LETTERS OF A YOUNG IRISHWOMAN TO HER SISTER.
FROM THE FRENCH.
November 2.
“Voici les feuilles sans sève
Qui tombent sur le gazon.”[21]
What a solemn day to the Christian is All Souls’ day! I prayed much, very much, for all our dear friends in the other world. Oh! how I pity the suffering souls consumed by the flames of purgatory. They have seen God; they have had a glimpse of his glory on the day of their judgment; they long for the Supreme Good with unutterable ardor. What torment! And some there are who will be in those lakes of fire even to the end of the world. We can do nothing but offer our prayers, and they bring deliverance! Who would not devote themselves to the suffering souls? What misfortune more worthy of pity than theirs? I love the “Helpers of the Holy Souls!”[22] It is to me a great happiness to be united with them in thought, prayer, and action. A thousand memories have come into my mind; there have passed before me all my beloved dead, all the dead whom I have known or whom I have once seen. How numerous they are, and yet I have not been living so very long. Each day thins our ranks, links drop off from the chain. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord!
Here is winter upon us—melancholy winter, which makes poor mothers weep.
Meditated yesterday on the joys of the love of Jesus, which in Holy Communion melts our heart like two pieces of wax into one only—Jesus, the only true friend, who consoles and sustains, and without whom all is vanity. The Christian who has prayer and Communion ought to live in perpetual gladness of heart.
I must confess to you, my Kate, that I envy Johanna, Berthe, and Lucy. They allow me to share largely in their maternal joys, but these treasures in which I take such pleasure, why are they not my own? I felt sad about it yesterday, and murmured to myself these lines of Brizeux:
“Jours passés, que chacun rappelle avec des larmes,
Jours qu’en vain on regrette, aviez vous tant des charmes?
Ou les vents troublaient-ils aussi votre clarté,
Et l’ennui du présent fait-il votre beauté”[23]
René was behind me. “What, then, do you regret, my Georgina?” I told him all, and how gently and sweetly he comforted me—as you would, my Kate! Poor feeble reed that I am, I lean upon you.
May the Blessed Virgin Mary protect us, dear sister!
November 13.
Eleven days between my two letters, my note-book tells me. Happily, René has taken my place, and you are aware in what occupations
I have been absorbed, dear Kate. The poor are becoming quite a passion with me. I catechise them, I clothe them; it is so delightful to lavish one’s superabundance on the disinherited ones of this world! To-morrow we go to Nantes to take leave of our saintly friend Elizabeth, who will shortly depart for Louisiana. She has received permission to come and bid adieu to her mother—perhaps a lifelong adieu; for who can say whether she will return? I have had a letter from Ellen, giving me many details of her sojourn in the Highlands. The wound is still bleeding. The sight of a child makes her weep; and in her dreams she sees her son. May God support her!
To-day is St. Stanislaus—the gentle young saint whose feast Margaret pointed out to me with a hope which is not realized. Our dear Anglaise wanted to have us all together in her princely dwelling. The absence of the Adrien family, Lucy’s journey—all these dispersions have disarranged the grand project. And yet there are moments when I experience a kind of home-sickness—a thirst to see our dear Erin again, a longing to live under my native sky—which tells upon my health. Do not pity me too much, Kate; I possess all the elements of happiness which could be brought together in a single existence. I love the seraphic Stanislaus, holding in his arms the infant Jesus. O great saint! give me a little of your love of God, a little of your fervent piety, that I may detach myself from the world! I am afraid of loving it too much, my sister. The day before yesterday was the feast of St. Martin—this hero whose history is so poetic. I like to think of this mantle, cut in two to clothe a poor man, and of our Lord appearing
that night to the warrior, who in the Saviour’s vestment recognized the half of his mantle. Kind St. Martin! giving us a second summer, which I find delightful, loving as I do the warm and perfumed breezes of the months that have long days, and regretting the return of winter with its ice, when, shivering in well-closed rooms, one thinks of the poor without fire and shelter. Dear poor of the good God![24] Margaret shares my fondness for them. Never in our Brittany will the sojourn of this sweet friend be forgotten.
What noise! Adieu, my sister; Erin go bragh!
November 17.
You have heard the joyful tidings, Kate dearest—the triumph of Mentana? Gertrude writes to us. Adrien and his two sons fought like lions, and his courageous wife followed the army, waiting on the wounded, praying for her dear ones, who had not a scratch! They were afterwards received in private audience by the Holy Father, who seemed to them more saintly and sublime than ever. God does indeed do all things well! All these loving hearts, torn by the departure of Hélène, have recovered their happiness, are enthusiastic in their heroism and devotion, have been violently snatched from all selfish regrets, and have enriched themselves with lifelong memories. Mgr. Dupanloup has written to the clergy of his diocese, ordering thanksgivings to be offered in the churches; and the holy and illustrious Pius IX. has written to the eloquent bishop, to whom he sends his thanks and benediction.
Truly, joy has succeeded to sorrow. But how guilty is Europe!
Can you conceive such inertia in the face of this struggle between strength and weakness? Our good abbé is in possession of all the mandements (or charges) of the bishops of France. He is making a collection of them. Yesterday he quoted to me the following passage from that of Mgr. de Perpignan: “Princes of the earth, envy not the crown of Rome! One of the greatest of this world’s potentates was fain to try it on the brow of his son, and placed it on his cradle; but it weighed too heavily on that frail existence, and the child, to whom the father’s genius promised a brilliant future, withered away, and died at the age of twenty years”; and this other by Mgr. de Périgueux: “When God sends great trials upon his church, he raises up men capable of sustaining them. We are in one of these times of trial, and we have Pius IX.”
Dear Isa sends me four pages, all impregnated with sanctity. Her life is one long holocaust; all her aspirations tend to one end, and one that I fear she will not attain. God will permit this for his glory. How much good may one soul do! I see it by Isa. Her life is one of the fullest and most sanctified that can be; she sacrifices herself hour by hour, giving herself little by little, as it were, and yet all at a time. Ellen is starting for Hyères; she is mortally stricken. They deceived themselves with regard to her. She herself, overwhelmed for a time by the side of that cradle changed into a death-bed, did her best to look forward cheerfully to the future. Her last letter, received only fifteen days afterwards, and which was long and affectionate, appeared to me mysterious; she spoke so much of outward things.
Dear, dear Ellen! I wish I could see her. Impossible, alas! Isa’s letter is dated the 10th. The sad, dying one must have crossed the Channel that same day. There is something peculiarly sorrowful in the thought of death with regard to this young wife, going away to die far from her home, her country, and her family, beneath mild and genial skies, where life appears so delightful. Her state is such as to allow of no hope, but her husband wishes to try this last remedy. The little angel in heaven awaits his mother.
A terrible gale—quite a tempest. I am thinking of the poor mariners. These howlings of the wind, these gusts which rush through the long corridors, resemble wild complaints; one would think that all the elements, let loose, weep and implore. O holy Patroness of sailors! take pity on them.
Visits all the week—pious visits, such as I love. My heart attaches itself to this country.
Let us praise the Lord, dear Kate! May he preserve to Ireland her faith and her love! There is no slavery for Christian hearts.
November 19.
A line from Karl—one heart-rending plaint, thrown into the post at Paris after Ellen had received your last kiss. “Pray,” he says to me, “not for this soul, of whom I was not worthy, and who is going to rejoin her son, but for my weakness, which alarms me.” René wept with me. Oh! how sad is earth to him who remains alone. The same thought of anguish and apprehension seized us both. Ah! dearest, let your prayers preserve to me him in whom I live.
