
is a physical and moral as well as 
a mental culture, beginning in in- 
fancy, and in its general intention a 
complete preparation for marriage 
and the married life, with all the 
onerous duties and trials which 
this holy state involves. It cannot 
be entirely devolved on teachers 
and guardians, even though these 
are the most competent and con- 
scientious ladies who can be found 
to undertake the task of education, 
in the world or in the convent; 
unless the children are orphans 
or otherwise necessarily deprived 
of the natural care of parents. 
The parents have an indispensable 
duty in this regard toward their 
daughters, but especially the mo- 
ther. She is really the guardian 
angel to whose watchful and faith- 
ful care they have been committed, 
that they may be trained to be- 
come guardian angels in their own 
households. Negligence, laxity, 
but especially delinquency in this 
duty, and even grievous mistakes 
in the manner of fulfilling it, tend 






What it Costs to be a Guardian Angel. 



393 



to produce the most dangerous, 
often actually disastrous conse- 
quences. When the sentiments, 
the conduct, and the family gov- 
ernment of the parents are not regu- 
lated by the divine law, Christian 
principles, and a genuine Catholic 
spirit; or at least are very deficient 
in these respects, and in too great 
conformity with the degenerate 
maxims and customs commonly 
prevalent ; the most religious edu- 
cation of the convent lacks its 
necessary counterpart at home and 
is defrauded of its due result. 
This topic, of the corruption of the 
Catholic type of the family and 
the desecration of its sacramental 
character and sanctity, is too grave 
and important to be treated in a 
few sentences. It is much to be 
desired that some one would treat 
it properly in a volume. And 
since those who need most to be 
instructed can scarcely be induced 
to read anything except light litera- 
ture, we wish that our best writers 
of fiction would imitate the Coun- 
tess Ida Hahn-Hahn, by depicting 
in a vivid and dramatic manner 
those tragedies of social and do- 
mestic life which are too often true 
and sad scenes in the re^l world. 

Setting aside all that belongs to 
the spiritual and eternal welfare of 
our Catholic children and young 
people, and looking only at the 
question of life and health, with 
particular reference to the more 
fragile and delicate constitution of 
girls, the way in which they are too 
frequently brought up is contrary 
to common sense, as well as to 
sound and Christian maxims of 
morality. Although the girls are 
generally much better brought up 
than the boys in families of wealthy 
and easy circumstances ; and the 
provision made for their education, 
in Catholic schools of the higher 



grade, excels that which has thus 
far been made for boys; it is no 
less a certain fact that they are 
frequently in danger of fading and 
even dying at an ' early age. One 
cause of this premature failure of 
physical vigor and health is their 
precocious exchange of the state of 
childhood for that of young-lady- 
hood. They are prematurely in- 
dulged in many ways, after 'the 
manner of young ladies in fashion- 
able society. Instead of being re- 
freshed and invigorated, as they 
ought to be, by their holidays and 
vacations, they are often enfeebled 
by the unwholesome excitement of 
late hours and amusements unsuit- 
able to the temperament of early 
youth. Unfitted to endure the tax 
upon the brain which the applica- 
tion to study imposes ; perhaps even 
unduly pressed and hurried to ac- 
quire the mental culture and ac- 
complishments which are deemed 
necessary by ambitious and not 
over-discreet parents; they enter 
upon life, at the end of the school- 
girl period, too frail and delicate, 
already too much exhausted in 
mind and body, to bear the new 
strain upon both, under which they 
often give way, lapsing into the 
condition of perpetual invalids, or 
dying before they have fairly begun 
to live. Are there any parents who 
agree with the old Arabians that 
" the best son-in-law is the grave "? 
Is it a good thing to bury super- 
fluous children ? If not, then in 
God's name let not parents destroy 
them by the slow but deadly poison 
of luxurious living and nervous ex- 
citement. The precious state of 
'childhood ought to be prolonged, 
and its healthful, delightful trance 
remain unbroken, both for boys 
and girls, until they are set free by 
the hand of nature from its tasks 
and sports and discipline. This is 



394 



What it Costs to be a Guardian Angel. 



the natural preparation for the 
subsequent state of adult age, when 
the manly toga and the robe of 
womanhood are to be assumed, 
with all the grave duties and severe 
trials of real life in the world. 
Real life, in the only true and 
worthy sense, is the Christian life, 
which is a pilgrimage to eternity. 
The guardian angel who is given 
to man as his companion on this 
hard pilgrimage cannot fulfil her 
office, if she flies away at the very 
outset of the journey to the com- 
pany of the angels in heaven. It 
is necessary to be strong as well as 
holy, in order to endure to the end, 
to remain by the side of the com- 
panion of youth until old age 
brings both near to the natural ter- 
mination of the long and circui- 
tous road, followed by the group 
of children and grandchildren, 
blessing and venerating the white 
and reverend heads, more beauti- 
ful in holy age than they were 
when crowned with the coronal of 
youth. That prudence which is as 
clearly the dictate of reason as it 
is inculcated by the principles of 
faith requires, that this journey 
should be undertaken with all those 
aids of sacramental grace which 
are needful to sustain and cheer 
the wayfarer along this difficult and 
dangerous road. Whoever appre- 
ciates justly what these difficulties 
and dangers are; how arduous is 
the way to heaven for one who is 
to be the guardian angel to en- 
courage and allure by a gentle and 
strong influence of loving compan- 
ionship the one who by struggling 
and fighting should lead the way, to 
keep the right path and surmount 
its obstacles ; will be careful to 
enter on this journey with no com- 
panion who is not a man of faith 
and virtue. To no other will pa- 
rents and guardians who are true 



to the trust confided to them will- 
ingly commit one out of their band 
of young angels. Only with such 
a guide and protector and strong 
defender and leader, to head and 
conduct the band of young pilgrims 
to eternity whom God will confide 
to her guardianship ; will a truly 
prudent woman, who enters upon 
marriage in the love and fear of 
God, willingly assume the office of a 
guardian angel of childhood. It 
costs enough to the Christian wo- 
man to pay the inevitable penalty 
of her share in the transgression of 
Eve, and the cost of her participa- 
tion in the divine maternity of 
Mary ; to suffer the consequences 
of original sin and fulfil the condi- 
tions of redemption, in the holy 
and sacramental state of marriage 
with all the blessings of the Ca- 
tholic religion to sanctify it. It is 
too great a cost to be willingly 
assumed, when she must suffer, 
through her own thoughtlessness or 
sin, or the faithless betrayal of trust 
by those who ought to be her pro- 
tectors, from an ill-assorted and 
disastrous union which defaces or 
destroys the sanctity and the hap- 
piness of married life and of the 
family household. The strict ob- 
servance of all the laws of God and 
all the precepts and counsels of the 
church secures for men and women 
and for children, in their family re- 
lations, all the well-being and hap- 
piness which is possible in this 
world. The violation of these laws 
brings misery after it as its punish- 
ment. The innocent must suffer 
by their relations with the guilty, 
but this is for them an occasion of 
greater virtue and merit. The 
penitent can expiate the sins which 
have brought suffering upon them 
by means of this very suffering. 
The innocent can expiate the sins 
of the guilty. Holy and pure vie- 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 



395 



tims, by their prayer and suffering, 
and that spiritual power of sanc- 
tity which is always victorious 
over material force wielded by 
vicious passions, prevent the cor- 
ruption of social life from totally 
destroying its moral order and 
beauty. Since the day when holy 
women kept faithful watch around 
the cross of the Lord, after all the 
other disciples had forsaken him 
and fled, their successors have 
never failed to atone for the delin- 
quency of men by a heroism of 
virtue far beyond their natural 
feminine weakness. The Clotildas 
and Margarets and Catharines and 
Teresas have shed their angelic 
lustre upon the clouds of evil 
which have darkened the church 
and the nations of Christendom. 
The vestal virgins who guard the 
shrine of religious sanctity on their 



holy mountain have cast their 
bright light upon the path of the 
weary travellers who struggle and 
fight their way through its winding 
and difficult routes. But those to 
whom men, in the arduous and dan- 
gerous pilgrimage of life, owe the 
greatest obligation of honor and 
gratitude, are the guardian angels 
who accompany them through all 
its devious ways, from the begin- 
ning to the end of life; whose holy 
light diffuses its mild radiance over 
the path, whether rugged or plea- 
sant, which they must traverse, day 
by day, with the great human 
crowd, along the common highway 
of the world toward the term where 
all ways meet ; and where all who 
have not hopelessly wandered find 
the one, universal end to which 
all mankind are destined by the 
Creator. 



MADAME DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. 



" You are in the habit of praising that 
merely human courage which frequently 
leads to fatal results ; do you not think 
there is greatness of mind, true eleva- 
tion of character, in acquiring a clear 
insight into one's own motives and a 
complete mastery over one's own ac- 
tions? It seems to me that the greatest 
conqueror is nothing beside the simple 
and honest man who has made himself 
his constant study and self-conquest his 
greatest glory ; who, having acquired 
the habit of self-repression, suffers little 
from the ill-regulated impulses of his 
nature, and can at any moment decide 
upon a line of action without being 
blinded by the impetuosity of his pas- 
sions." 

These words of the subject of 

* Life of Madame de la Rochefoucauld, 
Duchesse de Doudeauville. Translated from the 
French by Mrs. Cashel Hoey. London : Burns & 
Gates. 1878. 



the following sketch are a key to 
her own well-balanced character. 
Everything that helps us to a bet- 
ter understanding of that complex 
state of society which immediately 
preceded the first Revolution in 
France cannot but be interesting. 
We are not yet one hundred years 
distant from that time; men and 
women who died not thirty years 
ago remembered that state of so- 
ciety and played their part in it ; 
and yet in many respects the gulf 
between those days and these is as 
wide as that which parts the Eng- 
lish Catholic of this century from 
his ancestor before the Reforma- 
tion, and wider than that which 
marks the New-Englander as a 
different being from his British 



39 6 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 



contemporary. Even religiously 
speaking, the contrast is startling. 
The tone of the best society, in 
spite of the piety of some of the 
Bourbon royal family, in spite 
of the fervent and noble example 
of whole-souled members of the 
nobility, was as heathen as any 
that prevailed during the first suc- 
cessful years of the Renaissance, 
and side by side with this tone 
was an elaborate crust of official 
religious ceremonial, airily keeping 
its hold on society. The French 
Revolution was a mighty though 
not really a sudden shock, and, like 
the Reformation, did its work of 
inward rehabilitation in a negative 
way as efficiently as that of out- 
ward destruction. It showed many 
what they had been trifling with, 
and how lightly they had valued 
the only advantages of which mob- 
law could not deprive them. Their 
titles, their estates, and their lives 
were at the mercy of events, but 
their faith remained. To this they 
looked for encouragement and sup- 
port when troubles drew dear, for 
comfort when they lost their dear- 
est friends and relations, for forti- 
tude when they were reduced to 
unaccustomed straits of poverty, 
exile, and dependence. The strange 
anomalies existing in pre-Revolu- 
tion society seem monstrous when 
compared with the life of the de- 
scendants of the Emigres. The 
latter, though forming a caste apart 
scarcely a political party, and yet 
an important dissentient element 
are noted at present, and have been 
ever since the torm subsided, for 
practical piety, .strict obedience to 
church rules, faithful discharge of 
family duties, and rigid adherence 
to religious as well as political prin- 
ciple, the latter being in their eyes 
synonymous with personal loyalty, 
even to their own hurt. In fact, 



they voluntarily put themselves in 
the same condition as the English 
Catholics before the penal laws 
were removed, so that every career 
and almost every profession were 
closed to them by their own tests. 
It is almost incredible that their 
young men especially should es- 
cape from the ill effects of such a 
system, and yet, thanks to the ad- 
mirable ideal of family life in 
France, and to the traditions which 
half a century of inaction could not 
obliterate, they did not even be- 
come loutish or ignorant, much less 
lazy and immoral. On the con- 
trary, one would think that the pa- 
triarchal life had revived among 
them : they married early ; they 
never seemed to have any wild 
oats to sow; disturbing and illicit 
passions were unheard of; if they 
had estates, they lived on them and 
looked after them themselves; if 
they had none, they took to learn- 
ing or to charity, and spent their 
peaceful and busy days in Paris. 
Sometimes they travelled abroad in 
wild places, exploring but making 
no parade of their researches, or 
served in the navy for a few years, 
and were invariably considered the 
bravest and best disciplined in the 
profession. Even the army in 
times of war they looked upon as 
a possible place for them, but the 
civil service, whether under the Or- 
leans, the Bonapartes, or the Re- 
public, they eschewed. When the 
Italian troubles broke out there 
was a rush of Legitimistes to the 
papal army, and these foreigners 
served the pope far more faithfully 
and more efficiently than his own 
subjects. With all the courtesy 
of the ancien regime, these remnants 
of the old noblesse disclaimed most 
of its prejudices, and above all ab- 
horred its affectation of infidelity. 
Their piety became, on the contrary, 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 



397 



a watchword, part of their honor, 
the outward sign of their ideal, the 
badge of their party. Religion was 
persecuted, weakened, out of fash- 
ion, and their chivalry was aroused 
in its behalf; the church was no 
longer a power in the state, with 
visible and undisputed sway, and 
it became to them in consequence 
a cherished institution which it was 
a point of honor to defend. There 
is something manly in this adop- 
tion by a whole class of the weaker 
side, this rallying round the stan- 
dard of what, humanly speaking, 
appeared a lost cause. Politically 
the class in question made a grave 
mistake by withdrawing from the 
national life and progress; morally 
the national life lost the healthiest 
part of its vitality by this with- 
drawal; but the personal qualities 
of this isolated class are none the 
less admirable independently of 
their relation, one way or the other, 
to the public interests. 

Mme. de la Rochefoucauld, or, as 
she was better known, the Duchess 
de Doudeauville, lived in both these 
different stages of society, though 
of the first she was at no time a 
representative. Her exemption 
from the prevailing tone of frivoli- 
ty and unbelief seemed providen- 
tial, for her eccentric and harsh 
mother could have had no influence 
over her, while her other relations 
(her father died just before her 
birth) had little to do with her edu- 
cation. Still more exceptional was 
the similar disposition of her hus- 
band, who was imposed upon her 
in such early youth that after their 
marriage she remained two years 
alone under her mother-in-law's 
charge while her bridegroom tra- 
velled during the same time with 
his tutor. Such passive marriages, 
the most ordinary occurrence in 
those times, needed much Christian 



fortitude to make them happy ; but 
what added a further temptation to 
this conventional and impersonal 
method of mating was the style of 
social life and the code of social 
morals prevalent, the former, indeed, 
almost obligatory. The woman 
whose life ended at the age of 
eighty-five, just thirty years ago, 
was launched at fifteen in the court 
of Louis XVI., where, in spite of 
the blamelessness of the king and 
the unusual piety of his sister, 
Mme. Elizabeth, the outward 
forms were just as worldly, the eti- 
quette as burdensome, the frivolity 
as triumphant as in the days of 
Louis XIV. Again, a special dan- 
ger to young brides of that time 
lay in the want of preparation for 
so gay and yet ceremonious a life. 
They were literally kept in the 
nursery until the day of their mar- 
riage. Mme. de Doudeauville's 
mother, Mme. de Montmirail, actu- 
ally made the bride-elect dine at a 
side-table by way of punishment 
for having made an awkward curt- 
sey at the door the week before she 
was married. This strange person, 
who had been originally a Jansen- 
ist, but who afterwards delighted 
in the company of Jesuits, was 
generous to the poor, fond of the 
world, not above small artifices 
such as putting the clock back dur- 
ing her country balls, while profess- 
ing conscientiously to disapprove 
of dancing after ten o'clock yet 
on the whole not irreligious, and, 
though whimsically severe to her 
two daughters, genuinely bent on 
bringing them up virtuously and 
godly. Whether from fancy or 
from respect, she insisted on hav- 
ing a special costume for the days 
when she went to confession, and 
when she was preparing for Holy 
Communion she passed the previ- 
ous day fasting and in absolute re- 



398 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 



treat ; but on setting out for church 
she would turn round to her maids 
and say abruptly : " May God for- 
give you, mesdemoiselles, as I for- 
give you !" 

Nothing could be a greater con- 
trast to this woman than her 
daughter, and yet absolute obe- 
dience to her mother was the chief 
trait of Augustine de Montmirail's 
childhood. Her sister, Mme. de 
Montesquiou, who afterwards be- 
came governess to Napoleon's son, 
and who was almost the only one 
who dared to speak independently 
to the emperor, was much of the 
same type as Mme. de Doudeau- 
ville. No doubt they owed much 
to their teachers, Mme. Leprince 
de Beaumont, who had written 
several books for the young; and, 
after her, a pupil of Rolling grave, 
elderly man, who had known their 
father, and who infused into their 
studies that subtle element of in- 
terest which routine teaching gene- 
rally misses. Although the educa 1 
tion of that day was not technical 
nor of very great extent indeed, 
the young girl, afterwards thrown 
among infidels, had to hold her 
tongue because her teaching had 
not armed her with any weapon of 
argument against false doctrine 
it was such that if properly act- 
ed upon it produced models of 
domestic virtue and household 
management. It would be worth 
while at present, in view of the 
dissatisfaction caused by " popu- 
lar " schools and the results of their 
training, to revert to that homelier 
pattern of teaching, to bring up 
girls more at home and with such 
accomplishments as their mothers 
are capable of imparting, and to 
equip them rather for their mar- 
ried life than for the brief period of 
their courtship. Augustine spent 
six months at the Convent of 



the Visitation, and made her First 
Communion there, after which her 
mother took her home again and 
subjected her to the same harsh 
and capricious treatment as before. 
That time at the convent naturally 
seemed a rest and a haven to the 
girl, and it is no wonder that she 
felt a desire, especially with the 
fervor of her First Communion en- 
compassing her, to remain there all 
her life. She herself believed that 
an inward voice had warned her at 
the time that this desire was not to 
be fulfilled and that she was called 
upon to serve God in the world ; 
at any rate she submitted very 
quietly to her mother's injunction 
to "observe carefully" the young- 
est and now only son of the Vicomte 
de la Rochefoucauld, who was to 
come one evening with his father 
to ask her hand in marriage. 

" If he does not suit you," con- 
tinued the mother, "you can tell 
me so ; I will look out for an- 
other." The boy was fourteen, 
awkward and ailing ; no one could 
have told what he would become 
later, and his bride certainly had to 
take him on faith, for they were not 
allowed to speak to each other, and 
even long after they were nominal- 
ly married they did not meet with- 
out witnesses. Her husband's 
family were notoriously worldly, 
and his parents' house the centre 
of the wit that is, the infidelity of 
the day. She did not even know 
how strangely young Ambrose de 
la Rochefoucauld, through the influ- 
ence left by the early training of a 
peasant nurse, had kept his faith 
intact, and even resisted that great 
temptation to a boy of appearing 
manly by laughing at religion. 
Augustine was indifferent as to the 
person her mother chose, and so 
made no difficulty, and the young 
people were married in 1779. 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 



399 



The duchess (she assumed a 
title which belonged to her own 
family, and her husband took the 
corresponding one with its privi- 
lege of a grandeeship of Spain 
attached) was suddenly thrown 
among strangers, presented at 
court, chosen to dance in conspicu- 
ous quadrilles at Versailles, extoll- 
ed as a beauty, followed by the 
silly exaggerations of a crowd eager 
for a new sensation (and she really 
was singularly beautiful, in the 
style of the Madonnas of Murillo), 
and initiated into the brilliant, 
empty, dashing life of her mother- 
in-law's circle. But she soon 
ceased to be the fashion ; her tim- 
idity and silence neutralized her 
beauty; men found her unassail- 
able and women dense; the habi- 
tues of the house affected to think 
her a nonentity or her coldness a 
restraint upon themselves, and 
her practices of devotion were uni- 
versally ridiculed. Every one 
knows how much moral courage 
there may be in acts very insignifi- 
cant in themselves, and such was 
the case with her when each Fri- 
day brought upon her the displea- 
sure and sneers of her father-in-law 
because she would not give up fast- 
ing. Even the daily hearing of 
Mass was not long allowed her, 
and she wisely ceased to insist up- 
on what was no obligation, antici- 
pating her own dictum in later 
years, that prayers were never to 
be intruded upon the notice of 
one's husband or other companions, 
and made hateful to them by obsti- 
nacy. This time was a very trying 
one to her; the theatre she had a 
conscientious distaste for, and the 
novels of the day she abhorred ; 
yet the former was a social resort 
to which the exigencies of her po- 
sition forced her to go at times, 
though her mother-in-law, who 



really loved her, often helped her 
by making excuses for staying at 
home. There was an odd custom 
of presenting a bride to the public 
at the opera, and to this she had to 
conform, coming forward in her 
box and making a court curtsey 
to the pit and boxes, whence not 
only looks but cries and clapping 
of hands hailed her. The enthu- 
siasm of novelty passed off, and 
those to whom her modest and 
maidenly beauty had afforded an 
unaccustomed sensation tired of 
what they called her want of sym- 
pathy and appreciation when they 
found her cold and indifferent to 
plays and books of doubtful moral 
tendency. She soon bade farewell 
even to harmless but useless books, 
from the conviction that the plea- 
sure they gave her entailed loss of 
time ; and in those early days of her 
court life this subject of loss of 
time was a grievous trial. It re- 
quired two hours to dress the hair, 
and she tried to employ it in medi- 
tation or in learning verses by 
heart ; every moment that she 
spent in society at home she used 
for needlework, and the quantities 
of her work preserved at her house 
of Montmirail and at the convent 
of Montlean show to what purpose 
she used her fingers. Her husband, 
who was fond of versifying, wrote a 
very ingenious play in rhyme on 
the word "point," or stitch, to cele- 
brate this love of needlework, 
which, however, was a habit that 
her contemporaries commonly 
shared with her, not only in France 
but in other countries, as our great- 
grandmothers' productions testify. 

Her influence that of example 
exclusively, for she never argued, 
much less reproached began to 
tell even on the worldly household 
of her husband's parents; and 
though they stopped her corre- 



400 



Madame tie la RocJiefoncauld. 



spondence with him for fear of her 
religious influence, both her father, 
mother, and sister-in-law eventually 
gave way to this influence them- 
selves. She put her own expe- 
rience into words when years later 
she encouraged her daughter to 
stand up for the truth and trust to 
its ultimate triumph. 

" . . . You will not, indeed," she says, 
" set yourself up as a preacher ; no such 
office devolves upon you. . . . Let a con- 
sistent life, conduct strictly in accord 
with your principles, be your apostolate. 
. . . People who mock at you will soon 
leave off when they find that their jests 
are invariably received with gentle, quiet 
reserve ; and if you regulate your life by 
a steady and consistent rule, there will 
be nothing in it or about you for scof- 
fers to take hold of. Pursue this line of 
conduct for two or three years, and at 
the end of them you will find yourself 
perfectly free ; society, convinced that 
there is nothing to be gained by perse- 
cuting you will abandon the unprofit- 
able pastime, and will turn its malignant 
attention to others, who may in their 
turn be encouraged and sustained by 
your example. After a few years of ob- 
livion you will be surprised to find those 
persons who affected to regard you as 
silly and narrow-minded coming to con- 
sult you in difficult circumstances, 
sheltering themselves under the reputa- 
tion which you will have acquired, and 
holding the interest which you evince in 
them and their affairs a high honor." 

The Vicomtesse' de la Roche- 
foucauld and her married daugh- 
ter, the Comtesse de Durtal, both 
became good practical Catholics 
under Mme. de Doudeauville's in- 
fluence, and her father-in-law him- 
self on his death-bed received the 
last sacraments devoutly and acted 
as a penitent and believing man. 
In our own times and circumstances 
this teaching is not inappropriate. 
Unbelief in another shape is still 
undermining educated society, and 
steady example is still the likeliest 
remedy to work efficiently as a 



counterbalance to the cleverly- 
managed assault on faith. 

When Mme. de Doudeauville's 
husband returned from his travels 
the young couple began their mar- 
ried life under good auspices, for 
their correspondence had made 
them known to each other, and 
they mutually upheld and encour- 
aged each other in high aspirations 
and worthy deeds. Still, for a long 
time the wife was much in advance 
of her husband. Her judicious and 
personal care of her children, a son 
and a daughter, was consistent with 
the rest of her conduct ; her main 
object being to become their friend 
and confidant, to prevent their be- 
ing flattered and spoiled, and to 
render their estimate of religion 
grave, earnest, and practical. She 
trained them specially in practices 
of self-denial, and, instead of the 
fairy-tales which nurses in those 
days made the most prominent lite- 
rature of childhood, she read them 
the histories of the patriarchs and 
told them incidents of the lives of 
later saints. She had already be- 
gun, by her husband's wish, to su- 
perintend the management of her 
own estates, which were considera- 
ble and settled upon herself, and 
when only seventeen had on her 
own responsibility changed her man 
of business, who had been found 
extravagant and unsafe. The duke, 
serious by nature, and more and 
more influenced by his wife, fore- 
saw the dissolution of the existing 
state of society, and took the pre- 
caution of severing his affairs legal- 
ly from those of the duchess, in 
order that no possible confiscation 
might in the future affect his chil- 
dren. This step was the beginning 
of the system of economy and good 
administration which left the family 
in the unusual position of landed 
proprietors when the Reign of Ter- 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 



401 



ror was over and nearly all the 
rest of the French nobility were ir- 
retrievably ruined. Some of the 
latter had affected to make light of 
the political and social condition'of 
the country previous to 1789, and 
the tone of the " philosophers " con- 
tinued to imbue society until the 
latter was rudely awakened by rea- 
lities too terrible to be borne ex- 
cept by Christian fortitude. Al- 
though too young to be elected to 
the States-General, the duke's ap- 
pointment as " bailli" of Chartres 
made it his duty to preside over an 
assembly of five or six hundred, 
gathered to vote for the deputies 
to the States-General. All votes 
were still legally taken by " order" 
instead of by individuals, and, not- 
withstanding the resistance to what 
was then law, he succeeded both in 
preserving peace and conducting 
the election according to precedent. 
The orders, it will be remembered, 
consisted of the nobility, the cler- 
gy, and the commons, or, as they 
are called, the "Third Estate." This 
was the duke's only political effort 
before the ancien regime fell to 
pieces, and as things went from 
bad to worse, and the disqualifica- 
tion of his youth prevented him 
from exercising any influence, he 
resolved to travel in Italy for a 
while. Once he and his family 
were" nearly drowned while cross- 
ing the river Var by a ford on 
their way to Nice. They stayed 
some months at Genoa, which was 
still under a doge, and where the 
duke's title of grandee of Spain 
procured him curious exemptions, 
from whose nature we can guess at 
the antiquated customs prevailing 
in that city, such as obstructing 
the entrances of most streets by 
huge chains, and closing the gates 
of the city at a certain early hour 
of the night. From here theycross- 
VOL. xxviii. 26 



ed the Alps to Annecy, and made 
a prolonged stay in the country of 
St. Francis de Sales. In 1792 the 
duke returned to Paris for a short 
time, and, though strongly opposed 
to the emigration movement among 
the aristocracy, was finally induced, 
by the desperate outlook of poli- 
tics and the forlorn hope of saving 
the king, to join the army of the 
coalition on the Rhine. "One 
short and disastrous campaign," 
says the biographer of the duchess, 
" convinced him that the coalition 
hid ambitious designs of its own 
under the avowed project of de- 
livering the king and restoring or- 
der in France ; and then, despairing 
of any good result, he quitted the 
army and condemned himself to 
long and painful inaction." The 
separation between him and his 
wife which necessarily ensued, and 
lasted five years, was their greatest 
mutual trial, but the duchess also 
had her share of lesser ones, and 
ran the common danger of all ci- 
devants during the year 1793. Re- 
peatedly she harbored proscribed 
priests, had Mass said in her room, 
received domiciliary visits from the 
revolutionary gangs of bonnets- 
rouges, and was herself twice im- 
prisoned with her mother and sis- 
ter-in-law. When for the third 
time the two latter were imprisoned 
with some English nuns in a for- 
mer convent, the duchess and her 
daughter voluntarily joined them as 
boarders. Her frankness and bold- 
ness several times saved her from 
the usual fate of those of her class. 
Once, when interrogated closely 
concerning her husband's conduct 
and whereabouts, she answered ev- 
ery question with unerring truthful- 
ness, but when her questioner began 
to abuse him she launched into a 
warm defence of him, disregarding 
her terrified mother-in-law's signs. 



402 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 



" You are, then, really afflicted 
by bis absence?" she was asked. 

" Yes, certainly I am." 

"You regret him, then?" 

" Much." 

" Well, citizeness, I see you are 
a good woman; you shall come to 
no harm." And, continues her bio- 
grapher, " on the following day, 
when the Section heard the report 
of the examination of the duchess, 
they unanimously applauded her 
dauntless truth." This character- 
istic stood her in good stead more 
than once. When about to leave 
Paris, according to the order issued 
to that effect to all former nobles 
not actually imprisoned, she went to 
the Section to get the necessary per- 
mit. While waiting she perceived a 
blind nun, whom the crowd were 
mocking and hustling, and, going 
up to her, she ascertained her busi- 
ness and resolutely made her way 
with her to the official desk, after 
which she turned away to wait 
longer on her own account. Pre- 
sently a bystander who had noticed 
her kindness said to the commis- 
sary : " I hope you will give the 
citizeness a permit ; she has been 
here three or four hours." She 
was called and asked her quality. 
" Ex-noble," she fearlessly replied, 
when the questioner, who wished 
to save her, said quickly in a low 
voice : " Say, rather, living on your 
own means." She then replied as 
he had suggested, for, indeed, it was 
the truth. The president, struck 
by her frankness, took down her 
name and address, and gave her 
his own, begging her if need should 
arise to apply to him ; and though 
she herself attributed this interest 
to her youth and beauty, it is pro- 
bable that admiration for her unu- 
sual straightforwardness had great- 
ly heightened it. 

After she had left Paris, and was 



living at Wissons, a village four 
leagues off, employed in all kinds 
of works of me'rcy, chiefly harbor- 
ing and helping refugees, she heard 
that a priest from whom she had 
received some kindness at Annecy, 
the Abbe Thiollaz, afterwards bi- 
shop of Annecy, had been arrested 
at Bordeaux just as he was on the 
point of embarking for England. 
The duchess first wrote to a friend^ 
asking for the liberty of the abbe 
and remitting three thousand francs 
for his use. This letter fell into 
the hands of some of the revolu- 
tionary inquisitors, and the abbe 
was in greater danger than ever. 
The duchess heard of this and at 
once set out for the tribunal of 
Fouquier-Tinville, the public ac- 
cuser. She outstayed every one 
present, and then addressed him 
thus: 

" ' I have important business to com- 
municate to you.' 

" ' My only business, 3 said he, ' is to 
punish the enemies of the republic. 
What have you to say ? Only denuncia- 
tions are received here.' 

" I have come about a denunciation.' 

" ' Indeed ! Speak, then, citizeness.* 

" ' I have come to make a denunciation 
of an unusual kind. It is myself, and 
myself only, whom I denounce." 

" ' Then you come hither to seek for 
death.' 

" ' I know that, but I am fulfilling a 
duty.' 

'' Fouquier-Tinville looked at her with 
surprise, and listened to her with pro- 
found attention. She narrated her story 
with all its details, but without mention- 
ing any names, and concluded by say- 
ing : ' If any one is to be prosecuted,, 
it is I.' The fierce revolutionist an- 
swered her : ' Do you know that I, too, 
have a feeling heart? Why are you in- 
terested in this priest?' 

" ' Because he is in distress.' 

" ' Ah ! yes, I understand; I can feel lik( 
wise. I have saved many people my- 
self.' Then he reassured her, told her 
to make her mind easy, no harm should 
come to any one concerned in this mat- 
ter, and, seeing that she was pale and 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 



403 



tired, he offered his bare arm to lead her 
down the staircase. . . . She could not 
refuse the offer, which had been kindly 
made, but she never recalled the few 
moments during which her hand rested 
on the arm of Fouquier-Tinville without 
a shudder." 

He did not fail her; her friend 
was set at liberty, and sailed for 
England with the money she had 
intended for his use. A little later 
the same fearlessness saved her 
children's fortune. When her es- 
tates were sequestrated she de- 
manded an investigation, pleaded 
her rights, and before the local tri- 
bunal near her chateau of Mont- 
mirail proved that this house, 
whose furniture was about to be 
sold under the plea that it was 
part of the joint property of an 
e'migrt and. his wife, was on the 
contrary her own sole property, 
settled upon herself. This same 
house, in 1814, owed its safety 
from destruction and pillage to 
the faithful and ingenious care of 
an old housekeeper long in the 
service of the family. The Duke 
de Doudeauville, in his memoirs, 
graphically describes Mme. Lang- 
lois' discreet conduct during the 
lawless times that preceded Na- 
poleon's final overthrow. Prow- 
lers of all kinds, both native and 
foreign, tried to get access to the 
house on various pretexts, and the 
housekeeper's vigilance no less 
than her patience was severely put 
to the proof. On one occasion, 
some Cossacks having been killed 
in passing through the village of 
Montmirail, a body of their com- 
rades swore they would burn down 
the place, and it was only after 
lengthened negotiations that they 
consented to spare the people and 
the walls of the dwellings, provid- 
ed they were allowed six hours' pil- 
lage in the village and two in the 
chateau. The housekeeper, on 



hearing of the decree, which she 
knew to be irrevocable, calmly let 
the soldiers in, accompanied them 
from room to room, jested, advis- 
ed, made suggestions, and succeed- 
ed in preventing disorder or wan- 
ton destruction, and even the car- 
rying off of the more precious ar- 
ticles. Though the Cossacks nick- 
named her " the general " from the 
precautions she had taken to pro- 
tect the sheepfold, she did not 
find her tactics of any avail against 
the ingenuity of the veteran sheep- 
stealers, who climbed into the lofts 
above the pens, stripped off the 
flooring, and caught the merino 
sheep with lassoes, declaring this 
novel mode of fishing excellent fun. 
No less than two hundred valuable 
animals were caught in this way. 
Napoleon himself proved to have 
destructive tastes when he visited 
Montmirail, making it his head- 
quarters for one night. His room 
was not large enough for his maps, 
and with unlooked-for arbitrari- 
ness, instead of removing them to 
another room, he ordered the stone 
wall, three feet thick, which he 
called the partition, to be thrown 
down. The bold housekeeper 
" resisted him as sturdily as she 
resisted everybody else in our in- 
terests," says the duke, " and the 
'partition' was saved." During 
the battle of Montmirail the duke's 
valet, who had wandered about with 
him in his five years' exile, wrote 
to him from the chateau : " They 
are fighting in the village ; they are 
fighting in the courtyard of your 
chateau; the balls are striking the 
room in which I am writing ; I 
know not what will be our fate, 
but rest assured that to- the last 
moment we shall prove ourselves 
worthy of our good master and 
mistress. I only commend my 
poor children to you." 



404 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 



This same house was the one 
which for the remainder of their 
lives the duchess' family made 
their chief home, and where her 
charity found most active scope. 
But before that time came many 
hardships had to be undergone : the 
duchess lived in almost abject pov- 
erty at Wissons, stinting herself in 
everything that she might be able 
to help those in danger, and the 
duke spent his forlorn life in Swiss 
and German villages, feverishly 
haunting the newsrooms, in one of 
which he suddenly learnt that his 
sister, Mme. de Durtal, had been 
guillotined ; the husband and wife 
made ineffectual efforts to see each 
other, which were often foiled by 
the cowardice of others, and mean- 
while their children grew towards 
youth. 

In 1797 the duchess was able 
safely to join her husband at Lau- 
sanne. Though order was restored 
in France, the conveniences of 
travelling had not yet been put 
upon the same footing as before, 
and between arrogant bureaucrats 
with their petty pompousness, and 
the unchecked insolence of smaller 
personages, not to speak of the de- 
nuded state of the only available 
inns, the little party had by no 
means a comfortable journey. In 
one place, where they arrived an 
hour after midnight, they were 
lodged, says Ernestine, the duch- 
ess' daughter, "in a narrow gallery, 
where four not particularly clean 
beds were ranged with their heads 
to the wall, like a ward in a hospi- 
tal ; and very thankful we were for 
such quarters. We had two chairs 
among four of us, and had to put 
our candle on the ground because 
there was no table ; nevertheless 
we were better off than we should 
have been in the street." But the 
emigres were still forbidden to set 



foot on French soil, and, as the 
duchess' presence was necessary 
for the preservation of her estates, 
the husband and wife had to part 
again. The poor man promised 
not to tempt danger by trying to 
enter his native country, but he 
could not keep his promise, and 
availed himself of the passport of a 
Swiss merchant to make another 
attempt. His wife met him at Or- 
leans, where he learned that death 
was the penalty for an unauthoriz- 
ed return, and he left France once 
more. 

The new century began more 
auspiciously, and the duchess' fam- 
ily affairs were tolerably satisfac- 
tory; her daughter married the 
Marquis de Rastrgnac, and until her 
death, four years latej, resided 
much at Montmirail, where she 
was buried ; the political horizon 
cleared, and the sentence against 
many of the exiles was recalled. 
Society was much disorganized, 
the education of young girls ren- 
dered difficult and uncertain, the 
laws against the convents unrepeal- 
ed, many families of good position 
hopelessly penniless. The duchess 
restored the remains of an old 
Benedictine priory at Montlean on 
her own estate, and transferred to 
it the patients of an ancient hos- 
pital whose funds and house had 
disappeared during the Revolution ; 
but not content with keeping up 
old charities and bringing the Sis- 
ters of Charity to take care of the 
patients, she added two schools to 
the institution, one a free boarding- 
school, the other an orphanage, 
which new branches became the 
nucleus of the House of " Naza- 
reth." Her own experience had 
taught her how useful household 
knowledge can become to persons- 
likely to be reduced in circumstan- 
ces, and she was anxious to pro- 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 



405 



cure a sound, Christian and practical 
education for the young girls of the 
new generation. Having collected 
a few nuns of various orders, she 
gave them the task of superintend- 
ing her new schools ; but as years 
went on dissensions grew up among 
these Dames de la Paix, as they 
were called, and the whole colony, 
incensed at the foundress' wise re- 
strictions against adding to their 
number, suddenly removed into the 
neighboring diocese and left the 
school unprovided for. A young 
girl whom she had brought up with 
her granddaughter, and who served 
her as secretary when her sight be- 
gan to fail her, took temporary 
charge of the institution until a 
Mile. Elise Rollat, a constant co- 
operator of the duchess in her 
works of charity, became free to 
take the permanent superinten- 
dence of a community gradually 
formed for this special purpose. 
Such was the beginning of an -edu- 
cational body which has since add- 
ed missionary efforts in Palestine 
to the list of its good deeds. 

While busy with these plans and 
the erection of a memorial church 
where her daughter and her hus- 
band's mother were to be laid, 
Mine, de Doudeauville adminis- 
tered her estates with the same 
prudent order as before, entered 
into the smallest details, made up 
her accounts herself, transacted 
business personally with her ten- 
ants, and, though the soul of kind- 
ness, never once allowed herself to be 
imposed upon. We confess that 
nothing in the life of man or woman 
in a position of trust such as often 
falls to the lot of the rich seems to 
our mind so attractive as this fac- 
ulty of administration and its exer- 
cise. Charity often exists in good 
people independently of this facul- 
ty, but a charity thus balanced 



seems a hundred times more fruit- 
ful and more praiseworthy. It is 
from parents such as the Duke and 
Duchess de Doudeauville that the 
present generation of French Le- 
gitimistes learnt the solid virtues 
that distinguish them as a class. 
The duke found a field for his en- 
ergies when the Restoration gave 
France a temporary breathing-time, 
and if all Charles X.'s ministers had 
been as enlightened, Bourbon ob- 
stinacy might not have proved so 
successful in bringing about a sec- 
ond revolution. M. de Doudeau- 
ville filled by turns, and sometimes 
simultaneously, the offices of presi- 
dent of the Board of Admiralty and 
chairman of the Committee of Pri- 
mary Instruction of the department 
of the Seine ; he sat in the Cham- 
ber of Peers, the French House of 
Lords, and was cnosen administra- 
tor of the Paris hospitals and of the 
state Institution for the Deaf and 
Dumb. In 1821 he became Post- 
master-General, then Minister of 
State and Privy Councillor, and 
lastly, in 1824, Comptroller of the 
King's Household, which latter of- 
fice gave him opportunities similar 
to that of an almoner, as well as the 
supervision of the education of 
pages of the household. Both he 
and his wife had strong and un- 
usually strict views on the sub- 
ject of education, and he once in- 
curred the displeasure of the easy- 
going king by summarily expelling 
from the court some boys whose 
example he considered injurious to 
their companions. Some time be- 
fore the revolution of 1830, which 
he had foreseen, the policy of the 
court disgusted him by its mingled 
obstinacy and vacillation, and he 
retired from public life. His pri- 
vate charities and his family affairs, 
however, occupied him fully for 
the rest of his life. He died in 



406 



Madame de la Rochefoucauld. 



1841. The duchess, in her last 
years, lost her sight; but every 
other faculty and sense remained 
unimpaired, and to the very last 
she portioned out her time between 
devotion, charity, and business. 
Her greatest pleasure, besides 
those of her fireside, where her nu- 
merous grandchildren and great- 
grandchildren clustered round her, 
was to visit the convent and school 
she had founded, and to superin- 
tend the system which, as she de- 
sired, "would make it a special aim 
to preserve the pupils in noble and 
old-world simplicity, to cultivate in 
them industrious habits in short, to 
train them to be good mothers and 
capable housewives." 

Her own life was the best ex- 
ample of all she taught ; her coun- 
sels to her daughter, committed to 
writing, were sober, judicious, and 
simple, conjugal love being the 
centre of the life she depicts, and 
compliance with a husband's wishes 
and tastes the test of the virtue 
she inculcates ; while as to religion, 
there was no suggestion made lead- 
ing to ill-regulated enthusiasm, senti- 
mentalism, or obstinate adherence 
to minutiae. The simplicity of do- 
mestic life in this new phase of the 
history of the old noblesse was in 
striking contrast to that whirl of 
court frivolity in which Mme. 



de Doudeauville made her 
and the laughable incident of an 
old servant, who, to let the blind 
duchess know when she had en- 
tered the convent corridor, where 
silence was enjoined, used to thump 
her on the back, denotes a state 
of things almost incomprehensible 
to the Anglo-Saxon mind. This 
mingling of familiarity and respect 
is common in France, where vul- 
garity of any kind is much rarer 
among all classes than it is in Eng- 
land and America. Mme. de 
Doudeauville lived to witness the 
third revolution, that of 1848, and 
the establishment of the second re- 
public; but none of these changes 
affected her personally or pecunia- 
rily, although, through the growing 
passion for gambling on the Bourse, 
her institution of " Nazareth " suf- 
fered severely, the steward in 
whose hands were its funds (the 
duchess' savings for years out of 
her personal allowance) having 
used and lost them. The school, 
however, weathered the storm and 
is flourishing at present. Mme. 
de Doudeauville died at the age of 
eighty-five, in 1849, at her old home 
of Montmirail, where the present 
family of the La Rochefoucaulds 
worthily continue her charities 
abroad and follow her example 
at home. 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



407 



PLAIN CHANT IN ITS RELATION TO THE LITURGY. 



VI. UNDE REGENERATIO ? 

Now that we have taken a gene- 
ral view of our subject, and have 
compared the condition of things 
at the present time with things as 
they should be, it is time for us to 
consider the only question that is 
really practical : Can we begin and 
carry on the use of the chant suc- 
cessfully ? ' Unde regeneratio ? In 
what way can we bring back the 
holy chant to its former place in 
our worship for the honor of God 
and the edification of the people ? 

The reader who has followed us 
thus far attentively will at once 
see that we must neither wish nor 
hope for this great regeneration at 
the hands of worldly musicians. 
We grant to Palestrina the unchal- 
lenged mastery in figured music, 
and hail him as its preserver and 
the creator of a dignified and esti- 
mable style ; but unfortunately we 
cannot claim him as a restorer of 
the true liturgical chant. No, a 
master in the art of music is not 
thereby as a matter of course well 
qualified to be a regenerator of the 
chant. And why not ? Simply 
because, as regards the chant, the 
question is not merely one of mu- 
sic, but more particularly of the 
liturgy. The chant takes root in 
far different soil from that which 
nourishes the artistic music of mo- 
dern days in the consecrated soil 
of the liturgy, nurtured by that 
strong natural talent for music that 
there is in the people. To attempt 
to restore the chant with the means 
that modern musical art affords us, 
and to execute it according to the 
rules of modern music, would be 



like lopping off the branches of a 
majestic old oak and grafting it 
with young sprigs from a green- 
house ; the weak shoots, so tender- 
ly and carefully reared by the art 
of man, would not thrive in the 
freshness of the open air. 

When one already versed in the 
science of modern music betakes 
himself to the study of the chant 
to learn the correct method of exe- 
cuting it, he always has the great- 
est difficulty in freeing himself from 
the conventional fetters and bar- 
riers of the other system, in order 
to give free scope to the rules of 
this natural music as it is used in 
the liturgy of the church. From 
this it is also plain that an accu- 
rate knowledge of music, as well as 
great dexterity in the management 
of the organ, are required in order 
to accompany the chant t'.e., to 
follow its free movements, as far as 
the inflexible mechanism of an in- 
strument designed more especially 
for measured music will allow, and 
not only to refrain from hindering 
but even to support it in its free, 
natural course. Yet a great deal 
can be done in this direction by 
those in whom the necessary know- 
ledge of the organ is combined 
with natural musical talent and a 
love for the chant. Let no one 
fancy, however, that he has done 
enough before he has at least 
learned to sing the chant with the 
proper expression. Otherwise, in- 
stead of accompanying the chant, 
he will only be always practising 
harmonies. 

To be able to sing plain chant a 
musical ear, some technical know- 
ledge and practice, but especially 



408 



f Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



piety and common sense, are neces- 
sary. To sing the chant well one 
must have all this, and besides a 
knowledge of Latin and of the 
liturgy. But tossing it perfectly 
personal sanctity is needful, for the 
chant has come to us from the 
saints, and, itself holy, it is able to 
change us into saints. How, then, 
can those whose art knows naught 
save how to pander to men's passions 
dare to approach and touch with 
their profane hands this sanctuary? 
How can a singer who in the even- 
ing trills an operatic aria on the 
stage, in the morning fulfil the ser- 
vice of angels in the church ? If 
Holy Scripture tells us that no one 
can utter the name of Jesus save 
in the Holy Ghost, so also it is fit- 
ting that no one should respond to 
the priest at the altar, and sing 
" Deo Gratias," without an interior 
devout appreciation of the liturgy 
and the spirit pervading it. 

So to our question, " From 
whence should the restoration of 
the chant proceed?" we have but 
one answer: From the church, 
under the auspices of hec pastors. 
The church alone, under the influ- 
ence of divine inspiration, compos- 
ed the chant; she alone, God's 
grace assisting her, has preserved 
it ; and therefore she alone, with 
the aid of the clergy and the de- 
vout laity, can renew it and restore 
it to its proper place in the liturgy. 
If unconsecrated hands should seek 
to deck it out with embellishments 
unseemly and foreign to its nature, 
sadly its heavenly genius will re- 
tire to wait for better times. Thus 
it has happened but recently, and, 
in consequence, the most unau- 
thorized elements " omnis generis 
musicorum " are paraded in our 
churches. The clergy have well- 
nigh lost the consciousness that to 
them, as the custodians of the lit- 



urgy, belongs the control of church 
music, and that it ought not to be 
left in the charge of professionals 
and dilettanti who have some know- 
ledge of music, but whose practices 
are as far removed from the spirit 
of the liturgy as the prompter's box 
from the tabernacle or the ball- 
room from the church of God. 
But to know the evil is the first 
step towards its correction, and 
we hail with joy the dawning of a 
better future. 

In proceeding to offer some prac- 
tical suggestions as to the best 
way, in our opinion, of introducing 
the chant, two questions occur to 
us : 

1. Where must plain chant be 
cultivated? 

2. How must it be cultivated ? 
We have already intimated the 

answer to the first question by as- 
serting that the cultivation of the 
chant is at once a right and a duty 
of the church. To this question, 
then, we reply : In the monasteries, 
in the first place, where this sacred 
task becomes a life's duty. We 
have need of monasteries above all 
else to perform on earth the ser- 
vice of angels in the holy liturgy. 
They should be reservoirs whence 
by day and night should ascend 
the dew of the liturgical prayer 
the mark of monastic activity to 
be poured in the fruitful rain of 
heaven's grace upon the thirsty 
lands. 

Secondly, the chant should be stu- 
died and practised in seminaries 
and in those colleges whose end 
is the education of young men for 
the priesthood. Numerous coun- 
cils and synods, especially that of 
Trent, have strongly insisted upon 
the study of the chant in semina- 
ries. The liturgy is that richly- 
blessed field in which the priest 
gathers the matter wherewith to 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



409 



heighten the interest and joy of the 
people in the sacraments and other 
means of grace. The work of the 
care of souls would yield rich fruit, 
well pleasing to God, were it 
again to draw from the full mine 
of the liturgy the holy treasures 
there heaven-implanted ; were 
Christian instruction again to come 
more from the altar than from the 
pulpit, so that the looks of all would 
again be directed with faith and 
devotion to the holy place of sac- 
rifice, instead of seeking the pulpit 
to find matter for sceptical hyper- 
criticism. Then would practice 
walk hand-in-hand with doctrine, 
if the pulpit were only to become 
the handmaid of the altar, by prac- 
tical comments bringing home to 
the hearts of the people the truths 
contained in the liturgy. When 
our priests shall once more enter 
fully into the spirit of the liturgy, 
and learn to cherish it as the best 
means of furthering their own and 
their people's spiritual progress, 
they will realize the vast import- 
ance of the liturgical chant. A 
thorough knowledge of the chant 
would soon lead the people to take 
part joyfully in the public worship 
of God ; the extremes of religious 
selfishness and coldness or indif- 
ference to holy things would be 
done away ; the holy walls of our 
churches would again re-echo the 
tender strains of the chant, restor- 
ed to popularity ; in the family the 
altar-given blessings would be pre- 
served in living freshness, impart- 
ing a spiritual flavor to conversa- 
tion, banishing evil and spreading 
good abroad thus, in short, would 
be renewed the face of the earth. 

Call these ideals if you will. 
They are the ideals given us by 
God himself through our Lord Je- 
sus Christ. Nor are they without 
their corresponding realities. The 



holy apostolic church of old won- 
drously brought them to universal 
realization, and even to-day, in the 
bosom of many communities and 
families, they have an actual exist- 
ence. And if in our day evil has 
waxed great, if the Christian ideals 
have gradually lost their place in 
the lives and thoughts of men, only 
to be dragged in the mire by the 
godless, ought not this to be an in- 
centive to us to pursue them with 
all the more zeal ? The outstretch- 
ed arm of God's mercy is nearer 
and stronger to help us the more 
pressing our danger and the heavi- 
er our affliction. 

The first systematic schools for 
the study of the chant were those 
established by St. Gregory at St. 
Peter's and at the Lateran (vide 
Job. Diac. Vita St. Greg. lib. ii. c. 
i. 6, Bollandists, March, torn. ii. 
under March 12). We have no 
sure historical evidence of earlier 
attempts, such as those ascribed to 
St. Sylvester. The schools of St. 
Gregory survived for centuries and 
enjoyed especial prosperity under 
Popes Sergius II. and Stephen VI. 
After the model of these, similar 
ones arose in various lands and 
dioceses, in part founded and di- 
rected by singers from the Ro- 
man schools. Some will have it, 
as Joannes presbyter testifies, that 
St. Gregory himself sent a Roman 
singing-master to Germany " to 
teach the rough Germans the soft 
chant." Many not very flattering 
accounts of the Germans of that 
time explain why the pope might 
thus express himself. A particular 
celebrity was later on acquired by 
the monastic singing-schools estab- 
lished by St. Boniface at Fulda,. 
Wiirzburg, Eichstadt, and Buraburg. 
Afterwards this holy music made 
considerable progress through the 
zeal with which Charlemagne en- 



Plain Cliant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



deavored to introduce the Roman 
chant into all Germany. In his 
time Metz and St. Gall were the 
chief seats of education in the 
chant, the former under the in- 
struction of Peter, the latter under 
that of Romanus, two teachers sent 
from Rome at the request of the 
emperor (Bollandists, April, t. i. 
Vita S. Notkeri, c. ii. 12-14). 
With these schools were associat- 
ed the others founded by Charle- 
magne at Reichenau, Trier, Mainz, 
Hersfeld, Corvey, and elsewhere, 
besides numberless other institu- 
tions soon extending over the 
whole empire. The same growth 
was attained by the ecclesiastical 
singing-schools in Gaul and Bri- 
tain ; they sprang up at once wher- 
ever the church began, in however 
small a degree, to put forth her 
strength. The pious Benedictines 
who converted England, and from 
thence evangelized Germany and 
France, well knew that in the holy 
liturgy lay the strongest bulwark 
against heathenism and idolatry, 
as well as the surest pledge of the 
increase and final establishment of 
the faith. With the decline of the 
ecclesiastical chant the fresh glow 
of the bright star of faith has also 
faded more and more. The culti- 
vation of church music was given 
over into the hands of the laity; 
instead of the church's hallowed 
chant figured and instrumental 
music gained admission ; and the 
sanctuary became a place of con- 
tention between the rival produc- 
tions of our worldly modern style. 

We have thus striven to settle 
the question as to the place where 
the chant should be cultivated, and 
our answer is that, in accordance 
with the usage of the ancient 
church, it should be in the monas- 
teries and in the educational insti- 
tutions of the clergy. Let us now 



turn to the second question : How 
must the liturgical chant be culti- 
vated ? 

We do not mean to ask here 
what should be the method of 
technical instruction, about which 
opinions are .various, but what is 
the correct starting point from 

which we should begin the study 
of the chant. It is by no means 

enough that a cleric called to de- 
vote himself to the chant should 
possess technical knowledge, a 
good ear, and readiness in singing; 
he must first of all know and appre- 
ciate the importance of the chant, 
its true place, its connection with 
the sacrifice, its character of prayer, 
the religious power that abides 
within it, its solemn significance, its 
special application to the occurring 
festivals. For this reason instruc- 
tion in the chant should accompany 
the study of the liturgy and of the 
rubrics; it should be learnt together 
with the way of reciting the bre- 
viary and of saying Mass, and, be- 
cause of its useful assistance in the 
perfection of the individual as well 
as for the future care of souls, with 
the maxims of asceticism. Let the 
sacred chant be learnt and practised 
in such a manner in seminaries; 
then truly will devout priests, their 
whole life long, possess in the holy 
liturgy a rich treasure, a wholesome 
nourishment for their souls; love 
and joy will fill their hearts in the 
holy offices, their zeal for the 
honor of God's house will be 
awakened, and the blessings of by- 
gone days will descend upon their 
flocks. 

To the objection that such ideas 
as these can be brought to realiza- 
tion only in the larger communities 
of clerics or religious we make t\vo 
replies. First, that certainly such 
communities must take the lead in 
the introduction of the chant, be- 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



411 



cause, as we have insisted from 
the outset, the movement for the 
re-establishment of the chant must 
come from the church, not from the 
laity, no matter how great may 
be their musical attainments. Let 
the good work be only trustfully 
begun in seminaries and monas- 
teries, and success will not be con- 
fined within their walls. For he 
who as a seminarian has drunk 
from these fresh fountains, even for 
a short time, will carry on the work 
in his after-life, and will finally suc- 
ceed in establishing, though per- 
haps only after long years of patient 
waiting, the church's liturgical 
chant. Secondly, we remark that 
to execute the chant in a way not 
merely tolerable, but even quite 
edifying, only a few good voices 
are absolutely necessary. Generally 
speaking, every one who goes to the 
bottom of this matter soon finds 
that the introduction of the chant, 
far from being impossible, requires 
but trifling pains and expense in 
comparison with what is usually 
bestowed on the cultivation of 
worldly music in our churches ; and 
this conviction gains strength as 
one begins to see the infinitely 
richer blessings flowing from the 
music of the saints- 

But if the notion thus far current 
be adhered to, in opposition to the 
principles here laid down, that the 
question of church music is merely 
a question of music > we can have 
but little hope of any considerable 
results according to the mind of 
the church ; at best we shall have 
but half-way measures. The holy 
chant, because of its grave nature, 
will never exert the same sensible 
charm as the music of the world, 
unless it be that the soul ennobled 
by the life of faith is raised above 
itself to a knowledge and participa- 
tion of the supernatural. With re- 



gard to mere effect, the chant will 
therefore always be at a disadvan- 
tage. 

But do we not seek to prevent 
the church from taking advantage 
of all the progress that in the 
course of centuries has been made 
in musical science and art ? We 
hope to prove in the following 
chapter that plain chant, far from 
meriting the reproach of being in* 
artistic, furnishes us with an op- 
portunity for the practice and ap- 
plication of art in the highest sense 
of the word. We will always, how- 
ever, hail with joy, as does the 
church, all true progress in music, 
provided modern art can give us, 
we will not say something better, 
but anything equal to what we 
have had for centuries. 

We have thus briefly pointed out 
the way which, judging from our 
own and others' experience, we be- 
lieve to be the only one whereby 
the restor4tion of the chant can be 
brought about in accordance with 
the mind of the church. If, in 
treating of so weighty a subject, 
we may seem to be over-bold in 
our assertions, we beg the kind 
reader to bear in mind that as a 
son of one of the great founders 
and patrons of the liturgical chant, 
St. Benedict, the glorious patriarch 
of the monks of the west, we speak 
only from a deep sense of the duty 
imposed upon us by the rule of 
that saintly lawgiver : to prefer 
nothing to the glory of God (" ope- 
ri Dei nihil praeponatur." Reg. S. 
Bened.), to unfurl the standard of 
the Roman liturgy, and zealously 
to love and cherish it. Let it also 
be remembered in our behalf that 
the creator and master of the ec- 
clesiastical chant, St. Gregory the 
Great, was one of the most illustri- 
ous fathers of our order, as well as 
the most faithful son and biogra- 



412 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



pher of St. Benedict, and that 
through the centuries, that venera- 
ble chant which alone rejoices in 
the approval of the church has re- 
sounded in the churches of our 
order to the praise and honor of 
the Most High, calling down bless- 
ings upon the people, filling de- 
vout souls with joy and ghostly 
strength. These remembrances 
have impelled us to the present 
work, together with our desire to 
give expression to a feeling of deep 
reverence and love for our holy 
mother the church and her usages, 
and to fulfil a sacred duty of filial 
piety towards the great forefathers 
of our order, and especially towards 
its revered founder. We take the 
liberty of closing this chapter by 
giving a hearing to a voice of later 
times eloquently confirming the 
holy privilege we have claimed 
and its corresponding obligations. 
The following is taken from the 
as yet unpublished manuscripts 
which are preserved in the library 
of St. Sulpice at Paris of Jean 
Baptiste OHer, friend and spiritual 
son of St. Vincent de Paul, ,and 
founder of the Congregation of St. 
Sulpice : 

" St. Benedict was revealed to 
me in prayer as the vivid image, 
the true ambassador of Him who 
is the author of all life and fruitful- 
ness ; and that not only because 
of the well-nigh infinite increase of 
his followers, as numerous as the 
sands upon the sea-shore, but also 
because the mission allotted to him 
was that of renewing the spiritual 
life in the whole church of God. 
In bestowing upon the church the 
life and works of the great order 
of which he is the head, he has 
transmitted by means of his chil- 
dren that religious spirit which is 
the fundamental principle of the 
church's life. . . . And this spirit 



shows itself in the profound self- 
annihilation which their retired 
life and the color of their habit 
express, but especially in the zeal, 
love, and devotion breathing through 
the holy chanting of the Psalms, so 
highly commended by St. Benedict 
to his children, to which every- 
thing in his rule has a more or less 
direct relation. The chief aim of 
this order is to give a material ex- 
pression to the homage and wor- 
ship paid on earth by our Lord to 
the Father, and which he now con- 
tinues to render him in heaven. 
For this reason this order far ex- 
cels all others in the splendor of 
its ceremonies, in costly vestments, 
reflecting the glow of the surround- 
ing lights, thus enabling the soul to 
form a faint conception of the glory 
of heaven's worship as portrayed 
in the Apocalypse. Its magnificent 
churches, with their high-embower- 
ed roofs, proclaim the majesty of 
God; the grand old melodies their 
walls re-echo bring to mind the 
songs of the angels: the clear-toned 
bells swinging among the clouds 
are heard like the voice of the 
Lord speaking in the distant roll- 
ing thunder. In vain should we 
seek in other religious orders for 
this splendid solemnity in the di- 
vine worship their vocation is not 
the same. Benedictine monks sel- 
dom go without their cloister walls, 
continually employed as they are 
in glorifying God in the temple of 
his majesty, like the chosen choir 
of the heavenly host, who unceas- 
ingly stand before the throne of the 
Most High to praise the thrice 
holy God, while the other angels 
are engaged in carrying the mes- 
sages of heaven to all the spheres 
of God's creation. Within these 
well-beloved walls, within the stu- 
dious cloister's pale, their life flows 
on ; from thence they have ever ex- 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



413 



erted their attractive power upon 
the outer world, drawing it as it 
were irresistibly to themselves. In 
one sense the whole church enter- 
ed this monastic order, and drew 
thence the strength wherewith to 
renew in the depth of the soul the 
reverence and worship due to God. 
The spirit of Christianity seemed to 
shine forth with new splendor, as 
in the first days of the church, when 
the faithful found it their chief 
pleasure to spend day and night 
* in psalms, and hymns, and spiri- 
tual canticles.' " 

VII. PLAIN CHANT ARTISTICALLY 
CONSIDERED. 

We noticed in the last chapter 
the objection that such views as 
ours would banish art from our 
churches, and, by thus regarding 
harmonic singing and instrumental 
music with disfavor, would allow 
us to take no advantage of the 
undeniable progress that has been 
made by modern music. In order 
to meet this objection and to vin- 
dicate for the unisonous plain 
chant the place of honor that be- 
longs to it in relation to musical 
art, we feel bound to express our- 
selves with some degree of minute- 
ness here before proceeding to 
develop our method for the execu- 
tion of the chant. 

It is our opinion, then, that the 
unisonous chant, when rightly and 
properly executed, not only attains 
a high degree of artistic perfection, 
but also what is by no means a 
necessary consequence of this 
offers as wide and profitable a field 
for the exercise of technical skill 
as may be found in figured and in- 
strumental music. To prove this 
shall be our task in the present 
chapter. 

Art in general may be defined as 



the material embodiment of spirit- 
ual ideas. The expression of an 
idea without embodying it in a 
sensible form gives us only an ab- 
stract reflection ; and if, on the other 
hand, the outward framework be 
separated from the idea it should 
express, we have but an empty form 
with neither life nor soul. In 
neither case is it a work of art, 
which demands an intimate union 
and blending of the sensible and 
the spiritual. The better an artist 
succeeds in joining the ideal with 
the real, the idea in his mind with 
its sensible expression, in a har- 
monious unity, and at the same 
time in avoiding everything that 
could mar or obscure the clearness 
of his conception, the better will 
his work meet the demands of art, 
the more completely will it fulfil 
the claims of aesthetic beauty. Ac- 
cording as the images formed in 
the imagination find their outward 
expression in stone, wood, or metal, 
in color, sound, or words, arise the 
various fine arts, architecture, sculp- 
ture, painting, music, and poetry. 
Among these architecture has the 
lowest place, because it deals most- 
ly with the massive, and forms to 
some extent the groundwork for 
the expression of higher ideals. 
Sculpture brings before us concrete 
forms, the expression of mental 
precision, though hampered by the 
stiffness of the matter in which it 
works. It is marked by its inabil- 
ity to portray the living, intelligent 
eye. Rising higher than these, 
painting allows the mind to pene- 
trate the thin veil of the colors 
into the inner life of the soul, to 
divine what passes within the in- 
most recesses of the spirit, the 
emotions and passions of the being 
represented in the picture. But 
while painting, too, is confined to 
tangible matter, music reveals the 



414 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



most hidden sentiments of the soul, 
without embodying them in a visi- 
ble shape, since it appeals only to 
the sense of hearing. Finally, art 
attains its highest stage in poetry; 
for while the other arts are depend- 
ent upon the material and sensible, 
poetry makes use of a means which, 
comparatively speaking, is purely 
spiritual and interior that is, the 
animated word, whereby the hu- 
man spirit manifests itself in its 
noblest form. Let poetry be wed- 
ded with music, the art that ranks 
next to it in dignity, so as to form 
one whole ; this is, so to speak, the 
culmination of art. As music and 
poetry are the more completely 
and intimately blended, and as the 
idea is more faithfully and plainly 
represented, we obtain a nobler 
and more perfect degree of art. 
These conditions are most thor- 
oughly fulfilled, in our judgment, 
by recitative singing. yEstheti- 
cally considered, it is as far supe- 
rior to measured music as an idea 
immediately represented is to one 
that is expressed by a series of 
complicated means; just as water 
drawn fresh from the spring is 
purer than that which is brought 
through many pipes and reservoirs 
and finally is served in glasses 
sparkling with many colors.* 

These hints may suffice to indi- 
cate the artistic superiority of the 
recitative. The intelligent reader 
will find in them a key to a more 
thorough appreciation of the ques- 
tion, which we now proceed to view 
from another side. 

Undoubtedly the perfection of 
art and the value of a work of art 
are determined not so much by the 
form in which the idea is clothed 
as by the idea itself set forth by 

* We are speaking here only of polyphonic sing- 
ing, for instrumental music has so little bearing 
upon our present subject that we may be excused 
from any further consideration of it. 



the form and enduing it with soul 
and meaning. The value of the 
work depends upon the idea it 
seeks to express, and will be great- 
er or less in proportion to the dig- 
nity of this idea, provided the work 
be constructed on artistic princi- 
ples. Now, religious ideas are con- 
fessedly the most sublime of which 
the human mind is capable. In 
the service of religion art in all 
times has brought forth her choi- 
cest flowers ; within the shades of 
the temple and the altar she has 
celebrated her grandest triumphs. 
Within the sanctuaries of religion, 
the favorite haunts of art, we must 
follow up her footsteps, in order to 
obtain a criterion whereby to form 
a just estimate of her nature and 
character. 

We . encounter at the outset a 
striking contrast between the an- 
cient pagan or classical art and 
that to which Christianity has given 
birth a contrast as strong as the 
diametrical opposition between the 
offspring of the religious fancy of 
heathenism and the revealed truths 
of Christianity. The tendency of 
paganism in its religious systems is 
to deify the sensible, and to mate- 
rialize and divest of their divine 
character the scattered remnants 
of the original revelation. Pagan 
art, therefore, especially concerns 
itself with the outward, sensible 
form : in architecture it loves the 
contracted and depressed, and 
whatever is pleasing to the sense; 
in sculpture and painting it depicts 
the nude, the sensual, the voluptu- 
ous ; in music and poetry it is ef- 
feminate but stimulating to the 
passions. The works of pagan art, 
without exception, bear the im- 
press either of free indulgence in 
earthly and sensible pleasures or 
of a tragic and touching melan- 
choly hopelessly bending low be- 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



415 



neath the upraised hand of fate, in 
cold resignation or helpless despair 
awaiting the stroke of death. Pa- 
gan humanity, disheartened by its 
constant failures in the strife with 
vice, at last, throwing away its wea- 
pons, gives itself over to sensuality; 
and this we see reflected in pagan 
art. It is lacking in all the higher, 
spiritual, superhuman ideas, de- 
picting the low and vulgar, or at 
best what is purely of the earth, 
earthy, with no nobler aim than, by 
glorifying the senses, to charm them 
and minister to their gratification. 

Essentially different is the ap- 
pearance presented by art under 
the influence of Christianity. Here 
divinity descends to humanity, not 
to lay aside the divine nature and 
assume the human, but to elevate, 
and as it were to deify, mankind. 
Christian art deals especially with 
the spiritual part of man's nature ; 
in a, flood of light shed from the 
glow of Christian hope, a thing un- 
known to ancient art, it soars aloft 
upon the wings of faith and love to 
heavenly spheres, in the God-Man, 
the perfect glorification of the 
finite through the infinite, to find 
its eternally inexhaustible subject, 
its highest ideal. Outward forms 
are no longer to it an end, but only 
means, rendered far more perfect, 
however, through the influence of 
the indwelling spirit that rules it. 
All true works of Christian art bear 
upon them the strong impress of 
divine power, of virtue, of immor- 
tality; they are encompassed with 
an atmosphere of heavenly peace ; 
they draw the spirit upward and 
turn the thoughts within. Chris- 
tianity, by its recognition of man's 
moral worth and by its victo- 
ries over the evil one, however 
manifold and various his fierce at- 
tacks, places at the bidding of 
Christian art an infinitely more 



abundant treasury of ideas a 
treasury as rich and inexhaustible 
as its source, Christianity itself. 
Thus art is neither of necessity 
confined to what is purely external 
nor obliged to become the hand- 
maid of sensuality. In one word> 
unlike ancient art, it is not carnal 
but spiritual. And as the indwell- 
ing spirit of Christian art shapes 
for itself an adequate form, it shows 
the most perfect union, the most har- 
monious wedding of the idea with 
its outward expression, the source 
of that wonderful, unearthly charm 
which characterizes Christian art 
and makes it all unlike the ancient. 
Let us now apply to our subject 
the principles here unfolded. If 
we are to estimate the degree of 
excellence belonging to a work of 
art in proportion as it sets forth a 
higher idea in the clearest and most 
adequate form, then the unisonous 
chant, with its recitative execution^ 
is artistically superior to music 
sung in parts and in time, for the 
simple reason that its musical form 
is the most perfect, and that it is 
not only the best but the only one 
adapted to fully bring out with 
clearness and accuracy the idea 
that should be deduced from the 
words of the text. If some of our 
readers should think -this assertion 
over-bold or paradoxical, it can 
only be because they have never 
heard anything but a sad abuse of 
the chant by an unmeaning and 
defective execution, rendering any 
intelligent appreciation of it a sheer 
impossibility. 

If the text be capriciously and 
unscrupulously mutilated ; if the 
notes, like the grave-stones in a 
cemetery, are set up in stiff array, 
without connection with each other, 
and grouped into lots by bars, then 
nothing artistic is left behind, and 
the Gregorian chant can neither be 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



enjoyed nor understood. Whoever 
has any musical taste at all will 
turn away with righteous indig- 
nation from this stiff and lifeless 
method of portioning out the chant ; 
and then one naturally has recourse 
to harmonized chant with its grave 
and dignified chords. But this 
harmonization gives the death- 
blow to high art in the singing of 
the chant ; the spirit and sacred 
meaning of the liturgy are thrust 
into the background and made 
subservient to the outward charms 
of form; the godlike genius of 
Christianity, with its brilliant ideali- 
ty, timidly withdraws and abandons 
the field to classical forms. Very 
soon it will no longer be thought 
necessary to adhere to the words 
put forth by the church ; any taken 
at random will suffice, whether 
they have any bearing upon the 
particular feast or not, if they can 
only be adapted by curtailment or 
addition to the requirements of the 
musical form conventionally regu- 
lated by the respective styles. 

And all this without any ac- 
knowledgment, or even suspicion, 
that in this way Christian and eccle- 
siastical art is abandoned in order 
to return to pagan and classical 
principles. On the contrary, it is 
claimed that this is more in accor- 
dance with modern views of art, 
which unite and reconcile with 
each other the principles of the 
classical and the ancient Christian 
schools. But to the profound ele- 
mentary principles of Christian art 
such a theory as this is thoroughly 
hostile and repugnant, because, 
like ancient art itself, it is but 
superficial and devoted to giving 
pleasure to the senses, shaping its 
compositions according to the laws 
of the aesthetics of form, instead of 
letting the inherent power of the 
idea work itself out into its own 



modifications, even at the risk that 
this innate power should at times 
manifest itself abnormally. 

So much for the position of 
plain chant in relation to art. We 
must add that there is need of care- 
fully distinguishing between art and 
artistic gifts on one side and 
technical skill and facility on the 
other. There may be far more 
art and artistic merit in a sim- 
ple ballad, unaffectedly rendered, 
than in the richest combination of 
sounds and chords executed with 
extraordinary skill, just as a single 
little flower may be more charming 
and perfect than the most showy 
bouquet. That a piece of church 
music is so commonly estimated 
according to the variety and com- 
plexity of its tone-figures, or accord- 
ing to the amount of difficulty in 
its technical execution, can be ex- 
plained only by the fact that this 
distinction is not taken into ac- 
count, and that the quintessence of 
art is supposed to consist in the ex- 
ertion and display of abilities that 
it calls forth. But no one should 
infer from this that no skill is 
needed in order to sing plain 
chant well. On the contrary, we 
boldly assert that it is much ea- 
sier to keep to the rules of the 
measured, polyphonic music, which 
are sufficiently well defined, than 
in the recitative, untrammelled 
movements of plain chant to ob- 
serve, not only in every grammati- 
cal period and melodic phrase, but 
also at every word and in every 
group of notes, that movement and 
accentuation which perfectly ex- 
press the spirit of the words in 
short, speaking to sing and singing 
to speak, or rather, praying to sing 
and singing to pray. For this, sure- 
ly, a small amount of mechanical 
ability will not suffice ; it demands 
besides an extraordinary degree of 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



417 



skill, together with the finest ar- 
tistic taste. The great masters of 
worldly music, in their most thrill- 
ing outbursts, sometimes rise to that 
genial freedom of movement which 
transcends the narrow, convention- 
al limits of time, to that uncon- 
strained, declamatory kind of song, 
which hurries along, shaping for 
itself its own measure and laws, 
according to the impulse of the 
spirit that fills the composer. The 
spirit that thus asserts itself at 
times in moments of the highest 
artistic inspiration, freeing itself 
from the luggage of instruments 
and the straitjacket of the mea- 
sure, and roaming freely upon an 
open path this is the fundamen- 
tal principle and highest rule in 
plain chant. Take the chant as it 
is, let it be executed as it should 
be, to the best of the singers' abili- 
ties, and all the virtuosi may then 
come and judge for themselves 
whether they have ever heard any- 
thing that can compare witli it, 
whether such a work and such 
effects are within their creative 
powers. In comparison with the 
divine sublimity and holy power of 
the chant all other compositions 
seem but artificial, while plain chant 
stands alone as a true work of art. 

We shall conclude this chapter 
by citing in confirmation of our 
position the opinions of some com- 
petent judges. And first we must 
remember that Palestrina, Allegri, 
Haydn, Mozart, and others have 
with one voice expressed their ad- 
miration of the Gregorian chant 
and upheld its superiority in the 
field of music. Even Protestants 
have felt themselves constrained to 
join in this general voice of praise. 
Thibaut, for instance (Reinheft 
t/er Tonkunsi], says: "The Catho- 
lic Church, in accordance with her 
system, had the strongest reasons 

VOL. XXVIII. 27] 



for the retention of the primitive 
chants, called Ambrosian and Gre- 
gorian ; their truly sublime and 
heavenly intonations, which in the 
glorious days of old were created 
by genius and nurtured by art, 
make a deeper impression than 
many of our modern compositions 
that aim especially at effect." The 
words of Forkel, a Protestant, are 
equally worthy of consideration 
(Geschichte der Musik) : " The 
Gregorian chant has endured now 
for nearly twelve centuries, and 
will probably last as long as reli- 
gious exercises and religious sing- 
ing in common shall continue 
among men. Indeed, this endur- 
ance is itself a proof that Gregori- 
an must possess the true attributes 
of a common, popular chant,, 
though this can evidently not be 
demonstrated from its nature. 
That which through so many cen- 
turies, and during the very time 
that art was undergoing so many 
changes and improvements, could 
remain unchanged must have an 
indestructible, intrinsic worth." 
Our last quotation shall be from a 
writer in i\\o.er liner Musikzeitung : 
" From an artistic point of view we 
must acknowledge that in the Gre- 
gorian chant, for all its simplicity 
and sameness, which are only con- 
sistent with its ecclesiastical cha- 
racter, there is yet found a great 
variety ; and, what is more, that the 
melodies are the most faithful rep- 
resentations of the sense of the 
words, so that both text and melo- 
dy together form a perfect unity, 
as though cast in one mould. We 
know their composers in but a few 
cases; for the most part words 
and music are the work of the same 
mind, which accounts for the inti- 
mate union between the verse and 
the melody. The highest office of 
music is this : to express in sound 



41 8 Cradle and Cross. 

the feelings of the heart, and to one who seeks and finds the sum- 
awaken like feelings in the hearts mit of musical art in bravura arias 
of those who hear it ; and this task will scarcely enjoy Gregorian, 
is fully accomplished by the Gre- But one who without prejudice 
gorian chant. Its intrinsic worth considers the intrinsic essence of 
will always be avowed by every music, and its end and object in 
real judge of music, although in its religious and ecclesiastical 
modern times it has been almost phase, will be forced to grant that 
entirely neglected and undervalued the Gregorian chant stands un- 
in the Catholic Church. Of course paralleled." 



CRADLE AND CROSS. 

I. BETHLEHEM. 

TAKE unto thee to-night this Little One ; 
Thy heart a cradle make for Heaven's King, 
Whose Mother, weary with wide-wandering, 
Brings pleading unto thee her royal Son, 
Who will not scorn in place so rude to rest, 
Breaking with light of sun the shadows dim, 
While filled the silence with enraptured hymn 
Sung by Maid lips before all ages blessed. 
So, as amid the manger's straw of old, 
The lavish harvest of the careless earth, 
Weak plant bore witness to its Maker's birth 
And burst in white-starred blossoms manifold, 
Thy heart's poor cradle, Jesus sheltering, 
Shall burgeon forth in holiest blossoming. 

II. CALVARY. 

Fashion thy heart into a cross ; make wide 
The extended arms, that the Eternal Love, 
Hanging thereon, thy charity shall prove 

For all men, as for thee, so crucified. 

So will the nails that pierce his hands wound thee, 
The thorn that binds his brow thee also bruise ; 
Thy heart, that did not Bethlehem's Babe refuse, 

ShaU bear the title of his Calvary. 

Thy sins, alas ! the bitter drop of gall 

He tastes, and gives no draught thereof to thee : 
Thy burden only this great charity 

Thou holdest fast in its own willing thrall. 

O happy heart ! glad cradle for Love's King, 

Blessed cross whereto the Crucified doth cling. 



The Letter of Pope Leo XIIL to Cardinal Nina. 



419 



THE LETTER OF POPE LEO XIIL TO CARDINAL NINA 
CHURCH AND STATE IN ITALY. 

(FROM OUR ROMAN CORRESPONDENT.) 



ROME, October 17, 1878. 
" LEO XIIL has a penetrating and at 
the same time prudent spirit ; he sees 
things at a first glance ; but he has the 
great art of not coming to a decision 
without mature reflection, and of not 
coming out until he can strike a sure 
blow. His apostolic goodness moves 
him to the extreme limit of possible con- 
cessions before he takes a stand. His 
resolution, however, always moderate 
and just, is immovable. When we had 
the honor of seeing him we were struck 
with the Assurance of his character and 
the clearness of his intelligence. His 
reserved comportment inspires respect 
and fear ; one is anxious to know what 
lies hidden beneath his perfect serenity. 
It is evident that Leo XIIL continues 
his purpose of establishing friendly rela- 
tions with the powers ; his letter to Car- 
dinal Nina attests this. His efforts seem 
to prosper." These are considerations 
of no less a publicist than Louis Teste. 
No need more of asking, What will be the 
policy of Leo XIIL? He has asserted 
himself, and is as well known to the 
intelligent world as his illustrious and 
lamented predecessor. The encyclical 
letter of last April was a clear proposi- 
tion to those who read and had a mind 
to understand. The Liberals of Italy, 
who indulged in visions of a concilia- 
tion, accepted and became resigned to 
their position of Belial. The recent let- 
ter to the Cardinal Secretary of State is 
the logical and supplementary conse- 
quence of the encyclical. In fact, the 
preamble of the letter refers to the terms 
of the encyclical as to something clear- 
ly explained and demonstrated, and 
thus it becomes a middle term in the 
sorites of Pope Leo's official life, each 
act thereof being consequence and pre- 
mise of the other. 

Although the policy of Pope Leo 
XIIL be, in substance, that of Pius IX., 
of sacred remembrance, an evident 
change of religious politics, if I may so 
express it, is in process of evolution ; 



and, if exception be made to Italy, and 
possibly France, the indications are fa- 
vorable to the Holy See. To return to 
the letter in question : its tone is hope- 
ful, which is encouraging when we con- 
sider that Leo XIIL " has the great art of 
not coming to a decision without mature 
reflection, and of not coming out until 
he can strike a sure blow." Bearing di- 
rect reference to this, and carrying with 
it a significance noted by all, is the fact 
that the letter, though dated August 27, 
was not published until the 25th of Sep- 
tember. It happened that the Baron 
Keudell, Prussian ambassador to the 
Quirinal, returned to Rome from Berlin 
at the same time. For the present, how- 
ever, we have to do with Italy in con- 
nection with the letter. The cry of the 
Liberal press, official, officious, and other- 
wise, is this : " Leo XIIL wishes to estab- 
lish peace with all the powers of Europe, 
but his desire to isolate, and remain at 
implacable enmity with, Italy is palpa- 
ble." How false the latter statement is 
the reader will judge from the letter itself. 
He is certainly at enmity with pseudo- 
Italy that Italy which, in the name of 
civilization, has outraged, and still con- 
tinues to trample under foot, the divine 
rights and prerogatives of the Catholic 
Church. Touching the Italy which 
from the earliest times has been the sub- 
ject of papal beneficence, Leo XIIL ex- 
pressed himself clearly in the encyclical. 
Let the reader bestow but ordinary at- 
tention on those paragraphs of the let- 
ter which describe the present condition 
of the church in Italy and then, if he 
can, without recurring to the memory of 
Macchiavelli and the now proverbial hy- 
pocrisy of the Italian Liberals, compre- 
hend the following from the Din Ho, an 
officious organ of the actual ministry : 
" This letter is one of the most important 
acts of the pontificate of Leo XIIL 
[most true], and comes opportunely to 
justify splendidly, if there were need of 
it, the attitude of the government towards 
the Vatican in the question of the bi- 



420 The Letter of Pope Leo XIII. to Cardinal Nina. 



shops. It is a real programme of gov- 
ernment for the Catholic Church a pro- 
gramme that may be formulated thus: 
Implacable and perpetual war against 
Italian unity and institutions ; policy of 
conciliation and of concessions in the 
relations of the Holy See with all the 
powers of the world, be they Catholic, 
Protestant, schismatic, Mohammedan, or 
Buddhist. The Pope for the first time 
establishes a bond of union with his 
predecessor. As for Italy, the extensive 
and dangerous concessions made to ihe 
Vatican concessions which cost us con- 
flicts with friendly powers, and which 
were marked for us as a black spot on 
the Italian horizon these concessions 
have for a recompense the declaration 
that the government is a ferocious per- 
secutor of the Catholic Church, which 
has no other hope but the destruction of 
the national unity and the reconstitution 
of the temporal power. Behold how the 
Vatican compensates the fatal abdication 
of the state before the church ! Why 
dissimulate ? The letter of the Pope has 
produced in our mind a sad impression ; 
there is an injustice so systematic and 
wilful against the Italian government, 
there is so manifest a resolution of iso- 
lating Italy and of creating new enemies 
against her, that we may ask ourselves 
in apprehension whether the state be 
sufficiently protected by the laws in 
force, and if it be not opportune, nay, 
necessary, to think of new means of pro- 
tection !" Risum ttneatis ! this hypocriti- 
cal whining comes from an official rep- 
resentative of a power that has been 
declaiming blatantly for the past eight 
years that the Papacy is moribund, 
consequently incapable of exciting any 
reasonable apprehension. 

The Bersagliere, also a prebendary 
of the Reptile Fund, after the usual stage 
shudder at the " isolating " spectre, says 
of the letter: " In general this diplo- 
matic coup de main h:*s been judged pretty 
clever, both for the moment chosen by 
(he Curia to open negotiations and for 
its aim, which was evidently that of in- 
sinuating itself between Italy and Ger- 
many, and, if not breaking, at least chill- 
ing the old union between the two gov- 
ernments and the two nations. In the 
foes of so bold a policy we unfortunately 
adopt an ecclesiastical policy of citations 
on stamped paper." The Liberia also 
dreads the " isolation/' but is hopeful in 
he loyalty of Italy toherusual rectitude (?) 



of principle. It adds, however : " We 
cail attention to the second part of the 
letter of the Pope, in which he complains 
of the obstacles opposed by the govern- 
ment of the king to the appointment of 
bishops. This is the first time since 
1870 that the Pope complains with rea- 
son (!), and it was precisely not to give 
him this advantage over us that a pol- 
icy (interfering with the appointment of 
bishops in the Neapolitan province) 
should have been avoided which places 
us Liberals on the side of injustice, and 
excites against us the open censure of 
impartial people." But here the Liberia 
speaks in deference to the bilious party 
spirit of which it is the slave, and not to 
a sense of justice. The Liberia is one of 
the officious mouthpieces of the deposed 
Moderates of execrable memory. I re- 
member well that, when these sanction- 
ed laws the suppression of the reli- 
gious orders, the confiscation of church 
property, and the conscription of the 
clergy as destructive in tendency of 
the divine rights of the church as inter- 
ference with episcopal nominations, this 
virtuous organ was ecstatic with rapture. 
But the Liberia in those days battened 
on the Reptile cates. 

The Nazione of Florence threatens the 
Pope. The Perseveranza of Milan, in- 
spired by Ruggero Bonghi, of scholastic 
notoriety, writes: "Leo XIII. does not 
ignore either the worth of civilization or 
the legitimacy of the free institutions, 
and admits an independent action of the 
two powers, civil and ecclesiastical, in 
the interest of a tranquil position of the 
state in its actual conditions. Leo 
XIII., even holding as indispensable to 
the free exercise of the spiritual author- 
ity of the church the temporal power, 
does not insist upon this, but rather on 
the obstacles which the exercise of his 
own rights, of his spiritual jurisdiction, 
encounters in Italy. He only asks that 
Italian legislation be modified in some 
particulars, and in others remain faithful 
to the principles which it has avowed to 
profess. In these last years the govern- 
ment has departed, if not from the letter, 
certainly from the spirit, of the Law of the 
Guarantees, and has approached a policy 
of open hostility to the church. It is 
clear that an expression of opinions so 
temperate can precede but little the call 
of the Catholics to the administrative 
and political elections, and the forma- 
tion of an eminently conservative party 



The Letter of Pope Leo XIII. to Cardinal Nina. 42 1 



which will propose, even respecting the 
actual condition of things, a conciliation 
with Catholicism, contributing its assist- 
ance to the government of the country 
a party which, as soon as announced, 
will change all the proportions and dis- 
positions of the actual parties." 

Waiving for the nonce the question 
whether, with a material and favorable 
change of the actual circumstances, 
Leo XIII. would be disposed to invite 
the Catholics of Italy to compete in the 
general political election of deputies, 
the portentous importance assumed of 
late in Italy by the Republicans, and 
their evident intention of striking a 
decisive blow at no remote date, will 
render the immediate formation of a 
conservative party extremely problema- 
tical. 

In connection with his great desire 
that the beneficent influence of the Ca- 
tholic Church be experienced by all the 
nations of the earth, be they orthodox 
or heterodox, the Holy Father writes : 
" You know well, Signor Cardinal, that, 
with a view of seconding these impulses 
of our heart, we addressed a word to the 
powerful emperor of the illustrious Ger- 
man nation, which, on account of the 
difficult condition created for the Ca- 
tholics, called for our solicitude in a 
particular manner. That word, inspired 
only by the desire of seeing religious 
peace restored to Germany, was favora- 
bly received by the august emperor, 
and obtained the happy result of lead- 
ing to friendly negotiations, etc." The 
hopeful tone of this paragraph may be 
accepted as a pretty sure guarantee that 
the negotiations, far from having fallen 
to the ground as some of the Liberal 
papers of Italy gave out on the morrow 
after the publication of the letter are 
on the eve of concluding something de- 
finite. The happy reception given to the 
letter in Germany, and the deferential 
and temperate, not to say favorable, 
opinions pronounced upon it by the offi- 
cial press hitherto so unmitigatingly 
bitter against the Holy See confirm 
this. The frankfurter Zeitung says : 
"Notwithstanding its reserve, the letter 
of the Pope announces that on his part 
he will do everything to co-operate in 
the work of peace. For this die letter 
is very important ; but it becomes more 
so when we remember the words with 
which the chancellor characterized the 
negotiations with the nuncio, Mgr. 



Aloisi. The words were: 'They can 
c-fFer nothing.' Published at this mo- 
ment, the letter of the Pope seems to be 
a reply and an interrogation a reply, 
because it says that much may be ex- 
pected from the Curia, nay, all that the 
church is in a condition to give ; it is an 
interrogation, because its practical pur- 
pose is that of knowing what is to be ex- 
pected from the other side. We cannot 
dispense ourselves from answering this 
question. Political concessions are re- 
quired, but the Pope retires on the re- 
ligious ground, and can only promise 
that the Catholics will be the most faith- 
ful and devoted subjects. The Pope 
says clearly what he can offer, but on 
the other side the political demands 
have not as yet been formulated This 
must come to pass soon. Rome has 
spoken, Berlin has the floor." The 
Nord Deutsche Allgc indue Ztititng charac- 
terizes the letter as having an eminently 
pacific tone from the double point of 
view of the desire for peace, and that 
this peace will be solid and lasting, not 
a mere modus proccdcndi. Tire officious 
journal admits that such a peace would, 
in the actual circumstances of Germany, 
be cordially accepted by both parties. 
It adds erroneously, however, that as 
soon as this peace would be established, 
which of course would imply the aboli- 
tion or material mitigation of the Kuliur- 
kampf, and of the importance of the Cen- 
tre party, whose raison d'i'lrc is precisely 
in its opposition to the Ktilturkampf. I 
say erroneously, because several of the 
leading members of the Centre have 
already declared, in the same breath with 
professing their readiness to endorse and 
follow, as devoted Catholics, what may 
be concluded by Rome, that beyond this 
they have other views and aims as a 
political party, and that, as such, Rome 
has never tried and never will try to 
influence them. It has been bruited 
abroad that the Centre, because oppos- 
ed to the sanction of exceptional laws 
against the socialists, is also opposed to 
the continuation of the negotiations of 
Kissingen. This is a pure invention of 
the Italian Liberals, and as such has re- 
ceived the lie from another declaration 
of the Centre, in effect that tht-y opposed 
the passage of the law as proposed by 
the government because they were ad- 
verse, on constitutional principles, to 
investing the police with arbitrary powers. 
Besides, they were convinced that ihe 



422 



The Letter of Pope Leo XIII. to Cardinal Nina. 



exceptional laws would not produce the 
effect desired: sentiments and convic- 
tions, say the Catho'ic deputies, which 
have nothing to do with the establish- 
ment of religious peace. This much on 
the letter of the Holy Father and its im- 
pression on the German people. Touch- 
ing the negotiations, they are still un- 
der consideration. Report has it that 
Cardinal Hohenlohe is now in communi- 
cation with the Holy Father and con- 
tinuing the negotiations ; but I can 
offer no voucher for its truth. The arri- 
val in Rome of Mgr. Schreiber, Bishop 
of Bamberg, has been coupled with the 
peace negotiations ; but it is simply a 
visit ad Hniina. 

The Liberals complain that the letter 
of His Holiness tends to isolate Italy 
and bring odium upon her. But her iso- 
lation was already developing itself be- 
fore the publication of the letter, grant- 
ing, per absurdum , that the Pope nurtured 
such a design. Without referring to the 
solemn isolation of Italy at the Congress 
of Berlin, it is sufficient to observe how 
quietly she is ignored by England and 
France in the present Egyptian business, 
a id the formal Age qitod agis bestowed 
upon her by the insignificant Bey of Tu- 
nis, and the supreme indifference of Aus- 
tria to her present movements, to be con- 
vinced that the isolation of Italy comes 
from other sources than the Vatican. 
The rabid demonstrations of the Ital- 
ians against the Congress of Berlin, the 
outburst against Austria in favor of the 
" unredeemed " provinces, and the im- 
passiveness of the ministry in the face 
of the Republican and International 
movement in the land, cannot but pro- 
duce an unfavorable impression on the 
powers of Europe. Of course I except 
France as represented by the Republi- 
cans of the Gambetta order. That wor- 
thy is expected soon in Italy, and his 
visit means alliance. Indeed, there are 
among the political savants here those 
who, on the strength of foreshadowed 
events, have published this proposition : 
>; If the republic in France continue, the 
republic in Italy is a certainty." 

In fact, the Republican party here no 
longer conceal their views. Republican 
meetings are held openly, and the gov- 
ernment forbids them not. Rifle asso- 
ciations are fast being organized all over 
the peninsula and named after Corporal 
Barsanti, who was shot, according to 
sentence of a court-martial, for insub- 



ordination on republican principles 
Moreover, other associations are organ- 
ized for the purpose of inoculating the 
youth subject to military conscription 
with republican principles. Thus the 
loyalty of the army will be tampered 
with. As it is, the sectaries through se- 
cret agents distribute seditious papers 
and pamphlets among the soldiery, 
spite of the rigorous measures recent- 
ly invoked by the Minister of War, Gene- 
ral Bruzzo. With the proverbial loyal- 
ty of a Piedmontese for such he is 
he has called for the suppression of 
the republican associations bearing the 
name of the rebellious Barsanti. But 
in his annual discourse, delivered on 
the isthinst. before his constituents at 
Pavia, Benedetto Cairoli, president of 
the cabinet, and a noted Republican, 
declared the intention of the ministry to 
respect the liberty of association. This 
declaration has been accepted by the 
Moderate party as a reply to the demand 
of General Bruzzo. Consequently, he 
will resign. Indeed, a partial crisis of 
the ministry is already expected, as 
Corti, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, is 
on the eve of tendering his resignation. 
Permit me to sum up the condition of 
Italy and the probabilities of the repub- 
lic in the words of Alberto Mario, the 
leader engants of the party. In a letter 
to the editor of the Perscveranza, Bon- 
ghi's organ, he writes : " You ask me to 
Let you know at my ease if I think Bene- 
detto Cairoii is a/r99Mfe*/fo/manariiot* 
I answer you immediately : Cairoli is a 
man of the Left, and in my opinion the 
Left extends the time for the existence of 
the monarchy ; and it seems that King 
Humbert understands it well. I think 
that if Victor Emanuel had died in the 
arms of the Right, the dynasty would 
not sleep now between two pillows as it 
does. The Right was a government of 
resistance, and lately of reaction. It 
would have driven us rapidly to the bar- 
ricades, and its return would push us 
there. As for me, I would wish the 
Right in power to get more quickly to 
the republic ; but as I prefer see how 
moderate I am the evolutionary to the 
revolutionary process, I prefer the govern- 
ment of Cairoli to that of Minghetti or 
Sella. Perhaps you are aware that I do 
not believe Italy can be governed except 
by legislative regional autonomies 
co-ordinate with the political unity. 
The Left, being in power, and putting to 



The Letter of Pope Leo XIII. to Cardinal Nina. 423 



the test all the virtues of the monarchy, 
will show how such a co-ordination is 
impossible. Hence the probable peace- 
ful passage from the one (the monarchy) 
to the other (the republic)." 

[This project is by no means the worst 
that might be. Were it possible to 
form in Italy a republic of this kind, it 
would be the most suitable to the genius 
of the Italian people, its past history, 
and the most likely to secure good gov- 
ernment. Such a form of government 
would be not unlike our own republic, 
leaving to the different sections of Italy 
their local legislation for their peculiar 
interests, customs, and character, and 
securing at the same time for the com- 
mon weal a sufficiently powerful central 
authority. The present government is 
simply the usurpation of the king of Pied- 
mont over the rest of Italy. It cannot 
last. It is unjust to all other parts 
of Italy, and hence without cohesive 
strength. 

What is most to be feared in Italy is a 
centralized democracy, which is only 
another name for Caesarism, and the 
grave of all rights and liberties. 

Are the elements strong enough, wise 
enough to form a truly republican gov- 
ernment such as has been indicated ? 
Have the Italian people the political 
sagacity to do as the founders of our 
institutions did form a government 
on man's natural rights, in accordance 
with their genuine historical traditions, 



suitable to their circumstances, and cal- 
culated to enable them to reach their 
destiny as a people? Can they be made 
to understand that the state is incompe- 
tent in religious matters ? an idea as Ca- 
tholic as it is American. The rights 
and functions of the church are not the 
rights and functions of the state, and the 
rights and functions of the state are not 
the rights and functions of the church. 
Their organizations are independent of 
each other ; their true and normal ac 
tion concurs to assist man to reach 
his true destiny. Is there sufficient faith, 
wisdom, and justice in Italy to embody, 
in harmony with its own genius, geo- 
graphical situation, and political neces- 
sities, the example of the great republic 
of America ? Italians, Catholics, sincere 
Catholics, and sincere lovers of their 
country as well, cannot avoid seeing 
the approaching political crisis ; and if 
they will rise as it becomes them above 
all political parties and sectionalism, it is 
in their power to throw their weight in 
that direction which will secure both 
their rights and liberties, and those of 
the church, and once more place Italy 
in the foremost rank among great na- 
tions. God grant it ! 

If the Piedmontese usurpation has 
served for such a transformation, we shall 
.be inclined to overlook much of its wick- 
edness, tyranny, and persecution, and 
not unreluctantly say : Requiescatin ceter- 
nut.ED. C. W.] 



424 In Memoriam. 



IN MEMORIAM. 

Two little graves beneath the long green grass 

Within one year ; 
Two little babes that childless leave, alas ! 

One mother dear; 
Two little lives that fleetingly did pass 

One hearthstone drear ! 

Fair hair and blue eyes, eyes of limpid brown, 
Closed in death's sleep ; 

Golden and chestnut hair, smoothed gently down 
Weep, mother, weep ! 

Two little rosebuds, ah ! too quickly blown, 
Buried so deep ! 

Little hands folded on the quiet breast, 

Toying no more ; 
Musical little feet laid at last to rest : 

To the far shore 
Two little birdies from their mother's nest 

Fluttered before. 

Silent the voices that made music gay 

All the day long ; 
Hushed the sweet tumult of their infant play, 

Sweetest of song ! 
Lonely the mother sits in the twilight gray, 

While mem'ries throng. 

In the gray twilight shadows come and go, 

The dead live again ; 
In the gray twilight softened is our woe, 

Eased our heart's pain ; 
In the dim twilight tears benignant flow, 

Love's gentle rain. 

Out of the darkness steals a healing voice ; 

List, mother, list ! 
Lift up thine eyes and see thine angels' choice : 

Passes the mist, 
And a great chorus cries, " Rejoice ! Rejoice ! 

They are with Christ !" 

ALL SOULS, 1878. 



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425 



NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



HISTOIRE DE MME. DUCHESNE, Reli- 
gieuse de la Society du S. Coeur de 
Jesus, et Fondatrice des Premieres 
Maisons de cette Societe en Amerique. 
Par M. L'Abbe Baunard, D.D., etc. 
(author of the Life of Mine. Barat). 
Paris : Poussielgue Freres, Rue Cas- 
sette, 15. 1878. 

Mme. Duchesne was like a sturdy oak, 
fitted to battle with the winds and storms 
and to shelter under its umbrageous 
arms generations of children in long 
succession. She was one of those noble 
Frenchwomen made heroines of faith 
and virtue by the conflicts of the Revolu- 
tion, and sharing with the noble Catholic 
Frenchmen who survived that horrible 
cataclysm in the glory of re-establishing 
religion in France, and propagating it 
elsewhere by missionary zeal. The first 
period of her life was sketched in the 
Life of the holy foundress of her society, 
and has been noticed in our review of 
the same. In this new biography from 
the pen of the author of the preceding 
Life of Mine. Baraf, of which it is a his- 
torical continuation, the events of Mme. 
Duchesne's earlier history, before leav- 
ing France, are more minutely narrated. 
The part which is of the newest and 
most special interest is that which de- 
scribes her career in America from May 
29, 1818, when she landed at New 
Orleans, until November 18, 1852, 
when she breathed her last, full of years 
and merits, in the eighty-fourth year of her 
age, the forty-seventh of her religious 
profession, and the thirty-fourth of her 
sojourn in America. Mme. Duchesne 
founded the houses of St. Charles, 
Florissant, Grand-Coteau, St. Michel, 
Bayou-La-Fourche, and St. Louis, and 
governed the entire province as the vicar 
of the mother-general until the arrival 
of Mme. Galitzin, near the close of the 
year 1840, when she ceased to be superi- 
or, and became a simple religious for the 
remaining twelve years of her life. The 
record of the labors, hardships, privations, 
and sufferings attending the first foun- 
dation of the society in America is very 
interesting and edifying, and is an im- 



portant contribution to our ecclesiasti- 
cal history, as well as a charming narra- 
tive of personal events and particular 
incidents in the life of the venerable mo- 
ther herself and in the lives of her worthy 
companions. In great measure it is as 
new and strange to Catholics of our own 
part of the country and of the present 
time as it must be to European readers. 
Even those who have visited Missouri 
and Louisiana during the last ten or 
twenty years can hardly realize that 
such a different state of things from the 
present one can have existed during a 
period so near to our own time. 

Aside from its historical value, this 
Life has another very special charm and 
excellence, as a portraiture of a woman 
of really heroic sanctity and of a most 
original and strongly-marked character. 
Spotless innocence, generous charity, ? x- 
alted devotion, and energetic virtue were 
the qualities which adorned Philippine 
Duchesne from her earliest childhood, 
and during the whole period of her life 
which preceded her profession as a reli- 
gious of the Sacred Heart. 

The long course of her religious life 
was a continual progress in all those 
high virtues which are the charac: eris- 
tics of the great saints who adorn the an- 
nals of religion. Her most distinctive 
trait, that which gives a marked and 
peculiar individuality to her religious 
character, was apostolical zeal for the 
conversion of the most ignorant and un- 
civilized portion of mankind, especially 
those who are in the darkness of hea- 
thenism. All the enthusiasm of St. 
Francis Xavier seemed to burn in her 
bosom. And, although she did not find 
a practical outlet for this missionary 
zeal in actually working for the conver- 
sion of pagans, except on a small scale, 
every labor of this sort which she found 
opportunity of performing among ne- 
groes and Indians was most eagerly em- 
braced. It is certainly not for this kind 
of work that the Society of the Sacred 
Heart was intended. Yet the mission- 
ary spirit which made Mme. Duchesne 
pant to emulate St. Francis Xavier, and 
that virile force which seemed too great 



426 



New Publications. 



to be confined within a woman's breast, 
made her specially fitted to brave the 
perils and hardships of the enterprise of 
founding the Sacred Heart in America, 
as the pioneer and leader of her sisters 
and daughters in religion. " Now the 
mother was to be admired above mea- 
sure, and worthy to be remembered by 
good men ; and she bravely exhorted 
every one of them in her own language, 
being filled with wisdom : and joining a 
man's heart to a woman's thought" (2 
Mach. vii. 20, 21). Her successors were 
better fitted than she was to build on 
the ground conquered and possessed by 
her valor. But the merit of her ardent 
desires to extend the kingdom of God, 
her incessant prayers, which made the 
Indians call her " the woman who prays 
always," her penances and sufferings, 
her long life of generous labor and self- 
sacrifice, most assuredly have obtained 
greater blessings from heaven on the 
church in this country and throughout 
the world than could accrue from the 
mere personal labors of any one indi- 
vidual, however apostolic he might be, 
and however wide the fieid he might cul- 
tivate. The vital energy of the church 
is in the hearts of her saints. The apos- 
tleship of prayer is the living source 
that vivifies the apostleship of work. 
No one could have been found more 
tvorthy to establish in this country a 
society specially consecrated to the 
Sacred Heart of Jesus, the fountain of 
the apostolic charity which acts through 
prayer and labor, than a woman whose 
heart was so filled with this same apos- 
tolic charity as Mme. Duchesne. 

An English translation of Mme. Du- 
chesne's Life is in course of preparation, 
we suppose by the same graceful hand 
which translated the Memoir of Mme. 
Barat. If some competent American 
reviser could correct the mistakes which 
the author has made in certain matters 
relating to our geographical divisions 
and political constitution, before his ex- 
cellent work passes to a second edition 
or appears in the English language, the 
only serious fault which it has would be 
corrected. 

LECTURES ON MEDIEVAL CHURCH HIS- 
TORY. By Richard Chenevix Trench, 
D.D., Archbishop of Dublin. New 
York : Charles Scribner's Sons. 1878. 

In these lectures Archbishop Trench 



appears to have had in view a single the- 
sis : to show the necessity of the reli- 
gious revolution of the sixteenth cen- 
tury properly called Protestantism, and 
his history throughout has been made in 
accordance with this purpose. Indeed, 
there was no other course left open to 
him as a minister of the Protestant Epis- 
copal Church, whose origin can only be 
traced to this revolution. And how does 
the archbishop set about his task ? 

I. He gives his readers no idea of the 
nature of the Christian Church, as this 
would have brought him into the trying 
light of theological science. And as 
Protestantism has neither an historical 
nor logical basis, the learned archbishop 
cautiously avoids so dangerous an issue. 

II. In view of his thesis he diligently 
gathers together whatever abuses, gene- 
ral or special, existed in the mediaeval 
church. It is to be noted, however, 
that he is careful to give no authori- 
ties for his assertions or alleged facts. 
The absence of such necessary and im- 
portant references can be easily excused 
in delivering lectures to a class of girls, 
but scarcely so when preparing them 
for publication and presenting them to 
readers as grave contribution to histori- 
cal studies. 

III. In the grouping and detail of his 
historical facts the archbishop keeps 
steadily before his mind his original the- 
sis ; and, with a dexterity that one can 
hardly help admiring, he so uses and 
adapts his materials as to render them 
always subservient to his main purpose 
and produce a corresponding impres- 
sion on the reader's mind. 

IV. In order not to appear as a lawyer 
pleading to a brief, but as a grave histo- 
rian, and a man of large views whose 
sole purpose is the truth, the archbishop 
assumes an air of ingenuous candor and 
calm impartiality that is very captivat- 
ing. He even acknowledges that there 
are many good things in the Catholic 
Church, but in out-of-the-way places, 
in the fewest possible words, and with- 
out explaining the significance of what 
he concedes. Whenever he trenches 
on matters favorable to the Catholic 
Church, the calm and dignified gait 
with which he usually marches yields 
to a more hurried pace indeed (not 
to be irreverent), to a decided skip, 
as though he felt himself verging on 
very dangerous ground. But perhaps 
this was only natural, as to dea\ fairly 



New Publications. 



427 



with such matters would lead to full in- 
quiry into the Catholic claims, and thus 
quite upset the chief object of the arch- 
bishop's history. 

He has accomplished his task with an 
adroitness that well counterfeits fairness 
and truth. To those not more than or- 
dinarily instructed the lectures would 
pass for true church history. The work 
may add to the author's fame as a writer 
of pure English, but not as a theological 
or historical writer. 



THE SUFFERINGS OF THE CHURCH IN 
BRITTANY DURING THE GREAT REVO- 
LUTION. By Edward Healy Thomp- 
son. London : Burns & Gates. 1878. 
(For sale by The Catholic Publication 
Society.) 

It is wonderful to see how soon men 
forget, or how coolly they disregard, the 
lessons of history. The struggles of one 
generation are unknown to the vast ma- 
jority of the next, and the history of 
twenty five years ago is to many as re- 
mote as the history of as many centuries. 
Men live in the day, and look little to 
the past or to the future. 

The revolutions going on around us 
in these days are not without near and 
startling examples. The present strug- 
gle in France is really the outcome of 
"the Great Revolution." The same 
principles are at stake ; the same forces 
are at war. Gambetta and the party of 
which he is at present the leader are at- 
tempting to do the work cut out for them 
by Voltaire and Rousseau : to drive 
God out of the hearts and minds of men 
and to destroy the social order. Windy 
oratory and fine phrases are never want- 
ing to conceal purposes that are really 
diabolic. The wonder is that sensible 
men accept them so placidly, and profess 
to see in the successors of the Revolu- 
tionists of 1789 the real party of progress 
and the saviours of society ; while God's 
church is looked upon now, as then, as 
the great stumbling-block in the way of 
the social, moral, and political advance- 
ment of the peoples. Mr. Thompson 
has taken one chapter of that dark revo- 
lutionary period and set it fully and 
plainly before us. Its lesson cannot be 
mistaken by those who read it, and all 
men who wish to understand what the 
two parties in France are really fighting 
for ought to read it. The two parties in 



France are the Christians and those who 
are not Christians. The fight is between 
them, and there is no halting-piace be- 
tween. 

It was this struggle, brought on and 
aggravated then as now then with more 
reason and more deplorably than now 
by exasperating side questions which im- 
mediately seemed to have no connection 
with religion at all, that devastated 
France during and after the great revolu- 
tion. Mr. Thompson has selected Brit- 
tany as a place of observation whence 
one may see acted out in miniature, so 
to say, the whole dread drama. He 
writes with force and clearness, and with 
one plain purpose throughout to get at 
and give the true story. That story is 
most interesting for its own sake, and 
made doubly so by the skill of the teller ; 
but as history, and as throwing a strong, 
clear light on much that is blurred or 
misrepresented or hidden out of sight, it 
has a special and peculiar value. The 
general view of the first French Revolu- 
tion is that there came suddenly a fearful 
outburst of fury from a starving and op- 
pressed people against a court, a nobil- 
ity, and a clergy corrupt to the core ; 
that the people went too far in its blind 
but justifiable rage ; that great harm was 
done and many innocent people suffered 
on the scaffold ; that at last came Na- 
poleon Bonaparte to end the scene of 
carnage, or rather to turn the French 
taste for blood into another channel. 
Such is the general outline that presents 
itself to the mind, and it has a strong 
vrai semblance undoubtedly. But it is far 
from wholly true, particularly as regards 
the French clergy. It is not true as re- 
gards a large portion of the French peo- 
ple, and the noblest of the nobles. Mr. 
Thompson has here given us the true 
story so far as Brittany is concerned, 
and we cordially re-echo the wish of the 
Abbe Tresvaux that a work similar to 
his, to which Mr. Thompson confesses 
himself indebted, " should be under- 
taken for other parts of France. But no 
time should be lost. Witnesses are dis- 
appearing, facts are being forgotten, and 
yet what a light they throw upon the 
past, and what lessons they furnish for 
the present lessons which with them 
will be irretrievably lost." 

Almost the first one hundred pages 
of Mr. Thompson's book lead up to his 
immediate subject, " the sufferings of the 
church in Brittany." These pages give a 



428 



New Publications. 



keen insight into the causes of the Revo- 
lution and its gradual growth and devel- 
opment. They are excellent in every 
way. One shudders and the heart 
sickens as he approaches the actual suf- 
ferings of the church and the cruel per- 
secution undergone by those of every 
class who set their conscience and 
their faith above their lands and lives. 
The boasted freedom of conscience of 
the revolutionists comes out here in 
its 'true meaning. Gambetta told us 
how he interpreted it at Romans the 
other day. It is the same story, so far 
happily without the bloody illustrations 
of the earlier chapters. Reading the 
saddening record in these days we can- 
not but marvel that such things should 
be ; that Frenchmen should murder and 
torture Frenchmen and Frenchwomen 
for no other crime often than that they 
would not renounce their Catholic faith. 
Yet these events are not yet a century 
old, and we approach a new century 
with the same cause for contention be- 
fore us. It rests with the moral sense of 
civilized men and governments to pre- 
vent the repetition of scenes that darken 
the world. Absolute liberty of con- 
science and freedom of worship is the 
only guarantee against religious perse- 
cution. It is that and that only Catho- 
lics claim in France. 

SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE OF THE BEST SO- 
CIETY : Customs, Manners, Morals, and 
Home Culture. Compiled from the 
best authorities. By Mrs. H. O. 
Ward. Philadelphia: Porter &Coates. 
1878. 

This is a very entertaining as well as 
a very useful book. However much the 
age may have advanced in certain lines, 
it has scarcely advanced in good man- 
ners. Indeed, it has, by too general a 
concession, deteriorated in this respect. 
Some attribute the falling away from 
gentle bearing and behavior to the 
spread in other countries, as well as in 
our own, of democratic ideas. The 
American is regarded by those who have 
never met him as a civilized barbarian, 
if such a combination be possible, or as 
a barbarian with a certain veneer, more 
or less thick, of civilization clinging to 
him. And it is an open secret that 
many of our own countrymen and coun- 
trywomen who "represent" us abroad 
give a strong color to this too general 



suspicion. A too great and too general 
rudeness, however, is complained of in 
other lands than ours, among all our 
" kin beyond the sea." Democracy is as 
little synonymous with bad manners as is 
wide-spread education with true culture. 
A variety of causes goto explain the too 
general lack of manners now prevailing ; 
but at bottom of them all lies this : 
people are rude because they are falling 
from Christianity. The golden rule of 
Christianity is to love God above all 
things and our neighbor as ourselves. 
This is also the foundation of all culture 
and gentleness; On those who have 
this at heart the forms of etiquette sit 
lightly and come to them naturally. 
The author of this manual, as it might 
be called, of the forms of good society 
has not lost sight of this great truth, but 
inculcates it quietly, yet with force, from 
time to time. Her book is an excellent 
one, and those who are or are not natural- 
ly gentle will find much entertainment as 
well as profit in reading it. That " man- 
ners make the man " is a good old say- 
ing that will never lose its force ; that 
they also make the woman is too often 
forgotten by those of all who should re- 
member it women themselves. Mrs. 
Ward places both under equal obliga- 
tions. 

SOCIAL ASPECTS OF CATHOLICISM AND 
PROTESTANTISM IN THEIR CIVIL BEAR- 
ING UPON NATIONS. Translated and 
adapted from the French of M. le 
Baron de Haulleville. By Henry Bel- 
lingham, M.A., Barrister-at-Law. With 
a Preface by His Eminence Cardinal 
Manning. London : C. Kegan Paul 
& Co. 1878. 

The essays that make up this volume 
appeared originally in the pages of our 
highly esteemed contemporary, the Fevite 
Generate of Brussels, while under the 
able editorship of Baron de Haulleville, 
the author of the essays. They were call- 
ed out by a pamphlet by M. de Laveleye, 
Protestantism and Catholicism in tJicir 
Bearing upsn the Liberty and Prosperity of 
Nations, which, our readers will remem- 
ber, was taken up at the time in a most 
thorough and efficient manner by one of 
our own reviewers. The articles have 
since appeared among the Essays and 
Reviews of Bishop Spalding, published 
by the Catholic Publication Society 
Company. Baron de Haulleville covers 



New Publications. 



429 



much the same ground as did Bishop 
Spalding, though, as might be expected, 
the brilliant essays of the bishop have 
more immediate point and interest for 
English readers. Baron de Haulleville's 
work, however, shows throughout that 
profound historic and philosophic obser- 
vation that gives a lasting value to writ- 
ings of this kind. His style,' too, is calm 
and pleasing, and has been well inter- 
preted by Mr. Bellingham. 

A translation of the same work, with 
important additions, has just reached us 
from Hickev & Co., ir Barclay Street. 
It makes one of the most useful volumes 
that their excellently-conceived " Vati- 
can Library" has yet given to the Catho- 
lic public. 



offers every facility to those who wish to 
procure it. 

LlBRI QUATUOR DE IMITATIONE CHRIS- 

Ti. Cum Appendice Precationum. 
Collegit et edidit P. Conradus Ma- 
ria Effinger, Capitularis Monast. B. V. 
Mariae. Einsidlse : Benziger Bros 

1878. 

This is an exceedingly neat and con- 
venient little edition of the ever-wel- 
come Imitation. The appendix is well 
conceived, and contains morning and 
evening prayers, prayers at Mass, for 
confession and communion, etc. The 
beautiful type of the whole combines 
clearness with smallness. 



LIVES OF THE IRISH MARTYRS AND CON- 
FESSORS. By Myles O'Reilly, B.A., 
LL.D. With additions, including a 
history of the Penal Laws, by Rev. 
Richard Brennan, A.M. New York : 
James Sheehy. 1878. 

This is a new and enlarged edition of 
a very valuable work which has already 
been noticed in ourcolumns. Theperiod 
embraced by Mr. O'Reilly in his martyr- 
ology consists of the sixteenth, seven- 
teenth, and eighteenth centuries, those 
darkest days in the Irish calendar. The 
only light illumining them shines from 
the lives of these holy confessors and 
martyrs whose touching history is given 
here. Apart from its personal and Ca- 
tholic interest the work is really a valu- 
able contribution to the history of the 
times in which these men lived and 
died. This feature of the work is still 
further enhanced by Father Brennan's 
important additions, which take in the 
penal laws of the various periods and 
bring the record down almost to our 
own day. Those who study the history 
of England as an imperial power cannot 
pass by this book. It is a page that 
Englishmen would wish blotted out and 
forgotten ; but history stands, and you 
cannot blot out blood. These records 
are written in blood and tears. They 
are noble and ennobling, and Catholics, 
Irish Catholics particularly, should know 
them by heart. Nothing in their country 
or their history is so great as the lives 
of these Christian heroes and saints. 
The volume is a very handsome one, 
and we understand that the publisher 



PICTURESQUE IRELAND. Edited by John 
Savage, LL.D. New York : Thomas 
Kelly. 1878. 

This handsome work, issued in serial 
parts, is, as the title-page truly informs 
us, " a literary and artistic delineation of 
Ireland's scenery, antiquities, abbeys, 
etc." No country is richer in material 
for such illustration than Ireland, and 
Mr. Savage's name is sufficient guaran- 
tee that his portion of the work will be 
done as few could do it. His graceful 
pen luxuriates in the historic records, 
the sweet and sad romance, the poetic 
memories that linger over every inch of 
Irish soil. For the rest, it is enough to 
say that he is ably seconded by his pub- 
lisher. 



THE LITTLE GOOD-FOR-NOTHING. From 
the French of Alphonse Daudet. By 
Mary Neal Sherwood. Boston : Estes 
& Lauriat. 1878. 

Although this story does not possess 
the power and scope of The Nabob, it 
may certainly be considered as one of 
the most pathetic of Daudet's novels. It 
is the story of two natures, both loving 
each other intensely, one self-sacrificing, 
just, and honorable, the other pitifully 
weak and sinful. The interest centres 
in a poor consumptive boy, who man- 
fully endeavors to save his younger bro- 
ther from the ruin brought about by the 
latter's folly and dissipation. The stu- 
dies of character are very good, particu- 
larly the character of Pierrotte, who in 



430 



New Publications. 



a manner resembles the Nabob. The 
study of Abbe Germain is perfect. 
His "healthy piety is very grand, and his 
treatment of the Good-for-Nothing both 
loving and Christian. The scenes of 
French provincial school life are cle- 
verly drawn, and are quite different from 
those related by English authors. What 
a pity, however, that the most lender, if 
not the most skilful, of French novelists 
cannot write without that tinge of im- 
morality ! Of course vice is painted with 
an intent to disgust ; still, it is vice, and 
does not add to the real interest of the 
story. The translation is spirited, and 
as like the original as could well be ex- 
pected of a translation. 



ASPIRATIONS OF THE WORLD. By L. 
Maria Child, author of Progress cf Re- 
ligious Ideas, etc. Boston : Roberts 
Brothers. 1878. 

"The fundamental rules of morality," 
savs the compiler of these Aspirations, 
" are the same with good men of all ages 
and countries ; the idea of immortality 
has been present with them all ; and all 
have manifested similar aspirations to- 
ward an infinitely wise and good being, 
by whom they were created and sustain- 
ed. From these three starting points 
many paths diverge, leading into endless 
mazes of theology. Into these labyrinths 
I do not consider it useful to look. I do 
not assume that any one religion is 
right in its theology, or that any others 
are wrong. I merely attempt to show 
that the primeval impulses of the human 
soul have been essentially the same 
everywhere ; and my impelling motive 
is to do all I can to enlarge and strength- 
en the bond of human brotherhood." 

We cannot but thank the author for 
having shirked the "mazes of theology," 
though she tacitly and placidly settles 
all theological disputes by assuming 
that all forms of religion are much the 
same at bottom, and of about equal au- 
thority and worth. As she prefers to 
put it, " religion is a universal instinct 
of the human soul." She probably 
means a natural instinct ; but no matter. 
To most people religion is a great deal 
more than an instinct. 

" The amount " of this " instinct," we 
are informed, " will never be diminished 
in the world. Its forms will change, but 
its essence never." 



If the author consults her Webster or 
her Worcester she will find a much bet- 
ter definition of religion than this. If 
she wishes to show that the world of 
man is always looking up to God, 
yearning for the light, seeking after its 
Creator, we are one with her, as will be 
all Christians. But this is much as to 
say the sick man craves for health. The 
author places the sick man and the 
strong man on exactly the same plane ; 
and quotes as of equal authority sayings 
taken from various writers and teachers 
of men. There are not a few who think 
much after this fashion in these days, 
and who lazily drift into that very hazy 
thing called "the religion of humanity/' 
which in its professors and teachers 
might be better described as " A Mutual 
Worship and Admiration Society, limit- 
ed." To these worthy people, as to our 
fair author, "Moses ; Hebrew :" " Lao- 
Tze ; Chinese :" " Pythagoras ; Grecian :" 
" Cicero ; Roman :" " Mohammed : Ara- 
bian :" " Jesus Christ ; Israelite :" " Vol- 
taire ; French :" " Emanuel Kant ; Ger- 
man :" and (good gracious !) " O. B. 
Frothingham ; American :" " Henry 
Ward Beecher ; American :" not to men- 
tion the author herself and a host of oth- 
er celebrities, are all numbered in the 
glorious company of the gods, and from 
high Olympus thunder to a listening 
and awe-struck world. We can only 
say that the author's company might have 
been a little more select. She has alto- 
gether too many lions at her celestial 
Bostonian tea-party. One name, at least, 
might have been omitted for reverence' 
sake, even if the author refuses to bow 
to that name. 



RAPHAELA ; or, The History of a Young 
Girl who Would not Take Advice. By 
Mile. Monniot. Translated from the 
French by a Sister of St. Joseph. 
Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham 
& Son. 1878. 

A title has often killed a book, and 
certainly the title in the present instance 
is not inviting. It is decidedly of the 
"goody" order. The story, too, is told 
in an unhappy manner. As a rule, rea- 
ders of fiction do not care to hunt after 
a heroine who has been killed in the 
first chapter. In addition, the transla- 
tor, by being too faithful to the French, 
has given to the whole an un-English 



New Publications. 



431 



sound, and the frequent use of italics, 
whether due to author or translator, is 
absurd. In spite of these defects, any 
one of which is sufficient to warn a rea- 
der off, Raphaela grows in interest for 
those who can master the earlier chap- 
ters, and in parts shows real force and 
pathos and a good conception of " situa- 
tion " and plot. It tells the story of a 
woman devoured from girlhood up with 
small pride, vanity, and their accompani- 
ment, self-will, yet not without good 
feelings and a true sense of what is 
right. The author carries her through 
life, and groups together in a very natu- 
ral manner the difficulties, dangers, and 
great trials, springing out of petty causes, 
of such a life. The character is not an 
uncommon one and it is vividly portray- 
ed. Many a French author would have 
made a most touching and tragic story 
of this wrecked life, but Mile. Monniot 
fails here. By aiming at being too good 
and too instructive, and by holding up 
the moral before her readers in every 
page, she withdraws attention from the 
story itself, which should have been al- 
lowed to point its own moral. This is 
the common defect of Catholic fiction, 
which is constantly wasting splendid 
material for sheer lack of a little worldly 
wisdom and common sense. We shall 
never drive the devil out of his play- 
ground in fiction until we can beat him 
with his own weapons and make the 
good more attractive and interesting 
than the evil. As long as all the good 
stories are slow the bad ones must take 
the lead. 



HEROIC WOMEN OF THE BIBLE AND THE 
CHURCH. With Art Illustrations. 
Parts VII. to XVI. By Rev. Bernard 
O'Reilly. New York: J. B. Ford & 
Co. 1878. 

We have here nine new parts of this 
well-conceived and beautifully-executed 
work. Father O'Reilly's graphic text 
scarcely needs illustrations. His pub- 
lishers, however, have been wise. They 
have taken accepted and historic paint- 
ings of the subjects treated, and had 
them lithographed in a truly gorgeous 
style. The work, when completed, will 
be unique, and a favorite equally on the 
drawing-room table as iri the library. 
Father O'Reilly is as earnest as he is 
successful in popularizing devotion. 



CYPRUS: Historical and Descriptive. 
From the Earliest Times to the Present 
Day. Adapted from the German of 
Franz von Loher. with much addi- 
tional matter, by Mrs. A. Batson Joy- 
ner. New York: R. Worthington. 
1878. 

One of the things for which Lord Bea- 
consfield and the Berlin Congress are 
answerable is the sudden influx of lite- 
rature on Cyprus and its inhabitants. 
These were about as well known to the 
average reader as the moon and its solitary 
occupant. The present work is a transla- 
tion, in rather indifferent English, of Herr 
von Loher's recent trip to the island 
and his journey through it. Who Herr 
von Loher may be we do not know. 
His account is gossipy without much 
gayety, and his observations do not im- 
press one either with their keenness or 
profundity. There is the usual sprink- 
ling of encyclopaedic learning here and 
there, and the result, with the exception 
of an occasional mistake on Catholic 
matters, is a harmless, chatty book, not 
witty, indeed, nor wise, but giving one 
some idea of the present aspect of the 
island and its people. 

LADY NELL, and Other Poems and Trans- 
lations. By R. Lawrance Nicholson. 
Illustrated by W. B. Redfarn. Cam- 
bridge (England) : W. P. Spalding. 

1878. 

This is a curious medley. Some of 
the poems fugitive pieces, fragments 
often are very sweet in expression and 
delicate in fancy. These we like better 
than the more ambitious efforts in the 
little volume. Most of the original 
poems have more or less of a personal 
character, and are evidently meant for 
near and dear friends, thus quite disarm- 
ing a critic. Some of the pictures of 
English scenery are very true and fresh, 
and a few of them are well given by the 
artist. Of the translations those from 
the German, and the Breton Songs, are 
excellent. 

GOD, THE TEACHER OF MANKIND. A 
Plain, Comprehensive Explanation of 
Christian Doctrine. By Michael Miil- 
ler, C.SS. R. New York: Benziger 
Bros. 1878. 

We are glad to see that Father Mill- 



432 



New Publications. 



ler's excellent work has already reached 
a new edition. 



INTEREST TABLES IN USE BY THE MUTUAL 
LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY OF NEW 
YORK. For the calculation of interest 
and prices of stocks and bonds for 
investment. By William H. C. Bart- 
lett, LL.D., actuary of the company. 
New York : Published by the Mutual 
Life Insurance Company of New 
York. 1878. 

This is, to business men, a valuable 
compilation. It saves a great deal of 
figuring and brain-work, and every ac- 
countant will thank the company for this 
beautifully-printed and elegant book. 



THE YOUNG GIRL'S MONTH OF NOVEMBER 
AND DECEMBER. By the author of 
Golden Sands. New York : The Ca- 
tholic Publication Society Company. 

1878. 

These are two new numbers of this ad- 
mirable little series of devotions for 
young girls. 



THE ILLUSTRATED CATHOLIC FAMILY 
ANNUAL FOR 1879 is now in press, and 
will be ready for delivery about the 25th 
of November. The year has been one 
of exceptional interest to Catholics, both 
in losses and gains. This gives a special 
value and interest to the new number of 
this ever-welcome annual. 



NEW BOOKS, ETC., RECEIVED. 

LAUDHS VESPERTINE, sive Cantus Diversi, excerpti 
ex Antiphonario, Graduali et Rituali Romano, 
quas curavit S. Rit. Congregatio. Ratisbonae, 
Neo-Eboraci et Cincinnati! : Sumptibus, chartis 
et typis Frederici Pustet. 

ALL SAINTS' DAY, and other Sermons. By Rev. 
Charles Kingsley. New York : Scribner, Arm- 
strong & Co. 

POINTS IN CANON LAW : (claimed to be) Opposed to 
some of Rev. Dr. Smith s views of Ecclesiastical 
Law, as now applied to the United States of 
America. A reproduction of a series of articles 
contributed to the Catholic Universe newspaper 
of Cleveland, Ohio, by Rev. P. F. Quigley, D.D., 
Professor of Canon Law, etc., in St. Mary's 
Seminary, Cleveland, Ohio. Cleveland : M. E. 
McCabe. 1878. (Will be noticed in our next 
number.) 

RECEIVED FROM D. A. NOLAN, 37 Barclay Street, 
a handsome steel engraving of Notre Dame de 
Lourdes. For sale by the publisher. 



? 

THE 



io 




CAT IOLICWOR J3. 



VOL. XXVIIL, No. 166. JANUARY, 1879. 



" ROME'S RECRUITS." 






THE Whitehall Review, a Lon- 
don paper of some merit, has just 
published the names of all the con- 
verts to " Rome " during the space 
of the last forty years. When we 
say " all " the converts, we mean, 
of course, the converts who have 
had social position or some claim 
on the public attention. With re- 
gard to the taste of so exceptional 
a publication, this must be left to 
the individual estimate. Some per- 
sons like publicity, some do not ; 
but we should have imagined that 
the majority of what are called 
" Rome's recruits " would have 
esteemed themselves "sacro digni 
silentio." However, taste was not 
considered in the matter. The 
Whitehall Review goes into a groove 
of r.ociety which Thackeray used 
to call "Vanity Fair," or that 
fashionable " upper ten " which 
likes to have bits of personal news 
to amuse it over its afternoon tea. 
And since ritualism has become 
rather popular of late years among 
persons of aesthetic disposition, so 
conversions to Rome have acquired 
a certain interest from a social if 
not a religious point of view. It 
is marvellous how much "religios- 
COPYRIGHT : REV. 



ity" some people can possess with- 
out having much of religion ; and 
the great charm of religiosity is 
that it enables every one to talk 
glibly about subjects on which 
every one may differ. But the new 
element which the Whitehall Review 
has introduced has this most con- 
spicuous advantage: that it enables 
A. and B. to discuss D. and C. with 
reference to their personal short- 
comings. "Ah ! I knew him," said 
a lady to a gentleman who was yes- 
terday reading out a name in the 
Whitehall ; " he wanted to marry 

Miss . I don't think anything 

of his conversion." So this poor 
gentleman was dismissed, as being 
no argument in the controversy, 
and as having rather confessed to 
weakness by his change. It is so 
easy to depreciate the value of a. 
principle by depreciating those 
who may adopt it that this new 
publication of persons not mo- 
tives is quite sure to find favor 
with the scandalous. Lord So-and- 
so may have had titles and lands 
but every one knew that he was 
feeble. Lady So-and-so may have 
been fond of going to church, but 
she was admitted to have failed 

. T. HECKBR. 1878. 



434 



Rome's Recruits. 



in writing books. The Reverend 
Fitzallen Smith was a good reader 
and a good preacher, but he was 
also much sought after by fashion- 
able people. This sort of com- 
ment just suits the playful mind, 
which is anxious to postpone the 
real question ; and it is evident, 
from the tone of " Vanity Fair," 
that this sort of comment will be 
general. 

A brother-in-law of one of the 
most distinguished of lady painters 
wrote the earlier of the introducto- 
ry articles. And very good arti- 
cles they were. Full of wise con- 
sideration, and in excellent taste, 
they could not possibly offend the 
most sensitive. But it was whis- 
pered in Vanity Fair that the White- 
//#//was growing "popish"; and this 
seemed to trouble the Whitehall. 
So the editor employed the services 
of the nephew of a popular novelist 
to write an article in a different 
strain. And a very nasty and of- 
fensive strain it was. Whether the 
readers of the Whitehall would 
think any better of the paper for 
'its blowing warm and cold in the 
same month is a point which must 
be left to conjecture. One more 
fact, however, may be mentioned in 
passing. Mr. Gladstone was asked 
if he would edit the new pamphlet. 
He thought nof. JEIe did not see 
why he should. Mr. Gladstone is 
iknovvn to be a universal writer and 
a universal patron of all things; 
but why he should " edit " all the 
conversions to Rome must be a 
question which would puzzle his 
admirers. Con versions from Rome 
would be more in his line ; or con- 
versions, say, to the czar's private 
church. However, Mr. Gladstone 
declined ; and it was perhaps just 
as well that he did, for the world 
would have given him credit for 
.too much. A sixpenny pamphlet, 



full of the names of " Rome's re- 
cruits," could go forth to the pub- 
lic on its merits; nor is the public 
likely to ask who the editor may 
be, since he cannot edit a single 
motive of a single convert. 

It may be remarked, by the way, 
that of " reversions " to Protestant- 
ism there are happily few exam- 
ples to be given. Such as have oc- 
curred may be easily accounted for 
on the most simple and most nat- 
ural grounds. To mention names 
would be gross and quite useless. 
In the earlier days of what was 
called " the Oxford movement " but 
little inquiry was made of " Rome's 
recruits." It was assumed that 
they must have to contend with 
immense difficulty in the way both 
of faith and of circumstances. So 
charity attributed to them the pur- 
est possible motives, with a suffi- 
cient knowledge of the grounds of 
the faith. A few relapses taught 
Catholic priests prudence; and for 
many years it has been customary 
to subject to preparation all postu- 
lants for admission to the church. 
This will probably put af?, end to 
relapses, or at least it will put an 
end to such hasty mental action 
as outstrips pure conviction and 
gravity. And the new care which 
has been taken in the reception 
of postulants removes the scandal 
of the attributing wrong motives. 
Twenty or thirty years ago, when 
an Anglican became a Catholic, 
every motive was attributed to him 
except the right one. One of the 
greatest of living authors once in- 
dulged in the happy pleasantry : 
" If Dr. Routh, the venerable presi- 
dent of Magdalen College, Oxford, 
who has just attained to his ninety- 
ninth year, were to become a Cath- 
olic. Protestants would attribute it 
to the impetuosity of his youth." 
A clergyman at Liverpool, who \vas 



Rome's Recruits. 



435 



converted many years ago, was 
spoken of, " under the breath," as 
" a very unhappy person, who went to 
Rome to indulge his habit of drink- 
ing." This was a new estimate of 
the Catholic Church that it was a 
symposium designed for the inebri- 
ate. However, such a reason was 
as good as any other, for those 
who would not accept a good rea- 
son. Another clergyman, on be- 
coming a Catholic, was asked by 
his bishop, "Who is she?" This, 
at least, was a pardonable, human 
inference. We could hardly ex- 
pect that persons who looked on 
" popery " as irrational should at- 
tach either intellectual or supernat- 
ural motives to a change which 
they could not understand. But one 
advantage which the Whitehall has 
now given to Catholics is that the 
vast numbers of conversions sug- 
gest convictions. Mere numbers 
in themselves might not do this, 
but when coupled with grave sacri- 
fice they have weight. A sacrifice 
of position, of fortune, of prospects, 
or a sacrifice of domestic good-fel- 
lowship, .''s not undertaken by the 
educated mind without impressions 
of a very deep order. At the time 
of the Reformation, when the no- 
bility were rewarded for their pre- 
ference of loyalty over faith by 
gifts of abbey lands or high offices, 
there was a motive which was real, 
though it could not be said to be 
lofty, in the exchanging the Catho- 
lic religion for the Protestant. But 
in nine cases out of ten of the mod- 
ern conversions to Catholicism the 
converts have had to pay for their 
exchange. They have had to pay 
for it in one of two ways : by actu- 
al loss of worldly place and pros- 
perity, or by the still more painful 
loss of social sympathy. And it 
cannot but be admitted that even 
" fanaticism," which is costly, has 



more merit than an exchange which 
is lucrative. Taking the lowest 
possible view of " Rome's recruits " 
such as doubtless there are 
many Protestants who still approve 
a change of religion which brings 
a loss to the convert is more likely 
to be sincere than a bought conver- 
sion. And the proofs of such sin- 
cerity have been made ready to 
hand by the publication of a thou- 
sand names of known sufferers. 
Even the fact that converted cler- 
gymen cannot become Catholic 
priests without consenting to forego 
married happiness is in itself an im- 
mense advance over the (suggested) 
dispositions of such priests as have 
left the Catholic Church. It is an 
advance which human nature can 
appreciate. Human nature may 
exalt its own comfortable canons 
over the supernatural instincts of 
the church, but in doing so it can- 
not deny a fact; and that fact is the 
willingness to offer sacrifice in 
proof of reality of conviction. The 
Whitehall, then, has at least done 
this good service : that it has asso- 
ciated sacrifice with conversion. 

The great number of ladies who 
are chronicled in the Whitehall as 
confessors of the faith to their own 
cost have most of them tales to 
tell which they would shrink from 
publicly telling, and which, indeed, 
had far better be forgotten. What 
they may have had to endure from 
domestic separations, from suspi- 
cions of friends and acquaintances, 
from material loss, present or pro- 
spective, we can very well imagine 
(for of some cases we know the 
details), and we must offer them 
our highest respect. The wives of 
clergymen who have " seceded 
from their husbands," as a Protes- 
tant newspaper once expressed it, 
have had to bear the imputation of 
a conjugal rebellion quite as much' 



43$ 



Rome's Recruits. 



as of unfaithfulness to their church. 
Their trial must indeed have been 
terrible. And so, too, the daughters, 
whether of clergymen or laymen, 
who have run counter to parental 
authority, must have had to face 
both the loss of home sympathies 
and the charge of being wilful and 
disobedient. The mere change of 
religion, apart from the new direc- 
tion, is an imputed insult to those 
who may rest behind ; at least, 
this is the ordinary parental esti- 
mate. Change, in itself, seems dis- 
esteem ; and, intellectually, it is 
accounted as showing weakness. 
" I hate a man who changes his re- 
ligion," said a great man in author- 
ity to an inferior. " Sir," said the 
convert, " I hate him more than 
you do; for if my ancestors had 
not changed their religion I should 
not have had the trouble of chang- 
ing mine." But this apology is 
not accepted by the Protestant. 
" Change with me " is a perfectly 
natural tone of mandate; "but if 
you change against me you insult 
me." And we imagine that half the 
bitterness which conversions have 
generated has been the bitterness 
of offended self-esteem. The Cath- 
olic convert has no bitterness ; he 
has only charity and compassion; 
but they from whom he differs will 
not pardon the effrontery of the 
exercise of his judgment against 
theirs. This is, after all, but hu- 
man nature. And there is more of 
human nature about polemics than 
there is about the differences of the 
affections, for the simple reason 
that intellectual vanity is stronger 
in most men than are the affections. 
A man may forgive another for 
disliking him ; but if he knows that 
he is despised, or at least fancies that 
he is so, he is not likely to feel 
very gracious. And so we are 
driven to the conclusion that, in 



the vast majority of instances, con- 
version stings the vanity of friends. 
It may not do so with persons of 
lofty character; but persons of 
lofty character are rare. To the 
ordinary English Protestant a per- 
son who becomes a Catholic has 
committed this unpardonable of- 
fence : that he has pronounced his 
old friends to be " heretics " at the 
suggestion of his scarcely-found 
new friends. 

One small body of converts six 
clergymen and a hundred laymen 
have just "come over" from two 
parishes in Brighton, and are more 
or less mentioned in 'the Whitehall. 
As an example of the incapacity 
of non-Catholics to understand 
this we may quote the Protestant 
bishop of Chichester. He referred 
in a recent charge to the causes of 
these conversions, as being thor- 
oughly unintellectual and immoral ; 
" craft, secrecy, and subtlety " being 
the obvious characteristics of the 
method and the animus of the con- 
versions. Now, how it could be 
even possible that in two large 
churches in Brighton conversion 
could be secretly recommended, 
when all the world could hear the 
preaching and was talking of it, 
and all the world knew the " Ro- 
manizing tendency," we are quite 
at a loss to understand. The 
clergy of the two churches were 
well known as ritualists of the 
most developed or transcendental 
school; their ceremonial was atopic 
of public interest; all the other 
churches that is, the other clergy- 
men were in the habit of warning 
Protestants against them; their ex- 
travagances were just as thorough- 
ly made public as are the views of 
the London Times newspaper in a 
leading article; so that it was sim- 
ply ridiculous to talk of secrecy and 
craft on the part of the clergy or 



Rome's Recriiits. 



437 






the laity. <{ High Masses " were 
advertised in the newspapers. " Sa- 
cramental Confession" was open- 
ly preached. The whole ritual 
was suggestive of Catholic doctrine. 
Where, then, could be the secrecy 
or the craft ? Is not the bishop's 
comment a striking instance of 
the truth that wrong motives must 
be found for all conversions? In 
the same way it has been affirmed 
that the conversion of young ladies 
from one or the other of these 
two churches was due to their 
feminine " curatolatry "; in other 
words, that their admiration of the 
curates led them to adopt all their 
extremes. But curates who be- 
come priests that is, Catholic 
priests are no longer within the 
feminine aspiration, so that this 
astute explanation breaks down. 
How much better would it be to 
leave motives alone, to let conver- 
sions stand strictly on their own 
merits, and to discuss, not the 
workings of single minds, but the 
claims of the Catholic religion ! 
To throw dust into their own eyes 
is the habit of. most Protestants 
and conspicuously of all Protestant 
bishops in contemplating that phe- 
nomenon which, by this time at 
least, might be allowed to be treat- 
ed with gravity. 

We have said that the later arti- 
cles in the Whitehall Review, which 
were designed to be introductory to 
the long lists, were written by a gen- 
tleman whose sympathies, and per- 
haps prejudices, are most markedly 
on the side of Old Protestantism. He 
has unwittingly fallen into the most 
deplorable errors in his endeavors 
to "throw dirt" on the church. 
His historical allusions are most 
unhappy, and his knowledge of 
Catholic truth is simply ////. " It 
is quite impossible," he says, " to 
overlook the hideous crimes of the 



church which claims infallibility and 
impeccability." It is needless to 
say that the church no more claims 
impeccability than it claims to 
have invented the steam-engine. 
Such loose writing is degrading 
to any advocacy. And in place 
of historical facts, we have the 
threadbare accusations about " St. 
Bartholomew " and the " Marian 
persecution," the "Inquisition" 
and the "holocaust of the Lol- 
lards." Passing from these, we 
have the wonderful assurance that 
the church accounts mixed mar- 
riages "adulterous," and that "the 
wife must desert her husband, and 
the mother her children," in the 
event of conversion to Catholicism. 
It is not difficult to guess in what 
spirit of controversy " Rome's re- 
cruits " must be treated by such a 
writer; and it is satisfactory to 
find that the writer has called down 
on him the lash of more than one 
ecclesiastic. Mgr. Capel has both 
corrected his mistakes and has 
administered some -sharp strokes 
to modern Protestants. However, 
all this was beside the immediate 
point, though it served well to 
introduce the list of converts. It 
could hardly be expected that a 
non-Catholic paper would intro- 
duce a thousand converts to its 
readers without first clearing the 
ground for the array of such testi- 
mony by a little popular abuse of 
Catholicism. Still, in these days 
it is inexcusable to rake up old 
blunders, precisely as though they 
had never been refuted, and to 
impute to Catholics a moral frailty 
or obliquity such as even a Red 
Indian might repudiate. 

In regard to the lists themselves, 
the number of names and profes- 
sions, and the proportion of one 
class to another, there is this 
necessary drawback : that only per- 



438 



Rome's Recruits. 



sons of some note could be in- 
cluded in a " fashionable " report. 
Town priests and country priests, 
had they chosen to do it, could 
have told of whole parishes of con- 
verts ; but where would have been 
the interest attaching to such 
converts as could not influence the 
bent -of modern thought? One 
duchess passes for more social 
value than the wives of a thousand 
city merchants; and the conversion 
of a peer is held by modern Eng- 
lish thought higher in moral worth 
than would be that of the whole of 
his tenantry. 

Now, we do not dispute that 
there is a vast " social " importance 
in the conversion of, say, two 
thousand " gentle " people. Yet, 
to measure the true value of the 
return to the faith, it would be 
essential to comprehend all the 
poor. Their motives are simply 
spiritual or interior, totally free 
from that " educatedness " 'of 
thought which may lead learn- 
ed persons to "embrace Rome." 
Their longing for realities, as dis- 
tinct .from Protestant shams, is 
more of a moral than an intel- 
lectual aspiration ; it is intensely 
genuine and simple and hearty; and 
it is not marred by a score of con- 
troversies about councils, or about 
the Inquisition, St. Bartholomew, or 
Galileo. Supposing it were possible 
to throw into accurate form the 
mental processes which conduct to 
such conversions, we doubt not 
that they would be as admirable 
for pure reason as for singleness of 
purpose and heart. Unfortunate- 
ly the poor cannot " express them- 
selves." They cannot write pam- 
phlets about reasons. They know 
exactly what they feel and are con- 
vinced of, but they cannot shape 
their thoughts into argument. If 
they could they might surprise us 



by their sense. It must have hap- 
pened to learned Catholics to con- 
verse with such converts, and to be 
delighted with the wisdom of their 
reflections. In England it will 
often happen that the best argu- 
ments and the purest reasoning are 
heard from the poorest class of 
converts. The manner of expres- 
sion may be unscholarly, but the 
nature of the thought is simply ex- 
quisite. One of the most regretta- 
ble losses to pure controversy is that 
we cannot write the poor man's 
intuition. 

Still, since we cannot have a 
Whitehall for the poor, we must be 
content with a Whitehall for the 
gentry ; and now what do we find 
in these columns of the " respecta- 
ble," these long lists of " gentlemen 
and ladies "? Of the clergy we have, 
of course, a great number. The 
immense majority are university 
graduates. Oxford, Cambridge, 
and Dublin send " recruits." Some 
of the theological colleges also con- 
tribute. " Wells," which is a 
theological seminary for men who 
have already taken a degree, fur- 
nishes, we believe, three or four. 
Theological colleges, it may be 
remarked by the way, are quite a 
new institution in England. They 
came into existence thirty years 
ago. It was prophesied at the 
time that they would "do immense 
harm by teaching young men 
priestly ideas." They have done 
so. A course of study of the Fa- 
thers, of church history, of doc- 
trines, was perfectly certain to 
beget a sense of ministerial impor- 
tance such as the fathers of these 
new seminarists knew not. We see, 
then, that the' first movement 
towards Catholicism was contem- 
porary with the birth of these semi- 
naries. To be a priest it was de- 
sirable to know what a priest was j 



Rome's Recruits. 



439 



and these seminaries have provided 
information. Yet there is one 
counter element in the way of 
church seminaries, and that is the 
great number of them which are 
" literate." The number of new 
seminaries where men can get 
diplomas without passing through 
a university course have thrown 
wide open the gates of the Anglican 
clerical order to a variety of per- 
sons of every class. We say noth- 
ing disrespectful of the motives 
of such persons, nor even of their 
possible attainments ; but the fact 
remains the same that a less dis- 
tinguished body of clergy has been 
introduced into the Anglican Estab- 
lishment by these colleges. The 
result is a certain loss of clerical 
caste. Socially the clergy have 
fallen off; and such a fact must tell 
heavily against the prosperity of an 
institution which has owed much 
to its social prestige. Now, there 
are converts from this new class 
and from the old ; there are con- 
verts distinguished and undistin- 
guished. There are converts who, 
as scholars, were renowned for their 
success; and there are others who 
were not scholars at all. This is 
exactly what the "lists "ought to 
show. Catholicism is intended 
for all orders of men, from the 
most richly to the most sparse- 
ly endowed. From Dr. Newman 
to the last humble candidate for 
"a pass" we find clergy whose 
" catholicity " of natural gifts is 
conspicuous in sense of variety. 
We repeat, this is exactly what it 
should be. We can now answer 
the accusation that " only men of 
morbid sentiments are entrapped 
by the sestheticism of Rome." 
There are hundreds of clergymen, 
as practical as they are scholarly, 
as severely reasoning as they are 
markedly industrious, who add 



their testimony to that of others, 
some poetical, some artistic, and 
some famed for exceptional accom- 
plishments. Cardinal Manning and 
Father Faber both appear as con- 
fessors to the same bent of con- 
science. One clergyman becomes 
a Jesuit, and another becomes a 
barrister, and a third is found busy 
in the city, because variety of gift 
or variety of disposition was no 
barrier to conversion to the church. 
And so, too, among laymen we 
have " recruits " from all profes- 
sions, and representing every order 
of mind. Royal Academicians and 
distinguished geometricians ; dra- 
matic writers and the drollest of 
comic writers ; great musicians and 
writers of dry school-books ; emi- 
nent scholars and well-known come- 
dians ; all meet in one common 
agreement. Among ladies we have 
the daughters of the celebrated 
Mrs. Somerville, the wives of sev- 
eral rectors and curates, the wives 
and daughters of men famed in the 
world of fashion, and the founder 
of an Anglican sisterhood. As 
to peers and peeresses, there are 
several ; and such a fact is not with- 
out its significance. An English 
peer represents English traditions 
with a certain broadness of outline 
which is exceptional; and it is cer- 
tain that in embracing the Catholic 
faith he is outraging five hundred 
acquaintances. His conversion is 
therefore monumental. From the 
social point of view it is unique, 
since we have not yet welcomed a 
prince or a princess, nor would 
their conversion, if assured, be re- 
corded. A bishop is still wanting 
among" recruits." An archdeacon 
has been converted, but not a 
dean. And yet these wants have 
been oalanced if we may indulge 
in such a fancy by the fact that a 
Guardsman has become a cardinal. 



440 



Rome's Recruits. 



In Rome there is a cardinal who 
was at one time a popular officer 
in a regiment of Queen Victoria's 
household troops. In Rome, too, 
there are priests whose antecedents 
were as Protestant as they were 
English in home and in tradition. 
The colonies, again, possess many 
"recruits." One of these recruits 
is in high office. In France an im- 
mense number live retiredly. In 
one small town in France there 
were, about fifteen years ago, 
from forty to fifty English converts. 
The Whitehall could not take any 
account of these. They are most- 
ly persons of small fortune but of 
no particular pursuit, who live 
abroad for tranquillity and for reli- 
gion. Such "recruits" are to be 
met with all over Europe. 

With regard to the probable ef- 
fect on what is called the public 
mind of the publication of these 
long lists of converts, it may be 
expected that curiosity will take 
precedence of interest, and sur- 
prise of really earnest reflection. 
Some few may be led by such facts 
to consider " the argument from 
conviction " we are glad to hear 
that the Rev. Orby Shipley has 
just added his name to the lists 
but probably it will be the old 
story, so terribly taught in those 
words, " If they hear not Moses 
and the prophets." This, however, 
is mere speculation by the way. 
We have to consider what is the 
value of the past, since we cannot 
draw conclusions from the future. 
And the first feature in that value 
is that men's minds have grown ac- 
customed to the phenomenon of 
conversion to the church. It is 
still a phenomenon ; it still baffles 
the public mind; but at least it is 
accepted as an action which is con- 
sistent with the possession of both 
wits and sincerity. Thus much is 



a positive gain. It used to be 
thought disgraceful or foolish. 
Even Dr. Newman was said to 
have lost his head. The produc- 
tion of such works as the Apologia, 
the Grammar of Assent, and the 
Dublin Lectures has sufficiently 
dissipated that mistake. And so, 
too, of Cardinal Manning: his Ca- 
tholic sermons and Catholic works 
are certainly richer in mental force 
than were his Anglican. Most 
Protestants have confessed, though 
they have regretted, this. It is now 
admitted that development in in- 
tellectual creation may just pos- 
sibly be consistent with conversion. 
And even lighter characters, lesser 
wits, feebler natures have proved 
that they have gathered strength 
from the change. Thus far there 
is a gain on popular credit. Were 
it not for that recurrence to the 
old grooves of vulgar prejudice in 
which leading journalists and popu- 
lar preachers still indulge, as an 
easy method of re-creating a popu- 
larity which is on the wane from 
the want of new interests, the 
" public mind," if we must again 
use that euphemism, would be dis- 
armed of its hostility to the faith. 
The public mind is so quickly 
turned into old directions by those 
authorities whom it has respect- 
ed from its youth that it mistrusts 
its own convictions when led back 
to the old paths by the Times, 
the Saturday Review, or bishops' 
" charges." And yet, as to these 
last, the episcopal annual "trim- 
mings," it must be owned that the 
Anglican bishops have no more offi- 
cial weight than such as they can 
claim from personal talent. A 
playful writer has observed: "An 
Anglican bishop and a weathercock 
are known to be identical in their 
meek submission to the temper of 
the winds ; the only difference be- 



Art Sonnets. 



441 



ing that a bishop takes the trouble 
to provide arguments for a submis- 
siveness about which the weather- 
cock says nothing." Every Angli- 
can knows that every Anglican bi- 
shop is as much the victim of falli- 
bility as he is himself; so that nat- 
ural talent, not episcopal authority, 
is respected in the office and 
the man. Indeed, the office is the 
man, and nothing-more; for no two 
bishops of the Establishment are 
agreed upon doctrines any more 
than on the grounds of their author- 
ity. Thus all Anglicans are more 
disposed at the present day to lend 
a willing ear to Catholic converts 
than they were in past times, when 
Protestant episcopal authority was 
a tradition, though it was not a 
fact. It must be very much the 



fault of a Catholic convert if he 
does not obtain a patient hearing. 
He is at least included among the 
champions of private judgment. 
He has exercised his privilege in 
the surrender of that judgment; 
but it was in the exercise of that 
judgment that he surrendered it. 
All Protestants now begin to per- 
ceive this. They admit the right 
of surrendering judgment to au- 
thority. Such a right was not ad- 
mitted thirty years ago. And if 
the Whitehall Review has done no 
more than demonstrate that con- 
version may be a legitimate mental 
process, it has at least paved the 
way to a more calm consideration 
of the principles and the rationale 
of conversion. 



ART SONNETS. 



in. 






THE FATES OF MICHAEL ANGELO. 

ARE these the inexorable Sisters Three? 

These withered things, like witches of" Macbeth," 

The devil's sibyls on the blasted heath ? 
Crowned, and on thrones sublime, the Fates should be 
The distaff reaching from the loft to lea, 

While threads of stellar rays weave life and death ; 

Black robes of Atropos e'en, wreath on wreath, 
Should burn with stars quenchless eternally. 

For the Greeks had their Apotheosis, 

Their Hades Tartarus or Elysium ; 

The voice within the soul was never dumb 
That told them of another life than this. 
These should have beauty, too of such a sort 
That it should brighten their most awful port 



442 



Pearl. 



PEARL. 



BY KATHLEEN O*MEARA, AUTHOR OF " IZA^S STORY," "A SALON IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE," " ARK 

YOU MY WIFE? " ETC. 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE COUNTY HESITATES. 



THE boys were to arrive by the 
mid-day train. Mrs. Redacre had 
made a little extra toilette, donning 
a gayer cap than was quite proper 
at that hour of the morning; but 
the boys liked to see a flower or a 
bright bit of ribbon in her "bonnie 
brown hair," and it was easy to see 
that whatever the boys liked was 
law to the mother. 

Jacob Mills started betimes with 
the donkey-cart to bring up the 
boxes. Pearl would have liked to 
go to meet her brothers, but she 
was busy in the kitchen, on hospit- 
able cares intent ; and Polly was 
shy of waiting on the platform, to 
be stared at by all those vulgarians. 
The colonel would have gone, but 
Mrs. Redacre would not hear of it. 

" It will be much nicer being 
all here to meet them," she said ; 
" and it is too tiring a walk on the 
damp ground for you, dear." 

" I will run out and meet them at 
the foot of the hill on this side," 
said Polly ; and she equipped her- 
self in her waterproof, and set out 
at ten minutes past twelve. 

It was dry enough in the park, 
but, once out on the road, the 
ground became a perfect slush. 
Polly walked along gingerly on the 
tips of her dainty Paris boots, and 
stood waiting at the foot of the ris- 
ing ground, listening for the rumble 
of the donkey-cart. Presently it 
reaches her with an accompani- 
ment of whistling and hurrahing 
and cracking of whips that assure 



Polly it is not sober Jacob who 
acts as charioteer. But all of a 
sudden the noise ceases, the clat- 
tering cart comes to a stand-still. 

"They have caught sight of the 
house," said Polly; but she wonder- 
ed why the boys, who were the re- 
verse of sentimental, delayed so 
long admiring the prospect. At 
last she grew impatient, and picked 
her steps a little farther until she 
got to the top of the road, which 
quickly sloped down again on the 
other side. There she beheld a 
painful spectacle : the cart over- 
turned, the donkey prostrate in the 
mud on one side and the two box- 
es on the other, and Billy and 
Lancelet Redacre shaking them- 
selves in the middle of the road af- 
ter a copious mud-bath into which 
they had been unexpectedly preci- 
pitated. 

"Hallo! there you are, Polly!" 
cried the brothers, as they got sight 
of horrified Polly, with her arms 
thrown up and her face a picture 
of dismay. 

" O Billy, Lance ! what have you 
done? You have killed the donkey ! 
And what a mess you are in! 
Won't you catch it when papa sees 
you!" 

'* Don't you let him see us till it's 
all made right," said Billy ; " don't, 
there's a brick, Polly." 

" How can I help him seeing 
you ? He is looking out of the win- 
dow. Is the donkey dead?" 

" Not he ! He'll be up and as 



Pearl. 



443 



lively as a pig in two minutes," 
said Lance, who was covered with 
mud from top to toe; even his face 
was bedaubed with it. Polly looked 
at him when he had reassured her 
about the donkey, and he present- 
ed such a pitiable appearance that 
she burst into laughter. 

"It's no lark at all, though," said 
Billy ; " if the governed sees us we 
shall catch it." 

" What have you done with 
Jacob ? Have you killed him and 
buried him in the mud?" said Pol- 
ly ; but before they could answer 
her Jacob himself appeared, and, 
catching sight of the catastrophe, 
hurried on, angry and excited. 

" Well, yourtg gentlemen ! a nice 
piece o' work this. Gee up! Come 
along, old Ben. There you are! 
Is he 'urt, I wonder?" said Mills, 
examining the donkey, and patting 
him kindly all the while. 

"Not lie ; he'll do. But look 
what a pickle we are in. I say, old 
fellow, can't we wash this off some- 
where before we show ourselves ?" 
inquired Lance. 

" Not unless you was to step 
down to the village, sir, where you 
could wash it off in the canal, or 
else at the Hiron Duke ; they would 
purvide you with the necessary," 
said Jacob, lifting the boxes on to 
the cart again. 

" That would take us too long," 
said Billy; " father would suspect, 
wouldn't he, Polly ?" 

"Of course he would; but he'll 
find it out anyhow," said Polly. "I 
tell you he is on the watch for you." 

"Couldn't you smuggle us in by 
the back way ? It'll be awful if we 
have to enter like this; eh, Billy?" 

"Awful!" said Billy, surveying 
Lance, and then looking down at 
himself. 

"You can come round by the 
other side of the 'edge, sir, and just 



slip in by the back yard and have 
a wash at the pump," said Jacob, 
looking more mildly at the delin- 
quents now that he was sure about 
the donkey, and safe not to get 
" blown up " himself for entrusting 
him to these two madcaps. 

" But we should be dripping wet 
then," said Billy. 

" I'm sure I don't know 'ow I 
can 'elp you, young gentlemen," 
said Jacob ; " if I was you I'd put 
a bold face on it and own up at 
once, I would. The master, he's 
not going to be 'ard on you, and 
you only just come 'ome." 

" Oh ! an't he, though ? I wish 
you were in our shoes to try it !" 
said Billy. 

"I'll tell you what," said Polly. 
" Where are your keys?" 

" In our pockets. Where else 
would they be?" 

" Then just open the boxes, and 
get out dry trousers and jackets, 
and pop these muddy ones into the 
boxes." 

"Bravo! You're a regular 
brick !" 

" Hurrah ! Let's peel off, Billy." 

Jacob lent a ready hand to open- 
ing the boxes, and the boys be- 
gan their al-fresco toilet in high 
glee, while Polly kept a look-out 
down the road. They were half- 
way through with the operation 
when Billy, who had got up into 
the cart, and thus commanded a 
wider view of the prospect, called 
out : " Mercy on us! if that's not 
father. I hear Balaklava tramp- 
ing up the road." 

It proved -to be a false alarm ; it 
was only a workman turning out of 
the park, who came thumping the 
ground with his spade as he walk- 
ed. At last they were ready. Ja- 
cob Mills drove on with the boxes, 
and the boys, in Sunday suit, fol- 
lowed with Polly. 



444 



Pearl. 



The hall-door stood wide open, 
and Mrs. Redacre, with a mother's 
welcome, beamed on the threshold, 
waiting. 

" Who'll be first ?" cried Lance 
when he caught sight of her; and 
away he flew, vaulting over the rail- 
ing that parted the lawn from the 
enclosed space round the house, 
while Billy flew after him, both 
whooping and hurrahing at the top 
of tht-ir voices. 

The colonel came pounding 
along from the library, Pearl hur- 
ried out from the kitchen, and 
there was great laughing and kiss- 
ing in the big hall, Fritz contribut- 
ing to the fuss of the welcome by 
bounding and barking, and flying 
at the boys' legs with a view to 
testing their quality and the temper 
of the owners. 

"An uncommon rum pair of 
young gents ; they'll keep the 'ouse 
awake, I can tell you," was Jacob's 
comment to Mrs. Mills when he 
landed the boxes in the kitchen. 
"As to their lending me a 'and in 
the garden, I don't see much chance 
of that, unless when the happles 
and pears comes in; and I dare say 
they'll be ready enough to 'elp 
the a." 

But Jacob was mistaken. The 
boys fulfilled his prophecy as far 
as keeping the house awake, for 
they filled it with noise pretty near- 
ly all day long; but they were not 
the afflictive dispensation to him- 
self personally that he anticipated. 
The colonel took them in hand at 
once, and it was a well-known fact 
that the colonel stood no non- 
sense; he was going to play school- 
master, but he expected the boys 
to work hard, and. if they did not, 
it would go worse with them. He 
was a soldier, and his rule was a 
military one; a paternal and des- 
potic government was his. No 



new-fangled ideas of progress or 
constitutional rights found favor in 
his eyes; and Lance and Billy 
knew it. 

The work of the house was par- 
celled out to each, and it was a 
surprise to them all, after they had 
been in their situations for a few 
days, to find how little there was to 
do. At the <nd of the week the lug- 
gage arrived from Paris, and the 
drawing-room was enriched with 
the grand piano, embroidered 
chairs, fancy inlaid tables, etc.; 
pictures were hung, and in their 
bright frames stood out with good 
effect on the dark crimson walls. 
The old Hollow grew young again ; 
its wrinkles rubbed out by the 
touch of the young household gods, 
its sullen silence broken by the 
music of song and laughter. 

The boys justified Pearl's hopes 
in them. They worked all the 
morning with their father, and took 
good-humoredly to their share in 
domestic drudgery. When this 
was said, however, there remained a 
good margin for larks and mischief; 
but mother and sisters were leagued 
to screen and defend them, and 
even the colonel, though very 
stern to the delinquents when he 
found them out, was complacently 
blind when it was possible, and 
privately admitted to his wife that 
boys would be boys. Jacob and 
Mrs. Mills went like a pair of old- 
fashioned clocks, faithful and regu- 
lar, and were a great comfort. 

Mrs. Redacre and the girls had 
plenty to do, but they cheerfully 
acknowledged that they were con- 
tent in their situations, and had no 
desire to change with a view to 
bettering themselves. The colonel 
was in good spirits, and Balaklava 
made no complaints. Everything 
went on smoothly, and at the end 
of a month they were as much 






Pearl. 



445 



at home in the strange place and 
the stranger life as if they had liv- 
ed there for years. There had 
been no time, so far, to feel the 
dulness or pine for any other so- 
ciety than their own and nature's. 
Without being enthusiastic wor- 
shippers of the great mother, they 
were one and all responsive to her 
charms, and found genuine inte- 
rest and pleasure in watching the 
aspect of the fields and the garden, 
the hedges and the woods. It was 
the beginning of April ; there were 
few signs of spring yet, for the win- 
ter had been unusually hard, but, 
faint as the signals were, Pearl and 
Polly had begun to note them with 
delight. They took long walks to- 
gether through the woods, gathering 
violets and early spring w ild flowers, 
and by the canal, where the water 
washed against the grassy banks with 
a murmurous wave when the wind, 
sweeping over it, rippled the sur- 
face like a lake. Fritz generally 
accompanied them in^ their walks, 
and proved a most conversibie 
dog, though not blessed with an 
angelic temper, and too much giv- 
en to having words with other dogs 
whom he met on the road. 

Mrs. Redacre's health continued 
steadily to improve, and, though 
she seldom felt equal to joining the 
young ones in their seven-leagued 
expeditions, she took very respec- 
table walks in the park and its 
neighborhood with the colonel. 
He took wonderfully to his altered 
life, and was useful in the garden, 
acquitting himself with reputation 
of his share in the work of weed- 
ing and trimming. At least, so 
Jacob Mills said; but the boys 
declared that Jacob was an old 
humbug, who' palavered the gov- 
ernor to his face and laughed at 
him behind his back. Lance vow- 
ed he had caught him in the act, 



one day that the colonel was be- 
laboring a pear-tree that would 
not hold itself up and be pinned to 
the wall. 

" I heard him going on with 
'Just so, sir; that is the very way, 
sir ; I'll be nowhere by and by, sir, 
if you goes on a'ead like this at 
gardening, sir,' and a lot more soft- 
soap ; and then he slipped round 
the hedge and held his sides laugh- 
ing fit to kill himself." This was 
Lance Redacre's testimony to his 
father's prowess in the agricultural 
line; but sons at that age are apt 
to be censorious judges of their 
parents. The evenings were filled 
up with music and games and read- 
ing. The colonel was a fine reader,, 
and rather proud of his talent in 
that way ; he was reading Shakspere 
to them now, and there was a 
talk of getting up private thea- 
tricals amongst themselves by and 
by, if the neighbors showed them- 
selves intelligent and sympathetic. 

" By the way, it is odd we have had 
no callers yet," said Polly one even- 
ing at tea. " Some of the people 
must be come back now, I imagine. 
I think Lady Wynmere is, for I 
saw a carriage driving up to th'e 
house this afternoon, and it did not 
drive out for a long time." 

" It was her own carriage," said 
Billy; "she has been back this 
week. I saw her yesterday in the 
park ; she is the size of a doll." 

" Back this week !" said Mrs. 
Redacre. " That does not look as if 
she meant to be welcoming." 

" Perhaps she won't call at all," 
said Pearl. 

"She could hardly intend that," 
said her mother. 

" It would be extremely rude of 
her," said Polly, firing tip at the 
mere intimation of a possible snub ; 
" would it not, papa?" 

" It would not be very civil," 



44-6 



Pearl. 



said the colonel. " But \ve won't 
accuse the old lady yet; she may 
have been poorly, or busy, or some- 
thing of that sort. She'll turn up 
one of these days." 

But another week went by, and 
Lady Wynmere made no sign. 
There could be no mistake about 
her intentions now, for she was to 
be seen driving about the country 
every day, sometimes in the great, 
roomy carriage, where she disap- 
peared to the dimensions of a doll, 
as Billy had said, sometimes in a 
phaeton, driving a pair of long-tail- 
ed ponies. Squire Barlow, too, 
had returned with his wife and 
daughters, but they had not called 
at Broom Hollow. The rector 
was laid up with bronchitis, and 
there was scarlet fever in the nur- 
sery, so it was natural enough that 
he should not have appeared; but 
the absence of their other neighbors 
was painfully significant. 

" The county evidently intends 
to ignore us," said Mrs. Redacre. 

" But why, mamma?" said Polly. 
" We are just as good as the Bar- 
lows and the Wynmeres ; why on 
earth should they cut us?" 

" There is no reason in the world, 
my darling, unless it be because we 
are poor," said her mother. 

" What do they know about that ? 
We have not got it printed on our 
faces that we have lost our money, 
and I'm sure we are far better 
dressed than any of them. I never 
saw such a congregation of guys as 
they all were on Sunday. Such 
bonnets as those girls wore ! I 
couldn't take my eyes off them." 

"Yes; but they came with a lot 
of servants," said Billy. " I count- 
ed eleven, and you may be sure 
there were lots more at home that 
came to afternoon service. Jacob 
Mills, says Squire Barlow is awfully 
rich.' 



" He's an awful snob too," said 
Lance. " Jacob Mills says the peo- 
ple in the village say " 

" What business have you, sir, to 
listen to vulgar gossip of that sort ?" 
said the colonel sharply. " Don't 
let me hear you reporting pothouse 
news here. You mind what I'm 
saying ?" 

" Yes, sir," said Lance. 

" But he must be a snob, papa," 
said Polly, "if he cuts us because 
we are poor." 

"When people are poor they 
must expect to be cut. If Barlow 
is a snob of that kind, we are well 
rid of his company," replied the 
colonel. 

But, all the same, he felt the 
slight put upon his wife and daugh- 
ters by the squire's family and Lady 
Wynmere. 

" It is very odd of them," said 
Mrs. Redacre presently. " They 
all knew the dean, I suppose ?" 

" Of course they did. Sir Robert 
Wynmere was one of Darrell's old- 
est friends ; that is, if he can be 
said ever to have had a friend." 

" Then, surely, on his account 
one would expect her and the 
others to be decently civil to us." 

" I should not be surprised if 
they knew nothing of our relation 
to Darrell. He never spoke of his 
concerns to any one, and he hardly 
saw anybody these last ten years. 
Ten to one he never mentioned 
our existence to any one in the 
county. We may be ticket-of- 
leave people for all they know," 
added the colonel with the asperity 
of a man who missed 

" The world's regard, that soothes, though half 
untrue." 

"Papa, how absurd!" said Polly. 
" Everybody knows who you are." 

" Everybody at the War Office 
and in some other civilized places , 
but these country buir.nkins fancy 



Pearl. 



447 



the world ends at their park gates. 
They never hear of people beyond 
their own circle." 

" Then we must tell them ; we 
must let them know who we are," 
said Polly, tossing her pretty head. 

" Nonsense ! How are we to let 
them know ? By writing out a 
family history and sending it to 
them with our compliments, and 
we hope they will condescend to 
make our acquaintance ? Give me 
another cup, Alice." And he push- 
ed his empty cup towards his wife. 

" We will manage to be happy 
without them; they can't any of 
them be very nice people, or I 
think they would have guessed 
what very nice people we are." And 
Mrs. Redacre laughed good-hu- 
moredly as she poured out the tea. 

" Yes, mamma ; I am sure they 
are stupid and disagreeable, and 
we are well rid of them," said 
Pearl. 

" You are quite right, Pearl ; the 
loss is theirs," assented her father. 

But Polly's brow grew clouded, 
and for the rest of the evening she 
was very silent. 

When she and Pearl were alone 
in their room she recurred at once 
to the subject. 

" This is a pleasant prospect, if 
we are going to be t'abooed by the 
county." 

"What does it matter?" said 
Pearl. " Country people are pro- 
verbially stupid ; one always hears 
of them being so stuck up and 
dull. We shall get on very well 
without either the Barlows or Lady 
Wynmere." 

" I don't see how. If we had 
any society to fall back on ! But 
there is nobody ; and one counted 
on Lady Wynmere for so much !" 

" Did one?" said Pearl. 

"Well, one knew she gave dances 
and garden parties, and that she 



keeps a full house part of the year. 
She does more for the county than 
anybody else. And she is very 
nice when she likes people." 

"Who told you all that about her?" 

" Mr. Kingspring." 

" She is a friend of his ?" 

"No; but she is a friend of a 
friend of his who talks a great deal 
about her. She sent Mr. King- 
spring an invitation to come down 
here with his friend last Christmas ; 
but he was in Paris and didn't 
care to make the journey." 

Pearl was amazed. She under- 
stood now why Polly took such an 
interest in Lady Wynmere's return. 
Probably the prospect had lent a 
brightness to the quiet life at the 
Hollow which had enabled her to 
enter upon it so cheerfully. She 
had counted on a fair quantum of 
gayety to enliven the home dulness. 
Who knows what visions of coun- 
ty conquests had been flitting in 
that dear foolish head ? triumphs 
of the accomplished Parisian young 
lady over the simple country-bred 
maidens whose dowdy bonnets had 
already merited her self-complacent 
scorn. Pearl was greatly pained. 
It seemed as if the spell were 
broken; that Polly's courage and 
content were now going to fade 
away, since the hope which had 
fed them was taken from her. 
They brushed their hair in silence 
for a while, and then Polly said : 

" I wonder if Mr. Kingspring's 
friend will be coming down to 
Wynmere soon again?" 

" He may be there now, for all we 
know," said Pearl. " It can't mat- 
ter to us when he comes." 

"But he would be sure to call 
upon us; lie must have heard of us 
from Mr. Kingspring. He never 
would do such an ungentlemanlike 
thing as not to call on us when he 
is at our very door !" 



448 



Pearl. 



tl He may not know that we are 
here. Mr. Kingspring, if he ever 
spoke of us to him which I don't 
feel so very sure of may not have 
told him that we had come to live 
here. Why should he ? If he were 
a resident in the county himself 
by the way, did Mr. Kingspring 
tell you his friend's name?" inquir- 
ed Pearl, tying on her muslin cap 
as carefully as if it were a bonnet. 

"Travers, I think it is, or some 
name very like that Percy Tra- 
vers." 

" It wouldn't be Danvers ? Mrs. 
Monteagle has a nephew called 
Percy Danvers." 

" That is the name !" cried Pol- 
ly. " Now I remember Mr. King- 
spring spoke of him as a relation of 
hers ; but I didn't know it was so 
near as a nephew." 

" How extraordinary !" said Pearl, 
who had yet to find out how small 
the world is. " Who would ever 
have thought of our meeting Mrs. 
Monteagle's nephew away down 
here ?" 

"We have not met him yet ; and 
you seem to think that we are not 
likely to meet him." 

" He is sure to hear about us 
from Mrs. Monteagle," said Pearl. 
*' How very funny !" 

"Nobody has written to Mr. 
Kingspring yet ?" said Polly after 
a moment's reflecion. 

" No. I promised to write as 
soon we were settled and had 
made acquaintance with the neigh- 
bors ; but he will have to wait a 
long time if I don't write till then, 
it seems." 

" You must write to him to-mor- 
row, Pearl you must, indeed and 
tell him the truth : how disgusting- 
ly rude and vulgar all the people 
are about here ; and tell him that 
we suppose Mr. Danvers does not 
m^an to treat us in the same way 



when he comes down. He is sure to 
be a gentleman, as he is Mr. King- 
spring's friend ; mind you say that." 

" Having Mrs. Monteagle for an 
aunt is a surer guarantee for his 
being a gentleman than having Mr. 
Kingspring fora friend," said Pearl, 
laughing. 

" Of course, I know that," replied 
Polly testily. " But Mr. King- 
spring sets up for being such a per- 
fect gentleman himself that it will 
flatter him to say it." 

" Flatter him ? Why on earth 
should I flatter him ?" asked Pearl, 
looking round in surprise. 

" Goodness me ! how you do 
take one up. I only meant it in 
fun. But I see you don't want to 
write to him. I- suppose you are 
afraid it would look like encourag- 
ing him ; everybody knows the poor 
wretch is in love with you." 

"In love with me! What an 
absurd thing of you to say, Polly ! 
You know it is absurd," protested 
Pearl with rather too much vehe- 
mence, considering how very ab- 
surd it was. 

Polly laughed and made a face 
at her. 

" I will write to him myself to- 
morrow," she said, sitting up in 
her little snow-white bed and fold- 
ing her hands with a meditative 
air. "/ have no scruples about 
encouraging him. I will just tell 
him how abominably we are being 
treated, and that he must write to 
Mr. Danvers to come down to see 
Lady Wynmere at once and ex- 
plain to her who we are; and you 
will see if my lady doesn't call 
next day." 

" Papa would not like you to do 
that ; I am sure he would be an- 
noyed at our catering in that way 
for the visit of Lady Wynmere or 
any one else," said Pearl. " You 
mustn't do it, Polly." 



Pearl. 



449 



"And we are to be buried alive 
here, and snubbed as if we were 
low-born, disreputable people ! It 
may be very well for papa to bear 
it, but I won't not if I can help it. 
It's all nonsense to talk of our cater- 
ing for attention ; it would not do, 
of course, for papa or mamma to 
complain about it, but there's no 
reason why I should not. And I 
will. I'll write to Mr. Kingspring 
to-morrow." 

" O Polly ! for goodness' sake 
don't. You are sure to make 
mischief." 

Pearl never dreamed of referring 
to the past or reproaching the self- 
willed girl with that other letter; 
but the words were no sooner 
spoken than she felt the full force 
of their bitterness. 

" O Pearl, Pearl ! I wish I were 
dead," cried Polly; and the cry 
sounded like a scream at that silent 
hour. 

Pearl blew out the candle hastily, 
and held the red wick between her 
fingers to kill it. 

" Darling ! be quiet. Lie down!" 
she said in a frightened whisper. 
" Mamma or the boys are sure to 
have heard you, and they must not 
find us talking if they come in to 
see what's the matter." 

She jumped into bed, and both 
of them waited with beating hearts 
for a few minutes. 

Then there was a sound of foot- 
steps hurrying along the carpetless 
corridor; the door of their room 
opened softly, and Mrs. Redacre 
stood looking into the darkness. 
A moonbeam streamed in from the 
mullioned window outside and wash- 
ed over Pearl's bed, overflowing to 
the pillow, and showing the young 
face upturned in the silver shadow. 
" You are both asleep, my dar- 
lings?" said the mother in a low 



voice. 



There was no answer, so she 
closed the door noiselessly and 
went back to her room. 

Mrs. Redacre was not as indif- 
ferent to the contemptuous be- 
havior of the county as she pre- 
tended to be. In summing up the 
advantages of living at Broom Hol- 
low the chance of good English 
husbands for her daughters had 
not been left out of the reckon- 
ing, and it was no light disappoint- 
ment to see this hope dashed from 
her at the very outset. She felt it 
keenly, and, being the mother she 
was, immediately set to work to 
prevent those whom it most affect- 
ed discovering that she felt it. 
But it was hard on her. The 
thought that Pearl and Polly were 
to be cut off from every worldly 
advantage, from all the pleasures 
and enjoyments natural to their 
age, was very bitter ; the thought 
that they were to mope away their 
sweet and brilliant girlhood with- 
out the chance of making any 
friends, even acquaintances, wrung 
her heart, but she would at least 
spare them the pain of knowing that 
it did. 

Meantime Lady Wynmere was 
severely exercised in her mind con- 
cerning the Redacres, and, until 
she came to a decision, neither the 
Barlows nor anybody else would 
make a move. Lady Wynmere 
was the potentate who decided the 
fate of every new-comer at Lam- 
ford. She was anxious always to 
be kind, and, in doubtful cases, her 
natural bent was to the side of 
mercy ; but she understood her 
duty to the county too well to let 
this hurry her into indiscretions. 
People should be furnished with 
credentials; their moral character 
should be unimpeachable, and they 
should have some voucher of 



VOL, xxvui. 29 



450 



Fearl. 



known social respectability to in- 
troduce them before she held out 
her hand. Now, the Redacres had 
absolutely no one to speak for 
them ; and as to their character, it 
was impossible to form any opin- 
ion about that ; it might be im- 
maculate as mountain snow, and it 
might be as black as the ace of 
spades. Very odd stories were 
afloat in the village, and these had 
filtered through the tradespeople 
to the servants at the Park, and on 
through my lady's maid to my lady 
herself. The family at the Hollow 
were decidedly odd ; they had ar- 
rived with an enormous amount of 
luggage, their trunks and bags 
were of the most expensive, they 
travelled first-class, everything 
about them bespoke habits of 
wealth and gentility, but they did 
not bring so much as a maid with 
them, and they were living without 
servants at the Hollow. It was 
natural that these damning circum- 
stances should throw grave suspi- 
.cion on the family; and suspicion 
easily strengthens into belief, and 
belief into the certain knowledge 
of facts. So it was at Lamford. 
Somebody heard nobody could 
say precisely who, but most posi- 
tively somebody heard that there 
was something odd about the new 
people; something about a will 
that could not be found; detec- 
tives had been down from Lon- 
don about it, and Colonel Redacre 
was not allowed to stir out of the 
house till they had searched it from 
roof to cellar. All this, with a 
great deal of personal comment, 
Lady Wynmere learned while she 
was having her hair dressed the 
morning after her return. 

"And they have absolutely no- 
body to serve them ? Do you mean 
to say that they cook their dinner 
.and black their shoes?" said Mrs. 



Barlow, who that afternoon drove 
over to the Park and discussed 
the new people with the county 
lawgiver. 

"I don't see who is to do it, if 
they don't," said Lady Wynmere; 
" unless they go without either din- 
ner or shoes. The gardener's wife 
does the washing and manages the 
dairy there are two cows and 
attends to the farmyard, so she 
can't have any time for indoor 
work." 

" What extraordinary people 
they must be ! And yet they look 
like gentlefolk, you say ?" 

"The rank and fashion of the 
village ,say so. I have seen none 
of them yet. But we shall have an 
opportunity of judging on Sunday. 
They all go to church ; there's that 
in their favor." 

" As far as it goes," observed Mrs. 
Barlow cautiously. " It is a good 
name, Redacre?" she added inter- 
rogatively. Lady Wynmere, of 
course, was the person to settle 
that point. 

"Yes, if it be their real name, 
and if they have kept it clean. 
There were Redacres in Lincoln- 
shire who were connected with 
poor Sir Robert's brother's second 
wife. I think it was a brother of 
hers who married a Redacre; or, 
let me see no, I don't think she 
was a Redacre herself, but her 
mother may have been. One 
ought to pay more attention to 
these ins and outs of family con- 
nections ; one never knows where 
a name may turn up, and it is so 
awkward not to see at once where 
it stands." 

" It can't be a name of much 
consequence, or you would know 
exactly where it stood," said Mrs. 
Barlow. 

" If it were in the peerage, yes ; 
I am as well up in my peerage 



Pearl. 



451 






as most people, but I am ashamed 
to say that I have not studied my 
county families as seriously as I. 
ought. However, that is not so 
much to the purpose in this case. 
What we want to know is who 
these particular Redacres are, what 
antecedents they have, how they 
come to be in possession of Broom 
Hollow, and why they black their 
own boots." 

The two ladies and many other 
people watched for Sunday to see 
for themselves what the Redacres 
looked like. Ill luck would have 
it that Lady Wynmere was seized 
with a bad headache and prevent- 
ed from attending church ; but the 
Barlow family came over in full 
force, deserting their own parish 
a tiling they only did for some 
special reason and on very rare 
occasions. The effect produced 
on them, especially on the squire, 
by the occupants of the Hollow 
was startling. They had prepared 
themselves for everything except 
what they saw, and the shock was 
proportionately great. 

Colonel Redacre walked up the 
aisle with that air of well-bred ease 
and military command that was 
habitual to him, Balaklava's hard 
ring on the stone pavement adding 
a certain prestige of practical hero- 
ism to his general appearance. 
Mrs. Redacre and her daughters 
followed one by one, dignified, 
graceful, and beautifully dressed ; 
their mourning, which was not of 
the deepest, had been ordered, you 
remember, while they were under 
the impression that they had come 
into the dean's property, and Mme. 
Galbois had been restrained by no 
economical considerations. Every- 
thing from their bonnets to their 
boots was of the most elegant and 
becoming that good taste in Paris 
could command ; and we all know 



what an air of distinction fresh, 
handsome mourning gives even to 
a plain person. Mrs. Redacre 
looked queenly in her sweeping 
sable draperies ; and the girls, in 
their black silk costumes, so artis- 
tically looped and trimmed, and 
their pretty feathered hats, looked 
like two young princesses as they 
modestly drifted on after their 
mother ; the two boys, curly-head- 
ed, manly lads, embryo soldiers 
every inch of them, closed the pro- 
cession, and made a striking addi- 
tion to the group as they all stood 
together in their pew. 

"It passes belief!" exclaimed 
Mrs. Barlow, who hurried across in 
the pony carriage next day to talk 
the mystery over again with Lady 
Wynmere. " To say that that wo- 
man and those girls spend their time 
cooking and sweeping is simply 
preposterous. Or, if they do, there 
is something in it that won't bear 
looking into. Why, their dress in 
itself is a sight; the money it must 
have cost would pay the wages of 
three servants. I know what it 
costs to keep girls decently fitted 
out. And this has all been done 
in Paris, where the first-class dress- 
makers are so frightfully expen- 
sive !" 

"And they look respectable? 
How did they behave during the 
service ?" inquired Lady Wynmere. 

"Oh! perfectly; the father and 
mother, at least; indeed, all of 
them. The boys were having a pri- 
vate joke, nudging and winking at 
one another part of the time ; but 
the colonel scowled on them, and 
they set their faces like judges. 
The girls behaved very becomingly 
all through. One of them is a. 
perfect beauty ; the squire has done 
nothing but rave about her. He 
is for my calling on them at once. 
He says it's all nonsense there 



452 



Pearl. 



being anything amiss; he's ready to 
swear totheir respectability all round 
father, mother, and daughters." 

