EUGÉNIE DE GUÉRIN AND HER BROTHER MAURICE.
[In Eugénie de Guérin's journal we find the following beautiful words written while her loving heart was still bleeding for the early death of her best-loved brother, Maurice—her twin soul, as she was wont to call him.]
"O PROFUNDITY! O mysteries of that other life that separates us! I who was always so anxious about him, who wanted so much to know everything, wherever he may be now there is an end to that. I follow him into the three abodes; I stop at that of bliss; I pass on to the place of suffering, the gulf of fire. My God, my God, not so! Let not my brother be there, let him not! He is not there. What! his soul, the soul of Maurice, among the reprobate! … Horrible dread, no! But in Purgatory, perhaps, where one suffers, where one expiates the weaknesses of the heart, the doubts of the soul, the half-inclinations to evil. Perhaps my brother is there, suffering and calling to us in his pangs as he used to do in bodily pain, 'Relieve me, you who love me!' Yes, my friend, by prayer. I am going to pray. I have prayed so much, and always shall. Prayer? Oh, yes, prayers for the dead, they are the dew of Purgatory."
All Souls'—How different this day is from all others, in church, in the soul, without, within. It is impossible to tell all one feels, thinks, sees again, regrets. There is no adequate expression for all this except in prayer…. I have not written here, but to some one to whom I have promised so long as I live, a letter on All Souls'….
O my friend, my brother, Maurice! Maurice! art thou far from me? dost thou hear me? What are they, those abodes that hold thee now? … Mysteries of another life, how profound, how terrible ye are— sometimes, how sweet!