Saint Elizabeth, “the dear saint,” this fair and lovely flower of Hungary transplanted into Thuringia,
there to shed such sweetness of perfume! I have been thinking of her, of her poetic history, of all that M. de Montalembert has written about her—the veritable life of a saint, traced out with poetry and love. You remember that St. Elizabeth was one of the chosen heroines of my childhood. I could wish that I had borne her name. I used to dream of becoming a saint like her. What an unparalleled life hers was! Dying so young, she appeared before God rich in merits. Born in the purple, the beloved daughter of the good King Andrew, and afterwards Duchess of Thuringia; united to the young Duke Louis, also so good and holy, so well suited to the pure and radiant star of Hungary seen by the aged poet; then a widow at nineteen years of age, and driven from her palace with her little children, drinking to its dregs the cup of bitterness and anguish—my dear saint knew suffering in its most terrible and poignant form. How I love her, from the moment when the good King Andrew, taking in his arms the cradle of solid gold in which his Elizabeth was sleeping, placed it in those of the Sire de Varila, saying, “I entrust to your knightly honor my dearest consolation,” until the time when I find her, clad in the poor habit of the Seraph of Assisi, reading a letter of St. Clare! What an epoch was that thirteenth century, that age of faith, when the throne had its saints, when there was in the souls of men a spring of energy and of religious enthusiasm which peopled the monasteries and renewed the face of the earth! Who will obtain for me the grace to love God as did Elizabeth? O dear saint! pray for me, for René, Karl, Ellen, the church, France, Ireland, the universe.
Here is something, dear sister, which I think would comfort Karl:
“To desire God is the essential condition of the human heart; to go to God is his life; to contemplate God is his beatitude. To desire God is the noble appanage of our nature; to go to God is the work which grace effects within us; to contemplate God is our state of glory. To desire God is the principle of good; to go to God is the way of good; to contemplate God is the perfection of good.
“God is everything to the soul. The soul breathes: God is her atmosphere. The soul needs nourishment and wherewith to quench her thirst: God is her daily bread and her spring of living water. The soul moves on: God is her way. The soul thinks and understands: God is her truth. The soul speaks—God is her word; she loves—God is her love.”[25]
Exquisite thoughts! Oh! love, the love of God, can replace everything. May we be kindled with this love, dear sister of my life!
November 22.
My sweet one, I love to keep my festivals with you! Yesterday, the Presentation of Mary in the Temple, we spent here in retreat—a retreat, according to all rules, preached by a monsignor! René is writing you the details. I am not clever at long descriptions; with you especially it is always on confidential matters that I like to write—the history of my soul, my thoughts, my impressions.
What a heavenly festival! How, on this day of the Presentation, must the angels have rejoiced at beholding this young child of Judea, scarcely entered into life, and
yet already so far advanced in the depths of divine science, consecrating herself to God! How must you, O St. Anne! the happy mother of this immaculate child, have missed her presence! This sunbeam of your declining years, this flower sprung from a dried-up stem, this virgin lily whose fragrance filled your dwelling, all at once became lost to you. Ah! I can understand the bitterness which then flowed in upon your soul, and it seems to me that for this sacrifice great must be your glory in heaven!
To-day, St. Cecilia, the sweet martyr saint, patroness of musicians, the Christian heroine, mounting to heaven by a blood-stained way. Louis Veuillot, in Rome and Loretto, speaking of the “St. Cecilia” of Raphael, calls it “one of the most thoroughly beautiful pictures in the world.” “The saint,” he says, “is really a saint; one never wearies of contemplating the perfect expression with which she listens to the concert of angels, and breaks, by letting them fall from her hands, the instruments of earthly music.” Kate, do you remember the museum at Bologna, and how we used to stand gazing at this page of Raphael?
I am reading Bossuet with René. What loftiness of views! What vehemence of thought! Another consolation for Karl: “Death gives us much more than he takes away: he takes away this passing world, these vanities which have deceived us, these pleasures which have led us astray; but we receive in return the wings of the dove, that we may fly away and find our rest in God.” Hélène had copied these lines into her journal, and remarked upon them as follows: “Beautiful thought! which enchants my soul, and makes me more than ever desire that hour for which, according
to Madame Swetchine, we ought to live; that day when my true life will begin, far from the earth, where nothing can satisfy the intensity of my desires.” We are going to travel about a little, and visit the funeral cemetery of Quiberon and various other points of our Brittany, so rich in memories. I am packing up my things with the pleasure of a child, assisted by the gentle Picciola and pretty little Alix, whom I have surnamed Lady-bird.[26] One of my Bengalese is ill, and all the young ones are interested about it, wanting to kiss and caress it, and give it dainty morsels, but nothing revives the poor little thing. Ah! dear Kate, this Indian bird dying in Brittany makes me think of Ellen, a thousand times more lovable and precious, and who is also bending her fair head to die.
Sister, friend, mother, all that is best, most tender, and beloved, God grant to us to die the same day, that together we may see again the kind and excellent mother who confided me to your love.
December 2.
Here we are, home again, in the most Advent-like weather that ever was. We have seen beautiful things; we have lived in the ideal, in the true and beautiful, in minds, in scenery, in poetry, and music—in a feast of the understanding, the eyes, and the heart. But with what pleasure we have again beheld our home, so calm, so pious, and so grand! It is only two hours since I took possession of my rooms. We found here piles of letters; René is reading them to me while I am saying good-morning to you—Kate, dearest, you first of all; this beautiful long letter which I reverently
kiss, which I touch with delight; it has been with you; it has seen you! How I want to see you again!
A letter from Ireland from Lizzy, who is anxious about Ellen.
Alas! her anxiety is only too well founded. Karl writes to me that Ellen grows weaker every day; strength is gradually leaving the body, while the soul is fuller of life and energy than ever before, and preparing for her last journey with astonishing serenity, and also preparing for it him who is the witness of her departure. In a firm hand she has added a few lines to the confidences of Karl: “Dear Georgina, will you not come and see me at Hyères? Your presence would help me to quit this poor earth, here so fair, which I would always inhabit on account of my good Karl. The will of our Father be done! Tender messages to Kate and to your good husband. Pray for me.”
Poor, sweet Ellen! How can I refuse this last prayer? But there is no time to be lost; René will consult my mother. Ah! my sister, pray that this journey may be possible, and that the angel of death may not so soon pluck this charming flower which we love so much.
Evening.—How good God is! We are all going; my mother wishes it to be so. “I do not,” she said to me, “want to have any distance between you and me.” The winter is so severe that my sisters are glad to get their children away from the season which is setting in. I am writing to Lizzy and to Karl. We shall be at Hyères next week. Pray with us, beloved.
December 12.
Arrived, dear Kate, without accident, and all installed in a beautiful chalet near to that of Ellen, who welcomed us with joy. Karl had
gently prepared her for this meeting. How thin she has become!—still beautiful, white, transparent; her fine, melancholy eyes so often raised, by preference, to heaven, her hands of marble whiteness, her figure bending. She would come as far as to the door of her room to meet us, and there it was that I embraced her and felt her tears upon my cheek. “God be praised!” These were her first words. Then she was placed on her reclining-chair, and by degrees was able to see all the family. I was trembling for the impression the children might make upon her; but she insisted. Well, dearest, she caressed, admired, listened to them, without any painful emotion or thought of herself; one feels that she is already in heaven. Every day, by a special permission granted by Pius IX., Mass is said in a room adjoining hers. The removal of a large panel enables her to be present at the Holy Sacrifice. This first moment was very sweet. In spite of this fading away, which is more complete than I could have imagined it, to find her living when I had so dreaded that it might be otherwise, was in itself happiness; but when I had become calm, how much I felt impressed! Karl’s resignation is admirable. René compels me to stop, finding me pale enough to frighten any one. Love me, my dearest!