"I dare say. Just like a man! 
A pretty face makes a fool of the 
wisest of them. But it must not 
make fools of us, Mrs. Barlow. 
We must know who these people 
are before we commit the county. 
Is there no clue to be had ? Dear 
me ! it is most perplexing. You 
see they may turn out to be every- 
thing that is respectable, and then 
we shall all be in a fix for not hav- 
ing done our duty by them at once. 
However, if people will fly in the 
face of decency and come amongst 
us like discharged prisoners, with- 
out so much as a servant to intro- 
duce them, they must take the 
consequences." And Lady Wyn- 
mere danced on the edge of her 
chair, and put the tips of her fin- 
gers together as she spoke. 

" Could you not make inquiries 
of somebody in Paris?" suggested 
Mrs. Barlow. 

" I thought of that, but it is not 
a nice thing to do; it looks like 
playing detective. I dare say we 
shall come upon some track in the 
natural way when we are not look- 
ing out for it." 

*' But then the time is going by, 
and, as you say, if they turn out to 
be quite correct in every way, we 
shall be in an awkward position for 
having snubbed them." 

" I can't help that," said Lady 
Wynmere. " I don't wish to hurt 
anybody's feelings ; but I know my 
duty to the county." 

" I want the squire to make in- 
quiries about Colonel Redacre 
through a friend of ours at the 
Horse Guards," said Mrs. Barlow, 
who always felt cowed before Lady 
Wynmere 's superior breeding and 
wider experience of the laws that 
regulate good society. 



" The Horse Guards ! That re- 
minds me of Mr. Danvers. I will 
write to him this very day; he will 
easily find out about the colonel, 
and he has a relation living in 
Paris, I remember, who may be 
able to tell us all about these 
people." 

The little lady was quite elated 
at hitting on this clue. She beat 
her finger-tips together as if she 
were bestowing applause on a 
prima donna from her opera-box, 
and made that little dancing move- 
ment on the edge of her chair that 
was always, with her, indicative of 
interest and satisfaction. As soon 
as Mrs. Barlow left her ladyship 
sat down and wrote to Percy 
Danvers. 

The second post arrived at one 
at the Hollow, and this was a 
trial to the male members of the 
family. The dining-room was giv- 
en up to the classics of a morn- 
ing, and was called the school-room 
until the clock struck two, when it 
resumed its own name and natural 
functions for the family dinner. 
While the studies were going on 
no mortal ventured to enter the 
school-room ; nor did tutor or 
scholars ever stray from the learn- 
ed precincts under any pretence 
until the regulation hour. This 
was the trial, for the arrival of the 
postman suggested letters full of 
the interest of the unknown, and a 
whole hour must elapse before they 
could be read. 

The advent of the postman was, 
moreover, announced five minutes 
sooner than it need have been, and 
thus the pangs of expectation were 
cruelly andunnecessarily prolonged. 
And it was Fritz's doing. Fritz, a 
delightful dog, and excellent com- 
pany when he liked you, was given 
to taking violent dislikes to people, 



Pearl. 



453 



and the inoffensive, cherry-faced 
little postman had unluckily pro- 
voked one of these aversions. 
Regularly as the clock marked ten 
minutes to one Fritz opened fire 
on the enemy by a growl a series 
of growls kept up like the prelude 
of a fugue, crescendo, sempre cres- 
cendo^ then bursting into a cannon- 
ade of barks, louder and Ibuder, 
more and more infuriated, until 
the letter-carrier set foot with- 
'iri tie avenue, when Fritz's feel- 
ings eliminated in a perfect con- 
vulsiov. of rage that lasted until 
the letters had been delivered and 
the obroxious cherry-face had 
turned lu bacl\ on the Hollow. 
This perbrman^e was repeated 
every day ;s regijarly as if it were 
a part in the post^-delivery system. 
The first growl \\as a signal for 
whoever waswithi\ hearing to fly 
at Fritz, and, by coVxing or threat- 
ening, secure him Bodily till the 
enemy was out of farm's reach. 
If Jacob Mills cafcht him, he 
chained him to his k&nel, and the 
sight of the mercuria^ elastic little 
creature leaping and ^training in 
impotent rage was a aurce of en- 
joyment to the postma, which the 
boys said betokened \ cowardly 
soul and fully justifieaFritz's an- 
tipathy. This morning Fritz hap- 
pened to be master of tit situation, 
for it was raining heaviy and he 
was trotting a\out the) lawn, his 
mind bent on a Vbbit bkrrow that 
he had discovered^ w hen the hated 
footsteps sounded V the distance. 
He lay back his eW, and, like a 
hunter when the honsojlnds, away 
he flew to meet the pVman. Col- 
onel Redacre looked V f rom yir- 
\ gil, and caught sight o\ he white 
\ flash upon the grass. 

That dog will get us , Q trou . 
le. Go and whistle t 
\ring him back," he said. 
\ 



Billy made one bound through 
the window and whistled his loud- 
est ; but on flew Fritz, Billy after 
him, and the postman advancing 
slowly and exasperating the little 
Pomeranian by picking up stones 
preparatory to flinging them. 

" Don't you hit him !" cried Bil- 
ly ; " if you do it will be worse for 
you." 

The park gate was closed, and, 
though Fritz in his right mind 
could easily have run through it, 
Fritz in a fury could not; so Billy 
seized him by the collar and held 
him tight while the postman ad- 
vanced, his cherry cheeks alight 
with an angry glow. 

" Give me the letters," said Bil- 
ly, holding back the dog. " Don't 
be frightened ; he won't bite you, 
though it would serve you right if 
he did. What business have you to 
shy stones at him ?" 

"1 don't shy no stones at the 
brute. I never 'it 'im with no- 
thing 'arder than words, I didn't," 
said the postman. 

He gave the letters, and Billy, 
dragging muddy Fritz along with 
him, turned back to the house, 
where he found the whole family, 
including Mrs. Mills, assembled in 
the hall to witness the conquering 
hero's return. 

"He's an incorrigible little brute; 
Mills must'keep him chained of a 
morning, and not let him loose till 
after post-hour," said the colonel, 
taking the letters from Billy. 

" O sir ! excuse me, but the dog 
would feel that dreadfully he 
would indeed, sir," said Mrs. Mills. 

" It's the postman's fault, I'm 
sure," said Pearl ; " he must have 
hurt him, or he would not hate him 
so." 

" He swears he never hit him 
with any thing but hard words," said 
Billy. 



454 



Pearl. 



"That's just it, sir," said Mrs. 
Mills ; " I've 'card him use very bad 
language to the dog; and I can assure 
you he understands a deal more of 
what's said than people imagine, 
Fritz does." And she held up her 
finger with a knowing look at the 
company, while Fritz, as if to cor- 
roborate this statement of his 
friend, bounded up on her with his 
muddy paws, and wagged his dirty 
white brush of a tail against Mrs. 
Redacre, who, being less apprecia- 
tive of his attentions, started back 
with a little exclamation of alarm. 

" Hallo ! here's a piece of 
news that will surprise you!" cried 
Colonel Redacre, who, once out 
of the school-room, was breaking 
through rules with a school-boy's 
gusto. " Bob Redacre has returned 
from India just in time to drop in- 
to a peerage !" 

" Goodness me ! Bob ? I'm de- 
lighted to hear it!" exclaimed Mrs. 
Redacre. 

" It's the oddest thing ! He 
seems more surprised himself than 
anyone. Come in and hear what 
he says. And you, young gentle- 
men, be off to your books. It 
wants full three-quarters of an hour 
to the bell yet," said the master 
peremptorily. But the boys pro- 
tested that this was too hard on 
them ; they wanted to hear the 
news too. 

" Yes, let them off the rest of 
the time to-day," pleaded the v mo- 
ther. " L Lance is quite right : it is 
not every day they have a cousin 
turned into a lord." 

" How do you expect me to do 
anything witli the young rascals if 
you keep spoiling them in this 
way ?" demanded the colonel, and 
the boys saw it was all right, as it 
was sure to be when their mother 
interfered. 

It was of course very exciting, 



this news of Cousin Bob getting a 
peerage, though it would not be 
very interesting to enter into the 
history of the succession. Robert, 
or Bob Redacre, as he was called, 
was first cousin to Alice, and had 
been for years within three lives of 
the peerage of Ranperth ; but the 
event cf his ever succeeding to it 
had been so remote that neither lie 
nor any one else had ever reckrn- 
ed it among the chances of the fu- 
ture. He had gone out to Jndia 
as a lad, and worked as ha'd to 
make his fortune as if he Jad no 
expectations of any sort. He had 
succeeded, and had jijJt come 
home a moderately rich fian when 
the news reached him tVat he was 
a peer to boot. Lortf Ranperth 
and the two suriving Jeirs had all 
three died withh six \veeks, one in 
the hunting-fieti, the others from a 
railway collisim. 

" You are tie first person that I 
write to anncmce it to," said Bob 
to Colonel Rdacre. " I don't think 
there is anytody else who will be 
so glad to lear of my good luck. 
At any ra?, nobody helped me 
when I wnted help but you. I 
don't forge how often you tipped 
me in the dd Indian days when I 
was so deuedly hard up. I mean 
to run dovn to see you all the very 
first thinpvhen I get to London. 
Let me nd a line from you or 
Alice at ry club." 

"If hes a go*d fellow he'll tip 
us now," said L-nce. 

" It wil be horrid shame if he 
doesn't," sau'S^y; " he must be 
as rich as a ew - 

" Dear T - l S !l > wllat are we to do 
about his omin S dow> n?" said Mrs. 
Redacre her thoughts flying at 
once , domestic incongruities. 
" We m ' t P os sibly receive him 
with'"' a serva nt in the house 
wit1 ,obody to wait on him?" 



Pearl. 



455 



" Lance and I will wait on him," 
said Billy. " Don't we wait on papa, 
and see to his hot water, and keep 
his clothes all right, and black his 
boots till he could shave in them, 
they are so bright ?" 

" I never was better waited on in 
my life," said the colonel ; " and if 
Bob Redacre can't make himself 
comfortable here, he's not the good 
fellow he used to be. The peer 
hasn't had time to change the man 
yet. I hope it. never may with 
Bob. I don't believe it will. Just 
write to him, Alice, and tell him 
the kind of primitive Christian 
household we are, and, if he is 
frightened, he won't come; if not, 
he will have a hearty welcome, and 
we will do the best we can for him." 

" Yes; and I will cook him such 
lovely dinners !" said Pearl. "Tell 
him how beautifully I do curry, 
mamma; that will encourage him." 

The boys hurrahed and were in 
high glee. 

Polly was the only one who did 
not seem to share the general satis- 
faction at the prospect of the visit ; 
but she said nothing, and in the 
excitement of the conversation no 
one noticed the cloud on her face. 

"Was there ever anything so ab- 
surd ?" she said, following Pearl into 
the kitchen when it was time to serve 
the roast mutton. " The idea of in- 
viting a peer to stay with us when 
we have to cook the dinner ! But I 
don't suppose he'll come. I hope 
he won't ; it would be too humiliat- 
ing." 

" If papa doesn't feel humiliated, 
I don't see why anybody else 
should," said Pearl. " But I dare 
say Lord Ranperth will find it great 
fun it will be so new to him ; 
though from what papa says he has 
often had to put up with worse 
quarters than he will have here. 
And mamma is so fond of him, he 



must be nice. He may be kind to 
the boys, too." 

" You are ahvays thinking of the 
boys," said. Polly pettishly; but 
she added quickly, in a softer'tone, 
" You always think of everybody 
except yourself. What a lot more 
trouble you will have ! We can't 
set him down to a roast every day, 
and you will burn your eyes out 
making little dishes. I wish you 
would teach me how to do them. 
Why don't you let me help in the 
cooking ?" 

" You do help me," said Pearl. 
" Put those potatoes into that round 
dish. If you would only be happy, 
Pol, and not pine so after the old 
life, that would help me more, than 
anything. It would indeed, dar- 
ling. But it makes me miserable to 
see you fretting." 

" I'm sure I never complain," 
said Polly. 

" No ; I sometimes wish you 
would to me. It might be a re- 
lief to you; and I see when you 
are worrying just as well as if you 
spoke. Now, there's a darling, do 
be glad about Lord Ranperth. I 
don't mind the trouble a pin, and 
it will be such a pleasant break 
to us all, to say nothing of the 
glory of having a lord to entertain. 
There, that will do. Run out and 
ring the bell. Lance has forgotten 
it, and it is past two, I see." 

She gave Polly a kiss and placed 
the dishes in the slide, and then 
ran to wash her hands. 

It was true what she had said 
about Polly's helping her best 
by being happy. It was a dead 
weight on her when Polly's brow 
grew clouded and her spirits 
drooped ; and the fact of her never 
complaining was no consolation, 
for Pearl knew that her silence 
arose, not from courage or resigna- 
tion, but from remorse. The mem- 



456 



Pearl. 



ory of that letter was always in her 
mind, upbraiding her, embittering 
every occupation, poisoning her 
life. Pearl first hoped that the 
total change of scene and the ab- 
sence of associations would have 
reconciled her sister by degrees to 
their altered circumstances; but as 
the days went by, this hope grew 
weaker and weaker. Sometimes 
she wished Polly would vent her 
unhappiness in grumbling, or at 
least ease her heart now and then 
by pouring out its bitter thoughts 
in words ; but if she did not feel 
the need to do this, there was no 
use inviting her. 

Lord Ranperth's answer came 
with little delay. He was delight- 
ed at* the prospect of his visit. The 
picture Alice drew of the household 
was like a chapter in a story-book. 
All he stipulated for was that he 
should be allowed to black his own 
boots. He had learned to do it 
many a day ago when he was up in 
the hills and dependent on those 
ignorant dogs, the blacks, for every- 
thing. 

" He must be charming, mamma," 
said Pearl ; " I am sure we shall 
be great friends." 

Even Polly lost her terrors when 
she saw how simple and friendly 
the new peer was, and she began to 
build castles on the strength of this 
visit of his an occupation which 
had a soothing, even an exhilarat- 
ing, effect on her spirits. Lord 
Ranperth was not coming for ten 
days, however; there was some bus- 
iness connected with his succession 
to the title and estates which must 
be attended to at once. 

Meantime the Hollow was en- 
livened by the anticipation of his 
visit ; Polly busied herself adorning 
his room with muslin curtains, and 
pink bows, and various other little 
delicacies which she thought would 



add to his comfort. Then there 
were letters from Paris, very 
pleasant and amusing. M. de Ker- 
bec wrote at great length to the 
colonel, giving him news of what 
was said and done '* dans le Fau- 
bourg," and Baron Leopold wrote 
a long letter telling him all about 
the political situation of. France, 
and the great reforms he, the baron, 
hoped to effect in various depart- 
ments of the public service. " I 
have communicated my ideas to 
the emperor," said the Minister of 
Public Worship, " and his majes- 
ty observed to me, 'I discover, 
baron, that you have le genie or- 
ganisateur. Vous etes rhomme qinl 
me faut' You will understand, my 
dear colonel, the satisfaction these 
words afforded me, while you will 
sympathize in considering the bur- 
den of responsibility they place 
upon my shoulders." 

" What a vain ass that man is !" 
exclaimed Colonel Redacre as he 
read the letter, indulging in his 
loud laugh over its concluding re- 
marks. 

Mme. de Kerbec sent a volume 
of twelve pages to Polly by the 
same post. It was full of her 
troubles with the milliner and 
Mme. Galbois, who still selfishly 
refused to consider her face, and 
sent in bills that actually made 
one's hair stand on end. *' My life 
is embittered to me by that wo- 
man," she said, " and I miss your 
kind sympathy and Pearl's more 
and more. Our dear friends the 
Leopolds are as kind and charming 
as ever. Mme. Leopold's sympa- 
thy is a great comfort to me; but I 
wish they were in our monde. I am 
doing my best to get them frankly 
received in the Faubourg; she is 
such an excellent woman, and 
Blanche is a sweet girl. They are 
now in the verv best set that is, the 



Pearl. 



457 



best outside the Faubourg. The 
Corps Diplomatique received them 
quite dansfintimitc. They are giv- 
ing a grand dinner on the loth 
there are to be four ambassadors 
and their wives to meet the Prin- 
cess Matliilde. They have invited 
us, and, though I hesitated long on 
account of the princess, 1 decided 
on accepting. I felt it would be 
kind to the Leopolds. They natural- 
ly wish to muster a few good names 
on the occasion ; and there being 
so many ambassadors will give the 
affair a foreign character that will, 
I hope, prevent my getting into 
trouble in the Faubourg. My 
dress is to be eau de Nil satin trim- 
med with point d'Alencon, and I 
shall wear all my diamonds. It 
will gratify the Leopolds, and I am 
always glad to be of use. How I 
wish you were all here and going 
to this dinner! I expect you and 
Pearl to come and pay me a visit 
soon. Everybody will be so glad 
to see you !" 

"There never was such a goose 
as that woman !" said Polly, when 
she had read the letter. 

" Except that man," said the 
colonel. 

" M. Leopold ?" 

" No, De Kerbec. The idea of 
his letting her talk such rank non- 
sense." 

"But he can't help that, papa. 
You couldn't help mamma talking 
nonsense if she were a goose," 
said Billy. 

And his father had to admit that, 
under those circumstances, he 
would himself have been powerless. 

There was nothing, in any of 
these letters which seemed calcu- 
lated to affect the social position of 
the Redacres ; and yet it so fell out 
that they did. 

Mrs. Barlow's coachman chanc- 
ed to be down in the village at the 



post-hour, and turned in to the post- 
office to see if there were letters 
for the family. He stood by while 
the contents of the mail-bag were 
being sorted, and noticed the three 
envelopes with coronets on the flap 
put aside for the Redacres. 

" Do the people at the 'Ollow 
have lords and ladies writing to 
them ?" he inquired, examining 
Mme. de Kerbec's scented epistle, 
with its elaborate gold and blue 
cipher surmounted by the coun- 
tess' coronet. 

"Yes;- and they write to lords, 
too," said the cherry-faced little 
postman. " I've took down three 
letters to a lord these last ten days 
or so. Lord Ranperth his name 
is." 

"Queer folk they seem to be!" 
said the man, as he departed with 
the family budget. 

That same afternoon he drove 
his mistress over to Wynmere 
Park. 

" Rampart ? There is no such 
name in the peerage," said Lady 
Wynmere, who was busy clipping 
flowers in the conservatory, and 
went on with the work while Mrs. 
Barlow talked. 

" I thought not," said the 
squire's wife, who had not thought 
anything of the sort. " But I 
thought I would just tell you 
about it. It might lead to a clue." 

" Not if the name is Rampart ; 
there is no such title in existence," 
said Lady Wynmere in her mildly 
emphatic way. " Are you sure it 
is Rampart ?" 

" That was the name my maid 
said; but she may have got it 
wrong." 

"There is Ranwold, and Ran- 
perth, and Ranymede, and Ran " 

" Ranperth ! You may be sure 
that was it," said Mrs. Barlow. 

" One ought not to use a peer's 



458 



Pearl. 



name in that light way," said Lady 
Wynmere. " Come, and we will look 
into the Ranperth title and see 
what light it throws on these Red- 
acres." 

She drew off her gardening- 
gloves, and hurried into the draw- 
ing-room with her swift little bird- 
like gait, while Mrs. Barlow march- 
ed heavily on behind. 

"Bring me that book," said my 
lady to the butler ; and he imme- 
diately brought the ponderous red 
volume from the library, where it 
lived on a round table by itself, and 
placed it before her. 

" Let us see ! Ranperth you 
think it was ? Here it is : .' Aga- 
memnon, eighth Baron Ranperth, 
born 17 , succeeded to the title 
in 1 8 , married Martha, dau. of 
Josuah Wood of Brighton [evident- 
ly a nobody ] ; no issue [all the 
better].' Well, I don't see what 
this tells us. Stop aminute : 'Heir, 
J. Agam., first cousin by, etc. ; heir 
pres., Ralph Algernon, born, etc. 
[here we come ] ; failing issue, to 
Robert Redacre, son of General 
Redacre, of Holton Hall, Berks, and 
Elizabeth Herbert [ho ! ho ! we 
are getting on. Herbert first-rate ; 
they are people with blood in 
their veins, these Redacres. I 
knew they must be if they were 
genuine ; but there are counterfeit 
Redacres, as there are counterfeit 
Herberts, and Wynmeres too, for 
the matter of that]. Elizabeth, 

daughter of .' " Lady Wynmere 

carried her finger along the line, 
and danced lightly on the edge 
of the sofa like a bird gently beat- 
ing its wings before it takes a 
flight, while she read on and on, 
her flute-like voice rising to its 
clearest treble as she advanced. 

" The late Lord Ranperth is not 
a month dead. This must be the 
man," with her finger on the 



name. " I don't remember who 
succeeded to the title, but it is 
evidently one of these three. Red- 
acre comes last, and the other two 
are younger than he by a year 
and eighteen months respectively. 
I should not think he is the present 
peer; but it is something to know 
these Redacres are of that stock. 
I am very glad to have found out 
that much. In fact, I don't see 
now what there is to prevent my 
calling." 

" Only, as you say, there are 
counterfeits," said Mrs. Barlow; 
" and there is nothing here to prove 
that thes*e are genuine ones." 

" I beg your pardon. To my 
mind, the fact of Lord Ranperth 
being on friendly terms with them 
is. sufficient proof. There is noth- 
ing a family resents more than 
these counterfeit names ; even a 
branch that has deteriorated one 
keeps aloof from as much as possi- 
ble. Depend upon it, whoever the 
present Lord Ranperth is, he would 
not recognize these Redacres if 
they were not the real thing. I 
must get the other book and look 
out all about the Redacre family. 
Mr. Danvers has gone over to Paris 
for a week, so he won't be down 
here just yet ; but I really think I 
must risk it and call at the Hollow 
without waiting to see him." 

Caution prevailed, however, and 
Lady Wynmere did not call. It 
was safer to wait, and, all things 
considered, it could make no mate- 
rial difference. Meantime a great 
event was at hand. 

Five days later Lord Ranperth 
came down. Colonel Redacre was 
at the station to meet him. 

" Well, old fellow, here you are ! 
The same old Bob as ever, eh?" 
said the colonel, giving his hand a 
shake that nearly wrenched it 
off. 



Pearl 



459 



" Who should I be but the same 
old Bob?" was the hearty rejoinder. 

They were walking off arm-in- 
arm when Colonel Redacre re- 
membered that his guest had pro- 
bably a portmanteau to be seen to. 

" To be sure ! And a box, too a 
big black box, rather the worse for 
wear, for it has come all the 
way from India with me ; a few 
knick-knacks for Alice and the girls. 
Will you see to it, please ?" This 
was to the station-master. 

" Yes, sir. It is addressed to 
the 'Ollow?" 

" No, it has no address, only my 
name." 

"What name, sir?" 

" Lord Ranperth." 

The station-master's countenance 
would have made a study for a 
painter. He had seen a live lord 
once in his life before ; it was on 
the hustings, when a successful elec- 
tion raised triumphant salvos 
round the noble candidate, and en- 
circled him with the double halo of 
a lord and a member of Parlia- 
ment ; but here was a lord standing 
on the platform like a common 
man, talking to him, Jenkins, about 
his portmanteau, and called Bob 
by Colonel Redacre, who blacked 
his own shoes ! The wonder was 
over the county before nightfall. 

Meantime the hero of the hour 
had been introduced at the Hol- 
low, and was soon as much at 
home there as the master of the 
house. He and Mrs. Redacre were 
friends as well as cousins, and had 
endless subjects to talk over in 
common ; and Cousin Bob, as he in- 
sisted on being called by the whole 
family, was a popular man with the 
boys before he had been an hour 
in the house. He would have no 
Greek or Latin going on while he 
was there, he said. 

"He is a regular brick!" said 



Lance ; and Billy agreed that he 
was. 

"Well, you see, there was no- 
thing to be frightened at," said 
Pearl, when she and Polly were 
alone in their room ; "he is just 
like one of ourselves." 

" He is one of ourselves," said 
Polly. " How absurd it seems ! 
But I am glad he came. It will 
cheer up papa. 1 wonder if the 
people about know of his being 
here ?" 

"What do we care whether they 
do or not ?" 

But Polly had her own reasons 
for caring, and fell asleep with her 
pretty head full of dreams of the 
county calling and being most sat- 
isfactorily snubbed by herself and 
the rest of the family. 

The first part of the dream be- 
gan to come true two days later. 
They had all gone out for a walk, 
all except Pearl, who stayed at 
home to attend to household cares, 
when Lady Wynmere's barouche 
came rolling along the road beyond 
the hill, and then down to the 
Hollow. 

" Good gracious ! here are visi- 
tors, and I shall have to open the 
door!" exclaimed Pearl, as she 
spied the carriage from the kitchen 
window. The office of hall-porter 
had been allotted to the boys, who 
so far had never had occasion to 
exercise it ; but there was no one 
in the house now except Pearl, and 
for the first time she was conscious 
of bitter mortification at the ab- 
sence of any domestic service. 
Luckily, however, Jacob Mills was 
at hand and went forward to open 
the gate. 

" Are Colonel and Mrs. Redacre 
at home ?" asked Lady Wynmere. 

"No, my lady." 

She handed her card and drove 
away. 



460 



Pearl. 



"Well, I never beard anything 
so mean, so disgustingly mean !" 
protested Polly when they came 
home and heard of the visit. " It's 
all because you are here, Cousin 
Bob. She never would have come 
near us if it were not for that." 

Bob laughed. 

"What a snob the woman must 
be !" he said. 

"And such a barefaced snob!" 
said Polly. " Mamma, of course 
you won't return her visit ?" 

"We must consider about that, 
dear," said Mrs. Redacre; "it is 
certainly not very complimentary to 
us, but there is something to be said 
for Lady VVynmere." 

" What, mamma ?" said Pearl. 
" She has behaved in the most rude, 
unlady-like way ; I don't see what 
excuse she has to offer." 

"You are right, Pearl. I am for 
snubbing her," said Lord Ran- 
perth. " What do you say, Hugh ?" 
he added, as the colonel came in, 
with a scowl on his face which 
was accounted for by the unusually 
heavy thump with which Balaklava 
pounded along. 

"You men never understand those 
sort of things," said Mrs. Redacre ; 
"you had better leave us to settle it." 

" What is it all about ?" inquired 

Jiej; htTshrand. Then, when he 

heard, " Nonsense ! of course you 

must return her call. It need not 



snub her and the rest of them ! 
You may be sure the county will 
all come trooping after her now. 
A nasty, vulgar set they are !" 

Lord Ranperth laughed. s 

" That's it, Polly ! I would not 
be sat upon. I would snub them 
all round." 

"Don't encourage her in such 
nonsense, Bob," said Mrs. Red- 
acre, who was mortified to see this 
public display of vanity and tem- 
per in Polly, though in her heart 
she was full of indulgence for it. 
" We have really no right to feel 
annoyed with Lady Wynmere or 
anybody else. When people fly in 
the face of society by living in the 
way we do, they must expect so- 
ciety to resent it ; it is quite natu- 
ral. Nobody knows anything about 
us; we might be most undesirable 
acquaintances for anything Lady 
Wynmere could tell to the con- 
trary." 

" Then why did she all of a sud- 
den discover that we were desira- 
ble acquaintances?" said Polly. 
" It is just because Cousin Bob is 
here!" 

"Very likely, and very natural," 
said her mother. There was a 
general outcry at this, Cousin Bob 
joining loudest in it. 

" Yes," persisted Mrs. Redacre ; 
" it may be snobbish and anything 
else vou like, but the fact of Lord 



go farther, if you don't like; but Ranperth being our guest settles 



you must not-^be uncivil because 
she happens to be^a snob." 

"Yes, that is just iV' s said Polly. 
" We will leave cards, ancl fh&njier 
ladyship will call again and \jn- 
vite us all with Cousin Bob Vo 
dinner, and we will refuse, an 
will keep on refusing, and just le' 
her see that we don't mean 
to be patronized by her imperti-* 
nence. How nice it will be to! 



the question of our social position, 
and informs the county that we are 
people whom it may visit." 

There was a good deal of ani- 
mated discussion as to the justice 
of this opinion, and it ended in 
Mrs. Redacre's gaining over the 
others to her view. But it was 
agreed that they would be in no 
hurry to return Lady Wynmere 's 
tardy civility. 



TO BE O-'ONTINUED. 
/ 



Italy and the Pope. 



461 



ITALY AND THE POPE. 



A REPLY TO AN ARTICLE IN " SCRIBNER's MAGAZINE." 









A LARGE number of modern 
writers publish what they are pleas- 
ed to call "histories" of certain 
periods, for the purpose of illus- 
trating or confirming a theory held 
by the writers themselves. Hence 
follow a manipulation of facts ; an 
unwarranted credulity when favo- 
rable testimony offers ; and an 
otherwise unintelligible blindness 
when contradictory or contrary 
facts obtrude themselves. Writers 
of this class, with preconceived 
ideas on important questions, pro- 
ceed to illustrate the accuracy of 
their opinions on these questions 
by such an arrangement of histori- 
cal facts as may justify the judg- 
ment formed. Very many writers 
of to-day are open to this charge, 
and, as a consequence, the people 
pass entirely erroneous opinions 
on some of the plainest facts of 
history. A notable instance, on a 
small scale, of this practice appear- 
ed in the July number of Scribner's 
Magazine, in an article entitled 
' Italy and the Pope." The article 
was written by Mr. Louis Monti, 
who is presumably an Italian and 
has probably enjoyed ample facilities 
for a thorough acquaintance with 
the facts which form the basis for 
his theories regarding Italy and the 
Pope. 

Mr. Monti laments that after an 
absence from the United States of 
twelve years, during which he was 
in the service of our country, he 
finds on his return a strange and un- 
accountable misapprehension here 
on the subject of the relations ex- 
isting between the Pope and the 



Italian government. The misap- 
prehension complained of is this : 
A general opinion prevails among 
men that there is a relation between 
the spiritual and the temporal 
power of the Pope, so that an in- 
vasion of the temporal dominion 
of the Roman Pontiff and a reten- 
tion of authority within it by any 
other sovereign are an indirect at- 
tack on the spiritual power of the 
Holy See. 

Mr, Monti endeavors to demon- 
strate the novelty of this opinion, 
its falsity, and he adds a claim 
that in his present circumstances 
the Pope can far more readily at- 
tend to the duties imposed on him 
by reason of his position than if 
he were encumbered with the cares 
of his temporal dominions. 

Mr. Monti seems to be under 
the impression that there may be 
found Catholic theologians who 
assert as a dogma of faith the right 
of the Pope to his temporalities, 
for he asserts : " I do not belie\*e 
any Catholic theologian in Italy 
would assert as a dogma necessary 
to salvation his belief in the tem- 
poral right of the Pope to these 
few square miles of territory." 
Mr. Monti may feel quite assured 
on this point: no Catholic, theolo- 
gian or not, in any part of the 
world dreams of such an assertion. 
The belief of Catholics in this re- 
gard may be summed up in the 
following proposition : 

In the present condition of the 
church and civil society there is a 
moral necessity that the Roman 
Pontiff should possess a civil prin- 



462 



Italy and the Pope. 



cipality whereby his spiritual inde- 
pendence is guaranteed ; and hence 
Catholics recognize it as a special 
design of Providence that such a 
state of independence is secured in 
the sovereignty of the States of the 
Church. 

It follows, then, that as there is a 
moral necessity for the Pope's civil 
independence, an attack on this 
independence affects more or less 
his liberty of action as head of the 
church. Mr. Monti considers this 
a novel theory introduced among 
the people of this country, whilst 
abroad the distinction between the 
two powers is readily understood, 
and no one imagines that the spiri- 
tual independence of the Holy See 
is attacked or lessened by the for- 
cible possession of its temporalities. 
First as to the novelty of this view : 
In the year 1848 Vincent Gioberti 
(an authority whose word should 
have weight in this question) said : 
" The temporal power of the Pope is 
of great aid in preserving the inde- 
pendence of the Holy See in the sphere 
of religion" In the same year Au- 
relio Bianchi-Giovini published a 
translation of Connenin's pam- 
phlet on the Independence of Italy, 
and in this translation (pp. 55-56) 
he wrote : " The Pope is head of 
the church. He cannot exercise that 
office in a fitting way unless he is free 
and unless he lives in a country free 
from all foreign influence" During 
the same year the Piedmontese 
Minister of the Interior sent a note 
to the parish priests of that country, 
directing them to excite their peo- 
ple to arm against Austria ; and 
among the reasons alleged in this 
document (Aug. i, 1848) is the fol- 
lowing : "If the emperor should suc- 
ceed in Lombardy he would not be 
satisfied with the limits of his old do- 
minion, but would seize the Legations 
from the Pope, thus destroying his 



political independence, to the grave 
peril of his ecclesiastical freedom." 
After the outrageous action of the 
insurgent party, whereby Pius IX. 
was forced to quit Rome and seek 
refuge at Gaeta, he addressed an 
appeal from that city to the Cath- 
olic powers. Spain sent, in re- 
sponse, a note to the European 
courts, in which she declared her 
intention "of doing everything for 
the Pope which may be necessary to 
re-establish the visible head of the 
church in that state of liberty, inde- 
pendence, dignity, and authority which 
the exercise of his sacred duties im- 
peratively demands'' We may add 
here that during this exile at 
Gaeta the opinion was openly ex- 
pressed that Pius IX. was not free, 
because he was in the dominions of 
the King of Naples. Even Gio- 
berti himself made this accusation 
against Pius IX. Yet King Ferdi- 
nand was a zealous, devoted Catho- 
lic king, who gladly welcomed the 
Pope to his territory ; while to-day 
the Pope is in his own city, and a 
monarch, who is assuredly neither 
a zealous nor devoted Catholic, 
and who besides is inimical to the 
Papacy, usurps authority and calls 
himself sovereign, and the men 
who lamented the Pope's subjection 
under the Neapolitan Ferdinand 
indignantly deny his want of 
freedom under the subalpine 
Humbert ! In the year 1849 
Adolph Thiers declared : " With- 
out the authority of the Supreme 
Pontiff Catholic unity would be de- 
stroyed ; without this unity Catholi- 
city would perish amid the sects, and 
the moral world, now so much shaken, 
would be completely overthrown. But 
this unity could not be preserved un- 
less the Pope is fully independent. . . . 
Nor could it be preserved if in that 
territory which the centuries hcive as- 
signed ana the nations oj the earth 



Italy and the Pope. 



463 



have confirmed to him another sove- 
reign, prince, or people ruled." In 
1865, when the Franco-Italian 
treaty was under discussion in the 
French Chambers, M. Thiers an- 
swered those who claimed that the 
Pope would be free and indepen- 
dent even after the loss of his tem- 
poralities. His argument was that 
unity would be destroyed and each 
country would have its own reli- 
gious chief. 

The . Gazzetta Piemontese, a tho- 
roughly ministerial paper, in its 
number of December i, 1867, 
used these words : " France has 
never admitted that Rome should 
become, in fact, the capital of Italy. 
The reduction of the Supreme Pon- 
tiff to the grade of subject, the re- 
nunciation of a certain territorial 
immunity of his see or the trans- 
fer of that see elsewhere, are 
propositions which as yet are op- 
posed to the judgment of all the 
powers, Catholic and non-Catho- 
lic." 

A so-called liberal paper of 
Paris, L'Avenir National, speaking 
of the proposed restoration of Pius 
IX. to his throne after the forcible 
occupation of Rome by Victor Em- 
anuel, said that France, to be con- 
sistent, must either interfere in 
favor of the Pope or abolish the 
Catholic religion; for on the Pope's 
absolute freedom as a temporal 
ruler depended his liberty of com- 
munication with Catholics outside 
of Italy. 

Leopold Galeotti, an Italian revo- 
lutionist, in his work, The Sove- 
reignty and Temporal Government of 
the Popes (pp. 120 et seq.), says : 

" The temporal sovereignty guarantees 
to the Papacy independence in precise- 
ly the same manner that her revenues as- 
sure liberty to the church ; because this 
sovereignty removes the supreme spiritual 
power from the usurpations of civil au- 



thority ; because it withdraws the arbi- 
tratory office of the popes from the sinis- 
ter influence of political dissensions ; 
and, lastly, because it removes from the 
papal decrees the suspicion of offend- 
ing the reciprocal dignity of the Chris- 
tian nations. If the Pope remained at 
Avignon he would have become a bene- 
ficiary of France, and no one outside of 
France would have recognized him ; a 
Pope subject to Charles V. could never 
have acted as arbiter for Francis I. ; a 
Pope subject to Napoleon would have 
been a dignitary of the French Empire ; a 
Pope subject to Austria would neither be 
recognized on the Vistula nor the Seine. 
Do not tell me that treaties and conven- 
tions can guarantee the independence of 
the popes. Treaties may declare that the 
Pope is theoretically independent of all 
civil governments ; diplomatic conven- 
tions might withdraw the sacred person 
of the pontiff and his court from every 
appearance of subjection ; but neither 
treaties nor conventions can change the 
force of facts, nor much less lessen the 
force of public opinion, before which 
both treaties and conventions are impo- 
tent. The suspicion of hidden influence 
and underhand inspiration would for 
ever destroy respect, reverence, and con- 
fidence ; and suspicion, whether coming 
from the throne or the square, is the 
most desolating demon of society." 

With one other name we close 
our list of authorities. Dr. Dollin- 
ger, the head of the new Protestant 
Church of Germany, on the nth 
of September, 1861, at a meeting 
of the German Catholic Association, 
formulated his ideas on the tem- 
poral power as follows : 

" ist. When the Pope defends his 
temporal dominions against the attacks 
of foreign malice and foreign cupidity, 
he defends a most just cause. 2d. The 
cause of the Pope is the cause of all 
legitimate monarchs ; the cause of pub- 
lic law, of peace and order in Europe. 
3d. Furthermore, the church has abso- 
lute need of a supreme and independent 
head. The Pope neither can nor ought 
to be the subject of any monarch or 
foreign government. He should be 
the well-being and unity of the church 
demand it sovereign. This sovereignly 
neither can nor ought to be in name 



464 



Italy and the Pope. 



only ; it must have a'reality, a solid foun- 
dation ; he must have, then, a territory 
with sovereign rights, and if he be de- 
spoiled of this, his restoration becomes 
the common affair of Christianity." 

It is scarcely necessary to give a 
more extended list of authorities 
in support of the claim that the 
opinion which Mr. Monti endea- 
vors to combat is not a new theory. 
The action of Pius VII. toward 
the great Napoleon should have 
been enough. Has Mr. Monti 
ever heard that our late pontiff, 
Pius IX., in 1860 and often after, de- 
clared that the temporal power was 
given to the popes by a special de- 
sign of Providence, in order to se- 
cure their complete freedom of 
action ; and that the bishops of the 
world, assembled in Rome in 1860, 
expressed the identical conviction, 
and presented to the Holy See an 
address containing a magnificent 
defence of the temporal power of 
the Roman Pontiff? It is known 
that solemn excommunication is 
declared against all persons who 
have brought about the invasion 
of the States of the Church. The 
fact that the name of no promi- 
nent Italian was officially mention- 
ed as having incurred this penalty 
does not afford much comfort or 
satisfaction. The only novelty in 
this entire matter is that a writer 
should be found who honestly be- 
lieves that the conviction of Ca- 
tholics with regard to the temporal 
power of the popes is of modern 
growth. Mr. Monti is, no doubt, 
perfectly sincere in his own belief; 
but, as has been shown, some of 
Mr. Monti's political friends very 
materially differ from him on this 
point. 

Mr. Monti's next claim is this : 
Granting the legality of the Pope's 
title on the ground of long posses- 
sion, yet, after all, this right is a mere 



human one, and not divine. The 
theory which obtains to-day in the 
world is that governments derive 
their right to govern from the con- 
sent of the governed. This theory 
is applicable here. But the Ro- 
mans have demanded a change of 
government. This demand was 
evinced in the Plebiscite. Mr. 
Monti then devotes his attention 
to the events in Italy during the 
pontificate of Pius IX., and in this 
connection he speaks of the " for- 
eign mercenaries " who were called 
in, and that these <l foreign fana- 
tics murdered Italians under the 
plea of defending the head of the 
church." He asserts that the Law 
of the Guarantees assures the pon- 
tiff complete liberty of action ; and, 
in fact, that the Pope's condition is 
infinitely improved under the mild 
sway of the Piedmontese Humbert. 
As to the right of the Pope being 
merely a human one, my right to 
my purse is purely a human one, 
and yet the infraction of that right 
implies -a transgression of a divine 
law. If some stranger stole, for 
example, a hand-organ, the fact 
would constitute a theft; and if the 
perpetrator was assisted in the 
transaction by some of his friends 
of musical proclivities, the moral 
aspect of the case is not in the 
slightest degree altered. On the 
same principle, if the seizure of the 
Pope's dominions was effected by 
ten, twenty, or twenty thousand 
men, the participators were none 
the less thieves and spoilers, and 
their number in no degree frees 
them from amenability to God's 
law punishing theft. 

In the fifth chapter of the Acts 
of the Apostles we read of a man 
and his wife selling a piece of 
ground and retaining a portion of 
the price. They sold it in order 
to give the proceeds to the first 



Italy and the Pope. 



465 



i 



Pope, St. Peter. It was a conces- 
sion a transfer of dominion to the 
pontiff. The man and his wife co- 
veted a portion of the Pope's do- 
minion ; so Ananias came, with a 
lie in his mouth, to St. Peter. What 
a dreary solitude would seize the 
Piedmontese ministerial apartments 
and parliamentary chambers if the 
like effect followed a like crime to- 
day ! Ananias fell dead at St. Pe- 
ter's feet. His wife, Saphira, came 
later. She, too, was concerned in 
this annexation of papal dominion. 
The same fate befell her. Now, ac- 
cording to the Subalpine theory, as 
illustrated in the article on ' 4 Italy 
and the Pope," this was all wrong. 
These people gave their money 
and they yearned for its recovery. 
It was a human right involved, and 
they might have thought that the 
Pope could more readily attend to 
his spiritual duties if he was free 
from the cares of temporal matters. 
We have here also a kind of for- 
eign interference when Almighty 
God upheld the cause of the Vicar 
of his Divine Son. 

As to the famous Plebiscite, or 
vote whereby in October, 1870, the 
Romans expressed their ardent de- 
sire for annexation to the constitu- 
tional kingdom of Victor Ema- 
nuel, it might be said that even the 
people have no divine or human 
right to do what they please ; but 
we prefer to examine this so-called 
popular justification for the " right 
of Italy to her capital." It does 
not seem to matter that Rome was 
never the capital of Italy, and that 
Italy itself is merely a geographical 
expression which is temporarily ve- 
rified. Before entering on our ex- 
amination let us ask Mr. Monti 
what he supposes would be the ac- 
tion of the present Subalpine rulers 
in Rome if a revolution were to 
break out to-morrow in Italy? 

VOL. XXVIII. 30 



Would not the ministers be bound 
to inquire if a majority of the Ital- 
ians desired such a change as the 
revolution aimed at? Then, if the 
majority, by a plebiscite or other 
means, pronounced for a republic, 
would not the ministers at once 
resign, and would not Humbert of 
Savoy announce himself a candi- 
date for the presidency? These 
questions seem to require an affir- 
mative answer, granting Mr. Mon- 
ti's premises; but such a logical 
consequence would scarcely be al- 
lowed by the Subalpine party. On 
the contrary, shooting and hanging 
would rapidly and effectually dis- 
pose of the patriots ; and Humbert 
of Savoy would, with as easy a con- 
science as he must possess to-day, 
sign his name " King of Italy, by 
the grace of God and the will of the 
people" 

Eighteen years ago there was a 
flood-tide of enthusiasm at Nice, when 
her people groaned for annexation 
to France at least, we were told so ; 
and the returns seemed to justify 
the report, for only elei>en men were 
found faithful to Italy, whilst seven 
thousand stretched their arms to- 
wards France. It must be added, 
for history's sake, that these eleven 
seem in time to have converted the 
seven thousand to their way of 
thinking, just as the forty-seven of 
the Roman Plebiscite appear to 
have brought to their way of think- 
ing a majority of the forty-odd 
thousand who voted for annexa- 
tion. 

The number of qualified voters 
in Rome on the day the Plebiscite 
was taken was 64,800. Now, 40,- 
785 votes are claimed as having 
been cast for annexation. An ex- 
amination of this vote reveals the 
following facts: ist. There came 
into Rome with the army a very 
large contingent of camp-followers 



4 65 



Italy and the Pope. 



(to whom, or to a similar class, we 
are accustomed in this country to 
apply the name " bummer "), who 
were utilized on the day of voting 
as Roman citizens. Having been in 
Rome from its occupation until af- 
ter the Plebiscite, the writer knows 
of what he speaks. 2d- Any per- 
son in Italy who had been born 
in Rome could vote, and gov- 
ernment employes in Florence 
and elsewhere who came under 
this category were furnished free 
passes to Rome, in order that they 
might vote. 3d. No challenge was 
made either as to age or resi- 
dence, and it is notorious that 
many of the first class enumerated 
above were not of competent age. 
4th. Some Germans stated after the 
election that they voted repeatedly 
and at different wards. They con- 
sidered the election a fraud, and 
acted accordingly. 

Now, with the opportunities for 
fraud presented, with the known 
frauds perpetrated, it seems to re- 
quire too much of one's credulity 
when he is asked to concede the 
legality and honesty of the Plebis- 
cite. We add a last reason for dis- 
trust, which is this : The Subal- 
pine government has never been 
deterred from gaining a point by 
scruples about honesty or right. 
It has time and again violated sol- 
emn treaties ; bribed officials of a 
friendly power to rebel; and used 
every species of deceit and dissim- 
ulation. It has practically adopted 
the motto, " The end justifies the 
means." Fear has been its only 
rein, cupidity its constant spur. 

The following facts afford some 
proof of the real feelings of the Ro- 
mans towards the Pope in his tem- 
poral capacity. One of the first 
elections held in Rome after its 
forcible seizure by the Subalpine 
party developed the fact that the 



citizens were faithful to the Holy 
See ; for, a participation in the 
election being considered as an ac- 
knowledgment of the de facto gov- 
ernment, out of 7,864 registered 
voters, only 1,984 voted. On the 
I4th of February, after the occupa- 
tion of Rome, an address was sent by 
the Roman nobility to the various 
Catholic societies throughout Italy, 
which had protested against the oc- 
cupation of Rome. This document 
was signed by the first families of 
the Roman state, and it declared 
that the people were faithful to the 
Pope, assigning, as reasons for fidel- 
ity, conscience, gratitude, and love of 
country. Seemingly, none of these 
reasons was properly appreciated 
by the Subalpine party, for the ad- 
dress was almost universally ridi- 
culed. When Humbert of Savoy 
and his wife, the Princess Marghe- 
rita, arrived in Rome (January 23, 
1871), more than one hundred and 
fifty of the nobility of Rome pre- 
sented a protest to the Holy Father, 
in which they declared their un- 
shaken loyalty to his person. On 
July 24 of the same year an address 
was read to Pius IX., which, in its 
entirety, was never published in the 
papers on account of the stringent 
press law in Italy. This document 
openly denounced the iniquitous 
action of the Subalpine government, 
and at the same time announced 
the fidelity of the signers to their 
legitimate sovereign. The signers 
were all men over twenty-one years 
of age who actually resided in Rome. 
They numbered 27,161. So that 
an experience of nine months of 
Subalpine rule enabled the forty- 
seven Romans who professed them- 
selves loyal to Pius IX. on the day 
of the Plebiscite to convert to their 
way of thinking 27,114 of their fel- 
low-citizens ! To an impartial mind, 
an address of sympathy and loyalty 



Italy and the Popt 



467 



coming from citizens actually un- 
der a foreign domination, and in 
times when fine and imprisonment 
were the lot of all who dared open- 
ly to express dissent or dissatisfac- 
tion, is far more likely to be a true 
expression of popular sentiment 
than a plebiscite where every op- 
portunity for fraud was permitted 
and every inducement to deceit 
held out. We have in our own 
country discovered means whereby 
the result of an election may ex- 
press a totally different condition 
from that wished and desired and 
voted for by the majority of our 
citizens ; but Returning Boards 
sink into insignificance beside the 
far simpler but far more efficacious 
managers of the plebiscites of the 
Sub alpine heroes in Italy. 

The next claim of Mr. Monti 
which requires attention is that 
wherein he insists that Pius IX. at 
first fostered and encouraged the 
movement which resulted eventu- 
ally in the unification of Italy, as 
it is called. Mr. Monti sketches 
briefly and rapidly the troublous 
times in Italy before and during 
the reign of Pius IX. ; how the am- 
nesty of Pius IX. was received 
with enthusiasm; how revolutions 
broke out which were staved off or 
defeated by the duplicity of the 
grand dukes ; how finally Pius 
IX. faltered, and, forsaking the pol- 
icy already commenced, fled secret- 
ly to Gaeta; how gradually Piedmont 
became the centre and sole expo- 
nent of Italian unity ; and how the 
people yearned for her motherly care, 
until finally the prayers and vows 
of an enslaved people found an an- 
swer and a recognition. He then 
turns his attention to the conquest 
of Rome, which crowned the work 
and made of Italy a united coun- 
try. 

Pius IX. ascended the pontifical 



throne on June 16, 1846. With- 
in a month of his election he 
proclaimed an amnesty in favor of 
all political offenders. He declar- 
ed that he believed that those who 
accepted his clemency would re- 
spect his rights and their own honor. 
This action was hailed with joy 
throughout all Italy, and festivi- 
ties were organized in the Roman 
States apparently for the purpose of 
celebrating the clemency of Pius 
IX. Pius IX., seeing the great 
expense which the people would 
necessarily be under if this system 
of rejoicing was kept up, declared 
that he was satisfied with the known 
loyalty of his people, and would not 
wish that they should be put to this 
expense. 

The new Pope encouraged pub- 
lic works, and took a lively personal 
interest in everything which seemed 
likely to promote the well-being of 
his subjects ; and one of his first 
cares was to elaborate a system of 
government whereby the people 
would be brought into closer rela- 
tions with the government. About 
the middle of July, 1847, the 
Austrians, on a pretext of protect- 
ing the Holy Father, occupied Fer- 
rara. This action provoked a pro- 
test from the pontifical authorities, 
and became the signal for meetings 
and demonstrations throughout 
Italy. The entire peninsula was 
honeycombed with secret revolution- 
ary societies, progenitors of the In- 
ternational and kindred communis- 
tical societies of to-day. Among 
these were : La Giovane Italia ; La 
Seita Punica ; Amid del Popolo ; 
Comitato Franco-Italiano ; Propa- 
ganda rivoluzionario di Parigi ; Gio- 
vane Europa j Vedovella ; Ingemii ; 
Federati ; Trentunisti ; Stermina- 
tori ; Legione Italiana, etc., etc. 
The design of these societies was 
the overthrow of the existing. 



4 68 



Italy and the Pope. 



governments, the destruction of 
the church, and a distribution of 
lands. Mazzini, with his Carbonari, 
directed the movements of all these 
and utilized their forces. Canta- 
lupo disclosed many of the secrets 
of the society of which he was a 
member, and in his revelations he 
expressly declares that the assassi- 
nation of traitorous members was 
the rule of the order. Joseph 
Montanelli, one of the Carbonari, 
published in the Revue de Paris an 
account of the action of the societies. 
These articles were afterwards col- 
lected and published in Turin un- 
der the title, The Italian National 
Party :its Vicissitudes and its Hopes ; 
Turin, 1856. The societies resolv- 
ed to select Rome as their field of 
action, and to avail themselves of 
the reforms and amnesty granted 
by Pius IX. in order to overthrow 
his government. The people were 
found to be too sincerely Catholic to 
indulge in insurrection or revolt, 
hence the alternative presented 
either to corrupt the faith of the 
populace or to pretend to a parti- 
cipation in their religious belief. 
The second plan was adopted, and 
Gioberti was chosen as the apostle 
of the new evangel Gioberti, of 
whom Montanelli writes : ' " The 
adventurous pilgrim of liberty set 
out to plant the tricolor on the 
dome of St. Peter's." Mazzini di- 
rected that celebrations should be 
continually undertaken for the os- 
tensible purpose of testifying the 
gratitude of the populace at the 
policy of Pius IX., but with the 
real design of using these popular 
assemblages as means of corrupting 
as far as possible the masses, and 
inciting them to clamor for further 
and more radical changes and re- 
forms. The Carbonari instructed 
their members to applaud openly 
,the action of the Pope ; to mingle 



freely with the people and pretend 
to be their champions ; and to use 
every means in their power to 
create disturbance and embarrass- 
ment for the government. 

With 1848 came revolutions 
throughout Europe. Meanwhile 
the Roman Parliament was to as- 
semble. The candidates of the 
Carbonari, being loud-mouthed in 
their professions of loyalty and 
gratitude to the Pope, were pro- 
posed and elected. An uprising 
took place at Palermo. The Aus- 
trians were driven out of Milan, 
and Venice declared herself free. 
A scheme originating, it is said, in 
the fertile brain of Gioberti was 
proposed, whereby the different 
Italian governments should unite 
under the presidency of Pius IX. 
All Italy was in a ferment, and dur- 
ing the excitement the Civic Guard 
of the Pontifical States crossed the 
frontier. The commanding gen- 
eral, Durando, issued under date of 
April 5, 1848, from Bologna, an in- 
flammatory address, in which he 
announced the blessing and sanc- 
tion of Pius IX. for the war against 
Austria. Pius IX., who could not 
control the action of these men, 
who were mostly all Piedmont- 
ese refugees and members of some 
of the secret political societies, 
promptly repudiated this docu- 
ment ; and on the 29th of the same 
month he pronounced probably the 
sublimest sentiment of his memora- 
ble pontificate. In this allocution 
the Pope declared that he was the 
Father' of all Christians, and that 
nothing should ever induce him to 
shed Christian blood wantonly. 
Every political inducement was 
held out; the advantages accruing 
to himself as a temporal ruler were 
shown ; but Pius IX. was firm. He 
had done everything he could do 
to secure the peace and prosperity 



Italy and the Pope. 



469 



of his people, but his conscience 
would not permit him to declare 
war against Austria. Pius IX. has 
never received the meed of praise 
which this act of firmness made his 
due. He had everything to gain 
by yielding to the clamor, and he 
no doubt foresaw the consequences 
of his refusal. 

The secret societies now threw 
off the useless mask. Mr. Monti 
claims that they were deceived by 
Pius IX., who retreated when he 
had led them on to the critical 
point ; but a better witness than 
Mr. Monti, Joseph Ferrari, writes : 
" These two years Pius IX. was al- 
ways the man of the conclave, the 
Pope who fought the revolution 
with his reforms, in order to se- 
cure the tranquillity of his States." 
The real charge should be that 
the revolutionists appeared more 
thoroughly papal (in a political 
sense) than the Pope himself until 
the time came when disguises were 
no longer needed. 

Charles Albert invaded Lom- 
bard y, and Daniel Manin proclaim- 
ed the republic in Venice. The 
sequel is known. Charles Albert 
was defeated, and he abdicated, 
being succeeded by his son, Vic- 
tor Emanuel. The revolutions 
having been put down by force, 
the Carbonari once more turned 
towards Rome, and with their ad- 
vent commences the first chapter 
of the so-called Roman Republic, 
when Mazzini, Saffi, Armellini, 
Cernuschi, Cattabeni, and compan- 
ions ruled the destinies of the 
Eternal City. As Mr. Monti ac- 
cuses Pius IX. of co-operating at 
first with these men, whom after- 
wards he forsook, it may be Veil 
to give a brief account of their 
schemes and actions. 

Carlo Rusconi, Minister of For- 
eign Affairs under the republic, in his 



work, La Republica Romana del 1849 
(vol. i. p. 40), says: "The Pope's 
encyclical [he refers to the papal 
allocution in which Pius IX. de- 
clined to declare war against Aus- 
tria] destroyed a power which 
seemed firmly established. Rome 
was enraged and rushed to arms. 
The gates were closed and Castel 
Angelo seized by the people; a 
guard was placed over the cardi- 
nals ; the destroying angel seemed 
hovering over the Eternal City, 
and the prelates trembled at the 
popular storm." Rusconi's poetry, 
reduced to prosaic truth, means 
that the Carbonari now discovered 
themselves foiled and gave up their 
hypocritical line of action. 

Pius IX. was ready and willing 
to concede all reasonable reforms, 
but " reform " was merely a pre- 
text. The Pope called to the po- 
sition of minister Pellegrino Rossi, 
who, entering fully into the ideas of 
his sovereign, sought to carry to 
completion the will of Pius IX. 
The Carbonari, finding in Rossi a 
man who would carry out the 
Pope's policy firmly and thus defeat 
their aims, sentenced him to death. 
" Counsels, anonymous letters, se- 
cret threats could not convince 
him," as Rusconi writes, " that if 
he continued on he was lost." His 
assassination and the horrible man- 
ner of it need no mention here. 
Montanari entered the Chambers 
and announced the murder, but 
the announcement did not cause 
a ripple of excitement on the sur- 
face of the parliamentary proceed- 
ings. Mr. Monti cites this as the 
sole case of political assassination 
under the Italian revolution. 
There might be found persons who 
could be persuaded that morality 
is a virtue of general observance 
among the Turks, or that the 
Subalpine government has obtained 



4/o 



Italy and the Pope. 



an enviable notoriety for the ob- 
servance of treaties and solemn 
promises ; but no one would envy 
them the possession of such child- 
like innocence. Yet even these 
would question Mr. Monti's sin- 
cerity if they heard his claim that 
the Italian revolutionary party was 
pure and clean in the matter of 
political murders. Mr. Monti fin- 
ishes this statement with one cal- 
culated to produce an impression 
equally as correct, for he says : 
" Others accused the ultra clericals 
[of the murder] because he was a 
liberal and a layman." The truth 
is that the murderers made no se- 
cret of their crime. The French 
minister in Rome, in a despatch 
dated November 16, writes : 

" The murderer was not arrested, nor 
was any attempt even made to seize 
him. Some gendarmes and National 
Guards who were on the spot did not 
interfere. It was with difficulty that the 
minister's servant could find any one to 
help him in carrying the body of his 
master into a neighboring room. In the 
evening the murderers and their adhe- 
rents, to the number of several hundred, 
with flags at their head, fraternized with 
the soldiers at the barracks, and none of 
the magistrates came forward to act." 

Later they marched through the 
streets until they came before the 
house where their victim lay dead, 
and these heroes insulted his dead 
body and outraged the feelings of 
his agonized relatives by shouts of 
" Long live the hand that pon- 
iarded Rossi !" 

The poniard is the fitting em- 
blem of the Italian revolutionary 
party. In 1857 Daniel Manin de- 
clared that it was time to discard 
the dagger. Mazzini, in his work, 
Italia e Popolo, says he would not 
condemn the man who stabbed the 
traitor, and he adds significantly : 
" The majority think with m<e." An- 
tony Gallenga was sent in August, 



y the members of Young 
Italy, to murder Charles Albert. 
Mazzini furnished him with a 
thousand francs, a passport, and a 
poniard. In 1858 Mazzini pub- 
lished in London a letter to Count 
Cavour, in which, whilst noticing 
that many of Cavour's supporters 
were formerly his (Mazzini's) com- 
panions, lie concludes: " The use of 
the avenging poniard was sanction- 
ed by the oaths and the solemn deci- 
sions of the Carbonari" Ageslao 
Melano (a Mazzinian) made an at- 
tempt on the life of King Ferdi- 
nand II., and his praises were sung 
everywhere ; odes were composed 
in his honor, and a "medal com- 
memorating his action was coined 
in Geneva and distributed in Italy. 
So much for some of the doings 
and sentiments of the revolution- 
ary party in the matter of political 
murders. 

The Carbonari were now jubi- 
lant. They proposed we quote 
the French minister a programme 
to the Pope including a declaration 
of war against Austria. The Pope 
could not and would not grant 
this, and they demanded admission 
to the Quirinal. Galletti, a man 
pardoned by Pius IX., and who had 
sworn fidelity unto death to his 
sovereign, was the bearer of fresh 
proposals, which met the same fate. 
The rabble attempted to force an 
entrance to the Quirinal, and shots 
were fired. The fire was returned 
again and again. One of the 
Pope's officials was shot dead whilst 
standing at a window. The belfry 
of a neighboring church was as- 
cended, and from this place shots 
were fired at the doors and win- 
dows of the palace. The Pope 
was informed that if he did not 
yield the palace doors would be 
forced down and every one found 
inside would be murdered, " save 



Italy and the Pope. 






and except his Holiness." Thus 
threatened and imprisoned, the 
Pope decided to leave Rome. And 
of this determination Mr. Monti 
makes the unwarranted and reck- 
less statement : " Unable to stem 
the current of the revolution of 
which he had at one time been the 
leader, the Pope privately abandon- 
ed Rome, took refuge at Gaeta 
with the King of Naples and the 
Grand Duke of Tuscany, and threw 
himself entirely into the arms of 
the despots and foreign enemies of 
Italy. . . ." 

Pius IX. from Gaeta appealed 
to the Catholic nations for redress. 
Apparently Mr. Monti thinks it a 
national disgrace that foreigners 
should be called in to oust the 
" patriots "; he seems to consider 
that the expulsion from Rome of 
the Carbonari was a victory of de- 
spotic force over a gallant but 
totally inadequate band of heroes. 
We willingly admit that the men 
who at that time had posses- 
sion of Rome were Italian patriots 
of the generally-approved order, 
and that their action must meet the 
approval of all supporters of the 
present Subalpine rule ; but we 
must add that an Italian patriot 
bears no resemblance to an Ameri- 
can patriot, for in this country 
the test of patriotism is not loud- 
mouthed professions of loyalty, but 
rather unselfish devotion to our 
country's cause. Let us recall 
some of the glorious actions of the 
heroes and patriots against whom 
Pius IX. appealed to " foreign des- 
pots and enemies." 

On February 9, 1849, the Carbo- 
nari decreed the downfall of the 
temporal power. The second arti- 
cle of this historic document guar- 
anteed the Pope complete freedom 
in the exercise of his spiritual pre- 
rogatives ; the third section de- 



clared the republic the government 
of the Roman States; and the last 
proclaimed that the republic de- 
sired and would maintain friendly 
relations with the other Italian 
powers. This decree was signed 
by the political acrobat, Galletti. 
History repeats itself. Twenty- 
two years later a second decree 
guaranteed the spiritual freedom 
of the Roman Pontiff. The decree 
of February 9, 1849, was counter- 
signed by only five heroes and pa- 
triots, whilst that of May 13, 1871, 
seemed to require the endorsement 
of twice that number. The names 
of the immortal five of '49 should 
not be allowed to drop into obliv- 
ion ; they were : president, G. Gal- 
letti ; secretaries, Giovanni Pennac- 
chi, Ariodante Fabrietti, Antonio 
Zambianchi, Quirico Filopanti Ba- 
rilli. The ten of 1871 are yet in 
the land of the living, we believe ; 
we do not recall now whether or 
not capital punishment has been 
abolished throughout Italy. On 
February 21 a decree was issued 
confiscating church property in 
Rome. The next day the public 
treasury was enriched by theft. 
February 24 the bells were stolen 
from the churches, in order that 
they might be utilized for making 
cannon. March 12 the brothers 
and sisters were expelled the 
hospitals, and in their place im- 
moral women were assigned ; so 
that the sick and dying were com- 
pelled to listen to the most outra- 
geous conversations and witness 
actions which a pure pen cannot 
write. April 9 the chapter of St. 
Peter's was fined for refusing to 
participate in a sacrilegious cele- 
bration of Easter by a profligate 
ecclesiastic. During these days 
three countrymen were found in 
the streets, and, a cry having risen 
that they were Jesuits, they were 



472 



Italy and the Pope. 



literally torn to pieces on the 
bridge of Sant' Angelo. Houses 
were entered and goods stolen and 
worse crimes committed. Farini, 
from whom most of these facts are 
taken, says that in Ancona mur- 
ders were committed in broad day 
and no man dared interfere. Zam- 
bianchi was placed with a detach- 
ment of troops on the Neapolitan 
frontier, and, having seized and 
sent to Rome some priests and 
others, he found to his amazement 
that they were not killed at once. 
He declared with an oath that he 
would henceforth act as constable, 
judge, and executioner. Strange to 
say, he kept his oath. His first 
victim was the Dominican, Father 
Sghirla. He afterwards rented a 
house in Trastevere, and turned it 
into a prison for religious, whom 
he tried, condemned, and murder- 
ed. Farini (vol. iv. p. 149) reports 
that he had heard that fourteen 
dead bodies were found in the gar- 
den attached to the residence. 
Murder, theft, and licentiousness 
had full and unrebuked sway un- 
der the hero and patriot Mazzini, 
whom even M. de Lesseps has 
called the modern Nero. Yet these 
are the idols of the Subalpine par- 
ty, and for their expulsion by the 
French regrets are expressed by 
Mr. Monti. Catholic Europe at 
that time called murder, murder; 
and Catholic Europe soon interfer- 
ed, for it recognized that the Pope's 
freedom as a temporal ruler had 
too intimate a connection with his 
liberty of action as head of the 
church. General Oudinot, in com- 
mand of the French army, advanc- 
ed on Rome, and, after overcoming 
the stubborn resistance of the 
heroes and patriots, on April 30 
Rome saw her patriots quietly 
stealing off to the more congenial 
soil of the Subalpine kingdom. 



When Pius IX. was betrayed and 
robbed by his avaricious neighbors, 
brave men from every Catholic 
land, knowing that these attempts 
against his temporal sovereignty 
were but covert attacks on his spir- 
itual prerogatives, rushed to Rome 
to defend their father. These were 
Mr. Monti's " foreign mercenaries/' 
In that list of " foreign mercena- 
ries " were found some of the no- 
blest names of France; and the 
soil of the Roman States drank in 
the purest and best blood of faith- 
ful Ireland and persecuting Eng- 
land. In the French Assembly, on 
December 4, 1867, M. Thiers an- 
swered the charge launched against 
them of being mercenaries: " These 
men were not mercenaries. He 
who acts from conviction is no mer- 
cenary. " The States of the Church, 
in a certain sense, belonged to each 
and every Catholic, as their reten- 
tion by the head of the church was 
inseparable from his complete free- 
dom of action; hence Catholics, 
who do not recognize a territorially- 
limited church, but one whose limits 
are coexistent with those of the 
world, defended their own rights 
when they helped to maintain those 
of the Pope. A peculiar comment 
on this and another of Mr. Monti's 
theories is afforded in the Official 
Acts of the Italian Parliament, No. 
i43 P. 558 : 

"Alii- Maccarani. For a long time ft 
was said that Rome was necessary to 
satisfy the yearnings of Italy. We were 
told that we must go to Rome by moral 
means. It was said, besides, that we 
must have Rome, not merely to satisfy 
the national aspirations but to free a 
people oppressed by tyranny. But this 
people never stirred until Porta Pia was 
broken down by our army, so that we 
did not see the effect of this tyranny. 

" Carini (interrupting). But the Ro- 
mans ? 

" Alli-Maccarani. I will answer the 
honorable deputy. I know well that 



Italy and the Pope. 



473 



the Romans had twelve thousand men 
in their territory ; but of these twelve 
thousand only five thousand were for- 
eigners, so that the Romans, with the 
native troops, could easily free them- 
selves." 

We are not in the habit of ap- 
plying the name " foreign mercena- 
ries " to that gallant nation beyond 
the sea whose aid we so passionate- 
ly invoked in the dark days of our 
Revolution when our freedom was 
the stake ; nor, in our cosmopoli- 
tan country, do we even apply the 
term to gentlemen who, coming 
from abroad to our shores, accept 
lucrative positions in the military 
or civil service of our government. 
With the advent of the patriots 
to Piedmont a new plan of action 
was mapped out by Mazzini. But 
the arch-conspirator met there his 
master in a man whose name and 
career are notorious Count Ca- 
vour. He was a man who could 
utter the most sublime apostrophe 
to duty and honor whilst his daily 
acts were a denial of every princi- 
ple of right ; a minister determined 
on securing the supremacy of his 
sovereign, he hesitated not a mo- 
ment to sacrifice everything an 
honorable man holds dear. His 
was an utterly inexplicable charac- 
ter on every hypothesis but one. 
In no other country could he have 
retained political ascendency. 

In order to follow Mr. Monti 
we must here speak briefly on the 
means employed by Piedmont in 
the complete " unification of Italy." 

'hese means are defended and sup- 

>orted by Mr. Monti. 
Lombardy was obtained after the 

r ar in which France aided Victor 

imanuel. Italy afterwards re- 
paid this debt of gratitude by 
breaking her plighted word to 
France, and using France's misfor- 
tune as a favorable opportunity to 



invade a territory which she had 
solemnly pledged herself to respect. 
In Mr. Monti's narrative the people 
of Tuscany, Parma, and Modena 
rose against their rulers, and, expel- 
ling them, implored annexation to 
Piedmont. Count Cavour to his 
intimates made no secret of his 
policy. " If diplomacy be power- 
less," he writes to Rattazzi, "we 
should have recourse to means out- 
side the law." Cavour utilized the 
fiery zeal of the heroes until their 
zeal led them beyond the bounds 
of discretion, and then he prompt- 
ly repudiated them. He led them 
on with fair words, and when they 
had prepared the path and forced 
an issue he coolly stepped in and 
reaped the spoils. 

He sent men and money into the 
other Italian countries, and paid 
for the demonstrations which his 
own friends organized. The pa- 
triotic exhibitions of devotion to 
Piedmont were marketable pro- 
ducts. This peculiar policy did 
not die with him, for the writer 
well recalls how the authorities in 
Rome paid for the enthusiasm with 
which Victor Emanuel was wel- 
comed. The popular demonstra- 
tions in Italy are, as a general rule, 
evidences rather of a large fund for 
contingent expenses than proofs of 
the will of the people. 

The Piedmontese ambassador at 
Florence gave his palace as head- 
quarters to the men who were se- 
cretly plotting against the govern- 
ment to which he was accred- 
ited. The English ambassador 
charged the Piedmontese represen- 
tative at Parma with the same du- 
plicity. " Help the revolution," 
wrote Cavour to his friend Persano, 
" but help it in such a way that it 
may appear in the eyes of Europe 
to have been a spontaneous work." 

When the grand duke was com- 



474 



Italy and the Pope. 



pelled to leave Florence the Pied- 
montese agents organized a govern- 
ment, and the result was that the 
people were said to sigh for annexa- 
tion, to Piedmont, and Victor Em- 
anuel was proclaimed dictator. 
The same farce was enacted in Bo- 
logna when the Austrian troops 
withdrew ; but Victor Emanuel or 
Cavour became somewhat alarmed 
at the premature discovery of the 
plan, and the Piedmontese king de- 
clined the proffered office, but sent 
D'Azeglio to organize a government 
in the territory of a friendly sove- 
reign. In Perugia the same game 
was attempted, but the plot was 
discovered and the insurrection 
nipped in the bud by the troops of 
the Pope; and this assertion of the 
supremacy of law over riot and ex- 
cess is called by some the "massacre 
of Perugia." Piedmont then, under 
a pretence of complete liberty of 
action, withdrew her so-called pro- 
tectorate, and, money having been 
spent freely, plebiscites declared the 
will of the people for annexation. 
The congress of powers to set- 
tle Italian affairs delayed until 
Cavour, assured of non-interven- 
tion, and assisted by the patriots 
Garibaldi, Farini, Pepoli, etc., 
gained for his master by dishonest 
means a large increase of territory 
and subjects. The seizure of Um- 
bria and the Marches was even 
more infamous. The story of the 
seizure may be epitomized by 
Count Cavour, who, in a despatch 
under date of August 30, 1860, di- 
rects that an insurrection be got 
up as a pretext for the interference 
of the Piedmontese troops. Cial- 
dini was directed to seize Ancona 
whether the insurrection was sup- 
pressed by the pontifical authori- 
ties or not, and Admiral Persano 
was ordered to co-operate. Now, 
let it be remembered that the 



Subalpine government had no quar- 
rel with the Pope; that it had sol- 
emnly pledged itself to France not 
to attack the Pope's dominions, and 
through France had informed the 
government of Pius IX. that there 
was no cause to fear unfriendly ac- 
tion, as Piedmont had solemnly as- 
sured the French ministry that the 
Papal States would be respected ; 
and during the whole time these as- 
surances and guarantees were being 
made by Cavour he was busily en- 
gaged in fomenting an insurrec- 
tion and arranging plans for a 
forcible possession of papal terri- 
tory. Cavour's plan succeeded ad- 
mirably, for the Pope's government 
was entirely unprepared, and the 
Pope would not believe such du- 
plicity possible. The gallant La 
Moriciere defended Ancona ; but 
what availed a handful against an 
army ? Ancona was forced to ca- 
pitulate, and the Subalpine party 
revenged themselves for a stubborn 
resistance by a twelve hours' furious 
cannonade after the surrender (see 
letter of an eye-witness, Count De 
Quatrebarbes, Angers, October 8, 
1860). 

The annexation of Naples was 
accomplished in much the same 
way. Persano and Villamarina, 
the latter the Piedmontese ambas- 
sador, were instructed to play the 
same game. Villamarina took ad- 
vantage of the peculiar freedom 
allowed foreign ministers to con- 
spire against the Neapolitan gov- 
ernment. On August 30 Cavour 
wrote to Persano to hasten the 
rising before the arrival of Gari- 
baldi. Secrecy was urged with re- 
ference to the arms and ammuni- 
tion which Cavour was sending to 
Villamarina. Mazzini and Gari- 
baldi were enlisted as auxiliaries, 
and, hoping for another lease of 
power like that enjoyed by them 



Italy and the Pope 



475 



during the Roman republic, they 
entered heartily into the scheme. 
Persano wrote back to Cavour that 
Garibaldi and he understood each 
other perfectly, but, if from any 
cause a premature disclosure took 
place, he would take all the blame 
and exonerate Cavour from any 
knowledge of the transaction. The 
result is known. Garibaldi and 
his brigands (we use this term ad- 
visedly, for it was stated in the 
Italian Parliament that brigandage 
almost entirely ceased throughout 
Italy during Garibaldi's expedi- 
tions) invaded the Neapolitan ter- 
ritory, and Cavour professed him- 
self indignant. He even went so 
far as to request permission to 
march troops through the Pontifi- 
cal States, in order to suppress the 
revolution ! Victor Emanuel af- 
terwards declared solemnly that he 
had been unaware of Garibaldi's 
expedition. Admiral Persano was 
publicly ordered to put down the 
revolution which he had got up, 
and in a few days Victor Ema- 
nuel and Garibaldi rode through 
the streets of Naples side by side. 

How Rome was taken is so re- 
cent as scarce to need recital, yet 
a few official extracts will place the 
deceit and perjury of the principal 
actors clearly before the reader's 
mind. In the Subalpine Senate on 
January 23, 1870, Senator Linati 
used these words : 

" The day will come when France will 
demand an account from us of our work. 
In 1861 we entered into a treaty with 
France, wherein we pledged ourselves 
not to take Rome and to leave the capi- 
tal at Florence. That convention was a 
free one, not made under compulsion. 
We could have been freed from our ob- 
ligations in 1867, but instead we con- 
firmed the treaty ; furthermore, last Au- 
gust (1869) we assured the French gov- 
ernment that we on our part would ob- 
serve the treaty. But instead we went 
to Rome, and now we wish to transfer 



the capital there. We have thus broken 
our solemn treaties, and have been 
found wanting in principle in our deal- 
ings with a friendly nation in her hour 
of peril." 

When the French Minister of For- 
eign Affairs advised the government 
of Victor Emanuel of the with- 
drawal of the French troops from 
the Roman States, he added that 
France relied on Italy's observance 
of the treaty, by which she was' 
pledged to respect the Papal States. 
Visconti Venosta replied in these 
words: "The government of the 
king, on its part, will exactly abide 
by the obligations imposed by the 
treaty of 1864." 

As might have been expected, 
this declaration of the ministry 
provoked protests from the radical 
element in Parliament, and to these 
attacks the minister replied : 

" This obligation, gentlemen, even 
though not imposed by the treaty, would 
yet be required by the common law of 
nations and the reciprocal relations of 
the states. The French government and 
people, and in fact all Europe, would 
have been persuaded that we were tak- 
ing advantage of the difficulties of 
France, and that by an underhand and 
most ungenerous design we desired to 
seize the moment when material force no 
longer restrained us to abandon our libe- 
ral policy as having been a policy of 
hypocrisy." 

Visconti Venosta told the exact 
truth when he asserted that an in- 
fraction of the treaty would be 
base, dishonest, and ungrateful. 
Yet in a month he and his com- 
panions consummated this base, 
dishonest, and ungrateful action 
by entering Rome through a breach 
made in the walls by the Piedmon- 
tese guns. 

Mr. Monti is doubtless a believer 
in an overruling Providence, and 
he must believe that divine jus- 
tice overtakes nations as well as 
individuals for crimes committed. 



4/6 



Italy and the Pope. 



If it be true that at times God 
sends, wicked rulers as a punish- 
ment on his people, then truly for 
more than a score of years has the 
Italian peninsula been terribly 
scourged ; for in the reigns of Vic- 
tor Emanuel and Humbert of Sa- 
voy the bitterest enemy of Italy 
must find reason to rejoice. 

Mr. Monti devotes the last por- 
tion of his article to a defence of 
the statement that the Pope enjoys 
ample liberty in the present con- 
dition of affairs. He declares that 
the Law of the Guarantees provides 
sufficiently for the purpose for 
which it was drawn up, and he ad- 
vises the Sovereign Pontiff to trust 
to the fidelity and honor of the 
Italians, who are all Catholics, and 
who respect his position. 

It is somewhat strange that the 
party .now in the ascendency in the 
Subalpine government is the one 
which, under other circumstances, 
declared the Pope's freedom en- 
dangered when Austria, France, or 
Naples had political ascendency; 
but it seems that under Subalpine 
domination the bare mention of 
subjection is intolerable, for, should 
any unlucky writer to-day insinu- 
ate that the Pope is restrained by 
Humbert of Savoy, he will soon 
experience one of the beneficent 
effects of the press law : his paper 
would be suppressed and himself 
fined or imprisoned. To impartial 
outsiders the argument was either 
good then or not ; if good then, it 
is true to-day. There is, of course, 
a difference in the situation to-day, 
for now the Subalpine party are in 
possession of a territory which 
they solemnly pledged they would 
not touch ; whilst France, Austria, 
and Naples only interfered as friend- 
ly powers defending the Pope 
against the Subalpine party and 
their assistant, Garibaldi. 



Before discussing the question 
of the freedom possessed by the 
Pope under the Law of the Guaran- 
tees, it may not be amiss to see 
what the Law of the Guarantees is. 
An example will best illustrate the 
law and its effects. A man breaks 
into my house, and, having superior 
physical strength, reinforced by a 
supply of weapons, he compels me 
to give up all my money and valua- 
bles. The thief then coolly informs 
me that he proposes to occupy my 
house indefinitely, and he assigns 
as a reason that his children are 
clamoring for my property, because 
it will afford them the possession of 
the entire square. I am, however, 
informed that I may continue to 
occupy the cellar, and that he will 
provide me with three meals a day. 
Aghast at the coolness of the pro- 
posal, I manage to say : " But the 
house is mine ; you are a thief and 
plunderer." The thief says I am 
unreasonable, that I cannot desire 
more than he guarantees me, 
and that I will be better enabled 
to prosecute any charitable work 
by being freed from the cares ne- 
cessary to the management of my 
estate. I rush to send a messen- 
ger to the nearest police station for 
an officer, when I am deterred from 
acting, and furthermore taunted 
with calling in " foreign mercena- 
ries " to dispossess my friend and 
benefactor ! 

The law pretends to assure the 
Pontiff liberty, and assigns him a 
regular annual sum (not a penny of 
which has he ever touched) and the 
two palaces in Rome, the Vatican 
and Lateran. It declares that the 
Pope is free to perform all his spir- 
itual* duties. The person who is 
best able to form an opinion on the 
liberty assured by this law is cer- 
tainly the Pope himself. His word 
is final with all who look on him as 



Italy and the Pope. 



477 



their spiritual father, and should 
be conclusive evidence to all fair- 
minded men, for he gives the result 
of personal experience of the work- 
ing of the law. As soon as the law 
was promulgated Pius IX. condemn- 
ed it as being utterly inadequate ; 
" for," said Pius IX., " no privileges, 
honors, or immunities which the 
Subalpine government may con- 
cede can in any way secure the free 
and expeditious exercise of that 
power divinely committed to us." 
After an experience of freedom un- 
der Subalpine law the Holy Father 
declared : 

" Now, indeed, the world must be tho- 
roughly enlightened as to the value of 
these pretended guarantees which, to de- 
lude the simplicity of the incautious, a 
show was made of giving to the head of 
the church to ensure his dignity and in- 
dependence guarantees which have no 
other foundation than the caprice and 
ill-will of the Government which applies, 
interprets, and carries them into effect 
according to its desire and its particular 
interests. No, the Roman Pontiff nei- 
ther is nor ever will be free and indepen- 
dent under the dominion of a foreign 
prince. In Rome he must either be a 
sovereign or a prisoner. . . ." 

Pius IX. to his dying day never 
ceased to affirm that the Law of the 
Guarantees did not assure him lib- 
erty, and that he was not free in 
the exercise of his spiritual preroga- 
tives. In connection with a pro- 
test against the law it was stated 
by the Pope that his officials had 
been subjected to search on leav- 
ing the Vatican. The papers 
which published the encyclical 
letter of the Pope from which we 
have made extracts were sequestrat- 
ed. Now, that the Pope may ex- 
ercise his duties with perfect free- 
dom it is absolutely requisite that 
he should enjoy complete liberty 
of communication with all his chil- 
dren ; yet this official document, 



addressed to all the ecclesiastical 
authorities throughout the world, 
was suppressed by the Subalpine 
ministry. What confidence can be 
placed in a government which, af- 
ter the occupation of Rome, was 
publicly charged by the radical, 
papers with tampering with the 
mails ? 

The Pope, in the exercise of his 
spiritual duties, consults from time 
to time ecclesiastics who are versed 
in the matter to be treated of. 
Hence it follows that their immu- 
nity is bound up with his, and at- 
tacks on their persons or liberty 
are assaults on the pontifical pre- 
rogatives. But the law whereby 
the religious orders were suppress- 
ed has had the practical effect of 
driving away from Rome some of 
these counsellors ; and the daily 
outrages to which those who re- 
mained in Rome were subjected by 
the friends and supporters of Vic-. 
tor Emanuel have rendered their 
stay in the city of questionable 
prudence. An experience of three 
years of Subalpine rule in Rome en- 
ables us to state that -scarce a day 
passed when the papers did not re- 
cord some wanton outrage heaped 
on peaceful ecclesiastics in the 
streets of the city. The most pop- 
ular phrases in the mouths of the 
rabble were : Death to the Pope, 
Death to the Jesuits, Death to the 
priests ! The so-called Law of the 
Guarantees is a law passed by the 
Subalpine Parliament; and even 
conceding that this law could at- 
tain the purpose, is it not evident 
that another parliament could alter, 
amend, or repeal it? And are we 
Catholics to be satisfied with that 
independence of the Sovereign Pon- 
tiff which has no other foundation 
than the uncertain one of a vote 
in the Subalpine Chambers? Let 
us suppose that a war broke out 



473 



Italy and the Pope. 



between France and Italy. France 
has an ambassador accredited to 
Leo XIII., and a minister at 
the court of Humbert of Savoy. 
Leo XIII. has no quarrel with 
France, and could not be expected 
to enter into the lists with Italy 
against France ; but he would be 
placed in an apparently hostile po- 
sition, as the French ambassador at 
the Vatican would doubtless have 
to leave Rome, and thus the Pope 
would be deprived of all means of 
communicating with French Cath- 
olics. 

The Subalpine government has a 
rather peculiar idea of what consti- 
tutes true freedom. 

On June 26, 1860, when a pro- 
ject for a loan of one hundred and 
fifty millions was under discussion 
in Parliament, Minghetti said that 
although Italy's debt seemed enor- 
mous, yet she had vast resources, 
and among these he enumerated 
church property at Rome. This 
was one of the great patriotic mo- 
tives which induced the heroes and 
patriots to seize Rome. The Sub- 
alpines copied the decree of the Ro- 
man Republic declaring the tem- 
poral power of the Pope for ever at 
an end, and later on they imitated 
the Carbonari in a wholesale seiz- 
ure of church property in Rome. 
Just as soon as order was partially 
restored after the excesses and bru- 
tality of September 20, they com- 
menced a search for quarters. 
Strange to say, in every instance a 
convent or a monastery was imper- 
atively needed. True, private pal- 
aces abounded which, with far less 
expense, could be utilized ; but the 
sisters and monks were turned out 
and their homes taken to satisfy an 
imperative exigency of public ser- 
vice. 

It is true there was a freedom 
which the Subalpine rulers brought 



to Rome, and a freedom to which 
the Romans were strangers the 
freedom of insult and sacrilege; 
the freedom of license and theft a 
freedom whereby every one was at 
liberty to strike a blow at the Pope, 
and no man free to defend him. 

Yet Mr. Monti says the Pope 
has no just right to complain of a 
want of freedom. He says, and 
with his usual accuracy, that the 
religious rites can be observed 
with the pomp of yore, when he 
knows, or should know, that such is 
not the case. He claims that the 
statute assures ample liberty ; yet 
the writer recalls how four years 
since, on the anniversary of the 
statute, a body of American ladies 
and gentlemen were forced to spend 
an entire day in Civita Vecchia in 
order to escape the insults which 
we were assured would be heaped 
on us (for our loyalty to Pius IX. 
was known) if we entered the 
Eternal City. 

The Pope is free, says Mr. Monti, 
and he knew they broke into his 
palace, the Quirinal, despite his 
protest, and expelled the ecclesias- 
tics occupying a portion of it. Yes ; 
he is free the free target for in- 
sult and abuse ; but let a word be 
said of his hypocritical persecutors, 
and there is neither freedom nor 
mercy. The Pope is free, when 
the Subalpine Parliament can pass 
laws whereby the rights of the 
church are trampled under foot 
and the protests of the Pope are 
sequestrated as containing matter 
offensive to the " sacred person of 
the king " or subversive of the ex- 
isting order. With the forcible 
seizure of the offices of his coun- 
sellors, with the sequestration of 
his letters to the Catholic world, 
with the daily attacks on the reli- 
gion of which he is the chief, there 
are yet found persons bold enough 



Italy and the Pope. 



479 



to assert his freedom, and others 
credulous enough to believe the 
statement. 

Mr. Monti declares that the peo- 
ple have settled this vexed " Ro- 
man question," and that they are 
sincerely Catholic and would do 
nothing to interfere with or limit 
the liberty of the Holy See. The 
Italian people, it is true, have from 
time to time given expression to 
their feelings in regard to the occu- 
pation of Rome ; once they ex- 
pressed them by abstaining from 
voting ; again by numerous pro- 
tests against the occupation of the 
Eternal City, one of which bore 
555,475 signatures. No more atro- 
cious slander on the fair fame of 
Italians was ever uttered than the 
charge that they sympathize with, 
approve of, or are fairly represent- 
ed by their present Subalpine mas- 
ters. 

Mr. Monti seems to consider the 
fact that the first article of the 
statute recognizes the Catholic 
Church as the religion of the state 
as an unanswerable proof of the 
freedom guaranteed by the Subal- 
pine party. It is true that Charles 
Albert insisted on the retention of 
this article, but it is no less true 
that under Charles Albert's son and 
grandson it is a dead-letter. In 
recognizing Catholicity as the reli- 
gion of the state, the state does not 
assume any right or power of alter- 
ation or amendment of the doc- 
trines of the church. Now, the su- 
premacy of the Pope is a doctrine 
of the Catholic Church, and his 
amenability to no earthly tribunal 
in the discharge of his office is a 
necessary consequence. The Pope 
is supreme in his sphere, and no 
Catholic, under peril of salvation, 
can dictate to him the manner in 
which he shall perform his duties. 
This power of the Pope is not 



the creation of the church, nor is 
it accidental, but essential. These 
truths are recognized by all Catho- 
lics as an integral part of the Ca- 
tholic doctrine. Hence the sta- 
tute law of Italy, in acknowledg- 
ing the Catholic religion as the re- 
ligion of the state, recognizes these 
truths as binding. If, then, an ob- 
stacle to the exercise of this essen- 
tial power exists, it would seem the 
duty of the government, which 
guarantees to the people the right 
to worship God, to remove such 
an obstacle. The Subalpine party are 
placed in this peculiar position ; 
by their constitution they recog- 
nize the power of the Supreme 
Pontiff and his absolute indepen- 
dence as to the means of its ex- 
ercise ; whilst in this so-called 
" Law of the Guarantees " they, 
with an assumption of superiority, 
concede certain privileges, limit 
the exercise of others, and presume 
to dictate the general limits in 
which the pontifical authority shall 
be exercised. Now, these so-called 
concessions suppose an authority 
over the pontiff; for the legislator 
is manifestly the superior of the 
one legislated for. 

Among the cases of interference 
with pontifical authority are the 
' so-called laws regarding marriage, 
the suppression of religious orders, 
and the appointment of bishops in 
Italy. Mr. Monti pronounces the 
temporal power a dead issue, but so 
men spoke before. Seventy years 
do not seem such a period as that 
their lapse should bring oblivion 
of events occurring then ; and 
seventy years ago the Roman Pon- 
tiff was dragged violently from his 
Quirinal Palace and carried a cap- 
tive to France, whilst his captor 
saw the most powerful nations of 
Europe succumb to his arms. Men 
said then that the world had seen 



480 



Italy and the Pope. 



the end of the Papacy. Yet Pius 
VII. came back to Rome in triumph, 
and his persecutor was imprisoned 
at St. Helena. 

"Do not think me fanatical, or blind, 
or senseless, if I affirm," says Cardinal 
Manning, *' that the temporal power is 
not ended yet, but that the Roman 
question is only now once more begun. 
We have had to repeat, even to weari- 
ness, that some five-and-forty popes be- 
fore now have either never set foot in 
Rome or have been driven out of it. 
Nine times they have been driven out 
by Roman factions ; times without num- 
ber by invaders. Why not, then, a forty- 
sixth time ? Pius VI., Pius VII. were 
prisoners ; why not Pius IX.? Pius IX. 
has been already once in exile ; why not 
a second time? Nine times the city of 
Rome has been held by usurpers ; why 
not a tenth? Seven times Rome has 
been besieged ; why not an eighth? 
Twice it has nearly been destroyed, and 
once so utterly desolate that for forty 
days, we are told, nothing human breath- 
ed in it, and no cry was heard but of the 
foxes on the Aventine. Warfare, suffer- 
ing, wandering, weakness, with imper- 
ishable vitality and invincible power, is 
the lot and the history of the pontiffs ; 
and Rome shares their destiny. There 
has nothing happened now that has not 
happened, and that often, before; the 
end that has often been predicted has 
not come ; why should it now? Men are 
always saying, ' Now, at last, is the end.' 
But the end is not yet." 

To Mr. Monti, doubtless, these 
words may be mirth-provoking, 
but he who laughs last laughs best. 
No man can foretell the day or the 
means of a settlement of the Ro- 
man question ; that rests with God, 
who can protect his Vicar. Since 
the forcible and temporary solu- 
tion of the question the two prin- 
cipal actors have passed- away and 
have undergone the ordeal of the 
judgment of God. We cannot 
doubt but that the Roman question 
entered into that judgment. Their 
characters, then, are interesting 



studies in this connection, as re- 
presenting policies as far asunder 
as the poles. The verdict of man- 
kind, if based on facts, must record 
of Victor Emanuel that his pri- 
vate life was notoriously corrupt ; 
that his public acts were an hourly 
denial of his private professions ; 
that he was responsible for out- 
rages heaped on that faith of which 
he declared himself the adherent, 
and upon the ministers of the reli- 
gion whose succors he tremblingly 
pleaded for in his need. And the 
verdict on Pius IX. records a 
blameless life in private and a pub- 
lic career of unexampled length, il- 
lustrated by an undying devotion 
to principle and justice. 

Mr. Monti arrays himself with 
the enemies of Pius IX., for he 
knows there is no middle party. 
The writer has one regret : that 
he is not able to illustrate his 
theme by the examples of those 
who in ages past have sought to 
wrest the sovereignty of his states 
from the Pope. They were many, 
doubtless, but unfortunately wri- 
ters seem to have wearied of the 
oft-repeated story of discomfiture, 
and hence we know little else than 
their untimely end. 

It has been said that there are 
two cities in the world which the 
Providence of God has not left to 
the caprice of men Jerusalem and 
Rome. The first-named shall 
never live again, for there the Lord 
of life was put to death ; and Rome 
shall never die, for there the im- 
mortal Vicar of Christ sits enthron- 
ed. 

Mr. Monti cannot be ignorant oi 
those famous lines which speak 



Dell 1 alma Roma, e di suo impero 

La quale, e il quale, a voler dir lo vero, 

Fur stabiliti per lo loco santo 

U' siede il successor del Maggiore Piero. 



Two Famous Deans. 



481 



TWO FAMOUS DEANS. 






THE recent visit of Dean Stanley 
to our country recalls the memory 
of another dean, more famous his- 
torically, more vigorous-minded, as 
a comparison of their respective 
works shows, and, strange as it 
sounds, a much stancher Church 
.of England parson; \\e refer to 
Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Pat- 
rick's, Dublin. We cannot imagine 
two men more diverse in even 
external feature. Stanley, with 
his bland smile, his handsome face 
and hair, and his marked attention 
to the shape of his clerical surplice 
and bands, must be the delight of 
photographers, who would have re- 
garded the darkling brows and torn 
cassock of fierce old Swift with a 
disgust which nothing but his walk- 
ing-stick would have kept them 
from betraying. Swift looks out 
upon you from his pictures with 
those stern and pitiless eyes which 
made even Pope tremble and Queen 
Anne afraid to meet him, and his 
dark and melancholy genius and 
history are written upon every 
lineament. The fierce indignation 
(sczva indignatio) which, as his epi- 
taph says, lacerated his heart would 
have lashed itself into fury against 
just such a parson as Stanley, if for 
no other reason than that our dap- 
per dean seems to cherish a parti* 
cular affection for Dissenters and 
infidels, two classes detested by 
Swift as much as he was detested 
by them. 

But, as a study of their works in- 
dicates, no two deans of the Church 
of England differed more complete- 
ly in mental structure and in their 
attitude toward their church. A 
VOL. xxviii. 31. 



atti 

! 



prominent journal (whose name we 
conceal for the sake of the charity 
which hides ignorance) spoke of 
Dean Stanley as {< another Swift in 
intellect and another Sydney Smith 
in geniality." We know nothing 
about Stanley's conversational pow- 
ers, but it is safe to say that they do 
not rival Smith's ; and in none of 
his books, even the lightest of them, 
have we been able to find the 
slightest suspicion of a joke, while 
Sydney could not keep from joking 
even in the pulpit. In fact, we 
suspect that Smith would have kept 
the table in a roar, describing the 
vain attempts of such parsons as 
Charles Kingsley and Stanley to 
prove to their bewildered congrega- 
tions that religion is a sublime emo- 
tion, a beautiful dream, a gushing 
forth of the spiritual in man, and 
not by any means so vulgar an in- 
stitution as what is known as a 
church. Smith would have proba- 
bly said that if such an idea could 
by any possibility be got into the 
heads of the people, they might be- 
gin to doubt the necessity of par- 
sons, and then what would become 
of the tithes ? 

As regards Swift, the severest 
historical inquiry has failed to 
prove that he did not, at least intel- 
lectually, assent to the truths of 
Christianity for we cannot speak 
of faith in a dogmatic sense con- 
cerning any one outside the Catho- 
lic Church, particularly one who, 
like Swift, is not ignorant of her 
claims and proofs. But there is 
nothing in Swift's writings or in 
the records of his life and conver- 
sation to show that he was an infi- 



482 



Two Famous Deans. 



del. When The Tale of a Tub ap- 
peared Archbishop Shairpe said 
that it was the production of an in- 
fidel, for the coarseness of the sa- 
tire against both Catholics and Dis- 
senters dismayed the Church of 
England itself; though Dr. John- 
son, whilst agreeing with the pro- 
priety of Shairpe's remark, admits 
that Swift's intention to uphold the 
tenets of Anglicanism must be clear 
to every reader. Now, Dean Stan- 
ley speaks slightingly or, what is the 
same thing in his case, pityingly 
not only of the English Establish- 
ment, but he speaks of Christianity 
itself in language which leaves no 
doubt of his disbelief in its doctri- 
nal value and authority. Swift's ad- 
vocacy of the Christian religion is 
unequivocal, nay, forcible, argumen- 
tative, and, as presented by him 
against deism, convincing. Dean 
Stanley glories in his prominence 
as a powerful advocate of what is 
politely called " liberality of reli- 
gious thought," which means sim- 
ply religious indifferentism. This 
mere parody on. the word religion 
; Swift would have called by its 
coarsest name. 

No one of the slightest positive- 
ness of religious faith can read 
.Stanley's History of the Jews with- 
out the impression that its author 
diverges widely from the generally- 
.received Christian belief in God's 
miraculous dealings with the He- 
brews as the chosen people, in the 
authenticity of the Sacred Scrip- 
tures, and in their credibility as his- 
torical records. Colenso's writings 
upon the Pentateuch are poor, 
commonplace essays, gathered to- 
gether from the least erudite of the 
German school of Biblical criticism, 
and they are of no interest to the 
hermeneutical scholar. Colenso 
does not thoroughly know the He- 
.brew language or literature, and he 



lays mighty stress upon so puerile 
an objection as to how the animals 
could have had room in the ark a 
problem which he attacks with vigor, 
and with which he no doubt feels 
able to grapple, for he has written 
several arithmetics, and even in- 
vented a new way of doing long-di- 
vision. But Dean Stanley, wiser in 
his generation than Colenso, leaves 
arithmetical questions alone, and 
applies to the Scriptural history of 
the Jews t*he methods of historical 
investigation that the great French 
and German historians use with 
such effect in the study of secular 
history. The result is easily to be 
foreseen. Once place the histori- 
cal books of Scripture upon the 
level of Herodotus, Plutarch, Livy, 
and Suetonius, and the miracles be- 
come myths, the prophecies impas- 
sioned speeches, and the Word of 
God a divine work in the sense in 
which the Sibylline Books were 
held sacred by the Romans, and 
the verse of Homer consulted as 
oracular. 

So infatuated is Stanley with 
this mytholqgization of the Scrip- 
tures that he will scarcely admit 
the actual historical facts therein 
recorded, though proved aliunde. 
He doubts the authority of Jose- 
phus in any statement that runs 
counter to the grand theory that 
the Bible is a book of sublime vis- 
ions, hopes, and yearnings, the pro- 
duct of a people which, like all 
the Semitic races, is profoundly in- 
fluenced by the religious idea. The 
wars, the triumphs, and even the 
defeats of the Jews must be exam- 
ined narrowly, lest we should take 
the fervid imaginings of some He- 
brew " prophet " for historical 
facts. Thus does the "hope of 
Israel " vanish under Stanley's sci- 
entific touch. Dean Milman's 
History of the Jews is better than 



Two Famous Deans. 



483 



this, even if he did fall into the 
nonsense of predicting the down- 
fall of " Popery " from the book of 
Daniel : " Yea, even to the year, and 
the day, and the hour, and the 
minute " though, unfortunately for 
Milman's predictive powers, the 
year passed* by and the pope re- 
mained. 

Swift had common sense, and 
common sense to believe in Chris- 
tianity, though he, of course, saw 
the absurdity of the Protestant 
rule of faith in submitting the Bi- 
ble to the expounding of every 
man and every woman. He be- 
lieved in a church, in a ministry, 
in ecclesiastical authority, and in 
at least two sacraments. In his 
sermon on the Trinity he states 
the question of mysteries with all 
the clearness and exactness of his 
thoughts and style. Stanley smiles 
at the idea of the Trinity, unless as 
a sweet symbol of the trinal power 
seen somewhere or by somebody in 
nature ; and affectionately requests 
you to examine the word mystery, as 
used by Hesiod, before you form 
an idea about the mystery of the 
Incarnation. Is not everything a 
mystery, dear friends ? Is not the 
petal of the rose a mystery to the 
stamen ? Is not the solemn moun- 
tain a mystery ? We might myste- 
riously ask : Isn't Mr. Stanley him- 
self a mystery ? 

In his History the dean does 
not display very clear ideas about 
the point at issue among Hebrew 
scholars regarding the name of 
God Jehova-Elohim, for which, 
to this day, in reading the Scrip- 
tures, the Hebrew substitutes Ado- 
nai. Jehova is the tetragrammaton 
the unspeakable name of God. 
The question is merely etymologi- 
cal, and has nothing to do with the 
Hebrew belief in the divine Unity. 
The word Elohim (Gen. i. i), be- 



ing in the plural, is supposed by 
the church to insinuate an idea of 
the Trinity, which most holy mys- 
tery was not clearly revealed by 
the Father until the coining of the 
Eternal Son ; as St. John tells us, 
*' The Son that is in the bosom of 
the Father, he has revealed him "- 
i.e., the Father. It is, therefore, 
difficult to conjecture why Stanley 
should make a doctrinal question 
out of an etymological one, unless 
it be to question the true and 
proper divinity of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, true God of true God. 

That Stanley does not believe in 
the necessity of baptism or the Eu- 
charist two sacraments which the 
Church of England did not reject 
is evident from his articles on the 
subject of the sacraments in the 
magazine, The Nineteenth Century, 
during the past summer. He spoke 
of the sacraments as being valuable 
rather as suggestions and reminis- 
cences of Christian faith than as 
any embodiments of grace or sanc- 
tification. He declares the doc- 
trine of the church regarding the 
power of the sacraments to give 
grace ex opere operate to be as ab- 
surd and barbarous as the Latinity 
of the theological phrase which ex- 
presses the faith of the church, and 
the faith of his own church, if he 
regards the Church of England as 
his own. He hopes that the beau- 
tiful but now meaningless forms of 
christening and taking the sacra- 
ment will yield to that higher and 
more spiritual frame of mind which 
no longer needs symbols, no longer 
leans upon the merely crude and 
cumbrous forms of religious expres- 
sion in which our rude forefathers 
found such delight. A squalling 
baby at the baptismal font is, no 
doubt, shocking to the aesthetic 
sense of the fastidious dean, and 
the hands that 



grasp the 



484 



Two Famous Deans. 



mental bread may be vulgarly red 
and rough ; but baptism is a sacra- 
ment which nearly all England has 
received, and the Lord's Supper, 
even with the Real Presence ab- 
sent, is a glimmer of light which 
not all the rationalizing of all the 
Stanleys can wholly darken or ex- 
tinguish. 

Let not the reader misunder- 
stand our purport in speaking of 
Dean Stanley with what may seem 
to be unnecessary harshness. We 
criticise him only as a theologian. 
We admire his patience in having 
politely put up with the brutal 
and vulgar rejection of his amiable 
request to administer the sacrament 
according to the Greek rite at the 
marriage of the Duchess of Edin- 
burgh, at which he assisted, with 
becoming gravity, as chaplain to 
Prince Arthur, who, we are told, 
consoled the dean with the advice 
" not to mind those old Russian 
patriarchs." In fact, to comfort 
the dean, the prince took the sac- 
rament after the Anglican rite; 
from which our now happy dean 
augured the union of the Greek 
and Anglican churches. He goes 
hence to England with the same 
joyous feeling that he has recon- 
ciled all our American religious 
squabbles. 

Dean Stanley is by birth, educa- 
tion, and natural refinement of 
feeling and character a gentle- 
man. He is a fair scholar, and, in 
particular, the master of an Eng- 
lish style of marked rhetorical 
beauty. His position as Dean of 
Westminster may have much to do 
with his universal religionism, 
which he unfortunately thinks is 
Christian charity. The Westmin- 
ster deanery is mainly a civil office. 
It is part of his duty to conduct 
the funeral services of any eminent 
deceased Englishman, no matter 



of what belief or unbelief, that the 
authorities may see fit to inter in 
the venerable abbey. The dean 
has no right to object to such in- 
terment for religious reasons. Of 
course no man of strict, or what 
Stanley would call" narrow," eccle- 
siasticism would or *could hold 
such a position. To take an illus- 
trative case. The late Charles 
Dickens left express directions in 
his will to have no religious ser- 
vices (or, as he phrased it, " no 
mummeries ") held at his grave. 
He told his children in the same 
document to dissociate themselves 
from any religious organization, 
and to content themselves with 
reading the New Testament "in 
the broadest spirit," whatever that 
means. Dickens, however, was 
buried in the abbey. Dean Stan- 
ley conducted the services. And 
what do our readers think of 
Stanley's sermon on this occasion ? 
He coolly compares the dead nov- 
elist to our Lord Jesus Christ. 
From the text, which was the para- 
ble of Lazarus and Dives, to the 
conclusion this horrible blasphemy 
is kept up.* Christ, we are told, 
was a great story-teller ; so was 
Dickens. Both instructed the peo- 
ple in parables. Both preached 
the same great gospel of humanity. 
Both felt the same abounding love 
for the poor, etc. This latter 
statement is peculiarly ludicrous 
in view of Dickens' notorious stin- 
giness. But who can smile when 
there is question of blasphemy ? 
It was an act of questionable pro- 
priety for any clergyman to have 
preached over Dickens, but, could 
so anomalous a cleric have been 
found, he certainly should not 
have jarred Christian feeling by 
comparing, nay, equalling, the de- 

* Vide appendix of R. Shelton Mackenzie's Life 
of Charles Lickens^ " The Sermon." 



TWJ Fantous Deans. 



485 



parted romancist to the ever-bless- 
ed Son of God. The parables of 
Christ have been the joy, the warn- 
ing, and the study of religious 
souls for nearly two thousand years. 
To compare the novels of Dickens 
which, viewed even from a purely 
literary stand-point, are very far 
from faultless, and which our chil- 
dren now scarcely read to com- 
pare any speech of human, and per- 
chance soiled, lips to the parables 
of Him who spake as never man 
spake, is a phase of advanced 
"liberality" before which even 
Voltaire shrank and Strauss re- 
coils.* The generality of our rea- 
ders can form a clearer conception 
of Dean Stanley's peculiar theology 
from a popular specimen of his 
sermons than from a study of his 
more ambitious books, which they 
may not have the leisure or the 
opportunity of examining. He is 
the Dr. Easy of the immortal Come- 
dy of Convocation. The smiling doc- 
tor nods assent to every opinion, 
with a modest deprecation of hav- 
ing any opinion in particular him- 
self. 

There is in the English church 
an honest wish among many clergy- 
men to unite with the Catholic 
Church. But this union, they per- 
ceive, must be doctrinal. Stanley 
believes in a union of Christendom 
without any doctrinal basis. He 
believes in the poet's saying about 
the goodness of heart which is to 
take the place of "graceless bi- 
got's fight." A writer in last 
November number of this maga- 
zine says that Dr. Pusey represents 
the true tendency to Catholic 
union among the Anglican divines, 
but Pusey is a thorough Anglican. 
Catch him, indeed, preaching such 
a doctrine as Dean Stanley's ! It 
sounds very benevolent to proclaim 

* The Old and the New Faith, vol. ii. p. 19. 



that all Christendom is already 
united upon the broad sympathy 
which bridges over the chasm of 
decayed dogmas. It is very easy 
and very amiable to say to the 
world : " Cannot we clasp hands 
as men and brothers, and let our 
petty doctrines go, and bend be- 
fore the universal Fatherhood?" 
And men listen, and the appeal at- 
tracts them, and they believe it is 
well so to do. But it is a mislead- 
ing call for all Christendom. There 
can be no religion to take the place 
of Christ's one, true, and holy faith. 
There can be no " wider thought "to 
succeed the truth as it is in Christ. 
It is folly, it is sin, to suppose that 
any religion can equal, or supplant, 
or improve upon the church found- 
ed by Christ upon the Everlasting 
Rock. This is the mistake of lib- 
eral Protestants. Christianity can- 
not " improve," cannot give way to 
a "nobler world-creed." It is the 
last revelation of God to man in 
the present order of creation, and 
it will endure, without rival or suc- 
cessor, till the last trump shall 
sound. 

We sincerely wish that Dean 
Stanley was not so very liberal, sb 
very unbigoted. We even would 
desire that he was a little more 
like Dean Swift, though that ex- 
ceedingly coarse fellow is the last 
type of character that our dear 
Stanley would fancy. Effeminacy 
is spoiling the best men in the An- 
glican communion, and a rougher 
manhood and a sterner dealing 
with the moral evils of the day 
would benefit them. Swift was a 
man that troubled himself little 
about the niceties of theology, but 
he spoke out like a plain, blunt 
parson and dean against infidelity, 
atheism, and neglect of Christian 
duty. He despised Queen Anne 
because of her weak compliance 



486 



Tom Ffrenctis Christmas at Curraghglass. 



with every wish of her unworthy 
favorites. He fought for the peo- 
ple of Ireland at a time when they 
had not a single man to lift voice 
or pen in their behalf, and thus he 
gave a practical prosf of that " love 
of man, the crowning creed," about 
which Dean Stanley preaches so elo- 
quently. He scorned "atheists 
and fools," and told the people of 
England to beware of false phi- 



losophers as they would of the 
devil. No more biting sarcasm on 
the vain and delusive speculations 
of dreamers after ideal perfection 
does there exist than the Voyage to 
Laputa. He struck the right key 
when he appealed to the common 
sense of men, who are only per- 
plexed and misled by the fantasies 
of so poetic a mind as Dean Stan- 
ley undoubtedly possesses. 



TOM FFRENCH'S CHRISTMAS AT CURRAGHGLASS. 



ABOUT five miles from the pic- 
turesque little town of Oughterard, 
the Connemara side, stands a fine 
old house buried in the midst of a 
neglected pleasaunce, called Cur- 
raghglass a noble mansion of the 
"severe classical," as it pleased the 
architects who flourished in the 
days of Queen Anne to style the 
severe, haughty, demure, yet not 
altogether uncomfortable manorial 
residences erected during her reign. 
The house, at the date on which it 
is brought under the notice of the 
reader, bore a decayed, mildewed, 
and melancholy look, and were it 
not that the gravel sweep opposite 
the grand entrance was kept neatly 
raked not so much as a solitary 
blade of grass or sprout of ground- 
sel putting in an appearance, while 
the rake-marks were fresh as the 
lines on a print of Hogarth's and 
that the two ponderous brass knock- 
ers shone as bright as burnished 
gold, one would be led to suppose 
that the place was as free from the 
imprint of a human foot as the 
island of Juan Fernandez, or the 
rose and very-much-thorn palace 



inhabited by the Sleeping Beauty 
in the Wood. 

The window-shutters were clos- 
ed, the woodwork cracked and 
peeled and gnarled in the blaze of 
summer suns and the blast of win- 
ter winds that beat fiercely from 
the broad Atlantic, whose drowsy 
hum in June and whose mighty 
roar in December soothed or scared 
in turn the dwellers at Curragh- 
glass. Great myrtle-trees caress- 
ingly raised their ragged branches 
towards the upper windows, show- 
ing perfume-laden blossoms deli- 
ciously white against the warm red 
brick, while fuchsias straggled and 
sprawled at their sweet wild will, 
sadly ringing their blue and scarlet 
bells or twitting the bloom of the 
heliotrope for its " hodden-gray." 

The house was enclosed by gi- 
gantic elms, in which a colony of 
rooks cawed themselves hoarse 
from morning until night. A vast 
courtyard, now choked with weeds 
and grass, stood at the rear, sur- 
rounded by stables, and coach- 
houses, and barns, and dairies, and 
servants' sleeping apartments. A 



Tom FfrencJis Christmas at Curraghglass. 



487 






dimly-marked path in the rank ve- 
getation, leading to a carved foun- 
tain that still trickled crystal water 
from out a Gorgon's head, the lips 
being velveted with deep-tinted 
lichen, denoted the existence of 
" poor humanity," since this lightly- 
trodden way might be traced to a 
set of stone steps, a mass of glorious 
mosses and ferns, and to an oaken 
door studded with immense iron 
nails, such as one meets in the ca- 
thedral portals in Spain. 

Curraghglass was the home of 
the Ffrenches, one of the most blue- 
blooded families on the Galway side 
of the Shannon. It was from 
Curraghglass that Tom Ffrench, 
" Fighting Ffrench," rode, without 
drawing rein, to vote against the 
Union. It was in Curraghglass that 
Julia Ffrench, his wife, shot the 
Hessian officer who drew sword 
upon a hunted priest. It was at 
Curraghglass that Billy Ffrench, 
Tom's son, compelled the process- 
server to eat his own writ. It was 
at Curraghglass that Erin-go-Bragh, 
the horse that beat everything the 
English garrison could turn out on 
the Curragh, was foaled. It was at 
Curraghglass that Stephen Ffrench 
horsewhipped Lord Mountchester, 
the lord lieutenant's private se- 
cretary, for speaking disparagingly 
of an Irish lady then a guest at the 
house. In olden times Curragh- 
glass was a famous stronghold, held 
grimly by the Ffrenches, its ruined 
keep and ivied tower telling a story 
of siege and assault, of sortie and 
foray, of defiance and chivalry, of 
feast and famine, of keen and revel- 
ry such as few stone walls could 
furnish modern history with. The 
Ffrenches had been a reckless race. 
Hospitable to a fault, and unmind- 
ful of the morrow, they lived the 
to-day, plunging into debt, mort- 
gaging their broad acres, dissipat- 



ing their inheritances, till Tom 
Ffrench, the present owner, was 
too poor and too proud to inhabit 
the home of his ancestors. He 
lived abroad, no person knew where, 
nor did any person trouble his or 
her head about him. He had gone 
down, and the waters of oblivion 
had swept over his head the old, 
old story, so old it is scarcely 
worth repeating. 

When the Six Hundred rode up 
the valley of Balaklava, and " exalted 
the reputation of the English heart 
at the expense of that of the English 
head," there was among those who 
valiantly did the duty on which they 
were sent by incompetent com- 
manders a certain captain of hus- 
sars. He was a brilliant horse- 
man, handy at vaulting into the 
saddle, fast across country, and, 
unhappily for himself, reckless in 
every sense of the term. In that 
ride of death he had a charger 
shot under him, but, being quick 
and active, he caught one of the 
riderless horses and advanced to 
the guns. Badly hurt with sabre 
and lance, and being again un- 
horsed, he was taken prisoner ; but, 
keenly alive to the chances of es- 
cape, he seized a. moment when 
the mad confusion of galloping 
horses, empty saddles, and smoke- 
clouds rendered chance a possi- 
bility. Of the loose horses two 
or three came instinctively to- 
wards his English uniform, and 
Captain Ffrench sprang upon the 
back of one of them like a flash. 
Taken by surprise, his Russian 
custodians had hardly time to start 
in pursuit before the shattered 
squadrons of England started for 
that awful ride back which was to 
empty so many saddles and to bring 
so many gallant troops face to face 
with death. One of that Six Hun- 
dred who never reached the Bri- 



Tom FfrencJis Christmas at Curraghglass. 



tish lines alive was Billy Ffrench. 
His body was recovered by his 
faithful servant, Barney Joyce, 
stripped of its gay and gaudy uni- 
form, while a bullet-hole in the 
back of his head told the story of 
how he went down to his death. 

When the news of the charge 
reached Curraghglass there was 
awful heart-throb and desolation. 
Then like a thunderbolt came the 
revelation of the true state of the 
hussar's financial recklessness. 
Demands for money, like the can- 
non at Balaklava, in front, on the 
right, on the left, in the rear, came 
pouring in upon the still young 
and handsome widow. She made 
a frantic effort to redeem the honor 
of her dead hero by selling every- 
thing that could be sold until 
there was naught of the old pro- 
perty left for her only son, Tom, 
but the house and elm-trees at 
Curraghglass. She died, not of a 
broken but of a throbbing heart, 
throbbing with hope and fear for 
her idolized son ; and when the 
lamp of his mother's life had gone 
out for ever, Tom Ffrench quitted 
the old home, leaving it in charge 
of Barney Joyce, the brave cor- 
poral -who had sought his master's 
body in a rain of bullets, going no 
man knew whither. It was, indeed, 
by no sin of his own that this young 
man was an exile. His father had 
been one of the shining lights of the 
fashionable world, and had squan- 
dered his own and his wife's for- 
tune in that wild dash which was 
part and parcel of the career of 
an officer in a crack cavalry regi- 
ment prior to the days of the Cri- 
mea. " Billy " Ffrench had spent 
all his money and mortgaged every 
inch of Curraghglass that could be 
mortgaged but the house and wood ; 
being happily fettered by entail, he 
was compelled to leave them in- 



tact. Though his fortune was 
gone, he retained the extravagant 
habits which had made him seem 
reckless even among the wild set 
he had consorted with. Living 
in London as much as his regi- 
mental duties permitted, he had 
a house in Mayfair, where he ate 
strawberries in February and 
peaches in April. Curraghglass 
was full of guests during the hunt- 
ing and shooting season, and at 
Christmas the old walls rocked 
again in the hilarity begotten of 
an insane hospitality. Tom Ffrench 
would not let Curraghglass. He 
would stand anything but that 
anything but strangers in the house 
in which he had been born. To 
traffic in theJiome of his ancestors ; 
to barter the domestic hearth of 
the Ffrench es for the money of 
some mere parvenu, some English 
upstart who would use it for a 
couple of months when the grouse 
were on the hills or the hounds 
hunting past the gates never ! 
Mr. Anthony Bodkin, the family 
solicitor, proposed some such ar- 
rangement, only to repent his te- 
merity. 

" Anything like the look young 
Ffrench gave me I never beheld. 
It was as black as that ink, sir." 
This in detailing the occurrence to 
Doctor Hagerty, of Clifden, over a 
humming tumbler of poteen punch. 

To Barney Joyce was Curragh- 
glass formally handed over by its 
youthful owner. 

"Joyce, I cannot bear to stop 
here. My mother gone, my friends 
bah! What needy wretch has 
friends? This place is too full 
of memories, too full of regrets, 
for me. As long as I live I'll 
keep it intact ; if I die you'll 
hear of my death. Till then, Bar- 
ney, you will reside here. Allow 
no human being inside the walls. 



Tom FfrencJi s Christmas at CurragJiglass. 



489 



I speak to you now as if I were 
my dead father and your captain, 
Corporal. No person shall pry 
or peep into the old home. 
Keep my room always ready for 
me. You will never know the 
moment I may return. Give the 
fruit to Sister Mary Agnes, of the 
Clares, who attended my darling 
mother with so much devotion. 
Let the convent take it all, and all 
the flowers. I have made arrange- 
ments with Mr. Sutcliffe, the man- 
ager of the Hibernian Bank at 
Clifden, so that he will pay you 
five pounds every month. You 
are provided for, my faithful 
friend" wringing the hand of the 
Corporal, who stood erect as if on 
parade. "God bless you, Joyce! 
I go now, I do not know whither 
myself. You will not hear from 
me, but, please Heaven, you'll see 
me some day or other. Brace up, 
old hero ! Remember Balaklava !" 
Ten years oh ! the magic of ten 
long years glided away in summer 
suns and wintry winds, and the 
heir of Curraghglass made no sign. 
"The Corporal," as he was invari- 
ably styled in the village of Far- 
ranfore, held the fort, obeying the 
instructions given him with mili- 
tary inflexiblity. In vain did re- 
lations and friends of the absent 
heir apply for admission to Cur- 
raghglass; in vain did Mr. An- 
thony Bodkin, as legal adviser to 
the family, insist upon making a 
search for some papers of alleged 
importance ; in vain did tourists 
offer yellow gold for a peep into 
the old house, for it was talked of 
at the sign of the " Broiled Mack- 
erel " and at all the shebeens 
for miles around ; in vain did 
*' swell fishermen " from Ballina- 
hinch, once the property of Dick 
Martin, but now in the hands of a 
London company, crave shelter 



from storm or an abiding place 
adjacent to the salmon pool, not a 
thousand yards from the mansion. 
The Corporal turned a deaf ear to 
entreaty, gave scorn to bribe and 
contempt to subterfuge. He re- 
sided in a small apartment in the 
rear giving upon the grass-grown 
courtyard, and, being a bachelor, 
lived alone. Every morning he 
dusted " Master Tom's " room, 
raked the gravel opposite the en- 
trance, and burnished up the brass 
knockers. Every day he march- 
ed, stiff and erect as though in the 
Portobello barracks, to the post- 
office in Farranfore to ask for let- 
ters that never came. 

"Any letters for Corporal 
Joyce ?" saluting Mrs. Fogarty, the 
postmistress, military fashion. 

" None to-day, Corporal," was the 
invariable reply, with considerable 
emphasis on the " to-day," thereby 
gilding the to-morrow with hope. 

The Corporal would then march 
down the village street to the 
Ffrench Arms, a quaint little hos- 
tlery glowing in whitewash and 
golden thatch, and kept by the 
widow of a former butler at the 
big house. Belonging as this lady 
did to the Ffrenches by virtue of 
her marriage, with her the Cor- 
poral was accustomed to unbend 
a little, and even to discuss the 
future of Curraghglass. The good 
lady who, it must be told, entertain- 
ed a sneaking regard for this sun- 
kissed, grizzly dragoon, Joyce was 
about forty, and ever received him, 
metaphorically speaking, with open 
arms, placing the Gal way Vindica- 
tor, just arrived by the long car, at 
his special disposal, and ever so little 
a " drop of the crayture " to help him 
on his homeward march. Mrs. 
Finn went so far as to open nego- 
tiations through Pat Mulvey, who 
drew the " lobster car " to West- 



490 



Tom Ffrench' s Christmas at Curraghglass. 



port, to secure for the delectation 
of the Corporal a weekly copy of 
the Army and Navy Gazette. This 
delicate mission was triumphantly 
accomplished by Pat, who got in 
"Co." with the servant of Captain 
Burke, of the Mayo Rifles, then 
quartered in Westport, and, to the 
Corporal's intense satisfaction, this 
Koran of the "gentlemen of the 
army" became the absolute pro- 
perty of the faithful dragoon, who 
beguiled many of his lonely hours, 
at Curraghglass in spelling out its 
manifold and, to him, absorbing 
contents. 

One dark and gloomy Novem- 
ber day, about ten years after the 
departure of Tom Ffrench " for 
parts unknown," Corporal Joyce 
strode into the snug little parlor 
of the Ffrench Arms. 

" Any letters to-day, Mister 
Joyce ?" asked the glowing land- 
lady, buxom, fat, fair, and forty. 
She had put this query every day 
for the last six years. 

"Not to-day, Mrs. Finn." 

" Well, mebbe you'll get them to- 
morrow, Corporal." 

" It's not unlikely, ma'am." 

" God's good." 

The Corporal, drawing a wooden 
stool close to the fire, gallantly as- 
sisted Mrs. Finn in flinging a few 
sods of turf on the smouldering pile 
and in sweeping up the white out- 
lying ashes with the wing of a 
goose. 

" It's a lonesome sort of day, 
Corporal," observed the widow, ex- 
tracting the Gal way Vindicator 
from a hidden recess behind the 
window-shutter. 

" It is, ma'am. It was this sort 
of a day on the tenth of December, 
eighteen hundred and sixty-one." 

" That was the day" 

" That Master Tom left for parts 
unknown," interrupted the Corporal. 



" I was dreaming about him last 
night, Corporal," said Mrs. Finn, 
seating herself on a three-legged 
stool at the other side of the fire. 

"I was dreamin' of his father." 

"And the charge," casting her 
eyes upwards at a smoke-stained 
illustration of the Ride of Death, 
cut from the Illustrated London 
News. 

" Yes, ma'am, and the charge," 
slowly filling his short black pipe 
from a rabbit-skin tobacco-pouch 
made for him by the fair hands of 
his companion. 

" He's dead now" 

" We rode into the valley of Bala- 
klava at four o'clock on Friday, the 
twenty-fourth of October, eighteen 
hundred and fifty- four." 

"And this is the " 

"Ninth of November, eighteen 
hundred and seventy-one. Fifty- 
four from seventy-one leaves seven- 
teen years. Seventeen years!" re- 
peated the Corporal meditatively. 
" I'd take me davy it was last week 
that the captain said to me, ' Joyce,' 
says he, ' we'll have to ride our 
level best. We're riding into fire. 
If I go down, tell them at Curragh- 
glass ; if you go down, I'll do the 
same by you.' He went down, 
Mrs. Finn, and I'm here." 

" A brave man went down, Cor- 
poral." 

" A Ffrench went down, Mrs. 
Finn !" said Joyce proudly. 

" True for ye, Corporal ; there 
never was a white feather at Cur- 
raghglass." 

At this moment a shock-headed 
retainer, thrusting half his body into 
the apartment, shouted, as though 
the landlady were on the top of the 
adjacent hill and he down in the 
lowermost depths of the valley : 

" Missis Finn, ma'am ! there's a 
shay an' pair comin' along the road 
from Clifden." 



Tom FfrencJis Christmas at Curraghglass. 



49 i 



" It's from Rathmor, Mickey." 

" Sorra a taste, ma'am. The 
Rathmor shay is bet up sense the 
races at Leenane." 

"It's from Knocklong, then." 

" The major tuk his yoke up to 
Dublin, an* Paddy McCue along 
wid it, last Sathurda." 

All doubts as to the ownership 
of the vehicle in question were very 
rapidly solved, as in the space of a 
few minutes it came to a stand- 
still opposite the Ffrench Arms. 

" Yer for to come out to the 
quollity, ma'am," announced the 
shock-headed boy. 

" Are they forriners ?" All stran- 
gers in Connemara come under this 
category. 

" No, ma'am ; it's ould Mrs. 
Ffrinch, av Tollthaghula, an' abeau- 
tiful young leddy wid her. Murty 
Laloris dhrivin' as bould as a ram, 
and he knowin' as much about a 
horse as I do av a steam-in gin." 

Mrs. Finn, smoothing her apron, 
adjusting her cap at a little crack- 
ed mirror attached to the window- 
shutter, was hastily hurrying forth 
to encounter the occupants of the 
carriage when the young lady refer- 
red to by the " boy " entered the 
apartment. 

"Mrs. Finn?" 

"Yes, miss," bobbing a curtsy. 

This girl was young and fresh, 
with soft, dark eyes, a haughty 
mouth, a piquante nose, and wine- 
colored hair. She was of the mid- 
dle height, and her figure, despite 
a cumbrous sealskin jacket, show- 
ed " lissome and round." Her eye- 
lashes and teeth caught the ob- 
server like a flash, the former sweep- 
ing down on her cheeks, the latter 
glittering like pearls dipped in 
dew. 

Casting a rapid glance round 
the apartment, her eyes fell upon 
Joyce, who had risen and was stand- 




ing, stiff as a ramrod, at attention. 
A bright smile lighted up her face 
as, advancing to him, she said in a 
rich, musical, high-bred voice, with 
just the faintest soupfon of the 
brogue and a perfume of a foreign 
tongue : 

"You are Corporal Joyce?" 

" I am, miss." 

" Shake hands, Corporal !" ex- 
tending a plump little hand. " I 
am a Ffrench." 

The Corporal went through the 
ceremony as though he were engag- 
ed in handling nitro-glycerine. 

" I've heard oh ! so much about 
yon, Corporal, and I'm delighted 
to meet you. You don't know me ? 
I'll tell you who I am in two sec- 
onds. Sit down," seating herself 
on the stool vacated by Mrs. Finn. 
" Well, if you prefer to stand, a vo- 
tre aise. You know Tollthaghula, 
don't you ?" 

" I do, miss." 

"You know Counsellor Ffrench, 
don't you ?" 

"Of Dublin, miss?" 

"Yes." 

"That comes the Connaught 
circuit?" 

" Yes," 

"I know him well, miss, and I 
hope he's well." 

" He's quite well, Corporal, 
thanks, and he is my father. I am 
down here on a visit to my uncle 
and aunt at Tollthaghula." 

" I've heard tell it's a fine place, 
miss." 

" You must come over and see it, 
see us, see me" she gaily cried. 

" It's too far, miss, and I'm on 
duty." 

" I thought you had left the 
army ?" 

"On duty at Curraghglass, miss." 

" Oh ! yes, I've heard all about 
that and poor Mr. Tom's disappear- 
ance. Tell me, Corporal," earnest- 



492 



Tom Ffrenctis Christmas at Curraghglass. 



ly, and clasping her knees with her 
hands, "is he alive, do you think ?" 

" Alive, miss ? Why, of course he 
is." 

" Then you have heard from 
him ?" 

" Not a line." 

" Yet you say he's alive. Oh ! 
I know you heard of him." 

" Not a word." 

" Then how can you say he's 
alive, Corporal ?" 

" Because, miss, if he was dead 
I'd have heard the Banshee," with 
a solemn gravity that' smote the 
girl like the toll of a deep bell. 

" Does the Banshee always cry 
on the death of a Ffrench ?" she 
asked. 

" On the death of the heir or the 
chief of the family only, miss." 

The simple dignity of this 
bronzed and faithful veteran fasci- 
nated the young and enthusiastic 
girl. 

Barbara Ffrench was eighteen 
and motherless. Educated at a 
convent school in Belgium up to 
the tips of her rosy ringers, her 
holidays had been passed in France, 
Germany, or Italy, since her father, 
with a laudable desire of killing 
two birds with one stone, invariably 
devoted the long vacation to travel ; 
consequently, when he deserted the 
Liffy for the Rhine, or the Four 
Courts for the Acropolis, he picked 
up his daughter by the way, depo- 
siting her at school on his return 
to Dublin and his briefs. In this 
manner Miss Ffrench had seen a 
good deal for one so young, had 
profited by her opportunities, and 
when she made her debut at the 
viceregal court the season prior to 
my introducing her to the reader 
she created something akin to a 
furore. 

Mrs. Finn had bustled out to the 
chaise, leaving Barbara Ffrench and 



the Corporal facing one anothe 
over the turf-fire. 

" Corporal," suddenly (Tried the 
girl, " I want ever so much to see 
Curraghglass." 

The Corporal eyed her askance. 

" There's no hindrance, miss, in 
regard to the outside of the house," 
was his guarded reply. 

" But I want to see the interior. 
Is it a fact that you have Mr. 
Ffrench's room always ready for 
him ?" 

"Always. That was his com- 
mand." 

" And that you live there all 
alone ?" 

"All alone, miss." 

" And that you will let no person 
see the house ?" 

" That was his order, miss." 

" But you'll let me ?" 

The Corporal shook his head. 

"Not me? Why, I'm his kins- 
woman." 

"If you was his wife I couldn't 
disobey orders," said the Corporal. 

Miss Ffrench was only a woman, 
and when a woman resolves upon 
gratifying her curiosity, like love, 
she laughs at locksmiths. 

" Surely you are not in earnest, 
Corporal ?" 

"That was his order," sticking 
doggedly by his text. 

" Mr. Ffrench meant curious, 
good-for-nothing people, who would 
merely go to Curraghglass to speak 
shabbily of it when they get out 
of ear-shot. He didn't include his 
kinsfolk." 

"He made no exception, miss. 
Here's his own words : ' If I die,' 
sez he, ' you'll hear of my death. 
Till then, Barney, you will reside 
here. Allow no human being in- 
side the walls. I speak to you now 
as if I were my dead father and 
your captain, Corporal.' Them's 
his own words, Miss Ffrench, and, 



Tom Ffr cncJis Christmas at Citrraghgldss. 



493 



please God, they'll be respected till 
Barney Joyce is relieved of his 
guard." 

Miss Ffrench was silent for a 
moment. 

" How far is Curraghglass from 
this, Corporal ?" she at length 
asked. 

" Five miles and a little bit, 
miss, by the road. Across the bog 
it's a little more nor four." 

" Are you going back now ?" 

'" Not till I've finished the Gal- 
way Vindicator, miss." 

" How long will that take you ?" 

" An hour and a half, miss." 

"O my!" she exclaimed in a 
despairing sort of way, adding, 
" Never mind," and springing from 
the three-legged stool, which her 
skirts sent flying into the turf 
ashes, she swept out to where the 
landlady was engaged in gossiping 
with Mrs. Ffrench. 

" Aunt, will you go on for your 
visit to Clondulane, and pick me up 
here on your return ?" 

Mrs. Ffrench naturally inquired 
the cause of such a request. 

" I want to go over to Curragh- 
glass." 

" You won't get to see it, miss," 
chimed in Mrs. Finn. 

" Hush ! not a word!" half-whis- 
pered Barbara, placing her finger 
to her lips. " I mean to go over 
and try my luck." 

" But Mister Joyce has the keys, 
and" 

" I don't require any keys. I 
merely want to see the place that I 
have been dreaming of since I was 
rocked to sleep in my cot. I want 
to peep in at the windows and 
through the chinks of the doors. 
I want to see trie stronghold of our 
clan, aunt. It's a fancy, but oh ! 
ever so strong; and I may as well 
tell you that I will not go to Clon- 
dulane, if I have to sit here till you re- 



turn." And Miss Ffrench, suiting 
the action to the word, crossed her 
arms and seated herself on a gra- 
nite boulder by the side of the 
road. 

Mrs. Ffrench elevated her eye- 
brows. She knew of the passion- 
ate longing in the girl's breast to 
visit Curraghglass, and was loath to 
chill it by a refusal. 

" You could not go alone, Bar- 
bara, and I am bound to get over 
to Clondulane." 

" The Corporal will escort me." 

"The orderly of the late Cap- 
tain Ffrench ?" 

" Yes, auntie, a Bayard in mufti." 

" And do you mean to tell me, 
Barbara, that you would go tramp- 
ing across the country with a dis- 
banded trooper, who may be any- 
thing for aught you know to the 
contrary ?" 

" I'll go bail for Mister Joyce," 
cried Mrs. Finn hotly ; " but, lest the 
young leddy wud be put out of 
seein' the big house, my niece 
Biddy will go along wud her. 
She's a slip of sixteen." 

" Mrs. Finn, you are a darling," 
cried Barbara, jumping to her feet. 
"Corporal!" 

The Corporal started to the door, 
where he stood grim and erect as 
the skeleton of the Roman sentinel 
discovered at Pompei. 

" Will you escort me to Curragh- 
glass, and leave the Galway Vindica- 
tor till this evening, Corporal?" 

"To Curraghglass, miss?" And 
the Corporal looked perplexed. 
"The outside is" 

"It's the outside I want to see," 
interrupted the girl almost impa- 
tiently. 

" Anything you wish me to do 
inside his orders I'll do ; but it's a 
long walk for the likes of you, and 
and there's not much to see." 

"Who's going to walk it?" de- 



494 



Tom Ffrenclis Christmas at Curraghglass. 



manded Mrs. Finn somewhat sharp- 
ly. "Here, Mickey, run an' ketch 
the mare, an' yoke her to me own 
car this minnit. Run, an' don't 
let the grass be growing up be- 
tween your toes." 

Thus admonished, the shock- 
headed youth bounded over a high 
wall, bounded across a bog, bound- 
ed over another wall, bounded over 
huge granite boulders, and ulti- 
mately bounded on to the back of an 
unsuspecting steed that was peace- 
fully engaged in nibbling such stray 
patches of grass as dared peep up 
amongst the tangle of gorse and 
fern. The car was quickly brought 
out a low-backed vehicle with a 
ponderous well, and wheels not free 
from the suspicion of hay-bound 
spokes. Biddy Finn, all smiles and 
blushes, face and hair shining from 
the recent application of soap, and 
attired in her " last Mass " gar- 
ments, sidled to the car. 

"Up wid ye, Biddy, up wid ye, 
miss! The mare won't stand," 
cried Mickey. 

The girl, with a merry laugh, 
jumped on to the car, Biddy 
springing beside her, the Corporal 
stiffly ascended at the other side, 
and with a wild whoop, as though 
in pursuit of a dog-fox, the " gos- 
soon " violently applied a birch 
twig to the somewhat unwilling 
mare, and started in a zigzag 
course en route to Curraghglass. 

" Tell me all about poor Mister 
Tom, Corporal," said Barbara 
Ffrench when they had proceeded 
a little way. " I want to hear 
everything." 

As a matter of fact, the absent 
master of Curraghglass was Barba- 
ra's hero of romance ; she imagined 
him tall, dark, gloomy, with the 
melancholy aspect of Edgar of 
Ravenswood. He was her con- 
stant theme of conversation, even 



in that far-away convent in Bel- 
gium, where she would talk about 
him for hours to her confidant, 
now imagining him returning 
to the old ancestral home laden 
with a lac of rupees she would 
have it that Tom Ffrench went to 
India, like Clive and Hastings 
every coin of which was to be ex- 
pended in repurchasing the family 
estates and in re-establishing the 
feudal splendor that reigned in the 
Ffrench stronghold in the olden 
time. Again she would picture 
him a broken-down man with dead 
ashes at his heart, the bitter cup of 
life drained to the dregs, dragging 
his worn-out frame to Curragh- 
glass to die. Barbara was warm, 
imaginative, enthusiastic, with a 
passionate faith in all that appeal- 
ed directly to her sympathies. 
She had a fresh, unworn heart, with 
its springs of emotion as yet un- 
sounded, as yet unto'uched, and to 
which a shadow bore all the sem- 
blance of a dream, a tear all the 
savor of a luxury. Generous, im- 
pulsive, acting in the belief that 
God's sunshine was for the good, 
and, with some awful exceptions, 
that every one was good, Barbara 
went upon her way, singing like a 
young bird, timid as a young bird, 
yet free as a young bird. She had 
beguiled her aunt into paying a 
visit of state to a family some 
twelve miles distant, solely for the 
purpose of getting a peep at Cur- 
raghglass even "in the far off." 
The accidental meeting with Cor- 
poral Joyce caused her to make a 
desperate attempt at a personal in- 
spection of her Castle of Romance, 
and her childish delight at having so 
far accomplished hef object scarce- 
ly recognized bounds. 

The Corporal, nothing loath, lean- 
ed respectfully across the car, and 
during the remainder of the drive 



Tom FfrencJis Christmas at Curraghglass. 



495 



narrated anecdotes of Tom Ffrench, 
all more or less of a daring and 
adventurous character. Fording a 
mountain stream, he pointed out 
where the young master, then but 
a boy, had plunged in to save the 
life of a drowning lamb at the im- 
minent risk of his own. A turn of 
the road, and the Corporal stopped 
the car in order to show Miss 
Ffrench where their mutual hero 
he was just as much of a hero to 
Joyce as to Barbara had taken the 
" big lep " against an English offi- 
cer who was stopping at the house, 
and who had bragged at the din- 
ner-table about his own equestrian 
performances. Here " Master 
Tom " had landed a ten-pound 
trout, there he had shot a dozen 
snipe at an almost impossible range 
and under the most perplexing 
conditions. Further on the Corpo- 
ral marked the exact spot where 
the heir of Curraghglass had stop- 
ped Major Bodkin's runaway, sav- 
ing the major and his daughter 
from inevitable death. Every hun- 
dred yards, as the car neared the 
wood, enabled the Corporal to 
sing the praises of his absent liege, 
and as the vehicle passed into the 
grass-grown drive Barbara found 
herself in possession of a very de- 
tailed and truthful sketch of the 
career of Tom Ffrench up to the 
period of his absenting himself for 
"foreign parts unknown." 

" And so this is Curraghglass," 
exclaimed the girl, clasping her 
hands as she gazed reverently at 
the splendid old house, its red 
bricks standing in glorious con- 
trast to the grim, dark wood and 
the cold gray sky. 

"Yes, miss." 

" It's a noble building." 

" The finest in Connemara, 
miss." 

" Fit for a prince." 



"The family is descended, miss, 
from the kings of Ireland," said the 
Corporal proudly. 

" And those rooks, what a caw- 
ing they keep up !" 

" They're fine company, miss. 
What with them birds and Master 
Tom's clock, no man need be 
a bit lonesome." 

"And you won't let me see the 
interior?". 

"It's against orders, miss." 

" One little peep !" 

" It goes to the core of my heart 
to refuse you, miss, but orders is or- 
ders." And the Corporal drew 
himself up as if on parade. 

" It's very hard," sighed Barba- 
ra. 

" Cruel hard, miss," sighed the 
Corporal ; " but," he added, bright- 
ening up, " when the master comes 
back I'll go bail it won't be his 
fault if you don't see plenty of it." 

The significance of this remark 
set the red blood flaming in the 
girl's face. 

" He may never return," she ex- 
claimed, with an attempted light 
laugh. 

" Would ye like to walk round 
the house, miss ? if ye don't 
mind a little damp," asked the Cor- 
poral. 

Barbara sprang from the car. 

" May I take this sprig of myr- 
tle ? Pshaw!" she exclaimed, "I 
will take it." And advancing to 
the house, she detached a small 
sprig from the tree and placed it 
in her bosom. 

"Might I let the baste taste a 
mouthful av the grass below at the 
gate, Misther Joyce?" demanded 
Mickey, who had observed a Crof* 
ton apple-tree, laden with tempting- 
looking fruit, in the immediate lo- 
cality referred to. 

" Certainly, ma bouchal" was the 
Corporal's assent, and the words 



49 6 



Tom Ffrenctis Christmas at Ciirraghglass. 



were scarcely off his lips ere Mickey 
was out of sight. 

Barbara, carefully tucking up her 
skirts, plunged into the long, rank, 
dank grass that grew around the 
house, the Corporal preceding her, 
beating down the matted verdure. 
She did not give up all hope of 
visiting the interior, hugging unto 
herself the motto, Tout vient a 
lui qui sait attendre. She would 
wait her opportunity, and then 
seize upon it to win. 

" That ft the great hall," said 
the cicerone; "them ten windows 
belongs to it. That's where the 
champagne and claret has been 
drunk, as much as would swim a 
troop-ship. The lord lieutenant 
lias dined in it, and all the quollity 
from Dublin. It's a splendid room, 
miss, and full of old family pictures. 
There's one of the captain in his 
uniform. I often think it will come 
out of the frame some night and 
order boot and saddle. I know" 
added the Corporal in a low whis- 
per, "that when I salute in passin' 
it nods. I told Father Luke Mol- 
loy this, miss, and he only joked 
me ; but it's true as we're standin' 
here. That little window there 
with the colored glass is the chapel. 
O miss ! it was in there that the 
poor captain's missis ran when the 
news come of the Ride of Death, 
and it was there that the Lord sent 
her comfort. May Heaven be her 
bed this night!" reverentially uncov- 
ering. " I'm told she bore it like a 
soldier's wife, miss ; an* shure," add- 
ed the Corporal, " isn't it a fine 
thing for any woman to know that 
her husband died while doing his 
duty?" 

" It is, Corporal," exclaimed Bar- 
bara, a mist in her soft brown eyes. 
" And when she used to fret, 
miss (" I was sent home by reason of 
a couple of scratches " the brave 



fellow didn't say how desperately 
wounded he had been in his noble 
endeavor to rescue the body of his 
master, and for which he had been 
awarded the Victoria Cross with the 
two effulgent words, " For Valor," 
emblazoned upon the bronze) I 
used to say to her : * Don't give in 
like that, me lady. The captain 
died at his post.' And do you 
know, miss, them few words always 
helped to brace her up." 

" I'm sure they did, Corporal. 
They were fine, honest, soldier-like 
words," cried the girl enthusiasti- 
cally. 

" I'm glad to hear you say so, 
miss. Them two windows over 
the chapel was her room, miss. It 
used to be beautiful when the 
money was plentiful, but she sold 
everything she could to pay the 
captain's debts, and there's nothing 
in it now but the bed she died on 
and a few other plain things not 
so much as a carpet, miss." 

" Do you not keep one room al- 
ways ready for Mr. Tom ?" 
" I do, miss." 
"Which room is that?" 
"It's on the south side." 
" What do you do to it ?" she 
asked, in the spirit of that feminine 
curiosity which evolves itself where 
mankind assumes womanly duties. 
" I dust every single thing in it, 
and put it in the exact spot where 
it was when he left, so that when 
he returns he'll find all the same. 
In winter I light a wood-fire in it 
every day to keep away the damp." 
" Do you use it yourself?" 
" Is it me, miss ?" The look that 
accompanied the words was a re- 
proach in itself. 

" I should like to see it ever so 
much." 

"You can see the window, miss, 
if you step this way." 

They had arrived at what Was 



Tom Ffrencli s Christmas at Curraghglass. 



497 



known as the south wing. Here 
in the olden, golden time stood a 
fair garden, in which Ffrenches in 
coats of mail, Ffrenches in buff doub- 
lets, Ffrenches in silks and satins 
and laces, Ffrenches in blue cloth 
and nankeen, roved 'mid rare and 
radiant flowers, while the maids, 
wives, and widows of the haughty 
race bore them company, vieing 
with the blossoms in daintiness, 
beauty, and grace. 

"Step here, miss; the ground is 
a little higher," suggested the 
Corporal, ushering Barbara to 
a mound which had been a fa- 
mous rookery when George the 
Third was engaged in endeavoring 
to discover how the apples came 
into the seamless suet dumplings. 
This gable of the big house was 
the sunny side, and much inhabit- 
ed on account of its warmth and its 
cheeriness. The shutters on the 
lower windows, carved as to panels, 
bore faint traces of gilding; the 
upper, being in oak as black as 
ebony with age, imparted a funereal 
aspect that carried a chill with it. 
In the centre of the gable on the 
second story a window, architectu- 
rally of later date than the others 
it was larger and wider, the panes 
of glass being of greater size at- 
tracted Barbara's attention. 

"What room is that, Corporal ?" 
she asked. 

"Which one do you mean, 
miss ?" 

"That large eh why " sud- 
denly stopping and clasping her 
hands together. 

" Merciful Heaven !" gasped 
Corporal Joyce, becoming deadly 
white, while his eyes seemed as 
though they would start from their 
sockets. " That's that's Master 
Tom's room, the Lord be good 
to us!" 

As they gazed, their glance rivet- 
VOL. xxvm. 32 



ed upon the window, a noise made 
itself heard, as of some person en- 
deavoring to unfasten the shutter. 
Then a bolt creaked and fell ; then 
the shutter swayed in and out, as if 
being forced to open ; then a hand 
yes, a hand appeared, clasping the 
resisting woodwork ; then one panel 
of the shutter slowly fell back, then 
the hand pulled open the other 
then the whole shutter was flung 
open. 

Barbara instinctively clung to 
Joyce, a wild, nameless terror in 
her eyes. The Corporal, who had 
ridden up to the Russian guns as 
coolly as though performing some 
military evolution in the square of 
the Portobello barracks, shivered, 
his teeth chattering like a man sud- 
denly ague-stricken. The ghastly 
apprehension written on his face 
told its own tale of blood absolute- 
ly frozen through indefinable hor- 
ror. 

The shutters being thrown back, 
a form appeared at the window 
a form of a man. The Corporal 
swayed forward; the form swayed 
forward ; a hand beckoned. A light 
that is seldom seen on sea or land 
illumined the features of the faith- 
ful veteran as, raising his hand in 
military salute, he hoarsely gasped, 
in a voice stifled with one great sob, 
" Master Tom, Master Tom ! God 
in heaven be thanked !" and, plung- 
ing wildly in the direction of the 
rear of the house, disappeared. 

Barbara Ffrench burst into tears, 
the outcome of the terrible tension 
of the last few moments. Was ever 
fiction equal to this ? Was ever 
romance so rose-colored or sensa- 
tional? She sobbed and cried, 
and smiled through her tears like a 
sunbeam in a shower; the' great 
hope had been realized at last, her 
day-dream had fulfilled the awak- 
ening, the heir of Curraghglass had 



498 



Tom Ffrenclis Christmas at Curraghglass. 



returned to enjoy his own again, 
and the old house would again be 
honored as the stronghold of the 
Ffrenches. She never paused to 
ask herself in what condition Tom 
Ffrench had arrived ; whether he 
returned to take up his state and 
dignity at Curraghglass or to seek 
asylum at the Knocklandheen 
workhouse ; whether he came to 
pay a flying visit for the purpose 
of selling off the old home or to 
raise money by an ad misericordiam 
appeal to the clan. No; Tom 
Ffrench was here in the flesh, here 
to revive the decayed glories of 
Curraghglass, here to represent the 
blood of a family whose ancestry 
was lost in the obscurity of a re- 
mote antiquity, and to sit upon the 
shoddy and mushroom element 
that was spreading itself right and 
left and centre, by virtue of its 
Saxon gold, in the blue-blooded 
haunts of Connemara. 

What an extraordinary coinci- 
dence ! How passing strange that 
she should be there when the mas- 
ter of Curraghglass returned to un- 
furl his pennant over the lordly 
keep ! Should she retire ? The car 
was still in the avenue. Her pre- 
sence was in no way required, and 
might be regarded as an intrusion. 
She could easily steal away, and 
" And no one of his kin to bid him 
welcome," she thought. "Shame 
upon me for delaying it so long!" 

She followed the path by which 
the Corporal had disappeared, and, 
tracing his footprints, found herself 
at an open door, having descend- 
ed the moss-covered stone steps 
used by the faithful Joyce; then 
she knocked timidly, but, on re- 
ceiving no response, she entered. 
The passage was dark and chill, 
while a damp, vault-like air clung 
to it. Groping her way, she 
reached a stone staircase, up which 



she stumbled, until she found her- 
self in a large vestibule; this led 
into a corridor fairly lighted, that 
in turn brought her to the great 
hall, which was square, the walls 
being panelled in oak. A few rus- 
ty spears, with bannerets of cob- 
webs, stood against the entrance. 
Two suits of armor festooned by 
the loom of the spider, a stag's 
head, a great oaken settee muffled 
in two inches of dust, a rack in 
which reclined half a dozen old- 
world muskets, the helmet and cui- 
rass of a French dragoon jauntily 
suspended against an oaken pillar, 
and an immense table, occupied 
this feudal-looking apartment. 
Barbara paused. Ought she to 
proceed further ? A great oaken 
staircase led to an oaken gallery ; 
from the gallery doors gave in all 
directions. . On the dust of the 
stairs she could trace the corporal's 
feet, and beside them those of the 
master of Curraghglass, small and 
exquisite in shape. She ascended, 
and, following the footmarks, enter- 
ed a passage on the left of which a 
burst of sunlight revealed the room 
so carefully tended by the faithful 
sentinel, who evidently had made 
use of the grand staircase in the 
forgetfulness begotten of the fierce 
whirl of the moment. The sound 
of voices told her that Tom Ffrench 
and the Corporal were closeted to- 
gether. 

" Shall I break in upon them ?" 
was her thought. "Is it fair?" 
And then came the all-absorbing 
desire to bid her kinsman welcome 
to his old home. She advanced, 
her heart palpitating almost audi- 
bly, and stood in the doorway. 
With his back to the light was a 
man of medium height, poorly if 
not shabbily attired, his bronzed 
features bearing the indelible stamp 
of high and gentle lineage. At 



Tom Ffrenctis Christmas at Curraghglass. 



499 



first she was struck by a something 
excessively severe, and even hard, 
in his face in the semi-aquiline 
nose, the immense moustaches and 
beard, and eyes very black and 
very calm. There was nothing re- 
assuring in this cold exterior, but 
the slightest- smile diffused itself 
like sunlight, imparting an atmo- 
sphere of gladness that courted 
confidence. His voice was singu- 
larly sweet and melodious, and it 
was more or less of a surprise to 
Barbara to hear this music issuing 
from behind those terrible mous- 
taches. 

The Corporal was standing oppo- 
site his master, the tears leaping 
from his joyous eyes on to his 
great grizzly moustache, and even- 
tually gliding down his coat-collar. 

" I told you I would come back, 
Joyce, and here I am." 

" Oh ! but this is a day for Cur- 
raghglass, Master Torn. I don't 
care how soon the roll is called 
now, sir, once I let in the daylight 
to the old house. I can't believe 
it's true, sir; I can't believe it's 
true," fairly breaking down, al- 
though as erect and motionless as if 
he were on duty at Dublin Castle. 

"I've come back, Joyce, to the 
old home, and " here, suddenly 
perceiving Barbara, he stopped 
short. 

" To which I bid you Cead mille 
failthe, Tom Ffrench," cried the 
girl, springing forward and clasping 
both his hands in hers. 

" God bless you for those words !" 
exclaimed the master of Curragh- 
glass. u They are the sweetest 
sounds I evqr heard in my whole 
life." 

"/ never gave you up," con- 
tinued the girl, " when they all 
said you had gone to the bad." 

"'Did they say that?" he asked 
with a smile. 



" They did, and they said you 
had committed suicide; and a hor- 
rible attorney came to papa and 
consulted him about putting this 
place into Chancery. Wasn't it 
lucky I was home in Dublin when 
that happened? Papa told it to 
me, for he knew the interest I took 
in you I mean " with a deep 
blush " in in the family and the 
old estate; and I said to him : * Pa- 
pa, Tom Ffrench will come back, 
and don't let that man touch a 
stick or stone of Currslghglass.' 
And papa laughed and said he 
wouldn't; and here you are, and 
God bless you!" And Miss Bar- 
bara Ffrench, in the fresh and glo- 
rious enthusiasm of her nature, be- 
gan to sob and smile and blush 
alternately, till she looked like a 
beautiful rosebud covered with 
sunshine and dew. 

"This is worth coming home 
for," cried Ffrench, in a voice that 
quivered despite his effort to carry 
off the word home in a cough. 

"Tell me all about yourself. 
You were in India, of course, and 
but, oh ! dear me, you don't know 
who I am ; and oh! what must you 
think of me." 

" I do want to know who you 
are; my thoughts about you and 
your gracious, golden welcome are 
already registered here," placing 
his hand gracefully across his 
heart. 

" I am your cousin a thousand 
times removed. I am the daughter 
of Mervyn Ffrench, the Queen's, 
Counsel, brother of Robert Ffrench 
of Tollthaghula." 

"My poor father's best friend,'" 
exclaimed Tom. 

" I'm stopping at Tollthaghula. 
now. My aunt drove over to visit 
at Clondulane, and we halted at the 
Ffrench Arms. There I met this- 
dear old faithful soldier, this Cor- 



5oo 



Tom Ffrenclis Christmas at Curraghglass. 



poral Trim, who wouldn't depart 
from his path of duty even for me. 
I wanted to see Curragh glass. My 
aunt went on to Clondulane, and I 
came over here with the Corporal. 
I suppose you have written me 
down as a forward, fast young lady. 
I am not. To see Curraghglass 
has been a dream of my life; to see 
you back has been a dream of my 
life. Is there not something aw- 
fully strange at my coming to-day 
of all days, and at this hour of all 
hours? -Now you know all about 
me, tell me, Cousin Tom though 
you are not my cousin tell me 
where on earth you have been." 

"Alas! my fair kinswoman, I 
have but little to say. Do not go, 
Corporal, you must do matron," 
to Joyce, who was about to leave. 

"What a soufflet for poor me!" 
exclaimed Barbara ; " but I am not 
so much to blame as you would 
imagine, Mr. Ffrench. . I did secure 
the services of a chaperone, a Miss 
Bridget Finn, niece to the landlady 
of the Ffrench Arms. She accom- 
panied me in the car, and is at 
present, no doubt, enjoying a fierce 
flirtation with our charioteer not 
Jthat Barbara Ffrench need defend 
herself a outrance in the halls of 
Curraghglass !" haughtily if not de- 
fiantly. 

" Do not flare up, you thorough 
Irish girl," laughed Tom. " I am 
not much in love with what the 
French term les convenances, but 
when a young, and may I not say 
well, I won't an interesting girl is 
dn question, the iron fetters of con- 
ventionalism cannot be too strongly 
put in force. However, this is no 
time for lecture or homily. You 
wish to know what I have been 
doing with myself for these ten 
long years. As a Ffrench you have 
a right to know; so if you will kind- 
ly plant yourself in that yawning 



chair, a family vault, I will tell you 
a strange story." 

Barbara flung herself into an old- 
fashioned chair of a brocade that 
might have rustled as the train of 
Sarah Jennings, Duchess of Marl- 
borough. 

Tom Ffrench, seating himself op- 
posite, and passing his hand once 
or twice across his forehead, as if 
to recall the exact date at which to 
commence, began as follows : 

" When my poor mother died J 
was indeed alone in the world. I 
was a gilded beggar in the old 
house here. We had but two fol- 
lowers, when in the olden time 
they could be counted by the score 
the Corporal here, and a good, 
faithful creature who actually fad- 
ed away with the splendor of Cur- 
raghglass. I resolved upon one 
thing and now that I look back 
upon that time, it seems to me that 
I only resolved upon one thing 
and that was to leave this place, 
to shut it up, hermetically seal it, 
and go I knew not whither, and, 
indeed, I did not care. I went, and 
with two hundred pounds in my 
pocket started for India." 

" I said so," interrupted Barbara, 
clapping her hands in a sort of 
childish rapture. 

" % At Calcutta I dropped upon a 
Ffrench ; but, alas ! he was poorer 
than I, and he made me poorer still 
by borrowing one-half of my little 
fortune. I had no profession, no 
trade, no calling. I was a waif 
and a stray upon the ocean of life, 
with just a little golden air left to 
me to keep afloat ere I sank out 
of sight for ever. With Ffrench I 
went 'up country,' as'it is termed, 
and, finding an old friend of the 
family at a small town called Sun- 
derbund, I resolved to pitch my 
tent there, and, acting under his 
advice, to trade with my remaining 






Tom FfrencJis Christmas at Curraghglass. 



501 



seventy pounds. I won't trouble 
you with the details of the business 
I entered into, its gains and its 
losses suffice it to say that I man- 
aged to exist ; and feeling a terrible 
gnawing at my heart to see the old 
home once more, and to ascertain 
if amongst the many friends of the 
family, all more or less wealthy, I 
could raise a few hundred pounds 
to start me again, I am here, 
poorer by two hundred sovereigns 
than when I left." 

"And that lac of rupees?" ex- 
claimed Barbara involuntarily, her 
fair young face bathed in sadness. 

" What lac of rupees ?" he asked. 

" Oh ! it was only a fancy of 
mine. I imagined that you would 
come back wealthy and but," she 
added, holding out her hand, "you 
are back, and that is something 
everything ! You won't stop here 
all by yourself? You'll come over 
to Tollthaghula; my uncle will 
be delighted to see you." 

Ffrench shook his head gravely. 

" Just tell your uncle that I have 
come back penniless, and see what 
his tone will be. Just tell your 
uncle that I am endeavoring to 
borrow money, and see what his 
tone will be !" This in a sternly bit- 
ter tone that caused the girl almost 
to shudder. 

"My uncle is generous, hospita- 
ble, and good, and I'm sure you 
will only have to hint and have." 

" Ha ! ha !" he laughed, " we shall 
see." 

Miss Ffrench earnestly begged 
her kinsman to return with her, 
and at least to escort her to the 
inn, where he could pay his devoir 
to her aunt ; but with no success 
the very mention of a meeting 
with his relatives seeming to freeze 
and harden him. 

" Then I must go. The daughter 
fa lawyer, I have lost my first case." 



" Not through lack of earnestness 
and ability." 

" Then why do I not succeed ?" 

" You haven't the court with you," 
he laughed. 

"What do you propose to do?" 

" To live my own life for a few 
weeks here, and then sale Dios" 

"But you will be here for some 
time ?" 

" Yes yes," reluctantly. 

" Till Christmas ?" 

" Yes, till Christmas. Imagine 
what my Christmas will be in this 
house, which used to rock with re- 
velry. It is just as it should be, 
though. We were improvident. 
We sowed the wind, and we have 
reaped the whirlwind. You and I, 
Corporal, will keep up the festivi- 
ties of Christmas." 

" Certainly, sir," responded Joyce, 
with as little of a festive tone in 
the words as the utterances of a 
fashionable undertaker while con- 
ducting the arrangements at a fu- 
neral 

" You will not pass Christmas 
here alone," cried Barbara, stamp- 
ing her feet ; " you and the Corporal 
must come over to Tollthaghula. 
Why, there's not a Ffrench in all 
Connemara that will not endeavor to 
get you, Cousin Tom ; so please to 
remember that /am first." 

" I forget nothing." 

" That is no promise." 

A dark shadow flitted across his 
face as he replied : 

" Miss Ffrench, I will make no 
promises. In the first place, a 
pauper is a poor Christmas guest." 

"O bother!" 

" In the next place my garments, 
as you may perceive, are very faded." 

"What does that matter?" she 
burst in ; " it is only mushrooms 
and shoddy people who shine in 
clothes because they cannot shine 
any other way." 



502 



Tom Ffrenctis Christmas at Curraghglass. 



" Then my spirits are very much 
below proof, and on that day the 
ghost of the past will solemnly walk 
in Curraghglass." 

" I wish I was a man, and I'd 
come over with a led horse, fling 
you on its back, and ride away with 
you." 

" I wouldn't have you a man for 
ten thousand of those lacs of ru- 
pees you spoke of just now," his 
dark eyes glowing in so strange a 
way as to cause Barbara to lower 
her lids, while roses rich and red 
flung their petals over her sweet 
young face. 

" Au revoir" she said. " I never 
say adieu." 

" Will you not permit me to es- 
cort you to the car? It must be 
by the back way I mean postern ; 
it sounds much better as I do be- 
lieve the front door will not open 
without the aid of the village black- 
smith." 

They descended the oaken stairs 
side by side. 

" What an admirable carpet the 
dust makes, Miss Ffrench !" he 
laughed. " I felt like Robinson Cru- 
soe when I discovered my own 
bootmark in its depths. It is so 
soft, so smooth, so velvety, and, 
better than all, leaves me the im- 
pression of your dainty foot." 

Barbara made no response. She 
felt hurt, irritated, wronged by his 
persistent refusal, and, although his 
gallant and pretty speech was not 
lost upon her, it fell on soil that 
just at that particular moment was 
dried up by the scorchings of 
anger. 

44 These coats of mail used to be 
my terror when a boy, my pride 
when older, as within each of them 
a Ffrench gave up the ghost like a 
lobster in its shell. I regard them 
now from a purely commercial point 
of view, and speculate how much 



they will fetch under the hammer 
of the auctioneer." 

" Goodness gracious !" exclaimed 
Barbara, stopping suddenly and 
facing him. "You are not going 
to have an auction here ?" 

" // faut vivre pour manger, ft 
manger pour vivre" was his mock- 
ing response. 

She bit her lips hard, almost till 
the blood came. 

" There is neither chivalry nor ro- 
mance in poverty, Miss Ffrench," 
said Tom gravely. " Octave Feuil- 
let romanticized a poor young man. 
Do you happen to know any heir- 
ess with whom I could shut myself 
up in the ivied tower here, and 
fling myself off to save her name 
and fame ? If you do, please in- 
vite her here ; but I must have 
every feather-bed in Curraghglass 
I doubt if there is one placed at 
the foot of the tower to break the 
fall." 

They had reached the courtyard. 

" If I had a silken cloak I would, 
Walter- Raleigh-like, cast it beneath 
your feet to pass you safely over this 
Slough of Despond, Miss Ffrench ; 
but as I have but one coat I must 
needs be care-ful of it, even at the 
expense of the chivalry of my 
house." 

This tone of banter cruelly lace- 
rated the girl. She saw in it the 
inner, hardened despair of the im- 
poverished man, whose pride be- 
trayed itself in scornful pleasantries. 
Oh ! 'how she pitied him, and how 
she longed to be able to throw a 
golden rope to the master of that 
noble mansion. 

When they arrived at the gate 
it was to find the driver of the car 
perched in the topmost branches 
of the apple-tree, and Miss Biddy 
Finn standing beneath with a wide- 
spread apron. 

" I did not think it was in the 



Tom FfrcncJi s Christmas at Curraghglass* 



503 






power of any person to rob me, but 
I find I am mistaken. What ho ! 
young sir," to the appalled Mickey. 
" I am a justice of the peace for 
this county, and let me tell you 
that if you leave a single apple on 
that tree I'll have you up for every 
crime in the calendar. And so 
you are the niece of my whilom 
blooming friend Mrs. Finn," taking 
Biddy's chin in his hand and turn- 
ing up the child's intelligent face. 
" Tell her that Torn Ffrench no, 
tell her nothing," he added, a 
shadow, the shadow, descending 
upon him like a cloud. 

" Will you not have another wrap, 
Miss Ffrench ? Surely there is 
some tapestry still hanging on the 
walls that " 

" You are cruel," said the girl, a 
mist of unshed tears in her eyes. 

He gazed at her earnestly for a 
moment. She was seated on the 
car, and taking her hand, his voice 
low, and sweet, and solemn, he 
said : 

" For your gracious courtesy and 
your words of welcome I thank 
you from my heart, my cousin. I 
am bankrupt even in thanks. Be- 
lieve me, your visit here has con- 
tributed a ray of sunshine to my life 
that will not lightly pass away. We 
shall meet again." And bowing with 
a stately grace, he swept grandly 
away, while the Corporal, jumping 
on the car, told Mickey to drive on. 

The day but one subsequent to 
Barbara Ffrench's visit to Curragh- 
glass Mrs. Finn was entertaining a 
Mrs. Duffy, the wife of a " warm " 
farmer, with a cup of real Dublin 
tea and a gossip anent the " young 
masther " at the " big house." 

" The Corporal kem in, ma'am," 
observed the landlady to her friend, 
" an' sez he, * Mrs.- Finn,' sez he, 
I'll want yer car,' sez he. 



" * Yer welkim to it, sir,' sez I, as 
indeed he was, ma'am a nicer man 
never marched to glory." 

'* A fine form av a man," added 
Mrs. Duffy. 

" Thrue for ye, ma'am." 

" An' with an eye in his head av 
his own." 

" Such an eye as it is ! soft as 
a cow's or dartin' like a raven's. 
He's a very shupayrior man, Mrs. 
Duffy. Well, anyhow, when I sez, 
' Yer welkim to the car,' he ups and 
sez, ' I want for to be dhruv over to 
Cupparoe station.' 

" ' Is it to the train, Corporal ?' 
sez I. 

" 'Yes, ma'am/ sez he. 

" ' Yer not goin' for to lave us ?' 
sez I, me heart undher his feet I 
mane me own feet, Mrs. Duffy. 

" ' Only for a few days,' sez he. 

" ' Is The Ffrench goin'? ' sez I. 

" 'He is, ma'am,' sez the Corporal ; 
an' that's all I could get out of him. 
Well, Mrs. Duffy, they left this last 
night for to ketch the mail-train, 
an' Mickey, that dhruv them, sez he 
heard The Ffrench talking of Cur- 
raghglass all the time of the 
house and the hall, and the rooms, 
and the furniture in them, and the 
stables, an' all that so I'm afraid, 
Mrs. Duffy, that The Ffrench is goin' 
to sell the old place, an' if he does 
it will be a black day for Conne- 
mara." 

A few days, and the news reach- 
ed the Ffrench Arms that Curragh- 
glass was sold, that the old house 
was to cover the old family no 
more. There was consternation on 
every face in the chapel-yard at 
Kilbnde when, after last Mass, the 
grim and sorrowful tidings came to 
be discussed. 

" I cannot believe it, Father 
James," said Mr. Ffrench, who had 
driven over his niece from Tolltha- 
ghula for the purpose ot paying 



504 



Tom FfrencJis Christmas at Curraghglass. 



his respects at Curraghglass, and 
who had heard Mass in Father 
James Blake's romantically-situated 
little chapel en route. 

11 1 won't believe it," observed the 
priest. 

Barbara said nothing. 

" Will you permit me to offer you 
a seat in my carriage, Father James ? 
I want to see The Ffrench, as we 
call him, and to have a little quiet 
chat with him." 

" I'll go over with pleasure. I 
would have called on Tuesday, but 
I heard he had gone away." 

" Away ?" exclaimed Barbara, be- 
coming very pale. 

" To Dublin, my child. He took 
his fidus Achates with him. Mrs. 
Finn's car rolled them over to Cap- 
paroe station, and their conversa- 
tion, as reported by Mickey, the 
gossoon who drove, was all about the 
sale of the house." 

" Then it must be true," groaned 
Mr. Ffrench, Q.C. 

"I won't believe it," persisted 
Father James. 

On arriving at Curraghglass in- 
tense was the disappointment of all 
to find every door barred, every 
window bolted. 

" I'll shove my card under the 
door," observed Mr. Ffrench. 
" Stay ! I'll write a line on the back 
of it." And he wrote as follows : 
<; Dear Ffrench, welcome home. 
My niece has told me something. 
Don't fail to come to me at once ; 
all will be right." 

Barbara was silent the entire way 
back to Kilbride. 

"What ails my singing bird?" 
asked Father James. 

" I detest to be disappointed I 
mean I hate long drives," was Miss 
Ffrench's explanation. Was it 
satisfactory ? 

" The poor chap wants a few 
hundred, Father James at least so 



he tells Barbara and he shall have 
them with a heart and a half, but 
not if he lets some English snob 
into the old home not a half-penny, 
by George!" 

When the Corporal next made 
his appearance at the Ffrench 
Arms a more woebegone specimen 
of military humanity it would be 
scarcely possible to depicture. He 
strode into the little parlor, and, 
moodily seating himself by the fire, 
commenced to smoke in silence. 
Mrs. Finn, who had waited to don 
a clean cap and apron, bustled in 
shortly after, and appeared to be 
overcome with surprise at his un- 
expected arrival. 

"Mercy me! is this you, Cor- 
poral ?" 

" It's me, ma'am." 
" When did you get back ?" 
" This morning." 
"Is The Ffrench at Curragh- 
glass ?" 
" He is." 

" Tell me," in a sort of confi- 
dential whisper, " is the news that's 
goin' true, Corporal Joyce ?" (she 
pronounced it Jice). 

" What news, Mrs. Finn ?" 
" That that there's to be a 
change in th' old house." 

The Corporal sighed deeply as 
he exclaimed, " Too true, ma'am." 
Mrs. Finn applied her apron to 
her eyes, and after a copious fit of 
weeping, during which the Corpo- 
ral grimly smoked, and rocking her- 
self backwards and forwards, she 
asked between sobs : 

" Can nothin' be done at all, at 
all?" 

The Corporal shook his head. 
" Wirra y ivirra ! th' old family 
gone that was there sence the 
Flood. An' shure, although The 
Ffrench was away, we knew he was 
alive, an' we had Curraghglass to 
take pride out of ; but now " And 






Tom Ffrcnclis Christmas at Curraghglass. 



505 



again the tender-hearted landlady 
indulged in a prolonged fit of wail- 
ing. 

"Who's got it?" she huskily de- 
manded from behind the corner of 
her apron. 

" An Indian friend of the mas- 
ter's." 

"What's his name?" 

"Arrah! who cares about his 
name ?" retorted the Corporal. 

" True enough, then. Will he 
soon take possession, Mister Jice ?" 
asked the widow, hoping for a long 
day. 

" Before Christmas, ma'am." 

" Och, murther ! but this is cruel 
hard news that yer tellin' me, Cor- 
poral." 

" Hard enough, Mrs. Finn." 

" An' an' an' wh-wh a- what's 
to be-become of ye-ye-you, Mister 
Jice?" 

The Corporal cast a longing, 
wistful, yearning glance at her as 
he replied : 

; ' There's no tellin', ma'am." 

The widow started to her feet, 
held her apron up to her eyes, and, 
without trusting herself to another 
word, rushed out of the apartment. 

"A dacent, tidy, respectable, feel- 
ing little woman," muttered the 
Corporal, " and would make a 
splendid wife for some young fellow 
or other." 

The new proprietor of Curragh- 
glass lost no time in setting to 
work to light up the old mansion. 
A small army of carpenters, paint- 
ers, and masons came down from 
Dublin, being the employes of the 
foremost firms in that city. Every 
room in the Ffrench Arms 
was at a discount, and although 
Mrs. Finn, to use her own expres- 
sion, was " coining," as she told the 
Corporal, " every bit they ate .an' 
every sup they drink goes dead 



agen me. An' as for their money, 
I'm afraid there's no luck in it." 

" Take it anyhow," was the 
warrior's sage advice. 

" It must make ye feel awful to 
be there an' to see them dress up 
the old place for a forriner, Mister 
Jice," observed the widow one day. 

" It does make me feel quare." 

" I hear that the house is begin- 
nin' to look like a picture." 

" You must come over and see it." 

"Is it me? No, no, Corporal. 
I'll never set me foot in it till the 
Ffrenches have it again/' 

In good sooth Curraghglass be- 
gan to glow both inside and out. 
The red bricks were faced and 
pointed, the carved stonework 
cleaned and repaired, the magnifi- 
cent portico almost replaced, the 
pleasaunce replanted, the courtyard 
repaved, the stables refitted with 
the newest thing in loose boxes, 
the coach-houses rendered fit for 
the reception of the state carriage 
of the Lord Mayor of Dublin; 
while within the house panels were 
polished, floors planed and waxed, 
faded hangings superseded by the 
richest damask, the great hall fitted 
up, the armor shining again, the 
staircases and corridors laid down 
with Aubusson carpet. Mirrors 
were uncarted " the size av the lake 
below," and furniture such as East- 
lake dreamed of in his most aesthe- 
tic moments came down by special 
train to Capparoe, and were convey- 
ed across the country, till the cortege 
resembled " Mike Malony's funeral, 
whin they sint the corpse all the 
way from Liverpool beyant," which 
was Larry Dillon's description to 
Father James Blake. 

" Is himself The Ffrench over 
beyant at Curraghglass?" demand- 
ed Mrs. Finn of the Corporal. 

" He is ; it's part of the bargain 
that he sees everything put to rights." 



506 



Tom Ffrenc/is Christmas at Curraghglass. 



" How does he stand it, avic ?" 

" Fair enough." 

"Wisha! but if I was him I'd 
rather fast on a salt herrin' an' a 
potato than do the like o' that." 

The Corporal shook his head, but 
said no word. 

Tom Ffrench duly received the 
card of his kinsman. 

" What a glorious girl she is !" he 
muttered. " True to her instincts, 
true to her faith in the Ffrenches. 
I'll go over to Tollthaghula. It's 
ten Irish miles and a little bit a 
long walk, but a lovely one. I 
know every inch of the road. I'll 
go over to-morrow. It's due to my 
kinsman; it's due to her." 

My hero, with a stout wattle of 
mountain-ash in his hand, present- 
ed himself at Tollthaghula upon the 
following day. His reception by 
Mrs. Ffrench, who had caught a 
whisper of her husband's intended 
generosity, was the reverse of gush- 
ing. 

" Don't you think it would have 
been better for you to have re- 
mained in India than to have 
spent so much money in coming 
home ?" she tartly observed. 

" It was a fancy." 

" Poor people should not indulge 
in fancies. What are you going 
to do?" 

"I do not exactly know." 

" Now, Mr. Ffrench, I want to tell 
you something, and I'm glad I saw 
you. I was going to write to you. 
You asked Miss Barbara Ffrench 
for money." 

He sprang to his feet, the great 
veins in his forehead swelling ; 
scorn, anger, mortification, all 
struggling for mastery in his hand- 
some face. 

" Did she tell you so ?" the words 
grinding themselves between his 
teeth. 

"No. She told her uncle." 



" That I asked her for money ?" 

" Well, not -exactly that way. 
Don't get so excited, my good 
friend." 

" I am not your good friend. I 
am not your friend at all, madam," 
he haughtily cried, and drawing 
himself up to his full height; "I 
now desire to know what it pleased 
Miss Ffrench to say about me." 

"What she said was this," cried 
his hostess, considerably astonish- 
ed : " that you were awfully poor, 
and that you wanted money " 

" From her t" he burst in. 

" Oh ! no, not from her, but from 
your friends, or something to that 
effect." 

" Your explanation makes all 
the difference, madam." 

"I can't see that, since the mo- 
ney is hers," was Mrs. Ffrench's 
angry retort. 

"Hers! Miss Ffrench's!" a 
great joy lighting up every fea- 
ture. 

" Yes ; she has eight hundred 
pounds in right of her poor mo- 
ther, and she is silly enough to 
propose to give it to you. Now, if 
you have a spark of manhood 
you'll" 

"I'll take it." 

"You'll what?" almost screamed 
the lady. 

"I'll take Miss Ffrench's gift, 
and be very thankful for it." 

At this moment Barbara, all 
blushes and smiles of welcome, en- 
tered the apartment. 

'' This is a step in the right di- 
rection," she said, giving Ffrench 
both hands. " You've come to 
stop ?" looking askance at her aunt, 
who frowned warningly. 

*' Certainly," he gaily respond- 
ed. 

Mrs. Ffrench rose and brusquely 
quitted the apartment. 

"Miss Ffrench Barbara!" he 



Tom Ffrenctis Christmas at CiirragJiglass. 



507 



said the instant the door was 
closed, " I have heard of your 
generosity your insane generosi- 
ty-" 

" Oh! who could have told you ?" 
burying her face in her hands. 

" Never mind. How I value it 
no word may say. I may not 
need the money. One of the 
Frenches has plenty, and he is will- 
ing to share with me." 

"I I hope this is true." 

" Upon my honor. I rather 
startled your aunt by saying I 
would take your money and it is 
no wonder. Do you think I 
would ?" 

What she would have answered 
may not be written, as Mr. Ffrench 
plunged into the room. 

" Glad to see you, Tom," he 
roared. ' ; So like your poor fa- 
ther! Come to stop? That's right. 
Barbara, here, can talk of no one 
else." 

" Uncle" 

" It's a fact. Now tell me all 
about yourself and your affairs. 
I have a reason for wishing to 
know. You want money, but I 
tell you fair and square that not a 
half-penny will you get from me 
ahem ! with my consent," looking 
hard at his niece " if you part with 
Curragh glass." 

Tom Ffrench was silent, as though 
struggling with some fierce hidden 
emotion. 

"Is the place gone from the 
Ffrenches? Has any deed been 
signed ?" 

" None." 

" Is it too late ? Who has bought 
the place ? Will he forego his 
bargain, Tom ?" 

Ffrench shook his head. 

" Is he avaricious, and will a 
hundred or two buy him off?" 

" Or five, or eight ?" added Bar- 
bara. 



Tom Ffrench took his kinsman's 
hand. 

" I need a sound head to advise 
me," he said. " Will you come 
over to Curraghglass, say on Wed- 
nesday next ?" 

"I will, Tom; and don't con- 
clude anything till then." 

"And you, Miss Ffrench, may I 
hope to see you at Curraghglass ? 
It may be for the last time," turning 
tenderly and sorrowfully towards 
her. 

" I'll go, if I have to walk there," 
said Barbara with considerable 
decision. " Curraghglass must be 
saved." 

" Be prepared to tell me every- 
thing, Tom. Half- confidence is 
no confidence." 

" You shall know everything on 
Wednesday." 

"Why, Wednesday, Wednesday ! 
bless my soul ! Wednesday will be 
Christmas day." 

" I knew it/' said the other, with 
a sad smile, " and that is why I 
ask you over to light up the old 
home, even if for one brief moment." 

" You'll come back with me, 
Tom ?" 

" I'll make no promise." 

It was Christmas day, bright 
and bracing. The snow lay on the 
pleasaunce at Curraghglass, wrap- 
ping it in a seamless shroud of vir- 
gin white. The noble old mansion 
blushed rosy red, seemingly in sym- 
pathy with that stereotyped ecstasy 
which this season ever and ever 
brings forth. The great fireplace 
in the entrance-hall burnt its yule- 
log a log that sparkled bravely, 
sending its myriad sparks hither 
and thither, and causing the suits 
of armor to flash like mirrors in the 
sun. Tom Ffrench paced up and 
down the hall, pausing now and 
then as if to detect some approach- 



508 



Tom FfrencJis Cliristmas at Curraghglass. 



ing sounds. He was flushed, and 
a certain nervousness of movement 
betrayed a banked-up excitement 
ready at any moment to burst forth 
in some strange and unaccount- 
able manner. The Corporal, silent 
and respectful, stood in a deep 
embrasured window, his face turn- 
ed in the direction of the snow- 
covered avenue. 

" The carnage from Tollthaghula, 
sir !" suddenly exclaimed Joyce. 

"At last!" bounding to the win- 
dow. " I I don't see any one but 
Mr. Ffrench," in a tone of deadly 
disappointment. 

" There's a feather over the back 
seat, sir." 

When the carriage pulled up with 
a jerk Tom Ffrench went forth to 
meet it. Barbara was to the fore, 
all seal-skin and smiles and blushes. 

" Eh ! what's all this ?" exclaim- 
ed Mr. Ffrench as they entered the 
hall. "Why, the whole place is 
done up new. A new lamp for an 
old one! What's the meaning of 
this ?" 

" The work of the new man," said 
the host. 

" Then then Curraghglass is 
gone from the Ffrenches for ever," 
sobbed Barbara, flinging herself 
upon an oaken settee and bursting 
into tears. 

" It has not gone from the 
Ffrenches for ever," cried Tom in a 
full, firm, and ringing voice. " It 
never was so strongly gripped by 
the iron hand, our family crest, as 
it is to-day. Listen to me, Miss 
Ffrench," seating himself beside 
her, and in reply to a mute, ap- 
pealing glance of intense astonish- 
ment. " I left this a pauper, I re- 
turned to it a wealthy man." 

" The lac of rupees !" hysterically 
exclaimed Barbara. 

" Yes, with a lac. When I reach- 
ed Sunderbund the diamond mania 



was at its beginning. I plunged 
into it, speculating and speculating, 
until at length I found myself one 
of the largest diamond dealers in 
the presidency. The fever of get- 
ting rich was upon me, and it knew 
no bounds. I never thought of re- 
turning, never gave a thought to 
the old home, knowing it was safe 
and secure. The fever died out, and 
then my heart turned to Curragh- 
glass. I came back secretly, the 
wounds which rny pride had re- 
ceived when as a pauper lad I left 
it bleeding afresh. I returned in 
order to convert it into a shooting- 
box, and to recognize none of my 
kith and kin. Your Cead mille 
failthe, my precious kinswoman," 
taking her hand, " not only calmed 
my wounded spirit but sowed seeds 
that that yes," he added, " why 
should I hesitate to permit the 
words to leap from my heart ?"- 
oh ! how Barbara blushed with 
beautiful shame whilst he uttered 
in a deep, low tone " your words 
of welcome sowed seeds that I trust 
in God will bear the beauteous 
blossoms of hope." 

Barbara's eyes met his. What 
did he read there ? What did he 
glean from that electric glance ? 
After a pause, during which his 
very senses reeled, he resumed : 

" I resolved to preserve my aspect 
of pretended poverty, and to cause 
it to be whispered in the county 
that Curraghglass was to be sold. 
This enabled me to have the dear 
old home renovated and fitted up 
with at least something of its an- 
cient comfort. Your generosity, my 
kinswoman but I will not say 
one word more, unless " And he 
bent low, while he whispered a few 
burning words that it were useless 
to write. 

" Step this way, Sergeant," cried 
Mr. Ffrench, promoting Joyce on 



Epiphany. 



509 



the spot. " I want to 
the improvements." 



see some of 



When Christmas came round 
again The Ffrench and Madame, as 
the peasantry loved to style Barba- 
ra, held high and mighty revelry in 
the old halls of Curraghglass. The 
heir, aged two months, was chris- 



tened by Father James Blake, and, 
to the extreme delight and aston- 
ishment of the servants' hall, Cor- 
poral Joyce, at the request of his 
wife, the late Mrs. Finn, sang a 
song of his own composition, en- 
titled " Christmas at Curragh- 
glass." 



EPIPHANY. 

WHAT gifts, O Christian men ! bring ye to-day 
Before this Majesty of Love to lay, 

This tender little Child, 

Of Mother undefiled, 
This royal prince from kingly realm astray ? 

"Glory to God !" afar the angels cry, 
Earth's new-found bliss proclaiming in the sky- 
Peace be from any ill 
To men of gentle will : 
He lives on earth that longs for love to die. 

His own reject him; shall not pity move 
Your hearts their loyal service now to prove? 
Of kingdom dispossessed, 
His throne his Mother's breast, 
His crown her arms encircling him with love. 

Cold lies the earth beneath its Infant King ; 

On icy boughs no bird doth sit and sing; 
Glory of stars o'erhead 
Seems but to light the dead 

So white the ways with winter-blossoming. 

Men disesteem him, lieth dumb his earth, 
And Calvary's woe is his e'en at his birth 

Poor little exiled King ! 

Have ye no gifts to bring, 
Of love no hoarded treasure in this dearth ? 



510 Epiphany. 



Kings bend before him, angels all adore, 

His Mother's heart with glory bathes him o'er; 

Still, with sweet discontent, 

In this strange banishment 
His little hands outstretched your gifts implore. 

Lo ! ye are princes and should treasure bring 
Worthy your heirship with this mighty King, 

This well-beloved One, 

God's sole-begotten Son, 
This Sun of Justice earth illumining. 

A little lower than the angels, ye 

Should lift your voices in strong harmony, 

Chanting this royal birth : 

" Glory to-day on earth 
To Him that is, that was, that e'er shall be." 

Bring to him tribute as your sovereign Lord, 
Let prayer's pure incense be unstinted poured, 

And sorrowing minister 

The bitter drops of myrrh 
Unfailing presence in love's earthly hoard ! 