December 20.
Dearest sister, Ellen remains in the same state—a flickering lamp, and so weak that René and I are alone admitted into this chamber of death, which Karl now never leaves. Yesterday Ellen entreated him to take a little rest, and he went out, suffocated by sobs, followed by René; then the sufferer
tried to raise herself so as to be still nearer to me. I leaned my head by hers and kissed her. “Dear Georgina, thanks for coming. You will comfort Karl. Do not weep for me; mine is a happy lot: I am going to Robert. Ah! look, he comes, smiling and beautiful as he was before his illness; he stretches out his arms to me. I come! I come!” And she made a desperate effort, as if to follow him. I thought the last hour was come, and called. René and Karl hastened in; but the temporary delirium had passed, and Ellen began again to speak of her joy at our being together.
The window is open. I am writing near the bed where our saint is dying. The weather is that of Paradise, as Picciola says—flowers and birds, songs and verdure. It is spring, and death is here, ready to strike.
December 25.
Sic nos amantem, quis non redamaret? Ellen departed to heaven while René was singing these words[27] after the Midnight Mass. This death is life and gladness. I am by her, near to that which remains to us of Ellen. Lucy and I have adorned her for the tomb; we have clothed her in the white lace robe which was her mother’s present to her, and arranged for the last time her rich and abundant hair, which Karl himself has cut. It is, then, true that all is over, and that this mouth is closed for ever. She died without suffering, after having received the Beloved of her soul. What a night! I had a presentiment of this departure. For two days past I have lived in her room, my eyes always upon her, and listening to her affectionate recommendations. On the 23d we spoke of St. Chantal—that
soul so ardent and so strong in goodness, so heroic among all others, who had a full portion of crosses, and who knew so truly how to love and suffer. On the 24th a swallow came and warbled on the marble chimney-piece. “I shall fly away like her, but I shall go to God,” murmured Ellen. At two o’clock the same day her confessor came; we left her for a few minutes, and I had a sort of fainting fit which frightened René. Karl’s grief quite overcame me. Towards three o’clock Ellen seemed to be a little stronger; she took her husband’s hand, and, in a voice of tenderness which still resounds in my ear, said to him slowly: “Remember that God remains to you, and that my soul will not leave you. Love God alone; serve him in the way he wills. Robert and I will watch over your happiness.” She hesitated a little; all her soul looked from her eyes: “Tell me that you will be a priest; that, instead of folding yourself up in your regrets, you will spend yourself for the salvation of souls, you will spread the love of Him who gives me strength to leave you with joy to go to him!” Karl was on his knees. “I promise it before God!” he said. The pale face of the dying one became tinged with color, and she joined her hands in a transport of gratitude; then she requested me to write at her dictation to Lizzy, Isa, Margaret, and Kate. Her poor in Ireland were not forgotten. She became animated, and seemed to revive, breathing with more ease than for some time past. She received “all the dear neighbors,” said a few heartfelt words to each, asked for the blessing of our mother, who would not absent herself any more, and shared our joys and sorrows. The doctor came; René
went back with him. “It will be to-morrow, if she can last until then.” O my God! And the night began—this solemn night of the hosanna of the angels, of the Redeemer’s birth. I held one of her hands, Karl the other; my mother and René were near us, our brothers and sisters in the room that is converted into a chapel. At eleven o’clock I raised the pillows, and began reading, at the request of Ellen, a sermon upon death. After the first few lines she stopped me with a look; Karl was pale again. The dear, dying one asked us to sing. Kate, we were so electrified by Ellen’s calmness that we obeyed! She tried to join her voice to ours. The priest came; the Mass began. Ellen, radiant, followed every word. We all communicated with her. After the Mass she kissed us all, keeping Karl’s head long between her hands—her poor little alabaster hands; then, at her request, René sang the Adeste: “Sic nos amantem, quis non redamaret?” At this last word Ellen kissed the crucifix for the last time and fled away into the bosom of God. The priest had made the recommendation of the soul a little before. Oh! those words, “Go forth, Christian soul!”
Excelsior! Let us love each other, dear Kate.
December 29.
“In Rama was a voice heard, weeping and lamentation: Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.” Poor mothers of Bethlehem, what must you not have suffered! But you, ye “flowers of martyrdom,” as the church salutes you—you who follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth—how happy were you to die for him who had come to die for you!
Dear sister, we followed her to the church, and then Karl and René set out, taking this coffin with them to Ireland. The family have wished it thus. This sorrowful journey has a double object: Karl is going to settle his affairs, and in two months at most he will enter the Séminaire des Missions Etrangères, the preparatory college of the foreign missions. He will see you at that time. He was sublime. God has been with us, and the soul of Ellen shone upon these recent scenes. My mother would not consent to my going also. I was weaker than I thought. On returning to the chalet I was obliged to go to bed. What an inconvenience I should have been to the dear travellers! But how sad it is to end a year, a first year of marriage, without René! This beautiful sky, this luxuriant nature, all the poetry of the south, which I love so much—all this appears to me still more beautiful since that holy death. Why were you not with us? There are inexpressible things. I have understood something of what heaven is. Sweet Ellen! What peace was in her death, what suavity in her words! I did not leave her after her death, but remained near her bed, where I had so much admired her. I tried to warm her hand, to recall her glance, her smile, until the appearance of the gloomy coffin. O my God! how must Karl have suffered. Those hammer-strokes resounded in my heart!
Dear, she is with God; she is happy. Sweet is it thus to die with Jesus in the soul. It is Paradise begun.
I embrace you a hundred times, my Kate. We had some earth from Ireland, and some moss from Gartan, to adorn Ellen’s coffin. O
death! where is thy sting? O grave! where is thy victory?
January 1, 1868.
O my God! pardon me, bless me, and bless all whom I love.
Dear sister of my soul, the anniversary of my marriage has passed without my having been able to think of it to thank you again for your share in making my happiness. But you know well how I love you! It is the 1st of January, and I wish to begin the year with God and with you. May all your years be blessed, dearest, the angel Raphael of the great journey of my life! I have wished to say, in union with you, as I did a year ago, the prayer of Bossuet: “O Jesus! by the ardent thirst thou didst endure upon the cross, grant me a thirst for the souls of all, and only to esteem my own on account of the holy obligation imposed upon me not to neglect a single one. I desire to love them all, since they are all capable of loving thee; and it is thou who hast created them with this blessed capacity.” I said on my knees the last thought copied by Ellen in the beautiful little volume which she called Kate’s book: “Everything must die—sweetness, consolation, repose, tenderness, friendship, honor, reputation. Everything will be repaid to us a hundred-fold; but everything must first die, everything must first be sacrificed. When we shall have lost all in thee, my God, then shall we again find all in thee.”
Yesterday the Adrien family arrived. What nice long conversations we shall all have! George and Amaury have been heroic. All are in need of repose. How delightful it is to meet again en famille! And René is far away. May God be with him, with you, and with us, dear Kate!
January 6.