Bring hi-m the love your hearts do keep for him, 
The faith no shadowing clouds of ill can dim; 

Lay humbly at his feet 

The sorrow he makes sweet, 
The penitence effacing sin's false gleam. 

Such gifts your royal Brother's hands shall bless, 
And in your arms, who him in truth confess, 

His Mother dear shall place 

This little King of Grace, 
That so your hearts him evermore possess. 

So cleanse your hearts to give him place to-day, 
Yourselves the dearest gift that ye can lay 

Before this mighty Child 

Of Mother undefiled, 
Dawn-star, true herald of Eternal Day ! 



Technical Education. 



TECHNICAL EDUCATION.* 



THE defect of present popular 
education which strikes an ob- 
server as the most serious is not 
so much the inefficiency of the 
teaching supplied and received as 
the distaste generated at school for 
future work. The first is a defect 
that can be remedied by intelligent 
study and self-education subsequent 
to leaving school, but the latter 
breeds a habit of indolence and 
shiftlessness which is seldom got 
rid of later in life, and which, even 
if got rid of after several years, 
leaves the individual behindhand 
in the race, and all but useless 
when he does wake up to the con- 
sciousness of the waste of half a 
lifetime. That this distaste for 
work, manual labor, exists is prov- 
ed by the constant straining after 
positions supposed to involve " gen- 
tility," and the overstocking of the 
country with inexperienced hands 
anxious for situations as clerks, 
waiters, shop-boys anything, in fact, 
not requiring definite and special 
training. The same class, failing 
these appointments, has to be con- 
tent with even lower and less inno^ 
cent situations, and the liquor-sa- 
loons, the billiard-rooms, the gam- 
bling-dens, the hotel-offices, the 
beer-gardens, recruit their employes 
chiefly from among this crudely- 
educated population. In New York 
this element is swelled again by a 
large accession of emigrants, for- 
eigners of a class somewhat above 
laborers, who consider a store as 
much the height of fashion as an 
Englishman does the civil service, 

* Enseignement Primaire et Apprentissage. 
G. Salicis, Ancien Eleve de 1'Ecole Polytechnique, 
Delegue Cantonal. 2eme Edition. Paris : Sandoz 
et Fischbacher, 33 Rue de Seine. 1878. 



and, having been brought up to de- 
sultory employment at home, usu- 
ally find their level as bartenders 
in the first American city in which 
they are stranded. Doubtless the 
other large Atlantic cities can show 
much the same element. The same 
evil exists in France and in Ger- 
many, and, we believe, no less in 
England. M. Salicis, a pupil of 
the Paris Polytechnic School, and 
a " cantonal delegate," who has 
studied the question of education 
in France, and is prominently in- 
terested in several newly-instituted 
reforms and experiments, says : 

" These little boy and girl bureaucrats, 
' contrabands ' from real labor, without 
having been consulted, will naturally 
come to the end of their schooling with 
only one fear before them i.e., that of 
being forced to become workmen and 
workwomen but with one wish also : the 
boys to become clerks, the girls shop- 
women. Hence this undefined, floating, 
and overstocked class of book-keepers, 
cashiers, pedlars, agents, clerks, with a 
thousand qualifications, scorning the cap 
and blouse for the sake of broadcloth 
and ' chimney-pots ' ; and the correspond- 
ing class, still more to be pitied, of 
* young ladies," often with no shop, and 
some with the coveted bonnet, but how 
procured ? . . ." 

The race for certificates or " di- 
plomas " in the common schools 
for girls fosters this unhealthy 
straining after outward "gentility," 
which generally ends either in 
shame or starvation. While the 
wages of the ordinary domestic 
servant in Paris are from between 
thirty and forty francs (six to eight 
dollars) a month, the girls who con- 
sider themselves too good for ser- 
vice are obliged to take thankfully 
from three to four dollars for a 



512 



Tech n ical Education . 



day's teaching in small private 
schools, where they are further ex- 
pected to be dressed like ladies. 
Sometimes a slight luncheon is 
added to this salary. 

In this shiftless condition the 
working-classes have, singularly 
enough, fellow-sufferers from the 
highest classes, the intermediate 
strata of society being technically 
the best taught and the best pre- 
pared. The Franco-Prussian war 
has made it necessary for many 
young French men and women 
formerly in assured circumstances 
to work for their living. The death 
of the head of a family, and the 
consequent cessation of income, 
salary, pension, or annuity, accord- 
ing to his status as a clergyman, 
an army or navy officer, a govern- 
ment or merchant's clerk, puts hun- 
dreds of young persons in the same 
plight every month in England; 
and in the United States, though 
this occurs less often, the equiva- 
lent is not unknown. The persons 
thus forced to look for immediately 
remunerative employment have, in 
almost every case, been trained to 
no business or trade, and are sim- 
ply useless to their employers. In 
proportion, however, as they know 
nothing they urgently ask for " any- 
thing," which, when resolved into 
plain words, generally means copy- 
ing (for which their fashionable 
and illegible handwriting unfits 
them), an agency, or a place be- 
hind the counter. They seldom 
know how to keep books (which 
ought to be taught as part of a re- 
gular education for all classes in a 
commercial country) ; and as for 
even selling goods, they lack the 
knowledge of the materials they 
handle, as well as discrimination 
between different kinds and de- 
grees, values and measures, while, 
to speak only of small matters, they 



are ignorant even of the art of 
tying up a parcel quickly and neat- 
ly. Considering the fluctuating na- 
ture of society and the strong pro- 
bability of each individual's being 
at some time or other in circum- 
stances in which his or her hands 
and brains will be the only capital 
left, it would be prudent for every 
one to perfect himself in one branch 
of remunerative work, and to choose 
that branch for which he has the 
most natural aptitude. The love 
of your work is the only guarantee 
of that work being well done. These 
questions cannot be called theore- 
tical, for they influence the lives 
and circumstances of thousands of 
citizens each day ; still, as example 
is better than precept, we pass 
to the French experimental schools 
of which M. Salicis has recently 
given us the history in a little book 
which has already passed through 
two editions, and has drawn the 
notice of the Chamber of Com- 
merce of Crefeld, in Germany, and 
been ordered by that body to be 
translated into German. 

The state of things which in 
France suggested the experiment 
of a technical free school in con- 
nection with the usual common 
school is briefly this : For the 
youth of all classes except the most 
numerous there is state help pro- 
vided up to the age of eighteen or 
twenty, besides the private schools 
and colleges and special profes- 
sional establishments which supply 
the wants of parents with even the 
most moderate incomes. For the 
youth af the working-class, on the 
other hand, both in cities and in 
the country, there is no state help 
provided after the age of twelve or 
thirteen, and that provided before 
that age is either of a useless or a 
meagre kind. In Paris itself the 
report of M. Greard for 1875 gave 






Technical Education. 



513 



the school population at 117,000, 
including 23,000. young children in 
infant schools, while the number of 
those fit to go to school was 197,- 
ooo. For the 80.000 children thus 
unaccounted for neither instruc- 
tion nor any other public help was 
forthcoming, and probably the first 
contact of the state with them in 
later life would prove to be that of 
the prisons and the galleys; while 
for the 117,000 pupils of the com- 
mon schools there were barely 
1,200 teachers. The details of 
teaching were equally defective, 
the youngest and largest classes, of- 
ten reaching TOO, being confided to 
a single teacher, the system of mu- 
tual help (or pupil-teaching) gen- 
erally interdicted, and the child 
who, coming from the infant-school, 
could read fluently and reckon tol- 
erably being lumped with the child 
fresh from the streets and unable 
to say the alphabet. Add to this 
the disadvantages common to all 
primary schools and familiar to 
ourselves in our own, the limping 
caricature of a college curriculum 
imposed upon children whose lives 
will be passed in manual labor, the 
parrot-like tests of proficiency, the 
mechanical tricks of memory, the 
real apathy of mind encouraged by 
this show of surface-learning, and 
the upshot of the system on the 
child, who, on leaving school, goes 
out into the world utterly ignorant 
of the materials with which he will 
have to work, the plan of life he 
will have to follow, the duties he 
will have to discharge, and unpre- 
pared for any opening which may 
come in his way. 

The situation in France and in 
the United States is so far identi- 
cal, and although Frenchmen like 
M. Salicis, and even Englishmen 
like Mr. Forster, look with justice 
towards this country as one further 
VOL, xxvm. 33 



advanced than their own in the 
theory of education, and better 
furnished with outward means for 
its practical carrying out, we who 
live here see behind the scenes, 
and ought to be ashamed to deserve 
so little the praise so ungrudgingly 
given. When such men point to 
the exceptional institution of Vas- 
sar College and to the architectural 
prominence of Columbia; when 
they reckon by figures the numbers 
of schools, teachers, and scholars in 
one large city or in one New Eng- 
land State, and calculate what pro- 
portion of the same ingredients 
would be needed to bring Paris or 
the department of the Seine to the 
same outward level, we have only 
to look at the immense tracts where 
education is practically unknown, 
the sections of country where the 
majority of native citizens cannot 
read, and the less flagrant but more 
significant instances of large rural 
populations in comparatively easy 
circumstances and civilized neigh- 
borhoods, where schools are seen 
within every five miles, and sessions 
held twice a year for three or four 
months collectively, but where, in 
spite of these advantages, the 
quality and subsequent influence 
of the education thus imparted are 
the least satisfactory elements in 
the character of the population. 

The disproportion between the 
means afforded by the state or the 
commune (or town) for the training 
of the youth of the middle classes 
and those of the working-classes 
*>., the bulk of the nation suggest- 
ed to a few public-spirited men in 
Paris the experiment which at the 
cost of sixteen hundred dollars, 
partly defrayed by the state and 
partly by voluntary contributions, 
has been in operation for five years 
in the common school of the Rue 
Tournefort. The technical depart- 



Technical Education. 



ment is conducted simultaneously 
with the ordinary course, but has a 
separate set of rooms for its use, 
and also a kitchen and range. 
There are three hundred and eighty 
boys at present, of whom, for want 
of means and space, only forty-five 
can receive technical instruction. 
The course consists of three 
branches, ironmongery, carpenter- 
ing, and sculpture. In the forge 
are taught all kinds of work in iron 
requiring the help of anvil and vise ; 
in the carpenter's shop everything 
relating to woodwork, plain and 
ornamental, to cabinet-making and 
to turning, as well as painting, 
graining, veneering, polishing, etc. ; 
and in the sculptor's shop every- 
thing from modelling in clay and 
plaster to chiselling stone and mar- 
ble. General Collis, a member of 
the Board of Directors of Girard 
College and of a committee formed 
for investigation and report upon 
European technical education, 
speaks thus of his visit to this 
school : 

" Entering a door on the first floor, I 
found myself in an ordinary school-room 
furnished with the customary black- 
board, maps, globes, charts, etc., with 
the addition of specimens of iron ore, 
and the metal in all its stages from the 
ore-bed to the manufactured article ; 
wood of every description used in ordi- 
nary carpenter and cabinet-work, green, 
half-seasoned, and well-seasoned, nails, 
screws, tubes, railroad iron and ties, 
horseshoes, shovels, and all the tools in 
common use. After a couple of hours 
devoted to reading, spelling, arithmetic, 
geography, and so on, the boys pass into 
an adjoining room, furnished with eight 
carpenters' benches, over which eight of 
the older boys preside, each having one 
or two assistants ; and from thence they 
pass into another apartment, in which 
are forge, anvils, vises, and lathes. On 
the second floor is a similar class-room, 
and an adjoining room for instruction in 
sculpture. During my visit the boys 
were occupied in this latter room. . . . 
The patterns consisted chiefly of leaves 



and scrolls in relief, each boy being 
furnished with a handful of clay and a 
piece of wood the size of a lead-pencil, 
called an ttaiichoir (instrument for mak- 
ing a rough outline or sketch), his work 
being superintended by an instructor, 
who passed from boy to boy, correcting 
measurements, directing the motion of 
the hand and the pose of the body. . . . 
It was very evident that these little ones 
looked upon the employment more as a 
recreation than a labor, and when the 
hour for recess came more than one-half 
of the class lingered over their handi- 
WQrk as though they were loath to give it 
up ; in fact, Dr. Gaubier (the director) 
said they considered it an amusement. 
... In Paris the school-hours com- 
mence at 7. A.M. (owing to the fact that 
both father and mother go out to work 
at that hour). The routine of studies in 
this school on the day I was there was as 
follows :* From 7 to 8, writing ; 8 to 9, 
religious instruction ; 9 to n, instruc- 
tion in design, modelling, moulding, and 
sculpture ; at n, recess for ten minutes ; 
till 12, primary instruction ; 12 to i, din- 
ner (most of the boys brought a piece 
of bread to school, and were supplied 
from the very neat and clean kitchen of 
the establishment with an excellent stew 
of beef or mutton and vegetables for two 
cents) ; i to 1.30, technical lesson on the 
blackboard ; 1.30 to 3, lesson in the 
blacksmith's shop ; 3 to 4, music ; 4, 
lunch ; 4.30 to 5, gymnastic exercise ; 5 
to 6, arithmetic, geometry, and drawing. 
After one year's technical instruction in 
all of the three branches the pupil 
selects for himself one of the three, and 
to this he devotes himself three days of 
the week, but upon two other days is re- 
quired to continue his course in the 
other two branches also. All the tools 
used in the school were made by th( 
pupils, and, as far as I could judge, wei 
of good quality. 

" At fourteen years of age these boys, 
who are in great demand, are sent t< 
manufacturers, from whom they receii 
from thirty to forty cents a day (excel- 
lent wages for a boy in Paris), and, aftc 
two years' service, are considered prac- 
tical workmen. Boys thus educated 
are too valuable to their employers to 
be used for menial offices, and thus es- 
cape much of the uninstructive drudgery 



* According to 'the table given by M. Salicis in 
his pamphlet, this must have been a Monday. 



Technical Education. 



515 



to which the ordinary apprentice is sub- 
jected." 

The existence of similar schools 
for the middle classes or for par- 
ticular trades, such as those of 
Aix, Angers, Chalons, Havre, 
Brest, etc., to which allusion will 
be made further on, and the pal- 
pable evils resulting from launch- 
ing the sons of working-men and 
country laborers into the world 
without preparation for their future 
work, were the chief incitements to 
the trial of the new system so 
cheaply set going in the Rue 
Tournefort. M. Greard's able re- 
port on apprentice-schools gave 
the subject a temporary promi- 
nence, of which M. Leveille, canto- 
nal delegate and member of the mu- 
nicipal council, as well as profes- 
sor of civil law in the Paris Law 
School, took advantage by recom- 
mending, in a circumstantial and 
urgent report, the immediate estab- 
lishment of an experimental school 
in connection with the common 
school in the Rue Tournefort. 
Local circumstances at first sug- 
gested a workshop devoted to cabi- 
net-making and book-binding, the 
former because the then school 
director of the district in question 
was a skilful amateur wood-carver 
and carpenter, the latter because 
this quarter of the city was the one 
where most of the great libraries 
happen to be situated. Eventu- 
ally the book-binding was neglect- 
ed ; for, as the project took shape 
and the aim of the projectors widen- 
ed, it was found more practical to 
confine the teaching to those 
branches of study bearing on the 
exercise of the chief trades of a 
large city. The municipal council 
approved of the proposition and 
allotted five thousand francs (one 
thousand dollars) a year to the 
new school, while the mayor of the 



arrondissement) or district, and the 
director of primary instruction 
both lent the project cordial and 
enlightened help. In view of the 
greater number of workmen in 
large cities coming under the four 
heads of art-mechanics (model- 
lers, designers, sculptors), turners, 
wood-workers (carpenters, carvers, 
cabinet-makers), and metal-work- 
ers (blacksmiths, locksmiths, me- 
chanicians), it was resolved to aim 
first at fundamental instruction in 
drawing, whether freehand, model, 
geometrical, or perspective, and in 
modelling, whether in clay, plaster, 
wax, etc. ; and, secondly, at special 
instruction in the particular branch 
chosen by the pupil. The appren- 
ticeship lasts three years, the first 
of which is devoted to fundamen- 
tal and general, the second and 
third in greater part to the special 
teaching. As many of the pupils, 
on entering the school, are behind- 
hand in general knowledge, pro- 
vision is made for supplementary 
teaching of an hour each day, ta- 
ken from the morning session of 
technical work. The original in- 
tention was that boys should enter 
the school at twelve or thirteen, 
and not leave it until fifteen or 
sixteen ; but if General Collis' in- 
formation (September 14, 1878) is 
correct, this has been in many 
cases modified. It does not ap- 
pear whether at present the pupils 
of the second and third years earn 
any wages, as the boys of the Ha- 
vre school (of respectively five,, 
fifteen, and thirty cents a day), but 
M. Salicis says that the school, 
after only eighteen months' exist- 
ence, had saved one-quarter of its 
debt. The stock relating to sculp- 
ture and modelling is the gift of 
the school board, and other con- 
tributions in kind as well as in 
money have been received. The 



Technical Education. 



government estimate of the cost of 
each boy is one hundred and six- 
ty-five francs, or thirty-three dol- 
lars, the actual average cost being 
nearly forty dollars. The director 
and sub-director receive a salary re- 
spectively of two hundred dollars 
and one hundred and twenty dol- 
lars, which last sum is equivalent 
to that paid to two master-carpen- 
ters each, giving five lessons of 
two hours each a week, while four 
hundred and forty dollars are ap- 
propriated to the teacher of sculp- 
ture. The raw material is valued 
at two hundred and forty dollars. 
The gross sum of one hundred arid 
sixty-five francs per head, besides 
representing the expenses above 
mentioned, is calculated to include 
later on the wages of about fifty- 
one francs to be earned by the 
pupils of the second and third 
years. The general aim of the in- 
stitution is summed up in these 
words of M. Salicis : 
" . . . That the pupils of the municipal 
school of apprenticeship should, on leav- 
ing, possess, so to speak, an assortment 
of technical knowledge applicable in all 
cases and at all times, as well as practi- 
cal experience at their fingers' ends of the 
science of minor mechanics and of the 
handling of the various elementary tools ; 
and that, thus prepared, the apprentice 
should quickly adapt himself to the spe- 
cial requirements of the trade followed 
in the workshop of which he should be- 
come an inmate, yet without ever com- 
pletely losing the general training which 
had been the aim of his primary profes- 
sional education." 

Among the studies of the first 
year, as given in the table of the 
division of time, are the history of 
industries, trades, and commerce 
in general, and the reading of 
manuscript, to each of which about 
one hour a week is devoted. The 
latter is a thing in which two-thirds 
even of the educated classes are 
.frequently at fault, and which 



clerks, copyists, book-keepers, and 
commercial correspondents seldom 
learn except by practice after tak- 
ing their situations, thus causing 
their employers no little loss of 
time. It will be seen that this 
amalgamation of primary with tech- 
nical teaching in the common 
schools involves an inversion in 
the amount of time at present be- 
stowed on each kind of knowledge, 
while it also points to object-teach- 
ing, or, as some call it, pantogra- 
phic teaching, as a more efficient 
means of quick progress than the 
parrot-like system now in vogue. 
Two-thirds of school-time would, 
according to this plan, be de- 
voted to the study of matter, 
raw material, and the means of 
transforming it, tools and their ap- 
plication, chemical action of the 
elements on various materials, etc., 
according to the special direction 
in which the professional instruc- 
tion in any given school tends. In 
large cities schools of apprentice- 
ship for builders, masons, bricklay- 
ers and makers, etc., including also 
architects, engineers, and surveyors, 
would take a prominent place. In 
the country it would not be im- 
possible to start practical schools 
of agriculture, especially in France, 
where the town, or commune, usually 
owns large tracts of land ; and this 
plan, of course, would be modified 
in certain neighborhoods where 
wine-growing, cider-making, dairy- 
farming, olive-raising, etc., consti- 
tute the principal local industries. 
In all studies not closely relating 
to the trade by* which the pupil 
intends to earn his living, detail 
should be avoided, while in those 
bearing on it thorough familiarity 
with at least all its practical branch- 
es should be aimed at. The out- 
lines of the history of one's native 
country and of the Bible, a useful 



Technical Education. 



517 



amount of arithmetic without the 
encumbrance of theoretical prob- 
lems utterly out of the beat of fu- 
ture every-day lite, correct spell- 
ing and legible handwriting, a few 
facts of general history easily fixed 
in the memory and serving as land- 
marks of the few great epochs and 
changes in the world, broad notions 
of geography from illustrations on 
large globes and a map in relief of 
one's native country such is nearly 
all the school-gear really of use to 
a learner. On the other hand, the 
knowledge of weights and measures, 
of the value of lines, surfaces, and 
sizes, the discrimination between 
good and bad though showy arti- 
cles, whether of food, dress, or 
other material, domestic economy, 
the training which results in fore- 
thought as to ways and means, and 
suggests how to draw out the hid- 
den capabilities of apparently hope- 
less material, acquaintance with a 
few simple and obvious but abso- 
lutely indispensable laws of health, 
and for girls a fair knowledge of 
cookery, sewing, making and mend- 
ing, nursing the sick and tending 
children, making up common re- 
medies and knowing how and when 
to apply them, should be insisted 
upon as the main parts of a useful 
bringing-up, and, instead of being 
considered either subordinate or 
unnecessary, should be substituted 
for the more common exercises of 
school-hours the committing to 
memory of badly-declaimed verses, 
the long chronological lists of ill- 
understood events, the parrot-like 
rules out of a text-book, the histo- 
rical comparisons glibly repeated 
out of the summary of questions 
and answers at the foot of every 
chapter, and so on.* The larger 

* " Children of seven years and upwards are ex- 
pected to commit to memory long, uninteresting 
rules and definitions. If a child understands a 
subject it can make to itself a rule, even though it 



use of pictures and of original, in- 
dividual, oral teaching on the part 
of the masters is a second innova- 
tion advocated by Salicis, Greard, 
Delacour, and others interested in 
these school experiments, and by 
not a few practical sympathizers 
and reformers in this country. 
Already in Philadelphia a self-sup- 
porting school has been set going 
on the new principles, and the 
questions involved are being large- 
ly discussed by physicians, teach- 
ers, and economists. 

M. Salicis reckons that if Paris 
were provided with ten district 
schools of apprenticeship for boys 
and an equal number for girls, each 
containing fifty apprentices or 
more, at the cost of two millions of 
francs ($400,000) to the state, in 
three years the city would furnish 
to general industry six thousand 
trained apprentices of both sexes, 
morally as well as technically fitted 
for the proper discharge of their 
duty on first entering a workshop 
(instead. of, as at present, coming 
to the workshop useless, ignorant, 
and very often dishonest, from the 
simple fact of having spent two, 
three, or four years in vagabondage, 
uncertainty, and questionable asso- 
ciations) ; in ten years sixty thou- 
sand that is, more than sufficient 
to leaven the old spirit and dis- 
place the old slip-shod practice ; 
and in forty years, rhost probably, 
the whole body of skilled mecha- 
nics in the city itself. Other cities 
following the lead, there would 
soon remain no place unfilled by 
these candidates, and the evils, at 
present so patent, resulting from 
the necessity of immediate remu- 
neration as soon as a child has 
reached the age of ten or twelve, 

be not shaped in words " (Letter from a, teacher 
on school reforms). Any one who has thoroughly 
learned French grammar, for instance, will recog- 
nize the truth of this. 



Technical Education. 



combined with the utter impossi- 
bility of the parents' having him 
regularly taught, would ultimately 
in a great measure disappear. The 
statistics proving the waste of time 
and personal energy resulting from 
the uncared-for position of the 
youth of the poorer classes, as com- 
pared with the means for profes- 
sional progress furnished to those 
of the middle classes, are appalling. 
Full ten years of his life are lost to 
the working-man, and it is needless 
to say that in nine cases out of 
ten it is an irreparable loss. He 
may remedy it in part, but only in 
part, unless he possesses exception- 
al faculties. And at best he can 
only remedy it for himself; it is 
impossible for him to shield his 
children from the same evils, clear- 
ly as he may see the cause and the 
depth of the latter. Want of im- 
mediate means bars any improve- 
ment ; the old system of appren- 
ticeship exists no longer, and noth- 
ing definite has taken its place. 
State aid is the only aid that does 
not more or less humble the recipi- 
ent ; and in this case the aid would 
be by no means gratuitous in fact, 
would be no more than a loan, and 
comparatively a slight one, to be 
partly repaid by the apprentice's 
contribution to the stock of the 
technical school, and partly by his 
subsequent life as a citizen, accord- 
ing to a higher standard than is 
furnished by the present perfunc- 
tory common-school education. 
It is certain that no outlay can be 
more remunerative to the state than 
one which tends to protect the im- 
mense majority of the nation against 
the temptations of idleness and 
vagibondage one which hedges 
them in by the early-acquired sense 
of responsibility and the clearly-il- 
lustrated notion of duty which a 
thorough training from childhood 



to some serious and definite calling 
entails. 

Another of the improvements in- 
cidental to the plan of the techni- 
cal-school projectors is the restora- 
tion of the balance of outside opin- 
ion between the merits of manual 
and so-called intellectual labor. 
Do, and say, and struggle as you 
will, manual labor will always be, 
as it has always been, the business 
of the majority of mankind. That 
it should be respected at its just 
value is desirable ; indeed, it is ne- 
cessary to the harmonious working 
of society. That it has ever been 
looked upon at other than its just 
value is due to the faults of work- 
men themselves. Whenever the 
influence of any class of the com- 
munity is in undue proportion to 
the merits of that class z>., to the 
services it renders to society at* 
large, and to its fulfilment of its 
special functions the social ba- 
lance is lost, and the machinery of 
government must, in some measure, 
be put out of order. Again, when- 
ever any class is possessed of a 
consciousness of collective power, 
without a corresponding sense of 
personal responsibility in each in- 
dividual member, more or less dis- 
turbance in the body politic must 
ensue; and when any class, ignor- 
ing the present abuses and corrup- 
tion within itself, takes its stand 
on prerogatives bestowed upon it 
'in former times as a distinct ac- 
knowledgment of its high standard 
of honor, and corresponding deeds 
of virtue on the part of its mem- 
bers, mischief is sure to follow. 
This has happened several times in 
history, and has been illustrated by 
almost each class in its turn. A 
well-known and recent instance Was 
the first French Revolution, pre- 
pared by the undue preponderance 
of the court section of the nobility, 



Technical Education. 



519 



who retained a power in fact which 
even in theory belonged only to the 
united body of the aristocracy of 
the country, but the exercise of 
which was, at the time, no longer 
justified by the moral or political 
fitness of the majority even of its 
theoretical holders. The^same tests 
apply to the working-class equally 
with any other ; this class is no 
more the ruling class by right di- 
vine or right inherent than any 
other, and must take its rank in 
political society by its intrinsic me- 
rits that is, its moral and intellec- 
tual worth. Therefore, wherever 
working-men have disgraced their 
order by violence, by ignorance, or 
by idleness, and, worse still, by in- 
sincerity and double-dealing, they 
have dealt themselves a suicidal 
blow. Again, wherever they have 
affected to disdain labor, and to 
depreciate it in the eyes of others 
by their example in straining after 
a false "gentility," or by deserting 
practical work and steady effort for 
political agitation and sensational 
propagandism, they have material- 
ly helped to strengthen the very 
abuses which they rightly denounc- 
ed. On the other hand, the work- 
ing-class start in the political race 
with disadvantages for which the 
classes above are partly responsi- 
ble, and which should in justice be 
considered as extenuating circum- 
stances at such times as are mark- 
ed by the violent, illegal, or un- 
reasonable conduct of this class. 
It is that such disadvantages may 
be removed, as far as it is in the 
power of the state to remove them, 
that schools of apprenticeship are 
mainly advocated. A technical 
education tending to create a large 
number of immediate producers, 
and proportionately to decrease the 
number of vagrants and proba- 
ble criminals, or at best wasteful 



and haphazard citizens, is, properly 
speaking, not only a saving to the 
state and an actual capital fur- 
nished to the apprentice, but a po- 
litical and social training for the 
future head of a family, household- 
er, and citizen. The levelling and 
unnatural equality which some po- 
litical enthusiasts ignorance is 
their chief defect would force on 
mankind will, of course, never be 
realized, but there is an equality 
which may be largely developed by 
judicious systems of education, and 
which assimilates itself to the com- 
parative equality in diversity that 
distinguishes almost all natural pro- 
ducts. Thus each man that is per- 
fect in his own pursuit z>., tho- 
roughly grounded in its theory, 
wholly familiar with its practice, 
observant of every improvement 
already accomplished, alive to eve- 
ry possibility of extension, change, 
application, or bettering, a man in- 
telligently in love with his business 
for we never do that well which 
we do without love is the equal 
of any other specialist, and of 
course the superior of every man 
not perfectly in possession of simi- 
lar knowledge regarding some one 
branch of study. Perfection in 
some given pursuit in itself noble 
and worthy should be the goal of 
all education, and of national edu- 
cation in particular ; useful studies 
of course stand first, but an unre- 
munerative, or even unproductive, 
study should not therefore be de- 
spised, provided it fosters the ha- 
bit of steady purpose, of persever- 
ance, and of thoroughness, which 
might be collectively called moral 
manliness. 

To pass from the youngest tech- 
nical school in France to some of 
the older ones, all devoted to the 
needs of the middle classes or to 
those of some special trade, we 



520 



Technical Education. 



may mention the Trinity Hospital, 
founded in 1545, in Paris, for des- 
titute children, and with which a 
school of lace-making was associat- 
ed ; the famous Ecole Poly technique 
and Ecole Centrale, the former an- 
swering the purposes of a military 
academy and a school of mines, 
while teaching every branch of 
higher technical instruction, from 
navigation and engineering to draw- 
ing and designing, and giving its 
certificated members the privilege 
of entering the army and navy 
without the usual two years' ser- 
vice in the ranks ; the three schools 
of the second class at Aix, Angers, 
and Chalons-sur-Marne, whose ob- 
ject it is to prepare youth for 
master-mechanics and foremen in 
the useful trades, and the scale of 
whose prices is low enough for 
most purses in the middle ranks of 
life, being as follows : for board 
and teaching, $120; for outfit, $50; 
for repairs, $10; for scientific in- 
struments, $8; the total for the 
first year being $188, and for each 
succeeding year $125, subject to a 
reduction by the sale of the pro- 
duct of the pupil's industry. 

" Boys are admitted to these schools 
between the ages of fifteen and seven- 
teen, and are required to possess a fair 
common- school education ; the course 
of instruction is of three years, at the 
conclusion of which the pupils, if suc- 
cessful, receive a certificate which at 
once entitles them to employment as 
masters of the particular trade to which 
they have devoted themselves." * 

At Besanon a school of watch 
and clock making was founded in 
1864 by the town, the mayor being 
ex-officio president of the board of 
administration of the school. In 
his Studies on the Progress of 
Watchmaking Lieutenant-Col onel 

* General Collis 1 statement in the Daily Even- 
ing Telegraph, Philadelphia, September 14, 1878. 



Laussedat, of the Engineers, speaks 
thus of the establishment : 

" The term of apprenticeship is of 
three years, and such is the liking for 
the workshop acquired there that one 
of the heaviest punishments that can be 
given these future artists is to deprive 
them of a few hours of their manual 
labor. The fascination which this kind 
of work exercises will be understood 
when one learns that each pupil is even- 
tually taught how to construct a whole 
watch, as well as the greater part of the 
necessary tools, and that all that has 
been put into his hands for the purpose 
amounts only to the first indispensable 
and simplest tools, and a few fragments 
of raw material in the shape of metal in 
sheets and bars." 

The same words will apply to 
the Koechlin School at Mulhausen. 
The National Navy School at Brest, 
originally founded by Admiral 
Gueydon, is organized to receive 
five hundred pupils at a time, the 
orphan sons of seamen, whose re- 
ligious and primary teaching, though 
excellent and careful in degree, are 
the same in kind as that given at 
any other school, but who, beyond 
this, are taught practical seaman- 
ship with a view to the regular ser- 
vice. In all the details of sailor's 
work they are taught by experienc- 
ed sailors, and the instruction is 
peculiarly thorough and funda- 
mental, including the study of sig- 
nals and meteorology, as well as 
maritime warfare of attack and 
defence, the use of the latest 
inventions in firearms, torpedoes, 
etc. Gymnastics proper are also 
a part of the regular training, 
as well as fencing and boxing. 
After the school and harbor teach- 
ing the boys finish their education 
by a trial voyage of several months, 
and are then turned out consum- 
mate seamen, fairly educated in the 
classical sense of the word, and 
passionately fond and proud of 
their profession. Captain Picart 









Technical Education. 



521 



and bis fellow-officers on board 
the frigate which is specially de- 
voted to the use of the school have 
become, from salaried and con- 
scientious employes of the institu- 
tion, zealous and indefatigable co- 
operators in the work itself. Other 
technical schools exist at Havre, 
Lamartiniere, and Lyons, and M. 
Greard has recently founded one 
at La Villette, near Paris, for ap- 
prenticing boys of the poorest class 
who have stumbled through their 
primary-school term, and are, as 
usual, thrown helpless on the world, 
with every chance of becoming 
clerks, waiters, drivers, billiard-mar- 
kers, restaurant, wine and liquor- 
shop keepers, etc. 

In the competitive school ex- 
hibits at the Paris Exposition were 
represented a few other French 
and some Swiss, German, and Rus- 
sian schools of the same order, al- 
though invariably devoted rather 
to the middle than the working 
classes : the free professional school 
of Evreux, the artistic school of 
the department of La Haute 
Vienne ; the Institution Fleury, the 
professional school of Douai, the 
National School of Watch -makinc 

t5 

des Clauses, in Upper Savoy (with 
its show-case full of perfect watch- 
movements made by boys under 
twenty); the Institut Technologique 
de St. -Petersbourg (with a capi- 
tal show of machinery) ; the Tech- 
nical Schools of Zurich and Lu- 
cerne, the former exhibiting spe- 
cimens of hydraulic machinery, and 
the latter designs for wall-paper, 
pottery, muslin, etc. ; the Staats 
Oberrealschule of Vienna, with its 
collection of working drawings for 
machinery, engineering, building, 
and architecture, and groups of 
beautiful cabinet-ware, the pro- 
ducts of the pupils' work; the 
Bauschule, or Building-School, of 



Stuttgart, devoted to the teaching 
of architects, carpenters, brick- 
layers, stone-cutters, and plasterers ; 
the school of Buda-Pesth in Hun- 
gary, and the Imperial Technical 
School of Moscow, which, originally 
a foundling hospital, " is to-day 
turning out," says General Collis, 
" some of the best mechanics in 
Europe," while the introduction of 
the technical department has added 
very little to the annual expense. 
This, so far, has been considered 
as the best model to follow and 
adapt in the experiment about to 
be made by the authorities of Gi- 
rard College. The question, how- 
ever, has already been partly test- 
ed and fully discussed in Philadel- 
phia, where a technical free school 
(due to private enterprise and sup- 
ported by private and voluntary 
contributions) has been established 
within the year 1878. 

"The time devoted to the school les- 1 
sons," writes one of the promoters of the 
institution in the Philadelphia Public 
Ledger, July 19, 1878, "is but two and a 
half hours daily, and when the arrange- 
ments are complete an equal length of 
time will be given to manual work. . . . 
The children are now receiving instruc- 
tion in drawing, which is the beginning 
of the course of exercises in mechanical 
work, in arithmetic, geometry, languages 
(as a basis of a thorough course in Eng- 
lish etymology), the natural sciences, and 
some other branches. The pantographic 
illustrations impress ideas upon the 
minds of learners in a very satisfactory 
manner. ... A gentleman in Camden 
has contributed matters of great value 
for the work and the lessons of the 
school, but much more is wanted to 
procure tools, machinery, and materials 
to make this school what is now so 
much needed a model which will show 
how the children of the whole communi- 
ty may be well educated, mentally and 
morally, while learning useful arts." 
[The pantographic method, be it observ- 
ed, has been for several years in success- 
ful operation in a school in Philadelphia 
estnblished for the purpose of testing 
that method.] 



522 



Technical Education. 



The same writer seeks to im- 
prove on the French plan in the 
matter of the age required for en- 
trance into a technical school, and 
says : 

" When a boy or a girl has reached the 
age of thirteen the most valuable time 
for the instruction of the hand, the eye, 
and the mind has passed ; and the 
too prevalent notion that young per- 
sons should not be set to work until they 
can wield sledge-hammers or push jack- 
planes is a very serious error. There 
is much work which little hands can do 
which will cultivate muscular action to 
great advantage in early years ; and little 
children love to work. When they 
make mud-pies or snow-men they are 
beginning the work of plastic arts, and 
when they dam a gutter to get water 
enough to sail their ships in they begin to 
learn engineering." 

There is a book of long standing, 
but which, even without the addi- 
tions that might have been made to 
it within the last twenty-five years, 
is still excellent and interesting, 
Philosophy in Sport made Science in 
Earnest, which might be, both in 
schools and families, made subser- 
vient to a technical education. It 
is written in the form of a diary 
and dialogue ; a father devotes his 
afternoons to teaching his boys the 
reasons why a toy-boat floats, a kite 
sails in the air, a ball performs cer- 
tain evolutions according to the 
impetus given it, a balloon rises 
and falls, a magnet attracts, etc., 
etc. ; there are chemical experi- 
ments made on high-days and holi- 
days, toys constructed scientifically 
and their structure clearly explain- 
ed, and so on. Readings out loud 
from this or some similar book, 
whether at school or at home, and 
explanations supplementing those 
given in print, would go far to give 
children an interest in things form- 
ing the basis of a technical educa- 
tion, and in themselves useful even 
for domestic purposes. No in- 



quiring yet uninstructed mind can 
help coming across problems even in 
the simplest household offices for 
instance, in the emptying of a buck- 
et, which suggests questions as to 
the direction of the water, its veloc- 
ity, the angle at which the bucket 
should be held, the aim taken by 
the emptier, etc. The earlier such 
problems are solved the better ; and 
while factory-work, with its undue 
pressure on slight frames, its un- 
healthiness (partly accounted for 
by crowded and ill-ventilated 
rooms, partly by the enforced 
continuity of its nature), and its 
tendency to give the hands a me- 
chanical but unintelligent perfec- 
tion of touch, is certainly not fit 
for young children, however remu- 
nerative it may prove to poor parents 
of large families ; work of a techni- 
cal character, but adapted as to 
time and quantity to the strength 
and the brain-capabilities of tender 
years, is decidedly the healthiest 
employment for children of average 
bodily vigor. Lasting impressions 
are made far earlier than is gene- 
rally supposed; a good deal of the 
future man is already strongly de- 
fined in the boy of six or seven ; 
by twelve the bent is probably too 
strong to be permanently altered. In 
almost every trade very early train- 
ing and familiarity with the atmos- 
phere, so to speak, of the workshop 
is indispensable for anything ap- 
proaching to future perfection. 
M. Salicis, in the same pamphlet 
already largely quoted above, 
mentions an instance of this, and 
the answer which a ship-calker 
made to a man who wished to ap- 
prentice his son, a boy of fifteen, to 
the calking trade. " Your son is 
fifteen ; well, I recommend you to 
make him a midshipman or a navy- 
surgeon, but for a ship-calker it is 
too late." The old apprentice 



Te clinical Education. 



523 



system, whose decay is one of the 
causes that call for some pro- 
vision for teaching trades thor- 
oughly to the bulk of the rising 
generation, did not take charge 
of a boy until the age of four- 
teen, and protracted the care and 
the teaching undertaken by the 
master for seven years. But in 
most cases the boys (generally sons 
of middle-class and at least com- 
fortably-situated parents) had been 
brought up from infancy in much 
the same surroundings as those 
into which they came more formal- 
ly upon their entrance into their 
regular apprenticeship. The condi- 
tions of society are changed, and 
the continuance of the old system, 
unless in exceptional cases (such 
as still frequently occur in Europe, 
yet no longer constitute a settled 
state of affairs), is impossible. The 
nearest approach to it is the mate- 
rial help which many firms afford 
their employes in the shape of free, 
or partly free, libraries, schools, 
reading-rooms, infirmaries, and 
lodging-houses ; but the necessary 
supervision by the employers of the 
employed which results from such 
contributions towards the welfare 
of the latter neutralizes, to a great 
degree, the good which these insti- 
tutions might do. People nowa- 
days have a spirit of independence 
and jealousy of interference in 
them which, whether good or evil 
in its origin, and whether we indi- 
vidually approve or deprecate it, is 
a stubborn fact, and one that must 
be taken into account in any plan 
brought forward for the improve- 
ment of the class where this spirit 
is most fully developed by circum- 
stances that easily explain its pres- 
ence. State, or, as M. Salicis calls it, 
municipal, apprenticeship meets this 
difficulty in a large degree, and has 
the additional advantage of teach- 



ing in all cases theoretically what 
the old system only bound itself 
to teach practically. The United 
States still depends, in a great mea- 
sure, on Europe for mechanics and 
artists, and its citizens pay a large 
sum of money every year for the 
products of the factories and work- 
shops of those nations in Europe 
which have most carefully cultivat- 
ed mechanical and artistic skill. 
" That such a conditions of things," 
says the Philadelphia writer quoted 
above, " should drive many to use- 
less and debasing occupations is not 
strange, and that there should be 
an overflow in unproductive em- 
ployment is a natural result." For 
this also state apprentice-schools 
would present an efficient remedy. 
One-fourth at least of the children 
in each of our large cities are abso- 
lutely neglected, and grow up with 
no moral, religious, or intellectual 
training whatever; the remainder 
who attend the public schools 
never get beyond the primary 
classes, in which teaching is of 
the crudest kind. When flourishing 
estimates are held up in national 
speeches, and a kind of cant arises 
which is not unlike the boasting of 
the Pharisee of the parable, it is 
well to look at the negative side, 
and to ask what becomes of the 
minority who are avowedly not in- 
cluded in these triumphant statis- 
tics. Wbsen that is done there is 
again a question to ask concerning 
the quality of the education pro- 
vided for the majority, and more 
especially its results in after-life. 
The uneasiness in the public mind, 
the complaints of helpless but right- 
minded parents, the efforts of a few 
energetic men, the condemnatory 
verdicts of physicians, and the 
acknowledgments of failure by 
teachers, point to the practical 
worthlessness of the present system 



524 



Technical Education. 



of common-school teaching. That 
some change should be made in 
education not only of the public 
but of the private schools is a 
conclusion to which all sound 
thinkers in the country came some 
time ago, and the same is evident- 
ly thought in France. It only re- 
mains to choose, from among the 
chaotic suggestions with which a 
sense of dissatisfaction with the 
present forms has flooded us, the 
best for practical carrying out, and 
those that promise most permanent 
improvement. The cost of a 
change in any direction would be a 
consideration, but the scheme of 
technical education affords the 
advantage of being, when once in 
operation, partly self-supporting. 
Supposing the average cost of in- 
struction in the public schools as 
at present conducted to be seven- 
teen dollars for each scholar } and 
the introduction of mechanical 
teaching to double that cost, even 
at that rate the average would be 
less than seventy cents a week, 
which is not a large amount for a 
person between ten and sixteen 
years of age to earn. In the 
" Philotechnic Institute " in Cam- 
den pupils working five or six 
hours a day (only half the time 
being devoted to manual labor) 
earned more than five times that 
amount, and the same has been 
done in other institutions. The 
provision for the teaching, or rather 
training, of the very young children 
might be included in a rate charged 
on the earnings of the more ad- 
vanced scholars, and which would 
compensate for the cost of their 
teaching while they had been too 
young to work, as well as give them 
a diploma of honor and a decora- 
tion when they have earned the 
whole cost of their tuition. This, 
however, is only the suggestion of 



an individual, and not an inherent 
part of the scheme of technical 
education. 

The subject, although it occupied 
but a secondary place in the dis- 
cussions of the Social Science Con- 
gress held last October at Chelten- 
ham, England, was brought forward 
by Professor Sylvanus Thompson, 
of University College, Bristol. 
The following is the summary 
given of his paper in the London 
Times i October 28, 1878 : 

" He directed attention to the defect 
in English systems of technical train- 
ing, remarking that while the germs of 
a technical education existed almost 
everywhere, they were so scanty and 
feeble that there was little prospect of 
their immediate development. Techni- 
cal schools and colleges, if placed in the 
industrial districts, he thought, might do 
much that the present relics of the ap- 
prenticeship system had failed to do, 
and would form an essential feature of 
the education of the future. Technical 
schools we must originate and develop 
for ourselves, and competent teachers 
and proper appliances must be obtained. 
The long-delayed project for a central 
technical college in the metropolis, 
under the auspices of the city companies, 
promised a hopeful future in this regard. 
As soon as it was founded one great 
difficulty in the problem would have 
disappeared, and the establishment of 
local centres of training would be only a 
question of time." 

It will be seen that Professor 
Thompson's proposal differs from 
the scheme of M. Salicis and of 
the promoters of the Philadelphia 
school, who, though undertaking 
the model school by means of pri- 
vate initiative, as a proof of the 
feasibility of their scheme, urge the 
principle of state co-operation as 
an essential feature of the new sys- 
tem. Elsewhere in the discussion 
of education at the Social Science 
Congress the Hon. G. Brodrick, 
President of the Education Section, 
mentioned incidentally that " in 



Technical Education. 



525 



the choice of subjects, as well as in 
the methods of teaching, we must 
strive to make every hour of school- 
ing tell upon the practical wants of 
the scholar's future life." This, 
rightly interpreted, should point 
towards the reforms advocated and 
partly illustrated by the friends of 
technical education ; but the same 
speaker, in the words immediately 
following, states as a fact, but no- 
wise as a defect, " that primary 
education is not the first stage of 
education for the wage-earning 
classes, but the whole of their edu- 
cation." This is precisely what 
M. Salicis complains of, as form- 
ing the basis of the depravity and 
waste of human material in at least 
half the laboring population of 
France; and be it remembered that 
enlightened Englishmen agree that 
"though England may compare 
favorably with France, and not 
very unfavorably with the United 
States, in the mere percentage of 
adults who can read and write, 
both French and American educa- 
tion are apparently superior to 
English education in their humaniz- 
ing influence on the people." At 
a subsequent session of the Educa- 
tion Department at the Congress 
the Rev. E. MacCarthy, head-mas- 
ter of the Middle School of King 
Edward Sixth, Birmingham, and 
member of the Birmingham School 
Board, proposed (this refers wholly 
to endowed schools and the dis- 
tribution of their funds, but never- 
theless touches on the question of 
technical training) that " the en- 
dowments now used for this latter 
purpose " (/.<?., the supplying, by 
part of elementary endowments, 
some part of the ordinary elemen- 
tary education now provided in 
England by the Education Acts, 
which the speaker considered a 
wrongful use of endowment funds) 



" should be applied to the forma- 
tion of upper departments, with 
exhibitions attached, in certain ele- 
mentary schools selected as cen- 
tres"; and that 

" School boards should be empowered, 
in the absence of endowments in their 
districts, to spend the rates for this 
object. Upper departments should be 
open to all who had passed standard 4, 
and the curriculum should be framed so 
as to afford a three years' course, includ- 
ing, in addition to the subjects prescribed 
by the code for individual and class ex- 
amination, one or two specific subjects 
[the italics are the writer's]. The fee 
should be higher than that in the ordi- 
nary elementary schools, and exhibitions 
should take the form of total or partial 
remission of fees, accordirfg to attain- 
ments and attendance, and of annual 
sums by way of maintenance, tenable 
either at an upper department or any 
school of higher grade." 

In the absence of the state help 
which forms the main support of 
the French scheme, such substi- 
tutes as exhibitions to higher schools, 
attainable by scholars of the pri- 
mary national schools, would de- 
cidedly be a step forward, and Mr. 
Henry Jeffrey, M.A., head-mas- 
ter of the Grammar School at 
Cheltenham, went yet farther by 
suggesting that/ after the example 
of France, Englishmen might here- 
after find scope for their philan- 
thropy and public spirit by "found- 
ing bursaries as educational ladders 
to primary scholars. If this source 
should be insufficient the aid of the 
legislature should be sought." 

There is at present in England 
a total severance between the sys- 
tem of primary schools and that of 
endowed and other schools that 
supply secondary education. Some 
economists are now trying to bridge 
the division ; and as, on account of 
the cost, very few primary scholars 
ever rise to the grammar-school, 
encouragement so to rise should 



526 



Technical Education. 



chiefly take the shape of exhibitions 
or bursaries, which would cover the 
cost of maintenance. England has 
other causes hindering the imme- 
diate spread of education by means 
of a closer amalgamation between 
pupils of primaries and those of 
grammar- schools namely, the class 
distinctions still so powerful in prac- 
tice. Nowhere are these distinc- 
tions so sharply defined as among 
school-boys ; and it is scarcely too 
much to say that boys of the la- 
boring class, set upon an equal 
footing at school with boys of the 
well-to-do shopkeeping class, would 
have to go through as much at the 
hands ofsthelr fellow-scholars as 
the colored cadet at West Point 
did at the hands of his messmates. 
That such is the case is, morally 
speaking, a disgrace to the coun- 
try ; but the fact is not to be ignor- 
ed, and until mutual consideration 
becomes more a part of English 
training than it is in this genera- ' 
tion the clever boy of humble 
birth, when placed at school with 
those of a different grade, will have 
to face social slights a hundred 
times more galling than even the 
sense of ignorance which beset him 
at the outset. On the other hand, 
the sterner training, the sense of 
self-reliance and self-repression, is- 
suing in greater strength of pur- 
pose, and the armor-proof prepa- 
ration for all subsequent trials of 
the kind, may, in the case of the 
higher-nattired of such boys, prove 
an invaluable compensation. 

Under the head of " Science- 
teachmg in Schools," a paper bear- 
ing remotely on technical educa- 
tion was read by Major Barnard 
on the 2pth of October at the 
Cheltenham Congress, the argu- 
ment being that " science, taught 
by observation and experiment, 
and by reasoning based thereon, 



ought to be made an integral part 
of every school curriculum, as well 
for girls as for boys, in village 
schools as in large public schools." 
The reports from which we quote 
are unfortunately abridged, and 
therefore cannot be made the point 
of departure for either argument, 
advocacy, or objection ; but they 
suffice to point out the way the 
stream of public opinion sets, even 
in conservative England, where,, 
notwithstanding the superabundant 
and, through their very multiplica- 
tion, sometimes inefficient schools 
for secondary education, the large 
bulk of the population, the labor- 
ing class, is still most imperfectly 
educated, the reason being chiefly 
that the said schools provide only 
for the higher and middle classes. 
Again, these schools, even if thrown 
partly open to the youth of the la- 
boring class, are, as at present con- 
stituled, only fitted to give him the 
means of attaining a classical, not 
a technical, education. The intro- 
duction of new branches of study, 
even in the legitimate, literary di- 
rection, and in the instance of 
such venerable " innovations " as 
the Oriental languages (other than 
Hebrew), was no easy thing at the 
universities of Cambridge and 
Oxford, from which one can argue 
how hard will be the storming, by 
new and scientific methods of edu- 
cation, of lesser and therefore more 
tightly swaddled centres of learn- 
ing. 

To return to more generally ap- 
plicable proposals, there are two 
or three things to be observed with 
reference to the scheme of techni- 
cal education as developed by its 
original promoters. First, the 
latter insist upon its applicability 
to every individual in the commu- 
nity, and herein they differ from 
most educational reformers and 



Technical Education. 



527 






political economists, at least so far 
as the majority of these have given 
any opinion on the matter. It is 
not only the directors of labor who 
ought to be theoretically educated 
in the technique of their trade, but 
every workman. It may be ob- 
jected to this that an equal de- 
gree of proficiency would create 
jealousy and insubordination, and 
that organization would become 
difficult. This suggests the second 
statement, that thorough education, 
even in a special or circumscribed 
direction, leads not to arrogance 
but to forbearance with others and 
to distrust as well as control of 
one's self. The smattering of in- 
struction which candid men ac- 
knowledge to be all that now re- 
sults in an average mind from a 
common-school training is, on the 
other hand, excessively likely to 
lead, and in fact does lead, to the 
most thoughtless, crude, and self- 
harmful modes of insubordination. 
Let the training be altered, and, as 
far as the thoroughly-taught recipi- 
ents of the new training will be con- 
cerned, no fear of wrangling, agi- 
tation, or jealousy in the workshop 
need be entertained. No one is 
more willing to obey than he who 
is really competent to command, 
and on this head one might write 
a chapter concerning the counter- 
poise furnished by education or 
rather an educated habit of mind, 
if one may call it so to even the 
most trying forms of destitution. 
As to its value (and this applies 
not mainly to a technical education, 
but to the mere mental attitude of 
receptivity and expectation creat- 
ed by an ordinary education), the 
words of Mr. D. Chadwick, M.P., 
in the Journal of the Statistical So- 
ciety in England, are a significant 
commentary on this proposition. 
He states that 



" He has been at much pains to ascer- 
tain from employers the comparative ef- 
ficiency of educated and uneducated la- 
borers, and that all intelligent witnesses 
of wide experience and observation 
unanimously agree that education, even 
in its present rude and in many respects 
objectionable condition, is highly remu- 
nerative. Masters who have been at the 
expense of schools on high religious 
and social grounds concur in saying that 
success is great on economical grounds. 
They find the readiness with which a 
well-educated man comprehends in- 
structions, the willingness and the in- 
telligence with which he makes trial of 
unaccustomed processes, the quickness 
with which he notes the facts that come 
under his observation and the facility 
with which he reports them, the sugges- 
tions for the improvement of his busi- 
ness that he is able to offer, the dimin- 
ished amount of superintendence that 
he requires, and the saving of waste 
from untrustworthiness, from blunder- 
ing, from misconduct, and from misdi- 
rected labor, are advantages which the 
mercantile mind is not slow to appre- 
ciate." 

In one word, the man loves his 
profession, and looks upon it not 
merely as a bread-winning employ- 
ment, but as a field for research, 
experiment, improvement, perfec- 
tion ; his foresight is helped by his 
experience or by his reading, and 
he is not likely to consider every 
change in its immediate aspect or 
its personal application to himself, 
but rather to judge 'of it according 
to its ultimate possibilities and its 
abstract results. The destruction 
of machinery in a fit of rage, for 
instance, could never occur among 
a body of educated workmen ; the 
professional instinct often becomes 
nearly as strong as a natural one, 
and there are many men to whom 
the sight of wanton destruction of 
a fine piece of mechanism or work 
of art would cause hardly less pain 
than that of a living being in tor- 
ment. An illustration used by an 
English religious writer, tlfe Rev. 



528 



Technical Education. 



E. Goulburn, supplies a few words 
that bear upon the advisability of 
developing the brain as well as 
training the hand of every indivi- 
dual in view of some special work : 
"In every mind there is a capacity, 
not, it may be, for the usual class 
of acquirements, nor for those which 
yield a return in the way of honor 
and emolument, but for some- 
thing. Every human intelligence 
can construct something or ima- 
gine something ; it has a power of 
development in a certain direction, 
or it would not be a human intelli- 
gence, but merely the instinct of 
an animal." As much as it is pos- 
sible, the means of development 
should keep pace with this power, 
and whatever scheme brings these 
means legitimately within the reach 
of each man ought to take prece- 
dence of any other based on a sys- 
tem of exclusiveness or even of 
sifting. 

A third fact to be noted as to 
the mutual connection between me- 
chanical and plastic arts, covering 
also the broader ground of a broth- 
erhood between what social preju- 
dices have arbitrarily parted and 
obscured, is that the greatest art- 
ists have sprung from the work- 
shop. It is pure foolishness to de- 
spise what has been the training- 
school of world-renowned archi- 
tects, sculptors, painters, carvers, 
and designers, \yithout time and 
books we can call to mind at a mo- 
ment's notice but a few instances : 
Canova, the son of a poor country 
stone-mason, and Sir Francis Chan- 
trey, the English sculptor, an ob- 
scure cabinet-maker's apprentice, 
who used to do his master's er- 
rands and take orders about the 
repair of common furniture he 
did this once at the house of Ro- 
gers, the poet, where in after-years 
he dined as a guest and equal ; 



Sir Josiah Wedgwood, the famous 
inventor and afterwards manufac- 
turer of the peculiar kind of deli- 
cate porcelain at present known by 
his name, who began as an insigni- 
ficant workman in a small pottery- 
shop ; Flaxman, a sculptor and de- 
signer, the friend and contempora- 
ry of Reynolds, who sprang from a 
similar class ; multitudes of the 
great old Italian and Spanish paint- 
ers, not to speak of several modern 
English and German ones, and 
more than one American sculptor 
as famous in Florence and Rome 
as in his own country ; and 
among lesser men, yet models 
of perseverance and good artists, a 
young man gradually becoming fa- 
mous in England, Hubert Her- 
komer, the son of a poor German 
emigrant, a wood-carver, who, after 
wandering four years unsuccess- 
fully about the United States, set- 
tled at Southampton, England, 
whence necessity drove him to 
Dresden, but where fear of losing 
his English citizenship obliged him 
finally to return. The boy Hubert, 
a born artist, owed every step of 
his art education wholly to his own 
self-denial and steadiness of pur- 
pose ; patronage and favoritism 
never singled him out, and until 
the London Graphic gave him a 
place on its staff, due to the un- 
doubted superiority of his sketches 
over any others of the same class, 
he lived by choice a rigidly eco- 
nomical life. And here let it be 
said that, although adverse circum- 
stances very often are to blame for 
the suppression or non-production 
of genuine talent, it not unfre- 
quently happens that personal ex- 
travagance extinguishes almost as 
many sparks of genius. There are 
thousands of young men who 
spend one should say waste as 
much as would make them perfect 



Technical Education. 



529 



in any calling to which their mind 
had a natural leaning. True, the 
waste is small in proportion to 
what other useless spendthrifts 
throw away, but that is no excuse. 
It was precisely the holder of the 
one talent of the parable who mis- 
used his gift. 

There remains one practical sug- 
gestion, which we advance as a 
mere suggestion, but the elabora- 
tion of which might temporarily, 
and while the number of really 
educated men unable to find em- 
ployment yet remains a large one, 
help towards training the nation in 
a technical and useful direction. 
It will have occurred to all that, at 
least for some years to come, the 
city populations would mainly be- 
nefit by such a scheme of educa- 
tion as has been described. Never- 
theless the country population will 
always remain the largest, though 
so scattered as often not to seem 
so. Want of means, and too often 
of energy, will prevent their being 
able to establish technical schools 
within the reach of enough schol- 
ars to make the experiment a 
success. Failing this, successive 
courses of technical lectures, each 
extending through one winter (the 



only spare time of the rural popu- 
lation, and often the hardest time 
for needy but competent teachers 
of all kinds), and as much illustrat- 
ed by practice as possible, would 
be not a bad substitute and not a 
very expensive one. Board and 
lodging are cheap in most of the 
neighborhoods where this substitute 
would be desirable, and there are 
many men and women who for that 
remuneration alone would be glad 
to teach the branch in which they 
excel. Wherever more could be 
done for the teacher, it is needless 
to say that it should be, as efficient 
teaching of this sort is simply of 
incalculable value. The initiative 
would probably, in most places, fall 
upon the shoulders of a few indi- 
viduals, but after a time an interest 
would and must be awakened in 
the local mind in general. In the 
case of a village possessing one or 
more skilled mechanics there would 
be no need to look beyond for a 
teacher, unless, perhaps, for a teach- 
er of scientific drawing ; at any 
rate the working out of this sug- 
gestion must be determined in each 
place by local needs and local 
means. 



VOL. xxvin. 34 



530 



From an Irish Country- House. 



FROM AN IRISH COUNTRY-HOUSE. 



n. 



JULY, . 

INVITATIONS were sent out the 
other day for what v is called in Ire- 
land a "morning-party/' the form 
of social entertainment which 
seems to be most popular among 
the county people. Their estates 
.are so widely apart that dinner- 
parties at night and in full dress are 
.qniite impracticable, to the distant 
: guests at least, and so the assem- 
blies known as " mornings/' com- 
i billing luncheon and garden-par- 
ties., .are given in their place, I 
-saw the gardener and his assistant 

early tAiis morning putting up a 

marquee tent on the lower terrace 
where tl&e lawn-tennis ground is 
,laid out. The guests were invited 
ifor two o'clock, and punctually at 
that hour the carriages began to 

.arrive; the ladies came in pretty 
rsummer toilettes, all bonneted, of 
^course, like Londoners at a garden- 
party, and, as the day was excep- 
tionally fine, everybody was in gay 
good-humor. Luncheon was an- 
nounced at three o'clock a sump- 
tuous banquet and the table was 
.beautifully decorated with flowers, 
and massive silver and china older 
than any person present. The 
>ladies left the table first, as at a 
dinner, but were soon joined by the 
gentlemen, and the entire party went 
out upon the grounds. The cro- 
quet and tennis players divided, 
.the lawns being separated by a ter- 
irace, and very pretty the groups 
looked : the pale colors in muslin 
.and silk, laces, and fluttering rib- 
bons against the deep-green sward, 
with the flower-gardens blooming 



in the background and the fir and 
oak trees below ; overhead a sky 
just touched with floating cloudlets ; 
beyond a wide stretch of lovely 
country, with signs of hay-making 
at intervals and the slow movement 
of some red-wheeled cart. 

Croquet and lawn-tennis are fine 
arts on this side of the water; the 
former is played with a dexterity 
which in America belongs only to 
the billiard-table ; " tight croquet " 
is not admitted here, and the bell 
in the centre hoop is always used. 
Lawn-tennis is only just floating 
into America of late, and it inter- 
ested me specially ; the game was 
prettily played and is extremely 
graceful and effective: a net is 
stretched from two poles in the 
centre of the lawn, and the rival 
players, stationed on opposite sides 
of this and armed with small 
wicker-work bats, strive to beat 
the ball across the boundary ac- 
cording to certain rules, the ball 
being hollow and light so that it 
cannot be knocked to any distance. 
I watched a slim >oung woman 
tossing the ball, or batting it with 
the air of a " stroke oar," the pro- 
verbial " woman's throw," which is 
a curve of y the arm around the 
head, being unknown to these 
skilled feminine tennis-players. 

In honor of some of the guests 
who had lived in India, the Oriental 
game of " Badminton," first cousin 
to lawn-tennis, was introduced 
upon the lower terrace, and a live- 
ly scene it made with the whizzing 
of the gay-feathered shuttlecocks, 
the rapid strokes and calling out 



From an Irish Country- House, 



53* 



of numbers, and the shouts of laugh- 
ter over some clever dash or awk- 
ward mishap. Of all the games we 
ever witnessed this seemed to us 
the most rapid and fatiguing, and 
therefore the least adapted to the 
heated tropics ; yet it is called the 
national game of the Anglo-In- 
dians. The games continued until 
sunset, when every one, moved by 
common impulse, sat down or saun- 
tered over to the hillside to watch 
the wonderful display in the west- 
ern horizon. We thought we had 
seen effects in sunlights at home, 
but there is something marvellous 
in the vibrations and pulsations of 
color in the skies of this high lati- 
tude; a great sweeping chord of 
amber and deep crimson passed 
over the horizon, illuminating 
green and blossom, the haymakers 
homeward bound, the cottages and 
roadsides, and sheltered corners, 
and then drifting slowly away, 
leaving for some time the after-glow 
of violet, in which the garden-party 
lingered. By nine o'clock every 
one was within doors again, and a 
second repast as sumptuous as the 
first, and for which I could not dis- 
cover that there was any name 
was served in the dining-room ; I 
think we should call it supper, 
though it had somewhat the air of 
" high-tea " and many of the attri- 
butes of dinner. Whatever it was, 
we were impressed by the magni- 
tude of Irish hospitality; people 
here seem to think nothing of en- 
tertaining a party of fifty in this 
liberal fashion. Later there was 
music in the drawing-room, and 
then came much lively talking and 
laughing and cordial hand-shaking 
as the carriages rolled away, and 
by eleven o'clock every guest had 
departed. The moon had risen 
gloriously, so that even those who 
had come from a distance of twen- 



ty miles seemed pleased by the 
prospect of driving home under 
such friendly illumination. 

After these morning parties it is 
customary for those invited to call, 
but the limits are less rigidly fixed 
than in England ; indeed, where a 
" duty call " implies a drive of from 
ten to twenty miles and the occu- 
pation of an entire afternoon, some 
latitude might be expected. Our 
hostess has a reception day, and 
these calls are very pleasant, socia- 
ble affairs, with a cup of tea or 
glass of wine in the drawing-room, 
and croquet or a walk in the 
grounds; all informally given and 
received with that frank, simple 
manner so agreeably characteristic 
of an Irish household and its guests, 
but preserving enough of formality 
to be dignified, and even stately. 

FRIDAY. 

We dined yesterday at a pretty, 
old-fashioned mansion, standing on 
high ground, with trees closely shel- 
tering it, a wide lawn and long, 
straight carriage-drive; the house 
coming into view with an impres- 
sion of latticed casements, roses and 
trailing vines and other greenery, 
like a house in a. picture or story 
book. The dinner was in honor of 
a recent betrothal, and naturally 
enough, when the feminine side of 
the party were gathered together 
over their teacups, talk drifted 
upon wedding ceremonials and 
customs in different countries, all 
of which was new and interesting 
to us. While English or Irish wed- 
dings lack the splendor and dis- 
play of the American ceremony, 
they seem to be infinitely more 
homelike and agreeable; the bride 
is attended only by bridemaids, 
two of whom usually are young 
children, and is invariably married 
in church, the groom with his 



532 



From an Irisli Country-House. 



" best man " awaiting her at the 
door or altar-steps. After the cer- 
emony the guests assemble at the 
house of the bride's father for the 
wedding breakfast, at which speech- 
es are made by various people, 
healths drunk and responded to, 
etc., the bride and groom usually 
leaving the table to depart on their 
wedding-tour. And here it may be 
remarked that, to us, a novel fea- 
ture of weddings in Great Britain 
is the fancifu-lness of the bride's 
travelling garb; pale colors are 
generally chosen, light hats, every- 
thing that indicates novelty and a 
sense of festivity. When we read 
of a royal princess going off in 
white silk upon her wedding-jour- 
ney, that is not so astonishing ; but 
to see Miss Brown and Miss Ro- 
binson vanishing by railway in 
dove-colored silk and a pink bon- 
net is somewhat overpowering. 

The dinner at B House was 

at three o'clock, after which there 
were suggestions of croquet ; but it 
had begun to rain in the slow, tear- 
ful fashion which is peculiar to 
Great Britain a quiet drip, drip 
from trees and branches, the flow- 
ers shining the better for the rain- 
drops, the greens coming out clear- 
er and brighter. This damp state 
of affairs by no means interfered 
with the croquet party; forth they 
sallied, the young ladies in water- 
proofs and thick boots, and when 
some one exclaimed at such a rash 

proceeding, " Oh !" said X , 

" what would we do over here if 
we minded a bit of rain ?" And 
judging from the sounds of hilarity 
and the rapid click of balls, the par- 
ty outside the drawing-room windows 
were not subject to depressing in- 
fluences. To reward their fortitude 
the clouds finally lifted, and the 
sun went down at last in all the 
splendor of crimson and gold. A 



nine o'clock supper followed, and 
then a drive home in the moon- 
light, the seven or eight miles seem- 
ing but a short distance on such 
perfect roads as exist in this part 
of Cavan. 

Dinners, luncheons, and tea-par- 
ties seem to be the customary en- 
tertainments in Ireland in summer 
time, but when winter comes the 
routine varies ; then the hunting is 
in full force, and hospitable doors 
are opened to the "hunt" for 
breakfasts forty or fifty guests be- 
ing no unusual number, our hostess 
tells us, at a hunting breakfast. 
The winter season must be a pecu- 
liarly festive one here, for Cavan 
has a fine hunt. The Master of 
the Hounds lives not far from here, 
and the runs are often remarkably 
good. The meet is about ten or 
eleven in the morning, and assem- 
bles some of the best riders in Ire- 
land, of both sexes; and, indeed, our 
American horsewomen can hardly 
imagine the daring and dexterity 
of the Irisli or English women on 
horseback. Fancy a long day's 
ride over hedges and ditches, in 
and out of fields, lanes, and roads, 
stopping at nothing, and keeping a 
firm saddle all the way. Accidents 
sometimes do happen, however; 
our host was telling of one to- 
night. He and his younger sister 
were following the hounds one day 
a few years since, and, as he had 
the most perfect reliance upon her 
prowess, he gave himself no con- 
cern about her; over hedge and 
ditch they galloped, and, reaching 
a piece of water with a high bank 
on the other side, his horse, a su- 
perb hunter, dashed on, and with a 
tremendous leap barely got to the 
further shore with his fore-feet and 
scrambled up. Hers followed only 

too quickly; and when Mr. A 

turned not a sign of lady or horse 



From an Irish Country-House. 



533 



was to be seen they had absolutely 
vanished! Getting down with all 
speed, he plunged into the water; 
by this time an equine head ap- 
peared, and the riderless horse be- 
gan to scramble ashore; but the 
rider, where was she? Fancy his 
dismay at having to prolong such a 

search, and finding Miss A at 

last quite unconscious under the 
water. Some of the hunting party 
had come up by tin's time, and the 
lifeless form was lifted up on the 
bank. Luckily, her Irish constitution 
and spirit stood her in good stead; 
some brandy poured down her 
throat had begun to revive her 
when to her half-wakened senses 
came the words "Hold her up by 
the heels " from an old farmer. 
The prospect was too thrilling, and 
sufficed to complete her restora- 
tion. But what would American 
girls, who canter in the park or by 
the sea-shore, think of this young 
woman, who, after a brief rest at a 
farm-house, finished the day's sport 
on the same horse, declaring her- 
self none the worse for the adven- 
ture? 

The day frequently winds up 
with a dinner or supper, to which 
the hunting party sit down in their 
riding costume, and sometimes in 
the gray of the morning horsemen 
may be seen trotting homewards; 
the sharp click of hoofs now and 
then breaking the stillness being 
the last sounds of the day's sports. 

Picnic parties are frequent and 
quite fashionable during the Irish 
summer season, and very enjoyable 
they are made, several households 
combining some lovely spot being 
chosen and arrangements made for 
a dance later in the evening. Lord 

has charming picnic grounds, 

with a cottage built for the dancing 
or tea-making of parties, and all 
the county people are at liberty to 



avail themselves of it freely. Like 
all Irish reunions, they begin early 
and end late ; some one was lazily 
recalling " great days " to-night in 
the drawing-room, and a picnic 
party was described which began 
at eleven A.M. one day and from 
which the story-teller returned at 
two the next morning, almost in 
time to see a streak of sunrise color 
above the hills. 

- The agitations which nutter a 
London hostess in the season as to 
whom she may invite with whom, 
rarely can disturb the serenity of 
a country household. The lines 
are drawn so closely, so definitely 
are distinctions marked, that there 
is no chance of questioning an in- 
vitation. Different sets may be 
asked on different occasions, but 
every one stands out in a sort of 
relief against his or her claims to 
" gentility," and nowhere is society 
more exclusive than among the 
upper classes in Ireland to-day. 
Much of this may be due to their 
minor commercial interests ; unlike 
England and Scotland, few of the 
old families ever are engaged in 
trade, and agriculture is the pro- 
nounced employment of the county 
gentleman, whose broad acres may 
yield him the income so often de- 
rived in England from cotton-spin- 
ning or the manufacture of Wilton 
carpets. 

SUNDAY. 

Why is it that all the world 
over Sunday is recognized as a 
day when a late breakfast and an 
indolent demeanor are allowable? 

I am sure X and B were 

not overworked yesterday, yet they 
entered the breakfast- room with a 
careless air of fatigue, and their 
comfort was looked after in a man- 
ner which would be quite inappro- 
priate on Monday or Saturday. 



534 



From an Irish Country-House. 



Both Mass and the " church " 
service here begin late. Indeed, 
we were told of a neighboring 
curate who ordained his hour of 
service at twelve o'clock, but to 
this some of the more animated in 
his congregation finally objected. 
Eleven is the fixed hour in all 
places of worship, I believe, on the 
queen's side of the water ; and as in 
country places there is a call from 
the post-boy on Sunday mornings, 
this is very convenient. 

This morning I had my first ride 
on an " outside " car, in which we 
papists went to chapel the brou- 
gham naturally going the orthodox 
way, as the American party were 
divided in religious sentiments, and 
the majority being against Miss 

and myself. I own to some 

trepidation as I was assisted into 
the little vehicle, so curiously ar- 
ranged with seats for two on either 
side facing the road, the coach- 
man's perch being in the centre 
all comfortably cushioned, and as 
pretty and dainty as a lady's phae- 
ton. A smiling and somewhat de- 
risive group assembled in the door- 
way to watch my ascent and see 
us off. Away we jolted, and my 
first sensations were all of terror, 
I was so sure I would go head first 
upon the ground, and clung ner- 
vously to the side of the car; but 
presently familiarity with the jog- 
ging motion overcame this. I en- 
joyed the novelty, the side move- 
ment having quite a pleasant effect ; 
houses, trees, fields opened broad- 
ly to view as we jolted on at what 
seemed to me a reckless pace, al- 
though the coachman kept urging 
his horse to go faster. All along 
the country road the people were 

trudging to Mass ; some, Miss 

told me, having walked miles to 
attend the dear service. Their 
Sunday finery was most impressive. 



I was particularly struck by one 
young woman in the most crisp 
and rustling of white petticoats, 
above which a bright green merino 
gown was lifted carefully; her 
shawl, a crimson striped with yel- 
low, fastened with a brooch, and 
her head bared to the morning 
sunshine, quite ignorant of bonnet 
or kerchief. To my surprise I 
found that many attend Mass in 
this fashion. 

The old women we met were 
very neat and prim in air, wearing 
their shoes somewhat laboriously, 
however ; their white caps were 
finely starched and frilled, and usu- 
ally half covered by a three-corner- 
ed handkerchief of gay hue; the 
men, with well-brushed corduroys, 
wore impressive waistcoats and a 
sprig of heather or flower in their 
coats. Everybody was bobbing and 
smiling with peculiar friendliness, 
the day and our common errand 
uniting us pleasantly. Down 
through the little village, swoop- 
ing around a corner while I tremu- 
lously clutched my side of the car, 
and at last in view of the little 
chapel, a small building of gray 
stone, standing on an undulating 
common ; the churchyard and 
priest's house to the right, to the 
left the rise and fall of open coun- 
try. Here the hurrying steps of 
the congregation grew more fre- 
quent ; a stream of people were 
going in, while some lingered with- 
out, either praying at the graves or 
at the foot of a tall cross near the 
entrance. The effect was very sol- 
emn, as it seems to me all prayer 
or reverential attitude in the open 
air, with no other roofing than 
God's sky, must always be. I 
have seen more pathos, heard more 
piety in an aspiration beneath a sky 
shining with starlight than the 
most solemn utterances within a 



From an Irish Country-House. 



535 



dwelling. These peopiC, quietly 
dispersed about, their rosaries in 
hand, seemed to be praying .with 
beautiful, tranquil simplicity. 
Now and then a gaze lifted upward, 
and, while the lips moved dumbly, 
almost seemed to penetrate the 
blue above us. At one side, under 
the shadow of an old tree, a group 
of men talked quietly, but present- 
ly all went in. The chapel is a 
nice one ; simple, of course, and 
lacking in all attempt at ornament ; 
but there was a harmonium not 
badly played, and a small chorus 
of voices, crude, perhaps, but full of 
piety; and one hymn sung cheerily 
to the air of " There is a Happy 
Land " suddenly brought home be- 
fore us. The congregation finally 
assembled was most interesting to 
me. It represented chiefly one 
class, that known as " the poor " ; 
yet, looking at them, who but would 
add, God's own? his class surely, 
from which, kingly though his Son's 
name might be, he has chosen to 
be born. Never have I seen in 
any congregation such simple, un- 
affected piety ; old and young alike 
seemed imbued by the spirit of 
solemnity and the fact that the 
occasion was by divine ordinance, 
their own dear service which pres- 
ently would be performed, and on 
every face was a reverent look of 
expectation, and something which 
made me proudly feel Ireland's 
Catholicism was that which no 
change of king or people could af- 
fect. They have defied the past, 
clung to their faith in the midst of 
bitter struggle, and God will surely 
guard for them the future and all 
eternity. 

Before Mass began, and while we 
were waiting for the priest, the 
rosary was recited; the school- 
master, who is quite a scholarly 
man, kneeling at the rails and lead- 



ing the first decade, three or four 
old men in the congregation taking 
up the others. The voices rose 
and fell with various intonations 
that peculiar inflection which in 
the north has a certain lingering 
cadence about it : beginning on a 
high key, the voice fell gradually, 
then waved upwards again, now 
and then with a droll effect, as in 
one case where the whole decade 
was a sort of groan, accompanied 
by the pious ejaculations or long- 
drawn breath of the old people; 
but the piety dominated all. Nev- 
er had prayers such pathos, never 
had they so entirely the sense of 
being a petition straight from the 
craving human heart to the throne 
of the Most High, and the Glory 
be to the Father, pronounced rever- 
ently by all, had, despite the quaint- 
ness of some tones, a positive thrill 
of sanctity about it. 

There was a short sermon well 
delivered by the curate, and to which 
the congregation listened devoutly. 
Then, Mass being over, some Sun- 
day-school classes were formed, and 
finally the last of the little congre- 
gation had gone out, lingering for 
a moment's prayer before the cross. 

As we drove home we remarked 
that the people who had come to 
church quietly and hurriedly were 
now dispersed about in gay, talka- 
tive groups. Here and there some 
one was being greeted who had 
been out of sight a few Sundays; 
a pretty, girlish young woman, who 
had trudged to church with a small 
bundle in her arms, was now unfold- 
ing it proudly to view a tiny little 
baby, who blinked in the sudden 
light while three women stood 
about, one with her hand tight- 
ly over her mouth : an attitude, 
I have observed, which seems to 
add peculiar force to criticism or 
retrospection. 



536 



From an Irish Country-House. 



" Ah ! now, indeed, then, Mrs. 
Callahan, it's a fine child it is, 
God bless him !" This we hear as 
we jolt by, while the wondering 
little face is covered again after its 
unexpected view of the world, and 
Miss A tells me that it is con- 
sidered unpardonable in Ireland 
not to wish God's blessing on a 
child whom one sees for the first 
time. To " overlook " a baby, as 
slighting it is called, is rarely for- 
gotten by the parent. 

Our household routine varies 
on Sundays, dinner being at three 
o'clock, after which that world- 
wide impulse to sleep on Sunday 
afternoons carried every one off to 
their apartments, and I opened my 
eyes about six o'clock to find the 
trim parlor-maid in the dressing- 
room with a tea-tray, and plate 
of sliced potato-cake and buns. 
Every one assembled later in the 
drawing-room, and at nine o'clock 
supper was announced. All these 
details I record simply to indicate 
the mode of life in an Irish coun- 
try-house. The routine gives one 
an idea of the system. 

Conversation this evening very 
properly fell upon church matters, 
guided thither, I fear, by some 
frivolous remarks between two 
Americans of opposite creeds; but 
the word "disestablishment" made 
us naturally inquisitive. Of course 
we had read New Ireland ; equally 
of course we knew that the Irish 
Protestant Church was no longer 
regularly established under govern- 
ment protection ; but these are out- 
side facts. 

<: Was disestablishment approv- 
ed of generally ?" asked an Ameri- 
.can. 

"I'll tell you how it was," re- 
plies our hostess, turning round 
from a critical survey of the night : 
"" everybody was compelled to own 



it was just. Here was a country, 
almost entirely Catholic, supporting 
a Protestant church from which it 
derived no benefit in any way ; 
even England," .continues this vin- 
dictive person, "had to see the in- 
justice of it. Disestablishment had 
been in the air long years before it 
was an accomplished fact. Look 
at Scotland " (with a glance to- 
wards the sofa) : "the Scotch don't 
support the Episcopal Church; they 
have their own." 

"Ay, but we have "; this, with a 
laugh, from the sofa. 

"And why should we have gone 
on paying for a clergy we did not 
need ?" 

" The we is rather inclusive, my 
dear," says a stanch Protestant in 
the company. 

" Quite true," argues the cham- 
pion of religious liberty, " but we 
are in the majority ; let you who 
are served by the queen's church 
pay for it." 

" It must have been hard for the 
clergymen who held the livings." 

" No ; because they were well 
compensated. Every rector oc- 
cupying a living was paid a certain 
sum down or had his income en- 
sured to him during his life; so 
it is only the new-comers who have 
anything to lose." 

" And did many clergymen re- 
main ?" 

" Many accepted the larger 
amount and went elsewhere ; but 
there were plenty of clergymen 
ready to step in on the new terms. 
Some church lands were sold, and 
in many instances that was a great 
benefit to all the county. You saw 
that fine tract of land beyond the 

gardens ; well, X bought that 

in from the government, and as it 

adjoined S R , it was a 

very fine investment. Those lands 
were known as ' glebe ' property." 



Front an Irish Country-House. 



53 



| 



"And are the new clergymen as 
good a class of men ?" 

"Good? Well, what do you call 
good?" 

"Stanch!" says the young lady 
of Keppoch. 

" I think I was trying to be Eng- 
lish ; for I meant, were they as dig- 
nified and imposing a set of gentle- 
men ?" 

"Ah! no; well, they are not; 
they are hard enough workers, but 
not always gentlemen ; that is what 
we disliked in the matter what 
disestablishment was sure to bring." 

" They are afraid of it in Eng- 
land now," said our host ; " nobody 
knows how soon it may come 
about, and already it is difficult to 
sell a living for a good price, and 
' younger sons ' are not taking so 
readily to the church as of old." 

" But there is less political in- 
justice in it in England," said our 
hostess calmly. 

"And what is the feeling now 
between the two churches. Is it as 
bitter as ever ?" 

No one spoke for a moment ; 
two or three in the company were 
analyzing their opinions before ut- 
tering them. 

" It is no longer what it once 
was," said our host presently. 
" When I was young it was a deep- 
ly-seated political feeling; now it 
is more the result of personal pre- 
judice." 

" Which extends rather far, I 
fear," said the young lady of the 
family. 

*' Ah ! but no one feels now that 
a man of a different creed is a 
sworn enemv ; the time was " 



" The time was," puts in our 
friend from India, whose editorial 
faculty is not without its dash of 
fun " the time was when Protes- 
tant and Catholic were terms for 
' Greek and Greek.' Did you not 

hear Mr. Q 's story the other 

night ? He told it with the most im- 
pressive gravity, like a bit of gos- 
pel. * Once in the old days a Ca- 
tholic gentleman gave a dinner- 
party, inviting widely from far and 
near ; but when all the guests were 
seated it was found they were 
placed Catholic and Protestant, 
Catholic and Protestant, and so on 
alternately all round the table. 
Well, the first course came on and 
went off, some wine was drunk, 
when suddenly a signal was given 
up jumped every Catholic and 
stabbed his Protestant neighbor!' 

Upon tales like this Mr. Q and 

his fellow-men have been nurtured ; 
what do you think of that for 
feeling ?" 

" Well, indeed," said our hostess 
when all the laughter had subsided, 
" you ought to be ashamed of your- 
self, just ; and you a Limerick 
man !" 

" I am only quoting Mr. Q ," 

said the editor, " to give our Ameri- 
can friends an idea of what Ireland 
has been." 

" What Ireland has been !" echoes 
the young lady. "Ah! me, say 
what she iniglit be !" 

And when we all had our candles 
lighted our hostess whispered sig- 
nificantly : " I've not finished the 
church subject yet ; there's far 
more to be said !'* 



538 



Felix Dupanloup, RisJiop of Orleans. 



FELIX DUPANLOUP, BISHOP OF ORLEANS. 



THESE are early days for judging 
the great bishop who has passed 
away from us ; for measuring the 
proportions of that gigantic figure 
which we have seen for half a cen- 
tury wielding the sword and the 
battle-axe against the enemies of 
the church and of society ; for gaug- 
ing the extent of his work, the 
depth and nature of his influence. 
But we cannot be satisfied with 
merely offering the tribute of our re- 
gret at his grave, and swelling the 
chorus of lamentation which, rising 
at Rome, still resounds through 
the nations. We must speak a 
few words, and, looking back on 
the life of him whom not alone 
Orleans but Christendom mourns 
as "the great bishop," try and 
learn the lesson his life taught us. 
He was the indefatigable champion 
of the cause of truth and honor 
and liberty ; the defender of the 
faith, the loyal son of the church ; 
the passionate lover of whatsoever 
was lovely, whatsoever was brave 
and of good repute. We had grown 
so used to see him to the fore in 
every peril, always in the breach, 
his sword unsheathed, his lance 
at rest, young with the essential 
youth of energy and power, that 
we had come almost to believe his 
vitality inexhaustible; that the in- 
defatigable athlete was endowed 
with a sort of premature immorta- 
lity. But he is gone. His place 
shall know him no more. The 
well-known signature, " Felix, Bi- 
shop of Orleans," will never again 
thrill us with its burning war-cry, 
never melt us with the unction of 
its apostolic eloquence. 

His life will be written, and 



worthily, by one who shared it for 
many years and was his own chosen 
friend ; but meantime we are im- 
patient to know something of that 
personal life which was hidden be- 
hind the brilliant public character 
and career of Mgr. Dupanloup. It 
was a very tender and beautiful one. 
It was the life of a holy priest, full 
of good works, animated with the 
piety of a little child and the zeal 
of a true apostle. In that will 
which the Abbe Bougaud read from 
the pulpit in place of the funeral 
oration which the bishop's humility 
interdicted, he tells us himself that 
he was " ;// de rien" and that his 
vocation was a magnificent gift to 
his obscure unworthiness ; and sel- 
dom indeed has that divine promise, 
" the last shall be first," been more 
triumphantly fulfilled than in the 
life of this lowly son of poverty and 
sorrow. He tells us that he was a 
wayward child, but that he loved 
his mother, and for her sake strove 
to do well. A brother of hers, a 
worthy parish priest, was interested 
in the boy and took him away 
from Savoy, where he lived a 
joyous life, running wild among 
his native hills, and sent him to 
school in Paris, and later to St. 
Sulpice. The bishop himself tell; 
us naively of the " awful sense of 
joy" that filled his heart whei 
Mgr. Metigaud first whispered t< 
him, "You must be a priest !" 

It was toward Christmas time that 
he was ordained in the venerabh 
old church which has been a nur- 
sery of priests to the whole world, 
and in memory of that blessed 
privilege the Bishop of Orleans 
made it a point to assist every 






Felix Dupanloiip, Bishop of Orleans. 



539 



year at the celebration of some one 
of the great festivals at St. Sulpice, 
which he speaks of as " that church 
which I must love eternally." His 
first opportunity for exercising the 
ministry of the Word was in the 
Catechism chapel of this beloved 
church, where he prepared the lit- 
tle ones of the parish for their First 
Communion. 

He used to accuse himself of 
having been too rhetorical on this 
occasion, of being wanting in the 
simplicity of a true priest, and of 
delighting his young audience in- 
stead of simply instructing them. 
His first experience as a confessor 
was a startling one : he was called 
to assist a dying man, who was 
lone other than an ex-communi- 
cated married bishop, the famous 
Talleyrand, Prince of Benevento. 
The dying confession of the octo- 
genarian statesman who had filled 
Europe with the wonder and scan- 
dal of his life must have been an 
awful revelation to the young priest 
of the power of his divine ministry. 
But he was destined to be the 
guide and consoler of many of the 
great and stricken ones of this 
world. Queen Marie Amelie was 
his penitent; so was the Duchess 
de Berri ; and her son, the Comte 
de Chambord, as a boy. Mgr. 
Dupanloiip reminded the latter of 
this old relation when he went to 
see him after the prince had so 
strangely set aside the royalists and 
the cream-colored horses who had 
been patiently exercising in the 
pas royal which they were to keep 
when drawing Henri Cinq through 
his good city of Paris. " If I were 
your highness' confessor now," 
said the bishop, laughing, " I doubt 
if I should see my way to giving 
you absolution." 

Bat politics played a very 
secondary part in his life; he had 



his sympathies, but they never led 
him into active hostility against 
constituted authority. He was un- 
bending as steel, however, before 
tyranny, or mere power where it 
was unjustly held or unworthily 
exercised. He held coldly aloof 
from the government which was 
ushered in by the bloody saturnalia 
of the Coup (TEtat, and many will 
remember the frigid courtesy with 
which he received the emperor on 
the steps of the cathedral at 
Orleans. Tyranny found no ally 
in the dauntless prelate, and the 
empire did not love him. 

The writer remembers going to 
call one day on the wife of a court 
dignitary, and finding her in a vio- 
lent state of indignation against 
" an insolent " who dared to set up 
the law of the church against the 
will of his imperial majesty. " The 
audacity of that man knows no 
bounds ! He ought to be silenc- 
ed," she exclaimed, flinging down 
the newspaper which contained the 
outspoken defence of the rights of 
the church. It was easier said than 
done to silence Felix Dupanloup. 
Who ever loved the church better 
than he loved it ? Whose voice was 
raised more faithfully in her ser- 
vice ? We have heard him accused 
of failing in his allegiance to her in 
the council. His demeanor through- 
out was rather the noblest proof 
of duty and loyalty that he ever 
gave the church. When he de- 
clared himself of opinion that the 
moment was inopportune for .pro- 
claiming the dogma of the Infalli- 
bility, he knew that he was running 
terrible risks, and that he was 
deliberately sacrificing popularity 
where it was most valuable to him. 
But his conscience spoke louder 
than every earthly consideration. 
He spoke according to the light 
that was given him, and in so do- 



540 



Felix Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans. 



ing lie did what the fathers of the 
councils did from the beginning, 
from Nice to Trent. He was not 
summoned as a mere echo, but as 
a living voice to give utterance to 
the promptings of the spirit within 
him, to bear witness to what he 
believed to be wise and salutary. 
Before starting for Rome a friend 
said to him: "Suppose, my lord, 
that you are overruled and that 
the dogma is defined?" "I sub- 
mit beforehand to the decision of 
the council," was the unhesitating 
reply. And to his assembled cler- 
gy he said : "I give my adherence 
beforehand to the decisions of the 
Holy See, be they what they may, 
whether contrary or conformable 
to my own views. I adhere with 
gladness; I submit with joy." 
Faithful to this pledge, he tells 
them on his return : " The discus- 
sions of the church are not like 
earthly discussions ; they do not 
terminate in personal triumphs, 
but in the triumph of the faith, of 
God alone and his holy will." 

The council was a free assembly 
to which the bishops of Christen- 
dom were convoked in order to dis- 
cuss freely the vast and momentous 
subjects set before them. Each one 
spoke out in perfect freedom, and 
then the Spirit of God spoke ; 
all were silent until their voices 
rose again, one free and loyal and 
unhesitating assent. 

From this scene of ardent but 
peaceful discussion the bishop re- 
turned home to take his part in a 
different warfare. The Prussians 
were in France and at the gates of 
his city. Next to the church Mgr. 
Dupanloup loved his country. " All 
loves," he says, "are comprised in 
this great love. The fatherland is 
the reunion of all divine and hu- 
man things; of our hearth, our 
altars, the tombs of our fathers, our 



possessions, justice, honor, and the 
security of life. It has been said, 
with truth, our country is a mother. 
Let us love her more than ever 
now that she is in mourning; let 
France be dearer to us than ever 
in her misfortunes ; and let this 
love open our eyes to see whence 
these misfortunes come." 

His eyes had long been open 
to the true cause of these misfor- 
tunes, and therein lay the secret of 
his implacable opposition to the 
empire. He could not forgive the 
government which, in order to 
ward off danger from itself, let 
loose impiety against religion and 
morality ; a government that visited 
with fines and imprisonment a dis- 
respectful insinuation against its 
own authority, while extending the 
utmost license, nay, even encour- 
agement, to blasphemous scurrility 
against the church of God and the 
sacred moral law. The enemies of 
God hated Mgr. Dupanloup let us 
repeat it to his glory they hated 
him, and they pursued him with 
insult and calumny to the end. 
Leo XIII., in a brief addressed to 
the venerable prelate last July, call- 
ed him "the glory of the church 
and the consolation of the Holy 
See " words that came like an an- 
ticipation of the glorious " Come, 
ye blessed," to the brave and lov- 
ing son of the church, and which 
contain in themselves the secret 
of that bitter hate with which those 
who hated her honored him. With 
what prophetic tones he warne< 
his country of the fate which this 
guilty policy of the empire had ii 
store for it ! 

"Hearken to me," he cries 
one of these impassioned denun- 
ciations " hearken to me, for I 
have seen it on the banks of our 
streams. When the dikes are 
broken the inundations are ap- 



Felix Dnpanloiip, Bishop of Orleans. 



541 



palling. If the dike of religion 
comes to be utterly thrown down, 
all will be swept away in one vast 
social disaster. To look upon war 
against God and the church as a 
sort of safety-valve, to let religion 
be swamped in order to preserve 
society this is the most perilous 
as well as the guiltiest of all 
policies. The expedient of a day 
is the betrayal of the future." 

In the pulpit, in the tribune, his 
voice was for ever pleading the 
same cause : God's right is the peo- 
ple's good ; without him there is no 
safety, no liberty, no good at all. 
He took his place among the legis- 
lators of his country only to an- 
nounce and enforce this eternal 
truth. He meddled with politics 
only inasmuch as they were sub- 
servient or opposed to the reign that 
is not of this world. He fought 
for liberty, not in the interest of 
journalists and debaters, but as an 
instrument of good for souls, for 
the emancipation of the human 
mind ; he fought for the freedom 
of the schools, for the right of 
Christian men to bring up their 
sons Christians, and thus create 
within France herself a bulwark 
which would make her strong to 
resist all enemies, internal as well 
as external. Few Frenchmen loved 
their country better than Mgr. Du- 
panloup; perhaps no living French- 
man knew her as well as he did. 
Nations, like individuals, have their 
character and predominant pas- 
sions, and to these may be traced 
those lines of destiny which lead 
them to good or evil. The Bishop 
of Orleans possessed in a rare de- 
gree that spiritual vision which 
the mystics call discernment of 
spirits ; it was this which enabled 
him to see into the soul of France 
and distinguish the springs that set 
her violently in motion. In his 



masterly preface to M. de Beau- 
chesne's pathetic work he declares 
envy and vanity to be her predomi- 
nant passions, and shows how these 
two deadly sins, taking diabolical 
possession of the long-suffering and 
exasperated people, goaded them 
into those mad crimes and suicidal 
excesses which stand unapproach- 
ed in the annals of the world's 
history. 

That preface is in itself as re- 
markable a composition, both for 
its style and power, its subtle ana- 
lysis and profound philosophy, as 
anything which its prolific author 
has left behind him. Here, as 
whenever he strikes these deep 
chords of the nation's soul and 
destiny, his voice has the ring of a 
prophet " speaking with authority," 
and, prophet-like, his utterances 
fell on unbelieving ears. When the 
enemy from without attacked 
France, she found herself powerless 
to resist him, owing to the more 
terrible enemies within. 

The Bishop of Orleans had too 
much of the soldier in his own na- 
ture not to share that love for sol- 
diers which is so universal a char- 
acteristic of apostolic souls. He 
fought a good fight for them against 
the infidels at home, and carried 
the day, compelling the govern- 
ment to appoint chaplains to the 
army. Now that the invader was 
in their midst, he fought with them 
as became a patriot and a priest. 
When the Prussians entered his 
beloved city of Orleans, desecrat- 
ing her churches, turning some of 
them into stables, another into a 
prison, Monseigneur, like his pre- 
decessor, St. Aignan of old, stood 
forth to defend his flock at the 
peril of his life. His house be- 
came an ambulance where day 
and night he tended the wounded 
and dying. He beleaguered the 



542 



Felix Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans. 



enemy for reprieves, for pardons, 
for mercy in one shape or another 
for his people. When soldiers 
were condemned to be shot he 
went and begged for their life at the 
hands of Prussian generals; and if 
as it mostly happened the grace 
was denied, he would prepare the 
doomed men to meet death like 
Christians, standing by them often 
to the last with blessings and ab- 
solutions. 

The feast of St. Aignan happen- 
ed to fall on the day after the vic- 
tory of Coulmiers, and the daunt- 
less bishop thereupon addressed 
the following letter to his peo- 
pie: 

" After crossing the Rhine with 
his Northmen Attila advanced to 
the gates of Orleans, and proceed- 
ed to throw down the walls with 
his battering-rams. The people 
were gathered together in the tem- 
ple, and cried out to their bishop, 
4 What must we do?' St. Aignan 
answered : ' You must pray ! 
We must fall down in supplica- 
tion before God, and he will send 
us his help.' And they did so ; 
and while they prayed the bish- 
op said : * Go ye up to the ram- 
parts and see if the help of God 
is not coming.' Three times they 
went up and looked out from the 
ramparts, but r.o sign of help ap- 
peared on the horizon. They 
prayed again with many tears and 
still firmer trust, and once more 
St. Aignan bade them go and look 
from the ramparts. This time 
they cried out : * We see like a 
cloud rising up from the horizon !' 
4 It is the help of God!' cried 
the aged bishop ; ' it is the help of 
God !' And so it was. The walls 
of Orleans were giving way beneath 
the blows of the battering-rams, 
but Attila drew his barbarian 
hordes away to the fields of Ca- 



talauni, where their death-blow 
awaited them." 

This letter was read from the 
pulpit at Pithiviers in the presence 
of a number of German officers. 
When their victorious troops re- 
entered Orleans Prince Frederick 
Charles, furious at having been 
compared to Attila, had the matter 
deferred to a council of war, which 
declared the bishop's words an in- 
sult to the honor of Prussia, and 
determined to make him pay dear- 
ly for them. A detachment of 
German soldiers, headed by a colo- 
nel, entered the episcopal palace, 
turned out the vicars, installed 
themselves in the rooms, and de- 
clared the bishop their prisoner. 
Sentinels were placed at the door 
of his apartment, keeping watch on 
him night and day. 

The invaders were amazed, in- 
deed rather scandalized, at the 
poverty of the episcopal cellars. 
They called for champagne, and 
on the bishop's assuring them that 
he had never had a bottle of it in 
his cellar, "What, my lord!" ex- 
claimed a royal prince, " a man 
of your distinction not to have 
champagne in his house? Do you 
never entertain?" 

" I entertain my clergy," replied 
the bishop, " but the French clergy 
do not drink champagne." 

He was a model of simplicity 
and abstemiousness in his own 
household, and he disapproved of 
luxury at the tables of his clergy. 
A story is told of him that is very 
characteristic. He went on a pas- 
toral visitation once and was ex- 
pected to dine with the cure of the 
village. He arrived alone, and the 
servant, not recognizing him, said : 
" Ah ! M. 1'Abbe, if you are of the 
bishop's suite you will have a fa- 
mous dinner to-day. Something has 
come down from Potet et Chabaud." 






Felix Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans. 



543 



The stranger replied that mean- 
time he was hungry, and asked for 
a bit of bread and cheese. The 
cure came in, and, finding the bi- 
shop eating away with the gusto of 
a hungry man, exclaimed in dismay 
that his lordship would spoil his 
appetite for the dinner that was 
just ready. 

" M. le Cure," said the bishop, 
" I promised to dine with you, and 
i I have kept my word." 

Nor would lie be persuaded to 
partake of anything more. The 
lesson was understood. 

The simplicity which he main- 
tained at his table extended to all 
habits. Winter and summer he 
rose at five. He said his Mass at 
once, his valet de chambre serving 
it. Then he took a cup of coffee 
and a roll, and set to work till half- 
past twelve, when he dined. He 
practised hospitality in the true, 
apostolic manner, abundantly, cor- 
dially, and without the smallest os- 
tentation. He always had his vicars 
to dine with him, and generally 
three or four other guests, lay or 

P clerical. He said the benedicite, 
one of his vicars read a few verses 
from the Imitation^ and the frugal 
repast began. At its close the 
gospel of the day -was read, and 
then the bishop went for a walk. 
It was a peculiarity with him to re- 
main bareheaded in the open air; 
it refreshed him, he said, to feel 
the wind blowing on him. After 
his walk he received visits for an 
hour or so. Nothing could ex- 
ceed the grace of his manner in 
social intercourse. " He was 
(Texquise bonne compagnie" says a 
friend of his, who is an authority on 
the subject. 

Mgr. Dupanloup's correspond- 
ence was enormous, including let- 
ters in many languages and from 
nearly every part of the world; yet 



he got tli rough it regularly every 
day, though it must be added that 
he generally encroached upon his 
nights to accomplish this. He 
wrote, as he spoke, with masterly 
ease, often dictating to two per- 
sons and writing himself at the 
same time. He happened to be 
dining at the presbytery of Notre 
Dame one day when the Pere de 
Ravignan was going to preach. At 
the last moment, when the cathedral 
was densely crowded, word came 
that the preacher was ill and could 
not come. The consternation and 
d i stress of the clergy were great. Mgr. 
Dupanloup asked what the thesis 
of the conference was to have been, 
and without further hesitation of- 
fered to ascend the pulpit and re- 
place his friend to the best of his 
ability. His discourse was a great 
success, and no one suspected that 
it had not been duly prepared for 
the solemn occasion. It is need- 
less to speak of his eloquence, for 
the fame of it has reached where- 
ever the Bishop of Orleans' name 
was known. It partook in a high 
degree of the characteristics of his 
own personality. " He was beau- 
tiful in the pulpit!" exclaims one 
of his brother prelates. And so he 
was. The fire that burned in his 
soul inflamed his countenance, flash- 
ed in his eyes, shone on his large, 
lofty brow, and transfigured his 
whole aspect ; his action was full 
of majesty, impassioned and yet 
self-restrained : classical in every 
movement, and yet quite easy and 
natural. His voice was clear and 
powerful, finely modulated, vibrat- 
ing to every emotion of his soul a 
docile and commanding instrument. 
But the charm as well as the power 
of his eloquence lay in this : that 
it was the inspired messenger of his 
soul. He was equally impassion- 
ed, equally melodious, tender, and 



544 



Felix Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans. 



poetical, in instructing an assem- 
bly of children or working-men or 
addressing the fastidious audience 
of a great cathedral. His conver- 
sation partook largely of the charm 
and brilliancy of his sermons and 
discourses. He kept you fascinat- 
ed while he spoke. " It is impos- 
sible to describe the charm to any 
one who has not felt it," writes an 
old friend of his to us ; " there was 
a spell about him which no one 
could resist. His sincerity, his ar- 
dent love of the souls he was ad- 
dressing, made people accept at his 
dictation and he was dictatorial 
any task he imposed, any effort, any 
sacrifice he demanded. I don't 
suppose any confessor or director 
was ever better obeyed ; those 
whom- he directed were so stimu- 
lated by his spirit that they went 
even beyond what he asked or ex- 
pected." 

His love for souls was so great 
that he snatched at every available 
means for saving them. Those who 
did not understand his character 
and the high motives which animat- 
ed him misjudged his actions cruelly 
sometimes in this respect, and blam- 
ed as a pandering to the temporiz- 
ing spirit of our age his willing- 
ness to seize every opportunity it 
offered for reconciling the age with 
God and religion. They blamed 
him for not losing time in quarrel- 
ling with the established order of 
things, for using the means it pro- 
vided him for the furtherance of 
his work. 

He loved the people with an in- 
telligent, human, and at the same 
time apostolic love; their welfare 
was identified in his eyes with the 
triumph of the work to which he 
had consecrated his life. " Edu- 
cate the people !" was the ever- 
recurring burden of his political 
creed, as it was of Ozanam's, as 



it is of every logical, earnest Chris- 
tian in the present day, when the 
Christianizing of the people is the 
only breakwater we can raise up 
against the rising tide of an igno- 
rant democracy. Let those who 
are to govern us be taught to gov- 
ern before power passes irrecovera- 
bly into their hands. Mgr. Dupan- 
loup was not of those who hailed 
the advent of the coming reign, 
but he was foremost amongst those 
who strove to make straight the 
way for it, laboring to teach the 
people the true meaning of liberty 
and progress, and thus lead them 
to the realization of both in their 
highest sense. 

His personal sympathies were in 
favor of a limited monarchy ; he 
mistrusted any other form of gov- 
ernment for France, but he believ- 
ed in no particular form of govern- 
ment as the panacea for the evils 
that disturbed her. He sought for 
the remedy of these higher up and 
deeper down than in the Chamber 
and the bureaux of ministers. He 
could not understand the miserable, 
narrow policy which led men to 
sacrifice the interests of humanity 
and justice to a party. The hon- 
esty of his own patriotism some- 
times proved 'contagious to less 
selfish politicians and won them 
over to his loftier ideal. 

M. Thiers on more than one oc- 
casion fell a generous conquest to 
the bishop's enthusiasm. A vehe- 
ment discussion was going on once 
at the house of a mutual friend con- 
cerning the expulsion of the Jes- 
uits. Mgr. Dupanloup appealed 
to M. Thiers to stand up against 
the iniquitous measure. 

" What !" cried the hot-headed 
statesman, "do you want me to set 
myself up as the defender of Jes- 
uits?" 

" No ; I [want you to set your- 






Felix Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans. 



545 



self np as the champion of jus- 
tice," was the reply. M. Thiers, 
who had a chord in him that an- 
swered to the touch, said : " And so 
I will." 

The bishop's keen instinct en- 
abled him to judge of men and 
measures with surprising correct- 
ness. One day during the session 
of 1872 a friend went to see him at 
Versailles, and found him in the 
garden, evidently preoccupied and 
agitated, for he had pulled a rod 
and was chopping off the heads of 
the flowers as he walked up and 
down. 

" What do you think of Thiers ?" 
he said to his visitor; and then, 
without waiting for an answer, he 
continued, " My own opinion is 
that he is driving us to the abyss ; 
he will be overborne ; we shall lose 
him, and we shall get worse. He 
does not see the danger. He won't 
see it." 

Mgr. Dupanloup in his warlike 
career for we fully admit the charge 
that he was always at war gave a 
fine example of charity in his bear- 
ing towards those whom he fought. 
He gladly met his adversaries on 
neutral ground, and seized oppor- 
tunities of shaking hands with them 
after running them very hard either 
in the tribune or in the press. On 
one occasion a journalist who had 
had a long running fight with him 
was invited to a banquet given to 
the bishop. The papal nuncio, 
hearing of this, had the invitation 
countermanded out of respect to 
Mgr. Dupanloup ; but the latter, on 
hearing this, was annoyed, and 
went himself to call on the journal- 
ist next day. *' Monsieur," he said, 
" on my account, it seems, we were 
deprived of the pleasure of seeing 
you at dinner yesterday. Will you 
do me the favor of dining with me 
to-morrow ?" And they became 
VOL. xxvin. 35 



good friends. He felt more keenly 
the wounds inflicted on others than 
those he received himself; he was 
always in terror lest they should 
reach to the soul and fester there, 
and check generous and energetic 
effort. A writer, who had been a 
severe sufferer from this, went one 
day to seek consolation and en- 
couragement from the bishop. 

" Have you any enthusiasm ?" 
cried his lordship. 

" Yes, my lord ; I have some 
left yet." 

"Thank God! I love you for 
that answer; it does my heart 
good!" exclaimed the bishop, em- 
bracing him. The world is per- 
ishing for lack of enthusiasm, for 
lack of that sacred spark which 
kindles whatsoever is noble in hu- 
man nature. AVherever Mgr. Du- 
panloup saw this elemental fire, his 
own enthusiasm, like a mounting 
flame, went out to meet it ; and to 
see the divine gift misused, turned 
against the cause which it should 
have served, was one of the sever- 
est trials his heart had to endure. 

How indefatigable the Bishop of 
Orleans was at work those whose 
privilege it has been to co-operate 
with him know to their cost. He 
not only worked for the greater 
part of the day, but he had the 
habit of rising in the dead of the 
night to continue his labors. At 
such times he would rouse some 
one to come and write to his dicta- 
tion, while his own pen ran on 
nimbly at the same time. Many 
of his secretaries and some of his 
vicars fell ill from exhaustion, but 
the bishop, who had less mercy on 
himself than on others, seemed in- 
accessible to fatigue. After an ar- 
duous day of episcopal functions 
confirmation, preaching, ordination, 
etc. he would wake up in the night- 
time and set to work as fresh as if 



54 6 



Felix Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans. 



starting after an interval of rest. 
His facility both in writing and 
speaking was prodigious. His 
mind was like a fountain always 
ready to overflow. The most bar- 
ren subject flowered out under his 
touch like the almond blossom 
from Aaron's rod, or the lily-bear- 
ing wand which indicated the 
chosen suitor of Our Lady. 

His literary taste had been 
formed upon the purest models, 
and by masters who had grown up 
in the noble traditions of the old 
university. From them he acquir- 
ed that grand style which later 
opened to him the doors of the 
Academy. Like his friend and 
brother-in-arms, Pere Lacordaire, 
the Bishop of Orleans accepted a 
place amongst " les quarante " not 
as a distinction offered to himself 
individually, but as a mark of re- 
spect and sympathy to religion in 
his person. 

" My poor writings," he said on 
taking possession of his fauteuil, 
'"never could have commended me 
to your suffrage. I recognize in 
your choice something far beyond a 
personal distinction; I see in it the 
desire to renew the old alliance be- 
tween the church and letters, be- 
tween the episcopacy and the 
French Academy, and I rejoice to 
be the humble connecting-link in a 
chain which never should have 
been broken." 

But he was mistaken in assuming 
this alliance to be real; he over- 
estimated its sincerity, and soon 
found that, notwithstanding the 
ascendency which he at once ac- 
quired personally in the illustrious 
assembly, his presence did not 
-close its doors on the atheists and 
materialists whose works he had 
spent his- life in combating. When 
M. Littre was elected the bishop 
left the Academy never to re-enter 



it. He never again took any part 
direct or indirect, in its proceed- 
ings. His colleagues refused to 
accept his resignation, and the sec- 
retary continued to send him regu- 
larly all the notices, invitations, 
etc., which he sent to the others; 
but the bishop never opened them. 

A friend, who saw him one day 
after breakfast throw one of the 
well-known envelopes into the fire 
without breaking the seal, warned 
him lest he should be burning a 
big banknote sent to him for his 
poor by the learned brotherhood. 
Monseigneur laughed, and, poking 
the letter into a blaze, he replied, 
" There is no danger of my com- 
mitting that sin." 

The Academy respected him the 
more for his uncompromising prin- 
ciples, and proved it by deputing 
two of its most learned and distin- 
guished members to follow him to 
the grave. Honors overtook him 
unsought, and pursued him in spite 
of his obstinate rejection. When a 
young man he refused two of the 
most important parishes in Paris. 
Three years ago the archbishopric 
of Lyons, with the title of Primate 
of Gaul, was pressed upon him ; 
but he declined it with the remark 
that he could do as much good at 
Orleans as anywhere else, and so 
he preferred to remain there. The 
world said that he coveted the 
Roman purple, and was embittered 
by not having been offered it. It 
may be true that his friends covet- 
ed it for him, but those who knew 
him best knew how serenely indif- 
ferent he was to all external gran- 
deurs. The approval of the Holy 
See was the crown he did covet, 
and the touching expression of it 
which his Holiness Leo XIII. gave 
him not long ago was perhaps the 
keenest joy that this world had in 
store for him. 



Felix Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans. 



547 



The one conquest that he longed 
and strove for was the conquest of 
souls. The contact of a really 
great soul rejoiced him like a trea- 
sure-trove, and he sought for such 
eagerly. " Ah !" he exclaims, 
"where are they, those beautiful 
souls ? We cry out to them and 
they do not answer us ; we seek for 
them and we do not find them." 
It was the divine beauty of holiness 
that he was enamored of in souls, 
not the brilliant gifts which men 
admire. When he met this, as he 
sometimes did, under the garb of 
ignorance and obscurity, he did 
homage to it as to the living image 
of God. There was a poor village 
girl who took service as a cook in 
a family at Orleans, and became a 
penitent of Mgr. Dupanloup, and 
he had such a profound respect for 
her simple piety and virtue that he 
frequently took counsel with her on 
matters of weight, observing to 
those who were surprised at this 
condescension : " The Spirit of God 
dwells in simple souls, and he re- 
veals himself to the humble." 

Amidst his manifold absorbing 
duties he loved nothing so much 
as the direction of simple souls, 
and many and touching are the in- 
stances recorded of his devotion to 
the poorest of his flock. A friend 
of his relates that some few years 
ago, when on a visit at the Chateau 
Lacombe, the bishop went one day 
to see his old cure in the village. 
Finding him absent, he went into 
the garden, tethered his ass to a 
tree, and began to say his breviary, 
walking up and down. By and by 
a peasant girl came to fetch M. le 
Cure to confess her mother, who 
was dying. On being told that he 
was not at home she began to wail 
and cry. " I am a priest, my child; 
I will come with you," said the bi- 
shop. He set off with her at once. 



A storm overtook them in their two 
hours' walk over the mountains, but 
he was in time to console the dy- 
ing mother, and returned long after 
nightfall, drenched and tired, and 
full of apologies for the anxiety 
which his absence had caused to 
his friends. 

It was here in this hospitable 
home of his old friend, M. Du 
Boys, that death came to him. 
Never did the summons come with 
more sweet and fitting circumstan- 
ces. He, who had loved Mary so 
tenderly and souls so zealously, 
died in the act of serving both : he 
left his rosary to go and hear a 
young man's confession, came back 
to finish the rosary, and breathed 
his last with the well-worn beads 
in his stiffening fingers. 

M. Du Boys favors us with the 
following characteristic fact, which 
he had from the bishop himself. 
The Abbe Dupanloup, who was at 
one time chaplain to the Duke de 
Bordeaux, later on prepared the 
young Orleans princes, Nemours, 
Joinville, and d'Aumale, for their 
First Communion. Their tutor, M. 

T , a distinguished pupil of the 

Ecole Normale, and professor at 
the University of Paris, was but 
nominally a Catholic. The first 
day he assisted at the catechism 
class, reading the Moniteur, and ap- 
parently absorbed in its contents, 
thereby testifying his contempt for 
the elementary theology that was 
being expounded to his pupils. By 
degrees, however, and most invol- 
untarily, his interest was arrested 
by the simple and penetrating elo- 
quence of the young priest. His 
eyes wandered from the newspaper, 
until at last he let it fall on his 
knees, and then to the ground, 
while he listened enthralled to the 
abbe's burning exposition of the 
faith. From that day forth he was 



548 



Felix Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans. 



the most attentive of the catechu- 
mens, and followed the three young 
princes to the holy -table at the 
close of the instructions. He re- 
mained a sincere Catholic ever 
after, and published some works on 
the subject of revealed religion 
which betray a deep and fervent 
spirit of conviction. 

These souvenirs of the two rival 
dynasties of France seem to have 
predestined the Bishop of Orleans 
to become the type of what has 
been styled la Fusion, the reconci- 
liation of rivalries and antagonisms 
of deeper import and wider scope 
than those represented by jealous 
royalties. The aim, the passion, 
we may say, of his great apostolate 
was to reconcile his age and his 
country with Christianity; but he 
was no Don Quixote, trying to 
force the future prematurely into 
the present ; he used thankfully 
whatever the present offered in the 
form of concession to the eternal 
and immutable rights that he was 
defending. 

God wants no man; but a grand 
spul has passed away from us, and 
there are periods when it seems as 
if the world needed him so espe- 
cially that we cannot understand 
why God takes him away. Never 
were brave and vigorous leaders 
more needed in France than at 
this hour, when persecution has 
once more raised its hand, and 
seems preparing to draw the sword 
against God and his church ; when 



Sisters of Charity are being turned 
out of the hospitals, or are suffered 
to remain only on condition that 
they do not read to the sick or 
pray with the dying. This is how 
an atheistic majority understands 
liberty; this is the freedom of con- 
science it extends to the disinherit- 
ed of the earth, who have no con- 
solation in their miserable lives but 
such as religion can shed upon 
them. 

God wants no man ; but those who 
are fighting in his interests here be- 
low cannot but mourn the loss of 
that living and splendid personality 
which figured for half a century as 
one of their noblest leaders. He 
was the last 01 the small band of 
giants who fought and won so many 
battles for us, to whose call we 
rallied all of us Catholics: oceans 
and mountains made no barrier 
certain of being led to glory, wheth- 
er through victory or defeat. La- 
cordaire, Montalembert, Ozanam, 
Cochin they have all passed away 
from the stormy scene ; and now 
Felix Dupanloup has gone to join 
them, to take his place in that glo- 
rious pleiad where he shone con- 
spicuously. He has done his day's 
work, and rest has come at last to 
him who gave himself no rest on 
earth; he has received the palm for 
which alone he labored, and com- 
pared to which all earthly rewards 
were in his eyes as the grass of the 
field that perisheth, as the smoke 
that rises but to vanish. 



Babette. 



BABETTE. 




549 



PAUL OVENBECK was a clerk in 
the customs. He had been clerk 
in the customs almost ever since he 
could remember. The salary was 
not high, but, bless you ! in Alsace 
some twenty years ago a reason- 
able man was passing rich on sixty 
pounds a year. Paul was not fifty, 
but he was a confirmed old bache- 
lor. Many a blond maiden from 
Pthe Vosges wcfuld gladly have come 
to brighten his lonely fireside, if he 
had asked her; but he never asked. 
He lived alone in his tiny cottage 
on the skirts of the town of St. 
Louis alone except for the com- 
pany of Nanon, his old-woman-of- 
all-work, who cooked, mended for 
him, and "did " for him generally. 
If any one had hinted to Nanon 
the possibility of her master's mar- 
rying, she would have been as much 
scandalized as if they had propos- 
ed M. le Cure's taking to himself a 
wife. Nanon herself was a widow 
a fact which gave her a sense of 
superiority over Paul which she 
took care to turn to account. 

" People don't know when they 
are well off," she would say when- 
ever mention was made of an ap- 
proaching marriage amongst her 
own or his acquaintance; "if they 
did they would stay as they are." 

" But, Nanon, you had a happy 
life of it with your Jacques," Paul 
Ovenbeck would remark. 

" Just so. I had too happy a 
life ever to be happy again when it 
came to an end. My poor Jacques !" 
And Nanon would heave a sigh. 

Now, it was well known that she 
and her Jacques had led a cat-and- 
dog life of it together for Jacques 
was seldom sober, and very quar- 



relsome in his cups but the loyal 
old soul always spoke of him as the 
best of husbands and of men. 

Jacques had been a cobbler by 
profession, and NanorTs father had 
been a cobbler, and she herself had 
cobbled. She came altogether of 
a cobbling stock, and was wont to 
speak of those bygone days, when 
she and Jacques and her old fa- 
ther had cobbled together, some- 
what as the ruined noble speaks of 
the position of his family before 
the Revolution. " Quand nous 
etions dans la chaussure " (When 
we were in the boot and shoe 
trade) was her dignified way of al- 
luding to the palmy days when she 
cut strips of leather and picked old 
soles to pieces, while tipsy Jacques 
sat cross-legged, swearing and cob- 
bling away at the dilapidated shoes 
of the village. Nothing flattered 
her more than for a neighbor to 
come in and ask her advice as to 
whether a pair of hob-nails were 
worth new soles or a fresh patch, 
and then to come for her opinion 
as to the quality of the mending 
when it was done. Paul Ovenbeck 
never dreamed of buying a new 
pair of shoes without her assistance. 
She took the deference as her due, 
and felt that her experience in this 
line, as in so many others, was in- 
valuable to her master. 

" This will be terrible weather 
for Christmas, if it lasts," said Paul, 
as he lighted his pipe after his one- 
o'clock dinner on the 2oth of De- 
cember, and stood looking out of 
the lozenge-pan ed window at the 
rain, that fell in tawny torrents on 
the cattle-tramped road. 

" It will not last," said Nanon, 



550 



Babette. 



as she threw on a fresh log and sent 
a shower of sparks Hying up the 
wide, black chimney. " I am seven- 
ty-five, and, thank Heaven ! I know 
myself in the signs of the seasons. 
It will clear off between this and 
the 25th." 

" Perhaps ; and then the frost 
will come, and what a state the 
roads will be in ! There will be no 
trustingone's self on them ; it will be 
like walking on iron blades," said 
Paul Ovenbeck. 

" You can avoid the edge of the 
ruts," said Nanon. "One always 
should take between the cart-lines ; 
it is bad for shoes to walk on the 
blades, as you call them. Folks 
should consider their shoes." 

" My good Nanon, I think most 
of us consider our legs first. A 
broken leg is not so easily mended 
as a cut sole," said Paul. 

" Folks would not so often break 
their legs if they had a care where 
they set the sole of their shoe," re- 
plied Nanon. 

Paul Ovenbeck gave up the ar- 
gument, knowing that sooner or 
later Nanon would have the best 
of it. 

The rain kept pouring down in 
steady whip-cords, turning the 
' road into a deep puddle, which 
splashed right and left to the cot- 
tage walls on either side every time 
a cart came rattling by. It was now 
Christmas eve, and the sky was as 
murky as ever, and the distant Vos- 
ges loomed like pyramids of smoke 
through the mud-colored haze 
which the puddle seemed to have 
flung over the horizon. Paul Oven- 
beck had paddled to the custom- 
house every morning these ten 
days past, and arrived at his jour- 
ney's end so bespattered generally 
that his appearance was the signal 
for roars of laughter from his broth- 
er clerks. But his holiday began on 



Christmas eve, and he had not 
been out of doors to-day. He sat 
smoking his pipe, and reading the 
gazette, and conversing with Nanon 
between times. Towards night- 
fall the rain cleared off, and, as 
Paul Ovenbeck had prophesied, it 
froze hard during the night, and 
next morning the roads were like 
iron blades. 

But Christmas bells were ringing ; 
the mud-veil melted away, and the 
Vosges stood up and showed them- 
selves against the sky, the higher 
hills snow white, the lower hills in 
many shades of blue ; the sun 
shone over all. The people were 
hurrying to church in their best 
clothes, and exchanging kindly good- 
morrows as they met and trooped 
on in the same direction. 

Paul Ovenbeck was in his Sun- 
day suit and setting out to church, 
brushed and shining as a new hat. 

" What shoes have you put on ?" 
said Nanon, who stood waiting for 
him, equipped in her high-frilled 
headgear and dark green cloak. 
" Good heavens ! you will come 
home without a shoe to your foot. 
When folks are in their right mind 
they wear sabots on a day like 
this, not leather shoes that cost 
fifteen francs !" 

"This is Christmas day; one 
wears one's best of everything on 
Christmas day," replied Paul Oven- 
beck. 

" One need not cut up one's shoes 
because it is Christmas day," retort- 
ed Nanon ; " there are better ways 
than that of honoring the good 
God. But folks that are not reason- 
able will have their own way." 

They sallied forth together; the 
master in front, the servant behind. 
Ding-dong went the bells. The 
sun shone merrily. Paul watched 
the groups walking on together, 
husband and wife and little ones, 



Babette. 



551 



some running, some toddling, some 
hoisted aloft on the father's shoul- 
ders. He had a tender heart for the 
little ones, and the sight of a pair 
of small, soft arms round an elderly 
man's neck was one that always 
gave him a feeling of envy and re- 
gret. 

"What a sturdy little man that 
is on neighbor Brocken's back !" he 
said, looking half way round at 
Nanon. " I didn't know he had 
so small a one as that !" 

" He must be hard set to find 
sabots for seven of them," grunted 
Nanon ; " but the less bread there 
is the more mouths are sure to come 
crying for it." 

" There's a blessing on long fami- 
lies : they always prosper," said 
Paul. 

"When they don't starve or die 
at the hulks," was the cheerful re- 
joinder. " The children I've seen 
grow up to be a curse to their fa- 
thers are enough to make one drop 
an one's knees for thankfulness 
when one thinks it might have hap- 
pened to one's self. But they die 
young, most of 'em. It's a mercy. 
I'm always thankful when one of 
'em goes." 

" Then why are you always ready 
to doctor and nurse them ?" said 
Paul. "You ought to let them die 
when they have the chance, if you 
think it such a mercy." 

"It's no business of mine to send 
them out of the world, though I 
pity 'em for ever coming into it. 
Besides, they may turn out well ; 
there was that poor Ridar Bolf 
that I saved in the smallpox fifty 
years ago, and now the boy's a 
general. That was a good day's 
work of mine." 

" Yes, Nanon. I envy you that," 
said Paul Ovenbeck, slackening his 
step for Nanon to come and walk 
beside him. " It is something to 



have done a good action that has 
brought its reward; to have lived 
to see a result. Results are the 
things to look for. But we can't 
command results." 

" No, that we can't !" said Nanon 
emphatically. She had a very dim 
notion of what results meant, but 
she often heard this sentiment 
from her master, and saw that he 
always expected her to assent with 
a negative. 

Paul Ovenbeck said no more till 
they reached the church. It was a 
fixed idea with him, this desire to 
do something that would produce 
a result, a visible, tangible fact. 
But what could a clerk in the cus- 
toms do that was likely to achieve 
this consummation so devoutly to 
be wished for? What opportunity 
had he, with fifteen hundred francs 
a year in a four-roomed cottage at 
the fag end of a small country 
town, for doing anything that would 
produce a notable result ? He en- 
vied old Nanon having rescued 
that sick boy, who had lived to 
fight many a battle for France, and 
now ranked amongst the soldiers 
she delighted to honor. Nanon 
would have had the Cross, if peo- 
ple got their deserts ; but the true 
reward lay in the knowledge that she 
was the cause of the glorious result. 

Paul Ovenbeck had been invited 
to eat his Christmas dinner by 
many kindly neighbors ; but he 
preferred eating it alone. The 
sight of a family group round the 
dish of steaming sauerkraut and 
sausages made hiiu cynical ; the 
wild excitement of the young ones 
before the illuminated Christmas 
tree plunged him into green-eyed 
melancholy; he wished his fellow- 
creatures to be happy, but it was 
an offence to him to have their 
happiness thrust under his nose. 
He sat by the window this Christ- 



552 



Babette. 



mas afternoon, watching the peo- 
ple coining and going on the road, 
and highly enjoying the ridiculous 
appearance they presented ; for it 
had come on to sleet, and in ten 
minutes the road was as slippery 
as soap, and the position of way- 
farers, though painful, was in the 
highest degree farcical. They 
seemed suddenly seized with a 
frantic impulse to gesticulate ; they 
propelled themselves along with 
arms extended, shouting to one 
another, sometimes in terror, some- 
times in high glee ; they clutched 
one another by the coat, by the 
elbow, by the hair of the head, 
whenever they came within reach ; 
these spasmodic seizures generally 
ended in a scuffle, which laid one 
or both flat on the slippery road. 
Some gave up the attempt to walk 
upright and progressed on all- 
fours ; others joined hands and ad- 
vanced like a chain, swaying and 
sliding and slipping. Now and 
then a daring individual shot off 
skating, and elicited the applause 
of the timid lookers-on, until his 
triumphant career was brought to 
an end by an ignominious prostra- 
tion in the mud amidst the jeers 
and hootings of his quondam ad- 
mirers. Paul Ovenbeck sat there, 
chuckling and laughing with the 
outside audience ; but at last he got 
up and stood close to the window 
to have a better view of the per- 
formance. 

" If they had stayed at home in- 
stead of gadding to other folks' 
houses they wiild have escaped 
having their shins cut and their 
best clothes ducked in mud," said 
the cynical old bachelor ; and he 
^/ called in Nanon to look at a very 
long-legged young man who lay 
sprawling at full length and kick- 
ing out violently in his frantic ef- 
forts to get on his feet. 



Nanon set her arms akimbo and 
shook with laughter. The sound 
of a light cart was heard rumbling 
down the road, and the rapid pace 
of the horse showed that he was 
properly shod for the occasion. 
But just as the cart came in sight 
an old man and a little child were 
making their way across the road ; 
the man was blind, and the child 
was leading him. Both were totter- 
ing and slipping, and the child was 
laughing merrily as they slowly 
put one foot before the other. 

" Good heavens ! if they don't 
make haste the cart will run over 
them !" cried Nanon. 

" There is no one in it ; the 
horse is running away !" said Paul 
Ovenbeck; and he flung down his 
pipe and flew to the door and out 
into the road. 

The blind man was standing 
alone, looking blankly round in the 
direction of the cart, that came 
bounding along. He held out his 
hands piteously for help ; for the 
child had let go her hold of him 
and was scudding across to save 
herself. She was almost out of 
harm's way when her little foot 
slipped, and down she fell at full 
length. Nanon screamed, for an- 
other stride and the horse was over 
her. But Paul Ovenbeck seized 
the child by the hair and pulled 
her away just in time, and then 
prostrated himself on the slimy 
ground beside her. 

Nanon ran out, clapping along in 
her wooden shoes, and helped the 
pair to get on their, legs, and then 
led the blind man across to his 
faithless little guide. 

"You are badly hurt, child!" 
she said, as the little one wiped 
away the mud from her face, and 
showed the blood streaming from 
a cut in her forehead. 

" Brinsr her in and wash it well 



Babette. 



553 



\ 



with hot water, "said Paul, who was 
in a sorry plight, all begrimed and 
bespattered. 

" Hot water !" shrieked Nanon. 
"Would you have the child bleed 
to death ? Who ever washed a 
wound with hot water? I will 
wash it with cold water." And she 
caught the muddy little object by 
the shoulder and pushed it on be- 
fore her into the cottage. Paul 
Ovenbeck led the blind man after 
them. 

" Is the little one much hurt ?" 
inquired the grandfather as he en- 
tered the sitting-room, tapping the 
ground with his staff at every step. 

" Only a scratch, goodman," said 
Paul, placing him in a chair; "it 
will be nothing. Nanon will wash 
it nicely for her in warm water, 
and bind it up." 

" Warm water ! Good heavens! 
listen to him again," said Nanon 
contemptuously. " Did I not say 
cold?" 

" The weather is so cold I should 
think the water ought to be at least 
tepid," suggested her master. 

" Do I not know myself in the 
matter of wounds ? Have I not 
saved the life of a man who has 
been mortally wounded on a score 
of battle-fields, hein ?" demanded 
the woman-of-all-woik in a tone 
of defiance. 

Thus challenged, Paul Oven- 
beck collapsed and interfered no 
further with the bathing of the 
wound, but went off and changed 
his muddy clothes for a clean suit. 
The cut proved more than a 
scratch. The black sand of the mud 
had penetrated into the child's 
flesh, and irritated it, and it kept on 
bleeding for a long time ; but the 
little thing was very brave and 
declared she was not hurt, and 
never shed a tear. 

" She is a plucky little woman," 



said Paul, who came to the kitchen 
door to watch the operation and 
lend a kind of moral assistance to 
the surgeon. 

" She is an arrant little coward," 
said Nanon with angry energy, as 
she folded a wet compress and 
patted it ; "the chit ran away from 
her grandfather to save herself. 
She deserved to have been tram- 
pled to death. There is one com- 
fort : she will bear the marks of her 
naughtiness to the end of her-days. 
The skin will close over the sand 
and leave a black mark on her 
forehead. See, it is like a cross 
with one arm lopped off." 

Paul Ovenbeck looked closer, 
and saw, as Nanon said, the black 
mark through the red a sad dis- 
figurement for a maiden to carry 
on her brow, even over such sweet 
blue eyes as those that looked up 
timidly at him from under the wet 
bandage which Nanon was fasten- 
ing tightly round the curly head. 
With all her rough speech she had a 
kind heart, old Nanon, and she took 
the little one in to the old grand- 
father, who was waiting patiently 
with that pathetic look on his sight- 
less face that is so touching in the 
blind, and then she went to pre- 
pare a *meal for them, as Paul 
Ovenbeck suggested. 

The child looked wistfully at the 
fire, and then drew near and spread 
out her small hands to the blaze; 
and when they were as hot as she 
could bear she ran to the old man, 
and took one of his cold hands be- 
tween her small palms, and pressed 
them on it 

"It is good, bon-papa?" she 
whispered, as the old man turned 
his blind eyes lovingly on her. 

" Very good, my little one ; but 
warm thyself now." 

What had come over Paul Oven- 
beck? His eyes grew suddenly so 



554 



Babette. 



dim that he had to rub them with 
his pocket-handkerchief to get back 
his sight. Nanon came in with the 
sauerkraut, and set the beer and 
the bread and cheese on the table, 
and helped the old man, and watch- 
ed the child feeding him, till she 
too was seized with an unaccount- 
able dimness, and had recourse to 
the corner of her apron to get rid 
of it. 

"We are having a merry Christ- 
mas in spite of thy tumble, little 
one, eh?" said the grandfather, as 
he swallowed a draught of the beer 
and drew his sleeve across his 
mouth. 

The little one laughed and gave 
him a hug. 

Paul Ovenbeck crossed the nar- 
row passage into the kitchen and 
said to Nanon : " What a pity that 
child is not a boy ! It might have 
been a great thing to have saved 
her life, for she is intelligent ; but 
a girl what will she turn out ? She 
can never be a general like the 
child you saved, Nanon." 

" Pardie ! But one cannot save 
the life of a general every day. If 
the little one escapes the prison, be 
content. You have done a good 
action, anyhow, in saving her life." 

" That depends. I might have 
done a better in letting her be kill- 
ed. What have I saved her to? 
A life of misery, of crime perhaps." 

"Well, well, you have done it, 
and crying over it will not mend 
it," said Nanon. 

"You are right. But if it had 
been a boy the good deed might 
have produced a result." 

"Results are not picked up in 
the mud like stones ; be content 
that you picked up the child. She 
is useful to the old man, anyhow." 

Paul went back to the sitting- 
room, and found the little one eat- 
ing her own share of the good 



things, while her grandfather, with 
his chair drawn close to the fire, 
warmed himself at the hospitable 
blaze. 

It was a pleasant picture on his 
Christmas hearth, Paul Ovenbeck 
thought, and he eyed it compla- 
cently. His life was so monoto- 
nous that the little incident was as 
exciting to him as a stirring adven- 
ture would be to most people. 
From Monday to Saturday he 
tramped to the custom-house and 
back, twice a day all the year 
round. It was rare that the dull 
routine was enlivened by even the 
detention of a few smuggled goods; 
the train came, travellers alighted, 
luggage was overhauled, there was 
the rush and confusion in the great 
salle, and scurrying aboutofporters, 
and a mustering of the chief offi- 
cials, the inspector, the station-mas- 
ter, the head-guard ; these made 
the most of the short-lived oppor- 
tunity for asserting their impor- 
tance; then the salle was cleared 
out, the travellers melted away, the 
train panted out of the station, 
once more quiet reigned, and all 
was again stagnant as a pool in a 
summer wood. 

" You live far from this, good- 
man ?" inquired Paul, who had 
been watching the weather-beaten 
face of his guest with a grow'ng 
sense of curiosity. 

" Not more than half an hour's 
walk, monsieur," said the old man; 
" in the Cour Blanche." 

The Cour Blanche was the poor- 
est quarter in St. Louis. 

" How do you live ?" 

"The little one earns for both of 
us, monsieur." 

" What ! that child ? What work 
can she do?" . 

"She is nimble at her needle, 
monsieur; she embroiders well, 
and folks buy network readily." 



Babette. 



555 



"How old is she?" said Paul 
Ovenbeck, eyeing the small embroi- 
deress with astonishment. "Six?" 

"Ten, monsieur!" cried the 
child, dropping her bread and 
cheese, and opening her large blue 
eyes in horror at the notion of any 
one taking four years from her 
venerable age. 

"Ten!" repeated Paul incredu- 
lously. " I never saw anything so 
Bmall for ten. And so you earn 
money enough for yourself and 
grandpapa? I should like to see 
some of your work ; you must bring 
me a bit to look at one of these 
days." 

" Humph ! I guessed how it 
would be !" grunted old Nanon, 
hobbling in from the kitchen and 
nodding in severe disapproval, as 
she laid hands on the sauerkraut 
and gathered up the plates. 

The little one jumped up to help 
her. 

"What! trust you with the 
beer-jug to carry ? Why, it's as big 
as yourself, child, and twice as 
heavy !" grumbled Nanon; but the 
child lifted her soft blue eyes 
laughingly to the gran dam's face, 
and carried off the big pewter jug 
triumphantly to the kitchen. 

" Let her be !" said Paul Oven- 
beck, amused at the cool audacity 
that defied formidable Nanon. 

" She is a handy little body," ob- 
served the blind man; "she keeps 
my place tidy, and manages better 
than many a woman twice her age. 
The Sisters kept her for a couple 
of years and taught her a deal of 
things. I had to take her home 
when my old woman died. It was 
a pity. She was an apt scholar ; 
they would have made her as learn- 
ed as a bishop, if I could have left 
her with them altogether." 

"Were you always blind?" in- 
quired Paul Ovenbeck. 



" No, monsieur. I lost my sight 
nine years ago, just when the little 
one was a year old. It's a com- 
fort to me to have seen her. lean 
see her with my mind's eye now. 
Her father was a sailor ; he was 
drowned at sea, and my poor 
daughter never lifted her head after 
it ; she died of enmii before the 
year was out. That's how the little 
one came back to us." 

"She must be a great comfort to 
you," said Paul Ovenbeck. 

" She is, monsieur; but she is a 
strange child. I sometimes wonder 
if she looks quite like other chil- 
dren. She isn't like a child in 
most things." 

" Plow so ?" inquired Paul, who 
heard Babette's silver treble in high 
conversation with Nanon just then, 
and thought it sweet as bells " at 
evening time, most musically rung." 

"She don't care for play and 
mischief; she will sit in the dark 
and sing to herself by the hour. 
They taught her to sing at the con- 
vent ; but I'm not sure she don't 
invent the songs." 

Here the old man called Ba- 
bette. They must be going, he 
said. It was getting late, and they 
had a good step to walk, and, more- 
over, they had abused the kindness 
of monsieur by staying so long. 

The rain, or rather the icy mist 
which had greased the roads so 
dangerously, had disappeared, but 
walking was just as difficult a per- 
formance as when it was actually 
falling. Nanon, however, tied some 
strips of old flannel round the 
child's tattered little shoes, which 
would make her footing sure, and 
the old man's sabots ran no risk 
of slipping. 

"Come and see me soon, and 
bring me some of your embroidery 
to look at, Babette," said Paul, 
putting a small silver piece in 



556 



Babette. 



the child's hand as he said good- 
by. 

"You are too good, monsieur. 
May the good God repay you for 
your kindness to us on this Christ- 
inas day!" said the old man; but 
the smile in Babette's eyes was the 
sweetest thanks of all. 

Paul Ovenbeck and Nanon stood 
at the door of the cottage and 
watched them down the road, Ba- 
bette leading the blind old man, 
and looking back now and then 
with a wistful glance at the two 
figures standing in the open door- 
way of what had seemed to her a 
very paradise on earth. 

" Pauvre vieux !" said Nanon, as 
the two disappeared behind a turn 
in the road. 

" Pauvre enfant !" said Paul Ov- 
enbeck; and he went into his snug 
parlor, and lit his pipe, and smoked 
away contentedly. 

More than a month passed, and 
neither Babette nor the old grand- 
father returned to the cottage. 

" I wonder why the little one has 
never come near us?" said Nanon 
one morning, as she set the heavy 
beer-jug on the table ; it always re- 
minded her of Babette now. 

" If I knew the man's name I 
would go and look after them," 
said Paul Ovenbeck ; " but he 
didn't tell me his name." 

" He would if you had asked 
him," replied Nanon. 

" He said he lived in the Cour 
Blanche. I dare say one could 
easily find him," observed Paul 
Ovenbeck. 

"Very likely, if one had nothing 
better to do than to go a-hunting 
after folks that one knows naught 
about," said Nanon. 

"The child was not amiss; I 
should not mind seeing her blue eyes 
again. I wonder if she will live to 
bless me for saving her life, poor 



little maiden !" said Paul, cracking 
a huge walnut. 

" More likely she will curse you, 
if she hasn't forgotten all about it 
before the time comes," said Na- 
non. "But, as I said the day you 
did it, what is the use of regretting 
what can't be undone ? You might 
have left it alone, but you didn't ; 
so try and forget it." 

"She may turn out better than 
we imagine," said Paul deprecat- 
ingly; "there are queer ups and 
downs in this world. When one 
thinks that King Louis Philippe 
was a schoolmaster part of his 
life ! And the emperor himself? 
I believe, if the truth were known, 
Nanon, he turned his hand to more 
trades than one," added Paul con- 
fidentially. 

" As to ups and downs, / needn't 
look so far to find 'em," retorted 
Nanon; "if any one had told me 
that that half-starved little urchin, 
Ridar Bolf, was going to be a general 
under the emperor himself, I would 
have laughed in their faces." 

" You couldn't have taken better 
care of him if you had known it," 
said Paul, who always indulged 
Nanon's desire to enlarge on this 
eventful episode in her life. " You 
took him into your own house, and 
nursed him like your own child, 
instead of leaving him to die all 
alone in the room where his poor 
mother had left him. What a proud 
woman she would be if she had 
lived to see how her son turned 
out!" 

" One never can tell. Some folks 
are proud with no reason at all, 
and others don't take proper pride 
in what the good God gives 'em. 
I only know that not a child in the 
village of Godimel has turned out 
as Ridar Bolf did. Not that I take 
credit to myself for that. There's 
no saying what may happen to the 



Babette. 



557 



best of us," she added, as if to pro- 
pitiate the envious fate which might 
pounce upon her and take ven- 
geance for her good luck so far. 
" I never was one to boast of the 
Lord's mercies to me." 

Paul O^enbeck went out one 
day it was Sunday, and he had 
part of the afternoon free to look 
for Babette in the Cour Blanche. 
It must be easy enough, he thought, 
to discover the child and the blind 
old man in their poor abode. The 
poor have no barriers to keep their 
lives aloof from one another ; no 
curtain hangs round their straw 
bed, nor from the window where 
brown paper and rags contrive to 
keep out as much light as they let 
in. But the echoing tenements of 
those darksome lanes and courts 
change their population often ; the 
trace of former tenants disappears 
quickly, and within the last couple 
of months there had been many 
comings and goings in the Cour 
Blanche. 

It so happened that the rag-and- 
bone man to whom Paul Ovenbeck 
applied for information was a new- 
comer, and, though he now occupied 
a room in the same house where 
little Babette had spent the last 
year, he had never seen the child, 
and could give no information con- 
cerning her or her blind grandfather. 
Paul was giving it up in despair 
when he noticed a cobbler at work 
in a room on the ground floor. 
The look of the man, as he sat sing- 
ing to his last, inspired him with 
confidence ; Nanon had inoculat- 
ed him with a sympathy for the 
race of cobblers. He drew near 
and spoke to this one. "Can you 
tell me where to find a blind old 
man who lived in this court with 
his little grandchild a couple of 
months ago ?" 

" Babette and the Pere No- 



quette?"said the cobbler, looking 
up from his work. "Yes, 1 knew 
them well. A brave fellow was Pere 
Noquette. He is dead ; he died a 
month ago." 

" And the child ?" 

" The Sisters came and took her 
away. If was pitiful to see the 
grief of the little thing ! But she is 
better off now. The Sisters will 
keep her till she is twenty-one. 
They will teach her a trade ; she 
was a wise child, and she sang like 
a bird. Many a time she cheered 
me at my last as I listened to her 
here at my window. I miss her of 
a morning. Nobody sings to me 
now." 

This was all Paul Ovenbeck 
could learn. Babette had drifted 
out of his life for ever. That 
episode of Christmas day was a 
stone dropped into the water. He 
heard the splash, watched the rings 
widening, visible for a moment as 
they spread on the face of the water ; 
then they melted away and he 
could follow their trace no more. 

Many Christmas eves came and 
went. Bells pealed and anthems 
were sung ; psalm and carol, re- 
quiem and lullaby, sounded on the 
wintry air. The years flowed on, 
and Paul Ovenbeck was still a 
clerk in the customs, and Nanon 
ruled in his cottage by the road- 
side. 

Time dealt kindly with both of 
them. When life is dull its current 
runs smoothly, and if our faculties 
are not quickened by thrilling emo- 
tions and new experiences, we are 
spared at any rate the wear and 
tear which mental activity and the 
accumulating interests of life in- 
flict upon our bodies. Paul Oven- 
beck had grown to be almost as 
completely a part of the customs 
as one of the scales in which goods 
were weighed. His hair was a 



558 



Babctte. 



trifle grayer, but, except for this, he 
was just as young ten years after 
Eabette's visit as on that Christmas 
day when she stood upon his hearth 
and held out her little hands to the 
blaze. 

But there comes a moment when, 
the stagnant waters are stirred, 
when the current of our lives is 
checked in its placid flow and 
turned back, not " as a river in the 
south," but as some torrent stop- 
ped by an avalanche, that, dashing 
the stream out of its narrow bed, 
makes the quiet hills echo to the 
thunder of its fall. The war-dogs 
were let loose, and contented, cab- 
bage-eating Alsace awoke one 
morning to hear that she was 
threatened with a change of mas- 
ters. The men shouldered their 
muskets and went forth to fight for 
it ; the women laid aside their 
knitting-needles and made lint and 
bandages. Then came the roar of 
the cannon, echoing close to the 
peaceful valleys ; and the looms were 
silent, for the weavers were wanted 
to fight. 

" I will take my musket and fight 
with the rest," said Paul Ovenbeck ; 
and he stepped out as firmly as a 
younger man, though his age ex- 
empted him from service. 

"You are right," said Nanon. 
" If I were a man cart-ropes should 
not hold me ; I would fight as long 
as I could load a gun, as long as 
there was a Prussian in France. 
The pigs ! We shall make short 
work of them !" 

But we know how that boast 
ended. 

It was in the sweet summer-time 
when the cotton-spinners deserted 
their looms; the roses were in 
bloom, the harvest was ripening in 
the fields, the vines were turning 
blue; but the summer waned, and 
the autumn, and the golden fields 



lay prostrate under rain and wind, 
for no reapers came home to gather 
in the corn. The Vosges stood 
mantled in their eternal snows, and 
the women and children were per- 
ishing with cold and hunger. 

Nanon had knitted many pairs 
of stockings, and tidied out the 
linen cupboard time after time, and 
periodically greased Paul Oven- 
beck's boots; but the war was still 
going on, and there seemed no 
likelihood of Paul's return. Fresh 
levies had been called for. The 
country wasdrained of its last man, 
and still the clamor was, " Send us 
more soldiers !" 

"What a pity the women can't 
fight !" said Nanon to a buxom 
young neighbor who came in for a 
gossip. " It would be a mercy if a 
lot of 'em were cleared away ; they 
do naught but cumber the earth, 
most of 'em." 

"I don't know that they would 
be of much use to fight," said An- 
toinette, who had a husband and 
three brothers at the war, " but 
they, help the men : they nurse the 
wounded, and keep up their hearts 
too, I can tell you. If they hadn't 
us to fight for, do you think they 
would keep on at it? Not they! 
It's thinking of the women at home 
that keeps the devil in them up to 
the mark." 

" Then more's the pity," grunted 
Nanon, as she took Paul Ovenbeck's 
best Sunday boots from a shelf 
and began to grease them " more's 
the pity; if it's the women that 
make the men fight, the sooner the 
world is rid of 'em the better !" 

" One would think you were a 
soured old cflibatairc, Nanon," said 
Antoinette, laughing. " If Paul 
Ovenbeck were to rail at the wo- 
men as you do there would be 
some sense in it; but they never 
snubbed you, did they, that you 



Babctie. 



559 



should always have a hard word 
for them ?" 

" No more they did Paul Oven- 
beck," retorted Nanon. " There is 
not a lass in St. Louis but would 
have jumped at the chance of be- 
ing Mme. Ovenbeck; but he knew 
better than to give it to 'em. The 
way I've seen them throwing eyes 
at him through the window on 
their way to Mass and to market 
of a morning was enough to make 
one blush for being a woman. A 
lot of brazen hussies ! But I know 
their ways, and I stood between 
Paul Ovenbeck and their traps to 
catch him." 

"And to turn you out of your' 
place, eh ?" said Antoinette, laugh- 
ing in a very aggravating way. 

" I'd have places to pick and 
choose from if I left this to-mor- 
row," said Nanon, with an indig- 
nant grunt, and she set down a boot 
on the stove. " It is out of pity for 
Paul Ovenbeck that I stay here ; 
it's a lonesome place, and I do the 
work of two, what with cooking and 
knitting and scouring. Humph!" 

" If I were you I wouldn't leave 
that boot on the stove," said An- 
toinette ; " it's sure to crack with 
the heat." 

" Good heavens !" cried Nanon, 
pushed beyond forbearance by this 
intolerable meddling. " Do you 
come here to teach me how to grease 
boots ? Do I not know myself in 
the greasing of boots since before 
you were born ? My father was a 
cobbler, my husband was a cobbler, 
and I cobbled myself! Rest tran- 
quil, Antoinette Blum ; Paul Oven- 
beck's boots will take no harm." 

"When do you expect him back "? 
inquired Antoinette. 

" When those pigs are driven 
across the Rhine. While there is 
one of them in France Paul Oven- 
beck will not come home." 



" Then don't expect him for 
many a long day," said Antoinette. 
"Joseph Blum writes to me that we 
haven't a leg to stand on, and we 
shall have to give half of France to 
the Prussians before we make an 
end of this war." 

" If I were Joseph Blum I would 
spit my tongue out before I'd own 
to such a shame as that," protested 
Nanon ; and she dropped the boot 
she was polishing, and looked at 
Antoinette in angry scorn. 

"Ha! ha!" jeered unpatriotic 
Antoinette ; " things will have come 
to a pretty pass when a man can't 
speak the truth to his own wife. 
He knows I'm not going to blab it 
to the Prussians." 

"You would if you had the 
chance ! I never knew a woman yet 
who could hold her tongue. If I 
was the Empress I'd have every 
woman's mouth sewed up till the 
war is over." 

"What a mercy you're not !" ex- 
claimed Antoinette good-humored- 
ly. "Good-morning, Nanon. I'll 
look in on you soon again, if I 
have any news from the war." 

" If it's news like that you may 
keep it," said Nanon. 

She had news herself before the 
week was out. Paul Ovenbeck 
wrote to say he had come safe out 
of all the fighting so far. But he 
was a good deal broken by the 
hardships of the camp and the field, 
and if the war lasted much longer 
it was likely he should never come 
home. He cared not for this. To 
die fighting for fatherland was a 
death to be thankful for; he had 
made his will, and Nanon would be 
no loser by his death ; but he knew 
she would grieve for her old mas- 
ter, and he charged her to pray for 
his soul and curse the Prussians 
while she had life left. 

" I wish I could go to him," said 



5 6o 



Babette. 



Nanon, as she wiped her eyes after 
spelling over the contents of her 
letter with much difficulty. 

But she could not. It was a 
lucky chance that the letter got to 
her. It had been written a month 
back, and had had many adven- 
tures on the road before it reach- 
ed her. Meantime Paul Ovenbeck 
had seen more fighting. The colds 
and the frost had joined against the 
French, and it fared sometimes 
worse with the old recruits who 
escaped the enemy's fire than with 
the stalwart young ones who had 
ugly wounds to show after a battle. 
Paul Ovenbeck was failing, but his 
spirit rose in proportion as the 
flesh grew weak. He had been 
changed from an advance guard 
into a reserve corps, which was 
commanded by General Bolf that 
same Ridar Bolf whose name had 
been a household word to him these 
twenty years. It was as if some near 
relative had been set over him, and 
Paul Ovenbeck felt his bosom swell 
with pride as he answered to the 
roll-call or marched to the word of 
command of Nanon V boy. When 
the general fell before Orleans Paul 
Ovenbeck felt as if he had lost a 
brother. He never told that story 
to his comrades, but kept it a sa- 
cred secret in his own breast. He 
was a silent man, and had never 
been given to making friendships. 
But when men are fighting side by 
side, sleeping in the trenches or on 
the frozen battlements, or stretched 
round the bivouac fire in the star- 
light, their hearts open to one an- 
other by a touch of that deeper 
brotherhood which grows out of a 
sense of common danger, of depend- 
ence on one another for the cup of 
cold water, whether it be drawn from 
the fountain of their heart or from the 
fountain by the roadside. He be- 
came attached to his comrades as 



he had never been attached to his 
old neighbors in his home in Al- 
sace. He shared his tobacco and 
his snuff-box with them ungrudg- 
ingly; he was ready to wait his 
turn at the rations, to give up his 
snatch of the fare to a brother sol- 
dier who looked more hungry and 
cold than himself. He was bon 
camarade with them all; he sang an 
old song, some pastoral of his na- 
tive Vosges, or some jolly bucca- 
neering snatch, to cheer them as 
they shivered round the watch-fires 
of a night. He never spoke of his 
home or of himself, but he never 
kept aloof, and he was popular with 
young and old. 

The Prussian army was steadily 
advancing ; the French troops, 
beaten at all points, were driven 
farther and farther back from the 
frontier. Towards the middle of 
December the order came for the 
general in command to move on 
with his reserve corps to join the 
routed army of the Loire. 

The order was welcome, for the 
soldiers were growing " demoral- 
ized," as they called it dying of 
their wounds and of cold and hun- 
ger, and having no fighting for near- 
ly a fortnight. , 

" It's a sorry Christmas we have 
in prospect," said a young fellow 
to Paul Ovenbeck, as they plodded 
along in the snow within a few 
days of the joyous festival, dear 
above all others to the home-lov- 
ing children of Alsace. 

u Yes," said Paul; "but I had 
rather be out here and fighting 
those miserable devils than eating 
sauerkraut at home in Alsace. 
To think of the brutts being mas- 
ters there ! It would kill one to 
see it. I am glad to be spared the 
sight. And you, mon ami ?" 

" I ? I have a mother and two 
little sisters there. They had no 






Babette. 



561 



one to work for them but me. I 
can't help thinking of that this 
Christinas time." 

" Pauvre garcon !" said Paul 
Ovenbeck. " I left only my old 
Nanon behind me. But I shall 
miss the Christmas bells. Bah ! 
we must fancy the cannon are the 
village chimes, and forget we ever 
had a home. It will be all the 
same in a hundred years. And 
France will still be France !" 

They halted towards dark in a 
village near Orleans. It. froze 
hard that night. Five men in 
Paul Ovenbeck's company were 
found dead as they lay next morn- 
ing. Paul Ovenbeck wondered to 
see himself alive ; but he rose and 
stretched himself, and found out 
that he was not even frost-bitten. 
At daybreak they were on the 
march again. Paul Ovenbeck 
walked on till the sound of bells 
came to them over the frosty air, 
and then he staggered and fell. 

They lifted him up and carried 
him by turns till the troops march- 
ed into Orleans. A sorry sight 
they were, blood-stained and travel- 
worn, some reeling like drunken 
men for hunger and sleeplessness 
produce an intoxication of their 
own, and one that has a dreadful 
pathos in it. There was a train 
of ambulance carts following in the 
wake of the soldiers, but it was 
not worth while carrying Paul 
Ovenbeck back to it; they were 
too near the town ; and, besides, 
there was sure not to be a vacant 
place in one of them. The town 
itself was like a great ambulance, 
with sheds run up in every direc- 
tion and filled with the wounded 
and with fever patients. 

" Is there a bed for our cdma- 
rade?" inquired two soldiers, carry- 
ing in what seemed a lifeless body to 
one of these impromptu hospitals. 

VOL, XXVIII. 36 



" Not room for a dog to lie 
down," was the answer ; it was 
given in a tone of despair, and the 
surgeon came out to see what the 
case was. 

" He is not wounded, and he has 
no fever," said one of the bearers, 
as the medical man took the pa- 
tient's hand to feel his pulse ; " he 
is dying of exhaustion. If you can 
find him a bed for a few hours, M. 
le Docteur, he will not keep it 
longer, I warrant you." 

" Come here, ma sceur," said the 
doctor, calling to a Sister of Chari- 
ty, who was busy gliding from pal- 
let to pallet amongst the sufferers 
all round her. 

She came at once, and drew a 
little memorandum from the luiee 

O 

pocket of her gray-blue habit. 

" The name of his regiment, 
monsieur ?" 

" Fifty-second Line." 

" Do you know his name ?" 

" Paul Ovenbeck." 

She wrote down the name. 

" Where does he come from ?" 

11 From the town of St. Louis, in 
Alsace. He told us he was just 
sixty before the war broke out, but 
you would give seventy at least 
now." 

The Sister of Charity Sceur Je- 
anne was her name took down 
the answers to her questions, and 
replaced the little book in her 
pocket. 

"There is a bed vacant; come 
with me," she said. 

The soldiers followed her to a 
low shed that stood close to the 
great ambulance; it was a kind of 
tent run up with boards, and with 
canvas stretched over it for a roof; 
the boards were so roughly joined 
together that the wind blew freely 
through them, making the little re- 
fuge as cold almost as the open 
street. There was a bed on the 



5 62 



Babette. 



ground, and on the wall above it 
a black crucifix. This was Sceur 
Jeanne's cell. 

" Lay him down there," she said, 
moving aside a little table that 
stood in the way. 

The soldiers were advancing 
when a voice behind them called 
out : 

" Halte la ! I can't allow this, 
ma sceur! I can't have you sleep- 
ing out a la belle etoile ! Your life 
is too valuable to be sacrificed for 
.any one, were it a marshal of 
France." 

" Don't be afraid, doctor; I shall 

take care of myself. You know I 

-always do," said Sceur Jeanne 

good-humoredly. And, without 

paying the slightest heed to the 

^doctor's prohibition, she uncovered 

athe bed, assisted the soldiers to 

.stretch their comrade on it, and 

.then wrapped him up in what 

clothes there were- 

" Now I must go and fetch hot 
.bricks, and something hot for him 
to drink when he comes to," she 
.-said, and hurried out of the tent. 

The doctor drew near, and, kneel- 
ing down, placed his ear to Paul 
-Ovenbeck's heart. 

" Done for!" he muttered, shak- 
ing his head. 

" Is he dead ? Will he not wake 
.at all?" inquired the soldiers, who 
.-siood watching, anxious and ex- 
pectant. 

" He may wake ; Sceur Jeanne 
will probably bring him to; but it 
won't be for long," said the medi- 
-cal man, and he left the tent. 

He had hundreds of broken 
.limbs and fevers and bad wounds 
to look to, and no time to waste on 
.a case like this. 

Sceur Jeanne came back with her 
:arms full of restoratives, inward 
.and outward. But she was not 
.alone. A Franciscan father stood 



at the open door, and looked in to 
see if there were room for him in 
the "tiny box, where the soldiers 
were barely able to stand upright. 

" Ha! he opens his eyes !" cried 

Sceur Jeanne in delight. " Don't go 

yet a moment, mes amis; it is well 

that he should see you near him 

when he comes to." 

One of the soldiers knelt down 
by the bedside, and to'ok Paul 
Ovenbeck's hand and chafed it 
gently. 

"Aliens! . . . Enmarche!" mur- 
mured Paul, drawing a long breath, 
and looking blankly from his com- 
rade to the white coiffe of Sceur 
Jeanne. 

"You may go now," she said; 
and the two men withdrew, and 
the Franciscan father came in. 

"Where am I?" inquired Paul 
Ovenbeck, gazing at the strange, 
cowled face of the friar bending 
over him. 

"You are amongst friends," re- 
plied the father. 

" It is cold," said the sick man, 
shivering, as the wind blew through 
the slits above his head. 

" Yes, it is cold down here, with 
frost on the ground and the north 
wind blowing," said the friar; "but 
in heaven it will be better." 

"In heaven! . . ."repeated Paul, 
and he turned to look at Sceur 
Jeanne, resting his eyes on her 
with a strange expression. Was it 
a dream, or had he seen that face 
before ? The blue eyes met his 
with a soft, wistful glance that 
seemed familiar to him. 

"You do not remember me?" 
Sceur Jeanne said, smiling. " It is a 
long time since you have seen me, 
M. Ovenbeck. You have forgotten 
little Babette and her blind old 
grandfather?" 

" Babette !" repeated Paul Oven- 
beck, and instinctively his ej 



The Year of Our Lord 1878. 



563 



seemed to look for a sign upon her 
forehead. She pushed aside the 
white linen band, and showed the 
mark of a cross underneath it. 

" There it is the mark of the 
accident that would have been my 
death, if you had not saved me, M. 
Ovenbeck. I am little Babette 
that you were so kind to that 
Christmas day just ten years ago !" 

She left him alone with Pere 
Jerome a while, and then Pere 
Jerome went to the door of the tent 
and told her to come back. The 
two brave soldiers were waiting 
to know how it fared with their 
comrade. 

"Come in and help him in the 
last battle, mes amis ; it will soon 
be over, and with a better victory 
than ever you gained together," 
said Pere Jerome. 



The men came in and knelt down 
with Soeur Jeanne, while the friar 
said the Litany for the Dying. 

Paul Ovenbeck was breathing 
hard. 

The prayers were over. 

" Babette . . . little Babette," 
he murmured faintly. 

"Yes, M. Ovenbeck; my good 
friend, I am here." 

" The bells!" whispered the dy- 
ing man. 

" Yes, the Christmas bells that 
are welcoming you up to heaven," 
said Babetfe ; " you will pray for 
little Babette when you get there." 

"AndNanon. . . . The bells are 
ringing, Babette." 

And then Paul Ovenbeck spoke 
no more. The bells went on ring- 
ing, while Babette and Pere Jerome 
recited the De Profundis for the 
soul of the brave soldier. 



THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1878. 



THIS is by far the most eventful year 
that has occurred since, in 1872, we be- 
gan this annual review. A difficulty 
meets us at the outset : where there is 
so much that is important and interest- 
ing it is hard to select the special sub- 
jects on which to treat. We shall be 
led now, as always, by those matters that 
most affect man, humanity at large and 
its future, rather than the interests of 
this or that nationality. And we would 
beg our readers to bear this intention in 
view, as it may help to dissipate some 
prejudice. It has been made markedly 
manifest during the past year that the 
generality of people are apt to sink 
measures in men, and accept or reject 
them in proportion as their personal 
likings for the leaders go. Again, it 
must be remembered that we are not 
writing history here, but looking at 
history as it is being made, and trying to 
discover what there is of good or of bad 
in it as affecting, or likely to affect, the 



world at large. Year by year mere 
events are of much the same character. 
Nations make war with each other and 
make peace ; the tide of trade and com- 
merce takes an upward or a downward 
tendency : times are " hard " or times 
are easy ; discovery goes on ; men who 
play a great part in the world drop out 
and others step in and take their places ; 
the world goes on much the same with- 
out them ; men die, humanity lives ; and 
to humanity we look. That is why we 
turn aside from topics, however interest- 
ing, that are more or less local in their 
character and relation. 

Looking at matters in this light, a few 
events out of the great mass group them- 
selves at once and challenge attention. 
Among these are the death of Pius IX. 
and the peaceful election of his successor; 
the final blow dealt by Russia to Turkish 
rule in Europe ; the Congress of Euro- 
pean powers at Berlin ; the new siand 
taken by England in international affairs; 



564 



The Year of Our Lor a 1878. 



and the bold and threatening attitude of 
Socialists and Internationals. 

THE BERLIN CONGRESS. 

The war between Russia and Turkey 
may be said to have ended with the cap- 
ture of Plevna and of the army of the 
Shipka. After these defeats all European 
Turkey lay open to the conqueror. His 
armies swarmed over the Balkans and 
advanced on Gallipoli and Constantino- 
ple. If Europe was to interfere at all 
there was need to hasten. England 
took the initiative. She was forestalled, 
however, by the activity of General Ig- 
natieff, who drew up what is known as 
the Treaty of San Stefano, which was 
duly signed by the two belligerents. 
The effect of this treaty was to make 
Russia the predominant power in Tur- 
key, and, indeed, to convert that empire, 
not immediately, perhaps, but in the na- 
tural course of events as shaped by in- 
telligence and power, into a Russian pro- 
vince. England, or rather the English 
premiei for throughout this whole ques- 
tion in the East he has been more dar- 
ing, more courageous, and more resolute 
than his country insisted that the treaty 
should be submitted to the congress of 
powers. While the negotiations were 
pending and being carefully prolonged 
by Russia, the Russian armies continued 
to pour into Turkey and crept up to the 
very gates of Constantinople. Again 
in the face of his country, and with the 
threatened disruption of his cabinet, 
Lord Beaconsfield ordered the British 
fleet to enter the Dardanelles. It enter- 
ed, despite the formal protest of Turkey. 
Meanwhile English opinion was chang- 
ing, and the war fever began to make 
headway. Russia was still stubborn. 
England might fight and Austria join 
her, but where were England's armies ? 
Lord Beaconsfield created them with a 
stroke of his pen. Still in the face of his 
country, and in all cases without con- 
sulting Parliament, he summoned a small 
contingent of Indian troops to Malta. 
In an instant the whole aspect of affairs 
was changed ; for behind that small con- 
tingent stood the hordes of England's 
subjects in the East, and the early threat 
of the Premier was remembered and 
realized, that England was a country of 
vast resources and better able to sustain 
a great war than any country in Europe ; 
that she did not readily enter into war, 
but when she did it was not an affair of 



one campaign or of two, but of many, 
was a daring stroke of political genius ; 
but it did its work. The Treaty of 
Stefano was laid upon the table at Ber- 
lin, and the English war party in Lon- 
don made its first grand assault on Mr. 
Gladstone's windows. 

We do not propose going into the in- 
terminable question, that .is still being 
so fiercely contested, as to who of the 
chief powers won or lost at the con- 
gress. It might be as well to wait and 
let time decide the matter. In the mean- 
while it is more profitable to try and see 
what was actually done. The Turkish 
Empire in Europe was divided up. 
Russia received a large and very rich 
slice ; Austria received Bosnia and Her- 
zegovina as wards, for whose good con- 
duct and safe-keeping it was answerable 
until they should come of age Austria 
to determine the time. Of the other 
remnants certain free principalities were 
erected. Germany got and wanted noth- 
ing ; France and Italy got nothing even 
if they wanted something. And what 
did England, the prime mover in the 
whole affair, get ? The island of Cyprus, 
and that at a bargain, as the saying is. As 
to whether it is a good or a bad bargain 
people are still at strife. Again, we 
should say, it would be as well to leave 
time to determine the dispute, as hot 
arguments will neither kill the Cypriots 
nor enrich England.* 



* The actual changes effected by the treaty are 
shown in the following comprehensive table, which 
we take from the Athenceuin : 

" By the Treaty of San Stefano Turkey was 
called upon to surrender 78,550 square miles, with 
4.539,000 inhabitants. The Treaty of Berlin deals 
with 83,300 square miles and 4,882,000 inhabitants, 
as follows : 



Square 

Miles. 

Ceded to Roumania.. 5,935 

" Servia 4 326 

11 Montene- 
gro 1,549 

Austria 15 

Greece (?). 5,300 
To be occupied and 
administered by 

Austria 28,125 

Formed into the Prin- 
cipality of Bulgaria 24,404 
Included in Eastern 
Roumelia 13,646 



" The island fortress of Ada Kale, recently occu- 
pied by Austria, is not referred to in the treaty at 
all, and will probably remain in the hands of the 
power which now holds it. Roumania, in exchange 
for the territory ceded, is called upon to surrender 
3,270 square miles, with 140,000 inhabitants, to 



.. 

:us ; 
San 
3^.. 








Moham- 


Inhabitants. 


medans. 


246,000 


142,000 


264,000 


75 , 03 


40,000 


9,000 


2,000 





750,000 


40,000 


i, 06 r,ooo 


513,000 


1,773,000 


681,500 


746,000 


265,000 






The Year of Our Lord 1878. 



565 



England got something else, however, 
or rather Lord Beaconsfield stole some- 
thing else of far more significance and 
value, even if of danger. He gained for 
his country, at what seems a very costly 
price, that predominance in Turkey that 
Russia had coveted and that the Treaty 
of San Stefano had secured for it. That 
fact should no-t be forgotten in discuss- 
ing the Treaty of Berlin. The cost at 
which he gained it was this : 

"IfBatoum, Ardahan, Kars, or any of 
them shall be retained by Russia, and if 
any attempt shall be made at any future 
time by Russia to take possession of any 
further territories of His Imperial Ma- 
jesty the Sultan in Asia, as fixed by the 
definitive treaty of peace, England en- 
gages to join His Imperial Majesty the 
Sultan in defending them by force of 
arms. 

" In return, His Imperial Majesty the 
Sultan promises to England to introduce 
necessary reforms, to be agreed upon 
later between the two powers, into the 
government, and for the protection of 
the Christian and other subjects of the 
Porte in these territories; and in order 
to enable England to make necessary 
provision for executing her engagement, 
his Imperial Majesty the Sultan further 
consents to assign the island of Cyprus 
to be occupied and administered by 
England." 

The convention that secured this pow- 
er and responsibility to England has 
been described by no less an authority 
than Mr. Gladstone as " an insane con- 
vention," and beyond doubt the imme- 
diate return looks very small for so cost- 
ly a price. The question to be deter- 
mined in this matter, however, is not 
what will Cyprus yield to England, but, 
Was it worth England's while to secure 
to itself a "predominance in Turkish 
counsels, or yield that predominance to 

Russia. The political divisions of the Balkan pen- 
insula will henceforth be as follows : 



Roumania ) . . 
Servia > . . 
Montenegro ) . . 
Turkey... 


Square 
Miles. 
.. 49.4 6 3 
.. 18,816 

.. 2,898 
. 140,065 


Inhabitants. 
5,149,000 
1,642,088 

2IO,COO 

8,359,000 


Moham- 
medans' 
143,300 
75,5 
9,000 
3,081 ,000 



" But if we exclude the provinces ' indefinitely ' 
to be occupied by Austria, Bulgaria, and Eastern 
Roumelia, there remain to Turkey only 74,79 
square miles, with 4,779,000 inhabitants, of whom 
2,521,500 are Mohammedans. In Armenia Russia 
takes 10,000 square miles, with about 350,000 inhab- 
itants. Cyprus, entrusted to the keeping of Eng- 
land, has an area of 2,288 square miles and about 
150,000 inhabitants." 



Russia? To engage to defend the Asia- 
tic territories of the sultan against any 
further attacks of Russia " at any future 
time" looks like making a very large 
demand and promise on the future. 
What was the English premier's motive 
in signing so " insane " a convention of 
course we cannot determine, for the ex.- 
planation that he gives, though a strong 
one, seems to us hardly strong enough 
to cover so large a ground. Were we 
Englishmen we could defend it from the 
point of vie\v that regards Turkey as a 
future, and possibly a richer, India, ac- 
quired without force of arms and held 
by the affection of the people. But this 
looks very far ahead ; it looks to a real 
reformation in the Turkish government, 
a slow yielding to English rule, a gradu- 
al absorption of the power by England. 
Only under these circumstances can we 
see any hope of the rich field held out 
to future European enterprise by the 
English occupation of Cyprus and the 
new hold that England has acquired on 
Turkey. If the Turkish rule is allowed 
to remain what it has been, then the pur- 
chase was dearly made. If it is chang. 
ed and bettered, Turkey may be made 
strong enough to protect itself against 
Russia. The question is, Will putting 
an English coat on the Turkish back 
change the Turkish skin? Meanwhile 
Lord Beaconsfield's defence amounts to 
this : We are engaged to protect Turkey 
in any case. Why not pledge ourselves 
to do so formally? It will at least have 
the effect of letting people know how we 
stand, of warning intruders off, and as- 
suring them once for all that if they 
cross the line we have marked out for 
them and for ourselves they trespass on 
our ground and are answerable to us for 
damages. There seems much force in 
this reasoning. If England means to 
stand by Turkey, with an eye, of course, 
to her own interests, it is as well for pec- 
pie to know that fact once for all. Rus- 
sia will think twice before she provokes 
war with England. Were it not so her 
troops would at this moment be at the 
service of Shere Ali, a friendly ruler, 
who, relying upon Russian assistance, 
rejected the English advances and is in 
consequence now fighting for his throne 
and empire. 

The England that was before the con- 
gress has passed away and yielded to 
a new, a larger and more powerful Eng- 
land, to European eyes at least. There 



566 



The Year of Our Lord 1878. 



is no question of that. Critics to whom 
Lord Beaconsfield is objectionable, ap- 
parently because he is Lord Beaconsfield 
and was Mr. Disraeli, object that the 
whole thing is a show and a sham. We 
cannot think this. We cannot think that 
a power like Russia yields some of its 
demands, denies itself the hard-earned 
honor of entering the capital of the 
enemy while gazing wistfully at Its gates, 
recedes from the larger place in Europe 
for which it yearned, before mere show 
and sham. At a critical moment in the 
debates the president of the congress, 
Prince Bismarck, spoke, as he after- 
wards (in the debates on the Anti-So- 
cialist Bill) acknowledged in the in- 
terests of peace, thus to the correspon- 
dent of the London Times : " England 
has here achieved a magnificent suc- 
cess. She has made Bulgaria end at 
the foot of the Balkans ; she has restor- 
ed to Turkey the ^Egean Sea ; she has 
covered Constantinople by the Balkans ; 
and the question of the Straits will be 
settled to her satisfaction. But it must 
be remembered that Russia was vic- 
torious, and that serious account must 
be taken of the concessions she has 
already made. I do not wish to recall 
my comparison of the whale and the 
elephant. England has doubtless prov- 
ed by the preparations she has already 
made that she might become a military 
power, that she might sustain a war last- 
ing several years. But herein consists 
our sole interest, which is that of peace, 
and which guides our efforts. A war 
between twt^reat powers like England 
and Russia would grievously affect the 
whole of Europe, paralyze all interests, 
and menace every one. . . ." 

Certainly Prince Bismarck did not 
speak thus of a show and a sham. At 
one of the debates Prince Gortchakoff, 
who through illness had been absent 
from several of the sittings, was carried 
from his carriage to the council-room, 
and opened the session with these words : 
" After having been kept away for seve- 
ral days from your deliberations, I do 
not like to reappear among you without 
making the following remarks, which 
are prompted by the love of truth and 
of my country. During your late deli- 
berations my colleagues [the prince here 
bowed towards M. d'Oubril and Count 
Schouvaloff] have granted you, in the 
name of Russia,concessions far surpassing 
those she thought of making. But I am 



too well aware of the feelings which influ- 
enced my colleagues to raise any objec- 
tion to the concessions they deemed it 
their duty to make. I merely wish to 
state to you, what is very well known, 
that Russia has made these sacrifices 
from her desire of peace, and that she 
spoke truth when declaring, before as 
well as at the end of the war, that she 
merely stood up on behalf of the Chris- 
tians of the East, that she had no narrow 
or selfish aim, and that, having made 
enormous sacrifices in a war in which 
the cause of Christianity and civilization 
was alone at stake, she has just proved 
herself capable of also making sacrifices 
for the great work of pacification to 
which you are devoting your efforts." It 
is plain that the Russian chancellor did 
not yield to a show and a sham. 

As for Russia considering "the cause 
of Christianity and civilization alone " 
in her war with Turkey opinions may 
possibly differ, though there can be no 
question as to the " enormous sacrifices" 
she made in the war.* Some people 
will look to Russia herself, and see 
very much remaining to be accomplish- 
ed there in "the cause of Christianity 
and civilization" without the " enormous 
sacrifices " incurred by a foreign war. 
There are Christians in Russian Po- 
land and Russia whose condition might 
be improved by a word from the czar. 
The Holy Father petitioned him in their 
behalf, and received anything but an en- 
couraging- reply. The cause of civiliza- 
tion, too, is open to easy improvement in 
Russia. A late " semi-official " statement 
from St. Petersburg is thus cond< nsed by 
the Pall Mall Gazette : " It dismisses the 
'charge of unreliableness* which has been 
made against the police, as 'based on 
nothing more than hypothesis.' 'All that 



* The loss in men is estimated at over rco,ooo. 
The loss in money is enormous. The semi official 
Journal de St. Petersbourg says that the war, 
which increased the paper curency by 500,000,000 
uncovered notes, has added 70,0 o ooo roubles to an- 
nual interest on the national debt. Retrenchment 
being impossible in any department, least of ail the 
military, an increase of taxes and customs is con- 
templated. '1 he tariff is to be raised once more by 
fifteen per cent. An income tax is to be introduced, 
and the excise on spirits to be considerably increas- 
ed. Fresh impost^ are to be levied on railway re- 
ceipts, legacies, coal imports, tobacco imports, gold 
exports, and other articles. Loans are announced 
to facilitate the withdrawal of the new 500,000,000 
notes, and the people are exhorted to improve the 
quality of agricultural exports, so as to render 
competition with America possible. Negotiations 
for foreign loans continue. 






The Year of Our Lord 1878. 



567 



can be admitted is that the police have 
for years been in many ways paralyzed 
by the magisterial authorities.' Law, in 
fact, has had too much to say of late 
ears, and arbitrary power too little, in 
:he regulation of domestic affairs. ' The 
reinforcement of the police ordered at 
various periods has been on an incon- 
siderable scale, and the organization of 
the force has hitherto not been of a very 
ractical character.' The strength of the 
olice, then, is increasing, and is to be 
increased, not only numerically, but in 
the direction of giving their organization 
more ' practical character' a euphem- 
sm which it is not difficult to translate 
'or ourselves. The statement concludes 
thus : ' With regard to some further state- 
ments of foreign newspapers, to the effect 
that extensive reforms are in prospect, it 
may be said that, on the contrary, the 
view prevails in official circles that there 
has been too much reforming of late, and 
that it would be better to pause in the 
path of inharmonious changes and alte- 
rations.' From all which it may be gath- 
ered that the Russian government have, 
after due deliberation, resolved to 'sit 
upon the safety-valve.' " 



fo 

b: 

\ 

re 

I V - 
sn 

th 

! 

in 

h 



THE POSITION OF ENGLAND. 



That England's position in European 
affairs was altered at the Congress of 
Berlin is now an accepted fact. She ex- 
ercised the most potent voice there, and 
that she did so is chiefly due to the sa- 
gacity and resolution of the remarkable 
man now at the head of her government. 
Since Waterloo England never spoke 
out so boldly or with such effect. There 
is great truth in what Lord Beaconsfield 
said in his speech at the Conservative 
banquet, July 27, after his return from 
Berlin: 

" The responsibilities of the country 
are practically diminished by the course 
we have taken. My lords and gentle- 
men, one of the results of my attending 
the Congress of Berlin has been to prove 
what I always suspected to be an abso- 
lute fact that neither the Crimean war 
nor this horrible, devastating war which 
has just terminated would have taken 
place if England had spoken with the 
necessary firmness." 

Success has attended him so far, even 
in the campaign against Afghanistan. 
His claim that himself and his able col- 



league, Lord Salisbury, returned to Eng- 
land bearing 4> peace with honor," can 
scarcely be considered an idle one, so 
far as "honor" can be strictly said to 
enter into the keen play of diplomacy. 
Whether England can hold the position 
into which he has lifted it, or bear the 
new responsibilities that that position 
entails, is for England to say. It is a 
costly eminence, but eminence and pow- 
er are always costly. It is the first time 
that England has entered so largely into 
our annual review, for the simple reason 
that since the Crimean war, and under 
the Liberal rule, England took no lead- 
ing part in international affairs. In see- 
ing it in so new and prominent a posi- 
tion, therefore a position now conceded 
to it by all the other powers* we are 
bound to regard and consider it under 
its new aspect. We are looking at the 
world and at man, and considering those 
who move the world and govern men. 
And these are days when it behoves us 
to look closely into human affairs. For 
men gaze anxiously into the future and 
ask, What is coming ? Faith is going 
astray or is being strangled. Peoples 
are oscillating between trie despotism of 
the kings and the despotism of the mul- 
titude, between the rule of blood and 
iron and the guillotine. It is the duty 
of honest-minded men to lend what sup- 
port they have to the cause of sound 
government under which civil and reli- 
gious freedom may flourish. And which 
is the freest power in Europe to-day? 
Which is the soundest and most liberal 
government? Which has the truest re- 
gard for human rights? Blot England 
out of Europe, and show us in what 
country liberty exists. 

It is here that we must divest ourselves 
of prejudice. England has created for 
herself, and with too much reason, a re- 
putation for a false, cruel, and rapacious 
power. The very empire that is at once 
her glory and her danger has been 
acquired by acts that darken history. 
She has an everlasting witness against 
her at her door in Ireland. Her past is 
indeed dark and dreadful and full of 
shame, but why should not the future be 

* How different, for instance, is the position of 
England to- day and its position at the drawing up of 
the Berlin Memorandum, which the congress of the 
Emperors, without consulting one of them, threw, 
so to say, to the other powers to sign and which 
England alone had the courage, under Lord Bea- 
consfield, to refuse to sign. 



568 



The Year of Our Lord 18/8. 



bright? There is such a thing as revers- 
ing policy and atoning for wrong done. 
At all events the England of to-day is 
not the England of a century ago ; is not 
the England of fifty years back. In the 
matter of education, of spiritual care for 
the wards of the nation, of the army and 
navy, England to-day is freer, more lib- 
eral, and more just than even we in this 
country are. And as for a Catholic, what 
Catholic would prefer the government of 
Russia, of Germany, of France, to that 
of England to-day? 

Let not prejudice, however justly 
grounded, blind our eyes to great facts. 
And that there is left a really free power 
in Europe is a great fact. While Russia 
whips nuns ; while Germany imprisons or 
banishes bishops and priests, and throttles 
at once the speaker and the press ; while 
the leading party in France makes war 
against the Catholic Church the corner- 
stone of its policy ; while freedom in some 
shape or form is everywhere threatened, 
we cannot hesitate, but throw in such 
moral weight as we may have to a pow- 
er where a man is free to bless himself 
and to speak his mind, and where the chief 
aim of the state is not to turn him into a 
military machine as food for powder, to 
educate him into lettered ignorance, to 
govern him by blood and iron, or to 
erect the state into his god. 

GENERAL STATE OF EUROPE. 

We come now to consider the general 
state of Europe, and at once socialism 
stares us in the face as the most salient 
feature of the present condition of things. 
"Europe," said Lord Beaconsfield re- 
cently, in defending the Treaty of Berlin 
and showing how its provisions were 
really being carried out a showing in 
which he was confirmed by the emperors 
of Russia and Austria " Europe is gov- 
erned by monarchs and statesmen." 
That is true so far as it goes, and it goes 
very far ; but Lord Beaconsfield is the 
last man who needs to be reminded that 
behind the statesmen and the monarchs 
stands another power, a dark, a secret, 
and a deadly one. He himself on seve- 
ral occasions has alluded to the reality 
and the force of this power. It is called 
Nihilism in Russia, Socialism in Ger- 
many, Internationalism in France and 
Spain ; the church covers it all under the 
comprehensive title of secret societies 



banded together for unlawful purposes. 
It has been growing all these years, and, 
as we shall show, has been fostered by the 
" monarchs and statesmen" who govern 
the world, and now it threatens their 
existence and that of their governments. 
Even the President of this republic did 
not disdain to exchange courtesies with 
a miserable society in this country, the 
Order of American Union, whose obj-ect 
confessedly is the repudiation of Ameri- 
can principles and deadly hatred to that 
church which its European brethren 
strive to destroy before they can destroy 
all things and enter on their saturnalia 
of destruction. Not a single year 
has passed without our calling serious 
attention to the subject in this review. 
The past year has shown the secret soci- 
eties more daring and desperate than 
ever. Within the year the lives of the 
sovereigns of Germany, of Spain, of 
Italy have been attempted by members 
of the International Society. The shots 
of Hodel, Nobiling, and Moncasi, and 
the dagger of Passanante, are but the 
flashes of a fire that smoulders under all 
the kingdoms. They are laughed at by 
many as individual eccentricities or 
craze. The laugh is the laugh of fools 
or of fellow-conspirators. 

The attempts, owing chiefly to their 
non-success, seem isolated and hap- 
hazard. We cannot so regard them. 
The Emperor of the most powerful mili- 
tary state in Europe was first marked 
out for attack at a most critical point of 
time in European affairs : when the war 
between Russia and Turkey had just 
closed, and threatened, as even Prince 
Bismarck dreaded, to develop into a 
general European war. At such a crisis 
the death at an assassin's hand of the 
ruler of the German Empire an empire 
that is racked with home troubles and 
the possible changes in administration 
consequent, might well be thought to 
affect the course of European politics. 
The world had not yet recovered from 
the shock of hearing that the Emperor 
had been shot at by one of his own sub- 
jects when another attempt on his life 
was made. Where Hodel, the German 
tinker, failed, Nobiling, the German doc- 
tor of philosophy, very nearly succeeded. 
Pending the recovery, for a long time 
doubtful, of the aged Emperor, the 
Crown Prince assumed the reins of 
government, and matters in Germany 






The Year of Our Lord 1878. 