Need I tell you about the first day of this year, beloved? Scarcely had I finished writing to you than the children made an irruption into my room. Then oh! what kissing, what outcries of joy, what smiles and clapping of hands, at the sight of the presents arrived from Paris, thanks to the good Vincent, who has made himself wonderfully useful. How much I enjoyed it all! Then, on going to my mother, she blessed me and gave me a letter from René, together with an elegantly-chased cup of which I had admired the model. Then in the drawing-room all the greetings, and our poor (for my passion follows me everywhere), and your letter, with those from Ireland and Brittany (from the good curé who has charge of our works)—what delight for the whole day! Karl thanks me for having copied for him these consoling words: “No; whatever cross we may have to bear in the Christian life, we never lose that blessed peace of the heart which makes us willingly accept all that we suffer, and no longer desire any of the enjoyments of which we are deprived.” It is Fénelon who says that.
We have been making some acquaintances, amongst others that of a young widow who is spending the winter here on account of her daughter, a frail young creature of an ideal beauty—graceful, smiling, and affectionate; a white rose-bud half open. Her blue, meditative eyes remind me of Ellen’s. This interesting widow (of an officer of rank) knows no one, with the exception of the doctor. Her isolation excited our compassion. Lucy made the first advances, feeling attracted by the sadness of the unknown lady. Now the two families
form but one. Picciola and Duchesse have invited the sweet little Anna to share their lessons and their play. Her mother never leaves her for a moment; this child is her sole joy.
The 3d, Feast of St. Geneviève: read her life with the children. What a strong and mortified soul! I admire St. Germanus distinguishing, in the midst of the crowd, this poor little Geneviève who was one day to be so great. Is not this attraction of holy souls like a beginning of the eternal union?
Yesterday, St. Simon Stylites, that incomparable penitent separated from the world, living on a lofty column, between heaven and earth. Thus ought we also to be, in spirit, on a column—that of love and sacrifice.
I am sad about my first separation from René, and for so sorrowful a cause. That which keeps me from weeping is the certainty of Ellen’s happiness, and also the thought that from heaven she sees René and Karl together.
To-day is the Epiphany—this great festival of the first centuries, and that of our call to Christianity. Gold, frankincense, myrrh, the gifts of the happy Magi, those men of good-will who followed the star—symbolic and mysterious gifts: the gold of love, the incense of adoration, the myrrh of sacrifice—why cannot I also offer these to the divine Infant of the stable of Bethlehem? Would that I had the ardent faith of those Eastern sages—the faith which stops at nothing, which sees and comes! And the legendary souvenirs of the bean, an ephemeral royalty which causes so much joy!
My mother is fond of the old traditions. We have had a kingcake.[28]
Anna had the bean; she offered the royalty to Arthur. Cheerful evening. Mme. de Clissey was less sad. We accompanied her back to her house in choir.
Good-night, beloved sister; I am going to say my prayers and go to sleep.
January 12.
René will be in Paris on the 15th, darling Kate. He will tell you about Karl, Lizzy, Isa, all our friends, and then I shall have him again! Adrien is reading Lamartine to us; I always listen with enchantment. What poetry! It flows in streams; it is sweet, tender, melancholy, moaning; it sings with nature, with the bird, with the falling leaf, the murmuring stream, the sounding bell, the sighing wind; it weeps with the suffering heart, and prays with the pleading soul. Oh! how is it that this poet could stray aside from his heavenly road, and burn incense on other altars? How could he leave his Christian lyre—he who once sang to God of his faith and love in accents so sublime? Will he not one day recover the sentiments and emotions of his youth, when he went in the footsteps of his mother to the house of God
Offrir deux purs encens, innocence et bonheur.[29]
The Harmonies are rightly named. I never read anything more harmoniously sweet, more exquisite in cadence. How comes it that he should have lost his faith where so many others have found it—in that journey to the East, from which he ought to have returned a firmer Catholic, a greater poet? Could it be that the death of his daughter,
she who was his future, his joy, his dearest glory, overthrew everything within him? O my God! this lyre has, almost divinely, sung of thee; thou wilt not suffer its last notes to be a blasphemy. Draw all unto thyself, Lord Jesus, and let not the brows marked by the seal of genius be stamped eternally with that of reprobation!
Mme. de Clissey has told us her history; you must hear it, since your kind heart is interested in these two new friends of your Georgina. Madame is Roman, and has been brought up in Tuscany. You know the proverb: “A Tuscan tongue in a Roman mouth.”[30] Her mother made a misalliance, was cast off by her family after her husband’s death, and the poor woman hid at Florence her loneliness and tears. Thanks to her talents as a painter, she was enabled to secure to Marcella a solid and brilliant education; but her strength becoming rapidly exhausted by excessive labor, Marcella, when scarcely sixteen years of age, saw her mother expire in her arms. She remained alone, under the care of a venerable French priest, who compassionated her great misfortune, and obtained for his protégée an honorable engagement. She was taken as governess to her daughter by a rich duchess, who, after being in ecstasies about her at first, cast her aside as a useless plaything. Her pupil, however, a very intelligent and affectionate child, became the sole and absorbing interest of the orphan; but the young girl’s attachment to her mistress excited the jealousy of the proud duchess, who contrived to find a pretext for excluding Marcella from the house. Her kind protector then
brought her to France, and, as it was necessary that she should obtain her living, she entered as teacher in a boarding-school in the south. A year afterwards a lady of high rank engaged her to undertake the education of her daughters. She thankfully accepted this situation, but had scarcely occupied it a month before she was in a dying state from typhoid fever and inflammation of the brain. For fifty-two days her life was in danger, and for forty-eight hours she was in a state of lethargy, from which she had scarcely returned, almost miraculously, to consciousness, before she had to witness the death of the kind priest who alone, with a Sister of Charity, had done all that it was possible to do to save her life. What was to become of her? The slender means of which the old man had made her his heir lasted only for the year of her convalescence; she then unexpectedly made the acquaintance of a rich widow who was desirous of finding a young girl as her companion, promising to provide for her future. Marcella was twenty years of age; the old lady took a great fancy to her, and took her to Paris and to Germany. Unfortunately, the character of her protectress was not one to inspire affection. Ill-tempered, fanciful, exacting, life with her was intolerable. Her servants left her at the end of a month. Marcella became the submissive slave of her domineering caprice, and was shut up the whole day, having to replace the waiting-woman, adorn the antique idol, enliven her, and play to her whatever she liked. In the drawing-room, of an evening, she had to endure a thousand vexations; at eleven o’clock the customary visitors took leave, and Marcella examined the account-books
of the house under the eye of the terrible old dowager, who, moreover, could not sleep unless some one read to her aloud. “Till five o’clock in the morning I used to read Cooper or Scott.” What do you think of this anticipated purgatory, dear Kate? Marcella, timid, and without any experience of life, tried to resign herself to her lot, until at Paris M. de Clissey asked her to exchange her dependent condition for a happy and honored life. She accepted his offer, to the no small despair of the old lady, who loudly charged her with ingratitude, and thought to revenge herself by not paying her the promised remuneration. M. de Clissey triumphantly took away his beautiful young bride to his native town. “It seemed to me as if I had had a resurrection to another life. For ten years our happiness was without alloy. But the cross, alas! is everywhere; and I am now, at thirty-two years of age, a widow, with unspeakable memories and my pretty little Anna, whose love is my consolation.”
Thank God! Marcella has friends also, and my mother wishes to propose to her to live with us.
Kate, what a good, sweet, happy destiny God has granted us! How I pity those orphans who have not, as I have, a sister to love them! Oh! may God bless you, and render to you all the good that your kind heart has done to me! Hurrah for Ireland! Erin mavourneen!
January 20.