569 






went on much as usual. Next an 
attempt was made on the life of the 
young King of Spain shortly after the 
death of his newly-married bride, the 
sweet and pure girl whose loss, under 
the sad circumstances, was one of the 
nation no less than of the monarch. 
What had King Alfonso done to merit 
the enmity of the Internationals? Noth- 
ing at all ; but his death would have 
opened up all the old horrors of Span- 
ish dynastic troubles and offered anew 
a free field for the children of disorder. 
Happily that attempt failed also more 
happily, so far as the respective coun- 
tries were concerned, than even the at- 
tempt against the German Emperor. 
King Humbert was next singled out, 
and why? Well, the world knows the 
state of affairs in Italy, the very home 
and hotbed of the secret societies. The 
" revolution " which Garibaldi openly 
expects and proclaims, and which all ex- 
pect to see soon arrive, would have been 
a little precipitated ; and the world has 
already had experience of what revolu- 
tion in Italy means. It is the hatred of 
Catholicity all over the world that made 
the revolution in Italy possible, that 
hounded and helped it on. And when 
it came, those who were chiefly responsi- 
ble for it shuddered at its horrors. They 
may soon have reason to shudder again. 
Writers are apt to trace a sort of epi- 
demic in crime or suicide ; one example, 
they say, leads to another, one weak 
mind reacts upon another. The same 
reasoning has been applied to these " in- 
sane" attempts on the lives of the mon- 
archs. We are very far from thinking 
them insane. In each instance, though 
he at first denied that he had accom- 
plices, the would-be assassin was proved 
to be a member of the International So- 
ciety. They were all young and reso- 
lute men, perfectly stolid in their de- 
meanor, with no sign of insanity about 
them, with no remorse for their deed, 
and with no religion. Hodel and Nobil- 
ing were Protestants by training ; Mon- 
casi and Passanante were doubtless 
Catholics by baptism, perhaps to some 
extent by training ; but, if they had ever 
clung to it, they had renounced the 
teachings and the practice of their re- 
ligion, wherein, of course, they met with 
the full approval of all the prophets and 
advocates of the new enlightenment, who 
are the very type and flower of what we 
have called lettered ignorance, as well 



as of the inveterate foes of Rome, who 
send their missionaries and their mis- 
sionaries' wives to redeem the Catholics 
of Spain and Italy from the error of their 



GOVERNMENTS AND SECRET SOCIETIES. 

Whatever alias they may go by, these 
societies are at bottom the same : they 
are a revolt against law and the present 
order of things. For this revolt govern- 
ments have themselves chiefly to blame. 
It was known, it has been known any 
time within the century, that there were 
societies on foot whose avowed purpose 
was to overthrow the present order, be- 
ginning with Christianity in its only 
real form, Catholicity. The first and 
chief portion of their work governments 
themselves took out of the hands of these 
societies. The whole century has wit- 
nessed one long war on the Catholic 
Church by the European governments. 
The first ostensible point of attack was 
the temporal power of the Pope. At 
last that was torn from Pius IX. with 
the consent of Europe. The work of the 
secret societies was so far accomplished. 
They took all the Pope had ; they could 
only take his life ; but there was little 
use in that, for other popes would fol- 
low, and they saw that they could only 
kill the Papacy by killing the Catholic 
Church. They were keen and resolute, 
like their master the devil. They set to 
work to kill Catholicity, and in a very 
thorough manner. The governments 
had helped them to destroy the temporal 
power ; they should help them a step 
farther. Indeed, they were doing it all 
the while. They should stop Catholic 
teaching in their dominions, and let 
false teaching have free sway. They 
should abolish the priesthood, scatter 
the bishops, abolish the sacraments, stop 
baptism, so that there should be no 
Christians at all ; stop marriage, so that 
even the sacredness of the family tic 
should lose its force ; close up the con- 
fessionals, so that sinners should be re- 
fused this opportunity of repentance and 
atonement ; stop sin altogether by pro- 
claiming the divinity of nature, and letting 
nature have its fling ; stop, above all, 
Catholic teaching, so that the very name 
of God should not be known among men. 
When all this was accomplished, then 
would come the millennium, the notiveaux 
canches sociales at which Gambetta re- 



570 



The Year of Our Lord 1878. 



cently mysteriously hinted, to the dis- 
gust even of a journal like the Jo^^r)^al 
des Dttbats in a word, the reign of evil 
untrammelled and unopposed. 

This may seem a strong way of regard- 
ing the anti-Catholic war. But what 
else has Europe been doing within the 
century but this ? ' 

There was the other part of the pro- 
gramme to be fulfilled : after the over- 
throw of religion was to follow the over- 
throw of everything. Mazzini, Garibaldi, 
and the other leaders of the secret so- 
cieties spoke very plainly. They con- 
fessed their hatred of kings. Garibaldi 
has long since expressed the pleasant 
hope that he might live to see the day 
when the last king would be strangled 
by the entrails of the last priest ; and 
Garibaldi rode in triumph side by side 
with Victor Emanuel through the breach 
of Porta Pia. Can Victor Emanuel's 
son be astonished at an attempt to stab 
him when his own government subsi- 
dizes the arch-conspirator ? Cairoli, 
the premier of the Italian cabinet, is a 
confessed Garibaldian, and Garibaldi 
favors his administration for the time 
being. 

Italy was indignant because its repre- 
sentative, Count Corti, showed at the 
Berlin Congress as a lay figure. France 
was indignant at its representative, M. 
Waddington, appearing in the same cha- 
racter. As soon as the congress was 
over, and the Italian plenipotentiary 
walked home with nothing in his pocket, 
while Count Andrassy had secured Bos- 
nia and Herzegovina, the Italians, en- 
raged, clamored for something, and Italia 
irredenta was the cry. Italia irredenta 
meant the restoration of Trieste and 
goodness knows what not. Strong Eu- 
rope laughed at the cry and warned 
Italy. In the Capitate appeared the fol- 
lowing letter from Garibaldi : 

" CAPRERA, July 22. 
" Mio CARTSSTMO NUVOLARI : Italy has 
manifested herself magnificently in favor 
of our enslaved brethren. It is neces- 
sary, however, not to undermine the 
Cairoli ministry. I recommend rifle 
practice in all the Italian provinces, in- 
asmuch as after words it will be neces- 
sary to come to deeds. 
" Sempre vostro, 

" G. GARIBALDI." 

He has since repeated his approval of 
Cairoli with increasing significance and 



point, as leading up to the " revolution." 
But Garibaldi is a hero, not alone to 
those who cry out for Italia irredenta, but 
to the sovereigns of Europe and to that 
modern thought that itssumes to itself 
the character of enlightenment, liberal- 
ism, and love of freedom, in this country 
as elsewhere. 

If Garibaldi is a hero ; if Mazzini is a 
hero deemed worthy of a statue erected 
in his honor in the public park of New 
York, if he is worthy of the eulogies of 
our greatest poets, why net Passanante, 
Moncasi, Nobiling, Hodel, Orsini, who 
throw away their lives in carrying out 
the principles of the men whom the un- 
Catholic and anti-Catholic world honors 
and reveres ? 

This is the ominous sign of the year. 
Europe is weighed down by armies and 
bankrupt with armaments. The sons 
are taken to make soldiers of, and the 
father and mother, deprived of their 
boy's help, must slave to pay for his gun 
and his uniform and his food. They 
must pay also for the new ships and the 
new cannon. The Department of War 
and Marine always represents the heavi- 
est item in the budget of European na- 
tions, and it is always increasing. War, 
too, and constant rumors of war, keep 
the people anxious, excited, and feverish. 
Trade, business, the money market are 
just what governments and people make 
them. Year after year men look for 
brighter times ; but they grow darker. 
Poverty keeps pace with the guns and 
the cannon and the uniforms. The peo- 
ples are growing weary of being kept 
poor and of seeing the flower of their 
youth and manhood led out every now 
and then to be shot at, or always expos- 
ed to the risk. The governments have 
been very careful, as we showed, to re- 
move religion out of their paths. Th< 
Protestant peoples of Europe, and large 
portions of the Catholic, have lost all 
practical faith in God. Here, then, are 
fine texts to go upon: Poverty, tyranny, 
taxes, and death for the people. Who 
cause them ? The kings who undertake 
to govern the people. Who are th< 
kings? Men who do nothing but bleed 
the people of blood and money for their 
own base and selfish ends. It is time for 
the people to take a hand in governing 
themselves. Put these men out of the 
way ; kill them all ; and the wealth of 
the world is the people's. 

Such is the reasoning, and very metho- 



The Year of Our Lord 1878. 



571 



dical it is. Europe is full of it. Hodel 
was poor and hated kings by instinct ; 
Nobiling was educated in the new phi- 
losophy and hated kings on principle ; 
Moncasi was poor and hated kings ; 
Passanante was poor and hated kings. 
There is the yet deadlier, and in a de- 
spairing sort of way more heroic, form of 
Russian Nihilism, that hates everything 
and believes and hopes in nothing ; so 
that the very women are ready to throw 
their lives in the face of Russian despo- 
tism and die exultingly. They all hate 
kings ; they are all members of secret 
organizations whose ramifications are 
universal. One of a band of Interna- 
tionalists wno attempted to hold a con- 
gress in Paris last summer, but were 
imprisoned and brought to trial, at first 
denied that he belonged to the society, 
but confessed on being reminded by the 
judge that letters treating of the conspi- 
racy had been found on him, the letters 
coming from all quarters, one of them 
even from Persia. Here again were 
women, and one of them, who had been 
a school teacher, was the boldest and 
cleverest of the band. In Berlin a wo- 
man's Internationalist meeting, number- 
ing over a thousand, was held, where 
Protestant clergymen. Catholic priests, 
the government, marriage, and baptism 
were alike held up to scornful ridicule 
by women speakers. Herr Most, a so- 
cialist member of the Reichstag, who, 
it is announced, under the pressure of 
the new anti-socialist law, is driven 
from Germany and is about to favor us 
with his company, addressed the meet- 
ing. We might go on multiplying in- 
stances all bearing in the same direction, 
and showing that socialism is not a hap- 
hazard sort of eruption but a real and 
vital force of great power, to be counted 
on in all nations, and strongest and 
most deadly where tyranny is greatest. 

In Italy Cairoli advocates universal 
suffrage. The proposal is at once oppos- 
ed by liberal minds. Why? Because in 
Italy, it is alleged, the priests still retain 
great power over the masses of the peo- 
ple, and if universal suffrage were grant- 
ed the Catholic vote would, with fair 
elections, certainly carry the day, and 
who knows but that the Pope might re- 
cover hi 3 own again ? What a confession 
in such reasoning! reasoning that we 
have seen employed, in every secular 
paper that touched upon the question. 
What is the use, then, of universal suf- 



frage and of a free vote ? What is meant 
by the will of the people? Is it only to 
be exercised against Catholicity and 
never for it ? And what becomes of the 
universal charge that it was the will of 
the Italian people that ousted the Pope? 

The growth and development of social- 
ism is best exemplified in the German 
Empire. There it professed to assume 
.a logical and legal form. It mustered 
bravely at the polls desperately even 
and the dark shadow thrown upon it by 
the two attempts to assassinate the Ger- 
man Emperor did not daunt it. On the 
contrary, the socialists mustered a strong- 
er vote than ever before. The attempt- 
ed assassinations chimed in very conve- 
niently with Prince Bismarck's designs, 
and he is not the man to miss a chance. 
In our review of last year we said : 

"Granting that the general peace of 
Europe is preserved during the next 
year, it would not surprise us at all to 
see a complete change of administration 
in Germany, and a consequent relaxa- 
tion in the laws against Cat olics. We 
do hope lor this. Even Prince Bis- 
marck must now see that the persecution 
of the Catholics was, in its lowest as- 
pect, a political blunder." 

The administration has not changed, 
though its policy has to some extent. 
The administration has not changed be- 
cause Prince Bismarck clings to power, 
though he has lost the confidence of the 
country and of Parliament. Confidence 
in himself, however, never fails him. 
The elections, even with the incentive 
of the attempted assassination of the 
Emperor in the government's favor, 
went dead against him. In any other 
country with the pretence of a represen- 
tative government such an expiession of 
the public will would compel the resigna- 
tion of the ministry. No small shame of 
this kind, however, troubles the robust 
conscience of the German chancellor, 
He has gone from party to party to seek 
a majority, and, finding none, goes on 
governing without. The only revenge 
Parliament can take it takes ; it refuses 
him supplies, and very properly, for the 
purposes he demands. 

Prince Bismarck, who, notwithstand- 
ing the French milliards, is already fac- 
ed by a deficit, wants more money, and a 
great deal more The very liberal allow- 
ance which he had received has been 
devoted to military purposes. He wants 
nothing less than $45,000,000 additional 



572 



The Year of Our Lord 1878. 



a year still for military purposes. With 
that he will be content for the present, 
with a future increase according to cir- 
cumstances. I; was to secure this grant 
that he went a-begging from party to 
party, seeking a majority who would 
vote his measures. It was to obtain this 
majority that he appealed to the country. 
It was this probably that finally drove 
him to seek aid from the Catholics. In 
all cases he was defeated. A majority 
was not returned to him at the elections. 
Germany is a poor county, and is getting 
poorer instead of richer. The " blood " 
tax is a very heavy one and is constantly 
increasing instead of diminishing. What 
it means maybe judged from the follow- 
ing-. The Berlin correspondent of the 
London Times, writing on July 23, says: 

" By a vote of Parliament, taken in 
1874, the peace footing of the army was 
fixed at 402,000 rank and file till 1882. 
Thanks to the increasing price of pro- 
visions and the ever-swelling numbers 
of the recruits enlisted, the military ex- 
penditure since this vote rose from 
263,000,000 marks to 323,000,000 marks a 
year. This rapid augmentation of army 
expenses, at a time in which the earn- 
ings of tax-payers have in too many in- 
stances sensibly decreased, produced a 
good deal of dissatisfaction, rendering 
it doubtful whether the liberality of Par- 
liament will be continued beyond 1882. 
What could not be doubted was that the 
present Parliament was exceedingly dis- 
inclined to fulfil the secret desire of the 
cabinet and fix the peace footing at 402,- 
ooo men for another decade, even before 
the advent of the critical year 1882." 

This is no unfriendly critic who thus 
writes. He is stating a plain matter of 
fact. Writing later on (August 3) to 
explain the negotiations at Kissingen 
and Prince Bismarck's advances to the 
Catholics, the same correspondent says : 

"Military expenses being steadily on 
the increase, the extras which had to be 
claimed of the individual states from the 
very first rose from 70,000,000 marks in 
1872 to 81,000,000 marks in 1877, and, 
but for the remnant of the French indem- 
nity being spent in the latter year, would 
have been swelled to 109,000,000 marks 
twelve months ago. These being addition- 
al, supplies had to be voted by the state 
parliaments, and, constituting so many 
fresh items of the public expenditure, 
afforded the local representative assem- 
blies an annual opportunity for exercis- 



ing their financial prerogative. If this 
led to ever-recurring criticisms upon the 
height of the military budget, the cen- 
tral government could not but appre- 
hend a serious contest with the local and 
central legislatures upon the expiry of 
the present peace footing law in 1882. 
There is the fact that army and navy 
swallow 323,000,000 marks in 1878, 
against 263,000,000 marks in 1874 ; there 
is the general conviction that the income 
of the individual subject is continually 
decreasing. Is there much sagacity re- 
quired to foresee that a good deal of ill- 
blood will be roused by the eventual de- 
mand to perpetuate the 'blood-tax' at 
its present height? To obviate this dif- 
ficulty, and make the central exchequer 
once for all independent cf Parliamen- 
tary grants, Prince Bismarck succes- 
sively hit upon a number of ingenious 
devices." 

None of the "ingenious devices" 
have so far succeeded, and can we won- 
der at it? Can we deny that the Ger- 
man socialists have in this a just ground 
of complaint? 

In May the Emperor was congratulat- 
ed by the (Protestant) Brandenburg Sy- 
nod on his escape from the bullet of Ho- 
del. In his reply he said with truth 
and force that " misguided people in these 
times were holding forth against religion, 
leading men astray and destroying the 
foundations of morality. He was a 
stanch adherent of the Protestant Evan- 
gelical Church of the kingdom. He 
condemned no man who had earnest 
religious convictions, though they might 
not be his own. He hoped that error 
would gradually decrease, and that the 
debates of the synod would be marked 
by a temperate and conciliatory tone." 

And yet side by side with the very 
same report we read that "the Emperor 
has declined to accept the resignation-of 
Dr. Falk, who seems to have repented 
of his request to be permitted to retire." 

And the same Emperor who express- 
ed such just sentiments in May to the 
Brandenburg Protestant Synod gave a 
very different reply to a Catholic ad- 
dress in January. We give it in the 
words of the correspondent of the Lon- 
don Times, writing January 15: 

" A short time ago the Ultramontanes 
got up a petition to the Emperor, asking 
for the abolition of the laws which have 
lately placed the Catholic clergy and 
schools under government control. 



The Year of Our Lord 1878. 



573 



With the active assistance of the lower 
classes, no fewer than 158,000 signatures 
were obtained for this petition. The 
Emperor referred the address to Herr 
Falk, the Minister for Ecclesiastical Af- 
fairs, who has just given the petitioners 
a telling reply. The government, he 
says, declines to discuss the abolition 
of the May Laws, and will not even 
consider the possibility of modifying 
those important statutes while the 
right of the government to legislate on 
these matters is denied by the Ultra- 
montane party in Parliament. The 
Emperor himself has deigned to tell the 
minister that the petitioners would have 
done better to address their complaint 
to that ecclesiastical power which, were 
it so pleased, might easily put a stop to 
the resistance offered to the enacted 
laws of the state." 

THE GERMAN CATHOLICS. 

We ventured to express a hope last 
year for better times for the Catholics in 
Germany. We based our hopes partly 
on political grounds and partly on the 
expectation that Prince Bismarck would 
return to justice and reason in this mat- 
ter. Though the persecution goes on as 
unrelentingly as ever, our hopes have at 
least been on the way of being realized 
on both counts. The attempted assas- 
sinations, and the resolute stand main- 
tained by the Socialist party; their utter 
disregard of any feelings of veneration 
or affection for the monarch, and their 
avowed hatred of the government, have 
undoubtedly moved the court. They 
look for some radical cure for this radi- 
cal disease, and the Emperor's speech to 
the Brandenburg ministers, as well as 
other speeches of his elsewhere, would 
seem to indicate that he looks rather to 
the influence of religion to reform his 
people than to the Draconic code forged 
by Prince Bismarck, and which is being 
carried out with a profligate severity. 
The negotiations that came up during 
the year between the Vatican and the 
court of Berlin and the German chan- 
cellor, at the instigation of the latter, 
are, we understand, still pending, so 
that it is useless to guess at the result. 
We can only hope for the best. Prince 
Bismarck has been eminently successful 
in angering everybody, and in alienating 
from himself the affections of all parties. 
He has angered the Conservatives ; he 



has angered the National Liberals ; he 
has persecuted and is persecuting the 
Catholics ; he has now entered upon a 
crusade against the Socialists, whom he 
used against the Catholics, and with 
whom he has long dallied in secret, as 
came out plainly enough in the debates 
on the Anti-Socialist Bill. Apart, then, 
from the question of justice, it needs 
only the statesmanship of common sense 
to perceive that with a new war against 
the Socialists on his hands, with a fail- 
ing treasury and increasing needs, it is 
as well to be at peace as at war with 
fourteen millions of honest men who 
in a time of social danger form by 
all concession the most conservative 
body in the German Empire. Prince 
Bismarck now wants the Pope to step in 
and help him out of his self-created dif- 
ficulties. Of course the Pope cannot 
control the free action of the Catholic 
party in Germany. Prince Bismarck's 
$45,000,000 is no affair of faith or morals. 
But here history is revenging itself very 
soon. The plausible excuse for the 
chancellor's assault on the Catholics 
was that they obeyed the Pope, a for- 
eign power, rather than their sovereign. 
They were therefore traitors to the throne 
and conspirators against the state. On 
this ground they are still being perse- 
cuted. He now turns round and asks 
to shake hands with the traitors and 
conspirators, who, for all he may do or 
not do, will not give up an atom of their 
faith or their spiritual allegiance to 
Rome. Yet he goes farther, and actual- 
ly asks that foreign power to interfere 
and do the evil that he had denounced. 
He asks the Pope to coerce the free will 
and conscience of the German Catholics. 

FRENCH RADICALISM. 

In France the Radical party, of which 
Gambetta is the oracle and Victor Hugo 
the vates, is in power. All the leaders 
of the party seem banded together for 
one supreme purpose: not so much for 
the erection of France into a real repub- 
lic as for the destruction of the Catholic 
religion. Victor Hugo's speech at the 
revolting centenary of Voltaire a cele- 
bration which the indignant patriotism 
and eloquence of the deeply-lamented 
Mgr. Dupanloup was chiefly instrumen- 
tal in preventing from becoming an offi- 
cial act was quite in keeping with Gam- 
betta's anti-Catholic speech at Romans. 
Even the better class of Protestant opin- 



574 



The Year of Our Lord 1878. 



ion in Europe cried out against such a 
celebration, while a paper like the New- 
York Herald in this country approved 
of and praised it. " Nor is it possible," 
said the London Times (May 23), " to 
honor Voltaire, as he is to be honored on 
the soth of this month, without insulting 
the Catholic religion and offending a 
large part of the French people. The 
bad taste of such an exhibition is the 
smallest part of the folly. The wonder 
is that the Radicals, who have organized 
the display, do not see that they are giv- 
ing weapons to their foes, who will say 
that the path of the republic leads to ir- 
religion." 

Its warning was well timed. The 
blasphemous proceedings at the celebra- 
tion reached their height when Victor 
Hugo drew a parallel between Voltaire 
and the divine Redeemer of the human 
race, which we give as a warning and as 
an evidence of what radical culture in 
France is in its essence and flower and 
perfection, and of what men may expect 
to see when 'that early day" hoped for 
by Hugo and hastened by Gambetta shall 
have arrived, and the nouveaux couches 
sociales be fully accomplished. "On 
that no doubt early day when the iden- 
tity of wisdom and clemency is recog- 
nized, when the amnesty is proclaimed, 
yonder in the stars Voltaire will smile. 
Between two servants of humanity who 
appeared at 1800 years' interval there is 
a mysterious relation. To combat Pha- 
risaism, unmask imposture, overturn 
tyrannies, usurpations, prejudices, false- 
hoods, superstitions, demolish the tem- 
ple in order to rebuild it that is to say, 
to substitute the true for the false, at- 
tack the fierce magistracy, the sanguina- 
ry priesthood, drive out the traders from 
the sanctuary, reclaim the heritage of the 
disinherited, protect the weak, poor, suf- 
fering, and crushed, combat for the per- 
secuted and oppressed such was Jesus 
Christ's war. And what man carried on 
that war? Volt lire. The evangelical 
work had f<r its complement the philo- 
sophic work ; the spirit of mercy com- 
menced, the spirit of tolerance contin- 
ued. Let us say it with a sentiment of 
profound respect: Jesus wept Voltaire 
smiled. From that divine tear and from 
that human smile sprang the mildness 
of existing civilization." 

Materially France is still advancing. 
The Exhibition at Paris was a magnifi- 
cent success. We have only to repeat 



what we have said before to the clamor- 
ers for a republic in France. They have 
a republic ; let them use it, but for a re- 
public, a free government of free people, 
not for an anti-Christian tyranny. The 
chief disturbers of France are the party 
now in power, and they grow more ag- 
gressive and turbulent everyday. Gam- 
betta's speech at Romans was too much 
for any rational being with the slightest 
regard for order, and the universal cen- 
sure with which it was met abroad and 
in many non-Catholic journals in France 
compelled even its author to attempt 
afterwards a lame modification of it at 
Grenobles. On May 29 the correspond- 
ent of the London Times, who has no- 
thing good to say of the Catholics, 
writes : 

"The French Radical party, as it is 
called, is often childish as well as dan- 
gerous. It treats the republic, of which 
it maintains it is the sole guardian, as a 
child treats a doll, periodically trying to 
break it to see what is inside. It can- 
not go quietly to work, but, under 
the pretext of being a party of progress, 
it is always looking for precedents in 
the annals of the first revolution, in order 
to put into practice Utopias and absurdi- 
ties which are now generally recognized 
as such. Sometimes it attacks the army, 
and is only silenced when it is shown 
that by its attacks it is convening the 
army into an anti-republican force. At 
other times it assails the magistracy, till 
it sees that it is driving the whole magis- 
tracy into the opposition camp. I need 
not mention the clergy ; the struggle 
with them is traditional, and will not 
come to an end for a long time. Certain 
it is that the Radical party seeks pre- 
texts for stirring up animosity and pre- 
venting the country from obtaining re- 
pose." 

Meanwhile we could wish that Ca- 
tholics in France would take example by 
their brethren in Germany and manifest 
a little more unity and worldly tact in 
managing their own affairs. They have 
wealth, numbers, and power. Why not 
utilize them ? But they are hopelessly 
divided among themselves and split up 
into weakening factions. While they wait 
upon Providence, instead of manfully 
using the power that Providence has put 
in their hands for their own defence, the 
enemies of God and society, of France 
herself, slip by them and seize the power 
that should be theirs. Until they unite 



The Year of Our Lord 1878. 



575 



on the republic and act as a single party 
they must continue to be hopelessly 
beaten and to see the church suffer. 
Such inaction is criminal. In Belgium, 
again, the Catholics, who held it, were 
ousted from the government, and a bit- 
terly anti-Catholic party is in their 
place. And as for the peace that is 
expected of the Radical party in both 
countries the Pall Mall Gazette has the 
following opinion: "From the time 
when peace and retrenchment, as well 
as reform, became the watchwords of 
the Liberal party, it has been supposed 
that costly military establishments, or 
' bloated armaments,' were a peculiar 
specialty of conservative governments. 
In reference to this view it is interest- 
ing to notice that certain organs of the 
Catholic or Conservative party in Bel- 
gium are warning the public that their 
country will soon be nothing better than 
an armed camp if the military schemes 
of the Liberal cabinet are to be carried 
out. As far as one can judge, there is 
some ground for anxi< ty on this head. 
The system which M. Renard, Minister 
of War, will shortly propose for the 
adoption of the Legislature would give 
Belgium an active army of 112,000 men, 
with a icserve of 192,000, making a total 
of 304 ooo ; which, for a population of 
some five millions and a half, would 
seem to be a respectable figure. In 
France, again, the advent of M. Gam- 
betta to power would scarcely mean a 
lighter war budget, or fewer days' service 
for anybody. It promises, on the con- 
trary, a development of the military sys- 
tem now in vogue with something very 
like the forcible impressment of clergy- 
men. On the other hand, it was one of 
the last Grand Dukes of Tuscany who 
virtually disbanded his army because he 
had no further use for it." 

THE PAPACY AND THE CIVIL POWERS. 

We must turn from many points that 
invite our attention, and come to our 
last great head the Papacy and its pre- 
sent relations with the civil powers. 
In closing our review last year we took 
what we felt at the time to be a farewell 
of Pius IX., and we may be pardoned 
for quoting the last few lines, as they at 
once express our feelings regarding the 
dead Pontiff and lead us up to his succes- 
sor. " When Pius IX.," we wrote, " obeys 
the last call of the Master he has served 



so well, there will pass from this world 
the greatest figure of the age, and as 
holy a man as the ages ever knew. But 
his work will not pass with him. That 
will remain, and the lesson of his life 
will remain to his successor, on whom 
we believe that brighter times will dawn 
a brightness won out of the darkness, 
and the sacrifice, and the storm braved 
by the good and gentle man who so re- 
solutely bore Christ's cross to the very 
hill of Calvary, and lay down on it and 
died there." 

Pius IX. died on February 7. Victor 
Emanuel had preceded him by only a 
few days. They almost went together 
before the tribunal of that God whose 
creatures they both were. We need say 
not another word here of one or of the 
other. The conclave was summoned as 
speedily as possible. Men wondered 
and admired that the Italian government 
undertook to guard the conclave from 
any possible interference and refused to 
interfere itself. What cause for wonder 
or admiration is there? The Law of the 
Guarantees was framed to secure the 
Pope absolute freedom ; Italy claimed to 
be a free and representative government 
its reputation, therefore, was at stake. In 
any case a Pope would have been elect- 
ed ; so it was just as well to allow him 
to be elected quietly and in due order. 
The choice fell upon Cardinal Pecci, 
who was elected and proclaimed Pope un- 
der the title, already glorious in the past 
history of the church, of Leo XIII. His 
election was received with favor even by 
those without the fold and by European 
governments. The general manifesta- 
tion of good- will that greeted Leo XI II. 
on his accession to the chair of Peter 
had greeted his predecessor before him, 
and little could be augured from that so 
far as the outer world was concerned. 
It is not for us to pronounce upon the 
acts of the Holy Father. It is no pre- 
sumption to say, however, what is uni- 
versally acknowledged, that even apart 
from his sacred office, as a ruler and ad- 
ministrator of mighty interests and far- 
reaching power, Leo XIII., in every 
act that he has performed and word that 
he has uttered, has shown himself to be a 
very wise, prudent, and resolute man, 
quite alive to the real dangers and diffi- 
culties of a most dangerous and difficult 
time and position of affairs in the world 
and in the Holy See, and most anxious 
to put an end to hatreds and heal up 



57 6 



The Year of Our Lord 1878. 



differences within and without, always, 
in the words of that glorious confessor 
and martyr to the faith, St. Thomas of 
Canterbury, " saving his sacred order." 
We hoped that brighter days would dawn 
upon the successor of Pius IX. without 
even contemplating who he might be. 
Our hope was not based on mere senti- 
ment or idle grounds. The very darkest 
days had come upon Pius IX. With 
him had disappeared for the time being 
the last vestige of that temporal power, 
that oldest, grandest, and only consecu- 
tive power in Europe, that dated from the 
very formation of Christendom ; and the 
world, as represented by human govern- 
ments, seemed to have completed its 
separation from the mother who had 
formed Christendom, the Spouse of 
Christ, and the only hope and salvation 
of human society. Such a final separa- 
tion could not continue without de- 
struction to society ; and, as we have 
seen, the era of destruction set rapidly 
in. Governments have recognized the 
fact, or are beginning to recognize the 
fact, that there is in the world something 
stronger than bayonets and kingly pow- 
er and human armaments. 

In the formation of the new principali- 
ties out of the ruins of the Turkish Empire 
in Europe, the united representatives of 
the leading powers laid down as the 
corner-stone of each constitution the old 
Catholic principle of religious liberty. 
Speaking on this subject in the British 
House of Commons, Mr. Gladstone said 
with scornful force, though the scorn of 
it tells equally against himself: "An- 
other point on which the English pleni- 
potentiaries showed great zeal was that 
which related to religious liberty. Ab- 
solute and perfect equality, civil as well 
as ecclesiastical, was to prevail in these 
new states. And here I cannot help 
paying a tribute to Lord Beaconsfield's 
real courage in insisting upon the eman- 
cipation of the Jews in those provinces. 
(Cheers.) It is, however, a little amus- 
ing to observe with what edifying zeal 
all these great states of Europe united 
to force religious liberty upon those 
new-fledged little bantlings just come 
into existence at the very time when 
they could not bring themselves to adopt 
it at home." 



Governments recognize or are recog- 
nizing the fact that the conscience of a 
people is stronger than all things in this 
world ; that if it makes for right all is 
well ; that if it makes for evil cannon 
and bayonets cannot turn it aside. They 
see, and must see, that unless there is a 
power behind the throne, greater than 
the throne, acting upon the consciences 
of men and moving them to right, their 
thrones are built on shifting sands, and 
their persons only sacred so long as 
they can rely upon the soldier or the po- 
liceman. But God acts through the liv- 
ing body which he has left to proclaim 
his law to the nations, to baptize and 
teach them all truth, to be the saviour at 
once of king and people his everlasting 
church. For having done all that they 
could to destroy this sense, for having 
attempted to interrupt the communica- 
tion between God and his people, for 
having cut off the means of grace and 
the light of truth from the hearts and 
minds of the people, for having impious- 
ly set themselves up in the place of God, 
the thrones of their mightiest are crumb- 
ling away under our eyes, and their peo- 
ple are in revolt. The church must re- 
sume its sway and teach men to obey 
God first, and God's earthly representa- 
tives for God's sake, or the rulers are 
lost and their people are lost. The 
statesmen and monarch* who govern the 
world should joyfully recognize the fact 
that in Leo XIII. they have a man who 
reaches as far out towards them as he 
possibly can to bring ruler and people 
together again. This very year in our 
own country, when in many quarters 
there was dread of the overflow of that 
wave against society and the existing 
order of things which is threatening Eu- 
rope, the organs of public opinion, and 
even the ministers of Protestant church- 
es, instinctively turned to the Catholic 
Church as their surest safeguard in the 
threatened trouble. Yes, to the Catho- 
lic Church, the church of the poor, the 
despised, the lowly, for no other church 
cares for these ; but the church that can 
fill the hearts of the most suffering with 
the sublimest charity, and patience, and 
happiness even, for it has inherited the 
divine secret of peace and good-will 
from its Founder. 



THE 



CATHOLIC WORLD 



VOL. XXVIII., No. 167. FEBRUARY, 1879. 



THE REALITY OF THE WORLD. 



THE sprightly writer who is 
known by his assumed title as 
"The Country Parson" describes 
an English peasant, who, just before 
dying, uttered the lamentation, 
alike humorous and pathetic : 
'' Wut with fae'th, and wut with the 
airth a-goin' round the sun, and 
wut with the railways a-whuzzin' 
and a-buzzin', I'm clean bemuzzled 
and confoozled and bet !" 

This is an apt description of the 
state of mind in which many peo- 
ple find themselves in our day. 
The confused and contradictory 
opinions of public teachers of reli- 
gion and philosophy, the political 
and social unsettledness of the 
times, and the perplexing utter- 
ances whose murmur ails the air 
about all sorts of scientific matters, 
have bewildered their heads. There 
is a great deal of scientific doubt 
and philosophic scepticism in mo- 
dern books and systems. We do 
not wish to go into a discussion 
of these, and thus to plunge into 
waters beyond the depth of our 
"eaders. There is a doubting spi- 
rit which has gone out from the 
schools of the learned and the 
caves of recluse thinkers into the 

COPYRIGHT : REV. I. 



market-place and among the com- 
mon haunts of men. We would, if 
possible, exorcise those who are 
possessed by this demon, and re- 
store them to their right mind. 
Carlyle, one of the eloquent soph- 
ists of our time, in his Sartor 
Resartus comments on the fa- 
mous axiom of Descartes, " Cogito, 
ergo sum " " I think, therefore 
I am" after this wise: "Alas! 
poor cogitator. We walk in a 
boundless phantasmagoria and 
dream-grotto, and sleep deepest 
when we fancy ourselves most 
awake." So our modern doubting, 
unbelieving generation seem to 
have half-convinced themselves, 
and to have imbibed from much 
confused reading and hearing and 
talking a partial hallucination of 
this sort, that the real world and 
life are no more than an illusive 
vision of a sleeper and a waking 
dream. In the practical matters 
of common life such a scepticism 
cannot obtain any force. Even 
those philosophers who have pro- 
fessed a speculative scepticism have 
not acted on it, and could not do 
so if they tried ever so hard. The 
instance of the old Greek sceptic 

T. HECKER. 1878. 



573 



The Reality of the World. 



who put his shoulder out of joint 
is well known. He had pretended 
to prove the impossibility of mo- 
tion by the following argument : 
A thing cannot move except either 
where it is or where it is not. It 
cannot move where it is, because 
if it does it must both remain 
where it is and not remain, which 
is a contradiction. It cannot move 
where it is not, because it cannot 
cease to remain in a place in which 
it has not already begun to remain. 
Therefore it cannot move any- 
where, and motion is impossible. 
The poor man, having fallen on the 
street and put his shoulder out of 
joint, sent for a friend, who was a 
physician, to put it in again. The 
doctor hastened over, but on ar- 
riving looked calmly at the philo- 
sopher and began leisurely to ask 
him what the matter was. He re- 
plied that his shoulder was dis- 
located. The doctor wanted to 
know how it happened. The phi- 
losopher told him that he had slip- 
ped and fallen while he was walk- 
ing on the street. The doctor re- 
plied that this was impossible, 
since he had demonstrated that all 
motion is an absurdity. The phi- 
losopher, groaning with pain and 
impatience, bade the doctor hold 
his own tongue and make haste to 
set his shoulder. 

A clever classmate of the writer 
wrote for a college magazine an 
ingenious and humorous satire on 
transcendental philosophy. The 
hero of the piece was settled in a 
swamp, where he intended to found 
a university. To his wife, who 
complained of the abounding ver- 
min and insects, he gave the com- 
forting assurance that they were 
phenomena which had no real ex- 
istence but crept about in her own 
soul only. Nevertheless, he was 
very particular in requiring her to 



make the phenomena of his meals 
appear to him regularly three times 
a day. 

Material things impress their re- 
ality too vividly and constantly on 
the senses, and sensitive nature is 
too importunate in its demands, to 
suffer any practical doubt of their 
actual existence. Common sense 
is a great deal too strong to be 
disturbed in its empire by any sort 
of sophistry. The philosophical 
sceptic, in case he has no taste for 
grosser pleasures, is just as eager 
in amusing himself with blowing 
metaphysical soap-bubbles, in get- 
ting fame for himself, and in other- 
wise extracting as much enjoyment 
as possible out of life, as any other 
man. Those of the more common 
sort show no other practical effect 
of their scepticism in their lives 
than a greater eagerness in pursu- 
ing common objects, whether it be 
self-advancement, gain, or pleasure. 
It is only when there is question 
of duty, of the higher moral order, 
of the interests of the soul and of 
the future life, of the claims of re- 
ligion and the rights of God, that 
their scepticism becomes practical. 
It is turned into an excuse for ig- 
noring all these things, and distil- 
led into an opiate for the con- 
science. They pretend that they 
have no concern with the unknown 
and the unknowable. " Let us eat 
and drink, for' to-morrow we die," 
is their language. 

u We'll drink to-night 

With hearts as light, 
And hopes as gay and fleeting, 

As bubbles that swim 

On the beaker's brim, 
And break on the lips while meeting. ' 

To those who wish to live in the 
present only, and to live as they 
list, the dream-grotto theory is very 
acceptable. It seems hardly ne- 
cessary or worth while to treat it 
seriously, or to argue at all against 



The Reality of the World. 



579 



something so absurd as scepticism, 
which nobody can really and prac- 
tically 4 assent to as true or even 
possible. The answer of an emi- 
nent ecclesiastic to a doubter, who 
came to him for instruction, seems 
to be the only one appropriate. 
This doubting seeker after truth, 
who is now an excellent Catholic, 
when asked how far the doubt ex- 
tended, replied, that it went down 
even to the fact of the existence of 
anything whatsoever. The priest 
answered : " Well, let us take for 
granted that you exist." This was 
sound common sense. Scepticism 
is a disease of the mind, and the 
common saying that the cure for it 
" is not logic but hellebore " is one 
of the maxims whose wisdom is 
evident at first sight. There are 
certain primary facts and princi- 
ples, so immediately self-evident to 
every one who has consciousness 
and the use of reason, that they 
cannot be really doubted, because 
they compel assent. They must 
be assumed in every act of reason- 
ing, and are the starting-points of 
argument. One who from malice 
or levity refuses to admit them in 
words is unworthy of being taken 
any notice of or being reasoned 
with ; and is best answered by 
ridicule or a severe rebuke or by a 
contemptuous silence. " Answer 
a fool according to his folly," or 
else leave him to his folly without 
deigning to waste words on him. 
Nevertheless, when we go beyond 
a few primary facts and truths, 
doubt becomes possible, and a ne- 
gative or even positive scepticism 
can be quite real. Nor is it neces- 
sarily and always malicious that is, 
solely caused by the influence of 
wilful, obstinate, moral perverse- 
ness on the intellect. If we thought 
it to be always malicious, we would 
not expect to do any good to scep- 



tics by reasoning with them. It is a 
mental disease, but, like other inva- 
lids, those who are afflicted with this 
disorder may be more worthy of 
compassion than of blame. We 
call it a disease in so far as it is a 
habit of not assenting to rational 
evidence, a hesitancy in thought 
and belief, which is not a normal 
and healthful condition of mind 
such as is common to men whose 
faculties work naturally. Nega- 
tive or positive doubting, in respect 
to matters about which the mind 
lacks reasonable evidence, is not a 
disease but a defect. It proceeds 
from ignorance, and as a man of 
the soundest mind may be igno- 
rant of the Latin language, though 
it be necessary for him to know it 
in order to enter a profession which 
is desirable for him, so a man may 
be ignorant of important truths 
necessary to him that he may enter 
the Catholic Church. 

When we propose to remove all 
those doubts which are an obstacle 
to a clear conviction and belief of 
the first fundamental principles of 
the Catholic Church, we have to 
deal with those which proceed 
from both the causes above men- 
tioned. The doubts of ignorance 
are to be removed by presenting 
the truth with its rational evidence. 
But the mental malady of scepti- 
cism, if it exists in any mind, pre- 
vents it from giving a firm assent 
to this evidence. It is necessary, 
therefore, to apply a remedy to this 
disorder. And as pure air is a 
remedy for the feebleness caused 
by a want of pure air, and whole- 
some exercise for the bad effects of 
physical indolence, so the remedy 
for a sceptical habit of mind is to 
be applied, by exciting the mental 
faculties to a vigorous exercise upon 
concrete facts and abstract truths. 
These mental invalids have become 



- 580 



The Reality of the World. 



secluded from the realities of the 
world which is sensible and from 
those of the supersensible world, 
and are withdrawn into a dream- 
grotto. 

It may seem that it is in con- 
tradiction to our previous remarks 
to say that these doubters have 
Avithdrawn from the realities of the 
sensible world. But it is not. We 
do not say that they have with- 
drawn from all its realities. A 
grotto is a part of the world, al- 
though in common language a man 
who lives always in a grotto is said 
to have withdrawn from the world. 
Whatever it is that they are im- 
mersed in, belonging to the sensi- 
ble world, the sceptics who do not 
believe that "life is real, life is 
earnest," to whom all things appear 
as transient phenomena, have im- 
paired their sense of the substan- 
tial reality of even the visible 
world. What is most real to them 
is that which has the least reality 
in fact, and is like smoke as com- 
pared to solid rock. 

So, also, those who seem to re- 
gard an ideal world as more real 
than the visible world are, never- 
theless, secluded from the realities 
of the supersensible world ; for 
they are living in an imaginary 
sphere among dreams and spec- 
tres, and do not believe in the ac- 
tual heaven or hell. 

We think it useful and expedient 
to begin by showing the folly of 
that scepticism which questions the 
reality of the world that is, of the 
corporeal, sensible universe. "There 
is nothing in the intellect which is 
not first in sensitive cognition," is 
a sound maxim of the philosophy of 
Aristotle. The basis of knowledge 
is in self-consciousness and facts of 
sensible experience, and conscious- 
ness is awakened first by sensible 
impressions. And although the 



pure truths of the intellect are not 
dependent on the reality of the ex- 
ternal world, all other knowledge is 
so, and a large portion of the whole 
fabric of truth, morality, and religion 
both natural and revealed, is shak- 
en when this reality is questioned. 

We are not so foolish as to pro- 
fess to prove the reality of things 
by anything else more evident than 
itself. One who persists in deny- 
ing or doubting what is primary 
and underlies all knowledge cannot 
be reasoned with. He takes an 
utterly irrational position, and is 
either insincere or mad. We can 
do nothing with or for an incorrigi- 
ble sceptic, unless it be to pray for 
him. It is only with those who 
have some soundness of mind and 
sincerity of will, and are puzzled or 
perturbed by a sort of wavering 
and hesitancy in their mental acts 
of reflection upon truths which 
they cannot help assenting to in 
the direct acts of their mind, that 
we can hope to have any success. 
And with these we can only pro- 
ceed in the way of affirming to 
them what they must assent to 
as evident in itself without proof, 
and afterwards arguing from this 
self-evident truth to show the folly 
and absurdity of notions and opin- 
ions which conflict with it directly, 
or conflict with necessary inferen- 
ces drawn from it by logical reason- 
ing. 

Let us begin by asking, who it is, 
on the dream-grotto theory, that is 
the dreamer. Is it you, or I, or 
Mr. Carlyle, or some one else ? 
Did he write the Sartor Resartus 
which I remember reading forty 
years ago, or did I dream it? 
Was it Kant, or Fichte, or Hegel, 
or David Hume who spun scepti-, 
cal theories in a dream, and dream- 
ed that he was a great philosopher, 
and published books and gained 



The Reality of the World. 



fame and disciples, or am I dream- 
ing all this now, or are you dream- 
ing that you are reading this page, 
and which one of you all is it that 
has the dream, and has dreamed 
everything which seems to have ex- 
isted in past history and to be now 
existing ? Each one of us must take 
himself, at all events, for granted; 
and if he whimsically relegate all 
tilings else to the condition of spec- 
tres and phantasms of a dream, 
must hold himself to be at least a 
real and very ingenious dreamer. 
You profess to doubt the reality of 
things external to yourself. What 
and how far do you doubt ? An- 
swer this question in any way you 
can think of, and you affirm that 
you think, and therefore that you 
exist, at least as a dreamer, in a 
boundless phantasmagoria, and are 
moreover half awake, since you 
suspect that you are dreaming. 
You have at least countless phan- 
tasms in your imagination ; and if 
you are the cause and author of them 
all ; if you have painted the picture 
of the heavens and the earth, of 
cities and cathedrals, of mountains, 
lakes, and valleys ; if you have in- 
vented all the books you have ever 
read, and fancied all the persons 
you have ever seen ; you are a very 
wonderful being, something more 
than a genius. 

Alas ! poor cogitator, cover over 
this page, and you cannot create 
the next sentence which follows the 
present one. You are dependent 
on something outside of your own 
consciousness, of your intellect, 
and of your will. The paper and 
type you see before you present 
to your mind certain signs, repre- 
senting thoughts of my intellect, 
which my will determines me to 
communicate to you. You open a 
book of history, and your mind be- 
comes filled with new images of 



events and persons hitherto un- 
known to it. You give the same 
book to another person, your own 
child, perhaps, who reads it unwill- 
ingly because you command him to 
do it. You examine him upon his 
lesson, and you find that his mind 
has received the same impressions. 
You listen to a great orator, as, for 
instance, Father Burke or Wendell 
Phillips. Your mind and imagi- 
nation are borne up, without effort 
on your part, to a region of thought 
and imagery and sentiment far 
above that to which you are capa- 
ble of soaring by your own unaided 
powers. You take a journey or a 
voyage, and behold new countries, 
cities, buildings, people, works of 
art, which you could not represent 
to yourself precisely in the same 
way by any effort of your own, if 
you took an imaginary journey in 
your own room at home. You 
read a newspaper which tells of 
Sisters of Charity going in the face 
of almost certain death to nurse 
the sick with yellow fever, and you 
recognize a virtue which you feel 
to be altogether superior to that 
which you are conscious of possess- 
ing. You read another account 
of the revolting murder of " Stutter- 
ing Jack " by a woman and her ac- 
complice, and how, as they drove 
along with their wretched victim's 
body packed up for sale to a dis- 
sector, they heard a " blubbering in 
the barrel " behind them ; and you 
have a new idea, which fills you 
with shuddering horror, of human 
depravity and human misery, com- 
pletely foreign to anything in your 
own consciousness. You are un- 
able to sleep at night, and in your 
closet are two vials, one contain- 
ing bromide of potassium, the other 
strychnine. A tablespoonful of 
the one will give you a quiet and 
refreshing slumber, a small dose of 



582 



The Reality of the World. 



the other will put you to sleep for 
ever. 

If any one who has not al- 
together stifled his conscience will 
consult that inward monitor, it will 
tell him that his good or evil acts 
towards others are the fulfilment of 
duty or the commission of crime in 
respect to real beings, and his use 
or abuse of external things morally 
right or morally wrong. It is im- 
possible to divest of its real guilt 
the ruin of the innocent, the theft 
of another's goods, calumny against 
the neighbor, ingratitude to parents, 
cruelty to children, treason to one's 
country, perfidy in office, oppres- 
sion of the poor and weak, the taking 
away of life, or any other kind of 
criminal conduct. It is equally 
impossible to divest good actions 
of their moral excellence. 

The entire intellectual and moral 
nature of each individual person, 
therefore, compels his assent to 
the reality of a world distinct from 
and external to himself, and filled 
with beings towards which he is in 
manifold and necessary relations a 
world of which he makes a part, 
and from which he cannot make 
himself independent. 

Sophists have attemped to puz- 
zle the minds of the simple by a 
captious objection against our cer- 
tain knowledge of the reality of 
outward things, derived from the 
illusions of dreams. It is very easy 
to show how futile this objection 
is. Dreams can be accounted for 
by a sufficient cause. They occur 
when we are asleep. They are 
shadows and reminiscences of wak- 
ing life, or capricious inventions 
of the fantasy working on images 
which are stored up in its secret re- 
ceptacle. They are disconnected, 
contradictory, bizarre, and judged 
to be unreal by reason when it is 
in its normal state. One is certain 



that he was lying still, and asleep 
in his bed, while he fancied himself 
engaged in all sorts of actions and 
amid all kinds of scenes. If an- 
other person watches in the room 
while he is dreaming, this person is 
a witness to the fact that he was 
lying still, perhaps muttering in- 
coherently or talking in his sleep. 
The dreamer who fancies himself 
invested with the insignia of royal- 
ty wakes up in his bed-gown. The 
one who fancies a water-kelpie 
was dragging him under the waves, 
or a wild bull chasing him between 
two narrowing walls, or a bear sit- 
ting on his breast, wakes up to find 
that his room is full of gas from a 
half-open burner, or his head under 
the clothes, or that he has incurred 
an asphyxia from indigestion or a 
constrained position of the body, 
or a want of oxygen in the air of 
his bed-chamber. If he fancies he 
has been shot or fallen down a 
precipice, or is going to be stabbed 
by an assassin standing over him 
with a dagger in his hand, he 
awakes in terror to find himself un- 
hurt, or slightly injured by some 
trivial accident. When the morn- 
ing light comes he laughs at the 
terrors of the night before, and re- 
counts his dreams to his companions 
for their amusement. If they also 
have had dreams, each one has had 
his own. There is no agreement 
in the dreams of different persons, 
and no accordance with the things 
and events of real, waking life. 

The writer of this was reading 
the other day .Mrs. Whitney's vivid 
description of the burning of the 
Charlestown convent, where this 
lady, then a little girl named 
Louisa Goddard, was a pupil. She 
tells how, as she was lying awake 
and half-dressed in her dormitory, 
expecting that something was going 
to happen that night, she heard the 



The Reality of the World. 



533 



fierce yell of the band of rioters at 
a distance, as they crossed the Char- 
lestown bridge. One might dream 
something of this kind, and awake 
with terror, unable to determine 
whether it were a fancied or a real 
cry which had startled him out of 
sleep. If it were a mere dream, 
nothing would occur in the real 
world to confirm and attest its 
reality. This was no dream, and 
\ve read on presently to find how 
the graphic narrator describes the 
scenes of that night and the par- 
ticulars of her own escape, after 
more than forty years have elapsed 
since they occurred. We know 
that these events are recorded in 
history and believed by all men as 
facts. We ourselves remember 
having seen the convent before its 
destruction, having read of its de- 
struction in the papers at the time, 
and having often since then looked 
upon the blackened ruins, a monu- 
ment of the shame of Massachu- 
setts. The phantasmagoria of the 
dream-grotto have no resemblance 
to such hard facts as these. We 
have lately read that Mr. Carlyle, 
whose genius v/e have always ad- 
mired, has taken to saying the 
Lord's Prayer at night, because he 
is old and sick and sleepless. He 
says he finds comfort in it, and we 
hope he may find more, and find 
the truth and grace of God to be 
as real, as the miseries of dcubt 
and old age force every one who 
has experience of them to know 
that they are real. And we advise 
every one who finds that he is get- 
ting tired of the dismal amusement 
of phantasmagoria to copy Mr. 
Carlyle's example. 

The hallucinations of insanity 



one is insane on a different line. 
Coleridge's parable of a universal 
lapse into lunacy caused by a rain 
which fell on all men except one, 
who, soon finding that it was vain 
to be sane in a world of madmen, 
washed himself in a pool of this 
rain-water ; is an ingenious fiction 
which shows how absurd is the 
sceptical hypothesis. Insanity can- 
not be a natural and universal 
condition. Each lunatic thinks 
every lunatic insane except himself. 
The remnant of reason shows itself 
by continuing to assert its normal 
rights and remembering what its 
natural condition is. There is no 
agreement and consistency between 
the individual hallucinations of the 
insane. They cannot form a soci- 
ety. They have no conscience, no 
sufficient control over themselves, 
and are regarded by moralists and 
lawgivers as irresponsible. When 
we are inquiring into the intel- 
lectual and moral nature of man ; 
and examining into the value of the 
dictates of common sense, reason 
and conscience, about the reality of 
things; it is silly to consider a man 
who is asleep, or delirious with fever, 
or injured in the organs of sensi- 
tive cognition which must concur 
to the right use of the intellectual 
faculties, as a proper subject. We 
do not select a water-logged vessel, 
or a rent balloon, or a horse with a 
broken leg, if we wish to make ex- 
periments in sailing, aeronautics, or 
racing. We do not take a blind 
man's experience about visible ob- 
jects, or interrogate the deaf about 
music, or ask the plan of a cam- 
paign from a Quaker milkmaid. 
Neither should we consider the 
deficient and abnormal conditions 



are on the same level with those of or operations of the human mind, 



dreamland. They are accounted 
for by the disordered state of the 
brain and nervous system. Each 



when it is not in the possession and 
exercise of reason and volition, as 
any criterion of the truth of the 



584 



The Reality of the World. 



judgments which the intellect of 
man makes about the reality of 
things when it acts rightly. 

Enough has been said to show 
that it is contrary to common sense 
and to reason to pretend, that the 
individual who perceives that which 
by a natural necessity he judges to 
be a reality external to himself, 
makes it all out of his own head. 
If any reader still cannot see that 
he receives from without ideas 
wholly surpassing the power of his 
intellect to create, and impressions 
wholly beyond the agency of his 
own will to produce or to prevent, 
and that therefore he is subject to 
the action of causes completely 
distinct from himself, and cannot 
be the cause of these effects, we 
give him up as a hopeless case. 
If a piece of the ceiling should 
happen to fall on his head and 
hurt him very much, let him not 
mind it, for it is no matter. 

We trust that our readers have 
some common sense, and will ad- 
mit that every effect must have an 
adequate cause. If this is true, 
and the phenomena of the out- 
ward world are not caused by the 
intellect or will of the individual 
who perceives them, they have an 
adequate cause outside of himself. 
Are they an illusion ? If so, the 
illusion is produced by some being 
who has power to produce the 
phenomena and also to compel the 
assent of the mind to their reality. 

Some persons have been haunt- 
ed by the fancy that the whole ap- 
parent world is an illusion produc- 
ed by some powerful and malig- 
nant genius. This is nothing but 
a nightmare in the daytime. It 
may be accounted for by the fact 
that these persons had metaphysi- 
cal minds and lively imaginations, 
and had not been taught anything 
better than the wretched philoso- 



phy which was prevalent in the 
eighteenth century. False meta- 
physical notions, inconsistent with 
common sense and the realities of 
the world, breed sceptical theories 
from which the imagination manu- 
factures such ridiculous phantoms 
as this one of the " powerful and 
malignant genius." 

Dr. Newman tells us that in his 
boyhood he sometimes fancied that 
an angel was making everything ap- 
pear to him for his amusement, and 
that he would wake up some time 
and find out that it was all "the base- 
less fabric of a vision." This was the 
more pleasant day-dream of a child 
of genius. To treat such fancies 
seriously may seem like making a 
trip by daylight into dreamland. 
As well make a serious analysis 
of Alice in Wonderland and prove 
the unreasonableness of regarding 
the adventures of that mythical lit- 
tle girl as historically true, as argue 
seriously upon such childish fan- 
tasies. But although wise men, 
like St. Paul, " put away childish 
things " with their juvenile age, it 
is not the case with all those who 
pass for sages in the world. All 
sceptical philosophy is foolishness, 
and we cannot reason those who 
are deluded by it out of their fool- 
ish notions, except by showing up 
their folly. We need not go back 
upon ground already passed over, 
and prove that we all who are con- 
scious of our existence really exist 
and think and act, and are acted 
upon by a multitude of beings dis- 
tinct from ourselves. If the world 
is a dream-grotto, and all sensible 
phenomena are only a boundless 
phantasmagoria, at least there are 
many dreamers and we are all hav- 
ing the. same dream. If the judg- 
ment we naturally make that these 
phenomena have substantial reality 
lying under them is an illusion, it is 



The Reality of the World. 



585 



the common illusion of all mankind. 
It has a common and universal cause. 
The hypothesis of a powerful and 
malignant genius, and that of a 
powerful and benignant genius, 
each supposes a real being who is 
producing all the sensible phenome- 
na of the exterior world. It sup- 
poses also as many real subjects of 
the illusion as there are individuals 
who have self-consciousness and 
the knowledge of sensible pheno- 
mena or apparent realities. It 
supposes, moreover, that the phe- 
nomena themselves have some 
kind of objective reality. The 
phenomena are not the very being 
who produces them, nor are they 
ourselves who perceive them. 
They are at least phenomena, if 
nothing more. They must have 
an adequate cause, and the ques- 
tion now considered is, What is that 
cause? We do not mean, what is 
the first cause of all beings, but what 
is the immediate cause of the impres- 
sions made on our senses and of the 
judgment which every human mind 
naturally makes that these impres- 
sions proceed from real and mate- 
rial things? Those philosophers 
who deny the real existence of cor- 
poreal substances are called ideal- 
ists. They maintain that the only 
real world is the world of spirits 
and ideas. What we regard as the 
world of matter and of bodies they 
profess to regard as an illusion or 
mere appearance, an image exist- 
ing for each one in his own mind. 
The chief one among these who 
has written in English is Berke- 
ley. It is plain that one who main- 
tains this theory must suppose that 
some spiritual being who is supe- 
rior in nature to men is the cause 
of the image which every man has. 
in his mind and naturally refers to 
a real object existing in nature. 
When we all see the sun in the 



heavens, either we see it because it 
is there and makes itself visible to 
us who have the seeing faculty, 
through the real light which it 
radiates, or some other being makes 
us seem to see it by impressing an 
image in our minds. Some, who 
do not deny the reality of the ma- 
terial world, nevertheless assert 
that we do not certainly know its 
reality by a natural knowledge ; 
and if they are believers in revela- 
tion, they maintain that we know 
this only by faith in the word of 
God. These deniers or doubt- 
ers of the certainty of knowledge 
coming to us through the senses 
generally range themselves among 
the disciples of the great Grecian phi- 
losopher, Plato. Plato, however, 
never denied or questioned the 
reality of matter. On the contra- 
ry, he always affirmed it positively. 
He undervalued the body and all 
material things very much, and he 
thought that the human soul could 
never attain the highest truth, or 
reach the state of real and lasting- 
good, except by freeing itself from 
the senses, the body, and all con- 
tact with matter, and rising into 
the ideal and spiritual world. He 
distinguished the imperfect know- 
ledge which comes through the 
senses, from the pure and immedi- 
ate intuition of necessary and eter- 
nal truth by the mind. The first 
he called by the name of opinion. 
Yet, he did not mean by this that 
we have only an uncertain guess 
at the reality of material substance. 
He only meant that ideal know- 
ledge is of a higher order of cer- 
tainty. Those who have followed 
him, some of whom have been be- 
lievers in revelation, or even good 
Catholics, have thrown dust in their 
own eyes and in the eyes of others 
by a false spirituality. They have 
undervalued the body as an essential 



586 



The Reality of the World. 



part of human nature, underval- 
ued the senses and sensitive cog- 
nition, undervalued the material 
and corporeal world. 

The theories of philosophers, no 
matter ho\v great their genius and 
learning may have been, are 
worthless and deserve no respect, 
unless they are in agreement with 
common sense and with the princi- 
ples and deductions of that reason 
which all men possess as a natural 
gift. Philosophers are not of a 
higher nature than other men. 
They have no special fctculties of 
their own. If they have genius and 
an unusual amount of learning, 
they can, by making a right and 
diligent use of reason, attain a 
superior degree of intelligence 
and knowledge ; so as to be able 
to teach the great mass of man- 
kind a vast amount which they 
could never have learned by their 
own efforts without the aid of 
these master minds. They have 
no authority, however, except as 
credible witnesses in respect to 
facts, to command the assent of the 
mind to anything which they can- 
not prove to be true by sound and 
convincing arguments. There is a 
criterion and test of truth in hu- 
man nature. There are certain 
and unerring principles of reason, 
and there is a natural logic, ac- 
cording to which the common and 
universal judgments of men pro- 
ceed with a security which no 
sophistry can shake. One of these 
common and universal judgments 
is, that the material world really 
exists. This judgment is a dictate 
of nature and of the Author of 
nature. Whoever pretends that 
this is a false judgment must as- 
sert that it is caused by an illusion 
produced by a being who has ab- 
solute power over human nature. 
It is absurd to ascribe such power 



to any except the Supreme Being, 
the author and lord of nature. 
This will be proved more explicit- 
ly when we proceed to demonstrate 
the existence of God. It is con- 
trary to the veracity of God, which 
is one of his essential perfections, 
to suppose that he would produce 
an illusion which appears to be a 
reality, and determine the rational 
nature of man to make a judgment 
by its own necessary laws that this 
illusion is a reality. It is equally 
contrary to the veracity of God to 
suppose, that he would determine 
human reason to judge with abso- 
lute certainty that the material 
world really exists, when this real- 
ity is something actually unknow- 
able, and can only be unerringly cer- 
tified to the human intellect by a 
divine revelation. No power less 
than infinite could delude all man- 
kind completely and universally. 
Infinite power belongs only to God. 
It is morally impossible that God 
should exercise his power in this 
way. There is no cause and suffi- 
cient reason, therefore, which can 
be thought of, why the common 
sense of mankind judges that the 
material world really exists, except- 
ing this, that bodies are truly pre- 
sented to the mind and made 
known to it through sensible cog- 
nition. 

Some one may say that this 
judgment of the real existence of 
bodies is not universal and neces- 
sary. Berkeley and some others 
have professed that they did not 
concur in this judgment. We re- 
ply that, even supposing that some 
may bring themselves to a real dis- 
sent from this judgment, or to a 
positive doubt of its certitude, this 
proves nothing against the common 
consent of mankind and the first, 
spontaneous dictate of reason. 
Such persons go against nature, 



The Reality of the World. 



587 









and they have perverted their own 
minds. We do not admit, however, 
that it is possible to withhold real 
assent to the actual existence of 
material objects. Those who have 
read iinderstandingly or are able to 
read and understand Dr. Newman's 
Grammar of Assent may find ex- 
plained in that masterly essay the 
difference between " real and no- 
tional assent." Bishop Berkeley 
may have given a speculative or 
notional assent to his own specious 
reasonings. But, when he wished 
to read of an evening, he lighted 
his lamp, selected his book, drew 
his chair near a comfortable fire, 
put on his spectacles, and went on 
like- any other man, taking things 
for granted. He bequeathed his 
library to Yale College, and found- 
ed a " Berkeleian premium " for 
future competitors among the stu- 
dents, with as much confidence in 
those phenomena as if he had not 
disproved their reality. Nature 
and common sense are too much" 
for any man's speculative notions, 
and if a spark from the fire snaps 
out on the hand of an idealist, he 
will shake it off as quickly as the 
most realistic ignoramus who dozes 
in the chimney corner after his 
da^'s work. 

It may possibly occur to the 
mind of some reader that, in the 
belief of Catholics, an illusion of 
the senses is produced in the mira- 
cle of tran substantiation. If we 
should concede that this is true, 
there would be no real difficulty 
in answering an objection, derived 
from this concession, against our 
argument. The objection would 
be, that if God, in this instance, 
produces an illusion by which the 
senses are completely deceived, and 
by which we should necessarily be 
led to a false judgment if we did 
not know what faith teaches re- 



specting the Blessed Eucharist, he 
might do the same tiling in regard 
to the entire world of sensible 
phenomena. The inference, how- 
ever, is false. For, in this instance, 
God prevents our being deceived, 
by a special revelation. By the 
very supposition, transubstantia- 
tion is a unique and extraordinary 
miracle, wrought for a special and 
important end. And when the 
Author of nature determines to de- 
rogate from the laws of nature to 
produce this admirable mystery, he 
carefully forewarns those for whose 
benefit he will work the miracle, of 
that which he is about to perform. 
It is not, however, really any 
part of the belief of Catholics that 
there is any illusion of the senses 
in transubstantiation. This is 
only a private opinion of some 
persons, whereas St. Thomas and 
the greater number of theologians 
maintain that whatever the senses 
seem to perceive in the sacramen- 
tal species actually does exist in 
an objective reality. That is, they 
maintain the objective reality of 
the sacramental species, which are 
accidents of the substances of 
bread and wine before consecra- 
tion, and are sustained in their sen- 
sible quantity and quality by a mi- 
racle, after the change of substance 
has been effected by the consecra- 
tion. Miraculous power is requi- 
site that the sensible phenomena of 
bread and wine may remain when 
those substances are no longer 
present. A divine revelation is 
requisite in order to give a reason- 
able motive for believing that the 
substances' are not present when 
our senses perceive the phenomena. 
The Catholic belief, therefore, only 
confirms the dictate of reason, that 
in the nature of things the phe- 
nomena which are apprehended by 
the senses make known to the in- 



588 



The Reality of the World. 



tellect the presence of material 
substances, which underlie and sup- 
port them, and in which they in- 
here. 

We may now resume, briefly, what 
has been proved, as follows : There 
must be a sufficient reason of the 
representations of outward, bodily 
things which come before the mind. 
These must be caused by the sub- 
ject of the representation himself, 
or by a being who has absolute 
control over nature, or by the pre- 
sence of real objects perceived 
through the senses. They cannot 
be 'caused by the subject. The 
rational subject, that is, man, could 
only cause these representations by 
his intellect or his will. But expe- 
rience teaches us that the intellect 
is determined by external causes 
superior to itself in forming or re- 
ceiving ideas of external objects, 
or receiving through these exter- 
nal representations ideas of a high- 
er order, which it cannot possibly 
create within itself. It cannot be 
the will, for the will also is subject 
to impressions which give pain or 
pleasure, and which the soul is 
conscious of being unable to pro- 
duce or prevent by its own volun- 
tary effort or free choice. 

These impressions cannot be 
caused by an immediate influence 
of a higher power in the soul. For 
a being possessed of this power 
must be the supreme author and 
lord of all nature, most perfect be- 
ing in himself, that is, God ; and it 
is impossible that God should be 
the author of illusion, falsehood, 
universal, natural, and necessary 
deception and error, in the judg- 
ments of human reason. 

It follows, therefore, that the 
sufficient reason why external ob- 
jects are represented to the mind 
through the senses as really exist- 
ing is their real existence. 



The foregoing arguments are not 
at all necessary in order to make 
certain the reality of the world. 
Perhaps some of our readers may 
find them not easy to be under- 
stood, and may wonder why we 
should argue the point at all. There 
is no need of any one who is not 
troubled by the nightmare of 
doubt making any effort to under- 
stand them, if he lias not the incli- 
nation and ability to do so. We 
do not find out our own existence 
and the reality of the world around 
us by studying logic and metaphy- 
sics. Very few have any call or 
opportunity for engaging in such 
studies. Human nature is furnish- 
ed with a natural logic and a facul- 
ty for acquiring what natural phi- 
losophy is really necessary for the 
purposes of life, by those means 
which are within the common reach. 
The instruction begins in the nur- 
sery, it is carried on during the 
occupations and sports of childhood, 
and continued in real, practical 
life afterwards. Philosophers only 
reflect upon and arrange into a 
system of methodical science what 
is implicitly known and possessed 
in its elements, and more or less 
clearly and distinctly understood 
in a common-sense way, by men in 
general. We all know that we 
have each one of us his own body, 
as a part of our very self, by self- 
consciousness, and sensation, and 
experience. We know that other 
bodies exist by our perception of 
the very bodies themselves. This 
knowledge is so clear and certain, 
that the common way of expressing 
the most clear and certain know- 
ledge of anything or any truth is 
by saying, it is just as it" we saw it 
with our own eyes, or could handle 
it with our hands. If we have ar- 
gued, therefore, against the doubt 
or denial of the reality of the 



The Reality of the World. 



589 



world, it has only been to show 
how foolish and self-contradictory 
it is, and for the sake of clearing 
away cobwebs from the inward 
mirror of the sceptic, so that: it 
may reflect more clearly and dis- 
tinctly those realities whose ideal 
images he has suffered to become 
confused and dim. 

But let us be done now once for 
all with these cobwebs of scepti- 
cism, and sweep them away with 
the dead or living spiders who have 
spun them, into the receptacle for 
intellectual trash and rubbish. We 
take for granted that our readers 
are awake and at least willing to 
be convinced that the great world 
of reality surrounding us, and in 
part visible to our sight, is intelli- 
gible. If they can hope to obtain 
a true understanding of this great 
reality, and thus bring their own 
intellect and reason into conformi- 
ty with the actual being and nature 
of things, we must suppose that 
they are willing and desirous to 
make the effort, that is, to try to 
find the truth. 

Truth, as a quality of our own 
thoughts, is the agreement of our 
thoughts with things as they are. 
Truth in the things themselves is 
nothing more than their reality 
considered in one aspect, as facing 
our thoughts. Finding the truth 
is simply bringing our mind and 
thoughts into the just contact with 
reality. A man finds a hidden 
treasure when he reaches it by the 
sight of his eye and the grasp of 
his hand. The mind appropriates 
and takes possession by receiving 
into itself ideally the realities which 
it contemplates. This is, in other 
words, to bring the intellect and 
reason into conformity with the ac- 
tual being and nature of things. 
When we search for truth, we look 
for reality. The reality being 



found, the search is over. The 
reality which has matter at the 
bottom of its actual existence, ' 
either as its only foundation or as 
an essential part of its foundation, 
is what is generally called nature. 
It is this of which we have all 
along been speaking. And we say 
that it manifests its right to be, and 
makes known that it has a sufficient 
reason for being what it is, simply 
by showing itself as a reality. Na- 
ture is to be accepted for what it 
is. It is objective truth, it is in 
conformity with its own intrinsic 
principles and laws. 

Man is a corporeal being. The 
body with its senses and organic 
structure is in the essence of hu- 
man nature. It is idle speculation 
to go back of birth and conception 
for the origin of any individual, 
and fancy that the spirit existed in 
the previous ideal state of which 
Plato dreamed. It is idle to fancy 
that bodily existence is a mishap, a 
punishment, a degradation. It is 
futile and fanciful to go behind the 
beginning of sensitive and intellec- 
tual apprehension of realities, and 
of self-consciousness arising in the 
complex action of sense and intel- 
lect together, at the beginning of 
our human life; for the origin of 
our ideas. Equally vain and de- 
lusive is all effort to get rid of the 
sensible world, or to undervalue it 
as a kind of makeshift, a necessary 
evil, or a rude and t transient mid- 
dle thing between nothing and real 
being. 

We open our eyes at the begin- 
ning of our conscious life upon the 
visible world. The human mind 
has been inquiring into its won- 
ders and secrets ever since the hu- 
man race has existed. It has 
never come to the end of its search, 
but, on the contrary, the more it- 
searches the more extensive does 



5 9 o 



The Reality of the World. 



the field of search show itself to 
be. It is impossible to fix any 
definite limits to the material uni- 
verse. We know that it is so vast 
in extent, that our faculty of com- 
puting is baffled, and our faculty 
of imagining falls far behind our 
inadequate computations. To our 
mind and imagination it is as if it 
were infinite, for it transcends any 
distinct conception of finite extent 
and number which is possible to 
our limited faculties. What has 
been discovered and can be known 
is so great in its amount, that no 
one mind, however capacious, can 
acquire and contain all physical 
science, even though a long life- 
time should be devoted to contin- 
ual study. Moreover, we cannot 
find out by scientific investigation 
when it began to exist, or trace its 
successive changes back to their 
starting-point. Neither can we 
discover any sufficient reason why 
it should ever come to an end and 
cease to exist. We can perceive 
that there is a relation and connec- 
tion between all its parts, and that 
it is governed by fixed and uniform 
laws. Order prevails through all 
its realms. If we confine our atten- 
tion to our own globe, we find that 
nature and art present so great an 
extent and variety of real being to 
the mind, that it is impossible to 
grasp the whole, or more than a 
small part, of what can be known ; 
and that beyond the known and 
the knowable there is an indefi- 
nite region of the practically undis- 
coverable. Aside from the realm 
of natural science, the history of 
the human race presents a reality 
which is vast and complicated. 
Not only the whole past history of 
the world, but that which in the 
present is continually becoming 
real, and adding to the great sum 
of being, surpasses our power of 
comprehension. The events of one 



hour present a sum of reality as 
truly beyond our power of enumera- 
tion as those of all time. Eacli 
human being is a little world in 
himself, within which wonders are 
occurring and transactions taking 
place every moment which baffle 
observation and transcend know- 
ledge. The brain carries on its 
mysterious work, the heart beats, 
the blood circulates, the body is 
taking down and rebuilding iis 
structure, the earth is turning on 
its axis, and revolving with the 
planets around the sun, which con- 
tinues the elaboration of light and 
heat in a way which science cannot 
explain. The sun of our system 
and the other stars are proceeding 
in their incalculable orbits, work- 
ing out an insoluble problem of 
secular movements. There is a 
force, a power, a sufficient reason, 
a law, a principle of causality, a 
reality in the external world, which 
is simply overwhelming. It forces 
itself upon us, it subdues and over- 
awes us, it submerges us in its 
infinitude and bears us on its ir- 
resistible current, and spreads its 
boundless expanse around us. The 
little / is only a unit in the multi- 
tude, a dot in the expanse of uni- 
versal being. This little conscious, 
thinking / may assert its reality, 
but that which it thinks has in- 
finitely more reality than the 
thinker. The thinker is one real 
being, but the universe is a world 
of beings, with an extent of reality, 
and a real multitude, which in- 
finitely exceed his limited and 
minute capacity of thought. If lie 
has any real thought and any know- 
ledge, it has come to him from this 
great world of reality. And if he 
would know more, he must learn 
the lessons of Nature, interrogate 
the law, the power, the reason, the 
supreme cause from which the be- 
ing and order of Nature depend. 



Jasmin. 



591 



JASMIN. 



HALF way between Toulouse and 
Bordeaux is the old town of A gen 
on the Garonne, in a beautiful am- 
phitheatre of low hills covered with 
vines and plum-trees. The broad, 
monotonous plain through which 
the river flows at Montauban 
here contracts into a mere valley, 
but it is of wonderful fertility, and 
happily varied with all that can 
please the eye. The windings of 
the river, fringed by osiers and 
poplars, may be traced to a great 
distance. All through the hills are 
pretty villages like birds' nests 
among the foliage, each one with 
its history, legends, and poetic cus- 
toms. To the north are the high- 
lands of the Limousin. At The 
south are the hills of Armagnac, 
beyond which may be seen the 
amethystine summits of the Pyre- 
nees bordering the horizon. On 
one side of the town is the steep 
hill of the Hermitage, strewn with 
coquettish villas and crowned with 
the picturesque convent of the 
Carmelite friars, on the spot where 
the early Christians of A gen con- 
fessed the faith in torments, and 
where, long after, the Huguenots, 
as usual, left ruined altars and 
empty tombs of long-honored saints. 
At the foot of this mount is the 
great highway from Bordeaux to 
Toulouse, and crossing this is an- 
other road to Spain. Along these 
have successively swept Romans, 
Visigoths, Vandals, Huns, Franks, 
Moors, Normans, and English. 
Three bridges span the Garonne, 
besides the enormous arches that 
support the Canal du Midi, thirty 
yards above the current, like one 
river above another a work worthy 




of the old Romans. Jasmin sings 
the Gareno criimouzo and the valley 
of Agen : 

" Dark Garonne, 
Freshen banks ; 
Joyous waters 
Laughing in the valley, 
Flowery fields ; 
Sunny heights : 
A hidden Paradise.' 

The town of Agen itself, though 
it has some striking features, is not 
particularly attractive. The streets 
are for the most part narrow and 
paved with stones torturing to the 
feet, but, like all southern towns, 
teeming with out-of-door life that 
affords a fine study of manners. 
There is, however, one broad thor- 
oughfarethe Gravier the favor- 
ite promenade of the inhabitants, 
shaded by trees beneath which 
Jasmin loved to wander and dream. 
Going up this street from the Ga- 
ronne, you come to the Place St. 
Antoino, where stands the bronze 
statue of the poet, and a little be- 
yond, at the right, is a small house 
with a balcony where for so many 
years he lived and practised his 
profession as a barber. 

Jasmin, the Burns of southern 
France, was born at Agen in Feb- 
uary, 1799.* His real name was 
Jacques Boe. Like many other 
French writers, the name he im- 
mortalized was not that of his 
forefathers. Moliere and Vol- 
taire were assumed names. Fonte- 
nelle's was Lebouvier. Volney's 
was Chassebceuf. Boileau always 
wished to be called Despreaux. 
Jasmin, however, did not assume 
his name. It was a sobriquet given 

* For many of the details of Jasmin's life we are 
indebted to M. Rabain's Jasmin, sa l r i e e t 
CEuvres. 



592 



Jasmin. 



his grandfather, but the poet ren- 
dered it not only glorious but 
dear to his children. Like Beran- 
ger, he was the son of a tailor. 
His father could not read, but he 
had a turn for rhyme, and one of 
the poet's earliest recollections was 
of hearing him, as he sat by the 
window patching old coats, sing a 
song he had composed for a chari- 
vari in thirty-two couplets. He did 
not earn much at his trade. His 
wife was a laundress, but had a 
cceur (for, as the French say. In 
spite of their industry they were 
very poor. The old grandfather 
used to go around begging, and, 
when unable to keep about, went, 
like all the members of the house 
of Boe, to die at the hospital. At 
the age of seven Jacques, with a 
paper hat on his head and a horn 
in his hand, used to go with his 
father to the charivaris, so popular 
in this region. In the summer, 
barefooted and bareheaded, he 
would go, with a crust from his 
grandfather's wallet, to gather fa- 
gots on the banks of the Gareno 
crumouzo. These, with his pranks 
in his neighbor's gardens and his 
feats around the fires of St. John's 
Eve, were the great events of his 
childhood. He saw his grandfa- 
ther go away every morning, wallet 
in hand, and return every evening 
with it filled with bread, but he 
never imagined it acquired by alms. 
He welcomed him with joy, for the 
old man always selected the softest 
pieces for his favorite grandchild. 
But the time came when his grand- 
father went away never to return. 
We will give Jasmin's own account 
of it : 

" It was Monday. I had just fin- 
ished my tenth year. We were at 
play, and I was king. All at once 
an unexpected sight appeared to 
trouble my royalty. It was an old 



man seated on a willow chair car- 
ried by two porters ! O my God ! 
what do I see? It is my grand- 
father, my old grandfather, sur- 
rounded by his family. In my 
consternation I only see him. I 
rush to cover him with kisses. 
For the first time he wept as he 
embraced me. ' What makes you 
weep, grandfather? Why are you 
going away? Where are you go- 
ing?' 'My son, to the hospital. 
It is there the Jasmins go to die.' 
He embraced me once more, and 
went on, closing his blue eyes. We 
followed him a long time beneath 
the trees. Five days after my grand- 
father was no more, and I alas ! 
what a mortification that Monday 
I knew we were poor." 

Yes, the Jasmins were poor. 
They lived in a little old room 
pierced by every wind. Three 
beds in rags, a buffet often threat- 
ened by bailiffs, a jar, two cracked 
earthen pots, a wooden dish notch- 
ed at the edge, a bench, some old 
coats and a bundle of patches 
showing the father was the tailor 
of the poor, a candlestick covered 
with drippings, a frameless look- 
ing-glass fastened to the wall by 
three nails, four half-worn-out 
chairs, a wallet suspended from a 
hook such was the home of nine 
persons. 

Many who knew Jasmin at the 
time of his greatest success, when 
he was borne in triumph by the 
crowd electrified by his genius, 
thought he purposely deepened 
the shadows of his early life in 
order to excite sympathy; but it 
was not so. The household was 
more destitute than the poor are 
in these days, when charitable or- 
ganizations of all kinds abound. 
And his was the poorest branch 
of the family. Some of the other 
members, without being rich, were 



Jasmin. 



593 



above want. One bad even risen 
to be a schoolmaster at Agen. 
He offered to receive Jacques gra- 
tuitously, and teach him to read 
and write. The mother was over- 
joyed at such a piece of good luck 
for her child, and ransacked the 
house to find the whitest and least- 
patched garments for him to wear 
at school. The father wept. He 
hoped his son would soon be able 
to write down his songs for the 
charivaris. He little thought his 
son would one day write poems 
that would be crowned by the 
French Academy and be sold by 
thousands. However, he and his 
wife both felt that the boy's ad- 
mission to the school was a bless- 
ing from heaven. There he could 
learn t<D read, not only in French 
but the Psalms of David in Latin, 
and to cipher in the four simple 
rules. 

Jacques applied himself so well 
that he was soon made a choir-boy, 
and at the end of two years was 
admitted to the Petit-Seminaire at 
Agen. His first prize was for com- 
position. This prize was an old 
cassock, which his father made in- 
to a coat for him. His career at 
the seminary was cut short by some 
boyish freak, for which he was shut 
up, of all places, in the pantry, and 
condemned to bread and water, 
though it was Mardi Gras. In a 
few hours, however, the kind su- 
perior entered to pardon and set 
him free. He found the hungry 
boy had laid lawless hands on the 
preserve-jars and was in the midst 
of his treat. The priest changed 
his mind, and sent Jacques home 
without giving him time to wash 
his hands. 

The family had not dined. His 
mother was cooking some vegeta- 
bles over a smouldering fire. The 
table was spread, and they were 

VOL. XXVIII. 38 



waiting for the loaf sent them 
every Tuesday from the seminary. 
They heard a step and thought it 
had come. They all sprang up. 
It was Jacques, come to tell his 
sad tale and cast a gloom over 
their carnival dinner. Every one 
was in consternation. His mother 
broke the silence in a mournful tone: 
" Poor children ! it is useless to 
wait. They are done, and will 
send us no more." Jacques felt a 
new pang. He had deprived his 
family of their bread, and that on a 
day when every one made merry. 
He could hear the shouts in the 
street, whereas misery was in their 
household. His mother looked at 
her left hand, and seemed to be 
undergoing some inward struggle. 
Finally she left the room, and 
when she came back she had a loaf 
under her arm. At this joy broke 
out on every face. They laughed. 
They sang. They feasted on their 
beans. Jacques alone remained 
dumb. A terrible idea had enter- 
ed his mind. His eye watched for 
his mother's left hand. At last 
she took a knife to cut the loaf, 
but, before doing so, made, accord- 
ing to the pious custom, the sign 
of the cross over it. Jacques sees 
the wedding-ring is gone. . . . 

Fifty years after Jasmin wept as 
he spoke of his mother's selling her 
wedding-ring to buy bread for her 
children. 

The cure of the parish now sent 
Jacques to school, but at sixteen 
he was placed with a barber to 
learn the mysteries of his craft. 
Here he was busily employed by 
day, but lie spent the nights in 
reading and dreaming. "Ah! 
while I read no more pain had I." 
In after-years he took pride in 
pointing out the little sky-blue 
house, and the finestrou, or sky- 
light, in the garret where he felt 



594 



Jasmin. 



the first inspirations of poesy. He 
soon acquired a great reputation 
among the boys of the neighbor- 
hood as a reiater of stories. They 
used to call him lou Moussouret 
the little monsieur on account 
of his neat personal appearance. 
They soon observed that he was 
missing every Friday, and at last 
lay in wait for him. As soon as 
he made his appearance they 
pounced upon him, and found be- 
neath his coat a crust of bread. 
He had been begging. The chil- 
dren, ashamed of their rudeness, 
stole silently away, leaving him 
tearful and excited, but speechless. 
At that moment, as Providence 
would have it, the Abbe Miraben 
came along, the good old cure 
who, when Jacques was dismissed 
from the seminary, sent him to 
school. The family, too, had often 
experienced his charity. He soon 
learned the cause of the boy's tears. 
" Do not breathe a word about it," 
said he, " especially to your mo- 
ther. It would worry her. Take 
your crust and carry it to her gai- 
ly. Poverty is no crime. Courage ! 
keep up a good heart. This shall 
never happen again." And from 
that time the baker had orders to 
send the family some large loaves 
every 'Friday. 

Jasmin could never speak of this 
good priest without tears, and he 
expresses his gratitude to him in 
his Nouveaux Souvenirs: " Preste 
al co (for que trounes dins lou del 
priest with heart of gold, now 
throned in heaven, if through the 
stars of the firmament thou some- 
times lookest down, if thou hast 
followed my course, thou seestthat, 
after forty years, I have preserved 
-the remembrance of thy teach- 
ings." 

In his eighteenth year Jasmin 
opened the barber's saloon on the 



Gravier that afterwards became 
famous throughout France. He 
married, too, and it was his wife's 
modest dowry that enabled him to 
give his shop a more attractive ap- 
pearance. His humor, and talent 
for conversation and singing, at 
once brought customers. After he 
became famous people went more 
to see and hear him than to avail 
themselves of his professional ser- 
vices. In this house he was visited 
by the most illustrious men in the 
literary, artistic, and political world 
of France. The combined ages of 
Jasmin and his wife, when they 
married, did not amount to forty 
years. He thus describes his wed- 
ding-suit: "My hat was re-dyed, 
my blue coat turned, and I had a 
cotton jabot put in my coarse linen 
shirt." He has left his wife's por- 
trait in his poem of Fran$oune'to : 
" Frangonnette has eyes as bright 
as two stars. Handfuls of roses 
might be gathered from her round 
cheeks. Her hair is brown and 
waving. Her mouth is like a 
cherry. Her teeth would shame 
the snow." 

Jasmin's wife proved to be 
an excellent, judicious woman. 
Though proud of his talents, even 
as a writer of songs, she was afraid 
they would make him neglect a 
surer means of subsistence, and 
made a vigorous protest whenever 
she saw him attempting to write. 
She concealed his paper and ink. 
and destroyed all the pens she 
found. This led to more than one 
dispute. It is singular that one of 
these domestic altercations led to 
Jasmin's becoming known to the 
literary world. This was in 1832. 
Charles Nodier, then regarded as 
the arbiter of literary taste in 
France, was at Agen. One morn- 
ing, walking along the Gravier, his 
attention was suddenly attracted 









Jasmin. 



595 



by a lively dispute in a barber's 
shop. A woman was energetically 
protesting. Her husband replied 
by a Homeric laugh. Her voice 
took a shriller tone, in proportion 
to his gayety. Nodier entered, as 
every one has a right to do in 
a barber's shop. Learning the 
cause of the dispute, he asked to 
see the verses. He at once per- 
ceived he had found a poet, and 
advised the wife to let her husband 
henceforth write in peace. From 
that time he and Jasmin were 
friends. Las Papillotas was soon 
published. The title smacks of the 
author's profession. The work 
was composed of charivari songs 
after the manner of the -Lutrin of 
Boileau. 

Jasmin wrote in the lengo de las 
pastouros in the language of the 
peasants the flexible Gascon, one 
of the old rouiane tongues used by 
the troubadours ; since encroached 
upon, indeed, and corrupted by the 
French, but still rich, sonorous, 
and expressive. It is the langue 
d'oc in which William, Count of 
Poitou, the first of the troubadours, 
sang, and it was the native tongue 
of his granddaughter, Eleanor of 
Aquitaine, wife of Henry II. of 
England, so long the Queen of the 
Court of Love and Song. 

In 1845 a P r iest of Agen, being 
at Rome, was conversing with Car- 
dinal Mezzofanti, who expressed 
his admiration for Jasmin, several 
of whose poems he had read in the 
original Gascon. "Yours," said 
lie, " is the only language of the 
middle ages, among the numberless 
inheritors of the Greek, Latin, and 
Arab, that has survived revolutions. 
The others have been modified and 
corrupted. They have suffered 
from the caprices of fortune and 
victory. The Provencal itself has 
been corrupted. Of all the romane 



dialects, yours alone has preserved 
its purity and vigor. It is still the 
sonorous, harmonious language of 
the troubadours of the Sobregaya 
Compajihia. It has the flexibility 
of the Italian, the sonorous dignity 
of the Spanish, the energy and con- 
ciseness of the Latin, with the 
dolee, the molle atque facetum of the 
Ionian which it inherited from the 
Phocceans of Marseilles. The im- 
agination and genius of Gascony 
have given it an additional richness 
which it has preserved." 

It was in this language, so full of 
rhythm and harmony, the language 
of the people all through south- 
western France, that Jasmin wrote 
most of his songs. They are full 
of pathos, of a tender, languid 
melancholy that seems the very ex- 
pression of the passion and sorrow 
of an emotional people. 

L'Abuglo, or the Blind Girl of 
Castelculie, is familiar to Ameri- 
cans from the translation by Long- 
fellow. This dramatic poem is 
founded on a tradition of the hills 
around Agen. An old house is 
still shown in the environs of St. 
Amans where Margaret, the blind 
girl, lived a century or more ago. 
She was betrothed to Baptiste, but, 
attacked by disease, not only lost 
her beauty but became blind. 
This did not, however, extinguish 
her love for Baptiste. She await- 
ed a visit from him, but he did 
not make his appearance. She is 
told he is going to marry Angele. 
She even hears the bridal songs of 
the gay cortege leading the bride 
to church. 

The poem opens with a chorus 
taken from a song popular among 
the young people of Gascony, who 
sing it on the eve of a wedding as 
they strew flowers and green leaves, 
especially of the laurel, before the 
house of the bride and along the. 



Jasmin. 



way to the church. They call this 
fleurtr les cheuiins. Mean wh ile they 
sing : 

" Las carr^ros diouyon flouri, 
Tan belo nobio bay sourti ; 
Diouyon flouri, diouyon grana, 
Tan belo nobio bay passa." 

u The roads shpuld blossom, the roads should 

bloom, 

So fair a bride shall leave her home ! 
Should blossom and bloom with garlands gay, 
So fair a bride shall pass this way !" * 

A swarm of fresh young maidens 
and their partners sing this chorus, 
looking like sportive angels of joy, 
as they go over a cliff on the way 
to St. A mans. " Never," says M. 
Sainte-Beuve, " was the gayety of 
young men and maidens expressed 
in a livelier manner or with fresher 
tones and images. The rhythm and 
cadence are like the movements of 
a dance." 

In the midst of these gay frol- 
icking young people are Baptiste 
and his bride. But he is silent. 
Not a caress does he give his 
nubw. From their coldness you 
would imagine them people of high 
rank. It is because they are going 
over the hill where lives the maiden 
to whom he had been betrothed. 
He is going to marry Angele out 
of obedience to a stern father, but 
his heart clings to Margaret. 
Further along the wedding proces- 
sion meets Jeanne, the soothsayer, 
who ominously exclaims : " Be- 
ware, thoughtless Angele ! God 
grant that in marrying Baptiste 
thou diggest not a grave!" The 
young people are terrified. There 
is a 'moment's silence, but they 
soon rally. The bridegroom alone 
remains pale as death. 

" E las faribolos, 
Pel las caminos, 
Ban coumo de folos, 
En sisclant pu fort : 
'Las carreros dieuyon flouri," etc. 

* Longfellow's translation. 



11 And the maidens, 
Gaily frolicking, 
Wildly rollicking, 
Sing as they go : 

The roads should blossom, the roads should bloom," 
etc. 

The second canto introduces us 
to Margaret's house, where, wasted 
by suffering, but still lovely as an 
angel, she murmurs to herself: 
" He has returned, I feel sure. 
For three days Jeanne has not 
mentioned his name. But he 
comes not, though he knows he fs 
the star of my life. What shall I 
do without him? What pleasure 
is left ? Life, crushed by such a 
misfortune, looks fearful. Joy for 
others ; for me, unhappy creature, 
darkness for ever, for ever night ! 
'Tis night indeed to be separated 
from him. It is not day without 
the blue heaven of his eyes. Where 
is he? He no longer hears when 
I call. Like a spray of ivy wither- 
ing on the ground, I need a prop 
to sustain my life. They say love 
is strengthened by suffering. Judge, 
then, of mine, since I am blind." 

While brooding over these sad 
thoughts her little brother enters. 
He has seen the wedding proces- 
sion. He tells the news. She ut- 
ters a cry. Her face turns pale* 
She looks like a wax Madonna in 
the garb of a peasant. They hear 
the nuptial songs. 

This contrast between grief and 
joy forms a striking picture. 

The child goes on, little thinking 
every word stabs Margaret to the 
heart. 

Jeanne the cripple enters. " My 
child, you must not trust so much 
in happiness. Pray that you may 
not love him so much." " Jeanne, 
the more I pray the more I love 
him." "She knows nothing about 
it," says the crone to herself. "I 
will save her." But Jeanne can- 
not read the future. 

The third canto opens with the 



I 



\ 



Jasmin. 



597 



ringing of the Angelas in the morn- 
ing. 

" De la campano anfin naou pitchous truts s'enten- 

don, 

-E 1'aoubo blanquignouso arriban lentomen, 
Bey que dins dus oustals dios fillatos 1'attendon, 
Pla differentomen.'" 

"Now rings the bell nine times reverberating, 
And the white daybreak, stealing up the sky, 
Sees in two cottages two maidens waiting, 
How differently !" 

In one Angele, queen of the 
clay, surrounded by flatterers, puts 
on her gold cross and wreath and 
looks at herself with satisfaction. 
In the other the blind girl in her 
chamber has neither gold cross 
nor bridal wreath. Half madden- 
ed, she gropes her way to a drawer 
and takes out something she shud- 
deringly conceals in her bodice. 
One, in the midst of adulation, for- 
gets her prayers. The other, her 
brow cold and damp, joins her two 
hands, kneels on the pavement, 
and cries : " O my God, forgive 
me !" 

Margaret sets out, led by her 
brother. She walks over the flow- 
er-strewn road, and shudders at 
the odor of the laurel. The wea- 
ther is cloudy. " Where are we ?" 
she asks. " We seem to be as- 
cending." 

"We have arrived. Do you no'c 
hear the osprey in the belfry ? 
Horrid bird! It brings ill luck, 
you know. Do you not remember, 
sister, the night we were watching 
with our poor father ? ' See, child,' 
he said, ' I am very ill. Take good 
care of Paul. I feel I am sinking.' 
You wept. So did he, and I too. 
We all wept. Well, the osprey was 
then screaming on the roof. Soon 
after our dead father was brought 
here. There is his grave. The 
cross we planted is still standing. 
Ah ! you clasp me too strongly. 
You stifle me, Margaret. Let us 
go in. The wedding will begin." 



They are at the church door. 
The sun is shining, yet it rains a 
bad sign. The whole village is 
there. Margaret conceals herself 
in the confessional. The ring is 
blessed. Baptiste holds it till he 
pronounces the fatal words. Ai 
the sound of his voice- there is an 
exclamation : " It is lie !" and Mar- 
garet appears, a knife in her hand. 
She falls dead. But her good 
angel has watched over her : she 
is stricken down only by grief. 

That night, instead of songs, the 
DC Profundis was sung. A bier, 
covered with flowers', was borne to 
the church-yard. Young girls in 
white accompanied it, weeping. 
There was no gayety anywhere. 
Every one seemed to say : 

" The roads should mourn, and be veiled in gloom, 
So fair a corpse shall leave its home ! 
Should mourn and should weep, ah ! well-away, 
So fair a corpse shall pass to-day !" 

This poem established Jasmin's 
reputation, not only in the south 
but all through France. The story 
is told with charming simplicity 
and the scenes are touching. 
When Jasmin read it before the 
Academy at Bordeaux, August 26, 
1835, it was immensely applauded. 
The appearance of the author, with 
his dark eyes, expressive gestures, 
and voice full of passion, added to 
the effect. The chorus, 

" Las carreros diouyon flouri," 

he did not recite, but sang. Tears 
flowed from every eye, even from 
those who did not understand Gas- 
con. The brilliant assembly was 
transported with enthusiasm. This 
established his popularity at Bor- 
deaux, which he could never visit 
incognito without being recognized 
and overwhelmed with attentions. 

In the midst of his triumphs 
Jasmin clung to his profession. 
His head was never turned with 
ovations. He resisted all efforts to 



598 



Jasniin. 



draw him to Paris or elsewhere. 
" Leave me as I am," lie cried. 
"Every summer I glean my little 
harvest for winter, and afterwards 
I sing like a cricket in the shade of 
a poplar or oak, too happy to grow 
gray in the place where I was born. 
Everything- suits me here the 
earth, the sky, the air. They are 
necessary to my existence. To 
sing of joyous poverty one must 
be poor and joyous. I will remain, 
therefore, poor and gay, with my 
barley bread, and water from the 
fountain." This reads like an epis- 
tle from Horace. Jasmin remain- 
ed faithful to these sentiments as 
long as he lived. Agen, the Gra- 
vier, his wife, children, and home, 
were to him the universe over 
which the muse hovered with songs 
for every joy, consolation for every 
grief. He built a little villa on the 
side of one of the prettiest, sun- 
niest hills around Agen, which he 
called Papillote. Over the door 
he wrote : Beroy mes goy Beauty 
is to me a joy. It stood in the 
centre of a garden. He describes 
the place in Ma Vigne with lan- 
guage truly Horatian : " For a 
chamber I have a mere den. Nine 
cherry-trees form my wood ; ten 
rows of vines my promenade. 
There are only a few peaches, but 
they are mine. I have two elms 
and two springs. How rich I am ! 
Would that I could with my pencil 
depict this land of ours,, beloved of 
Heaven ! I see the meadow where 
I used to gather fagots, where I 
wept, where I laughed. Let me 
confess all. Before me, at the left, 
at the right, I see more than one 
hedge I have found my way 
through ; more than one trellis I 
have climbed to pluck the rare 
muscat. But what I robbed I re- 
store with interest. To my vine- 
yard there is no gate. Two bram- 



bles bar the entrance. When I 
see through the opening the head 
of some rogue, instead of arming 
myself with a club, I turn away 
that he may come back. He who 
robbed when young, now, old, al- 
lows himself to be robbed !" Jas- 
min was passionately fond of this 
place, where he spoke to the birds, 
the trees, the grass that grew fresh 
on the hillside. It was his own 
domain. 

Magnounet, the wife of Jasmin, 
never opposed his writing from 
the time of Charles Nodier's visit. 
She was a woman of well-balanced 
mind, and her counsels always had 
a salutary influence over him. He 
knew this, and allowed himself to 
be guided by her, without ever 
having cause to repent of it. For 
instance, he became coiffeur des 
dames, and all the ladies of Agen 
disputed the honor of having their 
hair dressed by the poet. But 
they led him into conversations 
and made him sing his delicious 
songs. Perhaps a guitar was at 
hand. He would take it down. 
The household would assemble. 
The hours flew. In this way fce 
often returned home at night, hav- 
ing dressed only one lady's hair. 
His wife found this must be put an 
end to. Accordingly, he ceased to 
coif ladies to the benefit of his 
purse, and Magnounet found she 
had made a good coup d'etat. She 
saw he was to have a still more 
brilliant career, and took every 
care on herself, so that he might 
dream as much as he pleased under 
the broad trees of the Gravier when 
his work was done. He, on his 
side, improved her mind, and 
though of the people, without cul- 
ture or education, she often ac- 
companied him in his visits and 
partook of his triumph, showing 
herself his equal. He read his 



Jasmin. 



599 



poems to her, and her excellent 
sense often rendered her a good 
critic. She detested every false 
sentiment, all affectation. Her de- 
cisions sometimes led to a warm 
discussion, but in the end Jasmin 
generally acknowledged the truth 
of her observations. After express- 
ing her sentiments she would drop 
the subject, and at length he would 
say : " Magnounet, you are right." 

At the readings he gave she 
would detect the least sign of 
weariness, and knew how to stop 
him before the audience was fa- 
tigued ; for, once set a-going, he 
never knew himself when to stop. 
He was often invited to a dinner or 
soiree by people of the higher class, 
but, clinging as he did to his ori- 
ginal condition, he made no attempt 
at dignity. His wife, however, 
knew how to maintain it, and to 
remind his admirers what was due 
one whose presence added so much 
to the attractions of their salons. 
Accordingly, he found the expe- 
diency of taking her with him. 

Jasmin's horizon was continually 
widening. When an asylum, or a 
school, or any work of charity was 
to be founded in the country around, 
he was called upon to aid, and the 
work was accomplished as if by 
magic. It was for a work of this 
kind he composed his Caritat 
(Charity) a concetto written for 
the poor at Tonneins in 1837. It 
is the cry of a tender, feeling heart. 
Jasmin was never so pathetic as 
when depicting the sufferings of 
the poor. But he never flattered 
the bad instincts of the lower 
classes. To them he would sing : 
" See, the rich grow better. Let 
us defend the chateaux our fathers 
wished to demolish. It is the 
glory of a nation to know how to 
shield from danger its choicest pro- 
ducts." To the wealthy, on the con- 



trary, he would say: "He who 
wishes honey must protect the 
bee. He who digs around the 
roots of a tree makes the tops 
blossom." He wrote a series of 
poems for charitable purposes, and 
on every hand was called upon to 
give a seance. Sometimes his en- 
gagements were six months in ad- 
vance. Nothing can give an idea 
of the enthusiasm with which he 
was everywhere received. Arches 
of triumph were erected at the 
entrance of the towns. Magistrates 
made him addresses. Deputations 
from neighboring towns came to 
compliment him. At Bergerac, 
where he had been invited to aid 
the poor, the whole community 
around gathered to hear him. The 
hall was jammed. It rained in 
torrents, but the ladders put up 
against every window were covered, 
and there were five hundred in the 
yard unable to obtain admittance. 
At Gontaud, where he was also in- 
vited to aid the poor, a calcche, 
drawn by four horses covered with 
garlands, awaited him at the en- 
trance of the town, and the munici- 
pal corps attended him as an escort. 
Twelve girls in white offered him 
flowers and made him addresses. 
At Damazan young maidens scatter- 
ed flowers in the road before his 
carriage, singing the chorus adapted 
for the occasion : 

" Las carreros diouyon fiouri, 
Tan gran poeto bay sourti, 
Diouyon flouri, diouyon grana, 
Tan gran poeto bay passa." 

u The roads should blossom, the roads should bloom, 
So great a poet this way shall come : 
Should put forth verdure and blossoms gay, 
So great a poet shall pass to-day !" 

Among Jasmin's longer poems is 
Fran$oune'to. Francouneto is a 
young peasant girl who is regarded 
in her valley as the very pearl of 
love. She has eyes as brilliant as 
two stars. It seems as if handfuls 



6oo 



Jasmin. 



of roses might be gathered from 
her cheeks. Her mouth is like a 
cherry. Her teeth outshine the 
snow. All the young swains love 
her to distraction. She enjoys this 
homage to her beauty, and shows 
her pleasure in her face. One 
flower alone is wanting in her bou- 
quet. Pascal, whom every one 
praises, and the best of singers, 
seems to avoid her. She almost 
detests him, and, out of spite, seeks 
occasion to captivate him with her 
beaux yeux. Her grandmother re- 
minds her that she is betrothed to 
Marcel, a soldier under the redoubt- 
able Monluc for the story is laid 
in the time of the wars with the 
Huguenots. The drama opens with 
a dance on the votive feast of 
Roquefort. It is the custom here 
for a girl, as soon as she is weary 
of dancing, to present her cheek to 
her partner, that he may salute her. 
But then girls are never weary till 
they wish to be ! Francouneto has 
tired out a great number of part- 
ners. Among these is Marcel, a 
soldier of formidable height, in sa- 
bre and uniform, who a few days 
ago defied any one to give her such 
a salutation. Pascal takes his 
place in the dance, and presently 
Franouneto smiles, stops, and pre- 
sents her cheek to her partner. 
There are exclamations on all sides 
and clapping of hands. Marcel, en- 
raged, gives him a blow. Pascal 
springs upon him, and after a. 
struggle wins the victory. Marcel 
disappears, resolving to have ven- 
geance, and vowing she shall never 
marry any one but himself. 

A sorceress from the Black For- 
est proclaims that Franfouneto's 
father became a Huguenot and sold 
her in her infancy to the devil, who 
in consequence follows her every- 
where. Woe to whosoever shall 
marry her ! From being a general 



favorite every one now avoids her. 
The very children shudder at her 
name. She is ashamed to go out. 
She no longer sings. She hides 
herself in her chamber and aban- 
dons herself to grief. Her grand- 
mother denies the story and tells 
her not to hide herself, for Marcel 
is still ready to marry her. " To- 
morrow is Easter-day. Go to 
Mass. Take the pain benit. Make 
the sign of the cross. I am sure 
the good God will restore your 
former happiness and show he has 
not effaced your name from the 
number of his children." 

Frangcnmeto follows her advice. 
The next day she goes to the vil- 
lage church, but a painful trial 
awaits her. Every one shrinks 
from her, and she is left kneeling 
alone in the centre of the church. 
Marcel's uncle, when he passes the 
blessed bread aro.und, does not of- 
fer it to her. She trembles and 
feels she is lost. But Pascal, in 
the teeth of both uncle and nephew, 
approaches and offers the circular 
loaf. She blushes. Her heart ex- 
periences a new emotion, and she 
goes home to dream of love. She 
remembers it is forbidden her. 
The sorceress has declared the man 
who is bold enough to marry her 
will meet his death in the bridal 
chamber. She prostrates herself 
before an image of the Madonna : 
" Holy Virgin, without thy aid I 
am lost. My feeble heart is lead- 
ing me astray. I have no father or 
mother, and they tell me I am sold 
to the devil. Oh ! take pity on me 
and reveal the truth to my soul. 
When I offer my candle at the feast 
of Our Lady, show me thou receiv- 
est it with pleasure." 

The day arrives. At an early 
hour a long chaplet of girls in white 
appears at the ringing of the bell. 
Every one knows the story that 



Jasmin. 



60 1 



Fram;ouneto is sold to the devil, 
and that she is going to pray the 
Mother of God to save her. Every 
one looks at her with pity. She sees 
Pascal praying in the church with 
a happy face, and hope enters her 
heart. Love, lights, incense all 
seem to implore mercy for her. 
She lights her taper. She ventures 
to look up at the priest. No one 
dares breathe. Every eye turns 
from her to the altar. The priest 
takes down the image of the Madon- 
na and presents it to her, but hard- 
ly have her lips touched it before 
the thunder begins to roar. Her 
taper is extinguished, and so are 
the candles on the altar. A mur- 
mur passes over the throng, and 
when the poor girl rises to go out 
every one shudders, draws back, 
and lets her pass like a soul going 
to its doom. 

The storm continues. The 
country is ravaged by hail. Fran- 
couneto's garden alone is spared. 
The peasants rise and threaten a 
storm more terrible than that of the 
elements. Francouneto is at home, 
looking at a bouquet given her by 
Pascal, but now withered. " Every- 
thing withers, heart and flowers. 
My love causes death. No more 
hope for this world. Sweet flow- 
ers of the valley, I love him who 
bound you together, but I must 
bid him farewell. A year ago I 
was thoughtless. I laughed at 
everything, even at love. I am 
punished. I loved no one. Now 
I love. I must forget him. The 
devil bought me at my birth. But 
perhaps it is not true; my faith is 
still alive. Blessed flowers of the 
meadow, lend me strength to dri.ve 
him from my heart. And thou, 
kind mother in the starry heavens, 
angel guardian, dear Madonna, 
mercy, mercy for the doomed girl 
who, unhappy, loves Pascal, and 



prays God from the bottom of her 
heart !" 

She hears a noise. It is the 
peasants coming to burn her house. 
They brandish their torches and 
utter threats. A voice is heard: 

"Stop!" It is Pascal. Marcel, 
too, comes, and a contest takes 
place. Both declare themselves 
ready to marry, her. She has only 
to choose. 

" Oh ! speak not of marriage, 
Pascal. My love would be your 
death. Forget me. Be happy 
without me." 

"Happy without thee ? That 
cannot be. Better to die with 
thee than live without thee !" 

"Pascal, I had resolved to die 
alone, but since it is thy wish I no 
longer resist. If it be our fate, let 
us die together." 

Pascal approaches Marcel. 

" I am more fortunate than you, 
but you are 'brave. Forgive me. 
I need a groomsman to lead me 
to the tomb, and have no friend. 
Serve me as one." 

A fearful struggle takes place in 
Marcel's breast. He looks at 
Francouneto and sees her smile. 
" Since she desires it, I consent." 

Two months after a brilliant 
wedding party descends the green 
hill. Remembering the maledic- 
tion, every one trembles for Pascal. 
Marcel attends him, but there is 
a flash in his eye that betokens no 
good. One would think it a day 
of triumph. A strange wedding. 
At the table, at the dance there is 
nothing but gloom. Every one is 
terrified. No one ventures to sing. 
No one smiles. 

Night comes. The bridal cham- 
ber is made ready. Pascal's mo- 
ther, pale with terror, falls on his 
breast. She has just consulted the 
sorceress, who again announces her 
son's death. She conjures him to 



602 



Jasmin. 



leave his bride and flee from the 
house. Every one is in tears. 
Pascal turns to Marcel : 

" If I die, for pity's sake take 
care of my mother." 

The soldier is vanquished. He 
reveals everything. It was he who 
dictated the oracle. To have his 
revenge he had undermined the 
house, intending to die with them. 
" But your mother reminds me of 
my own, now dead, and disarms 
my resentment. Pascal, live for 
your mother." He disappears. 
The company gather around the 
married couple with joy. 

"I lay down my pencil, "says the 
poet. " I can only depict suffer- 
ing. For such happiness I have 
no colors." 

The quarrel between the rivals, 
Pascal's love, the change in Fran- 
couneto's feelings, Marcel's re- 
morse, and the fidelity to popular 
customs and manners, are all ad- 
mirably depicted. Jasmin dedi- 
cated this poem to the old capital 
of Languedoc the city of Clem- 
ence Isaure where he read it in 
1840 to an immense audience, 
among whom were the members of 
the Jeux Floraux. The civil 
authorities made him a citizen 
of the placei and the inhabitants 
presented him with a gold lau- 
rel-branch of exquisite workman- 
ship, inscribed: "Toulouse a Jas- 
min." 

Jasmin's mother died soon after. 
Every day she had the gold laurel- 
branch brought to her bedside, 
and persisted in thinking it given 
by Agen. His father was already 
dead. He, too, had his idee fixe. 
Finding his end near, he asked his 
son for his clothes, saying he wish- 
ed to get up. They thought him 
delirious. At last lie said: " I feel 
that I am going to die. It is time 
to leave the house. My place is 



no longer here. When the Jas- 
mins die they go to the hospital. 
It is time to go. If I delay too 
long death will not find me at my 
post." It was with difficulty Jas- 
min restrained him. But the con- 
test was not long. The old chari- 
vari singer soon died in the arms 
of his son. 

Jasmin visited Paris in 1842. 
M. Sainte-Beuve received him in 
the Bibliotheque Mazarine, em- 
braced him, and, pointing to the 
shelves of the ancient poets, said : 
" Like them, you will never die." 
All the literary world welcomed 
him. The modest hotel where he 
stopped was besieged with visitors 
of distinction ministers, peers, 
members of the French Academy, 
and journalists. The landlord 
thought he must be a prince in dis- 
guise, come to France on some po- 
litical mission. " You have de- 
ceived me," said he to Jasmin's 
son in a low voice, " but you can- 
not blind a hotel-keeper long. Do 
not be uneasy, however; I will not 
betray you. I will show you that I 
know how to keep a secret." And 
he could not be persuaded that all 
this attention was paid to a mere 
hair-dresser. 

Jasmin read his Abnglo to M. 
Augustin Thierry, who wept and 
said: " You must have been blind 
yourself, Jasmin, to describe so 
well the horrible tortures of those 
who cannot see." Lamartine call- 
ed him the truest of modern poets. 
He was invited to court May 22, 
1842. The Duke of Orleans had 
already visited him at Agen and 
presented him with a ring set with 
brilliants, and the duchess with a 
gold pen in the form of a flower, 
set with pearls and diamonds. She 
now welcomed him to court with a 
quotation from his Lou trcs May, 
which has been inscribed beneath 



Jasmin. 



603 



the statue of Henri Quatre at 
Nerac : 

" Brabes Gaseous, 
Ey plaze de bous beyre. 
Approucha-bous " 

Brave Gascon, it gives me plea- 
sure to see you here. Draw near. 

He was invited to read some of 
his poems, and, regardless of eti- 
quette, sat down in the king's pre- 
sence, to the astonishment of the 
court. He read the Abuglo and 
Caritat, after which the king enter- 
ed into conversation with him. 
Jasmin was no courtier, and talked 
much of Henry IV., but still more 
of the Ampfrur, as he called Napo- 
leon I., for whom. his enthusiasm 
had no bounds ; but this was so 
foreign to anything political that 
no one could take offence. All 
were charmed with his sallies and 
laisser-aller. A few days after the 
king sent him a gold watch set 
with diamonds. 

Jasmin went to the Rue du Bac 
to pay his respects to Chateaubri- 
and, who told him he revived the 
glory of the troubadours by taking 
his lyre and going from place to 
place, exciting the enthusiasm of 
the people and receiving their tri- 
bute of flowers. 

Amid the applause he received 
at Paris his heart turned towards 
Agen and his simple life there. 
"O my wife, my guitar, my shop, 
my Papillote, my beautiful Gravier, 
my good friends, with what plea- 
sure shall I behold you again!" 
He was invited to give readings all 
through the south of France, and 
was enthusiastically received at 
Avignon ; Marseilles, Nimes, Mont- 
pellier, etc., besides countless pla- 
ces where he read for charitable 
objects. It is said that from 1825 
to 1854 he gave twelve thousand 
seances for benevolent purposes, 
and raised at least three hundred 



thousand dollars. When he read 
he made every one weep, but wept 
first himself, unconscious that he 
was obeying Horace's precept. 
His voice was so full of har- 
mony that, to use the expres- 
sion of his own countrymen, you 
would have thought his mouth pie- 
no tfaouzelous full of little birds. 
It was full of tears also, and when 
he sang of grief every heart melted. 

The church at Vergt a pretty 
town among the chestnut groves of 
Perigord was going to ruin, and 
the cure, desirous of restoring it, 
appealed to Jasmin for aid, though 
he did not know him. He con- 
sented, and read La Gleyzo descape- 
lado The Unroofed Church one 
of his happiest inspirations. " I was 
naked, and cannot forget that the 
church often clothed me when I 
was a boy. Now I am a man, I 
find her bare and I cover her in 
my turn. Oh ! give, give, all of 
you, that I may taste the happiness 
of doing once for her what she so 
often did for me." His journey 
through Perigord was a triumphal 
march. At Sarlat he was received 
with torches and cries of joy by a 
throng. And so it was in many 
other places. There is no other 
instance of such enthusiasm. The 
tower added to the church at Vergt 
was called the Clocher de Jasmin, 
and his name was graven on the 
front. When the church was com- 
pleted it was consecrated anew. 
There were six bishops, attended 
by three hundred priests. Cardi- 
nal Gousset, Archbishop of Rheims, 
presided. Fifteen thousand per- 
sons of all ranks came to witness 
the solemnity. It was for this oc- 
casion Jasmin composed his Preste 
sans Gleyzo the Priest without a 
Church which he read at the din- 
ner-table before the clergy. 

He aided also in building other 



604 



Jasmin. 



churches. In fact, all through his 
life he showed an uncommon dis- 
interestedness. The prefet of the 
Haute Garonne wrote him: "My 
admiration for your talents is only 
surpassed by my esteem for your 
noble heart. The poet has reason 
to be jealous of the good citizen." 
Gifts showered upon him books, 
candelabras, services for the table, 
a gold cup from Auch, etc. The 
Duchess of Orleans sent him a 
gold medal struck after the death 
of the duke. The government gave 
him a pension of a thousand francs, 
as the money he received from 
other sources barely sufficed for 
his wants, all his relatives being 
aided by him. His works were 
crowned by the French Academy. 
He was made Chevalier of the Le- 
gion of Honor at the same time as 
Balzac, Frederick Soulie, and Al- 
fred de Musset. The Minister of 
Public Instruction wrote him : 
" Your deeds equal your writings. 
You build churches. You aid the 
indigent. You have made your 
talent a beneficent power, and your 
muse has become a Sister of Chari- 
ty." Agen was proud of the honors 
paid to her poet. The town gave 
him a crown of gold. His salon 
was crowded with visitors after his 
decoration, and at night he was 
serenaded. Pope Pius IX. made 
him Chevalier of the order of St. 
Gregory the Great. 

At his second visit to Paris Jas- 
min gave a reading to the highest 
nobility in the salon of the Marquis 
de Barthelemy. The papal nun- 
cio and the archbishop of Paris 
were present. The latter presented 
him with a rameau fleuri with the 
device : A Jasmin, le plus grand des 
troubadours. It was during this 
visit he was invited to Saint-Cloud 
by Napoleon III., who received him 
as graciously as Louis Philippe. 



And as before the latter he spoke 
of the glory of Napoleon I., so be- 
fore the emperor he spoke of the 
misfortunes of the house of Or- 
leans. 

Hispoemof La Bierges T h e V i r- 
gin was dedicated to Mgr. Pavy, 
the bishop of Algiers, who said he 
knew of nothing so beautiful in any 
language respecting the Blessed 
Virgin. 

Jasmin's last acts were in behalf 
of the poor and suffering. His last 
song was an Act of Faith in the 
divinity of Christ an eloquent re- 
ply to Renan. " Oh ! how happy I 
am," said he, " to end my literary 
career by an act of faith, and to 
consecrate my last work to Jesus 
Christ." He wished a copy to lie 
constantly on his breast, and his 
son placed one in his crossed hands 
as he lay in his leaden coffin an 
excellent passport to eternity. 

He was only confined to his bed 
a fortnight. He asked to receive 
the last sacraments and calmly pre- 
pared for death. He followed all 
the prayers and made the re- 
sponses. After the solemn rites 
were over he said to his assembled 
family : " At my communion I ask- 
ed God that the most perfect and 
affectionate union might never 
cease to reign among those I love 
so much and am about to leave." 
He conversed with his family till 
the last moment. Towards the 
morning of October 5, 1854, he 
took his son's hand. He looked at 
his wife. An expression of love 
lit up his eyes. He closed them. 
He was dead. 

It was resolved to raise a monu- 
ment to his memory at the public 
expense. All France responded to 
the appeal. When Cardinal Don- 
net, of Bordeaux, sent his offering, 
he spoke of Jasmin as " the St. 
Vincent de Paul of poesy, who had 



Civilization c.nd its Laws. 



605 



fallen before the close of bis day 
beneath the numerous sheaves he 
had gleaned for the poor," and 
said "his lyre had three chords 



that combine all harmony in heaven 
and on earth the true, the benefi- 
cent, and the beautiful." 



CIVILIZATION AND ITS LAWS.* 



CIVILIZATION, as usually under- 
stood, is the organization of socie- 
ty through the dominant influences 
of a period. In this sense the term 
is purely relative, and is but the 
expression of those agencies which 
give tone and bent to the manners 
and customs of an age. It is thus 
that we speak of Hindoo civiliza- 
tion, of the civilization of Greece 
and Rome. But there is an in- 
herent leaning to good in the term 
itself, and writers on the subject are 
apt to be misled by this fact, so 
that, while discussing a particular 
phase of civilization, they insen- 
sibly glide into general conceptions 
and treat as the ideal that civiliza- 
tion which has won their sympa- 
thies and admiration. To this class 
of writers belongs the author of 
the volume under review. With- 
out fixed principles, without an 
adequate knowledge of the condi- 
tions which have presided over the 
destinies of the race, he has set up 
an idol of his own creation, which 
he has styled civilization, and 
to this he offers blinding incense. 
The most important part of M. 
Brentano's treatise is the introduc- 
tion ; for here the writer lays down 
and discusses those principles by 
the light of which he afterwards at- 

* La Civilisation et ses Lois Morale Sociale. 
Par Th. Funck-Brentano, Professeur de Droit 
es Gens, etc. Paris: E. Plon. 187% 



tempts the solution of the complex 
problems which the history of hu- 
man society furnishes. He begins 
by a consideration of the principles 
of morality, and at once falls into a 
characteristic inconsistency. For 
him there is no absolute falsehood, 
no absolute truth, and whenever he 
refutes an error in part he offsets 
his task by an assault upon its con- 
tradictory truth. He says that 
those who make the divine will 
and the hope of future recompense 
the basis of morality confound 
belief with certainty, and thus de- 
stroy the possibility of construct- 
ing morality into a science. As a 
matter of fact, no moralist holds 
that the divine will and th.e hope 
of a heavenly reward conjointly 
constitute the basis of morality. 
The best authorities on the matter 
do, indeed, hold that morality has 
its source in the divine will, but 
decidedly decline to assign the 
same relation to a hope of future 
reward. Morality is usually defin- 
ed to be the supreme reason of God 
informing us what to do and what 
to omit. This supreme reason is, 
then, for intelligent creatures the 
expression of the divine will, and 
hence the divine will is rightly 
termed the basis of morality ; it is 
the eternal law. The hope of fu- 
ture reward is but an incentive 
that impels a free agent to the ful- 



6o6 



Civilization and its Lazvs. 



filment of the law; it follows the 
law but does not underlie it. The 
distinction which is drawn between 
belief and certainty affords another 
instance of the writer's tendency 
to use terms in a loose manner. 
No belief is worthy of the name 
which is not based on certainty, 
and certainty is a generic term* 
which embraces matters of belief 
as well as those that are directly 
known. What is known to be re- 
vealed, and what, for that reason, is 
the proper object of belief, is as 
certain as an axiom in mathema- 
tics ; yet M. Brentano would have 
us understand that there is an es- 
sential difference between certainty 
and belief, that one excludes the 
other, and that the attempt to make 
the divine will the basis of morali- 
ty is to make morality a matter of 
belief, and consequently to place it 
beyond the pale of science. 

" Donner comme fondement a 
la morale la volonte divine et 1'es- 
poir d'une recompense celeste, 
c'es.t la faire reposer sur une croy- 
ance et non sur une certitude ; on 
1'unit a la foi, on la confond avec 
elle; ce n'esfe point en faire une 
science/' We have quoted in the 
original the words of which we 
gave the substance, in order that 
the reader may perceive that there 
has been no straining of the author's 
meaning. M. Brentano is no be- 
liever in abstract principles. He 
is of the opinion that they obscure 
rather than elucidate the truth, and 
hence he summarily gets rid of 
them. He says that the attempt to 
formulate moral truths in general 
terms is an attempt to make reason 
the absolute source of morality. He 
even blames Leibnitz for holding 
that certain moral truths are as 
susceptible of demonstration as 
mathematical problems. Were M. 
Brentano a little better versed in 



the science of the day he would 
understand that abstraction is the 
Alpha and Omega of knowledge ; 
that as the scientific neophyte be- 
gins his task by an abstraction, the 
scientific master sums up his most 
brilliant results in the same ab- 
stract form. The abstract expres- 
sion of a moral principle does not 
make human reason the source of 
morality, but simply attests the in- 
sufficiency of our faculty to view 
truths otherwise than piecemeal. 
So far M. Brentano has been ag- 
gressive ; he has not attempted to 
construct. His denial of the di- 
vine will as the basis of morality 
was unfortunate, as was likewise his 
effort to depreciate the abstract 
expression of moral truths. But 
he has done service by upsetting 
the pretensions of those who strive 
to make morality a sentiment, an 
impulse of the heart, a pleasant 
emotion which rests satisfied with 
itself. This aesthetic morality is 
the legitimate outcome of positiv- 
ism, and is eloquently maintained 
to-day by many who have forgotten 
Comte. M. Brentano well observes 
that those who imagine the whole 
morality of an act to consist in its 
being the result of a generous im- 
pulse, a noble aspiration, which af- 
fords gratification in its fulfilment, 
are logically called upon to assign 
the same character of morality to 
those actions of a barbarian which 
least impress us as being moral, 
but which amply satisfy his senti- 
ments, his aspirations. Moreover, 
how transient and uncertain are 
those sentiments, how feeble those 
aspirations ! To make them the 
basis of morality is to build on a 
breath of air, to make a fixity of a 
fugitive feeling. M. Brentano thus 
rejects those views upon ethics that 
have been most current among 
non-Christian men, and proposes a 



Civilization and its Laivs. 



607 



substitute which he thinks will ful- 
fil all the conditions wherewith we 
usually invest morality, and which 
will ensure a greater good to so- 
ciety. He ranges himself under 
the banner of Socrates and boldly 
proclaims the identity of good with 
the knowledge of good. 

" If men," he says, " fail to do 
good but readily do wrong, it is 
because they know not what is the 
aim of their actions." Thus, ac- 
cording to M. Brentano, the failure 
to do good in one case, as well as 
the actual commission of evil in 
the other, are equally the result of 
ignorance and derive their moral 
character therefrom. Man cannot 
do the good he knows nothing of, 
and his failure in this respect, pro- 
vided his ignorance be no.t culpa- 
ble, cannot be imputed to him as a 
fault. His misdeeds likewise can- 
not be set down to his account, if 
they are the result of invincible 
ignorance. Ignorance is not, there- 
fore, identical with moral evil. 
These principles are generally ad- 
mitted, and their denial would tend 
to the overthrow of society as con- 
stituted at present ; for our laws, 
customs, and social relations all 
hinge upon their truth. But M. 
Brentano distinctly disavows them, 
and does so through an unpardon- 
able confusion of ideas. He con- 
founds the necessity of our search 
after happiness with a necessity of 
seeking after virtue, and because 
in all things we propose to our- 
selves our own happiness, we there- 
fore continually and in every act, 
he argues, aim at what is good. 
This is a vicious principle in mo- 
rals, and we wish to direct the rea- 
der's attention to it at the outset, 
that he may afterwards appreciate 
M. Brentano's views concerning 
progress and the improvement of 
mankind through purely intellec- 



tual advances. Quoting the words 
of St. Paul and of Ovid to the 
effect that we do the evil which we 
condemn, and fail to do the good 
which we admire, he brands them 
as entirely false; for, he says, the 
evil which we do appears to us 
good, and did we but know it to 
be evil we would have shunned it. 
No man, it is true, does evil be- 
cause it is evil; he must find some 
attraction in it, and pure, unmiti- 
gated evil cannot attract. But 
man can do wrong for all, knowing 
that it is wrong; and while he may 
not do it just for the reason that it 
is wrong, he accepts the wrong for 
the sake of the pleasure at which 
he aims, and thus he becomes guil- 
ty of sin. When Medea exclaims : 

" Video meliora proboque, 
Deteriora sequor," 

she gives expression to a senti- 
ment which clamors in the heart of 
every mortal, and she is not the 
victim of an illusion, as M. Bren- 
tano would have us believe. She 
does in reality that which is not 
only worse in itself, but appears 
such to her, and no casuistry could 
change its character in her eyes. 
Does the attraction by which we 
are won to sin make sin a good ? 
Not at all. It is true we seek our 
happiness in sinning, but at the 
same time we know that sin is bad 
and has no flavor of good about it. 
The truth, then, is that, while we 
necessarily seek our happiness in 
all we do, we do not believe all we 
do to be good. It was the confu- 
sion of these notions which led M. 
Brentano into identifying the plea- 
sure we experience in gratifying 
our inclinations with the convic- 
tion that we thereby do good. The 
more we know the greater amount 
of good we can accomplish ; but 
that knowledge is not itself the 
good which is its object, and the 



6o8 



Civilisation and its Laivs. 



more ignorant we are the more 
liable are we to mistake evil for 
good, but we still are free to reject 
the good and to do the wrong we 
know. M. Brentano sums up his 
views in these words: " Good, 
therefore, and the knowledge of 
good, must be identical, otherwise 
there is no such thing as moral in- 
telligence, and consequently no 
morality." . . . "The doctrines 
which make free-will to consist in 
the choice between so-called abso- 
lute principles and human passions 
are as illusory as those which deny 
free-will altogether because of the 
existence of the passions." Thus 
M. Brentano, by confounding our 
knowledge of good with good it- 
self, mars and disfigures the great 
truth that our capacity for good is 
in the direct ratio of our know- 
ledge. His practical conclusions 
are correct, but not consistent. 
"We are free," he says, "only in 
respect to those actions of which 
our conscience reveals to us the 
moral worth, and our conscience is 
silent in respect to that of which 
we have no knowledge. The good 
which we know not does not exist 
for us. At that point where our 
knowledge of good ceases the ani- 
mal resumes its sway." These sen- 
timents are unquestionably true, 
but they flow from the principle 
that we are free to do or not to do 
that good of which we have full 
knowledge and which our con- 
science approves. M. Brentano 
makes moral good purely relative 
by making it the outcome of our 
knowledge, and this error vitiates 
all his reflections on the subject. 
He discovers in the good and evil 
of the physical world a relative 
and ever-changing character, and 
asserts that a similar condition at- 
tends the good and evil of the mo- 
ral order. " Nothing in nature, 



genetically or specifically consider- 
ed, is good or bad ; hemlock distils 
its poison as the rose does its per- 
fume : the first is not culpable, 
neither does the latter possess any 
merit. In like manner men re- 
ceive at their birth different con- 
stitutions and opposite tempera- 
ments, and differ, as do all other 
beings, in nature." The author 
then allows that they have the ca- 
pacity of distinguishing good from 
evil by means of their intelligence, 
but holds that their opinion is in- 
fluenced by their moral nature, by 
their diverse inclinations, aptitudes, 
and temperament, so that what ap- 
pears good to one may not appear 
so to another, and is for each one 
what it appears. 

M. Brentano does away with the 
essential difference between right 
and wrong, and even goes so far 
as to say that moral wrong is an 
indispensable element in the de- 
velopment and progress of the 
race, as tending to increase its ex- 
perience and to enlarge the sphere 
of its consciousness. " Thus," he 
says, " good and evil succeed each 
other, alternate with each other, 
and effect a mutual interchange ; 
nowhere are they absolutely dis- 
tinct, and everywhere they are 
linked together." Is there not a 
palpable contradiction here ? Mo- 
ral evil loses its character of mo- 
rality when it becomes necessary ; ^ 
nay, it becomes moral good when 
its existence is indispensable to the 
progress and development of the 
race. The morality of an act de- 
pends on the deliberation with 
which it is performed, else the 
same act on the part of a madman 
and a philosopher shares the same 
moral character; and this even M. 
Brentano cannot admit. He de- 
nies that free-will has aught to do 
with the morality of our actions ; 






Civilization and its Laws. 



609 






and since the consequences of such 
an opinion are of the utmost prac- 
tical importance, we will consider 
for a moment the line of argument 
he follows in support of his view. 
" However," he says, " we must 
admit either that free-will is an 
evil by itself or that it is simply 
the faculty of choosing between 
good and evil, and that such good 
and evil exist outside of it. Thus," 
lie continues, " we are landed in 
Manicheism, in the contrariety of 
the principles of good and evil, 
Ahriman and Ormuzd. . . . If this 
explanation appear insufficient, we 
must carry the difficulty back to 
God, and say that, he has permitted 
evil in order to create good; but the 
same supreme cause cannot be 
good and bad at the same time, 
cannot be all-powerful and power- 
less." 

This reasoning isnot new. That 
subtlest of writers, Bayle, used it 
centuries ago, and it has often been 
refuted since. Free-will is the fac- 
ulty of choosing between good and 
evil, but it does not follow that 
such good and evil exist outside of 
the will. The conclusion is puer- 
ile. Does it follow that because 
one is free to take a thing or to 
leave it, to perform an act or not 
to perform it, lie chooses between 
two objects which exist outside of 
the will? If he takes the thing or 
performs the act, what is that other 
object against which he decides ? 
So with regard to good and evil. 
Good is a positive conformity to 
the divine will. Evil is a refusal so 
to conform ; it is negative, it is 
nothing, and so it is not a principle 
struggling for supremacy ; it is but 
the expression of man's disobedi- 
ence to the will of God. The doc- 
trine that free-will lies at the root 
of morality is also inconsistent, ac- 
cording to M. Brentano, with what 
VOL xxviii. 39 



history teaches us concerning the 
growth and progress of society. 
" If good and evil," he says, "had 
no other origin than free-will, there 
would be no reason why nations 
should not at any moment fall sud- 
denly back into the depths from 
which they had emerged : the gen- 
eral development of society would 
no longer proceed upon stable prin- 
ciples ; the progress which we per- 
ceive on all sides would be but an 
illusion ; without law or order to 
govern and direct it, humanity, im- 
pelled by chance hither and thith- 
er, would be the mere toy of ca- 
price, and there would be no longer 
hope for a steady approach to good 
and to a lasting progress of the 
race." In such manner does M. 
Brentano again argue against the 
existence of free-will ; but it can be 
readily shown that his argument is 
fully as fallacious in this latter case 
as in the former. There is an es- 
sential difference between man view- 
ed individually and viewed as an 
integrating element of society. The 
individual man is free, the unit of 
society is npt so. It is impossible 
to determine what one man will do 
under given circumstances, where- 
as, from a knowledge of the laws 
which govern masses, it is compar- 
atively easy to ascertain in advance 
what a number of men will do un- 
der the same circumstances. In 
the majority of cases wherein a 
person is called upon to exercise 
his freedom of will there is a pre- 
ponderance of reasons on one side, 
and this preponderance,, while it 
may fail to determine the individu- 
al, has an overwhelming influence 
on the mass. Thus the principle 
may be laid down that the stronger 
the reasons are in favor of an air 
ternative over its opposite, and the 
greater the number called upon to 
choose, the more nearly can we da- 



6io 



Civilization and its Laws. 



termine to which side the majori- 
ty will incline. This very impor- 
tant distinction M. Brentano has 
overlooked, and he inconsiderately 
imagines that because caprice and 
arbitrary characters attach to the 
actions of an individual, supposing 
him to be free, the same holds true 
of society. Society is regulated by 
law, the actions of individuals 
spring from free-will; and no philo- 
sophical writer can fail to perceive 
the difference between these con- 
ditions as evinced on the one hand 
in consciousness and on the other 
in history. 

M. Brentano classifies moral evil 
with physical, and ascribes the 
same characters to both. Light- 
ning kills, and the terror which the 
suddenness of its stroke inspires 
led men to investigate its nature. 
The result was the telegraph. 
Thus indeed did that which our 
forefathers regarded as an unmiti- 
gated evil resolve itself into a mar- 
vel of usefulness. Poisonous plants 
have supplied the pharmacopoeia 
with its best curative agents; the 
deadly nightshade, the fox-glove, 
a<nd spurred rye have yielded in- 
valuable remedies at the magical 
bidding of the chemist. In like 
manner humanity, having gone 
wrong, recognized its error, and, 
profiting by experience, plucked 
the jewel from the head of the loath- 
some toad. This is the theory of 
M. Brentano, and he claims that 
the race can make no solid progress 
till it has tested by experience the 
qualities of right and wrong, and, 
having ascertained the misery 
which comes of the latter, decided 
to shun it. The analogy between 
physical and moral evil is only ap- 
parent. Everything that is, is 
good; the abuse of it alone leads to 
harm. This is true in the physical 
world, where everything has a real 



existence. In the material order 
there is nothing absolutely bad, for 
the fire which sometimes brings 
ruin upon cities is that without 
which animal life cannot subsist. 
Strychnine kills the incautious ex- 
perimenter, but often brings health 
to the paralytic. Nay, more, every- 
thing possessing a physical exist- 
ence is necessarily good, for it is 
opposed to nothing, and something 
is always better than nothing. The 
blow with which the parricide com- 
mits the greatest of crimes differs 
in naught from the most virtuous 
action, physically viewed ; it is the 
non-compliance with the divine will 
in the one case, as it is conformity 
to it in the other, that makes the 
difference. 

In the moral order evil is a ne- 
gation of good, not anything posi- 
tive ; it is not a mere abuse of some- 
thing, but its absence ; it is essen- 
tially bad, and, beingsuch,can never 
be productive of good. The expe- 
rience of it, therefore, whether on 
the part of the individual or of 
society, cannot but be productive 
of more evil, just as increasing 
darkness can never engender light, 
but must be ever more and more 
itself. It is true that the sad expe- 
rience of wrong-doing has often 
filled the breast of the delinquent 
with bitterness, but it has never 
lifted him out of the slough. Itre- 
quired for that purpose a. strongei 
hand, the strength of grace; foi 
with repeated sinning the propensi- 
ty to sin grows stronger, so that the 
truth is a truth entirely at variance 
with the views of M. Brentano tin 
experience of moral evil is more 
apt to hold nations as well as indi- 
viduals faster in the ruts than to 
disenthral and to purify them. 

M. Brentano has a theory of civi- 
lization which he is determined to 
uphold] at all hazards, and lie 



Civilisation and its Laws. 



611 



strives from the outset to adapt 
the facts to his conclusions. Ac- 
cording to him, civilization is an 
automatic evolution, a spontaneous 
growth of the body politic, just as 
adult age is the result of a physical 
development which has taken place 
in accordance with known laws. 
The free-will of the individual is 
not an allowed factor in the pro- 
blem which he has set himself to 
solve, and he nowhere admits the 
intervention of divine Providence 
in shaping national ends. Know- 
ledge is the only good that exists, 
and as knowledge is increased by 
the experience which moral evil 
supplies, therefore moral evil is an 
inseparable and indispensable con- 
dition in the promotion of civiliza- 
tion. Good and the knowledge of 
good are identical ; and since the 
knowledge of good is but partial 
knowledge, the knowledge of evil 
is essential to complete it, and so 
evil plays a role of equal import- 
ance with good in the history of 
civilization. This mode of state- 
ment may not meet the approval 
of M. Brentano's school of think- 
ers, but it is in reality a severely 
expressive resume of their doc- 
trines. Those things which are 
generally held to be absolute M. 
Brentano views as relative, and 
they are operative or inoperative 
according to the fleeting circum- 
stances of life. Thus there are no 
absolute rights, in M. Brentano's 
estimation. Rights, according to 
him, are the dependent correlative 
of duty, and where duty is not 
recognized right does not exist. 
Duty is the parent of right. Thus 
the son has no absolute filial rights 
if the father should fail to com- 
prehend his duty towards him, just 
as the father possesses no paternal 
right if his son prove disobedient 
and ungrateful. " Our first rights," 



says M. Brentano, u originate in 
the duties which our parents im- 
agine they owe to us ; and if society 
recognizes rights belonging to us 
before birth, it is because men, in 
their historical and social develop- 
ment, have come to understand the 
solidarity of their mutual obliga- 
tions." And if the lack of an ap- 
preciation of a real duty does away 
with the corresponding right, so 
does the existence of a mistaken 
sense of duty beget a real right. 
The law of Lycurgus imposes on a 
father the duty of putting to death 
a sickly child ; and however ill- 
founded that duty be, the right of 
life and death which flows from it 
becomes, in M. Brentano's scheme, 
unquestionable. " It is not the idea 
of right but that of duty which is 
obscure in legislation." M. Brenta- 
no has reversed the logical relations 
of right and duty. We are born 
with certain inalienable rights, and 
these it is the duty of other men 
to respect ; therefore right has at 
least a logical priority over duty. 
The Almighty has a right to our 
homage, and out of that right 
grows the duty on our part of -ren- 
dering it to him. M. Brentano 
has made this mistake because he 
believes humanity to be paramount 
and supreme, and that our relations 
to the social body take precedence 
over all others. Now, when we 
recognize this supremacy, our duty 
to it is first ; our rights, in its eyes, 
become secondary and subordi- 
nate. 

" The duty of each man to be on sat- 
isfactory terms with his neighbor is the 
supreme duty of the human race. Man- 
ners, customs, laws, and institutions 
are the result. We must, therefore, in 
the last analysis, go back to a consid- 
eration of the reciprocity of our duties 
to find the origin of political science. . . . 
It is an appreciation of this supreme 
dut)- which has given birth to society ; it 



612 



Civilization and its Laivs, 



is this duty which has made society 
progress ; it is the neglect of it which has 
retarded that progress. The more people 
overlook this duty the fewer beccme 
their rights, no matter what amount of 
freedom they may enjoy." 

This is the worship of humanity 
pure and simple ; the substitution 
of an abstraction for God, of a 
shadow for the reality. There is 
a deal of truth shot through the 
woof of M. Brentano's errors, and 
much eloquent commendation of 
our most important social institu- 
tions ; but this lends additional 
danger to his erroneous opinions 
touching the origin of society. 
He insists repeatedly on the ne- 
cessity of private morality as the 
groundwork of social and political 
life. He traces the decadence of 
Grecian and Roman society to the 
degeneration of private morals and 
the disruption of the ties which 
should bind the individual to his 
neighbor, but he fails to place pri- 
vate morality on a stable basis, or 
to find any other origin for it than 
the fortuitous circumstances which 
first brought a body of men to- 
gether. When attempting to ac- 
count for the incipient stages of 
private morality he becomes mys- 
tical, vague, and oracular. Soli- 
darity and reciprocity of interests, 
and a due regard for the happiness 
of our neighbor, suffice, according 
to our author, to hold men togeth- 
er in social and political federation 
and to give forth the highest civi- 
lization. 

If men were other than they are, 
changeable, passionate, shortsighted, 
such an ideal were perhaps possi- 
ble ; but when we reflect that men 
are apt to shut from view their 
most important interests in the 
pursuit of a trifling advantage, that 
they often knowingly sacrifice the 
reality for the shadow, that they 



purchase little pleasure with great 
pain, that they are often capricious, 
impulsive, and unreasonable, how 
can we suppose that they will calmly 
consider reciprocal interests and 
duties ? If religion does not sup- 
ply the motive for the observance 
of the moral code, morality be- 
comes but a name, and solidarity 
and reciprocity of interests a bar- 
rier of sand to stay the current of 
human passion. In the family M. 
Brentano discovers the true source 
and wellspring of society. The 
social virtues take root in the fami- 
ly and blossom forth into endur- 
ing growth so long as the purity of 
the hearthstone remains unsullied. 
This is an undoubted truth, and 
all wise legislators have been con- 
vinced of it. Plato failed to per- 
ceive it because he had idealized 
the state and made it the parent of 
the family; consequently Plato's 
Republic, though admirable in many 
respects, was universally con- 
demned. It had its departure in an 
error. Other pagan philosophers 
whose vision was not overshadowed 
by an idea felt the force of this 
truth, and Augustus laid the foun- 
dation of the imperial greatness 
of Rome by striving to promote 
domestic life and to foster domes- 
tic virtue. Colbert, Pitt, and Na- 
poleon held the same view and 
hoped everything for the state 
through the family. But how. is 
the family to cohere ? M. Brentano 
gives no satisfactory answer. He 
calls monogamy and the family the 
result of a higher intellectual and 
social development, the expression 
of more energetic and healthful af- 
fections. Is it not more likely that 
intellectual and social development 
sprang from the family, and that 
purer and stronger affections were 
nursed in its bosom? Here M. 
Brentano, with all those who shut 



Civilization and its Laws. 



613 



their eyes to the supernatural, is 
egregiously at fault. He recklessly 
confounds effect with cause, and 
builds theories upon the vaguest 
generalities. What, for instance, 
could be weaker or more vaguely 
unmeaning than the following : 
" The more constant and intimate 
become the relations between hus- 
band and wife, the more their 
angularities of character are round- 
ed off, the more does the woman 
become the equal of man and rise 
to the plane of companionship. At 
the same time and by dint of the 
same sympathy springs up a tender 
love of offspring and an ardent de- 
sire to promote their moral, physi- 
cal, and intellectual welfare." No 
words could be truer; but does 
not all this suppose the active ope- 
ration of that which it pretends to 
explain ? What influences brought 
men into those conditions ? What 
teacher or authority told them that, 
disregarding the promptings of un- 
tamed desires, they should observe 
conjugal fidelity in the monoga- 
mous state, and should labor hard 
for the support and comfort of 
their families? Instinct and unre- 
flecting impulse have constantly 
exhibited a contrary tendency, and 
yet M. Brentano does not deem it 
worth his while to offer any other 
explanation. The fact itself is thus 
assumed as a sufficient reason of 
itself, and its consequences may 
take on any color consonant 
with the individual views of the 
author. Political philosophy must 
relinquish all claims to be con- 
sidered a science, else it must build 
upon foundations more firm and 
consistent than the shifting quick- 
sands of a few glittering generali- 
ties. God is the parent of the 
family, as the family is the parent of 
society. As God said, " Increase 
and multiply," and laid down the 



conditions for the fulfilment of his 
command, so the family has gen- 
erated society and made it such as 
the conditions of its own vigor and 
heal thf illness allowed. This, briefly 
stated, is the true explanation of the 
origin of social life. M. Brentano, 
therefore, rightly sought the seed of 
society in the family, but he develop- 
ed the family out of a moral proto- 
plasm without beginning, without 
shape, without purpose. He tells 
us that the human family did not 
grow up, like a school of fishes. 
This is negative information, and of 
the sort by which the body of so- 
cial science is much hampered but 
in nowise benefited. It is well 
enough to state that the family ad- 
mits nothing short of the strictest 
and most steadfast morality, and is 
the result of deep and lasting af- 
fection, of labor, devotedness, and 
self-sacrifice; but the average mind 
insists upon inquiring through 
what active intervention have those 
conditions been realized. 

" Is it, then, impossible," asks M. Bren- 
tano (p. 418), "for a people that has 
reached our degree of civilization to re- 
turn to simpler and stronger affections ? 
The problem of our regeneration lies in 
the answer to this question. In the last 
analysis the progress of every nation 
hinges on the strength of those primitive 
affections. They have given birth to the 
family and its traditions, to sound public 
and private morality. They have given 
uniformity to religious beliefs, they have 
cradled the sciences, and have taken 
literature and the other arts by the hand." 

But the author fails to inform us 
how, in the first place, those pure 
and vigorous affections came into 
play, and how, once weakened, they 
have regained or may regain 
strength. There is a logical union 
between the links of his argument 
up to this point, but just where in- 
quiry is most urgent the voice of 
the oracle falters and is silent. It 



614 



Civilization and its Laws. 



is true that simplicity combined 
. with sound morality can withstand 
the shock of social and political 
revolutions more effectually than 
over-refinement and corruption, 
that affections are more powerful 
than ideas ; but on what do these 
affections rest? What creative 



child of nature, with affections un- 
corrupted, with aspirations not 
turned from their true aim, is more 
amenable to the influences that 
lead up to true civilization than 
the product of a decaying social 
system in whom intellectual char- 
latanism has bred scepticism and 



force presides at their birth, and pampered desires have begotten 

what plastic force moulds and di- moral atrophy. 

rects them ? These are questions But what is to prevent the man 

of more vital importance in M. of few desires and of strong affec- 






Brentano's scheme of civilization, 
as he has made all else depend on the 
vigor and simplicity of domestic 
affections, and on the purity of pri- 



tions from following in the foot- 
steps of his elder brother who has 
typified Persian, Assyrian, Roman, 
and Grecian civilization ? M. 



vateand public morals. Human na- Brentano cannot inform us, and for 
tu re, as exhibited both in its ele- this reason his book, with its many 
inentary state and under the com- deep insights into the difficulties 



plex conditions of an advanced 
civilization, obeys the same laws 
and is subject to the same internal 
influences. All differences are ac- 
cidental. The savage as well as 
the civilized man seeks in what he 
does a greater meed of happiness, 



he is powerless to solve, with its 
phosphorescent gleams of truth 
scattered here and there, has shed 
no new light on a question which 
but one light alone can illumine. 
The effort to reach downwards and 
touch the fo'undation of truth ex- 



and both are equally mindful of hausts reason, which thus languidly 



the promptings of conscience. 
Should the savage break away from 
the moorings of national tradition 
and fling all inward warnings to 
the winds, he acts precisely as the 
child of civilization who runs coun- 
ter to the best ideas of his epoch 
and turns a deaf ear to the voice 



accepts the results of its fruitless 
researches as the last expression of 
knowledge. Thus far, in dealing 
with those principles of law and 
morality on which society rests, 
M. Brentano has failed to exhibit 
a true conception of their origin 
and purposes, and has imparted a 



of conscience. Of what use to the mistaken character to the facts by 



savage is a primitive and more 
vigorous condition of the affections, 
since there is nothing stronger than 



means of which he has endeavored 
to explain the fluctuating epochs 
of progress and decay in the his- 



themselves to hold him loyal to -tory of civilization. 



their command ? Is not civilized 
man, with weaker affections, more 
powerfully acted upon by ideas 



We will now briefly glance at the 
functions which he assigns to the 
two most potent factors in the de- 



and by a completer knowledge of velopment of society viz., religion 



the consequences of his acts ? 
Therefore simplicity and pristine 
vigor of affection are powerless to 



and science. According to M. 
Brentano, all religious and scien- 
tific changes take place in accord- 



effect social regeneration, as they, ance with the laws which govern 
unaided, prove inoperative in the the human intellect. A complete 
mission of civilizing men. The knowledge of thoselaws and of their 



Civilisation and its Laivs. 



! 



tar 



operation can alone, therefore, ena- 
ble us to account for the prevalence 
of the various forms of belief which 
have existed among men at differ- 
ent periods of the world's history, 
and to explain the rise, progress, 
and decay of scientific knowledge. 
The first men differed from the 
brute creation only in their ability 
to discern relations between ob- 
jects, and in this ability M. Bren- 
tano discovers the origin of all re- 
ligious beliefs. The savage who 
repeatedly killed a wild boar in 
the neighborhood of a certain tree, 
having perceived the relation be- 
tween his good fortune and the 
tree in question, attributed an in- 
telligent influence to the latter and 
sought to propitiate its good-will. 
The wild beast that made night 
hideous with its roar meant to in- 
spire terror, and therefore was 
carefully shunned or slain in a 
spirit of resentment. The echo 
which the beetling cliff sent back 
was a mysterious voice foreboding 
evil or laden with the hope and 
promise of happiness. The fantas- 
tic outlines of a mountain or a 
cloud not. only resembled a giant 
or a wild beast, but to the simple 
mind of primitive man such resem- 
blance was identical with the reali- 
ty. Thus, says M. Brentano, all 
religious belief had its source in 
a false perception of relation. This 
attempt to explain the origin of re- 
ligion has not the merit even of 
novelty. J. J. Rousseau hinted at 
it before, and it was a part of the 
doctrine of the Encyclopaedic phi- 
losophers of the eighteenth centu- 
ry. But M. Brentano Differs from 
others who broached the same 
views in that he does not deem it 
necessary to support his statements 
by proof. In these days of search- 
ing criticism, when even unimpor- 
tant questions of history are sub- 



jected to close scrutiny and minute 
analysis, it is pitiable to be asked 
to accept as the history of a most 
important phase of human experi- 
ence a tissue of crude conjectures. 
Yet M. Brentano seems to have 
nothing better to offer. Fetichism 
is, then, the beginning of religion; 
and as the mind of man expands, 
as his intelligence grows more ro- 
bust, and experience helps to cor- 
rect the first mistaken data of ob- 
servation, he gradually rises to a 
higher plane, and begins to per- 
ceive more relations between things 
and to judge them more correctly 
In like manner science lisped its 
truths with difficulty at first. The 
mind had possession of a few sim- 
ple facts, which it interpreted in a 
grotesque and puerile manner. The 
periodical revolution of the hea- 
venly bodies was a fact which 
could not escape observation, and 
the interpretation of this fact laid 
the foundation of astronomy. But 
before that sublime science could 
have reached its present grand pro- 
portions it was necessary that the 
human mind should have sounded 
the absurdities of astrology, just as 
the marvels of modern chemistry 
are the legitimate outcome of al- 
chemy. Science and religion pro- 
gressed pari passu. A true know- 
ledge of the relation between things 
constitutes the essence of each, with 
tins difference : that with religion 
relations grow fewer as knowledge 
progresses, whereas in the case of 
science they grow more and more 
numerous daily. The tendency, 
therefore, of the human mind, in 
obedience to the laws which govern 
it, is to reduce religion to a skele- 
ton and to find its true repose in 
the fulness o( science. Such is 
the millennium towards which, in 
M. Brentano's opinion, the human 
race is slowly but surely coming. 



6i6 



Civilization and its Laws. 



Down through the slow centuries 
of Assyrian, Egyptian, and Persian 
domination the crude religious sys- 
tems of primitive men continued to 
undergo a sort of organic trans- 
formation, which ended in the an- 
thropomorphism of Greece and 
Rome. During this time the sci- 
ences were disengaging themselves 
from religious entanglements and 
asserting their true nature more 
distinctly. Science taught the 
Greeks to endow their gods with 
reason, and religion partook of the 
character of this first step in civili- 
zation by becoming more rational 
and making fewer demands on 
faith. The symbols of ancient 
creeds remained, but became mean- 
ingless. Myths which were once 
accepted literally took on what- 
ever interpretation the fancy or in- 
genuity of philosophers prompted. 
Roman polytheism completed the 
task which Socrates and Plato had 
begun. Philosophy rejected reli- 
gion as superstitious, and unfurled 
the standard of supreme reason. 
Cicero laughed at the soothsayers, 
and the augurs smiled at each 
other. Thus fetichism, which be- 
gan with the worship of the winds, 
the forests, and the mountains, 
passed upwards through various 
transformations into anthropomor- 
phism, and ended, with the decline of 
Greece and Rome, in general unbe- 
lief. In the meantime science had 
been groping its way slowly along. 
Philosophy, the mistress of sciences, 
;first broke away from the leading- 
strings of religion; and no matter 
-how puerile may seem to us the 
-speculations of Thales, Epimenides, 
and Xenophanes, they embodied 
the first attempts of the intellect to 
understand the laws, in obedience 
to which it operates. They broke 
the ground in which Plato and 
Aristotle sowed the seeds of their 



immortal teachings. They were 
the pioneers of the philosophy that 
has immortalized Descartes, Spi- 
noza, and Kant. Medicine in its 
turn came forth from the temple, 
and Hippocrates laid the founda- 
tion of rational inquiry into the 
phenomena of life, death, and dis- 
ease. So acute were his observa- 
tions, and so just his inferences, 
that his name is held in respect 
even to this day. Mathematics 
and the physical sciences next felt 
the influence of the new impulse 
which had been given to intellect- 
ual activity, and made rapid strides 
for a while. In this manner M. 
Brentano explains the birth and 
growth of philosophy and science. 
The decay, of religion marks the 
rise and progress of both. But the 
development of thought is not uni- 
form. It must experience the vi- 
cissitudes and fluctuations of social 
and political institutions. Science 
becomes distorted by over-refine- 
ment, and philosophy loses its bal- 
ance by misdirected speculation. 
Astronomy, which had for a while 
freed itself from the hamperings of 
astrology, relapsed into its former 
superstitious surroundings, though 
it still continued to accumulate re- 
sults. Mathematics were no longer 
studied asa science, but degenerated 
into mystical numbers and cabalis- 
tic signs. "Medicine met a severe 
shock through the mistakes of Ga- 
len, while Euclid and Archimedes 
found no successors. The very 
decay of religious sentiment has- 
tened the general decadence of 
thought, for though the creeds 
which had taken root among na- 
tions up to the period of Grecian 
and Roman ascendency were the 
offspring of wrongly-perceived re- 
lations, they satisfied the religious 
instinct of man, and in this manner 
contributed to his moral and intel- 



Civilization and its Laws. 



lectual elevation. Scepticism is 
more baleful than erroneous doc- 
trines. Cicero attempted to con- 
struct a system of Roman philoso- 
phy, but failed because there was 
no national thought to embody in 
the work. The Roman intellect 
had been Grecianized. Hence the 
philosophy of Cicero is a patched- 
up eclecticism in which Plato and 
Aristotle figure to poor advantage. 
Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus 
Aurelius have written admirable 
pages, but they split on the rock of 
stoicism. 

" ./Egroti veteris meditantes somnia, gigni 
De nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil posse reverti. 1 ' 
Persius. 

Thus the very conditions which 
ensured a revival of intellectual 
activity later on begot for the 
nonce intellectual confusion and 
lethargy. A universal torpor had 
settled on the world of thought 
when a new Teacher appeared 
among men. The sublime doc- 
trines which Christ preached star- 
tled men less by their novelty than 
by their direct antagonism to the 
spirit and practices of the times. 
He preached self-denial, neighbor- 
ly love, self-sacrifice, and purity of 
life in the teeth .of a social condi- 
tion which was characterized by 
general viciousness and depravity. 
Men had confounded the notions 
of right and wrong to that extent 
that vice was applauded and virtue 
spurned. The doctrine of the Gos- 
pel won to its standard the crushed 
populations of the empire, for whom 
there seemed to be no hope of hap- 
piness here or hereafter. They 
crowded around the apostles to 
hear the lofty words of hope which 
opened heaven to them, and M. 
Brentano is of opinion that the 
failure of the Gospel to win the 
sympathies of the masses would 
have been a miracle. But the Re- 



deemer of men did not complete 
his work, according to M. Brenta- 
no, for he left a number of ques- 
tions undecided, the fruitless dis- 
cussion of which tore the infant 
church into dissenting factions. 
The very first question neophytes 
asked concerned the nature of 
Christ himself: Was he the Son 
of God in a literal sense, or only in 
the sense that he represented di- 
vine Goodness? M. Brentano fol- 
lows his own lights in the survey 
he has made of this period of the 
history of civilization. He has 
hitherto beheld nations shaping 
their destinies by their experience 
in a steady 'and uniform manner. 
The followers of Aristotle quarrel- 
led, and why should not the follow- 
ers of Christ ? Ignoring the claim 
of the church to be the authorized 
exponent and arbiter of Christian 
doctrine, he considers that the 
light which alone could illumine 
the vexed questions that arose had 
gone out for ever on the heights of 
Calvary. And, indeed, if the church 
had not been so divinely appointed, 
no logical thinker could for a mo- 
ment hold that the natural devel- 
opment of the Christian "faith was 
aught else than a series of accre- 
tions and innovations, and that as 
time sped on the difficulty of arriv- 
ing at the true meaning of Christ's 
teaching would tend to become in- 
superable. For this reason M. 
Brentano justly laughs at the pre- 
tensions of Protestants who ima- 
gine that they have sunk a shaft, 
through layer upon layer of corrup- 
tion, into the wellspring of Chris- 
tian doctrine undefiled. M. Bren- 
tano therefore thinks that the nat- 
ural destiny of Christianity was to 
break up into jarring sects, each 
one claiming that it had rightly in- 
terpreted the meaning of the Gos- 
pel. He thus classes in the same 



6i8 



Civilization and its Lai 



vs. 



category the Gnostics, the Mani- 
cheans, the. Nestorians, the Dona- 
tists, the Arians, the Pelagians, and 
those eloquent defenders of the 
church, Tertullian and St.- Augus- 
tine. Rome, however, possessed 
practical genius. She permitted 
the hair-splitters of the East to 
discuss subtleties while she set 
about the work of organizing. The 
genius that had made the embat- 
tled hosts of the empire invincible 
seized the good that was in Chris- 
tianity, and constituted it the 
source and secret of a loftier great- 
ness than had gilded the triumphal 
chariot of Vespasian or had con- 
verted the city into marble. This 
wonderful organizing spirit caught 
up waning civilization and success- 
fully carried it through the trials 
and attacks of the middle ages. 
The decadence of paganism, the 
overthrow of Roman imperialism, 
the weakness of the Lower Empire, 
and the frequent incursions of 
northern hordes tested to the ut- 
most the sagacity and resources of 
the Roman Church. She became 
through all these circumstances 
more powerful in numbers, but she 
had a motley and insubordinate fold. 
Her tact, her ability to fuse dis- 
cordant elements into a homogene- 
ous whole, triumphed. She made 
the middle ages .Roman Catholic. 
She made Europe one nation with 
the pope at its head, and inaugu- 
rated those epics of a continent 
which we call the Crusades. The 
Gregorys, the Alexanders, and the 
Innocents had made the tiara the 
synonym of intellectual and politi- 
cal power. St. Anselm, St. Bona- 
venture, and St. Thomas imparted 
a precision to Christian doctrine 
which it had not hitherto known, 
and the rare spectacle was present- 
ed to the world of a continent, not 
quite merged out of barbarism, 



practising heroic virtues and be- 
lieving in the sublimest dogmas 
that were ever taught to man. In 
science likewise rapid strides were 
being made. Thirty-two thousand 
followers sat at the feet of Abelard. 
The Angel of the Schools purified 
and improved the teachings of Aris- 
totle, and founded a school of phi- 
losophy which neither the sneers 
nor the attacks of modern times 
have weakened. It is easy to cast 
reflections on the Summa^ because 
it is not so easy to understand it, and 
sciolism always delights to sneer 
where a candid statement of opinion 
would entail an avowal of ignorance. 
We may think that the tiresome 
and protracted debates of nominal- 
ists and realists had better never 
have taken place ; but they repre- 
sent a phase of experience through 
which the human mind must have 
necessarily passed in order to reach 
a higher plane of thought. Roger 
Bacon was the legitimate outcome 
of the successful study of St. Tho- 
mas, and his namesake of the wool- 
sack but stole his thunder. 

M. Brentano urges these views 
eloquently, and holds that (Buckl'e 
and Draper set aside) all writers on 
the successive changes of the hu- 
man family during the lapse of re- 
corded centuries are of the same 
opinion. The greatest triumph of 
the race hitherto has been through 
the church, but that triumph was 
to be only of short duration. 
Rome, through the absorption of 
much that was alien to her genius, 
ceased to exercise a living influ- 
ence on nations. Instead of the 
unbending steadfastness of a Gre- 
gory and an Innocent, instead of 
the austere lives of the immediate 
disciples of St. Dominic and St. 
Benedict, simony, nepotism, and 
dissoluteness set in and paved the 
way for the Reformation. That 



Art Sonnets. 



619 






Reformation proved the crowning 
curse of humanity; for, according 
to M. Brentano, no other agency 
developed in our history had the 
effect of throwing men farther 
back in their strivings after an 
ideal civilization. The disrup- 
tion of society under the Augustitli 
proved a boon and a blessing, 
though its immediate results were 
chaos and anarchy, for anything 
was preferable to systematized 
social degradation. But in the 
case of the Reformation there was a 
clear rejection of all that had ele- 
vated men under the most trying 
circumstances ; there was a sheer 
departure from all that experience 
had proved good and noble. M. 
Brentano believes that Rome, Gene- 
va, Worms, and Canterbury went 
astray Rome through internal 
weakness, the others through 
malice. Philosophy and the sci- 
ences progressed more by accident 
than otherwise, for they felt the 
heat of the intellectual strife that 
was going on, and, in utter hope- 
lessness of obtaining more good 



from needless controversies be- 
tween sects, men concluded that 
the positive sciences alone could 
yield substantial and durable re- 
sults. And so the question stands 
to-day. We are in the midst of 
doubt ; we are in the throes of 
a transition to something new. 
Christianity did its utmost, and 
did better than any other civ- 
ilizing agency, but because it 
interfered with the law of indefi- 
nite progress it failed. These 
are the views of an enlighten- 
ed representative of a certain 
phase of modern thought well un- 
derstood in France. They are the 
views of one who has felt that the 
Catholic Church has done more for 
man in his individual and aggre- 
gate capacity than any other insti- 
tution or set of institutions. He is 
unwilling to accept her decisions 
as final; the reason why we do not 
know, though we hope in all chari- 
ty that the reproach of having 
blinked the truth in a noontide 
flood of light will never be uttered 
against him. 



ART SONNETS. 

IV. ON AN ETRUSCAN TOMB. 

ON thy rough sides, O cinerary urn ! 

Two thousand years and more these warriors fight 
One lifts the shield, and one the sword to smite. 
The end it is not given us to discern, 
Nor yet the purport of that strife to learn. 

Scorn not my reading, terrible if trite : 
All life is such a battle, until the Night 
Falls, and ephemeral heats to ashes burn. 




Lo ! on the lid wrapt closely to the chin 
In the long sheet, arms limp upon the breast, 
Head drooped and turned a form of perfect rest ! 
Strewn to'the winds the dust that lay herein, 
Yet, on this sepulchre, the Etruscan faith 
Carved unmistakably a Sleep not Death. 



62O 



Pearl. 



PEARL. 

BY KATHLEEN o'MEARA, AUTHOR OF u IZ.v's STORY," "A SALON IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE," 41 ARK 

YOU MY WIFE? " ETC. 



CHAPTER X. 



POLLY was right. The county 
came trooping after Lady Wyn- 
mere, and for the next fortnight 
there was a procession of callers at 
Broom Hollow that gave the liall- 
porters plenty to do. Invitations 
to dinner followed and were de- 
clined. 

We have no carriage, and we 



u You know Mr. Danvers, I 
think?" said the little lady one 
morning that she called to ask 
them to dine next day. " He is 
coming down to stay with me." 

"I have never met him," said 
the colonel, " but we know his peo- 
ple ; his aunt, Mrs. Monteagle, is 
a very old friend of ours a very 



do not intend to entertain ; so, of clever woman. Does her nephew 
course, we shall not accept any invi- take after her in that ?" 



tations," was Mrs. Redacre's steady 
reply. 

But Lady Wynmere was not so 
easily put off. It was no reason 
not to be neighborly and sociable 
because they did not themselves 
choose to have the trouble of giv- 
ing dinners ; and as to the educa- 



" I don't know if people call Mr. 
Danvers very clever, but he is 
charming; and you know he is heir 
to his uncle something like thirty 
thousand a year and an old baron- 
etage." 

" Oli ! then it don't much signify 
whether he is clever or not," said 



tion of the boys being any excuse Colonel Redacre, drawing the in- 



for Colonel Redacre's not letting 
his friends enjoy him of an even- 
ing, that was sheer nonsense. The 
boys could play at romps or go to 
bed ; the elders of the family were 



ference to which his remark so 
openly pointed. 

Polly was listening attentively, 
and looked very lovely as she sat 
embroidering, with the spring sun 



not going to be let off on the plea of glinting in on her golden head, 
staying at home to look after them. 
" I suppose, for the children's 
sake, we must yield the point and 
not stand on our offended dignity," 
said Mrs. Redacre ; and the colonel, 
after some grumbling, agreed that 



Lady Wynmere was watching her 
with undisguised admiration, and 
any ordinary observer might have 
read her thoughts as she looked at 
Polly and commented on Mr. Dan- 
vers. Perhaps Polly guessed them, 



they had better make the best of too, without the help of the speak- 



the county, since they were in it. 
But they would only accept invita- 
tions from Lady Wynmere ; the 
want of a carriage need be no ob- 
stacle there, as they had only to 
cross the road, and she seemed 
thoroughly penitent and cordial. 



er's eyes to interpret them. She 
dressed her hair very carefully 
the next evening, and fastened a 
white camellia in it from a bouquet 
that Lady Wynmere had sent from 
the green-house. 

Lady Wynmere had taken a 



Pearl. 



621 



great fancy to her. She admired 
Pear], thought her very sensible and 
sweet, but she raved about Polly. 
So did Squire Barlow, and, indeed, 
all the male population of Lam- 
ford. Something in this atmos- 
phere of admiration reacted on 
Polly herself, and lent a fresh lus- 
tre to her beauty, which had been, 
as it were, clouded of late. She 
wanted admiration to bring out the 
inner glow of her beauty, just as some 
natures want love to draw forth all 
their hidden sweetness. Her eyes 
borrowed a more brilliant lustre, 
her cheeks a richer tint, her figure 
a more elastic tread when admir- 
ing glances were upon her. 

Mrs. Barlow and her two daugh- 
ters were there; Helen, the eldest, 
had been engaged to a nobleman, 
but the affair was broken off sud- 
denly and raised a great excite- 
ment in the county, making Helen 
a sort of heroine for the time being. 
She and her sister were very nice 
to the Redacre girls; but Pearl was 
still timid after the way they had 
been all snubbed, and Polly was re- 
joicing in the thought that it was 
her turn now to snub the snubbers. 
This amiable state of mind, though 
highly reprehensible from a moral 
point of view, was very becoming 
to Polly's exterior ; for, if the pose 
of her head was a trifle too lofty, 
there was no denying that it was 
full of dignity, and the touch of 
hauteur in her manner was of that 
exquisitely condescending kind 
that one expects and tolerates 
from a young princess waiting to 
ascend the throne. 

' ; What airs that girl gives her- 
self !" said the eldest Miss Barlow 
to her sister. " She looks as if she 
thought no one fit to speak to." 

But Mrs. Barlow, though she felt 
the terrible damage which Polly's 
proximity must do to her own 



daughters, was generous enough 
to admit that she was the loveliest 
girl her eyes had ever rested on, 
and no wonder if the county went 
mad about her. 

The company were assembled in 
the drawing-room, and Mr. Dan- 
vers, though staying in the house, 
had not yet appeared. 

" What can he be about ?" said 
Lady Wynmere. 

But the door opened at last, and 
he presented himself. 

" Naughty boy ! we have been 
waiting for you," said his hostess. 
" Will you take in Miss Redacre ? 
Mr. Danvers Miss Redacre." 

They passed into the dining- 
room. 

Pearl was on one side of him at 
dinner, and Polly on the other. 
He was "charming," as Lady Wyn- 
mere had said that is, easy to get 
on with and had plenty to say for 
himself. Polly thought him de- 
lightful. 

"How funny that we should nev- 
er have met you in Paris, and yet 
that you should ^ now so many of 
our friends there !" she was saying 
before they had got through the 
second course. " Pearl, only think, 
Mr. Danvers was dining at the Leo- 
polds' last week 1" 

Pearl, who had been talking to 
her neighbor on the other side, the 
curate, bent forward to receive 
this information. 

"Are they all well?" she asked. 
" But I know they are, for we had a 
letter from Blanche this morning. 
Dear old Paris ! I wonder when we 
shall see it again ?" 

" You find this place awfully 
slow after it, I dare say," said Mr. 
Danvers ; " but you don't mean to 
stay here all the year round, do 
you ?" 

" Oh ! yes ; we must. We can't 
afford to go away. We have lost 



622 



PfarL 



our fortune. That is why we left 
Paris," said Pearl. 

Mr. Danvers muttered something 
that was not very intelligible ; but 
it was meant to be consolatory, for 
Pearl distinguished "very sorry." 
Polly blushed a deep rose-color. 
What did it signify to Mr. Danvers 
why they left Paris? But Pearl 
was so strange ! To hear her talk 
sometimes one would fancy she 
gloried in proclaiming their pover- 
ty, as if it were a thing to boast of. 
To be sure there was nothing to be 
ashamed of in it, but where was 
the need of announcing it the first 
thing to this young man of fashion 
and heir to thirty thousand a year? 
While she was turning this in her 
mind some other train of thought 
in Mr. Danvers' moved him to say 
to Pearl : 

" I wonder if you know a man 
who has just come over to the 
French embassy as military at- 
tache? His name is Darvallon ; he 
is a friend of the Leopolds, a bro- 
ther officer of the captain's." 

"Yes, we knew him," said 
Pearl. And it was her turn to 
blush. 

Mr. Danvers, however, was too 
busy with his dinner to notice it, 
and Pearl, who was conscious of a 
surprisingly intense interest in the 
subject, took courage presently to 
say: 

"I wonder why they sent Cap- 
tain Darvallon to London ? He 
had no idea of coming when we 
left Paris." 

" They have been making seve- 
ral changes at the embassy lately. 
He seems a particularly agreeable 
man. No nonsense about him, 
but a bit of an original; rather 
odd, I should say." 

He looked up to read an answer 
to this remark in Pearl's face ; but 
it was full of negatives. 



" Odd ! That is the last thing I 
should have expected any one to 
say of Captain Darvallon." 

" He is a very intelligent fellow; 

more like an Englishman no fuss 

about him," said Mr. Danvers, see- 

1 ing at once that he had made a 

mistake. 

"But that is not being odd?" 
said Pearl, determined not to let 
him off. 

" I don't know exactly what to 
call it ; but this is the sort of 
thing I mean. I met him at the 
club the other evening. I had 
met him in Paris at the Leopolds', 
and at the embassy the day be- 
fore, so we were a sort of old ac- 
quaintances, you see. I asked him 
to come and eat his dinner at the 
same table with me and a friend 
whom I had invited, and he did ; 
but when I wanted him to take a 
glass of champagne he wouldn't. 
'Why,' I said, 'what sort of a 
Frenchman are you not to like 
champagne ?' * I do like it,' he 
said, * but I can't afford to drink it 
at my own expense, and I don't 
choose to drink it at other peo- 
ple's.' 'Now, you know, a man 
does not say that sort of thing. 
I felt sorry for the poor fellow, es- 
pecially before my friend, who 
looked. rather put out; but Dar- 
vallon didn't seem to mind it." 

" No, I dare say not," said Pearl, 
with a peculiar smile. 

" It was a plucky thing to say ; 
but it was odd. You will admit 
it was odd ?" 

"It was very bold," said Pearl, 
laughing, " and perhaps it was ra- 
ther inconsiderate. Captain Dar- 
vallon ought to have remembered 
that you and your friend might be 
shocked ; he should not have spo- 
ken o'f his poverty in that indiscreet 
way." 

Mr. Danvers understood that 



Pearl. 



623 



she was laughing at him; but it 
was natural enough she should take 
Darvallon's part, seeing that she 
had just done a minute ago the 
very thing that he, Danvers, was 
denouncing as odd in the French- 
man, and he voted himself a fool 
for having told the story. Pearl, 
meantime, was interiorly thanking 
him for it. She knew now what 
had suggested it; and she felt a 
thrill of pride to think that her own 
words had called up those of that 
brave soldier had been, as it were, 
the echo of his. 

Polly was listening to the con- 
versation, and highly disapproving 
of Pearl's share in it. Mr. Dan- 
vers was right: people in society 
have no business flaunting dis- 
agreeable things in other people's 
faces, and there is nothing in this 
world so disagreeable as poverty. 

" My sister is such an admirer of 
courage," she said, "that she for- 
gives almost anything for the sake 
of it; but I am not at all heroic, 
and I think you are quite right 
about that speech of Captain Dar- 
vallon's. It was in very bad taste ; 
but then one ought, of course, to 
make allowance for him. Perhaps 
you don't know it, but he is not a 
gentleman : he rose from the ranks." 

" O Polly !" Pearl's face was suf- 
fused with a sudden glow, arid her 
eyes flashed angrily as she uttered 
the exclamation. 

Mr. Danvers felt that he had 
somehow or other called up a storm- 
spirit between the sisters. 

"You surprise me," he said. " I 
should never have guessed Captain 
Darvallon was that sort of person ; 
he is quite a gentleman in his ap- 
pearance and manners." 

"He is a gentleman in every 
way, in the true sense of the word," 
s.aid Pearl. " Ask Captain Leo- 
pold what he thinks of him." 



" Oh ! in France it does not so 
much matter," said Polly; "in fact, 
in the French army it does not 
matter at all ; but I dare say my 
sister is right about Captain Dar- 
vallon's being a. gentleman in the 
true sense. He is very high-princi- 
pled and honorable and all that ; 
but one may be that and at the 
same time want good breeding in 
little things." And she looked at 
Mr. Danvers with a little play of 
her pencilled eyebrows that was in- 
tended to be confidential ; a little 
Freemason sign between her and 
himself that Pearl was not to see. 

Mr. Danvers understood it, and 
smiled back into the lovely sap- 
phire eyes, and devoted himself to 
Polly with the utmost desire to 
please her for the rest of v the din- 
ner. Pearl said very little, listen- 
ing to her curate on the other side, 
who was agreeable enough, and 
ready to do the most of the talking 
unassisted. After dinner, in the 
drawing-room, the two girls kept 
aloof from one another. Pearl was 
hurt and offended. Polly was ag- 
grieved and angry. When the 
gentlemen came in the young la- 
dies were requested to sing the 
Miss Barlows first ; they sang a 
duet in a correct, namby-pamby 
style, and then Pearl was invited 
to take their place at the piano. 

"I would rather Polly sang," she 
said to Lady Wynmere. " Please 
let me off singing to-night ! I will 
play as much as you like, and Pol- 
ly will be delighted to sing." 

Lady Wynmere never worried 
people; she let Pearl have her way, 
and tripped across the room to 
Polly, her lace lappets flapping like 
wings behind her head. 

Pearl played a nocturne, and 
then Mr. Danvers led Polly to the 
piano, and she stood up behind 
Pearl and sang. 



624 



Pearl. 



She bad a fine voice, and it was 
highly cultivated, so that it was al- 
ways 'pleasant to hear; but she va- 
ried much in her manner of sing- 
ing, sometimes letting the notes 
flow out of themselves, listlessly, 
with no effort to put any feeling 
into them-; sometimes throwing an 
amount of pathos and fire into her 
voice that made it altogether a dif- 
ferent instrument. To-night she 
seemed bent on producing an effect, 
and she succeeded. Pearl had 
never heard her sing as she was 
doing now. She sang a French bal- 
lad called " Vingt ans," and the ten- 
derness and spirit that she threw 
into the music and the words elec- 
trified even her mother. She look- 
ed like the angel of song, flushed, 
brilliant, her face now melting with 
pathos, now sparkling with the coy 
merriment of " Vingt ans." 

Percy Danvers kept his eyes 
riveted on her, and when the song 
was over he flew to her side, en- 
treating her to sing it again. She 
refused, hesitated, and then, una- 
ble to resist his supplications, 
yielded and sang another ballad. 

Lady Wynmere was in ecstasies; 
she sat opposite the singer, gently 
beating time with the tips of her 
tiny white kid fingers, and dancing 
delicately on the very edge of her 
chair. When Polly ceased the 
room rose as by a common impulse, 
and as she turned from the piano 
Squire Barlow and the curate and 
Mr. Danvers gathered round her, 
applauding enthusiastically. Colo- 
nel Redacre came up, as proud as 
if he had taken colors from the 
enemy. 

" You didn't do badly, Pussy," 
he said, pinching the flushed cheek. 

" Badly ! Malibran couldn't do 
it as well!" protested the squire; 
and nobody thought fit to contra- 
dict him. 



The evening, which had threaten- 
ed to be rather tame, grew brilliant 
under the influence of Polly's bril- 
liant gift. She sang again and 
again. 

" My darling, I hardly recognize 
your voice, it sounds so rich 
and full," said Mrs. Redacre, join- 
ing the group round the young 
prim a donna. 

" It is the lofty room, mamma ; 
you know I always sing better in a 
big room. I feel as if I could not 
get my voice half out when I sing 
in a small one." 

" You ought to have marble halls 
to sing in," said Mr. Danvers. 

"I should be quite satisfied if I 
always had halls like these," said 
Polly, and he led her to a seat. 

Nobody had noticed Pearl or 
paid her the least compliment, 
though she had played a nocturne 
of Chopin's exquisitely, and ac- 
companied Polly to perfection, as 
she always did. There was no lei- 
sure to spare from Polly; she filled 
the whole place; her beauty and 
her voice held everybody captive 
some delighted and willing cap- 
'tives, a few reluctant and rebel- 
lious, but all were under the spell. 

Mrs. Barlow had offered her car- 
riage to take the Redacres home 
first, so they took leave a little 
sooner than the rest. 

" It has been a very pleasant 
evening, has it not, Hugh ?" said 
Alice, as they drove away. 

The colonel said he had enjoyed 
himself. 

"And you, my darlings?" said 
the mother, bending forward. 

Pearl kissed her, and smiled back 
into her face. 

" It has been delightful, mamma, "- 
said Polly. 

The weather was fine, frosty, but 
of a temper that was trying to 



Pearl. 



625 



Balaklava. Nothing upset the 
colonel more than these sudden 
jumps from damp to frost, and from 
frost to clamp. For several days 
after that pleasant little dinner at 
the Park he was as cross as two 
sticks, the boys said. There was no 
quarter to be had in the school- 
room ; for the least mistake in con- 
struing their Greek version he 
was down on them like a thunder- 
bolt ; and he would have it that the 
school-room clock was on wheels, 
and kept them at it for full five 
minutes beyond the fair time. 
Everybody in the house felt the 
effects of Balaklava's state of 
nerves, and the only way of escap- 
ing from it was to be out as much 
as possible, for the colonel himself 
remained in-doors all day. Polly 
was always safe to be off the mo- 
ment dinner was over; but she now 
refused to go out at all. Under 
pretence of keeping poor papa 
company, she sat with her work 
by the fire, and was not to be 
tempted or bullied into joining 
the others in their afternoon walk. 
They were used to letting her 
have her own way, so she stayed, 
and nobody but Pearl saw any- 
thing suspicious in the stay-at-home 
fit that was so exceedingly unlike 
Polly. 

Ever since that evening at Lady 
Wyn mere's, now four days ago, a 
coldness had existed between the 
sisters. If any one had a right to 
keep it up, it was Pearl, for she was 
the one who had been hurt and 
mortified; but she would have for- 
given it all in a moment, if Polly 
would have let her. But Polly 
would not. She seemed determin- 
ed to let Pearl feel that she was 
displeased and meant to hold her 
own, as she called it, and it was 
evidently part of the system to stay 
at home and punish herself in order 
VOL. xxvni. 40 



to show Pearl that she could be quite 
happy without her. 

But this was not Polly's only 
motive for remaining indoors all 
the afternoon : Mr. Danvcrs might 
call. It was unaccountable that he 
had not done so already, He had 
as good as told her he meant to 
call the very next day, and four 
days had now gone by and he had 
given no sign. It was very rude of 
him, Polly considered. He owed 
that mark of civility to her father, 
if he did not care to come for any 
other reason. 

Stately and beautiful were the 
castles that Polly had reared on 
this meeting with the heir of Sir 
Archibald Danvers. Yet if any one 
had told her she was speculating on 
a husband she would have indig- 
nantly denied it. Things wear 
such a different face under differ- 
ent names. Castle-building was a 
harmless amusement, and might be 
indulged in without loss of dignity 
or sacrifice of principle ; but it was 
coarse and sly to play at that sort 
of thing in reality. 

" That child is fretting," said 
Colonel Redacre, as Polly left the 
room, where she had been sitting 
silently over her work for an hour. 
" Can't you do something to amuse 
her? It is not right to let her fret ; 
it will tell upon the child's health." 

" I fear she feels the change in 
our position more instead of less," 
said Alice. u I hoped she was get- 
ting reconciled to it, like Pearl; 
but Polly can't bear a dull life, I 
see." And the mother sighed. 

" She is more sensitive ; she takes 
things to heart more than Pearl. 
Pearl should exert herself to amuse 
her and keep her from fretting." 

" Pearl does her best ; she would 
carry all our burdens, if she could,, 
poor child ! But Polly pines, I fear,, 
for what none of us can give her." 



626 



Pearl. 



Polly's uncomplaining silence 
did not deceive her mother. Mrs. 
Redacre did not see the visions that 
were for ever flitting before that 
foolish brain, but she saw what a 
different being Polly was at home 
and when she was in society, and 
the change that had come over her 
these last few days was manifest. 
The mother, too, was disappointed 
that Mr. Danvers had not called. 
So was Pearl; and she longed to 
say so, and find out whether Polly 
was thinking much about it ; but 
the chill air surrounding Polly just 
now made all such intimate con- 
verse impossible. This was a great 
trial to Pearl, and she lost herself 
in endless conjecture as to what 
the cause of the persistent coldness 
could be. 

" I met Lady Wynmere driving 
down to the village," said Pearl, 
coming in from a walk oYie after- 
noon. " She wants us to go and 
lunch to-morrow ; Mr. Danvers is 
to be there." 

" Ha3 he not been there this 
week past ?" said Mrs. Redacre, 
while Polly pricked her ears and 
waited for the answer. 

<( No; he was called to London 
by telegram the day after we met 
him. His uncle was dying; but he 
has not died, and Lady Wynmere 
had a telegram from Mr. Danvers 
this morning to know if he might 
come down and finish his visit; 
she telegraphed back jjw." 

Soon after this Polly said she 
was dying for a little fresh air and 
must go for a turn. 

" Nobody will care to come 
you have all had your constitution- 
als but Fritz will take pity on 
me," she said gaily. 

" I will go," said Pearl ; " I have 
only been to the post-office and 
back. But Fritz can come too ; he 
is sure to be ready for the road." 



And so, indeed, Fritz was. He 
knew by intuition when anybody 
was going for a walk, and as soon 
as they crossed the hall there 
stood Fritz on the door-mat, pant- 
ing and leaping, his long, pink 
tongue fluttering with excitement, 
his tail wagging till the wonder was 
that it held on. 

" We will go down to the canal, 
shall we?" said Polly; it was a 
favorite walk of hers. 

Pearl would have agreed to go to 
the moon, if she had proposed, and 
Fritz was accommodating ; one walk 
was as good as another to him. 

" Has Lady Wynmere herself 
been absent, did she say?" inquir- 
ed Polly, when Fritz had gone 
through his preliminary antics, 
rearing and capering an<f making 
believe to bite the flounce of her 
dress, worrying it and growling 
ferociously, and finally starting off 
at a pace. 

"She has been confined to her 
room with neuralgia," said Pearl. 
" I am glad Mr. Danvers was 
away. It looked so rude his not 
calling all this time, if he had been 
there. Did not you think so ?" 

"Yes; but I set it down to the 
fright you gave him about us," said 
Polly. 

" I gave him a fright !" 

" About our poverty. He look- 
ed quite scared when you said 
we were so poor that we must 
stick here all the year round. I 
couldn't see the necessity for say- 
ing it, myself." 

" No ? Well, perhaps not. But 
there is no use trying to hide our 
poverty ; and if people are afraid, 
they had better be warned before- 
hand and not come near us." 

" I don't suppose anybody likes 
poverty." 