I have recovered my happiness: René is here. I never weary of hearing him, of rejoicing that I have him. Dearest, I am enchanted with what he tells me about you. Tell me if ever two sisters loved
each other as we do? No; it is not possible.
Lord William, Margaret, Lizzy, Isa, all our friends beyond the sea, are represented on my writing-table—under envelopes. Karl will come back to us; he “is burning to belong to God.” You know all the details: the father blessing the coffin of his daughter, the sister, abounding in consolation—all these miracles of grace and love. O dear Kate! how good God is.
What will you think of my boldness? Isa has often expressed regret at her inability to read Guérin, as Gerty used to say; so I thought I would attempt a translation. I write so rapidly that I shall soon be at the end of my task. The souls of Eugénie and of Isa are too much like those of sisters not to understand each other. These few days spent in the society of the Solitary of Cayla have more than ever attached me to that soul at the same time so ardent and so calm, a furnace of Jove, concentrated upon his brother Maurice, who was taken from him by death—alas! as if to prove once more that earth is the place of tears, and heaven alone that of happiness.
“Qu’est-ce donc que les jours pour valoir qu’on les pleure?”[31]
Hélène wrote to me on the 10th, Feast of St. Paul the Hermit, full of admiration for the poetic history of this saint: the raven daily bringing half a loaf to the solitary; the visit of St. Antony; St. Paul asking if houses were still built; St. Antony exclaiming when he returned to the monastery: “I have seen Elias; I have seen John in the desert; I have seen Paul in Paradise”; the lions digging the grave
of this friend of God—what a poem!
René has brought me back the Consolations of M. de Sainte-Beuve. How is it that the poets of our time have not remained Christian? In his Souvenirs d’Enfance (“Memories of Childhood”) the author of the Consolations says to God:
“Tu m’aimais entre tous, et ces dons qu’on désire,
Ce pouvoir inconnu qu’on accorde à la lyre,
Cet art mystérieux de charmer par la voix,
Si l’on dit que je l’ai, Seigneur, je te le dois.”[32]
Karl tells me that he carefully keeps on his heart the last words traced by Ellen. It is like the testament of our saintly darling, whom I seem still to see. I had omitted to mention this. The evening before her death, after I had written by her side the solemn and touching effusions for those who had not, like us, been witnesses of the admirable spectacle of her deliverance, the breaking of the bonds which held her captive in this world of sorrows, Ellen asked me to let her write. Ten minutes passed in this effort, this victorious wrestling of the soul over sickness and weakness. On the sealed envelope which she then gave me was written one word only—“Karl.” Would you like to have this last adieu, Kate? How I have kissed these two almost illegible lines:
“My beloved husband, I leave you this counsel of St. Bernard for your consolation: ‘Holy soul, remain alone, in order that thou mayest keep thyself for Him alone whom thou hast chosen above all!’”
What a track of light our sweet Ellen has left behind her! Love me, dearest Kate!
January 25.
We leave in a week, my dearest Kate. René made a point of returning to the south, whose blue sky we shall not quit without regret; and also he wished to pray once more with us in Ellen’s room. Karl does not wish the Chalet of souvenirs to pass into strange hands. He had rented it for a year; René proposed to him to buy it, and the matter was settled yesterday. I am writing to Mistress Annah, to lay before her the offer of a good work, capable of tempting her self-devotion—namely, that she should install herself at the chalet, and there take in a few poor sick people, and we might perhaps return thither. What do you think of this plan, dearest Kate?
We are all in love with Marcella and her pretty little girl, who are glad to accompany us to Orleans. Gertrude has offered Hélène’s room to our new friend, whose melancholy is gradually disappearing. It is needless to say that she is by no means indifferent to Kate. You would love her, dear sister, and bless God with me for having placed her on our path. She has the head of an Italian Madonna, expressive, sympathetic, sweet; her portrait will be my first work when we return to Orleans.
On this day, eighteen centuries ago, St. Paul was struck to the earth on his way to Damascus; he fell a persecutor of Christ, and arose an apostle of that faith for which he would in due time give his life. Let us also be apostles, my sister.
A visit from Sarah on her wedding journey. Who would have thought of my seeing her here?
We prayed much for France on the ill-omened date of the 21st. O dearest! if you were but to read
M. de Beauchêne’s Louis XVII. It is heartrending! Poor kings! It is the nature of mountain-tops to attract the lightning. René has given to Marcella Marie Antoinette, by M. de Lescure. Adrien has been reading it to us in the evenings. The grand and mournful epic is related with a magical charm of style which I find most attractive. Marie Antoinette, the calumniated queen, there appears in all the purity and splendor of her beauty. This reading left on my mind a deep impression of sadness. Poor queen! so great, so sanctified. “The martyrology of the Temple cannot be written.” The life of Marie Antoinette is full of contrasts; nothing could be fairer than its dawn, nothing more enchanting than the picture of her childhood, youth, and marriage—this latter the dream of the courts of Austria and France, which made her at fifteen years old the triumphant and almost worshipped Dauphiness. And yet what shadows darkened here and there the radiant poem of her happy days! She went on increasing in beauty; she became a mother; and beneath the delightful shades of Trianon, “the Versailles of flowers which she preferred to the Versailles of marble,” she came to luxuriate in the newly-found joys which filled her heart. Then came a terrible grief, the sinister precursor of the horrible tempests which were to burst upon the head of this queen, so French, but whom her misguided people persisted in calling the foreigner—the death of Maria Theresa the Great. What a cruel destiny is that of queens! Marie Antoinette, whose heart was
so nobly formed for holy family joys, quitted her own at the age of fifteen, going to live far from her mother, whom she was never to see again, even at the moment when that heroic woman rendered up to God the soul which had struggled so valiantly. The Revolution was there, dreadful and menacing. Marie Antoinette began her militant and glorious life, and the day came when “the monster” said with truth: “The king has but one man near him, and that man is the queen.” O dear Kate! the end of this history makes me afraid. What expiation will God require of France for these martyrdoms?
And we are going away.… Shall we return?
We are to visit Fourvières, Ars, Paray-le-Monial, and first of all the Grande Chartreuse—what a journey!—and you afterwards. I am fond of travelling—fond of the unknown, of beautiful views, movement, the pretty, wondering eyes of the little ones, the halts, for one or two days, in hotels, all the moving of the household which reminds me of the pleasant time when I used to travel with my Kate. Dearest sister, I long, I long to embrace you! Your kind, rare, and delightful letters, which I learn by heart the first day, the feeling of that nearness of our hearts to each other which nothing on earth can separate—this is also you; but to see you is sweeter than all the rest.
Marcella wishes to be named in this letter. You know whether or not the whole family loves Mme. Kate.
Send us your good angel during our wanderings, and believe in the fondest affection of your Georgina.
TO BE CONTINUED.
[21] “Behold the sapless leaves, which fall upon the turf.”
[22] “Dames Auxiliatrices du Purgatoire.”
Past days, which each of us recalls with tears,
Days we regret in vain, had you so many charms?
Or was your brightness also marred by winds,
And doth our weariness of the present make you seem so fair?
[24] In Brittany the poor are habitually called les pauvres du Bon Dieu.—Transl.
[25] Mgr. de la Bouillerie
[26] In French, L’Oiseau du Bon Dieu; in Catholic England, “Our Lady’s bird.”
[27] In the hymn Adeste fideles.
[28] Gâteau des Rois, “Twelfth-Cake.”
[29] To offer two pure [grains of] incense: innocence and happiness.
[30] The purest Italian, “Lingua Toscana in bocca Romana.”
[31] What, then, are days, that they should deserve our tears?
[32] “Thou lovedst me amongst all, and the gifts that men desire—this unknown power accorded to the lyre, this mysterious art of pleasing by the voice—if I am said to own it, Lord, I owe it all to thee.”
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI’S POEMS.[33]
Christina Rossetti is, we believe, the queen of the Preraphaelite school, the literary department of that school at least, in England. To those interested in Preraphaelites and Preraphaelitism the present volume, which seems to be the first American edition of this lady’s poems, will prove a great attraction. The school in art and literature represented under this name, however, has as yet made small progress among ourselves. It will doubtless be attributed to our barbarism, but that is an accusation to which we are growing accustomed, and which we can very complacently bear. The members of the school we know: Ruskin, Madox Brown, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, all the other Rossettis, Swinburne, Morris, and the rest; but we know no school. It has not yet won enough pupils to establish itself among us, and we at best regard it as a fashion that will pass away as have so many others: the low shirt-collar, flowing locks, melancholy visage, and aspect of general disgust with which, for instance, the imitators of Byron, in all save his intellect, were wont to afflict us in the earlier portion of the present century. The fact is, our English friends have a way of running into these fashions that is perplexing, and that would seem to indicate an inability on their part to judge for themselves of literary or artistic merit. To-day Pope and Addison are the fashion; to-morrow,
Byron and Jeffreys; then Wordsworth and Carlyle; then Tennyson and Macaulay; and now Rossetti, Swinburne, Morris, and their kin, if they are not in the ascendant, gain a school, succeed in making a great deal of noise about themselves, and in having a great deal of noise made about them. It is the same with tailoring in days when your tailor, like your cook, is an “artist.”
Surely the laws and canons of art are constant. The good is good and the bad bad, by whomsoever written or wrought. Affectation cannot cover poverty of thought or conception. A return to old ways, old models, old methods, is good, provided we go deeper than the mere fringe and trappings of such. How the name Preraphaelite first came we do not know. It originated, we believe, in an earnest revolt against certain viciousness in modern art. It was, if we mistake not, a return, to a great extent, to old-time realism. The question is, How far back did the originators of the movement go? If we take the strict meaning of the word, Homer was a Preraphaelite; so was Virgil; so was Horace; so were the Greek tragedians; so was Aristophanes. Apelles’ brush deceived the birds of heaven; Phidias made the marble live ages before Raphael. Nay, how long before Raphael did the inspired prophets catch the very breathings of God to men, and turn them into the music and the religion of all time? These are surely Preraphaelites; yet we find few signs of their teachings
in this fussy, ardent, and aggressive little modern English school.
We do not deny many gifts to certain members of the school. Swinburne, for instance, seems capable of playing with words as he pleases, of turning and tuning them into any form of melodious rhythm. But he begins and ends with words. Dante Gabriel Rossetti has given us some massive fragments, but nothing more. We look and say, “How much this man might have done!” but there our admiration ceases. Morris has written much and well, but he teases one with the antique. Set Byron by the side of any or all of them, and at once they dwindle almost into insignificance. Yet Byron wrote much that was worthless. He wrote, however, more that was really great. He never played tricks with words; he never allowed them to master him. He began the Childe Harold in imitation of Spenser; but he soon struck out so freely and vigorously that, though it may be half heresy to say it, Spenser himself was left far in the rear, and we believe that any intelligent jury in these days would award a far higher prize to the Childe Harold than to the Faerie Queen. Byron was a born poet. Like all great poets, undoubtedly, he owed much to art; but then art was always his slave. He rose above it. The fault with our present poets, not excepting even Tennyson, is that they are better artists than they are poets. Consequently, they win little cliques and knots of admirers, where others, as did Byron, win a world in spite of itself. It is all the difference between genius and the very highest respectability.
Miss Rossetti we take to be a
very good example of the faults and virtues of her school. Here is a volume of three hundred pages, and it is filled with almost every kind of verse, much of which is of the most fragmentary nature. Some of it is marvellously beautiful; some trash; some coarse; some the very breathing and inspiration of the deep religion of the heart. In her devotional pieces she is undoubtedly at her best. Surely a strong Catholic tradition must be kept alive in this family. Her more famous brother sings of the Blessed Virgin in a spirit that Father Faber might have envied, and in verse that Father Faber never could have commanded. How she sings of Christ and holy things will presently appear. But her other pieces are not so satisfactory. The ultra-melancholy tone, the tiresome repetitions of words and phrases that mark the school, pervade them. Of melancholy as of adversity it may be said, “Sweet are its uses,” provided “its uses” are not too frequent. An ounce of melancholy will serve at any time to dash a ton of mirth.
But our friends the Preraphaelites positively revel in gloom. They are for ever “hob and nob with Brother Death.” They seem to study a skeleton with the keen interest of an anatomist. Wan ghosts are their favorite companions, and ghosts’ walks their choice resorts. The scenery described in their poems has generally a sad, sepulchral look. There is a vast amount of rain with mournful soughing winds, laden often with the voices of those who are gone. A favorite trick of a Preraphaelite ghost is to stalk into his old haunts, only to discover that after all people live in much the same style as when he was in the flesh, and can manage to muster a laugh and talk
about mundane matters even though he has departed. Miss Rossetti treats us to several such visits, and in each case the “poor ghost” stalks out again disconsolate.
There is another Preraphaelite ghost who is fond of visiting, just on the day of her wedding with somebody else, the lady who has jilted him. The conversation carried on between the jilt and the ghost of the jilted is, as may be imagined, hardly of the kind one would expect on so festive an occasion. For our own part, we should imagine that the ghost would have grown wiser, if not more charitable, by his visit to the other world, and would show himself quite willing to throw at least the ghost of a slipper after the happy pair.
Between the Preraphaelite ghosts and the Preraphaelite lovers there seems really little difference. The love is of the most tearful description; the lady, wan at the start, has to wait and wait a woful time for the gentleman, who is always a dreadfully indefinite distance away. Strange to say, he generally has to make the journey back to his lady-love on foot. Of course on so long a journey he meets with all kinds of adventures and many a lady gay who keep him from his true love. She, poor thing, meanwhile sits patiently at the same casement looking out for the coming of her love. The only difference in her is that she grows wanner and more wan, until at length the tardy lover arrives, of course, only to find her dead body being carried out, and the good old fairy-story ending—that they were married and lived happy ever after—is quite thrown out.
It will be judged from what we have said that, whatever merits the Preraphaelite school of poetry
may possess, cheerfulness is not one of them. As a proof of this we only cull a few titles from the contents of the book before us. “A Dirge” is the eighth on the list; then come in due order, “After Death,” “The Hour and the Ghost,” “Dead before Death,” “Bitter for Sweet,” “The Poor Ghost,” “The Ghost’s Petition,” and so on. But Miss Rossetti is happily not all melancholy. The opening piece, the famous “Goblin Market,” is thoroughly fresh and charming, and, to our thinking, deserves a place beside “The Pied Piper of Hamlin.” Is not this a perfect picture of its kind?
“Laughed every goblin
When they spied her peeping;
Came towards her hobbling,
Flying, running, leaping,
Puffing and blowing,
Chuckling, clapping, crowing,
Clucking and gobbling,
Mopping and mowing,
Full of airs and graces,
Pulling wry faces,
Demure grimaces,
Cat-like and rat-like,
Ratel and wombat-like,
Snail-paced in a hurry,
Parrot-voiced and whistler,
Helter-skelter, hurry-skurry,
Chattering like magpies,
Fluttering like pigeons,
Gliding like fishes—
Hugged her and kissed her;
Squeezed and caressed her;
Stretched up their dishes,
Panniers and plates;
‘Look at our apples
Russet and dun,
Bob at our cherries,
Bite at our peaches,
Citrons and dates,
Grapes for the asking,
Pears red with basking
Out in the sun,
Plums on their twigs;
Pluck them and suck them,
Pomegranates, figs.’”