" One need not be afraid of it. 
It is not an infectious disease like 



Pearl. 



627 



the small-pox; one can't catch it," 
said Pearl, laughing. " And as to 
the people who don't like to come 
near us on account of it, they 
can be no loss ; we are better with- 
out them. Worldly, vulgar-mind- 
ed people they must be." 

" I don't think Mr. Danvers is a 
vulgar-minded person, though he 
certainly is a man of the world; 
but you are evidently of Captain 
Darvallon's way of thinking that 
one ought to flaunt one's poverty in 
the face of everybody one meets. 
I hate that sort of thing. It is just 
as vulgar as boasting of one's 
money. I can't imagine a gentle- 
man doing it. In fact, I am sure 
no gentleman would." 

"I don't agree with you there," 
said Pearl. 

" No ; I didn't expect you would. 
You admire people who go in for 
heroics; who go through the 
world bearing aloft a banner with 
a strange device. I hate that. I 
hate poverty, and I hate people 
who pretend to admire it." 

" I don't suppose anybody ad- 
mires it for itself," said Pearl; 
"but one may admire people for 
bearing it bravely, for making use 
of it as a vital force in their lives, 
instead of lying down and being 
crushed by it." 

"Vital force vital fiddlestick! 
I wish you would not talk such stuff 
to me. I don't understand big 
words, and, once for all, I hate hero- 
ics." 

" Don't let us quarrel about 
them, at any rate," said Pearl ; " I 
am not heroic enough to bear that, 
Polly." Her voice was full of 
tears, though she kept them out of 
her eyes. What misery was there 
to be compared to this, if Polly was 
going to hate her and to keep up 
this current of ill will between 
them ? And Pearl was so conscious 



of having done her very best to 
disarm her ! Inexperienced as she 
was in human nature, she had felt 
instinctively that there is nothing 
so hard to bear, so difficult to for- 
give, as the memory of our own 
wrong-doing written in the eyes of 
one who loves us and forgives it. 
She was finding out gradually that 
Polly's love was not magnanimous 
enough for this; that the burden 
was fretting her self-love and un- 
dermining her sisterly affection. If 
a noble act of kindness does not 
penetrate our heart, sweetening it 
to the core, .it rankles on the sur- 
face, an offence to our vanity. 
And so the world is full of in- 
grates. 

Happily, Fritz was there to make 
a break in the silence between the 
two sisters. He trotted on by 
their side for one while, and the 
next darted off frantically after a 
shadow or a stick; then galloped 
back again, with the prey or with- 
out it, as might be; now he was 
seized with a sudden desire to 
catch his tail, and was stopped in 
the pursuit of that feat by the dis- 
tant rumble of a cart or the caw- 
ing of a rook high up in the trees. 

The canal was wrinkled with 
tiny wavelets, that broke with a 
sea-like wash against the bank, 
where Fritz stooped to drink, cau- 
tiously feeling his footing in the 
treacherous grasses that fell over 
the water's edge. The breeze rose 
up and swept the palm-reeds that 
were planted thickly on one side of 
the canal. 

"How pretty they are!" said 
Pearl. " Their buds look like the 
silver mountings of a flute ; do they 
not?" Polly turned a lazy glance 
upon the flutes, that rose and fell in 
serried ranks as the wind passed 
over them, sighing and whispering; 
but she made no answer to Pearl's 



628 



Pearl. 



poetic little appeal. The rooks rose 
up from the meadows, first twos and 
threes, then all the flock, till the air 
was black with them as they sped 
away in the rose-colored sunset. 

" I'm afraid it is growing cold 
for you, Pol ; would you like to 
turn back ?" said Pearl. 

" Just as you like," said Polly ; 
but she turned back at once, and 
they walked home at a brisker pace. 

No one made any further at- 
tempt at conversation but Fritz; 
but he gave it up in despair after a 
while, for even a dog can't con- 
verse all by himself. 

When the sisters went up to take 
off their things Pearl threw her 
arms round Polly. 

" Don't let us quarrel, darling," 
she said in a tender, beseeching 
voice. " We can't afford to do 
that, can we ?" 

"You need not have reminded 
me of it ; I think of it every hour in 
the day." 

" O Polly, Polly ! you know I 
never meant that," cried Pearl, 
struck to the heart. 

But Polly made no answer, only 
let Pearl's arms fall from her, and 



then, with her head erect and her 
face set, walked out of the room. 

Pearl flung herself on the little 
white bed, sobbing. 

"What am I to do? This is 
dreadful ! I wish I could go away ! 
She will end by hating me." 

She lay awake that night, think- 
ing what she could do. There was 
only one thing for it : she and Pol- 
ly should separate. But how was 
this to be? 

" I wish she had never told me. 
It would have been better for us 
both. I thought that it would have 
made the secret less bitter to her, 
my knowing it ; but I see it makes 
it worse. She fancies I am always 
reproaching her. Yet how can she 
think that? She ought to know 
me better." 

Pearl ought to have known Polly 
better; but she judged her by her 
own heart. " Love begets love " is, 
like other axioms, only true in de- 
gree. The love of a noble nature 
flows into a selfish one without 
drawing forth any responsive noble- 
ness, just as the wave flows on the 
sand beach, and is sucked in, and 
brings forth no flowers. 



CHAPTER XI. 



THERE was no cooking to do this 
morning; they were all going to 
lunch with Lady Wynmere, the 
boys being specially included in 
the invitation, so Pearl sat in the 
drawing-room, like a fine lady, work- 
ing. Polly was there too. She was 
untiring at her needle, making and 
mending late and early, and she 
seemed to like it. She did like it, in 
fact. Mme. de Stael declared that 
none -but a femme passionnce could 
live alone; but she left the needle 
out of the reckoning when she said 



that. In her day, it is true, liter- 
ary women were apt to despise their 
needle ; the pen usurped its place. 
Mme. de Stael herself ignored it 
contemptuously in summing up the 
helps and comforts of a woman's 
life; yet what could the women 
who suffer from ennui do without 
its company ? A needle is better 
company than a fire; its regular 
click has a regulating effect on one's 
nerves and one's limbs; it keeps 
one quiet; it helps one to think, 
and dreaming is no loss of time 



Pearl. 



629 



while the needle runs busily on. 
When Polly plied it her face wore 
a satisfied, attentive look. Some- 
times the expression was concen- 
trated to hardness, as she sat stitch- 
ing, stitching ; but it was more often 
sad, and sadness on that lovely face 
sat very tonchingly. She was tired of 
life before life had begun ; and there 
is no story more pathetic than this 
on a young face. 

Mrs. Redacre was writing at the 
farther end of the large room, large 
enough to admit of conversation at 
one end without disturbing readers 
or writers at the other. But the 
sisters were not conversing; they 
were silently absorbed in their 
work. Polly's hands were full of 
soft white and blue wools, out, of 
which she was weaving a shawl for 
her mother very becoming work, 
and suitable for a drawing-room. 
Pearl had a basketful o-f stockings 
before her, and was quilting the 
needle through a coarse pair of 
woollen socks of the boys, when 
suddenly Fritz began to bark, and 
in a minute Lance put his head in 
at the drawing-room door. "A 
visitor ! A gentleman coming down 
by the beach walk," he said, and 
shut the door again. 

Polly flushed up. 

"Hide away those stockings!" 
she said in a flutter of excitement. 
"It is Mr. Danvers." 

"Well, what harm will the stock- 
ings do him ? I suppose he wears 
stockings, and knows that they 
must be mended," said Pearl, laugh- 
ing. 

" He is not accustomed to see 
them in a drawing-room ; do put 
them away, Pearl, to please me !" 

Pearl drew out her hand and 
dropped the blue sock into the pile, 
and was in the act of carrying off 
the basket to hide it behind a sofa, 
when the door was flung open by 



Lance and the visitor entered. 
Both the girls started ; Pearl let the 
basket drop, and all the stockings 
poured out on the .carpet. 

" Captain Darvallon !" 

Mrs. Redacre came forward to 
greet him. " What a pleasant sur- 
prise ! Who should have thought 
of it? Lance, tell your papa that 
Captain Darvallon is here." And 
Lance flew to do the maternal bid- 
ding, for it meant an end of school- 
room for that day. 

"It is very indiscreet of me to 
come at this hour, but I only arriv- 
ed by the 12.30 train, and I wanted 
to pay my respects to you, madame, 
in your own house, before I had the 
pleasure of meeting you at Lady 
Wyn mere's." 

He was addressing himself whol- 
ly to Mrs. Redacre, after shaking 
hands, English fashion, with her 
daughters. Pearl was still stand- 
ing with the fallen basket at her 
feet, flushed, beaming, utterly for- 
getful of the disgrace of being 
caught amongst the stockings. 
Hers was a telltale face, and Pol- 
ly, who was not absorbed by strong 
personal emotion, was reading it 
with mixed feelings. It was all so 
sudden that she hardly knew what 
predominated in her mind the sur- 
prise of the apparition, her pleasure 
in the diversion it would make, or 
her amazement at its effect upon 
Pearl. 

Colonel Redacre came in at once 
and gave the Frenchman a cordial 
welcome. 

" I am better pleased to see you 
than I can say. But how do you 
come here? How did you find us 
out ? Are you staying at the 
Park ?" 

" I am here for a few days' 
shooting. Lady Wynmere was kind 
enough to invite me down with 
Mr. Danvers." 



630 



Pearl. 



Captain Darvallon did not think 
it necessary to say how diplomati- 
cally he had finessed to get this in- 
vitation sent to him through Percy 
Danvers. They were soon in high 
conversation about every one in 
Paris, the colonel delighted to 
have a man in the house, and a 
man whom he- particularly liked; 
but there was not m'uch time to 
lose, for lunch was at half-past one 
at Lady Wynmere's. The ladies 
had to hurry off for their bonnets, 
and then the party sallied forth to- 
gether to the Park. 

Why had not Mr. Danvers come 
with him? Polly had been asking 
herself this from the moment Cap- 
tain Darvallon had entered the 
drawing-room, and she could find 
no answer to it, except that he had 
not cared to come. 

When they got to the house a 
large, white house, with a portico 
and Corjnthian pillars there were 
two riding horses at the door ; Miss 
Barlow was on one, and her groom, 
who had alighted from the other, 
was assisting her to dismount. 

" How tiresome !" muttered Polly. 

" How well that girl looks in the 
saddle !" said Colonel Redacre. "I 
thought her rather plain the other 
evening." 

" Every woman looks well on 
horseback, especially Englishwo- 
men," said Captain Darvallon. "Do 
these young ladies ride much?" 

" We don't ride at all," said 
Pearl ; " we have no horses, I am 
sorry to say." 

" Then you are in no danger of 
breaking your necks following the 
hounds, as so many young ladies 
are tempted to do in this country." 

" There you are at your old 
theory of compensations, I see," 
said the colonel. 

Mr. Danvers came to meet them 
in the hall, which Polly was quick 



to notice he had not done for Miss 
Barlo\\, though he must have seen 
her riding up the avenue before he 
caught sight of the party from the 
Hollow. There was no eagerness 
in his manner of greeting herself, 
but he accidentally sat next her at 
lunch, and entered at once into an 
explanation as to why he had not 
called. 

" I am afraid you thought it odd 
of me," he said. 

" I did not think about it at all," 
replied Polly. 

Mr. Danvers inwardly observed 
that the girl had a spirit of her 
own, and admired her the more 
for it. 

"What is this about Kingspring 
having lost his money ?" said Colo- 
nel Redacre from the other end of 
the table. 

" I'm sorry to say it is true," said 
Mr. Danvers ; " it was all, or near- 
ly all, in X. Y. Z.'s bank, and they 
have stopped payment. I believe it 
is a complete smash ; but I don't 
know particulars." 

" I 'am heartily sorry to hear it," 
said Mrs. Redacre, suspending all 
interest in her knife and fork, and 
looking deeply distressed. 

" How unkind of him not to have 
written to us !" exclaimed Pearl, 
her face expressing a more emo- 
tional sympathy. " When did it 
happen ?" 

" Only a few days ago. I wrote 
to him at once, and I had a line 
saying he would be in London next 
week." 

" Then I hope he will come down 
and see us," said Pearl. " I am so 
sorry !" 

" He will have to leave Paris 
now, I suppose?" said Polly. "He 
won't like that at all." 

"He won't like anything about 
it," said Mr. Danvers ; " but King- 
spring is not a man of expensive 



Fear!. 



63 r 



! 



tastes ; lie will be able to rough it 
better than most of us." 

" That may be," said the colo- 
nel ; " but roughing it is never a 
pleasant thing to any of us." 

"I am so sorry!" Pearl said 
again under her breath. No one 
heard her but Captain Darvallon. 

"Yes," he said, "one must be 
sorry. It is a severe blow to a man 
to be thrown suddenly from afflu- 
ence into poverty; but Mr. King- 
spring is young yet, and be is in- 
telligent, and' he has education and 
health to fall back on ; he is not so 
badly equipped for the fight as 
many another." 

" I can't imagine him fighting/' 
said Pearl ; " he is just the last per- 
son I know whom I can fancy do- 
ing anything for his living. In 
fact, I don't see what he could 
do." 

"I hope you do him a wrong 
there. He must be a poor sort of 
man who can't make head in some 
way against an adverse fate. I don't 
believe a man of that stamp could 
ever have won the privilege of be- 
ing your friend. I don't forget 
that you gave him that name." 

" I wish it were worth something 
to him." 

" It will be worth a great deal. 
A thing that is precious in itself 
must always be of value to its pos- 
sessor. I don't forget that you 
gave me leave to call myself your 
friend. Have you forgotten it ?" 

"No." 

Pearl was angry with herself for 
blushing as she said this, and for 
feeling such a thrill of pleasure just 
at the moment when she ought to 
have been only conscious of pain 
for Mr. Kingspring. 

Polly, meantime, had her eyes 
upon her, and noticed the change 
in Captain Darvallon's tone, and 
the slight movement of his head 



downwards, as he uttered the words 
which had called the pink into 
Pearl's cheek. What could they be 
saying to one another that looked so 
confidential ? Her father and Lady 
Wynmere and the others were all 
talking about the failure of X. Y. Z., 
so the lowered tones of the French- 
man and Pearl were quite covered. 
Mr. Danvers was sanguine that 
things were not so bad as they look- 
ed ; tilings never were as bad as 
they looked at first, and Kingspring 
was not such a fool as to have put 
all his eggs in one basket, and he 
was sure to have some money in- 
vested elsewhere. Mr. Danvers 
had many other consolatory sug- 
gestions to make about it, and 
everybody was so anxious to be- 
lieve in them that they all cheered 
up and hoped they were true. 
But what could Pearl be saying to 
bring that strange look into Cap- 
tain Darvallon's face ? a look of 
tenderness and pity and annoyance. 
It was a grave, in one sense a stern, 
face, but mobile and expressing 
strongly every varying emotion of 
the mind. Pearl was speaking 
rapidly, as if hurrying to get some- 
thing out under cover of the ani- 
mated talk just then going on ; she 
was flushed and turned slightly 
towards Captain Darvallon, but she 
spoke without raising her eyes, 
which were fixed upon her plate, 
while his were bent upon her with 
an expression of more than com- 
mon sympathy and interest. They 
were no ordinary remarks on Pearl's 
side that were calling that ardent, 
pitying glance into the deep gray 
eyes. What could she be saying? 

" And so you never ride ? That 
is a pity," remarked Mr. Danvers. 

" Yes, it is a privation ; but pa- 
pa does' not care to keep horses 
now," said Polly. * 

"Yet one wants them more in 



6 3 2 



Pearl. 



the country than in town." Then, 
remembering, he added : " That is, 
when one is not a good walker; 
but I dare say Colonel Redacre is." 
" Sometimes. It depends on his 
rheumatism." 

" Lady Wynmere would be de- 
lighted to mount you, if you cared 
for a ride," said Mr. Danvers pre- 
sently. 

"I dare say, she is so good-na- 
tured ; but I have no one to ride 
with me." 

" I should be proud if you would 
accept me as an escort while I re- 
main." 

"Thank you; but, now I think 
of it, there are no saddle-horses 
here, are there ?" 

" Yes, there are ; I am going to 
ride one back to Mr. Barlow's place 
by and by." 

Early next morning there came 
a note from Lady Wynmere to 
Polly : 

"Mv DEAR Miss REDACRE: Would you 
not like a ride this fine day? If so, Mr. 
Danvers will be delighted to play squire 
to you, and will be at the Hollow at 
half-past twelve with a quiet saddle- 
horse which I can safely recommend, 
though I dare say you are a spirited 
horsewoman and capable of managing a 
spirited animal. Yours sincerely, 

MATHILDE WYNMERE. 

" P.S. I shall expect you to comeback 
here to lunch." 

" You will go, my pet ; a canter 
will do you good," said Colonel 
Redacre. 

" Oh ! yes, it will be delightful. 
It is what I have been longing for, 
papa!" And Polly got ready, and 
stood equipped in her habit and 
hat punctually as Mr. Danvers and 
the groom rode up. It was quite 
an excitement seeing her mount ; 
the boys broke loose from school, 
and Colonel Redacre was a boy 
himself in his- enjoyment of the un- 
expected incident, lifting Polly into 



her saddle, and arranging the folds 
of her habit with that tender con- 
ceit he displayed on occasions that 
set off his darling's beauty and ac- 
complishments. 

Mr. Danvers made a good pen- 
dant to the graceful young Amazon, 
he was so tall and good-looking 
too good-looking, Pearl thought 
but he showed to great advantage 
on his spirited bay horse. Fritz, 
of course, was to the fore, demean- 
ing himself like a crazy dog, as he 
always did when in the company 
of horses, flying at their legs, which 
he bit savagely at a safe distance; 
for, being a bully, needless to say 
he was a bit of a coward. The 
boys swung back the gate, and 
Polly rode away. At the end of 
the avenue she sent back a kiss 
from the top of her riding-whip to 
the group at the door, and then the 
riders broke into a canter and dis- 
appeared. As they passed the 
Park lodge (Lady Wynmere's) 
they saw Captain Darvallon coming 
down from the house. He raised 
his hat in the distance. 

" He is a very nice fellow, Dar- 
vallon," said Mr. Danvers when 
they drew rein at the rising ground. 
" I made a mistake when I said he 
was odd." 

" I can't say I admire him as 
much as you all seem to do," said 
Polly; " he gives me the idea of be- 
ing a hero, and I don't like heroes. 
I'm afraid of them." 

" I'm glad to- hear you say that. 
I don't go in for that line myself at 
all ; but I thought young ladies al- 
ways did at least, that they always 
expected us poor devils to do so. 
I suspect that is why Darvallon is 
such a favorite with them." 

" Is he that ? I wasn't aware of 
it. Why did he not come for a 
ride ? He thought it was more 
heroic to walk, perhaps ?" 



Pearl. 



633 






"He thought it pleasanter; at 
any rate he said he did, for I ask- 
ed him to come with us." 

" I had no idea Lady Wynmere 
had so many saddle-horses," said 
Polly. 

"One wants them in a country- 
house. People can't always bring 
their own horses. What a pretty 
bit of landscape that is!" he con- 
tinued, pointing with his whip to a 
spot where the ground rose beyond 
the river, with a windmill turning 
slowly on a hillock. "One might 
make a good sketch out of that. 
Are you fond of sketching ?" 

" I should be if I knew how ; but 
I don't. Mamma- draws beautiful- 
ly." 

" Get her to do that view one of 
these days when the spring is a 
little more advanced." 

"Yes, when the trees have got 
their foliage well out ; buds make 
no effect in a landscape. Shall we 
put our steeds to a canter? What 
a splendid one yours is, by the 
way !" 

"You think so? I bought him 

only ten days ago of Lord X ; 

he is a first-rate hunter." 

" Then it is your own ? I was 
wondering if Lady Wynmere kept 
such horses for chance riders." 
Then, a suspicion suddenly dawn- 
ing on her, she said, "Is this one of 
hers that I am riding ?" 

"No; that is mine too. I al- 
ways bring down two with me." 
Polly tossed her head. 
"I call that very shabby beha- 
vior to cheat me into believing it 
was Lady Wynmere who was 
mounting me." 

"What does it signify whose 
horse it is ? You are not angry, 
are you ?" 

No, she was not angry. She was 
too much flattered to be angry ; 
but she was not going to own this 



to Mr. Danvers. She touched her 
horse with the whip, and away they 
went at a gallop, and there was lit- 
tle more opportunity for conversa- 
tion till they turned and took the 
road homewards. 

" Is that Colonel Redacre stand- 
ing under the hedge ?" said Mr. 
Danvers, as they came in sight of 
the Hollow at the top of the long, 
winding road that led down to it ; 
he pulled out a glass and stuck 
it in his eye to assist his dull per- 
ception. 

" I don't see anybody. Oh ! yes," 
as her horse strode a few yards 
further to the left. " No, that is not 
papa; that is Captain Darvallon." 
" And that is your sister, is it 
not ?" 

Polly checked an exclamation of 
surprise. Yes, it was Pearl. The 
two were standing within a few 
steps of one another, talking 
earnestly ; he took her hand and 
held it for a moment, and then she 
turned away and entered the Hol- 
low grounds. Captain Darvallon's 
tall figure remained rooted to the 
spot, surveying her from above the 
hedge until she disappeared; then, 
as if reluctantly, he walked on and 
struck across the meadow up to 
Lady Wyn mere's house. 

Polly's first impulse was one of 
loyalty to Pearl; she could not 
bear that Mr. Danvers should sus- 
pect her sister of stealing out to a 
clandestine meeting with Captain 
Darvallon. Yet how was she to 
clear her of this suspicion in his 
eyes ? 

' f I think they would have done 
better to come with us for a ride," 
she said, speaking with as uncon- 
cerned an air as she could assume. 
" That is, Captain Darvallon would ; 
but perhaps he is too proud to ride 
as he is to drink champagne at his 
friend's expense " 



634 



Pearl. 



"I don't think that was what 
made him refuse ; he would have 
said so if it were. He is evi- 
dently a man who has no mauvaise 
honte. He has the strongest in- 
dividuality of any man I ever met, 
the least impressed by other peo- 
ple's opinions. I mean they don't 
seem to have the smallest influence 
on his ; and the odd thing is that 
he ends by making you think he is 
right. In fact, he is right when one 
comes to think of it." 

"To think of what?" 

" Of the way the world judges 
things the sort of sham that it 
makes nine people out of ten keep 
up, pretending to be what they are 
not, and to believe what they don't 
believe. Darvallon has a quiet 
way of showing it up and making 
one feel such a fool for being gull- 
ed by it all that is, for behaving 
as if one were gulled ; for in real- 
ity one sees through the sham just 
as well as he does." 

" The world would be a very dis- 
agreeable place for all that if every- 
body took to showing it up," said 
Polly, 

"I don't think we have much to 
fear in that direction," replied Mr. 
Danvers, laughing. " Reformers are 
few and far between ; we are in no 
danger of being overrun by them." 

" That is a mercy ! I hate refor- 
mers." 

" Naturally." 

" Why so ?" She looked slightly 
nettled. 

" Because you don't want to be 
reformed. If the rest of the world 
were like you, reformers would 
have nothing to do and would 
have no right to be; we should all 
hate them." 

Polly smiled, pacified by the ex- 
planation, and still more by the sin- 
cere admiration written on Mr. 
Danvers' face as he offered it. He 



was very handsome, very gentle- 
manlike, and she had fancied him 
quite of her own way of thinking 
about things; honorable, amiable, 
and thoroughly imbued with the 
spirit of this world, hating poverty 
and respecting all that was respect- 
able ; she assumed that they were 
kindred spirits, in fact. But she 
was beginning to doubt it now. 
All this about the superiority cf 
M. Darvallon's views of life was 
much more in Pearl's line than 
hers. And Pearl what was Mr. 
Danvers thinking of her? Polly 
would have been vexed and touch- 
ed if she had known that this di- 
gression about the French hussar's 
individuality was merely a blind to 
persuade her that he hud not no- 
ticed anything in the fact of M* 
Darvallon's standing out there un- 
der the hedge with Pearl. In real- 
ity he had been almost as much 
shocked at it as Polly, and it had 
gone far to shake his faith in the 
sincerity of Darvallon's fine theo- 
.ries. Not that Mr. Danvers was 
himself at all puritanical or strait- 
laced; he would have voted any 
man a muff who, having the oppor- 
tunity of standing under a hedge 
with a pretty girl, 'would have let it 
slip, and he might with a clear 
conscience have declared that he 
himself had never neglected such 
an opportunity. But here the cir- 
cumstances were different. Cap- 
tain Darvallon was a Frenchman, 
and Mr. Danvers knew enough of 
French life to understand the enor- 
mous difference that existed on 
certain points between the men of 
each nation; in the next place, 
Darvallon was a mere recent ac- 
quaintance of the Redacres, and to 
have jumped so rapidly into the po- 
sition of a lover argued a great 
many things that told heavily 
against him in Percy Danvers' esti- 



Pearl. 



635 



mation. As to Pearl's share in the 
matter, he did not like to think of 
it. He was disappointed. She 
had given him the idea of a very 
different type of girl; he had fan- 
cied her a proud, gentle creature 
of peculiarly fine texture ; but ap- 
parently her haughty maidenhood 
was as much a sham as Darvallon's 
philosophy and scorn for the things 
beloved of common men. 

"Have you had a nice ride?" 
said Lady Wynmere, standing un- 
der the portico to see them alight. 
Captain Darvallon was there too. 

" Delightful !" And Polly kissed 
the little lady, and then turned to 
pat the tall black mare that had 
borne her so gently. 

" I saw you cantering across the 
common," said M. Darvallon ; 
" you made a very striking object 
in the landscape, I 'can assure 
you." 

" I have no doubt. You ought 
to have sketched us," said Mr. 
Danvers. 

Polly said nothing, but swept 
past M. Darvallon, snatching at 
her skirt hastily when he would 
have gathered it up for her. He 
saw that she was offended, but he 
understood nothing. 

"Who is this? Helen Barlow! 
How kind of her to come again 
to-day!" exclaimed Lady Wyn- 
mere, as the young lady rode up 
with her groom ; but there was 
something in the tone of her lit- 
tle flute-like voice that did not 
sound at all grateful. She was 
a nice, cheerful girl, Helen Bar- 
low, natural and good-natured, but 
a little fatiguing from her loud 
laugh, Lady Wynmere said. 

"I hope I am not wearing out 
my welcome, dear Lady Wynmere; 
but mamma insisted on my com- 
ing over with a message from her, 
so that I might bring back the an- 



.-wer at once." Helen handed a 
three-cornered note to Lady Wyn- 
mere, and then shook hands with 
everybody. 

" Very kind of your mamma in- 
deed !" said the little lady. "Mrs. 
Barlow wants to give a dance 
while you two gentlemen are here, 
and she asks what day will suit us 
all best. This is Wednesday ; sup- 
pose we say Saturday ?" And she 
looked round inquiringly at her 
guests. 

The gentlemen protested that 
they meant to take leave of her on 
Saturday morning; but this she 
dismissed with a peremptory wave 
of her tiny hand. Helen Barlow 
then suggested that Saturday was 
a bad day, because they would 
have, to break up so early on ac- 
'count of Sunday. After some dis- 
cussion it was settled that the 
dance should be on Monday. 

"You will all consider yourselves 
engaged," said Helen in her ioud, 
cheerful tones, " but you will re- 
ceive your invitations in due form 
this afternoon." 

When lunch was over she beg- 
ged the horses might be brought 
round at once, as it was desirable 
the invitations should be sent out 
without the delay of a post. 

"The country is not like Paris, 
you see, Miss Redacre ; people want 
a little notice to furbish up their 
dress. You have been riding. 
You don't feel inclined to take an- 
other trot and see me home ?" 

"Thank you; I don't feel equal 
to another expedition to-day." 

Lady Wynmere knew, as did 
Mr. Danvers, that this invitation 
was more to him than to Polly, and 
that he could not decline it with 
quite so good a grace; but she 
came to the rescue by saying that 
the horses would not be ready to 
start again so soon. 



636 



Plain CJiant in its Relation to tlie Liturgy. 



Miss Barlow bad been 
mounted and sent on her way with 
all due ceremony, the two gentlemen 
lighted their cigars and went for a 
stroll in the park, while Polly sat 
with Lady Wynmere, wailing till 
the carriage came round to take 
her home, and Lady Wynmere for 
her usual drive. 

"She is a good girl; you need 
not be afraid of her, though she 
is a little overpowering," said her 
ladyship when they were alone. 

"Is she the one wha was engag- 
ed?" inquired Polly. 

"Yes; that is the mistake Mrs. 
Barlow makes, allowing Helen to 
ride about the country with the 
young men who are staying in the 
house, and to follow the hounds, 
and all that. She ought to make 
her keep quiet for a couple of 
years. The engagement and the 
breaking off of it made a great 
sensation." 



"But you say she was not a bit 
in love with him; that it was ambi- 
tion made her accept Lord X ?' 

said Polly. 

" I don't believe she cared a 
straw for him; I don't believe any 
girl could be in love with him." 

"'Then why should she behave 
as if her heart had been broken ?" 

" She owed it to his position, my 
dear," replied the little lady with a 
demure face. "If he had been an 
ordinary man it would have been 
different; but even to be jilted by 
a peer gives a certain prestige to a 
girl that she ought to live up to for 
the rest of her life. Whoever she 
marries now, she can always look 
back upon the fact that she might 
have been married to a nobleman." 

Polly's sapphire eyes opened in 
wonder which the least touch would 
have made 'explode in laughter; but 
luckily the servant came to say 
that the carriage was at the door. 






TO BE CONTINUED. 



PLAIN CHANT IN ITS RELATION TO THE LITURGY. 

VIII. METHOD FOR THE EXECUTION OF THE CHANT. 



WE have at length reached that 
stage of our discussion at which it 
is incumbentaipon us to treat more 
closely the method for the prac- 
tical execution of the liturgical 
chant. The principles we are 
about to put forth are derived from 
conversations we have had with 
professional musicians, and from 
two pamphlets entitled Le plain- 
chant, son execution and Methode 
raisonnee du plain-chant, par V Abbe 
Gontier. But especially a long 
sojourn in a. community which 
is perhaps the only one that 



reckons the cultivation and prac- 
tice of the holy chant among the 
most sacred duties of its vocation 
has aided us in forming clear and 
thoroughly satisfactory views upon 
the liturgical chant, and in estab- 
lishing our convictions with per- 
fect certainty, since they rest upon 
the authority of the church and 
the nature of the subject, upon 
historical researches and personal 
experience. 

We must first remind our readers 
of what we said in the beginning, 
that it is of far greater moment to 



Plain CJtant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



637 



establish a correct method of exe- 
cuting the chant than to ascertain 
the genuine versions, and that these 
without such a method are like a 
book that no one knows how to 
read. Men of scientific eminence 
have with learning and toil follow- 
ed up the thread of tradition as 
far as it is traceable, in order to 
find out the versions agreeing most 
closely with those of St. Gregory, 
but the deeper their researches 
the more difficulties they encoun- 
tered. They became involved in 
hieroglyphics of which they sought 
in vain for the key, because it was 
no longer extant. In fact, it never 
existed save in the practice and 
memories of the faithful, and an 
explanation can be obtained, and 
that with great difficulty, only from 
certain later notations, such as that 
of Guido. The thankworthy la- 
bors, therefore, of scientific critics 
in this department have indeed 
partly preserved, partly restored 
to fame, a venerable old relic, but 
they could not infuse into that 
grand old memorial of Christian 
genius a new soul and life, for 
manuscripts cannot sing. 

How, then, are we to find out 
whether a given method of execut- 
ing the Gregorian chant is the cor- 
trect one ? We shall sum up what 
we believe to be the necessary 
tokens of correctness. If the me- 
thod brings out musical beauties 
beyond the capabilities of other 
methods ; if it exhibits and puts in 
practice the traditional marks of a 
correct execution, without in any 
respect clashing with the authori- 
tative utterances of the great mas- 
ters in this department; if its rules, 
naturally avoiding individual taste 
and caprice, always follow as logi- 
cal consequences, theoretically as 
well as practically, from a natural 
principle, from the nature and es- 



sence of the liturgical chant itself; 
if, in fine, it gives us in full measure 
the guarantees and results upon 
which we have laid so much stress 
in our earlier chapters, then with- 
out doubt it must be the correct 
method. With regard to the de- 
sired results we must appeal to our . 
personal experience, which, how- 
ever, we are restrained from de- 
scribing by our conviction that one 
can get a satisfactory idea of the 
right way of executing the chant 
only by hearing it one's self and by 
long practice in it. We must ac- 
knowledge, moreover, that without 
our favorable advantages of taking 
an active part in singing the chant, 
and of many talks with competent 
men who spared no pains in God's 
honor to teach us the beauties of 
the chant by singing to us and 
making us sing after them, it 
would have remained to us, in spite 
of all our studies of appropriate 
books, a hidden mystery. This 
assertion will not seem strange if 
we reflect that all the old authors, 
such as Hucbald, Guido of Arezzo, 
John de Muris, etc., who have laid 
down methods of execution, de- 
clare with one voice that their 
rules are not of themselves suffi- 
cient to teach any one to sing the 
chant ; it must be heard and sung 
by the learner for a long time. 
The Gregorian chant is, in fact, a 
language which one can as little 
learn by mere rules as a man can 
learn to speak a foreign tongue, 
simply with the help of a grammar 
and dictionary, without practising 
conversation. Such a one, how- 
ever perfect his method may be, 
will certainly have an awkward 
accent and a faulty pronuncia- 
tion. It is necessary to live among 
those who speak the language 
in order to be able to speak it 
correctly, and to understand and 



638 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



express all its finer shades of mean- 
ing. 

This is confirmed by the first of 
the pamphlets alluded to above. 
Gontier starts out by explaining 
the course he pursued in his 
search for the true rhythm of the 
-chant. He sang a great deal ac- 
cording to both ancient and mo- 
dern notations, and considered 
this of the first importance. He 
listened to the execution of the 
chant in the principal churches 
where it was in use, but especially 
in those religious communities 
whose vocation included the cul- 
tivation of the chant, and whose 
knowledge of its principles, whose 
respect for traditions, and whose 
spirit of prayer enabled them to 
understand the music of the liturgy. 
In the course of his investigation 
he was led to study chiefly those 
pieces of chant which are beyond 
the influence of the systems and 
methods of modern music, and 
have been preserved in the church 
by an unchangeable tradition, such 
as the Prefaces, the Pater Nvster, 
and the other music in the rite of 
the Mass. By applying their na- 
tural execution, their free recitative 
movement, to the other parts of the 
chant his method was formed. It 
is the only method which perfectly 
fits in with the old notations of the 
fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth 
centuries. In these notations, 
moreover, hq found a written 
rhythm of which the new notation 
gives us no evidence, and he there- 
fore came to the conclusion that if 
we wish to restore the old chant 
we must adopt the old notation. 

His next aim was to find for his 
method a scientific basis in the 
very nature of the liturgical music, 
and then to deduce practical rules 
as natural consequences from the 
results obtained experimentally, 



and in th'is way he attained his 
object. These two pamphlets are 
lacking, it is true, in logical system 
and clearness in the exposition of 
the author's principles, thus giving 
to the truths contained in them a 
greater appearance of newly-made 
discoveries or inspirations just re- 
ceived and awaiting further eluci- 
dation ; but, nevertheless, we must 
thankfully acknowledge that, owing 
to the author's.superior advantages, 
they have given us more help and 
shed more light on the question 
than any other modern works we 
have met with. 

Let us now go more minutely 
into the subject of the present chap- 
ter. When music is spoken of at 
the present day, the reference is 
generally to modern music, with its 
divisions of measure, its long and 
short notes, its harmony and time, 
its ingenious combinations of tones 
and chords in short, with all that 
genius has devised for the perfect- 
ing of musical art. This is what 
was called by the old masters "mu- 
sica figurativa, musica mensurabilis, 
cantus longis brevibusque tempori- 
bus mensuratus." But there is an- 
other and older kind of music upon 
which this is based, a music in 
which measure in the modern sense 
is unknown, and which consists of 
a natural recitation in every sense 
a primitive and purely natural 
music (" naturali modulatione con- 
stans," " genus musicne primum et 
naturale," "musica omnino natu- 
ralis " St. Odo). In this music the 
notes have no definite length, but 
this must be determined by good 
taste, the characters being intended 
less to express the duration of the 
note than to give its pitch (can- 
tus planus notis incerti valoris con- 
stitutus). The latter we shall call 
once for all natural and the former 
artificial music, though not in the 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



639 






sense that one is the development 
and perfection of the other. We 
choose these terms because they 
most perfectly express the idea we 
wish to convey. For were we to 
prefer with Gontier to call the two 
kinds of music prosaic and poetical, 
it would seem as if the poetic move- 
ment were exclusively a mark of 
measured music. The terminology 
formerly preferred, of plain and 
figured music, may lead to the mis- 
take that the chief difference be- 
tween them is that the one is more 
limited and simple in its move- 
ments, while the other gives more 
pleasure by the diversity and varie- 
ty of its intervals. The most ex- 
pressive words would perhaps be 
free and measured, if it were not 
that, like so man)'- other terms, they 
imply only certain peculiarities of 
eacli kind of music, without giving 
us the whole idea. We shall, there- 
fore, for the present keep to the 
words natural and artificial, or the 
music of nature and the music of art, 
though we shall always be ready and 
willing to adopt others that may be 
suggested as more completely con- 
veying the meaning; for the mean- 
ing is of the first importance, the 
words employed but a secondary 
consideration. 

The whole field of music may be 
divided, then, into two main parts, 
natural and artificial music, which 
cannot be too strictly separated. 
As the confused notions that at 
present prevail concerning them 
may be ascribed to a misapprehen- 
sion of their respective laws, the 
remedy lies in clear and sharp dis- 
tinctions, which will prevent any 
trespassing of one on the domain 
of the other. Only by such limita- 
tions will the productions of eacli 
department, each in its proper 
place, be duly appreciated at their 
proper worth. 



By natural music, then, we un- 
derstand that primitive music which 
is as old as the world itself, as na- 
tural as the word that is spoken, 
and like the gift of speech bestow- 
ed upon man by the Creator; that 
music or musical language which 
primeval man made use of as often 
as he desired to converse with God 
and pour out before him his joys 
and sorrows, his prayers and thanks- 
givings. It is well known that the 
ancients always sang their address- 
es to the Deity. The reader will 
recall what we have said fibout the 
manner of prayer among the an- 
cient Hebrews. We may refer also 
to the choruses of ^Eschylus and 
Sophocles, and to the ancient tra- 
gedy in general, which was intend- 
ed as an act of divine worship. 
Even to-day among people living 
in a state of nature, and throughout 
the East, the language of prayer 
takes the form of song, as in the 
singing recitation of the Koran. 
Every one who has travelled in the 
Holy Land has often heard this 
singing of prayers. We were told 
by a pilgrim of a Turkish child 
who gave vent to his grief at the 
grave of his parents in the most 
plaintive and touching melodies, 
which the nasal quality of his voice 
could not rob of the charm of na- 
turalness; and not long since it 
was looked upon as a great curi- 
osity that the ambassadors from 
Anam delivered their message to 
the courts of France and Spain by 
singing it. The laws of this music 
are based upon the natural capacity 
of men, and are characterized by a 
naturalness which excludes every- 
thing merely conventional. This 
music is found in its lowest form 
among barbaric nations, or those 
that have su^ik back into barbarism, 
and it reaches its most splendid de- 
velopment in the Gregorian chant. 



640 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



On the other hand, artificial mu- 
sic is not a primitive production 
that has been discovered, but, as it 
were, a second creation of the hu- 
man genius, in which art is added 
to nature. It is more modern than 
natural music, and inferior to it 
(plana musica mensurabilem prse- 
cedit tamquam principalis subal- 
ternativam), and differs from it 
chiefly in that it is based upon con- 
ventionally-established laws, and is 
natural only in so far as all art and 
activity of genius must depend 
upon the gifts of nature. 

The germ of this artificial ele- 
ment that invaded music lay in 
harmony. Harmony once invent- 
ed, it was no longer enough that 
the note should express merely the 
pitch and modulation of the voice, 
but it was further required that it 
should have a regular, mathemati- 
cal, and proportionate time-value, 
which is based not upon the na- 
tural modulation and recitation, but 
upon the mutual relation of the 
tones in one and the same harmo- 
nic chord. Thus was established 
the fundamental principle of con- 
ventional or artificial music. The 
invention of harmony is ascribed, 
how correctly we will not attempt 
to decide, to Guido of Arezzo. At 
all events, it is certain that it was 
first cultivated to any considerable 
extent . in his time /.<?., in the 
eleventh century although some 
will have it that Hucbald, in the 
ninth or tenth century, furnished 
the groundwork of the future in- 
ventions. 

The next requirement of har- 
monized music was satisfied by the 
inventioruof a certain measure of 
time, which also did not arise from 
the natural recitation of the text, 
and which, on account of its inti- 
mate connection with harmony, is 
necessarily dependent upon it either 



wholly or in part. Its inventor, ac- 
cording to the common opinion, 
was Franco of Cologne in the 
thirteenth century, and not, as some 
suppose, the one who in the 
eleventh century gave the defini- 
tion : " Est cantus longis brevi- 
busque temporibus mensuratus 
... in omni parte tempore men- 
suratur." 

These new principles once in- 
troduced, they gained a constantly- 
widening influence, and gradually 
took possession of every branch of 
music; the natural rhythm was 
displaced by the artificial measure, 
the natural diatonic tonality by the 
artificially-divided chromatic scale 
in short, the music of nature was 
superseded by an artificial music 
based upon conventional laws, 
whose highest development is found 
in counterpoint. These considera- 
tions seem to us not a little adapt- 
ed to show the unsuitableness of 
a mixture of natural and artificial 
music. And it is here to be re- 
marked that whereas artificial mu- 
sic seldom suffers by being thus put 
into a closer relation with nature, 
natural music is always injured by 
the combination, because it is ren- 
dered unnatural by laws that are 
purely conventional, and its free- 
dom is fettered by the use of the 
measure. 

To correctly estimate the oppo- 
sition that there is between the two 
kinds of music we must lay special 
stress upon a previous remark : that 
artificial music is in no sense na- 
tural music brought to perfection. 
The latter has its own inherent 
principle of progress and perfecti- 
bility, which is contained in its 
laws derived from the natural ca- 
pacities of man, while artificial mu- 
sic is dependent upon conventional 
rules. Natural music can be im- 
proved without being rendered ar- 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



641 



tificial, in the same way that prose 
can be perfected without becoming 
poetry, or, to borrow an illustration 
from nature, just as a wood may be 
greatly improved by cultivation with- 
out becoming an artificial pleasure- 
ground. But it belongs only to the 
church to perfect her natural music. 
Beneath her fosteringcarethismusic 
has attained its most beautiful and 
highest development in the Grego- 
rian chant, which the unnatural re- 
citative of the modern opera tries 
in vain to imitate. Formally, the 
most decided improvement has 
been in the notation, by the substi- 
tution for the original neumata, 
which were highly defective, first 
of letters, and finally of notes with 
fixed intervals, thus making easy 
the natural and correct execution. 
But, materially, its chief develop- 
ment has been the gradual forma- 
tion of the tones or modes, which, 
in their adaptability to the text, 
vary from the tones of the prayers 
and the most simple syllabic figures 
of the chant to the most majestic 
and artistically composed melodies 
of the Graduals and the versicles 
of the Alleluias. This progress can 
only be duly estimated by a con- 
sideration of the history of natural 
music from its origin to its full de- 
velopment. At the present day 
matters are in such a state of con- 
fusion that we can hope for no 
progress, and will only uselessly 
waste our efforts, unless we have 
recourse to the correct conceptions 
that prevailed of old. 

This distinction between natural 
and artificial music, upon which 
we have so strongly insisted, and 
the establishment of which is a 
co-nditio sine qua non to the theory 
and practice of the chant, is far 
from being arbitrary. On the con- 
trary, it is just as reasonable and 
well founded as the difference be- 
VOL. xxvin. 41 



tween prose and metre, or, better, 
between the poetry of nature and 
that of art ; and this, perhaps, is the 
closest analogy we can find. For 
as natural and artificial poetry both 
have the divinely-imparted gift of 
speech as their common founda- 
tion, so natural and artificial music 
have in common another gift of the 
Creator the modulation of the 
voice according to the regular in- 
tervals of a scale. Speech, indeed, 
differs from song only in this : that 
the musical tones preserve certain 
calculable intervals which can be 
reduced to a scale, while the sounds 
in speech cannot be reduced to 
such a scale, because the intervals 
are incalculable. Again, as ideas 
may be set forth by language in 
the free, unconstrained form of 
prose or the measured poetic form, 
so music may express its ideas in 
the natural and unconstrained form, 
or in the artificial form which is re- 
strained by the measure. And, to 
repeat a remark already made, as 
prose is capable of a continual de- 
velopment without becoming metre 
as, for example, the finest and most 
elaborately composed oration will 
never become a poem so natural 
music is capable of constant im- 
provement without passing into the 
constrained form of artificial music. 
And as the body of grammatical 
and rhetorical rules that govern 
prose style are no less scientific 
and obligatory than those of the 
poetic form, so the rules and laws 
of natural music are just as bind- 
ing as those of artificial. And, 
again, just as poetic sentiments 
may be expressed in the form of 
prose, so the free form of natural 
music may contain quite as poetical 
ideas as the measured. Our mean- 
ing will be made plain by a refer- 
ence to the poetical parts of the 
Old Testament, which contain the 



642 



Plain Chant in its Relation to tlie Liturgy. 



sublimest poetry ever written, and 
yet the poetic form, whether versi- 
fication or rhyme, is entirely want- 
ing. Here .the harmony consists 
in the natural euphony of the lan- 
guage, the rhythm in the natural 
recitation of the text, as well as in 
the arrangement of the sentences 
according to the natural expression 
of the thought. The same princi- 
ple dominates in all the produc- 
tions of natural poetry, whether of 
antiquity or of the middle age. 

As poetry, then, does not depend 
upon the poetic or prosaic form, so 
musical merit is not determined by 
the measured or unmeasured form. 
And as man is ever able to give 
poetic expression to great and no- 
ble thoughts without binding him- 
self to the conventional laws of 
quantity or metre, so also he can 
express the calm or the spirited, 
the gentle or the sublime, emotions 
of the soul in a natural modulation 
of the voice, without being guided 
by the laws of measure and har- 
mony. And, further, the prosaic 
form itself is not lacking in the 
beauties which the poetic form pos- 
sesses ; on the contrary, it employs 
them in greater profusion, but dis- 
tributes them freely without re- 
gard to conventional rules, just as 
the soul gives them utterance, 
Prose, too, has its own measure and 
rhythm, but its feet are hidden 
(*' numeri quodammodo latent"); 
its syllables are not arranged at 
random, but according to their 
value, although this is immeasura- 
ble (" incerti valoris ") ; its senten- 
ces and clauses are separated from 
each other, though not arranged in 
verses of equal feet; although it 
has no iambi, spondees, or dactyls, 
it has sounds equivalent to them 
("numeri latent"); it has harmo- 
nious cadences, but no studied 
rhymes; in short, good prose has 



all the formal beauty and rhythmic 
harmony of poetry, perhaps in a 
higher degree, only it is ruled not 
by conventional laws but by the 
natural judgment of the ear be- 
stowed upon man by the Creator, of 
which Cicero says: " Aurium est 
quoddam admirabile judicium, quo 
indicantur in vocis cantibus vari- 
etas sonorum, intervalla, distinctio 
et vocis genera multa." Now, like 
the prose form of language, natural 
music is by no means wanting in 
the formal beauty possessed by the 
artificial. Its notes have a value, 
though not a measured one, but 
rather dependent upon the value of 
each particular syllable ; its phrases 
are divided, though not by a defi- 
nite number of bars, but accord- 
ing to the thought expressed by 
the words or music ; it has also a. 
harmony, but this consists in the 
combination of its tones and melo- 
dies, in the pleasing sound of its 
cadences based upon a natural 
rhythm. 

For while artificial music, by the 
harmonization of each note, pro- 
duces as many distinct miniature 
forms of harmony as there are 
notes, the perfectly-developed na- 
tural music, by depriving each note 
of its individual independence, 
makes it serve for a greater end, 
giving us a sublime kind of harmo- 
ny by the wonderful yet natural 
combinations of its phrases an< 
periods ; just as in speech the har- 
mony is not in the syllables or 
words, but in the sentences and 
periods ; or as good elocution does 
not consist in dividing words into 
syllables or in spelling, but in a 
connected and well-accented pro- 
nunciation ; or, finally, as the har- 
mony of nature does not consist in 
nicely-designed parterres, nor in 
trees and plants trimmed and set 
out in rows, but in the diversified 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



643 



yet well-ordered grouping of hill 
and vale, of field and forest, so that 
each individual object almost es- 
capes our notice, while in its place 
it does good service with the others 
in making up a harmonious whole. 
Harmony is based, as physics 
teaches, upon a natural law viz., 
upon the vibration of the waves of 
sound. According to this law, the 
mathematical ratio of the vibra- 
tions of a string forms the basis of 
the various consonant or dissonant 
tones or chords. Now, while in ar- 
tificial music the dominant tone 
rendered by the singing voice is 
accompanied in every note by its 
consonant tones rendered by in- 
struments or auxiliary voices, so 
that there are as many chords as 
there are single tones, and thus the 
free modulation of the voice is hin- 
dered, natural music, resting upon 
the same law of vibration, strives 
to make harmonies by the modula- 
tion of the voice alone moving in 
certain modes. It does not give to 
each note its own harmony; it em- 
ploys it only to bring out, in 
union with other notes, certain fig- 
ures of sound which, because they 
are limited to one or another 
of the modes, form the purest and 
most natural harmonies. Thus na- 
tural music, even in its harmony, is 
superior to artificial. In general 
it is superior in musical unity and 
clearness ; for while in artificial 
music the singing voice, the pre- 
dominant element in the piece, is 
constantly in danger of being 
drowned out by the accompanying 
harmony, in good compositions of 
natural music it preserves its inde- 
pendence and natural freedom as 
the vehicle of the musical thought, 
and is gracefully surrounded and 
ornamented by the accompanying 
notes, as was the wand of Thyrsus 
by the tendrils of the vine. Ac- 



cordingly this natural harmoniza- 
tion has the inestimable superior- 
ity in this : that it does not hin- 
der the natural movement which 
is in keeping with the thought 
of the piece, but rather sup- 
ports it, facilitating, not destroying, 
the due understanding of it, just 
as gesture illustrates and makes 
plain the meaning of the spoken 
word. Herein chiefly lies the mys- 
tery of the powerful impression 
produced by the unisonous chant 
when well executed an impres- 
sion far stronger than any that har- 
monized measured music could 
produce. Therefore natural music 
is no more lacking in harmonies 
than is artificial ; its single notes, 
though each unharmonized, are the 
component elements of harmonic 
figures incomparably more sub- 
lime. We shall see later on that, 
with its eight different tones or 
modes, it exhibits a greater varie- 
ty, and is therefore much richer in 
harmony, than is artificial music, 
which has only two. To borrow 
an illustration from sculpture, we 
may liken the harmony of natural 
music to the rich drapery of a 
beautiful statue. If we take each 
fold by itself it appears of little im- 
portance, almost meaningless. Yet 
it has its place,in which it is indis- 
pensable. There is no need that the 
artist should draw particular atten- 
tion to it, for the real beauty and 
highest exercise of his art lies in the 
apparent neglect of details, so as to 
fix the attention upon the groups 
of folds, that it may rise from this 
to the general effect of the whole 
garment. These rules for the har- 
mony of the eye apply with equal 
force to the harmony of the ear 
in the natural music of the liturgi- 
cal chant. From all this it must 
be evident to every one that the 
advocates of the chant and those 



644 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



of figured music are chiefly divided 
on this point of harmony (after the 
question of rhythm, as we shall see 



the words of M. D'Ortigue upon 
the subject before us. He says : 
" It is impossible not to be con- 
presently), and that the assertion scious of the life which rhythm 
that the unisonous chant excludes imparts to plain chant ; now 






all beauty of harmony arises from 
a misapprehension of its nature.- 

Let us now sum up the chief 
results obtained in this chapter. 
Natural music, though fundamen- 
tally different from artificial, yet, 
like it, has laws and rules. These 
rules are natural, and are no more 
inconsistent with naturalness in 
music than the rules of grammar 
prevent speech from being perfect- 
ly natural. Nature has its laws, 
but nature cannot be unnatural or 
artificial. And we repeat that in our 
distinction between the two kinds of 
music the opposition is not between 
law and individual taste or option, 
nor between art and the absence of 
it, but only between natural and 
conventional laws. Everything 
depends upon this distinction. 
At one stroke it does away with 
all confusion on this much-debated 
subject, and may in time be the 
means .of leading to clearer views 
and a uniform practice. It alone 
enables us to easily and naturally 
develop in particular the principles 
of the execution of the ecclesiasti- 
cal chant. 

In conclusion, then, we define 
plain chant as " the liturgical 
prayer of the church with an elo- 
cutionary rhythm, and a diatonic 
modulation which is brought into 
play in four primitive and four sec- 
ondary tones or modes with four 
finals." This shows us what we 
'have yet to consider viz., the 
rhythm, the tonality, and the modes 
of the Gregorian chant. 

IX. RHYTHM OF THE CHANT. 

We shall begin this chapter with 



these sublime strains soar aloft 
and majestically descend; now 
like the waves they surge along 
in their fulness, and now are lost 
in the distance and re-echo in 
the vaulted roofs. This constant 
interchange of singing and pauses, 
this majestic ebb and flow of soft 
tones like the whispering zephyr, 
of strong accents, and of soft sigh- 
ings all this is the effect of a 
rhythm which produces all the 
more powerful an impression be- 
cause of its freedom from a sym- 
metrical measure." 

The question of rhythm is the 
most important point of the musi- 
cal side of our treatise. For the 
question here at issue is whether 
the chant, correctly understood and 
correctly executed, shall be exclu- 
sively employed in the liturgical 
service of God, or whether there 
shall be a confusion of rhythm and 
measure, an approach to measured 
music leading to the exclusion of 
the chant from the church 
in short, whether we shall have 
natural or artificial music, the mu- 
sic which the Holy Ghost has will- 
ed or that which the bad taste of 
the times has arbitrarily introduc- 
ed into the house of God. 

We are not ignorant of the diffi- 
culty of our position, and it shall 
therefore be our aim in this chap- 
ter to establish the claims of na- 
tural music in opposition to strong 
prejudices and the deep-seated pre- 
ference that prevails for the artifi- 
cial, and at the same time what 
is of greater moment to impart 
clearness to our views by exact dis- 
tinctions. The lack of clearness 
that there is upon the question of 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



645 






church music is owing solely to a 
confusion of ideas that may be 
traced back for centuries, and is 
not unfrequently connected witli 
high-sounding names men who, 
as children of their time, could 
not but be affected by its tenden- 
cies. Only in this way can it be 
explained that the advocates of 
the most various and antagonistic 
views invariably sought for and 
found their authorities in such 
compilations as those of Gerbert. 
We proceed now to take up the 
particular questions of our subject, 
more especially in their bearing up- 
on the idea of church music, its 
essence, and its significance, and 
to seek for their answers by the 
aid of the most ancient traditions 
of the synagogue and of the primi- 
tive church. Such a course alone 
will enable us to obtain the correct 
sense of doubtful or obscure pas- 
sages in Hucbald, Guido of Arezzo, 
and others. 

What is meant by rhythm, and 
what is the rhythm of the Gregori- 
an chant, is the first question that 
claims our attention. In its most 
general significance rhythm may 
be defined as an interchange of 
contrasts agreeably affecting the 
aesthetic sense. Destructive of 
the rhythm, and thus prejudicial to 
the worth of a production, are, i, 
monotony, which is lacking in the 
interchange of contrasts ; 2, ar- 
rhythm, which is governed by no 
rule or order ; 3, Pararrhythm and 
heterorrhythm, in which the artist, 
in order to bring out the contrasts 
more strongly, deviates in a great- 
er or less degree from the rhythmi- 
cal laws. The chief means by 
which the productions of nature 
and art are subjected to the aes- 
thetic judgment are the two supe- 
rior senses, the eye and the ear. 
For the eye, rhythm consists in the 



interchange of light and shade, the 
rhythm of painting and the mimet- 
ic arts; for the ear, in the alternate 
succession of high and low, loud 
and soft, long and short tones, 
which is the rhythm of speech and 
music. 

Now, since all the productions 
that fall under the aesthetic judg- 
ment are divided into the two 
species of works of nature and 
works of art, there must be, for 
both the eye and the ear, two 
kinds of rhythm, according as the 
rhythmically-constructed work is a 
product of nature or of art. An 
example may make this plain. 
Let us place before the forum of 
our aesthetic judgment a meadow 
sparkling in its spring attire and 
a piece of artistically-embroidered 
tapestry. There is rhythm in each 
that is, in each the alternation of 
light and shade, the play of colors, 
the grouping of the individual ob- 
jects make an agreeable impression 
upon the eye, and yet the laws 
which guided the skilful needle are 
quite different from those which 
wove the meadow-carpet into rhyth- 
mic beauty. The former are the 
result of mathematical reckoning, 
which is a science put together by 
human genius, and resting upon 
the law of order and harmony im- 
printed by the Creator upon all his 
works ; the latter, on the other 
hand, are grounded upon the 
natural creative power which trans- 
cends all conventional limits, all 
human calculation, which shapes 
for itself its own forms, and which, 
to remain capable of producing its 
effects, must not be forced into an 
determinate form. Many othe 
comparisons would give us the 
same result as, for instance, be- 
tween a landscape and a drawing- 
room, or between our natural gait 
and the march of soldiers ; between 



6 4 6 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



the natural dance of the inhabi- 
tants of southern countries, an in- 
artificial expression of their enjoy- 
ment of life, and that which is 
taught by dancing-masters. On 
both sides in all these cases we find 
rhythm, regularity, and order, but 
also the strongly-marked distinc- 
tion between natural and conven- 
tional laws. 

As with the rhythm of the eye, 
so is it also with the rhythm of the 
ear; the same laws are applied in 
each. In the delivery of a speech, 
as well as in the declamation of a 
poem according to the rules of 
prosody, we receive the agreeable 
impression which is made by a 
regular rhythm, and yet the rhyth- 
mical laws of prose are funda- 
mentally different from those of 
metre. The former are the laws of 
natural recitation, the latter the 
laws of the most strictly calculat- 
ed measure, divided into long and 
short feet and verses. In one we 
have the natural rhythm which be- 
longs to speech itself; in the other, 
laws conventionally introduced in- 
to language. We may also take as 
an illustration a well-constructed 
and harmonious chime of bells and 
a fine military march. Each offers 
to the musical ear an agreeable and 
effective rhythm, and yet how ir- 
regularly the strokes of the bells 
follow each other, striking at one 
time in pairs, then all together, and 
then separating to form new groups 
and figures of sound a wonderful 
variety, the more wonderful the 
more irregular it is ; but in the 
military march the time must be 
very strictly marked according to 
the rules of measure. Now, the 
chime cannot have the time given 
to it, for the tongue of the bell 
beats its own time, according to 
the natural laws of motion or the 
greater or less energy and hearti- 



ness of the bell-ringer ; yet surely 
it is not on this account wanting in 
rhythmic harmony. We conclude, 
therefore, that there are two kinds 
of rhythm the natural, based up- 
on natural laws, and the artificial, 
resting upon the conventional laws 
of measure. We might have de- 
duced this truth at once from our 
distinction between natural and ar- 
tificial music, but we have prefer- 
red to bring it out independently, 
in order to shed further light upon 
the first distinction.* 

Having established the nature of 
rhythm and its two main divisions, 
we next ask, What are the constitu- 
tive elements of rhythm ? In other 
words, what are the principles 
which are to guide the speaker and 
singer to a proper expression of the 
rhythm in delivering a speech or 
rendering a piece of music ? 

The fundamental principles of 
rhythm are also divided into the 
two classes of natural and conven- 
tional. The rhythmical rules for 
prose reading or speaking coincide 
with the rules of grammar. Accent, 
lowering and raising the tone of 
voice, longer and shorter pauses, 
the separation into sentences and 
clauses, the tones of question and 
answer, the narrative and pathetic 
tones, are all accommodated to the 
idiom of the language, and must 
convey the impression of being free, 
unconstrained, and dependent upon 
the choice of the speaker or reader 
in short, they must be natural. It 
is quite different with the delivery 
of verse. The natural rules of the 
idiom of the language yield to 
the conventional laws of prosody 
and metre. Whatever in prose was 
free and unmeasured, here becomes 
limited by the measure ; the natu- 
ral accent gives place to a strictly 
determined quantity; the division 

* Cf. Augustinus, De Musica^ lib. iii. c. i. 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



647 



of sentences according to the mean- 
ing is superseded by the mathemat- 
ically-calculated divisions, recur- 
ring at regular intervals, of syllables, 
feet, verses, and strophes; the rais- 
ing and lowering of the voice are 
no longer regulated by the sense 
but by the character of the verse ; 
in short, the impression produced 
is that the whole in all its parts is 
regulated and measured by fixed 
laws. 

The same fundamental distinc- 
tions determine the rhythm of 
natural and artificial song. Natu- 
ral song is distinguished from prose 
speech only in the fact that its tone- 
intervals are measurable and per- 
tain to a fixed scale, so that the 
figures of sound have a determinate 
musical character; but artificial 
song has, with verse, in all points a 
common basis of conventional laws. 
In natural song the observance of 
the rhythm consists solely in the 
recitation of the text. This rhythm 
is nothing else than a modulated 
recitation, and its execution will be 
the better the more it corresponds 
in every particular with good speak- 
ing with the exception, of course, 
of the modulation of the voice, 
which makes it song so that the 
words of the text may be heard and 
their sense easily understood. In 
artificial or measured song, on the 
contrary, the observance of the 
rhythm consists in adhering strictly 



to the laws of the measure, giving 
their due value to the long and 
short notes and rests, even at the 
risk of mutilating and disfiguring the 
text, so that it is sometimes scarce- 
ly discernible. In natural music 
the text always asserts its suprema- 
cy, and every rhythm that interferes 
with it is to be rejected as a bad 
one ; in artificial music measure 
and harmony are the prevailing ele- 
ments, and the text must be accom- 
modated to the established artificial 
form. In natural music the text, 
as it were, sings itself, while the 
text of artificial music is sung ; or, 
in other words, in the former the 
singer must first of all thoroughly 
acquire the meaning and form of 
the text and then proceed to exe- 
cute it according to the modulation 
of its own tone-figures ; in the lat- 
ter the singer must above all keep 
to the musical form, and he can 
make up for the text by merely 
sounding the vowels. 

So much for the general prin- 
ciples of rhythm. We shall now 
proceed to deduce from them spe- 
cial rules for the execution of nat- 
ural song, with a particular applica- 
tion to the liturgical chant. For 
all the rhythmical rules of natural 
music find in the chant their fullest 
application, only that a supernatu- 
ral element is added to the natural 
and exercises an essential influence 
upon the rhythm. 



648 



The Vision of Marie de L? Incarnation. 



THE VISION OF MARIE DE L'INCARNATION. 

BLESSED Marie, worn with vigil, 
God's love reigning in her breast, 

Weary of her worldly duties, 
Heart in heaven seeking rest, 

Saw one night in mystic dreaming 

Vision of a life to come, 
Shadow of long pathways leading 

Far away from childhood's home. 

Softly gazed a graceful lady, 

Whose sweet face was all unknown, 

Placing, gently smiling on her, 
Soft white hand in Marie's own, 

And so led her ever westward 

Toward the illimitable sea, 
Where the dark waves, cloud-o'ershadowed, 

Beat the shore tumultuously. 

Far away a gleam of silver 

Shot along the leaden sky 
Ray of promise seemed descending 

On the troubled waves to lie. 

While blessed Marie and the lady 

Gazed across the raging sea, 
Stood one clothed in white beside them, 

Beckoned to them silently 

One of Christ's beloved apostles, 
Who, with hand upraised to bless, 

Pointed out their destined pathway, 
Solaced them in their distress. 



Marie and her comrade followed 
Many windings of the shore 

Till, the angry roar grown fainter, 
Trod their feet a pavement o'er 

Built with perfect blocks of marble 
Pure as soul of martyr maid, 

Lines of vermeil intersecting 
Love and purity inlaid. 



The Vision of Marie de U Incarnation. 649 

Everywhere arose about them 

Cloister arch and convent wall, 
Columns angels might have fashioned 

In lost Eden ere the fall. 

Clustered domes that Brunelleschi 

Might have wrought in holiest dream ; 
Portals opened, Buonarotti 

Might indeed of heaven deem. 

Here in fresco were fair angels 

Blessed Fra Angelico, 
With his consecrated pencil, 

Might on Paradise bestow. 

Ever on the blessed Marie 

With her unknown comrade passed, 
Treading o'er the bright mosaics, 

Heeding not the arches vast, 

While a faint and dulcet echo 

Of a far-off convent choir 
Filled the many- columned cloister, 

Floated o'er each sculptured spire 

Hymns intoned that Palestrina, 

Soul and music glorified, 
Might set down for seraphs' singing 

In whose hearts love ne'er hath died. 



Ever onward passed the pilgrims, 

By all beaitty unbeguiled, 
Till they saw on marble temple 

Throned the Mother and the Child. 

Ah! no painter, raised to saintship, 
Could that beauty give in truth 

Child Divine, with sinless Mother 
Clothed in maiden grace of youth. 

Seemed a distant, mystic vision 
In the Mother's eyes to rest, 

Turning from the sunlit orient 
To the cloud-o'ershadowed west; 

Gazing o'er a rugged region, 
Endless wilderness of hills, 

Valleys coursed by mighty rivers, 
Snow-peaks feeding countless rills. 



650 



The Vision of Marie de L? Incarnation. 

Seemed the vast and darkened country 
Half-concealed in drifting mist 

That no shadow-piercing sunshine 
Into rosy blushing kissed. 

Long and longing looked the Mother 

With unutterable love, 
So desiring that far country 

Hers to call in heaven above ; 

Longing so in that dim region 
Men should see her Son's cross shine. 

That those mist-encumbered rivers 
Bear his message all divine. 

Blessed Marie, soul-entranced, 

Knelt adoring at the feet 
Of the beautiful, bright vision 

Bending down her love to greet. 

Gently stooped the Mother toward her 
With the wonderful Christ-Child, 

Kissed her three times as in blessing, 
On her upturned face sweet smiled. 

As if melted in love's rapture, 
As dissolved in endless day, 

Faded all the shining vision 
Marie woke to rise and pray ; 

Woke to seek the mystic meaning 
Of the dream her soul had known, 

And the region's place God's Mother 
Sighed to number as her own. 

In the peaceful northern country 
Indian and Canadian know 

All blessed Marie's faithful labor 
In the heats and through the snow. 

Mary of the Incarnation 

Reigns in their true hearts a saint, 
And across our lake -bound border 

Drifts an echo, still most faint, 



Of her courage and her wisdom, 

Of her life beatified, 
And we hold her as a herald 

Of that Queen, we claim with pride, 



Pere Monsabre. 

Who so craved our hills and valleys 

With unutterable love 
That in truth they have been given 

In her care, for us, above ; 

Keepeth watch Our Lady's mother 
Over Canada's fair state, 

Our aspiring stars glad gather 
Round the Maid Immaculate. 



PERE MONSABRE. 



AMONGST the leading figures of 
France in our day there are few 
whose personality stands out with 
more distinctive originality than 
that of the Dominican monk who 
for over twenty years has been a 
recognized orator in his native land, 
and poured out to her people the 
resources of his indefatigable in- 
tellect and the zeal of his apostolic 
heart. He is so well known at 
home that it would be superfluous 
to comment upon him there; but in 
the United States the case is dif- 
ferent, and we are sure that our 
readers will feel interested in hear- 
ing some account of the man who, 
as an orator, a priest, and a monk, 
has made his name famous in two 
worlds, whose voice has reached 
beyond the Atlantic to many a 
noble mind and earnest soul, and 
whose teaching has awakened the 
light of faith in many who will 
never look upon the face of the 
teacher. 

Jacques Marie Louis Monsabre 
was born at Blois on Dec. 10, 1827. 
He himself informed us from the 
pulpit of Notre Dame that he was 
brought up by the humble Christian 
Brothers. He was a spirited, 
turbulent child, the torment of his 



masters. Nothing could give us a 
better idea of his character than 
the following anecdote, which Pere 
Monsabre" related not long since to 
a group of friends. 

When he was a little fellow of 
eight he used to serve Mass at the 
village church of Cour-Cheverny, 
near Blois. He enjoyed his func- 
tions as acolyte, but he enjoyed play 
still more, especially a game of 
ball, and sometimes M. le Cure 
was kept waiting while the acolyte 
was thus agreeably engaged. One 
morning he was kept waiting so 
long that he lost patience and went 
out to look for little Jacques. He 
had not far to go, for there was the 
acolyte right in front of the church, 
hard at work at his favorite game 
with a number of other little boys. 
To confiscate the ball and consign 
it to his pocket, and march off the 
delinquent to the sacristy, was the 
work of a moment. Jacques offer- 
ed no resistance, but meekly and 
quietly attired himself in his sur- 
plice and accompanied M. le Cure 
to the altar, where he proceeded to 
serve as usual with pious attention. 
But when they came to the Offertory 
the good cure was surprised to see 
the acolyte remain immovable on 
his knees. He coughed, but it had 



652 



Pere Monsabre. 



no effect. At last he said in a low 
voice, "Petit, les burettes?" "My 
ball ?" replied the petit, holding out 
his hand. The feelings of the 
priest may be imagined. Three 
times he demanded the cruets, each 
time with increasing vehemence ; 
but each time the audacious petit 
held out his hand, with the words, 
" Ma balle." Of course the cure 
had to give in; the confiscated ball 
was produced from some recess un- 
der his vestments, and the petit 
went for the cruets. Pere Mon- 
sabre" did not add what vengeance 
the cure" took on this piece of un- 
paralleled juvenile effrontery, but 
we may be sure that it did not go 
unpunished. 

If, however, the child was keen 
at play, he was equally eager at 
study. He entered the seminary 
at Blois at a very early age, com- 
pleted his three first classes in one 
year, and was noted as much for 
his piety as for diligence and 
success in his studies. At sixteen 
he received the soutane and began 
his theology. Theses, objections, 
dissertations, all were at once easy 
to him, and his astonished profes- 
sors prophesied great things of him 
in the future. 

He had scarcely received the 
tonsure when he felt drawn to the 
monastic life, and addressed him- 
self with this view to Pere Lacor- 
daire. But the bishop of Blois, un- 
willing to lose so distinguished a 
member from his clergy, determin- 
ed to try his vocation thoroughly 
by making him pass first through 
the probation of parish work and 
preceptorship. 

The Abbe Monsabre was named 
vicar at Mer, near Orleans ; but it 
was in Belgium, while staying with 
the family of the Comte de Brigode, 
that the voice of God called to him 
with a force and distinctness that 



were not to be resisted. After a 
delay of four years doubt was no 
longer possible ; he again wrote to 
Pere Lacordaire, who received him 
with open arms into the newly-re- 
stored order of St. Dominic. 

He was called to preach the 
yearly retreat to the pupils at So- 
reze, and his instructions through- 
out proved quite a revelation. On 
the closing day of the retreat Pere 
Lacordaire, whose responsive soul 
was stirred to its depths by the in- 
spired touch of the young preach- 
er, rose up, and, addressing himself 
to the youthful audience, exclaim- 
ed with emotion : 

" My friends, I need make no 
eulogium on the preacher whom you 
have heard for the last eight days. 
I am proud of him." 

Soon after this Pere Monsabre 
was sent by his superiors to Paris, 
where the fame of his rising talent 
had prepared the way for him. He 
tells us himself, with a charm all 
his own, the story of these early 
labors : 

"In 1857, at the beginning of 
the winter, the hand of a father 
and a friend humbly pointed out 
to me a little group of young men 
who were anxious to have lessons 
in theology. I was a new-comer, 
inexperienced, and too unlearned, 
it seemed to me, to satisfy them. 
But some commands are given with 
so much grace that it becomes im- 
possible not to obey them. I 
obeyed the gentle religious whose 
lightest wish was dear to me. I 
can still see our lowly beginnings, 
looking back from a diaj^nce of 
eight years. It was one evening 
in the chapter-hall of our convent 
in Paris. The fire was crack- 
ling on the hearth, a lamp suspend- 
ed from the ceiling shed a sub- 
dued light over an audience of 
some fifty attentive listeners, and 



Pere Monsabre. 



653 



I began, almost with a trembling 
voice, to explain the first words of 
the symbol."* 

It was thus that his apostolate 
took birth. It was to a small group 
of young men that for six years he 
poured out the first vintage of his 
eloquence. Great works are most- 
ly born in the shade, and struggle 
on there until the day marked by 
God, when they suddenly burst out 
into the sunshine with a splendor 
that astounds the world. 

Introduction au Dogme Catho- 
lique such is the title of the two 
volumes which contain the forty con- 
ferences delivered in the convent 
of St. Thomas Aquinas. It contains 
a complete course of Christian 
philosophy. To compel Reason to 
accept Faith; to point out the dan- 
gers to be avoided, the sacrifices 
to be made ; to restore to it its due 
share in the action of faith, and 
thence conclude by the aid of tes- 
timonies the absolute necessity of 
its submission to faith such is the 
plan and the ensemble of this noble 
work, full of fire, grandeur, and 
light. 

We cannot resist quoting one 
page from these early volumes, 
the first-fruits of that prolific mind, 
The orator, having established the 
sublime harmonies of reason and. 
faith, comes at last to martyrdom, 
the supreme testimony of the soul 
which proclaims her immortal love: 

" When I find myself too mercilessly 
buffeted on that stormy sea where the 
winds of doubt and incredulity blow, I 
fall back and make for the entrance of 
that river which in my spiritual geogra- 
phy I call the river of blood. Rowing 
up this stream, I behold its ravaged 
banks, still strewn with the rich foliage 
and vegetation which the enemy's hand 
has flung upon the soil. Here is the 
woodbine, cut down before its blossoms 
had burst open the bud. Hail, dear in- 

* Introduction au Dogine Catholique, preface. 



nocents, first-fruits of persecuted hu- 
manity ! Hail, little ones, who knew no 
one in this world but Christ and your 
mothers, and who died for Christ in your 
mothers' arms ! 

"Here are the spotless lilies. Hail, 
modest virgins, faithful lovers of the 
best and holiest of spouses ! Hail, ye 
noble daughters who joined the robe of 
chastity to the royal mantle empurpled 
by your blood ! 

"Here are the fruitful olive-trees. Hail, 
incomparable women, in whom the mo- 
ther's love was conquered by the great- 
est of all loves ! 

" Here are the humble shrubs. Hail, 
slaves ! hail, plebeians ! hail, ye men of 
nothing, who rose from obscurity and 
degradation to the sublime confession of 
the faith ! 

" Here are the proud palm-trees. Hail 
to ye, nobles ! Hail, patricians ! Hail, 
princes of this world, fallen of your own 
free will from glory to opprobrium, 
from luxurious ease to torments ! 

" Here are the cedars of Lebanon ; . . . 
the cedars, too, are down. Hail, priests ! 
hail, pontiffs ! Hail, apostles of the good 
tidings, the highest in light and the first 
in death. . . . My journey is come to an 
end ; I have reached the source of the 
river. Before me there rises up a piece 
of dry wood whose fruit is living : it is 
the cross ; the cross, and upon it my 
Jesus ! From his feet, from his hands, 
from his adorable Heart the blood flows 
in streams. He bears witness for his 
Father ; the others bear witness for him. 
I have seen all. Farewell, blessed 
cross, farewell ! I am going away, not 
with my heart harrowed, but melted and 
overflowing to the brim with gratitude. 
I am going down to the sea, where I am 
to become a fisher of souls ; and hence- 
forth, secure on the frail skiff which bears 
my thoughts, I will follow the crimson 
wake which flows from the stream of 
blood. I will follow it until I reach 
the haven where eternal truth awaits 



Four years went by, during 
which Pere Monsabre carried the 
light of his talent and the fire 
of his zeal all over France. He 
preached successively at Bayeux, 
Lille, Cambrai, Blois, Aix-en-Pro- 



* Introduction au Dogme Catholique, 37016 
conference. 



654 



MonsabrJ. 



vence, and Rouen. St. Sulpice and 
St. Thomas d'Aquin recalled him 
again to Paris, where his Lenten 
sermons at the latter church in 
1868 made a marked sensation. 
He chose for his subject through- 
out the Passion of our Lord. On 
the closing day his soul found ut- 
terance in accents of such irre- 
sistible pathos that the audience 
melted- into tears and rose en masse 
to applaud the preacher. 

In 1869 France was grieved by 
the lamentable fall of a man whom 
the Catholics had acclaimed as a 
leader, and as Advent drew near 
Monseigneur Darboy cast his eyes 
around his clergy to see who might 
fitly replace him in the pulpit of 
Notre Dame. Calling to mind the 
conferences of St. Thomas d'Aquin, 
he selected Pere Monsabre and 
named him as preacher for the Ad- 
vent station. 

But if Pere Monsabre enjoyed 
the fame of an orator, he had also 
the reputation of being an extreme 
"ultramontane/' and when his 
nomination became known the ra- 
dical and free-thinking press took 
the alarm and sounded a war-cry 
in chorus. And so far they were 
right. The middle ages, under the 
clear light of St. Thomas Aqui- 
nas, were about to appear in arms 
against them. Pere Monsabre, 
taken by surprise at the eleventh 
hour, had barely time, when he re- 
ceived the order of the archbishop, 
to collect his thoughts before as- 
cending the steps of that pulpit 
still filled with the memories of his 
illustrious predecessor and father ; 
and yet his success surpassed all 
expectations. 

" The Council and the Jubilee " 
such was the burning subject that 
he undertook to treat. His open- 
ing sentence was a testimony to the 
glory of his beloved master. 



"Eighteen years ago," he said, "in 
this place where I now stand, a man 
whom you knew and loved exclaimed : 
' O walls of Notre Dame, sacred vaults 
that bore my words to so many intel- 
lects deprived of God, altars that bless- 
ed me, I am not taking leave of you !' 
Nevertheless, you saw him here no 
more ; the tomb silenced that great 
voice. Did he die altogether? No, 
messieurs, he still lives in the undying 
admiration of France and the whole 
world ; he lives in you, whom he called 
his glory and his crown ; he lives in the 
humble son who presents to you to-day 
the habit made illustrious by his genius 
and his sanctity, who comes to place at 
your service a voice that he blessed, and 
to add to his fame by proving to you 
once more that no one can equal him." 

He then plunged into the heart 
of his subject : the convoking of 
the council the church's royal call 
by which she proposed to repulse 
and confound the accusations of 
her enemies in asserting herself 
more solemnly than ever, but also 
her maternal call whereby she pur- 
posed to supply the wants of the 
great Christian family in the con- 
temporary crisis; the union of the 
council and the jubilee ; prayers 
asked for by the church and trea- 
sures distributed by her ; the atti- 
tude of the church before the 
world; majesty and authority of the 
council according to human views, 
it is the strongest and most impos- 
ing authority, supported by that 
supreme grandeur which we call 
majesty; and if from the contem- 
porary manifestation of the church 
we remount to her origin, the 
council is the majesty, the au- 
thority of God finally, our atti- 
tude in presence of the church 
dogmatizing : we owe to the church 
entire confidence before her deci- 
sion; after her decision perfect sub- 
mission. 

Such was the outline, full of 
grandeur, depth, and harmony, 



Ptre Monsabre. 



655 



which Pere Monsabre traced of 
his vast subject, and which he treat- 
ed in language of such consummate 
beauty and purity that it was said 
by a man of the world, " One learns 
how to write in listening to him 
speaking." 

"Be generous," he exclaims at the 
close of these conferences " be gener- 
ous ; constitute yourselves apostles of 
the decrees of the church after having 
been their disciples. Let not the divine 
light enter into your souls as into a dark- 
some cavern whence it cannot issue ; 
but place yourselves before it like a 
mirror which will reflect its victorious 
rays on all sides. Do not close your 
doors to sing timidly the concert of 
faith, but throw them wide open, and 
cry out with the Prophet-King: I be- 
lieved, and therefore I have spoken 
Credidi, propter quod locutus sum. The 
more intelligent you are the more au- 
thority your voice will have ; faith will 
make you eloquent. The cowardice of 
silence amidst the din of noise which 
confuses all minds would be the ruin of 
the Catholic cause. Look at error ; it 
is not silent, for its maxim is that for- 
tune is on the side of the bold audaces 
fortuna juvat. Well, you must be bold- 
er than error ; your fortune is the grace 
of God, and it can never fail you." 

We have now come to the years 
1870 and 1871 disastrous dates for 
France. Pere Monsabre was to 
have resumed in the Lent of 1871 
his interrupted conferences; but 
he had fallen upon evil times that 
rendered this impossible, and he 
was obliged to remain at Metz, 
where he happened to be just then. 
He preached in the cathedral of 
the beleaguered city, and his ser- 
mons, full of burning patriotism, were 
uplifting to all who heard them. 
His farewell to Metz after it had 
passed into the hands of the Prus- 
sians will never be forgotten. It 
was on Easter Sunday ; he held 
forth in exulting alleluias on the 
glories of the Resurrection, stirring 
the mourning hearts of his hearers 



to pulses of unearthly hope and 
joy passing the joys of this world; 
then suddenly, carried away by 
an overpowering rush of patriotic 
emotion, he cried out : " And peo- 
ples also rise from the grave when 
they have been bathed in the grace 
of Christ; and when, despite their 
crimes and their iniquities, they 
have not abjured the faith, the 
sword of a barbarian and the pen 
of an ambitious statesman cannot 
assassinate them for ever. You 
may change their name but not 
their blood. When the term of 
expiation draws to its close, that 
blood awakes and by a law of na- 
ture flow's back into the current of 
the old national life. You are not 
dead for me, my brethren, . . . my 
friends, . . . my fellow-cotyitry- 
men ! . . . No, you are not dead. 
Wheresoever I go, I swear it to 
you, I will speak of your patriotic 
sorrows, your patriotic aspirations, 
your patriotic anger ; everywhere I 
will speak of you as Frenchmen until 
that blessed day when I come back 
to this cathedral to preach the 
sermon of your deliverance, and to 
sing with you a Te Deum such as 
never yet resounded beneath these 
vaults." 

The congregation rose at these 
words like one man and broke 
forth into passionate acclamations. 
The orator was obliged to escape 
by flight from the ovation, the re- 
port of which, indeed, made it 
necessary for him to fly from Metz 
at once. 

The following October he pro- 
nounced a discourse at Chateau- 
dun which breathed the same pa- 
triotic ardor and woke up a stormy 
controversy in the press. 

Pere Monsabre returned to Paris 
the ensuing year. The reaction 
caused by recent events was still 
too pronounced to admit of his im- 



656 



P'ere Monsabrd. 



mediately entering on the exposi- 
tion of Catholic dogma which he 
had been meditating. It was ne- 
cessary to prepare the way for it 
by defining the nature of the in- 
evitable struggle which was im- 
pending. Radicalism versus Radi- 
calism such was the title of these 
conferences, and one admirably 
chosen, for it signified the oppo- 
sition of truth to error; the resto- 
ration of Christian faith in private 
life, in family life, and social life. 
Paris has still vividly in remem- 
brance the glowing eloquence with 
which these momentous questions 
were treated. As formerly at Metz 
and at St. Thomas d'Aquin, the 
enthusiasm of the audience broke 
forth in applause, which Pere Mon- 
sabr checked in commanding 
tones. "Messieurs," he said, "all 
external expression of feeling, ex- 
cept that of prayer, profanes the 
church. In profane places ap- 
probation may find vent, because 
disapproval has also its rights ; but 
in the sacred precincts this cannot 
be. If some applaud, why should 
not others condemn? The church, 
the temple of peace, would thus 
become an abode of confusion and 
discord. Grieve me no more by 
these noisy demonstrations. If I 
feel the need of being sustained by 
your sympathy, I can read it in 
your eyes, which speak to me loud- 
er and better than your voices." 

The following year the orator 
entered on that magnificent expo- 
sition of Catholic dogma which 
forms in itself a monument of lofti- 
est proportions, the principal out- 
lines of which we shall rapidly 
glance over : 

A general view of Catholic dog- 
ma; the knowledge of God; the 
affirmation of God's existence ; de- 
monstration of his existence ; the 
personality of God; the contempo- 



rary idol such is the bare frame- 
work of the* Lenten station of 1873. 
The design of the preacher was to 
edify while combating, and this 
twofold object, manifested at the 
opening of the conferences, is vic- 
toriously pursued to the end. 

Credo in Deum ! such is the 
conclusion of the teaching of this 
first year. 

After studying the work of God 
in its entirety the author con- 
siders it in its government. On 
one side the domain of God, on the 
other the- liberty of man two cer- 
tain propositions ; but how are 
they to be reconciled ? The solu- 
tion of the mystery is found in 
prayer. Prayer is the link which 
connects them ; it is opposed neither 
to the dignity of man nor the im- 
mutability of God; it associates 
man with the divine government. 
These problems solved, Pere Mon- 
sabre" closes his explanation of the 
divine government by two brilliant 
discourses on " Predestination and 
Grace." 

The Lenten conferences of 1877 
were the last and most remarkable 
triumph of the eloquent Dominican. 
The plan of the Incarnation, hu- 
manity in Adam, his fall, the fall 
in humanity, the fulness of time, 
the paradise of the Incarnation 
such were the subjects treated in 
them. They comprised the whole 
history of man, his birth, the 
catastrophe by which he fell from 
his original height, the sorrows 
and tears which followed upon his 
exile from Paradise, and above all 
that stream of misery which, be- 
neath the feet of Adam, sprang forth 
from Eden to inundate the earth 
and overwhelm humanity. Let us 
pause here to contemplate for a 
moment the striking picture of 
death which is brought before us 
by the preacher : 



Pere Monsabrtf. 



"The divine assizes are over; the 
Judge disappears ; there remain only 
the condemned and the executioner 
the condemned, who go forth wailing 
toward the land of banishment, and dare 
not turn back to bid farewell to the home 
of their innocence and happiness ; the 
executioner, invisible, and preparing in 
silence the last stroke which is to give 
effect to the divine sentence : Mrte 
morieris. Adam and Eve lost all ; but 
there is still such a wealth of sap in their 
young nature that they do not under- 
stand the full extent of their chastise- 
ment. What is death ? This sad ques- 
tion disturbs them. They follow with a 
tearful eye the fall of the withered leaf 
which the wind sweeps before it ; they 
listen with wondering awe to the wails 
of the dying beasts, and they gaze with 
horror on their motionless bodies. ' O 
my lord !' exclaims the woman in trem- 
bling tones, ' is this death ?' And 
Adam can only answer, Perhaps. 

" But by and by the slayer has com- 
menced the universal carnage which is 
only to end with time : Cain has killed 
'his brother Abel. When the mother of 
mankind beheld the blood-stained body 
of her beloved son stretched lifeless at 
her feet, she was seized with terror and 
. broke forth into sobs and lamentations. 
She sank down upon the ground, and, 
taking in her arms the inanimate form of 
Abel, she covered it with kisses. ' My 
son, I am thy mother,' she cried. 
' Dost thou not hear me ? Open thy 
beautiful eyes and look at me ! Answer 
me ! "O my God ! he hears me not ; he 
speaks not ; he breathes not ; he is in- 
sensible and cold as ice. Abel ! Abel !' 
Then close to the mother's ear a grave 
and trembling voice made answer : 
' Woman, God has so willed it ; this is 
death.' They weep together and by 
their tears become purified from their 



After traversing many sorrows, 
behold us at last in presence of the 
Incarnation : Et in Jesum Christum. 
A promise of salvation followed 
quick upon the chastisement of our 
first parents ; heaven was some day 
to open and send forth a Saviour 
to the world. But a long series of 
ages was to revolve before the com- 
ing of this Redeemer. Wherefore 
this delay ? 

VOL. xxvm. 42 



" It would have been unworthy of the 
divine greatness of Jesus Christ, as well 
as in contradiction to the accustomed 
order of Providence, had he come into 
this world, as it were, by surprise. A 
preparation in harmony with the dignity 
of his person and the importance of the 
mission that he came to accomplish was 
necessary for the coming of the Incarnate 
Word. As the sun in nature is preceded 
by a faint, pale dawn that whitens the 
horizon, and a bright aurora whose 
purple glow gilds the clouds and the 
hill-tops, so the Sun of Grace must needs 
have been heralded by the dawn of the 
patriarchal era and the aurora of the 
prophetic age. Even as the kings of the 
earth have their coming announced by 
heralds and couriers, and advance pre- 
ceded by a pompous procession, so was 
it meet that the King of Heaven should 
not appear until the world had been 
warned of his approach by> figures and 
oracles, and until a long line of illus- 
trious envoys had prepared the way for 
him, shadowing forth the incomparable 
splendor of him who was to come after 
them." 

He comes ! And as the garden 
of Paradise had been prepared for 
the first man, another paradise 
had, in the moral order, been pre- 
pared to receive the new Adam. 
This was Mary, the paradise of 
the Incarnation ; Mary, preserved 
from the stain of sin in her Im- 
maculate Conception ; Mary, whose 
soul is a garden of delights, full of 
the fragrance of grace, of virtue, of 
all beauty. By her is uttered the 
fiat which decides a wonder far 
greater than Creation : Et Verbum 
caro factum esi ! 

We have glanced lightly over 
the work of this son of St. Domi- 
nic, whose voice wakes the echoes 
of Notre Dame with a sublimity of 
doctrine which recalls the Angel of 
the Schools. His eloquence, and 
the response which it evokes from 
his countrymen, are a living evi- 
dence of the vitality of the great 
religious families which are perse- 



658 



Ptre Monsabre. 



cuted because they constitute the 
dauntless and intrepid advance- 
guard of the church of God. 

This dogmatic achievement of 
Pere Monsabre is in itself a com- 
pendium of the theology of the 
middle ages, and at the same time 
a powerful and conclusive answer 
to many of the burning and con- 
troverted questions of the day. 
If we need a visible proof of this, 
we have it in the spectacle of the 
thousands of men, of all classes 
and all ages, who, after the annual 
retreat of Holy Week, are to be 
seen crowding to receive the Pas- 
chal Lamb at the altar-rails of the 
old cathedral. 

We shall not attempt to give 
our readers a portrait of Pere 
Monsabre* ; we will confine our- 
selves to this brief sketch of his 
labors. It would, indeed, be diffi- 
cult to paint truthfully the likeness 
of that vigorous and gentle physi- 
ognomy, to convey a just idea of 
the singular mixture of strength 
and sweetness, of brilliant daring 
and delicate simplicity, which are 
its salient characteristics. Those 
who know him are struck by the 
easy, undefiant indifference which 
he displays concerning the estimate 
that the world forms both of him- 
self and his preaching. Few men 
of the day have been honored by 
more persistent notice from the 
press than he, and certainly no 
victim of its injustice and stu- 



pidity is less affected by its at- 
tacks. 

"Que voulez-vous?" he said 
laughingly not many months ago 
to a gentleman who expressed sur- 
prise that he did not resent the 
absurd and malignant onslaught of 
a radical journal " que voulez- 
vous ? When one is condemned 
to be devoured by the beasts, one 
may as well let one's self be devour- 
ed to the end !" 

One day it was a long time ago 
when Pere Monsabre was a nov- 
ice at Flavigny, a number of his 
brother novices were conversing in 
his presence on the misfortune of 
those souls, separated from God, in 
whom the mere sight of a priest 
rouses feelings of anger and terror ; 
full of generous compassion, they 
began to say what they would do 
later on to help these erring ones. 
Pere Monsabre, who had been 
silent up to this point, now exclaim- 
ed with emotion : 

" I know what I shall do. I 
will carry my habit and cowl 
through the streets, and force men 
to look at them, and I will cry out, 
* Prenez garde ! c'est Tevangile 
qui passe!' 'Beware! the Word 
of God is passing by.' " 

We cannot close our brief notice 
by a worthier tribute of admira- 
tion to the subject of it than by 
applying to himself that sublime 
cry of his youth: "Prenez garde! 
c'est 1'evangile qui passe !" 



I 



The Material Mission of the Church. 



659 



THE MATERIAL MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 



IN an article entitled " Some 
Barriers between Capital and La- 
bor "* we have pointed out some 
of the difficulties attending the 
" labor problem," as it is termed, 
and the unsatisfactory relations at 
present existing between labor and 
capital, or rather between laborers 
and capitalists. We also remarked 
that the church, through her divine 
commission " to teach all nations," 
must be regarded as the only power 
competent to solve this apparently 
perplexing problem. We said that 
the solutions offered by modern 
philosophical speculators contained 
nothing that was true, save that 
which the church has offered for 
centuries, and which is embodied 
in the sublime declarations of St. 
Paul, " We are all members each of 
the other," and that as " God has 
made of one blood all races and 
nations of men to dwell together 
upon the earth," we must recog- 
nize the necessity of " bearing each 
other's burdens." 

These comprehensive but simple 
declarations, both in their letter 
and spirit, embody the only solu- 
tion of all moral, social, and indus- 
trial problems. The church as a 
spiritual organization has always 
advocated and defended these prin- 
ciples. It was the church that first 
laid the foundation of modern in- 
dustry. When she began her glo- 
rious career pagan Rome was the 
military mistress ofrthe world. But 
the symbol of Rome's greatness 
was the triumph of the sword. 
The barbarian .hordes surrounded 
her northern borders ; they had 

* See THE CATHOLIC WORLD for November, 
1878. 



been subdued but not conquered. 
The shadow of the sword fell ev- 
erywhere throughout that mighty 
empire, which was little more than 
a vast military camp. War was 
the normal condition of the people; 
peaceful industry the episode. Such 
was the condition of the civilized 
world when the reign of the Prince 
of Peace began. A few centuries 
pass away, and the mighty military 
empire of the Caesars is gone. Pa- 
ganism has faded away before the 
light of the cross. The military 
hero and conqueror has given place 
to the spiritual and moral teacher; 
the barbarians who had threatened 
to overturn civilization were con- 
quered, converted, and civilized. 
Through the monastic system no- 
ble and heroic souls taught the 
people by precept and example the 
blessings of peaceful industry. Pil- 
grims from distant quarters, when 
they came to pay homage to the 
devotion and sanctity of a saint, 
often found him engaged superin- 
tending the labor of a farmer, or 
mending lamps, or in some equal- 
ly humble but useful occupation. 
It was St. Augustine who gave 
to the world the maxim, Laborare 
est orare ; and it was St. Ignatius 
who taught his followers to work 
as if everything could be accom- 
plished by work, and to pray as if 
all depended upon prayer. 

In the face of facts like these it 
will hardly be contended that the 
church is unequal ;( to the task of 
directing and consecrating the 
mighty empire she has conquered.' 
Having reared and fostered the 
grand structure comprised in the 
word civilization, is she to meet the 



66o 



The Material Mission of the Church. 



fate of Frankenstein and be de- 
stroyed by that which she has 
created ? 

These great achievements were 
accomplished by the church through 
her spiritual supremacy. As a spi- 
ritual organization the church is 
the highest expression of the di- 
vine will that has been manifested 
on the earth. This result has been 
the work of centuries, and the work 
must continue until the Gospel has 
been preached to every creature, 
and the nations of the earth ac- 
knowledge her true character and 
divine mission in accordance with 
the divine injunction, "Seek ye first 
the kingdom of God, and his jus- 
tice, and all these things will be 
added unto you." 

The church, as a spiritual or- 
ganization, is also the perfection of 
human wisdom. Her aim has been 
to perfect the union of humanity 
through the acceptance of a com- 
mon faith and doctrine, which 
should manifest itself in love to 
God and love to our fellow-men. 
This unity of thought and feeling 
must be brought about in order to 
sustain and direct our activity to 
the proper objects. Thus it is 
clear that the question of the rela- 
tions between capitalists and work- 
ers is a moral and religious prob- 
lem, and must be subordinated to 
moral and spiritual control. From 
this point of view the problem is 
divested of all its obscurities. But 
so long as doctrinaires persist in 
seeking a solution from the basis 
of "enlightened self-interest" and 
mere material considerations, just 
so long will the labor problem be a 
bone of contention among factions, 
and the laboring millions be the 
unfortunate victims of poverty, 
hopeless toil, enforced idleness, and 
the long train of evils which inevi- 
tably attend rebellions against the 



Spirit of God and the spiritual na- 
ture of man. " Nature is conquer- 
ed by submission," said Bacon, and 
man must accept moral and reli- 
gious control when duly attested in 
thought and action. 

Contemplate the sad results which 
have followed the separation of 
temporal affairs from spiritual and 
moral direction. Recall how the 
church discharges her duty as a 
spiritual and moral teacher and 
guide, and contrast the spirit she 
displays with the actions and con- 
duct of too many of those who at 
present direct industrial activity. 

It is Sunday morning. The 
church-bell greets the early dawn, 
calling her. children to their de- 
votions; they come by hundreds 
from every quarter, and prostrate 
themselves in devout adoration 
and meditation before the altar, all 
equal in the sight of our common 
Father, all animated with a common 
hope. The priest, the dispenser 
of God's mysteries, celebrates the 
Holy Sacrifice and addresses his 
prayers to the throne of grace, im- 
ploring forgiveness and mercy, in- 
voking divine assistance to enable 
the people to discharge worthily the 
duties of life. With a heart filled 
with love and piety he bestows his 
blessing and the divine benediction 
on his flock, exhorts them to be 
loving, kind, merciful, dutiful, and 
above all faithful. They separate 
and repair to their homes, many of 
which are the abodes of penury 
and disease. Monday ushers in 
the dull round of toil. If haply 
they have the good fortune to be 
employed, they* are in the main 
content. They go to perform their 
usual task; through summer's heat 
and winter's cold, in rain and sun- 
shine, they plod the path of duty. 
But in how many cases do they 
meet with the same loving spirit of 



The Material Mission of the Church. 



66 1 



care and devotion from their em- 
ployers and those placed in au- 
thority as was manifested by their 
spiritual father on the previous 
morning? How many of thes 
employers realize the nobleness of 
mind and heart that gave utterance 
to the admirable expression, "Work 
is worship "? 

The unnatural and deplorable 
divorce between religion and la- 
bor is certainly a sorry specta- 
cle. What are the causes which 
have produced this separation ? 
Why is the world so largely given 
over to intellectual and moral an- 
archy? The simple answer is, the 
temporary disruption of the reli- 
gious synthesis, occasioned by the 
rebellious denial of the divinely-es- 
tablished authority of the Church 
in the exaggeration of the right of 
personal independence. These 
false conceptions produced sects in 
religion, led men to throw off the 
moral restraints of the Christian 
law, convulsed Christendom with 
religious wars, and introduced into 
industrial life competition and sel- 
fishness instead of the principle of 
equality before God and the law 
of Christian brotherhood. 

To prove that the labor question 
is a religious problem it is only 
necessary to examine the nature 
and function of religion. Society 
has always been founded on reli- 
gious belief. The very derivation 
of the term religion denotes 
"unity," or the means of produc- 
ing unity. This unity implies the 
necessity of a common belief in a 
being superior to man, capable of 
directing his thoughts, feelings, and 
actions, and to whom he owes love, 
service, and devotion. Intellectual 
agreement based on divine faith 
is the primal element in religion. 
But the unity essential to a reli- 
gious society is impossible if the 



indisputable, indispensable, and na- 
tural right of every man to use 
his reason and to be guided by it 
is so exaggerated as to stultify it- 
self and to exclude all other legiti- 
mate authority. Wherever this ex- 
aggeration, distortion, and misuse 
of reason prevail dissension and 
discord are to be found. The 
twin dogma of individual sove- 
reignty, the foe of all society and 
the grave of all combinations, if 
consistently carried out, is simply 
the application of the exclusive 
right of individual decision in the 
sphere of politics. This offspring 
of intellectual pride, vanity, and in- 
gratitude has borne its legitimate 
fruits. In place of that unity 
which the church has strenuously 
endeavored to maintain there is 
anarchy. The strong dominate 
with heartless indifference over the 
weak ; the weak are filled with 
hatred toward their oppressors. 
Mammon has usurped the place of 
God. Wealth is king, acknow- 
ledging no religious, moral, or 
social responsibility to the toiling 
millions whose labor, self-denial, 
and suffering have produced it. 
The intense individualism of the 
present day has not only tended 
to destroy the moral and social 
responsibility of wealth, but it 
threatens to weaken and under- 
mine the foundations of society by 
ignoring the moral and religious 
ties which bind man to his fellows 
and to God. 

In opposition to this view of the 
labor question is that of the mo- 
dern political economists. But 
what is this so-called science of 
political economy ? The test of a 
scientific theory is continuousness 
and fertility. But every competent 
and candid student of political eco- 
nomy will confess that experience 
has resulted in discrediting the 



662 



7 he Material Mission of the Church. 



theory on which it is based. That 
it is an unfertile speculation is shown 
by the fact that nothing new has 
been added to it since it was first 
elaborated by its founder, Adam 
Smith, in his Wealth of Nations. 
Political economy, as a science, is 
everywhere falling into disrepute, 
and is being rapidly abandoned by 
all competent thinkers. Another 
test of science is that its facts and 
principlesmustbe capableof univer- 
sal application. This test will not 
hold true when applied to political 
economy. Ithas been extremely lim- 
ited in its application, and its cham- 
pions and advocates are to be found 
onlyinafewof the nations of western 
Europe. Its unscientific character 
is exhibited in the fact that among 
its most distinguished advocates 
there is no basis of agreement even 
concerning its fundamental princi- 
ples. The leading thinkers of Eu- 
rope and the United States are be- 
ginning to see, as we have pointed 
out, that the labor question is at 
bottom a moral and religious prob- 
lem, and, as such, lies altogether be- 
yond the aim and scope of political 
economy. The object of political 
economy is to ascertain the laws 
which govern "the production, ac- 
cumulation, and distribution of 
wealth." With religion and morals 
it has nothing to do, as these are 
not comprehended in its domain of 
research and investigation. It deals 
only with results, not with the 
causes which produce them. The 
teachers of political economy claim 
that the natural and normal basis 
of industry is " competition " ; and 
there is a natural law of " supply 
and demand " which, if not inter- 
fered with, would result in produc- 
ing social harmony. But that any 
*uch law exists is disproved by the 
actual condition of things in Eu- 
rope and America at the present 



time. Never before has the supply 
of all material necessaries been so 
great as now. The demand is 
equally extensive, and yet on every 
side we see discord and struggling, 
idleness and want. The theory of 
" competition " as a solution of so- 
cial and industrial disorder is as 
baseless as it is immoral. It re- 
solves society into a community of 
sharks and tigers, in which the 
strongest survive by preying on 
their weaker neighbors. It is the 
application of the Darwinian theory 
of the " survival of the fittest " 
through the struggle for existence. 
And thus it proposes to relegate 
man to the dominion of brute force, 
ignoring the moral and religious 
influences which alone are compe- 
tent to make mankind human. One 
of the fallacies in this doctrine of 
the " survival of the fittest " is that 
the fittest is the best. This error 
is a pernicious one, in that it con- 
fuses and confounds the judgment. 
It refuses to discriminate between 
physical, social, moral, and reli- 
gious qualities. Its anti-social, and 
therefore immoral, character and in- 
fluence are revealed in its attitude 
toward the past. The effort of the 
church has been to produce unity 
among mankind by the practice of 
social virtues. But political eco- 
nomy is not social, it is individual. 
It makes the individual the unit of 
society. The true unit of society 
is the family, and all true and har- 
monious family life is based on du- 
ties as well as on rights. By their 
exaggeration of the overshadowing 
importance of "rights," and their 
equally extravagant depreciation of 
"duties," Herbert Spencer and 
those who follow him have done an 
ill service to society. But any tol- 
erably well educated Catholic child 
could correct this exaggeration by 
a quotation from his catechism. He 



The Material Mission of the Church. 



would say, " God made me to know 
him, to love him, to serve him in 
this world, and to be happy with 
him for ever in heaven." 

It is the duty of every human 
being to know God, to love him, and 
to serve him ; it is the right of every 
one freely to seek to do this for 
himself and to aid others to do it. 
It is my right to exercise my rea- 
son to the uttermost; it is my duty 
to follow the dictates of my reason 
and to be guided by it. It is my 
right to resist every attempt to re- 
strict my opportunities of knowing 
and serving God, and of serving 
my fellow-men for the love of God; 
and it is my duty to seek to ac- 
quire this knowledge and to dis- 
charge these obligations. Rights 
and duties go hand-in-hand. The 
exaggeration of the one is the di- 
minution of the other; and the 
man who refuses to perform his 
duties forfeits his rights. There is 
no such thing as. a right in the 
sense of absolute independence 
and irresponsibility; and here is 
where Herbert Spencer and his 
followers make their mistake. The 
assertion of such a right is as ab- 
surd as it is immoral, Thus, idle- 
ness, whether voluntary or enforc- 
ed, is a crime against society, and 
a violation of the divine injunction 
that man shall earn his bread by 
the sweat of his brow. Is it not 
evident that all obstacles which 
stand between man and his duty 
to labor are evils of the most fla- 
grant kind, which every one should 
seek to remove ? 

Of all the social institutions with 
which God has blessed the world 
none is superior to the family. 
It is the true social unit, and so- 
ciety is merely an aggregation of 
these units. We must therefore 
seek in the single unit the elements 
which should characterize society 



as a whole. A happy, well-order- 
ed family is one in which the indi- 
vidual members live for God and 
each other, all inspired with senti- 
ments of love and duty. An un- 
happy family is one in which each 
member is clamoring for his indi- 
vidual rights, with no regard what- 
ever to the duties which are in- 
dissolubly connected with these 
rights. 

If one keeps this idea of the 
family steadily in view he will have 
no difficulty whatever in forming a 
true conception of what society 
should be, and all that is necessary 
to realize that conception is to 
carry into practical life the sub- 
lime teachings of the church, which 
may be summed up as faith, love, 
and service faith working through 
love in the service of both God and 
man. 

The spirit of exaggerated indivi- 
dualism has also a corrupting influ- 
ence on political life. It fosters the 
growth of selfishness and egotism, 
and creates in the minds of those 
whom it controls the erroneous 
notion that they are independent 
of society. This belief is not only 
immoral and irreligious, but it is 
also anti-republican. A republican 
government is one in which all 
power is directed to the public 
welfare. The wide-spread distrust 
on the part of the people toward 
public officials which is now so 
common is another evidence of 
the decay of social morality. This 
is an extremely discouraging fea- 
ture of our political life. It ren- 
ders the people unwilling to en- 
trust their rulers with the authority 
necessary to discharge their pro- 
per functions, and consequently 
many of the legitimate functions of 
government are relegated to "rings " 
and monopolies of various kinds, 
who plunder the community. 



66 4 



The Material Mission of the Church. 



The low aims of politicians and 
political life, so characteristic of 
the present time, are largely due 
to the decay of faith in religion 
and morals. The spirit of faith 
which gave such energy and vitali- 
ty to life in former times is too 
often wanting in non-Catholic so- 
ciety, and lofty aims and noble 
purposes too seldom inspire public 
life and action. Non-Catholic so- 
ciety as a whole is strangely indif- 
ferent to the past and regardless 
of the future. Its members are 
absorbed in the acquisition of ma- 
terial advantages, and with little 
or misdirected regard to their duty 
as social beings. 

Did Sliakspere sing the praises 
of exaggerated individualism ? By 
no means. Let us look at his idea 
of the proper organization of so- 
ciety : 

" For government, though high, and low, and 

lower, 

Put into parts, doth keep in one consent, 
Congreeing in a full and natural close, ' 
Like music. 

Therefore doth heaven divide 
The state of man in divers functions, 
Setting endeavor in continual motion ; 
To which is fixed, as an aim or butt, 
Obedience : for so work the honey-bees- 
Creatures that, by a rule in nature, teach 
'] he act of order to a peopled kingdom. 
They have a king, and officers of sorts ; 
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home ; 
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad ; 
Others, like soldiers armed in their stings, 
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds ; 
Which pillage they with merry march bring 

home 

To the tent royal of their emperor; 
Who. busied in his majesty, surveys 
The singing masons building icofs of gold ; 
The civil citizens kneading up the honey ; 
The poor mechanic porters crowding in 
1 heir heavy burdens at his narrow gate ; 
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum, 
Delivering o'er to executors pale 
The lazy, yawning drone." 

We are not at all fond of having 
the middle ages continually thrust 
in our faces. We fully recognize 
the merit of the lofty spirit which 
animated the Catholics of that 
epoch, and the worth of the im- 
mense services they rendered to 



the world. But there burns in the 
hearts of Christians of this day and 
generation the same love of God 
and of man that animated the 
saints and the heroes of the middle 
ages. Non-Christian society is in 
mad revolt against God and against 
the principles of order and true 
progress. But Christian society is 
still inspired by these principles, 
and Catholics, at least, look for- 
ward with hope to the future. The 
present Pope, in his encyclical let- 
ter of the 2ist of April last, thus 
reviews the evils of the day, and 
points out how they have sprung 
from the causes we have men- 
tioned : 



" In the very beginning of our pontifi- 
cate there rises before us the sad specta- 
cle of the evils with which the human race 
is on all sides overwhelmed : the widely- 
extended subversion of the supreme truths 
on which, as foundations, human society 
is placed ; the pride of intellect, impa- 
tient of any legitimate authority the 
perpetual cause of dissensions, .whence 
arise intestine conflicts, cruel and bloody 
wars ; the contempt of laws which gov- 
ern morals and protect justice ; the insa- 
tiable cupidity of fleeting things and the 
forgetfulness of things eternal, even to 
that insane madness under which so many 
miserable wretches everywhere do not 
fear to lay violent hands on themselves ; 
the thoughtless administration, wasteful- 
ness, and malversation of public funds ; 
the audacity of those archdeceivers who 
endeavor to appear the defenders of 
their fatherland, of liberty, and of every 
right ; in fine, that deadly plague which, 
pervading the very vitals cf human so- 
ciety, does not permit it to rest, and 
which portends new revolutions and 
most calamitous results 

" It is very manifest and evident, vene- 
rable brethren, that civil society is. desti- 
tute of its solid foundation, if it is not 
based on the eternal principles of truth 
and the immutable laws of right and jus- 
tice, and if a sincere affection does not 
unite the sentiments of men and sweet- 
ly moderate the motives and interchange 
of their duties. Who now can deny that 
it is the church which, by diffusing the 



The Material Mission of the Church. 



Gospel through the nations, brought the 
light of truth to barbarous peoples im- 
bued with superstition, and induced them 
to acknowledge the divine Author of 
things and to respect themselves ; which, 
by removing the calamity of slavery, re- 
called men to the pristine dignity of their 
most noble nature ; which, having unfurl- 
ed the sign of redemption in all parts of 
the earth, by sciences and arts either in- 
troduced or placed under her protection, 
by founding and protecting the best in- 
stitutions of charity, in which provision 
was made for misfortune of every kind, 
everywhere, publicly and privately, ele- 
vated the human race, raised it up from 
squalor, and fitted it to that form of life 
which was in harmony with the dignity 
and hope of humanity ? But if any one 
of sane understanding should compare 
this age in which we live, so hostile to 
religion and the church of Christ, with 
those happy ages in which the church 
was honored as a mother by the nations, 
he will find out that this age of ours, full 
of disturbances and distractions, is di- 
rectly and rapidly rushing to its own 
ruin ; that, on the other hand, those ages 
flourished, enjoying the best institutions, 
tranquillity of life, riches and prosperity, 
all the more in proportion as the people 
showed themselves more observant of the 
government and laws of the church. . . . 
" What can be more iniquitous, if the 
works of the Roman pontiffs are con- 
sidered, than to deny how greatly and 
how gloriously the bishops of Rome 
have deserved of the whole of civil so- 
ciety? Assuredly, our predecessors, 
when they perceived the good of the 
people, never hesitated to undertake 
contests of every kind, to undergo great 
labors, and to expose themselves to the 
most trying difficulties. It was this 
apostolic see which gathered up and re- 
united the relics of the old fallen society. 
It was this same friendly torch by which 
the humanity of the Christian ages was 
illuminated. It was an anchor of safety 
in the civil tempests in which the human 
race was tossed about. It was the sa- 
cred chain of concord which united dis- 
tant and diverse nations ; it was, in fine, 
the common centre whence were sought 
the doctrines of faith and of religion, as 
well as the counsels and the auspices of 
peace and of future enterprises. What 
more shall I say? It is the praise of the 
supreme pontiffs that they constantly in- 
terposed themselves as a wall and a 
rampart to prevent human society from 



relapsing into superstition and its an- 
cient barbarism." 



Now, day by day and year by 
year, the spirit of true religion is 
making headway against these 
evils, and the supreme pontiff is 
doing his full share in this great 
work. Our modern industrial sys- 
tem is the natural result of the 
peaceful moral and social disci-" 
pline hitherto exercised by the 
Christian religion, through which 
the military instinct was converted 
to industry. The revolt against 
legitimate and divinely-instituted 
religious direction and control, in 
the sixteenth century, constrained 
the church to exert her main 
strength to maintain her spiritual 
rights; and consequently her ex- 
ertions for the industrial and 
economic welfare of her children 
had to be somewhat suspended or 
postponed. But now there is 
reason to expect that the church 
may again direct the minds of 
men to the true solution of the in- 
dustrial problem. The influence 
of irreligious teaching in temporal 
affairs has been quite as unfor- 
tunate as in spiritual concerns. 
Under the teachings of the church, 
as we have pointed out, all indus- 
trial occupations were conducted 
on the theory of correlative rights 
and duties. The exaggeration and 
distortion of the doctrine of u in- 
dividual rights " destroyed the ef- 
fect of this teaching, and gave rise 
to that inane mass of jargon known 
as "political economy," which is 
now falling into disrepute. The 
fundamental error of the econo- 
mists consists in the absurd notion 
that "labor is a commodity," and 
therefore must be subject to what 
they are pleased to call the "law 
of supply and demand." With 
all their ingenuity the economists 
have failed to establish the validity 



666 



The Material Mission of the Church. 



of this so-called law. The working- 
classes have not been betrayed by 
these economic sophisms. They 
do not regard labor as a commo- 
dity. Some years ago a French 
workman made a neat reply to 
some commissioners appointed to 
inquire into the position of the pro- 
letariat. They endeavored to im- 
press upon him the notion that his 
labor was a commodity, on the 
same footing with other articles, 
and that he was free to dispose of 
it on fair terms. 

" But," replied the workman, 
"my labor has a character of its 
own, because if ordinary commodi- 
ties are not sold one day they are 
another; whereas if I do not sell 
rny labor to-day it is lost for ever 
to all the world and to me ; and 
as the existence of society depends 
on the results of labor, society is 
the poorer by the value of what I 
might have been able to produce." 

This reply is worth volumes of 
statistics and abstract theories;, 
and if the truth which it embodies 
were followed out in all its conse- 
quences, it would be sufficient to 
destroy many fallacies and remove 
a host of existing prejudices. 
That this non-existent law of "sup- 
ply and demand "fails to regulate 
the industrial activity of mankind 
is sufficiently proved by the exis- 
tence of such a condition of affairs 
as we see all round us at the pre- 
sent time. Never was there such 
an abundance of commodkies, 
never was there such a wide-spread 
demand. No doubt competition 
has 4one much for the develop- 
ment of trade and commerce. So 
long as production was confined to 
muscular labor and skill the mass 
of the people were tolerably sure of 
employment; but the invention of 
labor-saving machinery has result- 
ed in the enormous increase of the 



power of production. As this has 
deprived large numbers of employ- 
ment, and therefore of ^he means of 
consuming these products, we have 
on the one hand commodities of all 
sorts in superabundance, and on the 
other vast numbers of the laboring 
population out of employment, or 
working at such low wages that 
they cannot afford to purchase 
these articles. Consequently trade 
languishes and laborers suffer. 
This condition of things is not con- 
fined to the United States; it pre- 
vails in nearly all parts of Europe. 

Early in the year 1878 a con- 
gress of French workingmen was 
held at Lyons. One of the speak- 
ers, a young workman of Paris, 
pointed out that by improvements 
in machinery our industrial system 
has been improved, but that no 
accoun.t is taken of the immediate 
evils which are caused by sudden 
changes in machinery. 

He said : 

" It is progress, we are told ; thei 
must be victims ; you must resign your- 
selves to your lot. But the victims 
this new god are human beings. It 
curs to no one that this deity perhaps 
may be appeased by a sacrifice of capitf 
instead of men. Private property al- 
ways receives its compensation when in- 
jured for the public welfare and advan- 
tage. It occurs to no one to compen- 
sate in any way workmen who are su< 
denly deprived of their living. To tell 
them that their sufferings prepare the w; 
for some increase of material prosperil 
in years to come is indeed a mockery. 
Why this perpetual mania for ever-in- 
creasing production, and not a wore 
about its due distribution ? It is tl 
mode in which production is organized 
and applied which is the truly important 
thing, not the indefinite growth of prc 
duction. Our economists are foo much 
inclined to give all their thoughts to th< 
prodtict, and to waste little of their sym- 
pathy on producers. We believe in giv- 
ing attention and due recognition t< 
that form of material improvement onh 
which has a proper regard to the ph} si- 






The Material Mission of the Church. 



667 



cal, moral, and intellectual growth of the 
laborer. The man first, the product next ; 
production for man, not man for pro- 
duction." 

This workman also called atten- 
tion to another cause of industrial 
distress, and, as it is one which 
Christianity has sternly rebuked 
and condemned, we quote his 
words : 

" The restlessness and caprice of con- 
sumers is increased and occasioned by 
what is called the fashion. An idle 
fashion is changed for a whim, and the 
silk factories are paralyzed. Habits, 
Iress, occupations, amusements, orna- 

lents are flung aside or adopted in the 
wantonness of caprice. Furniture, 
clothing, house-building, decoration 

lust be constantly changed with a fever- 
ish vehemence; must be instantly dis- 
:arded or produced, at whatever suffer- 
ing to all who are sacrificed in the change 
>r sacrificed in the effort. If a house is 
to be painted, as we know to our cost, 
it is left to the last moment ; and then 
it must be completed in a scramble, day 
ind night. We starve and are idle half 

month, to be driven by over-work the 
)ther half. The consumer is not satis- 
ied unless he have absolute freedom for 
his fancy freedom to abuse rather than 
to use the power of commanding in- 
stant execution of his caprices, and the 
summary dismissal of all who have 
served his wants." 

The effect of machinery in our 
own country has been shown in a 
pamphlet by W. Godwin Moody, 
of Boston, entitled Our Labor Dif- 
ficulties : the Cause and the Way Out, 
from which we quote the following 
condensed paragraphs. After giv- 
ing a detailed statement of the ope- 
rations of machinery in agriculture, 
he says : 

" In all these operations in agriculture 
there is a displacement of labor by im- 
provements in machinery of from one do- 
ing the work of three in sowing grain to 
12% in ploughing and 384 in cutting 
grain at harvest, according to the kind 
of work done and the class of machinery 
used for the particular operation. 

"In carding and spinning the results 
are even more startling: 



" The Frankford yarn-mill, in Philadel- 
phia, during the month of July, 1877, in 
all its operations, from the receipt of the 
raw material to the delivery of the finish- 
ed product, employed one hundred and 
fifty-one persons of both sexes and all 
ages. In the twenty-three and a half 
days in which the mill ran during that 
month there were produced 1,723,433 
skeins of yarn, containing 840 yards 
each, which gave for the month a frac- 
tion over 822,547 miles in length of yarn, 
or 35,002 miles a day. It would require 
61,603 women, with the old hand-cards 
and spinning* wheels, to produce the 
same amount in the same length of time r 
1,000 yards of yarn, carded and spun, 
having been a day's task for a day often 
hours with those old machines. 

" At a meeting of the New England Cot- 
ton Manufacturers' Association, held in 
Boston, October 5, 1876, Mr. William A. 
Burke, Treasurer of the Lowell Machine 
Shop Company, read a paper upon the 
' Cost of Manufacturing Drillings and 
Standard Sheetings in 1838 and 1876.' 
In this paper Mr. Burke took the Boot 
Mill No. i as a type for "his illustration. 
In this mill in 1838 there were 232 ope- 
ratives employed twelve and three-quar- 
ter hours a day for twenty-four days in 
May, who produced 208,606 yards of 
cloth. But in 1876 ninety operatives, 
the number then employed, working ten 
hours a day, produced 204,863 yards. 
Reducing the twelve and three-quarter 
hours of 1838 to ten hours a day, the 
working time of 1876, shows that it 
would have required 295 operatives in 
1838, working ten hours a day, to pro- 
duce but a small fraction more than 
ninety operatives produced in the same 
number of days in the same mill in 1876. 
Here is shown a displacement, by im- 
provements in the machinery of one 
mill within the last forty years, of sev- 
enty per cent, of manual labor in the 
production of cotton fabrics. 

"Before the use of machinery in the 
making of boots and shoe,s, say fifty 
years ago, the world by no means went 
barefooted ; and yet, working not less 
than fifteen hours a day, the utmost that 
a shoemaker could do was to make 200 
pairs of boots and shoes in a year. At 
that time men only were the workers. 
But an examination of the Massachu- 
setts Labor Bureau reports shows that 
in 1845, 45,877 operatives, men, women, 
and children, working twelve hours a 
day with machinery, produced 20,896,312 



668 



The Material Mission of the ChurcJi. 



pairs of boots and shoes, being 455 pairs 
per hand, and an increase of 125 per 
cent, per hand over hand labor. In 
1855 there were employed 77,827 per- 
sons, who produced 45,066,828 pairs, 
being at the rate of 579 pairs each, and 
an increase of nearly 27^ per cent, per 
hand for that decade. Jn 1865, 52,821 
persons produced 31,870,581 pairs, be- 
ing at the rate of 603 pairs each, and an 
increase of little more than 4 per cent, 
for each operative in the previous ten 
years. But in 1875 there were employ- 
ed 48,090 persons, working not more 
than ten hours a day and for a little over 
eight months in the year, who made 






chinery in this one State alone ha 
displaced the labor of 1,593,720 
men. Has this enormously-in- 
creased power of production re- 
sulted in an improved physical 
condition of the operatives? Far 
from it ! There is another phase 
of this machinery problem which 
deserves serious attention from a 
moral point of view: of the 318,768 
operatives above mentioned, 94,- 
655 were women, of whom 9,498 
were married; 6,671 were boys, 



59,762,866 pairs, being at the rate of and 4,988 were girls, between 10 



1,243 pairs each, and an increase of 106 
per cent, per hand for the preceding ten 
years, as appears upon the face of the 
report. But to make a true comparative 
showing by this statement, the daily 
working time of the two periods, ten 
hours in 1875 and twelve hours for the 
preceding periods, must be adjusted, 
and the one-third lost time in 1875 must 
also be taken into account ; this would 
give 23,000 plus as the number who, 
working twelve hours a day, could make 
59,762,866 pairs in 1875, being at the rate 
of 2,598 pairs each, being an increase of 
471 per cent, per hand over 1845, and, as 
compared with 1855, showing an in- 
creased power of production which 
would enable 23,000 operatives in 1875 
to make 14,696,038 more pairs than 
could 77,827 persons in 1855 nearly 
55,000 less workers, and more than 14,- 
000,000 pairs in increased product. This 
shows an increase in production, by im- 
provements in machinery, of very nearly 
450 per cent, in twenty years, and 1,300 
per cent, over the hand labor of fifty 
years ago, and corresponding displace- 
ment of manual labor. And now comes 
a California inventor with his machine 
for bottoming boots and shoes, claiming 
to save at least seventy per cent, of the 
present cost of material and work in 
that operation, and turning out from 
thirty to forty pairs per hour." 



According to the statistics given 
in the Massachusetts Labor Bureau 
Report, 318,768 men, women, and 
children, with the aid of machi- 
nery, do the work that would re- 
quire 1,912,448 men without ma- 
chinery. Here it is seen that ma- 



and 15 years of age; and there 
were 84 boys and 168 girls under 
10 years. Thus more than one- 
third of the workers in the factc 
ries and shops engaged in running 
machinery were women and chil- 
dren, whilst tens of thousands ol 
men are compelled to idleness. 

One of the consequences of th< 
labor of women in factories in Nei 
England has been the complete 
reversal of the natural and moral 
order of society. The same is tru< 
of old England and of other part 
of Europe. In thousands of 
stances it has thrown the husband: 
out of employment and compelle< 
the wives to support the family 01 
greatly-reduced wages. This 
not civilization and Christianil 
but a return to barbarism. Ii 
savage tribes the women do 
work and drudgery, while the m< 
live in comparative idleness. Thei 
are, in round numbers, about 1,400, 
000,000 of human beings existii 
on the earth to-day. In one gen< 
ration this vast host will pass aw< 
and its place be occupied by ai 
other 1,400,000,000. The physical 
mental, and moral condition 
this mighty host depends largely 01 
the women of this generation. Ai 
enormous weight of suffering, sor- 
row, and anxiety is imposed on them; 
is it not a horrible thought, that, 



The Material Mission of the Church. 



669 



in addition to the great burden of 
peopling the world which is placed 
by nature on women, they are com- 
pelled to earn the bread to support 
the living generation ? The chil- 

Iren of savages are not crowded 
tto mills and factories almost as 
>on as they are able to walk. 

iut, sooner or later, men will learn 
recall to their aid the blessings 

>f religion and recognize the im- 

>ortance of that human unity which 
only religion can accomplish. 
What has been the effect of divorc- 
ing industry from moral and reli- 
gious direction ? Mr. Moody, in 
the pamphlet from which we have 
quoted, thus sums up the present 
condition of society as the result 
of labor-saving machinery : 

" ist. It has broken up and destroyed 
our whole system of agriculture as prac- 
tised by our fathers, which required the 
whole time and attention of all the sons 
of the farm, and many from the towns, in 
the never-ending duties of food produc- 
tion, and has driven them to the towns 
and cities to hunt for employment or 
remain in great part idle. 

" 2d. It has broken up and destroyed 
our whole system of household and 
family manufactures, as done by our 
mothers, when all took part in the labor 
and shared in the product, to the com- 
fort of all, and has compelled the daugh- 
ters of our country and towns to factory 
operations for ten to twelve hours a day, 
in the manufacture of a cloth they may 
not wear, though next to nakedness in 
the shivering blast ; or to the city to ply 
their needles for eighteen or twenty 
hours a day in hunger and cold ; or to 
the street in thousands, spinning yarns 
and weaving webs that become their 
shrouds. 

" 3d. It has broken up and destroy- 
ed our whole system of working in wood 
and iron and leather in small shops of 
one, two, or it may be half a dozen work- 
men, in every town, village, or hamlet 
in the country, with blacksmith shops in 
near neighborhood upon ev^ery road, 
where every man was a workman who 
could take the rough iron or unshaped 
wood and uncut leather, and carry it 



through all its operations until a thor- 
oughly finished article was produced, 
and has compelled all to production in 
large shops, where machinery has min- 
utely divided all work, requiring only 
knowledge and strength enough to at- 
tend a machine that will heel shoes, or 
cut nails, or card wool, or spin yarn, or 
do some other small fraction of a com- 
plete whole. 

"4th. It has broken up and de- 
stroyed our whole system of individual 
and independent action in production 
and manufacture, where any man who 
possessed a trade by his own hands 
could at once make that trade his sup- 
port and means of advancement, free of 
control by any other man, and has com- 
pelled all working men and women to a 
system of communal work, where, in 
hundreds and thousands, they are forced 
to labor with no other interest in the 
work than is granted to them in the 
wages paid for so much toil ; with no 
voice, no right, no interest in the pro- 
duct of their hands and brains, but sub- 
ject to the uncontrolled interest and ca- 
price of those who too often know no 
other motive than that of avarice. 

" 5th. It has so enormously develop- 
ed the power of production as to far out- 
strip man's utmost power of consump- 
tion, enabling less than one-half of the 
producing and working classes, work- 
ing ten hours a day, to produce vastly 
more than a market can be found for ; 
filling our granaries, warehouses, depots, 
and stores with enormous amounts of 
products of every description, for which 
there is no sale, though never before of- 
fered at such low prices, with multitudes 
of men and women in the greatest want, 
being without food, clothing, or shel- 
ter, without work, and consequently 
without means to obtain the simplest 
necessaries of life. 

U 6th. It has thrown out of employ- 
ment substantially one-half of the work- 
ing-classes. In fact, it has -utterly de- 
stroyed all regular or constant employ- 
ment for any considerable class in any 
industry, and is constantly and steadily 
displacing able and willing men and 
filling their places with women and chil- 
dren ; leaving no place to be filled by, 
and no demand for, the constantly-in- 
creasing numbers developed in our in- 
crease of population, in this way also 
rapidly adding to the number of the un- 
employed. It takes married women in 



6/O 



The Material Mission of the Church. 



thousands from their maternal cares and 
duties, and children but little more than 
infants from the schools, putting them 
to the care of machinery and its work, 
until quite one-third of the machine- 
tenders in our country are women and 
children ; thus breaking down the mo- 
thers, slaughtering the infants, and giving 
employment to any who obtain it, only 
upon such conditions of uncertainty, in- 
securify, competition with the workless, 
and steady reduction in wages as creates 
a constant struggle to obtain the little 
work they do have, and get such com- 
pensation for it as will barely support 
life even when in health." 

This, doubtless, is a correct state- 
ment of the actual results of labor- 
saving machinery. But the au- 
thor has failed to give us the real 
cause of the suffering and the true 
remedy. Let us see if we cannot 
furnish a solution from the princi- 
ples of family life which we point- 
ed out in the beginning of this ar- 
ticle. We have stated that family 
life, as the true and eternal type of 
society as a whole, is the result of 
divine teaching. The family is a 
little community bound together by 
dove, inspired by charity, and sus- 
tained by wisely-directed activity, 
each member living and working for 
the welfare and happiness of all the 
others as well as for himself. Let 
us suppose such a family, compos- 
ed, for example, of ten persons, who 
by laboring ten hours per day man- 
age to supply its wants. After a 
time one of the members invents a 
machine which enables the family 
to produce in eight hours as much 
as was formerly produced in ten ; 
should not all partake of the benefits 
of the discovery, either by sharing 
in the increased production or in 
the reduction of the hours of labor ? 
If the inventor insists on appro- 
priating to himself all the benefits 
of the machine, does he not destroy 
the unity of the family ? But if he 
should demand that some members 



of the family shall be deprived o 
their means of support in conse 
quence of the results of his machine, 
would not his conduct by all prin- 
ciples of justice be regarded as 
indefensible ? This is precisely 
what is done on a large scale every 
day; and it is as anti-Christian as 
it is foolish, short-sighted, and mis- 
chievous. 

It is worthy of note that the 
largest measure of success in all 
industrial communities has invaria- 
bly been attained by those establish- 
ed on a religious basis. The Ca- 
tholic colonization movements now 
going on in the West are full of 
hope and encouragement. They 
are really strokes of true genius. 
Had . it been possible to have 
adopted this method of coloniza- 
tion from the beginning, it would 
have saved the nation from the 
bloody and barbarous conflict be- 
tween the civilized and the savage 
man which has, we fear, become 
chronic on our borders. The frag- 
mentary settlement of our vast 
domain by isolated families has 
been a constant source of trouble. 
Settlement by colonies actuated by 
a Christian spirit would, on the 
other hand, have been the means of 
preserving peace with the Indian 
tribes. This new movement on 
the part of the church manifests 
once more her deep interest in the 
material welfare of her children, 
and also that she knows how t 
exercise her great influence wisely. 
She has always stood as a barrier 
between the oppressor and the op- 
pressed, and as the elements of op- 
position which have thrust them- 
selves between her and her great 
mission are removed, just to that 
extent is she enabled to employ her 
wisdom *for the amelioration of 
man's worldly lot, as she has main- 
tained her ability in spite of all 



r 



The Brooklet. 



67 r 



opposition to minister to his spiri- 
tual welfare. When the nations of 
the earth once more accept her 
spiritual guidance, then will she 
show herself competent to guide and 



direct man's material life. When 
this great task is completed, the 
lion of Passion will lie down with 
the lamb of Humility, and the Child 
of Wisdom shall lead them. 



THE BROOKLET. 



TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF GOETHE. 



THOU Brooklet, silvery and clear, 
That, hasting, flows unceasing here, 

By thy brink 

I stand and think and think, 
And search thy being's hidden sense. 
Whence comest thou here ? Where goest thou hence ? 



ii. 



I come from out the Rock's dark breast ; 
My course flows on without a rest, 
Sweeps across 
The floweret and the moss, 
While o'er my mirror glides with grace 
The deep blue heaven's friendly face. 



Hi. 



I have a pleasant, childlike thought 
Still urging on a path untaught 
Hidden way, 

Unknown without a pause or stay : 
Who called me from the darksome stone, 
I trust Him as my Guide alone !" 



672 Protestant Theology in Short Clothes. 



PROTESTANT THEOLOGY IN SHORT CLOTHES. 

The church to which Protestantism presented us children was nothing but a kind of dry morality, 
and the doctrine appealed neither to the understanding nor to the heart." GOETHE. 






THE writer lately made an ex- 
cursus through the text-books and 
reading-books of a Protestant Sab- 
bath-school, not with any serious 
controversial intent, but to ac- 
quaint himself with the quality of 
the literature. His researches ex- 
tended farther than he at first had 
contemplated. He now feels that 
he is the equal, in an humble way, 
of such savants as Niebuhr and 
Schliemann. He has traced Pro- 
testantism to its practical, not mere- 
ly its theoretical, beginnings. Ma- 
caulay says of Niebuhr that his 
analysis and rehabilitation of Roman 
history resulted from his profound 
study of the ancient legends and 
traditions of the Eternal City. The 
writer has gained a clearer insight 
into the nature of Protestantism by 
his patient perusal of Aunt Betsy's 
Little Stories for Little Protestants. 
Dr. Schliemann has set at rest for 
ever the translation of many pas- 
sages of the Iliad which used to 
puzzle us in class, and for which 
the Clavis Homer ica suggested the 
vaguest and most delusory inter- 
pretations. With Schliemann's 
volume in our hand we now can 
tell who and what were the " 6soi 
rsooTSpoi " referred to in the 
Eumenides, and the shape of Hec- 
tor's helmet is for ever determined. 
So the writer modestly claims a 
right to his opinions on Protestant 
theology, after having patiently 
consulted the volumes which con- 
tain Grandma Jerusha's Moral 
Tales, and the profound philosophy 
which blends so beautifully with 
the sober entertainment of Uncle 
Jechonids* Sabbath- school Days. 



Our controversial reading had 
hitherto been confined to the graver 
works of eminent Protestant di- 
vines. Like Niebuhr, we were on 
the wrong track. We scouted the 
legends and stories. We despised 
the attractions of the Little Rosebud 
Series. In our delusion we thought 
that Protestantism could best be 
studied in the pages of Calvin and 
Hooker, of Schleiermacher and 
Francke. We lost much valuable 
time, which might have been spent 
with instruction and amusement, 
over the Narrative of the Rev. 
Sadoc Stubbs, with its powerful re- 
futation of Hindooism and its amus- 
ing persiflage about the Jesuit mis- 
sions in India. Niebuhr was wiser. 
After critically examining the text 
of all the Latin historiographers ; 
after breaking innumerable pairs of 
spectacles over Etruscan inscrip- 
tions ; after well-nigh losing his life 
in his eagerness to explore the very 
penetralia of the Catacombs, that 
great man at last said, " Let us 
analyze the old Roman stories " ; 
and the result is known to all litera- 
ture. So we, in like foolishness, 
had patiently waded through the 
crabbed English of "pur noble old 
Protestant divines." We read Dr. 
Donne, and caught him plagiar- 
izing like a school-boy from old 
mediaeval homilies. We perused 
the" judicious Hooker," who wrote 
the Ecclesiastical Polity while he 
rocked the cradle for a termagant 
of a wife which may, perchance, 
account for the extremely unsatis- 
factory way (to an enthusiastic 
preacher) in which he treats of the 
question of sacerdotal celibacy. 



Protestant Theology in Short Clothes. 



673 



We studied Chillingworth, who de- 
fends a Protestantism which now- 
adays does not exist. We dipped 
into that surfeit of sweets, old 
Jeremy Taylor, Shakspere of di- 
vines, who believed in the Real 
Presence, and, dear old soul ! used 
to pray fervently for the souls of 
the departed and salute the Bless- 
ed Virgin as "our most excellente 
Ladye." We cracked our head 
over Bishop Butler's Analogy, which 
Queen Charlotte used to read as a 
" breakfast tonic " (curious tastes, 
some people!). Paley's Evidences, 
with the inevitable watch, furnished 
us with long and, on the whole, 
pleasant reading; and we remember 
to this day how we laughed over 
the awful pomposity of Bishop 
Burnet's History of My Own Times. 
Calvin's Institutes were relieved 
from their unspeakable dryness by 
a rattling disquisition of Luther's ; 
and when Protestant theology bore 
upon us too heavily, we had an un- 
failing resource in Erasmus, or in 
some of the quaint old Catholic 
writers of the days of Elizabeth. 

But all this time we were grop- 
ing in the dark. We knew in a 
dim, confused way what the Pro- 
testant theologians were endeavor- 
ing to explain ; but we felt a relief, 
both for them and for ourselves, 
when they got into clear water and 
blazed away at the pope. This, at 
lea'st, was intelligible. Wewonder- 
ingly speculated why such men as 
Drs. South and Sherlock troubled 
themselves at all about giving a 
theoretic defence of their tenets, 
when so tempting and easy a prey 
was before them as the pope. No 
necessity for logic, for Scriptural 
exegesis, for historical investiga- 
tion, or for that calm and prayer- 
ful study which the great masters 
of theology exact. The later Eng- 
lish theologians were much more 
VOL. xxviii. 43 



astute, if less learned. With them 
it was u There's the pope ! Up, 
boys, and at him !" And he that 
sliouted loudest was wreathed with 
more than civic crown. So we, too, 
feel a pang of regret over the days 
which we wasted upon the writings 
of eminent Protestant divines. Oh! 
the tedious sermons which we have 
read, when we might have roared 
with laughter over What Grandpa 
said to the Old Pope. Why did we 
trouble ourselves with Ewald and 
Jahn, and consult Kitto and Home 
to find out the exact Protestant in- 
terpretation of certain texts, when 
we might have been simultaneously 
tickled to death and highly instruct- 
ed by the witty answers of Poor 
Mike and the Priest ? The priest 
asks Mike why he wasn't at Mass, 
and Mike answers, " ' What proof 
have ye ? for I have the Bible here, 
and sorra a word in it about Mass.' 
' " This is my body," " says the 
priest. 'Faix, thin,' answers Mike, 
' it's a pretty big one. But what 
y'r drivin' at it's me that knows. 
The Saviour there manes it's but 
the sign of his body,' etc., etc.* 
The priest goes home reflecting 
upon the words which his poor serf 
spoke from out the blessed book." 
Why did we painfully study old 
Rosenmiiller, the great rationalistic 
critic of the New Testament, who 
fairly admits that the words of the 
institution of the Eucharist must* 
bear a literal interpretation, by all 
the laws of all the languages with 
which that famous old polyglot was 
acquainted? But here is "poor 
Mike" disposing of the whole ques- 
tion in what he himself would term 
"a jiffy." Angry with ourselves at 
our waste of time and opportunity, 
we cried, " Away with this learned 
lumber ! Let all the Protestant 
symbols, confessions of faith, and 
theologies henceforth yield to Si's- 



6/4 



Protestant Theology in Short Clothes. 



ter Jemima's Pious Nursery Rhymes. 
Let Melancthon and Jurieu give 
place to the Little Dolly Series^ 
Pearson On the Creed disappear be*- 
fore Peter Parley, and the glories 
of the Protestant exegetical litera- 
ture of Germany fade before the 
greater splendors of Priest and 
Nun /" We had found the secret 
of Niebuhr. 

In venturing into this wide sea 
of Sabbatical literature we felt the 
need of compass and chart. We 
were warned by the fate of Cham- 
pollion, who for a long time missed 
the clew to the Egyptian hierogly- 
phics through his contempt of a 
simple and right suggestion of his 
illiterate guide. A good Protestant 
deacon, whose praise in the church 
is' that he is mighty in Sunday- 
school work, furnished us with lists 
of the books most frequently called 
for, and kindly added his own pre- 
ferences a thoughtfulness which, 
while increasing our obligations, 
somewhat decreased our respect for 
the worthy man's literary judgment. 

^ He gave us also a detailed account 
of the Sunday-school work, and we 
were struck with the perfection to 
which every detail is carried. We 
were humiliated by the contrast 
presented between the untiring ac- 
tivity of Protestants in this work 
and the apathy of Catholics at 
least in the vicinage in which we 

* write. The Sunday-school is as 
old as the church, and in Catholic 
countries Ireland, for example 
the catechism is taught with a care 
and precision which leave an in- 
delible impress upon the memory. 
Here the clergy frequently find the 
utmost difficulty in getting an effi- 
cient staff of Sunday-school teach- 
ers, and parents think nothing of 
allowing their children to miss ca- 
techism, regardless of the inesti- 
mable privilege they enjoy of hav- 



ing their own parental obligation 
of catechising assumed by devoted 
men and women. The question 
becomes graver where the Sunday- 
school hour is the only period of 
religious instruction which Catholic 
children attending the public school 
generally receive. It may seem 
invidious to point to the thorough 
discipline, the unwearied patience, 
and ardent enthusiasm which mark 
the Protestant Sunday-school teach- 
er. Fas est et ab hoste doceri. Our 
laity, for a variety of insignificant 
reasons, do not as a rule second 
the clergy in the Sunday-school 
work. If parents would even see 
that their children attend, a long 
stride forward would be made. Pro- 
testants smile at the idea of having 
to force the little ones to go to 
Sabbath-school ; and we of course 
know there are other than purely 
spiritual attractions to draw them. 
But, on the other hand, any Catho- 
lic child of average intelligence 
can quickly learn our catechism, 
while the horrible text-memorizing 
that goes on in Protestant schools 
utters its wail of complaint even in 
the newspapers. Whatever be the 
reason, few young Catholic men 
and women interest themselves in 
the Sunday-school. True, the task, 
undertaken without supernatural 
motives, proves an irksome and un- 
gracious one. A little generous 
enthusiasm, a desire to please God, 
to instruct the ignorant, to help the 
pastor, or even to meet socially in 
the exercise of good works, would 
be motives that should smooth the 
way. The shortness of the time, 
and the general willingness of our 
children to learn, should encourage 
us to perform this work most pleas- 
ing to the Sacred Heart, which ever 
throbbed for the little ones that 
upon earth recalled to him the me- 
mory of the angels who saw the 






Protestant Theology in Short Clothes. 



Father's face when it was hidden 
from himself. 

The worthy deacon assured us 
that no one is regarded as eligible 
to teach a Sunday-school class un- 
less he or she is prepared to stand 
an examination on general Biblical 
topics. " And I can tell you, sir," 
continued he, "that many of the 
questions are real stickers. We 
generally catch 'em on the Old 
Testament. The New, you see, is 
pretty fair sailing. Not many hard 
names to remember, until may be 
you get to Revelations, or Paul's 
list of salutations in Hebrews and 
Corinthians first." We were a lit- 
tle alarmed lest the worthy man, 
warming with the theme, should 
regard ourselves in- the light of an 
applicant for teaching, as Uncle 
Pumblechook took Pip for an ac- 
countant; so we timidly ventured 
to ask for a few general questions, 
in order to form a comparative 
view of such an examination. 

"Well," answered our friend, 
" we allus begin with the Penta- 
took. Give a resoom of the laws of 
Moses and construction of the ark. 
We generally catch 'em upon the 
exact position of the cherubims 
\ch soft], and they allus do get the 
pot of manna most curiously mixed 
up. It don't do to be too hard on 
Numbers. I heerd a preacher 
once say that nobody could remem- 
ber all them names. 'Pears to me 
he couldn't, for he couldn't tell who 
Peleg-phaleser was. I generally 
keep 'em to the Pentatook, for you 
see if they once get out into Joshua 
and Samuel they can easy enough 
remember. A good question is : 
'Where did Abraham come from ? 
Trace his wanderings, and give mo- 
dern names.' 'Pears to me that they 
are all stuck there. 'Trace flight 
of Jacob from Laban, and indicate 
the exact spot of Machpelah. 



What do modern travellers say of 
the gross Arabian superstitions 
with regard to the tomb of Abra- 
ham ? Is there a parallel case 
with regard to the superstitious 
veneration of the sepulchre of 
Christ?' I next take 'em quick- 
step through Judges names migh- 
ty hard Song of Deborah, very 
fine impressions about the con- 
duct of Hezekiah character of 
Ahaz and Manasses. ' Why is the 
book called Machabees to be re- 
jected as unsound? Contrast Ne- 
buchanezzer with Pope of Rome. 
Popery foretold by Daniel. How ? 
Explain the "horns" of the beast.- 
Analogies between popery and 
ancient idolatry : Golden calf 
Catholics have traditions about 
cattle in stable of Bethlehem. 
They bless cattle. Israelites and 
the daughters of Moab warning 
against popish marriages. Jezabel 
Popess Joan. Esau and birth- 
right the mess of pottage is the 
sale of indulgences,' etc., etc. 
This, you see, makes the youngsters 
think. I knew a young lad who 
traced the resemblances of all the 
infamous characters of the Old 
Testament to the pope. It was 
wonderful. The minister said he 
would be a shining light, and he 
carried off all the prizes. I be- 
lieve that he afterwards fell from 
grace some trouble of a delicate 
nature but he disappeared, refus- 
ing to be reconciled with the breth- 
ren, whom he saluted in a horribly 
profane manner." 

" But," we ventured to interpose, 
" are you entirely satisfied with the 
usefulness of this minute study of 
the merely historical portions of 
the Old Testament? Would it not 
be better to require a recitation of 
the Psalms, or a prophecy of Isaias, 
or the penitential warnings of the 
other prophets? I cannot see the 



6;6 



Protestant Theology in Short Clothes. 



usefulness of committing to memory 
all the genealogies or the lists of 
the captains of the Lord's hosts." 

" You do not believe, then, in the 
plenary inspiration, I perceive," re- 
plied our friend rather coldly and 
very unfairly. " I have here an 
excellent little work Conversations 
of a Poor Washerwoman with a 
Worldly-wise Infidel. The infidel 
objects to what he calls in his 
lingo ' transversions of vowel- 
points, and other evidences of the 
authorship of the Pentatook, sub- 
sequent to the date assigned to 
and by Moses. The Hebrew of 
Genesis is the Hebrew of the Cap- 
tivity,' etc. Pretty smart fellow ! 
But the washerwoman is able for 
him. She shows that Mamre in 
Genesis has' the same spelling and 
pointing throughout, and the in- 
fidel embraces the Bible. The 
book is from the pen of one of our 
greatest Hebrew scholars. It's a 
little dull, but mighty learned." 

Accepting the admirable philolo- 
gizing of this exceptional washer- 
woman, our conversation drifted 
to the practical work of the Sab- 
bath-school. 

" We always try to have at least 
an hour and a half, if not two 
hours. We do not lay so much 
stress upon the catechism as form- 
erly. When I was a boy we had 
to study the old Lutheran cate- 
chism, and hunt up the texts which 
follow each answer. Some of the 
older folk believe that this is the 
best way yet. They say that the 
children learn something definite. 
But there is so much division of 
opinion about what should be in 
and what should be out of the 
catechism that we have sunk it, 
and now keep to the Bible, and the 
Bible only. Now, the chapters 
about baptism and the Lord's Sup- 
per, in the old Lutheran catechism, 



couldn't be taught here with any 
acceptance to most parents. They 
don't believe in them ; at least as 
the grand old Reformer taught 
them. Same way with the Angli- 
can catechism. I know plenty of 
Sunday-schools where they won't 
teach the Apostles' Creed. The 
Methodists stick to the Bible and 
singin', according to Paul : * Sing 
with the understanding.' Cate- 
chisms an't of mucji use. The 
Spirit seems to have blown them 
all overboard." (This admission 
should be pondered by Catholics 
as the gravest indication of the 
complete shifting of Protestantism 
from any doctrinal or dogmatic 
position.) 

" What we aim at," continued 
the honest deacon, "is to imbue 
the children with the Bible spirit. 
The first hymn we teach them is, * I 
love the holy Bible, for Jesus tells 
me so.' " (This sentiment labors 
under the trifling defect of having 
no Scriptural warrant.) " We next 
hand over the little ones that can't 
read to an amiable lady, who be- 
gins a course of Scripture stories, 
aided by a box of candies. The 
stories extend from Abraham and 
his wars with the kings (for we have 
found out the general uselessness 
of recounting all the particulars of 
the Fall), and extend to a graphic 
picture of the Beast of the Apoca- 
lypse, which generally frightens the 
little ones, until they are told that 
it only means a queer old man in 
Rome called the pope. No sooner 
are the children able to read, or 
even spell pretty well, than our 
Scripture cards are at once placed 
in their hands." (Specimen shown.) 
"The classes are graded with as 
much care as in a university. 
Promotion is regulated by the 
number of texts committed to 
memory and the ability to give 



Protestant Theology in Short Clothes. 



6 77 



the reference. One unfamiliar 
with the textual arrangement of 
the Scriptures is bewildered by 
the (to him) startling confusion of 
sounds and numbers. I was high- 
ly amused at the look of painful 
ignorance upon the face of a recent 
visitor to our school, who express- 
ed a wish to hear a recitation. He 
told me afterward that he thought 
he was in an auction-shop. Ha! 
ha! ha! * Give references,' I said 
to the head boy of Class M (quite 
a bright little fellow) 'give refer- 
ences of to-day's lesson.' You 
know we abbreviate. He at once 
answered: * Song of Songs, v. 9; 
Hab. vi. 24 ; Hose. ii. 2 ; Deut. 
xxiv. 12; Gen., Numb., Josh., 
Sam., particular chap, not number- 
ed ; Wis. ix. 2 ; Psalm cxxiii. 4. 
New Test., i Cor. ix. ; 2 Cor. vi. ; 
Coloss. v. 3 ; Rom., Tite., Tim., no 
chap, mentioned, i Pete, and Jude, 
no chap.' What do you think of 
that ?" 

" I sympathize with the gentle- 
man." 

" We of course vary study with 
sacred song, and we are always 
happy to welcome to the desk any 
gentleman who can address the 
children in a pleasing and edifying 
manner. These addresses I my- 
self am opposed to, for they dis- 
tract the children from the great 
work in hand, and they are fre- 
quently nothing but a collection of 
stupid stories and more stupid 
jokes which the children have 
heard a thousand times before. 
Sometimes we get hold of a mis- 
sionary or a late traveller in Italy, 
and these are always welcome. 
The little girls cry when they hear 
of the Indians drowning their ba- 
bies, and the poor little Italians 
without the Bible, and frightened 
out of their wits when the pope 
puts his head out of the window. 



Of course we have to accommodate 
ourselves to the infant mind. At 
the same time I do not foster 
any bigotry. I even tell them 
that the poor Catholics would run 
some chance of coming to Jesus if 
it were not for the priests and the 
withholding of the Bible. There 
is a Catholic church quite near 
ours, and I must say that there is 
great devotion apparently going on 
all the time. But the children ! 
My stars ! the children ! Hardly 
a Sunday passes that they do not 
assault my lambs as they gather 
into the Sunday-school fold. The 
Catholic boys are so terribly rough 
and so full of ill-advised fun that 
they actually snowballed several 
of our male teachers as they were 
peacefully wending their way to 
school, last Sabbath. One had his 
hat knocked off, and the other was 
so agitated that he had to drink 
strong tea, made by the minister's 
wife, throughout the ' children's 
hour.' I wrote a note to the priest, 
complaining, but he curtly and, as 
I think, most un-Christianly ad- 
vised my teachers and scholars to 
snowball 'the young rascals' in 
turn." 

" The first class, composed of 
advanced pupils, read the Bible 
with an approved commentary. 
They also study the grounds of 
Christian defence, chiefly against 
popery. We use D'Aubigne's Ref- 
ormation, Faber's Difficulties of Ro- 
manism, and kindred works, and no 
effort is spared to impress upon the 
mind the gigantic apostasy of the 
Mystical Babylon. We do not give 
much heed to modern infidelity or 
modern science, feeling convinced 
that Rome is the true and only ene- 
my of Christianity. Our hymns, 
which form a principal part of our 
worship, are selected with a view 
to excite the feelings, and we never 



6/8 



Protestant 7 heology in Short Clothes. 



sing such as would awaken the 
slightest polemical spirit in our 
breasts. Prayer is generally ex- 
temporaneous, the forms laid down 
in the catechism being regarded as 
cold and lifeless. We train the 
children to pray, and, though they 
feel diffident at first and make par- 
donable blunders, they quickly feel 
the renewing of the Spirit and real- 
ly rival their elders in power and 
fluency. One of the most eloquent 
intercessors that I know is a lad in 
Class V. His parents tell me that 
he searcheth the Scriptures to dis- 
cover the honeycomb of the Word. 
One of his prayers, which made a 
deep impression, was a long alle- 
gory in the style of Ezekiel, the 
point being the bringing forth of 
our land from out of the strong 
hand and the mocking voice of 
them that dwell in Edom an al- 
lusion to the Southern Ku-klux." 

We do not wish to imply that 
every Protestant Sunday-school is 
such a model as this. We wish 
simply to say that we have not ex- 
aggerated or set down aught in 
malice, and that we are prepared 
Jo substantiate every statement 
here made. Indeed, our readers 
have but to take up any Pro- 
testant Sunday-school paper and 
judge for themselves. The anti- 
Catholic bigotry may be sedulously 
kept out of the paper and be re- 
served for the class-room; but it 
is a fact which no honest Protes- 
tant can deny that his children 
are systematically trained to hate 
and abuse the Catholic Church. 
Of the ineffable meanness and un- 
worthiness of thus perverting the 
mind of youth upon the subject of 
the religion of a vast number of 
their countrymen it would be su- 
perfluous to speak. The minister 
who would not venture to defame 
the church from his pulpit, in the 



presence of an intelligent congre- 
gation, has no hesitation about en- 
tering his Sunday-school and ac- 
tually forming his scholars' minds 
in an anti-Catholic and anti-Chris- 
tian mould. He would not dare 
charge the church in print with 
those horrible crimes and errors 
which he prints upon the enduring 
tablets of a child's memory and 
imagination. The- Protestant lay- 
man who smirkingly compliments 
you upon the good which the 
church is effecting is transformed, 
in the Sabbath-school, into a veri- 
table Moloch, whose breath of hate 
against the church withers the lit- 
tle children that are offered to 
him. Venomous old maids, who 
would swoon with horror at the 
idea of reading an obscene novel, 
gloat over such atrocities as Priest 
and Nun, and sully the natural 
modesty of the young creatures 
entrusted to their teaching. We 
know Protestant mothers, who 
would not tolerate a story-paper in 
their houses, actually placing in 
the hands of their daughters anti- 
Catholic books that have all the 
grossness without the occasional 
elegance of the most salacious 
literature. The moral obliquity, 
the insensate hate, and the appall- 
ing ignorance that afflict so many 
Protestants, even in maturest lite, 
have their beginnings in the Sab- 
bath-school. In it there is no 
healthful study of any ethical prin- 
ciples. The Ten Commandments 
are part of Deuteronomy. There 
is less catechism now than ever. 
It is the Bible the Bible which 
the Catholic Church reverences 
and guards from desecration that 
is placed in the hands of youth 
whose unformed minds cannot take 
in its awful import. The glowing 
account of our friend the deacon 
might receive fresh addition from 



Protestant Theology in Short Clothes. 



679 



the fact that there is .not a boy or 
a girl in his school who could not 
rattle off the " references " to Scrip- 
tural passages in which, to an im- 
pure mind, everything is impure. 
Of what avail is it to salvation to 
know the boundaries of the Amale- 
kites or the genealogy of Joab ? 
Very well for the theologian and 
the hermeneutist; but one page of 
Butler's Catechism is worth a thou- 
sand geographical descriptions of 
Palestine. It is thus that we see 
the divine wisdom of the church, 
which has condescended to mark 
out for us our Scriptural reading 
in her selection of the Sunday Gos- 
pels ; of which a great convert and 
profound Biblical scholar said : 
"The more I study this colloca- 
tion of the Gospels and its admi- 
rable relevancy, the more I am 
convinced that it was an inspira- 
tion of the Holy Ghost." 

The Protestantism of a quarter 
century ago had certain outlines. 
Every sect sought to give some rea- 
son for its faith. The Sabbath- 
school was guarded by a fierce po- 
lemical zeal which was sure of at 
least one thing to impress the 
youthful mind with a set of dis- 
tinctive "doctrines." The An- 
glican bishop would not confirm 
the youth unless he knew the cate- 
chism. Presbyterian boys were 
well " up " in their catechism ; and 
as for the more exclusive sects, the 
Bible itself dwindled before the 
importance of the Confession and 
the Creed. All is changed. Com- 
mitting texts has taken the place 
of committing the catechism to 
memory. The Westminster Con- 
fession is no more heard of than 
the Augsburg. Efforts are earn- 
estly made to keep the Reformers 
in the background. The glory of 
Luther hath departed, and Calvin's 
place knoweth him no more. A 



pitiful Sabbatarianism as false as it 
is ridiculous, a frantic Bibliolatry, 
and a largely-developed lay-influ- 
ence have supplanted the Protes- 
tantism of Chalmers and of Ed- 
wards. The ministry has been 
purposely and steadily narrowed, 
and it was forced to witness its de- 
parting glory in the popular or- 
daining of such men as Moody, 
Sankey, and Murphy. 

The more thoughtful among the 
Protestant clergy have in vain en- 
deavored to stem this eternal wish- 
wash of Biblicism, and to revive 
the study of the catechism in the 
Sabbath-school. No one knows 
more clearly than an intelligent 
Protestant minister the utter fu- 
tility of obliging children to learn 
texts, the difficulty of which elicit- 
ed a warning voice from St. Peter 
himself. But the minister is help- 
less before a set of vulgar, purse- 
proud men who could send him 
and his family adrift in the morn- 
ing, at the slightest protest against 
any of their "Gospel movements." 
The writer knows of a Protestant 
minister who was politely request- 
ed not to enter his own Sabbath- 
school, because on one occasion 
he had the temerity to change the 
lesson from a place in the book of 
Leviticus which few adults, care- 
ful of perfect cleanliness of mind, 
would wish to read, to our Lord's 
Sermon on the Mount. The great 
defect of the Sabbath-school is the 
negativeness of its religious train- 
ing. There is no explanation of 
the Commandments, no idea of 
faith, of the sacraments, of the ob- 
ligations of confession, of the true 
spirit of prayer, or the dozen other 
fundamental truths with which our 
own children are thoroughly fami- 
liarized, even if they cannot give 
" references " so very readily, and, 
it is to be feared, would not be 



68o 



Protestant Theology in Short Clothes. 



able to tell who was the grandfather 
of Zorobabel. 

The deadly wound inflicted upon 
the soul of the Protestant child is 
the horrible idea which he gets of 
the immaculate spouse of Christ, 
his church. We could smile at 
much of the absurdity of the 
strange Bible jargon. We could 
forgive the hymns, and listen to 
the wonderful stories of the mis- 
sionary from Timbuctoo. But we 
can never forgive the Sabbath- 
school for its misrepresentation of 
the one true church of Christ. 
This is an injury which its inflic-. 
ters unhappily do not realize. If 
they could be only brought to see 
how many ingenuous souls have 
perished that long since would 
have found shelter in the ark, if it 
had not been for their infernal mal- 
ice and falsehoods ! The Protes- 
tant grows up to manhood. He 
reads, reflects, converses. He 
changes many a school-boy belief, 
but his Sabbath-school belief about 
Rome rarely or never. The impres- 
sion is too early, too lasting. He 
may turn infidel or Mormon, but 
it takes the greatest miracle of 
grace for him to become Catholic. 
All his boyish indignation boiled 
against this cruel, dastardly church. 
Did he not read of Torquemada, 
who burnt poor wretches merely 
for reading the Bible ? Oh ! what 
tiger-hearts must Catholics have 
that could look unmoved upon the 
young and innocent slowly tortur- 
ed to death for simply wishing to 
worship God according to their 
own conscience ! Is not the papal 
church a vast despotism, grinding 
down men's hearts and souls, rob- 
bing them under pretence of par- 
doning their sins, forbidding them 
the Bible, plotting the overthrow of 
liberty, ruling with tyrannic sway 
the wretched priests who, like the 



Jesuits, swsar that nothing in the 
law of God or of man will they re- 
gard a sin, if it go contrary to the 
will of their superiors ? Sunday 
after Sunday ignorant, and perhaps 
sincere, men instilled into his youth- 
ful and unsuspecting breast the 
poison which is the portion of the 
serpent, who was a liar and mur- 
derer from the beginning : venenum 
aspidum sub labiis eorum. When, 
touched by God's grace, such a 
man turns to the contemplation of 
the church, the fogs and mists of 
his Sabbath-school teachings rise 
before him. The poison is fre- 
quently ineradicable. The wound 
is immedicable. The glow of 
youthful fancy still halos such un- 
mitigated villains as John Huss 
and Cranmer. The brawl of St. 
Bartholomew is still a solemn holo- 
caust offered by bleeding Protes- 
tantism for the saving of France. 
The splendor of the court of Leo 
X. strikes him as it did the rustic 
Luther. He still smiles at the 
trick played upon Tetzel by the 
robber who purchased the pardon 
of his theft in advance; and all the 
historians, theologians, and critics 
in the world shall never make him 
give up his boyish faith in the im- 
maculate purity of those " saints " 
that in tears and blood withstood 
the papal tyrant and died with .the 
'open Bible in their hands, confess- 
ing Christ at the stake, and glanc- 
ing with scorn at the crucifixes and 
other idolatrous objects which the 
infuriated monks held up before 
them. The child that has been 
trained in such a school as this 
runs the extremest risk of missing 
the grace of God when it calls him 
to the church which in his child- 
hood he knew, only to defame. 
The man or the woman who has 
the hardihood to draw such pic- 
tures of Catholicity for the impres- 



Protestant Theology in Short Clothes. 



68 1 



sible mind of childhood is guilty of 
a grave sin on general ethical 
grounds, and may be the instru- 
mental cause of a soul's damnation. 
It is fearful to reflect upon the 
judgment which such instructors 
must incur from Him who has al- 
ready passed sentence upon those 
.that scandalize these little ones, 
whose very belief in him is made 
the occasion of turning them away 
from his church. In the sacred 
name of charity, we earnestly im- 
plore such Protestants as may read 
this to reflect upon the conse- 
quences, even in a merely civil 
and social point of view, that must 
eventually flow from allowing their 
children to look upon Catholics and 
their church as something monstrous 
and unspeakably impious. We do 
not care how many texts they may 
cram, how many hymns they may 
learn, or how successfully they may 
extemporize prayer. All that we 
ask for the sake of the dear chil- 
dren themselves is that they be 
suffered to remain in ignorance of 
" Romanism " until they grow up, 
and its full horrors dawn upon 
them when^ their minds are better 
able to bear them. 

The staple of every Sabbath- 
school library consists, of course, of 
books treating upon the Bible. We 
have Bible Birds, Bible Dogs, Bible 
Plants, Bible Rivers, and so on ad 
nauseam. The critic is struck with 
the singular want of unity and 
grasp in all these treatises. We 
have a few Catholic Bible histories 
which are immeasurably superior 
to these ambitious Protestant com- 
pilations. A Catholic writer knows 
and understands the simple and 
complete nexus that binds the Old 
with the New Testament. The 
beautiful harmony is apparent to 
his faith. There are no labored 
interpretations, no confusion of 



idea, no failure to understand the 
plain statement of St. Paul that the 
Old Testament is a shadow and 
allegory of the New. The church 
has familiarized him with the pa- 
tristic exposition of the types, 
and he has no difficulty in seeing 
in the patriarch Joseph, not a lucky 
adventurer and a sentimental son 
and brother, but an awful prefigur- 
ing of Him who was indeed sold by 
his brethren. There is nothing 
more soul-satisfying, even to the 
profoundest theologian, than the 
perusal of the simple little Bible 
histories that we. find in our schools. 
But when we open the erudite 
pages of Bible Animals our hearts 
sink. The unity of the sacred 
narrative is broken, and somehow 
our feelings are untuned. We read 
what manner of animal it was that 
swallowed Jonas, and our simple 
faith, which once rested content 
with a vague vision of a whale, now 
receives a shock. We almost wish 
that with Dean Stanley we could 
believe that the whole story is a 
metaphor sin absorbing the recal- 
citrant prophet. No. The author 
of Bible Animals won't give up the 
whale. He anatomizes him. He 
carries us off to Greenland. He 
quotes Captain Parry. He talks 
about the whale's esophagus. Could 
a man get down a whale's esopha- 
gus ? Let us hear what the author 
of A Whaling Cruise says, etc., etc. 
Now, such writing tends wholly to 
confuse the miraculous element in 
the entire narrative. We begin to 
think that there wasn't anything at 
all wonderful in Jonas' adventure, 
and so quod nimis probat nihil pro- 
bat. Behemoth, leviathan, and the 
unicorn are classified with the ex- 
actness of a zoological garden cata- 
logue, and the queer pot-pourri of 
natural history and piety closes 
with the stereotyped doxology to 



682 



Protestant Theology in Short Clothes. 



the blessed book. The writers of 
Bible Birds and of Bible Plants are 
so painfully ornithological and bo- 
tanical that we had to give them 
up in despair. 

Dr. Marshall has closed for all 
time the question of Protestant 
missions, yet books on the subject 
appear with the old unblushing 
effrontery. Something must be 
done to keep flowing the Pactolus 
that runs golden into the church. 
Yet one marvels at the simplicity 
that accepts these narratives, and 
refuses a hearing to the truth of 
Catholicity. Why, the very mis- 
sionaries themselves, as if conscious 
that they are humbugging their 
people, declare repeatedly the utter 
fruitlessness of their labors, and 
strongly advise the abandonment 
of numerous missions. But the cry 
for the heathen is kept up, the cha- 
rity is popular, and sums that would 
ransom an empire are yearly squan- 
dered. All the fact and- satire in 
the world cannot convince the 
average Protestant that money will 
not make a convert worth the keep- 
ing. The English and American 
belief in the omnipotence of cash 
finds ludicrous exemplification in 
this matter of foreign missions. We 
believe that the penny subscriptions 
to the Society of the Holy Infancy 
go farther in the way of missionary 
work than the wealth of Ormus or 
of Ind. Marshall has shown as 
much. 

We found several startling mis- 
sionary narratives well thumbed. 
They are made up of letters which 
seemed to us singularly elaborate, if 
not affected, for epistles dashed off in 
fight of savages " off Congo River." 
We also observed that there was 
very little description of missionary 
work, and any amount of sketches 
of native lion hunts, remarkable 
customs, etc. " A venerable chief 



with flowing locks and beard and a 
majestic mien, clothed with a long 
tunic which in Coptic is called a 
tssthst, approached the Rev. Mr. 
Beese, and calmly inquired if we 
worshipped Svtps /.^.,God. Upon 
our showing him the Bible, and 
telling him it was the nxstp Svtps 
i.e. t the word of God he burst into 
tears and accepted it most lovingly. 
Henceforth he was daily seen in 
front of his mstvpxs, or hut, dili- 
gently perusing the precious vol- 
ume. Through his instrumentality 
the entire tribe was converted, each 
receiving a copy of the Bible, which 
they treated in an affectionate, if at 
times rather amusing, manner." 

Most of these missionary books 
are filled with complaints against 
Catholic missionaries who may be 
laboring in the same field- The 
unmanly querulousness of thes( 
plaints leads to the conclusion th; 
the Protestant preachers feel hoi 
disadvantageously they are place* 
when confronted with the Catholi< 
apostle. It is not the presence 
their wives that hampers and con- 
fuses them, for we believe that it 
the wives of the Protestant mis- 
sionaries who effect the most con- 
versions, through superior tact an< 
the natural winningness of women 
but it is the presence of a super- 
natural force and life which, througl 
God's grace, the poor heathen hit 
self is not the last to perceive, 
it is, Protestants are led to believe 
that the comparative failure of theii 
missions results from that cloven- 
foot of Rome which, not content 
with trampling the fair gardens of 
Christ in Europe, must needs crush 
the tender seedlings of evangelical 
hope in heathen lands. And this 
bosh is believed, subscriptions re- 
doubled, sympathizing letters sent 
to Mr. Beese by enthusiastic elders, 
and a trunkful of children's clothes 



Protestant Theology in Short Clothes. 



683 



to poor Mrs. Beese. A young le- 

vite, aflame with zeal to bear the 

Gospel tidings to distant Cathay, is 

ordained by a colonial bishop then 

on a prolonged visit to the home of 

his childhood. The young levite 

protests before high Heaven that he 

will meet and overcome Antichrist 

in the person of his emissaries, and 

solemnly vows that ere he leaves 

'hina countless Mongolian hands 

rill have laid hold on the Book of 

,ife. 

In many Sabbath-school libraries 
iction holds a very subordinate 
>lace. This is explained for the 
rery foolish reason that children 
ihould not be familiarized with 
falsehood, even under the trans- 
trent guise of fictitious narrative. 
>till, after many stormy debates in 
:ountless synods, a compromise 
r as made. The fiction of a Sab- 
>ath-school is indeed poor. We 
:ould not help contrasting it with 
the really good stories in every 
;nse with which our own libraries 
low happily abound. A Catholic 
story does not for ever obtrude re- 
igion upon you. There is a safe 
mse that we are for the time liv- 
ig among good, decent people who 
;njoy life, make love, say their 
>rayers, and keep the moral law in 
manly and womanly way. Even 
the most pronounced of our strictly 
iligious tales have a charm and 
tappiness about them irresistibly at- 
ractive. We know of no book of 
iction that surpasses in living and 
varied interest a well-written life 
of a great saint, or the founder of 
a religious community. Our chil- 
dren's books, too, as a class, are real- 
ly sound and sensible. We never 
believed in treating children to 
baby-talk and addressing them as 
dolls. There is, of course, a wide 
domain of chivalry and romance, 
of knightly worth, of beautiful 



legend and exquisite allegory, in 
Catholic history, all of which is de- 
nied to the Protestant writer. But 
he certainly might have managed 
to give us something a little less 
depressing than the melancholy 
musings of Jabez Smooth and the 
ponderous theology of Parson Good- 
will. 

The average Sabbath-school 
story opens upon a poor consump- 
tive mother, " whose feeble hands 
can scarcely hold the blessed vol- 
ume which has been her stay and 
consolation since the death of her 
beloved husband, Eliphalet Hare. 
The weary eyes are resting upon 
that sweet text which has brought 
comfort to many an aching bosom : 
'And Moses commanded Joshua 
to tell the people all these things.' 
What divine force and beauty in 
those words," etc. Her .gentle 
daughter runs in with the glad in- 
telligence that Parson Wellspent is 
coming up the lane. " ' And O 
mamma!' she exclaims, "' I really 
think he has some of those beauti- 
ful tracts which he promised you. 
Mayn't / have one too?' And a 
tear stood in her gentle blue eye," 
etc. The villain of the story is a 
wretched old sailor who drinks 
grog and sings rather dubious songs. 
This unfortunate man has enticed 
some of the youth of the place to 
goon a fishing expedition, in which 
they are all nearly drowned. The 
sailor experiences a change of 
heart, gives up his grog and his 
songs, and soon dies a most edify- 
ing death. 

We looked in vain for any Pro- 
testant books that give the Catho- 
lic Church even a hearing. So far 
as we examined, such works were 
wholly excluded. General histo- 
ries like Hallam's we could not 
find, though we discovered more 
pretentious books. We do not say 



684 



Protestant Theology in Short Clothes. 



so, but it looked as if every avenue 
to Catholic truth had been pur- 
posely closed up. The more viru- 
lently anti-Catholic the author, the 
more acceptable did he appear to 
be. Poor, trashy histories which a 
scholar would be ashamed to be 
caught reading ; vile Harper -spawn ; 
cheap biographies and encyclopae- 
dias filled with second-hand learn- 
ing; a series of ridiculous stories 
advocating nothing but an aimless 
reading of the Bible; an overgrown 
collection of Bible books which 
have not the merit of a good Eng- 
lish style to relieve their intolerable 
dulness and flippant criticism ; a 
lower deep of foul diatribes against 
the virtue of chastity, which the 
church of God, echoing Christ and 
his apostle, has always proclaimed 
possible even to our fallen and cor- 
rupt nature ; books like H. Carey 
Lea's' History of Sacerdotal Celibacy, 
which would be seized as obscene 
if they were not written against 
the church ; idiotic tales for little 
folks, with such wretched puzzles as 
" What does Solomon, spelled back- 
wards, mean in Scotch ?" make up 
the general Sabbath-school library. 
Our review has acquainted us 
with the general Sabbath-school 
methods of Protestantism. We 
now see that the works of the great 
divines, the testimony of illustrious 
Protestant historians, and even the 



excellent exegetical literature, such, 
for example, as Dr. Pusey's Lec- 
tures on Daniel, which Protestants 
have given to the world, tan rarely 
be found in the Sabbath-school 
library. Our eyes are opened. 
Henceforth we shall triumphantly 
refute a Protestant argument 
solemnly appealing to the Narrc 
five of Rev. Jeroboam Sneezer, or, il 
that fails, we shall triumphant!] 
quote the History of Aunt Tabith; 
Too long have we lingered ov< 
the learning and, we sincerely trui 
and believe, the piety of many 
great Protestant theologian wh< 
patiently studied and explained th< 
Scriptures, and for that alone b< 
came dear to the heart of the the< 
logical scholar of every faith. Whs 
Catholic th eologi an does not love ol< 
Kitto, and feel for him the unfeigm 
kindness and courtesy with whi< 
he was welcomed to the Scriptun 
treasures of the Vatican ? The* 
old giants may now repose in tl 
silence and dust of the uppe 
shelf. Protestant theology is goni 
never to return. May it not 
that God, in -his all-wise providence 
has deemed our generation worth] 
to behold the passing away of the 
delusion and blight of Protestai 
tism which for three centuries In 
afflicted so many and so highly fa 
vored nations? Or is it alrea< 
dead ? 



Life of Madame Duchesne. 



685 



LIFE OF MADAME DUCHESNE.* 



: 



THE chief means in this age and 
country of winning permanent in- 
fluence in the direction of any 
given principle is undoubtedly the 
education of youth. Bearing this 
in mind, it is mainly in the field 
of education that all organizations, 
religious or secular, wage war with, 
and strive to outstrip, each other. 
Anything connected with the early 
struggles of earnest teachers and 
missionaries must afford an inter- 
esting study; and, judged by the 
light of the contrast between the 
generation of 1820 and that of 
1840 in Louisiana and Missouri, 
the part taken by the first teaching 
sisters of the Society of the Sacred 
eart may be said to have been a 
rgely predominant element in the 
ivilization of the Mississippi val- 
ey. Although the honor of the 
ndertaking is personally due al- 
ogether to Frenchmen and women 
f the same stamp as the mission- 
ries of Canada, and notwithstand- 
ng the fact that the chief obsta- 
les in the path of these educators 
ere raised by men of Anglo-Saxon 
ace and prejudices, we may yet 
efer with satisfaction to the two 
bllowing facts, which speak pretty 
lainly for themselyes : the state 
of barbarism in which two centuries 
of Spanish and French rule had 
left the valley of the Mississippi, 
and the improvement effected with- 
the first third of a century 
f American administration. The 



* Hi&toire de Mme. Duchesne, Religieuse de la 
Societe du Sacre Cceur de Jesus, et Fondatrice 
des premieres maisons de cette Societe" en Ame- 
rique. M. l'Abb6 Baunard, chanoine honoraire 
d'Orle'ans, professeur d'eloquence sacree a TUni- 
versite Catholique de Lille, Docteur en The"ologie, 
et Docteur des Lettres. Paris : Poussielgue Freres. 
1878. 



first to go no farther than the 
testimony of Mme. Duchesne is 
proved by her letters, which ex- 
hibit as minute an observation as 
they do a picturesque and direct 
style; the second is traceable 
throughout the history of her ef- 
forts and of their ultimate success. 
If the individual prejudices of 
Americans at that time were 
against Catholic education, the 
Constitution, on the other hand, 
favored freedom of association and 
freedom of choice as to means in 
all matters concerning the public 
good ; and, in the long run, the 
Saxon love of fair play and admira- 
tion for pluck and honesty in all 
their forms changed many a hos- 
tile and ignorant looker-on into 
a champion of the devoted and 
dauntless missionaries. We call 
Mme. Duchesne and her compan- 
ions missionaries advisedly, for, 
though the word has been often 
misused and is generally under- 
stood in one sense only, it has a 
wider and fitter application, such as 
entirely covers the ground of Mme. 
Duchesne's efforts in this country. 
One of her own favorite characters, 
St. Francis Regis, was no less a 
missionary because his zeal called 
him to preach an intelligible Gos- 
pel and revive a sleeping faith in 
the neglected rural parishes of the 
south of France, from the years 
1597 to 1640, than were such of 
his order (the Company of Jesus) 
as carried the faith to China, In- 
dia, or Japan, and gave their lives 
to attest its truth. The task of 
reconverting or recivilizing a 
population that has deteriorated 
from its former and normal stand- 






686 



Life of Madame Duchesne. 



ard is often a more hopeless and 
arduous one than that of first 
announcing wholly unknown and 
unexpected truths to a nation 
accustomed beforehand to believe 
without material proof and to 
accept without doubt what tra- 
dition has handed down. The 
latter are, at any rate, curious and 
eager ; the former are often mis- 
trustful or indifferent. They have 
kept enough civilization to sharpen 
their wits, but not enough to con- 
trol their morals. The labors of 
St. Francis Xavier among the Por- 
tuguese at Goa, as contrasted with 
his wonderful and rapid success in 
evangelization among the Hindoos, 
affords an instance in point. The 
history of Mme. Duchesne's work 
among the women and girls of the 
neighborhoods of New Orleans and 
St. Louis decidedly affords an- 
other. 

Providential circumstances pre- 
pared Mme. Duchesne for her life- 
task, which, however, she was not 
suffered to take up until she was 
nearly fifty years of age. The 
French Revolution made her fa- 
miliar with the detailed hardships 
and privations which any colonist 
or pioneer has to take into account 
as a necessary part of his plan, and 
the disturbance of monastic rules 
due to the indiscriminate suppres- 
sion of all .religious houses during 
the " Terror " became the occa- 
sion of her breaking with her early 
traditions in favor of the order of 
the Visitation, and joining a new 
community established, with a view 
to the new wants of the times, 
both in France itself and in other 
countries. A few words which 
M. de Tocqueville has applied to 
the United States, at least to such 
of the more settled portions of the 
States as he made himself acquaint- 
ed with, might be equally well 



used to indicate the influence, the 
moral atmosphere, and the fami 
ly traditions of a certain class of 
Frenchwomen whose representatives 
existed before the Revolution, spite 
of the corruption in the more 
prominent classes, and exist still, 
spite of the corruption leavene 
with unbelief which France, as 
known officially, literarily, dramati- 
cally to the outside world, exhibits, 
and almost parades: "If I were 
asked to what I chiefly attribute 
the singular prosperity and increas- 
ing greatness of the American 
people, I should answer, to the 
superiority of its women." 

These words apply to the class 
from which Mme. Duchesne 
sprang. Her genealogy illustrates 
the theory which holds that every 
trait of character is linked with 
and referred to, or rather descend- 
ed from, some ancestral trait of a 
like kind, and that an isolated and 
absolutely exceptional individual is 
the rarest freak in nature. Her 
paternal ancestors, settled at Ro- 
mans, in the present department of 
La Drome, and not far from Gren- 
oble, had long occupied a high 
position as exporters of textile 
fabrics, and had also been the 
leaders in local politics ; the Pe"riers, 
her maternal ancestors, became 
from large capitalists and manufac- 
turers they bought the old castl 
of Vizille, the wonder of Dauphine* 
for a factory of painted cloths, the 
first established in France suc- 
cessively bankers and statesmen ; 
their house was famous in Paris 
and their credit almost autocra- 
tic. Her paternal grandmother, 
Mile. Enfantin, was of a family 
of similar standing, which number- 
ed among its prominent members a 
great pulpit orator of the order of 
the Fathers of the Faith, and an- 
other leader of different calibre but 



i, 

\ 



Life of Madame Duchesne. 



687 



no less mind, the founder of the 
Saint-Simonists. Her sister, Mme. 
de Mauduit, became the wife of a 
captain of dragoons, who often said 
he could manage his regiment bet- 
ter than his wife, and would rather 
face the enemy than encounter her 
displeasure. The political career 
of the men of her family for two 
generations had been a brilliant and 
liberal one. Her father, an advo- 
cate (or, as we should say in English, 
a proctor) in the Grenoble parlia- 
ment, a distinguished lawyer and 
a man of strong character, had 
been one of those directly concern- 
ed in what proved to be the first 
step of the French Revolution ; 
for the assembly of his native town 

I was the first to register a protest 
against the royal edicts which 
issued in a riot on the yth of June, 
1788. Her uncle Perier welcom- 
ed the notables of the province of 
Dauphine in the hall of his chateau 
at Vizille, where was held the 
famous session of the 2ist of July, 
under the presidency of Mounier 

|,nd Barnave. When the Revolu- 
ion declared itself that is, when 
nob-rule threw off the shackles of 
he constitution and proclaimed it- 
elf supreme these liberal-minded 
magistrates and merchants with- 
irew from the movement and suf- 
sred not a little during the ex- 
esses that followed; but when the 
renzy was over, and in 1795 the 
ountry struggled out from among 
he ruins of many governments, 
Jie Periers and Duchesnes once 
more showed their patriotic spirit, 
and it was Mme. Duchesne's 
father and uncle who were chosen 
by their fellow-citizens to repre- 
sent them in the new. legislative 
body. While there, and several 
times called to the office of tribune, 
the former resolutely opposed every 
measure tending to the decrease of 



constitutional liberty, and notably 
voted against the scheme of a life- 
consulship, which scheme eventual- 
ly, as it is known, led to the empire. 
When the new government was set- 
tled he resigned his post and 
never went back to public life, 
neither the rule of Napoleon I. nor 
that of Louis XVIII. suiting his 
views of rightful government. A 
man of iron, upright and austere 
obstinate his foes called him his 
type was reproduced in his daughter, 
Philippa-Rose, born in 1769, and 
noted from her childhood for her 
grave ways and early decision of 
character. Singleness of purpose, 
perseverance in effort, and mascu- 
line foresight and power of ad- 
ministration were her chief charac- 
teristics ; as to accomplishments, 
precocity, and the lighter graces of 
home life, she was a stranger to 
them. A deep tenderness, but 
no sentimentalism or emotional 
display, distinguished her, though 
many never suspected it until cir- 
cumstances called its expression to 
the surface. She has herself de- 
scribed in a letter from her Ameri- 
can home one of the ordinary pro- 
cesses of her mind, which will 
serve better than any attempt at de- 
scription to set her figure clearly 
before the reader : 

" We are three. At night-prayers it is 
all I can do to manage to put three sen- 
tences together, and speak for three 
minutes, to propose a subject for prayer 
[meaning meditation]. I have never 
been able to reflect on anything ; I see it, 
and what I see at once I shall see ten 
years hence, without change or addition 
whatever. I can see nothing by halves 
and in detail. Objects strike me as 
a whole, with no divisions or parts. 
When I hear long speeches or sermons 
I am forced, in spite of myself, to reduce 
the matter argued to a few words. I 
cannot understand how any one can 
amplify a subject. Given this disposi- 
tion, all kinds of method, reflection, and 



688 



Life of Madame Duchesne. 



consideration become mere bewilder- 
ment to my mind." 



A dark corridor led from the gateway to 
a square cloister overlooking a court- 
yard with a lawn and flower-beds, where 



Her style was like herself, her two wells had been dug side by side and 



manner less amiable than sincere, 
her word a tower of strength, and 



a stone cross erected between the two. 
From the cloister you go down into the 
church choir. . . . The steep and bare 



her example so compelling that it heights of Le Rabot command the house 

brought her the love of all strong, and shut off the view, but on the city 

true, and manly souls, which her side nothing obstructs it, and from the 

1.4.1 i courtyard terrace, which the children use 

mere manner might otherwise have as a lay _ ground) the eye takes in the 

crystallized into simple respect and rich> deep-seated valley of Gresivaudan, 

admiration. Her studies were va- and the landscape beyond, stretching 

rious and useful, thoroughness in over vast plains till it reaches the foot of 

every pursuit being her aim ; at the snow-capped Alps." 

nine years old Roman history was Like most buildings of its kindj 

her favorite reading, and later on this convent has gone through 

she joined her cousins, the Perier stnmge changes since Mme- Du _ 

boys, in the study of Latin and chegne played and studied there> 

the higher branches of arithmetic Sequestrated during the Rev olu- 

as connected with business transac- tion> it became a p^^ and after _ 






tions. Her mother taught her at wardg a wine . shop) where guides 
home for some years, after which for the mountain were proc ured 



the family connection with the 
school of the neighboring convent 
of the Visitation led to her being 



and refreshments supplied to tour- 
ists ; then for a few years Mme. 