Of course this is not very high poetry, nor as such is it quoted here. But it is one of many wonderful pieces of minute and life-like painting that occur in this strange poem. From the same we quote another passage as exhibiting what
we would call a splendid fault in the poet:
“White and golden Lizzie stood,
Like a lily in a flood—
Like a rock of blue-veined stone
Lashed by tides obstreperously;
Like a beacon left alone
In a hoary, roaring sea,
Sending up a golden fire;
Like a fruit-crowned orange-tree
White with blossoms honey-sweet,
Sore beset by wasp and bee;
Like a royal virgin town,
Topped with gilded dome and spire,
Close beleaguered by a fleet,
Mad to tug her standard down.”
Undoubtedly these are fine and spirited lines, and, some of them at least, noble similes. What do they call up to the mind of the reader? One of those heroic maidens who in history have led armies to victory and relieved nations—a Joan of Arc leading a forlorn hope girt around by the English. Any picture of this kind it would fit; but what is it intended to represent? A little girl struggling to prevent the little goblin-men from pressing their fatal fruits into her mouth! The statue is far too large for the pedestal. Here is another instance of the same, the lines of which might be taken from a Greek chorus:
“Her locks streamed like the torch
Borne by a racer at full speed,
Or like the mane of horses in their flight,
Or like an eagle when she stems the light
Straight toward the sun,
Or like a caged thing freed,
Or like a flying flag when armies run.”
The locks that are like all these wonderful things are those of Lizzie’s little sister Laura, who had tasted the fruits of the goblin-men. How different from this is “The Convent Threshold”! It is a strong poem, but of the earth earthy. As far as one can judge, it is the address of a young lady to her lover, who is still in the world and apparently enjoying a gay life. She has sinned, and remorse or some other motive seems to have driven
her within the convent walls. She gives her lover admirable advice, but the old leaven is not yet purged out, as may be seen from the final exhortation:
“Look up, rise up; for far above
Our palms are grown, our place is set;
There we shall meet as once we met,
And love with old familiar love.”—
Which may be a very pleasant prospect for separated lovers, but is scarcely heaven.
The poem contains a strong contrast—and yet how weak a one to the truly spiritual soul!—between the higher and the lower life.
“Your eyes look earthward; mine look up.
I see the far-off city grand,
Beyond the hills a watered land,
Beyond the gulf a gleaming strand
Of mansions where the righteous sup
Who sleep at ease among the trees,
Or wake to sing a cadenced hymn
With Cherubim and Seraphim;
They bore the cross, they drained the cup,
Racked, roasted, crushed, rent limb from limb—
They, the off-scouring of the world:
The heaven of starry heavens unfurled,
The sun before their face is dim.
“You, looking earthward, what see you?
Milk-white, wine-flushed among the vines,
Up and down leaping, to and fro,
Most glad, most full, made strong with wines,
Blooming as peaches pearled with dew,
Their golden, windy hair afloat,
Love-music warbling in their throat,
Young men and women come and go.”
Something much more characteristic of the school to which Miss Rossetti belongs is “The Poor Ghost,” some of which we quote as a sample:
“Oh! whence do you come, my dear friend, to me,
With your golden hair all fallen below your knee,
And your face as white as snow-drops on the lea,
And your voice as hollow as the hollow sea?”
“From the other world I come back to you,
My locks are uncurled with dripping, drenching dew.
You know the old, whilst I know the new:
But to-morrow you shall know this too.”
* * * * *
“Life is gone, then love too is gone,
It was a reed that I leant upon:
Never doubt I will leave you alone
And not wake you rattling bone with bone.”
But this is too lugubrious. There are many others of a similar tone,
but we prefer laying before the reader what we most admire. We have no doubt whatever that there are many persons who would consider such poems as the last quoted from the gems of the volume. To us they read as though written by persons in the last stage of consumption, who have no hope in life, and apparently very little beyond. The lines, too, are as heavy and clumsy as they can be. Perhaps the author has made them so on purpose to impart an additional ghastliness to the poem; for, as seen already, she can sing sweetly enough when she pleases. Another long and very doleful poem is that entitled “Under the Rose,” which repeats the sad old lesson that the sins of the parents are visited on the heads of the children. A third, though not quite so sad, save in the ending, is “The Prince’s Progress,” which is one of the best and most characteristic in the volume. As exhibiting a happier style, we quote a few verses:
“In his world-end palace the strong Prince sat,
Taking his ease on cushion and mat;
Close at hand lay his staff and his hat.
‘When wilt thou start? The bride waits, O youth!’
‘Now the moon’s at full; I tarried for that:
Now I start in truth.
‘But tell me first, true voice of my doom,
Of my veiled bride in her maiden bloom;
Keeps she watch through glare and through gloom,
Watch for me asleep and awake?’
‘Spell-bound she watches in one white room,
And is patient for thy sake.
‘By her head lilies and rosebuds grow;
The lilies droop—will the rosebuds blow?
The silver slim lilies hang the head low;
Their stream is scanty, their sunshine rare.
Let the sun blaze out, and let the stream flow:
They will blossom and wax fair.
‘Red and white poppies grow at her feet;
The blood-red wait for sweet summer heat,
Wrapped in bud-coats hairy and neat;
But the white buds swell; one day they will burst,
Will open their death-cups drowsy and sweet;
Which will open the first?’
Then a hundred sad voices lifted a wail;
And a hundred glad voices piped on the gale:
‘Time is short, life is short,’ they took up the tale:
‘Life is sweet, love is sweet; use to-day while you may;
Love is sweet and to-morrow may fail:
Love is sweet, use to-day.’”
The Prince turns out to be a sad laggard; but what else could he be when he had to traverse such lands as this?
“Off he set. The grass grew rare,
A blight lurked in the darkening air,
The very moss grew hueless and spare,
The last daisy stood all astunt;
Behind his back the soil lay bare,
But barer in front.
“A land of chasm and rent, a land
Of rugged blackness on either hand;
If water trickled, its track was tanned
With an edge of rust to the chink;
If one stamped on stone or on sand,
It returned a clink.
“A lifeless land, a loveless land,
Without lair or nest on either hand
Only scorpions jerked in the sand,
Black as black iron, or dusty pale
From point to point sheer rock was manned
By scorpions in mail.
“A land of neither life nor death,
Where no man buildeth or fashioneth,
Where none draws living or dying breath;
No man cometh or goeth there,
No man doeth, seeketh, saith,
In the stagnant air.”
So far for the general run of Miss Rossetti’s poems. It will be seen that they are nothing very wonderful, in whatever light we view them. They are not nearly so great as her brother’s; indeed, they will not stand comparison with them at all. The style is too varied, the pieces are too short and fugitive to be stamped with any marked originality or individuality, with the exception, perhaps, of the “Goblin Market.” But there is a certain class of her poems examination of which we have reserved for the last. Miss Rossetti has set up a little devotional shrine here and there throughout the volume, where we find her on her knees, with a strong faith, a deep sense of spiritual needs, a feeling of the real littleness of the life passing around us, of the true greatness of what is
to come after, a sense of the presence of the living God before whom she bows down her soul into the dust; and here she is another woman. As she sinks her poetry rises, and gushes up out of her heart to heaven in strains sad, sweet, tender, and musical that a saint might envy. What in the wide realm of English poetry is more beautiful or more Catholic than this?