Duchesne herself hired it from the 
placed there preparatory to her First tQwn> and retenanted it with a few 

Communion. She dated both her n yainl endeavoring to 

call to the religious life and her 



interest in missionary work from 
that time, the extraordinary confes- 
sor of the community having had 
several years' experience in the 
Indian missions of Louisiana. The 
convent stood on a rocky projec- 
tion half way up the Rachais moun- 
tain, overlooking the river Isere, 
and must have presented a sin- 
gularly picturesque appearance. 
The reader will forgive a slight 



restore the old rule, after which it 
became a house of the Sacred 
Heart community, and in its re- 
storer's old age, in 1833, was aban- 
doned to a sisterhood of Ursuline 
nuns, the neighborhood of a station 
of military engineers having proved 
an annoyance to the former owners 
When, on leaving school, Philippa 
Duchesne told her parents of her 
intention to enter the community, 



she met with the natural opposition 
digression for the sake of the pic- which the majority of even pious 



ture it affords of one of the old- 
time convent-schools : 

A kind of crooked staircase street, 



families feel towards a decision 
taken in such early youth ; and 
when, after some years spent in so- 



with black houses of the time of the ciet 7 where she heartily enjoyed 



League, winds up the mountain-side, 
and an abrupt turn brings one face to 
face with a gateway, among whose orna- 
mental devices runs an inscription at- 
tributing the foundation of this, the 
fourth house of the order, to St. Francis 
of Sales himself in the year 1619. . . . 



herself, but refused one or two good 
matches proposed by her parents, 
she was allowed to carry out her 
determination, it was only on con- 
dition that she should remain a 
novice until her father sanctioned 



Life of Madame Duchesne. 



689 



her taking the habit for life. His 
foresight was justified before she 
had been two years in the convent ; 
the Revolution broke out, the mo- 
nasteries were dissolved lucky 
those to whom no worse happened 
and Philippa returned to secular 
life, but insisted still on keeping all 
the hours and customs of the con- 
vent which did not clash disagree- 
ably with the family routine. Her 
father's country-house of Granne, 
near the old homestead of Romans, 
became a pleasant retreat during 
the following years of disturbance, 
and here the young girl met with 
an additional tutor under singular- 
ly interesting circumstances, and 
also contracted her life-long devo- 
tion to St. Francis Regis, whose 



tomb was in the neighborhood. 



The tutor alluded to was M. Poisde- 
bard, a priest obliged to support 
himself by secular occupations, and 
who, with no other credentials but 
his mechanical skill and experience, 
solicited and obtained the place of 
overseer of the mill-works which 
M. Duchesne had in contemplation. 
The family were thus provided with 
an excellent clerk of the works, a 
clever teacher, and a secret chap- 
lain. After her mother's death, in 
1793, Philippa Duchesne left her 
home once more and took up her 
abode in a small hired room in 
Grenoble, with an ex-nun for a 
companion, and devoted herself to 
caring for the prisoners, and among 
them principally the priests, as well 
as to teaching the neglected street 
children, who were growing up hea- 
thens in the midst of scenes of 
bloodshed and sacrilege. Her fear- 
lessness and perseverance in both 
these perilous tasks were admirable 
and unintermitted, but it requires 
some willingness to believe in her 
own judgment (which she certainly 
eloquently excused in a letter to 
VOL. xxviii. 44 



her elder sister, Mme. de Mauduit) 
before one can quite approve of 
her readiness to undertake works 
of choice rather than works of ne- 
cessity, such as her father's recent 
widowerhood and increasing age 
made ready to her hand. Doubt- 
less a character less like, his own 
would have served his turn better 
in this emergency; at any rate, the 
motive of his daughter's absence 
was pure and self-devoted, even if 
not perfectly unselfish. This life 
lasted until 1801, when, after ear- 
nest efforts and the co-operation 
of her cousins, the Perier bankers, 
she succeeded in her plan of re- 
constituting the convent, though 
not on its ancient footing. The 
Revolution had had much the same 
effects as a flood, and when she 
tried to gather together even such 
nuns as professed themselves anx- 
ious to return to their former life, 
she found the spirit of discipline 
gone, a habit of independence and 
jealousy uppermost in the lives of 
her companions, apathy on the 
part of the elder nuns, desires rath- 
er than resolves, and a longing for 
rest superseding a resolution to 
work. The old superioress, whom 
with four others of the former com- 
munity she had brought to consent 
to a return, left Mme. Duchesne 
after a few months with the re- 
cruits who had accompanied her, 
and the task seemed hopeless ; but 
she who had delighted in the ma- 
nual labor of re-establishing the 
old home, in cooking for and help- 
ing the workmen, in shutting out 
the weather and cleaning the long- 
unoccupied parts of the house, was 
equally sanguine about the event- 
ual moral reconstruction of the 
place. It was not, however, till 
she had gathered about her women 
of a new generation that she found 
a harmonious spirit animate her 



690 



Life of Madame Duchesnc. 



little band. The rules of the Visita- 
tion, in their more special features, 
had already been wisely dispensed 
with at the opening of the new 
school, on which much of the hope 
of material prosperity was founded ; 
and when Father Varin, a former 
soldier, and something of a new 
Francis Regis in his zeal for teach- 
ing the young people of country 
neighborhoods whose faith had 
been swamped by the Revolution, 
brought her word of the quiet be- 
ginnings of a new association for 
educational purposes, begun in 
Amiens by Mine. Barat, it seemed 
to Mme. Duchesne that an amalga- 
mation between the two communi- 
ties promised the very results for 
which she had been steadily work- 
ing. The meeting between the fu- 
ture friends was conducted accord- 
ing to an ancient and solemn cus- 
tom : Mme. Duchesne welcomed 
the new-comer by kneeling to kiss 
her feet, and repeating as she did 
so the words of Isaias : " How beau- 
tiful upon the mountains are the 
feet of them that bring tidings of 
the Gospel of peace." Mme. Barat 
was ten years younger than herself, 
but no selfish or arrogant drought 
ever took from the fulness of her 
submission to the young foundress 
of the new institution. The two 
women completed each other and 
together formed one head ; their 
friendship .was never broken, and 
even when, late in life, a person in 
authority took the unwarrantable 
liberty of intercepting their corre- 
spondence, each, though grieved 
and amazed, never once lost faith 
in the other, thereby giving one of 
the subtlest and rarest proofs of in- 
nate nobility of character. 

The new community began in 
1804 with a school of twenty 
boarders, ^vhich two years later 
was supplemented by a free day- 



school for poor girls, under the su- 
perintendence of an inmate of the 
house, a widow, who called herself 
the "house-dog," transacted the 
nuns' outside business, and took 
upon herself every office she could 
to help the women with whom she 
had found a congenial home. In 
1806 the visit of a Trappist abbot, 
Dom de Lestrange, fired the first 
spark of that enthusiasm for the 
American missions which became, 
for years before her wish was real- 
ized, almost a monomania with 
Mme. Duchesne. Tins man, her 
equal in determination and energy, 
had been proscribed and his mo- 
nastery confiscated by the National 
Assembly, whereupon with the ma- 
jority of his monks, and not much 
more capital than their hands and 
brains, he had founded a new home 
in the Val-Sainte, in the Swiss 
canton of Fribourg, and establish- 
ed branch houses in Spain, Italy, 
Belgium, and England. From this 
place, too, he was temporarily oust- 
ed by the French invasion, and 
fled for safety successiveJy to Ger- 
many, Russia, Poland, and Den- 
mark, but returned to Val-Sainte 
in 1802 under the protection of 
Napoleon I. Two houses of his 
order had been recently founded 
in America*- (they were afterwards 
dissolved) under his personal su- 
pervision, and he was full of zeal 
for the farther working of that 
hitherto religiously speaking fal- 
low field. His travels happened to 
have made him acquainted with 
the very neighborhoods in which 
Mme. Duchesne, fifteen years later, 
was to struggle with and triumph 
over more obstacles than either 
she or Lestrange could foresee. 
From this time forward began one 
of the outwardly quiet periods of 
Mme. Duchesne's life, though her 
pressing desire to go to America, 



I 



Life of Madame Duchesne. 



or, if not there, to China, grew and 
strengthened silently each hour. 
Her work lay in teaching, guidance, 
and administration, while her rela- 
tions also gave her much to do, as 
she materially helped her sister's 
children, as well as took special 
charge of the education of some of 
her nieces, several of whom became 
nuns in her community, while 
others entered the order of the 
Visitation, following in this the 
family tradition, four generations 
of Duchesnes having furnished 
Salute-Marie with members. Her 
interior history during this time 
reduced itself to the central and 
absorbing interest of her wish to 
go to America. No wish was ever 
more repressed, more combated 
than hers. Mine. Barat did not 
see her way to its realization; she 
feared the consequences of a scat- 
tering of strength and material ne- 
cessary to consolidate the institu- 
tion at home; the Jesuits them- 
selves, to whom mainly the direc- 
tion of the nuns' affairs belonged, 
were cautious and backward ; Mme. 
Duchesne's urgency, her belief in a 
call from God to this work, her re- 
course to the chance opening of a 
Bible as to a kind of oracle (which 
she found answer as she would 
have it), all seemed to them so 
much uncontrolled vehemence 
without the stamp of anything pro- 
vidential. 

It strikes one that, although their 
opposition was undoubtedly one of 
the preparatory features of God's 
trial of her fortitude, they them- 
selves were in this instance singu- 
larly blind to providential indica- 
tions, and more solicitous about 
ways and means than the Gospel, 
warrants. Father Barat (the bro- 
ther of the foundress) alone show- 
ed a conviction, nearly as strong as 
Madame Duchesne's, of the advi- 



sability of carrying out her wishes 
indeed, his own secret wishes led 
him to hope for a like destination 
for himself, but in this he was dis- 
appointed. His influence, how- 
ever, was mainly exerted on the 
side of his sister's friend, and when 
a visit to France on the part of the 
French bishop of New Orleans in 
1816 gave new zest to their hopes, 
it was he who undertook to men- 
tion the subject to the bishop. 
Mgr. Dubourg was in quest of 
volunteers, of whom he gathered 
together nearly fifty in the semina- 
ries of France, Italy, and Belgium, 
and naturally the request of Mme. 
Duchesne chimed in with his views ; 
but even at the last moment so 
many difficulties were raised that 
he owed the granting of his wishes 
only to what seemed an accident. 
He was leaving Mme. Barat when, 
at the door of the little house of 
the Sacred Heart in Paris, Mme. 
Duchesne, who had been watching 
for his departure, threw herself at 
her friend's feet and in a few im- 
passioned words begged for her 
consent. This last appeal was suc- 
cessful, and a few months later 
the little band of missionary teach- 
ers sailed from Bordeaux on board 
an American vessel, bound for 
New Orleans. Mme. Duchesne's 
companions were a Genevese con- 
vert, Mme. Berthold, whose father 
had been Voltaire's private secre- 
tary ; Mme. Aude, and two lay sis- 
ters. They set sail on March 21, 
1818, and after a stormy passage 
landed at New Orleans on the 29th 
of May following. 

An entirely new life opened be- 
fore them; the destitution of the 
church, the comparative barbarism 
of the people, the roughness of the 
conditions of existence even among 
the wealthy, were such as the live- 
liest imagination could hardly have 



692 



Life of Madame Duchesne. 



caused them to realize beforehand. 
The summer aspect of New Or- 
leans, however, which was the 
first impression that met them, was 
decidedly pleasant, and one of the 
nuns writes, in the hopeful spirit of 
new-comers : 

" The night was magnificent, the sky 
clear and starlit. We were driving 
along the banks of the river, whose wa- 
ters seemed silvered by the stars that 
were reflected in it. Little bushes full 
of fire-flies, shining like our glow-worms, 
made the prettiest illumination. Very 
pretty little cottages were scattered here 
and there, and in one of them we were 
given some bread we had not eaten any 
for seventy days." 

New Orleans at that time reck- 
oned fifteen thousand inhabitants, 
black and white, and, besides the 
bishop, only two priests. There 
was, however, an Ursuline convent- 
school, which became the tempo- 
rary home of the new community. 
The demoralization of the city and 
environs was frightful ; girls of 
eighteen were mere hoydens, mo- 
thers of families careless of every- 
thing but dress and jewelry; reli- 
gion in any form was either a by- 
word or absolutely terra-incognita. 
The negroes were threefold more 
savages than their African ances- 
tors. The daughters of some of 
the richest inhabitants " swore like 
a devil and smoked like a man " ; 
others " had more dresses than che- 
mises, and especially than hand-- 
kerchiefs, and would not be con- 
tent with anything short of the 
finestcambric ormuslinfor sleeves." 

The love of finery pervaded all 
classes; farther up the river, where 
Indian half-breeds abounded, li- 
cense and luxury went hand-in- 
hand ; everywhere the ignorance of 
morals and religion was shocking ; 
the children laughed at the idea of 
application and obedience, and 
taunted a more industrious com- 



panion with the epithet of " nig- 
ger." Pupils, when instructed about 
hell, seriously asked if the nuns 
had ever been there and seen it ; 
the forms of kneeling, crossing 
themselves, etc., were unknown 
and provoked laughter, while the 
very knowledge of the Trinity was 
scarcely traceable through the 
crude notions of the majority of 
the people. Astonishing details 
are given in the letters of Mme. 
Duchesne and her associates of 
the low moral standard current 
among the Mississippi valley popu- 
lations, whether rich or poor ; but, 
light as the character of these peo- 
ple was, it was the more easy to bend 
into new grooves, and the marvel- 
lous quickness and receptivity of 
most of the pupils became as much 
a wonder as the degraded state 
from which they thus emerged. 

Through the miscarriage of the 
bishop's letter Mme. Duchesne 
found herself left alone and with- 
out instructions for nearly six 
weeks, after which delay she start- 
ed for St. Louis on the steamboat 
Franklin. The navigation was 
tedious and often interrupted, the 
crowd on board as disgusting as 
could be ; snags or sunken tree- 
trunks continually stopped the 
boat, the wood gave out, and the 
crew went ashore to cut timber, 
while the passengers organized 
wild-turkey hunts and improvised 
flour by crushing corn in the most 
primitive fashion. Now and then 
a swamp with its magnificent and 
deadly vegetation ; a log-hut settle- 
ment; a band of mounted Indians, 
men and women, wearing scarlet 
blankets and white hats ornamented 
with silver coins; and, most curious 
of all, a small body of wandering 
English-speaking Anabaptists, liv- 
ing on fruits, herbs, and roots, and 
wearing garments of skins, gave the 






Life of Madame Duchesne. 



693 



travellers new and surprising sen- 
sations. One of the fellow-passen- 
gers whom they picked up on their 
route was Gabriel Richard, a 
French priest, the great-nephew of 
Bossuet, who that same year sat in 
Congress; and one of the rare plea- 
sures of the nuns was a hurried 
visit to the pastor of Kaskaskias 
while the boat was unloading 
freight. The hospitable priest had 
no great wherewithal to welcome 
his visitors ; " two rickety chairs, a 
worm-eaten table, a mattress on 
boards, a pitcher and one glass, 
were all the furniture," says the 
journal of the nuns. Six years 
later, when managing the small 
house and farm attached to the 
school of Fleurissant, on the east- 
ern bank of the Missouri, scenes 
not unlike the episodes of this 
journey were constantly repeated : 
Indians in the journal particular- 
ized as Iroquois and Algonquins 
would come to have their newly- 
born children baptized, and even 
sometimes brought their dead chil- 
dren wrapped in buffalo-skins, from 
long distances, for the burial rites 
of the "black-robes." 

St. Louis, a large, scattered vil- 
lage of one thousand souls, was the 
second metropolis of Louisiana, 
and at that time the bishop's see. 
The diocese ranged from some dis- 
tance north of this to the mouth 
of the Mississippi, and reckoned a 
population of two hundred and fifty 
thousand, white, black, half-breed, 
and Indian, the latter the most nu- 
merous by nearly two-thirds, and 
representing more than fifty differ- 
ent often mutually hostile tribes. 
The religious centre of the district 
was a wooden barn, as dilapidated 
as it was rough, with a single apart- 
ment serving the purposes of kitch- 
en, dining and sleeping room, not 
to mention study, for the bishop 



and five priests, some of whom 
were sick; and the church was a 
wooden shanty, open to the wea- 
ther, where the bishop, at the cere- 
mony of the patronal feast- on Au- 
gust 25, took the part of choir-mas- 
ter and chief chorister for an hour, 
besides performing other more spe- 
cially episcopal functions. New 
as it all was to the French nuns, it 
was a matter of course to the local 
clergy, and Bishop Dubourg was 
not the only one of his order who 
was used to it. Bishop Flaget, of 
Bardstown, says Mine. Duchesne 
in one of her letters, ** commonly 
slept in a shanty so full of holes 
that he often shared it with the 
pigs. He has several parishes to 
care for in person, gives away the 
last shirt off his backhand is gen- 
erally so poor that he cannot afford 
the two-cent fare for the ferry 
across the river." Bishop Du- 
bourg, a native of San Domingo, 
of French extraction, and educated 
for the priesthood at St. Sulpice 
in Paris, had been driven home in 
consequence of the September 
riots in 1793, and, landing in Balti- 
more, was chosen by Bishop Car- 
roll to be rector of the College of 
Georgetown, D. C. In 1815 he 
was raised to the see of New Or- 
leans, and, during his search through 
Europe for spiritual recruits, came 
across Mine. Duchesne. On his 
return he and his little band of 
volunteers crossed Maryland and 
Pennsylvania on foot, carrying 
their bundles slung on sticks, and 
at Pittsburgh took boat down the 
Ohio to Louisville, the bishop tak- 
ing his turn at the oars and the 
rudder like the rest. The rest of 
the journey was of much the same 
character, and he had been in St. 
Louis only seven months when his 
friends from France joined him. 
It was, however, impossible for 



694 



Life of Madame Duchesne. 



them to stay there ; he could find 
no house for them, and for women 
accustomed to constant spiritual 
superintendence and support it 
was somewhat a new experience to 
be left to their own resources at 
St. Charles, a village on the Mis- 
souri, fifteen miles from St. Louis, 
where a small house and two acres 
of so-called garden and orchard 
in reality a tract of underbrush 
had been lured. 

This place, where in 1852 Mme. 
Duchesne died at the age of 
eighty-four, after a ten years' resi- 
dence unburdened with anxieties 
and duties, proved at first anything 
but promising; a swamp and the 
frequent river-floods prevented pu- 
pils from St. Louis from coming, 
and in less than three months mo- 
ney became so scarce that the nuns 
almost starved. The population 
was a motley gathering of the same 
character as before described, and 
the moral and intellectual state of 
all but the few families just come 
from the Eastern States for the 
purposes of trade was deplorable. 
The nuns had to be their own 
farmers and gardeners ; even two 
dollars a day, if they had had such 
a fortune, would not have tempted 
the proud, improvident, lazy popu- 
lation around them to work at 
" other folks' jobs." How the sis- 
ters procured cattle is not told ; 
it seems to have been their chief 
resource, though naturally also a 
troublesome charge for women un- 
familiar with farm details. One 
refractory cow, on the occasion of 
the removal of the household from 
their first to their permanent house 
at Fleurissant, was confided to 
Mme. Duchesne, who had her 
hands full of small valuables and 
her apron full of corn to tempt her 
charge, who had always refused to 
be noosed or led. The animal 



perversely turned off into the bush- 
es at every fifty yards, and led her 
cowherd many a jaunt and scram- 
ble, till at last a more desperate 
effort than the former caused the 
collapse of papers, corn, mittens, 
and all into the three feet of soft 
snow which covered the track. A 
parish priest of the neighborhood 
performed the duties of mounted 
escort and bullock-driver as well 
as he could, and, except for this 
mishap and Mme. Duchesne's 
frost-bitten fingers, the winter mi- 
gration was safely accomplished. 
While at St. Charles a partial 
scarcity of corn took place, and as 
there was no well on the property 
and the neighboring spring was 
either frozen or muddy, the nuns 
thought themselves rarely fortunate 
when a kind neighbor arranged to 
bring them daily a barrel of river- 
water, which they were obliged 
carefully to filter. In December 
the journal says : " It is so cold 
that water standing by the fire 
freezes, as also the linen hung by 
the fire to dry .... Margaret 
(one of the lay sisters) came home 
to-day with two pails from the 
spring, one half full of water, the 
other full of ice. Neither doors 
nor windows shut; our wood is 
too large and there is no one to 
split it, for no one will work but 
for the needs of the moment ; they 
are too proud to seem mercenary." 
Not long after a commercial crisis 
raised the market-prices, paper 
money flooded the country, a panic 
overran the South, and nearly every 
bank stopped payment. Incendi- 
ary fires became common an4 vio- 
lence the order of the day. The 
free-school for half-breeds, ho\y- 
ever, flourished, though the board- 
ing-school was of course a failure, 
even with all the help of several 
kind families, especially the Pratts, 



Life of Madame Duchcsnc. 



695 






of St. Louis, and the Hamiltons, 
originally from Maryland. In Sep- 
tember, 1819, the journal gives an 
account of the removal to a new 
home, Fleurissant, a farm " in the 
bush" bought by the bishop; the 
house-gear was packed in rough 
carts, round which clustered the im- 
pressionable and sometimes grate- 
ful population in tears ; the nuns 
carried cabbages to 'attract the 
cows, and Mme. Duchesne busied 
herself with the simultaneous care 
of the reliquaries and the poultry. 
The new house was but a sorry 
habitation, yet better than the open 
shed, "like a bird-cage," in which 
the former tenant, the clerical bul- 
lock-driver, cheerfully installed 
himself, that the women might be 
made more comfortable. With a few 
logs and boards, and the personal 
labor of the nuns and two priests, 
a chapel was soon built, but the 
windows were missing for some 
time, and the apples used to fall 
in through sundry holes in the roof. 
M. Dunand, the parish priest let 
not any one mistake this civilized 
title for its equivalent in a settled 
neighborhood was the last of the 
Trappists whom Lestrange had 
brought there during the Revolu- 
tion, but who had been dispersed 
before 1812 ; and M. Delacroix, the 
aforementioned bullock-driver, was 
a Belgian, who had spent some 
time by force in Napoleon's army. 
No obstacles, natural or human, 
seemed in his eyes worth a mo- 
ment's consideration ; floods, dense 
forests, trackless wastes, wild beasts 
and serpents, Indian ferocity and 
ivhite profanity, were so many in- 
significant adjuncts to the main 
thing, the preaching of the Gospel. 
As soon as the nuns were settled 
in his house he removed to his 
" cage," which in reality was a 
rude corn-bin, with one opening 



serving for door and window, 
through which a chair was too 
large to be passed. He had not 
been long lodged in this way before 
he caught a bad ague, after which a 
few boards were put together to 
provide him with a decent and at 
least weather-tight dwelling. As 
winter came on and provisions 
grew scarce, an ox was killed and 
corned, and a little wheat flour 
bought on credit, the corn and 
vegetables of the preceding summer, 
and the milk and eggs from the 
farm, making up the rest of the 
larder stock. One day the milk 
was frozen so hard that it had to 
be cut with a hatchet ; at another 
time a gift of a few pigs had to be 
sacrificed to the present impossi- 
bility of housing and feeding them, 
and the animals were killed and 
corned at once. The journal says: 
"We do everything. One of us 
milks the cows, not in a barn, but 
often in a foot of mud or snow ; 
another is smoked dry in the kitch- 
en ; a third watches the oven. 
Every minute we have to cross and 
recross a yard which is simply a 
bog impossible to harden or re- 
claim. . . . As for wooden, or even 
india-rubber, shoes, they are un- 
known." It strikes one that hide- 
boots might have been substituted* 
or skin-leggings, which cannot have- 
been scarce even at that primitive 
epoch. They were equally desti- 
tute of clothing; remains of old 
cassocks, left-off things of the few 
boarders, patched remnants of 
French clothes, were all the mate- 
rial on which they could depend.. 
Even when, ten years later, they 
re-established themselves at St. 
Charles under better circumstances, 
the"ir stock for housekeeping con- 
sisted only of " four sheets, six 
towels, four coverlets, two mat- 
tresses, four cups, six plates, a 



696 



Life of Madame Ducliesne. 



coffee-pot, a stove, a pot or kettle, 
one pound of tea and twelve of 
rice, a pillow-case full of sugar and 
another of coffee, with one bottle 
of vinegar and one of altar wine." 
The nuns set to work again at the 
old trades necessity had taught 
them, and all day long, axe, saw, 
and trowel in hand, they sang as 
they changed the whole look of 
the house, and only rested to begin 
a tremendous baking which result- 
ed in a week's provision of bread. 
As to wood, they often shivered in 
the midst of plenty, for timber 
cutting and splitting was the one 
thing to which they were not equal. 
And yet all this was wealth com- 
pared to the experience of the 
community of St. Michel, near 
New Orleans, who, though they ac- 
tually lived "in a brick house, with 
wings and a painted front, a shin- 
gled roof, green blinds, and green 
and brown woodwork on the in- 
side," yet for several weeks had to 
feed out of a large iron pot, whence 
portions were ladled out in a dip- 
per and eaten one at a time. One 
day a pedlar sold them six tin 
plates on the understanding that 
the money should be forthcoming 
on the morrow ; but the nuns were 
not able to raise the price, as they 
had hoped, and after two comfor- 
table' meals the plates were washed 
amid much laughter, and returned" 
to the pedlar, who did not offer to 
give credit. 

Mme. Duchesne was destined to 
work a wonderful transformation 
in the girls and women, white, In- 
dian, or colored, who came under 
her influence ; but nowhere, perhaps, 
was there a settlement more thor- % 
oughly reformed than the parish 
of Barreins, on the Bois-Brule, 
whence in 1820 came Mary Lay- 
ton, the first American member of 
the Sacred Heart congregation. 



In this exceptional place, " there 
were sixty communicants every 
Sunday and a score on Saturday, 
often more men than women, and 
among all the inhabitants not eight 
who were not monthly communi- 
cants. There were neither danc- 
ing nor drinking houses left, things 
which elsewhere could not be got 
rid of." Morally satisfactory, the 
place was not, however, much ad- 
vanced in intellectual education, 
and Mary Layton was altogether 
illiterate, which circumstance en- 
hanced the brave determination 
she took of entering the sisterhood 
as a lay sister. The difference 
sanctioned by the home constitu- 
tions between choir and lay sis- 
ters had proved, in theory at least, 
a serious stumbling-block in a new 
country where equality was the 
recognized basis of society; but 
Mme. Duchesne was not one to 
bend to circumstances without very 
pressing necessity, and when, years 
later, she modified two of the 
school-rules to the extent of allow- 
ing the daily prayers to be read in 
English instead of Latin, and of 
dispensing the Protestant pupils 
from learning the catechism, she 
thought she had made considerable 
concessions. Miss Layton's* ex- 
ample, however, did much to recon- 
cile Americans with " service," and 
practically the enforced equality of 
work among all the nuns for at 
least ten or twelve years did more. 
In 1821 Miss Sumner and two 
Misses Hamilton joined the com- 
munity, and after that the recruits, 
American, Irish, and French, be- 
came numerous. In 1820 there 
were already twenty paying board- 
ers, and free schools for Indian 
girls, and for white adults and 
married women as well as children. 

* She died in 1876, having been fifty-six years in 
the order. 



Life of Madame Duchesne. 



697 



In 1822 the increasing Catholic 
population of St. Louis, jn great 
part reclaimed from their ignorance 
and carelessness, possessed a pro- 
per cathedral, and the country dis- 
tricts up and down the river were 
provided with small log-houses at 
regular distances, for the double 
purpose of a chapel and a mission- 
ary dwelling for the priests who 
might be sent to found new parishes 
and would meanwhile have to live 
by the product of their little do- 
mains. 

The next house of the Sacred 
Heart after Fleurissant was Grand- 
Coteau, the gift of Mr. and Mrs. 
Charles Smith, of Maryland. The 
latter only was living at the time ; 
herself a convert from Presbyteri- 
anism, she knew her husband's 
gratitude for the boon of her con- 
version, and, having with him de- 
termined to devote some part of 
their income to a religious purpose, 
she had been waiting for an oppor- 
tunity. Having heard of the French 
nuns, she offered, through the bi- 
shop, to give them land and a 
house and chapel, provided they 
would establish a school. Her 
property lay at Opelousas, in low- 
er Louisiana, and was mostly laid 
out in a sugar plantation, with mills 
and extensive negro-quarters, the 
whole forming a sort of little ham- 
let. Between sixty and eighty 
such plantations formed the parish 
of St. Landry, nominally Catholic, 
with a church in the centre, and a 
primitive pastor, an ex-Benedic- 
tine, driven from France by the 
Revolution. Madame Aude, one 
of the original band from France, 
was sent to take charge of this new 
house, where, not withstanding many 
advantages, there was still some of 
the usual discomfort. The wolves 
not unfrequently prowled round 
the isolated dwelling, and on white- 



washing the walls a huge serpent 
was found in a hole, and, when kill- 
ed by a negro, was discovered to 
have just dined off a brood of young 
chickens which Sister Mary Lay- 
ton had recently missed. The sur- 
roundings were such as are familiar 
to Southern homesteads: a fig and 
peach orchard; separate offices or 
out-houses, such as a kitchen, an in- 
firmary, and a dining-room, besides 
a poultry-yard, a door-yard with 
young shade-trees, and a barnyard 
and paddock for the cattle. Be- 
yond lay luxuriant groves of live- 
oak, magnolia, cypress, etc., with 
the long, waving Spanish moss 
clinging to the trees, and plains of 
rank, tall grass studded with bright- 
colored flowers. 

The five boarders who formed 
the nucleus of the school were as 
ignorant, and nearly as uncivilized, 
as the French-American popula- 
tions of the Missouri. There was a 
free day-school for the poorer peo- 
ple, which, as usual, was most suc- 
cessful, and numerously attended. 
Mine. Duchesne, on the occa- 
sion of a visit there in 1822, was 
delighted by the "astonishing pro- 
gress of the children in piety as well 
as in their studies." While there 
she first made the acquaintance 
of a little girl destined to influence 
the fortunes of the community 
Miss Hardy. On leaving she fell 
ill of the yellow fever at Natchez, 
and returned to Fleurissant only 
to find the boarding-school in diffi- 
culties ; but, far from consenting to 
send away the non-paying pupils, 
her fear for them of the worldly con- 
tagion of St. Louis made her accept 
six new orphan inmates, and gladly 
share with them "her lodging, her 
corn-bread, and the potatoes which 
the garden afforded." If the school 
did not prosper, the novitiate did, 
and, the next year, was put under 



698 



Life of Madame Duchesne. 



the charge of some newly-arrived 
Flemish Jesuits. The year 1824 
was disastrous ; a hurricane dam- 
aged the house, floods carried off 
the corn and cotton, and the nuns 
had hard work to manufacture their 
own soap, candles, thread, and 
shoes. The number of paying pu- 
pils fell to eleven; in 1825 to four ; 
but a spiritual revival kept pace 
with the temporal destitution. 
Schools for girls and boys went on 
successfully ; retreats were preach- 
ed by the new priests ; a hundred 
and sixty men received commu- 
nion at Easter, and the following 
year a hundred and fifty baptisms 
took place ; the children taught 
their parents at home, and free 
schools for Indian girls and boys 
were set on foot. 

In the autumn of 1825 M. Dela- 
croix persuaded the nuns to estab- 
lish another house in his new par- 
ish of St. Michel, sixty miles from 
New Orleans, on the left bank of 
the Mississippi. The neighbor- 
hood was peopled by descendants 
of the French exiles from Acadia 
whose story has been made famous 
by Longfellow. Miss Hardy, who 
had just entered on her novitiate 
at the age of sixteen, was one of 
the new colony. The school be- 
gan with seventeen boarders, and 
things prospered materially as well 
as spiritually. In 1827 the present 
house of the order in St. Louis 
(and the first regularly endowed) 
was founded by Mr. Mullamphy, a 
magistrate of that city, on the con- 
dition of the nuns teaching twenty 
poor orphan girls, to be, at the time 
of their entrance, not under four 
years nor over eight years of age, 
and to be kept till the age of eigh- 
teen, when, on leaving school, the 
founder or his heirs would provide 
each with a small sum of money. 
Each one on entering was to re- 



ceive from him ten piastres, and 
five for each succeeding year, for 
their board, which was to consist 
chiefly of corn-bread, and did not 
include tea or coffee; and the young- 
er girls were to go barefoot in sum- 
mer. The sum of a thousand dol- 
lars in cash was added to the gift 
of a brick house, nearly new, and 
twenty-four acres of partly cleared 
land, a little out of the way of the 
town, and in a healthy and high sit- 
uation, which at present stands al- 
most in the centre of the city. The 
whole value of the endowment was 
estimated at thirty-five thousand 
francs, or seven thousand dollars. 
A paying boarding-school and day- 
school were to be set on foot inde- 
pendently of the original foundation. 
The next establishment deserves 
notice chiefly for the sake of its 
antecedents. A house of teaching 
sisters, originally from Kentucky, 
had existed for several years at 
Bayou la Fourche, six miles from 
New Orleans. The order was 
oddly constituted, combining the 
practice of minute and antique ob- 
servances with the heaviest farm- 
work, and plain, practical teaching 
chiefly directed to the use of poor 
girls. The nuns were entirely 
veiled, went barefooted, and, says 
Madame Duchesne : 

"They do heavy work, plough, sow, 
mow, cut and split timber, groom the 
horses, etc. They have already several 
houses and reckon about a hundred 
members. They teach the poor, inure 
them to practical and manual labor, and 
do a great deal of good. They are anx- 
ious to join the Osage missions, in order 
to teach the women ; and I foresee that 
they will outstrip us in many good works 
which we can only sigh for, their cus- 
toms being adapted to the poverty and 
the habits of the country. Each half- 
hour a bell rings and they repeat this 
aspiration : ' O suffering Jesus ! O 
sorrowful Virgin !' At certain hours 
they all sing the same hymns together, 



Life of Madame Ditcliesne. 



699 



but without leaving off their several oc- 
cupations one in the kitchen, for in- 
stance, another at the wood-pile. ..." 

The name by which they were 
known was Daughters of the Cross. 
Not being well versed in French, 
they made but little progress, and 
had only nine scholars at the time 
of their amalgamation with the 
community of the Sacred Heart. 
This arrangement, however, did 
not prove satisfactory, and the 
house was suppressed four years 
after, the bishop finding a new 
community to reorganize the school. 
It seems as if certain elements, as 
had been proved in the instance 
of the attempted reconstruction of 
the Visitation convent at Greno- 
ble, could not of their nature be 
successfully commingled, and this 
law, which, arbitrary as it may ap- 
pear, is infallible in the natural 
sphere, was shown to be no less so 
in the spiritual. 

Mme. Duchesne closed her ten 
years' religious pioneership by the 
foundation of a house at St. Charles, 
where success met her educational 
efforts at once, although the teach- 
ing, being two-thirds gratuitous, did 
not for many years protect the com- 
munity from penury. Fifty day- 
scholars and three hundred regular 
attendants at Mass on Sundays at- 
tested the progress which the place 
had made since the nuns had first 
halted there temporarily; but al- 
ready the growing number of the 
community in the Mississippi val- 
ley had brought responsibilities and 
anxieties to the leader, and divi- 
sion of counsels and opposition 
among the heads of houses. The 
fate though not the fault of Mo- 
ses is one of frequent recurrence 
among the leaders^ and organizers 
of great expeditions. For several 
years, during one of which the cho- 
lera first showed itself, Mme. Du- 



chesne made the house at St. Louis 
her headquarters, but in 1834 re- 
turned to Fleurissant, where until 
1841 she led a quiet, interior, un- 
eventful life, partaking in all the 
'lowliest housework : mending and 
darning the wardrobe of the whole 
establishment this was one of her 
favorite occupations mortifying 
her appetite even beyond the ne- 
cessary bounds. set by the common 
poverty of the community ; garden- 
ing under the shade of a primitive 
sunbonnet made of old newspapers, 
which she sometimes forgot to take 
off on coming into chapel; govern- 
ing the scattered houses with a firm 
hand ; and preparing herself for a 
death which her ill health made 
her expect twenty years before it 
overtook her. In 1840 she was 
superseded by Mme. Gallitzin and 
became a simple sister once more. 
She had no sooner recovered her 
freedom than she urgently begged 
to be allowed to realize the original 
dream of her life work among the 
Indians. She and three others, with 
a handy and fervent negro, accord- 
ingly joined a Jesuit mission to the 
half-civilized and Christian Potta- 
watomies, and the old times seemed 
to come back to her as she jour- 
neyed up the Missouri, where she 
noticed the strange shapes of the 
wooded hills and rocks, some like 
'* a vase of flowers whence starts a 
gigantic tree," others " like a bas- 
ket whose handles had been play- 
fully fashioned and carved by the 
action of the water," and went in- 
land in a springless cart, past vil- 
lages whose white populations beg- 
ged her to stay and teach their 
children. Eighteen miles from the 
Indian village the party was met 
by an escort of one hundred and 
fifty mounted Pottawatomies in re- 
splendent costumes, their horses 
gaily caparisoned, and their two 



700 



Life of Madame Dnchesne. 



flags, one red and one white, being 
carried by the side of the Jesuits 
in token of honor and welcome. 
At the priest's house the whole In- 
dian body met them, and the chief 
and his wife complimented them in 
turn, the latter ending with the 
proposal that, to show their good 
will, the women and girls should 
each kiss all the nuns. This over, 
the nuns shook hands with all the 
men, to the number of seven hun- 
dred. 

Sugar Creek stood among a num- 
ber of heathen Indian settlements, 
where the missionaries hastened to 
go, preaching, baptizing, and teach- 
ing, the Christian village itself form- 
ing a sort of model centre. The 
nuns learnt enough of the language 
in a fortnight to be able to give 
instructions ; their school was one 
of cooking, sewing, nursing, etc., as 
well as one of religion and book- 
learning, and the queer figures of 
both men and women, in their im- 
provised "decency clothes," as they 
called the garments manufactured 
by the nuns, were a great subject of 
merriment as well as satisfaction. 
The Jesuits, meanwhile, taught the 
men agriculture and the few trades 
most useful to them. The hard- 
ships of this life, however, were 
necessarily great for a woman of 
over seventy : the winter was arc- 
tic, the food coarse ; one season 
there was nothing but a cartful of 
pumpkins, and, except during the 
hunting season, no variety from 
corn-bread and sweet potatoes. 
Still, it was greatly against her wish 
that Mme. Duchesne was recalled 
after one year of this life and sent 
to end her days at St. Charles. She 
says : " I cannot help thinking of 
the Indians. ... My ambition 



reached as far as the Rocky Moun- 
tains. ... It seems to me that in 
leaving the Indian country I have 
left my natural element. . . ." In 
her retirement two more sacrifices 
were required of her : Fleurissant 
was abandoned, as being, in the 
opinion of the new superior for the 
western province, Mme. Cutts, so 
near St. Louis that one house 
damaged the interests of the other; 
and her old home, Sainte-Marie at 
Grenoble, was, as before mention- 
ed, made over to the Ursuline Or- 
der. Otherwise she had little left 
to wish for. New York, Montreal, 
Halifax, N. S., Philadelphia, Buf- 
falo, Detroit, Sandwich, and Al- 
bany were provided with schools 
under the direction of her order 
before the year of her death; the 
work she had begun promised to 
spread and prosper in all parts of 
the Union. She died at St. Charles 
on November 18, 1852, having 
spent thirty-four years in America. 
The very next year a house of the 
Sacred Heart was founded at San- 
tiago, Chili, and each succeeding 
year saw some new foundation 
spring up, among which are reck- 
oned at present those of Chicago, 
Cincinnati, New Orleans, Mary- 
ville near St. Louis, Providence, 
Havana, Santo Espiritu, Talca, 
Concepcion, Valparaiso, Chilian, 
and Lima, the latter founded in 
1876. Altogether, the order of 
which Mme. Duchesne was the pio- 
neer on this side of the Atlantic 
now reckons five provinces or vica- 
riates (each with its own novitiate- 
house), thirty-one houses, twelve 
hundred nuns, three thousand 
boarders, and four thousand five 
hundred scholars in its free schools 
and orphanages. 



Rome under the Popes. 



701 



ROME UNDER THE POPES AND UNDER THE PIEDMON- 

TESE. 



I. A CONTRAST. 

"AT Rome every one is at 
home !" was the exclamation of 
Michel Montaigne in happier times 
than the present, before the scep- 
tre of the pontiff had been struck 
from his hand by the sword of a 
sacrilegious invader, and before the 
monastic sanctuaries of his city had 
been despoiled and desecrated. 

In the introductory portion of 
La Charite Chretienne a Rome, by 
M. Lallemand, is described, with 
all the eloquence of facts and 
figures, the state of the Romans, as 
regards their material prosperity, 
under the popes and under the 
Piedmontese. The comparison of 
their past with their present condi- 
tion, even in a financial point of 
view, is worthy of study. 

It was not until towards the 
close of the sixteenth century, 
under Sixtus V., whose vigorous 
hand repressed the foreign foes at- 
tacking the city from without and 
restored order and tranquillity 
within,* that the people of Rome 
began to enjoy that profound 
peace which remained unbroken 
until, in 1797, the Treaty of To- 
lentino prepared the way for the 
dismemberment of the Pontifical 
States. This treaty was followed 

* Beneath the statue of this pope, raised to his 
memory by a grateful people, is the following in- 
scription : 

'" To Sixtus V., Sovereign Pontiff, who restored 
public security, repressed the lawlessness of bandits 
and assassins, relieved the distress of the people, 
and beautified the city with public edifices, new 
streets, and fountains." 

This inscription may be regarded as a summary 
of the benefits habitually conferred upon their sub- 
jects by the pope-kings. * 



by the taking of Rome in 1798, the 
death of Pius VI. at Valence, the 
exile of Pius VII., the insurrection 
of the Marches in 1831, and, lastly, 
from 1848, by those incessant at- 
tacks of the revolution which did 
not allow a moment's respite to the 
august pontiff designated by an- 
cient prophecy as Crux de Cruce 
him whose heaviest cross was the 
white cross of Savoy. It may 
easily be understood how serious- 
ly all this succession of adverse , 
events affected the financial condi- 
tion of the States of the Church,* 
and in how important a degree 
they paralyzed the efforts of the 
popes for promoting the welfare of 
their subjects. The friends of the 
revolution in general, and, we are 
sorry to say it, Protestant English- 
men in particular, persistently ac- 
cuse the popes of misgovernment. 
Against Rome everything is con- 
sidered allowable ; nothing Roman 
is to be treated with respect. The 
people are represented as wretch- 
ed and degraded, the government 
selfish and oppressive. Let us 
examine whether this is a faithful 
picture, and whether these accusa- 
tions are deserved. 

"The temporal power," says St. 
Thomas, "watches over bodies, to 
preserve them in health and safety, 
in order that men may freely pur- 
sue their last end." 

Here we will ask what is neces- 
sary to make a people happy and 
enable it freely to accomplish its 
destiny, which is to glorify God 
and serve him. 



702 



Rome under the Popes. 



ist. This people should be en- 
abled by its rulers to receive the 
truth in its entirety and instruc- 
tion in the duties it ought to prac- 
tise, and be placed in conditions 
favorable to the expansion of the 
understanding and the heart. 

2d. It must enjoy material se- 
curity. Life and property must be 
protected by equitable laws; a 
sufficient development of agricul- 
ture, manufactures, and com- 
merce must allow all to gain an 
honest livelihood by duly remune- 
rative labor, and this labor must 
be rendered really productive by 
reasonable prices of food and lodg- 
ing and by moderate taxation. 

3d. When sickness and poverty 
press upon a member of the com- 
munity he must be sure of finding 
a charitable refuge, where he will 
*be tended with compassionate and 
experienced care. 

When to the foregoing may be 
ndded a mild and paternal govern- 
ment and the absence of military 
charges, no one can say that a peo- 
ple in possession of all these ad- 
vantages is not happy. 

Now, it must not be supposed 
that we claim for the pontifical 
government a privilege which does 
not belong to humanity that of 
perfection nor, because we de- 
fend the temporal power of the 
Holy See, ought it to be said that 
we attribute to the pope, as king, 
an infallibility which belongs only 
to the sovereign pontiff condemn- 
ing error from the chair of truth. 
Nevertheless, we assert that, until 
1870, all the conditions of moral 
and material prosperity just enume- 
rated were to be found united in the 
little kingdom founded centuries 
ago (not by violence but by law- 
ful inheritance) to secure the ne- 
cessary independence of the head 



of the church. This assertion we 
proceed to prove. 

Our Catholic readers do not 
need to be told that Rome has 
always, ever since it was the see 
of Peter, been the centre of evan- 
gelical truth, and that no people 
has been more advantageously 
placed than the Roman to learn, 
love, and practise our holy faith. 
But it is not upon the spiritual por- 
tion of the paf)al mission that we 
intend to dwell; and in answer to 
the statements of the revolutionists 
that wise laws were wanting, we 
will, in the first place, glance at 
Roman legislation under the pon- 
tifical rule. 

Rome* has for ages been gov- 
erned by those principles of the 
ancient Rowan law which have 
for so many centuries formed the 
basis of European legislation. 

Commerce was regulated at 
Rome by a special code. Com- 
mercial laws, being destined to 
protect the transaction of nation 
with nation, belong, more than any 
others, to the immutable principles 
of the rights of peoples, and are 
everywhere alike. 

The criminal and penal codes 
were regulated by the laws of Gre- 
gory XVI., and certain modifica- 
tions were also made in them by 
the constitutions of the popes in 
accordance with the needs of dif- 
ferent ages and peoples. Most of 
these constitutions, collected in- 
to 266 articles, were promulgated 
November 10, 1834, in the legisla- 
tive and judicial regulation of civil 
affairs. In this regulation more 
than 1,500 articles were framed re- 
lating to two distinct codes, the 
one of judicial order, the other of 
laws of procedure. 

The basis of civil law is laid 

* See Rome devanff Europe. Par M. Sauzet. 



Rome under the Popes. 



703 



down in the first article of this or- 
dinance as follows : 

"The enactments of the Roman 
law, modified by the canon law or 
by the apostolical constitutions, 
will continue to be the rule of the 
judges in all matters from which 
they are not set aside by the pre- 
sent rule." 

Now, although the canon law has 
to do only with those questions 
which by their nature belong to 
the sanctuary, it is nevertheless 
connected with the double life, 
civil and religious, of modern na- 
tions, by rites and sacraments 
which necessarily influence both, 
and which cannot be settled with- 
out recurrence to the two powers. 

Except on these special and 
delicate points, of which no society 
can despoil the religious authority, 
the great laws of Justinian, modi- 
fied in certain particulars by the 
constitutions of 1834, constitute 
the legislation of Rome. Nor has 
this legislation remained a dead 
letter, devoid of adaptability or 
progress. Each day, as fresh ex- 
igencies arose, added its page to 
the book of the laws, which, no 
more at Rome than elsewhere, re- 
mained closed. It may rather be 
affirmed that it was more widely 
open, and advanced with greater 
regularity to completeness, there 
than anywhere else. And further,* 
adds the author of Rome devant 
r Europe, " it is always the people 
which have especially received the 
attention of the pontifical govern- 
ment. No institution repels them ; 
each favors and encourages them 
They enjoy equality under the laws 
as under the taxes, and this tutelar 
and double equality is immemorial 
at Rome. There the nobles pos- 
sess only honors, and, even in 
those times when the rest of Eu- 
* P. 1^. 



rope was still groaning under the 
weight of exclusions and privileges, 
every citizen enjoyed the full bene- 
fit of the common law." 

It has been pretended that the 
Roman government was intolerant 
and its police spiteful and inquisi- 
torial. It rather erred, however, 
on the side of over-leniency than 
severity, and there was reasonable 
cause for surprise at its long suf- 
ferance of the scandalous conduct 
of the Piedmontese emissaries in 
their incitement, not only by se- 
cret but almost avowed means, of 
the subjects of the Holy Father to 
rebellion against their sovereign. 
Besides, that true and enlightened 
toleration which, while steadfast as 
to principle, is benevolent and cha- 
ritable towards persons, was exer- 
cised at Rome to its furthest limits. 
With regard to agriculture in the 
Roman States, we find in Etudes 
Statistiques sur Rome, by M. de 
Tournon, an enumeration of the 
many acts by which successive 
popes have endeavored to revive 
agriculture in the region stretching 
from Acquapendente to Albano a 
territory during many centuries 
ravaged by battles and invasions, 
and, in consequence of this pro- 
longed devastation, becoming the 
abode of that terrible malaria which 
ruins the strongest constitutions in 
a night, and of which the fatal ef- 
fects, as experience has proved, 
have never been more wide-spread 
and dreadful than at those periods 
when the exile of the popes led 
to a fresh diminution of the popu- 
lation. 

In consequence of incessant wars, 
Rome, in the time of Frederick II., 
only contained a few thousand in- 
habitants, and the cultivation of 
land was reduced to a deplorable 
condition, until the re-establish- 
ment of Rome in its prerogative of 



704 



Rome under the Popes. 



being the residence of the popes Pius IX." (wrote M. de Vernouillet 



brought about at the same time the 
restoration of agriculture. 



in 1857) "will always be remark- 
able as one of those in which the 



Gregory XII.," we find in the science and practice of agriculture 



Etudes Statistiques, " by a motu pro- 
prio of November 15, 1407, gave 
the utmost encouragement to the 
culture of grain. Sixtus V. even 



received the fullest and most care- - 
ful attention." 

Ever since 1850 the Holy Father 
annually bestowed a considerable 



issued an edict authorizing all com- sum in pecuniary grants, for fifteen 



ers to sow for their own benefit 
the third part of all the land they 
should find left uncultivated. . . . 
Clement VII. authorized the ex- 



years, for all the trees planted in 
his States. He founded agricul- 
tural institutes, sent for the Trap- 
pists, and encouraged wealthy per- 



portation of grain whenever its price sons to follow his example by mak- 
should not exceed a certain limit, ing improvements. Who can cal- 
And thus this principle, the honor culate the good that would have 
of which is usually attributed to the been accomplished under his pa- 
English, was laid down and applied ternal rule had not the revolution 



by a pope of the sixteenth cen- 
tury." 

In 1566 Pius V., by confirming 
the laws of Clement VII. and pro- 
tecting the cultivators against, the 
exactions of the barons, so largely 
developed agriculture that Rome 
at this time was able to export 
200,000 hectolitres of corn, while 
keeping sufficient to feed its own 
population. 

Sixtus V. founded loans for the 
assistance of proprietors who wish- 
ed to grow on a more extensive 
scale than their means allowed, 
and, later on, Alexander VII. 
(Chigi) resolved to release agricul- 
ture from every burden ; Pius VI. 
confirmed the principle of free ex- 
portation ; and, lastly, Pius VII., 
from the time of his accession, la- 



thwarted his efforts at every turn, 
finally to despoil and disable him, 
and substitute for his wise mea- 
sures a futile pretension to realize 
the chimerical dreams of a Gari- 
baldi ? " The. agriculture carried 
on in the States of the Church," 
writes M. Sauzet, " taking its pro- 
ductions altogether, presents re- 
sults worthy. pf fixing the attention, 
and probably of exciting the emu- 
lation, of even those nations who 
have nothing to bestow on Rome 
but a disdainful pity." 

We will next consider the manu- 
facturing interest in the Roman 
States. 

" Pope Sixtus V.," says Ranke in his 
History of the Papacy, " everywhere en- 
couraged agriculture, and endeavored 
also to give a fresh impetus to manufac- 
ture. Pietro di Valencia, a Roman citi- 



bored to improve the salubrity of zen , having offered to establish silk- 

the neighborhood by a vast system 

of clearings and drainage in the 

Campagna. Events, unfortunately, 

were adverse to the execution of 

these plans during the reign of this 

pontiff, but his successors, Leo XII., 

Pius VIII., and Gregory XVI., zea- 



looms, . . . the pope ordered mulberry- 
trees to be planted in all the Roman 
States. There were to be five mulberry- 
trees to each rubbio of land, in all the 
gardens, vineyards, meadows, woods, 
valleys, and hillsides where corn was 
not grown. He also encouraged the 
manufacture of woollens, ' in order that 



lously endeavored to carry them the p ? or might be able to earn som ?' 

* t ni r rr onH tr\ tlif* fircf **ntc*YT-vrico r\f tViio 



out and in every way to promote 
cultivation, and " the pontificate of 



thing,' and to the first enterprise of this 
description he caused a grant of money 
to be made from the Chamber, a certain 



Rome under the Popes. 



705 



quantity of cloth being required in re- 
turn." 

" It would be unjust,/' continues 
Ranke, " towards the predecessors of 
Sixtus V. to attribute acts of this nature 
to him alone. Pius V. and Gregory 
XIII. greatly promoted agriculture and 
manufactures, and Sixtus V. did not 
strike out a new path, but distinguished 
himself by the ardor and energy with 
which he followed that already traced." 

This statement of the Protestant 
historian is fully corroborated by 
M. de Tournon. 

" The fabrication," he says,* " of Ro- 
saries and Agnus Dei still constitutes, 
in the eyes of most travellers, the sole 
manufacture of the Romans, and the 
witty author of the Voyage dans le La- 
tiuin . . . limits the commerce of Rome 
to the sale of relics and indulgences. 
Now, as it will be of some interest to 
test this prejudice, and discover the true 
place occupied in the industrial world 
by the capital of the fine arts and the 
queen of nations, I will rapidly indicate 
the different branches of manufacture 
carried on in the western portion of the 
Roman States, and the result will prove 
that the disdain with which travellers 
speak of Roman industries arises from 
one of the traditional errors bequeathed 
from generation to generation by les ob- 
scrvateurs en poste" 

M. de Tournon then enumerates 
the manufactures created and en- 
couraged by the popes, dividing 
them into three categories of ani- 
mal, vegetable, and mineral pro- 
ducts, besides, fourthly, produc- 
tions of the fine arts considered in 
their commercial relations. In the 
first group he places the linen fab- 
rics, which at the beginning of this 
century gave occupation to a mul- 
titude of weavers scattered through- 
out the Pontifical States ; rope- 
making, cotton weaving and print- 
ing trades established by Pius VI. 
at the expense of the treasury 
paper-making, the printing of wall- 
paper and playing-cards, oil and 

* Etudes Statistiques, bk. iii. ch. i. 

VOL. xxvin. 45 



soap manufactories, and, lastly 
printing. 

Under the second group come 
woollen fabrics, developed by Pius 
VI. ; the preparation of skins and 
leather, hats, strings of musical in- 
struments made of intestines of 
animals, candles and wax tapers, 
and imitation pearls, made chiefly 
of isinglass. 

The third group includes the 
working of iron, and other metals 
and minerals, brought chiefly from 
the Isle of Elba ; the manufacture 
of edge-tools, nails, pottery, etc. 

The extraction of sulphur, alum, 
andpozzolana also furnished an im- 
portant branch of commerce ; and * 
with regard to the working of the 
precious metals, there were in 1813, 
in the city of Rome, no less than 
682 ateliers for goldsmiths' work 
alone. 

Under the fourth group a very 
considerable number of persons in 
Rome were employed in the resto- 
ration of antiquities, enamelling on 
marble or shell, the carving of ca- 
meos, or in the especially Romaic 
art of mosaic, the marvels of which* 
were to be met with at almost every 
step. 

M. de Tournon was prefect of 
Rome at the beginning of this- 
century, and in the passages of 
which we have given the epitome 
was speaking of the state of trade 
at that period namely, after ten 
years of wars and disturbance. M. 
Fulchiron, member of the Chamber 
of Deputies, published in 1841 an 
important and detailed relation of 
the state of manufactures and com- 
merce in the Pontifical States, in 
which he enumerates several branch- 
es of manufacture in addition to 
those given by M. de Tournon. 

An evidence of the development 
of manufacture under Pius IX. is 
the fact that, while at the first. 



Rome under the Popes. 



Paris Exhibition, in 1855, there 
were not more than 71 exhibitors 
from the pope's dominions, there 
were 161 at the second, in 1867, 
although during the intervening 
period the population of those do- 
minions had been reduced from 
3,000,000 to 700,000. 

The subject of manufactures na- 
turally leads to that of commerce. 

No one would pretend to say 
that the Romans were a really com- 
mercial any more than a largely 
manufacturing people, nevertheless 
their commerce, carried on for the 
most part by the aid of foreign ves- 
sels, was sufficiently active. 

"The commerce of Rome," wrote M. 
Fulchiron, " is regular, based on the 
real requirements of consumption, and 
never damaged by those hazardous spec- 
ulations so common in France and Eng- 
land, and which result in sudden opu- 
lence or equally sudden catastrophes 
which affect the creditor more than the 
debtor. Failures are rare, and the mo- 
dlrate gains of each year, regularly ac- 
cumulated, secure a modest but solid 
competency to the merchant." 

In 1840, as the average of the 
ten previous years, the importations 
amounted to 37,375,000 francs, and 
the exportations to 25,440,000 francs, 
for a population of 2,700,000 souls. 

In 1848, owing to the wise mea- 
sures of. Pius IX., the commercial 
movement of the Pontifical States 
was jfepresented by an item of 136,-' 
'ooo fr., viz. : 

Importation 73,630,000 fr. 

Exportation 63,221,000 fr. 

Two years later, when, in conse- 
quent of successive spoliations, 
^/ the population was reduced, as we 
have said, ti 700,000 souls, the im- 
portation rose to 37,373,000 fr. and 
the exportations were only 14,758,- 
ooo; but no one can make the 
pontifical government responsible 
for the invasions from which it suf- 
fered, and the figures quoted suf- 



fice in any case to prove the en- 
couragement given to commerce by 
the popes. 

From the preceding statements 
it is clear that the Roman people 
possessed abundant means for gain- 
ing their living by honest labor. 
We have now to see whether the 
remuneration of this labor \yas in 
due proportion to the prices of food 
and lodging. 

In 1842 a weaver gained, on an 
average, 2fr. a day; in 1869, 2fr. 
5oc.; a mason, 2fr. 5oc. or 3fr. In 
manufactories a good workman 
could gain from 4fr. to 5fr., and 
those skilled in work relating to the 
fine arts received a much higher 
remuneration, in accordance with 
their talents. 

Then as to the prices of food 
and lodging : 

" All the necessaries of life," wrote M. 
Sauzet (p. 277), " are easily attainable 
to the people of Rome. Bread, wine, 
and the dress materials ordinarily worn 
are nowhere to be had at a lower price. 
Meat is cheaper than in any other capi- 
tal in the world, and, in spite of their 
habitual frugality, the consumption of 
each inhabitant is proporticnably more 
considerable at Rome than in Paris. 
Nowhere does life impose fewer needs 
and possess more resources." 

The same could be said with re- 
gard to the price of lodging a mat- 
ter upon which at all times the 
sovereign pontiffs bestowed much 
attention. Under their govern- 
ment there was none of that crowd- 
ing together of whole families in 
one unwholesome and confined 
habitation so common in manufac- 
turing towns in other parts of 
Europe, and notably in England 
and here in New York. 

"The laws of Paul II., of Sixtus IV., 
of Leo X., and Pius IV.," writes M. 
Mounier, "were so largely in favor cf 
the tenant that St. Pius V. regarded 
them as too onerous for property. 
Nevertheless Gregory XIII. restored 



Rome under the Popes. 



707 



them with some modifications. The 
Jews," he adds, " continue to enjoy, in the 
Ghetto, the right of hereditary location, 
without any arbitrary increase being per- 
mitted in the price of leases. Gregory 
XVI. forbade the eviction from their rooms 
or shops of persons whose rent did not ex- 
ceed 200 francs, if they were punctual in 
their payments. . . . He exhorted land- 
lords to moderation in their rents, en- 
couraged the construction of new houses 
and the enlarging of old ones, by long 
exemption from taxes." * 

The last question now remains 
to be considered : i.e., whether the 
Roman people, with so many facili- 
ties for remunerative labor, and 
prices so moderate for the necessa- 
ries of life, were equally favored in 
regard to taxation. 

In 1860 three millions of francs 
sufficed for the civil list, the cardi- 
nals, ecclesiastical congregations, 
public galleries and museums, all 
the diplomatic corps abroad, and 
even the guard of the Holy Father. 
The expenses of his household, 
which are also included, do not 
reach 100,000 francs, and his per-, 
sonal expenditure is less than a 
quarter of that amount. The fru- 
gal simplicity of his life, meriting as 
much admiration as the benign ma- 
jesty of his person, inspired confi- 
dence and affectionate respect. 

It is easy to judge how light the 
taxes must have been under such 
a government, without the double 
scourge of a public debt and a 
standing army, both of which were 
inflicted on it by the anarchical 
disturbances from without. 

And yet, in spite of these new 

* An exemption from all tax on property was 
granted for the whole Duration of the nineteenth 
century by a law of Leo XII. (May 9, 1826) to 
all who should build new houses in Rome or restore 
old ones. This was abolished by an Italian law of 
August n, 1870. Before the seizure of the Ponti- 
fical States a workman with a wife and four chil- 
dren could rent two rooms and a kitchen for 12 
scudi (60 francs) per annum. In 1869, when rents 
had risen on account of the many expenses and les- 
sened national property resulting from the acts of 
the Revolution, the same lodging was rented at 24 
scudi, or double the former sum. 



charges, the Roman people paid 
the annual imposts at the rate of 
twenty-three francs only per head 
not half the sum paid in France. 

" In studying the pontifical finances," 
says M. de Tournon, " \ve ate struck by 
the equal distribution of the public 
charges, of which the clergy and nobil- 
ity have always supported an equal 
weight, in proportion to their posses- 
sions, and on the same footing as the 
lowest peasant ; so that those exemp- 
tions and privileges which in other coun- 
tries have excited so much hatred and ill 
feeling have here been for centuries un- 
known. . . . 

"The direct taxation consisted of the 
dativa reale, or land-tax, calculated ac- 
cording to the capital value of the funds, 
of which a register, kept with the greatest 
accuracy, had established the bases in 
the Agro, Romano. 

" Secondly, in a right over house 
property, regulated at 3 in 1,000 of the 
value of the building, calculated from the 
rents, and exigible only in localities of 
which the inhabitants amounted to more 
than a thousand. 

" In some provinces there were also 
poll-taxes, and others . touching com- 
merce, the liberal professions, etc. 

" Among the indirect taxes upon ar- 
ticles of consumption, the most impor- 
tant was the macinato, or grist-tax, paid 
on every measure of corn or maize as 
soon as ground or when taken into the 
towns. 

" In short, the sum raised in 1809, on 
a population of 900,000 persons, barely 
amounted to ten millions of francs, thus 
making eleven francs per head. 

" Besides, the produce of the domains 
of the apostolic Chamber brought in 
123,000 scudi, or 615, ooo francs. The ex- 
penditure of the treasury at the same 
period was as follows : 

Scudi. 

Interest of the debt 774,000 

The pope's household 127,009 

Apostolic Chamber 19,000 

Congregations of the government 19,000 

Foreign embassies 12,000 

Tribunals , 108.000 

Judicial expenses 77,000 

Sbirri 42,000 

Prisons 61,000 

Pensions (of retreat) 52,000 

Chancellorship 2,000 

Governors of provinces 60,000 

Pontine marshes (for drainage, etc.) 22,000 

Public works 72,000 

Museums and fine arts 74,000 



Rome under the Popes. 



Military service 36,000 

Various expenses , 36,000 



jr 7,965,000 francs. 



1,593,000 



"The difference between the receipts 
and expenditure was used to defray the 
communal expenses of Rome, and in 
particular to supply the wants of the 
French army, then in military occupa- 
tion of the country. 

" After the restoration of the pope in 
1814, Pius VII. and Cardinal Gonsalvi 
made it their duty, by strenuous efforts, 
to meet the heavy charges imposed on 
the treasury by the events of the previous 
twenty years. By the wisdom and pru- 
dence of their measures the budgets of 
the state were, until 1827, invariably 
liquidated by a surplus of receipts. Leo 
XII. and Pius VIII. wished still further 
to diminish certain imposts. Some dis- 
order found its way into the administra- 
tion, but it was not until after tiie riots 
of 1831, fomented by the secret societies, 
that the financial equilibrium was com- 
promised." 

It was the political disturbances 
of this year, and especially the revo- 
lutionary causes which engender- 
ed them, that rendered the deficit 
in the pontifical treasury irreme- 
diable, unless some years of tran- 
quillity should be in store during 
which it would have time to re- 
cover itself. But the revolution 
was careful not to allow a moment's 
respite to the temporal power, the 
strong outwork! of which it fully 
comprehended the importance, and 
which it was therefore bent upon 
destroying, in order the more effect- 
ually to wound the spiritual author- 
ity of the head of the church. 

Since, after each fresh commo- 
tion, the pope charged himself with 
the liquidation of the loans reck- 
lessly squandered by his enemies, 
at the same time that his own re- 
sources were inevitably diminish- 
ing, the impoverished state of his 
treasury can excite no surprise. 
Nevertheless, the very men who 
had caused this state impudently 



adduced it as a proof in favor of 
their own subversive doctrines. 

From 1849 to 1859 the pontifical 
government had defrayed the ex- 
penses in which the revolution of 
1848 had involved it, withdrawn 
42,000,000 of assignats, and re- 
established the free circulation of 
specie. Its revenue, 66,000,000 in 
1850, was in 1858 increased to 
89,190,000 francs. Its deficits had 
well-nigh disappeared, and there 
was in 1858 even a small surplus. 

After the invasion of 1860, when 
the population of the remaining 
States of the Church had been re- 
duced to 700,000, even this residue 
was so incessantly menaced and 
attacked that half the revenue, 
already diminished by two-thirds, 
was necessarily employed to main- 
tain the little army. Moreover, the 
pontifical government, from a no- 
ble sense of honor, and in order 
that there might be no interruption 
in the engagements entered into 
with its creditors, paid the portion 
of the debt due from the now sepa- 
rated provinces, although no lon- 
ger receiving the taxes. And this 
continued for eight years, until 
the tardy settlement of the debt, in 
1866, by the governments of France 
and Piedmont. 

Thus, during the ten years from 
1860 to 1870, the revenues of the 
Holy ee, fallen to 30,000,000, had 
remained the same, whilst the gen- 
eral debt was continually augment- 
ing from *the causes mentioned 
above. The only means of meet- 
ing this situation within the Holy 
Father's power were (ist) by the 
sales of consolidated property and 
by loans ; (2d) by the Peter's pence, 
which from 1861 to 1868 produced 
71,000,000 of francs; and (3d) by 
the annuities stipulated by France. 

Besides these extraordinary re- 
ceipts, those of the budget for 



Rome under the Popes. 



709 






1869 amounted to 30,471,000 francs 
and the expenditure to 60,614,000. 

There is in this budget one item 
in particular which it is of inter- 
est to examine somewhat in detail 
namely, that of " special assigna- 
tions." These assignations are di- 
vided into several parts. The first 
includes the personal expenses of 
the Holy Father, of his household, 
and his by no means numerous 
guard ; the keeping up of the finest 
museums in the world and inval- 
uable libraries, open to the learned 
of all lands ; the stipends of the 
Sacred College, the diplomatic 
corps, the state secretaryship, and 
the pensions of the pontifical court ; 
the whole of the foregoing amount- 
ing to 3,400,000 francs. The rest 
of the special assignations went 
to the universities, academia, and 
other schools, to charitable institu- 
tions, the expenses of the Consulto 
(a representative assembly which 
voted the expenditure of the state), 
and the stipends of the Minister of 
Finance and his employes.* 

The pontifical army f cost more 
than half the receipts and the de- 
ficit of the state, but, unhappily, any 



* See a notice by M. de Corcelle in the Corre- 
spondant for December 25, 1869. , 

tAt the close of the sixteenth century the 
armed force of Pius IV. consisted cf 500 men, of 
whom 350 were Swiss. For centuries past the 
Roman people have not been afflicted by the sys- 
tem of standing armies, at the present -time the 
scourge of the whole of Europe, and the pressure 
of which is all the more felt since, the pacific influ- 
ence of the Papacy being put aside, there is no ap- 
peal from brute force and logic of numbers. 



reduction on this head was out of 
the power of the pope, attacked as 
he was by the revolution 1 and for- 
saken by all the governments of 
Europe. 

Under these circumstances the 
average taxation, which had been 
ii fr. in 1860, rose to 40 fr. 

Still, it can be said with truth 
that, notwithstanding the imposi- 
tions necessitated by the malice of 
free-thinkers and the follies of the 
insurrectionist government in 1849, 
the Pontifical States have never 
groaned under an oppressive taxa- 
tion, and, therefore, that this con- 
dition also of happiness to a pe^o- 
ple was to be found in the domin- 
ions of the Holy See. 

With regard to the fact that the 
Roman people found in the capi- 
tal of Christendom a refuge for 
every form of human suffering, 
we defer for the present dwelling 
on this, the main subject of M. 
Lallemand's very interesting work, 
wherein those unacquainted with 
the extent to which the " Universal 
Shepherd " watched with minute 
care over the needs of the weak 
and afflicted of his flock will find 
the valuable details which we have 
not space to touch upon in the 
present notice, its object being to 
point out certain facts less general- 
ly known, or at least taken for 
granted, in connection with the 
papal government, than are the 
abundant works of mercy in the 
Eternal City. 



Our Roman Letter. 



OUR ROMAN LETTER. 

ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF THE KING. FALL OF THE CAIROLI MIN- 
ISTRY. STATE of PARTIES. DOWNWARD DRIFT OF ITALIAN POLI- 
TICS. ACTION OF THE CATHOLICS. 



ROME, December 18, 1878. 

" The romance of the House of Savoy is 
over" said Queen Margherita after the 
attempted assassination of King Hum- 
bert at Naples! And even at that mo- 
ment the city was ringing with enthusi- 
astic shouts of " Long live Humbert the 
First !" " Long live the House of Sa- 
voy !" The " one hundred cities of Italy " 
re-echoed the same cry joyfully, cor- 
dially, gratefu ly. And yet the queen 
was sad and her husband troubled. 
\tthy? She tells it herself: "The in- 
famous attempt has afflicted me im- 
mensely, not so much for the material 
side of the affair as for the moral side." 
And on another occasion she said to the 
President of the Senate: " See, Tecchio, 
where they have dragged my husband " 
a tardy observation of an aged fact. 
Her husband's father, not altogether un- 
reluctant of the dragging of the revolu- 
tion, had already buried the prestige of 
Savoy in the apostolic palace of the Qui- 
rinal. He died there an alien, and, as an 
alien, sleeps in the Pantheon, than which 
a greater honor, certainly a greater plea- 
sure to his successor, in the face of fore- 
shadowed events, would be the having 
been gathered to his fathers at Superga. 

As it seems to be the order of the pre- 
sent day that momentous events outrun 
all foregoing speculation, I shall con- 
fine myself in this communication to 
facts alone, and in particular to some 
facts connected with the tour which 
nearly terminated in a regicide, not gen- 
erally known. When King Humbert 
was at Cbieti he received a letter from 
the persecuted archbishop of that city, 
Mgr. Ruffo, of the Princes Scilla. It 
was couched in these terms : 

" SIRE : As your majesty is in this part 
of the Italian country, the spiritual ad- 
ministration of which has been entrusted 
to me by the successor of Peter, I come 
to present to your majesty my most sin- 
cere wishes, auguring to you the abund- 
ance of those supernal lights which were 
always invoked on the heads of kings. 
This paper will be my interpreter ; for 



if, through the hidden designs of God, all 
Italy, from the Alps to Lilibeo, is to-day 
placed under the sceptre of your majes- 
ty, it certainly will not escape your ex- 
alted intelligence how the dolorous echo 
of the voice of the Supreme Pastor in the 
Vatican and the mourning of the church 
in Italy impose upon me certain laws 
of filial and reverent reservation which 
I cannot lawfully transgress. And al- 
though this is not the place to remind 
your majesty of the venerable words of 
Pope Pius IX., of sacred memory, and 
those of the reigning pontiff, Leo XIII., 
to revindicate the offended liberty of the 
church, still my duty constrains me to 
address myself directly on this occasion 
to the august person of your majesty, 
and to beg your sovereign authority 
that, in the two churches of Chieti and 
Vasto, the state of violence cease with 
which they are oppressed. Let your 
majesty but look at more than forty par- 
ishes deprived of their pastors ; two 
seminaries, blessed asylums of the stu- 
dious youth of the sanctuary, both given 
to profane and military uses, the young 
levites dispersed here and there, wan- 
dering in search of a secure asylum ; the 
sacred psalmody chanted in the two ca- 
thedrals with great difficulty for want of 
the legal number of prebendaries ; the 
minds of the faithful, already so timor- 
ous, now in trepidation and uncertainty. 
Thrones are not endangered nor at- 
tempts made upon the crowns of kings 
by giving to the church of God that lib- 
erty which is necessary to her to sustain 
thrones and surround crowns with an 
aureola of due reverence. Let your 
majesty bring upon yourself the merciful 
look of God by ordaining that the ob- 
stacles to the free exercise of my pasto- 
ral ministry be removed, and, by an act 
of sovereign justice, respond to the uni- 
versal expectation by sparing the Spouse 
of the Nazarene another heart-wound. 
And in the firm trust that my voice will 
be heard by your majesty, I have the 
high honor, etc. Your majesty's most 
devoted servant, 4" LUIGI, 

" Archbishop of Chieti, Administrator of Vasto" 



Our Roman Letter. 



711 






The reply of the king is inconclusive, 
if we make exception of the fact that he 
admits that Mgr. Ruffo is an archbishop 
the very quality which the royal attor- 
ney had previously disputed in the tri- 
bunal and declared null. Here it is : 
" BARI, November 15, 1878. 
" Particular Bureau of his Majesty the 

King. 
"To his Excellency Mgr. An /ibis hop of 

Chieti : 

" I obey a gracious order of our au- 
gust sovereign in thanking your excel- 
lency for the sincere wishes you offered 
his majesty on the occasion of his visit 
to the city of Chieti, where you exercise 
spiritual jurisdiction. The circumstance 
is propitious to me to'* express to your 
excellency the sentiments of my pro- 
found obedience. 

"The Minister, VISONE." 

It is now certain, however, that the 
king was desirous of giving the Exeqna- 
tur to the Archbishop of Chieti, and thus 
bringing to a close the disagreeable ques- 
tion of the Jus fatrcDialns of the crown. 
But Mancini, who raised the question, 
and who exercised a secret influence 
over Conforti, now ex-Minister of Grace 
and Justice, would not hear of it. 

What happened at Naples on the 
I7th of November need not be described 
here. But among the many letters of 
condolence at once and felicitation re- 
ceived by King Humbert there came one 
from Pope Leo XIII. Besides express- 
ing his cordial congratulations for the 
king's escape, the Pope prayed that the 
Lord would illumine him that he might 
be able to check the unbridled liberty 
which now prevails, the necessary effect of 
the want of religious principles. This let- 
ter was sent to Mgr. Sanfelice, Archbish- 
op of Naples, who immediately forwarded 
it to the king through a particular friend 
at court. He was deeply moved on read- 
ing the latter, and, by the most delicate 
manifestations of courtesy towards the 
bearer thereof, showed how accepta- 
ble it was to him. A more fitting mo- 
ment for obtaining the Exequatur for the 
Archbishop of Naples could not be de- 
sired. Up to this time the archbishop 
had been obliged to occupy two little 
rooms on the ground floor of the semi- 
nary, the archiepiscopal palace having 
been closed against him by order of the 
ministry. It was then that the patricians 
and people of Naples addressed a pe- 
tition to the king himself, the issue 



whereof was the granting to the arch- 
bishop the use of the second floor of the 
palace. But on the arrival of the king 
in Naples the archbishop sent in a per- 
sonal petition, asking simply that the 
obstacles to the exercise of his spiritual 
ministry be removed. A council of the 
ministers was held on the matter, and it 
was resolved to grant the Exequa'ur. 
In deference to the shadow of the de- 
funct Jus patrenatus, maliciously evok- 
ed from oblivion by Stanislaus Mancini, 
a decree of royal nomination- was first 
formulated, to which that of the Exequa- 
tur was appended by way of corollary. 
On the return of the king from the hunt 
at Capodimonte both documents were 
submitted to him for signature, which 
he subscribed forthwith. Thus ended a 
struggle between the church and the 
state in which the latter, even in the 
opinion of its own partisans, sustained 
anything but an honorable part. 

The liberal discourses of Cairoli at 
Pavia, and of Zanardelli (Minister of the 
Home Department) at Iseo, in which 
perfect and undisputed liberty of associ- 
ation, of speech, and of the press was 
proclaimed as the palmary feature in the 
programme of the ministry, were regard- 
ed by the Monarchists and by all the 
Italians of a conservative turn as the 
occasion, not to say the cause, of the regi- 
cidal attempt at Naples. Consequently 
the opening of Parliament on the 2ist 
ult. was the signal for an onslaught 
against the ministry on the part of the 
Right and of the dissenting factions of 
the Left. Let me observe here by way 
of parenthesis, to enable the reader to 
comprehend to the full how critical is 
the condition of Italy at present, that the 
Left, now the majority, is composed of 
as many factions groups they are term- 
ed here as it has unpedestalled heroes. 
There are Nicotera, the paladin of the 
southern interests, Crispi, De ^Pretis, 
Cairoli, and Bertani. Thislast is the chief 
of the extreme Left ; or of the radicals, of 
whom it is prognosticated that his will 
be the last ministry before the proclama- 
tion of a republic. The series of min- 
istries, being on the downward march, ir- 
resistibly and irrevocably must come to 
Bertani, and after Bertani there is nothing 
but a republic, or, haply, chaos. Now, 
all these gentlemen, with the exception, 
perhaps, of Cairoli, are struggling after 
power, each to the exclusion of the rest. 
And the ruling power of Italy to-day is 



Our Roman Letter. 



composed of such elements ! Zanardelli's 
discourse in the opening session was in 
vindication of the policy of the Interior. 
He advocated rigorous repression, not 
provident prevention. His discourse 
was received with icy indifference. The 
war was inevitable, but out, of considera- 
tion for Cairoli, who was still at Naples 
with the king, and suffering from the 
wound received in defending the royal 
person, its declaration was postponed. 
Meanwhile, on November 24, the king 
returned to Rome, accompanied by Cai- 
roli, and was received with cordial en- 
thusiasm. Zanardelli occupied himself 
in a war of extermination against the 
Republican and International societies. 
Hundreds of patriots, of the kind who 
helped most, by plotting against the 
Five Monarchies and by a liberal use of 
the dagger, to make Italy One and Unit- 
ed, were lodged in prison. As many as 
two hundred and fifty of these were ar- 
rested in Rome. But a radical journal 
well observed that these measures only 
affected the nomenclature of the socie- 
ties. They can exist without a name, 
and nameless they do and will exist, 
but not actionless. 

On December 3, at the request of Cai- 
roli, still unable to attend, the interro- 
gationsor, as they are styled here, the 
interpellations on the policy of the Min- 
ister of the Interior began. For eight 
succeeding days the confusion of 
tongues, of ideas, and, supremest of all, 
of interests rioted in that Chamber. 
Cairoli made his appearance on the 5th 
instant, leaning on the arm of Bertani ! 
How the chieftains of the Right, Bonghi, 
Minghetti, and others, plied their wea- 
pons against the ministry, proving that 
the institutions of the land are in jeo- 
pardy and the star of Savoy on the 
wane ; and how the Gambettas of the 
Left dealt equally dexterous and telling 
strokes for their own particular inter- 
ests, are matters set forth categorically 
in the official acts of the Chamber. 
Bertani stood up for the ministry. 
Among other significant paragraphs he 
produced the following : " Let the crown 
know that whether the ministry conquer 
or be conquered, Parliament is no longer 
vital. Let Parliament beware lest the 
country whose weal has been neglected 
leave the field of sonorous affirmations to 
enter that of facts. " 

Pending the discussion, demonstra- 
tions of sympathy for the ministry were 



got up in many cities of the peninsula. 
Garibaldi became " exercised " in its 
regard, and wrote to his friends : " Let 
the one hundred cities of Italy stand up 
for Cairoli." Alberto Mario (whom I 
have already introduced to you) wrote : 

"We who prefer evolution to revolu- 
tion express the wish that, should Cai- 
roli succumb, the king dissolve the Par- 
liament ; for if the present Parliament 
be against Cairoli, the nation is with 
him. Cairoli's cabinet represents the 
best the monarchy can give. After him 
there is nothing left but a Bertani cabi- 
net. Italy arrived at Cairoli by the 
process of elimination. There is no 
more turning back. Better evolution 
than revolution. But, evolution or revo- 
lution, I am, ALBERTO MARIO." 

Zanardelli's reply to the Chamber was 
rather an attack on the policy of the 
Right for sixteen years than explanatory 
of the recent disorders in Italy. He 
charged and with truth, too the Mo- 
narchists with fostering for their own 
purposes the turbulent elements whose 
ebullitions now terrify the nation. He 
would repress but not prevent. The 
same was asserted by Cairoli in a really 
splendid discourse, which elicited for 
him personally the sympathy of the 
house. He would not erase one sylla- 
ble of the programme of Pavia, and sat 
down a loyal liberal. It would be a 
tiresome task to recall, much less set 
down in writing, the numerous motions 
proposed in .favor of and against the 
ministry. But on the evening of the 
nth the following motion of-Baccelli 
was put to the vote : "The Chamber, tak- 
ing into consideration the declarations of 
the Hon. President of the Council and 
of the Minister of the Interior, is confi- 
dent that the government of the king 
will vigorously maintain order with lib- 
erty." When put to the nominal vote 
the motion was rejected by a majority of 
seventy-four. On the same evening the 
ministry tendered their resignation in a 
body to the king, and he accepted it. 

Now as to the formation of a new 
cabinet. There were present at the ses- 
sion of the nth 457 members, the most 
numerous assembly recorded of the 
Italian Parliament. Of these, 452 voted, 
and 263 against the ministry. The Right 
voted in a body, but only counted 106. 
Consequently the ministry was beaten 
on the strength of the dissenters of its 
own party, the Left. Therefore to a 









Our Roman Letter. 



713 



leader of the Left must the king appeal 
for the composition of another cabinet. 
His first impulse was to turn anew to 
Cairoli. But his counsellors of the Right 
dissuaded him frm this step. Whither- 
soever he turned for a new chief, he met 
with insurmountable difficulties. The 
memory of Nicotera is odious, that of 
Crispi teeming with iniquity. And Ber- 
tani " Hold !" thought the king, " we 
cannot go there yet." So in sheer des- 
peration the poor man has turned to the 
worn-out, oft-rejected, and universally 
distrusted old Agostino De Pretis. 

There never was a more pliable politi- 
cian than De Pretis. He has grown 
hoary in politics. He was a minister 
with Visconti Venosta. On his shoul- 
ders, as the Minister of the Marine, rest- 
ed the disaster of Lissa. He subscribed 
to the electoral reforms of Cairoli, and 
called the tax on cfreals the negation 
of the constitution. And yet he rein- 
forced the revenues of the state by a 
new tax of twenty-five millions. As 
minister he fell in 1868, because he ad- 
vocated liberty of association and reun- 
ion. As the leader of an ambitious 
group he voted in 1878 against Cairoli 
for upholding the same principle. He 
is equal to any emergency to meet the 
advances of the republicans or form a 
friendly coalition with the paladins of 
the monarchy. He upheld Mancini in 
the infamous " Clerical Abuse Law " 
which the senate rejected so nobly last 
year, but is now disposed to take into 
the kindliest consideration the questions 
of the fas patronatus and the Exequatur 
for bishops. To such a man, twice oust- 
ed from the presidential chair in so many 
years, has King Humbert entrusted the 
formation of another cabinet, which will 
bear the title of De Pretis Ministry Num- 
ber Three. 

But this time the old man has a diffi- 
cult task before him. The Right has al- ' 
ready rejected his advances in quest of 
incumbents for the orphaned portfolios, 
and he is positively forbidden to have any- 
thing to do with either Crispi or Nicotera. 
He had already succeeded in forming a 
list, but it only proved to be an attempt. 
Personal or party interest is against him, 
and where this is not the case there is 
either diffidence or positive distrust. But 
whether De Pretis succeed or not in 
presenting a cabinet to the king, it can- 
not last, for it will be without the essen- 
tial elements of life. It must be hetero- 



geneous in character, for the elements at 
his disposal are heterogeneous. There- 
fore the dissolution of Parliament is 
inevitable ; the nation is again about to 
be plunged into the fury of political 
elections, and at a most critical moment 
too. The Republican and International 
agitation, far from being suppressed by 
the measures recently adopted, is in- 
creasing. Recent attempts, trivial, it is 
true, but important in their general bear- 
ing, on some of the military arsenals of 
Italy prove that the enemy is at work. 
These attempts, as I take it, are only a 
ruse to divert the attention of the autho- 
rities from the more serious occupations 
of the sectaries, their secret assemblies 
and their plots. The following note, 
clipped from the semi-official organ of 
the Quirinal, the Fanfnlla, will convey 
to the reader a notion of what is going 
on : " We are informed that a lively ex- 
change of communications is going on 
between the government of the king and 
our agents abroad regarding the move- 
ments of the Italian Internationalists in 
different states of Europe. From the 
reports of some of the consuls it is evi- 
dent that the heads of the Italian Inter 
national have travelled in various cities 
outside of Italy, conspiring openly 
against the actual state of things and 
against society." This would intimate 
that the International of Italy is so tho- 
roughly organized at home, and so sys- 
tematically at work, that it can afford to 
send its emissaries forth to help the 
cause abroad. And while this terrible 
agency is at work in the land, plotting 
the ruin not only of government but of 
the social order, the representatives of 
order are haggling over the downfall of 
one ministry and the establishment of an- 
other. Meanwhile the year is gliding 
by, and the necessary labor of Parlia- 
ment, the voting of the budgets, is post- 
poned with an indifference which at the 
present juncture should be regarded as 
treason to the welfare of the state. Or 
is all this overturning of ministries, this 
difficulty in the formation of others, and 
the now imminent dissolution of Parlia- 
ment, with all the delays, anxieties, un- 
certainties, troubles, and probable dis- 
orders consequent on elections, but part 
of a programme towards the consumma- 
tion of a coup de main by the sectaries ? 

In the presence of these events I 
might describe the attitude of the Catho- 
lics of Italy in two words, expectation 



Beati Pauper es Animo. 



and preparation. That a political crisis 
of the greatest moment is pending in 
Italy there can be no doubt. These 
frequent ministerial crises are preludes 
to a great crisis, perhaps a catastrophe. 
A crisis in anything shows an abnormal 
state of being, and an abnormal state of 
being is unhealthy for the subject. But 
five crises in five years show a chronic 
disease, and chronic disease defies reme- 
dies in the end. Now, it is an undeni- 
able fact that the Moderate party mis- 
governed Italy for sixteen years. So the 
nation decided in 1876 when it returned 
a majority for the Left. You see I am 
only reasoning from palpable facts, with- 
out invoking history or establishing a 
nexus between very bad causes and 
worse effects. But the frequency of the 
crises, which are the characteristic of the 
Left, are a sad proof that they, too, are 
incapable of governing the country for 
its weal. Of this none are more con- 
vinced than the Catholics, the intelligent 
Catholics, of the land ; no one more in- 
timately persuaded than Pope Leo XIII. 
The electoral reforms promised by Cai- 
roli in his speech at Pavia opened a new 
field of speculation to the Catholics of 
Italy. In view of these reforms, which 



would throw down the barriers now 
standing between the Catholic party and 
political life, the Unita Catlolica, a few 
weeks since, published a short series of 
articles, not only on the possibility but 
also the probability of the Catholics 
taking part, at no remote date, in the 
elections for deputies, which gave the 
greatest satisfaction. It was asserted at 
once that the articles were inspired by 
the Vatican. As a direct proposition 
this is not true. But the Vatican did 
not demur, nor did Father Margotti sub- 
join any explanations. And to those 
who know aught of the jealous prudence 
of the Vatican, and of the loyal and sub- 
missive character of Father Margotti in 
all that concerns the Holy See, no fur- 
ther explanation need be offered. It is 
safe to say that the articles were not 
premature. In a recent discourse to the 
members of the Sofiety of Catholic Inte- 
rests the Pope recommended union and 
activity in the warmest terms, not only 
for the sake of the church but of society 
itself. This has been interpreted as an 
invitation to be ready. It is not a call, 
says the Osseivatore Caltolico of Milan, but 
the Catholics of Italy are to study and 
be ready. 



BEATI PAUPERES ANIMO. 

THROUGH painted window softened sunshine fell 
Where knelt in happy prayer, her Spouse before, 
The lowly-hearted Sister of the Poor, 
All unaware of wonder-working spell 
By fair rose-window and the sunshine wrought ; 
The sable shade of folded veil grown bright 
With the soft glory of warm purple light. 
Less worthy seeker of God's grace, I thought 
Of that great rose the Tuscan poet sings, 
And far-off day when should be glorified 
Earth-hidden souls with light that doth abide, 
Dull, earthly g t yb shining as angels' wings 
No transient gleam of shivering winter sun, 
But glow, undimmed, from Light Eternal won. 



Nciv Publications. 



7*5 



NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



THE JESUITS ! Translated from the 

French of Paul Feval by Agnes L. 

Sadlier. New York : D. & J. Sadlier 

& Co. 1878. 
JESUITS ! By Paul Feval. Translated 

by T. F. Galvvey. Baltimore : John 

Murphy & Co. 1879. 

Although one of these translations 
bears the date of the last, and the other 
that of the present, year, they reached us 
about the same time. They are plain 
and intelligible renderings of a sprightly 
work that, like all sprghtly works, at- 
tained a quick success in France a 
success generally denied to works of 
greater power and more solid worth. 
Mr. Galwey's translation is announced 
as " from the tenth French edition." 

Paul Feval is scarcely the man we 
should look to for a defence of the Je- 
suits, or for a defence of anything that 
is especially worth defending. This, of 
course, to the French appetite lends ad- 
ditional piquancy to his work, and ac- 
counts to a great extent for its ready 
success The French like novelty. At- 
tacks on the Jesuits are growing stale 
even in France, and a voice from the 
other side is now in order. M. Feval 
has supplied it. It was hard to say 
anything new against the sons of St. Ig- 
natius, but there was room for novelty 
in their defence by a writer of the oppo- 
site school. 

M. Feval is best known as a fairly 
successful writer of the customary 
French novel, and the customary French 
novel is worth very little indeed. The 
same sprightliness of style and fancy, 
the same play of wit and conceit, that he 
once used on the side of evil, or of very 
doubtful morality, he now, in his old age, 
employs in defence of a worthy cause. 
English readers have the habit of expect- 
ing a more sober and dignified style in 
treating of a sober subject ; but it must 
be remembered that M. Feval did not 
write especially for English readers. 
There is much more, however, in his 
book than sprightliness. There is 
force, historical research, eloquence ; 
there are all the gifts of an accomplished 
writer bent upon accomplishing a seri- 



ous purpose. A Frenchman rarely for- 
gets his personality; and M. F evil's 
shows itself in a characteristic fashion 
in the Canserie Prcliminaire, a chapter 
which for some reason Miss Sadlier has 
omitted from her translation Here he 
tells the story, as only a Frenchman of 
Paul Feval's antecedents could tell it, 
of the reasons which finally induced 
him to take up the Jesuits as a subject 
for his pen. It is simply impossible 
to render such a piece of writing into 
English. We can give the meaning, as 
Mr. Galwey has done in a thoroughly 
efficient manner, but the style is neces- 
sarily lost, and in this case the style in- 
deed is the man. The same thing is 
true to a great extent of the whole vol- 
ume and its translation. To those who 
wish to make comparisons ample oppor- 
tunity is afforded them ; and for those 
who have time and opportunity such 
comparisons are as profitable as they 
are amusing. We believe that neither , 
Miss Sadlier nor Mr. Galwey is an expe- 
rienced writer. Judged from this point 
of view, their work reflects great credit 
on both. A version or condensation of 
one of the most interesting chapters of 
the book, "The First Vow," appeared 
in THE CATHOLIC WORLD for December, 
1878, from the pen of a very practised 
and competent writer. An unpractised 
hand is apt to be too scrupulous and 
careful over details. It translates too 
much ; it ought to render. " Done into 
English" is the good old expressive 
phrase for translation, and if translators 
would only do their authors into English 
they would do the best service both to 
author and reader. In the present in- 
stance both translators have scrupulous- 
ly followed even the very un English 
phrasing of the Frenchman what we 
may call the Alexandre-Dumas-Pere 
style of composition, where a note of 
exclamation or a string of asterisks is 
made to do service for a world of mean- 
ing. This may be very expressive in 
French, but it is only perplexing in 
English. We select a few passages to 
show in what a variety of ways the 
same thing may be said. Take, for in- 



716 



New Publications. 



stance, the opening of " The First Vow " ; 
here is Miss Sadlier's version : 

" Day had not yet dawned on the Fes- 
tival of the Assumption, in the year 1534, 
when a lagie man, who, in spite of his 
infirmity, moved with a rapid and ener- 
getic step, might have been seen passing 
along the street of Saint-Jacques, in the 
university quarter of the city of Paris. 
Although,' to judge by his appearance, 
the stranger had reached middle life, he 
was attired in the dress which distin- 
guished the poor scholars of the uni- 
versity ; but, in place of the ink-horn 
which they generally wore suspended 
from their side, he had only a rosary. 

"A stout cord, passed under his 
much-worn hooded cloak, sustained a 
cloth wallet much better armor for a 
night-traveller in Paris than if he had 
been provided with a sword or cane ; for 
the evil-disposed will hardly attack 
mendicants." 

Mr. Galvvey's version runs : 

"Very early in the morning of As- 
sumption day, in the year 1534, a crip- 
ple, who, in spite of his infirmity, had 
a quick, energetic step, descended the 
great Rue Saint-Jacques, in the uni- 
versity quarter. He was dressed as 
a poor scholar, though he seemed to 
have reached middle life ; but instead 
of the ink-case which usually beat about 
the breeches of those of his state, he had 
only a rosary at his side. To a good, 
new rope passed under his worn-out 
cloak hung his canvas wallet an ex- 
cellent weapon for the wayfarer at night 
in Paris, and better than sword or staff, 
for the tramps seldom attacked beg- 
gars." 

The same passage was rendered thus 
in THE CATHOLIC WORLD: 

" Before daybreak on the^ Feast of 
the Assumption of Our Lady, in the 
year of grace .1534, a man who, in 
spite of a halting gait, walked with a 
rapid and energetic step, was descend- 
ing the Rue Saint-Jacques, in the quar- 
ter of the university at Paris. Al- 
though he had apparently reached mid- 
dle age, his dress was that of a poor 
scholar. But instead of the ink-horn 
usually suspended at the side of those 
of his class, a rosary hung from his 
girdle. From a stout cord passed over 
his threadbare cape was slung a wallet 
of coarse sacking, a far better weapon of 
defence than a sword for a night-travel- 
ler through Paris." 



Mr. Galwey does not show to advan- 
tage here. St. Ignatius was scarcely 
"a cripple," nor does M. Feval make the 
mistake of calling him one. His word 
is boiteux, which is more delicately and 
correctly rendered both by Miss Sadlier 
and the writer in THE CATHOLIC WORLD. 
The same is true of c'critoire a gatne, 
which Mr. Galwey calls ''ink-case" ; and 
the picture of the ink-case beating about 
St. Ignatius' " breeches " is neither deli- 
cate nor true to the original, which is 
rightly rendered in the other versions. 

Take again this picture of St. Igna- 
tius : 

"His name was Ignatius of Loyola. 
One could see that he had been a sol- 
dier. An expression of indomitable 
courage mingled with the humility of 
his conversion. 

" But he was a thinker, and his fea- 
tures bore the clear and commanding ex- 
pression peculiar to men who are pre- 
destined to accomplish great objects. 

" Something of the eagle he bore in 
his profile, of which the proud lines 
hardly reflected to the full extent the 
sweetness which, by God's help, had 
overflowed a heart agitated by the fever 
of war, until the light, breaking in, had 
confounded it. Although his face bore 
the impress of a noble and generous 
character, it was in the eyes especially 
that the exceeding beauty of his soul was 
expressed : his look at once awed and 
attracted, because he possessed at once 
power and tenderness." 

This is Miss Sadlier's rendering. Mr. 
Galwey gives it thus : 

"His name was Ignatius de Loyola. 

" It was plain that he was a soldier. 
The mark of his unconquerable valor 
could be seen through the humility of 
his conversion. 

" But he was a thinker, and his aqui- 
line face bore the broad clearness of 
predestined heads. 

" There was much of the eagle in his 
profile, whose haughty lines barely show- 
ed the immense softness which, with the 
help of God, he had forced into his heart, 
full of the fever of war, on the day when 
the light had come upon him like a 
thunderbolt. Although his face dis- 
played a generous elevation, the beauty 
of his soul shone most in his eyes ; his 
glance quelled and attracted at the same 
time, because it had at once power and 
tenderness." 

Here our young translators hardly 






'New Publications. 



717 



come up to the original, which is well 
expressed in THE CATHOLIC WORLD : 

" . . . His name was Ignatius de Loy- 
ola. 

" That he was a soldier was at once evi- 
dent. The stamp of his indomitable 
valor could not be hidden by the humili- 
ty in which his conversion had clothed 
him. But he was also a man of thought, 
and his brow had the nobility and ampli- 
tude of heads predestined for great 
things. 

" There was something of the eagle in 
his whole countenance, whose proud 
lines reflected with difficulty the im- 
mense gentleness which, by the help of 
God and his own strength of will, he had 
compelled to enter his heart, full of war- 
like fever when the light had stricken 
him down. His face had an expression 
of generous loftiness, and from his eyes 
shone all the beauty of his soul. His 
look awed and won at the same time, so 
full was it of tenderness and power." 

These, passages compare themselves 
and suggest their own reflection. To 
justify our preference we content our- 
selves with a single instance : " Le jour 
ou la lumiere Vavait foudroyt!" the day 
" when the light had stricken him down," 
as THE CATHOLIC WORLD admirably has 
it. In this strong expression both our 
young translators signally fail. " Until 
the light, breaking in, had confounded 
it," says Miss Sadlier ; " The day when 
the light had come upon him like a 
thunderbolt," says Mr. Galwey. 

We have only taken these specimens 
at hap-hazard. We might continue them 
and compare line by line. In all in- 
stances, so far as we have noticed, ex- 
perience and practice approve them- 
selves. The translations before us make 
a very , pleasing whole, and we trust 
their authors will take our hints kindly, 
and as an encouragement rather than a 
cold criticism on what is really in both 
cases very worthy work. 

POINTS IN CANON LAW : (claimed to be) 
Opposed to some of Rev. Dr. Smith's 
views of Ecclesiastical Law, as now 
applied'to the United States of Ameri- 
ca. By Rev. P. F. Quigley, D.D., 
Professor of Canon Law, etc., in St. 
Mary's Seminary, Cleveland, Ohio. 
Cleveland : M. E. McCabe. 1878. 
There can be no doubt as to the im- 
portance of the questions discussed by 



the author of this pamphlet ; and, for that 
very reason, they are, as it seems to us, 
hardly things which should be taken up 
in " scraps of hours of recreation," at 
least if the result of such investigations 
is to be given to the world in a tone of 
confidence such as we feel compelled 
to say he shows throughout. The most 
eminent men in every branch of science 
may generally be distinguished by a 
tone of modesty in all their assertions, 
even where the truth of such assertions 
is capable of rigid demonstration ; and 
by a real and evident deference to the 
learning and judgment of their adversa- 
ries. This tone, we regret to say, does 
not characterize Dr. Quigley's pamphlet, 
as it specially should one written as he 
tells us his has been. 

Real ability and learning are unques- 
tionably shown in it ; but the possession 
of these gifts does not entitle any one to 
speak in a tone of contempt of others 
whom he should regard as being pos- 
sessed of similar advantages. To speak 
of a "blunder" on the part of an author 
who is criticised, to say that " it seems 
queer " that he should have said so-and- 
so, or "let due credit be given to him 
for having translated this passage," etc., 
are expressions which do not strengthen 
a cause however good, but rather preju- 
dice even the most impartial readers 
against it. 

On many of the points brought up we 
believe Dr. Quigley's criticisms to be 
just, though waiting with interest for the 
refutation of them promised on the part 
of Dr. Smith by a writer in the New 
York Tablet, whose first article bears 
marks, by the way, of the same objec- 
tionable tone of which we have already 
spoken ; excused somewhat, perhaps, by 
provocation, though that provocation 
cannot be said to have come Irom any 
similar fault in the article there reviewed. 

There is, however, one very important 
and practical matter touched upon by 
the author of the present pamphlet 
against the conclusion of which we 
must specially protest, though he seems 
so certain of it. That matter is the ex- 
istence of the Tridentine decree " Ta- 
metsi" in its binding force in no less 
than seventeen dioceses of the United 
States. We see, to say the least, no con- 
vincing reason to regard the declaration 
of the Propaganda of September 9, 1824, 
in the light in which he views it, as 



718 



New Publications. 



making really a new law for the immense 
territory the limits of which are not 
clearly stated in it, but which our author 
absolutely defines. Even regarding it 
as a new law, it can only be certainly 
said to cover those regions which were 
once really, as well as nominally, under 
the control of France and Spain ; but it 
is, in our opinion, more reasonable to 
consider it as merely an instruction as to 
where we are to presume such promul- 
gation as was contemplated by the 
Council of Trent to have been made, in 
the absence of evidence to the contrary. 
And even were it a new law, and cover- 
ing a definite territory, there is certainly 
such a thing, in spite of what Dr. Quig- 
ley seems to imply on his thirty-sixth 
page, as the non-acceptance of a law 
with the tacit consent of the authority 
imposing it ; and if there has ever been 
a case of such non-acceptance, surely 
there has been in a considerable part of 
that territory to which he supposes that 
law to apply. 

If his view had been presented as a 
suggestion worthy of profound consid- 
eration, no fault could have been found 
with it ; but to state it absolutely as an 
indisputable fact is, in our judgment, 
going rather too far. 

While upon this subject we cannot 
refrain from expressing a hope that the 
Holy See may soon, by an unquestion- 
able act, extend the decree " Tamctsi" 
not only over the part of our country in 
which Dr. Quigley now considers it as in 
force, but over its whole extent. More 
and greater evils come, as it seems to 
us, from the present state of things than 
could come from its occasional neglect 
if it were introduced ; and it already 
partially exists in the consciences of our 
people. 

Another very practical point discuss- 
ed by our author is the binding force of 
the rules of the Index in this country, in 
connection with the obligation of ob- 
taining the " imprimatur " for works on 
sacred subjects. We do not care to dis- 
pute his proposition that those rules are 
in force everywhere ; though it is not a 
convincing style of argument to say sim- 
ply that " the most eminent canonists 
hold " this, without giving a single name. 
But we do maintain, what we think Dr. 
Quigley must also allow, that all posi- 
tive laws, even though in force, may be 
practically inoperative for a time on ac- 



count of special inconveniences or even 
absolute evils attending compliance with 
them, and that it has been, and | robably 
still is, the opinion of many theologians 
of learning and ability that such is the 
case to some extent among us with re- 
gard to this particular matter. And it 
is also true, as we have already said, 
that a law may not be accepted, and so 
never come into force in some particular 
region, though originally intended to do 
so, provided the legislative authority 
consents to such non-acceptance. 

A prominent instance of sweeping as- 
sertions, similar to the one just mention- 
ed about " the most eminent canonists," 
is to be found at the end of the pam- 
phlet. Dr. Quigley says : " The Catho- 
lic teaching is that the law of Trent under 
discussion does not affect the marriages 
of non-Catholics." Farther on he quotes 
the celebrated declaration of Pope 
Benedict XIV. in proof of this state- 
ment, simply remarking that "this is 
not regarded as an exemption or dis- 
pensation from the law, but merely as 
an authoritative declaration as to what 
the law is in these cases." This would 
have been very well if, instead of saying 
" this is not regarded/' he had said, " I 
do not regard this "; but thus to beg a 
question which is controverted, and to 
take no account of the reasons which 
apparently have influenced the Holy 
See in extending this declaration to 
some places and not to others, or even 
of the fact of the difference of its action 
in places to which it has been extended 
and those to which it has not, does not 
seem to us to be a legitimate way of pro- 
ceeding, nor a profitable one on the part 
of an author who is addressing, not the 
public at large, but a class of readers 
who must be presumed to be more or less 
acquainted with the matters of which he 
treats. 

In conclusion, we have only to remark 
that the importance of the subjects 
treated in this pamphlet makes it the 
more to be regretted that they have 
already been treated on both sides in a 
way not so much tending to calm in- 
vestigation and friendly discussion as 
to the rousing of a spirit of controversy, 
which is always an impediment to the 
discovery of the truth ; and that for this 
Dr. Quigley, as having taken the initia- 
tive and set the example, is principally 
to blame. 



New Publications. 



719 



HISTORY OF ROMAN LITERATURE FROM 
THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE DEATH 
OF MARCUS AURELIUS. By Charles 
Thomas Cruttwell, M.A. New York : 
Charles Scribner's Sons. 1878. 

We welcome and heartily recommend 
this latest addition to our knowledge of 
the literature of ancient Rome, not alone 
for its own merits, which arc very strong, 
but as a mark of the interest which well- 
educated people in England and Amer- 
ica continue to take in the study and 
history of the Latin language, notwith- 
standing the reaction of our age against 
the imperial sway which this same lan- 
guage and literature exercised over 
European taste during the seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries. While we 
acknowledge the perfect fairness and the 
great scholarship of the author of this 
History, we do not always agree with him 
in his appreciations of men and their 
works during the period which he treats, 
and which does not go beyond the 
second century of our era. But although 
our author closes his history of the 
literature of ancient Rome at the death 
of Marcus Aurelius, we hope that no one 
is so ignorant or so prejudiced as to 
believe that whatever was written after 
that is barbarous and not worthy of at- 
tention ; for although the Latin Fathers 
and Christian poets of the fourth and 
fifth centuries are outside of the pale of 
what is rather arbitrarily called the clas- 
sics, some of them wrote as eloquently 
and as elegantly as the best authors who 
preceded them. 

The Latin language has a special 
charm for a Catholic, who sees in it the 
one link preserved by the church, intact 
and, we may say, unchanged between 
the two ages of human civilization, the 
ancient and the modern. The noblest 
monuments of the human intellect, as 
expressed in lav/ and theology, those two 
supports of church and state, are pre- 
served to us in the Latin language, which, 
being likewise the medium of official 
communication between the Holy See 
and the faithful throughout the world, is 
assured of a universal and an immortal 
existence. 

HOURS WITH THE SACRED HEART. 

Translated from the French by A. J. R. 
New York : P. J. Kenedy. 

This little volume is replete with that 
mystical love which breathes through this 



beautiful devotion. The rapid spread 
of a deep love for the Sacred Heart is a 
sign of the times. In no respect is the 
majesty of God more frequently insulted 
than in his sacred humanity ; and the 
church, with her usual discernment of the 
fitness of things, singled out the Sacred 
Heart of Jesus as the object of a special 
adoration, in order that thereby partial 
reparation may be made for the grievous 
outrages committed against the incar- 
nate God. Love is the groundwork of 
this devotion, and to the soul that knows 
not what true love is the expressions 
with which treatises concerning it 
abound may appear strained and exag- 
gerated. Yet this intensity of language 
but imperfectly reveals the burning love 
with which are filled those hearts that 
love the Heart of Jesus. The heart has, 
throughout all ages, been accepted as the 
symbol of love ; poets have apostrophiz- 
ed it in glowing numbers -pra:trepiduni 
hctari cor and a beautiful mythological 
legend informs us that when earthly 
material to complete the human frame 
failed, the gods made the heart of fire 
from heaven. As all symbolism pales 
before the reality, so all the love that 
ever burned on earth is as naught com- 
pared with that consuming love with 
which chosen souls love the Sacred Heart. 
These thoughts are readily suggested by 
the volume whose title we give. It 
is the work of a sensitive soul all 'alive 
with a supernatural life. The task of 
translating such a work is a delicate one. 
A poor conception of its aims might 
readily betray the incompetent translator 
into errors against good taste, not to 
speak of more serious blunders. Hap- 
pily, good judgment was exercised in 
the choice of a translator, and A. J. R. 
has performed her allotted task 'in a 
manner that speaks well for her sympa- 
thy with the work and for her knowledge 
of French and English. Most transla- 
tions from the French are marred by 
Gallicisms ; and as this is the severest re- 
proach that can be made against a faulty 
translation, so the greatest praise that 
can be bestowed on a good one is that it 
is conspicuously English, and to this 
praise we deem A. J. R. entitled. 

LITTLE TREATISE ON LITTLE SUFFERINGS. 
Translated from the French. New 
York : The Catholic Publication So- 
ciety Co. 1878. 

Little sufferings form the chief trials 



720 



New Publications. 



of most lives. Even the weak often 
brace themselves up and face great suf- 
ferings with a courage and patient force 
that are astonishing. But the little 
things are allowed to fret and annoy us 
to a degree quite out of proportion to 
their magnitude, so that if it be true, as 
Father Faber sings, that 

" Little things, 

Like little wings, 
Bear little souls to heaven," 

there is also an unexpected truth on the 
other side. Quiet reflection would cure 
the tendency to exaggerate petty annoy- 
ances, and this little treatise is admira- 
bly adapted to promote such reflection. 



THE ILLUSTRATED CATHOLIC FAMILY 
ANNUAL FOR 1879. With calendars 
calculated for different parallels of 
latitude, and adapted for use through- 
out the United States. New York : 
The Catholic Publication Society Co. 
1879. 

We at once glance at the portraits in 
this delightful little Annual, which is cer- 
tainly the best of its kind published in 
English. A pleasing likeness of our 
Holy Father, Leo XIII., leads off the 
list, and is followed by a most excellent 
and life-like portrait of the venerable 
Archbishop of Cincinnati, to which is 
appended a biographical sketch worthy 
the portrait and worth}' the life of so 
good and illustrious a man. Father 
Secchi, the great astronomer and scien- 
tist, comes next, his face and eyes lumi- 
nous with intelligence. Among the 
others, the portraits of Bishop Dupan- 
loup (whom a slip of the pen has made 
an archbishop in the biographical 
sketch) and Cardinal Cullen stand out 
as exceptionally good and true to life ; 
those of Mme. Barat and Bishop Rose- 
crans are also very good. Of the read- 
ing matter the essay on " The Church and 
Learning in the Middle Ages " strikes 
one as of real value and great interest. 
The writer is evidently in love with his 
subject, and he turns his Protestant au- 
thorities to excellent use. There is the 
usual variety of light and entertaining 



matter, and the Annual is likely to 
prove as welcome a visitor this year as it 
ever was to thousands of Catholic house- 
holds. 

LIFE OF B. HERMANN JOSEPH, CANON 
REGULAR OF ST. NORBERT (known as 
the White Canons in England). By 
Wilfrid Galway. With a sketch of the 
Premonstratensian Order and their 
houses in Great Britain and Ireland. 
London : Burns & Oates. 1878. 

This Life has much in it that is edify- 
ing and much that is not so. If exceed- 
ing simplicity be a beauty, this book has 
that quality to a wonderful extent. The 
translation is very poor. A single ex- 
ample will suffice : Ex abundantia cordis 
os loquitur is rendered : " With what a 
man's heart is filled overflows the 
mouth." There are also innumerable 
typographical errors. 

EXCERPT A EX RITUALI ROMANO pro ad - 
ministratione Sacramentorum, ad com- 
modiorem usum Missionariorum in 
Septentrionalis Americas Foederatae 
Provinciis. Editio Sexta. Baltimori : 
Apud Kelly, Piet et Socios. 1878. 

This edition is very neat and handy 
and well adapted to the use intended. 
It has a number of " Benedictiones " not 
usually to be found in a book of such 
small compass. 

THE JESUITS: THEIR TRIALS AND TRI- 
UMPHS. A Lecture by the Rev. J. J. 
Moriarty, A.M. New York: The 
American News Company. 1878. 

In these few eloquent pages Father 
Moriarty has contrived to cover a great 
deal of ground and furnished a useful 
historical defence of a society that has 
as many defenders as foes. 

THE RULE OF FAITH ; OR, THE CHURCH 
AND THE BIBLE. A sermon by Rev. 
A. Damen, S.J. Baltimore: Kelly, 
Piet & Co. 

A very useful popular lecture, with as 
much humor as force. 



THE 



CATHOLIC WORLD. 



VOL. XXVIII., No. 168. MARCH, 1879. 



THE REALITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 



WHAT is knowledge ? It is an 
act of a living being who has in his 
nature the power or faculty to eli- 
cit the act. The individual being 
who possesses and exercises the 
power is called the subject, and 
the act which is elicited is called 
subjective, in so far as it proceeds 
from him as its principle, and re- 
mains within him. The act of know- 
ledge supposes, therefore, first, the 
knowing subject, the individual be- 
ing who exercises a sensitive facul- 
ty, or a faculty of intelligence, or 
a faculty of reasoning, in the act 
of sensible perception, or intuition, 
or discursive thought, or reflection, 
or of any possible description of 
cognition. The subject is the ac- 
tor, or active agent in the act. 
But every act must be directed by 
the agent to something acted upon. 
It proceeds from the agent as its 
principle, but it must terminate on 
something which is the recipient 
of the action. The axe cuts, but 
it must cut something. The wood- 
man delivers its blows upon a tree. 
The wind acts on the sails, and 
upon the ship, and the ship acts 
upon the water. The wood acts 
also upon the axe, and the water 

COPYRIGHT : REV. 



upon the ship. The cow cannot 
graze without grass to feed upon, 
or the hound scent unless there is 
game in the wind. The knower 
must know something, or he is like 
Dickens' poor, miserable boy Joe, 
who summed up all his miseries in 
" not knowing nothink and starwa- 
tion." The term of the action of 
the knowing subject is the object 
known, and in so far as the act of 
knowledge is referred to the object 
it is objective. The object acts 
on the subject in knowledge, as 
the wood on the axe and the grass 
on the cow. The knower and 
thinker is passive as well as active, 
a recipient as well as an agent. 
We have, therefore, the subject and 
the object, and their mutual action 
as the concurrent cause of the act 
of knowledge. The act itself is in 
the subject or knower. The me- 
chanical act of sailing is ascribed 
to the ship. The act of grazing is 
in the cow. It is a vital act of a 
living animal, and causes her to 
become fat and give good milk. 
Scenting and seizing. the game is a 
vital act of the hound. Sensible 
cognition and rational cognition 
are vital acts. The knowledge is 

. T. HECKER. 1879. 



722 



The Reality of Knowledge. 



in the knowing subject and belongs 
to his sensitive or intellectual life. 
He receives into himself the ob- 
ject, and it gives him an increase 
of being. The traveller who has 
gained permanent knowledge of 
many objects seen by him has their 
images in his memory. The sci- 
ence of astronomy is in the mind 
of the astronomer, classical litera- 
ture is in the mind of the classical 
scholar. The art of music or car- 
pentry is in the mind of the musi- 
cian and of the carpenter. When 
an observer beholds the stars at 
night, the vision of these bodies, 
distant as they are, and of the 
whole expanse of the heavens is in 
himself, and the ideas which he 
has respecting the stellar universe 
are in his mind. The objects re- 
main in their own distinct and se- 
parate being, and the subject or 
individual who apprehends them 
remains in his own identity. The 
astronomer does not become a star, 
or the star become the astronomer. 
The musician is not converted into 
the musical art, or the art of music 
into the musician. What belongs 
to the object is and remains objec- 
tive, and what belongs to the sub- 
ject is subjective. The two do not 
blend or clash with each other, but 
they are harmoniously united and 
concur together. 

These considerations prepare the 
way to examine and analyze more 
exactly the act of knowledge and 
to define its reality. In this act 
the object is present in some way 
to the subject, who is both passive 
and active, a recipient and an 
agent ; there is a certain union 
effected between the two, a mutual 
action and reaction upon each oth- 
er, and, as the result, the object i-s 
received into the subject according 
to the mode and manner which ac- 
cords with the nature of the reci- 



pient. There is some analogy be- 
tween this act and others which 
are purely material and mechani- 
cal, but not a perfect likeness. 
Therefore the illustrations which 
have been already used, or may be 
employed hereafter, are to be taken 
merely as similes or metaphors, and 
not as parallel cases. Knowledge 
is something unique ( and of its own 
kind. There is nothing in the na- 
ture of things below it which is 
equal to it, for it relates, even in 
its lowest species, to a kind of be- 
ing superior to every kind of being 
which is not sentient. We may as 
well explain here, to avoid mistake, 
that we are not using this word 
knowledge to denote rational and 
certain science as diverse from sen- 
sation and opinion, but only as any 
sort of cognizance in an animated 
being. We have selected it be- 
cause it is Saxon-English, but for 
convenience' sake we shall hereafter 
frequently use the word cognition 
instead. 

Cognition can exist only in a 
subject who has in him the princi- 
ple of conscious life. He must be 
either actually conscious, or have 
in potency the faculty of becoming 
conscious of his act of cognition, 
and therefore self-conscious, at 
least in the lowest degree. This 
is what separates him in the scale 
of being from inanimate bodies 
and those which have only vegeta- 
tive life. The higher and more 
perfect the potency of cognition is, 
so much the more perfect is the 
capacity of the subject to cognize 
his acts, and himself as the princi- 
ple of vital action. 

There is active force in matter, 
but this force is mechanical. It is 
all based on attraction and repul- 
sion. It is exerted on some other 
object outside of itself, and cannot 
act on the subject of the active 






The Reality of Knowledge. 



723 



force. Bodies are essentially inert. 
They cannot originate or arrest 
motion in themselves. They must 
be moved or brought to rest by a 
force from without. This is ex- 
pressed by saying that inanimate, 
unsentient beings cannot return 
upon themselves. The sentient 
being, on the other hand, returns 
in an incomplete manner upon 
himself. He has some sort of cog- 
nizance of his vital activity, and 
some sort of intrinsic, self-moving 
power. The intelligent subject 
turns back on himself more com- 
pletely, and is intrinsically self-ac- 
tive in a much higher sense. This 
point will be more fully elucidated 
hereafter, when we come to define 
spiritual being. For the present it 
is enough simply to mark the point, 
that we all know ourselves to be 
able to reflect on our mental acts 
and states, and to have self-con- 
sciousness in our sensitive and ra- 
tional life. The consciousness of 
self in the acts of knowing and 
thinking, and the reflection of the 
mind upon itself as the thinking 
subject, is like looking into our own 
face and eyes by means of a mir- 
ror. In this case the subject and 
the object are one and the same. 
In the recognition of self the ob- 
jective self is immediately and in- 
timately present to the subjective 
self by identity. It is the most 
perfect and vivid kind of cognition. 
"What man knoweth the things of 
a man, but the spirit of man which 
is in him .?" The knower and the 
known interpenetrate each other, 
and are but two terms of relation 
in the same being, who is in two at- 
titudes, as knowing himself and as 
known by himself. 

This gives us a starting-point, 
and a term of comparison to mea- 
sure the similitude of the other 
terms in cognition that is, objects 



distinct from the subject. They 
are made present to the subject as 
nearly as possible in the same way. 
There is an approach to identifi- 
cation between the sense and the 
sensible, the intellect and the in- 
telligible. Matter, by its quantity 
of extended mass, excludes all 
quantity but its own from its place. 
Its passive inertia keeps it confined 
to the limits of the particular state 
in which it passively exists under 
the action of physical laws and 
forces extrinsic to its own active 
principle. A lump of gold, a block 
of granite, an apple, or a potato, 
is just itself, and nothing else, for 
the time it remains in its own spe- 
cific substantial reality. A statue 
of Washington, a statue of Walter 
Scott, a portrait of Mary, Queen of 
Scots, an obelisk, a sarcophagus, a 
marble pyramid, a Doric column, 
a Gothic arch, is confined by its 
form, and excludes every other. 
But a cognizing subject, especially 
when it is in the grade of intelli- 
gent being, can take the similitude 
of every object within its range of 
cognizance, and receive the being 
of all these objects in a certain 
mode into itself. We have no oc- 
casion to consider here what the 
faculty of sensible cognition is in 
irrational animals. In human cog- 
nition it exists in association with 
intelligence and reason. The real- 
ity of human knowledge is what 
concerns us at present. And it is, 
therefore, of the human subject, of 
man, who is, according to his logi- 
cal definition, a rational animal, 
and of the knowledge which he 
derives from universal being as his 
connatural object, through sensa- 
tion, consciousness, intuition, re- 
flection, and reasoning, that we in- 
tend to speak. 

Universal being that is, what- 
ever has reality or entity can be 



724 



The Reality of Knoivledge* 



known in some way, either in itself 
or in something else, in its essence 
or its analogical predicates, in its 
substance or its accidents, by the 
human mind. The mind of man is 
as it were all things, by its capacity 
to have ideas of all. It can take 
into itself any kind of thing or 
entity, or whatever is thinkable. 
That cannot be done, of course, in 
the way of a physical receptacle in 
which things are received in their 
physical being, as articles are put 
into a box; or by interchange of 
substance and transformation, or 
by actual identification of an indi- 
vidual mind with objects distinct 
from itself. But it is done, accord- 
ing to the mode of the recipient 
mind, ideally, through ideal repre- 
sentation, the mind being to itself 
both a beholder and a. mirror, see- 
ing, through its representative spe- 
cies or ideas, and in them, the real 
objects of knowledge. 

Man is not a being whose essence 
is purely spiritual, he is a rational 
animal. The human soul is the 
living, actuating principle of an 
organic body. The body, as the 
inferior part, is principally for the 
sake of ^ the soul, which is the 
superior part. It must serve and 
minister to the exercise of its 
rational power. The natural ope- 
ration of every being follows its 
essence. And as the essence of 
the human species includes in itself 
animality, the animal nature is the 
basis of the natural operation 
throughout its whole extent. Ac- 
cording to his genus, man is an 
animal, and his life and operation 
are animal. The bodily part of his 
essence requires a vital principle to 
animate it, and the vital principle 
requires an organic body to receive 
life from it, and the two together 
make up the sentient being. Ra- 
tionality is the specific difference 



which determines the genus to a 
species, and completes the human 
essence. It cannot, however, take 
it out of its genus. The human 
essence is specifically different 
from the essence of the animal 
which is merely sentient but irra- 
tional. But, however wide the 
distance between the rational and 
irrational animal, they are of the 
same generic nature as sentient 
beings, and there is a likeness of 
kind in their life and operation. 
The basis and beginning of the life 
and vital action of man as a human 
person is in the senses, and his 
cognition, which is a vital action, 
must be initiated from this sentient 
principle, in which the body con- 
curs with the soul. The cognition 
must be elevated to a higher grade 
by the exercise of that power which 
makes man specifically different 
from every inferior sentient being ; 
and that power is the rational 
faculty. It is a vain thing to at- 
tempt to make out of the spirit 
which is in man a captive angel, 
confined in the body as in a prison, 
or to claim for him equality with 
the angels in his intelligence. It is 
much more vain to claim for him 
an immediate cognition of the 
divine essence as his connatural 
object. All this is contrary to na- 
ture, to experience, and to common 
sense. We have only to watch the 
process by which the infant ac- 
quires knowledge, or to inspect the 
working of our own thoughts, in or- 
der to be convinced of this. A spirit- 
ual philosophy built on a theory of 
innate ideas, or immediate intuition 
of being, is a baseless fabric, a cas- 
tle in the air constructed by the 
imagination. We must begin from 
oin human nature as it really and 
actually exists, and from the sensible 
objects on which our eyes are first 
opened when we come into the world. 






The Reality of Knowledge. 



725 



Sensible objects present them- 
selves to our sensible cognition. 
They are perceived and apprehend- 
ed by sense as singular and in- 
dividual things, manifesting them- 
selves by their phenomena. Sensi- 
tive consciousness, imagination, and 
memory are reflex acts of the sen- 
tient subject, returning upon him- 
self by his interior sense, and incit- 
ed to action by the desirable good 
in the sensible object which he 
cognizes, of which he has the sen- 
timent. The infant, whose intel- 
lectual faculties are dormant and in 
abeyance, only by faint and imper- 
ceptible degrees rises above this 
sentient life which he has in com- 
mon with the kittens, puppies, and 
birds which are his favorite com- 
panions and playmates. The most 
obvious note of infancy is ignorance 
and the absence of intelligence. 
But what is truly wonderful in a 
baby, especially in one that has re- 
markable intelligence in a latent 
state and is in favorable conditions 
for perfect development, is the way 
in which its faculty of reasoning and 
acquiring knowledge comes into 
active exercise, as soon as it has the 
full use of its senses and begins to 
talk. One of these little incipient 
men, at the age of four or five, is a 
most interesting little person ; and 
more can be learned from observ- 
ing his ways and listening to his 
conversation than from the lectures 
of some professors on psychology. 

One lesson, in particular, they 
all teach us, with a much greater 
unanimity than can often be found 
among other philosophers : that 
all thought and knowledge begin 
from sense, and from the apprehen- 
sion of single, sensible objects. 
They do not usually attain to the 
complete age of reason much before 
the end of their seventh year. And 
why not? Because the brain, the 



nervous system, the whole ap- 
paratus of the senses, and the 
organic structure of the body, re- 
quire all this time, in order that the 
intellect and the reasoning faculty 
may get their proper object duly 
presented before them. Nature 
works on the true and sound sys- 
tem of philosophy, and educates 
the young pupils of her school, not 
by the intuition of being, or by 
evoking innate ideas, but on the 
kindergarten method by object-les- 
sons, giving them sensible images, 
perfecting their sensitive powers, 
and imperceptibly letting in the 
intellectual light which transforms 
and elevates their sensible cogni- 
tion to the state of rational know- 
ledge. 

The intellectual light comes out 
of a hidden recess in the infant's 
own being, and is incessantly active 
while he is awake, working upon 
the sensible ideas he is continual- 
ly receiving from outward things, 
penetrating into their intelligible 
essence, divesting them of their 
material clothing, freeing them 
from the limits of single and par- 
ticular objects and transforming 
them into universal ideas, appre- 
hending concepts, acquiring first 
principles, discovering truth, com- 
paring, analyzing, connecting con- 
cepts with other concepts, learning 
to reflect, to remember, to think, to 
judge, to infer, and reason. By 
this spontaneous self-activity, con- 
curring with the action of objects 
upon his nature, he is gradually 
transforming himself from the state 
of an intelligent being in potency 
to that of an actually intelligent 
thinker and knower, who has the 
basis laid for an indefinite acquisi- 
tion of rational knowledge. 

This real genesis and history of 
thought and knowledge can be 
verified and illustrated in a thou- 



726 



The Reality of Knowledge. 



sand ways, from observation and 
inward experience. We need only 
watch the operations of the mental 
faculties of other persons, especial- 
ly children, and reflect upon our 
own operations, in order to see 
that our intellect abstracts its gen- 
eral ideas from single, sensible ob- 
jects ; and that, in the very act of 
abstraction, it instantaneously ap- 
prehends the very same object first 
presented by the senses, in the 
new and rational light which illu- 
minates the sensible representation. 
A rose, as a sensible object, is 
perceived by a kitten and by an in- 
fant in the same way. But as soon 
as the intellect of the infant be- 
gins to act on the object pre- 
sented before it by the sensible 
representation, it abstracts the 
idea of being, and through this 
idea it forms the concept that the 
rose is something. Comparing it 
with other things, it forms the con- 
cept of a flower, as a diverse thing 
from a kitten or a rattle. Com- 
paring it with other flowers, it per- 
ceives that it is different from a 
tulip or a dahlia. It observes, 
moreover, that the rose has thorns 
on its stem, and peculiar hues, and 
its own perfume. It notices that a 
rosebud may change its appearance 
in a glass of water, and open out 
its leaves. It perceives that there 
may be more roses than one to- 
gether in a vase. It perceives that 
a rose is a good and pretty thing 
to look at. After a while it ascer- 
tains that there are true and real 
roses, and also certain pictures of 
roses in books, and artificial things 
made of wax which look like roses 
but are not real roses. The young 
student, who is almost altogether- 
self-taught, has made astounding 
strides in advance of his dear 
friends the kitten and the puppy, 
when he has got as far as this. 



The rose is not the only thing he 
has been investigating. His branch- 
es of study and his experiments 
have been very numerous. He is 
already master of the elements of 
logic and metaphysics, besides be- 
ing no mean linguist and some- 
thing of a moralist ; perhaps also 
an orator and a musician, and an 
adept in the art of governing. 
By the end of his septennate, when 
his frock and sash are contemptu- 
ously cast aside for the glorious 
vestments of boyhood, he has per- 
formed more astonishing intellectu- 
al feats, and accomplished more ac- 
tual work in acquiring all sorts of 
knowledge, than will ever be the 
case again during a period of seven 
years, let him study never so dili- 
gently. He has invariably failed 
in his efforts to catch moonlight, 
and has bitterly bemoaned every 
experiment he has made in feeling 
of the flame of a candle. But he has 
successfully and firmly grasped all 
the transcendental notions, and the 
five logical universals. What he 
has learned from investigating the 
rose alone will prove that this is 
true. He has the ideas of being, of 
something, of unity, of truth, and of 
good. These are the transcenden- 
tals. He knows genus, species, 
difference, attribute, and accident. 
These are the logical universals. 
He has a clear insight into the 
principle of causality. The thorns 
under the rose prick my fingers. 
He can draw a conclusion from a 
major and a minor premise. My 
mother always tells the truth. She 
said she would bring me a rose 
when she comes in from a walk. 
Therefore she will bring me a rose. 
He knows that a thing cannot be and 
not be at the same time. The prin- 
ciple of contradiction. He knows 
a number of things by evidence, a 
number of other things by experi- 



The Reality of Knowledge. 



727 



ence, some others by reasoning, and 
many more by his faith in the testi- 
mony of others, and on the author- 
ity of his parents and elders. What 
he knows, he knows that he knows, 
and you cannot shake him in his 
certitude. He is unassailable by 
sophistry within his own sphere. 
He may even be able to refute you 
and reduce you to silence, by a 
most original and subtle answer, if 
you test his logical powers. He 
thinks on deep mysteries, and will 
ask you questions which you can- 
not answer at all, or, if at all, only 
out of the deepest metaphysics of 
Aristotle and St. Thomas. On 
moral questions, and on the charac- 
ters and acts of men, you will find 
him making judgments with a clear 
knowledge and an uncompromising 
application of first principles which 
will astonish you, and perhaps 
make you ashamed. It is in intelli- 
gent, carefully educated children 
that we see the purest, most unso- 
phisticated specimens of genuine 
human nature. In their early men- 
tal operations, where nature has 
the upper h?.nd of art, and the hu- 
man subject himself, so strangely 
isolated in his own interior, and work- 
ing spontaneously, creates his own 
intellectual character ; we see most 
clearly manifested what is the ori- 
gin of thought and cognition. The 
reality of knowledge as constituted 
by an equality between the mind 
and real being is brought distinctly 
into view, the nature of the process 
is apparent, and the certitude of 
the result made plain. 

For the present we are chiefly 
intent upon analyzing the object 
of rational cognition, and the mode 
by which it is made present to the 
intellect. It is primarily a single 
and sensible object, in which lies 
hid the universal and intelligible 
ratio to which intellect is co-ordi- 



nated. The intelligible is separat- 
ed from the sensible expression 
and vehicle,, its outward part, by 
the abstracting power of the active 
intellect ; which gives to the pas- 
sive and receptive faculty an idea 
through which the object is seen 
in the attitude and light of a di- 
rect universal, that is, as some one 
thing, some essence or nature, ap- 
prehended in its abstract notion, 
apart from the individual sensible 
object in which it is actuated. It 
is a form, which by a second act of 
reflection is perceived to have a 
relation to any number of individ- 
ual objects without limit, to which 
it can give its own specific being. 
The notion of rose, for instance, is 
abstracted from the particular rose 
which is seen, and apprehended as 
something common to any number 
of roses. The abstraction begins 
by that which is most universal 
and indefinite, which is the notion 
of being ; and proceeds by sepa- 
rating those general notions which 
are less extensive but more defi- 
nite. Intellect, therefore, follows 
an inverse order from sense. Sense 
begins with the single, and with 
that which is most vividly impress- 
ed, intellect with that which is 
most indefinite, vague, and confus- 
ed, and then proceeds to clearer 
and more distinct apprehensions, 
by which it distinguishes and sepa- 
rates more and more minutely the 
whole complex multitude of things 
which it contemplates. 

We may now dismiss our infant 
to the nursery, and take another 
illustration from a higher and more 
abstract order of thought. Let us 
take a pupil who is commencing 
the study of geometry. His atten- 
tion is directed to a circle drawn 
on the blackboard. The visible 
figure is a white chalk-mark of 
round shape. The notion of cir- 



7 28 



The Reality of Knowledge. 



cle, distinctly apprehended by the 
definition, is instantly abstracted 
from that particular chalk-line, as 
a direct universal. If the pupil 
lias never before distinctly thought 
what a circle is, he perceives it 
now, and applies the abstract no- 
tion to the figure before him, which 
he perceives to be a circle, and he 
perceives also, so quickly that the 
time it takes to make the reflection 
is imperceptible, that any number of 
similar figures are circles. In the 
circle he apprehends also the line, 
the curve, the point, position, di- 
rection, motion, and space. He 
perceives also the equidistance 
of all points in the circumfe- 
rence from the centre, the equal 
length of all radii and all dia- 
meters. He. perceives, moreover, 
the possibility of increasing the 
distance of the points of the 
circumference from the centre in- 
definitely, and thus producing 
radii in all directions toward in- 
finity. He perceives that space is 
infinite, and that he is in the centre 
of an infinite circle and must al- 
ways remain there, however far he 
may move in any direction. He 
perceives many more geometrical 
truths, all of which, together with 
such as have been mentioned 
above, start from the two data of 
position and direction, and either 
need to be demonstrated to him, 
or at least are capable of demon- 
stration, whether or no some of 
them are self-evident, or have 
been made previously evident to 
him, or are at the moment made 
evident by an act of reasoning 
so easy and rapid as not to be 
noticed. By a similar process he 
goes through all geometry, and the 
whole science of quantity, that is, 
the mathematics, one of the most 
purely abstract and rational sci- 
ences, giving the most absolute 



certitude, and entirely founded on 
abstraction from real quantity. 

All the primary sciences are de- 
fined and divided from each other 
according to their diverse grade of 
abstraction. They are five in 
number, viz. : physics, mathemat- 
ics, metaphysics, logic, and ethics. 
All knowable things come under 
one or more of these primary sci- 
ences. Physics abstracts from in- 
dividual objects as such, and con- 
siders corporeal being as manifest- 
ed by sensible phenomena under 
general notions. Mathematics ab- 
stracts from sensible matter, and 
considers corporeal being under 
the ratio of intelligible quantity. 
Metaphysics abstracts from matter 
entirely, and considers those ratios 
of corporeal being which are im- 
material, as substance, causality, 
etc., together with that being which 
is positively immaterial. Logic 
abstracts from all concrete reality 
to consider purely ideal being, such 
as is in concepts of the mind. 
Ethics abstracts in the same way 
to consider its objects as they sub- 
sist in acts of the will and affec- 
tions of the soul. Thus the total 
object of science is being, present- 
ed under five aspects, as being 
which is susceptible of sensible 
changes, as being which has intel- 
ligible quantity, as immaterial be- 
ing, as ideal being, and as moral 
being. The single, concrete, and 
individual object which is first pre- 
sented is the object of sense, and 
not directly of the intellect. The 
object of the intellect is the uni- 
versal, which has its foundation in 
the single and concrete reality, but, 
as universal, is a concept of the 
mind, as St. Thomas teaches. That 
which is single and particular is 
perceived by the intellect through 
the medium of the universal, and 
by a reflex act. This rose is per- 



The Reality of Knowledge. 



729 



ceived by the mind as being arose, 
by the understanding of what a rose 
is in general. This circle is perceiv- 
ed as a circle by the notion and defi- 
nition of circle in general. Parti- 
cular facts, as single, individual ob- 
jects of knowledge, considered in 
and by themselves, are not proper- 
ly objects of science. Their con- 
crete existence is made known by 
the senses, in the first instance, and 
in the second instance by testimo- 
ny which is received by faith. They 
are matters of history. And when 
that which belongs to history is 
scientifically considered, it is nec- 
essary to resort to some kind of 
science which is included under 
one or more of the five primary 
sciences. If we desire to classify 
those physical objects whose exist- 
ence is known by the senses or 
testimony and to understand -their 
laws, we must resort to physics. If 
we consider the theoretical princi- 
ples of their construction, or make 
computations of their number and 
movements, we call in mathemat- 
ics. For the philosophy of history 
we employ logic and metaphysics. 
For the social and political, or in 
general the moral order of the 
world, we make use of ethical sci- 
ence. 

It would require a complete trea- 
tise on logic to make a full exposi- 
tion of these topics. We hope, 
nevertheless, that this short process 
of reasoning may suffice for our 
present purpose. We think enough 
has been said to present the few 
necessary and salient points which 
are required as positions from 
which to direct our lines of argu- 
ment toward their common term 
the reality of human knowledge. 
Reality of knowledge requires, as 
we have shown, the presence of 
real being in the aspect of truth, or 
as something known to the knower. 



We have shown how the presenta- 
tion of the sensible object to the 
sensitive faculty of the human sub- 
ject, who is at the same time intel- 
ligent, presents to his intellect its 
proper intelligible object. All be- 
ing is in itself intelligible. Intelli- 
gence by its essence is the power 
to penetrate the intelligible, that is, 
being itself. Whatever is being, or 
something thinkable or knowable, 
in any sense, is the object of intel- 
lect. It needs only to be present- 
ed befor*e it, in order to be known. 
The human intellect as the intellect 
of a being who is composed of soul 
and body, of mind and matter, 
united in one essence, and together 
making one rational subject or 
person, apprehends and knows by 
the aid of sense. This is what 
makes man something specially 
wonderful. In human nature the 
corporeal is 'somehow raised above 
itself and spiritualized. It takes 
part in cognition. What is there 
more wonderful than the phenome- 
na which any one may observe in 
himself, who reflects on the strange 
and multiform impressions continu- 
ally received by the sensorium ? 
The variety of objects which meet 
the eye, the multiplicity of sounds 
affecting the ear, the various action 
of external objects on the whole 
sensitive organization. How ad- 
mirable, also, is the expression of 
intelligence and emotion in the 
human face, and especially in the 
eye ! All language bears witness 
to the connatural relation of the 
human mind with these sensible 
objects. It is, in its substantive 
part, a set of signs, representing 
sensible objects. In its expres- 
sions of the most immaterial things 
and abstract notions it is metapho- 
rical. Our intellectual conceptions, 
also, bear the trace of their sensi- 
ble origin, and are images of invisi- 



730 



The Reality of Knowledge. 



ble things borrowed from the visi- 
ble and the sensible. Our natural 
inclination for that kind of science 
and art which is the least abstract- 
ed from sense and imagination is 
much stronger, and more generally 
developed, than the taste for ab- 
stract science. One who is weary 
with the effort of meditating in his 
room, if he goes out of doors for 
recreation, may find a spontaneous 
delight in the contemplation of a 
dew-drop, or in watching the antics 
of a squirrel among the boughs of 
a tree, which he has not been able 
to extract during an hour's poring 
from an excellent treatise. Music, 
painting, architecture, poetry, elo- 
quence, are more congenial to the 
mind of man than dry argumenta- 
tion. Biography and narrative his- 
tory are more pleasing than essays 
on ethics and politics. Descrip- 
tive astronomy is more interesting 
than pure mathematics. Of all 
branches of knowledge, metaphysics 
and logic, the most abstract of all, 
are the most repugnant to all but a 
few. We are made to begin with 
the sensible, to keep very near it, 
as^ a general rule, during this pre- 
sent stage of our existence, and 
never to be wholly and completely 
separated from it, even when we 
ascend to the highest possible sum- 
mit of spiritual being. Things 
visible and invisible, bodily and 
spiritual, contingent and necessary, 
singular and universal, sensible and 
intelligible, are connected in one 
reality of being and cognition. 
They are in nowise contrary to 
each other, and their mediator and 
reconciler is man. Matter and 
spirit are in wonderful harmony 
and concurrence in his complex 
nature and cognoscitive faculties. 

The singular and concrete reali- 
ties directly and immediately per- 
ceived as objects of human cogni- 



tion are, as we have sufficiently 
proved already, only the bodies 
which make up the external world 
around us, and for each particular 
individual, his own self. The way 
in which this second object is per- 
ceived needs a little further expla- 
nation. Self-consciousness arises 
in the exercise of the active powers 
of sensation and intelligence. It 
is evident to each one, from his own 
experience, that we have no sensi- 
tive consciousness prior to and dis- 
tinct from the exercise of sensa- 
tion. We perceive our own exte- 
rior figure and the visible parts of 
the body, just as we do other 
bodies. Whoever wishes to be- 
hold his own face must take a mir- 
ror ; and to look at the back of his 
head, he must take two. What is 
inside, as the brain, heart, lungs, 
etc., cannot be seen. W^e know 
what the internal structure of the 
body is from the experiments of 
dissectors and anatomises. Self- 
consciousness does not give us this 
knowledge. The action of our sen- 
sitive organs makes known to us 
our being as a sensitive subject, 
recipient of the action of bodies 
upon itself, and reacting upon the 
same. This sensitive consciousness 
is at first so feeble that it leaves no 
record in the memory. It is some- 
thing quite remarkable, to have a 
lasting remembrance of our exist- 
ence at a period as early as two 
years of age. If we question chil- 
dren about their earliest reminis- 
cences, we find that even those 
who were very bright and preco- 
cious at the age of two, three, or 
four years, Seldom remember any 
of the events which occurred at 
this early period of their existence, 
or of the persons whom they saw at 
that time and did not continue to 
see afterwards. Those who do re- 
member things from this early pe- 






The Reality of Knoivledge. 



731 






riod remember only a few. Intel- 
lectual self-consciousness begins 
with the exercise of the intellect, 
and is at first feeble, increasing 
with the increase of intellectual ac- 
tivity. The intellect does not per- 
ceive itself, except in the act of in- 
telligence. The pure essence of 
the soul is not perceived in itself 
and by itself, but in its action, and 
just so far as it manifests its exist- 
ence and nature in its acts. In the 
act of sensation and in the act of 
intellection, it perceives and is con- 
scious of itself as sentient and in- 
telligent. We know by experience 
and reflection that we do not see 
our own soul in its pure and simple 
essence, any more than we see be- 
hind our eyes and into our brain. 
We are conscious in our acts, and 
we infer the nature of our soul 
from these acts by reflection and 
reasoning. Therefore, in Latin, 
consciousness is called conscientia, 
conscience; that is, a science which 
comes with, accompanies the 
knowledge of what is external. 
Reason explains why this fact, 
made known by experience, must 
be as it is. The human subject 
begins in a state which is but little 
removed from mere potency. The 
intellectual faculty is in a purely 
potential state for a considerable 
time after the sensitive life has 
commenced. There is nothing by 
which the soul can recognize itself. 
The latent power of the intuition 
of spirits in their pure essence, and 
even of the perception of the in- 
trinsic essence of matter, is bound 
down and held in abeyance by the 
substantial union of the soul with 
the body. The perception of bod- 
ies must come through the phe- 
nomena presented to the senses, 
and this is a condition pre-requi- 
site to the first and simplest act of 
intelligence. The soul must, as it 



were, catch itself in the act of com- 
ing out of the dark hiding-place of 
unconsciousness by the exercise 
of cognition, before it can know its 
own existence. 

We repeat once more that cog- 
nition begins with the singular and 
individual objects first presented 
through sensation, and that these 
are bodies and the individual self 
or personal subject, which is made 
also its own object by conscious- 
ness. And here we beg leave to 
complete our exposition of human 
cognition by a clear and brief sum- 
mary taken from St. Thomas and 
from one of his ablest modern ex- 
positors : 

*' St. Thomas, in that comprehen- 
sive manner which belongs to him, 
in the following passage explains 
what is the generic nature of a 
cognoscitive being, defining it as 
constituted by the capacity of a 
subject to receive into itself the 
form of other things distinct from 
itself, without losing its own proper 
actuality. These are his words : 
' Cognoscitive beings differ dis- 
tinctively from those which are not 
cognoscitive in this, that while the 
latter are not capable of any ac- 
tuality besides that which they have 
as their own proper form, the cog- 
noscitive being is by its nature ca- 
pable of receiving also the form of 
some other thing ; inasmuch as the 
form or ideal similitude of the 
tiling known is in the knower. 
Wherefore it is manifest that the 
nature of a being deprived of the 
faculty of cognition is more circum- 
scribed and limited ; whereas the 
nature of cognoscitive beings has a 
greater amplitude and extension : 
for which reason the philosopher 
says (Arist. De Anima, iii. 77), 
that the soul is after a certain man- 
ner all things.' Thus far St. Tho- 
mas. Now, this universality, as I 



732 



The Reality of Knowledge. 



may call it, of apprehensive capa- 
city in respect to other things, this 
non-exclusion from itself of that 
which is distinct from itself, this 
capability o^f receiving somehow 
into its own nature all that which 
in any wise participates in being, 
constitutes a kind of characteristic 
and distinctive excellence, great- 
ness, and nobility, in a spiritual 
being. 

"This sublime view is connected 
in the teaching of the Angelic Doc- 
tor with another and more general 
view regarding the graduated se- 
ries in which all the beings which 
compose the universe are arranged. 
Their greater or lesser perfection 
consists in their greater or lesser 
degree of remoteness from the con- 
fining bound of their own concrete 
singularity. The lowest in the 
scale are inorganic bodies, which 
are entirely restricted to that sole 
individual actuality in which they 
have their physical subsistence. 
Wherefore, they in no way go out 
of their own singular existence, 
nor do they, remaining in the same, 
bring other distinct beings into 
their identity, but are .merely capa- 
ble of an indefinite increase of their 
mass by a simple aggregation of 
new parts. Next to these come or- 
ganized beings having vegetative 
life, which are removed after a cer- 
tain fashion from the isolation of 
the first sort of things by their two- 
fold faculty of self-nutrition and of 
generation, inasmuch as by a vital 
action they convert into their own 
proper substance the juices which 
they draw up from the ground, and 
by the fecundity of their germs re- 
produce and propagate their pecu- 
liar species in other individuals. 
A greater amplitude and conse- 
quently a higher perfection of be- 
ing occurs in sentient animals, 
which by their sensitive faculties, 



without ceasing to be what they 
are, draw into themselves a repre- 
sentation of all kinds of bodies, 
like so many mirrors in which the 
forms of all the objects which pro- 
duce an knpression upon their bo- 
dily organs are reflected. But when 
we come to intellectual beings we 
behold a truly marvellous ampli- 
tude and extension of nature ; be- 
cause the intelligent being, without 
departing from himself, attains 
ideally and represents to himself 
everything whatsoever ; drawing 
into his own nature by his own im- 
manent acts of cognition the being 
of all objects, whether material or 
spiritual, those which are possible 
as well as those which actually ex- 
ist. The intelligent being is not 
limited to his individual subsis- 
tence, but becomes in a certain 
way every other thing by the ideal 
similitude which he assumes from 
it, and by virtue of which he is, 
after a certain manner, in every 
thing and in every place." ' 

We are now prepared to go on 
still further in considering the 
reality and certitude of our human 
knowledge. It is no mere con- 
tinuation and collection of sensible 
cognitions, gained by reflection 
upon purely physical sensations. 
Nor is it a reminiscence or a con- 
templation of ideas subsisting in 
themselves apart from concrete 
realities, and disconnected from 
the visible world, or else seen in 
the mind of God, or evoked out of 
the hidden recesses of our own 
soul. Neither is it terminated up- 
on a purely ideal object manufac- 
tured by the intellect, and possess- 
ing only a subjective existence as 
a modification of the intellect it- 
self. The object of intellectual 
cognition is distinct from the ob- 

*Liberatore, Delia Conosc. Intellct., vol. ii. pp. 
38, 39- 



I 



The Reality of Knowledge* 



733 



ject of sensitive cognition. The 
latter is individual and corporeal. 
The former is universal and imma- 
terial. But this universal and im- 
material object is presented as in 
and under the sensible and con- 
crete reality. It is abstracted from 
it by the active intellect,, not as 
a mere notion which the intel- 
lect creates arbitrarily, or a nomi- 
nal designation having no reality 
under it, or as a sign and resem- 
blance of some separate reality, 
which separate reality the mind 
knows by a prior and independent 
intuition; but as a real ratio in the 
things of sense themselves, which 
the mind attends to as something 
apart, to the exclusion of what is 
only individual and concrete in 
each single thing. By virtue of 
its abstractive power, the intellect 
sets before its intellectual faculty, 
in and by an ideal representation, 
the very object of intellection, the 
form or intelligible ratio of the 
thing represented. It is not the 
intellect itself or its idea which is 
the object of contemplation, but 
the real universal, the intelligible, 
which is contemplated in and 
through the idea. According to 
the beautiful similitude made use 
of by the illustrious Spanish 
philosopher Balmes, the mind be- 
comes an ideal mirror, and as a 
perfect mirror does not obtrude its 
own surface on our vision, but pre- 
sents only the reflected objects, so 
the mind does not, by its ideal rep- 
resentation, present the subjective 
entity of the intellectual faculty in 
its condition as ideally modified by 
the object, but presents the very 
object itself which it represents 
and apprehends. 

The real ratios or intelligible 
essences of the things of sense 
themselves are presented to the 
intellect. They are individuated 



in matter, in single, sensible, cor- 
poreal things, which are the proper 
objects of sensitive cognition. Con- 
sidered in themselves, these ratios 
of being are not individual but uni- 
versal. Therefore it is a maxim, 
that such a ratio or essence is sin- 
gular as cognized by sense, univer- 
sal as cognized by intellect. And 
here is the starting-point of human 
knowledge, the science of a being 
who is of composite nature, a mix- 
ture of sense and intelligence, at- 
taining what is singular by sense, 
what is universal by intelligence, 
the two faculties being in har- 
monious and mutually dependent 
relations with each other while the 
union of soul and body subsists. 
The universal as having its founda- 
tion in the singular and concrete 
reality, the intelligible as shining 
forth from the sensible, essences and 
ratios which are immaterial but are 
individuated in matter, are the 
proper objects of the rational know- 
ledge of such a being. 

This knowledge has a solid basis, 
and it is extensive and comprehen- 
sive enough for the state of exis- 
tence in which we are during this 
short life on the earth. We have 
self-consciousness, and the cogni- 
tion of the external world to begin 
with, at the first moment of becom- 
ing actually intelligent beings. We 
have the power of intelligence and 
reason, ready to emerge from the 
state of potency into act, as soon as 
the necessary conditions are placed. 
The addition of Leibnitz to the 
Aristotelian maxim : Nothing is in 
intellect which was not beforehand 
in sense : except intellect itself , though 
not necessary, is nevertheless use- 
ful; as expressing more explicitly 
what is implied in the old, unaltered 
form of the maxim. Intellect re- 
flects its light upon the singular 
objects of sensible cognition. The 



734 



The Reality of Knowledge. 



external world is seen in this light 
of the intelligible. Other sentient 
and intelligent beings besides the 
sentient and rational individual 
knovver, are not only known by 
him as other corporeal beings are, 
but also understood by their simili- 
tude to himself as he is known to 
himself by consciousness. This is 
enough to place him in contact with 
the object of knowledge in all its 
latitude, being in all its extension 
and comprehension, the universal 
and the singular, the immaterial and 
the material, abstract entities and 
concrete things, what actually 
exists and what is only possible ; 
whatever is in any way thinkable 
as a concept with a foundation in 
reality, or only as an abnormal pro- 
duct of the imagination, such as 
are the fond conceits of some so- 
called philosophers. In a word, 
the mind has access to all that con- 



stitutes the matter of physics, of 
mathematics, of metaphysics, of 
logic, of ethics, of all which is 
strictly called human and natural 
science; and also of history. 
Science has its foot upon its native 
heath, the earth ; but its head is in 
the skies. Its base line is within 
the world's small orbit, but its apex 
of triangulation is at the sun and 
stars. Knowledge is real ; and its 
criteria of truth, both internal and 
external, are certain until its limits 
are crossed into the region of 
opinion ; and beyond these limits 
into the nebulous space of conjec- 
ture surrounding the domains of 
certitude and probability ; they are 
practically a secure and sufficient 
safeguard against dangerous error, 
for those who obey their conscience 
and follow the light given to them 
by the providence of God. 



' Pearl 



735 



PEARL. 

BY KATHLEEN o'MEARA, AUTHOR OF " IZA'S STORY," " A SALON IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE," "ARE 

YOU MY WIFE? " ETC. 

CHAPTER XII. 



A RUPTURE. 






POLLY was in better spirits the 
rest of the day. The visit to the 
Park had cheered her up. Poor 
little Polly ! she was greatly to be 
pitied, for her destiny was very 
bitter to her ; she was obliged to 
do every day and all day long the 
reverse of what she liked, and it 
requires a very sweet temper, as 
well as a good deal of strength of 
character, to do this and not be 
soured by it. And the worst of it 
was that she had no one but her- 
self to blame. People say, " Such 
a one is in great trouble, but it is 
his own fault ; he brought it on 
himself." As if that " but " were 
not the last drop in the cup of 
misery, and the one that claimed 
our very deepest sympathy ! Polly 
thought she could have borne the 
loss of fortune and all the priva- 
tions of her present life unmurmur- 
ingly, even joyfully, if it were not 
for this constant self-reproach that 
was like a sting in her heart night 
and day. And Pearl knew her se- 
cret, and never even by a look 
hinted at it ; and this was the bit- 
terest drop of all. 

Mr. Danvers and Captain Dar- 
vallon came to lunch next day, and 
the colonel was in high good-hu- 
mor. So was Polly ; she was to go 
for a ride at three o'clock, and this 
had been something pleasant to 
look forward to all the morning. 
Pearl, meantime, had been diligent 
in preparing a nice meal with little 
French dishes, having first con- 



sulted Polly as to what would be 
most appropriate for a swell like 
Mr. Danvers, accustomed to fine 
cooking at his club and in fine 
houses. But though Polly gave 
her opinion and was in very good 
humor, she remained rigidly closed 
against any tender demonstration. 
She lent a hand in arranging the 
dessert, and even in whipping the 
cream for tlie Riz-a-1'Imperatrice, 
which Pearl made in perfection ; 
but when the busy cook thanked 
her with a kiss she. received the ca- 
ress like a stone. Her heart was 
hardened by suspicion. What had 
Pearl been saying to Captain Dar- 
vallon at lunch that day, and what 
brought her out to talk with him 
under the hedge ? It was no acci- 
dental meeting, or Pearl would not 
have made a mystery of it ; and 
she met Darvallon just as he had 
parted from Pearl, and he had not 
said a word. He was a sneak, a 
dishonorable sneak, with all his 
cant of fine sentiments and philo- 
sophy. But that Pearl should lend 
herself to such dissembling this 
was what took away Polly's- breath. 
And there was no escape from be- 
lieving it, for she had seen with her 
own eyes. She was keeping those 
soft, bright eyes steadily on Pearl 
now, noting her goings-out and 
her comings-in, hating herself for 
playing the spy, and hating Pearl 
for having compelled her to it. 

Captain Darvallon came regular- 
ly, meantime, to sit and talk with 



36 



Pearl. 



Colonel Redacre of a morning; and 
the more the colonel and Mrs. Red- 
acre saw of him the better tliey 
liked him. He made great friends 
with the boys, and was in the good 
graces of the entire household, in- 
cluding Fritz ; but Polly was not to 
be won. 

The interval till the night of the 
dance at Mrs. Barlow's passed with- 
out any incident to break the arm- 
ed truce between the sisters. Pearl 
was, as usual, full of anxiety about 
Polly's dress, and how her hair was 
to be done, and only began her own 
toilet when she had put the last pin 
in Polly's. 

"You look lovely, darling!" she 
said, walking round the inexorable 
beauty, and giving one more touch 
to the flowing tulle skirt. 

The carriage was at the door, 
and they drove off. It was a fine 
starlit night, and the horses bowl- 
ed them over the four miles' dis- 
tance in no time. Lady Wynmere 
and her guests were at the house 
before them, and saw that the Bar- 
lows made a great fuss over her dear 
friends, as her ladyship publicly 
called the Redacres now. The 
little lady laid hold of Polly at once. 

" I will see that you have plenty 
of partners, my dear," she said, pat- 
ing her on the arm as if Polly were 
a baby, instead of being a head and 
shoulders taller than herself. 

The company began to arrive all 
at once. Carriage after carriage 
drove up, and the rooms soon pre- 
sented an animated picture ; every- 
body knew everybody, and there 
was a friendly sociability about the 
gathering which Pearl thought com- 
pensated amply for some want of 
splendor in the accessories which 
they had been accustomed to in soi- 
rdes dansantes in Paris. But Polly 
was full of criticisms. The dresses 
were so dowdy ! And what frights 



of head-dresses ! Her own triumph 
was, indeed, secure, but there was 
small glory in carrying off the palm 
from such a lot of guys. This she 
confided in a sotto voce to Pearl at 
the first convenient opportunity. 

But, let the glory be great or 
small, conquest has a charm that 
never fails, and Polly was soon en- 
joying it to the full. There were 
many attractive girls in the room, 
but not one that could compare 
with her in beauty, and Pearl was 
the only one who could compete 
with her in grace. The gentlemen 
all went wild about Polly ; but the 
women, old and young, were for 
Pearl. They called her sweet and 
lovely. 

" Talk about her features not be- 
ing regular ! With such eyes and 
hair, and such a complexion, and 
such a figure, features don't matter 
a pin !" protested Mrs. Barlow, 
throwing cold water on the squire's 
raptures and snubbing his criticism 
on Pearl's nose. 

All the same, Polly carried the 
day, and he was a proud man who 
secured her for a dance before sup- 
per. Mr. Danvers had bespoken 
four, and he would have monopo- 
lized her for them all if he had 
dared. They made a handsome pic- 
ture, everybody remarked, as they 
stood up side by side. He was the 
finest man in the room; for, though 
Captain Darvallon was a trifle tall- 
er, he had not the young English- 
man's handsome face. Many of the 
ladies, it is true, thought the deep- 
set eyes and dark coloring of the 
foreigner more distingue than Per- 
cy Danvers' blond complexion and 
curly chestnut hair. Not that there 
was any lack of distinction in the 
appearance of the latter; he was as 
fine a type of an English gentleman 
as a painter could have selected for 
a model. 



Pearl. 



737 



Polly was in her element ; Pearl 
was quietly happy in her own way; 
and the colonel and Mrs. Redacre 
were enjoying the sight of their 
children's happiness, pleasantly con- 
scious of being themselves " made 
a great deal of" by the hosts and 
the company. 

It had become the .fashion to 
make a fuss over the people at 
Broom Hollow : they were eccen- 
tric, kept no servants, and lived, it 
seemed, in the most extraordinary 
way, but they were all so charming, 
so thoroughbred ; highly connected, 
too, and altogether delightful ac- 
quisitions to the neighborhood. 

Nothing could be nicer than the 
way the Barlow girls behaved to 
Pearl and Polly, bringing up a pro- 
cession of partners to introduce, 
and praising their new friends un- 
affectedly behind their backs. 

" My girls are so amiable !" Mrs. 
Barlow remarked to another moth- 
er that evening. " To be sure, they 
have no need to fear any competi- 
tion ; they are what I call solid 
girls, no nonsense about them, and 
plenty of common sense. Sensible 
men value that more than a pretty 
face, you know." 

Her friend did not gainsay this 
comforting remark, and Mrs. Bar- 
low herself knew exactly how much 
truth there was in it. 

Captain Darvallon had secured 
a dance from Polly before they ar- 
rived. She granted it reluctantly ; 
but there was no pretext for refus- 
ing. He danced remarkably well, 
and he was tall, so this was a com- 
pensation. 

"You are having plenty of fun, 
Pol," said Pearl, when the chances 
of war threw the sisters together 
for a moment. " How do you get 
on with your partners ? Are they 
nice ?" 

Polly pursed up her mouth. 

VOL. xxvm. 47 



" Some of them ; but I have had 
a good many scrubby ones. I wish 
the little men wouldn't ask us to 
dance ; but they all do." 

Before Pearl could express sym- 
pathy a partner, one of the scrubby 
sort, came to claim Polly for a 
waltz, and they started off together, 
she making a face at Pearl over his 
shoulder. 

The sisters did not get near each 
other again until they were going 
in to supper, which was in the din- 
ing-room, the other side of the hall. 
P v earl had been dancing with Cap- 
tain Darvallon, and was coming 
out of the drawing-room on his 
arm, when he stood to admire a 
large green plant that spread its 
palm-like leaves in the centre of 
the hall. Polly chanced to be com- 
ing out by another door at the mo- 
ment, and she mechanically follow- 
ed the two with her eyes, and saw 
Pearl draw one of the leaves closer 
to her and look into it. While she 
did so, Captain Darvallon, as if to 
leave her more free to examine the 
leaf, took her heavy mother-of- 
pearl fan from her and held it a 
second, then opened it, glancing 
at the painted shepherdesses. 
Pearl let go the palm-leaf, and 
Captain Darvallon handed her 
back the fan ; as she took it some- 
thing dropped out of it and fell at 
her feet. It was a letter. Polly 
felt all the blood in her body rush 
to her face. Pearl cast a frighten- 
ed glance all round ; but Captain 
Darvallon, quick as thought, placed 
his foot upon the letter and went 
on talking as if nothing had hap- 
pened. He waited till those near 
had passed on into the supper- 
room, then dropped his handker- 
chief; and, stooping for it, picked 
up the letter. 

Polly saw the whole manoeuvre. 
"You base, contemptible hypo- 



738 



Pearl. 



crite!" she muttered to herself; 
but Pearl Pearl what was she to 
to think of her ? 

The rest of the evening was 
spoilt for Polly. Mr. Danvers devot- 
ed himself to her exclusively dur- 
ing supper and afterwards. But this 
public triumph was poisoned to 
her ; she scarcely heard the soft, 
veiled words he was pouring into 
her ear ; she almost wished he 
would leave her alone, and talk to 
Helen Barlow or anybody else. 
She wanted to get at Pearl, to 
question her, to upbraid her, to 
kill her it almost seemed for a mo- 
ment, as she caught sight of her 
again on Darvallon's arm, while he 
bent low, speaking in the same 
earnest way she had noticed be- 
fore. 

There are people who are inca- 
pable of real suffering, but who are 
adepts at making themselves miser- 
able ; nobody knew how to do this 
better than Polly, and she made 
herself intensely miserable for the 
remainder of the evening. Cap- 
tain Darvallon asked her to dance 
again; but she answered curtly, 
" Non, monsieur !" and with the 
scorn of a Roxane turned her back 
on him. 

He had not caught her eye upon 
him that time in the hall, but he 
felt that for some cause or other 
the dislike she had taken to him 
had grown more aggressive to- 
night. 

Who can blame Polly for sus- 
pecting Pearl ? True, her know- 
ledge of her sister's nobility of soul, 
her pure truthfulness, her docility 
to parental authority, ought to 
have taught her better ; but Polly 
trusted the evidence of her senses 
before every other, and she had 
seen with her own eyes Pearl meet- 
ing M. Darvallon clandestinely, 
and either giving or receiving a let- 



ter from him. What was she to do 
with the discovery ? Carry it at 
once to her father, and get the 
mischief stopped before it went 
further ? This was her first im- 
pulse ; but, as she half resolved to 
act upon it, Polly thought of a cer- 
tain letter that she herself had 
written clandestinely, and the re- 
membrance of how Pearl had treat- 
ed her secret came upon her with 
a pang. What sort of return was 
this for that generous silence, to 
seize the first opportunity of dis- 
gracing Pearl ? But then it was 
to save her from a worse disgrace. 
The idea of her sister being in love 
with this low-born Frenchman was 
revolting; but the notion of having 
him for a brother-in-law was intol- 
erable. Should she speak to Pearl 
herself, try what persuasion would 
do, and threaten* her with exposure 
to their father if she did not pledge 
herself to break off the odious af- 
fair ? It was quite clear Pearl un- 
derstood how odious it would look 
in his eyes, or she would not have 
lowered herself to carry it on in 
this underhand way. And yet 
Colonel Redacre was possessed by 
this Frenchman to such an absurd 
degree that it was not impossible 
his consent might have been won, if 
it had been honorably sought, as 
became a loyal gentleman. But 
how could a low man, the son of a 
blacksmith, feel or act like a gen- 
tleman ? 

Pearl was waltzing with him now, 
evidently as happy as a bird, while 
Polly watched her with burning, 
indignant eyes. 

" My darling, you have been 
dancing away at a tremendous 
rate !" said Mrs. Redacre, passing 
near Polly, who was standing in a 
recess with Mr. Danvers. "Don't 
you begin to feel tired ?" 

" Yes, mamma, I should like to 



Pearl. 



739 



go home; but Pearl would not, very 
likely," she added, and her eyes 
followed Captain Darvallon and his 
partner significantly. 

" I think she has enjoyed the 
evening; she has hardly missed a 
dance," said the mother with com- 
placency, as she caught sight of 
her Pearl's beaming face amongst 
the waitzers. 

" I should think she has had 
enough of it," said Polly petulant- 
ly ; "I am dying to get away." 

" You are not well, dear ?" 

" Oh ! yes, I am. But I am tired." 

" Then we shall be going ; I will 
tell your father. And will you," 
turning to Mr. Danvers> "capture 
my daughter when this dance is 
over, and bring her here to wait for 
me?" 

The colonel was having his game 
of whist in the library, and was in 
no hurry to come away ; but a 
word to the effect that Polly was 
overtiring herself reconciled him 
to the interruption at once. 

The carriage was soon round 
and they drove home. Polly 
scarcely spoke a word on the way, 
but lay back, rolled up in white 
cashmere and swan's-down, as still 
as if she were asleep. The others 
discussed the incidents of the 
evening with animation, and agreed 
that the Barlows were capital hosts 
and that it had been very pleasant. 

" Tu es fatiguee, cherie?" said 
Pearl, bending close to Polly and 
speaking in French, as the sisters 
were apt to do when they were 
alone. 

" No, I am not tired," said Polly 
in English, and in a tone that said 
plainly enough, "I am angry." 

Pearl drew away her hand and 
said no more. , 

Yes, Polly was angry; but she 
was also unhappy. This behavior 
of Pearl's was taxing her affection 



and her judgment to the utmost. 
She felt called upon to act with 
severity and promptly; and at the 
same time she wanted to spare 
Pearl, and above all to spare her- 
self. The part she was going to 
play had an ugly look about it ; 
and, argue the point as she would 
from her own side, the verdict was 
unsatisfactory. If she had been 
independent, free from the burden 
of her own dreadful secret, or 
rather from Pearl's share in it, 
things would have been easy. 
This was what made it all so hard 
and so confusing. Pearl would 
call her ungrateful. To Polly's 
credit be it said, the thought that 
Pearl might betray her out of re- 
sentment never once crossed her 
mind. Whatever wretched infatua- 
tion had drawn Pearl into this du- 
plicity, she was no more capable of 
an act of vindictive treachery than 
of committing murder. 

When the carriage stopped at 
the door of Broom Hollow, Polly 
had made up her mind to speak 
to Pearl that night. But the men- 
tal strife and emotion of the last 
couple of hours had told on her 
nerves, never of the strongest, and 
when they all stood at the hall ta- 
ble lighting their candles she look- 
ed so agitated that her father no- 
ticed it. 

"You are tired, my pet," he said, 
patting the flushed cheek that burn- 
ed with a hectic glow. " Mind you 
have a good long sleep. You ought 
not to let her overtire herself in 
this way," he said, turning to his 
wife ; " and you, Pearl, you should 
have looked after her." 

They were all three looking at. 
her now, when suddenly Polly fell 
on her father's breast, sobbing hys- 
terically. 

" My darling ! what is the mat- 
ter?" 



740 



Fearl. 



Mrs. Redacre drew the child to 
herself; the colonel called to Pearl 
to know what ailed her. 

But Pearl could only run for sal- 
volatile and cold water, and then 
help her mother to get Polly up- 
stairs and into bed. 

The sobs gradually calmed down, 
and Polly lay back exhausted and 
quiet, while her mother bathed her 
temples and Pearl rubbed her 
hands with perfume. 

" I am quite well now, mamma," 
she said after a while ; " kiss me 
and go to bed." 

And seeing that the hysterical 
fit had quite passed away, and that 
the child was likely to sleep, Mrs. 
Redacre left her. 

But Pearl lay awake, watching 
far into the night, too anxious for 
sleep to come near her. 

Everybody was late next morn- 
ing, but Polly was the last to make 
her appearance. She had been 
awake while Pearl was dressing, 
but she feigned to be asleep in or- 
der to avoid speaking. She jump- 
ed up the moment Pearl glided 
noiselessly out of the room, and 
made her toilet in a shorter time 
than she had ever done in her life. 

The early post just arrived as 
she entered the breakfast-room. 

"Lots of letters!" exclaimed 
Lance, coining in with the budget. 

" One for you from Bob," said 
the colonel, handing a letter to his 
wife; "one for me, and one for 
Pearl. From Mrs. Monteagle, I 
think?" 

" Yes," said Pearl, taking the en- 
velope and blushing scarlet. 

"WJiat color is red?" cried out 
Billy, pointing a finger at the burn- 
ing cheeks. Every eye in the room 
fell upon poor Pearl. 

" Hallo ! what is this ?" said her 
father with an amused stare, as 
t'ie red grew deeper and deeper. 



" Mrs. Monteagle is not a lover 
eh ?" 

" Don't mind them, dear," said 
Mrs. Redacre, ready, mother-like, 
to cover Pearl, though she, too, 
was mystified by the girl's emotion; 
for Pearl's lip was beginning to 
tremble, and her hand shook as 
she opened the letter. 

Polly's eyes were fixed on her 
with a glance that Pearl felt, though 
she did not see it. A sudden si- 
lence fell on the table; Mrs. Red- 
acre broke it by reading out Lord 
Ranperth's letter a chatty letter, 
full of nothing particular. It was 
now obviously Pearl's turn to read 
hers. Everybody's letters, except 
the colonel's, which were all busi- 
ness letters, were considered com- 
mon property. 

" Well, Pearl, and what does the 
old lady say?" said her father. 

Pearl handed the letter across to 
her mother. 

''Isn't it kind of her, mamma?" 
she said, and the blush, which had 
never really died out, named up 
again, brighter than ever. 

" It's a proposal !" shouted the 
boys in chorus. 

"What larks! Pearl, you must 
take him, and we'll have a wed- 
ding !" exclaimed odious Billy. 

Mrs. Redacre glanced at the let- 
ter, and saw at once that it con- 
tained nothing so delicate as the 
indelicate boys suggested, so she 
proceeded to read it aloud : 

" MY DEAR PEARL : This day twelve 
months we were all dining together at 
your house. I wonder if you remember 
it? But of course you don't. Mr. King- 
spring has just been here and reminded 
me of it. He says he never enjoyed his 
dinner anywhere as he used to do at Col- 
onel t Redacre's. He spoke feelingly 
about all the pleasant dinners he had at 
your father's table, and of his excellent 
Chateau Margaux. It is something to 
meet with a grateful stomach these times ; 



Pearl. 



741 



as to a grateful heart, I don't believe 
there exists such a thing. Poor Mr. 
Kingspring is going to find it out, now 
he has lost his money. He is going to 
live at Brighton. He says he can live 
there for half the money he would spend 
here, and he has lots of friends there. 
. He could not tell me how many. I told 
him he would soon be able to count 
them. However, he is a man in society 
and has plenty to say for himself, so 
people will think him worth his dinner 
any d^. And it will cost him nothing to 
dine out at Brighton ; a man only needs 
to put on his best clothes and step round 
the corner there, and Mr. Kingspring is 
a kind of man who will always have 
on his best clothes, while he has any 
left. It was very stupid of him to put 
so much of his money in X. Y. Z.'s Bank. 
Nobody but a fool does that. I shall 
miss him shockingly. He was the one 
friend remaining to me here. Not that 
I care much for him or for anybody. 
Indeed, I begin to feel that I hate all my 
fellow-creatures. The ones I care for 
are always doing something disagree- 
able : going away, or dying, or losing 
their money. I wonder whether your 
father is inclined to do something good- 
natured for me ? I should very much 
like to have you over here for a visit. 
Of course, if you are very pleasant at the 
Hollow, I am not such a selfish old cyn- 
ic as to ask you to come here to cheer 
me into good-humor ; but if you are not, 
and would like to see Paris again and 
the people who call themselves your old 
friends, pack up and come as soon as 
you can get any one to take you in 
charge. At your age I travelled from 
Edinburgh to London by myself; but 
in those days young ladies were not 
the hot-house plants they are nowa- 
days ; they had a spirit of their own and 
could look after themselves. It is under- 
stood that you are coming to oblige me, 
and that your expenses are my affair. 
I always expected to be franked over 
the road when I was a girl. Your father 
is not a fool to contradict me ; we are 
too old friends for us to quarrel at this 
time of day. How is Balaklava? How 
is your mother? And Polly is she kill- 
ing every man in the county ? As to 
the boys, I have no*doubt they are grow- 
ing apace, like the ill weeds they are. 
Always, my dear Pearl, 

" Your affectionate 

" JOHANNA MONTEAGLE. 



" P. S. The Leopolds have been here 
since I wrote this. They are enchanted 
to hear there is a prospect of seeing you 
soon. Mme. L. says she will make 
Leon write to his friend Captain Darval- 
lon, and ask him if he knows anybody 
coming over whom you could travel 
with. They have these opportunities 
often at the Embassy. It must be a lady, 
of course; or else there is a likelihood 
of M. Darvallon himself coming over 
shortly. But one knows what French- 
men are : not to be trusted the length of 
their nose, the best of them. 

"J. M." 

"What a funny old woman!" 
said Lance when his mother had 
finished reading. 

" She's a brick of an old woman," 
said Billy. 

" So Kingspring is going to 
Brighton," said the colonel. " Poor 
fellow ! He won't like it after Pa- 
ris." 

" But what about Pearl's going 
to Paris, Hugh ? You would like 
to go, would you not, dear ?" 

" Yes, mamma, I should. Only 
I'm afraid you would miss me." 

" Of course we should. But that 
is no reason." 

" Certainly not," said the colo- 
nel. " You shall go, Pearl." 

"And who will do the cooking?" 
said Pearl, laughing. 

"By Jove ! yes; I hadn't thought 
of that. You have become such a 
first-rate cook, you see, that we 
should find it difficult to replace 
you-. Eh, Alice ?" 

" That is not complimentary to 
Polly and me. I am sure we should 
be able to give satisfaction ; should 
we not, Polly?" said Mrs. Red- 
acre. 

Polly had not spoken a word 
since the reading of the letter. 

" I dare say we should, mamma," 
she answered, and then became si- 
lent again. 

" Polly is not fit to do coarse 
-work of that sort," said her father; 



742 



Pearl. 



" no more are you. I don't see 
how we could afford to let you go, 
Pearl." 

" No, papa ; I am afraid you 
could not. I shall write and thank 
Mrs. Monteagle, and say I can't 
accept her invitation for the pre- 
sent." She said it very sweetly, 
but her voice had a little tremor 
in it. 

" We must not settle it off-hand 
in this way," said Mrs. Redacre. 
" We will talk it over first, and 
see if something can't be done to 
make it possible." 

"Very well," said the colonel; 
" I know women have a strong be- 
lief in talk for getting to see things. 
Come, boys, it is within five min- 
utes of the hour." 

Every one rose. The boys car- 
ried off the breakfast things to Mrs. 
Mills, and then settled down to 
their studies. Mrs. Redacre and 
the girls went each to their morn- 
ing's work, Pearl's first business 
being a consultation about the din- 
ner. 

More than an hour elapsed be- 
fore the sisters met. Polly knew 
that Pearl always went up, after her 
discourse with Mrs. Mills, to tidy 
things in their own room, and she 
took care to be there to-day before 
her. The moment Pearl opened 
the door, and saw her walking up 
and down the room, she felt in- 
stinctively that a crisis was at hand. 

" I want to speak to you," Polly 
said, standing by the dressing-ta- 
ble and looking at Pearl with a 
hostile light in her glorious blue 
eyes. " I have found out your de- 
ceitful conduct, and I don't mean 
to be a party to it." 

" What do you mean 5 Polly ?" 

" You know perfectly well what 
I mean. You have been exchang- 
ing love-letters with M. Darvallon 
and meeting him in the lane; I saw 



you with my own eyes, and so di 
Mr. Danvers. And now, it woul 
seem, you have got Mrs. Monteagl 
to play into your hands ! But she 
sha'n't. I will expose it all to papa. 
I will tell him everything. / will 
not be a cloak for your hypocrisy. 
/ won't be a party to it. I think 
you must be mad !" 

Pearl stood with wide-open eyes 
and white lips, unable to iftter a 
word, while Polly, like a beautiful 
fury, stormed at her. Nothing 
looks so like guilt as frightened 
innocence ; and Polly was not to 
blame if she mistook the one for 
the other, for Pearl presented as 
complete a picture of guilt as ever 
stood convicted before a righteous 
and angry judge. She tried to 
speak, but not a word would come. 
Was she dreaming, or was this her 
own sweet Polly who called her a 
hypocrite and accused her in such 
hard words ? She scarcely felt the 
ground firm under her feet. Polly 
saw her agitation, her guilty white 
face, and construed the silence as a 
confession. 

" Oh ! it is too horrible of you !" 
she went on, lashed to greater 
wrath by the tacit confirmation of 
her suspicions " you that papa 
trusts so ; you that mamma calls 
her angel-child; you that we all 
looked up to as the ideal of truth 
and duty ! Pearl, I will never 
trust any one again while I live ! 
Never!" 

"O Polly!" The words were 
like the cry of a hunted creature, 
Pearl put her hand to her head 
and staggered against the wall. 

" Never ! I would as soon have 
suspected papa of a forgery as you 
of a lie. And as to that man 
but he is too bad to speak of; a 
low villain, a wretch who is only 
fit" 

"O Polly! don't. It is all my 




Pearl. 



743 



fault!" And Pearl drew away her 
hand, and showed her face, no 
longer white, but flushed with a 
burning red. 

" Your fault ! You invited him 
to meet you on the road ? You 
wrote to him first ? Then you 
must be mad !" 

Pearl had recovered from the 
first shock of Polly's onslaught, and 
had regained sufficient presence of 
mind to cast a rapid glance at the 
array of evidence that was mar- 
shalled against her; but she was not 
yet calm enough to consider how 
formidable this evidence must look 
in any eyes but her own, and to 
acquit Polly of deliberate and cruel 
injustice. She. was stung to her 
heart's core, and the pain disturbed 
her reason ; it confused all her 
faculties. She could not defend 
herself; she could only cry out, 
and the cry was in Polly's ears an 
appeal for mercy. She could not 
defend herself, and yet she found 
voice enough to defend Captain 
Darvallon : " It is all my fault !" 
Polly looked at her with a scorn 
and loathing that had no pity in 
them. They stood face to face for 
a mom'ent, the one tongue-tied by 
anger and contempt, the other by 
pain and wounded pride. 

"Why should I justify myself?" 
Pearl thought. " If she can be- 
lieve these things of me she cannot 
love me ; and her love was what I 
treasured. That is gone now it 
never was." Then, again, she be- 
thought to herself that to remain 
silent, to offer no explanation what- 
ever, would be to let judgment go 
against her by default ; and Polly 
would never forgive her for treat- 
ing her with this contempt, and al- 
lowing the accusation to stand over 
till their mother explained it away. 
Polly drew away her eyes, so beau- 
tiful in their light of passion, and, 



with her head high and her face 
averted, walked towards the door. 
Pearl was standing close by it. 

" Wait," she said, laying her 
hand on her sister's arn, " you 
had better read this before you de- 
nounce me." And drawing a letter 
from her pocket, Pearl handed it 
to her. 

" If it is from that man I won't 
read it." 

" It is from Mrs.- Monteagle." 

Polly took the letter and read it : 

"My DEAR PEARL: I am always glad 
of anything that brings me a letter from 
you ; but, my dear child, I am distressed 
by the contents of this one. I thought 
things had so arranged themselves that 
there was no anxiety at home ; I never 
dreamed that you should have to think 
of doing for yourself. Not that I repine 
so much at that. It is a great blessing 
to have an object in life and work to do ; 
but I know that you would not have 
come to this determination without good 
reasons, and you are right in counting 
on my good-will to help you. But I see 
only one way for it : you must come 
over and spend a month, or several 
months., with me, and we will look out 
for some delightful family who want a 
bright young paragon in their school- 
room and will know how to appreciate 
her. Nothing can be done unless you 
are on the spot ; but, once here, I have no 
doubt we shall be able to find you some- 
thing suitable. I understand what you 
say about your parents' objections ; but 
of course, unless you eventually gain 
their consent, I could not advise you to 
persist in your scheme. Now, what I 
shall do is this : I will write direct and 
ask you to come to me on a visit, and 
you can answer me direct. There is a 
legitimate excuse for my sending you 
this through Captain Darvallon ; but I 
am sure you dislike as much as I do 
having to stoop to anything that looks 
like want of straightforwardness, so we 
must carry on our correspondence after 
this in the light of day. Besides, my 
dear, one must always mistrust a French- 
man. I dare say Captain D. is an 
honorable man ; but he is not an Eng- 
lishman, and so 1 don't care to make a 
confidant of him. Your affectionate 
"JOHANNA MONTEAGLE." 



744 



Pearl. 



Polly read on to the end without 
comment or exclamation. Then 
she looked at Pearl, not angrily 
as before, but with a face still cold 
and mo*e mystified than ever. 

" You want to go out as a gover- 
ness !" 

" Yes. You see now what the 
love-letters were." 

"When did you get this?" 

" Captain Darvallon gave it to 
me last night." 

" And is this the only one he 
gave you ?" 

" The only one ; it is an answer 
to the letter I gave him that day 
you saw me speaking to him on the 
road. He kept it two days, be- 
cause he had not an opportunity of 
giving it to me alone." 

" And why was all this mystery 
necessary? Why could you not 
have posted your own letter ?" 

" I was going to do it when he 
met me at the gate and offered -to 
take it for me ; the road to the vil- 
lage was bad that day. He knew 
what the letter was about, because 
I had asked him to let Mrs. Mont- 
eagle send her answer to him." 

"And why should Mrs. Mont- 
eagle not have written to you here ? 
What need was there to hide the 
affair?" persisted Polly, still mis- 
trustful. 

" I preferred trying first whether 
my scheme was possible before I 
spoke to papa and mamma about it. 
I know they will begin by opposing 
it, and I should never have the 
courage to hold out against them 
here; but if I were in Paris, and 
could write them word that I had 
found a situation with nice kind 
people, they would very likely give 
in. At any rate it was worth try- 
ing." 

" But where is the need for your 
going out as a governess ? What has 
put the idea into your head ? We 



are no worse off now than we were 
three months ago, and there was 
no question then of your taking a 
situation, as you call it. . Pearl, you 
are not telling me the whole truth." 

It was quite true ; she was not. 
But how could she ? Was it possi- 
ble to say to Polly, " I am going 
away to earn my bread amongst 
strangers because you are growing 
to hate me "? 

" I think it is only right that I 
should do something to help papa, 
if I can," she replied; "he feels 
dreadfully, not being able to give 
the boys the advantages that they 
ought to have, and if I could earn 
a hundred a year I could give him 
at least eighty of it. You must see 
yourself that he frets very much 
about things, and mamma worries 
too, though she tries to hide it from 
us." 

" His temper certainly is not im- 
proved since he has become a land- 
ed proprietor ; but I don't believe 
it is fretting about the boys that 
has to answer for that. He bores 
himself that's what makes him so 
cross ; and Balaklava bothers him. 
I don't see how your going away 
will make things pleasanter." 

"At all events I mean to try it." 

" Then it was all pretence what 
you were saying awhile ago about 
the cooking that we could not 
spare you even for a month, and 
that I was not fit to do the work ?" 

" I had forgotten that when I 
wrote to Mrs. Monteagle ; it was 
very stupid and very selfish, but I 
was so full of the rest of the scheme 
that I quite forgot about the cook- 
ing." 

" And now ? You still mean to 
go?" 

" I will talk it over with mam- 
ma." 

" About the situation ?" 

"No; only about my going for 



Pearl. 



745 



the visit. If I get a good salary 
you could afford to get a cook." 

" But then the other plan goes 
to the wall, does it not? I thought 
the money was to be for the boys." 

" It would not all go to the cook. 
There would be a good sum over 
still." 

Pearl was not clever in money 
matters, but she knew very well 
that she was talking nonsense; 
however, there was no help for it, 
unless to tell the whole truth, and 
nothing should tempt her to do 
that. More than ever now she 
felt it was better that she and Polly 
should part for a time, and see 
what absence would do to soothe 
this irritated spirit and revive the 
old tenderness. 

" Polly, I have trusted you now," 
she said, " and you must keep my 
secret. Promise me." And she held 
out her hand ; but Polly did not 
take it. 

" No, I will not," she answered 
harshly. 

" You must." 

Pearl spoke in a low voice, but, 
though there was a beseeching note 
in it, it sounded very firm, Polly 
thought defiant. 

" I must ?" she repeated, looking 
full into Pearl's moist brown eyes. 
" You are right 1 must. Then let 
it be a bargain. I will keep your 
secret, and you keep mine." 

A cry rose again in Pearl's throat, 
but her mother's voice from the 
stairs choked it down. With a 
common impulse the girls started 
asunder. Polly opened the door 
and went out to meet Mrs. Red- 
acre. 

Polly was true to her bargain. 
She kept Pearl's secret, and she put 
no obstacle in the way of her 
scheme. Circumstances, moreover, 
just now conspired to help Pearl 



to carry it out. The colonel, after 
a stout resistance, surrendered to 
Lord Ranperth's urgent entreaties 
that he should come and spend a 
month with him in London. The 
curate, a Cambridge man, was en- 
gaged to go on with the boys dur- 
ing his absence. Cousin Bob had 
managed it all with Alice. Every- 
thing was done unknown to the 
colonel, who, finding himself circum- 
vented on all sides, bullied, as he 
pathetically put it, by his own flesh 
and blood, and betrayed by the 
wife of his bosom, had nothing for 
it but to capitulate. 

The Hollow looked lovely in 
this bright spring-time ; the fields 
overflowed with buttercups, and 
the woods were so thickly carpeted 
with primroses that you picked your 
steps not to crush them ; every 
tree and bush and roadside hedge 
was singing with blossoms and 
leaves, with birds and insects. 
They were watching for the cuckoo 
every day; the garden was decking 
itself in early flowers; the grass 
was green as the brightest emerald. 

" It seems a pity to go away just 
as the country is getting to be so 
delicious, does it not ?" said Mrs. 
Redacre, as she and Pearl saunter- 
ed round the garden, making a lit- 
tle bouquet for Mrs. Monteagle. 
" But Paris will be looking lovely, 
too ; you will find the horse-chest- 
nuts in the Tuileries in full glory, 
and this place will be still more 
lovely in a month or so when you 
come back." 

Pearl's heart was full to bursting, 
but she kept the tears down and 
spoke cheerfully of the chestnuts 
in flower and the journey ; but 
when the donkey-cart drove off 
with the luggage, and there was 
nothing for it but to say good-by, 
she could bear it no longer, and 
the tears flowed unchecked as she 



746 



Pearl. 



kissed her mother and felt the 
loving arms round her, clingingly, 
tenderly. 

" Good-by, Pearl ! You will write 
the moment you get to Paris," 
said Polly, kissing her sister with 
more warmth than she had done 
for many a day ; and Pearl clung 
to her for a long moment passion- 
ately. 

" Darling ! let us love one an- 
other always," she whispered, and 
then tore herself away, and the fly 
drove off with her and Colonel Red- 
acre. 

Polly fell on her mother's shoul- 
der and sobbed, and then they 
both cried together. 

The house felt very empty, and 
the mother and daughter were glad 
when Lady Wynmere drove over 
and insisted on carrying them 
away for the rest of the day. 

" You have no excuse now for 
not giving me as much of your 
company as I want, and I want it 
all," said the kind little lady. " I 
call it very shabby of you to be so 
sparing of it to me ; before you 
came^ I managed to live with my- 
self very comfortably, but now I 
have grown to find myself rather 
dull company, and it is all your 
fault." 

She was particularly glad of an 
audience this afternoon, for Mrs. 
Barlow had misbehaved herself at 
a dinner-party at her own house 
the evening before, and Lady Wyn- 
mere wanted to vent her indigna- 
tion against the offender into a 
sympathetic ear. 

"The idea of sending Mrs. Spen- 
cer in with Colonel Gray, and the 
squire himself taking Mrs. Bald- 
win ! It was unpardonable !" 

" Perhaps she did not know that 
Mrs. Spencer was the grand-daugh- 
ter of an earl," pleaded Mrs. Red- 
acre, anxious to make peace. 



" Of course she didn't ! That's 
just it : she never knows who any- 
body is. She has never studied 
her peerage. I do what I can to 
keep her straight about things; but 
she does not always ask me in time, 
and then she commits these dread- 
ful mistakes. The fact is, as I 
have said to her over and over 
again, she should take her book 
every morning for an hour and 
study it? and then she would not be 
continually doing these kind of 
things." 

"I thought there were very few 
people in this neighborhood in the 
peerage ?" said Polly, to whom 
Lady Wynmere had many times 
mentioned the mortifying fact in a 
spirit of self-commiseration. 

" Not many actually of the neigh- 
borhood ; but the good county 
names have all of them links with 
the nobility, and people coming to 
stay with them who are married to 
honorables, or sons of honorables 
and so on. Mrs. Barlow does not 
understand the importance of be- 
ing au courant of all these things. 
Poor woman ! she means well, if she 
would but study her book. I can't 
get her even to read up the county 
families properly ; she comes to me 
to know what she is to do with the 
people at her dinner-parties who 
is to take in whom ; if I were not 
here I really don't know what 
enormities she might not commit." 
Lady Wynmere opened out her 
hands in dismay at the possibilities 
she beheld with her mind's eye. 

The evening passed cheerfully 
enough ; Polly sang, and the boys 
came over to high tea, and they 
all played a round game. 

The time seemed very long to 
Mrs. Redacre until she heard from 
Pearl, but Polly did her best not 
to let the void press too heavily on 
her mother. She was very caress- 



Pearl. 



747 



ing, and full of talk and plans and 
expectations. 

At last a letter came from Pearl. 
Only a few lines written to save the 
post and say that she had had a 
pleasant journey and the dearest 
of welcomes. She was so happy to 
be back in dear old Paris again ; 
it looked gayer and brighter than 
ever. 

"I am delighted she is gone," 
said Mrs. Redacre, enjoying the 
prospect of the cheerful time in 
store for Pearl ; " the change will 
do her good. She was not looking 
quite herself lately." 

Polly chimed in with her mo- 
ther's rejoicings, though in her 
heart she knew there was little 
cause for them. She read between 
the lines of Pearl's short note, and 
took the written words for what 
they were worth. And yet she was 
herself in the dark as to the real 
meaning of either. A barrier had 
risen up between the sisters, and 
Polly could not see through it. 
She and Pearl seemed to have 
brusquely parted company, and to 
be walking on opposite banks with 
a river flowing between them a 
silent, separated life, in whose 
watery bosom a mystery lay sleep- 
ing. Polly missed the close com- 
panionship, the tender union, that 
had doubled every joy and lighten- 
ed the small troubles of their sunny 
lives in the old days that looked so 
far off now ; but she did not let 
herself brood over this. What was 
the use ? She owed it to her mo- 
ther to be cheerful and happy, and 
she needed to have her spirits light 
in order to do justice to herself and 
secure such chances as life had in 
store for her. 

The Leopolds were more than 
cordial in their welcome of Pearl : 
they gushed, they overflowed with 
joy. Cette chere Perle ! What a 



ravissement to see her again ! How 
long the time seemed since she had 
left! But now they must do their 
best to amuse her, so that she 
should be in no hurry to run away. 

" N'est ce pas, nous la garderons 
le plus longtemps possible?" Mme. 
Leopold said, with her hand on 
Pearl's shoulder, and appealing to 
Mrs. Monteagle. 

"I mean to keep her as long as 
I can/' said Mrs. Monteagle, with 
liter little snubbing chuckle. And 
Mme. Leopold replied, "C'estcela!" 
and kissed Pearl, and went away 
all smiles and congratulation. 

" Does she want me to go and 
stay with her ? It is very kind, 
but I should not like it at all," 
said Pearl, alarmed at the prospect 
of being a guest of Leon's mother. 

" Goodness me ! Have you al- 
ready grown so English as all that?" 
exclaimed her friend. " Don't you 
know that Mme. Leopold, like all 
the French, does most of her hos- 
pitality vicariously. It is nous 1'in- 
viterons, nous la feterons, when 
all the time she means you* The 
royal * we ' is very convenient in 
those cases, and Mme. L. adopts 
it extensively." 

Mme. de Kerbec, at least, had 
not become French in this respect, 
though married to the Faubourg. 
She was most hearty in her invita- 
tion to Pearl to come and slay a 
month with her when her present 
visit expired, and, meantime, she 
was sincere in her desire to see as 
much of her as Mrs. Monteagle 
could spare. But Pearl made no 
promises. She had come for an- 
other purpose than amusing her- 
self, and she did not mean to lose 
sight of it. 

" I don't see how I am to hear 
of any likely situation, unless I let 
my friends know that I am looking 
out for one," she urged when Mrs. 



748 



Pearl. 



Monteagle prevented her speaking 
to people about it. " It is, of course, 
nonsense to let any feeling of self- 
love into the matter ; I mean to be 
a governess, and so there is no use 
trying to keep it a secret." 

" That is true ; but there is no 
use in talking about it till we see 
whether the thing is possible. You 
may not find a situation, and in 
that case it will be better not to 
bell the failure all over the town, 
and you might as well advertise 
your name and address in Gali- 
gnani as tell Mme. Leopold about 
it. But don't be impatient, my 
dear; I am looking out. I have 
spoken to several likely persons, 
and told them I want to place a 
steady young woman as governess 
in a nice family." 

" Or companion. I would do for 
that, surely? I wonder why you 
have such doubts about my mak- 
ing a proper governess, Mrs. Mont- 
eagle." And Pearl clasped her 
knees with both hands, her favorite 
attitude in confidential talk, and 
looked up into her old friend's 
face. " I remember you said that 
to me before one evening, when I 
was sitting in this very chair by the 
fire here, as I am now, just before 
we left Paris." 

" I remember it, too ; I said you 
were more fitted to be a wife than 
a governess. You talked a good 
deal of nonsense that evening." 

"Did I?" A smile stole over 
Pearl's face a very sweet smile; 
she turned her head away and 
gazed into the fire, and Mrs. Mont- 
eagle heard a faint sigh. 

" You are much better fitted to 
be a wife, my dear, and that is 
what you are destined for. See if 
I don't turn out a true prophet." 

" I don't see who is to marry 
me," said Pearl, still looking into 
the fire ; " one can't advertise for a 



husband as one can for a situa- 
tion." 

"Husbands turn up when they 
are least expected. To tell you 
the truth, my dear Pearl, this gov- 
erness scheme troubles me chiefly 
in that direction. No man, no 
matter how unworldly he is, likes 
to marry a governess. They marry 
girls of no family, and, worse some- 
times, actresses and public singers, 
and think it no disgrace; but they 
will stick at marrying a governess, 
as if governesses were a race apart, 
like niggers or convicts. It is an 
absurdity; but you can't change 
men." 

" I don't care to change them in 
that respect." 

" You say so now ; but a day 
may come when you will think dif- 
ferently." 

" You won't believe me if I say I 
don't believe that." 

"No, not if you took your oath 
on it ; because you are talking in 
ignorance ignorance of yourself 
and of life, and of that particular 
man who will come some day and 
change all your views of life. Dear 
me ! what fools women are, to be 
sure." 

Pearl began to laugh ; but when 
she looked up there was an expres- 
sion on Mrs. Monteagle's face that 
checked the merriment. 

" Yes, my dear child, we are all 
fools ; and your turn will come like 
every other woman's." She shook 
her head, and drew the silken 
thread through her canvas in si- 
lence for a few moments. " I won- 
der," she said presently, *' whether 
you would be a sensible girl and 
marry if I found you a good hus- 
band ?" 

"What a funny idea !" exclaimed 
Pearl. " Have you one ready to 
produce ?" 

" I could produce one more easi- 



Fearl. 



749 



ly than this situation that you talk 
of. An old friend of mine is look- 
ing out for a wife for her brother, 
and she begged me to help her; he 
is old, close on fifty, but, as she 
says, tres bien conserve, a good 
man and very well off, and the odd 
thing is that he does not want mo- 
ney in a wife; if she is young, and 
pretty, and bien ne'e and bien elevee 
he will take her without a penny." 

" Is he stone deaf, or lame, or 
blind of an eye?" inquired Pearl. 

" No ; he has all his legs, and his 
ears, and his eyes." 

" Then what ails him ?" 

" He has been unfortunate." 

"In what way?" 

" He has had two wives already." 

"Oli! And he is suspected of 
having murdered them ?" 

"No; his character is unim- 
peachable. They died natural 
deaths, one of fever and the other 
of something else. I know enough 
of him to be quite sure that he 
would make a thoroughly kind hus- 
band ; his position, moreover, is ex- 
cellent, a good old name, and a fine 
old chateau in Provence. I have 
never seen Provence, and I have a 
great desire to see it. It would be 
nice to go and stay with you, as 
Mme. la Comtesse. I suppose you 
would ask me after a while." 

Was she jesting, or was it sober 
earnest ? Pearl could not tell; but 
there was no sign of jesting in Mrs. 
Monteagle's manner as she bent 
over her frame, deliberately draw- 
ing her needle in and out, and 
speaking in a more quiet tone than 
usual. 

" If you were a French girl you 
would go down on your knees and 
thank God for such a chance," she 
resumed; "but I dare say, with 
your silly romantic notions about 
marriage, you are going to turn up 
your nose at it." 



" Dear Mrs. Monteagle, you look 
so serious !" said Pearl. 

" That is because I am serious, 
my dear." She stuck her needle 
in the canvas and looked down at 
the young upturned face, as if to 
invite Pearl's full attention. " Pearl, 
you don't know what the world is. 
You have no notion of what it is to 
have to live in other people's hou- 
ses, a dependent in their service. 
You talk about independence ; it is 
nonsense, child. There is no such 
slavery as being a governess. And 
you are not fitt,ed for it ; it would 
soon break your heart. You must 
live in a,n atmosphere of love ; and 
people who pay you don't love you. 
They expect you to love them; that 
comes in as part of the bargain. 
You are made to be in a home of 
your own, and this offer, coming 
at such a moment, looks like a spe- 
cial' interference of Providence." 

" But I don't know this gentle- 
man ; he has never seen me ; he 
might not like me at all, nor I him," 
said Pearl. The earnestness of 
Mrs. Monteagle's manner made it 
impossible for her to treat the mat- 
ter as the joke it would have been 
had any one else proposed it. 

"As to his liking you, he likes 
you so well that he is prepared to 
make every concession in his pow- 
er to your interest." 

" When did he see me ?" said 
Pearl, opening her eyes in amaze- 
ment, while a little inward flutter 
sent the pink to her cheeks. " Who 
is he?" 

"I won't tell you his name, if it 
is quite out of the question your 
entertaining his offer. But is it, 
Pearl?" 

"Yes, quite." 

''And yet, my dear," continued 
her friend, with a gentleness that 
was foreign to her, " you might 
be very happy as this good man's 



750 



PearL 



wife; and you could be of much 
better help to them at home by 
marrying him than by earning your 
pittance a*s a governess. You might 
send the boys to Sandhurst, and 
make your mother's life softer in 
many ways. And you might be 
the means of getting Polly settled 
in life. Is it right to throw all 
these things out of your hand on 
the warrant of a girl's romantic 
prej udices ? You have been brought 
up to imagine that people should 
not marry unless they are in love. 
There is a great dqal of nonsense 
in all that ; the happiest marriages 
I have known have been what 
we scoff at as manages de rai- 
sonr 

Pearl could hardly credit her 
senses. 

"But I have always heard you 
speak with the greatest contempt 
of those kind of marriages," she 
said; "you have scoffed at them 
to me over and over again." 

" One scoffs at many things un- 
til one comes to want them," said 
Mrs. Monteagle, " and then they 
look quite different. But the mar- 
riages you have heard me ridicule 
were not des mariages de raison ; 
they were marriages of interest, 
sordid, heartless bargains, where 
sympathy and principle and reason 
were left out of the reckoning alto- 
gether. This is a very different 
sort of thing. A good, high-prin- 
cipled man, disinterested and kind, 
and who is strongly attracted towards 
you he saw you several times 
when you were living here, though 
you never particularly noticed him, 
I fancy a man whose position and 
antecedents offer a sound guaran- 
tee for a wife's happiness ; there is 
every rational ground for believing 
that you would soon become deep- 
ly attached to him. Of course I 
am assuming that you care for no 



one else, that your affections are 
perfectly disengaged." 

She looked at Pearl, expecting 
to read an unembarrassed assent to 
this remark in the frank, bright 
eyes; but to her surprise they drop- 
ped suddenly, and a blush of ex- 
quisite shame mounted to the young 
girl's cheek and brow. Mrs. Mont- 
eagle turned away and went on 
with her tapestry. She was disap- 
pointed and she was very sorry. 

" We will say no more about it 
for the present," she said ; " you 
will think it over, and perhaps after 
a while you may see things differ- 
ently." 

Pearl slipped off her low chair 
and knelt down beside Mrs. Mont- 
eagle, nestling upon her shoulder. 

" It is very good of you. I am 
very grateful. But indeed I could 
not marry him. I shall never mar- 
ry any one. Never !" 

Mrs. Monteagle patted the soft, 
rippling hair, and feigned not to 
see a tear that dropped on her 
black silk sleeve, glistening like a 
jewel. 

She never mentioned the sub- 
ject again to Pearl, and after this 
she set to work in earnest to find 
her a situation. But it was not 
so easy as Pearl fancied. Three 
weeks went by, and nothing pre- 
sented itself the least eligible. 

" You will be driven either to go 
home or to stay with me, my 
dear," said Mrs. Monteagle one 
morning. "I can't for the life of 
me see why you should not stay 
and be my little demoiselle de 
compagnie. I fulfil- all the condi- 
tions you want : a nice old lady I 
am nice to you, though I am very 
often odious to other people no 
young men loose about the place, 
no impossible manias, and I am 
ready to give a hundred a year 
to be cheered up. What objec- 



Pearl. 



751 



tion can you possibly have to the 
plan ?" 

" Only this : that it would be 
what they call in the government 
offices a job. I should have noth- 
ing on earth to do ; you don't want 
to be cheered up, and you would 
be giving me a hundred a year to 
amuse myself instead of earning 
my bread honestly." 

Mrs. Monteagle gave up the 
point, for she had found out that 
gentle Pearl had a will of her own. 

Mine, de Kerbec had made very 
fine promises about finding her a 
charming family in the Faubourg; 
but nothing had come of them so 
far. 

" No, my dear, and nothing 
will," said Mrs. Monteagle. " She 
is a boast and a goose, and she 
talks too much ; people who talk so 
much never do anything. But she 
means well, poor woman !" 

Mme. Leopold was very kind in 
words, too. Words were, indeed, th e 
only means of helping Pearl, and 
Mme. Leopold was profuse and 
skilful in the use of them; she 
spoke of her everywhere, and she 
spoke judiciously. But no situa- 
tion presented itself; the candidate 
was too young, or too pretty, or 
something else that did not an- 
swer. 

One day Mme. de Kerbec came 
to take her for a drive ; but first 
she took her with her to call upon 
some ancient dames who lived in 
ramshackle old hotels on the other 
side of the river. Old frumps, Polly 
would have disrespectfully called 
them ; but Mme. de Kerbec assured 
Pearl they were the crime de la 
ere me of the Faubourg. 

" I had hopes of placing you 
with the dear marquise," she said. 
" but her son is coming home on 
leave in June, and she is afraid of 
having you there while he is in the 



way; she says you are much too 
pretty. I told her she had nothing 
to fear from that ; that you would 
know how to keep the young mar- 
quis in his place ; but it would not 
be pleasant for you." 

" I never suspected what an ad- 
vantage it was to be old and ugly," 
said Pearl with a little bitter laugh. 

"Yes, when one has to go out it 
is an advantage. I wish I wanted 
a companion. If the count were 
to pop off I would engage you at 
once, Pearl, and treat you exactly 
like an equal. And you would be 
surprised to see what a brilliant 
circle I would get about me soon. 
I think you would be happy with 
me ; and I want a friend. I get no 
sympathy from the count; our 
characters and dispositions don't 
agree, you see. But I don't com- 
plain. This world is not meant to 
be a happy one, or the prophet 
would not have called it the Val- 
ley of Tears. One does what one 
can to lighten one's lot, but one 
can't change it." And Captain 
Jack lay back on the soft blue 
cushions, and sighed. " 1 have 
been much worried these last few 
days," she continued. "Mme. 
Galbois has played me a very nasty 
trick; really, the ingratitude of the 
world is enough to make one long 
to leave it. What I have done for 
that woman it would be impossible 
to say, and yet she won't give up 
one whit of her own will to please 
me. The bills I pay her, year after 
year, would keep a family in luxury, 
and yet she sends me the most un- 
becoming things, never considering 
my style of face or figure, but 
sacrificing me to the fashion. I 
really think I must give her up 
and try some one else." 

" I certainly would in your 
place," said Pearl. 

" You really advise me to give 



752 



Pearh 



her up ? That shows you are a true 
friend, Pearl. You see she does not 
consult my style in her dresses. It 
is really hard on me, for after all 
what pleasure have I in life except 
my dress ? I don't mean to say 
that is the only one; one has one's 
friends, and their sympathy is 
precious. But it is something on a 
dull day to get home an elegant 
costume or a pretty bonnet, and 
have the excitement of trying them 
on ; and you can feel for me when 
I tell you that nine times out of 
ten it brings me nothing but bitter 
disappointment. We had better 
turn back. The wind from the 
lake is growing too chilly." 

The freeze was delicious, Pearl 
thought ; but then her head was 
aching and the air cooled it. The 
wood was beautiful on this sunny 
May afternoon ; the trees clothed 
in their tender and brilliant greens; 
the smooth velvet grasses sloping 
down to the lake shining like sheets 
of emerald in the sunlight ; the flow- 
er-beds lighting up the sward with 
their blaze of color, and the Wel- 
lingtonias throwing their conical 
shadows down into the water. 
The birds were singing in the 
acacia-walks, where the foliage was 
thick and shady, and the noise of 
the waterfall made a murmurous 
accompaniment close by. What a 
sweet, fair world it . would be if 
there were no care in it, Pearl 
thought, and if there was not so 
much silly selfishness in human 
beings ! Mme. de Kerbec's lamen- 
tations over her dress sounded like 
a profanation amidst the sweet, sol- 
emn music of the spring, and they 
jarred cruelly on Pearl's aching head 
and anxious heart. She slept unea- 
sily that night. It seemed that her 
scheme was a foolish one, and des- 
tined to end in disappointment and 
humiliation. 



Next morning, as she sat with 
Mrs. Monteagle in the drawing- 
room, Mme. Leopold came bustling 
in. 

" Bonnes nouvelles ! I have suc- 
ceeded!" she cried, embracing 
Pearl effusively ; and she sat down 
and opened her ample velvet wrap. 
" My mother-in-law has come to 
town, and she has commissioned 
me to find her a dame de compa- 
gnie. She is a de'licieuse, bonne, par - 
faite. Pearl will have absolutely 
nothing to do but look after the 
house, which will be an amusement, 
and read aloud of an evening; and 
Mme. Mere returns to Gardanvalle 
in six weeks. The chateau is splen- 
did ; it belonged to the De Morte- 
marres, and was restored en vieux 
style by my father-in-law's father. 
We spend five months of the year 
there all together ; so there will 
be that for the dear child to look 
forward to. Now, is it not most 
providential ?" 

" For your mother-in-law, cer- 
tainly," said Mrs. Monteagle. 

" And for me, too, if Mme. la 
Baronne finds me to her taste," 
added Pearl. 

" We need have no fear on that 
score, I think," replied Mme. Lo- 
pold. " Will you come and see her 
now with me ?" 

Pearl was going to say she would 
be delighted; but Mrs. Monteagle 
interfered. 

"I will take my young friend to 
call on Mme. Leopold," she said. 
" It is more fitting that I should go 
with her than you. When can your 
mother-in-law receive us?" 

" She will be at home all the 
afternoon ; but there may be people 
there when you call ; that is why 
I proposed taking Pearl now. We 
are sure to find her alone." 

" What o'clock is it ? Not one 
yet. It is early for me to go out ; 



Mater Dolor osa. 753 

but I don't mind that. Go and put ter for Pearl than she could for 

on your bonnet, my dear, and ring herself." 

for Parker." " But you have spoken already, I 

Mme. Leopold had no excuse for understood ?" said Mrs. Monteagle. 
protesting; but she was highly dis- " Oh! yes. I drew the most flat- 
pleased at having the affair whip- tering picture I could of her." 
ped out of her hands in this un- "You had simply to speak the 
ceremonious way. It was really too truth ; there was no flattery need- 
cavalier of Mrs. Monteagle. ed. But whatever has to be said 

" Just as you like," she said, ris- now, I will say it." 

ing and drawing up her cloak. "I "The impertinence!" muttered 

thought it would have made things Mrs. Monteagle as the baroness 

easier if I had taken Pearl ; for left the room, " I don't see how I 

whatever I say with Mme. Mere is can let the girl go amongst those 

law, and I could have spoken bet- people at all." 

TO BE CONTINUED. 



MATER DOLOROSA. 



MOTHER of Sorrows ! Mother blest ! 

Though sweet each soft and reverent name 
That rises from the loving breast, 

And faltering lips in fondness frame, 
Yet one there is, beyond the rest, 

That tells thy saddest, holiest claim 
The nearest, dearest, truest, best; 

The one where all thy love and woe 
Are both most tenderly expressed ; 

Sweetest in heaven above, on earth below : 
" Mother of Sorrows !" 
Let me call thee so ! 

ii. 

Blest they who now thy glory share, 

And scarce less blest who, 'neath the cross, 
With thee the pain and anguish bear ! 

Ah ! close to thee, in darkness and in loss, 
So let me stand, thy crown of woe to wear, 

And steadfast while the tempests toss, 
So, upright, hold life's load of care ! 

When sorrow's long night-watches darker grow, 
Close to thee, in silence and in prayer, 

While Calvary's trembling shadows gather slow, 
" Mother of Sorrows," 
Hold me ever so ! 

DETROIT, November, 1878. 

VOL. XXVIIL 48 



754 



Rome under the Popes. 



ROME UNDER THE POPES AND UNDER THE PIEDMON- 

TESE. 



II. 



WE have described the material 
condition of the Roman people 
under the rule of the pontiffs. We 
will now, guided by official decla- 
rations and legislative documents, 
examine whether this condition 
has improved or deteriorated -under 
Italian domination, how far the 
Revolution has kept its promises 
to the people which it deluded, 
and whether that people lias not 
reason to repent of its inertia in 
not having boldly rallied as one 
man around the throne of its 
father and king, and repelled with 
vigor and determination the 
stranger whose hand now presses 
upon it with a weight which its 
tepid loyalty and doubtful fidelity 
merit but did not expect. 

" Would Heaven," wrote, in 1860, M. 
Edmond About "would Heaven, which 
has given the Romans ten centuries of 
clerical government, grant them, by way 
of compensation, ten good years of ray 
administration, we should be likely to 
see the church possessions in more 
able and energetic hands. 

" We should see the right of primo- 
geniture suppressed, the large proper- 
ties subdivided, and the owners com- 
pelled by the force of circumstances to 
cultivate their land ; a good law regard- 
ing exportation would enable specula- 
tors to grow corn on a large scale ; a 
network of good roads and lines of 
railway would transport the agricultural 
products from one end of the country 
to the other ; while a national marine 
would give them circulation all over the 
world, etc., etc. . . . 

"But," he added, "why need we 
launch into these details, when it is 
enough to say that those who are now the 
subjects of the pope will be rich and prosper- 
ous beyond any other European nation, so 



soon as they are no longer governed by a 
pope ?" 

The experiment has been tried, 
and we are therefore enabled to 
examine how far the present fe- 
licity of> the Roman people, after 
eight years of Piedmontese govern- 
ment, fulfils this glowing prediction. 
Before entering upon financial 
questions let us ask, in the first 
place, what has been done for the 
souls of this people ? 

All that is possible has been and 
is being done to unchristianize 
them, gradually, persistently, and 
surely. 

" Le clericalism e, c'est Vennemi" 
said Gambetta in the French 
Chamber in 1877 ; and this princi- 
ple had been acted upon by the 
revolutionists in Italy from 1860 
and before. The persecution of 
clericalism had there a regular 
plan of operation. In the first 
place, the convents were despoiled 
of their libraries. These libraries, 
whose priceless riches had been 
accumulated by the patient labor 
of twenty generations, were piled 
into wagons and thrown together 
in the Minerva. Then, of all these 
mingled collections, a library was 
formed, to which was affixed, by 
way of decoration, the name of the 
royal robber. 

For a time the religious could 
continue at least a portion of their 
accustomed duties and exercises 
in their despoiled convents, but 
soon these, too, were taken from 
them, and the ejected inmates 
compelled to pay a tax for the pit- 
tance they had been promised of 
an alimentary pension of three 



Rome under the Popes. 



755 



hundred or four hundred francs, 
whether this pension were paid or 
not.* 

Many emigrated, to seek in other 
lands a refuge no longer afforded 
them on the Christian soil of Italy, 
where their number lessens daily. 
Soon whole provinces will be left 
without priests, and this result will 
have been obtained without appar- 
ent violence. The government will 
continue to protest its good inten- 
tions before the careless or too 
credulous European courts, to di- 
late on political necessities and le- 
gal or pecuniary requirements, and 
so will accomplish unmolested its 
infernal task of the dechristianiza- 
tton of the country. 

For men have learnt to perse- 
cute politely. It is with forms of 
courtesy and respect that they now 
force open the monastery gates. 
They talk of the pain it gives them 
to accomplish their mission, of the 
necessity of obeying the laws, and 
do not blush to commend them- 
selves to the prayers of those whom 
they are come to despoil. Thus, as 
it were, they stifle their prey with 
gloved and perfumed hands. 

With regard to the hospitals and 
infirmaries the evil is , delayed. 
The sisters are still allowed to 
nurse the sick and bedridden. 
The press demands their expul- 
sion, but the moment for this has 
not yet come and the government 
resists. The people iove the reli- 
gious orders, and prefer to have by 
their sick-beds the servants of Je- 
sus Christ. The revolution does 
not find it advisable to be too off- 
hand in this matter, especially as 
not everybody is inclined to tend 
fever patients and madmen gratis, 

* Very many cases have been known of poor 
religious expelled from their convents who had for 
several years been waiting for the payment of this 
pension, but in vain. They were compelled, never- 
theless, to pay the impost on the money due to 
them, of which they had not received a cent. 



and the treasury is empty. This 
consideration, therefore, weighs with 
the government to allow the conse- 
crated servants of the poor to fulfil, 
their generous mission ; it contents 
itself with a few minor vexations 
suppressions of costume and the 
like until the people shall by de- 
grees become habituated to chan- 
ges which would repel them at pre- 
sent. 

But what " regenerated Italy " 
most desires is a new generation im- 
bued frith its spirit and its doctrines; 
and, in order to obtain this, it per- 
verts and corrupts the young. The 
religious of both sexes have been 
expelled from San Michele and 
Termini, and there are both athe- 
ist and Protestant schools, to which 
the children of the poor are entic- 
ed by the offer to feed them be- 
tween the hours of instruction, and 
even by money given to the pa- 
rents. It has, moreover, been ruled 
that those only who send their chil- 
dren to these schools should have 
their names inscribed at the Bu- 
reau de Bienfaisance, or charitable 
relief-office. 

As a specimen of what is taught 
in these schools, M. Lallemand* 
mentions that at the time of his 
visiting Rome in 1875 a master 
was hearing the recitation of the 
catechism (for at that time external 
forms were still preserved to some 
extent), and at the question, "Where 
is God?" the child answering, 
" God is everywhere," the master 
interrupted him by saying : "Since 
he is everywhere, look under that 
bench and tell me if you can find 
him." 

At Termini, shortly after the 
expulsion of the nuns, a mother 
came to see her daughter, and, 
alarmed at the report which had 
reached her of the scandals taking 

*See V Association Catholique, 15 Aout, 1878. 



756 



Rome under tJic Popes* 



place in the establishment, with 
tears recommended her child to 
pray to the Blessed Virgin. On 
hearing this a female teacher who 
was present said : " The Madonna 
has been a long time dead, if, in- 
deed, she ever existed !" 

Thus is childhood now taught 
in the papal city ! The govern- 
ment of progress would lead the 
people, not back to paganism, but 
to still lower depths, for the pagans 
were not atheists.* 

The press of regenerated Italy 
is actively at work to hasten this 
result. Day by day it instils its 
poison into the minds of the peo- 
ple, exciting or insinuating every 
evil passion, and teaching contempt 
of authority and hatred of religion 
with a craft so deadly and diabolical 
that the artisan, amid the toils and 
trials and privations of his daily life, 
no longer lifts his -weary eyes with 
comfort and confidence to heaven. 
Doubt, like a leaden weight, lies 
on his heart ; the teaching of his 
infancy and youth is undermined 
by the sophisms of the revolution- 
ists. He is not yet an unbeliever, 
but already his sky is overcast, his 
future is shrouded in the mists of 
uncertainty, and he cannot, as in 
past days, think of God and hea- 
ven and the saints his Father, his 
home, and his friends for eternity 
with consolation and hope. 

This, then, is what the .new gov- 
ernment has done for the souls of 
the Roman people. 

But if it robs them of their spi- 
ritual and eternal possessions, does 
it at least secure their temporal and 
material well-being? 

Here again there is a painful 
eloquence in facts. 

What can be said of security in a 

* Religious instruction is now entirely banished 
from the schools of many Italian cities, and certain 
municipal councils propose to substitute for it the 
study of u the rights of the man and the citizen." 



country where the prisons are full, 
where an honest man is no longer 
in safety even within the precincts 
of the towns, and where the public 
papers are full of the exploits of 
brigands on whose heads a price is 
set by the government ? And not 
only crime but poverty also is ever 
on the increase ; nor can it be oth- 
erwise when taxation, instead of 
being light as under the papal rule, 
is becoming insupportable. 

" There are in Italy about forty 
different taxes, each of which, in- 
dependently of the vexations ac- 
companying its requisition, dries 
up the very sources of the public 
revenues." ' 

The two principal imposts are 
those of il macinato, the grist-tax 
i.e., of 2 lire per quintal on all 
grain to be ground and the second, 
the income-tax, of 13 lire 2oc. per 
100 lire, on revenues arising from 
(i) inherited property ; (2) on 
stipends, pensions, annuities, inter- 
ests, and dividends ; (3) on the 
fixed revenues of ecclesiastical be- 
nefices ; (4) on profits arising from 
trade, commerce, and the exercise 
of any profession or employment. 

In short, this tax falls upon all 
revenues, not derived from funded 
property, which are obtained with- 
in the Italian territory or by per- 
sons resident in it. This law (of 
the i4th July, 1864) is so rigorous- 
ly enforced that it does not even 
spare the honoraria for Masses said 
by poor priests despoiled of all 
they possessed, nor yet the alms 
sent by the Holy Father to the 
Italian bishops who had been dri- 
ven from their palaces and robbed 
of their property by the revolu- 
tionists. Magistrates have, never- 
theless, been found independent 
enough to annul the judgments 



* Giuseppe Ricciardi, Guerra alia Poverta 
quoted by M. Lallemand. j 



I 



Rome under the Popes. 



757 



given by the lower tribunals in fa- 
vor of these imposts, and to order 
the restitution of the money thus 
extorted. 

With regard to the tax upon the 
honoraria for Masses, it was not a 
matter of mere exaction ; it was in- 
tended to place the priest before 
the eyes of the people as a trades- 
man, like any other, and one who 
made a traffic of his sacred minis- 
try. And thus by this tax a triple 
result was obtained i.e., an increase 
of revenue for the treasury, the 
further impoverishment of the cler- 
gy, and a lowering of them in the 
popular affection and esteem. 

The other imposts, especially the 
tax upon grist, paralyze all activity 
in agriculture, close the mills, and, 
as an inevitable consequence, ren- 
der the taxes still more crushing, 
since it becomes necessary to spend 
considerable sums for the transport 
of grain. 

From the frequent complaints of 
the effects of the macinato, made 
from time to time by deputies in 
the Chamber, we need only quote 
the following : 

" It is," said the Deputy Griffini in 
1876, " the duty of the Chamber to be- 
stow attention on the general distress, 
the principal cause of which, in these 
later times, is the tax of the macinato. 
We are all aware," he added, " that the 
country districts of Upper Italy are de- 
populated by emigration, the peasantry 
finding even the little bread they are 
able to obtain taxed as soon as they have 
obtained it. And this impost is much 
more onerous than it appears, since it 
not only exacts the quantity necessary 
for the payment of the tax, but much be- 
sides, the millers wishing to indemnify 
themselves for a multitude of expenses, 
and especially for those occasioned by 
the numerous lawsuits they are obliged 
to carry on. They also make a point of 
paying themselves for the continual fear 
they live in of the fines ever hanging 
over their heads." * 

* VUnita for February 5, 1877, proves that from 



"The question of greatest urgency," 
said another deputy, "is that of bread 
and hunger. In the valley of Olmonti 
the mills are stopped and the people 
obliged to pay 10 or 12 lire (to and fro) 
for the transport to Aosta of corn to be 
ground. This, added to the tax of 2 lire 
on each quintal, gives a total of 12 or 14 
lire per quintal, without reckoning the 
price of the corn. . . . Surely it is high 
time to take measures for the relief of 
this population. The people have a 
right to live !" 

Nor is the closing of the mills in 
the Vale of Aosta an isolated cir- 
cumstance. In many other locali- 
ties the inhabitants are. under the 
necessity of taking their com a 
distance of fifteen or twenty miles 
to be ground. 

Owing to this new state of things 
the country is obliged to import 
foreign flour on a larger scale than 
formerly a fact which, in many 
places, leads to an entire cessation 
of the culture of the inferior ce- 
reals. The Deputy Agostino Plau- 
tino stated (Nov. 8, 1876) that he 
knew " farms where, a few years age, 
the cultivation of cereals was car- 
ried on on a scale six, seven, and 
eight times as considerable as now ; 
so that farms which then sowed 80 
or 100 acres of land do not now 
sow more than 10 or 12, and in 
many cases the cultivator leaves 
the land to itself and sows no 
more." 

But the macinato is not, as we 
have said, the only tax beneath 
which regenerated Italy groans. 

"We have," said the Deputy Visocchi 
in 1877, " the tax on movable property, 
13 lire, 20 per cent. ; we have the tax upon 
capital, so oppressive that in some parts 
of the country it eats away the only re- 
sources left to the population for culti- 

1869 to 1876 the Italians have paid, solely for the 
macinato, 1,400,000,000 fr., of which 500,000.000 
only have entered the treasury of the state. 
This tax existed previously in some parts of Italy 
before the unification, but it was very light. Never- 
theless, the revolutionists made it a pretext for at- 
tacking the temporal power of the Roman pontiff. 



758 



Rome under the Popes. 



vating their own land ; we have the regis- 
try tax, so heavy also that, rather than 
pay it, the citizens deprived themselves 
of the advantages of registration, which 
would give to their acts a certain and 
authentic date." 

Funded property, it must be add- 
ed, has greatly diminished in value 
in consequence of the immense 
quantity sold by the exchequer;* 
and from this cause, added to 
those already enumerated, the suf- 
ferings of the peasantry are so se- 
vere that we need not be surprised 
at the description given of them \ in 
the answer to a circular from Nico- 
tera on the subject of emigration. 
The letter concludes as follows: 

" We grow wheat, and do not know 
the taste of white bread. 

"We cultivate vines, and drink water. 

" We raise cattle, and touch meat only 
on festivals. 

" Our sole portion, on this soil of 
Italy, is a little maize, and even this, too, 
is subjected to your iniquitous tax of the 
madnato. 

' For nearly sixteen years this race of 
deceivers of the people has been shout- 
ing in our ears the high-sounding words 
of country, unity, liberty, and similar 
fooleries. 

" At first we put faith in their fine 
promises, and shed our blood in battles 
for the independence of our country. 
What have we gained by our sacrifices? 

" Salt, our only condiment, is too cost- 
ly for us to buy. 

"All articles of consumption have 
greatly increased in price. 

" The conscription exists as before, but 
under much heavier conditions." 

This, then, is the state of the 
peasantry even in the north of 
Italy, a country abounding in re- 
sources. What, then, must it be in 

* Even in the Liberia, a republican journal, we 
find the following(in April, 1877) : " In many pro- 
vinces the sale of the property of the clergy has 
produced results anything but advantageous. Some 
of the purchasers. . . . have been obliged to resell 
the land they have acquired with as much haste as 
improvidence ; thus the exchequer finds itself under 
the necessity of proceeding to a second or third sale ; 
and, if the truth must be owned, we must confess 
that funded property is at this time in anything but 
a prosperous condition." 

t In the Indicatore Italiano, November, 1876. 



the south ? But, it may be asked, 
are' not at least the working-classes 
in the towns better off than before ? 
Even a short sojourn among them 
furnishes ample proof to the con- 
trary. 

In the accounts for 1865, under 
the pontifical government, we find, 
under the heading of " Customs 
and Grist Tax in Rome," the sum of 
4,874,288 lire for a population of 
197,000 souls />., rather less than 
25 lire per head. Ten years later, 
in 1875, thanks to the government 
of "reparation" this same article 
figures in the municipal budget 
at 10,000,000 lire, which gives, in 
proportion to the population, near- 
ly 45 lire per head, or double the 
average impost in 1865. The price 
of all the necessaries of life hav- 
ing considerably increased, and 
the process of augmentation con- 
tinuing with each session, it is hard 
to see how, in a few years, the poor 
are to live.* 

The popes, as we have already 
seen, were careful not only that 
their subjects should be able to 
obtain provisions at a moderate 
amount, but also that they should 
not be required to pay exorbitant 
rent. All this has been changed. 
The Jus Gazzaga established in 
the Ghetto, in favor of the Jews, 
was first abolished. It is true that 
they can now live where they please, 
but they have had to submit to so 
considerable an increase of rent 
that their position cannot be said 
to be improved. 

Those landlords who, for having 
built or restored houses in Rome, 
had by a law of Leo XII. been ex- 

* Eight lire 66c. of octroi are now charged on 
wine, instead of 4 lire as formerly. Meat, which 
in 1856 cost g'C. the kilo, (for beef), il. yc for veal, 
and gQC. for mutton, is now charged as follows : 2!. 
250. the kilo, for beef (ist quality), 2!. 10 or il. goc. 
for second quality ; veal and mutton, 3!. 2cc. the kilo. 

The octroi is now laid on a number of articles of 
food previously exempt from it, such as fowl, eggs, 
fresh vegetables and fruit, etc. 



under the Popes. 



759 



empted from taxation for the re- 
mainder of the century, have now 
been rendered subject to it like 
every one else. The proprietors 
pleaded against this enactment, but 
lost their cause. Certain com- 
panies endeavored to create a new 
quarter near the railway station, 
with a view principally to lodge 
strangers accustomed to spend the 
winter in Rome. But few came, 
and many houses have remained 
empty ever since. The money 
laid out in building them has not 
been of the slightest benefit to the 
people; and as, on the other hand, 
nearly alt the houses formerly 
directed with so paternal a hand by 
the religious orders have fallen into 
the possession of the buyers of 
ecclesiastical property, while the 
population has been increased by 
an influx of 40,000 small employes, 
work-people, and adventurers of 
every description, come in the train 
of the government, there has re- 
sulted from these different causes 
an excessive augmentation of rents. 
The poor must now pay 35 or 40 
lire a month for the humblest lodg- 
ing and 20 lire for a miserable 
room, and it has been found neces- 
sary to open some of the attics of 
the municipality to receive a por- 
tion of these people without hearth 
or home. 

In fact, the dearness of lodging 
has much occupied the municipal 
authorities, and there are few ses- 
sions in which the question is not 
mooted ; but as all the money was 
spent in building rich quarters 
which have remained uninhabited, 
no expedient has been found to 
remedy the existing state of things. 
In a sitting of Feb. 27, 1871, two 
of the councillors suggested that 
the 275 convents and monasteries 
then existing in the city should be 
utilized to lodge the government 



employes and their families who 
came to settle at Rome. But the 
suggestion was not acted upon, the 
exchequer much preferring to sell 
those buildings than to use them 
for the benefit of persons in its 
employ. 

It will perhaps be supposed that 
the salaries of the work-people 
have been raised in proportion to 
the increased prices of provisions 
and lodging. This, however, is 
not the case. 

Before 1870 a good working 
mason gained from 2!. 500. to 3 lire 
a day. He can now gain 3!. 5oc. 
In manufactures the payments 
have varied, and may be reckoned 
at 4 or 5 lire per day. It is, then, 
with this sum of 24 or 30 lire a 
week (from which must be deduct- 
ed the times when work fails) that 
the Roman artisan must feed, 
clothe, and lodge himself and his 
family, when meat is about 2 lire 
the kilo, and a room 20 lire a 
month. But then he must pay for 
the glory of belonging to United 
Italy " One and Regenerated." 

There is also another side of the 
question. Under pretence of serv- 
ing the interests of the people, al- 
most all the religious orders have 
been driven out or ruined. The 
immense amount they distributed 
in alms has consequently been 
suppressed, the commission of sub- 
sidies no longer exists, and, finally, 
all the charitable institutions which 
remain have been burdened by 
taxation to an extent which neces- 
sarily circumscribes their action. 

And what has the government 
done in compensation for all these 
evils ? It has opened a few men- 
dicity offices, thrown straw on the 
floor of a few garrets, and by 
means of its " Charitable Associa- 
tion " distributed a few hundred 
thousand lire ; while, in answer to 



Rome under the Popes. 



the complaints of the people, the 
ministers have hitherto always 
found reasons for postponing any 
diminution of the imposts. They 
talk of "financial necessities " and 



Placidi declared, Rome in 1875, 
with its population of 250,000 souls, 
supported a burden of taxation 
amounting to 44,000,000, or 196 
lire per head a sum utterly out of 



imperative measures," and during proportion to the resources of the 



all this time the great question 
which agitates Italy is, according 
to the Deputy Mussi, the question 
of bread and hunger. 

The sole resource left to the 
Italian people is emigration ; and 
consequently we find this steadily 
on the increase. 

The Official Gazette for Septem- 
ber 27, 1876, in publishing (par- 
tial) statistics of the emigration 
during forty years, gives the fol- 
lowing figures as representing de- 
partures for the Argentine Repub- 
lic alone : 

Year. No. Emigrants. 

1871 8,170 

1872 14,769 

1873 26,878 

1874 23,904 

Total 7.3,721 

If to this, says the same organ, are 



city, and which never could have 
been raised were it not for the 
pilgrims from foreign lands who, 
thronging round the throne of their 
pontiff, spent in Rome their silver 
and gold metals now all but un- 
known in that kingdom, where 
scarcely anything is to be seen but 
paper money.* 

The pressure of a heavy taxation 
is also more severely felt in Italy 
than in the other countries just 
named. What comparison can be 
made between a nation whose im- 
portation always exceeds its expor- 
tation, and France or England, 
commercial, agricultural, and man- 
ufacturing countries, whose produce 
finds a market throughout the 
world? It must be remembered 
also that the conditions of climate 
in Italy, especially in the south, 



added those emigrants the date of where the sun " rains torpor," do 



whose departure has not been ex- 
actly ascertained, the total reaches 
100,000. This is to one country 
only, and it is calculated that since 
Rome was made the capital of 



not permit of the vigor and energy 
found in the inhabitants of more 
temperate regions. 

No description can give an idea 
of the distress into which the popu- 



" United Italy " more than 500,000 lations of Southern Italy are plung- 
ed. The country districts are be- 
coming deserted. An odious mili- 
tary law which carries off the 
youth, even those intended for the 
service of the sanctuary, to throw 
them into barracks, plunges fami- 
lies into despair. Nowhere does 



Italians have left their country to 
settle in various parts of the New 
World. 

It has been asked how the 
distress which is the cause of this 
emigration is to be explained, 
when the Italian pays, on an aver- 
age, taxes of which the total is less 
than in other countries of Europe, 
this total being 48 francs, while in 
France it is 72, in England 58, 
and in Belgium 43. But' this 
average for Italy is not exact, since 
it does not include the local taxa- 
tion. Thus, as the Councillor 



* In L? Association Catkolique (August, 1877) 
M. Lallemand says : " And here I declare that, in 
the course of all my three visits to Rome, I have 
never once seen a single piece of money with the ef- 
figy of Victor Emanuel nothing but square bits 
of paper more or less large and more or less crum- 
pled. The Piedmontese understand the state of af- 
fairs so well that one of the tax-collectors, in 1876, 
replied to a tradesman who complained of the 
amount demanded of him : ' Make it up to yourself 
from the pilgrims? " 



A Valentine. 761 

security any longer exist, and, un- church ; and, as we have said, not 

der an appearance of sombre resig- content with making the lives of 

nation, the mass of the country peo- the people bitter, it must seek also 

pie, if they do not emigrate, await the eternal perdition of their souls, 

a favorable moment for shaking off and to this end the plan of dechris- 

the yoke which weighs them down, tianization is being carried out 

And this is what the revolution with a subtlety and persistency 

has, in a few years, done for the which will not rest until it has left 

"happy and peaceful populations of Italy without altars, without wor- 

the temporal domains of the ship, and without God. 



A VALENTINE. 



WHAT crowning wish shall I send thee this day 
That shall all blessedness enfold within, 
Whose very perfectness for thee shall win 

All holiest treasures to be thine alway ? 

I dare not wish thee absence of all tears, 
Lest so some greater good to thee be lost, 
Some noblest purpose by such prayer be crossed- 

So loving thee my very hopes are fears. 

To One more loving still I thee confide 
With prayer that perfect be in thee his will, 
Which sure can never work thee any ill 

My dearest hope so poor his love beside ! 

So wish I, Sweet, his will and thine be one, 

So thou God's fairest flower 'neath the sun. 



n. 

Of all that bloom, for me the fairest one 

Grown in God's sunshine, in pure light arrayed, 
Dowered with meekness won from Heaven's shade 

That groweth sweeter flowers than our sun. 

So clad in holiness thou art, I dare 

But lowly kneel thy perfume rare to breathe, 
Scarce hope its fulness through my life to wreathe, 

Or, honor's star, thee on my bosom wear, 

That men may know how spotless my renown. 
Yet must I love thee, even while I fear 
With less than heav'n to dim thy radiance clear; 

Yet, dare I ask, with reverent knee bent do\vn, 

Be thou my Beatrix, blessed light to shine 

And guide me ever on in ways divine. 



762 



Cardinal Manning. 



CARDINAL MANNING. 



IT is now about ten years since 
I first met the man who was then 
the Archbishop of Westminster, but 
who is now Cardinal Priest of the 
Holy Roman Church. I went to 
him as a perfect stranger, choos- 
ing to withhold the letters of intro- 
duction with which I had been 
kindly furnished, and wishing to 
present myself before him as a 
Catholic layman who desired his 
counsel and advice. I had the 
idea that the counsel and advice 
which I sought would be more 
weighty with me if given purely 
on the merits of the case; and I 
did not wish that condemnation 
if condemnation were to come 
should be softened or averted by 
any considerations of personal 
character that might have come 
into play had I presented my let- 
ters. Had I then known Henry 
Edward Manning as I now know 
him, no such scruples would have 
had weight with me. 

The archbishop was at that time 
living in York Place, Baker Street; 
for this was long before his remo- 
val to his present quarters in West- 
minster. York Place, near the 
Baker Street station of the Un- 
derground Railway, is a highly re- 
spectable but very dull and quiet 
section of Baker Street. Its in : 
habitants are, or were then, mainly 
physicians and surgeons of good 
standing, well-to-do solicitors and 
barristers, and other professional 
people. It contained a few highly 
respectable shops ; and the famous 
wax-work gallery of Madame Tus- 
saud was not "far distant. There 
was no delay in obtaining an audi- 
ence. The man-servant who open- 



ed the door took my card, con- 
ducted me up one flight of stairs 
to a spacious drawing-room, and 
left me there. I had scarcely time 
to look about me when a curtain 
concealing the entrance to another 
room was pushed aside, and the 
archbishop entered. This was ten 
years ago; and when I last saw 
him he did not seem to have aged 
or changed. After receiving my 
homage he bade me seat myself 
near him, and at once led the 
conversation to the subject on 
which I had called, and which I 
had made known in very few 
words. In five minutes he had 
placed me completely at my ease ; 
in ten minutes we were in the full 
tide of an animated conversation, 
speaking as confidentially as if we 
had been friends from boyhood. 
The questions which he asked were 
always exactly to the point, pierc- 
ing to the very marrow of the mat- 
ter, and showing an intimate know- 
ledge of it. At the end of half an 
hour all was ended ; the case was 
summed up and the decision pro- 
nounced a decision which was 
against me, but of the perfect jus- 
tice and wisdom of which I was 
thoroughly convinced. I arose to 
take my departure. 

" Can you not give me half an 
hour now ?" said the archbishop, 
with that irresistibly winning smile 
that gives to his attenuated face a 
matchless charm. "For, if you 
could, we can cry quits, and you 
would owe me nothing. Or per- 
haps I would then be your debtor. 
You are an American, and have 
recently left the United States. 
Can you not tell me something re- 



Cardinal Manning. 



763 



specting certain things in America 
of which I would like to know? 
I meet a good many American 
priests, and not a few American 
laymen, but not very often Catho- 
lic laymen ; and I like to hear 
from both sides, you know." 

Of course I was only too de- 
lighted, and we plunged into a con- 
versation which lasted, not a half- 
hour but several hours. Thus be- 
gan my acquaintance with this 
great prince of the church an 
acquaintance that I look back up- 
on with feelings of unmixed plea- 
sure. This first conversation was 
a remarkable one from the wide 
scope which it took. Cardinal 
Manning is not only a finished 
conversationalist, he is an admi- 
rable listener ; and that is a rare 
gift. Prince Jerome Napoleon 
does not possess it. He wishes to 
do the greater part of the talking 
himself, and when he is interfer- 
ed with in this enjoyment he is 
sometimes rude enough to yawn. 
A friend once told me a story 
respecting this weakness of the 
prince : " We were discussing a 
subject which Jerome had himself 
introduced, and on which he need- 
ed information. I had made it a 
specialty, and he had asked me a 
certain question which necessitat- 
ed a somewhat elaborate reply. In 
the middle of it Jerome had the 
impudence to yawn in my face. 
I rose from my chair, took my 
hat, made him a formal bow, and 
walked to the door without say- 
ing a word. He sprang up and 
intercepted me. ' Pardonnez moi ! 
Pardonnez moi !' he exclaimed ; 
'you have misconstrued me. Re- 
call yourself, if you please, to 
the fact that at our dinner last 
night, at which you assisted with 
so much spirit, we sat until day- 
light, and that I have only had 



six hours' sleep. It was not that 
what you were saying interested 
me not, but that I have the bad 
habit of yawning when I have not 
slept my usual period.' But, said 
my friend, I insisted on going 
away immediately, and since then 
Jerome has never yawned in my 
face." 

Cardinal Manning never yawns in 
any one's face, nor does any one 
feel weary or sleepy while he is 
speaking. As I have said, he is an 
excellent listener one of those very 
rare persons who can place himself 
perfectly en rapport with his in- 
terlocutor, and lead him along in 
the flowery and fruitful paths of 
sensible conversation. In this in- 
terview, as I now recall it after the 
lapse of ten years, the archbishop 
appeared to desire information 
chiefly concerning these points: 

The disintegration of the various 
Protestant sects, and their ten- 
dency toward practical rational- 
ism. 

The extent to which those rem- 
nants of Catholic traditions and 
faith still retained by these sects 
held this tendency in check. 

The condition of the then re- 
cently enfranchised negroes, and 
the prospect of gathering them 
into the fold of the church. 

The changed feeling of the non- 
Catholic population of the United 
States respecting the church ; the 
abatement of the ignorant preju- 
dices imported thither by the Puri- 
tans and the Episcopalians ; and 
the accessions to the church by- 
conversions among the educated 
classes. 

The spirit of the secular press 

respecting the church and its work. 

The possibility of a revival of a 

Know-nothing and anti-Catholic 

crusade. 

The actual condition of tlie 



7 6 4 



Cardinal Manning. 



church in the republic as respect- 
ing her natural growth did she re- 
tain her children in the faith, or 
did many of them stray from her; 
did the sons and daughters of the 
Irish, German, French, and other 
Catholics grow up to be good Ca- 
tholics, or were they lured away 
into practical infidelity ? 

And, above all, the question of 
Catholic education in the United 
States : how the Catholics managed 
to get along with the public schools ; 
how they promoted their parochial 
schools ; and what was the condi- 
tion of their colleges. 

I found myself in for an exhaus- 
tive examination, and the conver- 
sation went on until the archbishop, 
after postponing several calls made 
upon him, was pleased to dismiss 
me. I was surprised at the extent 
and accuracy of his information 
concerning the United States, and 
I told him that I perceived he was 
merely comparing my statements 
with the knowledge he had receiv- 
ed from other sources. " Yes," 
said he ; " but here in England we 
Catholics look with longing and 
eager eyes upon America. One 
sees that so much may be done 
there. How magnificent has been 
your material growth and prosperity; 
how splendidly have you shown that 
freedom and order may march hand 
in hand like sisters ! There the 
church is free, and glorious is her 
progress. I have greatly admired," 
said he, " your American hierarchy. 
You have been wonderfully blessed 
in your bishops and in your clergy. 
They have worked miracles. And 
how admirably they have kept 
themselves out of the muddles of 
politics ! Here, you know, we are 
compelled to take sides in certain 
political questions in spite of our- 
selves, because in them are involv- 
ed our religious rights and our sa- 



cred duties. There you are free 
from these entanglements, and may 
you ever continue so !" 

Not long after my first conversa- 
tion I received a card from the 
archbishop inviting me to Ins house 
"to meet the bishops." The twelve 
suffragans of England had been 
summoned to come up to London 
in order to transact certain affairs 
relating to the province; and this 
being accomplished, the archbishop 
had invited the Catholic nobility 
and gentry to meet them at his 
house. On arriving at York Place 
I found a long line of carriages be- 
fore the door and extending far 
down the street; a platoon of po- 
lice was keeping order ; a crowd of 
people were assembled on the side- 
walks to witness the distinguished 
arrivals; and the house was brilliant- 
ly lighted. The guests were re- 
ceived in an ante-room on the 
ground-floor, and thence ushered 
up-stairs, where, standing beneath 
the archway connecting the two large 
saloons, was the archbishop. The 
two rooms were filled with a bril- 
liant ^assemblage, which was con- 
stantly augmented by new arrivals. 
As each was announced he ad- 
vanced to the archbishop, knelt at 
his feet, kissed his episcopal ring, 
exchanged a few words with him, 
and passed away to mingle with 
the throng. The bishops were scat- 
tered here and there, and it was 
curious to see at every moment a 
tall nobleman, or a burly country 
squire, or an Irish member of Par- 
liament making his way through 
the crowd and suddenly bobbing 
out of sight as he knelt to kiss the 
ring of the Bishop of Nottingham, 
or Beverley, or Salford. The an- 
nouncements at the door sound- 
ed like the roll-call of the true no- 
bility of the kingdom : " His Grace 
the Duke of Norfolk " ; " The Earl 



Cardinal Manning. 



765 



of Gainsborough " ; " Lord Howard 
of Glossop"; "The Marquis of 
Bute " ; " Earl Denbigh " ; " The 
Earl of Granard " ; " Lord Petre "; 
" Lord Arundell of Wardour " ; 
"Lord Clifford of Chudleigh " ; 
" The Master of Lovat " ; " Lord 
Acton " ; "Sir Robert Gerard " ; 
" Sir George Bowyer, " and so on. 

It is the custom of the cardinal 
during the Parliamentary session to 
give a reception on each Tuesday 
evening. Very pleasant and enter- 
taining are these gatherings. There 
is very little ceremony connected 
.with them, Each guest is expect- 
ed to come in evening dress, but 
this is all. The Catholic lords, the 
Catholic members of the House of 
Commons, the Catholic gentry, and 
many of the priests of the diocese 
are generally present, and the eve- 
ning passes in delightful conversa- 
tion. The cardinal knows every 
one, and has something to say to 
each ; on a table in an ante-cham- 
ber is a collation. The priests of 
the diocese of Westminster are, as 
a class, an exceptionally fine set of 
men. Most of them are English- 
men ; very many of them are con- 
verts ; scores of them are graduates 
of Oxford and Cambridge ; they 
are men of culture and refinement, 
often of wit. With these are inter- 
mingled a score or two of the no- 
blest members of the English aris- 
tocracy, and as many or more of 
the Irish members of Parliament. 
The hum of conversation fills the 
air; wit, good-humor, merry stories, 
and keen intellectual combats are 
everywhere to be found. Seldom 
seen among the company on these 
nights, and most often found down 
in his room on the ground-floor of 
the palace, is Dr. Johnson, the eru- 
dite and painstaking secretary of 
the cardinal. He is so busy with 
his work that he can scarcely find 



time for even a few moments of this 
relaxation. But he is never too 
busy to answer a letter, or to re- 
ceive one who comes to him on 
business with perfect kindness and 
courtesy. 

One of the most brilliant of these 
gatherings was that which took place 
soon after the elevation of the 
archbishop to the cardinalate. 
There was scarcely a member of 
the Catholic priesthood, nobility, 
or gentry absent. The cardinal, 
attired for the first time in his scar- 
let stockings, soutane, and skull- 
cap, was for hours the centre of a 
constantly-changing throng of no- 
table persons. It was- my good 
fortune to stand near him, at his 
request, for a considerable time. 
Every one who approached him 
offered him congratulations and ex- 
pressions of affection and devotion. 
Most often these were repetitions, 
in effect, of each other. But the 
wonderful versatility and genius of 
the cardinal here shone forth ; and 
to my surprise I heard him saying 
something new and different to 
every one something, also, that 
always meant something. 

But my most pleasant hours with 
Cardinal Manning were those spent 
at his table. Turning over my pa- 
pers, I stumble upon a note writ- 
ten by his grace on Christmas eve, 
1873, an d ending thus : 

" Happy Christmas to you ! Will 
you come to luncheon on Saturday 
at one o'clock ?" 

Delightful were these " lunch- 
eons." They were, in fact, the 
dinners of the archbishop's house- 
hold, but they were called lunch- 
eons by reason of the unfashionable 
hour at which they were given, 
and in order that no one might 
fancy that he was expected to come 
to them in full dress. The com- 
pany generally did not exceed in 



Cardinal Manning. 



number five or six persons; some- 
times there were only the cardinal, 
Dr. Johnson, and myself. A cer- 
tain well-defined and rigorous rule 
of etiquette prevailed at these re- 
pasts. The dining-room at the 
Archbishop's House is a noble apart- 
ment, easily capable of seating fifty 
guests. But there is only a com- 
paratively small table, with eight 
or ten chairs. The furniture of the 
table is of the best spotless linen, 
handsome glass and china, and 
beautiful silver. The meal is serv- 
ed with all due ceremony and decor- 
um ; the cooking is excellent ; the si- 
lent and adroit waiter serves each one 
in his turn according to his rank, ask- 
ing no questions. Before the meal 
is served, and ere the host and the 
guests have taken their seats, grace 
is said, and when all are seated Dr. 
Johnson reads the appropriate por- 
tions of the office of the day. Then 
the repast begins and the conversa- 
tion opens. There are soup, fish, 
meats, vegetables, salad, and des- 
sert, and on the table are port and 
sherry. The cardinal, in order to 
encourage and give a good example 
to the total abstinence, societies of 
jch he is the jealous patron, vol- 
himself wine; but 
every guest lit the table is at liberty 
to drink or to abstain as he may 
please. The conversation, of course, 
is opened by the archbishop, and 
then it flows on merrily, and drifts 
hither and thither as the topics of 
the day arise. The cardinal is a 
very excellent newspaper reader. 
With all his great labors and re- 
sponsibilities pressing upon him, he 
finds time, or makes time, to read 
the morning journals very carefully 
especially the Times and he does 
not permit the evening papers, es- 
pecially the Pall Mall Gazette, nor 
the Saturday Review and Spectator, 
to pass unread by him. He reads 



very quickly, and has that facility 
for detecting the grain of wheat in 
the bushel of straw which distin- 
guishes the skilled " exchange-read- 
er " and " paragrapher " of the daily 
press. I believe that no day pass- 
es in which the cardinal does not 
make himself master of the con- 
tents of the Times from the " agony 
column" down to the imprint on 
the last page. He is always per- 
fectly aware not only of the occur- 
rences of the day but of what is 
said about them. If an occasion 
arises when a lie is to be exposed, 
an error corrected, or a truth en- 
forced with reference to the news 
of the day, the cardinal is ready 
with his pen; and the next morning 
a letter from " Henry Edward, Car- 
dinal Archbishop of Westminster," 
appears in the Times, arid within the 
next twenty-four hours is copied 
into every journal in the United 
Kingdom, and the substance of it 
probably telegraphed throughout 
Europe and America. And this 
reminds me of an incident which is 
not without its moral as well as its 
individual interest. 

The power of the press in Eng- 
land is great greater, I think, 
than in the United States. From 
time to time the Catholics in Lon- 
don had fretted themselves because 
they had no daily organ of their 
own. They had four weekly 
journals the Tablet, the Register, 
the Westminster Gazette, and the 
Universe all good in their way ; 
but all the daily journals were non- 
Catholic, and some of them were 
bitterly and vilely anti-Catholic, and 
even anti-Christian. There was not 
a day as there is now not a day 
when they were not pained by see- 
ing in the journals which they were 
compelled to read ignorant or vi- 
cious assaults upon, or misrepre- 
sentations of. some action of the 



Cardinal Manning. 



767 



church, or of some of her doctrines, 
or of some matter in which she 
was interested. Propositions to 
establish a daily Catholic journal 
had been often mooted, but these 
had come to nothing. Finally, at 
a little meeting held at the house 
of an eminent ecclesiastic of the 
diocese, the subject was brought 
forward under a new shape. It 
had been ascertained that one of 
the existing daily journals in Lon- 
don might be purchased for a sum 
which, although large, was not 
above its real value ; and it was 
proposed that this journal should 
be quietly purchased, and that, 
without making any parade or pub- 
lic announcement of the fact, it 
should be made a journal that 
should tell the truth concerning 
Catholic facts, events, and interests. 
It was not to be a propagandist, 
nor was it to be a religious news- 
paper. It was to remain just what 
it was, with the exception that it 
should be inspired with a Catholic 
spirit, and should always represent 
the cause of the church aright; not 
attacking its non-Catholic contem- 
poraries, but simply going on in its 
course and telling the truth. The 
idea was very favorably received, 
and it was resolved to enter on 
its execution, if possible. Negotia- 
tions for the purchase of the paper 
were opened; elaborate estimates 
were made ; and there was no diffi- 
culty in obtaining the promise for 
the necessary money. But now 
the approbation of the archbishop 
had to be obtained, and it was 
made my duty to seek for it. I 
prepared myself for the task and 
went at it with a bold heart. The 
archbishop listened patiently, as he 
always does, and possessed himself 
of all the facts ere he replied. 
Then he took some time for delib- 
eration, and finally he gave his 



decision. " No," said he, "this 
will not be wise. I cannot advise 
you to do it. Presently your 
journal would be known all over 
the kingdom as a Catholic organ. 
Then who would read it ? Only 
Catholics ; and they, being already 
instructed, would not need to read 
it. What you want is to make 
non-Catholics read the truth; and 
they will read it only in their own 
papers. They publish lies ? True; 
but these lies are so multiform and 
antagonistic that they destroy 
themselves. And then, if one 
watches his opportunity, he can 
offer them the truth ; they will 
print it, and the people will read 
it and take it in. This is the bet- 
ter plan. It is far better to let Ba- 
Iftam's ass bray for us" This 
knocked the project on the head 
and the scheme was abandoned. 
Under certain limitations I think 
the archbishop was right ; outside 
these I think he was mistaken. I 
once told him so, and he took it 
very gently. " I am so much older 
than you," said he, "and perhaps 
I am too timid. But still I think 
I was right." 

I have wandered away from what 
I intended to be a description of 
the little private dinners, or lunch- 
eons, at the Archbishop's House. 
The conversation at these ban- 
quets was never dull ; sometimes 
it was full of fun ; at others it was 
serious and profound. On one oc- 
casion which I well remember we 
were kept in a state of high hilarity 
by a succession of ludicrous stories 
respecting unlucky students, of high 
and low degree, who had been 
" plucked for their little-go " at 
the universities, and of the absurd 
answers given at their preliminary 
examination by pupils desiring to 
enter on a course of study to fit 
them for the position of certificated 



;68 



Cardinal Manning. 



school-teachers. As, for instance, 
this one : " What is the principal 
difference between the Gospels and 
the Epistles ?" Answer : " The 
Gospels are inspired and the 
Epistles are not." But let me re- 
call some of the words of the car- 
dinal at these and at other times, 
which I take from my note-book : 

" At the Vatican Council," said 
he, " I not only saw but actually 
held in my hands the threads of a 
great conspiracy against the church 
set on foot by the secret societies, 
of whom Dr. Dollinger was the un- 
conscious agent. The conspiracy 
was very widely spread and em- 
braced all Europe ; it had for its 
purpose the complete upsetting of 
existing authority and the estab- 
lishment of chaos." 

" There have been few things 
that gave me more pain than the 
severance of the relations between 
Mr. Gladstone and myself, caused 
by his assault upon the church in 
his pamphlet on the Vatican Coun- 
cil. We had been friends so long 
and now he has made himself 
such a foe ! He told me once that 
had I remained in the Church of 
England I would now have been 
Archbishop of Canterbury. I re- 
plied by telling him I thanked God 
for having saved my soul and de- 
livered me from so great a tempta- 
tion. I must not judge him; but 
had not his Irish Education Bill 
been thrown out it is not likely 
that his Vatican pamphlet would 
ever have been written." 

",The stories about Bishop Stross- 
mayer's refusal to make a full and 
public declaration of his adhesion 
to the decrees of the Vatican Coun- 
cil are wholly groundless. He is 
the bishop of Bosnia and Sirmium, 
and his residence is at Diakovar 
a rather out-of-the-way place. I 
have many reasons for knowing 



this, but perhaps this one will suf- 
fice: You will remember that in the 
trial of O'Keefe versus Cardinal 
Cullen, in the summer of 1874, two 
Roman ecclesiastics came over to 
give evidence on some points of 
canon law. One of them was Mon- 
signor Roncetti, who has now gone 
to the United States with the beretta 
for Cardinal McCloskey " (this was 
said in April, 1875), "and on their 
way to Dublin they dined here. 
Monsignor Roncetti told us on that 
occasion that Bishop Strossmayer, 
on one of his visits to Rome after 
the council I think it was his sec- 
ond visit was informed that some 
public words of adhesion had been 
looked for from him, and that he 
thereupon, in the most frank way, 
told the Holy Father that he had 
not been aware of this expectation ; 
that he had no difficulty in express- 
ing publicly his sincere and hearty 
adhesion ; and that he would do so 
without delay. On the bishop's re- 
turn to his diocese the first number 
of a religious publication which he 
had started a kind of Semaine Re- 
ligicuse contained such an official 
announcement of the obligation of 
the Vatican decrees upon all Ca- 
tholics as left no doubt of his own 
cordial acceptance of them." 

" I do not know," said the arch- 
bishop to me one day in December, 
1873, when we had been speaking of 
the then forthcoming American pil- 
grimage to Rome, " who is to be 
the head or president of the pilgri- 
mage. But I wish you to say in 
my name that the Catholics of 
England will give a hearty and 
homely welcome to the Catholics 
of the United States. We are ii 
every sense brothers in blood, and 
race, and speech, and faith, and we 
shall count ourselves to be repre- 
sented by your pilgrims whereso- 
ever they go. I wish you would 



Cardinal Manning. 



769 



let me have timely notice of their 
coming, that I may not be absent. 
Pray say all this in my name, and 
let rne know any wish they may 
have to express." 

" The ritualists get up very queer 
stories about us and our ' negotia- 
tions ' with them ; or else these 
stones are invented by some of 
your newspaper friends, who, I 
fear, are not quite so scrupulous as 
they might be." This was at the 
time when one of the periodical 
reports concerning "negotiations " 
for the bodily transfer of the ritual- 
istic wing of the Anglican Church 
to Rome was in circulation, and 
when it was boldly asserted that 
the cardinal was a party to the in- 
choate bargain. " It goes without 
saying that all sorts of people come 
to me, and that I hear no end 
of strange things. Some one did 
bring to me a long manuscript con- 
taining a string of hypothetical pro- 
positions, and I believe he insisted 
on reading them to me. But I 
told him he was wasting his time 
and mine, and that the only way 
to get into the church was to do as 
I did : to come on my knees and 
not try to make a bargain." 

Cardinal Manning is a magnifi- 
cent writer, as all the world knows ; 
and he is a magnificent preacher, 
as every one who has ever heard 
him will confess. He is, perhaps, 
heard to the greatest advantage in 
a small church like the exquisite 
chapel of the Carmelite monastery 
in Kensington, where, standing on 
the altar-steps, he can easily make 
himself heard by every one pre- 
sent. But, when occasion demands 
it, he can fill the largest of the Lon- 
don churches with his clear and bell- 
like voice, and hold a congregation 
of thousands spell-bound. He 
speaks with very little action; an 
occasional motion of his right arm is 
VOL, xxviii. 49 



his only gesture. His diction is 
faultless ; there is not a word that 
is superfluous nor one that is 
lacking; the discourse is a per- 
fect thesis, very often the ela- 
boration of a syllogism. He speaks 
without passion, but with such 
self-evident earnestness and depth 
of feeling that no one can lis- 
ten to him without emotion. On 
Good Friday he generally preaches 
the Three Hours' Agony in his 
pro-cathedral, High Street, Ken- 
sington. The church is large and 
rather handsome ; it will con- 
tain about fifteen hundred per- 
sons. On this day it is always 
thronged to repletion ; and well 
may it be, for nowhere else in all 
London can such wonderful words 
be heard as those pronounced by 
the cardinal as he traces the suc- 
cessive stages of the agony of our 
Lord upon the cross. The effect 
upon the congregation is often very 
great. I have seen strong men 
there trembling like reeds in a 
storm; some pale as death; others 
bathed in tears. 

The affection cherished for the 
cardinal among his flock is univer- 
sal and strong. There is not a 
Catholic, high or low, in all Lon- 
don who does not know him, and 
very few who have not had some 
personal intercourse with him. He 
is excessively popular among the 
working-classes, Protestant as well 
as Catholic; and there is no-one in 
the metropolis who exerts a wider 
influence than he. He has done 
more than all other men ;n London 
combined to mitigate the evils of 
intemperance and to promote ha- 
bits of sobriety and virtue. His 
total abstinence army is to be 
counted by scores of thousands, 
and occasionally, when they come 
in regiments and with banners and 
music to visit him, Vauxhall Bridge 



770 



Cardinal Manning. 



Road and all its approaches are 
taken by storm. It is delightful to 
hear him address his people on 
such occasions, still more delight- 
ful to see him going among them, 
apparently knowing each one of 
them individually, and greeting 
them as a father greets his beloved 
children. Mr. Disraeli modelled 
his Cardinal Grandison in Lothair 
upon Cardinal Manning, and pic- 
tured him as he is when moving in 
the society of the great and noble ; 
/but he is perhaps most majestic 
and most truly grand when in the 
inaidst of the poor and humble of 
,his flock. He is a true shepherd 
sthfi sheep know him and he knows 
his sheep. 

In London society Cardinal 
Manning is a great " lion." The 
Prince of Wales is honored when 
the cardinal attends one of his 
garden parties ; the lord mayor 
who ca'n secure his presence at a 
banquet is happy; a dinner-party 
at which he is present is a very 
great success. But the cardinal 
^withdraws uiaore and more from 
these things. His time and his 
thoughts are devoted to higher and 
greater matters. 

I shall close this paper by giving 
the following notes made at my re- 
quest by a Scotch-Americ'an Protes-* 
tant gentleman whom I took to call 
upon the cardinal one dreary day 
in December -some three years ago. 
They will be interesting as show- 
ing how strongly the greatness, the 
goodness, and the simplicity of the 
cardinal impressed the mind of one 
altogether alien from him in cer- 
tain matters : 

" Our visit to Cardinal Manning 
was made upon atypical December 
day. There was a dense fog. The 
streets were coated with slippery and 
greasy mud. The air was chill and 
damp ; at exposed and open positions, 



such as the corners of streets or in 
open archways, it cut through to the 
marrow of one's bones. We went 
by the Underground Railway from 
the Temple to Victoria station, 
and we found the subterranean 
route only a little darker than was 
the upper and outer Westminster. 
From the Victoria station to the 
Archbishop's House is not a long 
distance ; one goes along the Vaux- 
hall Bridge Road for a few hun- 
dred yards, and then turns to his 
left into a broad cut de sac, on one 
side of which, shut in only by a 
rude wooden fence, is the Archbish- 
op's House. It appeared to me as a 
dark, gloomy, and uninviting pile ; 
and I did not wonder that the 
Horse Guards, for whom it had been 
built as a club-house, had become 
dissatisfied with it and had gladly 
accepted the offer made by the car- 
dinal to purchase it. From one 
end of it extended the ground on 
which, as the cardinal afterwards ex- 
plained to me, is to be built the ca- 
thedral ; on its northern side stretch- 
ed some dreary vacant ground, be- 
yond which arose the frowning 
walls of Millbank Prison, the 
' English Bastile,' with its low 
towers, its French conical roofs, its 
fifteen hundred and fifty cells, and 
its incalculable agglomeration of 
human misery, degradation, and 
crime. My guide and sponsor 
sought to entertain me by telling 
me that on the site of this gloomy 
prison once stood the palace of the 
Earls of Peterborough; that the 
rich Grosvenors succeeded them in 
this inheritance ; and that there, in 
1755, Richard, Earl Grosvenor, be- 
gan to collect the gallery of pictures 
which was moved to Grosvenor 
House in 1806 six years before 
Millbank Prison was built. But I 
cared more just then for the Arch- 
bishop's House, and for my audience 



Cardinal Manning. 



771 






with the venerable prelate, ' Henry 
Edward, Cardinal Priest of the 
Holy Roman Church, by the title 
of St. Andrew and St. Gregory on 
the Ccelian Hill, by the grace of 
God and the favor of the Apostolic 
See, Archbishop of Westminster.' 

" Irritated, perhaps, by my too 
evident inattention to his histori- 
cal and antiquarian dissertations, 
my guide threw open the rickety 
gate of the tumble-down fence 
which enclosed this side of the 
Archbishop's House, led me up the 
great stone steps to the main en- 
trance, and gave the bell an ener- 
getic pull. Presently the heavy 
door swung open, and we were re- 
ceived by a servant in livery, who 
at once recognized my guide as 
one whom he well knew, but who 
cast upon me a look of inquiry. 
The vestibule into which we now 
entered was spacious ; the floor 
was of stone ; various doors open- 
ed from it ; and at either side 
arose a stone stairway leading to 
the floor above. We were conduct- 
ed by one of these stairways to a 
large reception-room, and there left 
to wait while our cards were taken 
to the cardinal. This room had a 
curious air. Its atmosphere was 
clerical, learned, and ecclesiastical, 
but it bore no resemblance to a 
monk's cell. True, there was no 
carpet on the floor ; but the floor 
was of polished and waxen oak, 
beautiful to look upon. A number 
of tables were disposed here and 
there ; and on one of them was a 
volume of magnificent proportions 
and of royal beauty : an album con-, 
taining the illuminated and illustrat- 
ed addresses of some three hundred 
different associations colleges, aca- 
demies, societies, monasteries, con- 
vents, charitable sodalities, and so 
on which had been presented to 
the archbishop on the occasion of his 



elevation to the cardinalate. They 
were written in many languages, 
and had been sent from every 
quarter of the globe and from the 
islands of the sea. Many of them 
rivalled in their beauty the best 
works of the illuminators of the 
olden times. Under a glass case 
in another quarter of the room was 
the red beretta of the cardinal ; on 
one of the tables stood an image 
of the Blessed Virgin, which had 
been made in china by a Chinese 
Christian artist. I studied this 
with much interest. The form and 
costume of the figure were not very 
different from those to which Euro- 
pean artists have accustomed us ; 
but the face was that of a Chinese 
lady. The distinctive features of 
the Mongolian race were there ; 
but so, also, were the benignity, 
grace, and tenderness with which 
Raphael has clothed his pictures of 
the mother of our Saviour. While 
still regarding this little work of 
Chinese Christian art a servant in- 
formed us that his eminence would 
soon receive us ; and scarcely had 
the man left the room before the 
cardinal appeared. 

" To say that he had a striking 
face is too weak an expression. 
His countenance had a strange and 
complex mixture of intellectual 
power and of benignant gracious- 
ness. There was an appearance 
of the complete extinction of any- 
thing like the lines of earthly pas- 
sion ; and a sublimated spirituality 
seemed to possess him from the toe 
of his foot to the crown of his head. 
His features were finely cut, but 
they were painfully thin and worn. 
His strangely luminous eyes seemed 
to look one through and through. 
As he came toward us he seemed 
wonderfully like the well-known 
portrait of the great Florentine 
Dante in the blending of magnifi- 



772 



Cardinal Manning. 



cent intellectual strength with aus- 
tere yet tender dignity. He wore 
a long cassock, of purple color, 
edged with scarlet; and as a cov- 
ering for his head there was a red 
skull-cap. 

" My friend, who was a Catholic 
and an intimate friend of the car- 
dinal, hurried to meet him, knelt 
at his feet, and kissed the ring which 
he wore upon his right hand. Then, 
rising, he presented me. The car- 
dinal greeted me kindly, and gave 
me his hand in a pleasant but ra- 
ther perfunctory way; and with a 
few conventional phrases he led 
the way into an adjoining room, 
where a feeble fire was burning in 
an open grate. The fog had grown 
more dense, and it penetrated the 
apartment, filling it with a cloud of 
cold and dreary vapor. The car- 
dinal sat down in front of the fire, 
motioned my friend and myself to 
seats on either side of him, seized 
the poker, and stirred up the fire 
until it burst forth into a cheerful 
flame. Then, warming his thin 
hands by the blaze, and almost 
sticking his knees into the fire, this 
great prince of the church began 
to talk to us. 

" He commenced by asking some 
questions concerning America; and 
he indicated his intimate and ac- 
curate knowledge of what was go- 
ing on in the republic by the scope 
of his questions. He spoke like 
one who had the map of America 
before his eyes, and he asked many 
searching questions respecting the 
condition of the various religious 
sects in this country. I had made 
my confession to him that I was 
of Scotch birth and of Presbyteri- 
an belief; and he put me at my 
ease by saying with a smile that 
' a Scotchman, when emigrating to 
America or to any other country, 
took his church with him.' Bv 



some chance phrase, or by some 
other cause, his mind was taken 
back to the time when he was a 
clergyman of the Church of Eng- 
land, and to the moment when his 
conscience forbade him longer to 
remain in that communion. He 
told us how he said to himself: 'My 
work is done; there is no future 
service for me; all I have to do is 
to try to save my own soul. But 
I found I was only being prepared 
for a greater job. I left the An- 
glican communion because I felt 
that I must go > and I went, leav- 
ing behind me the friends of my 
youth, my university, and all my 
hopes of earthly happiness. I lit- 
tle knew what was in reserve for 
me.' 

" Some reference was here made 
to the * No-Popery ' cry raised by 
Lord John Russell on the occa- 
sion of the Ecclesiastical Titles 
Bill, and this led the cardinal to 
express sympathy with Lord John 
in his then recent affliction. 

' ' Poor man,' said he, ' what 
troubles he has had ! His son and 
heir has outraged the father's most 
deep and sincere feelings, and by 
his advocacy of atheistic opinions, 
and by giving over the education 
of his children into the hands of 
men wholly antagonistic to reveal- 
ed religion, he has left to the old 
gentleman but a very dreary pros- 
pect.' But the house of Russell 
was built up upon the spoliation of 
the churcti, and it is a remarkable 
fact that none of the nobles who 
were created or enriched in this 
way by Henry VIII., Elizabeth, 
and Edward have been prosper- 
ous in their generations, or have 
failed to suffer more than the usual 
amount of private and public igno- 
miny, shame, and degradation.' 

" Here the cardinal entered upon 
a somewhat statistical contrast of 



Cardinal Manning. 



773 



the condition of the church in 
England as it was in 1848 and at 
the present moment. My remem- 
brance of the figures which he 
gave is too vague to be here repro- 
duced. But the impression that it 
left upon my mind was that if the 
progress of the church, not only 
among the nobility and gentry of 
the kingdom but among the com- 
mon people, were to continue for 
another quarter of a century as it 
had done in the past twenty-five 
years, the reconquest of England 
by Rome would not be very long 
deferred. 

" At a pause in the conversation 
I arose from my seat to examine 
the plans for the Cathedral of 
Westminster, which hung upon the 
wall near by. The plans gave the 
promise of a magnificent structure 
in the purest Gothic style of archi- 
tecture. 

" ' When do you expect to erect 
your cathedral?' I asked the car- 
dinal. 

"'Oh!' said he, sighing, ' it will 
be the work of fifteen archbishops. 
I will give each of them a tenure of 
ten years, and probably the last of 
these, one hundred and fifty years 
from now, will have the happiness 
of dedicating the cathedral, of 
which, by the bye, I have recently 
merely laid the corner-stone.' 

"'But,' said I, 'if you really 
wished it you would only have to 
say the word, and the cathedral 
would be built off-hand, and you 
would have the happiness of con- 
secrating it.' 

" ' Yes/ said his eminence, ' no 
doubt that could be done ; but I 
have long since determined that 
before the work on the Cathedral 
of Westminster is began there shall* 
be not a single Catholic child in 
this diocese who is not, either in a 
parochial or a private school, re- 



ceiving the necessary education 
and care to fit him for the duties 
of tin's life and to secure for him 
the knowledge necessary for his 
soul's salvation. Very much has 
been done in this work during the 
last few years. It would astonish 
you to know how sedulously the 
priests of the diocese have worked 
with me to accomplish this end. 
We made an accurate enumera- 
tion and census of every hole and 
corner in the metropolis, and day 
after day, week after week, and 
month after month we have res- 
cued from the gutters and slums the 
children of the poor English, Ger- 
man, Italian, and Irish parents who 
were unable or unwilling very 
rarely unwilling to provide for 
the care and education of their 
children.' 

" ' But,' said I, ' you have a great 
deal of wealth belonging" to your 
church in England.' 

"'Yes,' said his eminence, 'no 
doubt we have a few great and 
glorious ' names. Our Catholic 
nobles and gentlemen are the 
flower of the nobility and gentry. 
Their zeal for their religion leaves 
little to be desired. But the 
church in England as a whole is 
feeble. It is like the Army of Oc- 
cupation in India. We have prac- 
tically but two classes, and they are 
very unequally divided. One cf 
these classes represents nine-tenths 
of our number, made up of the 
poor; and the other tenth is com- 
posed of a few nobles, baronets, 
and country gentlemen. Our mid- 
dle-class element is but small, but 
I am happy to say it is constant- 
ly and rapidly increasing. You 
would be surprised to hear that 
there is not in London a solitary 
English Catholic banker. Our 
Catholic bankers here are Span- 
iards, Germans, and Italians. I 



774 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



am myself obliged, at this moment, 
to keep my accounts, small as they 
are, in the hands of a Protestant 
banker.' 

" Here it was announced that din- 
ner was served, and we descended 
to the dining-room. I had the 
honor, Protestant as I was, of be- 
ing given the seat at the right hand 
of the cardinal. It happened to 
be Friday, and perhaps the dinner 
was less varied than it would have 
been on some other day of the 
week. But the cardinal has an ex- 
cellent cook, and I have rarely en- 
joyed a repast more appetizing and 
attractive. The etiquette at the 
table was peculiar. The cardinal 
was helped first, and the suc- 
cessive dishes were passed round 
among the priests in order. The 
cardinal, as I understand it, being 
a prince of the church, has the eti- 
quette of the table governed by the 
same rules that obtain at the ta- 
bles of princes. The conversation 
at the table was brilliant, animat- 



ed, and diversified. His eminence, 
I was glad to see, ate with some 
heartiness and made a good meal. 
He drank no wine, and in this re- 
spect differed from all the others 
at the table. At the close of the 
repast there was a moment's pause ; 
the cardinal then arose, and as the 
rest of us stood up he bowed silent- 
ly and left the apartment, leaving 
us to take our departure when we 
pleased. As we were going away 
soon afterward Dr. Johnson asked 
me what I thought of the cardinal. 
I replied that had I entered his 
palace with any of the natural pre- 
judices which a Scotch-American 
Presbyterian might be supposed to 
entertain against a Catholic pre- 
late, they had been all swept away, 
and that I recognized that I had 
been entertained by one who was 
not only a man of extraordinary 
mental ability, but whose heart 
was animated by the loftiest and 
purest Christian virtues." 



PLAIN CHANT IN ITS RELATION TO THE LITURGY. 



IX. RHYTHM OF THE CHANT (cOH- 

tinued] . 

IN proceeding to lay down laws 
for natural music we must make 
once more the oft-repeated remark 
that naturalness has nothing in 
common with the arbitrary exer- 
cise of the free-will. The natural 
rhythm is therefore not without 
laws. The laws that belong to it 
are the most perfect, for they are the 
laws of nature laws which carry 
with them the character of freedom, 
that is, a capability of a constant 
and unhindered development. We 



have neither invented nor discov- 
ered the following rhythmical 
laws, but have drawn them solely 
from the essence of natural song 
itself. They are laws which we 
would have to follow even if they 
had never been formulated, like 
the laws of speech, which would be 
observed if no grammar existed. 
Just as grammar presupposes the 
existence of language, but not lan- 
guage that of grammar, so also the 
rhythmical laws presuppose the 
existence of the principles upon 
which they are grounded and 
which have been imparted to men 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



775 



by the Creator, but not vice versa. 
This will be evident to every one, 
and will furnish another illustra- 
tion of the essential difference be- 
tween the natural and the conven- 
tional laws of music. 

In laying down the following 
laws we shall pursue the course 
which is suggested by the nature 
of the subject itself tnat is, begin- 
ning with the simplest principles, 
we shall gradually ascend to the 
most perfect. 

FIRST LAW. 

In plain chant the syllables are 
not long and short in the sense of 
prosody, but only accented and unac- 
cented. 

The accented and unaccented 
syllables are in the chant what the 
long and short syllables are in 
measured music. The accent is a 
stress that is laid upon a syllable, 
not by prolonging, the tone but by 
a greater impulse of the voice 
" insistentia vel impulsu vocis, non 
vero prolongations soni " i.e., te- 
nor, mora vocis. The effect of 
prolonging a syllable is essentially 
different from that of accenting it. 
The force of an accented syllable 
is more in the ear of the hearer than 
in the mouth of the singer, but with 
the prolonged syllable it is just the 
reverse ; the former appeals more 
to the spiritual ear of the intelli- 
gence, the latter more especially 
to the sensible organ of hearing 
that*is, the accented syllable will 
be more understood than heard, 
the prolonged syllable rather heard 
than understood. 

Upon the distinction between 
the quantity of accent and that of 
prosody P. Kircher expresses him- 
self very acutely in the following 
words : " Quantitas temporis, quo 
syllabae concentu immoramur, an- 
tequam ab ejus prolatione cesse- 



mus ; quantitas orta ex accentu 
est mora, qua non tarn syllaba ea- 
dem quam ejus imago per ae'rem 
propagata perdurat in acre. Syl-^ 
laba acuta videtur semper longior 
quam gravis, spectata scilicet mo- 
ra ; non qua ipsi insistitur, dum 
est in ore proferentis, sed qua ejus 
species in acre vivit." Since the 
rules of<accent fall under the de- 
partment of grammar and rhetoric, 
it makes it necessary, at least for 
the leader of the chant, to un- 
derstand the Latin tongue well 
enough to be able to determine the 
proper accent, besides being ac- 
quainted with the meaning of the 
text and its bearing upon the oc- 
curring festival or the liturgical 
action. 

The observance of the accent is 
therefore no less important for a 
good execution of the chant than 
the observance of the prescribed 
long and short notes is for measur- 
ed music. So says Rhabanus Mau- 
rus : " Unumquodque verbum legi- 
timo accentu ornetur "; and in the 
Instituta Patrum it is said : " In 
omni textu lectionis, psalmodise 
vel cantus accentus non negligatur, 
quia exinde permaxime redolet in- 
tellectus." 

The two most common faults 
contrary to good accentuation are 
the omission of the accent al- 
together and its exaggeration. 
Against both of these the singer 
has to guard himself carefully, and 
besides the rules of grammar he 
must pay strict attention to the 
meaning and spirit of the piece, 
the power of his voice, the place, 
and, in short, all the circumstan- 
ces that can and ought to exercise 
an influence upon his execution. 
Such attention is required and 
permitted only by music essential- 
ly free and natural, but not by mea- 
sured music. 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



Every syllable must have its own 
accent, which is not influenced by 
the other syllables nor dependent 
upon them, because they differ 
Trbm each other only in their ac- 
cent and not in their length or 
shortness, although the accent and 
the quantity for the most part co- 
incide " in syllabis nullum dis- 
crimen praster accentus." ^ 

SECOND LAW. 

/// plain chant the notes have no 
fixed and measurable value, and are 
not intended to give the duration of 
the tone, but only to guide the modu- 
lation of the voice " cantus planus 
notis incerti valoris est constitu- 
tus." 

This law, much more decidedly 
than the first, shows us the chasm 
that separates plain chant from mo- 
dern music. In the latter it is 
scarcely possible to think of a note 
as merely determining the pitch. 
As soon as we speak of a note we 
have before our eyes a note with a 
fixed and measurable value, a whole, 
half, quarter, eighth, or sixteenth 
note, etc. The determination of 
the note, by which it gives not only 
the pitch but also the duration of 
the tone, is the distinguishing mark 
of measured music. In the chant, 
on the other hand, we emphatically 
repeat, the exclusive function of 
the note is to guide the modulation 
of the voice ; it must not exercise 
the slightest influence upon the 
length or shortness or the accen- 
tuation of the syllable to which it 
belongs, but, on the contrary, it is 
by the syllable that its duration is 
immediately determined. Here the 
text is master and must invariably 
control the notes, and not vice 
versa, according to the saying of a 
Spanish author : " La letra es la 
reyna, y su esclava la musica." 

The notes, therefore, in the chant 



have no. other use than to trans- 
form into song what otherwise 
would be simply prayer and speak- 
ing that is, to put determinate 
tone-intervals into the recitation ; 
and that antiquity, the cradle of 
the chant, employed the notes for 
no other purpose, and especially 
not in the way which came in with 
the rise of figured music, is abund- 
antly proved by the neumata which 
were so long in use. These were 
nothing else than musical accents 
which called attention to the gram- 
matical accent, and at the .same 
time gave the rising and falling of 
the tone. The range of the tone- 
intervals, or the melody, was pre- 
served and handed down by a liv- 
ing tradition and the instruction 
given in the singing-schools. Af- 
terwards the invention of the sys- 
tem of notes came in as a help, to 
facilitate not only the reading and 
singing of the choral melodies, but 
also their preservation for posteri- 
ty. When the notes were first sub- 
stituted for the neumata the pure 
tradition concerning the execution 
was still in existence; then gradual- 
ly the measured element crept in ; 
the intelligible recitation gave place 
to a measured modulation appeal- 
ing more to the ear than to the un- 
derstanding, so that at last the text 
was no longer king and the music 
the slave, but just the contrary. 
In order to find out the meaning 
conveyed by the notes in the chant, 
we must not begin with our present 
ideas, but must go back to anti- 
quity and see what their office was 
then. But the old principle, fun- 
damentally essential to the liturgi- 
cal chant, that in the execution the 
text must predominate and give to 
the notes their value, must never 
be sacrificed to the notation, which 
is but a modern invention aiding 
us to understand the melody by 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



777 



simplifying the manner of writing 
it. Only when the liturgical text 
is once more restored to its rights, 
and clothed again with its beautiful 
garment of melody, shall we have a 
genuine and correct execution of 
the chant. Thus writes an old 
master of the chant: "Care must 
be taken that the words which are 
sung be plainly and perfectly un- 
derstopd, for more heed is to be 
taken of the sense than of the me- 
lody " " Curandum est, lit verba 
quae cantantur, plane perfecteque 
intelligantur ; potius considerandus 
est sensus quam modulatio." In 
this way the execution becomes of 
itself recitative, so that "praying 
we sing, and singing we pray" 
" narrando (i.e., orando), canimus 
et canendo oramus in modum so- 
luta oratione legentis profertur." 
This is the recitative way of sing- 
ing which St. Augustine, Isidore, 
and many others expressly ascribe 
to the early Christian Church : "Pri- 
mitiva ecclesia ita psallebat, tit mo- 
dico flexu vocis faceret resonare 
psallentem, ita ut pronuntianti vici- 
nior esset quam canenti." 

The reader will gather from what 
has been said how very prejudicial 
to a correct understanding of the 
chant and to the accentual execu- 
tion must be the system of notation 
found in most of our chant-books, 
and will be ready to express a wish 
for the speedy appearance of such 
an interpretation of the old neumata 
as shall be in accordance with the 
true principles of the chant. But 
until then, as we have said already, 
it will suffice, and even a great deal 
will be accomplished, if our present 
versions are executed according to 
the. rules of a good recitation, and 
are not allowed to be subjected to 
the straitjacket of the measure. 

That the theory here put forth 
concerning the indefinite value of 



the notes and the exclusive predo- 
minance of the text is even to-day 
in part duly acknowledged and ac- 
cepted may be proved by a refer- 
ence to those parts of the chant 
which have been most effectually 
shielded from the influence of mo- 
dern music. Would it ever enter 
any one's head to sing the Pater 
Noster,* the Preface, the Exultct, 
and the like with whole, half, or 
quarter notes, or with any notes of 
a fixed duration ? They may be 
sung arrhythmic.ally, pararrhythmi- 
cally, or heterorrhythmically, which, 
as experience proves, is not seldom 
the case, but surely no one has as 
yet ever tried to sing them accord- 
ing to regular measures and beats. 
These last words give us the key- 
note of our next rule. 

THIRD LAW. 

The divisions of the chant are not 
given by bars and measures, as in 
measured music, but solely by the 
text. 

What the notes, measures, and 
phrases of a fixed extent are to the 
melody in measured music, accents, 
words, clauses, and sentences are in 
plain chant. In measured music 
one whole or half note is precisely 
equal to another, and for a whole 
note can be substituted only two 
halves, four quarters, or eight 
eighths. One measure cannot have 
even one sixty-fourth note more 
or less than the other, no matter 
whether the words are sufficient or 
can scarcely be disposed of. But 
in plain chant it is just the reverse. 
Here prevails the natural freedom 
of recitation, acknowledging no 
equality of divisions, but making 
only such modifications as the text 
requires. In the chant is found 
the same variety of divisions as in 
prose speech, in which almost no 
accent, no syllable, no word or 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



phrase is equal to another, and yet 
each lias its naturally determined 
measure " numeri latent." Ac- 
cording to the rules of measure this 
want of equality causes a certain 
irregularity, yet it is precisely from 
this unevenness that there arises 
the most beautiful order, the most 
natural harmony. The expressions 
adopted to indicate the divisions 
in the chant, such as "note-formu- 
la," " musical syllable," " distinctio 
major et minor," etc., show that it 
has to do with ideas taken from 
grammar and rhetoric rather than 
with those of measure. But we 
must remark here in anticipation 
that in the liturgical chant we do 
not find simply a continuous prosa- 
ic intonation of the text, without 
perceptible interruption, but, after 
the manner of the parallelism of 
the members in Oriental poetry, 
there is a certain harmonious yet 
always free combination of the words 
and melody, thus avoiding too 
great irregularity, while remaining 
unhampered by all conventional re- 
straints. 

FOURTH LAW. 

Like the notes and divisions, the pau- 
ses also in plain chant are unequal, 
immeasurable, 'and natural, and can- 
not be determined by rests of a given 
mathematical value. 

The pauses or rests essential to 
rhythm " tempus vacuum ad com- 
plendum rhythmum" are in plain 
chant naturally determined by the 
sense of the words and the neces- 
sity of taking breath. The chief 
rule to be observed here is that the 
pauses should never interfere with 
the sense by dividing unnaturally 
a word or sentence. In well- com- 
posed and correctly-rendered pie- 
ces of chant the sense of the 
words is brought out all the more 
sharply by the rests, and the melo- 



dy gains in musical unity and va- 
riety. 

The duration of the pauses is de- 
termined 

Firstly. By the greater or less 
extent of the division. " Majori 
numero vocum respondebit major 
mora distinction is et minori minor. 
In distinctionibus mora vocisdebet 
protendi secundum proportioned 
vocum ab invicem" (Engflbert). 
The rest, therefore, between two 
syllables (or notes), which has no 
independent existence but consists 
in the accent of both syllables, is 
evidently the feeblest kind of a 
pause. A more marked one is that 
between two words, particularly if 
both are accented and the vehicles 
of different thoughts; for instance, 
" Salus, honor, virtus quoque." 
The pause is still more perceptible 
between whole sentences or peri- 
ods. "Tenor, id est mora ultimae 
vocis, qui in syllaba, i.e., distinc- 
tione sive formula quantuluscun- 
que est, amplior in parte (/>.,post 
neumam sive minorem distinctio- 
nem), diutissimus vero in distinc- 
tione " (Guido). 

Secondly. By the import of the 
words or sentences between which 
they occur. If the meaning is of a 
graver nature the movement must 
be slower and more solemn and 
the pauses longer; but if joyous 
and bright sentiments are contain- 
ed in the words the movement 
must be quicker and the pauses 
shorter. " Si morose cantamus, 
longior pausa fiat ; si propere, bre- 
vior." There is a marked differ- 
ence between the pauses between 
such divisions as "et incarnatus est 
de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Vir- 
gine et homo factus est," and 
such as the following: " Et resur- 
rexit tertia die secundum Scrip- 
turas." 

Thirdly. By the feast and by the 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



779 



spirit of the piece of chant. The 
pauses, together with the whole 
movement (tempo) of the chant, are 
not the same in a Requiem as in a 
festival Mass, in the Kyrie as in the 
Gloria, in Advent and Lent as at 
Easter and Whitsuntide. 

Finally, by the quality of the 
voices and local circumstances.' 
To secure a smooth and well-con- 
nected execution it is plain that to 
a choir of men with strong and rich 
voices a more majestic movement 
and more marked pauses are ap- 
propriate, while a choir of weak 
voices or a choir of tenors and 
baritones should make the accents 
less strong, the movement some- 
what brisker, the pauses shorter 
and less marked. 

From what has been said it is 
apparent that in natural song the 
pauses vary greatly in duration, 
from those which are scarcely per- 
ceptible (mora sine respiratione) 
to those which are considerably 
prolonged. But we must now add 
a few remarks upon an important 
subject the manner of observing 
the pauses. For while in measured 
music the pause comes in with 
mathematical precision to fill up the 
measure when the notes are lack- " 
ing, so that its beginning is known 
by the beat, such an abrupt change 
is as little met with in plain chant 
as in speech, with the exception, 
perhaps, of the psalmody and cer- 
tain passages of more than ordinary 
feeling. Every pause is prepared 
for and introduced by a more or 
less marked prolongation of the 
preceding % note. Sometimes, in- 
stead of an interruption of the 
melody, there is only a slight exha- 
lation of a tone (mora sine respira- 
tione), and then we pass immedi- 
ately to the next note, " ita ut in- 
cceptus modus unius ad alium 
transiens nee finiri videatur." 



" Vox ipsa tardipr faciens quoddam 
intervallum non taciturnitatis, sed 
suspense ac tardse potius canti- 
lense" (Boetius). At other times 
this slight .breathing ends in an 
actual interruption of the voice 
(mora cum respiratione). The 
former occurs when several notes 
or groups of notes fall upon one 
syllable or word ; the latter is ob- 
served between words and clauses. 
This easy and natural passage 
from song to pauses has called 
forth the rules concerning the last 
note of a musical thought, whether 
at the end of a syllable, word, or 
sentence. They may be all sum- 
med up in this : that the last sylla- 
ble should not be cut off short, but 
should be somewhat prolonged. 
Thus Hucbald says : " Ultimse 
longse, reliquae breves, legitima 
longitude finalium." And Guido 
of Arezzo : ".Vox quae cantum ter- 
minat diutius et morosius sonat " ; 
and, as already quoted: "Tenor, 
i.e., mora ultimae vocis, qui in sylla- 
bis quantuluscunque est, amplior 
in parte, diutissimus in distinc- 
tione." St. Augustine, in ftis trea- 
tise De Musica, writes as follows on 
this point : " Sequentesilentio etiam 
brevis syllaba pro longa accipitur. 
Sit hoc etiam in disciplina, ut cum 
ante finem silemus non ibi pars 
orationis brevi syllaba terminetur; 
ne secundum illam ssepe commem- 
oratarn regulam pro longa earn 
sensus accipiat sequente silentio." 
That this " mora " is not like the 
prolongation of a note in measured 
music sufficiently follows from the 
fact th'at it is neither grounded on 
any conventional law nor is it 
measurable, but is only a certain 
exhalation " morosius et obscu- 
rius sonat " and is naturally re- 
quired by a good execution. Thus 
St. Augustine (De Musica} says : 
" Sequente silentio etiam brevis 



;8o 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



syllaba pro longa accipitur non in- 
stitute sed ipso naturali examine 
quod auribus prassidet." The like 
is said by another author : " Ulti- 
ma caudari non potest> hanc enim 
productionem habet a natura, quia 
finis est." 

Just as the way is prepared for 
the pause by the prolongation of 
the final note, so also this prolon- 
gation itself has a forerunner. In 
order to prepare the ear for the 
approaching termination of the 
thought, the accented syllable im- 
mediately preceding the last is pro- 
nounced with a greater impulse of 
the voice. " Penultima acuitur, 
ultima protenditur." This impulse 
must bear such a relation to the 
prolongation of the final syllable, 
and to the length of the pause 1 
which follows it, that the dying 
away of the sound on the last syl-. 
lable may seem to be a result of 
the accent placed upon the syllable, 
before the last. We are conscious 
of the difficulty of making this per- 
fectly intelligible to the reader, 
and that an oral explanation would 
be much better than a written one. 
But we will try to make our mean- 
ing plain by an illustration. In 
the last word of the " Dominus vo- 
biscum," according to the given 
rule the syllable " bis " must be 
accented strongly, while the sylla- 
ble " cum " must be prolonged and 
allowed to gradually die away, thus : 

Dominus vobiscu --- m. 

But it would be wrong to sing it 
in this way : 



. 

Dominus vobiscu - - - m. 

So in the words, "Per omnia sae- 
cula saeculorum," we must sing 



Ssecul6ru 



And not 





Sseculoru - - - m. 



In these four laws we believe 
that we have put together the fun- 
damental rules of natural rhythm, 
It is only by putting them in prac- 
tice, with such judicious modifica- 
tions as circumstances may require, 
that a good and correct execution 
of the chant will be attained. 
These rhythmical laws are, more- 
over, the general rules of every 
kind of natural i.e., unmeasured 
music, so that, for example, every 
monologue or dialogue written in 
prose and set to unmeasured recita- 
tive music must be executed ac- 
cording to them. But in the Gre- 
gorian chant, because it is liturgi- 
cal and ecclesiastical, and composed 
and sanctioned as such, and, through 
its connection with the text and the 
liturgical actions, consecrated and 
hallowed by the Holy Ghost, there 
is, over and above its conformity 
to these universal and natural laws, 
yet another, a supernatural ele- 
ment, exerting an influence of an 
enormous, we might almost say a 
transforming, significance upon the 
rhythmical execution. 

To the grammatical accent is 
joined the accent of the Holy 
Ghost, who by these sacred chants 
prays in us with unspeakable groan- 
ings, in the holy offices speaking 
and singing through us the bless- 
ing-yielding, grace-imparting word ; 
the accent of faith, lending strength 
unto our tongues to pour into the 
ears and hearts of men with irresis- 
tible power the mysteries of the 
truth ; the accent of the deepest 
consciousness of guilt, together 
with the lowliest trust m the Lord ; 
the accent of that full, joyous, and 
thankful resignation to God's will 
which, as it were, overlays the 
holy chant with an enamel so hea- 
venly and full of mystery that it 
divests it of everything earthly, and 
changes human weakness into god- 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



781 



ly humility, human passion into 
divine strength in short, it raises 
man above the region of the senses, 
and makes him worthy of joining 
his voice with the heavenly choir 
that sings for ever the praise of 
God. Besides the natural divi- 
sions of the text which the neces- 
sity of taking breath requires, there 
is a further influence giving to the 
pauses a higher significance. This 
is the need which the soul feels of 
admitting little intervals after par- 
ticular sentences or words, or even 
after certain parts of a word, in 
order to hold converse with her 
heavenly Bridegroom upon the 
wonderful mysteries, and to taste 
their sweetness. While the tongue 
and lungs are renewing their 
strength the soul within repeats 
the holy strains. Hence that glid- 
ing of the voice from one thought 
to another, that light breathing of 
the tone, like the softly-sounding 
chords of an ^Eolian harp, until a 
new word, a new inspiration sets 
the vocal organs again in motion 
for new strains. Often also in her 
transports the singing soul actually 
repeats the sweet melodies in part 
or entirely, as though in her holy 
emulation she could never tire of 
speaking with her Bridegroom in 
this angelic tongue. Hence those 
rich figures of song, those sublime 
repetitions, those long series of 
notes which sometimes seem almost 
endless, whose tones break in oft- 
reiterated echoes against the walls 
and vaulted roofs, bringing to our 
minds the never-ending chorus of 
the blissful angels. 

This is the supernatural element 
which is of such high importance 
for the rhythmical execution of the 
chant. Without it the mere rules 
of natural music would be power- 
less to give to the chant ever so 
little of that higher sanction, that 



beauty and moral power of con- 
trolling hearts, as without the ob- 
servance of these rules the super- 
natural element itself is deficient. 
The supernatural always implies 
the natural and requires it for its 
actualization. Under the old dis- 
pensation those whom God ap- 
pointed as the interpreters of his 
law and the leaders of his people 
were previously educated in the 
schools of the prophets, and to-day 
also those who are to receive the 
power of the priesthood are quali- 
fied by long studies for their holy 
office. And so the observance of 
the natural rules of music is just 
as indispensable as the spirit of 
prayer and a life imbued with the 
church's liturgy and the divine 
mysteries. 

There is one point that we have 
already touched upon to which 
some further consideration is due. 
Granted that the reader fully ac- 
knowledges the recitative character 
of the chant and its freedom from 
measure and time, and admits the 
supremacy of the text, and that a 
knowledge of its meaning must de- 
termine and guide the execution, 
he yet might ask how this principle 
can be carried out in those long 
series of notes without words, in 
which often only one or a few notes 
fall upon an accented, but a great 
many upon an unaccented, syllable. 
We allude to the so-called neuma- 
ta, or jubilations, especially in the 
Graduals and Alleluias. Here again 
an explanation could be much bet- 
ter given in a conversation than in 
a treatise, as an old singing-master 
says : " Haec colloquendo magis 
quam conscribendo intelliguntur." 
Let us try, however, to solve this 
problem, upon which many others 
have failed or gone astray. 

In the first place, our funda- 
mental principle remains imtouch- 



782 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



ed, that the text must predominate 
and that the execution must be a 
free recitation. " Potius consider- 
andus est sensus quam modulatio." 
There is therefore no warrant for 
the theory that, as the chant may 
be divided into syllabic and melo- 
dic song, in the latter the melody 
predominates over the text and the 
laws of natural recitation. This 
distinction is only admissible in 
the sense that in syllabic chant 
there is one syllable for every note, 
while in the melodic several notes 
fall upon one syllable. We must 
likewise reprobate the course of 
those who deliberately presume to 
shorten these formulae, which are 
received as genuine, simply be- 
cause they themselves have not the 
ability to sing them. Besides, we 
must not estimate the Gregorian 
melodies according to the way 
they are written in editions of the 
last centuries, and fancy that a 
melodic phrase is simply a sort of 
succession of ten, twenty, thirty, or 
more notes of equal length, sepa- 
rated from each other only by the 
necessity of breathing. This is not 
the only purpose which the pauses 
serve. We have found that their 
more important office is to^ empha- 
size the sense, and we have once 
for all rejected the principle of 
equality in the notes, and that in 
the melodic as well as in the sylla- 
bic chant (" cantus planus notis in- 
certi valoris constitutus "). The 
melodic division or phrase consists 
of groups of from two to five, sel- 
dom of more, notes, which groups 
also form its syllables and words. 
Each group has its own individu- 
al character, its intonation, its ac- 
centuation. Sometimes a single 
group is sung by itself apart from 
the rest, sometimes several are 
taken together in one breath, each 
having a more or less close con- 



nection with the others, as in the 
divisions of speech. Hence in 
melodic chant we have the divi- 
sions of syllables, words, clauses, 
phrases, and periods. Each period 
has its first movement, its develop- 
ment, its climax, and its conclusion, 
and only an intelligent execution 
of these modulations gives the sense 
of the composition. From all this 
we may judge how far the notation 
of the last centuries has departed 
from the true form of the original 
melodies. In order to get a right 
idea of these melodies it is abso- 
lutely necessary to go back to the 
old way of writing, whose signifi- 
cant characters, which are easily 
available, present written before 
the eye the whole flexibility, the 
whole accentuation in short, the 
rhythm complete. Without a 
knowledge and understanding of 
these old neumata, the principles 
of a correct rendering of the chant 
which we have put forward will be 
of little or no avail, owing to the 
want of a good edition. With a 
knowledge of them the melodies 
can be easily transposed into our 
more practical and clearer nota- 
tion (which, in fadt, is the only one 
that can be used at the present 
day) just as soon as we discov- 
er the original musical formulae 
which lie at the bottom of the un- 
broken series of notes. 

Since it is our intention in the 
present work to give only the lead- 
ing general principles, we can only 
say here that there are a great 
many different groups of notes or 
musical formulae in the neuma- 
tic notation. Gerbert enumerates 
about forty, which can be reduced 
to a few fundamental formulae. 
Johannes de Muris, an author of 
the sixteenth century, otherwise of 
no particular authority, thus al- 
ludes to them: "Cantores antiqui 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



783 



ingeniaverunt figuras quasdam, 
quae notse vel notulae appellantur. 
Quaedam notula dicitur punctum, 
qusedam virga, quaedam clivus 
major vel minor, plica major vel 
minor, podatus major vel minor, 
quilisma majus vel minus, pressus 
major vel minor." John Coston, in 
the eleventh century, gives them the 
same names : " Neumandi modus 
fit per virgas, clives, quilismata, 
puncta, podatos coeterasque hujus- 
modi." The simplest of these is 

the note, punctum or virga m<EMi . 
When the notes ascend we have 
\.\\Q podatus (pes) ~ z and the scan- 
dicus ijj^Tjirft ; if they descend, 
the clivus -_ and the clima- 



cus - 



^ Both movements 



form the torculus rjftii".!|i: . If the 

-- 

notes follow each other in the same 
line, or if they rise a little and then 
come down again, we have the 
pressus and the quilisma, a kind of 

trill ijjMHBHMPH 1 . These are the 

fundamental figures ; all the rest 
are either combinations of these or 
transition-passages from one note 
or note-figure to another. Without 
a knowledge of these fundamental 
formulae, and the rules for render- 
ing them, it is impossible to sing 
the chant as it ought to be sung. 

How, then, we ask, should these 
groups of notes, these musical fig- 
ures, be executed, how joined with 
each other, and how applied to the 
text, so as to preserve the recita- 
tive character of the chant and not 
to mar the sense and intelligibility 
of the words ? We believe that 
here, too, we shall further the clear- 
ness of our answer if we give it in 
the form of rules. 

I. The jubilations, as well as all 



musical formula without words, must 
not be conceived as musical embellish' 
ments independent of those parts of the 
piece which have words, but, on the 
contrary, their beauty arises from -ilie 
melodic accents to which they are 
joined in a subordinate position. 

This conception of the neumata, 
or jubilations, at once throws a ray 
of light upon these long series of 
notes, aids their division and dis- 
tribution into members, and, what 
is of the highest importance, pre- 
serves the meaning of the liturgical 
text and intelligibility in its execu- 
tion. We may be sure that a piece 
of chant whose sense remains in- 
comprehensible to one acquainted 
with the Latin tongue is either a 
recent composition and a failure 
or is incorrectly rendered. The 
musical figures need not interfere 
with the sense, nor, strictly speak- 
ing, even with the recitative move- 
ment; in good compositions they 
are prejudicial neither to the cor- 
rect accentuation nor to the reci- 
tation of the text, provided it be 
understood how to sing them cor- 
rectly, and how to bring them into 
their proper relation to the prin- 
cipal accents and to each other. 
They serve, on the contrary, to 
bring the text into all the more 
prominence, and to place it in the 
right light, according to the cha- 
racter of the feast and its various 
shades of meaning, to make the 
soul in singing to fathom the deep- 
er sense of the words and to taste 
of the mysteries hidden within 
them. This principle also applies 
to those long musical periods which 
sometimes fall upon a final vowel, 
and even in the middle of a word. 
They are no mere unmeaning tone- 
figures, but the echo of the text 
that has gone before. One or two 
notes can often neither be sufficient- 
ly prolonged nor accented strongly 



784 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



enough to convey the full meaning 
of the text, and so these figures are 
added to express the sorrow, the 
prayer, or the lofty exultation con- 
tained in the words. Therefore 
we find that even the jubilations 
are never introduced without a 
reason or thoughtlessly, far less 
absurdly. They are, on the con- 
trary, always connected with the 
sense of the text, or with a word 
that is full of meaning ; so that, for 
instance, extended jubilations are 
never found upon such words as 
" et dixit," "sicut" (cervus desi- 
derat), " ubi " (caritas et amor 
Deus ibi est). But they occur 
very often upon the plaintive Kyrie 
eleison, upon the sublime words of 
the Sanctus, and especially upon 
the Alleluia, the exulting shout of 
victory. This is true of all good 
plain-chant compositions. We must 
guard ourselves carefully, however, 
from pronouncing that to be a poor 
composition in which there seems 
to some one to be a want of taste 
in the arrangement of the notes. 
In most cases the want of taste is 
in the singer, who does not know 
how to bring the rulds of grammar 
into harmony with the lofty and 
prayerful production of the com- 
poser's musical fancy. He will 
only be able to do this when after 
long practice he has acquired a 
certain routine in singing the chant, 
and penetrated more deeply into 
the nature of those old and venera- 
ble creations. 

II. The singer, in rendering the 
jubilations, must always be guided by 
the sense of the text and remain under 
its influence, to whatever length the 
figure may be protracted and what- 
ever form it may assume, 

This principle follows naturally 
and necessarily from our concep- 
tion of the jubilations, and answers 
at the outset all the objections that 



could be brought against the possi- 
bility of rendering them recitatively. 
The words of the text to which 
longer or shorter note-figures are 
annexed must be given such a 
strongly-marked accent and ex- 
pression that all the following notes 
may seem to flow from them, as the 
waves of the ocean proceed from 
the larger swells. If the singer is 
in the disposition, he can often 
pause, repeat or lengthen certain 
figures, without being alienated 
from the text, whence springs, in 
fact, his own as well as the com- 
poser's inspiration. It was in this 
way that the jubilations took their 
rise, and they must be rendered 
with this in view in order not to 
lose their significance. Yet, for all 
that, the execution must still be re- 
citative ; it only passes from a nar- 
rative, didactic, meditative delivery, 
generally proceeding simply and 
quietly, to a more elevated and pa- 
thetic style, in which appear sharp- 
er accents, more melodious strains, 
more marked cadences, a greater 
variety in the pauses, and more 
striking transition-passages. The 
jubilations, moreover, because they 
issue from the mysterious depths 
of faith and love, call forth not 
only a holy enthusiasm but also a 
clearer knowledge and comprehen- 
sion of the text, just as an oratori- 
cal delivery is designed not only to 
instruct and narrate but also to 
stir up and carry away the feelings. 
To those, therefore, who would 
seek to make the text more intelli- 
gible by shortening or dropping the 
neumata we must frankly exclaim : 
" Nescitis quid vultis !" Did they 
really understand the text, they 
would rather extend the neumata 
still more, in order to grasp and 
feel its deeper meaning. 

The foregoing main principle 
once acknowledged, it is of no fur- 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



735 



ther consequence how extensive 
the neumatic formulae may seem. 
They have their appointed place, 
and it is only ignorance that will 
stumble at them. Whenever we 
see an old piece of chant in which 
a great many notes without words 
are crowded together bewilderingly, 
our heart is moved at the fulness 
of lofty joy which the composer 
must have found in the text in or- 
der to launch forth into such rich 
jubilations. To whom would it 
occur to make alterations and cur- 
tailments here ? Who would set 
bounds to the noble inspirations of 
the soul in its songs of praise ? Let 
no one say that here prevails that 
unbridled extravagance of form 
which is presented to us in another 
department of art in the so-called 
Renaissance or Rococo style. The 
degenerate Renaissance is unnatu- 
ral and bastard art, sacrificing unity 
of thought and design to worthless 
showiness. It is not here that we 
find the counterpart of the jubi- 
lations in plain chant, but rather 
in the rich ideal ornamentation 
of Gothic architecture. Like this, 
they embody in the most adequate 
way thoughts and mysteries full of 
the deepest meaning. They can 
even become by themselves a sys- 
tematic whole, forming a kind of 
musical language, and thus unfold 
the highest development of natural 
music, without infringing the law of 
dependence upon the text or in- 
terfering with the sense ; just as 
the most luxuriant tendrils depend 
upon the vine for their life, or as 
the delicate shoots of the tree are 
dependent upon the trunk of which 
they are the outgrowth. So, then, 
if we wish to distinguish in plain 
chant between the syllabic and me- 
lodic passages, the latter have their 
figures, neumata, and periods, the 
former their syllables, words, claus- 
VOL. xxvin. 50 



es, and sentences. Yet the melodic 
chant has not an independent exis- 
tence, but is only the rich develop- 
ment, the luxuriant blossom, the 
stately retinue of the syllabic or 
textual part, and is so interwoven 
with it that, were it not for the 
sake of an instructive analysis, the 
distinction between them would be 
inadmissible. The sovereign posi- 
tion of the text and the chant belong- 
ing to it is further confirmed by 
the fact that a piece of chant never 
begins with mere modulations. 
While the organist and musicians 
can play before the priest comes to 
the altar, the liturgical singer can- 
not break forth into a jubilation 
before he has delivered something 
which gives a reason for it and a 
meaning to it. Let us now from 
the more general laws of the jubi- 
lation pass over to those which re- 
late more particularly to the exe- 
cution. 

III. The elements of the neumatic 
periods i.e. , the particular figures 
must in the execution, according to their 
character, be kept apart and distin- 
guished from each other, and brought' 
into union with each other, like the syl- 
lables, words, clauses, and sentences 
of an oration. 

We have already remarked that 
the neumata have developed in some 
pieces of chant into a systematic 
'whole. They have therefore, apart 
from the so-called syllabic passages 
which accompany them* their own 
rules of execution. In the syllabic 
chant it is the text which guides 
and modulates the voice, which de- 
termines the accents and the way 
of dividing the words and sentences 
by natural rests or pauses, and of 
joining them to each other accord- 
ing to the rules of grammar and 
rhetoric. The same is the case in 
the melodic passages with the ac- 
cents, syllables, clauses,, and sen- 



786 Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 

tences, with the pauses and the figures of the chant do not hinder 

conjunction of the parts to a well- their execution from being natural, 

ordered whole. Upon this Guido They are simply terms expressive of 

of Arezzo says: " Igitur quemad- certain notions, with as little bearing 

modum in metris sunt litterae, sylla- upon the subject-matter itself as 

bse, partes et pedes ac versus, ita the technical appellations of gram- 

et in harmonia sunt phthongi, i.e., mar upon speech. Various exter- 

soni, quorum unus, duo vel tres ap- nal circumstances, however, come to 



tantur in syllabas, ipsaeque solas 
vel duplicate neumam, i.e.) partem 
constituunt cantilenas ; sed pars una 
vel plures distinctionem faciunt, 



the aid of the natural musical abil- 
ity, the " aurium judicium," in the 
rendering of the melodic tone-fig- 
ures. Above all it is considerably 



i.e., congruum respirationis locum." assisted by a theoretical knowledge 

Hucbald speaks to the same effect : 

" Sicut loquela litteris, ita constat 

phthongis harmonia; sicut vocis the figures are for the most part 



of these formulae and their charac- 
ter. It is then soon perceived that 



articulatae elementariae atque indi- 
viduse partes sunt litterae ; ex qui- 
bus compositae syllabae, rursum 
componunt verba et nomina, eaque 
perfectae orationis textum ; sic ca- 
norae vocis phthongi, qui latine di- 
cuntur soni, origines sunt et totius 
musicae continentia in eorum ulti- 
mam resolutionem desinit. Ex so- 
norum autem copulatione diaste- 
mata, porro ex diastematibus con- 
crescunt systemata." Finally, St. 
Odo says : " Ad cantandi scientiam, 
nosse quibus modis ad se invicem 
voces conjungantur summa utilitas 
est ; nam sicut duse plerumque lit- 
terae aut tres aut quatuor imam 
faciunt syllabam, sive sola littera 
pro syllaba accipitur, ita quoque et 
in musica plerumque sola vox per 
se pronuntiatur, plerumque duae 
aut tres vel quatuor cohaerentes 
imam consonantiam reddunt, quod 
juxta aliquem modum musicam 
syllabam norainare possumus." 

This natural system is not the 
product of measure or time, or of 
any conventional law, but results 



only prolonged echoes of the pre- 
ceding melodies of the text, and 
that they move in the same tempo 
and in the same tone or mode. In 
fine, plain chant, provided it be 
sung according to the correct prin- 
ciples of natural music, in a short 
time endows us with a kind of fa- 
cility and readiness which gradu- 
ally beget an instinctive conscious- 
ness of the correct execution. 

Everything which relates in par- 
ticular to the divisions, pauses, 
transition-passages, and coloring of 
the melodic chant is in general ap- 
plicable in greater measure to the 
rules concerning the rhythm. We 
say in greater measure, because 
the mere modulation of the voice 
without words admits of an easier, 
more unhampered, we may say a 
more ideal, movement and manner 
of expression. 

IV. In the jubilations also the notes 
have no fixed and measurable value, 
and only serve to direct the modula- 
tion of the voice. 

The principle " cantus planus 



from the application to the text of notis incerti valoris constitutus 



that musical talent implanted in 
man by the Creator which Cicero 
calls " aurium quoddam admirabile 
judicium." The different techni- 
cal names given to the neumatic 



admits of no exception at all, so 
that in the melodic chant also we 
must put away all notions of the 
note as a measure of time, and con- 
sider it simply as a guide to the 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



787 



voice. In the so-called syllabic 
chant the text gives to the notes 
their value, so that the length and 
shortness, the strength and softness, 
of the particular tones are deter- 
mined by the rules of grammar and 
rhetoric, and by the liturgical spirit 
of prayer. And so also the move- 
ment of the melodic figures will 
scarcely differ from this. Even 
the neumata are dependent upon 
the influence of the words and their 
character of prayer, and this, too, in 
a higher degree ; but the rules of 
grammar give place to those of the 
natural and unconstrained modula- 
tion of the voice, while rhetorical 
laws yield to those of a pure musi- 
cal tradition, as it is established in 
the old chant-books and confirmed 
by countless passages in old au- 
thors. Here again, then, we have 
only natural rules and criteria, lying 
in the very nature of music and 
justified by tradition. 

Although it is far from our inten- 
"tion to write a grammar of the 
chant or a history of its musical 
development, yet it would not per- 
haps be out of place here to sub- 
join a few of the most general 
rules of musical rhythm, as we have 
explained it. These rules are con- 
cerning the fundamental formulae 
already given : 

(a) The simple note, punctum or 
virga, so called because in the neu- 
matic notation it was sometimes a 

-- i- 

point, sometimes a line, HI$IET cor- 
responds to the vowel in speech. 
Whether it is to be more or less ac- 
cented, or to be sung more or less 
openly, roundly, or, as in transition- 
passages, trippingly, depends en- 
tirely upon its position, just as the 
same vowel may vary greatly in 
pronunciation according to its 
position. Our best rule, there- 
fore, for the rendering of particu- 



lar notes is to give no fixed rule 
at all. 

(ti) For the rendering of the/0- 

datus -5- and scandicus 



as well as for all ascending figures, 
we have a rule in the following 
verse : 

*' Pes notulis binis sursum vult tendere crescens." 

The voice, in rising, increases its 
force until it reaches the accent on 
the highest note of the figure, giv- 
ing in the ascent an impulse of the 
voice or an accent to the first of 
every two notes. The voice, while 
gradually growing louder in this 
way, reserves its greatest force for 
the principal accent on the highest 
note. 

(c] The rule is just the reverse 
for the rendering of the clivus 



and cliuiacus _^^_^^ __!^pz , in 

which the voice becomes softer in 
the descent from the highest note. 
This note most be more or less 
strongly accented in proportion to 
the length of the series, so that the 
ear may receive the impression that 
the first note had enough force to 
produce the others and yet remain 
itself the strongest. Too strong 
an accent upon the principal note 
would make the chant affected and 
undignified, while too little makes 
it drawling and tiresome to the 
ear. Besides, the movement and 
character of the piece, as well as 
the power of the voice or voices, 
have an essential influence in de- 
termining the sufficient amount of 
impulse to be given to the highest 
note in order to produce a natural 
and dignified evenness. Good ac- 
centuation and a certain unction in 
the delivery may compensate for a 
lack of vocal strength, but not vice 
versa, for naturalness is needed 



;88 



Plain Chant in its Relation to the Liturgy. 



above everything else to impart to 
the execution the character of mod- 
esty and piety. 

The dependent notes must grow 
softer, decreasing in accent and 
force until the lowest note is reach- 
ed. They must not be hurried or 
slurred over, yet breaks in the de- 
scent are only allowable when it is 
necessary to take breath, and drag- 
ging is especially to be avoided. 
In This respect organists are often 
to blame from their desire to end 
up with full chords, which nullify 
the effect of the chant. When or- 
ganists cannot accommodate their 
playing to the nature of the chant, 
there is nothing left to do but to 
get rid as much as possible of such 
an objectionable accompaniment. 

(a) In the torculus l^fti=&3= the 



rules of the podatus apply to the 
ascending, and those of the clmis 
to the descending, part. But, be- 
cause it is a combination of two 
opposing forces, the accents are 
not so strongly marked as in those 
figures ; the impulse of the voice 
is more evenly distributed, so that 
each note receives nearly the same 
accentuation. The torculus is a 
transition from the clivus &&& poda- 
tus to the 

(c) Quilisma ^iKfWkiZ and 
pressus HJHHJp which are now seldom 
met with in our chant-books. It 
was in all probability. these figures 
which drove to despair the singing- 
masters sent of old to the Franks, 
when all efforts failed to make 
those barbarous throats produce 
the trills. The quilisma is plainly 
a kind of quaver or shake of the 
voice in short, a kind of trill. The 
pressus, which is still found in many 
old editions, differs from the quilis- 
ma only in its notes following each 
other on the same line, while those 



of the quilisma can stand on differ- , 
ent lines or spaces " plures chor- 
dae sonant dum una nota profer- 

tur." H 



Johannes de Muris says of the 
quilisma : " Quilisma diciturcurvatio 
et continet notulas tres vel plures, 
quandoque ascendens et iterum de- 
scendens, quandoque e contrario." 
Aribon says : "Tremula est neuma, 
quam gradatum vel quilisma dici- 
mus." Engelbert is more explicit : 
"Unisonus est aliqua conjunctio 
vocum non habens inter vallum vel 
distantiam, sed est vox tremula, et 
designator in libris per neumam, 
quse vocatur quilisma. . . ." And 
again : " Voces unisonse sunt, quse 
indistinctae unum aequalem et con- 
tinuum reddunt sonum ; in quibus 
est accipere cum tremore vel sine 
tremore solain moram vocis, et 
nullam distantiam nee aliquod in- 
tervallum." 

Here we might have added the 
most necessary outlines of the me- 
thod of rendering the chief figures 
of the melodic chant, but the nar- 
row limits of our work warn us to 
bring to an end this subject of the 
rhythm. We shall only, by way of 
summing up negatively what has 
been said, set down briefly a few 
of the principal errors by which 
the rules we have given are most 
commonly violated : 

The rhythm is destroyed and the 
chant rendered unnatural 

i. If an equal value is given to 
every note. 

In this way the chant becomes 
drawling and tiresome. Instead 
of an intelligent recitation we have 
only a dull, heavy pronunciation of 
syllables, destructive alike to text 
and melody. Instead of the lan- 
guage of the liturgy we have 
only unintelligible, isolated syllables 
and meaningless sounds; instead of 



Plain Chant in its Relation to tlie Liturgy. 



789 



the suggestive Gregorian melodies, 
disconnected notes mechanically 
drawled out, without spirit or char- 
acter. In the time of Charlemagne, 
the Roman singers upbraided the 
Gauls for mangling the chant, say- 
ing that they could neither read 
the notes nor give expression to 
the melodies " frangebant voces, 
non exprimebant." To-day also 
this reproach is still due to by far 
the greater number of those who 
sing the chant, since the system of 
considering all the notes of equal 
value has become almost univer- 
sally prevalent, finding its strong- 
est support from the organists, who 
are so given up to measure and 
time that they will permit no freer 
movement. 

2. If while an unequal value is 
given to the notes, this value is yet 
fixed a/id proportionate. 

Plain chant, when an equal val- 
ue is given to all the notes, with 
all its heaviness and monotony, lias 
yet a certain decency 'and gravity. 
But to give the notes a proportion- 
ate duration is to make the holy 
chant jerky and frivolous, to rob it 
of its worth and majesty, to per- 
vert its grave and sublime strains 
into something miserably ridicu- 
lous. Nothing is more at variance 
with the ecclesiastical chant than 
such music, which has adopted all 
the defects of measured music 
without a single one of its beau- 
ties. 

3. If each word is separated from 
the others by bars, or, in general, if 
the divisions are made otherwise than 
according to the given natural laws. 

Chant-books are to be found in 
which, in order to show the divi- 
sions of / the text and melody, bars 
are placed either after every word 



or after every group of notes of 
about the same length. The ab- 
surdity of this is self-evident and 
needs no further comment. 

4. If the singer, ignoring the dis- 
tinction between the text and the melo- 
dy, either makes too many rests or 
sings too many notes in one breath, 
without regard to the normal divisions 
of the grammatical or melo'dic phrase. 

This error differs from the pre- 
ceding one in this : that the form- 
er does away with all those natu- 
ral and traditional divisions which 
have been determined according 
to grammatical and musical rules, 
and sets up bars at regular inter- 
vals like fence-posts; but the lat- 
ter, while preserving the musical 
figures and the natural divisions of 
the text, groups them in a way in- 
consistent with the harmony of the 
whole. 

5. If, in the translation of the 
neumatic notation or in the recitation 
of the chant, the figures and the ac- 
cents are confounded. 

Under this are embraced all those 
errors which offend against the cor- 
rect accentuation of the melody as 
well as of the words, and are to be 
ascribed less to false principles 
than to ignorance or a lack of the 
necessary ability. 

In concluding this, the most im- 
portant chapter of our treatise, we 
unhesitatingly express our convic- 
tion that the prevalence of the 
principles we have put forth would 
bring back the chant to as close a 
resemblance as is possible to that 
of old time, of which St. Augus- 
tine says: " Primitiva ecclesia ita 
psallebat, lit modico flexu vocis fa- 
ceret resonare psallentem, ita ut 
pronuntianti vicinior esset quam 
canenti." 



790 



Blanche Blake s Choice. 



BLANCHE BLAKE'S CHOICE. 



ONE evening towards the close 
of the month of February, 187-, an 
outside car dashed up to the por- 
tals of the Shelburne Hotel, St. 
Stephen's Green, Dublin. The 
London mail had just arrived, and 
the somewhat rickety conveyance 
had been chartered by its solitary 
and ulster-enveloped fare at the 
dingy and dismal station at West- 
land Row. The luggage consisted 
of a solid leather portmanteau 
marked in scarlet letters " C. G., 
Temple, London," a hat and dress- 
ing case. The sound of the dinner- 
gong was crashing as the outsider 
drove up. 

" That's humorin' it anyhow," 
gaily observed the driver, flinging 
himself from his elevated perch to 
theflagway. "Here, Tim, "address- 
ing himself to a porter, " be nimble 
wud the luggage, for the say has 
med me fare that hungry that he'll 
ate th' exthra shillin' av ye don't 
be lively. A hungry fare is a bad 
fare." 

" What am I to pay you ?" asked 
the passenger, plunging beneath the 
ponderous folds of his ulster for 
his purse. 

" Be the mortial, it wouldn't be 
worth digging so deep as that for 
anything littler nor half a sove- 
rein," was the ready response. 

" Half a sovereign for a ten min- 
utes' ride ?" 

" Shure didn't ye g-et five pounds' 
worth av Irish histhory out av me ? 
Didn't I show ye Dargan's statue ; 
and Sir William Wilde's house, in 
Murrin Square, and Speranza 
herself, that wrote the beautiful! est 
poethry that ever was wrote barrin 
be Tommy Moore, lukkin' out av 



the parlor windy a fine, eligant 
lady she is; more power to her! 
An' didn't I show ye Prence Al- 
bert's statue, an' where the Juke o' 
Wellington was born, an' " 

" Here, my good fellow, I admit 
that you have earned the money, 
and that / am being chiselled out 
of seven and sixpence," laughed 
the traveller, tossing the grinning 
carman the " bit of yellow gold." 

"Be jabeTs ye done that well," 
observed a bystander in a tone of 
the deepest and most respectful 
admiration. 

" Ye can always cod an English- 
man over the Juke o' Wellington. 
Let them think he's wan av thim- 
selves, an' they'll pay for him," was 
the driver's observation as, spring- 
ing upon his car and chirruping to 
his sorry nag, he drove in an oppo- 
site direction to that by which he 
had come. 

" I require a bed-room," said the 
new-comer, addressing the clerk. 

" Have you ordered one, sir ?" 

" I order it now." 

"I'm afraid we cannot accommo- 
date you." 

" I was advised to stop here by 
my friend Mr. Morgan Blake." 

" Mr. Blake is stopping here 
now, sir." 

"When did he arrive?" 

" By the five from Galway." 

" Is it possible that you cannot 
put me .up ?" 

" I shall be able to let you know 
in one moment." 

" Are you always in this pletho- 
ric condition." 

" Not always, sir ; but this is our 
busiest season. The lord and 
lady lieutenant are at the Castle, 



Blanche Blake s Choice. 



79 



the chief secretary is at the Lodge, 
the judges have not yet gone cir- 
cuit, and this is the height of the 
season. Yesterday we had to send 
away some fifty or sixty of our best 
clients, who had neglected to tele- 
graph for apartments." 

" How long does your season 
last?" 

"Till Patrick's ball; then the 
court leave the Castle for the vice- 
regal lodge in the Phoenix Park. 
We have a lull then for a few 
weeks till our American season 
opens, when we are kept going un- 
til November." 

A gentleman approached the 
desk. 

"At what time does the Cork 
mail leave?" he asked. 

"7-30." 

"Can I do it?" 

"Yes, Captain Miles. Shall we 
keep your room for you ?" 

" No." 

The clerk now turned to, the 
owner of the C. G. luggage. 

" You're in luck, sir. I can give 
you number ninety-seven. Dolan, 
take this gentleman's luggage up to 
ninety-seven. The elevator is first 
door to your left, sir. The first 
table d'hote gong has sounded ; the 
second in ten minutes. Please 
to write your name in this 
book." 

A white hand fit for a countess 
wrote " Charles Greville, the Tem- 
ple, London." 

Greville is a tall, black-haired 
man of thirty, with a head superbly 
set upon a pair of stalwart Saxon 
shoulders, with even features clear- 
ly cut as those of a stone Antinous. 
His eyes are of that dark blue that 
in some lights assumes the hue of 
the violet. His mouth is a laugh- 
ing mouth, showing a set of glit- 
tering though somewhat irregular 
teeth. He is shaved very far back 



upon his face, leaving a silken 
fringe of black whiskers. 

Charlie Greville, the second son 
of Sir Percy Greville of Dawdly 
Chase, Cheshire, was a young Eng- 
lishman of the active and ambi- 
tious type. At first it was Sir 
Percy's intention to have obtained 
a nomination for him in the Foreign 
Office, whence he would blossom 
into an attache at some fourth-rate 
foreign court, and subsequently, if 
lucky and plucky and brassy, be- 
come a secretary and a swell ; but 
the lad having evinced a very de- 
cided wish to go to the English 
bar, his father at once turned the 
current of his studies towards the 
woolsack, and Charlie was duly 
" called " at the early age of three- 
and-twenty. Four years brought 
him about as many briefs, but 
four years ripened his understand- 
ing, and filled his mind, not with 
legal rubbish but with legal dia- 
mond-dust, and when the tide of 
his affairs rose lie took it at the 
flood, pulling with the current on- 
ward to fame and fortune. It was 
the old story. The leading coun- 
sel being absent, the junior was 
called upon to conduct the case. 
Charlie had a rotten case apparent- 
ly, though with truth at the bot- 
tom ; he managed so to prop and 
patch and pad it that its crazi- 
ness did not make itself apparent 
to the jury, and he won in a canter. 
The attorneys were in ecstasies, and 
the junior counsel became a mark- 
ed man. 

Greville led a busy life. It was 
his wont to live perpetually under 
pressure ; to dress with his watch 
open on the dressing-table ; to 
breakfast with his watch beside his 
plate ; to mete out the exact time 
he could spare for his reading; to 
hasten from place to place ; to 
spend all his days in a kind of 



792 



Blanche Blake s Choice. 



mental fever, all his nights in a 
restlessness engendered of over- 
fatigue. He was playing for high 
stakes, for one of the many big 
chances that come to the patient, 
the persevering, the strong. He 
had no intention of placing a flower 
in his button-hole and of saunter- 
ing down the sunny side of life. 
Where the fight was the fiercest 
there would he be, and, when the 
time came, his the hand to strike 
for power, for position, for eleva- 
tion above the " ruck of breathing 
automata." 

" Men have sat in the Upper 
House who began with smaller ad- 
vantages than mine," he thought. 
"All I require is a wife with a for- 
tune. A fortune will buy anything 
in commercial England. One by 
one the old names are dropping 
out of the list, and of ten new ones 
eight are chosen for their broad 
acres or their balance at the bank. 
Money conjoined with professional 
renown clears the ermined road to 
4 my lords ' in double-quick. Yes, 
I must go in for a girl with money, 
and will accept all dowager invita- 
tions even at the risk of a slice of 
my constitution, as gifls are only to 
be met with at those Turkish baths 
called balls. A man must sacrifice 
something when he goes into train- 
ing for the great event of his life." 

No lady in the land extends 
more gracious hospitality to rising 
statesmen, litterateurs, artists, bar- 
risters, and such like than Frances 
Countess Waldegrave, wife of Lord 
Carlingford, whilome the Right 
Honorable Chichester Fortescue, 
Mr. Gladstone's "right-hand Irish- 
man." Her ladyship's receptions, 
both at her Belgravia residence 
and at the historical Strawberry 
Hill shade of Horace Walpole ! 
are the most attractive crushes in 
the immensely great little world 



of fashion. It was at one of these 
crushes that Charlie Greville met 
Mr. Morgan Blake, member of Par- 
liament for Connemara an Eng- 
lish Irishman who was engaged in 
a perpetual endeavor to conceal a 
rich brogue beneath a thin veneer 
of cockney Saxon, and who regard- 
ed the fact of having been born in 
Ireland in the light of an actual 
misfortune. The possessor of a 
splendid estate which he seldom 
visited, of a princely residence in 
which he never dwelt save at spas- 
modic intervals, and of a rent-roll 
of three thousand per annum, he 
was so impregnated with the poison 
of absenteeism that he came to 
regard everything Irish as a mis- 
take, not even excepting the con- 
stituency which he so grossly mis- 
represented and whose interests he 
so glaringly neglected. In this 
anti-Irish feeling he was fondly 
encouraged by his wife, the daugh- 
ter of a wealthy cotton merchant, 
who believed in Central Africa but 
not in Tipperary, and who by his 
will tied up the sum of thirty thou- 
sand pounds in such a manner as 
to preclude the possibility of its 
being expended, or any portion 
thereof, in that " cursed and impos- 
sible country." Mrs. Blake was to 
enjoy the interest until her eldest 
child came of age if a son, at 
twenty-one ; if a daughter, at eigh- 
teen ; the son to marry an Eng- 
lishwoman and to reside in Eng- 
land, the daughter to marry an 
Englishman and to reside in Eng- 
land ; and, in default of issue, the 
money on the demise of Mrs. 
Blake was to go to Her Most Gra- 
cious Majesty, Queen Victoria, or 
the then sovereign of the realm. It 
was a strange will the will of an 
ignorant, prejudiced Saxon, the 
will of a man who regarded "the 
mere Irish " as of less importance 



Blanche Blake s Choice. 



793 



than the horses in his stables, the 
cattle in his fields. And are there 
not many men of his thinking in 
merrie England at this present time 
of writing? 

" Aw ! how de do, Mistavv Gre- 
ville ?" exclaimed the M.P., as the 
barrister was gently crushing past 
in a hopeful endeavor to reach 
within greeting of his hostess. 

" You here, Mr. Blake?" 

" Why not?" 

"Why, the house is in a frenzy 
over Mr. Butt's amendment, and 
there is just a chance for the Irish 
party to beat the government." 

" It's a Home-Rule question, I 
suppose ?" 

" You suppose! Why it's the ques- 
tion of the session." 

" I'm much better off here than 
with those ragamuffins." 

" I thought you were a Home- 
Ruler, Mr. -Blake ?" said Greville, 
very considerably astonished. 

"In Connemara yes ; in London 
no. Haw, haw!" And the M.P. 
indulged in a languid chuckle. 

"Will your constituents stand 
this ?" 

" My dear fellah, an Irish con- 
stituency stand anything. They are 
so accustomed to being sold that, 
by Jove ! they rather like it than 
otherwise." 

At this moment Mr. Blake was 
joined by a fair, slenderly-built girl 
with hair of that special hue that 
is seen on the shell of the Spanish 
chestnut, and the complexion of a 
May morning. A pair of limpid 
hazel eyes gave to her countenance 
somewhat of the grace of a Cor- 
reggio's Virgin Mother, a starry 
radiance, calm, pure, seraphic. 

" For what hour did you order 
the carriage, papa?" she asked in a 
somewhat weary tone. 

"Half-past one, Blanche." 

" Another hour of this ?" 



" Are you tired ?" 

" I suppose so. I don't much 
care for this sort of thing." 

" Let me present Mr. Greville 
to you. Mr. Greville, my daugh- 
ter." 

The aspiring barrister felt a 
thrill of exultation pass through 
him. Thirty thousand pounds! Mr. 
Blake moved away in the wake of 
a duchess from whom he hungered 
for a nod, a beck, or a wreathed 
smile, and Greville was left alone 
with Blanche. 

" What shall I talk to you about, 
Miss Blake ?" he asked. 

" Ireland, if you can" she laugh- 
ed. 

" Are you very Irish ?" 

"/#;;/," firmly, almost haughtily. 

" I've never been across." 

" Shame upon you ! and Dublin 
but eleven short hours from where 
you stand." 

" I hope to ' do ' Ireland some 
day." 

" Some day is no day ; go at 
once !" 

"You reside in Ireland ?" 

"Oh! very little ; ta? little," she 
exclaimed. " I have been at a 
convent near Honfleur for three 
years, and my vacations have always 
been spent in London ; but we go 
over next week. I am to be pre- 
sented at the Irish court, and then 
we go to Curragh-na-Copple for 
some weeks." 

Greville became strangely in- 
terested in the young, fresh, artless 
girl, whose unhackneyed ideas were 
full of a breeziness new to this 
jaded brain-worker, this toiler in 
the great rush for place. She was 
so unlike the animated dolls, the 
be-powdered, smiling-to-order class 
of women whom he was compelled 
to be extra civil to in society, that 
every word falling from her lips 
possessed its own fascination, while 



794 



Blanche Blake s Choice. 



every idea seemed fraught with a 
vivid, warm, and caressing grace. 

" Is Dublin much ?" he asked 
after Miss Blake had dashed over 
Connemara as though mounted on 
a thoroughbred and leading the 
" Galway Blazers." 

" How do you mean ?" 

" I believe it's as dead and buried 
as Herculaneum or Pompeii." 

"Not quite. You burn cheap 
coal in your Saxon Vesuvius, and 
your lava is at best but very poor 
cinders." 

"All metaphor aside, Miss Blake, 
do tell me something about Dublin. 
Have you any society?" 

"We have a court, Mr. Greville." 

"A Brummagem one." 

"Am I in the witness-box or in 
Lady Waldegrave's drawing-room ?" 
she laughingly asked. 

"Both." 

" But this is only my direct ex- 
amination ?" 

" I shall reserve the 'cross' for 
another occasion." 

"Why should not Dublin be for 
society the societiest? Have they 
not a Castle and a lord lieutenant, 
a lord chancellor, a master of the 
rolls, twelve judges, the law officers 
of the crown, a few alas ! too few 
resident nobility, a large fixed 
gentry, and, thanks to Saxon terror, 
a tremendous garrison ? Have they 
not clubs, and musical societies, 
and coteries to no end? Have 
they not a beautiful city, and such 
a park, with such hawthorn groves 
and such purple mountains for a 
background, and have they not 
a bay as fair as that of Naples, and 
suburbs as beautiful as Frascati or 
B nen a Vista ?" 

''You quite interest me. I must 
make time for a flying visit, using 
Holyhead as the trapeze between 
London and Dublin. I do like Irish 
people," he added honestly enough. 



" Collectively you hate us, in- 
dividually you love us. Pshaw!" 
with an irresistible shrug, " you 
are too self-opinionated here, too 
conceited, too full of the triumph 
your gold has purchased, ever to 
think of us save as a purchased 
people. Am I not right, Mr. D'Al- 
ton ?" turning to a gentleman who 
had just lounged up to her side. 

" Of course you are, Miss Blake; 
and having conceded this, may I 
ask what the question at issue hap- 
pens to be ?" 

" This conceding is the reckless- 
ness that leaves the county throb- 
bing between hope and despair. 
Why concede anything?" 

" Expediency ! Although, seri- 
ously, we should concede notJiing. 
To-night, for instance, in the House 
we are fighting the government 
with cold steel, beating them at 
their own weapons, contesting the 
ground inch by inch. The strug- 
gle is raging now" 

"And Mr. D'Alton, the member 
for Dunmore, dallies in Lady Wal- 
degrave's drawing-room, instead of 
taking his stand at Thermopylae," 
cried Blanche, her lips curling in 
open scorn. 

"You are unjust, Miss Blake," 
retorted D'Alton hotly. "I was 
sent here by Mr. Butt to bring 
down your father vi et annis. 
Mr. Sullivan is speaking against 
time, and will go on until half-past 
two. I relieve guard, and shall talk 
till the gray dawn. We are trying 
a change of front, Miss Blake ; and, 
although we are very few, we mean 
to stand shoulder to shoulder to 
the bitter end." 

Herbert D'Alton, as he stands in 
Lady Waldegrave's gilded salon, is 
a superb specimen of the Irish gen- 
tleman. Six feet two in height, he 
has the shoulders of an athlete 
and the waist of an Adonis. His 



Blanche Blake s Choice. 



795 



handsome face, ever sunlighted, is a 
face that irresistibly attracts. Come 
of the "rale ould stock," his love 
for Ireland is a love that is more 
than love, and with her glowing 
cause he has cast his lot. He is 
member for Dunmore ; an ardent 
Home-Ruler, an eloquent and fiery 
speaker, fearless as a lion, defiant 
as Ajax, and incorruptible as Fab- 
ricius. 

D'Alton had been "badly hit." 
Blanche Blake was just the one 
woman worth playing a life against, 
worth every thought, every hope, 
every aspiration. Her adoration 
for that country in whose future he 
was so wrapped up was a golden 
link that bound him to her even 
before the white radiance of love- 
light had penetrated his heart. 
He sought her as the passionate 
lover of nature seeks the first violet 
in springtime, always to be refresh- 
ed by the fragrance of her youth, 
her purity, and her beauty. 

"Can a woman apologize to a 
man, Mr. D'Alton?" she asked 
earnestly enough. She felt bitter- 
ly sorry that she had wronged 
him. 

"Never!" he laughed. "She 
just looks a little triste, a pearl-col- 
ored cloud crosses her face for the 
span of one brief second et viola 
tout." 

"There is more in us than that. 
I hope so, at least. I would apolo- 
gize if L could," she said in a low 
tone. 

" I could not let you, if you 
would," he responded, still smiling 
and enjoying with manly grace the 
pleasure of placing the fair girl at 
a generous disadvantage. Greville 
felt himself de trop here, and turned 
aside a moment to watch the com- 
pany. 

"Well," she said with a half-sigh, 
" I feel that I am in your debt." 



" My dear Miss Blake, you make 
altogether too much of a mere no- 
thing." 

"But it was not a mere nothing. 
It was wrong it was an insult 
even to think such a thing of you. 
I am very sorry." And she laid her 
hand on his a moment. At her 
touch he grew deadly white. She 
saw his pallor and added : " You 
are hurt ?" 

" Very, very sorely" The words 
forced themselves out in a despair- 
ing sort of way. 

"I knew it, and yet you smiled. 
Can you forgive a silly girl a silly 
remark? " 

He had recovered himself, and 
the old smile came back as he 
said : 

" I can forgive Miss Blake noth- 
ing." 

"Oh! why?" 

" For the very good reason that 
I have nothing to forgive," said the 
good-natured fellow. 

" You are generous, Mr. D'Alton ; 
but I feel that I am still your debt- 
or, and and I pay my debts." 

He looked at her a moment 
earnestly, and a deep flush swept 
over his face. He bent towards 
her, all his soul in his eyes, and 
again recovered. 

" I had better go back to Ther- 
mopylae, "he said huskily. "Good- 
night, Miss Blake." 

" There's papa. Make him go 
back with you." 

" I wish I were the Usher of the 
Black Rod for about twenty-five 
minutes," laughed D'Alton as he 
plunged through a maze of silks, 
and lace, and tulle illusion, and 
flowers, after the mis-representative 
of Connemara. 

Later on, as Greville was about to 
surrender Miss Blake to her cliape- 
rone, he earnestly exclaimed : 

" I mean to go to Dublin." 



Blanche Blake s Choice. 



"That's right. When?" 
" Next week. Yes," he added, 
" I'll run over and see you present- 
ed at court." 

As Charlie Greville walked to- 
wards the Temple he allowed his 
thoughts to bathe in rose-color. 
" Oh ! to be a country gentleman, 
living at Curragh-na-Copple with 
twenty thousand a year, and to live 
my own life; to marry Blanche 
Blake, and to dawdle away my 
harmless days riding round my 
estate ; to superintend the felling of 
a tree or the levelling of a hedge ; 
to have the renown that goes with 
a good old name and a handsome 
income, and to have nothing to 
wrestle for, no prize to pluck from 
the slow-growing tree that bears 
the sour fruit yclept worldly suc- 
cess. Yes, I shall- go over on 
Monday, and win this girl if I 
can." 

In pursuance of his " drift," 
Charlie Greville one fine February 
morning, deserting the village by the 
Thames, in less than eleven hours 
found himself at the Shelburne 
Hotel, enjoying all the luxury of a 
" big wash " in the softest of all soft 
waters, brought from the sweet little 
river Liffey, from out the very 
heart of the purple VVicklow Hills ; 
fully prepared to sneer, as all Lon- 
doners do, at the idea of a " Dub- 
lin season," but keenly alive to the 
fascinations of Blanche Blake and 
her thirty thousand pounds. 

After a poor table d'hote dinner 
the Shelburne is not noted for its 
chef Greville sent his card to Mr. 
Blake's room, whither he was 
ushered by the returning waiter. 

" Ah ! how de do, Greville ? What 
on earth could have induced you 
to venture among us ?" exclaimed 
the M.P. " Business, of course ; I 
cavvn't understand anybody coming 



here for pleseaw. Only fancy, 
they want the royal family to come 
and live here in such a country ! 
I voted against the Royal Resi- 
dence Bill as both impudent and 
preposterous." 

" I cannot see it in that light," said 
the barrister ; " I can't see why the 
Queen showers every possible favor 
upon Scotland and snubs Ireland 
whenever she gets a chance of do- 
ing so. I don't see what benefit a 
royal residence would be to the 
country, but if the Irish wish to 
have her it is a very short-sighted 
policy not " 

" They don't want to have her," 
said a low, soft voice at his elbow ; 
" it's the mere outcry of tuft-hunt- 
ers and Castle-hacks." 

It was Blanche Blake. 

"Yes," she continued after the 
conventional salutations had been 
duly exchanged, " we can get on 
very well without England ; all we 
want is our own parliament, and a 
tax on absentees." 

" What absurd nonsense you do 
talk !" observed Mrs. Blake languid- 
ly. She had entered the room attir- 
ed en costume du bal. " A tax on ab- 
sentees ! Why, who on earth would 
live in Ireland that could live out 
of it ?" 

"7 would, mamma," replied 
Blanche. 

"Oh! as for you, you are in- 
corrigible. She is a Fenian, Mr. 
Greville. I am sure I cannot say 
where she picked up her outre and 
bizarre notions about this country ; 
not from ?ne nor from her papa." 

" I am a Blake of Curragh-na- 
Copple," said the girl proudly. 

" You are a Blake of Cavendish 
Square, London." 

"Never." 

" Passotis /" exclaimed her moth- 
er with a shrug. "A week in Ire- 
land is enough for me. Mr. Blake 



BlancJie Blake s Choice. 



797 



is, bon grc mal gre, obliged to remove 
here twice a year to keep his con- 
stituents in good humor, and I am 
tied to his chariot-wheels. Fancy 
what his tenants did when we were 
at Cur-cur-ch I never can pro- 
nounce that horrid name. They pre- 
sented a sort of petition asking him 
to stop at least three months out of 
the twelve at what they were pleas- 
ed to term his ancestral seat. Did 
you ever hear of such audacity?" 

" Never," said Greville with a 
smile. 

"It was simply monstrous." 

" Under all the circumstances of 
the case it was a strange proceed- 
ing, Mrs. Blake," with a tinge of 
irony in his tone. 

"If you only knew the thrill of 
intense pleasure that vibrates 
through me as the steamer glides 
out of Kingstown harbor en route to 
Holyhead ! Why, it is a sort of re- 
surrection from a living grave." 

" Surely the society " 

"Don't speak to me on that sub- 
ject, please" interrupted Mrs. Blake. 
"Society is so mixed thatyou really 
become bewildered. Only fancy, 
I dined at the Castle on Saturday, 
and I was taken into dinner by an 
alderman who keeps a tobacco 
shop not a hundred yards from the 
Castle gate." 

" The alderman was invited be- 
cause of his office as high sheriff," 
said Blanche. 

" He should have been left in 
the servants' hall. It's too ridicu- 
lous seeing such people in a so- 
called regal set." 

" Ah ! by Jove, the company is 
doosidly mixed," observed Blake. 
" You'll see some queer fishes at 
the levee to-morrow." 

"And as for the drawing-room!" 
here Mrs. Blake threw her eyes up 
to the ceiling in a martyred sort of 
way ; " what a lot of stories you 



will have for your coterie at the 
club when you get back !" 

" I am quite sure, mamma, that 
Mr. Greville is not here either as a 
private detective or as one of the 
staff of Punch" 

" Miss Blake only does me jus- 
tice," said the barrister with a deep 
bow. 

"He requires to be neither a de- 
tective nor a journalist to take back 
the most viv.id impressions of this 
horrible, half-civilized country." 

" Mamma, we can never agree 
about Ireland, so let us talk of the 
weather." 

"Mr. Greville, take my advice 
and return to our beloved London 
by the morning boat." 

"I cannot go back, Mrs. Blake, 
until I shall have done three 
things." 

" What are they ? if not an im- 
pertinent question." 

" Number one, to see Miss Blake 
presented at court ; number two, to 
have a tremendous ride on an out- 
side jaunting car; and number 
three, to take a dash with an Irish 
pack of hounds." 

"What Saxon is talking of Irish 
hounds ?" demanded a bright, cheer- 
ry voice, as a dapper, round-faced; 
black-eyed, curly-headed little fel- 
low, whose age might have been 
fourteen or forty, arrayed in the 
white waistcoat and brass-buttoned 
coat turned over with light blue 
poplin indicative of his being at- 
tached to the household of the lord 
lieutenant, plunged into the apart- 
ment. 

" Mr. Greville is, Captain Dillon. 
Let me introduce Mr. Greville, of 
the English bar, to Captain Dillon, 
of his excellency's staff." 

The two gentlemen bowed. 

"I was just saying," said Gre- 
ville, " that I want a plunge with 
an Irish pack." 



Blanche Blake s Choice. 



"You're in luck, then, Mr. Gre- 
ville, for the Ward Union stag- 
hounds meet to-morrow almost at 
the Castle gates, and the Meath 
on Wednesday, and the Bray and 
Wicklow harriers on Saturday; but 
if you want real hard riding, run 
down with Blake here to Curragh- 
na-Copple, and you'll never ask to 
try a bullfinch with the Pytchley 
again. By the way, you'll want a 
'mount.'" 

" I suppose I can arrange that." 

" I don't suppose you can with- 
out my help. Let me see. Bertie 
Hope is off to town and won't be 
down until Thursday. You can have 
Bertie's chestnut. She's a weight- 
carrier. You ride sixteen stone? I 
thought so. Come and breakfast 
with me to-morrow morning ; eleven 
o'clock, at the aide-de-camps' quar- 
ters, Lower Castle Yard ; a devilled 
bone and a bit of red, You'll 
dine with me at the Guards' mess 
at Beggars' Bush to-morrow night. 
On Wednesday night I'll be on duty, 
so I can't do much for you except 
luncheon and dinner. Blake, have 
you put your friend up at the Kil- 
dare Street Club ?" 

" Why, my dear Captain Dillon, 
you overwhelm me !" cried Greville. 

" What are you talking about, 
Mr. Greville ? When a stranger 
comes amongst us we only try to 
take him in. What ! not dressed 
yet, Miss Blake ?" 

"I am not going to the Jeph- 
sons' ball." 

"Not going?" exclaimed the 
aide-de-camp in a tone almost ap- 
proaching dismay. 

" A little dissipation is more than 
enough for me ; in addition to which 
I shall be out on Wednesday night." 

"But a ball is a ball," urged Dil- 
lon, " and this will be a stunner. 
A lot of our people are going. His 
Ex. cannot, of course ; but the cubs 



go, and two of the girls. Change 
your mind!" 

Blanche laughingly shook her 
head. 

" Do you not care for balls, Miss 
Blake?" asked Greville. 

" Indeed I do not." 

" Nor for dancing ?" 

" Nor for dancing." 

" Strange girl !" thought Greville, 
as, later on, he strolled round Ste- 
phen's Green smoking a meditative 
cigar " a strange girl. I can't make 
her out. There is some arriere pen- 
S(?e; something behind her thoughts 
that / cannot plumb. What, is it ? 
Love? No; the starlight in her 
eyes betokens a heart as yet un- 
troubled by the wild throbbings of 
that fiction termed love. And is it 
a fiction ? Am I prepared to stand 
upon my defence against a charge 
of the same sentiment, disease, 
madness, call it what you will? How 
pluckily she fights for her country ! 
A country must be worth some- 
thing when such a girl's soul is en- 
twined in its cause. What a re- 
creant is her father ! How like the 
vast majority of the Irishmen we 
meet in London, and whom we so 
despise ! A true Irishman we cher- 
ish and respect, but this sort of 
thing pah !" And he flung away 
his cigar-butt as he uttered the 
contemptuous monosyllable. 

The breakfast at Captain Dil- 
lon's quarters proved a most un- 
qualified success from the potted 
whitebait to the host. The aide- 
de-camp had invited two or three 
" mad merry wags " to meet the 
Saxon, and Greville now began to 
feel the flash of Irish wit and the 
glow that Irish hospitality ever im- 
parts to its favored recipients. 
After the dejeuner Dillon chartered 
an outside car and indulged the 
brief-worn barrister with a dash 
through the "Phaynix." 



Blanche Blake s Choice. 



799 






"You have the Ladies' Mile in 
London, and Rotten Row," ex- 
claimed the aide; "but what's in a 
mile ? We can offer you five of 
green velvet in this glorious park ; 
and look at that broidery of grand 
old elms, and see the river Liffey 
winding through the valley of Cha- 
pelizod like a s-ilver cord. That 
range of hills is the Dublin Moun- 
tains, and that old ruined castle 
at the top that one on the extreme 
right is Montpelier, where a set of 
demons, calling themselves the 
' Hell- fire Club,' used to hold their 
godless orgies." 

u Is Dublin much ?" laughingly 
demanded Miss Blake, as the bar- 
rister gushed over the beauty of 
the city. 

"I am perfectly charmed with it. 
What a glorious building is the 
Bank of Ireland ! Do you know, it 
made me sad to stand in the old 
House of Lords and think " 

"It doesn't bear thinking!" she 
interrupted. " How do you like 
Sackville Street?" 

" I have strolled along the Puer- 
ta del Sol at Madrid, the Nevskoi 
Prospekt at St. Petersburg, Un- 
ter den Linden at Berlin, and 
the Boulevard des Italiens, but 
Sackville Street surpasses them 
all." 

"It ;s wide enough to drive cat- 
tle through for the English market, 
and that's about the best use for 
it," said Mrs. Blake. 

The time glided past all too ra- 
pidly, and every hour the rosy tide 
of love crept upward, upward, un- 
til Charlie Greville felt that he was 
doomed to be overwhelmed unless 
a rope was cast to him by the dain- 
ty hand of Blanche Blake. 

Greville "did " the levee, and, ar- 
rayed in a court suit of black vel- 
vet flashing with cut-steel buttons 
that glittered like diamonds, upon 



the following night attended the 
drawing-room. The grand old oak- 
en staircase, at the top of which 
Lady Tyrconnel uttered the wither- 
ing rebuke to James after the flight 
from the Battle of the Boyne, was 
a mass of statue-like Guardsmen, 
in scarlet coats and bearskin sha- 
kos, camellia-trees laden with 
blossoms, gigantic ferns, and a 
thousand lights. Up the stairway 
languidly moved Ireland's fairest 
daughters the blooming matron, 
conscious of brocade and feathers 
and lappets and diamonds ; the 
blushing maid in spotless white, 
and in all the heart-beating tremor 
attendant upon the awful cere- 
mony of presentation. Mankind, 
from the snuffy old Q.C. in dingy 
horsehair wig and frayed silken 
robe, veritable Castle-hacks, to the 
newly-fledged ensign, glowing in 
his uniform, upon which the crease 
of the tailor's goose still fondly and 
shinily lingered. In the ante-room 
the light of a thousand wax can- 
dles, diffusing a mild and all-satis- 
fying radiance, shone down upon 
diamonds that scornfully flashed 
back the glitter in a myriad spar- 
kles ; shone upon a combination of 
colors outvying the stereotyped 
rainbow, or the muchly-used, for 
the purpose of similes, kaleido- 
scope ; shone down upon uniforms, 
from the vivid scarlet of the Guards- 
men to the dark green of the Rifle 
Brigade ; shone down upon quaint 
court-dresses cut after the fashion of 
the plum-colored suit supplied by 
one Filby, the tailor, to an impro- 
vident, snub-nosed little gentleman 
living in the Temple, know as Oli- 
ver Goldsmith ; shone down upon 
fair women and brave men, and 
upon a scene that for brilliancy of 
effect and delightful ensemble is un- 
surpassed by the more labored ef- 
forts of the most aesthetic chamber- 



8oo 



Blanche Blake s Choice. 



lains of any of the proudest courts 
in Europe. 

Soft and voluptuous music, now 
sparkling with the glitter of Offen- 
bach, now wailing with the dreamy 
sigh of Strauss, tended to add ad- 
ditional charm to the scene, while 
over and above all reigned a gene- 
ral joyousness and an almost un- 
conventional mirth that savored 
more of the revelry of a carnival 
than of the cold-blooded pageantry 
of a court. 

The presentation came off at the 
drawing-room, and Miss Blake, 
looking like a rosebud surrounded 
by a cloud of white mist, was duly 
saluted by the viceroy and made 
free of the Irish court. There was 
quite a buzz of admiration as, all 
blushing and radiant, she emerged 
from the throne-room into St. Pat- 
rick's Hall. 

"It's a terrible ordeal," she 
laughed ; " and why I did not back 
into my train is still a mystery to 
me. But that Captain Dillon so 
adroitly flung it across my arm I 
would most assuredly have bitten 
the dust." 

Officers in gorgeous and glitter- 
ing uniforms pressed for introduc- 
tions. Deputy lieutenants in scar- 
let and silver, courtiers in black 
velvet and embroidered waistcoats 
and lace ruffles, lisping cornets, 
and very heavy dragoons asked each 
other who she was. 

"She's eighty thousand pounds," 
exclaimed a Galway squire ; " but 
she can't look at any fellow who 
hasn't had the luck to be born a 
base, bloody, and brutal. Saxon." 

" All this sort of thing will turn 
your head, Miss Blake," observed 
Greville with something akin to a 
sigh. 

" My head ? No. I value this 
glare and blaze and dazzle at its 
worth." 



Captain Dillon monopolized 
Blanche in virtue of the blue and 
gold of the household. Greville 
was simply nowhere, and for the mo- 
ment he envied the good-natured, 
chatty little aide-de-camp his showy 
plumage and butterfly existence. 
The barrister hovered near the 
fair debutante, watching her every 
movement with hungry and wistful 
eyes. Did a heavy swell make his 
bow upon introduction, a jealous 
pang shot through Greville's bo- 
som ; did a " plunger," tugging vio- 
lently at his moustache, take Miss 
Blake for a promenade upon his 
golden-braided arm, he felt as 
though he could have picked a 
quarrel with the pink-faced, pigeon- 
breasted nonentity. 

Early on the following morning 
he telegraphed to Squeeze & Drain, 
the eminent solicitors in Chancery 
Lane, London, E. C. : 

" When is the case of Gole versus 
Spudge expected to come on ? I 
want to stop in Ireland for a few 
days longer." 

And ere he sat down to his 
breakfast a reply bore him the gra- 
cious tidings that he could remain 
until the following Monday. 

This was a reprieve. Mr. Blake 
had invited him to Curragh-na- 
Copple, Blanche had endorsed the 
invitation, and he was now free to 
accept it. Four days in a country 
house was worth four years in a 
city. He would see her fourteen 
hours out of the twenty-four. Con- 
ventionality would prove but chick- 
en-hearted, and would not dare en- 
force its adamantine rules. Pro- 
pinquity meant success, if " the case 
were properly handled. " Luck was 
with him, and what a factor is this 
same luck in that fitful fever of 
combinations called life ! 

Curragh-na-Copple was a bleak- 






Blanche Blake s Choice. 



801 



looking mansion, bearing no very 
remote resemblance to a barracks. 
It was all windows and dull gray 
walls. It stood on a vast plain of 
meadow-land, the river Sugawnanah 
washing a neglected plesaunce that 
stretched to the water's edge. 
Within it was bright and cheery and 
old-fashioned. The drawing-room 
furniture was of decayed brocade 
and rosewood, while round mirrors 
surrounded by golden globes adorn- 
ed the walls almost to perplexity. 
The dining-room was rich in real 
Domingo, a mahogany such as one 
never stretches one's legs beneath 
nowadays, with horse-hair-cover- 
ed chairs, and a sideboard of an- 
tique design, more or less battered 
and dingy. Some family portraits 
stared grimly upon the seated 
guests, especially that of a Blake 
who had been " out " no less than 
twenty times, and who had enjoy- 
ed the doubtful honor of pulling a 
hair-trigger at fifteen paces oppo- 
site no less a personage than " Fight- 
ing Fitzgerald." The surrounding 
country was somewhat flat, an oc- 
casional hill breaking the sky-line ; 
timber there was none, Mr. Blake's 
father having " drunk every stick 
of it " ; and the river, whilst its 
canal-like appearance would have 
charmed the heart of a Dutchman, 
was a little too tame for the ac- 
cepted pattern of the " winding 
and willowy." 

Greville travelled from Dublin 
with the Blakes. He .was not over- 
pleased to find Captain Dillon 
snugly ensconced in the seat next to 
Blanche, but entered himinhis men- 
tal note-book as one of those indis- 
pensable, well-bred, gossiping little 
men who are a necessity to the relief 
of the dulness of a country-house. At 
the station they were met by a tall, 
strapping, dragoon-like young fellow 
Andy Burke, a son of Sir Myles 
VOL. xxvni. 51 



Burke, of Tallyho Park, in cordu- 
roy tights, boots with tops, a bottle- 
green cut-away coat, a white silk 
belcher confined by a golden fox- 
head with rubies for eyes, and a high 
felt hat. 

This horsey-looking youngster, 
slapping his shapely leg with his 
whip, hung awkwardly about Miss 
Blake. 

" I heard you were coming," he 
growled. " My sister told me, and 
I thought I'd ride over. I was 
dying to see you." 

" Fifteen miles ! The age of chi- 
valry is not dead," exclaimed' 
Blanche, wave after wave of blush 
breaking over her bright, fair face. 
" You are coming to stop, Andy, 
are you not ?" 

"I suppose so. I'll stop if you 
like," he added in a sudden, un- 
couth way, flinging the words at 
her, as he cracked his whip. 

" We are always glad to see a 
Tallyho man at Curragh-na-Cop- 
pie." 

" But are you glad to see me, 
Blanche ?" 

" Why, of course I am, my dear 
old playmate." 

And Greville thought : " This 
unlicked cub is spooney on her." 

" I'll tell you who promised to 
give us a couple of days, my dear," 
observed Blake to his wife upon 
the evening of their arrival at Cur- 
ragh-na-Copple ; "he was in Dub- 
lin, and I asked him down. He's 
an influential fellow with those 
groundlings, the Home-Rulers 
D'Alton." 

Mrs. Blake raised her hands, her 
eyebrows, and her voice in protest. 

" Don't expect me to be civil to 
that person. Did you read his at- 
tack upon us I mean people who 
choose not to live in bogs and pig- 
styes for ever, and spend a little of 
their time elsewhere?" 



802 



Blanche Blake s Choice. 



" He is very advanced, I know, 
but a little friction with the loung- 
ers on the government benches will 
rub him down." 

" Mr. D'Alton will hardly corneso 
far for two days," said Blanche. 

" He's coming west to confer 
with Dr. MacHale on some absurd 
Home-Rule question," was her fa- 
ther's remark in response. 

" This looks like business," 
thought Greville ; " but I have the 
pull over these Irishmen. By the 
provisions of her grandfather's 
will she can only bring her for- 
tune to a Saxon husband not but 
that she would be a bride worthy 
of King Cophetua, were she but a 
lowly beggar-maid." 

Herbert D'Alton duly arrived, 
looking bright and brave and 
handsome. 

"Mr. D'Alton/' observed Mrs. 
Blake icily, "while you honor us 
with your company I must request 
that no politics shall be discussed, 
and above all no such loathsome 
topic as Ireland as a nation." 

The red blood surged angrily in 
the ardent Irishman's veins, and a 
fierce retort was on his lips when 
Blanche interposed : 

" Except with me, Mr. D'Alton." 

And D'Alton bowed as he would 
not even have made obeisance to 
-the Speaker of the Irish House .of 
Commons. 

" The hounds meet at Rowsons- 
^town to-morrow morning at ten 
sharp," was Mr. Blake's good-night 
to his four guests as they quitted 
the smoking-room together. " Gre- 
ville, Andy Burke, here, will give 
you a lead that means neck or 
nothing. Don't let your English 
prudence be overridden by his 
Irish recklessness." 

It was a fine morning, but the 
hoar-frost lay thick in the misty 
aiieadows, and the hard beat of the 



horses' hoofs on the Ballinas- 
thoragh road proclaimed any- 
thing but a hunting morning. 
Nevertheless many riders wended 
their way toward the little village 
of Rowsonstown, as in the adjoin- 
ing coverts of Ballieborough a fox 
was sure to be " convaynient." 

The "pinks" looked compara- 
tively few by reason of the black 
and gray coats of the sporting 
farmers ; but there, like one of 
Ackerman's old prints, sat Sir 
Myles Burke of Tallyho, faultless 
in a deep-skirted coat and a velvet 
cap, and not far off, in modern 
contrast, Captain Dillon, A.D.C., in 
the loveliest of pink coats, the 
highest of silk hats, the whitest of 
linen scarfs fastened with a dia- 
mond-studded horse-shoe pin, the 
tightest of buckskins, and the 
shiniest of tops. Here, with a 
broad blue collar, was the hard-rid- 
ing resident magistrate, alongside 
of a young lady, in " billy-cock 
hat," whose father was a magnate 
in the neighboring county. The 
M. F. H., Jack Bodkin of Ballyna- 
hooley, a fine, military-looking man, 
sat his thoroughbred as firmly as 
the Commendatore his iron horse 
in "Don Giovanni, "while a crowd of 
country people on low-backed cars 
as well as on foot gathered on the 
" fringe of the fun." 

Presently the Curragh-na-Copple 
party put in an appearance, Mr. 
Blake, in a hat, blue striped shirt, 
and leathers defying description, 
mounted a superb weight-carrier ; 
D'Alton riding a serviceable but 
not particularly handsome hunter ; 
Greville on a wiry, long-limbed 
black; and Andy Burke bestriding 
a "knowing one." 

Blanche, in the most coquettish 
of sealskin hats, and the most ca- 
ressing of sealskin coats, and the 
most gently-pressing yellow gaunt- 



Blanche Blake s Choice. 



803 



leted kid gloves, drove over in her 
basket carriage, as young Free- 
mantle, of the Westport Rifles, ob- 
served, "just like a dozen of wine, 
by Jove !" 

The four gentleman guests paid 
her court as she pulled up opposite 
the little hostelry at Rowsonstown. 

" Which of you cavaliers will 
bring me the brush ?" she asked. 

"I shall do or die," laughed 
Greville. 

" I'll trust to luck," said Dillon. 

"Neck or nothing," cried D'Al- 
ton. 

"And what do you say, Andy?" 
she inquired. 

" Faith, I'll say nothing," was 
the young fellow's reply, as he dis- 
mounted in order to tighten his 
girths. 

In a few minutes the hunt was 
speeding over the dewy turf, the 
crowd breaking and following them, 
horse and foot, helter-skelter through 
hedges, over ditches, and across 
stone walls, till by the time two 
coverts had been drawn unsuccess- 
fully the field was as thin as the 
locks of a man of fifty. Suddenly 
the glad "View-halloo !" broke out 
on the frosty air, and Master Rey- 
nard was perceived making for a 
copse about half a mile to the 
right. 

" Now for it," thought all four 
men. Each of them had resolved 
upon riding over the dogs, if neces- 
sary, in order to bring back the 
coveted trophy to Blanche Blake. 

The sun had set a blood-red as 
the guests returned to Curragh-na- 
Copple. Andy Burke had ridden 
like the wind, but as he faced " a 
six-foot wall " his horse shied, fling- 
ing him against a granite boulder, 
where he lay insensible until pick- 
ed up by the people who followed 
the hunt on foot. 



Greville, by cautious detours and 
careful reckoning, made very good 
running. Dillon " fetched a crop- 
per " at the outset, and was not 
placed ; and D'Alton, plunging as 
he would into a Home-Rule de- 
bate, following fast and furiously 
upon the huntsmen's heels, came 
in at the death and gallantly won 
the brush. 

Poor Andy Burke, with a ban- 
daged head, did not put in an ap- 
pearance at dinner, but later on he 
honored the drawing-room with his 
presence. 

The gentlemen were still over 
their wine, Mrs. Blake was enjoying 
a post-prandial nap, and Blanche 
was nestled in a blush satin caress- 
ing arm-chair, occupied in reading, 
when Andy limped in. 

" Don't stir, Blanche," he said. 
" I'm infernally sorry that fellow 
got the brush ; if it wasn't for Fire- 
fly's balk I'd have had it as sure as 
fate." 

"I'm certain that you would, 
Andy. But why did you leave 
your room ? Dr. Moriarty " 

" I'll tell you, then, Blanche, and 
don't interrupt me till I'm done; 
then I'll shut up altogether." 

There was something in the 
young man's manner, his earnest 
gaze, the words pantingly uttered, 
that caused Blanche to blush and 
cast down her eyes nervously on 
the half-opened book in her lap. 

" I know that these fellows are 
all after you, Blanche, and that / 
have no chance ; and and I just 
wanted to tell you that I care for 
you more than the whole of them 
boiled into one, and and there, 
now, I'll go back to Tallyho." 

Blanche raised her silken lashes, 
and looked at him with appealing 
pity. 

" Andy," she faltered, " dear An- 
dy, don't say that. It's a mistake 



804 



BlancJie Blake s Choice. 



a sad mistake. You don't mean 
it. You are feverish, excited; it's 
your poor head " 

" My skull is cracked, I hope," 
said the young fellow bitterly^; 
" and I only wish it were my neck." 
" Andy, you are wicked !" 
" Pshaw ! broken heads are easily 
mended. But what can mend 
broken hearts ? I see you don't care 
a straw for me " 

" Andy !" There was such real 
pain in the tone that even he was 
touched. 

"God bless you, Blanche!" he 
muttered hoarsely. " God bless 
you ! I hear them coming. It 
wasn't to be. You were too good 
for me too good too good." He 
snatched her hand and kissed it 
passionately. The excitement and 
pain were too much for him. He fell 
fainting at her feet as the gentle- 
men entered. 

" What brought that scapegrace 
out of his bed ?" asked Dr. Moriarty 
with professional anger, as he and 
all rushed to the fallen youth's as- 
sistance. " I told him it was as 
much as his life was worth. Here, 
D'Alton, take a hand. So ; easy now. 
I'll strap him down this time. I'll 
strap him for a week as sure as my 
name is Felix Moriarty." 

Blanche followed them, pale and 
trembling. " Tell me, doctor," she 
said, "tell me the truth. Is he so 
badly hurt ? Is it dangerous ?" 

" Dangerous ? A cracked skull 
dangerous to a Burke of Tallyho 
Park! Is the girl in her senses? 
Sure there was never a Burke yet 
that hadn't his skull cracked fifty 
times. The family is noted for it. 
Broken heads run in the line. What 
I wonder at is that they want heads 
at all, seeing the use they put them 
to. This is the sixth time I mend- 
ed that boy's head, and I'll be 
mending it again, please God, in 



a fortnight. There's no breaking 
a Burke's head," said the doctor 
emphatically ; and with this com- 
fortable assurance the company 
assumed its normal condition. 

D'Alton rather avoided Miss 
Blake, and she noticed and felt it. 
As he presented her with the brush 
that he had won so gallantly and in 
the face of such resolute rivals, 
there was a passing gleam of tri- 
umph in his eye that all his force 
of will could not hold back. He 
sat next to her at dinner, but the 
brilliant young debater and bold 
rider was strangely silent and quiet 
even to awkwardness. Blanche 
Blake could not understand him. 
She had risen from the table half 
annoyed. Then came poor Andy's 
episode, which distressed her deep- 
ly and would have caused her to 
retire, only that she feared her 
absence under the circumstances 
would be too marked. And now 
the one man of all others in the 
room with whom she would have 
really cared to interchange a few 
words held studiously aloof from 
her. She was pained, hurt, irritat- 
ed, angry all in a breath. 

For most of the company the 
incidents of the hunt supplied 
ample topics of conversation. 
D'Alton, the hero of it, sat silent 
and abstracted. The conversation 
grew loud and hilarious as the re- 
collections of former hunts came 
up, and Dr. Moriarty kept the table 
in a roar. Greville crept to the 
side of Blanche, and sought to en- 
gage her in conversation, but the 
attempt met with such poor success 
that he soon bowed himself away 
and joined the general throng. 
At this instant D'Alton raised his 
eyes and met those of Blanche. 
There was a look, half of scorn, half 
of sadness, in them. He rose and 
came to her side. 



Blanche Blake s Choice. 



w " I am dreadfully stupid to-night, 
Miss Blake, am I not ?" he asked 
timorously. 

" Not more than usual, Mr. 
D'Alton," she replied, in tones that 
would have been freezing did not 
the faintest smile dissipate some of 
the frost. 

He started and [reddened. She 
saw that he was offended. He 
was about to rise, and for the sec- 
ond time she laid her hand on his, 
but now no pallor blanched his 
cheek. 

" Stay," she said ; and as he still 
hesitated, "Won't you stay with 
me a moment?" she almost im- 
plored. 