THE THREE ENEMIES.
The Flesh.
“Sweet, thou art pale.”
“More pale to see,
Christ hung upon the cruel tree
And bare his Father’s wrath for me.”
“Sweet, thou art sad.”
“Beneath a rod
More heavy, Christ for my sake trod
The wine-press of the wrath of God.”
“Sweet, thou art weary.”
“Not so Christ;
Whose mighty love of me sufficed
For Strength, Salvation, Eucharist.”
“Sweet, thou art footsore.”
“If I bleed,
His feet have bled; yea, in my need
His Heart once bled for mine indeed.”
The World.
“Sweet, thou art young.”
“So He was young
Who for my sake in silence hung
Upon the Cross with Passion wrung.”
“Look, thou art fair.”
“He was more fair
Than men, Who deigned for me to wear
A visage marred beyond compare.”
“And thou hast riches.”
“Daily bread:
All else is His; Who living, dead,
For me lacked where to lay His Head.”
“And life is sweet.”
“It was not so
To Him, Whose Cup did overflow
With mine unutterable woe.”
The Devil.
“Thou drinkest deep.”
“When Christ would sup
He drained the dregs from out my cup.
So how should I be lifted up?”
“Thou shalt win Glory.”
“In the skies,
Lord Jesus, cover up mine eyes
Lest they should look on vanities.”
“Thou shalt have Knowledge.”
“Helpless dust,
In thee, O Lord, I put my trust:
Answer Thou for me, Wise and Just.”
“And Might.”
“Get thee behind me. Lord,
Who hast redeemed and not abhorred
My soul, oh! keep it by thy Word.”
And what a cry is this? Who has not felt it in his heart? It is entitled “Good Friday”:
“Am I a stone and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ! beneath Thy Cross,
To number drop by drop Thy Blood’s slow loss,
And yet not weep?
“Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;
“Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon,—
I, only I.
“Yet give not o’er,
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.”
It would seem that the heart which can utter feelings like these should be safely housed in the one true fold. There, and there only, can such hearts find room for expansion; for there alone can they find the food to fill them, the wherewith to satisfy their long yearnings, the light to guide the many wanderings of their spirits, the strength to lift up and sustain them after many a fall and many a cruel deceit. Outside that threshold, however near they may be to it, they will in the long run find their lives empty. With George Eliot, they will find life only a sad satire and hope a very vague thing. Like her heroine, Dorothea Brooke, the finer feelings and aspirations of their really spiritual and intensely religious natures will only end in petty collisions with the petty people
around them, and thankful they may be if all their life does not turn out to be an exasperating mistake, as it must be a failure, compared with that larger life that they only dimly discern. How truly Miss Rossetti discerns it may be seen in her sonnet on “The World”:
“By day she wooes me, soft, exceeding fair:
But all night as the moon so changeth she;
Loathsome and foul with hideous leprosy,
And subtle serpents gliding in her hair.
By day she wooes me to the outer air,
Ripe fruits, sweet flowers, and full satiety:
But through the night, a beast she grins at me,
A very monster void of love and prayer.
By day she stands a lie: by night she stands,
In all the naked horror of the truth,
With pushing horns and clawed and clutching hands.
Is this a friend indeed; that I should sell
My soul to her, give her my life and youth,
Till my feet, cloven too, take hold on hell?”
Could there be anything more complete than this whole picture, or anything more startling yet true in conception than the image in the last line, which we have italicized? One feels himself, as it were, on the very verge of the abyss, and the image of God, in which he was created, suddenly and silently falling from him. But a more beautiful and daring conception is that in the poem “From House to Home.” Treading on earth, the poet mounts to heaven, but by the thorny path that alone leads to it. Her days seemed perfect here below, and all happiness hers. Her house is fair and all its surroundings beautiful. She tells us that
“Ofttimes one like an angel walked with me.
With spirit-discerning eyes like flames of fire,
But deep as the unfathomed, endless sea,
Fulfilling my desire.”
The spirit leaves her after a time, calling her home from banishment into “the distant land.” All the beauty of her life goes with him, and hope dies out of her heart, until something whispered that they should meet again in a distant land.
“I saw a vision of a woman, where
Night and new morning strive for domination;
Incomparably pale, and almost fair,
And sad beyond expression.
* * * * *
“I stood upon the outer barren ground,
She stood on inner ground that budded flowers;
While circling in their never-slackening round
Danced by the mystic hours.
“But every flower was lifted on a thorn,
And every thorn shot upright from its sands
To gall her feet; hoarse laughter pealed in scorn
With cruel clapping hands.
“She bled and wept, yet did not shrink; her strength
Was strung up until daybreak of delight;
She measured measureless sorrow toward its length,
And breadth, and depth, and height.
“Then marked I how a chain sustained her form,
A chain of living links not made nor riven:
It stretched sheer up through lightning, wind, and storm,
And anchored fast in heaven.
“One cried: ‘How long? Yet founded on the Rock
She shall do battle, suffer, and attain.’
One answered: ‘Faith quakes in the tempest shock:
Strengthen her soul again.’
“I saw a cup sent down and come to her
Brimful of loathing and of bitterness:
She drank with livid lips that seemed to stir
The depth, not make it less.
“But as she drank I spied a hand distil
New wine and virgin honey; making it
First bitter-sweet, then sweet indeed, until
She tasted only sweet.
“Her lips and cheeks waxed rosy—fresh and young;
Drinking she sang: ‘My soul shall nothing want’;
And drank anew: while soft a song was sung,
A mystical low chant.
“One cried: ‘The wounds are faithful of a friend:
The wilderness shall blossom as a rose.’
One answered: ‘Rend the veil, declare the end,
Strengthen her ere she goes.’”
Then earth and heaven are rolled up like a scroll, and she gazes into heaven. Wonderful indeed is the picture drawn of the heavenly court; but we have already quoted at such length that we fear to tire our readers. Still, we must find room for the following three verses:
“Tier beyond tier they rose and rose and rose
So high that it was dreadful, flames with flames:
No man could number them, no tongue disclose
Their secret sacred names.
“As though one pulse stirred all, one rush of blood
Fed all, one breath swept through them myriad-voiced,
They struck their harps, cast down their crowns, they stood
And worshipped and rejoiced.
“Each face looked one way like a moon new-lit,
Each face looked one way towards its Sun of Love;
Drank love and bathed in love and mirrored it
And knew no end thereof.”
We might go on quoting with pleasure and admiration most of these devotional pieces, but enough has been given to show how different a writer is Miss Rossetti in her religious and in her worldly mood. The beauty, grace, pathos, sublimity often, of the one weary us of the other. In the one she warbles or sings, with often a flat and discordant note in her tones that now please and now jar; in the other she is an inspired prophetess or priestess chanting a sublime chant or giving voice to a world’s sorrow and lament. In the latter all affectation of word, or phrase, or rhythm disappears. The subjects sung are too great for such pettiness, and the song soars with them. The same thing is true of her brother, the poet. Religion has inspired his loftiest conceptions, and a religion that is certainly very unlike any but the truth. We trust that the reverence and devotion to the truth which must lie deep in the hearts of this gifted brother and sister may bear their legitimate fruit, and end not in words only, but blossom into deeds which will indeed lead them “From House to Home.”
[33] Poems by Christina G. Rossetti. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1876.