He sat down, but his face was 
stern and fixed and on his cheeks 
two scarlet spots burned. 

"You are angry with me, Mr. 
D'Alton. Are you not ?" 

" No." There was scorn in his 
tone this time. " I am angry with 
myself." 

*' May a woman ask why ?" 

" Bah ! Neither myself nor my 
anger is worth a thought, Miss 
Blake. Here, I won't be angry. 
Look, now. You see it is all 
gone." And he turned a face to- 
wards her smiling and open in- 
deed, but the smile was a very sad 
one and the eyes were grave. She 
turned her head away hastily, and 
her glances were bent upon the 
floor. 

" Mr. D'Alton, I owe you a debt 
which I have never paid. It was 



my' rudeness contracted it. We 
have not met often. You have 
not given me a chance of paying 
it. I meet you again in my own 
home, and again I I insult you. 
Here," and she stretched out her 
hand to him helplessly, " tell me 
how I am to pay my double debt." 

" Blanche," he whispered the 
little hand tightened on his " don't 
look at me. Don't move. Listen ! 
There is only one way. I let the 
debt go, but claim the debtor." 

The clasp of the little hand tight- 
ened more, and the little hand said 
as plainly as little hands can say : 
" I will never, never let go." 

Andy Burke's head was mended 
in due time, and in due time also, 
but longer by far, his heart. Gre- 
ville rose and rose, and, it was whis- 
pered, rendered such efficient ser- 
vice as one of the secretaries to 
the British Plenipotentiaries at the 
Berlin Congress as to have attract- 
ed the notice of Lord Beaconsfield 
himself; and Lord Beaconsfield, 
who isbynomeansan unkindly man, 
has had a finger in many a hap- 
py match. Blanche insists to this 
day that she has never paid her debt, 
for Mrs. D'Alton lost not a penny 
by her choice. D'Alton had the 
Irish misfortune of having been born 
in England, and the English law, 
which is proverbially good to its 
own, insisted on claiming him as an 
Englishman, Home-Ruler though 
he be ten times over. 



A Provence Rose. 



A PROVENCE ROSE. 

WILD was the winter storm without, with twilight wilder grown, 
Before the heightening northeast wind the blinding snow-drift blown : 

Within, we heard against the panes the rattle of the sleet, 
And cry of lusty traveller treading the gusty street : 

Fell flickering on the pictured walls the street-lamp's wind-blown light, 
While, gray with whirl of driven snow, drew near the starless night. 

Closed, with the dark, the book whose lines had led my soul in thought 
Amid the pines of Lerins* isles love's furnace where God wrought 

Amid the olives and the vine where Mary, Mother kind, 
Brings blessing unto simple hearts from chapel hill-enshrined. 

I saw, in thought, St. Honorat kissed by the waves at play 
While on the brow of Provence hills sunshine kept holyday. 

Among the knotted olive-trees twinkled Crusaders' steel, 
And, ringing day's last benison, sounded dim convent peal. 

As legend old maketh more fair some consecrated place, 
So lent a maiden's holy life unto my dream new grace. 

As Hilda guards in saintly state her dear-loved Saxon soil 
Where Whitby's caves sing sad refrain tuned by the sea's recoil, 

So, on Provence's violet fields, e'en unto seas serene, 
Falls the soft light of virgin saint high-born St. Rossoline. 

First seemed the maiden, in my dream, carved rudely in dumb stone 
A sculptured prayer appealing e'er for pity to God's throne; 

Then shone she from illumined page 'mid borders strangely wrought, 
Bright letters and devices quaint of mediseval thought. 

Now looked she forth from miniature in beauty of first youth, 
A Provence rose on either cheek, her ^iolet eyes of truth, 



A rippling smile about her mouth meek waves on holy shore 
Falling the light her cradle knew her maidenhood still o'er, 

While hers the rosy miracle of Hungary's dear saint : 
God's guerdon for heart's charity for needy beggars' plaint. 



A Frovcncc Rose. 807 

Now, on the old black-lettered page, nun's coif bound sweet child-face, 
Unto the dark veil's mystic shade bride-roses lending grace, 

Whose fragrance not more pure ascends amid their living green 
Than rose the vow that bound to God for e'er St. Rossoline. 

Now, in the ancient chronicle, was limned an older face, 
Wearing, with added majesty, the old look of child-grace, 

Lying the eloquent lips apart as if they spoke God's word, 

The shoulders crossed with sacred stole by saintly hands conferred. 

Now seeming busy fingers love's illumined text to trace 

Wrapt recluse, aiding in soul's calm true learning's work of grace, 

So lifting ever unto God her loving heart more near, 

So seeking, in her earnest zeal, to make men hold Him dear 

Who was the light that burned unquenched within her soul serene, 
The dew that kept the roses fresh that crowned St. Rossoline. 

O pale-hued, sainted Provence Rose ! that pil'st thy country's fields 
With fragrance not the purple wealth of all her violets yields ; 

Pure rose, that from thy heart of gold didst holy truth unfold, 
Fray that thy land in these dark days thy unstamed faith uphold. 

About her sons lie threat'ning clouds the shadow of souls' death 
More subtle than the Moors of old anew foe wandereth, 

Who wears the old beguiling face dear Liberty once wore 
When pious sculptor wrought her form above cathedral door. 

O pitiful St. Rossoline ! that didst with spirit-hand 

Undo the chains that captive held Christ's knight in Holy Land, 

That didst thy maiden. veil outspread, as once did Salome, 
Wafting thy brother on its folds in safety o'er the sea, 

Lift thy sweet voice unto thy Lord, beseech for France his peace, 
With spirit finger-touch her chain, her darkened mind release; , 

Pray that the old evangel's law by men be understood, 

By justice bound the welded states in love's true brotherhood : 

Smile down on thy fair Provence hills, on white-lipped Norman seas, 
Keep ever note of earthly want in thy heart's harmonies : 

And ever keep thy veil outspread when eyes lose light of life, 
Wafting in peace thy brother souls amid the death-waves' strife 

So may in that dread final day thy folded robe disclose 

A fragrant burden of freed souls, O heaven-born Provence Rose ! 



8o8 Socialism and Communism in " The Independent." 



SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM IN "THE INDEPENDENT." 



A SERIES of interesting articles 
from the pen of Theodore D. Wool- 
sey, D.D., LL.D., is in course of 
publication in The Independent. 
When any production from the 
scholarly pen of Dr. Woolsey ap- 
pears in print we expect to see 
something more than a common- 
place or superficial treatment of 
his subject, especially if it be one 
intimately related with the spirit 
and history of Christianity. His 
name and character have been 
always associated in our mind with 
greater insight and candx>r than 
are commonly met with among non- 
Catholic writers when principles 
are under discussion which have a 
bearing more or less direct on the 
Catholic Church. In the present 
instance, however, we confess with 
regret to a disappointment. The 
reasons for this will be made plain 
as we proceed in our analysis of the 
article on " The Monastic System," 
so far as it concerns the cause 
which we defend. 

The learned author treats his 
subject from a historical point of 
view, and it is obvious that in the 
course of his articles he would 
have to come in contact with the 
religiousunstitutions of the Catholic 
Church, since, in regard to the 
possession of property, they have 
in practice some points in com- 
mon with the theories of socialism 
" and communism. But as their 
principles and aims are essentially 
spiritual, we fail to see why Dr. 
Woolsey might not have adhered to 
his subject without going out of 



* " Smaller Communistic Societies within a State. 
The Monastic System." By Theodore D. Woolsey, 
D.D., LL.D. The Independent^ Jan. Q, 1879. 



his way to attack monastic insti- 
tutions, monastic life, and the Ca- 
tholic Church generally. Had he 
but kept his remarks within the 
bounds which he prescribes for him- 
self, as expressed in the last sen- 
tence of the following paragraph, 
which we italicize, there would 
have been no cause for the obser- 
vations which we now feel bound 
to make : 

"Of the monastic system in its dis 
tinct orders spread over the world ; of 
the vast wealth which belonged to the 
religious houses ; of the use of monas- 
teries in learning, education, and the re- 
lief of the poor ; of the eminent services 
of many abbots to letters ; of the lights 
and shades of their religious life ; of the 
introduction of the begging and preach- 
ing friars ; of the last stroke of worldly 
wisdom in the institution of the order of 
the Jesuits ; of the services of the monks 
in maintaining the papal system of 
these and other results of monasticism 
we can say nothing. We confine our- 
selves to the simple inquiry how the com- 
munistic plan of life stood related to the 
great influences of the orders of monks upon 
the Christian world" 

But this is precisely what he has 
failed to do. In the beginning of 
the article from which we have 
quoted, in its first paragraph, he 
goes beyond this " simple inquiry " 
and enters upon a further inquiry 
as to the origin of " The Monastic 
System." To this system he re- 
fuses a Christian character ; he 
charges it with lending its strength 
to false principles ; and, waxing bol- 
der, he passes an unsupported and 
sweeping sentence of condemnation 
upon the monastic system and the 
Catholic Church. 

" The monastic system of the ancient 
church," says Dr. Woolsey, "both in the 



Socialism and Communism in " The Independent." 809 



east and in the west, is a most impor- 
tant chapter in ecclesiastical history, on 
account of its tenacity of life and its 
vast influence for good as well as for 
evil, and because it could not have 
grown up in a pure, enlightened Chris- 
tian Church. As in the Papacy, so here, 
the good and seemingly innocent nature 
of the system lent strength to false prin- 
ciples, which had no necessary connec- 
tion with the spirit and principles of the 
Gospel. These false principles took 
hold of supports which belonged to an 
age and to its way of thinking, in order 
to construct institutions which have 
lasted until this day, and which, al- 
though they have reached senile weak- 
ness, are still a strong if not a chief 
power in several decaying churches." 

Let us take up this paragraph 
and analyze these ungracious ac- 
cusations in the order of their im- 
portance. First : 

DR. WOOLSEY'S ATTACK ON THE 
CATHOLIC CHURCH. 

" The monastic system of the 
ancient church . . . could not 
have grown up in a pure, enlight- 
ened Christian Church." 

This is, it is true, a more schol- 
arly phrase than we are accustom- 
ed to hear from the mouths of 
anti-popery ranters against the 
Catholic Church, but it contains 
all the stock of their rude abuse ; 
for transform the phrase into di- 
rect terms, and it says : From ear- 
ly centuries onwards the. Catholic 
Church was corrupt and ignorant. 
This is what his words plainly im- 
ply, and this is the meaning we 
suppose Dr. Woolsey intended 
they should convey to the minds of 
his readers. But does the learned 
professor not deem it necessary to 
bring some proofs to sustain his 
charge of corruption and igno- 
rance against the Catholic Church ? 
Not at all. Why not? Can he 
imagine that intelligent men will 
accept his assertions as axioms ? 



A generation ago, when phrases 
were more in power, almost any 
charge against the Catholic Church 
might have passed current in a 
Protestant community ; but let us 
assure the venerable doctor that 
this state of things has passed 
away. There are those in the at- 
mosphere of New Haven, and even 
among the readers of The Independ- 
ent, upon whose better instincts such 
serious and indiscriminate accusa- 
tions grate harshly, and they fail to 
pass before the bar of their intelli- 
gence unchallenged. " The school- 
master is abroad," and there are 
thinking and enlightened minds not 
a fewamongnon-Catholics who have 
come to the conclusion that if there 
be a divine revelation, and no di- 
vine authority to guard, to inter- 
pret, and to teach its truths, the 
claims of Christianity upon reason 
as a supernatural revelation can 
have no standing ground. And if 
there be such an authority estab- 
lished by the divine Founder of 
Christianity, the only one who can 
legitimate her titles of being histo- 
rically the Church of Christ and 
possessing this authority is the 
Roman Catholic Church. Hence 
well-informed men naturally inquire 
whether there was upon the whole 
face of the earth any other Chris- 
tian Church than that in which 
"the monastic system grew up." 
Perhaps the learned doctor knows? 
perhaps he can point it out? per- 
haps he can prove its claims ? 
perhaps he can name the church ? 
He must save historical Christian- 
ity, if he would save an intellectual 
and logical basis for his own per- 
sonal belief in Christ. 

But we have the Gospels ? True; 
and how do you know that these 
are the Gospels which you have, ex- 
cept on the testimony of " the an- 
cient church"? And if "the an- 



8io Socialism and Communism in " The Independent" 



cient church " was corrupt and ig- 
norant, what value can be put on 
the testimony of a corrupt and ig- 
norant witness? We confess to 
the curiosity of wishing to know 
how a Christian doctor of divinity 
will save his Christian faith and 
maintain at the same time the ac- 
cusation against the ancient church 
of corruption and ignorance. 
Would it not be a strange spectacle 
to see brought into court, to sus- 
tain one's faith in the Gospels, a 
witness whom with your own mouth 
you had condemned beforehand as 
corrupt and ignorant ! 

TH.E HISTORIC ORIGIN OF THE MON- 
ASTIC SYSTEM. 

In the following paragraph Dr. 
Woolsey puts this question : 

"A community of goods is an essen- 
tial feature of all kind of communism. 
What shall we say, then, when it is as- 
serted that the community of goods in 
the early Christian Church at Jerusalem, 
just after the death of Christ, is a suffi- 
cient reason for the rise of monachism ?" 

What ought to be said depends 
on the meaning which, the author 
attaches to the phrase, "is a suf- 
ficient reason." It is not clear 
whether he means by these words 
that " the monastic system " took 
its rise at the time of " the early 
Christian Church at Jerusalem," or 
whether it came into existence some 
centuries later. Most likely the 
latter was his meaning, for there is 
an apparent distinction made in the 
article between the " early " and 
the " ancient " Christian Church, 
and further on St. Anthony and St. 
Pachomius of Egypt are spoken of 
as if the writer was under the im- 
pression that they were the first, or 
among the first, of the anchorites 
and cenobites. Then he follows 
the above sentence with his own 



answer, consisting of a contrast 
in the way of living of the first 
Christian community at Jerusalem 
and the general body of Christians 
at that time with the true monas- 
tic life, ending by an explanation 
of certain texts of the New Testa- 
ment which he knows, as a theolo- 
gian, have received from grave au- 
thorities in exegesis an interpreta- 
tion the very opposite of the one 
which he gives for the purpose of 
turning them against the monastic 
life. 

This question of the origin of the 
monastic life is an interesting and 
weighty one, for it touches the very 
essence of Christianity. Venerable 
authors have maintained that the 
monastic system was the continua- 
tion of the community established 
by the apostles "in the early 
Christian Church at Jerusalem." 
St. Basil so thought and wrote. St. 
John Chrysostom maintained the 
same opinion, and held that the 
cenobites existed from the time of 
the apostles, and that the monks 
lived in the same way of life as the 
primitive faithful of Jerusalem. Cas- 
sian, who was familiar with the 
whole subject, a contemporary of 
St. Jerome and St. Augustine, and 
whose writings have always been 
held in high esteem, in his eight- 
eenth conference relates the ac- 
count which the Abbot Piammon 
gives of the origin of the monastic 
system and life. The abbot was 
an anchorite, or hermit, and he af- 
firms that the cenobites were first, 
and then followed the anchorites; 
and that the cenobites followed 
the general rule of life existing in 
the time of the apostles. These 
continued to exist down to the 
time of Abbots Paul and Anthony, 
and he adds, their descendants may 
still be seen in several monasteries. 
Historians of religious orders con- 



Socialism and Communism in " TJie Independent" 811 



firm these statements by giving a 
list of saints of the first, second, 
and third centuries who lived un- 
der the monastic system. 

Dr. Woolsey's article would 
surely have displayed better scho- 
larship and been more gracious 
had it considered these facts, 
weighty with tradition, and appre- 
ciated them, instead of dealing in 
unsupported charges and doubt- 
ful interpretations of the inspired 
Scriptures.* 

DR. WOOLSEY'S IDEA OF THE ORI- 
GIN OF THE MONASTIC LIFE. 

Our highly esteemed professor 
further on leaves no room for 
doubt as to his own idea of the 
origin of the monastic life. 

" The true origin," he says, " was in 
that tendency of the age toward a soli- 
tary and contemplative life, as being the 
only life suited to the attainment of 
truth and virtue, which began some 
time before the Christian era, and dif- 
fused itself like some epidemic from the 
East, with the help of some of the Greek 
philosophical systems." 

It is the fashion in our day, 
among writers who seem never to 
have had a true conception of the 
divine idea of the church of 
Christ, to speak of her as " a 
monument of human wisdom " ; as 
displaying an " amazing sagacity 
in adapting herself to the various 
tastes and propensities of human 
nature"; or as subjected to the 
characteristics of a race, as " Latin- 
ized Christianity"; or as subverted 
by a system of philosophy, as " Pla- 
tonized Christianity " or as "scho- 
lastic Christianity." In the same 
way our erudite author would have 

* Those who wish to consult authorities on this 
subject will find them referred to in the introduc- 
tion of a work entitled Les Vies des Peres ties de- 
serts d' Orient avec leur doctrine spirituelle et 
leur discipline monastique. Par R; P. Michel- 
Ange Marin. 



us believe that "the true origin of 
the monastic system was a tenden- 
cy of the age . . . with the help of 
some of the Greek philosophical 
systems." These phrases may 
serve as sand to cover the heads of 
their authors like the ostrich ; and 
they may fancy that, in shutting 
out from their sight the divine side 
of the church, they have led others 
to follow their example. But in 
this they make a great mistake. 
Men who love truth above all 
things refuse to bury the light of 
their reason under the sand of 
prejudice. They are not disposed 
to concede so great a sagacity to 
Catholics ; or that the religion acts 
wisely, or comes from the Creator 
of man, that rejects human nature 
and despises philosophy. 

Christianity, when separated 
from its divine centre, loses its uni- 
versality, becomes subject to the 
peculiar characteristics of races, is 
limited by systems of philosophy, 
confined to nationalities, degene- 
rates into sectarianism, and is even 
narrowed down and vanishes out 
of sight altogether under the pri- 
vate interpretation of the subjec- 
tive judgment and caprices of each 
individual. But this is not the 
case when it preserves its divine 
integrity. Christianity then dis- 
plays its divine origin and char- 
acter, purifies and rectifies all 
these natural elements, elevates 
them to the Christian stand-point 
and life, and establishes through the 
instrumentality of a regenerated 
humanity the kingdom of God up- 
on earth. 

The eminent philosophical his- 
torian Gorres looked with other 
eyes upon the origin and meaning 
of the lives of the Fathers of the 
Desert than the distinguished wri- 
ter of the article in The Independent. 
He says : 



812 Socialism and Communism in " The Independent" 



"This new way of life had already its 
precedent and examples in the Old 
Testament, in the person of the Prophet 
Elias, who, to escape the persecutions of 
Jezabel, retired with his disciples to the 
desert on the borders of the Jordan. 
John the Baptist, the precursor, came 
later also with his disciples to inhabit 
the same country, and gave the example 
of a penitent and mortified life. The sol- 
itaries of Egypt only followed the paths 
already traced out by these holy men, 
and their influence in their century was 
much greater than one ordinarily ima- 
gines, because they prepared in great 
measure the way for Christianity in 
these countries. In leaving the world 
to retire into the desert tbey renounced, 
it is true, all human interests ; but, on 
the other side, by the control which they 
had acquired over their ardent and sav- 
age nature, they became examples which 
excited the astonishment and esteem of 
the pagans and disposed the Christians 
to imitate their lives. The profound 
change which had taken place in their 
being under the victorious action of 
grace presented to the world a picture 
of the wonderful effects which Christi- 
anity is able to produce upon a greater 
scale in all society. As religious men 
and spiritual directors, they continued, 
so to speak, the Psalter. 

"Their life in this respect was like a 
lyre of sacred poesy. They seized hold 
of Christianity in a lyrical spirit and 
gave expression to it under this form. 
Their whole life was stamped with the 
character of a religious idyl." * 

Instead, therefore, of looking for 
" the true origin of a solitary and 
contemplative life " in a "tendency 
of the age" " with the help of some 
of the Greek philosophical systems," 
which, indeed, may have been its 
human side and it is none the 
worse for that the divinely-enlight- 
ened soul will open its spiritual 
eyes and discern the operation of 
supernatural grace, instead of com- 
paring the spread of the vocation 
" to a solitary and contemplative 
life . . . like some epidemic from 
the East." If seen in their true 
light, those times will be looked up- 

* Die Christllche Mystik. 



on as blessed with a fresh infusion 
of the Holy Spirit from on high. 
Instead of condemning the monas- 
tic life as "meeting with no favor 
from the spirit and institutions of 
the New Testament," a soul actu- 
ated by a Catholic spirit would de- 
light in recognizing the rare gifts 
of the Holy Spirit in those good 
old Fathers of the Desert, and ad- 
mire their lives as the most beauti- 
ful of the spiritual flowers adorning 
the garden of the " early " and 
"the ancient Christian Church." 

We are not disposed to question 
that the truths of human reason serve 
as the foundation for the truths of 
divine revelation, nor do we doubt 
that there is a natural element in 
all the operations of supernatural 
grace in the human soul. This re- 
lation of the supernatural order to 
the natural is a fundamental prin- 
ciple of all sound theology. Hence 
when the Egyptian or the Greek, 
the Latin or the Celt, the Teuton 
or the Chinese, become Christian, 
and the Holy Spirit dwells in their 
souls, he rectifies what is amiss, 
perfects what is good, and height- 
ens whatever there is in man of 
native charm. It is no part of the 
Holy Spirit to reduce men to a 
dead-level and thus undo the work 
of his own hands. 

The reason why writers of Dr. 
Woolsey's class fall into so many 
errors concerning the Catholic 
Church is that they see the Catho- 
lic Church only on the human 
side, and they insist upon inter- 
preting everything from their one- 
sided view, and that side, too, the 
outside ! Hence their interpreta- 
tion of the Catholic Church is as 
intelligent and adequate as are the 
explanations of the universe given 
by the Huxleys, Tyndalls, Darwins, 
Haeckels, and Drapers, our modern 
Cyclops, who in forging their 



Socialism and Communism in " The Independent." 813 



pseudo-sciences examine nature, 
but with only one eye. 

THE SUPERNATURAL ORIGIN OF 
THE MONASTIC VOCATION. 

The whole inquiry in this mat- 
ter lies in the question : Is there 
or is there not in the Christian 
dispensation a special grace which 
inspires those souls to whom is 
given the grace to follow in virgin- 
ity, poverty, and obedience the ex- 
ample of Christ's life ? If it does 
please God to bestow such a grace, 
then the inquiry as to the super- 
natural origin of the monastic life 
is plac'ed beyond cavil among all 
who profess Christianity. The 
question as to anchorites or ceno- 
bites, as to vows, solemn or simple, 
or voluntary associations, as to 
Benedictines or Cistercians, or Fran- 
ciscans or Dominicans, or Jesuits 
or Oratorians, or any other of the 
numerous orders or communities 
of men and women in the Catholic 
Church, is one merely of form, and 
does not alter, or even touch, the 
substance of the thing. For these 
different kinds of religious institu- 
tions were nothing else than suita- 
ble opportunities offered to men to 
follow with freedom the instinct 
of the Holy Spirit, at the same time 
meeting the highest natural aspi- 
rations and dispositions of their 
souls. 

Now, if there be any fact plainly 
recorded on the pages of the histo- 
ry of Christianity from the time 
of its divine Founder to the present 
day, it is that a number of souls 
have held with the deepest and 
firmest conviction, as a part of 
their spiritual experience, that a 
grace of this kind has been vouch- 
safed them by the Giverofall good 
gifts ; and among this class of 
souls will be found the names of 
those whom the Christian world 



has never ceased to venerate and 
honor for their wisdom, greatness;, 
and their truly Christian character. 
Who, then, will Jiave the hardihood, 
not to say the presumptuous impu- 
dence, to face such men as St. 
Athanasius, St. Basil, St. Ambrose, 
St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. 
Chrysostom, St. Gregory the Great, 
St. Benedict, St. Bernard, St. Fran- 
cis of Assisi, St. Thomas of Aqui- 
nas, St. Charles Borromeo, St. 
Francis Xavier, St. Francis of 
Sales, St. Vincent of Paul, and a 
thousand other venerable names 
which might easily be added to 
this list, but are not so well known, 
and venture to tell them one and 
all for these eminent men were 
each either founders or members 
or warm supporters of the mo- 
nastic life "Your devotion and 
advocacy of the monastic system 
was a mistake ; there is no such 
special grace as its vocation sup- 
poses ; your experience was a de- 
lusion, and your monastic system 
could not have grown up in a pure, 
enlightened Christian Church"? 

This is, we know, the general an- 
swer of the followers o/ one who 
fell from his faith, forsook the holy 
estate of the monastic life, and 
started the religious revolution of 
the sixteenth century; and it is 
also the particular answer of Theo- 
dore Woolsey, the distinguished 
minister and divine of the Protes- 
tant Congregational Church. But 
what a contrast is such an answer 
with that which the divine Founder 
of Christianity gave to the young 
man recorded in the holy Gospels ! 

" And behold one came and said to 
him: Good Master, what good shall I do 
that I may have life everlasting ? Who 
said to him : Why askest thou me con- 
cerning good ? One is good, God. 
But if thou wilt enter into life, keep the 
commandments. He saith to him : Which ? 
Thou shall do no murder ; Thou shalt 



8 14 Socialism and Communism in " The Independent. 



not commit adultery; Thou shall not 
steal Thou shah not bear false witness ; 
Honor thy father and thy mother ; and 
Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself. 
The young man saith to him : All these 
have I kept from my youth ; what is yet 
wanting to me ? Jesus saith to him : 
If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell what thou 
hast, and give to the poor, and thou 
shalt have treasure in heaven : and 
come, follow me " (Matt. xix. 16-21). 

" Darling of God, whose thoughts but live and 

move 

Round him ; who wooes his will 
To wedlock with his own, and does distil 
To that drop's span 
The attar of all rose-fields of all love I 
Therefore the soul select assumes the stress 
Of bonds unbid, which God's own style express 
Better than well, 
And aye hath borne, 

To the Clown's scorn, ^ 

The fetters of the threefold golden chain. 

But we would not have our rea- 
ders think that Dr. Woolsey is not 
broader and more gracious than 
his Calvinistic creed. He is far 
more so, and we are gratified at 
finding our first favorable impres- 
sion of the author confirmed in this 
very article. 

" From one passage only," he 
says, "of the New Testament 
(Matt. xix. 12) can we infer that a 
pure single life is not only allow- 
able, but even praiseworthy, for 
those who can lead it for the king- 
dom of heaven's sake, which we 
certainly would be far from deny- 
ing." We will not stop to cavil on 
the word " only " in this passage, as 
though the words of Christ have 
less authority because they were 
only once spoken ! We accept 
it as a candid and sincere con- 
fession of the supernatural ori- 
gin of a celibate life, and as not 
beyond the flight of our author's 
thought. This fact is sufficient to 
cover the whole Catholic ground 
of the essential point in a religious 
vocation ; from and upon this special 
grace as from a fruitful seed all the 
various forms of the anchorite and 

* Coventry Patmore. 



cenobite life have grown up, devel- 
oped, flourished in the " early," in 
the " ancient," and continue to ex- 
ist and flourish in the modern 
Christian Church. 

In the spirit of this truthful ad- 
mission we are disposed to think 
that Dr. Woolsey would perhaps 
agree with us in the opinion that a 
few divine vocations in our own 
country of this sort, looking whol- 
ly with high mind and heart to 
heavenly riches, might possibly 
operate as an antidote to that gro- 
velling spirit of worldliness and in- 
satiable thirst after earthly riches 
which reigns to so great an ex- 
tent among our people. 

But the reader may ask, Is not 
Dr. Woolsey illogical in this con- 
cession ? Rather than make so 
cruel an accusation against so emi- 
nent a scholar, we would give credit 
for it to the truth-loving mind and 
noble instincts of the writer. In- 
consistency of this kind is no cause 
for surprise. Rarely does one read 
a work written by a Protestant au- 
thor on religious topics that he 
will not find on almost every page, 
especially where the doctrines or 
discipline of the Catholic Church 
are concerned, a mingling bf truth 
and error, of facts and fiction, of 
history and invention, and fre- 
quently with a degree of uncon- 
sciousness that would be amusing 
were the subject-matter treated of 
one of indifference. 

A CATHOLIC PLEA FOR LIBERTY TO 
FOLLOW THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

" If the life of the anchorite," 
says Dr. Woolsey, " had never 
given way to the conventual life, 
the type of religion would have be- 
come much more distorted than it 
actually was." 

According to St. Piammon, Ab- 



Socialism and Communism in " The Independent." 815 



bot, it was the conventual life which 
gave way to the anchorite life ; 
consequently Dr. Woolsey's argu- 
ment falls to the ground. But were 
the facts the reverse, as our learned 
author asserts, we cannot see for 
the life of us why the soul which 
has the grace of vocation to the 
anchorite way of life is not as 
evangelical and healthy as the one 
which has the grace to a conventual 
life. " The Spirit breatheth where 
he will ; and thou hearest his voice, 
but thou knowest not whence he 
cometh and whither he goeth : so 
is every one that is born of the 
Spirit."* God knows how to take 
care of his own, and so that it be 
the Spirit which prompts the praise, 
we cordially join with the Psalm- 
ist in saying: "Let all the Spirits 
praise the Lord !" 

Whether they be anchorites or 
cenobites, let each abound in his 
own gift. " But thou, why judgest 
thou thy brother ? or thou, why 
dost thou despise thy brother?" f 

"The hermit," continues Dr. 
Woolsey, " in his loneliness was 
exposed to all kinds of vagaries 
of the imagination ; to temptations 
which he would not have been call- 
ed to encounter in society ; to 
spiritual pride and self-righteous- 
ness." 

This is considerate on 'the part 
of a wise and prudent leader in 
Israel to expose the dangers and 
difficulties which the hermits have 
to encounter in their solitary life. 
But we have always been led to 
think that, in itself considered, the 
safest and easiest way of salvation 
is that to which the soul is called 
by the grace of God, whether that 
be to a hermit-life, or a community- 
life, or that of the holy state of 
wedlock. And why so sensitive 

* St. John iii. 8. 
t Rom. xiv. 10. 



about the temptations and trials 
which beset the path of the solitary 
life ? Is there any danger of any of 
our New-Englanders attempting to 
imitate the solitaries of Egypt or 
Palestine? We never knew of any 
in our limited acquaintance that 
way inclined, unless it was our 
esteemed friend Henry Thoreau, 
who, with the grace of God, under 
the guidance of God's holy church, 
might have rivalled, in his wonder- 
ful sympathy with nature, sturdy 
integrity, great abstinence, direct- 
ness of speech, and love of solitude, 
a Paul the Hermit or the great St. 
Anthony of the Desert. 

" The influence of a common life 
was, of course, far greater for good 
than that of the life of so many 
hermits," Indeed! We should 
suppose that if God gave the spe- 
cial grace to a hermit-life, a hermit- 
life " was, of course, far greater for 
good " ; and if God gave the special 
grace for a common life, a common 
life " was, of course, far greater 
for good." The indwelling Holy 
Spirit is the animating princi- 
ple and director of the Catholic 
Church, acting as the immediate 
Sanctifier in the souls of her mem- 
bers, and as the criterion of truth 
in her authority. What is and we 
are concerned to know Dr. Wool- 
sey's criterion of the Holy Spirit? 
These outside authors who write 
about the Catholic Church mix up 
matters dreadfully, become so nar- 
row and grow so captious that even 
the work of the Holy Ghost in 
souls, and its way of directing the 
holy church, must pass examination 
before the critical faculty of their 
subjective private judgment. 

Thank God ! his holy church is 
one of freedom. If a Paul or an An- 
thony feels prompted to go into the 
desert, and, remote from all converse 
with the society of men, to adore 



816 Socialism and Communism in " The Independent" 



and worship God in spirit and in 
truth, the Catholic Church, so that 
it be sure it is the Holy Spirit 
which prompts their souls, moved 
by the same divine instinct, does 
not hesitate to give her sanction, 
bestow her blessing, and bid them 
God speed ! 

The action of the Holy Spirit in 
the visible authority of the church as 
criterion, and the Holy Spirit dwell- 
ing invisibly in the soul as Sanctifier 
and Guide, are one ; and this two- 
fold action of the Holy Spirit in 
synthesis begets in the soul of a 
Catholic the highest certitude, pro- 
duces the firmest conviction, and 
enables it to run with the greatest 
safety, with most perfect liberty, 
and with giant steps in the ways of 
salvation and sanctity. 

But, says one, how is this ? The 
Catholic Church, we always thought, 
lays the greatest stress on her sac- 
raments, especially on confession 
and communion, on attendance, 
and frequent attendance, at divine 
worship, on the value of forms and 
ceremonies, on the need of symbols 
and pictures as aids to prayer and 
devotion, and at the same time she 
will approve of men hiding them- 
selves in remote deserts in more 
than Quaker silence and simpli- 
city, deprived of all these means 
and helps. What does this mean ? 
Why, it simply means that there is 
in the Catholic Church more than 
you in your philosophy have learn- 
ed or dreamed of. It means that 
if you attribute her conduct to " an 
astute policy," or to " cunning 
craft," or to "natural tendency," 
or to " false principles," you under- 
stand about as much of the spirit of 
the holy Gospels as you understand 
about the spirit of the Catholic 
Church. It means that either you 
do not understand the Holy Spirit 
or do not trust him, and the Cath- 



olic Church does both. The essen- 
tial aim of the Catholic Church is 
no other than this: to bring each 
and every soul wholly under the 
guidance of the Holy Spirit. 

Those good old Fathers of the 
Desert, God bless them ! " distort- 
ed " the Christian life, did they ? 
How widely different was the esti- 
mate of the holy writer of that re- 
markable book which ranks, in the 
minds of all Christians without dis- 
tinction, next to the Sacred Scrip- 
tures, The following of Christ! 
Listen to his description of the lives 
of these holy souls who led "a 
solitary and contemplative life" : 

" Oh ! what a strict and self-re- 
nouncing life the holy Fathers of the 
Desert led. What long and griev- 
ous temptations did they bear ! 
How often were they harassed by 
the enemy! W T hat frequent and 
fervent prayers offered they up to 
God ! What rigorous abstinence 
did they practise ! What great zeal 
and fervor had they for spiritual 
progress ! What a valiant contest 
waged they to subdue their imper- 
fections ! What purity and straight- 
forwardness of purpose kept they 
towards God ! By day they labor- 
ed, and much of the night they 
spent in prayer; though while they 
labored they were far from leaving 
off mental prayer. They spent all 
their time profitably ; every hour 
seemed short to spend with God; and 
even their necessary bodily refection 
was forgotten in the great sweet- 
ness of contemplation. They re- 
nounced all riches, dignities, honors, 
friends, and kindred ; they hardly 
took what was necessary for life : 
it grieved them to serve the body 
even in its necessity. Accordingly 
they were poor in earthly things, 
but very rich in grace and virtues. 
Outwardly they suffered want, but 
within they were refreshed with 



Prince Bismarck's Peace Negotiations. 



grace and divine consolation. They ed as nothing, and the world de- 
were aliens to the world, but they spised them ; but they were pre- 
were very near and familiar friends cious and beloved in the eyes of 
of God. To themselves they seem- God." * 



PRINCE BISMARCK'S PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 



WITH the disastrous results of 
the Kulturkampf) the rapid spread 
of socialism, and the repeat- 
ed attempts on the emperor's life 
before them, all sincere patriots 
fondly hoped that Prince Bismarck 
would at last see the necessity of 
returning to more conservative 
principles in his dealings with the 
Catholic Church. They further 
hoped that by offering her fair 
terms of peace he would secure 
her powerful and ever-successful 
support in rescuing the state from 
the yawning abyss into which it is 
gradually drifting under his pre- 
sent mistaken rule. These well- 
wishers of the empire thought them- 
selves all the more justified in en- 
tertaining such hopes, as it was well 
known that the emperor himself 
strongly inclined to a cessation of 
hostilities with Rome, and that on 
several public occasions he had 
expressed a strong desire to see re- 
ligion preserved and better prac- 
tised among the people. Even 
Prince Bismarck, from his lofty po- 
sition better able than any one to 
survey the religious, moral, and so- 
cial dangers conjured up by his 
fatal church policy, was supposed 
to be relenting and anxious to get 
out of the perilous position. We, 
too, believe that Prince Bismarck, 
driven as he is by the force of cir- 
cumstances, and perhaps giving 

VOL, xxvin. 52 



way to the will of the emperor, 
wishes for a speedy termination of 
this unprofitable war ; but at the 
same time we confess with regret 
that we can place no confidence in 
the desire he professes to do jus- 
tice to the Catholic Church the 
only true basis on which a sound 
and lasting peace could be con- 
cluded. And how can we be ex- 
pected to trust Prince Bismarck's 
good-will towards the church, when 
we know that the second great ob- 
ject of his life is the destruction of 
the papal authority, and conse- 
quently of the Catholic Church, in 
Germany ? How could we have 
faith in his alleged conciliatory dis- 
position when we remember the va- 
rious utterances by which he bound 
himself, as long as he would be in 
office, "to stand and fall with the 
May Laws," and, if out of office, 
" to use all his moral power and 
influence in parliament for the de- 
fence of this his great work " ? As 
late as last summer the prince as- 
sured some of his political friends 
that on no account would he touch 
the May Laws, and that their re- 
cognition by the Pope and the 
German bishops would always be 
the conditio sine qua non in any set- 
tlement the Prussian government 
might arrive at with the Roman 
Pontiff. And yet, in spite of these 

* Book i. cxviii. 



8i8 



Prince Bismarck's Peace Negotiations. 



clear and trenchant declarations, 
Prince Bismarck, apparently from 
his own initiative, suddenly sought 
and actually resumed those inter- 
rupted diplomatic relations which 
he once so sternly repudiated with 
the frantic applause of his admirers. 
If he did not go to Canossa, he 
certainly was rightly suspected of 
being on the road to it when, to- 
wards the end of last July, he in- 
vited and received the papal nun- 
cio, Monsignor Masella, at Kissin- 
gen. When the news of this start- 
ling event flashed through the world, 
the German people for the greater 
part believed in Bismarck's good 
faith and earnestness Catholics 
and well-disposed Protestants, be- 
.cause the disturbed state of Prussia 
nnade them wish for the restoration 
.of religious peace ; infidels, because 
their bad conscience threatened 
them with the approaching down- 
fall of their position, power, and 
influence. All those, on the other 
,hand, to whom Prince Bismarck's 
.inveterate hatred of the Papacy is 
no secret, and who have watched 
the extraordinary acuteness and 
cunning of his tactics, could not 
help distrusting his honesty of pur- 
pose, and wisely warned their Ca- 
tholic brethren not to indulge in 
misleading hopes, lest they should 
= have to taste the bitterness of dis- 
appointment. 

The wisdom of observing a cau- 
tious reserve at this critical junc- 
ture soon earned its reward. Al- 
ready a few weeks after the first 
overtures at Kissingen, and in spite 
of the most reassuring language of 
4he semi-official press, all parties, 
friends and foes, shared the con- 
viction that, by whatever ultimate 
results the Kissingen interviews 
t might be attended, their immediate 
aim had nothing to do with serious 
; peace aspirations. For some years 



past Prince Bismarck has been try- 
ing to form a new conservative 
party in parliament ; but experience 
taught him that to succeed in such 
an undertaking he required the co- 
operation of the Catholic party. 
By resuming diplomatic relations 
with the Curia on the eve of the 
Reichstag's elections he hoped to 
influence Catholic voters in his fa- 
vor, at least to win their votes for 
conservative candidates not opposed 
to his home policy. If the manoeu- 
vre had answered 'his expectations, 
he would have easily reached the 
planned destruction of both the 
Catholic Centre and the national- 
liberal parties; in case they should 
fail, he would then make use of the 
second string of the bow he took 
with him to Kissingen. As an 
equivalent for certain concessions 
which he declared himself prepared 
to make to the Pope, he required 
him to order the Centre party to 
vote with the government in all 
important questions. Even the 
Kreuz-Zeitung, which made this re- 
velation from the Kissingen con- 
ference without meeting with the 
least official contradiction, thought 
it strange indeed that a statesman 
like Prince Bismarck should have 
been a second time so unwise as to 
advance a claim with which the 
Pope could not have complied even 
if he had personally been inclined 
to do so. 

As soon as the German chancel- 
lor found out that he could not 
reckon upon the Pope's assistance 
in his hostile designs against the 
Centre, he suspended the negotia- 
tions, which he had sought and 
begun, we may almost say, under 
false pretences. If they were to 
be renewed at all it must be on 
the only admissible basis of truth, 
justice, and right, and with the 
honest intention of furthering the 



Prince Bismarck ' s Peace Negotiations* 



819 



religious interests of the suffering 
Catholic subjects in Prussia. Had 
Prince Bismarck been prompted 
by such sentiments instead of pur- 
suing purely selfish aims, he might 
have easily and quickly brought 
the Kissingen conference to a sat- 
isfactory issue. He chose, how- 
ever, another course. Leaving the 
way open for fresh negotiations, he 
parted with the papal delegate and 
began an active campaign against 
the Centre, both in parliament and 
in the press. Both attacks proved 
wretched failures. But before de- 
scribing them to our readers it 
may be as well to chronicle, from 
semi-official sources, the chief in- 
cidents connected with the Kissin- 
gen interview and the subsequent 
so-called peace negotiations be- 
tween Berlin and Rome. 

Some time before his departure 
for the Bavarian watering-place in 
July last Prince Bismarck had de- 
clared to several of his friends that, 
in the present distracted state of 
affairs in Prussia, he considered it 
his duty to come to an understand- 
ing with the Curia. At the time 
he astonished his friends by this 
declaration he had already taken 
steps in the intended direction. On 
the occasion of Monsignor Masella's 
presence at the silver wedding of 
the royal couple of Saxony, in Dres- 
den, Prince Bismarck, through the 
Prussian ambassador at Munich, 
had addressed a pressing invitation 
to the nuncio to meet him at Ber- 
lin. The invitation, however, was 
declined after instructions received 
from Rome. Then the prince re- 
solved to seek an interview with 
the Roman diplomatist at Kissin- 
gen. Immediately after his arrival 
there he despatched his .son to 
Munich to express to the nuncio 
how glad his father would be to 
make his personal acquaintance. 



Having 'again communicated with 
Rome, Monsignor Masella this time 
received permission to accept the 
invitation, and accordingly went to 
Kissinger). What passed between 
the two statesmen in their frequent 
interviews, in what points they 
agreed or disagreed, what they 
settled or rejected, whether they 
adopted a common basis for a fu- 
ture peace settlement or left mat- 
ters in statu quo, is not as yet 
known, both parties, as was- under- 
stood, having pledged themselves 
to secrecy. The only revelations 
the German chancellor allowed to 
be made were of a negative na- 
ture, and what we have already 
mentioned above concerning the 
Centre party. Besides these, the 
official press had the double task 
of removing the alarm of the na- 
tional-liberals, who were told in 
endless articles that the Kissingen 
conferences would not in the slight- 
est degree prejudice the principles 
on which the May Laws are based ; 
and of assuring the Catholic popu- 
lation that the government was 
most sincere in its endeavor to ad- 
just the church conflict. To create 
faith in Bismarck's good-will, and 
to win Catholic sympathies, the 
conservative organs kept on pub- 
lishing statements attributed to him 
which, if they had been genuine 
and made publicly by himself, would 
certainly have satisfied the Catho- 
lic demands, and constituted a 
sufficient guarantee for the govern- 
ment's sincerity. But they were 
mere unauthentic assurances, part 
of the general political manoeuvre. 
The large concessions Prince Bis- 
marck was reported to be willing 
to grant, provided he could thereby 
obtain the submission of the Centre 
party to his own political views, 
were comprehensively suggested in 
an article communicated to the 



820 



Prince Bismarck's Peace Negotiations. 



Kreuz-Zeitung, which was, accord- 
ing to a general rumor, written by 
a Catholic under official sanction 
and at the inspiration of Prince 
Bismarck. After having accurate- 
ly sketched the existing situation 
and stated all points of difference 
between church and state, the 
writer of the article pointed out, 
with a most encouraging positive- 
ness, what concessions both powers 
might safely make without preju- 
dice to established rights and privi- 
leges, and what, on the other hand, 
they could not, without self-de- 
struction, consent to. The follow- 
ing are the chief conclusions which 
the author of the communication 
arrived at : i. The church cannot 1 
permit that without her co-opera- 
tion valid ecclesiastical offices 
should be conferred by the state 
power, by right of patronage, or 
election by the congregation. 2. 
The church will never recognize 
the right of the Supreme Ecclesias- 
tical Court to depose bishops and 
priests, to declare their offices va- 
cant, and inflict penalties on them 
if, after being thus deposed, they 
continue to exercise purely spirit- 
ual functions, such as saying Mass, 
administering the sacraments, etc. 
3. The church will never allow her 
ministers to give the promise of 
absolute, obedience to all state 
laws, as is prescribed by the laws 
of May 30, 1874, and April 22, 
1875. 4- She rejects the assertion 
that the ecclesiastical jurisdiction 
is but an emanation of the state 
supremacy of justice, and will never 
relinquish her independent power 
of discipline, which finds its high- 
est expression in the Pope. 5. 
The state cannot claim the right 
to suppress or punish religious 
orders at will and without having 
first proved them dangerous to the 
commonwealth. 6. The church will 



never consent to the state assum- 
ing the right to decide who is a 
member of the church, as was done 
in the case of the Alt-Catholics, 
who were pronounced by the gov- 
ernment an integral part of the 
Catholic Church. In conclusion, 
the Protestant Kreuz- Zeitung urged 
the necessity of an alteration of the 
May Laws in harmony with the 
claims set forth in the preceding 
statement. As the article contain- 
ed a sweeping condemnation of 
Prince Bismarck's own views and 
measures concerning the relations 
of church and state, Catholics just- 
ly considered it a trap laid for 
their credulity, firmly convinced 
that the chancellor, contrary to his 
own press utterances, would use 
very different language towards the 
nuncio at Kissingen. 

Another piece of news diligently 
circulated at that time, with the 
evident purpose of making a favor- 
able impression on German Catho- 
lics, was the announcement of Bis- 
marck's intention to favor the es- 
tablishment of a nunciatura at Ber- 
lin. This semi-official intelligence, 
too, left Catholics cool and uncon- 
cerned, for they did not believe in 
it ; on the other hand, it provoked 
the fears and indignation of ortho- 
dox Protestants, who supposed, not 
very unreasonably, that such an 
event might soon be followed by 
the return of the hated religious 
orders. 

As to the national-liberals, they 
seemed at first not fully to compre- 
hend Bismarck's move, and for 
this reason, more than from a de- 
sire to please him, they remained 
for a time very quiet, evincing even 
a disposition to accede to a revis- 
ion of the May Laws, if such a mea- 
sure could ensure peace and har- 
mony in the country. Still, not 
seeing their way out of the difficul- 



Prince Bismarck' s Peace Negotiations. 



821 



ty, not knowing how to kill the 
church and keep the state and 
themselves alive and flourishing, 
they maintained for a long time 
an expectant attitude, neither ap- 
proving nor disapproving Bismarck's 
advances to the church. But 
when, later on, the situation had 
become sufficiently clear to show 
to their satisfaction that the con- 
templated overthrow of their party 
could not be effected yet, they gen- 
erously and bravely, as is their 
wont, assisted the government in 
its parliamentary attacks on the 
Catholic Centre. 

More sympathy for Bismarck's 
undertaking was manifested by the 
Protestant conservatives. They 
unreservedly declared themselves 
partisans of peace, demanding the 
immediate cessation of the Kultur- 
kanipf, just as they had once been 
the first in demanding its inaugu- 
ration. But whilst they professed 
to be animated by the same warm 
desire for peace as the chancellor, 
they entirely, disagreed with him as 
to the mode of restoring it. Ac- 
cording to them, such a happy re- 
sult ought not to be reached by 
means of negotiations with Rome, 
which would be tantamount to re- 
cognizing Rome's equality with, if 
not its superiority over, the state 
power ; it was, on the contrary, to 
be brought about by a spontane- 
ous, self-determined act of the gov- 
ernment ; they argued that, as the 
state possessed the right to make 
those laws, so also had it the right 
to alter or suppress them ; that is 
to say, they shared Bismarck's and 
the national-liberals' fallacy that the 
state has a right to settle all Catho- 
lic Church affairs without consult- 
ing either pope or bishops. How 
these conservatives could possibly 
hope for a conclusion of peace with 
the church if such erroneous no- 



tions were acted upon, is more than 
we are able to understand. The 
fear that Prince Bismarck, in spite 
of the "milder views" attributed 
to him, had not given up that pre- 
posterous pretension was the very 
reason why Catholics did not ex- 
pect any satisfactory result from 
the recent relations entered into 
with the Pope. As to these, they 
had not been entirely broken off 
by the departure of the nuncio 
from Kissingen. From semi-offi- 
cial communications sent to liberal 
and conservative papers it became 
known that concessions and de- 
mands had been formulated and 
carried to Rome as a proposed pre- 
liminary basis for real negotiations. 
Whether and how far these nego- 
tiations advanced towards a re- 
conciliation is as yet a secret, for 
even the Pope's letter to the Arch- 
bishop of Cologne leaves us in the 
dark on this point. But what Ger- 
man Catholics knew from the begin- 
ning, for their own comfort and 
their enemies' vexation, was the all- 
important fact that, to whatever 
length the Pope would deem it his 
duty to go, he would never relin- 
quish one jot of the inalienable 
rights of the Church. Moreover, 
German Catholics had the deep 
conviction which no amount of 
official sophistry and misrepresen- 
tation could shake that they and 
their representatives in parliament 
had all along stood on the firm 
ground of truth and faith in their 
opposition to state persecution, and 
that the Holy Father, as he and his 
predecessor had done before, would 
also on this occasion approve and 
confirm the correctness of their 
conduct. They knew also that the 
Pope's representatives were trying 
to obtain from the Prussian gov- 
ernment the restoration of that 
happy state of religious freedom 



822 



Prince Bismarck's Peace Negotiations. 



which the Prussian constitution 
and several royal statutes had sol- 
emnly guaranteed up to the pass- 
ing of the May Laws. On Sep- 
tember 29, however, they were told 
by the North-German Gazette that 
a successful continuation of the 
negotiations would entirely depend 
on the previous recognition of the 
May Laws by the Curia. Notwith- 
standing their want of faith in 
Prince Bismarck's honesty of pur- 
pose, Catholics at first attach- 
ed little weight to this asser- 
tion of the officious paper, simply 
because, if the prince at that 
early stage of the transaction had 
but hinted at such a condition 
forming the basis of peace propo- 
sals, the Holy Father would hard- 
ly have used such confident lan- 
guage as is found in his letter to 
Cardinal Nina, in which he express- 
ed a strong hope that the negotia- 
tions set on foot would end in a 
true, solid, and lasting peace equal- 
ly beneficial to church and state. 
And yet some unacceptable demand 
must afterwards have been made by 
Prussia ; for, with all his desire and 
sincere exertions for peace, the Holy 
Father found his hopes greatly re- 
duced, as we may be allowed to 
surmise from the following passage 
from an article in the October Os- 
servatore Romano : 

" Seeing the emperor inclined to peace, 
the Pope's first thought was how he 
might secure it. In case of success a 
new, beneficent era would commence ; if 
his attempt failed he would have the 
merit of having offered his help to the 
German emperor, and thereby be free 
of all responsibility. The Pope wants 
a lasting peace, not a truce to serve the 
political ends of the hour ; but for such 
a result is necessary the revocation and 
abrogation of all those laws which run 
counter to the church statutes or en- 
croach upon the rights of the head of the 
church. Only on these conditions can 
peace be concluded and preserved. 



Pope Leo, as was his predecessor, is 
most willing to smooth the way to his 
adversaries, but at the same time he will 
hold high the banner which in the nine- 
teenth century has hitherto waved un- 
stained." 

In the same month, almost on 
the same day, October 14, Deputy 
Windthorst openly denounced the 
government for demanding impos- 
sibilities in the pending negotia- 
tions. " You are not in earnest with 
the adjustment of the conflict, "said 
he, turning to the ministerial bench, 
" for it is notorious that no accep- 
table proposals are being made to 
the Pope." 

Up to the middle of November 
the indirect information published 
by the two negotiating parties was 
anything but satisfactory. Whilst 
the ecclesiastical authorities con- 
tented themselves with giving de- 
nials in Catholic organs to incor- 
rect news circulated by opposite 
journals, the Prussian and foreign 
reptile press continued to mystify 
the public by representing the Pope 
and some of the German bishops as 
being inclined to accept the Prus- 
sian demands, and greatly dissatis- 
fied with the Catholic members of 
parliament, and the Catholic peo- 
ple generally, for throwing obsta- 
cles in the way of a reconciliation 
by their continued and unjustified 
opposition to the Prussian gov- 
ernment. Formerly German Ca- 
tholics were ridiculed by these 
same papers for being tools and 
puppets of the Bishop of Rome ; 
now they are stigmatized as rebels 
to him. Of the negotiations them- 
selves the reptile press pretended 
to know all kinds of accepted ar- 
rangements ; for instance, that seve- 
ral of the exiled bishops would 
soon return to their dioceses, that 
a general amnesty would be grant- 
ed for May-Law transgressions, 
that the Supreme Ecclesiastical 



Prince Bismarck ' s Peace Negotiations. 



23 



Court would be suppressed, etc. 
In November several papers under 
government influence went so far 
as to maintain that a common 
basis for a peace settlement had 
been found through the Pope's 
acquiescing in Prince Bismarck's 
proposals. All these and a great 
many other would-be revelations, 
although reproduced in various 
forms, evidently emanated from 
one and the same source, and were 
published not only by German pa- 
pers such as the Cologne Gazette, 
the Post, the National Zeitung % but 
. also by the London Times, Daily 
NewS) and even the Standard. 
Suddenly the government changed 
its tactics of mystification, and 
gave a flat denial to all rumors 
of an approaching conclusion of 
peace. By the positive declara- 
tions and warlike language in which 
Dr. Falk indulged on December 
10 in the Prussian Landtag, and 
of which we shall presently speak 
at greater length, the exact state 
of affairs between Prussia and the 
Catholic Church became clear and 
intelligible even to those who had 
hitherto hoped against hope. Still 
more decisive for Catholics, be- 
cause they implicitly believe in it, 
is the information conveyed in the 
Holy Father's letter to Archbishop 
Melchers, of Cologne, dated on 
December 24, 1878, and, strange to 
say, published without molestation 
in all Prussian newspapers. From 
this important document we may 
safely infer that up to that date the 
negotiations had produced no posi- 
tive result whatever, so that the 
church conflict in Germany was, at 
the beginning of this year, in ex- 
actly the same hopeless condition 
it was in six months ago. And 
thus the strong suspicion entertain- 
ed by many, that Prince Bismarck 
availed himself of the general out- 



cry for religious peace solely for 
the purpose of gaining certain po- 
litical advantages, has been suffi- 
ciently confirmed. For him the 
negotiations were but an ordinary 
business transaction, in which he 
would have eventually been pre- 
pared to barter away some of the 
less important May Laws in ex- 
change for a number of Catholic 
votes a result that might have been 
accompanied by the double advan- 
tage of securing an immediate ma- 
jority for his Anti-Socialist Bill, 
and a lasting conservative Bis- 
marck party in lieu of his unnatu- 
ral alliance with the national-liber- 
als. But Prince Bismarck was soon 
to learn by bitter experience that 
the Centre would never submit to 
his leadership for the sake of mere 
party advantages and political dis- 
tinction ; that in all questions, 
whether political or religious, it 
would, as it always did, shape its 
course of action according to its 
own well-defined programme. When 
the Socialist Bill came on for dis- 
cussion the chancellor still hoped 
that the Catholic members would 
at the last hour se the expediency 
of joining the compromise agreed 
upon between conservatives, na- 
tional-liberals, and the government, 
inasmuch as Catholics were known 
to confess principles diametrically 
opposed to those of the socialists. 
But the Centre deputies turned a 
deaf ear to all official allurements, 
disdaining to sacrifice their own 
principles for a measure which 
they thought neither just nor ef- 
fective, and utterly disbelieving the 
assurance of the officious conserva- 
tives that by making their peace 
with the Prussian government in 
this question they would power- 
fully contribute to the longed-for 
restoration of peace between church 
and state. Manfully resisting all 



82 J. 



Prince Bismarck's Peace Negotiations. 



government advances and threats, 
the stanch defenders of right and 
justice stood their own ground 
with unfaltering firmness and dig- 
nity, and did their duty regardless 
of consequences. And when Baron 
von Franckenstein had read the fa- 
mous Centre declaration in which, 
after fully condemning the socialist 
agitation as far as it is direct- 
ed against God, Christianity, the 
church, society, and property, the 
Catholic deputies expressed their 
firm conviction that the proposed 
police law was unjust, unnecessary, 
and would prove unprofitable in 
the end, then Prince Bismarck 
was fain to give up all idea of ever 
seeing the Centre members chain- 
ed to his political chariot. At once 
turning his back upon them, he 
put them down as an incorrigible 
party of negation, incapable of any 
salutary action, and advocated a 
coalition between national-liberals 
and conservatives against all state- 
destroy ing elements i.e., Catholics, 
Socialists, Progressists, Poles, and 
Alsatians. Out of parliament, and 
chiefly through the columns of the 
governmental ^Provincial Corre- 
spondence, the angry prince contin- 
ued his war against the Centre with 
extraordinary animosity and most 
unfair, not to say unworthy, means, 
among others accusing its distin- 
guished and universally venerated 
leader, ex-Minister Windthorst, of 
pursuing, under the cloak of re- 
ligion, unpatriotic, anti-Prussian 
(Hanoverian) aspirations. For 
weeks and weeks the reptile press, 
as in duty bound, seconded the 
attack with scandalous virulence, 
heaping on the Centre insult, cal- 
umny, ridicule, all in the delusive 
hope that by these unscrupulous 
denunciations the party would sink 
in public estimation and finally lose 
the confidence of its constituents. 



Truth, however, proved stronger 
than calumny. The Catholic peo- 
ple of Prussia knew the sterling 
worth of its deputies, as it under- 
stood the malignant intentions of 
their detractors. In numerous 
meetings and addresses it express- 
ed its disgust and its indignation 
at the slanderous language used by 
the government press, whilst it 
loudly proclaimed its unlimited 
confidence in the Catholic mem- 
bers, its fullest agreement with 
their views and line of conduct 
observed in the socialist as well as 
any other question, and finally pro- 
mised to cling to them as unflinch- 
ingly as it clings to its bishops and 
priests. 

Nor did the Prussian Catholics 
set faith in the equally false asser- 
tion, heard in the government press 
and on the ministerial bench, that 
the Pope was dissatisfied with the 
conduct of their representatives. 
In order to show their unbounded 
confidence in the Holy Father's 
wisdom and sense of justice, they 
declared in the great Catholic or- 
gans, as Windthorst did in Parlia- 
ment in the name of the whole 
Centre, that German Catholics 
would hail with unfeigned joy and 
happiness whatever peace Leo 
XIII. would deem right to con- 
clude with the Prussian govern- 
ment, Windthorst adding," Even if 
in our private opinion the Holy 
Father had shown himself over- 
generous." 

These repeated violent attempts 
to destroy the unity and indepen- 
dence of the Catholic deputies and 
the good understanding with their 
constituents afford in themselves 
convincing proofs of Bismarck's 
unabated antagonism to the Catho- 
lic Church, and throw a glaring- 
light on his motives for continuing 
the negotiations with Rome. If, 



Prince Bismarck's Peace Negotiations. 



825 



after all this, over-credulous people 
had not yet abandoned all hopes of 
seeing the Prussian government re- 
turn to more friendly sentiments 
towards Catholics, they had them 
at last effectually destroyed by the 
parliamentary events which took 
place in December. On the loth 
and 15111 of that month Windthorst 
introduced into the Prussian Land- 
tag two motions, the fate of which 
gave irrefutable evidence that 
neither the government nor its ma- 
jority in parliament had the re- 
motest intention to remedy the 
evils caused by the Kulturkampf 
or to arrest the course of the per- 
secution ; that, on the contrary, 
they rejoice and glory in its results, 
and mean to follow it up to its ut- 
most consequences. In the first of 
these motions the Centre prayed 
parliament to consent to the sus- 
pension of the dissolution of the 
last few teaching orders, which, in 
consequence of section i of the 
law of May 31, 1875, will have to 
break up their establishments be- 
fore April i, 1879. The other 
motion demanded the restoration 
of articles 15, 16, and 18 of the 
Prussian constitution, abolished in 
1875 to enable parliament to do 
away with the freedom and inde- 
pendence of the Catholic Church 
in Prussia. These articles ran 
thus: 

" Art. 15 : The evangelical and the Ro- 
man Catholic churches, as well as every 
other religious society, arrange and ad- 
minister their affairs independently, and 
remain in the possession and enjoyment 
of the institutions, foundations, and 
funds destined to purposes of worship, 
education, and charity. Art. 16 : The 
intercourse of religious societies with 
their heads is free. The promulgation 
of ecclesiastical ordinances is subject 
to the limitations in force against all 
other publications. Art. 18: The right 
of nomination, presentation, election, 
and sanction for filling up vacancies, 



as far as it belongs to the state, and not 
to patronage or special titles, is abro- 
gated." 

These two motions, although 
perfectly justified by their own in- 
trinsic nature, seemed chiefly to 
have been proposed as a test ot 
the government's sincerity in its 
alleged endeavor to restore reli- 
gious peace. The answer Dr. 
Falk gave to the proposed mea- 
sures was as clear and unequivocal 
as could be ; but it destroyed also 
the last vestige of confidence in 
the hearts of those Catholics who 
are still ignorant of Prussian tradi- 
tions. With the urgent, stirring 
appeal of the seconder of the first 
motion, Dr. Bachem, of Cologne, 
to do an act of justice to poor de- 
fenceless ladies and thousands of 
Catholic families who are compell- 
ed to seek education for their 
daughters in foreign countries, the 
Minister of Public Worship had not 
a single word of sympathy. He 
coldly and cynically pronounced 
the motion not justified by neces- 
sity, and called upon the House to 
reject it, which was accordingly 
done with great applause. Antici- 
pating the other motion of which 
the Centre had given notice, Dr. 
Falk volunteered the solemn de- 
claration that under no circum- 
stances would the government ever 
consent to a restoration of the 
former constitution, as such an act 
would involve a rejection of all 
their political church laws. In his 
opinion the Centre asked for sub- 
mission on the part of the state. 
Such a demand might be address- 
ed to an enemy who lies prostrate 
with pinioned hands and feet, but 
not to an adversary who is stand- 
ing upright and resolved to remain 
in that position. Turning to the 
pending question of peace, the 
minister was equally candid and 



826 



Prince Bismarc&s Peace Negotiations. 



explicit in his utterance. He ad- 
mitted that negotiations were be- 
ing carried on between the Pope 
and the Prussian government, and, 
without being directly provoked to 
make such a confession, he inform- 
ed the House that no peace settle- 
ment need be expected unless it 
be based on the recognition of the 
May Laws. This open declaration, 
made, no doubt, by Prince Bis- 
marck's desire, dashes to the 
ground all hopes of an approaching 
reconciliation. It fully confirms 
the suspicions now shared by all 
Prussian Catholics that the govern- 
ment never intended to propose 
peace to the Holy Father on an 
acceptable basis, and that if the 
negotiations are still continued it 
is chiefly, on Bismarck's part, in 
deference to scruples of the empe- 
ror, who wishes to terminate his 
days in peace with his loyal Catho- 
lic subjects. If it had been other- 
wise, if the chancellor had actually 
sacrificed his own cherished views, 
once for all given up his Utopian 
schemes of gradually transforming 
the Roman Catholic Church into a 
German state church with the em- 
peror for its head, would he not, in 
such a case, have long ago conclud- 
ed a peace which is so ardently 
desired by all classes of his coun- 
trymen, and so imperiously requir- 
ed by the interests, nay, the very 
existence, of the empire ? Surely, 
a sincere resolution to re-establish 
the disturbed harmony would have 
at least suggested to him the ne- 
cessity of discontinuing the useless 
and cruel execution of the May 
Laws? When two countries en- 
gaged in war wish to make peace, 
the first step they take towards it 
is to conclude a truce, to forbid 
the unnecessary spilling of blood. 
Why did not Prince Bismarck, if 
he wished for peace, act according 



to this universally-recognized cus- 
tom ? The answer is obvious. 

Instead of giving orders for a 
suspension of hostilities at least 
during the negotiations, the chan- 
cellor allowed the execution of the 
May Laws to be continued with 
unabated -violence. A cardinal of 
the church was twice summoned 
before a district court and sen- 
tenced in contumaciani to pay sev- 
eral thousand maiks for so-called 
transgressions of the May Laws, 
and a writ of arrest was issued 
against him in that offensive form 
which is used in Prussia for thieves 
and murderers. Scores of priests 
were fined, dragged into prison, or 
expelled from the country for say- 
ing Mass or administering baptism 
in other churches then their own. 
Young priests ordained abroad, and 
returning in disguise to bring their 
fellow-countrymen the blessings of 
their church, were tracked and 
chased, imprisoned and exiled. 
The few remaining convents had to 
break up, more priests were depos- 
ed as school inspectors, others dis- 
missed as teachers, and Protestant 
professors appointed at purely Ca- 
tholic establishments. Moreover, 
anti-Catholic reading-books found 
their way into Catholic schools, and 
the system of erecting simultan 
schools instead of the suppressed 
convent schools was extended and 
applied in every province. All 
these measures evidently tend to 
the realization of one great object, 
that of gradually and imperceptibly 
Protestantizing the rising Catholic 
generation an attempt that has far 
more chances of success than the 
other attacks made on the Catho- 
lic faith by the May Laws. The 
government hopes everything from 
the present school management, 
even more than from the rapid de- 
crease of priests in the country. 



Extra Ecclcsiam Nulla Sahis" 



827 



According to the newest statistics, 
two and a half millions of Prussian 
Catholics are now deprived of all 
and every spiritual assistance, and 
the number of vacant parishes and 
vicariates amounts to about 1,000 



viz. 



Diocese. Parishes. Vicariates. Total. 



Cologne 
Munster 




5. 
68 


188 
I5 8 


Paderborn 
Treves 


8r 
163 
18 


53 

82 


245 


Fulda 








Culm 


33 


24 


57 


Hildesheim 
Osnabruck 
Breslati 


23 
18 
108 


2 
13 

93 


25 

2OI 


Posen 


99 


80 


179 










Grand total.. 






I 207 



The material loss inflicted on the 
Catholic population of Prussia by 



the Kitlturkainpf amounts annually 
to 2,200,000 marks. 

Considering all the circumstan- 
ces which have accompanied Bis- 
marck's mysterious peace negotia- 
tions, we think ourselves justified 
in coming to the following conclu- 
sion : In face of the proofs, result- 
ing from our demonstrations, that 
the Prussian government started 
the negotiations with insincere in- 
tentions ; in face of Dr. Falk's de- 
claration that the government is 
resolved to maintain its hostile 
attitude towards the Catholic 
Church ; and above all in presence 
of the persecution, which is con- 
tinued with all its vehemence, no 
immediate change can be expected 
in the present sad condition of re- 
ligious affairs in Prussia. 



" EXTRA ECCLESIAM NULLA SALUS." 

ST. MATTHEW xiv. 30. 

I, PETER, sink ! Take warning by my fate, 
Ye, who with me securely keep afloat. 

Despite his wisdom or his high estate, 

He'll sink, whoso shall dare to leave my boat. 



828 



Fernando. 



FERNANDO. 



A STORY OF THE SECRET SOCIETIES. 



IT was a beautiful evening on 
the Lagunes. The sun had sunk 
behind one of the small islands 
dotting the Adriatic, in a sea of 
purple and yellow and gold. The 
fishermen were spreading and dry- 
ing their nets on the shore, while 
their wives were sitting outside 
their doors, chatting and laughing 
and showing off the charms of their 
respective babies, and the older 
children built imaginary villages of 
sand and peopled them with shells. 
Suddenly a deep bell was heard, 
and instantly the voices were hush- 
ed, and all knelt and repeated the 
"Angelas" with the simple faith 
of the Italian race, whose evening 
would be incomplete without that 
touching tribute to Our Lady. 
But among the women was one 
who had sat apart sadly from the 
rest, and down whose furrowed 
cheeks a few tears were coursing 
when she rose from her knees and 
found herself suddenly facing a 
venerable priest, with silver hair, 
who had just come from the neigh- 
boring village. " What ails you, 
my good Caterina ?" he asked, see- 
ing the marks of distress on her 
face. " Is it the old sorrow always, 
or something fresh ?" The woman 
bent forward to kiss his hand, and 
replied: "The old grief is ever 
fresh, my father ; and widows can- 
not forget. It is a weary long 
waiting for the meeting up there," 
she added, pointing to heaven. 
" But it was not that which made 
me cry just now. It was Fernan- 
do. Ah ! people tried to console 
me when my husband died by tell- 



ing me I had the children to com- 
fort me. The children ! It is they 
who make my cross intolerable to 
me. To be left alone to bring 
them up; to have no one to help 
me to guide them, or to consult 
with about them, or to speak to 
about their faults or their virtues 
it is that which sometimes drives me 
to despair ! Lotta is all very well- 
she is a good child on the whole 
but Fernando is always headstrong 
and wilful. I cannot manage him. 
He will not listen to me, but goes 
off for days together, I don't know 
where, and I fear with bad com- 
panions. Now he is gone again. 
I waited up half the night last 
night to let him in, but he never 
came, although he promised me he 
would return yesterday evening 
and bring me some things I wanted 
from the town. It was only an ex- 
cuse to get away, and I am fairly 
broken-hearted about him." And 
the poor woman covered her face 
with her apron and began to sob 
bitterly. 

The good old priest did his best 
to comfort her, and reminded her 
of the efficacy of a mother's pray- 
ers; but he knew well how great 
were the difficulties of the case. 
The boy was bright, handsome, and 
clever; he had learned quickly at 
school, and, as long as his father 
lived, had been checked and con- 
trolled and made to obey. But 
with the father's death this whole- 
some authority mingled with fear 
had ceased. He loved his mother, 
but she was too soft and gentle to 
influence so headstrong and rebel- 



Fernando. 



829 



lious a character. He began to de- 
ceive her in a thousand little ways 
in order to compass his own ends ; 
he neglected his religious duties, 
and though compelled to go to 
Mass with her on Sundays, and 
outwardly to behave as usual, the 
priest, who knew his heart, found 
him entirely changed. In vain 
he reasoned with him and repre- 
sented to him the solemn charge 
his father had left him on his death- 
bed to obey his mother and care 
for her and his little sister. The 
boy was stubborn and sullen, and 
at last determined to run away 
from home and " earn a living in- 
dependently," as he said. But, 
like the prodigal son, after a week 
or two's absence he had repented 
of his folly. He had suffered a 
great deal in his vagabond life, and 
at last determined to come back to 
his mother and own his fault. Her 
joy was so great at his return that 
perhaps she did not make him feel 
sufficiently the full extent of his 
sin. She thought that by shower- 
ing love and tender offices on him 
his heart would be touched and 
that he would spare her a repe- 
tition of such conduct. But there 
was no earnest purpose of amend- 
ment or true repentance in the 
boy's heart. Very soon he got 
tired of the monotony and slight 
control of his home life, and the 
result was that, at the moment our 
story opens, he had again deserted 
her, and ever after led a wild, un- 
satisfactory life, sometimes coming 
home, but always refusing to give 
any account of himself or to confess 
how he spent the intervening time. 
No wonder that the poor mother's 
heart was riven, and that the place 
where she knelt in the church was 
generally wet with her tears. 

At last affairs came to a crisis 
Fernando had returned one even- 



ing more out of temper than usual, 
and had flatly refused to obey some 
trifling order his mother had given 
him. His words and manner rous- 
ed even so gentle a nature as hers, 
and, speaking to him for the first 
time with real sternness, she warn- 
ed him " that if he continued in 
his wilful and disobedient career, 
indifferent to the bitter pain he 
caused her, God would signally 
punish him, and that he would 
surely die on the scaffold." Her 
words startled him at the time, and 
he promised to behave better. But the 
impression was a transitory one, and 
a few days later he again left her 
this time for ever. The teachings 
of his childhood were forgotten, 
the whisperings of conscience and 
of his good angel were stifled; the 
devil entered into his heart and 
blinded him with visions of liber- 
ty and independence. And God 
never permitted him to see his 
poor mother again on earth. 

We will pass lightly over the in- 
tervening years of the boy's life till 
he became a man. He was first 
engaged as a cabin-boy on board a 
merchant brig sailing from Trieste. 
Then, finding him clever and in- 
telligent, the ship's carpenter took 
a fancy to him and taught him his 
trade, which he quickly learned, 
and soon was able to command 
higher wages. All this time, though 
growing in knowledge and strength, 
he was far from growing in grace 
or in the love of God. Now and 
then he would turn into a church 
and say an occasional prayer. But 
his companions were bad and jeer- 
ed at anything like religion ; so 
that he soon became ashamed of 
even so scanty a practice of his 
faith. After a year or two he was 
taken on board a Neapolitan vessel 
bound for South America. But 
the crew were Carbonari, socialists, 



830 



Fernando. 



and infidels, enlisted in a secret so- 
ciety to overthrow both the altar 
and the throne. Finding Fernando 
a likely subject, they quickly won 
him over by bribes and promises, 
and finally enrolled him as a mem- 
ber of their detestable sect, and 
initiated him into every species of 
iniquity. Unhappily, they found 
in him a ready pupil, and his gi- 
gantic strength made him a formi- 
dable instrument when any deed of 
unusual daring and villany was re- 
quired. But low as he had fallen, 
and rapid as had been his descent 
from good to evil, yet God did not 
altogether forsake him or overlook 
his mother's prayers and tears on 
his behalf. He sent him a danger- 
ous illness, and his heartless com- 
panions, finding him, in conse- 
quence, only a burden upon them, 
sailed away, leaving him to seek a 
hospital in a strange port of South 
America. The sufferings he there 
endured, the desertion of his wick- 
ed companions, and the kind and 
tender care he received from his 
nurses awoke in his breast feelings 
of remorse and compunction for 
his past life, and a wish to turn 
over a new leaf, if God should once 
more spare him. The fear of eter- 
nal punishment and the recollec- 
tion of the teachings of his child- 
hood strengthened these good dis- 
positions in his heart, and an ap- 
parently trifling circumstance help- 
ed to confirm them. Among the 
nurses was a young girl, the daugh- 
ter of the matron, to whom he be- 
came deeply and passionately at- 
tached. She was good and pious 
and a devout Catholic ; so that be- 
fore encouraging his addresses in 
any way she wished to ascertain if 
he were of her faith. He assured 
her he was a Catholic and born of 
Catholic parents; but when she 
questioned him as to his mother 



and his home, and especially as to 
his religious practices, she found 
he had nothing to say, and that he 
could give her no proof of his sin- 
cerity. Fernando became almost 
desperate, and poured out to her 
the story of his love and his repen- 
tance in a way which could not fail 
to touch the girl's heart. Finally, 
on his recovery, she gave him a 
conditional promise that she would 
marry him at the end of a certain 
time of probation, when she would 
see if he had been faithful to his 
new and good resolutions; and ty- 
ing a small bag round his neck, she 
made him swear never to take it 
off, for her sake. This was the only 
gleam of sunshine in Fernando's 
sad and checkered career. It was 
a pure and honest love, which, with 
the grace of God, might have 
brought about his salvation. But, 
unhappily, he did not seek for that 
grace; his repentance and his good 
resolutions melted away as his 
health became restored; he trusted 
in his own strength ; and so " the 
last state of that man was worse 
than the first." 

No sooner was his health re- 
established than Fernando was 
anxious to be afloat again, partly 
to hasten the time of his probation, 
partly to earn more money where- 
with to enable him to marry the 
pure, good child whose heart he 
had won. His skill in carpenter- 
ing was well known, so that in a short 
time he obtained an excellent situa- 
tion in an Italian ship bearing the 
English flag, in which he hoped to 
make only a short cruise and then 
return to claim his bride. They 
parted with much love on both 
sides, but with a growing anxiety 
on hers which their late intercourse 
had only strengthened. She could 
not satisfy herself that his heart 
was really changed, and dreaded 



Fernando 



331 



his being again led away by evil 
companions. The result justified 
her fears but too well. 

The captain of Fernando's ship 
was a man of bad character; but 
he took a great fancy to his new 
carpenter, and even admitted him 
on terms of equality to his table. 
He had on board a handsome 
Italian woman who passed for 
his wife, but who was not so in 
reality. This woman had no 
sooner seen Fernando than she 
conceived for him a strong and 
guilty passion,^which she at first 
endeavored to conceal, and only 
showed by increased kindness and 
attention to Fernando on the plea 
of his having lately recovered from 
a serious illness. Fernando was 
pleased and flattered by her man- 
ner, and so b v egan an intimacy 
which was destined to have the 
most fatal consequences. In spite 
of his genuine love for his affianced 
bride, the passionate nature of this 
bad woman worked upon all that 
was worst and lowest in himself, de- 
grading him in his own eyes, yet 
blinding him to the inevitable con- 
sequences. She became his evil 
genius, a siren dragging him slowly 
but surely down to perdition. We 
need not enter into the sad story 
of passion and ambition on the one 
hand, leading to jealousy and fury 
on the other, and ending in the 
commission of a fearful crime. 
Suffice it to say that, under the 
impulse of a sudden and terrible 
temptation, Fernando mortally 
stabbed the captain in his own 
cabin, and the woman shared the 
same fate. The mate, hearing the 
murderous cries, rushed in to the 
assistance of his master and was 
killed also. The captain and the 
mate died instantaneously ; but the 
woman lived long enough for her 
Neapolitan faith to revive, and, call- 



ing Fernando to her, she exclaimed, 
" See what you have done !" 

" Yes," he replied sullenly, " I 
see ; but you know well it is all 
through you !" 

Then the wretched woman ap- 
pealed to him to do her at least one 
last favor, and that was to light 
six candles before a picture of Our 
Lady which hung in the cabin, and 
to promise her that when he came 
ashore he would have six Masses 
offered for the repose of her soul. 
This he did and promised mechani- 
cally, for, his furious passion being 
over, he was, as it were, stunned at 
his own acts. His miserable victim 
expired a few minutes later on the 
couch where he had laid her. It 
was then for the first time that he 
realized what he had done, and, 
without stopping to consider, he 
instinctively opened the little bag 
which hung round his neck, and 
saw that it contained a scapular 
with an image of Our Lady. At 
the sight he was softened, and, 
bursting into tears, he exclaimed: 
"My God! my God! what have 
I done!" But the voice of grace 
was soon hushed in the tumult of 
fear and remorse which had taken 
possession of him. He realized 
also the excessive danger of his 
position, and his one idea was how 
to save himself. At last he made 
up his mind to take possession of 
the ship, and, effacing as far as 
possible the evidence of the strug- 
gle, and locking the cabin-door, he 
quietly went on deck, and, taking 
the helm, determined to alter the 
ship's course. But the sailors, who 
had liked their captain and suspect- 
ed there had been foul play, would 
not obey him. Finally they rose 
against him in a body and tried to 
seize him. Being a man of hercu- 
lean strength, ten of his opponents 
lay at his feet in his struggle for 



832 



Fernando. 



liberty. At last he was overpower- 
ed by numbers and safely secured ; 
after which the sailors ran the ship 
into the port of Montevideo, and 
delivered him over to the English 
authorities there on a charge of 
treble murder. From thence he 
was sent to England on board a 
man-of-war, bound with chains. 
But in a fit of frenzy he burst his 
bonds and threw himself into the 
sea to put an end to his miserable 
life. He was rescued, but again 
and again attempted the same des- 
perate act. God had, however, 
other and more merciful designs as 
regarded this poor sinner, and he 
was safely landed at Southampton, 
and from thence sent to Winchester, 
where he was tried; and the evi- 
dence against him being overwhelm- 
ing, he was finally condemned to 
death. 

We must now leave the criminal 
for a short time, and give our rea- 
ders the graphic description of his 
conversion from the pen of the holy 
Capuchin father who was God's 
instrument on this occasion. He 
writes : 

" I had been but a short time in 
England, and spoke the language 
very imperfectly, when I was one 
day sent for by Dr. Grant, the late 
saintly bishop of Southwark, who, 
to my great astonishment, asked 
me if I would go down as soon as 
possible to Winchester jail, to at- 
tend an Italian youth who had 
been condemned to death for three 
murders committed by him on the 
high seas. The bishop added that 
the unfortunate man, who was only 
eight-and-twenty, had refused the 
ministrations of more than one 
priest who had been sent to try 
and influence him ; that he (the 
bishop) had himself endeavored to 
get at him, but had failed in the at- 



tempt, the prisoner having declar- 
ed that as he had lived so he would 
die, and that he would have nothing 
to say to any priest whatsoever. 
It had then come into the bishop's 
head that he would send me, as I, 
being an Italian, might probably 
have some effect upon him and 
possibly soften that hard heart. I 
pleaded my inability to speak Eng- 
lish, and the difficulty I should 
have not only in finding my way 
to Winchester, but in explaining 
my wants and wishes to the prison 
authorities, who wele not likely to 
be favorable to the poor monk's 
brown habit. But the bishop re- 
plied that as a son of St. Francis 
my duty was to obey, and bade me 
go in God's name, and not doubt 
that Our Lady would assist me, and 
that, through my means, this poor 
guilty soul might be saved from 
eternal damnation. It was the 
Feast of the Immaculate Concep- 
tion ; and so, trusting in Our Lady's 
all-powerful aid, I accepted the x 
bishop's commission and started. 
I borrowed a dictionary at the 
monastery and studied it: diligently 
during my journey down, so that I 
might know what words to use on 
my first arrival and how to enquire 
my way to the jail. ... I was 
very courteously received by the 
governor of the prison, to whom I 
announced myself and explained 
my mission. He insisted on my 
taking some refreshment at his own 
table, and then conducted me him- 
self to the cell of the condemned 
man. He warned me not to ap- 
proach too near him, for he was so 
very violent that it had been found 
necessary to chain him, and no 
one dared go within his reach. 
When I entered the cell I under- 
stood at once the meaning of the 
governor's warning. The prisoner, 
in truth, looked more like a tiger 



Fernando. 



833 



than a human being. He chafed 
and glared at me like a maniac; 
but remembeiing under whose pro- 
tection I had placed myself, I went 
straight up to him and spoke to 
him gently and lovingly, saying I 
was his fellow-countryman and had 
come a long way on purpose to 
see him. I requested the governor 
to leave me alone with him; and 
then, taking his hand, I told him 
how grieved I was to see him 
chained like that, and that I would 
ask to have the manacles removed, 
so that we might sit down comfor- 
tably together like brothers, as we 
truly were. He asked me ' if I 
should not be afraid of him.' I 
assured him I had no fear what- 
ever ; and at my earnest request the 
chains were removed, though the 
warders were evidently alarmed at 
my being left thus alone with him 
when his limbs were freed. I re- 
assured them, and the moment we 
were left by ourselves the poor 
fellow fell at my feet and burst in- 
to tears. I knelt down and prayed 
with him, and consoled him in every 
way in my power; and he then and 
there poured out to me the whole 
history of his past life, as it has 
been partly related above, tracing 
back all his misfortunes to his first 
act of rebellion as a boy and to the 
pain and trouble he had given to 
his widowed mother. He said that 
her voice still rang in his ears 
when she had told him that 'if he 
continued in his disobedience he 
would surely die on a scaffold.' 
'And her words have come true,' 
sobbed the poor fellow, as he 
knelt in the deepest penitence be- 
fore me, crying, in fact, like a lit- 
tle child, and begging and implor- 
ing God's forgiveness for his sins ; 
so that the heartiness of his contri- 
tion moved me likewise, and we 
mingled our tears together. I saw 
VOL, xxvin. 53 



that he was evidently not fit to be 
alone. I did not know what he 
might do to himself in his despair ; 
so that I went and obtained from 
the governor permission to remain 
with him every day from early 
morning till late at night. I kept 
the bishop informed of every par- 
ticular regarding his state; and 
when he heard that Fernando had 
shown such contrition and made 
so open a confession, he exclaimed 
with joy : ' This is indeed a mira- 
cle of the Immaculate Conception!' 
Only a few months before two 
other Italian Carbonari had been 
executed for murder at Winchester, 
without having consented to see a 
priest. The poor bishop, standing 
among the crowd, could only give 
them conditional absolution when 
the drop fell; and he had always 
feared that Fernando's end would 
be as sad as theirs had been. When, 
then, Dr. Grant heard of the won- 
derful change which the grace of 
God had wrought in this poor 
young fellow's heart, he gave me 
leave to celebrate Mass in his cell. 
And there, on a little temporary' 
altar, I daily offered the Holy Sa- 
crifice, Fernando himself serving 
my Mass with the greatest devo- 
tion and reverence, and frequently 
receiving his Lord in Holy Com- 
munion. The rest of the day we 
spent in prayer, saying the Rosary 
and the Stations of the Cross, or 
reading the Gospel narrative of the 
Passion of our Lord or the lives 
of the saints. Thus we spent the 
greater part of the month of De- 
cember. I became intensely in- 
terested in and attached to him : 
and the warders and governor of 
the prison never ceased express- 
ing their astonishment at the total-; 
change which had come over their 
once refractory prisoner. I would 
I could describe more minutely 



334 



Fernando* 



the strange events of his checker- 
ed life, and the interior conflicts 
lie had gone through on several 
occasions before his last entire 
conversion. But up to the very 
end he dreaded lest I should re- 
veal any circumstances connected 
with the wretched secret society he 
had so unhappily joined, seeming 
always to fear the vengeance of the 
Carbonari, so terrible is the terror- 
ism exercised by those men over 
their victims, lest their infamous 
practices should be revealed! 

" Only a week before his execu- 
tion I had a specimen of the influ- 
ence these men still had over him. 
Christmas day had dawned. I 
had said my first Mass, as usual, 
in his cell, and had gone to the 
.church to celebrate the other two. 
During my absence three Italians 
of the worst possible sort asked for 
and obtained permission from the 
governor to see the prisoner. Of 
course he had not an idea who or 
what they were, and only thought 
they were friends and countrymen 
of Fernando's ; and his conduct 
had been so exemplary since his 
conversion that every one was 
anxious to show him some kindness 
and sympathy. When I returned, 
which I did the moment my Mass- 
es were over. I found, to my dis- 
may, that Fernando was an altered 
man. He was no longer my hum- 
ble penitent, anxious to do every- 
thing he could to atone 'for the 
past. There were again passion 
and vengeance in .his eye. He 
walked restlessly up and down his 
cell, eyeing me askance from time 
.to time. I saluted him as I enter- 
ed, and said a few loving words to 
him on the feast ; but he never an- 
swered a word, and looked sullenly 
down on the floor. I own that 
/for the first time I was frightened, 
ibut .1 determined not to show it. 



I said nothing more, but knelt 
down before our little altar with 
the picture of Our Lady of Do- 
lors upon it, and began to pray, 
keeping an eye on him all the 
time. Suddenly he came up be- 
hind me and seized me by the 
back of the neck so as almost to 
strangle me. I felt sure that he 
meant to murder me and that my 
last hour was come. I made a 
fervent act of contrition, and call- 
ed, as I thought for the last time, 
on Mary, invoking her aid. She 
did not fail me ; in another second 
Fernando had relaxed his hold 
and fell again sobbing and power- 
less at my feet. Grace had once 
more conquered. He knelt and 
implored me to forgive him for 
what he called his base ingratitude. 
He then confessed that the three 
Italians who had been with him in 
my absence were members of this 
same secret society, and pretended 
that as I, an Italian priest, was at- 
tending him, all the evil secrets of 
their wretched lives would be re- 
vealed to the world ; that the 
only way to save them would be 
for him to take my life. They 
urged that it would make no dif- 
ference to him ; that he was, any- 
how, to die on a scaffold, and that 
he could but die once; but that 
if he would only follow their advice 
and rid them of me, they would 
make the most desperate efforts to 
release him, and that they thought 
they should succeed, even if they 
had to wait till he was on his way 
to the place of execution. All 
this poor Fernando poured out to 
me with many tears, ending by be- 
seeching me to request the gover- 
nor not to allow any one in future 
to be admitted to see him except 
myself. 

"After this terrible internal strug- 
gle he was, if possible, more con- 



Fernando. 



35 



trite and more fervent than before. 
13 ut the days passed only too 
quickly, and then the last night 
came. I dreaded lest the devil 
should make a final effort, to gain 
the soul so lately snatched from 
his grasp, and so went again to 
the governor and besought him, as 
a very great favor, for leave to pass 
that last night with the prisoner. 
He said at first it was a thing that 
was never allowed ; but I was so 
urgent that at last he said he 
could not refuse me. He likewise 
ordered a second bed to be placed 
in the cell, so that I might, at any 
rate, have some rest during the 
night. But I had no inclination to 
lie down, and still less to sleep. 
Fernando wanted to watch with 
me ; but I insisted on his making 
use of the bed prepared for me, and 
told him to try and get some sleep, 
that he might be braver on the 
morrow. He obeyed me ; and I 
sat with my Breviary in my hand, 
but rny eyes fixed upon him, thank- 
ing God in my heart for the great 
grace of repentance he had vouch- 
safed to him, and with a yearning 
yet (as I well knew) fruitless desire 
that his life might be spared. I 
can never describe all I felt during 
those last hours. Soon after mid- 
night Fernando suddenly started 
up in a paroxysm of despair. He 
screamed out in a loud voice that 
he saw the blood of the victims 
he had murdered before him; he 
dashed himself in a frenzy against 
the wall, tearing the bed-clothes 
from him and trying to destroy 
himself. I took up my crucifix, 
and, putting my arms tenderly 
round him, began to preach of 
God's mercy and forgiveness, and 
of the all-sufficient atonement of- 
fered for us all on the cross. God 
only knows what I said ; I was al- 
most beside myself with grief and 



compassion. But he deigned to 
bless my poor words, and again his 
grace triumphed. Once more poor 
Fernando came back to himself, 
penitent, strengthened, and consol- 
ed- But he would not lie down 
again, lest another frightful night- 
mare should come upon him. At 
two o'clock in the morning, for the 
last time, I celebrated the Holy 
Sacrifice in his cell, and he 
made his last communion with 
such penitence and fervor as 
would have moved a heart of 
stone. After it was over he ask- 
ed me to sing with him the ' Sta- 
bat Mater,' the hymn his mother 
had taught him as a child, and 
which he had never forgotten. I 
could hardly join in it, for my 
voice was choked with tears. Then 
he remained on his knees in prayer, 
renewing his confession, his acts of 
contrition, and also of thanksgiv- 
ing for the singular mercy God had 
shown him in calling him to repent- 
ance. So he went on till eight o'clock 
in the morning, when I heard a knock 
at the door of the cell, and shud- 
dered, for I knew but too well what 
it meant. The governor, entering, 
said to me : 

" ' Mr. Pacificus, it is time.' 
"'All right,' I answered; 'leave 
him to me.' 

" And then I turned to Fernando, 
and told him simply ' it was time 
to go.' 

'" To go where?' he asked, as if 
bewildered. 

"'To Calvary,' I replied. 'Do 
not fear; I will go with you, and 
One mightier than I will be with 
you to the end.' 

" And then, for the last time, we 
knelt together before the little altar 
where the Holy Sacrifice had so 
lately been offered, and before the 
image of Our Lady of Sorrows 
which hung above it, and we said 



836 



Fernando. 



one more * Hail Mary ' to her 
whose loving aid had wrought such 
marvels of grace ; and then we rose 
and left together that cell which 
had indeed become a sanctuary. 
'The warders desisted from taking 
hold of him when I assured them 
that he would be as quiet as a 
lamb ; and he walked firmly, lean- 
ing on my arm, to the place of exe- 
cution. I wore my Franciscan ha- 
bit, and we repeated together the 
litany of the dying in a loud voice 
as we walked along. When we 
had got a little way Fernando stop- 
ped me and begged that he might 
take off his shoes and his coat. 

" ' I have been a great sinner,' he 
said, 'and I wish to go to the scaf- 
fold as a humble penitent.' 

"A little further on he stopped 
me again, and said that when I 
went about preaching to others I 
must mention the example of his 
life, and warn all children to be 
dutiful and obedient to their par- 
ents, and especially to their moth- 
ers, lest they should end as he had 
done. He added that ever since 
he had run away from his mother, 
and caused her such sorrow and 
anxiety, he had always felt misera- 
ble and unhappy.* 

"At last we arrived at the scaffold, 
and he quietly mounted the steps, 

* I had forgotten to mention that the day pre- 
vious to his execution he tried to write to his mo- 
ther (who he fancied was still living) to express 
his love and sorrow for having grieved her ; but he 
was so affected when he began to think of her he 
could not write a word. After his death I wrote 
for him, but in such a way that she should, if possi- 
ble, be spared the knowledge of his execution. I 
said : " DEAR MADAM : I am sorry to inform you 
that your dear son, Fernando, died the other day. 
But it will be a comfort to you in your sorrow to 
know that he died penitent. I have assisted him 
in his last moments, and given him the sacraments 
of the church ; and I was present at his death. The 
day before he died he begged of me to write to you, 
and implore your motherly forgiveness for having 
baen the cause of such grief to you, and for having 
run away from you. He never ceased deploring 
his conduct towards you, and besought your pardon 
and blessing. I remain, dear madam, 

" Your faithful servant, 

" FATHER PACIFICUS." 



I and the executioner being by his 
side. He embraced me, and then 
meekly submitted to have his hands 
tied. But when the cap was put 
over his face he complained to me 
that he could not again see or kiss 
the crucifix. I lifted the covering 
from his mouth, and held the sa- 
cred image to his lips while he 
joined with me in. fervent ejacula- 
tions, and implored the mercy of 
God to the last instant when he 
was launched into eternity. 

"It was an awful moment; even 
now, after the lapse of so many 
years, I cannot think of the terri- 
ble details without a thrill of hor- 
ror. Fernando was in the full vi- 
gor of youth, and, as I have said, 
of enormous strength, and the con- 
sequence was that his death was 
very, very hard. It seemed to me 
an eternity before the doctor, with 
his ringer on his pulse, pronounced 
that he was quite dead. There was 
a great crowd around the prison 
doors and around the scaffold ; but, 
contrary to what is usually the case 
on such occasions, their demeanor 
was quiet and even respectful, and 
many were moved to tears. Two 
of the officers of the jail were so 
impressed by what they had seen 
that they came to me the following 
day, asked to be put under instruc- 
tion, and became Catholics." 

The local Protestant papers, when 
describing the execution, all said 
that, " if ever there were a true 
penitent, it was Fernando, and if 
ever there were a priest worthy of 
the name it was the poor Francis- 
can monk." 

" If you wish for more details," 
writes Father Pacificus, " I will try 
and give them to you ; but I think 
the foregoing narrative is correct 
in every particular. I have tried 
to read it over again, but I have 



TJie New School of Philosophical Fiction. 



337 



never succeeded. It brings me 
back to Winchester, to the cell, to 
the scaffold, to all those terrible 
moments. It makes me cry ! I 
had become so fond of him, there 
was so much that was so grand 
and beautiful in his character; 
and I had loved him as a son, for 
many reasons, but especially be- 
cause, through the intercession of 
Mary, I had been permitted to de- 
liver him from the hands of the 
devil and his instruments, the Car- 
bonari, and to bring him back, as a 
loving and penitent child, to the feet 
of our dear Lord, who had suffered 
and died for him on the cross." 



We feel we can add little or no- 
thing to this beautiful narrative of 
the first missionary work in Eng- 
land of this holy and devoted Ca- 
puchin father. Many as may be 
the souls whom he has saved since 
these events took place, we think 
that in the last day, when he will 
receive his reward, none will give 
him greater joy than that of this 
poor Italian youth, whom his won- 
derful charity and courageous faith 
rescued from so terrible a condi- 
tion, and brought, as he so touch- 
ingly writes, to the " feet of our 
dear Lord." * 



THE NEW SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHICAL FICTION. 



WHEN Don Quixote gravely lis- 
tens to a story he now and then 
interrupts the narrator with some 
moral, historical, or philosophical 
observation ; but Sancho hearkens 
with mouth and ears open to the 
tale itself, and yawns at F envoi. 
The simple delight with which of 
old we read a novel has been 
turned of late years into a severe 
task. Virgil, that prince of racon- 
teurs, does not care a whit about 
the anachronism of Dido entertain- 
ing the pious ^Eneas. The modern 
novelist is realistic. Like a cele- 
brated actor, he will not play Ham- 
let for us until he has studied 
all Danish archaeology. He rather 
despises Shakspere for making a 
clock strike in the play of " Julius 
Caasar." Once we were contented, 
like Sancho, to listen to the story 
for its own sake, .but novelists have 
made us decidedly Quixotic, and 



we are on the look-out to see that 
the hero has correct views on the 
question of evolution, and the he- 
roine does not commit herself to 
any theories at variance with the 
promise and potency of matter. 

We purpose tracing the develop- 
ment of this tendency in English 
fiction. It begins to show itself 
markedly in the later novels of 
Charles Dickens, and reaches its 
acme in the studies of George 
Eliot. We take the Scott novels 
as a starting-point, for Sir Walter 
was unquestionably the founder of 



* The profits of this article will be devoted to 
the building of a school chapel in a very neglected 
district with- a large Catholic population, which has 
been set on foot by the untiring charity and energy 
of this same Capuchin father whose first mission- 
ary work in England has been here related. Any 
contributions for this work from those who have 
the means of grace within daily reach will be 
gratefully received by 

The LADY HERBERT, 

Herbert House, 
Belgrave Square, London. 



833 



TJie New School of Philosophical Fiction. 



the English novel. The stories of Wake field ? The general char- 
Fielding and Smollett are autobio- acteristic of this era of novelistic 
graphical, and, however excellent literature is its adherence to the 
they may be as pictures of life, they true idea of a story. There is no 
lack the unity and plot which Scott painful " 1 " u ~ 



has made imperatively necessary 
to his successors. The Tristram 
Shandy of Sterne is nothing but a 
collection of very detached and, 
with an occasional exception, of 
very indecent essays. 

Still, the older English novels 
would have pleased Sancho Panza. 



elaboration of character 
such as wearies us nowadays, no 
passionate advocacy of certain 
rights, no prolonged attacks upon 
certain public abuses, and none of 
that psychical anatomy of motive 
which we do not encounter in or- 
dinary experience. With few ex- 
ceptions the old-fashioned notions 



They had no profound philosophi- of duty and honor are insisted upon, 
cal system to advocate, no special as in Mackenzie's Man of Feeling 
theory of morals or 
scheme. Who now 



new social 
reads the 
Arcadia of Sir Philip Sidney? 
Possibly such writers as Sylvanus 
Cobb, Jr., to get a name for a gal- 
lant knight. Yet many of the 
novels of the seventeenth century, 
gross as some of their descriptions 
are, do not communicate that sub- 
tle poison of unbelief and that 
downright sanction of lust from 
which the politer modern romance 
is not always free. There is a 
hearty morality in Tom Jones in- 
finitely superior to that inculcated 
in many a recent story. The 
animal life of England in those 
days, the excessive eating and 
drinking, the license of conversa- 
tion, the inefficiency of the English 
Establishment, are brought out in 
the liveliest colors in the pages 
of Fielding and Smollett. But it is 
well that, on the whole, they are no 
longer read. The novels of Rich- 
ardson were publicly commended 
from the London pulpit a circum- 
stance which gives us a curious 
idea of the taste of the time, for the 
very " moral " of Clarissa Harloive 
and of Sir Charles Grandison is 
shocking. But what nobler natural 
morality can be found than that 
advocated in the Rasselas of Dr. 



and though the theatrical love-mak- 
ing causes a smile, there is present 
brave, honest, and manly feeling 
which charms us when we con- 
trast it with the description of the 
passion and its vagaries in many 
a contemporary romance. In the 
old stories, too, the villain invari- 
ably comes to grief. 

The "subjective " novel had not 
as yet appeared. Heroines had not 
a "dynamic quality" in the rus- 
tle of their dress, as has Gwendo- 
len in Daniel Deronda. Their curls 
were not an adumbration of their 
mental states, nor did their eyes 
reveal all sorts of "passionate pos- 
sibilities." They are, of course, 
superlatively handsome. The old 
novelist would as soon make his 
heroine an Ethiop as a Jane Eyre. 
They engage in household duties, 
help the dairy-work along, and, in- 
deed, " make themselves generally 
useful." Sir Charles Grandison 
praises the excellent pies of his 
lady-love; and Olivia, in the Vicar 
of Wakefield, nearly equals her mo- 
ther in the cuisine. In many of the 
quaint old tales the heroine pre- 
sents the hero with a" warm scarf" 
or "well-knit hose" a token 
which, to the practical mind, is far 
preferable to a "'pink flower pale 



Johnson and Goldsmith's Vicar of with her tears," which is the usual 



The New School of Philosophical Fiction. 



839 



modern substitute for the stock- 
ings. 

The Caleb Williams of Godwin 
is really the initial philosophical 
novel in the Language. In power 
of statement, in sophistical reason- 
ing, and in its lamentable success 
it has never been surpassed. Crabb 
Robinson describes the sensation 
which it caused. It set the exam- 
ple, which has become so general, 
of able minds taking the novel as 
a medium of communicating their 
particular political and other opin- 
ions. This is an invasion of the 
province of the novel proper. We 
can trace the influence of Godwin 
in this whole species of novelistic 
literature. He was the most pow- 
erful personality in that wretched 
Shelley school. His daughter mar- 
ried the divorced poet, and showed 
the paternal genius in her Frank- 
enstein, which is another invasion 
of the province of the novel pro- 
per. The soul-terrifying tales of 
Mrs. Radcliffe and the Castle of 
Otranto of Walpole are quite cheer- 
ful in comparison with the mon- 
ster of Frankenstein. The idea is 
blasphemous, and is said to have 
been suggested by Shelley himself. 

The Scott novels are the best spe- 
cimens of the romance in any litera- 
ture. The genius is healthy, sunny, 
moral. The reflections upon the 
church rarely touch any doctrinal 
point, but chiefly relate to mere 
questions of discipline. The su- 
periority of Scott is seen by con- 
trasting him with Victor Hugo or 
Turgenef, though Manzoni comes 
near him. This powerful and 
good genius left a deep impress 
upon the mind of the English- 
speaking races, and yet it is re- 
markable that the influence of Sir 
Walter is departing, if not depart- 
ed. The fact is that his stories 
never took full hold upon Cove- 



nanting Scotland. That he was 
read at all in Scotland is the most 
stupendous evidence of his genius. 
Carlyle, the Mentor of Scotland, re- 
fused to speak to him on the ground 
that he had wasted his powers in 
writing lies /.., novels. As if his 
own writings were not essentially 
novelistic ! What is his French 
Revolution but a series of sensa- 
tional chapters? And if Sartor 
Resartns is not a novel, it is not be- 
cause Carlyle did not try to make 
it one. It was Carlyle that intro- 
duced the subjective school of 
thought, and from that day fare- 
well to the pageantry of court and 
tournament, war and dashing love! 
" Enter Hamlet reading." 

A great producer of the philoso- 
phical novel was Edward Bulwer, 
Lord Lytton. He had everything 
but genius. He had fair abilities, a 
love of study, wealth to carry out his 
literary projects, and a vivid imagi- 
nation which he mistook for philoso- 
phical insight. His novels are scho- 
larly and show the fastidiousness of 
the student. Here the ghost of 
the " subjective " which haunts the 
whole school is dimly seen in Pel" 
Juun, rattles its chains in Zanoni, 
and " materializes " in the Pari- 
sians. As Bulwer's novels cover a 
period of nearly fifty years, and 
confessedly founded a prominent 
school of fiction, it is well for us to 
form an idea of the salient points 
of their teaching. 

The Buhver gospel is the inevi- 
table success in life which attends 
good looks, talent, and a determi- 
nation to treat the world as did 
lago an oyster to be opened. 
None of his characters, good or 
bad, fail. All succeed in conquer- 
ing fate, Providence, or call it what 
you will. His youth move through 
life en prince. The dandy conquers 
by lying and cheating charmingly. 



840 



The New School of Philosophical Fiction. 



The student has no higher motive 
of study than utility. All is of the 
earth earthy. The old, unbeliev- 
ing, and epicure philosopher dies 
as calmly as a saint. The sceptic 
is really irresistible. Success ! suc- 
cess ! is written on every page as 
the sufficient reward and crown of 
his heroes and heroines, whom he 
dowers with so many magnificent 
gifts. 

Now, there is something very 
beautiful in youthful enthusiasm. 
We delight in our handsome, noble- 
minded hero, our lovely and vir- 
tuous heroine. We sympathize with 
his high purpose to make a name 
for himself by some great achieve- 
ment in literature, art, politics, or 
war. We feel our hearts throb with 
his when we read the praises of 
glory as sung by bard and describ- 
ed by historian. Bulwer certainly 
makes many of his heroes very no- 
ble fellows as Caxton or Kenelm 
Chillingly. But (and here is the 
false moral) worldly success is not 
the all-in-all, either in idea or in 
fact. We tire of this overwhelm- 
ing success, because it is false to 
life. The truth is that men of su- 
perlative endowments generally fail 
in life; the very fineness of spirit 
which Bulwer gives to his young 
heroes would work against them in 
the rough-and-tumble world. So, 
too, his statesmen never sat in any 
cabinet but that of a student and 
dreamer. A very thoughtful writer 
says that the more he has studied 
the causes of worldly success, the 
less disposed is he to pass judg- 
ment upon those who are classed 
among the failures. Of course we 
have nothing to say against the 
ringing cheer which greets Buhver's 
youthful heroes when they drive 
Fortune, Fame, and Beauty up to the 
winning-post. We all are glad of 
our neighbor's success, if we are 



right-hearted and see that success 
does not spoil the man ; and of course 
Buhver's heroes are not to be spoil- 
ed. Yet there is a tawdriness 
about these spangles and ribbons, 
this surfeit of honor, this lavish fa- 
vor of applauding beauty, which 
makes us wish for a failure some- 
where, if it were only for the admi- 
rable footman to upset the soup 
upon the head of the sceptical old 
philosopher who discourses so wit- 
tily and sneeringly about the world 
and the follies of humanity when 
it disregards the Bulwer maxims. 

Lord Lytton set in fashion that 
morbid speculation about the mys- 
teries of the other world which 
has been carried to ridiculous 
lengths by Wilkie Collins. The 
machinery of the supernatural can- 
not be worked except by a master- 
hand, which Bulwer was not. An 
old-fashioned ghost-story, such as 
Mrs. Radcliffe or her successor, 
Miss Braddon, could tell, frightens 
people a great deal more than the 
exhibition of the dreams of the old 
necromancers apparent in Zanoni 
and A Strange Story. This false 
supernaturalism is one of the most 
detestable phases of the philoso- 
phical school. It is unholy, unbe- 
lieving, and untrue. We were not 
surprised to learn from a biogra- 
phical and critical review in Black- 
woocPs, upon the occasion of Bul- 
wer's death, that he had fallen into 
the delusion of spiritism in his old 
age. The writer of this review, 
evidently well acquainted with his 
mental habits and religious views, 
dwelt with exceeding delicacy upon 
this evidence of mental aberration ; 
but we Catholics easily understand 
it. If a mind, particularly a culti- 
vated and imaginative one, has not 
the divine spirituality of the church, 
it is pretty certain that it will 
drift into superstition, perhaps into 



The New School of Philosophical Fiction. 



841 



diabolism. The man who believes 
that he has a guardian angel specially 
commissioned to watch over and 
pray for him personally ; who be- 
lieves in the communion of saints, 
and that he can hold through pray- 
er as veritable a communication 
with St. John or St. Francis Xavier 
as if he were a contemporary neigh- 
bor ; and who believes that he can 
assist by his prayers and his good 
works the beloved dead, and re- 
ceive sweet intimations, based upon 
a divine faith, that his prayers shall 
be heard and that he himself is by 
baptism and by grace a living mem- 
ber of the city of God, feels no 
curiosity about the other life, no 
disposition to pry into its secrets. 
Indeed, it has no secrets from him, 
and he either laughs at diablerie or 
commends himself to God and 
passes on. The other world to the 
Catholic is far better known than 
this. Protestants shudder over the 
" supernaturalism," horrible and 
portentous, in Bulvver and Wilkie 
Collins, while they laugh at the be- 
nign apparition of our Lord to the 
Blessed Mary Alacoque, or put 
down as monkish legends the tra- 
ditions of demoniac temptation and 
power recorded in the lives of the 
saints. If it fell within the scope 
of this paper, we might amuse, and 
perhaps instruct, our readers by 
paralleling from the old monastic 
chronicles many of the mysterious 
adventures that occur to the cha- 
racters in the modern ghost-story. 
The devil, after all, has a narrow 
round of deception, and it would 
be a curious study to identify his 
modern manifestations with his 
former mirifica^ as recorded for us, 
in their true character, in the quaint 
legends of the middle ages. Col- 
lins may be familiar with these, but 
there is no question that many of 
the phenomena of modern spiritism 



are traceable to demoniac influence. 
It is worthy of notice in the evolu- 
tion of the Collins stories that the 
spiritual influence is always attend- 
ed by a wretched and miserable 
condition of the nervous system, or 
a confusion of idea, or, at the very 
least, a perplexing inability to cer- 
tify all the circumstances. This is 
in strict accordance with the old 
devilish practices, and is explained 
on the principle that the great aim 
of Satan in our times is to make 
men disbelieve in his existence or 
in the state or condition of hell. 

Bulvver, having no true spiritual- 
ity, found it necessary to have re- 
course to a sort of Rosicrucianism, 
or, if you choose, a pagan Sweden- 
borgianism. In the other world 
we shall continue to progress inde- 
finitely in intellectual power, some- 
what after the idea of Thomas 
Dick, who tells us that a soul like 
Newton's, contemplating the starry 
spheres, will be inundated with a 
bliss wholly denied to the ignorant 
rustic. But the carnal views of 
heaven which Protestantism has 
made so familiar are too trite a 
theme to need more than indicat- 
ing. It is said that Bulwer felt 
keenly the laughter which his spir- 
itualistic dream drew from the 
critics, and he sought to impale 
them a very foolish proceeding. 

The reader of Bulwer will notice 
that after success, which is to be 
obtained at all hazards, he enthrones 
intellect. This is the great mark 
of the philosophic school. They 
have a word, " culture," which cor- 
responds to Bulvver's deification of 
the intellectual powers. Yet he 
falls short of the full religion of 
culture, for he makes study and in- 
vestigation subservient to utility, 
whereas your true lover of culture 
makes it its own exceeding great 
end and reward. This exaltation 



842 



The Neiu School of Philosophical Fiction. 



of the intellect is carried out with 
varying success in the many novels 
that have imitated the great Bulwer 
standard. The women imagine that 
a learned man must be perforce 
an ethereal creature, in defiance 
of history. Plato and St. Thomas 
of Aquin were probably the two 
noblest minds, naturally, that God 
ever created, and yet both were 
big, burly, bushy-browed men. 
The novelist's beau-ideal of the 
genius, a great favorite with the 
ladies since Byron and Bulwer, is 
a gentleman with an alabaster brow, 
raven hair, eagle eyes, and taper 
hands. This interesting being is 
torn with doubts about his origin 
and his end. He paces gloomy 
terraces and interrogates the Night. 
The low, sullen clouds answer him 
with thunder-growls. He wanders 
by the sea, but it mocks his despair. 
He broods over the awful sayings 
and runes of the Druids, studies the 
Zend-Avesta, pierces the mean- 
ing of the Egyptian animal-worship 
and the strange rites of the Abys- 
sinians. All in vain until he learns 
wisdom from Love. 

Thackeray is a member of the 
same philosophical school as Bul- 
wer, but he works with different 
methods. A man forgets Bulwer 
as he does Ovid, but he remembers 
Thackeray and Horace. Thacke- 
ray is no more like Dickens, with 
whom he has been foolishly com- 
pared, than a sailor is like a child's 
nurse. He believes in the unmi- 
tigated " cussedness " of human 
nature an error which leaves his 
moral as worthless as that of Bul- 
wer's " success." The complexion 
of Thackeray's genius is seen in 
his attitude to the Catholic Church, 
which is the only test that can be 
applied to any man or institution. 
Far back in his literary career 
his bias toward the church was 



well known. Some one said .to 
Sydney Smith : " Thackeray has a 
leaning to Catholicism." " I hope," 
said Sydney, " the leaning begins 
with his nose" which was bro- 
ken. Yet he doubted and ana- 
lyzed, and finally lost the grace of 
conversion. He had no earthly 
reason to keep out of the church, 
and he was just the man that could 
afford to let snobs and fools laugh 
at his serious step. Indeed, they 
would have been afraid to laugh. 

Thackeray's theory of life is that 
the game is not worth the candle 
Trollope's recent attempt in the 
Nineteenth Century to make out 
Thackeray as a wonderful moral 
power and the greatest censor monim 
of the age is just the sort of opin- 
ion one expects from a romantic 
novelist. It is not only false even 
in the world, but it is sinful, to 
represent life as a Vanity Fair. 
There are, indeed, coldness and 
wretchedness enough in it, but at 
least one thing is true: human na- 
ture is not totally depraved. The 
Catholic Church meets a man face 
to face in all these theories. It is 
wonderful how the doctrines of 
faith are interwoven with our very 
mental structure. Now, who would 
suppose that the definitions of the 
Council of Trent, about the fall of 
Adam, and the preservation of our 
natural integrity even if weakened 
by original sin, and the loss of our 
supernatural state not involving 
the loss of our own natural excel- 
lences, make it just simply impos- 
sible for us to accept Thackeray's 
and other satirists' views of the 
essential depravity, worthlessness, 
meanness, and selfishness of our 
human nature ? 

There is too much analysis of 
character in Thackeray's novels, too 
much quizzing of motives ; little 
generosity, little true wisdom. Af- 



The New School of Philosophical Fiction. 



343 



ter all it is better to be too trust- 
ing than too suspicious, and the 
highest and widest wisdom and ex- 
perience confirm it. Besides, there 
is a deeper error and want in Eng- 
lish aristocratic society than aught 
which the great cynic indicated. 
We could forgive the social blun- 
ders, or even the petty vices, if 
there was present an atmosphere 
of faith. This Thackeray ignores, 
and substitutes nothing. There are, 
indeed, a few charming passages de- 
scriptive of loving prayer and sub- 
mission to God, but these pious 
emotions are mainly confined to 
doting mothers. The ridicule of 
fashionable worship is unsparing. 

What a heartless picture is Bar- 
ry Lyndon ! Here Thackeray is in 
full feather as a pessimist. What 
a thorough understanding of every 
source and deed of meanness, 
treachery, and coldest selfishness ! 
This fierce cynicism mellowed with 
years and success, but it is clear 
that he must have met with some 
deep disappointment, some betray- 
al, some wretched failure in early 
life which his pride could not 
stomach, and which never left his 
mind. The natural man finds it 
so very hard to forgive those that 
trespass against hirh. Virtue is 
made supremely ludicrous in Thack- 
eray, which is, for the English as 
the French mind, the same as mak- 
ing it impossible. Voltaire did not 
disprove Christianity; he laughed 
at it, and made it laughable to an 
unbelieving generation. Thackeray 
makes love ridiculous. It is a 
matter of bargain and sale. He 
makes fidelity, as in Captain Dob- 
bin, contemptible. He makes Pen- 
dennis, an impudent snob, a model 
of a husband and friend. Philip is 
a fool, though the best fellow in the 
world. Colonel Newcome, though 
admirable and lovable, has the 



same limp mentality and dies in 
an almshouse. We have the mo- 
notonous repetition and false inter- 
pretation of the words, Vanity of 
vanities, and all is vanity. This 
must be read with the gloss of 
Thomas a Kempis : " Except to 
love God and to serve him alone." 
Seen in this light the world may 
indeed be a Vanity Fair, but we 
pass through it in calm patience, 
seeing its fun, its pathos, its joys 
and sorrows, and using it as if we 
used it not. It is the height of 
folly to fly into a passion with the 
world, or to sneer at it as wholly 
reprobate. Thackeray's books are 
very dangerous to a young man, 
especially if he has met with any 
disappointment. Still, he is enjoy- 
able, like Horace, for pretty much 
the same reason. 

The first novels of Charles Dick- 
ens are his best. Afterward he 
became philosophical and failed. 
The rollicking fun of Pickwick 
grows fainter and fainter. Some- 
body must have told Dickens that 
he might become a great moral re- 
former, and he was foolish enough 
to believe so. Every one of his 
novels " with a purpose " has in it 
the elements of quick literary death. 
A story, to be immortal, must be 
largely personal. Don Quixote 
and Gil Bias communicate immor- 
tality to even poor imitations. 
But did Oliver Twist reform the 
English poor-house, or did Martin 
Chuzzlewit prevent American im- 
migration ? It must be said of 
Dickens that, notwithstanding this 
unhappy deflection of his talent, he 
was the most popular novelist 
since Scott. There was a vast 
fund of animal spirits in the man 
which he poured over his pages. 
He was lavish of his stores. Of 
course he wrote too much, and it 
must have been his ill-advised and 



844 



The New School of Philosophical Fiction. 



unlucky son that permitted the con- 
tinuation of Edwin Drood, which was 
almost a posthumous work. Every- 
body knew that Dickens had writ- 
ten himself out after the ghastly 
failure of Our Mutual Friend. But 
he was tolerated as are the oft-told 
jokes of our old friends. England 
was honestly proud of him, inas- 
much as he worked his way to 
commanding eminence by the sheer 
force of his talents. He did not 
write the English language well. 
He knew little about the unities. 
He fails egregiously in the delinea- 
tion of high life, which his snobbish- 
ness should never have attempted 
to describe, and his humor is broad 
burlesque. But he redeems much 
by an admirable modesty of word 
and description, and a hearty ap- 
preciation of virtues which human- 
ity will always love, although they 
are not of a high order good-fel- 
lowship, hospitality, a natural desire 
to help the distressed, and quick 
sympathy with the unfortunate. 

But is Dickens "subjective"? 
asks the reader in astonishment. 
Yes ; and it is he that has largely 
modelled that religious sentimental- 
ism which we find in his imitators, 
such as Farjeon, Charles Kingsley, 
George Macdonald, and the au- 
thoress of the very much overrated 
story, That Lass c? Lowries. The 
Dickens religion, as explained by 
himself, is a vague love for the true 
and beautiful, with an abundance 
of flowers, and a yearning after 
stars, angel-childs, and other celes- 
tial objects of a hazy nature. Paul 
Dombey wonders what the wild 
waves are saying, and Joe, in Bleak 
House, asks if the light is a-coming. 
Mrs. Dombey drifts out into the 
great ocean that rolls all around 
the world; and, in a word, death, 
except in the case of murder or 
suicide, is rather a sentimental 



affair, just as religion in life is, to 
Dickens and his host of imitators. 
As for any robust virtue or super- 
natural motive, you may as well 
expect it in the man in the mocn. 

The sentimental religion of the 
Dickens people is shared in by all 
the characters in that large section 
of novel literature which flourishes 
in the weekly story-papers. Where 
this religion originated no theolo- 
gian appears to have determined. 
It has no creed, no doctrine, no 
positive precepts, no ministry, and 
no necessity for use except on 
death-beds or other try ing occasions. 
It is a mere sentiment, and evi- 
dences itself by tears, by passionate 
appeals to Heaven, by a dark de- 
spair that there is no God when a 
faithless lover departs, and Heaven 
smiles when the young lady whis- 
pers the all-important answer. 
This religion avoids poverty, deep 
moral disease, and general unre- 
spectability. It is no wonder that 
Thackeray and his imitators hold 
it in pitiful scorn. Anthony Trol- 
lope imitates the master most pa- 
tiently, but he is too sentimental. 
Perhaps Justin McCarthy treats it 
with deepest satire. 

Dickens was not subjective in 
the full sense, of that favorite word. 
His characterizations are broad 
and bold. They lack delicacy, and 
he has not sufficient continuity of 
mind to preserve consistency or 
gradual development of charac- 
ter. This defect is really a merit 
in his humor. What can be fun- 
nier than the rapid transformations 
of Micawber ? Indeed, Dickens is 
tedious when he attempts to trace 
any long series of mental struggles 
or resolves on the part of his hero 
or heroine, and we share his buoy- 
ancy when he launches out again 
into the stir, bustle, fun, and pathos 
of external life. He unfortunately 



The New School of Philosophical Fiction. 



845 



made many of his " religious " cha- 
racters easy of imitation to weak- 
minded men and women. There is 
only one good touch in this line in 
any of his books. It is where Cap- 
tain Cuttle, after hearing of the 
death of Walter, in Dombey and Son, 
reads our Lord's Sermon on the 
Mount and then the Church of 
England's service for a burial at 
sea. It is simply appalling how a 
mere feeling, as exalted and made 
hysterical by Dickens, should be 
regarded in so many works of fic- 
tion as indicative and completely 
expressive of the profoundest truths 
and principles of genuine Christian 
faith. People weep over the death 
of Little Nell who look with stolid 
indifference upon an image of 
Christ Crucified, and they believe 
that Dickens' Christmas stories in- 
culcate a higher benevolence and 
substitute a more fitting obser- 
vance of the festival than all the 
teachings of the church. 

Disraeli, like Godwin, used the 
novel as a medium for political 
purposes. Vivian Grey is very 
Bulwerish, and emphasizes the car- 
dinal necessity of success, which 
the premier certainly illustrates in 
his own career. Lothair is so ob- 
viously a partisan pamphlet that 
only in name does it hold its place 
among novels. Of all his roman- 
ces Henrietta Temple is the only 
one which merits the name. Yet 
its painful analysis of love, its rap- 
tures, its disappointments, are all as 
affected as the jaunty curls which 
the aged author and statesman still 
carefully nourishes. The " moral " 
of the Disraeli novels is sensation 
nothing is worth living for that 
is not brilliant, flashy, dazzling. 
The very love-talk is epigrammatic. 
Bulwer's public men differ from 
Disraeli's in having a conscience, 
at least a public one. The gor- 



geous dreams of Eastern conquest 
which Disraeli pictures in Tancred 
appear to have come true under 
his own leadership. The lesson of 
patient waiting which he derives 
from his Hebrew blood is inculcat- 
ed on every page, and is a faithful 
illustration of his own prophetic 
words when, having been coughed 
and laughed down in the House, 
he exclaimed : " I have tried many 
things, and I have always succeed- 
ed. One day I will make this 
House listen to me." And he cer~ 
tainly has fulfilled his own predic- 
tion. 

With the pleasures of sense and 
political excitement and elevation 
as the measure of life and its high- 
est reach, Disraeli, of course, revels 
in all the luxuries of existence. 
Lothair's diamonds, Henrietta's 
conservatory, boundless wealth, the 
choicest wine, the rarest books, the 
very exuberance of an Oriental 
imagination in his novels, all defy 
description. The Jew is seen in 
an aureola. Wealth is deified. 
Culture is religion and the state an 
idol, like that of some mythologies, 
to be alternately worshipped and 
beaten. 

The imitators of Disraeli are 
chiefly American women who write 
about dukes and lords. Unlike 
Godwin, Disraeli has had no effect 
upon public opinion by the agency 
of his novels. They have been 
laughed at as unworthy of a man 
of his unquestionable genius, and 
some have supposed that they were 
written in a mocking spirit. But 
the character of the man forbids 
any such idea. If his heroes love 
to startle us, so does he. If they 
dream of the East, so does he. If 
their highest jcy consists in the 
sensational, surely he must have 
tasted bliss unspeakable after his 
coup de"_the'dtre of Cyprus. 



846 



The New School of Philosophical Fiction. 



It remains for us to speak of the 
most eminent representative of the 
philosophical school of fiction, Ma- 
rian Evans Lewes (George Eliot). 
All English literature has become 
introspective. Why should not the 
novel? Tennyson's poetry is al- 
most entirely concerned with our 
mental and moral states. We long 
to hear a cheery song from some 
of our poets, not this continual 
analysis of feeling. It is of course 
notorious that the Protestant theo- 
logical literature of the past decade 
quite -ignores the external church. 
We have Mr. Froude evolving a 
Life of St. Thomas a Becket out 
of his own inner consciousness, as 
Professor Freeman has shown us. 
Here is Mrs. Lewes, who edited 
the Westminster Review, and was 
trained by Stuart Mill and other 
lights of the positive and utilitari- 
an schools, able to throw herself in- 
to the precise mental state of our 
modern man and woman, and 
evolve a great philosophy of life. 

Like Dickens, Mrs. Lewes' first 
sketches are her best. The Scenes 
of Clerical Life are charmingly 
written and quite full of truth and 
pathos. But along came Mentor, 
or Mr. Barlow, who told her that 
she could become a great moral 
power ; and George Eliot was de- 
ceived. She takes up radical ques- 
tions and anatomizes poor Felix 
Holt, an enthusiastic youth, until 
she makes the very word reform a 
synonym of absurdity. She tracks 
vice in Romola until she thinks 
she proves, what is not true, that 
it is its own most terrible punish- 
ment. She has afar daintier touch 
than Dickens, and tortures a vic- 
tim as a cat tortures a mouse. 
She weighs ethical questions in 
the scales of utilitarianism, and 
he who cannot read Mill's Logic 
will take up Middlemarch. The 



failure of imaginative power and 
beauty, so bright in Silas Marner, 
appears in Daniel Deronda, par- 
ticularly in the attempt to rehabi- 
litate Judaism, which has lost all 
its charms for the most imaginative 
mind; for the world simply laugh- 
ed at the attempt to represent the 
Judaism of London and to-day as 
identical with even that of the 
middle ages, not to speak of an- 
cient Judea. 

George Eliot's analysis of life is 
the old positive and utilitarian one 
of personal self-sacrifice for the 
benefit of the whole race, with the 
corresponding obligation on the 
part of the world to sacrifice itself 
for you too. Of course the present 
state of society, and the selfishness 
inculcated by the Christian religion, 
prevent this happy consummation. 
Nevertheless, a great " law " works 
punishment upon selfishness. Thus 
Dorothea sacrifices herself for old 
Casaubon, whose meanness is pro- 
perly punished. Gwendolen sel- 
fishly marries Grandcourt, and 
makes" expiation for the sin by a 
life of wretchedness. All of the 
Eliot novels are sad and sadden- 
ing. There is evidently no pros- 
pect of the world's growing any 
less selfish. We have nothing to 
do but to put up with this miser- 
able state of affairs, and it is unhe- 
roic to look to God or hereafter for 
any recompense. 

This fivefold philosophy of life 
is miserably jejune. Bulwei's 
"success," Thackeray's "failure," 
Dickens' " reform," Disraeli's " sen- 
sation," and George Eliot's " hu- 
manity " are vox et prater ca irihti. 
Life is none of these things, but it 
is a high trust, a pledge and pro- 
mise of eternal happiness if it is 
spent in the service of God. Who 
or what is this deity, this deus ex 
machtna, this supreme law, about 



The New School of Philosophical Fiction. 



847 



which all these novelists prate ? 
Do they not believe that God is^ 
so intimately concerned about his 
creation that, though infinitely dis- 
tinct from it, we live and move 
and are in him ? That life is suc- 
cess which gains its end, the at- 
tainment of the infinite Blessedness, 
which is God. That life is failure 
which fails in this. What gospel is 
this preached by Eliot which is 
to take the place of the Gospel of 
our Lord Jesus Christ? A preach- 
ing-up of the divine in humanity, 
of the self-poise imparted by cul- 
ture, of the broadness of view at- 
tained by science, of the putting- 
down of low forms of vice, igno- 
rance, and superstition by the au- 
thority of law wedded to know- 
ledge. Not a word about super- 
natural grace. Not a syllable 
about the need of leaning upon a 
divine arm. This is the gospel of 
Satan, for its very essence is pride. 
There may be a natural virtue able 
to achieve merely human ethical 
results; but this virtue is so rare 
that Cicero himself doubts of it, 
though having Cato the Censor be- 
fore him for proof. The Eliot 
gospel politely bids the Creator 
step aside, or coolly ignores him al- 
together. Man is sufficient for him- 
self; or, if there be a lack of self- 
control, we must search for the 
cause, not in any so-called moral 
conditions, but in his physique, his 
education, above all in the narrow 
superstition which he dignifies by 
the name of religion. 

As for us, give us a good story, 
full of plot, adventure, romance, 
excitement, graphic sketches of 
scenery and character, but let it 
be objective. When it comes to 
analysis of life, propriety of motive, 
speculations about Providence, 
tolerance of sin, and a dozen other 
difficult points, we have a philoso- 



phy which is simply divine, and it 
runs : Man is created to adore, 
love, and serve God in this life, in 
order to be for ever happy with 
him in the next. 

We have thus analyzed the dis- 
tinctive thought and conviction of 
the five acknowledged leaders of 
recent English fiction, to show the 
reader how fallacious are their 
views of life, and how unworthy of 
serious study on general grounds. 
There is little necessity for quoting 
the prohibition of the church in 
the matter of indiscriminate novel- 
reading, for a sensible man will 
quickly discover sufficient reasons 
for giving up such reading. In 
fact, too rigorous an exclusion of 
novels from the family library often 
tempts the young folk to read them. 
If they are trained to see how far 
the greatest masters of fiction fall 
short of the true wisdom of life 
and its responsibilities, they will 
not be so anxious to peruse them, 
much less the lucubrations of wri- 
ters of no ability or novelistic skill. 

We have spoken only of the 
leaders. We may summarize the 
imitators quite rapidly. Charles 
Reade's ideal of woman is a mere 
creature of impulse ; the more de- 
ceptive she is in a foolish way, the 
more lovable ; the more weakly 
compliant with her passions and 
the deafer to reason, the more 
does she show forth true femineity. 
Is not this a contrast to that ma- 
jestic type of the Mother Undefil- 
ed ? Anthony Trollope describes 
English home-life as a humdrum 
affair without religion, culture, or 
noble impulses. This we believe 
to be a false picture. Luckily, he 
is such a prosy writer that he has 
few readers. Edmund Yates is a 
sort of buccaneer Dickens. 

It may be granted that we have 
no clear right to any religious ele- 



848 



To SS. Peter and Andrew Crucified. 



ment in a novel ; but we have a 
right to demand that life be not 
distorted, morals left without expla- 
nation or incentive, and the great is- 
sues of our existence made depen- 
dent upon a blind fate. It may be 
true that nobody reads a story ex- 
cept for the interest of the plot or 
for the escape afforded into dream- 
land. Still, this does not exempt 
the romancer from high ethical 
obligations. He need not print 
for us the Ten Commandments, 
but he should not suffer their 
violation without condign punish- 
ment. 

We offer these few suggestions 
in the hope that they may call at- 
tention to the subject of novel- 
reading, which is assuming vast 
proportions since the printing and 



publishing of very cheap editions. 
So far as we have glanced over 
these collections, there appears to 
be a disposition to reproduce 
standard, and even classic, novels. 
It is claimed that the better novels 
will supplant and counteract the 
trash. We do not think so. There 
are few standard novels in the 
language. We doubt if a wild 
Indian story would do as much 
harm as one of Reade's. It would 
be a good idea for professors of 
literature, editors, and other mould- 
ers of public opinion to familiarize 
the public, now feeding on this 
literature, with the characteristic 
" philosophy " of popular novelists. 
We should then have an antidote. 
There is nothing like just criticism 
for even the novel-loving public. 



TO SS. PETER AND ANDREW CRUCIFIED. 



* And Jesus said to them : Come after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. "-ST. 
MARK i. 17. 

'Tis leave one net another net to cast ; 

And, catching better fish, make good the loss. 
The sport hath famous luck ; for here, at last, 

Ye both are caught in your own net the Cross 



The Popes Encyclical. 



849 



THE POPE'S ENCYCLICAL. 

view of its great value and importance we publish the full text, 
with a translation, of the recent Encyclical Letter of the Holy Father 
to the bishops of the church. The letter has been received with uni- 
versal respect by the secular press, and spread abroad over the world. 
The eagerness with which it was caught up and discussed indicates that 
it contains something especially adapted to the needs of the present 
time. The Holy Father speaks with the authority that belongs to his 
office alone as head of the Catholic Church, He goes to the very root 
of the evils that most afflict modern society in all lands, and shows the 
only remedy for them that is sure and lasting. The letter deserves to 
be studied and restudied, as much from the character and position of 
the writer as from the manifest wisdom and charity of its advice. 



SANCTISSIMI DOMINI NOSTRI LEONIS DIVINA 
PROVIDENTIA PAP^E XIII. EPISTOLA EN- 
CYCLICA AD PATRIARCHAS, PRIMATES, 
ARCHIEPISCOPOS, ET EPISCOPOS UNIVER- 
SOS CATHOLICI ORBIS, GRATIAM ET COM- 
MUNIONEM CUM APOSTOLICA SEDE HA- 
BENTES. 

YENERABILIBUS FRATRIBUS PATRIARCHIS, 
PRIMATIBUS, ARCHIEPISCOPIS. ET EPISCO- 
PIS UNIVERSIS CATHOLICI ORBIS GRA- 
TIAM ET COMMUNIONEM CUM APOSTOLICA 
SEDE HABENTIBUS, 

LEO PP. XIII. 



ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF OUR MOST HOLY 
FATHER LEO XIII., BY DIVINE PROVI- 
DENCE POPE, TO ALL THE PATRIARCHS, 
PRIMATES, ARCHBISHOPS, AND BISHOPS 
OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD, IN THE 
GRACE AND COMMUNION OF THE APOS- 
TOLIC SEE. 

TO OUR VENERABLE BRETHREN, ALL THE 
PATRIARCHS, PRIMATES, ARCHBISHOPS, 
AND BISHOPS OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD, 
IN THE GRACE AND COMMUNION OF THE 
APOSTOLIC SEE, 

LEO PP. XIII. 



V^nerabilcs Fratres, Salutem et Apostolicam. Venerable Brethren, Health and Apostolic 
BeneJictionem ! Bened'ction. 



Quod Apostolici muneris ratio a no- 
bis postulabat, jam inde a Pontificatus 
nostri principle, litteris Encyclicis ad 
vos datis, Venerabiles Fratres, indicare 
baud prsetermisimus lethiferam pestem 
qu?e per artus intimos humanse societatis 
serpit, eamque in extremum discrimen 
adducit: sirnul etiam remedia efficacis- 
sima demonstravimus, quibus ad salutem 
revocari, et gravissima quac impendent 
pericula possit evadere. S<?d ea qurc 
tune deploravimus mala usque adeo 
brevi increverunt, ut rursus ad vos verba 
converterc cogamur, Propheta velut au- 
ribus nostris insonante: Clama, ne cesses, 
exalta, quasi tuba vocem tuam (Is. Iviii. i). 
Xullo autem negotio intelligitis, Vene- 
rabiles Fratres, Nos de ilia hominum 
secta loqui, qui diversis ac pene barbaris 
nominibus Socialists, Communistic, vel 
Nihilistic appellantur, quique per uni 

VOL. xxvin. 54 



At the very beginning of our pontifi- 
cate, as the nature of our apostolic office 
demanded, we hastened to point out in 
an encyclical letter addressed to you, 
venerable brethren, the deadly plague 
that is creeping into the very fibres of 
human society and leading it on to the 
verge of destruction ; at the same time 
we pointed out also the most effectual 
remedies by which society might be re- 
stored and might escape from the very 
serious dangers which threaten it. But 
the evils which we then deplored have 
so rapidly increased that we are again 
compelled to address you, as though we 
heard the voice of the prophet ring- 
ing in our ears : Cry, cease not, lift up 
thy voice like a trumpet (Is. Iviii. i). 
You understand, venerable brethren, that 
we speak of that sect of men who, under 
-various and almost barbarous narre;, aie 



850 



The Popes Encyclical. 



versum orbem diffusi, et iniquo inter se 
foedere arctissime colligati, non amplius 
ab occultorum conventuum tenebris prae- 
sidium quaerunt, sed palam fidenterque 
in lucem prodeuntes, quod jam pridem 
inierunt consilium cujuslibet civilis so- 
cietatis fundarnenta convellendi, perfi- 
cere adnituntur. 

li nimirum sunt, qui, prout divina tes- 
tantur eloquia: carnem qttidtun maculant, 
dominationem spermint, majestatem autem 
blasphemant (Jud. Ep. v. 8). Nihil quod 
humanis divinisque legibus ad vitae in- 
columitatem et decus sapienter decretum 
est, intactum vel integrum relinquunt : 
sublimioribus potestatibus, quibus, Ap- 
ostolo monente, omnem animam decet 
esse subjectam, quaeque a Deo jus im- 
perandi mutuantur, obedientiam detrec- 
tant, et perfectam omnium hominum in 
juribus et officiis praedicant aequalitatem. 
Naturalem viri ac mulieris unionem, 
gentibus vel barbaris sacram, dehonest- 
ant; cjusque vinculum, quo domestica 
societas principaliter continetur, in- 
firmant aut etiarn libidini permittunt. 
Praesentium tandem bonorum illecti 
cupiditate, quae radix est omnium nia- 
.loruni et quam quidam appetentes errave- 
runt a fide (i Tim. vi. 10) jus proprietatis 
naturali lege sancitum impugnant ; et 
per immane facinus, cum omnium homi- 
num necessitatibus consulere et deside- 
riis satisfacere videantur, quidquid aut 
Jegitimae hereditatis titulo, aut ingenii 
manuumque labore, aut victus parci- 
monia adquiSitum est, rapere et com- 
mune habere contendunt. Atque haec 
quidem opinionum portenta in eorum 
conventibus publicant, libellis persua- 
dent, ephemeridum nube in vulgus spar- 
gunt. Ex quo verenda regum majestas 
et imperium tantam seditiosae plebis 
subiit invidiam, ut nefarii proditores, 
omnis freni impatientes, non semel brevi 
-temporis intervallo, in ipsos regnorum 
Principes, impio ausu, arma conver- 
terint. 



Haec autem perfidorum hominum au- 
dacia, quae civili conr,ortio graviores in 
dies ruinas minitatur, et omnium animos 
sollicita trepidations percellit, causam 
<et originem ab iis venenatis doctrinis 
^repetit, quae superioribus tempuribus 
tamquam vitiosa semina medios inter 
populos diffusae, tarn pestiferos suo tem- 



called socialists, communists, or nihilists, 
and who, spread over all the world, and 
bound together by the closest ties in a 
wicked confederacy, no longer seek the 
shelter of secret meetings, but, openly 
and boldly marching forth in the light of 
day, strive to bring to a head what 
they have long been planning the over- 
throw of all civil society whatsoever. 

Surely these are they who, as the Sa- 
cred Scriptures testify, Defile the fiesh, 
despise dominion, and blaspheme majesty 
(Jud. Ep. i. 8). They leave nothing un- 
touched or whole which by both human 
and divine laws has been wisely decreed 
for the health and beauty of life. They 
refuse obedience to the higher powers, 
to whom, according to the admonition of 
the apostle, every soul ought to be sub- 
ject, and who derive the right of gov- 
erning from God ; and they proclaim 
the absolute equality of all men in rights 
and duties. They debase the natural 
union of man and woman, which is held 
sacred even among barbarous peoples ; 
and its bond, by which the family is 
chiefly held together, they weaken, or 
even deliver up to lust. Lured, in fine, 
by the greed of present goods, which is 
the root of all evils, which some covet- 
ing have erred from the faith (i Tim. vi. 
10), they assail the right of property 
sanctioned by natural law ; and by a 
scheme of horrible wickedness, while 
they seem desirous of caring for the 
needs and satisfying the desires of all 
men, they strive to seize and hold in 
common whatever has been acquired 
either by title of lawful inheritance, or 
by labor of brain and hands, or by 
thrift in one's mode of life. These are 
the startling theories they utter in their 
meetings, set forth in their pamphlets, 
and scatter abroad in a cloud of jour- 
nals and tracts. Wherefore the revered 
majesty and power of kings has won 
such fierce hatred from their seditious 
people that disloyal traitors, impatient 
of all restraint, have more than once 
within a short period raised their arms 
in impious attempt against the lives of 
their own sovereigns. 

But the boldness of these bad men, 
which day by day more and more 
threatens civil society with destruction, 
and strikes the souls of all with anxi- 
ety and fear, finds its cause and origin 
in those poisonous doctrines which, 
spread abroad in former times among 
the people, like evil seed bore in due 



The Popes Encyclical. 



851 



pore fructus dederunt. Probe enim nos- 
tis, Venetabiles Fratres. infensissimum 
bellum, quod in catholicam fidem inde 
a sacculo decimo sexto a Novatoribus 
commotum est, et quam maxime in dies 
hucusque invaluit, eo tendere, ut omni 
revelatione submota et quolibet super- 
naturali ordine subverso, solius rationis 
inventis, seu potius deliramentis, aditus 
pateret. Ejusmodi error, qui perperam 
a raticne sibi nomen usurpat, cum excel- 
lendi appetentiam naturaliter homini 
insertam pelliciat et acuat, omnicque 
generis cupidilatibus laxet habenas, 
sponte sua non modo plurimorum ho- 
minum mentes, sed civilem etiam socie- 
tatem latissime peivasit. Hinc nova 
quadam impielate, ipsis vel ethnicis 
inaudita, respublicae constitute sunt, 
nulla Dei et ordinis ab eo pracstituti 
habita ratione ; publicam auctoritatem 
nee principium, nee majestatem, nee vim 
imperandi a Deo sumere dictitatum est, 
sed potius a populi multitudine, quae ab 
omni divina sanctfBne solutam se aesti- 
mans, iis solummodo legibus subesse 
passa est, quas ipsa ad libitum tulisset. 
Supernaturalibus fidei veritatibus, tam- 
quam rationi inimicis impugnatis et 
rejectis, ipse humani generis Auctor ac 
Redemptor a studiorum Universitatibus, 
Lyceis et Gymnasiis, atque ab omni 
publica humanae vitae consuetudinc sen- 
sim et paulatim exulare cogitur. Fu- 
turae tandem aeternaeque vitas praemiis ac 
paenis oblivioni traditis, felicitatis :ir- 
dens desiderium intra praesentis lem- 
poris spatium definitum est. Hisce 
doctrinis longe lateque disseminatis, hac 
tanta cogitandi agendique licentia ubique 
parta, mirum non est quod infimae sortis 
homines, pauperculae domus vel officinae 
pertaesi, in aedes et fortunas ditiorum in- 
volare discupiant ; mirum non est quod 
nulla jam publicae privataeque vitae tran- 
quillitas consistat, et ad extremam per- 
niciem humanum genus jam pene de- 
venerit. 



Supremi autem Ecclesias Pastores, qui- 
bus dominici gregis ab hostium insidiis 
tutandi munus incumbit, mature pericu- 
lum avertere et fidelium saluti consulere 
studuerunt. Ut enim primum conflari 



time such fatal fruit. For you know, 
venerable brethren, that that most deadly 
war which from the sixteenth century 
down has been waged by innovators 
against the Catholic faith, and which 
has grown in intensity up to to-day, had 
for its object to subvert all revelation. 
and overthrow the supernatural order, 
that thus the way might be opened forthe 
discoveries, or rather the hallucinations, 
of reason alone. This kind of error, 
which falsely usurps to itself the name of 
reason, as it lures and whets the natural 
appetite that is in man of excelling, and 
gives loose rein to unlawful desires of 
every kind, has easily penetrated not 
only the minds of a great multitude of 
men but to a wide extent civil society 
also. Hence, by a new species of impi- 
ety, unheard of even among the heathen 
nations, states have been constituted 
without any count at all of God or of 
the order established by him ; it has 
been given out that public authority nei- 
ther derives its principle, nor its ma- 
jesty, nor its power of governing from 
God, but rather from the multitude, 
which, thinking itself absolved from all 
divine sanction, bows only to such laws 
-as it shall have made at its own will. 
The supernatural truths of faith having 
been assailed and cast out as though 
hostile to reason, the very Author and 
Redeemer of the human race has been 
slowly and little by little banished from 
the universities, the lycetims and gym- 
nasia in a word, from every public insti- 
tution. In fine, the rewards and punish- 
ments of a future and eternal life hav- 
ing been handed over to oblivion, the 
ardent desire of happiness has been lim- 
ited to the bounds of the present. Such 
doctrines as these having been scattered 
far and wide, so great a license of 
thought and action having sprung up on 
all sides, it is no matter for surprise 
that men of the lowest class, weary of 
their wretched home or workshop, are 
eager to attack the homes and fortunes 
of the rich ; it is no matter for surprise 
that already there exists no sense of se- 
curity either in public or private life, 
and that the human race should have ad- 
vanced to the very verge of final disso- 
lution. 

But the supreme pastors of the church, 
on whom the duty falls of guarding the 
Lord's flock from the snares of the ene- 
my, have striven in time to ward off the 
danger and provide for the safety of the 



The Popes Encyclical. 



cceperunt clandestine societatcs, qua- 
rum sinu errorum, quos memoravimus, 
seraina jam turn fovebantur, Roman! 
Pomifices Clemens XII. et Benedictus 
XIV. impia sectarum consilia detegere 
et de pernicie, qua? latenter instrueretur, 
totius orbis fideles admonere non prac- 
termiserunt. Postquam vero ab iis, qui 
philosophorum nomine gloriabantur, ef- 
frenis qusedam libertas hoinini attributa 
est, et jus novum, ut aiunt, contra natu- 
ralem divinamque legem confingi et 
sanciri cceptum est, fel. mem. Pius Papa 
VI. statim iniquam earum doctrinarum 
indolem et falsitatem publicis documen- 
tis ostendit ; simulque apostolica provi- 
dentia ruinas prsedixit, ad quas plebs 
misere decepta raperetur. Sed cum ni- 
hilominus nulla efficaci ratione cautum 
fuerit ne prava earum dogmata magis in 
dies populis persuaderentur, neve in 
publica regnorum scita evaderent, Pius 
PP. VII. et Leo^P. XII. occuitas sectas 
anathemate damnarunt, atque iterum de 
periculo, quod ab illis impendebat, so- 
cietatem admonuerunt. Omnibus de- 
nique manifestum est quibus gravissimis 
verbis et quanta animi firmitate ac con- 
stantia gloriosus Decessor noster Pius 
IX. f. m., sive allocutionibus habitis, 
sive litteris encyclicis ad totius orbis 
episcopos datis, turn contra iniqua sec- 
tarum conamina turn nominatim contra 
jam ex ipsis erumpentem Socialism! 
pestem dimicaverit. 



Dolcndum aulem est cos, quibus com- 
rnunis boni cura demandata est, impio- 
rum hominum fraudibus circumventos 
et minis perteritos in Ecclesiam semper 
suspicioso vel etiam iniquo animo fuisse, 
non Intel ligentes sectarum conatus in irri- 
tum cessuros, si catholicae Ecclesiae doctri- 
na,Romanorumque Pontificum auctoi itas, 
et penes principes et penes populos, de- 
bito semper in honore mansisset. Ec- 
clesia namque Dei vivi, quae cohtinna est 
et Jlrniamentiim veritatis (i Tim iii. 15), 
eas doctrinas et praecepta tradit, quibus 
societatis incolumitati et quieti apprime 
prospicitur, et nefasta Socialismi propa- 
go radicitus evellitur. 



faithful. For as soon as the secret so- 
cieties began to be formed, in whose 
bosom the seeds of the errors which we 
have already mentioned were even then 
being nourished, the Roman Pontiffs 
Clement XII. and Benedict XIV. did 
not fail to unmask the evil counsels of 
the sects, and to warn the faithful of the 
whole globe against the ruin which 
would be wrought. Later on again, 
when a licentious sort of liberty was at- 
tributed to man by a set of men who 
gloried in the name of philosophers, and 
a new right, as they call it, against the 
natural and divine law began to be 
framed and sanctioned, Pope Pius VI., 
of happy memory, at once exposed in 
public documents the guile and false- 
hood of their doctrines, and at the same 
time foretold with apostolic foresight 
the ruin into which the people so mis- 
erably deceived would be dragged. But 
as no adequate precaution was taken 
to prevent their evil teachings from lead- 
ing the people more and more astray, 
and lest they should be allowed to escape 
in the public statutes of states, Popes 
Pius VII. and Leo XII. condemned by 
anathema the secret sects, and again 
warned society of the danger which 
threatened them. Finally, all have wit- 
nessed with what solemn words and 
great firmness and constancy of soul cur 
glorious predecessor, Pius IX., of happy 
memory, both in his allocutions and in 
his encyclical letters addressed to the 
bishops of all the world, fought now 
against the wicked attempts of the sects, 
now openly by name against the pest of 
socialism, which was already making 
headway. 

But it is to be lamented that those to 
whom has been committed the guardian- 
ship of the public weal, deceived by the 
wiles of wicked men and terrified by 
their threats, have looked upon the 
church with a suspicious and even hos- 
tile eye, not perceiving that the attempts 
of the sects would be vain if the doc- 
trine of the Catholic Church and the 
authority of the Roman Pontiffs had al- 
ways survived, with the honor that be- 
longs to them, among princes and peo- 
ples. For the church of the living God, 
which is the pillar and ground of tnitJi 
(i Tim. iii. 15), hands down those doc- 
trines and precepts whose special object 
is the snfety and peace of society and 
the uprooting of the evil growth of so- 
cialism. 



The Pope's Encyclical. 



853 



Ouamquam enimvero Socialists ipso 
evangelic abutentes. ad male cautos f;ici- 
lius decipiendos, illud ad suam sen- 
tentiam detorquere consueverint, tamcn 
tanta est inter eorum prava dogmata et 
purissimam Christi doctrinam dissensio, 
ut nulla major existat: Qua enim par- 
ticipatio justifies cum iniquitate ? out qttce 
xociefas lucis ad tenebras ? (2 Cor. vi. 14). 
li profecto dictitare non desinunt, ut 
innuimus, omnes homines esse inter 
se natura sequales, ideoque contendunt 
nee majestati honorem ac reverentiam, 
nee legibus, nisi forte ab ipsis ad placi- 
tum sancitis, obedientiam deberi. Con- 
tra vero, ex Evangelicis documentis ea 
est hominum aequalitas, ut omnes eam- 
dem naturam sortiti, ad eamdeni filiorum 
Dei celsissimam dignitatem vocentur, 
simulque ut uno eodemquefine omnibus 
prsestituto, singuli secundum eamdem 
legem judicandi sint, poenas aut merce- 
dem pro merito consecuturi. Injcquali- 
tas taiuen juris et potestatis ab ipso 
naturae Auctore dimanat, ex quo minis 
paiernitas in cce'is et in terra noininatur 
(Epbes. iii. 15). Frincipum autem et 
subditorum animi mutuis officiis et juri- 
bus, secundum catbolicam doctrinam ac 
pnccepta, ita devinciuntur, ut et imper- 
andi temperetur libido et obedientias 
ratio facilis, lirma et nobilissima efficia- 
tur. 



Sane Ecclesia subjects multitudini 
Apostolicum pneceptum jugiter incul- 
cat : Non est potestas nisi a Deo y qu(c 
autein sun 4 , a Deo ordinata stint. Itaque 
qtii resistit potestati, Dei < rdinationi re sis- 
tit : qui auteni resistant ip^i sibi dawna- 
tionein acquirunt, Atque iterum necessi- 
tate subditos esse jubet non solum proptcr 
irain, scd (tiam profiler conscientiam ; et 
omnibus debita reddere, cui tribiitum tri- 
butuni, cui vcct:gal vectiga 1 ^ cui timoretn 
timorcni, cui hmorem honorem (Rom. 
xiii ) 

Siquidem qui creavit et gubernat orn- 
nia, provida sua sapientia disposuit, ut 
infima per media, media per summa ad 
suos quaeque fines perveniant. Sicut 
igitur in ipso regno coelesti Angelorum 
chores voluit esse distinctos aliosque 
aliis subjectos, sicut etiam in Ecclesia 
varies instituit ordinum gradus officio- 
rumque diversitatcm, ut non omnes es- 



For, indeed, although the socialists, 
stealing the very Gospel itself with a 
view to deceive more easily the unwary, 
have been accustomed to distort it so as 
to suit their own purposes, neverthe- 
less GO great is the difference between 
their depraved teachings and the most 
pure doctrine of Christ that none great- 
er could exist : for what participation hath 
justice with injustice? or what fellowship 
hath light with darkness ? (2 Cor. vi. 14). 
Their habit, as we have intimated, is always 
to maintain that nature has made all men 
equal, and that therefore neither honor 
nor respect is due to majesty, nor obe- 
dience to laws, unless, perhaps, to those 
sanctioned by their own good pleasure. 
But, on the contrary, in accordance with 
the teachings of the Gospel, the equality 
of men consists in this: that all, having 
inherited the same nature, are called to 
the same most high dignity of 'the sons 
of God, and that, ar, one and the same 
end is set before all, each one is to be 
' judged by the same law and will receive 
punishment or reward according to his 
deserts. The inequality of rights and 
of power proceeds from the very Au- 
thor of nature, front, wh,. m all faternity 
in heaven and e.i^th is named (Ephes. iii. 
15). But the minds of princes and their 
subjects are, according to Catholic doc- 
trine and precepts, bound up one with 
the other in such a manner, by mutual 
duties and rights, that the license of 
power is restrained and the rational 
ground of obedience made easy, firm, 
and noble. 

Assuredly the church wisely inculcates 
the apostolic precept on the mass of men : 
There is no power but from God; and 
those that arc, are ordained of God. There- 
fore he that rcsisteth the power resisteth the 
ordinance of God. And they that resist 
purchase to themse'v.s damnation. And 
again she admonishes those subject by ne- 
cessity to be so not only for wrath but aLo 
for conscience 1 sake, and to render to all 
men tJieir dues ; tribute to whom tribute is 
due, custom to whom ci/sto/ft, fear to whom 
fear, honor to whom honor (Rom. xiii.) 

For He who created and governs all 
things has, in his wise providence, ap- 
pointed that the things which are lowest 
should attain their ends by those which 
are intermediate, and these again by the 
highest. Thus, as even in the kingdom 
of heaven he hath willed that the choirs 
of angels be distinct and some subject to 
others, and [also in the church has insti- 



854 



The Popes Encyclical. 



sent Apostoli, non omnes Doctores, non 
omnes Pastores (i Cor. xii.) ; ita etiam 
constituit in civili societate plures esse 
ordines, dignitate, juribus, potestate di- 
versos, quo scilicet civitas, quemad- 
modum Ecclesia, unum esset corpus, 
multa membra complectens, alia aliis no- 
biliora, sed cuncta sibi invicem neces- 
saria et de communi bono sollicita. 



At vero ut populorum rectores potes- 
tate sibi concessa in asdificationem et 
non in destructionem utantur, Ecclesia 
Christi opportunicsime nonet etiam 
Principibus supremi judicis severitatem 
imminere; et divinae Sapientiae verba 
usurpans, Dei nomine omnibus inclamat: 
Prabete aures vos, qui continetis mullitu- 
dines ct placet is vobis in turbis nationum ; 
quoniam data est a Domino potestas vobis 
et virtus ab A Itissimo, qui inierrogabit of- era 
vestraet cogitationes scrutabitur . . . Quc- 
niam judicium durissimum his qui prasunt 
fiet . . . Non enim subtrahet p. rsonani 
cujiisquam Dens, nee vejebitur magniludi- 
nem cujiisquam; quoniam pusU'uin et 
magnum ip.->e f cit, et aqualiter cura est illi 
de omnibus. Fortioribus aiittm fort' or in- 
s'at cruciatio (Sap. vi.) Si tamen quan- 
doque contingat temere et ultra modum 
publicam a principibus potestatem ex- 
erceri, catholicae Ecclesiae doctrina in 
eos insurgere proprio marte non sinit, 
ne ordinis tranquillitas magis magisque 
turbetur, neve societas majus exinde 
detrimentum capiat. Cumque res eo 
devenerit ut nulla alia spes salutis 
affulgeat, docet christianae patientiae 
mentis et instantibus ad Deum precibus 
remedium esse maturandum. Quod si 
legislatorum ac principum placita aliquid 
sanciverint aut jusserint quod divinae 
aut naturali legi repugnet, christiani no- 
minis di-gnitas et officium atque Apos- 
tolica sententia suadent obediend-um esse 
magis D^o quam hominibus. 



Salutarem porro Ecclesia; virtutem, 
qua in civilis societatis ordinatissimum 
regimen et conservationem redundat, 
ipsa etiam domestica societas, quas omnis 
civitatis et regni principium est, necessa- 
rio sentit ct experitur. Nostis enim, 
Venerabiles Fratres, rectam hujus socie- 
tatis rationem, secundum naturalis juris 
necessitatem in indissolubili vin ac rnuli- 
eris unione primo inniti, et mutuis pa- 



tuted various orders and a diversity of 
offices, so that all are not apostles or doc- 
tors or pastors (i Cor. xii.), so also has he 
appointed that there should be various 
orders in civil society, differing in dig- 
nity, rights, and power, whereby the 
state, like the church, should be one 
body, consisting of many members, some 
nobler than others, but all necessary to 
each other and solicitous for the com- 
mon good. 

But that rulers may use the power 
conceded to them to save and not to de- 
stroy, the church of Christ seasonably 
warns even princes that the sentence of 
the Supreme Judge overhangs them, and, 
adopting the words of divine Wisdom, 
calls upon all in the name of God : Give 
ear, you that ride the peop'.e, and that please 
yourselves in multitud.s of nations ; for 
powtr is given you by the Lord, and 
strength by the Most Htgh, who will ex- 
amine your works, and search out your 
thoughts. . . . For a most severe judgment 
shall be for them tJ:at bear rule. . . . For 
God will not except anv muns person, 
neither will he stand in awe of anv man s 
great/less, for he hath made ihc lit fie and 
the great ; and he hath equally care of all. 
But a greater punisliment is ready for the 
more mighty (Wis. vi.) And if at any 
time it happen that the power of the 
state is rashly and tyrannically wielded 
by princes, the teaching of the Catholic 
Church does not allow an insurrection on 
private authority against them, lest public 
order be only the more disturbed, and 
lest society take greater hurt therefrom. 
And when nffairs come to such a pass 
that there is no other hope of safety, she 
teaches that relief may be hastened by 
the merits of Christian patience and by 
earnest prayers to God. But if the will 
of legislators and princes shall have 
sanctioned or commanded anything re- 
pugnant to the divine or natural law, the 
dignity and duty of the Christian name, 
as well as the judgment of the apostle, 
urge that God is to be obeyed rather than 
man (Acts v. 29). 

Even family life itself, which is the 
corner-stone of all society and govern- 
ment, necessarily feels and experiences 
the salutary power of the church, which 
redounds to the right ordering and pre- 
servation of every state and kingdom. 
For you know, venerable brethren, 
that the foundation of this society 
rests first of all in the indisso'uble 
union of man and wife a cording 



The Popes Encyclical. 



855 



rentes inter et filios, dominos ac servos 
officiis juribusque compleri. Nostis eti- 
am per Socialismi placita earn pene dis- 
solvi ; siquidem firmitate amissa, quae ex 
religiose conjugio in ipsam refunditur, 
necesse est ipsam patris in prolem potes- 
tatem, et prolis erga genitoies officia 
maxime relaxari. Contra vero honorabile 
in omnibus connubium (Hebr. xiii.), quod 
in ipso mundi exordio ad humanatu 
speciem propagandam et conservandam 
Deus ipse instituit et inseparabile de- 
crevit, firmius etiam et sanctius Ecclesia 
docet evasisse per Christum, qui sacra- 
menti ei contulit dignitatem, et suae cum 
Ecclesia unionis formam voluit referre. 
Ouapropter, Apostolo monente (ad Eph. 
v.), sicut Christus caput est Ecclesiae, ita 
vircaput est mulieris ; et quemadmodum 
ecclesia subjecta est Christo, qui earn 
castissimo perpetuoque amore complec- 
titur, ita et mulieres viris suis decet 
esse subjectas, ab ipsis vicissim fideli 
constantique aflfectu diligendas. Simiii- 
ter patriaj atque herilis potestatis ita 
Ecclesia rationem moderatur, ut ad filios 
ac famulos in officio continendos valeat, 
nee tamen praeter modum excrescat. 
Secundum namque catholica documenta, 
in parentes et dominos coelestis Patris 
ac domini dimanat auctoritas, qurc id- 
circo ab ipso non solum originem ac 
vim sumit, sed etiam naturam et indo- 
lem necesse est mutuctur. Hincliberos 
Apostolus hortatur obedire parent bus su's 
in Domino, et honoraic patron snnm et 
matron suain, quod est mandatnm pi i mum 
in promissiot.e (ad Eph. vi. I, 2). Pa- 
rentibus autem mandat : Et v >s patres, 
nolite ad i)\iciindiam prdvocare filios vestros, 
scd educate ilfos in disciplina et coneptione 
Domini (ibid. vi. 4). Rursus autem ser- 
vis ac dominis per eumdem Apostolum 
divinum praeceptum proponitur, ut illi 
quidem obediant dominis carnalibus sicut 
Chri.t* . . . ctun bftna rolnntale servientes 
si cut Domino : isti autem remittant minas, 
scientcs quia omnitim Domimis est in ccelis, 
et personal rim acc^piio non est afud Deum 
(ibid., vi. 5, 6, 7). 



Ouae quidem omnia si secundum di- 
vinse voluntatis placitum diligenter a 
singulis, ad quos pertinet, servarentur, 



to the necessity of natural law, and 
is completed in the mutual rights and 
duties of parents and children, masters 
and servants. You know also that the 
doctrines of socialism strive to dissolve 
this union ; since that stability which is 
imparted to it by religious wedlock be- 
ing lost, it follows that the power of the 
father over his own children, and the 
duties of the children towards their pa- 
rents, must be greatly weakened. But 
the church, on the contrary, teaches that 
maniage, honorable in ail (Hebr. xiii.), 
which God himself instituted in the very 
beginning of the world, and made indis- 
soluble for the propagation and preserva- 
tion of the human species, has become 
still more binding and more holy through 
Christ, who raised it to the dignity of a 
sacrament, and chose to use it as the fig- 
ure of his own union with the church. 
Wherefore, as the apostle hath it (Ephes. 
v.), as Christ is the head of the church, 
so is the man the head of the woman ; 
and as the church is subject to Christ, 
who embraces her with a most chaste 
and undying love, so also should 
wives be subject to their husbands, 
and be loved by them in turn with a 
faithful and constant affection. In like 
manner does the church temper the 
use of parental and domestic autho- 
rity, that it may tend to hold children 
and servants to their duty, without go- 
ing beyond bounds. For, according to 
Catholic teaching, the authority of our 
heavenly Father and Lord is imparted to 
parents and masters, whose authority, 
therefore, not only takes its origin and 
force from him, but also borrows its 
natuie and character. Hence the apos- 
tle exhorts children to obey their parents 
in the Lord, and honor their father and 
mother, ivhich is the first commandment 
with promise (Eph. vi. i, 2); and he ad- 
monishes parents : And yon, fathers, 
provoke nt t yo-ur children to anger, but 
bring tJiem up in tJie discipline and ccrrec- 
tion of the Lord (ib. vi. 4). Again, the 
apostle enjoins the divine precept on 
servants and masters, exhorting the 
former to be obedient to their lords accord- 
ing fa the flesh as to Christ . . . with a good 
will serving, as to the Lord: and the lat- 
ter, to forbear threatening*, knowing that 
the Lord of all is in heaven, and tJiere is 
no respect of persons ivith God (ib. vi. 7). 
If only all these matters were faithfully 
observed according to the divine will by 
all on whom they are enjoined, most 



856 



TJic Pope s Encyclical. 



quzelibet profecto familia coelestis domus 
imaginem quandam pnc se ferret, et 
pracclara exinde beneficia parta, non in- 
tra domesticos tantum parietes sese con- 
tinerent, sed in ipsas respublicas uber- 
rime dimanarent. 

Publics autem ac domesticac tranquil- 
litati catholica sapientia,naturalis divinse- 
que legis prseceplis sufFulta, consultissi- 
me providit etiam per ea qua? sentit ac 
docet de jure dominii et partitione bon- 
orum quae ad vitac necessitatem et utili- 
tatem sunt comparata. Cum enim So- 
cialistse jus proprietatis, tamquam hu- 
manum inventum, natural! hominum 
sequalitati repugnans, traducant, et com- 
munionem bonorum affectantes, paupe- 
riem baud aequo animo esse perferendam 
et ditiorum possessiones ac jura im- 
pune violari posse arbitrentur ; Ecclesia 
multo satius et utilius inaequalitatem in- 
ter homines, corporis ingeniique viribus 
naturaliter diversos, etiam in bonis pos- 
sidendis agnoscit, et jus proprietatis ac 
dominii, ab ipsa natura profectum, intac- 
tum cuilibet et inviolatum esse jubet ; 
novit enim furium ac rapinam a Deo, 
omnis juris auctore ac vindice, ita fuisse 
prohibita, ut aliena vel concupiscerenon 
liceat, furesque etraptores, non secus ac 
adulteri et idololatrae a coelesti regno ex- 
cludantur Nectamen idcirco pauperum 
curam negligit.aut ipsorum necessitatibus 
consiilere pia mater praetermittit : quin 
imo materno illos complectensafTectu, et 
probe noscens eos gerere ipsius Christi 
personam, qui sibi prsestitum beneficium 
putat, quod vel in minimum pauperem 
a quopiam fuerit collatum, magno illos 
habet in honore ; omni qua potest ope 
sublevat ; domos atque hospitia iis exci- 
piendis, alendis et curandis ubique ter- 
rarum curat erigenda, eaque in suam re- 
cipit tutelam. Gravissimo divites urget 
praecepk), ut quod superest pauperibus 
tribuant ; eosque divino terret judicio, 
quo, nisi egenorum inopiae succurant, 
aeternis sint suppliciis mulctandi. Tan- 
dem pauperum animos maxime recreat 
ac solatur, sive exemplum Christi obji- 
ciens, qui cum esset dives propter nos ege- 
iiu? fac tis cst (2 Cor. viii. 9) ; sive ejus- 
dem verba recolens quibus pauperes 
beatosedixit et aeternae beatitudinis prse- 
mia sperare jussit. 



assure'dly every family would be a figure 
of the heavenly home, and the wonder- 
ful blessings there begotten would not 
confine themselves to the households 
alone, but would scatter their riches 
abroad through the nations. 

But Catholic wisdom, sustained by the 
precepts of natural and divine law, 
provides with especial care for public 
and private tranquillity in its doctrines 
and teachings regarding the duty of gov- 
ernment and the distribution of the 
goods which are necessary for life and 
use. For while the socialists would 
destroy the light of property, alleging it 
to be a human invention altogether op- 
posed to the inborn equality of man, 
and, claiming a community of goods, 
argue that poverty should not be peace- 
ably endured, and that the property and 
privileges of the rich may be rightly in- 
vaded, the church, with much greater 
wisdom and good sense, recognizes the 
inequality among men, who are born 
with different powers of body and mind, 
inequality in actual possession also, and 
holds that the right of property and of 
ownership, which springs from nature 
itself, must not be touched and stands 
inviolate ; for she knows that stealing 
and robbery were forbidden in so spe 
cial a manner by God, the author and 
defender of right, that he would not 
allow man even to desire what belonged 
to another, and that thieves and despoil- 
ers, no less than adulterers and idola- 
ters, are shut out from the kingdom of 
heaven. But not the less on this 
account does our holy mother not neglect 
the care of the poor or omit to provide 
for their necessities ; but rather, draw- 
ing them to her with a mother's em- 
brace, and knowing that they bear the 
person of Christ himself, who regards 
the smallest gift to the poor as a benefit 
conferred on himself, holds them in great 
honor. She does all she can to help 
them ; she provides homes and hospitals 
where they may be received, nourished, 
and cared for all the world over, and 
watches over these. She is constantly 
pressing on the rich that most grave- 
precept to give what remains to the 
poor ; and she holds over their heads 
the divine sentence that unless they suc- 
cor the needy they will be repaid bv 
eternal torments. In fine, she does all 
she can to relieve and comfort the poor, 
either by holding up to them the exam- 
ple of Christ, to/to being rich became poor 



The Popes Encyclical. 



857 



Ouis autem non videat optirnam bane 
csse vetustissimi inter pauperes et divi- 
tes dissidii componendi rationem? Si- 
cut enim ipsarerum factorumque eviden- 
tia demonstrat, ea ratione rejecta aut 
posthabita, alterutrum contingat necesse 
est, ut vel maxima human! generis pars 
in turpissimam mancipiorum conditio- 
nem relabatur. quaj diu penes ethnicos 
obtinuit ; aut humana societas continuis 
sit agitanda motibus, rapinis ac latroci- 
niis funestanda, prout recentibus etiam 
temporibus contigissc dolemus. 

Qua; cum ita sint.Venerabiles Fratres, 
Nos, quibus modo totius Ecclesise regi- 
men incumbit, sicut a Pontificatus exor- 
diis populis ac Principibus dira lempes- 
tatc jactatis portum commonstravimus, 
quo se tutissime reciperent ; ita nuncex- 
tremo, quod instat, periculo commoii, 
Apostolicam vocem ad eos rursus attol- 
limus ; eosque per propriam ipsorum ac 
rsipublicx salutem iterum iterumque 
precamur, obtestantes ut Ecclesiam, cle 
publica regnorum prosperitate tarn egre- 
gie meritam, magistram recipiant et au- 
diant ; planeque sentiant rationes reg- 
ni ct religionis ita esse conjunctas, ut 
quantum de hac detrahitur, tantum de 
subditorum officio et de imperii majes- 
tate decedat. Et cum ad Socialism} pes- 
tem avertendam tantam Ecclesise Christi 
virtutem noverint inesse, quanta nee hu- 
manis legibus inest, nee magistratum 
cohibitionibus, nee militum armis, ipsam 
Ecclesiam in earn tandem conditionem 
libertatemque restituant, qua saluberri- 
mam vim suam in totius humanae socie- 
tatis commodum possit exerere. 

Vos autem, Venerabiles Fratres, qui 
ingruentium maloruin originem et indo- 
lem perspectam habetis, in id toto animi 
nisu ac contentione incumbite, ut catho- 
licadoctrinain omnium animos inseratur 
atque alte descendat Satagite ut vel a 
teneris annis omnes assuescant Deum 
filiali amore complecti, ejusque numen 
vereri ; principum legumque majestati 
obsequium prsestare; a cupiditatibus tem- 
perare, et ordinem, quern Deus sive in ci- 
vilisive indomestica societate constituit, 
diligentercustodire. Insuperadlaboretis 
oportet ut Ecclesise catholicse filii neque 



for our sake (2 Cor. viii. 9), or by re- 
minding them of his own words, wherein 
he pronounced the poor blessed and 
bade them hope for the reward of eter- 
nal bliss. 

But who docs not see that this is the 
best method of arranging the old strug- 
gle between the rich and poor? For, as 
the very evidence of facts and events 
shows, if this method is rejected or disre- 
garded one of two things must occur ; 
either the greater portion of the human 
race will fall back into the vile condi- 
tion of slavery which so long prevailed 
among the pagan nations, or human 
society must continue to be disturbed by 
constant eruptions, to be disgraced by 
rapine and strife, as we have had sad 
witness even in recent times. 

These things being so, then, venerable- 
brethren, as at the beginning of our pon- 
tificate we, on whom the guidance of 
the whole church now lies, pointed out 
a place of refuge to the peoples and the 
princes tossed about by the fury of the tem- 
pest, so now, moved by the extreme peril 
that is on them, we again lift up our voice, 
and beseech them again ond again for 
their own safety's sake as well as that ot 
their people to welcome and give ear to 
the church which has had such wonder 
ful influence on the public prosperity 
of kingdoms, and to recognixe that the 
foundations of spiritual and temporal 
rule are so c'osely united that what is 
taken from the spiritual weakens the 
loyalty of subjects and the majesty of 
kings. And since they know that the 
church of Christ has such power to ward 
oft the plague of socialism as cannot be 
found in human laws, in the mandates 
of magistrates, or in the force of armies, 
let them restore that church to the con- 
dition and liberty in which she may ex- 
ert her healing force for the benefit of 
all society. 

But you, venerable brethren, who 
know the origin and the drift of these 
gathering evils, strive with all your 
force of soul to implant the Catholic 
teaching deep in the minds of all. 
Strive that all may have the habit of 
clinging to God with filial love and re- 
vering his divinity from their tenderest 
years ; that they may respect the majesty 
of princes and of laws ; that they may 
restrain their passicns and stand fast by 
the order which God has established in 
civil and domestic society. Moreover, 
labor hard that the children of the Ca- 



858 



The Pjpes Encyclical. 



nomen dare, neque abominatae sectae 
favere ulla ratione audeant: quin imo, 
per egregia facinora et honestam in om- 
nibus agendi rationem ostendant, quam 
bene feliciterque humana consisteret so- 
ciefas, si singala membra recte factis et 
virtutibus praefulgerent. Tandem cum 
Socialismi sectatores ex hominum genere 
potissimum quaerantur qui artes exercent, 
vel operas locant, quique laborum forte 
pertaesi divitiarum spe ac bonorum 
promissione facillime alliciuntur, oppor- 
tunum videtur, artificum atque opificum 
societates fovere, quse sub religionis 
tutelaconstitutae, omnes socios sua sorte 
contentos, operumque patientes efficiant, 
et ad quietam ac tranquillam vitam agen- 
dam inducant. 

Nostris autem vestrisque coeptis, Vene- 
rabiles Fratres, Ille aspiret, cui omnis 
boni principium et exitum acceptum 
referre cogimur. Cseterum in spem prae- 
sentissimi auxilii ipsa nos horum dierum 
erigit ratio, quibus Domini Natalis dies 
anniversaria celebritate recolitur. Quam 
enim Christus nascens senescenti jam 
mundo et in malorum extrema pene 
dilapso novam intulit salutem, earn nos 
quoque sperare jubet ; pacemque quam 
tune per Angelos hominibus nuntiavit, 
nobis etiam se daturum promisit. Neque 
enim abbreviata est manus Domini ut sal- 
vare nequeat, neque aggravzta estanris ejus 
tit non exaudial (Is. lix. i). His igitur 
aus*picatissimis diebus vobis, Venerabiles 
Fratres, et fidelibus ecclesiarum ves- 
trarum fausta omnia ac laeta ominantes, 
bonorum omnium Datorem enixe preca- 
mur, ut rursum hominibtts apparent benig- 
nitas et humanitas salvatons nostri Dei 
(Tit. iii. 4), qui nos ab infensissimi hos 
tis potestate ereptos in nobilissimam 
filiorum transtulit dignitatem. Atque 
ut citius ac pleniusvoti compotes simus, 
fervidas ad Deum preces et ipsi Nobis- 
cum adhibete, Venerabiles Fratres, et 
Beatse Virginis Marias ab origine immacu- 
latae, ejusque sponsi Josephi ac beatorum 
Apostolorum Petri et Pauli, quorum 
suffragiis maxime confidimus, patroci- 
nium interponite Interim autem divt- 
norum munerum auspicem Apostolicam 
Benedictionem, intimo cordis affectu, 
vobis, Venerabiles Fratres, vestroque 
clero ac fidelibus populis universis in 
Domino impertimur. 

Datum Romae, apud S. Petrum, die 28 
decembris 1878, Pontificatus nostri anno 
P ri mo. LEO PP. XIII. 



tholic Church neither join nor favor 
in any way whatsoever this abomi- 
nable sect ; let them show, on the con- 
trary, by noble deeds and right dealing 
in all things, how well and happily hu- 
man society would hold together were 
each member to shine as an example of 
right doing and of virtue. In fine, as the 
recruits of socialism are especially sought 
among artisans and workmen, who, tir- 
ed, perhaps, of labor, are more easily 
allured by the hope of riches and the 
promise of wealth, it is well to encourage 
societies of artisans and workmen which, 
constituted under the guardianship of 
religion, may tend to make all associates 
contented with their lot and move them 
to a quiet and peaceful life. 

Venerable brethren, may He who is 
the beginning and end of every good 
work inspire your and our endeavors. 
And, indeed, the very thought of 
these days, in which the anniversary of 
our Lord's birth is solemnly observed, 
moves us to hope for speedy help. For 
the new life which Christ at his birth 
brought to a world already ageing and 
steeped in the very depths of wicked- 
ness he bids us also to hope for ; and 
the peace which he then announced by 
the angels to men he has promised to us 
also. For the Lord's hand is not shorten- 
ed that he cannot save, neither is his ear 
Jica~y thai he cannot hear (Is. lix. I). In 
these most auspicious days, than, vene- 
rable brethren, wishing all joy and hap- 
piness to you and to the faithful of your 
churches, we earnestly pray the Giver of 
all good that again there may appear un- 
to men the goodness atid kindness of God 
our Saviour (Tit. iii. 4), who brought us 
out of the power of our most deadly 
enemy into the most noble dignity of the 
sons of God. And that we may the 
sooner and more fully gain our wish, do 
you, venerable brethren, join with us in 
lifting up your fervent prayers to God 
and beg the intercession of the Blessed 
and Immaculate Virgin Mary, and of 
Joseph her spouse, and of the blessed 
apostles Peter and Paul, in whose pray- 
ers we have the greatest confidence. 
And in the meanwhile we impart to you, 
with the inmost affection of the heart, 
and to your clergy and faithful people, 
the apostolic benediction as an augury of 
the divine gifts. 

Given at St. Peter's, Rome, on the 28th 
day of December, 1878, in the first year 
of our pontificate. LEO XIII, POPE. 



New Publications. 



859 



NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION, ANGLI- 
CANISM AND RITUALISM. Lectures de- 
livered in St. Ann's Church on the 
Sunday evenings of Advent, 1878. By 
the Very Rev. Th >mas S. Preston, 
V.G. New York: R. Coddington. 
1879. 

With condensed learning, terse logic, 
and in an easy, popular style, with the 
earnestness and directness of aim upon 
the conscience which belongs properly 
to sermons fi\>m the pulpit of the church, 
Father Preston has made a new theologi- 
cal, historical, and moral demolition of 
that most intrinsically incongruous and 
absurd of all things Protestantism. This 
collection of lectures is perhaps the 
most able and complete of the author's 
numerous works, and one of the best of 
its kind for general circulation and 
perusal. 

THE POET AND HIS MASTER, A*^D OTHER 
POEMS. By Richard Watson Gilder, 
author of The New Day. New York : 
Charles Scribner's Sons. 1878. 

These poems are full of promise. 
There is music in them, delicacy of 
thought, great grace of expression, and 
that deep sympathy with nature and the 
finer and higher feelings in man without 
which a poet, though he may have all 
the other gifts, can never hope to touch 
the human heart or catch for any length 
of time the human ear. Judging by his 
present volume, Mr. Gilder has not yet 
quite cut aloof from the influence of 
other poets, echoes of whom we catch here 
and there in his verse. Fie is evidently 
reaching out, however, for his own sub- 
ject and his own method. These attain- 
ed, he will no longer sing of "his mas- 
ter.'' The true poet has no master. He 
static! s alone, and perforce gives utter- 
ance to what is in him as no other did or 
could. 

The dainty little collection that make 
up the present volume are gushes of 
song that seemingly came when the hu- 
mor took the poet. They are as various 
in merit as in subject, though all pos- 
sess the characteristics we have noted 
at the beginning. A sonnet, a love- 



song, an epigram, a little ballad with a 
touch of humor so they go on. The 
sonnets are especially good and highly 
finished. By far the best poem of the 
collection is, to our thinking, the open- 
ing " Ode," which has something of the 
old Greek sympathy with nature and 
felicity of expression. We quote a few 
stanzas : 

" I am the spirit of the morning sea ; 

I am the awakening and the glad surprise ; 

I fill the skies 

With laughter and with light. 

I am the wind that shakes the glittering wave, 
Hurries the snowy spume along the shore, 
And dies at last in some far murmuring cave. 
My voice thou hearest in the breaker's roar 
'1 hat sound which never failed since time began 
A iid first around the ivorld the shining tit- 
mult ran.^ 

That last line is quite Homeric. 



k ' I am the laughter of the new-born child 

On whose soft-breathing sleep an angel smiled. 
And I all sweet first things that are : 

First songs of birds, 

Not perfect as at last 

Broken and incomplete 

But sweet, oh, sweet ! 
And I the first faint glimmer of a star 
To the wrecked ship that tells the storm is past ; 
The first keen smells and stirrings of the spring ; 
First snow-flakes and first May-flowers after 

snow ; 

The silver glow 

Of the new moon's ethereal ring ; 
The song the morning stars together made, 
And the first kiss of lovers under the first June 
shade." 

Mr. Gilder here helps us to character- 
ize his own poems, as the 

" First songs of birds, 
Not perfect as at last 
Broken and incomplete 
But sweet, oh, sweet !' ? 



LIVES OF THE EARLY POPES : ST. PETER 
TO ST. SYLVESTER. By the Rev. 
Thomas Meyrick, M.A. London : P. 
Washbourne. 1878. 

It is desirable that we should have 
more and better histories of the popes 
in the English language than we as yet 
possess. Such as we actually have, with 
the exception of some lives of single 
popes, are very meagre and jejune. Fa- 
ther Meyrick's volume, which is publish- 



86o 



New Publications. 



ed in a neat and handsome style and writ- 
ten with scholarly propriety and taste, 
is a welcome beginning in the line of 
papal biography, and the further prosecu- 
tion of the same task will be equally 
welcome, especially if it should be car- 
ried out to completion, so as to give the 
reading public an entire collection of 
good, popular lives of the popes. In 
some instances we regret to see an un- 
critical following of legends which have 
been cast away by the best authorities as 
apocryphal. We believe that the author 
is a Jesuit, although the letters S.J. are 
displaced on the title-page by the M.A. 
of the university. It is not usual for the 
members of this society to fall into the 
fault of uncritical historical compilation. 
If the series is continued we trust that 
more care will be taken in regard to this 
very important point. 



ST. PATRICK, APOSTLE OF IRELAND. By 
William Bullen Morris, Priest of the 
Oratory. London : Burns &~ Gates. 

1878. 

Father Morris is a pleasing writer, and, 
though an Englishman, not at all defi- 
cient in devotion to St. Patrick and love 
for the poetic and marvellous side of 
Irish ecclesiastical history. The known 
and certain or probable facts, historical- 
ly authenticated, in the life of Ireland's 
great apostle, are presented by the pious 
and graceful sketch of the Oratorian in 
a brief and succinct manner, enwreathed 
and embowered in the foliage and flow- 
ers of that charming legendary tradition 
which embellishes the narrative and in- 
creases very much the reader's enjoy- 
ment, besides giving him pious edifica- 
tion, if he have a simple and childlike 
faith in the supernatural. This legendary 
history has, undoubtedly, a verisimili- 
tude surpassing the positive evidence of 
truth in its details which is accessible. 
Considering what St. Patrick did, what 
is the reminiscence of his apostolic 
career which survives in the national 
literature of Ireland, and what we know 
of other great saints, it is probable that 
many supernatural manifestations ac- 
companied the first establishment of the 
Christian faith in Erin's charming land. 
We may be, therefore, reasonably con- 



vinced that there is a very considemMc 
nucleus of actual fact in the centre of 
the miraculous blaze of glory with which 
Irish tradition surrounds the person of 
the great apostle whose work still sub- 
sisting before our eyes is more wonder- 
ful than any of the prodigies ascribed to 
him by his early biographers. We can- 
not accurately separate the historical 
from the legendary in the marvellous 
story of St. Patrick's life and labors, and 
it is not necessary to attempt it. The 
accomplished author gives us a spirited 
and interesting picture of the man and 
the time which we may fairly accept as 
representing in general features Un- 
reality, and we can reasonably regard it 
and enjoy it in that light, turning to 
other works for more critical history. 



MONTH DEDICATED TO THE SERAPHIC 

PATRIARCH ST. FRANCIS UY ins CHIL- 
DREN AND DEVOUT CLIENTS. Trans- 
lated from the Italian of Father Can- 
dido Mariotti, at the request of the 
Franciscan Fathers, Stratford, London. 
With a commendatory letter from His 
Eminence Cardinal Manning. Lon- 
don : Burns & Gates. 1878. 

Small as is this book, it is a treasury 
of deep yet practical spirituality. In- 
stead of the Month of St. P'rancis it 
might well be termed the spirit of the 
Seraphic Saint. It will be very acceptable 
to all the members of the different orders 
of.St. Francis ; and not only to them but 
to all sincere Christians anxious for their 
advancement in the spiritual life we can 
heartily recommend, in the words of 
Cardinal Manning, " the following medi- 
tations and devotions in honor of our 
seraphic patron, St. Francis. If the 
worid had grown cold in his day, it is, I 
fear, colder in ours ; and if his fervor, 
humility, poverty, and love to God nnd 
man, and to all the works of God, we re- 
needed then, they are more needed now. 
when luxury, intellectual vainglory, and 
the pride of life have so far bani.-hr i 
God from society, science, and the souls 
of men. The world was converted by 
the humility, poverty, and charity of Je- 
sus in the beginning, and it will be 
verted by nothing else at this tlav." 



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